Welcome to another episode of Resiliency Radio, hosted by Dr. Jill Carnahan. In this insightful conversation, Dr. Carnahan sits down with renowned functional medicine practitioner, Dr. Tom O'Bryan, to decode the path to feeling your best.
Key Points
- Inflammation is all around us, and it's our body's way of healing, but in excess it causes most chronic diseases
- Inflammation can come from toxic overload from our environment or even from toxic emotions
- Practical tips and tricks on how to start your day with love and gratitude practice
Our Guest – Dr. Tom O'Bryan
When it comes to getting healthy, Dr. Tom O'Bryan’s goal for you is ‘Making It Easy To Do the Right Thing’. As an internationally recognized, admired and compassionate speaker focusing on food sensitivities, environmental toxins, and the development of autoimmune diseases, Dr. Tom's audiences discover that it is through a clear understanding of how you got to where you are, that you and your Dr. can figure out what it will take to get you well.
Dr. Tom O’Bryan is considered a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ for chronic disease and teaches that recognizing and addressing the underlying mechanisms that activate an immune response is the map to the highway towards better health. He holds teaching Faculty positions with the Institute for Functional Medicine and the National University of Health Sciences.
Website: https://theinflammationequation.com/
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert® dually board certified in Family Medicine for ten years and in Integrative Holistic Medicine since 2015. She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medical protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy.
As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and toxic mold illness she brings a unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illness. Her clinic specializes in searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailoring the intervention to specific needs.
A popular inspirational speaker and prolific writer, she shares her knowledge of hope, health, and healing live on stage and through newsletters, articles, books, and social media posts! People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.
Featured in Shape Magazine, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden, Dr. Jill is a media must-have. Her YouTube channel and podcast features live interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names.
The Podcast
The Video
The Transcript
189: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Decoding the Path to Feeling your Best with Dr. Tom O'Bryan
Dr. Jill 00:12
Welcome to another episode of Resiliency Radio, your go-to podcast for the most cutting-edge insights in functional and integrative medicine. I'm Dr. Jill, your host, and today we're diving deep into the heart of healing and personal transformation. We're here to explore the frontiers of health, from the intricate workings of the gut to neuroscience, and today specifically inflammation. My guest today is a dear friend, someone I love and respect so much—we have no problem finding things to talk about, and today will be no different—Dr. Tom O'Bryan.
Dr. Jill 00:43
When it comes to getting healthy, Dr. Tom O'Bryan's goal is to make it easy to do the right thing. As an internationally recognized, admired, and compassionate speaker focusing on food sensitivities, environmental toxins, and the development of autoimmunity, Dr. Tom's audience discovered that it is through a clear understanding of how you got where you are that you and your doctor can figure out what it will take to get you well. He's considered the Sherlock Holmes of chronic disease and teaches that recognizing and addressing the underlying mechanisms that activate an immune response is a map to the highway toward better health.
I am so excited to have you here again with me, Dr. Tom! Welcome!
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 01:19
Thank you, Dr. Jill! It's always a pleasure. When I saw on the schedule: “Oh, it's Jill Carnahan. Oh, great!”
Dr. Jill 01:27
I know. It's like a fun coffee with a friend, right? And thousands of people get to observe this.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 01:33
Yes, hopefully so.
Dr. Jill 01:34
Our title today is “Decoding the Path to Feeling Your Best”. One of the things we want to emphasize and talk about—and at the end we'll give links—is that you have a new docuseries coming out called The Inflammation Equation. And what's the subtext?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 01:50
Decoding the Path to Optimal Wellbeing.
