Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1215: Dr. Becky Campbell on Thyroid Disease, Autoimmune Disease & Histamine Intolerance

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

What does a functional medicine doctor do and how do they differ from a traditional doctor? (2:52) What are the most common offenders she sees in her practice? (6:50) The growing problem of (SIBO) small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. What is it? Who does it affect and what can be done to treat it? (8:00) How what you eat has NO effect on your skin. (15:57) What are the ‘toxins’ we are exposed to? (18:17) Testing women’s hormones the RIGHT way. (21:31) What does estrogen dominance produce in terms of symptoms? (22:58) Becky’s ‘Order of Operations’ when it comes to her clients. (24:45) The rise of Thyroid disease and higher cortisol levels. (28:30) What does exercise intolerance look like? (31:54) Veganism and nutrient deficiency. (36:44) Breaking down why we get heartburn and how to treat it. (39:42) Why all diets are NOT created equal for women. (42:31) The symptoms for Histamine Intolerance, the best way to test & MORE. (44:49) How big of a role does your mental state play on your health? (55:15) What does the training look like for a functional medicine doctor? (58:30) Will functional medicine become more regulated? (1:00:27) The signs you are seeing the WRONG doctor. (1:03:30) What are some of the most useful supplements and herbs? (1:05:20) Creatine and functional medicine. (1:08:00) What is on the horizon for functional medicine? (1:09:27) What is most difficult to diagnose? (1:11:09) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Dr. Becky Campbell (@drbeckycampbell)  Instagram Website Christina Rice, NTP (@christinaricewellness)  Instagram Dr. Ben Lynch (@drbenlynch)  Instagram  Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion: MAPS HIIT ½ off! **Code “HIIT50” at checkout** The 4‑Phase Histamine Reset Plan: Getting to the Root of Migraines, Eczema, Vertigo, Allergies and More - Dr. Becky Campbell Use of natural antimicrobials to increase antibiotic susceptibility of drug resistant bacteria. Mind Pump 1212: Seven Ways to Raise Your Testosterone Naturally DUTCH Test – Advanced Hormone Testing NIH study finds heavily processed foods cause overeating and weight gain Visit Four Sigmatic for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout**

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we interview Dr. Becky Campbell. Now, she's a board-certified doctor of natural medicine who is introduced to functional medicine as a patient. That's how she initially got introduced to this. Now she struggled with many of the issues that her patients struggle with today and she's

made it her mission to help patients all around the world with her virtual practice. She's the founder of DrBeckyCambel.com and she just recently authored the book, The Four Fays, Histamine Reset Plan, Phenomenal Book. You should definitely check that out. There's a lot of symptoms with histamine intolerance that a lot of you may be suffering from. Now she specializes in thyroid disease, autoimmune disease, and of course, histamine intolerance.

We had a lot of fun talking to her on this podcast. Now you can find her at doctorbeckycambell.com. Campbell spelled C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L. She can also be found on Instagram at Dr. Becky Campbell. Of course, her book, I just mentioned it. The four phase histamine reset plan, highly, highly recommended. We think you're really gonna enjoy this episode. Also, there's five days left

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That's H-I-I-T50, no space for the discount. Dr. Campbell, it's great to have you on. I heard about you through Christina Rice, who's one of our very, very good friends. Yeah, so I was two. I was asking her for some good functional medicine, doctor recommendations. At the time, Jessica was having some gut issues.

And so I wanted her to, you know, maybe work with someone or whatnot. And you came, recommended very, very highly from Christine. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So I get a lot of questions, actually all of us get questions weekly, very similar ones. And one of the common ones that we get quite a bit,

they revolve around functional medicine, what it is, how it's different from traditional medicine, how they treat people differently. So I'd like to start with a little bit of that. I guess we can start with the basics. What does a functional medicine doctor do, and how are they different from a traditional western medicine doctor? Yeah, that's such a good question. So I think typically people going through the conventional medicine system, you know, they go and let's say they have a gut issue or they're bloated and they have, you know, they're fatigued and they're gaining weight. So what typically happens is they'll

run a very limited blood test panel and everything usually comes out fine and then they start sending them off into pieces, right? So you need to go to the GI doctor, you need to go to, you know, a dermatologist, you need to go, whatever, they don't kind of look at the body as a whole. So with functional medicine, we realize that everything really plays off each other. So we kind of just dig into this other type of testing. We do do a really thorough blood panel and really like looking at the thyroid, just looking at more than TSH,

looking at the whole thyroid panel, which there's like nine markers, more than just one. So that's kind of where we start. And we're looking at things like methylation, we're looking at what is your gut health look like. So we're doing different tests for that. I do a SIBO test, that's a small intestine bacteria overgrowth, and then also looking at a stool test,

which is a large intestine, because you're about 70% of your immune system is in your gut. So if you're having autoimmune issues, or you're having many different, even skin issues, it really pretty much stems from the gut. So we kind of look at that. We look at hormones. We look at, you know, cortisol, which is our stress hormone. And so we really look at things as a whole. We do all different types of testing that that's not typically done at the regular

doctor's office and put all the pieces together. And we realize that that what you're eating plays a very big role in how you're feeling too, because a lot of conventional medicine doctors and not all of them, but a lot of them have no idea about nutrition and what kind of role nutrition plays in their health. And they'll say, gluten doesn't matter if you have a thyroid issue, you can eat it. That's a myth. And it's literally like, no, it's not. It's in studies.

So I think that's kind of the You know, and it's literally like, no, it's not. It's in studies, you know. So I think that's kind of the difference. We're just digging deeper. And we're using different, really like different parameters on what we call a problem versus what a conventional medicine doctor would. So an example is, you know, with a thyroid panel, the thyroid panel in a conventional medical system is very wide, the range.

And with functional medicine, the range is very tight. Oh, you mean like what's considered? This is normal. Yeah, like the number, right? So like your TSH, let's say you go to a conventional medicine doctor and it's a 3.5 or TSH. When we see that as a functional medicine doctor, we're like, there's a problem there. And then we're also have the backup of what is T3 and 4

and the thyroid antibodies look like, right? Well, they're just looking at TSH and they wait till you get to almost a 5 to call it an issue. So it's almost like you go to conventional medicine and you have to have like a screaming disorder for it to be called anything. And if you don't, you're put on, you know, antidepressant medication because it must be all in your head.

Functional medicine. We're looking at things in a tighter range. We're looking more thoroughly. We're working with diet. We're trying to reduce inflammation. We're talking about stress management. All the things that make you feel the way that you feel that you know is not right. And we're really listening to you. Number one, and we're catching things before they become a really big screaming

issue. So what are, what are some of the common offenders that you see? Like what's most common in your product? Like what's most the underlying causes? Yes. Definitely gut health. So I think, I can tell you I've worked with thousands of people and I do a SIBO, which is a small intestine bacteria overgrowth. And then I do the GI map, which is looking at the large intestine for bacteria, yeast, parasites, viruses, that type of stuff. Those are almost always positive. Like almost everybody has SIBO. And you know, SIBO gives you, you know, people with SIBO get diagnosed with IBS. That's like their go-to diagnosis. But it's really because of the bacteria,

it should not be in the small intestine. So that, and then usually, you know, I see Candida, but I think a lot more people think they have Candida than actually really do. Because I see bacteria in the gut, more because I see bacteria in the gut, more like opportunistic bacteria in the gut, more than I do see candida. But those are like the biggest thing and then definitely issues with the sex hormones and the adrenal hormones and basically mostly because of stress.

Now, Dr. Campbell, do you think that the reason why you see so much SIBO is because there's a little bit of a selection bias, right? People are coming to you because they don't feel good. Right. Do you think SIBO is super prevalent in the general population, or just in the population of people who suffer from some of the symptoms?

