The Bossticks - Dr. Will Cole On Eliminating Inflammation, Functional Medicine & Integrative Health Care

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

#228: On this episode we sit down with Dr. Will Cole. Dr. Will is a leading functional medicine expert and practitioner. He has been named a top 50 functional medicine & integrative doctor in the nation. He is also a regular contributor to Mind Body Green and GOOP. Today we discuss how to eliminate inflammation, the benefits of functional medicine and the practice of integrative healthcare.  To connect with Dr. Will Cole click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by TRUMANS. The coolest cleaning company on the internet. Probably. To receive 50% off your Truman's Starter Kit visit www.trumans.com and enter promo code SKINNY Kit. Truman's. A Better Cleaning Experience. This episode is brought to you by BETABRAND and their Betabrand dress pant yoga pants. To try these pants go to betabrand.com/skinny and receive 20% off your order. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pants you'll ever wear to work.  Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

There's a lot of different things. So all we see is anxiety and fatigue, we see the check engine light. But what the heck's going on? Because some of those things are going to be factored for some people, but not for others. Like you take the car to the mechanic, he does diagnostics. That's what we do in functional medicine to find out what's going on. Happy Friday, everybody. Checking out, end of the week, made it through another tough one.

We all did. I'm excited about this episode. This is a super informative episode. Yes. And that clip was from our guest of the show today, Dr. Will Cole. We are going all into the world of health with Dr. Will. Lots of digestive talk. For those of you that are new the show, my name is Michael Bostic.

I am a serial entrepreneur and the CEO of the Dear Media Podcast Network. And across from me, seven and a half months. Seven and a half months, guys. Anchor-babyed her. You anchor-babied me. I am in the home stretch. I am feeling bloated. Next Tuesday's episode is all about my pregnancy.

Some of you guys have asked. I got real specific next week. So stay tuned for that on Tuesday. Before we get into this episode with Dr. Will Cole, he is named one of the top 50 functional medicine doctors in the nation. He's major. He's a health expert for MindBody Green and Goop and he's helping thousands around the USA worldwide. He's major. Before we get into that.

And he's got a podcast. Goop fellas. Yes. We're going to do a question of the week. Okay. So you ready? So this one is from at Mrs. dot Parkinson.

And she asks, what's the hardest and most fun part of living your life publicly. Are you going to go first? You want me? No, you can go first. I don't really live my life too publicly. I'm not as out there as you, you know? Okay.

I get your runoff. Okay. What's the runoff? I get some public exposure like as the runoff of the skinny confidential. So like if we get divorced. Like I would say if you and I don't make it. Okay. My bio, my dating app bio because you know, I get this question.

I would just write the skinny confidentials X. You're going to do a dating app. Well, I don't know. I got to do. Who knows? spend so many years since I've been out there, you know, but that's what I think I'd lead with. I'd be like, this is my ex. She's hot. She's got a lot going on. She's obviously, you know, people seem to like her. She saw something in me at one point, so something must not be too off.

I mean, she did, but then at this point, they would have gotten rid of me or vice versa. So maybe they think something's broken. But at least I would say, like, at one point in time, she thought that something was working here. You really thought this out. I mean, for me, my strategy would be completely opposite. I'd be in Santeropay, sitting perhaps in front of the yachts, reading Anna Crenna. You'll be fucked up, though. Then we'd run into each other because that's where I'd know. No, you wouldn't be in Central.

Maybe we'd reconnect. Don't fuck with me. Maybe we'd reconnect and we can rekindle our love. I'm just telling you that I would be in Santero Pea or somewhere like exotic. I'm never going to give up on you. So I'll just go there and I'll be there and we'll rekindle this love one. It's going to work. Please take me back. I can make it work. It's going to be okay. Give me another chance. me another chance. Okay, herpes. Um, anyways, what's the question? Oh, the question. The question.

The best parts of living life publicly. And Taylor, feel free to turn on your mic because I'm sure you have some weird shit to say. For me, the best part of living life publicly is you get to share some pretty incredible opportunities that you, that, you know, I didn't get when I was not living a public life. We got to meet amazing people on this show. Um, I would, you get some exposure. Sometimes people send you some things that, but please don't send me anything because I don't know how to accept gifts. But I actually think that there's some negatives as well. I get very uncomfortable. You know, I'm not used to people coming up to me in public.

I'm very appreciative of it, but sometimes I don't know how to react. I don't know what to do. I sometimes get a little awkward. You know, I'm kind of a shy person sometimes. And so that sometimes can be strange because I want to meet everyone's level of enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm in the same place. But listen, if I have a, you know, a cinnamon bun all over my face and crumbs over my shirt and I'm caught off guard, that gets a little bit awkward sometimes.

But I would say there's probably more, there's more pros. than cons. I think it's just all how you contextualize it. For me, I always tell people, like, I'm just a normal person that some people sometimes hear or listen to on the show. But other than that, like, I don't think there needs to be kind of like a label on it, right? Just like, I'm just normal, just a normal dude. Come up. Say hello. What up? I think the hardest part is what Kim Kay said at a create and cultivate event. She said sometimes you just want to go out in your fat pants with no makeup on and get a churro. And I think sometimes like I just, I just want to roll out of bed. walk down the street and get a churro and then like maybe not a churro but maybe like an avocado toast

and i just don't look presentable i mean i'd like to be presentable at all times but that's just not how it works and that's not even a hard part that's just like probably you know well that's my fear too is like i i don't like to disappoint people and my fear is that maybe you're somebody that likes this show and you're like oh great and then you meet me in person like oh man that was disappointing like didn't look very good yeah it's like what's that hyperpigmentation mustache on lauren's God, that guy was kind of a dud. And then I'm like, shit. Like, you know, it's happened to me, too, where I've met people that I thought I was

