The Parasite Cleanse Danger No One Warns You About

Dr. Kate Davis is a functional medicine doctor who spent nearly a decade battling unexplained gut issues before discovering a three-foot parasite living inside her own body. She now treats women with chronic constipation, IBS, bloating, and acid reflux. She joins Antoinette Berrafato, host of New Normal Big Life to walk through the exact healing sequence that prevents detox disaster.

Dr. Davis explains why going straight to killing parasites without preparing your drainage organs can trigger gallbladder attacks, migraines, and emergency room visits. She breaks down what leaky gut actually does to nutrient absorption, why the "expensive pee" phenomenon keeps people sick despite spending thousands on supplements, and the biggest gut health myths she sees causing harm on social media.

If you have tried every protocol, diet and supplement and still aren't better, this conversation maps out what functional medicine treats that conventional approaches miss.

Connect with Dr. Kate Davis: Instagram: @drkatedavis — DM the word "100" for $100 off an initial consult plus labs package.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Shocking Parasite Wake Up Call
• 2:44 What Parasites Are And How You Get Them
• 8:52 Why Doctors Miss Parasites
• 11:41 Why Random Cleanses Can Backfire
• 17:39 SIBO And The Gallbladder Link
• 20:29 Leaky Gut And The Absorption Problem
• 25:10 Drainage Organs And Poop Basics
• 28:15 Medication Culture Versus Root Cause
• 38:30 Heavy Metals Sources And Safer Detox
• 41:34 Why Constipation Is So Common
• 43:42 Gut Health Myths To Ignore
• 46:01 Hope For Healing And How To Connect

Join Antoinette on a doctor-formlated parasite cleanse. Follow the show on social media to learn more.

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Transcript

A Shocking Parasite Wake Up Call

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Had a massive parasite infection. I mean, I had hundreds of parasites coming out. The biggest one was three feet long. It was super thick. It looked like a little snake living in my body. And so I went nearly a decade with severe constipation. At the worst time, I went 13 days without a single bowel movement. And I went to the doctor and they were like, just take Muralax. Or they offered me a drug because they diagnosed me with gastroparesis, which basically means that you don't move the food from your stomach to your small intestines in a reasonable amount of time. It just means like stomach paralysis, basically. And they said, Oh, well, we can give you a drug that has a permanent side effect of facial twitches.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Welcome to the New Normal Big Life Podcast. We bring you natural and integrative health information and stories about nature that we hope will inspire you to get outside in adventure, along with a step-by-step plan to help you practice what you've learned to create your own new normal and live the biggest life you can dream. I'm your host, Antoinette Berafato, the wellness warrior. Let's get into today's topic. Welcome to New Normal Big Life. Dr. Kate Davis. Why don't you tell us who you are, what you do, and the one big idea you want us to remember from your expertise today?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Well, thank you so much for having me on, Antoinette. It's really a pleasure to be here. And you're awesome. We were, I know we were just chatting before you hit record, and she's amazing. So if any of y'all haven't listened to our podcast yet, she is just as amazing off-screen as she is on screen. But so yeah, I just want to say thank you. And I'm a functional medicine doctor. Originally got my chiropractic degree, and I had a huge experience with a massive parasite infection that, you know, gave me chronic gut issues for almost a decade. And it wasn't until I realized that I, you know, had that parasite infection and got rid of all of them that I was actually able to fully heal and start eating gluten and dairy again for the first time in like a decade, which is possible for those of you listening. And, you know, all the bloating, severe constipation went away. I mean, I was a mess for almost a decade. And, you know, I guess the one thing I want to bring to your audience and to let them know is that, you know, healing is absolutely possible. You're not stuck this way. Like, I don't care how many doctors you've been to, how many people tell you, oh, you can't fix constipation or bloating or IBS. I've seen it so many times in the people that I've helped that I don't believe that anymore. And so I'm excited to dig into this topic today about gut health and detoxing and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I can't wait to unpack your story because you know, so many MDs and functional medicine doctors are talking about how chronic illness isn't just the result of one single thing, it's a systemic imbalance. The terrain inside your body is changing because of toxins, pathogens, parasites, a lack of movement, a lack of deep restorative sleep and chronic dehydration, a disconnection from people. So today we're going to talk about parasites, their role in chronic health challenges, and what to do about it.

