Recently, I interviewed Juanique Grover, and we discussed the crucial link between gut health and thyroid conditions, how she overcame Graves’ disease, the importance of a healthy gut microbiome for recovering from autoimmune conditions, the role of fiber in immune health, the impact of stress on digestion, a holistic approach to healing, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.
Dr. Eric Osansky:
I am super excited to be chatting with Juanique Grover, as we are going to be talking about gut health, of course tying it into thyroid health, thyroid autoimmunity. Let me go ahead and dive into Juanique’s impressive bio here.
As the owner and founder of the esteemed Provo Health Clinic, Juanique Grover has dedicated her life to revolutionizing the way people perceive and achieve holistic wellness. Fueled by her personal experiences with Graves’, long COVID, and CIRS, Juanique pioneered the groundbreaking Gutsy Academy, a beacon of knowledge empowering individuals to become self-healing advocates. Through meticulously curated programs and insights, she has equipped countless people with the tools and mindset to reclaim their health and vitality. Her mission is simple and profound: to guide individuals toward becoming the healthiest, most vibrant versions of themselves. Welcome, Juanique.
Juanique Grover:
Thank you so much, Dr. Eric. I am really excited to be here. I’ll tell you why. When I was diagnosed with Graves’ 10 years ago, it was your book that saved my life.
Dr. Eric:
Oh wow.
Juanique:
Full circle. I’ve been dying to tell you this. I remember I was in the office with the doctor, and she was laughing at me. She said, “You have Graves’.” I said, “There’s no way.” She said, “Yes. We need to put you on these medications.” I said, “Hold on. Let me research this. Give me some time to heal it.” She was very uncomfortable with that answer. She was like, “Maybe, but try these medications because we don’t want your heart to explode. Let’s test you every month to make sure you’re not declining fast and furiously” because my TSH was like 0.001. It was nonexistent.
I went and found your book on Amazon. I read it from cover to cover, and it was vital to me. I fixed my Graves’ in six months.
Dr. Eric:
Wow, that is amazing. Just to let everyone know, I did not know this. She mentioned when we pressed Record that she was going to tell part of her story, but she wanted to see my reaction. I did not know that until you just told me now. That is really great. Of course, I’m glad that you got my book, but even happier that you restored your health and have your own healing journey.
Juanique:
When people tell me, “You should write a book on how to fix Graves’,” I always say there is one already out there. One of my now coaches, she was diagnosed with Graves’. She saw our clinic in a magazine. She had a consult with one of my coaches. Then she reached out to me and asked, “What did you do to research?” I say, “Here’s this book. Go read it.” She read it, and she reversed her Graves’ in a few months. Now she is working at my clinic. She went from client to coach. She enrolled in IIN, and she is now a coach.
I love coming across fellow Graves’sters because it’s a small world. I truly believe it’s something you can reverse. It takes a lifestyle makeover, but it’s so worth it.
I wanted to tell you that. I was super excited to tell you that. Thank you for writing a book for someone like me who didn’t know what to do. There’s gotta be an expert out there who has researched this and knows how to fix thyroid problems. You were my guide, so thank you, Dr. Eric.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you. I’m almost speechless. I appreciate that. Happy that you found my book, and happy that you listened and got the results that you did and are now helping others. Now you’re successful helping people with immune conditions of different kinds, not just Graves’. I’m sure you see a lot of Hashimoto’s and other non-thyroid conditions as well.
That’s the great thing about the gut. When it comes to gut health, it’s not just specific to Graves’ and Hashimoto’s but really all conditions. Even though the focus here might be more toward autoimmunity, optimal gut health is really necessary for optimal health.
The opening question I have for you is why do so many people have gut dysbiosis, imbalances in the gut, leaky gut? Why is it so common?
Juanique:
We’ll make up person A. They are born into the standard American world. Mom’s first foods to this baby are Cheerios or some kind of wheat thing. They’re eating food that has herbicides, pesticides, and glyphosates. All of these things disrupt and destroy your microbiome. They’re eating contaminated food from a very young age.
Not only that, but children from a young age, how many babies are given antibiotics in their eyes when they’re born? How many people were exposed to antibiotics because Mom tested positive for group B strep? How many babies that turn into toddlers have chronic ear infections, so they are given antibiotic after antibiotic when 70% of ear infections are actually viral? It has nothing to do with a bacterial infection.
We’re eating food that destroys the microbiome, and we are being overexposed to antibiotics that destroy the microbiome from a very young age. We are starting the foundation of immune health very rocky. 70-80% of your immune health is your microbiome. Your microbiome is basically the eyes and ears of the white blood cells.
You and I right now, we’re breathing in air, and there are bacteria and viruses in the air. It goes through our mouth and nasal cavity and into our stomach and our small intestine. Those microbes are being signaled, “There is invaders there,” so they produce chemicals through chemotaxis that signal the white blood cells to say, “Hey, there is invaders. They look like this. Be on the lookout.” The immune response and microbiome, they talk to each other.
