Dr. Alexander Torres (18:39)

Thanks for having me, Nicole.

Dr. Nicole Safire (18:41)

So, Alex, I'm going to call you Dr. Torres or Alex, I don't know. You're my friend. All right. So, Alex, when it comes to autoimmune disease, first of all, from a very basic level, can you just explain a little bit what it is?

Dr. Alexander Torres (18:54)

So the immune complex in a human being, right, in all of us, basically its own, own self or autonomous body of functioning, right? In this case, this is the main system in your body that it's active and main responsible to make sure that it fights different type of infections, different type of, you know, malignant cells. It kind of recognize whatever is going on in your body that is not, you know, that is a foreign, for example. And it's basically what drives us on a daily basis. Now, you know, we have talked to this in some detail now we are seeing a lot of chronic illnesses that we are noticing that is actually from an autoimmune standpoint. So the immune system is as important as the cardiovascular system, as your pulmonary system, that's your brain system as well, too, or neurological system. So it is extremely important now that we have better research in the last 25 years, we're understanding how it works in a better way. And we're understanding that it's one of the main culprits reasons as to why we're having this new incidence of new conditions right now.

Dr. Nicole Safire (20:16)

So our immune system, essentially, it's kind of there to protect us. I like to think of it as our home alarm system. And if there's any foreign invaders or anything of the sorts, like allergens or anything else, you know, it's there to protect us. But in autoimmune diseases, it's like the wiring got wrong and all of a sudden your home alarm system is starting to attack you itself. Is that about right?

Dr. Alexander Torres (20:38)

Well, yes, that's what we understood before. But now we, you know, imagine your system completely different new type of wiring in your system. This is your immunological system. This is your immuno immunoprite. But now we have external, you know, causes that actually they're rewiring our immune system that is causing this new alarm in, in. In. In us, you know, around the world. You know, things are changing immune wise. You know, we, you know, for example, we used to have certain type of diseases back in the 60s and the 70s, in the 80s, that now it's completely different now. So things are getting rewiring right now. Even though we have that immunoprint or initial immune printing, things are getting rewired right now as we go.

Dr. Nicole Safire (21:27)

So that's interesting. So that's kind of something similar to what we're seeing in cancer. Like there is, you know, there's an intrinsic risk to developing cancer in our lifetime, whether it's because of the genetics or the DNA that we're born with, kind of the environment that we're raised in. But we're also seeing a lot of external factors that are all of a sudden changing our cancer risk. So you think that is very similar for autoimmune diseases? That some of our like environment and toxins are what's causing the rise in autoimmune disease? Is that what you're saying?

Dr. Alexander Torres (21:59)

You're extremely right. I think that in the last, for example, I have been a rheumatologist for almost 16 years, going on 17 years.

Dr. Nicole Safire (22:06)

Already I said we're not supposed to age us. No.

Dr. Alexander Torres (22:09)

So I am seeing things that I never used to see. Right now, for example, our American diet I think has been one of the main culprits of how things are changing in America. We are seeing immune mediated conditions that we were not able to see before. For example, right now the incidence and the prevalence of diabetes is much more, the insulin resistance much more. We see that this as a factor and how to work on the immune system. We're seeing patients that having more rheumatoid arthritis right now. Before used to be a 2 to 1 ration female. Now we're seeing a much more prevalent amount of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Connective tissue diseases. So I think our diet has changed dramatically since the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. And now we're seeing a much more complex diagnosis. And it's not what we used to see in medical books. We used to read this Nicole, like, oh, you have bilateral symmetric joint disease. This must be rheumatoid arthritis. Now it's complex. It's just not just black or white. You know, it has different type of, of. Of. Of character, different autoimmune conditions. In one, for example, you know, not only with, with diet, but we have Seen a lot lately with. In your field as well. We're seeing, we've seen a lot of patients with certain type of checkpoint inhibitors that we use for a certain type of cancer. So we're seeing a lot of immune regulation that we've seen some rheumatic adverse events. Not only that, we're seeing also post Covid, a lot of patients with post Covid and not more than that post vaccinations. We're seeing a dramatic increase of very random, most of autoimmune rheumatological characteristics that we're seeing. These patients in younger populations, such as early Raynaud's, early paretic or very generalized, you know, rash in this, you know, kids, teenagers, more inflammatory arthritis in this, you know, population as well, too. So I think there's multiple variables that have changed throughout, you know, decades. And not only now we're working with that immune system, especially in cancer. We've seen some adverse events from those, you know, immunotherapies because they're not chemotherapies, as you know, they're more, you know, they're like immunotherapy. So we're seeing more of that. And also we're becoming smarter. We're able to understand how the immune system works where you understand how really what triggers things. And we're able to see what kind of flags we're able to identify they are main. The main culprits in certain kind of conditions. We understand more interleukins as, you know, certain type of inflammatory signals or chemokines and we call it. We're able to identify, we're now able to go to inside the cell and know exactly what triggers what, what turns on that intracellular signal that basically explode that inflammatory response in an individual. And now we understand too, that what causes, you know, we understand that certain type of, you know, immunotherapies can do that. Certain type of insulin resistance. We know that we can do that. Certain age, gender can do that as well too. You know, we're getting, you know, we're being much more, you know, like, you know, smarter, I guess. And we're able to identify this kind of new pathologies and obviously treatment based on that.