What Parasites Are And How You Get Them

SPEAKER_01 2:44

So, Dr. Davis, for those unfamiliar, what is a parasite and how does it get inside our bodies?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, I mean, parasites are just these little critters that they don't uh do anything beneficial for your body. All they do is steal your nutrients and create damage and inflammation and all sorts of stuff, which is why they're called parasites, because they don't do anything good for us, unfortunately. But you pick them up from, you know, the most common sources are undercooked food, especially pork and fish. Those are really common for parasites. And then, you know, honestly though, I love that you brought up the terrain because that's so important because it's not that you need to be afraid to, oh, I can't ever eat fish again. I can't ever eat pork or any of that. It's really, it's really a reflection of your internal environment, you know, your immune system, your stress levels, how your hormones are functioning, how well you produce stomach acid and you can digest your food to kill off this stuff before it overgrows in your body. That's what really matters. And so it's not to be afraid to eat any of this stuff. It's it's more about just understanding the whole body implications of chronic infections and how they start, and then really healing everything all at once, like from a root cause perspective, like rebuilding the foundation to where in the future, if you're exposed to a parasite, it doesn't affect you the same way. And so I still eat sushi, even though I had a massive parasite infection. I mean, I had hundreds of parasites coming out. I had a the biggest one was three feet long. It was super thick, like it looked like a little snake living in my body. And I was just blown away. I was like, how in the heck did this thing, where did it fit? I don't understand. And I know we're gonna talk about it, but I had all a lot of the very common symptoms of parasitic infections that MDs missed for a decade.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So tell us more about your journey and why is it that parasites are commonly overlooked during testing?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Yeah, I mean, so so my journey started, you know, I was 24 and I looked extremely healthy. You know, I was a former D1 athlete. You know, I just graduated college a couple years prior to that. So I was in the best shape of my life. You would look at me and not think, oh, she has health issues. And so it was kind of baffling to me because I'd just grown up thinking if you're fit and you look healthy and you work out all the time, like there's no way you could possibly get sick, not realizing how detrimental, you know, our food system is in America to our health. And so I went nearly a decade with severe constipation. At the worst time, I went 13 days without a single bowel movement. And, you know, I went to the doctor and they were like, just take mirrors. Or, you know, they offered me a drug because they they diagnosed me with gastroparesis, which basically means that you don't move the food in your stomach from your stomach to your small intestines in a reasonable amount of time. It just means like stomach paralysis, basically. And they said, Oh, well, we can give you a drug that has a permanent side effect of, you know, facial twitches. And I was like, well, 24 and single, so I'm gonna say no on that one. And what else you got, doc? And he's like, or we can remove your intestines. And I was like, all right, I'm never coming back. See you later. And and I was lucky enough to find actually a chiropractor who did what's called functional neurology, but he had a huge background in massage before he became a doctor. So he did a lot of myofascial release in my abdomen, which basically is like manipulating that tissue between your muscles and you know, around your organs to get rid of inflammation and kind of loosen things up a little. And I remember leaving his office thinking, what the heck did I just pay for? Because it didn't feel like much. If you've ever had a myofascial massage, it doesn't feel like a lot. It's very gentle. And I remember that night, I swear I lost like 10 pounds. I I had like five bowel movements. It was the first time in two weeks that I was able to go to the bathroom. And it was just such a huge relief that I just kind of dove headfirst into the, you know, the functional medicine world and neurology. And he actually ended up fixing all the neuroissues I had from a previous head injury, you know, from five years prior, because that's a big trigger for gut issues. And so I just shadowed him and learned as much as I could, started getting into functional medicine, but cleaned up my diet, started taking all these gut healing supplements. As long as I stuck to that strict diet, nothing really happened. But, you know, about 10 years later, all of a sudden, all my issues started coming back after a really stressful life event. And, you know, they were worse than they were before. And that's when my friend, luckily she was in town, did some tests for me, found out I had a massive parasite infection, lots of other stuff going on, but that was the biggest thing. And, you know, two months into the detox she put me on, that three-footer came out, all my gut issues started going away. I was able to eat bread again, dairy, zero issues. I lost a bunch of weight. My energy was like through the roof. And it was like it was so life-changing that I just, you know, I went fully into functional medicine and you know, I've been able to help hundreds of people since then. So that's kind of my story in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

That's such a painful yet beautiful journey that now you can solve this very real problem because you know, in my own life, I've had difficulty with doctors believing that you have a problem. And so, for example, I had listeria once and I came into the doctor with a printout from the store that said we had listeria in this product, a printout of the product that I purchased showing that uh I am having symptoms. Here are what my symptoms are. Here's what the store said about the listeria outbreak, and I purchased the product and consumed it. And my doctor's response was, yeah, you don't have listeria. That doesn't happen in America. And then it took three years to get someone to believe me, even with so much proof that I had an exposure. And then also I was talking to a functional medicine doctor who said, You have parasites, and this is my recommendation for you. So I was paying for that functional medicine appointment out of pocket, and I tried to go through my general practitioner and insurance company. Functional medicine doctor says, I have parasites. This is the protocol they're recommending. And my doctor said, Well, we have to run these six tests. You don't have parasites after the tests were run. And, you know, meanwhile, I'm getting sicker and sicker, and then I started the protocol and started eliminating, I could see the parasites come out.

Why Doctors Miss Parasites

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah. And so why is it that there's a belief that in America you can't get listeria or any parasite infection?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because it's such a misunderstood thing. You know, like I, and granted, I do work with gut issues primarily. So obviously I'm gonna see parasites a lot more than, you know, someone who works with hormones or brain health or something like that. But I see them in probably like 75% of the patients who come to me where it shows up on testing. And and the reason why is because medical doctors are taught in school. And I I was taught this as well. Like my undergrad degree was in microbiology because I was initially gonna go to medical school until I realized it wasn't, you know, the holistic path that I thought it was. So I chose chiropractic instead. But I remember in our parasitology class, our professor saying, Oh, but don't worry, like you won't ever see this stuff in medicine unless somebody comes back from a trip from Thailand or South America or something, you're not gonna see these parasites. And that is so far from the truth. I mean, I had multiple different parasites coming out of me during my detox as well, and that aren't supposed to be found in the US. And I was like, well, that's interesting. But in I've even seen it in people who have never left the United States, they've never been out of the country and they still have parasites show up on testing. And so it's just this idea that's just permeated the medical school system where doctors literally think that, oh, I don't have to check for parasites because they don't exist. Or, and then the other side of that coin too is even if they do check for parasites, they always do a stool test. Stool tests are terrible at picking up parasites, they almost always miss them. And I've had so many people come to me who have done multiple stool tests. I even have this one woman, you know, in her 30s, like young, hadn't really traveled too much outside of the country, but she had made her doctor order the 10 years prior to seeing me, 10 to 15 of those stool tests, none of them showed parasites. And then, you know, obviously you have to go a lot off symptoms. There are some other tests that are a little bit better than, you know, the traditional stool tests you get from the MD. But we found parasites on her testing, and she saw, I mean, over the course of the eight months we were working together, hundreds of parasites coming out, and none of those stool tests ever picked them up. So that's the thing, too, is like they only have one thing that they check for. They're like, well, the stool test was negative, so I guess you don't have them. That happened to me too. I did a stool test, it was negative. So I just thought, well, I don't have parasites because that doctor who initially fixed me was like, I'm 90% sure you have parasites based on all the symptoms you're telling me. And so I did the stool test, but it was negative. So I was like, oh, I guess I don't have them. And that couldn't be farther from the truth. So don't rely on that one stool test to tell you if you have parasites. There's much better tests out there now that can really pick those up. And really, a lot of it is just going to a doctor who knows the symptoms and the signs of parasitic infections because even with the best testing, you could still miss them. So they're really hard to find on testing.