Dr. Jill 01:53
Perfect. We're going to dive in and give a framework and a little bit of a teaser for this, which is coming out. Probably shortly after this, it will go live. But let's go back a little bit, Dr. Tom. Many people have heard your story, but I want to know for the people who haven't met or heard you: How did you get into medicine? How did you get into root cause functional medicine? Tell us just a bit about your story.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 02:17
Oh, my goodness. Let's see. In my first week of medical education, the very first week, I knew absolutely nothing. I was in Chicago. It was a strange environment, and classes were overwhelming. But I saw that there was going to be a talk that Wednesday evening by Dr. Sheldon Deal, Mr. Arizona. I thought: “Oh, okay, the guy's a bodybuilder. He's going to be healthy. I'd like to hear him.” I was a marathon runner and a triathlete at the time. “I'd like to hear what he has to say.”
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 02:53
Here's a room full of people. He had a color television on a stand turned on, but the volume was turned off. This was in January 1978. Color televisions were still not the norm. It was cool to see one over there. He walks over to his briefcase, opens it up and takes out a bar magnet the size of an iPhone. He holds it up like a police flashlight. He walks towards the television. The picture turns upside down. He walks back and the picture goes right side up. He walks towards the television. The picture goes upside down. And he walks back and it goes right side up.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 03:35
And he says: “That's what electromagnetic pollution does to your brain and nervous system. It's called neurological switching. People say right when they mean left. They write the number three backward. They put the E before I—you know, I before E, except after C. They do things backwards and it's neurological switching from electromagnetic pollution.”
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 03:58
In 1978, there was no such thing as cell phones. He was talking about the battery in a watch. That battery on your skin can have a negative impact on sensitive people. This was my first week in my education. It expanded my horizons immediately—that there was so much more than what I would be learning in the textbooks.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 04:25
It kept going from there. That same year, I heard my first talk by Dr. Jeff Bland—1978. It was his first talk in Chicago. I was there. As you know, our friend and mentor, Dr. Bland, gets on stage and shows you this study: “This doctor in the New England Journal of Medicine four years ago said this. And this doctor in the Journal of the American Medical Association nine years ago said this. And this doctor just last week in the British Medical Journal said… Do you see how they're connected?” And Jeff would always tie different pieces together, encouraging us to see the big picture.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 05:06
My entire education, from day one, has been on doing my best to see the big picture. That's why in the introduction—thank you for reading that introduction—my goal is to show people the map. This is what your life has been [like] so far. This is your history. This is the map of your biomechanics, your biochemistry, and your metabolic picture. And if you want to get to health over there, you have to be able to read the map and then make adjustments on the road and take a turn here and a little bit of a detour over here.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 05:48
I brought in a consultant one time. It was a lot of money to bring him in for the day. But I really wanted a focus for our team. I know you've done things like that. Your team is so remarkable. I've been in your office and hung out with you guys. It's just fun to see how they all work together. I wanted to bring more unity to our team.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 06:11
The day was about dialing down: What's our vision? What's my vision as the head doctor? What's the vision? And what is it that we all want to represent? And it really is [about] making it easy to do the right thing. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to do the right thing. If people who come to us want to be healthier, the right thing is being healthier. To do that, you have to understand where you've come from and what your body history is.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 06:45
Jill, you are the master at that. You sit with people. You get their history and repeat it to them in a way that sometimes—and I know that you've shared this with me, and this has happened to me too—people start tearing up. “You're the first doctor to ever really hear me. You're the first doctor who ever cared enough to ask these questions.” And then you know that they know they're in the right place and that you're going to do your best for them. My entire career has been, in one way or another, trying to make it easy to do the right thing.
Dr. Jill 07:22
I love that line. We can jump just for a second. So often we can talk [about] really practical [things like] inflammation, environmental toxicity, EMFs, and all these things that are affecting [the person]. And it can be doom and gloom.
Dr. Jill 07:32
I remember the first lectures of King Bob, our colleague and friend—Bob Rountree. He would talk about toxicity and doom and gloom. We'd all be like: “Oh, this is terrible! What are we going to do? We're all going to die!” And then he'd bring in the humor, right?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 07:45
Right. The Krispy Kreme donuts.
