Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Real Medicine, real lives. I'm Dr. Yasser Sambal, and together we're showing medical expertise in a human way.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to Real Medicine, Real Lives. I'm Yasser Sambal and today we're diving into a conversation that matters to almost everybody. Why so many people are working hard to feel better, yet still feel like they're only managing symptoms instead of truly rebuilding their health.
Joining me today is Michael Schwartz, founder of formulator and president of Michael Health's naturopathic programs. With more than 40 years of experience in nutritional science and natural health, he has focused his work on helping people understand the deeper physiological patterns that shape long term wellness. This is a conversation about root causes, resilience, and what it really matters to support the body from inside out.
Michael, welcome to the show. I appreciate you for coming back today.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Oh, it's my pleasure to work with you, Dr. Sambal.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: So I'd like to kind of, you know, start the show and, you know, talk about your philosophy and helping viewers understand the difference between symptom management and support. Based health support or system, sorry, based health support. You spent, you know, more than 40 years in nutritional science and natural health. So what made you first realize that many chronic health changes were being approached to narrowly?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Well, because everybody focuses either on the symptom or the condition.
But the reality is it begins within the mind. And the diet that's chosen because the diet sets you up for, you know, it's what you eat, it's what you think. These are the things that end up creating the foundation that ends up creating disease. And it's done through multiple mechanisms. A real quick example would be eating lots of fried foods. Well, they're detrimental to your health. They can clog up your liver, they can clog up your circulatory system. They're loaded with chemicals, the chemicals destroy cells. This corrupted cells multiply, and so you have aging sped up and you've laid the foundation for disease.
So it's really simple but complex.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, makes sense. And so when you talk about a system based approach, what does that mean in real life to people who've been bouncing from one symptom to another and just can't find a solution for it?
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Well, on some levels, a lot of that is misdiagnosed. And a prime example would be the people who complain about being tired all the time.
And they'll sleep 8, 10, 12 hours, they'll get up, they'll still feel exhausted. They're the same people who run out of energy. 2, 3 o' clock in the afternoon.
And they also suffer from depression, low energy, fatigue, brain fog. And all of that's tied into the diet and the adrenal glands, the pancreas and the liver. And it works like this, very simply.
When you feel tired, the first thing you do is to grab a cup of coffee or some juice, a donut, something to give sugar into the bloodstream to perk you up.
Well, when spike goes up too high, the adrenal gland, which monitors the sugar in the bloodstream, will talk to the pancreas to secrete insulin.
And when that occurs, the thing that happens there is that the pancreas begins to secrete insulin to manifest or to lower the sugar in the blood. Well, that also, because of the stress in life, wears out or tires the pancreas. So then the adrenal, because the last command it gave was secrete insulin, now the body, the sugar levels are going down, down, down. When it gets below the threshold, then the adrenal gland has to tell the liver to release glycogen back into the bloodstream. So the fuels have cell. So the problem is the snacking, the noshing, the kind of food we bring into the body, and the fact that stress taxes the adrenals, which corrupts the entire system, not to mention the nutrients that are compromised by stress.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Michael, it's interesting that you brought that up. You know, people that, for example, don't sleep well or sleep too much or fatigued or whatever the reason may be, how do you, in what you do, differentiate that between a medical problem that actually warrants a different investigation and not just a natural homeopathic or whatever it may be approach? Just curious.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really a great question.
I guess because of my orientation and my experience, I have some fundamental principles that I work with which are a little bit different than maybe many naturopaths and certainly different than many physicians, medical physicians, chiropractors, et cetera.
I know that the mind controls the brain, the brain carries out, or the brain controls the body, and the brain also carries out the directives of the mind.
Having said that, I look at everything from a malnourishment point of view because I believe that the body is a divine creation with its own divine intelligence. It's self correcting, however, that requires giving it the right nutrients in meaningful amounts and feeding it healthy organic food. Not fried food, not fast food, not junk food, good living food. You bring life in, you get life back. It's really that simple.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Great. And so go through the process for us, you know, why so many people think, you know, or feel like they're doing all the right things, and yet they're just not getting the lasting results.