I think because almost everybody is positive that I test, it's probably the population in general. And I think that people are told they have too much stomach acid positive that I test, it's probably the population in general. And I think that people are told they have too much stomach acid and they're put on these proton pump inhibitors, which is like the worst thing you can do because we need that hydrochloric acid to stop that bacteria from going up into the small intestine.

So so many people have heartburn, which is one of the biggest signs of SIBO, and they're put on proton pump inhibitors. They're reducing that hydrochloric acid even more, and then they're allowing more bacteria up into the small intestine. And so they're taking these medications, whether it's Tom's or something, a prescription, and it's like this vicious cycle of reducing the acid, feeling better temporarily, letting more bacteria in, increasing the splash up of the acid, which does not mean you have too much acid.

And so people are really, they're just misinformed. And I honestly think that the doctors are misinformed. They're just not understanding what's really going on. And they're just leading people down the wrong path. What are some of the other symptoms of SIBO? Bloating, definitely. Bloating after eating is a big sign, especially if you don't do well with carbs. If you eat carbs and you look like you're pregnant and I can tell you, I have some of the

thinnest patients who literally can look like they're six months pregnant after eating certain foods. That's a really big sign that you have SIBO. You know, just a difference between sometimes they are constipated, sometimes they have diarrhea, sometimes they have a mixture of both. That's a really big sign you have SIBO. But even like fatigue, brain fog, getting sick easily because that's, you know, again, your immune system is there. It's such a wide range of symptoms.

You'd be so surprised what symptoms go along with CBO. So what is a treating it look like? What does that protocol look like? It's, you wanna kill it. So here's the thing. So like back in the day of when people first found out about Candida, they starved the carbs completely, right? And I don't follow that method.

I think you need a little bit of carbs because if you don't eat any carbs that bacteria, it feeds on it, right? So it hides. So you're going in with antimicrobial supplements, right? And then you're trying to kill the SIBO and your, the bacteria is kind of hiding. So it makes it harder to get. So you want to eat a little bit of carbs, but just not a lot. You don't want to eat too much to where it's like

the bacteria's growing too much and the antimicrobials aren't working. So it's kind of this balance that you have to find. So they kind of hibernate because you're starting them. Which is dapst to survive. Which means that you take an antimicrobial, doesn't touch it. Exactly, it's like you can't find it.

So you need to eat some carbs, not too many. And then the worst part about SIBO is that unlike bacteria in the large intestine, it can come back. It's like once you have SIBO, you're kind of susceptible to SIBO, but there are ways to kind of manage it. So you kind of like aggressively kill it and then you work on just kind of managing it. And for some people, it never comes back, but for some people it does.

So it depends on the person what I'll kind of do with them. Is this because they never solved the root reason in terms of why they got SIBO in the first place? It's like sometimes people have, you know, people have what's it like the lap band surgery or any surgery where you're going in. It's really easy to susceptible to CBO. And those type of people, you're just always going to be susceptible. But if it's someone who just had like a minor hydrochloric acid issue, you can give them hydrochloric acid, you can get in there with antimicrobials, you can get them to maintain something really important I like to talk to you about, and

there's no one diet for everybody. Some people do well with lower carb long term because they're more susceptible to building up bacteria. And so if they can kind of stand like a moderate to lower carb diet, they can really keep it up A. And then some people are fine. You get in there, you kill it, they can eat high carb again, they're never comes back. It really just depends on the person.

I read an article about SIBO where the author speculated that certain infections or gut issues could cause either temporary or maybe even permanent paralysis of certain parts of the intestines. So you end up not moving food through properly or effectively, which causes the backup or the buildup of bacteria. And those are the people that tend to get the reoccurring the backup or the build of bacteria. And those are the people that tend to get the reoccurring.

It's the trend of time. Yes, exactly. So, and the good thing about the test we do is, so it looks at hydrogen base and methane based. So basically, what happens is you drink a lactolose supplement, it's like a little shot you take. And that feeds the bacteria that's in there if you have it, and that bacteria will spill out either hydrogen or methane gas or both.

So if you have the methane dominant SIBO, you're more likely to have constipation and slow transit time. So that's the people who you see having a harder time getting rid of it. And that's why you have to make sure when you're treating the gut that you're getting your bowel's moving. I mean, and some people, you have to do like multiple things to get it moving, and some people you don't.

So the people who get their bowel's moving the most are the people who are gonna have the most success. Now, is it different when you're treating the different types of bacteria? You said there was methane producing, and then what was the other one? Hydrogen. Hydrogen. Are they different antimicrobials for each one?

So I've noticed that I do an original, like, more in depth antimicrobial protocol with some actually prebiotic sun fiber I use that actually helps, it helps to feed the bacteria so that you can kill it better. And then if there's still an issue, then I'll start using Otrantil, which I really like. And that's a little bit more for methane dominant. And so that's something that you can keep them on longer term, and they can kind of use it as needed. Like if they're feel like you can really tell if you have it. So if you're feeling that you can really tell if you have it. So if you're feeling that you're reacting a lot and you know you'll start using your

Otranteel more and then if you feel like you're really good you just stop. And some people will kind of go through that for months or even years and Otranteel's a supplement that has only three ingredients in it which I like so you can really stay on it pretty long term. I've used it before. Yeah. I had good success with it. Yeah, they're good. They're before. I had good success. Yeah, there's a really good product. In comparison, these natural antimicrobials,

how do they do when you compare them to pharmaceutical antibiotics? Because I know that that's the traditional Western medicine treatment for bacteria is antibiotic. Yes. So, right, Faxmen and Neomycin is typically what people use. And the problem is, as number one insurance doesn't cover it usually, so people end up spending about $1,200 per round.

And they have to do about two to three rounds to even really get to it, and there's about a 40% success rate. So I find that the natural antimicrobials actually work better. And there was a study that showed that. I actually read a study that compared natural antimicrobials to the antibiotics for SIBO. And it was slightly more effective, which I thought was pretty rare. Yeah, it is. Yeah, the thing you brought up about food in Western medicine is, it reminds me of a story

where years ago, I had a family member who had cystic acne, and they were asking, trying to figure out how to solve the problem. And I told them, I said, I'm just a trainer, I've trained people though for a long time, and because I've trained so many people, I've made lots of observations. My expertise is not gut health or skin, but I did notice through my clients anecdotally that That eating certain foods or changes that I did have an effect on their skin I know those things was acne so my cousin went to their dermatologist and said hey my cousin said that what I'm eating Maybe affecting my skin and they're like no no food has no effect on your skin whatsoever

I mean how frustrating is that So frustrating because food is so inflammatory, certain types of foods, and acne is inflammatory, and then certain types of foods affect your gut health and your gut affects your skin. And also one thing I really talk about a lot is the liver. You know, if your liver is congested, think about all the toxins we're breathing in. The stuff we're putting on our skin, our liver can get taxed pretty easily. If your liver is taxed, your body's gonna use your skin to detox.

So that's when you get acne, you get all these other inflammatory skin issues, and then you add inflammatory food to that, you're gonna have a problem. And I can, I work with people with acne all the time, it goes away like that. The second I work on their liver, their gut, and reduce inflammatory foods, their acne is gone.

Now, are there markers that you, because I know there's liver enzymes that we could test. Do those change, is that what you're looking at, or is it more based off of symptoms? So, I think if your liver enzymes are elevated, it's actually like, wow, this is really a problem. Like I get to it before the liver enzymes are elevated most of the time.

Because I think everybody needs liver support. And I'm one of them. Like I take liver support every day because we just were taking in so many toxins with everything we're exposed to. And I want my liver constantly pushing everything out the way that it should be. So I think that it's just really important to support the liver before it even gets to be something you can see on labs.

