Hormones and what affects them, pt. 2 with Dr. Jon Romney, ND

Hormones! What helps or hurts them? More than you may know! In this episode we build on part one and explore how cortisol, gut, liver, mindset, food, and some medical or herbal medicine may hurt or restore hormone balance. Time to dive in!

Testosterone…Responsible for FAR MORE than just sex drive! Who wouldn’t want enough of this!

6:20 What destroys testosterone in frogs, as well as men and women…and it is in more of your food than you think

8:47 Does marijuana use affect testosterone? What about lavender?

9:58 How female hormones affect our body shape, mood,concentration 

11:15 Sooo many reasons we could be estrogen dominant. (Liver, gut, caffeine, oh my!)

14:53  How can we help teenage girls to balance? Is birth control the only way? (Spoiler: NO!) And what does that have to do with the gut?

19:00 A new take on what to eat and how to build your microbiome. “Find the foods you like that like you back”

21:20 How do you know when it’s time to supplement hormones in menopause? Or if you need to? And how to do it safely?

22:59 Introducing…progesterone! Ahhh…It’s all good in hunter/gatherer land. And how cortisol changes all of that to hypervigilance and fatigue. The thief…

25:39 How do we heal Progesterone balance? What do we heal first?

29:50 What if I just need to feel better now?

30:31 Okinawan seniors are rocking it. Menopause doesn’t have to be horrible. What are they doing that we are not? And how do we change that?

35:01 Is adrenal fatigue a thing? And what IS actually fatiguing?

38:00 Which hormone replacement therapies are safer than others?

40:19 Why birth control is one of Dr Jon’s least favorite topics

44:26 What about bone loss? Bad news about a broken hip

51:46 time and a place, firefighters and house rebuilding crew

55:10 What Dr Jon has seen really make a difference in whether people heal…or don’t.

