Ep 12: Integrative Medicine with Dr. Scott Resnick

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Welcome to what the Health an independent approach to your Health span. Have you noticed how our healthcare system may not have your best interest in mind? Join Dr. Eckel in this fun and sometimes disturbing exploration of the state of healthcare and what it means for you. Now, here's your host, Dr. Eckel.

All right, welcome back everybody. I'm Dr. Greg Eckel and this is my esteemed guest, Dr. Scott Reznik. And we are going to be talking about the healthcare system and this is truly integrative medicine happening right in front of your eyes. So I've got Dr. Reznik is just relocated into Portland, Oregon. He comes to us from Chattanooga, Tennessee via New Mexico, I believe before that somewhat indirect, indirect pathway to make it up and of the Northwest. And we went out to lunch this last week and had a great time and basically invited him on because it was such a fascinating conversation. And he's got a wealth of knowledge and experience. OB GYN trained for four years, two years before that general surgery, a glutton for punishment and a very well educated physician here, folks. He's got a certain passion and pizzazz for functional medicine, which is really exciting. We have a lot of common ground and we're going to put it all together and don't really know where the conversation will lead, but we got three facets that we're going to talk about here in a moment. But I want to give you a little bit more background. Dr. Reznik had a very successful functional medicine practice in the south in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We're psyched to have them in the Portland community as well.

I'm psyched to be here.

You know, welcome aboard. Maybe a little introduction from you on maybe your books. You got the two books that you told me about. And also let's announce where people can find out a little bit more about you.

Okay, well why don't we start with that just so we don't forget about it. Yes. So again, my name is Scott Resnick. I am a medical doctor. You can get find out a little more about sort of my thought at Scott Resnick, M.D. so that's S C O T T R E S N I c k m d.com so what that does is I took really one of the probably the more common clinical complaint that I see in my practice, which is fatigue. Yeah. And I kind of ran it through sort of like a different way of approaching it. And so, I mean, I think if you were to, if you were to go to your primary care doctor and say, doc, I'm fatigued.

Right.

What would they.

Which is a super common complaint.

I mean, absolutely. Wouldn't you say that that's one of the more common things?

It's one of the top. Yes. One of the top complaints for our patients.

So what does the primary conventionally trained doctor do? Scratch their head. Maybe they'll put you on an antidepressant medication. Maybe they'll put you on another medication to give you a little more energy.

Rule out anemia and thyroid.

Of course, we're assuming you're gonna rule out anemia, infection, all those other things, but that's pretty fair assumption because there are plenty of people that go to their doctors that have thyroid panels drawn, as you've seen, that you or I would look at and say this is a wholly dysfunctional thyroid pattern. Yes. Yet sort of like in mainstream medicine with sort of a paucity or a limited number of data points, they say, oh, your TSH of 4 is right in the normal range.

Right. And that's all that they're running.

And that's all that they're running. They're getting a tsh. I mean, I know in my practice I'd like to look at TSH, free T3, free T4, reverse T3. You can measure other things like iodine levels.

Yeah, for sure. Well, but you've got this functional background, so. All right, so we got your ebook on fatigue and system. So we're jumping the gun because that's the third part of our discussion today. We're going to get into that. I know that's the exciting part, but we're going to lead up to that. So we're going to slowly take them down this journey together. And so then you have another one in the works you said you were writing this morning, which is on this systems based component of the thinking process. And that is the part that I'm super excited to jam on here today. Our first part, though, where we got to basically after our lunch and what I wanted to include the. What the health listeners in on is this kind of, you know, wild west of the Internet and information. Right. And as we were kind of prepping, just kind of, you know, shooting the breeze, getting ready for our show, you know, you're basically saying, you know, what we're seeing it is consumer beware.

Right.

So what's your thoughts on that as you're looking out there as conventionally trained and then also with the functional medicine overlay of seeing kind of the bigger picture for folks, what do you see when you, when you look on the Internet when your patients are coming in? I mean it's got its pluses and.

Its minuses and I was gonna start saying it's a two sided saber. Yeah. I mean I think there are incredible resources that are available to us through the Internet. So really the more esoteric topic that one would want to explore, it's pretty amazing to be able to type in whatever's on your mind and have the Google give you some recommendations as to where you can find that. Now when it comes to looking at research, as I'm sure that both of us do with some frequency, if you just type in the search terms, it's kind of nice to be brought to the stacks to the clinical research status.

Right into PubMed.

Right into PubMed. You put PubMed in a search, you put NCBI after a search. That's going to bring you right to the papers.

Right.

So here's this wealth of information that we can really drill down deeply. Yeah. But when there's this huge wealth of information there's a lot of, what's the expression? Separating the wheat from that, from the, from the cake.

Oh yes, yes.

So there's a lot of cake out there.

Yes.

It's hard to know for the, for I'd say, you know, general public to know who, who is your source?

Yeah.

What is your source? What is the authenticity of the source?

Right.

Is it going to offer something that's going to be beneficial to me or is it potentially going to offer something that might be detrimental?

Sure.

Problem is that there's not a real way to understand that.

Right. And you know, I think it goes even one step further as we're now knowing as Google is changing algorithms as well, they're really directing what you get served up as well.

Right.

So that's a whole nother layer on this discussion around. You know, as I was mentioning, I had you know, seven providers in the stable here at Nature Cures clinic and you know, is sending providers out to the latest and greatest research. Which is awesome. Right. Everybody's got to get their continuing education and then we've got, we do have then good studies and maybe not in clinical realms. Right. They're looking to move the needle on let's say a natural statin like red yeast rice and moving the needle on just one marker on a label Right. And then how does that fit into, like, the living laboratory of life? Right. So we would run, you know, here. Oh, you know, we found this new study on, you know, grapeseed extract, and we want to run this on, you know, 100 patients. And we get. It's like crickets, like, no changes happen.

Right.

