Understanding Oxidative Stress: A Key to Better Health with Dr. Cheryl Burdette

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Welcome back to the Senergy podcast. Today we are thrilled to Once again host Dr. Cheryl Burdett, a powerhouse in integrative and naturopathic medicine. As the director of education at the Progressive Medical center, co founder of Precision Point Diagnostics, and A global lecturer, Dr. Burdett brings unmatched expertise in evidence based natural therapies and cutting edge clinical insights. With a rich background in laboratory science and translational research, she is on a mission to empower practitioners and patients alike. In this episode, Dr. Burdett dives into the fascinating world of oxidative stress, shedding light on its impact on health and the tools we can use to combat it effectively. Let's jump in.

Welcome back, senergy listeners. Lori and I are so excited to have Dr. Cheryl Burdette back with us on the podcast. Today we're going to be digging into this topic around oxidative stress and how it affects you and why you should be aware of oxidative stress burden. And we're always just so happy when Cheryl can join us for some time together. So thank you for being here.

Yeah, it's always my pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

So we're going to kick off by just asking you, why is oxidative stress so important? And what is oxidative stress?

Yeah. While oxidative stress may sound foreign, really, the concept is probably familiar to most people out there. The idea is, are we getting enough antioxidants to control free radicals in our body? And we've all heard how free radicals are bad, and maybe we've even heard how free radicals can damage our DNA and be a precursor or a risk for even mutations or cancer. And so we know antioxidants are good for us. We know those are in leafy greens and in our fruits and in our vegetables. But how do we know if we're getting enough for our system? And so even though the stress of free radicals is highly associated with two of our top two killers, heart disease and cancer, it's not something that's routinely measured. And that's unfortunate because it really has widespread applicability.

Yeah. Yeah. And I would imagine that looking at oxidative stress as a part of a person's wellness plan, to really refine a plan is it's critical, it really shouldn't be. And I think sometimes we think about it as maybe being one of those, maybe we'll do that, where I think we need to really start shifting and looking at it more as an initial baseline before we even start working with clients. Correct.

Yeah. Absolutely. So many of us will go and do our. Hopefully all of us go and do our yearly physicals and get our lab work done that we need to. To trend what's going on in our body. But then so often we'll look at that lab work and say, what on here tells me if I'm at risk for cardiovascular disease? And we might get some basic lipids that help with that to a degree. Or we might say, well, what on ear tells me if I'm risk for cancer? And there's really nothing on our yearly screens that do that. Yet oxidative stress contributes to both of those. So by checking in with that, we can look to see where we're at and then figure out what we need to do in terms of prevention. Are we getting enough from diet? Do we need to do more with our diet? Do we need to do more with various supplements or nutrients out there? Unless we're measuring, we don't really know if we're keeping up with enough antioxidants to squelch free radicals. And that's what helps to prevent disease.

Right.

So, Doctor, Dr. Burnett, you mentioned cardiovascular disease and you mentioned cancer, and those are the two biggies. But we're seeing more and more neurodegenerative disease states, Right? That's the big topic today. And that's also oxidative stress burden is one of the biggest drivers for neurodegenerative diseases as well. And we really don't have good primary care markers to pick that up early, right?

Absolutely. It's not really debated out there why we're seeing an increase in terms of allergies and food sensitivity and autoimmunity and even more kids on the spectrum. It's pretty well agreed that that is stress from the environment, that it has to do with toxicity in the environment. I mean, I certainly would say it's multifactorial, but that factor is pretty well established. But then again, you ask yourself, what are we doing to measure how much our exposure is. Has our body hit threshold with that? Because we can all think about these examples, how people vary from person to person. And I think an easy way to kind of visualize this is a toxin that most of us are pretty familiar with is alcohol. And so some people could have one drink and be fallen over at the party. And some people, you just watch what they do, and you're like, wow, I can't believe they're still standing. And so that's an analogy to how toxins are in our body. And some people are very fragile in the face of them. Some people tend to have more robust ability to withstand them. But how do you know? Now, alcohol's easy because you can feel it. But if it's environmental pollution, things in the air or in the water, you don't feel those in the same way. And so how do you know? And like you said, they are highly associated with neurologic conditions, from dementia to depression. I mean, good studies that just came out that talked about women who lived in areas where there was more pollution in the air were more at risk for dementia. But again, are you personally at threshold. And measuring oxidative stress tells you that and lets you know, okay, either I'm in a place where I'm protected, I'm getting enough antioxidants to keep up with the environment around me, or I'm not. And I need to change things I'm doing. I need to add to my treatments, I need to change my diet to address the exposure I have.