going to be really excited to meet. You don't want to look like a butthole. No, but, you know, it's happened in my life where you meet somebody that's a public person, you think you're going to be so excited and you meet him like, oh, fuck. It's like, never meet your idol type thing, you know? I think there's more pros than cons of living your life publicly. You know, I put myself out there on a daily basis. And I think that if people can pick up any tangible takeaways, and I always say this

and apply it to their own life. That makes me really happy. I also like meeting the skinny confidential community in person. I think being online is great and all. But I think to actually meet and interact with the people that have supported my platform for the last 10 years or our podcast is really cool. Whenever I meet someone in person, I like to hear more about them because I feel like we do put our life out there.

So if they follow along, then they already see that. So I want to always hear about them. I'm a big fan of doing like speeches or events or eventually a tour. Like those are things that get me really excited. But, you know, I do feel bad when like Michael said, I have avocado toast all over my face and my hyperpigmentation mustache is pop in and like things are, things are not looking great. I think it's just like anything else though. This isn't any regard to life.

There's always a tradeoff. There's always a pro and con to everything. You know, and that exists. And you just have to decide which pros you want to live with and which cons you want to live with. And that's fine. But the one thing I would say, and I've alluded to it on this show, is without this public platform, there's so many conversations that I don't think we would have got to have. You know, like the one time, it's like literally been one time when I was extremely starstruck on this show was with the author Robert Green because I've read his books for so long.

And admirers work so much. And I joked with him on that episode, you know, we've had some celebrities and stars. I've been like, that was the one guy that got me choked up. And it's because, and what I told when I was on that episode with him was, you know, Robert, if if I just was a, you know, didn't have this platform. wasn't a public person and said, hey, can I just pick your brain and ask you any question for an hour and a half? He would probably say no, but because we have this public platform, we get to unlock conversations like that. And to me, like, that's the ultimate tradeoff and benefit and the pro that I want to live with that outweighs any kind of cons. I think at the end of the day, we're just

fucking grateful to be able to do what we do. I don't have a lot to complain about with that. I mean, I think that there's a lot of fun, interesting, cool parts. And we should focus on the positive, not the negative. Because if you focus on the negative, that's a drain on the energy. All right, guys. With that, Dr. Will Cole on this episode. Another big one, guys, another big episode. Guys, Dr. Will Cole, welcome to the show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her.

This question is for Taylor O'Connor. Taylor would like to know what consistency in color your poop should be. This is good. This is a great question. Let him know. Let's break it down. So it should be, I mean, there's what's called a Bristol chart. You can Google it.

You basically, for just thinking of like a pictorial, like concept for people, visual concept, it would be you want one to two snakes a day. One to two snakes a day. That's an Instagram quote. Do I need to count your snakes, Taylor? Taylor, you get some snakes out or what? What if Taylor's getting like a small worm, not a snake? Yes, it's a problem. There's something going on in the microbiome.

and all the trillions of bacteria. Yeah, we can check that out. That's what I do. It's my day job. And I realize, like, how not normal talk about poop, but it's so, like, I talk about it on an hourly basis. So should it be a certain color? Well, it depends on what you eat.

That can vary based on what you eat. And what are going to give you those two snakes? What kind of foods? Well, it depends on the person. And I think that's really the heart of what I do is finding out what works for you. So generally speaking, if you look at the research, it's looking at lots of, you of varieties of plant foods, they are going to may have, they may have to be cooked for people with digestive problems to make them more digestible, to break it down a little bit.

Healthy fats helps with GI immotility. So there's things like avocados and olives and avocado oil and olive oil and clean protein. So a variety of those, how much each depends on the person, how you prepare it depends on the person, and certain people, you know, shouldn't be having certain types of those foods too. So it's the heart of functional medicine is bio-individuality. So it's finding out works for you, but that's some general things to think about. So typically like when these show starts, we open it with a poop question. I'm just kidding. But let's go back. Where were you from? What was your childhood like? How did you start getting into functional medicine? Yeah. So I grew up in a household

that my parents were interested in wellness. Before wellness was a thing in the 80s and 90s outside of Pittsburgh. My dad was one of those bodybuilders in the 80s. I thought it was normal to have people's dads, like, lubed up with baby oil and in turquoise bitos. And my mom, like, critiquing him on the poses. But they were interested in wellness. They were interested in healthy foods. And we'd go to the co-op and the health food store. That informed me the difference between what we ate at home and like what everybody else was eating. Because, you know, Pittsburgh is not a, like, it's not Abbott Kinney. It is a, there's a lot of facts. There's a lot of fast food restaurants and it's better today for sure. I knew I wanted to get in health care.

So I went to an integrative medicine school out here, Southern California University of Health Sciences in Whittier. And I heard of a guy called Detis Karazian who has anybody that knows anything about functional medicine. He's one of like the godfathers of functional medicine. So that's how I came into the space. Now, like my day job is consulting patients primarily online via webcam. And I stand at my standing desk, drop ship labs, and kind of get to the root cause of why they're struggling with a variety of different health issues. So if someone comes to you and they say, I have crippling anxiety, because I hear this all the time just through my own dance, I have crippling anxiety, I'm fatigued during the day, I'm so

tired. I can't concentrate. I have brain fog. I'm drinking a lot of coffee. What's the first thing you do? Like, what are the steps? That's interesting. That's what you hear so often. It's what I see very often too, like that wired and tired feeling. Like they have this anxiety, but they're so exhausted. So for us in functional medicine, we see that as almost like a check engine light. We know something's off, but the different from person to person. What's driving that anxiety? What's in driving that fatigue? So it's a variety of different things. So we have to get a good health history and actually find out, like do some like clinical investigation, like Sherlock Holmes stuff as far as the health is concerned.

