Transcript…

In this episode, you will learn: 

• How zinc deficiency and weak stomach acid is the greatest cause of disease. 
• How adrenal fatigue is surprisingly easy to address but intermittent fasting makes it worse.
• How vitamin and mineral deficiencies are universal and drive many specific symptoms and are a major blindspot in modern healthcare and laboratory testing.

Episode 65: Critical Blindspots of Modern Healthcare

Katie Wrigley (KW) 00:07

Welcome back to The Pain Changer Podcast. This is episode 65. And I’m your host Katie Wrigley, one of my favorite parts about having this podcast are all the cool people I get to meet. Today’s guest is no exception, we both have the same endgame in mind, eliminating pain and helping our clients find out how to do that. But my guest has a very different approach for me, and it’s one I have a lot of respect for. So stay tuned, you aren’t gonna want to miss this one. Joining me today is Matt Archer. Matt is a chiropractor and an author of the book “The protocol for health”. So welcome to the pain changer. Podcast. Matt, I’m so excited to have this conversation with you today.

Matt Archer (MA)00:49

Thanks, Katie. I’m excited to be here.

KW 00:51

And would you be willing to start out and just share a little bit about yourself with the audience kind of what led you into this work that you’re doing now and kind of this skeptical approach that led you to what became the basis of your book and what you practice?

MA 01:05

Yeah, you bet. Thanks. So let’s see, my mom became a chiropractor when I was in junior high. And she helped me with a whole bunch of different issues. Over the years, she specialized in a technique called applied kinesiology, which is, if you’re not familiar with it, manual muscle testing, trying to get information about foods or supplements or diet or other internal components to get results in health. So, over the years, I did a lot of international travel and crazy sports. And she helped me through those things with back pain or intestinal issues or a variety of things. And so I was on a 10 day silent meditation in India, when I had this “aha” moment, it’s time to be a chiropractor. And so I came back from that trip. And I took the steps to do that. And while in chiropractic school, I started studying with the International College of Applied kinesiology and trying to learn how to do Kinesiology. And so early on in that class, I had to put my hand up and say, this doesn’t seem very clear. And I’d like to get clear answers. And it just, I was seeing in the class that the inter examiner, reliability was just not very good. We test something and the teacher tests it and says, Oh no, actually, that’s weak or that’s strong, or Oh, no, there’s all these other things that you didn’t check. And it just seemed overly complicated, and not very clear. And so me and the teacher butted heads a fair amount over that eight month course. But I learned a lot of great things. And one thing that he said was that most people weaken, he pointed to another doctor’s work and said that some doctors find that most people weaken to a reflex point in between the eyebrows. And you might start there, and try and figure out what all interferes with that. And he said, but there’s a bunch of things, and I don’t know what they are. And I said, Okay, well, that seems like a possibility. So I wanted to see strong versus weak with any muscle in the body, before we started trying to get answers and telling people to wear blue sunglasses, or whatever the hell it was. So yeah, it took quite a few years to put together it took, having enough humility, when I would be stuck working with a patient to say, hmm, I can’t test you yet. I don’t know. Why do you mind if I bring my mom and that’s what it took early on. And with her support, I was able to get off the ground with people like that, and then start to develop an understanding of how to get there. And so I took a skeptical approach to apply Kinesiology. And when I’ve demonstrated what I’m doing now, with manual muscle testing, teachers apply Kinesiology. They say, that’s something completely different, that I don’t think you want to do that. And I say, well, I think I do, actually because the results that we get with it are phenomenal. So that’s how I got to the place that I am with my work. I live in practice in Nevada City. I’ve got a wife and two kids and my wife is our office manager here and my kids are awesome. And people always say, oh, my family is my best teacher and all that stuff. And it sounds cliche, but it’s so true, especially when you’re experimenting on your own family in terms of what works and what doesn’t work with diet and supplements and, and things like that. And of course, the experimentation that we do is extremely safe, because it’s not particularly dangerous to suggest eliminating corn or soy, or dairy or wheat, or the supplements that I use in practice are simple things, not powerful herbs or anything that has weird interactions. So anyway, I love living in this town. It’s a funny spot, because we’re supersaturated with alternative health. And yeah, there’s lots of groovy ideas around town. And that’s a good thing. And sometimes, sometimes it’s a little, a little overwhelming to us with how many practitioners we have. But there it is, there’s my environment,

KW 06:01

At least you have lots of like minded people around you, I can see that being an advantage there to being versus being right in the middle of traditional medicine, which most likely is going to be having a lot more resistance to what you’re doing versus fellow practitioners that may just have a different path to do it.

MA 06:17

Yeah, perhaps it kind of works both ways. I mean, when I get a good, a patient from out of town who gets an awesome result, somebody who maybe lives 30 or 40 minutes away, Auburn, California, or Sacramento or Reno or places like that. Often the referrals in those kinds of communities are awesome, because there, they don’t have as many people, it’s kind of like, once you find something that works, that you get, a 40% improvement in your, in your symptoms, you’re like, Ah, I found something that really works. Yeah. And you may not know what else is really available. So there’s this sort of thing in Nevada City where we were established in the gold rush. And it kind of seems like the Gold Rush is alive and well, but in different forms. So the amount of cooperation between practitioners and the staff sometimes feels kind of closely guarded. Like we’re guarding our mining claims still. 

