Latest / Skin Anarchy / Longevity Starts With Your Immune System, Not Your Serum Ft. Dr. Stacie Stephenson

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Longevity Starts With Your Immune System, Not Your Serum Ft. Dr. Stacie Stephenson · Skin Anarchy

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: But especially when you're talking about skin health, there's a lot of buzz right now around integrative medicine, functional medicine, what does it all mean?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, especially when you're you know trying to figure out your skin and you know there's all these products out there and how to incorporate.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's just a it's a great set of topics to discuss and really get professional, you know, experience and insight on all of this.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to Dr.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Stacy Stevenson.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she's a leading lifestyle medicine doctor and a true pioneer um in functional and integrated medicine.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, Dr.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Stevenson.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to host it.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And Stacy or Dr.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Stacy is more fun, I think.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, we'll we'll roll with that.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I want to actually figure out how you got into this.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I it's such a for us, it's such a new field, right?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Functional medicine, translational medicine is now coming up um in the you know the mainstream kind of thing.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So how did you get involved with it and and kind of pioneer the space?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh it's kind of funny.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Whenever I hear people say new, it really cracks me up.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, and I mean that with it, I love that you said that because with all due respect, um well, I don't think it's new.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's not new because I'm in medicine.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: But but you make a very good point.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a it's sort of what what is integrative medicine, what is functional medicine?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: There are all these terms that that get thrown.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is it alternative?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is it integrative?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Is it functional?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is it nutritional?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is it clinical?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Is it we we could do 14 episodes just talking about understanding the entire healthcare terrain candidly, which is a big interest in mine, but to be very, very simple, um, I was an athlete, I was a competitive figure skater and had the world's worst year you could ever imagine, which would have been my Olympic year.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I had three significant physical injuries on the ice in one year.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And concurrently, I had a series of three or four really yucky illnesses that I've never noticed in my life, from from mono to I got I got rheumatic fever.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're gonna have to like go back to medical school to think what that is.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody gets that anymore.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I was just this kind of infectious, broken mess.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm convinced it was stress, overtraining, a whole lot of stress for a very young person.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: But just imagine you're looking at somebody that's totally fit, um, you know, an elite athlete, and I'm sick as hell, but I know that that wasn't my I wasn't that girl, you know.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have allergies, I didn't tend to have sicknesses, but I just had this horrible year.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that began to really make me think about and no one would help me, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're too young.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna work on physical injuries, of course, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the rest is like, oh, oh, she'll be fine.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she'll get better.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you do sort of get better, sort of, but all you use is time, essentially, and rest.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so that got me thinking very early on because I was very interested in health nutrition, obviously physical training.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that actually moved me into clinical nutrition and public health and clinical nutrition as an undergraduate, and ended up, I have a feeling a little some of our stories might be in bits of ways similar.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, traditional medicine first for me, and I found that also very frustrating and thought, what the hell?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like, honestly, aren't we here to help people?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't think I was really learning to help people in my vision.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you're young, and you know, you've got I had a vision of health and wellness and fitness and longevity, and how I got there, I have no clue, other than I think my athletic career made me really think about that.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And um, then I just kept searching and searching and searching and searching, and I began going to um the Institute for Functional Medicine when it was essentially in people's living rooms.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Dr.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Jeffrey Bland, who is truly the father of functional medicine in the United States, uh, I met as a very young woman, and he I think chose my career essentially.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: I lucked out with several, which is just getting boring, but I lucked out with several mentors that um another one in naturopathy who founded the first accredited naturopathic school in the United States, which is best your college of naturopathy.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: They were the first licensed, accredited, proper program.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Their founder is amazing.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: His name is uh Dr.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Joe Pizzarno, well-known doctor internationally, and then I had an acupuncturist um mentor.