How To REDUCE INFLAMMATION In The Body Naturally - Functional Medicine Approach

Our friends are in medicine and everyone offered us some form of high dose medication and that's not what we wanted. We're never told that diet's going to cure pmle, right? In med school, never told that diet's going to cure psoriasis. In fact, if you mention it, you're kind of like on the edge, right? Guess what? It worked. I mean her skin cleared up, she's able to go in the sun. I mean, our entire life has changed.

Hello, welcome to the Dr. Joy Kong Show. So as you know, this show is all about health, healing, wellness, inspirations and happiness. So whatever we can do to help making the world a happier place. And today I have a wonderful guest, Dr. Ephrat Lamondri and she is called Dr. E. Right? That's how you are referred to. She is a nurse practitioner. She owns her own medical practice, for example, healthcare. She provides pediatric, adult and geriatric care to over 20,000 patients. She also has taken conventional medicine to the next level with her signature process, the new method, so knew method and she can explain what that's all about. This is really about healing people from the root level, right? Instead of treating throwing drugs, I'm sure you're educated just as I did, which is drug centered education. So how did you become who you are in your practice and how do you think you differ from how other doctors help their patients?

That's a great question. First of all, Dr. Joy, I'm so excited to be here and to all your listeners, thank you for giving me some of your air space and air time and I hope that we entertain you and give you some important topics to take home. As you said, I have a practice called EG Healthcare. It's a typical primary care practice for families, pediatric, adult, geriatric. And when I started it, I did the typical things for all you listeners, whatever you're imagining when you go to your primary care doctor, nprpa, the annual visit, the sick visits, that's what ET healthcare is about. It's not wrong and it's important and it's important. If you have a disease, you certainly want to find it and certainly want to treat it. But it's also not 100% right because it is really geared to find disease and then treat it. If you don't have a disease and maybe you're just not feeling well and you're in the world of unwellness, then there's no room for you in primary care. And if you do have a disease and you want to have a conversation about treating it without Medication. Then again, there's no room for you in primary care. They're not wrong, but they're not completely right. I would like to share a personal story of what made me pivot from what you and I learned in school and to make a decision to provide different care, if you would indulge me in that. So this, as always, I think most of us who went to school, we have to have some sort of personal experience with ourselves or our family where we realize, wait a minute, we need to. There's something more here. So in my case, it was when my wife was. She was diagnosed, when I met her, my wife was a vampire. So not the cool kind of vampire that's immortal, but she had a disease called pmle, which stands for polymorphous light eruption. And what that means is that she was allergic to the sun. So we jokingly called her a vampire because we couldn't go out in the sun. And. But we, you know, we manage, right? What do you do when you get your first diagnosis or your first pill or your first aches and pains? You manage. We just didn't go out. And during the day we just changed our life accordingly and we just accepted it as our fate. But then the second autoimmune happened, which for those of you listening, autoimmune comes in more than one. And we're going to talk about why later. The second autoimmune came for her, which is psoriasis, which is so severe, was on her feet, she couldn't walk without her feet bleeding. And so that's when we're like, wait a minute, maybe we should stop accommodating and start searching. And for many of you listeners, sometimes that second diagnosis or something that pushes you over the edge, that makes you think, well, it's time to do something else. So I'm in medicine, my wife's in medicine, all our friends are in medicine. And everyone offered us some form of high dose medication. And that's not what we wanted. And none of our schooling gave us the answer. And there's a lot of schooling between all of us. Someone suggested that we go to functional medicine. And we were like, okay, but insert eye roll here. That's not really going to be a thing. But what do we have to lose? So we went and he ran this crazy blood work that we never heard of before and he changed our diet. What? We have a great diet. What are you talking about? We didn't think we had a bad diet, gave us some supplements, and guess what? It worked. I mean, her Skin cleared up, she's able to go in the sun. I mean, our entire life was changed. Completely changed. Blown away personally, but also professionally because we were never told. Dr. Joy, you were never told that diet's going to cure pmle, right? In med school, we were never told that diet is going to psoriasis. In fact, if you mention it, you're kind of like, like on the edge. Right. So I've been to many a Durham lecture when I suggested it, and they're like, no, there's no connection. So, okay. So I realized I have to bring this back to my practice and for many of my patients. So, you know, I went back to School Institute of Functional medicine, got my PhD in integrative medicine, and then I brought it back to the practice in the form of the new method.

