Address the Root Cause for Metabolic Health and Optimal Aging

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function.

And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine.

And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites.

What are you waiting for?

Good night.

You've heard these words: root cause, metabolic health. But if I said right now, it's quiz time, what are they? Do you feel really confident that you've got the answer so that you could explain it so that a 5-year-old could understand it? Well, by the time you are done listening to this episode, you will exactly know what to say.

And know what that means for you, your health now and your future.

My guest today is Dr. Rena Singh. She's a naturopathic doctor who specializes in metabolic health, weight loss, and women's health. She overcame her own chronic illness diagnosis in her early 20s, which she describes to everyone on this show. So you'll want to listen to that. Which is what led her into naturopathic medicine. Her goal is to always address the root cause. She is creator of the Metabolic Hormone Reset Program, and you will hear, if you stay to the end, a description of a special event she has coming up. And you will also hear, as we go through this episode, just how she articulates and gives a description that is easy to understand and that gives hope to no matter what might be going on for you. So stay tuned to the end. You're going to want to hear what's coming up next, even after this episode.

I'm Debra Atkinson. You're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness in menopause and beyond before you knew to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. And it's not just about you, but the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, and an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made for menopause and beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the scenes and the science of optimal hormone balancing, fitness, and longevity, and share answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy that you want, need, and deserve.

Dr. Reena Singh, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much for having me.

All right, well, we like to know the dirt here, so we're all about the backstory. I would love to know, when you were a little girl, did you know this is what you wanted to be doing when you grew up?

Absolutely not. I always say, I always tell people that naturopathic medicine found me. So really quick story on how that happened is that I got really, really sick when I was a freshman in college and lots of GI symptoms and just didn't really know what was happening to me in my body and ended up needing, almost needing a blood transfusion because I was just having so much pain and cramping and diarrhea and then ultimately got diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Which is a severe inflammatory bowel disease, and was put on all of the conventional medicines, the steroids. But then I also, also dealt with the rollercoaster ride of side effects from the medications. And so more medications and more side effects. And so that journey led me to eventually finding naturopathic medicine. And I eventually was able to heal and reverse the disease process entirely. Which was just so empowering and enlightening because I had been told that I was going to suffer from this condition the rest of my life, that I was going to have to take medications, that having children may not be a possibility, and that I would quite likely get cancer in my 30s. So not very good news for someone in their late teens, early 20s to, to hear. And so it was a lot of information. But at the same time, looking back, I'm really glad I went through that because it led me to where I am. And so now I'm a naturopathic doctor and practice and have been practicing for over 15 years. And my goal is to always address the root cause, identify and address the root cause for people so that they can themselves really feel how beautiful and unbelievable and magical our bodies are when given, when given the environment to heal.

Would you do me a favor? So I think our audience members, we've heard a lot about functional medicine, the difference between functional and Western medicine, and they've heard those words root cause, and you really just unpacked it. But is there— could you just express it in another way? Give another example of what, what is getting to the root cause versus kind of treating a symptom. Illustrate that again.

Sure. So a very common reason for a woman to come see me is that she will have a variety of symptoms including weight gain, brain fog, really low energy, and just not feeling herself. And then she may go to her conventional medicine doctor and they may run some labs and it may show that her thyroid may be low. Maybe she has hypothyroid, and then she may be put on medications for thyroid. More often than not, what happens is that she may feel better briefly, but then after a few months or a year, she's really not feeling any different. While taking the medications. And so then she may start seeking, like, what is going on? So at that point, she may find someone like me. And I always say, in this specific example, she's being— she's been told she has a thyroid condition, she's been put on thyroid medications, but that's not addressing the root cause. So the thyroid is a victim gland. The That poor little thyroid gets blamed for a lot of stuff, but in reality, it's dependent on other organs like the liver and the gut and the nervous system. And is there inflammation going on? What's blood sugar doing? So it's so dependent and affected and impacted by these other imbalances in other systems that if we don't address those, Imbalances, then we're not addressing the root cause. And so that's why that medication may not be alleviating her symptoms because that medication is not necessarily impacting those underground imbalances that are truly going on. Mm-hmm.

That was such a great analogy. And I think there are a lot of women who are wondering, oh my goodness, right? Did I go down a wrong road here? So I'm gonna go off on a bit of a tangent. Because I want to go somewhere else with you here, but because thyroid is such a big one— it's a big one. I mean, I think if we were sitting in a room of 10 friends, I would guess at least 8 would raise their hand and say, I'm on thyroid medication. Is it possible to improve that if you've been on thyroid medication, to reduce thyroid meds or get off thyroid meds?