Why Random Cleanses Can Backfire

SPEAKER_01 11:41

And so a lot of consumers are concerned about parasites right now, and more than 300,000 people alone search for content related to parasites, right? So everyone's looking for answers. But I've heard you warn that that parasite cleanse that you may have found on Instagram could end you up in the emergency room. Walk us through what happens in the body when someone jumps straight to killing parasites or clearing heavy metals without preparing the system first.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Yeah, it's a great question because I see this so much. And obviously, because I talk about parasites the most on my page, people obviously reach out and say, Oh, what'd you use to get rid of the parasites? But you guys, like we have to get into this understanding, and this is why I love functional medicine so much that every different person's care plan is completely unique to them. So if you were to line up 10 people I've worked with who had constipation, they all had different things going on in their body. They had different organ dysfunction, they had different infections, different toxins, different stress levels. I love that you brought up social connections as a huge piece of the health puzzle because a lot of people don't talk about that. But there's so many different things to look at when you when you're treating someone that you never want to do a generic protocol. Because if you do a generic protocol and you don't understand that, you know, when you kill off parasites in the body, they release a ton of toxic waste into your system. And if you don't have the ability to get those toxins out efficiently, you know, say your liver or your gut are functioning at 50% instead of 100%, those toxins are going to get released everywhere into your body, especially if you have leaky gut. You know, your gut is the number one place where toxins and waste products are eliminated on a daily basis from your body. And then you've got the gallbladder and liver as well. So if you don't have those functioning at 100% and you just start killing off all these parasites, especially if you're constipated or have leaky gut, they're just those toxins are going to go systemic and you'll get all these terrible reactions. They're called herxing reactions or detox reactions, whatever you want to call it, where you might get flu-like symptoms, migraines, stomach pain, your the gut issues you had when you started get worse. And I've seen this in so many people that I've had to fix who saw my content on Instagram and they're like, wow, I wish I would have found you sooner. I tried a parasite cleanse a year ago and my stomach issues got significantly worse. And so that's one piece of the puzzle is like oftentimes people get worse because they just can't get rid of the toxins that are released. And so they just get stored elsewhere in the body and create a lot of issues. And then there's the other end of the coin where some people are like, oh, I tried that, it didn't work. When in reality they had a lot of symptoms of parasites, but maybe they had another infection going on, or maybe they just had gallbladder dysfunction or liver dysfunction, and that's really what they needed to target. And so they might have just been going after the wrong thing. And so that's why you don't ever want to just rely on one test and then jump on a protocol. We want to look at everything and make sure, like, okay, is there a co-infection like candida or mold toxicity that's allowing the parasites to overgrow in the body because it's tanking the immune system and preventing your body from naturally fighting the stuff off? And you know, there's so many different things to consider, but that's probably the the top two.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

So when you're working with a client or a patient, do you work with them first on supporting like liver function, kidney function, lymphatic drainage first, and also maybe some heavy metal detox first and then fight the parasite? Help us understand sort of the logic around what should happen, when is it simultaneous, step by step? How does it work?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Yeah, it's a great question. And in general, so obviously there's like nuances to this, right? Between, you know, depending on who you're talking about, but in general, you really want to support those drainage organs first. So if someone has leaky gut, you want to heal that up before you just start releasing systemic toxins, because the end route for all those toxins that are getting released from your brain, your tissues, your lymphatic system is the gut. And if you don't fix that first, and if you have leaky gut where you've got these giant holes in your gut lining, all those toxins are gonna slip back through into the bloodstream and put a ton of stress on your liver. And that can create, you know, people who get flu-like symptoms or who throw up and get all these crazy things happening. So we always want to heal the gut first. And oftentimes that does involve removing infections from the gut first, like parasites. So for me, like I'd remove gut parasites long before I ever went after systemic ones. And so, so it's really this specific order of heal the gut first. Then if someone has a sluggish gallbladder, I'm sure you might have heard that term before, where, you know, so people who get like really pale colored, you know, bowel movements, like it's like light brown or even like a clay off-white color, that's a huge sign of gallbladder dysfunction. If you have upper abdomen bloating, if you have constipation, that's usually gallbladder related. There's so many different things to look for. So that kind of gives me an idea of okay, do we need to support gallbladder maybe with some bile salts or tugka? And then flushing out the liver is like the next step because that's the main organ that's gonna pull toxins from your blood and break them down and send them out of your gut into the toilet to get out of your body. And so if we don't support that organ, especially, and you just start going after releasing systemic toxins and infections from the body, it's gonna put so much stress on the liver that people are gonna get really sick. And so it's really just, you know, gut, gallbladder, liver, then supporting lymphatic system, you know, like getting all that stuff out of the lymph, getting your lymphatic system moving again, because that's like the sewage system for your organs, like your brain and your kidneys and lungs. And we want to make sure that fluid's constantly moving so that we're not getting toxins building up around the organs themselves. And and then you go after systemic toxins once you've cleared those drainage pathways and gotten the lymphatic system working and the liver working. And so, yeah, it depends on the person. And in terms of heavy metals, parasites do hold on to heavy metals. So a lot of times when you get rid of the parasites first, when you redo testing, the heavy metals are gone because parasites kind of use them as a shield to hide from your immune system. So that's why I always tell people don't just jump on a heavy metal cleanse or just a parasite cleanse. Oftentimes you have to go after both together to really get rid of them from the system. But usually the parasites are the culprit for that kind of thing.

