Thyroid, Skin, Autoimmunity & Food with Dr. Izabella Wentz

Dr. Cates: Hi there. I’m Dr Trevor Cates. Welcome to The Spa Dr. Podcast. On today’s podcast we’re discussing food as medicine for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. This condition is much more common than most people realize. It’s actually the country’s fastest growing autoimmune disease and the symptoms range from fatigue and mood issues to constipation and dry skin and many other symptoms. My guest today is Doctor Izabella Wentz who has dedicated her career to addressing the root causes of autoimmune thyroid disease. Trained as a pharmacist, Dr. Wentz, decided to take on lifestyle interventions as a personal mission to help herself and the millions who suffer from this condition. The author of Hashimoto’s protocol and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. She lives near Boulder, Colorado. It’s great to have Dr. Isabella Wentz back on the podcast for an update. Today. We reviewed the signs and symptoms, testing and treatments for Hashimoto’s and we talk about how a number of skin issues are related to this condition. We also discuss how food can act as powerful medicine and address the root causes. So please enjoy this interview. Izabella it’s so great to have you back on my podcast.

Dr. Wentz: Thank you so much for having me, Trevor. It’s always so great to connect with you.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, so it’s been a little while since you’ve been on The Spa Dr. Podcast. So let’s give everybody a little bit of an update. And so first of all, can you explain, cause your big focus is Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, right? And so what, first of all, what got you so interested in this and you know, I’d love for you to explain, kind of give her a review of what exactly it is.

Dr. Wentz: So in full disclosure, I’m a pharmacist by training and I was never interested in the thyroid during pharmacy school. I just thought you either gave somebody medication to produce more thyroid or you gave somebody a medication to produce less thyroid. And I really thought that was all there was to it until of course I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis myself after pharmacy school. At that point I realized how intricate the whole hormonal system is and as well as that Hashimoto’s and thyroid disease were caused by an autoimmune attack on the thyroid gland. So there was this whole body component that was completely ignored by conventional medicine because somebody had an underactive thyroid. We were just giving them thyroid hormone, whereas we weren’t trying to figure out why they had an underactive thyroid in the first place. So Hashimoto’s is the leading cause of hypothyroidism or an underactive thyroid. And what it is, basically it’s the immune system has recognized our own thyroid gland is an enemy and started to attack it much like it would a virus or a bacteria that leads to the destruction of the thyroid gland and eventually the thyroid gland cannot produce enough hormones. And so my real passion, my real goal was to figure out what I could do to make myself the healthiest person with this condition as well as to figure out if I could do anything to reverse the condition. And that’s really how I became a Hashimoto’s expert slash human Guinea pig was trying to get my way back to feeling healthy and feeling, feeling good again. Right,

Dr. Cates: Right, of course. So what are some of the signs and symptoms of Hashimoto’s? Cause this is much more common than most people realize. When you hear the name Hashimoto’s, people probably think that’s something I I, you know, maybe they haven’t even heard of. It sounds like some sort of unique, rare disease.

