Chris Kresser: The Rise Of Autoimmunity, The Failure of Conventional Medicine, And The Future of Health Care (Part 1) | MMP #297

Chris Kresser, M.S., L.Ac., is a globally recognized leader in the fields of ancestral health, Functional Medicine, and integrative health. He is the founder of the Kresser Institute, which provides training for the next generation of Functional Medicine practitioners. Chris is also the New York Times bestselling author of The Paleo Cure and Unconventional Medicine. With his extensive background in research, clinical practice, and patient education, Chris has become a powerful advocate for a more holistic, proactive, and patient-centered approach to healthcare.

Key topics discussed:

• The shocking prevalence of autoimmune disease, affecting an estimated 50 million Americans (1 in 6)
• The role of the modern lifestyle in the epidemic of chronic disease, including poor diet, lack of exercise, insufficient sleep, chronic stress, and environmental toxins
• The failure of our immune systems to adapt to the onslaught of novel threats posed by the modern lifestyle
• The potential for diet and lifestyle interventions to prevent and reverse chronic disease
• The need for a paradigm shift in healthcare, moving away from symptom suppression and towards addressing root causes
• The challenges in scaling a highly individualized, root-cause-focused approach like Functional Medicine within our current healthcare system

Timestamps:

(00:00) The Rise of Autoimmunity
(07:03) Food, Regeneration, and Functional Medicine
(23:15) Challenging the Medical Status Quo
(28:57) Impact of Blockchain on Content Creation


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The food system is corrupt and trying to poison us... I will teach you how to fight back. Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod 🥩

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Leading the Red Meat Renaissance 🥩 ⚡️| Co-Host of @themeatmafiapod

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Part 1
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[00:00:00]

Chris, what's happening? Welcome to the meat mafia podcast. Pleasure to have you. Oh, it's great to be here, guys. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah, we're, we're really excited for this. And I know we were talking a little bit before we hit record, but Chris, one of our favorite parts of this show is getting to have guests on the podcast that have had a personal influence on both of our health journeys, which is great.

And I would say you absolutely fit the bill. Your, your blog posts and a lot of the content and information that you've put out has been super informative for both Harry and I with, with our respective health journeys. Um, I think I was saying to you when I was going through my journey, trying to treat ulcerative colitis holistically through diet and lifestyle changes, you know, the blog posts and a lot of the content that you've put out over the years is just like a wealth of knowledge.

It was super impactful on both of us. So we're super appreciative of you taking the time to join us here today. Oh, I'm, I'm happy that I've been able to help in some small way. And, um, yeah, [00:01:00] looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. Chris, one of the things I was thinking about to kick off the conversation, something we've publicly spoken about a lot was just, Just the cost that some of these autoimmune diseases have on the United States.

Um, you know, I was, I did the calculations. I was on a immunosuppressant drug called Remicade for about six years. And so I cost the U. S. medical system 2. 4 million personally. And I was doing some numbers. I saw that about 50 million Americans have an autoimmune disease currently. And that was absolutely astonishing, especially when you look at a graph and see how these things have exponentially increased over time.

And, you know, I guess part one is, do you think that 50 million Person number is accurate. And secondly, what do you think are some of the leading causes of this insane spike in autoimmunity over the last 50 or so years? Well, the short answer is the modern lifestyle. And we can unpack that, but, um, that's definitely the, the, the summary.

[00:02:00] And when, when you. Uh, you know, look into that, take a couple of steps down. You've got diet as a huge factor, of course. And we now know that 60 percent of the calories, the average American consumes come from not just processed foods, but ultra processed foods. So these, this essentially like flour, sugar, and industrial seed oils comprise, you know, nearly 60 percent of calories in Americans eat.

Today, and those foods, uh, wreak havoc on the gut microbiome, they feed harmful bacteria and let those bacteria proliferate that then can lead to leaky gut intestinal permeability, which then provokes a systemic hyperactive immune response. And that's, of course, auto auto immunity in a nutshell. So that's, that's a major factor.

