🎙️ FMP Essentials Show: Balancing Menopause Naturally with Phytochemicals | Dr. Deanna Minich

Welcome to the FMP Essentials show. I am Dr. Youssef Elyaman, your host and I am thrilled to have you here with us. Whether you're a seasoned functional medicine practitioner or just starting out on your journey, this show is going to be a go to resource for mastering functional medicine and making a real impact in your practice and community. Thank you for joining us on the FMP Essentials Show. The content of this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult a licensed healthcare provider before making changes to your health regimen. Views expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the host or producers. No statements about supplements or products are evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or prevent any disease. Listening does not establish a doctor patient relationship. By continuing you acknowledge and accept this disclaimer. Now sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the FMP Essentials Show. Today we have a very special guest, my good friend, Dr. Deanna Minick. Dr. Minick, can you give us your.

76 second bio, nutritionist, author, educator, speaker. Look it, it's even less than 76 seconds.

You killed it, Brian. You killed it twice.

No, you know what? I'm a nerd. I have a master's and a Ph.D. and then I went on for further clinical training as a CNS and as a certified functional medicine practitioner. Worked with Jeffrey Bland for 10, actually 11 years. Jeff and I worked together. Then I went out on my own with a platform called Food and Spirit, got deeper into phytochemicals and bridging science and spirituality. So that's what I'm about. I'm a researcher first, a clinician second. And what most jazzes me is finding the crosstalk among disciplines like having botany with quantum physics with biology with chemistry with, you know, just kind of like an amalgam, a big salad bowl of different concepts all mashed together for like new ways of thinking. So that's, that's me.

Nice. Very nice. And this is. You guys can already see why I'm interviewing her for the second time. So we, our mini interview, we've already had like a little mini interview or a mini podcast. And now we're. Now we just needed to bring her back. So our first part of the podcast is our deep dive. And we at FMP Essentials, we look at the functional medicine practitioner as a fruit bearing tree. So the fruit bearing, if you think of a tree, the trunk of the tree is holding things up. It shows the strength of the tree and to us, the functional medicine practitioner analogy, the trunk is our knowledge and we are going to get into this knowledge topic. But, but once again, who is this show for? This show is for the functional medicine practitioner which to us is a physician, a nutritionist, a dietitian, a naturopath, a chiropractor, even a health coach. Some, everybody that is involved some way in healthcare can be looking at things from a functional medicine point of view. But this is also for the functional medicine champion which is the person that what believes in wellness, believes in getting to the root cause, not just throwing band aids on things. And, and, and they just want to learn more. So this really what we hope to do with this show is inspire people if you're a practitioner that you'll become a functional medicine practitioner. If, if not, if you're not ready yet, that's okay, take your time. At least you'll understand how evidence based and cool we are. I don't know why you wouldn't. And then also for people that are interested in a, in a career, you can send them one of these episodes and say hey, have you thought about being a functional medicine nutritionist or health coach or whatnot? So with that being said, we're now back to the trunk of the tree. Dr. Minick, you just finished or you are, you are just you. By the time we show this, your book would have been released. So the, the book is called the Rainbow Diet. So brief. Can you just give us the four main principles of that book?

Four main principles? You know, I, I tend to be not so rule bound. I feel like in nutrition many times patients, clients, they feel like this analysis paralysis of how to eat, what to eat, when to eat. So the four main principles that I have in the Rainbow diet book are based on nature. So, so it's not really me, it's nature. They are color, creativity, diversity and rhythm. And I feel like if we always look to these principles then we will always find answers within functional medicine about how to approach a situation. And that could be in the physical, emotional, mental or even spiritual aspect of a person that we're working with.

And you know your approach, I think in today's day and age is now needed right more than ever. It's where people want to lump, lump things into boxes and want to make it this or that, that, that, that. I really love the way that you said that. We're, we're, our topic today is going to, is, is really balancing that transition into menopause with phytochemicals. We're, we'll Go over that in a second. But first I did want to ask you, what is the color code to nature's food?

Well, one of the things that I talk about in the rainbow diet is how it's not just a generic message that we need to say to people like eat more fruits and vegetables, because that's a duh. But what most people don't know is that there are reasons for colors in nature, that there is a functional color signature to plant foods. So when we look and this came about for me when I was researching phytochemicals as a graduate student, student, and then even later on when I was doing more functional medicine clinical work and looking at the science, like why were red foods important to eat? Well, if you go into the science of red foods, what you see is that there's a connection because of its, the, the phytochemical signature of red foods. You see a connection to inflammatory and immune response. Orange colored foods look to be connected to reproductive health and the fat soluble compartments of the body. Yellow would be connected to digestive health. Green, that would be your color. Right, because of the, the nitrates that are in foods. Green is about the cardiovascular system. It's about blood vessels expansion, getting the blood moving through us and keeping healthy blood vessels, even through folate, magnesium and vitamin K. Then we have the purple, the blue purple category, which is connected to the brain and mood. And I even go further in the rainbow diet, this time talking about white, brown and black, because many people don't think of those colors as part of the rainbow, but they are actually. And so where do I put black foods? Well, black is on the same spectrum as blue and purple. So you could have a deeply hued BlackBerry, which actually has a lot of the same components phytochemically as the blue and purples. Where do I put brown foods? Typically I put brown and tan with the yellow category because we tend to see a lot of fibers and prebiotic foods that connect into that category that are good for the gut, especially for fostering a healthy gut microbiome and promoting healthy elimination. And then where do I put white? Well, white light going through a prism gives you the whole spectrum, right? So when I look at white, I think of white as more of a metaphor. Clearance, resetting, purification, detoxification, intermittent fasting. Actually no phytochemicals. And there are certain white colored foods that we want to avoid and then, and others that we would like to bring into the diet. So I look at the rainbow in a very specific way. We talk in functional Medicine about everything having a function. And I see that through a scientific, I would say pattern recognition of function of these phytochemicals. So again, the red inflammation, immunity, orange reproductive health, yellow digestive, green heart, blue purple brain and white detox. And I think if we explain it to patients and people that way, then they'll finally understand that, oh, if I'm not eating enough red colored foods, I may not be proficient in my body with quelling inflammation. So and it doesn't mean, you know, nature doesn't work in boxes. So of course there could be some orange foods that help with inflammation. But when I'm looking at these color codes, I'm looking at like the sum of data, like where are there like speckles or a crowding of scientific papers? Where do we see the function kind of coming out from all of that? So it's just like the matrix, right? Because the matrix is it doesn't really work in a box either because energy ties into communication. You need energy to make hormones. If your mitochondria is not working right, you can't make hormones correctly. Right. Because that's where a lot of that takes place. Place. So think of the phytochemicals in a matrix much like the functional medicine matrix. In fact, I'm in the midst of kind of putting together that colorful matrix that will help functional medicine practitioners to better understand how to overlay this color code into the different nodes of the matrix.

