Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Today, I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: have doctor Heather Maday on the show. Doctor Maday is
Speaker 1: a board certified physician who is passionate about changing the
Speaker 1: way medicine is practiced in this country. She currently runs
Speaker 1: the Moday Center for Functional Integrative Medicine and Philadelphia, PA,
Speaker 1: which focuses on cutting edge approaches to functional medicine along
Speaker 1: with education about healthy eating, exercise, stress reduction, and other
Speaker 1: life style interventions to empower people to live better lives.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being on the show today, doctor Bodee. Oh, thanks,
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry. If you hear your dog, I hear
Speaker 1: your dog. Yes, yes, he gets excited. Well, he can
Speaker 1: be on the show if he wants. Thanks for having me. Well,
Speaker 1: a cat might walk across you never know. They tend
Speaker 1: to do that. You have cat too? Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: have animals. Love them. Do you find animals help with
Speaker 1: your health at all? I think they do absolutely well.
Speaker 1: I mean I think there's been studies to share that.
Speaker 1: Of course, they help you with your mood. Of course.
Speaker 1: The only thing they do disrupt is your sleep. So
Speaker 1: that's the one disadvantage of having animals. They tend to
Speaker 1: do that. And sleep is very important. It's obviously very important.
Speaker 1: But in your own practice, have you come up with
Speaker 1: any things that you would recommend for people that have
Speaker 1: trouble sleeping? I thought we start right there. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: so many. I think a lot of it depends on
Speaker 1: what's going on with their sleep, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: the first thing they have to do, of course, is
Speaker 1: look at their sort of sleep hygiene. And that's sort
Speaker 1: of a general thing that people talk about all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, they like, well, first of all, what's your schedule?
Speaker 1: Do you have a regular schedule or you sort of
Speaker 1: all over the place. Do you, you know, turn off
Speaker 1: all the electronic devices and things like that before you know,
Speaker 1: an hour or two before bed. Because it's known that
Speaker 1: a lot of those blue spectrum light that comes from
Speaker 1: TVs and iPads et cetera interfere directly with our pineal gland,
Speaker 1: so it literally shuts down your melotonin production, so it
Speaker 1: throws off your circadian rhythm. And then of course there's
Speaker 1: all the stuff that you're reading, which is usually like
Speaker 1: you know, upsetting news and things like that that really
Speaker 1: get your mind going. And then a lot of people
Speaker 1: just you know, they tend to have stimulants before bed,
Speaker 1: or maybe they eat too close to bed, or maybe
Speaker 1: they have alcohol to try to put themselves to sleep,
Speaker 1: and that usually backfires by interfering with their sleep later on.
Speaker 1: So you know, sleep hygiene is like crucial. And if
Speaker 1: you've got all those ducks in a row, and you know,
Speaker 1: if you're like trying to go to about the same
Speaker 1: time every night and you've made your bedroom you're sanctuary,
Speaker 1: and you're still having problems with sleep, then you know,
Speaker 1: it could be like a myriad of different things. I
Speaker 1: would say the biggest issue I probably see is blood
Speaker 1: sugar problems, mostly because when our blood sugar dips during
Speaker 1: the night, it actually tends to wake us up, and
Speaker 1: that happens a lot of people don't have really good,
Speaker 1: you know, blood sugar management throughout the day and the night,
Speaker 1: So I see quite a bit of that. That's really interesting.
Speaker 1: What other things wake us up? Like does our heart pressure,
Speaker 1: does our heart beat wake us up? I think, you
Speaker 1: know it potentially. Can I wouldn't say generally, though again
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times it's either medications or
Speaker 1: things that become stimulants later on, and then of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the blood sugar issue. For some people, though,
Speaker 1: their problem is not waking up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night. It's actually going to sleep, and that's a
Speaker 1: slightly different problem, and it's still insomnia, but that usually
Speaker 1: comes from you know, more ruminating on thoughts or having
Speaker 1: sort of an underlying anxiety and things like that. So
Speaker 1: you know, there's different types of difficulties sleeping, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of sleep onset or problems during the night. Another
Speaker 1: thing that can actually interfere quite a bit with sleep
Speaker 1: is hormones, both in men and women, but particularly in women.
Speaker 1: They tend to have issues with waking up early, especially
Speaker 1: sort of like premenopause and in menopause, so that can
Speaker 1: be a problem too. Yeah, these are good points, and
Speaker 1: I do find personally that once I'm asleep, I don't
Speaker 1: really ever want to wake up. That's true, you're a
Speaker 1: lucky guy. A lot of people struggle with sleep and no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm saying once I fall asleep. Oh yeah, no, sometimes
Speaker 1: it takes a while. Yeah, I mean, and things like that.
