How to Have and Still Thrive with Autoimmunity in Menopause

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. If you are dealing with anything physically that really is disrupting, it's an obstacle to you being able to exercise the way you know you want and need to, this episode is for you. I'm Debra Atkinson and 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 know to ask them. The goal: to help accelerate your results with the 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. It's not just you, but it's 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 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 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 you you want, need, and deserve. My guest today has personal experience, though not with autoimmunity in menopause. His own journey is with arthritis. I've invited Dr. Micah Yu as a guest because of his own unique experience, both as arthritis patient and something I've dealt with in clients, spondyloarthritis. So stick with us even if that's not you. He has a very unique perspective on autoimmune disease and arthritis as he is both a patient and has arthritis and he's a physician. So Dr. Yu was diagnosed with gout at the age of 17 and later diagnosed with spondyloarthritis as well. We'll define that for those of you who are wondering. In this episode, we answer the questions that you might have about common and lesser-known autoimmune diseases. Whether you're more prone during menopause, how hormonal changes may impact autoimmunity, and some of the easiest lifestyle changes you can implement starting today. And perhaps most importantly, know that you are not alone. Dr. Micah Yu is an integrative rheumatologist who incorporates complementary medicine with traditional rheumatology. He's triple board certified in rheumatology, internal medicine, and lifestyle medicine. Sorry, my tongue is a little thick today. Goodness. He obtained his MD from Chicago Medical School and holds a master's in healthcare administration and biomechanic— biomedical sciences. He completed his internal medicine residency and rheumatology fellowship at Loma Linda University in Southern California. He's a graduate of the Andrew Weil Integrative Medicine fellowship at the University of Arizona. In addition, he is certified in functional medicine through the Institute of Functional Medicine. He's able to understand his patients' medical problems from a patient perspective. The foundation of his practice is to combine allopathic medicine with complementary medicine. He works with his patients to come up with a treatment plan that not only fights the disease but also is aligned with his patients' goals. Well, welcome to the show, Dr. Micah Yu. Thanks so much for joining me.

Thank you so much, Debra. It's an honor to be on your podcast.

You know, I, I want to go back to the beginning and kind of pick apart your bio just a little bit. So everybody heard that, but for me to even read that out loud, to be diagnosed with gout at 17, that can't be a usual path. I— tell me a little bit about what that was like and what perhaps preceded that? Were there symptoms? Things were going on? And, and I would guess maybe no one would go directly to gout immediately for a 17-year-old.

Right, right, right. So I was overweight at that time, and I wanted to get stronger and lose weight at the same time. So I found the keto diet. Um, well, back then it was called the Atkins diet.

So yes, it was. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. I was eating a lot of protein on the Atkins diet. Um, some days I'll eat like maybe 180 grams, 200 grams of protein. Um, and I end up getting gout because of it. Um, my uric acid was 13 on diagnosis, which was very high. Um, there was no preceding symptoms. I was on track. I lost 20 pounds. I was getting stronger at the gym at the same time. Um, but unfortunately, um, that came out and it took me for a spin for the rest of my life. Um, because after that I had another diagnosis that came out after gout.

Okay, let's talk about this. So first of all, to all listeners, there is no relationship— Atkins diet not related to Atkinson, by the way. So no. And just to answer your question there. But now coming into— I think alarms are going off in every listener's head just about, wait a minute, can high protein lead to gout for me too? Can you address that?

Yeah, it depends on everyone's genetics. I mean, there are a lot of people that go on a high protein diet that don't get gout. Um, for me, I think I just had a genetic predisposition to it, um, to get it. So, uh, a high protein diet isn't too friendly for me. Um, my uric acid level is okay now, even though I don't take my medications all the time because I don't eat a high protein diet. I mean, in the rheumatology guidelines and in our articles, we talk about avoiding red meat, shellfish, those type of foods for patients with gout. So beans and those other things are okay for gout, but they talk about more shellfish, red meat, and foods that are high in purines specifically. So I mean, everyone's different, doesn't mean that everyone needs to avoid a keto diet. Certain patients, they, they can be at risk.

So I'm also going to ask you this. So your genetics kind of predisposed you for this, So could a listener also say, you know, any of us might have the genetics that predispose us to certain things, and yet our lifestyle habits will determine whether we, quote unquote, pull the trigger on those genetics? They're there, but they might be dormant. Can you speak into that?

