The Self Healing Diet with Brian Clement
Kelly Engelmann: Wellness is a practice, not just a word. Welcome to the Synergee Podcast, where myself, Kelly Engelmann and Lori Essary shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body.
Lori Essary: And most importantly, feed your soul.
Kelly Engelmann: Welcome to the Synergee Podcast. We are so excited you’re back with us today where we believe we’re stronger together, and today we are super blessed to have the co-director of Hippocrates Wellness Institute with us, sharing his wealth of knowledge.
Lori Essary: So a little bit about Brian. Brian is the director of the internationally renowned Hippocrates Wellness Center located in West Palm Beach, Florida. It’s the world’s leading center for working with affliction and reversing premature aging, and is frequented by the likes of Sir Anthony Hopkins, Elliot Page, Mick Fleetwood, and Elle McPherson for over 50 years, Brian’s limitless love and passion to mentor and guide hundreds of thousands of lives into semblance of balance and well-being have led to countless hours of practical and clinical experience positioning him as one of the world’s leading progressive thinkers and teachers. We are so excited to have him today.
Let’s get started with today’s episode.
Kelly Engelmann: Hi Synergee listeners, we are so excited to be back together with you today in production. We are delighted to have Hippocrates Wellness Institute on with us today where we’re gonna talk to Brian Clement, the director, co-director of Hippocrates. We are gonna pick his brain all kind of ways about food. Food is medicine we believe that, and we wanna dig in and kind of teach you guys some new or exciting or intriguing ways to boost your nutrition status. So, Brian, tell us your story. How did you get Hippocrates?
Brian Clement: Way back in the 1960’s, I was a pioneer in American obesity. I was one of the few very fat people you saw running around, and thank goodness, an older woman in her seventies at that point who had reversed cancer naturally smacked me in the back of the head. She was bold and said, you’re gonna die. You can’t even walk upstairs without stopping. Now the three packs of cigarettes and the joints I was putting on both sides of my mouth didn’t help either. And in one fell swoop, she said something I never heard from my loving, wonderful parents, I had great parents and grandparents and family. She said, you’ve got to eat correctly. You’ve got to eat vegetables. Now, the only vegetables I saw in my house, on rare occasions, we’d have like butter with green stuff floating in it. That was rare. And usually it was, white potatoes since we’re Irish. And so that had much butter on, every single meal. My two brothers and I would get a quarter of a pound of, you remember the square quarter of a pound butter, they’d put it in the spuds and it would melt, and then you’d put the white bread and dip the gravy and that was the best thing I ate, by the way. Everything else.
Kelly Engelmann: Oh goodness.
Lori Essary: Wow.
Brian Clement: God knows what, so I obviously need it. So in one fell swoop, I became a plant-based eater before people knew what a vegan was or a vegetarian was, or the organic was and this woman guided me, thank God, and I lost in 18 months, 120 pounds.
She then said to me, Brian you’ve gotta do this work now I was already at university in biochemistry and science, and I said, where do you learn this? She said, you have to learn it, we’re gonna go to the experts. So there, even today, sadly 53 years later, there’s still not a formal school in North America now, Harvard, Yale Loma Linda, we’ve created one in Europe and we can speak about that later. We can get masters in doctorate degrees in lifestyle medicine. And so once I fully engaged in this, in 1970, it was I was just new at it and very young. I did my first lecture, thank God you weren’t in the audience cuz I didn’t know much, I knew more than the people in the audience thank God. I was out lecturing all over America. And by 1975 I asked an important question, who has the most experience? Who has the most success? And everyone said it was Hippocrates, which started in 1956, so we were the founders of the alternative health movement. We were the founders of self-care. We were the founders of lifestyle medicine. These are the words that came out of Hippocrates because our founder, I wasn’t there obviously, but our founder was told in 1952, Ann Wigmore by the Harvard doctors in Boston, she had 90 days to live. So she went home, and ate the way peasants did in Europe, which were plants. Healed it. And in 1956 recognized that what was lacking in healthcare was self-care and opened the doors at the very first center like this on the planet. And so we’ve been going consecutively now, soon, three years, it will be our 70th anniversary.
We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people come through. Our reputation comes from people healing, catastrophic disease, and those of us that live this way, I’m well in the my seventies now. We just don’t age the way the rest of the population does.
Kelly Engelmann: Brian you said, healthcare, what was lacking in healthcare was self-care. And that was back in the fifties, right? And so as I’ve experienced medicine for the last 30 years as a provider, I’ve seen that like it is so blaringly in my face on a daily basis, like our culture has lost the art of self-care. I had no idea that it went back to the fifties. Right? I thought that was something we invented in the eighties and nineties, but you’re telling me even from the fifties, that it was recognized.
Brian Clement: There was more humanity. Let’s be honest. When I was young, the doctor was a respected human being. They came to your house, we really loved them. I know they cared for us, they were part of our family. And I was interviewing a doctor who’s my age about two years ago. He really summed it up in a way nobody had ever done so for me at least, he said we had freedom. We went to school years, 12 years, we were educated. They gave us the freedom to help people the way we wanted. And then before you know it, they created rules and standard of practice and insurance clerks told us what we could. Give a patient or not. And the heart and soul in the seventies and eighties, as you pointed out, rightly happened and it was a switch. But I still think that women like you and men who get into healthcare and become doctors and nurse practitioners and PA’s do it for the right reason. When I was young, I used to be angry at the doctor in improperly. I don’t know any that I’ve met I know 2000 by name, that did it for the wrong reason or just make money or to be greedy. But when you’re educated by a broken system that has one objective to sell pills to you, then you lose your heart and soul sometimes if that’s the participation you’re involved in. And today, thank God for people like you and doctors all over the world that are moving rapidly into this area, integrative. Healthcare and alternative healthcare and holistic healthcare, that they understand that it’s not just about pills and it’s not just about genetics, it’s about epigenetics. And everywhere in the world they know that and they do research on it, except here where they keep having the old broken record and that’s why the healthcare system’s broken.
Lori Essary: And I definitely agree and we can all agree today, is that our healthcare system is broken. And I love what you just said about. Believing that we got into it because we genuinely care for people. I too don’t know anybody who would sacrifice years and years and years of education and finances to get that education to not care, but unfortunately, the fee for service. Care model, in addition to who drives our algorithms and our decisions. Basically they say, take care of the patient, but we’re gonna hold your hands behind your back and blindfold you and see how you do it. So it does take a lot of I would say not only energy, audacity broad shoulders, courage. Yes. Courage to swim upstream and to do things differently. But Kelly and I, as you had said, and we’re so grateful for the last several years, I would say 30 years cumulatively, 17 years for me, and actually a little bit more than 30 years cumulatively, but doing things differently and truly loving, we call it, Fun medicine, right? Because it’s definitely medicine that makes a difference, and it’s using tools in our toolbox that are food, like you said. And I also love what you said is it’s not just food. It’s nourishing your heart, nourishing your soul, nourishing your body through lifestyle, exercise, movement, breath work, all of those things. So, love it, love doing it.
Brian Clement: But I mean, the reality quite simply is the data is in. The number three killer in the United States, Canada, and most of Western Europe is pharmaceutical medicine. Now, how can we allow this system to keep working? And I’ll give a story back in 1978, the most blessed day of my life came April the 17th when I was in Stockholm, Sweden, and met my future wife. And she was running Europe, the world’s most famous center on inflammatory disease. She was the director there. And,
Kelly Engelmann: So time-out Brian. You said, what year was that?
Brian Clement: 1978.
Kelly Engelmann: So 1978. So we didn’t have headlines for inflammation in the US, until the nineties.
Brian Clement: No, not at all.
Kelly Engelmann: Right. We didn’t even think, we didn’t connect the dot of inflammation as the primary driver for disease until,
Brian Clement: And this is the difference between systems that have to do the right thing because they’re giving it to everyone and systems that have to profit. No matter if it’s the right thing or not. So when I found out that the center people were flying from the United States to go there all over the world, Asia, that it for Swedish citizens. In Sweden, it was free to go there. And that was stunning to me because we were battling at that point, not against only the allopathic field, but the government which supported in the pharmaceuticals.
And I wasn’t the battle there. I’m loving when it comes to that, but they were battling with us. There they went in, and they said let’s do some research, and they found out they were getting a 93% reversal rate on inflammatory diseases they worked with. So the next day, not the next month or year, they started to pay for Swedish citizens to go.
In 1982, I talked to one of the government officials and said, why do you do that? He said, yes, we’re nice people in Sweden and we do care for fellow suite, but it’s purely economic. So that’s what really doesn’t make sense. So what the work you’re doing, the work we’ve done here for nearly 70 years where we reverse diseases, we don’t reverse it, but we give tools and people reverse diseases. Do you know how many trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars globally that would save a year? The gross national product of the United States. Very soon, 25% will be healthcare. That doesn’t work, in practically any case. How does that work? It doesn’t work.
Lori Essary: No, it doesn’t.
Kelly Engelmann: So let’s talk about what does work, right? Nutrition. Food is medicine.
Brian Clement: Yes.
Kelly Engelmann: So I’m fascinated. Lori and I had the opportunity to come on site at Hippocrates, and I’ll have to tell you, it’s been a dream of ours for, we’ve been talking about it for over 10 years. And we just never, carved out the time, and the space, to experience that for ourselves. So we’ve had the opportunity to be on property twice recently, walking into the lunchroom, smells like Chlorophyl.
Lori Essary: What?
Kelly Engelmann: You can’t just breathe in the air and get well, you don’t even have to eat it. Just stand there and breathe the chlorophyll.
So help us understand that. Like, tell us about it.
Brian Clement: Well, this is an interesting thing. So when I was just a youngster, of course, I was working off the biochemistry and the physics and the biology I learned, and then I started to realize probably my early thirties. I have gotta study natural history, quantum biology, quantum physics. And when I did that, it was overwhelmingly simple for me and everyone else, if you do this to figure out what we should eat.
So right now as we’re sitting here talking, in the very center of the sun and zillions, and that’s not an embellishment and zillions of protons are born. And they immediately start banging back and forth on neutrons. And so when you walk out. Where you’re living and I’m living, you can feel that, friction coming down in the form of sun waves.
But now listen to this part of the story. It’s amazing. This happens for a hundred thousand years on in this star we call the sun. It’s a star and bouncing back and forth the a hundred thousand, it works its way very, very slowly towards the surface of this gastric sun. Remember, the sun is 98% gastric, 2% particle.
And then it shoots off so rapidly. Listen to this one. It goes from matter and turns into light, goes from a proton to a photon. Now, here’s the interesting part of the story. What evolved on the planet earth to capture the energy from the sun, which is all energy. You, me, plants, where you’re sitting, the house you’re in, everything is the electric light came from photons, green leafy plants.
That’s what evolved here. And the very first animal didn’t show up until 550 million years ago. That was a trilobyte, that looks like a horseshoe crab. And we didn’t show up in this form till a few thousand years ago. Homo sapiens in this form. So what is the original lifeform, green leafy plants, what have we been giving clinically observing with hundreds of thousands of people green leafy plants, their diseases go away. We fight aging. And by the way, finally, mainstream science is getting to this conclusion. So it’s not brain science, it’s common sense. And that’s what sprouts give you. So in the middle of a snowstorm in Alaska, in January, you can grow green leafy plants in the kitchen window in a snowstorm, and in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. New North Carolina in the middle of summer, we can grow green leafy plants inside of our kitchen. So I mean, the other wonderful thing I’ve had the opportunity to work in countries around the world with the United Nations years ago in India and Egypt, I was in villages with starving people. They were giving them condensed milk and they were dying, surplus butter. What did that do for the people? We were sprouting. We took a hundred pound bags. This is biblical, but factual. And produced a thousand pounds of highly nutritious food that their bodies could digest and utilize complete proteins, complete vitamins, complete minerals, essential fats, and what we’ve discovered over the last 50 years.
Hope, hormones, oxygen, phytonutrients, and enzymes. That’s the medicine in these raw plants, and once you cook them, finito gone.
Kelly Engelmann: So I’ve been juicing for many, many years. I grew up, preferring brownies over broccoli, I’m just gonna say,
Brian Clement: Of course,
Kelly Engelmann: And, realized that was not helping my body. And needed to really be aggressive with changing my pallet. And so I used juicing as a way to change my pallet. However,
Brian Clement: That was smart.
Kelly Engelmann: I have not, Ever juice a sprout.
Brian Clement: Oh, that’s got to be your new thing.
Kelly Engelmann: That’s got to change, right? I sprout and I eat sprouts, but I’ve never juiced a sprout, so I wanna know about that. Like what happens when you juice a sprout?
Brian Clement: Juice a okay. When you were here, I saw you drink a green juice. And so, that one green juice you had. Had the protein, the average American absorbs in three days. So the two most obvious things we see here are overeaters, are satiated, so they’re not hungry, and blood sugar conditions where we have the numbers to prove it. They’re getting well so quick with type two diabetes and hypoglycemia your head spins, we’ve gotta watch if they’re taking insulin, they don’t go into shock. And so that our medical team has to be on top of that. And the fact of the matter is when you can have that much nutrition. Now remember, when you take a seed it’s nourishing an organic seed, but when you germinate it, it’s eight times more on average nutrients, eight times more A, B, C, D, E. Eight times more, that digestibility radically goes up as I’m as healthy like you are as can be. But when we chew seeds and nuts, we don’t chew them well enough and we don’t digest them. When you germinate them. They become 17 to 57 times, not percent more digestible. So you start juicing that stuffs. Before you know it, you’d be flying.
Kelly Engelmann: Okay. I hope my husband’s listened to this podcast because he is my juicer. He keeps me fortified with juice on a daily basis, and I so appreciate that. And so I, unfortunately, I get up at 5:00 AM. And two days ago, he’s just waking up at six 30 and I’m in his ear about juicing sprouts.
He’s like, what are you talking about? What are you reading? Like, help me understand. I’m trying to wake up and I’m like, but we’ve gotta be juicing sprouts. We need the protein.
Brian Clement: Well, most women are gonna envy you, they can’t even get their husbands to say, sprout or vegetables. And your husband’s up at five in the morning juicing for you, six in the morning. God bless. He must really love you, honey.
Kelly Engelmann: He’s a keeper. He’s absolutely 100% a keeper, for sure.
Brian Clement: Yeah, that’s it.
Kelly Engelmann: So, tell us the difference between microgreens and sprouting.
Brian Clement: Okay, so we differentiate that in a simple way. So what you can grow in a jar, it’s so easy. It’s like you can put alfalfa seeds and clover seeds and radish seed, and if you were a farmer, you throw them on the field and hope for rain or sprinkle it.
That’s all you need to do in a jar. Now, others need roots to get larger, stronger, and have more nutrient density to it. So a sunflower, which grows so rapidly. Now, this is an amazing story. You put a little black seed in the ground in seven weeks. It’s 15 feet tall, has hundreds and thousands, not hundreds, about two to 3000 of seeds, and it moves. In the morning, it’s facing the east and at night it faces the west. So you want to put that on soil. So microgreen is that, all of the seeds any seed can be made in the microgreen. So now it has roots and of course the soil you would choose is organic soil. Sure you can buy that in a container but it’s sterilized, better to go out to the woods near your house with a shovel and a big bucket, a 50 gallon garbage bin and put it in there and then you recycle it. When you’re done with the mats, cuz once you cut things these put together mats, throw them like here where we live in the south, you throw them in your backyard. In six weeks you have richer and richer and richer soil. Here in the morning, back at our gardens, in our compost pile, every single animal from South Florida is here knowing this is the best diner in the whole state.
Lori Essary: We just talked about composting a few podcasts back, Kelly, didn’t we? About the importance of composting. Yeah, definitely.
Brian Clement: I thought if you haven’t had em on, you’ve gotta have Dr. Zach Bush on. He just did the forward. This guy’s amazing. He’s a medical doctor that left recognizing if we don’t work with farmers and get the soil back, we’re all gone.
Lori Essary: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. So I wanna understand. When people begin to change their diet, obviously their GI tracts, in many cases, they’re not used to it. Yes. So, Kelly talked about changing her palate with juicing, but I wanna hear like, what are the things that you guys see on property when you begin making those changes with adding more vegetables.
Brian Clement: So we were the people that sort of popularized the term detoxification. And boy you are, a better word for it now, 53 years later is exorcism.
I mean, when you’ve been sitting and I was a sinner, you were a sinner too. I mean, you’ve gotta be exhumed and I mean all of that stuff you’ve been eating over decades. Literally, is stuck in your intestinal tract, the ventricles of your body it’s created plaque. Your cardiovascular system is clogged with this stuff comes out. Now the good news is Dr. Arthur. Out in San Diego did a study, it ended up costing her 2 million over time. She found out in the first seven days, most of us eliminate about 60% of the waste in our body.
That’s why you feel like you’re hit by a truck, getting on this pristine clean diet. So people are moaning and groaning and saying, this isn’t working cause I feel sick, it is working. You gotta clean the pathway. So now the organs start functioning the way they should. Now, the second week, people start to say, wow, I feel a lot better by the third. They get it, and it’s 21 days to change habits, to change mindsets, and we’ve learned through our medical team here, the biochemistry of the body radically shifts by 50% between the 14th day and the 21st day.
So a lot comes out, but the real work is done 14 to 21 days. Two weeks to three weeks. And so you can go through that, but it’s a needed process. And if you’re a woos or a sissy, you’re not gonna like it. But if you want to be forgiven for your sin, nature will do it.
Lori Essary: It sure will. You are so right. And I think there’s a lot of mental shifts that have to happen during that time too that I can imagine that you really have to support your guests with, to let them know, listen, it’s, you’re not gonna feel great, this doesn’t feel good, but honestly, your body wasn’t doing well before. This is a part of the healing process that you have to walk through.
Brian Clement: If you put a cork in a cesspool, you don’t know there’s a cesspool. So when you pull the cork, all of that waste has to, and our doctors support them but more so, everyone gets psychotherapy here. With gifted psychotherapists, because it’s when I joke, but I didn’t really mean it as a joke, even though it sounds funny. You are going through an emotional and spiritual exorcism. Because, Cellular memory is not a new age philosophy. It’s a biological fact. And so you’re holding on pain and suffering, unresolved issues, and a lot of that eating. When I was obese, even though I had a great life and was loved, I didn’t like myself much. So I was not taking drugs. I wasn’t an alcoholic. But I did it with food. And most of us use food as a weapon against ourself, because we’re not willing to deal with change, and that’s what we do here. It’s, as you know the base program’s called the Life Transformation, we have comprehensive cancer and Mindfulness Program, Immune Boosting Program, Fitness Program. Next year we’re gonna have a longevity program. My book will be out the end of this year, called How to Live 220 not cuz we think so we know you can do that. And so I’m doing that with a doctor whose wife came here 20 years ago and reversed stage four melanoma. Which in modern medicine is incurable. How many people I’ve worked with that did that?
And the good news is, you just have to support nature. We don’t have to do the work. Nature lets it happen. And so those of you listening out there that this sounds so new and maybe even frightening to you, a lot of you say you have faith, but you don’t really have faith. A lot of you say you wanna live naturally, but you’re really not living naturally. You’ve gotta let go. You’ve gotta just embrace, if you believe that there’s a creator and there’s a universe, you’ve gotta really now engage in that and let go of all of our preconceived notion. And before you know it, you’re gonna heal and you’re gonna become a human being like you’ve never been before.
Lori Essary: Achieving your best. Yes. Reaching your optimal health. And you’re right, it really is a grieving process of sorts, don’t you think? People go through denial and they, anger and likely resentment and they’re moving towards the acceptance of these are the things I need to do to achieve the life I wanna have, and you either decide to do it or you decide not to do it, but it’s, the ball is in. Everyone’s court individually to do that. You give them, as I understand it, the tools and the resources. You don’t treat them, you give them the tools and resources to heal themselves, as I understand it.
Brian Clement: Everything, we we’re mono focused. We have several departments, energy medicine department, our partners, which you’re involved with. Boost the Immune system with IV’s. Are you a psychotherapy department, we have a kitchen, we have nutritional department but, it’s all about boosting the immune system. Cuz at the end of the day, the universe figured this out. The immune system is, and you know this, but the listener may not, is a gathering of brilliant cells. And those cells, each and every one of them have a unique job. Some go after bacteria, some viruses, some molds, some yeast, some fungus, some parasites, some amoeba’s and some cancer.
And, when you can encourage the immune system to do the job that nature in the universe meant it to do, there’s nothing you cannot reverse. Some of the people I’ve had the privilege to work with over the half century or more that I’ve been doing this have been written off multiple sclerosis, early stage Parkinson’s disease, every form of cancer you can imagine. And every one of these people by the way. Have the capacity to heal themselves if they have the self-respect, the self-love, and the correct tools to do it.
Lori Essary: And I noticed you just got a delivery of juice. If I’m not, so you better drink it because I understand that it oxidizes in how many minutes or seconds? Tell me.
Brian Clement: 15 minutes
Lori Essary: There you go.
Brian Clement: Yes. Made now. About half sprouts, sunflower sprouts, pea sprouts, complete proteins, and the rest cucumbers, organic, of course, cucumbers, celery, parsley, these type of things. And I’m gonna tell you that is where, you remember the word photosynthesis. Where all energy comes from.
Lori Essary: Yes.
Kelly Engelmann: Yes. Making me thirsty to see you. Cheers to you.
Brian Clement: Thank you.
Kelly Engelmann: Drink on.
Brian Clement: Eventually we’ll have something we can sip through the internet.
Kelly Engelmann: Right, right there. Absolutely.
Lori Essary: Absolutely. Yes.
Kelly Engelmann: So what’s coming up for Hippocrates? Are there any events that we should know about? Is there anything that you wanna highlight for our listener?
Brian Clement: Well surely, I mean my newest book just came out. You can get it on Amazon. It’s called Self-Healing Diet. And it not only talks about what we’ve talked about, nutrition, this is one that is weight regulation under and overweight. But for instance, one of the studies in there show that people who are chronically using cell phone, which is 67% of us that do, by the way, 67% of the people are have an addiction to cell phone use. Weigh 30% more than the rest of the population.
Now we know because of micro toxins including plastics and other study came out yesterday that this is something that contributes to weight gain and in some kinds emaciation, with it. And cancers obviously. There was studied on at Oxford not long ago. The top bush oceanographic scientist said, if you consumed only three fish meals a week, I used to do three in a day. At the end of a year, 365 days. You have two ounces of plastic in your organ systems. Now you and I know as physicians that kills people. And forget just the cancer, how about neurological problems. In do that too? So, we’re in a world of septic poison at this point, no government anywhere in the world, including the United States, is serious about changing it. And corporations control governments and people who run governments and your life. And we’ve gotta just, divorce ourself from that poison and live as clean and as pure, both mentally and physically as we can. And you will see the reality, what humans were meant to be, because we are good people. We’re not killers, we’re not fighters, we’re not racist and sexist. We are people who want to love and be loved, but you’ve gotta have a clean, pure lifestyle to do that, you’ve gotta have the integrity. So when you go to bed at night, you’ve done your best. We’re not perfect, there’s no such thing as perfection, but the fact is, that is what creates your human spirit.
Kelly Engelmann: True, that is true.
Lori Essary: I also wanna ask the question about modalities too. You guys offer quite a few modalities too, between cold water plunges, you have energy work. What are some of the other modalities that Hippocrates offers to pair alongside of the food side?
Brian Clement: Well, about 29 years ago one of my close friends, he’s an American that went through Germany and helped him create magnetic resonant imagery. Decades ago, he let me know that hyperthermia killed microbes and cancers. And from the day after he said this to me he has five expertise as an MD, I’ve been doing my wife’s been doing an infrared sauna, and when I travel often not an infrared every day. This is not a joke. I just got back from a European lecture tour. If they didn’t have a place I could go to the sauna. I say no no. That’s how important it’s. This is what takes out the micro poisons, the microtoxins, the plastics we’re talking about. We also have steam bass, everyone gets body work, but it’s not rub dovey, feelgood stuff. It’s neuromuscular, sometimes. And it doesn’t feel good, but boy does it do a lot of work. We have acupuncture here at Hippocrates, but these are common things. I think the most important thing is we use psycho neuroimmunology that deals on a brain level with your immune system and your neurological system. And we also now know in the last 12 months to 14 months, that your body was built, homo sapiens to consume raw green plant foods. Because you have three literal families of bacteria that are the pillars of 80% of your immune system and 90% of your brain function. So when people have psychological disorders or biological disorders, it’s that these three families of bacteria in your gut are not functioning. One is called prevotella, one is called bacteria, and the other is called ruminococcus. We now know that they are fed by raw green, plant-based food. And what did I used to eat Chicken. God knows what, ice cream every day practically, butter. And what that was doing is provoking bad bacteria. So my brain, and my immune system didn’t work. So we can no longer hide behind philosophy, theology, or whatever we want to make up in our own silly minds. We now have the science, we have the data, and we’ve been clinically proving that here. When you can reverse stage four cancers and 20 years of multiple sclerosis. I mean, all I did here is type two diabetes, I quit it so easy. Cardiovascular disease, it’s not a disease. Only 3% is a a mechanical. The rest is lifestyle created. All you have to do is get on the internet. And look up the diseases and the amount of disease we had in year 1900 and compare it to today when we’re speaking. Some diseases didn’t even exist. Cancer with 3% of the population. Now it’s over 50% of us will get it. 20 years ago I’d be yelling at medical conferences, about 12% of our children in North America being chronically ill. So let me explain to your listeners what that means. They’re permanently sick. So 16 year old children and below were permanently sick. And I was yelling, do you know what the number is today? 57%. What is it gonna look like? You know this, how sick we are. What’s it gonna look like in 25 or 30 years? Well,
Lori Essary: It breaks my heart, honestly. And you know Brian, that’s my story. Having been diagnosed with diabetes type two at 25 and taking a hard look in the mirror. At what I had to do differently. I was already a marathon runner and I didn’t eat too many Snickers bars. Recognizing that, yes it is a lot of food, but it’s also what’s in our food. So we can be eating good stuff, but it could be. Not organic. So you’re so right that these metabolic disorders and cancer and all of that, they’re on the rise. And by taking a lifestyle approach, eating the right food for you and the right amount for you at the right time for you getting quality things, putting people around you that love you and support you, and a mindset that I believe I can, if I think I can, I can. If I think I can’t, I can’t. Moving the body. All of those things are powerful medicine. I am so thankful just to have had the opportunity to not only meet you, but talk to you and have you definitely here on this podcast today, and just kind of digging deeper into what you do. Thank you so much for being a pioneer. Being out there,
Brian Clement: It’s a lot of fun. As you know, this is not work. The day becomes work, I’ll quick that means I’m not good at it anymore. And welcome all of the listeners out there to look us up. Hippocrates Wellness, and come down and visit us. This is a transformative experience that’s sadly out in the world with your friends and family. It’s hard to do on your own. God bless both of you. Keep up your work. Good to be with you.
Lori Essary: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Brian. Have a fantastic rest of your day.
Brian Clement: You too. Now.
Lori Essary: Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. You can find more information about Synergee at Synergee for Life. That’s S Y N E R G E E, the number four life.com.
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Lori Essary: The purpose of our Synergee podcast is to educate. It does not constitute medical advice, by listening to this podcast you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others, including, but not limited to patients that you are treating. Please consult your own physician for any medical issues you may be having.
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Healing with Compassion with Sabrina Ciceri
Lori Esery: Wellness is a practice, not just a word.
Kelly Engelman: Welcome to the Synergee Podcast, where myself, Kelly Engelmann and Lori Esarey shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body,
Lori Esery: and most importantly, feed your soul.
Kelly Engelman: We are so excited you guys are back, Synergee listeners. You’re gonna love this podcast. You’re gonna fall in love with Sabrina. We’re so excited we got to capture her heart and soul today in today’s podcast.
Lori Esery: So a little bit about Sabrina Ciceri. She sees medicine through a different lens and represents an evolution in healthcare, shifting the disease centered focus of medicine to a more preventative approach.
Recently she fulfilled a lifelong dream by opening Immunity Health, a company that offers treatments like IV therapy, functional medicine, bioidentical hormone therapy, cryotherapy, hyperbaric, and red light therapy microneedling with plant-based stem cells and much more. All designed to help clients achieve a stronger immune system and look and feel their best inside and out. Her vast experience in the healthcare field was the driving force behind opening this innovative company. You guys are gonna love Sabrina.
Kelly Engelman: So we’re bringing in Sabrina today from Immunity Health. Sabrina, tell us your story.
