Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - A Routine Procedure Nearly Destroyed His Health—How Dr. Josh Axe Recovered

Episode Date: September 26, 2026

Why are girls getting their periods earlier than previous generations? What can your tongue reveal about your health? And how did a stem cell procedure nearly leave Dr. Josh Axe permanently disabled? 👀Dr. Josh Axe joins me to explore early puberty, tongue health, natural medicine, and the medical experience that changed his life. We dive into what our bodies can reveal about underlying health issues, the importance of understanding root causes, and what his near-debilitating procedure taught him about healing. 🦠Thank you to our sponsors!GEVITI: Use code "ALEX" to get 20% off of your first purchaseA'DEL NATURAL COSMETICS: Use code "ALEX" for 25% off first time ordersPRIMA: Use code "ALEXCLARK20" for 20% off a one-time purchaseWILD PASTURES: Get an exclusive discount on your next orderOur Guest:Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNSDr. Josh's Links: His InstagramHis FacebookHis YouTubeDr. Josh Axe Show on TikTokHis XHis WebsiteThe Health Institute WebsiteFOLLOW ALEX:Alex's InstagramCulture Apothecary's InstagramAlex's YouTubeAlex's FacebookAlex's X🌿 Culture Apothecary WEBSITE/NEWSLETTERJoin the Cuteservatives Facebook group to connect with like minded friends who love America and all things health and wellness! New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.DISCLAIMER: This content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always talk to a qualified healthcare professional for any health-related questions or decisions.

How do you feel about one olypop a day? Listen, doing an olipop here there is fine. I don't have a problem with that, but I still think people should be aiming for about 30 grams of fiber from food sources. Your menopause trajectory is determined in your 30s. I could make an argument for five years old. Women used to have mencies at 17 years old. Now they're hitting it at 12 to 13 years old.

17 versus 12, that's five years of premature hormonal aging. So no, I don't think it's 30. I think it's zero through 40. I think that women are aging much, much faster. I mean, think about all of the hormones in the milk supply. Think about all the microplastics, all the things are exposed to. And this is why these girls are hitting Mency so much earlier. Today's guest has spent his career teaching millions that the body can heal.

And then, at 42, a routine medical procedure left him facing the possibility that he might never walk normally again. Dr. Josh Axe is a doctor of natural medicine, clinical nutritionist, and one of the biggest voices in food, herbs, functional medicine in faith-based healing, and he completely healed himself naturally. Now, he's got a brand new book co-authored with Dr. Will Cole, another great friend of the show. It's called heal your cells. Today, we dive into everything from getting off thyroid beds to the best food for a wet cough, how to avoid gallbladder surgery, if Dr. Axe believes the body keeps the score and why a hyperbaric chamber appointment three times a week could change your life. Also, go to Dr. Axe's podcast, listen to him interview me on my super controversial morning beauty smoothie and not giving my future kids fruit

before they're two and tons more. Watch on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Apothecary on Spotify. Leave a five-star review before we start. Let us know the guest that we should have back on. Welcome Dr. Josh Axe back to Culture Apothecary. Your entire career has been about teaching people how their body can heal. But you actually went through something where you wondered if your own body could heal. Yeah. Because at 42, doctors told you, you may never walk again. Yeah. What exactly happened? So I went in for actually a natural procedure, stem cell procedure. I had injured my back lifting weights a few years before and I'd done stem cell and I probably got 70% better. I mean, I was amazed at how much it helped me heal. And I went back in, got it done and

then something went wrong. And I ended up feeling just worse and worse every single day to the point one morning I woke up and I literally could not walk. The pain was so excruciating. I couldn't get out of bed, laid in bed a couple more days, still didn't get better. In fact, kept getting worse. I called an ambulance. They came and picked me up. I was in Puerto Rico at the time, and went and got an MRI. I got the report back and it said, I had a spinal infection that had migrated from my disc into my bone, and now there was an abscess growing in my spinal cord. And I immediately had to get on a medical flight to Florida, met with an infectious disease specialist, and he looked me in the eye and he said, this is really serious, it could kill

you. He said, the most likely outcome is going to be, you're going to be permanently disabled. Oh, my gosh. And what's so crazy, Alex, is just a few months before I was playing in the pool with my two-year-old daughter thrown her, you know, seven feet in the air in the pool. I was lifting weights. I was cycling and swimming and felt like I was in pretty good shape, but just had a little bit of nagging back pain. And then I was told that I may never walk normally again. I would likely have to have my spine fused. And I got to be honest, I mean, for 48 hours, I felt like my life was over. But then I just really pressed in and prayed. And I just felt like God said, listen, I've got you.

Just walk with me through this. And I just spent time praying. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do everything I can to heal. And one of the things that's so difficult about the area where I had the infection was it has almost zero blood supply in your bone and in your disc and your spine. And so I did all the research I can on how could I flood this area with oxygen and blood in stem cells so it can actually heal?

And so I started getting in a hyperbaric chamber. I started following a really specific type of diet. I mean, I was doing IVs. I was, I was peeing blue every single day because I was doing methylene blue IVs, silver IVs, every sort of nutrient you could think of, doing everything I could to heal. And I did this. And by the way, I didn't walk for an entire year. I'm talking about, well, 10 months I didn't walk on my own, two months on a walker, and then I just started continuing to do everything I could. So what did you do? Use a wheelchair? I couldn't sit upright because my disc was swollen. And so anytime, I couldn't, I couldn't, When I got upright at all, the pain was just unbearable.

Oh, my word. And so the only way I could be upright, so I laid in bed for about 22 hours a day. And then I eventually got to the point where I could crawl, and I would crawl and get into a pool. And then there I could get upright because the water kind of took some pressure off my disc. Actually, sometimes it's been three or four hours a day in the pool because it's the only time I could be upright. Wow. And this was just about two and a half years ago where I was overcoming this and starting to walk again. and now, praise God, I'm 100%.

But this really led me into spending time studying on how do you reverse irreversible conditions? Because my mom had what some doctors would consider an irreversible condition with lung cancer. She was able to reverse that naturally. Praise God because of it. And this also led me to write this book, Heal Yourselves, really focusing on how do you heal areas that conventional medicine says you can't heal? Autoimmune disease, cancer, different types of infections like Lyme disease and mold. issues and parasites and a lot of these other medical diseases that have sort of popped up over the last 20 years where doctors are stumped and don't know how to do it. And so I've spent the last,

you know, three, four years of my life doing everything I can to study what diet, what herbs, what advanced therapies can help people completely reverse and heal these really tough conditions. So at what point were you able to start living a normal life again? Maybe a year and a half or two later. I mean, I still had a lot of pain. But, But through using peptides, actually was very, very helpful regularly through doing the right type of sort of learning how to move again. I mean, I actually literally had to relearn how to walk for a little bit. So you did do physical therapy? Yeah, but it was all self-physical therapy.

I did video someone in to give me the things to do, started doing that again. But I would say, you know, life started feeling normal again probably two years after. You said one of the treatments that you did was using a hyperbaric chamber. Yeah. Why are hyperbaric chambers such a game changer for people? There is a doctor back, I want to say it was in 1950s. His name was Otto Warburg, and he said this. He said, cancer in most diseases cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. And so oxygen tends to be very healing for most people. One of the issues, though, with some of your internal organs and your spine and

disc, they don't get much oxygen. So what a hyperbaric chamber does is you breathe in oxygen, and it takes that extra oxygen you bring in your system, and it pressurizes it. So it actually makes it smaller and it drives it deeper into your cells and tissues. So you are flooding your body. And this is why the number one treatment with somebody that has burns or an infection to help them heal is doing oxygen therapy or driving oxygen deeper into the body. And this is true, by the way, I now, I open a clinic in Nashville called the Longevity Clinic and what we do. We have hyperbaric oxygen therapy or we recommend it out for other people. But hyperbaric oxygen therapy is amazing for killing parasites for helping people overcome mold for Lyme disease. Again, I mentioned cancer,

because it drives oxygen into the cell, and then that actually helps kill the pathogen. Are there any types of chronic disease that would not do well going into hyperbaric chamber? Like, if you have this, you should not do it. Well, I mean, you have to be careful if you've ever had any sort of different types of implants because of the pressure that it has. So it could be maybe if there's a specific type of heart implant or brain implant, you need to be careful there. I mean, there are very, very few things where it's contraindicated. Some people that have what we call Hertzheimer reaction where they are, like if they have mold, and they haven't been able to sort of balance out their body a little bit.