SIBO And The Gallbladder Link

SPEAKER_01 17:39

So a topic that keeps coming up in my audience is the small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, pronounced SIBO or S-I-B-O. What happens when bacteria that belongs in the large intestine migrates into the small intestine? And how do you stop it?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, it's a great question. So I get asked about SIBO a lot because that is one of the few tests that medical doctors will test you for when you go in for constipation or bloating. They usually do a breath test and they're like, oh, I'm positive for SIBO. So what I always like to impress upon people is that first of all, it's important to know that you have this whole ecosystem of bacteria in your gut. So it's called the microbiome. Um if you ever heard of like, you know, gut dysbiosis, it just means that there's an overgrowth of certain strains of bacteria in the gut that can create a lot of bloating and constipation and absorption issues in your body. But it's when this bacteria overgrows, you tend to get a lot of constipation, upper abdomen bloating. So a lot of similar symptoms to gallbladder dysfunction. And I find those kind of go hand in hand because when your food moves from the stomach into the small intestines, your gallbladder is supposed to release what's called bile salts that help continue to kill off, you know, parasites, bacteria, continue digesting the food that hits the small intestines. And if it's not functioning well, that can also create that overgrowth of bacteria. So I see a lot of gallbladder dysfunction with SIBO. But another thing too is that this ecosystem of bacteria we have in our gut is so fine-tuned that if we're, you know, eating garbage food, taking antibiotics more regularly than we should, which, you know, we shouldn't be taking them for viral infections, just so y'all know. But if we're taking antibiotics, even women who have been on birth control for long periods, all of those really mess up that bacterial ecosystem in your gut so significantly that now we've allowed candida to overgrow, we've allowed parasites to overgrow, we've allowed other strains of bacteria to start overgrowing in the gut, and it throws off this whole ecosystem and this whole balance. And that's what creates SIBO. So it's really about looking at the deeper picture of we're not gonna target the bacteria because if you go to the doctor and they say, Oh, you have SIBO, take this antibiotic, that's not gonna help. It might, it might give you temporary relief for you know a few months, a few a couple, like maybe a year, and then it comes back. And I've seen this so many times because there's usually a deeper underlying issue, whether it's a co-infection like parasites that's just destroying so much in the gut that all of these things are overgrowing, or it's gallbladder dysfunction or leaky gut, or you know, multiple different things that can allow the bacteria to overgrow. So if you go after that root cause, if you heal those organs, get the gallbladder functioning again, remove the parasites, remove the heavy metals, if there's toxicity in the body, oftentimes you'll see the bacteria just regulate back out to where they were. So you don't really have to target the bacterioacebo. It's really a response to other things going on.

Leaky Gut And The Absorption Problem

SPEAKER_01 20:29

I've heard you talk about the expensive pea phenomenon where people spend thousands of dollars on gut health protocols and absorb almost none of it because it's not bioavailable. So, what's broken inside the gut that blocks absorption? And what do we have to do to correct it so that our supplements or protocols can work?

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, well, the number one thing, and I see this in most Americans I work with, is leaky gut. So that's basically where your gut lining has broken down so much that now you have these big gaps in the gut lining that allow food particles, toxins, infections to go systemic throughout the body and get slipped into that bloodstream. So if you have leaky gut where the gut lining is damaged and you've like wiped out a lot of the good bacteria and you know, our the inside of our intestines kind of looks like a little shag rug where you have these little microvilla that absorb nutrients. If that's been wiped out and damaged from chronic inflammation for a long period of time, you can't absorb the nutrients you're putting in your body, anyways. So my approach is always I don't want people being on $500 worth of supplements every month for the rest of their life. You should be able to eat, if you live in an area where it's possible, like local fruits, veggies, you know, meats from like local farmers. And you should be able to absorb all those nutrients, you know, in your body. But when you've lost the ability to absorb nutrients, that's when I see these issues where people are taking all these vitamins and you know, all these nutrients that they're deficient in. And I test them and they're still deficient in all those nutrients. And they're like, what the heck, Dr. Davis? I don't get it. And my question is okay, you have leaky gut, you've got all these symptoms of leaky gut, plus it's showing up on testing. You can't absorb anything. So you're just throwing stuff into your body, and just your body maybe is absorbing 10, 20% of it, but the rest of it you're just peeing out and you're just creating really expensive pee and really expensive poop. And so that's what I tell people is let's fix the absorption issue first. You know, what is causing the leaky gut? That's always my question. And there's two big things that I find on people it's either chronic infections and toxins that are just constantly damaging and inflaming the gut, or chronic stress, huge trigger for leaky gut. And this is shown in research. And if you're ever curious about looking this up, you it when you look at research, they don't ever call it leaky gut. They call it increased intestinal permeability. But there's lots of studies showing that chronic stress for a long period of time slowly allows that gut lining to just open up. And so that's why I focus so heavily on downregulating people's nervous systems when we start working together, so that not only that gut lining can heal, but also their body's in a state to actually heal fully. And so that those are two important things that I would that I would say.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah, we love reminding people about the gut-brain connection and how if your nervous system is stuck and go because of big traumas or multiple small traumas, big T traumas, little T traumas, the stress of life, then it can throw off your entire body and its ability to heal itself. So one of the recommendations that MD gave us here on the show is acacia powder. It's made from the sap of the acacia tree. And there's a lot of research that says it helps with leaky gut issues. In fact, in a lot of hospitals in the Middle East and Egypt and Africa, when someone comes in with any kind of mental health crisis or gut crisis, the first thing they give is acacia powder and eight ounces of water.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Are you familiar with acacia powder? Yeah, I mean, I've heard of it before, and I think there's a lot of different ways to heal leaky gut. That is interesting. I didn't know that about like them using that in the Middle East. That's really cool. I'm glad they at least try like natural stuff first out there. That's awesome. And they know the gut mental health connection too, which is really fascinating as well. So that's really cool that they do that. I think there's a lot of like, you know, gut healing herbs you can take. Like I know a lot of people do like L-glutamine. Bone broth is my favorite just because it's so rich in collagen and that's primarily what your gut lining is made up of. But I'm more of the mindset of yes, you can take these gut healing herbs and fibers and things like that. But if you never remove the things that are damaging the gut in the first place, it's again, it's just throwing your money away. It's like, you know, just constantly throwing supplements in there and like it heals temporarily. And then maybe the parasites or the heavy metals just, you know, create the inflammation again, and then you're trying to heal, but there's always that thing that's there that's not getting removed. And it's kind of like I always like to describe it to people as if you were to build a brand new house and you know, you found this plot of land, looks great, you're tearing down the old house and you find termites, are you just gonna build on top of the termite infestation? No, because eventually your house is gonna collapse. And that's kind of what we do when we just buy all these supplements that are supposed to heal our gut lining without removing the thing that's damaging it in the first place. So that's kind of more of my mindset on that.

