Fertility Unveiled: Dispelling Myths Revealing Surprising Realities in Today's World

Hi everybody.

I'm Dr. Sandhya Moldovan, periodontist and nutritionist. Welcome to the Holistic Dentistry Podcast, the show that gives you the tips and tools to detoxify your mouth for a healthier body as we explore together the root cause of disease. Remember, you're not healthy until your mouth is healthy. So take care of it in the most natural way.

Welcome to today's show on Reimagine youe Fertility. And I'm so excited to have today Dr. Christina Massinopol and Dr. Nashat Latif. Welcome.

Thank you. We're so happy to be here. Yes.

I really want to introduce you to because really you inspire me on what you're doing for the world. And Dr. Christina, you have 25 plus years of clinical experience as a board certified internal medicine physician working in both emergency medicine and internal medicine. And also both of you are two of less than 1000 functional medicine certified physicians in the world.

That's correct. That's an important designation. There are lots of functional medicine practitioners, but there are not that many of us that are board certified physicians as well.

So those of you listening who are physicians definitely look into certification for functional medicine.

Absolutely.

More of you, Dr. Christina, you're certified in holistic fertility and you also specialize in helping couples with infertility getting pregnant naturally.

Yes.

And Dr. Nashat Latif, also over 20 years of experience of clinical practice as a board certified emergency physician. And also you are functional medicine certified and a 4M certified. You have specialty training in hormone replacement therapy, weight loss and natural fertility. And both of you founded Reimagined Fertility which addresses infertility in couples naturally using an online educational and coaching program which I've actually reviewed. And I think it's amazing. You talk about nutrition, you talk about lifestyle, mind and body. Really a holistic approach to fertility and you have great results with it.

Yes. We actually have over an 80% success rate with couples that we work with. And of course we handpick those couples. Right. There is a screening process involved. So it's not like everybody can walk in the door and instantly get pregnant. We also, I myself have my own journey with infertility and it is such a harrowing journey. And so we feel very strongly that we are only going to take on couples that we know are going to be successful with our proprietary protocol.

That's amazing. And one of the things I want to address is that you're using a scientific approach. You're checking for labs. It's not like you're just giving a cookie cutter Formula to people.

Correct.

Right.

It is multifactorial. So we are trying to uncover every possible factor that could be impacting fertility, both in the male and the female, because we cannot ignore the males. That's about 50% of infertility. So we actually work with couples.

So speaking of infertility, what is really the status today in the world? Are we getting better, more fertile, or are we getting more infertile?

No, it's frightening, actually.

Sadly, yes.

Sadly, fertility is plummeting over time. In fact, it is projected in the next 40 to 50 years that sperm counts will go to zero.

Oh, my God. Why do you think that is? Why are we heading in that direction?

You know, there's a combination of factors in play. Toxins, our poor intake of food. And actually nutrient poor food has actually been a problem for the last 20 to 50 years, that it's declining. And then there are other factors with potential infection and viruses as well that have decreased sperm counts. So it's a problem.

So in your reimagined fertility course, you're basically trying to decode and see, kind of take it sequentially. What can you do for each of these?

Like fertility is whole body problem. I think that's the bottom line, is that in the traditional approach that we were all taught in medical school was to focus on the hormones and the reproductive organs. And the science and the literature reveals that the picture is much broader than that. And gut health has been linked to infertility in the literature. Inflammation, hyperlipidemia, glucose management. As far as potential diabetic conditions, all of these are linked to infertility. And thyroid is a really big one, autoimmune disease. And a lot of these things, because couples in that childbearing age are younger and don't have a lot of chronic health issues, a lot of things go missed and unseen, and all of those stones are not turned over. And so couples who are struggling to get pregnant end up in a position where they can't get pregnant, and they're sent straight to a reproductive endocrinologist without.

Really looking under the hood, really taking the deeper dive.

Going to the root cause, going to the root cause.

And that's really what our specialty is, is finding the root cause. Because there are so many factors and many factors that are just even not looked for, they can be uncovered and be a big part of the problem.