Now the word toxins has become such a buzz word in the wellness space to the point where it's been parodied by the conventional medicine. They make fun of the fact that, oh, everything's toxins and you need to detoxify and we've seen this in our space, like fat loss detox teas and stuff like that, which we know fitness and health, we know fat loss and we know that that can be bullshit

most of the time. But what do you mean when you refer to toxins and what are you referring to? What are toxins that we're exposed to? I mean chemicals mostly. So like, let's say you're standing behind a bus, the exhaust that comes out of there. And you know, environmental toxins,

let's say you're living in a house and there's mold, putting on products with salates and stuff that's really actually changing what your endocrine system is doing, even touching receipts. I was talking to Ben Lynch the other day and he's like, fail rates are in receipts. So like we're literally exposed to these chemicals all the time and they not only can really congest your liver, but they start to change your hormones, your sex hormones. Well, we just did an episode your hormones, your sex hormones.

Well, we just did an episode actually on how to raise testosterone. And before we did the episode, we were doing some research. And there were articles, and these were by scientists, and there's some study supporting them, talking about how, because I don't know if you're familiar with this, but men's testosterone levels have been dropping pretty consistently for the last four or five decades. Yeah. It's, this is a documented thing. And one of the theories is our exposure

to these what are called Xenoestrogens, found in plastics and whatnot. Yep. Could you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, so it's in plastics. It's in your beauty care, which men use too, like putting on lotion, our skin is our biggest organ.

And so what I'm seeing with men is they're actually, their testosterone is going down their estrogen pathway. So their testosterone is low, and their estrogen is getting higher. So it's, in my opinion, it's because of all the things that they're putting in our products that are really, and in our food, like chemicals in our food. And like I said, you're touching something as simple as a receipt, and it's just getting

into our skin, which is affecting our endocrine system, and it's really changing hormones for men and women. What kind of changes are you seeing in women's hormones? I see women, a lot of women getting either estrogen dominance, which leads to a lot of things with histamine and with thyroid. The estrogen being high causes so many issues. And then also then you have on the other side, PCOS, which is polycystic ovarian syndrome and women are getting really high testosterone. And then they're feeling aggressive,

they're getting hair like men. They're, you know, everything is kind of changing. Their personalities are changing. They're having mood swings and they're gaining weight and they just don't feel like themselves. They don't even feel like feminine anymore. So it can really swing both ways and it just really depends on what's going on in there. How do you test that in women? Because I know that a woman's estrogen will fluctuate throughout the month. It does. Yeah.

And I know if you go to a conventional doctor to get your hormones tested, they just test you. They do. one day, right? Which, and they don't even tell you what day to test. Okay. So is there a different way that you do? There is. Okay. So I really like the Dutch test.

It's from, there's different companies that make it, I really like precision analytics Dutch test and they tell you to do day 19 to 21 of your cycle. So they know where you're supposed to be versus a blood test, which is just snapshot in time. It doesn't matter where you are in your cycle and how can you really tell if you were higher low because your hormones are doing this, right? Throughout your cycle.

So we look at it at the right time and then it's using urine metabolites, which it kind of allows you to look at it more of a like an ongoing thing than just that moment in time because you're taking multiple samples throughout the day. And then it puts it all in a graph for you. And it's like, this is what you were looking at. At this time of the day, this is what you're looking at later. So it's really thorough. And then it also breaks down even further to what pathways your body was using to eliminate this estrogen.

And then you know, was that inflammatory pathway? Was that the normal pathway? So it's really, really thorough and helpful. What does estrogen dominance produce in terms of symptoms? Weight gain, moodiness, sleeplessness. Gosh, so many things. Well, you know, you know, I talk a lot about histamine intolerance and estrogen increases histamine release in the body. So it can definitely give you, you know, a lot of people would be like, I'm itching or I'm,

you know, they'll have all these histamine reactions like right before ovulation or right before their period. And I'm like, that's because that histamine reactions like right before ovulation or right before their period. And I'm like, that's because that's when your estrogen is highest plus you probably already have estrogen dominance. Okay. Yeah. And then even with your thyroid, like estrogen makes your thyroid cells

more visible to the immune system. So if your estrogen is high, your body's gonna attack the thyroid cells more, which is Hashimoto's disease, which is the biggest cause of hypothyroidism. So that's why people with certain disorders do really bad with estrogen dominance. Why would estrogen go up?

Why would a woman develop estrogen? It's the same as estrogen. It's like, yeah, from the products we're using, and that's why I talk about makeup and Christina does, and we all kinda talk about makeup a lot because it really actually matters. And it matters just as much as what you're putting in your mouth, it matters what you're putting on your skin

because you are literally changing your sex hormone levels with what you're putting on your skin. Is it regulated differently than food? Made it a makeup? I don't know. That's a good question, but the way that food's regulated, I mean, I don't know. It's not great. It's not great either way, it's so.

But I know that they have different like regulating standards for things like feminine hygiene products, which you wouldn't get away with food, but you know, something you put inside your body, for example, like a tampon, gets regulated more, like I believe like a textile product. Okay. I imagine there's so much to look at with a client.

Do you have like an order of operation that you go down like the list like, okay, let's check all these boxes first because I would imagine throwing them all that at once would be just like overwhelming and who's actually going to actually follow through this. So do you have like an order of operation? So I have to say that I have the most compliant patients in the world and I think it's my personality type like I'm a no bullshit type of person And I'm just very real. I'm like let's not do like a baby piece of the puzzle and then a month later we'll try something else. I start first by taking a really detailed history and

I have them fill out all these forms where I can kind of see what's going on and then I just keep a real with them. Like this is what I think's happening. Let's test this, this, and this. So while we're waiting on the tests, like I usually will test the gut and test that Dutch test, right? So that's looking at their sex hormones

and their adrenal hormones, their cortisol. And so while we're waiting on the test, they're starting on diet. And I don't baby step them into diet because I don't think you need to. I think people are very capable of changing the way that they eat. Well, especially, you guys are gonna say, especially when they feel ballad. It's different from trying to get someone just to lose weight or build muscle. When you have somebody who has an issue, they're more compliant. And I would imagine being a functional medicine doctor and functional medicine not being mainstream yet,

I would imagine a good chunk of your clients came to you as a last resort. They do, exactly. Yeah, so they're ready. And I'm like, I'm not going to to babysit up you into this. I want you to cut all of these things now and they do it. They do it because They do it and it helps especially with his to me intolerant. You cut out high his to mean foods You're gonna notice a difference in a week and so it and then when they try to like, you know

So-called cheat or whatever like add a food back in, and it's not time to, they feel like shit. So they don't do it. So they really, really pay attention to what I'm saying. So, and I start them, you know, with basically diet and based on what they have going on, never the same cookie cutter approach to anybody. And then I do the testing.