And for those of you that are not fully versed in functional medicine, the matrix is what? Through the Institute for Functional Medicine, we have something called the functional medicine matrix and that shows that really can categorize disease or wellness into seven underlying balances. And if those seven, if any of those seven things can be off balance, which would throw us off balance. And before you start thinking, oh my God, this is some woo woo stuff, the imbalances are really things that, that researchers are looking at when they're coming up with new drugs, pharmaceutical companies look at it. So when, when Deanna says that, hey, these are these, these phytonutrients or these colors kind of help across the matrix. She's saying that they help the different systems that can lead to disease. Now I'll tell you, I'll tell you something that I don't know if I'm just, was I slow? But like, I went through med school and I did, I finished my internal medicine and pediatric training and I started my own practice. And what I knew about nutrition was that we kind of had, we kind of, we, we simplified Nutrition to. You have your vitamins and your minerals. We, you have your macronutrients. Which was the most important thing. Well, at least I thought right. Which is the, the, the things that can cause calories or that have calories, which have to do with calories are usually the first thing that in conventional medicine you look at when you, when it's coming to losing weight. So, so you have your fats, you have your proteins and you have your carbs and that was pretty much it. And so if you could just get the right amount of calories and maybe get the right amount of vitamins in, you would do fine. Right? You take a multivitamin and you're fine. You just work within the calories. But the reality is it's, it's. It's not till I found the Institute for Functional Medicine. I went to my first course applying functional medicine to the practice. And then, and then the Institute for Functional Medicine they opened, they started a module about nutrition and using food as medicine, which was so eye opening and mind blowing. And Dr. Minick was one of the professors or one of the teachers there. So. Dr. Minick, I attribute my journey where I've come to part partly to you because you were part of, you, you were, you were part of that team that just kind of opened up my mind. But I just want to, for the, for people that, that have, that are looking at fruits and vegetables and seeing that they have different colors and think, oh, that's pretty. What Dr. Minick is saying is that it's way beyond pretty. There are actual substances causing the color and these substances have healing. I, I don't. It's still my saying it is mind blowing to me as well. Even now, even though I, I since doing that module, I've been familiar with the different colors in the healing. And we'd like to hear in the comments like how what do you guys think? If you're, if you're. Walk depending on where you're, where you're watching this, what do you guys think? Did you know about the different colors and that. I think this is a good segue into our topic. So our topic today is balancing menopause or balancing that transition from, from normal cycles in, in. In. In a female to perimenopause and menopause, but using these colors, using these phytochemicals. So Dr. Minick, you had so many different topics that you could have brought up. Why is this important? Why did you choose this one?

You know, I think because a lot of women just don't know how to manage that whole transition of being pre menopausal, then moving into this kind of rocky terrain of perimenopause, and then ultimately coming out the other end into being post menopause. So I do think that there's a role for colorful foods there. And I do think that what I have seen in my experience is that women who are more properly, nutritionally replete, they tend to fare much better going through that transition. So what I was thinking we would do is we would draw on each of the colors and talk about how to see that color through the menopausal lens. What could women be doing? And there are certain colors that are going to be more important for women in this particular transition than others. So we're going to spend a little bit more time talking about orange when we get there.

Okay, awesome. And menopause does affect menopause, and perimenopause, I believe, is one. Unfortunately, due to. Due to just the way that pharma and medicine went. We went from really encouraging, helping people balance their hormones to now, oh, my God, stay away from hormones completely. And I think that it's doing a disservice to so many women that are just struggling and they really don't have to. They really. There are ways that we work in functional medicine that. Where we're looking at science and we're looking at safety, and we're. We're trying to be as responsible and we're looking at quality of life. But it's such an important topic. What are the. Some of the symptoms that women have when they start going into menopause?

First, one that most people. People complain about is hot flashes, you know, having that sense of heat, that inflammation. And we now know that hot flashes can be an underlying sign of cardiovascular disease risk factors. Right. So for each of these symptoms that you would experience through perimenopause, potentially there could be something deeper within functional medicine to get into. So many times hot flashes occur together with night sweats, which are basically a disruption of her thermoregulatory center. Right. And so then she is not being able to sleep. And we know of the repercussions of not being able to sleep. How we sleep then primes our next day of eating and how we feel. And so if she is having hot flashes, she's got night sweats, you know, now she's just not at her optimum function for the next day. Right. Her appetite might be off. Another symptom that a lot of perimenopausal women complain about is weight Changes. So, you know, it's almost like, what's the chicken? What's the egg? Because so many things are very interrelated. So there could be metabolic changes with her mitochondria. She could have more fatigue. I'm just thinking of that node within the matrix, right? So, like, having low energy. Um, what can also happen is just in general, she has more inflammation in the body. So what you tend to see here is the musculoskeletal issues around menopause. And how many women, even if they've had no injuries, no pain, no joint issues throughout their whole lives, and all of a sudden they're going through perimenopause now, whoa. They've got joint pain. All of a sudden, they just had an attack of bursitis. It's like, where is all this coming from? The other thing that bothers women a lot going through this, and I've heard people mention it this way, is having what's called menopause brain, where you can't remember things quickly or fully, or, you know, just things aren't just cognitively processing like you're used to. So you get kind of frustrated because you're. You don't feel like your memory is as good, you don't feel like you can learn as. As well. And just overall, you just might be forgetful. And so I think that that's something that also comes to the surface. The other thing that I think perimenopausal women complain about is just feeling moody, irritable, having, like, this flux of different emotions and not knowing what to do with that. Like, all of a sudden they have anxiety. They are now having depressive symptoms. And that can also play into, again, how they're sleeping, the hot flashes. Because many times those hot flashes can be brought about or triggered. So in functional medicine, we talk about antecedents, triggers, and mediators. So. So the hot flashes could be triggered by diet, like spicy food or alcohol or coffee, but also stress. And her resilience is now going to be different. Going through that menopausal transition, she needs to find back her baseline. So, yeah, she can have a lot of immune issues. This is where we see a lot of autoimmune conditions start to surface. So what I would say here is that I think all nodes of the matrix start to change. Anything from digestive health to cardiovascular health, for sure. Metabolic health, detoxification. If she had issues when she was cycling, now they get worse. Because, you know, her gut may not be properly functioning, her liver may have an accumulation of lipids and so may not be working well. Right. So fair. Fatty liver, elevated lipids, like what tends to go up is ldl. So this is why she needs to maintain. I know we're just going to focus on phytochemicals, but goodness, there are so many different things here because the emphasis is also on physical activity and truly the personalized lifestyle factors at the base of the matrix, all of them would be important for her going through that menopausal transition.