And so when we look at, you know, the component of information for information sake, it's the application and the knowledge in practicality, use of what actually gets results for people, which is maybe the fourth layer on our discussion. So first is the paucity of there's so much info. Know your source. So and then how to read the source.

Right.

And then the application of the therapeutic that you're researching. Right.

Right. So it's not so easy. So I think it's easier for someone to kind of get online and say, why am I so tired? And then the sponsored ad, that is the company out in California that sells their detox cleanse kit pops up and you go, wow, I can detox myself for only $300 a month for the next 17 months. Yeah.

Right.

And you click on the buy button. Yeah. The problem is that I don't think that that is necessarily good information for people.

Right.

It might be that their protocols or their policies really have some application, might be really useful. But I think it's really easy for us to want to find, like the easy fix, you know, to kind of look and say, all I need to do is this button and my fatigue is going to go away.

Yeah.

But as you and I know, there are so many other different layers that need to get addressed.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

And what I found in my practice is that is the way to do this. And again, this is what we're saving for part three.

Right.

Is the fact that these layers need to be addressed systematically. Because I really think, like, with anything, as you try to fix something, you need to begin at the beginning. So let's just say you get out on a cold, snowy Portland day. Surely you don't have a lot of them here.

They happen. They happen.

They happen. Yeah. And you, and you, you try to start your car. Right.

Yeah.

Doesn't start. You're not going to say, let's just put in a new engine. Right. You're probably not going to say, let's change the tires. Yeah. Because that's not an intuitive approach to the systems that are required for a car to start. So let's see, it's been 10 degrees for the last few days. Cold fronts coming through. First thing I might think about might be the battery. So you'd say, let's think about maybe the electrical system.

Yeah.

And you determine that the battery's working. Okay. Then you go, oh, what's to see if there might be fuel in the tank.

Sure.

Which might be another systematic way of going about this. Yeah. But if you start and say, I'm just going to, you know, put in a new engine, you're really putting the cart in front of the horse.

Totally. Yeah. And, you know, I guess one. One old saying that I think about is the fool has themselves as their own physician.

Right.

Right. And. But it puts. It puts folks in a bind because I know, you know, basically there's not, you know, the system is broken. Right. And there's not a lot of time. Like, to actually spend time with your patients is a luxury that I find, you know, in a functional medicine practice. We have that luxury because that's really how you get to build rapport. Listen, and get to know what. What system do you start with? Right, right.

I mean, I think you and I could both think of any number of patients who have come into the office and have taught us something.

Oh, my gosh.

I think that's a good point probably for your, you know, for your viewers. You've got a provider who was saying, teach me. What did you learn about yourself? What do you think is.

Yeah.

How can we collectively work on getting you better? You're already off to a good start. And I think that one of the shortcomings, and I know you talked about a lot in this program with modern medicine is a couple of things. One is this concept that the doctors are smarter than the patients.

Right.

The only difference between a doctor and a patient is he or she sat on her butt for, you know, years. And in a repeated sense, we're in the material. But really, anyone who's out there is as smart as any one of their doctors.

So the information is definitely there.

Information is there. Yeah. So part of the problem is if one is a conventionally trained doctor. Yeah. You've got on your roller skates.

Yeah.

And you're going between your four exam rooms and you're trying to get in your, you know, 40 patients. You're trying to see in the course of the day.

Right.

You may not have the opportunity to really take the time to listen to someone and think what, you know, ask them what might be going on.

I'm wondering. So in that. In that scenario. Right. Which is not ideal for patient care.

Right.

There is a demand, like, you gotta see so many people in A day. Right. Because there's a. The overhead is such that you've gotta. You're carrying a big load. So I'm just wondering, like in that. I'm wondering if you see a way to help change the system. Do you think that is that. I know I'm springing that on you right out. Right out of the top of the gate. But, you know, on changing, you know, obviously this is, you know, there are many brilliant minds working on changing health care. But, you know, when we look at how much we are spending on healthcare per capita in the United States and our health status is dead last of developed nations, you know, I think that's why you popped off into functional medicine would be my guess. And so maybe I'll back off of that question right now and ask you, how did you jettison out of that system? Is it because of stuff like that or.

In part. I mean, I think that was one of the factors where I got tired as a surgeon of the rigaviral that was required to get somebody from, you know, who needed a surgical procedure into the operating room. There are layers and layers of pre approval and authorizations. And you have to have tried this type of therapy before. Blue Cross Blue Shield says we will pony out, allow for that and pay for this procedure.

Got it.

But on the flip side, what happened was that over the course of my practice, I found that I was utilizing therapies that really had not been talked to me in sort of conventional medical training that really benefited people. And these are things that to you and me now are just absolutely basic. Yeah. Like diet.

Yeah. How did you get turned on to that, though? Was it like patients coming in saying, I tried this, or it just dawned on you?

Well, I think. I think you mentioned in my introduction that I lived in Taos, Mexico for 13 years. So that's a fairly progressive community as a whole. I mean, you've got a lot of the indigenous communities there, which are the Native Americans who shared for a thousand years, the Hispanics came in maybe 400 years ago. And with both of those cultures are ingrained, really, indigenous therapies that have been utilized for a long time. And maybe it's the use of a curandero or a curandera with the Hispanic communities.

Got it.

Or maybe it's the use of an herb or a different food that might be present in the Native American community. So in living in Taos, I found myself kind of imbued in these different experiences and started to think about some of these things. It's also probably one of the more funky and liberal communities out there. So what I found is I found that in approaching patients care, that I was remiss with my patients if I was not considering other factors that, again, to you and me today, seem pretty basic.

Sure.