Speaker 1: I think is linked to just you know, we're busy
Speaker 1: and sort of running around and we have a lot
Speaker 1: going on, and you know, we want to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: We want to sort of just shut it off, but
Speaker 1: our body doesn't work that way. We have to sort
Speaker 1: of like let go of the day and sort of
Speaker 1: just you know, relax and fall away, and we get
Speaker 1: very aggressive about our sleep, like we want to fall
Speaker 1: asleep right now, and that's just not how the human
Speaker 1: body works. And that's why things like you know, meditation
Speaker 1: and body scans and things like that before bed are
Speaker 1: so helpful because it literally just sort of like brings
Speaker 1: your body down like a you know, very slowly and
Speaker 1: allows you to just really slowly fall asleep. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: just just fall asleep. So doctor, you have a very
Speaker 1: soothing voice. So can we back up a second and
Speaker 1: let's talk about your path into functional message before we
Speaker 1: get into what is functional message, I want to back
Speaker 1: up a second. Now, you did you complete a residency
Speaker 1: in internal medicine in New York City. I mean you're
Speaker 1: a real doctor. Yeah, yes, you're for real. I mean
Speaker 1: you were not completely satisfied. Is that fair to say
Speaker 1: that with the modern day medical approaches? While you were
Speaker 1: completing that, did you releas you notice it? Yeah? You know.
Speaker 1: I think residency, of course is hard for any doctor
Speaker 1: going through. It's a tough time. And I think then
Speaker 1: I just really was on I had blinders on, and
Speaker 1: I was just trying to make it through the day
Speaker 1: and it was hard. It was tough, but it was
Speaker 1: it was fulfilling. I think it wasn't until after I
Speaker 1: completed my residency and my fellowship and I was working.
Speaker 1: I was actually an allergist immunologist. That was my fellow ship,
Speaker 1: and it was probably about a few years into that
Speaker 1: that I realized that A I wasn't really learning, I
Speaker 1: wasn't learning continuing to learn, and I also was not
Speaker 1: really using a lot of what I sort of learned
Speaker 1: in medical school. And I also started to see that
Speaker 1: I wasn't really changing the health outcomes of the people
Speaker 1: I worked with. I mean, it was sort of a
Speaker 1: revolving door of giving people medication and putting a band
Speaker 1: aid on some of the problems that they had, and
Speaker 1: they would just come back and see me again, and
Speaker 1: you know, it just started to get very stagnant, and
Speaker 1: you know, not what I sort of had expected. So
Speaker 1: I think that was part of it. And then also
Speaker 1: there's the whole you know, how we run medicine these days,
Speaker 1: and the fact that you have to see so many
Speaker 1: people in an hour and there's so much paperwork and
Speaker 1: insurance overhead that you know, it sort of starts to
Speaker 1: suck the life out of you. Yeah, you know, well
Speaker 1: not personally, I don't you know, personally never went through that,
Speaker 1: but I that training, But yeah, I could. I totally
Speaker 1: could believe it because you practice eleven years. I did, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did. And you noticed that a lot of your
Speaker 1: patients were coming in with multiple medical problems and long
Speaker 1: list of prescription drugs, And did you feel like there
Speaker 1: was an opportunity there to be more as opposed to reactive,
Speaker 1: to be more you know, preemptive. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: I always felt that way. I mean sort of my
Speaker 1: own personal interests were always about preventive medicine and nutrition.
Speaker 1: It was I would go home and read about it.
Speaker 1: As you know, very much interested in it, but I
Speaker 1: just never really brought it into my professional life. And
Speaker 1: so I started going to conferences while I was still working.
Speaker 1: I went to some integrated medicine conferences and heard some
Speaker 1: great speakers who are now, you know, very big in
Speaker 1: the field, like Mark Hyman and David Peerlmutter yeah and yeah,
Speaker 1: wonderful neurologist. And you know, when I first heard them speak,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my god, well this is what I believe,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to be doing. And then
Speaker 1: I just sort of had to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get there. And you know, so it took quite a
Speaker 1: few years of you know, sort of behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: going back to school and doing an integrative medicine fellowship
Speaker 1: on the side, and you know, but little by little,
Speaker 1: I just got all of my training and I wasn't
Speaker 1: really quite sure what I was going to do with it.
Speaker 1: At first, I thought maybe I could integrate it into
Speaker 1: what I was doing at the time, But the more
Speaker 1: and more I realized was you know, not only did
Speaker 1: I not want to be just an allergist, I wanted
Speaker 1: to go back and really look at the whole breath
Speaker 1: of medicine. But I couldn't really do the type of
Speaker 1: medicine I wanted to in the practice I was in,
Speaker 1: so I had to lead, which was great. It was fine,
Speaker 1: it worked out wonderfully, but it took a long time,
Speaker 1: and then it was scary because I didn't really know
Speaker 1: what I was doing, you know, I just sort of
Speaker 1: took the plunge and did it. But yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1: I'll appreciative you took the plunge. I should tell people
Speaker 1: that doctor Manet is my functional medicine doctor and has
Speaker 1: saved my life. So what is functional medicine? And the
Speaker 1: follow up to that is, I want to know, is
Speaker 1: there like a gold standard sort of training program for
Speaker 1: fincial mess Is there like a standardized like there is
Speaker 1: for you know other story. Yeah, so I answer to
Speaker 1: you know those questions. So functional medicine, you know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really have like one definition, but I guess some
Speaker 1: people call it upstream medicine or basically the medicine that
Speaker 1: looks for the cause of diseases rather than just treating
Speaker 1: the symptoms. So it also does that in a very
Speaker 1: you know, three hundred and sixty degree sort of holistic view.