So, Dr. Burdette, you've mentioned some things that drive oxidative stress burden. You mentioned alcohol. You mentioned some environmental exposures that can do that. And I think back as I was preparing for this podcast, you know, back 15 years ago, the conversation was around mercury. You know, how we were being mercury exposed and mercury was bad. Now arsenic's on the scene, and I don't know a way of completely avoiding arsenic, because it's in our water sources, it's in rice, it's in chicken. We're just getting exposed to arsenic. What are the other things? Medications, alcohol? What are the other things that drive oxidative stress burden?

Yeah. So I think we're even learning more about forever chemicals playing a role, seeing more connection with that and oxidative stress, and therefore linked to various conditions, all of the various PCBs and xenoestrogens that are in our environment. So things that are from plastics and things that are from, like, flame retardants and things that are various solvents, all of these things have an exposure risk. And, you know, again, it's not a question in terms of, you know, are they carcinogenic, but the argument is how much exposure until it becomes a threat. And measuring oxidative stress, it tells you that when you're getting enough oxidative stress, that it does damage to your DNA, which is being measured on a test like this, that's when you're at risk for a mutation. So rather than wonder, we can look at this process and then know how to intervene and how to prevent what's going on with that, yeah.

Tell us a little bit about the science behind this test. I mean, first of all, you can tell how enthusiastic you are about just talking about the test as a whole. But us, you developed this, right? You are part of the development of it. So tell us a little bit about that backstory, the why and the how you did that.

Yeah, so when we think about integrative medicine or functional medicine, a couple of key pillars that we're very concerned with are inflammation. And, you know, often we think about gut based inflammation, things that happen in the gut, foods that we're eating, or bugs that are there. But another big pillar is toxicity, because it creates this oxidative stress or these free radicals. So in terms of development, I wanted to be able to have benchmarks that said, okay, are you at threshold with that toxicity? And so one way to do that might be to say, all right, let's measure every chemical out there. Let's measure every possible exposure and see how much we have. Well, the issue with that is, even if I am a newborn baby, my umbilical Cord has over 1300 pollutants in it, the contaminants from the environment. So that's pretty quickly a pretty large test if we already have to look at 1300 things. And that's probably just the short list. And so measuring every toxin out there is really not possible. But what's the question we're asking? The question is not really exactly what is the toxin? Because the interesting thing is many of them do similar things in our body. Some are more extreme, some less extreme. Yes, mercury is going to be a bit stronger than cadmium, a bit stronger than arsenic, but still, if I have enough arsenic, it can still do a certain level of damage. And so different PCBs or different xenoestrogens, yes, they could act slightly differently. But the real question is, how much impact are they doing to our body? Instead of saying, let's measure each toxin, saying, when are we at threshold? That, to me, seemed like a much more relevant clinical question. We can start there with most of our patients and say, yes, you're at threshold, you need to do a detox and then work with them. Another good thing is that we don't need a different compound for all those 1500 environmental contaminants out there. It turns out it's a handful of things that we generally reach for. Things that increase glutathione are one of the larger categories of things that we'll use to detox and pull things out of the body. So that way saying is Your tissue being damaged, do you have enough of the major intracellular antioxidant that protects you? No. Okay, let's do some general detox, see where you get, and then decide if we more niche testing, maybe more specific guidance. But in general, we know we're all exposed, so seeing how it's impacting ourselves really makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

So it sounds like what you're saying is it's really more individualized as well.

It's absolutely.

So it's more about where. How your body's behaving right now based on your exposures.

Absolutely.

Utilizing that over time, after implementing different strategies, you can measure are they effective or are they not?