Sabrina Ciceri: Oh boy. I don’t know where to begin. There’s so many stories. Being in my fifties now, there’s a lot to tell. But, I was thinking just the other day how when I first visioned what I wanted to do long-term, it was a wellness center, it was in 1993, and I was talking to the girl that was doing a pedicure on me, and I was telling her one day I dreamed of having a wellness center just starting into nursing. I saw things that didn’t seem like it felt right, didn’t totally align, one met after the other nobody feeling better. I just started learning and reading more things and just kind of followed that path I went down lots of different avenues through the years to get to where finally in 2020, we opened that center and it’s expanded with the services that we offer and the reach that we have with helping people. It’s getting rolling.
Kelly Engelman: So you started your career in nursing. I love that, you’re a nurse. And you saw things in medicine that just weren’t adding up even back in 1993.
Sabrina Ciceri: Yes. Yeah.
Kelly Engelman: Yeah. So walk us through the timeframe between 93 until that 2000. Cuz you did some things in the fitness industry too, right?
Sabrina Ciceri: Yes. I started with the help of my mother a fitness center. A fitness studio. It was first in the only little personal training studio there because we felt like there was a need for people that were afraid to go to the gym and they wanted more one-on-one, and they didn’t wanna feel embarrassed being around muscle heads or sometimes it feels like a meat market in some of the gyms. So we created a safe place for people. We ended up helping meal prep and doing all kinds of things, coaching, and that actually opened up another door. It’s unique how you look back and when you’re starting something, you don’t really know how it’s gonna happen, but you just follow through with faith and the old saying that the people that you need to know are already there, you just have to keep your eyes open and keep believing because doing the fitness center, when I got out of nursing led into starting a column at a local magazine called Ask Sabrina.
And then that led into us launching a healthy living magazine that was published for 10 years, about balanced living with financial, spiritual, mental, physical, which led me to the interview with a man that saved his life and. Told me about Hippocrates in the backyard here of Central Florida, here in South Florida. And then one thing just has just led to the other, you just keep walking out and you keep staying positive, even not knowing, I mean, my license was, I say only an LPN. I was a single parent, had a one-year-old daughter, and decided that that was the quickest, easiest way for me to have some freedom. As an only child living with my parents, I wanted to get away, so I got straight into LPN. And I kept thinking along the way, I’m not gonna get that far with this degree, but little pieces here and there, opened the door. I ended up being an administrator of a home health agency as an LPN. I don’t know how it actually happened, it God’s hand was in all of it, because I would get asked all the time though, so what school did you go to? And what credentials do you have? I’m like I don’t have a lot of that, but I got a lot of grit and hard work and I just meet the right people and as you say, working together, we work together and then little miracle magic happens all along the way.
Lori Esery: So I have had the privilege, Sabrina, of knowing you since high school, and I wanna say that you’ve had grit for a long time and it’s been such a privilege to watch you. Walk this out, and I love what you said about having a dream to have a wellness center. You were just having a pedicure, you said, right? And I wanna have a wellness center, but didn’t really know how that would manifest, and through just some opening of doors. And some probably slamming of windows or maybe just the opposite opening of windows and slamming of doors you entered into just each next step and that next step got you to the next step. I think it’s so incredible as we talk about empowering other women to walk it out and have faith. You obviously have passion and, I wanna know a little bit about where does this passion actually come from, because you have a heart of gold, so I gotta know a little bit more about that.
Sabrina Ciceri: Well, I don’t know exactly. I was raised with a very strong parent. My father, this is the land of opportunity, but nothing comes for free. You work hard, you can learn as you go to work smarter, but you put in the hard work. And I have strived through the years to keep balance. I have six kids too and four grandkids. And three cats and three dogs and let’s not forget all the parents and family, you know how that goes.
Lori Esery: I’m tired just listening to.
Sabrina Ciceri: Yeah, but you just keep moving and staying positive,
Lori Esery: but you have such a love for people. I have seen it, genuinely, deeply caring for the wellbeing of others. You see that in yourself, right?
Sabrina Ciceri: I do, it’s to a fault sometimes. Yes.
Lori Esery: So where does that come from?
Sabrina Ciceri: Sorry, this gets me emotional, for a second because, I think that more than even medical care supplementation, all of those things, people at the core need nurturing and love and support, and that’s where it starts. And I think that’s one thing that makes things a lot different with immunity in in our approach to everything it comes from, we give love first. We love them no matter what, no matter what they do and where they’re at, we try to meet ’em where they are and just encourage them and let them know that never lose hope, never give up on themselves. Never stop believing the bodies wonderfully made. And it can heal itself. You just mentally, spiritually, and physically have to connect. And it all starts with igniting that life force, not just with the nourishment that they’re getting, but with hugs and connection and an energy like that. And I think that’s what kind of sets us apart.
Lori Esery: And I think what you’re saying there is nourishing, we all talk about nourishing their bodies with food. But it’s nourishing their souls and connecting with them, and that speaks volumes as I’ve seen you around your patients. Absolutely. And it speaks to how instrumental you are in helping pass along that encouragement and seeing them reach their goals. Because you do, you speak a different language and it’s not the spoken word alone, it’s through your actions and as well.
Sabrina Ciceri: Thank you. Yeah, no, it’s very rewarding. It’s so exhausting sometimes, and anybody that’s in the healthcare profession understands the exhaustion. But then you wake up every day renewed again just by knowing that, I don’t know you guys all understand it. You just wake up renewed again and say, we got this. There’s people that need to know just more believing in themselves.
Kelly Engelman: I think Sabrina, that comes when you are living your passion. God is good. He renews us every day. And when you’re living in that passion and you wake up with that, just feeling fortified, right to go out and do it again, to go out and embrace people again.
But I also wanted to speak to your servant leadership. Lori and I, through Synergee, have had an opportunity to be on site at Immunity and watch you in action with your team as a businesswoman. It’s not easy to be a businesswoman, right? And I have seen you step up and really lean into your team in ways that are just profound.
Love them, meet them where they are, but also challenge them. How do you pull that off? Because I want more of that in my life.
Sabrina Ciceri: I don’t know. It’s funny because my kids all said I’m very close to my kids and they always called me the warden. You guys have helped me tremendously with steps and strategies and forms and things that have just really was the missing piece because I was doing the things that I knew to do, but now I have some backing that helps, but Generally, everywhere that I’ve worked, it’s hard to say something nice about yourself really, but I’ve always been complimented for the way that I’ve worked with my CNAs or with anybody. And I think the reason why that I have, cuz I do have a good team and I get complimented all the time about what a good team they call me mom. They really act like they love being there. But I don’t wanna say I tough love them sometimes. They absolutely know that I’m very direct and say what needs to be said, but I’m not a grudge holder. I say what needs to be said, but then we go on, I’m not holding on to it. I’m not passive aggressive with you later. They know that it’s coming from a good place, I think because they can see that I’m genuine in what I’m doing, that we’re trying to be excellent in caring for people and professional and clean, and they know that I want all these things done not to micromanage, but in a way for us to be a wonderful, outstanding place for people to come that want to hang out and they wanna be around us more. I think that’s what makes it a little bit different. We joke and we laugh and have fun, but I have people, they always hug me and they cry and hug me and tell me they love me when we sit down and have to do a writeup. And I think it’s just the approach cause they know I don’t want to do this. We’re doing this because immunity is here and it has to survive. And it has certain expectations. And when you interviewed you were this way and said this way. Now I just need you to be that person that you told me and that I saw in the beginning. I just kind of redirect him and motivate him. Somehow a write-up ends up getting me a hug too.
Lori Esery: Well, tough love is not an easy thing and it’s certainly not easy at work. It’s not easy in the home, but it really is even harder in the work area. And I agree with Kelly, you really do have a servant heart for God’s work and showing love, so, I wanna hear a little bit of, as you have grown over the years in this desire to help people nourish their heart and their souls, what is it about what you’re doing right now at Immunity has gotten you closer to really fulfilling your passion? What do you guys do there you haven’t been able to do before that’s getting you even closer to that dream of that passion and acting it out?
Sabrina Ciceri: Goodness.
Kelly Engelman: Because you’ve been in the fitness industry. So you did that and then you guys had a facility in which you did IV therapy, but it seems like what you have now is kind of the best of all of those places, if you will, that you now have one place, right?
Sabrina Ciceri: Yes. Well, the coming down to West Palm to do immunity, we were able to have the space to do, put everything there that I wanted to place. Before it was limited, so I had to pick and choose and I never felt like I was like a kid kicking my feet, I wanted more. So down here we had the space because I had been learning about epigenetics in the biohacking. And it was tying into different things you do when you can combine them and stack them, you make huge leaps. And I knew we were coming to a campus where people were in some critical condition, oftentimes, and they couldn’t take a slow approach. They had to move fast. So, I’m so happy that we have this space and of course I’ve added some things and I’m busting out the seams now cause they’re forever creating new stuff, but I think that has created what I want to be able to give a good impact for people, but also when they’re there, they’re spending more time. And I think the more time that they’re there, we’re able to, like I say, spend that time and give them more love and encouragement. They’re not just checking in, getting one thing and leaving. They’re spending more time there with us. And that’s been real beneficial for them and us.
Lori Esery: Right. So the therapies that you offer there now are what?
Sabrina Ciceri: Well, we have the IV therapy, the IV nutrients, which I’d like to always add this because it’s trendy and popular and so many people are doing IV therapy, but it may not be the safest. Therapies are vital nutrients are all preservative free. They’re never sourced from corn only, cassava, root, and yam. And we get people all the time that say, I can’t, our place doesn’t do that, but at least it’s better than nothing. And I explained to them, from what I know, that it isn’t good to put these synthetic things and it is causing more harm, it’s better to do none than to add something that’s going to decrease your immune system function. But anyway, I could go on about that. But the IV therapies, and then we’ve got the demi bed, which people love that’s the Vibroacoustic electromagnetic infrared bed. Many people will do an IV drip on that because that electromagnetic field will help drive those nutrients down deeper into the cell for more benefit, all the same time they’re meditating and getting in a parasympathetic state through some sound and vibration therapy. That’s a wonderful tool, and many people go from that to the hyperbaric, which most people know what that is, the oxygen therapy. And then they’ll finish with red light. We’ve got the Fairlight 360, which is an amazing machine, 45,000 red lights. That just does multiple things, killing free radicals. They lay in there like the old-timey tannin beds. At least I hope there’s not tannin beds out there anymore. We have the exercise with oxygen therapy. We’ve got a Hyper T Pro that does gets up to 190 degrees only from the neck down so that people that can’t tolerate infrared saunas because they feel like they can’t breathe with their head in their head stays out. So they still get that great detoxification. We’ve got aesthetic things too. Scarlet aquifer, we’ve got the cryo skin now. Things that help people on the outside too, they care about. I never wanna be a med spa, and when people will say something like that, it makes me cringe. I don’t wanna be a med spa, but I also have seen how much people’s identity are tied into hair loss and things like that. And we do want ’em to leave their feeling better inside and outside.
Lori Esery: And you service clients from not just there at Hippocrates Health Institute on property, but you also are there for a guest from all around your surrounding community. Is that correct?
Sabrina Ciceri: Yeah, we have people coming from as far as I mean Miami for the local area. Fort St. Lucy, so they come from a two hour radius here and we’ve been having more and more calls as the website has the Google search and all that stuff has grown. People have called, and it just puts me in all that they say, I’m in Illinois, but I see that you have all these modalities and treatments and I want to come down there and get a motel and stay for like a month and come in every day and get treatments cause I’m struggling with this, I’m like, wow. And I tell ’em, I say, well, there might be places closer to you. And they check, they say, No, no, no. It’s not the same or they only have one thing or it’s only 5,000 lights, and I would rather come down there and just spend 30 days and do everything you have under one roof and it just makes me so happy, honors me that they found that, and that we are meeting the need for even people outside of here.
Lori Esery: I remember when I shared the concept with Kelly and I was so excited, I called her and I said, you wouldn’t believe it. There’s this one facility and it has all of these things. I’m like, Kelly, we’ve got to go this is like our playground for wellness, like we’ve gotta go. How Kelly?
Kelly Engelman: It truly is a playground, and I walked in there, my eyes were just like, I was a kid in a candy store. I couldn’t stop grinning and just looking around. And like, when do I get to play? Because having all of those modalities, a lot of that technology is European technology. You don’t see that around every corner. And to have it all in one place, to your point where people can come and enjoy the benefits and really gain some traction on their wellness journey, and then decide what do they want to take home, what do they want to embody to take home to perhaps use on an ongoing basis. Right? Because some of those things they can get in a portable fashion, to use as they continue to heal.
Sabrina Ciceri: No, they do. And I,
Kelly Engelman: and you guys have cryo too. You didn’t mention cryo.
Sabrina Ciceri: Yeah, that’s what I was forgetting to say. How did I forget that machine? Our largest investment was in this machine and it took us 12 months to get it from Germany. Cause they made it, especially for us. Our it’s a dual chambered, electric cryotherapy and it’s massive. And it took us forever to get that, but we love that machine too.
Lori Esery: So it’s world class and I could see why people travel from all over. I mean, I have no problem hopping in my car and coming three and a half hours to visit and would do it more often because of just the technologies. And not only that, I mean, once again, going back to you can have all of those modalities. You can have all of those services, but you can still have a facility that’s not worth going to if the team that you put together isn’t inviting, warm and desiring to nurture. So it’s not just what you’ve put together in the way of these resources, it really is everything together. So I just, I mean, hats off to you. I know that it is hard for you to take compliments. I can see your face. It’s hard. It’s hard to speak about yourself too, but incredibly proud of what you have done and are gonna continue to do because of your heart, your desire, your passion, your compassion. Can’t forget that, your compassion for people. It’s definitely infectious, Sabrina. It absolutely is.
Sabrina Ciceri: Thank you.
Kelly Engelman: So a birdie told me, That there’s a book coming out?
Sabrina Ciceri: Oh, yes. I have been write a book for a long time and I’m pushing to have it come out in May. It’s my first book that I’ve ever written, so I’ve probably overanalyzed it a lot, but it’s called, if It’s Not One Thing, it’s a Mother and it basically,
Kelly Engelman: I love the title. Did you come up with that title yourself?
Sabrina Ciceri: I did, it was actually one day when I was talking about. Something else my mom had done. This is me as an adult, I’m like, oh my gosh, if it’s not one thing, it’s a mother, it’s like, oh my gosh. But It’s just basically kind of relating to how it is to be a daughter and how you feel about your mother growing up and the many transitions along the way you’re first recognizing is that as you’re growing older, my mom’s not perfect and maybe I don’t wanna be just like her and then feeling guilty kind of for that. And then when I had my first child, my first child was a daughter and I remember thinking about, How I, I need to first do what mom taught me to do, but it’s like, wait a second. I think I wanna do it differently. And then feeling guilt over that and then growing through that, watching my daughter become a mother. And now how I feel as a grandmother. I’m the yaya in the family, but it’s just a book that really relates and understands women and it also kind of motivates and encourages them along the way. It’s basically, I’ve changed the direction of my life from the way that I was raised. I’ve taken what I found good in my mother and I love her very much, and I’ve put boundaries there as well for the things that I don’t wanna be co-dependent on and kind of let that feed into my life and she understands it and respects it, but it just helps people to understand. Kind of where they are. I’ve kind of taken it through the stages. It’s basically how health, faith, and I am an old school parenting style. How that’s gotten me through and shaped my life is what the book’s about.
Lori Esery: So once again, being an inspiration. To other women. And I can imagine not only women because I’m certain that there will be men who would find this book helpful as well, but an inspiration all the while to your readership and just again, the impact. So I can’t wait to read it and that is an actual super cool title.
Sabrina Ciceri: Super cool. Thank you.
Kelly Engelman: So I just have to ask any insight on why as women, there’s so much guilt around. Our relationships with our moms and oftentimes our daughters.
Sabrina Ciceri: Yeah. Well, there’s lots of pressure. I think, at least for myself, pressure that if I did anything different than the way that mom had done it, that it would be in some form of disrespect. And I’m a firm believer. I respect my parents. I even, when I disagree with them, I respect them. So I think you feel that way. And then, from what I saw in my friends raising kids that I never did fall into was, how much that they feel the pressure that they need to be their friend. I wasn’t put on this earth to be my children’s friend, that wasn’t the role that I was here to play. I love them, nurture them, guide them, and I do have fun with them. I mean, we theme park, we play Uno, we do the fun things it’s not that you can’t do that, but I’m not crossing the line and trying to become a friend and wanna hear the details of the intimate details of a date or, I just think that the children growing up today need less of their moms to be a friend and more of them to be strong and feel confident that they can be the mother. You never get too old to be a mother, I’m 51 and still need a mother, so I just think we need to hold onto that and not feel guilty.
By not saying, well, we’re grown. My daughter says it to me all the time, I’m an adult daughter now. I’m like, we, you are, but you’re still my child and if I see you doing something wrong, I’m gonna be advising you differently.
Kelly Engelman: I love it. Did you hear that? Our daughters, we have daughters too. So I hope you’re listening into this podcast. Sabrina just gave me permission. To still be your mom.
Sabrina Ciceri: That’s right. They have to respect. My daughters slipped up the other, I don’t know, a couple months ago, and she’s even saying a cuss word, which I’m not gonna say, you have to be legalistic. But she said something, I’m like, I beg your pardon. And she’s like, mom, I’m 31. I’m like, I don’t care. I don’t wanna hear that on my baby girl’s mouth. Don’t say that.
Lori Esery: They really do need that loving correction from people that do adore them and wanna see the best in them. Right? As a mom, we wanna see. The best in our children. But I do see what you’re talking about, about, you know, how oftentimes we, as, when we become moms, we want to mimic what we saw growing up. Or in fact when we feel like we don’t do that, perhaps we’re gonna upset them because we’ve chosen to do things differently. And even when being questioned that questioning. Isn’t always about questioning in a negative way. Maybe it’s just creating dialogue, but I could see how it can be offensive, you’re asking me why I’m doing this? Is it because you don’t like what I’m doing or it’s because you really wanna know? So making sure we’re keeping dialogue of when we are having those conversations. It’s not that we necessarily always disagree, perhaps it’s just that we want to understand more. We wanna be a part of their lives. We wanna be there for them to lean on. We wanna be a safe place that they can still land. Like you said, regardless of you being, 50, I’m not gonna say my age, but I still need my mama too, and I’m so blessed to still have my mama.
Sabrina Ciceri: Yes. No, exactly. You and I think that you don’t be so hard that you don’t keep that relationship open. My children know that if they do something that I don’t like and they share it with me, it’s not a big deal. I’ll give my opinion and then I’ll say, pass the potatoes. It’s, everything’s still in love, but I come from a strong Greek family, my husband’s Italian family, so we can rant and rave and lift the roof off and then give hugs and sit down and, Share an apple, it’s just the way it is.
Lori Esery: That’s right. And I also wanna mention, you’re talking about, you have both biological children, but you have adopted several children. So talk about that dynamic a little bit too. When did you first adopt, and how many adopted children do you have?
Sabrina Ciceri: Okay. I have four adopted children and we had the two oldest and then we decided we were gonna adopt from China. We had ran into some couples and we just felt like God was leading us down that road. So we got our daughter when she was 10 months old and she’s now almost 19 at at Gainesville now going to school. And then it’s weird that we are talking today because it popped up in a memory 10 years ago today, I was actually doing a weak detox at Hippocrates laying in a hammock, and I was just praying and God laid on me heavy that you’re gonna adopt more children. Of course, I called Joe right away and said, God just said, we’re gonna adopt more children. He’s like, whoa, wait a second. I’m not sure, and it wasn’t but maybe a week later that he said, I think we are supposed to adopt, but not internationally, or I think we’re supposed to foster and adopt. So we started looking down that road and we fostered for a little while, and then ended up within that year, we had a two year old and then two newborns. So they were a month apart. They were raised like twins. They were actually a month apart, but they are now this summer fixing to turn 10 years old the two little ones, and then the the other ones turning 12. So we’ve got the 31 25 year old and the almost 19 year old we call the bigs. And then the 10, 10 and 12 year olds we call the littles.
Lori Esery: Amazing. Another example,
Kelly Engelman: that is precious,
Lori Esery: right?
Sabrina Ciceri: Yep. I agree. Heart of gold.
Lori Esery: Is being a mom is that dynamic, difference with the different children like,
Sabrina Ciceri: no. We talk about this all the time. All six children are completely different too. They’re all different. The two little ones that we had as newborns and everybody’s like, oh, how cute are they twins? The little boy was white as a sheet, they one of my friends nickname him powder. And the, my other one was 25% Native American Indian, dark, thick hair and dark skin. It was the cutest thing, cuz I’d always get asked they look like total opposites, but they are yours. The terminology that we use is different because now we’ve realized there is no real kids are not kids, they’re all our children no matter what.
Lori Esery: Absolutely. Yes.
Kelly Engelman: So, Sabrina, let’s be real for a minute. It’s not easy to be a mom. It’s not easy to be a business owner. It’s not easy to be a caregiver. How do you keep life balanced? How, what are your strategies like, what do you lean into to continue to live your purpose and keep life balanced?
Sabrina Ciceri: Well, it’s a constant, Juggle. And a few years ago I found out I gave myself a little bit of a break between feeling like I constantly had to keep everything in perfect balance. So I was failing constantly at that. And then I realized with myself that I was gonna give myself these grace periods for different things. So I knew last year when I took this step to go to West Palm and leave Central Florida while my kids and family were there and go back and forth, that they knew and we talked as a family that was gonna be the year of hustle for mom, I had dreams and goals. I loved them and the care was gonna be there for them, but this was the little segment of my life where that was gonna be the focus. And I adjust that, going on like me and Joe, we are leaving for a week in May come hell or high water, we’re gone for a week we’re almost 30 years together now married, and we definitely take our time together. Because we’re more in love and happier now than we were 30 years ago. And it’s not about having all this time with him, it’s about when we do have our time, it’s quality we’re talking. And he’s a businessman too, so a lot of our time together’s talking about business so that works. But things will get outta balance. And just like recently tackling on a little bit of weight, feeling like I’ve not been taking care of myself. I’ve sat down and reevaluated so, Even in this next I committed and I have a personal trainer for the next 12 weeks, I’m taking a break in the middle of the day, four days a week I’m going to the gym. I will leave work a little bit, they’ll make it because now it’s time for me to put a little bit more time into me.
And then same thing with the kids. I’m prepared during the different stages when they hits 13, 14, I might have to back off of something else and then bring more time into them. I just think it’s constantly stopping to beat yourself up about having to have balance every single day because it’s impossible. There are days where work takes the lead and I give my husband nothing or my children just get a kiss goodnight or something. But I make that up on the next week, on the Thursday when I take ’em out and we have a night out on the town and go to the movies and everything. It’s just balance and I’m finally, it took me a long time okay, with not feeling guilty if I did work a lot or did other things, it’ll all come out in the wash as long as I continue to reevaluate and then reposition what I need to focus on that next season.
Lori Esery: That’s such great advice. Really. Really.
Kelly Engelman: Yeah. I think you just said a mouthful.
Lori Esery: Absolutely. Yeah. And I heard several things in that that really resonated with me. And I’m certain that as those are listening, there are certain things that you said that resonated with them, but you said stopping, the guilt. And also stopping that trying to find the perfect balance. Number one, you also said taking time to reevaluate and recognizing that as seasons change, you have to really look back in again to reevaluate and restructure, which you did. And then you also said something about communicating with your family. About what you have going on, and I really appreciate that you said, I told my kids, it’s the year of hustle, right? And we’re gonna hustle. And how important it is to communicate that to them, to your family members, this is what’s going on. So there’s, I mean, those are the things. There was so much that resonated in that, but that was, those were the things that I really heard you say, and I think it was such great advice and profound, I think we all need to be, reevaluating, reassessing, knowing that things aren’t gonna be perfect, knowing that we have to adjust our sails right with for the wind, we gotta adjust our sails for the wind, and we do have to communicate our direction to rally the troops. And our family is our troops. They are our supporters, they are the people that love us. And if we wanna be successful, we really need them to support and be aware of where we’re going so that they can be our co-pilots.
Kelly Engelman: What I heard her say, she didn’t say this in so many words, but what I heard her say is, life is gonna be. It’s gonna get outta balance. Expect that. Don’t be surprised, that life is gonna get outta balance. And we have to plan some time to reevaluate. Have that sit down, talk with yourself about, okay, what are your priorities? What are you trying to get accomplished? And then figure out how to make it happen. And that’s where the grit comes in. The grit never leaves you, it’s gonna be with you from here until death, that’s just who you are. And so I think it’s important that we give ourselves time and space to reevaluate and figure out, how to take that next step. Never losing faith.
Sabrina Ciceri: Yeah, no, that’s great. And I see it even in the younger kids. I mean, in our older children we see that we’ve instilled, they’ve watched us work hard and they’ve taken it and applied it in their own life and they’ve seen us do it happily, not, oh my gosh, I hate going to work. They see us putting in these hours, but they know we love what we do. And even, I mean, my little ones, my muffins, my youngest, she’ll say, how was work today? Did you meet new people? Did you know she’s interested in it? Because she knows how interested I am in what I’m doing, and I don’t mind. I think a lot of people, and I’ve seen this before, where they. They’re not working as much because they wanna be home and be present with their child, but they’re on their phone or they’re playing video games, they’re not present. So when we are present with the kids, we’re present. It might not be as much time, but the time that is there we’re there. And the time that it’s not, they know what we’re doing and respect what we’re doing they get excited asking us about it here.
Lori Esery: And I also know how important your faith is to you. That’s something that you have shared also, as we have talked. Outside of this time together, that comes through as you talk about caring and loving people and wanting to be a servant and your servant heart. So I see that too.
Sabrina Ciceri: Thank you. That’s good. No, it’s we make it no secret in both of our businesses. Me and Joe, God is the center, he’s our source. He has created miracle upon miracle in our lives. Me and Joe both like I say, are not college graduates. We have successful businesses and we have, we’re blessed with love and finances in a lot of different ways. And it just came from, we both got into church together and it was simple that God had already given us all these things it was out there just trust and believe and take the steps and follow your desires. And things would come, and I’ve held him to it. God says this and I say, okay, you say it and I’m gonna just follow. And we’re both very sensitive, to trying to listen to that. Now, there are many many times and all strong women will say the same thing. Even just the other day, I was going into a hard meeting I stressed about it all week long going to this hard meeting, I’m like, I’m just can’t sleep, I’m rehearsing it in my head when I get up at two to pee or whatever, and then I remember the day of the meeting that morning, I actually, there’s a little secret place that I go to in my mind, like meditation, where I meet Jesus. And I usually, I have this dissension of get going into the guided meditation type of thing, which I’m sure many of you have experienced. But usually I’m stepping myself down mentally and I get there and I’ve got my little spot and then Jesus comes, it’s a whole little thing that I do to get myself to that place.
The first time ever in all these years, that morning of the meeting, I was so nervous, my chest was tight I was like, Ooh, I think I need to talk to Jesus. Of course I didn’t talk to him all week cause I was working all out in my head. And as I was going down, in my mind I was like stumbling, and when I got there, he was already there for the first time he was already waiting on me and I was like, oh my goodness, is this not symbolic? So he’s there all the time. If I just would go to him first instead trying to figure all this out and so then I just gave me a goosebumps and I was like, well, of course you’re already there, I just did some results falling down the stairs to get to so I can call for you and you’re just down there waiting.
Lori Esery: Oh, that is such a great story to end with.
Yeah, so incredible. That’s what I was gonna say. Such a great story, such inspiration to end with. I mean, how many times have we done that where we just keep ourselves spun up for no reason at all, realizing that all the, it’s all been worked out before we can even imagine, even better than we can imagine most of the time, right?
Sabrina Ciceri: Exactly.
Kelly Engelman: So Sabrina, as we’re ending, how can people locate immunity? Give us some contact information so that listeners can look you guys up, because your site, your website is incredible. You can’t look at that website and not want to be there.
Sabrina Ciceri: Thank you. Yeah, they can go to the website immunityhealth.com and we’ve got a lot of social media things going out really cool campaigns, get a drip, blue Monday, things that are special to immunity. I’m trying to think. I’m sure you can search the social media and find us, but going to the website, it took me months to put together the education manual that’s on there and it’s, I think 64 or five pages you could flip through and learn and read so much detail about what we do and understand the technology. But that’s where I think it start. And you can always email from there. And if you wanna talk to me or just email me anything, sabrina@immunityhealth.com. I would love to chat and meet new people. I never meet a stranger. I’m from the country,
Lori Esery: so she said a sabrina@immunityhealth.com right?
Sabrina Ciceri: Yeah, that’s how you could email me. But you can go to the website if you just wanna check us out.
Kelly Engelman: And tell us the website address.
Sabrina Ciceri: Immunityhealth.com.
Kelly Engelman: Perfect.
Lori Esery: Well thank you.
