Fighting Inflammation | Women to Women Podcast with Marcelle Pick ft. Dr. Madiha Saeed

Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Women to Women podcast Everything Hormone, adrenal trauma and weight loss. And today I am delighted to interview someone that I have actually just recently met and that is doctor Said. So let me tell you a little bit about this amazing woman. Seriously, this is incredible what she is doing. She is holistic mom, MD, who's board certified family doc, best selling author of the Holistic Rx, your guide to healing chronic inflammation and disease which we're going to dig into today and Adam's healing Adventures as well as director of education of documenting hope, Dr. Madea speaks internationally, igniting the world with her passion to ignite a healing revolution which we so desperately need these days. During an international talk, she is in direct connections with world leaders and has been asked to speak to an audience of 40,000 people for the United Nations. She has three books coming out. Can you imagine three books at one time at the end of the year that we'll talk about later. So welcome. Thank you so much for everything that you do. I am so grateful.

Thank you so much for having me. I am so incredibly honored. Yes. This is so exciting. Thank you so much.

So can we start with kind of a whole discussion about why are people really so sick these days? I mean, if we look at the pre pandemic and now we are where we are, I think people have lost a sense of hope and they don't even know where to turn because there are so many people on many, many levels that are not.

Well, absolutely.

Seriously. In this pandemic alone, CNN reported that diabetes has doubled in children. We are getting sicker as, as a Society, as four and every 10Americans have at least two or more chronic health conditions. And these numbers are growing in an alarming rate. And then 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. Heart disease, cancer, stroke account for more than half of all deaths each year.

That's craziness, unfortunately. What I really wanted to do, you know, highlight also is our stuff, just us getting sick. It's our children getting sick. Our children's brains and bodies are getting sicker and sicker. Currently, 54% of all American children have a chronic health condition. And they say that these numbers are increasing to 80% by 2025. Isn't that crazy? And our children, these are just climbing and doubling in more than 70 countries since 1980. And that obesity. 70% of obese children have at least one cardiovascular risk factor, one every six child is having diabetes.

Unfortunately, if we continue at this current trajectory, this is probably the first Generation of kids that is not going to outlive their parents as our kids are actually living shorter and sicker lives. On top of that autism, one in every six American child has at least one neurodevelopmental disorder like autism, adhd, dyslexia, specific learning disorders, communication, sensory processing, and so many more. Right now, autism. They say if we continue at the current trajectory, currently in 2018, it was one in every 36, and now by 2033, one in every four children will have autism. Seriously, what is going on with these children? It's not just better diagnosis because I don't know about you, I know very few autistic adults compared to the amount of autistic children that I see. This is a really big problem. Our world is suffering, our planet is suffering. And it really comes down to our bodies and our lifestyles today are completely out of balance.

I mean, despite all of the warnings about unhealthy diets and obesity, our kids and our families are eating more fast food, are more stressed than ever before, where limited diet variety, lack of sleep, lack of nature, this lack of exercise or play, all these negativity in the world, increase exposure to toxins inside and outside the home that all contribute to this imbalanced lifestyle.

When our bodies are out of balance, that then actually leads to something in our bodies called inflammation. When you have an increase in chronic inflammation, that can then lead to chronic diseases of every stripe. Actually now science has even shown that it affects the body, but it also affects and it disconnects the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. This imbalanced lifestyle is actually disconnecting these two pieces that are really critical for decision making.

We now have children and families that are out of control, unable to use the whole brain to make logical decisions, decrease empathy, poor relations, more anger fostering that everyone hates me mentality. It's not even just affecting our bodies, it's affecting our brains. And this then obviously then it's just like this vicious cycle where you're making our children, everybody around us and us, we're making the wrong decisions. Even though we know that these things are important. We know that eating right is important, we know that exercise is important, we know that getting enough sleep is important, but what's going on? We're just unable to make those right decisions. It really starts off with our environment and our lifestyles. That's leading to an imbalanced brain that leads to that vicious cycle.

Can we unpack that a little bit more? So people are on the call going, okay, I've heard inflammation is a problem and I know I'm supposed to change my diet, but I don't even know where to start. And I have to tell you this funny story, and that is I drive on this particular road every day to work and I have for 40 years and now I have to back away because it's a drive through. There are people going through and they're backed up down the road. I've never seen that in 40 years.

