Functional Diagnostic Nutrition with Falyn Morningstar

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani. Well, greetings to our listeners. You're listening to one of our premium episodes on the Living to 100 Club, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. Each week, our conversations educate and inspire, helping to get the best out of all the years we're given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. Premium subscribers have access to all episodes both the 2 public and the 2 premium episodes every month. Thanks for being a subscriber. Your support allows us to continue this mission without sponsors. We hope you're receiving value from every conversation with our experts. I think much greater value than the price of a subscription. In today's podcast, we discuss a relatively new medical specialty, functional diagnostics. With our guest Fallon Morningstar. Fallon is a nutrition practitioner who shares with us the process of explaining the, the potential causes of many common conditions such as joint pain, chronic fatigue, stress, hair loss, migraine, irregular bowel movement, rash, and inflammation. We discussed the 5 functional lab tests that are routinely done to get a comprehensive understanding of the person and how the results may be interpreted. What types of recommendations can be triggered from these lab findings, and why is the 55 and over age group more sensitive to disruptions in our functional health? This is an eye-opening discussion of an important subject. First, a little background on our guest. Through personal strife and no healing support from Fallon's Western thinking practitioners to resolve digestive comfort, insomnia, fatigue, hair loss, muscle soreness, and irregular cycle and emotional eating. The universe guided Fallon to integrative and Eastern modalities. The information from functional diagnostic nutrition was so transformative that she became a certified practitioner herself. Fallon now guides curious and driven health-minded women from feeling fatigued, distasteful about themselves, and disconnected from their power to feeling vital, pleasure, and emotionally reconnected from within. This guidance is done in a holistic and alternative way with functional lab testing and powerful resources so women can find the missing pieces in their story and unveil their luminous radiance to themselves and the world. Fallon, welcome to our program today.

Thank you so much for the pleasant introduction and for having me on here.

Oh, great. Yeah, you're very welcome. I'm looking forward to our conversation. I always like to open by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the, the journey that brought you to where you are today. We touched on it in that intro, that brief intro, but Uh, what were some of the highlights that helped you land on this particular place today?

I love the question. And I was about 26 when all of these health symptoms kind of compiled one on one, uh, to each other. Mm-hmm. And I couldn't ignore it anymore. And that's when I had seeked help. But to give you a little bit of background on how that had come up. It was me being a driven person, me being that achievement-oriented type of person. I was lifting weights for 6 days a week. I was going to graduate school, working full-time, and I also had a personal training certification at the time. So with all of these things and no real knowledge of how to handle the emotional stress, that's when, you know, more emotional eating would occur, or just I wasn't able to continuously handle the day like I once could in my earlier 20s. And, you know, there was a breaking point, you know, the symptoms continued to come up and compound, and that is when I seeked help. And then it led me to functional diagnostic nutrition. And so that's a little bit of a background of how all of these, these things have come up.

Can I ask you, what were the symptoms that really triggered your search?

Yeah, I had been on the hormonal birth control pill from age 16 to 26, and I noticed, you know, over the last few years when my, quote, cycle would come around, which really isn't your menstrual cycle, when that would come around, it, it was changing over the years and it was a little bit concerning. That led me to this random podcast episode that came up and I listened to it. I got a book after that. After I read it, I was like, I need to get off of this. And that was one of the major contributors to me seeing like something is definitely wrong here. Another factor was the awareness of the coping mechanism of emotional eating. Not feeling like— it would almost be like I would eat until I'd be sick because I was trying to get more and more energy, quick energy from those sugars. But really, I just needed rest. And because of the go, go, go, I wasn't getting that rest. And it just cycled into this metabolic chaos where I couldn't actually have a good sleep. I could fall asleep, but I couldn't stay asleep. I'd be waking up at 3 o'clock. I would have to go to the bathroom about every hour. You know, when we're more stressed, we tend to urinate more frequently. Sure.

Wow. So a whole mix of presenting symptoms, and you, you, uh, look for some solutions, and you found the whole nature of functional diagnostics and nutrition practitioners. Yeah. So tell us, tell us, what is this type of practitioner, functional diagnostics nutrition practitioner? What do you do?