Dr. Wentz: Sounds like an exotic condition. Sounds like a Japanese sword fighter, right? It’s not, it sounds like a weird food and it’s actually quite common. So we’re looking at probably, you know, anywhere from one in three to one in five women may have a thyroid disorder at some point in their lives. There’s different stats out there and anywhere from 20 to 30% of people will have it in the United States if they’re using the correct kind of diagnostic tests. And it’s also the leading cause of an underactive thyroid or hypothyroidism. We also know that thyroid hormone medications were some of the top prescribed medications in the United States for the last five years, usually in the top three if not the number one or number two prescribed drug. And so some of the symptoms, and this kind of can get a bit confusing because they can be nonspecific. And oftentimes most people are underdiagnosed and they’re sort of, they can either talk themselves out of having the condition or their doctors can talk them out of the diagnosis because they won’t do the right tests. This is going to be things like fatigue. Right? When I was really fatigued, I was in my twenties and people were telling me that I was just getting older and it was normal to get more tired. No, that’s not normal. So we’re going to have brain fog or depression. So people can be very forgetful. And again, this is something that people say, well you’re stressed out. It comes with age, blah, blah, blah. I know that this is going to be a thyroid symptom. Then we’re going to have alterations in mood. We can have mood swings. In fact, some people actually get diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder. I’ve even seen people getting diagnosed with psychotic disorders. Anxiety is going to be another, another symptom. Then we’re looking at symptoms like, affecting the body, which, which for a lot of people, our appearance is a constant reminder that something is off. For me it was hair loss. So a lot of women with the thyroid condition will be losing hair, other room and might have a dry skin of the women, might have brittle nails. And then of course we have the biggest symptom that most people complain about when they have this condition and that’s going to be weight gain. So they’re going to be doing exactly what they’ve been doing and eating the same foods, doing the same kind of workouts are not right. And they’re going to be continuing to put on weight year after year. And I know at one point I was like, wow, why are my sweat pants so tight? Right? The thyroid gland is our master metabolism gland and it affects just about every single system in the body. So we could see a whole bunch of different symptoms ranging from the ones that I described, which are the most common ones to symptoms like cold intolerance, a loss of eyebrows, a loss of facial hair for men, changes in Libido. You know, just really anything that seems odd like insomnia or Hypersomnia, this could be related to the thyroid gland.

Dr. Cates: Yeah. And I know you’re talking about so many symptoms and that most people, and maybe even all people listening or watching are going to say I have at least one of those symptoms, right? So then it becomes you know, instead of people automatically just assuming based upon those symptoms that they have Hashimoto’s, what are, explain what are the tests or what should people do if they are having some of these symptoms to find out if they do have this disease.

Dr. Wentz: So there are two lab tests we can do, they are noninvasive, it’s just a simple blood test. Most doctors, if you tell them that you suspect you have a thyroid condition and we’ll just run one test, it’s known as Tsh or thyroid stimulating hormone test. Now this test is excellent when you have had thyroid disease for five, 10, 15 years. And it’s a very late stage of it. However, in the earlier stages of thyroid disease, which could be 10 15 years, that tests may come up as quote unquote normal. So we also want to look at uh, expanded thyroid panel and this is going to include the levels of thyroid hormones that’s going to be t3 and t4 in the body that tells us how much actual hormone we have to interact with are thyroid receptors in the body. And then the crucial tasks that I really like to recommend are going to be thyroid antibody tests, their TPO antibodies, and TG antibodies. Now I mentioned that Hashimoto’s and most cases of hypothyroidism are due to an autoimmune attack on the thyroid gland. These antibodies are going to reveal if this autoimmune attack is happening. And many times we’ll find that people will have these antibodies elevated for 10 years, before they get the proper diagnosis because their doctors are not running the right tests.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, it’s interesting that doctors don’t run the antibody test as part of just a thyroid screening because of how common Hashimoto’s is. So is it just because there’s not as much treatment from a conventional medicine’s perspective? That’s always been my assumption, but have you discovered something else?

Dr. Wentz: You know, that’s exactly right. So in the case of, you know, like I said, when I was in pharmacy school, I thought if you had a thyroid condition, you just gave medications. And in some cases, when somebody has these thyroid antibodies, but they’re still testing normal on the Tsh, the doctors may not want to give medicine actually in conventional medicine, it’s not recommended to give thyroid hormone medications for it, for people with just thyroid antibodies and a normal Tsh, unless that person happens to be pregnant, right? In that case, they’re going to be more alert and more likely to try to get those numbers in the optimal range. But for the average woman who is not pregnant, they’re not going to give them any kind of treatments. And from, from a functional medicine standpoint, a natural medicine standpoint, we actually look at potentially introducing the hormones earlier because a lot of times we’ll feel better symptomatically. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We also look at a whole bunch of lifestyle changes and root causes and start digging as to why the body is actually attacking itself. And we find that, what’s crazy as a pharmacist to say this is that people actually feel better with nutrition protocols then they do with the thyroid medications. And I don’t say this lightly, but working with you know, now thousands of people with this condition and doing some outcomes research, they say that food as medicine is more powerful then even some of the top thyroid medications.