Years.

More and more people are going for things that are not healthy for them. And I'm thinking we have to help people make different choices because that's part of this puzzle. And the beauty of what you're saying is that this is reversible, we can change this.

Yes.

But people don't really know and understand how.

No. And I really think it does start off with knowledge.

Because if we just tell you, you know, just do this when human beings are not just listen to that because we're going to go with our gut, we're like, oh, we want this artificial.

Thing. Otherwise forget that this makes me feel good. But if we know that what these things are actually causing, then we would start to make more informed decisions. So it really starts off with understanding first, I think what inflammation is and it really means like this fire inside its body's natural defense response to your body's immune system as it tries to fight off the bad guys and keeps the good guys in and even heals wounds. So inflammation really causes this. Like we hear the rhubarb dolor, so the redness and the swelling and the heat and the pain. But without inflammation we would really endanger and we would no way to fight the microbial invaders or damage whatever needs to be fixed. But there's two different types. There's acute inflammation and chronic inflammation. Acute inflammation lasts for a short time and it's really a good sign that your body is working properly. It's ancestral.

And it lasts for a short time. It does its job and then things go back to normal. But if that switch of our immune system gets stuck in the on position for too long, it can be too much of a good thing and that can actually be triggered. That can be stuck in the on position by constant modern life's daily exposures to triggers like chronic stress toxins, you know, toxic food allergens, low grade infections, and even ongoing stress in the environment. All of that can really drive disease destroying this miracle of a body that we were given. And it takes a little bit longer to kick in and to develop but when everything's working properly, when your immune system is working properly, it can keep this fire under control. But when there's constant exposures to triggers, the inflammatory molecules go crazy out of control, destroying everything in its path, destroying damage, damaging tissues and organs that lead to chronic disease delivery strike. So chronic inflammation can worsen mood disorders, cardiovascular diseases, asthma, cancer, diabetes. These hijacks are little bodies and brains. And unfortunately we can actually start. By the time you actually see experience symptoms, a lot of the damage has been done. And inflammation can then infect our brain, our behavior, our mitochondria, our hormones, our genes, everything. But this is where there's so much hope, is that we can put out that fire. With simple, easy time, cost effective lifestyle tips that you can incorporate into your daily routine that can really start to put your body back into balance, thereby putting your brains into balance, thereby improving your immune system. And then everything just starts to fall back into place. And it can be easy. Anybody can do it.

Let's talk about the easy. Let's talk about some simple things we can do. When my kids were little, I didn't have sugar in the house until they were seven. And my son who was seven, I had twins. He put his finger in a bowl. We were somewhere, this is many years ago, and it was like, yum, what's this? It was like God damn. But it's really funny because parents would come up to me and say, what are you doing? Your kids are never sick. And it was really true that things would be going around in school. My kids were really pretty healthy. So how do we say number one to talk to parents and number two, where do people start? They say, I want to take baby steps, I want to learn how to change my diet or to stop that inflammation and that fire, where do they start?

So again, educating yourself. And I have them go through like the digestive health and detoxification and the 4s is stress, sleep, social and spiritual health. But if they really want somewhere to start, you know, because sometimes it's, it really starts with your mindset.

And we can be on like the best gut healing diet and we can be on like, we can be meditating every day. But if we're negative, if we're thinking, if we're bombarded with all this negativity on a daily basis of our subconscious is more negative, that can then lead to chronic inflammation and disease. Because over the last 14 years of practicing medicine, I have started with gratitude for almost every person that I've seen is that immediately when they wake up in the morning, I want them to say 10 things that they're thankful for every day. And that in and of itself can actually lower your inflammation that can start to create these, you know, it can start to rebuild the connection between your prefrontal cortex and your amygdala. So therefore you're making healthier decisions. It's basically by like waking up on the right side of the bed every day. And because right now, currently we're living in a world with so much negativity, we are bombarded and our subconscious governs about 90% of our thoughts and actions. And remember, your subconscious is just, it's nothing but neural pathways that have been established in your brain as a result of your past beliefs and conditioning. And so as you know, our subconscious really does no thinking of its own, but it's rather. But it relies on your perception of the world around you and listening to verbal and non verbal cues. So when we can turn our consciously turn our negativity into more positivity from the inside out, the neural pathways associated with this negativity, it does take time, but it can start to.