If you want a healthy, intelligent immune response to your own cells, to your food, to your environment, you have to have a microbial balance that does that for your white blood cells. I like to call it, “Is your immune drunk? Do you have a drunk immune system, or is it sober?”
What I mean by “drunk” is does your immune system attack anything and everything in sight? If it’s any kind of protein, it attacks it, including your own proteins, your own cells, your own neural tissue, your own fat cells, your own bone tissue, your own cartilage. Are your white blood cells attacking your proteins? Are they being signaled to be intelligent and only attack the proteins, viruses, and bacteria that are not friends, that are foes?
It’s so important if you are on any kind of healing journey to realize that your microbiome is king, gold. The holy grail to health. If you are not protective of it, and you are not taking care of it, it’s going to become imbalanced and send the wrong signals to your immune system and have it work against you.
Not only that, but your microbiome needs to be fed. Going back to our baby scenario that is being fed Cheerios and processed foods and sugars. Babies these days are not being fed fiber. Children these days are not being fed fibers. Adults these days are not eating fiber. The average American eats about 13g of fiber a day. Our ancestors ate 55+g. Our daily recommended is 35g. The average American is eating a third of the fiber that they’re supposed to.
Imagine that your microbiome is an army that is fighting off invaders. If you only fed a third of that army, your army is going to dwindle, and you will get invaded. You won’t be a happy whatever. You’re not feeding your army the fiber it desires and needs in order to service your immune function. Of course, your immune system is going to be dysfunctional. Of course, your immune system is going to turn against you. Of course, your immune system is going to act drunk. Of course, your immune system is going to act in a way that is extremely inflammatory to your entire body.
Dr. Eric:
A lot of good information there. Sticking on the topic of fiber. I do recommend fiber-rich foods. There are some people who can’t tolerate fiber-rich foods. They might say, “I have tried eating a lot of plant-based foods, but I get a lot of gas, bloating.” What is your response to that?
Juanique:
Your gut can’t tolerate it for many reasons. You haven’t strengthened it to. I am a tall, scrawny person. It would be like me going to the gym and lifting 50-pound dumbbells and doing 50-pound bicep curls. I can barely lift a 50-pound dumbbell. My body isn’t primed to lift 50-pound dumbbells.
When someone eats a standard American diet, where they haven’t trained their microbiome to digest fiber, to digest complexity, to digest plant-based foods, your microbiome is primed to digest really poor, crappy food, for lack of a better word. Your microbiome has the strength and equivalent of lifting two-pound dumbbells. That’s all it can do. You have to tend to your gut garden and prime it to be able to digest high-fiber foods.
This is a typical scenario, and I will talk about another scenario in a second. People realize, “I have been on this standard American diet. I have all this inflammation. I will start eating a ton of raw vegetables.” Then they eat all these raw vegetables and blow up like a balloon. It hurts their stomach. “Oh, that was really bad. My inflammation is even worse.” It’s because of everything I’ve been talking about. Their microbiome isn’t primed and ready to eat that high amount of fiber.
The other thing that it could be is that they might have something called SIBO. They have bacteria in the wrong places of their small intestine because they’ve had so much bad fiber, because they’ve had such a sluggish digestive response. This gets a little more technical. We could do a whole podcast on SIBO.
SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. You have an overgrowth of bacteria from multiple root causes that are a little too complex to talk about right now. It’s in the wrong parts of your stomach. Now that bacteria is digesting and fermenting fiber in places of your small intestine that it shouldn’t be doing.
What you have to do is get high motility and those bacterial species back into the places that they’re supposed to be. There could be many reasons.
If you are person A, like the one who hasn’t gotten a microbiome that is primed and ready to digest fiber, there is a very simple solution: either cooking, sautéing, steaming, or soaking your food. What that does is helps break up the fiber.
I use this example just because I’m a mom right now, and I have an eight-month-old. If I put my eight-month-old in front of a plate of my food, where I have steak and Brussels sprouts and peas all of this chunky food, he is going to try and grab it and eat it, and he is going to choke on it. He can’t eat chunky food right now. What I have to do is chew it up first and give it to him. Now that I have pre-digested this meal for him with my mouth, I have masticated it, now he can eat it and digest it better.
What steaming, cooking, sauteing, soaking does is predigests the food and fiber so that your microbiome that is weak at this time can actually handle the stress. Then you slowly increase your raw foods.
I tell most of my clients the majority of your food, about 90-100% of all of your vegetables that have high fiber, you will have to cook, saute, steam, or soak. Then once you soaked it, you have to cook it. That will be about 100% of your food until your microbiome can handle 10% raw food and 90% cooked. Over time, you will go to 80% cooked and 20% raw. Over months, if not years, eventually it will get to 50/50. Then it won’t matter because your microbiome has been designed and grown to digest the fiber.
I love this saying, “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” If you are not using the microbial species that their job is to digest complex fiber from vegetables, if you are not giving them complex vegetables to begin with, they’re going to die and dwindle in number. You have to slowly grow them back. You have to gently coax them back into living. That could take months if not years to do.
