Realfoodology - What Your Labs Don’t Tell You (and Why Women Get Misdiagnosed)

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

264: Dr. Josh Redd is a functional medicine genius. He has 12 years of post-graduate education in healthcare, including two masters degrees and two doctorate degrees. As the founder of RedRiver Health and Wellness, Dr. Redd is one of the best in the game when it comes to treating the root causes of autoimmune and brain conditions. Today, he’s reviewing my own labs (and Hector’s too!) and sharing what you can do to reduce inflammation and stay on top of your health. Topics Discussed: → What digestion issues can reveal about brain health  → Why lab benchmarks aren’t always accurate  → How to keep your hormones in check → Top triggers for inflammation and autoimmune conditions - and how to reduce the impacts → The reality of Hashimoto’s Disease and thyroid issues  Sponsored By: → LMNT | Get a free 8-count Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase at https://www.drinklmnt.com/realfoodology. → BIOptimizers | For 15% off go to https://www.bioptimizers.com/realfoodology and use promo code REALFOODOLOGY.  → Timeline | They’re offering my audience a 20% discount on all first-time purchases! Use code REALFOODOLOGY at checkout at https://www.timeline.com/REALFOODOLOGYGUMMIES. → Manukora | Go to https://www.manukora.com/REALFOODOLOGY to get $25 off the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, 5 honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon, and a guidebook! → Beekeeper’s Naturals | Go to https://www.beekeepersnaturals.com/REALFOODOLOGY or enter code REALFOODOLOGY to get 20% off your order. → Paleovalley | Save at 15% at https://www.paleovalley.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY. Timestamps:  → 00:06:20 - Digestion, Brain Health, and Better Sleep → 00:12:13 - Why Women Get Misdiagnosed  → 00:15:10 - Understanding Labs + What to Check For → 00:39:31 - Inflammation + Autoimmune Conditions  → 00:48:58 - Functional Medicine + Root Cause Care → 00:51:30 - Hormones   → 00:59:35 - Hashimoto’s Disease + Thyroid Issues   → 01:08:58 - Making Care Accessible   → 01:11:33 - STEM Cell Research  Show Links: → RedRiver Health and Wellness  → Palmavita Clinic    Check Out: → Dr. Josh Redd  Check Out Courtney:  →  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE →  Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! →  @realfoodology →  www.realfoodology.com →  My Immune Supplement by 2x4 →  Air Dr Air Purifier →  AquaTru Water Filter →  EWG Tap Water Database Produced By: Drake Peterson

On today's episode of the Real Foodology podcast. One of my first patients came in and her son was asked to draw a picture of her at school and he drew a picture of her in bed. Oh, that's sad. And he comes home and she pulls it out of his bag and she's like, what's this, honey? She's like, that's you, mom, because you're always in bed. And that's heartbreaking. But the reality is there's a ton of women just like that that are being totally neglected.

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Real Foodology podcast. As always, I'm your host, Courtney Swan, and today's guest is Dr. Josh Red. He is fascinating. He has a total of 12 years of postgraduate education and health care, including two master's degrees and two doctorate degrees. He recently graduated from naturopathic medical school and is in the process of completing his residency in Utah. And in addition to his naturopathic medical training, he also has an MS, a master's in human nutrition and functional medicine, and an MAPHB from Johns Hopkins. This man knows his stuff. He is very well known for treating patients that are kind of at their wits end.

They feel like they've seen, you know, 12, 15, 20 doctors. Nobody's been helping them get to the root cause of things. He's really good at unlocking the underlying issues that many people are dealing with. I loved this episode. I think he gave some really amazing tips and tricks that will be very valuable and things that you could start implementing tomorrow. We also go through some of my labs, which I know you all love because it gives you a real-life example

of what it looks like to work with the doctor like this and really see his brain working and how he works to get to the underlying root cause of issues that you're dealing with. So I hope you love it and you get value from it. If you could take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it really, really does help this show. It helps me get more listeners.

It helps me get this out to everyone. And if you are enjoying this episode, If you could tag me at Real Foodology and also tag at Josh Red. Hopefully we will see it and we'll repost you. And thank you so much for listening and supporting. Thanks, guys. Something that I personally really struggle with is staying hydrated. So I am constantly adding electrolytes to my hydroflask,

and I'm bringing that hydroflask with me everywhere. Electrolite deficiency or imbalance can cause headaches, cramps, fatigue, brain fog, weakness, and so much more. And this is where Element comes in. An element helps anyone stay hydrated without the sugar and other dodgy ingredients found in popular electrolyte and sports drinks. Element is a zero sugar electrolyte drink mix in sparkling electrolyte water born from the growing body of research revealing that optimal health outcomes occur at sodium levels two to three

times government recommendations. Each stick pack delivers a meaningful dose of electrolytes free of sugar, artificial colors, or other dodgy ingredients. Element is formulated for anyone on a mission to restore health through hydration and is perfectly suited for athletes, folks who are fasting or those following keto, low-carb, whole-food, or paleo diets. Also, if you are saunying multiple times a week and sweating a lot, this is a great option for you. Rob, the founder, is a former research biochemist, a two-time New York Times best-selling author, and he has now sat on the Navy SEAL Resiliency Committee for over a decade.

An element has an amazing community of U.S. Olympians, professional athletes, special forces like Navy SEAL teams, FBI sniper teams, and Marines, also health experts, everyone from Stanford neuroscientists to functional nutritionists are element advocates, many high-performing business leaders, and everyday health enthusiasts like moms, exercise enthusiasts, heavy sweaters, sauna sitters, and those who want to dynamite, no sugar margarita, or mocktail, love to incorporate Element tea into their daily routine. They give no questions asked refunds, try Element totally risk-free. If you don't like it, they'll refund your order, no questions asked. However, they have a very low return rate and a very high reorder rate.

Get a free eight-count sample pack of elements most popular drink mixed flavors with any purchase when you go to drink element.com slash real foodology. That way, you can find your favorite element flavor or share with a friend. So go to drinklm-t.com slash real foodology to try today. Do you know what your body's first layer of immune protection is? Most people think it's the skin or the white blood cells, but it's actually your gut lining. When it's functioning properly, it lets in nutrients that your body needs, and it also keeps out things like toxins and bacteria. But here's the problem. This barrier can start to break down a condition often referred to as leaky gut or increased intestinal permeability, which is something

a lot of Americans are dealing with right now. And it's super common. It's way more common than you think. Leaky gut is associated with symptoms like bloating, fatigue, brain fog, or food sensitivities, even if you're eating healthy. One thing that contributes to it is undigested foods sitting in your gut for too long. And that often comes down to not having enough digestive enzymes. Your enzyme production can slow down for a lot of reasons, like aging, constant stress, anti-acids, or a diet low in fiber and high and refined carbs. Without enough enzymes, your body struggles to break down food.

That leftover food irritates the gut lining and puts more pressure on your system. That's why I take mass dimes, which are a full-spectrum digestive enzyme blend. It helps break food down more completely so your gut isn't under constant stress, and it supports gut barrier health over time. If every meal leaves you bloated and uncomfortable, mass signs could be the simple fix that your gut has been waiting for. If you would like to try them today, go to bioptimizers.com slash real foodology and use promo code real foodology, and you will save 15% off. And while you're there, also get some of my other favorite products.

They have something for gluten. If you have any issues with eating gluten, you can take this and it can help you. digest the gluten better. There's also magnesium breakthrough, which is another product that I love. So make sure that you go to bioptimizers.com slash real foodology and use promo code real foodology. They even offer a full 365 day guarantee. There's zero risk to try it. And if you subscribe, not only will you get amazing discounts and free gifts, you will make sure your monthly supply is guaranteed. Again, bioptimizers.com slash real foodology. I really struggle with getting out of bed in the morning.