Dr. Jill 07:47
Yes. The caramelization and the Maillard reaction. Anyway, doing the right thing… I want to take a little side note because part of this is our environment. They've shown studies that 80% of our success is not our willpower—because, over a day, we lose willpower with every decision that we make—but it's our environment.
Dr. Jill 08:07
And there's this thing I learned from Marie Forleo called ‘mise en place,' which means set up your environment for success. Let's just digress quickly on this. Why does it matter what's in your pantry? Why does it matter the way you set up your sleep schedule?
Dr. Jill 08:22
For me, the night before that ‘mise en place' is [about] setting up. I might set a bowl out for my organic grain-free granola, set up the coffee pot, or set out the band so that when I walk into the kitchen, everything is set out for success. So let's just digress a little bit about: Why does making it easy for success matter? And how can patients do practical things that will make it easy for them to succeed?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 08:46
This is jaw-dropping. This was in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2019 from Harvard. The editors of the journal wrote a comment. They said, “This is an elegant study using sophisticated biomarkers to prove their point.” You know very well, Dr. Jill, that the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association don't say that very often. If you publish in JAMA, that's a feather in your cap. But they gave that stamp of approval, if I can use that term, for this study.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 09:27
They looked at couples at assisted fertility centers—those that were successful and those that weren't. They ruled out all of the known factors: Exercise/no exercise, alcohol/no alcohol, cigarette smoking, socioeconomic class, and race. They ruled all of that out, and they looked at one thing: How many servings of fruits and vegetables is the woman eating a day? They divided them into fourths—the lowest, the next, the third, and the highest. The results were shocking.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 10:00
Of course, we know that the more fruits and vegetables, the better. No, no. Women in the highest category of fruit and vegetable consumption [were] compared to women in the lowest category of fruit and vegetable consumption. Those in the highest category had an 18% lower likelihood of successful implantation at assisted fertility centers—18% less! And if they did get pregnant, they had a 25% lower likelihood of a live birth. They lost the baby to miscarriages and stillbirths. The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the worse the outcome. “What? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What?” Paradigm shifting.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 10:50
But there was a subcategory of women who were eating organic. In that category, the results were the exact opposite. The more fruits and vegetables you were eating, the higher the success rate for a healthy implantation, a healthy pregnancy, and a healthy delivery. People get overwhelmed thinking about eating organic and how hard it is to get it because they're not familiar with how to set themselves up for success. But this is the good news: Women were put in the category of organic fruit and vegetable consumption if they were eating three servings a week. Not 21 servings a week. If they were just trying three times a week, they were put in the category and had much greater success.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 11:45
How could that be? I've got two theories on that. Everything I'm telling you is pure science. But now I'm going to tell you my theory. If a woman is eating organic three or more times a week, she probably bought organic shampoo and organic dishwashing detergent. She's probably a little more conscious and trying to do better. She's learning. She's on the learning curve. She's not completely organic, but she's moving in that direction. That's the first answer, I think, as to why just three servings a week made such a dramatic difference.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 12:23
The second is that I believe—I haven't found any science on this, I haven't really looked—that the very most sensitive tissue in our bodies is a fertilized egg. It has no immune system. It's totally dependent on mom for protection and mom's uterus.
Dr. Jill 12:43
And there's no placental barrier like the blood-brain barrier. [inaudible] There's no barrier from mom's blood supply.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 12:47
That's right. The more conventional fruits and vegetables you're eating, the more pesticides, insecticides, rodenticides, fungicides, antibiotics, and glyphosate you're getting. As that's in your bloodstream circulating, your body produces inflammation to protect you from these toxic chemicals. The inflammation is in the amniotic fluid, along with every other tissue in the mom's body, and that inflammation impacts the success of the fertilized egg implanting. I think that's what that's all about. But the good news in all of that geeky science stuff is that it's just three servings a week. You're just moving in the right direction and you get really good results.