And actually just dovetailing off of that, we have a couple that we help who are both board certified physicians. She is a board certified endocrinologist. Right. So her specialty is hormones. And her husband was a board certified internal medicine physician. And the two of them together could not get pregnant. They went on and they were, you know, theoretically young. Right. So in their early 30s, still not past that, you know, quote unquote geriatric age that, you know, we're taught in medical school. And the two of them went through seven rounds of iui, failed, then went on to three rounds of ivf, again failed. And as an endocrinologist, she also started having some reactions to the hormones. IVF is obviously not a benign procedure. She came to us and within eight weeks they were pregnant, actually.

Wow, that's incredible.

Yes. So, you know, what we learned in medical school is just a little bit antiquated when it comes to the approach to fertility. Unfortunately, it takes so long for things to become the standard of, of care. Right, so in medical school, probably even in dental school for you. Right.

Yeah.

The research that drives our education is 50 to 100 years old, whereas what we focus on is research that is one to two decades. So 10 to 20 years old. So it's not brand new, fresh off the press. It's very well proven, it's very evidence based and scientific. It's just a lot more progressive.

Yeah. And it's just not well known, so.

Right.

I'd love to be able to bring this message out there and especially you just mentioned geriatric age. What is a geriatric age? Been trying to get working this. Brace yourself. You're not going to want to hear any more than 45, 35.

That was geriatric when I had all of my children, just so you know.

And how old are your children now?

So My eldest is 12 and my twins are 10.

Okay, fantastic. So geriatric one can give birth to healthy children.

Yes, they absolutely can. They absolutely can. But yeah, typically, I mean, the rule in the traditional world is that when a couple has not conceived, if they're. Yeah. If a woman is less than 35 years old and has been trying for more than a year, then she's considered infertile. Once she's over 35, she only gets six months before she's stamped as infertile. And a lot of times she's given the diagnosis of unexplained infertility, which we think is a lazy diagnosis because there's no such thing as unexplained infertility. It's just that you haven't dug deep.

Enough to figure out why.

Correct. Right. There's always a reason. It's just a matter of figuring out why and finding the right provider that is able to really do the detective work necessary.

Yeah. And Dr. Cristina, you mentioned toxins as being one of the reasons. So tell me a little bit about that.

Well, we definitely live in a toxic world. I think all of us are becoming more and more aware of that. There are some signs that we can look at and see in blood work that gives us an idea that somebody may have a bigger toxin load. We also have a toxin questionnaire that we like to ask people about some of the things that they may be exposed to every single day. Because we have to remember we can control our toxin exposure. We can't control everything, but there are so many things in our environment we can control that can help lower that toxic burden. And then we also teach our clients how they can actually upregulate their liver and other systems of the body in order to detoxify better.

Tell me one of the things that, let's say a toxin that we cannot.

Control, like, well, fluoride, for instance. Good. And our water, it is also in multiple products that we use every single day. This can be problematic.

Yes, I agree. And as a holistic dentist, I always tell patients, you know, you don't need fluoride for your teeth. You can use something like calcium hydroxyapatite if you want to combat caries or cavities. But you're right, fluoride is used also when you go to the dentist and the prophy based, you know, when they do the cleanings. So a lot of times you end up ingesting that fluoride, just a little small amount. So toothpaste also has a lot of fluoride.

Exactly. And we know it can affect your thyroid, it can affect your pancreas, and it can affect your adrenals. It can affect multiple things.

Okay, and what is a toxin that we can, we can't control?

Let's say, well, you know, there's multiple toxins. You know, make sure you're eating organic. There is. The EWG.org site does give you the list of the clean 15 and the dirty Dozen, the Dirty Dozen. You want to avoid not having an inorganic produce. You want to make sure that you, you know, you can control it in that fashion. But we can also control it and getting out drinking some water bottles, for instance, bpa, bisphenol A is problematic and it acts as a xenoestrogen in the body. So that's just another way that we can control toxins that come into our, you know, into our plastics.