Things like diet, things like stress and the ability to relax or the way that stress really drives every single physiologic system in the body, from the way that our brain works to the way that our heart beats to the way that we digest our food. All these things really relate to stress, which is adrenals. And there's cortisol. Yeah, Adrenaline. Right. And then what I found is I found that I was actually getting people better by utilizing some of these therapies. So I'd say one of my specialties as a gynecologist was in pelvic pain. Okay. The typical paradigm in our specialty is if a woman has pelvic pain, you do a surgical procedure, you look in there and you cut out the scar tissue, you excise the ovary, you know, whatever you think might be getting people better. And I found that in my practice that maybe 5% of my pelvic pain patients had to go to surgery because I found that working on their stress, working on their diet, working on their bowel function, and working on their myofascial health as well. I know you do a lot of manipulative medicine. I mean, how much of the referred pain patterns in our muscles do we see expressed somewhere else? How many people have you taken care of who've gone down the rabbit hole of migraines? And you reach over and you squeeze on their trapezius and go, ah, doc, there's my migraine. How do you make it happen?

Yeah, totally.

So if you never look for those things, you're never going to see them. And what's interesting is we're trained, at least in my medical training, to kind of put on our blinders. And part of those blinders actually kind of dovetails nicely to what you were talking about, which is, what do we do about it? I mean, part of the problem is that the entire medical community is in bed with the pharmaceutical companies. So that even goes back even farther in our discussion to how do you fund a study to look at the benefits of red yeast rice or grapeseed extract or ginkgo biloba when these are natural substances and they can't be patented? Yeah. So, yeah. What's interesting is that, I mean, so many medicines that we use in conventional medicine, and, you know, you've got the same ability to prescribe drugs that I do. Yeah, yeah. Is they come from natural sources. You know, so it's aspirin in the mark of the willow tree.

Right.

You know, it's taxol and the yew tree.

Yes.

Digitalis and the foxglove plant.

Right.

These are natural sources. And what's happened historically is that the pharmaceutical companies have taken a molecule, they add a carbon molecule onto it, they add an oxygen.

Proprietary blend for a proprietary blend. Yeah.

And then what you can do, then you can jack up the prices. So let's. We're kind of like stacking up all these things we have on the back. Yeah. But one of the things is, I think one of the problems with medicine which makes it so hard to reconcile is it's multifactorial.

Yeah.

In terms of. There are so many different factors that are at play. Whether it's financial, whether it's political, whether it's cultural, whether it's regional or just good old fashioned autonomy. Yeah. I mean, you and I know that if you decide to sit down and eat, you know, a dozen donuts every day.

Right.

You're not going to be healthy after a period of time.

Right.

So when in this whole, you know, conundrum of fixing healthcare in the country, where does personal responsibility come in? Oh, yeah. And I know, I'm guessing that the people that are watching this, this is a self selecting population.

It truly is. Yeah. And you know, honestly, that's been some of the complaints for some of my friends that are internists, they're like, yeah, that's really great, Dr. Eckel, but, you know, you're cherry picking the most motivated patients. The retort to that though is, you know, I find, you know, the root word of doctor is dossier or teacher. And as we educate adults on what their choices are and our inherent wisdom of our bodies, I mean, you know, willpower, you're gonna lose the game every day. What I see like, well, we know rationally this is the right choice to make. I need more vegetables. Right. The pat ants are coming from the naturopath eats your vegetables. But if you educate folks, it's okay. People are amazed when I'll do a diet diary with all new patients. Right. Because that is that foundational work of of course diet affects our health. Right. And it's not, that's not really taught in conventional world unless you have diabetes. Right. And so it's like, well, how insane is that? Right.

Or even you look at the current diabetic recommendations and I read that this is crazy.

Yeah.

The number of grams of carbohydrates. They're recommending that you can't do it.

Right?

Can't do it. I think that the diabetics, well, take this with a grain of salt, but they should almost be on a carbohydrate free diet. We know that that's what's driving the insulin.

Well, yeah, I mean, in the diabetes solution, Dr. Berenstein, he's a type 1 diabetic medical doctor, he says 15 grams or less of carbs a day, which is an insanely small amount of carbohydrates. But you know, on that one, you know, it's like that is, you know that those basic tenets of. Well, of course, you know, yeah, you're going to have some sweets here and there. Right. You know, it's just, it's got to be a sustainable diet to expect yourself or patients to, you know, just go on willpower or rational thought. You know, we're way more dynamic beings than that. So to just. On the education component, I think coming across with compassion and educating them so on, you know, on personal responsibility, that is a big piece. But then you look at the whole food industry is stacked against us. Right, Exactly.

I mean, it's. They're well aware of the fact that the MSG that are put in Doritos.

Right.

I mean, these.

To consume more.

To consume more. And this isn't by accident, you know, that, you know, these molecules have been, you know, fastidiously studied.

Yeah.

In, in humans and lab animals. Yes. So it's no accident that if you open a bag of Doritos or the old expression with the lay's potato chips, you know, no one can eat this one.

Right, right.

Yeah.

It's right in the market. Right. We're going to be right up front with.

They're just telling you. Right.

Yes. You're gonna eat the bag.

You're gonna eat the bag.

Yeah.

So that's where you can maybe start to intervene with the patient system.

You're giving you a bag, right.

Get a small bag. Don't get the party size bag. Because if you can eat a bag.

Of potato chips, you know, just one aside on that, a beautiful, beautiful concept that was just given to me was around like every time you sit down to eat your meal, there's three varieties that it could be. One is nutrition. Right. We know that's the broccoli and vegetable. Then there's entertainment. Maybe that's the bacon cheeseburger with the blue cheese. Right. And then there's the addiction or the curly brush or the Curly fries, Right, that's an entertainment meal. Right. That's allowed. And then there is the addictive component. Like, you know, you're gonna have the full pint of Ben and Jerry's or whatever it is. But as long as you're consciously, you know, asking the plate of food, what are you in front of me? What you'll just, what you'll see through time is you will consciously start choosing, I need better. Like, I need more salad, I need more vegetable. So just being aware of what is going down the tube is a huge win for so many people.

