Sperm Counts Headed to Zero by 2045? Fertility Crisis Explained | Dr. Nashat Latib

Welcome back to Everyday Ancestral. Fertility isn't something we should have to fight for. It's something that returns when we reconnect with how the body was designed to function. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Nishat Latif, a functional medicine trailblazer who's redefining what's possible for natural fertility. She's helping women and couples overcome complex reproductive challenges without invasive interventions using science-backed holistic strategies that restore the body's innate ability to create life. We uncover what modern medicine has missed, how stress and disconnection disrupt fertility, and what it truly means to return to the body's natural intelligence, the same intelligence that allows life to flourish. Dr. Nishad, thank you for joining me. Fertility is something that I know we really do associate a lot with women, but I think we gotta, we gotta, you know, start looking towards the men as well. Would you agree?

100%. And I don't know if you know this, James, but sperm counts are actually headed to zero by 2045. Shocking. Wow.

Well, why is that? What, what is causing this? Is it, is it environment? Is it lifestyle? What, what would, what are they blaming or putting the focus on around that? Yeah.

So that's kind of a loaded question, but essentially if you look at the data and the science, our average sperm counts have dropped 50% in the last 46 And so if you actually put this on a graph, that's how we're coming up with this projected possibility of sperm counts headed to zero by 2045, which, gosh, what does that mean for our kids and future generations, right? And as far as like the reason that this is happening, it really comes down to root cause, right? We live in a toxic world. We are exposed to toxins on a daily basis, and there's a massive amount of what I call oxidative stress and toxic burdens in our bodies, let alone the quality of our food. Food, you know, has just plummeted over the past number of decades. And I mean, it's really hard to get high-quality food that is packed with nutrients and minerals and so forth. And unfortunately, the traditional paradigm really just overlooks male factor fertility, which unfortunately is accountable for 50%, believe it or not, of the responsibility when it comes to couples struggling with infertility. So really, 1 1 is 2.

Wow. I feel like though, you know, as we started, like the woman gets so much energy and really blame around this. Do you find that part of your practice of supporting natural fertility Is also kind of like supporting the emotions that come with it? Like just, just, you know, maybe people not shaming themselves for it. Like what, what comes up when, when you first start working with people?

That's a great question and a really loaded question. Um, quite honestly, I feel like most couples and really women, right? Because women are really on the hunt for a solution most of the time. And the guy is just kind of, he's supportive and he's alongside her, but the focus is not on him. Right. So when couples come into that and into my world, mostly women, they're often felt unheard. You know, they're often felt feeling like just a number. And the reality is that in modern day and age, women are definitely reproducing later on in life. And, um, you know, and a lot of these women have gone through a lot of losses, whether it's miscarriages or chemical pregnancies or, you know, You know, you know, you name it—procedures, endometriosis, PCOS, a number of conditions. But the reality is that nobody's really addressing the root cause. It's really the traditional system is more of like a band-aid approach where we're trying to essentially, you know, push the body to do what we want it to do by giving it pharmaceuticals or undergoing IUI or IVF or writing a prescription, and. In my approach, we're really just about addressing the root cause. But, but in answer to your question, the mind-body connection cannot be overlooked. And the reality is that one of the first things that I do when I work with couples is we have to step into a place of belief. You know, I always say that babies are not going to be born in a place where there isn't love. And so a lot of times when I'm talking to my couples, I'm like, you're more likely to get pregnant if you're focused on lovemaking and not baby-making. Obviously, that's not the full picture, but, you know, we have to move away from baby-making to lovemaking. And before we do that, we have to heal the body first. One of the other things I say when I work with couples is, you know, your body is smart, right? So the reason you're not reproducing may not be because there's— you're broken. It's not because you're broken and it's not because there's something wrong with you. It's just because your body has not been set up for success. Does that make sense?