Yeah. Because otherwise we're just sort of left, you know, wandering around looking at a bottle of supplement, wondering, should I be adding something else? But this gives us a directed way to know, are we on enough intake, Are we on enough nutritional support to maintain our level of oxidative stress, instead of guessing. And the thing is, many pathologies are driven by this oxidative stress. So if you can calm it down, you calm down pathology as well. We talked about cardiovascular disease, we talked about cancer risk. We talked about things neurologic, but even things, I won't say more minor. But even like how we metabolize our hormones can be affected by oxidative stress, even how we are making things like thyroid hormone can be impacted. And so we just see that in general, the body does not function as well when there are higher levels of oxidative stress. It's kind of like the flip side of we don't function well when we have low nutrition. Well, we also don't function well when we have high oxidative stress. So fixing this fixes a lot of things. And so from mold toxicity to metal toxicity to environmental toxicity, these oxidative stress markers go up in our body when we've had too much exposure.

Yes. So as part of that test, you're looking at glutathione levels, which is the masteryou mentioned that the master antioxidant that the body makes. It's an intrinsic nutrient and antioxidant that the body can make if we have the CO factors to make it. So let's talk about glutathione.

Yeah, I love glutathione. It's a major intracellular antioxidant for the body. And in terms of the detox piece, we think about the liver, and it's very nourishing to the liver. But you also brought up things neurologic, and I think that, that's fascinating as well, because the brain really concentrates and needs high levels of glutathione in when we think about things like anxiety and depression, most of us would think about a neurotransmitter and maybe that neurotransmitter is too low, something like serotonin. So you take medications that increase serotonin. And that's not wrong, but it's only part of the story. There are also plenty of studies that say we can be depressed or anxious not because the neurotransmitter's off, but because that major antioxidant of the brain is off, glutathione. So research talks about low glutathione, increasing risk of anxiety and depression, depression and so increasing glutathione. I always talk to patients about. It's like if we're trying to get something to grow like a garden, we wouldn't just throw seeds onto soil that was dried up, that was cracked, that had no nutrition. The same thing is true in this case. If we can get more glutathione in the brain, those seeds of serotonin will work better, will thrive better. And it really is kind of that whole idea of integrative medicine. It's not just modulating biofuels chemistry, but what's the person, what's the person's environment that surrounds that biochemistry? And really that's glutathione. That's our intercellular, our most potent antioxidant that nourishes that tissue, that globally helps the tissue do the jobs it should be doing. And so you see it implicated in so many things, things neurologic, but also again, cardiovascular disease and even cancer risk from when our glutathione status is low. But again, it's like this major intracel antioxidant, but people aren't looking at it once a year, which is a shame.

So how do we know when to supplement with the CO factors for glutathione versus glutathione itself?

Yeah, so I would say that usually starting with the CO factors is a good first place to start because the major rate limiting step in terms of making glutathione is having just that, those cofactors. And in particular one called N acetylcholine. And after, you know, looking at glutathione testing for decades, I'll tell you that N acetylcysteine, not that expensive. And it does a great job really moving the mark in terms of increasing glutathione. And so if we have moderately low glutathione and somebody, you know, who's going to absorb pretty well and whatnot. NAC is a great way to start increasing levels of glutathione. From there we can also give glutathione and some people are going to be so depleted that you might even be starting with IV glutathione. Because just bypassing the whole oral piece really escalates levels quite nicely. And if you're really trying to saturate that tissue, sometimes that's the way you need to start to really saturate the tissue in the brain to really saturate that cardiac tissue or sometimes even lung conditions we think about for glutathione. But again then from there, not only giving the building blocks, but turning on the genes that tell our body to make glutathione. So those are things that you might have heard of, like milk thistle. So we think of that for detox. And part of the mechanism is that it increases glutathione. It turns on genes to make glutathione. But one of my all time favorites is a compound from broccoli called glucosinolate that the gut converts to something else called sulforaphane. Lots of big words, but the bottom line of it is that compound from broccoli turns on in our own body. So systems that make our own glutathione. And so if we give the building blocks and turn on the genes at the same time to make the glutathione, that's a beautiful one too. But ultimately, having people eat an organic diet increases their glutathione. So it's lifestyle, it is things that we can take and sometimes it's really doing some heavy hitters, some IVs to really saturate and get people going.

So is there ever a concern where we would be giving glutathione either orally or iv, that we would decrease their natural production of glutathione? I oftentimes get that question, yeah, no.

There'S not a feedback inhibition. And so that's what we talk about when there's something in the body that, that, that once it's made, says, okay, we have enough, slow down the production. Like thyroid, for example, has that feedback inhibition, but glutathione does not have a feedback inhibition. So it's not really something that we can overdo. You could have, I mean, you could make the very extreme argument that we need some tiny low level of free radical to stimulate activity in tissue and that's true. But every time you breathe, you create a free radical. Every time you move, you create free radicals. So to get too low in these on planet Earth is really extremely difficult to do.

