Brian (0s):
This week I interviewed Dr. Kevin Smith. Dr. Smith is a functional medicine practitioner and founder of the Chronic Condition Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He specializes in helping people understand and fix the root cause of chronic health conditions, such as gut issues, autoimmunity, chronic pain, thyroid dysfunction, adrenal fatigue and inflammation, using natural non-invasive methods. We discuss proper sleep hygiene along with testing for thyroid issues, how Dr. Smith solves individual health issues and is one tip to get your body back to what it once was. Really enjoyed my interview with Dr. Kevin Smith. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show.
Brian (43s):
All right. Welcome to the Get Lean, eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gr and I have Dr. Kevin Smith on welcome to the show.
Kevin (49s):
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today.
Brian (52s):
Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Functional medicine practitioner in Pittsburgh. And you've been doing this for longer than most people, I'd say in this space. I 2001, correct?
Kevin (1m 3s):
That's correct. Yes, sir. I've been, I've been helping people to feel better and to move better through functional medicine and through physical medicine modalities.
Brian (1m 14s):
And when you started doing functional medicine, I'm assuming there weren't too many people in this field at that time?
Kevin (1m 19s):
No, that's correct. It was kind of in its infancy. I remember back in the early two thousands when I had a patient and I told them to want, they wanna reduce their, in the level of inflammation and taking fish oils. It was one way to increase the amount of omega threes that they're getting in their body. And he, a week later, he came back and said that he talked it over with his primary care physician and he told him that that's just a bunch of quack stuff and don't, don't listen to him and that kind of stuff. So, and they have since changed their ways and they are completely behind the whole fish oil movement about reducing inflammation and making people feel better.
Kevin (2m 6s):
But of course, you know, they try to take credit for inventing it, so,
Brian (2m 11s):
Yeah. And what has changed since you started till now? I mean, that's 20, 24 years of, you know, of probably research and, and you know, new ways of, you know, overcoming health challenges. What, what have changed in your practice?
Kevin (2m 26s):
Well, the, the attitudes of on, on the part of the public has changed. I think that a lot of people are sick and tired of just having to rely on pharmaceuticals Sure. As their only choice. And now they're more, people are more waking up to the fact that you can correct a healthcare problem by focusing on lifestyle modification, taking supplements, eating very clean and things like that. And less, less reliance on, on medications these days.
Brian (2m 59s):
Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think with just the advent of like podcasts alone and just all the information that's out there, I think people are taking their health into their own hands and finding out what, you know, works for them. I mean, obviously you wanna have a physician, but it also helps to have someone that like yourself or myself who's maybe a little bit attuned to more of a natural way of going about things before you just jump into drugs.
Kevin (3m 25s):
I think you hit the nail right on the head with the, the whole podcast thing. It helps to educate more people, make people more aware of things that are, are out there. And as people get more educated and they become more aware of this, they're gonna make smarter decisions and rely less on drugs and medications. I'm not anti-drug, I'm not anti physician. I think that there's a time and a place for everything, but I think we as a people are overmedicated.
Brian (3m 54s):
Yeah. And what would you say are probably some of the biggest medications that you're seeing? Most clients are on that they probably, maybe could either we themselves off of or they're just over, over prescribed on,
Kevin (4m 8s):
Well, one of them is statin medications for lowering cholesterol. Another one is proton pump inhibitors for decreasing stomach acid. And a third one would be things like, like gabapentin, which is mostly, it's, it's an, it's, it was actually formulated to treat epilepsy, but a lot of doctors are giving it to people to calm down nerve pain or either because of peripheral neuropathy or some, some kind of a spinal cord issue, but none of those drugs actually cures you. It actually just masks the symptoms. Hmm.
Brian (4m 47s):
And people that are coming into your practice, are you working with individuals, you know with, like I I noticed on your website low thyroid. Is this something that you, you run into quite a bit with individuals?
Kevin (4m 59s):
Well, low thyroid disease or hypo hypo hypothyroidism is a niche of mine. That's where I have a lot of deep do deep domain expertise of helping. But people come to see me for problems with falling asleep or staying asleep. Problems with gut problems, either constipation or diarrhea or both. Poor absorption, Hmm. Brain-based problems such as irritability, nervousness, depression, anxiety, problems with blood sugar issues, either insulin resistance or some, some form of diabetes autoimmunity, food sensitivities, chemical sensitivities, unresolved self infections such as an Epstein-Barr virus problem or a cytomegalovirus problem or maybe something like herpes.