So things like the gut brain axis, the research shows your gut is your second brain. It's actually formed from the same fetal tissue. When your baby's growing right now, the gut and brain are actually formed together, and they're inextricably linked for the rest of our life through what's called the gut-brain through the vagus nerve, the enteric nervous system. And 95% of our serotonin, our happy neurotransmitter, is made in the gut and stored in the gut. So research refers to the gut as our second brain because of that. And if you think about it, the intestines even look like the brain because of that.

We want to look at these underlying issues of why somebody's going through anxiety and fatigue. So the gut brain access research shows that's a component for some people. For other people, it's not a factor. And then there's a field of research called the cytokine model of cognitive function. Basically, how does inflammation impact how my brain works? And it's associated with anxiety, depression, fatigue, things like that. And then you have to look at nutrient deficiencies, hormone and balances. chronic infections.

There's a lot of different things. So all we see is anxiety and fatigue, we see the check engine light. But what the heck's going on? Some of those things are going to be factored for some people, but not for others. So we want to look, like you take the car to the mechanic. He does diagnostics. That's what we do in functional medicine to find out what's going on. So we run labs to answer your question.

We run labs and then we sort the problems out on the labs. Okay. So hold on. I have a selfish question. sorry, babe. You said something about the fetus. How can I build my fetuses or babies? I don't know what the proper vervage is. Brain and gut right now. You got two in there? No, there's a brain and there's a gut. Breaking news on the podcast. There's a brain and there's a brain and a gut. Yeah. So what you can do, what fuels you fuels your baby? So I would start with a variety of different

nutrient dense foods, things like healthy fats that I just talked about earlier. I'm eating my avocado It's right there. You have that and you have variety of plant foods in there. You have antioxidant rich fruits in there in the bowl that you're having right now. So those are things that to consider, wild cut fish specifically with the omega fats. Foods that are rich in B vitamins, obviously you see those in prenatals with the folate. Well, the highest form of folate is going to be in things like wild caught fish, grass-fed beef, the highest amount of folates in beef liver, which people are.

That's so weird because I went to Bell Campo. Have you been there? I just went. It's good. It's amazing. And so I hadn't wanted meat my whole pregnancy, but for some reason when we went there, I just knew it was such pure meat that I went straight for the liver. The beef liver.

And immediately it gave me energy. I was completely shocked because she never eats any meat and she just dove right in with the beef liver. Fucking eating the liver like no tomorrow. So that's like one of nature's multivitamins that it doesn't have to be beef liver. It could be chicken liver or something else like that. but organ meats as a whole. What about beef heart?

She ate the heart too. It was, it was different. I don't know why my body. No, it's that same thing. It's very high level. Yeah, you're a carnivore now. But yeah, so those are some things that research shows to be really beneficial for healthy baby development. So not crispy creams that I just post made it.

Like that's not going to do anything. No, that's not going to be the best thing. But you know what? It's not going to give me two snakes. Probably not. And you know what? Don't stress about it because stressing about eating healthy is not good for your health. I've known Lauren for 20-something years. I've never seen you order or crave a donut. It's weird. Weird.

All right. Let's pray. Listen, we got to extract a lot of stuff from this brain of yours because you've got a lot going on in there and we need to break it down. I need to break it down selfishly. So let's start with what is the difference between functional medicine and basically like the conventional medicine. That's the right way to say it or not. Yeah, totally. Before we get into that, I want to tell you about the coolest cleaning company on the planet. Now, since I have become pregnant. I've even been more psycho about my cleaning supplies. So I, like, was on the lookout for a non-toxic cleaner. And enter Truman's. It came into my life at the perfect point because not only is it non-toxic, you guessed it, it gets delivered to your door, which gets me so excited. And at this point, and is seven and a half months pregnant, it gets me real excited, more excited than it should get me. To get started, order your Truman starter kit and try all four non-toxic sprays, like Lauren said,

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But if you think about it, you'll start to fixate on it. We have Chihuahuas and they're, you know, five pounds. and they're so close to the ground. So if you do have small dogs or any kind of dogs, you want to make sure you're cleaning your floor with non-toxic ingredients. Babies, chihuahuas, me if I have a couple too many drinks and I'm on the floor.

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off trumans.com promo code skinny guys enjoy all right let's get back into the show so the differences between functional medicine and mainstream or conventional medicine number one we interpret labs using a thinner reference range so you know when you go to your doctors you'll have your number and you'll have this reference range we get that from we get the reference range from a statistical bell curve average of people who go to labs people that go to labs aren't the healthiest group of people so there's a lot of people like the people that are DMing you that going through these anxiety and depression and these inflammatory issues.

They go to the doctor and the doctor says, all the labs are normal. Like, you're just depressed. You're an antidepressant. You're a new mom. You are getting older. You just need to lose weight. But what they're unintentionally telling them is you're a lot like the other people with health

problems that make up the population of the lab that we're comparing you to, the reference range. So in functional medicine, we take people with health problems out of that reference range. So we're comparing you to where is optimal, optimal vibrant wellness, which is typically a tighter range within that reference range. So that decodes or that illuminates some things going on. They're in the gray area, which it's that spectrum, that inflammatory spectrum that I talk about. The second thing, we run more comprehensive labs.