So what are some of the other markers within the test? So it is the total glutathione, and then it's the rudeness glutathione.

Correct.

So tell us about that.

Yeah. So there's a couple ways you can look at glutathione. And so glutathione has multiple types or parts, and they're almost exact opposites of each other. So one is called the oxidative type or part or form, and that's once the glutathione is used up. So it's out there trying to find those free radicals, trying to donate that electron to get rid of that charge. And once that happens, it's used up. Now it's oxidized, and the reduced form is the form that's ready to go, ready to squelch that free radical, to jump on that free radical and shut it off. So total glutathione looks at both of those together, but we tease out the reduced, the active form. So that, you know, well, is your glutathione, not only do you have enough, but is it all used up or is it in that active state? And that's clinically relevant because you can increase the activity of it with different nutrients like alpha lipoic acid and selenium. Those help to reduce it. Some various B vitamins as CO factors, magnesium. So it gives us some clinical direction as well.

So how do hormones play into antioxidant balance?

Yeah. So in a system that has lots of oxidative stress, these are our patients that struggle with hormonal issues and also struggle with hormonal therapy as well. Most of the time, when we introduce hormones, it's in somebody that we've tested. We know their levels are low and they respond super well to it. They feel great with it. But you can always have outliers. No two people are the same. And so when we see those women or men who don't receive hormones in the way that we would normally expect, they just have more trouble. They don't feel as good from it as we would expect. Those are often people with higher levels of oxidative stress. And the reason those go together is because when there's more oxidative stress, you start taking these hormones in directions that make more aggressive metabolites, or you don't clear these hormone metabolites nearly as well. And those metabolites can have a different activity than the hormone themselves. So basically it's just back to a detox question again. When we have lower oxidative stress, we're detoxing better. And, and really our hormones, we need to make them, we need to have them, but we also need to detox them effectively as well to keep them in balance. And so we are going to feel much better when we either are either making our own hormones or using hormones in an environment with lower oxidative stress.

How does cortisol imbalance, especially high cortisol, affect antioxidant function? And have there been any studies on stress management techniques helping? Like, do you know anything in that regard?

Yeah, absolutely. So on one hand you might think, well, okay, cortisol stress hormone and it is anti inflammatory. So you might think, okay, well it just goes up, it's super anti inflammatory and maybe you suppress your immune system, but at least there's not a lot of inflammation or oxidative stress. Unfortunately, that's not the case because when cortisol gets high enough, then the body says, oh my gosh, there's something that's causing this stress. And evolutionarily speaking, that stress was more likely to be something like an infection. And so the body says, okay, we've got all this cortisol, we must be, we're fighting some stress, let's increase inflammatory cytokines. And those are things that create basically a fire in the body. They're supposed to be there to kill off bugs. But if our system is confused and we're just under a lot of stress, producing lots of cortisol, it still tells our DNA to make these inflammatory cytokines, things like IL6 and TNF Alpha. So it creates more inflammation, it creates more oxidative stress. I mean, I think like, you know, the biochemistry is one thing, but I think that this is really an easy concept. Like look at all those pictures of people before they were president and after they were president and you go like, wow, that was only four years or eight years and they look like 60 years older in that time. That's stress. And that happens to us visually, but it's happening on a cellular level as well.

So they were resting and they had no idea they were resting. Right. Just because of the stress that they're under during that short period of time. Incredible. So have there been any studies on stress management techniques? Looking at, looking at, just curious.

Yeah, absolutely. So they'll do those a number of ways. And so one of the things that responds really quickly so not actually on this test, but one that. That gets folded in a lot is actually secretory iga, but from your saliva. So that's one that will just bounce back real quickly after, like, as you're first returning from stress. So they'll look at that in things like marathon runners. It goes down as you're running and then bounces back quickly. But then there are some studies where they looked at, for example, people that were who enrolled in certain retreats, and at those retreats, they were fed organic diets and also engaged in meditation and relaxation activities. And you're able to even track these markers of oxidative stress and see them go down. And even some of our conventional markers, like things like there's something called homocysteine that goes up, and it's a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. They've even shown that that will be high in. In people that are more pessimistic. And as we are more optimistic, as we do things that help to reduce stress and improve our mood, you can even see these cardiovascular markers improve. So, yes, we're very connected. And stress has a real physical impact on the body right down to this oxidative stress that damages DNA that increases our risk for disease. So if you just thought that was made up. Oh, yeah, whatever about stress. No, it creates this real physiologic impact that we feel on a cellular level.