Dr. Nicole Safire (26:01)

Well, it's interesting because you're right, we're smarter. We're able to identify illness a little bit earlier. And so that's, you know, one of the criticisms of medicine is that, oh, diseases aren't on the rise. We're just diagnosing more. And so it's really important to acknowledge the fact that yes, it's true. We are able to diagnose more. We have expanded diagnostic criterias which also allow for this increased prevalence. But there's no denying that we have more disease. I mean, you said something very interesting about COVID I know, I want to talk more about it and I know everyone listening wants to, but pre Covid, we were already seeing a rise in autoantibodies and the markers and autoimmune disease in younger people. There was like a 2020 NIH study that kind of said that and that before COVID type 1 diabetes, like you mentioned, celiac, rheumatoid, hashimotoes, thyroiditis, all have been increasing for the past few decades. So, you know, we have a lot of theories as to why that is.

Dr. Alexander Torres (27:03)

Pollutants as well too, we believe like this kind of microplastics, they play a big role as well too. But I firmly believe not only on the diet, on that part of, you know, the chemo exposures, you know, fertilizer, etc. You know, American society have trended to a much more sedentary lifestyle, much more, much more overweight. Our BMI have been going up. You know, we have become extremely insulin resistant. And that has been the key, which I believe it's the main problem is the insulin resistance that has driven us to this kind of pendantry autoimmune issues. Right now we're just in a constant.

Dr. Nicole Safire (27:47)

State of inflammation because the blood sugar's up and sugar causes inflammation. And that state of inflammation is not good.

Dr. Alexander Torres (27:55)

Correct enough. And this is just on my own, you know, my own practice that I see many patients that are, for example, in this new medications and GLP1s etc, they're actually, they're becoming much more, you know, they're losing weight and I've seen a lot of them just improving.

Dr. Nicole Safire (28:12)

GLP1s being like the Wegovies and the Manjaro and the Ozempic, quote unquote, is everyone's taking.

Dr. Alexander Torres (28:18)

Yeah, correct. And not only that, we also believe that the medications response as well to work on this, you know, different in this population as well too. We saw that the recent medications that we had, it had a certain type of effect. But now that we've seen, you know, a certain type of patients using this kind of treatment, they are actually, they're becoming less insulin resistance. We are actually seeing a much more better response in this as well.

Dr. Nicole Safire (28:47)

That's interesting. You know, heading into Covid, one of my big concerns was what are we doing by shielding the kids so much from all the pathogens like, we couldn't. They didn't. We didn't have anything. Flu wasn't circulating, colds weren't circulating. Everyone was so afraid of COVID that putting us in the state of isolation. I mean, don't get me started. Obviously the mental health component was. That's a whole nother episode. But this, this whole hygiene phenomenon is one of those things that the hygiene hypothesis has to do with autoimmune diseases too. And do you think that maybe that. Can you explain what that is and like maybe how that also played a.

Dr. Alexander Torres (29:29)

Role, you know, if you over the world. Like. I think one of the reasons too is it has even contest is not, you know, nowadays. You know, back in the days we used to have the. The chickenpox, you know, get together times. You know, if you happen that, you know, Jimmy, you know, your neighbor used to get chickenpox. I want to make sure that Alex go with Jimmy so he can get some chicken.

Dr. Nicole Safire (29:49)

So, yeah, we do not recommend chickenpox parties. FYI.

Dr. Alexander Torres (29:55)

That's how it used to do. That's how it used to be. The smart way back then in how the immune system recognizes, right.

Dr. Nicole Safire (30:02)

We.