Wow. Yeah. So what did you think when you were going through all the functional medicine training in comparison to all that you've been taught? Because you have a PhD as well.

Yeah. So it's the upside down show, right? I mean, I don't know your entire background, but I could imagine that you at some point had to experience this, right? Where you're like, wait a minute, no one told us to look under the rock to see what's happening here. Right. Where you just learn all these things. And again, they're not wrong. And if you have certain diseases, you certainly want to follow an algorithm. It's just not the whole story. And I just remember constantly being blown away and then practicing with my patient, constantly being blown away by the results. So what I decided to do, because I come from the land of conventional medicine, it's really important for me to structure this so that I can, you know, just make it methodical. Because that's where we're from, you know, the scientific mindset. So the new method does that. What we do is we have, we have like a patient journey where you come in and you have certain blood work done, blood work that is far beyond what's done during the primary care visit. We do saliva testing for adrenal fatigue, and then we actually spend time with our patient, getting to know our patient. We set aside a full hour, which is mind blowing because the annual visit is about seven minutes. And not any doctor's fault. It's just the way the system is set up in order to be able to survive. There's no malice here. I just want to make sure that everyone is trying. And then we go over the results and we use software that tracks not only results, but tracks symptoms. Because for a lot of patients if there's no diagnosis but they have aches and pains, what are you tracking? If their labs are normal, what are you tracking? It's one thing if you have a cholesterol and you can track it, go down. Diabetes, the A1C go down. What are you tracking on the patient who doesn't feel good, it has brain fog or joint pain. You have to track their symptoms. So we use software so we can monitor our progress or monitor flare ups and then we work with our patients for an entire year. Like our patients have to be dedicated for a year because it took you this long to get messed up. It's going to take us more than one visit to un mess you up. It's been a very interesting ride.

Yeah. So what do you see in your practice as far as maybe patients before you adopted this new method, you know, how they did versus after you've brought all that in, or patients who have gone through other doctors who tried everything and then what happened after they used, you know, your method?

To answer your question, I'm really glad that you mentioned about the patients because it's also patient dependent. You know, it's one thing to say, hey, I need a doctor that is thinking a certain way. It's really patient dependent because each healthcare still exists and it still has thousands of patients. Because certain patients are not ready to make the change. They are either, you know, whatever's going on life, no judgment, they're not ready to make the change or they're comfortable medication or, or their lifestyle the way it is, they want to keep it a certain way and they're willing to pay the price of having to take medication in order to maintain a lifestyle. Right? Like the patient who wants to smoke and wants to be on an inhaler. The patient who wants to eat a lot of carbs and is willing to be on diabetes medication. So those patients still need to be in some sort of conventional medicine setting. The patients who want a different answer, new method and functional medicine is for them. For those patients, what I see is, I don't want to say the word miraculous because it's not a miracle, but it feels miraculous. It's not a miracle because there's science behind it. But you have patients primarily over 50 and over who are just not feeling great. Many of them have resigned to the fact that it's just their age or for women it's just their hormones. They've just been advised it's their hormones and just kind of, what are you going to do? Go out to pasture? Just Supposed to hurt when you go up the stairs. You're supposed to have hot flashes. Absolutely have to have hot flashes. It has to be hormonal and you just kind of live your life and there's really nothing that is offered to them outside of accepted. And their peers are in the same group, so why would they think otherwise? So many of them come to me because they're just, they're saying, well, the tagline for the new method is because you always knew there was a better way. That's why it's spelled K N E W. They always knew there's a better way. So people come like, I really think there's something else going on with me. It's not just my age. Ever since this happened, I'm feeling this way. And when we change their lifestyle, change their diet, put them on supplements, suddenly I have one patient that just, he said to me, within 30 days, he said, I didn't realize how hard it was for me to pick up my wallet when it fell on the floor. I used to groan on the way down to pick up my wallet. And now when I go pick up my wallet, I just do it. And I didn't realize how effortless it is.

What's the main thing you did for him? Yeah, so for him, brought him to that place.