KW 07:24

Yeah, I’ve run into that mindset, that resonates. Some people are very collaborative, and some people are very, uncollaborative, I’m not gonna say uncooperative, uncollaborative, for lack of a better term.

MA 07:39

And it’s probably my own fault, too. Because I feel like, with the work that I’ve done, I have stumbled across some pieces that I think are actually, I mean, everybody wants to talk about, getting to the root cause and all these things. So I feel cliche saying it, but I think I’ve stumbled across these pieces that absolutely are at the foundation of health care. I mean, the subtitle for my book is “The protocol for health seven unexpected solutions”. And I say that because those seven pieces with just about all conditions, if we can put those seven pieces together with people, and they follow up with me a few times over the course of about eight weeks, I just get to guarantee results with almost everything. Okay, so I don’t have a solution for cancer, once cancer is already there. I don’t know what to do with that. There’s ways that I can support people with cancer in terms of having a healthy appetite and decreasing inflammation, things like that. But I don’t have a I don’t have a treatment for cancer. I think I know how to not get it in the first place. But until we have huge studies to back that up. I’m not really going to make that claim. But, whether people come to me with back pain, or migraines, or autoimmune conditions are horrible digestive issues, or low energy or can’t sleep or hormone issues consistently. If people hang in there for eight weeks, try a piece of the protocol, they always get way, way better, or we resolve the symptoms. And if, for anybody who’s been paying attention to what’s going on in health care, you’ll know that that claim sounds ridiculous. I mean, it’s like the results of 85% of low back pain, no one can even determine the cause of it, let alone have a decent or consistent treatment for it. And I can’t advertise money back guarantee. Right just the board card. racked up doesn’t allow it, maybe it sounds cheesy if I do. So I don’t advertise it. But in practice, I can offer it to people, if that’s what it takes it’s like, I’ve never had a person come in and follow my protocol for eight weeks with low back pain or migraines or terrible hormone issues or digestive issues that didn’t get way better, if not eliminate their symptoms over the course of eight weeks. And I just don’t think that happens, unless you actually are addressing the causative issues.

KW 10:35

Absolutely. Yeah., and because there is that mystery, for lack of a better term around what the cause of back pain is, and I’m hearing more and more doctors even talk about this, that you’ve heard the low success rate of back surgeries for a long time. It’s like 50/50. And, that’s how I got introduced to the modality I practiced. I was waiting for a neurosurgery console and never had to do it. Yeah, because of that mystery, it actually gives more validity to what you’re on to Matt, at least in my opinion, is if we don’t have an answer for it, then how is it impossible that what you’re doing isn’t working? is how I look at it, or, if you’re this miserable, it’s eight weeks of your life, give it a shot. What else are you going to be doing? Yeah. So I would love to dive into the pillars of the book. So one of the ones that we had chatted about ahead of time, is zinc deficiency and weak stomach acid tend to be some of the greatest causes of disease. So can you expand on that a little bit of what you’ve been finding? In your practice? And I believe if, am I correct that that’s the first pillar under your book? That weak stomach acid?

MA 11:45

Yeah. So the first of the seven solutions that I usually start on at the very beginning with anybody who I work with, either in the office or remotely, is, start by strengthening stomach acid. I’m quite confident that weak stomach acid is a universal issue, whether it causes digestive symptoms or not. And weak stomach acid is what allows pathogens to get past the stomach acid and into the intestine. And once they’re in the intestine, they have a great place to live with a constant food supply. And we don’t have a very good internal mechanism of kicking them out. Right? I call that chronic intestinal infection. I haven’t tested anybody for probably a couple years now, where I was like, Oh, you actually don’t have intestinal infection, I’m quite confident that it is an almost universal issue at this point. Now, people who are super healthy with no symptoms, those are the people who I rarely get to test because they’re not coming to me. So at least a few years ago, when I tested a friend who didn’t have any symptoms, I went, Oh, no wonder you don’t have any symptoms, you don’t have intestinal infection. So I do, I think that that chain of events, weak stomach acid causing intestinal infection, I think it’s fair to say that that’s the biggest driver of disease, at least in the developed world. Certainly if you don’t have an adequate food supply, or clean water, obviously that’s a way bigger issue. But I do think this issue actually affects people who are living in the middle of the Amazon and barely have any contact with modern foods and all that stuff. So, I didn’t start out, going, Oh, everyone’s zinc deficient. I had to kind of work backwards to that. And it was about the people who responded to care versus the people who didn’t, and then digging deeper on the ones who didn’t respond to care. And, oh, this is an intestinal infection. Oh, why is that there? Oh, look weak stomach acid. And what’s the cause of that? Zinc deficiency? What does it take to absorb zinc? So that’s how I kind of worked backwards around it. I’d been doing that for a few years, when a patient came in and said, Hey, did you see this study that came out in the Lancet that showed that when you increase atmospheric co2, you decrease the ability of plants to uptake zinc? And I was like, “Oh wow”, that sounds really relevant. So, they had side by side greenhouses and one greenhouse, they would increase the co2 the other day to have normal levels in the plants with elevated co2 often were bigger and bushier and looked good. But when they analyze the material, they have less mineral In them, and a variety of other minerals as well. Now the study didn’t go on to say, and as a result of that everyone has zinc deficiency, and everyone has weak stomach acid. But the international bodies that say this is the percent of the world population that’s deficient in zinc. There’s two main bodies and the numbers are so far apart, that we know that the answer is they really don’t know, because they really don’t. How do you determine how much zinc people are supposed to have in the body, if everyone has less zinc in the body, because all of our vegetables and meats have less zinc in them than they used to. And the percentage of zinc that makes up our body, it’s super small, it’s like .0004%. Whereas calcium is like 1.5%, those numbers can be slightly off, but it’s in that range. And so it’s this really small quantity that we need for some really critical functions. We need zinc to make stomach acid. Okay, so that’s the key piece. But when I was researching my book, I had to look at all the other things. And of course, it’s common knowledge that zinc is important to the immune system. And so, it got indicated in COVID as being really helpful. Yeah. But I would say that virtually no one absorbs zinc, just from taking a zinc supplement, or at least kind of barely absorbs it gets a very small portion of the benefit from it. But so let’s see where to go with all this. It’s easy to get, there’s so many side tangents. All of this is connected to so many different pieces that it’s easy for me to get off on a side tangent.