Absolutely. And getting with a functional medicine practitioner that prescribes. I mean, sometimes hormones are needed. A lot of times hormones are very helpful. And I think that was. Deanna, that was impressive. The way that you just kind of spit them all out like that. That was. I'm impressed. You continue to amaze me. What I'd like to call people's attention to is, man, this is a topic that can really, really change the trajectory. Trajectory of not only the life of. Of the person going through this, but the life of the family around them. Because you mentioned their mood and their. And their memory. And now they don't feel. And they don't feel good about themselves. And then they go to the doctor and the doctor tells them there's nothing wrong with you, everything's normal. And. Yeah, it's in your head. Yeah, that makes me feel much better. And what ends up happening, what ends up. What I think happens is that this stuff starts to happen way before they stop losing their periods. So it could be like their late 30s and their early 40s and they're having periods. Why am I having the joint pain? What is wrong with me? And there's different theories on some of the things that are happening. One is you start losing bone when the hormones go down. And now you have lead and heavy metals and whatever that leak into the bloodstream. And there are many things. There are many things that are happening and we can dive deep. We're going to get some hormone experts on the show as well at some point. We have that in the plans. But I think that if, for people that are tuning in, if you have a loved one in their 30s, 40s, 50s, that is getting these symptoms and they're being told, eh, there's nothing. You know what? It's in your head. Think about this is the perimenopause or this is like the start before menopause. So important. It's such a change in quality of life. And then you mentioned too, the fat distribution. So as estrogen starts to go down and as the hormones start to go down now you start Women will start to get visceral fat, the fat in their midsection and around their organs versus the subcutaneous fat. Estrogen helps put fat on the hips and then if estrogen does go down because everybody's different on what, what happens, it starts to cause that insulin resistance because you need, you need, you need that, you need it for that. So, so, so I, I just want to call attention to people that you, you may not think about this, but the symptoms that you're having or your loved one having could be perimenopause. And it's something that we can treat, we can work on, we can manage, we can balance. So with that being said, tell me what is the, the phyto endocrine or is, is it the phytonuro endocrine system?

That's me being like Jeff Bland with my own made up words, but it does have meaning and I did publish a paper on this. So the fight.

Hold on, hold on. That's. I got it from you. That's why, that's, that's why I had to.

No, getting at is like I've actually thought a lot about this and wrote about it. So I was just letting the practitioners know and if they want to read more about it, it's published in imcj. So the phyto neuroendocrine system, let's just break it apart. Phyto is plant neuro is neurotransmitter for the most part in just the central nervous system. And that autonomic nervous system balance which is really crucial in a perimenopausal woman starts to again HRV and a lot of other metrics start to just go awry. The endocrine system, obviously hormones and Yousef. I want to talk a little bit more about the endocrine system because I think many practitioners have a very static view of what that is. It's not just the H, P T A O access now what we know from the literature because what is an endocrine gland, it is an organ that produces hormones that then travels somewhere else to have an effect. You can have an autocrine effect, a paracrine effect, but an endocrine, a true endocrine effect, is a gland that produces hormones that those hormones then travel through the body, may be attached to a protein or a fat, then have some activity somewhere. And we are now seeing that the endocrine system is more vast than we ever thought. In fact, the skin is endocrine, the heart is endocrine. We don't often think about the thymus. But the thymus is endocrine. The parathyroid is endocrine. The liver is endocrine, the muscle is endocrine. We produce exer kinds when we exercise, these, these myokines, these different compounds that are having these metabolic effects. So what I would say is for all of us listening in, I know we get trapped into our textbook of thinking like, oh, hptao access, right? That's what we learn in functional medicine. This is expanding. We're learning about how these metabolites and different types of hormone like compounds being produced by the body are being produced beyond the classic endocrine glands that we learned about in school. So that's why we need to be attentive to muscle. We need to be thinking about all these different compounds. Even adipose tissue. Adipose tissue produces something on the order of 30 different adipoc kindes. And as Dr. Bland would say, sometimes we can have happy fat, sometimes we can have angry fat. Right? Not all adipose tissue is inflammatory. In fact, there's a really cool article on the colors of adipose tissue. And I want us to think about that with menopausal women, because you can actually create functional fat in the body, not just a storage depot of energy like the yellow white, classical subcutaneous fat. There's yellow fat, there's tan fat, there's brown fat, there's pink fat. There are these different colors of fat that speak to their functionality. And a lot of these different phytochemicals actually make white or yellow fat and turn it into metabolically active fat, which would be laden with mitochondria. And some of that can happen with cinnamon. You know, there are different things that have been studied in vitro, some more preclinical at this point. But wouldn't a menopausal woman want to know that she can optimize and be fueling her adipose tissue at the same time she's working on her muscle? See, I think when we go into social media land, we hear so much about protein, we hear so much about muscle, keep working out. You know, all of those things are important, but we're not actually talking about transforming fat tissue, adipose tissue. We, we almost don't want to even talk about it. We just think about, oh, let's just displace the adipose with the muscle. And maybe there needs to be a bit of that happening. But I also think, and this was, I give credit to Dr. Bland on this. He mentioned this concept to me. I think back in 2017, 2018, we were having lunch. And he said, deanna, you know about Beijing, right? And I'm thinking because we were at a Chinese restaurant, that he's talking about Beijing, China, but he was. He was talking about the Beijing of adipose tissue and how you can transform white to brown fat. And brown fat is what infants tend to have, right? And that's why they tend to be more warm, because it's thermogenic fat. It's fat that actually works for you. And what we're learning is that certain phytochemicals, even resveratrol, may actually facilitate this browning of fat. So I know I'm jumping the gun here in terms of like, just diving in on a concept, but there's a lot to be thinking about with. And maybe we go through the macros, then we go through the micros, and then we go to the phytos. Because I do think we need to touch on the three musketeers, the macros just a little bit. Yeah, kind of touching on that already.