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: But it was just like all these signals, I was on a traditional path, and and I kept meeting these wonderful people that were much beyond my years, you know, 30, 40 years beyond my years, but ensconced in this fabulous world of functional and integrative medicine, it just kept pointing me in the right direction.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I always knew I had in I had interest in clinical nutrition and performance as an athlete.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a little bit natural.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I always had a natural inclination to entrepreneurship too, and I hated corporate medicine.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think it's a big game at this point, too.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's like a whole conversation on its own, though.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go down that rabbit hole.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and I don't mean insurance and all that.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't love inst I should maybe say institutional, yeah, yeah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: I had a hard time in institutional world, and it wasn't because I was completely off off the ranch, it's just there isn't much room for your personal view as a doc.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, working super personally and individualized with your patients, and I had dreamed of that.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I really thought that's what healthcare was.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was so naive.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, you know what's it's crazy because I recently saw this.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you caught it, but it was a big YouTube video that went viral of a neurosurgeon, and he was out in the middle of nowhere, and he literally was saying all of this, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because you think that in certain fields, you think once you're there, you're just you're good.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have the control over your career, you're you're doing what you want to do, and you know, you're treating patients the way you always envisioned yourself treating patients.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not it, you know.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's it's not what it is anymore.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it goes back a long way for me, and I became dedicated immediately um to functional medicine, and that was before there were national certifications and things like that, but took a few blows along the way, as most early adopters do that you know.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of how it is.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: You want we always I have a term that says I don't want to be on the bleeding edge anymore, I want to be on the leading edge.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to take the arrows uh as much anymore.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: But if I could boil it down, I just call it good medicine.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it makes sense.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that it's interesting now because I think a lot of people are getting to that place now, like especially I when I look at um, you know, Gen Z, there are so many of them.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I've said this before on the podcast where it's like, why haven't we figured out acne yet?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like it's genuine, genuinely, like why the hell are we still confused about a bacterial disease?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's insane.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and so people are really turning towards what they're now thinking is a news buzzword, right?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Translational medicine, functional medicine.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Individualized, but individualized, right?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: You really hit the nail on the head of that that whole experience of frustration with the you know, the medical system where it's like no matter what I do, I don't get the treatment I need.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and that's where it really, really is so crucial what you're doing and the message you're putting out there because I think people are looking for guidance here.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's no blueprint right now for functional medicine when you look at it as just a layman, everyday person.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't you don't see it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you about that.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, what are your what are the pillars in your mind?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you think about functional medicine, like what are the big pillars about how we should be thinking about it and what it really means?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think my my guiding force in functional has always been, which might sound simplistic, but it's it's a good statement that I have to attribute to uh Dr.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Kellogg of get death begins in the colon.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think that, you know, really that was that was the the foundational functional medicine world, which it is the work in gut health, the microbiome.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now the microbiome thing, in a funny way, it's all sounds sexy now, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, why wasn't all this fun 20 years ago?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, we have core principles in functional medicine, gut being very critical, detoxification being extremely critical, the immune system.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: We basically break down just the systems that you we all learned in medical school.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Immune, what what does our GI do?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: What does our skin do?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: What is our what's the neurologic system?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: What's the orthopedic system?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we try to basically preserve and repair using principles based in food, movement, and and supplementation as well, not necessarily using supplementation as drugs, although it can be.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Herbs are drugs.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoy speaking about herbs.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've had a um a wonderful relationship with herbs for decades.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: But at the core, if I just had to say something very simplistic to consumers, um functional medicine, we just seek to really find the closest cause and wipe it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And we know how to cover symptoms.