So it gives them a good month to work on learning how to adapt a different lifestyle and eat differently and support their liver. I always start with liver support. And then we get their testing back in. And then I'm like, okay, if I see gut issues and adrenal issues, I usually will start with the gut, but if they're adrenal issues are screaming, let's say their cortisol's literally bottomed out, I'm like, we have to work on both of this together

because your body's not gonna process the treatment as well as it could if you were addressing the adrenal issue also. Is that common or not common? It's more common for me to see, like, I can work on it piece by piece. And I like that better because I'm not a big, like, let's take 20 supplements at a time type of person,

but I do have to give you what I have to give you. And luckily, the gut is like a time frame. We figured out we work on it as long as you do what you're supposed to do and you take your antimicrobials and the other stuff I give you, we can be done with it and move on and finish and then you get to the next step. And so I like to do it that way better, but sometimes I have to work on both

because it's like so bad in all areas. And their adrenals aren't supported enough to handle the treatment for the gut. So I have to help them with that at the same time. Do you, do you think this is something that's on the rise? Uh, currently or we're just more aware of it now. I think that more

people are talking about it. I think that people are more willing to learn because they're getting frustrated with the system, you know, the medical system. And I think it's still very, very small in comparison to where it should be, but I do think it's on the rise. I mean, I think it's, it's, people are more open

because they feel so bad physically and they just want to get better. And so they're, they're not getting better. You know, like a perfect example is people who take thyroid meds. and I'm not against thyroid meds. I've taken them myself, but they're not the only answer. You have to take the thyroid med and then do the lifestyle changes or you're not going to get better.

So they're learning that it's like a concerted effort on multiple parts to really get better and they want their quality of life. So if you get in touch with that type of person, which is the ideal patient, it's your very successful. I feel like we're cortisol junkies now too. I mean, look at us, just what, two decades ago, there wasn't lines of people every morning at 5am waiting for coffee.

Not, definitely not kids. There was like old people like that. There wasn't people taking all these high intensity group classes and addicted to training like that. I just, and we're our fast pace life, I think has changed so much in the last couple of decades. I would think, I would think or speculate that we've were on the rise.

Yeah, and it's funny because you talked about cortisol being on the floor. Everybody thinks cortisol's so bad. It's the stress hormone got to keep it low, but you need a certain amount of cortisol. And I would train clients and I could see that they were definitely in some type of HP axis this function.

Need to reduce the intensity. They're like, but I feel great after a really hard work out. I'm like, well, you got a little temporary boost. And cortisol, is that what's happening? When you talk about cortisol being in the floor, is it because their bodies become resistant over time? Their bodies try to produce more and more, and they're just not making it like they should be?

So, what are we, no natural responses? So, like, let's say you're, you know, being chased. Your cortisol goes up, your body's like ready to go, and then you have this negative feedback loop where it brings it back down to normal level. Well, with all the stress we have, even with technology, people on their cell phone all the time, that is constant like stress on you, whether you're comparing yourself to other people, whatever you're doing, that type of thing.

Get it drinking coffee, doing these high intensity workouts that your body's not really ready for. Whatever it is, that's keeping, you know, your relationship, whatever, keeping your cortisol high, high, high, high, high. Eventually, you can't keep up with that demand. So that's when you'll see people actually start to go into low cortisol. But it actually, I see more high cortisol than I do, low cortisol. It's more common in my opinion. And is that because they're in the thick of it? Yeah.

Yeah. And they're typically reaching out to me when they're really feeling symptomatic, but maybe it hasn't been five to ten years. It's been like one or two, three years. And so they're really, you know, kind of, and a lot of people too, like I deal out with exercise intolerance. And it's those people who have that high cortisol already. And then they're hitting like a really heavy workout.

And their body's just like, no. Because our cortisol is jumping. I've never heard that term exercise intolerance. So what does that look like? I can imagine what it looks like, but I like to hear from you. Yeah, so I had it myself. And it can be different reasons that you have it.

So I like to say probably the top three reasons. Number one, it's a adrenal issue, whether it's too low cortisol or too high cortisol, and I'll kind of go into that in a minute. Histamine intolerance, because histamine levels being too high that aren't able to be broken down when you exercise, you release histamine. So if you're producing a bunch of histamine and you can't break it down, that that dilates everything and it makes you dizzy and you feel out of it. And then there's something called POT, such as postural orthostatic tecchicardiocendram.

And that goes along with histamine intolerance. So it's when you change postures and it's typically from a sitting to standing position, you get dizzy. So if you guys have clients and you're seeing them do squats and lunges and burpees and they can't do it, that's usually pots because their heart rate is down and then it's up and then it's up and then it's up and their body can't tolerate that. So if you're looking at it from an adrenal perspective, it's typically because either your cortisol is too high and doing exercise typically raises your cortisol.

So they're just kind of over, it's like an overwhelming high cortisol. And one of the things that happens with the adrenals is you get dizzy or you get fatigued, right? Those are like big symptoms of adrenal issues. Or if their cortisol is too low, they're just really depleted. So they can't, they just don't have the energy for it. They're just really tired. So then that exertion is just bringing that on even more. And then again, you know, going to the histamine and then the pod. So those are the other reasons for it. But I see it all the time and I

had it myself. I mean, I used to take orange theory classes and go sit in my car for 45 minutes because I couldn't drive. Orange theory is the worst for people who would be in that particular situation. Yeah, it was terrible. And I'm like, maybe I should figure out what's going on. Well, it took us years. Oh, we all talk about this all the time. It took us years to figure that out for our clients. Well, the irony is too, which you start to piece together when you've been doing this a long time is the people that are most attracted to that type of a workout, typically are the people that shouldn't be doing it. Because they have high cortisol because they're go, go, go, go, go.

Yes. That's my personality. So I'm like, if I'm walking on board, if I'm doing yoga Pilates, I'm so bored. That's what you need. I want to be doing. And then, and I actually, in college college when I first experienced exercise and tolerance I was running All the time like six and a half miles a day. I was training the gym for two hours a day I was studying like crazy. I mean literally at the gym at five in the morning and then school till from seven to five and then

Studying till 11 a night literally getting up at four to study, like it was nuts. And then I was exercising and I was gaining weight. And I'm like, why are my gaining weight? I've never gained weight in my life. I gained like 30 pounds. And I got shin splints and I had to stop running and I started doing plotties and I started like getting smaller and smaller.

And I'm like, but I'm not doing anything. I'm bored in this class, but I was losing weight because my body, the cortisol was adjusting correctly. About seven years into my personal training career, I had a client who was very similar. And I, at this point, started to piece it together and I had her replace two of her long runs with Yen Yoga. So if anybody's familiar with yoga,

Yen Yoga is the calming, relaxing, non-intense, you sit in a stretch or a position and you kind of chill there. And we thought, because of the reduction in the calorie burn, actually burn way more calories running, that maybe we're gonna expect some weight gain. So I told her that I said, look, you're gonna probably gain some weight, but you need to, I think your body needs some rest.

The opposite happened. She started doing that within a couple of weight, but you need to, I think your body needs some rest. The opposite happened. She started doing that within a couple of months. Her body started to burn body fat again, even though technically, she was burning less calories through exercise, and that's when it all started to really make sense to me. The cortisol. It makes it high cortisol makes you gain weight,

especially in the abdomen. People say to me, they're like, I'm gaining weight in my belly, I'm like, you have cortisol issues. Almost always. So, and that's, I've also observed that. So, there are healthy patterns of fat gain on women and healthy patterns of fat gain on men. Correct? Like, what would those look like? What would it look like? Like healthier areas that women tend to store body fat versus areas

that may be related to high cortisol or other health issues. I think men naturally store more in their abdomen, women more in their hips and thighs. So if a woman is storing it in her abdomen, that's kind of like not really going with nature. You know, so then you're looking at, well, there's probably a cortisol issue there. Now, at the moment, we're seeing a lot of news and media around veganism. And more particularly, it's more about the health issues associated with me. Or that meat is not good and you should avoid it. So you kind of see those two messages.

And I know as a trainer that maybe for some people that'll work, but for some people that'll be disastrous in my opinion, are you seeing clients come to you because they've heard this, they follow the vegan diet and they're nutrient-efficient or it's just not working for them. What does that look like? It looks like nutrient-efficiency, I mean, at its finest. It's literally the worst labs I see are from vegans. Really? They're extremely nutrient-efficient. They're losing their hair.