Dr. Cates: That’s amazing. So one of the things I was going to ask you next was, since it’s been a couple of years since I’ve interviewed, you know, you’ve been on, what are some of the things that have been coming that you’ve discovered since you’ve been on The Spa Dr podcast before. And it sounds like you just answered that. So it sounds like you’re finding that there are even more natural solutions and that food can be really powerful to help people even maybe more than you realized when you came on before.

Dr. Wentz: Okay. Absolutely. So just some of the, some of the things, um, for example to potential foods that have really benefited people with the condition are going to be bone broth. So people will say that their skin improves their hair and improves their gut lining starts to heal. They’re digesting better, a lot of times people with this condition have trouble with digesting. They’re going to have less joint pain, which, which is another symptom. It’s surprise. So 70% of those people who drink bone broth with the condition felt significantly better. Um, and they, you know, other things they saw was better energy, better mood, and compared to thyroid medication, we’re only looking at about 60% of people feeling better with, with introducing thyroid medication in the mix.

Dr. Cates: Oh, interesting. That’s interesting because, um, I think people are so quick to go for the medication first. And of course I think as you and I know doing, having more of a nature pathic functional medicine perspective, you know, we’re used to this idea, but for some people this might be really surprising. And so with bone broth, of course the, I think this is a powerful food too. And I talk a lot about it with regards to skin also. And probably a lot of it has to do with the fact that it’s rich in Collagen, right?

Dr. Wentz: Absolutely. So collagen is going to be one of the key components in bone broth and we also have, chondroitin, which is going to support the joints as well. And it’s just been remarkable to see how introducing certain foods and taking away other foods can help. So another food that’s going to be really helpful is going to be a green smoothie. So 68% of people found Greenspan the beast to be helpful and they’re talking about more energy, improve mood, benefits for weight. And again, this is going to be more effective than potentially taking thyroid hormone medications. And I’m all for, you know, I’m a pharmacist, so I’m all for taking thyroid hormones, but why not do everything that can benefit us all at once rather than just expecting one tiny pill to do everything for us. Right?

Dr. Cates: Right. Exactly. And um, and I think that it’s, it is good to work with a functional medicine doctor, naturopathic physician who can do all of this, can provide that support and also monitoring and medication, looking at the lab tests, looking at the correct lab tests like you were talking about and just because they’re going to be more interested in optimizing health rather than just keeping you out of the hospital and from dying, which unfortunately that’s, you know, and, and conventional medicine can be great for keeping us alive. Most of us want to do more than just stay alive. All right. What other foods are some of the powerful foods for Hashimoto’s?

Dr. Wentz: So two of my favorites are going to be bone broth and green smoothies. And then I also talk about the things that we need to remove. And one of the, one of the key culprits of actually triggering thyroid disease and making it worse is going to be gluten. And then we also have dairy and soy. So many people have been able to reverse their conditions just by going off of those three foods. And sometimes just going off of one of these foods can be quite miraculous. Again, this is something that we didn’t really learn about in pharmacy school and I just thought that you gave people pills. I didn’t realize how powerful that the foods we were taking in what powerful messages they were sending. And you know, this is how I came up with my concept of food pharmacology is because every food that we eat or we don’t eat right sends these little messages to our bodies just just like pills do.

Dr. Cates: Right? So let’s talk about these, these trigger foods and definitely these are big trigger foods. I talk about these same foods and clean from within as being some of the top trigger foods for skin issues too. And so can you explain why these foods in particular seem to be an issue?