Dr. Alexander Torres (30:02)

We stopped doing that. You know, we are into a state of, you know, aseptic, you know, areas that we have to. We clean it, you know, hands everyone, you know, kids and table and please don't do that. Please don't go on. Make sure that you wear a mask. Please, please make sure you don't.

Dr. Nicole Safire (30:22)

And what about the hand sanitizer that you see everyone putting on constantly? I'm like that rubbing. Rubbing alcohol. That can't be good for you. Like get some germs around you. Yeah.

Dr. Alexander Torres (30:33)

I will tell you this. And again, you know, there's many smart people out there. There are, you know, working your immune system and infectious disease people and you know, look, I. My heart goes to them. But when you are in the trenches, in my office or my practice is basically in the trenches, we serve underserved population here in central Florida. I was able to see something that I was not able to see. And I think that once this virus came through, the way that we handled ourselves, it was not consonant of what they were telling us. I was not seeing. You know, most of our patient population, they were wearing masks. And I noticed. I was noticing right away that they were not, you know, they were still contracting, you know, Covid as well. Then vaccine came through and. And we had some of our issues. You know, we thought it would work, but then I noticed in my patients that it didn't work. And I noticed that right away. Like.

Dr. Nicole Safire (31:35)

Well, do you think, do you think so? Well, first of all, it's well documented people with autoimmune diseases who got infected had the COVID infection that could cause a flare. That makes sense. Obviously, being infected with the coronavirus causes inflammation and you could get a flare. But do you think, you know, then come the vaccine? I mean, it's kind of twofold. One, the vaccine itself was kind of causing more of an inflammatory response than the actual infection. So people with autoimmune diseases, did you see that they were having more flares from the vaccine than the actual infection? And then did you also see that maybe the vaccine didn't work as well because maybe the medications they were on or what do you think it was?

Dr. Alexander Torres (32:18)

It was both ways. First and foremost, most of these patients are immunosuppressed in a way. Right. They're also immunocompetent in a way. So I didn't think they had a good immune response, but also activated a very, you know, erratic immune system to start having symptoms I didn't have before.

Dr. Nicole Safire (32:37)

And it was from the vaccine, they had new symptoms as well, too.

Dr. Alexander Torres (32:41)

It was non consonant of what they usually have. So if you, for a patient, for example, if a patient only always had inflammatory arthritis, now they're starting having Raynaud, they're starting having some rash, they're starting some dry, dry mouth, dry eye, which is secondary symptoms of this. Rheumatic conditions as well, too.

Dr. Nicole Safire (33:00)

It's like they're picking little. They're picking symptoms from various other diseases.

Dr. Alexander Torres (33:05)

For example, this is my own experience. I was completely healthy before, and I remember I received my second short shot of the COVID vaccine.

Dr. Nicole Safire (33:15)

You had MRNA like Pfizer Moderna.

Dr. Alexander Torres (33:18)

And two weeks after, I'm a, I'm a runner. So I like to, you know, train for, you know, half marathons and marathons. And I was running. I remember it was around December that the vaccine came around, that and I started developing Raynaud's myself.

Dr. Nicole Safire (33:34)

Raynaud's being where your blood vessels and your fingers, when it's cold, you have poor blood flow. Yeah, extremely.

Dr. Alexander Torres (33:41)

It was just nothing. It was just simple. It was very, very extreme. Very quite evident. It was a triphasic discoloration of my hands turning completely white, then bluish, and then, then red. And I didn't have that before. Another observation that I noticed that those symptoms that I was having, they're waning off as well. So it seems like a way how my immune system is somehow resettling to what it used to be before. So that's another observation that I have seen the same way with my patients. Those patients that I have here, well documented post vaccination, they develop some sort of an erratic immune system. Then novo or new onset or subsequent, you know, symptoms. Those symptoms are somehow, you know, start getting somehow more quiet right now, which is pretty quite interesting.

Dr. Nicole Safire (34:38)

Yeah. So were you recommending then for these patients? Because, I mean, a lot of the colleges, I think even rheumatology, recommended obviously full vaccination, but then boosters. But we have so many documented, published papers now showing that the vaccine itself could potentially worsen existing autoimmune disease. But also, as you're mentioning, they could start fresh. Like, how do you have that conversation with your patients about the formal recommendation of getting all these boosters, but when it could potentially be causing a problem?