Such an easy fix in the mouth.

Just get rid of plastic.

Replace your plastic with glass. So simple.

Absolutely. And you know, interesting fact, in dentistry we actually have BPA products and people don't know this. We have plastic fillings that are with BPA that actually can leach just like anything else that's plastic. We also have people that are wearing maybe partial dentures, I wouldn't say full dentures, but probably people wearing partial dentures. And we can make, by the way, little partials or flippers that are BPA free. But yes, there's a lot of BPA also in dentistry that people might not even think until they ask their dentist.

And of course a big one is mercury. You know, mercury. We, a lot, a lot of us have mercury filling still.

Absolutely.

And there is a right way to have those removed so you don't increase your toxic load when it goes out.

Yes. And I don't know if you know, myself, I actually have 16 large mercury filaments in my hand. Oh my gosh. You know, took a lot of the time in the chair to have them removed from safely. And a lot of them actually I have removed non stately. And I didn't know at the time that most people toxicity was high. Exactly. Yeah. So very, very important to find a biological dentist to get your mercury fillings checked.

Yes.

Yeah.

Is there a resource that people can go to to find biologic dentists?

Definitely. IAOMT.org is a great place to find a smart mercury removal certified dentist because IOMT actually have the certification program to help remove mercury safely from someone's mouth. And in terms of toxins, we know that mercury passes through to the baby. That's one of the issues.

Yes. They have found almost 300 toxins in umbilical cord blood in babies when they're born.

What are these toxins come from?

They, you know, again, it's just daily exposure. It is, it's from the mother, goes directly to baby.

Yeah. So toxins, how do we get rid of them? I'm sure a lot of us listening right now are thinking, okay, wow, I'm probably toxic, what do I do?

First of all, it's controlling your environment. So we can absolutely do that. But then we can upregulate multiple systems of the body to help eliminate. So how do we eliminate toxins?

Yeah, that's a great question. So obviously water intake is a really easy one. You basically just take your weight, divide it by two, and that's the number of ounces, your weight in pounds divided by two. That's the number of ounces of Water that you need to drink per day. If you are exercising or if you are drinking a caffeinated drink, you probably need to add at least 25 to 30 ounces for each of those cup of coffee, workout, et cetera. So your overall intake, you know, will go up with any sort of things like that. I also think eating nutrient dense food, we talked about, you know, the Clean 15 and the Derby Dozen, but the problem is that our nutrients, the food that's available to us is unfortunately very nutrient poor. Right. Because we're no longer eating seasonally. And you know, so that's probably one of my big tips to start shopping at a local farmers market. Because that is where you're going to find your seasonal, seasonal food that is going to be the most nutrient rich and that is going to support your detox organs the best. And I always say your liver is your laundromat.

Yes.

Yeah. So supporting your liver is so key. And actually we co created a detox program and there's lots of stuff out there, you know, which is real gimmicky and fad, fatty, such as lemon cayenne water.

Cayenne. You know, it's not a bad thing to start your day off with some lemon cayenne water. It kind of gets the juices flowing.

Okay.

So not, not a bad thing. But you do that in conjunction with some other things. So there is a safe way to detox. And really all of us should be doing a quarterly.

Yeah, at least quarterly. We have shakes and supplements that we that go with the detox program. But our program is a whole foods detox. There's some deprivation involved. So all those things, those juice cleanses that you see, not really a detox. So the way we detox, at least have our patients detox is you drink these shakes and supplements and what they do is they actually support phase one and phase two of the liver detoxification process. So they actually contain all the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, amino acids, all the co factors needed by the liver in order for it to basically speed up the washing cycle. And so it can pull toxins out of your body and eliminate them naturally, which is through our breath, sweat, defecation and urination.

Absolutely. We have to make sure all those work properly, like you're constipated. And I tell my patients that's a.

Problem and it's a very common problem. And people don't realize that that is not normal. Not to have a bowel movement every single day. You really should be going every single day.

Yes.

It's Very important.

Yes, ideally, yes. And I'm sure many of us are not.