So really we look at the body as a whole system. We're not treating anything specifically. It's really like a non-specific form of holistic care, or like a self-care model that we're educating people on. Rather than, you know, a sick care model, like maybe a gastroenterologist might look at, or a, a psychotherapist, you know, they're very specific things that what they do, but really, we're kind of taking a broader view of how does the emotional body impact the physical body? And how does eating impact our gut in addition to our brain. So it's really looking at all types of facets of the body to really work in harmony together and have this, um, really this relief of whatever you're experiencing, whatever symptoms there might be. And after the relief phase, it's really like we're rebuilding, and then there's a maintenance type of phase for you to be your own health detective. Or in the future.

Well, okay, so this kind of imbalance, this, um, holistic, um, dysregulation, whatever we call it, really comes in different forms, right? I mean, when you and I spoke earlier, um, it sounded like there are a whole number of different symptoms or clinical signs that come into the picture. Can you give us an example of what What are the kind of the range of problems people present with?

Absolutely. It could be a migraine, persistent migraines. Those are not even normal to have at all. Headaches are not normal to have. There's something disrupting you to provoke a headache. It could be constant bloating. Like it could be diarrhea or constipation, any sort of gut discomfort, and it— you might not be able to correlate it after you're eat— after you're eating. It might just be a constant thing. Like, if you get home from work, you automatically want to get your pajamas on because you're just feeling kind of bloated. It could be a symptom like that. It could be joint pain, just that inflammation of the joints where you have that stiffness, and you might be older, so you might think, oh, well, this is just part of getting older, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can always look at the food. So symptom could be joint pain. The symptom could be muscle soreness, persistent muscle soreness. I was not able to recover from the gym even 4 days afterwards. I would just have that, that muscle soreness. Another really large one is that anxiety.

Mm-hmm.

A lot of us just have anxiety about life. Maybe there's some existential angst. Maybe there's regrets. Maybe there's, um, just all of this worry of something's gonna happen. Like that is a, a symptom as well. So that's just a couple. I mean, it could, it could definitely be expanded for sure. Yeah.

No, it covers a wide range. So, um, it sounds like this whole school of thought or this kind of fundamental approach really looks at what are some of the kind of physical precipitating factors that contribute to anxiety or sensitivity or muscle pain, soreness, what's going on in the body that globally, holistically can, can be addressed. Okay. As opposed to a very specific, more specialized approach from a kind of a traditional Western medicine approach, right?

And it can even be, um, just to add another one in, it's, it's quite large here today, is infertility. That could be another symptom, or a missing cycle, or an irregular menstrual cycle. That can certainly play a part.

Yeah. Okay. And I think you mentioned hair loss too. Is that— could that be?

Yep. Yeah. So hair loss for sure, really just a hormonal change, you know, so is fertility, infertility, um, that is definitely hormonal related. And really all of these symptoms can be hormone related. It can also be bacteria related. It could be neurotransmitter related. Maybe you're under methylating some things. So it's really a whole host of, of everything. And that's why here at practitioners that went through the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition program, they— we are taught to look at all of these items to, to address them all in this, in this protocol, this healing protocol. And that's why we also do the lab testing to help point us in the right direction.

Yeah, yeah. So it really does take this kind of comprehensive assessment. You look at all different possibilities, which is not unlike traditional medicine, um, but, um, you're looking at, well, like these 5 lab tests that you do. Can you tell us about what are these 5 tests, lab tests looking for?