No, let's do it. But I do want to. Just a couple of things. First of all, she keeps saying Dr. Bland, and that's her nickname for me. The second thing is. No, just kidding. Dr. Bland. I'm just. I wish, right. Dr. Bland is the father of functional medicine. He and his, his wife, I believe they coined the term functional medicine. And, and that's why she keeps referring Dr. To Dr. Bland. Dr. Bland is very smart. He uses the. This terminology, speaks about a mile a minute, and he's kind of like the male version of Dr. Minick. So just say the second thing that I'm really glad you mentioned, the different types of fat and that fat is an endocrine organ and that instead of looking at fat as bad, we want to look at fat as unhealthy versus healthy. And we want to. We want to shift fat to healthy fat because you do need fat. You need the right kind of fat and the right amount of fat. So, that being said, so. So since we're. We're going to take the deeper dive on the phytonutrients for perimenopause. Now we're going to skip. We're going to say, all right, whoever. The person has gotten a workup, they got blood work, they. Their symptoms are caused by perimenopause. We believe that they're in. They're transitioning from. Into perimenopause, which is a step towards menopause. Now we. We make sure. Make sure you guys know that this is for entertainment purposes only. But now, theoretically, what would happen is, now we're going to talk about, let's talk about nutrition to help balance this. And this is just one of the pieces like, like, like Dr. Minick said. So from that, real quick, let's start with the micronutrients. What you got?

Yeah, so micronutrients would be vitamins and minerals. Right. So there, there is a lot there. So what I'd like to do is take that as well. Let me just make a couple of comments. So vitamins. You know, one thing that I think is really important as we have this conversation is as a woman starts to have erratic menstrual cycles even before that time, preferably, it's really important to get some baseline labs, get those hormone labs and also get nutrient labs. So, so just some basic vitamins even, and also minerals. I think minerals are very important for everybody, but especially for perimenopausal and menopausal women as they start going through that transition even more because the minerals are connected to adrenal health. So we think of mineralocorticoids and there is an inverse relationship. I want you to remember this. This is really important. Not many people know this. There is an inverse relationship between esophageal essential minerals and toxic elements. So what does that mean, Deanna? That means that when we have high levels of things that are toxic like arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury, many times we have lower amounts of essential minerals. They, they look the same chemically, right? Like that plus two, you know, so we think of that same chemical configuration. They compete for entry into the body and even functionality at the level of the cell receptors. So what you want to do is ensure that she has enough minerals. Right. And you can easily test this so that you start to reduce the effects of any toxic elements that she would have in her body. And especially as you mentioned, yousef, how the bone starts to break down and then you start to get more of things like lead circulating in the bloodstream. Right. And so when you think of that, I want you to be thinking of balancing that out with calcium, magnesium and some of the other specific bone agents. And again, it's really important to test, not guess. I think that that's important and that's why I like certain testing, you know, even twice a year. And to do that at the end of two seasons, at the end of winter, and at the end of summer, even if the person lives in a mono season seasonality environment. Right. They live in Florida. Right. I, I still think it's important because you still have certain Things that are transitioning from a seasonal perspective. So get a handle on those vitamins and minerals test, see where she's at. You know, magnesium is implicated in like 300 different reactions in the body and I think even more. And we know that magnesium is very much implicated in glucose tolerance, how we manage blood sugar, how we manage insulin. And that's one of the things that tends to go wonky during perimenopause, as you mentioned. Right Yousef. So I do think even looking at the minerals is really an important piece. And many of those minerals are required as cofactors for many reactions in the body. So as Dr. Bruce Ames would say, your rate limiting step becomes whatever nutrient you have in the lowest amount of. So if you're missing one mineral, you could halt a whole process of different reactions just because you're lacking that one mineral. Like you're going to be compromised. You're just not going to have the full, you know, there's some redundancy in the body and the body tries to like take it from different places, but eventually you're going to exhaust that supply. You're going to be pulling upon bone or pulling upon soft tissue to get those things. And ideally you don't want to do that.

So what mineral, what multivitamin mineral test are you using?

Well, actually, believe it or not, well, I think Genova Diagnostics, I really like the Nutrival because one of the things that you get is not just the minerals and vitamins, but you also get 64 fatty acids, which I think is important to do as at least once a year. So my PhD is in essential fatty acids. And by the way, just to revert to the macronutrients for a second, this would be one of those foundational staples for women going through the menopausal transition because it helps to support her body from becoming too inflamed. And it also helps with different tissues in the body like the brain. Right. Which is primarily lipid. So I think that the Nutrival really captures a lot of the different features of nutrition and metabolism. And then I also think if a woman hasn't done this already, I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but I think getting a genetic test, like from 3x4 genetics, where you can actually see polygenic risk scores, you can look at different SNPs to understand what she might have, I would say propensities towards, like if you're going to put her on hormones, you're going to want to know how she metabolizes hormones, right? If she's somebody that shunts her estradiol into four hydroxy estrogens, then that you just want to know that so that you're looking at the balance that you can bring in even more phytochemicals to help to override that signal. So that's a one time test. You don't have to keep doing, doing the genetics test. Your genes don't change. But I think it's a lot of really good information, especially when it's done well with genes that you know that you can have an effect with. And the 3x4 test I like very much and I'll.

And I, I just want to add to that that when you sometimes people can't afford these tests. Right. Because these are usually not covered. So just from the regular labor quest and whatnot, you can get for magnesium, you can get an RBC magnesium and if that RBC magnesium I like shooting for a higher number. I like getting it higher to the six and that's telling you the magnesium in the cells that's going to be more accurate. I like. You can do a homocysteine and a homocysteine. If that's off, that can kind of indicate you need those B vitamins and we usually don't give one vitamin. I'm going to give a multi mineral. You can do a zinc and copper ratio and if the copper is much higher than zinc or both are kind of borderline, you can do a multi, give them like a multi mineral. You can do, you can check a vitamin D, a B12, you can check a folate. So you can kind of cast a nice net. And then when you replace them apart from even vitamin D, I give with K usually so, but so usually they're kind of paired together when we're replacing them. So it's not. And you can do, you can, you can check omegas. Yeah. With, with advanced lipid testing that a lot of times is covered by insurance. So no, I think that's great for the micronutrients and a little bit of the macro. Why don't we jump into the macronutrients. Tell us about that.

The macros are the phytos macro.

Because we did micro in a little macro. Yes, yes.

