What And When Women Should Eat Around Their Menstrual Cycle & In Menopause | Dr. Deanna Minich

It's not just the what of nutrition. It becomes the how, the when, the why, and the how much. Intermittent fasting, circadian rhythm, chrono, nutrition. There's all kinds of science about the when of eating. And the when, I would say, in some cases is equally important as the what. You know, so how do you start your day and when do you stop eating? Are you restricting eating at any point? You know, we need to be our own best advocate. And I think that when we come into the pause of life, you know, thinking of the words that we use to define this transition, right, Perimenopause, post menopause, even menopause, andropause, you know, it's just like, you know, maybe we need to be in that space of pausing and reflecting and really moving into our state of intuitive wisdom.

Let's really start the conversation talking about the unique needs in terms of nutrition for women at different stages of their lives. So obviously, women in their peak fertile years versus perimenopause and menopause. And I think, unfortunately, women are not small men. We really do have our own unique rhythms, our own unique properties to our bodies that really require us to think about nutrition a bit differently.

Absolutely. And not only are we unique from men, I think one woman is unique from another woman. So it's really difficult to say that this is exactly what all premenopausal women need to do. And this is for all perimenopausal women. This is for all postmenopausal women. So for the listeners to take that into guidance, as you're listening to a lot of these things I'm going to talk about, I think that there's one thing that cuts across every part of the life cycle for women and for men. And I think that you probably would expect me to say this based on my content, and that is it's really important to be getting phytonutrients. And that doesn't mean that you have to be vegan, vegetarian. It really means that we need to get the complexity of nature. And, you know, after studying nutrition so long and seeing so many people arm wrestle on macronutrients like protein, carbohydrate and fats, it's like that's where nutrition has played for so long. And I feel like it's kind of getting old. It's like, yeah, we know we need lean protein. This is important for women all throughout the life cycle, but especially more so in the perimenopausal phase and on then we, of course, know about healthy fats and, and in fact, that was what my PhD research was on, was on essential fatty acid absorption and metabolism. So we could wax on that for a little bit. But essentially we constantly need to be on the pulse of our inflammatory status and our fatty acid status, our balance of the omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids. That is so important for knowing how we're going to stack up with inflammation and going into the perimenopause and even premenopausally. This is really important. It's important for fertility, it's important for mood, for a menstrual cycle. So that's key. The carbohydrates, of course, are, you know, just the mainstay. And this is, I think, where people get out of whack in terms of the spectrum. You know, sometimes we go a little bit too far to one side of that pendulum and we say no carbohydrates, but carbohydrates actually encompass a large array of different foods. We're talking about prebiotic fibers, the insoluble fibers, the non starchy vegetables. You know, these are all important for us, right? But on the other side of the spectrum, we have the ultra processed carbohydrates, the things that just ramp up our blood sugar, just create the insulin surge. And this is all very inflammatory. So we need to be even more attentive to that through the menstrual cycle, I would say, where we're going to be a little bit more vulnerable to those shifts. And during the perimenopause, when things get kind of skewed now the phytonutrients come in, because I do think that the colors of plants coincide with the different pigments and phytochemicals that each have their own functional signature. So if we look at red, red typically is about inflammation, immune health, kind of keeping those things in balance. So red foods tend to be high in polyphenols and vitamin C. You know, orange tends to be connected to things like carotenoids, beta cryptoxanthin, beta carotene, alpha carotene, a lot of these different. You know, there are like 700 different carotenoids in nature, so they're not all orange. But there is a connection between orange foods. And we'll get into this in a little bit. I think there's a connection between orange foods and reproductive health. So I want to focus on orange for women, especially premenopausal women. And then yellow, I say, tracks with catalytic type of enzymes. I think of pineapple, bromelain, I think of acids from things like lemon, which actually have a bit of a ph regulating effect in the body. And a lot of those bioflavonoids that we find in yellow foods also help with things like liver health. And we can use some of the yellow foods as cholagogs and to help with bile flow and, you know, choleretic agents. Green foods I think of as it relates to the heart. So being full of things like folate, vitamin K1, magnesium, a whole number of things in green foods. You know, not to overlook chlorophyll, but chlorophyll is, you know, the master, I would say antioxidant in so many ways and it's in so many foods that are from nature. And then the, the final one is blue purple. So blue purple is the one that most people get too little of because it's very rare in nature. And, and blue purple compounds track to the category of phytochemicals known as polyphenols. So under polyphenols we have 8,000 different types. And these, for the most part, if you were just to look at them with more of a science eye and a pattern recognition, we're looking at brain health, we're looking at mood. So I think it's really important for women to ensure that they get that because for the most part throughout the whole life cycle, that's the one that most people aren't getting. So yeah, I would say the macros, the micros and these colorful compounds in foods. So just getting that common denominator of eating the rainbow. And the only other thing, you know, before we get into the orange. And I want to say something for premenstrual women and that is there, there's a really interesting paper that was published not too long ago and actually there are several papers on this showing how different minerals change throughout the menstrual cycle. Of course we would think of iron because we lose blood, but there is also some flux in things like magnesium, zinc and even copper. And those are some pretty key minerals that can be cofactors for goodness. You know, everything from vitamin D conversion to neurotransmitters to hormones. So if we're constantly fluxing through the menstrual cycle and we're not eating a very nutrient dense diet, we run the risk that we're going to fall short in some way and then potentially have some symptoms that could be related to nutrient insufficiencies and deficiencies. So I'll stop there. I mean, there's a lot to go down.