In fact, in high school, I will never forget this. Actually, it might have been in middle school. Whenever it was, like when I was younger, I would always be late to school because I would sleep through my alarm. I'd sleep through my alarm. And then finally my dad would come upstairs. And he literally turned on all the lights, open all the blinds, and he would physically pull my comforter down the hallway

and be like, get out of bed. Because I could never get out of bed. And so he would take my comforter away from me and then I finally be like, oh, I'll get out of bed. But what we, but nobody clocked or realized back then is that I was so fatigued that I couldn't wake up. Like I would just be like, oh. Like the way I describe it is in the morning,

I feel like I'm walking through honey for maybe the first like hour. And then once I get going and I move and I'm like, you know, I've had my coffee or whatever, then I'm fine. But it's the first thing in the morning I'm really dragging ass. And you specifically tend to have issues with cortisol. Yep. blood glucose and blood pressure, which is a huge problem for all this stuff. I mean, you just look at your classic presentation, and then to make matters worse, you're now

40 years old, which now throws in a whole new wrench of hormonal dysfunction and perimenopause and all that stuff. So doing the right labs and assessing them in detail could make a huge difference for you. Plus, you have a history of like Epsine Barr and, you know, potentially Lyme's disease and all that stuff that goes along with it, right? So I think, um, The biggest thing for you though is how can we optimize your cortisol in the morning so that you have that cortisol awake in response and the brain has a big thing to do with that. Remind me your history. Did you do you have a history of concussions or a history of anything pertain to the brain or trauma or? No, it's unclear.

I was a really big snowboarder. I mean, still kind of in, but really big snowboarder when I was in high school. And I remember I knocked myself out one time. But I don't know if I ever had a can. Like, I just know, we don't know for sure if I ever had a concussion. So maybe potentially had one. Yeah, if you're knocked out, the likelihood of you have the concussion's high. Yeah.

But that throws in a whole new wrench, too. A lot of our patients don't realize that if they have like any type of like brain trauma or brain injury, within seconds that causes intestinal permeability. And then from there, you start absorbing proteins to the bloodstream that you shouldn't. And then your immune system freaks out and wonders what in the heck's going on. And then that develops into further autoimmune conditions or food intolerances and all sorts of stuff there. And then you have this brain firing issue. Then you're not digestion your food properly.

You don't have digestive enzymes. You don't have proper blood flow to the gut, things like that. And then it just turns into the cycle of problems too, you know? Yeah. And you know what's interesting? You brought up digestion. Something that I've been, I've had two doctors flagged for me now is they really, really push the fact that I need to be taking HCL and also digestive enzymes. And I've been pretty good about it.

I will admit, like it is, I don't know why. I'm so good about taking my supplements. I forget sometimes to take digestive enzymes. It'll be like later in the day where I'm like, oh, damn it, I didn't take them again today. And I lay them out of my counter. Like, I don't know what else I can do. But one of them is, yeah, like I have slow digestion,

and I've been told I really need to take digestive enzymes in HCL to help. Yeah. Which makes totally sense, right? Yeah. Here's the other thing that most people lack. So you go to a standard doctor, you get labs done, you get put on digestive enzymes, HCL. Like, that's great.

But what's the mechanism behind that? Yeah, like, why do I need those? That's the bigger thing, right? So you have your brain and then you have what's called an enteric nervous system that engulfs the whole intestinal track. If I was to dissect your brain and all the neurological tissue that comes with it, you would see this huge web of net that comes from the brain and it almost like just this big net and it gulfs the intestinal tract,

but it fires from the brain to the intestinal track. So a lot of our intestinal patients actually have brain issues. and we have to get the brain to fire properly and the mid-brain to fire properly in order for you to produce digestive enzymes and HCL and blood flow to the gut and all that stuff as well. So firing that mid-brain response, that paraceptic response,

and the frontal cortex to fire properly, then all of a sudden without even supplements, you're producing HCL, digestive enzymes, all that stuff as well. So a lot of our patients, when they come in and they have severe intestinal issues, we'll look through brain function in great detail and we'll assess the brain, how is it firing? Because almost every time it's linked to the intestinal tract as well. Interesting.

In fact, check this out. Wow. You know what the number one symptom is of the first symptom that we'll see with the Parkinson's patient? You know what it is? That's digestion. Poor gut motility, low ACL, low digestive enzymes. But this might be 20 years before they even get diagnosed Parkinson's, right?

And so oftentimes we can see and assess all that stuff coming. There's a lot of things that you can do to minimize that from progressing and getting worse too. But now, like, you look at Parkinson's exploding over our country, and it's kind of alarming where it's coming from like our food, digestion, environment, glyphosate, you name it. And now we have these significantly increased numbers of Parkinson's. Wow. But the earliest onset, the earliest symptoms is you're going to have digestion issues. And that could be for 20 years before you even get diagnosed with Parkinson's.

See, this is my biggest gripe with the way that we practice medicine right now is that there will be all these signs and symptoms very early on. And then everybody just keeps missing them. Not everybody, but most majority of doctors are just, they're matching a symptom with a pill and then just putting them on pills. and the next thing you know, this person is on, you know, 10 different medications, counteracting everything else. And then they get diagnosed with something weighed on the line.

I mean, Callie and Casey Means actually have this exact story with their mother, where when they were born, they were both over 10 pounds. And apparently that is a sign that the mother is having metabolic dysfunction. Yeah, definitely. And then she was diagnosed with, I think, diabetes, and then she was put on statins because then she had a heart issue. And, you know, it was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And she's seeing all these different specialists.

And then all of a sudden she got diagnosed with, I forgot what cancer she had, but some cancer, and then was dead within three weeks. Yeah. And, you know, and this was, you know, Callie was saying if we had looked back 30 years prior to that and we started connecting all the dots of all of this. And I just share this as one example, but this is what's happening with Americans as a whole is that there's all these little things, signs and symptoms that you're going to your doctor for, or you're going to your doctor and saying, like, I've gone to so many doctors and said,

I can't get out of bed in the morning. I have fatigue. I have this. I have that. And then they pull my labs and they're like, oh, you look great. Your thyroid looks normal. Yeah. But they've only run, you know, two thyroid markers.

Yeah. What's going on with that? It's maddenine. One, you're not the only one. We see patients from all over the world that are just like you. And unfortunately, females are at a higher risk for having a lot of these chronic conditions that nobody can figure out. Is it our hormones?

What is that? I think it's hormones. It's hormones is a big thing. Menopause is a big thing, birth in a child, puberty, all that stuff, right? Like your hormones are consistently fluctuating up and down throughout the month. and that can trigger issues. However, I can't tell you how many women we see where they literally feel like they're crazy.

They have a slew of symptoms. They go to the doctor. The doctor looks at their labs and says they're normal. And in reality, they're not normal. They're just being totally misdiagnosed and mismanaged. The doctor is not able to read the labs correctly. And so the patient then leaves, feels like they're crazy, feels like they're lazy or hopeless,

and they go from doctor to doctor, nobody can help them. And then they're at their wits end trying to find out how to help them. This is why we have tons of women now who are just going to Instagram, TikTok, and Google to figure out what the heck's going on. And they're diagnosing themselves now. They're doing their own research, which is so sad.

It is sad. But they're happening to do this. And in reality, it's because doctors have this lab range. And this lab range is really just a sick range. Like that lab range that tells us what normal and what's normal and what's not normal, right? That lab range is just a sick range. And so if we're just going based off of that sick range, you could have a slew of different imbalances and problems that could be within that range,

but close to being outside of it that could cause symptoms. On top of that, a lot of doctors test very basic tests. And if somebody comes in and shows me their symptoms, now I'm like, like with you right now, you tell me all your symptoms, we're like, oh my gosh, my brain's firing like, we've got to test this, this, this, this and this. And the likelihood of things coming back positive now are going to be a lot higher if I test it's a little bit further and a little bit more systemic and more complex, right? Yeah.

But you think about this, that lab range is a sick range. It's not a healthy range. And let's explain that really fast because if people don't understand, what's happening is in that range of quote unquote normal, they're taking the average of all Americans. And we know that, you know, 93% of Americans are metabolically unwell at this point. Like, we are getting, we are, the average is now coming from a sick population. Yeah, they basically are taking a bell curve based off of the people who get their labs done. So who do you think is their thyroid checked?

People that are already sick and not doing well. Yeah, people with thyroid problems, right? You go into the lab and who's in the lab with you getting your labs tested? Like who's there sitting? You got a lady on the couch. She has her eyes closed. Like, oh my gosh, that lady's dead. And really, she's not dead.