They're not, their cortisol is not in a good place, whether it's too high or too low. They're eating a lot of grains instead of eating meat, so they're not, they're not only, you know, grains can be anti-neutrients, so they're literally blocking their nutrient receptors. And grains can be inflammatory. And the problem is that all these vegan documentaries, they're done based on meat that

has hormones and antibiotics in it, and that's not the type of meat we're telling you to eat. We're telling you to eat grass fed organic meat that is just more natural and they don't do studies with that. So that's where I find the problem. And it's like, yeah, of course, you can take anything you shove antibiotics and a bunch of hormones into it and so many eats it, they're going to be inflamed and it's going to look bad. So I have to kind of explain that to the people who come to me as a vegan. And unless they have like a religious reason why they won't change over, almost everybody will and they get so much healthier.

You said anti-nutrients. I remember years ago reading about the difference between brown rice and white rice. And I was led to believe because you know coming through the muscle building space or whatever that brown rice was better right. So it's better for you more fiber. And then I remember reading studies of how when children in you know certain parts of the world are fed lots and lots of brown rice they start to become deficient in certain nutrients because of the anti-nutrients. Fight agaacid., how does this work? What does that do?

It's the phytogacits. So I guess what happens is when you eat that, and this is why people soak. Like they soak to try to get the phytogacit out. But if you don't, and even so, when you soak, you can't get everything out. But it's basically, it binds to the receptors of our nutrients. So those nutrients actually cannot get into and get absorbed into the body the way they're supposed to.

And this is found in brown rice. Brown rice is the one of them. Yeah. More so than white, yeah. And other grains will do this as well. And beans and even nuts too, has it. So that's why you're supposed to soak all of that. Oh, very, very interesting.

Okay, I wanted to kind of take you back to the whole acid topic. It was stomach very, very interesting. Yeah. Okay. I wanted to kind of take you back to the whole acid topic, a stomach acid in heartburn. Yeah. And this is something I brought up on the show many times and have talked to people actually who, you know, can identify with this a lot because this is something where we just think taking thumbs or taking like, you know, a prilosec or whatever these other types of over-the-counter drugs are going to help solve the problem. But it becomes this chronic thing where I just where I'm always taking this pill now. This is like my new norm.

And I wanted to, I wanted if you could kind of take somebody who maybe feels sometimes to get heartburn, but when does it become a problem? How do you adjust your diet accordingly? And then what leads them to you at that point. So I think that there's definitely certain foods that can bring that on more. For some people like acidic type of foods like tomato or maybe high fat foods, but really it's more that bacteria build up in a small intestine that actually I see mostly brings this on. And so what it happens is it's not that your acid is too high. It's that it's low.

And when you have low acid, it kind of causes the spit up of acid to come up and cause that feeling of the pain. But it's not that it's too high. You know what I mean? It's just doing this. So you actually need more acid. And you can actually test it.

So if you take a digestive enzyme that has high dechloric acid, the way you're supposed to do that is you're supposed to take it until you get harburn. So let's say you start with two caps in a meal and after the meal you don't get harbored. Then the next meal you would do three cups. So you do that until you get harburn and then you back it down. And that is the dose that you need. So that's how you really know until you get harper and then you back it down and that is the dose that you need So that's how you really know if you need this if you take one cap and you're like whoa You're you have really bad harper and then you don't have you know two little stomach acid

But I find very rarely that people have high stomach acid. It's actually low stomach acid That is hydrochloric acid. Kill the bacteria. It does. Yeah, that's one of the main jobs of it. And that's why you hear people talk about celery juice because celery juice has a lot of natural hydrochloric acid in it. And that's how it is. This is where it's going. This is where it's going to relevance of it.

Yeah, I've been wanting to do that. There's always like a little bit of truth somewhere in like these big ass fads that go that are silly. It's a pain in the ass to make. Just like, let's be honest, and you can take it in a pill. But it does have good natural hydrochloric acid in it. And that's why it can really be helpful for people who have things like Z-Bot.

Oh, geez. Well, that makes sense now. We make fun of cellar juice all the time. I know. I don't make it because I'm too lazy. I just, like, I actually don't have a stomach acid issue, but when I did, I took it in a pill form, because it's easier.

But no, there are benefits for sure, so celery juice. What are some of the best foods in terms of nutrients? So like nutrient dense foods that you would recommend to women in particular. So I know men and women have different nutrient demands. What are some of the ones that you're like, hey, these are probably some foods you should be eating. Okay, so here's the problem. So this is where it's so individualized.

Oh, I love that answer. Okay. So let's take a Navocado for a perfect example. Yes. Right. It's a very nutrient-dense food. But am I going to tell my histamine antelorant patients? Eat it. No way. Because it's one of the highest, you know, histamine producing foods. So it's hard to say that it's really hard to answer that. Definitely organ meats are really, really nutrient dense. So that's something that most people can tolerate more, you know, like real organ meat, not taking it in like a pill form.

And mostly just because of the way it's prepared and like if it's frozen and then you make it, but to me it doesn't taste good. So like a lot of people aren't gonna eat that. But I think that, you know, really, if you're looking just for like a very neutral way to start, I really like, and I hate to say this because I don't want, I don't like to identify with any particular

diet, but Paleo is a good start, and then you can adjust things from there, because I like Paleo, because it takes out the big offenders, like the inflammatory foods, but you can adjust what foods inside of Paleo work for you. So if you're a histamine intolerant patient, you're gonna take out avocado, you're gonna take out fermented foods, you're gonna take out citrus fruits, tomatoes, that type of thing. Bacon. Yes, yeah, meats, like anything age, bone broth.

Oh my gosh, like this bone broth craze. You get that to histamine intolerant person, they're gonna feel like crap. So it's really, really, really individualized. And that's why I don't write books for like the general population, because there is no book for the general population. Everyone's different.

So I look for this is what I've worked with. This is what I literally have seen with thousands of people that works for this specific type of person with their condition. And this is what I think will work best for you based on that. What are the symptoms of histamine intolerance? I know this is a topic you talk quite a bit about. You've brought it up now several times on this podcast.

What does that look like for someone symptom-wise? It's got to be so many different ways people have respond. It is. And the thing is, we have histamine receptors all over the body. So I see the biggest things are migraines, eczema, vertigo, flushing. If you work out and you get really red and you kind of stay that way,

that's usually a big sign, or you get a bit by a mosquito and that mosquito bite looks like a mountain. That's a big sign and you can that mosquito by looks like a mountain. Okay. That's a big sign and you can look for this in your kids too. Is that genetic, the flushing, or is that actually histamine based? Well, it depends on where it's coming from. So I have mass-selectivation syndrome.

It's really unknown exactly where that comes from, but basically what the difference between mass-selectivation syndrome and just histamine tolerance is, mass-alactivation syndrome is a, it's like, let me kind of go back. So histamine in the body is a great thing. We want histamine. It helps our immune system fight off pathogens, right? But with mass-alactivation syndrome,

we're signaled in the wrong way. So let's say it's hot out. Your body produces all this histamine. That's not a normal immune system reaction. So with Mass-Soul Activation Syndrome, there's over 200 triggers. The littlest thing can trigger your body to think it's being attacked and release all these inflammatory cytokines, histamine being one of them.

When you have histamine intolerant, which is typically something you develop later in life, usually due to gut issue, estrogen dominance, maybe a mixture of a few things, your trigger based on a pathogen entering the body, and your body releases more histamine to dilate the blood vessels, let the white blood cells come in and kill that pathogen. That's what's supposed to happen. But then the problem lies when histamine builds up and it's not broken down. Because what happens normally is we have an enzyme that comes in

once the histamine job is done and it breaks down the histamine and it's gone and we're fine. With people who have histamine intolerance, that enzyme, it's called the DAO enzyme, it's not being produced in the right amounts. So you release this histamine because of a pathogen and then it's just sitting there and it's not being broken down. And one of the jobs of histamine is to dilate your vessels. So that's when you get these like migraines which are dilated vessels,ated vessels. Vertigo, that's dizziness dilated vessels.