Um, Lack of exercise dysregulates the immune system. Not getting enough sleep is a huge immune disruptor. Um, chronic stress, [00:03:00] uh, has a big impact on the immune system. The proliferation of environmental toxins, whether we're talking about heavy metals like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, or, uh, pesticides and herbicides, glyphosate.

Being a notorious example, uh, chemicals like, uh, BPA, bisphenol A and things that are found in plastics, which, uh, or phthalates or PFAS, like these, these chemicals are now ubiquitous in our environment. And even despite our best efforts, it's virtually impossible. To avoid them completely because there are no hard boundaries in the environment where these chemicals can just be contained.

Um, so even if you buy organic food and, you know, you're certainly, um, that's for sure desirable and, and worth doing, there's going to be a lot less of those chemicals in those foods, um, than there would be in conventional alternatives. But, um, It [00:04:00] is true that we just can't avoid some level of exposure at this point.

Um, so when you put all those things together, It basically is, it creates, uh, a set of threats to the immune system that the immune system, um, just can't withstand. Our immune system did not evolve in an environment where we had all, you know, many of those threats, certainly not all of them put together.

And, uh, You know it can start from very early on even in utero. Um, so when you combine the the genetic predisposition which can be which is heritable of course that's passed down to subsequent generations and then those environmental triggers. On top of that genetic predispositions, you have a pretty potent recipe for autoimmune disease.

As you pointed out, um, 50 million Americans, so that's one in six. I've seen some estimates that suggest one in [00:05:00] four women have, may have an autoimmune disease now. There are over 80 autoimmune diseases that have been defined with that number going up significantly every year. Um, there's a growing understanding that diseases that were not necessarily Traditionally thought of as autoimmune may have autoimmune elements.

Um, so just like the more we learn about it, the more we understand that this is a really big deal. You know, it's, it goes well beyond what, uh, what we thought, where, where we thought it would be. I'm curious where or what you would change if you had. Some sort of overarching power over the, the healthcare system.

Like where would you spend your time trying to fix things? Um, would it be, you know, removing glyphosate from the food system, or would it be, um, you know, trying to lean into [00:06:00] more organic real foods? I'm sure there's plenty of answers, but if you were given the almighty power to be able to focus on one or two things, what sort of, uh, what sort of things would you be focusing on?

It's a good question. Um, I think food would probably have to be the first one just because it's something we do every day most of us at least and multiple times a day is eat and if you're eating something that is hostile to your immune system or that's provoking or triggering an hyperactive immune response Then just the frequency of that Is going to make a big difference.

Um, and I think it's also the factor that affects the greatest number of people. Yes, environmental toxin accumulation is an issue, but it's it's not necessarily an issue that rises to the level where it could cause autoimmunity for The same number of [00:07:00] people that for whom food is, you know, triggering or provoking autoimmunity.

And I would probably say the same thing for, you know, virtually all of the other influences. They're all very significant, but, um, food is probably the most common. And then of course, food is related to the gut, you know, what we eat influences and determines our gut health, which then in turn becomes the predisposing fact, you know, leaky gut.

Or disrupted gut microbiome become predisposing factors for autoimmunity. So yeah, it starts with food and for many people that might be enough for some, they might need to take additional steps above and beyond that to address their issue. Yeah. So food is a, is a huge lever that you would pull in an incredibly important lever at that.

You made me think, Chris. You know, when I think about the theme of this show, I would say regeneration is a theme that comes to mind pretty prominently. And I'm not just [00:08:00] talking about regeneration of the soil. Um, you know, a lot of the regenerative farmers have been some of our favorite guests, but I also think in terms of the regeneration of health.

And I think we've been amazed, you know, 270 plus episodes of doing this. How many guests that have come on the podcast that have formerly been affected by chronic disease, autoimmune disease, et cetera, and by taking autonomy over the foods that they're putting into their system, different lifestyle practices, et cetera, they've proven that this body is an incredible piece of machinery and the body is actually capable of healing and restoring itself to the health that you ultimately deserve.