Speaker 1: It's very individualized. We look at a lot of in
Speaker 1: depth biochemical testing. So it's very much about the person
Speaker 1: and their experiences and their background and their exposures, their
Speaker 1: environment and their genetics. So I guess it's individualized. And
Speaker 1: also we are trying to figure out why people are sick,
Speaker 1: like what has caused, what has been in their life,
Speaker 1: or what have they been exposed to that maybe has
Speaker 1: affected their genes in a certain way that has then
Speaker 1: expressed whatever their symptom is, whether it's you know, an
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease or depression or you know, arthritis, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And then working with behavior changes and of course food
Speaker 1: nutrition and really trying to get things back into balance.
Speaker 1: You know. Are as a functional medicine doctors, we're trying
Speaker 1: to not only prevent disease, but really try and reverse
Speaker 1: or at least mitigate, you know, some of the symptoms
Speaker 1: that people have. It's a wonderful I think it's really
Speaker 1: sort of the medicine of the future. I mean, it
Speaker 1: can be applied to so many different it can really
Speaker 1: be applied to everyone, whether you're a relatively healthy person
Speaker 1: or someone who's chronically ill. So that is sort of
Speaker 1: my definition of functional medicine. It's not very succinct and
Speaker 1: to answer the second part of your question is there
Speaker 1: are some training programs. Functional medicine is not recognized per
Speaker 1: se by any boards, sort of like you know, internal
Speaker 1: medicine is or surgery or whatever, and it was sort
Speaker 1: of I guess it was created. I would say, I
Speaker 1: don't know, twenty twenty five years ago. People started studying it.
Speaker 1: It didn't really have a name at the time. But
Speaker 1: over the years it's evolved and there are some organizations
Speaker 1: that have training programs and the one that's sort of
Speaker 1: the most well known is the Institute for Functional Medicine,
Speaker 1: and that's the one that's headed up by Mark Hyman.
Speaker 1: It's also the institute that has opened up a huge
Speaker 1: center at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's really getting a lot of attention because of really
Speaker 1: the effectiveness of it. But their certification program you have
Speaker 1: to finish seven different training modules and then you have
Speaker 1: to do a case study and then do a test
Speaker 1: you have to be certified. But this is something that's
Speaker 1: just coming about. It's only a few years old, and
Speaker 1: so there's many practitioners out there that maybe have been
Speaker 1: practicing for years and don't quite have that certification yet,
Speaker 1: so you have to really sort of look around and
Speaker 1: vet your practitioner a little bit and find out what
Speaker 1: other trainings have they done. I've done a couple of
Speaker 1: different training programs, so I'm sort of a mishmash of things.
Speaker 1: But I think over the years we'll see that it
Speaker 1: does reach a more standardized process. What are the prerequists?
Speaker 1: Do you have to be a medical doctor to go
Speaker 1: into functional medicine? You actually don't. So what's interesting is
Speaker 1: you'll could be a functional medicine doctor with a with
Speaker 1: a PhD and psychology. You actually could, I think, so
Speaker 1: you can be what they call a functional medicine practitioner.
Speaker 1: And there are people there are nutritionists that are functional
Speaker 1: medicine practitioners, there's acupuncturists. So in some people study it
Speaker 1: and you know, they just sort of use part of
Speaker 1: it in their career. You know, obviously you're limited by
Speaker 1: your licensure and what you can do as an MD.
Speaker 1: I can you know, write prescriptions and order labs and things.
Speaker 1: A nutritionist obviously can't do all of those things, but
Speaker 1: they can still help people tremendously with sort of an
Speaker 1: and a functional a medicine approach. To diet, et cetera. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really something that's open to a lot of different backgrounds,
Speaker 1: and you know, you have to understand a lot of
Speaker 1: the biochemistry, which is sometimes a struggle for people, but
Speaker 1: it does lend itself to a lot of different areas. Fascinating. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's get into some of the juicy stuff about
Speaker 1: the kinds of topics that you cover in your practice.
Speaker 1: One big one which I know you're an expert on,
Speaker 1: is gut health. And this is very hot top I mean,
Speaker 1: I have more advertisements in my Facebook feed it just
Speaker 1: because I clicked once, you know, on something regarding gut health.