Yeah, no, and I think it's so interesting because oftentimes those cravings that we get towards the, you know, luteal phase as we're getting close to menstruation can really be a sign that maybe our magnesium levels are deficient or perhaps there's something that we're missing in our diets. And I think in so many ways, I think the latest statistic I read is somewhere between 60 to 70% of the standard American diet is hyper processed foods. So most of us are woefully deficient in these phytonutrients. And is it any wonder that we're seeing higher levels of PMS and PMDD and seeing people that are struggling with mood disorders when in many ways we're not getting these kind of co factors, these, you know, basic level nutrients that can go on to be very beneficial for building neurotransmitters, going on to, to create healthier hormones. You know, you mentioned that you did your, your doctoral work looking at essential fatty acids. And for many people that listen to this podcast, they know that we are largely with the standard American diet getting a predominance of omega 6 fatty acids in way too far of a imbalance to omega 3 fatty acids. You know, just taking a supplement of omega 3s is not enough. You really should be getting some fatty fish and, and concentrating on those things. So in your work, when you are looking at women at these different stages of lives, and you mentioned that the orange foods, which I love, if you, anyone that does not already follow Deanna's work, I mean, your work is so beautiful because it is these brightly pigmented images of showing your meals and helping people understand the unique characteristics to these colorful phytonutrient, dense vegetables and fruits. But the orange foods in particular that you've identified are so important for reproductive health. What is it about these compounds found in these fruits and vegetables that are so beneficial for us in terms of reproduction?

You know, I think that there needs to be a lot more research on them, how they tie into female reproductive health. But let me tell you what I know about them just at, at the surface, because I would love for a researcher to kind of put their arms around this and then take it to the finish line. I feel like we've only just begun, but here's what I see out there. So first and forem most, there was some initial research, I think two published studies showing that there are actually up to 14 different carotenoids found in the human ovary. So just think of that, okay? There are, there's the body has some reason why it's localizing these plant compounds into certain parts of the body. Why would we have up to 14 different carotenoids in the ovary? Well, if you look at the ovary, one of the things that happens as part of going from follicle to a ripe egg is that you have the conversion that corpus luteum going into corpus albicans, that yellow body. Right. That's the translation of that. Why is it yellow? It's because of those carotenoids. And it seems that those carotenoids, some of them do convert to vitamin A, and vitamin A does play a role and healthy fertility and helping that ovulatory process, even at the genomics level. So I think just, you know, from a localization and anatomy perspective, we actually find that these are substances that track to the fat tissue. They go into the ovary, they're in the breast, they're in the brain, they're in the skin. That's why when you eat a lot of orange foods, you can actually get a little bit of an orange tinge to the skin. So whenever I think fat, I'm thinking hormones. Right. And so there are some studies more in animals. We don't see these studies in humans yet, but seeing that a correlation between taking in things like beta carotene and having changes in blood levels of progesterone. So there may be a hormone connection, and I don't understand fully the mechanism, and it's just an association. It's not causal. It's not saying, you know, that the beta carotene is causing the high progesterone, but there's some kind of connection there or association that we have yet to really understand. And then the. The two other studies that I think are important for your audience to know about is that there was a study, a large study, in which they followed people. They followed what they ate, and then they followed whether or not they had endometriosis or developed it. And what they found was that higher intake of citrus fruits was associated with a decreased risk for endometriosis. And then when the researchers went further into the citrus fruits, things like oranges, they tried to figure out, well, is there a nutrient that is in these foods that is responsible for that relationship? And one of the nutrients that they called out was a carotenoid by the name of beta cryptoxanthin. It's kind of a mouthful, but it's not. You know, most people think of beta carotene and they don't really get a sense of all of the other carotenoids. But beta crypto xanthi is a very interesting one to think that it could have some connection with reproductive health. There are some animal studies that would suggest it has to do something with metabolism and body weight even. And then, you know, then there was another study looking at how women with more beta crypto xanthin in the diet, which is coming from orange fruits typically like persimmons and mandarins and oranges, you know, all the orange circular foods that look kind of like ovaries actually that basically these women that were having more beta crypto xanthin and there was an amount proposed in the study that they had a slower ovarian decline. Now I don't know why that is, but I'm not going to wait to find out. I definitely want those carotenoids in my diet to help me through multiple systems. You know, we're just talking right now about reproductive, but I'm not even talking about, you know, the brain benefit, the skin benefit. You know, these just even very simply are antioxidants. But I think that they're flexing to doing a lot of other things in the body that we don't quite understand yet.