She's not doing well. She's not doing well. You got another guy with an oxygen to come in. Like these, the people that are getting their, labs test tested are sick people. Yeah. They're not healthy people, right? And so over the last 30 years, we're seeing these lab ranges get more broad, more broad, more broad. And that's really unfortunate because now these people are suffering with a ton of symptoms, but they're not getting diagnosed and they're not getting treated properly. And then they feel like they're crazy. And it's

really because these lab ranges are just getting bigger and bigger. So we have optimal ranges that we want to look at. And if you're outside that optimal range, you could have an imbalance that's causing issues. Like, if you look at this, the way that the conventional medicine is set up, you have this massive, let's say, thyroid range, right? Or glucose is even worse.

Because we're so metabolically impaired as a country, our glucose numbers are a disaster. Like standard glucose serum, 70 to 100, or even sometimes 105. If I check in different rural populations, it might be like 60 to 120. And we don't even diagnose blood glucose issues until then, right? But in reality, if we look at that,

you'll have a patient that just is like supposedly in the conventional model, healthy, healthy, healthy, healthy, and then all of a sudden sick. It's like, what in the world? Like, we need to have a range that says, hey, you're almost sick. Like, this can definitely cause symptoms and problems. We have to figure out what in the world is going on before it becomes. becomes a severe pathology.

And if we can check these labs and stay within that optimal range, that patient is going to have a lot better quality of life, but they're going to have a lot of problems that will be minimized long term that will help them tremendously as well, right? We're living longer than ever, but are we living better? What if the key to not just adding years to your life, but life to your years starts at the cellular level. This particular ingredient called urolithin A helps to increase muscle. strength by up to 12% after 16 weeks. It also boosts muscle endurance by up to 17% and it also

supports faster recovery after exercise. And then also these gummies help with longevity. The ingredient that I mentioned urolithinae is essentially food for your mitochondria and we know that mitochondria play a huge overall role in cellular health in longevity. And this particular gummy delivers six times more uralithinae than a glass of pomegranate juice. They're also non-GMO. They are clean label project certified, NSF content certified, and free of major allergens and artificial ingredients. I'm a huge fan and I've also noticed that my recovery from my workouts has gotten so much better since I've been taking this. I lift three to four times a week and I am not as sore as I used to be when I started taking these supplements. I'm super excited to share that you now get 20% off

your first timeline purchase. There's never been a better time to experience the benefits. of mitopoeure, so use my code Real Foodology at checkout to receive 20% off today. Go to Timeline.com slash Real Foodology Gummies. Use code Real Foodology at checkout, and you will get 20% off. I love adding honey to my morning coffee. And if you're more of a matcha person, I highly recommend adding honey to your matcha. I think it really upgrades the taste of matcha and coffee. Personally, I love Manukora honey.

It contains powerful nutrients to support immunity and gut health. ethically produced by Manukora's master beekeepers in the remote forests of New Zealand. It's rich, creamy, and the most delicious honey you've ever had. The bees collect the nectar from the manuka tree. The nectar is packed with bioactives and the honey that is produced has three times more antioxidants and prebiotics than your average honey. A special antibacterial compound called MGO also comes from the nectar of the tea tree. Manukora third party tests every single harvest for MGO and makes these results available through their QR system. It's a game changer and all you need is one heaped teaspoon each morning to get the most out of the amazing bioactives in Manuka.

And now it's easier than ever to try Manukora honey. Head to Manukora.com slash Real Foodology to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the starter kit, which comes with an MGO 850 plus Manuka Honey Jar, five honey travel sticks, which I love these travel sticks. I take these with me every time I travel, a wooden spoon and a guidebook. That's Manukora.com slash real foodology to save 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts. That's M-A-N-U-K-O-R-A. Yeah, absolutely. So what is the solution for people?

You know, people listening are probably going, oh, my gosh, well, how do I, what kind of doctor do I look for? Or like, what is the solution? What should their doctor be looking for? I think the biggest hurdle in this, all of this right now, is people finding the right doctors that they can afford that actually practice from the lens that you practice with, which is tough. Yeah. And sometimes, like for me, just going over a patient's lab, it might take 45 minutes

to an hour. Yeah. And we might test four different pages worth of labs, but it's super informative to us, but it can be more expensive. There's basic labs that a patient can do and know for themselves whether they're sick or not. Like, for example, almost 50% of our patient population has a methylation problem. Yeah, MTHFR.

Yeah. But a simple, easy, cheap test to see if you have this problem is homocysteine. And so this can cause like anxiety, fatigue, inflammation, this can flare up on autoimmune disease, this can cause hormonal dysfunction, this causes liver dysfunction, this causes a ton of different things. If you have this one thing that comes back positive, you could check that and then take methylated B vitamins to improve it. And all of a sudden now you have four different symptoms that could inherently just get better

and better over time just by taking a methylated B vitamin. So like something like a homocysteine, anytime that's above 7 or above, we're worried about a methylation problem. If it's above 10, you have severe methylation issues. You need to correct that and improve that as fast as you can. But it's as simple as taking a methylation B vitamin, you know, a methylated B vitamin. It's that simple. Yeah.

There's other like inflammatory markers. So like your labs, for example, we consistently see that you have blood sugar levels under 80. And that's really consistent with reactive hypoglycemia. Yeah, which is so interesting. Y'all are actually the ones that found that out for me. Yeah. So for someone like you, we would have you put on a continuous glucose monitor, and we would monitor that glucose over the course of 24 hours,

and you would just wear that consistently. So we can see exactly what your glucose levels are doing. But if you have reactive hypoglycemia, you're going to have symptoms of fatigue, weakness, irritability if you go long times without eating. Am I right? Yeah. Hey, we have her fiancé in studio. Do you see that in her?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. But we have like brain fog, clarity type issues. Like these are really common if you have reactive hypoglycemia. Interesting. I don't really struggle with brain fog, but everything else you're saying 100%. And I have a lot of issues. of focusing, which I've had my whole life.

I mean, I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was, I think, in eighth grade. And looking back, I think I just was eating way too much of the standard American diet at school and bouncing off the walls. And also I didn't really care about what I was studying. It wasn't until I found nutrition that I was like really able to focus. But I can still see now that I do have some focus issues too. So like somebody's just looking at blood sugar levels, like testing that lab, if you have a glucose level that's under 80 on a consistent basis that's a fasting glucose level,

it's likely that you have react to hypoglycemia. If you have it above 90, you could have insulin resistance. In fact, the best marker to check for insulin resistance before it becomes a severe problem is actually fasting triglycerides. If you're fasting triglycerides are above 100, that's your first stage for us as doctors. You have insulin resistance and prediabetes and glucose issues and metabolic dysfunction is in your future

if you don't address this. But we catch that like five to 10 years in advance just by looking at triglycerides, right? Yeah. Do I have that or mine's more like low sugar? Yours is too low. Yeah, the problem with you. I don't think I eat enough sugar.

Well, yeah, maybe protein and healthy fats and all that stuff, right? So with you, what we see is that you have lower blood sugar levels. You have poor digestion and poor absorption, which makes it even worse. Isn't the food that you're eating isn't absorbing properly, so you're lacking those nutrients.

nutrients and glucose as well but then on top of that you have low protein too so someone like you we'd want to have you eat more protein on a consistent basis we'd want you to eat more consistently throughout the day fasting would be horrible for you because if you fast it for example or you go longer than three hours without eating the mechanism that drives a lot of hypoglycemic glycemic patients is adrenal gland dysfunction and the adrenal glands are the stress glands which help produce cortisol when those glands produce cortisol you're going to have an increase in blood sugar levels that's why you sometimes people with healthy adrenal function they can fast and their blood sugar level stay the exact same because their adrenal glands produce cortisol

which produces glucose and there you are if your adrenaline glands aren't functioning properly though. Then when you fast, that puts more stress on the adrenal glands and it makes them work harder and then eventually they can become impaired and not function as well. And then you have this like severe cortisol response. You feel really tired in the morning. You can't wake up. You feel like you needed nap throughout the day. That affects blood pressure as well. Cortisol affects blood pressure. So if you have cortisol dysfunction, then you're going to have abnormally low blood pressure. I have that. And then you have poor profusion.

