Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - Embracing Femininity Is the Ultimate Hormone Hack | Mary Ruddick

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Sleeping with jaguars, overcoming chronic illness like dysautonomia, and hacks for optimal hormone health are a few of the many topics covered in this episode with Human Ecologist and world traveler, Mary Ruddick. She is celebrated for her pioneering exploration of the microbiome’s untapped potential and innovative work with Indigenous communities, bridging ancient wisdom with modern scientific insights. Mary offers personalized care for clients with nervous system disorders, post-viral syndromes, and infertility, blending ancestral knowledge with cutting-edge research to deliver transformative results.Thank You To Our Sponsors!⁠⁠Geviti⁠⁠⁠ | Skip the waitlist and get 20% off first month using code "ALEX"Joovv | Get an exclusive discount on your first red light therapy order!⁠Zebra⁠ | Use code "ALEX for 10% OFFACCU | Open a new account with ACCU and you can earn a $100 new member bonusYou Again | Use code ALEXCLARK for 15% off your purchase of Super Honey when you shop “Buy with Prime” through their website or directly through AmazonOur Guest:⭐️ Mary RuddickMary's WebsiteInstagram | @maryqueenofheartYouTube | @maryruddick777LinkedIn | Mary Ruddick🎀Follow Alex🎀Instagram | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@cultureapothecary⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@yoalexrapz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@RealAlexClark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcast | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠New 'Culture Apothecary' Merch OUT NOW! Glass tumblers, weekly wellness planners, hats, crewnecks and more. Use code "Alex Clark" for 10% OFF at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tpusamerch.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the Cuteservatives Facebook group to connect with likeminded friends who love America and all things health and wellness! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the CUTEservative Facebook Group!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.This show is made possible with generous donations from listeners who believe in our mission to heal a sick culture.You can support our show by leaving a tax deductible donation ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or by subscribing to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@RealAlexClark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ YouTube for FREE! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠#cultureapothecary #alexclark #podcast  #health  #wellness

Why is it sometimes so easy for like some woman on meth in the street to get pregnant? And not this woman who's living this non-toxic organic lifestyle. That lady on meth is not stressed. She's actually in her feminine. Is fertility a sign of health? And if a woman is struggling with it, does it mean she's unhealthy? If that's not a sign from Mother Nature, I don't know what is. What women are going through is actually horrific.

Everyone's working out in plastic. That has far more consequences than people realize. She has traveled the world for years, studying the most healthy people and how they live. Mary Ruddick is a human ecologist celebrated for her pioneering exploration around the world and work with indigenous communities. She's an expert in ancient wisdom with modern scientific insights, creating a unique synergy between traditional healing practices and contemporary health strategies. Mary offers personalized care for clients with nervous system disorders, post-viral syndromes, and infertility, and autoimmunity after herself being bedridden, and sick for four years at one point and completely healing herself after finding out that she had dysotonomia. Mary is really unique because she talks like a 1950s movie star and is so strikingly

beautiful and feminine in the way that she carries herself. She's by far one of the most interesting people I've ever interviewed and her health advice matches it. I've never heard anyone say some of the stuff that she says today. It's sure to make some eyes widen. Watch this must see episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel and culture apothecary on Spotify. Everything we do here is donor funded. To support the show financially, click the link in the description to leave a tax-deductible donation or leave a five-star review for free. I'm Alex Clark. Please welcome Mary Reddick to Culture Apothecary.

How powerful is diet when it comes to healing the human body? I'll answer that with another question. If you want to build a sand castle, you need sand, right? Your diet is your building block. You're constantly renewing cells, constantly rebuilding organs. All of them have a time scale. So every six months, you have a new liver. So if you have an ongoing liver condition, that means you're feeding it.

So your food is imperative. There's few things more important. Are we insulating ourselves from the natural world in the West? And if so, how is that affecting us? More so than people realize here. I don't have a good analogy. for the frog in water because the frog in water isn't accurate.

Frogs jump. They actually don't stay in the water. But if you have another analogy for that, I would use it. Because every time I come back to the States, it's a horror show. And people think it's normal because it's very slow. But especially, I would say, over the last four years, the change has been rapid. Really? Why the last four? I don't know, but something happened over COVID.

Things really changed. People are much more sick. the infrastructure of the country is not good. When I come home, it's looking like a developing nation. Wow. Yeah, I've never experienced anything like it. I even wrote a whole article that I'll probably never share, but just to organize my ideas,

because there are certain hallmarks of a developing nation and we're flooded with the hallmarks. America is flooded with the hallmarks of a developing nation, America. Yes. That is so powerful to say and so disturbing. It's very disturbing because every country has its benefits and negatives and then it's just what you like. Same in culture, same of food, all these things. But America has always shined. It's a place of abundance. It's a place of ingenuity, especially. You know, it's actually very rare to have a place where you can start a business so easily where inventing is so, applauded and where new things are applauded, right? Most countries' tradition keeps you where you are and that keeps people healthy. But there's a downside. And now when I come home, I don't see how people are functioning. I really don't. Right now, we have incredible stress for the public. I don't see how anyone can feel very safe. And I am someone who cultivate safety. I tell people to cultivate safety.

