Longevity and How to Reduce Aging with Dr. Ginger Sweetan

Today on Midlife Conversations, I've got one of my favorite people, my personal doctor, Dr. Ginger Sweet Hand. She is a naturopathic ND. She is my go to doctor. She is incredible. And she specializes in, you'll love this, Reversing aging. I love that because my last book title was Aging in Reverse. So, you know, I love that topic. And she really. Oh, she's got it. She's holding it up if you're watching on video. Yeah, she's really known as the longevity doctor and she helps with everything as far as hormone changes and where we are nutrition, you know, where we are might be deficient with nutrition. She was the one that caught things with me that no other doctor had caught with me. I'm so fortunate and happy to have her here today. Thank you for being here.

Oh, thanks for having me.

So let's go back a little bit and rewind. You have been in medical for a long time. In midlife, though, you transitioned to becoming a naturopath. Can you talk about that and why you chose that path and what a naturopath even is?

Yeah, absolutely. So I entered healthcare in the early 1990s in the US Navy. I was a hospital corpsman and EMT and then eventually challenged the state board and became a nurse. Always wanted to be a doctor. It was my goal. I was going to go to one of the Ivy Leagues. I was checking all the boxes I do in volunteer work. I'm getting straight A's. But then life happened and I got really ill. I had autoimmune disorder. And even though the conventional world did their very best to help me, and I truly believe that some beautiful people, amazing souls, it just wasn't enough, Natalie. And I was suffering and it took me a long time to get back on my feet. But during that time frame, you know, I'm taking care of kids, I'm running a Girl Scout troop. I'm doing all of these things but not feeling incredible. And then I stumbled upon naturopathic medicine. They actually opened up a medical school in San Diego. It meant I didn't have to sell my home. I didn't have to uproot my family. I could stay here and attend medical school. So I went to an orientation and I actually cried all the way home. I joke about this, but it's seriously a true story. I was listening to gangster rap and I'm crying like I found my tribe cool. And I knew that that is the avenue that I had to pursue because one, I would get a rigorous education, a four year medical education Just like any doctor. But my approach would be different. You know, naturopathic doctors believe that our body has an innate ability to heal itself. And I share that sentiment, which is why I went this route. And so eventually I began to feel significantly better and thought, all right, I can do all this. And so in my 40s, as you know, as a mom commuting three hours a day, still initially working, I went to medical school.

Wow. And I love that because I love when I watch women especially breakthrough in midlife and become something different, reinvent. And you've, you've really fully done that. Now when you look at naturopathic medicine, it, you know, it sort of gets this bad rap around amongst the medical community. Sometimes it seems newer, up and coming. I actually prefer naturopathic medicine. So can you, can you talk to me, talk to the audience a little bit about like, what is the difference? Like what's that you said it believes you believe the body has an innate ability to heal itself. But what I find you do is really a cross between conventional medicine and that. So can you explain more like how you operate as a naturopathic ND Yeah.

So maybe my approach is a little bit different just because of my background, but I would argue that the majority of naturopathic doctors share my sentiment. Were trained in conventional medicine. It is a rigorous four year program. Having to have had a bachelor's degree before and meet all the pre med requirements. So your organic chemistry, your chemistry, your biochemistry, your physics, all that you have to have before entering medical school. The difference being is that the first two years are essentially the same. You're getting all your basic sciences. We're in dissection lab learning biochemistry.

I could smell the formaldehyde as you say that I.

Me too. It's like permanently burned into my soul. But it's the same for those two years, except for that Natalie, we actually take more credits. So I was on a quarter system and I took 31 credits in a quarter, not a semester, not a year. And that's because in addition to all the basic sciences, we're learning nutrition, diet, lifestyle counseling, what we like to refer to, sort of like vitality. And I think that that's what differentiates us.

Yeah. And it. And he does because I think most conventional doctors, they, they have like a course on nutrition, like one cor. It's not. They don't fully really get educated on that. They learn more. The treatment versus prevention I find.

Right. No, and you're right. And in my conventional colleagues defense, because I love them and they're beautiful people. And they did not go into medicine to say we're going to be controlled by the pharmaceutical industry or the insur. You know, they went in it with open hearts and brilliant minds and they're sort of trapped. So in their defense, they just don't learn that that's not part of their education. But now we see people saying, we're not okay with this. And so they're going into, quote unquote, functional medicine to learn things. That was just part of our regular curriculum.

Yes. Yes. Makes sense. Okay, so when you. I met and I actually met Dr. Sweet Hand at the ER and the reason I ended up at the urgent care, I had a broken foot. She was the doctor that came out and treating me and she was asking me, I remember going in there for a broken foot and she asked me about my diet. And I thought, okay, who are you? This is not a normal doctor question. And I love. And I instantly connected with her because of that. To learn then that she had been opening, was working on opening up her own practice. So how did you go down this road of I'm going to focus on longevity. I'm going to help people actually reverse aging. Where did that come from?