So that's based on a health history. So like what labs are relevant for you? So is it a microbiome test? Is it a chronic infection test? Is it a hormone imbalance test? To look at the root reasons of why somebody is struggling or going through a problem or just maybe wants to optimize how they feel. And then we realize we're all different.

So back to that bio-individuality that I said. So what works for one person may not work for you. So we use food as medicine. We use natural medicine, like botanical medicines, medications when needed, lifestyle changes, like dealing with the mental, emotional, spiritual component of wellness because it's not just about food. Yeah, so that's what functional medicine is.

So say there was two guys. Yeah. You know, just two guys. Let's say my husband and Taylor. Okay. And they ate chips. They ate eggs to go in the morning. Sometimes they forgot to eat.

They eat fast food sometimes. Craig's burgers are on speed dial on post-names. Wait, are you like saying I'm doing this? Yeah. And my husband is not the best eater in the world, and neither is Taylor behind you. In fact, I'm going to say Taylor's worse. What do you think, Michael? No, Taylor's for sure worse.

But just what are some tangible tips that they can do that are easy? Because I don't want to overwhelm either of them. that they can add to their diet or subtraction. But let me ask you this. So, this is why I get into the individual thing, because Lauren will use that example. And in most cases, that's a bad example. Like, that's an example for somebody that's going to be in poor health.

Yeah. For me, I actually consider myself to be in good health, right? Like I was, and I was going to ask you one of my follow-up questions was I just did all, like, the traditional blood tests and solid there. But what are the other tests I should do? Yeah.

Because I think, like, you said, something, like, I may eat a certain way that works for me. Like, for a lot of times I skip breakfast and I don't eat until 11 or noon. I think that's, like, a little bit of form of fasting. Once in a while, I will add a lot of red meat if I'm craving it. But I feel overall pretty healthy. Now, again, I would not suggest that other people should eat the same way as I do, but I think it's all individual. And I think that's where we run into trouble is what I may be able to do might not be

what somebody else will do. And what they may be will do might not be what I'm able to do. That's exactly right. So everybody, the way that I think of it as like different glass sizes or like bottle sizes, some people have big tolerances for stressors or things that maybe aren't ideal for human health and some people are really small capacities. So we can't change our capacity for these things. Some people are super sensitive to these foods. Some people can get away with it. They're just genetically more adaptive and flexible to that stuff. But we can change what we can put in that.

So you're right. You're getting away with stuff that other people couldn't get away with, for sure. And a lot of my patients have those smaller glasses, so to speak, where they are like, what the heck, I can't get away with anything. I eat perfectly and I still feel lousy. Those are typically the people that I talk to. But generally speaking, if somebody doesn't feel well and they're like, I don't want to be overwhelmed, like let's just lean into stuff in the inflammation spectrum in my second book, I just, what I call a core four, I think if you just did that and you wanted to lean into this wellness stuff, it's going to move the needle in a positive direction.

That's for a while going off of grains, and that's going to be gluten-containing grains, like that crispy cream, but also the gluten-free grains as well, the gluten-containing and the gluten-free grains. And dairy would be the second one, high omega-6 oils, like industrial seed, like canola oil, which is going to be in things like donuts, too, and packaged foods in general, and added sugar. So those four things, most people know that, but if they just, like, what I find is that people are, like, in limbo. They, like, avoid those for a little bit, and then they keep it, they keep it in on some days. And there's this sort of yo-yo response in their life. And then they're like, I don't feel good. And they think they're all right, but they're not totally removing

those for a while so their body can actually handle that, handle its biochemistry to lower the inflammation level. So those are some things. I'm not going to, I don't like to preach or talk about basically my formula because I don't think it will work for other people. I'm not saying I eat great or that I am great. I just think that whatever I'm doing right now for my health, you know, my fitness routine and my diet is, it's working for me. But I like to point them in people like your direction because taking an individual approach, I think is the most important thing for people to understand. It's like these, where I get a little bit concerned is when there's There's these blanket approaches that people try to apply to everybody.

I just don't think it works. You got to eat paleo. You got to eat vegan. You got to eat red meat. You got to cut sugar. It doesn't translate for the entire populace. Like everybody is individual and their genes are individual and things are going to respond in different ways.

100%. And that's why in the inflammation spectrum, I'm not making a mandate or over sweeping, like broad sweeping, generalized statement in that book because I know people that handle certain amounts of sugar fine. They handle grains fine. All the foods that I just mentioned, some people, find to handle them fine. And you're going to find a collection amongst these people that they'll find out what their

body loves and what their body doesn't love. So I'm just saying, let's remove that for a little bit. Then we introduce them one by one. And you may find, hey, maybe two of those four. You do fine on the other two. You don't. But then you have that discernment to know like, heck, like I avoiding these foods. I'd rather feel good than I miss that food.

Judging Michael and Taylor while I order a crispy cream, so I should shut the fuck up. How does Gwyneth Paltrow look so amazing? Is she doing what you've asked to do with no grains, no dairy, or is she do something that's more broad? What's her day to day? She was doing stuff before she met me for sure. So she definitely practices what she talks about on the website and in her life. But yeah, I mean, definitely she's working on her health like everybody else. I think we're all trying to find what works for our body and all the stuff that we do in functional medicine.

That's what she's doing. I know she likes martini's, though. She wrote in her book that she likes martini. I miss a martini. I can't wait for a martini. So one of the big cornerstones of which you talk about is inflammation. Let's dive in inflammation. We've gone into it a little bit on the show, but not in detail.