Oh yeah. No, I like, I like what you're, how you're talking about this because I feel like you're not just bringing up the biological piece, which is what I think a lot of people focus on, but you're almost talking about a cultural kind of disconnect that we have around. It's almost like the reproductive issues are coming up, which is kind of a new phenomenon, right? To a degree. And then from there though, we still keep focusing on the biological to a degree and trying to overcome nature's course and trying to bring in the kind of like scientific lab kind of stuff, right? But there's also a cultural kind of like, like I think the fact that we have so many women in men's roles, traditional men's roles, you know what I'm saying? Where they're now in very high stress environments that They may not have been in yesteryear. You know, they're, they're in roles that are pushing them to be potentially out of sync with their own rhythms, their own innate feminine rhythms, you know, to a degree. Let alone the shame, as we mentioned, the shame and the pressures that we put on ourselves in these circumstances of like, I need to have a baby. I, you know, whether it's the age thing or, or, um, expectations of this is what it means when you're in a relationship, you have to have a kid, whatever, whatever may come. But I feel like it's a cultural thing, or at least that's, that's the piece that you're bringing to the table here. What do you think though has led to this disconnection from our reproductive health? Is it just food or, or what do you think it is?

Oh my gosh, it's so many things. So Gut health is a big part of it, right? Because that's a driver of inflammation. And of course, yeah, food is a huge part of it too. Food leads to poor gut health, dysbiosis, leaky gut, which drives inflammation and food sensitivities, you know, drive things like Hashimoto's and thyroid issues and so on and so forth. You know, our overburdened systems with toxins and endocrine disruptors are everywhere that are, you know, causing wreaking havoc in our hormonal communication systems. All of this is driving infertility together. And I think that's one of my biggest frustrations with the traditional models and traditional approaches is we are so focused on trying to fix what's going on rather than just taking a step back and appreciating that our bodies are protecting us. One of the things also is, and this, this speaks to what you're talking about, most of the couples that come to me are very high achieving couples. And I feel like a lot of these women are spending sleepless nights, you know, Googling for the answers and searching. They're all Type A and they want to get it right, you know. But the reality is that in order to get from where we are now to our optimal fertile state, it requires a 360-degree approach to the body. And it's about doing the right things in the right order, in the right intensity for your personal biochemistry. So I also don't believe that there's a one-size-fits-all solution to get from our toxic leaky gut dysbiotic inflammatory states to optimally fertile. I feel like a very highly personalized approach is critical. The other thing is, you know, I, I encourage my couples to appreciate that you may not be getting pregnant.

Mm-hmm.

Not because something's wrong with, with you. And again, not because your body is broken, but because your body is protecting you, right? Your body's smart. Your body only wants to create life when it believes it's safe and when it believes it will create a healthy, beautiful, vibrant life. And until it feels safe, it is not going to reproduce. So I'm helping couples understand and reframe their infertility as actually a form of protection. And to lean into the messages that our bodies are giving us, because symptoms and things that you may be experiencing on a daily basis are really just messages, you know, for us to pay attention to rather than to try to like, you know, fix or disregard. You know, there's also a mindset shift, right? When they're working with me, I say it takes about 90 days from the time our egg and sperm start to develop until they are ovulated or ejaculated. And so So I'm like, until we get you to the point where we have a super egg and a super sperm, let's focus on lovemaking, not baby making, right? Let's celebrate our period every month because it means that you are fertile, right? If you're getting a period and you're having a cycle, you're fertile, right? Don't— let's, let's get out of this infertile mindset because you're not infertile. Your body's just protecting you and we're trying to take the time to set it up for success.

I love that. Let's get out of this infertile mindset. I love this because, you know, a lot of times we are, we're focusing so much on the biology of it, but we're not really talking about the mindset. And, and I, so I love that we're going into this, this place with this topic. Is there, I mean, you're already sharing some mindset stuff, but is there something like that you find the couple themselves can do independent of, let's say, you energetically or mindset-wise? Because you mentioned the celebrating of the period, the safety within. I feel like to a degree those are almost individual things, but what— is there something that the couple together, like practices that couple together can incorporate into their lives that will help to support this internal and external You know, environment for fertility. Yeah.

So it's funny that you say that. So my preference is to work with couples, not individuals. And that's one of the reasons that I do that is I have a lot of women that come to me and they're really interested in addressing their fertility issues and healing their bodies and addressing root causes. And I'm like, okay, great. We can do that. But I asked them to bring their partner to our initial call together because I want their partner's buy-in because guess what? I do find that couples have the most success when they're on this journey together. Why is that? Because you're getting into rituals together, right? You're getting into meal change and behavioral shifts and biochemical shifts together as a couple. And that speaks to what we've already talked about, which is, you know, creating a safe space for procreation. We were all put on this world to procreate. We're biologically Designed to create life. And so all we need to do is foster human connection. And I feel like human connection in a couple, you know, we're always go, go, go, running, running, running. Life is really fast. These high achieving, career driven, type A couples often forget that connection and love is the epicenter of fertility and procreation. And while we do need to shift biochemistry, right, we do need to upregulate detoxification. We do need to heal the gut. We do need to decrease inflammation. We have to balance hormones. We have to do all of those things, but we can't do them in a silo. We have to do it together with everything else.