Yeah, so I am, I think, I think it's really interesting that you use those words and I, and I know you didn't use anti aging, and I'm glad you didn't use anti aging because I don't use anti aging. It's something I've always been doing. Nadalie, my messaging just wasn't on point in terms of like being a business owner because naturopathic medicine is longevity medicine. You know, we lay the foundations for living a long, healthy, beautiful life. Not a long life, but a healthy life. So it's what we refer to as health span. So it's what I've always been doing. I just haven't been calling it that. And now with huge advances in science and technology, there are actually tests that we can do that measure your biologic age. So I thought, all right, if I'm already doing this, but people don't really know what to call it, I need to change what I'm calling it so that they can better understand what I'm doing. And, and that's sort of how this has come to fruition.

Okay, so what comes into play when we look about and the reason I don't say I don't like anti aging because we're all going to age and I believe we can age differently depending on what we choose, the actions we take. However, it's not just, it's what we believe, it's what we're taking in, it's what we're putting out. It's the research and self, self advocation that we do ourselves too. So I believe that even though we cannot actually, I don't want to be say anti age, we're going to age anyway. We can do it differently and do it well. So what are some of the things that you think are a must as far as testing and treatment to fall into that camp of aging?

Well, yeah. So I'm going to tell you what they are. But before I do, I just want to talk about something that I think is just so foundational. So every day have this little card stack and I pick it up and just randomly go to one of these sayings today. This is true. This is absolutely true. It comes up with authenticity.

Okay.

And I like to lead my conversations about longevity with authenticity.

Love that.

Because I find that you can do all the testing under the sun. You can go down the rabbit hole of thousands of dollars of testing, see all these specialized practitioners, but if you're not being true to yourself and you don't have the correct mindset, none is going to make a difference. I like to call it C2C. Cut the crap. So you're going to cut the crap with yourself and you're going to cut the crap with others and get real about who you are, what you're doing. Do you have healthy relationships? If you don't have healthy relationships, what are you going to do to change that? And then managing your stress levels. So once, once you do that, then I think you're in a place a proper position to do some testing. So then what testing do you do? Well, obviously I'm a doctor, so I'm medically trained. And so I want to do, you know, basic lab work. I want to look at people's red blood cells and white blood cells. Does it look like they have an infection? Does it look like they're anemic? Things of that nature? Checking kidney and liver function. But I also take advantage of these wonderful advanced genetic biological aging tests. And what those do, they're simple blood tests. You actually just poke your finger and you just put drops on a card and then I send it to a specialized lab. And it's really important that I've chosen the lab that I've chosen because there's a lot of these pop ups out there. They really just want to make money off people and they're not genuinely invested in you as a human being. So the lab that I chose is amazing. They do all this advanced testing in collaboration with some very large entities. Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, you name it. So well vetted is my point.

Okay.

And then we get these test results back and they. What they do is amazing. And I get so excited about it because I think I want to just shout it from the rooftops because I want everyone to know. You put in information about yourself when you fill out your questionnaire and you submit your blood work and it asks you what your birthday is, asks you, are you taking medications? Do you drink, do you smoke? Things like that. Then they look through, and this is sort of like scientific terminology. They look for certain things on your DNA that tell you how all. How old you are biologically versus how old you are chronologically. So the difference between your biology and the difference between how many candles are on your cake.

Okay, we haven't done this on me. Now I need to do this.

I know, I know. I thought this is a perfect opportunity. Chat about it. And so you get it back. And not only does it tell you your biologic age, it tells you the trajectory at which you're aging. So why do you want to know this? Because I am going to be 51 here shortly. 51 years. Fabulous.

So I'm older than you. I just realized that. Okay, you are.

But you are a little older. And we'll use me as an example. So my biologic age, for one of the tests is two years younger. But when it takes into consideration my immune system, like what I'm doing and how I'm treating myself, I'm actually 15 years younger. And when you look at the trajectory of how I'm aging, I'm actually aging better than the average person my age, despite the fact that even though I'm a doctor, I am clinically overweight. You know, we all have issues. That's mine. That's my cross to bear. But even though that's the case, I have healthy aging. And so I am aging in reverse. And that's why I stand firm on that. I'm not afraid to say it. I'm not afraid that people say, oh, Dr. Sweetan, you can't say aging in reverse or reverse aging. You can't say cure. I can and I will, because I believe it and know it to be true.

Okay, it makes sense when you put it that way, because it's not anti aging. You're just that you're saying, how can I appear, feel, thrive at a younger, like a textbook younger age? So like the way that a 40 year old would function versus the way that a 51 year old would that make. That makes sense to me. Okay, so. So testing is obviously important because you've got to know not only just medically what's going on, but then also chronologically, how are. Is your body aging? And then what do we need to do to tweak and reverse that and adjust that? What do you, what, talk to us about some of the basics. Like if you were talking to most women, because most of the people listening to this are in that prime midlife, mostly women. I've got men too, but mostly women in our age group. What are they not doing right now? What that must be done other than testing, because we clearly know how important that is. But what are some things that you're seeing, like from all the people that you see and talk to that like, wow, people are really missing this and they need to be doing these things and stop taking them for granted.