But just the reality of if you get into an accident, the hospital bill, even if you have good insurance, it's not like any other country. The reality of incredible prices for things, the very odd things like hotels here, not having room service or fast Wi-Fi? Yeah. What is that? It is horrible. That is a developing nation, Mary. It is. Why? I'm going to get so judged for calling it a developing nation. But the thing is, Americans are so busy working because they have to that they don't have time to travel and they don't see what it's like in other places. And so we think everyone functions like this. And they don't. What does it mean to live for community? Basically the opposite of what's happening now, right? We have a very insular culture, which doesn't work.

We're communal beings. When I go to the traditional societies, no one goes off on their own. Not ever. It's not a thing. There's no introverts. It's not a dog on introverts. It's saying that. No social anxiety.

Oh, gosh. No. No anything. No. Yeah, at all. And everyone has different responsibilities. And when people have different responsibilities, rather than everyone sharing the same responsibilities or everyone having their own responsibilities with nothing shared. You have so much

respect for the other person doing that part of the job, that part of the load. Yeah, so totally different. You were bedridden for four years. Yeah. Talk to us about that. Sure. Yeah. So I was sick for 12 years and there were many periods during those 12 years where I would be bedridden for periods of time. There was a time many years in where it really went downhill very quickly. And And my organs started to go down. My nerve function was down. And how old were you? I was 18 when I got sick and 24 when I became bedbound.

I'm 42 now. Jeez, this reminds me of Michaela Peterson's story. Oh, when she came out, it was the first time I saw someone young. Right. Who had been through something like I had. It was actually shocking. Yeah, I've followed her whole journey. I think she's amazing.

And so what was going on with you? I was a healthy kid. I had gone to study in the Bahamas at a field station and happened to get a cytokine-based infection. Half of us kids did. There's 30 of us on the island. It's not like tourism. And 15 of us got this mycobacterium. And the healthier you are with those, sometimes the worse you get, because your cytokines will go out of control. And for me, my fever went up to 106 and stayed there for six days, which utterly damaged my nervous system and my hypothalamus pituitary. And so what resulted was something that was very rare then,

so rare that often doctors didn't know it. It is something you test for. It's through nerve testing. It's a condition called dysotanomia where the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system deregulate. And so everything you don't think about gets deregulated. That's your sleep cycle, your immunity, your blood flow to your organs, literally everything. And so the longer you have it, if you have a severe case like I did, you can have mild. The longer you have it with the nerve death, the circulation gets worse to the organs and then you get real problems. And that's where I was then. And so then you were miraculously, obviously, able to heal. So what was that process? It was a long five-year process, honestly. I'm sure for people who look on,

at people that have gotten into remission that it seems like overnight. And I actually really enjoyed the process, especially in the last few years. But as odd as that sounds. But it's not fast and it's not intuitive and it's not guaranteed. And so you don't really know. But what I knew was that I had no security. And so I had to figure out how to get better because my future was too dark. otherwise. As it was, I was primarily in a room by myself for years, you know, and I didn't have

a computer or phone. I could have. I could have asked my parents for that. But when you have nervous system disorders, lights, and things like that, they're not awful, but you don't go towards them. So you didn't really want to screen. I tried over 17 different protocols. And I did them for a long time, you know, often six months or a year. It just depends. And then I stumbled on Dr. Natasha McBride's work. And what did she say? She's brilliant. She was writing about the microbiome

before anyone had uttered the word in America, right? The Russians really studied the microbiome. The Russians, the Koreans, the Japanese, long before our scientists did. And what she said made a lot of sense. And so at the time, the diet wasn't for a condition like mine, at least not according to the book. But I had nothing to lose.

And I thought, well, if my issue is in the brain and in the nervous system, we have over 70% of that in the gut lining. So if I just tip the scale, maybe, maybe it'll get up the food chain. And luckily enough, it did. But it was a lot of lifestyle, a lot of diet, a lot of mindset. It's the whole thing. You really have to change, you have to rebirth yourself.

So I struggle with autoimmunity. I didn't know that. Yeah. So I have Hashimoto's. I was on birth control for a decade. I was living primarily off ultra-processed food, so that's what I think contributed to me developing Hashimoto's. What do you think led to your issues initially?

I was, like I said, really healthy, and I was born naturally, nursed, all the good things. But I had become an extreme athlete. I was training for Iron Man. I was working out three to four hours a day before going to 10 hours of labs, you know, to study. And I hadn't had a weekend in ages. So I was living in a very masculine way, which is stressful, wears out our immune system.

And I also at the time was eating the 90s athletic diet. And I really didn't have cravings. I had a healthy microbiome. When you have a healthy microbiome, you don't have cravings. So it was easy for me to eat, you know, plain turkey and carrots and rice cakes. But the problem with that is that the food of the nervous system, the food of the immune system, the food of the hormonal system is saturated fat. So I had no protection when I got that bug into my body, a tropical bug, right? We think now that, oh, we can just go anywhere we want in the world. But our microbiomes are made for where we are. They're not made for taking a flight. And so I went from Ohio to tropical Bahamas. I had no fat in my diet. I had no fat in my diet.