And then the brain doesn't get oxygen and nutrients to it. And so we have symptoms just from that. Then we have neurological symptoms from that. And that's just this one thing. And think about how many people have this. I'm telling you right now, I bet 60% of the female population in America has this one issue where they have low blood sugar levels. They have low cortisol or cortisol circadian rhythm issues is what we call it.

And they have low blood profusion because of it. their blood pressure is too low. It's really, really common, and a lot of patients struggle with it. And that creates hormonal dysfunctions. That creates a slew of other imbalances that just create more problems, you know? Yeah. So my question is, because it is really fascinating. Everything you just brought up is really like it's tracking for me, for sure.

Years ago, remember when fasting was like just all the rage in the health and wellness community. And for me, when I discovered, it was kind of like the, it was like a, it was like a, Bulletproof coffee adjacent with all that kind of stuff. I started practicing that. And for a long time, it was actually, like, for me, it felt like kind of like the saving grace because I had been a little bit of bloated and puffy and just, like, kind of felt like I was a little inflamed. And then I found fasting and it was like, boom, like, everything went away.

I felt really good. I was finding myself not hungry until, you know, 12, 1 p.m. And truly, like, back then, I was feeling great. And I was like, fine. Like, I wouldn't even, like, think about it in the morning. And then I would just eat when I was hungry. Stop when I'm full, and I still have that, but I have these lasting effects where, like, I've been learning more about this, learning that for women, it's probably not great for fast,

or for us to fast, especially, like, for fertility. Like, I'm hoping to be pregnant by the end of this year. So I've really been trying to circumvent that, but I'm in this weird position right now where in the morning, I can't even look at, like, meat. Like, I can't look, like, I don't know what it is. Like, this guy over here is cooking steaks at, like, 9 a.m. And he's like, hey, you want some. He's like, you want steaks and eggs?

and I'm like, ugh, like, I don't know what it is. I cannot, there's this weird thing, aversion now for me to, like, eating early in the morning. And if I do eat in the morning, it's like I want, like, a banana or something. But everything that I'm hearing right now is you've got to get protein first of the morning. You've got to have, you know, eggs and this and that. And let me be very clear, I eat a lot of meat and I eat a lot of protein. Well, I guess I'm not eating enough protein. But come, like, 11, noon, one, then my body's like, give me all the meat, give me the steak and eggs,

give me all that. But there's this weird thing that happens in the morning where I can, I can't, like, it physically makes me feel like sick almost. Yeah, and there's other forms of protein, too, that you could have. Or even just eating something to where your blood sugar levels can increase and things can stabilize, you can have proper glucose storage as well. That could be really important for you. Yeah.

Because over time, you're going to exhaust the adrenal glands. And then if your adrenal glands can't function properly, they're going to steal away all your progesterone. Yeah, which we don't want that. To convert it into cortisol. And then you're going to have a lot harder time having a child and fertility and all that stuff as well, right? And so there's a lot of individuals just like you that struggle with these symptoms and problems.

And this is where you don't have to really test the whole gambit. You guys that are listening right now can do a simple glucose test. You can do a morning cortisol test and you can check your blood pressure. Like if your blood pressure is that of a dead person, that's a problem, right? Is mine of a dead person? Well, we should check. right now. It is classically really low.

Like most of our patients are a lot, you know, their doctors are like, oh, your blood pressure is fantastic and in reality we check and it's like 100 over 60 and that's a problem and their profusion is horrible and we have to get that profusion back up, right? But that causes cortisol issues, that causes progesterone issues, that causes the fluid problems. The other really easy thing that you can check for is your estrogen to progesterone ratio. We live in a society now where we are constantly being exposed to things that either mimic estrogen or spike estrogen or cause estrogen dominance, right?

And so you can check your estrogen progesterone ratio and we like to see about a 10-to-one estrogen to progesterone ratio. That's simple. Just like a standard thing that we like to see no matter where they're at in our cycle, what they're doing or whatever that may be, right? Yeah. We're seeing a lot of our female patients end up having like a... 400 to one ratio or a thousand to one ratio. And that's causing like severe menstrual symptoms.

That's causing, you know, fatigue, insomnia. That's causing a slew of other problems with their health and inflammation just because of the estrogen dominance too. So something as simple as like checking those things, which you can have your doctor check for this stuff and it's easy. I have had a wild year. I have been traveling nonstop. I feel like I've been on a plane every single week, and I thankfully have not gotten sick in a while, and I think there's two reasons for that. I have been taking beekeepers natural's propolis spray and also their nasal spray with me on every single flight, and let me explain to you why this has been such a game changer for my immune system. Propolis helps to defend your immune system and fight oxidative stress

with antioxidants. Propolis is the defender of the beehive. It's a powerful combination of plant and tree resin and enzymes made by bees. So it's super high in antioxidants like polyphenols and flavonoids which help fight free radicals and oxidative stress. Studies have found it to have antibacterial properties, anti-inflammatory effects in addition to its ability to fight germs through its antimicrobial and antifungal properties. So I bring the propolis spray with me and this nasal spray every time I travel, I do the propolis spray in the back of my throat and then the nasal spray I used to rinse out my nose. If you remember, I had Dr. Peter McCullough on my podcast a couple months ago. And he was telling me about studies that showed

that if you can rinse out your nose every single day, you can really lower your chances of getting any sort of virus because a virus will linger in your nose for a couple days before it actually starts to go down to your respiratory system. So if you can clean it out with something like the beekeepers naturals nasal spray, you can keep a sickness from actually starting to form. And the reason why I love beekeepers naturals is their commitment is to bring you the most potent bee products. No other propolis comes close to this level of identification, consistency, and standardization of bioactives. I know the founder personally and I know how committed she is to bringing clean, effective products to market. And I am truly in awe of all the work that she's done with beekeeper naturals. I am obsessed

with their products. And today, beekeepers naturals is offering you an exclusive offer. So go to beekeepers naturals.com slash real foodology or intercode real foodology to get 20% off your order. that's B-E-K-E-E-P-E-E-P-E-R-S-Natrals.com slash real foodology or enter code real foodology. You can also find their products at Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, CVS, and Walgreens. Did you know that collagen is the most abundant protein in the body, and it's the glue that holds us together? It's found in our hair, skin, nails, bones, tendons, ligaments, gut, and arteries. And after the age of 20, we lose almost 1% of the collagen in our skin, every year. By the age of 50, we've lost 25%, and by 75, we've lost 50% on average.

Ancestral diets contained ample amounts of collagen by eating nose to tail. However, most modern diets are deficient in collagen, which is why Paleo Valley created their 100% grass-fed bone broth protein powder, and oh my God, it tastes so good. Their bone broth protein powder is sourced from the bones of 100% grass-fed and finished cattle raised on American farms using regenerative farming practices to help restore local ecosystems. Unfortunately, the claim grass-fed is largely unregulated, and many bone broth and collagen products are actually sourced from low-quality grain-fed cattle.

And unlike other products processed with harsh chemicals, their bone broth protein is made with water and bones. That's it. Paleo Valley's 100% grass-fed bone broth protein is truly the highest quality bone broth protein on the market, and it comes in three flavors, unflavored, vanilla, and chocolate. Chocolate is their bestseller. Personally, I love the vanilla. It tastes like a vanilla milkshake. So take your insides to the spa and start reaping the benefits of collagen, dense, 100% grass-fed bone broth protein.

To save 15%, go to paleovalley.com slash real foodology and use code real foodology. Again, that's paleovalley.com slash real foodology. Yeah, that's good. Well, and hopefully we're going to get to a place where insurance covers more of these, you know, integrative doctors. I know Bobby Kennedy mentioned that in his executive order, actually, with Trump, where that's one of the things that they want to move the model to is a more preventative root cause protocol in general and propping up those doctors that are actually trying to get to the root cause. Which would be so much better.

By the time that we see patients, they've probably seen 20 different doctors for the last 10 to 15 years. Yeah. And we can get them feeling better in anywhere from like three to six months where they feel better than they have in a long time. But it's a lot more complex, it's a lot more extensive, it's a lot of work, and it can be costly too, right? But even with these labs, like these labs can be really inexpensive. They really can.