Yeah. So there's a saying that genetics hold the trigger and then lifestyle pulls the gun. Um, so it's, it's really, um, that the lifestyle can sometimes manifest those dormant genes. It's called epigenetics. So your genes are fixed, but your— but the gene expression isn't fixed. So depending on what you do in life, what happens to you, sometimes they're out of our control. Um, it can change the trajectory of our health. So for myself, not only did I get gout, but I also got spondyloarthritis over time. I was eating a very high ultra-processed food. Spondyloarthritis is an autoimmune arthritis, which was much more painful than gout, which took me for many, many years to get diagnosed. It was a nightmare. Took me over 10 years to get diagnosed with spondyloarthritis. So really, I would say it was my lifestyle. If I ate a whole foods diet starting at a very young age, maybe things would have changed. But who eats a whole foods diet at a very young age to begin with?

Right.

Who eats a whole foods diet at college? So There are so many factors that weigh in here— stress, um, environmental toxins that sometimes we can't control. We don't learn about these things till we're much older anyway. Um, so yeah, there's so many variables to this.

For our listeners, just for everybody's sake, maybe we should go back to the beginning. So pardon me, listeners, if you're saying, wait a minute, let's define— so first of all, let's define spondyloarthritis and maybe start with gout first for listeners who aren't quite sure, I don't know if I could turn around and define that for a friend. Let's do that for everybody.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Let's, um, let's talk about these different arthritis because there's like over 50 arthritis out there. Um, usually when you think of arthritis, uh, you think about osteoarthritis, which is more wear and tear that your grandparents usually get. Um, but there's over 50 types of arthritis out there. So let's talk about gout first. Gout is not an autoimmune arthritis. It's not wear and tear either. Gout is an arthritis that's inflammatory, that's caused by uric acid deposition in the joints. So you need uric acid, you make uric acid in the body naturally. There's something called the urea cycle. You— it comes to the breakdown of something called purines, which you need to make up DNA and other cellular functions. It's a building blocks of cells. So that normally gets degraded and gets filtered out in the kidneys. But you can get overload of purines and uric acid through diet, through certain proteins. You can also have high levels of uric acid if you're underexcretor of uric acid as well, which is based on your genetics that you can't change.

Okay.

And when gout manifests usually comes out as a single joint on the big toe or a knee or somewhere, and it can get repeated attacks over time. You need to take a uric acid lowering medication to control it. Okay, that's the general idea around gout. Now let's talk about rheumatoid arthritis, which is another very popular arthritis as well. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune arthritis that can attack multiple joints, usually the fingers and the toes, But of course, it can attack your shoulders, elbows, knees. But it can come up with swelling, redness, stiffness of the joints. It's usually more predominant in females. I usually see it in patients anywhere from their 20s to 40s. But of course, you can get it as young as 2 years old. You can get it when you're 70 or 80 years old. So that requires immunosuppressive medications to control. Now, another arthritis that I got was something called spondyloarthritis. So if you've ever heard of ankylosing spondylitis, that's a form of spondyloarthritis. Spondyloarthritis is an overarching term of different arthritis that fall in that family, such as psoriatic arthritis, which you see psoriasis with, Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, which is an inflammatory bowel disease. You see, you can see arthritis in that, and usually that falls under the category of spondyloarthritis. And we mentioned ankylosing spondylitis as well. So those three are some of the big names in the family of spondyloarthritis. Now, I call myself spondyloarthritis because I had the peripheral type where I didn't have any back pain. I just had finger pain, TMJ pain, elbow, shoulders, knees, feet, and ankles.

That's quite a list.

Yeah, and I had it for many, many years. I had it after I got diagnosed with gout, and I went to 2 rheumatologists. They couldn't figure me out. I had high inflammatory markers on my labs. All my autoantibodies for autoimmune disease were all negative, so they were stumped. Um, I was a medical student myself. I still couldn't figure it out either. Um, they knew I had gout, but they also knew I had something else that they couldn't figure out. So, um, it took me to get to residency for my attendings in rheumatology to be able to diagnose me finally.

Wow. So, so at this point, we're what, 10, 15 to— how, how much further, how much time has passed since your diagnosis?