I love it. You know, it makes me think of when someone's in the process of getting married. I always tell them, I'm like, you know, it's this process you're in right now, the planning of the wedding, the actual journey to the day. That's the, that's the marriage. How you treat each other, how you interact, how you communicate, how you how you work together—that's going to really mold your marriage. The day of the wedding is icing. It's just it's just a party. But a lot of people disregard the journey. They're just focusing on I just want a baby. I'm you know I don't know I don't care how I get it. I just want the baby. And I I think it's really fascinating because your approach is it's it's rooted in data, right? Your hormones and health and toxins. But it's It's also deeply holistic. So how do you combine science with intuition in your practice?

That's a great question. I think it's really just about holding space for these women and these couples. Every single call that I do with my group starts with mindset work, right? Starts from a place of belief, starts from a place of positivity. Everyone is required to put a win in the chat because it puts us in a positive mindset for the rest of the call. And a lot of times, you know, people get caught up in the details. You know, why didn't I ovulate last month? I just had a call. One of my clients asked me that this week. Like, I'm so upset. My charts look great. And then this one, it looks like I didn't ovulate. I was like, well, what was going on? She was like, oh, I was really stressed out at work and I had this work trip and I was traveling. I was like, do you think your body wants to make a baby? When you're traveling, getting irradiated on an airplane and really stressed out. And she just kind of looked at me and her jaw dropped. I was like, yeah, your body's smart. It didn't drop an egg because it didn't wanna make a baby. You know? So we don't have to, you know, be brought down when we're not ovulating. We have to create this shift and realize that we're not ovulating because our body is Smart, like let's give let's give credit to our bodies for protecting us, and let's lean in with curiosity. And so a lot of times when I'm working with couples, I'm really holding a space. We're doing all the biochemical stuff, right? I'm giving them personalized protocols. We are optimizing health. But guess what? The other thing I always say is that optimal fertility obviously requires optimal health. So what else is happening when I'm working with couples? We are reversing diabetes. We're reversing blood pressure. We're reversing hyperlipidemia, we're healing the gut and getting people off of anxiety and depression medications, all while optimizing egg health, optimizing sperm health, and fostering connection and love within the couple. I do actually have a mind-body coach that works with my couples regularly, and her calls are, you know, focused on, you know, they're a place for couples just to lean in if they're having a struggle. You know, a lot of times if I have a woman who's gone through recurrent pregnancy loss, it's really hard for her to get into a place of positivity, especially when she gets pregnant with me. She goes into a place of fear. And I'm like, nope, our bodies don't like fear. So you gotta get on the call with my mind-body coach and let's work through those fears. Let's do some inner work to get you into a place of belief and possibility, because that is when that baby is gonna stick. You know, of course, in the context of all the other work that we've done.

Oh, that's really powerful. I mean, and it's such a different paradigm or even just a different way of looking at it than, you know, conventional medicine does. Are there other things that you find that conventional medicine is overlooking that you have found to be really effective in your practice?

Oh my gosh. I mean, There's a lot.

You named a few right there. Yeah.

Right. I named a few. I mean, I feel like the, the male factor is a big one because I feel like they're addressing the woman first and the male is not addressed until much later. Um, one of the things I also talk about a lot are, you know, lab values. And probably a lot of people don't realize this, but on like a LabCorp or a Quest, you know, form, there's a lab range. And that lab data is based on research on middle-aged white males, which those people who are working with me don't fit that category. So, you know, so my goal is to get them into a much more narrow lab range that is, you know, much— it's optimal for fertility and men and women in a reproductive age range. So that I feel like is often overlooked, you know, And then, you know, the other thing is even on a semen analysis, when I get those numbers back, those oftentimes when you get a semen analysis done, you go to a fertility clinic, right? And the fertility clinic just wants to make sure that a male has sperm quality good enough for IUI or IVF. But the reality is that the sperm quality needed for natural conception, just given the physiology of the distance that a sperm needs to travel to find his mate, You know, you need much higher sperm quality for natural conception versus IUI or IVF. And so that is another thing that is really critical in the way that I work with couples is I'm like, our goals are not the top of the normal range on the lab range. Our goals are much higher than that. And that is the reason that my protocols have an 80% success rate with couples that I work with. Obviously, I'm also doing, you know, screening couples before I work with them because I only invite couples to work with me if I'm confident that I can help. So that's the reason my success rates are so high. But I mean, if you look at IUI or IVF success rates, I think it's hovering around 40% under the age of 35. And once they get above, I want to say the age of 38, it drops down to 20%. And that may not be per cycle. That may be over a series of cycles. You know, oftentimes it's quoted on them, 6 cycles.