And then all these other issues that you can get, anxiety, panic attacks, hives, a lot of people will eat and they feel like their throat's closing up. It's really so random, Taki Kardia, which is an elevated heart rate. Some people will eat and their heart starts racing. That's all histamine issues.

What causes someone's body to not produce enough DAO? It's usually a gut issue. And it can be genetics because we have a DAO enzyme like gene. So it's enough of it's not being produced because you're born with a snip in that gene. And so it doesn't work properly, but there's other, there's MAO enzyme HNMT. Those are all genetic snips that you can have that work against how much your body will break down histamine. But it can also be nongenetic.

It can be, you know, gut issues because the DAO is produced mostly in the gut. So if you have all these poor gut health, you're going to break down that enzyme ability to break down histamine. You're not going to produce enough of the DAO enzyme. So that, you know, we have such poor gut health in at least the US, right? So that's why so many people are getting histamine intolerance. And I can't, I can tell you that most people don't know what his to me intolerance is. But when they're looking at my Instagram page and they're seeing these little things that

I post and they're like, oh my god. That's me. That's what I've had. No one knew this. I can't believe this. Like they're so excited because finally someone understands what they're going through because they're really sucks. You feel like shit when you have it.

And it's really the worst part is you don't know what's going on. And nobody knows what's going on. You go to doctors and they're like, I don't know. How do you test for that, or is it just based off of symptoms? So I really like to save people money on testing again. There's no great histamine intolerance test.

Even testing from Assoctubation syndrome can be a false negative. So the best thing to do is, in my book, I have a yes, no, maybe less. The nose are like the biggest offenders, right? So I say eat those no foods, whether it's for one to three days to seven days. However long it takes, if your current symptoms exacerbate or you get new symptoms, then remove those foods

for about a week and if you feel better, you have histamine tolerance. Could you also potentially test this by supplementing with DAO or taking an antihistamine and seeing if you notice any benefits and then saying, okay, I feel better, I took, you know, Zirtack or a Benadryl or whatever. Well, isn't that what you did for your face, Doug?

Your face was all fucked up. Yeah. Doug, we could even take, we could be. Suffered from, yeah. It's a mean issue. Yeah, he just recently did. We could even take him in public as face was so bad. Well, it just so happened to happen right around

the time we're taking all this live events. So, this poor guy. Wonderful. Well, stress is one of the biggest causes of excess histamine release. Well, word knows I'm under a lot of stress here. So I'll put a lot of pressure on Doug. Same stuff.

Sure, it's me, all from self. Definitely. But for me, it's just remove foods. That was the thing that did the both. Yes, and the thing with anti-histamines is they actually, they're okay short term, but they actually decrease that DAO enzyme. So you're better off taking a natural,

like I put my patients on my natural Hisdumine relief product that has like quaresitin and things that they're not gonna reduce DAO enzyme and they're gonna also help to control the Hisdumine levels in your body. Now would what I say be a viable, maybe test also? It's like okay, let me take DAO, let me, or take into this to me. Wow, I feel a lot better.

Let me go back off of them. Oh, symptoms are back. It might be histamine. Yeah, and DAO is a little tricky because it doesn't cross like the blood brain barrier. So it's not like boom, I'm better. So it can be good for more situational. You know, Ben Lynch has a good DIO supplement

that I recommend to a book. And he says like, if I'm gonna have it, because he has, he and I have a lot of the same issues. And he's like, if I'm gonna have a glass of red wine, which is super high in histamine, he's like, I'll take my DIO enzyme, but it's not something you take every day. You take more of like the histamine supporting,

reducing like, where's the tin type supplements daily, take more of the histamine supporting, reducing like where acetant type supplements daily, take those foods out of your diet, and then look for the underlying cause. So definitely the gut, definitely it's looking at sex hormones and cortisol, and then really learning stress reduction techniques. I talk through my, in my book,

even though this is not my expertise. I'm not a meditation expert, but I think it's important to find someone who is and to learn how to reduce the stress in their life, whatever it is, whether it's just being more social, learning to say no to things, meditation, mindfulness training, whatever it is, do that because that can be extremely helpful in this situation. And I like to talk about it as like a histamine bucket. So like let's say you had a bucket, you fill it with new trained deficiencies, gut issues,

high estrogen and stress, and then you eat that avocado. Well, your bucket's already full, so you're gonna react, right? You start working on those things inside that bucket. You're gonna be able to handle so many more food to that point. And my purpose is to get you to live as normal

of a life as possible. So that's why I really like to dig into those underlying causes because I don't want you to have to eat a completely low histamine diet for the rest of your life. Never have a drink again. You know, never ever eat whatever your favorite food that's high histamineissed to me, but it's letting your body learn to be ready for it.

Now, with that example, that example that you just used, is this why some people may see it express sometimes and other times not? Yes. Like, because maybe that week they had very low stress, they were in vacation, but they had an avocado that didn't bother them this time.

But in the midst of high stress work week, you overconsumption and then in addition to that, that you bad sleep. And then you also have an avocado. Now you react. Exactly. That makes it really difficult for a listener, right? To like try and like troubleshoot. Do I have an issue or not? Right? Because it could express itself in so many different ways. And it can come and go because it's still present there. It's just not it's not you're not overfilling the bucket because because histamine is a part of the immune systems response to pathogens does histamine intolerance affect fertility? Would a woman's body be more likely to reject pregnancy or viable fertilization because her histamine levels are too high.

You know, I don't know for sure and this is why. I have three kids. I have gotten pregnant with birth control on every single child. Oh, wow. And all three different forms of birth control. So I cannot say, yeah, sure, you have hist you have his mantel are sure gonna trouble getting pregnant Everyone is so different, but I know that it does affect your hormone levels, which can affect pregnancy It definitely plays off your thyroid hormones, which can definitely affect pregnancy But I have all of that and I'm literally the most fertile person in the So like, I don't really buy in to something like that for everybody. I think that's something you can see. Like some people are extremely overweight. The McDonald's every day, they have, you know, bad relationship, but they've had seven kids, you know, and then some people are really healthy and they

do everything that they can and they're trying and trying and they can't get pregnant. So pregnancy is something I don't like touch because I think that it's just so individualized that it's really hard to say why people can get pregnant and why people can't. You mentioned the stress component earlier and being a functional medicine doctor, you work with the whole person. How big of a role does mental state play on all of these different things? Because I can imagine, and I've had clients like this,

where they do everything that I tell them, but they're so neurotic and stressed out about it, but that it actually makes their health worse. Because they're counting macros and calories. I gotta do this many steps. I can't miss a workout, and it's like, okay, you need to loosen up. Because this is actually being, do you encounter any of that?

Yeah, I mean, big time. I think that people put a lot of pressure on themselves. They tend to do, you know, poorly with their health, like in general. And that's why I don't count macros. You know, people always ask me, what macros should I be? And I'm like, I don't count macros because I think it puts too much focus on food And I just like to say these are the foods I do well with these are the foods I don't I'm gonna eat when I'm hungry I'm gonna eat what I want out of the foods. I know we're gonna make me feel good

I'm gonna stay away from the foods that don't but I'm not gonna be like calculating It's actually hard to overeat when you do that We talk about this. When you eat healthy whole foods, especially avoiding ones that aren't, you're not intolerant to, it's amazing how the body's natural system is just gonna tell you when you're full, I've had enough. It's tough to overeat that way, it's crazy.