Kevin (5m 58s):
All of those things can disrupt thyroid physiology and cause things like low energy or problems with fertility with women, if they wanna make a, make a family start a family and they can't conceive, that can be very frustrating for a lot of people. Problems with, you eat something on Monday and on Thursday you develop a nagging migraine and you can't figure out what could be the cause of this because so much time has lapsed, they think it has to be an immediate effect. And so we do some clinical testing to figure out what the root cause of that problem could be.
Brian (6m 37s):
Yeah. And I, that was sort of leading to my next question. What kind of testing do you do? I mean obviously every individual is different, but what, what are other some baselines that you work off of?
Kevin (6m 48s):
So the, the, the two broad categories of areas that I want to, I wanna test for number one is autoimmunity. And autoimmunity means that the defense system of the body, the immune system, which is your white blood cells, they go around your, your body and the circulation and they, they help protect you against things like a bacterial infection, a viral infection, a parasite, things like that. But something happens. And so that, that system that's supposed to be protecting you attacks your own body and attacks and destroys the tissues such as brain, thyroid, gut, skin, joint, it, it could be anywhere.
Kevin (7m 36s):
And the other part, the other category is what I call triggers. And triggers are things that other than autoimmunity that could be disrupting normal everyday function such as blood sugar problems, chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, anemia, things like that. And the way that we identify those triggers in the autoimmunity is by testing. And that testing comes the form of blood, urine, stool and saliva. And by doing those types of measurements, those objective measurements, we can get a real understanding about what's going on inside the body and where the person is and where they need to be.
Brian (8m 19s):
Hmm. And I've done some certifications through functional diagnostic nutrition. Is this something you're familiar with or what, where did you
Kevin (8m 27s):
Sort of Yeah, FDN is a good program. Yeah. What they do is very, very similar to what I do. The F DNS that do this stuff. They, they, or they can order tests and they can try to piece, piece together what's going on. A lot of times it can be very complicated. People reserve the right to have more than one problem. Right. So when that happens, how do you know what is causing the problem? What's driving the problem? So for example, if they have insulin resistance and they have inflammation and they have liver toxicity and they have something wrong with their gut and they have also problems with sex hormones, either testosterone being too low or an imbalance with estrogen and progesterone, we have to figure out where the problem's coming from, what to, what to look at first.
Kevin (9m 26s):
And that really is a big part of this, is to prioritize these, these tests and figure out which one do you do first.
Brian (9m 36s):
Yeah. It's a, it's a little bit like solving a puzzle. Right,
Kevin (9m 40s):
Exactly. So I kinda liken myself to it, like a detective trying to figure out where is the, where, what, what's going on and what happened with the crime and kind of piece it back together again, a lot of that is gonna be determined based on what kind of symptoms is presenting. And then I start off by gathering, like doing a, a survey, a medical survey, asking them about their metabolic health and about their neurological health and based on how they score, that's where I know where to start looking. It's not a diagnostic, it's just a, it's just an indication of this is what's going on and this is their per, this is the person's number one issue that they want to get rid of right now.
Kevin (10m 26s):
And so that kind of drives the priorities is based on what can I do to help the person to feel better and, and to function better.
Brian (10m 35s):
And would you say that, I don't know, 80, 90% of these are lifestyle based, you know, things they can change or potentially even su using some type of supplements as well?
Kevin (10m 47s):
That's that's that's absolutely true. Yeah, absolutely. The thing is, we as Americans, we eat at McDonald's six times a week and then we rely on pharmaceuticals to clean up the mess afterwards. Right? Whereas if we just learned how to eat clean, how to move better, how to get plenty of sleep, how to manage our stress, how to manage our posture and our nervous system correctly, a lot of those problems are gonna go away. But that's, that's gonna require some work on everybody's part. And we live in a drug culture, unfortunately. And so that's the attitudes of people is just give me a pill that's gonna get rid of this symptom and let me be on my way.
Kevin (11m 34s):
And I think that we need to pay more attention to lifestyle modification.