What now? You said IVR, is that what you said?

IVF.

Oh no, IVF. And what was the other one you said?

IUI.

Oh, IUI.

Yeah, IUI is intrauterine insemination. So turkey baster into the uterus, get the sperm in there. IVF is taking the egg out of the woman, taking the man's sperm, putting it in a Petri dish, creating an embryo, and then putting that back into the uterus at a later time.

Okay.

And a lot of my couples will come to me after failed rounds IUI and IVF and so forth. And they'll get pregnant naturally with me because we're addressing the root cause.

The root cause, right?

Yeah. And we're getting them into an optimally fertile state. I'll tell you a story about a couple real quick, which I think will probably be really inspirational for a lot of our viewers. They were a double doctor couple. She's actually a board-certified endocrinologist, believe it or not. So she is a hormone doctor and her husband was an interventional cardiologist. So obviously high accolades, very academic couple, both board-certified physicians. I mean, talk about knowing science. You know, they both knew science inside and out. And they struggled with infertility for many years, finally did IUI. They did 7 failed rounds of IUI. And then they went on, which again, IUI is intrauterine insemination, right? So turkey baster in the uterus, did that 7 times. It didn't work. And then they moved on to IVF, which of course is very expensive, very invasive. invasive, and they did 3 rounds of IVF, all of which failed. And she was actually hospitalized twice because of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which happens when, you know, sometimes the body is overstimulated with the exogenous hormones and drugs that are required to stimulate egg production for retrieval. And so when she came to me, she was spent. And she, they had been on this journey for about 6 years, and she's a board-certified endocrinologist. She realized, okay, I can't go back and go on any hormones or anything. I can't do another round of IVF. You're kind of my last resort. Otherwise, we're going to go adopt. And they came in, they worked with me, James, and they got pregnant naturally in 8 weeks and had a beautiful, healthy baby girl. So my message, you know, to go out there is that, again, you're not broken. And I'm not— and I do believe in traditional medicine, right? I'm an ER doc by trade. I believe in traditional medicine in an acute care setting. However, you know, we weren't trained in traditional medical school to address root causes. You know, I was personally taught that fertility plummets at the age of 35 and you go and you do IUI and IVF. And I myself am a fertility warrior. I had my first child with IUI and I had my twins with IVF. So I know the journey well and is a large part of the reason that I am so passionate about this work is because when I went back and looked at my labs and my You know, data, I realized I didn't need any of those treatments. I just didn't have the proper guide or somebody who could help me unpack this and heal from the inside out. And so I think the main thing that the traditional paradigm misses is, again, that this phenomenon that— of not giving enough credit to our biology and enough credit to the body's innate ability to heal and reproduce. That's probably the biggest thing that I feel is missing from the traditional approaches. And I feel like it's picking up a little bit, but, you know, we're not 100% there yet.

Yeah, the human body is miraculous. It really is. It really is. Do you, so was it your own births? Like, like what, what changed for you? Here you were in, you know, the system. As an ER doctor, but clearly you got curious about root cause. What, what made you curious about it?