Hyperbaric chamber can cause the die off to be a little bit quicker. So you need to be careful with that. But really, there's almost no condition. I mean, especially people that have gone through strokes. This is the number one therapy they should be doing. People that want to promote longevity, one of the number one therapies they should be considering. Now, obviously it costs money. You have to find a place where you can do hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

And I know a lot of people that have gone in Facebook Marketplace, for instance, or eBay and bought them. I know a lot of families I've worked with where the kids aren't developing as quickly as they'd like. It could be autism, could be ADHD. I know some that just want their kids to be better for better athletic recovery. So if you're just using it for general longevity purposes, you have no. serious illness like myself, how often ideally would you recommend I do it? Three days a week. Really? Now, I mean, that's the ideal. I mean, even one day a week, the thing there is, the ideal with hyperbaric oxygen therapy is consistency. Now, I do want to say, not everybody maybe can

afford it or doesn't want to take the time to do it. I do think, again, it's one of the greatest therapies you could ever do or you should consider doing if you've got a health issue. If you have a broken bone, is it good to go in there? Oh, 100%. Now, I think the most beneficial thing for a broken bone, though, is PMF, pulse electromagnetic frequency. That will help bones heal. In fact, I just had a patient I was working with, and she had surgery on a major, major reconstructive surgery on her ankle and bone damage. And I've been having her do pymph every day, and her recovery's probably been 40% more faster because of that type of therapy. So that's a different type of therapy. Is there a certain company you like if someone wants to purchase? I mean, gosh, there are so

great companies for home for Hyperbaric. Summit and C's a really popular brand. I mean, so there's some good ones. I do want to say, too, just doing deep breathing techniques, exercising without oxygen, or doing things like Peloton or swimming where you're really using a lot of your lung capacity, increasing VO2 max. I mean, that's incredibly beneficial for the general population as well. But if it comes to being sick with a pathogen or infection, I think hyperbaric is probably the greatest therapy. What does ozone therapy do? And should I do that? Ozone is focused more on fighting free radicals and oxidative stress.

And so that's really what ozone does. Ozone is also incredibly beneficial for pathogens. In fact, if I'm thinking about the most beneficial therapy for pathogens, number one, it's going to be a diet therapy, right? So if I have a patient coming with parasites, I go through a really specific process with that to where we strengthen the body first with certain herbs and foods. Then we kill the pathogen while opening the detox pathway. So maybe you can do some infrared sauna

while also doing wormwood black walnut, clove, berberine, very high-dose probiotics, and then we'll add a binder to it. I tend to like things like charcoal and zeolites and modified citrus pectin and we'll go through this process where it's sort of strengthened,

kill, open up pathways, and bind. And that's really effective for my patients with mold, with parasites, with Lyme disease. And if it's lime, it's going to be different herbs. It might be cats claw and astragalus and some other things instead for those things. But overall, anytime anybody's fighting affection, you want to have a process they're going through.

Bringing it all back to this, ozone therapy is incredibly beneficial at killing pathogens. So similarly, I love it for mold. I love it for parasites. I love it for Lyme disease. And where do you do this? You typically, so there's two ways. One, you can go to a clinic.

Like we do one in our clinic called Eboo. It's really powerful. So we literally take your blood. it goes into a machine and ozanates your blood and then go the blood then goes back into your body. Vampire. So we literally take almost all their blood and it's ozinated. And so it filters your blood along with killing any pathogen that's in there. And then there's another one that's a little bit more gentle.

You can kind of do ozone as an IV. And then you can get home units. There are people I know who do it as a suppository in terms of doing ozone there in the rectum. So that's very popular. You can also breathe it in. I mean, so there are multiple ways you could do ozone and get the benefits. So did doing this stem cell thing and this totally went wrong freak you out about stem cell therapies forevermore? Because didn't the same thing happen to Dr. Mark Hyman?

It did. So this is what, I'm just going to say this. You and Dr. Hyman have access to the best of the best. It's not like you're going to some van in a back alley. So if it happens to you, I'm like, I'm out. I went to probably the most well-known, prestigious stem cell place in it happened there. I knew you would. Now, here's the thing, I wouldn't did something called intradiscals, where they go in your disc.

And there's much, much greater risks there doing stem cell than if you're getting your facets done or just, I say, your knee joint or your shoulder. There's really almost no risk in those areas. There is a little bit of a risk in the disc. But again, you know, now here's what's going to blow some people's minds. Since then, I've had stem cells numerous times. You have? You're wild. If I was your wife, I would be like, uh-uh.

But here's the thing. I did it because, and I think that's part of what helped me. I know it's one of the things that helped me get back to 100%. Wow. Because I had so much damage there. But again, I do think the peptides and the diet and the hyperbarrier was... But you're like, I'm not putting it directly into my disc again. Well, yeah, from here on out, I won't put it in my disc.

Okay. That's crazy. Your wife is a brave woman. You're one of the biggest names in natural health. This happens to you. Did it make you more humble? And you were like, okay. Or did it make you make you...

you confident at how the body can recover? One, it definitely made me more humble. It made me more humble just knowing that I could not do this without God. I just absolutely could not heal without God. And I was in the same place when my mom had cancer and other friends who've had these life-threatening diagnoses. You know, I love in the book of Job when Job loses his family, he gets down on his hands and knees. And he says something to degree of like, naked I entered this world, naked I will leave. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed it be the name of the Lord. And so I think that anytime we have something in life, a challenge, one of the greatest things we can do is just get down on our hands and knees and pray. I really believe, if I was asked that on a recent interview, I was doing a podcast with Gary Breka.

And he asked me that. I said, what's the first thing people need to do to heal? And my answer is, get down on your hands and knees and pray. I let it think it's a single most important thing. And the other thing is this, and this is an, I think when you look up healing in the Bible in terms of doing a deep research on it, here's what I found. is that when people want to heal in the Bible, I think there's three really common components. Number one, there's a level of prayer.

Number two, there's a level of faith knowing I will be healed. Number three is confessing your sins. And that was something else I did is I really just spent time just confessing my sins and what I've done wrong and just also being this place of surrender saying, God, I need you, I can't heal without you. So I think coming from that place of humility is the single most important thing.

Because I think about, it's so important to remember that with God, it's a relationship. just like I have a relationship with my wife, Chelsea, just like I have a relationship with my parents. It's building a deep intimate relationship. You know, if I would call on my mom and dad right now and ask them for something, they would do almost anything. Same for my wife. Same if my wife asked me for something. For me, building a deep relationship with God that's like that to where, you know, I know that he is going to do everything he can that's in my best interest. He's, he's forming out against me. He's constantly working things out for my good. So I think having that depth of understanding and that

relationship and then being in that, knowing my position to him in humility, I think that's incredibly important. But from there, I do have this sense of confidence knowing God made the body and the power that made that body heals the body. And so knowing the body has amazing capacity to heal, seeing my mom reverse cancer naturally, that strengthened my understanding. Seeing it reverse one of my best friends, Jordan Rubin, he reversed cancer naturally, seeing people come into my practice and helping them heal autoimmune disease, hypothyroidism, you name it. You know, these conditions that mainstream medicine would typically say you can't heal, and I've seen those heal.