Dr. Jill 13:42
I love that because that highlights another habit thing, which is that simple, simple, small, tiny things that are doable and not overwhelming are the best way to make new habits. I love that.
Dr. Jill 13:53
Let's take a step back because you've got The Inflammation Equation coming out soon. It's all about inflammation, which is the driver of everything bad that we see in chronic, complex diseases. But let's talk basics. What is inflammation, Dr. Tom? And then we'll talk about some of the core things that we have the ability to do something about.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 14:11
You bet. Inflammation is not bad for you; excessive inflammation is bad for you. Inflammation is the response of the immune system. Mrs. Patient, your immune system is the armed forces in your body. It's there to protect you. There's an army, a navy, an air force, marines, and a coast guard. We call them IgA, IgG, IgE, IgM, and cytokines—different branches of the armed forces there to protect you. If we didn't have a well-functioning immune system, we wouldn't be here. We're exposed every single day to so many things on planet Earth that can be toxic that our immune system protects us from—bacteria, viruses, parasites, and microorganisms. All day, every day we're exposed to these things—molds and fungus in the jungles. I live in the jungle in Costa Rica, and we're exposed to that all the time.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 15:13
Your immune system gets activated when it recognizes a threat, and it tries to protect you. It produces inflammation. Your immune system can only respond to six categories of insult: Bugs, parasites, viruses, mold, fungus, and bacteria. There's nothing else that has a selective response. [With] everything that your immune system determines is a threat, it's going to respond as if it's a bug, parasite, virus, mold, fungus, or bacteria.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 15:53
That means [that with] lead or mercury in tuna fish, your immune system will respond as if it's a bug, parasite, virus, mold, fungus, or bacteria. That's all it can do because we have the exact same immune system as our ancestors thousands and thousands of years ago. We have the same kidneys, and we have the same liver. We use our brains more, so we've got comfort, housing, and food production. But we have the same bodies. They function the same. Our ancestors had to be protected from those six categories of insult that could make us sick and kill us.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 16:31
When you're exposed to red dye 42 in some red pop that you're drinking, and if it accumulates in your body and you cross a threshold of how much the immune system will allow before it says that's a threat, it's going to respond as a bug, parasite, virus, mold, fungus or bacteria. That's all it can do. That inflammation designed to kill something is what protects us all day long.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 17:04
The problem is that in our world today, we have so many insults that we're not aware of. Nail polish—you put nail polish on your fingers and within four to five minutes, the phthalates of the nail polish are in your bloodstream. What? Yes, that's what makes the polish hard—phthalates. They're in your bloodstream in four to five minutes. But there's no evidence that the amount of phthalates they get into your bloodstream from applying nail polish is toxic to humans. There's no evidence of that.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 17:39
You store leftover food in plastic storage containers in the refrigerator. The next day, you take the chicken out. It's got phthalates in it because the food touched the plastic of the container, and the chemicals in the plastic material of the container leech into the food. But there's no evidence that the amount of phthalates that leech out of plastic containers into your leftover food is toxic to humans. There's no evidence. But this stuff is accumulative in the body.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 18:12
That's how the chemical industry got away with this. They passed legislation where you have to demonstrate that the amount of chemical you are exposed to within 24 hours is toxic to human cells. It's not. It's called the Toxic Substance Control Act. The senators were paid off. The representatives were paid off to pass this legislation. Consumers at the time said: “You can't do this. This isn't right!” But they ignored all of that. The lobbying industry spent millions. And they spent millions every year to make sure nobody touched TSCA, the Toxic Substance Control Act.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 18:52
How is it possible that we have toothpaste for your children that says on the label: “Do not eat this. If swallowed, call the National Poison Control Center.” That's on the toothpaste you're giving your kids. And we think it's okay—that we're being protected. No, we're not.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 19:11
It's this world of toxins, Dr. Jill, that we are exposed to all day, every day, that we don't know about—it's overwhelming to think about—that is activating our immune system, producing this chronic low-grade inflammation that's there all the time.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 19:31
One more fact. The CDC tells us that 14 of the 15 top causes of death are chronic inflammatory diseases. It's always inflammation, except for unintentional injuries. Everything else is chronic, low-grade inflammation that just kills off a few cells and kills off a few cells. And you feel fine while it's killing off a few cells and killing off a few cells. And you feel okay while it's killing off a few cells and killing off a few cells. You feel pretty good and it's killing off a few cells. “How are you doing?” “Not bad.” In other words, your vitality is going down and down and down and down.