I think it's really fascinating because, you know, nutritional science and, and a lot of the lay press lately there have been very polarizing opinions about nutrition. You know, you're carnivore, you're vegan, you're keto, you're low carb, you're something in between. And obviously I think in many ways people find solace in knowing that perhaps one nutritional paradigm heals their gut or they feel better or they lose weight. And I think we really have forgotten about the power of these phytonutrient rich foods. We've gotten so far off base that I love that your work is really introducing concepts like for me, some of these are brand new concepts about some of these compounds that perhaps I'm not as familiarized with the research because of the niche that I kind of work in, but yet it makes so much sense that these powerful plant based compounds have really profound potential systemic effects. Now that was research kind of looking at ovarian function in younger women. What is the research suggesting for women that are making that transition? They're you know, 35 and above, you know, perimenopause and beyond into menopause. What is the nutritional research suggesting is beneficial? What are things that we need to do differently in this middle age stage of our lives and beyond?

I would say we need to be tending to inflammation and to do that through living an anti inflammatory life, which means that we need to be quelling the inflammatory response through food and even emotionally, mentally and spiritually. You know, I think part of my path with nutrition has taken me from nutrition into this place of looking at nourishment. And I think that as women are going through the perimenopause, and that includes myself, as I am in month nine right now, I'm getting to the finish line. I've got three more months before I'm official. But you know, I'm going through it real time and I can even see for myself because I'm doing so much more reading and doing so much more observing and talking with women and looking at what people experience. But still at the base of all of it, there is inflammation. And if we didn't tend to that inflammation in our earlier years, in our 30s and in our 20s, it's going to come rearing its head into our 40s, in our perimenopausal time. Then we start to see hot flashes, then we start to see cognitive issues, we start to see gut issues, we start to see autoimmune conditions that start to crop up or flare up. Gut health just kind of like presents itself. It's like, you got to deal with me now. So from a nutritional standpoint, I think what's really important here is all of the things that I just mentioned are really important. However, it's not just the what of nutrition. It becomes the how, the when, the why, and the how much. And what do I mean by all of that? You know, I, I think that bringing in circadian rhythm, one of the things that's really beautiful as it relates to women is that we're very connected to rhythm, rhythms, and we don't let go of those rhythms even through menopause. Just because we don't have a menstrual period doesn't mean that we're not connected to a cycle. In fact, I've even felt like even though I'm not having periods, I still feel I have a cycle. I have an emotional cycle. I can notice better sleep at certain times of the month. I'm more creative at certain times of the month. Like I haven't let go of that follicular and luteal phase. It's just a bit more ghosted where, okay, like now I'm feeling them on other levels, not necessarily a physical level. So we will always be connected to rhythms. And I think that eating has a rhythm as well. So we See that with a lot of the talk on intermittent fasting, circadian rhythm, Chrono nutrition is a very popular term. In fact, I would say even before that landed on social media, we were seeing articles on chrono nutrition. There's all kinds of science about the when of eating. And the when I would say in some cases is equally important as the what, you know, so how do you start your day and when do you stop eating? Are you restricting eating at any point? And Cynthia, quite honestly, I think that this is where there's a lot of nuance and a lot of personalization to be had for how we do that. I think that a lot of people say things about the when of eating that feels very cut and dry. And I think for women it's not cut and dry. I think what can happen through the perimenopause is a couple of things. One is she might sleep better because she has less food that comes in closer into bedtime. So having that time restricted feeding where she stops eating at maybe 6pm and then goes to bed. But then for other women, they get erratic blood sugar at night and then they wake up at two in the morning because they didn't have something to eat closer into bedtime. So she needs to constantly be in check and engaged with where she's at. Because something that seems to like be a premise or a paradigm may not be holding true or at least it may be fluxing for her. So she needs to be really flexible with any kind of nutritional dogma that's out there to know that it may not necessarily apply to her specifically.

Well, and I love the message about not being rigid, being flexible, understanding that even if you're no longer getting a menstrual cycle, you should still be attuned to the rhythms of your body. And it could be, you know, I have many menopausal women that are very attuned to the lunar calendar. You know, when there's a full moon, you know, they notice that their sleep may be impacted, they may have less energy. I think it's really important for middle aged women to be cognizant of the, you know, more pro inflammatory foods. And this is where I will sometimes say if you are still eating the way you did at 18, you probably, that's probably not working well for you. I went to a high school reunion a few years ago and I jokingly remember with, you know, my male and female friends, I said, I think there are people here who are still partying like they did at 18. And it's just not. It's just not showing up well for them. And this is just based on things they would share with me. And I was like, I think maybe, you know, consuming a lot of alcohol, eating a lot of, you know, gluten or dairy. And. And I think this is very bio individual. So for every person out there that says, yes, I don't tolerate dairy anymore, there's probably five other that do fine with sheep or goat's milk dairy, and that's fine. But I find for a lot of individuals, it's figuring out what works best for your body, and that could be a little bit more simplistic, and that's totally okay. And to your point, this whole concept of being in alignment with your circadian biology, you know, for many, many women, I find that they do much better eating earlier in the day when they tend to be more insulin sensitive, closing down that feeding window. If they're choosing to fast, or even if they're, you know, having three meals over the course of a day, that that benefits them. They have a lot more energy, they sleep better, their blood sugar regulation isn't as problematic. And so I think that, you know, again, those rhythms of our bodies, irrespective of where we are so important, I think in many ways we're kind of taught, or at least I feel like I was, even as an allopathic trained provider that, you know, we prescribe medications that shut down communication between our brain and our ovaries. You know, how many women, myself included, were on oral contraceptives for the appropriate reasons, but not fully understanding what that represented? You know, do you really have bad pms, or is it because there's this intrinsic connection in the body that's been blunted, or, you know, your body isn't able to communicate effectively the way that it would? And so I love that you are encouraging women to really lean into how they feel, not feel like they have to apologize for it, and to certainly be their own best advocate, because for every person listening, it might be a little bit of a different variation. Maybe one person tolerates more protein, someone tolerates a little less more vegetables. I think that's an important. You know, I grew up with an Italian mother, and to this day, every time she visits, she wants my. My plate to be full of colorful vegetables. That is like her mantra in life. She's way ahead of her time. But helping her understand how important that is, that's not just the Italian mother speaking. There's actual, real science behind that.