KW 16:56

I actually have a question coming to mind if it’s okay. So of course, as you were talking, I was really thinking about the link between gut health and having a balanced microbiome in your gut and brain. That was one of the first things that was coming to mind as you were saying that, and if your gut microbiome is off, you’re gonna have brain fog, you’re gonna have memory issues, you may have a really hard time focusing, you may have all the above. But there’s, there’s such a big correlation with that. And that, again, is tied into the immune system. I’ve interviewed other people who talk about all the different systems in the body and how they get triggered with different things. There’s basically a cascading effect in your immune system, which is really what’s gonna stop you in your tracks when it’s not working well. But there’s so much that we have because we’re really resilient. I don’t want to call a starfish because we can’t chop off an arm and regrow it. But until we’ve done too much damage, it is absolutely incredible. how resilient the body is and how much we can reverse in such a short time. Yeah. So this first pillar with the zinc and the weak stomach acid about how long does that take? ‘cuz you mentioned it’s an eight week protocol for everything. So I’d imagine it’s not taken eight weeks to go through the seven pillars. So how long does it take to be able to get through that first pillar and start to have stronger stomach acid?

MA 18:20

Yeah, good question. That’s a quick, easy one. And that connection of gut microbiome to brain health and such, one of the critical functions of zinc is making cerebral spinal fluid. Oh, so that might be kind of important. I heard that so what matters. So there’s lots of different ways that I could make that connection of the gut and stomach acid to brain health, but that’s the strongest one that comes to me. So how long does it take to strengthen stomach acid? It varies. So what I see is that even if you’re taking the best zinc that I know of, okay, so the zinc that I typically use is zinc ag from metagenics. And great products work well. But whether it’s that one, or whether someone comes in and says, Oh yeah, I’m already taking zinc. Then we can test it’s easy for me to test in the office and say, Are you absorbing your zinc adequately or not? There’s a way with the testing for me, it’s thumb to the roof of the mouth with the breath held out if a person weakens to that. It suggests not making adequate cerebral spinal fluid when we boost the stomach acid with baiting hydrochloride. HCl, essentially stomach acid in a pill. Once we boost the stomach acid sufficiently, a person crosses that threshold. And they’ll no longer weaken that reflex at the roof of the mouth. And I used to do a fair amount of cranial sacral therapy and most things around cranial holes would clear at the same time once you could make adequate CSF. And usually, at the same time that they crossed that threshold, we see a number of other things all of a sudden lineup in terms of improved absorption of vitamins and minerals that helps people with energy and leg cramps. Plantar Fasciitis is totally connected to calcium deficiency, very difficult to impossible to address calcium deficiency, if you don’t have the adequate stomach acid to get the mineral into the body. Right. So for some people, generally I’ll start people on a couple tablets of zinc, which is 40 milligrams, you’re not supposed to take more than 40 milligrams per day. So we don’t go above that. And we start with just one tablet of the HCl. And then we have them increase that over the course of a few days to maybe three or four tablets. And a fair number of people when we follow up, if we’re following up in person, we can test them a week later. And there’s a fair number of people who at that level, we then see they no longer weaken to the roof of the mouth, and they’re saying, oh, and I’m feeling better. And my appetite’s improving, and other other good things are happening. But for some, for some people, unfortunately, stomach acid can be a really big linchpin for everything else. It’s so rare that on starting off, we go higher than I mean, over the course of a few weeks, we might work up to eight or 10, and sometimes higher. And it’s a bummer when somebody has to take that many tablets, right? But when they can do it and confirm, well, I feel way better. They say you can’t take too much HCL as long as it doesn’t cause any heat or burning in the stomach right after you take it. then considered to be safe. And that as opposed to doing the opposite thing to suppress the symptoms, which would be taking something like prio sack or a proton pump inhibitor, or even Alka Seltzer, or Tums or I was thinking actually baking soda, that’s an easy remedy that people use to neutralize stomach acid, which is a great way to get temporary relief, but it actually makes the underlying problem worse. Yeah, because heartburn, reflux, nausea, or just having a hard time digesting things are all symptoms of weak stomach acid, which a fair number of alternative health practitioners make that connection and say, strengthening stomach acid will get the heartburn to clear. But rarely, so I’m not necessarily using HCL to get the symptoms to go away. I’m using HCL to get enough acid in the stomach so that a person can adequately absorb the zinc, so that they can start to make their own stomach acid more effectively. And then can usually take less of the HCl. And that’s one step to seeing symptoms resolve.