Brian (11m 39s):
And what would you say, what are some of the biggest tools or things that you leverage in your practice to help, you know, 'cause like you mentioned sleep, I mean, I'd imagine for most people, if, if, if we can wrap our arms around quality sleep, it'll probably help lead to a lot of positive health outcomes. Are there certain sort of tools that you use to help individuals with that?
Kevin (11m 60s):
There's a certain type of sleep hygiene that I coach people to follow. There are basic fundamentals that promote good health and sleeping is absolutely one of them. So you need to have around six to nine hours of restful, replenishing sleep in order to help the brain in order to help the immune system and, and reduce inflammation and get things going. Again, if you're having a problem falling asleep or staying asleep, that is a trigger of, of a underlying problem. That's, that's an unresolved problem.
Kevin (12m 41s):
Either, maybe it could be insulin resistance thing where the body's blood sugar physiology is not stabilized and it's causing disruption or it's a problem where you have too much, too much stress. Too much stress causes an issue with the hormone cortisol, which regulates your autonomic nervous system or your fight or flight problem, your fight or flight symptoms. And so when the tiger is chasing you through the jungle, you want that to kick in and you want to pump more blood to your arms and legs so you can run away from the danger or be able to fight the danger.
Kevin (13m 22s):
However, once that danger goes away, everything should come back down to normal again. And if it doesn't come back to normal, it ends up causing belly fat production and it causes brain fog. And so that's what, that's one of the root issues that we want to handle, is making sure that your cortisol issues, your insulin issues, ghrelin, leptin, inflammation, all that stuff is kind of settled down so that you can get plenty of sleep so that you can be a productive, happy person the next day.
Brian (13m 55s):
Hey everyone, quick interruption here. If you are looking to gain energy, lose inches around your waist and build strength, well look no further than my book, the Step Ladder System, six Steps to Lifelong Health and Vitality. What you get with the book is my full step-by-step plan and blueprint that I've worked with all my clients with packed into one book with part one, you're gonna lay the foundation, tackle any common challenges that might come in your way. Part two is my six pillar blueprint, how to set you yourself up with a solid plan and know exactly what to do when life throws any curve balls. And lastly, step three are learning to implementation a plan for getting results over the next weeks and beyond.
Brian (14m 38s):
So there you have it. I'll leave a link in the show notes for my stepladder system book. Now, back to the podcast. And you mentioned sleep hygiene. What, what would you say, what are some, what are your, you know, like say top three sleep hygiene things that individuals could do?
Kevin (14m 56s):
Well turn off all electronic equipment at least by seven o'clock at pm If you're gonna, let's say the person's gonna go to bed at 10 o'clock, you wanna be able to shut off all cell phones, tablets, computers a couple of hours before then make sure that you don't drink any caffeine like coffee or sodas or anything, hours and hours in advance of that. A lot of people have a pin that you wanna be very careful or very mindful of how much, how many carbohydrates that you consume right before bed.
Kevin (15m 37s):
Because if that causes a spike in your insulin, that's gonna also throw off cortisol, make sure that you are doing other types of things like maybe drinking a cup of chamal tea, maybe reading a book, make sure that the room is, is, is very dimly lit and there's no extraneous noises or other types of things that can do be disruptive. Make sure that maybe you take a, a, a nice warm bath about an hour before going to bed. All these things collectively can add up to helping you to be, get a better night's sleep. But that's kind of not what people do.
Kevin (16m 19s):
They tend to play on their cell phone. They wanna surf Facebook or TikTok late at night and they drink too much coffee or soda or something with too much caffeine and, and compliment that with some sugary snacks or some chips and then they wonder why they're having so many sleep difficulties. Yeah. But my method is just to take you back to the, the fundamentals and practice those fundamentals about practicing good sleep hygiene with good nutrition, plenty of rest for plenty of water. You wanna make sure you're well, well hydrated, but not to the point where you have to get up to go take a bathroom break in the middle of the night three times.
Brian (17m 6s):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I think just, I like to make a general rule of not to eat two to three hours before sleep. You know, whether it's carbs or not. 'cause carbs have been shown they could actually lower cortisol to some degree, but in general, I just think, you know, eating and then even just going for a walk after you're done eating can help manage blood sugar and with help with digestion and help you get a better night's sleep.