Oh, definitely. Yeah. I love everything that you just said that, you know, we need to be our own best advocate. And I think that when we come into the pause of life, and I have been reflecting on this more philosophically, so, you know, thinking of the words that we use to define this transition, right? Perimenopause. Post menopause. Post menopause, even menopause. Andropause, you know, it's just like, you know, maybe we need to be in that space of pausing and reflecting and really moving into our state of intuitive wisdom. And so I think that that's really important. There's. There's another pause, actually, melatonin pause. And I've been doing a lot with melatonin over this past year, had a publication in the Nutrients Journal. And what's really interesting for me, even experientially, was that, you know, I. I was surprised, actually, because I thought that I would fare quite well going through perimenopause. And then it kind of hit me like a wall. And I realized I needed to ramp up and amp up certain things, things that I hadn't done before. And one of them was taking melatonin. And I needed to have a higher dose of melatonin to help me to smooth out my sleep. And we know that melatonin is not just a chronobiotic agent. It's important as an anti inflam, very active. It's also a very, very important and potent antioxidant. You know, in some case, I mean, it's better than vitamin C. It is helpful even more than glutathione in some settings. So I felt like I needed more. And so, you know, it's kind of interesting, Cynthia, because at this time of life, so I'm 52, ready to be 53. So, you know, I am in that classic window of, you know, truly going into the menopause that day. So we have all of these roller coaster curves of coming down. You know, my estrogen is down, my progesterone is down, my melatonin is, you know, supplementally, it's. It's being helped. And I'm taking other products too, for the estrogen and progesterone. And then, you know, testosterone starts to change. So I think that, you know, why does this happen to women? Like, what. What's going on? And why would our biology favor us in this direction? And I think for me, at least personally, I can speak to it. I really do feel like this is a time of, like, a reset, like truly a pause where we get the time to have it all, everything settle you know, for so many people, they're empty nesters. You know, they're. They're at the pinnacle of their professional lives. You know, they could do anything. So it's a time of redefinition because you're resetting so much inside you. So that I think that if people can track to those nutritional staples of just the basics even. And you know, another thing that we probably need to talk about, and I know it's something that you're very much an advocate of as well, is looking at detoxification and how important that is. I feel like the letting goness of this time of life is really important. And we have to really show up for what we want, what we want in this next phase and start to let go, whether physically in the way of heavy metals, plastics, and all of the things that we're taking in emotionally. We need to start to get really clear on that emotional buildup and congestion that we may have in the body influencing our physiological function. We need to look mentally at, you know, what thoughts are serving us. Do we need to like, transform and start thinking different ways and change our overall operating system? And I think spiritually, here's where I think that we don't get a lot of attention with women through the perimenopause, but I see it as a very spiritual process, actually. And when I think of spirituality, I think of the sense of meaning and purpose and the sense of being all connected in and being unified being. You know, you kind of feel like you're part of the great big whole. And so when we go through perimenopause, I think that there is an evaluation of one's spirituality. I think that we start to redefine our meaning and purpose in life. Is it really the same as the past 25 years? I don't know. You know, we may have checked a lot of boxes off and now it's like, I don't know, I feel kind of satisfied with those things. Or we might feel like, oh, wait a minute, I have a huge bucket list that I haven't even tapped into yet. I need to really put myself first now. So I think that that meaning and purpose is really big during this time. You know, it's like all the cards are tossed up. We're, we, we're cleaning house, so to speak. We're cleaning out physically, emotionally, mentally, and we're evaluating, you know, what we want to do with being in the prime of our lives, technically in so many ways.