And this part of our detox program is that we actually educate. We have a four week course that goes along with our program as well. So we are educating you on how you can control those environmental toxins that are exposed to you every single day.

Let's shift gears a little bit to oral health now. What are your thoughts on oral health and importance in pregnancy and fertility?

It's extremely important. We know the oral microbiome is extremely important to our overall health and really infiltrate fertility goes along with that. Any sort of inflammation, anything that drives inflammation in the body, whether you have an overgrowth of bacteria in the mouth, periodontal disease, anything like that causes inflammation in the body, can be a driver even for autoimmune disease. We know inflammation is bad news when it comes to fertility.

Absolutely, yes. And as a periodontist, actually do a saliva test. I have a suspicion. Spit test, very easy. And we know that certain periodontal pathogen or bacteria causing periodontal disease can cross into the, through the placenta and can affect the baby's development and even when you give birth. That's amazing.

And we know the oral microbiome is attached to the gut microbiome and so they go hand in hand. And we know there is a lot of supportive research about the gut microbiome and how it can impact fertility as well.

Yes, leaky gums. Leaky gut. Yes, leaky gut.

We talk about leaky gut a lot, our patients and clients.

So how do you know somebody has leaky gut?

You know, that's such a multifaceted question. I mean, I don't think there's any one symptom. Leaky gut may manifest as acne, it could manifest as brain fog, it could manifest as depression and anxiety. We see that a lot, a lot of mood disorders because 90% of your serotonin is actually produced in your gut. Guess what? If you have a leaky gut, those levels are going to be off. Leaky gut can also manifest as food sensitivities, and food sensitivities are not food allergies. I think that is really important distinction for people to understand. You may have a food intolerance that you're not even aware of. Maybe you just get a headache from some type of food, maybe get a little nasal post nasal drip that you think is allergies, but it might actually be from food. So stress is also a driver of leaky gut. That's a huge driver of leaky gut. Because when we're in a fight or flight state. The first place that our body goes to get the amino acids necessary to carry out cellular functions is the gut wall. And so slowly but surely, we strip away the lining of that gut and it becomes leaky and it just becomes this perpetual cycle. Because once you have a leaky gut, it becomes a vicious cycle because things start getting through the gut wall and your body starts attacking them, creates inflammation, so drives inflammation up and also drives autoimmune disease. So one of the biggest things that we see in our clients across the board is Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune thyroiditis. Right. And one of the biggest drivers of Hashimoto's is gluten. And so leaky gut, more gluten gets out, body attacks the gluten. And guess what those antibodies look like? Thyroid antibodies, I mean, attack thyroid molecules as well. So really amazing connection.

And so many people have leaky gut. I mean, just about everyone. If you have been on antibiotics, multiple courses of antibiotics, we know in our day and age, whether you were treated for recurrent strep infections or ear infections as a child, even when you're a baby, if you had to have antibiotics, it really impacts your gut later down the road. So when we take a history, we already know kind of the level at which people have problems with their gut just because of that. And even anti inflammatory medicines such as, you know, NSAIDs, ibuprofen.

Wow. And some people consume those like candy.

Yes, it's problematic for the gut lining. And another big driver, alcohol. Alcohol is a big driver of leaky gut.

Well, that's not good news. No, they can be problematic in lots of ways. So why does leaky gut influence fertility?

Oh, it's again, just that inflammation that usually happens because of leaky gut. Again, when things leak into your bloodstream and your body's like, what the heck is that? Let me fight it off. It drives inflammation levels up. Inflammation is a major block for fertility. So again, we try to figure out what is that underlying cause. We do want to heal the gut part of actually our whole process. We look at every system of the body, but the gut is one of the foundational layers that we do need to focus on.