I was over-exercising, under-sleeping, and then I get a cytokine-based infection. And now, cytokine-based infections, do you know how you control cytokines? No, I don't even know what that is. Ah, that's long-COVID. Okay, okay. It's due to cytokines. Okay. So cytokines are part of the, they're part of the immune system that's good.

It's part of us. And usually we want them to work properly. The problem with certain infections, Ebola is one. What I had is another. Long-COVID is another. other. They're not common infections, typically. But these hijack your own immunity. It's not the infection that hurts you. Now, the fever would have. It's the cytokines that uses your own immune system against you. And it goes unchecked unless you have enough B1 in your diet. Well, where do you get B1?

You would have to eat two cups of pork a day, right? Or have very specific bacteria in your body, which if you've had antibiotics, you do not have because it's our bacteria that make our vitamins. It's not really us eating them. We're really overusing antibiotics in American culture, aren't we? I think we're putting ourselves extinct very quickly, actually. We tend to have a lot of hubris. We tend to assume that we know things and we don't.

I mean, the hormonal system was only discovered 100 years ago. The microbiome, so recent, until five years ago, was believed. to that the womb was sterile. It's not. There's a whole microbiome there. There is a very set microbiome for your eyes, for your lungs, for your brain. It is all over your body, and if any of it goes awry, you have no protection to very specific infections. So for instance, like, let's say you had a history of C-diff. I would know what birth microbes you're lacking. And our microbes are also responsible for making her feel-good chemicals. In America and the U.K., 30% of the population is on mood-stabilizing

medications. That's going to go up. No one's happy. We have this trauma culture, but the trauma is not from the incident. We have the trauma because we don't have the feel-good chemicals to handle it, right? Or the story to handle it. So, and we need those bugs to do that, to make our vitamins, or nutrients, our amino acids, or fatty acids, because we don't eat our food. We eat their food. Or we eat their byproduct, actually. Okay, let me tell you about the time I almost lost it

because of my hormones. I'm talking extreme fatigue, hair falling out, brittle nails. Basically, I felt like I was broken. I was stressed, frustrated, and had no idea where to even start. Ever been there? Yeah, it turns out, I wasn't alone. You're probably there right now because 80% of women in the U.S. deal with hormones.

hormone imbalances. And I didn't even realize how much it was affecting my health until I took control about a year ago. One in four men have low testosterone. So I highly recommend Jevity, if you are overwhelmed trying to navigate functional medicine and which test to get for a complete look at your overall health that you are not getting at your primary care doctor. Jevity makes it so simple to get to the root of your problems and actually start feeling like yourself again. First of all, they sent a phlebotomist to my door to do at-home blood work. No clinics, no waiting. This is so convenient, especially if you are a stay-at-home mom. And then I had a virtual consultation where we went over everything. I got this huge personalized health plan with this big

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I actually just switched out my boyfriend's traditional toothpaste for this one. And I said, you know, I want your honest review, your honest opinion. Just tell it to me straight. Do you like this toothpaste or not? He was like, okay, I don't know what this stuff is, but it's great. It works great. And if you're telling me that it's better for me, then I'm going to switch to it. So, yay, we have another converter into the cult.

Your body and your smile. Well, thank you. Head over to yayzebra.com and use code Alex for 10% off your first order. That's yayzebara.com and use code. Alex for 10% off today. You have traveled around the world researching different tribes and countries and continents and cultures searching for people who have found optimal health. You have studied how they live and how they eat. Why was that research important to you to do? I think there's a lot of dogma. I think we're constantly thinking, like I said, that we're smarter than we are, that we know

more than we are. And I think there's no greater error that we can make. And right now, I don't see. how with the antibiotic use, I mean, do you know anyone who has not had antibiotics? No. That means their children are not going to get the microbiome they need. And we're about to see third generation C-section. That's actually horrific because these microbes cannot be gotten through food, right? So when people start to realize how important they are, it's going to be too late. So one of the things I was doing, I did it for a multitude of reasons.

One, I was just, I wanted to. It sounds like fun. I was curious. I didn't know. I really didn't know if anyone still existed. I assume not, you know. Most of the books I had read the medical anthropology, they were from the 1800s. People that were what, truly healthy or something? Perfect health. Perfect health. Yeah, perfect health. There were several doctors, dentists, medical practitioners in the 1800s and early 1900s who really traveled the globes looking at all these little pockets of communities that had not been touched by civilization or trade. and they were in such exquisite health. And so having gone through illness, I was so curious, you know, what were they doing? And do they still exist? How many places did you go? I've been to hundreds.

That's all you do, like, full-time. Like, do you even have a home? Seven years. I technically have a house in South Africa on the beach in Cape Town. I haven't been in two and a half years. You really are living out of a suitcase. Yes. Okay.

How do America's fertility problems compared to the rest of the world? Are there any women in the world struggling with fertility as much as American women? When I go to the tribes, they've never heard of such a thing. When I go to other countries, there's many countries dealing with a wave of infertility. The percentage when I worked out in America is about 40%. 60 years ago, it was less than 10. And PCOS and amitriosis were unheard of. But there's several countries.