Drainage Organs And Poop Basics

SPEAKER_01 25:10

And when you talk about sluggish detox organs and drainage pathways, I bet a lot of listeners have heard about it the first time today. Could we spend a little more time talking about just which organs make up those drainage systems? And how does someone know when theirs is sluggish? And what does preparing them look like before any detox protocols begin?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, it's a great question. So you've got your gut, your gallbladder, and your liver. So, in terms of eliminating waste and toxins, that's what we're talking about when we talk about drainage organs, is your ability to get not only toxins we're exposed to out of our body, but the waste that our cells and our organs and our tissues produce on a daily basis. So a lot of people, because they'll have this question of, well, all my products are low toxicity and I filter my water, and I'm like, great, but your cells still produce waste every day. Where does it go? And they're like, oh, I didn't think about that. And so we have to think about that too, is it's really important that, you know, every time our cells work and our organs function, they produce waste that has to go somewhere. We want it to go out the toilet in our bowel movements. And so you want to have two to three bowel movements a day. That's like a healthy gut. You want it to be solid, brown, not like pale or off-white. And you want it, you know, to be easy where you're not straining on the toilet and it just comes out really quickly and you just go on with your day. And most people don't have that experience. They think that, you know, going to the bathroom once a day is normal or every other day is normal. And it's like, no, your body's not really eliminating waste very effectively if you're only pooping once a day. And so we want to get two to three times a day. The only exception would be the carnivore diet. People like that tend to just poop once, and that's totally fine because they don't have you know a lot of fiber and most of the nutrients are getting absorbed, so they don't really have a whole lot of waste from their food. But typically two to three times a day is what you want to aim for. And also, you know, do you have bloating? Do you have acid reflux? Do you have gas that is like abnormal, like in volume or smell or whatever? Because those are things that people ignore and they're just like, oh, it's just part of aging and getting older. And I'm just like, you're 35, you're not old. Like, what are you talking about? And you know, it's it's all these red flags that people just ignore until eventually, like 20 years later, they get diagnosed with, you know, diabetes or cancer, autoimmune disease, and they're like, I don't know how this happened. And it's like, well, you kind of ignored all these warning signs for 20, 30 years. It kind of makes sense that something broke down along the way. And so that's what we don't want to happen because so many things stem from the gut. It's not just eliminating waste and absorbing nutrients, it's also regulating your hormones. It's also affecting your mental health, it's also communicating with your brain. You know, there's so many different things that happen there besides just elimination of waste, but that's the main drainage organ. And you've got gallbladder and liver, and those are the other two. And uh, and some symptoms of those were like what I talked about earlier, upper abdomen bloating, constipation. I'm typically thinking probably some gallbladder dysfunction. And then with liver, it could be so many different things. You know, if you've got liver dysfunction, hormones are a big one, because that's where your hormones are broken down on a daily basis. And then skin issues are pretty common, like rashes, hives, eczema, things like that, pretty common with liver dysfunction. So lots of different things that you know you keep an eye out for.

