(upbeat music)

- Well, how about this?

IBS, acid reflux, GERD,ulcers and ulcerative colitis,

celiac disease, Crohn's disease,

bacterial and fungal overgrowth,

all the immune diseases,brain related conditions.

Dr. Colbert has got theanswer to all of these things

in case you happen to have them.

Physician heal thyself,

Dr. Don Colbert has had to do just that,

he was suffering fromrecurring bouts of sickness,

so how did he find a cure?

Take a look.

(soft music)

- [Reporter] Helping hispatients and readers get healthy

is Dr. Don Colbert's passion.

Before he studied nutrition,

he had become quite unhealthy himself.

Dr. Colbert believes thecondition of the gut,

determines much of one's overall health.

He explains how gut problemslead to a long list of diseases

and the solutions that canprevent them in his newest book,

"Dr. Colbert's Healthy Gut Zone".

(upbeat music)

- Well, joining us now is Dr. Don Colbert.

Doctor, it's good to see you.

Why is the gut health soimportant to overall health?

- Well, Pat, I didn't realizethis back 35 years ago

when I started medicine, but now I know

that up to 90% of all diseasestarts with an unhealthy gut.

And I went through thatin the late eighties

and little did I realize

that I had put the problem on myself

by prescribing myselfantibiotics when I got sick

with a sinus infection or bronchitis,

and instead of resting my bodyand taking good nutrition,

good food, I didn't rest,I simply took an antibiotic

and I would do thisevery four to six months

when I would get sick and run down,

and eventually I developedirritable bowel syndrome

where I had all kindsof abdominal bloating

and gas and diarrhea,

but I just took some medsto stop it because this was

when I was practicingconventional medicine.

But then a few years later,

I developed psoriasis,an auto immune disease,

but what I really developedwas I've developed leaky gut,

or increased intestinal permeability,

which sets the stage foralmost every chronic disease

and especially auto-immune diseases,

which psoriasis is just one of many.

- What is this leaky gut thing?

I mean, does it actually the leak?

Is that an actual term?

- Well, a leaky gut doesn't mean

you need to wear Depends ora diaper, that's not that.

A leaky gut simply means,

if you can picture a coffee filter,

and picture filling thatcoffee filter with coffee

and you brew a nice cup of coffee,

but now picture that coffee filter

which symbolizes your small intestines

where your nutrition is absorbed.

Now, picture taking an ice pick

and poking holes in that coffee filter,

and then pouring the coffee in there

and making your cup of coffee.

What happens?

You have all these coffee grounds

that should have been keptout, goes into your coffee.

A similar thing happens with leaky gut

which is increasedintestinal permeability,

because we are fearfullyand wonderfully made.

God has made this intestinallining, the small intestines

to be a semipermeable membrane

composed of finger-like projections.

And these cells are one cellthick in the small intestine

but the surface area ofthese cells is spread out

is the size of a tennis court.

The job of this is to allowus to absorb our nutrients,

our simple sugars, our fattyacids, our amino acids,

our vitamins, our minerals,

but it's to keep out all the bad,

the yeast, the undigested food particles,

the toxins, the chemicals,

but what happens is our gut is damaged,

mainly brought on by a lot ofthe meds doctors prescribe,

and it pries these cells open,

these finger-likeprojections get pried open

and we develop microscopic holes,

like that coffee filter that's been poked,

that's had holes poked in it with that,

you know, you can poke holesin it with that ice pick,

and then all of a sudden thecoffee grounds come through,

but what comes through ispartially digested food,

and what that causes isinflammation the gut,

food sensitivities, irritablebowel symptoms, gut symptoms

but eventually it causessystemic inflammation.

That same inflammation starts to affect

the blood-brain barrier, opens it up,

so we get inflammatorymediators into the brain

leading to depression, anxiety,ADHD, dementia, Parkinson's.

But one of the biggest things is obesity.

When we have the gut compromised,

bad bacteria start to overgrow,

good bacteria are diminished,

and then we get anabundance of this bacteria

called Firmicutes that cause us

to crave more sugar, carbs and starches,

and they cause us to extractmore calories from our food.

So it starts with simplymedications and foods.

So I talk about the seven key foods

or the seven key thingsthat trigger a leaky gut.

And then the foods thatperpetuate the leaky gut

and the most common meds are antibiotics,

proton pump inhibitorsor acid blocking meds

and anti-inflammatory meds,

but also GMO foods andartificial sweeteners,

these kill off the goodbacteria in our gut.

- Doctor, let me ask you this.

I mean, how many dentists arethere that give antibiotics,

they think it's aninfection in your tooth,

how many doctors are there

that understand what you're talking about?

This is a health crisis in America,

and a lot of it's caused by the fact

we start throwing antibioticsto little children

when they're in their infancy.

- Absolutely right, andagain, what happens so often

is they over prescribe antibiotics,

and then after the antibiotics

with probiotics and prebiotics

that simply get the goodbacteria growing again,

because Pat, whathappened to me with my IBS

and the psoriasis tomake a long story short,

I changed my diet.