I tell people to be really gentle, be really slow, trust the process. They’re in there; their numbers are just really small. In order to get more of them, you have to feed them. You don’t firehose them with food and fiber. You gently sprinkle some fiber here and there, and then you increase it over time.
Dr. Eric:
Sticking on the topic of fiber, do you have any concerns with the carnivore diet or ketogenic diet? Especially with carnivore, a lot of people with autoimmune conditions can potentially benefit. Long-term, I do get concerned about the impact of that type of diet on the gut microbiome. I don’t know if you also share that.
Juanique:
I do have opinions about that. I am just going to speak research. The research shows us that the more microbial species and the higher in certain species that you have in your gut, the healthier your immune response, the better you can absorb nutrients and produce nutrients and assimilate nutrients.
What the research tells us is that someone that eats meat and vegetables, the more variety you have, the better your microbial species and numbers, the better your immune health. Paper after paper says that.
What we see with carnivore is that it’s basically an extreme elimination diet. When people get really ill, like their microbiome becomes so dysfunctional, I am going to use a drunk microbiome again. People try to eat vegetables and certain things, and it triggers their immune response, bloating, gassiness. They’re uncomfortable and feel sick. They go to a carnivore diet, and all of a sudden, they’re feeling great again.
It’s because of that dysbiosis of bacteria. They have eliminated every fiber on the planet, so they’re not feeding the bad bacteria that is down there, which is causing all the problems. They’re just eating meat and feeling good and not getting that response.
I think of carnivore diet as actually really good short-term. In my schooling, from doctors I have spoken with, with the research I have seen, it should never be a long-term thing. When I have people who are really ill, I either put them on an autoimmune paleo diet or some kind of elimination diet to get the angry inflammation down. Then we go in and try to heal the microbiome without exacerbating it.
That is what you’re doing. You’re not exacerbating it. We go in with protocols and supplements and spore-based probiotics or peptides, and we try to fix the microbiome while we’re not getting it angry.
Then we slowly reintroduce fiber. We slowly reintroduce vitamins and minerals. The research behind what vegetables and fruits can do for you, you can’t turn a blind eye to that. It’s overwhelming.
Even people who try to demonize lectins from beans, there is an anti-cancerous effect from lectins. There is an anti-cancerous effect from phytic acid. We actually see that phytic acid, which is an anti-nutrient, can stimulate white blood cell response and decrease your cancer risk. There is this whole black and white world; it’s all or nothing. It’s either carnivore or vegan.
What we haven’t taken into account is people’s bioindividuality and their microbial species down there. It really comes down to what is your microbiome able to digest and assimilate right now? People who are stuck on carnivore, it’s because their microbiome is angry. Their microbiome has bene dysfunctional and dysbiotic for years. This is an extreme thing that they have to do in order not to enrage it. We need to fix the microbiome, so they can reintroduce more foods again, so they can get a variety of nutrients, which allows healthy mitochondrial function, cellular function, brain function. It’s extremely complex.
Carnivore is just an extreme elimination diet that people feel really good on. I haven’t seen the research of that over years and years. I don’t think it’s positive. All I have seen is anecdotal evidence of clients who have been on carnivore. Their cholesterol is cattywampus. Some of their inflammatory markers have gone up. It’s tricky.
Dr. Eric:
I appreciate that explanation. I think we’re on the same page. Carnivore short-term while healing the gut. It’s not a permanent solution for the dysbiosis. If someone follows it temporarily, which will help with the symptoms while trying to improve the gut microbiome.
As you mentioned, when it comes to eventually introducing vegetables, take it slowly. Start with 10% cooked veggies. Raw veggies is a different conversation. If someone is following carnivore, which we are not recommending or not recommending, I brought it up because it’s a hot topic. If someone follows carnivore, and introduces plant-based foods, it should be a gradual process.
Juanique:
If you’re on carnivore, that is a perfect opportunity to start a gut infection protocol or gut restoration protocol. You’re putting in spore-based probiotics, and they are creating colonies that are going to work for you and your immune system.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the product HU58.It’s a probiotic that acts as an antibiotic toward 13 species of bacteria. When you’re on this elimination diet and are not enraging your microbiome, put spore-based probiotics down there to start fighting off the bad bacteria and creating new, healthy colonies of bacterial species down there.
Carnivore is a great time, if you’re on it for three months, to really go and revamp the microbiome to make sure that it is a microbiome that starts working for you instead of against you.
I don’t think we were designed to be on such strict elimination diets. The research doesn’t support that. Common sense doesn’t even support that. Meat has tons of nutrients, mostly proteins.
When you look at the Krebs cycle and mitochondria and all of these other components, like the liver, they need so many micronutrients that you can’t get from organs and meat. If you starve the body of those things, you’re going to see mitochondrial oxidation. You’re going to see liver sluggishness. You can’t not, because science says so.