Um, when I was doing prep for this podcast, I didn't realize that your health journey was actually spurred by a decade long battle of chronic disease. And. Chris, if you're comfortable sharing it, um, you know, I'd love to just learn a little bit more about what that journey was like for you. You know, what type of chronic disease did you have and what types of things did you start doing from a diet and lifestyle perspective that really helped you turn the page and get that health that you deserved as well?

Yeah, sure. Uh, I've talked about it a lot publicly, so I don't [00:09:00] mind at all. Um, I was traveling in my early twenties. I'm a surfer and I took I set out to travel around the world for a couple of years, just surfing in different places. And I was in Indonesia and I was, uh, in a, on a little island called Zimbabwe and I was staying in a small village there and.

Um, tropical illness, you know, it was, uh, diarrhea, vomiting, uh, delirium. I just, I don't really even remember much of what happened for three days there. And I was very, very far from any kind of medical care. Um, and I, there was actually one other, there was an Australian. was in the village at the same time as me.

Um, and he happened to have some antibiotics in his, in his medical kit. Um, and he gave them to me and that's kind of what like brought me [00:10:00] back from the brink because I, you know, apparently I was pretty close to the edge. Um, And so that, that was like, just got me back to a point where I could even get out of bed and try, you know, make my way back to, um, somewhere where I could get some kind of medical care diagnosis.

But, you know, I, so I went back to Australia from Indonesia and, and, You know, very, very long story short, that turned into a decade long process of trying to figure out what was going on, you know, because the initial, there was the initial wave of, uh, in Indonesia, but then there was a whole set of things that happened after that.

Um, yeah. That were, you know, like the, the consequences or the, the effect of that initial tropical illness. And, and so along the way is when I discovered that paleo slash ancestral kind of diet, although at that [00:11:00] time, this is, you know, 25 years ago. It was not really, um, nobody knew what that was. You know, there was probably Lauren Cordain talking about paleo and nobody else.

Um, and, uh, and then I discovered also Functional medicine, which again, you know, five people had heard of at that point. Um, not the buzzword that it is today. And those were the two things that made the, you know, the biggest difference in my own recovery. And so that's when I decided to, you know, switch gears and go back and, Become a functional medicine clinician and help other people, uh, to, to, you know, I, I didn't set out to help people who'd been in similar situation because my situation was a little bit unusual, but there were plenty of people who had complex chronic illnesses that were not well served by the traditional conventional medical system.

Like [00:12:00] yourself, you mentioned ulcerative colitis. That's a complex chronic illness that if you go, uh, To a conventional gastroenterologist, you're going to get steroids, you're going to get, as a first line therapy, if those don't work, you eventually go into the biologics, like Remicade or Imurin, and you know firsthand where that road leads.

So, but there's rarely anybody actually looking at what the root cause of that problem is and how to address that. And that's where functional medicine is really different. So that's, that's what inspired me. Just my, my own experience and knowing what it's like to suffer like that and not be able to get help and then finally being able to recover through these tools.

Are you hopeful to, to potentially see the future of medicine start to take a bit more of a first principles approach and. Start to think through the lens of finding the root cause and diagnosing the root cause. Like, [00:13:00] do you think that there's a path forward where there's more options for people to start to find functional medicine practitioners?

I, I have mixed, a kind of mixed assessment. Uh, so on the one hand, I've been incredibly frustrated with how slow the changes have been. Um, you know, my, my second book was called Unconventional Medicine that I published in 2017, and it was a sort of manifesto. addressing, you know, highlighting a lot of the problems with the conventional medical system specifically related to its how it falls short with chronic disease.

I mean, I think the conventional medical system is pretty amazing when it comes to trauma and acute emergency medicine care, you know, if I have an injury or I get in a car accident or something like that, it's pretty remarkable what Conventional medicine is able to achieve. And there's been some phenomenal innovations, uh, you know, antibiotics and lots of other, [00:14:00] uh, things that have significantly extended human lifespan.