Sitting with themselves. Explain what that means and just asking, what's their why? And I know that, I know that you say this too. You know, what's your why? I say, why do you want to live? Like, who. Who are you living for? Like, what is your purpose in life? I think we get caught up. We get caught up in television and image and social media. And, you know, most of us are at a point in our lives where we don't want to be 20, we don't want to be 30. We want to be the age that we are, but we want to be fabulously so. And to do that, we have to be honest with ourselves. Are we in healthy relationships if we're not in healthy relationships, why? And what are we doing about it? If we have children, do we have healthy relationships with our children? If we don't, why and what are we doing about it? So I would say that's a big thing. Natalie. I see a lot and women, I have male patients too. But I'll be honest, women seem to be juggling a lot more. They're juggling their marriages, they're juggling their motherhood, they're juggling their careers, they're juggling their children.

And then we have the massive hormone swings on top of it at this age.

And then, wow, we're sweating, we're hot, we're cranky, we can't think straight. You know, our libido's in the tank. So just our why? And so I really encourage people to just sit with themselves and be humbly and deeply honest about, like, where they are in their life. And again, C2C. Cut the crap with yourself, with others. People can read through it. They know better, you know better. You're not fooling yourself. So that's one I. Authenticity reigns supreme. You know, live it, love it, do it. And then managing your stress levels, because that is a killer. And I know. Yeah, let's talk.

This is my biggest. I know. This is my biggest problem. I know that my. I can. I was telling Dr. Sweetie that my. I can. Every appointment I'm in with her, I'm like, I can literally feel on my cortisol spikes. And if you all don't know about what a cortisol. If you. I describe it as. It feels like you're. You've had a lot of caffeine, but you haven't like that jittery and, and it's that fight or flight feeling. And I noticed with me, and I don't know if this is across the board with others, but it happens at specific times a day like mine. Three in the morning, I feel it. Cortisol spike. I feel it sometimes around 6 o' clock at night. Like there's these different times where I can actually feel it spike. So I want to talk about that. Because cortisol is the stress hormone and then you combine that with the hormonal changes and you are creating stress. Fat, you're creating heart problems, you're creating. So this is an important topic that gets overlooked. Like what? How do we know that we've got a high cortisol problem? Because that's another big question I'm asking a lot right here. But when you test your labs, you know, you're testing at a certain time of day that might not be during your spike. So how do we know one, do we have a cortisol problem? And then what do we do about it and how do we prevent it?

So I think just being in tune with your body like you are, Natalie, you're really good at like checking in with yourself. This is how I'm feeling. Hey, gosh, why am I feeling this? So again, sit with yourself. Let's say it's noon and you're at work and you're getting ready to take lunch and, and that you've eaten and you drink water and there's nothing else really that you can identify that's going on and yet all of a sudden you feel antsy, you feel nervous. It's not like you're going to present or there's something that you have to do with just random out of the blue.

Or three in the morning. Just wake up with it. Yeah.

Or three in the morning. Well, so we can talk about that too. That's interesting. A lot of people who wake up in the middle of the night, it's because they have sugar dysregulation.

Yeah.

And so you can manage that, you know, some nuts or some protein before you go to bed. Yeah. And that will help with that.

Mine is not that. Mine is literally my. The, the world, God, universe, whatever wakes me up at three in the morning and tells me this massive to do list I have every day. So. So I might be an anomaly there, but it's literally at 3, 3am yes.

And I think the Chinese medicine practitioners would tell us that there's significance to that. I think they say liver, although, you know, okay, we learn a little bit about that. But you know, unless you specialize in that, you don't know. But so it's just taking inventory of yourself. Why is it that you're feeling that? And then if you can't identify why you're feeling that, then maybe there is something that physiologically is going on that you're going to need to address. And especially, especially during these midlife conversations. During our midlife when our hormones are changing so if we don't get a hold of that cortisol, we don't control it in a way that is healthy for us, all of our other hormones are not going to be functioning properly.

Wow.

Because it's this vicious cycle where it's like we in panic mode. Run, run. There's something chasing us. It's dangerous. Our body was designed to do that because we need to be able to escape danger. What it wasn't designed to do is to handle this long term. And our society and our culture here in the United States is such that we have to go, go, go. Be better, be faster, work harder, sleep less, do more. There's always, you know, this on switch. And so I encourage people to journal and to gain insight. And sometimes people roll their eyes and they're like, I don't want to journal, Dr. Sweetan, but it can be really insightful. And then how do you manage that? Well, you manage it with different stress reduction techniques. One of my very favorite is something called Kirtan Kriya. Starts with a K. It is a wonderful meditation and there's a lot of literature to support using it for stress reduction. Also for conditions like Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, depression, anxiety, and the list just goes on and on. It's very simple. To do. I'm a lousy singer. Warn you before you sort of chant, and you touch your fingers and you say, satan.

Oh, I remember you telling me this, and I haven't done it yet, so I'm not.