Dr. Wentz: Well, one of the theories of why we have food sensitivities is going to be because of difficult to digest proteins and potentially because of the foods that we’re constantly eating all the time. And the research out there is quite interesting with different societies reacting to different foods. So in, in more Asian cultures we might see, more rice being more reactive and the standard American diet and standard European diets, we see gluten, dairy and soy are going to be reactive. And when we think about our current American diet, it’s very much based in gluten and dairy. Right? So we’re going to have cereal in the morning with milk, than we might have yogurt as a snack with, with potentially a piece of bread. And then we might have a sandwich for lunch with cheese. And then for dinner, you know, we’re going to have those roles with, with butter, maybe a glass of milk. And then soy is going to be hidden in just about every food. A lot of us, we don’t know. I’m sorry, processed food. A lot of us, we don’t know that we’re actually consuming soy unless we’re eating tofu or soy beans. But actually it’s found in a lot of the processed foods. We really have to be careful with the leading reading are packaged goods to look out for soy ingredients. So I would say those would be the main reasons. There’s, there’s also some theories that I’m gluten in particular can cross react with thyroid and potentially, you know, this has been shown with celiac disease where people who produce antibodies that are seen in celiac disease, these can cross react with thyroid anatomy antibodies,

Dr. Cates: Right? And what about genetically modified or the, you know, pesticides and things like that. Um, and these foods,

Dr. Wentz: I think that’s a really big root cause of, um, of leading to food sensitivities and now and now it’s, it’s hard to track down these, this type of research, right? And there’s a lot of interests to, to keep people on genetically modified foods because we talk about, you know, wouldn’t it be nice if everybody had their own organic farm in their backyard, but that’s not necessarily going to be the reality or the case. So a lot of times these genetically modified foods, our society says they’re good for the masses. This is how we’re going to end world hunger, right? This is how we’re going to make food accessible to everybody. Well, unfortunately, what’s oftentimes go for the masses is not good for us as individuals. We know that the foods that are genetically modified have altered protein structures that may become reactive in our bodies and our bodies may not recognize them as food, right? They might recognize them as foreign invaders or toxins. A lot of times they’re spliced with, with different types of pathogenic DNA. Right,

Dr. Cates: Right. Absolutely. And, um, so, and I, I think that a lot of times people think, well, I’m not eating much in the way of gluten. I’m not eating much soy. Just maybe a little bit here and there. But what was your response to that?

Dr. Wentz: Well, you can’t be a little bit pregnant, right? So it’s, it’s one of those things where I can speak from experience here. Right? Um, but yeah, just even a little bit of gluten can set off an autoimmune reaction. It can set off that cascade for some people it’s for hours or minutes. And for other people it’s for weeks and sometimes months, it depends on how reactive we are. There is on, there’s another type of theory and I really could talk about why food is so powerful and why certain foods are reactive for hours on end. And you know, one of the theories is going to be because the intestinal permeability connection with auto immune disease. So every person with autoimmune disease has intestinal permeability, which is leaky gut and different foods are known to induce it. And some people it’s just the foods that they’re sensitive to. What research has found that gluten causes intestinal permeability and just about every person. But it’s a bit of a spectrum with some people, like I said, only for minutes at a time. And other people for for months at a time may have, um, a separation in their gut lining, which then needs to the immune system not working properly.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I know that it’s one thing to talk about which foods to eat and which foods to avoid, but it’s another thing to actually make the change. What have you found to be, what are some good tips to help encourage people to, to shift into these changes? And help with their eating habits.