KW 23:57

Nice, and you just actually reminded me of something. So in 2007, which was my first time really stepping outside of traditional medicine, and I did so because it was in my early 30s At the time, and I was exhausted, despite working out all the time, despite having a textbook healthy diet. I was working with a dietitian. And they said, we’re going to start here. And if this doesn’t work for weight loss, then we need you to come in, as a functional medicine doctor comes from traditional medicine. He’s like, we’re going to need to come in here and do some tests. And so they had this machine that I think was a radio frequency device or something. And so you swallowed a pill that had a radio frequency in it. And so they had the baking soda off to the side ready for that and then the guys were so weirded out because he’d have it over my stomach and he’s like, where’s the pill? I’m like, What do you mean? Where’s the pill? You’re freaking me out here. What do you mean? He’s like, I can’t find it. it. And so this is really strange because they were expecting me to have high stomach acid with all of my symptoms at the time. Again, this is 16 years ago, right? And he was like, “hmm”, and I guess the stomach twists one way when it’s really low and it twists the other way when it’s really high and it sits in the middle when it’s normal. I mean, maybe getting that wrong. But he was like, I think we need you to drink acid. I’m like, You want me to drink? What? I don’t even want you to absorb the capsule. He’s like, this is gonna taste terrible, but he breaks open the HCl capsule, he’s like, drink this. I’m like, Okay, and so as soon as it hits my stomach, suddenly we see the radio pill and he was like, you have no stomach acid at all. Because I kept treating heartburn indigestion with Tums with Rolaids with Pepto with Prilosecs I had had an ulcer 8-10 years before that, and esophageal ulcer is incredibly painful. And so anytime that acted up, I would just immediately take antacids to a point, I had none. And that was the root of everything. And it threw off my entire system to a point where even my thyroid was slowing down. Because my body was getting the message I was starving because I was absorbing nothing. Right? And so and that, that guideline of that warm belly, they’re like, Well, how long do I take acid, they’re like, if your belly is warm, then you have too much. But if you don’t get that warm belly feeling, then you’re okay. And they’re like if you get the warm belly feeling once, don’t worry about it, you’re not going to burn a hole in your stomach lining. Like, you’re a long way from doing that. But that’s to back off the acid supplements. And like within a week, I was actually feeling better and felt like I was actually getting energy from my food versus copious amounts of caffeine, and high amounts of frustration because I gained. I had the best workout routine in my life. And I gained 20 pounds. I was like, What the hell is going on? And I mean, if you’ve got the great advice of calories in calories out, like, why didn’t I think of that? Oh, if only I could do math, I have done the math, this should be lining up. It’s not working. Right. But yeah, that just wanted to validate what you were saying there that that really got things under control really quickly for me. Yeah, it’s never returned to that point, either.

MA 27:32

Cool. So I mean, that’s awesome that you had someone who could go to those kinds of extreme lengths, and then take the next step, and then interpret what the heck that meant. I think that’s really cool. Yeah. I think it’s a great example of how my work is so much “freaking” cooler. Because we don’t have to stick any radio transmitter down your gullet to see what’s going on down there. I say, in that situation, it was perfect. And it’s great that it worked. So, my claim that I can get that answer accurately and reliable through manual muscle testing, to bold claim, because no one’s been able to prove muscle testing to be accurate or reliable for, for confirming anything, I can’t call any of what I do at diagnosis, because it hasn’t been medically established to be accurate and reproducible. And I tend to agree with the criticism. I mean, that was my criticism, when I was first studying I was like, Oh, this is not very clear, you guys. And that’s what the studies show, unfortunately, is that it’s not very clear. But I’m quite confident that the pieces that I’ve put together take it from being subtle and about timing when you push and when the other person pushes, which is all pretty flimsy. Okay. patient on the table, you push first, okay, are you pushing? I’m going to increase pressure. And can you match that for us? And it’s so it’s slow, it’s firm. It’s not speedy and sleight of hand. It’s kind of stupid obvious when we set it up, right? I mean, on my website, I’ve got a video that I put up on YouTube. I’m not thrilled about that video because I tried to memorize a script, but at least it demonstrates the testing pretty well with a big strong guy on the table. And that’s no BS, he’s pushing hard. And I can use one finger and push a leg with a table that moments before I was able to put most of my body weight on. And we can set that up with every patient at every visit. And no one’s proven that. that you can consistently get people to weaken to a reflex point on the body, or that you can get people to weaken or strengthen when they taste a particular food. I do it every day with every patient in an obvious manner. And if people say, wait a second, do that again, I’m like, cool, good for you. Thank you for your skepticism. That’s what got us here. I appreciate those people in practice. And I say, Yeah, let’s set it up as clearly as possible. I’ll put all my weight on something. And then I’ll say, Okay, here’s one finger, you touch that point, you go first. And when you set it up clearly, almost everyone is like, oh, that’s super clear. That’s super amazing. And it’s part of what enrolls people. I mean, I’ve had a high school athlete who was playing football, and he was always on the bench. And because he always had low back pain, just like his dad always had low back pain. And I was able to demonstrate for him his reaction to milk proteins, and how it specifically weakens the psoas muscles, which are the primary muscles of core strength. And it’s that weakness in the hip flexors that causes the opposing tension in the low back. And because I could show him on the table, that all of a sudden, I could beat him with one finger, then he was willing to try it, and he stopped eating Snickers bars, and he got off the bench and became a star player and went on to play college ball. When you can muscle test with accuracy, yes, you can get these phenomenal insights about what’s going on internally. And that’s extraordinary. But you also get to see the interface of the muscles with the internal organs and glands and how they absolutely are associated. And when you can tease that out, then you can make sense of why someone has chronic low back pain or upper back pain or hip or shoulder that won’t heal or all those different things. And it looks like magic, but it’s consistent. I really want to create a video where I work with a bunch of big strong, powerlifters who I’ve never worked with before. And just spend 10 minutes with each one of them to demonstrate, like, Okay, here’s strong muscles, and here’s the patterns of weakness and taste this and you can see the strength change and have them do some of the muscle testing. I mean, it’s not subtle once you set it up, it’s stupid, obvious. And that’s really rare and muscle testing.