You touch and you chant. And the way that it changes your physiology is conducive to reducing your stress load.

Okay, so. Yeah, because she. Because I told doctors we can. I'm like, okay. When I feel that way, I just have more CBD oil. And she's like, okay. Okay. So we've had this ongoing conversation about that. That's not a cure. That's a temporary. That's a temporary fix. So I got to start doing the meditation. Yeah, but CBD oil does work temporarily.

Well, it does. And I'm not anti cbd. I'm not even anti thc. I just think that as a naturopathic doctor, I'm like, let's figure out what.

It is THC actually makes. It's so funny, because I think. I think I feel a huge difference between CBD and thc. And. And I want. I feel like I need to shout this from the rooftop. Rooftop tops for women. Because before I wore an Oura ring, I would sleep, like, 10 hours a night and still be tired. And now I know, because with an OURA ring, you can track your deep sleep and your. Your REM sleep. And what I know for sure is when I took THC to sleep, I had, like, five minutes of deep sleep. It was a. Like, it was wild. And I. So. But having cbd, I have over two hours of deep sleep, so there's a big change. CBD and magnesium for me, changed my deep sleep. So I think THC can wreck people's deep sleep. Just my. My thought and raise cortisol. My. I'm not. I'm certainly not a doctor, but that's what I. I think.

No, I. I'm glad you mentioned that, because for many people, they're not understanding that initial sleep, then the deep sleep, then your REM sleep. And that deep sleep is imperative for.

Repair and for aging well.

For sure. And for aging well, because it's the time that you're repairing, and when you're repairing, then you're extending your lifespan because you have the capacity to continue.

So it's dangerous if you're getting five minutes of deep sleep. And it was interesting because I would sleep 10 hours. My husband would sleep five, but his deep sleep would be, like three and a half hours, and mine was five minutes. And that's. That's why I would feel tired at 10. So maybe this is a light bulb moment for some people to track. Check your deep and your REM sleep, because dreaming is REM and that's not the restorative that we need.

No, I'm glad you brought that up. It's a really. It's a really good point. And I'm always just cautious to say I'm not anti thc, but not with respect to what we're talking about. I just mean like, yes, globally, there's. I think there's a time and place for it.

No, I think it's great. I personally, I've taken out of my me because it. It's not helping me with my. Any of my goals. I don't.

And I don't. And I don't do it.

Yeah, I don't. But I am a fan of CBD for. Because it doesn't mess with your brain at all. And it does help me turn off that cortisol. If that cortisol wakes me up at 3am and I do a drop or a CBD, I can go back to sleep. If I don't, I'm up And I'm working 3am no.

And I. And I can appreciate that because I'm very much the same, Natalie. I'm waking up and I'm like, okay, these are the things I have to do. I'm getting up. I'm just doing them. I'm like, well, okay. I didn't sleep much. So, yeah, you know, I have to take my own advice. And so I'm practicing what I'm preaching.

I love it. I love it. Okay, talk about. I want to talk about hormones for a minute because you so Dr. Sweet Hand turned me on to bioidentical and she was not quick to push them. It was me going, I can't navigate these hot flashes for one more moment, so I need something. And so. And what I love about her approach is she is very, very conservative with them. So we go. Is by my understanding correctly, I'm on very, very low dose of bioidenticals. And she. We make sure to track them continually to make sure they are converting correctly in my body. So can you. I want to. My questions here that I. That people. I want to make sure people hear one. What's the difference between hrt, synthetic and bioidentical? Because they are different. Like, what's the difference to what is optimal testing for hormones versus standard testing for hormones? Let's start with that and I'm gonna have some more questions.

Okay, so when we think about hormones most the time as women. We're thinking about our, you know, our female hormones, our estrogen and our progesterone, which is absolutely true, but those are controlled by other hormones that are made in our brain and then also the cortisol that you just talked about. So when we talk about replacing hormones in a conventional world, they will use HRT hormone replacement therapy versus bhrt bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. What's the difference? The hormone replacement therapy or just replacement therapy is synthetic. It's something that is different than what biologically matches up to what your body is producing. And the reason that I think we should be using bioidentical is for obvious reasons, it's because it like what your body is producing. And I don't think there's anything wrong with replacing that. And unfortunately, based on flawed research that was sort of catastrophized over the news in the newspaper that hormones are terrible, that it's causing increase in all cause mortality for women. Meaning like it's increasing all these different ways that women can die. It scared women, it scared them a lot and it made them not want to take hormones. And in my opinion that it increased suffering and it decreased quality of life. So I call BS on that. It did a lot of what I call data mining, which is when you don't get the results that you want in literature and research that you go through and you try to find connections in order to make your point. So I do not believe, nor do many people at this point, although there's many conventional practitioners who do, that replacing hormones for women increases death or increases disease or increases the likelihood of cancer. In fact, you know, if you think about that and you think about conditions under which women have increased amounts of hormones, you would see more cancer incidences and you simply just don't. And the same thing can be said about soy. If that was the case, then the countries that eat all the soy would have higher rates of cancer and they don't. So we have conventional hormones, we have bioidentical hormones. The bioidentical hormones are matching what your body makes. It is completely and like reason, like just reasonable to replace them if you need to replace them. And if there's a big thing there, we don't want to just jump on the bandwagon because your friend is taking them. Everyone is different and we need to properly evaluate you for safety.