Dr. Jill 20:08
Like the frog boiling in the pot, right?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 20:12
That's exactly right. Until you finally have dis-ease, meaning you don't feel good, you go to the doctor, and then you get diagnosed with a disease, and you think that this just happened to you. No, it happened years ago.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 20:27
One more point that should wake people up. Blue Cross Blue Shield published [an article] in February of 2020. Nobody heard about this because that's when the virus came out. They said: We've got a problem. In the previous four-year period, there was a 407% increase in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's in 30- to 44-year-olds. In four years. It's because of all of this inflammation that young people have now. They've got more chemicals in their bodies than ever before in history, from birth because mom had more chemicals than her mother had with pregnancy and more and more chemicals. And now these young people are so loaded with these toxins.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 21:20
This is the primary reason, in my opinion, why so many brain dysfunction dis-eases and diseases are occurring, whether it's depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, autism, or Alzheimer's. It's because the brain is especially susceptible to these toxins getting in [the body]. Once they're in your bloodstream, they go right through the blood-brain barrier into the brain, activating your immune system that is trying to protect you from these chemicals. The collateral damage is killing off brain cells. You have a 407% increase in Alzheimer's in four years in 30- to 44-year-olds.
Dr. Jill (pre-recording) 27:25
Hey, everybody. I just stopped by to let you know that my new book, Unexpected: Finding Resilience through Functional Medicine, Science, and Faith, is now available for order wherever you purchase books. In this book, I share my own journey of overcoming a life-threatening illness and the tools, tips, tricks, hope, and resilience I found along the way. This book includes practical advice for things like cancer and Crohn's disease and other autoimmune conditions, infections like Lyme or Epstein-Barr, and mold- and biotoxin-related illnesses. What I really hope is that as you read this book, you find transformational wisdom for health and healing. If you want to get your own copy, stop by ReadUnexpected.com. There, you can also collect your free bonuses. So grab your copy today and begin your own transformational journey through functional medicine and finding resilience.
Dr. Jill 22:53
This is a little depressing and scary, but it's so relevant. I always call this the elephant in the room. One of my favorite topics, Dr. Tom, as you know, is the environmental toxic load. We have just established and given a couple of examples. There are a hundred more. And the truth is, we are all swimming in toxic soup. Like I said, this can be so depressing and overwhelming.
Dr. Jill 23:18
Let's shift to some practical ways that people can take control. The truth is that all of us—even if we're super careful like you and me, Tom—are going to get toxic exposures. And within a certain threshold, our bodies are created to detox. There is this mechanism built in that we were born with that allows us to get rid of that. But what we're talking about is that in the last decade or two decades, we've outpaced our own capacity to detox.