Yeah, absolutely. One is called the food sensitivity test. Mm-hmm. This is looking at 176 different foods. The other one is looking at your hormones. There are 4 markers of cortisol on there. There's about 7 different hormones such as testosterone, progesterone, estrogen. There is a metabolic wellness test that's looking at how you digest protein, how your system is handling oxidative stress, and how your liver is dysfunctioning. The fourth test is a mucosal barrier assessment, and that's really looking at the integrity of your mucose, of your gut lining, really. How degraded is it? How is it functioning? And then the fifth test is a stool test, and that is called the GI-MAP. So that's looking at your gastrointestinal system. That's looking for any sort of overgrowth of bacteria, pathogens, worms. Um, there is an immune, uh, section on there as well.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And, um, these 5 tests are done as a package, I take it, kind of, uh, that's the routine starting point, the recommended starting point. So, um, yeah, just curious. Of food sensitivity, hormones, um, metabolic wellness, mucosal barrier, and then the stool test. So let's talk about the food sensitivities. How common are these problems? I mean, we hear about allergies, peanut allergies and things like that, but how common are food sensitivities?

Extremely common, more than you might think. Every single person has a food sensitivity, at least one. Every panel I've run, there's always something that comes up. What's really cool about this test is that it is a blood test, but you don't have to be eating any of those specific foods or substances, substances for it to come up. You know, sometimes food sensitivities, like you have to kind of frequently be eating these foods for them to show if you're sensitive to it. It doesn't matter if you're eating them or not, but more than likely the common foods that you're eating, you are sensitive to.

Mm-hmm. And what does that look like? How do we know we're sensitive to or hypersensitive to a particular food?

If you would not do a test and say you would eat green peppers, chicken, broccoli, rice. And maybe you're just con— uh, continuously feeling bloated, you might not be able to pinpoint broccoli makes me feel this way, or chicken makes me feel this way because we don't really think of those as things we are sensitive to. Unless you're having this major reaction from one of those foods, you more likely cannot pinpoint it. And with the test, it is 93 or 94% accurate in the feedback it provides. So looking at things like different protein options, dairy, legumes, there are different flavor enhancers or different things like ibuprofen on there, or there's, there's caffeine. There's certainly a fruits and vegetables section. So 176 different things.

Oh yeah.

That's remarkable.

I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Yeah, no, that's okay. Yeah. And the feedback that the lab provides by looking at your blood is you're either in the green area, the yellow area, or the red area. And so of course we mean green is like, okay, these are foods that we are not really sensitive to. Yellow is kind of cautionary. You're moving up towards the red for it to be very reactive to your system.

Mhm.

So it's beautifully visual test.

Yeah, yeah, I could see that green, yellow, red. So we may not be aware of this sensitivity. Um, it's, it's possible that we have this in our system, but we are not particularly aware. Like, we don't know that we're having a bad reaction to, to cucumbers or zucchini or something like that, but it does show up on these tests.

Correct. And I think what's important is that a sensitivity is certainly not an allergy. You know, there are different immunoglobulins in our system. The allergic, or the allergy one, is really called the immunoglobulin E, or IgE. When this test is looking at just the immunoglobulins overall and how the sensitivities perform, so you don't have to have an allergic reaction for this to show up.

Mm-hmm. Wow. Well, okay, that's great information just on that one test. I mean, we think about these 5, that's a pretty comprehensive picture, uh, you know, pretty thorough picture that we're taking of our, of our physical functioning. So the hormone, um, like presence of cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, any of these are too high or too low, that'll show up on this test.

Yeah. And there's DHEA as well as progesterone in there. There's melatonin.

Hmm.

So these are all beautiful markers for us to see where your levels are at, because certainly what we try to do with the tests is create clinical correlation. So it's not like we're treating a low DHEA. We are looking at you as a person and your current health symptoms and seeing if that marker or those markers correlate to your symptoms.

Ah, okay. So it, it could show up positive here but negative there, or negative there and positive here between test and person. Yeah.

Like if, for example, if maybe the symptom is fatigue.

Mm-hmm.

And it's showing up on your hormone test as you have low progesterone levels as well as low DHEA, that very much clinically correlates with the fatigue because those anabolic types of hormones should be higher. Yeah. So, so say if DHEA and progesterone were high, but you have fatigue, then it's not really a clinical correlation at this point. Let's check out the other markers to see how we can provide some support.

Yeah. Not the expected clinical correlation. So there must be something else contributing to that. Sure. Yeah.

And every test has some minimal error percentage, you know, no test is 100% perfect.

Mm-hmm.