So that was, of course, bolstering to my confidence of knowing that the body can heal, but also knowing that God's a great physician and he can heal anything. What are things that people say like, oh, this is just part of getting older, I guess. I feel X, Y and Z, but you're like, no, this is not. normal aging. One is being tired all the time and your joints and body feeling bad all the time. And now I do want to say this. Of course, of course, as you age, you're going to be a little less tired. Your body is going to produce less stem cells. I mean, I think the Bible clearly states in a way or alludes to man was made to be alive for about 120 years. Somewhere in that ballpark

is, I think, where we can live up to and live healthily. But I do think that it says in the Bible, about Moses. It says, when he was 120 years, his eyes were not dim, which I've heard certain theologians say that means he was still able to help in conceiving a child. Okay. So it means that he probably had pretty good testosterone levels. He was still walking on his own. He was still moving. I mean, he still had a level of health there at 120. So, but I do think the low energy or the aches and pains, I think if you're doing the right things in movement-wise and you're eating very clean and you're doing the right things, I think that you're going to have very little pain. Your energy is going to be pretty steady and good for even into your 80s, 90s and up over 100 years old. We are in such a health conscious era right now, cold plunges, red light, high protein sleep trackers, all of it.

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Adele is Christian, family-owned, proudly pro-life and believes that makeup should enhance what God created instead of covering it up, which is basically the entire beauty mood right now. This September, new and returning customers get 20% off everything with code culture apothecary at adele natural Cosmetics.com. Usually you can only get a discount the first time you buy. For the month of September only, Adele Natural Cosmetics will give you a big discount, whether you're returning or new, at Adelnaturalcosmetics.com with code culture apothecary. You just finished a workout. You're feeling incredible. You're glowing. You're mentally purchasing new workout clothes because you've exercised three times and this is who you are now. And then you reach into your gym bag and you find it.

Find what, Alex? You find the protein shaker that you forgot to wash. You unscrew the lid in the smell is so rancid, so dank, so biologically advanced that this bottle may now qualify as its own sovereign nation. How does protein powder and water spend 24 hours together and become a super fun site? This is why I love Prima protein bars and my husband Vance loves these things. They've got 21 grams of grass-fed protein, zero seed oils, grass-fed beef tallow and organic raw honey instead of artificial sweeteners. And Prima protein bars test for glyphosate, which is exactly the kind transparency I want when I'm buying packaged food. And the flavors actually sound like dessert, cookie dough, and they taste like it too. Cacao, salted caramel, mocha, and mint chip. You can throw one in

your gym bag and finish your workout, then eat your prima. Don't worry about a moldy, nasty shaker bottle developing its own microbiome. Go to eatprima.com. Use code Alex Clark 20 for 20% off your first purchase. Eatprima.com. Code Alex Clark 20 for 20% off your first purchase. Your gym bag has suffered enough. Do you agree with someone like Dr. Mindy Peltz and that? basically your menopause trajectory is determined in your 30s of like how good or bad your menopause situation will be oh well i i can make an argument for uh it when you're five years old oh really why women used to have mencies at 17 years old now they're hitting it at 12 to 13 years old so 17 versus 12 that's five years of premature hormonal aging so no i don't think it's 30

I think it's zero through 40. I mean, I think that women are aging much, much faster. I mean, think about all of the hormones in the milk supply. Think about all the microplastics. Think about all the things are exposed to. And this is why these girls are hitting Mency so much earlier. And then there's birth control. And then there's all of these things that are speeding up the aging process.

And so it's not that I disagree with her. It's just I think it's happening over a much longer time period than most people think. in terms of women hitting menopause earlier than they should. And by the way, it's probably the two conditions I probably see the most today are hypothyroidism and women having just hormone imbalance due to perimenopause and menopause. And just feeling flatlined, feeling dry, having hot flashes, trouble sleeping, all of those changes that come with menopause. And there are things you can do to really keep estrogen and progesterone more elevated.

You know, and here's a big one. There's a pathway in the body, and it's called one of two things. It's typically called the cortisol steel pathway or prenatolone steel. But it says this, is that your body makes cortisol and your sex hormones out of the same raw materials, out of a certain type of cholesterol and a few other things. And so your body is always making a choice. Do I create stress hormones or do I create sex hormones? And for a lot of people living in a fight or flight state, high cortisol, their body is taking all their natural resources and shuttling those towards making cortisol.

So now your body doesn't have the materials and the energy it needs to actually create enough progesterone, enough estrogen and enough testosterone that women need, or DHA even more so, but as they're going through menopause. So one of the greatest things women can do is spend more time in prayer, spend more time in nature, spend more time. doing things they love, but really getting out of fight or flight and lowering cortisol is so getting morning sunlight. But doing these things to balance cortisol, I think generally has the biggest effect. And then here's a secondary thing. There are foods that naturally support progesterone and estrogen. When you're going through perimenopause and menopause, eating a lot more flaxseeds, doing organic soy, doing sweet potato is really amazing, doing more wild caught fish, garboh Bonzo beans, pumpkin seeds, sesame.

These foods all support progesterone and estrogen, eggs. And so avocado. So if you get on a very specific type of diet, there's a diet you can follow that really elevates those hormones as well. You say that our cells are basically sending us distress signals. How do you know that your body's batteries are dying? I mean, what does that feel like? Well, I think the biggest thing is low energy.

Now, I would say as well, cold body temperature. Like so, or your body gets too hot or too cold. your body has trouble regulating heat, your hair is getting thin. So here's another thing, your body's smart. So in our cells, by the way, our bodies are made up of around 35 trillion cells. And all of these cells have many organs inside them. So cells make up your organs, just like we all have organs. Well, your cells have many organs.

We call them organelles. And they have things like a nucleus. They have a cell membrane on the outside. They also have something called a mitochondria. And your mitochondria is where your body creates. cellular energy, and that's the energy that every organ feeds off of to run properly. So for your thyroid to produce the right amount of hormones, for your stomach to digest food, for your pancreas to produce insulin, your cells create, it's called ATP cellular energy. So mitochondria, they're like

these little batteries that are in all of our cells. For most people, we've got these batteries that are very low. I think it's the root cause for a lot of women for hypothyroidism, for cold extremities. So one of the greatest things you can do is build those batteries back up. How? The number one way. Now, some women aren't going to like this. What? Okay.

It's weight training. Oh, no. This is my, the pain of my existence is like the number one argument, Bans and I have. It's like, you've got to be weight training. So I hate working out. And when I've tried to explain him, I'm like, and it probably has to do the Hashimoto's. But when I work out hard like that with weight training, it's like I feel worse after. By the way, there's another study on this.

and they found that for most women, especially with Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism, you should weight train, but you don't want to go too hard. Okay. Well, that's good news for me. Go for 30 to 40 minutes. That's a good happy meeting. I can do that. Do some machines.

Go moderate, but you do want to work on building some muscle because the organs that have the highest concentration of these batteries, these mitochondria, are your brain, your heart and your muscles. Okay. And so, you know, you can't really build more heart tissue. you can't really build more brain tissue. So you can build more mitochondria via weight train. That's number one.

Number two, better sleep. That's when your body is recharging. So like I wear an aura ring, and one thing I love to do is look at, what is my total sleep and my deep sleep? Because that's when your mitochondria is going to recharge the most. So focusing there, reducing stress is big.

And then there are certain foods that support mitochondrial function. Any food that has allergic acid, pomegranates, raspberries. I love pomegranates. promulgant seeds or whatever in your guacamole. Oh, it's so good. I love that. It is excellent. And pumpkin seeds too. I mean, that's an, talk about an amazing hormone balancing meal is pomegranate's pumpkin seeds and, you know, just a pure guacamole.