[00:05:56] Speaker B: Well, part of that goes back to the mind and patterns of behavior. Because if they don't understand why they're attracted. Let me go there first.
Every piece of food that a person consumes, almost every, they have an emotional attachment to, which is so why it's so hard for somebody to give up their diet if it's traditional or cultural or it's the family specialty, whatever the case may be.
And because of those emotional attachments, we keep eating the same foods thinking we're going to get a different result.
No, because. And this is a computer term, if you will, so forgive me not saying your diet is garbage. However, the computer term is garbage in, garbage out. So if you're having a physical problem, it's because you're not bringing in enough of the correct nutrients in meaningful amounts for the body to use as building material to come back to what is called in. In medical society or medical chronicles, homeostasis, where everything is in balance and harmony. So a disease and condition is indicates, and beginning with the symptom indicates that there's something out of balance somewhere in the body, which means in the mind.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: And so, you know, what are some of the underlying physiological patterns you see that are repeated, that show up as, you know, something that's underneath or beneath, you know, chronic health conditions?
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Wow, what a great question.
So patterns. Let's go there first. All of life is lived patternistically. And what I mean by that is that our actions and reactions are based on our patternistic behavior towards that situation. In other words, we may see something, hear something, smell something, touch something, someone says something to us, gives us a look even, that we will trigger the mind and stimulate a concept which will get a pattern of behavior into action.
And because your mind is always working for you to help you stay on that narrow path to maintain balance and harmony, when we don't understand how the mind communicates, how it talks to us, we end up going off the path. And now we're back to indulging in our particular pattern, which whatever it may be. As an example, if deprivation or depletion is a pattern, then the individual may not nourish themselves on any level with anything worthwhile. And so the body becomes depleted, they end up being tired. They end up setting up in motion some ailment to manifest down the pike when you get sick. That's the culmination of one corrupted cell that has had the opportunity to divide and divide and divide, and before you know it, you don't know you have an issue until there's a billion damaged cells. That's when you pay attention.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense.
And so what do you wish more people understood about, you know, taking a proactive responsibility for their health before a serious crisis forces an issue?
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Well, first step I would do would be to examine my lifestyle.
How do I live? What do I do about meals? You know, am I under stress? And if I am under stress, why? What is the stress? What's the cause of the stress? And I would try to resolve that going back to the diet, because it's key. I would really examine what my favorite foods are or my comfort foods. Let's go there.
Because whatever your comfort food is, you're doing it from an emotional perspective to satisfy something within you. So change it out. For instance, I grew up in a house where banana splits ice cream were my comfort food.
And so the way out of that was I went to soy ice cream and then almond ice cream. And then there's a cookbook called Ten Talents from the Seventh Day Adventist. And I learned how to make organic homemade ice cream without dairy and no sugar. So by examining your diet, making small incremental changes, you begin to restore the health in your body by giving it good building material.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Great. That was really helpful, and it was a lot of good insight, I think, you know, I think there's definitely a good correlation between, you know, regular, you know, traditional medicine that I practice and definitely, you know, homeopathic or naturalistic medicine that you practice. And I think, you know, there's obviously some sort of interaction between the two that can definitely benefit people that I don't think we explore enough just in the field of medicine in general. And so, you know, I think when people start to understand that the body works as an interconnected system, it becomes a conversation that really shifts from. From reacting to symptoms to building real health.
And so in the next segment, I want to move into one of the most important areas that we're going to shift to that can change life dramatically. And we're going to talk about cardiovascular health, which is obviously my specialty. So everybody will be back in a couple minutes with Michael to discuss this further. Hang on, Stick with us. We'll be right back with more real stories, real breakthroughs, and real lives transformed.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombol. Let's dive right back into today's medical conversation.
Welcome back, everybody, to Real Medicine, Real Lives. I'm here with Michael Schwartz and D. And we're talking about what it really takes to support the body before symptoms become emergencies.
When it comes to cardiovascular health, too many people wait for a warning sign that comes far too late.
Right now I want to focus on what the body may be telling us earlier and how we can listen to it sooner.