Dr Jon can be reached at Red Mountain Integrative Health, 435-586-9904

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to the what really makes a difference podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Becca Whitaker. I've been a doctor of natural health care for over 20 years and a professional speaker on health and vitality, but everything I thought I knew about health. Was tested when my own health hit a landslide and I became a very sick patient I've learned that showing up for our own health and vitality is a step by step journey that we take for the rest of our lives and This podcast is about sharing some of the things that really make a difference on that journey with you So grab your Explorer's hat while we get ready to check out today's topic. My incredible guest network and I will be sharing some practical tools, current science and ancient wisdom that we all need, no matter what stage we are at in our health and vitality. I've already got my hat on and my hand out, so let's dive in and we can all start walking each other home. Hey, welcome to the show today. I am so excited to continue with part two in my interview with Dr. John Romney. He is a naturopathic doctor that practices in Southern Utah, and he has been such a help, not only to me, but in the lives of so many. He has such an obvious awareness of current science and how the body functions, but can speak it and coach it in a really relatable way. So in part one we talked about Dr. John's history and we dove more into stress and cortisol and that was important as we move on to this episode so if you haven't listened to part one go back listen to part one and then come back here Because we take what we learned in part one and build off of that as we move into a discussion about hormones. So I know that is a conversation that is happening a lot around me right now. Menopause and does it really have to be this terrible? And what is going on with my sleep and my sex drive and my concentration level, my fatigue? What is happening? And also, what is happening with the men? They're wondering... Why they are getting guts when they're eating the same way, why they are losing some of the drive for success that they've had or the motivation. Women are wondering that too. There's just so much happening With our hormones and not just testosterone for the men and progesterone for the women. I mean all the hormones together Dr. John also details how there are parts in the world where The process of aging is not so terrible as it is here and why that is, how stress relates to it, how gut function relates, how the liver ties in, there's just so many interesting gems in this conversation. So without further ado, I give you my conversation with Dr. John Romney. What testosterone does, like why it is a poor thing that men especially are having less testosterone? so people do think of, of testosterone, a lot of physicians still think of testosterone as this thing. Like, oh, you don't want that and it's gonna cause heart disease. And it, well, there's this one major study that came out and we talk about this every conference I go to, and I'm sure I'll be talking about it this December as I go to another anti-aging medical conference. we talk about hormones the whole time. Pretty much, not the whole time, but a much of the, much of the conference is about hormones. And so, This study came out, it involved like a thousand women. It was, it was not like, it was not supposed, the message was not intended to be that testosterone causes heart disease, but people kind of picked it apart and said, Hey, look, testosterone causes heart disease. And the researchers are like, what? What, what are you interpreting that? What, what? Where did you get that idea? That's not what we were trying to do here. Well, that just became like, you know, the medical knowledge that, oh, testosterone causes heart disease. Okay, we can, we can think it's evil and, and, and, you know, we don't need it anymore. Mm-hmm. however, testosterone happens to be this very important thing that helps with not just sex drive. A lot of people think it's just sex drive, but fatigue for females and males, lack of motivation, lack of drive in general. iT's the hormone that, you know, Robert Polsky from Stanford University says it's the hormone that allows you to lean into stressors. So it's a very, very important hormone, and people do not heal very well if they get in an accident. If they don't have testosterone, they don't heal very well., you give'em testosterone, they'll heal. I mean, to give you maybe one, one of the more extreme cases that I can recall off the top of my head is a guy with back pain. And he was on, he was on opioids and he was just, and you know, and, and he, he says, well, things I used to like to do, you know, ride my motorcycle and all these things ride my bike. I can't really do anymore. My back hurts and I'm just, I, I just have to take these opioids and I can at least work. And I look at his testosterone, it's like sub 200, really, really low. So we give him testosterone and, first three months he said, I feel really good. After about six months he says, I have zero back pain. I didn't do anything for his back, by the way. Zero back pain. he's off all opioids. hE's doing the things he loves again. Yeah. And I don't even think he really expected it. Yeah. I just say, well, you're gonna have more energy and you'll feel a lot better. And he was like, oh, that's, that's all I really want. Yeah. And then he comes back and he's like, well, I got that, and all these other things, and now I'm healing. Yeah. For the first time again, I'm healing like, like, you know, I used to, I think testosterone got a bad rap of like, thinking it makes you like growly and aggressive. Yes. That's when it's, and high doses canned when it's incorrectly. Yeah. Right. High doses, canned. But other than that, I think of anything that you would want on a hunt. Right. if you were like preparing Yeah. Like be able to focus, able drive forward through the stress, have an endurance, lean in, endurance, heal fast. Absolutely. Care about something. It's like this, it's like this hormone that allowed our species to survive, you know, in those, in those days, a hundred and gather days. And now, you know, maybe, maybe a lot of it is that we don't need it as much. you know, we're not competing for shortages of, of deer or anything. I don't, so our society is different, but I think those estrogen, light chemicals we call xenoestrogen, xenoestrogens, those are destroying our testosterone. So, atrazine, for instance, atrazine, this is so shocking, but a 2010 study showed atrazine, they put, they put male frogs, and I think they were developing frogs. So they were young into water with atrazine, and they developed, uterus and ovaries gracious. And, and, and this wasn't at a super, super high dose, by the way. It wasn't like massive doses. It was, it was actually relatively pretty decently small dose. And, and so we're spraying these in the fields all over the Midwest. I was gonna say, say, how are we getting aine? It's, yeah. So it's like, oh, it's nice, you know, they're spraying it over there. But when it rains, atrazine will go up into the atmosphere and come down almost a thousand miles from, the area it was sprayed. Is atrazine like a pesticide? Atrazine is an herbicide. An herbicide that they use. And so, and so, you know, that book will talk at length about that. Some of those details I don't think are in the book, but, but it's, it's roughly around 700 miles from the area. They, they are spraying. It can go into the atmosphere and then come down in rainfall in other areas. Wow. So the Midwest horrible place in terms of atrazine, that's, if you look at the atrazine map, it's like it's tons right there. Utah's not as bad. But you know, that one is still, it's still coming over to us to a, to a certain extent. And so we do need to have detox pathways up and we do need to watch what we're taking in. So some of those come from plastics. You know, we know that phthalates are found in a lot of plastic materials and phthalates affect the developing fetus, human fetus. This is a human study. They def it affects the development of the, sexual development of a fetus. That's scary. Yeah. So we are changing our species a little bit. Yeah. With this. So that, in that book, does it talk about other things you can do like Yeah. Yes. Getting your detox pathways open? Absolutely. Yes. Having healthy gut metabolism and how to avoid Yes. And how to avoid it. So, and I would say, you know, I would say, There's a lot of things that I'm thinking, oh man, that could have been added, that could have been added. he's a researcher, so he's, he's bringing awareness and then he's teaching a few little tricks, but the biggest thing he's teaching is how to avoid these chemicals. Yeah. Red dye three. Red dye 40 both act on estrogen receptors pretty heavily. He goes into a lot of things. this is an interesting one, marijuana use and, and anybody that works in an area where there's a lot of, you know,'cause I have a lot of colleagues that, that work in other areas where a lot of their patients are smoking marijuana every day. Yeah. Arizona is, is a big state for marijuana. Obviously it's illegal there. They are seeing a massive reduction in testosterone in those that smoke marijuana. Wow. Marijuana acts on estro receptors. So fine. Like even lavender acts on estro receptors. Well, if you're just using a little lavender here and there. Okay, well that's fine. When you use a lot of it, that's not gonna be healthy. Right. So like that does actually cause issues with our testosterone levels. You were