Speaker 1: Now I get this doctor and that doctor constantly, every
Speaker 1: in my face every day. Now, Look, it's hard to
Speaker 1: sort out what is the good information from the because
Speaker 1: there's just so much information calling at me. Can you
Speaker 1: set the listeners straight a little bit, give them some
Speaker 1: tips on the connection between gut health and cognition and
Speaker 1: mood and stuff like that. Yeah, I mean, so, you know,
Speaker 1: and this is probably something that we've known about for
Speaker 1: a long time. I think that there was a doctor
Speaker 1: I think's Russian. I think it was Menshakov back in
Speaker 1: the I think a ballet dancer, right exactly. I'm probably
Speaker 1: totally butchering his name, but he actually said something, and
Speaker 1: I think David Pearlmetter says this in his book, that
Speaker 1: death begins in the colon and this is back in
Speaker 1: like the eighteen hundreds, and even Hippocrates had, you know,
Speaker 1: said something back in the fourth century that you know, basically,
Speaker 1: health begins in the guts. This is something it's not
Speaker 1: like a new concept, but there's just realms and realms
Speaker 1: of data over the past you know, few years relating
Speaker 1: the health of the digestive system to just about every
Speaker 1: chronic medical problem. And it's starting to be recognized by
Speaker 1: you know, the more the general public. And you know,
Speaker 1: of course, modern conventional medicine that I the world I
Speaker 1: grew up in is always about twenty five years behind
Speaker 1: research because unfortunately there's not a lot of thinking outside
Speaker 1: of the box these days. But you know, this is
Speaker 1: something that we're going to keep seeing. And what we
Speaker 1: know is that, you know, our digestive tract is not
Speaker 1: just a place where food goes in and food comes out. Literally,
Speaker 1: it's an endocrine organ So we make hormones there, we
Speaker 1: make neurotransmitters of course that affect our brain health and
Speaker 1: brain chemistry and mood. And it's also where a lot
Speaker 1: of our immune system lies. In this area they called
Speaker 1: the gut associated LIMPOI two and that's only about one
Speaker 1: cell layer from our digestive tracts. And so you've got
Speaker 1: all these immune cells that react to whether it's food, infection, toxins,
Speaker 1: everything that's going through there having immune responses causing inflammation
Speaker 1: which then set off you know, sort of problems throughout
Speaker 1: the body. So there's linkages of course to autoimmune disease, cognition,
Speaker 1: as you said, neurologic issues like Alzheimer's, MS, Parkinson's, and
Speaker 1: definitely anxiety and depression as well. So it's immensely fascinating,
Speaker 1: and you know, I would say in terms of finding
Speaker 1: good information for people that are interested, I think obviously
Speaker 1: the Institute for Functional Medicine is a great place to start,
Speaker 1: you know, if people are interested. Of course, lots of
Speaker 1: different resources that they have to sort of respected physicians,
Speaker 1: but you know, you can also people are really interested,
Speaker 1: they can do PubMed searches and you can find a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, articles that are being written in
Speaker 1: sort of major medical journals that are now starting to
Speaker 1: talk about this. So, yeah, it is sometimes hard to navigate,
Speaker 1: you know, what is real and what is not. So
Speaker 1: you know, I always tell people try to stick to
Speaker 1: one or two specialists, and I would say that those
Speaker 1: you know, definitely IFM is a good place to start,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, there are so many people, these
Speaker 1: doctors I'm playing, doctors and quotes who market constantly, relentless
Speaker 1: marketing of their five step plan or their six step
Speaker 1: How come you haven't come up with like I said,
Speaker 1: you could easily write you you actually know that, like
Speaker 1: you could easily start be like doctor Witte is five
Speaker 1: step right, Yeah, why have you not done that yet? Well,
Speaker 1: part of it is that's just not my thing, but
Speaker 1: your style, it's not my style. But also you have
Speaker 1: to realize that the five R program that is not
Speaker 1: something that these people meet up. That's something that's taught
Speaker 1: to all functional medicine practitioners. You know the idea of
Speaker 1: remove and replace and repair and so let's give it
Speaker 1: away for free to tell us. It's also things that
Speaker 1: you would recommend people do well. So the five RS
Speaker 1: of gut repair basically, this is what functional medicindox exciting. Okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. The first of course is removed, and
Speaker 1: that means remove things that are bad that you know,
Speaker 1: So those would be things like infections, you know, viruses, fungus.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are things that we look for when
Speaker 1: we do stool tests. A lot of people have inflammation,
Speaker 1: but also remove inflammatory foods and also remove say you've
Speaker 1: got an analogy, say like hey, wheat, right, gluten, So
Speaker 1: removal of those things that are problematic. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say these in order, but this is the
Speaker 1: way I do it. Secondly is repair. I mean this
Speaker 1: is where a lot of people get tripped up because
Speaker 1: they do the removal and then they feel a little
Speaker 1: bit better, but then you know, they don't really get better.
Speaker 1: So you have to get in there and you really
Speaker 1: have to repair the GI system with certain botanicals and
Speaker 1: some nutrition and nutraceuticals and things like that that can
Speaker 1: be very helpful in you know, getting that process going.
Speaker 1: The third would be too, and we call restore. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times people they're digestquestion gets so thrown
Speaker 1: off that they need maybe extra enzymes, they need things
Speaker 1: to help them with their digestion, maybe some help with
Speaker 1: production of hydrochloric acid and things like that. So adding
Speaker 1: those in for a few months or even longer can
Speaker 1: sometimes be really helpful, just getting people to digest their
Speaker 1: food again. So then we see that's three. That would
Speaker 1: be then the fourth would be reinoculate. Some people say, so,
Speaker 1: this basically comes down to the microbiome. You know, that's
Speaker 1: the living you know, one hundred trillion organisms that we
Speaker 1: have in our body, but specifically the microbes in our
Speaker 1: gut that do everything from help us absorb food and
Speaker 1: make vitamins, but also really you know, direct a lot
Speaker 1: of different processes, and so making sure that that's balanced,
Speaker 1: using probiotics, using fermented foods, things like that to get
Speaker 1: that back on track. And then the last one, which
Speaker 1: is hard for a lot of people, and that is
Speaker 1: really to rebalance. And you know, so, and this is
Speaker 1: something I struggle with with a lot of my clients,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, we get sick for a reason.
Speaker 1: We get sick because we live stressed out lives. We
Speaker 1: sometimes don't eat the best food, We've been exposed to
Speaker 1: different things. But in order to restore things and rebalance,
Speaker 1: we have to sleep right, we have to exercise moderately,
Speaker 1: we have to destress because you know, cortisol and all
Speaker 1: those hormones can damage our immune system and damage our gut.