Medication Culture Versus Root Cause

SPEAKER_01 28:15

So when people are uh getting a prescription to mitigate some of these symptoms, what they're really doing is masking the symptoms, not fixing it, not correcting it, not eliminating it. It's just masking the information their bodies were giving them about what is wrong with it. And so even though there's a good place for medications, they can be they can really help when you have an acute problem. But in the long run, it's removing information. Do you have any guidance for people who may be of the mindset of, and I know this was really popular saying in the mid to early 90s, better living through chemistry. People would literally pull out of their purse a collection of pills and be proud of it to say, I'm I'm living better through chemistry. And I was like, as someone who studied pharmacology, you know, I stopped breathing when they would do that. And and then, of course, you know, they didn't didn't want to invite me to parties anymore because while they're exchanging pills back and forth, I remember someone goes, Do you want a Xanny? And I'm like, first of all, I don't want a pill that was prescribed for you that came out of your purse, and I and I don't even know what a Xanny is, but that's so crazy. That used to be a thing. Wow. I didn't know that. Yes, it was horrific. So some people listening may have grown up with parents who had that concept of better living through chemistry and just offered pills randomly that were not prescribed to you. So, how can we reset that mindset?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yeah, I I mean it's so hard in the Western world, right? Because we've been taught this idea that, you know, for every problem, there's a pharmaceutical cure. And in reality, like none of this stuff is curing you. If you go off the drug, your symptoms come back. So there is no cure. It's just here, take this for the rest of your life. And it's kind of unfortunate because, you know, in the medical system, like in America, we excel at emergency medicine, trauma medicine. Like, we're the best in the world for that. But in terms of longevity and long-term health, I think we're really, really lacking. And that's the difference, is like we don't want to just, you know, uproot the whole medical system. Like they, the best in the world for surgeries, you know, especially traumatic injuries. If something drastic happens to you in the States, you're probably going to survive because of doctors in the hospital, which is amazing. So I don't want to think that, you know, we need to throw out the whole medical system because that's definitely not true. And there are a lot of doctors who are more integrative now and are looking into like the holistic side, which is really amazing. But what we have to realize is if you're just taking all these drugs to mask symptoms and you're not ever addressing the underlying cause, eventually something's going to break. It's going to happen, whether you get high cholesterol or an aneurysm or a stroke. And then you have to look at the drug interactions. A lot of people don't know, and their doctors don't know, because yeah, they do take pharmacology, but they're not pharmacists. You know, they don't really know the interactions of all these drugs that you're on, at least to the extent that a pharmac that a pharmacologist would. And so a lot of these drugs have such severe side effects that when you take them together, they can actually create worse issues in your body. And so I always tell my patients, like, hey, I can't recommend you go off a drug, but this is what I'll tell you. Go to the pharmacy, go find a pharmacist, say, hey, here's all the drugs I'm on. Are these okay to take together or are there like contraindications I need to know about? Like half the people I've told that to who went and did that, their pharmacist was like, you should not be on these two drugs together. Like, who prescribed this? And then they'd have to call the doctor, hey, hey, this is what's going on. You need to do this and stuff. And so there's all these different things with medications is that they always have a side effect. Because the difference between like a supplement and a medication is supplements are like one to maybe 10 times what your body actually needs if it's like a nutrient. Medications are like a hundred to a thousand times what your body needs. So the potential effects, damaging effects of a pharmaceutical drug are so much higher than taking a supplement. Old medicine used to be herbs. What are most pharmaceutical drugs like basically derived from is herbs. You know, you look at berberine for blood for blood sugar. That metformin, which is like the number one drug they give people with diabetes, is derived from berberine, which is the herb that people use to get their blood sugar back down to normal. So it's it's kind of crazy, like when people, you know, they look at functional medicine and they're like, oh, it's just like, I don't get it. It's just herbs and all this. And I'm like, what do you think your drugs are derived from? Most of those are derived from herbs, but they made it slightly different so they could patent it and make a lot of money off of it. And now we're probably going way too deep down a rabbit hole. But uh, those are my thoughts on that. And it's really just like, can we get to the root cause? Get rid of your symptoms naturally so that you don't rely on these drugs the rest of your life. Like that's my goal with people is to get them off of like their, you know, blood pressure meds and their metformin and whatever else that they're on, but doing it in a safe way and actually getting to the root cause and then working with their MD to slowly taper off those drugs to make sure they don't have a bad reaction to it.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Well, Dr. Davis, I'm so glad you went down that rabbit hole because I wish I had this information when I was so sick and using a walker, a service dog, and a full-time caregiver. Because of my clinical background and my training in pharmacology, I knew to ask the right questions. I asked six specialists out of the 20 medications that I'm on, six of them are likely to cause or could have a side effect of kidney damage. And I asked each of those six specialists, is it okay to be on uh these medications with the other medications because it might cause kidney damage? They all assured me that yes, it's perfectly safe because it's at a very low dose. And I'm not an MD, so I trusted their opinion more than I trusted my own thoughts about it, my own sort of like, hmm, I'm not sure this is okay. And then they were wrong. My kidney started failing three times. I nearly lost my life three times. And so I wish someone had said to me what you just said to these wellness warriors. But today, at almost 60 years old, I'm on zero medication, which is pretty unheard of in the United States.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Even my own doctor says that that, well, it's kind of amazing that you're not on any medication and your lab work looks like an 18-year-old. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Yeah, that's amazing. Going from 20 medications down to zero, that's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

And the other side of it is when I started seeing improvement in my health. I was no longer using a walker, I was more active, I didn't need a caregiver. I started asking my doctors, hey, everything's improving. Let's start stepping down off these medications. One doctor said, I'm going to give you a consult to mental health because you're not thinking clearly. I mean, my lab work was showing that I've got great improvement and don't need to be on these medications. And then they tried to give me a mental health consult. Of course, I changed doctors, but is this something that you hear amongst your patients before they come to see you? That they're being gaslit this way.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah. And I know it's such, it's such a hard thing because and I don't think it's the doctor's fault. It's like they only know what they're taught in school. So if they see and and the labs that they run, the normal labs, those are not comprehensive. Just so you guys know, that's like the bare basics to make sure you don't have cancer or are dying of something, basically. They don't actually check, you know, functional labs ever. And in even the medical ranges that they check on your labs that are normal are not good functional ranges. And so there's a huge difference between is your body functioning well? Are you going to have good longevity versus are you in a disease state and about to die? And that's basically what medicine medical doctors are looking for is tumors, cancer, you know, like serious diseases, like autoimmunity, things like that. And if you don't fall into that category, they don't really know what to do with you. And so they just say, like, oh, well, maybe it's all in your head, or maybe you're just stressed. And granted, they're not completely wrong, right? Because in America, we have probably the highest stress in the world, right? And that does affect your immune system, your gut health, your hormones. I mean, everything is so interconnected in your body. You can't just treat one thing. Like, even with gut health, I'm looking at everything. I'm looking at fasting blood sugar, I'm looking at liver function, gallbladder, brain function, like all this stuff because I know how it all ties into the gut. And so that's what we have to get out of is this idea of individualized, like segmented medicine of like GI doctor for the gut, neurologist for the brain, you know, hormone specialist for thyroid issues. They're all interconnected. And so that's kind of what we have to get out of is that mindset. And so I hear that a lot because they don't understand like this full picture of how the whole body interconnects, that maybe there is something else going on that they don't know how to test for. Like maybe they have severe mold toxicity, maybe they have parasites, maybe they have heavy metal toxicity, maybe they're just so incredibly stressed and their cortisol is just out off the charts, or they're not eating their food in the proper order to get their cortisol back down, that that's just a constant daily trigger that's creating all these issues. And so you really have to look at the whole picture. But yeah, I mean, that does happen to a lot of gut patients because especially with women, you know, a lot of male doctors are like, well, maybe you're just stressed and hormonal, and it's, you know, they kind of get written off as, oh, just a woman being dramatic again or too emotional. And so, yeah, that does happen quite a bit for people who come to see me. And then we find all this stuff, like, oh yeah, you have parasites. Did you know parasites affect your mental health and can create anxiety and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia and all this stuff that you see in people? And then when you get rid of them, people's anxiety and depression goes away a lot of the times, which is crazy because I didn't even know that was possible until I saw it in a patient, you know, who is older than you and she had depression for like 40 plus years, completely gone after getting rid of parasites. 100% gone, which is crazy. And it doesn't happen to everyone. Obviously, that's a very nuanced topic. There's a lot of things that go into it, but I mean, there's so many things that affect, yes, somebody might come in with high anxiety and the doctor's immediately like, oh, you're just stressed. And it's like, well, maybe there's an infection or something going on in the gut that's affecting their mental health. Maybe that's what we need