I mean, I go often to places you'd be surprised by. I think I even saw it in Greece. Advertisements where the country is paying couples to do IVF, they're like, we will pay you if we can get you pregnant because we need more children for the next generation so we don't collapse. Are women around the world dealing with anxiety and depression at similar rates as American women? No. Not even close. What do you think is contributing to that for us? We unconsciously, with the feminist era,

which many of those things were very needed, like the freedom to work and do all sorts of things. But with the feminist era, we lost our securities. And female hormones, and folks, I'm not speaking from philosophy or a therapy standpoint. I'm standing from a biochemical standpoint. Our female hormones, for them to be balanced, we cannot live in a masculine way.

Most of us don't even know that we are living in a masculine way. because it is just what is good. It's what was promoted. It's what everyone expects. And so it's very action-oriented, goal-oriented, right? Even the way women work out here, it's goal-oriented. That's masculine. That produces testosterone in us and cortisol.

And that cortisol is causing a hormonal crisis in our women. What are some signs that you could be a woman who is living too much like a man. Hurting your hormones. Teenage years, it really starts to set in once women or girls start to menstruate. You see it, right? Our sports for girls are very masculine. So from a very young age, they're producing a lot of masculine chemicals, hormones, really.

And those make us depressed and anxious. So when we get an overabundance of masculine hormones, we turn into the next. negative of the masculine. We don't get the benefit. We don't get the good. Our good comes from oxytocin. And oxytocin we get from puppies and babies and flowers and orgasms and wonderful things. And oxytocin for us makes us relaxed and lovely and easygoing. But our society isn't structured for that. And so we don't have many women making the oxytocin. So with teenagers, Acne is a huge one. PMS. PMS is not normal. We should not be having it. Irregular cycles, weight gain, definitely. Weight struggles, for sure. And anything with the skin. Because if things

are coming out through the skin, whether it's psoriasis and eczema, which are autoimmune, very different, but still, it's an indication that phase two and phase three in the liver, these detox channels, which process the hormones and fat soluble toxins, they're too busy. And often they're too busy from processing cortisol. Because you have been all around the world studying and living with all these different groups of people, looking for the healthiest ones, I have to ask, you know, where were they? And then what did you observe that made them so healthy? The dietary dogma that I was hearing for the last 20 years, even before that, it didn't sit well with me. My family is really healthy.

No one has to diet. We eat carbs. So what is going on? Why are people having to limit so much or do this or that? And I also knew I went into remission. So I was the first case to go into remission with what I had. And right after I did, two more people did. And they did it on totally different diets, diets that I had tried and did not work for me.

And I know why now. But that led me to know very deeply that there's multiple ways to get to the summit. And so this idea of black and white and good and bad and all these things that didn't fit. And so one of the things I wanted to do was show people that were healthy, eating different from each other. Honestly, I really did. And explain why. And so when I went, the places, honestly, they were all perfectly. each of them is perfectly healthy.

There's not like... There's got to be somebody that, I mean, surely gets sick sometimes. No. Not until they bring in modern foods. But that modern food can be one food. It can be, let's take some of the African tribes. If just corn is brought in, which is from the Americas, Mays now has kind of taken over Africa.

So people think it's an African food. But it's actually very recent. It was the Americas. And in Africa, they don't put it through the five-step process to neutralize and neutralize the toxins and release the niacin. And so you get pelagra and these kind of things. So these hunter-gatherers or these agriculturists, if they bring in maize, even for, say, three months of the year, then they will catch infections amongst the elderly. But it's not common. It's like there might be one person every three years that gets a lung infection when they're elders.

So it's not like what we deal with at all. You spent time with five different tribes in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. And they weren't exposed to modern foods, but some of them were sick, right? A couple of them? No, they were exposed to some modern foods. Okay. Yeah, the reason why I went to the Omo Valley, I'd actually planned a trip when COVID hit. So I lost that trip, and I was trying to get back to it.

And with Ethiopia's Civil War, it's been difficult to time it right. with my other trips. But most of those tribes had been displaced, right? There's a lot going on politically in Ethiopia. And the president was taking water and all sorts of things. And so the tribes were getting displaced. And so, no, they had some changes to their diet. And they had exposure to definitely nonprofits and tourists.

Because, you know, the Kenyan crocodile tribe, we crossed over the border, they had serious guns, right? as you do on the Kenyan border. Everyone does. You have to. But they also had some, you know, donated clothes and things like that. And if I see donated clothing that I know they've been touched. Oh, yeah.

That makes sense. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Do you ever fear for your safety, like trying to blend in and hang out in these tribes? I mean, really, have you ever had any scary moments? Are you kidding? Yes. But although most of the scary moments are on the way to or leaving.

Okay. It's rarely with them. There's a couple exceptions. one would be I spent an evening with a jaguar on my plank in the Amazon. Oh my gosh, Mary. Yeah. Yeah, I would not be suited for your life, I don't think. Well, listen, okay, so here's what happened.

So I'm about 10 days deep into the Amazon. And I'm in this odd branch that people don't tend to go because I'm trying to get to this unique place. And I have a wonderful friend who's taking me through. He's the son of a chief and a medicine man, which is interesting, actually, because not many of them use plants because they don't really get sick. But I digress. So we get there. And I don't know if you ever saw the National Geographic where there's the bow and arrow shooting up towards the videographer? No.