So I'm not arguing that it doesn't have a place, but it just has not really been. Helpful when it comes to treating chronic disease. And the problem with that is that now seven of 10 deaths are caused by chronic disease, uh, today, which is very different than like in the 1900, early 1900s, most. People were dying from acute infectious diseases like tuberculosis and pneumonia, you know, so You know, we we have a we're in a different place now than we were even just a hundred years ago And we need different tools but The, there has been, the progress has been very slow for, um, you know, the medical model to change and adapt in a way that is better suited to functional medicine or to, to chronic disease.

On the other hand, there have been some very positive developments. Um, [00:15:00] so there's now a Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, you know, Cleveland Clinic is a pretty well regarded international institution. Um, and to have that like rubber stamp of approval, uh, to, you know, that they have a center for functional medicine is a pretty big deal.

And, um, there are a whole bunch of startups over the past 10, 20 years that we're all like Parsley Health and SteadyMD and a bunch of other, um, you know, medical companies that are attempting to find ways of scaling functional medicine, or at least what I would call functional medicine light, which is, you know, maybe not the full service functional medicine that you would get if you came to see me or.

Someone like Mark Hyman or you know, any number of functional medicine clinicians, but but they're at least incorporating aspects of the functional medicine model into their care And they're trying to do it in a way that's accessible to a broader number of people um [00:16:00] The the challenge the fundamental challenge guys is that functional medicine by definition is highly individualized and that means like We don't just apply the same treatment for the same disease in all cases.

We will look at each patient individually, do testing, full history, and you might have two patients with ulcerative colitis who get totally different treatments because the cause is different in each case and each person requires a different approach. That's a very difficult model to scale and that's just true, you know, objectively speaking, it's just true.

It's much harder to scale something like that and make it accessible to the, the number of people that we have in this country than a model that's predominantly based around pharmaceutical interventions that are, that are not individualized, that are really actually [00:17:00] Directed to a condition, right? So, so what I mean is like, if some, if you, you have our model is like, okay, so the patient has diabetes, you do this, this, and this.

Then you do that for all patients with diabetes. And of course, there's some individual variation there, but not a lot, right? That's easier to scale, because how much time do you really need in an interaction with the patient to get to the point where you can prescribe metformin or something like that?

10 minutes 15 minutes. You don't need an hour And that's so that's what's going on You know, we just I guess what I would say is I understand and appreciate the complexity of it And I don't know what the answer is if i'm really honest like it's it's a it's an intractable And I, you know, my book on conventional medicine proposed what I thought could be some, some answers for sure.

Um, [00:18:00] but it's a really thorny and difficult systemic problem. Yeah, it's interesting to contrast this highly personalized approach with functional medicine versus this almost cookie cutter approach with Western medicine because We've had a lot of people with IBD and ulcerative colitis reach out and it seems like almost everyone has a similar journey where it's like they're prescribing Lealda.

If that doesn't work, they're getting you on prednisone. If prednisone doesn't work, they're getting you on a biologic drug. And you're, you're really told that diet and lifestyle doesn't have much to do with these things and you need to stay on these drugs and can't get off of them because your body might develop some type of response to it and drugs might not work anymore.

And I kind of had, I saw these two diversion paths where my GI was telling me one thing, and then I was discovering, you know, alternative diets like carnivore animal based paleo, and I was feeling better and better. And I started seeing so many case studies of people online that were reporting that they were healing Crohn's and colitis through diet and they were able to get off their medication.

So that gave me the [00:19:00] confidence to say, hey, can I get a colonoscopy? If I don't have any microinflammation, are you comfortable getting me off of this? He was willing to do it because I pushed the issue. But I think a lot of people are really, it's almost like their doctor has all the autonomy and all the power and they're scared to almost push back against the doctor.

So you just made me think, you know, what, what do you think the ideal doctor patient relationship should look like maybe from a functional perspective? I know you said very hyper personalized. Um, but what, what else in terms of like the ideal doctor patient relationship people should be thinking about?