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like if someone came to me, oh my god, Doc, I got a cold, what's your best natural medicine?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: How miserable are you?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have to get on an airplane?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you need to get on an airplane in two hours, I'm not going to give you I could give you an IV vitamin C, which would boost your immune system, and you're gonna probably feel a whole hell of a lot better in a couple days, but it's not gonna get you through that airplane flight.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the way, you're gonna need to take the antihistamine if you're willing.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I also think it's blending the best of everything on the spectrum of functional docs because I go so far back.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: But my core belief personally in function functional and integrative is just helping a patient learn and select the best for them, for their needs, and and basically being that filter for them.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: If they doc, I never want to take a medicine, I never want to do this, okay, I'll do my best.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Great, that's your philosophy.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I like to follow the patient's philosophy.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't need to fit them in my you know, exact peg, but what I know is what you just said.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: People come to integrated doctors, whatever it is, that people maybe are even gifted healers.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's not a function, we don't that's not functional medicine, but um using the best of everything that we have in our arsenal is what I believe it is.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's actually quite difficult if you really want to get results.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's principles that you have to follow.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um your fitness being extremely critical, what you put in your mouth being extremely critical.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: And currently, these days, you have to supplement.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't make any bones about that anymore.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many people love to say to me, Well, doc, I mean, get all your nutrients from your food.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Good luck.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's not how it works.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: There was a time, maybe our um, like my parents' generation, people growing up maybe in the 50s, 40s, obviously prior to some extent, before the pesticides, herbicides were so prevalent, before the soil was in, you know, it wasn't in such poor shape as it is now.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's not even get into genetic modification of food, which was already beginning in the 50s and 60s, but it is intensely rampant now.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's almost unavoidable at this point.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's you know, one of the the most interesting things to me that I've seen over the last, I think, five years, or even probably in the last decade, we've seen this overall in the medical community.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Autoimmune diseases.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're a huge testament.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: The rise of autoimmune disease is a huge testament to how poor the quality of food that we're eating is and how poor the quality of the water and everything that we're being exposed to.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, a lot of the diseases that, you know, are kind of having this uptick, things like Hashimoto's thyroiditis, there's no it's not a genetically predispositive, you know, predisposed condition.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're it's not happening only in women, you know, men are getting it more.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people always love to say, like, oh, autoimmunity, it's in women mostly, right?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just it's not true anymore.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: 20 years ago, you were right.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or they would be correct.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was traditionally right, a middle-aged, uh kind of peri-postmenopausal lady, usually mom, autoimmune.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Those formulas that you and I learned in school don't exist anymore.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't exist anymore.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want to learn a little bit about this from you because I think when I think about skin health, I mean, I've looked at almost every major brand in the industry at this point, you know, currently, as of today.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's there's a lot of great innovation here, but at the end of the day, you know, what we were saying earlier about acne, right?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Something like acne, where is that balance between what we need to do for our whole overall body versus this very targeted approach where people are still going to the darm and they're getting things like, you know, Accutane and really strong retinoid, you know, prescriptions that are just, in my opinion, bullshit.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we need it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's like what are what are your thoughts on that in terms of overall health and skin health tied in?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I uh you you make a very good point.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Targeted might sound good to a consumer.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I want a targeted treatment for a you know a problem, but I take care of a lot of acne anyway, as well, because to your point, Accutane has its substantial issues and the retinoids have their substantial issues.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, the person still has whatever milieu of environment physiologically still exists, no matter what we use, right?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: If we give them antibiotics, if we give them topicals, um, all of your your arsenal, your arsenal essentially is either oral biochemistry through pharmaceuticals.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, you've got some fabulous products.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Accutane was it was a game changer at the time for cystic acne, but we weren't asking ourselves the question, how the heck did the person get there?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if we knew how they got there, maybe we can backtrack.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's functional medicine.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So acne, I have to tell you, the first thing I think of with acne is what the heck are you putting in your mouth?