Okay, it's great. It was a cover of National Geographic. It's this untouched tribe in the Amazon. Well, I was right next to them, and they're still untouched, and you cannot touch them because they're a shoot-first tribe. Now, they may be very peaceful people, and that may be how, well, it's definitely how they've maintained their culture. So I can't blame them for that. But they typically always stay on their side of the river. And I was on the other side of the river and, of course, going down.

But if you see them, you duck. You don't want to be seen. So I'm sleeping on the other side with the Machuangas. And they had something very unusual happen in all my years of travel until these last two, when I went to Ethiopia and then Papua New Guinea and here. I had never seen violence or war or anything that was less than good. It was actually like utopia everywhere I went in different ways. And in a way that people would think I was a polyana, but it's actually true. Probably both.

But they had warned me that the tribe had crossed over. They had come for machetes and some supplies. They'd never done this before, not in their memory. and they had killed two tribe members the night before. So they had set up these little, like, booby traps with noise so that people would know if they were coming. Because with this tribe, they fish, they hunt, and then they have these little agricultural plots that are like little farms.

And they each live about 30 minutes away from each other by walking. So I was in one of these. So I knew when I went to sleep that they had had these guys over. And I also knew that I was 30 minutes from any of the people that I had just met, right, the tribes. So I knew if I heard anything, I was in trouble. Well, in this region of the Amazon, you sleep up in the trees on a plank. And that's so that the jaguars can't come in. And you climb up a log that has these cuts in it.

And when you get up to the top, you turn it over. And then you immediately, I mean, I immediately go under the... the mosquito net, not because of mosquitoes, the bullet ants are everywhere. Oh, everywhere. And those are the things most afraid of. So I immediately get into the mosquito net. So I'm on the far end away from where I climbed up. I was exhausted. It was late, you know. So my book bag, you know, my backpack with everything in it, I just left by the door. And I get in bed and then I smell something. Oh, my gosh. And if you've ever been around big animals like bears or anything else, you can smell them.

I smelled something and I knew I was in trouble and I looked over and right by my backpack, right by where I would need to get out, there was the shadow of a jaguar. So I realized this and I realize that my only protection is my knife that I left. In the backpack? Yes. And what did you do? Well, wait, it gets better. So I'm thinking, like, well, Jaguars and cats, the benefit of being around one is that if they're going to kill you, they're going to kill you. And it's going to be fast, right? They're not like other animals that will drag you around. They will go right for the neck. Right. So I knew it would be a quick death, at least. And as I'm kind of contemplating what I can do, if anything, I then hear the booby traps down below and I hear human voices. And they're not speaking the Machu Gangua language. So it's that tribe that just murdered two people the night before.

So you're like, if this jaguar doesn't kill me, the tribe will. Yes. And I have no protection and they have machetes because they stole them. So all I was thinking was, well, I'm in my underwear under a mosquito net. I have zero protection against a jaguar or a human with a machete. so it's either going to happen or it's not. And I went to sleep. I actually slept really well. When I woke up in the morning,

the jaguar was going down the log, and the chief of the tribe saw the jaguar, and he came over. And then he collected the whole tribe, and then they gave me something very sacred, which is a jaguar necklace. So that night, I was very afraid. So what is the same?

that mean they gave you the jaguar knuckles like congrats you survived it oh well yes actually because jaguar is very sacred to them they believe they become jaguars so jaguar it's a jaguar tooth i usually wear it and uh the jaguar tooth is very rare because they don't kill them oh my gosh yeah tell us about blue zones they're really sick i have not had anyone talk about this no it's like not even a real thing no oh i thought this was a real thing i thought this was what the people of perfect health were No. It's just that they're everywhere. There's these zones everywhere, and they're not as they're promoted at all. They're very different from how they're promoted. And really, anytime, even if you just find like a very tiny village somewhere in Europe, they're probably going to be that kind of healthy, really. It's just when people start living the way we do. Then we start to get all the problems. And when you say the way we do, you're talking about what, like the Western A Price Way? Oh, yeah. Well, yes. Yeah. Really, just living as humans did for thousands of years. Right.

Worked really well. Okay. Ancestral living, diet. Literally what tradition is is something that works. Are you thinking, how am I going to afford spring break this year? Perhaps you even considered, well, maybe I'll just rob a bank. You know, nothing too crazy, right? You know, just enough to cover margaritas, flights, and that questionable neon beachware.

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What can we possibly do to get that sort of health that you saw in those tribes that had basically perfect health? We have to do quite a bit, and it's so, I don't know, I think it's so, funny how we have to biohack our way to something that was so natural not too long ago. But we really do. We have to be pretty disciplined. We don't have to be rigid, but we have to be disciplined. We have to be organized. And unfortunately, we have to be incredibly self-educated. And who has time for that? Right. Everyone's so busy. So the first thing, especially for women, I would say, but for all people, I would get yourself out of debt so that you have grace. Wow, that was not at all what I was expecting you to say. Get out of debt so you can offer grace? Yes. As long as you're in debt, you're stressed. As long as you're in debt, you have to work more. As long as you're in debt, you can't buy things that you need for your health. You can't buy time in particular. Time is really what's needed. Time, relationships. We get very sick when we're alone. We need eye contact. We need socials. You and I right now, us talking, we're balancing our. We're