I think one of the things also that is so poorly understood is that your body is smart. And so I tell all of our patients and clients that your body knows when it's in a well enough state to conceive naturally. So if something is off, your body does not want to raise a child in that environment. So Your body is waiting for everything to be perfectly aligned so that it can safely grow and nurture a baby. So that's the other reason that's sort of the underlying philosophy behind everything we do is we want to basically get your body into its optimal state where a baby will thrive. You know, what does that also mean? It also means a healthier pregnancy. It means a more joyous and easier pregnancy. It also means easier delivery. Absolutely. And less complications. And guess what, a healthier baby, too. Because it's proven in the literature that if we can optimize what we do in the 90 to 120 days before we conceive, it actually changes the genetics of the baby. So the topic of biogenetics. Right. So even though we can't change our DNA, our DNA has on and off switches and we can strategically align our bodies so that the right on switches are turned on and the right off switches are turned off so that we get actually the genetically more favorable baby.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. We can affect the way we conceive and the way our baby's going to look.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Now, let's talk about some myth busting. Number one, you don't need to detox because your body detoxifies naturally. What do you think about that?

Again, we need to support it. You know, your body needs support. It's trying as much as it possibly can to try to save you from yourself.

Every day.

And then, you know, and sometimes, unfortunately, some of the unhealthy foods that we are consuming. But we need to provide it with support. And that's the key thing. And that's why when we were, she was talking about the liver really upgrading up, regulating your liver so it can handle toxic toxins better. We want to get your body to lower level of inflammation so it can handle toxins better.

Yes.

And when you mean supporting the liver, do you mean with medications or natural supplements? Food and supplements really.

Food first. Food first. And our book is really eating from the rainbow. Every color of the rainbow supports so many different processes in the body that it's always food first, but then supplements. And especially in our fertility clients that we see and patients that we see, certain nutrients are so key that we really need to support them because we're not getting enough in our food.

Is fasting a good way to detoxify?

Fasting can be intermittent. There's a couple different ways that people can fast and time restricted eating or intermittent fasting, they both can be supportive, but it's really about making sure when you do want to focus on detoxification is to make sure you are consuming things that help your body be prepared and be able to eliminate those toxins a little bit better. And that's, you know, eliminating inflammatory foods is pretty important in that process.

A lot of people also ask, well, why do I have to take a supplement? You know, can't I just get everything I need from food? And yes, you can get a lot of things from food, but can you get it in a high enough quantity for it to affect change? So, you know, there may be, for instance, a nutrient that's found in broccoli that is great, but can you eat like five heads of broccoli in a day?

Exotic, right?

So it's just the supplements really just speed up the process and you get a lot of bang for your buck and you don't have to be chewing on broccoli all day.

And not all supplements are created equally. You know, we do have to pay attention to, you know, the brand of supplements. We know some are more medical grade, professional grade supplements that are vetted, and we know exactly what's in them because we don't always know what we're getting off our shelf.

Yes, I agree. And a lot of them are fillers, and they're not actually active ingredients. They're just wasting your money, right? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Myth number two. Amh, anti malarial hormone, is a static. It cannot be changed. Yeah. All right. For those of us out there that don't know what AMH is.

So AMH stands for anti mullerian hormone. And it is like all the rage in the world of fertility because a woman, when she finds out her ama, she's either happy or she's crushed, you know, or maybe she feels uneasy most of the time. In the traditional world of fertility, if your AMH is 1 or higher, then, you know, reproductive endocrinologists will work with you. But if it's less than 1, you know, they may or may not work with you because, you know, it's considered. Considered as having low ovarian reserve. Let's talk about what AMH is for a second because I think that will help, you know, shed light on why this number can be changed.

Yes, good idea.

So it's basically a hormone that is secreted from the outer coating of our eggs, which are in our ovaries. And all of us are born with all the eggs we're ever going to have. In fact, we actually have all our eggs when we are fetus.

Wow.

In our mother's wombs. So. Which is really wild. To think about.

Right.

To think about that. Like, all your eggs were actually in your mom's. Amazing.

They're predetermined by the way your mom took care of ourselves.

Many generations.