Girl dinner, chips and quack. I love that. There you go. There you go. Perfect. The other thing would be, you know, omega-3 fatty acids. Co-enzym Q10 is really important. Creatine, really, really good. Now, to activate the best... I have to work out. I'm creatine. So my creatine, my smoothie is worthless? It's not that it's worthless. It's supporting brain function, but it definitely is activated and becomes even more beneficial, certainly by doing weight training. And really just it's two days a week. You don't have to go and listen, you don't need to be in the gym, pounding weights five days a week. If you went in two days a week, three is probably ideal, but even if you just went twice, let's say you did a leg day, you did a lower

body day and an upper body day or a push day and a pull day, something like that, it would be tremendously beneficial. But those are things... This is a good happy medium. See vans? We'll do this happy medium. There you go. He's all about... He is like CrossFit twice a day, ideally. Runner, track, runner. He's been a track coach. Like he is so physical, like physically healthy. So you married an athlete. No, literally. Or marrying an athlete. Crushes it on the basketball court. He can play any sport, tennis, whatever, pickleball. It's sick how talented he is. That's what I say. I am the least athletic.

physically active person. I love to do the healthy food thing and switch out all the non-toxic swaps. Like, I'm like, that's where I'm comfortable. It's very out of my comfort zone to do all the physical stuff. For your body type, too, the number one thing you could do for longevity is to weight train. Okay. All right. All right. I'm in. I'm in. What is constant snacking a sign of? Irregulated blood sugar. And then typically maybe leptin and grelin being high. I mean, grellin in particular. What's grelin? That sounds like a like a furby creature. What is that? It's your hunger hormone. So what happens is...

It makes sense. That name is perfect. Exactly. Like gremlin's, yeah. So, yeah, no, grelin is your hunger hormone. And so when insulin gets imbalanced in your blood sugar, you're going to constantly have Grelin elevated and you're going to be craving food. One of the things these gLP1 suppress is really by slowing your digestion is grelin.

Now, the side effects are so awful, I'd never recommend it to anybody unless they're doing a micro dose and then high protein and weight training with it. But overall, it's really blood. irregular blood sugar. So increasing protein, increasing fiber, that's the fastest way to fix that. What are some fibrous foods? Beans? High fiber fruits like berries and pomegranate and apples are going to be very high on the list. Beans, seeds like flax and pumpkin. Yeah, and beans. And then vegetables are. I mean, yeah, if you do steamed or sauteed or any type of vegetable. Now, there are different types of fiber. You've got your soluble fiber, which is high in things like oatmeal,

and certain types of fruits. And so soluble fiber tends to be better for feeding the good bacteria in your gut, whereas non-soluble, it adds a little bit more like bulk to your stool. So overall, but you want both. You want both soluble and non-soluble fiber. And so you want to do a good mixture of vegetables, fruits, some beans, you know, whole grains, potatoes, and vegetables, all of those things have fiber. How do you feel about like one olypop a day?

Here's what I would say is, I mean, I wouldn't count that towards, listen, here's where I get really concerned. This is where I like to cheat. Like, I had an olive pop. The question I like the most is not what can I get away with, but what can I do to, what is the best thing I can have for healing? I'm the what can I get away with person. My, you know, doing a hollipop here, there's fine. I don't have a problem with that.

But I still think people should be aiming for about 30 grams of fiber from, you know, food sources. Do you think kombucha daily is okay or too much? I think this really comes down to personalization. If I have somebody stick out their tongue or if they've done a lab test and there's candida, kombucha is not good. It's not ideal. It's too, even feeling, you know this because like foods that typically create more dampness in the body almost have like a slimy feeling. So think about a banana or an egg yolk, like excess sugar, but in a very similar fashion,

in kombucha, you've got that slimy mother in there. So all that being said, if you've got candida not idea. Now listen, if you don't have candida and you're pretty active and you need moisture, and even in an area like you're in Arizona here, you can probably get away with it more in Arizona than you would national. High humid environments can impact the internal body. And so typically people that are in the South and human environments need to do more bitter drying foods.

People that are in really dry, hot areas of the country could probably tolerate things like bananas and kombucha a little bit better. How are LED light bulbs and fluorescent lighting at the office damaging ourselves? There's multiple ways. People are worried about some of the toxins being the fluorescent lighting. I mean, I'm more concerned with how it's elevating cortisol or how it's impacting your hormones. One of the things I've noticed personally is the more time I spend outside, the better my health is. The better I sleep at night, the better my cortisol is balanced, the better my testosterone is.

All of it I can tell physically the more time I spend outside. All of this artificial light, it's not giving off the full spectrum of light. In fact, there's a lot of talking about red light today, which I love because red light is probably the number one therapy that's more of a biohack for increasing mitochondrial health. Incredibly beneficial. So like in my clinics, I have red light beds that people get into and I have a red light panel at home. And I think those are really beneficial. Same.

But the sun gives off not only red light beds. red light in the same ways that a red light bed gives off, it also gives off blue light, which is anti-inflammatory, green light, which is detoxifying, and yellow light, and amber light, which is immune boosting. So really, there are benefits of all of these different colors and spectrums of light. When you're around these different indoor lighting, you're not really getting any of those, you're hardly getting any of those benefits versus if you're outside, you're being flooded with those healing rays of light. Does having a burnout nervous system also contribute to chronic illness? Oh, yeah. I mean, I, listen, excess stress and high cortisol, I mean, I can make

an argument that it's the number one cause of chronic illness and people not being able to heal well. So how do you regulate your nervous system? Understand the way God wants you to live and live that way. When I consider my daughters, two-year-old, six-year-old daughters, I want them playing, I want them laughing, I want them, listen, I want them to use their gifts to glorify God and I want them to be productive. But equally or more, I also want them to just be at peace, at rest, feeling safe, secure. And having a balance of work hard, play hard, rest well. And the biggest thing that's causing, and also having that relationship with, and so the reason I brought that up as well is, if you think that God is a angry man upstairs or he's

judging you or life's a test or he's kind of off in the distance, it's really not involved. That's going to impact if you feel safe or secure. it's going to impact if you feel like your identity is tied to how productive you are, being busy and trying to do stuff all the time, versus if you have this realization of, you know, God wants me to have the same sort of life that I want for my kids, even more so, even more perfectly. So I think that if you can live in that state and focus on that the most, that's going to get you out of the fight or fight state, maybe more than anything. There's an AW-quozer quote I love, which it goes something like this, what you think about when you think about God is the most important thing about you.

And so, you know, I think that that's helpful. So all that being said, and I, the predominant group of people I take care of in my practice is women between the ages of probably 30 and 60. And so there's a lot of moms, a lot. And so moms tend to, I mean, from the moment they wake up to the moment they crash at night, they are doing something. Yeah. Bring kids somewhere, making food, some of them working. I mean, so much. and they're volunteering. They're doing, and so there's almost no downtime,

time to rest, time to heal. That's incredibly important for healing. So I actually would, I could make an argument that stress or poor sleep, those two in particular are far more important than diet for healing.

Now, diet's also very important. But I think those three things are the things that most people are missing when it comes to overall health. Working with so many women in your practice, what do you think the common denominator is between all of them that have thyroid issues.

I think that there are several factors. One is, to your point, just excess cortisol. Cortisol, when that goes high, causes insulin to go high. That causes estrogen to go high. When that goes high, now your thyroid hormones are imbalanced. And you have very poor conversion of something we call T4 to T3, which T3 is the hormone that your body uses in your cell for metabolic function.

So overall, I think the root cause of many women having hypothyroidism is deeply connected to stress. But here's another one, birth control. There is a study that came out that said, women that are on birth control long term have a 287% higher risk of hypothyroidism. And here's why. Every drug, every medication somebody takes

depletes their body of certain nutrients. Levothyroxin, the most commonly prescribed thyroid medication today, depletes the body of vitamin B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, B12, magnesium, selenium, and good bacteria, so probiotics. Oh, my word. And those are all the nutrients. Think about selenium. I mean, that's the most important nutrient for thyroid function. I was going to say.

