#1 WORST Thing For Your Hormones!

Welcome to the Plant-Free MD podcast with Dr. Anthony Chaffy, where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically. Hello everyone. Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Plant-Free MD podcast. I'm your host Dr. Anthony Jaffy and today a very special guest Dr. Anthony Jay who is joining us all the way over from the US. And um Dr. Shank, thank you so much for for coming on. It's a pleasure to see you again. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> It's been a while. >> Yeah. So, we we um you know, for people that that um uh you aren't familiar uh with you, uh can you please tell us a bit about your your work and what you do? >> Yeah, so I have a PhD in biochemistry from Boston University Medical School. So, I lived in Boston for 10 years. >> I did three years of Alzheimer's research full-time. I did five years of heart disease research and then uh when I was doing heart disease research I did a lot of testosterone research a lot of hormone related research and then I went and worked at Mayo Clinic for three years doing stem cell research so a lot of different backgrounds and when I was at Mayo Clinic or maybe actually a little bit before then I started doing genetic consulting so I do a lot more of that now than anything else so I do DNA consulting thing with like 23 and me or ancestry data and then I also wrote a book in 2017 called Estrogeneration. >> Yeah. So um >> sorry >> a lot of different paths. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, you know, that was one of the things I've seen you talk about a lot is, you know, probably covered in your book, the Astrogeneration, is that there are a lot of hormonal disrupting um factors out there that we aren't really understanding and people can be very blas like, well, you know, everything's going to be a problem, so might as well not worry about any of it. Well, I know I think that's why you should be worried about everything and be very careful about these things because they can sneak in uh so quickly so insidiously. Um so what are some of the things that you found maybe go over some of the things you found in your book um about uh hormone disrupting agents that we we normally can come across? >> Yeah. So back when I wrote estrogeneration nobody was talking about these estrogen mimicking chemicals. Now it's really common right because it's permeated the culture. >> But back then I mean you maybe heard about BPA a little bit. You never heard the word microplastics. You never heard about phalates. Uh, and I had a huge role in that. Basically just publicizing a lot of these estrogen mimicking chemicals, oxyenzone found in sunscreens. You know, that's illegal in Australia, by the way, >> for scuba diving and things like that. >> They don't allow people to use >> American sunscreens because the American sunscreens have all these estrogen mimicking chemicals. A lot of that came about after I wrote my book. >> And America has a ton of corruption with a lot of this, too. So there's a lot more problems in America than most countries, but we can get into that later. But like even today, Anthony, I still find people that >> they've heard about BPA. They don't really know why it's bad. >> Well, it's bad because it mimics estrogen, right? It's bad because it acts like estrogen in your body. So even even today, you still find people lacking in some of the basics, you know, just the education on what what these estrogen mimicking chemicals are, what they do. And the big problem, kind of what you were alluding to, is, you know, toxicologists, they do these professional studies on these chemicals and they they're not really that toxic, right? They don't really kill cells. If you have cells growing in a dish and you put these BPA or phalates or whatever, uh they don't kill the cells. They definitely disrupt hormones at very very low doses like in the nanogs but you know if you look at the milligrams per kilogram dose that it causes a rat to die or a mouse to die or cells to die looks really safe. >> So that's where you get a disconnect between professional toxicologists and then just normal people having hormone disrupt disruption problems and fertility problems and just on and on with the health problems. >> Yeah. Well, that that makes sense. I mean, obviously, there's a huge there's a huge difference between just something being toxic and physically harming and and killing cells versus causing physiological disruption. And they're both very important. So, disrupting hormones is obviously very important. I mean, I've certainly come across a lot of these as well. I in my practice, um, you know, health optimization, we're trying to improve people's health in a lot of ways. So, you know, I I do educate people on a lot of these things. It can disrupt hormones. um even the the anti-caking agents in uh different powdered spices or uh you even grated pre-graded cheese or salt and things like that. Those can act as hormone endocrine disrupting uh or they have endocrine disrupting uh properties as well. So you know there's a lot of these things that that just sneak in. Um, you know, one of the things too that I I came across was that um, you know, you can sort of uh, you know, sort of fill this out a bit more, but my understanding it's not just they say sometimes it's BPA free, but that's sort of a bit disingenuous because it might have a different kind of BP that's nearly identical and has like very similar hormone disrupting capabilities. So, it's it's not actually safe. It's just sort of um you know it's just like a a scapegoat. It just sort of um what's the right word? It's just basically >> it's a shell game. It's it's a shell game because people think >> they think like oh this is safe so I'm good. And these companies >> they have this whole alphabet soup of bisphenols. So the technical term is bisphenol A. As you know bisphenol they've got bisphenol F, they got bisphenol F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S F S S I'm sorry. They got the whole alphabet, right? I mean, you can pretty much tack on any ladder and make the molecule uh slightly different. So, it's not technically BPA. >> Mhm. >> But they've done studies. They are just as estrogenic, those alternative bisphenols. And then, of course, they've got phalates, which are the other main ingredient in plastics. And those, you know, those phalates are they lower testosterone. You know, they do all the things that the bisphenols do. The problem with phalates, they're more complicated because number one, there's like a thousand different phalates. >> So, the research is almost impossible because nobody's going to measure or they're not going to test all of them. And then when your body metabolizes them, sometimes the metabolites are just as problematic or more problematic and most people aren't measuring the metabolites, right? >> So, it gets super complicated. Parabens have this same problem. So, a lot of perfumes and fragrances, they have both phalates and parabens. And again, why am I bringing parabens into the equation? Because they act like estrogen. They mimic estrogen in our bodies, right? They're another inner. And by the way, when I wrote my book, you know, you've heard of Shauna Swan. You may have even had her on your show, maybe. Um, >> she wrote >> Yeah, she Well, she was on Rogan's podcast, and I can't remember the title of her book. I want to I want to take a guess at it, but I don't want to give people the wrong title. But the point is Shauna Swan wrote a book in like 2019 and it was just about phalates and it was about the problems with phalates and it was it was big. It made a big splash because Rogan picked it up but it was a little bit shortsighted because there's a lot more than just phalates, right? I mean you got parabens, you've got oxyenzone like I mentioned before. You got atrizine. You know atrizine is the second most used herbicide in North America. super disruptive for your hormones. You know, it literally feminizes males. There's scientific studies that show it it causes male feminization, which is not a very politically correct way to say it, but that's what the scientists say it, >> you know, in these medical journals. And so >> there's a whole list of these chemicals and you have to have a kind of a big picture. You can't just pick on one and say this is the one that we all need to pay attention to. You have to because they all act in a similar way on your hormone receptors on the same receptors. So if you've got 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus one, eventually you get to 10, right? So it amplifies the problem. And a unique thing, you know, because you're you're kind of a medical expert and this might be over the head a little bit on on some of the people in your audience, but it's worth mentioning. It's really interesting. You know, sex hormones like estrogen, like progesterone, like testosterone. First of all, they're made from cholesterol, right? That's the definition of a sex hormone because there's, you know, amino acid hormones like insulin or protein hormones or whatever. There's different classes of hormones, but the sex hormones are made from cholesterol. Most hormones, they don't go into the cell. They just stick to the outside of a cell. They bind receptors. It triggers an internal change in the cell, but they don't go in. Sex hormones actually go into the cell, which is, yeah, some hormones do, some hormones don't. What's really crazy about sex hormones uh is they go into the nuclear membrane because again I know you know this so it sounds basic but nuclei the this the where the DNA is in your cell it's coded with its own pillowcase it has its own membrane so your cells have a