And that goes back to the absolute most fundamental, important thing in terms of what you're trying to do with this radio show is get people educated. I mean, people don't know. And still to this day, you can go to the store and see like a whole box of cookies that says, no fat. Organic, Organic, no fat, vegan. You think, oh, these are great.

Gluten free. There we go.

Vegan, gluten free, non fat. Yes.

And organic must be health food.

We should get a box. But then you look at the fine print and you realize that two of those cookies are 340 calories. Yeah. So part of the problem is that I think that it's education and I think we're all kind of doing our best to get people educated. I mean, that's my mission in life. I know that's yours because I think that that's an absolute fundamental part of the whole picture. Because if you don't get people educated, then the commercial entities, the food processing plants, all that stuff are going to. To provide what they do.

And it seems, I mean, it is true. And it seems like there is an awakening happening where, you know, we're seeing in with a global climate crisis, basically, and people are starting to wake up to say, wait a minute, maybe, maybe we're purchasing the wrong stuff here. Right. And we are. Our energy flows in that fashion and we do have that amount of power if we just take it back for ourselves. All right, so that part one, I think we've done a good job. Know your source, right?

Know your source.

Know your source on where your food's coming from, but also information that you are consuming and how you're implementing it.

That's right.

Do you have trusted guides along the way or is it, you know, like you were saying on some detox thing that you're sending, you know, your lock of hair down to California for detox and like, who actually is sitting behind the computer?

Right.

What is their, you know, what you Know, where's their intent? Their intent is probably to help. But is that really the best thing for you at this current moment in time? And how does that fit together?

Let's put our minds together here because I think this is important, because this is an important question. How does the consuming public. Yeah. That is subjected to the incredible forces of marketing and food technologists and all these other things.

Yeah.

How does that individual make a good, a good decision? How do you know if you get online this is a trusted source? Sure.

Well, I mean, I guess you look at what are they selling you.

Right?

Right. I mean, what is the product? Right. Is it your transformation and your well being? And then what are the sources that they're using to support that claim?

Right. I would say that the length of the initial sales page is inversely professional to the degree of expertise behind it.

Perhaps that's a good way of looking at that.

In other words, if you have to read 15, scroll down through 15 pages of this miracle drug is going to take away your fill in the blank. It's probably something that's maybe not there.

Actually, I did that once for tinnitus. If you come across anything for tinnitus, I have it. So many people suffer with it, but I haven't found anything to really work for. Came across like this miracle cure. So I figured I went down the rabbit hole to see. It's like, oh man, this is just not, you know, what are we doing?

Right.

You know, I'm never getting that half hour back in my life. Right. So that's good. Yeah. Inversely related. I like it. All right, so second part, and this is on, you know, really where, you know, you had this kind of community that educated you and you were, you know, to serve them well. You broaden your horizons. You actually got a fellowship from a 4M, which is an awesome training organization of integrative care providers. They do awesome conferences, great information, great tracks of expertise across the board. So now we're talking about this blending of systems of an integrative, functional or now precision medicine. And there are a couple different terms associated with this and I do it as well, I call it functional because a lot of people know what functional medicine is. I'm a naturopathic doctor and I have a master's of science in Oriental medicine. Right. So on the platform that I use is really, I use a blended of the naturopathic and Chinese medicine. I use the Chinese medicine just because it has been around for so long. And what I like about it is it's more landscape Oriented. Right. Rather than a pieces and parts. There's no word for mind. Body medicine, for instance. Right. It's all heart based medicine. And the heart is the emperor. And so we blend it that way of looking what I call the Zhang of the formula direction. There's an emperor, empress and generals and assistants. Everybody lines up to move a certain direction. So in a systems approach. Right. Very systematic approach. Different systems though.

Right. Well, this is actually interesting because sort of the way that I've designed out my system, so to speak. Yeah. Is almost sort of sequential. I mean, if you can build magic, kind of like a pyramid or something, you're kind of stacking different systems on top of one another.

Yeah.

Really what's at the very top of the pyramid is. Is really the emperor. Yeah. It's the heart. Because if, I mean, there are a lot of different ways that we can die. Yeah. The one method that kills us all is our heart stops beating.

Right.

I don't care if it's because you've had a heart attack or a stroke or you've got cancer or you're nutritionally depleted or you're drowning or something like that. Really the end process that stops all life is the heart stops beating. So with reason to think that all of our body systems are geared around keeping our heart beating.

Right.

And it sounds to me that when you talk about your systems being directed around the emperor or the empress, that that is keeping the heart alive.

Totally.

So it's just interesting that you know that this has sort of been a sort of a thematic approach to health.

Yeah.

It's not new.

Right.

So. Right, Lovely.

Awesome. So, okay, that's the overlap that's part three though, because we keep jumping again so on the precision medicine and on this functional component and bringing it together. Right. You're talking about, you know, I like to say my tagline for nature cures clinic is where east meets west naturally. Right, right. So my bias at 18 years into practice is if we don't have to go the big pharma route, well, let's not. Right. And if we can have the body and its inherent wisdom heal itself, that's another basic tenet of naturopathic medicine is the body can heal itself. So I think there's a philosophical difference, just maybe semantics. But. But I find it's a different thinking process. When I just talked to conventional physicians without the functional medicine or without that component of like, wait a minute, there are all of these other things that there's actually some great supported evidence that it's evidence based medicine that actually this stuff works. And so you know that, that semantics component around treating people and not conditions or symptoms. Right.

And you brought up an interesting point, I just want to comment on that. And that is that so much of medicine is determined by established metrics.

Yes.

In other words, if your hemoglobin A1C is 5.7, you're pre diabetic.

Right.

If it's 6.4, I think you're going into, you're full on diabetic. Right. Well, what happens to the person who's got a hemoglobin A1C of 5.6? Yeah, well, they're not pre diabetic, so.