Or at least for autoimmune, fighting autoimmune, like Hashimoto. And 80% of hypothyroidism today is Hashimoto's. It's autoimmune. So, I mean, when we say hypothyroidism, it's almost always autoimmune. It's almost always Hashimoto's. But birth control is a big reason. And most women, what's happened is, let's say you've been on it for eight years or ten years. Every day you just have little by little, these B vitamins and zinc and all these selenium just sucked right out of your body. And then eight years later, it's like, well, now I have hypothyroidism. You know how many women who got on birth control in high school?

And sometimes it's not even for sexual activity. It was tend to be for acne or just saying, oh, you don't want your period. Hey, you don't need that. Which is crazy. But all that being said, birth control is the other big one, along with just being too busy, not enough downtime rest. And then there are some nutritional deficiencies. Maybe they're not caused by birth control.

Being vitamin D deficient is a really big one. Oh, huge. Listen, I'm whatever, however many things you just said, four things, I'm all four. So everything you just mentioned, I'm guilty of for sure. But we're seeing all these thyroid medications being recalled right now. What's going on? Well, let me say this first. There was a study that came out.

And by the way, this was published in the maybe the most prestigious medical journal in the United States. It's called JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association Journal. Okay. So this journal came out and said, there are 23 million women on thyroid medication. And they said, likely 21 million of them. So again, 21 million of the 23 million women likely don't need to be on it because it's not doing their body any good. It's really not helping the symptoms much. And it's not effective.

So why are we being prescribed this? Because it's the only thing the conventional medicine doctor and medical doctors have in their toolbox. So what should people do instead? Can they just stop taking it cold turkey? Do you have to strategically taper off? Like what happens? I mean, legally, I can't tell women, hey, you just get off this. I mean, this is something they need to work with their practitioner on or do themselves where they wean off of it.

I mean, typically most women that are successful doing this, they'll cut their dosage over time. while simultaneously doing the right things. And so when I have women come into my practice, I tend to have them do advanced blood work. So we'll look at their hormone levels. We'll also look at their nutrient deficiencies. Are you deficient in selenium? Right?

Wouldn't that be good to know, right? Are you deficient in vitamin D? Are you deficient in B vitamins? So being able to look at that and then do change the diet, build up the gut microbiome, so you're absorbing these vitamins better, so high-dose probiotics,

Red Light Therapy, incredibly beneficial. And there's certain foods. You mentioned on my show when you came on as a guest. You referenced as you're taking aloe vera juice. There was a great study on aloe vera. And aloeira is good because it helps. I do have one disclaimer though with it. Alovara is very good because it's so healing to the gut microbiome.

I do recommend if you do aloeira to drink ginger tea with it because aloeuvre is one of the most cooling of all the foods. So if you do it long term, and if you already have a cool body temperature or you might even have any sort of digestive issues like IBS. It can, over time, if you do it too much, it can disrupt that because it's so cooling. If you do a warming food or a warming herb like ginger, it'll offset the coolness and your results will probably be even better. Like put it in your tea or drink it separate? Oh, you can do it separate.

Either way is fine. Do you like berberine as a natural ozumic alternative? I do. I love berberine. Let me say this, though, again, berberine, I typically don't recommend it for more than two months straight. Burberine, because it's so cooling, you do want to cycle it with other herbs. So what I would recommend is berberine, and then maybe a couple months later, you do gymnosia, or you do bitter melon, or, of course, high-dose cinnamon regularly, I think can be really beneficial.

For losing weight? Yeah. Well, I mean, the number one effect of berberine is going to be balancing insulin. GLP 1, I don't think, is probably the best comparison. and I think metformin or a diabetes drug is a better comparison to berberine. But it is going to balance blood sugar and that's going to decrease cravings, certainly. Okay. So, yeah, I mean, if somebody wants to get the benefits of GLP1 without GLP1, eat way more fiber, way more protein, drink way more water, take berberine and lift weights.

Does Sourcrow also help with weight? It does. Actually, there's some great studies on apple cider vinegar, but Sourcrow would have. have similar benefits to this. The acetic acid, that thing that gives it its sourness, has been shown to promote weight loss and promote insulin sensitivity. So, I mean, yeah, apple cider vinegar and sourcrow, both, absolutely phenomenal for weight loss. What is something that is free or close to it that you could do every day that would greatly reduce your chance of cancer? Eating more fruits and vegetables. I mean, that's going to, in higher omega-3 intake. I mean, listen, there's a lot of things.

There's studies on sleep. There's studies also on exercise. All of those, just very basics. Yeah, back to basics. Absolutely. Decreased cancer risk. My favorite talent of Josh Axes is that you can give any random ailment or like problem and then he'll tell you what to eat for it. So I want to do that with you. Yeah. If you have a persistent wet cough, what should you eat? A wet cough? Wow. Well, you need to dry things out first. So from an herbal standpoint, I would say ginger, things that are warming, that's going to help dry up some of the fluid there is going to be really great. At Canacea is great.

From a dietary standpoint, you need to go bitter. So remember, salt helps bring more fluid into the body and helps you store more fluid, okay? But bitter helps get rid of excess fluid. And so to get rid of excess fluid, you need to do more bitter foods and more potassium. So I would really focus on arugula. I would do artichokes. I would do broccoli rays. I would do end-dive, all the things that nobody knows what they are or eat.

But anything that's bitter, bitter vegetables, liver would be fantastic. And then soups, like warming soups, herbal tea, by the way. See, I think soup, I think wet. Yeah. It's wet, but it's not going to cause that effect in the body. Okay, okay. And then what about the opposite, a dry cough? Yeah, dry cough, you want to do pears.

Why? Hands down, the best food you could eat for it. Because they're just incredibly moist. things that are white in nature, white or light yellow, tend to be the most activating and immune supportive. And then fruits in general are going to just, they're going to bring the most fluid into the body and help you store fluid the best.

So if you've got a toddler who just won't stop coughing, you're giving them pears. How much pears should they be eating? I mean, probably two a day would be about right. And then I would do, listen, some foods, they just bring balance. They're not forcing your body to be dry. They're not forcing it to be moist.

They are just supporting it. So soup would be really good. I also think if you're dealing with dryness, more good oils are going to be good. Extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, salmon. These things that bring more moisture to the body would be really good. So I would put those near the top. But I mean, pears hands down, absolutely the best food.

What fruit can you eat at night to help you sleep deeper? Kiwi and tart cherry are by far and away the best. Part of it has to do with the very high. high potassium levels. Potassium is calming. It helps you relax, helps regulate your body in a really powerful way. There's actually a great study on eating two Kiwis in the evening and it greatly improving sleep. And then tart cherry juice is the other one. But those are for sure the best. If your child wakes up in the middle of the night complaining of restless leg, you know, my leg hurts. I can't stop shaking my legs. It's bothering me. What vitamin are they likely

deficient in. Magnesium number one, potassium number two. Yeah, and that's where avocado would be great. That's a really high magnesium rich food. I do a little magnesium glycinate as a supplement. And then similar, I would do I would do kiwi, avocado and kiwi. There's potassium and kiwi. Loads. See, I thought crazy like leg pain, random like that at night and stuff, I thought that was a vitamin C deficiency also, as well as magnesium. Rarely. It's typically, magnesium is definitely the most common. I get the same thing. I really feel it when I've been flying. a lot where it's severe restless. I'm like uncomfortable, like sitting. It's like horrible. It's a level of cellular dehydration. But it's also a lack of blood flow to the joints and the

legs. So this is why going and doing your favorite thing in the world exercising the day after and moving. It's incredibly beneficial for that. Why do you think Christians shouldn't eat pork? I think that all Christians should be abiding by 1st Corinthians 1031. Whether you eat, whether you drink or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God. And so I think it's even less a pork issue. I think it's more a, man, I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit. You know, I'm going to do everything I can to honor God with my body. And I want to run to win this race.