Yeah, so I would say, well, now it's been— oh, since I had my symptoms, it's probably been close to almost 20 years.

Okay.

I mean, I got— so I'm 39 now. I got 17, so it's been 22 years. But I think my symptoms started changing towards the end of college and shortly afterwards. And again, I didn't get diagnosed with spondyloarthritis till I was like 30 or close to it.

Um, so what are you doing now? Are you on medication and/or will you be continually? Is that managed, or is the dose lessened by your lifestyle habits, or what's the situation?

So that's the incredible story here. That's what inspired me to go into holistic medicine in the first place. Towards the end of my residency, after I got diagnosed 2 years later, I did a whole food plant-based diet. Yeah, so I went pretty much on a clean vegan diet, so no processed meat. Um, I did that for a couple years and my pain went to remission in 2 months.

Wow.

Yeah, I didn't go on any medications for it, even though I was recommended to do it. My labs went negative after 3 months, which was my first checkup, but I really saw the symptoms go away within 2 months.

That's pretty amazing. I, I'd like to back up just one step because I think there's some confusion over plant-based diet, and I think there are a lot of people who are using— they go plant-based to to be healthy, but then kind of get lost in this funnel of, you know, meatless protein marketed that, that may be so processed that, you know, it's counter to what their real intention was. Can you lean into that and just talk a little bit about—

yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, so, um, when I mentioned whole food plant-based diet, I mean like literally whole foods. So beans, organic tofu, edamame, bok choy, broccoli, spinach. No soy protein, really. No Beyond— is it Beyond Burger? I think I haven't used it in a long time, so I don't remember the name. And then Beyond Meat. There's some of the other names out there. Those are highly processed. If you look in the ingredients, the first ingredient is probably seed oil. It's a canola oil, vegetable oil. There's a lot of salt, there's a lot of processed ingredients in there. Yeah, I don't recommend— so you never hear about people going to remission with their autoimmune disease with these processed meats. You hear about patients going on to remission on the whole food plant-based diet, paleo diet, Mediterranean diet, or even keto diets, but no one really mentions, I went on a— I got into remission by eating these processed meats.

Good point. Point taken. Okay. I want to back you up one second there too, though. So you mentioned soy, and I just want to make sure for listeners. So you did— did I hear you correctly? You said no soy?

I ate soy myself.

You do? Okay.

Part of a whole food plant-based diet.

Okay.

It's healthy for you. Studies have shown that it decreases breast cancer. There is— there's phytonutrients in there that are very healthy. So when you eat soy, it means like really unprocessed soy. So organic tofu that is minimally processed, edamame, there's soybeans that are in this whole food in the whole form. So not like processed soy meats.

Yes, got it. I love that. And I want to, I want to, number one, I want to call myself out. So I'm sitting here staring at a few copies of my book sitting on the shelf. And at one point we were looking at soy and we were saying, okay, it's potentially a goitrogenic, obesogenic, and estrogenic. Do we no longer think as it a goitrogenic, so it's not something that disrupts thyroid function?

Yeah, great question. I think in moderate amounts, I think it's fine. Of course, everyone can be different. If you have thyroid disease already, you have already changes to your epigenetics already. Some people may be sensitive to soy, but doesn't mean that patients cannot eat soy. Great. I mean, I was eating a lot of tofu when I was going through remission. I lost 30 pounds on my diet. I was eating tofu a lot, and I went through remission and I lost 30 pounds at the same time. I've seen some of my other patients do the same thing, females and males, that did very well eating soy, whole food soy products. So I would say everyone's different, but I'll say a majority of people do well with soy unless you have soy sensitivities or allergic to soy. Um, I don't think it's a BCG. I think that's more overblown at this time. Um, but I've seen a lot of patients lose weight on soy products, but you got to make sure you're eating like clean soy products like organic tofu. Um, tofu has a lot of protein, um, and edamame too, fiber and protein as well.

Yeah. So can you— so just to flip the script a little bit, what would be dirty soy?

So the soy meats out there that are highly processed.

Yeah.

Um, so, uh, Beyond Burger, I think they— some of these companies, they use, um, soy products that are not clean. Um, so like when you eat tofu, I recommend you try and get organic tofu as well. Some of these soy products out there, they're very highly processed, very ultra-processed. So you have to be careful of those products.

