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- Staying healthy these days
has become a lot more challenging despite technology.
There's so much conflicting information
on best health practices.
Hi, I'm Lea Woodford of Smartfem and Friends and today
I have Dr. Ryan Krch, a naturopath and health consultant.
Hey Ryan, welcome to the show. - Hey, Lea how's it going?
- I'm doing good how are you? - Good.
- I'm gonna jump right in Ryan 'cause we got
a lot to cover okay.
So can you tell our viewing audience what the difference is
between a naturopath and an MD?
- Yeah, basically as a naturopath we approach medicine
in a much more fundamental level.
Allopathic medicine, the more mainstream medicine
kind of approaches things from a symptom
or science kind of approach to things.
We like to look at underlying cause more.
Try and figure out you know,
if somebody is having asthma, difficulty breathing
kind of stuff, you wanna do something immediately
to allow them to breathe but you also wanna do something
in a longer term basis that reduces
that inflammation and allows the lungs to expand
a little bit more.
So it's kinda getting down with the core of things
which is different than treating the symptoms.
- So it feels like it's almost more preventative
whereas traditional medicine seems to be more reactive.
- Yes, that's very much the case.
So again, we'll do whatever acute things that we need to do
to help that patient feel better
but we're gonna start delving in with a patient
to their nutrition and their lifestyle,
stresses that they have.
There's all these other things that are contributory
to these diseases and really trying to help
move them forward with that as well
as just remedies, and prescriptions.
- You know Ryan, it seems like despite current technology,
the overall health of America is deteriorating.
- Yeah, that is very much the situation.
You know, in almost every of the major diseases
that effect us as Americans,
they all seem to be getting increasing amounts
of incidence of these diseases
and there's so many contributing factors to that.
The quality of the food that we eat,
The stress in our society,
all these kind of things and most of what is confronting us
in our culture, American culture is lifestyle disease
and so everything is preventable
but because people are not making the correct lifestyle,
or the best lifestyle choices,
or maybe don't have the freedom to do that kind of stuff
that we're getting, seeing more of these lifestyle diseases
like cardiovascular issues, asthma, high blood pressure,
all that kind of stuff.
So as naturopaths, again we will come in
and try and like address that lifestyle thing.
So we're a great approach to what is really confronting
American health right now.
- You have mentioned lifestyle choices.
Can we elaborate a little bit more on that?
Because it seems like you know, since I went to high school
I mean, we have seen a surge of obesity.
Can you talk about you know,
what some of those causes are?
- Yeah, especially as it relates to obesity
and being overweight, that's one area
that I work in extensively and I think,
I think we have a much better understanding
of how we approach obesity.
You know, before with the idea of caloric restriction
and excessive exercise,
some of the things that we saw on The Biggest Loser
and you know, caloric restriction is not
a sustainable long term behavior
and now that we've recognized that
and there's been some really great studies
that have done that.
Our approach has to shift and is shifting
and what we're trying to do now
is rather than getting people to restrict foods in general,
is we get them to eat more of the better foods
that are out there,
things that are more nutritionally compatible,
things that are gonna help fuel them throughout the day
and give them very even energy.
When we see people making better choices
and eating more good foods,
the bad foods kind of automatically go away.
There's a great University of Pittsburgh study on that
and that was kind of the template for me
in approaching my patients
and something I think I felt for a long time.
So we don't talk about caloric restriction anymore,
I don't with my patients
and the corporate wellness that I do.
- So talk to me a little bit about portion control.
- So portion control is not important.
Again, I'd rather see people eating more of the good foods
and then over time, we'll see the bad foods come out.
I think the other thing that is not really well addressed
in terms of how we approach weight loss in this country
is the aspect of stress.
People will focus on nutrition,
people will focus on exercise,
but the third component is probably what drives
most of the fat that we see around our midline,
most of our bad eating habits and things like that.
So a very comprehensive approach to stress
is necessary if you're gonna change lifestyle
if you're gonna create behaviors
that are better for individuals.
- With the onset of obesity, have you seen
more diseases such as diabetes
as a result of this and hypertension?
- Sure they're all related and Type 2 diabetes
being the primary one.
Also hypertension, high blood pressure is another one.
You know, we actually see more cancers with
obese patients. - Really?
- More musculoskeletal issues and
musculoskeletal issues, low back pain and things like that
are some of the primary reasons
that people will first show up in a doctor's office.