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost not so much about what they don't eat, though.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: What you'll often find in acne cases, stubborn especially, is you really have to look at the GI.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: They have probably, I can't tell you enough, they've probably destroyed their microbiomic environment.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: It might have gone back to toddlerhood.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: It might not have happened two years ago.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: It could have happened when they were three, and they've just been kind of hobbling along, and now they're 13 or 14, and now the the negative consequences of the leaky gut, the maybe their gluten-sensitive spectrum.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, there's a huge spectrum of gluten and celiac.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's actually quite a spectrum of dairy.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Dairy can pretty easily be linked to a good 40 to 50 percent of acne, not cystic.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know that's that's really another difficult story.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: You need to understand if they're eating anything that is triggering that acne response.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to do food sensitivity testing, or you can do elimination.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do blood testing, you can just work on elimination.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's slower, it's harder.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: You could do very detailed diet diary and begin to do the four-day type challenge, like the um, you know, you remove this food for four days, you you journal it, you remove another one.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's hard.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's not hard, it just takes discipline.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard for a teenager to do.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I couldn't do that, I'll be honest.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know how it helped, you know, if somebody brings me a three-day diet diary, you know what it really helps me see what their go-to foods are.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that helps a ton because then I can see if they're eating the same things every day.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean they're allergic or sensitive, but it also could get can give me clues on on their overall nutritional status.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm with you on the bacterial uh acne.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's sad.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then also we continue using topicals, right?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um topicals that exacerbate the situation, you know, they're not meant to be.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think this is my biggest pet peeve in the in the skincare industry, is that we know so much about acne, and I'm not I'm not only trying to talk about acne.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I just I feel like this is the most obvious in a pathology that we can discuss with skin health.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: But like I just see it everywhere where it's like, okay, we understand there's fungal acne, there's bacterial acne, there's you know hormonal acne, but then you still see products that are literally only geared towards bacterial acne everywhere.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got the acids, you got all this stuff going on, and it's like we know it, but we're still not applying it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm like so interested in this translational medicine realm, because I think we need to understand that, you know, there's a lot of knowledge out here, but we're not applying it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not seeking like the true opinions of experts that understand how to apply it, like yourself.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, somebody who comes to you for acne, I'm guaranteed they're gonna have a whole different experience than going from a standard dermatologist.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a very different night and day kind of difference.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm gonna look at their whole, I'm gonna look all over their skin, and you want to get a really good understanding of their diet.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get a really good understanding of their stress.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds obvious, but it's not because it takes time.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um I want to get a really good understanding of um not just when that started, but I want to get an understanding going pretty far back.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, tell me about your ear infections.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Call your mom.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have how did you have them?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: How many?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Did you have strep?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: How many?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: How was it treated?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tell me about your allergies.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have them?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do you not have them?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: What are they?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like nasal allergies and now for allergies and that sort of thing.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to know all that.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, people are so terrified about cancer.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And one way that I've always found is easy to ease their minds a little bit is I'll say, Hey, guess what?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like the easiest one to keep up on and eliminate and everything is skin cancer because Jesus, we can see it.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Every other cancer we can't see.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have that's that's why you die from them.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're too they're too late.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, take pain.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but now I digress.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: I would just close on acne by saying it's incredibly it's this battle of of what you put in, which is your food, what other substances you've put in that are generally antibiotics, antibiotics essentially reduce, not essentially, I'm just gonna say it.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: As you well know, general antibiotics disrupt the normal bacterial balance from the tip of your nose to the other end.