membrane the DNA has a co a coding called a cell a nuclear membrane almost nothing goes into your DNA right almost nothing goes through that nuclear membrane it's a really tight membrane but sex hormones go in there >> and that's super unique. So they act directly on your genetics and trigger a lot of epigenetic change. So they're very unique because they can cause a lot more long-term change. It's not just like a five minute change >> like most hormones like insulin or something. >> It's or insul like 24-hour change or whatever a couple months. We're talking like years sometimes decades, right? Sometimes multi-generational. That's really why I called my book estrogeneration. And it's not because our whole generation is saturated with estrogen. Although that's true. It's really because we're passing on these epigenetic changes. And most people don't understand epigenetics because >> they're just taught like it's just causing, you know, I'm sure you've heard like you load the gun and the epigenetics pull the trigger, whatever. Well, yeah. I mean, it's it's influenced by environment. Epigenetics are impacted by environment, but they're actual changes on your DNA. They're physical marks on your DNA, and you can measure those marks. And the most important thing with epigenetics that most people forget to talk about >> it get they get they're inherited. They're passed on. That's the definition of epigenetics. They have to be inheritable. >> And so that that means we're talking about multigenerational change. >> Yeah. And and we see that in other things too. I mean I I certainly know of I can't remember the lady's name. Maybe it was that that lady you're talking about that was on Rogan. Was talking about um how there was epigenetic changes, a multigenerational epigenetic knock on effect of um I think in that case she was talking about BPA or um or similar and um they were looking at like um like penis size and things like that in mice and it was just like >> Yeah. reducing penis size. >> Yeah. Exactly. Distance. >> Yeah. And it was like multiple generations. It took like two generations to breed back to get back to without without exposure. Um, yeah. So, it's a multigenerational >> that's male feminization, right? Like that's physical male feminis. I mean, in my opinion, and I think this is valid science, just lowering testosterone is male feminization, right? That's a form of male feminization. And then you see the physical effects of that. But then the question is, how magnified is that? How big of a problem is that? And of course in our culture they've lowered the normal range for testosterone dramatically since the 1980s. I mean they just keep lowering it. It seems like every couple years there's they've done this with vitamin D too. You know like Mayo Clinic just messed with their vitamin D range just a couple years ago. >> B12 >> since I worked there. >> They keep lowering that too. They do this all the time to just normalize people's bad health. And >> it happens with blood sugar. I think they they've got way too high of a range for blood sugar. I think the insulin is a joke, >> you know, in the American units, it's like >> it's like goes up to 20, you know. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um, complete disastrous joke. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, your insulin should be like five, you know what I mean? You shouldn't be >> 20 or 15 or whatever most Americans are. >> And so, you know, there's so many problematic ranges on these blood tests. But I think testosterone is the big travesty because you know a lot of times if you just take testosterone replacement you can really rewrite a lot of these epigenetic changes but the doctors won't prescribe it because it fits the normal range now when you have super low testosterone. >> And I'm not a fan of just throwing testosterone at everybody. >> Yeah. >> Because you first have to get rid of these estrogen chemicals. You can't take testosterone and then just keep blasting yourself with these estrogen mimicking chemicals. You get prostate cancer or something like that. And then the doctors will blame testosterone on that. And by the way, there's a lot of research uh that shows t prostate cancer is estrogen receptor beta or I'm sorry, alpha. There's two receptors for estrogen. Estrogen is a little complicated. I always say that men are simple, women are complicated because men have testosterone and they have an androgen receptor. you have one receptor that binds testosterone, but estrogen has two receptors, right? And there's a bunch of different estrogens as you probably know. There's estrone, there's estriol, there's estradi. So, it gets complicated super fast with estrogen. And estrogen is not like a women's hormone. It's men absolutely have estrogen, but obviously it's a lot higher in women. But there's two receptors for estrogen. One's called alpha, one's called beta. And the alpha receptor is basically the bad one. You don't want to oversimplify it, but let's oversimplify it anyways. Alpha receptor is the bad one. It's really supposed to only be activated in the womb when you're sexually developing. And then it's not really supposed to be activated throughout your life. The problem is almost, you can go to Google and type in BPA, estrogen receptor alpha, phalates, estrogen receptor alpha, parabens, estrogen receptor alpha, and you just keep going and it's going to say yes, BPA activates the alpha receptor, parabens activate the alpha receptor, oxyenzone, atrizine, the alpha. And why is that so bad? Because you're not really supposed to be activating the alpha receptor. You're not supposed to be flipping that light switch on. The beta receptor is positive. It's super good. That's where estrogen gets complicated, right? Because you can't demonize estrogen. It's good for It protects against Alzheimer's. It protects against heart disease. It's good for you as long as your testosterone is nice and high to balance it out, right? >> Um and so the beta receptor, again, totally healthy, totally good. But this is where it gets complicated. People want to simplify it and they just want to say like estrogen's good or estrogen's bad. And it's it's more complicated than that. But that's where the prostate cancer mostly comes from. Um it comes from the estrogen receptor alpha activation. And again, sometimes testosterone gets blamed for that because most of men's testosterone comes from estrogen, right? It comes from aromatizing estrogen. So your body is take for men, we don't have ovaries. I hate to say it because the woke people don't understand this, but men don't have ovaries. So, we don't make estrogen from ovaries. Uh, we make it from our testosterone. And again, it's protective for your brain. It's good for you. Unless it gets outrageously high and imbalanced with testosterone, it's good for you. But if you're activating that alpha receptor with a bunch of these fake estrogens like BPA or your natural estrogen gets too high, right, then you start seeing prostate cancer. And then what do they do? They blame it on testosterone. See? >> Yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't know that the um that the estrogen mimics in those compounds actually activate even the wrong estrogen receptor as well. That's that's that's actually a bit creepy. I wonder >> also. And let me add to that too because um I forgot what I was going to say. Sorry. I was I was going to jump in quick because I knew I was going to forget it and then I forgot it. Sorry. What comes up? >> I didn't want to cut you off. Apologize. >> Oh, you're fine. Um well I do I just yeah I mean that's one of the things you're activating the wrong receptor. Um you know that sort of raises the question because you know plants make a lot of estrogen mimics and and endocrine disruptors as well. You know a lot of uh estrogen mimics in soy and flax seed. Um so phytoestrogens in soy about 3 ounces of soybean oil has about half the estrogen that a that a healthy woman fertile woman would make in a day. about 200,000 nanogs uh per three ounces and three ounces of flax seed have over 600,000 nanogs actually more estrogen than than a fertile woman would make in a day. And you know people say well you know they don't have the same um you know affinity for the receptors this that and the other maybe they block it but it's disrupting something you know so it maybe can bind weakly but then that's blocking out your estrogen so you're not getting the proper response or maybe it's binding it giving too much of a response. Either way, it's it's going low or high. It's it's disrupting something. And I would wonder as well, you know, are they activating the alpha receptor as well as the as the beta receptor and causing problems there, too? >> Yeah, they do. They activate both. That's is where I've debated a lot with the vegans because there's a lot of studies that show, you know, alpha activation. But the problem with like the problem with isoflavones, which is the estrogen found in soy, is it depends a lot on your gut bacteria because if the gut bacteria break it down, it's fine. But the pro that's a big assumption. Most people don't have healthy gut bacteria in our modern society. It's kind of it's a it's a complicated debate because you have to first set up the alpha versus the beta receptor and you have to look at the studies from that perspective. And I think when I when I've done that, you find both. you find alpha and beta activation, meaning there's some positive, there's some negative effects. Um, I I also think it's hard to do those studies because people are so saturated with estrogen mimicking chemicals like BPA and phalates and all these other things. >> You know, they they went to uh northern