Speaker 1: So it's not just enough to eat the right things
Speaker 1: and take some probiotics. You have to work really hard
Speaker 1: at managing stress and rebalancing your life because that's something
Speaker 1: that will sort of carry you through. But that's the
Speaker 1: hardest thing for most people to do. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for going through that. It was very generous of you. Sure. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So it's a whole process, and anyone could probably benefit
Speaker 1: from it, from some of this stuff, even if they
Speaker 1: aren't suffering yet. Right. Oh yeah, And I mean I
Speaker 1: think that's true. A lot of people think, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't need to you know, I don't need to go
Speaker 1: to a functional medicine practitioner. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of the people who come to work
Speaker 1: with me are really just trying to do damage control.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make sure that, you know, when they're
Speaker 1: seventy five eighty years old, that they have a sharp
Speaker 1: mind and they feel good, and you know, they know
Speaker 1: what the risk factors are for different diseases, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to prevent, you know, chronic problems because we all
Speaker 1: know that wouldn't it be better if you could prevent
Speaker 1: disease rather than become sick and then be trying to backpedal.
Speaker 1: So there obviously conflicting opinions on that, and I very
Speaker 1: much'll you know, I like data and I want to
Speaker 1: prevent as long term as I can. But I see
Speaker 1: my I'm going to put mainstream in quotes. You know,
Speaker 1: doctors and they are very very skeptical of functional medicine,
Speaker 1: and they're skeptical of that approach. Like they'll say like, no,
Speaker 1: you don't need that test. You don't need that test.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, okay, yeah, I don't need it. Now.
Speaker 1: I constantly I'm getting you don't need that. You know,
Speaker 1: I won't order it for you. You You know, like there's
Speaker 1: no but it's it's a different approach. It's it really
Speaker 1: is a differ approach. It's one that I excites me
Speaker 1: more because, like I said, I'm a scientist. I you know,
Speaker 1: I'm curious. I'm ravenously curious. Maybe there are different like
Speaker 1: personality traits that are attracted the different to a functional medicine.
Speaker 1: I don't know, defficult I think also, you know, I
Speaker 1: think part of it's the training after having gone through
Speaker 1: sort of conventional medicine MD training. You definitely are trained
Speaker 1: sort of with blinders on. They don't really teach you
Speaker 1: so much to think creatively anymore, which I think is
Speaker 1: terribly unfortunate. In medicine. Doctors should be creative. I mean,
Speaker 1: some of the best, the best discoveries came out of people,
Speaker 1: you know, being creative and thinking outside the box. And
Speaker 1: you know, we would never have penicillin or you know,
Speaker 1: some of the things that you know, some of the
Speaker 1: things that people have created over the years if we
Speaker 1: weren't doing things that were a little bit off the cuffs.
Speaker 1: So you know, I think that's unfortunate to be thinking
Speaker 1: that way. But I also think that, you know, the
Speaker 1: human body is the most powerful anecdote to just about
Speaker 1: anything that we have, and I think that we have
Speaker 1: forgotten how incredibly self healing we can be, and if
Speaker 1: we can just harness that, it's so so powerful, and
Speaker 1: instead we look to suppressing things with other drugs which
Speaker 1: give us side effects, and we forget that we have
Speaker 1: an amazing arsenal of things in our body that we
Speaker 1: can use to our benefit. So, you know, I disagree
Speaker 1: obviously wholeheartedly with right A conventional approach. And it's not
Speaker 1: that I'm anti medication. I think it can be extremely
Speaker 1: helpful and you know, wonderful and if it's used judiciously.
Speaker 1: But also the most important thing is to try to
Speaker 1: support everybody's own amazing ability to be healthy instead of
Speaker 1: focusing on, well, let's just wait until you get sick
Speaker 1: and then, you know, put you on ten medications. I
Speaker 1: don't really think that's what anybody ever intended medicine to be.