Piece in point, when I went to Dr. Sweet and I was, the only bioidentical I was on was testosterone at the time Now I'm on all three, the progesterone, estrogen and testosterone. But when I went to her, she did my blood work. And I was on my blood work normal, and on my saliva and urine, I had like 10 times the amount of testosterone that you should have in your blood. Now, why is this important to know and why is this a little bit scary? Very scary. Number one, most doctors are not testing blood, urine and saliva. They're just doing blood. And that is not showing the whole picture. It's not showing how your body is processing it. Um, and what I didn't understand, and I understand now from her, which was super informative, is that your body will convert. You have different pathways that the hormones will convert. And so like in my case, the testosterone, because it was too much, my body wasn't using it as testosterone, it was converting it to estradiol. And that's when it gets dangerous. So she cut me. We got off everything to get everything back to normal and then slowly put a small amount in. And we're still battling the conversation. Even doing a small dose every other day, it's like it still can convert that way. So I think I'm certainly not the doctor saying this, but from what I've learned from you, it's really eyeopening. And I've shared this with so many people that it's really critical to know the pathway it's converting. And really, you know, are you at the right dosage and level of things?

Yeah, I'm glad, I'm glad you brought that up because it's something that I encounter as a practitioner, as I see other doctors, patients, and again, never disparaging comments about my colleagues. You know, you never know the whole story. You don't know how people have arrived, where they've arrived. But I see a couple of things. I see doctors scared to prescribe because they're afraid they're going to cause cancer, or I see them over prescribing and not testing, you know, frequently enough in.

The case of mine, for sure.

And, you know, that's scary to me for a whole, a whole host of reasons. Cardiovascular health, you know, diabetes, mood, the list just goes on and on. So why do I do all three of those types of tests? I know that you and I have talked about it before because not everyone agrees with me when it comes to doing saliva, and that's perfectly fine. You know, I always joke around, there's that quote about, like, well behaved women don't make history. And I laugh, like, not that I'm trying To make history. But I'm definitely not well behaved.

So, yeah, I think I just didn't like the saliva test for me because it always showed high cortisol. And I was like, I'm. It tells me I'm high cortisol 24 7. So I just decided I didn't like it anymore. It was the law of attraction thing. I didn't want it in my brain.

So why do them? I wouldn't do just one of them and say, all right, we should make all of our decisions. That being said, not everybody is in a financial position where they can't afford to do all three tests. And so I'm mindful of that and we have just reasonable discourse. But when someone is able to. The reason that I do it is because they all tell me something different.

Yeah.

You know, your blood is telling me what's circulating in your blood. And in our bloodstream, we have proteins. Not the kind like, oh, I should have some animal protein. There's some plant protein. It's holding on to our hormones and circulating. Then in the urine, we're seeing how these hormones break down. It's those pathways you were just talking about which are so important, and they give so much insight as to what's really happening in your body and how we can go in and just make really precision changes. Knowing if you have something that's not processing properly.

Yeah.

And then third, saliva is tissue saturation. It's like what is actually in the tissue itself. So if you take the blood, the urine, and the saliva, and then you're looking at all three of them together, it just gives me a window into really what is happening. Different levels.

So good. So good. Okay. I also learned from her that how different supplements affect us. And this is another really big thing that I've changed over from. I used to really believe that, like, it's just the brand of the supplement or it's like one. You know, everyone needs these certain things. But I'm also learning that all of our bodies are so different and we all process things so differently. So, yes, there's some things that can just be. Like, most women need vitamin D. Like, but there's just. Just this idea of just going and buying supplements that are designed for menopause or designed for. This, I think is a slippery slope for people like you. Without testing, I think we just don't know what's truly going on in us. I mean, I know, like, for me, also, I had super high levels of iron, which was bizarre. And we figured out mine. Mine happened to Come from eating too many clams. But that's a whole other story. But it's just so important. It just tells you to test and not just take, you know, what your friend recommended.

Yeah. It's really challenging for me. So there's a couple things and I'm be honest, I feel like we don't talk about this in public because, like, I don't talk about the doctor. You're not supposed to say those things. It's like, well, yeah, I am, because I'm also human being. And the way that you overcome objection is you have honest conversation about them so that people understand. So one Dr. Google.

I go there all the time and I know we shouldn't. Yeah.

But I understand why. Because we want to be empowered with knowledge. And now there's this place where we can go and we can look things up and I do it for things that I don't know. Now I also know the difference between a scholarly source and a non scholarly source. And so, you know, if I happen to land on someone's exercise physiology page, I'm not going to believe what it says.

Yeah.