Rebuild itself instead of being more negative to being positive. And because these negative subconscious thoughts can really undermine our health. So just by these simple things, by saying all the things that you're grateful for every day.

What kind of immediately when you wake up in the morning, say 10 things that you're thankful for. That showing gratitude can actually boost your optimism. It can improve your immune system and well being and sense of happiness. It can improve genetics and traumatic experiences. Years. And really overall they've done studies where it even affects your heart rate variability. Where your heart felt emotions like gratitude and love and caring can produce these sine waves and coherent waves that really radiate to every cell of the body that can then keep your body totally in balance. And when that happens, it actually lowers your blood pressure, it improves your cognitive function, your body brain is able to think clearly, it increases your immune system. So there's so many things that we can just do by just incorporating gratitude into our daily lives. I find that that is so powerful and that's one thing a lot of people sort of miss.

But over the last like literally 15 years of practicing medicine, 14 to 15 years of prior doing this, I have started with gratitude with every single one of my patients and my clients. And we do it in our own homes where immediately when we wake up in the morning, we talk about all the things that are going right in our lives. Right.

You know, and when the kids were, I mean my kids are younger, 13 to 6. So I have four boys. And so we wake up and we think we just like for us, we start singing the great gratitude song. And so are those things that the kids, while making the lunches, will do it while, you know, we're just doing our morning routine or they'll do it in the morning time. As soon as they wake up. Just immediately think of the things, 10 things that they're thankful for. So that's probably one of the most powerful things that I've done to really start to build those connections from a prefrontal cortex to amygdala, start making better decisions and sort of getting. Getting off on the right side of the bed every day. And it's so super powerful.

I did an interview with Dr. Jeffrey Bland, who's, as, you know, the kind of the founder of functional medicine. I've known him for probably, I don't know, 35 years.

Yeah. Wow.

He gave a great description in a little bit different way than what you're talking about. Looking at how fear, which we have an enormous amount of, unfortunately today on every level, from our kids to the world to the pandemic. And he talked about how the fight flight response is triggered by having that much fear and that continues. It increases cortisol and increased cortisol causes thyroid problems, causes immune dysfunction, causes brain changes, causes hormonal dysregulation like crazy gut disruption. So it affects everything in our body.

Everything.

And it's the general adaptation syndrome that Hans Selye talked about years and years ago. And now he pulled it back to our understanding that that's one of the first things we can also do to help your immune system is exactly what you're talking about, is helping the body not be in fight flight, not be in sympathetic overdrive all the time. And having it come back to a state of calm, you know, and whatever you have to do, go out and walk outside with no shoes on or just connect with the trees and gratitude in the morning to be. Let's turn. Turn the cup around and say what? How is it half full or three quarters full? And he was really. It was an incredible interview. And it's exactly what you're talking about is that if we stay this way because everybody's so angry now.

Oh, my gosh. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

We have to change that. And we can change it with our own one person at a time mindset.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it. I think that's where the fear that stress. Because stress leads to 80% of the complaints that Come to primary care physicians. I really have people. And that's probably the positivity is the first way to really improve that stress because it weakens our immune system and that we need our immune system right now. When we're invoking so much fear in the world today. It's actually weakening our immune systems and opposite effect of what it needs to do really starting with that, you know.

With gratitude every single day, making sure that you're sleeping properly, making sure that you surround yourself with people that love you and support you and are positive. And same with like the stress management. And so we can lower the fight and flight and allow our bodies to regenerate and our immune system regenerate. That's really super important. Absolutely.

And you know, I mean along with what you described, which is the dietary pieces, even if you just give up sugar, you know, and just say no more sugar or you know, no more fast foods or I'll only do them twice a week instead of five times a week, those are all the things that make the biggest difference. And you know, you have things on Facebook about cooking and there's all kinds of places you can go, you can get an air fryer to make it faster. I mean, there's many tools now that we have to allow you to kind of shift things in a very simple way. One baby step at a time, One.