Speaker 1: I think if you looked back at the great you
Speaker 1: know thinkers in medicine, you know, they would never think
Speaker 1: that would be the future, you know, of medicine. And
Speaker 1: it's a really great point. It's a really great point.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a different approach. And there are probably plenty
Speaker 1: of doctors practicing in prior practice that not probably there
Speaker 1: are increasingly a number of them that are now coincorporating
Speaker 1: functional medicine into their interness practice right or into their
Speaker 1: own you know, family doctors who are taking this on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the thing is people have this idea, you know,
Speaker 1: they like to call some doctors quacks, and you know,
Speaker 1: I always like to say this goes way back, right,
Speaker 1: it does, and you know, or like you know, snake
Speaker 1: oil or whatever. You know, nothing that I do, or
Speaker 1: I think that functional medicine doctors do, I think is
Speaker 1: quackery or snake oil. In fact, I think I had
Speaker 1: to go back and relearn science and medicine when I
Speaker 1: started along this route, because you know, I now I
Speaker 1: look at all these biochemical tests, and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: what's going on in the cells of people and genetics
Speaker 1: and hormone pathways, and you know, these were things I
Speaker 1: went I wasn't even looking at these before. And most
Speaker 1: of the treatments that we give are natural, you know,
Speaker 1: working on diet, working on behavior change, working on stress reduction,
Speaker 1: working on nutrition, and maybe giving people supplements and things
Speaker 1: to get them back to where they should be. But
Speaker 1: it's not all about you know, throwing people on umbilion supplements,
Speaker 1: just like it's not a lot about putting people on medication.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I think that you know, maybe there
Speaker 1: are some crazy there are some other practitioners out there
Speaker 1: that are doing some wacky things. I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that those people don't exist, but unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, functional medicine gets thrown under the bus,
Speaker 1: and it's not the case at all. Yeah, thanks for
Speaker 1: clarifying that. Another thing that I think a lot of
Speaker 1: medical doctors are skeptical about are supplements. That's another you know,
Speaker 1: that's another one that I get whenever they're all telling
Speaker 1: me you get off supplements that they're not regulated by
Speaker 1: the FDA. Now, this is what I hear. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little about your own personal view and supplements
Speaker 1: and your experience with your patients and how they may
Speaker 1: it may have helped. Sure. Yeah, Well, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of issues with supplements. Well, the first there's
Speaker 1: the idea that you don't need them, with which unfortunately
Speaker 1: I do a lot of I do a lot of
Speaker 1: looking at what people's you know, sort of micro nutrient
Speaker 1: or what we call, you know, vitamin and mineral levels
Speaker 1: are and some people are just woefully low. And if
Speaker 1: you've got nutrient efficiencies, you're going to have problems because
Speaker 1: we know, you know, of course, everything from vitamin D,
Speaker 1: vitamin C, I mean, these are all things that we
Speaker 1: use every day in biochemical processes in our body. So
Speaker 1: if you're lacking in some of these areas, you're going
Speaker 1: to have symptoms and problems. And one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why that is is, you know, most people have the
Speaker 1: so called standard American diet devoid of a lot of
Speaker 1: different nutrients. People certainly don't eat enough you know, vegetables,
Speaker 1: They don't get enough of these things, enough antioxidants. But
Speaker 1: also we live a much more stressful lifestyle, right, Like
Speaker 1: we're using a lot of this stuff up. We use
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of micro nutrients for putting out fires,
Speaker 1: you know, for inflammation, for our immune system to work correct.
Speaker 1: So we may also be over using what we're able
Speaker 1: to get in through our food. And then there's the
Speaker 1: other problem with the you know, issues with our food system,
Speaker 1: which is a whole other story. But you know, obviously
Speaker 1: our soil is not as nutrient rich as it used
Speaker 1: to be. A lot of our food comes from miles
Speaker 1: and miles away, it gets irradiated, it's been sitting on
Speaker 1: the shelf for the while, so you know, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's so difficult to have like a perfect diet, and
Speaker 1: most people don't. That being said, I do agree that
Speaker 1: the supplement industry, of course, it is a unregulated industry.
Speaker 1: I mean it's not regulated i would say, by the FDA.
Speaker 1: So and there are problems with a lot of supplements
Speaker 1: out there, because it's really on the company to prove
Speaker 1: that their supplement is good, that it contains what it contains,
Speaker 1: and so really you have to again vet the supplement company.
Speaker 1: I am very particular with the ones that I use.
Speaker 1: I only use companies that have third major third party oversight.
Speaker 1: They actually police themselves, they have you know, extremely high
Speaker 1: quality control. One of the companies I use actually puts
Speaker 1: cerial numbers on every single one of the bottles that
Speaker 1: they put out. They're all free of any you know,
Speaker 1: gluten soy fillers, you know, and so naturally they're going
Speaker 1: to be more expensive. So you think about the zymogen, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I use zymegen products. I use other products too,
Speaker 1: but that company in particular has been relentless in making
Speaker 1: sure that it has a pure product. But there are
Speaker 1: some other great companies as well that I like, and
Speaker 1: also you know, they have excellent oversight. I do tell
Speaker 1: people one thing they can, you know, if they're in
Speaker 1: the grocery store, you can look for a stamp that
Speaker 1: says GMP, which just stands for good Manufacturing Process. And
Speaker 1: that's sort of a one way to know, you know,
Speaker 1: do they have some third party oversight, so you definitely
Speaker 1: have to be a little careful, and as much as
Speaker 1: you can, you should try to buy directly from the manufacturer,
Speaker 1: not through a third party, because there is quite a
Speaker 1: bit of relabeling of different supplements, and so you have
Speaker 1: to be definitely careful, and in the end you get
Speaker 1: what you pay for, because if the raw material is good,
Speaker 1: it's going to be slightly more expensive. Yeah. So it's
Speaker 1: a good point. Are there like five particulo or somethings
Speaker 1: that you think are like the most essential to live
Speaker 1: a healthy life if you're on a desert island and
Speaker 1: you can only pick it. Yeah, you know, I think
Speaker 1: about this a lot. Actually you do, I actually do.
Speaker 1: I would say, well, there's a couple of things that
Speaker 1: I would say that I put a lot of people
Speaker 1: on because it tends to be devoid either devoid in
Speaker 1: their diet or it is very very important for health.
Speaker 1: Try to get one right off the batom. I try
Speaker 1: to guess then, Okay, so this is five, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I know that for three for sure, So yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead, No, let me try to guess one. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's see if I get right. I'm only going to
Speaker 1: do one. Vitamin D yeah, very good, goody okay. So
Speaker 1: vitamin D three yeah is you know, unfortunately, we don't
Speaker 1: spend much time outside anymore, especially if you live in
Speaker 1: this part of the of the world, basically above the equator.