When I think of the macronutrients, I think I call these the three musketeers because this is where so, so many people in nutrition focus their time and effort. Protein, carbohydrate and fat. And I kind of feel like, you know, counting calories is so 1990s is, you know, I. I think it leads to analysis paralysis that leads to eating disorders and may not even be entirely accurate. You can have an 80 calorie brownie and an 80 calorie apple. Are they the same? No. And what makes them different is the actual composition of those calories and all the other things in there that don't count as calories. So usually when I'm talking with clients, what I tell them to do is count colors, not calories. And if you're counting the colors, then you're ensuring that you're getting a lot of the. The different phytochemicals that you actually need. So just to kind of give three bullet points. So with protein. Yes. Protein needs actually might go up for perimenopausal women. Right. They might have more bone breakdown, muscle breakdown. Their metabolism is changing. We need to override the inflammatory signal that would lead to sarcopenia. So having. So, you know, typically we think of.08 grams per kilogram of body weight. That is more or less through a woman's life cycle. But that can vary depending on if she's pregnant, if she's nursing. But when she goes to perimenopause, there's some debate about this, that there's a range between 1 to 1.2 gram per kilogram body weight. Now, if you have the chance to get a DEXA scan, DEXA is not perfect, but DEXA will let you know a little bit more about, again, the micronutrients. And whenever I think of bone, I'm thinking of muscle, which is connected to the protein. Right. They kind of go hand in hand. So be thinking about protein and quality protein. You know, one of the as. As we started off talking about, diversity is really important. And I think with protein, so many women get into food ruts where they eat the same thing every day, they get the same protein, then they start missing certain amino acids that are essential. Right. So I think diversifying protein sources like that is one thing that I talk about. Like, how do we diversify everything? People, events, life experiences, protein, protein powders, even, you know, sometimes we need to change up a brand. And when we diversify these things, we actually create better nutritional status and we have a better chance of reducing toxin load because we're not concentrating any one thing. So that, that's like the principle on protein. That's bullet point number one.

So, Deanna, hold on. What do you tell. What do you tell the women that are afraid of eating protein?

Well, first I would ask why they're afraid of eating protein.

Because I'm afraid I'm going to get big or I'm afraid, I'm afraid I'm going to hurt my kidney.

Well, there, there could be some indication there where you would want to be conscientious of kidney health. If a woman is diabetic and she already has some inclinations towards heading in that direction. Sure. But, but what I think is most important, here's what people are doing, is they're just eating a lot of protein without looking at how they're digesting that protein. And then that leads to issues in the gut where now you start to get bloating and you have all kinds of dysbiosis and then that creates the systemic problem that leads to metabolic acidosis and potentially even carcinogenic type of pathways can start to get turned on. Right. So I do think we have to look whenever we talk of any nutrient, we need to talk about not just getting more in the diet, but looking at how the body digests it, transports it, assimilates, metabolizes and excretes it. It's so much more. Right. And this is all going to sound like so complicated to people, but I think you just have to start really small with one of these things. So, you know, you might end up working on the gut a bit longer with a perimenopausal woman to get her gut right. Because if you get the gut right, then you're gonna have a lot of the metabolites ready from those phytochemicals. Right. So when we talk about fiber, we'll, we'll talk more about that. But yeah, I think your point is well taken. You definitely have to ensure that you're handling that protein well and that the body. And you can also look at essential amino acid and other non essential amino acids on the nutrival. So you can kind of get a sense if somebody is too high or too low in a certain amino acid. Yeah, that could be problematic.

I think, I think, I think that there is an unnecessary fear out there. And I, and I'm trying to dig and find out where it came from. And I think that one of the things that I worry about is that when, when women do try to decrease the amount that they're eating, if they stay in the same ratios because they're eating less calories than men. Yeah, I said the evil calorie word, but they are. Right. But if you look at, but if you look at just calories as it, at the end of the day, that's how much heat is needed to kind of burn this, this they eat, they'll eat less. And then if you look at whatever their ratios or percentages are of each of the fat, the protein and the, and the carbohydrates, they, if they decrease all three in the same percentage, most women I believe become protein deficient. Which makes the problem which, which you need it for neurotransmitters, it helps with decreasing cravings. You need it for so many things. So I think most women just aren't eating enough protein and they have this fear of it, but they kind of where, where we don't really, I don't see it playing out as, as a bad. Unless they have kind of more advanced kidney disease. When they do have kidney disease, we do try to have them flip more to a plant based protein versus an animal protein. But, but yeah, no, I, I'm, I'm not, I'm not, I'm more concerned that women will eat less protein than they need than more protein than they need. So yeah, so we have, we, we have fat and then carbohydrates next, right?

Yeah. And by the way, I also mentioned to people I have protein at every meal. Like just have, if we think of a plate and we're just being really practical, like half of that plate ideally would be connected to protein, a pro diversified protein sources of some kind. I think that that's important. Like if she's just thinking like and she's not counting calories, just protein at every meal. What about fat? What I actually see is women are more afraid of fat than protein and they think fat will make them fat and that's why they tend to avoid it. But as we know, there are certain fats that your body just doesn't make. These essential fatty acids, the omega 3 and omega 6 families of fats. And if you have an imbalance in those two, you can actually have a more pro inflammatory milieu. Like every cell of the body has this lipid membrane, right? So that lipid membrane will determine the functionality of the cell. So this is many times why I start with fats. Because fats are everywhere in the body. I mean they're in the skin, they're in the organs, they're in the brain, they're in the ovary. So I do think that fats are really important in the omega 3 index test, which you mentioned already, that just gives a very clear percentage. It's like straightforward. We know that you want about 8% EPA, DHA, you know, as part of that omega 3 percentage. And what was really interesting is that some years ago I was involved in a clinical trial where we were running these omega 3 index tests on people who were supplementing with around probably 1 to 2 grams of EPA and DHA. And they were still low. They were still low. From a percentage perspective. They were coming in at like 5%. And it's like, why would that be? Either they're not absorbing it, their body needs more, their body's metabolizing it, it's just going into the tissue because there's this rapid turnover. But don't assume that just because somebody's taking like two softgels a day, they're getting one to two grams, that that's enough. A woman going through menopause may actually need more. So you don't know. And that's actually a very inexpensive test. Like, even if she can, if you can just be strategic with certain labs, like that one is about $50. But it gives you a lot of information because it can tell you something about what you're going to do in terms of supplementation.

Because I've been seeing, I've been seeing some podcasters, some nutrition influencers saying that seed oils are not really a problem anymore, that they're healthy for you. Do you believe that?

It depends on what we call a seed oil, how we're defining it. Right. So if we're talking, because in my mind, sesame seed, if we think of borage, borage seed, you know, some of these seed oils, if they're not very processed and we're not heating them.

Right.

I see a problem with that. That, you know, there's good science on some of these. But when we're talking seed oil, I think many times we lose the nuance, which is the highly processed, refined oxidized oils that typically make their way into ultra processed foods that by the time you get them, they have gone rancid and they're just not, you know, we just, in general, Americans have too much of omega 6 fats in the diet, so that omega 6, omega 3 balance is off. And that's where the seed oils, the seed oils contribute a lot of the omega 6 and less of the omega 3. So from that perspective, I think it can be problematic. But can certain seed oils and omega 6s be beneficial for certain populations, like atopi or certain types of autoimmunity with certain seeds like evening primrose and borage oil? I. Yes, I think so. But it's.