KW 32:38

Yeah, I’ve never heard of muscle testing being done like that. But that actually sounds like a brilliant way to do it. The way they’ve had me holding things before and testing. My body hasn’t necessarily responded all that well. But supplement overload, and it’s so many they can’t possibly keep up with them. For the course of treatments, you go from taking zero supplements to 15 capsules a day. And it’s like, who’s got the time for this shit. And especially, if you aren’t getting an immediate uptick, it’s not a week later, I was bouncing off the walls and feeling energetic like there. You need to keep doing this for six months. And like, no, no, no, all right, no, so many reasons. No.

MA 33:24

With my testing, people can hold a vial of anything as nasty or inflammatory or wonderful and beneficial as you want. And it doesn’t matter if they hold it in their mouth, or hold it in their hand or hold it to their chest or whatever, it doesn’t affect the muscle testing. Somebody can have a cell phone in their pocket, they can be wearing magnets, we can both be thinking as many negative thoughts as we want. And it’s still just stupid obvious. So we don’t have, we don’t have as many things that can interfere with the testing. And perhaps we don’t see as subtle of things, I mean, there are great intuitives out there, of course, and, I’ve got friends who do incredible intuitive work, but I have no understanding of and it totally blows me away. But I do think they’re more rare than we’d like to believe. And I think that holding vials falls in the category of intuitive testing. And I know that there are people who get useful information that way, and I’m definitely not one of them. And until I see, I mean, I’m not wondering anymore. You could probably hear it, I’m not wondering about the main drivers of disease. I know. Damn near anybody walks in the door and I say look, I’ll guarantee eight weeks from now if you can follow all this, you’ll see that it’s working so I’m not wondering about what these what these drivers are, because the answers that we get are so freaking clear and so, so reproducible that, yeah, that’s where we’re at. Yeah, it’s a nice place to be, there’s still plenty of mystery, to go around and, the fact that energy work and emotional work and, plant medicines and all the different ways that people work on healing, the fact that all of those things also absolutely have the potential to clear pain and clear, obvious structural, systemic, chemical, hormonal issues. I mean, that’s phenomenal. I’ve been in prayer meetings and seen stomach cancer cured, unlike the X rays, pre and post, and that was an amazing thing to see. And the guy who ran that meeting, died of liver cancer a few years later, and what the heck does that mean? I mean, it’s just, there will always be so much mystery. It’s lovely When these correlations between muscles with organs and glands become so apparent, and it shows you why chiropractors adjust the same segments over and over and over and what it takes to clear that pattern. Yeah. So, chiropractic, like all other modalities, can be awesome. I mean, if you give the right adjustment, and somebody jumps off the table and starts dancing, when they were in terrible pain, I mean, that’s, that’s amazing. Everybody wants that simple solution. But statistically, it very rarely happens. Chiropractic has been proven to be slightly more effective than a placebo, okay? It’s clinically proven to be effective. That’s great, same with acupuncture, it’s clinically proven, but it’s not clinically proven to be amazingly effective. Just, better than better than guessing. So that’s good.

KW 37:11

That is good. The placebo effect is powerful, too. But yeah, I was even saying that I’m, literally have I never had that big of a transition with one adjustment. So we’ve done a great job. And by we, I mean, you have done a great job of really laying the foundation of the importance of the gut microbiome and getting in that strong stomach acid there. And that’s the first pillar and making sure that there’s enough zinc being absorbed, would you be able to walk us through the other six pillars within your program within your book going in this just so people can have a better idea of what this looks like? Because it sounds like people in person and remotely, which is awesome. So no matter where you are, they could benefit from you.

MA 37:42

Yeah, in person is definitely a better way to go because I can’t do any sort of remote muscle testing. I’m not that kind of wizard. 