Speaker 1: You know, our absorption of ultraviolet light is in the
Speaker 1: winter is almost negligent. So in vitamin D is something
Speaker 1: that we create in our bodies. It's technically a hormone.
Speaker 1: So unless you're drinking or eating fortified vitamin D foods,
Speaker 1: which many people don't anymore, you know, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't tolerate milk and other dairy products, we
Speaker 1: don't get a lot of vitamin D, and we see
Speaker 1: rampant that people are just severely deficient. And it's so
Speaker 1: important for immunity and mood and of course bone strength
Speaker 1: and health. So vitamin D is the big one, I
Speaker 1: would say. The other one I really push is fish oil.
Speaker 1: And the reason is is that it's almost impossible to
Speaker 1: get the omega three fatty acids in your diet if
Speaker 1: you don't take it. People just don't eat enough fish
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons. But it's so important for inflammation and
Speaker 1: heart health and brain health. So I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of omega three fatty acids, and then the other is
Speaker 1: probably a probiotic. And the reason, of course, is because
Speaker 1: many of us have had lots of steroids in the
Speaker 1: past or antibiotics that have really affected our gut health
Speaker 1: of course, things like vaccines or other medications, and we
Speaker 1: don't really ferment our food anymore, so we're not getting
Speaker 1: this beneficial sort of bacteria, the Lactobacillus and Biffidobacterium. You know,
Speaker 1: there's lower rates of breastfeeding, lower rates of vaginal births now,
Speaker 1: so we aren't really even starting out life with a
Speaker 1: lot of great, good gut bacteria. So I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of people just having a good quality probiotic. So
Speaker 1: that's three. Those are like my top three. These are good.
Speaker 1: These are good. Let's think one other ones that see
Speaker 1: vitamin C. What you think of MC is that kind
Speaker 1: of like it's nice, but it's like, yeah, so vitamin
Speaker 1: C is great. I think you can get by without
Speaker 1: it as long as you're fairly healthy, and as long
Speaker 1: as you're eating plenty of vitamin C containing food, it's
Speaker 1: fairly easy to get that. As long as you're eating
Speaker 1: lots of fruits and vegetables you know, of course, like
Speaker 1: red pepper, strawberries, kiwis. You can look at the list
Speaker 1: of what you know, basically you get vitamin C in
Speaker 1: and then quite you'll see quite a bit. So I
Speaker 1: would have to say the thing. I will say what
Speaker 1: I am seeing More and more are problems with B vitamins,
Speaker 1: and so I do often advocate people taking a B complex,
Speaker 1: and I think part of it is because again we
Speaker 1: use B vitamins and detoxification. We use it in chronic stress.
Speaker 1: We would just blow through our B vitamins, and if
Speaker 1: you're exposed to any toxins like if you drink alcohol,
Speaker 1: or if you're exposed to any chemicals and food, we
Speaker 1: tend to get low. And so when I do a
Speaker 1: lot of my nutrient testing, I see a ton of
Speaker 1: B vitamin deficiencies. So that's a good thing I think
Speaker 1: to have in your arsenal. You may not need to
Speaker 1: take it every day. There are some people who do
Speaker 1: need extra B vitamins for different genetic issues, but so
Speaker 1: those I think are all pretty important. So that was
Speaker 1: that three? Technically five because you added vitamin C in.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, oh wait, I'm sorry, Okay, what was what
Speaker 1: I'm only thinking for. It's the B vitamins, the D,
Speaker 1: the fish oil, the G yeah, the probiotic, oh, the
Speaker 1: probiotic yes, in the BA yes, okay, what about Okay?
Speaker 1: It was something really hot right now? Is ubiquinol? Ubiquenol?
Speaker 1: Now would you put that as like in the top ten? Well,
Speaker 1: I would put it in the top ten, especially as
Speaker 1: we get older. Okay, So we create ubiquenol or what
Speaker 1: you know, it is more commonly known as co q ten.
Speaker 1: Ubiquenol is actually a slightly different version, more highly absorbable.
Speaker 1: But for people to understand what co q ten is, basically,
Speaker 1: we create it, but we use it every time our
Speaker 1: cell makes energy, which is all the time, right, So
Speaker 1: when we're making energy in our cells, it's sort of
Speaker 1: like a furnace that also creates a lot of free
Speaker 1: radicals along with making the energy. But those free radicals
Speaker 1: can go back and actually damage our own cells. So
Speaker 1: we need things to dampen that issue, and those are
Speaker 1: the antioxidants. Those are C and E. But co q
Speaker 1: ten is very particular in that it dampens this free
Speaker 1: radical damage. It's particularly important for people who have heart problems,
Speaker 1: any brain issues or any chronic fatigue because those you know,
Speaker 1: little cells or I mean batteries inside our cells, which
Speaker 1: are called mitochondria, are most richly found in our heart,
Speaker 1: our brain, and our skeletal muscles. So you know, I
Speaker 1: use co q ten quite a bit. The other thing
Speaker 1: is on a lot of medications deplete it, the most
Speaker 1: common being the statin drugs or the cholesterol drugs. So
Speaker 1: statan drugs actually compete for coq ten. And so if
Speaker 1: people take a statin, I say, everyone on a stat
Speaker 1: and should be on coq ten. And I don't own
Speaker 1: any stock in co q ten companies, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's like I think it's a quarter of the United
Speaker 1: States takes a statin. So this is a big issue
Speaker 1: because once you deplete that co q ten, you can
Speaker 1: start having fatigue, you can have damage to the cells,
Speaker 1: and people can get muscle pain, et cetera. So it
Speaker 1: is a pretty important thing to have on hand. Cool
Speaker 1: and new bicconol is better than just co col ten.