Yeah, I love that it's finding that reframe and it's interesting, I interviewed Dr. Luann Brizendine last year and she calls menopause the upgrade. And so she said that was her reframe because she said pause. She said, I like the word pause, but I feel like the upgrade is really we're, we're bringing ourselves to a different level of understanding of our, our bodies, of our relationship, how we connect with others. I feel like that loss of estrogen, the loss of estradiol, for many of us, we lose our people pleasing tendencies. And I know for myself, I started as a nurse, then I became a nurse practitioner. I'm very much a people pleaser, kind of navigating my 40s. I started to realize, you know, that doesn't serve me very well anymore. And so really defining what is my life's work other than being a mother, other than being a wife, what are the things I want to do? And those are the conversations that my girlfriends and I now have. And I think they're very important ones. I think that on a lot of different levels, we're given the opportunity to redefine ourselves. How do you want to redefine your life on every level? And so, you know, to me, I think it's such a beautiful opportunity and I like to find the reframe of. We're not losing something, we're gaining so much more in this season of life where we don't have to be fixated or focused on, you know, where we are in our cycle and where our hormones are at this point. You know, unless you're taking hormone replacement therapy at the latter stages of perimenopause and menopause, you have less circulating sex hormones. And I love that you touched on melatonin because this is one of my favorite hormones to talk about. And I think it's so important because it's, it's gotten largely. I think it's so misunderstood. I think people just think about it in the context, oh, it helps with sleep. But as you appropriately said, you know, it's this antioxidant piece. And it's my understanding that you utilize a plant based melatonin and is there help listeners and myself understand what is the differentiator? What is it about plant based melatonin that is different than stuff that we make in a lab that is, is. I'm not even sure what it's derived from, to be completely transparent, but how does it differ and what makes it more efficacious or more beneficial?

Wow, I'm so glad that you asked that question because it does show that you know much more about melatonin than the average person which just thinks again, it's just sleep and it's just, it doesn't matter how you take it. So I take Erbatonin. So I'm the chief science officer at Symphony Natural Health and they have a product called Erbatonin which is made from rice, chlorella and alfalfa. So it's all from the plant source and it is the concentrate. So it's bioidentical melatonin, the same kind that's in our bodies. And it was actually tested head to head with synthetic melatonin, which is the predominant form of melatonin that's in the market. And it was found to be 646% greater in its anti inflammatory effect. So this is in a cell model looking at Cox 2, which is, is one of the enzymes that's involved in inflammation up to 470% greater in free radical scavenging. Then there was a skin cell line where they tested it again head to head and they found that the Erbatonin did a hundred percent greater job. So it doubled the effect of what the synthetic melatonin did in terms of the reactive oxygen species. And then in terms of orac value, it's, you know, greater than nine times the value of synthetic melatonin. So we think that that is because what is in Erbatonin is a bit different than what you would find in synthetic melatonin. What you have in Erbatonin is the plant plus. So it's actually not just the melatonin, but also lutein, zeaxanthin. A lot of these carotenoids that I was even referring to are in there. The material is green. So it's actually again from the plant. And when you look at synthetic melatonin, the reason why there's so much synthetic melatonin on the market is because initially melatonin was isolated from the pineal gland of animals. And that became very unsustainable. You know, how do you get that small amount at a certain time of the night from all of these animals and just concentrate it? It's just not practical. So what ended up happening was that the processing of melatonin went into the chemical processing through a synthetic, a whole, you know, if we, if we look at the starter compounds, because you were wondering what the compounds were, they're like things like petrochemicals, you know, different organic compounds which then move into the process. And by way of that chemical process you can actually see, up to 13 different contaminants, and that's not from me, that's actually from a publication from 2018. There was a, a published research article on melatonin and they cited up to four different types of thalamide, types of contaminants, even some formaldehyde derivatives. So melatonin can be toxic if it's not made in the best way. So if people are not taking something like an erbatonin, which we know is clean and it even has a value add of other things, they need to go back and ask the manufacturer about, you know, did you test for the potential contaminants, did you test for heavy metals? You know, all of the same things that we would want to know from supplements in general, but added ones that can incur from the processing to make melatonin. So, and I think too another thing, Cynthia, that most people don't realize is that melatonin, because it is very antioxidant in its action, it can degrade with air and with light. And so the packaging of melatonin is also really key. And for the most part what I see is that people put melatonin into bottles, they put it into chewables, gummies, all kinds of preparations for delayed entry into the body, which could have different toxicants actually, you know, so we want to be looking at that. So that's, that's just another thing to be thinking about. And I've been in the supplement industry for a long time and I just see that in general that we have to look at not just the active quality, but the long term stability of a lot of these different agents.

It's really interesting because, you know, for me, this is new information and I'm always very transparent with my listeners. I always say, know better, do better. I hadn't even considered that some of these synthetic options have petrochemicals or other types of contaminants. And this is why quality of supplements, if you're choosing to take them, is so important. This is why, sorry, I don't mean to knock on Costco, but we don't go to Costco and buy supplements. We don't just buy supplements anywhere. You do need to use reputable companies and certainly we'll provide links to your products. And you touched on a very important concept, the concept of detoxification, the concept of exposure to toxins and our personal care products, our environment and our food. And so if someone's listening and perhaps they don't fully appreciate or understand why detoxification is so important, if you are a middle aged person. It is super important. It's almost like our toxin bucket over the course of a lifetime really starts to get filled by the time we're in our 40s and 50s. This is sometimes where I will see clinically people that start to struggle as well as just the genetics. Like I'm a poor methylator, I've got mthfr, I've got two copies. There's a lot of extra things I have to do to support my body to make sure it's methylating properly. But I'd love to kind of pivot and talk a little bit about this because it is such an important topic and you do such a nice job discussing this in your books.