Someone who listens, I think is for sure the number one criteria that I would look for, uh, if I was a patient going to seek care. Um, that's to me the defining, uh, characteristic, um, of someone that's going to be open minded and consider my, my experience in, in their, You know, at least take my experience into their framework [00:20:00] and, you know, make it included as a factor in their decision making process.

Um, I don't care whether they're functional or conventional medicine provider. If you have a functional medicine provider who won't listen to you, don't, don't stick around. If you have a conventional medical provider who, who listens very well, you still might need Other care, but you're going to be in a much better situation there than if they're not listening at all.

So I've often been disappointed and sometimes shocked by the lack of humility amongst, uh, medical practitioners, because the reality, if you look at the history of medicine, I've said this a few different times, but it's like the history of. Most people being wrong about most things. Most of the time, you know, that's objectively true.

You look at like, what, what we knew a hundred years ago, and we kind of chuckle and laugh about, you know, all of the [00:21:00] misconceptions and ideas that we had a hundred years ago. They in turn, of course, look back a hundred years and laughed and chuckled at what those primitive people thought a hundred years before.

And yet somehow we think it's different now. Like we must have, we must have all the answers now. And a hundred years from now, people looking back on us will for sure not be chuckling or laughing at our ignorance and what we didn't know. But of course that's wrong. Like they're for, they are going to be laughing and chuckling, uh, at our ignorance, but, but we, you know, even, even knowing that and even having historical.

Kind of proof of that there's so much arrogance and ego in in the medical profession and I was Always like I always learned so much from my patients. Um And and in lots of different ways like literally learning from them like oh this thing that they researched I've haven't ever looked into that like I want to learn more about that.

I'm going to go look into that and you [00:22:00] know and learn more or Or learning in the sense of like, I really thought this was going to work because the research says it works, but I've tried it now 15 times with 15 different patients and it really doesn't work the way the research says, so I better revise my kind of thinking about that, you know, so I think just having an open mind and listening.

Being willing to listen are probably two most important things to look for if you're a patient looking for a clinician and also the two most important qualities to embrace as a clinic, you know, if you're a health care professional yourself, what do you think is what do you think the cause of The reluctance to just question the status quo in the realm of, you know, the, the medical system.

It just, it feels like, you know, probably prior to Covid it was very uncommon for people to be really standing out on the edge and saying anything that was against kind of the traditional, um, [00:23:00] consensus. And now I think there's been a shift. Where it seems like more and more people are willing to put their necks out there, but what do you think is the cause behind that, that the reluctance to go against the grain?

Um, well, if you stick your neck out far enough, it's probably gonna get cut off, or at least people are gonna try to, to do that. Um, and. I don't know. I mean, I actually think things have swung back the other way, to be honest, I think there was a lot more challenging of dogma prior to COVID. And then I think COVID flipped some kind of switch that people went back into being a lot more conservative.

And like, I can, I'm not going to name any names, but I can think of a fair number of fairly high profile people in the like functional medicine, integrative medicine space that have really sort of become much more [00:24:00] conventional in their approach over the past few years. Um, I don't know that COVID has anything to do with that per se, but I think there was a shift in, in the, in the, in the climate.

And I mean, this is even evidenced in, in like, Google algorithm changes that started to completely deprioritize, uh, content sites that talk about anything that is not non conventional. Um, so, you know, you just think of my, my website in 2013 was getting over a million visits a month. After I published my first book and that just dropped precipitously with every Google algorithm update.

Was that because people became less interested in what I was saying? Not at all. It's because Google decided that WebMD and Healthline and all of these [00:25:00] other conventional sources were what people needed to be seeing and so that's what they see. And it's not just me. It's pretty much every You know, a functional, holistic, integrative, uh, author, educator that you have heard of, that same thing happened over the last 10 years.

