Author: Dr. Josh Axe
Date of Publication: March 29, 2016
Company: Harper Wave
Number of Pages: 352
Awards: #3 on Amazon.com for Medical Books on Digestive Organs, and #4 on Amazon.com for Medical Books on Gastroenterology
It's no secret that I've been unwell for a long time. When I was in my early twenties, I contracted a bacterial infection in my red blood cells. The only way to knock out this bacteria was with antibiotics, and because this was a "super disease" and kept morphing to resist the drugs it encountered, I ended up being on antibiotics for a long time. Six years long, in fact. And I did not take any probiotics to supplement my gut flora—because I didn't know I needed to!You can probably imagine how frustrated I was when I finally tested negative for the bacteria, but still felt terrible. Cue tons of inflammation and suffering. For the past couple of years, I've been circling my solution. I've traced diet and sleep patterns, finding imbalances in my hormones, thyroid, and adrenals. And I decided at some point that I probably needed to heal my gut, but wasn't sure how to begin.
Dr. Josh Axe is a name you might have heard floating about on the internet or in functional health circles. He's sort of like Dr. Oz, I guess... But even more crunchy and holistic. Dr. Axe and Dr. Hyman (another important name in functional health), are really big on tracing traditionally un-cureable issues to gut health—even Aspergers and Diabetes. I watched Dr. Hyman's Broken Brain Docu-series when it aired earlier this year and found myself intrigued. The principles behind his method really made sense. To follow up on what I'd learned and make some cross-reference checks, I bought Dr. Axe's book Eat Dirt.
What I love about the Eat Dirt solution is that the reader never stops and says to themselves, "Okay, that was some neat-o information! Now what?" Axe literally lays out a protocol for patients, encouraging them to take control of their own health. There's even a quiz you can take to determine your gut type. It's a heck of a lot better than waiting for a bunch of pompous healthcare professionals pretend to listen to you, withhold treatments that might work, and then give you sleeping pills because your illness is "behavioral." (Yes, that happened to me. The complaint was urination frequency and dehydration. The actual answer was a Celiac's diagnosis.)
Another thing I love is that Axe does not eschew traditional medicine—as tempting as that is for all of us sometimes! He rather encourages the melding of methods both conventional and holistic, Western and Eastern, to bring about fulfillment and wellness in his patients' lives.
My biggest takeaway from this book is that most of us have been taught the wrong things regarding cleanliness and self-grooming since we were very young.
Killing 99.9% of germs by spraying down our homes with chemicals and antibacterial soap was the wrong call—sorry, Baby Boomers. Because when we drop an antibiotic bomb on our bodies, it kills foreign invaders, yes, but it kills the helpful civilians as well. Humans need active and healthy bacteria in our bodies. Without them, yeast, sugars, inflammation, and worse—drug resistant harmful bacteria are invited in for an extended stay. That's what happened to me.
I saw this clearly illustrated when I did a kitchen experiment this winter. I attempted to brew a Ginger Bug; a type of fermented drink. After just a few days, the liquid was fizzing and bubbling—active and healthy. One morning, I washed my hands before shredding some ginger to add to the mix... and everything died. The Bug went completely flat. I had used an antibacterial soap, and it had done exactly what it promised to. I tried to imagine what that would be like on a larger scale—and inside my body, and got totally freaked out.
Dr. Josh Axe's book Eat Dirt, even if readers don't necessarily agree with all of it, is a great read and might actually improve your quality of life.