Dr. Alexander Torres (35:12)

It was extremely challenging because the trenches, it was not consonant of what the main source. They were telling us. They were telling us that this is what you need to do. You need to do these vaccinations, and then you have to boost yourself every so quite often. And I was. I was not seeing that you needed that first and foremost. And two, it was causing a lot of problems. I was seeing that on my patients, in my patients, that I had to make a medical decision and say, look, Doc, but they're telling me to do this in tv. And I had to actually sit down with our patients completely frustrated about it. That this is something that is between the patient and the doctor. It's extreme. It's like going to a confession. You know, it's something that is between you and the priest, that you have to create that bond with the patient, and you have to, you know, you have to create that. That bond and confidence with the patient. And I used to tell them what I used to see with my patient and what they were going through. And I had to dealt with that because they were all lost. You know, they were confused on what they were telling them on one end and what I was seeing on one end. And for me, I continued my practice the way I thought it was the best way, because that's the way that I was seen on a daily basis. So in my case, I stopped recommending the vaccine on my rheumatic patients way before it was announced, because I was seeing something that it was not. It was not nice. A lot of patients, they were very upset because, for example, we had a lot of patients with, you know, rheumatic issues that they developed it. Then. Then they have the. The immunotherapy after or immunoglobulins after and that somehow neutralize the monoclonal antibodies that were given to them. So they came not only with, you know, post covet vaccination symptoms, but also they came with major flares because they were treated in the hospital for Covid and immunotherapy or immunoglobulins in order to kind of counteract that. And that was a problem also too. Look at this, Nicole. The beauty of this, how things we were able to identify that this vaccinations that were causing some post traumatic conditions or some post traumatic adverse events is that we eventually decided to use Tazing usumab, which is an interleukin 6 blocker for Covid cytokine release, you know, which is a medication that we give for our patients in rheumatoid arthritis. And that's when we kind of figured out, I said, look, something is wrong here and this vaccination must be completely carefully decided between a doctor and the patient. Could. It's something that you just couldn't be just thrown out there. Hey, everyone needs to do this. Kids, especially kids. Kids that have the best immune system ever. Let them be what they have to be. You know, like we talked about the hypothesis, you know, the hygiene hypothesis. You know, we saw the kids, kids that were not, you know, the mortality rate in kids, it was extremely, extremely low. And we kept vaccinating these kids, start seeing patients. And I don't see pediatric patients that I had to do it because again, I see, you know, patients, they are underserved. So they were coming to me, patients that were 9, 13 years old, 15 years old, with rheumatic conditions that they never had before post vaccination.

Dr. Nicole Safire (38:39)

Yeah, I mean, it's really upsetting kind of post Covid to kind of learn all about that. But I certainly think that while again, there's been a rise in autoimmune diseases pre Covid, certainly the COVID infections as well as the vaccines have contributed to that rise. So we've touched on the hygiene hypothesis, the fact that we don't let our kids eat dirt anymore that could potentially have increased their risk of autoimmune diseases and infections. We you've touched upon the fact that we live in a world of microplastics, and microplastics are inserting themselves into all parts of our bodies. But what about gut health and the microbiome? What is your take on that? And it's linked to autoimmune disease.

Dr. Alexander Torres (39:22)

So microbiome is a very Hot topic the same way as, you know, microplastics as well too and post COVID vaccinations, et cetera, microbiome. It's very, very interesting and complex to the fact that we're, we're altering our own normal flora based on the recent or basically the last 25 years diet. We're becoming much more insulin resistance. We're seeing a lot of patients with a certain type of what we call gluten, you know, sensitivities or some real full blown celiac disease. We're seeing a lot of patients with inflammatory arthritis that they're coming through, you know, problems that they have that they start of overgrowth, we believe is some sort of a growth overgrowth of bacteria and that kind of like genetical code is kind of changing and creating this kind of cascade of inflammatory response. So the microbiome or the gut health is extremely important also in rheumatic conditions. So we're learning that more often now.

Dr. Nicole Safire (40:24)

So for people who are listening, who maybe they have an autoimmune disease or they think that they might have one, you know, what are some early indicators or what should they do if they're kind of having some symptoms and they're not really sure what they are?