Heavy Metals Sources And Safer Detox

SPEAKER_00 38:30

to look at.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Before we wrap up, I want to talk about heavy metals. How do heavy metals get inside our body and how does it impact our health? And then how do we get them out?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Yeah, it's a great one. Because I know the heavy metal cleanse is probably just as popular as the parasite one nowadays. So heavy metals are so prevalent and especially in America, just because our food quality is not the best. So food and water are probably the two top sources. If you want to see how bad your tap water is, first of all, you should always be filtering your drinking water 100% of the time. I mean, our water is disgusting in in the States. Um, if you go to evg.org forward slash tap water, you can actually type in your zip code and see all the chemicals and contaminants in it. There's almost always some sort of heavy metal in the water, no matter where you live in the country. It's it's kind of wild. And so that that is one is like tainted, even tainted well water is more common nowadays just because of like runoff from like, you know, nearby farms that spray a bunch of pesticides that have a bunch of heavy metals in them. And, you know, like there's there's so many different ways that we're exposed to this stuff. Like I know mercury is really high in fish. I can't remember which one specifically, but there is a heavy metal that's very common in rice. Um, so if you eat a lot of rice, that could be a common source as well. And then, you know, things like lead, I don't really know where exactly you get those, but most of these sources are from food and water. And then tattoos are another big one. Like people don't realize that when you get tattoos, that can actually leach. They've actually done studies finding that these heavy metals will leach into the lymph nodes, like around the tattoo area. And they found they found like heavy metals in people's lymph nodes near their tattoos, which is kind of wild. So lots of different ways you can get it. But again, if you just support the terrain of your body, if you have good detox capabilities naturally, like your liver's functioning well, your gallbladder, your gut, you should be able to get this stuff out and it shouldn't affect your health. And so, yes, we're exposed to them. How you get rid of them is, you know, supporting drainage organs and then using some sort of binder or detox protocol to pull them out of your system. But making sure we go. Yeah, I mean zeolite. So I really like like humic and fic acid because they can go systemic. So a lot of people still use bentonite clay and charcoal. Those really only target the gut, which is okay. Like you're still getting gut toxins out. But if you want something that goes more systemic, like getting humic folgic acid, even zeolite, I've heard is pretty good. Those are my favorites because there's some companies that create binders that can actually cross the blood brain barrier and pull that stuff out of your brain. And heavy metals zeolite. Yeah, and heavy metals do tend to accumulate in the central nervous system. So mold, heavy metals, those attack the brain. So a lot of people with nervous system issues, like you know, dizziness, vertigo, migraines, they tend to have mold or heavy metals or both. I mean, I've seen that with a lot of people. So a lot of neurological issues with heavy metals. But yeah, but really doing it in a good order, right? Like you don't want to just jump on a protocol, especially if you don't support drainage first, because you could get really messed up from it. And then knowing, like, okay, is there another co-infection that's allowing the heavy metals to kind of hang out in the body like parasites, you know? And we got to look at everything and remove all of it at once so your body can actually fully heal. Because our bodies are designed to heal. We just have to give them the right, you know, environment to do

Why Constipation Is So Common

SPEAKER_00 41:34

so sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

So 25,000 people a month on YouTube are searching for constipation relief protocols. Why are people so constipated and what can they do about it?

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just the food quality in America is just, again, it's so bad. I mean, there's there's all these additives, you know, if you avoid the center of the grocery store, you're gonna be pretty good in terms of, you know, your gut health because there's so many things added to, especially non-dairy products or, you know, things in boxes, bags, whatever, like gums and even the type of folate that should be in our food, like methyl folate should be in our food, but they use folic acid, which is never found in nature. And half the population can't process folic acid into the right form in their body. And so that can create a lot of issues, especially with breads. And that's why a lot of people say they have gluten sensitivity. And I'm like, no, maybe it's just the garbage that's added to the bread. You know, they use like that folate, the folic acid. They also use a form of iron that is known to create significant GI issues. It's called ferrosulfate. If you take an iron supplement, you want to make sure it's the bisglycinate form because the sulfate form is known to create gut issues. And so there's all these additives that are in our food that are so sneaky and people don't know that they affect their gut, like kerogenin, which is found in a lot of dairy-free products and gums like guar gums, anthem gum, you know, all that stuff. It really just gunks up your intestines and just creates a lot of inflammation and damage to those good bacteria in there. So food is number one. Like the reason why people's guts are so messed up is they're eating garbage all the time. And so, and even if you're trying to eat healthy, it's like it's still hard. Like, even if you buy, you know, produce, it's like, well, maybe it's, you know, it's been sprayed heavily with pesticides, and then you have the pesticides damaging the gut. And then it's like the over-medication in America, the over-prescription of birth control, which really messes up your gut microbiome. And I think that's why most of my patients are women, because you know, they've been on birth control for so long, and it just really screwed up their gut. And so there's a lot of different things, but I think it's food, over medication. Um, I think those are probably the top two, and then high amounts of stress is gonna create that leaky gut that's gonna lead to bloating and food sensitivities and skin issues and joint pain and all sorts of other stuff, you know, depending on the person.