It's so true, I don't think about food ever. And less I'm like, oh god, I get like that little blood sugar thing. I'm like, oh, I need to eat. But I don't, I'm not like, oh, did I hit my macros today? Because it's too much thought about food to me. And I don't want food to be like a bad relationship

and psychologically for me. So personally, I just don't go with that. And some people do really well on that. They like that organization. They thrive on it. They feel good on it. I'm not against any of it. I think, you know, what like that organization, they thrive on it, they feel good on it. I'm not against any of it. I think, you know, what works for you works for you.

But I think that people with that type of personality, that they put too much pressure on themselves, they're beating themselves up if they eat something, they're punishing themselves in the gym because they ate off their diet, whatever. That is a recipe for disaster. Well, in our space, we've seen more eating, dysfunctional eating and eating disorders in the world of competitive. Can the super fit? Physic, physique, bikini, and they count macros and the disorders look, I mean, it's like you got people who are trying to fit whatever they can into the macros or if they go out of the macros, they lose their mind, they can offer relationships as a result of it.

So we know exactly what that looks like, what that dysfunctional relationship with food. And simply, I'll tell you what, the most effective thing I've ever done for clients is telling hey, avoid heavily processed food. And almost all of them lose a decent amount of weight just from doing that alone. Is that inflammation factor? Yeah, and it makes you just eat less. Yeah. They actually have studies now that show that people will consume about five to

600 more calories a day if they consume heavily processed foods versus unprocessed foods, even when the macros are controlled. They actually did a study, was a crossover study. It was a 500 calorie difference. I think the chemicals in there make you more hungry. Of course, they designed to do that. They engineered that way for sure. They want you to eat more and they do a damn more hungry. Of course, it's getting into that. It's engineered that way, for sure. They want you to eat more, and they do a damn good job

of doing that. What does the schooling or the education look like for a functional medicine doctor? What does the training look like in comparison to an MD? The great thing about it is you can really come from any, as long as you have a doctorate or even like a PA, can become a functional medicine practitioner, I guess, maybe not a doctor, you typically start with something else,

like an MD, DO, DC, nurse practitioner, PA. And then you realize you want to do something different and you start taking all these courses on it. So for me, I have my DNM. It's a doctorate in natural medicine on top of a doctor of chiropractic. So what I had to do is 4,000 hours of functional medicine on top of my chiropractic degree. So then I got a second doctorate in that aspect, but I was able to do it just by doing, you know, I did Chris Cresters year-long courses, I did many different year-long courses and then just all these courses that made up those hours. So it's really great because you can come from all different lines of training and I think it's really people that who have been sick

and who have not found help in the conventional medical field and then they start looking outside, whether they're a doctor or not, and then they get better, and then they get a passion for it, and they do whatever they have to do to get their whatever degree it is, and then that's when they start using it and their practice. Right, or you're in conventional medicine

for so many years and realize how many people you haven't helped. Yeah. But it's just I guess as trainers, I feel like a lot of the motivation behind what we're doing right now is, you know, for a decade, I felt like I really wasn't giving people the right answers. We weren't addressing things like behavioral issues and relationship with food and stuff. We were talking about macros and training harder and how many calories does that burn?

And honestly, when you look back now, I think we all feel like we probably were doing more harm to the space and we're doing good, which is a lot of guilt. There's a level of guilt. Yeah. Now that the functional medicine space seems to be getting more and more popular, more and more people are looking for functional medicine, do you foresee it becoming more and more regulated, or do you foresee it going the opposite direction? I know insurance is starting to pay for some of the testing I do, which is a good sign.

They don't pay for my time. And I don't know that they ever will because I spend 30 to 60 minutes with each person. You know, average doctors is that it's five to seven minutes, right? So I know like how, what can you do in five minutes? Which is why they're not listening. I mean, it's not even their fault. They're not listening because they're on a time limit and they have 40 other people waiting

and they're just, they need that BMI. They're like, what prescription do I have samples of that I can give you that might help us, right? So yeah, so I don't know. I don't know if they're gonna actually start figuring it out and helping people to be able to get the help that they need. But it's like then you run into the issue with pharma

where big pharma where then you're not gonna need the medication, so why would you do anything preventative? So it's all the political stuff. Oh, I couldn't believe it when I was, at one point in my training career, I really started to specialize with clients who were in advanced age. And as I got better and more experienced,

I would ask for a list of medications and I would call their doctor and actually talk to the doctor. So I knew what to do, what not to do, and that kind of stuff. It was just being a responsible trainer. I was always blown away by the number of medications that my clients took, that they took

because of the symptoms of other medications. It always blew me away. It was like, oh, I take this one for constipation. I'm like, oh, constipation, no, but this medicine makes me constipating. This one's for the migraines that this particular one causes. This one keeps me up at night, so then I take this sleeping pill,

and I couldn't believe the pages of medicines that were there to counteract the symptoms of the other medicines. It's a crazy, crazy system. It's sad, it's really sad. And people are very upset about it. And then that's also where people like at that guilt about taking thyroid medication

because medicine has that, you know, the stigma now, like, because of what exactly what you just said. And I'm like, actually, thyroid medication's pretty benign. So it's like, it's actually worse for you not to have enough thyroid hormone than it is to take thyroid medication.

Yeah, I wanna be clear, I'm not anti-medication. When needed, it's a godsend. But sometimes it gets at a hand. And when you go in with, like we're talking about, let's say you have some skin issues and it's related to gut issues, but your doctor doesn't address this gut issue. So they give you a suppressive steroid, maybe.

An anti-inflammatory steroid to keep control of your skin, that's when you start to see the problems. I see. Now as much as you love functional medicine and are in it and are helping people, what are some signs that maybe your functional medicine practitioner probably is somebody you shouldn't go back to?

Are there, yeah, because I know in our profession, obviously we talk about trainers that, you know, there's some signs and things you should look for, whether or not, who's just riding the bandwagon to make money in versus who's truly helping people. So when people give you supplements based off your symptoms, and so I see people come to me, they're on 25 supplements,

and they're all like single nutrient supplements. I'm like, who told you to take this? They're like, well, I was tired. So I take this. It's like the same thing as the medical profession. It's the herbal version of the treatment. It's exactly what it is. I'm like, what tests did they do?

Oh, they didn't do any tests or they just did a blood test. I'm like, okay, no. And I have a lot of people who come to me and they're with a functional medicine doctor and I'm like, well, why are you here? You're like, I asked them. I'm like, why are you here? If you have a functional medicine doctor, they're like, I'm not getting better. And I'm taking this many supplements and I'm like, let's talk about everything.

You know, like, what testing have you done? None. Let's start there. Let's do some testing. What diet changes have you made? None. Let's figure out what diet you need to be on and get you on your specific type of diet. Take out the foods that are going to affect you may not affect somebody else and like really

individualize it. If someone's not willing to individualize it, stay away from them or if they're just going to throw their supplements at you and especially their branded supplements, which I have my own branded. So I'm not against that. But if it's like, this is my treatment plan, is just all my branded supplements and no testing, that is not a person who is really looking at what the product is. It's like a trainer that doesn't do an assessment. So I'll take you through a workout,

which there's a lot of trainers like that that are out there. Okay, speaking about supplements, and I know you just said, it's gotta be individualizing. You want to do testing. Let's speak generally. What are some of the most useful supplements or herbs that you use as a functional medicine practitioner? For example, we talked about cortisol issues.