And so I think it's more thinking about what is the perfect thing I can eat. You know, I had an amazing opportunity to work with some Olympic swimmers. I was like Ryan Locti, a lot of other Olympians, so Michael Phelps. since I was a physician working with some of the Olympic swimmers and professional athletes for for years. And I was always so impressed that they would come up to me and ask questions like, what do I need to eat right before my meat or right after for recovery and what's the best? And I want to say this too. What their other nutritionist was telling them was the worst. They would say, you want to drink like a pint of chocolate milk after you swim.

Whoa. I'm like, you want to build a lot of mucus and phlegm. And so anyways, but I love their attitude. It was like, how can we win to win and go in medal? But as Christians, we should have an even greater. We're competing for crowns than heaven. We're called to expand the kingdom of God. And so we have a reason to eat healthier more than anybody.

So I think thinking in that way and asking those questions, what is not, what can I get away with? What's the best thing I can eat? So all that being said, historically, the number one carrier of parasites is pork. Even I think across the world today, it's still. So I agree with you that there, I mean, here's my question on this as a fellow believer. So when it comes to pork, I agree with you that they're probably the most unclean animal, but I'm also thinking of the differences between conventional farming and regenerative farming. Like if I'm eating pork from Joel Salatin, you know what I mean?

But that doesn't make a difference for you, just avoid it? But even back in Jesus Day, a lot of those animals were wild. They weren't getting, you know, glyphosate or anything like. like that. So it's really asked to do with the pig's digestive systems. Pigs digestive systems, they store toxins in their tissues. Some animals like cows, they just, they excrete and get rid of it. They got four chambers their stomach. I mean, there's a really specific process of detoxification for those animals. But pigs store. They're scavengers. They store toxins. They eat their own feces. Cows don't do that. Bison doesn't do that. And then shellfish, the problem there is,

they store heavy metals at much higher rates than even, you know, large fish like swordfish. I hear you on that, but to counter that, my thought is, because I love shellfish and seafood, it's my favorite, when it comes to oysters and different things like that, even different types of fish that are high and heavy metals naturally, but doesn't God also give those animals different vitamins to kind of balance out like the mercury or whatever? So, I mean, I understand the argument. I'll say this. Like, it's interesting because, so clams, for instance, are the number one food in the world for being high in zinc.

But why are they high in zinc? Because they store metals. Zinc is a metal. So they're going to be storing other metals there. So, again, here's the thing. I don't know every answer about, again, I do know pork for sure as a land animal, maybe the highest in parasites. This is one of the first questions you want to ask God in heaven.

Well, I think I know. Did I have it right? I think I know a lot of the answers. Listen, I don't think pork's healthy. I don't think shellfish is healthy. I'm not saying it's sinful to eat those. Sure. Yeah. It's not a salvation issue. But exactly. But I do, I absolutely am convinced that they're not healthy because the Bible, I think the Bible had a reason. It wasn't like, okay, here's random foods. I don't want you eating these random foods, but you can't eat these random foods. Now, God just tells you things because he wants what's best for you and he knows what's healthy for you. Then why does he make bacon taste so good? It does taste amazing. I will say this, though. Chelsea this weekend made beef bacon. Oh, I just had that for the very first time. And I think beef bacon's fit. I understand, listen, I like turkey bacon,

but the beef bacon really is phenomenal. Yeah. No, I think it's fun. I think it's interesting. I don't think there's a right, well, you think there's a right or wrong answer, I guess, but you're saying it's not sinful. Forehouse.

It doesn't bother me that you don't. I think it's interesting, though. I think it's an interesting other perspective to have on the show. I'm incredibly particular about where I buy meat. In fact, I'm probably more obsessive about sourcing meat than almost anything else in my kitchen. Because if I'm spending money on high quality food, I don't just want to know what animal it came from. I want to know how it was raised, what it ate, whether it spent its life on pasture and whether I'm supporting the kind of farming that I actually want more of in the world,

and also getting the most for such expensive meat, right? Meat isn't cheap. So if I'm going to be spending a lot of money, I want to make sure that I'm getting all of the nutrients that I want to get for me and my family. That's why I love wild pastures. beef is 100% grass-fed and grass-finished, certified by the American Grass Fed Association, by the way, and raised right here in the United States, these cattle spend their lives rotationally grazing on pasture, not standing in feedlots eating grain. Their pork is truly pasture-raised, which is much harder to find than people realize. These wild pasture pigs spend their lives outdoors rooting and foraging and moving naturally instead of being confined indoors. They're raised without antibiotics, hormones, or steroids,

and are supplemented with non-GMO foods like pumpkins, apples, and turnips. We love a pig with a turnip. And their chicken is regenerative certified and genuinely pasture raised, not just free range, which is like the biggest fraud of all. That can mean a tiny door to a concrete yard. These chickens with wild pastures spend their days outdoors on fresh pasture eating bugs and foraging the way chickens are supposed to. Everything at wild pastures is sourced from American family farms.

Everything is non-GMO. Everything is raised using regenerative. farming practices that helps restore soil instead of depleting it. What really impressed me is that wild pastures makes this level of quality very affordable. Typically, 25 to 40% less than what you'd expect to pay for premium regenerative meat because they cut out the middleman. Guys, this is the cleanest, best meat and the least expensive that you can find shipped right to you. Honestly, once you've tasted truly pasture raised meat from wild pastures, you're not going to want to ever go back. Go to Wildpastures.com slash Alex, use code Alex to get 20% off for life. Free shipping for life. And then a

bonus $15 off. They're setting us up, guys. That's wildpastures.com slash Alex. Because when it comes to feeding your family, sourcing matters. Yeah, I've started flossing by the pool. Sue me. It's the most powerful I've ever felt. There is something deeply luxurious about standing in the sun. and overpriced iced coffee sweating beside you, birds chirping and just excavating a little piece of steak from between your molars like you're on an archaeological dig and grease. This is where I'm at in life. Sorry you're not as cool as me. Other people are chasing youth.

I'm trying to make sure a piece of salmon from Tuesday doesn't become part of my skeletal record. Here's the truth. Most floss is insane, even more insane than flossing by the pool. Even the so-called natural non-toxic stuff is basically, repackaged fishing line. I don't trust it. Their flosses are filled with polyester, plastic mystery coatings. People are dragging microplastics through their gums twice a day and acting like, oh yeah, I'm doing something great. Um, well, you're not Gwyneth Paltrow. Actually, you're flossing with a kayak rope. That's why I'm obsessed with zebra floss. Their floss is made with real silk,

peppermint oil, and xylitol. There is no detectable Phaas, no plastic, no weird chemicals, quietly plotting against you while you stand shirtless by a pool, trying to feel alive. Now, I'm not shirtless. If you're a man, maybe, I just gave you a visual. Ask for forgiveness. This actually works. Okay, it feels clean. Zebras not just floss. They've also got deodorant, toothpaste, basically everything you need for your personal care products, non-toxic. Go to yayzebara.com, use code Alex for 10% off. That's yayzebber.com, code Alex for 10% off. I think the majority of Americans, including me, I probably rotate the same for vegetables. Like I'm buying the same couple of vegetables.