They were kind of pushing the corn and the, and the soy and the canola, saying that they're healthy. And I'm going to be honest Made me twitch a little. So maybe off camera you can tell me what can help me with the twitching.

But Seeds, right? When I think of that's soybean oil that corn is, you know, it's improper terminology.

I think it's a, I think it's more of a political thing and where's it coming from and where's the. But I, but, but I noticed that now. I mean, to me it was so clear that these particular highly processed seed oils that are cooked at high temperatures and, and now there's like this, this push of, of people saying, oh, no, no, they're fine and they're healthy. So anyway, bad. My sarcasm doesn't always come through.

No, you know, you know, you know, actually just to go back to Dr. Bland because, you know, he mentored me to a large extent and one of his pearls of, of knowledge and wisdom that I will never forget is that he said that when in nutrition there's always polarity and it's like a pendulum. If you have this group that are saying, yay, seed oils, there's going to be a group that's like, no seed oils. And it's like the truth is probably somewhere in between because we need to talk about quality, quantity, preparation. How are those oils kept? Are they in a plastic bottle at the store? Like bad plastic interacting with fat, not so good. So, you know, I just feel like in nutrition, unfortunately, we've seen a lot of arm wrestling. It's either like you win or you lose. And quite honestly, I could cherry pick data to make an argument on both sides of certain issues, which is why many times we tend to see that. Which, which is why we need somebody to be kind of like a voice of reason and say, well, yes and no. And here's why, here's, here's the more educated way to kind of think through that process rather than just say yes or a no.

I love it.

You're actually right. It's so trendy. Like seed oils are all the rage right now.

Right, Right. Well, well. So that's two. We have about a minute for your third. Macronutrients. So we can jump into the phytonutrients.

Carbohydrates.

Yes.

And not all carbohydrates are created equal. And I feel bad for carbs because they get a bad reputation and they're just all bucketed into this trash can. Definition which is like that they're seen just as like sugars, but that's not the case. They. Vegetables are carbohydrate fibers can be Carbohydrate. Right. So there's a lot of nuance here as well, but simple sugars, complex carbohydrates. And then I start to look at fibers. A woman's. As a woman goes through menopause, her gut microbiome becomes much more like a man's. So it starts to become different. And how do we preserve a healthy, robust gut microbiome? Fiber. Fiber, fiber. When we take in a lot of different kinds of fibers, we start to break down and chew up those fibers through our gut microbiome. And then we start to get a lot of these short chain fatty acids, acetate, propionate, butyrate. These are then signaling molecules to the actual gut lining. Systemically can connect to the brain. Gut, brain access. She needs fiber. And the more diverse that fiber is, the more she creates a polyculture instead of a monoculture. Some women get the message that, oh, I need to eat more fiber. They go to the store and they buy a supplement which is just one fiber source, and then they're doing that every day in their smoothie. That isn't like, I would say the. My favorite approach, I think that a better approach would be to diversify. Like one day now we do flaxseed meal, the next day we're going to do chia, the next day we're going to do psyllium. Right. And you kind of rotate or maybe you have a mixed fiber source. Not to say that all your fiber should be supplemental. You also want just food based fibers, legumes, whole grains for the grains that you can eat. Like choosing quinoa, which would be higher in protein and also higher in phytochemicals and fiber. You know, I just posted on my social media today, um, there was some research that was just published, three studies actually based on NHANES data showing that dietary microbes, so having fermented foods, so I'm talking natto and kimchi and sauerkraut and fermented veggies of various kinds, even pickles. Right. That this confers better markers of aging, so reduces accelerated aging, reduces frailty with age, and even reduces constipation and depressive symptoms. So it's kind of cool that, you know, one day we're going to be looking more at the microbes of our diet than we will the calories because again, a lot of our being is actually microbial and we need to be sure we've got the right microbes.

Nice. Well said. And, and I don't know if you said it directly, but the more simple Carbohydrates, the ones that spike insulin and, and, and, and cause crashes, probably aren't the best for menopause.

No. Yeah, I think, you know, and I think women have heard that. I think most people know that sugar is, is not ideal. You know, just one, two hacks with that because it's not going to be perfect either. If you're going to have something with sugar, have it at the end of the meal so that when you've got that, that rise in glucose coming in from the meal that you don't have the quick peek from the first thing that you ate. And this is pretty well known in the literature about the order of what you eat. Right. So just keep that in mind. The second thing to think about is like I always get the question about juice. Deanna, can I have juice there. There are studies on juices. Pomegranate juice, tomato juice, grapefruit juice, orange juice. There's no doubt like that. There's data, like good data. But would you just do an 8 ounce glass of juice on an empty stomach? No, that wouldn't be the best way to do it. Having just a smaller 2 to 4 ounce amount within the context of a meal and preferably in the middle or towards the end of the meal, again to offset that glucose spike would be important. So think about the glycemic impact, how everything that you bring into the meal, fat will delay gastric emptying. So you want a little bit of fat if you're going to have anything like a simple sugar. And then also, you know, there are like 50 plus names of sweeteners now on food labels. So you kind of have to know what you're looking for. And what I would say is in artificial sweeteners aren't the next best thing either. So I think sticking with food sources like a ripe banana, applesauce, I actually think that there's good data on honey. If you look at all of the, I mean it's immunomodulatory. It actually is microbial depending on the kind of honey you get. So sm, small amounts of honey I think could be beneficial.

So maybe the better sweetener. Right in the right, in the right setting, in the right sequence. Kool Aid. When should, when would we drink our Kool Aid?

Never.

You said that ever.

Also speaks to the color, right? The dyes and the. Yeah, yeah.

Wrong color. Wrong color or wrong way of getting color. All right, so let's get to the color is day. Let's do it.

Okay, so do you want me just to dive in With a color. Let's, let's start with orange.

Well, let's talk about. So what specifically for this, for this, for this show is for menopause and perimenopause. So how, how would you like to do it? You want to start with.

