How To Enhance and Support Fertility with Functional Medicine | Podcast #332

There are two main methods for getting pregnant and if you’ve struggled with conceiving then you’ve likely looked into and/or pursued traditional medicine. This doesn’t necessarily make you healthier, but your doctors will try to change your hormones to encourage pregnancy. On the functional side, Dr. J would focus on enhancing health, enhancing physiology, regulating hormones, etc. Even then, sometimes measures like IVF are still necessary for the end. But before we get to that, we want to look at all the natural ways we can encourage your body to prepare for baby-making in both men and women.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

0:24        Two Approaches in Fertility

7:29        Root Causes

17:20      Right Diet

30:40      Prenatal Supplements

34:54      Adrenals

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live. It’s Dr. J here in the house. Evan, how are we doing today man?

Evan Brand: I’m doing better. I had COVID Believe it or not. And that was like a five day journey. I think I’m over the hump. So if I sound a little weird, that’s why, but family’s healthy. And I’m a survivor. Now I’m going to be in the, quote, recovered category.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. That’s good. Excellent. Well, today we chatted kind of pregame that we wanted to talk about fertility, talk about natural ways to enhance fertility. We see lots of patients that as a side effect of getting healthier through natural medicine, functional medicine, good nutrition, diet and lifestyle. They get pregnant, even if fertility wasn’t a goal, and we have some patients that come in with a goal of fertility and the nice thing is, fertility is a byproduct of getting healthy. So I mean, there’s kind of two approaches to it. There’s the conventional medicine side where they’re not really making you healthier, they may just be changing some of the hormones in your body. So you can get pregnant, right? IE via IVF therapy, those kind of things, right. And then there’s kind of natural ways that we are utilizing the enhancing of healthy and enhancing physiology to get pregnant. And sometimes IVF may be necessary. If you’ve done everything you can do on the health side, and you’re still not getting pregnant, that may be an option, right? But we want to do everything we can do on the natural medicine side, because if you do that, you know, 80 to 90% of people I think are going to get the results they want, which is getting pregnant. So I’m excited to dive into this topic with you today.

Evan Brand: Yeah, I would say that it’s pretty rare to need IVF based on some of the people that you and I’ve seen clinically, I’ve had several men and women and it’s good as a couple right. So that’s the important thing to mention. It’s important for the couple to get healthy the a lot of the blame is placed on the woman but in many cases, you know, male sperm motility or sperm concentration is a big issue. So the men kind of, you know, I don’t know why, but in general, the men get ignored in this conversation, but it’s really important for them to get optimized as well. And we’ve had couples where they looked at the cost of IVF, you know, typically 10, upwards of $15,000, depending on where 20,000 Really? Yeah, okay, so 15 to 20. And people come to us first and say, Well, you know, we didn’t want to go to IVF yet, because of the cost cost was kind of their main motivator, and maybe they, you know, hopefully had some sort of a natural minded bias. And so they said, well, let’s see what we can do first. And then 100 out of 100 times, so far, we’ve been able to avoid IVF for those people. And we’ve had, you know, between you and I alone, we’ve had four healthy children on our own. And then, you know, countless women that have had healthy pregnancies with our support

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% it’s all about getting to the root cause, right? And yeah, there is that whole idea of the pottenger cats experiment where pottenger was in a medical doctor, I think, in the 50s, and he had different cats and he would feed some raw food, some processed food and and then there was, I think, within three generations of eating processed food. The cat group that ate the processed food lost the ability to reproduce. So there is this idea that we’re on like the third generation or so of this pottenger cat experiment. And there is some people that are just at that and end level where they may have reduced fertility just because they’re living out the pottenger cat experiment in real life. It’s possible some of that is the case. So we want to do our best to really emphasize a whole food nutrient dense anti inflammatory diet. We know that pregnancy involves healthy hormones. And as a starting off point, we don’t want to eat foods or toxins or hormones in our animal products that could throw off our fertility. So the first step in any fertility program, nutrient dense anti inflammatory, low toxin, that’s going to mean an organic whole food diet. that’s going to mean cutting out hormones and antibiotics and pesticides, and GMOs. A lot of these pesticides are xeno estrogens, they mimic hormones as well because they affect the insects from reproducing. That’s how they kill them. Right. And so it can also have an effect a cumulative effect on women and men on the sperm count women on the fertility side. So diet is going to be one of the first things and the second thing is going to be blood sugar stability. I think this low fat low cholesterol era, skipping meals fad dieting has prompted lots of insulin resistance, lots of reactive hypoglycemia, meaning too much sugar, too much carbs, blood sugar goes up and then spikes down, which then creates this insulin surge and high levels of insulin is really what’s behind the leading cause of infertility in women which is pcls. That’s polycystic ovarian syndrome. And that the mechanism there is high levels of insulin, insulin resistance insulin surges, thus increase androgens, and then the androgens also can throw off prolactin and then that can dis regulate a woman’s cycle. So you can see There’s a lot of different hormonal rhythms that can that can go off together and create many issues. So the major mechanism is in the beetus, insulin resistance, followed by increased level of androgens, free testosterone, testosterone, and then also prolactin issues to boost. Those are kind of the big initial sequelae that we see. And of course, usually if they’re eating a lot of crap or hydrating junky foods, people that are missing that level of awareness, tend to also be consuming the pesticides, maybe going to low fat, low cholesterol, maybe not getting high quality animal products and getting all the hormones in there too. So that’s like kind of my first two things out of the gates.

Evan Brand: Yep, well said and just want to quickly go over the conventional treatments for infertility, especially resulting from pcls. That’s what we did on our gut health podcast, kind of the conventional versus functional gut health. People loved it. I got a lot of good feedback on that. So thanks for the feedback. But it’s not pretty you mentioned it’s not root cause and it’s not so you’ve got this clomiphene which is the American College of obstetrician gynecologist recommendation that’s their primary medical medication for pcls patients with infertility, it indirectly causes eggs to mature and be released. Then you’ve got Metformin, which we just talked about the insulin resistance problems. So Metformin would come in and help. They talk about it helping just in terms of population, but that would probably be just due to helping to lower insulin. That’s what it is.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, Metformin, it liquefies. That’s a big one.

Evan Brand: And then you’ve got the letrozole. This is a drug that slows estrogen production causes the body to make more follicle stimulating hormone FSH, which is what you need for ovulation. And what else here they’ve got just other hormones in shot form, which are going to cause ovulation and then the craziest one, let me just read this one here and then we’ll we’ll move on into the functional you’ve got ovarian drilling. And so the surgeon makes a small cut in your abdomen inserts a long thin tool. And they use a needle with an electric current to puncture and destroy a small part of the ovary. This surgery leads to lower androgen levels, which may improve ovulation. So Wow. And if you do all those and you don’t get pregnant, then you could go to the IVF, which is where the sperm in the egg are put in a dish outside the body fertilization, fertilization happens, and then they put the fertilized egg into the uterus, and then boom, there you go.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Now, I kind of want to tie back to the root cause I want everyone thinking about fertility from a root cause perspective, because when you think about it from a root cause then you can say, hey, are we getting to the root cause doing this procedure or doing this thing? So first off, like I already mentioned, pcls is a big one. Now with infertility, there’s usually going to be some level of insulin resistance or blood sugar dysglycemia meaning your blood sugar is up and down. And your body has to make a lot of hormones to regulate that flow blood sugar So when your blood sugar goes really high, right, because of excess carbohydrates in balanced meals, not enough protein and fat, you’re going to surge a whole bunch of insulin to bring the blood sugar back down. Now, women that tend to be more on the heavier side, usually that blood sugar eventually start staying higher, because that’s that’s what diabetes is right chronically high levels of blood sugar, but usually before that, there’s some level of reactive hypoglycemia where blood sugar goes up and then crashes down because the body over secretes insulin. And when the cells are still sensitive to insulin, that blood sugar will drop down really, really fast. And then your body has to make a lot of adrenaline and cortisol to bring it back up. Okay. So if we tie in prolactin, prolactin is going to go high when there’s high levels of estrogen. So when we start having more estrogen dominance, Okay, first mechanism, how does estrogen dominance happen? Well, it’s going to happen one through exposure of estrogens and the environment to with gonna happen through metabolism of progesterone. So progesterone is a really important progestational Pro fertility hormone very important. When we get stressed we’ll actually convert progesterone downstream into cortisol. So when we get chronically stressed, we’re going to decrease progesterone. And then number three high levels of estrogen, estrogen dominance, that is going to start driving prolactin issues. And when we start burning up dopamine, right, dopamine is a very important neurotransmitter. Dopamine gets used to make adrenaline so when we start making a lot of adrenaline, a lot of stress neurotransmitter, dopamine gets used, and dope means a tonic inhibitor or prolactin. So imagine you have prolactin and you have dopamine level is like the foot on the brake, right. And as you start depleting your dopamine and you start getting more stress, you’re taking your foot off the brake and what happens to prolactin, it goes up and prolactin starts to go up one of the side effects Next is loss of ovulation. Right You can go, [inaudible]. So you have a couple of mechanisms, right? You have this prolactin mechanism from dopamine, you have estrogen dominance, which can affect prolactin as well. You have this infertility through pcls. And insulin resistance and elevation and androgens, right. And then also all of the food components, all of the hormones and the toxins and the pesticides also contribute to that.

Evan Brand: Yeah, those are, I would say the biggest and most important things affecting your average american. There’s a couple other small subgroups, I want to mention what I’ve seen with infertility, one being people that are overtraining with exercise, you mentioned also the period. So I had a woman who she was, she was in the small percentage, but we have to talk about the small percentage because you know, people who are healthy and want to be healthy, listen to our podcast, and so there’s people that may be overachievers will call them and so we had a lady that was doing CrossFit like four or five times a week 45 minute sessions, and just beating the pavement. Now, typically when someone’s doing that we don’t really need to run a hormone profile. But just because I knew that it would increase her compliance. If I told her to stop exercising, she may not listen to me. So we use the testing to prove on paper what we already knew intuitively, which is that she was causing her cycle to be disrupted due to the chronic stress of the overtraining. So when we ran the hormone profile, and we showed her what her cortisol look like, it was basically flatlined, except for the time of the day when she did the exercise, she had a mild spike, which is why she felt better. You know, she said, Oh, my day is not complete until I exercise that’s because her cortisol was so low, and when she whipped the tired horse, all of a sudden she got this temporary boost of cortisol and adrenaline. She felt normal and that was it. But the prescription for her to get pregnant was simply just go down in the exercise. I just told her do three days a week Max, but do yoga, restorative, do biking, do hiking, do gentle things that are fun for you, and fun. For your family, and that’s all she did. I mean, her diet was already dialed in. We did look at her gut. We didn’t see any infections there. You know, we knew that there was no insulin problem, the carbs were not an issue. And she got pregnant just by simply reducing the training. And then another small group of people are people, women, specifically that were just going to low carb. So I had several women that were on a ketogenic diet. And some would argue well, our ancestors they could have been ketogenic, right, they were out in the prairies eating the bison, and they may not have had access to potatoes and whatever else but I do believe that some carbs are beneficial and necessary for fertility and for healthy pregnancy. So I had some women that were on keto for a long time, all we did is just add in some starch, organic white rice, we did some potatoes every once in a while and boom, they got pregnant and we didn’t change anything else. This is of course after we do the whole functional medicine workup, which you and I will talk about in a minute. That was after we did all that then we tweak the diet and then boom, she got pregnant.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and I would say because information ability is primarily driven through PC OS and PC OS, the major mechanism behind it is going to be insulin resistance. I think a default template should be a lower carb paleo ketogenic template. But just because that’s our default doesn’t mean we’re not clinicians and adjusting things for the patient. So of course, with this girl, she may have done really well with that. And then she may have tapped out her benefits with it. And she may have already been at a really good place with her insulin. Because if you get insulin too low, and you’re already are relatively healthy body comp, that could also be a problem too. So this is why we have to individualize it for patients. So we’re talking about pcls and insulin resistance. And for most people, that kind of a dietary strategy is going to be a really important starting point. But for some people, you may hit the wall, and you have to adjust like you haven’t talked about others, you may have to hang out there a lot longer. So it’s kind of keep that in the back of your mind because we’re kind of having two conflicting recommendations. And that’s because everyone’s at Individual, and we have a starting point for most and then we adjust according to the patient’s needs after.

Evan Brand: Yeah, and that’s just an extreme case, but I at least wanted to mention it right? Because you always have the people that say, well, I’ve already done paleo and I still you know, had issues of course, there could be other underlying causes, you know, infections or whatever else we’ll get into, but in her case, this lady who was literally just doing like meat, and maybe a salad, you know, she literally had almost like virtually no carbs at all. So, so that’s just an extreme manifestation. But if you’re doing your, like you said, just kind of standard paleo template, you’re probably going to do maybe it’s plantains or some berries or you’re probably eventually over the day would accumulate enough starch or carbs to to fuel the fertility, but in her case, no, she was too low.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And again, if you’re insulin resistant, the starch or carbs may be keeping you infertile, right? Yeah, we can always do testing. We can always run fasting insulin and we can see where your fasting insulins are at. If there’s pcus. We may also want to look at prolactin, we may also want to look at free and total to stop Throw a see where that’s fitting to make sure it’s not, you know, in the top half top top 25% of the reference range. That’s pretty good to look at. So what’s the underlying mechanism? So if this person’s over exercising, it’s probably one over exercising, it can create estrogen dominance, right? So it can decrease progesterone. It can also decrease your dopamine and adrenaline which can be that driver that increases prolactin, right. And it can also just deplete hormones in general, I see a lot of women that are low estrogen, low progesterone, and they still may be a little bit in estrogen dominance because the ratio is still skewed, but their hormones are just low across the board. I see that a lot as well. So you have to this is why it’s super important to to test right because if you’re not testing you’re guessing. So with fertility cases, we may run a month long test to see where you’re at from day one when you bleed, all the way to oscillation all the way to the end of the month looking through the luteal phase to see how high that progesterone gets. We may just come in there and run a snapshot on the luteal phase two If patients have some infertility issues, but it’s not a primary thing, then we may just come in there with the luteal thing. If they’re really struggling on the fertility side, then we may do that full month. So I’ll typically do one or the other. And of course, looking at the adrenals are so important. Why? Because the adrenals interplay with dopamine and adrenaline and cortisol and estrogen dominance, ie via progesterone going to cortisol, we have to look at the adrenals because they play a major role as a backup generator with the female hormones.

Evan Brand: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, adaptogenic herbs are part of my life. They’re part of your life, you know, on a daily basis for us clinically And personally, and it’s a game changer. I would say it’s one of the biggest, one of my most favorite and biggest tools that I will use with a woman who is struggling with infertility, especially because there’s so much emotional stress. And there’s trauma associated with this, especially if a woman’s had a miscarriage or if a woman you know, has worked on this for months and months and years and been to several doctors in practice. And she feels like she’s at the end of the rope and she’s aging and she’s kind of running out of her her fertile window anyway. I mean, there’s so much stress associated with the emotional component of this as well and maybe family pressure when you’re going to have kids and that whole thing so, to me, that’s where adaptogenic herbs come in and not only help with the hormonal side, but the mental emotional stress as well.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So in general, like with women and men, similar things with the diet, right men, there’s less of a hormonal fluctuation that’s going to be throwing fertility off. So keeping the pesticides, the hormones, the artificial hormones, these you know, estrogens, the growth hormones, really emphasizing good proteins, good fats, high quality cholesterol from animal products, lots of good antioxidants from leafy greens, keeping insulin in check. That’s a good first step. Of course, we can add in resistance training, we can add in mitochondrial nutrients like carnitine and co q 10, and arginine and zinc and selenium. Again, it was certain male patients will come in. We’ll run a nutrient profile and see what nutrients Their low end as well and of course, we’re going to be fixing the gut fix to the adrenals. And using a lot of those first line things, it’s also herbs we can use as well. ashwagandha is a big one tyrosine and dopa means a big one right? You see macoun as well as a big one. Why? Because dopamine helps with fertility. You mentioned earlier tongkat Ali really helps with that upstream signaling from the banana tropic releasing hormone, which then helps with FSH and LH. Lh is really important for spermatogenesis and making healthy sperm. So these are really good first line steps for enhancing male fertility. Anything else you want to add about that?

Evan Brand: Yeah, we weren’t. We didn’t press the record button yet. When we when you were now we’re talking about that. So let me just give just a quick little story on Tongkat Ali. There’s a Latin name for it as well. It’s something that’s beneficial for for men. We give it a lot to athletes, it does help with testosterone levels. And there are a couple of really, really cool papers on it. Where it’s increasing supermoto Genesis by influencing that HP ga axis the hypothalamus pituitary go Natl access. And long story short, not only did it increase the sperm count, but it increased the sperm motility. So you’ve got better swimmers. So when we talk about men, you know, having an important role in this fertility, you know, piece, that’s also a game changer. And then tribulus is another, you know, tribulus is once again kind of used in the bodybuilding community quite a bit to help with muscle mass and androgen increasing effects and all that, but it does help with the testosterone in the DHT DHT levels, which are all sex hormones that are important. And then also, what about the What about the influence of the gut? Do you want to talk about that now because I’m just thinking out loud with you here. We should probably talk about the mechanism of beta glucuronicdase issues with men and women where they would be re circulating estrogen and having issues with estrogen due to the beta glucuronicdase. enzyme being hired. Due to like a bacterial overgrowth problem, for example.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so in functional medicine, right, we may look at things a little bit closer when it comes to fertility, but we’re still going to be doing the same things with the gut because if we don’t go to the six R’s of healthy gut function, we don’t go to the six R’s, removing the bad foods, replacing enzymes and acids repairing the gut lining in the in the hormones, removing the infection, repopulating rynok elating, good bacteria retesting. The gut is where everything happens 80% of the immune systems there, that’s where all the nutrients are absorbed and digested and assimilated and utilized. So if we just were to skip that and go to a hormone protocol, or a typical augmentation program with progesterone, we may miss a lot of those nutrients getting assimilated, broken down and absorbed and utilized. So we have to always assume the gut could be a major interplay. And again, most people, they’re not connecting the gut with their hormones. They just never right. But like you mentioned beta glucuronidation plays a role in hormone detox and We could be increasing estrogen dominance to the bad bacteria causing us to reabsorb estrogens. Right. We could also just have bad liver and gallbladder function because we’re not digesting fat, partly because of low stomach acid partly because of an H. pylori infection or grd infection. And that can make us hard to break down and assimilate cholesterol and essential fatty acids, which are important building blocks for fertility, right. So these things always kind of connect whether they’re one two or three degrees away from the root.

Evan Brand: Now if you’re a little brain fog, and you’re listening to Justin talk, you’re like, Oh my God, he’s talking fast. What is he saying? Giardia? What the heck pet parents Oh my god. So yes, literally, gut infections can literally make you infertile. We had several women who were infertile, and we ran their stool panel, they showed up with parasites, whether it was Giardia or krypto. As you mentioned, H. pylori being a big influence on stomach acids. So now, if we think about we always talk about good diet for mom, which is going to be a good diet to feed and grow a baby. But what if she does have these infections, and she is doing a paleo template and she’s doing her Grass Fed Whey or whatever to get her amino acid profile complete. And now all of a sudden she’s got these gut infections. So literally, just by running a gut panel and walking someone through using herbs to eradicate these infections, boom, I’ve had I lost count many women who, during a parasite protocol, they’ll email the office, I’m pregnant. What do I do? I’m like, holy crap. Yeah, by the way, this protocol by eliminating parasites, it actually increases fertility. Boom, there you go. Congratulations. And so it’s, it’s pretty nuts.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: In general, anything else you want to say about that? So we talked about gut being really important. So HCl, enzymes, those kind of things are really important. We talked about the six hour if you’ve done podcast on that topic, so just make sure if you’re thinking about fertility, make sure we don’t ignore that right. has to be on the women has to know On the men, usually male men are easier to deal with because they don’t have a very unique symphony of a cycle. They kind of have a foghorn of hormones. And usually that’s going to be depleted by stress and poor nutrition and gut stuff. So it’s a little bit easier on the hormone side. But with women, it’s a little bit more complicated because of the cycle. So we talked about IVF. We talked about medication like clomiphene citrate or Clomid, which is a stimulates gnrh, which then stimulates FSH and LH and follicle stimulating hormone luteinizing hormone from the pituitary, which then stimulates egg maturation and oscillation. So there’s that right. But that’s kind of like a stimulator. Like Think of it as you got a tired horse. Do you really want the horse to perform by whipping it harder? Right? Is that the mindset? So for some people, that’s like an easy, you know, quick, simple, okay, I’m pregnant now. And most people who are aren’t as natural minded, that’s usually the first line of therapy that they’re going to do on the fertility side right. Then usually after that, they may go I UI which is the inter uterus insemination and then they may go into IVF or they shut down the whole HPA access using Lupron, they come in there with certain like follistim and different hormones at certain times so they can grow the eggs, harvest them, put them back in, get the whole hormone cascade going with all the injections, and then while you’re pregnant and then maintain the pregnancy with progesterone, that’s kind of what happens on the IVF side. But that may not be necessary for a lot of women. We already talked about the major mechanisms. Now, what are some deal breakers that may hold you back from getting pregnant even with doing all this? So there are certain things you have to look out for fibroids are a big one. If you have some big fibroids that are just hanging out, they could be there could be enough there where it’s disrupting blood flow, because the fibroids are a blood flow hog, and that could be preventing the egg from implanting into the uterus lining. Also, the fibroid can create a little bit of inflammation now everything we’re talking about is designed to To help prevent those fibroids from growing, the question is How long have they been growing they’re they’ve been hanging out for like years and years and years and decades. Some of the natural things just make take may take too long. And so you have to be very, very aware of that. Or it may be so big where it has so much momentum, it may need to be removed surgically. So you have to be mindful of things like fibroids. Also, endometriosis is a big one. That’s endometrial tissue, can it which is basically the endometrial lining tissue starts growing in areas it shouldn’t be, it could grow on the ovaries, it could grow on the bladder. Sometimes endometriosis, endometriosis can cause inflammation in that area. And then a lot of times with a simple procedure where you come and take a laser and kind of laser it off can be very helpful. conventional medicine won’t fix the root cause of why the fibroids there or why the endometriosis is there, but sometimes it’s gotten so bad where that may be necessary. There’s also something called a chocolate cyst, which is basically an Dimitrios in the ovary and that can Definitely be a problem as well. So that may need to be drained. So that you have to look at some of these things, some of these tissues that have grown for a long period of time, they may need a conventional intervention. Now, as long as you’re relatively young, and you have some time, try the natural stuff first and see if your body can handle it. If not, that may be the next thing to look at. And then of course, we already talked about pcls, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome. And that’s where there’s system the ovaries from all the things I mentioned, elevations and insulin and androgens, and I seen those reabsorb time and time again. So I’ve seen the body be able to handle that. I don’t see most patients that will have to go in and get those things drain per se, I find the body can handle that. The other things may need to be addressed at some point over time, but I always say wait and see work with a good functional medicine Doc, have a good ob gyn or a reproductive ob gyn kind of in your back pocket. So you’re monitoring things as you move forward. And if you have to go a surgical route, don’t throw away the functional medicine doctor keep both of them working together.

Evan Brand: Yep. Yeah, good point. And you know, it’s possible that you could find like a holistic or more natural minded ob as well, that would be good to have on hand that way they would help support you with some of the dietary stuff. But yeah, with endometriosis, you know, there’s a hormone component to that as well. So we already talked about diet and things like that, but of course, in the beta glucuronidation, so like calcium D glucose rate, for example, you know, that’s something that we may use to help with getting out these excess xeno estrogens. And that could be a game changer too. And of course, in the diet, you’re getting some like, you know, calcium D glucose, right? You’ll get some of that naturally in the diet. So whether you’re doing like broccoli, or blueberries or whatever, I mean, different. You know, cruciferous veggies, you’re going to get some beneficial stuff like that. Anyway, that will help. Regarding the hormones. It sounds crazy that broccoli could help pregnancy but yeah, but it definitely could. And then also, I mean, there’s no there’s various exercises to that can be helpful. Exercise in general is helpful. So I mean, if you have a sedentary woman, and you get her moving, but not to the CrossFit, five, you know, five times a week level, you know, that could be a game changer.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So you got to look at everything holistically, like, I’ll tell you my personal story. We have two Healthy Kids, two healthy boys. And my wife and I had a hard time getting pregnant in that first year. And we found she just had a really, really, really, really, really big fibroid, very big-

Evan Brand: Was that ultrasound or how gel, figure that out?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Transvaginal ultrasound, and my wife before she met me, she was on birth control pills for over a decade. So I think there was that she wasn’t he she was eating a lot of conventional foods in the beginning before she met me before we tweaked her diet. So I think there was a lot of hormonal growth that was going on for decades that caused some of that growth. And you can’t just pull it away and expect it to just reabsorb all of a sudden, right? You can’t take 10 years and just expect it to go away. And so we actually tried reducing it. Now there are things you can do, they can work there. You can do things like egcg epigallocatechin is in the green Green tea you can do things like resveratrol and lipids or curcumin, and you could do systemic enzymes like Sarah peptidase and lembrar kinase, which are helped to metabolize some of that tissue and can work. The question is, can it work fast enough? And so we went the surgical road that the fibroids removed and literally within two months of it being gone pregnant, no problems. And so sometimes that can be an issue. So you have to look at, okay, what’s the root? Cause? You know, do we have some limitations of matter, right? Were those tissues just been hanging out too long? Just the body needs a little bit of a head start getting that tissue removed. And if you got time, you know, do the natural things and just watch and wait, right watch and wait. So if you’re a female listening, and you’re not in a relationship, or you’re not looking to get pregnant anytime soon, but you want to at some point, I just recommend getting good, good workup with your ob gyn to make sure there are no endometriosis or fibroids, endometriosis. This is hard. Typically the only way to figure that out is laparoscopically, little incision for the scoping. So it’s kind of tough to know that one. But you know, usually a lot of the telltale symptoms like the painful periods, like those kind of things, if you’re having those symptoms work with a good functional medicine doc to help it, but keep an eye out on bigger issues, like fibroids and those things so you can act on it early.

Evan Brand: Yeah. Thanks for sharing the story. And now you got two little boys and they’re keeping you busy. So everything worked out.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You got it? Absolutely. So keep that in the back of your mind. Anything else you want to add? On the supplements? I know you were kind of riffing on a couple of adaptogens earlier. Anything else you want to add? You mentioned while you listen tongkat Ali?

Evan Brand: Yeah, so that could be for the men. I would just say during during the you and I’ve talked about this idea before we kind of call pregnancy more like a four trimester thing which women like cringe at like, Oh my God isn’t pregnancy long enough, but not just meaning that there’s a kind of a pre, a preNatal phase that happens before you even get there. Right now kind of a pre, you know, fertility supporting area. So we’ll bring in multis and omegas. And like you said, maybe systemic enzymes will bring in trace minerals, micronutrients, maybe Grass Fed Whey protein, maybe some Oregon supplements. I mean, there’s a lot of things that we can do right away to kind of prep the body before you even get pregnant. It’s not I disagree with this idea of you got, you’ve got a pot of positive pregnancy test start the prenatal, it’s like, No, you could be six weeks in already, like you should have been on the prenatal six months before you got pregnant in my opinion.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and most prenatals I mean, prenatal is a more of a marketing thing, like in some of the prenatals that we recommend, what makes it a prenatal Well, there may just be a little bit more calcium, there may be some extra full weight in there. And of course, everything’s active, full light, no folic acid, everything’s mthfr. Of course, everything’s methylated. There may be some extra iron in there, right? So there may be a couple little nutrients that are a little bit extra. But if you look at a really good high quality multi versus a prenatal they’re going to be about 90 95% At the same Yeah, if you’re getting a high quality couple little tweaks here and there, of course, you may want to add in some extra essential fatty acids cod liver oil, those kind of things I think are are very, very helpful.

Evan Brand: I get so mad I get so mad when you go like if you go to like Whole Foods or I mean even even places like that where you’ll go and you’ll see these little cute gummies in like a clear container. And it’s like six gummies a day and the first ingredients like fructose or fructose tapioca syrup. And it’s like, okay, here you are taking the woman who, you know may not know exactly what’s going on may not understand the root causes, and he or she has eaten these little gummies every day as a prenatal it’s like no, it’s like candy.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally 100% agree. One other thing if you have to go a surgical intervention I recommend personally, if you’re a fertility age and you want to get pregnant that you see someone that has a specialty in reproduction as well as being a gynecologist. I find that certain gynecologist have a A perspective on what’s happening surgically with the goal of removing the tissue, while others have a perspective of that while maintaining fertility. So I find someone that’s a ob ob gyn as well as a reproductive specialist, they looking at the procedure with a lens of keeping fertility intact. So I always recommend if you have to go the surgical route, try to find an OB GYN that also has that reproductive specialty as well. Yep. Good advice. Yeah, I think that’s important. I’ve just seen, I’ve heard too many stories from ob gyns, who don’t have the repro specialty, and they’re just and again, some of these are older stories. They’re too easy. They’re too They jump the gun on just doing a complete hysterectomy or doing a partial hysterectomy just removing the uterus or just removing too much tissue and and that scaffolding of that uterus can collapse and other issues can happen. So I always like to make sure you have someone with an eye Keeping fertility intact.

Evan Brand: Yep. No, I mean that if that’s their job to just remove uterus and ovaries all day Yeah, they may not care about the fertility aspect at all.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s really, really important. And then yeah, and that’s, that’s incredibly important and of course, the most non invasive to invasive is is the best way to go. Anything else having you want to add on the topic? I mean, Today’s been really great. I think we really hit a lot of things from the nutrition aspect to some of the herbs and nutrients just to dovetail that progesterone is a big one we may be adding in progesterone we may be adding in things like chase tree and damiana and different herbs that help modulate maka that modulate estrogen receptor sites and or modulate progesterone and even support progesterone and of course, we’re also supporting the adrenal so all of those key tenants there need to be fully looked at and supported that you want to add anything else that Evan?