For him it was just a diet change. For him, he wasn't on medication yet, he just really was eating the standard American diet, which is inflammatory. So he was one of those patients who, everything's fine. His A1C was fine, he wasn't diabetic, his cholesterol was fine, there's nothing you could do for you. But when we checked his inflammatory markers, they were really high. His CRP was high, his ESR was high. But in primary care, what can you do with inflammatory markers? Nothing. There's no medicine for it. And you just say don't worry about it, or you just don't even test for it. But when we see those markers, we're like, okay, your whole body's on fire. Let's calm it down. With him, it was really as simple as just removing some of the processed food, the refined foods, and getting him some quality supplements, good omegas, which is amazingly anti inflammatory, some nac, and within a month. Right. So it's important I'm telling you the month because it's not just the conversation. Weight loss, right. Because the weight loss took time. He was a heavy fellow. So weight, like the weight loss took months, but he started feeling better almost immediately because his inflammation went down. So this is someone that if you would have went on some sort of weight loss program that never addressed the inflammation, he would have lost the weight, but he would still be in pain.

That's a great point. Yeah. Have you seen people who only went on the weight loss journey, but really without addressing their issues from a functional medicine, more detailed manner? Have you seen that people were just skinny and bad?

No. That's a really great question. I mean, I have people who are post bypass surgery. They've had. Right. Bypass surgery, but then they've learned that they can still have milkshakes and they're so, so it's, they're skinnier, but they're not eating anything less inflammatory. And I've had people who come to me and they say, I've been on every diet in the world. Nothing works for me. And I'm like, right. Because that's not what we're doing. We're not doing that. Of course it didn't work for you. So, yeah, I see all the time. And in addition to inflammation, a topic that comes up a lot in our age group is thyroid. So a lot of patients will say to me, they can't get my thyroid right. They bring it up, they bring it down, they bring it up, they bring it down. My meds keep changing. I started at 25, now I'm at 225. And again, it's not a weight loss conversation. Again, that's a conversation of what's going on in your body. Are you even flowing? If we don't calm down information, if we don't calm down, what's causing the autoimmunity. Right. Because for a lot of people, thyroid, if you have Hashimoto's, it's an autoimmune thyroid. If we don't get to the core of the autoimmune and help stop this antibodies from happening, well, then, yeah, your thyroid, of course, because it's, it's, it's not. The medication is going to fix it. Right. You have to get to the cause of it. So certainly, to answer your question, I have plenty of feet patients who have tried weight loss approaches, but yet their issues are unresolved because they never got to the heart of it.

Yeah. So you have a lot of experience treating thyroid conditions and what's your usual approach besides just giving them thyroid replacement?

I love treating thyroid because it's so common. It really plagues a lot of people. And again, the one thing that's never discussed is how diet is connected to hypothyroid, specifically Hashimoto's like autoimmune hypothyroid. Some people have hypothyroid for other reasons, but autoimmune hypothyroid, not to get too technical, but it's often a conversation of an inflamed belly, leaky gut, and the gluten sensitivity. So, you know, just quick recap for your audience. Antibodies are. We all know about antibodies at this point in the game, which is what your body forms when it's trying to attack a foreign object. Right. We're not supposed to have antibodies to ourselves. Yet people have Hashimoto's, have antibodies to their own thyroid. So their bodies are constantly attacking their own thyroid. They're stuck in the loop. So they take the medication because their thyroid's not producing a hormone. They take that hormone, but they never stop the attack on the thyroid. And for a lot of people, I mean, one of the first things you should do if you have Hashimoto's is just get off of gluten. Here's the thing, if I'm wrong, big deal. You're gluten free. I didn't cause you any harm, I didn't give you any side effects. But if I'm right, then I may have saved your thyroid. I'm not saying I can reverse it, but we could save it from worsening. And that is because the protein in gluten, which is called gliadin, is very similar to the enzyme in your thyroid called transglutaminase. Sorry, I have to think about it for a minute. They're very similar. So if you have a leaky gut and your body's attacking gliadin, it through molecular mimicry, which just means things look like each other, will start attacking the enzyme in your thyroid. So every time you have cereal, every time you have a sandwich, even if it's on a whole grain bread, and you think you're doing the right thing, you're creating attack on your thyroid. So if we don't address this, your thyroid is never going to be right. So this is, this is one of my favorite things. And by the way, just so you know, if you getting your thyroid right doesn't mean you'll be off meds. It means you'll stop being up and down with your meds and you won't have increases, you'll just be steady. Sometimes in early stages, you can prevent and lessen and reduce. But if you've had it for a long time, then the goal is to just stabilize it.

Yeah. So I know you are really big on helping people reduce Their inflammation. So I assume diet will be the foundation for reducing inflammation. And what's your approach when people come to you in their middle age or later on in life and things are just not working as well as before?

