The gut microbiome is a dynamic living ecosystem made up of 100 trillion microbes in the intestinal tract. This complex system of viruses, bacteria, and fungi protects against foreign pathogens, helps regulate the immune system and control inflammation, and may even affect your mood— among its many other functions. In this clip from our full interview, we talked to Dr. Gerard Mullin, associate associate professor of medicine at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and renowned integrative gastroenterology and nutrition expert, about the importance of probiotics and prebiotics for the health of the gut microbiome.

Integrative pediatrician Dr. Joel Gator sat down with WellBe to talk about the importance of using holistic approaches in conjunction with conventional medicine.

Dr. Maya Shetreat sat down with WellBe to discuss the connection between the brain, immune system, and gut, and how she heals kids' brain conditions with food.

Holistic nutritionist Elissa Goodman talks with WellBe about how she healed from Hodgkins lymphoma without chemo.

Mette was 14 years old when she was diagnosed with her first autoimmune condition, psoriasis. She noticed three red dots on her neck, then woke up the next day covered in them. “The shock in and of itself was pretty disturbing to a young girl,” she told WellBe. This was the beginning of a decades-long struggle with chronic illness, which led to five more diagnoses, a ton of drug prescriptions, and, ultimately, the realization that she wasn’t far from death. That’s when she decided to take control of her treatment, find true health — and found a company, Mymee, that helps others do the same.

Conventional medicine has the attitude of a “pill for an ill,” but Dr. Robert Graham of FRESH Med in Brooklyn, NY, is working to change that in favor of getting to the root cause of disease using a food-first approach. Graham started out as an internal medicine doc and then got his Master’s of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health while also getting a fellowship in Integrative Medical Therapies at Harvard Medical School. When he was at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, he started the first education and edible rooftop garden at a hospital in the city. Patients and employees got to enjoy the fresh produce. In 2016, he started FRESH Med, an integrative health practice located within Physio Logic, a wellness center in Brooklyn.  

Thermography, or digital infrared thermal imaging, is a screening method which catches dysfunctions before they becomes symptoms, Tammy Kohlschmidt, a certified clinical thermographer at Thermography for Health New York in New York City, tells WellBe. By taking images that show body temperature and blood flow and looking for abnormal variations, clinicians can help screen for disease. Though thermography and mammograms are both assessment tools (meaning they’re not diagnostic), thermography is not a replacement for mammograms and shouldn’t be solely used to diagnose breast cancer, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Most of us probably don’t think of ourselves as someone who has lived through trauma like abuse, abandonment, or some kind of tragic accident. Yet the more we learn about the concept of “trauma,” the more scientists are beginning to understand that in early childhood, much more subtle events can cause trauma and affect your long-term chronic disease risk as well as your ability to heal symptoms in the short term. The craziest part is that we don’t even know about most of these traumas that have such a huge impact on our lives — or they’re buried so deep that our conscious minds can’t see how much they affect us. Thankfully, there are ways to pull them to the surface (as painful or uncomfortable as that may be), and then release them. Read on to learn how repressed feelings affect your health, proven techniques for releasing emotions, how to heal emotional trauma through EMDR trauma therapy, and more.

As we mention a lot at WellBe, gut health is incredibly important. It impacts almost every aspect of well-being, from the immune system to mental health and beyond, and that’s why we focus a lot on improving and protecting gut health naturally. But one area we haven’t touched on is gut health for kids, which is why we were grateful to sit down with pediatric gut health expert Dr. Michael Ruscio. Dr. Ruscio is an influential voice in functional and integrative medicine, as well as a clinical researcher and bestselling author of Healthy Gut, Healthy You. Read on to hear Dr.  Ruscio’s take on probiotics during pregnancy, antibiotics and probiotics for kids, the different types of probiotics and how to choose one, plus much more.