I love that. And to, to a lot of you listeners, you know, that's a relief because soy is such a great, great source of plant-based protein. And if you have to eliminate, especially if you're trying to go all plant-based, you know, that one really hurts because it's like, oh, but that was so easy to do that. So, so want to put it out there. And then I think, say, test yourself, make sure, make sure it's working for you. How— let's talk a little bit about integrative medicine and maybe even go back to— we've, we've said that word, I think everybody's read that word. Let's define integrative medicine. But how can they use integrative medicine to help with their autoimmunity? And how might that be different going strictly Conventional. Do you have a question for a podcast? A question you'd love to 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, right?

That's a great question. So I would say majority of doctors out there are not integrative trained at all. That would— there's a good majority out there that even reject the idea of integrative medicine.

Why would that be? Just, they—

I think number one, they think that everything they learned in conventional medicine is God, pretty much. It's end-all be-all, and everything that's not a double-blind randomized control trial out there is not legitimate. Animal studies, not legitimate. Lab studies are not legitimate, and you can't really see it that Um, so integrative medicine— what is integrative medicine? So integrative medicine, um, first of all, anyone can call themselves an integrative practitioner, integrative medicine practitioner, but there are schools out there, there are degrees that you can get. So I got my internal medicine board certification, and then I got my rheumatology board certification, and then I went to do a 2-year fellowship at the University of Arizona, and I got certified there in integrative medicine with Andrew Weil. He's that bald guy that's in the '70s now, almost 80 years old. You see in a lot of books out there that started this movement back in the '70s. He was actually outcasted back then. He's where we got a lot of our information. Me and you combined, we get a lot of information from this doctor, Dr. Weil. But there's a lot of schools out there, like I mentioned, but I got my foundation through that. Integrated medicine, you learn about herbs, you learn about supplements, diet, you learn about mind-body medicine, the importance of exercise, sleep, how to manage sleep, how to help insomnia, environmental toxins as well. That's the foundation of it. So a lot of doctors that say they're integrated medicine board certified, they've got some type of training in that. And then there are even rabbit holes you can go down off of beyond that type of training. So I've trained myself in Lyme disease, mold, further training in environmental toxins, um, epigenetics. I've learned all these different things to complement my own foundational training in integrative medicine. So that was with functional medicine. And there are other, I would say, experts in this field that I learned off of because it's a never-ending process when you're in this integrative field.

And yeah, and I hate to say this, but it's an exciting time to be alive if you are dealing with something because we know so much more. I mean, we can be so much more optimistic about what we might once have thought, this is just like doomsday, and I'm stuck with a way of living that is nowhere close to what my dream was about life. So I want to ask you this question. What's the first thing that you would do with someone who you realize you've got an autoimmune disease? They get, they get diagnosed, you diagnose them with rheumatic disease. Is medication the first place you go, or does that depend on the severity of it for an individual? Where would you begin with somebody?

Yeah, it's really an art, and that's the beauty, that's the fun part of being a doctor in this field, is that it really depends on the patient, um, and it depends on the background, their beliefs, and also how I see the severity of their disease. So some patients, they're very severe when they come in, and I do recommend medications off the bat while we work on the alternative medicine side of things. The reason why I do that is because I've seen patients die from autoimmune disease before I used to work in the hospitals where patients would come in comas. They would, like, they would have a coma. I would be consulted and they end up being that's lupus that caused their coma. I've seen patients in the ICU where they would have trouble breathing. They would be intubated because of their rheumatoid arthritis attacking their lungs. So I've seen end-stage diseases of autoimmune diseases. So I can, I know how nasty autoimmune disease can get. So when patients are very severe, I strongly encourage them to go on medications in the beginning in hopes of getting them off in the future. At the same time, I work on the alternative medicine side of things. I optimize their diet, I put them on an anti-inflammatory elimination diet, I work on their mind-body medicine piece, I send them to out to therapists, I work on the sleep I put them on supplements. I make sure I optimize the mitochondria. I check them for infections, mold, environmental toxins, and other things in that aspect to make sure everything else regarding surrounding the disease gets optimized and the root causes are defined.