And it's really just a snapshot in time for us to, you know, create the protocol.

Yeah. And what can we infer from that snapshot? That's, that's, that's what the nature of testing is all about. Yeah. We get a little picture here and what does that mean? So we dig deeper, right?

And with the— why the— we'll go back to the food sensitivity test for a second. Why that's so important of— oh, well, why does it really matter if I have food sensitivities? If we are to remove the yellow foods and the red foods for a period of time, that is less inflammation to your system. And our bodies have such a beautiful capacity to heal itself when we remove all of the stressors. And now, all stress is not bad, but certainly food sensitivities are a stress that are contributing to your symptoms. If we can remove that, it's like, oh my gosh, now we have more of a capacity to heal ourselves.

Sure. And to deal with other stresses that are equally important. Yeah, I love that. That's beautiful. When we can eliminate some of these known threats or antagonists, we have more energy, we have more vitality to deal with other day-to-day issues. Yeah, that's great. That's great. And like the mucosal barriers, what's that about?

Yeah, so the mucosal barrier, really think of that as your gut lining. So there's a barrier between what's inside of your gut and kind of what's outside in your bloodstream and general circulation. So say a marker on that test is called zonulin, and that is a great marker to let us know if there's some leaky gut going on or how much leaky gut we might have. And I know a lot of us have probably heard of that phrase leaky gut, and really it does mean that your gut lining is not stable to handle the toxins the pesticides that are all in this, in the foods that you're eating, or the processed foods that you're eating. And so over time, if we're not really conscious of how we're supporting our gut, it will degrade and become leaky. So there, that's when food sensitivities can happen because there are— let's just pick on broccoli again. Say broccoli cannot be digested and broken down and then absorbed. It's getting into your gut lining, but because it's leaky, it's going to your bloodstream in that general circulation, causing inflammation, causing that food to be sensitive to you.

I see. Okay, so whatever is in the broccoli or whatever other toxins or microbes that pass through our lining, that gets into our bloodstream or other tissues— our liver, our kidney. And that's where other problems come up. Serious problems. Exactly. Potentially.

Exactly. Because our immune system is like, wait a second, that's not supposed to be here. Let, what is that? Let's go ahead and try to attack it. And that's when our immune system is kind of overactivated. And certainly broccoli is not a threat, but it's not supposed to be in our general circulation. It's supposed to be inside of that digestive system. Mm-hmm.

Mhm, sure. So, um, this test of the mucosal barrier will really identify the presence of if we have leaky gut or not.

Yeah, it will. And there are two other markers on there, and it's really allowing us to see how much of a histamine type of reaction is going on. Histamine is really, you know, kind of the presence of inflammation.

Mm-hmm.

Um, sometimes we might think of histamine as, you know, if we have seasonal allergies, mm-hmm, you know, when we're sneezing and blowing our nose and whatnot. So that is a type of histamine response. So there's a marker on there for histamine, but then there's also a marker on there that's an enzyme that's supposed to help, um, regulate the histamine.

Oh.

So it shows us where that's at, how well it's doing its job.

Well, this is fascinating. I mean, there's really a lot, I mean, very key, central, important information that we can pick up from these, these tests. Yeah. Okay. So, um, let, let's talk about, you know, the 55 and older age group. Um, what are some of the particular sensitivities or things that could be going on for for seniors, what jumps out at you?

I would say, you know, the older we get, the more degradation happens just because of the environment that we live in. You know, the, the, we just are living more. So, you know, we have to process more of the pollution in the air. We have to process more of the chemicals or whatever else in the water. And just the fact of everyday living presents more potential health concerns if you're not really aware of how to lead a holistic life. And I will say, you know, tests are not everything. What we really focus on besides the test is really the, the principle called the General Principles of Health Building. So those holistic lifestyle things, those general principles really outperform any sort of specific treatments. So if you are eating correctly, resting, exercising, managing your stress, and taking the appropriate supplements, that is how you get better. It doesn't really matter what age you are. But if you can, you know, if you're 55 or even above and you can really work on those 5 pillars that I've just mentioned, you will drastically see a shift in your health and you'll probably feel like in your 30s again.