Sabrina Ciceri: In a couple months I’ll have, if it’s not one thing, it’s a mother.com. Pretty soon that’ll launch. The book will be there, but I’m gonna promote it a little bit on the Immunity Health site too, so be sure to look for that cuz it’s it’s motivational and it’s also got some funny, stories in it.
Lori Esery: Well, congratulations on the book. We can’t wait. I can’t wait to read it. We can’t wait to read it. Thank you so much for carving out time out of your busy but productive life. We really appreciated having you here today, Sabrina. You’re welcome back anytime on our podcast, such an inspiration for all of our listeners and so many words of encouragement that you shared today so, looking forward to people reaching out to you and like I said certainly hoping that we can get back together again for a future podcast with you.
Sabrina Ciceri: Oh, definitely. No, it’s an honor to hang out with you ladies. You guys have really helped me out in many, many ways. Things are, in my mind, things with the company you guys have where it felt like the puzzle pieces were there, but they were scattered. You’re impressed us greatly with how that’s coming together. Every week there’s just more positive change and it’s all been because of the influence and support from you guys, and we really appreciate it.
Lori Esery: Is our pleasure. Well, thank you so much on behalf of Kelly and I in Synergee. Thank you to all for listening to today’s podcast, and we can’t wait to have you back on our next one.
Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. You can find more information about Synergee at Synergee for Life. That’s S Y N E R G E E, the number four live.com.
Kelly Engelman: And then Synergee Connect is our Facebook. And then please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app so that you make sure you get future notifications of episodes.
Lori Esery: The purpose of our Synergee podcast is to educate. It does not constitute medical advice by listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others, including, but not limited to patients that you are treating. Please consult your own physician for any medical issues you may be having.
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All Things Food Sensitivity and More with Cheryl Burdette
Lori Esarey: Wellness is a practice, not just a word.
Kelly Engelmann: Welcome to the Synergee Podcast, where myself, Kelly Engelmann and Lori Esery shared by on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body,
Lori Esarey: and most importantly, feed your soul.
Kelly Engelmann: Welcome back Synergee listeners, we’re so glad you’re here. Where we believe we’re stronger together. Hold on to your seats because we have Cheryl Burdette here with us today and we are so excited to have her.
Lori Esarey: Cheryl Burdette, N.D. Is the founder of Person Logics Health Academy, an educational initiative designed to increase knowledge of integrative medicine for practitioners.
She is the Director of Education and the Naturopathic Residency Program at progressive Medical. She is the founder and educational director of a functional laboratory, precision Point Diagnostics, for which she designs clinical profiles and trains clinicians with utilization. She’s on the board of Advisors for Zymogen and Inc. 500 supplement company. She is a partner of TheraDura a physician line distribution in Germany. She serves on IRB Boards is involved in study design and translational research, and has lectured extensively worldwide. Her passion is teaching around the practices of integrated and naturopathic medicine to increase awareness of evidence-based natural therapies.
Let’s get started with Cheryl Burdette.
Kelly Engelmann: So welcome to the Synergee Podcast. We are so excited to be back together. Lori Esery and Kelly Engelmann hosting Cheryl Burdette today and, I have to tell you I have been the most excited about this podcast and I have been about any podcast in a long time, because if I could sit in one person’s brain, And absorb all of the information that she has up there it would be Cheryl’s brain. I have brain envy every time I’m around her, all of the biochemistry that swims around in there I just wish I could soak it all up, so I’m excited that she’s here with us today.
Lori Esarey: I’m gonna second that. Cheryl, thank you so much for being here. I can’t even say that any better. I feel like such a geek sometimes, give me everything you got.
Cheryl Burdette: You guys are too kind. I think I just it’s like company, so thank you for having me here.
Kelly Engelmann: Cheryl’s been in our world for a while. Lori and I are. Perpetual students since they were always in class and Cheryl’s been gracious enough to teach us live and virtually.
And so we are honored to have her here to share her wealth of information. We’re gonna dig into all things food sensitivity, intestinal permeability, those are big words we’re gonna break ’em down for you. We’re also gonna get into the whole idea of oxidative stress and how that plays out. What you can expect to feel or see when you’re experiencing some oxidative stress. We know if we have that, we’re not winning our game. So, Cheryl let’s dig in. It’s common, and I have to think back to when I first started doing food sensitivity testing. And I have to say the first, panel that I did for food sensitivities was a food sensitivity panel that looked at the response of the white blood cell.
And it tested multiple foods, and we would get that panel back and it would be, oh my goodness, how in the world am I going to eliminate all of these foods? And so at Precision Point, I absolutely love and adore the way that your panel is laid out so that as a clinician, we can look at that information through the eyes of a functional medicine practitioner and say, what is the immune system trying to do with this food source, and how do I take this information and help this patient navigate a diet that’s going to lead to healing and not lead to further nutrient deficiencies and ongoing food sensitivities. So help us understand a little bit more about how that panel is laid out in the intention of that panel.
Cheryl Burdette: So the panel came to be, through Precision Point Diagnostics as you said, but the lab came out of a clinical practice so, I practice at Progressive Medical and my partner, Dr. Gasagoli, it’s a large clinic about 10 docs, 10 to 11 docs all under the same roof and so but also PA’s and nurse practitioners and acupuncturists and dieticians and naturopathic docs and so, a lot of patient care progressive’s been around for 30 years and so really getting to see a lot of data come through there, and historically we used other food sensitivity tests as well even the one that you mentioned and from other places and we always felt like a little bit like Goldilocks, right? Like a little too hot or a little too cold, and I was like it’s not exactly what I want. And so we started a laboratory about 15 years ago for just this reason because, really when you sit toe to toe with a patient wanting to feel like you’re giving the best and that you’re really getting to the heart of the issue and so, it’s difficult in this world of food reactions because there’s a lot of disagreement and there’s not consensus. And if you approach more standard of care, they’ll there’s even the idea that there’s only one way that the body reacts to foods and that’s an allergy IgE and that’s what’s typically done, it can’t be done through a blood draw, but it’s usually done in offices when that’s the one that when people get stuck and the skin, and then you wait and you see. It doesn’t turn red, and if it doesn’t, then you probably don’t have a problem or you’re told you don’t have a problem. But even the best allergy test out there, it’s only positive 50% of the time when somebody has a symptom. And so what that tells us is 50% of the time we’re reacting to foods in a different way. So the allergies are important, and we wanna know if you’re gonna eat a strawberry and you’re gonna go into anaphylactic shock that’s an important thing to know. But it turns out also you can have lower levels of these immediate reactions that you might not even be noticing because they’re more subacute in terms of the threshold of how you feel.
However, they can still create inflammation in the body. And if you see a lot of reactions in terms of more allergies, even if you’re not feeling symptoms from them yet, it can tell you that you’re in more of what’s called an atopic direction, an allergic direction. This is where we’re more likely to get autoimmune conditions or eczema, things of that nature. But again, it’s only part of it.
Lori Esarey: I don’t wanna interrupt, but I did have to ask this question for clarity. So what I heard you say. Is that 50% of the time, that a person has a allergy to something, a potential allergy to something, they may have a negative test. Is that right? Or is it just the opposite?
Cheryl Burdette: Absolutely. Yeah. And that the best allergy test out there, it can. It’s only predictive 50% of the time.
Kelly Engelmann: And that’s for IgE, that’s for immediate reaction, right?
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah.
Lori Esarey: So we have people that have inflammation. I mean, they come into our clinics all the time, as you just said. They’re clearly having some form of symptoms, inflammation, but yet they come in saying, I’ve had all these tests, and they’re negative. So this is why.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah. It’s just, it’s not the greatest test. And then research has been very stifled in this area, a kind of because of how immunology gets taught and who knows, and maybe also because there’s been a reluctance on insurance companies part to pay for some of these things that does factor into it. So we got kinda left with a very, inadequate way of looking at how people react to foods, and I’m sure you guys feel the same way. One of our most powerful tools in terms of what we deliver to our patients is around diet and dietary therapy. So if that’s the case, if diet’s one of our most profound tools, then what do we do to make sure that someone’s on the least inflammatory diet possible, so we continued to work with other food allergy tests, food sensitivity tests, and like I said, oh, maybe this one shows everything all the time and this one seems to show no reactions and so, we really struggled and so we thought, you know what? We need a test that puts together all in one test, multiple ways that the immune system reacts to foods.
And so, like you mentioned the live cell analysis. That’s helpful. It shows this innate immune system reaction, and that’s part of it. But we also have this secondary immune system, and a lot of autoimmunity and a lot of chronic conditions are more driven by that. When we think about something like, rheumatoid arthritis, for example. We think about what’s going on there, and so in a condition like that there are antibodies that are confused and they’re attacking the patient’s tissue. Well, why did the antibody get confused? And often it’s because it’s reading a food wrong, that food has a similar amino acid structure and so, we create this antibody to a food that can cross-react to our own tissue. So if the immune confusion is something like a cross-reactive antibody, then you need to measure antibodies as well. That’s what we do on the dietary. P88 we look at antibodies, not ex only, but I’ll get there. So we look at those antibodies, liken an IgE reaction and allergic reaction, but what we’ve learned is that, we also have these delayed reactions to foods.
Three to 72 hours later, not immediate. So you’re having a bad day, you feel foggy, your head hurts, and you go, what did I have for breakfast this morning? And it’s really what you had for breakfast two days ago. And so this is why the sensitivities can be difficult to get from merely a history alone. It doesn’t happen immediately, it’s just that it’s delayed. And so IgG is something that’s often overlooked in standard of care. And I think, the reason for that is because in a standard of care approach, you want to measure something that tells you about a diagnosis, an ICD 10 code A label, and that’s important. We need a diagnosis that certainly helps us in a functional medicine paradigm as well. But IgG reactions, they don’t create a singular symptom. They don’t create a rash, they don’t create hives, they don’t line up with a particular diagnostic code. They create general inflammation that can make so many conditions worst. So in a standard of care world where you’re doing testing for a diagnosis, it doesn’t match what’s generally being done. Here we’re saying we care about the diagnosis, we want to do the correct testing to get to that point, but we also care about the process behind the diagnosis. And that process is so often inflammation, and a large part of inflammation comes from what we eat. And so if the immune system is confused and now fighting foods, we have this increase in inflammation and that can make almost any siner symptom worse. So we said, okay we need to look at allergies, but we need to look at sensitivities. But then as you dive into the immune system it continues to be, more and more complex, there are more and more pieces to it.
So what we realized, and oh, and largely from the world of desensitization in terms of allergies, so if we know that we have an anaphylactic reaction to a peanut, we can seek out desensitization like injections or even sublingual immunotherapy that’s done under the tongue. And when we do this, we take in a little bit of peanut and eventually become tolerant.
And so the mechanism of action of that is that it increases another type of antibody, something called IgG4, and so many tests out there just looked at all IgG together. IgG is that sensitivity, that delayed reaction 3 to 72 hours later. But there are four types of IgG, and so this was another kind of pushback, people would say, well, there are four types. They don’t all do the same thing. In fact, IgG4 does something completely different, it does, it’s not inflammatory, it doesn’t contribute to headaches or joint pain or bloating or these type of issues. In fact, it blocks an allergic reaction. So when you do something like desensitization, the whole point of that is to increase this antibody IgG4. And when we have enough of it, it will block IgE. That thing that drives the allergic reaction. So true, they’re all different. So pull it out, measure it. And this is very useful cuz now you can tell have you become tolerant to something you were allergic to. And now when we’re looking at IgG, we’re looking at subtypes one, two, and three that do run in the same direction, that do behave in a similar way. They’re, they create inflammation. But then, even that wasn’t the end of the story because it’s not just IgG that plays a role in these sensitivity reactions. It turns out that there is an amplifier and it’s something called compliment. And when compliment is there with this IgG antibody, it can amplify that reaction. Thousand fold even some say as much as 10,000 fold. And so, out of that clinical practice we would be looking at just IgG by itself sometimes, depending on what test we were using at the moment. And patients would say, the ones that are high, I don’t really get the most symptoms from that. But these medium levels, those tend to really kick in the headache or kick in the the depression or anxiety. So what’s going on there? Well, again, it’s because it’s not just IgG, it’s also this complement antigen, and when you have those together, amplifies the reaction. So he said, we need to measure that too. So we ended up with a test that looks at four independent ways that the immune system reacts to foods. Because again, if food is our most powerful tool, how do we create the least inflammatory diet for each person and a great start without any testing is of course to get the processed foods out and to eat more fruits and vegetables and focus on getting good quality protein and make sure you’re getting good fiber and so many people as they start to feel unwell.
This is obvious. We all know, oh, I should eat better. I should exercise more. This isn’t news to most people out there. And so they went out, they went to Whole Foods, they changed what’s in their pantry, they ate more vegetables, but they still weren’t feeling optimal. And so what else is going on? Well, unfortunately, we can feel inflamed from healthy foods, and so looking at each patient’s blood, looking at their levels of reactions allows us to individualize diet and take it to that even next step to make the most powerful tool more exact.
Lori Esarey: Such a complex test.
Cheryl Burdette: It is.
Lori Esarey: I mean, I think about what it took to get there to figure all of this out and I know that there was a lot of medical lingo in that and we have a lot of followers that listen to this, that or that are our patients so, I think between Kelly and I, we’re gonna go through and I have a couple of questions, and I think I heard you say there are four independent ways that you guys have figured out how to look at the immune system, right?
Cheryl Burdette: Yes.
Lori Esarey: So you’re not just looking at IgE, which is that immediate reaction. But you’re also looking at delayed food sensitivities that could be 3 hours to 72 hours, but on top of it, there’s this layer of desensitization that can occur. Right. With you’re able to look at that, have you been in some ways desensitized that food? But then, do you also have a compliment that maybe amplifies, something that may not be a big deal or look like a big deal with your immune system but because of that, it amplifies that reaction so it’s a big deal. So that’s a lot of information and I can only imagine, the difficulty of interpreting that test so as not to overwhelm our patients. Kelly, I know that you see that all the time, right?
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah. I have to say, I have an example of a patient that had a test from a another functional medicine provider, a year ago. And she comes in to see me a year later, she’d been strictly following that elimination. These more significant elimination and I can’t remember how it’s worded on there, but the more restrictive diet on there. And a lot of those had eliminated her valuable oil sources, avocado and things like that. And so she’d gotten herself pretty nutritionally depleted with fatty acids. And she was having skin break down and having ongoing gut breakdown, right? And so you can, without working with a trained clinician, if you’re trying to do this independently, you can walk yourself into a worse situation. So it is a complex test. It is so, Unbelievably valuable to the clinician that can help someone walk through recovery from food sensitivities. But it does need to be respected in that this is not a forever way of living. Your immune system’s constantly changing. And evolving as it should be, and as a result of that, we have to be careful in how we counsel our patients on taking action on that testing, correct?
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah, and this is why, like you said, it’s very important to work with a clinician because it’s not just the piece of paper that’s a forever roadmap. And I like to remind patients that in fact the whole point of this test is not to restrict the diet more initially maybe, but long term, the goal is actually to open the diet up even more than before and be less reactive to foods in general. So the benefit of working with a clinician is they’re not just gonna say, here’s a piece of paper that says to remove foods. They’re going to look at those foods which ones are the most important for you, prioritize the plan, and at the same time do things to build the gut lining, do things to help the immune system become retrained so it’s not confused by those foods when it meets them, and then guide the patient as to when they should bring those foods back in, that’s one of the most important parts of the test is that’s step A. But you move and you progress. And the point is to be able to bring in more foods than before with less inflammatory reactions. Now, I don’t mean Big Mac or sometimes we’re probably gonna still keep things like wheat or dairy, more to a minimum, but we can see these situations where people are inflamed from chicken or avocado, like you said, or spinach or things that they need. And that’s not the state that we want them to stay in long term. We wanna open that diet back up.
Lori Esarey: And I think that’s so important too as we as clinicians are discussing that with our patients, cause I think so many times they come into that going, you’re just gonna take more foods out of my diet. And I wanna reiterate that that is not the goal. It’s to give you the appropriate removals that you need in that time to heal. And then understand how to also diversify and open it up to foods maybe you haven’t been taking in right? And now you’ve become nutritionally deprived, right? So it’s adding them in, so definitely important to address it that way.
Cheryl Burdette: I think to your point Lori, what usually ends up happening is people, Eat a different variety of foods. Like when we look at the a standard American diet, it’s quite possible that you’re getting wheat and dairy at every single meal. So now you’re opening up to other grains, almond, or maybe tapioca flour or various blends, like I think in general what we see is more diversification of the diet.
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah. And that’s what we absolutely need in order for that gut microbiome to repair the gut lining, right?
Cheryl Burdette: Yes, it is complicated, but then there is a page that says, stay away from these foods and eat these foods so it does get boiled down a little more simply, but it’s always best when there’s an interaction between patient and clinician, because you’re gonna be able to take that to the next level.
Kelly Engelmann: Absolutely. So timing of doing a test like this, right? Because the timing of the test in working with the patient is important into knowing how to implement, right? So to your point earlier. You mentioned we want to eliminate processed foods that are inflammatory, if you’ve got a patient that’s complaining of inflammatory symptoms, headaches, muscle aches, fatigue, insomnia, the list goes on and on brain fog, right? Those are inflammatory symptoms. We wanna get the obvious, food’s out of the diet first, right?
So I love the fact that you’re a clinician, and in the lab. You get both sides of the equation. When do you recommend, that a food panel will be done on a patient? Like what’s in the perfect world? If you could have a perfect world of timing of testing in relationship to working with the patient that’s pretty naive to making food changes, where would that fall?
Cheryl Burdette: So when we first meet with the patient, and like I said, there’s a team of dieticians that I’m lucky enough to work with. We will start on some dietary change, pretty immediately. That’s done at the first visit, and we often use something that we label it a detox diet, but I think that it could equally be called a detox, gut microbiome diet and so we do, we have people come off foods that tend to be more inflammatory as a trial, we take them off the wheat, we take them off the dairy. Caffeine goes alcohol glows, we talk to them about hitting targets with fiber, making sure you’re getting 15 to 20 grams of fiber which, even the best of us can struggle with even when we have vegetables all through our diet, so really working on that piece and then, From there when people come back at the next visit, if they’re still experiencing some symptoms, that’s when we’ll say, okay, now let’s do a food sensitivity test and many times people really want to do this because they wanna transition from that, in general here are things that are often inflammatory to people to exactly what is going on in my body. Where’s the inflammation in my system so they’re often eager to do this, to know what’s gonna be most appropriate for them. But I do lean on this test a lot and so I’ve had patients come in that say, oh, I had a friend who was here, last week or the week before, and you ran this test on them as well. Do you just run this test on everybody, and no, not everybody, but many people and again, the reason is because I want every patient to have the least inflammatory diet possible. And, one of the major ways we can retrain, boost the immune system retrains a better word, because if it’s overactive, put it back into a normal zone, is by working through the gut. And if we are eating foods that we’re sensitive to, you will continue to degrade the gut this is where we house 85% of our immune system and even the part that isn’t there in the gut, the immune system that starts in the gut communicates with the rest of our immune system as well, so if we’re thinking about any condition where there’s an immune imbalance, any condition where there’s gut-based distress, any condition where there’s inflammation, then working with gut and foods becomes an important part of that. So I do run this test quite a bit because like I said, I want every patient to have the opportunity to have the least inflammatory diet possible.
Lori Esarey: So what I hear you saying is very similar, Kelly. You and I in our independent practices working with patients to what we call a reset diet, right? So it’s deloading their body, removing those common inflammatory foods, those common food intolerances and or allergies out of the diet, giving them time to really get used to and get their body kind of offloaded as you will, and then meeting back with them. And I think from a timing piece, that’s great because then your kind of like if they already begin to feel quite better in that time, I think that excites them to see that food alone helped them make a change in how they felt, right? So I think that that kind of makes them first more curious and I think that makes them more motivated to, okay, what’s next? What can I do next? So I did hear you say something that I wanted to kind of circle back to too. You had said cause I think we all threw around the boosting of the immune system, and I heard you go back and you corrected that. So I kind of wanted you to go back and explain what you meant by that for our listeners.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah. So we all are familiar with, oh, being under more stress and didn’t quite eat right, and then that cold happens and we’d go, yep. Our immune system was down and so got this infection not feeling quite well but, also the case of the immune system being overreactive and this would be like in an autoimmune condition like rheumatoid arthritis or even Crohn’s disease, and this is the case where the immune system has become confused, it’s hyperreactive, it’s going off to foods and to even maybe bugs in the gut, and so now rather than too little immune function we’re in overdrive. So there are also immune cells that help to put the immune system back in balance and they have a good name for what they do they’re called t reg cells like regulator. When we quit eating foods that we’re sensitive to it helps the gut lining to repair. And I always think of that as a barrier, and as that barrier gets stronger between the foods we eat and the immune system reacting, it helps those t reg cells to improve their function as well. If we look at a standard of care model in the world of autoimmunity, what is done are to take various medications that are immune suppressive. And then you have to deal with that, those side effects it’ll say right there, there’s an increased risk of colds or flus or catching various bugs because of that immunosuppressive part. But the nice thing about natural therapies and working on normalizing gut health and working on normalizing tissue is that it puts the immune system in balance. So we are not stuck with, we can either suppress the immune system or boost the immune system, when we work on gut-based inflammation, it helps all these immune cells to work together it helps these two reg cells to gain ground and put the immune system back in balance, and I love that about what we do because we don’t just have to suppress or move the body all in one direction. When you make the system healthier, it begins to do what it should do more naturally. And so if something, if parts of the immune system are high and parts are low, then we can move them all back to the middle to be more functional. And that’s what we’re trying to do is restore that function.
Lori Esarey: So boost versus suppress versus balance.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah. Exactly.
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah. I wanna talk about the gut lining, intestinal permeability. We’re blessed also to be able to look at that. So tell us a little bit more about how that plays into food sensitivities and how we can assess for that.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah, it’s a podcast, but so I, it’s hard for me to refrain from using my hands. So now I’ve got some hand gestures going on here, but, and so with patience, I used to draw the picture, but now I acted out more cuz it’s a little bit faster. But so as we think about gut-based permeability it even sounds weird. Leaky gut. It sounds weird, right? I remember when I first learned about it 20 plus years ago, I thought the same thing. That sounds weird. I’m gonna go look it up in the scientific journals and I’m gonna see if I can find some stuff about leaky gut. And if I can’t, then this isn’t real. And when I did that 20 plus years ago, There wasn’t a, a lot of data, but I couldn’t make it out of a naturopathic medical school without having to realize that probably there was something to this. And so I was working with an ulcerative colitis patient. She was having 20 plus bowel movements a day. She couldn’t leave her house, she couldn’t go out to eat. She and what they had suggested her next move be would be, we’ll just remove part of your colon. And for sure that’s gonna decrease the inflammation, but I’m gonna guess that most of us would like to hold onto our body parts and there would be some other issues there when we remove the colon. So instead, we got started doing things that treated this phenomenon of leaky gut, gut-based permeability, and changed her diet and figured out foods that were inflammatory to her and as we did that, her bowel movements went back to normal and she wasn’t having 20 bowel movements a day and she didn’t have to remove her colon. And she was able to go out to dinner with friends and family and she got to that point of being able to even expand what she was eating, and this was because we were working on this concept of leaky gut. And so, now if I go to the literature and I look up gut-based permeability, I can find thousands of studies, and not only can I find lots of data that supports this and connects leaky gut to things like depression, connects leaky gut to things like insomnia, connects leaky gut to things like cardiovascular disease and neurologic conditions. Not only can I find the data, but now we’ve even figured it out biomarkers things we can measure in the blood that tell us if this is going on. And so, 20 years ago we didn’t know these biomarkers existed, so we couldn’t measure it, we couldn’t tell where someone was at, but now we have the opportunity to do so.
And so Alessio Fasano is instrumental in this story. He’s a researcher. He was at Boston, now he’s at Harvard, and he popularized this marker zAnion and zonulin you can measure in the blood, it can also be measured on stool testing, and it is what tells those that gut lining to open up. So there are these little things called tight junctions and think about kind of legos or linking logs, locking together, that’s how the gut lining works. And this zonulin tells those locks to open up and when the gut opens up, now things get into the body that shouldn’t be there. Your food doesn’t get broken down as much as it should. Little bits of bugs, bacteria, because we have more bacteria in our gut than there are stars in the Milky Way, little bits of this bacteria begin to leak through into our body, and our body goes that’s weird, that shouldn’t be here, I’m gonna create immune reaction, and boom we develop these sensitivities and it creates this inflammation that can be part of something like I mentioned, like depression or even neurologic, condition.
So historically we would treat this, we would see people get better, we called it leaky gut or gut-based permeability. We knew that it worked, but we weren’t really able to measure it or define it. Now we’re able to actually measure markers in the blood. Some go up, some go down, but that changed direction from normal. When the gut is more leaky and zonulin is one of these, so we can measure it in the blood. And Allesio Fasano went on to say, He said, you know what? This is the environmental trigger that causes autoimmunity. You’re not born with rheumatoid arthritis. You’re not generally born with Crohn’s disease, we get there eventually. So what caused that gene to express itself? Well, he went on to show that zonulin goes up before the onset of autoimmunity, before the onset of things like celiac disease or even Crohn’s disease. And so what he said was this gut becoming leaky, is what causes the immune system to run crazy, run wild, run amok in terms of being overly inflammatory, and he said also the good news is once it’s high, when if we do therapies to lower it, we can put that genie back in the bottle, we can keep the immune system from being overly reactive. And so once we could measure it, then it became much easier to diagnose, it becomes easier to treat. I mean our patients always rightfully want to know, well, how long do I need to do this treatment? How long will I be on these particular supplements? And now we can say, till zonulin is normal, because that tells us the gut is no longer leaky. But it gives us a way to really rule these things in and out more appropriately. And it gives us some benchmarks to know if our treatment is working or not. So it’s fascinating. The science really caught up to what we were doing, we’ve been doing treatment of leaky gut for decades and decades, and now the science says, yep that’s a known phenomenon. We can measure it, we can treat it, and we’ll, we can see health conditions improve when we do so.
Lori Esarey: So let me ask if we can measure it in different ways, like stool or blood. Is there one that’s more preferred over the other or should one be used at different times than the other? What is your philosophy on that? What is your belief on that?
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap there. So when you’re measuring it in the stool, you are measuring the largest pool of where zonulin is created because most zonulin is created in the gut. If you measure it in the blood, you’re capturing part of other places where we make zonulin and we make zonulin in the liver. We make zonulin at the blood-brain barrier. And the blood-brain barrier is just what it sounds like, it’s the tissue that separates the rest of our body from the brain to protect it.
So interestingly, zonulin made in the liver can be a reason for an increase in lipids like cholesterol and triglycerides and zonulin at the blood-brain barrier can be a reason for things like brain fog. In fact, I was fascinated when I read that, one of the things that is causing brain fog in Covid long haul is a leaky blood-brain barrier governed by Zonulin. And so there’s a lot of overlap. I would say there’s about 80% overlap between the, feacal or a stool zonulin and a blood zonulin. But the blood zonulin will capture those other places as well and those contribute to pathology too. So if you already had it on a stool test, I wouldn’t bother retesting it on in the blood until you’ve treated it. But if there’s symptoms that have to do with like brain fog or depression or anxiety or even cardiovascular issues, then the serum might be preferable because you’re gonna capture zonulin that would be related to those places in the body and can be contributing to those things.
Lori Esarey: Excellent.
Kelly Engelmann: So you mentioned some symptoms of leaky gut, so if I’m a patient and I’m wondering, is it possible that I have leaky gut? As a clinician, I have found those symptoms may be. Just those traditional inflammatory symptoms. So what do you say?
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah, and it’s a little bit tricky and this is why measuring can be useful at times as well, because we would think, okay, leaky gut, that must mean that I’m bloated or have constipation or diarrhea that I have pain in the gut. And often that’s true, often there will be some bloating or, you eat certain things and you don’t feel right and kind of thing so gut-based symptoms of course, but even ankylosing spondylitis. So a condition where bones fuse in your back. The part of how that starts is when the gut becomes leaky, when zonulin goes up and so there’s this association between leaky gut and even that. And so in that scenario, somebody might not have been having lots of constipation or diarrhea, but they could still have leaky gut that’s contributing to symptoms that they’re feeling. Maybe an even more common one is depression. You might not necessarily have diarrhea, constipation, gas, or bloating, but you’re depress.
Well, gut-based permeability or the gut being leaky creates inflammation that’s hard on the brain. That inflammation even impairs our ability to make certain neurotransmitters like serotonin that make us feel good, make us feel less depressed. And so now being able to measure these markers of leaky gut, but can be really important then, because you’re like, no, it’s in my head. I feel blue. I don’t have any problems with things I eat. But it’s the leaky gut that creates the inflammation that causes the depression to express itself. So when someone’s gut is leaky, there’s inflammation that’s created from that. And inflammation kind of washes over our genetics and causes probably our areas of weakness to more expose themselves. So we can have symptoms that aren’t even related to the gut, that can be a direct result of that gut-based permeability.