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, even though we do have more and more targeted antibiotics, and that's helpful.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't balance and replenish when you take an antibiotic, you must replenish and balance with probiotics.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's no way around it.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: I work my behind off, even for myself, and have to be very focused if I do choose to go a route like that.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of it's in prevention.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: When we give out a medication like any general antibiotic, let's just beat up on amoxicillin.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: If they were concurrently prescribing or giving information on how to restore, which isn't that hard, it's really not that hard.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we might not be facing the things later down the road.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Same with autoimmune.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that it's really about understanding what preventative means to an individual as well.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that preventative medicine is has so much prev potential, but at the end of the day, you have to understand your own body.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for patients it's very critical for us to do that homework.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm a huge advocate for that, is this idea of, you know, knowledge really is power, you know?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: The more you can learn about what you what your normal physiological state is where you're feeling your best, the more you can learn about that, the better you can inform whatever practitioner you're going to and try to get kind of guide them in a way, you know.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like I I really believe that that when it comes to preventative medicine, like people need to be involved with their own health, you know, you gotta pay attention to what works, what doesn't work for you, whether that's food whether that's typical treatments you're using, new supplements you're trying, you know, all of that really matters, and to keep a you know an account for that so that you can tell your doctor.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean if you go to like an endocrinologist these days, I mean let's talk about the GLP1 fab, right?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: That everyone's kind of humping on board with this.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'm I'm all for it honestly because I really do think that the obesity the crisis that we've been facing for so many years it needed to be it needed to be controlled at the end of the day.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's the bottom line.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: But again, you know there's a lot more here to unpack than just that.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really helpful when people have an understanding of their own body and then they can go to somebody like an endocrinologist and say this is what my baseline is not tell me what I should do if I want to get on a GLP one.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know something like that.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: So but I would love to learn about you know what you think about the GLP1 drugs actually what is your opinion on those I I'm a bit mixed from a just a gross numbers perspective of the obesity true epidemic in the country.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we track obesity worldwide as you can well imagine you've probably read the charts and in 30 years it has gone up and up and up which means diabetes is up and up and up cardiac disease is up and up and up stroke up and up and up and yet we have all this prevention.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really kind of twisted but as far as the medications the GLP1 inhibitors what I like is that it provides motivation and when people begin to get going and move into their weight loss generally you will notice that they will naturally begin to make behavioral changes because they're excited almost an emotional drug to some extent because they get the dial moving and of course it's working better on people that have that really have glucose and insulin dysregulation.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you will see that it it isn't a quote one size fits all and works for everybody.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: But when you look at the people that have been the the especially sort of the the people battling various levels of overweight and obesity since childhood chances are they are glucose dysregulated pre-diabetic have been their whole life and this thing is magic to them.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: It is a magic wand and I the the lift psychologically that that would provide for a large group of people is transformational and that makes me happy I do worry about the long-term use because we don't have good clarity.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I do worry a little bit about how it severely limits hunger to where people begin kind of having disordered eating in other words oh I just live on a few crackers and I I had a coffee and a and they can it can take away your appetite like crazy.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah like completely taken away yeah completely taken away and that I could that's okay if you supplement appropriately with your you could you could counteract the nutritional loss if you were just really crummy at your diet and you're the one that's eating 10 crackers and a half a sandwich and coffee and you're you know you're like this is fabulous I'm losing weight all the time it's wonderful all I'd really have to do for you is give you a really fabulous drink twice a day.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Mind I don't care how it tastes I just want you to get I just want you to get better when people would say to me like oh my God this this is terrible I can't drink it I'm like you're a grown up and chug it down.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hold your nose and chug it down and I I literally I'm like watch it I I do it and I'm a big baby too but um and there's ways to make things a little more palatable and I have lots of tricks but you know at the end of the day you just have to do what's best for you.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like exercise that much either but you know you you grin and bear it.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm overall supportive like you I'm cautiously supportive I worry a little bit from a nutritional perspective and I worry a little bit from a long-term use because when they when they remove the medication support the physiological factors are going to return.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah that's tough the expense so I'm not quite sure um I think the gap this in the space I'm thinking and we're not doing it I'm thinking we have to work at the education with those patients in the gap space.