So there is something called Google Scholar and you can have access, it's free. And you can look it up and you can look up research articles that way and it'll give you more accurate information. But. So Google is sort of like my nemesis. I understand. But it can be a pain in the tush and the tucus. So then that's one issue. And then our friend Amazon, where everyone goes and buys supplements.

Yep.

I'm not anti Amazon, but I have really, really grave concerns about the quality of the supplements that people are getting. And then the storage of those supplements are legitimate. Are they knockoffs? Have they been in a rap warehouse someplace?

Okay.

It's scary and I don't mind being vulnerable and sharing this. I see a fertility doctor, and my fertility doctor is a brilliant mind who actually cloned the first human being.

Wow.

But he had me taking a supplement that you got from Amazon. And I was like, I don't know about that. I don't tell my patients. Don't buy stuff from Amazon. But I did. And months later I got an email that said that it was that they'd closed down the company.

Oh, wow.

Man had been arrested. And basically what I was taking wasn't what I was taking.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. That I'm done buying supplements on Amazon now.

Don't buy them on Amazon. I'm not trying to sell people anything.

No, I just thought like sometimes. Okay, well, it's the brand I got from you. And now instead of going over there, I can get the same. But now that, that's scary. So that makes me not want to do it.

So. So not only is it that we're all unique individuals, it's why, Natalie, you can take something and not have a good reaction to it, but your best friend is like, oh my gosh, this is the best stuff since sliced white.

Yeah.

Because we're all individuals. Our physiology is different, our genes are different. How our genes get expressed, what do I mean by that? I mean our DNA is like that winded, you know, coil and then your environment, internal and external, makes signals to it and it tells it when to turn on and off. And that genetic testing I was telling you about gives us insight into that information and it helps us understand why maybe I take a B supplement and you take a B supplement and you respond terribly. And I respond fabulously.

Yeah.

So one sourcing, two, you can't believe everything you read on Internet. I know. You know, but like we still do it.

Yeah. Yeah. And one size does not fit out. Like, just like everyone thinks they need B12 and like you could be high on B12. Like, it's just not. It's not a one size fits all for anything.

No. And I will occasionally see people who are like, oh, B12, B12, I love it. And then they get this rash and.

They'Re like, I happen to be one of those people that I was super high on B12. I didn't know. So that was, you know.

Yeah. And just because it's a vitamin doesn't mean you can't overdo it.

Yeah.

There's water soluble vitamins that you pee out and then there's fat soluble vitamins, including diet that are. Can be toxic. I just met a woman the other day, toxic level of vitamin D because she was taking too much.

Okay, talk to me about biohacking. What does that word mean to you? And yeah. Is this important? Is this like just a trend right now? Is it dangerous? What are your thoughts around biohacking? Because that's the trendy thing.

I know. So I feel like in order to sometimes get messaging out, we take on or adopt language that is is popular. And so I've been tempted to use that word just so that people would understand what it is that I'm doing. So it just means that you are taking what you know about your physiology. Which I would argue that in most those people's cases, they don't know that much about their physiology or even their Genetic makeup, they're just doing it. They're jumping on the bandwagon and they're intervening in a way that is supposed to increase your health span. And again, I'm always cautious to use health span, not lifespan, because health span means that you're living healthy or in absence or reduced amount of chronic disease. So for some people, these are things like cryotherapy, whereas you're getting cold exposure. Well, we know that that actually does help in terms of longevity because of how it affects certain genes that are associated with living long, healthy lives.

Unless you have neuropathy, which I learned the hard way.

Yes, unless you have no. And, and that's why, again, we're all unique individuals. So if you have issues related to nerve conduction, sometimes people who have diabetes, neuropathy, they have pain, tingling as a result of this coding. That's over. I'm just gonna go like this. You can see it's like this coating that's around your nerves. And if it starts to wear down or even excess amounts of B vitamins can cause this, then you don't want to do things like that. Things like sauna, different types of supplements, these superfoods. And as a natural blue light blockers.

I would put in there too. Like that stuff, like a blue light blocker.

A blue light blocker. People wearing the glasses. There's all, there's all sorts of biohacking.

Now we get into the extremes, like the biochargers that are. People are paying thousands. Or structuring your water. Like, so, like, I never know, like, what's the. Like what are the. Like, okay, this is harmless, let's just do it. Or this is just dumb. Or like, you know, it's hard to know.

It is super hard to know. And even as someone who is medically trained and scientifically trained, you know, you, if you look hard enough, you will find something to support your claim, which is why you have people that are always at it, like polar opposites. You know, even during our pandemic, people have very strong opinions one way, very strong opinions another. And they're like, but this is the literature that supports my opinion. This is a literature that supports my opinion opinion. So it can be hard to, you know, just go through all of that and figure out what's true and right. But if we just get down to foundational things, really, truly, Natalie, we know that diet, lifestyle, stress reduction, food is going to make changes that people simply can't believe would move the dial to the degree that it does for sure. And I don't think it requires Herculean effort, and I don't think it requires, you know, thousands of dollars on buying pills, potions, powders and gadgets.