talking about the man that was on op opioids, for his back pain. And I'm a big proponent of using cannabis instead of opioids. Yeah. For pain. But that is such a important thing to highlight is wow. I mean, if he had too much switched from opioids to cannabis, he'd still have the problem with testosterone. So knowing, but he still had the problem. So. Yeah. So if he's like, I'm gonna, so when you're thinking, okay, I'm gonna try this thing, for example, cannabis for pain, then I need to know what it can affect and what I can do. Yeah. So can you tell me about female hormones that we might be seeing? I know we, yes. Okay, so that's, you started, that's'cause we started in the male, the cortisol. Now let's go quickly to the female. So, so yeah, so like what you will find with females, many times is estrogen dominance, which you've, you, you've probably talked to a lot of your patients about too much estrogen relative to progesterone. And we have a lot of reasons why that's happening. Tell me the shapes,'cause that's, that's what helps me. Remember you showed a picture of like a woman's form. Like this is what estrogen dominance will make you look like. This is what, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So like an estrogen dominant woman will usually gain weight and not be able to lose weight. they'll be very moody. they'll have depression, anxiety, they won't be able to sleep very well. and, and you know, estrogen dominance occurs in, in, well, I guess, I guess I should, there's a bunch of reasons why estrogen dominance occur. So I'll go back to this. So basically, you know, they will have heavy, painful menstrual cycles. So a lot of times endometriosis, highly associated with estrogen dominance. Yeah. And of course those endometriosis patients, you know, it's like well use birth control. And, and then we'll do, you know surgeries? And then we'll, we can, yeah. Eventually just do a hysterectomy. And that's kind of all there is offered, but it's like, no, let's fix the gut. Let's figure out why they're estrogen dominant. So with endometriosis patients, I will very often find overgrowths of yeast in particular, but any other microbe. and when you have yeast, this is a very particular, like the, I guess yeast in particular inhibits the excretion of estrogens. So what happens is those estrogens are floating around in the body, go into the gut, go straight back into the bloodstream, and then they just go back to the liver. And then there's this traffic jam of estrogens waiting to go through the liver, along with caffeine, blocking that along with our sugary diets, along with, with refined grains that are all just waiting in line, you know? So then those estrogens are just still circulating. So eventually they just end out growing endometrium on other parts of the body, on top of the uterus. Mm. On the bladder. And then we get adhesions from, you know, bladder sticking to the wall of the gastrointestinal tract or the uterus or whatever. So we get a lot of problems with that. Well, you know, many times those problems can be fixed fairly easy. So oftentimes they come in and I think, well, this patient might have endometriosis, but before we get that diagnosis, let's just see if we can treat their gut, treat the hormone imbalance, estrogen dominance. There's things to bring Estrogens down and things to bring progesterone up. And so when we do that and we get that person more to be like more progesterone dominant, they suddenly feel ah, so much better. Before we go, I just wanna pause Yeah. On what you said. That is amazing. So I know people, there's people in my family that have endometriosis mm-hmm. that have had it forever and never, like, not had any help with it. Mm-hmm. other than go on birth control. Oh. It'll get better if you get pregnant. Oh, it'll, yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. And what you're saying is there is hope for that. Often you can resolve help with dealing with your gut. Yes. With helping your liver. Yeah. With your liver. I just love the hopefulness of that Yeah. I feel like there's so many things where you're told you have it and we don't know what to do, so good luck. You're just gonna hurt your whole life. Yeah. I think that is amazing and we've, so thank you for highlighting that. Yeah, absolutely. So we've treated a ton of endometriosis patients that way, and so, you know, things and, and I think Anthony J does talk about a few things that'll help reduce estrogens, but the biggest thing is endo three, carbinol and Dimm, those are very powerful to help the liver metabolism. But if you take those without, uh, good microbiome, They'll just help the liver. All they're doing is helping the liver get the estrogens out and shoved into the gut. Oh. But you've gotta have good, a good microbiome to grab those estrogens and take'em out, which is why you need someone who knows what the heck they are doing to guide you through all that. But, but you need good probiotics, right? You need good microbes to, to pull those out. So, so that's, that's something to think about. And then progesterone, there's all sorts of ways you can, you can use progesterone in young females. Sometimes I'll even use a, a herb called Vitex, which you've probably heard about. Mm-hmm. Vitex is awesome. I've heard of it. But from people struggling with things in general, I've never really heard of it doing a great thing. It's more like, oh, you can try this and this, and this, and this. So tell me more about It's, and vit is part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me more about it if it's one you really like. Yeah. So Vitex Vitex has really pretty good studies on it, showing that it increases progesterone, period. I mean, that's, that's, you know, and it's, and it's doing it by telling the brain to, to, to secrete more lh, which tells the ovaries to secrete more progesterone. And so even if they're young. So if, you know, I, I think a lot, because I have teenage girls, Yeah. we're around a lot of teenage girls. Mm-hmm. And I know there's that stage. It's like the stage coming up.,In adolescent years and then the stage coming down in perimenopausal, those are the two categories where I feel like we have no idea what to do as women. Mm-hmm. but the adolescent stage, I'm never sure what I should start helping with what really makes a difference or, or how long just to let them kind of balance themselves. But I'm thinking of quite a few girls I know that are kind of stuck in really painful periods and knowing that half of their month is gonna be just snippy and Okay. Awful. And that's even like a couple years in. Yeah. Yep. And I, I see a lot of those, those females will come in a lot of times they'll go to a, a, you know, just a, a regular traditional physician and they'll say, well, okay, what we can do is birth control. And the mom usually is like, I don't know if that's the greatest idea. I'd actually like to figure out what's actually going on. Yeah. And, and then they usually show up to my office if they're, if they're interested in that. Right. So then those people show up. they might be 16 years old and they've had a meshal cycle since they were 12. Yeah. And it'll be heavy and painful and so painful that they have to, you know, not go to school. Yep. Well, first of all, Crazy how much healing the gut makes a difference for those females. It's insane. Gosh, I wish I would've known you when I was 13. I mean, that wouldn't have done any good because you're very much older than me. Yeah. So, but you're describing me. Yeah. I would pass out from blood loss in the, yeah. So at school, so this is, this is, you know, this is where we've progressed a little bit in our knowledge. And so the gut is massive. I have seen women with even just like, I mean maybe endometriosis or just extremely heavy, painful menstrual cycles where they just did the gut healing program. I didn't give them progesterone, endo, plex. I didn't work with their hormones and just the gut, just healing the gut gets them to a normal balance with their hormones and their menstrual cycles, like pretty dang easy. So I've seen that many times. Now, most of my patients, I'm not just gonna address one thing,'cause I wanna make sure that they're, that they're where they need to be. Young females, like a 16 year old female, I oftentimes am like, you know, I could just use, I could use progesterone, but they're so young. Their brains are very sharp. That circuit is still strong. If I give them Vitex, it'll quickly tell their brain to tell their ovaries how to function. And then I'll use some endo plex, and then I'll do a little gut healing and I'll, and I'll start building the microbiome. Very simple like that. And most of those females will come back and say, my menstrual cycle's so much better. I don't skip school. It's, it's so much easier. It's better for the whole family. Yeah. But I'll say that I did have one a couple days ago, I think it was last week, that came back and, and she says, well, it, it did really well the first two or three months, and then I didn't take it anymore. So, yeah. You know, and I don't care. It's like, in that case, it's like, Hey, you're learning. Exactly. It was really good. And then it got really bad again. So what did you do? Whatcha gonna do? Yep. And they're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. It's so comforting when I'm not the one having to say, Hey, you gotta avoid gluten, you gotta avoid dairy. I had a patient with psoriatic arthritis, no, excuse me, Crohn's and psoriasis come back the other day and she's wonderful. She's awesome. But she, she's just like, look, I, I now know what I'm doing. I'm to that stage. And she was like, oh, are