KW 38:01

Why not? Nah I’m Kidding

MA 38:03

Right? exactly. I keep trying though, anyway. So here’s where it’s, it’s so tough to, to cover all the things that we mean to cover. Because strengthening stomach acid is just one important piece. I mean, that’s how you keep intestinal infection from coming back. Right, the next time you swallow that pathogen. strong stomach acid kills that pathogen before it makes it to the intestine. H Pylori in the gut, particularly if it’s colonizing the stomach, it shouldn’t be able to live in the stomach. If we have adequate stomach acid, it can’t live in the stomach. So, h pylori, if it’s if it’s in the stomach, that’s easy to clear you have to strengthen the stomach acid. Which is of course, spooky or tricky if someone’s already dealing with ulcers, and you’re trying to slowly increase acid without making them uncomfortable, but also chase the bacteria out at the same time. But intestinal infection once that pathogen makes it past the stomach acid into the intestine, so things like SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, Candida or yeast, even Giardia or other protozoa, sometimes weird stuff from the tropics, chronic Lyme disease we do really well with. I see all those various forms of intestinal infection that’s usually where the main storehouse of the infection is. If you can drive it out there you can drive it out of the rest of the body. The way that we clear that is with a three week course of some special digestive enzymes taken three times a day away from food. So usually people take digestive enzymes with their food because they have weak digestion because of weak stomach acid. And enzymes are another way to compensate for that. But this protocol isn’t about that, this is about taking the enzymes away from food to break down the fats, proteins, carbohydrates that make up the defensive structure, whatever it is, that is living in the gut that shouldn’t be there. Right. And the consistency with which I see that works with pretty much all forms of intestinal infection. There may be some parasites that are exceptions to that, but I’m not really sure, it seems like it works with damn near everything. The fact that it works so consistently, and almost no one is talking about it kind of blows me away. And that’s largely why I wrote the book, it was like, Okay, I feel like I’m sitting on a secret that everyone should know about, because this is insane. How this is connected to absolutely all health issues. And pretty much nobody knows about it. And I also said, and if somebody else publishes the book, before I do, I’m gonna be pissed. I gotta put this idea out. But mostly it was that feeling that it felt like I was sitting on something that was way too powerful. So. So that’s what we do with the enzymes and be taken consistently for three weeks. And those enzymes also get absorbed to some degree, which then goes directly to the liver in the gallbladder. So then those enzymes start to soften the contents of the liver and the gallbladder, and accomplish a liver and a gallbladder cleanse, to a degree that we used to do other forms of liver and gallbladder cleanses. But nothing ever worked nearly as well as this does when you strengthen stomach acid at the same time. So that’s the rest of how we clear intestinal infection, the enzymes that we use are from enzymedica, enzyme defense, it’s something people can get. Now, there’s tricks to taking those and staying comfortable. It’s not like I can just recommend everybody go and do it. Although it is something that everyone has access to. So literally everyone can go do it if they choose to. But, it has the potential for creating liver detox symptoms or bacterial die off or things like that are easy to manage in care. And my book is designed so that an ambitious “do-it-yourselfer” could pick up my book and it walks a person through how to do these things for the most part. But it’s a lot easier with guidance and the feedback to say, Oh, this part is working or this part isn’t working, or, Oh, you’re still eating this food, even though you think you’re not we can see that, this pattern tells us you’re still getting exposed to corn, where’s it still getting in? And, we can troubleshoot all those kinds of things. So that would be, that’s a shorthand version way to finish stomach acid and intestinal infection, the first of the seven pieces. So we’re not going to be able to talk about all seven obviously, but to just lay them out. To lay them out briefly. I see that most people with significant health issues are reacting to the four main subsidized foods here in the US. So corn, and soy, and cow dairy, and wheat or gluten in general, I’m quite confident that almost everyone with significant health issues is reacting to all four of those, which means everyone will react to those foods at some point in their life, right? Some people, they’re very young, and other people, it’s not until their 70s or 80s, or whatever like that. So avoiding those four foods, which again, in the office, I can test people directly to those foods and get an answer that I’ll stand behind 100% as to whether a person is reacting to those foods or not, we can test each one individually through sense of taste. So that’s another piece of the protocol. Most people are eating way more carbohydrates than we were designed to eat. So, a low-carb paleo diet or a version of that is what I recommend. So, mostly avoiding grains and potatoes and sugar and keeping even fruit to a lower quantity. But the more that people are getting sustained low intensity aerobic exercise, like walking 40 minutes a day, five or six days a week, which is also one of the pieces of the protocol, the more that people are doing that consistently or additional exercise on top of that, the greater people’s tolerance for carbohydrates. And so people who are really carb sensitive are usually people who either just think that you can eat 150 grams of carbs a day and be okay, which I don’t think we can, or are people who don’t have that foundation, which you can create just by walking 40 minutes a day, five or six days a week. That piece is the one simplest thing that everybody could do that has phenomenal results. I say everybody, but, everybody who’s able to walk and walk through that much time. And the other pieces of what we do are the things that make it so that, that ankle pain or knee pain or hip pain or back pain that’s getting in the way of doing that, we clear those other ways. Okay, so there’s three more of those pieces, then. Blood sugar stability, that’s a really big one, that would be a fun one. If we have time to go into more detail we should. The importance of eating a protein breakfast first thing in the morning, the importance of never drinking caffeine on an empty stomach only having it after protein. And in moderation, particularly as we get older. And from a medical perspective, by three hours after a meal, blood sugar is coming down enough that cortisol levels start to go up. And so if you want cortisol to go down, eat frequent protein. So part of my protein part of my protocol is eat protein, don’t go more than three hours in a busy part of the day without protein. Which a lot of people can’t do because they have weak stomach acid and intestinal infections. So they can’t they can’t write protein that often. So that blood sugar stability and eating adequate protein on a daily basis, and it’s a higher number than most people eat and and think is reasonable until they can really digest well. And they say oh, yeah, this feels great. So another critical piece, vitamin and mineral deficiencies are universal. And it’s an incredible blind spot in health care. You can get a laboratory test to check your blood levels of calcium and say, oh, yeah, your calcium levels are great. We just don’t know why your bones are disappearing. So testing for vitamins and minerals in the blood. It tells you what’s in the blood, but those things work in the tissues. And if you can’t get the calcium into the tissues, if you can’t get the zinc into the tissues, where it’s needed, if you can’t get the magnesium into the heart where it’s needed. That’s a problem. And how do you diagnose that deficiency? Are you going to get a biopsy of your heart muscle just to determine if you’re magnesium deficient? Probably not. Probably a bad idea. So as people start to strengthen their stomach acid, we use simple supplements as much food based as possible to address basic deficiencies, calcium, magnesium, B, 12, B complex, folic acid, iron, iodine, trace minerals from kelp. There’s a few other pieces like that. And so, we do use a handful of pills, but the great thing is that consistently, people get to prove to themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they actually work. And that’s rare, because it’s often hard to tell if your supplements are doing anything.