Yes, absolutely. I hate to say it because people don't want to hear it, but, yeah, diet is the mainstay because it's what you do all day long. So what you eat and when you eat is really, really important for inflammation. Without a doubt. When I say when we eat, I do promote intermittent fasting when it's appropriate. I do recommend initially, initially, not forever, a really restricted diet, which means gluten free, grain free, dairy free, sugar free, not forever, initially, because we have to calm the system down as quickly as possible, get the symptoms down, then we reintroduce slowly and we notice what comes back up. Let me give you an example, because I actually did my thesis on this because it blew my mind. We collect all this data on all these patients. We have this questionnaire. I didn't create the questionnaire. Smarter people than I did created the questionnaire. One of the questions is, do you have tinnitus? Do you have ringing in your ears? And I've always ignored it because I don't know about you, Dr. Joy, but I always learned that once you have tinnitus, it's pretty incurable, unless you're on aspirin and then you come off of aspirin. Right. It just is what it is. Learn to live with it. So I always kind of ignore this. Well, months into using the software, I started noticing that people who came in with high numbers two and three months into the diet was going to zero. What the heck are you telling me that tinnitus is inflammatory? Because I never learned this. So I did some digging and turns out that yes, tinnitus is inflammatory. Unless, of course, this post trauma, my soldiers, my police officers. I'm sorry, I probably can't help you then. But for other people who didn't have trauma, it's inflammatory. So back to this diet. So we put you on this restricted diet and let's just say your tinnitus goes down to a one or a zero. And if we reintroduce something, even something that you think is healthy, eggplants, and suddenly the tinnitus comes back, that's a flare up, and we can know that that's not for you. So by calming it down really quickly, restricting really quickly, and then slowly loosening out, we can kind of see what's flaring you up. So that is how we Start with more patients.

How long should the restricted period be?

It depends on the patient and the goal, as I was going to say. Also, even the type of restriction depends on the patient, for example. And then I'm going to talk about the length. But I just don't want to think that even the diet is one size fits all. Because with diabetics, if they're on medication, you have to go a little easy with the, you know, with the no carb and the fasting patients who have some predisposition to Alzheimer's, you want to be careful with how much meat they're taking in if they have the gene for it. So it's not a one size fits all. But generally speaking, length of time depends on the goals. So if the patient also has a weight loss goal in mind, then the longer we stay restricted, the faster we get there. Some patients don't want to lose any weight, so we're just going to track it based on the symptoms. Okay, we got to the symptoms, we got there, we can start loosening up. What if we only got halfway there and we need a little more time, especially GI issues. So it's patient dependent, but really quick would be 30 days. I would say three months is ideal because it gives your body a chance to repair. And we're going to give you supplements also to help prepare your belly. Then the introduction can be done slowly. Then at the end you graduate, as it were, with a diet that is very specific to you because your body told you what it needs. Your body made the decision by letting you know the flare ups. It told you what it needs, very specific to you, and will have a lot of the things that you had before, but will eliminate the things that your body is clearly telling you not to do. It won't be a list, it will be your body communicating to you. Hmm.

Yeah, very interesting. And of course, these days I think people are very confused when it comes to diet. Even I get confused because I listen to various experts. They all seem to know what they're doing and very, very well schooled and have completely opposing point of views. So it does get very challenging. I can imagine what people were wondering, should I go low carb? Should I go low fat? Should I? Yeah. Should I avoid animal products? I mean, all these are. It's very confusing time, you know, it is.

And I'm certainly not gonna sit here and say that my way is the right way. I could just say that this is because we use the symptoms to track it. If the symptoms get better. Right. Like I said, Earlier. It's not just enough to just say, okay, my A1C got better, but I can't go up the stairs. If you're feeling better, then it's the right diet for you. And if I'm doing it and you're feeling worse, it's the wrong diet for you. So I feel like it doesn't get much simpler than that. I mean, in addition to tracking labs and making sure you're okay and you haven't created any issues, if you're feeling better, then what could be a better understand, you know, proof that you're on the right diet?

Yeah. Right.

And. And sometimes. I'm sorry.

Oh, no, I. Yeah, go ahead.