Welcome back, Michael.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Thank you, Yassir. It's a pleasure to be back with you. So.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Let's kind of dive into cardiovascular health. So I want to bring it into the heart and the vascular health system to help viewers understand cardiovascular strain that develops over time and what the daily choices can be to support better outcomes.
So when most people think about heart health, they think about a dramatic event. What should they actually be paying attention to long before that happens?
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Well, the first signs I would say would be if they're complaining about cold feet, cold hands, hair loss, if they get up quickly and they get a little light headedness.
To me, those are indications that the circulatory system is not functioning at optimal levels. Obviously, with cold hands, cold feet, the blood is not getting down far enough into those extremities to, you know, keep the hands, the body warm because the blood, you know, the metabolic rate speeds up everything and the heat of your blood is what keeps your body warm.
So if you have cold hands, cold feet, that's one indication, hair loss, you know, if blood doesn't get to the scalp, the hair begins to die, you begin to lose it. And of course also there's an autoimmune disease tied into that. There's also stress that can do that because there are some people that will help, you know, make you want to pull your hair out, but that's a whole other story. But so this indication of poor circulation, poor circulation also affects memory. And then you have to understand the arteries are in the process of being clogged. So there's that consideration as well, which ultimately could either lead to a stroke or a heart attack and taking it back to the diet, maybe too much fat and cholesterol is coming into the system, too much fried foods are coming into the system. So you have to go back and look at those things as well.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think those are all really good points. I mean, obviously there's other factors besides cardiovascular health that can cause some of those, definitely endocrinological things like thyroid disease, etc, but I think, you know, those all have to be investigated. And definitely vascular health is really important.
And I think people underestimate, you know, what symptoms can actually be caused by poor blood Flow to organs in general, you know. And so.
So how do nutrition, stress, inflammation, circulation interact in ways that many people underestimate?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Well, I'll give you a couple of good examples for. Let's take stress. When the body, an individual, is under stress. And by the way, most stress is caused by how you respond to what you see and hear. So it's really an emotional thing. First and foremost. What stress does from a physiological point of view is it compromises your calcium, your magnesium and zinc. And what's interesting is that zinc is an essential component to building insulin. So now you have an issue where maybe you don't have enough insulin. Now your body is leading towards diabetes. That's number one. Number two, calcium and magnesium are electrolytes. And when you talk about the heart specifically those heart is regulated by what is called a negative feedback system. And almost everything in the body runs electronically, so to speak.
Well, if there is a breakdown in the light switches, and I call them light switches, and I'll use the analogy, you go home during the winter and the house is dark, you flick the light switch and the bulbs illuminate. Well, it's the same thing with your body if the minerals which are carrying the message from the mind, because with the cardiac, with the negative feedback system, when your body senses, because you have nerve endings in your arterial walls, when they sense that the pressure is going up, sends a message to your brain. Your brain in turn sends electrical impulses to tell this. The muscles around the blood arterial system to relax and the heart to slow down, to bring your blood pressure down. Well, if the stress compromised your calcium and magnesium, you got to break down electrical communication so you can begin to see the effect of, of stress. It's compromised on nutrition. The minerals being lack compromised as well as the end result, which could be a cardiovascular event.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Gotcha. And where do people most often get a false sense of security about their heart health?
[00:16:55] Speaker B: By thinking they're in good shape?
You know, we all go to the gym, we exercise, we're thinking, you know, I run every day and I work out. And so we think we're in good shape. And yet we don't really examine and think about our diet, which is a major cause. You know, there's an old cliche, and then I'll give you a universal principle. The cliche is you truly. And it's a, you know, it's.
I guess you could say it's a cliche because it's so true. You are what you eat. So you really need to examine that. And you are what you think, and I made a statement earlier, you live patternistically well. All patterns have a built in expectation at the end. And what that expectation does is it validates the concept that created it. Okay? And that's important to understand because when you validate the concept, you know, even if it's detrimental, hey, I'm doing good, you know, so what? I can't keep a job, so what? I'm losing my hair. So when I keep falling down, I keep cutting myself, I keep.
You're not well, there's an issue going on. You really need to stop and think. And that's hard to do in our click, click, click world. And I get that. Nonetheless, you owe it to yourself to really examine everything that's going down. And the universal teaching, because I work with those as well in my consultations with people.