Hmm. Well, okay. These are the building blocks. These are, as you say, the pillars that will increase our defenses against whatever onslaught we have just from living longer. Yeah, from the water, the air, the foods, the toxins, the pesticides, all of that.

Yeah. And I think, you know, not to discredit, you know, food or the rest, but really working on your mind too. You know, that being mindful of your life, whether that's, you know, it can be mindful by journaling, walking, meditating, you know, working on your emotional self. That's huge. And I know a lot of it is not not really taken seriously, or maybe doesn't give it as much weight as other things. But it's very significant. And I know the older we get, you know, maybe the more that we're hanging on to stuff that's not serving us.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm in the choir here. You're preaching to me because I agree 1,000%. All right.

I mean, I would see it myself, you know, of hanging on to stuff, and I'm like, oh my goodness, like, what's, you know, 30, 50 more years of this? So it's like, okay, how can we, how can we address that here? And just baby steps, you know, you don't have to go ahead and tackle it all.

Yeah, yeah. How do we, how do we explain or interpret new events that come along, and how do we look at, how do we perceive past events, past things that we regret or feel guilty about, or, you know, kind of wish it never happened. And that is heavy baggage, right? And it's hard to kind of carry that and still stay positive about our future, right?

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah. So the mind, the mindset, the attitude, the outlook is, is really key too. But the, the 5 pillars being diet, rest, exercise, stress management, and supplements. Mm-hmm. Uh, because the supplements we don't, we don't get in our usual diets. Typically our usual diets don't have enough of these vitamins or minerals or whatever we need. Is that what you're, what you're thinking?

Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that you're, you're bringing this up and kind of correlating that with food. Well, if we're eating the right foods, I mean, are we not getting the right minerals and nutrients? Well, you know, going back to our ever an ever-evolving environment. You know, we are as humans really impacting the environment that impacts the soils. You know, certainly farmers are either, um, closing shop or they're working and they're, they continuously plant crops that are on the same fields. And so it's not really providing enough grace and enough time for our foods to have as much minerals as, as it once did. And minerals are such a huge component to health. You know, the more waste we have and the more it's, you know, going into the ground, it's all this, this cycle, you know. And, you know, as we get older, the more damage occurs. So in my opinion, the more minerals we should be supporting our system with.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So the minerals and nutrients are missing in the foods that all people eat at all ages. But for seniors, it's particularly important because we already have this assault of things that we're fighting or, or fending off. And then we're missing the, the essentials, the nutrients that we need to help, help with our, our fight, help with, you know.

Yeah. And I don't wanna make it seem or feel like it's overwhelming. Like, oh my gosh, I missed 30 years of not getting minerals in. Mm-hmm. It's really just a matter of, you know, starting today.

Yeah.

And starting to, you know, again, the baby steps of, you know, you didn't know what you didn't know.

Mhm, sure, sure. So what, what are, you know, a handful of nutrients that you recommend or supplements that we should incorporate?

So something that is very easy to incorporate is mineral drops in your water. I would recommend getting, um, either reverse osmosis type of water, or if you're buying gallons of water, maybe purchase the the purified, typically it says on there, um, it was processed through reverse osmosis, and that's really taking out everything, you know, prescriptions, bacteria, whatever, taking that out. And so at that point, I would recommend adding some mineral drops into it, and, you know, that can contain some, some boron, potassium, magnesium. Maybe a little bit chloride is in there. So really, this is very minimal. If you put— I— the brand that I use is Trace Minerals, and it's really just this plain, no flavor. We don't need to add artificial flavors to these things. So really putting in 40 drops in a whole gallon of water, my goodness, it lasts me 90 days.

How many drops?

40.

40, 4-0. Yep.

And it's like a quarter of a teaspoon, I believe.

Mm-hmm. In a gallon.

Or maybe it's a teaspoon. Yes. In a whole gallon.

Okay.

So it lasts about 90 days and I believe it might be about $30.

Mm-hmm.