Yeah. Goodness. You know, for as long I think as humans have been in existence, we've always felt the need to cleanse. Right. Even if before we start talking about detoxification, which is more the modern day term, if we look at medical disciplines, if we look at spiritual practices, one of the things that both medicine and spirituality have in common is the cleansing aspect. So in medicine, you know, purging, bloodletting, you know, even way back when, taking things out of the body, the humors of the body, the bilious humor. Right. And then even in spirituality, you know, there's this need to let go. You know, I grew up Catholic, so it was lent. You give up something, you know, Fish Friday, whatever it is, you know, there's this practice of you are giving up something. And I think it's just a practice of that learning to let go and to be, to have that clear so that you actually get spiritually more clear. So fast forward now into the 21st century. How has that made its way into medicine and science and even spirituality? Yeah, we toss out this term detoxification. And really what it means, it's a very sophisticated word for the processes within the body to do that. And I tend to think in terms of organ systems. You know, I think of the, the liver. The liver is like the general of the detox army. It's shepherding different compounds through and saying, you know, march along, we're going to go through this phase, I'm going to make you more soluble and then we're going to package you up and then we're going to release you through the bile, you're going to go out through the intestines, you're going to be excreted in the stool. So the gut is part of that process. The gut is pretty active in helping the liver. They're kind of Like a strong duo when it comes to detoxification. Right. Then I think of the skin. The skin is one of our largest organs, and we're constantly sweating. And we get oil through the skin, we get sweat through the skin. And there have been some really elegant studies looking at the excretion of things like heavy metals and different plastic compounds through even the sweat. So, you know, when you think of getting toxins out of the body, things like the metals and the plastics and perfluorinated compounds and things like that doesn't always have to be a very pricey supplement. What you can do is, you know, pooping and peeing and perspiring. These types of things are just going to move things out of the body. And even crying, you know, even within tears. If we think of emotional detoxification, tears can release things like inflammatory cytokines and chemokines that store up in the body. So I think of liver, gut, skin. I think of the lungs. We've had a lot of attention on the lungs over the past years. So deep breathing and grief and. But, you know, air particles and pollution, you know, all of the things that kind of store up in the lungs. I also think about the kidneys, of course, because of the urine and the alkalinization. You know, I used to work with Dr. Jeffrey Bland, and we published an article many years ago on metabolic detoxification talking about ph and how important that is. So again, just to pivot back to what we were saying about women going through the perimenopause, eating a lot of whole foods, this will actually help us to just naturally balance all of those inner PH compartments. There are some parts of the body where it has to be really a narrow range. So sometimes it's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Like we. We pull from the bone in order to make sure that the blood has that very tight window of its. Its PH range. So that's really important for the excretion and resorption of certain things. You know, I think of the brain also at night when we sleep, when melatonin is peaking at about 2 to 4am we have other things in the body that are peaking, like glutathione and some of the other antioxidant defense enzymes. And so they're kind of like this whole brigade of kind of getting in and working together to use the glymphatic fluid, which is this. This kind of like a fluid compartment around the brain. So, you know, the brain cells are shrinking while we have greater convection into that glymphatic space. It's very specific to the brain. And we can only do that when we're sleeping or under anesthesia. So as we're sleeping and we're allowing that detoxification to occur. As it turns out, what we see is that melatonin seems to be playing a role in being that shepherd of those different, whether it's amyloid metabolites or hypo tau, phosphorylated proteins, different things that need to come out of the brain and get out of there. Melatonin seems to be playing a role. Now, there may be other things that could be playing a role there, but I do think we need to be thinking about sleep as a form of detoxification. Right. To really get at the brain. That's the time that we're rejuvenating and resetting for the day. And if we don't give our time to that process, the next day is completely distorted. And it's like we, you know, we don't eat well, our appetite signals are off, our thinking is off, our metabolism is off. So that detoxifying process that we go through, and as it turns out, melatonin may have some other application for other types of toxicity to, is being shown in cell studies and animal studies, which is kind of exciting. But if we're not keeping our house clean, in other words, our vessel. And I hearken back to, you know, again, religions and spiritual practices, you know, this is a very important vessel, which is why, you know, growing up, I, and then later in life, I would think, you know, why is it when you go to church, there's no discussion of body as temple in the way of eating good foods? Right? Like, we talk so much about giving up things, letting go of things. And I think what we need to do is start bringing science and spirituality together in the way of saying, you know what, this is our temple, this is our sacred vessel. And so we need to be taking care of it, we need to clean it out. As much as we need to look at what is going in, it's a two part process. Yes. So, yeah, detoxification is a modern day word for something that is ancient, something that has been used in medicine, spiritual practices over the millennia.