Kelly Engelmann: So what I heard you say brain symptoms are very common, with leaky gut, right? Brain symptoms are very common, and your areas of weakness, having exacerbations in challenges that perhaps joint pain, skin issues that may or may not be gut related or gut related symptoms at all. You may not have any gut related symptoms and still have full-blown leaky gut, and that’s hard for patients to conceptualize. Because we say leaky gut and they’re like, but I have a bowel movement every day and I don’t have any bloating, right. So that can be difficult for them to kind of put those two and two together.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah. So it’s nice when the science catches up and we can measure these. Markers to say, this is a part because let’s go back to the example of depression. Maybe a zonulin is making the blood-brain barrier leaky, and this is causing depression. And that’s one way to get there. But maybe you are producing less of certain or are transmitters, maybe it’s serotonin, maybe it’s dopamine, those. Both being low could either or cause depression or maybe you have issues in terms of something called methylation. And so we have to methylate our neurotransmitters to turn them on and make them more active. And so that can be another reason for depression. So the fact that we can measure these markers of leaky gut to say what is your cause for depression is very useful, cuz now we can treat more accurately.
Kelly Engelmann: Absolutely. So in the way of intestinal permeability panel, because one of the markers that I absolutely love on there is DAO.
I see so many histamine related challenges because of, you that micro villa and the small intestine being damaged and they’re not able to make enough d a o. And as a result of that, they’ll have histamine symptoms which drive them banana’s. Itching, insomnia, anxiousness oftentimes that come with lack of d a o. So tell us more about that.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah, I love that one too. And because it is such a game changer for people when that’s the marker that’s off and you identify it and you treat it, you can see a lot of improvement in quality of life, interestingly so, diamine oxidase, it’s the enzyme that degrades histamine and we make it in the gut. So this is another thing that gut-based work does for us, not only putting that barrier in place so that there are foods and bugs are separate from our immune system, but as you repair that gut lining, as you plump up the microvilli, as you said, they produce what are called brush border enzymes and also diamine oxidase in right there in the gut lining.
So the gut lining makes the primary enzyme that degrades histamine. And that’s great news for like this time of year when the spring in pollen and we’re like, ah, how could I degrade more histamine. Well, your gut-based strategies help with that, but what what’s fascinating is that this is not the only place histamine affects us, we have histamine receptors in the brain, we have histamine receptors on the heart, and so when diamine oxidase is low and people aren’t degrading histamine like they should, this could be a major reason that they are having headaches, those histamine receptors in the brain in fact, 83% of people with migraines have low diamine oxidase. And we think about migraines, they’re horribly painful. The medications that are utilized are given in small amounts because they’re can be addictive. So it’s hard to get that particular medications that pull you out of pain and yet 83% of people could have benefit in terms of gut-based work and degrading histamine more. And so when we see diamine oxidase is low, we can treat it, we can give it and for example, all use supplements that have diamine oxidase and then even at the onset of a migraine. And I’ve seen great success with this in terms of not even needing to use something more invasive, not needing stronger pain medications to break the cycle of pain. I’ve seen arrhythmias turn around with increasing diamine oxidase levels, and again, the heart has histamine receptors and so even helping the heart stay in rhythm more. It gets back to how well we degrade this histamine, but histamine can make us not just itchy but again, it’s your area of weakness. So for some people, histamine might make you really agitated. For some people, histamine might cause a headache. For some people, histamine causes an arrhythmia. And so if we can identify your ability to degrade histamine then we have another way to treat that’s very low invasive. That’s back to that gut-based work. Back to building up that lining and keeps you from needing more and more medications over time. And so, yeah, you’re right. This one is just really nice tool to have. Often the picture is that person who’s kind of non specifically reactive to so many things. They can’t quite figure out what the trigger is, and it’s even confusing from foods because they’ll go, oh gosh, but I ate this food two days ago and I didn’t get the symptom. Well, that sounds like a food sensitivity, first of all could be that. But the second thing is as food sits, it degrades and part of degrading is it starts to have more histamine in it. So you’re thinking, well it couldn’t be this food I ate this exact same thing the other day and have no problem. Well, now your leftovers have more histamine, and if you can’t degrade that histamine, there are a number of ways that that can affect people but it so treatable, and so it gives us another avenue to pull people out of a highly inflammatory state by using more natural therapies.
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah. So Cheryl, I wanna go back to what you said about histamine and headaches, because oftentimes we’ll see premenstrual headaches, right? I mean, I know that histamine’s a part of that, but I never even considered adding D A O just during that time of month, to see how to help them navigate that, right? I just hadn’t put that together until you just brought that out, so thank you for that.
Cheryl Burdette: Well, yeah, and you’re right, progesterone will work. Most of the time for most patients that have that presentation, because as we know, have progesterone drops. That’s what causes the lining to shed, this is why we have a period, and for those patients it’s probably dropping too much. And progesterone stops swelling around the nerves in our brain and so progesterone even binds to what are called GABA receptors that are the major way we rest and relax. So progesterone is a very calming effect on the body and it’s a great therapy. But now and again, you’ll have those people that you’ll use progesterone for a headache before their period and then they’re still getting a headache. Your test and their level looks okay. So actually diamine oxidase drops off around our period too. And so when the people are non-responders to progesterone therapies, using diamine oxidase can be a really great thing for keeping people from having a headaches.
Lori Esarey: Well, I could spend the whole entire afternoon talking to you.
Kelly Engelmann: I know, right? We could spend all day here. I wanna spend a few minutes talking about oxidative stress. We produce oxidative stress as we do life as we should, but oftentimes we have a burden of oxidative stress that we’re not taken care of in a healthy way, and that causes oxidative damage.
So you guys have a way to measure. Oxidative stress burden. So tell me about that.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah. And so oxidative stress maybe might sound foreign, I could call it a reactive oxygen species and make it sound even more biochemistry, weird. But really people are very familiar with this concept. It’s really simply, are you getting enough antioxidants for your body and we all know antioxidants. We know that that’s what’s in fruit and vegetables, and we know this is why we should eat them because they’re good for us and antioxidants squelch free radicals. And so another name for free radical is a reactive oxygen species or oxidative stress. And so we’re familiar with the idea that if we don’t get enough antioxidants, that we’ll have too many of these free radicals and that can even do things like damage our DNA. And this is how we get those mutations that could eventually become a cancer. But reactive oxygen species or free radicals, they can muck up a lot of things in the body. It’s not just a cancer. They interfere with enzymes that will help us in terms of making our more active thyroid hormone. Or they can interfere with our ability to produce neurotransmitters or they can create pain in the body, or they can damage our lipids, our LDL and make it even stickier and more plaque forming so, these reactive oxygen species or oxidative stress, is really at the heart of much chronic pathology out there. And you probably had this experience, like you go in you do your once a year wellness exam, and then you go, now what on here tells me if I’m at risk of cancer. And there’s really not a marker on there that does that it tells you that your kidneys are functioning and that your liver is functioning and those are good things and that you’re not anemic, and those are good things for us to know, but our number two causes of death, cardiovascular disease, and cancer and so it’s interesting that routine screening doesn’t really do something to assess this. Well, some of those markers of oxidative stress that we look at, again have funny names 8-OHdG is one of them, but it is a marker that goes up when there are more free radicals. When there’s more free radicals than your body can handle. And it goes up when DNA is being damaged. And as it goes up, we have more risk of cancer. If it’s elevated and you get a cancer, you’re, it’s likely that your cancer will be more aggressive. It’s likely that you’ll have more metastasis. And so we do have very validated ways to measure. Are you getting enough antioxidants to control inflammation or reactive oxygen species in your body? And these markers of oxidative stress, again, are associated with yes, risk of cancer, but also risk of cardiovascular disease. When you have more oxidative stress, like I said, this can impact your ability to, for your neurotransmitters to function so it can interfere with and cause things like depression or anxiety. Can certainly contribute to more pain. So, if we wonder are we getting enough from our diet to control what’s going on in our body to keep us in the best state of prevention? Well, we don’t have to just wonder. We can very easily measure these markers and we can get us a snapshot of Yeah, what I’m doing dietary is enough or, no, it’s not. I’m sure you’ve had this experience where, we’ll, maybe we’ll recommend maybe something that has like green tea or has broccoli sprout extracts that they, because they’re so helpful in terms they’re very potent antioxidant. And someone will say to you, yeah, but I eat broccoli. And then I’m like well, but is it enough to control your pathology? And if they’re sitting there with symptoms, then we already know the answer is no. But again, how much, like every time you read, there’s a different antioxidant, there’s different studies, different amounts, well how much and how many should I take? Well, we can answer that pretty simply by measuring your level of oxidative stress. And that will tell us, are you getting enough antioxidants to control signs and symptoms that you’re experiencing?
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah, I’ll oftentimes find that test can be really eye-opening for patients that, to your point, think they’re getting enough.
And I’m like, okay, well let’s check and see. Let’s see what your level of oxidative stress looks like. Let’s see what your level of glutathione looks like. Are you able to have enough reduced glutathione? Those kind of questions we can have answered by looking at that oxidative stress panel so, that has been a game changer for people that, to your point think they’re good enough.
Cheryl Burdette: Yeah. Hey, it can really help that those lifestyle things hit home. This a younger gentleman who worked in the lab who exercise hot Tai Chi really well. What was a cigarette smoker, and I’m sure that he knew cigarettes were not good for him and he did this on himself, and he saw that 8-OHdG was so high and he would always try to cover up the cigarette smoke, but if you’re not a cigarette smoker, it’s very hard to cover hat up. So I could always tell it, he just smelled like cigarette smoke and cologne when he came. So anyway he was asking what could that be? And I was like, well, there are various lifestyle things that can contribute. Cigarette smoking is an example of that. And anyway, so a few months later he showed me his result again, and now it was very low. And I was like, oh, what did you do? What did you change? And he said, oh, I changed some lifestyle things, so because he is, he didn’t wanna talk to me about the cigarette smoking and that’s fine. But and again, I’m sure he is a very smart human being. I’m sure that he knew that cigarettes were not good for him, but seeing it there and seeing the damage it was doing to his body and, he was in his early twenties and so already that happening. So it was eye-opening for him and motivating to make the lifestyle shift he needed to make
Kelly Engelmann: Great story, was Cheryl, we could spend the rest of the day here together. Go ahead Lori.
Lori Esarey: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say. We could, and I just wanna personally thank you not only for your contribution of being here today with us, but your contributions not only as a clinician, but in the lab, developing tests that help our patients and our community live better and live optimally. I mean, we covered three tests today, and it was a lot. We didn’t even get to go in the nitty gritty of all of them, but we talked about the P88 test, we talked about the intestinal probability test. We talked about the oxidative stress test as well, and I think we could have probably spent an hour or more on each of those.
But it was very, very enlightening. I just really appreciate that you’ve carved out time and just what you have contributed. Years and years and years of practice. We call medicine, obviously the practice of medicine, but also getting in there in the lab and being a pioneer and being and willing to put yourself out there. I know that it’s taken countless hours and ongoing.
Cheryl Burdette: Well, I wanna thank you guys too because I think lab tests and all that, the most important part of medicine is education. And so things making something like this available so people can just understand more about what’s going on in their body is really the primary thing that we need to do and like you said, we’ve known each other for quite some time, so I know like, You’re out there giving up your weekends. You guys are at every conference, constantly trying to learn the next thing and how to help the next patient. And so very lucky to be here today and spend some time with you, and thank you for all that you do to help each patient feel better.
Lori Esarey: Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. You can find more information about Synergee at Synergee for Life. That’s S Y N E R G E E, the number four life.com.
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Lori Esarey: The purpose of our Synergee podcast is to educate. It does not constitute medical advice by listening to this podcast. You agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others, including, but not limited to patients that you are treating. Please consult your own physician for any medical issues you may be having.
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Healing At The Root with Taylor Yowell
Kelly Engelmann: Wellness is a practice, not just a word. Welcome to the Synergee Podcast, where myself, Kelly Engelman and Lori Esery shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body, and most importantly, feed your soul.
Hi, Synergee listeners, Lori and I are extremely excited about today’s interview. We have Taylor Yowell with The Garden Farmacy that will be joining us. And listen, he is going to really change the way that you’re thinking about how you’re eating, where you’re getting your food, how it’s sourced. He’s gonna help us think about some really cool things that we could be doing at home, like composting and juicing and investing in a csa.
So listen. We know that food is medicine. You guys already know that. If you’ve been following us for any length of time, but this will really challenge you to perhaps do things different on a daily basis. We are so excited to be back in production for podcasts and today we have with us Taylor Yowell.
Taylor is a local farmer right here in the metro Jackson area, and Lori and I are really excited to have him with us today. Taylor, I want you to start off by telling us your story. Like how did you get into this? Because you didn’t go to school, you were an engineer, right?
Taylor Yowell: That’s right.
Kelly Engelmann: You student.
Taylor Yowell: You’re right, there is a story to it. How good of a story it is I guess, to be judged. Although it began in 2011, so that’d be 12 years ago. I was working as a civil engineer in Madison County, and I was young, I was 23 and I was used to, in college I worked at a garden center so I was used to working around plants, but then also realizing how being pint up in a office and eating fast food for lunch every day, I just wasn’t feeling. As good as I could. And then also, realizing wow, they’re starting to, carry organic produce in the grocery stores around here, us really when the organic trend was starting to pick up and that love and that work with plants that I was doing in college, and then noticing and becoming aware of there’s other choices you can make in the food world and in the grocery store that can better your health and make you stronger, smarter all kinds of everything’s, food is everything. And so that’s when I started brainstorming with the idea of, well, maybe I could learn how to become an organic farmer.
And that’s where the fun began is I realized I wanted to learn how to become an organic farmer in Mississippi , where unfortunately, It just wasn’t here at that time. The closest thing to it would be, pretty much grandparents that were growing, their own vegetable garden in their backyard would be as close as you can get, and that’s where the search began for finding a farm somewhere where I can just delve into this idea that I have of wanting to learn how to grow organic. And I sent my resume through throughout the country, ultimately to all kinds of different farms and some of them certified organic and some not. Went through a lot of interviews, just like any normal job process. But then I was accepted for one in Northern California in Humboldt County on a certified organic farm vegetable farm. And they were also a one acre, certified organic vineyard where they were creating organic wine on the premises also and so, after communicating and going through the interviewing process with this farmer, I decided to take the job and I put in my two weeks at the civil engineering firm and I drove west,
Kelly Engelmann: a long, long way,
Taylor Yowell: a very long way, packed up everything I had and just hit the road.
Lori Esarey: Taylor that’s way west, to pack up everything and just take a risk. So what happened next?
Taylor Yowell: And I got to this farm and it was very secluded, very isolated it was actually on a Native American reservation on the Hoopa, native American tribe in Northern California, which is the largest Native American reservation in California.
And it was wild. It really was. They were along the Trinity River and it just had everything. Natural about it in a lot of ways, and then just happened to also be a very productive, organic farm, and so what I learned immediately it’s about not only how the produce is being grown, but where it’s being grown. And there was clean air, clean water, just pollution from vehicles or whatever runoff there may be, in the creeks or streams. But it was real pristine. And that was a huge, I think realization at the standpoint of. Well, I have found health, I don’t only in how we’re, what we’re doing here, but the environment itself.
And that’s where I started an apprenticeship for one year, there at Green Fire Farm in Hoopa, California. And that whole year, it was just a grind the whole time. The farmer was just, he was teaching a lot, but also we were just working because we had to make, money for the farmer and for ourselves to survive. And, it just turned out to be an isolated farm, although the community it was in, which was an hour and a half, east, I’m sorry, west on the Pacific Ocean, a community called Arcata, and they had a very vibrant farmer’s market, extremely vibrant, the community just really absorbed it and supported it, and so, I learned that there is a market, there’s a way you can make money with this style, this career also. And so I was just picking up on all these things and that was the first year where I learned a lot I stuck with the farm the whole year, did all four seasons, and then the year after that, I decided to take on another apprenticeship, but one focused on fruit tree production, nursery trees. They were an online fruit tree nursery selling. Over 700 different varieties of fruit trees around the country. And so I immediately went into learning how to propagate trees, meaning not only learning how to grow, harvest and pick fruit, but how to create the tree itself.
Kelly Engelmann: And that’s where you fell in love, right? That’s your dig in passion there.
Taylor Yowell: You’re right. Because it’s kind of like, it’s a seed that lasts with your vegetables, you plant the seed, you harvest, you’re done for the year. So I was really intrigued with this model of, wow, there can actually be an organic farm that’s not always the soil being tilled and always putting down, fertilizer, chicken, manured, things like that. But one that stays in place and not only grows on its own, but takes care and maintains itself too. And so that principle in farming, I just became absolutely obsessed with. And then once I finished a yearlong apprenticeship at this location, the second one, the name of the farm is Rolling River Farm. It was even further in the wilderness. It was very interesting to just meet these families and people who just decided to live. A lifestyle of solidarity and isolation so that they could have the food, that it really, their bodies and minds needed to be who they wanted to be, which is fascinating.
So after two years of grinding it out and learning a lot, I decided I was done being isolated as, at that point I was 25 years old and ready to go have fun. And so I moved immediately to Richmond Virginia. On the East coast, and I started working for an organic farm right outside of Richmond that was an all vegetable CSA farm and jumped right in. They put me at manager and it was my first year to grow on my own without direction per say, but the way the farm operated was the owner of the farm, was the CEO of Harvard Medical School. He and his wife owned the land and managed the operation, but I was the farmer.
And so it was very cool to have that connection I guess and, a very well connected, family growing vegetables for their farm and doing what kind of bringing to fruition what they wanted to see happen with their land. And it was great. So I spent the whole year there, selling vegetables and doing the CSA model throughout the Richmond, Virginia area and just got a really, good experience on what it takes to grow on the East Coast at that point. So now I’ve got the West Coast experience, now I’ve got the East Coast experience and then at that point I said, well, I’m ready to start my own farm. I’m ready. And, that’s very hard to do. So I came home, really with no leads, nothing. Realizing I was gonna have to start from scratch, and I kind of just kind of muddled around there was I wasn’t getting any breaks, any leads. The money was becoming an obstacle. How am I gonna afford this? How am I gonna pay for it? And, so I was just kind of fingers crossed, things just not really happening until I went to an organic farming conference. In Mobile Alabama, about two months after being home. And I met a lot of farmers that were in the south that were operating. And this conference is, one held every year by, really a kind of a regional organic farming committee.
And so they had unique speakers and all kinds of different farms there. And I met a group of farmers from Mississippi. That had just started, not only within that year, but just like very recently. So the organic trend at that point had made it to Mississippi, just barely. The Young farming initiative was there just barely.
And so I showed up back home at the right time, and I met the right people. I met Will Reed who owns Native Sun Farm in Tupelo, Mississippi, and Samuel McLemore, he was there as well he has a bountiful harvest farms in Starkville. Two very incredible young farmers that are still in operation today. And I got to talking to Will Reed of Native Sun Farm and he offered me a job. And so, I realized that it would kind of set me up back a little bit, with the idea of finding my own land, being in that mental search for things. It’s a full-time job also, working with realtors, so,. I just stepped away from that idea and I went and worked for Will Reed as an apprentice, so here I am I found myself back in an apprenticeship program my fourth won. So, kind of like my, it would be equivalent to being a senior in college at that point. when I thought I was done, when I thought I’d already graduated. And so, here we are in Tupelo, Mississippi. It’s Will Reed, myself and, one other apprentice and I realize, that Will’s a very ambitious farmer, which most farmers are, but when I realized his vegetable field was 30 acres and there was three of us, I was like, oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into? and I was right because the whole entire year it was like one thing after another. Not necessarily cuz of the, scope or how large his farm is, but it’s a very good farm. But challenges kept coming up. His daughter was diagnosed with cancer about a month and a half after I’d been there and so he was gone all of a sudden. And so now, it was me and another apprentice running a 300 member, roughly 300 member CSA farm. And the, you had no option except for either quit or just keep going.
And that’s where the real experience kicked in. I thought it was cool learning and working for old established farmers in California and learning all these things, but then I learned what it was going to take to own a business or to make tough calls, on the farm when you don’t have really any options at all.
Lori Esarey: There was a part of that what you just got to is when the, when the going gets tough. The tough get going and you either have a choice to allow that adversity to grow you or to destroy you. And in that situation, you said it really taught you a lot. You had already seen a lot. It sounds to me you are a forever student.
Taylor Yowell: Yes.
Lori Esarey: Is that right? Is that what I’m picking up on?
Taylor Yowell: You are correct. Yes, ma’am. Yep. And that’s farming and that’s the world we live in ultimately is everybody really is. But in the world of farming where things get thrown at you very severely left and right, unexpectedly and you have money involved and the reality of trying to make a living also, it seems to hit very hard too, consistently.
Kelly Engelmann: I was reading some statistics a few years back and farmers were the top of the list for stress. Of any career. Top of the list. So what are the things that create stress for a farmer? I mean, the weather seems, like the biggest.
Taylor Yowell: Yes.
Kelly Engelmann: But maybe it’s not. Maybe there are other things that are more pressing, but you would think the weather conditions.
Taylor Yowell: Yes. Weather is certainly top and and foremost. It’s a career where you can do everything absolutely perfect, and you still are guaranteed nothing at the very end, and it’s because of that exposure, outdoor with the weather, etcetera, but also just how easily injury can happen.
And then you’re. You’re toast, at least for a little while. But things that we deal with in Mississippi that make it hard and stressful, and I’m sure similar in a lot of other places, it’s not only the heat from the long summer, but the insects, the fire ants, the snakes, the I mean the spiders, I turn over heads of cabbage sometime and there’s black widows and you’re just like, that could have easily got, how did it not? So it’s not only dealing with the weather, but just the environment in general. And that’s what makes it hard because you’re doing it day after day and sometimes the weather is your friend sometimes it’s wonderful, it’s a beautiful day and everything’s going right. But then, usually that means there’s bad weather right around the corner and then you, so you lose all of that very quickly when something, like a tornado or severe thunder storm is in the general area of your farm, it is stressful and another thing,
Lori Esarey: and it’s very unpredictable.
Taylor Yowell: Yes.
Lori Esarey: It’s very unpredictable, right? So I would ask the question, what makes the risk worth it to you?
Taylor Yowell: That’s a great question.
Lori Esarey: What makes the risk worth it?
Taylor Yowell: Sure. What makes it worth it is the unknown, is the fact that you are doing something that you don’t know what the final outcome is going to be. And it’s like in a good way, it’s positive gambling. Cuz if you, if it does work out well, you’re gonna make money doing it, but if it doesn’t work out, you make a loss. So it’s a little bit of my personality and, somewhat adventurous, but then also willing to take a gamble, but then also to, succeed with slight ambition at the same time.
Kelly Engelmann: I wanna go back to the beginning of what you said. When you’re sitting in Jackson Mississippi, or the area and you’re at the grocery store, you know you need to be eating better and, you’re not seeing a whole lot of what you need. You see a little bit of it trickling in.
Taylor Yowell: That’s right.
Kelly Engelmann: But you’re not seeing a whole lot, and so you go on this quest to, figure out how to produce that.
Taylor Yowell: Exactly.
Kelly Engelmann: Like how can I bring this back to the community? And I, I think that’s what makes a hero.
Taylor Yowell: Well, thank you.
Kelly Engelmann: Because I can’t do my job. Lori can’t do her job in helping people heal without the right types of food that are good quality, that are, as you said before, clean. The clean air, clean water, clean food is what we talk about all day long. And so I have been just amazed by your work from the very first time I met you and saw your produce.
Taylor Yowell: Thank you.
Kelly Engelmann: Like it is, incredibly beautiful and delicious and interesting. There were things in my bag that I had no idea what they were. And I had to figure out how to prepare. But that’s fun.
Taylor Yowell: That is fun. And you’re very correct hell it’s something where the community has to get behind it. For us to be successful, it has to have people like you, to bring it together and also to share why you think it’s so unique with other people that brings them into it.
Lori Esarey: So you guys hit on a topic, CSA, and we throw initials around all the time in our communities, and we assume sometimes that people know what that means, but many of our community don’t know what that means. And I know that that’s something that you, Kelly, have taken advantage of and I’ve heard you Taylor speaking about that, can you give us a little bit more information about what is a CSA and what does it.
Taylor Yowell: Sure. That’s a great question. It really helps, bring the movement, the organic farming movement to, surface to explain and help people understand what a CSA is.
The CSA model. Before I delve into it, it began in the 1970’s. It was a way for people, who wanted to get back to the land, who wanted to maybe raise their children on a farm and, and still try to make a living without going into the office every day. To have a model that is generic, that everybody can easily learn and to replicate also and share. And so what the model is that, as an organic farmer, you have to be diversified to be resilient. You can’t put all your eggs in one basket, as in, in most careers or really anything. And so, the model is, Hey, let’s grow squash, let’s grow cucumbers, let’s grow tomatoes, let’s grow eggplant, let’s grow basil, other herbs, peppermint, time, oregano. And then, that gives us the ability to put together a package. We’re not just dropping off a 20 pound box of tomatoes, we’re dropping off a package that stands for, or it creates an option and an ability for a family that invests into this farm into the CSA model, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture, to be able to cook two or three different meals using all these different vegetables or, very diversified cooking it helps inspire them to be more of a chef. So what CSA stands for, like I just mentioned, is community supported agriculture. And really what that means in a nutshell is that. Folks like Kelly, like you, people in your neighborhood, in your office are going to say, I’m gonna join The Garden Farmacy’s CSA this year. And every single week during that growing season, you’re gonna get that box of vegetables.
That bag of vegetables. It has 8, 9, 10 different items in it. And that’s what makes it fun and unique. And so when you hear a farm say, we’re gonna do a CSA this year, all that means is that you’re going to, you have the ability to join their farm, to invest into that farm and get a share of that produce each week, depending on what’s in season. And the fun part about it is with the diversity that the CSA is, if say, since you are practicing organic by the way, and you’re not spraying things, if you have something wipe out your tomato crop. Which is unfortunate, it does happen though. You have other things to go in there, into that, box or that bag.
And so the family is investing and taking a little bit of a risk, into that farm. But with the idea of not only just getting something, a lot of people think they’re just investing into, or they’re paying us and they just get vegetables. But what they get is the general idea that the farmers are shepherding the land, they’re taking care of the land, they’re making sure that the air might be slightly cleaner, that there may be, a healthier balance within the ecosystem of good and bad insects.
So what people are getting when they invest into a CSA program, so not just the vegetables, it’s the improvement and the continuation of a healthy ecosystem where they may live, breathe or work. And that’s what I try to get people to understand is that, the CSA model is a great model to invest into a farm, but just don’t expect produce you should be really proud of investing into your environment as well.
Kelly Engelmann: So one of the things I heard you say was, creating resilience. And that’s something that Lori and I talk a lot about with our patients, is we want to create in them resilience, we want to create in them a lifestyle that’s building resilience. And, we get a lot of that resilience capacity from what we put in our bodies.
Taylor Yowell: You’re exactly right.
Kelly Engelmann: Right. So that produce, I’m assuming from an organic farm where the land is cared for is more nutrient dense, there’s more nutrient value in that food. Than per se you would get at the grocery store where something’s been shipped halfway across the world.
Taylor Yowell: You’re exactly right.
Kelly Engelmann: And we’re getting in season as well. So one of the things that we wanted to talk about today is sustainability, resilience, and how that plays into what someone can do at home. To create that for themselves. And I heard you say invest in a CSA. That’s one of the things that you can do regardless of what community you’re in. There should be a CSA in your area that you can invest in to be part of the solution.
Taylor Yowell: Yep, you’re right.
Lori Esarey: How does a person locate a CSA? I know we have one here in Florida and I’m super happy that we do, and I love my box when I get it. I have to say it forces me out of my comfort zones, and it certainly stretches my cooking abilities. We like to throw recipes in there, but how would a person locate a CSA that’s not in your area or where I’m at.
Taylor Yowell: Sure. That’s a great question. I highly recommend going to your local farmer’s market, and usually those CSA farms are also going to be at the farmer’s market, and they also. Some farms even have their CSA pickup at a farmer’s market.
And so really it just takes engaging the community within those options of how or where fresh produce may be sold in your community or even at a local co-op, a lot of even larger cities have co-ops and, those co-ops support local organic farms, and so they would certainly know just by being in communication with the farmer. And then I really think social media’s a great tool as well for finding these farms. If it weren’t for social media, a lot of these small farms would already be toast. I mean, it’s just been such a great marketing tool for low budget operations and trendy as well. Everybody likes to see a good picture of a tomato or something, so social media, farmer’s markets or local co-op are gonna be your best option.