progesterone. I wouldn't do that if I was by myself. Oh, thank God. Because my progesterone or my estrogen are at zero. I'm going to ask you about that. No. Okay. I'm devastated. I'm like, it's horrible. I messed up, Mary. No. So that's good. Let's keep talking. Yes, exactly. Okay. Wait. This is, that's probably one of my most favorite quotes. I think anybody is shared on the show what you just said. That is so profound and so different than the advice that we're typically given in the health and wellness space, I think. Yeah. It's a Oh, thank you. And I'm so glad I'm honored, actually. Thank you. It's a funny thing how we live in debt. If you live in debt, you're buying from your future and you don't have freedom. You have no freedom right now. So most of your belongings, you can just fit in a backpack? Yeah, well, I've done a little shopping as of me. Yeah, what do you do? Yeah, you just carried around with you everywhere? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I ship things to my friends. Okay, okay, that makes sense. Yeah. You are an ancestral and medical nutritionist. Yes. who specializes in metabolic, immune, and nervous system disorders.

If someone struggles with one of those things, what should they be eating and why? Oh, well, it can be different. We have options. There's things that everyone can do. But as our environment is getting more charged with plastics and we're getting higher cortisol levels and our microbiome is getting more destabilized, we're needing some things that we wouldn't have needed before. So before, say, the carnivore diet, I work with about 41 different diets, but it takes the carnivore diet, I would have said 20 years ago, everyone can do it and you're going to benefit. Now, many people will, but for a lot of hormonal issues, you need something to bind to those excess hormones to pull them out through phase two, phase three liver. For many people, not everyone, it really depends on what's going on in your body. Is it true that people who are diagnosed with autoimmune issues should avoid gluten forever? I think that's pointless, honestly.

And I'll tell you why. I'm so relieved to hear this. This idea that we can just take gluten or dairy out of the diet and then we have to tell every waitress and we have to tell every friend. You can actually tell how healthy a country is by their restaurant menus. That says a lot then about America. Yes, we have so many allergies. But the issue with gluten is not gluten. In traditional bread, it would be fermented for 72 hours, and there's almost no gluten left. It goes from 72,000 particles to 12. A human body can handle 12. Gluten is one of many lectins. And the top lectins, the top allergens in the country, anaphylactic as well, found in food. It's primarily lectins. Soy, dairy. Not all dairy is a lectin. But you have to hunt out A2. Again, self-education. They're equally bad, and I would say the potato is far worse. So when someone

cuts out gluten, they then go and eat potato flour, which is far worse. That has all these fat-soluble toxins that stay in your body for a long time, 30 to 90 days. So even if I do oven-roasted potato, you would say, don't stop eating that? Yeah. Oh, really? Yes. I do not feel bad. I don't have any flare-ups or any problems whenever I eat gluten. You won't. It's Other stuff that I've noticed, I think, are food allergies or irritants for me. But I don't think it's like, and I'm only eating like sourdough bread, but I have no problem if I have a sourdough croissant or sourdough loaf. The idea of exclusion that worked 30 years ago.

It's not enough now. The microbiome is too damaged. So what these, they're lectins and plant toxins. There's oxlates. There's all these different things, solanines. And traditionally, these were all fermented out or cooked out or not used. potato is very hard to remove the toxins from. It's so hard. And so those are the foods I would immediately take out because those, you're not going to sit up. You're not going to spend months doing that. No one is.

So unless you go to Peru, you know, where the grandmas can do it full time. So I instead would think about what's going on with the immune system. Why is it doing this? And for that, you have to look at your gut lining, right? Because 80% of your immune system is there. And so what's upsetting your gut? It's most likely that what you're eating now overall, in the overall picture, it's not a food allergy. It's these insidious little things that tear up the guts, right? We have these beautiful little things called Vili. It's like a coral reef.

At least we should. Most people's, it looks pretty dystopian. And what happens when this happens is that a bacteria that is so good for us when it lives on the tip of the Vili. Like H. Polori does amazing things there. But you lose your mucin layer. You cut into that constantly with these ill-prepared foods. And it starts to cut in. And then the bacteria goes into the cracks.

And now it's a problem. Okay. Your friend became a problem. Right. So it's an overall C-change that's needed. It's rarely one thing, like mold or this or that. It's the overall picture. And you need an overall change so that the,

body can rebuild itself because it knows how to do that so much better than we ever will with our tinkering. So what would you say the first step should be for someone like me? My testosterone is normal range, but estrogen progesterone basically at the very end, low end. Sister. I know. What do you think I should do? You get up in the morning. I don't. I barely do. It's very, very hard. That's actually what a lot of women go through when they go up to perimenopause. That's what I'm scared about. So I'm wondering like, oh my gosh, am I? going to have to get on HRT or something? Do you ever recommend that for people? I don't, but I wouldn't swayed someone against it. It's just not something I do. So you have your thyroid

and then the low estrogen progesterone. Yes. Okay, first things first. We have to change the way you interact with life. I know. Okay. But really, because you don't always have to change the activity. You can very often change the approach to the activity. Okay. Right. So instead of, let's say you like to run, I don't know. change to dancing. That'll get your feminine hormones going. Running gets masculine. Before you do something that may like surge your cortisol. Sway side to side. That'll get your parasympathetic going. Right? To balance it. Making sure that you're breathing through your nose. Providing some sense of safety to the body in a really kind of unique way that is so silly that we have to teach ourselves again,

but we do, all of us. This is a big part of my getting better. You need to eat and wake up at the same time every day. Okay, so I need to be on like a good schedule my body can rely on. Specifically in the morning. And that will create that feeling of safety for the body. Okay. Yeah, we often think about safety as like in our head.