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay you start them at the GLP you're doing fabulous it's so exciting you have your life back it makes me cry almost right now how about well but then we need to use that time whether it's six months that you're using it or nine months or a year maybe it's longer maybe it's a year and a half because we had to go so gradually let's figure out in that time so you can calm down and feel confident how are we going to work with your food and nutrition and fitness in the long term of your life I don't think these are realistic long term maybe if if only for expense I mean are you seeing that that that people are choosing their various dosages they're buying online odd who knows yeah it's gone it's gone kind of haywire like it's it's really scary in that way I know what you mean and you know especially when like you know like a pharmacy's quoting you$1300 for a month for your drug you know and then you're going to like you know weird sources to get it.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean yeah there's definitely that and it's it's scary you know to think that people are going to these crazy lengths to get it but I I mean I love what you said though about the diet component.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would love for you to educate us a little bit there because I think a lot of um I think I do think a lot of people are on it or they know somebody who is and to understand that would be really crucial I think um you know to help educate right I'm all about that if you know somebody that's doing something educate them you know so what are your like recommendations you know for nutrition I guess you know that that you should be mindful of if you're on the GLP engine especially I'd say um because I see that it so intensely suppresses appetite and wonderfully so it suppresses carbohydrate appetite very nicely which I think is fabulous it has an interesting uh more it reduces your alcohol desire really which has been a neat side effect so a lot of times you know that's just empty calories that's an easy one but so that's all wonderful but during taking the medication I would say number one is your fats or your fatty fish you've got to to eat it or you've got to take the EPA DHA um you've got to continue with your healthful oils like your avocado for example your kind of the good old Mediterranean you know olive and uh and olives and the fatty fish and the avocado if I could put you on kind of the perfect diet you don't need a lot of carb you're gonna get a little bit of carb in in some of that stuff anyway I would be very careful with the essential oils not going to eat it the way you're feeling um you're not gonna eat a lot of carb which is fine you really need a lot less than you realize and then prioritizing your protein so fats and proteins you just really have to focus on lean fats if it's animal i.e you know your chickens your lamb your lamb things like that um if you're gonna focus in fish as your protein which I would recommend very much um I would focus in your healthful fatty fishes the easiest one that that people tend to to like is salmon because it's highest in omega 6.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know I makes it sound like I'm gonna turn into a salmon sometimes I think I am but I think it's the most perfect food for her brain.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well because a lot of the fatty fishes are um people don't like them like uh mackerel has actually higher than salmon um all of your your sardines and all the tiny little fishies those are super fabulous if you can eat them go for it I can do it I had to teach myself how to do it it's not an American traditional American palate but they are cold water fresh water very much more clean high in omegas you you know you tend to add olive oil so some of the some but that's again not a traditional typical diet in America um but you need to be and prioritize your protein and your fats period I don't know what to do with the um what I also don't love is the irregularity of where the losses happen the actual fat losses are completely erratic and I know you're seeing a lot of that yeah we're never I don't see how we're gonna figure out how to control that.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah it's it's a really I don't know what the body is doing honestly.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be honest like I when I see people's like results from this drug I'm just kind of like baffled you know because exactly what you said the fat loss doesn't make sense there's no like I don't know it's not predictive you could say you know everyone everyone looks different.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone looks different and there's a substantial amount of muscle loss so you have to prioritize you have to prioritize protein and fat in the food that you do eat while you're taking it yeah step two you have to work on strength training.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: You must that is partly why you're seeing people look so weird um from a shape perspective I mean naturally if someone was three or four hundred pounds and they lose a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds their skin is not it's it's not gonna be elastic.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're probably gonna decide whether they might need some surgeries down the line or something like that.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean but those are huge you know those are the actual more morbid obesity that's a whole different long-term treatment perspective if you're talking about someone at 40 pounds overweight or 30 or 40 or 50 those sorts of things you are right the fat it's not just fat loss it's muscle loss and that's why they look strange and it's regular and unpredictable I have to say they're so excited about the weight loss which I celebrate that they're not prioritizing the fitness because it feels like you don't have to do it.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah that was one of my questions actually was that because um I think right now you we've definitely you know created this culture now I think uh this these drugs have created the culture of like well you don't need exercise after all but you don't do that but I I don't know whether maybe the campaign is like here's the goal and that this is what I think the physicians in the field are teaching.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Some are some are teaching this maintaining muscle mass and losing the fat.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: So if you choose to use the drug to lose the fat there is there are only really two ways to maintain your protein status and that is that's resistance exercise and ingesting protein.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only way it's going to happen.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise you are going to degrade the muscle mass and your weight loss is going to look even weirder you know that it's a fair statement to say irregular.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: What I would say is hey think of it this way you don't have to do two hours of cardio we don't have to go back to the Jane Fonda years and Olivia Newton John and get physical in the gym for three hours a day you don't have we know you don't have to do that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do that for cardiac health you don't need to do that for weight loss you don't need to do that anymore period.