It's just testing the right labs for the right things, right? Yeah, for sure. The other common ones that are really important to check are inflammation in general. Like we live this like inflamed quality of life. If we could combat inflammation, like our symptoms would decrease, you know, rapidly, right? Right? Yeah. But checking for inflammatory markers like steroid protein, ferritin, you know, those types of things

are really easy that you can check for. Homocysting we mentioned before is an inflammatory marker as well. If you can check those and those come back high, you know you have to work on inflammation. So minimizing inflammatory foods, so like your gluten's, your conventional dairies, and I say conventional because like the dairies with all the hormones and antibiotics and all that stuff in there and some of the grains can spike inflammation and sugar obviously so there's simple things that you can do we're like okay I'm going to avoid gluten dairy and sugar and just those three things can lower inflammation quite rapidly yeah I'm going to eat more consistently I'm going to stabilize

my blood glucose levels if we give our patients to continue as glucose monitor we want their blood sugar levels to be anywhere from 80 to 130 regardless of what they eat and at the first this is really hard because you'll see it dropped to like 60 or 50 and you'll have it spike to like 160 right it's just all over the place a lot of our patients will have reactive hypoglycemia and they'll have insulin resistance both we live in that society now where even at a young age we're starting to see that oh it's so heartbreaking but um like one of the most common things that ends up causing like insomnia or trouble sleeping for example is just blood sugar issues and stabilizing blood sugars can really help.

So to give you an idea, just to kind of explain the mechanism, so if we're not getting enough sugars throughout the day, and this is important for you too, because you need sugar, right? You need to be able to store your glucose throughout the day. So if you're not eating consistently throughout the day or your blood sugar levels are just consistently dropping throughout the day, at night your body uses stored glucose to repair tissue. And if it can't get that stored glucose,

if that stored glucose isn't available, then your body has to increase, norepinephrine and epinephrine, which are your natural body stimulants. So it would be like you're drinking a monster drink at night. When in reality you're not, you just don't have the proper stored glucose that your body needs to repair tissue. And now it's either hard to fall asleep or when you do fall asleep, you wake up at 2 a.m. And you can't go back to sleep because you have these two natural stimulants flying throughout

your body. Wow, this is also me. So this is all tracking. I have very, very hard time falling asleep. And then once I'm asleep, I'm good and I'm out unless my dog jumps on the bed. but, which they literally did last night. That's so fun. Sorry.

But for the most part, yeah, I've been struggling with falling asleep too. So this is just wild, all of its tracking. So the solution is eating more throughout the day, like more consistently. Getting your calorie up, getting your protein up, things like that. But you wouldn't know, like, if you wore a continuous glucose monitor, you wouldn't have to really guess. Like, if you wake up and your blood sugar levels are at 50 and they stay 50 for a full hour, well, why do you think you're so tired in the morning? Like, why do you think you're walking through sludge for the first hour, right?

Yeah, it makes sense. Your blood sugar levels have tanked out. Your cortisol probably isn't anywhere close to where it should be. And then there we go, right? So most of our female patients, I think they're getting like around 40 to 60 grams of protein per day. Which is insane. Which is crazy. Like, they really should get like, you know, 100, 120.

Based up their body composition, you know. But let's just say on average, like 100. and a lot of them are getting 40, that's a problem for blood sugar level. So a lot of times it's like as simple as just improving different forms of protein and increasing fiber and healthy fats and they're off of the races doing great. Healthy fats are really good too because they'll help stabilize glucose long term. It's a type of storage that actually takes longer for the body to break down and utilize. And so it's just, it's great for glucose storage and overall energy production and all that stuff as well.

Yeah. So that's great too. Okay. This is amazing. This is all so helpful. So you brought up inflammation, which is something I want to talk about. I've actually heard you say that inflammation is a crisis in America right now. Let's talk more about that.

And actually, interestingly enough, not to make this just a full family episode, but Hector recently got his labs back. And maybe we can just use him as an example to talk about it. And his CRP levels were high. His inflammation was high. Yeah. Which we were actually shocked to see because right now he's basically eating carnivore. Like, he's just basically eating carnivore, just to give him a little background, too, is that he

has had this horrible pesky psoriasis for the last 10 years. And when I met him... Automene related? Yeah. I think so, yeah. Which is my jam. And leaky gut. When it comes to autoimmune stuff, that's what we do all day long.

Which is why I brought it up. Because I want to talk about this, too. And I know a lot of people are struggling with, you know, eczema, psoriasis, like all of this kind of autoimmune, you know, I know so many women that have Hashimoto's. Like, this is, I think we have an autoimmune crisis in this country, too. A thousand percent. Yeah. Yeah, right now we have probably 20% of our population has an autoimmune condition.

But that's, that's diagnosed. Yeah. So check this out. Like, have you been diagnosed with the autoimmune condition? I haven't, but a couple years ago on my function test, my A&A showed. Yeah, your A&A with a tighter, which is common for systemic lupus or sclerosis, right? Oh, my God. That's crazy.

So my point in and even, like, talking about that is that most, There's a lot of women, a lot of men out there that have have symptoms and chronic symptoms. They have an autoimmune condition, but it's not even diagnosed. So the fact that we have about 20% of our population that is diagnosed autoimmune conditions, this is crazy, right? Yeah. I think that in the next probably 20 years, I bet close to 40% of the population will have an autoimmune condition. Wow. Probably already have it.

Yeah, it's just getting worse and worse and worse. And we've probably owned one of the largest autoimmune clinics in the United States. And we have for the last 15 years. And we're seeing it just get worse and worse and worse and worse. Yeah. So like when you have an autoimmune condition, there's lots of things that can cause inflammation. And even if you don't have an autoimmune condition, we live this inflammatory lifestyle. And inflammation is a leading cause of pretty much every condition in our country right now.

If we can calm down inflammation as fast as possible, our quality lives. will be markedly better and will minimize all sorts of problems down the road. Just that one fact by testing for inflammation and then addressing the inflammation. So with you, you're mainly carnivore. There could be different types of meats that could actually trigger autoimmune response, which sounds weird. Yeah, that's wild. With our autoimmune patients, when we see inflammation is high,

we want to look at, okay, what foods are you potentially eating that could exacerbate an autoimmune response? Are you eating dairy? Oh, he is. That's probably why. Here's a huge problem. Because we just started adding dairy back in. Here's a huge problem.

So the case in protein can mimic self-tissue in a lot of our autoimmune patients. So when they consume dairy, their immune system that is attacking, say, skin or other forms of tissue, whatever they have on autoimmune disease too, can be confused with the casein protein and the immune system attacks that as well. and then it flares up the autoimmune response and then it flares up the inflammatory response and then we have issues. So inflammation and autoimmune conditions kind of go hand in hand. You have something called TH17 cells.

When those cells increase, you're going to have more tissue damage wherever your autoimmune disease is attacking. But also those TH17 cells spike inflammatory cells as well. And so you typically don't just have one or the other you have both. Yeah.

But the case in protein, and this is where we see. see a lot of our patients because look, I love, you know, whole milk and, you know, there's obviously way better forms of dairy now versus conventional forms. But still, if they have an autoimmune condition, those healthy forms will light them up like crazy. So it's interesting because he wasn't doing dairy and then we started adding back in a little bit like in our coffee and like cheese and stuff here.

So maybe we need to stop doing that. Yeah. Unfortunately, probably the top, our top. autoimmune triggers will be gluten, hands down, dairies, a close second. And what are the other ones? That was actually going to be my next question. So for everybody listening so that they can also like maybe apply some of this to their daily life, what do you think are the top triggers for inflammation and autoimmune?

Because I would assume it'd probably be similar. From a dietary standpoint? Yes. Or just in general. So look, don't like this is something where we see probably 300 patients a day from all over the world. And so we kind of have our own research center within our clinics. So this isn't like, here's the thing, there's lots of patients that can have the foods

that I'm about to explain that are big triggers. It's important to find out what your specific food triggers are if you have an autoimmune disease. And how would they do that? Because I feel like normal food tests don't always get the full picture because I think oftentimes it shows up the foods that you're eating the most. No, they don't. Yeah.