Like what do we need to know about inflammation outside of that? It's probably not good for us. Yeah. So inflammation isn't actually inherently bad. It's actually balanced inflammation is a good thing. It fights viruses and bacteria. It like is a good part of our immune system. And from an evolutionary health standpoint, we'd be.

gone or is without healthy balanced inflammation level. So that's first and foremost in check. It's a good thing. The problem is when inflammation's out of balance, chronic inflammation is associated with just about every health problem out there. When you deal with heart disease and cancer, I mean, look at the numbers of those. It's staggering. But then you look at autoimmune conditions. 50 million Americans have an autoimmune condition. Millions more are somewhere on this autoimmune inflammation spectrum where they're not bad enough to be labeled with an ICD 10 like a diagnosis code, but the doctors say, well, it looks autoimmune or the ANAs positive, like this lab's positive that's a marker for lupus and other autoimmune issues, but they don't fit all the boxes.

So that's a bigger problem than just the 50 million people. And then the mental health space of looking at anxiety and depression and fatigue and looking at that inflammatory component to those problems too. So inflammation out of balance is a problem. And the things I mentioned, just about everyone around us is going through that. And if it's not us, it's someone we love. So that's super like sobering to go over that. But the flip side is most of these problems are drastically improved with lifestyle changes,

meaning that there's so much agency that we have. There's so much power that we have to start moving the needle in a positive direction. Hold up. We have to take a minute to talk about my ass. specifically my ass in Beta Brand. I'm happy to take more than a minute. I don't know, but babe, I don't know right now. Things are happening to my ass right now.

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dress pants ever. Go to Betabrand.com slash skinny for 20% off. That's B-E-R-A-N-D.com slash skinny. All right, let's get back into the show. So what are some practical steps that we can take? one, to figure out, actually, let me go back. How do we know if we're inflamed outside of, you know, physically looking inflamed? How do we determine if we are? And then once we do, how do we fight it? Sure. So subjectively, check in with your body. Like, we just, we opened the show

with talking about digestion. Like, are you going to the bathroom one or two times a day? What's that look like? Where is your energy levels? Is it sustained throughout the day? Do you need the sugar and the caffeine to get throughout the day? Do you get a PM slump of energy and then get a second wind in the evening. Do you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? What does your hair and your nails look like? What does your skin look like? So I adapted a lot of these signs and symptoms or these things that we can check in with themselves in the form of a quiz that I put in the inflammation spectrum. It's just adapted from questions that I ask patients. The quiz is also on the website, too, if people want to go check it out. It's for free. So at Dr. Wilcold.com. But that's subjectively

Because a lot of people are going through things every day and they just think that's normal. They think, oh, like, I am whatever, I am a new mom or I am just stressed out at work or whatever. They just think that's normal. Just because something's common doesn't necessarily mean it's normal. And maybe, but a lot of these problems are just settled for. They're not normal. And then labs is the other thing, running labs and pinpointing. Is there certain labs that people should ask for?

Yeah. And a lot of them are basic tests that you are very low cost. effective, like accessible labs. One would be high sensitivity C-reactive protein or H.SCRP. It's an inflammatory marker. In functional medicine, we want under one. Homo-scysteine is an inflammatory marker. We want it under seven in functional medicine. Ferritin is a biomarker at a gauge for stored iron, but it's also what's considered an acute phase reactant. So basically in states of inflammation, ferritons can spike. And then there's a look, those are all the basic tests that anybody can run and rerun them for patients, too. But

the more expanded labs, what we run in functional medicine or things look like gut-centric inflammation, things like calprotectin and lysosine, these are inflammatory markers in the gut. We look at genetics too because certain people just genetically like that glass size I was saying, people with these methylation gene snips, like what's called the MTHFR, looks like an acronym for a swear word, but it's actually an acronym for the gene that makes the enzyme that can basically brings inflammation levels down. and there's different endocantaminoid gene snips, too, that make people more sensitive to these inflammatory markers. So you can get those actually from the raw gene data like through 23Mee.

I don't know if you guys have done that before. Yeah. So those are the things that look at, genetics, epigenetics, like what is driving, what's going on in this person's life? Those are some things to think about. Can you go and just ask for all those tests at once? And if you do, is it like 20 piles of blood? Those labs that I just mentioned is not that much blood. The workup that we do for an autoimmune type case could be close to that, maybe around 15

vials, depending on the vial size, 10 to 15, I would say. But not everybody needs that. Like those labs that I just mentioned right now, that's just a couple of vials of blood. And some of those, like the stool one is through a stool test, and 23 and me, their gene data is saliva. So it's not all blood. So what if someone's sitting there right now? You just named a ton of symptoms.

They're like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I got a lot of. of that stuff and then they don't have the test. Someone finds out they're extremely inflamed. Like what are some practical steps they can take naturally to start combating? You know, outside of starting to work with someone like you, if they're just at home, like, I think I have these and I want to get better. What are some things they can do to heal? One would be decreased the amount of sugar they're having.

Americans, generally speaking, are eating too much sugar. And you're absolutely right that there are different tolerances to that. I'm not saying wipe it out entirely. I've heard it said that like sugar is like a recreational drug. You should not use it like as your staple for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It should be limited. I'm not saying avoid it entirely. But some people are more insulin resistant or more sensitive and they're going to have to

avoid it for a while. Second would be increasing healthy fats like I keep saying, but I think that should be a good chunk of the macro percentages that people are consuming. So avocados, olives, wildcut fish, soak nuts and seeds, and by soaking on end just means soak them in water because it makes them more digestible. And you can buy ones that are already soaked too. So those are some things that people can start doing that not just me and what I see in my patients, but just the research shows to be beneficial for human health. What about postpartum? We had Gabby Bernstein on here and she talked about so cool. We talked about postpartum depression.