I was gonna say sometimes it's more complex than that. Right. This. This is the easy patient. Right. Sometimes I have. I've had patients where even though we remove things, they still had GI discomfort or they still had, you know, certain skin issues. And it was like, well, what else can we remove? And that's when you have to start thinking about specialized testing. That's when we start doing labs like Cyrex labs or special stool testing, because then it's a little bit more complex. So I'll give you an example. I had a patient, very thin woman, already kind of eating really well before she came to me. When I came to her, I just tweaked it a little bit more. Weight loss wasn't an issue. Compliance with diet wasn't an issue. And even though I tweaked it a little bit more, she. She still had GI issues. So the first test we ran, again, I always try to wait a few months before we start spending money on tests because sometimes we don't need it. First test we ran, turns out that within her healthy foods, she was very sensitive to spinach and tomatoes. Who the heck would have known spinach and tomatoes? Like, oh, right. So we remove that and that, and that was like something that you eat often. So it got a little bit better, but not 100%. So then we did stool testing, and we discovered that she doesn't have enough digestive enzymes. But we had to go very slow with digestive enzymes. She couldn't handle them at every meal. So we started like once every other day. And again, because we tracked her symptoms, what we started tracking was how many days between flare ups. So, so before was flare ups every day, and we got to every other day. Then we added another enzyme and we got. So now I just saw her recently, we're up to seven to 10 days between flare ups, and that's how we're marking her improvement because the labs are perfect, her labs are pristine. So sometimes you have to get a little bit more than just the diet and it depends on, on what's going on with the patient.

Yeah. You really have to be a superb detective too because you're really fine tuning and you're just. And all these little symptoms can have a multitude of causes. And the conventional medicine, because the symptom is too little, they just brush it off. Well, yeah, it's too bad. Drink some more water, do more exercise. Yeah.

So you know, I'm glad you mentioned exercise because everyone tells their patients just go exercise. Right. And some basis. So we test for adrenal fatigue and not to get too into it, but there's three phases of adrenal fatigue. 1, 2 and 3. Phase threes, they're exhausted, they have nothing left, they're running our fumes. You tell the Phase 3er to go exercise. They can't. These are the people that after the exercise they need a nap. So a conventional medicine doctor would say you really should exercise. Great. So now they try to exercise, they're exhausted. No one understands why they're not invigorating from exercise. And now they start like self doubt, self hate, like, I'm so lazy, I can't go, what's wrong with me? Right. So now you have this whole conversation in your head and if someone, sometimes I sit with them, I was like, don't exercise until I tell you to exercise. Don't exercise until two or three months from now when you come back to me and tell me you have energy. That's when we're going to talk about exercise. Because you try to exercise now, there's nothing left in your system. It's just going to take us backwards. So even something as simple as like every bunch of exercise is not even a one size fits all.

Yeah, I love it. I've never heard a doctor saying that I don't want you to exercise yet because that's what they prescribe for all ailments.

Everyone, everyone. But you know that some patients like when exercise, they're, they're depleted.

Right.

And so if you tell the exercise now, they're just stuck. Also the stress, the mental stress that does on them because everyone else is invigorated and they feel like poop when they're done, you know, working out and they don't know what's wrong with them and that does a whole mind beam that worsens things. So we give them that out. And now after three months, when they're feeling great. I'm like, okay, now let's talk. Yeah, yeah.

So. So, yeah, I like that, you know, kind of elimination diet in the beginning. So you're eliminating all gluten, dairy.

And grains and sugar.

Grains and sugar. Okay.

Initially. Right. For the first 30 days. Because we don't know what's irritating you. So we're taking on the classic irritants off. Remember, this is just. This is not forever. No one could do this forever. And so you don't want to set people up for failure by saying, this is how you have to live forever. Thanks. Back to E. I'll never come back temporary. And I always do it in the beginning, where some people do it the other way. Some people eliminate slowly. I think we eliminate in the beginning because that's when the patient's most motivated. They're not feeling well, they just came in, they're ready to do the work. So capture it. Right. It's like that first month at the gym. Capture it. Because if their symptoms, if they start feeling better, that's it. They're ready to continue. But if you go slowly and remove things, people don't want to have things removed six months later after made the decision to start to do this. I think it's harder psychologically.

Yeah.

There's that mindset that removes things slowly.

Yeah.

Now, that being said again, patient dependent. If I have a patient I'm still talking to about whether or not McDonald's is appropriate, that's a patient that I may not go completely. And we could just talk about what we could order at McDonald's. Right. Maybe we could order the salad. Right. So some patients are not quite ready there. So it is patient dependent. And some patients, you know, when you're talking about fasting, you know, like if you take their coffee away with the way they have, with their cream and their sugar, they'll walk out. Right. So sometimes the world collapses. Sometimes you have to be based on where they are just describing the ideal scenario.