You know, it's very simple. I think it tastes lovely. Just adding in and it's refreshing. You can feel that you're getting more minerals in.

Okay. That's a good one.

So that would be just a simple thing to start. Another one would be magnesium, like actually taking a, a supplement form of magnesium. And the two forms I would recommend are the glycinate and malate. There are, you know, 7 or 8 different forms of magnesium and, you know, not all of them are as beneficial. I, I know there's a lot of research on them currently, but I know that the ones that I suggested, the glycinate is really supportive to kind of helping you calm, not necessarily sleep, but more of a calm, grounded feeling. And then the malate is more of a kind of an energizing type of form. So I personally take the malate in the morning as well as the afternoon, and then I'll take the glycinate in the evening. Okay. And magnesium is so important for our brain, for our digestion, for our energy, for sleep. You know, I know a lot of people take it to help them go to sleep. Some people take it because they're getting cramps, like muscle cramps. Um, it's, it's really an essential nutrient that we should be getting in. I know, I think it's I want to say we might have 42% of our enzymatic functions need magnesium to actually work. And we know that enzymes are in large part what run the show. You know, we need the enzymes to digest, to— for our organs to function. So if magnesium is that important, we certainly need to, to help, help it with supplementation.

A little boost.

Yeah, yeah. And, um, another important thing, if we are stressed, if we're, you know, who isn't stressed, to be honest, but if you're in an extremely high stress state, the more magnesium you should take because the more your body burns through it. It's called the magnesium burn rate.

Wow, okay. Any other supplements?

I would also recommend like a whole food form of vitamin C. Um, the brand that is coming to mind, I believe it's Pure Synergy, and it's a powdered form of vitamin C that is comprised of all types of, um, whole food type of substances, you know, acerola cherry or camu camu. And it's, um, a serving is about a quarter of a teaspoon, and that lasts a long time as well because it's in a powdered form. It doesn't taste bad at all, just mix in a little bit of water and take that one or two times a day. And that's really huge for helping your antioxidant system.

Sure.

Because if we consider you know, the pesticides in the food, the air pollution and the water pollution, you know, just giving 3 basic examples. If we think that those are giving us this pro-oxidative junk, we'll call it, we need to help balance it out with antioxidants. So the pro-oxidants and the antioxidants. So vitamin C is a really beautiful way to help that balance. And to help you detox.

Okay. And that can come other than a powder form, right? I mean, you, we can take—

Sure.

Yeah.

And, and I know, um, there is some concerns with it not being a whole food form. I know like there's ascorbic acid, which is typically what we see as, as vitamin C. Um, I know that ascorbic acid in large part comes from like a corn type of base. And so that's why I stopped taking vitamin C, ascorbic acid, and I take the whole food supplement. So I would just say, looking on the back of the ingredient list, you know, check to see if there's any sort of like nasty fillers in there before you purchase.

Sure, sure. Great. Well, great, good information. Yeah, thanks for that. So, um, just quickly, Let me get back to the, the lab tests. And I, when you and I spoke, um, there are ways to have this done, right? I mean, we can go to someone like yourself, a practitioner like yourself, and, uh, request these, these lab tests. Can you tell us about that? Yes.

So I would basically order them and they get drop shipped directly to your home, which makes it super easy for you to feel comforted. You know, you do not have to go to all of these different labs and do all this testing. It's really— they're brought to your home. We would go over them of how to, um, accurately complete it. You know, whether it's a urine test, whether it's a, um, a dried blood spot or a stool test. The only one that you would need to go to a phlebotomist for to get your blood drawn is the MR— the food sensitivity test, which is called the MRT.

Uh-huh.

So after that's completed, really, it's just shipped through either FedEx or UPS. And I explain all of this so you're very clear on what your next steps are. And after the lab gets them— and I say the lab, really, all of these tests go to different labs. You know, because they're not all with one lab.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

We have affiliations with hundreds of labs.

Mm-hmm.