That's where I want to start with orange. Because I think for menopause orange is probably, if I had to pick any of those colors, it's going to be orange first. All right, so what do we know about orange colored foods? And when I talk about orange colored foods, I'm talking about fruits and vegetables primarily. So think of a winter squash, think of a sweet potato, think of even an orange. Think of apricots, blood oranges, papaya, nectarines, mango, especially mango, carrots. So here's the thing most people don't realize with these orange foods, and this takes me back to my graduate school days where I actually was doing benchtop lab work on carotenoids. So there is a whole class of plant compounds, and these are usually red, orange, yellow and green. But there's a chunk of them that are orange and they're found in orange colored foods. And if you look at some of the literature, you see that there have been 13 to 14 different carotenoids that have been identified in ovarian tissue. So let's just grok that for a minute, because a lot of these phytochemicals are not just general antioxidants. They're actually structural components of our organs. So carotenoids, up to 14 of them have been identified in the ovary. Now, if you think of the corpus luteum going to corpus albicans to the process of ovulation, why is it a yellow body corpus luteum? It is because of the concentration of the carotenoids. And many of them are the pro vitamin A carotenoids, meaning that beta carotene is one of the leaders of the pack that converts to retinol. Right. So if you have a patient that is vegetarian, the only way that they're getting vitamin A is through the carotenoid family. And only certain carotenoids connect to vitamin A. But for some reason, the orange colored carotenoids seem to be very important for the ovaries. In fact, there was a study that showed this was over a thousand women. This was in premenopausal women. The researchers followed them for about 12 and a half years and they found that there was one carotenoid from Orange colored foods that seemed to help to delay ovarian decline. Because what is menopause? Menopause is the decline of the ovaries. Right? The ovaries can no longer go through that process of ovulation. But certain orange colored foods that are rich in certain carotenoids, and one of them, you don't have to remember this, but it's called beta cryptoxanthin. Beta crypto xanthin seems to be connected to ovarian decline and helping to offset that. So where, where do you find these foods? So foods that are high in beta crypto xanthin are tangerine, persimmons, mangoes. And I don't know if you ever ask your patients whether or not they crave orange foods when they're going through menopause or even perimenopause, like in those early stages. Because I think that the body almost looks for certain things. Like if you're really keyed into your body and like you're not just craving something in a more dysfunctional way, but it's actually like a functional craving, you might actually be drawn to some of these orange colored foods. I just want to tell you another cool study. There was a study. Now this was in, I think it was in Japan where, you know how in Japan women have a lot of rice? I mean people just in general they eat a lot of rice. Well, what these researchers did was they swapped out 2/3 of the rice and brought in yam. So yam is kind of like, you know, we know that it's more orangey. It's got a lot of these different phytochemicals. And what ended up happening is they were able to increase certain hormones in these women just by making a meal swap from rice to yam, which I think is kind of neat. Many times we think of progesterone with yam, there's not always that translation of, you know, having, you know, progesterone cream or having these yams and seeing changes in progesterone. But we could be modulating other types of things. In fact, just what I mean, so many cool things that are coming out. But like phytoprogestins, we think of phytoestrogens, which we can talk about, but there are also identified in nature phytoprogestins or these progesterone like compounds. So I'm all up orange when it comes to menopause. I want you to remember that it's such an easy thing that you can think about. And sometimes when fair skinned women start eating more orange, what happens? Especially carrots Right. They start looking like a ka. They start looking orange. And that's not a bad thing, actually. That can actually be like an internal sunscreen. An internal. Like it, it can be a good thing. And typically you see it in the palms of the hand and also the soles of the feet, but sometimes it can make for a nice warm hue of the skin. So that's not necessarily detrimental. Like some people have hyperkeratinemia and, you know, you want to keep an eye on that. But more often than not, people don't get enough carotenoids. Carotenoids also go into the brain, they go into the adipose tissue, they go into the breast tissue. They're very protective. And most women going through menopause, they care about their skin. Their skin is changing. It's getting more wrinkles, it's getting drier. Women that have more carotenoids in the diet, even lutein, which is kind of a yellowish, greenish kind of, of carotenoid, have better ability for the skin to hydrate. So they're, they're great and they, they're great with fat. So keep in mind that when you're cooking, let's just say you have carrots. Number one, what you want to have patients do is shred their carrots. You will increase polyphenols. The second thing is after you shred or cut the carrots, steam them, get them a little bit soft. So raw carrots aren't the best for carotenoids. You want to steam them, make them soft, break apart the fibrous matrix, and then add a fat to help with absorption. Because many of these carotenoids are fat soluble, which is why they play well with hormones. Hormones are fat soluble. They go into the adipose or they come from the adipose tissue like testosterone converting to estrogen through, through aromatase. So orange colored foods. I want you all to remember that.

So hold on. So how are they going to add the. Are they going to saute it or are they going to. You said you'd prefer they steam it because how are we going to add the fat? Add a little coconut oil or add a little after.

You know, I'm bullish on this, but if you really want to be like doing everything according to what we know, it really should be, you steam the vegetable, don't saute it, and then afterwards, then add a little bit of butter, ghee, extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, just any fat of choice. That.

Okay.

Not. Yeah, you don't want a, a soybean oil or corn. Corn Oil, like we were talking about, you want something not as refined, you know, like an unrefined extra virgin olive oil would be actually a very good choice. But when you cook things in fat. Let me just make this comment for Everybody, because my PhD was on fats, and I just feel like fats are so maligned. So when we cook with fat, even if it's a solid fat, we still have some unsaturated fat in there. You're still going to have breakdown, you're still going to have rancidity, you're going to have oxidation, which means that you're going to have inflammatory components that form in that cooking process, depending on how high the heat is, how long you're cooking. So my approach, and my husband laughs at me about this because. Because he knows me as like the no oil cooker. Like, I steam food. I mean, sometimes I'm adding in a little bit of oil, but I try not to do like, high hot, like cooking, because I. You just damage the fat and then you start to get rancid products that are inflammatory. So add the fat after you've steamed it. Water is a great conductor of heat, and you can easily cook these things. Now, certain things like oranges and tangerines and mango, you're not going to be cooking those things that you would be taking in raw. Some of these carotenoids are a little bit more water soluble than some of the other ones, so don't worry about that. But some of the veggies that are orange, like squashes. Oh, my goodness. Butternut squash. If you can have women have butternut squash in season with some butter or coconut milk, a little bit of drizzled honey, some spices like cinnamon for insulin sensitizing, it is remarkable. And then it would have that together with protein, right?

And. And you know, that doesn't sound appetizing, but the way you say it, you're making me hungry. I'm actually wanting. You.

Have not squash like, oh, my goodness, it is so yummy. The only thing is the prep time, right? You just. You got to cut it, you got to spoon out the seeds. Then you just cook it. You turn it over on water in a pan in the oven and let it do its thing when it's soft. And then you can even keep leftovers of that. It's pretty stable in its carotenoid content.

All right, so I have one more question for this segment. Segment, and that is I have something in my house that I just feel like there's a lot of shame around it, and that's a microwave. What's the deal with microwaves? Can we, can, can you use a microwave? Because there's so much that's, I think that's one of those black and white. Oh my God, microwaves are horrible. And they're killing all of the phytonutrients and whatever. How bad is it that I have a microwave in my house?