Evan Brand: I don’t think so. There’s a Yeah, there’s a good handful of like female supporting herbs, things that we would typically use anyway. To help with like PMS, for example, things that are going to help regulate hormone levels, those things alone can contribute to fertility. So yeah, it’s sometimes where a woman comes to us with a different problem with hormones, they may say, Oh, I eventually want to get pregnant. But right now I need to focus on this major PMS. I’m out of work every week, you know, I’m laying in bed in pain, and we just help regulate hormones using some of those herbs you mentioned there and then fix the gut and then boom, hey, we got pregnant sooner than anticipated. Cool. Let’s go ahead and kind of transition now let’s, you know, let’s get you into this, you know, maternal support phase now and it’s really fun I tell you, there’s there’s nothing better than you know, whether it’s getting a picture in my inbox of a new baby or just a mom telling her birth story. It’s It’s fun, and it’s a very, very rewarding thing. And, and, and I always, I don’t know I like to pop my collar a little bit more after I hear a good story like that, especially when a woman was dealing with the conventional medical world and she was so frustrated. And so hopeless, and then she was able to actually do it naturally. It’s like, Yes, I told you so I told you you could do it because the conventional doctors are obese will be like, nope, you can’t do it. You’re not going to get fertile. You’re too old. Your hormones are too messed up. It’s not gonna happen. And then boom, a baby comes. It’s always just like I told you, so.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I like it. Well, after you talked about popping the collar, I’m gonna I’m gonna join you on that one. There we go. Excellent. Very good. So yeah, I love those stories. I think that’s excellent. We always want to focus on the root cause so just anyone listening we want to make sure our goal is that you’re looking at your fertility from a root cause perspective. If you have to bring a functional medicine doctor in great if you have to bring a conventional fertility MD and great just always make sure you’re looking at the root cause. If you have to go you know more invasive on the IVF or surgery side, that’s fine. Just make sure you exhaust all of the foundational options first, nutritionally and functional medicine wise. And then also make sure your husband’s a part of what’s going on. So Make sure he’s getting tested, his nutrients are assessed. He’s doing all the right things on the fertility side, we can also get a sperm count on him as well make sure sperm numbers are good, you know, at least 50 million, make sure shape and morphology and all that good stuff is dialed in as well to assess that being okay. And of course if, if it’s not, then we have to work on all the nutrients and work on removing a lot of the toxins that we already talked about.

Evan Brand: Yep. So get off the mountain dew. Oh God, we had a friend that was an old friend who was having issue with fellow body and her and her husband both just pounded the Mountain Dew. I’m like, who even drinks Mountain Dew anymore? I mean, it’s like, it’s like 80 grams of sugar per bottle. I was like, oh, get off the mountain dew. So of course, you know, typically people would think everybody around you and I like we’re just the circle of health, our family, our friends and everybody would just listen to us and reach out to us for help. But that’s typically not how it we’re not how it is. So of course they don’t ask me anything. What do they do? They go do IVF they spent, I think it was 15 or $20,000. They did like a fundraiser raise money. It’s like how about just like, let us give you the workup, it’s going to be a fraction of the cost. And you’re going to have, you know, minimal to no risk. I mean, like with other procedures, you know, you could have risk of twins and triplets. I mean, they’re not, you know, death necessarily risk, but there are risk associated with some of these other things. So, it’s just sad. It’s sad that people just don’t know. And, you know, you always say, oh, let’s talk about the root cause of this. It’s like, why is that so revolutionary? That should be the first way people think but it’s not.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% you’re never a prophet in your own town. And also, if women have to go the IVF road, the goal remember the end goal is not just to get pregnant, right? What’s the angle? Let’s huddle up and focus on what’s the end goal the end goal was to have a healthy baby, right that’s that’s the angle and pregnancies one step in that journey. So don’t confuse the first step as success number one, and then number two, If you’re going to engage in more conventional approaches that don’t address the root cause, I strongly urge you to make sure you’re addressing the root cause. So the angle should be having a healthy baby at the end. So just keep that in mind, make sure you are really focused on what the root cause and goals are.

Evan Brand: Let me say one last thing, and then I want to get your take on this real quick. And I love the way you said that, you know, the pregnancy is not just the end all Gold’s it’s the healthy baby and all that. So, you know, what about if a woman does get pregnant, and in an unnatural method, like IVF, for example, but she still has an insulin problem. I’ve seen cases where you could argue with something else, but I would argue that the elevated insulin and the sugar and the carbs and all the crap in the diet could potentially make the baby get too big. And then the doctors are saying, Hey, you know, now you’ve got a nine pounder, we’re gonna have to do a mandatory c section, for example. You know, there’s other complications there.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, just having that high amount of insulin, gestational diabetes. kind of thing going on, which a lot of times the Hopis don’t even acknowledge, really being a diet thing. I mean, I remember going in and my wife was getting testing on the blood sugar, and we were monitoring her blood sugar at home. And the nurse practitioner said, you know, hey, you know, the gestational diabetes is a genetic thing. And I’m like, I literally pulled up a study of like, literally says more grains, and trans fatty acids can actually increase it. And it was like a, it was just, it was like a paradigm thing. It’s like, even though like, if people are conventionally trained, and have to pass all these, you know, mainstream boards for their licensing, they’re not really up to date with the conventional literature in the conventional literature isn’t really injected in the first line therapies for what these doctors and nurses need to know. So it’s kind of sad. So we just want to bring that information everyone on the forefront now so they’re aware of it, and also test the blood sugar and if you’re at high risk for a miscarriage, then you’d want to keep an eye on your progesterone levels. As soon as you get pregnant. One of the easiest first things is using progesterone, an inter-vaginal progesterone probably 200 milligrams or so a day throughout that first trimester can be a godsend for a lot of women. So if you’re at high risk for miscarriage, make sure you keep an eye on testing those progesterone levels, you know, 15 to 20 or so in that first week, couple weeks of getting pregnant and to be important, so keep an eye on that with your ob. So you’re monitoring if you’re high risk.

Evan Brand: Yup. Well said. Well I’m sure I could break off a few of the things but let’s wrap it up and keep on reaching out clinically. We’d love to help you. Justin is available around the world at JustinHealth.com. Me, EvanBrand.com and we’ll be back soon to talk more.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Phenomenal chatting with you all. Have a good day.

Evan Brand: Take Care.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.

---

References:

https://justinhealth.com/

https://www.evanbrand.com/

Audio Podcast:

https://justinhealth.libsyn.com/how-to-enhance-and-support-fertility-with-functional-medicine-podcast-332

Recommended products:

Cycle Balance

Meno Balance

DUTCH Sex Hormones Metabolites

DUTCH Complete Hormone Test

Natural Solutions to Heavy Menstrual Bleeding and PMS | Podcast #299

Dr. J is tackling menstrual irregularities and heavy menstrual flow, symptoms, what your cycle should look like, looking at hormones, when to best test, triggers of irregular cycles, and some tips for helping regulate menstruation.

Most women cope with their PMS and irregular cycles like it’s a normal thing, but really heavy menstrual flow can be a sign of something deeper, maybe even estrogen dominance. Heavy menstrual flow can cause fatigue, lethargy, mood issues, irritability, brain fog, hair loss, and most importantly low iron. Heavy menstruation can drive anemia and low iron which is essential to the body, then it can take weeks to replace iron, by the time you feel more yourself the cycle starts all over again. What can we do? Well Dr. J has much to say from the perspective of a functional practitioner.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

2:54      Menstrual Issues and Terminologies

11:12     Social Isolation, Supplements and Herbs

15:10    Tests for Menstrual Irregularities

17:44    Fasting as Stressor

20:16    Diet Restrictions

The Top 5 Causes of Chronic Headaches

Today we are going to be talking about the top underlying reasons why you may be having a chronic headache. I had a patient come in today who had headaches for 25 years, monthly and chronically, and we were able to get to the root cause and there are many different root causes for every person. Let me lay out the common ones that I find to be a major vector of my patients.

Click here for a consultation with a functional medicine doctor if you are experiencing chronic headaches!

So we have headaches and head pain or migraines where you kind of have that aura and sound sensitivity. There are a couple of different major reasons why headaches may happen.

1. Food Allergens

Most common food allergy is gluten and dairy. There are some studies on gluten affecting blood flow up to the brain. We have these garden hoses on the side of our neck called our carotid arteries. When we have inflammation especially caused by gluten that can decrease blood flow and blood profusion to the frontal cortex, and when you have less blood, you’re going to have decreased performance of the brain. You can see that manifesting in a headache. People don’t know but headaches are actually an issue with vasodilation in the brain.  Caffeine can help as caffeine actually causes constriction and brain’s typical headache signal is caused by vasodilation.

2. Food Additives.

These could be things like MSG, aspartame, Splenda or various artificial colors and dyes.

3. Blood Sugar Fluctuation.

We want to have healthy proteins and healthy fats with every meal. If we skip meals or we eat foods that are too high in carbohydrates and refined “crapohydrates” and sugar, and not enough fats and proteins, our blood sugar can go up and then drop. This is called reactive hypoglycemia. We react by putting a whole bunch of sugar in our bloodstream because all of these carbohydrate sources break down into sugar — processed sugar, grains, flours and acellular carbohydrates. These type of flours and refined processed carbs get converted to glucose in our bloodstream. When glucose goes up, our pancreas goes, “Holy smokes! We got a lot of glucose there. We got to pull it into the cell.” It spits out a whole bunch of insulin and pulls that glucose right down, and we have his blood sugar going up with a lot of insulin driving that blood sugar back down. When that blood sugar goes back down, this is where we have cravings.  This is where we have addictions, mood issues, energy issues, jitteriness, and cognitive issues. Our body makes adrenaline and cortisol to bring that blood sugar back up. Most people literally live on this high insulin where they are making fat, storing fat and engaging in lipogenesis which makes us tired. Then blood sugar crashes which makes people jittery, anxious, and moody. Most people live on this reactive hypoglycemia rollercoaster and that can drive headaches.

4. Gut Infections.

Patients with a lot of gut inflammation, gut permeability, and infections whether it’s H. pylori, SIBO (small intestinal, bacterial overgrowth) or fungal overgrowth have gut stressors can create inflammation in the gut. When we have inflammation in the gut, we have gut permeability. So our tight junctions in our intestines start to open up and undigested bacteria, lipopolysaccharides, food particles can slip through and create an immune response. You can see histamine along with that immune response and histamine can create headache issues.

5. Hormonal Issue.

A woman’s cycle is about 28 days and in the middle is ovulation. Some women have it during ovulation and most have it right at the end just before they menstruate. This is called premenstrual syndrome that is right before menstruation. A lot of women may also have it during menstruation, too. What happens is progesterone can drop out early and that drop in progesterone can actually cause headache manifestations and also the aberrations in estrogen can also cause headaches as well. We may also see it with excessive bleeding too. So if you’re bleeding a lot or too much, what may happen is you may lose iron and that low iron may cause oxygenation issues.  That low level of oxygen may also cause some headache issues as well.  Because if you can’t carry oxygen, that is going to be a stressed-out situation for your mitochondria and your metabolism. For menopausal women who have chronically low hormones and they’re not in an optimal place, that can create issues. Progesterone and estrogen can be very anti-inflammatory. So if there is inflammation in the brain, progesterone is a powerful anti-inflammatory and that can really help a lot of inflammation in the brain.

If you have any questions about headaches, please reach out to a functional medicine doctor to find a way to fix your issue.

Histamine Intolerance and Root Causes | Podcast #289

Hey, guys! We have a new podcast today with Dr. J and Evan Brand talking about histamine intolerance and possible root causes. We start with symptoms of histamine intolerance. While mostly linked to allergic reactions, they can be IBS, cramping, anxiety, dizziness/vertigo, fatigue, flushing, hives, brain fog, and more. Often, you’ll see these overlap as symptoms of hypothyroid, adrenal issues, or Hashimotos. So, what next?

Nutrients important to helping break down histamine are DOA enzymes, Vitamin C, Copper, and B6 (very important to neurotransmitters). We know that gut permeability and absorbing the nutrients you need can be difficult in itself when mixed with gut irritation, stress, and/or certain symptoms and this becomes a triple-edged sword. You need the nutrients to break down the histamine but your body can’t break them down because it’s stressed, overwhelmed, or not working as it should and you don’t want to eat certain foods you used to be able to consume because the histamine’s memory is messed up and you’re exhibiting more food allergies. It can be overwhelming, so then what?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani shares common foods that increase the histamine response, palliative solutions for relief, and the reality behind finding the root cause.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

1:00 Symptoms of histamine intolerance

10:57 How to metabolize histamine

12:59 Testing for histamine, histamine markers and root cause

19:03 Histamine medications

24:06 Hormonal link

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Hey, guys! It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here.  I hope you guys are having a fabulous week.  We are gonna be diving in to histamine intolerances and functional medicine solutions and what we do in our clinics.  Evan, welcome to the show, man.  How are we doing brother?

Evan Brand:  Hey, I’m glad to be here and glad to talk about this subject.  Something that I used to look at and I was confused by.  I would look at these histamine issues and I would say, “This just doesn’t make sense.”  Why does Jane Doe over here, why is she able to eat XYZ food and then you’ve got the other lady over here, and she can’t eat leftovers and she can’t eat mushrooms, and she can’t eat smoked meats, and she can’t eat ketchup, and she can’t do dried fruit without having problems?  And I was like, “Okay, what the heck is going on?”  Why, why, why.  I didn’t understand it and now that you and I have worked on this issue a thousand plus times, we start to find some connections.  And so, let’s first talk about some of the symptoms of histamine intolerance.  Many of these are similar to allergic reactions and allergic reactions can create histamine.  It could be anything from gut symptoms like IBS could be related to histamine, so abdominal cramping.  Anxiety could be part of it.  Dizziness, believe it or not, dizziness, vertigo could be part it.  Fatigue could be related.  Flushing, so when you rash out like on your skin or it could be your face from certain foods, like when you see people rashing out from alcohol, like red-faced from alcohol that could be histamine.  Alcohol is high in histamine and then it’s also gonna reduce DAO, right?  It’s gonna block the enzyme that helps metabolize histamine.  I believe that’s true.  Is that right that alcohol is high histamine?  I know it messes with DAO but is it high histamine as well?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Um, alcohol—what alcohol does, it’s also a histamine blocker.

Evan Brand:  Right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It also blocks the metabolism of histamine and it just depends because a lot of alcohol, there’s fermentation in the alcohol.  So of course, the fermentation will create histamine as well.  So it’s a combination of the two.  I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be histamine in it due to fermentation, right?  Like wine will be, you know, fermented or beer, and then of course, if there’s gluten in there, the inflammation could create more histamine and then you have the effects of blocking histamine as well.

Evan Brand:  Yeah that, it is a double whammy.  Yeah, here it is right here.  It talks about how like for example, red wine has up to 24 mg per liter of histamine while champagne has 670 mg of histamine per liter.  So of course, heart rate, flushing, those type of symptoms from drinking alcohol is no good.  But the problem is you’re depleting DAO.  DAO is what’s gonna help you—diamine oxidase.  It’s gonna help you to break down histamine that you ingest and so if you’re putting in histamine and reducing the ability to metabolize it.  You get in bad shape.  I got a few more symptoms and we can go on and on and one.  I mean, any list online you look at may have 50 different symptoms.  So blood pressure issues or blood pressure changes, itching—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yup.

Evan Brand:  So like the back of legs, you could just have itching.  I mean, for lack of a better word, it’s not necessarily a rash there but you could just be itching.  Nasal issues, sinus problems, nausea, and then swelling.  So like—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Evan Brand:  Tissue swelling.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.  I mean you see a lot of it with Asians and alcohol.  For instance, Asians typically will get flushed when they drink alcohol because they’re missing genetically some enzymes to be able to handle it and they take a lot of Pepcid AC which is like an H2 blocker.  So a lot of times you’ll see that with alcohol and you’ll see it in certain ethnicities.  They’ll miss certain enzymes to be able to metabolize it.  I’d be curious how someone of that ethnicity would do with like extra DAO.  I wonder if the DAO would work over just a—over a histamine blocker so to speak.  Because we know the side effects in some of those medications, you know, can be drowsiness, brain fog, you know, not so good symptoms either and a lot of times you’re just trading one symptom for another.  Hope—

Evan Brand:   I bet it would—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Side effects or less.

Evan Brand:  I bet it would work great.  I mean, I’ve done some experimentation with DAO.  If I have certain foods that will irritate me, like a big spice blend of you know, curry and cayenne and chili powder and cinnamon and those type of things.  Those can all irritate things, so I’ll take some DAO if I’m gonna do something with like a mixed spice blend and I feel fine with it.  I don’t really have any issue with dried fruit.  I know that’s an issue for some people but I’ll do like some freeze-dried blueberries just to see what happens and I feel fine.  So I think some of this stuff is there’s gonna be a spectrum of sensitivity with this.  Some people are gonna be extremely histamine-intolerant and then some people are gonna be totally fine.  So we’re trying to cater to all of those people.  If you’re somebody who—you can’t do fish, for example.  If it’s fresh-caught and freshly eaten or fresh-caught and flash-frozen for example.  That should be okay but if you’ve had, you know, fish that’s kinda sitting out at the market, open-air, you know that may be a bigger problem than if it were flash-frozen like on the ship,  I know there’s a couple of companies out there like Vital that they’ll freeze the fish as soon as they catch it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yes.

Evan Brand:  And those are supposed to be well-tolerated.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  100%.  So you kinda went over like some of the symptoms, right?  The common ones, the flushing, the wheels or the urticaria, kinda hives on the skin, brain fog stuff, headache stuff.  It could just be allergy stuff like itching or sneezing or eye wateriness.  It could be fatigue.  It could be breathing issues.  It could be just swelling or inflammation or heart rate.  It’s just pounding, kind of the abnormal heart rate beating.  Now the problem is a lot of these symptoms can overlap with hypothyroid.  A lot of these symptoms can overlap with Hashimoto’s and adrenal issues.  This is the problem.  It’s this big overlap so that you get people that are like the histamine person or the adrenal person and you’re like, “But what’s the issue?  Is it an adrenal issue?  Is it a histamine issue?”  And this is where it gets really tough because you’re trying to seek out whose that person that can help me with this issue and the problem is everything overlaps.  So imagine like a venn diagram and then you have all these different issues, adrenal or thyroid, or histamine or gut, and then they all overlap in the middle and a lot of times that’s where people’s health issues, you know, really sit and you need a very good generalist to kinda parse these out because sometimes when we have these issues we don’t really focus on histamine, we focus on other things.  Like when you just magically reduce inflammation in the body through diet, lifestyle, supplement strategies, magically histamine can drop.  And we actually do need some histamine because histamine is a big stimulator of hydrochloric acid.  So it’s like, well, if you don’t have no histamine then we’re not gonna have good HCl stimulation and we know HCl is so important for digestion.  So it’s this, you know, it’s not like one of these things where we wanna just knock histamine down to nothing, right?  But we wanna modulate and prevent the, you know, the abnormal highs of it which tends to be driving a lot of the symptoms.

Evan Brand:  Yeah, that’s a great point and many people don’t hit that if you talk about the word histamine.  It’s sort of like a bad bacteria.  It’s just kill, kill, kill, kill, knock it down, knock it down, knock it down, knock it down but yeah, you’re right.  I mean, it’s a neurotransmitter and it does affect the immune system, too.  So it’s not something that you want zero off.  I know—I don’t know the exact mechanism but I know histamine has some role on energy like your sleep-wake cycle is somehow related to histamine.  Appetite, I know is involved with histamine.  So there’s a lot of things that people just, they skip out on and then they get on these H1, H2 blockers and then who knows what’s happening downstream?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah, I mean histamine is part of the stress or inflammation response.  I mean, it can cause clots.  It can cause cells to get more sticky.  It can cause your lungs to constrict a little bit more.  It can cause more swelling and fluid retention.  It can open up the blood vessels partly because imagine if you bang your elbow, right?  What happens?  Does it get more swollen or less swollen?  It gets more swollen.  Why?  Because of the inflammatory response.  It’s driving vasodilation, meaning it’s opening up the blood vessels.  Why?  Well, to help bring the immune cells there to help kind of bring the inflammation and recovery process under control.  So the problem is a lot of these mechanisms, they’re acute punctuated mechanisms.  They’re on then they’re off.  With chronic inflammation in the system through gut or other hormonal imbalances, it’s on and then it stays on and then now that it’s on, certain foods that may have been—may have not been a problem before, now perpetuate the problem.  Does that make sense?

Evan Brand:  Yes, it does.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So it becomes this vicious cycle where like, yeah, you may be fine.  You should be able to have some kombucha and some bacon, but now because of the inflammation.  Now that bacon’s a trigger, now the kombucha is a trigger, now the citrus fruits are a trigger, now the good avocados are a trigger, and it’s like people are pulling their hair.  They’re like, “What is going on?  I don’t get it.  These are good foods.  What’s happening?”  And they have to look deeper at of course, you know, when we look at the symptoms, the first thing I do is I say, “Okay, let’s try cutting some of these histamines out of our diet food-wise, do we feel better?  Yes or no?”  That tells me something and if that helps, then we look at, okay, let’s work on better digesting our foods, number two.  Let’s work at gut infections because we know the microbiome, if out of balance, can really create these abnormal histamine responses and we know how the microbiome is so important with gut permeability and that increases autoimmune issues, hence, thyroid, hence adrenal, hence gut issues, irritable bowel disease, so everything can just really spiral out of control if the microbiome is not there, if the food is not there, and of course, if stress is there, we know what the sympathetic nervous system response does in regards to burning up our B vitamins and decreasing HCl and enzymes and decreasing dopamine and adrenaline over the time and then we also know that certain nutrients are gonna be vital for histamine—for making the enzymes to break down histamine, right?  We know certain enzymes, the DAO enzymes are really important and we know vitamin C.  We know copper.  We know B6.  B6 gets burnt down so much during stress, it’s very important for our neurotransmitters, and we also know that if we have low stomach acid levels and we’re stressed, we’ll be burning them up at a much higher level and we know that when our gut microbiome is out of balance, we have more bad stuff than good stuff.  We know that the bad microbes will be eating those nutrients versus making it and we know those bad microbes will be actually making more histamine byproducts as well.  So it’s this double-edged sword, when the gut’s out of balance, we eat the nutrients we need to break down histamine, the bad bacteria makes more of the histamine and then we don’t get a lot of those nutrients absorbed that help us make the enzymes to degrade histamine.  It’s a triple-edged sword.

Evan Brand:  Yeah and then think about, too, you need vitamin C to help reduce or sort of metabolize histamine for lack of a better word and a lot of people are gonna be pulling out citrus, even like lime-lemon.  Those are kinda demonized in the histamine world, if you are reacting to it.  So now, you don’t have enough vitamin C.  So I’ll try to supplement vitamin C personally and clinically and see if it helps and in many cases, it does.  So we’ll have people do quercetin which is in the vitamin C family to help stabilize mast cells that way we can prevent the release of histamine.  At least in theory, if we take a, you know, a shot of 500 mg of quercetin before—when I say a shot, I mean a powder, put in a shot glass with a shot of water and I’ll shoot it down like a 500 mg quercetin before a meal and then mix a little vitamin C with it and that tends to help reduce some of the reactions and then also the DAO before meals.  Let’s go in, just real quick list and then we’ll keep talking because you hit on something that I think people miss the boat on which is that and this is something you and I talked about before we hit record, which is that histamine intolerance or histamine issues are in effect.  What is the cause?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Correct.

Evan Brand:  So if histamine issues—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Correct.

Evan Brand:  Are in effect, what is the cause?  So let’s rant on that more in a minute but we hit the alcohol, fermented foods, cheeses, smoked foods, shellfish—many people that say they have a shellfish allergy, we suspect it’s a histamine issue—beans, nuts—my voice cracked, I said nuts, almonds, nuts.  I don’t know why but certain nuts get moldier than others, so for example like macadamias, for some reason, those and cashews tend to be more intolerable versus I find a lot of people do well with almonds.  Chocolate, vinegar, tomatoes, citrus.  So those are kinda like the histamine triggers but let’s go back to the gut because what you were saying is that the gut bacteria are gonna be doing several things.  They’re gonna messing up the gut barrier.  They’re gonna be producing histamine.  So regarding testing, if someone says, “Hey, how are you gonna test me for histamine?”  Let’s dive into that because the answer is we’re not directly gonna test you for histamine, correct?  We’re gonna be—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Evan Brand:  Looking deeper.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Correct.  I mean, there’s the markers like the, you can do the tryptase marker.  It’s a tryptase enzyme marker that you can do.  When you break down histamine.  DAO is one of these enzymes that helps break it down and there’s also histamine N-methyltransferase (HNMT).  I think you can also test some of those enzymes.  But for me, I just—I make clinical changes with the diet and I also give specific supplements and I let those symptoms kinda dictate.  But we also understand that that’s not root cause and this is where it’s very important where a lot of functional medicine people.  I see it a lot with naturopaths where they’ll kinda come in there and they’ll use supplements to just treat symptoms and they’re not getting to the root cause.  So we always have—I always draw a line with patients.  What’s gonna be palliative changes to allow you to feel better in the meantime and then number two is what’s gonna be more root cause.  Because sometimes root cause stuff’s a little bit slow and that’s not good if you need relief now.  So we need to figure out a way to get relief now, like you mentioned some of the natural antihistamines—stinging nettle, quercetin, NAC, bromelain, kidney tissue that has the DAO enzyme, maybe B6, copper, zinc, good quality multi.  So we’ll do those things.  We’ll make the diet changes.  We’ll look deeper at the gut and the adrenals because we know steroids also are part of what’s given to address some of these issues, right?  From a symptomatic standpoint.  We know steroids, like the big medication we know are the H1 receptors and H2 receptors are the big ones, right?  We know the H1s like your Benadryl and your Claritin, these are the H1 histamine receptor blockers.  The Benadryl, the Claritin, right?  And then the H2 ones are gonna be like your Peptid AC, right?  H1 is gonna be more the histamines in the muscles, where H2 histamine is gonna be more in the intestines in the abdomen and that’s gonna be affect the heart.  So H1, H2, so keep that in mind.  Those are the big ones.  There’s actually H1 through H4, but the big meds are H1, H2 and we know that the medications can be helpful but they have a lot of side effects and we have to be very careful with that.  And we also know that the gut and all these nutrients play a huge role and when we look at the nutrients, we have to one, get a good quality multivitamin there that’s gonna have a lot of these nutrients that are gonna be bio-available so we can absorb it easily and number two, we have to get our digestion under control and number three, we have to look at other issues deeper.  That could be a mold issue or it could even be a Lyme or a co-infection issue.  I always table Lyme stuff unless there’s a strong history of tick bites, I always table it and deal with the gut first and the adrenals and hormones even before that and then personally after that I’ll—I typically will deal with mold—Evan and I may differ on this.  I’ll typically look at and test mold right away if there’s a strong history, water damage in the home, history of visible mold or if we’re on the fence, we do a plate test or a urinary mold test or hey, do you feel better when you leave your house for a week, right?  If those symptoms are there, we’ll look a little bit deeper and we’ll test.  I typically don’t go after and address mold right away because a lot of how the mold is removed is via the hepatobiliary system so that’s liver, gallbladder, gut, and the stools.  So if we don’t have great gut issues, a lot of times we can re-absorb stuff.  A lot of the binders that we may give to help pull out mold can actually cause constipation, so I always fix the gut, fix the gut motility, fix digestion before going after mold but we can at least test in the person, the patient.  Test it in the house and we can at least start making house changes right away.

Evan Brand:  Yeah, so I go after it straight away regarding testing but yeah, you’re right.  You gotta get people pooping before you go and do binders.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yes.

Evan Brand:  And a lot of times like some of the binders you and I are using have folic acid so constipation is really an issue and if you’re bumping up magnesium and vitamin C and that kinda stuff, generally it’s no big deal but how I approach it is that way you mentioned, plus what will make me go after it more beyond just history is just looking at the mold symptoms.  So in my intake form now, I’ve got like 25 different symptoms and if they check off more than a handful, we’re like, “Huh, this doesn’t look good.”  So we’ll look into it and a lot of times, I mean, it’s showing positive.  One thing I wanted to mention on the drug piece, you did a great job talking about like all the over-the-counter stuff that people get into on their own now.  So the Zantac and the Pepcid and the Benadryl and the Zyrtec and the Allegra that kinda stuff, those antihistamines may work in the short term but we’re gonna downregulate DAO and you get for lack of a better word, you get stuck on it because now you don’t have enough DAO so, therefore, histamine rises more than it did before.  And then one other thing, too, is that—and there’s a lot of people talking in forums about this on antidepressants and I don’t know exactly the mechanism.  Maybe it’s depleting DAO, maybe it’s increasing histamine.  I don’t have the mechanism and the study right in front me but if you just look at histamine intolerance Zoloft or histamine intolerance Cymbalta, Effexor, these really, really extremely in fact common prescribed and commonly dosed antidepressants—those cause histamine problems.  So how many people out there, in fact, there was a lady who had a big website dedicate to this which was histamine intolerance after discontinuing Zoloft, and so I don’t even know if the science is clear on it but a lot of people are talking about this.  So if you have been doing an antidepressant and now you’re reacting to more foods that may be something to look into.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah and also, so we talked about some of the big medications, right?  A lot of the Allegra, the Zyrtec, the Benadryl, a lot of the H2, 1 blockers, right?  Here’s the rub here and this is where it gets really, really, really, really confusing is that we talked about how histamine is actually needed to make hydrochloric acid.  So guess what happens with this histamine medications.  They also reduce acid levels and guess what happens when you reduce your acid levels.  Now your digestion goes down south.  What happens when your digestion goes down south?  Now you start to have more SIBO and bacterial overgrowth.  Guess what SIBO and bacterial overgrowth does.  It produces more histamine metabolism.  So it’s this unbelievable vicious cycle people get on and it’s—

Evan Brand:  Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Very, very frustrating.  Not to mention that okay, there’s the other class of medications that help with histamine, guess what.  They’re corticosteroid-based.  You see it with Singulair, right?  Or a lot of these steroid-based medications, well, maybe our adrenals are so weak, we don’t have enough of our natural cortisol, corticosteroids, so we’re not—we have to fix the adrenals with it as well because the adrenals help make that that corticosteroid called cortisol which helps with our natural inflammation and if we can’t put the fire of inflammation in our body out every day that fire is gonna run rampant and create more inflammation and that inflammation is gonna drive more histamine issues and like we talked about before, all of those histamine medications, they deplete the DAO enzyme so then the histamine that’s made, it hangs out way, way longer so it’s not just about making histamine.  It’s about now you can’t break it down so now it stays at the party.  It’s like it’s the guy at the party that just lingers way too long.  It’s like you should be out of here, dude, right?  Closing time.  But that’s what’s happening with histamine in our body.

Evan Brand:  Oh, man.  Well, it’s not to say that we’re saying, “Hey, don’t do those drugs.”  But man, it would be a lot of better if before you get to the point where you get put on a daily Zyrtec or a daily Allegra or something like that or a Zantac or a Pepcid, it would be so much better if we could just stop those people and just say, “Hang on, hang in there.  I know you’re symptomatic.  I know you need relief.  Hang on.  Let’s try some of these herbal antihistamines.  Let’s give you some extra Vitamin C, maybe some extra DAO.  Let’s get you on maybe some leaky gut support.  Let’s get you on low histamine diet for now.  Let’s run a stool test.  Let’s run organic acids.  Figure out what’s going on.  Let’s test your environment.  Hang tight.”  And then if we could do that, it’s just such a deep rabbit hole.  It seems like every time you and I do a conversation on a different health aspect, there’s always a drug that’s involved in terms of being palliative but it seems like there’s always a double-edged sword to that.  No matter what the topic is.  Isn’t it funny how you and I always end up here?  It’s like crap.  The drug helped but now it actually put us in a bigger hole and now we gotta get them out of this hole because now they are downregulated of DAO even more than they were before.  It’s like, ugh!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.  This is the problem, right?  And so, in general we gotta look at the adrenals, gotta look at the inflammation because if you’re taking steroids, we need to have our natural anti-inflammatories going.  We have to be very careful of the medication.  If we’re using the medication, fine, use it sparingly, but just know it’s gonna create more dependency in the long run.  Also, I’d say a big thing is environmental allergens.  Environmental allergens can dry histamine.  So imagine like we have this big stress bucket, right?  And I’ve given this analogy a lot over the years.  We put our stress balls in this bucket.  When that bucket fills up and overflows, this is where symptoms happen.  So, some people they come in genetically with a big bucket.  They can handle a lot.  They can deal with more stress and they have more adaptability.  Some come in with a small bucket and that bucket is already half full because they are exposed to mold, right?  Or heavy metals or they’re not eating organic.  So that now they’re bucket’s already at the very top and then you add in a little bit of gut dysbiosis or you add in some environmental allergens—BOOM! Histamine symptoms are going crazy now.  So we have to look at that.  So one of the first things is get the stressors out of that bucket and a lot of times so those stressors could be things unrelated to histamine, right?

