Diet and food work as medicine: Specifically understanding your genetics can completely change the way you approach your health.

With that, today I’m sitting down with Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, a chiropractic doctor with certifications in acupuncture, nutrition, herbal medicine, and the HeartMath® method. She is also the founder of the Institute of Nutritional Endocrinology and has been training practitioners and laypeople alike for over 14 years. 

Your Genes Are Not Your Destiny

One of the most important things I want you to take away from this conversation is that knowing your genetics is not the same as being sentenced by them. 

For a long time, there was this idea that if we could just decode our genes, we would have all the answers. But what we now know is that genetics account for less than 20% of most health outcomes. With very few exceptions — cystic fibrosis being one — your genes determine your risk, not your fate. What determines where you actually end up is your lifestyle.

This is what we call nutrigenomics: How the food we eat, the sleep we get, the stress we carry, the toxins we’re exposed to, and the supplements we take all influence whether a gene risk actually gets turned on in our bodies. 

You can have a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s, heart disease, or cancer sitting quietly in your DNA, and it may never express itself — if you give your body what it needs. On the other hand, if you are chronically stressed, eating a poor diet, and not sleeping, you are essentially handing that gene the key it needs to activate.

What Dr. Ritamarie has found in over 34 years of practice is that when people learn their specific genetic risks, they become far more motivated to make changes. It is no longer abstract advice. It becomes personal. It becomes urgent. And that motivation is often the turning point.

Blood Sugar: The Foundation of Almost Every Illness

If there is one place I come back to again and again in my own practice, it is blood sugar. And Dr. Ritamarie feels exactly the same way. 

The ripple effect of balanced blood sugar is enormous — it touches cognitive health, heart health, immune function, hormones, weight, energy, and even cervical health. Studies show that blood sugar fluctuations, even well before a diabetes diagnosis, increase the risk of abnormal Pap smears in women with high-risk HPV. That is how far-reaching this is.

The problem is that conventional medicine waits too long to act. The standard of care is to wait until fasting blood sugar climbs above 120 before doing anything. But by that point, damage has already been accumulating for years. 

The earliest marker to change is insulin, not blood sugar. When insulin starts rising, it means the cells are becoming resistant — they are no longer efficiently letting glucose in. That glucose stays in the bloodstream, where high levels cause a process called glycation, damaging blood vessel linings, nerves, the kidneys, the eyes, and the brain. It contributes to peripheral neuropathy, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and cognitive decline. Yet most conventionally trained doctors are not testing insulin at all.

This is exactly why I love continuous glucose monitors (CGM), and why Dr. Ritamarie uses them in her Sweet Spot Solution program. A CGM is a small sensor — about the size of a dime or quarter — that you wear on your arm and that continuously tracks your blood sugar throughout the day. 

A CGM connects to your phone and shows you in real time how your body responds to everything: what you eat, how much you sleep, how stressed you are, and whether you exercise. Some people spike on blueberries and feel nothing after ice cream. Others are the opposite. That individuality is exactly why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to health, and why having your own data is so powerful.

Where to Start If Your Blood Sugar Is Off

If you already know your blood sugar or insulin levels are elevated, or you are noticing symptoms like cravings, fatigue, belly fat that will not budge, or energy crashes, here is where Dr. Ritamarie recommends beginning. 

First, look honestly at your diet — how much sugar, starch, and processed food are you consuming? Processed foods contain oxidative byproducts that directly damage the pancreas and blood vessel linings. 

Second, look at stress. When cortisol rises, your body mobilizes stored sugar to fuel a perceived threat — even if that threat is a difficult meeting or a bad night’s sleep. One night of poor sleep can create temporary insulin resistance even in a healthy person. Done chronically, it becomes permanent. 

Third, look at movement. You do not need a formal workout. Getting up and moving throughout the day — what some call fitness snacks — makes a meaningful difference. 

Fourth, look at timing. Eating too close to bedtime interferes with deep sleep and disrupts growth hormone production. Grazing all day keeps insulin elevated without a break. Allowing four to six hours between meals gives your body the recovery time it needs. 