We have to do it in the therapist office? No. No, it's really very physical things. Okay. Yeah. So your first meal in the day should always be at the same time. You can change your bedtime. We have a modern life.

you know, but morning should always be the same. Get light at the same time. And then for progesterone, you have to hang out with girls once a week. Otherwise, it won't balance. Oh, wow. So if you have low progesterone, you've got to be around girlfriends. You do. So is that kind of like the cycle sinking and stuff that happens?

There are so many activities that spur our hormones. Our hormonal system is totally different than all our other systems. Like you can take out your ovaries, put them in a jar for a month. Please don't, but you could. That's gory. But you could, and then you could bring them back and you could put it into your leg and it will hook back up to your hormonal system. It is mystical, right? You can't do that with the circulatory system. You can't do that with the nervous system. The hormonal system, you can. And here's the crazy thing. We can spark almost all the hormones just by changing our posture, where our eyes go, how we talk, how we walk, how we operate in the world, if we lift things or don't.

if we are around kids or not. So who we're around, there are relational hormones, right? And so for you, I don't know your personal life, but cameraman, if you could carry her things. They do. They do. They do that. Good. Don't let her carry anything.

Oh, that's cute. No, really, because you'll produce your estrogen when they carry things for you. Oh. And you guys will get testosterone. Ooh. Okay, it's a win-win. Yeah. Get to work, boys.

What can you share about PCOS? 60 years ago, it basically didn't exist. This is a modern phenomenon? Yeah. It's also not in any of the tribes that I go to, not even close. 10 years ago, you could just go low carb. For many people, that will be enough. You can go ketogenic.

If that doesn't work, then I would do soluble fiber, like broccoli, like six cups a day. Six cups of broccoli a day for PCOS? Yeah. Or you could add inuline to your drinks. You could have raw carrots. If you look up soluble fiber and what foods have them, it's onions, garlic, carrots, asparagus, whatnot. You need about 20 grams a day.

Raw carrot salad? Is that good for PCOS? Amazing. Okay. Yeah. I've heard that's like all the rage on TikTok, you know. Yeah, it's the soluble fiber that's doing it. One of my wellness non-negotiables, red light therapy.

I use it morning and night and I swear by it. If you're looking to invest in just one wellness device, let me tell you, this is. is it. And for that, I turn to Jove. I turn to Jove. At home, I have the Jove solo 3.0. Sounds so fancy. And it is. It's about waist high. It lives in my bathroom. I use it every single day as part of my routine to support my overall wellness, boost my energy, gives my skin that extra glow. Seriously, it is a game changer. My skin texture is improved. I recover faster. I get better sleep. Red light therapy has made a huge difference in my life. I've seen it for myself over the past several years.

When I'm traveling for work, I don't skip my red light therapy. I've got the Juve Mini, a portable version that's perfect for on-the-go use. I take it with me everywhere. Because whether I'm at home or on the road, 10 minutes a day of red light therapy works wonders for my sleep, my hair, my skin, joint pain, and mental clarity. If you commit to just 10 minutes a day for a month, I guarantee you will be absolutely blown away by the changes for you, your pets, and your family. It's safe for everybody.

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Head to juve.com slash Alex to check out their products and grab yours today. That's juve.com slash Alex, J-O-O-V-V-V dot com slash Alex. What impact do vitamin D levels have on hormones? Well, vitamin D is a hormone. And you need very set bacteria to be able to make it. So it used to be that we thought, oh, you can just take it. Or, oh, you can sit in the sun and eat cholesterol. And the sun hitting the cholesterol, you'll make vitamin D.

We now know. No, you actually also have to have bacteria. So stop using soap. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Now, I am using organic, prebiotic body wash.

But you think for, because so my vitamin D is astronomically low also. That could be your thyroid. That alone could cause your thyroid condition. Okay. Yes. So I just thought there was like maybe a bare minimum amount of time I've got to commit to being outside every day or something that I'm not doing because I'm really bad about. I mean, I've been in this building, you know, filming all day. I haven't even stepped outside in two days.

So it's like those are the things that I deal with. So I didn't know if you were going to say like, you know, you need to commit to at least 40 minutes a day outside or something. More than that. It's so. Do you know what your body thinks when you're inside all day, even if you're doing your favorite activity? What? It thinks you're hiding from war. Oh my gosh.

I know. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that's why everyone's cortisol is up so high. We can't be inside like this. Okay. So tell me the bare minimum outside time human beings should aim for daily. The bare minimum, if we could just start there.