Hmm. So good. Okay. For, for our listeners, this is maybe a little bit of a crosswire and, and it's potentially a little bit confusing. You know, women in menopause often will suddenly begin to have aches and pains who didn't, you know. And, and the first place a brain might go, or one listening might say, oh my gosh, I wonder if this is autoimmune disease, or, or is this simply aches and pains related to a decline of estrogen? What would be first steps? You mentioned, you know, and autoimmune or an elimination of inflammatory foods, what would be included there? Everybody's hearing seed oils.

Yeah, yeah. So, so I would say the number one most inflammatory food are like, like your chips and cookies out there. Okay, that's the number one ultra-processed food. I would definitely like that. Your McDonald's or fast food, don't even touch that food. Um, your chips, your cookies, your cakes, all these These are ultra-processed foods. Okay, that's the first thing I'll eliminate. Um, the second thing is high salt. Studies have shown that very high salt does increase the inflammatory signals in the body, in the immune system, and it fights the same medications that I give in rheumatology. So that's proven already. High salt diet, over like 2 to 3 grams, I would be very, very careful a day. I think the WHO says that I think normal diets, up to 2 grams at most of salt. You can verify that on the WHO website. Um, on top of that, um, ultra-processed meats like pepperonis, ham, those type of foods, they're— we know that they're carcinogenic already. Um, those are very processed, not like regular meat. We're not talking about like, um, grass-fed beef or, um wild-caught chicken or organic meat. We're talking about ultra-processed meats here like the salami, the pepperonis, be very careful of those. And then you mentioned seed oils. Seed oils, when you do cook them, they can be oxidized and can be potentially inflammatory to the body. Now, there are studies out there that show that it doesn't decrease mortality, it, it doesn't really raise inflammatory signals. I would say the studies are mixed right now, but based on myself as a patient and seeing my patients, I do recommend cutting out seed oils. Now, the seed oil I do allow is olive oil. Olive oil has been shown to be healthy, has been shown to be potentially beneficial for heart disease. And I have not— I mean, I take olive oil myself. As long as you don't cook at a high temperature, I think it's fine. So, but autoimmune disease is a spectrum. Some patients are so sensitive they can't tolerate any seed oils. Some patients are very strong in their autoimmune disease, they can tolerate some seed oils and they'll be fine. So it's very individualized.

Very good.

Yeah, I will tell you myself, I was very strict in the beginning, but now I've sort of broadened my diet. Sometimes if I eat seed oils, I flare. Um, I don't take medications for my, um, arthritis either. I don't think I mentioned that earlier. Um, I don't take any medications. I don't really flare. I still do, um, intense HIIT, um, high-intensity workouts. Fine. Um, so everyone's a little bit different. Uh, but in regards to your question regarding, um, menopause, yeah, there are two times in a patient's— a woman's life that they're more at risk of getting autoimmune disease, and that's after giving birth because the estrogen levels drop, and when they go into menopause. So not every patient that gets aches and pains when they go into menopause has autoimmune disease, right? But I think when it gets more severe, it should be checked out with a, with a doctor, any type of doctor.

And to be proactive, you would recommend, I mean, for, for all of us really, right? We decrease our exposure to inflammatory foods, to processed foods, you know, eat a whole foods diet, whether you go plant-based or you're, you're also eating animal protein, just being as clean, you know, as we can, right?

Exactly. Okay, I would say that if you're having morning stiffness for at least half an hour, then that should be strongly strongly suggest that that could be an autoimmune problem like rheumatoid arthritis. Yes, women can have aches and pains and joint pain when they go into menopause, but having morning stiffness for at least 30 minutes or maybe to a full day is a strong indicator that this could be some type of rheumatic problem.

And I'm gonna ask this question for— for intuitively, I'm always thinking, what's a listener gonna ask? And You know, there are women in our audience who— and this is always unique to any, any individual, and this is across the board, I think even Olympic athletes are different in— some are sore after workouts, some are never sore, you know. And unfortunately, those of us that grew up in the '70s and '80s often think, well, if I wasn't a little bit sore, did I even work hard enough? So there is that. We sometimes wish for what we don't want in the end. But let's speak into that just a little bit. Is there any connection whatsoever with post-exercise soreness and autoimmune response?