And the results actually come into my inbox and I interpret them, go over them. There's how we as practitioners, because I'm certainly not a doctor or, or any, I don't prescribe anything, how we as practitioners are able to order them. And have it be legal is through what's called our Medical Director Program through FDN, the certification that I have. So there are some tests that we actually have a clinical advisor review with myself because they've reviewed hundreds of thousands of labs and having more eyeballs on it really helps us as practitioners make sure that we're in the right direction and make sure, you know, because there's oodles of information out there, there's always new things coming out, just to see how we can best support you. So some of the tests, because they are so complex and intricate, we will have that clinical advisor consult with them prior to reviewing it with you as the client.

So they, they may— the advisor may consult with the client.

No, I, I would be the only one.

It always goes through you. Okay.

Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. And I know it's important to stress, emphasize the fact that you're not treating any of these conditions. You're, you're offering results and you're offering recommendations on lifestyle or stress management or nutrition, but you're not treating any particular medical problem that surfaces.

Yeah, exactly. And one of the great things that the client always has an option to take those test results and give them to their physician, or give them to anybody that if they would want to treat it with antibiotics or if they would want to treat it with prescriptions, they can certainly have the option to do that.

Sure. Yeah, that's good information. Yeah. Now, are there people like yourself doing this around the country? I assume there are. I mean, you're not, you're not the only one.

Yeah, really all over the world.

There's all over the world.

Yeah. Canada. Yeah. There's, and every single week there are new practitioners that have gone through the program.

And how would someone find this list?

Of practitioners?

Uh-huh.

You know what's actually great that you bring this up? FDN is currently creating a directory of anyone that would like to be involved in it. So I know that that's coming this year yet.

Okay. So what is it?

So they would, they would go on the, a web, the website of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. And I'm sure it would be up there at some point this year.

Okay. All right. Great information. Yeah. So we're just about out of time. What's the takeaway for the audience here? I mean, great information. We covered a lot of important topics. What do you think? What do you hope people take away from this conversation?

That's really tough to pick one thing. Yeah.

Yeah.

I would say that any symptom that you're experiencing It's go with your gut. It's not normal to have symptoms. They're really just your body's way of talking to you. Yeah, don't ignore them. Don't, don't go with mainstream and think that they're normal because they're actually abnormal. Yeah, I would just say, you know, kind of work with your gut, your intuition, like our headaches, for example. Or yeah, because the more that it goes you know, unhelped, so the more things are going to come at you.

Yeah. And in your experience, when you, um, when you initiated all of this, it was really that you weren't getting the answers you hoped for from your PCP, your primary care doc.

Yeah.

So that's what caused you to consider maybe there's other explanations, maybe there are other avenues to, to pursue.

Exactly.

The same thing for any, anybody listening or anyone, if you have recurring symptoms or unpleasant sensations or difficulties, maybe your primary care doc will take care of it and maybe not. Maybe we should look at the functional diagnostic nutrition program. Yeah, good. Yeah, great information. Yeah, well, it looks like we're out of time for today, Fallon, but before we wrap up, I just want to remind our listeners to Visit my website, livingto100.club. Sign up for my email list and download a free copy of my 9 tips to make living longer enjoyable. You'll also see an option to contact me with your questions and comments. I welcome your feedback. Fallon, thanks so much for being a guest on our show today. For those who might want to contact you, how can they do that?

Firstly, this has been so enjoyable, and I'm, I'm hopeful that it was helpful to your audience. And I know if anyone If anyone would love to, to chat, they can certainly reach me at an email, discover@fallonmorningstar.com, or they could find me on Instagram. That's a main platform that I use. It's @fallonhuntermorningstar.

So discover@fallonmorningstar.com, or your Instagram is handle is Fallon Hunter, Morningstar.

Correct.

Terrific. Okay. Well, thanks so much. And thanks to all of our listeners for tuning in. Hope to see you next time.

Hi everyone. This is Meredith from the Senior Fitness with Meredith podcast. Where I discuss all things for seniors, from fitness, your health and wellness journeys, how to be all over strong and beyond. I also have my mini podcast called Motivation with Meredith. It's a great quick motivational pick-me-up for your days. Join me, listen now, search for Senior Fitness with Meredith on your favorite podcast platform.