Baby step at a time. And for me specifically, when it comes down to food, I mean we really want to focus on foods that are going to help optimize your gut bacteria because we know that your gut has 70 to 80% of your immune system. We have 100 trillion bacteria. And to focus on foods that will one balance your hormone levels, your insulin, because a lot of people today are insulin resistance and pre diabetic food. That's going to optimize the gut bacteria and keep your gut bacteria happy and healthy and food that is the most nutrient dense foods for you. And I found that, I mean we can focus on the nitty gritty of, you know, to eat animal meats, to not eat it, to do this. I mean, we, there's so many pieces that we all, you know, disagree on. But the pieces that we all 99% of us agree on is eating, we should be plant based, right? Tons of vegetables, some sort of clean protein and some healthy fats. And that is what I do with my kids and my family is really go down the list of vegetables, clean protein, healthy fats, eating the rainbow, eating tons of fiber, because all of that will help to really focus on the things you can have, not the stuff you can't have. And I find that, I mean, in my house, we sort of stock the house filled with things that they can have. If they want pancakes, I have cassava flour pancakes there for them. If they want chips and cookies, we have cassava flour or like almond flour or different things that are more nutrient dense, that are not high glycemic, that really stabilize the blood sugar level and feed the gut microbiome as a prebiotics like cassava flour. And then almond flour is filled with nuts. So that will benefit your body instead of hurt it. But then they're still feeling that they're not being deprived.

So important. I think everybody kind of gets concerned about, I can't have this, I can't have that. Well, yes, but we just have to kind of figure it out in a different way.

Yeah, and that's where the gratitude then comes into play. Because then we can then crowd out right. When we focus on, oh my gosh. Because the first thing people are like, what then? What else am I going to eat? If you're taking out all my starches and my, you know, my, my breads and my sugar and my things, I was like, no, because look at all these things you can have. I mean, literally, I've told you to remove like five, four things. Five things. While there are a hundred thousand plus species out there, other things that you can have. And when you start looking at it in that light, it's so much fun. There's so much you can eat. You can keep things exciting and fun and colorful and try different spices and different types of fruits and vegetables and herbs. And you can really create a masterpiece in your kitchen by focusing on things that you can. So again, I mean, that's what I do again in my house and we talked about the sugar. So I have cookies and pastries, but I make them at home. So I'll make my cakes out of almond flour. So the kids then satisfy their sweet tooth. But after they have their vegetables, their clean protein and healthy fats, eating the rainbow they'll go for. Instead of the cakes or pastries, whatever, they'll go for fruit. They know, they love that. I mean, you get totally different flavors of fruit and they're so delicious.

And so nutritious with all their phytochemicals and the, the nutrients that each one color of the rainbow brings to the child's and family's diet to really find. Yeah, sugar is just one piece, but there's so many things you can have besides for sugar. And again, that's where the gratitude and the positivity and that then lowers the stress. Right? Because now you're like, instead of, I can't have all these things, but I can have all of these. Wow. Right. And that's really what I love to empower patients and families that it's not about taking things away necessarily, but sort of replacing them with healthier options.

When my kids were little, one of the things we did was we made sorbets, you know, and you can make it with amazing food and just a little coconut milk maybe and then. Or something like that as a sweetener. And it's yummy. And it's. You don't feel deprived. You can put a little. You know, I used to do gluten free cones. You can still have it that way. Or. And so there's lots of ways to.

Do so many ways. And here my kids love to do that. And then they like, we're going to do one just red. I'll put just strawberries in that and then layer that in. Yeah, like orange. Right. And then yellow and then green and then having. So now it's even like a rainbow sorbet.

Made with real fruits and vegetables. Oh, they absolutely love it. And that's fun for them to see that color. And then for me, I love to just leave a plate of veggies or fruit on the table so they can come and go as they please. But then really focus on, oh my gosh, I can have all of these things. You're not depriving your body at all. And it's not really a diet. It's more of like a lifestyle. Right. So that's important to say, oh, you got to be on this healthy diet. No, no, no, we're not on a healthy diet. We're on a healthy lifestyle. So that adds so much love and positivity to even every bite that you take.