Kelly Engelmann: Not all small farmers are organic.
Taylor Yowell: Sure.
Kelly Engelmann: Right. So what questions can people ask the farmer, to see because I know getting certified organic is oftentimes cost prohibitive. And you can’t really claim that. But what questions can they ask the farmer to make sure that they are getting the best, in the way of produce.
Taylor Yowell: Sure. Simply, it seems like there’s a popular slogan right now. Know you’re a farmer, just get to know ’em. I think ask ’em, just really basic normal questions. Become friends with them and then just ask, start asking them very, simple questions about their farm.
Do you use a tractor? Do you not use a tractor? What’s your favorite crop to grow? What’s your favorite fertilizer? Fertilizer is where it kind of gives way there. Most people, and even myself, I thought this, that fertilizer was simply chemical based that was used, on large farms, well, fertilizer’s just a term. You can have organic fertilizer and you can have non-organic fertilizer. Some fertilizers that are used on organic farms that might be an easy question to ask your farmer. What kind of fertility are they using to grow the food? Because that’s where the nutrition comes from. That’s where what you’re eating actually is, fertility. Would be earthworm castings, chicken manure, compost. Microrisal, fungi, things like that are growing this food. But if he says he’s just using, triple 13, then you might just wanna move on to the next farm, thank you for your time.
Kelly Engelmann: Right.
Taylor Yowell: And that’s kind of the obstacle we hit as farmers is it seems as if organic farmers are pitted against the other guys, and the other guys are pitted against organic farmers. And it’s kind of true, but we’re also still farmers at the end of the day, and we still have a lot that we can teach each other, but it still is two different modes of thinking, which makes it challenging. So I always recommend easing in, and if the farmer is organic, you’ll find out real quickly. But if they’re not just, be polite and say, we’ll circle back around with you.
Kelly Engelmann: Right. Absolutely.
Taylor Yowell: It’s a fine line. But that’s a great question.
Lori Esarey: Well, the tractor, I have to go back to that question. I would’ve never thought to ask that question, so you gotta expound on that for me. Why would you ask ’em what equipment they use?
Taylor Yowell: Because equipment is, sometimes it can do the farming for you or you can be the farmer that’s, in control. And, I’ve learned in the small farming world, you do have to be trained and you can be trained with a tractor or without a tractor, and both are handy modes of farming. But I’ve learned that when young farmers who might be. Failing or not doing as well, they tend to just want to buy some piece of equipment that is going to, make their farm better, their operation better.
I really think that young farmers need to realize how important it is to be trained to be a farmer, whether even if it’s just one year, working on another farm. And that you are the farmer in that it’s up to you to make the produce grow. Not a tractor or not a lot of fancy equipment, save that money, use that money wisely because you’re gonna need it. And so equipment is a big topic. I feel like you can go in a lot of different directions, and my experience in farming is that most of the time we have been, or my education has been without a tractor. One year it was, and it was great, but I it is just not really the style of farming that we delve into with, how connected we can be to the earth, with hand tools, with always being on the ground and not relying also on the exorbitant amounts of diesel or gasoline that tractors require to operate. And then you become, if you’re using a tractor or a lot of equipment, you quite simply become dependent upon it. When your tractor breaks, you’re like, well, how am I gonna get this done?
And so, it’s just a mentality that we appreciate and that well, we’re gonna get it done, whether the tractor’s there or not. And it does help, efficiency purposes to have what we call a hand tractor. It’s got a small machine, but you operate it with your feet on the ground and your hands. It looks similar to like what you would see your grand dad out in the backyard with is roto tiller, but it’s far more powerful than that, and that’s what we use,
Lori Esarey: you know Taylor, would you go so far to say that, maybe a farmer who is using a lot of equipment maybe as isn’t as in touch with their crops? Is that kind of what you’re saying? And I’m only asking that question cuz I go back to, cause I’m trying to create an understanding for myself. I go back to, in my early years of nursing, when I worked in a very, it was a teaching hospital and I was really taught how to not depend on equipment, but to really use my ability, my skills, my common sense, get in there.
And then I transitioned to a hospital where the nurses used all the equipment and they just, whatever the numbers read on the screen, that’s what they wrote down and there was a real disconnect. So is is that kind of, does that example make sense in your industry?
Taylor Yowell: Yes, it makes a lot of sense. Although it doesn’t need to be, I don’t need to say it in a way that’s offensive, obviously, to people who do use a tractor, but I do need to stay, it’s important when you realize you only have a certain amount of land to use to grow food. That your tractor has to have room to turn around. Sometimes you have to maximize your space to get the highest production, and so we don’t have room or areas necessarily to be able to turn around a tractor, and we don’t want to either. We also plant fruit trees within our vegetable areas. And so it would be very easy to run over a fruit tree or or to smack one or tear a limb off full of fruit or anything like that. So you start to realize that you’re practicing a form of agriculture without all the modern technology that is very similar to how our ancestors operated, but not only our ancestors, but very highly productive, native tribes throughout the world. The Native Americans, they were extremely productive when it came to agriculture. They produced tons of food and they always had a forest, farm model. Where you’re blending perennial agriculture with annual. And so a lot of the problems that we seem to have in our society these days stem from, or at least what they’re pointing toward scientifically, or, or even just basic common sense, is the scale of our agriculture, which is operated with equipment like that.
So there’s a fine line. So. The way I say it is, it’s a good example and I think that it, it plays into a healthy community when you start to shift away from all of those needs and wants of what industrial agriculture makes you think is exactly the only way to do it. So,
Kelly Engelmann: I wanna dig into the soil.
Taylor Yowell: Sure.
Kelly Engelmann: Because, Lori and I treat the gut microbiome. I mean, that’s the foundation of a person’s health.
Taylor Yowell: Yes.
Kelly Engelmann: Is what’s going on in the gut microbiome. The more I think about soil and how alive it is and I think about, what could the average person being be doing at home to improve the soil around where, just where they live.
Taylor Yowell: Sure.
Kelly Engelmann: And I think about composting.
Taylor Yowell: You’re right.
Kelly Engelmann: And so talk a little bit about that. How easy or maybe hard that is to do and, just as a way of inspiring our listeners to, if they can’t grow, they think they need a lot of land to grow.
Taylor Yowell: Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly Engelmann: Fruits and vegetables and we really don’t, number one.
Taylor Yowell: That’s right.
Kelly Engelmann: But number two, if they think they can’t even do that. How does composting play into that whole philosophy of preserving the land and improving the soil?
Taylor Yowell: Sure. That’s great. Very important because, like you said, Kelly, you can do this on a very small scale. You can grow healthy food on a small scale, your own backyard. And it’s even easier if you sometimes are located in an urban area where you can go collect bags of leaves that are on the side of the street that are thrown out for the trash or even pine straw or just small sticks and stems that your neighbors be growing out. Collect those, pile ’em up, let ’em sit in a pile. Maybe go buy a bag of earthworm castings or chicken manure every now and then, every now and then, and just add that bag to that pile and just let it build up and build up. And then after about a year, you will have literally a pile of a black gold that’s a pretty common saying when it comes to compost. And it’s true because, you don’t even have to mix this stuff into the soil, you can just plant something and put this compost around your plant and you’re good to go for some circumstances, especially fruit trees, especially perennial crops, things that come back every single year, the soil is very important. That’s an example of how you can do something very simple and easy to build your own backyard soil. But what most people do not realize is that a lot of our top soil in the United States. Has eroded or is eroding very quickly. Erosion is a big issue in Mississippi, since we are a state of agriculture, we have been for a very long time, a lot of our good top soil that has taken obviously millions of years to build, is gone. I mean, it literally is gone. On my farm, we even we’re on a hill, which is good cuz you want to be, have good drainage, etcetera. But that tops will, because they tiled it and worked it so hard over the years. I’m not even talking about recently, like in, even in the thirties, 1930s and forties, it’s all gone.
And so we have to build our soil or we can’t grow food. And that’s a very important concept for people to understand. Whether you live in a neighborhood on a farm, no matter what is that somehow there’s got to be some initiative or something that you can do to help build soil where you are. And what we do to build soil is compost. That’s very important, although it does take a little while. So we usually have to supplement that first year to bringing stuff in to improve the soil, but start building compost as soon as possible. Also, what is fascinating about soil, like you said, Kelly, that is, where the nutrients come from in your food, that is in your gut, that is in your microbiome.
Kelly Engelmann: So you can take also food scraps, right?
Taylor Yowell: Yes.
Kelly Engelmann: From vegetable,
Taylor Yowell: you’re right.
Kelly Engelmann: Trimmings like onion and things like that, that you’re chopping up anyway, that you would normally throw down the garbage disposal or put in the garbage can, that’s easy to go in the compost.
Taylor Yowell: Yep, that’s exactly right. And that’s coming right out of your kitchen. And also what’s really fun about joining a CSA is that it gives you the option to use more vegetables. So you’re building your compost. That is a value added, very small, but value added. Concept, so really instead of there being an organic revolution, which there has been and currently is, there needs to be a compost revolution, because.
Kelly Engelmann: Right, that’s where it has to start, right? The soil is not there, then we can’t really produce that organic.
Taylor Yowell: You’re right,
Kelly Engelmann: produce, yeah.
Taylor Yowell: And I think that a lot of young farmers like myself, we’ve been in the business for a little while and we’ve learned how hard it is to stay in business. You need to realize a way that you’re creating your own fertility, your own compost, and not just going to buy it because it does get very expensive. And as we’ve all seen within the past year, no matter what kind of fertilizer it is, no matter what country you live in, it is skyrocketing and price. So there, for once within my career, which is not long, but a little bit of time to understand a lot of the way, not only our food system, but the world works, is that we’re in a point in time where it proves how everything is connected, whether it’s politics or war, agriculture, anything. It’s all connectable what’s most important is that we all just keep in mind how valuable healthy food is, and access.
Lori Esarey: Well, I think Kelly, we can be a part of this composted revolution, cause I love that. And I know you’re already doing it, Kelly. And I think that even sharing some of what you do with, your juicing and stuff I mean I find how you just started and what you developed over the course of years is pretty amazing. So you gotta share that.
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah. So I’ve been juicing for many years. Because I was not a vegetable eater and my pallet just did not like vegetables. And I used juicing as a way of training my pallet to like vegetables. And then a few years back I decided, well why am I throwing all of this produce that’s left over and all of the fiber down the drain? Why should, why can’t I be composting? And so I started composting and just replacing the soil in my flower beds, which now I’m growing vegetables in the flower beds. Nice okra, right in the front yard and it’s beautiful, but it’s just doing one thing at a time and it started with juicing now it’s composting, juicing and composting. Just building on those practices that are easy to do. Doesn’t take time, doesn’t take much time or effort. It just takes developing that practice. Something that you do that you feel good about.
Taylor Yowell: You’re right. And I might say about the fun thing about juicing is that the compost that you are using after or added the juicer, breaks down so much quicker and easier. It’s already,
Kelly Engelmann: I was gonna say my compost is ready quickly. It really is because we have trees in our yards, so we do you the use the leaves, from the trees. And then I typically add some bone mill and blood mill. And things like that to the compost. And then with those vegetables, I mean, it breaks down really quick.
Taylor Yowell: Nice.
Kelly Engelmann: And we’re able to put it right into the flower beds. It’s been really fun. The grandkids love it. They love to see the worms and dig around in the compost. It’s been fun.
Taylor Yowell: Awesome. That’s great.
Kelly Engelmann: So I had an experience several years ago where I was going to Orlando quite frequently, and I would stay at a Marriott right next to the airport in Orlando. So busy, busy area. And at this Marriott in the backyard or in the back quarters, they had an organic farm.
Taylor Yowell: Wow.
Kelly Engelmann: They were farming everything right there for their restaurant. And so I would always stay there the night before I was leaving out of Orlando, and it really inspired me. I was like, if they can do this here in the middle of Orlando, I could do this in my yard, like this is not that hard people. And so, don’t think because you don’t have land, so to speak, that you, garden. We also do some aquaponic gardening with, the juice plus towers. So using those to do kale and lettuces are really easy to do in there.
Taylor Yowell: Nice
Kelly Engelmann: and fun too. I mean, just really good produce.
Lori Esarey: At the end of the day, I think what we all know, and it’s something that Kelly and I have been talking about for a long time, and Taylor it sounds like you obviously know this too is that, what we feed our body is so important and choosing farm fresh directly to the plate with minimal cooking. Most people like to cook it a little bit, but with minimal cooking, and just really feeding those good gut bacteria because at the end of the day what we know is our immune system is only as strong as what we feed it and what our waste management system is those two things are extremely important to our overall how, I love some of the things that you mentioned today, and I think some of the things that we can really talk to our consumers about Kelly is, more about joining a C S A and really supporting our local communities, and you said it. It’s important for us to definitely support each other, in our community. So joining a C S A, definitely now I feel really good about this whole composting revolution. I think you guys have convinced me. I toyed with it and then I was like, ah, I don’t really know, but I’m definitely gonna go back circle back to that because we have a responsibility like you said to our land, and to doing something about it. And then, I think we need to ask good questions. Kelly you had said, we have great farmer’s markets around here, and I’m so blessed to say that we do, but I do feel like many of us don’t really know what those questions are to ask when we go to the farmer’s market. And we really do need to get more confident about those questions, to ask those good questions. And you’ve really shed some light on that today. So I really appreciate. So far but what you have shared with us, thank you so much.
Taylor Yowell: You’re welcome.
Kelly Engelmann: Tay, we really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today. Our mission truly is to educate the public.
Taylor Yowell: Sure.
Kelly Engelmann: And empower them to do whatever their next step is, and food is such a big part of that. Not only thank you for what you bring to the community, but thank you for being here today.
Taylor Yowell: You’re welcome. Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it.
Kelly Engelmann: Can you take a minute and tell us how number one, they can find you. We’ve mentioned The Garden Farmacy, which I just love, but you need to spell it for people
Taylor Yowell: I know.
Kelly Engelmann: Cause it’s a little, unusual.
Taylor Yowell: It is. Sure. Yes. The name of our farm is The Garden Farmacy. T H E garden, G A R D E N and then usually we’re, I catch people as pharmacy. We do not spell it in the traditional way, but we spell it F A R M A C Y. Farm sea. In other words, showing that,
Kelly Engelmann: food is medicine.
Taylor Yowell: Food is medicine, exactly.
Lori Esarey: Absolutely.
Taylor Yowell: And we do have a website, The Garden Farmacy.online. We are on Instagram at The Garden Farmacy, we are on Facebook, The Garden Farmacy. And you can definitely get in touch with us very easily through either one of those outlets.
Kelly Engelmann: And you typically have a spring and a fall CSA
Taylor Yowell: yes.
Kelly Engelmann: That you can go online and, Put in a request for. I know it fills up every year, so if that’s something that you want to do, I would encourage you to do that sooner than later. But again, we just appreciate you.
Taylor Yowell: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. It’s been fun.
Kelly Engelmann: Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. You can find more information about Synergee at Synergee for Life. That’s S Y N E R G E E, the number four live.com. And then Synergee Connect is our Facebook. And then please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app so that you make sure you get future notifications of episodes.
Enhanced Wellness Living is Mississippi’s premier Functional Medicine Wellness Clinic! We are proud to serve all of Mississippi including Ridgeland, Jackson, Madison, Rankin, Byram, Hernando, Starkville, Flowood, Bolton, Hinds, Brandon, Oxford, Canton, Olive Branch, Clinton, Vicksburg, and more! Not in Mississippi? We have patients who travel from Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, and more for these life changing procedures!
Penis Health: Identify and Prevent Problems
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What is ED?
What causes ED?
How is Erectile Dysfunction Treated with Acoustic Wave Therapy?
GAINSWave Non-invasive Erectile Dysfunction Treatment
Mississippi ED Treatment
In today’s world, health concerns are openly discussed, but when it comes to sensitive topics like penis health, many men tend to shy away from seeking information and help. However, understanding and taking proactive measures to maintain penis health is crucial. In this guide, we will delve into various aspects of penis health, including common conditions, the risk factors, when to consult a doctor, and practical tips to keep your penis healthy and functional.
What Conditions Affect Penis Health and Function?
Penis health can be impacted by various conditions, both physical and psychological. Here are some common ones to be aware of:
- Erectile Dysfunction (ED): Erectile dysfunction is a prevalent condition among men, especially as they age. It involves the inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for sexual activity. Several factors can contribute to ED, including stress, anxiety, diabetes, and cardiovascular problems. Addressing the root causes of ED is essential, as it can significantly impact a man’s self-esteem and intimate relationships.
- Peyronie’s Disease: This condition is characterized by the development of fibrous scar tissue inside the penis, leading to curvature and potential pain during erections. Understanding the symptoms and available treatments can help men manage this condition effectively.
- Premature Ejaculation: Premature ejaculation is when a man ejaculates too quickly during sexual intercourse, often before he or his partner desires. It can lead to frustration and relationship difficulties. Strategies for managing and treating premature ejaculation can significantly improve sexual satisfaction.
What Factors Increase the Risk of Problems?
Understanding the factors that increase the risk of penis health problems is essential for prevention. Here are some key risk factors to consider:
- Lifestyle Choices: Your lifestyle plays a significant role in penis health. Smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and a sedentary lifestyle can all contribute to problems like erectile dysfunction. Quitting smoking, moderating alcohol intake, and engaging in regular physical activity can positively impact penis health.
- Chronic Medical Conditions: Certain medical conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension, can affect blood flow and nerve function, leading to penis health issues. Proper management of these conditions, including medication and lifestyle changes, can mitigate their impact on sexual health.
- Psychological Factors: Stress, anxiety, and depression can all affect sexual function. Seeking counseling or therapy can be beneficial in addressing these issues and improving overall well-being.
When Should You See Your Doctor?
Knowing when to seek medical advice is crucial for maintaining penis health. Here are some signs that indicate it’s time to consult a doctor:
- Persistent Erectile Problems: If you experience ongoing difficulties in achieving or maintaining an erection, it’s essential to seek professional guidance. A healthcare provider can assess the underlying causes and recommend appropriate treatments.
- Pain or Discomfort: Any pain or discomfort in the genital area should not be ignored and should be discussed with a healthcare provider. These symptoms may be indicative of an underlying issue that requires medical attention.
- Unusual Changes: Any unusual changes in the appearance or function of the penis, such as lumps, bumps, or discharge, should be promptly examined by a healthcare professional. Early detection of issues can lead to more effective treatment.
What Can I Do to Keep My Penis Healthy?
Taking proactive steps to maintain penis health is key. Here are some practical tips:
- Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle: Eating a balanced diet, staying physically active, and avoiding smoking and excessive alcohol consumption can promote overall health, including penis health. These lifestyle choices improve blood circulation and reduce the risk of erectile dysfunction.
- Manage Stress: Chronic stress can contribute to erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems. Practicing stress management techniques such as meditation, yoga, or relaxation exercises can be beneficial. Seeking professional help for chronic stress or mental health issues is also important.
- Safe Sex Practices: Practicing safe sex, including using condoms and getting regular sexual health check-ups, can prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs) that may affect penis health.
- Regular Self-Examinations: Men should become familiar with the normal appearance and feel of their penis and testicles. Regular self-examinations can help detect any changes or abnormalities early on.
Conclusion
Maintaining penis health is a vital aspect of overall well-being for men. By understanding common conditions, risk factors, and when to seek medical advice, you can take control of your sexual health. Additionally, adopting a healthy lifestyle and managing stress can contribute to a fulfilling and active sex life. Remember that your penis health matters, and seeking help when needed is a sign of responsibility and self-care.
Why SHOCKWAVE Therapy At Enhanced Wellness Living Is an Excellent ED Treatment Option
While every ED treatment has pros and cons, GAINSWave therapy at Enhanced Wellness Living with Nurse Practitioner Kelly Engelmann, sets itself apart from other treatment options. Essentially, shockwave therapy is a non-invasive, long-lasting treatment option that doesn’t require surgery.
Instead, the treatment is painless and convenient. During treatment, NP Kelly Engelmann or NP Amanda Carter will use high-frequency, low-intensity sounds to remove micro-plaque, generate new blood vessel growth, and increase blood flow to the penis. After a few sessions, the treatment should be effective and long-lasting, with successful results often lasting for around two years.
Alongside being long-lasting, GAINSWave therapy doesn’t come with all the unpleasant side effects of many other treatments and is available to far more men who take other medications or have preexisting conditions. Due to the lack of side effects, GAINSWave therapy gives many more men the chance to achieve stronger, longer-lasting erections without having to undergo invasive surgery. GAINSWave therapy also has a 75% success rate, meaning it’s often a variable treatment for men wanting to improve their erections without having to deal with short-term solutions or dangerous side effects.
GAINSWave Non-invasive Erectile Dysfunction Treatment, Ridgeland, Mississippi
Anyone experiencing erectile dysfunction should contact Enhanced Wellness Living in Ridgeland, Mississippi. The treatment is simple and takes less than an hour! Do something about ED today!
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Enhanced Wellness Living of Ridgeland, Mississippi is your leading Functional Medicine, Holistic Health, Lifestyle Medicine, and Integrative Medicine clinic! Nurse Practitioner, Kelly Engelmann, and the Enhanced Wellness Living team have supported all of Mississippi including Ridgeland, Jackson, Madison, Brandon, Hernando, Starkville, Flowood, Vicksburg, Oxford, Olive Branch, the Mississippi Gulf, Cleveland, Clinton, Hattiesburg, Canton, Bolton, Hinds, and more since 2004!
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.
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Enhanced Wellness Living of Ridgeland, Mississippi is your leading Functional Medicine, Holistic Health, Lifestyle Medicine, and Integrative Medicine clinic! Nurse Practitioner, Kelly Engelamann, and the Enhanced Wellness Living team have supported all of Mississippi including Ridgeland, Jackson, Madison, Brandon, Hernando, Starkville, Flowood, Vicksburg, Oxford, Olive Branch, the Mississippi Gulf, Cleveland, Clinton, Rankin, Hattiesburg, Saltillo, Southaven, Diamond Head, Canton, Bolton, Hinds, and more since 2004!
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease.
Finding Your Peak Performance with Said Hasyim
Lori Esarey: Wellness is a practice, not just a word.
Kelly Englemann: Welcome to the Synergee Podcast, where myself, Kelly Engelmann and Lori Esarey shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body,
Lori Esarey: and most importantly, feed your soul.
Kelly Englemann: Hey, Synergee listeners, we are about to interview Said Hasyim. I’m so excited about this interview. This is his very first podcast. He was all the way in Singapore, and I met him because Synergee chose his book, the Peak Human Performance as one of our books during this year to dig into, you know, how we can do things differently that may make a- a huge impact on the way we feel and functioning and on our productivity. And I had posted that on my website at Enhanced Wellness Living, and Said is an engineer and he had engineered a software that anytime someone mentioned his book, he would get an email. So Said reached out to me and said, Hey, I see that you are promoting my book. I just wanna thank you for that. So I sent him an email back to make sure it wasn’t like a automatic robot response, right? And he was a real person. I found out he was, you know, all the way across the world in Singapore and willing to do a podcast. So we invited him on the podcast, and you’re gonna be blessed by this podcast. We dig into- he’s got wisdom beyond his. And we dig into some really practical things that you can be doing to improve your productivity and your joy in life. So listen up.
Lori Esarey: We are so excited to have you on here with us, Said. Welcome to the Synergee Podcast. I just wanted to start out by asking you a little bit about your story. Tell us about you.
Said Hasyim: Okay. I was born in Indonesia. I live in a small town in Indonesia and. After high school, my parents sent me to Singapore to pursue a bachelor’s degree, and I was lucky enough to be offered a job immediately after my school, and I joined in IT industry for about six years. Eh, the work was hectic for me. I mean, I, I, I had a lot of overwork in, in that company and after work, I just wanted to lie down on the couch and watch tv. And on the weekend I sleep late and woke up very late. Life was miserable for me, , and I decided that I, I needed to change. I, I want to change if I want to pursue my goal.
So I started figuring out how- how to improve my productivity. It all started by waking up earlier and gradually I pile up a lot of habits on my own. So exercising in the morning and, and I even had time to take a nutritional course in the morning before going going to work. So in 2019, when COVID hit Singapore, when COVID hit Singapore, I witnessed the needs of my family members, the needs of my friends, and I realized that if I could survive, if I could survive this, what could I contributed for posterity. Then I thought that maybe I should I should document, I mean, I should published what I have documented throughout my journey to, to share with the world. . So that’s, that’s how I began writing the books about the productivity series and yep, that’s, that’s how my book came about.
Kelly Englemann: So when you started recognizing that your health was going in a bad direction, like the fatigue of just not wanting to do anything but sleep and be on the couch, how old were you when that started for you? That was 26. 26, okay. And you started making some changes and you started documenting those changes.
Said Hasyim: That’s right.
Kelly Englemann: And then you started documenting those changes because you wanted to leave that for what, what were you, what was the reason for documenting that?
Said Hasyim: Because I wanted to keep that for my children. I mean, I, I wanted to see what works and what didn’t works, and eventually I tried, I experimented with a lot of things.
Many things worked, many things didn’t work. And the good thing is that yeah, I ended up finding a lot of things that worked. So those, those are all the, the things that I documented them. Yeah. I wanted to keep it and share with my children.
Kelly Englemann: And then COVID kind of changed your mind. COVID was like, you were like, everybody needs to know this.
Right? Not just my children, but everybody really needs to know this. I think that’s phenomenal. Yeah. What a, what a great job at being so young. And taking the time to document right what you were seeing and feeling and experiencing. So what would you say are the foundational things that you learned through your experiment that have made the most difference initially and then continue to make a difference in your life now?
Said Hasyim: I felt that the foundational thing is that you need to take care of your body. That came first. That came first before anything else. throughout my, my research on the productivity. There are various areas like developing good habit, the developing good brain, and so on and so on. But the foundation is always starting with the good body, with the healthy body.
I mean, of course you can develop a habit on your own while you are being sick, but then it is not as accelerated as you could if you already have a healthy. . So that’s why I think that developing a healthy body comes as the fundamental, fundamental strategy if you want to synergize your entire operation.
Lori Esarey: Mm-hmm. And you, you actually narrowed down in this book, in your first book, you narrowed down three areas, right? Three areas to improve health, and I just wanna know how you chose those three, because there’s just a lot of things that we all could be doing right? To change the overall health of our body. There are a lot of things, but you chose three. Name those three. And how did you choose those three?
Said Hasyim: Those three are the exercise, food, and sleep . I think sleep Come first. Say sleep come first.
Kelly Englemann: Let’s talk about that. Sleep coming first.
Said Hasyim: Yeah, this took a lot of work for me too. I. Find it difficult to start to group this together, to group this tree into the foundation because when I started this, all of the information just jumbled up.
You have a lot of things to take care if you want to be productive, but yeah, at the end I finalized that. Yeah. This tree are the foundation that we must begin with. Sleep is because we sleep very long. We sleep the longest. I mean, I mean, we sleep a lot of hours throughout our life and the deprivation of sleep affects how- how you do your work on your day, what can do in the day? So that’s how I came about sleep is the most, is the most fundamental things to, to begin with, and I myself experienced that, that when I started this, this journey, sleep was the first thing that I fixed before I could move on to anything else.
Kelly Englemann: Wow. And followed by, I think that’s a mouthful right there. Yeah. I think a lot of times we try to skip sleep beca- because we have so much to do, not recognizing how it’s wrecking our productivity. Mm-hmm. . So it may take us twice as long to do a task that if we had gotten proper sleep, we could have gotten completed. Right? But you learned that That’s right. Through what you were doing to, to monitor yourself. That’s awesome.
Lori Esarey: So sleep first and then what?
Said Hasyim: Exercise. So the exercise part helps you to increase your serotonin level, which uplift your mood, combine that with a good sleep, you could sustain a lot of, you know discipline tasks that you need to carry on.
Whatever things that you want to build. I mean, whatever habits that you want to build that makes things easier for you to sustain whatever you want to build. So that includes sleeping on Time, which you know, come back to your sleep. Because when you want to maintain a good sleep hygiene, you need to, you need to be able to sleep at a schedule that you’ve, you set yourself for.
Sometimes you, we might be not as disciplined that today I, I want to sleep at this hour, but on weekend I want to sleep later. Mm-hmm. . So yeah, exercise, boost your serotonin level as well as increase your mood and that also makes you healthy. Being sick makes lethargic and unable to do anything you want demotivated to do whatever you like.
Lori Esarey: So were you saying that exercise impacts your sleep? Is there a specific time of the day that you should be exercising or a type that improves sleep?
Said Hasyim: Yes. Based on my research and I experienced this, , there’s some signs behind it that when you do the aerobic exercise in the morning, makes you sleep well at night.