I know that ashwagandha has been used traditionally to help people with cortisol type issues. Are there like your favorite five that tend to, the ones that you like to work with, and of course depends on the individual, but are the ones that are better than others? I always try to use blends so that people are on as least bottles and capsules as possible, but then sometimes people are too sensitive for that. So it really depends on the person, but always liver support to like milk, thistle, and acetylcystine are really

good for liver support, and then you can get into like the mushrooms and stuff. But for some people they don't do well with that. And then yeah, ashwagand is really good. It's a really good neutral supplement. You know, some thyroid people don't do okay with it, but most do. Licarish can be great, but if you have high blood pressure, it can be a problem. So you really have to tailor it to the person.

Quaresitin, I think, is a very good neutral supplement that most people can tolerate because it has so many great benefits. Not only does it help to lower his to me, but it's also a good antiviral. I really like Mono Lauren. I think that's a great immune system support and said a good antiviral.

Just really antimicrobial in general. And there's different companies who make different versions of it. But I'd say those are probably your safest, you know, Selenium's great for the thyroid, but you can take, you know, Brazil nuts and get that as long as you do okay with nuts. So I try to do as much as I can with food,

but then some people aren't absorbing anything. Because their gut health is awesome. Yeah, their gut health is awesome. I just, we had was speak, we had someone here yesterday filming for our YouTube channel. He's a, he trains professional fighters. And he, we were talking about supplements. And they're now recommending creatine to fighters, not for performance enhancement, which is traditionally what creatine is used for, but because they're showing that creatine actually can prevent the CTE, which is the brain trauma that fighters

and football players have to tend to get. I've also read studies of how creatine helps with heart health, it's got antioxidant properties. Some doctors are recommending it to their older patients for strength and whatnot. Has creatine made its way into the functional medicine world yet? Doctors are recommending it to their older patients for strength and whatnot. Has creatine made its way into the functional medicine world yet? Yeah, it has.

Ben Lynch puts it in his electrolyte powder and actually take the electrolyte powder. And it's a really good methylation supplement. Explain that. What do you mean by that? So methylation is a very complicated topic because it's really, it's basically adding a methyl group to something else to make it do its job Right so it has so many functions, but people most recognize it probably as like a helping you push toxins out So like basically if you're not methylating well, which most his most histamine tolerant patients have methylation issues

But sometimes like what you need to methylate which would be the methylfolate or the methyl cabalamine, the B12 and B, you know, folate B9, you can't tolerate that, it will give you anxiety. So he goes about it by using like lidosyone or creatin and that will help you to methylate, but without getting the anxiety that the B vitamin is. It's actually more benefits for creating. Yeah.

Just that you have to get the right source. You know, like I maybe don't go to JNC. Yeah. I remember years ago, there was this big scandal because a lot of suppliers were getting the creative team from China. And it was having, it had high levels of lead. Yeah, heavy metals in it. It was like, that's not the kind of great team project.

Right. So, looking ahead in your space, what do you think's coming along on the horizon in terms of new ways of working with people, helping people? Are there new things that you're interested in learning about moving up? Because I know like histamine, for example,

that's something that I didn't hear about maybe five years ago. Now people are becoming more aware. Is there anything like that moving ahead in the future that we should keep our eyes open for? Oh gosh, that's a good question. I mean, I'm always listening and learning. You know, always looking out for something new to learn about. And I think with functional medicine, gosh, there's you can never know everything. I think the newest thing is histamine intolerance Gosh, I don't I think it's I think with functional medicine here's the thing It's all the same in the way you approach it whether you have Lyme disease histamine intolerance thyroid issues any other autoimmune disease You got to look at the underlying cause

You got to look at the gut you. You gotta look at the gut, you gotta see what the hormones are doing, you gotta see what's going on with the diet, maybe looking at viruses, maybe looking at heavy metals, stuff like that, mold, whatever. But it's all the same. Every single person that comes to me, that's what I'm doing with them.

No matter what they come to me for, I'm looking for what caused their issue. And it's great because we kind of have a formula. Like you know, just look for these things and you might not be able to go, oh, that specific thing caused that exact symptom because it's usually like a couple things together. But if you just use that formula, people come to you whatever they come to you with, you can typically get rid of it or at least really help them manage it. It depends, you know, what it is.

What are some of the hardest things to identify? I would assume something like Lyme disease would be really difficult, right? Because there's so many false negatives. False negatives, the longer you have it, the deeper that bacteria gets into the cells. But, you know, I think a lot of people have Lyme. I think maybe a big percent of people have Lyme. It's all about how your body tolerates things. So really, it's not about getting to the Lyme necessarily.

It's about getting your body to push toxins out well and your hormones to be balanced to help you tolerate things better. Your gut health to be good so your immune system's strong. So it's getting your body to tolerate whatever's, it's coming in its way as far as health goes. It's not like, you have Lyme, let's kill this bacteria because it's really hard to do that. And a lot of people get really sick with Lyme treatment.

And I'm like, how many rounds of antibiotics did you do? And now your gut health is just shit. Oh, I have a friend that went on for two years, antibiotics for two years and just completely a wreck or a gut. Yeah. What's the number one thing that you see misdiagnosed by Western medicine and then you get Western medicine? Yeah, they misdiagnose it. Like they say they don't have it. Yeah, exactly. Probably or and but but then again, it's like, I don't know that they have Lymeether. I think in a way Lyme specialist,

because Lyme patients are some of the hardest people to treat, because it's not like no one really can find this diagnosis in them. You know what I mean? It's kind of like a whole bunch of things together that it could be like stress is like their biggest trigger for this and you don't even know what it is. And it's the same thing with mass-activations in them.

The test can be negative and you can have it and then you can have these terrible symptoms that nobody knows. So it's really about getting people to learn how to manage the way that they take things in, the way that they think about things, and their relationships, and their social life, and what they'll put in their body, and then what they'll put on their body, and then again, looking at the inside with the testing, and then just trying to get people to a good place as no matter what they come to with.

And would you say you get a majority of your patients already currently exercise, or would you say more of them don't exercise, and then how often do you recommend or even talk about that with? I do, I talk about it with everybody, and I have a such a wide range of people. I have ex-athletes who are done with the adrenals. They're trained or gave them T3.

They got from another country. I'm like, what? Or hormones, steroids and stuff. Two people who are 60 and they don't, they're completely sedentary. So it really depends, but I talk to everybody about exercise because I do think it's important, no matter where you are in your health,

it's just that you have to do the right type of exercise for what you have going on. Right, so you're what you're talking to about, with the athlete about exercise is probably completely different than that person who never exercises Exactly, but you got to move right like you can't just sit there And I'm like if you don't tolerate exercise well I don't care if you clap your hands in your chair for 30 minutes a day

Like do with something right and then start like you know going further and further and further and further But exercise is one of the most important things not only for our physical health but for our mental health. So I don't think anybody should just not do anything. Yeah, do you recommend sunlight for people? I do. I talk about that a lot. I say, you know, during the day, if you're sitting in office and you've got fluorescent lights

on with no windows, get outside, or get by a window even, like if you can do that, go take breaks go for a little walk outside and then at night get out of those lights You know like keep everything calm and dark and have some type of relaxing bedtime routine And that makes a huge difference in what your adrenals are doing. Yeah, it's funny That's like a these is you know used to call that old wives tale, you know Oh, you're sick. Go outside get, no, sunlight's bad for you. Stay indoors, totally wrong. No, it's great for you.

Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. This has been awesome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I really appreciate the conversation. So people will find you through, well, we'll make sure we, in our intro, we mentioned some of the places they can find you,

but where's the easiest place to contact you? Usually my website, drbeckycambl.com, or Instagram, just at Drbecky. And you take patients virtually, or do they have to be in person? They're virtual, yeah, I do everybody virtually. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

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