So my theory, and again, I'm not the doctor, but I think so many times people jump to the biohack or the supplements or the pills or the van stuff without putting any of the basics in play first. And to me, if you, you get out in nature, if you are hydrated, not necessarily structured water, hydration, just hydrated, just water, and you eat unprocessed, natural, real foods, like, just those basic things first, get some sunlight. Like, those things make such a huge difference and it makes you need less of the other things. I think we run into trouble when we just jump to those other things and we're skipping those basic steps. That's from my experience.

You are right, Dr. Natalie.

No, no, that was the premise of my Aging in Reverse book. Like, they, I think we skip these things. It just like what scares me, honestly. Like, we, you and I have talked about the carnivore diet. Not to go down this whole path there, but to me, there's so much research behind vegetables and fruit for our bodies, like how healthy those antioxidants are. And like, I worry about these diets that exclude all of that. And then people are wondering what's going on with other things, but they've excluded the, this, these entire, you know, groups of nutrients.

Well, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I mean, it's like it's the basis of my belief system and my practice as a naturopathic doctor. It's pretty, it's pretty foundational. But I think it's, but I think it's easier sometimes to believe that there's this magic wand and that that will be, you know, the answer to everything.

Yes.

But really, this book, this book of yours, you know, I had it, I had it sitting here and I was sort of cleaning up before our podcast today because I thought, goodness gracious, I can't let people see what a mess this place is. And I, I, you know, and I had the book before, and I had read it before, but then when I was looking at it again, I was like, how smart is this? And I'm not saying it's because it's you and it's your book, but how smart is this? Because it is very foundational and it's something that we have every day to sustain life. We need to eat, we need to sleep.

Sleep.

We need to move our bodies.

Yeah.

You know, it's just our Mere existence, the things that we're doing, how we got to this point in time, how we survived.

Yeah.

That is going to move the dial.

Yeah.

The other things, fine, great, wonderful. But if you're not eating healthy, if you're not moving your body, if you're not getting enough sleep, if you're not managing your stress, those other high force interventions are not going to help.

Makes sense.

Sense.

Okay. Two more things I want to ask you about that are really important to me. One, speaking of the diet.

Yeah.

Are you obviously I know you believe in unprocessed, natural, real foods. What do you think about some of these trends like the carnivore, the keto, the like, what are your thoughts on that? Do you ever think there's a place for them? Do you like, I'm curious, your thoughts as a doctor on these?

My thoughts as a doctor. My thoughts is ginger.

Both.

Yeah. So. So in naturopathic medical school there is a lot of diet, lifestyle, nutrition training, more so than I would argue in other programs to include MD do chiropractic programs, because we know it's foundational. Absolutely, positively foundational. And so it requires us to investigate all of these other types of diets and bring up the literature to support their efficacy and present them. So it's not just about learning the material, it's about understanding the efficacy. Like, is it effective, does it work, is it sustainable? And then being able to share the information to each other and to our patients. And I would say that there wasn't anything that I saw. Keto, paleo, carnivore, fruit, hair, like the list just goes on and on and on. Which isn't to say I'm saying anything negative about people who know are vegetarians or vegans. And you know, they do it for, you know, their own reasons. I totally respect that. But what I have seen consistently over and over again is that really the only thing that seems to one, work and be sustainable, affect longevity and make people feel good and look better, you know, is the Mediterranean diet. And it's not really a diet so much as it is a lifestyle. And the people who routinely eat that way happen to be in these areas that are known as blue zones, where they have longer health spans. So I am not a fan of all those other diets. I see people on them and they will say, yes, but I lost 10 pounds or I lost 20 pounds. I'm scared I'm gonna lose the weight.

Anytime you restrict calories, you're gonna lose anyways. So from anywhere you are.

And then I Know, like, I struggle after I had had radioactive iodine to ablate my thyroid as a result of my autoimmune condition with my thyroid. And so it's a herculean effort for me to maintain a healthy weight. And so it's very tempting to do all of those things. But I speak from personal experience and professional experience. It's not sustainable. Sure, it's not. And it's not healthy. It's actually harmful.

Yeah, no, I. I can see that. And it is very scary to me watching that.

That.

My next question is a cosmetic one, because people judge aging by appearance. And in the world of Botox and fillers and cosmetic surgery, where. How do you feel about all that? Like, I'm. I'm personally not a fan of Botox. I've done it before in my life. I didn't one. I didn't like the way it looked. But more importantly, it scares me that it's botulism. So I don't want to inject to me poison in my head, but I'm curious your thoughts as a naturopath around those things.

Yeah. So I would preface what I'm about to say with that. I would argue that most naturopathic doctors do not share my sentiment about this. And so I'm just speaking for myself as my own practitioner. So I have my hat on because I love hats and I live in Southern California. We never get to wear them, and I've just decided I'm going to wear them. So I'm going to pick it up a little bit and show you my forehead.

Yeah.