Dr. Eric:
Let’s switch gears and talk about stomach acid. What are your thoughts on stomach acid? Do you see that it’s commonly low in your patients? What approach do you take when it comes to low stomach acid?
Juanique:
I love this question. Stomach acid, I say the microbiome is king and the holy grail. When I teach my classes, all my students know that stomach acidity is the holy grail to digestion. If you don’t have enough stomach acid production, you’re not breaking down food, you’re not absorbing food.
Let’s talk about stomach acid. People say, “Stomach acid is bad.” So many Americans have heartburn. The most commonly prescribed drug is a PPI. I want to talk about that, and I want to talk about the nervous system really fast.
We all know sympathetic dominance. That’s when you’re in fight or flight. We know perimenopause. We know the parasympathetic nervous system, which is rest, digest, and heal.
When you are in a rest, digest, heal response, and you’re eating a meal, your mouth starts to salivate, so you’re producing saliva. Then your stomach is also being signaled to release a robust amount of hydrochloric acid. I use the word “robust” very intentionally.
When you have this robust release of hydrochloric acid, it does a few signaling responses. It signals the lower esophageal sphincter right above the stomach to close, so when food comes down and mixes with hydrochloric acid, it doesn’t slosh back up and cause burning in your esophagus, which causes heartburn.
Not only that, hydrochloric acid signals the hormones cholecystokinin and secretin. Those hormones signal the gallbladder to contract and release bile, and they signal the pancreas to release their digestive enzymes.
This all sounds like amazing things that we absolutely want when eating a meal. We want a lot of hydrochloric acid. We want all of that bile. We want a lot of pancreatic enzymes to break down our food as much as possible, so we can absorb as much nutrients out of that meal as possible. That is when we are in a parasympathetic state.
When we are in a sympathetic dominant state, so we are in fight or flight, our brain doesn’t signal the stomach to release hydrochloric acid. We have 50% production of hydrochloric acid.
Let’s say we are eating carnivore, and we are eating a lot of meat and a lot of fat. That meal goes into our stomach. We only have a little bit of hydrochloric acid. That protein isn’t breaking down, so we’re not breaking down the meat. The lower esophageal sphincter is not getting signaled to close, so now we are getting heartburn. That food is sitting there and rotting because the hydrochloric acid isn’t emulsifying it and moving it forward. The gallbladder isn’t releasing its bile. The pancreas isn’t being signaled to release all of its digestive enzymes.
Now we have partially rotting meat in your stomach, going into your small intestine. It will create a lot of problems. If anyone has smelled rotting meat in their trash can, that’s what’s happening in your gut.
Hydrochloric acid is so important. I have two classes almost purely dedicated to hydrochloric acid and people understanding the hydrochloric acid response in the body and how important it is not only for digestion.
Hydrochloric acid is the same acidity as battery acid. I like to call it the bouncer at the nightclub. It keeps bad pathogens away. If you’re breathing in bacteria and viruses, it’s not getting past that bouncer in the stomach, and it’s not getting to the small intestine. The stomach is keeping bad bacteria at bay, and it’s allowing a reprieve from your immune system.
When we go on a PPI and reduce that hydrochloric acid, we now get bacteria like H-pylori that come out to play and form ulcers. Nobody wants that. We want the bouncer at the nightclub to keep nefarious things away from your body, away from your tissues, away from your immune system.
Hydrochloric acid is so important to understand and balance and make sure that you’re producing enough. If you’re not producing enough, you’re supplementing enough to help you absorb and signal your body to digest and signal your digestive organs to turn on. Great question.
Dr. Eric:
What approach do you take? Obviously, you want to do things to improve the health of your gut microbiome. I assume if someone tests positive for H-pylori, you want to address that. Do you recommend supplements like bitters, butane HCL to support stomach acid?
Juanique:
All of those things. They’re all helpful. What you really need to do is work on the lifestyle thing of getting out of a sympathetic dominant state. That can be as simple as three deep breaths before every meal. It’s really being intentional and slowing down. It’s not eating on the go.
First, we want your brain on board. If we don’t have your brain on board, you will be dependent on supplements for life, and nobody wants that. Everyone gets frustrated.
I like people to do the baking soda test. Are you familiar with this?
Dr. Eric:
Yes.
Juanique:
Doing the baking soda test. If you fail it, you for sure need support with hydrochloric acid.
Dr. Eric:
For those who are not familiar with it, can you talk about it?
Juanique:
The baking soda test is something that you do first thing in the morning. You take half a cup of water and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda. Make sure it’s fresh baking soda. You mix it together. You want it to hit your stomach acid first thing in the morning. Don’t eat or drink anything. Take this thing.
As soon as you drink it, put a timer on. The baking soda and water is going to mix with your own hydrochloric acid, and it’s going to produce CO2 gas. When it mixes with your stomach, you should start burping within five minutes. Unless you don’t have hydrochloric acid. If you’re not producing hydrochloric acid, you are not having that CO2 buildup, so you’re not burping.