Yeah. But the bottom line is that our eggs are frozen in time. So as far as egg quality, we can absolutely affect egg quality by what we do in that 90 to 120 days before we conceive naturally. And that is the premise of everything we do. But the reality is that because amh, that anti mullerian hormone, is secreted by the outer coating of the little eggs, it's used to basically measure your ovarian reserve and also kind of your egg quality. So if we nourish the eggs that we have and we make them healthier and more robust, guess what? The AMH goes up. And we have proven it time and time again in our protocols, we've been able to quadruple amh. And so from of the women that we've worked with. So AMH is not, you know, it's not set in stone. It can be affected. It's not a reason to be crushed. Okay.

There's not really one specific thing you can do. It's multiple things. Kind of doing all the things.

Yes. It's not like I get a lot of questions like that, especially on social media, like, what is the one thing I can take to drive my ami shop? And the answer is there is no one thing. You kind of have to do it all. Yes, exactly. What we do in our program when we work with couples.

So take the course if you want to increase your AMH. Exactly, exactly. Myth number three. After 35, you're considered geriatric and you cannot get pregnant. Yeah. So brought it up a little bit earlier.

You know, 35 is an age. It is a. It is your chronological age. It is not necessarily your biological age, which we can affect. And we know that by supporting different things in your body, you can actually be a younger age than you are. So we don't hang our hat on any age. Right. And for some of our older clients, and especially even over 40, that we do like to really support certain things to improve egg quality. Oxidative stress is a big issue as we get older. And so that's something that we always address too.

Yeah. Great. And just to close the show here, I would love to hear a quick tip for those of you listening out there. So what would you say to improve fertility? What would be a quick tip? I know there's not one thing, but a quick tip that somebody can start.

To Pay attention to, you know, it's really trying to focus on your diet more than you ever have before. We know that there's so many drivers of inflammation in what we do every single day and the food we put in our mouths every single day. And if we can can control that level of inflammation, it only can improve fertility down the road, right?

Yeah, for sure. Do one little thing at a time. I feel like often the journey is so overwhelming and so heart wrenching. And I think mindset is also really, really important because many of the couples that we talk to feel so defeated and they lose hope and they lose belief that it's possible. We are here to say it is possible. We've proven it time and time again in our couples who have failed so many different interventions to get pregnant. And we're able to turn that around. And we have actually seen in the literature that the mind body connection to fertility is huge. You can actually change your biochemistry and increase your fertility by just shifting your mindset. Thanks. Thank you.

And so that is something that needs to be addressed. And also when people come see us, we feel like we do unload that level of anxiety. You know, we say, you know, give that to us. Let us spell it out what you need to follow. So we take the guesswork out of the process so they can just follow the steps and trust the process.

Yes.

Yeah.

And in our support, we make sure that it's comprehensive. So not only are we doing the medical side really looking at the labs and the biochemistry, but our couples get the mind body support and coaching. They get a registered dietitian who will give them nutrition support. We have a behavioral analyst who's going to help them with forming new habits.

Amazing.

And we also have a pelvic floor therapist.

That's worth a couple.

Yes, it's pretty comprehensive.

I love your holistic approach to fertility. And for those of you listening out there, where can they find you? What's your website?

Yeah.

So we have a couple of ways to find us. Probably the easiest way to find some really amazing tips and tricks is to go to Instagram. My profile is your functional doc. Super easy to find. And then we've got our respective websites which are Dr. Nishat Latif.com and CMAS MD.com.

Yep.

So we're still working on our combined website. It's in the works.

We'll go ahead and let you know.

So that you can shoot that out to everybody.

Right, excellent. Well, it's such a pleasure talking to both of you today.

Thank you so much.

For having us. And hopefully we get to talk again, you know, and kind of give everybody an update on fertility in about a year or so.

We would love that.

We would love that.

Right?

Yay.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please make sure you check out the show notes for any links mentioned in the show. If you like today's show, please invite your friends to listen as well. That would mean a lot to me. Do you have a question you'd like me to answer? Message me on Instagram. Doctorsanda, this is Dr. Sandha. And remember, your mouth is the gateway to your health, so take care of it in the most natural and best way possible.