Evan Brand:  Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  So that could be just eating organic, clean water.  The other component is environmental allergens can be a big deal.  If you’re out in Austin.  Cedar is big this time of the year.  You’re breathing in cedar and that hangs out in your sinuses all day and you don’t have a good air filter at home at night then you’re in this stressed-out state because that cedar’s up in your nose causing problems.  So my protocol with patients is we have a really good sinus irrigation system to flush thing’s out.  We clean it out with saline and Xly or Xylitol to knock out any biofilm.  We do it twice a day especially once we come in for the day, we are flushing our sinuses out so it’s clean for the day and we have really good air filtration so then when we are resting at night we are not in this fight or flight state because all the cedar is up in our frontal sinuses creating inflammation all night.  We flush it out once we come inside.  We flush it out when we start the day.  We may even do it midday if we’re really bad just to keep our immune system from overreacting and then we gotta have that clear air filtration at night so when we come home our immune system can relax.  Because if these environmental things are just keeping us in a fight or flight state, it’s gonna be hard to feel better.

Evan Brand:  Yeah, so you’re basically saying, “Let’s try to get some of the things in the bucket, the external histamine bucket down, that way potentially you could tolerate that food and then we’re working behind the scenes to work on the gut and reduce some of the bacteria making histamine there.”  Now here’s one thing we didn’t hit upon yet which is the hormonal link and so I have had many women say that they’re symptoms are worse right before their period starts and I’ve heard of many women who are postmenopausal who are now doing like estrogen replacement and other hormones and estrogen decreases the breakdown of histamine because it actually messes up with DAO, too.  Estrogen can lower DAO.  So if you think about all these women that were doing birth control pills or hormones or anything to mess up estrogen or you just think about the thousands of ways we’re exposed to the xenoestrogens in the environment like reheating our food in plastic and drinking from single-use water bottles that got exposed to sun and things like that.  The whole estrogen-histamine link is big and maybe that’s why we see so many more women than men, you know, I would say it’s a vast majority.  We see a lot more women deal with histamine problems than men.  I think it’s probably due to the hormonal changes and so like if we’re looking at that stool, you hit upon the gut bugs.  When we’re looking at the stool, we’re also gonna look at that glucuronidation pathway and if we see that that’s messed up, and if they’re taking hormones or if they just have estrogen dominance as a history, that’s gonna mess them up more.  So we have to address that as well.  So if you go to the gut guy and he hits on your gut and gives you some herbs there and you don’t get better, the hormonal piece and I guess that would factor in to your adrenals, too, because the adrenal test that we’re looking at, you know, that’s gonna look at hormones, too.  So we’d probably kill 2 birds with 1 stone there.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:   Exactly and also I would say, so you’re—what you’re proposing as a mechanism is that estrogen helps break down histamine?

Evan Brand:  No, so estrogen depletes DAO.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Okay, so when you’re estrogen’s too high, you’re depleting DAO.

Evan Brand:  That’s right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Okay, so if you’re estrogen-dominant, you’re gonna be depleting DAO.

Evan Brand:  Uh-hmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  I would also say that when a woman goes through PMS, what’s happening in PMS, right? PMS is premenstrual syndrome, so right before menstruation that’s right at the heart of the luteal phase, if progesterone drops out early, that’s a lot of times what’s driving PMS.  That one, that enhances the estrogen dominance, right?  So high levels of estrogen deplete DAO, that supports and kind of, you know, backs up your mechanism there.  The other thing is progesterone is an anti-inflammatory.  Progesterone is a precursor to steroids like cortisol.  What do you get when you take Singulair?  You’re increasing cortisol.  If your progesterone is dropping out too soon?  What does that mean?  Less anti-inflammatory building block, right?  So all of this makes sense.  We’re trying to be the bridge to connect these hormonal issues to the deeper histamine but also connect the gut issues because it’s all connected, you know, in the interwebs of functional medicine.  So progesterone, estrogen dominance, all makes sense.  Progesterone anti-inflammatory.  Progesterone drops out too soon, that’s the PMS symptomatology there and that’s what driving the inability to regulate inflammation and then also estrogen dominance, right?  Estrogen higher in relation to the progesterone will deplete DAO which is the enzyme that cleans us histamine.  So all of this makes so much sense.

Evan Brand:  Yeah, and there’s a couple of papers on this, too, about the estrogen effects and allergy and asthma, and there are these papers kinda talking about women that are doing supplemental hormones and all of a sudden they’ve got new-onset asthma when they’ve never had it before and it started after they were doing hormones, and so that talks about how boosting up the hormones is affected the mast cells too much and then that’s creating more of an inflammatory chemical-release of histamine and probably other mediators, too.  So this is interesting and I think this is probably the answer.  I didn’t really know this but until I looked at it but it makes sense why we see so many more women than men suffering.  What you say clinically, I mean, women as a whole more in general but with this specific issue, would you say what you’ve seen is more women than men?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Women’s hormones are much more of a symphony that happens throughout the month and it’s very easy for a symphony to turn into noise, right?  If the strings aren’t in there with the percussion instruments, you’re gonna get noise.  So when you start to have hormones a little bit out of balance, it’s gonna affect women in their ability to deal with stress and part of those stressors could be histamine.  So that’s really important and with stress in our environment, we are going to knock down progesterone and with a lot of the estrogens being in our environment, in plastics, pesticides, various chemicals, water, it just only drives more estrogen dominance, right?  It just drives more of these histamine issues.  So it totally makes sense but we have solutions and functional medicine is gonna be the best thing because we know just throwing birth control pills in there, guess what?  That depletes DAO further because that’s just heightening estrogen dominance, right?  And then just throwing in there antihistamines, well, guess what?  That creates more low stomach acid situations.  That’s gonna make digestion harder, breaking down proteins and fats harder, and that’s gonna perpetuate more SIBO, right?  Because if we don’t have good digestion, bacteria proliferate and an environment where there’s not good digestion.

Evan Brand:  Humans always have to complicate things, don’t they?  Will all the drugs, it’s like, “Darn it!”  I mean, without the drugs, I know drugs save lives, drugs save people, antidepressants prevent people from committing suicide and you know, heart drugs help stabilize the heart rhythm and blood pressure drugs help get the blood pressure down so they don’t have stroke.  I mean, I know drugs are needed, but man, every time we uncover some of these connections between the medications and these deeper issues, it’s just like ahhh.  I wish—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  I know.

Evan Brand:  We could save people from getting on them.  Yeah, if people just wanna look up, you just put in like estrogen DAO or you put in like sex hormone DAO, you’ll find some papers on this stuff.  It’s just—it’s pretty crazy how connected this stuff is and so.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It is.

Evan Brand:  We’re trying to cover it all.  It’s tough to do what we’re doing in half an hour but we’re trying to make sure you address hormones, you address gut, you address adrenals, you address the sleep, you address the diet, you have to hit all of these pieces if you fully wanna beat this issue.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Exactly.  Well, to get more info on this, guys, head on to evanbrand.com to reach out to Evan and schedule with him.  You can also head over to Dr. J, myself, at justinhealth.com.  We’re here to help you guys.  We’re available worldwide via Skype, Facetime, phone, video consultation.  We’re here to help.  Just make sure you guys take one piece of intel from this conversation today.  Apply it to your health and life.  We hope that you guys understand some of the deeper mechanisms and why some of the medications may help acutely but long term may set you up for more problems.  I hope you guys enjoyed it.  Sharing is caring.  Give us a share.  Put your comments down below.  If you’re suffering from histamine, let us know.  We’re curious about it.  We wanna engage in a deeper conversation and hope you guys enjoyed the podcast.  Evan, anything else?

Evan Brand:  No, that’s it.  Y’all take care.  Have a great day.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Take care, guys.  Bye y’all.

Evan Brand:  Bye.

---

References:

https://justinhealth.com/

Audio Podcast:

https://justinhealth.libsyn.com/histamine-intolerance-and-root-causes-podcast-289

Functional Medicine Tips to Survive the Holidays | Podcast #262

Happy Monday! It’s the holiday season and everybody is feeling the holiday rush. As much as we are excited for the holidays, it is also important to keep our body sane and healthy. Today’s chat will be all about functional medicine tips and tricks to keep our health, sanity and stresses down in the holiday season. Check out this episode to learn more.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

00:40 Portable IQ Air

5:35 Stave off stress during Holiday Season

14:38 Nebulizing

25:04 Air and Water Filtration for travels

31:34 Tips on Traveling

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And we are live it’s Dr. J here in the house, Evan, how we doing today my friend?

Evan Brand: Hey man, Happy Monday. I’m glad to be back. I took a week off and felt like a month off. And I was like, God, I can’t wait to get back to work. So I’m glad I’m here.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally man, I hundred percent agree. So that’s good. We got the holiday season. We are here in the thick of it. I know you were off in Florida this last week trying to get some sun and some good rays. Let’s kind of chat a little bit today about you know, functional medicine tips and tricks that we can do to keep our health and our sanity and our stress down in the holiday season.

Evan Brand: Yeah, so why don’t we start talking about just the travel component and then we could go wherever you want in terms of like herbs to help the immune system and nervous system. I think there’s a lot of cool directions we can take this but I’ll just start out with the air travel because I just got off the plane yesterday. Right? And it wasn’t terrible, but I’m not a huge fan of air travel for many reasons. And one is just The air pollution the fact that you’ve got, there’s no fresh air on airplanes, they’re pumping the cabin full of the research related or recycled air from the exhaust of the engines. And so it’s just really not a good place for fresh air. So what I did and some may say, Oh, this is extreme or whatever, but that’s why you’re listening to us because you want to be the best and you want to be the healthiest you can be. So what I have is the portable IQ air. It’s pronounced autumn, but it’s spelled atom at em. It’s like a desk It looks like a little UFO. And it’s a portable air purifier. We have one in our car that hooks up to the 12 volt outlet. But then we also have another one that we can take for travel and they have a portable battery pack that they sell with it and it fit inside of my backpack, no problem on my carry on bag. And I put this little portable half the air purifier on my tray table on the plane ride with the battery pack and cranked it up on high and you couldn’t even hear it because of the engine noise of the plane. And my my two daughters and my wife and I all got fresh hepa pure air Right in our face, we just angled the vent of it. So it pumped our direction. And the air was noticeably cleaner and more pure. And we’re not talking just filtering jet fuel, you know, you’re filtering potential mold on the plane, you’re filtering out the neighboring people’s perfumes and colognes and all that. So it’s just one simple way to try to reduce your exposure to toxins. And if you’re weak from an immune perspective, hopefully that’s filtering out some bacteria and viruses and other things like that. I mean, I remember, I don’t know if it was this year, last year, whenever it was, I think it was when you went to Mexico and you came back and it was like you picked up a cold from the plane because the plane was Germany or something. So it’s like, I’m not going to say this is a cure all, but I think it’s a good preventative medicine.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I like it. So the IQ air the ATEM. Okay, cool. We’ll put some links below. And that’s a good portable one, huh?

Evan Brand: It’s gorgeous to It’s very pretty. You can control it from your phone if you want to. You can you know Turn up the speed turn down the speed, there’s blue light on it that you can turn off. So overall, it’s a very, very good portable setup. And when we were in hotel rooms as well, we would just unplug the battery pack and plug up the wall outlet. And then we would just crank it on high in the hotel room and then boom, by the time you step back in your hotel room, you’ve got real fresh air in there as well,

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: that says absolutely great. And then did you use the atem desk or the atem car or?

Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah, good question. So the car is better, because there is an extra layer of carbon or something involved in the car versus the desk. So I only recommend buying the car version and then you can just use it inside your home as well. That is great. That’s awesome. And then you can bring that with you on trips and then you have that extra bit of air filtration. That is awesome. And could you use it in like a kid’s bedroom or a bedroom? Oh, totally. Yeah, I mean, it was the perfect white noise to for the kids to take a nap. We just cranked it on high and it’s just a nice white noise but then you know the kids are breathing in pure air too. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And can you keep all the lights turned off to?

Evan Brand: yep on the app. You can just go boom, and then the blue light turns off. So it’s just a completely dark air filter.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great. Awesome. I like the ones that are small and portable. Some of the ones that I have by the Austin area great, but that, you know, they’re not quite as portable, you know?

Evan Brand: Yeah, you can’t put it in a suitcase, you know, and like, you know, other people, Dr. mercola, he had promoted these like neck things where it’s like a portable ionizer that you wear on your neck, I bought one those things are garbage. This thing is way better. I mean, it’s a hepa filtration versus, you know, people try to say, oh, here’s a negative ion generator that you wear on your neck. It’s like, No, those are so stupid. This is way, way better and more functional.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And what does it cost to change out those filters?

Evan Brand: I got an extra filter when I bought it. I think the extra filter was maybe 100 bucks. Don’t quote me on that. Okay, good. And you can monitor the filter life from your app. So it’ll say, hey, you’ve got 89% left of your filter, and then it’ll give you a notification when the filter needs to be changed.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, God, that’s cool. So I like the air filtration aspect of I think it’s powerful because Air Quality is important, especially on the airplane. I mean, you know, I think you may only be able to do so much because you have so much recycled air coming through. So, in general may not move the needle too much, but I think it’s really cool to have it in your hotel room, especially people using whole bunch of cleaning products that you know, aren’t as nice. It’s nice to have that good quality air filtration at least in the room. That’s great.

Evan Brand: Yeah, filters out the voc right. So yeah, if you had you know, we did request fragrance free hotel rooms and made sure they only clean with vinegar and all that. So it helped a little bit but filter would help reduce or remove any other voc if you’re sensitive like I am.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. And we’re really diving into the functional medicine and natural health kind of principles to stave off stress during the holiday season and when traveling and such that’s really the title and the topic of today’s chat. So off the bat we also can be utilizing natural antioxidants to help deal with stress when we’re flying to. I’m always a big fan of when flying or travel or vacation starts. I’m going to be adding in include a phone and or glue to find precursors. This is kind of our body’s natural, very most powerful antioxidant to try peptide antioxidant. And we’re going to use this at higher levels to deal with stress from travel, just the radiation you’re exposed to and traveling. We’re also going to do maybe natural medicinal mushrooms or herbs like a strapless and geographics. akinesia. We’re going to be doing things like this to help bump up our immune system in my supplement line at protocol them, you know, Supreme, and that’s powerful that has a couple of different herbs in there, some medicinal mushrooms and it has some of the stragglers and akinesia that kind of get your immune system right ready. So it’s just kind of getting those natural killer cells up and ready on attention. So if we get exposed any viruses or bugs, we’re more likely to stave off an attack. So herbal support medicinal mushrooms, Reishi, [inaudible], ekenasia, these are going to be very powerful and then of course things to new actually deal with oxidative stress which could be glued, if I own high dose vitamin C, which is going to help include if I own as well. I’d also say you could even add in some natural anti inflammatory support like curcumin, but I’d say if you’re going to keep it simple, high dose kluth iron and vitamin C is going to be very, very powerful.

Evan Brand: Good advice. You know a lot of people post articles and snippets and all that about top 10 ways to naturally fight the flu or top 10 ways to naturally fight a cold, it’s like, well, wouldn’t it be better if you could just keep your immune system on alert, like you mentioned and up regulate these immune system pathways as opposed to getting sick and then now you’re trying to read an article on how to get yourself sick like just if you are on these herbs and your immune systems up regulated, you may not even have to go to the top 10 Natural Ways to fight the flu because you never got the flu because your immune system was so strong

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% so on the vitamin C, you know we’re going to do a couple of grams, so anywhere between two to five or six grams and the vitamins See, again, typically just below bowel tolerance is ideal. So a lot of people will start getting loose stools around six to 10 grams or six to 10,000 milligrams. So somewhere in that two to five, two to six gram dosage range is probably good. You may have to feel it out to see where you sit. And then in regards to Reishi, you know, I’ll go anywhere between two to five grams a day, probably closer to two to three if I’m just trying to like, get my immune system upregulated and I’m not fighting something probably like two to three grams just to be like, Okay, I’m ready to go. And then acutely, I’ll go off to three to five if it’s really acute. And then I would say what the gluta Island probably you know, up to a gram or so a day on the glue to die on and get my immune system kind of hyper regulated and ready to go.

Evan Brand: Yep. And talk about the nebulizer. We spoke about this a few episodes ago, I said, hey, you’ve got to try it. And you’ve tried it. So what’s your what’s your feedback?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so this is a very powerful tool and a means to get Certain compounds into your lungs and into your bloodstream fast because we know when we get sick a lot of times, you know, we have the ability to control essentially our hands by washing our hands. And we have the ability to control not quite as much what we breathe, maybe if we have a mass, that’s probably the best that we can do. But in general, a nebulizer allows us to take compounds in my favorite two things to us are going to be silver, and we’ll choose a 15 ppm to a 10 ppm or less of silver. And we’ll nebulize that and we can breathe it into our lungs. So we have all of the silver in our lungs, in our sinuses, and that’s going to help kill any bugs or biofilms that we may be getting exposed to so I like nebulizing silver, acutely, especially after a flight or after any exposure to someone because you get the silver in your lungs, and it’s anti viral as well. So the problem is, number one, you don’t want to be using antibiotics prophylactically but number two will not touch a viral issues. So the best thing with the silver is you can knock down some of the virus stuff. And the second thing is cluded I own concluded I own really helps with inflammation. And it really is increased so much more especially in your lungs when you do it when you nebulize it and you break it down to really tiny particle. So with nebulize go to dial and you can do that as well. One you’re getting the Bluetooth ion to help with the oxidative stress. But number two, it’s also going to help with inflammation and it’s going to help modulate your immune response. I’m a big fan of nebulizing the silver and nebulizing the Bluetooth ion is a couple of good nebulize that are out there I have one that’s really small and recommended to me there are two really two or three really good small ones. I’ll do a separate video on this and you take the nebulizer and essentially you use some sodium chloride kind of a nice taylean solution that sterile and then you’re going to add anywhere between a teaspoon of silver of there or you’re going to do about 200 milligrams of glutathione and a sodium bicarb form so it’s an a breakdown. And then you can nebulize that 200 milligrams a load of biome, or that one teaspoon of silver, and you get it directly into your bloodstream and the nebulize go to die on significantly increases in your bloodstream and in the lungs even more than oral when it goes orally. It has to kind of go throughout your body. But when you do it in your nebulizer, it goes right into your lungs, it’s going to help with things in your sinuses, it’s gonna help with all the inflammation in your lungs. So you get it right there. It’s fast and it increases your blood sugar levels so much faster.

Evan Brand: Yeah, not to mention, you can cross the blood brain barrier when you’re breathing something in like that too. So I got to give credit where credit’s due. This whole idea of me getting interested in nebulizers and Bluetooth ion and then trying in and then you and I talking about it, Stephen Buner. He’s like one of my favorite herbalists. He’s written a lot of really great books on Lyme disease and co infections. I believe he’s personally suffering from COPD and, of course, many people out there suffering with COPD so he actually came up with this COPD protocol. And I just took a couple pieces from his protocol which was the nebulizer with the sailing and the glue to die on. Now he’s talking about, I think it’s frankincense and some other essential oils. And he’s doing a lot of these other like Japanese herbs and Chinese herbs and mixing all these in a combination as this big old 20 to 30 p COPD protocol. I don’t have COPD. So I just took the pieces that I thought would help me the most from that protocol and then implemented it and then I had had watched the I don’t know if it was a webinar, what it was about, it was a guy speaking about using silver hydrosol which same thing Colloidal Silver silver hydrosol is the is the right name, and he was using this for lung cancer. And he was putting the silver into a nebulizer for lung cancer and I thought okay, that sounds pretty cool. And then I just mixed them I just thought why don’t we mix silver mixed Bluetooth ion. And as you mentioned, it’s the one with the bicarbonate added so it doesn’t burn your lungs or anything, and it’s a very smooth process I get, and I don’t know if it’s placebo or what but I feel like I get a little bit of a head rush after I do it. Like I feel a little bit more mentally clear, you know, Bluetooth ion is, is said to increase energy levels to right because you’re increasing your detox ability and a lot of times that helps increase energy. So after I do it, it kind of hits me like a wave. It’s like whoosh, and then I feel good for you know, a couple hours after I haven’t had any bad side effects. I don’t know if you have I haven’t had any headaches. I haven’t had any like detox reactions from it. Overall, it’s been very, very good.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Also, I find it very helpful with kids that don’t want to swallow supplements or take supplements. The nice thing about it is you can don’t even have to put it over the face, you can kind of keep it a couple inches away and just let them read it for a few seconds, and they’ll get it into their system. So I like it because if my son may have gotten exposed to something, I can just give them maybe a minute with a silver, just kind of reading it in or I can give them a minute of the Go to File and I can at least get some good antioxidant support which does help with the immune system, Bluetooth Iowans a really important immune system modulator. And I can also get the silver up there which will help with viruses and biofilms as well. So it’s pretty powerful to have that, especially with kids. And especially with just being around people that are sick, I can get stuff into my respiratory tract fast. And I’m not sure if any studies in this but you know, there’s a lot of times it’s like a one or two, one or a week or so latency period on getting an infection and it manifesting. So I’m curious to know, you may have an infection, it may be an latency period, and I wonder if just doing that preventatively would prevent that infection from manifesting?

Evan Brand: I think it would, right I mean, think about if it’s sitting in the nasal cavity, maybe it’s found a way to hide in some biofilm and the nasal cavity or the sinuses and then the silver comes in and kills it. You know, I think yeah, I think you’re right. I think it could kill it. While we’re on the topic of the nasal cavity area for the holidays. You know, this would apply for people going to a family member’s house where they’ve got air fresheners or plugins are, you know, if you’re a smell smell sensitive person like I am, even if you’re not and you just don’t want that crap in your sinus cavity, you and I really like the x layer, which is the stevia based nasal rinse, or is it Earth return those xylitol, I’m sorry, it’s xylitol. You know, if you squirt that up your nose, I wonder if you could just add some of that mixture to the nebulizer. I mean, it’s the same thing right? You’re squirting it up your nose versus nebulizing I don’t know, maybe overkill, but at least you could use the X ray or nasal spray, boom, boom, a couple sprays each nostril and spit it out. If you end up getting some drainage,

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: what I think is even better, what I’ve been doing is I’ll do the Neti Elixir packet so it’s actual packets and and I mixed it with four ounces of water, clean, filtered reverse osmosis water, and then I squeeze it up one nostril and it goes all the way up my frontal sinus and then back down and I do have about two to three seconds of flow. Then I blow my nose, clean it out and then to the other side. Two to three seconds, and then blow. And then what I’ll also do is if there’s any kind of infection that I’m thinking about, I’ll do the Neti actually or packets because you only can spray, barely anything with the spray. But if I can do the packets, I get constant flow for two to three seconds. And then number two is I’ll add a teaspoon of silver. I’ll add a teaspoon of silver as well to it. So then I’ll have the Neti Elixir with the xylitol in there, and then I’ll see it has the minerals in there to make it more you know, sensitive against the mucosa. And then I’ll add the silver and then the silver goes up and can really kill any viruses or pathogens or biofilms as well. So that’s a double whammy. That better Yeah, and then afterwards, then you can do if you want to nebulize some silver because that way it goes in your bloodstream because it’s not going to really go into your bloodstream, right? But when you nebulize a silver now it’s in your bloodstream and in your lungs. So if there’s any incubating viruses That’s where it’s going to be really, really helpful because then I’m really work on knocking and killing that down. And then you could also nebulize the Bluetooth icon, which I don’t think is anti viral, but it will help with inflammation, and it will have an effect on modulating your immune response for the better.

Evan Brand: Yeah, I’m using the nebulize glue to find to get mycotoxins out of my brain. If you just go into PubMed and you just search okra toxin. Okra toxin is a really common mold toxin that we see. If you type in okra toxin cerebellum, you can read that okra toxin has an affinity meaning it likes it goes to that part of the brain, the cerebellum and so you can literally detox the brain. When people say detox the brain. It sounds like it’s like trendy or buzz worthy or something. But no, it’s real. You literally can detox the brain because that’s where okra toxin can can damage it can create damage in that part of the brain. So all right, well, let’s move on. I think we’ve talked about the sinuses all day,

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’ll do a video I’ll do a video of myself kind of dealing with the issues. So I’ll break On the nebulizer and kind of the solutions and, and we could talk about it and go over what those look like. That’s perfect. All right, good. I think those are powerful tips. And then obviously, we have low hanging fruit, which could be getting sick from food. So of course, we’re going to use things like activated charcoal, which is going to be a really good binder. We typically say take activated charcoal away from food and supplements, when you’re using it for like a detox protocol for mold or for bug killing. But if we’re eating questionable food, or we’re getting exposed to things like alcohol, we may want to actually take it with the alcohol or the questionable food. So you kind of have to just draw a line and say, Hey, is this an acute exposure issue? Or is this more part of the long term protocol? If it’s acute, and it’s food or alcohol or just you know, partying, then we’re going to take it with that food. 

Evan Brand: That’s a good idea. I mean, think about it. You’re going over to Uncle Jerry’s house. You know, everybody’s going to be drinking wine and cocktails and whatever. There’s going to be bread There’s going to be all kinds of food allergens and dairy and, and who knows what else cornbread and pumpkin pie. I don’t know what all you’re eating that’s not good for you. But, you know our clients report this every year they say hey, I’ve got off my diet on the holidays and now here it is January and they feel like crap, you know, so we’re trying to help prevent some of those calls.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. So I like that. Also bug killer so my line I have a product called gi clear 4 which I have found to be the best for me. And for most patients with food poisoning issues, it just works amazing. And it could be food poisoning from a bacteria like e.coli or Campylobacter or salmonella. It could be food poisoning from an infection. Right Giardia. Cryptosporidium H. pylori, maybe a parasite like blasto and this works really good at knocking it down. So I like my gi clear 4 which is very high in Golden seal, which is a really good bug killer, very high in berberine, which is great for SIBO. It’s also very high and all of which leaf which has antiviral properties, and burdock which is really Good for the lymph and the lymphatic system. So my gi clear 4 is good avid has some ones in his micro biome line that are similar to. So you know, we love a good bug killer in case we get exposed, and you can stay on a low dose of those preventatively to like I’ll do, I’ve got one that’s got all of leaf in there, which is just a good antifungal, and it’s been said to take antifungals while you’re detoxing mold, so for me, I’ve just been doing a little bit of a low dose of some antifungals just preventively. And the good thing is with something like olive leaf, that’s an antiviral as well. So you can have that’s the cool thing why we love herbs so much is because you can have as you mentioned, bugs is kind of a generality, bugs could be viruses, bacteria, parasites, you could have an herb that can be antimicrobial, antiviral, antifungal, all in one so we love these anytime of the year but especially if you’re around like you said potential bad food that who knows what if they didn’t cook the shrimp cocktail good enough, right? Or if it was all shrimp and and you got a exposed to something there. Yeah, so if you’re on vacation like let’s say Mexico or somewhere where the food may be a little bit different than what you’re normally used to people that go to Bali or Mexico or sometimes other countries, they’re exposed to things they’re not used to. So going on like a preventative dose, like one capsule with each meal, a lot of times can be super helpful. We may also do, I always recommend my patients flying with a full bottle of probiotics too, because that can really help with food poisoning as well. So we can do like one probiotic capsule every hour or two. And that can acutely address any food poisoning works phenomenally.

Evan Brand: So I like doing that to help with any food poisoning too. Beautiful and of course acid and enzymes deserve a mention up to just because you mentioned the travel. You know in theory if your stomach acid levels are good enough and you’ve got your gallbladder releasing store bile, you’re breaking down your fats good. Hopefully everything’s okay but it wouldn’t hurt to add in some extra enzymes and acids to hopefully neutralize any pathogens you could expose to

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: one Hundred percent. I think it’s vitally, vitally important. Probiotics clearing herbs we talked about gluta time we talked about silver, these are all really, really important modulating things, HCl enzymes, digestive support, kind of as needed, just so we can digest and break down our food. I think those are all very, very, very powerful things. Next, I think will be sleep support. So you could always do something like a sublingual, melatonin and just kind of do that. Once you get your schedule back on track, you can take it maybe at sunrise the next day. I’m sorry, you could do it at at nightfall. So as soon as the sun goes down, you can you know, as it gets dark, you can take it as it gets dark to kind of reset your cycle. And then when the sun comes up, you could do some kind of the caffeine with some light exposure and grounding can be very helpful to get your circadian rhythm back on track. You take a little bit of a caffeine or a mild stimulant. As the sun comes back up. You do a little bit of grounding your feet on grass or some kind of a stone while getting light exposure to the sunrise. That’s a great way to get your circadian rhythm restarted. And then at nighttime when the sun sets, do a little bit of melatonin, you know you can do anywhere between like a third of a milligram, very small those couple hundred micrograms to it sublingually and that can kind of get your circadian rhythm kind of back on cycle for your time zone again if you’re traveling to Mexico or something or the DR and then you’re only a time zone or two off, or even the same time zone not a big deal. You travel to Bali or maybe Hawaii or Europe then you’ll You know, you’re going off maybe 5678 hours that you may have to do a significant reset there.

Evan Brand: Yeah, good advice and of course light pollution at night always trying to address that a lot a lot of hotels luckily these days have pretty good blackout curtains and such but you know, we had several places where the outside light was still trying to sneak in so we would take extra blankets or towels or whatever else you got to do unplug alarm clocks, cover up lights, take out light bulbs, you know whatever you got to do to to cover it up. We had One room we had had a smoke detector that had a super bright green light and green light can suppress melatonin just like blue light can at night. So I just took a pair of swim trunks and threw them over the smoke detector, boom, we had darkness. So sometimes it’s tricky to get a nice dark room.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One thing I will travel with his electrical tape, black electrical tape and any lights like that, I will literally just take a piece tape, put over light,

Evan Brand: that’s easy, that’s great.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So just a little bit of tape. And then you can just tape up all the lights and then you want to make it black so blocks out the lights a little bit thicker, you know a little more opaque blocks the light out better. And I always call ahead and say hey, you know do you have dark shades or blackout shades? I think it’s really important. I stayed at one place that didn’t and I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, man, your sun goes up at seven o’clock you’re up at seven it’s like this, you know, that’s just you know, forget sleeping in. So I always try to call ahead and make sure I do have blackout shade options if not, you know get A blanket, tape it up against the wall. That’s your best bet. It’s kind of Yes. But yeah, go ahead.