Alaska and they tested the fat from polar bears >> literally full of phalates, full of parabens, right? I talk about the the actual nanograms and all this in my book >> and um you can't even find like a native tribe up there that doesn't have phalates because the ocean currents right all this plastic is washing out into the ocean and these garbage patch the great Pacific garbage patch and all this kind of thing and it's the ocean currents are kind of like a big circulatory system we're >> we're flooding our whole environment with plastics and then the polar bears it's working up the food chain and then of course people so you can't even get like a native tribe that doesn't have plastics built up in their fat cells. And that's another problem is bioaccumulation that a lot of people underestimate the accumulation of these things, right? Because they're just doing really short-term studies. >> But the bioaccumulation is obviously a problem and then you can't So my point is you can't find a a control group, right? You can't say like, let's check these people that are eating soy and these people that aren't eating soy. It's like, well, they're both already 10 out of 10 on their estrogen activation because they're eating, they got so much plastic in their system. And then are you really going to see a difference between the group that you're adding more estrogen? Maybe not because maybe the receptors are all saturated out already. >> And that's a real problem. But again, if you just do the cell studies and look at the actual receptor activation, it's another estrogen. It's alpha and beta activation. You're getting more alpha, right? So even though you are getting some beta, you know, it's not worth it because again our our environment is so estrogenic as it is. That's my opinion. >> Yeah. Well, and and also um do you necessarily want more estrogen? I mean it it's it's you don't just it's not just yes estrogen, yes testosterone. You need this in in a particular balance in in a particular range. And certainly that range might be different than what you know we we normally accept as as uh you know optimal now because like you said we're we're changing the reference ranges based on the averages you know the um you know 95% of the of the population that just becomes a reference range for that population tested and so this is why every lab has different reference ranges I do three four different labs here in in Perth they all have different reference ranges because they all look at a different sample size and So testosterone range ranges are different. B12 ranges are different. Wildly different for B12. I mean it might go from 140 uh peles per liter to 650. The next one goes up to 750. Another one goes up to a,000. One is just over 150, you're fine. Well, what the hell is it then? You know, because if you have 700 and you go to the you go to, you know, one of them and you're saying, you know, yeah, you're fine. And the other one's saying, oh, you're toxic. your doctor's going to use that objectively, that subjective that that just, you know, completely arbitrary reference range. Your doctor's going to make an objective decision saying this is toxic. You need to change your lifestyle. Um, >> and in fact, you're still low because studies have actually shown that optimal ranges of B12 is actually 800 to,200 picles per liter, which would be about,00600 pigs per milliliter in the US or thereabouts. Um and um you know >> B9 is a factor too like B9 it's just like testosterone estrogen B9 B12 they have to be at a ratio with each other otherwise you get nervous system disorders and things. So >> yeah absolutely >> yeah I always define the optimal range totally differently with B12. I'm much more worried about people being too low than being too high. But that's a lot of gut issues, right? Like >> number one it's it's a lot of it's it's not enough meat because B12 is by far the best or meat is the best source for B12. but also gut absorption. I like to look at B12 almost like a a nutrient absorption, you know, uh, equation. Like if people have gut issues and they're eating a lot of meat, >> they're probably eating a bunch of other lectins and a bunch of oxalates and a bunch of other gut disruptors and their body is sensitive to that because >> their B12 is still low. It's a good indicator because a lot of times you can't measure vitamins on blood tests because they're not sitting around in your blood. >> Like vitamin E stores up in your skin, right? Right? So, you're not going to do a vitamin E blood test and vitamin A stores up in your liver. So, you're not going to like do a quick blood test for vitamin A. You can do it, but it's not very representative of what's going on in your body. But B12 is really good for representing representing. And a lot of people find that they're low on B12 and instead of fixing the gut issue, they supplement and they just wash it out. So, then on the blood test, it's like crazy high. Um, but then they still have all these other vitamin problems and it goes way beyond vitamins, right? Because creatine is a nutrient. It's not a vitamin. You know, your body can make creatine, right? It's not a vitamin. The definition of a vitamin, as you know, is something your body can't make, and you need to get it from your diet. But creatine and carnosine and carnitine and all these things, methane, your body can make those from scratch. But it's super interesting if you compare vegans and meat eaters, and I know you know this, >> uh, vegans have super low creatine levels even though their body can make it, right? And so that tells us if you're eating some of these foods and you have healthy gut, which is rare these days and you know that's really a big important benefit of the carnivore diet and just in that eating a lot of meat in general as you've seen with Jordan Peterson, right? Michaela Peterson, all this. By the way, I've done DNA consults for their family >> a long time ago, right? But um but eating a lot of meat fixes a lot of severe gut issues. And then all your vitamins go up without even taking a bunch of supplements. But not only that, your nutrients go up too, which is thousands of different things. You can't supplement your way out of a gut issue because you just end up taking a few dozen supplements and then you end up short on creatine and carnosine and all these other nutrients, right? Which are thousands of different things. >> Yeah. >> Sorry to get off topic. >> No, no, no. That that that's that's that's definitely um important to point out and and I see that in my practice all the time. I have people that that eat a bunch of meat, but all of their their vitamins, mineral, they're just trashed. And I tell them exactly that. You have these antiutrient tannins bind to proteins and prevent you from breaking them down and absorbing them. You got sapinins and and protease inhibitors that are going to prevent your enzymes from breaking these things down. you have pitates and lectins and tan and oxalates and so on that that can um disrupt things further or damage the gut itself and then scrub your microbiome and all the rest of that. So there's a lot of factors there that have to do with you know it's not just just getting the raw nutrients and bioavailability obviously with plants but then you know so it's not just having like on paper that these foods have this you know this many milligrams of these substances you need to be able to absorb them and and that happens all the time. So I have people well I eat a ton of meat and and their B12 is abysmal. I mean, it's in the it's in the normal reference range, but it's it's in reality, it's abysmal. And you just you cut out all those other things and they're still eating roughly the same amount of meat. I mean, a lot of these people, it's not that they're eating, you know, five times the amount of meat. Some of these people are actually eating maybe more fat, certainly because a lot of people are very fat avoided. But when they they may actually eat a very similar amount of meat, they're just not eating those other things. And now all of a sudden, I see their their B12 rise. to see their zinc and magnesium and vitamin D and and selenium everything just starts just starts picking up and I would I would I would expect that to be the case. Well, that that that has to do with absorption rather than just the raw nutrients because they they're basically eating the same amount of meat. It's just now they're not eating all those other things and improving their gut health as a result. >> Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And and again, it goes back to estrogen because if you're if you have a terrible gut biome and you've got all kinds of intestinal permeability and all kinds of gut issues, I mean, you're going to absorb a lot more of these plant estrogens and a lot more of these environmental estrogens without breaking them down into the metabolites. And again, sometimes the metabolites are problematic, too. And by the way, sweating is a really good mechanism to clearing them out of your body, right? They've done, if people are interested in finding the studies, they're called bus studies. B US blood urine and sweat. You can just look up bus study BPA bus study phalates whatever and you'll find you actually sweat out more of more BPA more phalates whatever more of these synthetic estrogens. You sweat them out more than you find in people's blood and in their urine. Sometimes people literally have zero BPA in their blood and urine and loads of BPA in their sweat. >> So yeah. So, I think that's a big component of why the sauna are so beneficial because it helps people with their hormones. Uh, in our culture in particular, it's especially important. And you don't have to use a sauna. You can sweat when you're training and things, right? Sweating, you can you can you just live in Florida. >> I used to live in Florida for five years. You just go outside. >> Yeah. Um, that that's really interesting, too. And you know there we do have studies that show that highintensity exercises you know sprinting weightlifting but but to a you know high intense level actually can increase uh testosterone and and you know growth hormone things like that as well and certainly something that's going to be you know from a physiological response to the exercise but I want and and you know definitely because you when you do like long-term cardio and things like that where you could be sweating you actually can lower testosterone if you just just rampant you know, cardio, but the high intensity does do it. But I do wonder, you know, maybe that means some of that benefit is you're actually sweating this crap out. Um, >> yeah, >> you know, I would wonder, yeah, that'd be uh Yeah, that's interesting. And so, another encouragement to, you know, push yourself at the, you know, while you're exercising and and sweat all this evil out of you. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just movement, too. I mean, just in general, movement moves more blood through your liver. Liver helps you detoxify things. kidneys, right? Just moving more volume. >> So that that's another mechanism. And you know, >> yeah, >> it's it's tricky because a lot of people, they don't avoid the chemicals, so they just keep they sweat them out. They just keep loading back up on them. And again, it's not rocket science, you know? You shouldn't be drinking out of plastic bottles. And and it's getting better. I think the culture is changing. But hot coffee, right? Like I just bought a new coffee maker. It was on back order for like six months, so they're in super high demand, but it's zero plastic. I think the company is called Simply Brewed Coffee. Simply Brewed or some something. But it's really good. I mean, I really like it. I like the the trend in that direction with all these products that are getting away from plastics. And not to mention, it's just terrible for the environment, all the waste, you know, all this nonsense. You know, you get these ch like I have a bunch of kids, right? I have five kids. And uh you go to your friends houses around the holidays and they get all these presents and gifts and they're just all plastic crap and they last two weeks and they throw them in the landfills or th it ends up in the ocean at some point. So even from the environmental perspective, it's kind of a disaster. But you know the consumerism and just the waste, but from our health perspective, a lot of people need to think more about that. I mean it's very substantial. Fertility is big, you know. um you see a lot of rising infertility issues. Obviously, obesity is a huge problem and it contributes. You know, the analogy I sometimes use with the obesity is pregnant women because when pregnant when women are pregnant, their estrogen goes from like 20 to 2,000, >> you know, in the American units and and their progesterone also goes really really high. So, it usually balances that out. But oftentimes, if you're estrogen dominant, you start storing a lot of extra fat. And it's actually uh a positive thing from our ancestors because a lot of times there was starvation. And so when women get pregnant, their bodies tend to store a lot more fat. And that's a beneficial thing just in case there's a famine. >> Then they still have fat to burn and at least they've got some energy source and the baby doesn't starve, right? Or the fetus. And then >> nowadays, of course, we're oversaturated with calories and food and all this sort of things. And and then if you're mimicking that pathway with these fake estrogens, you're triggering extra fat with these hormones, not to mention just lower testosterone. So your your metabolism is low and then your body is being triggered with these fake estrogens to store more fat. It's a mimic it's kind of a it's kind of like a mimicry of of pregnancy, you know, but it's like a bastardization of it or like a a perversion of pregnancy, right? with these high with these fake estrogens. >> That's why you see mandols, right? You see gynecomastia. It's the same problem. I mean, it's basically your your breast tissue thinks it's time to start breastfeeding because it's so confused. And it's a real problem, man. If you go to like public swimming pools and stuff, once you start seeing it, you'll see it, >> especially in America. >> Yeah. Well, Australia, too. I mean, there's there's definitely a big weight issue here. I think the obesity isn't the obesity rate in Australia is not the same as it is in in America, but the overweight and obese is is comparable if not actually worse than America. So there's a lot of a lot of overweight people and and I I mean I see a lot of them in my practice um you know coming in and and that's you know part of the part of the benefits that we get. But uh yeah, it's a big it's a big problem. And how does this how so you know I I' I've certainly seen like naturopaths and other sort of people say that that you know women going through menopause you should you know eat soy products and things like that to help almost as like an HRT. Um you know so how does but how does this affect menopause? Like obviously this is we're very estrogenic but people are going through menopause seemingly earlier and earlier going through pmenopause and things like that in their 40s. Uh, and some I mean I have patients in their 30s that are that are thinking they're going through early menopause and change their diet and everything sorts itself out. But you know how h how does this affect that? Because you would you would imagine that more estrogen would sort of protect against that but it seems to be maybe the opposite. >> Yeah, it confuses your body. I mean, >> when you have a lot of estrogenic exposures, like these fake estrogens, you see, uh, puberty comes on super early, like at age nine and things like that instead of age 12 or 13 or 15 or whatever. >> Um, >> so I think if you're starting puberty earlier, then you're going to end up starting menopause earlier. So, if it's just your entire cycle of uh, you know, of hormone timing is all messed up and disrupted. And yeah, it's kind of like caffeine, right? If you do tons of caffeine, you get numb to caffeine. It's like that with estrogen. Your body just gets numb to it, desensitized in weird ways, and it's really hard to predict how that's going to play out. But >> I'm a fan of hormone replacement during menop, like premenopause, postmenopause, especially starting with progesterone >> because again, most women are so saturated in estrogens and it's so hard to fix that. A lot of times you have to take them, you have to give them some progesterone. >> That's really common. >> Um, as long as it's bioididentical. I'm a fan of the creams in particular. I'm not a huge pellet guy because a lot of the pellets they're patenting them so they're pushing them a lot so they make more money on them generally, you know, and it's hard to modify the doses. I don't know what you do, but hopefully I'm not stepping on your toes on this one, but that's what I think. >> Yeah, I Yeah, I I' I've used bio identical hormones for HRT and things like that. Yeah. And usually compounding sort of things, you can get the exact dose that you want. Yeah, >> that's what I that's my favorite is to use the creams. You can micro adjust the doses. Of course, take it before bedtime because progesterone helps you sleep. And by the way, Anthony, I've seen a lot of men >> I've got I've got I started having men check their progesterone when they have sleep problems. And it's really striking how many men are insanely low on their progesterone. And again, a lot of that's because of all the estrogen signaling, >> right? >> Because there's kind of an there's kind of a balance between estrogen progesterone. >> And when you get so heavily overestrogenized with these fake estrogens, it kind of messes up that signaling. And it's not super well understood, but it absolutely does. I mean, you can show it in research studies, but you know, you can give a bunch of fake estrogens and then you'll see the progesterone go down just like the testosterone goes down, but they're not measuring it in men. So, there's two things that are really interesting. Women have testosterone and it's super important. >> Bone density and all that energy, sex drive, mental health, right? Not to mention just heart health. And men have progesterone and it's super important and super healthy and all this sort of thing for sleep and for anti-anxiety and anti whatever. But it protects against blood pressure. I mean my brain is just thinking of like the 20 things right that it's positive for. Um like if you look up again people can do this at home. It's really interesting. Just go to Google and type in testosterone is anti-inflammatory and it's going to say yes testosterone is absolutely anti-inflammatory. Progesterone it's potently anti-inflammatory. it's extremely anti-inflammatory. Estradi is also anti-inflammatory, but again, if it's imbalanced, any of those are imbalanced, you're kind of walking a fine line. >> So, I started checking men's progesterone more often, and I'm starting to see a pattern there, too. And again, women's testosterone, but I feel like that's getting out there in the culture now. There's more recognition, especially in in America and like more elite hormone replacement circles, like, yeah, women need testosterone. It's super beneficial. They feel way better. But it hasn't saturated our culture yet with the men progesterone