Your gut is your gateway to

health or illness and what you put

in your body is the key.

You house an incredible 25 feet of intestines! This is where you absorb your nutrients from food, make your feel good neurotransmitters and where a vast network of immune cells and nerve cells reside. When your gut isn’t working properly, it affects every system in the body from your brain to your hormones and immune system.  

Every year, people go to their health care provider to get their annual checkup and along with that checkup comes a CBC/CMP/blood workup. These are the panels that your health care provider uses to screen for health issues and its what I see the most frequently when meeting with new clients. 

It’s quite common for people in my office to note that they don’t "feel like themselves" and yet they had their annual blood workup done and their doctor said everything appears within the “normal” range.

I had a couple of interesting appointments last week...

A woman came to see me covered in a red rash complaining of inflamed joints. She shared with me that her whole body felt “totally off.” Her doctor had run a couple of standard lab panels, and yet, the only bandaid that he could give her for her joint pain was a prescription for steroids. This woman was clearly dealing with symptoms associated with an autoimmune situation yet her doctor mentioned nothing about diet or any natural anti-inflammatory support.

A young woman in her early 30s reached out to me who had stopped cycling and had high cholesterol levels. Her provider had put her on statins to lower her cholesterol and offered a prescription for birth control pills to help "regulate the cycle." The dietary advice given was to consume a low-fat diet as well.  He had not taken into consideration the fact that the body uses cholesterol to make steroid hormones and was giving her medication to suppress the cholesterol, thereby reinforcing the issue. 

I live in Northern California in a coastal town surrounded by vineyards and pot farms. Most people who live in the “Emerald Triangle” have been steeped in the medicinal properties of cannabis for decades now, but truth be told, the medicinal use of cannabis predates recorded history.

I am not a cannabis user; however, I jumped onto the CBD bandwagon after I experienced the profound anti-inflammatory, sleep-inducing, and pain relieving herbal compound for myself. But don’t take my word for it, the CBD industry reported 518 million dollars in 2018 and is projected to reach 22 billion dollars by 2022. It is quite clear that with the legalization of cannabis across the US, this plant is going to continue to grow in its popularity and its medicinal uses are likely to expand exponentially as well.