Mm-hmm. compared to when you do it in the evening. Yes. Compared to when you in the evening. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you do the, an aerobic exercise, the heavy the, the strength training late at night or closer to your bedtime, it makes it difficult for you to sleep because your heart rate is elevated right after the exercise. Yeah, I explained that too.
Lori Esarey: So what you were saying was, sleep first, gotta fix that. Right? Improves performance, which probably allows you to exercise better. Right. And then turns around and helps you sleep. And then the last one in those three were food, right? It was food. So tell us about that.
Said Hasyim: Well I think that we need to favor whole foods, cut out sugar and all those help back on your exercise and help back on your sleep. You know, when you, when you eat good, you can. You can sleep well, you can exercise well as well. You have the strength to, to carry on your exercise. So food, food also makes you body healthy.
That those are the three foundations that I, I found is the base, base things that we need to figure out. And you said basically
Kelly Englemann: a whole food based diet. So real food. That’s right. Staying away from package, staying away from sugar. I mean, that’s right up our alley. That’s what we teach every single day.
Lori Esarey: So I have to ask this, what is your formal education?
Said Hasyim: Okay. I studied computer science, computer science majoring in digital security. So I’m a software engineer by training.
Lori Esarey: So how does that intersect with and how does that contribute? Like how did you get where you’re at now with essentially biohacking the body, as I like to call it? Mm-hmm. .
Said Hasyim: Okay. I, I like to maximize everything that I do when I do programming. I want to maximize its efficiency, and then the same goes to. my goal, when I wanted to improve myself, I want to drill to the detail. I want to dig into the the things that were, what I can do to maximize its benefit, what I can do to synergize its impact. So that’s how I came about that.
Lori Esarey: That’s awesome. I mean, I just think it’s pretty exciting to know that, you know, you took your detail of engineers. You know, Kelly and I treat engineers in our practice, and they have to know a lot of the why. Like, why, why, why, why, why? Before they’ll do the what. Right? So, you know, I, I see that in you, you know, you had to understand and you took that and you applied your experience with wanting to improve productivity. And then you, you basically put it into action and now are turning it around into helping others improve their productivity.
Kelly Englemann: So I absolutely love the engineer’s mind. I do . And I think it’s fascinating that you, you know, you measured everything too. So tell us a little bit about how you were measuring yourself.
You weren’t just going by subjective feelings, you weren’t saying, oh, I feel better. I mean, all you were, but what were you measuring? What were your objective measurements that you were doing during this?
Said Hasyim: All right. Every day when I wake up, when I wake up the first thing I’ll do is I’ll step on a digital scale and that will record my weight and it will be sent to the cloud, to the internet, I mean, to my storage in the internet every day.
So I have the tracking record every day, and. I have my Oura ring where I record my detail on that night. What did I do? What’s happening on that day so that I can tally at, at every week? I, I can tell you what did I do on that day and that contributes to this and that? Even my exercise, my, when I do the strength training, I record how much, how much weight I lift today.
Plus, you know, as soon I mean, include even the calorie intakes. When I eat, when, whenever I eat, I. how much calories? I record that down, but eventually you don’t have to do that. I realized that that’s a tedious work for you to do to weigh every single food whenever you want to eat at the beginning.
Yes. You need to. I mean, if you want to be very specific, so in my case, yes, I wanted to know, I wanted to know how much calories I. I took on the day, so I measure that long time ago, and now I don’t have to because I have the gut feeling. I know, I know already I can. Yeah. So
Kelly Englemann: you’ve walked yourself to a place of being able to have intuitive eating because you spent the time getting to know your body.
Right. And what was working for you. I love that. That’s what we teach also, is, you know, let’s learn your body first. There is a period of time where you’re gonna need to measure things and you’re gonna need to write things down and give us some objective data so that you can get to the place where intuitive eating makes sense. Right?
Lori Esarey: You know, we often say you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and. , although that is tedious work in the very beginning, it’s necessary work that has to be done so that you can begin to see and create your own connections. I feel this way. I see this data, and then after you create those connections, you have to do less of that monitoring.
Although I have to say, I do like monitoring, and I love that you use an aura ring. We use our aura rings too. We love aura, we love the data, and I’m falling more in love with it because, you know, of course they’re, they’re adding more and more parameters and more things, more data, more that we get some, yeah, more, more things that we get to, to monitor, which is, is really awesome.
So I wanna ask you a little bit about, Book your first book, and I hear that you now have four books and a fifth book on the horizon. Yes, I believe. Yes. So we’ll talk about all of those, but the one that I’m specifically talking about right now is Peak Human Clock, which is your first book, and I wanna know who’s Jack and who’s Johnny?
Said Hasyim: Oh, those are fictional characters.
Lori Esarey: Okay. . I just, you know, sometimes we have fictional characters that are family members or maybe they’re ourselves and we make it up. So they’re just fictional.
Said Hasyim: Yeah, those, those are fictional. But I, Jack is someone who was like me when I was young. Okay. Okay. Yes. and, and like like most of my colleagues when I was young.
Yes. So, so I need to make up one characters who represent this group of people. Yes. So that I can make it easier for reader to understand .
Kelly Englemann: Yes,
Lori Esarey: absolutely. Yeah. So it was using your own story, it was your own story. Yes. I’m saying that to, to really say to you and really to our, our listeners, that our stories are powerful.
our stories are really, really powerful. You know, Kelly’s story, my story landed us where we are today, doing what we’re doing today, talking to you and connecting with someone all the way over in Singapore. And I just think that’s really cool that our goal uniformly is we basically have the same goal, which is to improve people’s lives, help them live optimally, and it doesn’t matter where we live.
We have that power to do that. So I just think it’s really brave. Of you to begin writing these books. I know we have used this book in our practices and they have already begun. They make sense. They’ve had an impact already. And I can’t wait to read your other four and I can’t wait for the fifth one. So can you walk us through those four books that are out and then that fifth book that’s coming, tell us a little bit more about them. Sure.
Said Hasyim: The second book is Big Self Control. It is about building willpower. Building our own willpower to sustain a habit. To sustain a habit. So it is more about the scientific explanation on why some people fail their New Year resolution, why some people succeed. You know, some people just fail to build their habit 30 days later, some people could succeed in doing that. So those, those are talking about building a good discipline, building a self-control that you can stack up on your own to create more good habit for your own, for yourself, so that you can create a ripple effect throughout your life.
Kelly Englemann: So what are the key factors there that help us build sustainability with our goals? Because we all know that willpower is kind of a self-limiting, it’s, it’s almost like a fallacy, right? We can’t have enough willpower in and of ourselves. We have to create it, right? So what are the key factors that help us create that ongoing drive to, to sustain our habits?
Said Hasyim: All right, so the very first thing that we need, take care of that is that we need to make sure, we need to identify things that draw our willpower, the things that drain our willpower. For example a pack of potato chips in our kitchen’s cabinet.
Kelly Englemann: Ooh, now you’re getting nosy.
Said Hasyim: Yeah. And that was me when I was young. That was me. Every time you wanted to, you wanted to eat good, like you wanted to eat an oatmeal. For example, whenever you open up your kitchen cabinet, there’s a potato chip staring at you.
Kelly Englemann: Talking to you. They talk to me. Do they talk to you? They say, I’m over here. Hello!
Said Hasyim: So that itself is drawing your willpower that. Just having the potato chips lying on your kitchen cabinet is drawing your willpower. We haven’t mentioned about the design of the package, the packaging the psychological package, December, the company to draw you, draw you to pick up that potato chip and eat that.
We haven’t talked about that yet, so that itself is already drawing. Drawing your willpower. in. We cannot fight against our willpower forever. There’s just a limit. There’s just a limit. So we need to identify the list of factors that draw our willpower and then eliminate them. That way we don’t have to fight, we don’t have to resist against our willpower.
So we can use our willpower, the full tank of willpower for really something useful to main, to build a new habit. So yes, that, that’s really something that I mean the book will Rev revolve around talking about will. I
Kelly Englemann: love that. You know, every January we really focus on, you know, the power of creating habits that are gonna be sustainable.
And so I’m just gonna say to the listeners, this would be a really good read to dig into. I know from your first book, it’s very, it’s gonna be very engaging and also very practical, and how do you implement,
Lori Esarey: right, right. Yeah. And I think you hit on the point that creating an environ. that leads to success, right?
Mm-hmm. , because if you have more things in your environment that are drawing away from your willpower, then you’re not gonna be able to sustain, so, mm-hmm. . Yeah. It’s
Kelly Englemann: like that, the thing you used to say, Lori, time under tension. Yes. You know, the longer time under tension, the more opportunity for making a bad decision, right?
Mm-hmm. , that’s the same thing with setting that environment up, right? In a good way.
Lori Esarey: Exactly. So book number three, tell us about
Said Hasyim: that. Book number three is about brain plasticity. How do. Improve our brain power. Our brain is the CEO of our whole life. So if we want to maximize our productivity, I feel that we need to, we need to fine tune our brain power, increase our cognitive performance, and the book will talk mostly about increasing the neurogenesis or, or rather the regeneration of our neuron, of our cell, of our brain cell.
You know,
Kelly Englemann: we used to think that once those brain cells were gone, they’re gone. And now we know with neuroplasticity we can regrow those connections, right? Yes. How much, how powerful is that to think we can undo some of the things we did in our younger days, .
Said Hasyim: That’s right. And the powerful thing about that is the earlier you start the, the more benefits you get, you get Yes.
As you get older, yes. The earlier you start, because if not you are the longer you wait, the more your brain cell will have decay. We have, and then it would take longer time to grow that back. Mm-hmm. ?
Kelly Englemann: Yep. Yeah. Yes. So that’s a hot topic right now. Absolutely. And the brain health is a really hot topic. I think people are at the age where they’re seeing the consequences of damage to the brain through Alzheimer’s and dementia.
You know, those, those conditions are on the rise. We’re living longer, so we’re seeing more of that happen. So yeah, that’s gonna be really fun to dig into. And then
Lori Esarey: we’re also seeing that brain degradation or functionality of the brain decline is beginning earlier, earlier, earlier and earlier. You know, twenties and thirties, thirties and forties.
You know, it’s, it’s not in the later decades of life. Mm-hmm. , it’s, it’s earlier. So such an important topic and we know the role that a poor diet has on. , the brain health. We do know that. But I love that that’s a part of what you talk about in respect to productivity.
Kelly Englemann: And thinking about those foods that are neurotoxins or we call ’em foods.
Foods like substances in the packaging, right. That are neurotoxin and, you know, we’re, we’re consuming those as. I say as Americans, but I guess in Singapore you guys have access to processed foods as well. And so, you know, that’s a big part of what’s creating the damage and the inflammation in the brain.
Lori Esarey: And so the next book is on
Said Hasyim: Big Mindset that talks about living healthier and how you exploit our subconsciousness to move forward with your goal.
Lori Esarey: So the power of your mind, right? How you think so as you are. Yeah. And I think about, may I ask you how old you are? It seems like you have a lot of wisdom for, for being someone that is how old?
Said Hasyim: I’m 36 right now.
Kelly Englemann: Oh, wow, wow. Right. So Kelly, what do you think about that? I think, I think it’s incredible. I think it’s absolutely incredible. What do you think from a mindset perspective, what are the biggest things that we can be doing to improve our mindset? Because if we sit and watch the news, the sky is falling and I, and I have to tell you a funny story about the aura ring before you answer the question, but I had a patient come into me last week with his heart rate variability.
Right? He had a very low heart rate variability and he goes, according to Google, I’m going to die and . I mean, that’s just bad news, right? He was funny. He was laughing about it. He’s an engineer. He’s got an engineer’s brain, so he is tracking everything, which I love. But there’s bad news everywhere, is what I’m saying.
And if we are a consumer of bad news all the time, that’s making an impact on how we position ourselves with mindset, I would think. Was that what you found? And tell me more about how we create a mindset that’s positive and healing.
Said Hasyim: Alright you know, Kelly and Laurie, I haven’t been watching news for maybe a decade, I would say Haven’t been watching news for so long and I haven’t been following, I haven’t been using social media, Facebook, Instagram.
I haven’t been using it. I haven’t been using it for a long. at one point when I was 20 27 or 28, I deleted my Facebook account. Mm-hmm. . So I think the very first thing that we need to keep our brain, our mind healthy is that we need to stay away from all the the, any, any, any news that is not useful for us.
So I know COVID has been around for a long time. When I first heard about COVID it was really devastating and then it was all over the news. It can’t be helped, but people feel, feel anxious, you know, that that just makes matter worse. But then I found that there was nothing else I could do other than following the authorities.
They say they, they asked us to stay at home. Yes, we will stay at home, keep us, keep away from keep a one meter distance and so on. So there was nothing else we could do, even if we continue to be fearful there was, we can’t, we can’t do much about it. It’s beyond our control. So rather than putting our mind into that direction, we could channel its power into doing something else.
So in my case, what I did was I used most of my time during COVID time writing. and the outcome was, I got to publish my book. That’s, that’s the difference. , you know, first, first keeping, keeping on the news to check how, how many cases we have today, you know, what’s happening today. I, I can’t do anything with that already, so, you know, so that, that’s what I’ve been doing. So as, as of now, I also am staying away from news.
Lori Esarey: I just have to say, like, what I hear you saying is that distractions. The things around us as we really, again, going back to what you said before, is that environmental, looking at the environment and decreasing that and controlling what we can control and focusing our attention on what we can make an impact on.
Kelly Englemann: Absolutely. You know what I was gonna say is I, I feel like some of our listeners are cringing, thinking they can’t give up the. Right? Mm-hmm. , they have to watch the, they have to know what’s going on. And what I would say to that is, you have someone in your life that’s the headline news. They’re gonna let you know if the sky’s falling,
You don’t have to sit there and watch it, I promise. Yeah, you can. You can learn about current events in a different way.
Lori Esarey: So those four books are done and they’re published, and we’re super excited about those. And the fifth one you have on the horizon is about what?
Said Hasyim: Well life’s work. What you were born to do and how you can maximize the impact of what you’re going to do for the world. Yeah. So, so that books will talk about increasing your creativity, what you can do to see your goal achieved. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So, so, so that books will talk about that. Yeah. As a whole.
Lori Esarey: So all of these together really, Your goal in all in writing all of these is to improve or share with people how they can improve their productivity and how they can improve their life and have the joy-filled life, it sounds like that they deserve to have. Is that correct?
Said Hasyim: Yeah, yeah. Yes, that’s right. I want to help them achieve their goal. So I start by stacking up the, the foundation that is having a good sleep, exercise, and, and eating a good food, followed by developing good habit, and then improve your brain power, and then create a happier life, happier. A joyful life by using your subconsciousness. And then finally do what you were born to do. Realize your goal at the end.
Kelly Englemann: And leaving that legacy, what a legacy you’re leaving to your kids through your books, right. And to the rest of the world. I love it.
Lori Esarey: Yep. And then, thank Said, this is your first podcast, right?
Said Hasyim: That’s right. That’s my first podcast.
Lori Esarey: Yeah. So I just, I wanna, you know, one of the things Kelly and I were talking about, we. Excited to have you on here to talk with you about this and have you on here for your first podcast. I can’t wait to say that I knew you win, cuz I think what you’re writing and what you’re doing is powerful and I truly believe that people’s lives are gonna be changed as a result of what you’re doing.
Said Hasyim: Thank you.
Kelly Englemann: So say, can you tell us, can you tell our listeners where they can find your books? And where, where they can find more information out about you.
Said Hasyim: I can be found in my website, sayidhasyim.com. That’s my full name. And it contains all the references to all my books. And my books are also in Amazon, so, yep.
Feel free to check that out. And
Lori Esarey: you also have, they’re available on, is it Audible as well? They’re recorded.
Said Hasyim: Yes, yes, the audiobooks are in Audible.
Kelly Englemann: Well, thank you so much for being here. We’re so excited that you joined us.
Lori Esarey: Yes!
Said Hasyim: Thank you.
Lori Esarey: Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. You can find more information about Synergee at Synergee for Life. That’s S Y N E R G E E, the number four life.com.
Kelly Englemann: And then Synergee Connect is our Facebook. And then please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app so that you make sure you get future notifications of episodes.
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Understanding Your Hormones with Mark Newman
Kelly: Wellness is a practice, not just a word. Welcome to the Synergee Podcast, where myself, Kelly Engelmann and Lori Esarey shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body, and most importantly, feed your soul.
Hey, Synergee listeners, we’re about to dig in with Mark Newman from DUTCH. So excited he joined us today. I will have to give you a little warning. It’s a little nerdy. We’re talking all things hormones. We’re getting into the weeds of how you actually metabolize your hormones and what that means for you as far as keeping hormones safe and effective.
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Welcome Synergee listeners. We are so excited today to have Mark with us. We are gonna dig into all things hormone balancing. Lori and I have known Mark for a long time and he has been responsible for a lot of our education and the backbone of, of many of the things that we do in our practice to help keep you safe with hormone therapy. And so we’re gonna dig into all of that today. So thank you, Mark, for being here.
Mark: Happy to be here.
Lori: Well, it’s the pleasure. I mean, obviously as Kelly shared, we’ve known you for a, a really long time. We won’t date ourselves, but going back to the inception of basically DUTCH. So tell us a little bit about your story. How did you land doing what you’re currently doing and, and why?
Mark: Yeah. For me it was, you know, a season in a few different places. Looking at some of the different tools that you can use to measure hormones and just kind of living with the pros and the cons of different things and, and all the wild sort kind of putting together in my head this sort of puzzle piece of like, okay, like if I wanted to do this better, what am I doing? How am I doing it? That sort of thing. And, and for me, a lot of it centers around just information. Like there, there are a lot of different, if you think about like, what’s in the middle of my house and I get to look in this window and I get to look in that window and I’m trying to figure out what the heck is going on in there, like the- the more vantage points I have, the more confident I am of what’s going on and I- I don’t like to be wrong. Because in the, in these situations, you’re talking about people’s health, right? I mean, if you march confidently in the wrong direction, like that’s something that we can do really easily in medicine if we have the wrong vantage point.
And so our testing is meant to really be comprehensive in terms of looking at a lot of different angles on primarily reproductive and adrenal hormones, but as you all know, we do some, some additional things. But those hormones that make us tick, like they’re, they’re complicated. And so we want to get a broad view of that because there are a lot of different flavors of dysfunction when it comes to your hormones, and that’s always been my goal, is to just get the best look at that we can, figure out what story it tells about you, and then try to put that in a format where, you know, brilliant providers like the two of you can take that and, and make it actionable. So that’s always been the game for us is to just find the best tools to figure out what’s going on.
Lori: So what is your formal education, Mark?
Mark: I’m a chemist, so I’m of that nerd, sort of set of . Like my thing is building the assay itself. Like I’m, I’ve always been. How do I build a better mouse trap for looking at the things that we’re looking at, which happen to be hormones? So I’m an analytical chemist by trade, and I’ve spent my entire career looking at different ways to test hormones in urine, in saliva, in blood, and different modalities that are available to doctors. And then trying to figure out like which one’s best. And the answer is almost always. It depends, right?
Kelly: Right. Yes. I love that. It does depend. Right?
Lori: And that’s why we are so excited to have you here because we have to have a conversation. I think we all know that hormones are disturbed, right? They’re imbalance and it’s a symphony of those hormones that lead to optimal wellness.
Mark: Mm-hmm.
Lori: And that is a question. And so many times we get asked the question, you know, our hormone. For me, but it’s not just “Are hormones right for me.” once you are on hormone therapy, how do we manipulate them? How do we dose them? How, what do we use? What types do we use so that we are treating you like you said, right? Safely and effectively? And it depends.
Kelly: It does depend. And I love what DUTCH has brought to the table in the way of a tool that we actually have like a 30,000 foot view of like what is going on with all of the intricacies of hormone balancing what’s, you know, we can extrapolate from that what’s driving some of this dysfunction for patients and really help them understand their hormones in a much different way than just looking at, say, serum testing for a patient. And sometimes serum testing is appropriate. You know, sometimes with my male patients on testosterone, I’ll just use serum testing for a while, but I love having the advantage of having the DUTCH as part of that treatment plan when managing especially female hormones. Yeah.
Lori: So tell us a little bit about appropriateness of testing because I, I love the soap box. Like you, you’ve given it to us a time or two, and I just think it really needs to be shared appropriateness of testing.
Mark: Yeah, I think it, it goes back to the same mantra of, it depends. But you know, serum testing is always gonna be in your toolbox, right? Because you’re not doing CBCs and blood chems. These things you, any doctor you go to wants to know if your thyroid’s outta whack and wants to know if you know these really standard things that everybody does. I sort of call that like commodity lab testing. It doesn’t really matter what lab does it, as long as they’re not crazy, like they, like, they’re really automated procedures and very standardized across the industry, which is really different than what we do. Like we have to go into our lab and go, what do we wanna test for? What methods are available and, and what is the scientific literature have to say about those things? And so it’s a, it’s a completely different category of things that we wanna look at. So serum is always gonna be a staple of what you do.
When you get into the hormone world, then it’s just somewhat limited. The most obvious place I think serum is limited is with cortisol, is just, you just don’t get a look- a good look at what’s going on inside the house, if you will, in terms of cortisol. So your stress hormone, which is gonna have to do with fatigue and depression and, and things like that. You just don’t get a good look from serum. So you’ve got urine and saliva as options? We do combinations of both. But the reason that we use urine, so DUTCH, for people that don’t know it, is an acronym of dried urine test for comprehensive hormones. So the idea there is the seat is the comprehensiveness, is we can look, you said 30,000 foot.
And what I love it is I can look from 30,000 feet and say, What’s going on. But they can, I can also drill down, you know, into the details and say, okay, the issue seems to be in your, let’s say, male related hormones of testosterone. But then you can drill down and, and also look at the, the sort of the, in the weeds of how’s my testosterone being metabolized?
Is that, you know, sort of part of the issue. So the appropriateness of testing as, as you asked, I think that’s what I want to do is look broad and then also be able to dig down. Because one of the things that’s complex is that there’s so much overlap. You know, say, “Hey doc, I’m tired.” Like, okay, well if you look at a DUTCH test, I’m tired could mean I don’t have enough cortisol. It could mean I don’t have enough testosterone. You know, we have a vitamin B12 marker on our panel, methylmalonic acid, right? Yep. So if you’re low on B12, what are you? You’re fatigued. Right? So you guessing is not very easy. in that area. You look at something like, Hey, I, you know, my, my aunt, my grandma had breast cancer.
Like, I wanna reduce my wrist. Like, okay, well your cortisol patterns, your estrogen matters. Your estrogen metabolites matter. Progesterone matters, me- melatonin. We measure melatonin.
Kelly: Melatonin matters, yes.
Mark: Levels are lower risks of breast cancer are higher, right? And that’s like the fourth layer of the breast cancer question. So, I would say the two prongs for us is, one, making sure that we’re using the right method in the right situation to get the right information. And then two, looking broadly so that we’re asking a lot of questions about where dysfunction might lie so that we’re not, the last thing you wanna do is treat the wrong thing to solve a problem because obviously you’re not you’re not gonna succeed,
Kelly: Right, like putting a bandaid on a symptom, not really having clarity on what’s driving that symptom.
Mark: Yes, exactly. I mean, if you have a, an overt, like really serious issue in a particular area and you’re just not looking in that area and so you’re fine tuning everything else, obviously you’re not gonna find success. So that’s again why comprehensiveness is so big for us is we want it to be accurate, but we want it to tell the broad story about what’s going on. And then again, then the- the right tool sometimes differs depending on, am I on hormones, am I on hormones? So if you’re on hormones, then you have to ask ’em another layer of questions of, well, how are you taking your hormones? Because the right tool sometimes differs. And we’ve built the DUTCH test to be as broadly applicable as it can be. And then one of our core values is transparency, is to say, listen, we are gonna build this as well as we can. We’re gonna tell you where it works well.
But in those few scenarios where a serum test is better or some other type of testing, then we’re gonna lay that out for you as well. Cause our passion is hormone testing, but also education because these are really complex issues that, you know, you all are busy in your practice. So we have a, you know, the nerd in me, like, we spend a lot of time digging into the literature and into scientific research to figure out, you know, in each scenario, What should a doctor be doing? And then, and then trying to sort of work with you, you know, to make sure that you are in that lane of best practices for the particular scenario, for the particular patient, you know, so you’re helping ’em get better.
Lori: So, I’m curious. I have to just ask the question. Would you go so far as to say that a provider of care not using urinary testing as a part of one’s treatment could be potentially dangerous.
Mark: Is it okay if I answer the- every question the same way and say It depends?
Lori: It depends. (laughs) this is good. This is really good though. Yes.
Mark: So I would say there are scenarios where without looking into the hood of the urine test, there can be things going on where your thing you’re doing to help is increasing risk of something you don’t want to have, right?
Lori: Yes, exactly.
Mark: So whether that’s breast cancer, Or those types of things because of some of the things that we’re able to highlight. Now, if you back up from that, and I, and I’m, you know, I wanna make sure my words are very careful, because in this industry it’s easy to get confused, it’s easy to get misled. So, there are scenarios where, yeah, you can do proper tests, you proper care of somebody and maybe you’re okay without an advanced test like ours. But I think in a lot of situations in most situations, I think it highlights things that are really helpful to optimize. And then there are some treatment situations where I think it really is critical is what you’re sort of getting at is, and I think when you start getting into the world of estrogen therapy, so a good, a good probably contrast would be progesterone and estrogen. So progesterone is something you can actually take without monitoring. If you look at the studies and you follow the studies, like, you can do okay with that. And the truth of the matter is, and this gets into like complex layers of lab stuff, The main reason you take progesterone is to counter the action of estrogen.
And the main place that’s really important is in your endometrium, as you all know. What goes on there? Lab testing doesn’t really for, you know, complex reasons, doesn’t really speak that much to that. There are other things about progesterone that our test helps to illuminate and it’s helpful, but, you know, you’re in this space of like, Hey, it’s additive. But if this was the only thing you cared about, like you can live without a test as long as you understand what doses, by what route of administration are actually really effective for your situation? Fine. Then you move to the estrogen. It’s like, okay, now we gotta be a little bit more careful because getting the dosing right, depends on how a person responds. It depends on how you’re actually administering the estrogen. And then once you get that right, then you still have the next layer, which is the metabolites because right, I mean, as you both know, where your estrogen goes matters. So there are pathways that help you prevent breast cancer or let’s- I would say more lower your risk of breast cancer.
And then there are pathways that have a direct mechanism of estrogen to an estrogen metabolite, which can actually grab a piece of your DNA and break it off. And now I’ve got an actual sort of mechanism of cancer risk. Causing cancer, but just shifting that risk profile. And that’s part of your job, right? Is the whole reason you take estrogen is because there are risks associated with not having enough estrogen, right? Right. And you’re trying to balance that. You have no estrogen? Man, you’re more likely to break your hip in a few years, and you’re more likely to have other issues that you wanna optimize as people age.
But then once you enter into the world of taking estrogen, now I’ve got other risks that I wanna mitigate, which we can, which is where the testing really comes in. To be helpful is how does my body process that? And if that’s problematic, the great thing is it doesn’t mean stop reverse course. You know, you guys have nutraceutical things and different options for supporting proper processing of estrogen.
So when you add together your intelligence of knowing how to bring estrogen to the table, whether it’s a cream or a patch or a gel or whatever, and then the testing to say, okay, how is this doing for her specifically in terms of getting this right? And then you have some interventions to, you know, to be able to intervene and make sure that someone’s feeling well, but also as optimal as they can be in terms of their risk for all the things that are associated with not enough estrogen, too much estrogen, and then let’s call it like poor processing of estrogen, like poor detox of estrogen. So, and that’s what you guys do really well and we’re super thrilled to be just a part of that process as a tool that you can lean on. You know, a lot of what I do in my time is get research out into the literature so you can actually go and you know, get on your computer and go, oh, here’s, here’s actual research that shows that the things that the DUTCH test says it does. Like they’ve proven that they’ve put that in the scientific literature. And that’s something that I think functional medicine needs to do better. There’s a lot of tools that are used that don’t really have that substantial. You know, underpinning of validation data that’s been peer reviewed, meaning other scientists have combed through that and said, yeah, this is, this is legit in terms of what we’re saying it does and what it actually does.
Kelly: So let’s dig into estrogen metabolism because I think a lot of our listeners may be a little bit naive to that conversation, right?
Mark: Yeah.
Kelly: They just assume that they take their estrogen and go about their way, and they either have side effects or they don’t. It’s either gonna work or it’s not, but they don’t really think about how that estrogen processes through the body and what that means for them in the way of risk factors-
Lori: And what they can do about it lifestyle wise, right? Which he brought up. Yeah. That as well. So yeah, let’s talk about metabolites. Tell us a little bit more about why it’s important to really look at these metabolites rather than just looking at our dosing.
