Gut Health, Nurturing Your Microbiome, and Functional Medicine with Dr Kozlowski

Can traditional medicine sometimes do more harm than good? Dr. Peter Kozlowski's life's work is devoted to gut health and the profound impact it can have on overall health and wellness.

As a Functional Medicine M.D., Dr. Peter Kozlowski uses a broad array of tools to find the source of the body's dysfunction: he takes the time to listen to his patients and plots their history on a timeline, considering what makes them unique and co-creating with them a truly individualized care plan. Currently he works with patients online and in person via his Chicago, Illinois and Bozeman, Montana based offices. Dr. Kozlowski did his residency in Family Practice, but started training in Functional Medicine as an intern. He trained in the clinics with leaders in his field including Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Deepak Chopra, and Dr. Susan Blum.

His recently published book Unfunc Your Gut encapsulates his collaborative, patient-first healthcare approach—in true research-based, conversational style, it offers a blend of medical insight and the experiential wisdom of his own healing journey through addiction recovery. Overall Doc Koz inspires us off the Internet to seek and find real answers to "what's going on with my health?" and empowers readers with practical strategies (and delicious recipes) to achieve true balance of body, mind and spirit.

His expertise is in gut health, but he also works daily with food sensitivities, hormone imbalances, detoxing from toxic chemicals such as heavy metals and mold, and most importantly mental, emotional, and spiritual health.

What you'll learn in today's episode:

• Dr. Kozlowski's backstory for becoming interested in gut health (2:04)
• His experience with alcoholism and how his treatment made him open-minded to less traditional treatment methods (3:25)
• The basis for his alcoholism (5:58)
• The moment he realized his alcoholism was controlling him and he needed help (8:36)
• His decision to stay away from situations that may involve alcohol in order to avoid triggers (9:54)
• The importance of completely abstaining when it comes to overcoming addiction (11:28)
• Dr. Koz's preference to work in the proactive as opposed to reactive realm of health care, but the reality that most patients come to him as a last resort when traditional medicine has failed (13:20)
• The stigma behind functional medicine and the reasons behind it (14:15)
• Your likelihood of having a better outcome should you contract a virus or disease is higher if you're already metabolically healthy from the start (18:59)
• The hope that people will make the connection the importance of gut health and how what they consume can be detrimental to the overall well-being (24:29)
• The correlation between autoimmune disease rates and poor gut health (25:44)
• Inflammation and its origins in the gut (28:20)
• The gut-brain connection and its effect on your mental, emotional, and spiritual health (31:24)
• Tangible things people can look for as good indicators of good or poor gut health (37:41)
• A snapshot of Dr. Koz's diet and how he feeds his microbiome (41:23)
• Once you make a change to benefit your gut health, how long it may take to notice a difference (43:16)
• Certain behaviors and substances, like antibiotics and alcohol, that have a negative effect on your microbiome (45:49)
• Antidepressants and their effect on gut health (47:31)
• The best tests to have done to get an overall idea of the state of your gut health and any deficiencies (50:01)
• Dr. Koz's move to Montana and his experience there thus far (52:37)

Where to find Dr. Koz and learn more about his book and practice:

Dr. Koz

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