I feel like prior to having access to a test like this, we were using oxidative LDL as a marker for oxidative stress. How do those two markers relate?

It's a good marker of oxidative stress. It's just a question of where are you measuring the oxidative stress? And so it's in the same way that we'll measure different lipids, looking at different markers of oxidative stress can point us in different clinical directions. And the reason for that is because certain ones are more associated with various conditions. So that oxidized LDL you just mentioned is actually probably the worst type of cholesterol. We're familiar with HDL and ldl, but when LDL gets oxidized, this is when it becomes. Become sticky. This is when it activates the immune system. This is the key thing that tells it to become a plaque. And so when those fats, those lipids get oxidized, that's when they get really angry and sticky. And so they're a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. And oxidized LDL is one of the best risk factors for cardiovascular disease. I mentioned one called 8oHDG and that goes up when not fats are being damaged, but more proteins and in this case proteins from the DNA. And so like I mentioned, when we damage the DNA, that can be a risk factor for a mutation. But there's also DNA in the mitochondria and that's where we produce energy. So that can tell you if more of your proteins are at risk. And there's so much activity that's controlled in the body by proteins, right down to the nucleus, the brain of the cell. And so different people will be fragile in different compartments. And so again, they're predictive in different directions. 8 OHDG more predictive in terms of things fatigue related and even things neurologic, although some cardiovascular as well. Finally we look at F2 isoprostane. That's also a fat that gets oxidized. And so when that is oxidized conditions related to things around fat, well, your brain is 80% fat. So when F2 isoprostane is high, when fats are oxidized, it's a risk for the brain as well. High F2 isoprostane is more associated with things neurologic. It's got a little cardiovascular too. But again, again shines in that neurologic space. So we look at different oxidative stress markers because different compartments in the body can have different reactiveness from one person to another. This is why we get different diseases. Even though we might be exposed to a similar thing. It gets expressed in different ways in different people.

Yeah, and this is why we say all the time one diagnostic marker doesn't.

Tell the whole story, right?

Oh absolutely. You wouldn't go in for a physical and just look at cholesterol, right?

Yeah, same marker.

So you mentioned measuring like before and after a retreat. I think that's fascinating. How long does it typically take to change physiology? So if we're doing a test like what would be a recommended time frame to retest to see are the modalities that we're using, how impactful are they? Are we getting where we want to go? How much more work do we have to do?

Yeah, you can see that 8.0hdg go up pretty quickly because it is in fact a marker of repair. So it's starts to go up as oxidative damage is being repaired. So even within a couple weeks that one can shift fairly nicely. It takes longer for F2 isoprostane to go up because that's fat oxidation. So you've got to change those cell membranes, you've got to change the fats that are in the brain to change the damage that's there. So that one probably takes the longest and I'd put glutathione about in the middle. Middle. So F2 isoprostine, you probably really want to treat that for eight to 12 weeks. So doing follow up testing more around that three month mark is probably where you most want to look at something. But if you really had to track something more quickly, you could do 800 HDG to do that.

And there are different ways to look at 8oHDG, correct? Right.

Yeah.

Your testing utilizes blood, right?

It does blood for glutathione. But our 800 HDG is done through the urine, as is the EP2 isoprostane. Yeah, yeah.

So you do it through the urine. There are other companies out there doing it through the urine as well. So speak to the differences around your testing and some of the other ones that might be on the market.

Yeah, so I think that actually 8ohTG is a marker that's pretty reproducible. It's not changed a lot by diet or extraneous things out in the environment. Like it has a, a lot of stability to it. So really you should see a pretty good correlation from an 8.0hdg like that we do or that other labs do. We're a precision point. But other labs like Doctors Data or Genova also do 8.0hdg but you'll see pretty good correlation between them because it's not a finicky marker. It's nice and easy to work with.

Okay, so are you saying that other ones that you do test for are a little more finished.