A lot of people will do the baking soda test. After five minutes, they will time until 20 minutes, and they didn’t burp at all. Or maybe they burped at 25 minutes, or 15 minutes, or eight minutes. You should burp within five minutes. If you failed that, you need to support your hydrochloric acid. You need more of it in your stomach.
There is a very specific way on dosing hydrochloric acid. It’s not one size fits all. One product I really love is Zypan from Standard Process. I love suggesting Zypan. They start with one per meal per day and increase over time until they figure out their maximum.
Hydrochloric acid, I would say, they could start with that, doing the baking soda test and then start using hydrochloric acid pills, which is hydrochloric acid and butane, to help them digest their foods.
They could also use digestive enzymes. All of these things can help.
Using bitters. What I love about bitters is it signals the brain to release the juices. One of my favorites is DiGest Forte from Standard Process as well. You’re supposed to suck on it before meals, and it tastes terrible. People don’t love to do that one, but it’s really effective. You suck on it, start to salivate, and your stomach starts to produce hydrochloric acid. You could use bitters to have your body naturally produce hydrochloric acid. It takes more forethought. If you can remember to suck on that 15 minutes before your meal, amazing.
There is so many things you can do to support upper digestion, so you are digesting and absorbing optimally.
Dr. Eric:
It’s important. The stress, you have to address the diet and the stress, the lifestyle factors. If you’re stressed out all the time, then that is suppressing the production of stomach acid. The Zypan, the bitter herbs, not going to have much impact.
It’s funny you mentioned the DiGest Forte. I did attend a Standard Process seminar and got a bottle of that. I just forget to take it. I’m going to take bitters before my meals. I don’t know if I really needed it.
I’m a supplement junkie. I love taking different things and trying new things out.
You’re ideally supposed to take bitters 15-20 minutes before meals?
Juanique:
15 minutes. But who remembers that? It’s so hard to remember.
Dr. Eric:
Exactly.
Juanique:
And they taste so bad. Years ago, I put all my clients on bitters, DiGest Forte. They said, “Juanique, it works, but it tastes disgusting. I dread taking it.” I don’t want people to dread it. But it does work. If you’re very disciplined and can do that, awesome. If not, take Zypan with your meal.
There is ProZyme from Apex Energetics that I really love. It has some hydrochloric acid and a lot of digestive enzymes. You can do a blend of the two. It just depends on how much hydrochloric acid you need and figuring out dosing.
Dr. Eric:
Wonderful. I’ve heard you talk about parasites before. I want you to share your thoughts on parasites because it seems like it’s a big problem.
Juanique:
It’s a huge problem. There is a saying that if you have a pulse, you have a parasite. It’s just saying everyone has parasites.
The thing is, everyone has parasites, but to what extent? Do you have an overburdensome amount of parasites or just a normal amount of parasites? If you have ever grown up with a cat or a dog or on a farm or with any kind of animal. If you had your own garden. If you didn’t wash your fresh produce properly, you probably had parasites.
The interesting thing is when people actually try to test for parasites, they oftentimes get false negatives. I live in Utah, and there is a huge LDS community here, where they send their 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds on these foreign missions to third world countries, and they all come back with all these gut problems.
I do a hair analysis, and parasites come up almost every single time. “I went to my GI doctor and did a stool test, and parasites didn’t come up.” That’s nice, but you probably still have parasites. Then they do a parasite cleanse and pass tons of parasites and feel a lot better.
What people don’t understand is if you have tried everything under the sun and still have low vitamins and minerals on your bloodwork, and you’re still sick, and you can’t quite get to the root cause, there is probably a parasitic problem in your gut.
I just tell everyone if you have never done a parasite cleanse, go on one for 3-6 months. It could change your life. I have had tons of people come to me where they are like, “I did a parasite cleanse, and my hormones are better. My bipolar has gone away. My weight has decreased. My vitamins and minerals are finally coming up.”
So many people come to me, and they take all these vitamins and minerals, “Nothing changes on my bloodwork. I am the healthiest person out there. But I am so deficient in everything.” Yeah, you’re a walking, talking buffet for parasites.
I’ve had people who went to countries and came back with IBS. Did a parasite cleanse. Their IBS symptoms went away.
Parasites can be extremely disruptive not only to your hormones but to your absorption, to your microbiome, to your immune response. Parasites are a big freaking deal. I wish everyone took them seriously.
My friend is from Brazil. She says, “At our yearly check-up, our doctor gives you an antiparasitic.” “You look great. Here’s your antiparasitic.” There are many countries where if you don’t feel good, take an antiparasitic. It’s provided to you by your doctor.
Here in the United States, doctors are outraged by the thought of parasites. They think it’s disgusting. They think that parasites only happen in third world countries, as if parasites have passports. No, parasites are very rampant here. We should take them seriously. If you haven’t, do a very thorough one, and then do one every other year to keep your parasite burden at play.
Dr. Eric:
Is that something you do every couple of years then? Do a parasite cleanse?