Dr. Wentz: Yeah. You know, one of the things I, I do in my life and I’ve found my clients and readers and family members, whoever I’m coaching at the time I took making lifestyle changes is you really have to make it easy on yourself. You really have to make it part of your routine, part of your day to day life. Um, and it really just becomes like anything else becomes a habit. When you’re first transitioning to a cleaner type of diet, you’re going to have a harder time. You’re going to be going through withdrawal from some of the common foods. It’s going to be, you know, if you’ve ever smoked, it’s going to be kind of like quitting smoking because I’m gluten and dairy and sure have some addictive substances that we can withdraw from. Um, once you get past that, then it’s going to be like, well, what do I do when I eat out and what do I do at parties and how do I deal with on supportive people? And so what I really tried to do in my latest book, Hashimoto’s Food Pharmacology, is I’ve really tried to address all of these different things that make changing your diet and sticking to a healthy lifestyle challenging. So I’ve got the guidelines and I’ve got the recipes of course, which explain everything and the recipes are great examples and then I have meal plans that you can just take and with you and go shopping and get all the food you need. But I also have, really simple strategies on meal prepping and batch cooking. So how you make your whole week’s worth of food in just two to three hours on a Sunday afternoon, right? For every single meal of the week. And then I’ve got ideas on how to deal with the unsupportive people, what sometimes the people in our lives can be the biggest, I guess, blocks to really changing our lifestyle. I’ve got information on how to shop and how to stock your kitchen, how to stock your house. So to make this really, really easy, what to do when you’re traveling, what to do when you’re eating out. And I also have some success guarantees that I talk about how to tweak the foods to your symptoms. One of the most discouraging things can be it that I’ve seen as a person who will go gluten free, but they won’t see any improvements in their, in their symptoms or they’ll just see marginal improvements. And a lot of times it takes just one or two tweaks to start feeling better for, for me, my example was that I wasn’t eating blood sugar balanced when I went gluten free. So then I was having more anxiety attacks. Um, for other people it might be more constipation. For other people it might be more pain. And a lot of times it’s like, well, what food did you replace more of within your diet? And then I talk about specific enzymes. We oftentimes will see people go on a lower carbohydrate diet and they say they feel more tired. And what are the root causes of that could be because they’re not digesting their proteins or fats properly. So I talk about how to tell if you have symptoms of an enzyme deficiency as well as which enzymes to use for which specific deficiencies. And then, um, nutrients. A lot of times we’ll find that people can’t digest certain foods properly because they’re nutrient deficient. And so addressing some of these nutrient deficiencies finding is going to be one that’s going to help us with digesting some of the more carbohydrate foods. We’re going to have more energy, we’re going to feel better, we’re going to have less anxiety. So I talk about which types of nutrients to add in. Um, one of the challenges I’ve seen if people are on restricted diets longterm, they ended up with a bunch of different nutrient deficiencies. And I also talk about how to really get in touch with your body and its messages. A lot of these nutrition protocols are not meant to be done forever. And there’s ways to tell if you need to do something deeper, if you need to work with a practitioner, if there’s other types of root causes you have. So really my goal for, for people with thyroid disease and thyroid conditions is to be able to get this information, um, this fundamental information on how to heal yourself with food right at their fingertips. And, and I hope that my book will do that. My goal was to give everybody kind of an opportunity to be their own nutritionist.

Dr. Cates: That’s great. I’m making it very practical and easy to follow is definitely key. Definitely found that with my book too and having recipes as, and people love to be able to have that. That’s fantastic. So what do you find are the most common nutritional deficiencies?