And the teaching is one, what is within will manifest without. Because the truth of reality is that your thoughts precede form.
Keep that in mind.
As you know, I think the statement is, as a man thinketh, so it be. And Jesus taught asking, you shall receive. Well, what people don't get, it's the subconscious mind that's doing the asking. So know what's before your eyes and all the mysteries will be be revealed. Another thing out of the Bible worth knowing and studying.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's all really, really good insight. And you know, I mean I'm a cardiologist and so, you know, cardiovascular health is something I do and see every day. And I completely agree with you. I think a lot of people wait too long to get evaluated or you know, are not really sure whether it's heart related or not.
There's a lot of symptoms obviously that mimic heart disease and you know, somebody could have heartburn and it can mimic heart disease and they may think they're having a heart attack, etc. You know, mental disease can also do it, such as panic attacks or anxiety, depression. That can give you physiologic symptoms.
It is really fascinating to me, you know, and I think you brought this up about the mind controlling the body. And I think it's really, really fascinating to me, you know, how that, that really works and, and how it presents, you know, things to you that how bad or how not bad they are, you know, and how you perceive it. And that's also, you know, something your perception in your mind about it. So, you know, to try to wrap this all in and so where, where do you, you know, tell people practical daily habits that can bring and strengthen their cardiovascular resistance? I'm Sorry, Resilience in a realistic and sustainable way.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: I think one of the things that they have to become is a disciple, because the. The word discipline begins with or the same root. So be disciple unto yourself. Remember, we're taught that this is the temple and your spirit, this is where God dwells within. That's one of the things that Jesus taught. So you need to really honor that and take care of that, you know. Again, we're back to examine your diet. That is key, first and foremost. And believe me, changing the diet is hard to do. Like I said, if it's cultural tradition, you're not moving away from the family. Although maybe on some levels that would be a good thing to do. Just saying.
So start there. And you can't change your diet overnight. You know, it's like trying. I always tell people the best diet is 80% raw, 15% cooked, 5% junk. And when I said that at a seminar, somebody said, michael, why the junk?
And I said, because if you don't allow the children or your significant other to have it, they're going to get it anyway, except they're going to do it every hour on the hour out of resistance. And when you resist, you nullify the good you're trying to do.
So go to the diet, examine that, start there, make a list of all the bad foods, and then see how you can replace them with healthy, organic choices or alternatives.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Michael, I'd like you to take. You know, we got a couple minutes left in this segment, so I want to take a minute to just kind of give people an idea of how your therapies can help in something like this, or just give an example of something you may use in a situation so people kind of have a more realistic approach.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Well, I guess I'm. I'm a motor mouth, as you can tell. You know, I talk and talk.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: No, it's great.
[00:22:14] Speaker B: So I really try to listen, I ask questions, but I let the client speak first.
And then we try to figure out where we can insert a discipline and what changes we can do that they would be comfortable with so that they don't feel like it's an imposition and already build in resistance to it. So I tried to get agreements verbally from them and almost. Yeah, I promise you, Michael, I'm really going to do that. And, well, you know, it's not up to me, it's up to you. If you want to live a healthy life, you'll do it. If you don't, you won't. It's really on you.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Makes Sense if you can take the last maybe 30 seconds here and just kind of let people know how they can find you, locate your services, etc.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: It's Dr.
M or Michael S1 there. You can go to my website and just go to info and you know, or staff, send me an email and put in the subject line help and I will respond and we can go from there.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Great.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: That would be the easiest thing.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Perfect. All right, everybody. So heart health is just not about one event.
It's often the result of small patterns repeated over time. And after the break, I'm going to turn to another issue many people feel every day but don't often fully understand, which is metabolic imbalance. So hang on. We'll be back in a couple minutes to follow along with Michael here.
Stick with us. We'll be right back with more real stories, real breakthroughs and real lives transformed.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombol. Let's dive right back into today's medical conversation.
Welcome back, everybody. This is real medicine, real lives. And I'm your host, Dr. Yasser Sombol. We're going to continue this conversation with Dr. Michael Schwartz North. A lot of people live with low energy brain fog, cravings, stubborn weight changes or a sense of something that just feels off. They may not always have a clear explanation, but the body is often signaling that deeper metabolic systems are struggling. This is where the conversation becomes incredibly relevant to everyday life.