That are out there. So like for example, like 8oHDG, you'll see it on other tests on for example an organic acid and I think it's one of the more stable that's on there. But some of the other organic acids that get reported, maybe not as much, but no, actually this oxidative stress test, that's one of the nice things about it. F2 isoprostane is really reproducible as well. This is a very good methodology for glutathione to. So if anyone, if any of them are more fragile, it is that glutathione and that's why it is overnight shipped to deal with that. But yeah, so the other two are nice and just real easy in terms of lab response.

So when I think about prepping for a test like this, are there any specific do's and don'ts prior to having testing like this?

So don't exercise extremely Heavily Right before you do the test, because we know that can create some inflammation and oxidative stress. I would also not take things that increase glutathione on that very morning, like don't get a glutathione IV that morning, or don't take glutathione or N acetylcysteine that morning. But the days before are okay. But otherwise it's a pretty easy test, and there's not. There's not too much you can do to mess it up.

So what about sauna therapy? I always worry about someone doing a sauna the day before or the day of the test. Would you recommend that they hold sauna for a week or so before, or.

At least don't do it that morning of. Yeah. And then probably the day before, just to be safe. Yeah, yeah, good point. Good point.

And then I was reading where some antibiotics deplete glutathione. So I typically say, you know, if you've been sick or on an antibiotic, let's wait a couple of weeks and get a true baseline.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that we're not.

Artifact creates. They create, I mean, not even artifact. I mean, straight up side effects.

Yeah.

Like fluoroquinolones depleting glutathione. This is why we get toxicity from it. So. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And after isoprostenes, is that also when we ingest foods? And this could be a misnomer. So I'm glad you're on here because we can ask you this, right? If we ingest fish within X amount of hours prior to the testing is, will that cause any. Any difficult?

No, not at all. It doesn't. And that's why F2 isoprostane is just really such a nice marker. It's not influenced by diet or time of day or temperature. Like, it's really reproducible, which is one of the things you want to look for in a marker. You don't want something that wildly fluctuates from morning to evening or so. Yeah. So this is. This. It's really stable.

So, Dr. Burdett, what I hear you saying is that. That stress management is really important part of the lifestyle. I hear that we are being exposed to toxins on a daily basis, and we need a way of buffering for that.

Right.

We need a way of understanding it and a way of buffering for it. We can't avoid everything. We don't. We can't live in a bubble. It's gonna be here. Right. But we need good, solid strategies to Help offload and to support the body. And understanding what our threshold is can be a big part of that. And then I've heard you mention some diet things that we could be doing. I love broccoli. I love broccoli. Microgreen, I think those are easy to throw into a smoothie, throw on top of a salad or whatever you're eating. I'm in love with microgreens. What about things like spirulina and chlorella? Is there any advantage to using things like that as binders and, or gut support and, or nutrient support in a whole food based form?

Yeah, absolutely. They help to improve detoxification, in fact. And another one that, well, you'll often see in a mix with some of those that you just mentioned, you'll often see cilantro show up and some of those too. And I was fascinated. I remember reading some agricultural literature some years back and they would plant the cilantro next to their other crops because it was so effective at pulling the arsenic out of the soil so it would spare like the tomato or whatnot from concentrating the arsenic. So it's even a, it's so good at detoxing and binding it and grabbing it. It's even a strategy that's used agriculturally. Spe. Now that made me think, oh, we better be really careful.

Careful about organic. Yes, yes.

But, but yeah, these things, you know, they're not just like eclectic or just wives tales or that kind of thing. You see good, solid support for using spirulina and cilantro and some of those others in terms of supporting detoxification.

Yeah, I think that oxidative stress was a hot topic years ago. You know, it was like a buzzword. And then I feel like it just dimmed down, maybe in the shadow of other things that became, you know, just hot topics. And I do think it's a very important topic to talk about. I feel like it's so misunderstood. Do you guys feel the same way?

Well, again, I think it's because we know it's bad, but we get this feeling that it's everything we do, everything we eat, so what can you even do about it? And, and again, just said you're not going to live in a bubble. But if we know how our body is doing with it, then we know where to support it or not. And so I think we knew it was bad, but we didn't know how to measure it, we didn't know how to quantify it and what to do about it. And so it was just like, oh, Well, I guess everything's toxic. Forget about it. But another option is to just say, to check in, see where we're at, and then it guides us. Do we need to increase. Increase various green teas and blueberries in our diet and increase certain supplements or decrease them? And so, yes, there's always time and cost with testing, but this can offset in terms of maybe if you're on 12 things and you don't know if they're working or not, well, maybe you need six of those, maybe you need four of them. So it can help direct where our efforts are at.