Evan Brand: And also on the on the traveling thing too. We talked about air filtration. I travel with the water filter as well. I mean, you can buy bottled water for drinking, I’m talking about for bathing. So you know, a lot of places, a lot of cities really heavily chlorinate the water. And so of course, chlorine is like a natural antibiotic. So first of all, if you’re drinking water with chlorine in it, you’re killing your good bacteria and your microbiome. But regarding the skin, chlorine, I just doesn’t agree with my skin. It makes your hair nasty. It makes your skin nasty. It smells bad. It’s it’s toxic. It’s a neurotoxin. So I personally use the Berkey there’s other brands out there. Yeah, Berkey makes a really good shower filter. And I forgot to travel with my wrench. But luckily the shower head on the hotel was loose enough I could unloosen it. Put on the Berkey shower filter and boom, you got super pure water and for the little kids for my little girls. I don’t want them bathing and chlorine. So Guess what we do we just turn on the shower to fill up the bathtub and now you got a perfect chlorine free bath.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly, that’s definitely a good option. Also, if I’m staying at a hotel in the states you know, I’ll just instacart for Amazon Prime now good filtered water, you know, couple bottles, couple dozen, maybe a dozen bottles of Pellegrino or or Voss or Fiji water, try to buy it in bulk or if there’s a whole foods nearby, just buy a couple of gallons and just leave them in the hotel room. So I have clean filtered water, you’re not paying an arm and a leg for the hotel price. But that way you can get some good clean water. Ideally, if you can get like a bunch of Pellegrino dropped off and glass that’s an awesome class may not work especially if you’re traveling a lot and you have young kids, you may have to do classes just for the convenience of it not breaking. So those are good options for you in the states try to use instacart or prime now or they can drop off within an hour to attend to be super helpful. And then I’ll also stay at a lot of places in the states that have a like a little kitchenette. So then I’ll just have a couple of dozen eggs dropped off maybe a pound or two again. again so then I have breakfast covered every single morning at least eggs or bacon and that way you’re set you could at least start the first meal out of the day pretty good and you can control the quality of it and I just try to make sure if I can there’s an instant Carter prime now service available where I could have it dropped off.

Evan Brand: Yeah, that’s what we did. We did we didn’t do the delivery. We just stopped at Whole Foods, but we did have a kitchenette. So we did bake and we did eggs. We bought some frozen fish. We had a freezer and we had an oven so we were able to bake some fish for a couple nights that was great. And we did find a couple good restaurants luckily they had some grass fed steaks and such but we tried to mix it up 5050 because you know you go on vacation you don’t want to be doing dishes three times a day either my wife’s like I’m doing dishes again what’s going on so like Okay, let’s go to a nice place get you a grass fed burger. And that was a good break from from dishes.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: yeah, I actually was able to find so what I believe the country I like going to Mexico for vacation because number one you get, you know, nice little warm retreat, but it’s not far. It’s only just a couple hours from Austin. It’s easy nonstop flight virtually the same time zone. And when you get There, I found a resort The brand is charisma. And if you let them know I sent you over, but I found them because they were one of the only gourmet food brands meaning they grow all their food on site, super high quality. And they cater to food allergens. So really good quality food, lots of good restaurant options, all inclusive so you don’t pay anything extra. You get what you pay, and then you have unlimited access to the food. And then you can you know, you can get gluten free options. They really cater to the food allergen and you get better quality food. And it’s even you know, local locally raised right there on site.

Evan Brand: Yeah, I know you live like a king when you go down there. It is pretty cool.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, it’s nice because there’s a couple there’s a of like maybe 16 maybe 20 different hotels in the charisma brand, but it’s KARISMA just type in Karisma hotels, but they have a bunch of hotels couple doesn’t have a gore main line and that the formula This the food quality is five star so you have great quality food, organic, and you have lots of options and they cater to food allergens. That’s one of the best things about it.

Evan Brand: That’s beautiful. You know, I actually on my searches for hotels, I came across this website called pure rooms. PURE which was supposed to be this. It’s basically a company that works with different hotels, Marriott and whoever else and they basically put in water filters. They put air filters in the room, they use no fragrance, they take out any feathers for any allergens to like down comforters and such. The problem is every hotel I call they said oh no, we don’t do that anymore. Probably because nobody was ever booking the rooms and they didn’t want those rooms just sitting there wasted. So I called like three hotels and they’re like, Oh, yeah, we had the pure room, but we don’t have it anymore. So I don’t know if it’s somebody had to request in advance. But if somebody super sensitive, you know, you could look up your room and there’s basically a directory on the planet on the whole world where you can look at a hotel that would have a quote, pure room available for you to book.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, the nice thing is a lot of hotel rooms You know, they’re they’re getting better because people are more hypoallergenic people smoking is kind of a more taboo so they have non smoking rooms, I think just the big thing you can do is just try to request in advance, you know, not all the harsh cleaners or harsh smells, or just get a really good air filter like you have kind of drop it off, plug it in for a couple of hours, get the room kind of cleaned out, and then you’ll probably be good to go.

Evan Brand: Yep, that’s what we did. We put it on full blast, took a walk to the beach came back the room was was much better, still not optimal. I mean, I’d rather be at my house with my big ol nice air purifiers, but you know, you got to make the best of it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And then when I travel when I choose vacations, I want to come back on a vacation feeling good. So I don’t want to be eating crap the whole time. I want to be eating quality foods. When I come back. I’m not like bloated and inflamed and feeling like crap. So I want to food quality is a big deal for me. Number two is I don’t want to spend a day on the way there and a day on the way back traveling. So I try to choose places that I can go in a non stop and ideally be there within three to four hours on a non stop. I don’t like to get my sleeping all day. jacked up. So I don’t want to be up at like 3am leaving. So ideally, I try to find flights that I can leave at, you know, you know, get up at six or seven, get to the airport, leave at nine or 10 and get to where I want to be by, you know, three or four at the latest, you know, just because I don’t want to waste the day on each on each side and I want to feel relatively rested. So Mexico, Dr. Jamaica, you know, if if you’re like trying to go somewhere more tropical. Those are pretty good places because you get the tropical feel you can get an all inclusive access, and it’s not going to be too far or too expensive to get there.

Evan Brand: Yep, yep. Good advice.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, absolutely. So anything else on the travel side, you want to highlight? I mean, the only thing I could say is, if you know you’re going to be eating more crap, we talked about glutathione. I’m sorry, we talked about activated charcoal. And you can always want if you know you’re going to be having gorging yourself, you can always intermittent fast the next day to compensate. You can always do a little bit more movement before after whether it’s interval or resistance training just to deplete glycogen and to get your metabolism up on that way. The extra alcohol or sugar won’t hit yes hard. Those are all other good options that you can kind of add in.

Evan Brand: Yeah, I would just last thing just in general is some type of good adaptogenic herbs to help cope with the stress. So ashwagandha would be great. I know you love ashwagandha I love it too, but you could use it at night. You could use it during the day for stress, you could use it at night for sleep you could do you already mentioned the the the reishi mushroom for immune support, but that’s also kind of an adaptogen. Basically, you’ve got rhodiola which can help boost your energy. I took a mitochondrial support that I have. So that’s like a B vitamin combo that can be helpful because the stress of traveling burns up your bs B as in Bravo. So mitochondrial support can be helpful. Vitamin D, hopefully you’re going somewhere sunny. You don’t need vitamin D, but that’s also important for immune function. We talked about the enzyme piece, I would say liver support I did take some liver herbs to just some milk this old and some other basic stuff methionine tarin. I think That’s it. I mean, I’m sure we could riff on more but that’s that. Oh, yes. Oh, this is important. So anybody that has like any travel anxiety, which I don’t know if I have traveling anxiety, I just get stressed travels is stressful for me, especially with two kids and is the kid hungry and Okay, and the diaper and you know what I mean? So, what I took is just a blend of some calming herbs. So I took like some other war. I took some skullcap I took some Valerian some thenI, and just had a combo in tincture form. So we’re at the airport, you got 1000 people in front of you, you’re waiting to get past I just boom, boom, boom. Shoot a few squirts of some calming herbs in my system, and I was cool as a cucumber the entire time.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Love it, man. Yes, smart. You know, try to do it the right way. Like you said, That’s why I try to do nonstops in and short flights. But if you’re going to Europe or anywhere else, that becomes a little bit tough. So like you mentioned, the adaptogens are helpful. That’s where definitely bringing the melatonin to be helpful. Some of the extra Bs, the B vitamins to help with stress, I think they’re going to be really helpful as well. Anything else you want to highlight or add today, Evan?

Evan Brand: I don’t think so I’ll just make a comment. You know, it’s so interesting. You see all these people that get on the plane, you can tell some people, they’re nervous and they order alcohol from the flight attendant, and they’re trying to drink alcohol to calm themselves down. That’s the worst thing you could do. The elevation of being on the plane causes dehydration. It’s like being on top of a mountain, the stress of it is depleting. So, I mean, if you need to calm yourself down, a glass of wine on the plane is not what you want. I’m not judging you. I’m just saying Would you rather have something awesome? Like, you take a few squirts of some passionflower and ashwagandha then your your nervous system is going to be calm. You’re not gonna have any crazy blood sugar swings on the plane, you’re not going to be dehydrating yourself. So I just, I just, I think in five to 10 years, maybe we’ll see more people like shooting adaptogens down their throat on the plane versus taking alcohol.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. I think number one, if you are going to consume alcohol, let’s say you got the upgraded seats and they cover a nice drink. Like when I go to Mexico, I think it was like I think I was I got the ability to upgrade to first class like 50 bucks. I’m like, heck yeah, you know, an extra foot a leg room. And so when I go to Mexico, I think I’m going to be going in February, I will be doing a glass of champagne on the flight because it’s complimentary. But what you do is number one, when you get to the airport and you have time, get a nice like, get a nice bottle of Pellegrino or something, hydrate before the flight where you know, so you have the good minerals in your system. And then if you’re going to drink then just have a nice, bringing a couple activated charcoal with you. So then you have that just kind of go back and forth. And if you are going to drink, just try to space out one drink one glass of mineral water, one drink one glass of mineral water. That way you don’t get too dehydrated, you get the extra minerals in the water, so you won’t be getting to deplete it. But I think that’s really a good important points.

Evan Brand: Perfect. Well, let’s wrap this thing up. If you do want to reach out clinically, we work with these gut issues that we’re talking about detox problems. You know what we do? We love helping people get to the root cause of their problems. You know, we were used to someone being through 510 15 practitioners before they get to Dr. J. Or me And we kind of like being I’ll speak for Justin as well, we kind of like being in that position because it allows us to show them what we do differently. And oh, here’s why you didn’t get better. It’s because you didn’t you didn’t do this or you didn’t look in that ballpark or you did it in the wrong order. So we love and some, sometimes it comes with the territory of our jobs to be in the in the cleanup crew category. We’re cleaning up somebody else’s mess. And that’s fun. I love that and we’re both very grateful to be able to serve you well. So if you want to reach out to Justin clinically, please do so his website is Justin health. JustinHealth.com. My website, EvanBrand.com. And thank you for listening. We appreciate it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. I think next week is was next year, next week, next month in New Year’s Eve. Yep. So I think I’ll be here next Monday as well. So I’m excited to chat with you again. How about you Evan? Will you be here?

Evan Brand: I’ll be here. I ain’t going anywhere.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: All right. Excellent. I love it. You’re back from your vacation. You’re supposed to be refreshed. So yes. Excellent. All right now great chatting with you put it thanks for all the information on the product. We talked about or recommended. We’ll put them in the references links below. Evan, great chat with you have a phenomenal week. Will you take care bye bye. Thank you, everyone. Bye

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References:

https://justinhealth.com/

Audio Podcast:  

http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/functional-medicine-tips-to-survive-the-holidays-podcast-262

Recommended product:

Xlear Rescue Nasal Spray with Xylitol

Austin Air Health Mate Junior Plus

https://justinhealth.com/water-pitcher

Bio-Balance – 10% discount

 

Overcoming Menopause Naturally

By Dr. Justin Marchegiani

Menopause is an inevitable part of being a woman. Unfortunately, we only hear about the bad parts, so it is often something dreaded. Women all over the world and all across time have been going through menopause, and if you combine ancient wisdom with modern advances, this natural part of the aging process doesn’t have to be so scary!

Stages of Menopause

The three stages of menopause are:

• Perimenopause (before menopause)
• Menopause
• Postmenopause (after menopause)

Perimenopause can start as early as a woman’s mid-30s, Though perimenopause is typically expected around a woman’s late 40s, it can start as early has her mid-30s, particularly if she has suffered health issues such as eating disorders, cancer treatment, and surgery. Symptoms of perimenopause include irregular periods and spotting due to hormone shifts.

Menopause is the permanent end of a woman’s menstrual cycle and fertility, and officially starts once a woman has not had a period for 12 months. Menopause is a stage–it doesn’t continue for the rest of a woman’s life–and your body adapts over time. Each individual will experience a different length of menopause depending on their body and health. Postmenopause is the stage reached after menopause is over.

 

If you are experiencing menopausal symptoms, click here to work with a functional medicine doctor.

 

Common Menopause Symptoms

Perimenopause and Menopause have a wide array of overlapping symptoms. Some of the most common symptoms and complaints are:

• Irregular periods: especially during perimenopause, period may occur every 2-4 months and gradually start further and further apart.
• Hot flashes and night sweats: hormonal changes during this time can affect the hypothalamus, which controls body temperature. This can increase the body’s temperature, causing sweating, redness, and the infamous hot flashes.
• Sleep troubles: many women deal with sleep quality issues due to changing hormones and overheating due to hot flashes.
• Weight gain: metabolism slows, hormones change, and muscle mass is reduced–all of which contribute to increased abdominal fat and weight gain.
• Mood swings: constant fatigue and tiredness, increased irritability, anxiety and depression are all linked to the changing hormones and enzymes at this time.
• Headaches: migraines and headaches can be caused by the reduced blood flow, sleep deprivation, and anxiety of menopause.
• Poor memory: trouble concentrating and forgetfulness are effects of hormone shifts, which can be worsened by anxiety and lack of sleep.

What Causes Menopause Symptoms?

Hormones are a primary driver of menopause symptoms, particularly estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. Estrogen hormones are secreted by the ovaries and are a large part of what gives a female her feminine qualities, including reproductive abilities. Progesterone prepares the uterus for pregnancy. Testosterone is a mostly male hormone, but it also has a place in the female body.

Menopause starts when the ovaries stop making lots of estrogen. Since estrogen plays such an important part in body processes, this change can affect mood, sleep, sex drive, body composition, memory, blood flow, and more. Menopause tends to start between the ages of 45-55 years.

How to Get Through Menopause

• Exercise:
  • Besides helping with menopausal weight gain, exercise can increase serotonin, thereby boosting mood and improving sleep.
• Herbs:
  • Herbs for menopause include: Red raspberry leaves, St. John’s wort, Ginseng, Evening primrose oil, Black cohosh, Chaste tree, Sarsaparilla, Red clover, Wild yams, and Licorice root.
  • Research suggests American Ginseng can help relieve symptoms of menopause including hot flashes, fatigue, mood and memory problems, and vaginal dryness.
  • Maca is an adaptogen herb which has been used for thousands of years to help with the symptoms of aging and stress by decreasing cortisol levels. Maca is good for helping with hot flashes, fatigue, weight gain, and libido.
  • Vitex has been proven to help with hot flashes. It is also good for balancing hormones during menopause.
  • Licorice Root supports the adrenal glands when cortisol levels are low. A primary compound in licorice root is glycyrrhizin (a substance that has a molecular structure similar to corticosteroids). As such, licorice root aids in hypoadrenalism by partially blocking the enzyme that converts cortisol to cortisone, thus sparing cortisol. 
• Diet:
  • Reduce sugar, carbs, and soy: These foods can mess with your hormones, your emotions, and your weight.
  • Eat healthy fat: the Keto Diet is a great choice for menopausal women, especially to help with hormonal weight gain.

Takeaway

Good news: 80% of women report that menopause does not affect their quality of life! While menopause gets a bad rap, it is not a life sentence. By becoming aware of the changes in your body, you can make the best choices to get through menopause healthily & happily!

 

If you are experiencing menopausal symptoms, click here to work with a functional medicine doctor.

 

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3659624/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4834516/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6419242/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4890704/

Mood Imbalances and their Root Causes | Podcast #250

Depression, being the #1 cause of disability in the US, has tons of other mood issues that come along with it. Some psychiatrists are not telling what are the things that caused us mood issues,and what should we do to lessen it.

For this podcast, Dr. Justin and Evan Brand talks about root causes to mood issues.  Also, learn through this podcast the importance of blood sugar maintenance, sleep, diet, and a lot more.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover: 

01:15 Moods and Diet

03:40 Blood Sugar

09:00 Sleep

12:20 Chemicals in Food

14:40 Progesterone and Estrogen

Evan Brand: I’m doing very well. This is an exciting topic because depression is the number one leading cause of disability in the US and there’s a ton of other mood issues that come along with depression and your psychiatrist is not telling you that you need to detox heavy metals and get infections out of your gut and stop eating pesticides and all the other things that are causing a mood issues. They just give you a drug to treat it and give you a Band-Aid which has save lives but it’s not the root cause so we always love root cause. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% So let’s talk about some root cause foundational mood stuff first and we kind of have the Nuance nitty-gritty stuff and then we have the foundational stuff. So the first thing is just your diet, right? We need a nutrient dense anti-inflammatory low toxin dietary template and I I like to talk about diets me template. It provides a lot more flexibility and then we have a framework premise and why we recommend the things that we recommend part of it is foods that are evolutionarily appropriate Foods. We had enough time to adapt to eat, food that are going to be low in toxins, whether it’s anti-nutrients are oxalates are five dates or natural plant Oxalis plants have claws and feet to run and Fun Run and fight so they have berries toxins, right? So we want to make sure were using cooking methods and avoiding toxic plants, especially the more got issues we have and that anti-inflammatory, right? We know foods have the ability to move us to an anti-inflammatory environment good healthy, omega-3 fatty acids good healthy saturated fats of the more process refined omega-6 that are more fragile and they can move it move us more in that Pro in from inflammatory State and then of course the nutrient density foods are going to be super nutrient dense B vitamins minerals. Obviously the food quality is now a big deal because you can have the same kind of meat on on your plate. Looks totally different under a microscope because of the hormones because of the feeding practices cuz the medications and the and the drugs given to the animal while they were having their life and growing so to speak. So we have to look at nutrient density anti-inflammatory status and hormones and toxins are the big things off the bat. 

Evan Brand: I’m glad you about this before but we could just bring it up briefly which studies done on prisoners and when they were giving Omega-3 supplements basically fish oil supplements, they had less violence and less just crazy behavior overall and there’s been some like Psychiatry studies looking at just overall like homicidal rage and suicidal thoughts and those things in there directly correlated with a deficiency of omega-3. Fatty acids 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Omega-3 is really important. Also blood sugar stability. There’s also data on the fact that’s Information I should say. Are you able to see me hear the screen? 

Evan Brand: Yeah, I see you perfectly.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Good excellence. All right, so there’s information showing that. Mood issues anxiety and depression is a result of inflammation in the brain. And we also know that anytime low blood sugar environment can happen right refined carbohydrates blood sugar Spike followed by a drop that’s called reactive hypoglycemia. Those kind of those kind of situations are going to create mood issues and this data on the fact that a lot of violent crimes are committed in a hypoglycemic environment and some of the data on that is because of the fact that low blood sugar and are making shutdown activation of the frontal cortex in the frontal cortex is the part of the brain that’s going to predict the outcome of an action so it can say Hey, you know that person that just pissed you off. I want to go hit him or go call him out. And then that frontal cortex has that like 20 milliseconds of hey, you know, if you do that you may get arrested and it can dampen the impulse so to speak so the more you have good activation of that frontal cortex through reducing inflammation. And then also maintaining good blood sugar and part of that as we become more fat burners and that fat burning environment put logs on our metabolic fire was future blood sugar from going up and down and then avoiding a lot of a refined carbohydrate which tends to make our blood sugar go up and down as well. 

Evan Brand: Well, this is part of the reason people make bad decisions when they go out to a bar into a club and they drink alcohol and go home with somebody that they don’t want to partial partially due to what is alcohol. I mean, it’s basically correct liquid. It’s basically liquid sugar. It’s going to crank up the blood sugar but it’s also going to crank up serotonin and then the serotonin is going to just flat line and when you run out of Serotonin, you can’t make decisions that are smart. And so if you are somebody who is struggling with mood issues alcohol needs to be out of the picture completely for multiple reasons that we just met-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Blood sugar or I should alcohol actually lowers your blood sugar can create a hypoglycemic and where I might just go take a for instance a shot of vodka and just test your blood sugar your blood sugar. Drop restaurants do this on purpose because they know if they can get you some refined carbohydrates and pretzels and some bread and then they can get you some alcohol pretty fast. They’re going to cause a reactive hypoglycemia environments and you’re going to be ordering more food and getting more carbohydrates may be ordering a bigger desert whether or not they understand the biochemistry of it all they understand that if they do these kind of things in the beginning of the meal they can create a larger bill for you at the end of the meal.

Evan Brand: Should have clarified like margaritas and things that have like agave syrup and all the sugary stuff mixed with the alcohol. That’s when your blood sugar is going to go crazy, but I haven’t tested the Vodka by itself. That would be cool to see on a glucose monitor. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly yup 100% you can really create some significant significant issues of significant stressor 100%. 

Evan Brand: So we could spend time and talk about this isn’t for today. But I mean, there’s like a traumas for example, you know any trauma that’s left over in your body, you know physical mental abuse or anything like that yet. You must address promise. I don’t want somebody listening and thinking if they just perfect their diet and get rid of alcohol. Their mood issues will go way there could be super deep traumatic issues that need to be addressed but no we were trying to focus on more like the biochemistry aspect the blood sugar affect adrenals hormones thyroid got those things. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% Yeah. I totally totally get that for sure. So in general we have the inflammation components to so of course gluten to be a big one there the main mechanism how gluten is in a create more mood issue is going to be through inflammation and it can create gut permeability and that gut permeability can allow various inflammatory cytokines and Undigested food particles to get in the bloodstream that can create more of an inflammatory response and then create leaky brain as well. And then a lot of these inflammatory compounds whether it’s lipopolysaccharides or just inflammatory foods that are unprocessed that you have that immune response these particular can get into the brain but through the astrocytes which of the blood-brain barrier and then that can activate our glial cells in our brain and that can create more cognitive issues more information in the brain and some of the newer families of antidepressants that are coming out very soon. These medications are actually working more on inflammation in the brain problem is like any medication is going to be at have inherent side effects just because of the fact that Any medication does when you block and inhibit various enzymatic Pathways other things happen as a result, like the old vioxx days with these cox-2 inhibitor medications the cox-2 enzyme the cyclooxygenase to enzyme that was being blocked by some of these medications like vioxx. Well, those enzymes also have beneficial effects on recovering liver heart and gut tissue to then you had a lot more stroke and cardiovascular incidences. When you were on this medication. Do you know they worked at enzyme and other important roles outside of just blocking paint. 

Evan Brand: Where they pulled from the shelves. I mean, that’s like long gone, isn’t it? Maybe I should look it up. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah that was pulled like 10 years ago. I make more cat a massive lawsuit around that I think it was on record of killing 60,000 people. Yeah. Yeah. I know really sad but we are going to do you know?

Evan Brand: All right. So let’s talk about the Sleep aspect like for example 3rd shift workers much much higher incidence it personally when you’re working a third shift. You’re messing up your circadian rhythm your serotonin in your dopamine your melatonin your cortisol all these hormones and neurotransmitters that can act as both neurotransmitters and hormones. They all have a circadian rhythm. And if you’re not going to bed with the sun and getting up with the sun, you’re probably not going to be optimally happy now. There may be a few people listening. So I work 3rd Shift for 20 years and Im as happy as a lark. Okay, Mike, maybe you’re unique but as a general human rule going against the sun is not going to result in Good Moods. It’s that simple.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep, 100% shiftworks a big one. We know that I can definitely Cradle by The Moody she’s partly because we are hardwired to kind of be on a natural circadian rhythm Right light stimulates cortisol cortisol stimulates, you know alertness and and being awake and then that cortisol drop throughout the day and a Miralax at night and darkness stimulates melatonin antioxidant information helps you recover. So yeah, that’s a really important step into this. Equation for sure. So they sleep component, the food the nutrient density component think it’s really big. Lets go to the next low hanging fruit– digestion. Okay, great. Were eating a really good diet. But now we got to actually break down those nutrients those nutrients so we gotta make sure what you and our food up. Well, we got to make sure we have enough acid and enzymes to break down those amino acids. Those fatty acids those cholesterol compounds cuz they are building blocks for a brain is cholesterol and saturated fats are hormones are building blocks from cholesterol as well. And then our brain amino brain chemicals. They’re all going to come from amino acids, which come from protein. So all of our brain chemicals norepinephrine dopamine Gaba serotonin serotonin than Converse the Melatonin which is our sleep hormone and our antioxidant for the brain, they all come from protein. So we really have poor digestion and their studies actually on H. Pylori for instance cant create mood issues. And what’s the major mechanism? My opinion, the mechanism is the fact that you have poor digestion you have less stomach acid. You have less breakdown of these important building blocks and then hes building blocks can be used to make these healthy brain chemicals that allow you to feel good sleep good and deal with stress. 

Evan Brand: Yeah. I agree. I was depressed when I had h-pylori could attest that my mood was not good and I lost a lot of muscle too, I mean you looked at me and you told me Evan man. I remember seeing a picture of you you had some muscles what happened to you. I was so skinny. Luckily. I’ve regained a lot of that muscle back but mood issues are definitely related to gut infections and I just want to talk about kids for a minute because a lot of parents blame their children or just being kids and that’s why they have a bad mood. I’ll tell you as a father of two mood issues are totally related to what’s going on with your kids diet as well and your kids got so if you send your kid to school with crackers and goldfish and other garbage that’s going to be inflammatory. But also it’s going to affect your blood sugar and they’re not having good protein with their lunch. It’s no wonder they crash. I have bad moods and then they are getting in trouble in school in the teachers calling you saying hey, you know Johnny hit another student today. What would have happened if his blood sugar was well regulated and go ahead. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I saw my son a picture of him. it’s snack time last week. It was really funny. All the kids are there had their lunch box is open and you could see he had like some green apples that were cut off. He had this like grass-fed organic, like beef jerky. They’re just really easy and Ill kind of cut off and he had I think some little bit of almond butter is a hit a really nice snack and he has seen a lot of the other kids. You see the Goldfish. You see a lot of sugary drinks. I’m like oh man, and these kids are just really getting their blood sugar on a roller coaster ride, and they’re not going to be as good I mean, don’t get me wrong nutritions not going to make your one or two year-old a three-year-old who is developing be a perfect angel but it’s going to significantly improve things and make it much much better and it’s in a provide the building blocks. They need one to heal in to grow their nervous system and connect all these synapses in the brain. All these neural connections from all these new skills that there that they are using but two are keeping a lot of the inflammatory dies and chemicals and Foods out that could make things even worse as well. 

Evan Brand: There’s been countless studies on the artificial colors and flavorings increasing the risk of ADD and ADHD. And a lot of these behavioral cognitive issues that are deemed as common so the teachers, you know, well just recommend that the parents speak with the doctor in the doctor puts the kid on Ritalin and that calms the kid down but that’s not the root cause he there’s a root cause of that and this is not hey, you know, Justin and I are awesome in our kids are better than you but I’m just telling you I’ve seen it my daughter hanging out a plate at a playground versus other kids where other kids in the same age group are having emotional breakdowns and they’re crying and rolling on the floor and screaming and just acting out like not how you think a kid would act out just not in control. Where is my daughter would be controlled or emotions would be controlled. Does she still have outburst and cry? Over silly Small Things. Yes, totally. But she’s three years old at the time of this recording. So I’m just saying that as a general rule, but also the chemicals to write when Im just talkin food. Were talkin that you and I both are you’re giving your son detoxification support. I give my daughter detoxification support. We’ve given both of our kids herbs to help treat gut infections and bacterial and things like that in the gut too. So maybe if the diet is dialed in but you’re not seeing any progress Improvement this applies for adults, but also children since were on the subject run a stool test on your 3 4 5 6 10 year old 15 year old kid and you may find gut infections like the H pylori just to mention as another root cause of the mood issue. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly plus it’s probably incidences where maybe some not-so-great food or more refined processed food slipped in with your child at all. And then you probably saw an outburst or behavioral issue, you know, we had an incident. I think on a birthday. We gave him a little bit of gluten-free cake and there’s a little bit of a crash afterwards we could see that in this by observations from you. So it’s all wrong with it. Right now. We definitely want to provide the hormone environment where it allows our kids to grow in NBA Staples possible think it’s really really important. We hit the the food component the digestion component. Let’s talk about four months. So obviously blood sugar has a major effect on our hormones the more I blood sugar goes up and down the more cortisol and adrenaline to get call to the rescue to to bar for that out to the mortgage Reno stress gets put on our body in archery know our stress handling system and the adrenals are a part of the hormonal system is connected with the sympathetic nervous system. So the sympathetic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that deals with fight-or-flight stress running fighting, fleeing confronting and that part of the nervous system the more it gets turned on or flare the more adrenaline and cortisol and stress hormones that are catabolic the break tissue down or going to be secreted and the adrenals also produce a significant amount of sex hormone precursor. So the more we’re stressed and dealing with the catabolic stress side last week and allocate resources to the anabolic repair and Recovery parasympathetic size. And then it makes it harder for us to recover put on muscle feel good turnover on neurotransmitters and just be able to deal with and adapt to stress. So there is that on one side and the adrenals affect the kind of men and women relatively equally but then women have their hormonal side from the ovaries that cycle throughout the month and that part of the Cascades a little bit more unique because cortisol, which is that major stress hormone that we talked about can also be made from progesterone. And so the more we are stressed, the more we can pull from the progesterone. I was thinking create more estrogen dominance so are relative ratio of progesterone estrogen which is typically 20 to 25 to 1 on average for progesterone Dash inserts asked you and this condition called estrogen dominance starts to occur with a percent of that returns coming up and this can create more mood issues more PMS kind of issues breast tenderness cramping back pain in the mood components of they want irritability anxiety depression. All those symptoms can happen as a result of that. So the more we can take away that up and down with our cortisol in the movie that takes out of that the less estrogen dominance will kick in.

Evan Brand: I just want to point out one key Point you’re speaking about ratios a lot of women come to us and say I’ve got so much estrogen. I’m so estrogen dominant know he’s not saying that you have tons of estrogen you saying in relationship to your progesterone. So it’s not that the estrogen is literally overwhelming and you have more estrogen than progesterone. that’s not what’s happening. Correct, correct? 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And it could be that your estrogen is actually really really high. Im seeing with a lot of my female patients is progesterone is low really low acids also low, but the ratio is still skewed. So Im seeing it like if you are as progesterone, right and he is estrogen what’s happening. Both are low, but progesterone is even lower. So it’s like that.