Yeah, that's a great question. So in the ER, right, I save lives, right? I trained in a level 1 trauma center in the Bronx and kind of saw it all. But what I realized was, you know, when I first in medical school was going into the emergency room, I thought, okay, I'm going to have a life-threatening emergency. I'm going to save lives. And, you know, it's going to be a one and done. And I'm never gonna see these people again. But what I realized over the course of my many years working in the ER, over 20 years, is that the ER was like a revolving door. So people were coming in having an acute emergency, you know, and then we're helping them and they're leaving. And then a week or two later, they come back with the same thing. Because we're not reprogramming what's happening at the base of the pyramid. At the root cause level. And so we're basically throwing pharmaceuticals and Band-Aids at it. And then to, you know, obviously my own journey with infertility was part of this dynamic that was also kind of playing into my questioning the traditional systems and the things that I was learning. And I started diving into the data. But I'll tell you the moment that everything changed for me, James, is When my mom, who was healthy as a horse and an amazing woman, went from not being able to be spinning with me 5 days a week to not being able to sign her name to dead 7 months later. And like, I save lives for a living. And here I am trying to figure out what I needed to do to save my mom. And the traditional system just really failed me. So I think the combination of what I saw in the ER and my journey with infertility and, and, and I was, when I was going through infertility and IUI or IVF, I was at a healthy weight. I was exercising, you know, I ate healthy. I did all the things and my body was not getting pregnant. And I had a regular cycle. I mean, there was really no rhyme or reason as to why I was not able to have a baby naturally. So I think the combination of all of those And just made me take a step back and say, what are we missing? Like, what is the future of medicine? You know, where are we now? Where do we need to be? And why does the system feel so broken to me? And when I started diving into the literature, right, I'm traditionally trained, I'm very scientific, I'm very data-based and evidence-driven. And when I started looking at all the scientific data, the light bulbs started going off. And that's when I started diving into you know, functional medicine, regenerative medicine, anti-aging, peptides, you know, you name it, and started connecting the dots and realizing that we're actually very far behind. I don't know if you're aware of this, but it takes about 50 to 100 years for, for something to become the standard of care. So what I learned in medical school is based on, you know, scientific data, literature, and studies that were done 50-plus years ago, whereas what I do with And what we do in functional medicine is based on literature and data that is, you know, 1 or 2 decades old. So we're not doing things that are new or just came out. We don't have a lot of information about. We're just a lot more current. So.

Yeah, that's amazing. I'm curious though, now that you have that functional medicine, you know, knowledge, were you able to look back at your own situation and see new things that you didn't know before? Like, and if so, what were they? Because you were, you were sharing how you did everything, you were doing everything you thought was right. But now looking back with this new lens, what was missing, you think?

100%. So there were a lot of things missing. First of all, I wasn't an ER doctor. I was doing all sorts of crazy shifts, nights, weekends, holidays. You know, my body was not on a regular schedule. At all, and I don't think that I work with a lot of couples that do shift work, and you know are a lot of actually a lot of physicians come to me for support with respect to fertility given my journey. But for me personally, there were multiple factors. I think I had a very high toxic burden. I didn't understand. You know, I always say the liver is a laundromat. I didn't understand the importance of detoxification, right? And I didn't understand. how many toxins I was being exposed to on a daily basis and how that was impacting my body. I didn't understand the critical nature of gut health. I definitely had gut health issues. The other really important thing, which I talk about a lot, is stress. And stress, I always say there's 3 forms of stress. There is the stress that we all know and recognize as like a stressful day or An argument with your family or marital stress or whatever it is, teenagers, you know, making life challenging. But the other forms of stress are dietary, right? You can probably speak to this, right? So things like yo-yo dieting or, you know, super high-carb diets or, you know—

Inflammatory foods.

Inflammatory foods or, you know, nutrient-poor diets or, you know, you name it. There's dietary stress. And then there is stress that we don't don't even see or know is there. So for instance, chronic back pain can be a form of stress on the body. A hidden parasite in the gut can be a form of stress on the body. A mold infection that you may not realize you have can be a form of stress on the body. And I always talk about this because what happens with stress? How does our body react to stress? Our body doesn't know the difference between emotional stress or stress from a parasite. Either way, it's gonna cause some adrenal dysfunction, meaning it's gonna cause a shift our cortisol rhythm. And the reality is that when our body is producing cortisol, you know, and we're in cortisol overload, what happens— and this is a little like bio— getting a little biochemical, but, you know, our bodies take progesterone and turn it into cholesterol, uh, cortisol instead of it going down the other hormone pathway, which makes all our sex hormones. So I teach this a lot in my classes where I'm like, when your body is in cortisol overload, the things that aren't being made are testosterone, estrogen, Estradiol, DHEA, you know, which are critical hormones for reproduction. So a lot of times hormone imbalances are driven by stress, and it's not just emotional stress. So the other thing I promise my couples is I'm not just going to tell you to relax and let it happen, because like couples are sick of hearing that. I was sick of hearing that. I was like, I'm not stressed out, you know, and telling somebody to relax doesn't really help them relax. It makes them more stressed out. It makes that cortisol go up even more, you know. So I always tell my couples, like, don't think that gonna come here and I'm just gonna tell you to relax. Don't think you're gonna come here and I'm gonna tell you to meditate, because we have to figure out the root cause of the stress, you know. And again, because stress is not just emotional, it's multi-layered, you know, it's critical to get to the root cause. And one more thing on that is that a lot of people don't realize that 90% of our serotonin is produced in our gut, right? By our microbiome. And so if we don't heal the gut, it's very hard to achieve emotional homeostasis.