So one of the things that my kids would always complain about, I mean, My oldest is 31 and my twins are 30, so that, you know, they're older now, but is that kids would come over and they'd be so annoyed because I wouldn't have junk food in the pantry. And so that was one of the things that we talked about. Now that they're adults, they're grateful now, but it was really hard when they were little because they would share lunches at school and get their sugar snacks. And I try to make them as happy and healthy as I can when they're younger.

It's a little tougher it can be. We're very blessed that we're in a day and age now that they've come up with these healthier option snacks. I know, for example, there's companies that make their chips out of cassava flour now, right? And so and cookies. So that's why my fridge now and my pantry is always stocked with these healthier options that taste delicious. And whenever I like, for example, whenever I go speak, so I can go to speak, I will only cook for like about if I speak to 500, anything above that, it's a little bit harder to cook for. But I will make like 500 mini muffins and cupcakes. And whenever I do my cooking demonstrations or whenever I have guests over, I mean, I cook for a family. I cook and eat and, you know, take care of a family of eight every day. Right. And we have a multi generational household here. And so. And usually, you know, specifically pre Covid time, everybody would come over to my house on the weekends. And so we have a family of 18, like 19, 20 people on the weekends that I'm feeding. And I would feed them this exact same way as I eat. I will not feed anybody anything different. But everybody loved it because even when I went to parties, I actually, my biggest thing, my favorite thing to take to parties is lentil pasta, right. That anybody loves. You can't taste the difference. It's delicious. But it's made lent pasta made out of lentils and a brownie made out of almond flour. And so this is the stuff that everybody would be like. They want to be one. They'll be able to know the difference and becomes a conversation piece. Even when you have people at your own house, you tell them the ingredients and how these every little nutrient. Like so for the pasta, I actually will add, you can't tell, but I'll add like broccoli sprouts and cauliflower rice cauliflower and mushrooms and carrots of little, little pieces. And they'll be in the pasta sauce. They can't tell. And so becomes. And then I'll do a little, we can do a bone broth or whatever it is to make it really nutritious and it becomes a conversation piece. But then people are eating, they're like, this is delicious. And I guess so I guess my kids one, I've labeled everything what it is, right? We, since the beginning we thought this is chemicals, this is not chemicals. They know exactly because I mean now they've started their own podcast, the holistic kids show Podcast. So they're one. They're not just listening from me.

They're hearing it from all these other specialists. But they've called this what it is. It's a chemical. And so they've changed up the chemicals, the more nutrient dense ingredients, so they can still have everything that they've sold. Their little bodies, desire that they see on tv. They can have all of that. We just come up with healthier alternative that tastes delicious. And I stock up the house and the fridge with these things so that they never feel deprived, so they don't ever have to really change lunches because they'll be having, mom, I really want chips today. Okay. We have our vegetable, our clean protein, our healthy fats. So they'll make their own lunches. So that's the best thing is they'll do their own lunches, but they know they have to sort of follow this formula. And then they can have their cassava flour chips that taste like Doritos. That's great. And then they feed. Yes. Or they can have their. We have that. You can. At Trader Joe's, you can find three ingredient mints with honey, cocoa with chocolate, and.

What? I didn't hear you.

It's three ingredient mints. Oh, great. So like. Or I mean, there's lots of companies that make, you know, chocolate with coconut sugar. Now. I mean, like, I think the. The amount of variety that we have now. I mean, bread now that.

Yes, I know they can have everything. Like, mom, I really want, you know, French toast today. Okay. We'll use, like, bread made out of almond flour and coconut flour and some arrowroot and tapioca and flax seeds and hemp seeds. And we'll make that. Use that bread. And we'll make French toast with coconut milk and a little honey or coconut sugar. But the thing is that they don't ever feel deprived. We don't do that all the time. But it's about oily showing. Oh, my gosh. Look at all these things you can have. Yay.

You know, crowd it out. So we'll fill the color and keep it fun. I think.

That'S the next thing you need to do is do a cookbook for children and for adults.

Absolutely.

So much fun. I love it. It's so much fun. And to keep it practical, right?

Oh, God, yeah. Absolutely. Is there anything I didn't ask that you feel that people really should hear other than anything's possible to change? And we. We can change, especially with our attitude and our immune system and the food that we eat?

Yeah.

No.