Evan Brand: Are you saying estrogen overwhelmed progesterone or would that be like an extreme case?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That being extreme case and almost all the time with cases like that. There may be an exhausting is pit Ashton being taken right? You’re definitely would see on the birth control pill side. You may not see it come back like that because a lot of egestion metabolites me to come back on the test cuz youre not, you know the actual the actual estradiol or estradiol hormone. They’re like the analog that it’s a metabolite that has still in that shouldn’t affect but it’s not coming back in the lab. So we just know the fact that if these levels are that high cuz you’re taking it then the warm out there going to be Might as well.

Evan Brand: OK make sense would be a mechanism to cuz if you had like yes High B6 recirculating all those hormones hormones would just make it works. Right if your recirculating hormones.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: correct Plastics that I have seen no estrogen kind of facts whether [inaudible] egg. And then of course, you’re going to have hormones in the states right to give it a lot of estrogen type of hormones to make them fatter and kind of woke up. So to speak to the farmers can make more money on the slaughter there is that too. So that’s why you have to mitigate the toxins in the hormones and all the food and then you have to look at detoxification pathway. So well run on the docks tested a little gas gauge in the bottom left-hand corner of stop H3. it’s called the two methoxy hydroxy acid metabolites panel, or I should say reading and it’s a little gas gauge you want to at least in the middle, but you’ll see a lot of decreased methylation so it’s way to the left and that’s a sign that were not metabolizing are Estrogen. 

Evan Brand: Yeah, that’s important. So you have to address hormones and were not saying hey, you just go on thyroid medication. Like that’s not you know, this is a whole system here adrenals are connected to your thyroid thyroids connects. The brains involved. You mentioned the sympathetic nervous system. So if you’re somebody whos working 70 hours a week or not taking days off in your nervous system is so revved up. You can eat a paleo-diet and still have mood issues. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. Yep. that’s very possible. So we have those kind of hormone issue is and of course any women listening to it mood maybe one component of that. It could be other things as well could be the energy you could be back pain and cramping breast tenderness fluid retention. It could be all the above. 

Evan Brand: We should talk about toxicity and liver and chemicals and metals and stuff for a minute. But why don’t we just briefly mention autoimmunity and the role that I could play in hormone. So if you’re someone who has autoimmune thyroid, isn’t it possible that if you’re going from hypo to hyperthyroid, you may have some mood issues associated with that autoimmune attack or some day is the immune system is bang bang and then some days he knew system is not. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So we look at hormones. it’s either ATM or ATF and it’s not you know, the ATM where you get money or the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms government agency ATM is Adrenals Thyroid Male Hormones, ATF is Adrenal Thyroid Female Hormones. So we already talked about the adrenal and the female and the adrenal and the mail. Yes the same mechanism are as we complete DHEA and we kind of lets just say deplete our sex hormone precursor from the adrenals testosterone can also drop and then testosterone can have a significant mood depleting fact as well. So same on the men the little bit less has less pronounced because women have a hormone cycle that that rhythms up and down throughout the cycle or manner kind of like a flat kind of Foghorn. So to speak there isn’t quite as much rhythmic activity. Therefore it’s harder to knock that off so to speak but now with the thyroid issues women are going to be five times more prone to But men still listen because if you have symptoms, we definitely want to rule out the thyroid like you said just having low levels of thyroid hormone can create anxiety for sure and also having high levels can also create anxiety and irritability and also having Hashimoto autoimmune flares which would eventually end with low thyroid but like you mentioned that autoimmune flare can flare up your thyroid autoimmune response was Canaan cause more hormones to dump in the system, which can then create mood swings and irritability and anxiety difficulty sleeping and that can create issues as well. So you really want to look at autoimmune markers for the thyroid TPO thyroglobulin antibodies. You want to look at your thyroid levels because high or low or going to be significantly driving a lot of mood issues most of the time it’s going to be low because low is The Chronic place that people tend to end up but you will see with a cute flares that it will go high or more in the hyper side again in general. it’s going to be harder to catch that but if we see Levels of antibodies we can definitely assume those level of flares may be happening whether or not we catch the high-level on the test. If we know High antibodies are there then it makes sense that’s possible. And then of course some graves for sure, graves will be the other condition where were making antibodies. Where is thyroid receptor site antibodies are TSI with your thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins those can cause thyroid to make more hormones and that’s an autoimmune condition as well. Get ninety-five. 99% are going to be Hoshis, Hashimoto’s 1% grave. So in general, it’s more plausible. If you’re gambling person that you’re going to go on the Hashi side Less on the graves, but you know, you’ll typically were not going to ever run for Graves antibodies unless we see very high levels of thyroid levels like very high levels of T4 and T3, then we’ll definitely say, okay. Lets run TSI. Lets run thyroid what receptor antibodies.

Evan Brand: Your endocrinologist would probably even run even if you beg them. So a lot of times were ordering Special Labs because the primary doctor that someone may have the working with us. We may try to push them. Hey, you don’t try to get your endocrinologist to run this and they just won’t they’re very stubborn. Even when it comes to the TPO and TG antibodies despite the mass of massive increase even just the past 5 to 10 years of autoimmunity with thyroid. You would think that it’s like part of standard procedure and protocol now, but it’s still not my grandfather got his thyroid Labs run. It was literally just TSH and T4 and maybe like T3 uptake, but still nothing else and it’s just crazy. So what are they doing? They they modified your drug based on TSH, TSH one up. Lets give you a little bit more synthroid and people just don’t know why they’re not getting better.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly and then conventional medicine will look at the graves thing and they’ll just say, okay. Well if you’re not in any hormone the right when you come in and your TSH is buried meaning it’s very low and let’s say below point 3.2.1. Then they may want to look Downstream at them some of those antibodies right? They may look at T4 and then I’m a look at TSI in the thyroid receptor site markers, but outside of that unless they see that they’re probably not going to do much. 

Evan Brand: Yeah, hopefully that’s what they do. But in some cases they may go straight to hey, we need to do radioactive iodine and try to just kill your thyroid off because youre youre over your thyroid overactive. I’m sorry that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If they saw grave markers, that would be the next logical step. They didn’t want a thyroidectomy or they give u p t u or more time is all the shutdown of the thyroid activity or they give the radioactive iodine to just kill the thyroid to begin with.

Evan Brand: Not pretty.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No it’s not so thyroid flares because of Hashimoto’s well that may never come back on the TSH may never come out of balance enough for it to be an issue and your TSH may still be relatively in range, even though your antibodies are going up and down and your T3 may be low or could be going up or down to so you may not even see a problem with that.

Evan Brand: Alright so let’s talk about that was a good diversion. So I just wanted to make sure we hit. Community Casa del Carmen and no pesticides damaging the gut barrier damaging the blood-brain barrier. Even if you’re a vegan listening, please eat some meat but if you’re not, you know the vegetables or not benign neither you can still get a different herbicides pesticides excetera that still damaged your good gut bacteria and create leaky gut, even if youre saying everything I don’t need hormone me. Okay? Well the plants could do at 2 and then also the heavy metals, you know, we’ve seen a lot there’s just Google it look it up on PubMed your Googles evil because they’re suppressing a lot of help people. So use another search engine like one called ecosia ecosia. They plant trees every time you do a search every 10 searches the plant a tree for you so search on a Ecosia, PubMed Mercury depression or you know Mercury anxiety and any like bad mood something that you type up you can find a correlation with a various heavy metal. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. I think it’s really really important. So heavy metals various pasta sides various toxins Roundup glyphosate. These are all going to be potentially stressors on your nervous system on your immune system on your brain. I told easiest thing is one just decrease the toxic overload. Just be eating organic higher-quality food. Drink really good clean filtered water. And then number two we can always give support to help run our Phase 1 Phase 2 and R2 toxification Pathways, that’s really important. We could do simple things like activated charcoal with you give sulfur-based Obito acids, we can get glutathione straight into liposomal former reduced form. We can get back Extra B vitamins and antioxidants like milk thistle with cumin and Resveratrol and really powerful things to help with inflammation and in donating antioxidants anything else. You want to highlight their on the detox. 

Evan Brand: I started over the weekend doing some glutathione and a nebulizer. there’s actually a brand out there which I can tell you about a bluetooth ion this mixed with a sodium bicarbonate that you can make Saline solution. I’ve read a Stephen Buhner, the herbalist that you and I love because of his work on Lyme and co-infections. He made a COPD protocol for people suffering with asthma and other lung conditions and came up with a nebulizer protocol with essential oils. And so I’m doing the nebulized glutathione by itself and you just need to put the face mask on you got the nebulizer and I just took a of 200 mg of glutathione intranasally and I tell you my brain yesterday was so clear like, amazingly clear and I’ve actually spoke with some of these people at the company who’ve gotten their patients off of IV glutathione and onto the nebulizer because they don’t have to drive anywhere to get poked with a needle is much cheaper and the results are being seen much better because it’s getting through the blood-brain barrier when you inhale the glutathione vs. IV is not so that’s like my new development on detox and I haven’t done it enough yet to to give you the full, you know the whole story but for right now, My story is very positive. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Very good. So I think we talked about some of the toxic things. And again, it’s pretty simple. it’s like you just got to look at the food. Look at the environments try to increase sweating the infrared sauna good clean hydration could get a grill to go clean water filter JustInHealth.com/water or the ones that I specifically used Evan probably has some as well EvanBrand.com and you can look at his shop as well. But that’s kind of things. I actually use and I recommend personally clean water organic food being able to digest your food and then we talked about some of the various binders that we can do like chlorella for that some of the heavy metals activated charcoal as it’s a really good multi-tasker for a lot very spent the night Clays or folded minerals are really good too. And then they also you know from what we may also do things like Z light or maybe even Coley star means to help that bind up some of that mold as well that could be there environmentally if that’s the case then well have to do some testing on the house and and look again. Is the root cause of that Dilantin I have a guest that were going to get on just a few minutes. It will talk all about that in the next podcast. I will be right after this show. 

Evan Brand: Yeah, we got to wrap it up so that you all can chat about mold. it’s going to be fun. But the sauna would be the last thing I would add animal wrap it up the sauna and I love sweating sweating is the key and you can look at if you just look up PubMed typing like ochratoxin sweat. You can read that mold toxins. In fact do come out when you sweat so there is proof behind that and there’s a reason that our ancestors did like sweat lodges and some of these ceremonial practices they sweat their butt often those things and they were probably detoxing too good thing for them as they did not have any of the hundreds of thousands of manmade modern chemicals that we have today. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think it’s important. that’s great. Awesome animal today was a great chat as always. Hope everyone enjoyed the podcast in the interview before you put your comment down below. Let us know things that you have used to help you detoxify good experience that you had and if you enjoy today¡̄s show, give us a share. We appreciate it, and you can write a review at EvanBrand.com/iTunes and JustInHealth.com/iTunes. We appreciate ya¡̄ll. Everyone has a phenomenal day and we’ll talk real soon.

Evan Brand: The clinical websites. If you want to reach out to Joe is clinically, please do so at his sight JustInHealth.com. You can reach out around the world. We can send test kit’s to your door. You don’t have to drive anywhere and wait in a boring dirty doctors office and read People magazine. You can do it from your house. So JustInHealth.com, and then my side is EvanBrand.com. We look forward to helping you were very grateful for the opportunity.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it, excellent. Awesome Evan, have a phenomenal day great chat with you is always will be back next week. Thank you. Everyone. 

Evan Brand: See you later. Bye.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye. Bye.

---

References:

https://www.evanbrand.com/

https://justinhealth.com/

Audio Podcast:  

http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/mood-imbalances-and-their-root-causes-podcast-250

Recommended Products:

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Peri-Menopause and Female Hormone Balance Solutions | Podcast #213

Peri-menopause can be hard on some women. It brings fatigue, mood swings and sleep troubles, a stressful transition that can last for months or years before menopause.

In today’s podcast, Dr. Justin Marchegiani explains the process of peri-menopausal stage and its effect to the body. Learn how the lowering levels of progesterone make one’s system more estrogen-dominant, the different issues brought by peri-menopause especially stress, mood issues, hot flashes, depression. Also, learn how to minimize its effect. Continue for more and don’t forget to share. Sharing is caring!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

02:26    Adrenal Gland

04:31    Female Hormone Cycle

07:31    Hormone Physiology 101

26:27    Stress Response Buffering

12:35    Effects of Estrogen Exposure to Men

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys! It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani, welcome to today’s podcast. Uh, congratulations to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, great go- not really a great game on the offensive side, great defensive game. Uh, 6 superbowl victory for Tom. And I did a podcast on Tom’s performance secrets 2 weeks ago which become even more pertinent today based off of his victory. He is officially the go- greatest of all time. So, really good uhm- to go back and revisit that podcast, lots of good insights in regards to sleep, in regard to hydration, in regards to nutrition, reducing inflammation, uh various training techniques, all these things I think are, a conglomerate of tools that uh- Tom uses to improve his performance, heal fast and keep his uh, pliability and performance up the uh- at the, you know, at the highest age possible. Really, to be a successful quarterback in the NFL, it’s pretty amazing.

So, today, we’re gonna open it up here for uhm… here, I kinda like- maybe a little live podcast here. Anyone wants to chime-in in these specific topics they want me to go into today, we can just choose a topic and just go off the cup and go live. I’m on Facebook as well so, feel free and check in with me on any of these mediums here so far. I’m gonna dive in one topic here today. We’ll go in on peri-menopause. So peri-menopause is really interesting. This is the kind of the phenomenon where you’re in this transition time of going into full menopause or- typically peri-menopause is just starting to miss some periods, you’re maybe in your mid- ty- typically upper 40s. Usually menopause starts between 48 to 51 and it can take 10 years, meaning the symptoms that you deal with during menopause, that can take up to 10 years sometimes. The hot flashes, the mood issues, the depression, uh anxiety, uhm those type of sleep issues, scrappy skin, all those things can kind of con- you know, consolidate and happen over a long period of time. Typically, peri-menopause is that- one year. Once you get in the menopause- menopause typically is like, once you’re been no cycle for 12 months. So, peri-menopause is this in-between time  where skipping cycles, maybe you have a period every 4 months, or 6 months, or you’re kinda lost your cycle regularity, you know, fertility may not quite be there, you may not be ovulating as much- uhm- you start to see your cycles just getting more and more irregular, typically in you’d mid- typically upper 40s when that starts to happen.

Now, what do we do about that? So, first thing is, make sure you’re not getting exposed to toxic hormones in your foods or in the environment. That’s number 1. Uh, number 2, the biggest hijacker of your hormones is gonna be your stress hormones, A.K.A. cortisol and adrenaline. So it’s really important that you get your adrenals looked at if you’re worried about peri-menopause because, DHEA Sulfate, this is the major sex hormone precursor that’s made by your adrenal glands. This is actually coming from your adrenals and it’s a precursor to make more estriol in women. It can go more testosterone in men. But estriol is that predominant estrogen that you’re gonna have when you start becoming more menopausal. Typically when you’re cycling and fertile, it’s more estradiol, E-2, the “di” is kinda- right, 2. And then estriol, or the TRI, that prefix for 3. So you start to make more estriol, and that’s gonna be more anticancer. It’s gonna be- it’s have some really good anti-aging benefits. Estriol’s really important for hydration, that’s why low estriol- low estriol can- can create vaginal dryness. It’s also a really good anti-inflammatory, it really helps with brain inflammation. This is why a lot of mood issues and brain fog and cognitive issues start as you become more and more uhm- peri-menopausal into menopause.

So we have to look at the adrenal glands, that’s number 1. Because these adrenals make DHEA, also cortisol hijacks your hormones. Cortisol increases blood sugar, and also decreases protein synthesis, meaning, you have less protein going to build up your brain chemicals and build up your muscle tissue, and that protein is primarily running through gluconeogenesis where it’s shredding up that protein and making more glucose out of it. That’s what stressed us. People get more flabby, they get more cellulite because of cortisol. Breaks down connected tissue, and it breaks down amino acids. So, your- getting your adrenals looked at is really important.

Uh, number 2 is looking at your female hormones as many women as they go more into peri-menopause, they become more estrogen-dominant. And the reason why is, because we talked cortisol hijacking, your hormones- it does so, ’cause it pulls progesterone downstream to make your stress hormone. So this is important. The more stressed you get, the more you deplete progesterone, that puts you more into an estrogen-dominant state. Typically, we have more progesterone than estrogen. It’s about a 20 to 25 to 1 ratio progesterone to estrogen, and when you start going estrogen-dominant, people think, “Oh, that means estrogen goes higher”. No, it just means there’s ratio, it starts to drop. So you still may have more progesterone, there’s that ratio drops down a little bit, and you start to see estrogen creep up, but you may not see estrogen ever go above progesterone. Just keep that in the back of your mind. That’s gets commonly confused.

So we have the progesterone there. And typically, when cortisol’s prolonged, this also affects the HPA, H-P-A-T, H-P-A-T-G-G: hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, gonadal, gut access. So it affects that feedback loop from the brain, and the hypothalamus and the pituitary ups- upstairs to that feedback loop of the glands secreting hormones downstairs. And this is important, so we start to see cortisol rhythm operations. The cortisol rhythm starts fluctuating. We start to see it in women with their cycle operations. A lot of times we just see a lot of PMS or the extreme PMS is PMDD, which is that week or so, before you actually menstruate or bleed. And then we also see a lot of- a lot of times, sometimes shorter cycles, going from 28 to 26 to 24 to 22. So we start to have a shorter luteal phase, just really important ’cause your luteal phase is that primary phase where you’re making more progesterone. So we do test while we actually look at progesterone every other day for a full cycle. And one of the things we’ll start to see is, your overall progesterone that you make throughout the whole month, typically should be above that 3000 marker so, it starts to drop. You start to see it drop. And that’s big, ’cause that’s kind of like looking at your overall progesterone sum, we start to see it drop, and a lot of times that can happen when you compress that luteal phase when you shorten it, ’cause you just have less days where you’re even making progesterone. Uhm, that’s a big one. So we start to see cycle aberrations there, we could see a shorter luteal phase, we could see a longer follicular phase, we may be out of sync, or we’re not ovulating at that right time and your ovulation could be totally off, or maybe you’re not even ovulating. ‘Cause, you know, to have that good ovulation to signal, we need a- [clears throat] a rise in estrogen followed by rise in progesterone and then estrogen kinda pitters out while progesterone stays high and drops. This is kind of our typical rhythm, and how women’s cycle work. So, just kinda first thing that happens, those gotta- kind of hormone physiology 101.

So, we start off by menstruating. That menstruation is typically signaled by a drop in progesterone and estrogen. First thing, progesterone and estrogen drop. That’s step 1. 2, menstruation happens after that, that’s the shedding of the uterine lining. We want brighter blood that’s more oxygenated, more fresh, for starting to see browner, thicker kind of clottier stuff, it just could be- uhm- the uterine lining from previous cycles that didn’t flush out. So, 1, drop in progesterone and estrogen, 2, menstruation, that’s gonna happen for a few days, anywhere between 3 to 7 days, okay? We don’t wanna go more than 3 to 4 tampons per day on average. For our average high, is if not we lose too much blood, we go hemorrhagic, we go anemic because of that. Step 2 is FSH starts to increase. FSH is our brain hormone, follicle stimulating hormone. That FSH start to make the follicle grow a little bit. That follicle starts to produce estrogen. Estrogen starts to rise, right? As estrogen starts to rise, that starts to signal luteinizing hormone, which is our other brain hormone that talks to our ovaries. And then progesterone starts to rise typically around day 12 to 13 after that. So here we are at day 12 or 13, estrogen’s kinda topped out, that signals LH, then we have progesterone going up like this. So progesterone’s going up, and then at some point, estrogen starts to fall again, progesterone stays up, and then around day 28, they crash together and that signals the whole entire step again.

So, drop in estrogen progesterone, signals bleeding, FSH, increases, FSH creates more estrogen, more estrogen creates more LH, more LH creates progesterone, estrogen starts to drop, progesterone stays high, estrogen and progesterone drop and then signal bleeding at the end. So that’s kind of a general uhm, cycle physiology 101, Most people are clueless about that. When I talk to a woman, I say, “Hey how long is your cycle?”, the biggest kind of common misconception, “Oh, it’s 3 days or it’s 7 days”, like no, not your menstruation, your full cycle. Your cycle is from day 1, first day of bleeding to next day 1, typically 28 days later. Uhm- most people get that confused your cycles, your full hormonal rhythm, day 1 to day 1, how much you menstruate is gonna be your- your bleeding, your period time so to speak. Hope that helps. That’s a common misconception.

Alright, so we talked about adrenals, we talked about our female hormone cycle, we talked about hormones in the environment toxins. These things are really important because they disrupt, they put more stress on our metabolism to be our- to be our detoxification system to be able to metabolize hormones. Gut functions’ so important because this is where we absorb a lot of the nutrients from our food to make our hormones, right? Hormones are made from good cholesterol, right, it goes cholesterol pregnant alone and then 27 different hormones that spit out on the stress side, on the mineralocorticoid side and on- then on the anabolic estrogen progesterone, testosterone side. So we- we need to be able to absorb these nutrients so we can make our hormones. We need to be able to absorb nutrients to help buffer the stress response. Magnesium, L-Theanine, GABA, they help us buffer that stress response so we could- think of it as like, imagine buying a car where you can only shift it from first gear to second to third or fourth, fourth to fifth. So, all you can do is bring that car up from low to high but you can’t downshift. And a lot of people are in this place where they cannot downshift their metabolic car, so they constantly feel stressed, they cannot ever bring it down from fifth gear back to first gear. And this is one of the biggest issue- biggest issues we see, and if we can’t absorb our good amino acids, and- and- and make our good inhibitory nerves, transmitters like GABA, through L-Theanine, through magnesium, through dopamine through serotonin, we’re gonna have problems. And typically, this starts to mess up sleep. Starts to mess up our melatonin cortisol rhythm which is the next step. And that’s gonna be basically- melatonin goes up at night, cortisol goes down at night. We have this inverse relationship – melatonin up, cortisol down, right? We get this big “X”. And when cortisol stays high at night time, it disrupts sleep, it prevents melatonin from coming up. Melatonin is a powerful antioxidant, it’s powerful anti-cancer, it’s very anabolic, it helps you heal, recover, turn-over your neurotransmitter successfully and heal your body, ’cause you really tap into ’em, make a lot of your growth hormone in that first half of the night, 10:00PM to 2:00AM. So we wanna be asleep so we can plug in and access that growth hormone.

Okay, so we got our rhythm, cortisol, adrenals, digestion, absorption, and then also, the amino acids that we absorb through our digestive system, also help run our detoxification system. So, we wanna stop the toxins on one side, not drink out of plastics, not consume pesticides, consume organic, right, get, you know, higher quality step-4, step-5, if we’re using the whole food, step-method works, more grass-fed, pasture-fed, organic, the whole nine yards that’s gonna help us make more of the nutrients, absorb more of the nutrients where we can actually detoxify as well.

And then we talked about those hormones helping with sleep, helping to buffer stress. Uh, very-very important components to female hormone health, as well as make hormone health. Uhm- males really get the sure end of the stick, because there’s a lot of estrogens in the environment, you don’t have a lot of synthetic androgens in the environment, so men really get clavier because when men get a whole bunch of estrogen exposure, it starts to inhibit LH. LH is that upstream hormone in the brain that talks to the gonads, right? With the uh- the cells lay dig in the testicles to make more estrogen… I’m sorry, to make more testosterone so that estrogen disrupts that signal. Now we don’t talk to our testicles to make more testosterones, it starts to inhibit that. And it’s a- it’s a really a vicious cycle. With women, they just become more estrogen dominant, which is a good, that starts to mug their cycle. With men, it starts to decrease testosterone. And you start to see things like gynecomastia – man boobs. Uhm, maybe guys even being overly emotional because they’re- it starts throwing off testosterone-estrogen balance as well. So that’s gonna affect their mood and- and focus on- on the male side as well. And of course for the woman, it- it causes same things, ’cause they can create more PMS which can create irritability, breast ___[13:48], back pain, moodiness, irritability, sleep issue, all those things that you know, women do not like. And men don’t like them either, of course. It’s a two-way cycle in that for sure.

So we think we hit all the major things. I’m gonna open it up to questions, primarily on the peri-menopause, female hormone side of the fence. And again, this is total live podcast here. Uhm- again, I just- I interject a lot of clinical information ’cause I work with patients in the trenches. So if you have any of these issues and you wanna dive in, click below to make sure you subscribe, hit the bell, and schedule a consult with me and my staff. Let’s see what kind of questions we have here off the bat. Try to keep it pertinent on the topic if you can.

Alright, let’s see here. Uh, “How bad- how can a bad gut affect hormone?”. So it’s going to affect the two-wa- oh, couple of ways. We absorb all of our nutrients to create our hormones to our gut. Number 2, we absorb the nutrients to our gut to help us detoxify – number 2. And then number 3, dysbiotic bacteria increases an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase. And beta-glucuronidase, uhm deconjugates estrogen. So we have an estrogen molecule right? It is floating in our bloodstream, we conjugate it, we bind it to a protein, to escort it out of the body. It’s kinda like, hey guys in the night club, whatever rock and rowdy, security guard comes up, like puts the guys hands behind his back and like escorts him, out of the club, right? That’s kind of, when you conjugate, think about as putting- err- handcuffs on that rowdy hormone. And de-conjugation is just someone coming around with a handcuff key, and uncuffing each person, right? Think- that’s what’s happening with dysbiotic bacteria… dysbiotic bacteria, bad bacterial overgrowth, increases beta-glucuronidase, then we have the- the handcuffs, are taken off the hormone, and they can be rowdy again. So those are the big 3 ways that can affect that.

Okay, excellent. Any other questions, feel free- uhm, feel free and chime in. I’m- I’m more than like- I’m more than willing to answer any more questions. Okay. I think we hit all the major things here. Try to think of anything else we can do. Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa, awesome… Tssssss… ‘Kay. “What’s a good mindset to have when you are feeling hard bowel, and of crohn’s flare up right now?” So, ob- obviously, gut issues can affect hormone health too, right? So question is, how did it happen? I want to feel like I’m in control of the vicious cycle. I wanna know what the heck happened. So, I wanna look back and at least gain control over how I gotten into this flare up. Maybe the first thing I wanna know. And the second thing is what actions are you gonna take to get out of that flare up? So, feel free and check video 2 to 3 weeks ago on how to, you know, reverse an autoimmune condition flare. Take a look at that video. I go over a lot of good steps that are needed to- to be addressed.

Uhm, “Is fatty liver curable? What supplements would you recommend to help?”. So, yeah, it is, I mean, it’s typically gonna be a combination of insulin resistance. And insulin resistance has a major effect on female hormones. How? Because high amounts of insulin, are going to up-regulate specific enzymes that can increase androgens in women. So that can really throw off androgens, and then of course high amounts of androgens can- can mess up proactive, and prolactin can screw up uhm, estrogen and progesterone, right? So, this is a really, you know, concerning thing. So, high fructose, corn syrup, insulin-resistance are gonna be the big things that are going to cause that.

Uhm, “Thoughts on IF in regaining cycles, avoiding IF until cycle returns”. So, uhm- typically, what I would recommend, is that you do not engage in any intermittent fasting until you get your hormones back and under control. Not eating food for a long periods of time can actually be a stressor on your hormones. ‘Cause we need nutrition to run our metabolic systems. But if you are more stressed, it- it may be too much stress on your body avoiding these foods, these nutrients. ‘Cause then, longer periods of time may cause your adrenals to make more cortisol, and adrenaline and gluconeogenesis to regulate your blood sugar. The more stressed you’re at, uhm- the more stressed you’re at, the better you’re going to absor- the more stressed you are, the more gluconeogenesis, the more you’re gonna rely in other hormones to pick up your blood sugar. If those hormonal systems are weaker, you’re essentially gonna need more of those other systems to pick it up. Now, by eating and stabilizing your blood sugar, that’s gonna take stress off those hormonal systems that are weaker, and give them the chance to get stronger. It’s kinda equivalent if you break your ankle. You walk around on crutches for a bit, the goal of walking around on crutches is going to be to take weight off your ankle so it can heal.

Alright, excellent. Very good. Uhm, “Can low progesterone in ladies cause low libido?” It definitely can. Low progesterone can definitely cause, uhm, low libido in ladies. Uh- lot of times it’s just the estrogen dominants that starts to pick up, that can be the big issue.

Uh, Samuel writes in “Hey doc, been drinking a little more alcohol recently due to football games and hunting season, seems to have messed up my circadian rhythm a bit. Uh- what would you recommend for a reset?”. Uhm, more than likely, I would just stop with the uhm- stop with the alcohol kind of down a bit. You could do more vitamin-C and more sulfur amino acids, uhm, to help your body heal.

Excellent. Uh, let’s see here. Any other questions? Barbara Scott writes in, “Could chronic muscle pain impart of the menopause phase of life?”. Well, yeah, I mean, it definitely could. I mean, it’s very possible that, uhm, your adrenals are weaker, and then that’s gonna help- that’s gonna impair your body’s ability to manage inflammation well. It’s very possible. Uh, a lot your hormones have really good anti-inflammatory fats-progesterone estrogen, it just depends on what the root cause is. Did it happen from food? Did it happen from… uhm- stress? Did it happen from poor sleep? So, I wanna get a- a window in what the heck is happening there as well.

Okay, excellent. Let me keep on rolling here. Uh, “Can a hair analysis tell you a lot of accurate info?” Uh, I think a hair analysis can potentially give you some good info, the problem is, it’s all downstream information because all those nutrients that get into your hair, the half that come in through the gut. So if you have impaired gut issues, that’s going to affect what’s in the hair. So if people are looking at the hair, they’re looking at all these different mineral ratios in the hair, but if we have a gut issue, I consider that to be a lot more upstream.

Uh, “What’s the best way to balance out estrogen and progesterone in ladies?”. So, off the bat, uhm- you gotta at what the underlying reason is. Is there toxicity issues, number 1? Is there uh, absorption issues in the gut, number 2? What’s your adrenal strength at, number 3? How is your hormonal rhythm, number 4? And then I also wanna look at just uhm, you know, exposure to conventional, uhm hormones in the food. Those are all gonna be big ones, they’re off the bat.

Ugh, let me just see if I can continue to do that. “Tom Brady’s a beast last night”, not in- actually, all I had during the game was one kombucha, during the game, I got some keto-cups which are like one gram of sugar, uh- coconut, like peanut butter cups but that uses coconut oil instead. And then I had a pizza which is a cauliflower crusted, and then I use the dial almond cheese. So that was the big one that I had there.

Uh, “What would you recommend to naturally treats- treat sinus-headaches brought on by cold?” So, if you go to my site, and look at recommended products, justinhealth.com/shop, and then you look at recommended products. I have a couple of links to amazon products that I like for that. I like either a combination of the nasaline or a sinus- just injector, and essentially uhm, the Xlear Sinus Rinse. I think that works really good. The NeilMeds, good but the Xlear has a lot of the xylitol in there, which is great at killing different kinds of bacteria and also flushing things out, and it’s really helpful with that post-nasal drip as well.