What I hear you saying is something very important that our patients are always asking is what can they do? And this is something that they can absolutely. It doesn't necessarily. I heard you just say this. It doesn't necessarily mean it's another supplement.

Right.

Very much has to do with the environment. What can we do to reduce that environmental burden? And that is something that. Piece by piece, because that can be overwhelming sometimes, too. But piece by piece, decision by decision, choice by choice, start to make some changes. And now you have a diagnostic marker that says, well, those changes worked for you.

Or maybe there's a study that I love. It was done in women that had had an incidence of breast cancer, and now they were in remission. And they measured 8 oh, DG and F2 isoprostane, these exact markers we were talking about in a group of women. And then what they saw was when it was high, those were people that were more at risk for reoccurrence. But the part I love about this study is in the women that it was high in a large proportion of those women chose, then they looked it, they figured it out, and they began to increase antioxidants in their diet. They did things to help those markers go down. And those women who changed their environmental exposure, their risk of reoccurrence went down as well. So people saw these markers, they knew where they were at, and then it created action because they knew what to do about it.

Yep.

And I'm so glad you mentioned that. I mean, that's my history, right? So having had breast cancer, you know, there's so many things that we all could be doing, but at the end of the day, sometimes we feel so spread thin.

Right.

Wonder, like, what is going to have the most impact? What should we spend time on? And I love that you just said that, because having a marker like that really also, it's a state of alarm, right? A little bit of a, Of a, an alarm factor. Like, yes, it's elevated. Yes. We need to do something about this, and let's get it together now. So sounds like that is the idea, one of the ideal cases, to utilize a test like this. Any form of cancer. But specifically, you could probably extrapolate any form of cancer from the research of breast. Right, yeah.

Prevention. So when this marker goes down, your risk of cancer goes down, and that is associated with a decreased risk of breast and prostate and colon. It's fairly universal throughout the cancer literature. Yeah.

And the other subset of patients, Dr. Burnett, is that chronically fatigued patients? Patient, yeah. You know, they're doing all the things right to help restore their energy, to get back to a place where their energy expenditure makes sense. But for some reason, they're just struggling to kind of break the barrier. So you've mentioned mitochondria a couple of times, and I do think it would take. It would make sense to kind of dig into that a little bit more. How are they impaired with energy production?

Yeah. So that 8 oh, DG, as I mentioned, goes up as a marker of repair, and that's repair of the DNA, and that's in the nucleus of the cell. But we also have DNA, the mitochondria, and this is where a lot of damage takes place, because the mitochondria is that part that's making all that energy. And making all that energy also produces a lot of free radicals. So it's a compartment of the cell where more damage can take place too. So when it goes up 8 OHDG is associated with chronic fatigue and mitochondrial disorders. In addition to that, we know higher levels of glutathione really nurture that mitochondria and help but to make more ATP, or cellular energy. And so glutathione is also a marker of mitochondrial wellness. So we can look at both of those to gauge the health of the mitochondria. That's where we're making energy. And so in our patients that experience more chronic fatigue, a reason could be an increase in oxidative stress. And this would help us to figure that out.

Awesome. Awesome. I love that. I love having these tools available. Available. Learning how to use them, when to use them, and then better yet, what to do to correct for when we're seeing dysfunction happen. And then if they have a beautiful test come back, I mean, they know they're winning, right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yep. And the hope of knowing that they can. Right.

I think there's a lot that it's not overwhelming, that even though it's in the air, it's in the water, it's in the food. There are things we can do about it. We can be proactive and it's not just doom and gloom, right?

That's right.

Well, thank you so much once again for joining us. Like we, you are always just a welcomed, a welcomed individual that comes to bless us with your knowledge, your experience. Like, we love when we meet you at the conferences, but we really like the, the opportunity to do these podcasts with you because it gets out to a larger audience because what you have to say and what you have to offer and just what you've given of yourself in the time of, you know, developing these labs and what you do, that is a bless. So thank you so much for joining us.

Well, I feel the same by being here and thank you guys for helping to get the word out to help more people.

Absolutely.

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