Dr. Jill 23:50
I always say the 21-day January detox is great, but you must not just think of this as a spa day in January. You must incorporate daily habits and choices that decrease your toxic load. I'm sure that in your docuseries, you talk about this. But let's talk about some practical ways that people can have control of their toxic load.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 24:11
You bet. Once people understand the overwhelm of all this and how dominant it is, then the reality is that it's essential that every day you put a little bit of attention on: How am I detoxing today? That example I gave you from the Journal of the American Medical Association is such a good example—three servings a week—because these women are moving in the right direction and have such great results. They have healthy babies, which is what they went there for in the first place. So that's a really good point. If you hang on to that study, the message of that study is that you don't have to be perfect. And the theme of our event is “Progress, not perfection.” That's all. You just move in the right direction.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 25:03
The first thing that helps to reduce the level of toxicity is that you have to have your four-lane highways wide open to be able to carry and escort stuff out of the body. One of our mentors, Dr. Sid Baker, says: “The whole thing about functional medicine is to get the bad stuff out and put the good stuff in.” He's absolutely right. Most people's four-lane highway is blocked out and closed down to two lanes, and sometimes one lane. What does that mean? It means everything's backed up and you can't get it out, moving properly.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 25:41
What does that mean? You're not drinking enough water. Just pinch the back of your hand. That pinching should go down immediately flat. If it doesn't and it sticks up, you're dehydrated, and you need more water. You just need to make sure. How much water? A third of an ounce per pound of body weight is what we recommend. If you're sweating a lot because you're doing saunas, which are a great thing to do, or you're exercising to the point of sweating a lot, it goes up to a half ounce per pound of body weight. But it's a minimum of about a third of an ounce per pound of body weight. You have to drink enough water so that your highways can escort the bad stuff out. That's a really important first step. You don't want to try to mobilize everything if your four-lane highway is down to one lane or the highway is closed and everyone's being shunted off on an exit and you've got to take the side roads.
Dr. Jill 26:39
Tom, if I can quickly comment, I've always talked about mobilization versus excretion. Mobilization is quite easy. What you're talking about is mobilization. But if our excretion—the highway pathways—are not there, we can mobilize all day long, and we feel worse. We become worse because we're not excreting. Those two pieces are so core.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 26:57
Right. We used to call those “pathological detoxifiers” because we really didn't know what was going on.
Dr. Jill 27:01
Right.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 27:03
Right. That's exactly right. The first thing is: Make sure that you're hydrated well enough. That's critically important. And then mobilization. The magic number is 9,826 steps a day. If you walk 9,826 steps a day, you reduce your risk of dementia by 51%. That was a study looking at tens of thousands of people. That means walking. You don't have to be out there being a jock and running marathons. If you want to do more, you certainly can, but you don't have to. You just need to move it. You need to mobilize. You need to get it going.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 27:47
We talk about that and we talk about foods that are helpful in supporting your detox pathways: The cruciferous vegetables and the idea of sprouts. One of our experts is a sprout expert.
Dr. Jill 27:59
Oh, wow! Powerhouses, right?
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 28:02
They're just powerhouses. It's so easy to make sprouts. It's a great family project, so your young kids feel like they're contributing to food in the house with that one.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 28:14
Our event is not about just crying wolf. We've got the world leaders. I traveled to seven countries, interviewing for this. None of them are online. I think the one I enjoyed the most was Fran Drescher.
Dr. Jill 28:34
Oh, I love Fran!
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 28:35
I do, too. She's so great. We went to her house and I congratulated her because Fran's the president of the Screen Actors Guild. She was the one in charge of all the negotiations for the strike that the screenwriters had recently. And they won. AI is not allowed to be used in writing scripts. I said, Fran, you must have had a team of lawyers who were working for you. She says, “No, a few.” I said: “Well, wait a minute. I'm sure the movie studios had the most expensive lawyers in the country. How did you deal with all of that?” She started laughing, and she said: “I would only talk to them in my nightgown in my bathroom.” I said, “What?” And she showed me her lounge chair in the bathroom. That's where she would sit— in her lounge chair—drink her tea, talk to these people on Zoom meetings, and negotiate with these high-powered attorneys.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 29:43
I'm telling you that because of her message in The Inflammation Equation: You must take care of yourself. You must do the little things that make you feel better so that you are of value to the world around you. If you don't take care of yourself, you're no good to anyone. And Fran, in her loving way—she's a 22-year survivor of uterine cancer—said: “You must take care of yourself.” That's why she founded Cancer Schmancer. That is the nonprofit that we're donating to with this event—Cancer Schmancer—because she does such a great job. Her primary emphasis is on educating people about the toxic environment that we're all living in and how it causes mutant cells when you don't take care of your body well enough, when you're eating the wrong foods, and [when you're under] too much stress.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 30:43
Then we had Jeff Bland, the father of functional medicine, tell us that a negative thought is as powerful at activating stress hormones and inflammation as exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And that's from Jeff, who does not exaggerate.