Mark: Yeah. So the first question is getting the dose right? Right? You want enough estrogen that it helps, but not too much, right? That’s, and that, and that can be done in some situations with other testing. But I think the DUTCH test, to me is the best for estrogen in terms of getting the dose right. And then as you said, then we move on to say, okay, how am I processing that? So there are two steps of that. So you take your estrogen and it does its thing, and then your body says, okay, what are we gonna do with this?
And so it gets moved into these other metabolites on its way of like, Hey, I gotta get rid of this stuff eventually. And it’s got, let’s just say three different doors that it can sort of open and, and head towards the exit. You got three different exit signs. There’s a 2OH pathway, a 4OH pathway, and a 16OH pathway. Some people like to call them the good, the bad, and the ugly. They’re all sorts of different ways to sort of describe these things, which is helpful because they are very different in what they do. two hydroxy. This 2OH pathway is this good and protective pathway in that if you, when you load that into a system where, you know, a breast cancer is trying to get going, like it’s actually protective against that process.
Hey, we like that, that’s good. On the other hand, the four hydroxy is the one that’s most thought to be most problematic because as we, as I said before, it can actually damage your DNA and can cause an increased risk of having breast cancer, that would be then in that situation directly tied to the estrogen that you’re taking. Right? Which is why you all are obsessed with getting it right, but also getting it safe. Yes. And then the sixteen hydroxy estrogen is sort of this kind of in between, I guess it goes back to the, it depends sort of group in the, it’s a strong estrogen metabolite and so it depends. If you have not very much estrogen at all and you make a lot of it and you say, well, that’s helping me protect my bone. And there are studies that show that, that if you don’t make any of that and your estrogen levels are low, it’s gonna lead to more bone loss, but it’s a strong estrogen. So now when you get more hefty estrogen levels and and estrogen’s heading down that exit pathway, then it’s getting more estrogenic.
So it can, you know, in a premenopausal woman who says, man, I don’t feel well, I’m feeling estrogen dominant. And what do you. She’s estrogen dominant, it has high estrogen, but if she also shoves her estrogen towards that exit, it’s gonna make it worse because that’s a, an estrogenic metabolite that has, let’s just say more of an extra kick for estrogen down that pathway.
So you’ve got your three pathways, they each do different things. One of ’em, we would just. Really like to not see very much of. And then the other one’s considered more good and the other one’s kind of got this dual nature that we want to, you know, balance. You guys talk about balance all the time. So that’s sort of like, which door are you going out? And then there’s phase, part of phase two metabolism is called methylation. So that. That bad estrogen metabolite. When it goes down that pathway, it creates this really reactive, intermediate. So it’s sitting there, it’s on fire, and it’s ready to burn something, so to speak.
And then you have an option. It can either go burn something or your body can do what It’s. Supposed to do, which is detox, that thing, and let’s just say instead of burning something, it gets attached to something that puts the flame out and then out it goes, as you know, into the toilet basically.
And so that process of that protective, what we call methylation, that’s the other. thing that we’re looking at. What are your estrogen levels? Which doorway, where are they trying to exit out to hydroxy for hydroxy 16 hydroxy? And then are we methylating those intermediates to make them safer? And so we can look at that as well.
Like for me it’s, it’s super informative because I suck at methylating, estrogen, every single time I test myself. Why? Because I have, I don’t know if you all do genetic testing, but I have a genetic defect. Let’s say variant. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just kidding. That’s right. I have a genetic variant for that enzyme that does that thing.
So when my enzyme says, oh, it’s on fire, I’ll get rid of it. Well, it doesn’t work as well as my wife’s, for example. So I’ve got both broken genes. She’s got both good genes so as you. Yes, guests from genetics. My kids are all one of each. And when you look at my wife’s and my estrogen, like methylation, I suck at it. She’s good at it. And so I need to support that. So magnesium and other, you know, methyl sort of things. And, and, and the thing that’s great about the DUTCH test is it doesn’t stop there, right? Knowing that I methylate very well. Guess what else that I don’t do very well is handle stress because I’m, if I’m making a bunch of adrenaline, well, how do you get rid of it?
Ah, the same enzyme is involved, right?
Kelly: Right.
Mark: And there’s like, I can connect those dots in my own life. You know, at 3:00 AM when I’m not dealing very well with some thought that’s bouncing around in my head. I don’t cool off from that as well as other people because I don’t, so that, that’s the multi-layered nature of what we do is there’s just a lot of really good gems to be found in all of this information. And I’m getting us off track a little bit here, but-
Kelly: so you mentioned, you mentioned Mark phase one detox. Yeah. And you mentioned phase two detox, but there’s also phase three when it comes to hormone balancing, and no one likes to talk about it, but I’m just gonna say it’s pooping, right? Pooping out those hormones. If we-
Mark: I have junior high kids, so not everyone doesn’t like to talk about pooping. (laughter)
Kelly: So we wanna make sure, you know, that people understand the way that we excrete our hormones is actually through bio flow and pooping it. So oftentimes we’re working with someone trying to get hormone balance. If we don’t address that factor, they’re just gonna be recycling those hormones and making those hormones more potent and more problematic.
Mark: Yeah, and that. That sounds a really interesting way that the, the body works. You know, you’ve got your estrogen and it’s gonna do its thing and then it’s gonna go through one of these doors and then it’s gonna get methylated or not in my case. And then it’s like, okay, how do I now, now how do I hit the exit? The real exit, right? Out the toilet. And that is, as you say, the things that are going on in your gut. Really impact that. So you take that thing, you make it more water soluble, like the body can add this little sugar molecule on it. So the sugar molecule says, Hey, now I’m, now I’m able to get outta here. And on its way through the gut, there’s a little enzyme that if your gut’s messed up, you can have a lot of this enzyme. And it says, I’ll take that sugar group, and it pulls it right off the estrogen. And now the estrogen is what? It’s just estrogen. It’s ready to go again. Right. So it’ll circle, as you mentioned, circle back through.
And this is something that has been…. let’s say a blind spot for us in that, as I mentioned, like we want all these windows looking in this house, right? And that’s one where it’s like the shade is pulled here. So what we did is we said we, we need a window into this area. And so that’s why recently July, I think we added Incon right to our, because this, this is my quest is get comprehensive so we can look in, you know, to use a, maybe a bad analogy, but as many windows of this house as we can.
So we say, what’s a marker? Where the science has shown that it, it tells you if something’s going on in the gut that might relate to this. Well, indica is such a marker that when your gut has an issue, indican spills over into your urine. So we started measuring that. Is it a hormone? No. Does it add to the hormone story? It does, yes. And then we, what we actually have just found, I, I probably haven’t shared this with you two yet, but we looked at men and women that have low endocrin, high indocin, and guess who has more estro? The high indocin people. right? Because why? Right? This says, ding, ding, ding, there’s a gut problem, and then on the estrogen’s way out it’s getting recirculated.
And so that’s the connection between estrogen and as you said, phase three. Phase one. Phase two is methylation, and then I gotta get rid of this stuff. And that has to do with gut health, which is why providers like you are so fantastic for patients because you’re not just gonna get narrowly focused and say you have hot flashes, I’m gonna give you estrogen. Have a nice day. Right? Because you know you have to care about how much estrogen and then how am I processing it, and then how am I getting rid of it? And if there’s a gut issue, then gee, if I don’t solve that problem, then I’m really not taking care of the whole patient. And so there is that interconnectedness between all of that.
And that’s what we love about functional medicine is it’s, you know, it’s wonderfully complex and there are just, A lot of layers to sort of dig into so that we can optimize somebody’s health. And I think the really interesting part of being in this in this industry, trying to help people.
Lori: I’m super glad that you mentioned indocin, you also added a neuroinflammation marker. Can we talk about that?
Mark: Sure. We get into the nerdy chemistry stuff. I love it. Yeah, there’s this interesting marker that you make and it’s called quinolinate or quinolinic acid. And it has this really interesting property in that you have this biochemistry, right going on.
A gets turned into B, gets turned into C all the way through whatever letter, and one of those is quinolinic acid. And when you make it, it just gets turned into like almost nothingness. Like it gets turned into this, you know, other biology that’s just like sort of gone, right? And so, well that’s not interesting, except that it’s made and influenced by inflammation.
Well that’s, that’s good to have, you know, a window into inflammation. But the things that process it from that step and beyond are present in your body, but they’re present in your brain. Which means when you make quinolinic acid not in your brain, it just keeps cruising from A to B to C. And you know, it’s one of those intermediates. But when it happens in your brain, it stops like that’s the end of the road. And so it becomes then this indicator of, well, wait a minute, if this is spilling over into my urine, that means I’m pushing things in this direction in my brain specifically. And so it becomes this marker of neuro-inflammation. Now it’s not that simple. There are other reasons that it can be elevated. So, you know, if you ever talk to people about plastics and plasticizers, pthalates which are I think a particular interest of mine, have always found them interesting cause they, they really mess with the chemistry of making hormones. So women who are exposed to a lot of ’em when they’re pregnant, their baby boys are feminized. Like physically feminized because of this. It’s like taking anti-testosterone. And so it’s just something that you don’t wanna be exposed to. And there’s a whole story to that. But if you are exposed to it, quinolinic acid, for whatever reason, I can’t remember the biochemistry around that, but it can be increased for reasons like that. But if it’s high, you want to pay attention to it.
And if you’ve got neuroinflammation going on, obviously that’s not gonna be a good situation for your patient. And you know, you all know how to address those things. So yeah, that’s one of our our newer markers is indocin for the gut, quinolinic acid for neuro inflammation, and then we added one also for biotin deficiency and that Alan tied into the hormones really interesting- interestingly as well in that we have a lot of women who struggle with hair loss.
Kelly: Yes.
Mark: So sometimes P C O S sometimes not, but if you, you know, if you’re I mean, I lost my hair. I deal with it. It’s not that big a deal. , I’ve, I’ve gotten over it. This is only audio, so that’s, that’s better everyone, just listen to me.
Imagine I have this nice head of hair, but I don’t. But you know, as a female, like this can be like life changing when you’re struggling with losing your hair. And so I’m not an expert in that per se, but three of the, the things you might think about would be thyroid, which that’s not us. It’s related to our testing. And if you’re doing hormone health, a lot of times you’re doing a thyroid panel, right. And then there’s the whole testosterone metabolism. So we all know testosterone, it’s the boy hormone, but girls have some too. They just have about 10 times less. And then there’s this metabolite, right? Dihydrotestosterone. It’s three times stronger than testosterone. And your testosterone either gets pushed towards that or gets pushed away from it. And that’s something you can see in our testing is am I doing that? Am I making testosterone into dht? And as a man, that plays into prostate health and there’s some interesting storylines there. But as a woman, the main thing that I’m caring about, there are symptoms of high testosterone. If I turn testosterone into super testosterone, Then I might have acne but also might have hair loss. When this stuff gets made in your hair follicles, you lose your hair. And so that’s something you might wanna look at.
And that’s been a thing that people have explored with the DUTCH test since the beginning is I got my thyroid panel, I got my DUTCH test, and then it got us to thinking, well, hmm. What if you have this big biotin deficiency that is silent, like you don’t know about it, that can cause hair loss as well. So that’s why we added that, is because it adds one thing to that story that if you’re missing, that you’re not going to succeed. Right? So it’s not a hormone, it’s not directly related to hormones, but it’s related to your patient’s hormones story. And so those are the things that, that we specialize in adding is, yeah, everyone knows testosterone, everyone knows estrogen, but there are these other things that add to the story in a, in a really substantial way. So again, you’re just more likely to find the right solution for your patients if that happens to be, you know, something that they’re dealing with.
Kelly: So, Mark, I wanted to dig into and, and just say, first of all, I appreciate the fact that from the time I started doing DUTCH testing, you’ve added a lot of biomarkers to the table. Right? One of my favorite things on the DUTCH Plus is actually the CAR. The cortisol awakening response. I mean, I just feel like that’s been a game changer for insight on how someone is managing their stress, how resilient they are. Talk to us a little bit more about that. You mentioned that in relationship to breast cancer risk earlier you kind of alluded to it, but we really didn’t get into that.
Mark: Yeah, it’s a really interesting marker. And it’s it’s a math marker. It’s a, it’s a change. What I would love to know, if you came into my office and I was a doctor, which I’m not, you know, I’m a chemist, but you know what I’d love to know. I’d like to look your stress hormone, and then I’m gonna open my closet and I’ve got, you know, I keep a bear in there, and the bear chases you around the, the, the room. And then what happens? Well, you just had a stress event, right? So your stress hormone’s gonna go up and then I’ll put the bear back in the closet and I’m gonna, you know, test your cortisol again. And then I can look and see how much did it change. Because when you have. If you respond appropriately? Hey, good job. Now, don’t, don’t spend your whole life being chased by a bear, right? That’s a lesson you probably give your patients. If you’re stressed all the time, you’re gonna have problems, right? If you’re stressed, your cortisol’s gonna go up. That doesn’t mean something’s wrong, necessarily. It means like you’ve got some lifestyle issues to work on now.
If the bear chases you and your cortisol goes up more than the average person, okay, now you have an overactive stress response and there are consequences to that, right? But bears are expensive to feed, obviously, and keeping them in your closet is rather difficult. And so we have a trick, and that is that the event of waking is a stress. Right? So the, the biochemistry, the things that go on in yourself happen when you wake up. They also happen when the bear chases you. So what we’re able to do is we take a saliva sample. So we have these little cotton swabs. You just stick in your mouth and kind of chew on a little bit, and it takes a little bit of saliva.
So what we wanna do is wake up and take one. And what does that tell you? It tells you you’re waking cortisol. And then when you wake up, the eye hits the back of your light. And all this really complex biochemistry goes on that I have a hard time explaining even to myself, let alone somebody else. It’s complex, but it’s the same type of thing that goes on when the bear’s chasing you is it’s the whole like, Hey, get alert for the day.
Right? Let’s go. Because hey, life is, there’s a certain amount of stress in life that you don’t have while you’re sleeping. And that, so that process we can. We take a saliva sample right at waking that says, this is your baseline. Right? And then we take another one 30 minutes later. So both of those points are interesting.
Maybe the first one’s low. Hmm. That means something. Maybe it’s high. That means something. Same thing with the second one. But what the research is really clear on is the gap itself, right? That stress bounce as you get up is itself connected to health, connected to like, if it’s too big. Getting major depressive disorder, you’re more likely to to get depressed.
And if it’s flat, right, so you wake up, the light hits the back of your eyes, I’m distressed and ugh, my response is sluggish. Then you’re more likely to be someone who’s tired and fatigued. and not just tired and fatigued. Tired and fatigued because of what’s going on with your adrenal hormones, Cause that’s the important thing, right? Tired and fatigued is one thing, but we, that’s what functional medicine’s all about, is asking why questions till we figure out the source of it. And that’s a really important tool, the cortisol awakening response. So the car is really important. So we look at cortisol in urine, we look at it in saliva. We have our sort of a two different tests.
DUTCH complete is urine, DUTCH plus is saliva. And then we combo that with the urine and that gives you a lot of information. So in either test, I can see this up and down pattern. I wake up, my cortisol goes up when I go to bed. It sure better be a whole lot lower, right? This up and down pattern throughout the day is really important. Now with the breast cancer angle is flatness. Flatness with cortisol is bad for people who have. In terms of their survival, like it, it points to some dysfunction that correlates, and I couldn’t really speak that intelligently to the cause, per se, of why your risk is then increased of not doing well. But the flatness of cortisone is bad, right?
You have this dynamic pattern of sleep, wake, sleep, wake. And your cortisol, your stress hormone goes with that up in the morning, down at night. And when that is dysfunctional, you have an issue. You can see that in urine, you can see it in saliva. The car is an additional variable on top of that. That is like really zooming in on that first 30 minutes of the day as you transition. When you wake up, you’re awake. But are you alert? Right? Not really. Like that’s a process. Right? And that’s what that speaks to. And the word that people really like to use with that is, and you mentioned. Is resilience, right? If I’m, you know, some of our docs like to talk about a, a trampoline in terms of like, if you think about a trampoline and a stress event and your body responding and a stress event and your body responding, how bouncy is your stress response in terms of resilience?
Cause we’re, we’re not meant, I mean like is stress, right? We’re meant to be stressed, to respond and then come back to baseline and life goes on, right? It’s. Repeated hits of stress or constant stress that is never relieved, that can really wreak havoc on how your body just manages all of that and how all of that works.
And the testing can be really, really informative in terms of, you know, sort of what flavor of dysfunction you might have. As it relates to those hormones, and that’s, that’s our game, that’s what we’re trying to do is paint that picture for you, the provider so that you can help the patient as best as possible.
Kelly: Yeah. So from a consumer standpoint, I think the question would be why not just do a salivary cortisol over a 24 hour period looking at four points versus doing the urinary, where we can see the metabolized cortisol versus the free Right. That’s, so what insight do we gain from that perspective.
Mark: That’s the story we started with, with you all. I mean there’s the H R T thing. The other big thing we do is cortisol. And that, that was the single variable that really led me to develop this testing method is everyone’s looking at cortisol patterns, and rightly so, right? They’re important, but the cortisol that we measure, while it’s the most important thing to measure cortisol itself, it’s only about one or 2% of the total that you make throughout the day.
And so what we discovered from looking in the scientific literature and just playing around in the lab with all kinds of measurements over, you know, years and years and years, is that there are downstream metabolites of cortisol. And if you want to think about it as just a bucket that catches all your cortisol you make, and at the end of the day you go look in the bucket and say, Hey, how how’d . I do and. . Sometimes that can be really informative, particularly in cases where patients are really clearing their cortisol at a rate that’s sort of abnormal. So the way I discovered that was looking at the cortisol metabolites and cortisol patterns. So you have cortisol. That’s cortisol itself. That’s free cortisol, the thing that does the action, right?
We’re measuring that. And then we also measure the metabolites. That’s the bucket at the end of the day that says, here’s how much you actually made. And what we noticed is that in people who were obese, just as an example, they had like contradictory stories. A lot of ’em had low levels of this cortisol.
And so then what do then, what all our providers have been saying for years and years and years is a statement like this, you don’t make very much cortis. And then you look at the metabolites and if the metabolites are also low, you say, yep, that’s what I said. That confirms the story. I already told myself. And what we found in these obese patients is, we’re wrong almost every time. And that you look at item and the metabolites are really high and you say, hold on, like, what is going on here? And then as you dig into the, into the research that’s been done, you find that as a person gets bigger, The cortisol doesn’t really move in terms of just looking at a whole bunch of skinny people and a whole bunch of bigger people.
You know, as individuals they’re very different, but as a group of people, they’re pretty much the same. And then when you look at their metabolites, very, very different. The heavier people have all these metabolites. And so that’s, there’s a story there that they’re making a lot of cortisol, fat loves cortisol, and so it sucks the cortisol, your adrenal gland makes the cortisol and says, Hey, I did my job. And then those fat cells say, you know what? I’ll just hold onto that. And it ends up in the toilet as a metabolite, and this is going on all day long. So these people, they’re adrenal glands are pumping out more and more cortisol so that what’s in your brain and your elbow and your wherever is at. Like an appropriate level, but you’re just cranking it out.
And so that has added a lot of insight for us, for the doctor to know what’s going on with a patient. And I could give you a, a quick example of a case where that was really, really helpful and that is that obesity. gives you this sort of look of lots of metabolites and maybe not that much cortisol. And the other thing that will give you that same look is jacking up someone’s thyroid, right?
So, oh, your thyroid’s low here. Take some of this, actually take a whole bunch of it. So if you put someone on too much thyroid medication, it just tells your body like, go like mad. And so your, your liver’s gonna take all your cortisol and metabolize the heck out of it and turn it. These metabolites and they end up in the toilet and you end up in this really imbalanced situation where you’re making lots of cortisol, but you’re just cranking through it.
So we had a patient a while back that tested and she had really low cortisol and really high metabolites, and I said, what the heck is going on? She said, well, you know what makes it look like that? I’m like, well, obesity. But she was super skinny. And I said, you know, if you have really high thyroid, that’ll do it. And she said, well, that’s not me because I’m low thyroid, and I’m like, oh, well now I don’t look very smart. And then she called me back that night and she said, you know what? I do have low thyroid. And so my doctor put me on thyroid and said, here’s your thyroid. Take it once a day. And I heard, here’s your thyroid take it twice a day. And so she had been doubling up on her thyroid medication. She had induced hyperthyroidism, right? And so what’s her body doing? It’s going, oh crap, I’ve got all this thyroid. I better get rid of it. Just turned your cortisol burning, if you will, into overdrive. And so the looking at the DUTCH test was really insightful to say, here’s what can cause this look. And as they, they dug into that with the provider and the patient, it was super insightful. They fixed her thyroid, we retested her. And what do you know? Not only did she no longer have these low cortisol levels because she was burning through ’em, they came back. Even more than that, they were high. It was like, okay, here’s someone who, who has identified as, gee, you don’t make enough cortisol with like old school testing that we would’ve done, but with the DUTCH test, we’re able to say, hold on. This is a more complex story. You’re burning through your cortisol. Let’s investigate that. They investigated it and then when they retested her, she’s actually like on fire as far as her adrenal. She needed to get her cortisol down and her stress response down and do some lifestyle maintenance, but they couldn’t even like get to that point because of this little issue. Really was a big issue in terms of getting her medication right with her hormones. So those are the types of insights that we love to see in people in terms of like having the testing being profoundly, you know, differentiating in terms of specifically what’s going on, you know, with a patient so they can get to the bottom of their issue and, and get back on track towards wellness
Lori: And what you just said. There was such a mouthful, but I have to go back and say it’s taking the right test and pairing that with the right provider of care. Taking the right history and the time listening to understand, to then be able to make the changes. And you know, I think sometimes in traditional medicine, we lean just to diagnostic testing, right? We say the 80/20 rule, 80% diagnostics, 20% history. We’re in functional medicine that’s switched back. 80% history, 20% diagnostic testing, choosing that right test to get the right outcome. And I just, I, I wanna say that again, is, there’s a lot to unpack in that test. And I love, I love, love, love. I’m, I’m a scientist too.
And you’re in good company because I’m a meth- I’m a poor methylator too, by the way. So yeah, you’re in good company, but I just wanna say that I really appreciate and value what your. I feel like your test allows me to be the clinician that I can be because I have access to it and I feel like my patients hands down. They’re lucky to have access to both of those. The good testing and the history, you know, that we have as well as we’re thankful for the education that you give us too, over time, right. You know, that we’ve, we’ve been able to take advantage of.
Kelly: It really allows us to leverage what lifestyle can do to change, change the landscape for that patient. Metabolically speaking, hormonally speaking.
Mark: Right.
Kelly: To be able to point it. This is where the challenge is. Mm-hmm. . And these are the things that we can do to improve that challenge. Whereas before that same patient you were talking about that had low cortisol, but high metabolites, that patient would’ve gone on perhaps adrenal glandulars. And we would’ve just been fueling the problem. instead of correcting the problem, right? Because we weren’t looking through the right lens.
Lori: Mm-hmm.
Mark: Yeah. And that’s, I mean, the, the care that you all take of like addressing lifestyle where you can and starting with that and then, you know, moving through those sort of different variables that you’re looking at with the breadth of knowledge that you have is, you know, your patients are, I think, really blessed to have providers that care that much, but also have that expansive knowledge in, in those things because, you know, ultimately, I, I think you’re always sort of guessing, right? Like you never get comprehensive information about whatever, you know, you don’t get to walk around in the house, right? You get to look and make observations and ask questions and all of that. And ultimately, we’re always like our, our certainty increases with all of the information that we have, but it’s never complete. And I think that’s what we are really trying to do with people is just increase the certainty with which they’re making the conclusions that they are, which leads to the treatment that they take.
And sometimes it’s a major shift from the initial guess of like, oh, you’re tired, it’s probably this. And then as we dig into these things, it’s, oh, this is, this is not only more complex, but it’s this nuanced issue that you all have solutions for. But if you don’t know specifically what the problem is then obviously it’s not easy to find the right solution for that patient because, you know, hormones are complex, life is complex, but the more information that we can give and the better that we can train the people out there in the, the specialty that we have, then we just love that aspect of what we do. And we, we wish we could hear more and more about the end stories that you all get to experience when people come back and say, “Hey, the intervention that you gave me is, is making a huge difference and impact in my life.” And that honestly, those stories are really the primary thing that fuels our entire company.
I mean, we loved hearing about, you know, people’s lives change because of what we’re doing. So it’s great to, to hear what, what you guys are doing, how far you’ve come and, you know, in your practice with using all of these tools, one of which just happens to be what we do. And we, we love doing it.
Well, thank you so much for dedicating your work to just, you know, what you bring
Lori: about at DUTCH. We really appreciate it. We know it’s blood, sweat, and tears, I’m sure. Right? Blood, sweat and tears, years.
Mark: There’s a whole lot of urine around here. Yeah. (laughter)
Kelly: So, yep. So, so tell us a little bit about, as we close, what way in which, if, if consumers are, are looking at people listening to this that don’t know Kelly or myself, but are listening to this podcast, how do they hear more about the DUTCH test?
Mark: You can go to DUTCHtest.com. We have a lot of information on there. We’re a little bit unique I think, in that we’ve put a lot of information out there, just generally that’s not behind a curtain for providers. So patients can do a lot of just nerding out and digging into some of these different topics and things that are, that are really interesting to learn.
And in some of those you’ve learned about yourself, there’s a lot of information there. And then we have a find a provider function, so people that aren’t in your neck of the woods that are looking for someone to work with. I, I do. Honestly, I love our test. I think it’s super important for people to get all that information, but the number one variable, honestly, is to find a competent provider who knows what to do with the tools that are available to walk through that journey with a patient towards wellness.
Because there are a million different paths that you can take to move from your whatever dysfunction you might. You know, towards wellness, and I think using the right tools and, and having the right training, partnering with someone like that is, I think can be the biggest like game changer for people who are struggling with things that may have to do with things like hormone health.
Kelly: All right, Mark, thank you so much.
Lori: Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. You can find more information about Synergee at Synergee4Life. That’s S-Y-N-E-R-G-E-E, the number four life.com. (synergee4life.com)
Kelly: And then Synergee Connect is our Facebook. And then please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app so that you make sure you get future notifications of episodes.
Enhanced Wellness Living is Mississippi’s premier Functional Medicine Wellness Clinic! We are proud to serve all of Mississippi including Ridgeland, Jackson, Madison, Rankin, Byram, Hernando, Starkville, Flowood, Bolton, Hinds, Brandon, Oxford, Canton, Olive Branch, Clinton, Vicksburg, and more! Not in Mississippi? We have patients who travel from Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, and more for these life changing procedures!
Buyer Beware: All About Supplements
Kelly Engelmann: Wellness is a practice, not just a word. Welcome to The Synergee Podcast. For myself, Kelly Engelmann and Lori Esarey, shed light on powerful tools and topics that nourish your body, and most importantly, feed your soul.
Welcome everybody to the Synergee Podcast. I’m so excited to be back today with you guys. We have the delight of having Joell Daniels today with us in studio. We’re gonna be interviewing her and listen, it’s buyer beware. We’re gonna be talking about all things, supplements, the reason why we need to have supplementation in our lives, what they can do, what they can’t do, how they’re made, what we need to be aware of as buyers. Y’all listen in.
Lori Esarey: Welcome to the show. We are so excited to have you, Joell. So tell us a little bit more about you.
Joell Daniels: Well, thank you so much. I’m excited to be here. I do work for a company called Xymogen/Whole Scripts, both companies. We own them both, and I’ve been with the company since 1996 and was there at the inception when the team started Xymogen.
I’ve worn many hats over the years, but my primary responsibility is educating healthcare practitioners on our formulas and how they are best used to. Positive outcomes in patients. I’m really passionate about what I do. I got into this field of work because I was a sick patient, and I think I’m like many of the patients that walk into your clinics.
Unfortunately, it took me a long time to get to a functional medicine practitioner who looked at root causes versus trying to put out fires in the forms of symptoms all the time. I approach my job al- altruistically and that I really want to have patients not get into some of the holes that I fell into on the way to health.
Kelly Engelmann: Well, I can honestly say knowing you for as many years as I’ve known you, that passion comes through. You know, Lori and I are geeks. We absolutely love education. We’re constantly learning and growing, and you’ve been a big part of that for us. You’ve been a big part of putting things in front of us and giving us opportunities as providers to spread our wings and to provide for our patients. Quality supplements that we know 100% for sure are top quality and top grade, so thank you. Thank you for being here and sharing with us today.
Lori Esarey: Yes, thank you so much. Thank you. Joell. I’ve just gotta ask you, is this conversation today that Kelly and I wanted to have for our listeners. Why is this important for you?