So like typically what happens is dairy and gluten are really, really high in our patient population. that is like rice, corn, eggs. Soy is absolutely garbage, by the way. I would say gluten, dairy, and then soy's third. But you have rice, eggs, corn. As far as a meat, probably the most common meat that will flare patients up is pork from an autoimmune standpoint. We don't really eat a lot of pork. And then ironically, there's a small portion that have beef intolerances. Like the alpha-gal. Yep, alpha-gal syndrome for sure.

I mean, we're like terrified of. We're moving to Texas soon and we're like, oh my God, that tick really scares me. Yeah. So we have a lot of patients where they'll consume even, you know, let's say pork or beef and it flares them up like crazy. Now, again, lots of our patients do really good with beef and lots of our patients do really good with corn and rice. But there are a select percentage where they just have to avoid those like rat poisoning

because their immune system for some reason or another reacts to it poorly and then it flurs up the autoimmune response and causes problems. So the best way that you can actually do this, this is what we do. We do an IGG food intolerance test, and that's simple and see what comes up high or what doesn't. And that's not like an allergy test. That's actually immune intolerance test, right? Which is different than allergies.

On top of that, we'll also have them do the inflammatory recess. So I had a book that came out. It was number one on Amazon. It was like number two of all books. of Amazon. So epic. And then Simon and Schuster just bought it. Amazing.

And we're going to relaunch it in January with like 40 more recipes and it has a bunch more literature. It's going to be awesome. But we have what's called an inflammatory reset where you remove most like, just like common inflammatory food. So even like tomatoes, eggs, beef, corn, rice. You can pretty much just eat like chicken, turkey, lamb, fish. vegetables and fruits.

That's pretty much what you eat, which is not bad for, I mean, that's great, right? But we would do the food intolerance test. We would put a patient on that inflammatory reset diet. And then when we get the food intolerance test back, we'll sit down and coach the patient how to add foods in slowly but surely from there. There'll be sometimes where they have a huge flare-up

and that food didn't come back positive on the food intolerance test. But as we just add in like one food slowly at a time over the course of like three to seven days and then they see if they have any symptoms or problems. And if they didn't, then they can add in another food. As soon as they have symptoms or problems, then they would remove it completely and then go back to the inflammatory reset and then start back adding a different food from there. Okay, yeah. So it's like an elimination diet essentially so that you can really like pinpoint your triggers.

Is there a world in which like, for example, maybe Hector, that we can heal, his autoimmune and then eventually he would be able to eat those trigger foods? Or is this just something where we feel like he probably will have to avoid them always? For the most part, there is a world there, but for the most part, there's usually two or three foods. You just avoid like the plague. Yeah, unfortunately. Because we might have patients where we correct like other imbalances within the body and their immune response has really calmed down and inflammation has really calmed down. And then they add in all these foods and their body is functioning significantly better than what it was before.

And then they're like, I can eat pretty much whatever I want. And then they do. And then all of a sudden, like, someone dies in the family or some stressor happens. And then that one food that they added in that they're eating consistently that they shouldn't have, then flares them up like crazy and starts this whole vicious cycle back to where it was before. And so for me, to keep the things, to keep the body calm down, to keep the immune response calm down, the inflammation calm down, I'll have my patients avoid lucky.

like two or three foods like the plague, just to be safe long term. And then, you know, they're a lot more resilient when it comes to an immune standpoint. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So if somebody was really struggling with, I feel like this is something that your clinic does really well. And I think this is a lot of people's stories, is they're dealing with a slew of different symptoms. They've seen a bunch of different doctors. Nobody's really helping them get to the root cause.

It almost feels like there's kind of this like mystery illness going on. And what would be your advice to them and steps to help trying to figure this out? I mean, would they go through and do get a lot of the lab work that you've talked about earlier and kind of go that route? Should they find a functional or integrative doctor? Yeah, I mean, there's now functional medicine doctors across the whole country. And a lot of them look for some that have just incredible reviews, right? And those will tend to lead you right.

If there's a lot of them and there's a lot of great reviews, look for that. But at the same time, too, we have, like on my website, Dr. Joshred.com, we have a list of labs that you can test. And it's, you know, you can basically get that article and see exactly what labs you should have your doctor to check for, what the laboratory range is, what, you know, all that stuff. Kind of explains that. They could do that, too, if they don't have the means to see a functional medicine doctor. Yeah. But now we have so many different functional medicine doctors across the country that you should be able to find. somebody that's cheap and that really understands this.

You know who's been killing it is nurse practitioners. Oh. So we've seen a lot of nurse practitioners that are now getting into functional medicine and they're doing so good, so good. Wow, okay. And then if something's really severe, then they can obviously reach out to our clinic at Red River Health and Wellness.com. And, you know, we've been, we have eight clinics across the West United States,

but we see patients from all over the world. Yeah. A lot of our patients we see telehealth-wise and that, That's great. Yeah, I was seeing you guys for a while when I was living in LA and we were just doing telehealth, which is amazing. I actually, I need to call you because I need to get to the root of some of this stuff. You said stuff and I'm like, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that we can do to help and your fiancé as well. Yeah, we're trying to get in good shape because we want to get pregnant. Let's go. I love that. Yeah, let's create a baby. Let's make it happen. I'm all for that. Let's name it. Let's name it Josh Jr. No, just easy. I love it.

But like even for you, yeah, you may have like be intolerant to the case in protein from dairy, but there could be some environmental things that trigger the inflammation. For sure. There could be some lifestyle things that trigger the inflammation. There's a lot of different stuff that you have to kind of look at for a patient to figure out, okay, what's causing these TH17 cells to increase and what can we do to calm them down and whatnot. For females though, this is something that has completely changed my mind.

Like, I have an alternative background. I now can prescribe and do hormones and just finish the stem cell regenerative medicine residency. And so now I'm like, I'm kind of like both one foot in the medical, one foot in the alternative. I'm like bridging the gas there. Like for the longest time, I would look at females and if they had hormonal issues,

I would try to do everything alternative-wise. Now at the same time I'm learning, like as you get a little bit older, like 35, 40, looking and assessing and optimizing hormones, yes, doing all the functional medicine stuff, like we want to correct the underlying imbalances. But then at the same time, giving someone bio-identical hormones could be life-saving. And what I'm finding out now is that it makes their resilience way better. So, like, they could be intolerant to lots of foods. They could have lots of things causing inflammation and if the hormones are off if you start to optimize those and you only do those sometimes also in food intolerance is decreased rapidly their immune

resilience increases tremendously and just by simply giving a person biodendical progesterone if they need it or you know maybe a little in females maybe a little bit of testosterone by identical testosterone they need it like that goes a long ways for these individuals I used to think that that autoimmune patients were the most neglected people on the planet. They are, for sure. Like, the stories that we have from our autoimmune patients are horrible. I had a, one of my first patients came in, and her son was asked to draw a picture of her at school, and he drew a picture of her in bed.

Oh, that's sad. And he comes home, and she pulls it out of his bag, and she's like, what's this, honey? She's like, that's you, mom, because you're always in bed. And that's heartbreaking. But the reality is there's a ton of women just like that that are being totally neglected. It's so frustrating. However, I found a new group of people neglected

and that's people going through, that's women going through perimenopause and menopause. They are getting so screwed over by the medical population right now because of just science that is completely bogus saying that hormones are bad or whatever that is now. that is now. Now with my research background, we know hormones, if you have the right hormones and biodentical hormones, you could change somebody's life tremendously and minimize the aging

process long term and completely change their life, instantaneously just by optimizing hormones. And so my mind has shifted where I'm like, holy cow, like there's, yes, there's lots of things that we can do to correct progesterone and improve estrogen clearance, all that stuff. But at the same time bi identical hormones done the right way can be life saving for women as they age too and I honestly think we're seeing autoimmune diseases we're seeing inflammation explode tremendously like we'll have like men we just like slowly declined with from a health standpoint like we just like it's sick or sick or sicker as we age women they're like healthy healthy healthy hit perimenopause and it's like a spiral downward you know with their health yeah and it's just because we don't have

have the right doctors and the right team to help them with their hormone dysfunction too. Yeah, I mean, that's fascinating. Where would someone start with that? Because I know, and maybe we can just briefly talk about this, that I know that there's a lot of misconceptions and myths around if you're using hormones like that, that there's a risk for cancer, and there's like a lot of that floating around online. Yeah, and it's based off of 40 years of garbage research. Yeah, yeah, completely false.