30 minutes. Start with 30 in the morning before 10 a.m. That's going to downregulate your histamines. That's going to regulate your microbiome more than diet. It's going to stimulate your dopamine. But vitamin D is more midday. But again, you need bacteria for that. Is fertility a sign of health?

And if a woman is struggling with it, does it mean she's unhealthy? About 20 years ago, all the turkeys in the big farms became sterile. They had to use turkey basters to get them pregnant. If that's not a sign from Mother Nature saying, don't replicate, something's wrong. I don't know what is. We are now seeing that with our women. And it's very fixable. It's super fixable. Like as long as someone has AMH hormones, they have eggs. It's not hard to get pregnant if you know what to do. It doesn't have to cost money. It doesn't take huge medical interventions. It is different groceries and different lifestyle things. That is it. But I think what women are going through is actually horrific. It's actually horrific. What men are going through too. But the onslaught against our hormones, to include our clothing.

right? Everyone's working out in plastic. That has far more consequences than people realize. So Mary Ruddix, if you could do top three tips for a woman who is struggling to get pregnant, what would they be? Oh, go ketogenic, eat organ meat, sunlight in the morning while petting a puppy and making it into five. And do not wear anything that is not a natural fiber. That's really interfering with our hormones? Usually so. Really? If that is true, why is it sometimes so easy for like some woman on meth in the street to get pregnant and not this woman who's living this non-toxic organic lifestyle?

Yeah, it's super unfair. That lady on meth is not stressed. She's having a blast. Right? She's having a blast by her. That's why she's a meth addict. She's having a blast in her life. She is relaxed.

She's not showing up for work. 8 a.m. Right? She's actually in her feminine. So this is a fascinating point of view. You win for the most unique takes of any guest I've ever had. I'm so glad. So the meth head is in her divine feminine. The suburban housewife is stressed to the max constantly ruminating on getting pregnant. Well, the housewife, let's say she doesn't work outside of the house. No time in history were housewives ever alone. They're alone in the house. We're not meant to be alone. Women are meant to all be together.

Like hens. We really are. So it's the most ideal right now if a woman can be home. But it's still not ideal. For someone struggling with food addiction, how can they find freedom? Addiction is not in the mind. It's in the body. It's in the body.

Balance your blood sugar. Don't take it personally. Think of yourself if you're a female listening. Think of yourself like a male. Have you ever heard a male talk about binge eating? No. They sit down and they eat 5,000 kids. calories in front of us and they are happy about it, right? They're happy about themselves. They

feel good of themselves. We need to do the same. If you're hungry, it's because either you're lacking acrimancia, which is the bacteria that is Ozmpic, by the way, you do not need Ozempic, have acromanceia and your microbiome. How do you get that? What is it a supplement? It's on Amazon. Yeah, yeah. It's a birth microbe. But it's easy to get. It's like 20 bucks. Okay. And any brand is fine. The other thing is balance your blood sugar and then really watch the lighting and the hours. Because if graylin and leptin, those hormones aren't regulated, your hunger is going to be out of control. If you could only offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, and that could be physically, mentally, or spiritually, what would it be? I have to be honest. You need like 100. But if I have

to give, no exaggeration, it is actually the tiny things. It is every single moment that gets you intermission, that gets you happy in a relationship. It is not the big things. So it's really how you do everything. But if I had one big sea change, the sea change that I'm going to recommend is honestly becoming outdated with how much we're doing damage to the microbiome and the way that we're living with no rest at all. The rest is now a luxury. But it would be to go low carb. Because if you look at the primary conditions that we're dealing with, they're all destabilized. They're all exasperated and created by fluctuating blood sugar. And we also don't make our feel-good chemicals when our blood sugar is swinging. We don't make our sex hormones when our blood sugar is swinging.

So it's like the lowest of the foundations, but it's a foundation for right now. Historically, people didn't have to be low-carb. It's for right now. If somebody wanted to work with you for their nervous system issues, autoimmune, fertility, how can they do that? website. I'm usually booked out really far, but I try to put out a lot of information. That's why I've been writing more so that I can get the things that I teach people to the public. I really feel like this stuff should be in our households. We all need to know this. To be able to take care of our spouses, our children, our parents, this stuff needs to be known. It's, we're really past the time when we can use practitioners. There's too many sick people, right? So we have to actually

change. And for that, you need knowledge. So I'm trying to put the knowledge out. It's on my website. I just started doing that. No promises. I'm pretty busy. But I'm trying. And the, I wrote over 100 of them last month. I'm getting them edited. I know. That's impressive. In one month? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I know. I made this discovery and I couldn't stop putting dots together. So it's to do with bacteria. But the, but yeah, so on my website, Maryoretic.com, you get my schedule and YouTube and all those things. You remind me of like the Jane Goodall of health and wellness. You could not have complimented me. That's totally what you remind me of. I love her. Where do people find you on social media? Mary Queen of Heart on Instagram and on YouTube, I think it's Mary Rotic 777.

Thank you, Mary, for coming on Culture Apothecary. Thank you so much for having me. What an absolutely fascinating life Mary lives. We release new episodes every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, anywhere you get your podcast or the real Alex Clark YouTube channel. Don't forget to pause right now. Leave a five-star review. This is totally free and one of the biggest ways you can help support the show. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.