We want to go through and explore how metabolic imbalance shows up in common day to day complaints and connect those systems to a bigger system wide pattern involving blood sugar, inflammation and nutrients.
So, Michael, welcome back.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: It's good to be back. Dr. Yasser.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: So, you know, let's say so many people say I just don't feel like myself anymore. How often is metabolic imbalance part of that story?
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Every single time from a different point of view. From this particular perspective, you know, earlier I mentioned how the adrenal pancreas and liver were interwoven together in terms of regulating blood sugar.
When there is stress and the adrenal begins to crash, the immune system goes down. Now allergies flare, candida flare, sinus conditions grow worse.
And at the same time, because the adrenal glands also are precursor manufacturing precursors to hormones, now you begin to have hormonal imbalance. And at the same time, you know, the immune system is crashing, blood pressure is rising.
So you have a cascade of events based on one simple gland, so to speak. But nothing is simple in the body because everything truly is Interwoven. You know, you could look at the body as an orchestra. And when one instrument gets out of tune, it ruins the whole melody. You know, you brought up earlier about the thyroid, and the thyroid is the metabolic engine, we'll call it, of the body because it regulates the metabolic rate. And so there's three things that can affect the thyroid. And obviously it's poor nutrition on one level.
So now you have low thyroid or hypothyroid. The other thing is an overactive thyroid, which is hyperthyroid. And then you have the autoimmune disease, Hashimoto's. Now, with autoimmune diseases, they could be genetic, they could be hereditary, they could also be corruption because of something that you ultimately ate that corrupted the cells and disorganized or discombobulated, if you will, that particular gland. So when there's hypoglyce, hypothyroidism, now your body is not operating at optimal levels. You're beginning to put on weight, you're beginning to feel lethargic. You may begin other physiological symptoms manifesting. If it's hyperthyroid, you may not be able to hold on to the weight. You may be cold all the time, which is another symptom where you know, two easily identifiable systems. And with Hashimoto's is just out of whack. And interestingly enough, the thyroid is another one of those glands. Like the feedback system on the heart. The thyroid has a feedback system as well. And where the hyperthyroid comes in from a different point of view is that nutrients are missing because it takes certain amount of nutrients to create the hormones that, you know, T3, T4. And because of my dyslexia, I never remember what precedes which. But those hormones deliver messages. And if the body doesn't get the message it's looking for, it keeps hollering back to the thyroid more, more, more, so that you end up with hyperthyroid. So that's just one example. And then when the metabolic rate is out of whack, everything else begins to fall out of whack.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: You.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Because your thyroid also affects the sex glands as well as the pituitary. So you can begin to see everything is interrelated and everything will begin to malfunction.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, and don't feel bad about the thyroid thing. I'm, you know, 15 years or 20 years out of medical school and I still don't remember T3 and T4s anymore, so.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Oh, good.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: So don't, don't, don't feel bad about That I appreciate.
So can you. Can you, for example, give us maybe give us a live example of somebody you've taken care of with thyroid or something to that effect in which your treatment has made a difference for them? Maybe a patient example.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Well, actually
[00:28:42] Speaker A: just an overall example of how a metabolic situation you manage to help somebody with what you do.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Well, it's not me. Let me go there. I have, you know, I'll recommend, obviously, because of the company I would. I will recommend my thyroid factors now because. And the reason I hesitated there a little bit, Dr. Sobel, was because I can't make claims about what my products will do because that makes them a drug. And they're not drugs. All I'm simply doing is giving the body what it requires. And I'm doing so in meaningful amounts. Because I have some people say, michael, this percentages are so beyond the RDA or rdi, as the new thing is. And my answer to that is, well, if you live by the rda, rdi, you'd be sicker than you are, because they're not designed to keep you healthy. They're designed to meet criteria that doesn't necessarily bring one to optimal levels of health. So I have a tendency to. To rely back on my products because my products are the creation of my initial years doing consults. And I kept notes on everybody because I consider myself an insecure facilitator. I'm not a healer. I'm a facilitator. And it's my job to share information to help people get well.