equation. And I'm seeing big benefits. And I'm not saying you should overdose it. And I'm not saying women should overdose testosterone either, right? >> Like when women are 30 years old, their testosterone, again, American units unfortunately, but they're usually like around 30 to 90. And then after menopause, they're like three. >> Yeah. >> And sometimes the normal range on a blood test literally says zero to 100. >> Like zero. So if you get a zero, your doctors are like, "Oh, I looked at your blood test. Everything's fine." And they don't even tell you that it was a zero. Completely insane. >> Yeah. Have to get a negative two to get get a low score. >> Yeah. There is no such a thing as a low score. You know what's sad is I had a guy recently from Australia actually. He works in some kind of mine or something. He's really physically active. He's super healthy. >> His testosterone, again, American units, he was like 1,500 or something, which is probably like 35 or 40 or something. I don't know the exact number in Australian units, but >> the doctor told him he had toxic levels of testosterone. And this guy's like, "Bro, I don't do any testosterone. This is just natural." And doctor's like, "Well, we got to figure out a way to get this down." And I'm like, "What the hell did he want you to do? Like, stop exercising?" Like, that's amazing levels of testosterone, right? >> And if it's natural and he's feeling good and he's jacked, right, and he's super active, >> it's completely insane. Like, the idea that you have an upper limit that your body is going to make too much, you know? But if it's an if it's imbalanced with progesterone or whatever else, yeah, then you start to see some problems and and menopause is classic because everybody go all the women go through it. There's no way around it. And >> you know, and again, when you have all these messed up artificial estrogens, you know, that your body is so saturated with. Yeah. I think progesterone is one of the the m the the silver bullets, if there is one, to really help. And I'm a fan of estrogen replacement, too, and never soy. Like why would you use soy when you can use actual estradile when you need it? But >> yeah, >> but for sure progesterone. >> Yeah. >> And testosterone too, you know, as as long as I'm talking hormones, I think, and just to be clear, I do think post-menopause, even premenopause, usually women's progesterone starts going down around age 38 on average, right? So that's when you start to see benefits if you start boosting it back up. And then estradile is usually starting to drop around age 45 50. Testosterone is going down steadily through that whole time period also. I'm a fan of replacing all three of those. That's my opinion. >> And everybody is different obviously and everybody requires like customization and everybody's genetics are different and whatever. But but that's just in general I tend to be more positive for replacing those hormones than not replacing them. I'm never a fan of using soy to try and, >> you know, to just like add more estrogen to the equation. Never. >> Well, it's also it's not a bio identical form. You know, it's not it's not the actual natural estrogen that we make physiologically. It's it's something else that sort of mimics estrogen. And so, it's not going to have the exact same effects on the body. And they could have different effects on the body that could be negative, you know, stimulating receptor A instead of solely receptor B for instance. and then you get you know problems that you don't want. You know they recently took took off the the blackbox warning on HRT for bio identical hormones. the cons the concerns were raised for hormone replacement therapy in women >> based on non-bioidical hormone studies, you know, looking at estrogen from like, you know, horses, yeah, for Mary urine and things like that. >> And they're saying, okay, we're seeing this slight signal of something maybe going wrong down the line. But that's exactly why you would use biioidentical hormones instead of nonbiioidentical hormones like soy. And uh yeah, um >> they wouldn't use cow, you wouldn't want to use cow estrogen. No, >> you know, like a lot of times, it's a little off topic and I'll try and remember to get back to where we are, but the scientists complain about freaking dairy because the the farmers will milk the cows and then get them pregnant to have them continue to produce more milk and then they take the calf away. But while the cows are pregnant, their estrogen is just going up and up and up. It's climbing and they just keep milking the cow and keep throwing all that milk in with the other milk and the estrogen in that milk is crazy crazy high. It's in, you know, again, it's like it's a tenfold higher. It's instead of 200, it's 2,000 >> whatever that is in cows. >> And scientists complain about that. The general public doesn't because they're not really aware of it. But, >> you know, they're mixing that estrogen and that's cow estrogen, right? So, it's like the last thing you want is these fake horse estrogens and cow estrogens and and again, if you did get exposed to that stuff, it's going to disrupt all your studies. And then the crazy thing with those same studies when they when they say estrogen causes breast cancer and all this nonsense, first of all, they're usually almost all those studies are using horse urine, isolated hormones. They're isolating it from horse. >> But also, they're only using estrogen. They're not balancing it out with progesterone, right? And progesterone is like the foundation. You have to have that. If that goes down to zero and then you just start throwing in estrogen, usually that's even more disruptive. that is a little bit risky and a little bit problematic. I don't see that as a huge problem if you're using bio identical hormones, but even so, it's like why wouldn't you balance that out with progesterone, right? >> Yeah, definitely. Um Yeah. And um that that was I was thinking like with you like you see like the liver king eating a bunch of like bull testicles and things like that. I was going to get my testosterone. I'm going to get my hormones up. Should probably be eating human testicles, you know, if he really wants like the human ones. get the bio identical ones. Um, yeah. >> Hey man, I used to I used to work on a couple cattle ranches and uh we used to give, you know, this a little again a little off topic, but it's interesting, right? I I just butchered a cow. First time ever on my own. I shot him in the head. It was pretty wild. I put it up on YouTube. >> Um, just >> never I've never done a video like that before and I figured, well, why not? I'll just I'm being honest. Here's what I'm doing, so I might as well throw the video up. >> My kids are watching. But crazy huge animal, right, to be butchering. >> But um but I used to raise, you know, I used to raise cows and we used to give them hormone pellets >> and the cows would get pretty jacked. You know, they get really big. >> And I always use this as an example to people like it's amazing how much muscle mass they will put on. And you know what the cows are doing differently? Nothing. >> Like they're just sitting there eating grass. They're not like doing hill sprints. They're not training super hard, but they're putting on tons of muscle. If you jack up those hormones, a lot of times the muscle mass declines in elderly people that you see are just because their hormones are just tanking. >> Yeah. >> And this idea that we need to eat tons of protein. I mean, it definitely helps, but you know what's even better is fix those hormones and then eat whatever you want that's within a healthy like whatever you've been eating already that's super healthy and instead of just like trying to cram yourself full of tons of protein. Um, but yeah, my neighbor when I was butchering this cow, he he's like, "Well, I I said I I have a neighbor that raises cattle, right? And he's got a huge ranch and I live out in the country now. I've just I've lived here for two years now. I kind of just moved um to get out of the cities and stuff. So, I've got 20 acres instead of half an acre and all this sort of thing." So my neighbor, he was out there doing his cows and and I'm like, "Bro, I I've buzzed I took my electric bike out there quick to catch him because I don't see him very often." Uh because he's always out running his cows. He literally rides horses and stuff and herds them and does all this crazy stuff. I mean, it's really remote. >> And uh I buzz out there on my electric bike. I was like, "Hey, bro, you know, if you have an extra cow when you guys sell them to the feed lots, if you don't mind, like separate one off for me and I want to buy it from you and I just want to butcher it myself. I want to shoot it in the head and butcher myself." And I thought he was going to be like, you know, like some kind of reaction, like what are you talking about, dude? Like maybe I'll think about it, you know, but he's like, "Oh, sure." Like no big deal. Totally casual. Couldn't care less. >> So then he knocks on my door recently and he was like, "I split off the cow for you if you want to go shoot it." And I was like, "Hell yeah." I got out. But uh but anyways, he he here's what's really interesting about that story is he told me that um he he recommended I send the cow to the food lot to the where they corn feed them and then be he says before they put the pellets in them have the cow butchered. And and he's like that's what I do. And this guy's like kind of obese. He's a little bit obese and whatever. He's not a health guy, but I was like what are you talking about? He's like well they taste weird after they put the hormone pellets in them. So, I like to get them, >> you