Yeah.

And so that is the reason a lot of my concierge practice patients will end up like weaning themselves off of their anxiety and their depression medications because we do gut healing. All of a sudden neurotransmitters are produced and serotonin is produced and they forget to take their medications sometimes. I'm like, okay, well, you shouldn't really do that. We need to do this in a methodical way. But oh, I can't tell you how many times my patients have just forgotten to take medications because they're feeling good.

Good.

So it's all a system. It's a complex web. And I always say, like, you know, every system in the body is relevant to fertility. There is not a single system that we can disregard. And when we shift one thing, the whole body shifts, which is why, you know, it is when I work with couples, I'm like, this is a process where we're going to be tweaking on a very regular basis as we start to see how the body responds.

Yeah. Wow. I really love this conversation given that, you know, you've worked with so many different individuals, couples, given that you yourself have gone through reevaluating your own, you know, life and dealing with root causes as well. What are some practices that you have found are very effective that the person watching or listening to this could immediately take away and start incorporating in their lifestyle?

Yeah, that's great. Well, first and foremost is food is food is food is central. You know, it's your fertility. One of the things that I say right off the bat is anti-inflammatory diet, right? If we can just start by doing simple things like eliminating gluten, dairy, corn, peanuts, alcohol, tobacco. What am I forgetting? I think those are the big ones. But, you know, if we can get— because the reality is that 90% of the population or more have some sort of intolerance or insensitivity to one of these foods. They just don't realize it. And so there's like a subclinical sort of— it's sort of like a slow-burning fire is what I call it, you know, in our bodies when we're eating these types of foods. And then, you know, if you want to keep it really simple, just perimeter shop. Right. Perimeter shop. And, you know, because then what are you doing at the perimeter of the grocery store? You're going to perishables. Anything in the middle that can live on the shelf for a really long time is probably not great for you. So when I tell my couples to go to the store, you know, I tell them just don't buy anything that's not perishable. You know, anything that is perishable is going to be healthier for you. And if possible, get your food from a local farmer's market. Market. And then of course, when it comes to going down the road of seeking help for fertility, I always encourage my couples, you really want to take a step back and lean into root cause medicine. Don't go running straight to IUI or IVF before you've really had an opportunity to work with a provider who can address the root cause. And You know, and I always, I also think one of the critical things that couples can do is to take a break from trying. You know, again, shifting from baby making to lovemaking is huge for personal biochemistry. And that is actually one of the things that I ask my couples to do when they work for me, work with me, you know, and I only ask them for 3 months. Like, let's just take a break from trying for 3 months. Let's get into a place where we celebrate our period for 3 months. Let's get into a place where you guys are doing date nights and connecting and making that a priority. with your time for a little while and weave it into your life. I actually have a behavioral analyst on my team that coaches these couples too, because sometimes it's hard to form new habits and it's hard to lean into a new way of doing things and connecting. But those are probably the critically important things that I think will jumpstart a healing journey is to, again, And nourish the body, decrease inflammation, focus on human connection and love.

You mentioned, and I'm curious that there sometimes are couples that you, after you interview them, that you decide not to go with. Like, so what, what is it that they show up with that makes you feel like it might not work out for them?

That's a great question. Well, I would say first and foremost, obviously there may be couples that have an organic issue that I can't What do you mean, like, like, by that?

What's organic and sheer?

For instance, like, if a woman has both fallopian tubes blocked.

Got it. Okay.

