Jane* was barely 40-years-old when her asthma caused her to turn blue and stop breathing. She was saved with chest compressions and weeks of intensive care. A year later, it happened again, causing the emergency medical system to convulse into action once more. For the next two years she was in-and-out of the hospital monthly for wheezing and shortness-of-breath—until I took over her care.

Following standard medical guidelines, I put her on a ludicrous amount of pharmaceuticals—and I managed to keep her out of the hospital for a year. I could have counted this as a victory if it weren’t for the fact that one thing bugged me: Why did she have asthma in the first place? She didn’t smoke and had no allergies, yet she was always on the verge of respiratory collapse.

Then I put her on a diet to heal her “leaky gut”—and she stopped wheezing completely. To me it looked like she was cured. It seemed the guidelines that the other doctors and I had followed were not only wrong—they were costly and dangerous. After all, she still landed in the ICU twice. If—as the leaky gut theory goes—bacteria and toxins were slipping into her system through a permeable intestine and wreaking havoc throughout her body, then she didn’t need impressive arsenals of expensive medicines. She didn’t even need a doctor. She needed a proper diet.