So I, I actually tend to think things have become more conventional in recent, in recent time. Uh, and that that's largely driven by, A few multinational corporations being in charge of who sees what, um, with the algorithms. Um, but if we look back a little further and still, of course, now this happens, um, you know, challenging the status quo.

Like there's a, you guys understand this. There's. There's an evolutionary pull to fitting in because, um, from an ancestral perspective, we lived in these close knit tribal social groups. And if we fit in, we [00:26:00] were more likely to survive if we stood out in any way or. Challenge this, you know, challenge the traditional dogma in any way.

We were more likely to be sort of, you know, either actually or metaphorically excommunicated from the tribe. And then that, that, that prevents us, uh, presents a survival challenge. So I think it's that deep in our nervous system and limbic system that to challenge the status quo is, is actually in some way.

A threat to, to our own survival, whether it is an actual threat, you know, it's rarely is, but it's perceived that way. So I think that's what makes it challenging. Yeah, Chris, there definitely is this general looming fear amongst the alternative health community of censorship and getting deplatformed. Um, I would say we really haven't had any concerns on Twitter or X.

That's actually our biggest platform. Um, We haven't gotten it. We've never been censored on there, which is [00:27:00] amazing. But we've definitely seen it on, you know, Google and meta and things like that. What we've just tried to do is just control. We can control and just build out our email list and just, you know, control the controllables.

And I'm curious for you as someone that was getting a million hits a month, it seems like that dropped due to censorship and algorithm changes. Are any, are there any other things that you'd recommend for the creators in the alternative health space that want to just be able to uh, You know, own their audience and try and hedge their bets as much as possible.

Yeah. I think email is really critical. Like you mentioned, um, at least so far that's been difficult for the gatekeepers to, to, to get to and manage. Uh, I think X also, you know, Elon Musk is a polarizing figure and people love him or hate him, but I admire, uh, at least the, the extent to which he's gone to.

Make, make it an open platform where, you know, different voices are welcome. And, you know, of course that can present challenges, but I think it's very important [00:28:00] for us to have venues both online and offline where we can. Express differing views and have conversations about that. I actually don't think that democracy is possible without that.

Um, it's that fundamental. And so, uh, you know, any, any ways that, uh, for creators, you know, if, if, if you can, you know, gravitate towards platforms like that, where there's less likely to be any, you know, way of, of just shutting, shutting down your voice. Um, then that's, that's a good thing. And then, you know, just building a relationship with people via email, uh, is a really good way to do it because that's, um, a more direct line of communication that can't be as easily mediated.

I mean, we, we would have days where we would just wake up. And 40 percent of our traffic would be gone overnight from a [00:29:00] Google algorithm change, you know, and it was just like that more than anything else made it obvious that it had nothing to do with people's actual behavior because that's not that kind of change is just not going to happen overnight and you know in one night.

If people are losing interest, that's going to happen over time. It was a clear manipulation, uh, that was being done by Google and other big companies to prioritize conventional content. And so, um, I don't know. I mean, I think I'm, I'm curious about how blockchain will impact things over the next 10, 20 years, um, because that does present another permission based You know, another possibility of permission based information sharing where, you know, you could, um, Have a secure platform where people can communicate and even like transact with small amounts of [00:30:00] cryptocurrency in exchange for information rather than an advertising supported model, because I think that's one of the biggest issues is when you have an ad supported model, then The algorithms are always going to optimize for content.

That's going to get people's attention because they're selling the attention to the advertiser. Right. And so that's not necessarily going to be the most truthful content or the most helpful content. It's just going to be the content that, um, sucks people's attention in as much as possible. And then of course they become beholden to the advertisers.

And so if there's. You know, if Pfizer is spending however many hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising on a particular platform, then that platform is just by definition going to be less likely to publish any content that is, uh, critical of Pfizer. You know, there's, as Upton, Sinclair said famously, that it's difficult to get a man to understand [00:31:00] something when his salary is dependent on him, not understanding it.

So that's just, that's human nature. Uh, and, and we have to recognize that