I'm like, I can't get you pregnant naturally. You know, and I'm very transparent and honest with couples that I'm like, this isn't going to work. You know, or if I have, you know, a woman who— I've had women over the age of 50 come to me. You know, like, I've never had a baby. I really want to have a baby. And I'm like, Okay, well, you know, and I ask some basic questions, and if they're not even having a cycle, you know, there's some very clear biological reasons that I'm like, I'm not gonna set you up for failure, you know? That being said, I would say the other factor that I consider is, you know, because I'm not giving anybody a magical prescription, I'm not writing a prescription that is gonna, you know, fix the body the way the traditional paradigm has programmed, you know, people to believe. You know, you go to the doctor, you get a prescription, and you get all better, right? That's how we are trained, you know, traditionally to think. And my support requires participation. And so if I don't feel like there is enough buy-in for change, or I don't feel like You know, there is a supportive system because some of these changes are hard, you know? And so if I feel like that's not present, you know, I'm not in the business for setting anyone up for failure. And I tell them that at the very beginning of our call. I'm like, this is about not only figuring out if I'm the right fit for you, but if you're the right fit for me, you know? And if this is gonna work. work because I've failed on my fertility journey time and time again. I know how hard and lonely the journey is. And so I want to be the secret to success. I want to be setting people up to win. And if I see signs or red flags, whether it's biochemical or emotional or— well, actually emotional is not an issue because I can help emotional, But if I find red flags, you know, if I have some, if I have a guy get on there and, you know, he's not willing to change at all, you know, and he's drinking every night and smoking weed and smoking cigarettes, I'm like, you know, like there's only so much that I can do for your sperm quality if you're not willing to embrace change, you know? And we don't have to do it all at once. I mean, the other big thing about it is that I meet people where they are, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I don't have anything against somebody coming to me, you know, know, with a smoking habit or whatever it might be. But my whole thing is, are you open to listening to your body and what it might prefer? So I'm not telling you to give everything up. I'm just asking you to listen to your body because as you start to heal, if you can participate, you actually may find that the things that you once loved are not going to be as palatable. And are you open to listening to your body? Right? I'm sure you've experienced this 100 times over, right? When you change, like as a chef, like you're asking people to change their, their, the way that they eat, you know?

I'm all about people listening to their body. Yeah.

Yeah. But I'm like, you know, your body is going to tell you what it likes and dislikes and your body is going to tell you when it is ready for change. And just, are you open to that? You know? And as long as I have an openness and a curiosity That's enough.

You know, and I would offer to, you said in there that you failed your reproductive health. And I would offer that it will, that now we can look back and say, you know what, you actually didn't fail that life needed you to go on that journey so that you would come here so that you could help so many people. Like sometimes we, in the moment, something can feel one way But we don't really know Source's plan for us. You know what I'm saying? We don't, we don't know what the end result is, just like, and just like we don't want the people in your practice to be focusing on just having a baby, but we want to focus on the holistic journey. I would say your holistic journey has, is, is absolutely successful.

Yeah, no, I agree. And I tell my kids too, all the time, You know, life happens for you, not to you.

Yes.

Right? And every obstacle, every bump in the road, we may not understand in the moment why it's happening, but at some point things become abundantly clear. And there's one more thing that I think is critically important too, that I really want our audience to understand. And this is a part of my mission and message too, is I feel like on the fertility journey, Because of the traditional paradigm and how it works, every time a couple who can't get pregnant want to have a baby, they need to go pay a reproductive endocrinologist and go through rounds of IUI and IVF. They have a baby, they go back, they do IUI, IVF, and it's like this cycle. But what my whole mission and message is, is if we heal the root cause from the inside out, you can rinse and repeat everything that you learn to have as many babies as you want because it's sort of like you crack the code in your body, right? You heal it from the inside out. And I can't tell you how many of my couples will struggle. They'll get pregnant with me and then they go off and they have their baby. And then I just had a— actually got an email from a client about a month ago that said, you know, my baby is 5 months old and I'm so fertile because of you that I just got oops pregnant with my second baby before I was ready. I was like, yes, that is awesome. You know, and that happens time and time again because what they're learning in their time with me is how to optimize health and fertility, of course, in the process. But then a lot of times they feel so magnificent on the other side of it that they can't go back to the old way. And it just becomes this natural tendency. To, and a massive lifestyle shift to health and to fertility and to abundance and to possibility. And so what I'm seeing is that these couples are not just having one baby, but I'm like, rinse and repeat what I teach you. Like, take notes, keep a notebook. If you fall off the wagon, go back to your notes. You know, don't come pay me again. You don't have to. You have everything you need. And so it's also about empowerment and about, you know, health advocacy, which I think is also very much lacking in our culture. And teaching them to ask the right questions to their provider, teaching them what to accept and what not to accept. Obviously, we want to respect all providers, and I have respect for, I mean, obviously the entire institution of medicine, but to lean in with curiosity to what they're getting You've been talking about when people come in, like, focusing on their journey, right?