Right, Right. So I like your approach that you kind of, you know, you don't go crazy with testing right from the start. You go with the diet change and you do, you know, some more basic set of labs, and then you watch how they do with this new diet.

Yes.

And maybe some supplements. And if things don't get better, then you peel the onion again.

Yes.

I like that. Because some doctors, they will do 5, $600 or $1,000 test all at once, and they're bombarding. You can't eat this. You can't Eat that. Oh, you've got. You're toxic. So we should do some chelation therapy and you need to. Here's this hormone, here's this other herb. It gets very crazy, I think overwhelming for people.

You brought us such a good point. Because if you test everyone, we probably all have some heavy metals, we probably all have some mold, we probably all have some hormonal imbalances. It's not just the question of finding it, but is that what's causing your symptom? If I clean up your diet and everything is perfect, you're symptom free. Then do I really need to chelate you just because I feel found it in there? Right. They don't. That's not causing your symptom. So why would I want to find. Now if I clean up your diet, you're moving. We're getting quality supplements, you're getting IV infusions. You're on point. You're still not feeling well then. Yeah, likely something else is causing it and then we need to hunt it down. But you know, you try, so you try not to treat the test. And if you're just going to test for everything, I think almost all of us in this polluted environment are going to come up with positive for things. But it doesn't mean it's causing us symptoms.

Yeah, yeah, but it probably could still undermine us in some ways, but is not acute. So after you get everything addressed, you're feeling pretty good. And if you want to further on your biohacking journey and then you can do some more, there's endless tests, there's genetic tests, there's endless. Yes, yes.

Yeah, but I agree with you. But I let the patient lead the way. If they want to do more, we do more. If they're not there yet, we. I mean, I love a good hunt, don't get me wrong. I just want to make sure. And the other thing is this. Let's just say you are mold toxic and I have patients who are more toxic. The treatment, mold toxicity is very taxing on the body. Right. We have to detox like the liver. So I want to make sure that we're going into that treatment in your best possible version of you, the version that's eating good quality food, already taking supplements, some nac to like help, you know, get your liver ready for that process. So the timing is also about getting you as a host ready for whatever treatment. We need to decide if we're going to decide to do hormones. We want to make sure that our hormones are balanced food wise, that you know, you don't have elevated testosterone because you're eating all these carbs. And now I'm giving you this other stuff. Right. Let's normalize the hormones that we can just by balancing your insulin, your thyroid and everything else that's top down. And then if we need it as a host, you're ready to have the most optimal results by getting those hormones.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting because I've had a patient.

Who.

Got very sickly, felt really bad, doing testosterone replacement. There's a lot of inflammation in his body. That's exactly what you said. If you haven't calmed the inflammation, you haven't helped the body to be in a more steady and calm state. And then you put this amplifying hormone in the body that is amplifying everything.

God, I'm so glad you mentioned testosterone because everyone wants testosterone. I'm like, who said men and women?

Yes.

Who said it's even an issue? In fact, now you have hypertension. Now you're taking medication to block the, you know, the effects of the testosterone. And now you're giving blood because your blood's too thick. Like, what, what. It's. So it's its own train that went off the tracks and.

Yeah, well, it's a very popular subject because people want, you know, they want to increase lean mass, decrease fat, they want to, you know, feel energetic. Of course, the sexual function, it's. It just is very popular. So.

Yeah.

What cases do you. Would you give people testosterone?

Yeah, and I'm not against testosterone. For sure. Not, but appropriate. So let's give an example. So with men, when I work with men, you know, if they have a belly, we have to get rid of that first. Right. Because that's estrogenic and that estrogen is pushing testosterone down. So if you're. Before I start giving you, let's see what your body produces when I get rid of that estrogen belly that you have going on there that you call a beer belly. But when I call it estrogen belly, they don't like that so much. Right.

I like that.