Absolutely. I've seen it so many—

I love you so much.

So many times, because again, the body just wants— the body wants to be in the environment to heal. And so when we look beyond the surface level stuff and we dig deeper and we start going underground and start deciphering, okay, What, where is this person's specific imbalances and then start healing and addressing and optimizing and nourishing those organs. Then it allows each system to kind of come back online, come back to life and start functioning optimally and then start communicating with the other organs because nothing works in isolation in the body. Everything's working together. And so if one system goes down, well, we know that it's just going to take or impact all the other systems around it.

Wow. Okay. Very powerful, but hopeful to anybody listening, right? If this is you, and I think it's just a matter of, are you willing to dig deep and figure it out? I also wanna ask another term. So similar to root cause, you know, we're no stranger to hearing metabolic health. And I think this goes into decades now that we've been talking about metabolic health and, and in some way, shape, or form, I think if you are an apparently healthy enough woman, like you're getting through every day and you're functioning and you're exercising and you're quote unquote eating healthy, you think you're metabolically healthy, but I think some of us are beginning to question that. How would you define metabolic health?

Oh my goodness, such an important question. So happy you asked this, because in order to answer this question, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a step back just to zoom out and kind of offer the big picture, and then I'll come back to your question. But the big picture is that in the United States, 60% of Americans are diagnosed with at least one chronic disease. 40% are diagnosed with two or more. This can include heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, stroke, kidney disease, lung disease. And we know that the underlying cause, contributor to all of these conditions or diseases including cancer, is poor metabolic health. 93% of Americans are considered to have poor metabolic health. So now, now that we have the big picture, we pull down and ask, okay, well, what is metabolic health? All it's referring to is, is really metabolism. Metabolic health kind of relates to, or means, how well our cells are making energy for us. How are we taking in the food, the nutrients that we need, and are our cells able to convert that into usable energy so that each cell can do all the stuff it needs to do? We have 40 trillion cells in our body and each one has its job depending on which kind of organ it's, it's in defined it's sitting in. And so we have all of these different cells functioning and each and every cell is dependent on producing energy. We have mitochondria are, are these little organelles inside of each cell that's making energy. So anything that's going to disrupt our metabolic health, anything that's going to disrupt this function of making energy is going to disable the cell. It's going to make it not work as well. And so then that can then lead to different symptoms. So in the conventional world, we focus so much on the symptoms, the collection of symptoms. And then we assign that as a diagnosis. And then whatever that diagnosis is, it's like, okay, well, we'll just give you this medication to manage that diagnosis. Or possibly, if you want to go down the natural route, okay, I'll take the supplement to manage this diagnosis. But again, we're really just managing things if we're just focusing on the symptoms. But the reality is these symptoms are just a reflection of these cells not being able to do what they're meant to do because they don't have the energy from within. And what leads to this poor metabolic health, this dysfunction inside the cell, are all of these different factors that are increasing inflammation, oxidative stress, free radicals. So the stuff, all the nutrients that are supposed to get inside the cell can't get in. All the toxins and byproducts that are meant to get out aren't getting out. So then this causes a lot of chaos within each cell. And so if you can imagine, you know, 40 trillion cells having issues within them, it's going to affect us at the organ level. And then the body's way of communicating this is, is via different symptoms, signs or symptoms. And so listening to these signs or symptoms well in advance, 10, 20, 30, 40 years before they turn into these more significant diseases, chronic diseases, or potential cancers is so important. So if our body's communicating with us in terms of signs and symptoms like stubborn weight gain, fatigue, poor mental clarity, pain, swelling, hot flashes, night sweats, belly fat, belly fat, big one. Not being able to just, just feel your best. Like, you can tell something's off. So we have all these physical signs, but then we also have things in our blood work too that are telling us, giving us information, such as increased blood glucose levels, A1C, cholesterol, triglycerides. So those those particular markers are kind of the more— the markers that are related towards metabolic health. So if someone— if we're trying to determine if someone has metabolic health issues, that's where we look to in the blood work first. It's like, okay, what's going on with blood sugar? What's going on with A1C? Let's look at cholesterol and triglycerides and also waist. How big is our waist?. And so those kind of give us an indication of, are there signs that we have some metabolic dysfunction? But beyond that, when we take— when we go deep, deeper, so naturopaths, functional medicine doctors, we're going to look beyond just those markers. We want to also look at, you know, fasting insulin and inflammatory markers, gut health. Is there— how well are you digesting and absorbing your nutrients? Is there dysbiosis? Are there infections? All of these things can impact metabolic health.