So that's the birth of almost all of my programs that I offer out. So that's my tendency and is to go back to what I do with.
By nourishing the thyroid, by giving it the nutrients that it will require, it will, over time, come back to balance and harmony because you're nourishing it, you're feeding it. And actually, the more starving a system looks, the better I look, the better my products look. Because now they're saying, oh, thank you, I'm being fed what I need. It's really that simple?
[00:30:42] Speaker A: Yeah, to me. And so what patterns do you commonly see in people whose metabolism is under stress even before a major diagnosis appears?
[00:30:54] Speaker B: A lack of faith in self, because they may not feel that they can handle the responsibilities they're dealing with. And so that adds stress to the system.
They also may feel, you know, the thing that just jumped into my mind was a pattern of being a victim.
And so a victim, a person with a victim pattern may want to insulate themselves against Attack by putting on weight. You can't hurt me. You can't touch me.
Another aspect of putting on weight is I'll become unappealing. You won't get near me. You won't touch me. I've seen that with abuse, abused patients, clients.
Another is, I feel weak. I need power, I need authority. That would be another justification for the weight. Now everyone will go back and say, well, that's a glandular issue.
Yes, it is to a degree. But who controls the glands? The brain. Who controls the brain? The mind.
Simple picture, complicated process. Nonetheless, my experience proves that all to be true.
[00:32:05] Speaker A: And I just would like to clear this up for the viewers.
Your thoughts on this.
You would view your therapy as an adjunct in certain situations, maybe not every situation.
As to standard medical therapy, so that people don't walk away and say, oh, this is what I should be taking. I don't need to take my thyroid medicine anymore. For example.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, not, you know, no. I always say, because you should never stop taking a med until your body is healthy, period.
So meds, you know, have a purpose. They are essential in many situations.
But by nourishing the body, you may find that you've outgrown the med, you've out health the med. It helps you get to where you need to be because wherever you are, that's where you start.
We have a goal. So for every goal that you have in mind, you have to plan for it, you got to prepare for it and you got to make the necessary adjustments. And I think that all naturopaths should work in harmony with a medical doctor, someone who specializes in whatever that, so that there is a unified front, helping the patient get back to a balanced and harmonious healthy life.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: And, you know, what are the most effective foundational steps people can take to support better metabolic stability over time?
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Well, I think one of the things that would help, because I'm going to go back to the thyroid, I would eat, I would look at seaweeds like nori and make wraps out of it. That's what we used to do.
Hiji or kiji, I forget what it's called, but also another seaweed. So look at seaweeds and try to get those from the Atlantic Ocean and not necessarily the Pacific.
So that would be things. Things. Look up, go online and look up foods rich in iodine and bring those foods into your system because that's one of the main nutrients for the thyroid, even hyperthyroid. I know there's a medical perspective that, that it's the too much Iodine. But there's another aspect of it because the body also needs manganese and chromium as well as tyrosine, I believe, if I remember correctly, for the thyroid. So look for foods that contain those. In fact, you can go online, look at my thyroid formula, make a list of the nutrients, go back online and see what foods provide those nutrients in meaningful amounts and bring them into your diet. That way you're nourishing your thyroid naturally.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: Great, Michael. This was a really, really interesting segment, and this whole show has been really interesting because I'm always fascinated, you know, between the difference to what I do and the difference between what other people that, you know, are in the healing process or in, you know, management of diseases and how they do it. And so I, I truly believe there is a reason God created everything in this world, you know, even supplements, for that matter, whatever. Even though we don't study them as much as we do, you know, our medicines. But there's definitely a role for everything. So when people begin to understand metabolism is more than a weight issue, they can start seeing their symptoms in a completely different light. In our final segment, I want to shift the conversations towards immune resilience and what it really means to build a body that is stronger, steadier, and more prepared. So hang tight, everybody. We'll be back after the commercial to talk more with Michael.
Stick with us. We'll be right back with more real stories, real breakthroughs, and real lives transformed.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombal. Let's dive right back into today's medical conversation.