I have seen I mean, over the last 12 years of practicing, you know, after residency practice, practicing medicine, I myself dealt with lupus, Hashimoto's, digestive issues.

Severe, you know, acne, eczema all over my body, my joints hurt, severe fatigue. And.

This is stuff that I was not taught in medicine. You know, I was sort of just going on that hamster wheel and just living life, you know, just one day at a time, whatever I can just stuff in my mouth just to get to the next, the next task done. And I was really struggling. Right after residency, I joined this medical practice that really taught me everything about holistic medicine and functional medicine. And I got my life back just by implying these simple lifestyle tips with optimizing your digestion like we talked about, focusing on detoxification, making sure you're trying to sweat every day, moving your body.

Massage, dry brush, taking your Epsom salt baths, making sure you're switching out the toxic items for more clean items.

And then really eating to detox with tons of things that increase your glutathione and sulfur type foods, but really act with fiber and then stress, sleep, social and spiritual health. So if you can just work on these basics and I think we try to make healing and health really complicated and it doesn't have to, it is not complicated at all. It is really easy and simple and fun. And if I can do it and if you can do it, I really think anybody can do these things to incorporate this into our daily lifestyle and sort of make it a routine. Everybody has a routine. So these are the pieces that you can just have to insert into your daily routine that make a huge impact on putting our bodies back into balance, optimizing our immune system's ability to rejuvenate itself and lowering inflammation and really helping our body heal itself. And that's all I've done, these simple tips to really heal and reverse autoimmune conditions or you know, all chronic, like 99.9% of all chronic, 100% of chronic illnesses, just by getting to the underlying root cause. And to work with a practitioner that understands this and to really works with you and is willing to learn with you, because not everybody has the answers. We're going to just have to figure out everybody is different and has a unique individual.

Subsets and genes and what's their imbalances. But if you can figure out what's going on with you.

Slowly but surely and try to put your body back into balance, because remember, symptoms is just your body talking to you and telling you that there's Something off them. So we should instead of being like again, going back to the negativity and the mindset, our perception can either be our pain or our perception can be our power. And to look at these symptoms as, oh, thank you, symptom body, for telling me that there's something off balance. Now what can I now to reflect on your life and say, what is out of balance? What can I try to put back into balance? Do I need better friends, my social network to let go of the negative and the toxicity in my life? Do I need to increase my gratitude? Do I need to remove some toxins? Is there mold? You know, is there, you know, is it my genes that need to be optimized? Is it my food? Is it my exercise? Do I need to sweat more? Like all of these different pieces and just look within because your body is trying to tell you what's wrong. You just have to listen. So thank you so much for having me.

Thank you so much. It was so wonderful. People have lots of tools now to be able to do something. So tell us a little bit more about how can people find out more about you and when are your books coming out and how can they find them?

Oh, my gosh, yes. On social Media, I am HolisticMom MD.

Perfect. The books I have out right now are the Holistic Guide to Healing, Chronic Inflammation and the Disease. And this is the best of Holistic functional integrative medicine all in one source, covering over 80 conditions, basically like supplements, homeopathics, acupressure, points, aromatherapy for 80 some conditions. Then I have a children's book series that I started on functional medicine and it's called Adam's Healing Adventure. The Healing Power. This is the From Sickness to Health. The one that I have coming out is called the Healing Power Rainbow Foods. But this first one really goes through all the things that you can do to put your body back into balance, like Adam's and all the different pieces that we just talked about for kids and that they can incorporate into their daily routine to really keep their bodies balanced. Then I have actually the three books that I have coming out is one is the actual sequel of the Holistic rx. So it's a holistic RX for kids parenting, healthy brains and bodies in a changing world. So really it's a combination of functional medicine, holistic integrative medicine and parenting. So combining using that to build your optimal child the best you possibly can.

And then the second version of Adam's healing Adventures, the Healing Power Rainbow Foods. So all about the importance of incorporating rainbow foods into your diet. And then I have some for the Muslim audience books coming out international. So again, they can find me on holistic mom md. I do have. I did start a holistic Urdu MD channel with my mother in law. I'm telling you, there's three generations trying to educate the world on health. So I'm very honored. So I'd be honored to help anybody to really, you know, become their optimal self.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you.