Yeah.

Come back next year.

Right. Wait until you get there.

Wait until you get there.

Right.

And I think what's interesting is we're recognizing that in some of the testing that we might do and some of the even baseline metrics, like take your pulse. Yeah. What's your pulse? If your resting pulse is 94, there's something going on in your body that didn't cost anything. But it really gives us a lot of information in terms of what's going on. So one of the problems with conventional medicine is it uses established metrics as opposed to saying, let's look at life and health on a continuum. And I think that's something that a functional medicine doctor does. And certainly in talking to you, I mean, sort of inherent in, in your training. Yeah, probably more than our training. Like wait until you get your hemoglobin A1C of 6.2.

Right.

Now you're diabetic. Now you get on it. Now you get on it.

Yeah.

I'll give you an interesting. There's a great study that was published by Kaiser Permanente out in California. And you know, they've got millions of people in their insurance policies and this was absolutely elegant. What they did is they did nothing but look at a group of patients fasting blood sugar. And they looked at something like 40 or 50,000 people at time zero fasting blood sugar. And then they said in 10 years, based on that one piece of information, what is the risk of developing diabetes?

Oh, wow.

So this is useful because what they found is they found that for every point over a Fasting blood sugar of 85, a person's 10 year diabetes risk increased by 6% for every point. Every point. But if you look on your Quest Labs range of normal fasting blood sugar, it's I don't know, 75 to 95. Yeah. Well, if you have a fasting blood sugar of 95, that's 10 points over 85. 10 times 6 is 60. 60%. You've got a 60% chance risk over 10 years, over 10 year, 10 year period. So when you talk about what, you know, some of the problems that are, that are present in our country. Yeah. I mean, there is a, I mean, how many patients come in having had a metabolic panic, fasting blood sugar. It's a $6 test.

Right.

Everyone gets it.

Yeah. It's a standard of care.

Every doctor in this country can take a look, take one moment to say, wow, this person's fasting. Blood sugar is 92.

Right.

Let's @ least think about that.

Yeah.

Because you know so much of what's killing.

Well, the range right now is 100. Under 100 is normal, quote, unquote.

Let's do the math.

Right.

So let's see, 85 to 100 is 15. Yeah. 15 times 6 is 90.

90% chance. Right, right. So that you're, you're going to get, you're going to have diabetes.

Right. Where you're going to be well on that path to development.

Yeah.

So that's, I found that interesting because I think conventional medical doctors are trained to say, we need to address a certain metric.

Yeah.

The ovary gets bigger than this. We have to take it out. The menstrual cycle lasts more than this number of days. Your blood pressure is greater than 140 over 90. Almost 138 over 88. That's too high.

Yeah.

So that's where you or I would start saying, okay, let's start to look at some of these different things. One we can measure and two, interventions that we could take to get, to.

Get, to get in there. Right. How about the differentiation on this more functional integrative care? We address people in multiple systems rather than a lot of complaints that folks that I see that haven't accessed this type of care yet or well, I got to go see this specialist. Then my primary's going to refer me over here. And none of the docs have time to talk to each other and coordinate care. And it's like, in particular, let's talk orthopedic pain. I got knee pain and the knee pain doc won't talk about my back pain or my hip pain. It's like, oh my gosh. We've gotten so niched in and specialized that, you know, clearly there was a song in kindergarten that said the knee bones connected to the hip bone. Right. So we learned that early on in our upbringing. What happened that medicine got so niche like that? And fractionated, I'm not sure. Yeah, so that reduction component. So I think there's this renaissance coming back, which I'm super excited because I think is going to help so many more people. Is this more of the systems approach that you're going to elegantly bring up here? I want to give a quick station break. This is what the Health I'm Dr. Greg Eckel and I've got Dr. Scott Bresnik here today and we're talking about integrative functional medicine, precision medicine and how that applies to, you know, knowing there's so much information out there and really how do you apply it for yourself to actually be well. Right. The whole premise of what the health is to have a healthcare system that promotes thriving. And in that aspect, like I think we can, you know, with the artificial intelligence and other processes coming on board, like I love that Kaiser study that you brought up because, you know, the data points that had over a 10 year period really do make a difference right now we're going to have these neural networks and basically all of these metrics that we can wear on our aura ring or certain devices we'll put on measuring our blood sugars. Those have their pluses and minuses. But before even getting into a tech overlay, anything else on the precision medicine that you want to bring up?

Dr. Well, I think that when I was making a few notes to you earlier, I said you don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Right.

In other words, I think a lot of what's happening with modern conventional mainstream medicine is pretty amazing.

Oh my gosh.

That someone who can we'll go back to the orthopedist. That someone who has a hip that's fully degenerated, can have a new hip, put in 15 years of whatever bike riding again, functionality that if you're in a bad car wreck, you can be brought into the emergency department, kept alive. Kept alive. So I think that the medicine of the future is really going to be an amalgam of these different styles of medicines. And ideally not waiting until the 11th hour and waiting until that person's hemoglobin A1C is 6.8 over the line.

Right.

In truth, if that person came into my practice, I might have a discussion with them about getting on a insulin sensitizing medication, something to bring that number down. I would be remiss with that patient if I didn't say, okay, we're going to do this. This is the short term thing. Yeah, let's look at your long term Plan.

Yeah.

Because I believe with the use of diet and behavior and optimizing different body systems, working with the gut, working with stress, that we can reverse these diseases.

Oh, my gosh.

And we see it. We see autoimmunity go away. We see aches and pains go away. I mean, how many. I would imagine you've had hundreds of people who go back to the joint pain. Here's two potential paths. Yeah. You go to the family doc. He doesn't have time, she doesn't have time to see you, send you to the orthopedist. Orthopedist runs in and said, let's put a scope in that knee and take a look at things. How about that other. The other path, which might be the patient that goes to the naturopathic doctor who says, well, let's kind of think about what might be contributing to your knee pain. Let me just look at the mechanics of how you walk or sit. Let's think about what you're eating. Oh, you're on the four bagels a day diet. Let's pull gluten out of your diet and see how you do. Because each of us has seen any number of patients who. You pull them off whatever the foods are that they're sensitive to, and their back pain, their hair loss, energy.