This is what I eat. Why is this not ideal for the average American family to always buy the same handful of fruits and vegetables and just rotate those? You want to be more resilient, not less. You want to be resilient. And if you're eating a larger... Listen, I think historically,

if you were hardly rotating your foods and you were living in the same area, I actually don't think it's that big of a deal. Because you're not being exposed to a lot of different types of outside microbes and viruses and things like that. Because today we travel around the world. Yeah. And because, you know, I think having a more diverse gut microbiome is typically more beneficial. And also, here's another thing, we're not outdoors as much. I mean, probably one of the biggest things that builds our gut microbiome is if you were having your own garden, getting your

hands in the dirt, so even if you didn't, you weren't eating 30 different plants a week, you were still being exposed to a lot more things outdoors on a regular basis via a farm or other things. So I think that that's the bigger problem, but the more different types of plants you eat, typically the more diverse your gut microbiome is, and the more protected you are against different types of pathogens. I guess at least I think there could be an argument made for that. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if you've noticed this, but everybody's gallbladder seems to be poop in the bed. Like, I get messages all the time. Like, have you done an episode on gallbladder? My doctor wants me to remove my gallbladder. What should I do? And I don't know. So,

what can you share? Yeah, yeah. I mean, so there's two things with gallbladder. Number one, if you're eating bad fats or too much fat. What's a bad fat? By the way, I might really ruffle your feathers on this. I don't know if I should bring it up. What? Yes, I love being ruffled. Okay. I don't know. What? All right. So, it's not going to be about the fish. With, no. Within Maha, on the Maha side, it's eat butter, eat tallow, eat animal fats, as much as you want. Oh, you're just olive oil. No, I'm not there.

Uh-uh. So there. And then there's this other side where we have a lot of these people and more of the conventional medicine community where they're like, eat seed oils, there's no problems and butter's terrible for you. I sit somewhere in the middle there. Animal fats that are saturated, they're heavier fats. I think they slowed the liver and gallbladder down more than seed oils.

and I'm very certain of this generally. They're probably, they're harder for your liver and gallbladder to digest, generally speaking. Now, seed oils, I think, are generally more inflammatory for your cardiovascular system. I think there are problems there. And I also want to say this. I don't think the studies are fair comparing seed oils to animal-based fats, because I think most of the animal-based fats they're testing are the same animal fats that are being used in fast food restaurants, and it's in grain-fed meat.

It's not quality. The quality is not there, yeah. But I do want to say, I think that most people, so yeah, I'm actually going to go there. Almost everybody should just be doing olive oil, olive oil, olive oil, olive oil, olive oil. See, I was right. With a little bit of avocado oil and for some people that tolerate saturated as well. And this is probably the best oil for the liver gallbladder. It might be coconut oil.

Okay. Because coconut oil bypasses a lot of the liver gallbladder. And so your liver gallbladder has to do very little to digest it. But if you have a liver gallbladder issue, you want to do it. do low to moderate fat. I see a lot of people saying, oh, well, Paul Saladino or this person said, I should be doing tallow and butter, and so they're doing a lot of it. For some people, their liver and gall butter can't take it. They need to go low moderate fat when they're using oil, coconut and olive only, and do a lot more fruits and vegetables. When they do a meat, don't do

ribby, do filet, do a lot more fatty fish, do a lot more chicken. And when you do it, take ox bile or tudka, that's bile that helps you break down the fat. You could take a lipase enzyme, which is an enzymes that break down fat. And then you can take bitters like artichoke, which help thin your bile and help you better break down fat. So, I mean, if somebody has a gallbladder issue, if they do what I just said, they will have no gallbladder issue whatsoever. They'll save their gallbladder and they'll be just fine. So speaking of livers, I really want to kind of like do a body reset and get in my tip top shape to ideally get pregnant. And I know that God, in charge of opening and closing the womb and you've got some meth head on the street that is,

you know, doing whatever and they're getting pregnant just fine. So I don't really understand what all leads to pregnancy and what doesn't. But, you know, my stuff is still not ideal. It looks like I still have some gut issues and inflammation things. I'm trying to work through this. That being said, one person told me, you know, I did a massive liver cleanse and after many, many years of trying to get pregnant, was able to get pregnant right away. Maybe you should do a liver cleanse just as you're preparing. Do you agree with that? Listen, I really think, and listen, I've worked with hundreds if not thousands of women helping them do the right things nutritionally and lifestyle-wise to get pregnant. And it really depends on the woman. I mean, I think that,

let me just say the most common cases I see. I think that for some women, just cortisol being so elevated and they're not feeling safe and secure. I think that is maybe the most, that's a very common pattern. Another one would be digestive deficiency. And this is from excess worry, overthinking, obsessing, mind running all the time. And then a diet that's too high in carbohydrates. That's another pattern I see that's stressing the body out. And there's another one I see from a lot of kind of hardcore fitness where they're doing paleo, they're doing low carb, they're doing crossfit, and their body is just undernourished in terms of even carbohydrates. So there's different, and then there's another one called blood deficiency where they're anemic and there's

some issues there. I would say that for most women, you want to focus on balancing insulin and you want to eat a really nourishing diet. A lot of soups, sweet potato, cinnamon, eat like it's Thanksgiving, really nourishing. Spend time, like the feeling you want to have emotionally is, now we're in Arizona, but imagine yourself, you're in the winter, you're in Park City, Utah, or in the mountains of Colorado, and you're sitting by a fire on a couch, you got your blanche, you've You got your blanket wrapped around you. I love this man. Your favorite beverage and you've got your man there and maybe, you know, kids or you want

those kids running around eventually. But you're just in a state of absolute comfort and security. Like you need to get in that place emotionally nested, that nesting feeling. You know that famous picture of Snoopy at Thanksgiving dinner? That's going to be me. I love Thanksgiving food. So this is music to my ears. Yeah.

I mean, that is the best thing for most women is that Thanksgiving. But again, you can't overdo the car. You need the right amount. You just need to do keep your blood sugar balance and insulin balanced is very, very important while being very nourished. One of the most controversial episodes that I've done recently is I had on a doctor, a psychiatrist who says the body does not keep the score. He's a Christian. And he said that that famous book, The Body Keeps a Score, he looked into all of the studies. I can't remember exactly this.

But the majority of the studies in that book were. completely fake, or there has been more recent studies that have been done. So if he, if he claims something in the study is correct, you know, having to do with the body storing trauma, then a new study that has been done more recent debunks it, but he didn't include that. Or just says, like, some of it's just made up. Like he says that you have an increase of asthma if you're, if you've gone through something traumatic. And then like you look at the study that is sourced in the book and it has nothing to do with asthma. So anyway, this guy comes on. People lost their minds, including a lot of Christians in my audience, just like, this is crap. This

is so dangerous, this rhetoric. I don't know. I just thought it was interesting. I like platforming, you know, contrarian views and like let people figure out what they think for themselves. I don't really have a strong opinion either way, but what is your opinion? Yeah, I mean, I have a really strong opinion on this. So the book Body Keeps score. I've never read it, but I do know what German new medicine is, and I do understand the theories behind it. I don't know that I agree with, let me say what I do agree with. Well, first off, the person that said the body does not keep score is absolutely wrong. I mean, listen, childhood trauma, if somebody has childhood trauma in the past, I've worked with tens of thousands of patients.

And if they still have those memories of sexual abuse or they're still living with grief from the past, let's say they lose a loved one. And you're telling me that is not impacting their health currently. That's absolutely wrong. In fact, I would say that is one of the most important areas of our health is spiritual and emotional healing of things from the past. because people have the memories that are constantly replaying over and over and over again in their heads that's fostering the growth of unhealthy emotions. So there is no doubt that childhood trauma from the past and negative emotions are causing physical health issues. I mean, Chinese medicine is one example of something that absolutely proves this.

They've done research on this. I mean, it's a big part of that. By the way, I think even the Bible proves this out in terms of there are, David alludes in the Psalms to things like, you know, a, you know, a spirit that's downtrodden, you know, harms the bones. Now, that's not the exact verse. I should have it to memory. But there are several Bible verses like that that talk about a joyful spirit, a broken spirit, and how it actually impacts the physical body.