Amazing.

And, and I want to unpack this just for a moment for any woman listening, for themselves and, and with a tendency to do this, or for the trainers or health coaches who are working with them, to group fitness instructors. I think when you talk about symptoms, you know, and we're talking about interpreting— unfortunately, the fitness industry has gotten this wrong for decades. And it's not your fault if you're a trainer or a group fitness instructor, because there's zero training in a basic certification, and even in a 4-year degree. And I know because I've taught both and written the questions for both. We don't talk about menopause, we don't talk about hormonal change, we don't talk about the difference between men and women's fitness. But what we often do is, well, let's go right for the target, let's try to help them burn that fat off. And yet we could be contributing to the problem because although we're not physicians, we too have to be sure, are we targeting the root cause? And, and this is where we need to really be— we need to be understanding what's going on and working with physicians. And so if you are a fitness trainer, personal trainer, coach, or you're exercising, stay till the end because we're going to share a way for you to learn some more. And this is so crucial. We unintentionally may be sabotaging someone else or ourselves. Sorry to interrupt, but I felt like that is so important that what it is you're saying is we can extrapolate that because we all think exercise is healthy and we sometimes use it as in a punishing way and we go directly for what we see immediately as wrong and yet not so much the truth. I would love to ask you, you talked about blood work. Is there a difference between quote-unquote blood work and just going in for a test and proper blood work that might look a little deeper? And or could it be interpreted different by two different doctors? And, and how do we know? We're in front of the right doctor?

Such a good question and such an important question because I cannot tell you how many times a woman will get her blood work done and come to me and share all her symptoms with me and then say, oh, but I had my blood work done and my doctor said it's just fine.

Everything's—

everything looks normal. And I just have to pause And I just take a step back and, and smile and say, yep, I understand what you're saying. However, here is the issue with the conventional regular blood work that is run. Number one, it is not enough. So they typically only run very basic markers— CBC, CMP, lipids, maybe, maybe a TSH. But that's not reflective of, of good thyroid function. And number 2, the ranges that come on the lab report are very broad in general because those ranges are— for some markers, they just are a reflection of the population of the people that that lab is testing in that region of the country. So you're not necessarily being compared to healthy super optimal functioning levels or markers.

I would love to say this again just because for the people in the back who didn't really hear what she said, let me describe to you something. I'm living in South Phoenix now. I live here because I am right next to South Mountain and I can walk my little self 8 minutes to a trailhead, and I love that. However, I'm a minority here. I am a white Caucasian woman, and for the first time in my life, I'm a minority. And I am testing at a lab 6 minutes from my house with a lot of people who probably are not as healthy or potentially as educated as I am. And that's just the truth of life right now, you know, in where I'm at. So the norms come back, potentially I'm being compared to that if I were to only look at that. Dr. Singh, did I say that correctly and accurately?

That was spot on. Exactly. That's exactly right. And so the reason why you would want to get a more in-depth, a naturopathic functional medicine type of view or perspective into your blood work is so that we can get much more in-depth information by getting more comprehensive blood work.. So including things like a more in-depth comprehensive thyroid panel, iron panel, inflammatory markers, further insight to liver, gallbladder, oxidative stress, all of those markers are so important. And then also comparing those results to what we consider an optimal range, not the standard lab range that comes on your lab report. So now we are now looking at your blood work in an entirely different light and getting so much more valuable information. Because again, those chronic diseases that 60% of Americans are dealing with, they didn't happen overnight. They started in motion 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. And so this is This is why it's so important for what you do is just helping people to understand, to dig deeper, to ask questions, to— if you're not feeling right in your body, if things are not the way they feel like they should be, keep asking questions and find the practitioner who's going to help you get the answers.

So good. So good. So now we know For instance, if we're testing, first of all, properly, we're actually getting to the bottom of it with tests that are ideal. We get the results back and you're looking at those through a different lens, through here's where I am and here's optimal. That's where you come in, Dr. Singh, or a functional doctor comes in and says, here are the steps we can first take in our highest priority to get where we want to go to close the gap between here's now and here's optimal. And I imagine in any different scenario, there's, you know, there might be a number of choices that you could make, but there's probably a priority that if we did this, that domino might actually help the others also improve.