Dr. Wentz: Most common ones are going to be vitamin D and so a lot of times we’ll see that people will have, um, you know, and not a lot of symptoms going with it. Depression might be a potential symptom, especially in the winter. There might be some pain, joint pains, but really it’s something that we really need to test for. And the optimal levels are going to be 60 to 80 for immune function. Anything below that, you know, our immune system may not be, oh, working properly. And there’s a lot of research tied to autoimmune disease and low levels of vitamin D. You could take it as a supplement and I also recommend a beach vacation whenever possible to restore your levels. Then we’re looking at Ferritin. Ferritin is going to be a a storage form of iron. A lot of times people will have their iron levels measured and there’ll be normal, but we really want to ask that Ferritin, this is something that’s going to be tied to poor energy levels, shortness of breath, and hair loss. Hair loss is a really, really big symptom that a lot of people with thyroid disease, they’ll say, I’m taking thyroid hormones and I don’t know what’s going on. My hair just keeps falling out. A lot of times it’s because they’re deficient in Ferritin. Food can be used to address ferritin levels quite nicely, so we can use, um, a lot of meats and when we’re pairing them with digestive enzymes, protein, digestive enzymes like Betaine with pepsin for example, we’re going to see that, we’re going to be extracting more iron from our foods. And then B 12 is another type of nutrient that’s going to be decisions. A lot of times we’ll see some tingling in the arms might be a symptom as well as fatigue, might be another symptom of that. And then those are three that I recommend testing for working with a practitioner. And then the other ones that I see very commonly are going to be Siamese. Um, so this is B1, and then a lot of times fatigue and carbohydrate intolerance is going to be a symptom. Selenium, this has been tied to anxiety, hair loss and elevated thyroid antibodies. And then I’m looking at magnesium. Magnesium is going to be very commonly depleted and most people, especially those with thyroid disease. One of the big symptoms is going to be constipation. This is one of those non-glamorous thyroid symptoms that nobody quite what likes to talk about? Taking a magnesium citrate supplement can help with that. If you start going towards more of diarrhea, then I would cut back on the supplement. But we also see that magnesium can help insomnia, it can help migraines, it could help menstrual cramps. I’ve actually had ladies who had really painful menses for their entire lives and I’ll have them start on a magnesium supplement. Just take one all around, you know, every day. And they say within the first month they’re paying their period pains, go to about 80%, uh, less of what they were. And then the second month they don’t even know that they’re having their periods because the pain goes away. Um, I’ve got a lot of different tweaks like that. You know, I could talk about this all day. I’ve got a lot of different tweaks like that and the food pharmacology book, there’s a whole section on addressing symptoms with different types of nutrients.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, those are all the nutrients you talked about there. They’re pretty common, not just even with, with Hashimoto’s, but what I mean, certainly in magnesium, B 12 iron, vitamin D, those are, those are ones that we and B vitamins in general. A lot of people are deficient in these because of, of the types of foods we eat because of exposure to toxins in the environment because of poor digestion and assimilation. So it’s, um, I think these are great tips for, for everybody and also need to things that you mentioned about magnesium and the other nutrition nutrients. What are the other symptoms that you have? What are the various symptoms you have, can help you figure out which of these are particularly, um, are particularly important. I also with magnesium, I’ve noticed people will tend to get more headaches, um, and, and people that all of a sudden become really ticklish. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that one, but I’ll have the funny one. Um, and so like I don’t know why, but I’m really ticklish all of a sudden and I’m getting muscle cramps and you know, those sorts of things. So magnesium is something we see often. So when it comes to, you know, I talk a lot about skin, right? And so when it comes to thyroid disease, skin is something that can be an issue. And you mentioned dry skin is any, any other skin issues that are particularly an issue for Hashimoto’s?

Dr. Wentz: Definitely dry skin. And then another one that I know is super concerning to a lot of women is skin that looks like it’s aging prematurely, so our cells are just not renewing as quickly as they should be. And then we also start having cystic acne that might be tied to hormonal swings that we see in thyroid disease. Skin that looks a bit gray or Pale. This can be a thyroid symptom as well. Um, and then we see some people with Hashimoto’s might have co-occurring Rosacea, co-occurring Eczema or hives. Um, and I, I want to say sometimes these are a part of the Hashimoto’s spectrum and sometimes they’re going to be just along with the autoimmune spectrum. So a lot, a lot of times we see our health is really displayed on our skin,

Dr. Cates: Right. And, and because it’s an autoimmune disease, anything, anything related to the immune system and skin is going to be a factor. So things like I mentioned like psoriasis and vitiligo, the pill, a lot of people will have those, will have both. And um, and so when you address a lot of the things that you’re doing for the Hashimoto’s, then you probably are noticing that those types of skin issues oftentimes will be alleviated as well.