So we're talking about individual journeys, but what about the journey of humanity? And in many ways, we have veered so far away from our humanity, of what's natural, of what's ancestral, that do you almost think that what's happening with fertility and what's potentially not going to happen with fertility, meaning that people are going to struggle even more with pregnancy, is in a sense humanity's journey of like, hey, we need to course correct, or we need— like, do you think it's about something deeper than just the individual's issue of fertility?

Oh, absolutely. It's a whole ecosystem, right? And it's sort of like we're getting further and further From the heart of it all and distracted, right? And I mean, there are so many outside factors that are coming in and pulling us away from the center of reproduction and the center of fertility and the center of humanity. So yes, I can definitely resonate with that.

Yeah.

We're— I feel like our culture as a whole, we're on this hamster wheel, you know, which I often call a road to nowhere, you know. And I feel like that road to nowhere is making us less and less fertile and less and less in touch with, you know, the things that will keep us healthiest and the things that will drive longevity and healthspan. So yes, I 100% agree.

So let's leave the audience then with this. So if you could wave a magic wand and bring back one ancestral practice, what would it be?

Oh gosh. Well, I think simplicity. I think simplicity is, One of the things that we often overlook right now in our society, I feel like everything is a lot more complex than it needs to be. And I, when I think about ancestral health, I think about simplicity, right? Less about convenience. I mean, everything now is more about convenience. And so we need to get away from that, kind of go back to our roots.

What do you think is an example then of like, what's an example of simplicity? You know, we're choosing something more complex, but we could just, this other choice is actually far simpler. I know I'm putting you on the spot on that, but do you think there's an example you could give around that?

Well, I mean, food is a really easy one. I feel like Um, life has become about, again, this hamster wheel and—

The convenience of the food, right?

And the convenience of food. And simplicity is bliss. It might take a little bit more time. Um, but I also feel like when I think about ancestral health, I think about meal prep. I think about families creating meals together in a kitchen, you know, with real ingredients. And the conversation, the love, and the connection that happens in that environment, I feel like has pretty much gone out the window. You know, I personally don't know many people who have that type of culture in their home. I'll be honest, I struggle with it myself just because of, you know, the pace of life. But if we could get back to simplicity when it comes to food and simplicity in terms of, you know, time management and connection, I feel like it would probably breed health in ways that we haven't seen in a very, very long time.

Nishat, it's been really nice talking with you. This has been a really powerful conversation. I really hope that the people watching or listening are able to take something away, particularly because whether you're trying to get pregnant or not right now, I think this conversation of like looking at yourself as that onion, And that, you know, we want to peel away each layer and we don't want to, you know, and look for the root cause of whatever is ailing us, that you don't have to be trying to have a child or not to still look for root cause. Or I should say, you don't have to be trying to have a child to still care about root cause. Like, this applies to anyone. So thank you for this conversation.

Thank you, James. It was a pleasure.

How can people work with you, or what's the best way for people to find you and reach out to you?

Probably the best way is on Instagram. My Instagram page is @yourfunctionaldoc, so very easy to find me there. You can also search by my name. My website is drnishatlatif.com. That's pretty simple, but Instagram is the best way. I encourage everybody to DM me there because I am the person behind the DMs. So it's not a bot, it's not an assistant, it's not a team, it's actually me. So I have lots and lots of conversations with women on Instagram who are looking for support. So if you want to talk directly to me, that's a fast track.

Wow, that's a great tip. There you go, everybody. Just go to Instagram, DM, the power of DM. Thank you again. Thank you for joining us. And thank you all for joining us. It's so powerful having these conversations with people like Dr. Nishad and where we're really getting to the heart of humanity, I would say, you know, that it's about us trying to reclaim our humanness. So thank you for all being curious enough to listen. Thank you for sharing it with your loved one or the person that you think could hear this message. And I ask one thing of you every week is just stay curious. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's eatpluck.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.