Dr. Alexander Torres (40:37)

I think that we always look, you know, if, if I would be their physicians. Right. Of this population that comes to you as a doc. You know, I used to feel pretty good. I didn't have any gut issues. But lately I am feeling this way. I'm feeling a little bloated. I cannot tolerate any specific type of, of food. But every time I, I eat this kind of food or whatever, I'm getting this xyz. Symptoms are getting more fatigue. We're seeing a lot more chronic fatigue, you know, population insomnia, more inflammatory arthritis based on processed food as well too. So my recommendations is that we still don't have the technology to really identify this kind of triggers in terms of what triggers an inflammatory arthritis or in autoimmune conditions on, based on what they, they eat, we tear. What I tell to my patients is that look, you know your body more than anyone else. So if you happen that you eat, you know, for example, I had a patient that doctor, every time I eat white rice, I get my knuckles, I get completely inflamed. And for me I'm trying to figure it out exactly what is the main, you know, pathophysiology on. This was like a white rice. What really happens over here. I basically tailored that to them. I, I consult nutritionist, obviously I do the whole, you know, panel in terms of thyroid issues and, and other gut autoimmune blood work as well too. And then refer to the gastroenterologist as well.

Dr. Nicole Safire (42:09)

So if, if someone's starting out kind of having some symptoms, they're vague, they don't really know what's going on. Do you recommend putting together like a food diary for like a few weeks or a month just to see if it's triggered by anything?

Dr. Alexander Torres (42:21)

I do, I do. I am actually a fan of fasting. So I do a little bit of fasting usually, you know, 18, six on occasion. And tell the patients to identify exactly what. What are they eating? What are they eating differently this time? What are they doing that they were not doing before and when did they notice those symptoms? So history is extremely important in this population to identify those kind of, you know, trigger factors.

Dr. Nicole Safire (42:49)

Yeah. Rarely when autoimmune patients present, I imagine is it very text white, textbook black and white. It's kind of like an enigma. And you get to be the little puzzle, puzzle put together person trying to figure it all out.

Dr. Alexander Torres (43:02)

It's not that anymore. It's impressive. Like, I have my residents and my medical students with me. And my medical students are always, you know, expecting, oh, doctor, Right. You know, you have that positive with a positive ana, ssa, ssb. This is short grade. But the reality is not the reality. They may have is subtle ANA test, you know, and they may have some sticker manifestations from dry and dry mouth and they still could have some short ones. So we're seeing a lot of inflammatory arthritis and not necessarily will give you positive blood work. Yeah, we're getting smarter. Like, like, like, like I just mentioned. And we're able to identify certain type of, you know, auto antibodies that we're able to recognize. And you know, through different, you know, labs, they're, you know, providing us, you know, to help these patients. But I will say 6 out of 10 patients, you may have a negative blood work. We've seen a lot of spondyloarthritis patients, a lot of what we call seronegative.

Dr. Nicole Safire (44:02)

Hi, I'm one of those, those Seronegative. Seronegative spondyloarthropathy wastebasket term patients. We don't fit in a box. But it's real.

Dr. Alexander Torres (44:13)

It's real. You know, I'm doing, I'm doing some clinical trials over here with spondyloarthritis. We're working on a lot of signals, interleukins, you know, 23. We're actually, we're having possibly we're going through the process right now getting a phase one. We're working with the CAR T therapy, so. Or natural killer and Carta.

Dr. Nicole Safire (44:37)

CAR T just for anybody listening is a. It's an amazing therapy that we've used in pediatric cancers. But I mean, it certainly is a good starting point for a lot of things. Yes.

Dr. Alexander Torres (44:46)

So we're seeing some evidence already that they work incredibly on type of arthritis, such as, you know, lupus, lupus nephritis or certain type of vasculitis. So that's going to be. We're going to be conducting those studies pretty soon over here in phase one.

Dr. Nicole Safire (45:01)

Well, I mean, we've come a long way in terms of treatment for these patients and thankfully there's still people like you doing a lot of research. Alex, some takeaway for those who either have an autoimmune disease or who don't, but they want to do everything they can to try and prevent it. If you have just, you know, like three what you should do, how you should live your life, what your, what's your advice for people?

Dr. Alexander Torres (45:24)

I think the number one, you know, advice for me is lifestyle changes. If you think that, you know, you're sedentary. I think it's important for anyone that may feel that they need to kind of reset everything, lifestyle changes, such as a certain type, much more healthy diet. It is extremely important. Low sugar, basically and aerobic exercises. We're experiment. You know, I basically advising every, every one of my patients to do a lot of aerobic or low aerobic exercises and want to try to implement like.

Dr. Nicole Safire (46:01)

What, give an example, what's an aerobic exercise?

Dr. Alexander Torres (46:04)

So what, what I try to explain to my patients is that in order for us to decrease the insulin resistance, not only just the diet, but we have to improve what we call the low aerobic or zone two exercises. And basically what that means is that low aerobic exercise or zone 2 exercises induces your mitochondrial replication and mitochondrial replications, most of the energy is fatty acids or fatty oxidation. And what happens when you do that? When you do that cardiovascular, you. You decrease your metabolically to improve dramatically and you decrease insulin resistance. And I strongly believe by decreasing insulin resistance those general symptoms of inflammatory response or autoimmune response, if we want to call it that way. Any, anything that is inflammatory, it's an autoimmune. So I encourage that from our patients. So I set up, I set them certain type of workouts that we lead to that kind of like low or zone two or low aerobic exercise, about 20 to 35 minutes, at least four times or five times a day.

Dr. Nicole Safire (47:13)

I mean, I think we wait four or five times a day or a week. Wow.

Dr. Alexander Torres (47:21)

Twice a day. That's me. I'm like, oh, my God. Oh.

Dr. Nicole Safire (47:25)

I mean, I think you're right. I mean, you don't have to be a gym rat. You don't have to be like the most fitness person, but you do have to get your body moving a little bit more. And as you're saying, we have to keep our sugars down because sugar causes inflammation and inflammation causes autoimmune disease.

Dr. Alexander Torres (47:41)

Incredible. And that's, I think people, they don't, they haven't realized yet, but autoimmune and systemic inflammatory process is the main, you know, you know, culprit of almost every condition nowadays.

Dr. Nicole Safire (47:54)

Everything. Well, isn't it true? So by what we eat, by if we take in less sugar or, you know, less ultra processed foods and like the processed breads and sugar, sugary sweet drinks, that decreases the sugar intake. But the exercise actually upregulates some of the receptors on our cells so that we are able to use our insulin more efficiently. Right.

Dr. Alexander Torres (48:19)

Well, you know, obviously insulin, Insulin resistance is a main issue. And how did we actually help that insulin resistance to become, you know, or resensitize? There's a lot of studies out there, like, if we do a little bit of a insulin pulse, therapy can resensitize those receptors again. And we've seen a lot of study on that. It seems to be good. But you have to reset that body by a doing, you know, lifestyle changes like fasting. It could be a great form of resensitation as well, too, as well as zone 2 aerobic or lower aerobic exercises.

Dr. Nicole Safire (48:57)

Right. Well, you heard it here, folks. If you want to resensitize your body to insulin, you have to start your fasting and you got to get exercising. All right, thank you so much. Dr. Alexander Torres, rheumatologist, colleague, and friend of mine. We really appreciate you coming on Wellness Unmasked and giving us all of your expertise, expert advice. It's great seeing you.

Dr. Alexander Torres (49:19)

Thank you very much.

Dr. Nicole Safire (49:20)

More coming up on Wellness unmasked with Dr. Nicole Safire. Well, that was a lot to unpack from Dr. Alexander Torres, my friend and colleague. I certainly learned a lot from him. And it is validating to hear an expert say, yes. It is not just intrinsic to us. It's not that we're just diagnosing more autoimmune disease. We are seeing more autoimmune disease and we can point fingers. All we want. And there are a lot of finger pointing to do, but it boils down to our lifestyle, the sedentary way we're living. We're not moving our body enough. We're eating loads of crap. You know, I wrote all about it in my book Make America healthy again from 2020. I talked about the foods we're eating and the fact we're not moving our body. And as Dr. Torres just told us, insulin is not working in our body because of this, and therefore we have baseline higher blood sugars than we should. And when you have too much sugar in the blood, it's going to cause inflammation. And inflammation leads to bad things, one of which are autoimmune diseases. And autoimmune diseases, while they may be manageable and you may be able to live with them, they can also be deadly. And so we have to do everything we possibly can to decrease the inflammation in our body. You know, for me, it is getting my body moving, trying to reduce the all of the crap that we're eating, the processed foods. As we know. I love to incorporate natural herbs into my diet. I use ginger and turmeric on a daily basis to get that inflammation down in my body. And I also use lavender to relax me. And I do everything I can to get a good night's sleep because your sleep is so important. And that's a wrap on this episode of Wellness on Mass. I wanted you to learn a little bit about myself so you know why I'm on this wellness journey with you. Just remember, your health isn't a trend. It's our foundation. If today's conversation is something that resonated with you, I ask you, please share it with someone you care about. Thanks for listening to Wellness Unmass on America's number one podcast network, I Heart. Follow Wellness Unmass with Dr. Nicole Safire and start listening on the free I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and we'll catch you next time.