KW 47:31

Right. And that makes it worth it right there. that and that’s the distinction when I was given all those supplements, I didn’t really have a lot of proof they were working, which made me resentful to keep taking them however, if I had made a quick one 180, I would have been gobbling pills all day long, capsules, natural capsules, not sure. But that’s a key piece there. I just wanted to highlight please continue.

MA 49:35

Yeah. So it’s easy for us to test people directly on specific vitamins and minerals. There are specific muscle weaknesses that relate to particular deficiencies like the fibularis longus is the muscle that goes down the outside of the calf. That is the muscle that helps you to prevent spraining your ankle with a regular inversion sprain. That’s B 12 deficiency. So when runners are spraying that over and over and over B 12 is often what makes the difference. Now often we’re told to absorb it under our tongue or get an injection. But obviously, the stomach or the intestine is where we’re supposed to absorb those things. And how come nobody can absorb it? Well, nobody seems to know. So we keep getting injections and hoping it soaks in under our tongue, even though that seems kind of silly. And there’s a variety of other examples with vitamin or mineral deficiencies and muscle weakness. And then the last of the seven pieces I think I made it through seven is that most people have muscle injuries as a result of poor absorption as a result of the ability to maintain muscle mass and, and prevent muscle injuries by absorbing the things that we need to prevent them. And this system, once we’ve kind of cleared the big global components, if people have weak packs because of liver congestion, or people have weeks, so as because of intestinal infection and the related stress to the kidneys, or that, Adrenal Exhaustion relates to three different muscles that crossed the knee, which is why adrenal fatigue usually creates knee pain and why knee pain is actually easy to clear if you can get people to eat protein frequently enough and follow those guidelines. So like I said, the correlations, there’s too many correlations, and it sends me off on too many tangents, but it’s hard to not bring them up. So when you’re dealing with those kinds of global weaknesses, the most efficient way through care is to address the global weaknesses, so that those three muscles that are weak, that cross the knee are all strong, because you’re eating protein often enough, and enough of it. And then if there’s still knee pain, then we can test every individual muscle that crosses the knee. And if there’s an injured rectus femoris, or something that somebody pulled a long time ago, then we can identify that, and we can identify if it’s a nutritional component, or if it’s myofascial work, that’s going to be the solution to that. And, but often those things just heal spontaneously if we address the global picture first. And it’s kind of the same with chiropractic adjustments. It’s like, yeah, there’s adjustments that I can do. I’m a chiropractor, and sometimes I manage to do some adjustments. But mostly I’m looking at the underlying cause, so that we don’t have to keep making the adjustments over and over because it relates to much more than just the back pain. It’s driven by an internal issue. So global picture first, and then zero in on any joint, where there’s where there’s an issue. So that pretty well gets us through the seven pieces I mentioned, there’s this eight piece that maybe I should have called it the, eight unexpected solutions. There’s a component of my work that I’ve been told is energy work. I don’t claim to know what energy work is, I just know, we hold some points, we breathe for a little bit. And then it actually changes things in terms of muscle strength in such a way that I’m like, okay, cool. And now we can move on to the next piece. So wow, maybe that’s the eighth piece of the solution. I’m not sure. I don’t know what. Yeah, it’s an amazing thing to see. It would be another fun thing to do in a demonstration video.

KW 53:41

Yeah. Yeah. That would be, I would love to see that. So where can people find you, Matt? And is your book going to be accessible through this place as well?