Why does that have an estrogen belly? What are you talking about? So we get rid of the estrogen belly and you start lifting a little bit of weights, many times the testosterone starts elevating by itself. And we don't have to introduce. But I certainly have patients where in month number three, they're doing the work, they lost the weight and their testosterone is still not budging. That's a great candidate for testosterone. I believe in bioidentical Hormone therapy that's applied daily. I don't like injections that bring you up and then bring you down. Not my jam. Just putting it out there. I think we want to keep you kind of steady daily because then we eliminate like emotional labile and just outbursts. So that's what I like to do. And for women, women need testosterone also, but with them, sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes it's elevated and it looks normal because, you know, it's like, if you let me explain, post hormonal women should be like a zero testosterone. If you're 65, walking with testosterone level of 30, you're eating a lot of carbs. We have to figure this out, right? So before I start talking to you about estrogen and, you know, progesterone, I know it's bad testosterone. I have to see what that looks like when you don't have all this insulin resistance going on. Now, for postmenopausal women, if it's at zero and they're feeling symptomatic and we did the work for sure, I'll get on testosterone again, bioidentical hormone therapy and topically. And I think it's great, so. So yeah, there's a room for it. But what we do now is just like, oh, you're tired, you have muscle pain. Here you go, here's some testosterone. No one cares about your high blood pressure. No one cares about your how thick your blood is. Right? It's fine.

There's a recommended dose dose range for testosterone for women, right? So it was like, you know.

Yeah, like, remember, it was 35, like, so it's like, it's 0.25 to 1 milligrams a day topically. And for men, you start at 25 milligrams. And you know that what you're getting when people get injected is way higher than that. And it's concerning. It's concerning because then they come to me in my primary care practice and I have to deal with their blood pressure being high and, you know, where do they go to, to, you know, do phlebotomy to get rid of the, you know, the thick blood that they have because now they're high risk for a stroke or heart attack, all because of testosterone. So they're chasing a different loop, that testosterone loop. What happens is, oh, I feel achy. Let's give you some testosterone initially. That first testosterone you get, that first month, you're going to feel amazing. Then you're going to keep spending the rest of your time on testosterone. That kind of Testosterone. Chasing that high, which you're never going to get again because that's not your problem. Your problem is not your testosterone. Well, these, these people's testosterone is like a, like over a thousand. It's clearly that's not the issue anymore. If you're still achy and not feeling well and libido is an issue. Can't possibly be testosterone if your testosterone level's at a thousand. Right. So for some reason that's lost on them.

Yeah, yeah. So what other methods do you use to help people decrease their inflammation and improve their vitality? Like some important things that's part of your regimen.

Okay. So of course, nutrition. We discussed supplements. I love supplements. Not instead of, but as part of this complete breakfast. And every time I say that, I know how old I am because that was in our commercials. I'm 50, by the way. Supplements. I love supplements because there's just certain things, like even if you have a high quality food you need again, it's dependent on what's going on with you. But I think everyone should be on a high quality multivitamin. Everyone should be on nac, which breaks down into glutathione, which is like an antioxidant that is magical for your liver. Everyone should be on vitamin D. Of course, check your levels. They should be on some vitamin D. That's a baseline. And I think almost everyone should be on some form of omega because it's so great for inflammation. And that's your baseline. That's what I start my patients on as a basement. And, and then we customize based on what we see. So supplements is a big part of what's happening. Sleep. Oh my goodness. Sleep. We have to optimize your sleep. If you're eating gluten free ice all day and taking all your supplements and you're not sleeping, we're not reducing your inflammation. And for those of you who are concerned about memory loss or Alzheimer's, if you don't get your sleep in, just look it up. If you don't get your sleep in, cognitive decline is happening. You have to sleep quality sleep, seven to eight hours. You know, that mindset of like whoever sleeps less, you know, early bird gets the worm. And you know, top CEOs only sleep for three hours. No, don't believe the hype. You need to sleep. And we try to optimize it. A lot of it again goes back to nutrition because if you have a glass of wine at night, you're not sleeping. You have a big meal before you go to sleep. You're not sleeping. So distancing your last meal from dinner, making sure there's no alcohol or a lot of carbs at dinner, you'll sleep better. And then sometimes you need supplements that are melatonin and other supplements to help you sleep. Stress. We have to talk about stress, self care. So we need that as well. Everyone has stress. I'm not telling you that we need to go out and hug a tree every day, although that would be nice. I'm just saying you need to take moments for yourself in your stressful life. I think those are the pillars. Nutrition. How we eat, when we eat, how we sleep, the supplements we take, and how we're managing our stress.

Yeah, yeah, exercise, that's the foundation, but it's a journey we can always keep optimizing. I mean, there are more and more things they're discovering, even just from genetics, right? Who is fit to do what kind of food is best for you, what kind of exercise is best for you. We're all built so differently. That's what I realized that people, people talk about certain diet being best for them, but it may not be the best for you because your body just doesn't digest that type of food in the most beneficial way. And even people with you have to look at what does your brain do, because some people may have addiction, may have food addiction, may have carb addiction. So the high carb diet may work for somebody that, that doesn't have food addiction, but doesn't mean that you can touch it. You know, that, that, that is, you know, all free for you. So it's, it's just, it's very complex. But I think it's a journey and I, I hope people realize that this is a journey and, and, you know, enjoy getting to know yourself.