you gonna be upset? Are you gonna be upset with me? I'm like, no, you are figuring this out. Yeah. Now it's not me, you know, telling you to avoid these foods now, you know, so I don't have to fill. I I, I can be like, okay, that weight is released from me. Now they know how to eat and, and they can either keep their Crohn's in a flaring flared position or not. Yeah, right. And she had, I think, citral Bacter on the bacteria, so we killed that off. And she went on the gut healing program and she started out doing really well, but then life gets in the way. Yeah. So she, she didn't quite get the healing that we want. And if, if, if a Crohn's patient, for instance, just in general does it for a long time, if we find the right infections and we treat those infections in the gut, we find the food reactions, you know, they, we start to change the microbiome and six months later, then they can maybe tolerate a little bit of that food and then a year later, maybe a little bit more of that food. Yeah. And sometimes maybe they won't. You know, just depending on the situation, because I've seen Crohn's patients where it's just very obvious. It's a massive overgrowth of, I've seen Crohn's patients with massive overgrowth with yeast or other bacterias, and you kill those off and usually it's like, okay, well now, now Avoid those foods, but then when they come back with those foods, they're like, Hey, that food really didn't bother me. Yeah. So much. Well, that's because your gut's not leaky anymore. I was gonna say, once your gut's not on fire Yep. Then it doesn't, and yourt gut's not inflammatory. Yeah. And your gut can now digest the food. Yeah. Period. So that's, and honestly that's my hopes is that, and I, because it does, it isn't easy to live a life where you just have to avoid certain foods all the time. yOu know,'cause I'm, I'm a human. I, I live in this world, so that's kind of difficult. But, but my hopes for most patients is that they get to eat a little bit. And, you know, what I do is I just try to stay away from a lot of commercial meat is, or meat, commercial wheat as much as I can sprouted wheat sourdough. And I do fine with that. If I eat a lot of commercial regular wheat, I will have a stomach ache. Yeah., and I'm glad that I noticed that.'cause if I wasn't a physician, I would not notice that. Mm-hmm. And I would be wondering why I am bloated and wondering why tired. You know, Ky I have the tools enough to be like, okay. And I'm not so sensitive that I can kind of find what works for me in my groove, you know? and so, Yeah. That's, that's, that's the point is for all people to find the foods they like that like them back. Yeah. Right. Yeah. find what they, what works for them and the supplements that work and that don't, yeah. And the, whatever that work.'cause we're also individuals, we're also individual. So if it is a older woman that has some of that estrogen dominance you said mm-hmm. like fill in Yeah. Heavy and painful periods and stuff like that. I've heard a lot of questions about, how do you know when it's time to supplement in with creams or with injections or, I know that doing hormone panels is a big thing with medical doctors, but They just kind of hand you a prescription for a pill or a cream or whatever and you go on your way. Mm-hmm. But I know that when I was taking extra progesterone a pharmacist talked to me to say, you know, right. That when you're taking this, you will produce a little bit less. So when you start this, you're going to have to stay on this for a long time. And that opened up questions in my mind of mm-hmm. How, how do you know what is best to help your hormones if you think that they're off? Yeah, good question. So yeah, with a young female, that's kind of why I will give Vitex with females maybe, you know, thirties that have had several kids, oftentimes I realize that Vitex might just. Leave them waiting to see me again in a few months, you know, Mm-hmm. So sometimes I don't wanna risk it., but sometimes I, I don't, it just depends on the situation. It's kind of the art where I'm like, well, you know what? This person I is of this thought. So I, I actually, with myself, I'm very cautious, right? Mm-hmm. but I respect that everybody comes in differently. So with my, with myself, I am one where I'm like, if I was a female and I had a problem, I would be taking viex first. Mm-hmm. I would try that first and I would see if I could, I can, you know, do relaxation techniques to reduce cortisol and raise progesterone levels. I would be doing everything I could to try to do it as, as maybe natural quote unquote as possible. Can we pause on that? Yeah. So, decreasing your cortisol increases progesterone. Yeah. Per female. Yeah. So the more you can bring your stress down, the more, the more the progesterone comes up. Can you tell me what progesterone does? I, I like to think of progesterone as, as, as like a, you know, a cave woman that has good progesterone is gonna be a woman who sleeps really well at night, who, who has, who doesn't have that hyper vigilance state, who doesn't like go around like, thinking about every bad thing that could potentially happen. They're usually real, really relaxed, and they, and they're, they're just, they're just happy usually. Progesterone makes you feel good that way. Right? And progesterone, will, it's the pregnancy hormone, right? So like, if you have good levels of progesterone, you're gonna be able to get pregnant and implant that fertilized egg into the uterus and it'll stay. And so, when things are going well and there's berries on the bushes, and, and, and you're finding, you know, deer, wild deer out there to hunt and everything's all good as a hundred and gather you progesterone is gonna be really good and you're gonna sleep well, and you feel safe and you feel good. Everything's good. Mm-hmm. But when things change and a drought comes in and the deer go away, and this tiger comes in, he's hungry and he is looking for humans and he's looking for everything to eat, and now you're being threatened. Cortisol goes high, progesterone crashes, we call this the progesterone still. So progesterone low, cortisol high. Now you're hypervigilant and you're not sleeping well. You're sleeping with one eye open. You're very on guard and protective. And, and in that state, if left like a lot of Americans, then you start to gain weight, right in that state, you'll gain weight. You'll feel crummy. You'll feel fatigued. and there's a bunch of other mechanisms by the way that happens. I don't know if I necessarily want to get into, to complicating with the mitochondria'cause there's, there's some things that, that are very important there, but just I'll leave that for another discussion maybe. So progesterone is that hormone that just makes you feel good and helps you sleep. And so, and, and just frankly, we just have a deficient, society of progesterone. Yeah. And men need progesterone as well, but to a certain extent, you know, so, so progesterone is very helpful for a lot of male issues as well. So what are the best ways to get it in balance? I worked with someone that we've mostly, I had a cream already to go. I'll just, you know, say my medical history, no. But a couple years ago I had my tested with a saliva test. Mm-hmm. I think I was 41 when this happened. And he looked at me and said, well, your hormones are Tanked. They are basically like the worst of a menopause hormone. Mm-hmm. So he gave me a cream, and then I started, seeing the other functional medicine doctor we were coordinating with mm-hmm. And he said, do not, do not, do not put that on your skin. We have to address your adrenal glands and your gut function so that you will start creating the hormones yourself. And he just was like, you know what? It's gonna be rough. You're gonna feel like crap, but we're gonna do this the natural way. But it did take like a year, and I notice now still my hormones are, are Wonka do. So I think I get your question now with that history. Me and other people that I'm around are talking about it a lot. Like, what do we do? Do we fix our adrenal glands and go slow? Or do we say like, please, I would love to sleep and not feel like a hypervigilant witch all the time. This is where this to me is there's gonna be differences with every physician here. Yeah. Right. So I have my ways of doing things. They'll have their ways of doing things Right. maybe I'm overzealous and, and I, they call me overzealous and I call them dogmatic, you know? Yep. And it doesn't really matter really. Like, the person in front of me is like, okay, is this person, I mean, let's see, I just treated a few, two patients just barely with, thyroid issues where they do have thyroid issues on the labs, but. They don't have a lot of thyroid symptoms. Mm-hmm. So I said, why don't we just try to get your thyroid to function because we have, we have room here. You don't feel so horrible that you can't live life. Right. So my thing is this, when you give progesterone, and I understand like if, you know, even the pharmacy said this, there's certain hormones that do this worse than others. Progesterone. If you give progesterone to a female that has really low progesterone Yeah, of course your LH goes down. Right. That's the hormone from your brain telling your ovaries to secrete progesterone.'cause it's sinking. We have enough don't make, because it's saying, they're like, oh progesterone's here. I don't need to feed back. Tell, you know, it's not going back and saying, Hey brain tell more LH to come out'cause we need it. Well first of all, it wasn't happening very well before. Yes. There is a time and a place. So for my own body, oftentimes I might