Juanique:
I did a parasite cleanse two years ago. I probably passed about 50 tapeworms. I grew up in South Africa with 15 animals. I had two cats, two dogs, four birds, mice, hamsters. I’m not even kidding. My mom could never say no to me. I grew up with a ton of animals. My dad raced pigeons. It was a zoo at our house.
What I didn’t tell you is I had Graves’ 10 years ago. My late husband died of stage IV colon cancer three years ago. A year after that, I was hit with an extreme health condition, where I thought I would have to go on disability. Tons of neurological issues. It was long COVID symptoms and chronic inflammatory response syndrome. I started doing all the things. “Juanique, what would you do if your client had this?” I’d clean up shop.
One of the first things I did was a parasite cleanse. My hormones regulated. My cystic breasts went down. My anxiety and depression went away. I started to finally absorb stuff. I’m a very skinny person, and I started putting on weight. Every time I do bloodwork, “Your cholesterol is low, your vitamins and minerals are low. You look like you’re starving slowly.”
I did this parasite cleanse. Every time I went to the bathroom, I was passing five parasites for a month. I love parasite cleanses. I love preaching parasite cleanses. I love seeing the results of parasite cleanses that people get.
I’ll share another story. One of my dear friends, her daughter, who was 11 at the time, was having these emotional episodes. She would say, “Mom, I have this creepy feeling inside of me, and I’m getting really anxious.” After a year of this, she had this emotional outburst. Her mom brought her daughter to my clinic to do a hair analysis. I asked her mom, “Hey, was her last outburst on this date?” She thought a little bit and said, “Yeah, how did you know it was that date?” That was the last full moon, and parasites are more active around the full moon. “Your daughter’s hair analysis, the primary concern here is parasites. Let’s put her on a parasite cleanse, and all of her symptoms will go away.” Within two months, and it’s been a year or two now, her daughter hasn’t had any creepy feeling or emotional outburst and is as happy as can be.
We don’t realize parasites can affect our mental health, our physical health, our emotions. There is a book called This is Your Brain on Parasites. If you want to read something that is fascinating and gory, I would listen to that book. It’s so cool.
Dr. Eric:
I haven’t read that book, so I need to check it out. I agree with you about false negative stool tests. Just because you’re negative, that doesn’t rule out parasites. I wasn’t aware of hair testing for specific- Is it just for parasites or different types of infections?
Juanique:
What we do is a bioresonance hair scan. It uses the bioresonance of your hair and your tissues in the hair follicle to see what is stressing your body at the time. it’s not like tissue testing or anything like that. There are people who do Meridian scans to find imbalances and whatnot. It’s something more like that. It tests the body to see what the primary concerns are.
I like to compare it to bloodwork like this. Most of my clients do hair analysis and bloodwork, and there is tons of overlap. Bloodwork is like a small picture that has tons of definition. You can only see so much, and it’s not a lot. A hair analysis tests for tons of things, like EMFs, parasites, viruses, chemicals, you name it. It’s a giant picture that is blurry.
Even though it says parasites, I don’t know which ones. I don’t know which viruses. Is it CMV? Is it COVID? I don’t know. Is it EBV? Oftentimes, my EBV people, their primary is always virus and post-virus. All of my Lyme people are bacteria and virus. It shows us what it is, but not the specificity of it.
We love to use that in our clinic because it helps us have conversations around, “Your heavy metal toxin burden is up right now. Let’s detox you from heavy metals, and you will probably find your energy improves, or you lose weight.”
A ton of people who have gone from doctor to doctor, where doctors don’t know what’s wrong with you because your labs look “perfect,” so they come to us. They are not testing for heavy metals or parasites or chemicals or EMFs.
I can’t tell you how many people test super high for EMFs. It’s EMFs that are making them feel sick. Just try these few things. Eat these foods that help mitigate the radiation from EMFs, and you’ll be fine.
Dr. Eric:
When it comes to testing, you do blood testing. You do that bioresonance hair scan. Is that pretty much it? Do you do any other types of tests, or does it depend on the person?
Juanique:
It depends on the person. We have a naturopathic doctor at our clinic, at Provo Health. His name is Dr. Jeff Wright. He’s phenomenal. He will take the very complex cases and do whatever testing they need to, whether it’s mold testing, urine mold testing, or Lyme or EBV. He will do whatever test is necessary.
My health coaches and I, we just do the hair analysis, and some of my coaches do blood chem analysis as well. The blood chem analysis, it used to be 12 vials of blood. We are checking vitamins, minerals, inflammatory makers, cholesterol, iron, ferritin. Everything the doctors don’t test for. We are looking for things and then some. We are looking at a really big picture to see what is it that could be causing your problems.
That, in combination with the hair analysis, it gives us a big and small picture. We can often see so much overlap that it’s really clear what’s going on here.
Dr. Eric:
You covered a lot. There’s so much to cover with the gut. There are so many other things I want to ask. We definitely won’t get to everything, but listening to some of your podcast episodes, some of the top inflammatory foods I found interesting. I know peanuts was one. Gluten. I can’t say I remember them all. I think there were six or seven.