Welcome back, everybody, to real Medicine, Real lives. I'm your host, Dr. Yasser Sambal, and I'm with Michael Schwartz and D. And today our conversation has been about understanding the body as a system. One that gives us signals, patterns, and opportunities to act before bigger problems take hold. I want to close by talking about the immune resilience. Because real health is not just about responding when we get sick. It's about building a stronger foundation so the body is better prepared every day.
Welcome back, Michael.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Good to be back, Yashir.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: All right, so let's close this episode by focusing on prevention. Immune strength and the mind shift from reactive care to long term resilience.
So many people think about the immune system only when they get sick. Why is resilience something that has to be built before that moment?
[00:36:46] Speaker B: Well, you know, because if you take a look at what creates sickness, it begins at a cellular level, in a sense, I mean. Well, first let's go to the external, because we are all oriented to think from, oh, I caught something and to a degree it's true. But the reality is you opened yourself up to that for a particular reason. I'm not going to get into that, but the immune system to me is key to everything. I mean it is your first line of defense.
And look at it, 70% of your immune system is in your intestinal tract where it's protecting you from the foods that you're bringing in and the things that you're drinking as well. Whatever chemicals are there. Because what happens, and this is the beauty of the immune system and why you need to build it and keep it healthy.
Because the chemicals in food will end up corrupting your cells. When your cells get corrupted and they're broken, the body looks at them as non self cells. So you have self, you have non self. Your immune system patrols your entire body looking for non self cells and it consumes them. However, if there are so many corrupted cells, there's some here, there's some there, there's some over there and there's some down there, then the immune system is overwhelmed. If you don't have a healthy immune system and it can't stop everything, it can't eliminate the corruption everywhere. So you need to have a healthy immune system. The key in nutrient is vitamin A. Vitamin A goes to your thymus, there it matures the killer cells. They're the guys who go out and do battle with an invading force. That's how I look at bacteria, viruses, they go out and do battle. So by bringing vitamin A into your system, vitamin A rich foods on a continual basis. Vitamin A, fish liver oil. I'm vegetarian, so I do a beta carotene and obviously I take my own formulas. But if you don't have an issue with fish liver oil, then I always keep a bottle of beta carotene in my briefcase because, you know, you feel a cold coming on at the back of your throat. That's when you start doing the vitamin A, the look at vitamin A food, look at vitamin C foods.
Build your immune system now so that it's prepared for tomorrow. You know, it goes back to plan and prepare. Plan that eventually you're going to run through someplace, your allergies are going to get out of control, you're going to be in a dirty environment because of the fumes, because of whatever bacteria is everywhere. We're covered with it.
So plan on that. There's a possibility that you could catch something. So get ahead of the game, prepare yourself, nurture your immune System.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: I really find that interesting that you know, we have to tell people that nowadays considering most of us, you know, when we have kids or when they're little, we're like take them to school. So they get a bunch of, you know, they get a bunch of bugs. So they get their immune system built up, right? I mean, you know, they're like, yeah, this, you know, you don't want to isolate them. Otherwise they're never going to build their immune system. That used to be the theory when kids were like take them to daycare and take them to, you know, pre K and do all this stuff, you know, let them eat other kids boogers and get it over with so that we, you know, move on with our lives, you know, so it's funny, but yeah, it's the truth. So you know, I mean. Yeah. So tell us how the immune system is different or. I'm sorry, the resilience of the immune system is different from the common ideas. This simply trying to boost immunity.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Well, there's two different approaches. When you boost, you may end up creating an over abundance of something. It's like sometimes you, you know, you hear me and say, well take vitamin A. So they'll go out and buy vitamin A and they'll take it by the handful. Well, you could end up damaging your liver. And there's a universal teaching there. Excess leads to rejection. Everything in moderation.
So slowly begin to build as opposed to getting to the point of resist, you know, trying to boost it, don't boost it. I mean there are certain times. I have a product called Quick Immune Response. There are certain times when you may need to do a little bit of a boost, but you really don't want to do that as much as rely on having a resilient immune system. Look, you, your immune system, to give you another two motivations, slows down the aging process.