Finally, look at nutrients. Chromium, magnesium, omega-3 fats, DHA, and lipoic acid all play important roles in helping glucose get into the cells where it belongs.

Every Choice You Make Matters

Something Dr. Ritamarie said at the end of our conversation really stayed with me: Every choice you make matters. All day long, you are hitting forks in the road. And each one of those choices — what you eat, when you sleep, how you manage stress, whether you move — has a cumulative effect on how you feel, how you look, and your long-term health.

That is not meant to be overwhelming. It is meant to be empowering. Your body is far more resilient than you may realize. I have seen people with resistant weight loss finally start releasing belly fat within two weeks of making targeted changes. I have also seen energy return, inflammation quiet down, and lab markers normalize — sometimes quickly. The body wants to heal. It just needs the right conditions.

Each day is a new day, and you can always choose differently. That is what being unstoppable actually means.

If you want to learn more about Dr. Ritamarie and how she can help you make sure to look for her on Instagram @drritamarie or Facebook @Dr. Ritamarie. You can also check out her FREE Checklist and Food Guide “Plant-Powered Hormone-Balancing Foods” here and her Genetics of Blood Sugar Balance Training here.

Addressing the Underlying Causes of Health Issues

I’m so grateful to Dr. Ritamarie for joining me on How Humans Heal and sharing her expertise. Helping people understand how diet and food can support their cellular health and longevity is essential, especially because modern life has disconnected us from the very things our cells need to heal.

Optimizing your health is absolutely possible. There are more and more ways to support healing at the cellular level, from home, that don’t require expensive treatments or complicated protocols.

I completely agree with Dr. Ritamarie that it is important to address the underlying causes of health issues, including blood sugar levels. It is important to work with a practitioner who can help you look deeper to uncover the root causes of your health issue so that you are finally able to break the pattern. 

And that’s exactly what I do in my one-on-one practice, and group programs, including my 14-day Detox Program, where I teach you to balance your blood sugar levels by following a meal plan I developed. You can read about it and join in here. 

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Common health issues that arise when our bodies and blood sugar levels are dysregulated include: fatigue, hormone imbalances, digestive issues, autoimmunity, anxiety, depression, infections, including vaginal infections (HPV, BV, and yeast), and so many more.

In my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health, I explain how stress and trauma, and a lack of recovery from stress, can keep us stuck in “stress mode” and turn on our genetic susceptibilities — and how an individualized approach to recovery makes all the difference. 

Start by taking my Stress Type® Quiz to understand how stress is impacting you today, and then follow my Stress Recovery Protocol and C.A.R.E. Method to support your body and nervous system to heal using diet changes, and natural approaches including time in nature. 

TAKE THE FREE STRESS QUIZ TO FIND OUT YOUR STRESS TYPE:

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If you’re dealing with HPV, I welcome you to join me over on Instagram @drdoniwilson and on my website at clearhpvnow.com. You can download my free HPV Recovery Guide and watch videos of women who’ve implemented my HPV Protocol and found freedom from high-risk HPV. I want for you to feel hope that you can heal too.

If you’d like to get a better sense of my approach, I welcome you to join my next free How to Get Rid of HPV online workshop where I help you to create a plan to get HPV out of your life for good. From there, you might choose to join the Heal HPV Kickstart Program, for the initial steps of my protocol, including diet changes and supplements, over the next 30 days.

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Or you can begin with the comprehensive Say Goodbye to HPV Program, which includes everything you need to implement my full protocol and to address all eight susceptibilities to HPV, including helping you to resolve underlying emotional stress and trauma. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to my office. My team and I would be happy to connect with you and help you. Click here to set up a call with my team.

Thank you, everyone, for listening in to How Humans Heal and learning all about using food, genetics, and lifestyle as your most powerful tools for healing from Dr. Ritamarie. If you haven’t already subscribed, I welcome you to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. 

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Disclaimer: This specific article and all other Content, Products, and Services of this Website are NOT intended as, and must not be understood or construed as, medical care or advice, naturopathic medical care or advice, the practice of medicine, or the practice of counseling care, nor can it be understood or construed as providing any form of medical diagnosis, treatment,  natural HPV cure, or prevention of any disease.