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: However you must do resistance work and it can be at home it doesn't have to be in the gym I'm here to tell you actually you know moderate to aggressive yoga is resistance work.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah hoisting your entire body in a down dog you're lifting up three quarters of your weight yeah though that's actually uh that's a great point I mean for anyone that's out there and you don't have time to like quote work out you know which means go to the gym and and and do this like you know incorporate it you could definitely do this anywhere like the resistance bands with you at all times you could you know use something like that.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: And also I another sort of myth to bust is that you have to to do your resistance training all in one sitting like okay I have to get my 20 minutes or my 25 guess what you could have done seven minutes and 10 minutes and five minutes and 12 minutes it's the same.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good point.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah a lot of ladies are finding um that that's very nice in between meetings or you've got the 10 minutes or you you do you're listening to a podcast.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah while you're listening to us right now while you're listening yeah I mean um you know get get creative I I I agree that it's hard for me I have three little I have three littles which I have twin boys that are three and a half years old and a little girl who's 16 months old and um you want to spend your time you want to spend that extra time with them.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm an evening I like to work out in the evening six o'clock seven o'clock for whatever reason I I'm not an early morning exercise I I like later in the day but that's like perfect perfect family kid time so I'm like darn I gotta choose or I have to change or I need to bring them in the bring them with me with my exercise which I've tried doing yoga with toddlers is interesting.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say like how is how is that I have I mean you know first of all it's a five minute attention span and they just think it's a big hilarious game.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: You could do it yeah I mean if when there's a will there's a way right I want to talk a little bit about your book because you have such great insights um in the book you know uh it's called Glow for everyone listening and there's a lot of uh key information I mean I know you've spoken about inflammation in there you've highlighted foods that are you know very key in improving in you know inflammation I'd love for you to speak on that a little bit because right now as you I'm sure you've seen it inflammator aging is everywhere I just published a paper on inflammator aging you know and it's a huge topic coming up but nobody's talking about nutrition when it comes to inflammation so um any insight you could provide how is that possible because we are directly creating the inflammation through what we put in our mouth yeah obviously there's environmental there are environmental cues too but at the end of the day what do you do you you breathe you consume liquids and you eat and that is triggering the inflammatory process at its core inflammatory foods as you well know which we love includes dairy it includes the proteins it you know it is the red meats sugar I I'd love to wipe I hey I love sugar just like everybody else but I'd love to wipe it off the face of the earth yeah yeah it's a it does a lot of damage much more than we realize more than we realize and alcohol does a lot more than we realize yeah and so on I'd I'd love to look at your paper on inflammation and it's real I don't know if you worked more in the neurologic capacity because it's inflaming the brain as well and increasing our rates of neurologic diseases um it's triggering the autoimmune cascade as well because inflammation of which you speak is inflammation over a lifetime you're you're going you know we want the anti-aging and we want the fountain of youth but it's killing it it's making us go in the reverse direction in your skin in your gut in your thinking in your hormone dysregulation how you go through menopause.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: I could actually we haven't even gotten there I could almost puke every symptom I'm noticing these days that a woman has from the age of 35 to 55 is just quote menopause.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well guess what it's not and it's a combination but the inflamm aging they're just finally paying the price you're gonna start paying the price of an inflammatory lifestyle in your 30s approximately now if you were highly highly exposed as a child and had other immune factors and you know different histories you you could have high inflammatory disease easily in your 20s.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: But if I if you're living kind of an average American standard diet standard stress standard life you're probably going to begin really experiencing that inflammation in your mid 30s to early 40s and that's where you see puffy faces the the belly gain the the Hashimoto's like you were talking about.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and like the the cushingoid like symptoms like people with you know we used to learn this in medical school moon faces well everybody's got a moon face now you know we're all we're all walking around with a moon face at the end of the day yeah and and that's inflammation because you know that's I think one of the biggest biggest misconceptions I've seen personally like out there whether it's social media or just in general is that people think inflammation just happens overnight.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know it's like one day you wake up and you're super inflamed everywhere your body like your joints your gut you know and that's just not it and I love what you said where it's like well this is a lifetime thing that's built up you know and when you start seeing those symptoms that means there's a lot of stuff that has happened that's led you down this road.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: So now how do you reverse it?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know that's the question is like how do you come back to this baseline, the basal state that's a very complex question I think you know in terms of how do you manage somebody who has all of these symptoms now that are really very you know dependent on their inflammatory response.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: No practitioner is going to be able to answer that for you.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's yeah it's a step at a time and realistic goals.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't give something three to four months like let's just say I started I gave you an anti-inflammatory diet which would be absolutely step one hands down.