And how does it do that? By eliminating those corrupted cells from multiplying. It also slows down the disease foundation process. How? Same process. Because every condition begins with one corrupted. Outside of genetics, one corrupted cell, that's all it takes. One becomes two. And yes, here, I don't remember if you had this in high school, but I did that. If you take a penny and double it every day for 30 days, how much you have at the end of 30 days? I think it's like $5 million. So.
Right, so think about that in terms of your body. A cell is corrupted now, 2, 4, 8, do the math. But you don't know you're getting sick until like I said earlier, you hit a billion cells. Why do I pick a billion? It's a make believe number. However, considering that your body may have 50 trillion cells, maybe it takes a billion to wake you up and draw your attention.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Right.
And so, you know, give us some idea of the role of sleep, gut health, stress, nutritional status. How did this all play into and tie into your immune system?
[00:42:47] Speaker B: Well, start with sleep first.
You should get at least eight hours sleep. You know, they say that the older you get, the less you sleep. I am in my 80th, my eighth decade and I still sleep eight hours. I go to bed at eight or nine, I go to say, I go into bed and I start reading, whatever, I fall asleep by nine, I'm up by five, seven days a week. So I get plenty of rest. That's not an issue.
Next up is nutrition. I've been a vegetarian for 55 years. These days I'm a pescatarian, so no meat, no foul when and I take my supplements daily. And one of the things you want to build is your intestinal flora. So look at probiotics, look at yogurt, look at kefir. These are great ways. And especially you want to keep your, your intestinal tract and your elimination at optimal levels. You know, some people think if they go have a bowel movement two, three times a week, it's normal. No, it's not. You're constipated, you need to go every single day. And constipation simply means that there's not enough liquids coming in, not enough water. And maybe because the kidneys regulate everything and because the body may feel that you're retaining too much fluid and you're going to end up creating hypertension. So it has you urinating it out. And now your fecal matter doesn't have. There's another feedback system. Can't swell, can't touch the colon walls and say, hey dude, it's time to eliminate. So everything is interwoven. Drink more water, get more sleep, eat healthy and truly examine what's causing your stress and how you're reacting to it and why and who did you learn those reactions from?
Another key in understanding self. The more you know, the more you grow. And remember, thought precedes form.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: You know, that whole segment, I became jealous of you that you can actually sleep eight hours. I don't know, I've been on this pattern lately that I will go to bed at a certain time, you know, 10, 11, depending on what I get done. And for some reason I'm just awake by 4:00am and I just can't seem to change that pattern. I don't really know why, but I'm gonna take advantage of the time and do other things that I can't get done during the day anyway, so.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: Well, you're a doctor re examiner.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I need to figure that out. You're right. But I'd like to try to close this segment out, you know, so I'd like to give you a couple minutes to talk about if somebody's watching and takes, you know, wants to take one meaningful step stronger to long term health, where would you encourage them to begin?
[00:45:33] Speaker B: Well, like I said, diet. And the second place I would do is supplements. I really would. Not because I sell them but because the American processing combine of food depletes the minerals. And yes, they put in vitamins. Yeah, they put some back but the amounts are so minimal they can't do the body what needs to be done. I mean look how sick we are as a nation.
Okay, so take a look at supplements and if you're a guy take a look at my for men and a multi mineral at night. If you're a woman, take a look at my for women and a multi mineral at night. Vitamins in the morning for vitality and energy, minerals at night for better sleep. If you have leg aches, backaches, charley horses, spasms, palpitations, restless leg, insomnia, and I know you insomniacs can get to sleep for two hours, three hours, look at minerals, calm your body down and I guarantee you you'll get more sleep.
[00:46:32] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:46:32] Speaker B: You'll feel better.
[00:46:34] Speaker A: Great.
Well this, this, this has been a really powerful reminder that better health does not begin with fear. It begins with understanding. When we stop seeing the body as a collection of isolated symptoms and start supporting as an interconnected system, we create the possibility for real change.
Michael, I really want to thank you for coming onto the show today.
You know, Michael's available at Michael Schwartz, Michael's Naturopathic programs.
And you know, thanks for joining us and giving us these insights. I'm yasser humble and this has been real medicine, real lives where the goal is not just to treat disease but to restore clarity, confidence and hope. See you next time.