Yes, that's a really good point. And you know, the carb thing that you brought up is really important because people have a family history for diabetes, right? And so that means that person A will have just a little bit of carbs and they'll develop diabetes. B, that doesn't have the genes. They could still get diabetes, but they'll have to eat the carbs for much longer, for many more years before they get diabetes. And it feels unfair because how come, you know, Joe Schmo can have all this pizza and not got diabetes? And as soon as I look at bread, I have diabetes. And that is genetics. But knowing that is really important. Knowing that, you know, your neighbor's diet is not necessarily going to work for you. It's a really good point that you bring up.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the wisdom that in the end people say, have a diet. Take a diet that's best for you. Find your. It's like, jesus, that's not helping. I have to find my own diet.

Which is why, you know, we create like, we create a system because we have to start somewhere, which is why we do it so restricted. But then ultimately where we end up is so patient dependent.

Yeah, yeah. This is such a good discussion. Yeah. You know, a lot of really helpful tips for people. So. But you mentioned nac. Can people still get it?

Yes. You know, I know that there's like this conversation of a shortage, but we haven't experienced it. Have you experienced it?

I have not. I've not tapped into it, so I.

Haven'T looked at it.

But I know there's this big.

There's a big push.

But you have been able to.

We've been able to get it. Okay, good. So for, you know, for your listeners who may not know, there's this big push to regulate nac because, I don't know, the powers that be think that it should be regulated. So far it hasn't been. And so we've able to offer it orally. Nac, as I said, breaks down to glutathione and then we also give it in IVs as Glutathione push.

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's good news. See how long they last.

Fingers crossed.

Yeah. So, you know, one reason I wanted to invite you on the podcast is because, you know, you're doing medicine in this new fashion. And I think that's really where things are going. You know, medicine is going through a seismic change. People may not realize, you know, people who are stuck in conventional medicine, they're not seeing it coming and they're dismissing, dismissing. And there are patients who are so locked in by their doctors that they think the doctors know it all. The sad truth is that what most doctors practice in the conventional medicine is 20 years behind what the science is showing. Because you had a PhD, so you're in the science aspect. You know, science is way ahead of medicine. And what I love about function of medicine or anti aging medicine, you know, this whole group of medicine is that it's following, is following new research. It's like whatever that's coming in, we are absorbing it. And that's why it is so, so exciting. And it's just going to take over.

I think it has to take over. And here's the thing about functional medicine. I can't hurt you. I'm not giving you a pill that's going to have a side effect. Okay, I can't hurt you. If I help you eat healthier and get more sleep, I can't harm you. Whereas some of the things that we do, myself included in primary care, I mean, you read the side effects, they're scary. So you constantly have to, when you're prescribing things, risk reward, risk reward. I got to give it to them because guidelines doesn't really have to. But I know that all these things can happen. It's. It's a terror. I'm actually more terrified when I practice primary care because I know all the side effects of what I'm prescribing, but yet I have to give it. Whereas in functional medicine, I'm worry free. I know what we're doing is good for you. Yeah, it's a great place to be in.

It's wonderful. So you're in New York, right? So how do people find you?

So the website is the new method. And new is spelled with a K, the new method. And that's true also for Instagram, Facebook, apparently very popular in TikTok. Also not really sure why. So it's the new method by Dr. E. We also have YouTube and any of those, whatever platform you like. There is a way to just book a free consult if you ever wanted to. You're not sure what we offer, what we do. We could do a virtual consult and we could talk about. But also if you just go on our platforms, I give a lot of advice. My book is coming out May 11th and in that book, it's called it's not in your head, because so many people are told in their head. And I really give a step by step guide for you to be able to manage this on your own if you want to. Because I really want to empower patients to be able to figure this out on their own. It's not about me holding on that information. So when this book comes out, hopefully you get it and it helps you because that's the whole point of writing it. And yeah, I hope to hear from you guys, but even if I don't, please use the messages, please use the videos, the platforms to help yourself get to a better place.

Wonderful. Yeah, we'll put a link in the information below as well.

Sounds great.

Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Bye. Bye. So I hope you have enjoyed our conversation and if you did, please like and subscribe. And I look forward to seeing you at the next episode.