So you know, getting that weight under control,
showing people how to do that well over a longterm basis
is really the key there.
The problem that we see with most approaches
to weight loss now is people will hit their objective goal
and they'll back away from whatever changes they've made
and then unfortunately within three months.
- They're back to where they started.
- Or worse and if they've approached it
too aggressively, now we know that
that can have a dramatic impact
on caloric intake the rest of their lives.
It can actually greatly lower the amount of calories
that they need to have the rest of their life
and that can actually decline over time
as opposed to getting better.
So we like to see things at a higher metabolic rate,
people are able to eat more calories and still maintain
or lose weight and stuff.
So how quickly we lose weight
is a very important consideration.
We wanna not exceed more than two pounds per week
in a weight loss program.
- Which is more important?
Eating or fitness?
- Well that's a tough choice to make.
You know, as we've become more sedentary you know,
the movement thing is more important.
I would say they're equally important.
I really can't pick between one or the other
and they do go hand in hand
and the really great thing about exercise too
is that it helps us deal with stress.
It shifts along the physiological stress hormones
like high cortisol, epinephrine,
into these feel-good hormones
like endorphins and things like that.
So we take care of that stress component with exercise
but the stress component also greatly changes
how we approach nutrition.
We tend to be stress eaters,
or comfort food seekers when we're under more stress.
But now, now that we've broken that stress cycle
we make better nutritional choices.
So, they're all kind of interrelated and very important.
- So Ryan, I know you're a naturopath
but I wanna talk a little bit about health insurance.
It seems like not only me, but all of my friends,
it seems like health insurance costs
are skyrocketing and yet the coverage,
it seems to be less and less
and going to a traditional MD, it's not like going to you
where we spend some time together.
It's basically three minutes over a clipboard
and I'm just wondering, how can they possibly diagnose
what's wrong with me when they barely spend
five minutes with me.
- Yeah, it's a little bit easier approach for them
because they are as I mentioned,
treating signs or symptoms and stuff
and that's all they're focused on.
We need more time because we wanna get down
to the core of the issue and there's kind of an axiom
in naturopathic medicine and that is that
if you listen to your patient, they'll lead you to the cure.
I think it also on a more fundamental level,
it creates a rapport and a respect
and when there's that kind of listening and understanding
relationship between patient and physician
that's equal on both sides that that confidence
in the individual increases.
Whether it be my confidence in you
or your confidence in me and we know
from a lot of studies in medicine and outcomes
that that high confidence level in your working partner
really creates much better outcome.
- Well that's an interesting conversation.
You and I are partners 'cause you're my naturopath.
- Right. - But, you
prescribed the keto diet for me.
- Yes. - And I in turn
put it, my husband on it. - Yes.
- And so he is no longer eating any kind of white sugar
or any kind of breads but for the first time
in nine years, he's not had a Claritin.
Can you share?
- Yeah, the really great thing about the keto diet
is it probably eats more like how we evolved
and there's been a lot of in our culture
to try and move us towards evolving
but genetically we haven't quite moved there yet.
Primarily if you're making the right choices
on the keto diet, this isn't true of all of the choices.
If you're eating a lot of saturated fats
and things that are inflammatory,
then it's going to increase your inflammatory rate
and if you're a person who suffers from allergies
or asthma or something, it could exacerbate
your symptoms, make them worse.
If you make the right choices,
if you're eating the healthy fats like avocados
and nuts and things like that.
These are no inflammatory, in fact they're anti-inflammatory
so it kinda cleans things up.
In that heightened state of immune response
any kind of allergen or emotional trauma
or mental stress or physical stress or something
can move everything towards that cascade of events
that suddenly it's sneezing or runny nose
or something like that.
But making these healthy food choices reduces
that inflammatory state and makes you less susceptible.
The really good thing about that approach
is that when you're reducing inflammation,
you're also decreasing your chance
of cardiovascular disease, of cancers,
of early onset Alzheimer's and dementia,
osteoarthritis, all these other lifestyle related diseases.
So when you're really targeting that one thing
that shows up on the individual,
we're being preventative and kind of prophylactic
in that person's health.
- You know, that's what I find so interesting
is cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes,
heart disease, so much of this is preventable.
- Yeah, yeah it really is.
- So why aren't we doing it?
- That's a very good point.
You know when you look at where the health dollar is spent,
95% of it, 95% of it goes to treating disease.