Now all the new updated research and literature shows that if, we actually prescribe hormones soon enough, it minimizes cancer. It improves cardiovascular health. It improves brain function. It diminishes like dementia and Alzheimer's. It improves inflammation. It minimizes food intolerances even. Your hormones line the intestinal tract. And so if you're deficient in a hormone, for example, you could end up having intestinal permeability just from having a lack of hormones, right? Yeah. And we're seeing these people transition through perimenopause. and they have these fluctuating estrogen levels going up and down, that's really inflammatory to the system,

which tends to onset autoimmune conditions and problems there. And so just getting like a biodentical testosterone and progesterone and could be life-saving for them. And teaching them how to clear estrogen, it could be great too, right? Yeah. But the research is very clear now. I have a research background. The research is very clear that the right hormones done the right way.

way can absolutely change your life and save your life long term. And is that something that once you start, you have to always be on it or you can maybe taper off it if you need to or how does that work? Yeah, so it just depends on the person. So for me personally, my biggest goal is to try to find out every underlying imbalance that I possibly can. Like why does this person have low progesterone? Like you, if I was to check your progesterone, it's going to be really low.

Because I have a lot of anxiety. Because your cortisol awaken response and your adrenalins don't function well so they convert progesterone and a cortisol. So the mechanism driving that is if I can improve your adrenal dysfunction, then in turn I improve your progesterone. And then your fertility rates go up like crazy, right? Okay, we need to do that. So that's where I'm always looking for the underlying mechanisms, which there are hormone doctors out there that don't do that. And I would advise not to go to them. You want to find someone that's going to be able to look at the underlying mechanisms driving hormone dysfunction, but then can also prescribe biodontical hormones as well.

And if things are functioning better, like if I improve your adrenal dysfunction and I improve how your cortisol is being utilized, and then that improves your progesterone naturally, well, then we're good, right? As you age, though, there's women where if they are not producing hormones, let's say they're now in menopause, for example, and they're not producing hormones, that's where they would benefit being on long-term hormonal therapy, for sure. Okay. That's interesting.

That's something I definitely want to look into. I've been hearing a lot about it. I just personally, I mean, I just turned 40 this year. And it's interesting, I'm slowly just barely starting to see some like hormonal changes. Nothing that's been too crazy yet, but I've been kind of just thinking, oh, man, this is something I'm going to have to address. I'll share a funny story. So we, I have close friends.

I think they're like 42 right now and she's been she's had infertility problems for a long time and just had a hard time getting pregnant and I think they adopted a child and then they were able to get pregnant through fertility stuff and through working with with us and everything and but they have you know I think the kids like nine years old now but like even just having a baby on their own was almost impossible um anyways we put her on progesterone we uh corrected her blood sugar levels we improved the adrenal dysfunction and uh she was functioning and feeling awesome and all of a sudden i get a text from her and her husband like josh what the freak did you do i was like what the heck like multiple calls that i missed like they were like freaking out i was like oh my gosh what's

going on so i hurry and call them and they're like we're pregnant i was like holy cow, but they're obviously shocked, but they're also excited. They're like, okay, wow. Well, it'll be great. He'll graduate when you're 90. That's awesome. But working with all that stuff, they got pregnant, and they weren't even trying. But when you start to improve those imbalances, then here we are, you know?

Okay. I got to work on that. I'm going to call you. In the essence of time, is there anything else that you feel like the listeners need to hear that we didn't cover? I mean, that was amazing. You tell me. Well, here's the thing. There's like so much that we could tell you.

talk about from inflammation, from autoimmune, from Hashimoto's. Like, we didn't even touch on Hashimoto's. I know. We should talk about that really quick. Our Hashimoto's is like my sixth child. I have researched Hashimoto's for so long. Probably 50% of our patients that are autoimmune are Hashimoto's patients. The number one autoimmune disease in this country is Hashimoto's, which is the number one cause a low thyroid. So it's amazing to see how many people have thyroid dysfunction now. I think close to 10% of all females have thyroid problems and most of them have Hashimoto's, which this is kind of a crazy thing. If you have a thyroid problem, you go to the doctor. The doctor runs the TSA and then they see that your thyroid is low.

They give you a thyroid hormone. But then what's causing it? Nobody ever figures out what is causing it. I know. And so these patients get on this thyroid hormone. They go from doctor to doctor or they get hurt it around like sheep every three to six months, get put on this thyroid medication, get the refill, they're just checking that, that's all they're doing, and yet we don't like to sit there and be like, huh, you got a thyroid problem, but I wonder what the mechanism is that's driving it. Nobody asks that question. And they're also not testing the full thyroid most of the time, which is wild. It's crazy. They could have an under-conversion problem of the thyroid. They could have a protein binding problem of the thyroid. They could have a T3

uptake issue. They could have Hashimoto's. but nobody's checking for it. And so we have lots of individuals that will have thyroid problems. Like if you're listening right now and you're taking a thyroid hormone and you don't know if you have Hashimoto's, run to your doctor right now

and check for a TPO antibody and an antithyroglobin antibody. If any of those things come back positive, you don't have a thyroid issue. You have an autoimmune issue that's causing your thyroid problem. Now, a lot of people will be able like, well, does that mean I don't need to be on thyroid medication? And that's, that's not right.

Like, eventually, let me break this down for you. If you have Hashimoto's, your immune system destroys the thyroid at a rapid pace and then eventually will cause like a permanent low thyroid. Like it can beat it up so bad to where you've destroyed all the cells and it doesn't produce thyroid hormones properly. And so you need to be on thyroid hormones because those cells, every cell in your body has a thyroid hormone receptor. And so if you're deficient in thyroid and thyroid, hormone, you're going to be, you could literally cause problems with every cell in the body. And so it's important to be on proper thyroid hormones. And I do check those TSA levels. And I make sure that my patients are taking the right amount of thyroid hormone. However, that's not the

mechanism of your disease. The mechanism is an autoimmune disease that's destroying the thyroid, causing systemic inflammation. And if you improve that, then all of a sudden this patient goes from having 10 good days a month to 25 good days a month and their quality life is way better but because we finally start to address the autoimmune component so most of these females

10% have thyroid problems most of them have Hashimoto's they're going from doctor to doctor nobody's even checked to see if they have Hashimoto's and they're only treating the thyroid when the autoimmune disease is the culprit causing all the other issues. Does that make sense?

Yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense So do you think with Hashimoto's, because I don't fully understand Hashimoto's, it's not necessarily that you have thyroid disease. It's like you're on your way, right? Like you could potentially. Yeah, so Hashimoto's is, so here's a thing. We'll check people that have all the thyroid symptoms and problems. Their TSA is normal, which is a thyroid symptom and hormones, so they don't need thyroid hormones.

But they have all the thyroid symptoms. And when we check the antibodies, the thyroid, oglobin antibody and TBO antibody, then all of a sudden those come high and it makes sense because they have an autoimmune condition that's destroying the thyroid, it just hasn't caused a permanent low thyroid yet. So if you catch the condition earlier enough, there might be a five to 10 year window where you have Hashimoto's and this is the worst, this is the worst place to be. This is where you think you're crazy and you're completely hopeless because you've gone

to 10 different doctors, nobody knows what to do. And you're in this range where they don't treat you, but you have Hashimoto's destroying the thyroid. You have all the symptoms of low thyroid and thyroid issues. And then you have like anxiety, restlessness, insomnia, fatigue, you're gaining weight, all these different issues. But you just have what's called Hashimoto's autoimmune reaction. It hasn't turned into Hashimoto's low thyroid yet.