I mean, across the board. Right. Food is our best medicine. And you got. It's not the causative agent, but it definitely. That is a cornerstone of care.

Right, Right.

I mean, it's information going in and circulating in our blood. How could it not be related to everything going on with your health?

It is. And when you've done, like a functional or a precision medicine for long meth, you've seen amazing turnarounds with people who get off of a food that's been causing some problems. I mean, it changes people's lives. People lose weight, their thinking is clearer, their sleeping is better, their skin feels better. What did you do? Oh, you pulled potatoes out of their diet. You got them off of milk. Basic stuff like that. So I think that when I was saying, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, I think there's a lot of incredible opportunities that are available to us through conventional mainstream medicine.

Sure.

The problem is it's not. It's not the end all for chronic conditions. And it's not working. Yeah.

Right.

Because it's a reactive form of medicine as opposed to something which is proactive.

It's waiting. Yeah, it's kind of waiting for kind of the iceberg effect. For the iceberg to kind of poke up out of the water. And it's not addressing anything underlying that. Right.

That's that same iceberg that only sticks up 6 inches out of the water can still sink your ship.

Right.

And I think that's where we have the opportunity to start looking at things like metrics or measurements of inflammation.

Yeah.

Measurements of nutritional status. And then when you start getting into things like the gut. I'm sure you've had discussions on this before with what we're learning about the vagus nerve, the microbiome, and the way that it might be that some of our neurotransmitters, like gaba might be made in the gut. The bacteria that live there and then transport it up to the brain.

Totally. And I mean, yeah, that just opens the whole thing up around toxicity and glyphosate killing the gut bugs. And then we're not. Then we're having brain degeneration as a result. Right. So that is. So, I mean, of course, you know, one of the reasons why I've got these walls as yellow in the clinic and you can see them here right behind us. That is the spleen and stomach camp in Chinese medicine. So herbally, these are my herbal teachers, come from the spleen and stomach camp, which is the color yellow. That's the overlap for in naturopathic medicine is food is our best medicine. So those systems come together along those lines. So I love that. I like that we're talking diet as a basis and backbone. But then it gets a little bit more nuanced and advanced as well. We can go even further up. I'm wondering, how about in the genetics, did you bring that into your practice at all?

Well, I kind of figured that our genetics are our genetics.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, what you're born with is what.

What you're born with. Right.

What's interesting is that current science has shown is that we can modify the way that those genetics are basically read off of our genes. So to answer your first question, I wouldn't say specifically I get into the genetics, but I think that we're learning that there are a lot of different factors that actually influence the way that our genetics are read. I like to use just a really simple example, and that is to say, imagine there's a couple of twin sisters. Genetics, identical twins. Yeah. And they're born in the middle of the country, let's say Kansas. And one is spirited off to one family, and she grows up in Duluth area, and another moves out to Southern California. And the first goes and works at the Mall of America. And she eats Krispy Kremes all day long, smoke cigarettes. She's gonna have a different manifestation of her genetics relative to the genetically identical sister who moves out to Southern California, eats vegetarian avocados.

Avocados.

Does yoga.

Healthy lifestyle.

A healthy lifestyle. So I know. I don't know that anyone's actually done those studies, but I think that just intuitively we know if you separated a couple people and exposed their genetics to vastly different exposures. So that's the environment. Yeah. So what happens is when you take time to talk to a patient and get to know them, you can kind of learn what environment are they being. Are they bathing their genetics in? Sure.

Yeah.

And I've had patients, because I take a lot of time sitting with them. I've had a number of patients who come in and they take their cell phone and they send it on the table.

Table.

And we start our interview. And five minutes into it, she's checking it.

Yeah.

And it buzzes. And I see that every six, six minutes or 30 seconds, you're getting that hit. It's affecting your dopamine, it's affecting your limbic system, all these different things. Because you're constantly being distracted by the phone.

Right.

Well, maybe that's a really simple intervention.

Yeah.

I mean, I've had interviews with patients who are spending their money, I pay for my time to work with them, and half their time is spent looking at their phone or taking a phone call. So that's a really simple environmental change that you recommend to somebody.

That's awesome. One point I want to bring back to when we were talking about the testing. I find a lot of folks will treat tests and treat numbers on tests rather than really acknowledging and addressing the dynamic being in front of them. And oftentimes I'm seeing, you know, patients from other clinics where it's like, well, you know, they come in with their stack of tests and with circles and saying, this is an ideal number and this is where we want it, versus, you know, because it's easier, I think, to treat a number on a piece of paper rather than treating people.

Right. Well, that goes back to that. Hemoglobin A1C. It's easy to say, oh, your hemoglobin A1C is 6.7. Let's put you on metformin and januvia.

Right, Right.

Hey, we're done thinking. Yeah, they're going to be on those medications for three months and they're going to come back and their number is probably going to be lower. Yeah. But have you mitigated any of the risks, really?

Possibly lower or. Possibly lower. Right. Because we see that tends to, you know, it doesn't stem the tide for super long. Right.

So that's part of the problem with, you know, that I think that we need to address as we ask the question, what can we do with mainstream medicine is we need to try to move away from just that one simple diagnosis driven. You know, you go in to see your family, doc, it's like I'm concerned about my weight, my energy, my rectal function.

You got one issue.

What do you got? We got 10 minutes. Yeah, we're going to address one of those things.