Quite honestly, it's really interesting because I find the whole glymphatic system absolutely fascinating. And so is it any surprise, as women are navigating these hormonal changes, this transitional period in their lives, that many women really struggle with deep sleep. And deep sleep is when the glymphatic system really starts Working, working with greater frequency. I didn't realize that melatonin played a role in the glymphatic system. So it makes sense that as women are getting older and they're struggling more with deep sleep metrics, if anyone has a whoop or an aura, like I wear an aura and love to track my metrics, you start to struggle more and more with that deep sleep piece. You know, whether it's the time spent in deep sleep or just not feeling rested when you wake up. And so I'm curious, since you've been, was it the impact on deep sleep or what was changing for you that identified you needed a bit more melatonin to help support sleep as you were in the latter stages of perimenopause? I'm just curious.

I would wake up at 2am and then it shifted to 3am and it was like clockwork. Like I, I could look at my phone and say, oh my gosh, it must be 2am and I would look and it was, it was like. And I'm not the only one in that. I hear that, that so commonly from women going through perimenopause that it's like the 2am Wake up call. And it's kind of like I'm too tired and unmotivated to get out of bed, but I'm too awake to fall back asleep. So I would just lay there. And so I, I realized that, well, two things. One is exactly what you just said, that I thought that a higher dose of melatonin would suit me. So I moved my dose up from 0.3 milligrams, which is just kind of like, you know, your basic physiologic dose that you need to fill the potholes of aging. I went up to 3 milligrams, I needed more. And plus I'm a fast metabolizer. So I. So melatonin gets metabolized by the same enzyme in the liver that caffeine does. And I metabolize caffeine quickly. So I already knew that I was a fast metabolizer of melatonin. As long as you don't mix the two, because then you get delayed breakdown of melatonin, right then that compete. So anyway, I started taking more melatonin, which helped me and I started to work on my liver detoxification. I started to take other products during the day because I was realizing, you know what? I'm probably not very efficient for as good as I think I am. I think I'm needing more help now during this time of my life. So I. And you know, I'm married to an acupuncturist. And one of the things he and I were talking about is how in Chinese medicine, liver time is between 1 and 3. And isn't it funny that I would wake up at 2am and then at 3am and I said, mark, this is. There's no accident here that, you know, it's like the liver brain interface. Like there's something awry in my detoxification ability. Now, Cynthia, there's. There's that. But then I was also wearing an aura ring and I was noting that I would have very, very low blood sugar at about that time as well. Like it would go down to 40.

Oh, wow, 40.

I was wearing a CGM. I was wearing my aura ring and kind of tracking everything of like when I was waking up. And it seemed to sync with my blood sugar. So I don't want to discount and just say it's just chalking it only up to detox. I think that metabolically there can be some changes happening in those very wee hours of the morning when there's a lot of activity, actually. Right. So if that activity isn't harmonized and streamlined, it's like, you know, your, your physiology is waking up, so then your psychology and your brain starts to wake up. So I think for me, and I'm only speaking to me, but I do think it's valid for some women, we need to be looking at our blood sugar. Like, I'm a highly metabolic, I'm a pitta type, so I need a lot of food. I need, you know, when I run through my food, I digest quickly and it's like I'm hungry again. So I just know that I'm not a person who does well with extended bouts of fasting. Like, I just sink, I drop. And it's like, for a while I thought, well, I'm just supposed to go through that. I'm like, no, I'm just a highly. I'm more of a metabol. Everybody has a different body type in that way, and you just have to know your body. So I had to adjust that. I had to adjust the melatonin. I'm also taking another product called feminescence, which also helped me significantly because not only was it helping. Now what, what is feminescence? Just so people know, it's this very specific blend of MACA phenotypes. So not all maca is created equal. Like, when I go to like Whole Foods and just buy a big thing of maca, you don't really know what that is. You don't know? I mean, there are 17 different colors of maca and much like I was talking about with the colors of plants, they have different functions. So I could be taking a form of maca that could give me acne or hair loss because it's a more androgenic type of maca. So the one that I take is not the androgenic. It's very much primed for me as a perimenopausal woman and will help to optimize and harmonize my endocrine circuit so that my pituitary can just naturally help my ovaries to make whatever they can so I can get that increased estrogen, increase progesterone. And it has modified my levels just naturally like not bringing in any bioidentical hormones. And what I also like about the maca phenotypes is that it also has glucosinolates. And for your listeners, glucosinolates are detoxifying compounds.

So.

So not only am I getting the synthesis piece and getting my body just to prime its production in whatever way it can at this stage of my life, it's also helping me to metabolize and transform hormones so that they're not problematic or even cancer causing in my body.