Dr. Jill 31:03
No, he has founded research on every statement.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 31:06
That's right. And then here comes Fran, talking about how you have to take care of yourself and the little things that you can do to take care of yourself every day.
Dr. Jill 31:17
Tom, I love that it comes back to this because it is so easy to be doom and gloom. Environmental toxicity is one of the most depressing topics in the world. But the truth is, we do have a choice. We do have the ability to make a change. And it really does start with getting our nervous system in a good state, feeling worthy and loved, and having those thoughts of gratitude. And the science supports it, right? It's not like we're just spouting this off. When we look at the heart rate variability data, the things that most profoundly affect healthy heart rate variability are the emotions of love and gratitude.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 31:54
Amen to that. That's exactly right. Every morning when I wake up… Dr. Pedram Shojai talked about this in his interview. When you wake up, before you even open your eyes, when you're coming to consciousness, what are three things that you're grateful for in your coming day today? For me, it's that my son is lying next to me. He sleeps with us. He's three years old. And I'm grateful for my son. I'm grateful for my wife, this incredible partner I have. And I'm grateful to be doing the work that I do in the world. So that's how I started my morning today. And then I open my eyes and there's my beautiful son sound asleep next to me.
Dr. Jill 32:36
I love that you're sharing this because this is really the core of healing. It's way more important.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 32:41
Exactly. It's these little things that you do for yourself. As you know, Jill, we both have our ways of doing this. When I sign books, I always ask the person their name; I write down their name and I sign it. Base hits win the ballgame. It's the little things you do over and over again. You started off by saying that the exercises you're doing accumulatively set the stage for you to be healthier.
Dr. Jill 33:12
Yes. This is so exciting. I can't wait personally to watch The Inflammation Equation. Let's leave people with one takeaway. We could do a hundred, and I know you have so many sound bites, Tom. But what would be your one takeaway for people suffering with chronic illness or inflammation? Give them just some pearl to end on.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 33:33
Oh, that's really great. Thank you for that. And there is absolutely no question; there is so much science to prove this. This is the language that the researchers at Harvard use; these are their exact words: “You can arrest and reverse the development of chronic inflammatory diseases.” That's the message. You can. It's not drugs; it's how you live your life.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 34:03
When you realize that how you lived your life until now has gotten you to where you are in life, something's got to change if you want your health to go in a different direction. And our job is to show you the different categories of what you can work on and what you can change. And it's base hits that always win the ballgame. If you go to TheInflammationEquation.com/drjill, we're here waiting for you, and we will show you how to do this. Come join us. We'll show you how.
Dr. Jill 34:38
I'll be there, Tom! I am so excited. You always do such quality productions. We've been waiting for your next project.
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 34:45
Oh, thank you. It's been eight years.
Dr. Jill 34:48
It is an absolute delight and pleasure to call you colleague and, most of all, friend. We appreciate the work that you do in this world. And thanks today for coming on Resiliency Radio!
Dr. Tom O'Bryan 34:57
Thank you so much! It was a real pleasure to be with you.
Dr. Jill 34:59
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Resiliency Radio. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Stay tuned for more empowering episodes, with this episode and new episodes being released each week. You can find them all on iTunes, Stitcher, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen to podcasts. Please stop by and leave us a review. You can also find transcriptions of all videos on my website, JillCarnahan.com, and on my YouTube channel. Thanks so much, and we'll see you next week!
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