Is that true? Oh my goodness, you are— yes. That's exactly right. And so just remind everybody, 93% of Americans have poor metabolic health. So that is the first domino. That is the first step. And so when I am analyzing blood work, that is what I'm looking for. If I am looking for insight and information to let me know, are these symptoms that this person is coming to me for related to poor metabolic health? If so, and 93% of the time it is, then that's where we begin. Because I cannot tell you how many people are trying to, even in the natural world, you know, supplement their way out of imbalances, taking weight loss injections or drugs, or even taking bioidentical hormones. I'm not against— I'm not opposed to any of those. Those are all great. However, it's, in my opinion, not the first step. It's— those are not addressing the root cause imbalances. And the first domino, the, the foundation of health, is our metabolic health. Let's get the cells producing energy, utilizing energy, functioning cells the way they should be, because our hormones, our hormonal balance, hormonal function lays on top of metabolic health and our foundational systems. So once we clean up, optimize metabolic health and all of the foundational systems and organs like the gut and the liver, adrenals, all of that, then the hormones naturally are impacted and optimized. So then we have a much clearer view and picture as to what we actually need in terms of bioidentical interventions or other, other hormonal interventions. Because I cannot tell you how many women come to me who are already taking hormones or have already done the weight loss drugs and things like that, but they still are feeling awful, or their blood work is a mess, or they're gaining weight. And it's because if we ignore the metabolic health or the foundational system imbalances, those interventions cannot work as well as they're designed to until we go and kind of clean up, lift up that rug and sweep underneath it and get all that stuff out first.

And that, I think, was really the mic drop. So if you missed it, you know, so many of us are hearing or seeing— we're seeing what we think is success, you know, with GLP-1 options, you know, and, and going that route. And not that it isn't a solution or doesn't have some good utility in other ways. But many of us wanna jump ahead to the fourth chapter, right?

Like, just let's get to the good stuff, like right away.

You know, I wanna lose the weight first and then I'll come back and deal with that other stuff. But then honestly, we don't, right? And it potentially doesn't work that way. So I think what you've just said there is so very important and we really have to start at the base because for those things to actually work, we have to be doing the pun intended heavy lifting. We've got to be doing our part. I would love to share some takeaways so that listeners could say, you know, we know lifestyle habits, the things we do on an everyday basis and on an every week, you know, partially, frequently, occasionally basis do matter. What do you see as a physician? You know, if you could say, I'd love to have my patients put me out of business. What would you like to have them all do?

Oh my goodness. Well, it's 3 big categories. It's our food. It's what we're taking in. It's our lifestyle and it's our mindset. So those are the 3 big buckets that feed into our health, our overall health.

If I have a gun to your head, and I don't, but if I did and I said you have to choose one, which would be your highest priority?

Oh my goodness. Oh, I would have to say— oh, how about this?

I will pick one from each category. Okay.

Fair enough. Just to emphasize that each are equally important. However, we, we can hone in a little bit. So with food, it's absolutely real food, unprocessed, whole, real food, because our cells communicate with the nutrients that are coming in. That's how they're getting the information. And so if we're eating processed food that's devoid of actual nutrition, it's— that's one way it disrupts cellular health, metabolic function. And so real unprocessed food, number one for sure when it comes to food. Lifestyle. There's so many different pieces to lifestyle. And this is why I always say just losing weight doesn't mean that you're healthy. It's a little bit of a misnomer there because we— that's one indication that things are getting better. But when it comes to metabolic health at the cellular level, there's so many other things that our cells depend on. So gut health is huge. Are we sleeping? Are we getting outside and getting exposure to light? Because every single one of our cells gets information from light. Are we eating at the right times? Are we not eating at the right times? So all of this is information, and all of these pieces that I just mentioned As a woman ages and during perimenopause and into menopause and beyond, these lifestyle factors become even more important. So the earlier we can start implementing these lifestyle factors, routines, habits will just create a more solid foundation as she is transitioning into perimenopause and menopause. So that she's not one of the women who's suffering and dealing with all these common, so-called common menopausal symptoms, because they don't have to be. They're not necessary. Other women in other parts of the world don't deal with all this stuff. And so what are, what are we doing that's, that's creating this? And it all goes back to our metabolic health, which is our food, our daily habits. And, and then our mindset. So mindset and stress are huge, huge. And so stress is so, so important to manage and deal with. And we can talk about that one day completely, all about the impacts of stress and the nervous system and cortisol levels and the impact on our gut and our weight and all of that. So So food, lifestyle, mindset really are 3 equal buckets. And within each one, depending on kind of what's going on with that woman at that time, we can start with the big hitters in each category for her so she can make huge improvements in a short period of time and feel the difference in her body, not just in weight, but with everything else. I always talk about side benefits.