I took some gut healingsupplements that heal a leaky gut,

I planted a good bacteria,

I killed off the yeastand the bad bacteria,

the IBS healed, the psoriasis went away

and I've been 30 years without psoriasis,

and that's an autoimmunedisease they say is incurable.

But I've used this program

for the last 30 years for my patients,

and we see absolute miracles

with transforming the gut health,

because the gut health isthe foundation of all health.

- Well talk about the foodsthat'll do the job for you.

- The foods that'll dothe job are not GMO foods,

they're living foods.

In fact, I talk about....

mainly these are thekey gut healing foods,

lots of veggies, lots ofolive oil, high in polyphenols

as well as what we callresistance starches

that feed the good bacteria in the gut

that produces butyrate,which helps to heal the gut.

Resistant starches are green bananas,

but when they turn yellow,they're full of sugar,

sugar, carbs, and starchesfeed the bad bacteria

and prevent the gut from healing,

but also fiber, especially insoluble

like psyllium husk powder,

it is so good for helping to heal the gut

as well as probiotics,prebiotics, and polyphenols,

I call them my gut power tools,

and polyphenols are olive oil, green tea,

black tea, organic coffee, dark chocolate,

berries, berries, berries.

These are gut healing,gut restoring foods,

and then probiotic foods like kombucha.

I tell people goat milk or coconut yogurt

or Kefir dairy is highlyinflammatory for the gut,

that needs to be altered for a while.

And so I simply put it all together

with a low carb, lowstarch, no sugar diet,

crucify the flesh forabout four to six weeks,

your gut heals,

then you can introducesome of the foods you love,

but one of the greatestfoods that harm the gut

is gluten or wheat.

Once that is compromised,

wheat contains 23,000, over 23000 proteins

that can inflame the gut,

because gut is highly inflammatory

because it's no longerthe amber fills of grain

that we used to see hundreds of years ago,

now it's dwarf wheat, whichis highly inflammatory

and it causes tremendous weight gain.

So we.

- Doctor, how do you get gluten free,

if gluten is what holds theflour together, isn't it?

I mean, are there breads thatdon't have gluten in them?

- Absolutely there are, andthat's the good part about it,

we have gluten-free breads

that don't have thatinflammatory protein in it,

and there's also millet bread.

There's also paleo and ketobreads and seed breads,

but gluten is inflammatory.

To heal the gut, we needto lay gluten on the altar

for at least a four to six weeks,

and I had to lay it onthe alter for years.

Now I can have a littlebit and it won't hurt me,

but gluten is still my enemy.

- You talk in your book about the bacteria

that if we get rid of all the bacteria,

we've done ourselves a disservice,

so we really need to getout and play in the dirt,

tell us about that.

- Okay, right.

Well, what's happened as a society,

we overuse soaps and cleansers.

See, our body is composed of

over a hundred trillion good bacteria,

that literally makes up two thirds

to 70% of our immune system,

and we wash all thebacteria off of our skin,

off of our body and wekeep washing it off,

literally it will eventuallyaffect your health.

So again, we're too clean.

We need to have a little healthy dirt,

not dirt from Sloan's,

but dirt from the fields,from the playground,

healthy dirt is good for us

'cause it has that good bacteria in it.

- You've got the lawyerssaying, kids can't play outside,

it's really good whenthey're playing in the dirt

and playing footballand they're out there,

roughing things up, then, is that right?

- Absolutely rightbecause the good bacteria

trains our immune system.

And so many people are hyperclean.

In fact, when my grandkids come over,

I don't give them a bath for a day or two,

but I'm helping their good bacteria,

now the mom gets mad at me, but I say no,

I'm helping their immune system,

I'm training their immune system.

They don't stink, kids don't stink.

- Well doctor, I think, you know,

we have as a nation, thereis a crisis of obesity,

it's unbelievable how fat we are.

And this book, ladies andgentleman has the answer.

You really need to get it,

"Dr. Colbert's Healthy GutZone", it's a fabulous book,

and we can get it whereverbooks are sold I guess,

doctor, is there any specialplace we can order it?

- Well, if they can get at Amazon,

they can go to drcolbert.com,

almost any bookstore will carry this book,

but if they can't findit, and go to my website,

dr, drcolbert.com.

- We do have a crisis ofobesity in America, don't we?

- Absolutely, but again, what we find

is most of those obese patients,

when we examine their microbiome,or their gut bacteria,

there's too many Firmicutes,

from too much sugar, carbs, and starches

and not enough living food.

Our body was createdto consume living food,

not GMO foods, not sugars,carbs, and starches,

and so we simply repair the gut,

by choosing livingfoods that heal the gut.

- God bless you, fabulous.

Well, ladies and gentlemen,

I can't recommend this strongly enough.

People, you know I'm 91 years old.

People say, what goes on?

I follow a lot of what the doctors say.

I mean, religiously, Ieat a lot of vegetables,

I've not eaten a lot of beef,

and I take probiotics and prebiotics,

- Berries and.

- Berries and, lots of berries

and I just love them and bran and oatmeal

and things like that,

ladies and gentlemen, it works.

Please get the man's book,

I want you to stay healthy.