Kevin (17m 31s):
Well one, one of the cornerstones of the wellness program that I was advocating is getting plenty of exercise. Sure. And taking a walk helps to regulate your hormones, helps you to regulate your mood, keep everything in perspective, maybe to going out and walking the dog, maybe going outside and playing or going to the gym or doing something, a light workout once a day will keep those things in better check. But that in conjunction with ideal nutrition, ideal hydration, stress management, all those things collectively add up.
Brian (18m 15s):
And regarding, you know, thyroid problems, what, what kind of tests do you do for that and, and how do you go about managing some, if someone has some thyroid issues?
Kevin (18m 24s):
That's a great question. So when a, a person with that has a, a thyroid issue or they suspect that they have a thyroid issue, if they go to their PCP or an endocrinologist, the standard operating procedure is to do the very, very basic minimum number of tests that they can get away with in order to arrive at a diagnosis in order to prescribe a drug. In other words, they're gonna do exactly whatever the insurance company dictates that they will pay for and nothing else. So the typically with a order at TSH test that stands for Thyroid stimulating hormone, that's a chemical that's produced by the pituitary gland in your brain that acts upon the thyroid gland to produce thyroid hormone.
Kevin (19m 16s):
That's about as far as they're gonna go. They're gonna maybe order a, a free T free T three or a free T four, and that's about it. And then they're gonna give you Synthroid or levothyroxine or some other kind of a, a thyroid replacement hormone and send you on your way. When I order tests for thyroid, I'll order 10 tests at a times because I'm interested in looking at the entire metabolic landscape and seeing what's going on. So over the before mentioned TSH test a total T four, a free T four a total T three, a free T three, reverse T three, T three uptake, TPO enzyme, th globulin enzyme and TSI index.
Kevin (20m 4s):
All of those things play a role in what's going on. So you gotta find out, are you having a problem manufacturing thyroid, are you having problems transporting thyroid hormone throughout your body or are you having a problem with the receptor site on the cell wall? All of the 70 trillion or so cells that we have in our body has on it a receptor site for thyroid hormone. And so thyroid hormone, that's, it's T three, the function of that is it acts kind of like as an accelerator pedal that happens in a car. If you step on the accelerator pedal, the car's gonna speed up.
Kevin (20m 46s):
If you take your foot off the gas, it's gonna slow down or it's gonna come to a screeching halt. The same thing happens with your cells. So if, for example, you're dealing with neurons in the brain, those have a receptor site on the cell wall for thyroid hormone. If they're not getting enough thyroid hormone for whatever reason, they're gonna slow down. And so symptomatically, they're gonna have things like depression, anxiety, nervousness, irritability, brain fog, cognition problems, learning problems, all kinds of things.
Kevin (21m 26s):
And it can also be traced back to thyroid function. So we have to determine what is the root cause of that. Is it because their, their bodies are not manufacturing enough thyroid hormone, or are they having a problem converting T four into T three in the liver in the gut, or they having a problem con transporting the thyroid hormone throughout the body? 98% of the time, 98% of the thyroid hormone in your body is transported by a carrier protein. And if it's not doing its job, you can have all the thyroid hormone in the world and it, it can't, it can't get to your cells properly.
Kevin (22m 10s):
Or you could have problems like chronic inflammation where it produces cytokines that block the receptor site on the, on the cell wall. If any of those things happen, you're gonna have symptoms associated with low thyroid problems. Now here's the kicker. When you have, when you have low thyroid issues and you go to see your doctor and he gives you some, a drug like levothyroxine or Synthroid, 17% of the time those drugs are gonna be effective. The other 83% of the time they're not gonna be effective.
Kevin (22m 50s):
So that means 83% of everybody given those drugs, all 30 million of them are not gonna be helped by those medications. That's a serious problem.
Brian (23m 2s):
So what steps would you give that individual perhaps to, you know, either avoid or, you know, maybe like wean off those drugs in order to help their thyroid?
Kevin (23m 13s):
So first of all, I would, I would gather some medical information and find out a little bit more about their background, what medica, what other medications that they're taking and for what purpose, what dose get, gather all the medical information that I need. After that, then I sort 'em off on some questionnaires, the metabolic questionnaire, the neurotransmitter questionnaire, just to get a, again, a fundamental baseline. And then after that I would probably send them out for some foundational lab tests in the form of blood and urine. And when those come back, then we sit down, we, we, we score them and we look at them together.