So your immune system has to destroy the thyroid enough. to where it becomes a permanent low thyroid in order for the conventional medicine to treat you with thyroid hormone. Got it. Okay. This sounds crazy. I mean it makes sense. We'll have patients literally go to a doctor and they'll be like if they did check Hashimoto's, which is rare, but sometimes they do. And they're like, well, you have Hashimoto's,

but there's nothing we can do about it. They're like, we'll just, we just have to wait until it destroys it and you have a permanent low thyroid. We're like, well, I have all these thyroid symptoms. It's like, I know, but we can't treat it until you have a low thyroid, which they're right. Because if they gave you thyroid medication right then and there, you would just be hyperactive thyroid, and you have even more symptoms than that. What they don't realize is that the doctor's doing nothing to the autoimmune condition. They're like, we don't know how to address that. We don't have a medication for that because they don't know anything about diet, lifestyle, and nutrition.

And so they just say, we don't know how to treat that. We'll just wait until it destroys and we'll give you a thyroid hormone. This is so, it's so crazy. They do the same thing with diabetes. They do the same thing with so many things where they're like, oh, you're pre-diabetic, but just come back when it's full-blown and they'll get you on a medication.

There's no dietary interventions before that in order to keep it from going full-blown in the conventional sense. Yeah. So if we catch it earlier enough, we're like, holy cow, we could save you 15, 20 years of problems. And on top of that, if you have an autoimmune disease like Hashimoto's and you do nothing about it,

then the likelihood of you having another, immune condition is higher in five to 10 years. So if you're just letting this autoimmune condition flare up like crazy, nobody's treating it, well then you could have rheumatoid arthritis when you go through perimenopause and menopause, or you could have MS, or you could have, you know, whatever else, right? And so if you have one autoimmune condition, it's important to try to calm that down as fast as you can because then it will minimize other autoimmune conditions from coming on. Yeah, so what is the solution for that?

And I guess, again, somebody just needs to find a doctor that knows how to treat the underlying issue, like the autoimmune issue that's happening. Yeah, but look, this is where we see now a huge population of females and men who are really looking to see what's causing their problems. Yeah. You could do a lot of this stuff yourself. Like, we see really severe patients at Red River. But you could have your doctor check for a TPO antibody and an antithyroglobin antibody. If those come back high, you know that you have Hashimoto's or Hashimoto's autoimmune reaction. If that's the case, then gluten, so like, give you an idea.

Gluten to a Hashimoto's patient is very similar to gluten and acetylac patient. We have so much research that shows gluten flirts up Hashimoto's. So gluten and dairy to a Hashimoto's patient, I would have them avoid those two things like the plague. So if you have Hashimoto's antibodies, you know, hey, I got to avoid those. and I can stabilize glucose. Like it's pretty similar, like what we talked about with you. Yeah. A lot of these ways that we treat, yes, they're unique and different,

but sometimes it's like, hey, look, you could try these things first, avoid dairy, avoid gluten, and stabilize glucose, and that would be huge. Guess what else helps calm down Hashimoto's and Atomene in general? I don't know. Probably the best supplement is turmeric. Oh, wow. So like Carlin, who you just interviewed, who's one of my favorites, we have what's called the turmeric complex. It has Boswellia,

resveratrol, and turmeric, which were three of the top things to help calm down autoimmunity in people. You can do things like glutathione. Glutathione helps improve liver detoxification. Yep, liver detoxification. Helps with the intestinal lining, helps decrease THH17 cells in autoimmunity, helps stabilize glucose, helps decrease brain inflammation. Glutathion is one of those things where like if you have an autoimmune condition, I'm putting them on glutathione. Yeah. Like, simple stuff like that goes a huge way.

And you could just go to your doctor, hey, I want you to run these labs. And then if you can't find anyone to help you, work on it yourself and see if you can make some work, right? And a lot of people can do that. And then if it gets too severe, then you can come to a clinic like ours and go from there, right? Yeah, that's amazing. I love this because this is giving the listener really tangible, helpful tips where they can really get started on this themselves.

because I know there's a lot of people out there struggling looking for answers and people have different budgets, and it's hard to find, you know, doctors like this that are, you know, under insurance and that are under people's budgets. Like, I get that. I mean, I've been spending so much money lately on labs and stuff. It's not, even for me, long term, I was just telling him recently. I was like, God, I got to like figure this out because we've been spending so much money on labs and everything.

It's just not possible for most people, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And that's really why, like, I don't, I hate Instagram and social media and all that stuff. It's consuming. But the whole reason why I have it is just to help inform the public for free. Yeah. Like, I have enough research and I have enough background and I have enough experience now where we've seen so many stinking patients with these problems. And so it's just like giving back to the community. As much as I hate it, it's like a service project. Yeah. Well, it's so helpful. I mean, your Instagram is amazing. And you'll definitely, you'll have to tell everybody where they can follow you for sure. Yeah, it's Dr. Josh Redd on Instagram and TikTok and all that stuff. But for you, what we should do is let's do like a full treatment with you. Sorry. Yeah, I would love that.

There's a lot of stuff that we can do now. I have a clinic where we do hormone therapy and regenerative medicine with stem cells and all sorts of stuff. And something called Eboo, which is fantastic for kind of cleaning the blood a little bit, hyper oxygenates the cells in the body. It's fantastic. But there's a lot of stuff that we could do with you that I think could make a big difference and then come back and redo, you know, do a part two here, right? Let's do that.

Yeah, I would love that. Let's do all that. And then we'll do another episode and we can share my labs and tell everybody how how much everything is improved because I'm just going to manifest that for myself right now. Absolutely. No question to ask. This has been so amazing. Thank you so much for your time.

I loved this episode. Just let everybody know where they can find you. I know you've kind of dropped it already, but just to... Yeah, so we have Dr. Joshred.com, just like an informative website that you can go to. Red River Health and Wellness.com is our autoimmune clinic and functional medicine clinics where we deal with lots of chronic conditions and things like that. And then I have Palma Vita Clinic.com, which is our regenerative medicine, stem cell, aesthetics, hormones, just all the anti-aging type stuff in that clinic.

So cool. Which I love now. It's kind of, it's been so fun to be a part of it. I know. I wanted to talk about that too. So I'll just have to bring you back on and we'll talk about all the regenerative and like stem cells and stuff like that. It's so cool. Do you want me to, I'll do one thing and then we'll close. Yeah, yeah. So my professor at Johns Hopkins, his lab, they could sever a mouse's spine, make it quadriplegic, and inject stem cells and make it fully walk again. Oh my God. So to give you an idea, we'll do another, we should do a whole episode on stem cells. We should.

Stem cells are getting better and better and better every year. We're obviously not there yet, but to give me an idea, that's what they're doing right now at Johns Hopkins. So, I mean, their research is getting better and better, and it's pretty awesome. So, like, for me, now we inject a lot of professional athletes, and I actually fly home right now and inject a bunch of professional athletes at my clinic from about 3 to 11 tonight. Amazing. But it's really cool to see how much faster they recover. Somebody can have an injury and it cuts the time in half.

People that are like bone on bone with their knees are able to like walk again and do Pilates and walk upstairs and not have to get knee replacements. I mean, it's really, really cool to see the things that we're even able to do and have access to even right now, right here in the United States. It's awesome. It's so cool. I've been trying to get my dad on board because he's been having so many knee issues and he just had a knee replacement. and then there was a recall for the knee replacements, so then he had to have it redone again. And he's been really struggling,

but he's a little, he's resistant to this kind of stuff. So it's tough. It's great now. The things that we have at our fingertips are so cool. I know, it's so cool, and I'm very excited to see how it goes. It's only getting better every year. Yeah, so I'll bring you back and we'll talk about that too. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Josh. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Frye. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube.

As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio, and if you like this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational

and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual, medical, and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist.

As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first. If you struggle with bloating gas, constipation, digestive issues, yeast overgrowth, well, you may already know about digest this. It's the podcast hosted by me, Bethany Cameron, also known as Little Sipper on Instagram. I dive into gut health, nutrition, the food industry, and drawing from my own experience. I break down what's good, what's bad, and what's the best for your gut, your skin, and so much more. I even offer gut-friendly recipes.

New episodes every Monday and Wednesday produced by Wellness Loud.