So I would have that argument there as well. You know, we know this for a fact. If somebody is in a fight or flight state and they have fear. If somebody has fear, their adrenal starts spinning out more and more cortisol. in stress hormones. That's impacting the physical body. And if somebody has something in the past, a past to where maybe they were around a male that they had a negative association with men because they were taking advantage in the past. And so when they're still around that today, isn't that the body keeping score? Isn't that the body remembering a past trauma? And it's affecting

them, even though there may not be a threat at all. So that would be my argument there. And again, working with like my own mom with cancer. My mom had a lot of work. My mom cared so much about what other people thought about her. She had a lot of fear and anxiousness. And we really went and said, hey, when did that start? Oh, well, it was a relationship with her mom. She had some anxiousness about that, and her was always judging her and things like that. And my mom had a teacher that was critical of her. So now anytime it was critical, she took it as a personal attack. We worked through all of those things. She started saying, you know what, I care more about what God says in these people. And so we worked through this past trauma. She completely let it go. And she was able to totally heal. So I've had

people that healed solely because they went and dealt with their emotional trauma or were able to overcome these negative emotions, typically with the Bible, you know, and the relationship with Jesus. And so, and maybe I'm being unfair to that person who when they're saying the body keeps strong opinions. I think it's great. Yeah. There are people in my audience that agree with both of you, probably more with you. And I'm not even saying I agree with German New Medicine. I do agree with the majority of ancient Asian medicine and their views around it in the Bible and knowing that negative emotions in childhood trauma absolutely are still impacting the body physically today. What is something new that you've learned recently about health or the body that has you

excited? How important blood work is? It's a big deal. I mean, I would tend to get really good results with patients and still do without blood work. I mean, I can look at the history, look at the tongue. And I know, okay, if we've got infertility. this is likely the issue, or if you've got an issue related to PCOS or PMOS, I've got to take care of the androgens and the insulin, and we're going to do this dieterally. But there's just a lot of

benefits in doing, and it's not about getting a lot of markers. It's the right ones, especially nutrients. Like if somebody's really deficient in selenium or zinc or magnesium, or they have a lot of oxidative stress, or they have a certain genetic marker, there's a methylation issue. And I know that, it absolutely changes the way I treat the patient. Okay, so last time you were on, I stuck out my tongue and I remember what you said. I want to do it again and see if I am the same or different. Yeah, let's see it. Okay. So here's what's better and here's what's still there. Okay, ready? Yeah. You've got a little bit more color to your tongue because last time it was pretty pale. Yeah, you said I was dead. I was like a dead woman walking. No blood in my veins.

That is a great exaggeration. So I would say your tongue looks more pink and more vibrant. The one thing you still have is you're- Scallops. But they're less. But you have them. And basically, so you had two patterns going on. I'm turning into a lizard.

You had blood deficiency, okay. And that's, you know, and a blood work might pick that up on ferretin, looking at ferretin. That's a little better. The other one is what we call spleen. cheat efficiency, which is really your digestive system. And it tends to be from overthinking is really kind of what causes that to happen. So, and it's women have this more than men, certainly. But if you're a woman and you are obsessing over something, overthinking, your brain's always on, you're analyzing, oh, what's this? You know, or any state of worry,

that's going to cause it. So I would say as you go into this next season, that's the big thing you want to focus on. Estraglus is really good for that. I got more warming foods than cool. like again more Thanksgiving than spring like so really salads would probably be not good for you right now you want to just nourish but but the biggest thing for you is scheduling time where you can just not think and get lost so like do this with your fiance almost husband right you guys just deep meaningful connections going on a trip not thinking about anything not thinking about your podcast not thinking about work not think just going to where you're you're getting lost in reading a novel you're getting lost in a conversation You guys are, but just think about what do I get lost in where I don't think.

Love that. And do that as much as you can. It's probably the number one cure for that, you know, for that digestive weakness. I love conversations with you. They're always so edifying and helpful and encouraging. Your book is the same. Heal yourselves. And you wrote it with our friend Dr. Will Cole.

That's right. Yeah. My buddy. Love Dr. Cole. So tell us about heal yourselves. Like what, is this hard to understand? No, not at all. Okay. No, so I think this is probably both, I think the best book that I've read, that I've wrote, and I think Will would say the same thing. And it really goes through how to

reverse irreversible conditions and how to boost your longevity. It's really a lot of advanced nutrition information. And so if your audience really loves learning more depth about nutrition and healing compounds and more advanced ways of healing, I think it's, you know, really an incredible book out there. And so it really walks through, like, how did my mom heal cancer naturally? What exactly did she do? How did other people go through and reverse, you know, PCOS or their thyroid issues and all of that stuff? And we go through really practically, you know, the herbs, the diet, all the ways to do that. And so whether somebody is wanting to reverse a condition or promote longevity, we really dive into that in the new book, Here, heal yourselves. And I think everybody's going to love it. I'm really excited for

for everybody to read it. The name of your podcast. The Dr. Josh Axe show, so creative. Or maybe the Dr. Axe show. Which, by the way, everybody should go check out the episode we did together because you, as always, were phenomenal. Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, super fun.

Talked about all the glyphosate drama that I've dealt with in the last year. And then we got into my controversial smoothie. So you guys will have to see if Dr. Axe approves of my super crazy $60 smoothie or whatever that I do every day or if he thinks it's excessive and a waste of money and time. So that'll be interesting. And then we also talked about some of the controversial things that Vance and I have discussed that we think we want to try to do with our kids when it comes to diet and health. So, yeah, it's fun. I think you guys will like that on his show.

Your Instagram is the same, right? Dr. Josh Axe. Yeah, at Dr. Josh Axe. Okay, great. Anytime you want to come on, I don't care what it is. Please come back. We love having you. The first episode was fantastic.

I know this one's going to do great, too. So thanks for coming back on. I will ask you, again, maybe your answer changed, maybe it hasn't, if you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, what would it be? Again, I probably said this last time, but it's prayer. But praying in a way, not where you're just asking for things, praying in a way to where you are deeply connected to, you're growing closer to God. Giving thanks. Yeah, I think giving thanks. But I think it's that combination of, again, it's a relationship. It's just like I'd build a relationship with my space. else. And if I'm going to love her well, I'm getting to know her better. I know her love language. So I'm figuring out every way I can to serve her, to love her well. I think it's the same

thing with God. And here's the thing, when you grow closer to God, you become more like Jesus, right? And so the more you're like Jesus, the more you're going to impact people. Because I think the greatest thing people can do, it's not about life is not about what we do. It's who we become. And so the more we can become like Jesus, the better impact we're going to have on everyone else around us. It's so much more important than what we say is our actions, what we do on a daily basis. And I'm so conscious of that with kids. I mean, and you're going to see this when you have kids here soon. They, if you do it, they will do it. Yeah. I mean, so it is so important that we're becoming like Jesus because that is going to impact our kids, everyone else around us. And so, and the same thing,

if you're like Jesus, you know, I love the show that shows, and I had Dallas Jenkins on my podcast recently. And I love watching that show because I think they do a good job of showing maybe what Jesus was like. And the thing I'm so impressed about with is like he's never rushing. He's always calm. He's always at peace. He has a sense of joyfulness to him. So the more time we become like those we spend time with. And so I think the more time we can spend with Jesus, the healthier we become. And that's probably my top health tip. Beautifully said. I'm obsessed. My favorite takeaway from this episode is the get lost in something, eat like it's Thanksgiving all the time. So fun. Thank you for coming back on. Thanks for having me, Alex.

Appreciate it. Dr. Axe's story is such a powerful reminder that a diagnosis can be information without necessarily becoming your identity. New episodes come out every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, wherever you listen to podcast. Don't forget to leave that five-star review on Apple or Spotify to support this show. This episode is a crucial one to share to every group chat that you're in and your Instagram story.

This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be taken as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional regarding any questions. or decisions related to your health or medical care. I'm Alex Clark, and this is Culture Apothecary.