Juanique:
There is gluten, dairy, corn, soy. Those are the big ones. Sugar is huge. If you have an autoimmune, if you have to cut out two things, if you can’t cut out all the things, just do gluten and dairy. Start there. You will probably feel better. If you can do corn, soy, and sugar, amazing. Some people do have to cut out legumes, nuts, and seeds.
Until we can heal the gut and heal the dysbiosis, you have to do this temporary food elimination to decrease the immune response on your body. Then you heal up the microbiome and heal up the immune system and make it intelligent again, so when you reintroduce those foods, you’re not getting that negative immune response to it.
Dr. Eric:
One last question here, which is a common question: How does someone know if their gut has been healed?
Juanique:
I would say you have no autoimmune, you are not bloated, you are not gassy, your inflammation goes down, and you can tolerate your environment and your food. If you have a healthy microbiome, a healthy microbial lining, a healthy immune response, you can handle anything and everything. You can handle pizza and soda.
I’m not a purist. I think the majority of people should be having the majority of healing foods. I think fun food has a place. We are here having the human experience. As long as it’s an 80/20, where it’s 80% healthy foods, lots of veggies and proteins and healthy fats and good nuts and seeds, and then 10-20% fun food, where you go out for date night, and maybe you have that glass of wine, we all know fun food doesn’t help your immune system. But it’s all in moderation.
When you create a forbidden apple scenario, you just want it more. I think the goal is to do something that is sustainable and balanced. The 80/20 rule is 80% protecting and supporting your body, and 20% is not going to extremes. The majority of people can get there.
When you’re in a healing crisis, you have to put the fun food on the back burner, so you can do a lot of damage control.
I remember when I had Graves’, I did not want to be on medications. I did not want to have a heart attack and die. I did not touch sugar, gluten, and dairy for months. I remember going out to dinner with my sister-in-law and brother. She was like, “Is that hard?” They were eating this cookie thing with an ice cream thing on top, and I was just watching them eat it. “Yeah, but being sick is harder.” Being on medications is way worse. Not having my health and not having my energy and not being there, there is nothing worse than not being present in my life and not having the energy and the health. I want to live an epic, wonderful, big life.
I had a husband die of cancer. That was awful. I never want to have to go through that again. There is no food, no dessert, nothing that is worse more than my happiness and my ability to live the life that I want to live. If I need to put some things on the back burner, that’s fine.
I hope people can approach their healing that way. It’s just temporary. Let’s cut out the inflammatory foods, heal the immune system, heal the body. When my body is healthy, it can handle those things later.
I want to use this analogy: When you are in a healing crisis, think of it this way. Your body needs, we’ll call it 100 biological bucks. Your body needs 100 biological bucks of vitamins, minerals, macronutrients, and micronutrients. It needs 100 of that a day in order for you to survive and thrive and do all the cellular functions in your body.
Let’s say you ate the standard American diet, and you only ate 25-50 dollars. That other 50 has to come from somewhere. You put it on a biological credit card. Over years, that 50 dollars a day adds up to $10,000, to $100,000, to $500,000, to $1,000,000. Not only are you racking up this credit, but the interest, too.
Someone who is in a healing crisis has $1,000,000 on a credit card, and it’s accruing interest. They come to me and are like, “I want a quick fix, and I want it fast. I’m only willing to pay off $30 a day of my $1,000,000 + interest.” “Honey, your interest is $500 a day. We have a lot of catching up to do.” That’s why people like you and me are like, “You have to be in it to win it at the beginning. It won’t be like that forever. But you have a lot of damage control that you have to do right now.”
It’s like a burning building. If you have ever watched a building burn, it requires so much water for hours just to stop the flames from getting bigger. It looks like at first nothing is happening. You just see this fire getting bigger, even though there is tons of water. They are utilizing that water to slow down the momentum of the fire. Then over time, the momentum stops, and slowly, the flames get smaller. Then they catch momentum and get small and die out.
A lot of people can’t get to the “I need to slow down my momentum.” They are not willing to put the effort in and really give it a go. You are accruing so much inflammatory interest right now. We have to do a lot of damage control.
If you want big lifestyle results, like if you want to radicalize your health, you have to radicalize what you’re doing on a day-to-day basis. It won’t be like that forever, but we have a lot of damage control we have to do right now.
Trust that your body can do it. Trust the process. Give it time. You’re in it to win it. Just enjoy the journey. It won’t be a few months. It won’t be a year. It could be a few years. Your body can do it. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.
I do want to give people a realistic timeline. Everybody wants the quick fix. It’s not quick, but it’s so worth it. A lot of people, as they’re on their healing journeys, they get to know themselves so well, and they get to know their bodies. It’s such a rewarding journey to be on.
Dr. Eric:
I agree. Nobody wants to give up the fun foods. I certainly didn’t when I was dealing with Graves’. Like you, I did, and I did it because I wanted to get better. At least I hoped, I didn’t know at the time because that was my first experience with Graves’. I didn’t work with other people at the time. Same thing with you.