subscribe to, to thinking like that where I'm a little bit like, oh my testosterone's not where I want it. I'm gonna try some herbs. I'm gonna try working with my adrenal glands. I'm gonna try working with these herbs. But that's for me and it's also because, well, you know, frankly I don't feel all that bad. Yeah. So I can do that. I can afford to, I I have that, that wiggle room. Some people don't have that wiggle room. Sure. And so in an older female that's had kids already, I might just say, let's just go to progesterone.'cause it's gonna make you sleep. Yeah. And, and some people are just, in my opinion, in like they've gone down that road so far. In western society that we need something a little bit more powerful and everybody's gonna have like a way of thinking, right? And so, and I also, what I'm trying to do with patients is I'm trying to listen to them, right? So I'm, I'm supposed to be speaking with a, rheumatologist, tonight on the phone. And I, and I'm wondering what's gonna happen, but I have a patient that, that kind of, she, she, she kind of dances to the beater on Dr. Her own drum. And I respect that.'cause every patient needs that respect. I give her my advice if she says, Hey, this is how I wanna do it. You know, and maybe the rheumatologist is gonna say, Hey, you should have treated this we should have intervened. Mm-hmm. we should have given her the pharmaceuticals, like, you know, 10 years ago. And I would say, yeah, that's, that's great. But, this patient dances to the beat of their own drum. It's her life and it's their life. Yeah. It's not your life. So, you know, all I can do is say, Hey, here's what, here's things we could potentially think about, whatever, you know, so there's a lot of those things that happen. I also want to know what the patient thinks, and I, and I respect that. So if a patient says, are there herbs that can tell my body what to do? Say, yeah, there are. Let's try those. If that's what they're interested. I'm like, a hundred percent. That's awesome. Some people are like, a lot of times I will try to say, there's two ways to do this. we can do it this way and work with the adrenals and work with these herbs that will, that will modulate the, the endocrine system. Or we'll just put you on the hormone. Hormone will work quicker. You'll feel better now, you'll sleep better, you'll have less anxiety and it'll work pretty close to immediately. Whereas the other one, it might take months to, to kind of pull you out. I would say more, way more than half my patients are in a state where they say, I just need to feel better now. Like, I'm in survival. So many I need it now. I'm too far down the road. And so I get that sense of like, okay, you know, I, in so many, I just need to do something. Yeah. In perimenopause time, it's like that's also the stage when you are doing your business and you have maybe teenagers and you have all these other things pulling on your time. So if you are up at night with just circling thoughts and not sleeping, then yeah. Then day by day gets harder. So there's a school of thought also on hormones that is, these hormones were never designed to stay Hi, you know, forever. Oh, good question. We're supposed to go down. Yeah. But we don't like how it feels when they go down. Good question. How do you manage how long you should supplement? Yeah. What you should do along with the natural flow of life. Very, very good question. Okay. So like, they did this studies in the seventies where they, they went to Okinawa, and as you know, Okinawa is another one of those blue zones. Like we talked to the about the Mediterranean people that Okinawa's in Japan, it's an island and they live, there's tons of centenarians and they live by the earth. They eat foods from the earth. They eat, you know, a lot of nutrition. They have a great community. And people just end out living a very long time over there when in women and men finding their hormones to be even higher than sometimes 40 year old, males and females in the United States, because of their lifestyle. So, so this idea that we have like a complete drop off is true to a certain extent. Now, here's one of the interesting things is absolutely your ovaries, like you're not gonna get an 80 year old, Okinawa one to, to get pregnant. The ovaries just are not spitting out much of the hormones anymore, right? Mm-hmm. they're just completely like, you know, dormant, but the adrenals, adrenals, they will take over, right? So in that period of time, you know, from, from maybe like 47 to to 55 in that period of time for a female, the hormones are going down and it's putting a lot of stress on the adrenals, extra stress for those adrenals to start producing those hormones, right? So why is it that I see post-menopausal women all the time with decent levels of testosterone? Well, it's because their adrenals are just happened to be producing the testosterone. Okay? And I'm like, testosterone's not your problem. You're doing well there. But you know, most of them are always low on estrogen and progesterone. I have seen weird cases where, where older like post-menopausal women over 65 will have high estrogen. I don't quite always understand exactly why that particular patient has that. I just know Oh that is a huge risk factor. Yeah. For cancer and we gotta treat this. So we try to lower that. So what you're saying is in places like the blue zones then progesterone may they don't have that major sharp may go down, but it doesn't feel as crappy. Yeah.'cause the adrenals are your stress glands they can take over. Yep. Menopause for them is not a big ordeal from, based on what I know. But in our American I've heard when our stress, it's horrible. Yeah.'cause our stress is so dumb, then our adrenal glands are down. Yeah. So when people ask me questions about hormones, I talk about gut and I talk about adrenal glands. Yeah. But you just described that so beautifully. That is menopause fills terrible if your adrenal glands are already taxed. So. Yep. And that's a big part of it. Yeah. And, and, and there could be just the function of the ovaries might be extended in a healthy, population. You know,'cause I mean, I, there's several people right now with primary ovarian, insufficiency. Because of covid. Covid is like wreaked havoc on people's immune systems. You know, COVID and the vaccine. Mm-hmm. have caused a lot of issues with ovaries. And so their young women, and suddenly their ovaries just go, all of a sudden their F ss h goes over 25, which means, oh, you're in menopause and you're 25 or 30. Yeah. So this is happening quite often in our society, well, in a society where we're really healthy, where we're living by the earth eating foods from the earth, you know, and, and exercising, because that's just what we do. We hike the hills and have community Yep. And have community. And, and, and they've, that's one thing is they value old people over there. Yeah. They don't just throw'em out and say, you don't have your place here. So they're, they're really good with them. But anyways, with all of those things, you just don't see you, you see people's, you know, ovaries or testes in the mail function better for longer periods of time. So maybe with hormones when school, if that is Yes. You need to really help the problem. There needs to be work in the gut to help the inflammation. Yeah. Help the cortisol balance. Yep. There also needs to be, work with the adrenal glands, but if there is a situation where you need other help for the hormones, maybe What about like supplementing some hormones, but also helping your adrenal glands and then Yeah. Yeah. So, so treating you move off the hormones as you need. So treating the adrenals is always super important. And, and to be like perfectly, scientific here, it, it's, it, it, we're treating the h p A axis, right? Mm-hmm. hypo hypothalmic, pituitary adrenal axis. And, and so when we say adrenal fatigue, by the way, which a lot of practitioners will say adrenal fatigue. Oh, hey, they have adrenal fatigue. And then they'll get to the MD's desk and they'll say, well, that doesn't even exist.'cause the MDSs all know this now. Mm-hmm. well it's because there was a very, very large study that showed, Hey, wait, we're, we are very doubtful towards this diagnosis, adrenal fatigue. Is it really the adrenals that are fatiguing? What's actually happening? Is that even a thing that happens? And they concluded in this study, which I don't think that anything's necessarily concluded here, but they said, Adrenals aren't actually fatiguing, but what's actually fatiguing is the h p a access, right? So h p axis dysfunction is, is truly, it's actually the right, you know, diagnosis. And then adrenal insufficiency would be like, you know, like, like an actual autoimmune issue that's completely like, plummeted the function. But usually those cases, they'll show up to the hospital, they, they can't even get out of bed. And the H p a accesses how our adrenals and our Yep. And our endocrine system. Yep. The hypothalamus, communicating to the pituitary gland, communicating to the adrenals. And then when that axis goes into dysfunction because of, because of psychological stress, for instance, for a long period of time, that's really what we're, that's what we're looking at that I treat on, I treat, you know, a, a very large amount of patients with that. And I use a lot of adaptogens. Ashwagandha is one of my favorites. Rhodiola Licorice root a Occus, Cassandra. I mean, I could go on and on. I love a lot of, holy basil Leaf is a fantastic one. So, and I use them in different dispositions, you know, and they're, and the, these herbs work for different people, you know, so a lot of