Uhm, I think we hit a lot of good things here. JACK ATTACK writes in, “How do you feel about citrus pectin?”. Well on the context of hormones and peri-menopause, it’s really good at binding up a lot of these metabolized hormones that may have a problem getting escorted out, and it kinda puts the handcuff back on these hormones to help it escort outside the- of the body. So I think it really helps with detoxification of hormones. Thanks Jack, appreciate it.

“I’m an active 30-year-old male on a paleo diet suffering from bloating, loose stools every morning, find myself wanting to eat more starchy vegetables for energy.” Yeah, so I mean, that’s kind of a broad statement, but in general, I would look at the gut and figure out what- uh, the next step is there because the gut needs to be addressed.

Okay, try to keep all questions related to the topic of peri-menopause. Uhm, that’d be super helpful for me so I know what’s going on. ‘Kay, very good… Anything else guys? What else is going on? “What cauliflower crust pizza did you do?”. It’s a local place by my house that- that does an organic cauliflower crusted pizza, I’m not sure the actual brand. Uhm, and I did the diet cheese. So it’s kinda  lower carb too which is nice, so, I don’t get all bunch of a carbs either, feel pretty good afterwards too which is nice.

Alright guys, hope everything’s going well. Make sure you guys subscribe over to my thyroid reset summit, thyroidresetsummit.com, we’re going live in a month. We got a whole bunch of free stuff I’m giving out as well. I’m giving out the first like, 25% of my thyroid book. So, really excited for that get out. Hopefully it’ll provide a lot of great information. Everything I try to put out there s- I wanted to be action-oriented, so you guys can use it to actually start getting better. I help more people through my content than I actually do in person. Obviously, you know, having a personal relation, if you can’t substitute that, but this is a great way to get good information out to people here. So, make sure you sign up.

“Best lab to discern HA versus early menopause?”. Uhm, can you define what HA is? Uhm, much or- I mean, it’s probably something very common. I just- give me what that meaning is there…

Uhm, “What’s the difference between ox bile and bile used by conventional docs…”, uh- I think you mean “urso… “, uh- I’m not sure how you pronounce that – ursodeoxycholic acid. So typically, a lot of bile- ox-bile’s typically used as a bile salt supplementation when they take it from oxes or- I think bovine sources it sounds like, and they’re using that supplement as wise. Now, my line and Liver Supreme, we will use bile salts, we will use beet roots, we will use… uhm- french tree, or ___[24:47], things that are really supportive for the liver, supportive for the gallbladder, thinning out the bile, and then we’ll also help provide uhm- extra bile as well because if we can’t break down our fats, typically we’re gonna have a hard time breaking down our cholesterol, right? And if we can’t break down our cholesterol, that’s gonna really hurt our hormones. This is a really important question ’cause if you’re dealing with peri-menopause, this may significantly affect your hormones not being able to break down good quality fats.

Uhm, so- “Hypoth- hypothalamic- hypothalamic amenorrhea versus early menopause?”. Okay, so amenorrhea. So amenorrhea is like you’re still in that cycling age, it’s premature, you’re not having your period, okay? I have a woman who is 40 years old, uhm, this last couple months, started to get her period back. I see that happen many times, she wants to have a second child. Her period’s back for the first time in two years. Why does that happen? It’s a combination of typically poor gut issues, you’re typically under- you’re getting underneath nutrition, and it can be a combination that you’re not eating enough, or you’re not breaking down and absorbing enough. And then of course, all of the hormonal stress that compound for math, ’cause of course that creates adrenal issues, and that creates female hormone issues, and that detoxification issues ’cause if you don’t absorb, then you can’t run- put the nutrients in and run detoxification systems as well. Uh, so best labs to discern that, I mean, you wanna run a high-quality month-long test, and then also want to run some blood work and also some uhm- some adrenal testing as well. So you’d wanna dig in, find a good functional medicine doc to get that set up for ‘ya.

Oh, great to hear Irma, glad you’re registered, awesome. Uh, another great question just came in here. Try to keep it to the female hormones today guys… Uhm, “If I see anything remotely sad or happy tears, is that an estrogen issue? Will that affect gut health?” So, it’s hard to say, is this a- a guy you asking this question or female? Uhm, but, yeah, definitely, hormonal imbalances can affect the emotions. And you know, it’s gonna be- you’re gonna be looking for that change in emotions, maybe more emotional’s typically what you’re gonna see, but yeah, that can definitely have major effects on your emotions as well.

Nora writes in. Hey Nora, “Got acne around my jaw since June 2018. Last consult you asked if I had started doing anything different around that time but I didn’t recall. Later I found I re-introduced some thyroid support for hypothyroidism around that time. Since tests show no more hypothyroidism now, is it okay to stop the ‘Thyro balance’?”. Uhm, so in general Nora, we’d wanna make sure that we’re testing your hormones on the thyroid side, and as you’re dropping that down, we’d wanna make sure that your hormo- your TSH stays within a good functional range, as well as your hormones stand a functional range. So, it’s not something you’d wanna just drop out by itself, you’d- you’d wanna test you, and make sure as we drop it out, there could be, you know, that you’re doing good there. And then regarding any jaw acne that happens, I mean, we’d want to make sure number 1, insulin is okay, right? Insulin’s good. Uhm, ’cause if you’re doing too much insulin that’s gonna drive more androgens and then that’s gonna activate the sebaceous glands to make more oil, and that can cause the acnes. So we wanna make sure insulin’s good, wanna make sure detoxification’s really good. So- and for me to add in more sulfur amino acids and detoxifying support to run those systems, that’s good. Number 3, potentially various fibers to help bind up some of these junks so it gets or- escorted out your gut better, and then I would say number 3, if we’re still having issues you may wanna add in some prostate glanding support like black currant seed oil, and email my office if we- if we-  I don’t have your protocol up in here in front of me yet, so when patients ask me about questions here, I- I may be having some incomplete info to go off of, so if we haven’t added any black currant seed oil, we may wanna do that to help with the prosta gland and then some help with the jaw issue. And the next thing will be to- to retest your hormones with the DUTCH test to look at also how you’re metabolizing your estrogens to make sure that’s getting better. But don’t adjust anything until we chat.

Yeah, vitex is gonna be a great hormone- a great herbal support, A.K.A chastry, that’s gonna be really good at helping progesterone balancing for sure, really good.

Uh, “After getting through menopause does one need to stay on additional hormone help continually through life?”. It really depends. So what I recommend is get all your hormones symptoms under controlled, number 1. Test your hormones, make sure your adrenals and your female hormones are relatively good, uhm, from lab-testing standpoint based on your age. And then I recommend gently tapering down your hormones and see how well you do. See if you can keep your symptoms, your menopausal, se- was under control, sleeping good, your mood’s good, vaginal dryness is okay, brain fog’s good, and if you can maintain that benefit while dropping that bioidentical hormone support, that may be an option but Barbara, you’d have to deal with that at a consult, and continue to monitor that and keep that dial on going, but that’s a great question.

Okay, great. Uhm… just kinda kind of- come in here guys if I skip your question, don’t take it personal, tryna go to the questions that are most pertinent to this conversation. Zoe-Holistic writes in, “Would you be worried about a 54-year-old woman, still cycling and ovulating? Would you recommend supplementation as a- oestrogen is very high”. It just depends if you’re 54 and you’re still cycling and- and- the cy- cycle’s relatively stable and lengthen, PMS-wise, I wouldn’t too wor- I wouldn’t be too worried, I wanna know more about your parents and this is something that your sisters or- aunts- aunts, and/or mom or, you know, mom went through as well, our grandparents went through? I wanna know a little more about the history. And doing some testing, right- I think would also be good just to see where your levels are at, I think that’s a really good thing. I’ve- I typically more concerned Zoe with people, uhm, prematurely going into menopause, that’s my bigger concern, that’s the thing I’m seeing these days. But I think it’s always good to get tested.

“Is there a connection between hypoglycemia and adrenal fatigue?”, yes! Great- great question Olga. I see a lot of low-blood sugar symptoms’ really being a big stressor on the adrenals, and then that can create a lot of lower progesterone issues, creates a lot of stress. I definitely see that being a concern.

“What is the average acceptable age for menopause?”, typically 48 to 51-ish.

Ik O, “Best test for progesterone levels?”. I mean, you can run a typical progesterone blood test, you know, we like to be at least 10 to 15 on that, around day 20 of your cycle, right? Considering your cycle being like 26 to 30 days, and/or like a- a good high-quality DUTCH complete panel that we’ll run around day 19 to 22.

Nora, you’re totally welcome. So, email my office if you need that black currant seed oil, I’ll put you on 2 capsules of that twice a day if your skin is still having some issues. Two caps, twice a day and I have a couple recommended brands.

Jessica Lynn writes in, “Does liquid vitamin-C raise estrogen? I read studies say that there’s a connection”. I’m not sure that it would raise it. I will typically give vitamin-C in fiber to actually help with estrogen detoxification, so I don’t think it would raise it, maybe there’s some modulate- maybe there’s some modulation effects, or may help modulate it but I couldn’t imagine it actually raising it, like taking maybe uh, hormone would.

“My kidney pain by eating a honey, age 27, serious problem?”. Uhm, yeah that’s a good question, kinda little off-topic, but in general, I would be careful with the too much fructose.

“Will chaste tree help with progesterone?”. It will, it’s gonna help with LH, luteinizing hormone which is gonna help talk to your- your ovaries, and that kind of female hormone area to make more progesterone?

DesignLover writes in, “Took birth control pills for 1 year for adult acne, it worked. Now I’m 37 and it’s creeping back around the jaw line. Connection to sugar or more estrogen related? Or more cortisol? Also, hard time sleeping.” Now again, like birth control pills can help, even though you’re actually giving more estrogen with the birth control pill, it does kinda level out your hormones, so you’re not getting swings. So, I think a lot of the hormone swings can really be a big effect there so we can kind of level stuff off. But I also see, you know, birth control pills cause more issues. You can see melasma as well, which is the estrogen, kind of stimulates the melanocytes and more pigmentation, you can kind of get that pregnancy mask, while on the birth control pill, and someone that can actually make their acne worse. I’ve seen it on both sides. Is there connection to sugar and more estrogen-related, yeah, there’s definitely a big connection with sugar because sugar will actually increase more insulin. And insulin will create more ___[33:23], which will cause the bacteria to feed off of your skin and create more acne.

“My natural doctor put me on liquid vitamin-C and I’m having short cycle, 26-27 days with very light bleeding and prolonged bleeding”. Yeah, I would need more info, I’d wanna test your hormones, see where you’re at. A lot of my younger female patients will use herbs to help the signaling upstream from the brain to your ovaries and then we’ll also- a lot of times give a little bit of bio-organical progesterone, but we’ll give it in a specific cyclical augmentation fashion while we’ll taper it up and down. But we really wanna be specific in how we do that.

Amelia V writes in, ” If taking T3 you mentioned in past, needing it uh- multi-x-day due to half life. Why am I only- why am I only RX dosage for the AM?” Uhm, so, yeah, if you’re just taking T3, I don’t recommend only taking it in the AM, and like if you’re doing a Cytomel or liothyronine, you’re gonna be dropping off on your- uhm- on your T3 within 4 to 5 hours, so you definitely want to uh, not do it that way. In the thyroid re- reset summit, we had ___[34:26] on the uhm- summit talking about these exact things. So make sure you subscribe thyroidresetsummit.com, make sure you subscribe.

Olga writes in, “Can longtime use of Mirena iud cause energy problems?”. Yeah, Mirena can cause a lot of side effects. Merina is a synthetic progesterone, and there’s an iud to secretes that. So, yeah, it can definitely- I mean, my biggest issue with that is it just kind of seeps in your bloodstream throughout the whole month at least with like, birth control pills, you kinda take a reminder session, you know a 6 to 7 day reminder where you kinda- drop out your hormones and then- and then that can cause bleeding where you kinda have this steady state of hormones with the Merina, which I think’s a little bit unnatural because you don’t have any drop at all. That’s concerning, so- I always recommend my female patients if they want- uhm- an iud to try the ParaGard which is a copper-iud that’s non-hormonal.

Uhm, “‘Can’t miss’ interview from the thyroid summit? What was your favorite interview?”. It’s a great one, I’d had a lot of a really good interview. It’s hard to say which one was the best. It really depends on the topic. ‘Cause we’re really connected the thyroid to the gut, thyroid to the emotions, thyroid to the adrenals, thyroid to fertility, thyroid to female hormones, thyroid to- even male hormones or gut inflammation, or gluten, or autoimmunidase. So those, you know, it- it was so many different areas, it’s really hard to say.

Paul writes in, “In menopause, how to stop hot flashes?”. Well, a lot of times, the hot flashes can be from a lot of these upstream hormones in the brain like FSH going really high. ‘Cause think of the ovaries, right? Your brain makes hormones that talks to the ovaries to make more hormone, more female hormone. So, as the brain- as the ovaries aren’t, you know, don’t have the follicles coming in, and we’re not making as much hormone, the brain is trying to rev up the volume that talk to the uhm, downstream glands. And that FSH as it goes higher can really increase vasodilation so, giving certain herbs can really help with the signaling and help kind of decrease the volume a little bit, modulate the volume, and then giving some bioidentical hormones can also help modulate the volume as well. ‘Cause the brain says, “Hey, I’m getting a little bit more hormone in there naturally, we can lower the volume as well”, and then we deal with the herbs to help with the receptor sites too. So there’s a couple different ways that we can do it. But that’s kinda one of the major philosophies regarding FSH, and regarding a lot of the hot flashes.

Uhm, ” Is Chaste Tree something you can take to see how you feel…?”, I mean, you really want to be working with the functional med doc on this. A lot of variables when it comes to that.

DesignLover , “Is there a connection to an imbalance of hormones in women who haven’t bore any children?”. Potentially, I mean, women that haven’t born- birthed children, they don’t have that progesterone increase that happens, uhm- throughout pregnancy, so that- you that- 8 or 9 months where progesterone goes up because of HCG, that goes up significantly higher. So that may- let’s just say, you have a greater chance just kind of being more an estrogen dominance, over your- your cycling fertility time-frame so to speak, where hormone, who is uhm- pregnant one, they’re not gonna be using up the follicles as much ’cause you’re not cycling when you’re pregnant and a lot of time during the breastfeeding process. So, you’re not going to cycle through your eggs as fast. And then number 2, you’re more overall an average having a higher input of progesterone, so that has some effects as well.

Uhm, Zoe writes in, “Do you find the people with more severe menopause symptoms always have more adrenal issues when testing, is that your finding?”. I wouldn’t say always but I- ’cause it’s- it’s-  I don’t- I’m not a big fan of absolutes but I would say yes. I would say on average, that is a significant correlation, more menopausal issues have more adrenal issues. And also, peri-menopausal issues, more adrenal issues, and I’ll even go one step further, cycling female issues, right? Definitely adrenal issues.

Uh, Amelia writes in, ” I’ve heard it takes one month to re-balance cycle for every year you haven’t had one?”. Yeah, that pro- that makes sense, I definitely agree with that, I mean, I typically see a major rebalancing in a- in a woman’s cycle within 6 to 12 months. And a major rebalancing is- I thi- I would s- call that, is about a 50% improvement. Alright, and then from there, we continue to compound that improvement month after month.

“Can someone with copper toxicity use a copper iud?”. Yeah, I mean, you can just make sure you’re doing extra zinc, put some extra zinc in your supplementation regime to help balance out the copper toxicity. That would be a good helpful approach ’cause you have the paragard or- is a copper iud and of course that can increase your copper levels. So you gotta be careful with that. You gotta weigh that out with your doc and see if you are really are copper sensitive. I have some patients that cannot do a paragard copper iud, they just can’t do it. Uhm, some can do it great and they have no problems. So you really gotta weigh those options out.

Uhm, “Can peri-menopause cause weight gain in the stomach? I’m 49 years old, no period for 7 months, gained 20 lbs. in the stomach in the last year and I can’t seem to lose it, is it just from unbalanced hormones?” So, remember, a lot of uhm, adrenal issues connect to peri-meno- menopausal issues. And a lot of adrenal issues are coming from cortisol imbalances. And cortisol has a direct effect on your tummy through just cortisol itself, the stress hormones can aff- affect the gut, and also through more sugar being released which can have an effect in insulin which can also affect your tummy. So, adrenal issues, have a major effect with cortisol, and also plug in and connect to insulin as well. So, great questions there.

“Do you think women with polymorphisms in COMT and MTHFR should not take the contraceptive pill? Controversial topic”, I know. Well, I know, in general like COMT like uh- catechol-O-methyltransferase. So when you see, uhm these types of issues, you may have issues with various adrenaline and just being able to deal with stress because these catecholamines are- like, you know, basically your stress hormones, your stress neurotransmitters. And MTHFR typically is gonna have a major effect on folate and then also affect B-12 and can affect methylations. So, uh- birth control pills deplete a lot of those nutrients. So yeah, I think what you’re saying is a very valid topic ’cause those issues can really have an effect on those nutrients. So if you are taking the pill, uhm- you really wanna make sure you’re supplementing with extra methylating nutrients, magnesium. In my line we’d recommend like B-vitamins synergy which has like the extra-activated folate, activated B-12, activated B-vitamins, and also a good multi on top of that, with magnesium and calcium, other important minerals that tend to get depleted.

Uh, “What would cause early spotting and irregular monthly cycle?”. That’s gonna because by typically lower progesterone or progesterone dropping out too soon in your cycle.

“Are there other conditions that cause hot flashes after menopause?”. Uhm, hard to say. I mean, you could- you may notice issues with blood sugar. Blood sugar ___[41:27] may get problem. A low thyroid, you may see some issues with that like if you have autoimmune flares on the hashimoto’s side. So yeah, there’s some potential connections there.

“Thoughts on carb cycling/keto for women with hormone imbalances? Ideal balancing diet?”. So, a lot of women do go with keto initially because they have insulin-resistance, and keto is very helpful with insulin resistance. But if you’re insulin-resistance is dialed in and you’re doing good with your blood sugar, some women starts to do better as they add in a little bit of safer carbohydrates, starches, squash, sweet potatoes, and they may even be better doing it cyclically. What does that mean? You’re kind of lower-carb keto for 2 or 3 days and maybe you have a sweet potato for dinner with your veggies and your meat. So, that I think is- is a very valid point, and I see that clinically.

Uhm, let me see here. Any other questions on hormones? I think we hit everything guys. Give me a thumbs up, give me a share, I appreciate it, make sure you hit that bell. People magically just go off my subscribe list if the bell is not hit. So make sure that bell’s hit, so you get all my notifications. Appreciate, uh today’s chat. Hopefully en- you enjoyed it, if you enjoyed it, give me a comment below. Let me know what you think. Any questions related to the topic, I’ll be back in and address them in future podcast or- we’ll respond here and I’ll look forward to connecting with you guys tomorrow, for a live Q&A.

You guys have an awesome day, and uh, go Patriots! Take care. Bye.

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References:

https://thyroidresetsummit.com/

https://justinhealth.com/

Xlear Sinus Rinse Kit

Menopause, Perimenopause, Hot Flashes, and their Natural Solutions | Podcast #207

In today’s podcast, Dr. J. and Evan Brand discuss the different symptoms of the menopausal stage. Watch as they tackle in detail the transitional years of menopause, or perimenopause and the different natural ways to minimize the effects of hot flashes.

Stay tuned for more and don’t forget to share. Sharing is caring!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

00:28    Hot Flashes

07:31    Progesterone

13:57    Surgical Induced Menopause

22:16    Pueraria Mirifica

27:10    Perimenopausal on an Early Age?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Hope everyone is having a phenomenal day. I’m outside of my office today. Get a little construction down, so I got my little mobile office setup here goin’. Excited to chat today about hot flashes. Evan, how you doing today?

Evan Brand: Hey man, happy Monday to you. I’m doing pretty well. I got from the chiropractor this morning, they’re working on my neck, so hopefully they’re gonna be a miracle worker. I wish I could come to you but, I’d have to drive kind of far.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [Laughs] Totally. I get it, yeah, finger’s crossed. So they– they figured out kind where the issue are— where were the issue as in the spine in there, workin’ on. So that’s really good. Excellent. So why do we chat about hot flashes? So first off, hot flashes tend to happen as the follicles in the ovary, you know, go down, and you goin’ to what– what’s called menopause. So average age of menopause is 48 to 51. And typically, what happens, you only have a set amount of follicles in the ovary that eventually turn into eggs, right? And those, you know, responsible for a significant amount of estradiol that’s produced throughout the month. So we have like the first couple days, so you fir– the start of the cycle is basically kind of be when you have your period. And then you’re gonna have FSH starting to creep up which is your follicle stimulating hormone. So it’s stimulating the follicle to grow. As the follicle grow, it spits out estrogen. And estrogen kind of maxes out in your cycle at around day 12, 13th. Where then progesterone starts to come up because LH is increasing right after FSH increase. So FSH kind of, what’s the follicle, the follicle makes some estradiol. Estradiol that helps the follicle also grow and mature. And then right around day 12, 13, right before ovulation, LH is already going up in the background and progesterone starts to grow up. So you kinda have this like– you bleed, okay, then you have FSH kind of creeping up like this, and then estrogen kind of goes up like this, and then right around day 12 or 13, LH is already creeping up, then progesterone starts to go up. And this is where the– your ovulation starts. Right in this area, right between day 13 or 15 or so. And then right after that, progesterone continues to go– go– go– go. And then at some point, it either drops out if there’s no egg that’s fertilized, right? So sperm comes in feds the egg and fertilizes, that progesterone kind of keeps going and it’s supported by human chorionic gonadotropin, HCG. Or there’s no e– there’s no uhm— you know, the egg isn’t fertilized and then you have a period and then it all starts all over again, so this is important. So as the follicle start to– you have a set amount of follicles, as a follicle start to drop, then you don’t have that estradiol output. And then you start to go into menopause. And estriol now becomes that primary hormone. And this is important because estriol can be made from DHCA. And DHCA is a precursor hormone that comes from– in your adrenal gland. So if you’re really stressed, if you’re in a situation where you’ve been under a lot of stress and your adrenals are on top position, you’ve lot of blood sugar issues, a lot of cortisol– dysregulation, your adrenals are gonna take a lot of the ___[03:02], and the DHCA will start to be depleted over time as your adrenals have dysfunction. And that lower DHCA will decrease that kind of stored capacity to buffer estrogen with estro— estriol. So we have estradiol primarily when you’re cycling. You have estriol more, it starts to become what you rely more on when you’re menopausal. And then you have this other one in there in the background called oestrones. So oestrone– O-N-E– that’s E1, oestrodi–dial, di for 2, that’s E2 for short, and then estriol that are tri for 3. So we have E1, E2, E3. So we got a window in all three of those estrogen. Then E2 is more when you’re cycling, E3 or estriols more when you’re menopausal. And then what happens overtime is that FSH and LH signaling start to go up as the ovary’s– as the follicle starts to deplete. The uhm— LH and FSH start to go up and up, and up, and up, and up, they’re raising the volume. It’s like having an alarm clock where if you don’t hit the sleep button on it, the volume keeps going up, and keeps going up, and keeps going up, so that’s kind of what’s happening. And then if that FSH and LH go up, they can– they can have especially the FSH a– a lot of vasodilating effe— effect. So that’s what happens for a lot of these hot flashes.

Evan Brand: Aaah– Okay, so you’re saying that this– this process is gonna happen no matter what. But you’re saying to what extreme may be determined by the adrenal status?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That has a big– big effect, absolutely.

Evan Brand: Okay, so, if a woman is having– let’s say she’s having a good– a good healthy lifestyle, she’s got stabilize blood sugar, she’s going to bed on time, maybe she’s taking some adaptogenic herbs, you’re saying she’s can– she still wanna go on to menopausal and likely have symptoms of that, but you’re saying she may have minimal to no hot flashes versus a woman who has bad blood sugar balance: eating processed carbohydrates and sugars, maybe has synthetic estrogens from her environment, eating lot of plastic–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.

Evan Brand: —she’s gonna have more issue?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, because we’re gonna have more fluctuations of cortisol to help curb the inflammation, to curb the blood sugar swings, and that’s gonna then put stress on her progesterone, and it’s also gonna put stress on our DHCA. Remember the more stressed the adrenals are, DHCA output can decrease. And then the more stressed our cortisol is, the more cortisol can pull from progesterone. So then we can start to have these kind of estrogen dominant swings where progesterones starts to drop a little bit relative to estrogen and make it start– start to have some of these uh– c– we– get– we get push more into estrogen dominants, we begin start to see more cramping, more bloating, uh– increased bleeding, hemorrhagia, those kind of things. And then of course uhm— if we don’t have enough DHCA from adrenal stress, DHCA is gonna buffer that estriol more as well. And that’s important for some of these issues too. So we gotta get to the root cause, right? You know, what’s the underlying cause of the physiology to move in that direction? Stress, diet, infections, not enough fat and cholesterol. Remember hormones are made from healthy cholesterol and fat. So I’ve seen lots of women, you know, that were a victims of the 80’s and 90’s in this low fat, low cholesterol era. And a lot of them have– are going in the menopause over the last 10 years. And they don’t have just a lot of building blocks even there because of all of their poor dietary stressors.

Evan Brand: What about if they were on a statin medication?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well statin will definitely effect because that’s gonna decrease cholesterol internally. Remember most of your cholesterols made in your body, so we take a lot in, we take some of your– your diet, which has a lot of fat soluble vitamins, but then we’re also make a lot too. So if we take a statin which is an HMG-CoA reductase inhibitor. That stands for hemato— ___[06:46]. And if you block that enzyme you don’t make statins but if you block that enzyme, this– this pathway called the mevalonic acid pathway, and that pathway is also responsible for internal CoQ10 production. And then if you start mugging that pathway then you’re gonna have less CoQ10 to run your mitochondria and generate– and generate ATP which is really important. So then you could start to have more energy issues and you start to have mitochondrial dysfunction. And then it’s common with that to have more pain, to have less energy, cognitive issues, mood issues, chronic muscle soreness, rhabdomyolysis, those kind of things can happen with those kind of stressors.

Evan Brand: So, can we talk about progesterone a bit? I mean you look at like T.S. Wiley in her book “Lights Out”, you look at a lot of people talking about hormones, menopause, progesterone always comes up in conversation. And people say, “Oh, it’s natural, oh, it’s bioidentical”. I mean, is it a– is it destiny for these women to have– to end up on progesterone, or is it just the ___[07:52]?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So there’s a couple strategies like number 1, if they’re perimenopausal, meaning they’re like im— you know, they’re late 40’s, early 50’s and they’re starting to transition to menopause, we’ll use progesterone as synthecal augmentation fashion, certain times of the month, to help kind of gently nudge and easier transition in the menopause, that can be really helpful. And we try to use lower levels like– like– you know, if here’s is our physiological level of progesterone, we try to use lower levels and just try to fill in the gaps if you will.

Evan Brand: Okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So it’s kinda like you got– you got a rough table, we’re just tryna use a little sandpaper just to fill in the gap, smooth everything out, just to nudge– nudge up or nudge down the high’s or lows, uhm— that can be helpful. And then uhm— your question was–

Evan Brand: Is it destiny?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Now with the T.S. Wiley method, that’s different because she’s basically trying to get menopausal women to cycle again.

Evan Brand: Aaah–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think you can do that too, I mean, a lot of women that are menopausal, are like, “Wohoo!”, like no more periods, like, they’re– they’re happy about that. So then, we just– we’ll supplement a little bit of progesterone and estrogen throughout the month at a very low level just to curb out some of the hot flashes. We may keep them kind of in the upper physiological end of the range for menopausal. I mean, mid to lower physiological end of the range for a cycling women. And we just kind of give it every day, we’re not cycling. Were T.S. Wiley would probably do like an estrogen in the first half of the cycle, a progesterone in the last half. So that’s like, oh I think she times it up, uh– according to the lunar phase. So typically, full moon equals fertility, so that’s like day 14 or so. So you’d start your progesterone on the full moon, and then you’d stop it on the new moon, and then start your estrogen the following day or so. And for– for 12 days. So that’s kind of how T.S. would do it, she would do like a progesterone for– 2 weeks, lu– lunar cycle unless we– you know, have a calendar on when your normal cycle was, or you could just plug in those dates so that was continuous. So progesterone day 14 to 28, full moon to new moon, wait a day or so, estrogen day 2 to 12, stop, allow a couple of days in there for ovulation and then she would typically– even though there’s no egg, right? We’re just trying to mimic normal physiology, and then throw a little bit of DHCA or testosterone in the background as well. We like to use DHCA over that because [sighs] uhm— just– it’s a building block to more hormones. Does that make sense?

Evan Brand: Even if you’re saying DHCA is a preference over using testosterone? is that what you’re saying?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm– yeah, just because it has more– it can go more directions–

Evan Brand: Yes, understood.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And again, testosterone can work, a woman has low testosterone, it can really help. Uhm– but my concern is just to fix the underlying issue and try to give more building block precursor hormones. Building block hormones are here and they can to lots of different things, and stage hormones are down here. Now, sometimes that’s good. It can be helpful because it can have a more therapeutic effects and– and we’ll use it with progesterone. We’ll even use a little bit estriol as well from time to time.

Evan Brand: Okay, so– take the conversation in the different direction if you would like, but a question that I have that many others probably have is, how would you compare and contrast something like a progesterone cream? First is some of these herbs that are commonly recommended that we use for menopausal symptoms like progesterone cream versus a vitex or chaste tree versus, say, red clover, or American ginseng, maca, things like that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so there are herbs that can help some of the FSH and the LH levels to calm ’em down. They can also help the feedback; they can also improve follicle health as well which can help with internal hormones. They help with the receptor sites, they can have a down regulator, up regulate the receptor sites. So imagine like uhm— uh– a lock sometimes, you have a lock in your house or you may have locks and you try to put the key in and then get a really jiggle it around to get it in the– the keyhole, the receptor sites kind of not quite working properly. Uhm– it’s either mo– more sensitive or more dough, hard to get the key in or too easy or hard to turn, right? So think of some of these herbs, it really helps clean out the receptor sites, make the receptor sites work better. Think of that as, you know, getting a better, you know, key hole for the– for the key to work. And then some we may actually give a little bit of hormone as well to help, that can make a big difference. So we’ll get maybe a little bit of progesterone or estrogen. And we’ll time that up accordingly, that can make a big difference. And like you mentioned some of the progesterone herbs will be like chaste tree or shepherd’s purse. I’m a big fan of the specific types of maca. I have a menopausal formula and a cycling formu— formula that I use that have different phenotypes of maca that work well. If you go to justinhealth.com/shop and you click on the female hormones category, you can see some of those. But with female hormone issues, you really wanna see a trained functional medicine doctor that can do specific test and to see where you’re at. And that can be tricky. And a lot of times people, especially when they don’t– and a lot of even medical doctors they don’t understand how the gut interplays with the hormones, so they come in there and they’re just giving hormones, or they’re not even looking at the adrenals, or not looking at the gut and they have really poor absorption all these important amino acids and minerals and essential vitamins. And they need these nutrients to actually have good hormonal output on their own. And they’re just– they’re just supplementing that with extra hormones. We really wanna make sure we’re looking at the gut. And the gut is so overlooked when it comes to hormonal issues.