Five percent of it goes to prevention.
In almost every model where we look at spending
a dollar of prevention medicine,
we'll earn on the backside, or save,
technically save on the backside
anywhere from three to eight dollars.
For every dollar spent but we're a reactionary model
in terms of healthcare.
We wait 'til the disease manifests
and then we treat it and we treat it particularly well
in many instances but you know,
you're just left wondering, I'm left wondering,
why we're not spending this dollar up front
and really, keeping people from ever getting
to that disease state
'cause a lot of what we do in the treatment of disease is,
doesn't really get to the bottom or the root causes of it
so people will probably have to deal with this.
- Again. - For a long time
or maybe for the rest of their lives too.
The naturopath wants to get in there and go
let's find out what that root cause,
let's fix that, let's get these people quality of life again
and let's get 'em off meds
'cause the other thing that we know
is that even with critical medication prescriptions,
only about 60% of people are compliant.
So 40% of people are off the meds that they absolutely
need to be on, we know the compliance isn't there.
So if we can't get that longterm compliance,
we need to go back and try and fix the individual
so they don't have to rely on the extensive medications
their whole life.
- So Ryan, what are three tips that you can give our viewers
and to really making a, making better health choices?
- Yeah I think working with patients
and working in the corporate wellness spheres,
the thing that I find is the most key
is everybody has this sense or this desperation
that their plate is full and when you're someone like I
coming in saying, now we want you to make lifestyle changes.
It's like no my plate's already full.
I can't possibly spend more time thinking about this.
So I think the first thing that has to happen
and I do this on a physician basis
with adrenal function and trying to lower the perception
of stress but an individual can do this
on maybe mindfulness training,
relaxation techniques, breathing techniques,
all these things
that kinda bring stress down almost instantly.
When you get to that point
where you feel your plate is not so full,
you start to see the benefits
of even just these simple exercises like that
and you're much more likely to engage
in these lifestyle changes that need to happen.
So that whole relaxation and stress reduction thing
I think is the primary thing that needs to be done.
Then to follow up on that, really understanding nutrition.
Even going to something that I do a lot
with weight loss is food allergy studies.
Trying to figure out what people are having
an immune response to and what people are having
a digestion response to.
When we're eating a lot of things that might even
be actually healthy for us or generally
perceived as being healthy for us
but we're actually having an immune response to
we're not able, we're increasing our inflammatory stress
on the body and things like that,
it's difficult to lose weight,
it's difficult to reduce stress and those kind of things.
So eating the right foods,
finding out what are the right foods specifically for you
and eating those are really helpful too.
Then movement is always a key thing.
A sedentary lifestyle is the new cigarettes
or the new smoking and getting away from that.
Just having some physical activity.
You know lots of the Apple Watches, Fitbits
and things like that are good at reminding people
hey you've been sitting, this amount of time.
It'd be good for you to get up and exercise right now.
If you don't have those devices,
you know setting reminders, timers, or something like that
is a key thing to do.
Getting engaged in some physical exercise is really key.
I have two end points that I really stress with people
especially if you're moving from a more sedentary lifestyle
to a more active one and that is,
whatever exercise you engage in,
make sure that when you get to the point
that you feel less stressed, that's when you wanna stop
and also at that point where you feel refreshed too.
If you always end exercise on those two things,
not pushing through to the point of exhaustion
or injury or something like that,
your end points for exercise are that you feel great
and you're much more likely to come back and reengage
in that again.
And that's what we wanna see.
That's really helpful
in getting a sustainable exercise there
and then I would say too,
be creative, it's not going to the gym.
It's not getting on a treadmill.
- Good 'cause I hate the gym. - And all those kinda things.
I mean I think about Zumba, you know,
rock climbing, anything. - Fun.
- Go take dance classes or something like that.
Something that appeals to you, find a person
you can do it with because when you have
that accountability you're more likely to go.
- So true. - I have a gym partner,
I have somebody that I road with,
I do cycling and stuff like that
and the agreement is with all those individuals
is that whether you're there or not,
it's got me to show up you know.
We go ahead and do it anyways, whether our exercise partner
shows up or not, so that accountability,
accountability really helps move things forward.
- It really does, well Ryan I could talk to you all day.
Thanks for coming on the show.
- It was my pleasure.
- This has been Lea Woodford with Smartfem and Friends.
Thanks for watching.
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