them. So like Ashwaganda is awesome because in Ayurvedic medicine it's Tri Doic. So basically it works with every type of disposition. There's three types of dispositions. It's pda, and I'm not recalling off the top of my head the, the third one. But basically, You know, when you have an herb, like gon, it works for a lot of people. Mm-hmm. you know, stress induced anxiety, depression, and fatigue. It's really awesome. So I use a massive amount of adrenal supplements, you know, that work with the adrenals and that happens to be a big thing. But again, sometimes I'm gonna intervene and sometimes based on the patient's disposition and, and their thought, I might say, oh, maybe let's go about it without giving you progesterone. Right. Or, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, so everybody is gonna have their different way of approaching it. And to be honest, for me, I don't want to say there's a right or wrong answer. I think the wrong answer is probably not following the patient and their desire and their disposition. Yeah. But of course, patients can be persuaded and there are some hormones that are safer than others to use. Right. True bio bioidenticals. Yeah. So, so that's always true for me. So synthetics, you know, like the women's initiative study used synthetics. That was Premarin and Depo-Provera. Premarin was kind of equine estrogens. They came from horses. Horses have more estrogens than humans. Humans have three estrogens. Horses had like six or more. And Depro Provera is really. What was causing the problems in the Women's Initiative study. Interesting. And they stopped the Women's Initiative study early. And this is the same Depa Provera that's in the rings. The intrauterine. Yeah. Yeah. They'll, they'll put'em in a lot of things now. A lot of docs are kind of aware that they shouldn't be using those hormones anymore, so they've kind of gone away from them to, to a large extent. And some of the docs I've seen in the last 10 years have actually started using bioidenticals, which I'm super stoked about. I think that's good for the community. But bioidenticals don't have those risks. However, bioidenticals don't make a company a lot of money. I think I had you skip though, you were saying the women's study and they actually stopped it. They stopped, but So what were they finding were the risks with those kind of Yeah, so, so cancers and clots and, you know, cardiovascular disease issues Okay. Is what they found. And, and I will say there's a lot of nuance in those studies. I have seen, I've seen some scientists go through those studies and say, actually I can't remember the, the data exactly, but it was like one in a thousand, women had had a problem and so it wasn't as large. Sometimes I'll have physicians at conferences go out and say, oh, this is Depo Rivera's this horrible thing, and here's the studies or whatever. I thought it was interesting when the scientist broke it down a and, and I was, I was kind of intrigued that it wasn't still as bad as we thought, but still. I just don't want, I want to err on the side of using something that's bioidentical. Yeah. Even if, even if there's a small risk, I'm like, you know what? My oath is to do no harm. And of course, you know, as you know it's really hard never to give somebody something that's gonna cause reaction, but you don't always know. Yeah. You don't always know. And, and so there's times where you get, you get yourself in, into situations that aren't so fun, but we're, I'm always trying to not cause harm. Yeah. So, so, you know, my least favorite talk with females is probably birth control. Yeah. It's like, well do, should we be using synthetics about every six months I'll get somebody come into my office That said, I had a deep venous thrombosis, someone was died and,, I went to the hospital, they said, do you smoke? No. It was your birth control. Ugh. You know, I like, I've seen it quite often or I gained weight by taking it for one or two months. Like Oh yeah.'cause those are the big ones and there's a bunch of those. I've been working my butt off and eating, gaining weight for, for three years and it's not gone. Yeah. Many. Yeah. As a female, you probably are more passionate than I'm,'cause this is happening all the time. Yeah. A really cool thing if they get the aura ring, which I have the aura ring right here. The aura ring is a tracker. Just like your husband likes these bio trackers, I love bio trackers. He would have me wearing like an aura ring and a watch and sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Five Foot. I'm like, you do, I'm just gonna go to sleep. He's, he's got all his headgear on. He wakes up as like the first thing he looks up. Oh, I recharged to only 50%. Gosh. Which by the way, sometimes I'm just like, Hmm, I think I recharged to 27 I dunno. Well, the truth is sometimes these, these, the, these data can really cause issues and it's actually caused issues with me. Before I was even talking to the, he's the guy that's the strength and conditioning coach at s u and he's training athletes all day and he, he has advice to the athletes is, Hey, maybe don't use those before your races because you don't want to get up and be like, oh, I'm 75% today'cause I slept in a hotel. Yeah. I'm not gonna do well. Exactly. That's, you don't wanna get in their head. Right. That's, that's the one downside. And that does ha that's happened to me. Yeah. Where it's like, you know, I have actually all the capability in the world to feel good, but my, my ring told me I don't feel good, so I have to believe it. Yeah. So there are risk. I've seen risk the other way though. Like, I didn't sleep well, it's probably bad. Oh, it says I'm 90. Yeah. So then you're like, Hey, maybe I'm good. I know Yeah. So funny because these are, I would say roughly 75 to 80%. Accurate, you know, relative to like a polysomnogram or, or something like that. So, but if they get this, it, it tracks body temperature and you can hook it up to this app called Natural Cycles, which is the first F D A approved, non-hormonal, non i u d birth control. Oh, and basically it's just based on kind of the rhythm method, right? Yeah. And I know that, I think it's the, the Catholics will call it NRO technology. They, they do a lot. I've been to seminars where, where like Catholic physicians are talking about the rhythm method because, you know, they're not, they're not keen on birth control. So, so anyways, so it basically tracks the body temperature and other metrics and basically tells you when you're fertile, when you're not fertile. So you can use it. That's wonderful for fertility to, to increase fertility, to increase the time, or you can use it for infra, or sorry, infertility or fertility by basically to block fertility if you're wanting birth control. So I think that is a really cool advancement because traditionally birth control is my least favorite topic. I would thank you for addressing that because again, in my early forties, I do have friends, multiple friends over the last like five to eight years who are still having periods. Not, but have pregnancy scares and thinking of like having a baby after you've had 12 years. They're like, I don't wanna do birth control. I know it can cause cancer. I don't wanna do this or that, but like, ah, but it's a legitimate issue. Yes. And there is a time and a place. So my thing is, is I don't wanna be too rigid or dogmatic as, as well. Right. So it's like, well, there's a time and a place for birth control. Yeah. Yeah. And if it works for the, works for the patient, then great. Because the truth is, is like, you know, if you wanted three kids and you end out with 10, well that's probably not a good thing for that person either, right? Probably not either. if you have a surprise pregnancy, you grow to love them Yeah. Yeah. But it's nice to know what options are. Edit it. Yeah. And what is safe or not so bioavailable hormones and you can just request those or work with somebody that knows Yeah. To use the, yeah. There's a lot of bioidentical. Sorry, bi Yeah. Bioidentical hormones. A lot of physicians will work with them. Basically when patients come in, you can use bioidentical hormones there's, there's great arguments for females actually, that this goes back to your argument. Females that are 51, that's the average age of menopause. There's a really strong argument that if they get on hormones at 51, and just use them the rest of their life, there's actually a strong argument of really good anti-aging potential with them. Right? So better, stronger bones, better, stronger muscles, more vitality, less anxiety, depression, less cardiovascular disease, less Alzheimer's, dementia. So we see like all and less metabolic problems. So that's the four big, you know, horsemen of why we die as, as Americans or Western society. So there's a really good argument to make that, that those hormones can be very effective tool. And of course then you could maybe get into the debate as to whether people should be using these technologies or not, because our hormones are actually kind of supposed to be low anyways. Mm-hmm. And I'm fine with those debates. And to be honest, a lot of my patients are just like, I, if I feel fine, why would I need to be on hormones? Exactly. And I say, you don't need to be on hormones. I mean it just really depends. Like if, if, if it was my close relative and I have this potential of, of having them age more gracefully and they're okay with it, cool. You know, then, then yeah. I think that's a great place to, to do it. And I, I actually support the ideas. I've been to the conferences where, you know, people like Dr. Pam Smith will talk about it. Those are, those are