Gut Health Myths To Ignore

SPEAKER_01 43:42

So social media is overflowing with gut health myths. What are some of the top three to five gut health myths that we can bust right now?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Yeah, I'd say number one, the one that bothers me the most, and number one advice people give on social media for gut health is either Everyone should be on a probiotic. Start with a probiotic, which is not not good for most people to start with. I think it's good on the back end. And then number two is like, oh, if you have gut issues, just take this one supplement to heal your gut. You know, like if it's, you know, whether it's uh butyric acid or L-glutamine or, you know, a fiber, you know, whatever people are promoting is if you ever promote one product to fix gut issues, I mean, that's like a red flag for me because again, everyone is so unique, everyone's so different, everyone has different things going on in their body that's creating the gut issues. No two people should be treated the same. And so we've got to get away from this one issue, one protocol idea that we have in Western medicine to individualizing the care for the patient. And so that's really where we should be looking at. So anytime you see like this one product will fix your constipation, just run in the opposite direction. It's probably, you know, multiple different things. Like a lot of my patients, yes, they do have parasites, they have gallbladder dysfunction, they might have mold toxicity or fungal or candida overgrowth in the body, and they're all different. They all have different care plans and they all, you know, are getting results, but it's like it's different depending on what they're going through. And so that's where you really have to, you know, fix this idea in medicine that we have one solution for a problem because that's just not true. And yeah, you might be the one person who the first supplement you bought magically fixed all your issues, and you're just like, oh my God, this is a life changer. But what works for you doesn't necessarily work for someone else. And so that's probably my biggest, my biggest uh pet pee with social media is buy this one cleanse or this parasite detox is gonna fix all your issues. And it might maybe you're the one person who that's all you needed and it just magically healed you. But most people I've seen have tried all that stuff. And by the time they get to me and they start feeling better, they're like, oh my God, I can't believe I spent all this money on all these stupid supplements when all I had to do was just remove all the stuff that was in my body and now I feel amazing. And so it's really just, you know, like go the individualized route. Find someone who can help you who can really just narrow down what the problem actually is. So you're not just like blindly throwing darts and hoping that it hits

Hope For Healing And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 46:01

the target.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

This has been so fun learning from you. I just want to thank you for this. I'm learning as well. And are there any more insights you want to leave us with before you go?

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Yeah, well, thank you so much again for having me, Antoinette. It's been really fun, you know, talking with you and you asked great questions. So I love like all the nuances you went down. That was awesome. Um, but I would just say like one message I want to leave with you guys if you're listening to this podcast, just know healing is absolutely possible. I mean, I've had so many crazy health issues my whole life. This is just one of them. But I've found people who could actually help me and I've seen my body heal in ways that I was told it could never do. Um, and especially with the head injury, I never thought I would recover from that. And I did. And the gut issues, I did, you know? And so it's it's all just know that even though doctors have told you you can't heal from whatever you're dealing with, it is absolutely possible. And I've seen it in hundreds of people who have IBS or colitis or constipation or loose stool or you know, acid reflux, bloating, like people who used to look nine months pregnant every time they ate to now being completely flat stomach when they eat food, people who couldn't eat dairy or gluten and now they can eat it with no problems. And so just know like healing is absolutely possible. Don't lose hope. Just because you haven't found the right person yet who could help you doesn't mean that they're not out there. So don't lose hope. There's absolutely a solution for you. You just haven't found it yet.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Dr. Davis, are you taking new patients and how can people connect and work with you and get your daily tips?

SPEAKER_00 47:26

And yeah, absolutely. So I work with people all over the country. I even work with some people in Canada and other countries as well. As long as I can ship the testing to your country, I can work with you. So yeah, I am still seeing people all over, which has been really cool because I know there's a lot of pockets in the US where functional medicine isn't really available or accessible. And so it's really awesome just to be able to help people in the Midwest or the South or those areas where they don't really have this kind of access to healthcare. And so, yeah, if you're if you're wanting to work with someone to really dial in, you know, what is going on in your body, what organ dysfunction do you have? Like, do you have infections, toxins that we need to get rid of, and really get a full individualized care plan put together for you to really just laser focus the healing process and get better faster? You can just DM me on Instagram. So my Instagram is at drkate davis, so D-R-K-A-T-E-D-A-V-I-S. And you can just DM me the word 100. And for anyone listening to this podcast episode, um, I'll give you $100 off an initial consult plus labs package so we can really get a full idea of your full health history, what's going on in your body, and then we'll go over your recommended care plan on how to get your health back on track and get your gut under control. And if you maybe you're not ready for that and you just want to start learning about gut health, that's okay too. Just go ahead and follow me on Instagram. Uh, and then you can also subscribe to my newsletter, which I will give you for the show notes if people wanna wanna subscribe to that.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

So perfect. We'll include all of that in the show notes and in your guest website that we'll create for you so people can find you. This has been so delightful. Thank you so much for joining me, Dr. Davis. Yeah, thank you for having me. The information in this podcast is not medical advice and should not be treated as such. Always consult your physician or healthcare professional before pursuing any health related procedure or activity.