Well, and a lot of them, I mean, I think a lot of clinics are set up. You can only really have one issue per visit. And then you got to come back. Right. Because we got to get, keep the numbers up and the flow. There's a volume component which is, that's an issue. Right. And that's why it's broken. Why I think folks are frustrated and making these other choices, going online, looking for the self proclaimed experts and then kind of falling into some of these traps that aren't necessarily getting them where they need to be either.

Exactly.

All right, so coming down, let's talk systems. So I want, we've kind of brought that in a little bit. I brought it in on the Chinese medicine. But this is your, you know, your kind of. Your book is going to be coming out and you've put a lot of thought into this. It's basically your whole thinking process around health. I'm just lobbying that to you.

Okay, thanks. You threw me a softball. So what I try to do in my practice is start to examine the body in terms of sort of collective systems that work together. So I think probably the most fundamental system to keep our body alive is nutrition. And it's pretty simple. I mean, our body needs basic nutrients. We need amino acids, and of those amino acids, nine are essential. Meaning you got to get them in your diet. If you don't get them in your diet, you don't got them. They're not there. Body can't manufacture these things. The same thing applies to some of the healthy oils as well. Omega 3 fats. Our body can reluctantly make omega 3 fats. We'd rather not have to do that. And it's really a pretty energy expensive proposition to have to do that. So we need to be thinking about getting those, you know, getting those fats into our diet. So when I think about nutrition, I think about all the different things that our body needs to really work well. You know, we need fats, we need, we need proteins, we need minerals. You know, we need, you know, some of these phytochemicals and phytonutrients that our body uses to help offset this concept of inflammation. And as you know, inflammation is not necessarily a. I mean, it's not necessarily a pathological state. I mean, our body makes inflammation just by using oxygen.

Sure.

To turn the gears.

It's not always a bad thing, it's just when it's unrelenting.

When it's unrelenting, Exactly. So if your body's working well and you've got the nice appropriate nutritional component to be able to offset the inflammation that's being created, your body does great. We need inflammation. We need it to be able to fight off infections and to really kind of buffer the way that our mitochondria work. One of the chief byproducts of mitochondrial function is inflammation, basically. So we need to be able to, to buffer that. So our body needs nutrients. And some of those nutrients you can look at. I mean, some you can look at clinically, you know, you can look at others, you know, in terms of laboratory testing and just try to get a sense of is that person, what's the status? What's that status? Yeah, sort of the next system that I look at with people is what I refer to as energetics. So if you think about it, the body needs energy to be able to work. We need to extract that energy out of our environment. And that's in the form of food, right? Yeah. And then what we need to do is we need to make some decisions about what we do with that energy. So I think for a well functioning human body, you're balancing a little bit of storage and a little bit of use. So you're taking your glucose, you're taking your sugars, and you're filling up your glycogen reserves in your liver and in your muscles, but you don't want to have too much of it. So I think that what happens is one of the biggest things that's affecting health in this country is imbalanced energetics. And I mentioned before the show that there are three systems that I like to look at that all work collectively together to help balance our energy. And the first is the thyroid. Yeah, so thyroid is our thermostat. And it makes sense that if you're a human animal that will go through periods of, you know, feast and famine when you're able to, you're able to feast, you're going to want to store away some of that energy because you never know when it's going to be a long winter.

Sure.

Or you don't kill the bison and. Or the crop doesn't come in. So over the, you know, the millions of years that humans have been on the surf is we've actually worked our bodies, developed ways to kind of manage. So that's what I think the thyroid does. Yeah. Is. Thyroid's our thermostat. In other words, when the getting's good, you know, we have plenty of energy. The corn crops are coming in, staying active. We can burn the furnaces a little hotter, Right? Yeah. But what happens is just imagine the person who's under the stress of. Of starvation, hanging out in their cave. They didn't have enough food. The groundhog showed his head, and it's gonna be another six weeks of winter. That human body might want to get into a conservative approach with its energy. And I believe that the thyroid gland is really sort of the master switch that allows us to burn hot or burn cold. Because what happens when someone gets under a lot of stress? They become relatively hypothyroid. We see that all the time. So maybe the hypothyroidism, which is critical for managing, might be linked to some other. Maybe it's linked to that cell phone constant stress.

Cortisol dump.

The cortisol dump. So it makes sense. That's one third of the kind of the energetic system that I look at. The other is cortisol is. Cortisol is king in the way that I look at things. Cortisol is the hormone that drives everything else in our body. If you open your biochemistry book and go back and read your chapter on cortisol, the very first sentence says, cortisol's job is to raise our body's blood sugar. So at the end of the day, if you can't raise your blood sugar to keep your brain and your heart alive, you're kind of nearing the end. So cortisol's primary job is to raise our blood sugar. It gets us away from a threat. So, too, I have a tiger that jumps out from when you're walking through the mountain path. You don't want to have low blood pressure, low pulse, and low blood sugar. No. Cortisol kind of kicks in to raise all those different hormones or, I'm sorry, different components of our physiology. Sure. So cortisol drives the bus. But we know that cortisol directly affects insulin, Right. As a matter of fact, they call it insulin is cortisol and adrenaline are what we call counter regulatory hormones. So in other words, cortisol raises the blood sugar, insulin lowers the blood sugar. So they're almost kind of like a yin yang the way that they work one another. So if someone's cortisol is entirely dysfunction, you can bet that their insulin is not going to be working well. And we know that high cortisol starts to affect the insulin receptor.

Oh, yeah.

It affects the permeability of the gut, affects blood flow through the gut. It affects all these different things and ultimately change the way that our body reconciles blood sugar. Right. So cortisol is king. Cortisol affects our sex hormones through. You've heard about the pregnant steel. So if your body's making cortisol, you're making less of the sex hormones. So it makes sense that if someone's under a lot of stress, if you're a female animal and you're huddling in your cave, hoping to make it through the winter.

Yeah.