Yeah, she went through that. Yeah. And she talks a lot about it. I would love to know if there's things that you would recommend for mothers out there that are struggling. with postpartum. Yeah. So first of all, give yourself grace. Like I have two kids. I have a 13 year old and 10 year old. And I remember my wife going through that. And you feel like you're not, you don't have what it takes or you feel like have all the things and have all the tools right away. And it's a seismic shift in your life. So I think give yourself grace, give yourself lightness towards that time and take the time that you need to get your bearings of what this new normal going to look like, A, but there's a lot of physiological shifts that's going on there, too.

So I think that making sure your nutrition is on point during that time is utmost importance, especially if you're nursing. But even if you're not nursing, I would say you're going to want to take care of your vessel as much as you can during the time because you already are having the shifts. Let's like mitigate the shifts as much as possible. And going back to inflammation, the lower your inflammation or the more balanced your inflammation levels are at, the less volatile those shifts are going to be. meaning that the roller coaster is going to be less extreme, the more your physiology is sound.

So just going back to those basic principles is definitely more appropriate than more than ever at that time. And then possibly running some labs to see where those shifts are at, making sure you have a community. So if it's other moms, if it's family members, if you don't have family members, like find a mom's group in your area to reach out because it can be quite isolating, especially in those early days and make sure that you're not alone and have a support system to some degree. Those are all amazing tips.

Is there any supplements or herbs that you would recommend that new moms add to their diet? Yeah. One would be, it depends if they're nursing or not. So I'll keep it like if they're nursing. Omega fish oil, like a fish oil, which they're probably taking already. It's maybe, it's still in a lot of prenatals anyways. But mega fish oil, a good B vitamin is a great one, and you could take that while you're nursing. It's water soluble.

Baby needs it anyways. Again, you're getting that through foods, but supplementing above that can be good. Like a B complex with a methylated B folate, not folic acid, which is a little bit people don't look into that. But the bioavailability of folate is a lot better than the synthetic folic acid, especially people with those MTHFR gene snips that some people have, like 40. percent of the population has that. And turmeric is another good one because it helps the lower inflammation and it's safe while you're nursing too. Obviously consult with your doctor for all of these

because people have different cases. But generally speaking, there's the three things to think about. I'm going to come get my blood done after I have the baby. Perfect. I would love that. I'm going to make you do it too. No, I would love to do it too because like I mean, we were talking, we kind of addressed this. I did my blood work with my more, you know, my general physician. But it's only the typical blood work that they do there. And I think to do the test that you're talking about, I've never done them, and it'd be really interesting to see what I'm lacking when I'm not. You know, the reason I got so hung up on that individual thing is if you take someone like my dad, the guy eats, you know, he's a meat and potatoes guy's whole life,

barely ever eaten a vegetable, and salt on everything. And he's in perfect health. He has a cholesterol of a 40-year-old man. So I'm like, you know, I would never ever recommend his diet to somebody, but for some reason it works for him. And I don't really quite understand why. So that leads me to my point of, I want to discuss with you, and this is going to be controversial, still maybe a little bit.

Vegans and carnivores. And I wanted to kind of get you, are you plant-based or? Yeah, I would consider myself plant-centric. Plant-centric, okay. Yeah, I mean, I used to, I was a vegan for 10 years. Okay. And in my first book, Ketotarian, I kind of talk about that evolution from being like a Whole Foods vegan for 10 years, my mid-to-late teens and my mid-to-late 20s.

And that evolved to Ketotitarian, what I call Ketotterian. It's a mostly plant-centric, ketogenic approach. And I'm not always in ketosis. I'll cycle in and out of it. And I teach how to do that. But so I brought in eggs. I brought in wild-cut fish. I have grass-fed beef occasionally, but still predominantly eating plant foods.

Okay. So what is your take on being completely vegan versus being a carnivore? Great question. So I would look at it in the context of who the person is and their biochemistry. Certain people with these autoimmune gene variants, like they're just genetically more prone to these autoimmune issues, their body's not that good at converting nutrients. and their guts probably jacked, for lack of better words, their guts not as healthy, so their body's not absorbing nutrients and breaking it down and assimilating it appropriately. So you take somebody on a completely vegan diet with that set of foods, their body's not extracting the nutrients that's there. And even for a healthy person, we're not talking about ample amounts of bioavailable B vitamins and no B12.

and you are not, and also the long chain omega fats and iron, the bioavailable form of these. There are analogs for, and the plant foods, but the conversion rate is really poor for people that have genetic snips for autoimmunity and people that have dysfunctional microbiome and gut health. So you can do it. For somebody that's healthy, they could do it. They're going to have to supplement appropriately. They can do a vegan diet. Yes.

Okay. Yeah. So a reasonably healthy person can do a vegan diet. If it's well formulated, it's thoughtful, they're focusing on whole foods, they're supplementing accordingly. And I know some vegans that are in fine health, they're doing great things. So it's what works for your body. There's a lot of pitfalls with it though, and people should be mindful of that.

I talk about the pitfalls in ketotarian. I mean, there's quite a bit, but I named the main ones. And then you asked me about the carnivore. Well, yeah, because I'm mostly like, listen, there's going to be people that are vegan because they care about animals, and I'm not going into that world. I mostly just want to understand, you know, if you're eliminating meat from your diet, red meat, particularly, let's say we're talking about high-quality grass-fed meat here. Yeah.