Kevin (23m 56s):
And I, I color code these test results either green, yellow or red. Green means they're in, they're, they're in the right area, they're in the suite zone, so there's no problem. Yellow means that they're actually moving in the wrong direction with that lab marker and red means that they're in full blown pathology. So we wanna look at that and find out where they at and where do they need to be to correct this problem. From there, then I would likely order a corrective care plan based on what showed up on the lab. Now everybody is a little bit different. They could have abnormal cholesterols, they could have abnormal iron cycles, they could have that abnormal levels of vitamin D or abnormal levels of inflammatory markers, whatever.
Kevin (24m 46s):
And so the, the treatment plan that I just, i i order is custom designed for that individual. There's no two alike, there's no, it's not cookie cutter, a cookie cutter approach. Like you get when you go see an endocrinologist and everybody and their mother gets Synthroid. It's, it's completely tailor specific to their particular needs.
Brian (25m 10s):
Hmm. And I noticed, did you come out, are you coming out with a book or your second book, is that right?
Kevin (25m 15s):
Yes. It's being, it's being edited at this, at this moment and I anticipate it's, 'cause it's supposed to come out at the end of 2025.
Brian (25m 24s):
What's the name of it?
Kevin (25m 26s):
It's me. Metabolic Solutions.
Brian (25m 28s):
Very cool. And you're located in Penn, Pennsylvania. Do you do like virtual consults and stuff?
Kevin (25m 37s):
Yeah, I do virtual health, health consulting with people. We're just a phone call away from each other or a zoom call. Sure. So you don't necessarily have to be in Pittsburgh to work with me. Thanks to the, the advent of technology we can help you no matter where you live.
Brian (25m 56s):
Hmm. And I like to ask this question to pretty much all my guesses. What's, what's one tip you'd give someone if they're maybe looking to get their, their body back to what it once was 10, 15 years ago? What, what one tip would you give for that person?
Kevin (26m 10s):
The first thing, first and foremost is you need to take responsibility for yourself and realize that health is is your responsibility. It's not the government, it's not the insurance company, it's not your neighbor, it's you just like, if you own a house, you're responsible for the roof and the plumbing and the electrical and if something were to go wrong, it's on you to get it corrected with your health. If you have a problem, if you're not happy with where you're at right now and you've already been to the medical doctors and you've already met, tried the medications and you all that, all that stuff, and you're still not where you wanna be, you need to try something different.
Kevin (26m 53s):
Just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is one person's definition of insanity. So when people come see me, typically they've already been to medical doctors, they've been to the PCP, they've been to the, the, a medical specialist and they failed to fix their problem to that person's satisfaction. And at that point it's really their thing to look for all, what's what else is available out there. I say, you know, just, just like there's more than one way to cook an egg. There's always more than one way to fix a health problem no matter what it is.
Kevin (27m 36s):
Drugs are one option, but it's not the only option available to you.
Brian (27m 41s):
Yeah, well said. Well, where's the best place for people to, to learn about your, your services, Kevin?
Kevin (27m 48s):
I would think that my website would be the best place to start that is metabolic solutions.net. And if you go there, you can read a little bit about what I do and you, there's ways to get in contact with me. One of the things that people like to do is to set up a free discovery call just to tell me their story and tell me what's going on and if I can help 'em or not. And it's a free phone call. It's about a 10 to 15 minute conversation where you just talk to me about what's going on in your life and what have you done to fix this problem so far and what you, what your goals are. And then I can give you some advice or point you in the right direction.
Brian (28m 32s):
Excellent. Well Kevin, this was great. Short but sweet and I'll be sure to put a link in the show notes so people can learn about you and your services and set up that, that call with you. So I appreciate you coming on and and sharing the knowledge today.
Kevin (28m 47s):
Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Brian (28m 49s):
Thanks for listening to the show. I know there's thousands of podcasts out there and you chose to listen to mine. I will put a link in the show notes if you want to connect with my guest. And if you are looking for one-on-one consulting with me, I will put a free 15 minute link so you can set up a call to see if you're fit for my six month health breakthrough program. So thanks again, feel free to rate and subscribe. I would love that to help support the podcast. And till next time, have a great rest of the day and I will see you on my next podcast. Thanks so much.