know, before they do the hormones. But I'm like, "No, bro." Like, the whole point is I want them grass-fed, grass-fish, wild. I mean, they're super wild and free range on these hills out here where I live. >> Yes. >> And that was the whole point. I didn't want them to put a bunch of corn into the cow pellets or no pellets, but it was interesting that they add these freaking hormones and you actually get a different flavor. So, they're just messing up our food system at every level, right? It's like you can't get away from this nonsense. I mean, if you if you look up grass-fed beef, and I'm sure you've done this, it's like a one to two or two to one ratio of like omega 6 3 to six or six to three. It's very almost one one a lot of times. Yeah. >> If you look up grainfed, like cornfed, it's 20 to one. Yeah. >> Omega 6 to three. It's a horrendous ratio. It's like back to seed oils and all that nonsense, you know, from the freaking corn. So >> yeah, >> it's like you it's like you have to be so countercultural and so you know paranoid about the food system nowadays in our modern society. It's frustrating. >> It is. Yeah. Yeah. That's some studies. Yeah. The studies I've seen uh basically after about 3 months in a feed lot, it's very minimal to to almost no omega-3s left. It's just almost all Yeah. Omega 6 dominance. I always do when doing a carnivore diet and I tell people look just eat the meat that you like and enjoy and can afford and have access to. But, you know, especially for like kids and if you're trying to optimize, you need to think about omega-3s as well. So, getting like grass-fed butter, some grass-fed tallow or beef trimmings. Um, you know, adding in some fish, things like that. You know, just you have to think about those omega-3s if you're predominantly eating grain finished. Um, throwing in some organs every now and then to get more nutrient density, things like that just just to optimize. Now, you're going to improve just by eating just even the cornfed beef, but >> in general, I exactly well especially if you have some Alzheimer's like obviously you've heard of the APOE4 gene and stuff and those people are so much more omega6 sensitive and you know ratio matters so much more. And again, it's hard to prove that in studies because the darn culture is so saturated omega sixes. It's just like the plastics. It's hard to find a group of people that aren't saturated in seed oils, you know? Yeah. Just like they're they're all saturated plastics. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I you know on the hormone side of things you which is which is great. Um you know I find I find you know fixing people's diet you know putting them on carnivore things like that you know ketogenic carnivore. I I see massive improvements. I mean absolutely seen women come out of you know pmenopause. I've even had six women come out of menopause in their mid-50s. Um a major driver of that I mean is just insulin. Insulin blocks the conversion of testosterone and estrogen in women's ovaries. And so they become testosterone dominant and then estrogen uh deficient and you get PCOS and then as just generally the hormones start degrading now you're getting low testosterone and low estrogen and they go into menopause and then you correct that and I see their estrogen massively improving if their ovaries are still capable of doing that. Uh but testosterone as well also DHEA which is not something that everybody always tests but it's it's a very important hormone for both men and women. It's ubiquitous throughout the body. It's very important for tissue healing and repair and it also converts into uh and then testosterone and also estrogen in women. Um what I found is when you correct the DHEA typically that will be enough to correct the testosterone often. And so, um, but >> very interestingly as well, women seem to respond to when doing a ketogenic carnivore diet, most women actually go back to like 25year-old levels of DHEA and testosterone just with diet alone. Some will maybe need a bit of a touchup, but maybe not much. You know, like I' I've only like 5 10 milligrams as opposed to like a standard 25 to 50 milligrams that you get over the counter in America. and uh and then and then not and then after a few months they they don't even need that. So I've uh I've seen that for some reason I've seen women respond really well like their DHA and testosterone and estrogen respond extremely well. Women just generally hormones respond very well to like going onto a carnivore diet. Growth hormone will go up. IGF-1 will will improve. I've had many women in their 40s revert back to a 25year-old level optimal level for IGF-1 growth hormone. and it's keeping your tissues growing, healing, and repairing in in an optimal 25-year-old fashion. Same with estrogen. DHEA comes right up. Men, for some reason, don't always have as big of a response for DHEA. But testosterone, absolutely. I mean, I' I've been men in their 70s who have gone back to optimal 25-year-old levels for testosterone um by by doing carnivore, but you know, also doing all the other things, you know, exercising, getting out in the sun, and you know, um you know, lifting weights and things like that. and optimizing sleep and stress, you know, so there's is sort of a holistic sort of approach to that, but certainly part of the diet is concerned too. So I see a lot of that. >> What do you see with what do you see with the thyroid, you know, the thyroid hormones, especially for women because they're so much more sensitive with that estrogen. >> Yeah, I see I see a lot of improvements. I've so many people are hypothyroid and I have over 100 patients with Hashimoto's and so not even getting into the whole estrogen side of things which a their estrogen is going to improve and optimize but I mean there's so many reasons why a carnivore diet improves thyroid function u first of all Hashimoto's is the most common >> inflammation yeah >> yeah inflammation is it's it's the most common cause of hypothyroidism and every autoimmune issue that I've ever seen responds extremely well to a carnivore diet you're removing factors that are that are precipitating that um so-called autoimmune response, which I don't think is autoimmune. I think it's actually your body's appropriately attacking things that are attacking your thyroid or something else. And you remove those some things and then that damage stops. Just like in celiac, if you stop eating gluten, damage stops. Even those antibodies stay elevated for over 3 years after your last exposure to gluten. So that's not an autoimmune disease. Your body's not attacking itself. It's attacking the gluten or something the gluten is doing to your body. And I think that's what's happening with other autoimmune issues as well. And so I have again over 100 patients with Hashimoto's. Every single one responds extremely well and improves their thyroid function. And those antibodies slowly but surely come down. Just like celiac after 2 three years they're basically down to nothing and their thyroid function improves dramatically. um you can get permanent damage unfortunately and some people can't come off medication but the vast majority of my patients have been able to significantly reduce and after you know a year and a half two years I've had many people with Hashimoto's come off medication have optimal levels of of their thyroid function other reasons why it's going to be beneficial is it's removing grogens which is entire category of plant toxins that cause disruption to your thyroid mostly from blocking iodine uptake in the thyroid and your other cells as well so I mean almonds and cassava have cyanide. Cyanide blocks iodine up uptake. But there are tons of these grogens in cruciferous vegetables. Um very bad in kale and broccoli. And so you need an overabundance of iodine to overwhelm that blockade. And most soils are actually pretty deficient in iodine as well, especially in Australia. 100% of the people that I check >> uh with check their iodine in Australia on a standard diet unless they eat a lot of seafood they're low >> and or or just borderline um you know above and um you know a lot of fish can can sort that out but you know a lot of people aren't aren't doing that and so if you're eating a mixed diet with all these grogens and your iodine is low anyway you're going to you're going to have thyroid dysfunction as a result of that and then optimizing other things. So optimizing your iodine, you're not blocking the iodine uptake in your in your thyroid. You're also not blocking the uptake in your in your gut. Um you're also optimizing uptake of uh zinc and selenium which have to do with conversion of T4 to active form T3. So all of those things get optimized by doing a carnivore diet. And so I see people's thyroids improve and optimize. There's a lot of people saying that, you know, you can't do ketogenic because that that damages thyroid function. I see the exact opposite. Exact opposite. >> Me too, man. I think it's because your your thyroid numbers go down a little bit because your receptors go up. >> So, you become more sensitive to the actual thyroid hormones. So, it looks worse on a blood test. So, the doctors say, "Oh my gosh, this is going in the wrong direction." And people are like, "Yeah, but I got way more energy and I feel better." Right. That's why I'm asking you because you have a lot more experience with that specific group of people, the carnivore diet and the keto diet. >> Yeah. Well, you know, but the thing is too is that I I've actually seen people's thyroid improve across the board. So, say Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So like the blood test will improve. So you know I you have TSH come down which is better and