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then you say to somebody okay I need you we we need you let's give you a month to get used to let's give you a month to clean out your pantry clean out your cupboards stop buying all that junk I want you to throw it I mean it's terrifying for people I want you to throw it all or give it away let's say maybe you can give away the food people hoard food so it kind of depends what their you need to learn what their style was with food.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: They need to learn how to shop again that takes a little bit of time.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: They may need to be provided recipes shopping lists that takes a little bit of time.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of there's sort of a preparatory part right where okay let's get you organized I'm not gonna send you home with this diet today because you're gonna it's gonna blow your mind start working here's the diet but really I know that you have to buy food you have to clean your pantry you have to understand some things you might even start shopping somewhere else that takes a little bit of time everybody's busy they're working they feel like crap and then after that if basically you make a deal can you will you with our support maintain this anti-inflammatory diet for three months I would be amazed what your body can do in three months.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: Don't judge it until then yes ask questions yes if you have some you know seek support guidance you've got to hold hold hands you're definitely you know you're in it together there has to be supportive help with questions and food ideas and recipe ideas and all of those sorts of things but they will see changes and so with inflammation I find that as long as a human being can begin to see the changes that mean most of the time they they have a few ideas in their head that's gonna mean something to them like oh god doc I if I were sleeping better that that would be well it is linked to inflammation because the cortisol spikes right and blood glucose up and down um or if they might say um oh if I even had a half an inch or an inch off my waistline that would feel like success to me or if I had you know what the number one response is not weight loss it's energy yeah if people feel more energetic through working in their anti-inflammatory diet they'll move mountains energy is how we go to work energy is how we take care of our families energy is how we get to enjoy life in any way um and inflammation robs us of that energy no it absolutely does I mean it's so taxing on like every cell in your body you know it's it's very similar to what we were talking about earlier.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I think glucose contributes a lot you know your glycemic index everything that you you eat how long sugar sits around in your body all these things like they really they impact every single cell and they lead to irreversible damage um in the long run and I think that a lot of times you're right you know energy differences when you start noticing your body is you know just I don't know you're more awake you're more alert you're more energetic yeah it it is kind of empowering to start changing your life you know and and doing things you didn't you weren't doing before which is kind of like it's gonna feed into itself similar to how we were talking about how with GLP ones if people from seeing that little bit of, you know, it's kind of like a mental response that they have that I'm motivated now.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do something.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it's it's a really interesting conversation, honestly, because I think right now we're at a interesting juncture with, you know, how people are perceiving their own health and like what really matters to them versus, you know, what doesn't.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it with all the longevity clinics now especially, that's another topic like that's huge.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like people are able to now track like every biomarker known to in medicine.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: And what do they do with it, right?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're tracking everything and they're coming into like visits with like these 80 page you know like portfolios on their on their last three months of life.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean that's great, but you have to really figure out you know what is what is it that's gonna really change your quality of life at the end of the day.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of stuff is just noise.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: It it's what you do every day, you know, a little at a time and and if you've gotten yourself too far down a a a poor road to your point with where you really are inflammatory, you've got to you have to dig out of the hole.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's really you said it's hard and it's not that because I've been doing this for so long but it's just like the GLPs it's not that hard when they begin to feel better.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: So the critical phase is just getting someone to feel better and then it's naturally psychologically it's like ding ding ding ding ding oh this is what I'm supposed to feel like well I don't want to go back to what I used to feel like they go out and have the pizza and the and the big vodka night or whatever and then they feel like hell for three weeks and they think oh my God okay yeah I don't want I'm not this anymore I'm only gonna do it in a very tiny amount.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um remember I would I would leave you with this thought that we have an immense capacity for regeneration.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: We really do.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: I know there you you make the point of irreparable DNA damage and that's that's there as well and I don't want to get too doomsday and scare the heck out of people.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'd just love us not to get there and I'd love us to really respect our bodies and recognize that we have an enormous capacity for healing.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: We just have to give the machine what it really needs.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Makes sense I love it.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well Dr.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: Stacy thank you so much so much this has been so lovely to learn from you and I hope I hope everyone listening you guys you know really picked up on some key insights here because yeah I mean I completely resonate with what you said here towards the end you know we really do have to give the machine what it needs and figure out what it needs.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um thank you so much.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: This has been wonderful day and I hope everybody enjoys thanks so much.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.
• 46:50
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• 47:22
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• 47:29
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• 47:35
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• 47:52
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• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.