options for people and they don't, you know, that are not always necessary. Some, sometimes it is necessary. Some women will get into, you know, sixties and they have all of these problems and you can just solve problems with these hormones, right? and they have bone loss. And if, if, if you start osteoporosis early, you know, it's like, okay, we have the option here. We, we can take Fosamax, right? Which is, that's quite dangerous, isn't it? Which is a bisphosphonate. So there's a lot of debate on Fosamax, and all bisphosphonates. There's a big debate whether they are actually helping. I feel like it's super hard to look in the data, because a lot of the data I'm accessing is like, you know, it's the company funded data. Yeah. So, you know, company funded data usually always looks the same. It's the best thing in the world. Kids should be taking it. We should just give it out to everybody. And then you look somewhere else and it's like, oh, it causes like surprise bone fractures. Yeah. And that's what we see is like we see in these populations that they had more hip fractures from taking Fosamax. Yet, you know, most of my colleagues are still prescribing it, and I'm not, just Completely say a hundred percent that I know there are physicians in this town that are willing to say this. heard through other patients. I'm not willing to say that a hundred percent. As try to dive into the research for a couple hours, one day I really tried to get down to the nitty gritty, is this, is this actually causing more brown bone fractures? What I found is that an optimal time would be about two to three years of taking Fosamax. However, because there's so much doubt around it, what about bioidenticals? Yeah. What about doing something else? And then what about the all the lifestyle things that we can do? That's, for me, I'm like, what about lifting weights? Just to make your, get to that, to that age. Exactly. Yeah. When I get to that age is, it's like Fosamax or all of these other things. To me it's like, well, bioidenticals instead of the Fosamax, and then let's work out. Let's dial in the gut. Let's make sure we're absorbing minerals. Let's make sure we're getting the right minerals that build bone density. Right, and, and I've done this with many patients and their bone density does improve if they do those things, and bioidenticals can help them a ton with that. And by the way, the way we normally die, fall and break a hip. Right. We break something and we, we will quickly degenerate from there. The statistical odds of death in the year after a hip fracture is pretty dang high. Yeah. So I, I know it's the thing that I don't say to patients, but that I have heard many times is like a broken hip equals death sentence. Unless, yeah. Big intervention is going so the hormones affect the bone density. Yep. Which is another reason, another proponent of huge proponent doing the vital for, for that and muscle, you know, and so, and then vitality and building muscle. Right. So because we know that after 60 years old, your, your ability to build muscle mass and strength is actually quite limited relative to like somebody in their twenties, thirties or whatever. so This, they're, they're helpful for that. I apologize, I interrupted. This is something that I love and that highlights the differences for me between a natural medicine that is, like a, kind of like art of finding root causes. Mm-hmm. and one that's just about like fixing the symptoms and, you know, whatever you want to Prescribed to or do is up to you. But for me, this is why I love natural medicine. Mm-hmm. is because the things that you do to help, you will help your life anyway. Like Yeah. And maybe instead of taking Fosamax, doing all these other things, like those other things are things that make a life like a Yeah. Juicy, vibrant life. Exactly. Being able to have that energy to work out and to, you know, have community. I love that. Yeah. So, and I think this is the reason why I'm into anti-aging medicine, why I study it every day. Why I go to the conferences for anti-aging medicine. Because I think that if you align with anti-aging, and that's, to some people, sounds like, you know, Botox and whatever, so maybe I should call it longevity medicine for that purpose, but, The reasons why I'm into that type of medicine is because it seems that if you're into that, then you'll pick the right thing for now and the long-term investment Yeah. As well makes so much more sense to pick something. Like, we don't want a short-term investment. We don't want something that's gonna be like, Hey, this will help you in the now, it'll just crash you later and you'll die earlier. Which is, I feel like I constantly just wanna like, ah, yeah. When I hear what, what some people have prescribed, like just cortisone shots or just whatever, and I'm like, well, did they tell you that's gonna de decrease bone density? Or with this depo thing, did they tell you that that's an inc an increase in cancer or what? I'm like so frustrated that there just isn't the Yeah. The at least conversation of what this does five years down the road. So you can choose. Yeah. I mean, and then whatever you choose, you choose based on your priorities. Yeah. And there's a time and a place like a very strong pharmaceutical actually has its place Yeah. In longevity, right? Yeah. There's times with, you know, a cancer patient when, when, when you know most, but I would, I just have a lot of experience treating, you know, cancer patients, especially in stage four cancer, where, where it's like I can't create enough oxidative damage with some of my therapies to, to break down a tumor very quickly. You know, we have therapies that I can, I can block the malicious effects of certain chemotherapies, but sometimes there is a time and a place to say, well, actually in this case, there's a time and a place for something that could be potentially toxic where it actually will extend your life. Yeah. Even though it's toxic. But there's actually a time where it can fit into the equation really well and extend their life. Right. I heard a analogy, that was, that was teaching natural medicine versus, western medicine, but I, I look at it very similarly to that as use what you need when you need it. They were saying if you have a house and it's, your house is on fire, you call the fire crew. They come in with their shovels, their pickaxes, their water. They bust down your door, they spray everything down and they get the fire out and you're so grateful. They did that. But then you are left with a house that is a mess. There's charcoal everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Doors broken up and the windows are busted out, so you have to call in a cleaning crew and a rebuilding crew mm-hmm. And they rebuild the stairs and they put the door back up and they clean everything down so you can inhabit it again. Yeah. And they said it's so important to know not to call the cleaning crew when your house is on fire and not to call the firemen to come and clean it up. Yeah. That's not, and that there's what they do. There's, there's a time and a place for knock a door down and causing a little destruction to like, make sure. So, you know, again, that, that comes from, I think that for, for me, as especially in my education, you know, like I could, I could feel myself even in my younger years becoming somewhat dogmatic, right. Where I'm like, oh, this confirmation bias tells me this is how it's gotta be every time. And then I, I start to say, wait a second. That's not how I should be approaching. That's not a scientific way to approach things. So have to be kind of open to multiple ways of thinking. Right. And, and you know, I, I've been kind of adapted to a philosophy of that there's, there's something to learn from every person. Yeah. And so even if that person is, is, is kind of the guy that, that might not like me or he thinks a certain way about medicine and it's always gotta be the drug and it's the only thing that's effective. that I can still listen and, and still learn something from even that person that might, you know, be some, might appear as my counter, right? Yeah. But anyway, so, I think that, that it's important and I wish we could build a community.'cause this is the biggest thing. Going back to my first reason was like, when I started to realize why people hated like that, there was doctors that really didn't like my dad, you know, and my dad was, was one of the first chiropractors in the Cedar City, Utah. He's the first chiropractor that ever adjusted me. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, cool. Anyway, yeah. So, when he was, here, it was like, I mean, his first couple years in the eighties, there was a lot of dogma and a lot of people just thought he must be this evil guy that's running this sham operation or something. Right. And we've come so far because now chiropractors are completely normal people, and everybody knows the chiropractor now, right? Yeah. So it's like, it's like, wow, this town has really grown. My hopes is for my generation is that we, we grow it even more to where, where we don't have doctors on both sides being really dogmatic about each other. Yeah. You know, and being able to kind of, that, you know, then, then start to, to to work together a little bit. Because I do find very, like a ton of use on both sides. Yeah. That's hopefully the message that I hope to get across that Yeah. That we can. Change the community in that way. Last question would be with your kind of penance for bird's eye view, that was a great segue. Mm-hmm. and, and understanding that everybody will be different. So the name of this podcast is what really makes a difference. Mm-hmm. in empowering our health and vitality. So as you think about, you know, so many patients that you've seen at varying levels of sickness or illness or whatever, what do you think, are just the main things that seem to really make a difference if people heal or don't heal? Put on your real person hat and think about all the people you've seen, what are the biggest things? So this is, this is how I think of that question. And I, and I think, you know, that question could be answered in so many ways. Yeah. And I could make a pretty decent argument with several different options, but I think this is, this is the biggest part. When somebody comes in, they're chronically ill, you know, it's like, better the devil, you know, than the, than the desert. You don't, Kind of a biblical, phrase there, the children of Israel in the desert. Right? So sometimes it's like we can't release and be healed because we don't, we don't believe that we can, right? Mm-hmm. So it's just comes down to that belief, I would say. And, and some people think, well, that sounds really weird and dogmatic, but it's like, it it, for any professional athlete to achieve a, a high amount of success, they have to believe first that they can do it. Yeah. If LeBron James doesn't believe that he can, you know, be an N b A superstar, well he'll find himself not being an n b a superstar with all the talent, the size and, and abilities that he has, he wouldn't find himself there. He had to know, he had to believe. And others were there, obviously helping him believe, I would say I would say for a patient, you know, that maybe a prospective patient that might wanna come, to our office or even to your office and see you. I would, I would think you would think the same. But you'd want them to come with the mindset that, okay, I'm here to do what I can. I'm here to be successful. You know? And the thing is, is like, yeah, maybe call me selfish, but I like to be successful. Yeah. I want to be successful. So I want to work with those patients that are saying, you know what? I can do this. But Wim Hof, you know, shows, he showed the world that you can modulate your immune system with your mind. You can modulate your immune system with your mind. And they said, well, Wim, you know, you're crazy. You're the outlier. You're this crazy anomaly. Nobody else can do that. He says, give me 10 guys, or 12 guys. I'll do it and, and I'll train'em in 10 days and they'll do the same thing. And they said, you got four days. He said, fine, I'll do it in four days. When they repeated the study four days later with 12 new people, they, they accomplished almost the exact same thing. They modulated their immune system with their mind. I've seen patients stuck in ruts where we get to maybe 50% where they need to be, but they can't quite get that the rest of the way. And, and so that's where, that's where that discussion comes in. Right. There's a chiropractor, his name's Joe Benza. You know him? Mm-hmm.. Joda Benza teaches the same type of thing. Bruce Lipton, another scientist that taught at medical schools in the biology department for years, teaches the same thing. You know, that we can modulate gene expression, we can modulate our immune systems with our minds. And if you have that mentality, you know what, I can pull myself outta here. That makes all the difference. And if you don't have that mentality engaging in what Wim Hof teaches can give you that sense that, oh, wait a second, I can pull myself out of this rutt. You know? And trust me, I, I, you know, I'm not perfectly healthy and I've had times when it's hard to believe and it's hard to see myself as any other person. So I still deal with this, you know, the, the, the, you know, better the devil, you know, than the desert. You don't like. Entering into that new world where you're a healthy person is kind of scary. Yeah. You know, I've had patients that, that have really done some soul searching and they've realized, why am I sick? And they realize it's these complex relationships with their family members where they say, I want my kids to want to take care of me. Mm-hmm. And I think I've tried to take care of them my whole life and, and, and maybe there's a filling of rejection. And they, and they want their kids to take care of them. And with soul searching this patient's able to realize that. I'm like, oh my gosh, that's a miracle. Yeah. Because that can open the door to where you see now the problem. Now you can work on that. Yeah. Right? And, and so now that patient can go back home and start to think about, okay, that's why I persist in this state and cannot progress further. You know, my mindset's not there. Well, Joe Dispenza, you know, Wim Hoff, all of those things can be very helpful. But I, at the end of the day, I would say that if I was to give an answer it would be that, it would be that mindset of success. Do you wanna be successful? Do you believe you can? You know, and if you don't, of course that's, that's part of life. Right. And if you can't see yourself yet as that healthy, vital person, because you're so used to being the person that's in this situation, I mean, I totally understand because I preach this, but do you think I perfectly practice this? No. Well, you do quite well though.'cause I notice you exercising. I see you with your hyperbaric chamber. I see you like trying all the things first. So I would say that's part of why I chose you as a practitioner. Yeah. But certain things I'm good at, but I, certain things I'm not so good at. Right. Yeah. True. Like everybody but, and maybe that's You know, in, in, as a final closing thought is if you aren't at that place yet where you believe you can heal, like if you're a little jaded by trying so hard and it not working. Yeah. That to me is when talking to someone who understands what's going on, and I'll take the time with you hormones and gut and whatever to get you up to a level that you can, where you can start to think about it. Perfect. Thinking. Yeah. Yeah. I just had a discussion with a, a dear friend of mine, she's also a cousin of mine, and I, I was just encouraging her like, Hey, let's take, what I want you to do is delay your decision making about how terrible this is gonna be forever. Mm-hmm. until we get this stuff in you, until you have this, this, this little net. Like, just trust me till you get through this bump, Mm-hmm. up, up, up the level where you have a little more resiliency, a little more adrenal function, a little bit less inflammation in your gut. And then from there we can start to make some decisions. Somebody that Yeah. Is super low in progesterone. Let's wait till you have like seven nights of sleep. Exactly. Then let's see, so that is how you feel about moving forward. So that is very true. Absolutely. So that, that absolutely Yes. Should be part of that for for sure.'cause once you get a little bit of that, it's like, oh, okay, now I'm in a state where now I can actually If you deprive me of sleep, I'm a totally different person. and I don't believe anything. Yeah. I'm just like, I'm just mad and irritable. Yep. So, so I, so if I'm in that, that state, you know, there's no way somebody's like you, you gotta believe that you can do this And I'm like, not only do I not believe I don't wanna do anything. Exactly. You know? So, so anyways, Dr. John, thank you so much for meeting with me today. Absolutely. Thank you. And I'm, I'm grateful on behalf of my listeners who may be hearing some of this for the first time that you can say it in a way that we can understand it. So thank you you so much. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Dr. Becca here, and can you believe what a great conversation that is? I'm so thankful that he took the time and shared this information with us. So some of the takeaways for me are that hormones drive everything. First, that hormones control so many things, how we feel, sleep, concentrate, sex and also into body shape and, just in general vitality. WHat was interesting for me was what affects the hormones. So adrenal glands, gut function, liver function. And a takeaway for me would be what we do to help ourselves navigate better through stress. So if you want your gut to function better, if you want your hormones to balance better, if you want menopause to be kinder, if you want premenstrual to be kinder, that it really does start with nervous system regulation with balancing our cortisol by balancing our, stress levels with, with, You know, take those deep breaths, but take them in through your nose. A second one would be how important building that microbiome is, if it's going to affect, everything in the hormones and why it's important that we eat the foods. I loved how Dr. John said, we find the foods we like that like us back. And as we're each finding our own way, navigating through if we're going to do traditional Western methods or alternative methods just to find the things that work for us, but do our research within it. I really loved that. And I loved his answers about what really makes a difference and whether people heal or whether people don't. I don't even want to summarize that. I just want to let his words stand alone. But so much of this game is in our minds and in our daily habits with our nervous system, with our determination of what we think is possible. And it's refreshing to have another doctor highlight that when you get out of the chemistry and out of the supplements and out of the tests at the base layer is typically what is happening in our minds. and in our hearts. So thank you for being with me while we both receive this reminder and I will see you next time on What Really Makes a Difference.