Joell Daniels: I’m passionate about what I do because I wanna save patients from falling into the same holes that I fell into as a sick patient back in the nineties. 1990. I was very sick and I went the conventional medicine route and really, they were just doing symptom control. They weren’t looking at root causes.
So I did filter my way into multi-level supplement company who I spent thousands of dollars with and didn’t get well. I had no result whatsoever. And it wasn’t until I went to a functional medicine practitioner who did diagnostics with me and took me through a pretty rigorous, difficult program that was- part of the onus was on me to make changes in my life and to take supplements. I took a lot of ’em more than I really wanted to, but I’m better. And I haven’t had to hear the S word, which is what I call surgery. I haven’t had to hear that word for some sort of ailment since. So that’s my goal is to get people the access to people like you, practitioners who care and practice good medicine.
Kelly Engelmann: Absolutely. So, we know that it can be a journey of finding your way as a patient. You know, most of our patients are seekers most of the time. By the time they get to us. They’ve been many, many places. We’re not their first stop often times. So we hear that story over and over and over as it plays out in real time even today, and I don’t know if the Internet’s made that more problematic or less problematic? I mean, I’m thinking back in the nineties we didn’t really have the internet to lean to, to find access to resources. So I’m, I’m thinking you were kind of walking in the dark a good bit and today I think we’re walking in the light of the internet, but it’s oftentimes down paths that lead us nowhere. And I, I can imagine what that feels like as a patient. You know, we’ve all been there, right? As patients ourselves trying to find our own way.
Lori Esarey: And we need to be smart consumers because of that, right? Not just just believing everything that we see and making sure that we are educated to filter, right?
Kelly Engelmann: So why in the world do we have the need for supplementation today? Right? Shouldn’t we just be able to eat our way out of a problem?
Lori Esarey: I mean, that’s what we learned in school, right? Yeah. Most of our medical programs, you know, we don’t, we don’t need to take nutrients, so we don’t need to take supplements.
Kelly Engelmann: Supplements. It was just very expensive urine. That’s what I was taught.
Lori Esarey: Yes, me too.
Kelly Engelmann: Just very expensive. Urine don’t waste. That’s right. Waste your money on those supplements. Right?
Lori Esarey: Right. And then sometimes, you know, we hear, well it’s just another pill, right? We’re sick. It’s just another pill where, where. We’re trying to get them to understand that it’s really a supplement that fills in nutritional gaps. So let’s talk about nutritional gaps. Like why does our food. Or why does it not meet our nutritional needs?
Kelly Engelmann: So they say today that 10 cups of spinach today would be what one cup of spinach would’ve been about 10 years ago.
Lori Esarey: In nutritional density.
Kelly Engelmann: In nutritional density. And who can eat 10 cups? Who can eat 10 cups of spinach every single day, right? And I, I try, I mean, I’m challenged myself. We say we need nine cups of vegetables a day as an adult to meet our nutritional demands. I don’t have that much chew time in my day. I mean, I’ve tried to make it work, but I just don’t have that much chew time. And even with juicing, which I do daily, and even with my smoothies, I’m still not meeting that quota oftentimes at the end of the day when I look up.
Lori Esarey: So our soil is very nutrient poor. Right. It lacks in minerals the way that we grow our foods now. Right?
Kelly Engelmann: Monocropping? So oftentimes that soil is not nutrient dense because we’ve grown the same crop over and over, and by the end product it’s not, there’s no nutrient value there.
Lori Esarey: And we’re growing anything, anytime, anywhere. We’re speeding up the growth, skipping over maturation processes that are necessary for nutrients. Food doesn’t even taste like it anymore. I mean, eat a strawberry. That’s conventionally grown. It doesn’t even taste like a strawberry anymore, right? So just very, very nutrient poor food. And so I had to really rethink how I was trained as well.
And I understand, you know, if you’re going to, I would say this to our consumers and, and those listening today, if you’re gonna to your doctor and they’re saying, you know, you don’t need to take that. It’s just gonna be expensive urine, I really urge you to dig deeper and look because you’re not gonna correct your nutritional deficiencies with food alone.
Kelly Engelmann: And to the flip side of that, you’re not gonna correct your nutritional deficiencies with supplements alone. Yes, it really is the marriage of the two. That is the sweet spot, I believe. And then we think about supplementation. You, there’s a time and a place for supplementation, for healing. You know, your supplement regimen that you mentioned, Joell, you took more pills than you wanted to initially because you were working through a healing process.
And oftentimes that’s the case when they come in. There’s a lot of mal-absorption going on in the GI tract. Oftentimes more supplementation is needed to get that issue resolved, and then there’s a period of time. Or perhaps you’re on more of a maintenance or more of a let’s how to, let’s see how we maintain with the knowledge that you may go through stressors in life where you need to bump up your supplementation.
So oftentimes equate that to what do you, what are you asking your body to do? And that oftentimes dictates the strategies behind what we need in the way of supplementation to make that happen.
Lori Esarey: So, and, and because of that, when choosing supplementation, it’s really important to choose quality. Quality supplements to fill in those nutritional gaps that, like, as you just said, we create those nutritional gaps. Absolutely. We create them ourselves. Whe whether we, it’s something we like, we don’t like, we cook it a certain way or raw versus cooked, right?
Kelly Engelmann: And then we eat that thing, what’s it called? Sugar that steals all of our nutrients from us because it takes a lot of nutrients to out process sugar. Not that I do that, no, I would never do that, but yes. Sometimes I do that.
Joell Daniels: That’s right.
Lori Esarey: So that makes this an even more important conversation about quality nutrients, how to purchase them, how to buy them where. Them from and making sure that you have a relationship with a trusted, qualified healthcare practitioner to give you that guidance. So Joell, do you wanna add anything to that nutritional conversation that we just had?
Joell Daniels: I think the lives we live now. are much more stressful than the lives we lived before, and we know that high stress really affects our digestion and our gut health. So even if, and it doesn’t, the orange that was grown 50 years ago was so much higher quality with nutrients or dense nutrients than it is now.
Even if it was still that same orange. Our digestion is so screwed up from the stress that we face every day, from chemicals in our environment from a stressful life and more demands on us that it wouldn’t matter. We’re still not getting the nutrition we need, but I agree. I would prefer to eat whole food.
I think that we need to have a lifestyle that includes exercise and meditation and prayer, but we’re not gonna get it all from food. We’re just not. Not without supplements.
Kelly Engelmann: Absolutely.
Lori Esarey: So I wanted to ask a couple of questions. You know the question is, no longer are supplements necessary because we all know that our nutritional intake is so poor, the quality of our food is so poor. So it’s no longer a question of, you know, do we need them? It’s now a question of when we need them, what do we choose? So we wanted to kind of dig a little bit deeper with you on what does that look like? What does a quality nutritional supplement look like?
Joell Daniels: Well, as a consumer, prior to any of my knowledge in this field, I just assumed whatever I picked up on a shelf of a store, and of course this was pre-internet days, but it’s even more crucial now. I assumed that everything was okay. The New York Attorney General’s office did an investigation where they took lots of products off of shelves of major retailers, and not one of them met label claim and all of them except one had contaminants.
Kelly Engelmann: So Wait, wait, hold on. Joell, you said none of them met label claim. So what you’re saying is what was on the label was not what was in that bottle. That’s huge.
Joell Daniels: That’s correct. Wow. That is huge. And even something as simple as vitamin C didn’t make the mark. And I think that’s the most expensive supplement to purchase is no matter what the price tag is on that shelf, if it doesn’t have what it, what it says, and it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to, it’s a waste of money.
Kelly Engelmann: Absolutely. And it could be dangerous as well. Right. Oftentimes in that study, they found that there were contaminants in the product, right. Not just that it wasn’t what it said it was. Maybe it was something that would be harmful as well.
Joell Daniels: Exactly. At Xymogen, we really took that to heart and we built a manufacturing facility from ground up and we didn’t take an old warehouse and repurpose it and in doing the ground up construction. We were able to control manufacturing that other companies that try to convert an existing building weren’t able to do, and they’re a little bit boring, but they really do contribute to the fact that every capsule in every bottle is the same dose as all the rest of them. So we don’t get one capsule with 40 milligrams and another with a 200, but they’re a consistent dosing.
And we meet label claim and we don’t have contaminants. So, what’s on the label is nothing more and nothing less than what is shown.
Kelly Engelmann: So Lori and I have been able to visit, right? And we’ve been able to see manufacturing. It was really cool walking through there and it’s like a real eye-opener to see all of that come together from the way that product is brought in and tested and then produced and then tested again. And there’s a lot that goes into that process to make sure that, like you said, once you get that bottle, that every single capsule is the same.
Joell Daniels: That’s correct. And we also do things that other manufacturers don’t necessarily do, which is we qualify our vendors. So our suppliers that send us those raw ingredients, they have to go through a rigorous qualification process that once they’re approved, we received their product, we make sure that it comes with a certificate of analysis, and a chain of custody. A chain of custody is gonna tell us that it isn’t genetically modified. The certificate of analysis, which is also called the C of A, tells us that that ingredient is active, and I don’t remember the movie, but there’s a movie that talks about the circle of trust. And even though we’ve pre-qualified that vendor, they’re not really in that circle of trust. We verify, right? Their certificate of analysis to make sure, and that’s important to know because we reject raw ingredients all the time, and we ship them to other people that makes supplements when we reject them the supplier sends us a UPS label and we send them along.
Lori Esarey: So what you’re saying is that-
Joell Daniels: so they’re out there.
Lori Esarey: Right? So you’re rejecting that product. Right. And it’s, it’s being sent on to someone else who is using that product, who then that lands on the shelves. Getting back to your original statement of what’s on those shelves, you used to think, go to any store, pick it up. That’s a supplement that’s safe for me. And that’s good.
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah. I’ll have to say, when I first got into functional medicine, Gosh, 2004, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was have product on my shelf. Like I just didn’t think that was, you know, something I needed to be getting myself into. But I would send patients with a list of what they needed and they would go to the local store and they would come back.
Oftentimes they would come back with not what I asked them to get, and something completely different because the person sold them something different for the symptom they were having. Right. But just assumed they came back with what I asked them to get. You know, three months down the road, we’re not seeing the result.
And I’m like, I can’t function this way. Not knowing that what I’m giving them is actually gonna get them where they need to go. So the the ability to bring in quality supplements to the practice and know that they’re gonna see that result with that product over a period of time is. Has been a game changer for my practice.
Lori Esarey: Absolutely. And mine as well. And so I think as a consumer going to, whether that be an online platform to order supplementation or to a provider’s office or to a store, what are they to look for on a bottle? Is there specific terminology that they should be looking for on that product when they purchase?
Joell Daniels: Well, there is a stamp on a label that says GMP that stands for good manufacturing practices and that can be helpful, but it’s still no guarantee. Right now with the current environment where supplies are short, demand is high. It’s like the wild, wild west. There are so many supplement raw ingredients out there that we get into our manufacturing facility that aren’t making the mark. Also, we receive things that are substandard and our rejection rate has gone up during this last few years.
Lori Esarey: So, what you’re saying is that that certification of good manufacturing practices, which historically we have said to our consumers, use that as a guide. What you’re saying now is we have to be cautious even with that on the label.
Joell Daniels: That’s correct. I think you really the consumer needs to do that and look to their healthcare practitioner who has done the research like you and Kelly have done.
Lori Esarey: Yeah. So that means digging deeper, really not just to understand again that they got that label right cuz that there’s a price that comes with that CGMP. Correct? Right?
Joell Daniels: There is.
Lori Esarey: So there’s a price that comes with that. So it’s really going beyond that and like you said, getting to your qualified healthcare practitioner to dig deeper into the companies behind the brand. That’s what I hear you saying. the companies and Absolutely what the companies are doing, what their standards are.
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah. Right. Can you speak Joell at all to this thing that’s going on with counterfeiting of product? So, you go online to buy a product. The label looks like a good manufacturing label, and you get the product, but it’s not the real thing. Mm. What can you tell us about that?
Joell Daniels: Absolutely. When we first started Xymogen, we were the new kid kids on the block, and we did set the standard higher for everyone. And what we found in a couple of instances where our label had been mimicked and put on a bottle, how we found this is the person who got the bottle had a complaint about it, and we happened to mark all our bottles so we know who bought it, where it went, and these bottles weren’t. and the marking isn’t seen, but we could, we have a way to read it and the products ended up being counterfeit. And if we had those happen 20 years ago it’s even worse now. So, we check that all the time. Mm-hmm.
Kelly Engelmann: Wow. So, I’m just thinking about how many people go online thinking that they’re getting a good quality product because maybe they did look for Xymogen or another brand name that’s trusted, but then when they get that product, that product is not even what they think it is and how do we protect from that, right? Yeah. Because everything’s going online, let’s face it. The world has changed as we know it. And we are going to see, you know, vendors that historically have not sold online, be there and, you know, how do we know that we’re buying directly from that vendor? What can we do to, to look for that?
Lori Esarey: So how do we know Joell, what can we do and what can we help? I, I feel like this is buyer beware. Right? Right. Buyer beware!
Joell Daniels: It’s definitely buyer beware and I think the way to protect yourself is to, again, go through a healthcare practitioner who’s done the research, right? Because you’ll even see our formulas show up online, but that’s no guarantee.
It was interesting. There was a patient who returned product to a doctor and the reason she returned it was because she didn’t see the product on Amazon. So the patient automatically assumed that if it was on Amazon that it had been checked. And we know people selling on Amazon have been caught selling counterfeit products.
Lori Esarey: Mm-hmm.
Joell Daniels: And Amazon’s gotten in trouble for that as well.
Lori Esarey: Yeah. So directly through what you’re saying is through either a visit with your qualified healthcare practitioner in which you’re picking that up in their office, or they have given you a direct link to or provided you the proper way to walk through ordering it to know that it is the brand and the product that they have recommended?
Joell Daniels: Absolutely.
Kelly Engelmann: Does Xymogen have codes on the bottles that patients can view to verify that it is a Xymogen product?
Joell Daniels: No, but we do have our marking that we put on the label that we can investigate.
Kelly Engelmann: So, Xymogen can see that. Yeah. If you needed to investigate, but the patient themselves couldn’t see that.
Yeah. So it is tricky. It is buyer beware for the- for the person out there trying to get themselves better. They have all these symptoms that they’re dealing with or maybe they’re just trying to optimize their health. You know, they’re into fitness and they wanna stay well and it is truly by beware when it comes to the purchasing of those supplements online, I think.
Lori Esarey: So tell us a little bit about third party testing of raw material. You’ve said we’ve talked a little bit about contaminants, but what does that third party process look like to, to help you clearly know what product reject versus to keep?
Joell Daniels: So what we do when that wrong greeting comes in and it has that certificate of analysis, we’re unique in that we have our own analytical services laboratory, right in our building. A large one with very progressive equipment, and we can do what most labs do. So we test it initially ourselves and make sure that it’s within specification, but at the end product or during the process, if there’s certain tests that we need to do on an ingredient, we send it out to a third party independent laboratory.
So that’s a laboratory that has no skin in the game. They don’t care whether it, you know, they don’t make any money off at passing or not. Mm-hmm. . They make their money either way. And we just verified that our results are true and valid and it costs a lot of money to do that. And we’ve been told that we overt test things and the owner of our company is okay with that. We wanna put out a quality product that makes patients-
Lori Esarey: is that even possible? Right. I think Is that even possible to overt test? Right?
Kelly Engelmann: Exactly. From a functional perspective, absolutely not. Exactly right. We love the testing.
Lori Esarey: But you bring up a great point is. in the age in which everything is costing more.
You know, many of our patients are really thinking about their budgets and they’re wanting to trim them down as much as possible, right? But we can’t cut corners here. That’s what I hear you saying today. We can’t cut corners, we gotta be really particular.
Joell Daniels: Right.
Lori Esarey: So what does it cost? I just, I, I gotta kind of know like, what does it really cost to maybe batch tests?
Like, give us a little bit of an idea of, of the cost difference between putting just any product on a shelf at GNC, Walgreens, Walmart, versus putting a product on your warehouse shelf.
Joell Daniels: I don’t know the exact costs. I would say that it would easily double or triple the price because just the testing that we do with independent laboratories costs about a hundred thousand dollars per month.
Lori Esarey: Wow.
Joell Daniels: And I wanna reiterate that the most expensive supplement you buy is the one that doesn’t work. So while we’re trying to limit and cut our costs, like you said, Lori, this is not the place to do that.
Lori Esarey: Right. So I wanna, I wanna dig a little bit deeper into product labels and things that catch our eye. As a consumer when we shop. NSF is one of the things that my clients will come in and say that they see on a bottle. What does NSF mean?
Joell Daniels: Well, it’s a paid for subscription. So the company pays the National Sanitation Foundation, I believe is what it stands for, and they pay for that subs. So it’s not any additional verification that happens. It’s not like a GMP or for instance, Xymogen is an FDA registered facility and we’re inspected every 10 to 14 months. They knock on the back door, they give us no warning, and they come in and they stay for a couple weeks and they verify everything.
Lori Esarey: So NSF is just something on the bottle. To trick, if you will, the consumer into believing there’s something better about this formula than maybe one that doesn’t have NSF on it. Is that correct?
Joell Daniels: Absolutely. And it would be like a company that pays for their products to be checked by the Consumer Reports Organization or something like that. Those are all paid for subscriptions.
Lori Esarey: So is is USP the same thing? Because I’ve noticed a lot of , I would say brands that you see on the shelves at a health food store maybe, or even at a grocery store they’ve had there. There’s USP on there. Tell us a little bit about USP. What is that?
Joell Daniels: I’m not exactly sure. However, generally the USP means United States Pharmacopia, and that’s a standard of ingredient. Mm-hmm. . Okay. And of a raw ingredient.
Lori Esarey: Would that make that product any better than one that is labeled as CGMP or NSF? Does it create a better quality or, or not?
Joell Daniels: I think it is something to look for in that we know the company’s going the extra mile and using a USP raw ingredient. Okay. So one that has a standard.
Kelly Engelmann: Great question. So I’m curious, you know, when I toured the Xymogen facility a few years ago, one of the things that just impressed me was the, the humidity control. Cause I’m all about air quality control, . I’m kind of obsessed with that. If anyone knows me well they know why. But I, I noticed that there was a lot of pains taken to really control for humidity in specific areas. Can you tell us a little bit about that and how that equates to better quality product?
Joell Daniels: I can, and this does make Xymogen unique because again, we built our building, our manufacturing facility was built from the ground up, we didn’t take a warehouse and repurpose it. In doing that, we were able to install, train, car size dehumidifiers, and from the time a raw ingredient enters manufacturing till the time it comes out, we can control how much moisture is in the air, and that’s important because most ingredients are.
By exposure to two things, humidity and heat, and by preventing the humidity in the first place, we don’t have to apply heat to get things to flow properly. Our humidity control is from anywhere from 15 to 24%, depending on what’s being manufactured that day.
Lori Esarey: Wow. And in Florida where you’re located, that is even more important, right?
Kelly Engelmann: Right?
Joell Daniels: It is. When we opened our manufacturing facility we opened it in about April of 2011 and we were able to test it very easily because we had 19th straight days in the beginning of June, that year of rain. Wow. And they constantly were checking them because it was new. Right. And-
Lori Esarey: So let’s talk about shipping practices because one of the things that we know is that you are shipping all over the United States. Is that correct? We are. And are you also abroad? What are, are, are there other locations that you guys ship to as well?
Joell Daniels: We have a warehouse that we use in Canada that we own and ship in Canada.
Lori Esarey: Okay.
Joell Daniels: We also have distributors in other countries.
Lori Esarey: Expanding!
Joell Daniels: So we do ship both.
Lori Esarey: Yeah. Expanding. So the shipping process I can imagine has to be quite controlled to make sure that the end consumer gets quality products. How does Xymogen control for that?
Joell Daniels: Everything is under air conditioned, temperature controlled environment, unlike some major. Sellers who have big warehouses and don’t always do that. And so you can imagine if you’re maybe a patient’s taking a probiotic and they’re ordering it off of the internet, it might have been stored on a third story rack in the middle of summer somewhere, and might not end up the way it was meant to be at their home.
Mm-hmm. .
Lori Esarey: So from the time that a person orders whether that be you know, directly through again, , a provider recommending a specific link right, in which they’re ordering directly mm-hmm. From you, what is the turnaround time from that order to getting it out the door to them and then receiving it?
Typically,
Joell Daniels: we’ll ship within 48 hours, if not 24. Mm-hmm. , and depending on where they’re located in the country it could be one to three.
Lori Esarey: Yeah, I was just wondering, because I know that there’s a controlled amount of, you know, the heat as you spoke of before, I think one of the consumer questions would be, does the heat of that shipping process, like how is that controlled to make sure they’re getting a product that is still, you know, that is it.
It’s still quality.
Joell Daniels: We have equipment where we put a product in and we expose it to heat and humidity. So we know exactly how it’s affected. And for instance, our probiotics, which when we make them, we double fill them. What I mean when I say that is we put double the amount of the ingredient in there, and then what is on the label is what the strength of that product is at the expiration date.
Another way to say that is if we have 30 billion strength probiotic, we might fill that with 60 or 70 billion. When we make it, we have checked it. We know that if it’s exposed to 107 degrees for three days, it’s still two years down the road going to have and meet the label.
Lori Esarey: Excellent. Right, which, that’s the standards that you guys have put in place to ensure, again, the quality
Kelly Engelmann: product.
Right? And a lot of patients feel like if their probiotic is not refrigerated, then it’s not a good quality probiotic, but you guys have been able to vacuum seal, right, that probiotic in a way that keeps it fresh so that it doesn’t degradate with temperature changes. ,
Joell Daniels: that’s true. However, because we control that humidity from the very beginning and we never have to apply the heat.
A probiotic, for instance, is brought to life by heat and moisture, and so we’ve never brought that. Product to life before it gets in the capsule and before it gets to the patient. So it’s very stable, and then we nitrogen flush it into a blister pack. So again, we’re removing any of the unwanted part of the environment that might bring that probiotic to life.
And it’s only gonna live about three days. once it’s brought to life, we want that to happen after the patient gets it. So we expose it to nothing that’s gonna put that at risk par to that.
Lori Esarey: That’s a lot to unpack. It
Kelly Engelmann: really is. I was thinking we gotta go way, baby. Yeah, right.
Lori Esarey: We gotta go back a little bit to really understand what you just said, cuz I think that’s really important.
When you said that raw product, as I understood it, isn’t brought to life. Until, say it until when? Heat and
Kelly Engelmann: moisture. Right?
Joell Daniels: Heat and moisture is what brings a probiotic to life. Makes it active. Okay.
Lori Esarey: And that happens when,
Joell Daniels: when the patient swallows it
Lori Esarey: and you control
Joell Daniels: that. How? By not exposing it to heat or moisture during the manufacturing process.
If a company wasn’t doing that, that might be. , you would need to refrigerate it, right? But we avoid that.
Lori Esarey: And that part of that process is how you also place it in the blister packs, right? Yes. Which is
Joell Daniels: phenomenal. It is. And the nitrogen flushing gets the oxygen out of there so that product is sealed and viable.
and every dose. A trick in the industry would be to put a powder in a bottle, because every time the patient picks up the bottle, they’re going to displace the powder. As it degrades, it gets hard like concrete. Mm-hmm. . Another challenge is that just a plastic bottle allows too much air and moisture in.
There’s even a website that rates plastic bottles and how the vapor can get through them, and they’re rated. So we just avoid all of that. Yeah, yeah.
Lori Esarey: So what I, I guess my question will be when, when probiotics are supplied in a bottle like that, what is the best way to store them for the consumer? Is it refrigeration?
Well, wouldn’t at that point,
Joell Daniels: Probably mm-hmm. , since we don’t do that, I never really have to advise somebody on how to do that. Right. Ours are always in a, in a blister pack or they’re in a, a stick pack, so each dose is controlled.
Lori Esarey: Right. Which I’m sure that that costs, right. The end consumer a little bit more for the product because of the way it’s packaged.
Going back is really ING more. That’s right. Is it really cost? Let’s talk about cost more. Right. Not cost. Right, exactly. A cost is something that you spend money on that’s not creating value on your investment. Right?
Joell Daniels: Absolutely. And not contributing to your health. Right. Right.
Lori Esarey: So the investment, that’s expensive.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. . I wanna talk a little bit about the delivery system of products. You know, some of them are in capsules, some of them liquids, some of them in the straws that you referred to earlier. Give me a little. Understanding of what is the most appropriate type of delivery system for different types of nutrients?
Joell Daniels: Well, obviously there are some things like a fish oil as iGen uses a pre-digested water soluble fish oil. But those have to be in gel caps. But there’s some studies that show that taking a lot of gel caps is. , good for you. But the benefit of is a gel cap of it. Using a gel cap is the disintegration time, and so you’re always a supplement company is always chasing the disintegration time, and we use a second generation veggie cap, which equals the disintegration time of a gel cap.
It also doesn’t disintegrate where it’s not supposed to. So these, some of them will be digestive resistant, like in a probiotic. But they’re digested in the small intestine or large intestine or wherever they need to be at the time.
Lori Esarey: So sometimes it’s very appropriate to have a liquid formulation for better absorption and digestion. Right, right. Absolutely. Sometimes it’s better to have them in a capsule form, sometimes sublingual underneath of the tongue based on, again, delivery system, right. For that particular patient. But as you just also mentioned, and, and I think we need to also talk about a little bit, The best way to get it to you right, is the one that you’re gonna follow. Right?
Kelly Engelmann: Well that’s true, right, . That is so, so true. So many people do not like powders. You know, they want everything in in a capsule. So if they’re not gonna take it, it’s not any good for them. It’s not any good for them. It’s gonna sit in the bottle and not be consumed. Yeah. Yeah.
Lori Esarey: But then the delivery system really is the individual.
assessment of the qualified healthcare practitioner to determine how is their GI system, right? Are they gonna break it down right? And what’s the best delivery for them? So that’s, again, working individually with, with the client mm-hmm. to make sure of that. But so, you know, it’s, it’s really great to work with a company that offers multiple different delivery systems that allow us to choose right what’s best for them-
Kelly Engelmann: And have the patient have a voice. You know, they’re part of the equation too, and knowing what they’re going to do, or willing to do and able to do is also a huge part of the decision making when we do choose a product for them. Mm-hmm. . So Joell, you work for Xymogen? I do. Mm-hmm. , how can patients connect with Xymogen?
Joell Daniels: Through you. Okay. Or Laurie.
Kelly Engelmann: Okay.
Joell Daniels: And just to let your listeners know, you are the most amazing women, your skilled practitioners. I see clinics all day every day, and I have incredible respect for you. You have gone the extra hundred miles and looked at the science and educated yourselves, and you do think outside the box and you’re not afraid to say, I’ll find out. And I really respect that. And there any patient that ends up in your clinics are in the right hands and it’s really amazing.
Kelly Engelmann: Thank you.
Lori Esarey: Thank you so much. Sure. What a blessing. Sure. Absolutely. Well, I can speak for myself. I’ve, I’ve known you Joell for years. In fact, you are one of the key women who inspired me to take a new approach and look at look at healthcare delivery differently.
And really You know, back in the day, I like to say when I was experiencing my own health challenges you really inspired me to, to dig a little bit deeper, you know, get more education and look at nutrients, and I’m just really thankful for our relationship and I really appreciate you. Sharing your expertise with our listeners.
Kelly Engelmann: Absolutely. Joell, it’s a pleasure having you here and you know, we’re blessed to have you take care of us in Mississippi. You know, I got to know you through Lori, and the only way we got you here was really through that relationship. The relationship I had with Lori and the relationship she had with you brought you to Mississippi.
And so we’re delighted as always to have you feeding into our teams with education and resources. That goes to our patients, right? We’re able to spread that to our patients. So we, we really do appreciate you being here.
Joell Daniels: Thank you so much.
Lori Esarey: Oh, you really well, thank you. But I wanna say, you know, that that really goes along with what we say all the time with Synergee.That we really are better together. We’re stronger together. We’re stronger together.
Kelly Engelmann: Yeah, absolutely.
Lori Esarey: Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. You can find more information about Synergee at synergee4life.com, that’s S Y N E R G E E, the number four, life.com.
Kelly Engelmann: And then Synergee connect is our Facebook. And then please make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app so that you make sure you get future notifications of episodes.
Enhanced Wellness Living is Mississippi’s premier Functional Medicine Wellness Clinic! We are proud to serve all of Mississippi including Ridgeland, Jackson, Madison, Rankin, Byram, Hernando, Starkville, Flowood, Bolton, Hinds, Brandon, Oxford, Canton, Olive Branch, Clinton, Vicksburg, and more! Not in Mississippi? We have patients who travel from Texas, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, and more for these life changing procedures!
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