MA 53:51

Yeah, so theprotocolforhealth.com is my website that you can find how to find me in practice, or you can get the book that way or the books on Amazon as well. So that’s all there and otherwise, we’re here in Nevada City, California, which is kind of between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. A really nice place to come visit and if I work with people remotely, ideally, we start someone remotely on a phone call and ship them some supplements and stuff like that. And then once they’ve gotten some base pieces in place, then if we can follow up in the office, then we can check like okay, is stomach acid coming along to where we think it should be? And have you actually gotten the corn, dairy, soy and wheat out of the diet. There’s ways that we get to see that with the testing and does pancreas show up stressed is a person over consuming carbohydrates or not walking enough or getting too much anaerobic exercise those will all stress the pancreas, it’s makes an obvious indicator and I said, Okay, it’s one or a combination of these three things that we need to find, or where if the adrenals aren’t addressed if someone is like, Oh, but I really think I should keep intermittent fasting. And they come into the office, and we say, Yeah, but I can see, these three muscles are weak, you weaken to this reflex point. And yeah, you say, your sleep isn’t great, and you still have knee pain, and there’s still too much inflammation, the body then once stomach acid is strong, then people often find when with stomach acid cleared, strengthened, and intestinal infection cleared, then even people who’ve been intermittent fasting and that save their life and made them feel way better. Once we’ve addressed those underlying issues, then frequent protein is a great way to keep cortisol lower, and actually be constantly nourishing the body and not driving inflammation, and you can still accomplish autophagy, especially since zinc is critical for cell division and replication, though, that may be why people aren’t repairing the body as as they should. So okay, I’m spinning off into too many other tangents.

KW 56:15

This has been really fascinating. I learned a lot. Thank you so much. So could you just give a quick list of just for for anybody listening who’s like, Okay, I think I may benefit from that, what are the common symptoms that you see coming in where that you can start to have immediate improvement in someone’s health by starting to use the digestive enzymes and follow your protocol.

MA 56:40

So as far as immediate, as long as immediate means.

KW 56:45

Like a week, I would call that immediate? 

MA 56:48

Well, so what I tell people is follow this protocol for eight weeks, right? If you follow up for eight weeks, you’ll know for sure that it works. I don’t know if it’s some people, I’ve had people with fibromyalgia who we see once and they come back a week later. And they say, Well, I almost didn’t come back because my pain is all gone. I can’t believe it. And I was afraid you might screw it up. I mean, sometimes we get darn near an overnight miracle. And other times things don’t click until five or six or maybe even seven weeks in. So people with short term occasional no big deal stuff. I’m usually not a great fit, unless there’s someone who’s really curious about really getting stronger and bigger, deeper global issues. So instant fixes aren’t my specialty. But recurring chronic issues. That’s where we do great. So migraines,I love to be able to say that I’ve never had a person come in and follow my protocol and follow up with me over eight weeks, where we couldn’t clear their migraines. Now, that’s an outrageous claim. But that’s what continues to be true. Now. There’s plenty of people who get a few weeks into it, and they’re like, No, this is too hard. I don’t want to eat this way. Or now I don’t believe it’s going to work or, everybody’s got their reasons. But I just hold my mind, which is I say if you just hang in there for eight weeks, do it to prove me wrong, whatever motivates you, I don’t care, just give it a try. Because in eight weeks, we can change the course of your medical future. So migraines, low back pain, allergies, autoimmunity, all sorts of hormonal issues. I’ve had people who have menopause, and bioidentical hormones, absolutely save them. And eight weeks later, they can be off of those and feeling way better and not having hot flashes and all that stuff. had periods, it’s so obvious when someone has 10 out of 10 pain every month, and then two or three months later, they’re like, it’s really mild. And consistently, that’s what we do. And again, it sounds impossible, but there it is. skin conditions. I mean, I’ve said like, oh, toenail fungus isn’t something I could do. And then this guy came in and he was like, my toenails are growing so much faster, because I’m absorbing that the toenail fungus is just getting pushed out of my nail beds. I’m like, Oh, wow, okay, good. Sometimes it does work. That’s one of those things that’s known to just be really persistent and hard to clear. I mean, again, I don’t have a solution for cancer, but otherwise As I’ve had people come with all kinds of weird issues where they’ve been at the Mayo Clinic and been to 15 different practitioners, but they’re still willing to try. And geez, who goes to a chiropractor when you’re dealing with digestive issues or autoimmunity or hormones or whatever, but, but willingness to try is such a beautiful thing. So now it works on those people,

KW 1:00:27

awesome. Well, thank you so much, that gives a really solid list of people to say, Hey, I’ve got that going on. We’re going to make sure that we have your information to reach out to and thank you so much for your time and sharing your wisdom. We’ll make sure we link to your site and your book so that people can grab it start learning from you directly, reach out to have a consultation with you, or if they’re close enough to co see you in person really benefit from meeting you up close and being able to help directly and really test those hormones and all the different levels. You’re mentioning the pancreas, that everything. There’s a lot to look at. 

MA 1:01:04

There’s plenty, isn’t there?

KW 1:01:05

So much. Yeah, so much. So thank you again for joining me today, Matt. I really appreciate it. And thank you to the audience for joining us as well. So next week, I’m actually going to be doing the first solo episode that I have done in a minute and I am sharing what came out of my most recent Ayahuasca ceremony and what it’s given me, which I can now in turn give to you. So you aren’t going to want to miss that one. It was my most profound ceremony to date. And until then, please always remember you can accept the diagnosis without accepting the prognosis.

MA 1:01:40

Good one. Thanks Katie.