Okay, I was criticized on this before, but there isn't a lot of science to bash microwaves. In fact, in some ways a microwave can preserve nutrients because you're not losing a lot of the nutrients in water. You're not getting the browning effect of advanced glycation end products. Now, do I like microwaves? Do I actually use. We have one because it came with the house. But I, I, I tend not to use it unless I'm really in a pinch. I don't like the radiation that it gives off. If I'm going to use it, I'm going to stand away from it. Some people don't like what it does. More to the, if you will, the energetics of the food. But if we're just talking phytochemicals here, it's a matter of debate. And I think some people would say, no way, I never want to microwave. But hey, if somebody won't eat something because they don't have the time to cook it, I'd rather them use the microwave and get the phytochemicals than say that they don't have time to eat that food and, and to prepare it. Right.

So you, you're saying it doesn't kill the phytochemicals. You're saying it. Yeah, because that's what, that's what's out there, that it kills the phytochemicals.

There isn't a lot of science around it there. There are some scant studies, and in some cases we looked further into this and found that microwaving could even potentiate certain nutrients and, you know, like cooking wood. Right.

So, and to be clear, I mean, you know, in order, I gotta keep people's attention and, and that's where I throw that. And I have adhd, so I, and I throw humor in. But I mean, it's not like that's all I use the microwave. It's more like when we're in a pinch. But I just got to add, so I was told.

Glad you brought that up because that is a point of contention. People just intuit that that's not a good way to cook food. Yeah, I don't love it, I don't use it. But if people, if that's their only method of cooking and the way to get to vegetables, and I say, then do your best. Do whatever you can do.

So someone told me the other day, this is maybe five, six months ago, trying to remember, but they said, listen, we, we were, we were talking about how our phones are listening to us and how you talk about something and then it shows up in an ad. And they said, what you got to do? You put it in the microwave if you want to talk, like secretly, really secretly. So I went, I put it in the microwave, I closed the microwave and I said, hey, Siri. And she said yes. Hold on. I think she said yes now.

Oh my gosh. To think that technology can go beyond.

Microwaves aren't going to stop it. All right, well, thank you so much. That was a great overview. And Dr. Minick, now it's time to spill those functional medicine organic beans. Those things that you're not going to get from like AI or ChatGPT. This is your experience. Experience share to unlock additional premium content including the deeper dive in this clinical topic, leadership and speaking tips, charting and efficiency pearls and business mastery. As a functional medicine practitioner champion, be sure to check out our mastermind and other membership programs@www.fmpessentials.com. hey everyone. We hope you're enjoying the FMP Essentials show so far. Pretty amazing, isn't it? Remember, if you're part of our mastermind, don't miss out on our exclusive bonus clinical content. That's where we take a deeper dive. Look at personal experiences and real world insights that you can't just get from a book or from looking on AI. It's where we really get into the nuances that make a difference in your practice. The experience of the guest of our show. Thank you for watching and we hope you enjoy the rest of the show. All right everybody, welcome back to the show. We are at the final section of our podcast which is making an impact. If you look at the functional medicine practitioner as a tree, a fruit bearing tree, that tree that the fruits have seeds and those seeds can be planted representing legacy and we want as functional medicine practitioners, I believe it is important for us to give back through membership, community involvement, even with our finances and really make the world a better place. But before we wrap this up, Dr. Minick, what is it that you're excited about right now?

Like just anything or what?

Well, I'm excited about your book, so let's make it about. I'm excited about your Book.

Where do you go with that one? Well, yes, I am excited. My new version of the Rainbow Diet just came out and so I am excited about this and I'm mostly excited because I, I did the, the creation of it on the inside and it is finally very colorful. So I have a lot of excitement around that because I feel like it embodies a lot of what I lecture. It embodies a lot of what I talk about on social media. So I, I mean, I just did this as a labor of love. I didn't even get like a book advance or anything like that. It's just like, let's just get it out there. I just want this information in people's hands. I get asked the questions all the time. So let me empower people with that information. And very science based. I mean, gosh, there are I don't know how many pages of references, a chunk of them. But anyway, they're all in here too for practitioners and practitioners actually feel like, okay, she's saying this about orange foods, but where's the, where's the data? Like, that's one of the things that I think is very important to have, you know, the evidence connected to the recommendations. So I have that in here as well.

Amazing. I can't wait to get my hands on it. And by the time you've watched this, I'm sure that, that Deanna would have sent me that copy with, or gave me that copy, hint, hint, with autographs. It's going to be worth so much one day and I can't wait to see the pictures on the inside. So, so going to making the world a better place. I, you know, I like, I, I think that financially, if you can, it makes sense to support organizations that can help us and help the functional medicine cause. I, I like donating to places like the Environmental Work Group and the Institute for Functional Medicine, which is really helping get that education out there. And they, they do a lot of philanthropy too, when it, Well, I don't know if it's called philanthropy, but they do help practitioners that can't afford it. They have programs and whatnot and they're getting into the, the VA and whatnot. But that, that being said, what organizations are there any that stand out for you?

You mentioned them. I mean, IFM for sure, EWG is a great one. And you know what else I think we can all be doing for each other is maybe this isn't money, but it's time and time is money. And I do think that mentoring and spending time with people who are growing up in the field now. You know, you and I have been doing this a while, so we need to be thinking of the next generation. How do we mentor? How do we provide information and insight and help them along their path? To me, that can be invaluable. You know, so many people are just anxious and wanting this information. So I feel like, you know, that's what we can do to really give back. For all of the training that IFM has done to Dr. Jeffrey Bland, I mean, the best reward in that way is to pay it forward in information and inspiration. So that's what I try to do with mentorship with people.

And thank you. I mean, I hope that I think this episode, definitely one of our best episodes. I think that this is doing that this is helping practitioners and hopefully it will inspire people to go into the functional medicine field as well. Well, how do people stay connected with you?

Yep, very simply, my website, which is deannaminick.com D E A N N A M I N I C H so everything is down there. You can find my books, you can find the blogs, resources, everything. Education would be there. I make it easy.

Dr. Minick. Our most precious commodity is our time. And you've been so generous with your time. Thank you so much. Can't wait to see you again and get you back on the show.

That'll be great. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for all the great work that you're doing. Bye bye.

Hey everyone. I'm Dr. Youssef Elyaman. We hope you enjoyed the show. For more exclusive content from this interview, check out our FMP Essentials Mastermind. Make sure you check out our website at www.fmpessentials.com for our blog and other content. If you enjoy this show, please, please, please subscribe. Give us a like it helps way more than you could imagine. Thank you for watching. Follow us across all social media platforms at FMP Essentials hq. Please don't forget to share this with your practitioner friends and we'll see you in the next episode.