Evan Brand: Absolutely. Well, I’ll add on to that. And we’re looking at the marker on the stool test. That beta glucuronidase marker, we’ll see that people are recirculating toxins and hormones, and so this maybe why they actually could be overdosing on their hormones. If their doctor keeps bumping up and bumping up their hormones, if they have a recirculating problem, that’s not good. The liver plays into this too, you mentioned the gut bugs affecting absorption. We know too, if you’re filtering bugs all the time, all these different toxins, bacteria are creating, isn’t that adding liver stress, which is then creating even– a bigger cascade of hormonal symptoms?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent. Yup, so we wanna get to the root issue. We got a great question in here from Susan, wrote, “What’s the best supplement to take for surgical induced menopause? I’ve hysterectomy 18 years ago, I’m now 45, uhm— I have breast cancer in all female immediate family members.”  So, couple of things, I wanna know why did you have your hysterectomy? What was the cause of it? What’s there endometriosis? Were there fibroids? Were there ovarian cyst? I wanna know the underlying issue. Okay, that’s number 1. Uhm– number 2, I mean, your family members may have a predisposition, but you’d want to really look at estrogen dominance. I mean, the big thing is, a lot of these estrogen sensitive cancer. Now of you don’t have a cancer, right? That’s– that’s good. You may do really well with some specific herbs and a little bit of progesterone. ‘Cause progesterone’s tend to antagonize estrogen. And even people that have hormone sensitive cancers you’d wanna check with your oncologist and say, “Hey, is my cancer estrogen-sensitive or not?”. And then I would look at potentially using a small palliative level of progesterone. But just confirm with your oncologist first and make sure your cancer’s not progesterone-sensitive. Most are just estrogen-sensitive that’s it’s breast-induced. So you really wanna get some info on that. And I wanna understand the root cause of why you had a hysterectomy, fibroids, uhm— adenomyosis, ovarian cyst, all those types of things. I wanna understand what the root issue ’cause almost all the time, those underlying pathological situations tend to be induced from estrogen dominance. So we can work on the root cause because the root cause is still there. Just a tissue that was being destroyed is being cut out. So the underlying imbalance that cause everything is still there and something else will not happen. That make sense?

Evan Brand: It makes perfect sense. Yeah, my mom, she– I don’t think she had really any issues. I don’t remember, maybe it was like cramping or something but she got a hysterectomy at like 38. For hysterectomy, they took out the uterus as well.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. So Susan ___[15:57], I had endometriosis. So, there’s a couple of strategies, you wanna work with the good functional medicine doctor, you wanna get your hormones looked at, uhm— if you– err– on the fif— if you don’t have cancer, then I would just lean more to progesterone and specific herbal support to help. You gotta get your adrenals looked at. You gotta work with someone that can test you and see where your hormone profile is at. And then it’s up to you, I mean, there may be some preventative m– cancer markers you can look at like the CA 125 androgen for various cancers. And you can kind of look at some of those markers prevented and lets you to see how you’re doing in those areas. That may give you more uhm— let’s just say peace of mind that you’re on the right track. And then of course, uhm— if you have a full hysterectomy, the question is do you still have your ovaries, or was it the partial and your uterus uh– was the only thing removed? So if your ovaries are gone, you really wanna work on supporting the hormones too.

Evan Brand: Okay let me ask you this: if– yeah, let me go a little further with that. So if you have a full hysterectomy, ovaries, uterus, everything’s gone, can you out supplement your way out of this using herbs or you suspecting there’s gotta be some hormone support added in–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Yeah you’re gonna need some hormone support. The question is, if there’s underlying cancer in the background, we– we gotta be really careful with estrogen potentially, and we can just confirm with the oncologist. A lot of times that can be tested. Typically, progesterone tends to be good, ask the oncologist though. Uh– and then if there’s no cancer issues, that definitely we can use a little bit of estriol and progesterone and we can use some specific herbs to help modulate those receptor sites, and that can make a big difference. Kind of get that key hole to work a little bit smoother so that key can turn better– far better.

Evan Brand: That makes sense. Well ’cause I– I get this question a lot from women. It’s like, “Well am I gonna have to be on this bioidentical progesterone forever, or can I end up taking say maca instead and get off progesterone”.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The stronger your adrenals are, yes. But you may have to be on it for a period of time to get stable.

Evan Brand: Okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then from there, as the adrenals get stronger, and if you’re managing stress well and you have your sugars under control, and your diet’s really good, nutrient-dense, you have good blood sugar stability, you’re eating and digesting good proteins and fats, your detoxification’s working. Remember, gut dysbiosis can increase in enzyme called beta glucuronidase which can uncleave conjugated estrogens. Meaning, estrogens that are put in the strait jacket, they’re being escorted out of the body. And then this enzyme comes in and unzips that straight jacket and allows that estrogen to go back into circulation. So a lot of women and doctors don’t understand that gut dysbiosis can affect your body’s ability to get hormones removed. And that can be another driving factor of estrogen dominance which is gut issues. Or dysbiosis or sibo.

Evan Brand: Yeah, and–  yeah– and– and this all could’ve started because a woman had say, urinary tract infection and got pumped full of antibiotics, we killed off all the good bacteria in the gut, candida moved into the neighborhood, maybe some dysbiotic flora moved in like we see a lot of clusterity infection, and then you– maybe go to a gastro doc, maybe they pumped you full of more– more antibiotics because they’re trying to kill h-pylori, or maybe they’re trying to kill sedef, and then you get even more dysbiosis. So if you’ve been through the ringer with your gut, if you’re having constipation, diarrhea, stomach cramps, if you’ve got skin rashes, that could be a manifestation from your gut. If you’ve got dark circles under the eyes, that could be a symptoms going in the gut. So this is why it’s so foundational. It’s amazing to me that even though, you know, I am not a hormone expert like you, but I’ve still been able to resolve hormone issues just by resolving gut issues. And it’s really fun to see how the body systems connect like that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Someone writes in uh– about antimicrobials for dogs. I’ll answer this one question. Uhm– you can do diatomaceous earth is really good. But you can also do mimosa pudica that works really good as well. And you can also do some garlic too, be careful if it can caught— it– sometimes it can cause an anemia, more in cat’s though. But I definitely recommend getting some good probiotics in powder for afterwards. So mimosa pudica, you can do DE, diatomaceous earth, those can be really helpful, you know, ways to address that with animals.

Evan Brand: Well did you know, uh– the formula that you’ve recommend that I take several years ago, AP-Mag, remember that one?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They have a better veterinary formula too, yes.

Evan Brand: The one for pets–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hard to get down, I mean, it just depends. Some animals– some pet owners have dogs or cats typically dogs that will eat anything.

Evan Brand: Yeah [laughs].

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, my dog, I could not get the Ap-Mag down–

Evan Brand: Ooh.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like it’s just impossible. But uhm— I can get powdered probiotics in her, I can give like mix a little bit of cod liver oil in her food. My pets, I have a powdered multi though, I mix them with their food with a little bit of probiotics every now and then and they’ll do okay with it. Uhm– so yeah, just depends on how f– how fastidious or difficult the animal is. Some dogs when you just put peanut butter on anything, I mean, there could be anything and they’ll just eat it. So you just gotta do your best with that.

Evan Brand: Yeah, pets can be a vector for infection. So if you all have pet, so we’re not saying that that is the cause, but I mean, we know lot of pets like random, you know, adventures I’ve taken with my dog out, you know, she’ll go start drinking out of a random pond in the woods and that could have giardia in it and then if I’m playing with her slobbery toy and then I pick my nose, I mean I could’ve passed bugs to myself from the dog.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And you can probably dilute some ___[21:09] silver in– in water with them. I would just kind– kind of dose it up according to weight. But I think anywhere between you know, a teaspoon or so for 25 pounds I think would be fine. But you can dose it out.

Evan Brand: —test that with people like how common that the dog is the vector for people when you see their infection?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I always ask like do you do a lot of kissy face with your dog, I mean, like I kiss my dog a lot but right on top of the head. So– ’cause– ’cause that feeling [laughs]. I do the math and like, where is it– where does her– where can her tongue not reach? And I’m like, okay right on top of her head. So I’ll kiss her like right on top of the head, and that tends to be uh– a pretty safe place to kiss her, but everywhere outside, I try to stay clear and uhm— we’ll do, yeah, so she gets baited once a week with some good stuff and then we’ll throw some DE in or some probiotics in. I’ve a good multi– whole food multi powder with– there’s a whole bunch of like ground up glandulars uhm— in there– we’ll throw that in her food and that works pretty good.

Evan Brand: Cool.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Uhm– any other things you wanted to address here Evan regarding female hormones, regarding menopausal issues, hot flashes, anything else?

Evan Brand: So there was an herb, and this is just like an off the cup thing that I have read about and recommended to couple females that have had great results with it. And I don’t– I don’t know if you’ve heard of it but it’s called a– a pri— can’t even pronounce it correctly, it’s called pueraria, it’s spelled P-U-E-R-A-R-I-A, and then mirif— mirifica, pueraria mirifica. There’s a brand who carries it called nature’s answer. And I gave this to a female client and she had tried everything for– 15, 20 years, including bioidentical progesterones, etc., and this supplement, within 6 weeks, knocked down her hot flashes 98%. Did you find it?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhm– I’m not familiar with that herb, I mean, there’s a lot of herbs that are out there especially some of the more oriental ones that are like, you know, they’re just more, they’re not like in the mainstream functional medicine world that can have a lot of estrogen me– me— uh– metabolizing, or– estrogen receptor site modulation effects.

Evan Brand: I believe that’s what it’s doing. Some women have said their breast have grown, which is pretty weird ’cause that makes it sound like it’s an estrogenic type formula. So–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, may– it may just have– I mean, you know, it just depends. Are these menopausal women?

Evan Brand: Yeah, these are menopausal.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, you know, there’s a lot of of receptor sites for estrogen in their– in the breast tissue and as women go in the menopause, the breast can just get flatter. And– and that may help kind of uh– bring some life back into the breast tissue because estrogens’s important for like collagen integrity, right? And then also can attract some fluids, so that may bring the breast integrity back. But like with menopausal women, you know. sometimes we’lls use chaste tree or motherwort. A lot of times, things like black cohosh, ___[23:56], and some of the, you know, the specific maca blends, with PMS we’ll use a higher dose typically a chaste tree. And then a lot of times uh– like ginger or red root can be great because those really help with uhm— the lymph. So if you have like a lot of fluid retention from the hormones, that can really help kind of drain the fluid. And then sometimes we’ll do like the uhm— the dong quai can be really helpful, the motherwort can be really helpful, those can work really well, modulating what’s going on. And then of course, you know, we wanna work on the adrenals. The adrenals become a significant reserve site for a lot of the hormones. We wanna make sure the adrenals are working very well.

Evan Brand: What did you say for the– the lymphatic water retention? ___[24:37].

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, red roots’ really good. Uhm– and then ginger is really good for that too so if like you’re a patient of mine listening, you can do the ginger tea’s really good. You can always get some red root, I think they sell some red root tea–

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And you can get that, that’s really good. You can also do I think just juice celery, can also, I think Anthony Williams talks about that, the medical medium guy. But like ju— celery juice can be really helpful with lot of minerals in it and that can be helpful for kinda fluid retention as well.

Evan Brand: Cool. Excellent. I didn’t have the questions pulled up. So that I know if there’s anything else you wanted to– to read off?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think we hit all the major stuff. I’ve got a lot of questions coming in here. Some are off topic so—

Evan Brand: Okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The best– the best time for off-topic questions guys is when I’m doing a live FAQ. Anything uhm— that’s like pertained to the topic, I try to put it in the– the show knows at the top. Uhm– like hey, this topic is menopause, this topic is– whatever. And then just try to keep your question pertinent to that, that way we can answer it so it stays on top– on topic. But I’m gonna be trying to do more FAQ’s. Just give us that thumbs up guys give us uh– give us the share, make sure you subscribe. A lot of people listening are like, you know, they listen to the recording and like, “Well how do I get notifications?”. Subscribe but also hit the bell, the bell’s really important. Make sure your YouTube application on your phone, like make sure it pops up or gives you a little noise. So if you’re not sure, if I’m not sure, what I’m gonna do at some of my schedule’s super busy, so if I have a– half hour between patients, I’ll jump on and do one of these chats. That way you get notified. And I’m trying to put these notifications up sooner so then you can kind of put your questions in there the night before. And that way it can kind of queue up over the next night.

Evan Brand: Cool.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So I hope that helps you all. Anything else you wanted to let me know about?

Evan Brand: If people wanna reach out, they can uh– get a hold of Justin at his site. It’s justinhealth— so justinhealth.com, and you could schedule consults. Uh– him and I both, we work with clients around the world. So, you know, we’ve got clients in places you would not believe. And so, we can send these lab testing kits that we’re talking about through the mail. So especially for the dutch test that Justin often runs on female patients, that is done using urine. And you could ship that through the mail. And it’s not too bad, so feel free to reach out at justinhealth.com. And if you’d like to check out my site, you can do so– evanbrand.com, either way, we don’t care, as long as you all get help. So if you can find somebody on your own that knows what they’re talking about, and you wanna be seeing locally, great. If you want us to help you, that’s what we’re here for. We love our jobs, we’re super grateful for the opportunity to help you all.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Let me answer to ___[27:12] question here. This is good. He wrote, “My girlfriend is only 26 years old and she has hot flashes. Do you know if uhm— the supplements you spoke of will work for someone like that?”. So number 1, that’s significant and it’s really sad I’m seeing more younger women, just their hormones are decimated, like– this girl is 26, seems like she’s already starting to go into almost like an early perimenopause uh– kind of thing, and this is sad because the hormones– hormones should not be this out of flux, out of balance this early in someone’s life. So I would ___[27:43], I would not be just jumping on herbs right now, I would get your girlfriend tested, with some of these comprehensive functional  medicine test. See a good functional medicine doctor. And uhm— get that looked at. I mean, of course, like the diet can be done right away, that’s foundational stuff. ‘Cause a lot of people, their diet are just do bad they don’t have the good hormonal building blocks, but we need to get tested to see how out of balance or not your girlfriend’s at. We really wanna work on supporting them with herbs and maybe even some bio-organicals to kind of jump start the hormones if you will.

Evan Brand: Yeah, I– I mean there could be adrenal issues there—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.

Evan Brand: –could be thyroid, could be gut, could be all of it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah it’s really sad, I see lots of women hormone levels on these test, and they’re just decimated. And I think it’s just the combination of the foods getting worse, I think uh– oral contraceptives are thrown around too much–

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That can really have some negative effects, I mean, you can google post-birth control syndrome, and that can have some negative consequences. I think  a lot of women are also thrown on antidepressants, ’cause a lot of their– their mood related issues, from the hormone imbalances, and then you can get uhm— tardive dyskinesia which are other issues that happen from long term anti depression, used to– so becomes really– it’s really tough for women out there because their cycles can cause so many symptoms that other drugs like antidepressants typically get used, and birth control pills typically get used, which then have more side effects, which then creates more problems. And then if you’re on this medication for 10, 20 years, it really can screw up your biochemistry and your physiology, and it can– you know, it can make you not the person you are. You’re more moody, you’re more irritable, your patience is less, uhm— you just don’t get the same satisfaction out of dealing with life that you normally would if your hormones were more balanced and your biochemistry is more balanced. So, we wanna get to the root cause, and– I always recommend try to use more, like you know, a paragard for birth control pill like a copper iud, uhm— or a diaphragm, or just something a little bit more natural in origin, if you can. Uhm– on the profile active hide and see side, that way your hormones aren’t getting mug this much.

Evan Brand: Yeah, well said, I was gonna ask what do you think happened to this girl if it was like a birth control thing, ’cause that was my first ___[29:52]. When I heard 26, I mean, man that’s young.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Birth controls, I mean, just having really-really poor adrenal function.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. That’s common, so–

Evan Brand: Could’ve been trauma, right? Could’ve been trauma is part of this too–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s gonna put stress on the adrenals–

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Of course. You know, that’s gonna be big especially– you know, any sexual abuse trauma, you wanna get that neutralized to EMDR, NLP, EFT kind of techniques. Uhm– techniques that work on the subconscious, uh– a lot of people have done talk therapy, but you know, that just only addresses the conscious mind which is still good to do. But you wanna make sure the unconscious mind is addressed. I mean this is why someone that comes back for more, they’re here, you know, a shackle off, and they drop to the ground, right? ‘Cause that subconscious mind is so prime, you really got to release the trauma in the subconscious. So these things don’t happen because they’re just like– you know, they’re just like uhm— you got a lot of programs going on in the background of your phone, and you’re like, well your phone’s dead half ___[30:48]. What’s going on, right? It’s kinda like that. People have that kind of, you know, issue with their subconscious sucking from their hormones. We wanna make sure that’s resolved.

Evan Brand: Great analogy–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: ‘Kay? Excellent. Oh, it’s To– ___[31:03] write in, “She’s extremely athletic and fit so of course, my biggest thing is excessive exercise–

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: —can be a driving factor hormone issues. Uhm– not eating enough calories, and or not getting enough high quality fats or proteins. Like I said, the diet’s really important too.

Evan Brand: Yeah we work with a lot of women and their periods have stopped due to their excess training. You know, we’ve had a lot of crossed fit burn out victims–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.

Evan Brand: —where the period stops. So, I mean, man, I– I’m glad you’ve got further intel. ‘Cause that would– that would be a totally plausible mechanism.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean it– as a woman, you can be fit as heck, but if your cycle stopped because of your exercise, your mother nature is telling you that your body is stressed to the point where it is not comfortable bringing life into this world. And that’s always the big indicator like how healthy you are, typically, you know, during cycling years, is gonna be indexed upon fertility. Uhm– and it’s hard too because lot of women are healthy but they just get exposed to things in the environment that can have an implication like toxins or pesticides. So it’s not just all what you do, sometimes the environment can have implications there too.

Evan Brand: Yup, well said.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool. Well today was a great show. Appreciate you guys feedback and thumbs up. And uhm— give us the share, give us the subscribe, hit– hit the bell for notifications. And we look forward to chatting with you very soon.

Evan Brand: Take care. Bye, bye.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan, take care. Bye.

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References:

“Lights Out” by TS Wiley

https://www.evanbrand.com/

https://justinhealth.com/

Bridgit Danner – Hormone Balance After 40 – Podcast #138

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Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Bridgit Danner engage in a discussion about hormone issues in women at the age of 40. Learn how hormones work and understand their driving factors and effects on women. 

Gain beneficial information about hormonal balance and imbalance. Find out about the diseases one can get from an unbalanced diet and lifestyle. Be informed on ways to cope with hormonal problems as Dr. Bridgit Danner shares some tips and natural solutions based on her knowledge and expertise as a functional medicine doctor.

In this episode, we will cover:

11:05   How Sugar Intake Affects Hormones

25:35   Relationship Between Cholesterol and Menopause

33:10   Liver Detoxification and Hormone Balancing

39:52   Supplements to Balance Hormones

46:53   Cortisol Spikes at a Time in a Day

 

 

 

 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey there. It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani. Today we have Bridgit Danner on the Podcast, really excited. She’s got a new summit, “Hormone Balance After 40,” coming out in the next few weeks, so we’re excited to talk about some female hormone issues and drop some serious knowledge bombs today. Bridgit, how are you doing?

Bridgit Banner: Great. Thanks for having me on Justin.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Great. Well, I know we kind of were doing a little recording earlier and got cut off, but let’s continue with that question. So you did a summit. You interviewed lots of experts on female hormone issues. What were those top three nuggets that you gleaned from the summit. Now, obviously there will be a “Summaries” we want everyone to tune in. We’ll put links below so people can access this great info too. But what are those couple of tidbit nuggets?

Bridgit Banner: Yes, and I say number one is, you know, menopauses. Inevitable. But uh– your symptom level is changeable. So, you know, it’s not like oh well I just have to have Hot Flashes, or gain 20 pounds, or…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: …get an Ambien like, no. So- but just like you do on your practice, it’s often getting to the root of like, “how did you get into perimenopause”, “in an imbalance state, are you exposed to toxins”, “do you have a gut infection”, “are your adrenals running down.” So, you know it can be a- a tough time for women, but also a great time to like okay– like maybe I’ve been ignoring my health a bit as I’ve crushed my 30’s and like raised kids. And, you know, now it’s like I’m starting to feel something’s catching up to me. You know, I want to eat well. I want my hormones to be as balanced as they can. And there is, there is a lot to be offered. And there’s a lot to learn. So that’s, that’s one thing. Another thing we talked about a minute ago was uhmm– the good fats and oils. Wow, just– there’s like, one great tip I have for women at this age group is adding in some beneficial oils that help your hormone production, help your prostaglandin production, uhhmm–, things like borage oil and hemp oil. These, these things, they’re not food we eat, really.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: You know. We talked about Paleo. Yeah great. There’s some great ingredients there but, like, no one eats, like, borage flowers.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Borage oil or black currant seed oil too.

Bridgit Banner: No. No one has those things.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: So those can be some really beneficial supplement. Uhhmm– another one comes to mind is sleeping. You know, working on improving sleep quality at this age because it can really be disrupted as your hormones change. But yeah, it’s so important because we’re healing. And yeah I wrote an article like sleep is our fountain of youth because we have all these growth hormones that happens when we sleep. So it’s so important to get good night sleep. There’s lots of things we covered. One talk I really liked was on metabolism, which I think is like, women are just like, “Oh well, I’m screwed after 40, you know, my metabolism.” But that’s not really true though. And that can be, that can be hacked. Uhhmm– it’s just mentioning Dr. Rina Marie ____?Liscosov?____...

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: … on awesome talks about blood sugar and how balancing blood sugar is, is incredibly powerful as we age to, you know, stay energetic. So, yeah. Lots of, lots of good options. There is hope.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Very cool. And you mentioned that first one where you’re talking about prostaglandins or the eicosanoids, which are the same thing. And we have kind of our, our One, Two, and Three pathway. The Two is really, like, the inflammatory, like the pro, like, the refined vegetable oil tend to go that pathway a lot, like, the refined meat tends to go down that pathway. Then we have the One and the Three, right which you mentioned. And the Three is like the big one that we hit with some of those Omega-6 fats but the healthy kind of Gamma-lenoleic fats – the black currant, the borage oil, right? Is that correct? Is that a good summary?

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. I kind of remember that I’ve looked up at the three pathways, and now I can’t remember which number is which. So you see, but yeah, basically there gonna be balancing inflammation, anti-inflammatory, uhh – building hormones. Just all the good stuff. You know, you need all of them.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: The body needs the total balancing. Heck, some inflammation is good. Some increase in blood pressure is good. But then you need something to balance in like…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: …being able to get the blood pressure back down. So yeah, those, those are really – and fish oil too. You know, fish oil is in as much like in vogue as, you know, when everyone start to take you to, you know, ten years ago or whatever.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: But it’s still valuable, and an– as  also anti-inflammatory…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: …sparks these pathways too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think the fish oil really helps that prostaglandin in Two pathway and kind of dampen it. And then we have the One and the Three which on those paths, and I see Gamma-lenoleic fat like you mentioned. Then it also helped with hormonal acne too. So if you’re female and you have done a lot of good diet changes but you’re still having some skin stopple. Number one always cross off the gut too, right. That’s the really important thing. But if the guts addressed, I see the black currant or the borage oil – those types of oils really help the skin health too.

Bridgit Banner: And the Zinc? Do you guys use Zinc in your practice?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Oh, Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah, that’s– I’m learning more about Zinc, and it’s good for skin health, good for helping you make progesterone. Uh–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: …and it’s in meat and stuff, you know, talking about a Paleo diet but you know, it’s all– we  still could be not getting enough, or not digesting enough, so  uhhmm– you know, how much it take. You know, one of my friends is careful about metals. She’s like don’t take too much Zinc. But, you know, I think, if you’re going through some of these hormonal changes, you could do more, like 30 milligrams Zinc. Uhhmm– you know, really up those fatty acids, and, you know, just see how you respond.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. I think, too, if you’re low in Zinc, you really take a peek at the hydrochloric acid levels. Make sure you’re digesting those healthy meats, ‘cause meats are gonna be the big source. Seafood, meats, I think pumpkin seeds as well are really big in Zinc, as well.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. Linolate in seeds. Ahuh.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And a couple objective ways to even tell how you’re doing with Zinc is, number one, look at your blood test. Look at the alkaline phosphatase marker. If you’re 50 or below, there could be a sign of Zinc deficiency, and then number two is a Zinc Tally Test. I think it’s a Zinc Chloride. I think It’s a Zinc Chloride or salt – one of  the two. Take a shot of that, and if it taste metallic-y that’s the sign that you probably are Zinc-sufficient. If it taste more liquid or neutral, it’s a sign of your being Zinc-deficient. The better it taste means the more you need it. The more metallic-y, the more you kind of being repulsed by it, meaning the less – you say, the more replete you are of it.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. It’s one of the funniest test to get in the clinic…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: … ‘cause like, you know, like, “What am I doing. What am I supposed to be experiencing?” And I’ve also found in my practice that it’s often is best to start in the liquid Zinc to like – once you start to absorb some, then you tend to– let you switch to a pill. I’m not really sure what it is. Is it a digestion issue? I just feel it often works better to start from like a couple of bottles of the liquid. You’re not really getting a high dose, but it seems to like absorb better.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Better. Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: And then you can take Zinc pill.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I totally agree. I think the only thing is to know with Zinc if you’re gonna go really high just make sure there’s a tiny Copper in there just so you don’t throw the Copper too much. You know, ‘cause Zinc and Copper are on the seesaws. So if you go really high in Zinc, they can rob the Copper down. But there’s a lot of people that are worried of Copper toxicity anyway, so if you…

Bridgit Banner: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …are gonna go above a hundred milligram or so, add a tiny bit of Copper in there.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. Most of us, are– a hundred milligram, yeah, is a lot. And most of us are getting sources of Copper but not enough of Zinc.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I hundred percent agree. So that was tip number one with the really good Omega-6 fatty acids – the healthy Omega-6, not the refined fish oils. What’s number two?

Bridgit Banner: Uh– tip from the whole summit? Hmmmn–.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just what resonate with you the most? ‘Cause you’re also a clinician. A clinician looks at things a lot differently. You know, you’re looking at things of, “hey what can I do to actually change a clinical outcome of my patients.”

Bridgit Banner: Well, I’ll tell you something we beat up a lot, up on a lot in the summit well– which is wine. You know it’s almost like become a caricature of a middle-aged woman with a glass of wine. You know, wine with the friends, with to come down, and I think it’s, perhaps it’s like, it starts with like a self-medication. It starts like from a busy day, and like it helps me sleep, and then it starts to be real consistent. And, you know, some people listening to your show might be having some couple glasses of wine every night, but they still may be having some more than they need to be. Because they don’t really need it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: So I think, you know, it’s a change we people like don’t wanna make at first but if you say like I, I would say, you know, don’t feel like you have to do it forever. You know, give me a month. Give me a month, and say I’ll do this for a month, and then just see what happens in your body. And, you know, see if you lose weights, see if you’re thinking clear, see if you have more energy in the morning. So yeah I think that those things in midlife that women tend to be like turning towards, that we can turn away from, and have – you know. Those are coping mechanisms, you know. Coping even for a social situations. Like when I’m nervous, I kind’a have that strength, you know. It’s just coping but you know midlife is about expanding, and like becoming more and better, and not just coping. And you know, let’s tune in and like give and tell how to go to bed sooner. You know, all those basics first. Swing then to some more specifics. But you gotta do the basics first, right? You can’t be like. “Oh no, I can’t be this way. I can’t. I’m anxious.” You gotta take that one out. Just try to take out little sweet things, all that blood sugar, you know roller coaster. It’s depleting you of nutrients that you need to make hormones. It’s just making you feel off. And with midlife, and we talk about what the hormones are doing in midlife. There’s just that already a propensity, if we’re not careful, to go a little off and feel a little off. So just wanna create like steadiness in our habits and bodies so that we can weather those changes easier.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. That makes a lot of sense. In Dr. Diana Schwarzbein’s books, she did a book, The Schwarzbein’s Principle, about ten years ago. She’s a – an endocrinologist at the Sta. Barbara, USC Grad, and she talks about women turning towards wine because they’re a natural polyphenols that really help modulate estrogen levels. So as you go into menopause, those ovaries aren’t producing as much hormones, and the adrenals are being relied upon more, right? So the more you swing the blood sugar, the more blood the adrenals get whipped. Anyway, it’s kind of modulating some of those estrogen receptor sites.

Bridgit Banner: Huh– I hadn’t heard about that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I heard people going into the alcohol. 

Bridgit Banner: I hadn’t heard about that. But then there’s also like modulate serotonin which makes us feel good at the moment. You know…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well alcohol’s a sugar, right? It’ll break down the sugar, and sugar will boost up serotonin, dopamine as well. So, I think there’s a lot of different things that are happening there for sure.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool. So that’s number two. I think you alluded to with the sugar as well, because when you take sugar, right, you get this hormonal adrenal roller coaster ride – insulin on the high, Cortisol on the low. Meaning when your blood sugar goes up, pancreas produces insulin to push it back down, which then drives more lipogenesis fat creation. But then when the bottom’s __?zow?___, the adrenals have to pick it back up. Adrenaline and Cortisol which then pull from some of your sex hormones. Can you talk more about blood sugar roller coaster with hormones?

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. So, one thing is like for insulin resistance, we cannot, hormone receptors can get blocked up. Uhhmm– so that’s one thing. It definitely can hurt your gut environment, bacterial imbalance, and you need your gut health to clear used estrogens. So even though hormones are coming down, some of the estrogen is often dominant. Progesterone’s falling faster because not every month we ovulate, it’s not very strong. So we need our gut healthy to clear estrogen. I was just doing some research recently and even just like one drink a day can give you SIBO. Uhhmm– yeah, like, there’s, you can’t feed that stuff. You really need to– I get heat up a lot in the summit. And that healthy gut – I’ve kind’a had clients too. You know we just took on and agreed with clients on our coaching program. Man, the stuff we find in our guts are all sorts of things.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: So, it could be hard to make that connection between the gut and hormones, but it’s going on. It’s happening. So, if you can nourish that gut, and not feed it sugars, you know that’s one way to clear. Uh– what else? I mean, I think that most of sugary foods yeah– are devoid of nutrients, and they’re hard on your pancreas, and in your, in your insulin. But they are also hard on your liver, you know, to be processing and dealing with that. And you need your liver healthy to be, you know, doing its job of clearing homrmones and all that stuff, so yeah. Avoiding toxins, when there’s your food being toxic, your body cream, or your perfume, or your, you know carby cleaner. You know, just…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: …really what, cutting down on all that stuff. We kind’a segued on the topic. But that came out a lot too, just like, maybe it’s time that– say, maybe if you think that well this stuff never bothered me before, but now if you’re having hormonal symptoms, it’s time to reassess.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes a lot of sense. So hormones are really affected by a lot of these toxins, ‘cause a lot of these toxins are essentially Xenoestrogens, right? ‘Xeno’ means ‘far’ and ‘estrogen’ is an ‘estrogen’ hormone. So if we’re getting impacted by a Xenoestrogen in the environment through pesticides, through chemicals, cleaning products, that can really affect our hormones, can’t it?