Because. A line from the hat. But you'll notice that when I raise my eyebrows. House, this isn't moving, right? It's not moving because I inject myself with botulinum toxin. And I'm perfectly fine with doing it for myself, and I'm perfectly fine with doing it for my patients.

Yeah.

Although we have a conversation about it. I don't use Botox. I use something called Xeomin. Xeomin is a type of botulinum toxin. There's several. There's Botox, Juvo, Discord, Xeomin, and the new one, Daxify. I like the one that I use because it doesn't have an added protein, and I think that. Which it does nothing for it. It just was old technology. So I feel like it's a cleaner version. If there is such thing as a cleaner, you know, paralytic that you're injecting into your face, I think it can be a nice alternative to plastic surgery. But I Also believe that you have to get real with yourself what it is you're trying to achieve, why you're doing it. Are you happy with yourself as a human being if they no longer made it tomorrow? Because could you look at yourself in the mirror? Would you love yourself? You know, do you hold all of your self esteem attached to the way that you look? All that being said, you know, I want to feel attractive. I feel beautiful. I want to have a youthful look. And so I don't have a problem with that. Yeah, I inject it for my patients. I also do hyaluronic acid fillers. I don't do the other fillers because, you know, hyaluronic acid our body produces. And let's just say for whatever reason you don't like it, there's an. An enzyme that you can inject and it reverses it. So I feel more comfortable with that. I don't have any of that just because I don't feel like yet. Maybe people are watching and they're like, yes, you do.

No, no, your forehead looks great. Actually. I'm like, I didn't even know you had it from, like, some people. Like me, I have such strong eyebrows that when I had done Botox, it would collapse my eyebrows. I didn't like that. And if I didn't put it low enough, then it would look like Jack Nicholson. So I'm over it. So for me, my forehead is just going to move. That's the way it is.

No, no, I. I get it. And I do other things, you know, like I believe in, in aesthetic treatments because let's be honest, if we feel like we look good, we're more motivated to do things. And it's a cycle of, like, if I feel good, then I'm going to do things to look good, and if I look good, then I'm going to do things to feel good. But things like microneedling exosomes, which come from stem cells on both with you, and far, far, far stronger than just doing prp. More growth factors helps lay the foundation for new Collagen growth even 12 months after you're doing your treatments. So what about.

Speaking of collagen, what about eating collagen? I'm a fan of personally drinking bone broth and taking collagen supplement. What about you? What do you think about ingesting collagen? And does that actually help with our skin in.

So I just had this conversation the other day with somebody that, you know, that came in the office and we were chatting and we were chatting about It. So, you know, truly the science is mixed about it and here's why. Anything that we take orally is going to go through our digestive system. And our digestive system is designed to break this down. If it didn't break it down, we wouldn't get the components of our food. Our big starchy, you know, carbohydrate would just be a blob of car. Of starch. It wouldn't break down into its sugars. Proteins wouldn't break down into their amino acids. Acids. So when we think about collagen, we think about amino acids.

Yeah.

So that being said, we know that when people don't take any sort of collagen and then they start to take collagen, they notice improvements in their skin, their hair, their nails. So then it begs the question, is it that they're really getting the collagen itself? And collagen isn't just like, oh, it's just collagen. It's for your hair. It's also for your joints, your tendons. There's a lot happening there. Or is it that they weren't getting the nutrition that they needed before and now they're getting the nutrition that they need before and so then we're seeing the changes. Okay. But I think that bone broth is great as long as it's responsibly sourced because bones can hold toxins. And so it's important that you know it's grass fed, grass finished. Yeah.

And I, I personally love bone broth, aside from the collagen for gut health. Health. I love it for it makes you feel satiated, it helps with weight loss because you're getting some protein. And I'm, I think a lot of women are under protein personally. So I just love bone broth for so many reasons and especially if you're people are snackers, it's a great way to be, you know, getting in some nourishment without snacking on high calorie foods. That's my feeling.

And it's nutritive and it's warm. I mean, we're here, you know, with the ocean and the weather, but most people, you know, experience seasonal changes and it can just be really warm and comforting and nutritious. So I agree. I'm a bone broth fan too.

Well, this was super helpful today. Where can people find you, follow you? How can they work with you?

Yeah, I appreciate you asking. So I have to work on my social media. I'm not a social media influencer guru. It's one of the things that I'm like have to do.

You're busy with patience, so you're.

I am busy with patience so I'm going to build that out. But I do have the space there on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. It's the longevity Dr. But. Dr. Not spelled out. Dr. And then I co own a clinic located in Rancho Santa Fe, California, which is in the northern part of San Diego County. It's called Naturopathic Rx and I see patients there as well.

Amazing. And how can and can people work with you remote or do they have to be in California?

So I have a license in California and Utah and I collaborate with some other medical personnel that allows me to see people all over the place and go question.

They should reach out to you, correct?

They should reach out to me because I'm confident that I can help you. And if I can't help you, then I'll be humble and honest and say I am not the gal for you, but I will find you somebody who is.

Thank you so much. This is so helpful today. Thank you.

Thanks for having me.