How do you supplement your body with the nutrients that you don't get from, you know, that's kind of what I'm trying to figure out? Yeah. So that would be a B complex. You could get a spirulina or like an algae-based for some nutrients there too, and that has the long chain of omega-fats that aren't. not in chia seed and flaxseed oil. That's going to be the shorter chain.

So you want to get the algae-based supplements. And then an iron supplement that obviously is vegan-friendly. So those are going to be the three main things that I would say. And let me say a fourth one. It's essential amino acids, meaning that your body's not making them. Your body needs them from food. And essential amino acids are not as readily available in plant foods. It's completely possible.

but you're going to have to think about it. It's not just going to be in your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You have to formulate it properly. So last one, because I know Lawrence to jump in, this is a little bit of a pressing question. So if you say you need to take all those supplements to basically make up for the lack of meat, have you come across yet supplements that can actually do that adequately

if you're not having good meat in your diet? Yeah, to some degree. To me, it's like, and this is the question I pose in ketotarian, if you have to supplement for your diet pitfalls, is it optimal for you? Obviously, we live in a day and age where we have the luxury and the blessing to do that. But, I mean, you talk about a couple decades ago or a hundred years ago, we wouldn't have that option. So yes, is it better than the standard of American diet? Sure. I would say that for sure. But just because something's better doesn't necessarily mean it's optimal. So, and I would also say, too,

it's really hard to mimic nature. You can do a good job at it, depending on the sourcing of it and all that stuff. But you can't supplement your way out of a poor diet. You really have to get the basics there from food itself. What's your morning routine? Like what are your supplements that you're taking? What time are you eating? What are you eating? How much water are you drinking? Are you having coffee? Like get specific with it. Sure. So I typically do like intermittent fasting or like time restricted feeding in the morning. So I will just not eat breakfast. Not because I'm like, oh, my, I just want to fast. I'm not really hungry in the morning. I see patients. I go to the clinic and I'm busy. And I eat when I'm hungry. Are you having tea and water during this time? I am. I'll have Earl gray tea

or green tea like I'm having right now. But the Earl grade tea specifically, I'm intentional getting that in is because it's a black tea with Bergamont in it. That Bergamont's been shown in the research to enhance something called autophagy, which is like cellular recycling, like anti-aging mechanisms, anti-dise, anti-inflammatory mechanisms. Fasting does that too. Ketosis does that too. So I'm just trying to like leverage and upregulate these autophagy pathways by bringing that in in the morning and then I break the fast around noon during at the clinic when I have a lunch and then it'll be like a ketotarian meal so something like a pesto zoodle bowl I have that a lot like zucchini noodles you can get those at Trader Joe's or you can get a spiralizer and do it yourself

and there's like a pesto recipe in there you can add fish to that or not have the fish you you can do like a keto like a plant-based keto smoothie with coconut milk or almond milk and adds of avocados in there and some greens and some berries, a lot of things that's in that bowl. You sound like you'd like sunlight, organics. Yeah, I do. Yeah. I do like them. Yeah.

And then dinner, I'll have typically sort of a pescatarian keto dinner. And that's if I, and that means like wild cut fish and sauteed vegetables and things like that. And that's if I'm in ketosis and I'm fasting. Then if I want to do a cyclical ketotarian approach, which I do, I'll add like extra sweet potatoes. I love sweet potato fries. I'll have that or I'll increase fruits or have a smoothie or have some rice or something like that. So that's how that's a basic day. Wine?

I don't drink like very often occasionally, but wine, I recommend in the books to go off of alcohol for a while to give your liver a break and kind of clear things out and just kind of reset the system and get people better faster. Basically, that's the reasoning. But wine, interestingly enough for a lot of people, it actually lowers insulin levels, lowers glucose levels. and it can be beneficial in small amounts. So like 10 bottles isn't... Yeah, 10 to 20. 10 to 20. What about probiotics?

How important are probiotics? Probiotics. The research shows that probiotic, there's kind of juries out. I think there's some good strands with some good data behind it. And I definitely think if you're getting a good amount of colony forming units, like the maybe 50 to 150 trillion colony forming units of bacteria, that can be beneficial. But honestly, I think that prebiotics are more compelling to me from a gut diversity. Oh, my gosh. I have to tell you, my girlfriend sells inulin. Oh, sweet. And I have prebiotics every day. Can you really dissect that? Because I agree with you.

Yeah, I think that getting something like inuline fiber, getting like things like resistant starches, like potato starch or plantain starch can be a great way. What is it? It's the, it's the, stuff that our bacteria eat. So our gut eats, our gut microbes, other bacteria, and our gut eat what we eat. And they like to eat these prebiotics, these starches, these fibers from plant foods. So vegetables, a wide variety of vegetables, cooking them again if you have digestive problems, and using these different supplement forms of prebiotics is another good idea, because it's associated with a diverse microbiome, which is associated with long,

healthy lives, basically, in lower disease and lower inflammation. Is there a topic or idea when it comes to the health space that leaders and thought leaders in the health space believe, like cumulatively, that you fundamentally disagree with or just think as bad blanket advice or something that's just controversial? Yeah. What I don't like, and it's exactly what you said at the top of the conversation, I don't like making too many oversweeping, like broad sweeping statements and saying, okay, this is a a rule for everybody because I talk to people for a living consulting them.

If I hung my hat on one way of doing something, I'd be proven wrong all day long. So people that say the vegan diet is a right way to do it or the carnivore diet is the right way to do it for everybody. Well, look, I mean, you're probably not talking to patients if you're saying that. So I think that's an oversimplistic view of human health. So to me, like, that's where I try to shy away from is saying too many. Because even in ketotarian, I taught so many ways to do it in there. So you can find your own groove when it comes to that way of eating.