Speaker 1: It is it is. It's just a more it's a
Speaker 1: highly absorbable form. So, well, I've learned a lot from you, obviously, Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: Well I've learned a lot from you. So, so you know,
Speaker 1: another thing you really do in your practice is detox
Speaker 1: You know a lot about detox and do you'd recommend
Speaker 1: any particular supplements or things programs to kind of maybe
Speaker 1: even like every day if you want to make sure
Speaker 1: that your liver is goodification milk fist or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's you know, the thing about detoxification that people
Speaker 1: don't really understand is that it's not a it's not
Speaker 1: something we just sort of do occasionally. It's something that
Speaker 1: we're constantly, you know, doing twenty four to seven. I mean,
Speaker 1: everything that comes through our body, including the things that
Speaker 1: we make, you know, like our own hormones, including things
Speaker 1: that we're getting rid of, like you know, old blood cells,
Speaker 1: or if we're you know, we're constantly killing parasites and
Speaker 1: viruses and bacteria. You know, all of these things are
Speaker 1: considered waste to our body. And then of course there's
Speaker 1: all the toxins that we breathe and eat and drink,
Speaker 1: and you know, over time that can be a huge
Speaker 1: burden on our detoxification organs, which of course include our liver,
Speaker 1: gallbladder if you have one, your gut, kidneys. So really
Speaker 1: there are multiple steps in detoxification way too complicated to
Speaker 1: get into, but there's certain things that are sort of
Speaker 1: crucial to happen, and if you're low in certain nutrients,
Speaker 1: you're going to have a harder time. So just generally, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know you want to cut down on toxins, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's detoxing itself, right, But there's several things
Speaker 1: that are really important. One is cruciferous vegetables. So you know,
Speaker 1: through diet we use a lot of sulfur actually as
Speaker 1: part of the detox process. It creates some of the
Speaker 1: most important things we need, and so you know, things
Speaker 1: like broccoli and things like cabbage and all those sorts
Speaker 1: of things really really really important. Kale, it's really amazing.
Speaker 1: These are so so so important for detoxification. So that's
Speaker 1: why you'll see a lot of times those will be
Speaker 1: in products or people will make these shakes with green
Speaker 1: you know, all these green vegetables in there. So that's
Speaker 1: one thing you can get from nature. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing there's again these are related to sulfur, but
Speaker 1: there it's something called glue to thione, which is a
Speaker 1: it's sort of the major antioxidant detoxifying chemical and it's
Speaker 1: made up of a sulfur molecule which we often call
Speaker 1: it is called cysteine. So you can take glutathione. You
Speaker 1: can also take an acetyl cysteine or knack is what
Speaker 1: we call it, to help, you know, sort of help
Speaker 1: our body regenerate that glue to thione so that we
Speaker 1: have enough we don't run out of it. Now, you
Speaker 1: mentioned milk thistle, which it's also called silly marin, which
Speaker 1: is the botanical name. And you know, obviously this is
Speaker 1: a very safe thing to use. It's been around forever.
Speaker 1: But that particularly is a liver protectant and so you
Speaker 1: can take that on a daily basis and there's absolutely
Speaker 1: no harm to doing that. And that's also very helpful,
Speaker 1: especially if you tend to to you know, drink any alcohol,
Speaker 1: take anything like tail and all, if you you know,
Speaker 1: or if you're exposed to a lot of toxins. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things you can do there, and
Speaker 1: of course the B vitamins are crucial as well, you know,
Speaker 1: so there's lots of things you can do with detox. Also,
Speaker 1: just making sure that your GI tract is working. You know,
Speaker 1: people are chronically constipated in this country, so if you're
Speaker 1: not moving the waste out, you're not getting the toxins out.
Speaker 1: That's how we get them out. So that's just you know,
Speaker 1: really lots of fiber. Loss of soluble fiber is really
Speaker 1: helpful and it's amazing when people start doing this, they
Speaker 1: feel lighter, their brain feels better because those toxins, when
Speaker 1: they're not being removed from the body, they're just gonna
Speaker 1: either sit in tissue or they're going to recirculate in
Speaker 1: our bloodstream and really start to affect our health. Well,
Speaker 1: that's really really quite interesting. Look, I really thank you
Speaker 1: for talking to me with me today. I think that
Speaker 1: you know, you've really touched on the importance of the
Speaker 1: mind body connection and how these physical aspects really do
Speaker 1: influence our mood, anxiety and things of that nature. And
Speaker 1: I just really appreciate the work you're doing. Well, it's
Speaker 1: been great, Scott, and thanks for giving me the opportunity
Speaker 1: to come on and talk with you anytime. Doctor made
Speaker 1: have a great day you too, Fine out. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to the Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott barrk Kaufman.
Speaker 1: I hope you found this episode just as thought for
Speaker 1: booking and interesting as I did. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: read the show notes for this episode or hear past episodes,
Speaker 1: you can visit the Psychology Podcast dot com