It's like, let's see how many side benefits we can get, which is so great because Generally, with any prescription, you've got negative side effects as opposed to positive, positive ones, right? And a total void of any negative ones. I love that. And you've been so eloquent with your answers. It's so easy to see that. I know you've got an upcoming summit, the Midlife Makeover Summit, that you will be an eloquent interviewer, you know, and filtering out for all audience members, listeners, you know, what it is that you wish that they would know. And I think that is such an art. So I'm excited for you, but also for us. I would love it if you can just tease a little bit of behind the scenes. Who are you interviewing? Have there been any during interviews, any aha moments in those that you're like, I can't wait to share this?

Oh, I'm so excited for the Midlife Health Makeover Summit. I am My mission is to help all of us, all the women, who— to take back control of our health, to feel more empowered with our decisions when it comes to our, our health and our trajectory for aging. Because I want all of us to be dancing, laughing, and traveling well into our 80s and 90s, and not walking in and out of doctors' offices. And so, so the goal for this summit is to really empower women to ask the questions, to start understanding what they can do now, no matter what age they are, no matter what is happening in their body currently. There's so much you can do. And I have some amazing experts coming on to share. So Dr. Joel Kahn, who's a world-renowned integrative cardiologist, is, is coming on to share his wisdom and pearls. So that's a definite not miss. And then I have Oh gosh, experts coming on for lymphatic drainage and how that's so important for our health and why metabolic health, circadian rhythm, toxins, gut health. So it's just jam-packed full of information that is going to help each and every one of us to make changes now, start implementing positive changes and habits so that we can age our best, so we feel our best, look our best, think our best, well into our 80s and 90s and beyond, and, and lowering our risk for chronic disease and cancer. That is a huge passion of mine, is just to start understanding where the imbalances are now and start making changes where you need to so that you can reduce your risk of becoming a statistic.

So good.

Yes.

And, and hopefully, I hope you and I in our lifetime change statistics. And I hope that we're not talking about the anomaly, one or two 80 or 90-year-olds who are doing fabulous things. That I hope that we're all doing fabulous things, right?

Yeah.

So good. Date of the summit, we start when?

So the summit will go live on the week of January 20th.

Perfect.

So you will get all the information once you register. You'll get all the information, all the details of, of when it goes live and how to access it. And of course, Debra is a featured speaker, so she's going to share her insights and knowledge, and that's going to be super fun.

So good.

And so if you're listening right now and you want to get an edge, so while we're releasing this podcast, we are just open for registration. So I hope you join us because I too will be there with Dr. Singh. And the link, just in case you have a mind like a steel trap and you're not walking or hiking somewhere, it is flipping50.com/midlifemakeoversummit. And we run those words all together, there's no spaces— midlife makeover summit. So you'll be getting it if you're on our email list, you'll hear it there too, but you can drop into the show notes and you'll be able to see it. Dr. Singh, thank you so much, first of all, for putting the summit together. I know know firsthand how much work that is, but also for the work you do and the way that you articulate it in such an easy-to-understand way for everyone.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for listening. To listen to a decade of episodes and to get the show notes, visit flipping50.com where you'll be able to find all the previous episodes. And I made it super easy to make the most of your listening time and get exactly what you want to listen to as top priority by getting the top 10 episodes in the areas you most care about, like how much protein do you need, weight loss, and other 3 ultra important topics we've identified as our community's top 5. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife women. So go and listen right now. Do you have a question for a podcast, a question you'd love ask, or maybe a story you want to tell. Did you know we have a special group just for podcast question roundups and the answers? My community coaches and I provide answers daily inside of this group, but it's also where I go when I occasionally say, okay, open call for podcast questions, or tell your story, would you like to be a guest? So if you're looking for a community of women who are also interested in optimizing their health, strengthening their mindset, and looking forward to every new year, join the Flipping 50 Insiders group. That's Flipping 50 Insiders on Facebook.