And same with inflammation spectrum. It's about finding out what your body loves and hates. So I think that's the biggest thing that I would say that I am not a part of is I don't like, I'm not pushing one way for everybody. What are three tips that you would leave our millennial audience with that would bring them value when it comes to health and wellness? Okay. This has been on my heart for a while.

I think that your audience and the people that I talk to were going through a time where there's a lot of diet fatigue and like food disillusionment on like what the heck they should eat. And they're interested in this stuff, but they're overwhelmed because Google is telling them all these conflicting information. So I think we need to have a healthy relationship with technology to say, okay, I'm listening all this to this good content. I'm reading this good content, but sometimes I need to like shut it off and just like digest, so to speak, absorb this information, not getting stress and anxiety and shame around food. Like stressing about eating healthy isn't good for your health either. So I think that a big message that I want to give the millennial generation and really the whole world when it comes to this stuff is it's not about obsessing about food.

And orthorexia is a major problem in our culture. And that's like a disordered eating around eating healthy. So stress, anxiety, shame around healthy foods. It's a big problem in the wellness space. It's a big problem in certain parts of the world when it comes to people that are more interested in fitness and health and wellness and looking a certain way. So I think that there's not one solution for that, but it's just renegotiating your relationship with your body and renegotiating your relationship with food. And instead of it being punitive or punishing or doing these yo-yo fat things, just shift your perspective to how can I love my body? body enough to feed a good things? How can I use self-care as a form of self-respect?

I think that is going to be the new wave of wellness, is getting back to the basics of intuitive eating and just learning what works for your body and what doesn't. But when people are in a state of inflammation, when people have hormone imbalances, when people have the hangariness like blood sugar roller coaster, it's hard to know what intuition is. Like what's, is it intuition or hangariness? Is it intuition or hormone imbalance? Is it? Because emotional eating is not intuitive eating. You know, stress eating is not intuitive eating. So my goal with the inflammation spectrum, the book is to get people to a center to say like what works for my body and then just enjoy food and have fun and don't overcomplicate it and just start to feel better.

It's so interesting because we had Mark Manson on this podcast and he wrote a book called, it's called Everything's Ficked, right? And he really, he wrote the subtle art of not giving a fuck first and then it was, you know, the bright orange cover. And then he wrote this new one, everything is fucked. And he just writes how there's so much content being thrown at us in politics and food and wellness and just everything on the internet that we get overwhelmed. And from that, what I took is like I really try to just consume four people's content a day, the same content. So I have like a wellness person I look to, a fitness person I look to. I have someone that entertains me that I look to.

And I try not to go out of those people because I feel like with what you said with when there's so much information, it ends up being. information overload and it raises your cortisol. Yeah. Which makes you fat. Yeah. So, I mean, I totally, totally agree with you. Yeah. That's a great advice, actually.

I'll have to tell people about that. What she's saying is turn everyone off except us and Dr. Will. Like, don't listen to anyone but us and Dr. Will. You're sad. Mute tails you die. No, but it's, I mean, it's funny. I'm really glad that you dove into this. It was one of the last things I wanted to ask you was just basically the relationship to

getting so infatuated with eating healthy that you get, you fixate on and you actually become unhealthy because of it. And we've had friends in the space that that's fully happened to. And I think it's a real danger that young people should think about. As you talk about intuition, it's really, really difficult to trust your intuition when you're just constantly bombarded with noise. You've got to take some time to sit back and figure out like, what the hell is actually working for you? What is a book, a podcast, a resource that you consume when it comes to health and wellness that you would recommend our audience looks into? Just give us one, not to overwhelm us. Yeah, it's funny. Other than mine, which I think we do provide good quality content at Goopfellas, but other than mine, I love Melissa Hartwig Urban, who wrote Whole30 is a good friend of mine. She is a wide variety of content and she's a voice of reason in this space for short, not just around food, but around everything. Melissa, do you want to come on the podcast? She just did one, didn't she? She just launched one. She has her own podcast. Yeah, it's called Do the Thing. Yeah, I mean, she'll be on the show. I'll say yes for her. I think we also are involved in some projects with her. I've seen her name pop up.

I heard she's great. I would love to have her on the show because you just recommended her. Yeah. One day we could do a roundtable maybe. That'd be awesome. Yeah. Pimp yourself out. Where can everyone find you?

Your book, everything. Where should they start? Yeah, so it's everything's at Dr. Wilcoll.com. That's DR, W-I-L-L-C-O-L-E.com. And we offer a free webcam health evaluation. My day job is not writing books. It's consulting patients. And you can also order the book if you want to, the inflammation spectrum,

Ketotterian. And Goop Fellas comes out every Wednesday. the podcast. I think that's all the things. Instagram. Instagram, thank you, at Dr. Will Cole, DR. Will Cole. We're going to link everything. Thanks for coming on. I'm coming to see you after I give birth. I want all those weird blood test names that you said. My honor. Thank you. Maybe Taylor can thank you. Thank you, Dr. Will. Appreciate it. Wait before you go. We are going to send one of you a few TSC health favorites. Okay. So think things for possibly digestion, CBD, lots of fun wellness stuff, because that's what this episode was about.

All you have to do is let us know your favorite part of this podcast on our latest Instagram and then tag a friend to follow along to check out the podcast, someone who needs to be a part of the community. And with that, I'll see you on Tuesday with my very specific, detailed pregnancy podcast.