Dr. Wentz: Right? Yeah. It’s interesting you bring up vitiligo, I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but somewhere upwards of, um, there’s a huge cross sensitivity where people who have vitiligo something, you know, I want to say it was above 80% of them actually had Hashimoto’s antibodies as well. And so what we’ve seen is,just not even trying to treat the vitiligo just addressing the Hashimoto’s. We’ve seen people with psoriasis, with Eczema and with vitiligo, those skin conditions improve as well. And to me it wasn’t even like a target symptom that I was addressing, but it’s nice to see, how those things improve just just because our body is so connected and, and it, and you know, like with thyroid hormones we’re just throwing one little pill into the mix with lifestyle changes and with proper nutrition we’re sending our bodies thousands of little messages on how to take care of itself properly balanced itself and heal.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, addressing the root cause, right. We addressed the root cause and we can help a number of health conditions, skinny issues, thyroid issues. And that’s one of the reasons why I love this approach is, is seeing patients improve on a number of different ways and the, and, and it’s funny when they noticed that when they have that realization because they’re coming to see you for one thing and they say, oh, and this is really weird, but you know, like for you probably like my vitiligo has has improved.

Dr. Wentz: Right like let me make a note of that. That’s great.

Dr. Cates: Yeah. So that’s always a great, a great sign that the body is healing and that you’re moving in the right direction. You’re addressing the root causes. So I love that. Are there any, um, any recipes and what are your favorite recipes from your book? Anything that your friends and families that, oh my gosh, this is, this is the best.

Dr. Wentz: So I was pregnant when I was developing the recipes for this book and a lot of the recipes are very much influenced by my pregnancy cravings. So you’ll see a lot of like really clean, like even autoimmune friendly sweets and baked goods. So there’s, there’s autoimmune berry pie and that’s 100% autoimmune. And a lot of my family members have been obsessed with this pie. So I would make it for every single holiday and they would say, give me more of that. Even family members that don’t, you know, eat clean foods. Um, and then a lot of my Polish heritage recipes are going to be found in there. So we have a lot, the lot of things I grew up eating, I’ve modified to make them friendly for Paleo Diet, the autoimmune Paleo Diet as well as gluten free. And, and just to clarify, I’m not everybody with Hashimoto’s needs to be on the autoimmune Paleo Diet. So I’ve got different, different kinds of protocols based on where you need to be and kind of, I will guide the book, will guide you on how to figure out which protocol, which dietary protocol will suit you best. And so I’ve got things like stuffed cabbage rolls in there, um, that could be modified to both Paleo and autoimmune Paleo. I have Polish Hunter’s Stew. This is one of my all time favorites. This is something that you can just throw in a slow cooker and let it cook all day. The laundry it cooks and the, the better it tastes and leftovers tastes really delicious for many days after. And then I’ve got some Polish borscht, which is a beet soup that’s going to be a really, really easy soup to make. My mom when she makes it, takes her about four hours. The way that I make it takes about 20 to 30 minutes. Everything that I would say 80% of the recipes in there are going to be how to fit into your day to day life without making your life difficult. And then we’ve got some fancy entertaining recipes as well.

Dr. Cates: Great. I love it. It’s fantastic. I love that you bring in your heritage and your family traditions into your book. That’s fantastic. Love it. Um, okay, so tell everybody where, where can we get your book? Tell everybody where they can find it.

Dr. Wentz: So it’s available on Amazon and Barnes and noble. Wherever books are sold in the bookstores. Probably the fastest way to get at is if you have Amazon prime, you know, you get through Amazon, shipping from there and it’s called Hashimoto’s food pharmacology.

Dr. Cates: Excellent. All right, well Izabella, I thank you so much for coming back on and giving us an update and excited to see how things go with your book. I can’t wait to try your Berry Pie.

Dr. Wentz: Thank you so much. It’s such a pleasure to chat with you.

Dr. Cates: I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Dr. Izabella Wentz to learn more about her book where you can find it. You can go to the spa Dr Com, go to the podcast page with her interview, and you’ll find all the information and links there. While you’re there, I invite you to join The Spa Dr. Community so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows. And if you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to take the skin quiz. You can go to theskinquiz.com find out what messages your skin may be trying to tell you about your health and what you can do about it. Just go to theskinquiz.com it’s free, it only takes a few moments to take the quiz and get your report. Also, invite you to join me on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, youtube, Pinterest. Join the conversation there and I’ll see you next time on The Spa Dr. Podcast.