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. Very much so, and you know, all stored fat tissue can make extra estrogen too. Or we, you know we make fat tissue as a place to store toxins that our liver can’t handle processing because it’s, you know, so busy handling everything else. So from the connections we did, the toxins and the fat tissue and uhhmm– you know women, say, really our concern about gaining weight at this age as well. So yeah, cleaning up your habits. I mean, nowadays, there’s so many options, and they weren’t all nasty. But there’s not a research in this uhhmm– like clean, you know, clean hands soap without fragrance, then you know, one I mentioned carpet cleaner like. It’s funny sometimes you, where you forgot to look like where you forget to look like. At our, our old house, we had a carpet cleaner, and I just buy like a standard mix that you stick in there. And I realize, “Oh my gosh. What am I doing, like, this is full of chemicals.” I don’t know where in the world will I ever go to get like a natural carpet cleaner soap. And it’s, it was like one mile away – my natural grocery store. So sometimes it’s like you just forget to check certain things, but start checking. You start looking at your labels. Uhhmm– I have this, you know, I’m really hitting homes to eat organic as much as possible. And those little cheat treats, and treaks– excuse me, treats and cheese we do, those are often why we’re getting exposed to the most toxins. Like you know, if you have a little cheat and have something like a cookie, you know that, that we may have been sprayed with glyphosate, and that’s like very toxic to your gut that we talked about. It’s like an anabolic for your gut. So, I, you know, it sounds like a lot of work to be like, “Oh I have to be so clean and pure.” This sounds so horrible, but you know, just do it like it an experiment, and also know like you’re worth it. It’s not like, like, “I have to be healthy, like it’s the worst thing ever.” It’s like you can very much be happy enjoying a healthy lifestyle as you and I do. ‘Cause you have more mental power. You know, it’s like, you’re more comfortable on honestly with yourself. You’re getting a good night sleep when your moods are more balanced. You just like, life can like, be anything that you want when you’re healthy. But when you’re scoping, and having a cookie, and a coffee and whatnot, then you’re standing by. It’s gonna catch up to you too. We have one of our ____ to talked about disease, like cancer. You know, sadly, those are around the corner. You know in our 40’s that could happen. It’s gonna happen sooner but I think like when I was in my 30’s those just sounds like concepts, so far away, but, they’re coming for you. So, midlife is a great time to get better habits ‘cause no one wants to be, you know, in the doctor’s office talking about a heart disease, or could have been cancer. You know what one’s at.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean when you’re dealing with lots of, for me in the patients’ sects. I’m interacting with lots of patients every week. We always talk about getting people to a baseline level of health, because, once people get there, the little bit of cheating that they do at the other side of the fence may throw them out of that performance on for days. The reward you get for here just is not worth the momentary, few minutes, maybe an hour of pleasure, right? So number two is figure out what that thing you want over here – let’s just say it’s alcohol. There’s different versions of alcohol. Not all alcohol are the same, right? I think it’s Dry Crepe Wines, they got a really good wine that’s gonna be low on microtoxin, low on all of the crap and the excipients and also low on the sugar. So if you want wine, they’re healthy versions of wine, healthy versions of alcohol, healthy versions of treats that will give you that mull feel, that pleasure, but not take you out of that performance zone for very long.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah yes, I know. I tried those wines, and they gave me a headache in like three sips. It doesn’t work for me. And it might just be the sugars. I know they say it’s zero sugar, I think that’s what they say with the Dry Crepe Wines, but that wasn’t my experience. So, I…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And for me too, I’m on the same place. I normally get headaches. I typically don’t do wine. I do a sparkling champagne, or I do hard alcohol, Tito’s vodka with kombucha, ginger kombucha. Then I make my own little Moscow mule.  Either that. So, those are my two favorites. So I agree, not a big wine person outside of the Sparkle.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah, yeah, there’s different options. I mean, I recently got my Galitoxin and I have some Candida there. And you know, I don’t have a a word but sometimes, the way I react to sugar and alcohol is a bust since the Candida. Loving it up as  soon as it comes in my mouth. So, kind’a listen to your body too. Uhh– yeah. Don’t just listen to me  and Dr. Justin. Just try stuff, you know, try giving up wine for and if, you know, try getting it back in and see, you know, what your limit is. Like what is – you know, not that I never ever had a drink, but it’s pretty rare, because I just don’t want to hinder the progressions so just a month. But then yeah, everybody’s gonna find their different thing, but I think to clean up and say it’s temporary, it’s something I’m doing for my health to experiment, then you get to be the owner of how much you put it back.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely, men. Tip number two is that don’t drink alcohol on an empty stomach, ‘cause that will, a little bit of fat in there will slow down that absorption so it won’t spike your blood sugar, hit your liver as hard. And then number two, activated charcoal is phenomenal, the kind of buff around those toxic bird too.

Bridgit Banner: I don’t know, like after an evening? Or..

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I typically take it along with it. And then a …

Bridgit Banner: Uhh–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: … a lot of time I’ll take my line, I use a liver supreme which is like milk thistle and some extra B Vitamins. You know so you get some herbs to tonify the liver a bit. And then some extra B vitamins which, you know, your body will burn out to actually help detoxify the alcohol, as well. A lot of alcoholics are deficient in B₁.

Bridgit Banner: Hhhn– interesting. I’ll pay that man that say I use charcoal or clay like a fat instantly when I feel bloated. I’ve been telling that all to my clients ‘cause it’s like yeah, we wanna avoid those things that make us feel bloated. But sometimes to we accidentally have them. And then, urrh– so,  those two things really helped me to take in the evening if I’m feeling.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah. Even conventional medicine, I mean, I went to an ER, college roommate, many years back, ___ him on alcohol and at the ER. I mean they had him drinking the whole cup of activated charcoal in liquid form, in the ER.

Bridgit Banner: Oh my God.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So even in the ER, all that stuff.

Bridgit Banner: Interesting.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: Interesting.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Crazy, yeah. Back to the female hormone stuff. Tip number three.

Bridgit Banner: Hmmmm.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: By the way, we got some questions lined up, so once we get through with the…

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. I like it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …go to a rapid, rapid answer. Kind of  a Q and A.

Bridgit Banner: Okay. Let’s see. Some other things that came up on the summit, say are like, ‘spacing out your eating’ came up. Having a longer time between dinner and breakfast. You know, not snacking, kind of for blood sugar, and also for gut. There’s a certain bacteria, I can’t remember what it’s called. It needs long and regular periods. We built it soft, so having that space with a gut. What else did we talk about? Oh we talked a little bit about Keto and you know, having that high fat diet, not being afraid of fats. The only interesting that came up on that talk was fiber? Uhhmm– and that it can, it’s irritating, so, you know, thinking like you need a ton of salads and vegetables, or grains, or whatever. It’s irritating, you know. But you can eat some rich foods like liver, that actually, oh, oh my God. For some people that I know. But that, that came out of my speaker thing. I’m not always the greatest to remember my tips, like my, like from my – you know, like from my– let  me try to see some of my speakers…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Cool.

Bridgit Banner: … to see the fun things we talked about.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. So while you’re doing that, to– yeah, yeah. Let’s head up to some questions. So off the bat, Diana wants to know, do grains, of course, could grain-free, of course – Do grains, I think she’s referring to Gluten-free, do grains, like corn and rice, increase bad estrogens? Why do some people do so well on grains, I don’t?

Bridgit Banner: Hmmmm– That’s a great question. So I think we could say that’s possible that some grains could push that, and you know you should try it on those stuff soon.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Yeah. I would say, I would say off the bat, I would say off the bat, there’s a higher level of Gluten-sensitivity genetically with yourself Diana. That’s gonna create more inflammation, a more leaky gut. That’s number one. The more inflammation that’s going on there that’s gonna take your hormones out of balance because with the more inflamed you are, Cortisol’s gonna increase, Insulin maybe out of balance, that may skew your progesterone to estrogen ratio, ‘cause you’ll pull progesterone downstream to anti-inflammatory Cortisol so that can create more estrogen dominance. Also, a lot of grains are gonna be contaminated with microtoxins and can increase LPS in the gut. And the more lipopolysaccharide that’s there as well that can potentially increase beta-glucuronidase, which is an enzyme that deconjugates metabolized estrogen and puts it back in the circulation. So the more inflammatory foods, the more foods that feed this biosis, where bad bacteria increases beta-glucuronidase which can unconjugate–deconjugate. So conjugation is nothing more than a hormone with a straightjacket around it that’s typically a protein. And that beta-glucuronidase opens it up and allows it back in the circulation which can affect your hormones so for sure.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. That’s probably a lot more detailed than what I’d say. I would say, you did a good– you potentially irritate your gut and create some inflammation. I even wonder if some of them could like we talked about those prostaglandin pathways earlier. I wonder if some of them could push some of those more inflammatory pathways. And then I think like with stress, chronic stress, you know, your gut lining can be thinner, and not as robust, and then things are more irritating too. And then the quantities that’s really easy to overeat – grains, uhhmm– and then carbs, and then that sugar, and like, you know, the fat tissue produces more estrogen, the inflammation is blocking the receptors.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: I think that for women, life is really finding ratio in their diets. Like, what is like, enough carbs and oils, if you know, what is like a serving size, or, you know, how many drinks is like, you know, that pushes me over, well kind of bloated. You know, it might not clear in my head anymore. So I think finding that ratio is really important. And still while women are having a protein, and a protein in the morning, you start– you brought this in your talk. Uhhmm– yeah, just getting like those whole animal, like cooking the whole chicken, getting a lot, like robust, you know, variety of fats. Uhhmm– anything is okay to have some like we talked about the nuts, seeds oils to, to do some seeds cycling. Uhh– we have like, a blog people can find to do some seed cycling challenge. People really went  with that. Probably the fiber, probably the oils on those nuts and seeds can be helpful.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. Totally. Next stop here is there relationship, is there a relationship with cholesterol, high cholesterol and menopause?

Bridgit Banner: Yeah? So we, I kind’a heard two things, I would say two things. One is that we need cholesterol to make hormones, so sometimes it’s rising up like naturally to produce more hormones in this time. Uhhmm– but then our keynote speaker would say, you know, if you’re not eating, consuming enough cholesterol, your body will be forced to make more cholesterol. So we wanna to kind of avoid that by giving our body that cholesterols. Uhhmm – say the question again. Was it the correlation…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so there’s a connection – the relationship between menopause occurring and higher cholesterol.

Bridgit Banner: I think there is an occurrence with it. But I think it’s, if you feel your cholesterol is out of range and those speeches are like debatable. But, you know, our speaker on Heart Health said, you know, that the quickest way to heart disease is through sugar. So it’s more like, body’s getting inflamed from the sugar, and then cholesterol is kind of increasing to repair it. So, I think to some extent, cholesterol could go up at this age naturally? But if it’s like sky high and your diet is very poor, full of sugars, it could be something to look at.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I agree. I mean if you, if your diet isn’t quite in check in insulin resistance going on, that will get worse over time, and insulin does drive that hemometagluteracoreboductase enzyme that stimulates cholesterol synthesis. We can’t forget that majority of cholesterols may be by your liver. Typically, insulin sort of drive it. Poor diet doesn’t have insulin to check. That’s one vector. A second vector that could be a subclinical thyroid issue, and low thyroid function will cost cholesterol…

Bridgit Banner: That’s true.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …to go up.

Bridgit Banner: It’s a good point. Yeah. This is uhhmm – I would. The most common time to be diagnosed is menopausal. But second to that is perimenopausal, post-partum, uhh– I think puberty is in there. I don’t, I don’t work for that age group as much but, yeah all, every time the hormones’ changing, the estrogen can be dominant, think about after you have a PB, estrogen is very high ‘cause you’re not cycling. It’s not as high as, you know, the other times, but there’s an imbalance. There’s other things we could talk about too, but uhhmm– when the estrogen is like affecting, estrogen being high and relative to progesterone is affecting your immune system, and that could be autoimmune thyroid or that could be just an estrogen dominant thyroid condition. So that was a great point Justin.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. I think uhh– the last piece to that puzzle is, “Does it even matter if you’re cholesterol’s high?” So, my criteria is, number one, if you’re cholesterol’s over 300, maybe we got to take a look at it. Number two is, “Do we have elevations in inflammatory markers, CRP, homocysteine, fiber antigen?” Okay. If those are high, maybe we got to take a look at it. Number three is how’s your– HTL, the total cholesterol ratio? “Is it greater than five?” If it’s greater than five, maybe we got to look at it. And then the last but not the least, is “How’d you rate the HTL ratio?” If it’s two or below, then it’s probably okay. So it’s not, cholesterol has never cut a dry number. You got to look at, I see a lot of people high in cholesterol, also at kickass HTL. So then their HTL, the total cholesterol ratio is really rock solid.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. Yeah. Oh I hope that helps the…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, next is uhm – 47-year old Strakito, four years overtrained, undernourished and 40 pounds overweight. She is yeast-overgrowth, thyroid are low, all sex hormones are low, blood sugar is rising, what should she address first? Oh, she wants to address the gut first, your thoughts? This is our practitioner MP, the practitioner that wants to address the gut first.

Bridgit Banner: She’s asking if that’s the best choice, or…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes, that’s the best.

Bridgit Banner: …what kind of thing. 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I have my opinion but I want you to go first.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. You know, we talked about this someone on the summit. And a few people said, we’ll see what you think Justin? I can’t remember what you said, so.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: Some people say they work on the hormones exist to give a little relief and a little more energy. Uhh– and then they start doing some of the painful works. So just first the gut and the liver detox, then where some symptoms are gonna come up. Uhh – does it have to be that, I think what we do in our practice. I mean we’re, we’re a little bit all mixed together.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: Uhhm – but, you know, I wanna say you wanna go after the gut in a really intense way ‘til your body is enough, strong enough like to handle it. So those detox pathways are clear. Sometimes you start with some gentle detox, and get the foundations going. Uhhmm – like I, I mentioned briefly like saying you know if I said this in the first time we’re in maybe. So, anyway  this time last year, I was having a lot of trouble with spotting, and I was also  exposed to toxic molds. I was like, I don’t really know if I’ll get my hormones right ‘til I get the molds right. I have gotten better with the mold, but I feel that you still can’t actually caught pass some of those things and address the hormones with like what I mentioned before, like the hemp oil, and the flax oil, and the fish oil. We knew, so yeah. I think you can kind of massage some of them, sometimes. ‘Cause clearing the gut takes a while. So we get some loving in there. What are your thoughts?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so. When I hear that though, when I hear addressing the gut, there’s kind of a, a double lifestyle. So when I address the gut, there’s six R’s that we go through. Number one is removing the bad foods, right? That’s totally okay. We can check that one. And to yeah, two, replacing enzymes and acids better. That’s number two. Check. Yes, we can do that. Number three is replacing, or I should say repairing the gut lining. Nutrients that help with the gut lining repair and helping you deal with the inflammation in the gut, and helping you repair the adrenals, the thyroid, and some hormonal issues first. So those are the first three R’s – remove, replace, repair. Okay? So that we can do those first. Now I think when people talk about addressing gut, they tend to the fourth R, which is removing the infection of this biosis. Whatever the critters are. So I always wait, at least one month or two for that. If detox isn’t good, and hormones aren’t good, and blood sugar and immunes not good, that can really create a lot more stress that your body may not have the ability to deal with. You only have one or two months with the patient for them to start seeing something. And if they start moving backwards for one or two months, you’re gonna lose them. You’re not gonna be able to help the clinician. That’s just my personal take based on

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. And I like, this is all individual to every person, and yeah. You have to kind of start most obvious things, and I don’t know who the name of this– you know, just resting. You know, just resting your body and have some great talks and like mindset and emotional health. Just uhhmm – all are part of health too. You know, you overdid it and you’re reassessing like the direction of your health, the direction of your life. Like, ijust resting, just reading books like lying on the sun, going a vacation. These things are very healing as well. So uhhmm – yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Bridgit Banner: Just remember to keep that to your protocols.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that parasympathetic nervous system going, I think, that has to be part of any functional medicine programmed at the foundational level is to sleep, the good healthy habits, the time to relax, so yeah. That’s a really good point and we don’t want to overlook that.

Bridgit Banner: Huh.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Can detoxifying the liver bring your hormone balance back?

Bridgit Banner: That’s an easy one. And do a lot for– yes. Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I agree. I think, I think as long as your hormones are decent, like you have good institution in the gland, I think that may be enough. But if there’s a lot of dysfunction in the adrenals of the thyroid, that will help with the support of the other side as well. So I think, it totally can for sure though.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah, yes. Some part of the system that a few people mentioned on the summit, and yeah. It’s not the only piece. Nothing ever is. Just one piece. Yeah but it’s actually like what you said just removing all the toxins is important too. Like before you go into taking in the herbs, doing a coffee in the morning. Just make sure you got them out of your diet and out of your home, out of your water supply to just reduce that part.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I think, you already – we don’t, our body will detoxify better just by not putting toxins in.  When we think of detoxifying, we’re giving something to help detoxify. But we can also just think about it. let’s just not add stuff as well. And then you mentioned earlier with the fatty liver, that the one of the major stressors on your liver is excess carbohydrates and insulin, because that will cause a fatty liver, which will slow down the filtration too.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. Which is even gross to think about the cause …

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I know.

Bridgit Banner: … of your liver blocking, if everything.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know. Absolutely. Next, estrogen dominant is related to histamine. HIT is related to methylase, to histamine as well. After addressing diet in gut’s health, bateria, parasites and yeast. We still have ED plus HIT. So, well ED means Estrogen Dominance, HIT means Histamine Intolerance. Then what can we do besides working on methylation?

Bridgit Banner: I’m trying to make sure I got all of that.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  It’s a little confusing with the abbreviation, but I think what they’re saying is, “Hey. I have Estrogen Dominance and I have a Histamine issue. I’ve already worked on the gut. What else can I do besides pushing my detox methylation pathways?” That’s my translation.

Bridgit Banner: Hmmm– I think you can think about hormone production. So I think you can think about what we talked about before – the fats and oils, to get. Depending on your age like, I would do more like Vitex, for like a little younger, early 40’s, but anytime in the 40’s, 50’s, doing like Maca estrogenic herbs.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: If you can pull everything up, you know, pull the progesterone up, it will help balance that the estrogen. So, uhhmm – I think that’s an important piece that sometimes gets missed ‘cause our American, like, culture is always thinking about clearing and detoxing. But I don’t know if this person’s, have their hormones tests. But most of these are also depleted, at this age. So just like pulling hormone production up, you could see that estrogen become balanced.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. I totally agree with you. One thing I’ll say, I think you already said it all. Potentially, adding some progesterone, maybe even some pregnenolone, DHEA. But looking at the adrenals too is an important piece.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. You can introduce some things like macon, borage oil. Super easy on your own. Yeah but with a practitioner, you could do some simple progesterone. Uhhmm– also I get some testing for that kind of– I do well on progesterone; I don’t do so well on DHEA, pregnenolone. For my experience, everybody’s kind of different.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And that, I see that too with people that kind of more backed up liver pathways too.

Bridgit Banner: Oh yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  And maybe the mold. Look, ‘cause you mentioned your mold experience. Maybe that was the driving factor with that.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. Back when I tried those, I was living with mold but didn’t know. So, it’s kind of, kind of flavored my whole history like, “Oh.” So, it’s interesting. And I think, you know, we haven’t talked about that. You know, there can be these hidden things. You talked about parasites…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: But you know, I have to learn a lot about mold, and Epstein-Barr Virus, and uhh– all these things I was posting I didn’t know that. Those things really flare up with the changing hormones, not getting a good night sleep. And we talk a little bit about how that high estrogen can affect the immune system, in not a favorable way. And then, just with aging, the immune system can be deteriorating in a sense. So uhhmm – so, yeah, a lot, things can come up. You know if you feel like you’ve tried everything and you’re still sick, my personal lesson is, like, there’s probably something else going on to look for.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. That makes sense. What do you think about supplementing with DIM Postmenopause?

Bridgit Banner: I mean I think it could be done. I guess it could clear some bad estrogen sort of thing. Is that what the person’s thinking?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean. I’m kind of little perplexed as well. Maybe the detox pathways are running and they kind of support delivering such. But most people will have lower estrogens, especially if they’re, you know, not adding in a whole bunch of, you know, estrogen as well. So, definitely makes more sense with the cycle of female, right?

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. It’s, again, on issue. Uhhmm – I think DIM is great for like, PCOS. It’s used a lot, you know, in some Estrogen Dominance cases. Also that CDG, I’ve known about just in the last year; that can help. Uhhmm – yeah , I’ve– in my own body has been more effective to build more hormone. And they did not be in everyone’s case. Maybe that’s just mine. And you can get tested. We have one. Maria Claps talks about the importance of testing at any age. And occasionally many women will be older but still have high estrogen, and that’s something to figure out and learn about. Let’s just see what pathways to – I think you run a DUTCH test too just to– see– like I was just curious about this caller like, what are her symptoms, does she feel – has high estrogen, and she’s worried about cancer in her family, or something like that. Yeah, I would say yeah, maybe but I want more information, or maybe they’ll be good to first person that ask.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think you’re right. I think getting the test on, I think getting the more information on what the symptoms are that made them think they need it would really be the key.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Next is…

Bridgit Banner: Question.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: Love it.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah we’re hitting it. Next is, without getting an organic acid test, is there a kind of a universal protocol supplement that can be taken for hormonal balance. What do you take personally?

Bridgit Banner: Well, I keep saying the same stuff over and over so, more, for me like, for me, definitely the oils. I love magnesium. I love, I love it for this age group. I love it in my own body, I used magnesium chelate. I, I like adore it, even when I’m just getting cramps. This stuff like helps me to prevent like menstrual migraine, menstrual cramps, uhhmm– you know. I take a good quality multivitamin that has, that has the Zinc, that has methylated B vitamins. And I’ll tell you a funny story. I got my hair analyzed like this sooner and I got the results back before but I got to read them. And like in my novice opinion, “Oh magnesium, it’s so high, I better like. Stop taki– a few things looked high.” So I stopped taking everything. I stopped taking. Oh, my gosh, my cycle. So much for stamina. It really made me see, like, getting a good quality source of B vitamins, B vitamins is very important to spark a bunch of things with ovulation hormones. Getting that is important. Taking the extra high dose. I mangled magnesium. Most women need like 600 to 800 milligrams and get in good form. I just have a new client and she’s been taking magnesium for years. I can’t remember the form she’s been taking but…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …oxide–

Bridgit Banner: Yeah something that she’s– I think it was oxide, she’s not getting anything out of it. So I just like said switch to magnesium. I love magnesium. I love fish oil, I mentioned. You don’t need a lot but a little bit. Uhhmm – a little bit of borage oil, or hemp oil. Uhhmm– you know, I eat a lot of nuts and seeds in my diet too, and I think they helped me from hormones.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: Uhhmm– what are the thing– we talked about Zinc, that if you’re not getting much Zinc it might be something you want to up the supplementation on…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.

Bridgit Banner: …what other supplements do you like Justin?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think, you already said the foundational things that aren’t even related to female hormones which I think gives people overlooked at, right? So that, what you said is totally foundation. Then add on top of that chase through your Vitex, that would be great for almost any female, especially for your cycling. If you’re more menopausal, you can go more on the specific pheno types of Maca. It’s a great product that I used and carry in my store called Femmenessence. And they have a great type of Maca for cycling females, and a great type of Maca for menopausal females, and it works phenomenal for a lot of cycling issues, and also about a lot of the Hot Flashes. ‘Cause remember Hot Flashes especially if they happen at night. They screw up women’s sleep. If their sleep’s screwed up, and their blood sugar’s screwed up, that throws everything off. So I like the Maca and the Chaste tree, you know. What’s going on.

Bridgit Banner: Yeah. You know, I, I have some. You know, I’ve used sleep aids, or like anxiety aids, you know, like now, on the summit, a lot. And I think it’s okay to this, at this age group. Like, don’t just like try to bear it, you know. If, you need to sleep, so you take some 5-HTP. I want a trick I’ve learned from my elevated practitioners, like, do some more almond milk and a half teaspoon of nutmeg. You know, that’s really calming at night. Uhhmm– what else do I take? You know I have, like, an herbal one – like valerian, stuff like that, which is calming. I have a whole bunch of things around to eat just depending on the day. Uhh – so, and that doesn’t exactly sound like it’s about hormones, but it kind’a is ‘cause you need that good night sleep to, like, get your hormones stabilized.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Huge. What do you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Bridgit?

Bridgit Banner: Oh, I love it. So this morning I have a cheap pudding and uhhmm – I have it on with some chocolate flakes, walnuts…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Nice.

Bridgit Banner: … glazed and on top some fresh fruit. So, uhh – I’m a little allergic to eggs so I don’t, you know, that makes – you know the word. ‘Cause I do a sausage, like, like a little frozen organic sausage uhhmm– Sometimes I have, occasionally I have, like, a soup for breakfast, like a – This can be super easy. You keep a box of broth in your fridge and like a teem of Kewas, some greens. Sometimes I have that. What else? I’m giving you breakfast ideas ‘cause I think it’s a hard one for folks. I do smoothie sometimes. Sometimes I help people do some trail mix. I do hard boiled eggs, so get some protein. I really avoid carbs in the morning. That’s very important to me. But I do have carbs usually on lunch and dinner.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.

Bridgit Banner: For lunch, I sometimes have leftovers. I love working from home because I can have, I can turn things together, like some leftover rice, you know, fry some vegetables. Try to have like some chicken sausage, which I had laying around. Uhhmm – I definitely just kind of put stuff together, for pretty healthy lunch, uhhmm – which, yeah – I love that option. For dinner, you know, we usually have something like a piece of fish, or chicken, uhhmm – you know, often an animal protein, and then uhhmm – some green stuff, you know, a steamed broccoli or, I’m,  I’m putting a lot of fat and everything, so my steamed broccoli’s gonna have hemp oil all over it. I put hemp oil yeah, hemp oil, hemp oil on my lunch. I put hemp oil, you know. I put hemp oils everywhere, nuts everywhere, lots and lots of seeds. Uhhmm – and then maybe we have like sweet potato fries. So, we do some potato, some rice or Keema are pretty much the carbs that I would eat.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Bridgit Banner: Uhhmm – what else? Yeah. That’s kind of the theme.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. I think you’re rock solid. Two other questions; we’ll hit them rapid fire. Does it matter for Dacogens be in pill form or powder form? It depends. Certain female hormone issues or tonics, I do find sometimes giving the liquid. Tincture-based herbs can make them a little more potent.

Bridgit Banner: Hmmm–

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …a take on that? Do you agree or no?

Bridgit Banner: I would, yeah. That’s like a great question. I mean, I think the tinctures feel strong, but if you’ll take out a small sip of oil. If you take – I bought all this like powdered Maca and stuff to make these elixir drinks. I don’t like them. I don’t like to, you know, the powder in them. So, it takes some things… but I do have a Maca powder, I make them to smoothies. Effectiveness, efficacy, I’m not totally sure if, you know, I have to research that. But I do think it’s important to take what you’re gonna take. Have a variety. Like, I’m willing to take pills, ‘cause I’m pretty okay with it. But it’s nice to also have some things that are liquid. Some things that you can rub on, like, I feel, especially with my mold. I really learned, like, it’s. Uhhh– It  can get exhausting and so expensive to take so many supplements. And if there’s something you can do that’s in another form, I’m really holding on to that a lot sider lately. So I would just tell the colors rise efficacy maybe on home ingredients but I like things in all sorts of forms, and I think it’s good to experiment.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I think it’s totally good to individualize. Last question, Cortisol is normal except spikes at a very high at around three(3) to five(5) PM. So this person wants to know, is that Adrenal Fatigue stage 2? Again, I think we did the whole test to see it, to know where the Cortisol levels are at. Stage 2 is typically, relatively, normal Cortisol levels, with aberrations and rhythm, and lower DHEA in general. So I think we’re missing some info. Any comments?

Bridgit Banner: You know, the thing that came to me, and I’m not an elevated practitioner. But is it, is it vital that wind one. That’s, that, that imbalance is in the afternoon, and that’s the time I feel imbalanced too. And a lot of people have this wind imbalance ‘cause we’re so busy nowadays, doing so much stuff. Uhhmm– so that’s like a really key time of the day for me to rest. And that can be tough ‘cause it’s like the end of your day, when you’re gonna pick up your kids. But I would just personally tune in to like how that time of day feels for them, and like what are they doing, what and where the stimulants were like, you know, just, are they eating snack always right before that spike, or in a certain stress trigger, or maybe the body’s just trying to like pick them up. ___?Slob?__ but not sure. I think it’s interesting there with three to five.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I think potentially like a blood sugar drop, had their lunch around 11 or 12, maybe their blood sugar’s dropping so maybe they need a mini meal, maybe scheduled a meditation in there, maybe keeps an adaption …

Bridgit Banner: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …kind of in your system during that time of the day; a couple of options.

Bridgit Banner: I have to eat at that time of the day. Like, it’s not optional for me, and the more I eat, the better. I mean maybe I should have my dinner there. Uhh – you know maybe someday I’ll also tea in that earlier dinner. But I, if I can really heavy snack. Yeah, my butcher, just dropping items, snacks constantly. One,  probably the one snack a day that’s not optional for me.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Got it. Perfect. Very good. Well again, closing up here. We got the Hormone Balance After 40 Summit. We’ll put information below in the YouTube description and the podcast description, so make sure you check out that summit. Forty (40), or thirty (30) years old, great people are gonna be there. I’m gonna be there in one of first days, so make sure you tune in to see me.

Bridgit Banner: Day one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Day one.

Bridgit Banner: …this guy.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it, love it. Very cool. Any other comments or concern, anything else you want to address to the listeners or…

Bridgit Banner: No. I think that’s– it was a lot of fun. You know, I’m not always this, like, on my toes but it’s good for me. Just tried, tried to hang with it. There were really good questions. Then it was always fine with you Dr. Justin.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you. What’s that summit URL link again?

Bridgit Banner: after40summit and it’s a number 40.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: After forty, the number 40? Summit S-U-M-M-I-T? One ‘t’?

Bridgit Banner: Yes. Two m’s, one ‘t’. It should come up.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Perfect. Love it. Bridgit.

Bridgit Banner: Bye everyone.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, thank you so much for the great information. You have a great day.

Bridgit Banner: You too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Thank you.

 

References:

http://after40summit.com/

The “Schwarzbein’s” Principle by Dr. Diana Schwarzbein