Yeah, there is no connection that I know of, um, with the post-exercise soreness and autoimmune disease. Um, the joint pain that you experience from autoimmune disease is very, very severely painful. Your joints can get red, they can get swollen. Um, now that's different from the post-exertional soreness. Now, there are autoimmune diseases that can give you muscle soreness, um, they're called myalgias, and they can make you very weak at the same time. That's called myositis. So if you're experiencing constant soreness and fatigue in your muscles maybe sometimes to the point where you can't walk up the stairs or comb your hair, that's highly suggestive of an autoimmune disease called myositis. And that's different from soreness after working out. So that should be also checked out as well.

Very helpful, very helpful. Last question, because we're also concerned here about muscle, you know, and, and I'm sure there is a bit of a dual-edged sword if I paint this picture. And so tell me if I'm going off the rails here, but we want muscle because it supports the joints. You know, however, if we go entirely plant-based, you know, the levels of essential amino acids that we might be taking in with per gram of protein could be different. Are you ever concerned for yourself or someone else about the ability to sustain the muscle to protect the joint?

Yeah, I would say I'm not whole food plant-based anymore. I eat more of a Mediterranean diet now. Okay, that was my choice, um, not because I was not building muscle or anything, um, it was just a circumstance in my life, um, but I would say there are people who are able to build muscle even when they go on a vegan diet. You just got to make sure you eat a well-rounded vegan diet. You just don't eat vegetables all day. You got to eat some beans, um, some whole food soy products as well. You got to get that protein in. There are vegan bodybuilders out there I do just fine. But it's very easy to go on a vegan diet and not consume enough protein as well, to the point where you're not building the muscle. You still have to exercise, you still have to make sure you build muscle because it's anti-inflammatory. So when you go on a vegan diet, you'd be very thoughtful of what you eat at the same time.

So good. Okay, last question. So If a vegan or vegetarian was feeling like, like, I'm not quite getting enough protein because I am defaulting to veg, taking an essential amino acid supplement, could that be problematic or would it be more beneficial? Where's your thought on that?

Yeah, no, I love essential amino acid supplements. That's fine. I also would say that they can have protein powder as well to get their protein as well. So there's so many ways of doing it. But the problem is some patients they are, um, when they go on a whole food plant-based diet, sometimes their body has food sensitivities. It gets much more complicated in the autoimmune disease and food space because some people are sensitive to healthy foods like soy products or beans, and they can flare. Um, so some people, they just can't go on a whole food plant-based diet because they flare on so many of these foods. So there's no one way of attacking autoimmune disease with food. Some patients don't get better with— doesn't matter what kind of diet they go on. Their, their situation is not just driven by food, it's driven by so many other factors for their inflammation and autoimmune disease. So there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to food. It's very individualized.

So good. All right, and for those of you that are so curious about more, more information regarding any type of autoimmunity. And I think if you want to go down this and look at this, as you know, if we all stepped back and thought, if I take care of myself, I'm less prone, you know, to having any genetic expression of autoimmunity if I am carrying it and it's here. You are hosting a summit that I think is invaluable for listeners and for all of the 3 generations they influence. Talk a little bit about title of the summit, dates of the summit. We want to get that word out.

Yeah, there's an amazing summit coming out May 12th to May 18th. It's going to be almost 7 days long, and there's going to be 30 hours of content. There's 30 speakers on there. The title of the summit is called Rheumatoid Arthritis and Autoimmunity. It's about the holistic approach to autoimmune diseases and rheumatoid arthritis. We're going to be talking about food, the gut microbiome. We're going to be talking about mind-body medicine, trauma, emotions, essential oils, Lyme disease, mold, environmental toxins, how to do a detox. There's so much good content on there. And also the speakers are amazing as well. We have New York Times bestsellers, we have rheumatologists, we have other integrative practitioners as well. We even have an OB-GYN doctor. On their time of hormones with, um, our audience. So this is gonna be a one-of-a-kind conference out there. I don't know any other conference that's like this. So it's very, very comprehensive.

So good. And I am sharing the link, by the way, in the show notes today, everyone. So if you happen to be walking, you're lifting, you're driving, you're doing something positive for your joints and for your muscles, we've got you covered. So flipping50.com forward slash Arthritis, where you can learn more about the summit. We'll have that in the show notes just in case it's not obvious for you. But thank you, Dr. Yu. Thanks for being here. Thanks for all the work that you're doing.

Thank you so much, Debra. Thank you for your podcast.

Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit flipping50.com. Where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes. And I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible. Share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman.