Beyond the Symptoms: Discover the Gut, Gene, and Metabolic Connections to Health

What’s Inside This Episode?

• The Hidden Power of the Gut: Discover how your microbiome holds the keys to brain health, immune function, and hormone balance—and what happens when it goes off track.
• Genetics Unraveled: Learn how subtle genetic weaknesses can create vulnerabilities—but also how they reveal opportunities for personalized healing.
• Metabolic Mayhem: Did you know 93% of the population is metabolically unhealthy? Learn the little-known markers that reveal early imbalances before they spiral into disease.
• Root-Cause Mastery: How integrating these three areas can set you apart as the practitioner who cracks the code when others can’t.

Resources and Links:

• See the Full Transcript here
• Download our FREE Guide to Using Genetic Testing to Optimize Patient Outcomes
• Join the Next-Level Health Practitioner Facebook Group for free resources and community support.
• Reserve your spot for ReInvent 2025 here, a deep dive into the microbiome, metabolic health, and cutting-edge functional practices.
• Visit INEMethod.com for advanced practitioner training and tools to elevate your clinical skills.
• Learn more about The Lab Testing Gaps That Are Sabotaging Your Client’s Health found in this episode.
• Check out our favorite CGM here.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo’s Bio

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo is a pioneer in functional nutrition and nutritional endocrinology. With over 33 years of clinical experience, she’s helped thousands uncover the root causes of their health challenges through a unique, data-driven approach. As the founder of the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology and author of Unstoppable Health, Dr. Ritamarie trains practitioners worldwide to think beyond symptoms and connect the dots to true healing.

 

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Transcript

Dr Ritamarie  

Welcome back to the podcast. I’m super excited to be sharing today three topics that I think are critical for health practitioners to know and to be really fluent in, in order to help people that are struggling with health challenges. So the answers to most chronic health challenges can be found in one or more of these three key areas: the gut, the genes, and metabolic health. 

 

So in today’s episode, we’re going to explore how these systems work together and the importance of addressing the root causes by understanding microbiomes, the genetic predispositions, and metabolic processes.

 

Dr Ritamarie (01:00)

Today, we’re going to review what I’ve found in over 33 years of clinical experience to be of utmost importance to explore: how the gut, the genetics, and metabolic health all work together, and how we can start integrating them into practice so that we can have more effective outcomes for the people who are suffering, for people who are coming to us with health challenges. So why does the gut matter? Well, we know that the microbiome plays a major role in all the other body systems.

 

We know the connection between the microbiome and the brain. We know the connection between the microbiome and the immune system. And that became ever more clear during our recent pandemic years. And we know the importance of balancing the microbiome to get hormones in balance. 

 

So 70% of the immune system is found in the gut. 70%, which means that if we don’t have good gut health, if we don’t help people to achieve good health in their gut, it doesn’t matter what supplements you put them on, what herbs you put them on. It doesn’t matter, if we’re not supporting the gut to get the optimal range of microorganisms to support the overall immune system. 70% is in the gut. 

 

So microbes produce what’s called postbiotics. So we’ve all heard of prebiotics, you know, those are things like inulin and Jerusalem artichokes and things like jicama and various sundry fibers that feed the good probiotic organisms. Everybody’s heard of probiotics, right? They even advertise them on TV during football games. Probiotics, super important. Those are the organisms that actually live in the gut, but there’s also some on the skin and in the vagina and in the sinuses and all that, but probiotics are super important. 

 

But most people aren’t talking about post-biotics. And post-biotics are those substances that are produced by the probiotics, by the good organisms living in the gut or the bad organisms living in the gut. And those chemicals can affect wide-ranging parts of the body. So one of the post-biotic substances produced by the optimal health for the gut flora is GABA.

 

Dr Ritamarie (03:20)

We’ve heard of GABA, right? It’s a neurotransmitter, calming neurotransmitter, super important for sleep and for calming anxiety and all this. So we have to understand where this all fits in. And I’ve talked to people a lot about making sure they have the right organisms in their gut so they can produce the right specific chemicals to help support neurotransmitters, to support the immune system, to support overall hormone balance. So it’s really, really important.

 

And we need to look at the correlation. We see a big correlation between gut health and neurotransmitter-type imbalances. We see that all the time. Lots of people, when they start to get their gut flora in balance, they start to eat more fermented foods, probiotic foods, to the extent that they can. And we get the gut flora balanced, and we get the microorganisms balanced. 

 

We see a reduction in anxiety, depression, ADD, and memory problems without even putting them on psychoactive drugs. So this is really important for people who don’t want to be relying on drugs, but it’s really helping to get to the root causes. And autoimmunity is on the rise.

 

So 93% of the population is said to be metabolically unhealthy. 93%, that means 7% are optimally healthy in the metabolism department. And some of those criteria are a little iffy to me, and I think that even less are optimally metabolically healthy. 

 

But when it comes down to the immune system, nobody’s talking those kind of numbers, but we know as we watched during the pandemic, we saw people who had pre-existing conditions, pre-existing gut health issues, pre-existing metabolic issues, they had the worst outcomes when it came to the immune system. 

 

And going back to autoimmunity, we see autoimmunity on the rise and autoimmunity is linked to stressors in the body combined with specific genetic predispositions combined with leaky gut. 

 

Dr Ritamarie (05:30)

So very few people, if any, who have autoimmune conditions don’t have what’s called leaky gut, increased intestinal permeability. So when it comes down to balancing the immune system, we totally need to get it in balance in order to get the immune system to stop producing antibodies that attack its own tissue. So gut health, gut health, gut health, super, super important, very, very important. And what you need to be doing as a health practitioner is to start looking there. 

 

When people come in, in medicine, we’re trained that with these particular symptoms, what’s the diagnosis? And once we have the diagnosis, what’s the treatment? That can’t be further from the appropriate way to deal with people, right? 

 

So somebody comes in with hot flashes, you’re saying, this person’s 52 years old. They’re having hot flashes, anxiety, can’t sleep, waking up sweaty. Okay, let me test their sex hormones. So we test their sex hormones. We find imbalances. We’re going to do that. We’re going to find those. And then we address those, but we’re not addressing the root there. We’re addressing the symptoms. 

 

We’re not even addressing the problem, because the problem may very well be that they’re going through a problematic menopause because of all the stressors they’ve had in their life and their gut is a mess. So we really have to be looking at gut and metabolic health, which we’re going to talk about in a minute, to understand how to help people overcome their chronic problems.

 

So genetics, we hear a lot about that now. I’ve been looking at genetics for many years, well over a decade, probably 15 years-ish, looking at genes before it became popular for 15 different companies to have their own genetic tests. It’s very popular now. People want to know their genes, but I think they might be barking up the wrong tree when they look at genes for the answers to their problems. I have this gene. That’s why I have this problem. No.

 

They have this gene which predisposes them to have an imbalance in their immune system or in their gut or in their neurotransmitters or in their liver detox pathways. But that doesn’t mean that you have a disease associated with the gene. And that’s where a lot of the problems I think are coming. We have a lot of genetic testing companies out there that are promising a customized plan for you for supplements based on your genes. And that can’t be further from the truth.

 

Dr Ritamarie (07:47)

We have to look at the whole picture. We have to look at gut health. We have to look at their labs, and we have to look at the genes for risk factors. I love doing genetic testing, and I love explaining it to people because people find comfort in their genes. “No wonder I have this problem” and “That explains that.” But when I explain, well, these liver pathways may not be functioning optimally.

 

These liver pathways may not be optimally functioning. So what do we need to do? Well, what we need to do is support the liver in handling detoxification, but we have to reduce the toxic load. Somebody may not be a good candidate for detoxing the chemicals that are in charbroiled meat, for example. There are particular pathways that detox those. And if they’re eating a lot of charbroiled meat, they’re going to impede the other pathways that the liver is working on.

 

Caffeine is a biggie. Caffeine and estrogen share a pathway, a detox pathway. So if somebody’s chugging down the caffeine, and they have a genetic SNP that predisposes them to more of an imbalance or weakness in that pathway, they’re not going to be detoxifying the estrogen, which can lead to a predominance of 4-hydroxyestrone, which is a toxic metabolite of estrogen that can cause DNA damage and can lead to estrogen sensitive cancers like breast cancer, uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, et cetera. So this is an important thing. 

 

It’s not a person’s destiny, genetics, but it is a good indication of where some of the weaknesses lie and what some of the behaviors that they have to be ultra careful on. And I have found that when people understand their genetics, they’re more likely to follow through on the diet and the lifestyle and the supplementation processes and protocols that we define for them, because they see that if they don’t, they’re heading for trouble. 

 

So how can you use these in your practice? Well, learn them. Learn the basic SNPs to be running. Run them on people who are having difficulty understanding what’s really going on, what the root causes are. Maybe genetics will explain some of the weaknesses. Run them on people who are having trouble with compliance and to help motivate and inspire them to take action.

 

Dr Ritamarie (10:01)

And then how do they guide nutrition and supplementation? Well, if somebody has genetic SNPs that predispose to lower B12 absorption, lower B6 absorption, you may be able to be adding some extra of those nutrients to their regime, to their diet, or their supplementation program to help them to balance out these pathways and not go down that realm of having those imbalances show up. 

 

There are a lot of companies out there, some of the ones that have been around a while and may be getting a little sketchy. There’s some new ones out there. Explore, we have a lot of other podcast episodes and YouTube episodes that talk about genetics and talk about the different companies. So I highly advise you to research those and we’ll have some links to those in the show notes.

 

And the last piece I want to talk about is maybe the most important piece of all, which is metabolic balance. Like I said earlier, 93% of the population was reported in 2021 by University of North Carolina study that looked at data over a long period of time and estimated that 93 % of the population is metabolically unhealthy. And they use criteria like waist-hip ratio, fasting glucose, hemoglobin A1C, and they may have looked at blood pressure and triglycerides. 

 

They didn’t look at all the factors that I think are important there. They didn’t look at insulin, and insulin is an early marker. So if you’re not looking at insulin, if you’re not really doing a full comprehensive metabolic testing panel on everybody, you need to be, because insulin can be an early marker before A1C gets elevated, before the fasting glucose gets elevated.

 

And the other piece that we really need to take charge of is learning how to help people test their postprandial glucose. And that could be with an old-fashioned glucometer where they’re pricking their finger at intervals or a CGM. CGMs are getting more readily available. There are now some over-the-counter brands available in the U.S. Most other countries have had them available, just walk into the pharmacy for a long time. But in the U.S., it’s only been by prescription.

 

Dr Ritamarie (12:11)

Those are still new, so they’re a little different than the ones that you can get by prescription. So I still recommend that if you have prescribing rights and can prescribe to people that you do that. Or there are some places where you can help people to get a prescription and see in the notes, the description down below, we’ll put a link to one of our favorites.

 

Insulin resistance often develops many years, even sometimes decades, before they actually develop symptoms. But the early symptoms are things people are seeing all the time. The early symptoms of insulin resistance, like you eat a meal and you’re still hungry, you’re craving sweets after a meal, you have an energy dip rather than an energy increase after a meal, you’re tired, you’re craving sweets, you’re craving starches. There’s a lot of that stuff and a lot of people are experiencing this.

 

test their insulin, please do your patients and clients a favor, test their fasting insulin. If that fasting insulin is above 5, that person’s heading for trouble. And if it’s below 2, they may be in very good metabolic health, but they may also be going into pancreatic burnout. So if you have somebody who has a fasting insulin below 2, highly recommend you do a postprandial insulin test. 

 

And the way I usually do those, is I have them go to the lab, get their insulin tested, go out to the car, eat the highest carbohydrate meal that is within their realm of possibility. If somebody doesn’t eat grains, don’t tell them to go out and eat grains, because it may cause some metabolic craziness in them. But whatever that might be, don’t tell them to go out and eat jelly beans and Kool-Aid. But what is the highest carb meal that they are likely to eat? Because that’s where they’re going to be seeing spikes and dips and spikes and dips. 

 

So go out and test that. And within 45 minutes to an hour, go back to the lab and test again. I mean, that’s an alternative to the glucose tolerance test where they’re sitting in the doctor’s office for many hours doing that, and it costs them a lot of money. 

 

This is a much less expensive way to do it. Great information. But really, over 5, I don’t think it’s healthy. I really think that most of the studies that show optimal metabolic health are between 2 and 3. So lab markers are super important and symptomatology.

 

Dr Ritamarie (14:20)

What do they like? And actually just sometimes just looking at them and looking at the waist hip ratio and the height ratio and making sure that they are within those parameters. So teach your clients, teach your clients the importance of proper choices of keeping their blood sugar balanced and teach them how to test their blood sugar. 

 

Basically in closing, three things we covered today that I think are critically important for you to be the best practitioner you can be at helping people to get over some of their health issues. 

 

Number one, gut health. We’ve got to get their gut health in balance. We have to have a sturdy microbiome, because it affects every other part of the body. Number two, using genetics to help personalize their care, to help personalize their diet and supplement programs based on where their inherent generic risk may lie. And also, metabolic balance. 

 

So these are three critical pieces that you can use to stand out in the industry, to stand out in the growing sea of health coaches and health practitioners. Not all are created alike. Some are focused on different things. If you want to be that practitioner, they can help people solve their problems. When other practitioners have failed, then I would highly recommend that you get really well versed in these. We’ll put some links in the show notes for some other resources we have to help you get there.  

 

If this resonates with you and you want to go deeper with these topics, stay tuned. I’m planning on doing a bunch more, more in-depth episodes individually on these topics. But also we have an exciting three day event that’s coming up. 

 

If you’re listening to this before January, 2025, and if you’re not, then you’ll reach out and help. We’ll help you get the recordings of it. Three days immersion into balancing the microbiome and looking at the genetics, the lab tests, the metabolic health, and other issues related to keeping the microbiome in balance. We have some amazing guest speakers. The link is down below in the description or the show notes.

 

Dr Ritamarie (16:24)

The future of healthcare is in our hands. We are replacing the outdated focus on symptom suppression and disease management. What are the symptoms? What’s the disease? Good old differential diagnosis that we learned about in whatever kind of health training you got.

 

And we want to look at putting the emphasis on finding the causes, not necessarily one root cause and the root causes, the original inciting incident that created the imbalance may no longer be there, but we have to help people recover from that and the metabolic chaos that ensues as a result. 

 

I’ve dedicated my life to empowering health practitioners to get to the root causes and to empowering people to get their health back, take charge of their health again. It really is in each person’s hands to make the right choices to get healthy. And I’m really excited about training practitioners to get there. 

So if you’re ready to take your practice to the next level, I invite you to visit our website at inemethod.com. And if you want to learn more about lab testing strategies, be sure to check the show notes page, and we’ll give you resources for lab testing genetics, microbiome, and metabolic health. Together, let’s continue the movement to reinvent our healthcare system. And until next time, shine on.