That's not a time to have a menstrual cycle. So we know that high stress, hypoglycemia, low sugar can actually be associated with menstrual dysfunctions. Same thing happens with men. When I see men that have really, really, really high stress levels, I'm not surprised at all to see that their testosterone is low. Sure. And the last hormone that's associated with energetics is insulin, for all the reasons that we just talked about, cortisol. So when the getting is good, insulin is a growth hormone. So we want to be able to utilize our growth hormone. I mean, when you measure growth hormone in the body, what do you like? You measure insulin, like growth factor. Yeah. So growth hormone and insulin cause tissues to grow. So the getting is good. There's a lot of food. We want to pack on the extra, extra meat, extra muscle, in anticipation of the time in the future when things are going to be a little more challenging in the future, when everything kind of falls apart, is when we're under a state of high cortisol, high caloric intake.

Yeah.

That's when our system lives.

Sounds like life.

Sounds like life. So that's the next system. It's like looking at the body and saying, where is this individual in terms of managing their energy? Because if their cortisol high, their insulin is not going to be working. Well, I'm not going to be surprised to see a fasting blood sugar, which is high in the morning. I'm not going to be surprised to see menstrual or, you know, like testosterone abnormalities. Yeah, so. So the next system that I like to look at is sort of the system of barriers. And so what's interesting is that the human animal needs to interface with. With our environment. Yeah. It just so happens that we interface with our, with our environment with a whole cadre of microscopic viruses and bacteria, yeast, helmets, parasites that we can't see. So we need to have a way to be able to interface with our environment across this barrier of our body. So we have different barriers. We've got our skin, we've got our gut, and we also have our lungs. So what I do is, I think that's an important system to consider is what is the integrity of these different barriers? I mean, if someone's breathing intoxication all the time, that's going to disrupt their barrier between their lungs and their bloodstream. Right. What about someone who's got a dysfunctional gut and they're the proton pump inhibitors? If they're drinking too much alcohol and they're smoking, you start to see breakdowns in that barrier. With a lot of the stuff that you studied in terms of neurodegeneration, this whole concept of the blood brain barrier in the brain is critical. So our body needs to maintain barriers.

Yeah.

And the barriers of the skin and the gut, really along with that is the production of our neurotransmitters, because really that, that comes down to gut as well. Next system I'd like looking at is this concept of detoxification. All right. And I don't mean like, yeah, man, detox, you know, you know, take, take the blowout, have your colonic and do that. No, I mean, our body's in an active state of detoxifying itself.

Yeah.

We have to detoxify from our mitochondrial energetics, which we were alluding to before, with the inflammation, we need to detoxify from our hormones that we make, you know, the detox pathways in terms of estrogen metabolism. So in order to detox, we need to be able to make sure that all those systems are working well. And then the last system is really hormones, because at the end of the day, the human animal needs to reproduce.

Yeah.

If you think of everything that we're on the planet to do is to pass on.

I was thinking copulation.

I'll go with the idea. I think it's certainly a little more enjoyable, the reproduction I got. But that's it. I mean, in other words, at the end of the line, when you're nutritionally sound, your gut's working well, you're energetically well, your barriers aren't being threatened your hormonally sounds.

Oh, I like it.

You make babies and that keeps our species going.

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. That's really cool. Thank you for laying that out.

Yeah. And then it's all underlined by this concept of inflammation. And the more inflamed we get, the more these systems fall apart.

Wow.

Wow.

I love it. That's a great way. You know, when you brought up barriers, I think about integrity of the vessel of the being. Right. On all of those levels where you got the skin and the gut. That's really cool. You've put that together over your years of clinical practice and it seems to.

Work to kind of break these things down.

I look forward to the book.

I'm working on it. I was writing it this morning and came in here and we'll continue to do so this afternoon.

Cool. Well, all right. So we're wrapping up. Wrapping up what? The health. I'm wondering, for what do you do personally just to remain in an optimal state. You have, like, what's the biggest lever mover for you on a day to day basis?

I'm gonna say two lever movers. The first is managing my stress.

Okay.

I know myself well enough that I can read something at 11 at night and still be diving into the Internet rabbit hole studying some kind of some studies at 1:30. It's hard for me to show that stuff off. Yeah. So I think that one of the biggest interventions that's kept me healthy over the years is really developing a meditative practice. And sometimes that's taking a little walk in the forest, sometimes it's putting on some earbuds, sometimes it's doing yoga. Awesome. The other thing that I think is so critical is diet. And I'm of the do as I do, not as I say type philosophy. So I've got an Instagram site which is Scott Resnick md and I just take photos of what I'm eating. There's a little blurb about why I think it's valuable, why I think it's helpful. So I've told my patients over the years, look, go to the Instagram site and this happens over time. It's the patients. Like, I'm planning my diet around what you're having. You haven't posted for two days.

Yeah. What's going on? We don't know what to eat.

Yeah. I love it. I think the two biggest things that I would send to your viewers is take home messages. I'll say this to the camera. Think about stress reduction. Think about things you can do to maybe disconnect from that cell phone, from a period of time? What can you do to diffuse challenges you have with your boss? What are some ways that you can find some time to let your body settle down? Because cortisol is the king of the hormones. And when cortisol gets out of whack, remember, it's keeping us alive. So it's willing to say, hey, I'll let him be diabetic, hypertensive, and have no sex hormones because you want to stay alive. But that's always just driving me. That's a problem. And the next thing is eat good food. We are blessed to live in a, in a country. The vast majority of us can have access to good foods. Take a little more time out of your day to prepare the food, to think about eating, to utilize food, because that's what's going to get you healthy.

Awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much. Food is medicine. Food is our best medicine. I love it. Great take home. All right, everybody, thanks for tuning in to what the health. This is Dr. Greg Eckel, Dr. Scott Reznik. Come back every Tuesday, 2 to 3. Share this with loved ones. We want to get the word out on how to stay well in this sometimes crazy world.