I think it's so important. I, I love that you brought in maca because it's one of my favorite adaptogenic herbs. And you're absolutely correct that quality is important. I think most people don't realize there are that many varieties. And I know several of my, my physician friends have brought up feminescence when they've been on the podcast. And so from my perspective, I'm so glad that you mentioned that because there are probably people out there that would really benefit from looking into that and knowing that it's a particularly well regulated as well as evaluated and more safety and efficacy is utilized in that product than if you get on Amazon. I don't mean to pick on Amazon or you go to Costco, you're probably going to get a better product. I would love to kind of wrap up the conversation touching on something that you bring up in one of your other books. The book we could have a whole separate conversation about quantum healing. Let's at least introduce the concept of what this represents and some of the benefits and then perhaps we can have a second conversation because the affirmations in that book I thought were so beautiful. I actually recommended the book to several friends because they're struggling with different diagnoses, different Problems. And I said, you know, I gave them a screenshot and I said, this might be a really good book for you to be able to kind of work on that mindset piece surrounding this Healing Aspects of the Quantum.

Wow. Yeah, we, we definitely need to have a separate conversation. That's a whole other round. But yes, what I would say here is, you know, when I was in clinical practice, one of the things I would notice is that when I would work with people under nutrition, other things in their lives would shift. Their emotions would change, their thoughts would change, they'd want to quit their jobs, potentially, if they were in a toxic job, they would want to end relationships, they would maybe even want to change their location. You know, it's just amazing how the power of food, you start changing your body, you start changing your mind. And when you get into the mind and into the emotional space, I feel like sometimes we move faster in those places. And what is quantum healing? It's, you know, any small step that we could make towards that shift. And what I really love about this day and age is that we're getting more people to talk about quantum biology, quantum healing. It's almost like physics is now blending together with biology and chemistry in layered, unique ways. So we see people like Dr. Bruce Lipton, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dr. Carolyn Mace has been talking about this for some time. Dr. Candace Perch, who wrote the Molecules of Emotion. When I think of quantum healing in the way that I'm referring to it here, and using the mind to heal, using the emotions as a metaphor for healing, you know, sometimes I think we need to even look at, you know, what is the bigger lesson of why I have a certain body part being very painful or speaking, if you will. And so often as I would work with clients, what I would say to them is, okay, you have this pain in your neck area. So we're going to work on an anti inflammatory approach. You're going to bring down your anti inflammatory potential through your food. But I want to ask you, what's a pain in your neck right now? Like metaphorically, like, let's zoom out of your body and just look at your life. You know, I often feel that physical diagnoses represent symbolic, spiritual lessons in the making. So one of them would be leaky gut. When I think of leaky gut, I often will ask people, where's your life leaky? Where are you draining your energy? What are you saying yes to that you really want to say no to? Or vice versa? Right. So to me, this is more of the I would call it the literal aspects of healing versus the symbolic meaning of illness. And there again, are so many people that precede this conversation in terms of their work, and they've really been the groundbreakers in this area. But to me, I feel like. So the quantum healing book is, you know, I'm so practical. It's a reference book. So I was like, how do I give people this information? So it's a book with a hundred different conditions. You open it up to that condition, and you're going to get nutrition. You're going to see a potential emotional pattern that may be at play there. And of course, there's a lot of personalization here. You're going to see a visualization, you're going to see a meditation. You're going to see some more esoteric type of modalities. So things like flower essences, you know, and I studied with a shamanic woman, and so I brought in a bit of that as well. So it's kind of a. I would say it's. It's a menu of healing and for people to decide what they want to take from that menu. Because for some people, and Cynthia, we know this, that, you know, they've done all the nutrition and they keep following, they keep going after the next supplement. It's kind of like, okay, we keep hammering on the same physical messages. I think we're getting stuck here. How about we look to creativity to help you to deal with your reproductive issues? Maybe you need to sign up for an art class. Maybe you need to unlock those stuck emotions and to have them come out onto paper. That actually happened for me. That's why I'm speaking to now one. But, you know, the quantum is. Is the arena of possibilities. It is, you know, where there are no limitations. And, you know, it's also reflected in science, you know, the placebo effect. Why do we need placebos in clinical trials? To control for the power of the mind. Right. That tells you how powerful the mind is, that we actually need to put an arm in a study to control for the power of the mind. So that's what I'm getting at when I talk about quantum healing, that it can occur from all different angles.

Well, I think it's such a beautiful message and I absolutely love to have you back. It was one of those things I was. It was almost like I was competing interest, which direction to take the conversation in. So thank you for honoring my ability to at least tie that in. Please let listeners know how to connect with you, how to work with you, how to purchase your books, how to find you online.

I make it easy. There's one path and it's through my website, which is deannaminick.com so it's D E A N N A M I n I c h.com and on there, you know, if you're kind of a sciency nerd where you kind of like to know the studies, we have a pretty robust blog section. You know, we put a lot of energy into those blogs and doing deep dives on things. So that would be for the nerd head aspect. If you want more of the arty, practical, creative like just give me the things I need to know. Then there's a resources tab where people can just go download a bunch of things, you know, like an eat the rainbow toolkit or a food and mood tracker, things like that. And then all of my social media handles are on there. So that's where you can find me.

Hey, if you like this video, you guys are going to love this video and I'll see you there.

We make almost all of our fat cells during childhood and puberty and then once we finish puberty, we're done. That number of fat cells in most people, there are some people who are an exception to this and that's about 15% of people who are in the obese category. But most people reach a limit and that's their fat cell number essentially for adulthood.