I didn’t know if I’d be able to successfully eat the fun foods in the future. Thankfully, I can. Like you said, in moderation. Just like you most of the time, I’m eating healthy. It’s important to mention that to give people hope, it’s not going to be restricting those fun foods forever. It’s just that when you reintroduce them, you don’t want to be eating fun foods every single day.
Juanique:
We live in such a beautiful day and age, where there are so many companies producing healthy fun foods that are sweetened with stevia or other non-inflammatory ingredients. We can swap things out and still really enjoy our food and have it still be fun. It’s not the milkshake from Wendy’s or Reese’s Cups. But it’s still good and satisfying.
Over time, it’s interesting because as you start feeding your microbial species fiber and vegetables and healthy foods, they will change in numbers, which means they are going to change the signaling to your brain to start craving those things.
It’s actually fascinating. Your microbiome tells your brain what to eat. If you’re feeding your microbiome processed foods, those microbial species will grow in number and signal your brain to eat more processed foods. If you starve them and feed the microbial species that eat fiber from vegetables, if you start to feed them, and they grow in number, they will start telling your brain that they want more of that food, and you will crave that food.
You will crave that plate of sauteed vegetables. You will wake up and be excited to eat this meal of sauteed veggies and avocado and nuts and seeds and eggs. You will think it’s the most delicious thing on this planet. You will not really feel a pizza when you see it. It smells nice, but your brain isn’t having that pleasure center hit like it used to.
It’s really fascinating. The body is amazing at how it changes and adapts according to the environment you expose it to.
Dr. Eric:
Definitely agree. This was really amazing. Really enjoyed our conversation. Can you let people know where to find you? I know you also have your Digestion Restoration course. Feel free to talk about that as well.
Juanique:
You can find me on Instagram at @Gutsy_Mom. My clinic is Provo Health, so @ProvoHealth.
I have a bunch of free resources. If you want to listen to my podcast, it’s been going for five years. It’s called The Gutsy Health Podcast, where you can get a lot of great information and tools on how to be a self-healing advocate. I am all about people becoming self-healers. 95% of the healing happens at home, 5% happens at testing and clinics. Learn the 95%, and be a badass self-healer. You can get free information from my podcast.
I have some free classes on the three root causes to gut health issues. You can also join my Digestion Restoration course. The course is phenomenal because it gives you tons of resources, incredible learning. I am taking some students through it right now. People take the courses and are like, “I finally have hope I can heal someday.” They’re understanding the how and the why. It’s making sense how they got sick. They are seeing a path forward out of the mess.
When you go from doctor to doctor, you are bouncing around, not knowing the direction and where you’re going. You just feel helpless. You won’t stick to a program. The Digestion Restoration course really lays out for you the root cause to your health issues and the pathway out of it.
For listeners today, if you want to sign up for this course, you can get $50 off when you use the code THYROID. It’s going to teach you how to be a gut healing expert. It’s going to give you all the food resources, supplemental resources, lifestyle ideas that you can use to change, so you can become really clear at what it takes to really get out of the funk of whatever disease or dysfunction you have.
It doesn’t stop at gut. If you have thyroid, because all autoimmune disease starts in the gut. If you have low hormones or hair/skin/nail issues, you need to become an expert in how to heal your gut. Everything starts there. The root cause to all health diseases begins in the gut. That’s why I’m so passionate about people starting with this course.
If you have utilized all the free resources and want more, do my Digestion Restoration course. It is a $1,900 value that when you use the code THYROID, you get for $200. Healing hasn’t been more affordable and accessible before. I highly recommend, if you guys are ready to take the leap, do that.
Dr. Eric:
All right, wonderful. Juanique, this was amazing. Thank you so much. It was great having you on the podcast.
Juanique:
Thank you for all the work you’ve done. You truly did save my life. Your journey, your path, if you hadn’t written that book, I don’t know what I would have done. It was a Bible to me.
What I want to tell listeners is if you’re in a healing crisis, look for people who have gotten themselves out of it. There is a path forward. Surround yourself with those voices and those people who have done it. That is going to help your brain, and that will help your belief systems believe that you, too, can do it. It can be done. People like Dr. Eric have done it. I have done it. Hundreds of thousands of people have gotten out of their healing crisis by one thing at a time. By implementing things that Dr. Eric talks about on his podcast and I talk about, it can be done, and it can be the best journey you ever go on.
I really want to talk to those people who have been stuck and are overwhelmed. There is a way out. Trust in yourself. Trust in the process. Your body was designed to heal. You just haven’t given it the right tools yet. You haven’t given it the right food. When you do that, magic happens. The human body is truly a magical organism. Just feed it the right things, give it the right thoughts, and it will start working for you instead of against you.
Dr. Eric:
Agree with that. Definitely check out Juanique’s podcast and Digestion Restoration course. Thank you so much. We’ll have to get you back on in the future.
Juanique:
Thank you so much, Dr. Eric. And thank you, listeners.