then T4 go up and and T3 go up and that ratio improved because that's another one that people don't people know about selenium you know but they don't know about zinc necessarily. You need both zinc and selenium to to prop to properly convert T4 into T3. And um and so often times I'll see people that don't have that proper conversion they have low zinc and selenium. You have to check the cellular level of both. It's not accurate to check the um plasma level just for if people are going to check you have to check like the red blood cell level, the rethraite level and and then the reference ranges are all off. It's just like B12 and everything else. They're sort of shifted left just because the population is is malnourished. You want to be on the upper end of normal if not even a little bit above not too far above for selenium because it can get toxic. But you know once you correct those things and and they'll generally correct naturally just just eating properly I see that that ratio tighten up and um and so I actually see these improvements. You know my T4 has been in an optimal range you know not not the standard range but actual optimal range. So upper half of the normal range or even even very close to the top of the upper normal range. Um, it was there, you know, seven years ago when I checked it the first time. It was exactly there. It was actually, you know, 0.1 up. You know, last year I checked it. So, you know, ketosis is going to destroy my thyroid. I'm still waiting. You know, it's been nearly a decade. >> Um, you know, one of the things, too, is like you said, the receptors go up and your sensitivity goes up, but also your demand goes down because to to, you know, make ATP from glucose, you get 38 um ATP molecules from one glucose molecule. to oxidize fat for the you know using the same amount of T3 you get end up getting around 140 ATP molecules for the same amount of T3 so you need about a third of the T3 that you do when you're on a carbohydrate metabolism so even if you have less the effect is more and um you know so again you don't see people's metabolism suffering you don't see their energy levels suffering you don't see the hair loss and the and the and the cold intolerance and other sorts of things you would expect in hypothyroidism and and and so you know that's been shown in various studies um you know from um you know professor Finny has has done a lot of work on that as well but you know that's that's you know the theory I see the opposite I mean I see people's T3 go up you know I see their TSH go TSH go down I see their T4 go up I see their reverse T3 go down quite often and then you know there might be some people that sort of maybe don't have like up in the just the perfect optimal. Maybe they're just slightly below the optimal, but they're better than they were and they're a lot and they feel fantastic. So, it's like, okay, well, look, you know, you're you're you're in ketosis. Your body doesn't need as much and you're this is obviously where your body wants it because you know, your TSH is under one and uh and everything else is optimal. So, you know, it's um you know, but the vast majority of people actually see it improve and and stay in those optimal ranges. believe >> they certainly talk about how much more energy they feel, right? And and how much the doctors complain. It's kind of like cholesterol. Like they complain the more the better you feel, the more they complain about the blood test. I always tell people like with the thyroid, >> you know, the reason the range is so ridiculous with TSH, it's like 0.5 to five and things like that. It's a twofold range. It's because they don't really care about your thyroid. Most of the time, they don't even check it unless you have like some unless you're basically dying of some kind of >> issue like thyroid cancer or something. They don't care. Why? Because there's no prescription drugs to give you that are patented, right? I mean, Synthroidid is as close as they have and the patents way expired on that. So, they just don't care. The medical system isn't interested in people's thyroid, which is a problem. So, they don't >> they don't understand it. They're not well trained. I mean, this is true of the thyroid. This is true of the estrogen. This is true of the testosterone. Like, the medical system is intentionally not well trained on that. And I think it's because it's more preventative, right? It's keeping people off of the big farmer products. So they end up losing money if they're promoting hormone replacement or hormone optimization. I'm not talking about just slathering hormones on your body. I'm talking about like optimizing it through your diet and through your exercise and all these natural things that you start with and avoiding plastics, right? And all this stuff. So >> it's a it's a it's a mess. But again, if people I think in our culture, we have to take control of our own health. Like we have to be our own best advocate for our health these days because the medical system is not doing what it's supposed to in that regard. And especially if you want to optimize, which I'm a huge fan, you know, of not just being above average, but taking it to the next level and really optimizing. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. And that that's that's the main focus of my practice is is health optimization. And I don't just I I have people that come in that are otherwise healthy just want to get as healthy as they can be. But most of people are sick and they're unwell and they've been going to their normal doctors. They were doing the best that they can, you know, with respect to their training, which is, you know, disease management. But it's just like, you know, we'll put you on this pill, we'll put you on this pill, we'll put you on that pill, and they're just feeling worse and worse. And if you're going on more medications, that means your health is is is worse. I mean, definitionally, if you were healthier, you wouldn't need those medications. And so, you know, they were like, "Look, I I don't like taking all these pills. I want to be healthy. I don't want to just, you know, you know, Stuckco and super glue on on the wheels from falling off, you know, on my car. So, you know, put, you know, fixing my car with Bondo, you know, it's just like I wanted I wanted to be properly fixed and um and so that's what we do. And so, you know, a big part of my practice is deprescribing, you know, taking people off medications and and getting them on on less and less. I mean, I had one lady came in with she was on 18 different medications for basically three issues and then and then the side effects of those other medications, right? So, it was blood pressure, diabetes, and and chronic pain. And then the side effects of all those 18 medications, right? And and I was just I was very confident. I was like, "Yeah, we we can get you off most of these things." And uh and it's only been a few months, but yeah, we have we've already already deprescribed her off of a significant amount of those. So, um and and so obviously she's getting healthier because she doesn't need all those medications. And that's that's sort of the antithesis of the medical practice now because that that makes less money for the system at large. And so that's not how we're taught. We're not we're not trained to to do that. Now, it is mentioned in medical school, at least my medical school, that you don't want to go into a prescribing cascade where, you know, you have one drug prescribed because of the side effects of another one that was prescribed for the side effects of another one. You don't want you want to get down to the first one and say, "Okay, why don't we change that one and see if we can drop all these other ones?" Um, so that that was good. But, um, but in practice, you see this all the time. You see prescription cascades all the time. And there was um Yeah. And you >> I don't know if it was Cali Means or or someone that said I think it was Cali Means said there was like a some executive of a drug company that sort of asked a rhetorical question. So you know what the my favorite drug is that our our company company makes and you know people had their guesses and he was like no no uh my favorite drugs that we make are any drug that have side effects that we have other drugs to treat. I was just like you know someone should just take you out back and beat you with a hose. I mean, that's just like no way to behave in in civilized society. You know, you're you're happy about causing harm so that you can sell somebody a product to deal with that harm. How about just don't cause the harm? Maybe maybe make a drug that doesn't cause those side effects, >> you know? How would you do that? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, a lot of it's a scam, too, in terms of the dietary recommendations. >> Like my dad's a family doctor, right? Like my dad, he he graduated from Mayo Clinic and uh >> he's retired now, but I used to job shadow him even when I was a little kid. I used to walk around and job shadow them and stuff and get I get used to watch cool surgeries and stuff that I'd run upstairs and see the surgeries that they were doing that were interesting >> and uh you know they this whole salt thing right to use that as an example like I remember just person after person coming in with high blood pressure and then they these doctors say oh you got to cut sodium and then these people would go home and stop eating salt two weeks later they come back they still have high blood pressure >> right because it's it's almost always the the inflammation and the obesity and the lack of exercise and of course the blood sugar. Sugar thickens your blood, right? If you're going to if you got thick blood, you got to it takes more pressure to move it around your system. It's like maple syrup. >> And then they they pretend like they made a dietary change. The doctors say, "Oh my gosh, I'm I can't believe this dietary change didn't cause an improvement. Let's go on drugs now." And then the doctors kind of laugh about dietary changes. Like, oh, they don't really work. And it's like, yeah, because you did a terrible you didn't really make a dietary change. you made the opposite of good advice and you know you got terrible results from that. That's not >> you know that's not good advice. So that's how they teach them in medical school almost, right? And obviously there's more recognition with the salt problem, you know, the salt fix with that book, James D. Nicolantio and all that now. But and I remember just over and over you just see that and it's it's similar with, you know, the high carb diet like, oh, go home and eat more whole grains and that'll fix the problems and it doesn't fix the problem. So then then they need more drugs, right? So they almost advise people professionally in a way that ends that leads them to these drugs, right? And it's it's a disaster. I like what you're doing, man. I appreciate what you're doing. >> Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. >> Yeah. Cool. Um, so I was going to say too, so you know, we we touched on a couple things um, you know, what people can do. I mean, try to avoid these things as much as possible, you know, sweating these things out, but are there any sort of practical things that people can do to sort of um a stay away, but also b get the stuff out of their system if it's if it's a problem? >> Yeah. So, in terms of staying away, I mean, liquids and plastics are the big one. It's surprising how many people ask me about solids, like meat and plastic. It's not that big of a deal. I mean, if you can >> if you can choose to wrap it in butcher paper instead of putting in plastic or whatever, rock on. I'm a fan of that, right? >> But if you don't have the choice, if it's a solid product, I'm not that >> I'm not that concerned about leeching from the studies that I've seen. But for sure, if it's a liquid product and you're putting it in plastic, that's really bad news. Don't do that. And of course, filter your water. It's it still surprises me how many how many people just drink it out of the sink. It's insane. I mean, all these plastic pipes coming into your house, you know, yeah, they're good at killing viruses and killing bacteria in the in the municipal water supply, but they're not filtering out these plastic chemicals. They're not even trying. >> Yeah. >> Um, so you got to do it yourself. You have to. >> Um, so and and the other thing is, you know, there's a little bit of skin absorption and stuff, but like a whole house filter is a bit of an overkill. >> I I, >> you know, I don't usually just generally recommend that. It's really expensive and most of the time it's not that necessary. But I mean by all means if you're like super high performer it's amazing. It's a really good thing to do. I've done that in the past. Now the water that I have right now at my place is really good. In America they've got this database. You can look it up and you can look at all the chemicals in your water and it's super readily available. It's public. So it's ewg.org. It's called the tap water database. So you can put in your zip code and see. So, I used to live in a really high contamination area for all the plastic chemicals and all the nonsense. So, I used to do a whole house filtration. I do not anymore, but I live in an amazing place now in that regard. So, that's another thing to at least think about. Even shower curtains, you know, they've done studies on shower curtains because the water is really hot and if you have like polyinyl shower curtains and of course a lot of these phalates and things are in these PVC products, um it actually off gases into the air at crazy high levels like cancer-causing levels. Yeah. >> So, you have to be a little bit cautious. Baby mattresses, they did studies on baby mattresses. I wrote about that in my book. because their babies are literally laying there breathing on them all night long and you find their blood levels go shooting way up with that. >> No, >> all the plastic flooring materials, right? Things that people don't think about, but I think you can chip away at like if you're if you're deciding between tile and lenolum, like plastic flooring, it's like, well, yeah, go with tile, right? Because it's not going to leech a bunch of plastic into your air, that is a valid concern. Your lungs do absorb a lot of these chemicals just like they would if you were using an inhaler or something. Your lungs are a very good >> drug delivery or plastic chemical delivery mechanism. >> Um yeah, I guess I mean that's the major things right. I don't think anything I think the biggest thing is avoidance. It's exercise and sweating are the best detox mechanisms. Okay, you know. >> Yeah, >> I think movement. >> Yeah. >> Okay, good. Well, >> fat I mean just burning fat, right? If you're obese, you're going to have a lot more. You know, they've done studies with the atomic bombs, like people that were exposed to atomic bombs or radioactivity studies. The average lifespan of a fat cell is 10 years, >> right? So, these these estrogen mimicking chemicals, they can stay in your body a long time. I think that's one of the problems with seed oils because you see a huge improvement if people get off seed oils in terms of acne, but it's not like two weeks later, you It's like year it takes years to flush those darn seed oils out of your system because they store up in your fat cells and phospholipid billayers and things like that in your whole body. Um, that's why if you look back, I'm sure you've done this, but you look at the yearbooks from like 1930s, 1940s, zero acne in all the teenagers, right? >> And then if you if you look at like what are we doing different? Seed oils is the big one. And now you see tons of acne through the yearbook photos. And again, the problem is people have this expectation that like two weeks later they're going to cure acne if they get off of seed oils and just start eating lard and stuff. And it's like, well, I'm 10 years is a long time. Like those fat cells take a long time. And that includes the estrogens that are stored up inside those fat cells. And obesity amplifies these problems, right? So >> the more lean that you can get within reason, obviously you need some fat, it's good for you, but like if you're obese, it amplifies these problems, too. >> Yeah, absolutely. Well, that was very interesting, very helpful. I I didn't even realize it it aerosolized, especially like a hot shower, things like that. Like, oh, great. Yeah. Didn't even think about that. So, you know, and then like fragrances, I guess, are your issue as well. You trying to stay away from sorts of things. >> If you're in doubt, just go fragrance-free with everything. Deodorant, shampoo, soaps. I mean, it's surprising how much nonsense is in those fragrances. They're most of the time they're not using essential oils. I can tell you that they're using some petroleumbased synthetic version of a >> of a fragrance that almost always mimics estrogen. You know, going back to the alpha and beta receptors, um, the reason so many things bind to these estrogen receptors is they call them promiscuous. It's pretty funny in scientific medical journals. They call the receptors promiscuous. Like basically they're >> they're you know um they're they're prostitutes because they bind all kinds of different things. They don't just stick to like testosterone is pretty simple because it has one receptor. So it doesn't bind a bunch of different things because oftentimes men will email me and they're like, "Hey, where are the synthetic testosterones, right? Like what are the stuff that I can what are the things I can expose myself to trigger that testosterone response?" There aren't any or if there are, I don't know about them because maybe a couple things, right? Maybe like >> uh oh, what's the tongat ali or something like that? But really, it's very sparse, right? But estrogen, there's a ton of them. And you have to air on the side of like being extra cautious with the fragrances because a lot of them do stick to that estrogen receptor, that promiscuous receptor. >> That's funny. That's a funny funny way of terming it. The promiscu promiscuity of your receptor. >> Hilarious. >> That's great. Well, Anthony, thank you so much for that. That was that was really fascinating and that was a great great deep dive into uh into all that, you know, because it's so important. It's not just about eating right. It's about living right and and and your environment is so important to having having a healthy life, healthy hormones and and that affects your kids and their kids and their kids. And so this is why uh you know the saying goes like you're not just eating or or your environment is not just affecting you, it's affecting your grandkids, you know, and so that it's uh it's really really important to get that right. So thank you very much for that. I really appreciate your time. >> Appreciate you having me. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, can you if you have any websites or social media or where can people find you? >> Yeah, ajconsulting company.com. It's not a very memorable name, but I came up with it 10 years ago and that's just what I got. So, ajconsulting company.com. >> That's all I got. >> Yeah. Perfect. We'll put that in the in the notes as well. People can can check that out. Um, Dr. Jay, thank you again. I really appreciate it. >> Thanks. Thank you.