The Dr. Hyman Show - Why Eating Less And Exercising More Is A Recipe For Weight Gain with Dr. Elizabeth Boham

Episode Date: April 17, 2020

We’ve all heard the fiendishly simple and completely untrue colloquialism that to lose weight you just have to eat less and exercise more. Or that it’s all about willpower and that it’s the individual’s fault if they are fat. Not only are these ideas completely unsupported by the scientific literature, but they also lead to a blame-the-victim mentality that tells people who are struggling with their weight, in a not-so-subtle way, that if they only tried harder they would lose weight. There is only one problem with this point of view: It’s just not true. What makes us thin, fat, or somewhere in between does indeed have something to do with how much we eat and exercise. But the oversimplification stops there. Complex forces that govern our survival control our weight and metabolism. In fact, there is no one simple reason why an individual may have trouble with his or her weight. In this mini-episode, Dr. Hyman is joined by Dr. Elizabeth Boham to discuss the Functional Medicine approach to weight gain and weight loss. Elizabeth Boham is a physician and nutritionist who practices functional medicine at The UltraWellness Center in Lenox, MA. Through her practice and lecturing she has helped thousands of people achieve their goals of optimum health and wellness. She witnesses the power of nutrition every day in her practice and is committed to training other physicians to utilize nutrition in healing. Dr. Boham has contributed to many articles and wrote the latest chapter on Obesity for the Rankel Textbook of Family Medicine. She is part of the faculty of the Institute for Functional Medicine and has been featured on the Dr. Oz show and in a variety of publications and media including Huffington Post, The Chalkboard Magazine, and Experience Life. Her DVD Breast Wellness: Tools to Prevent and Heal from Breast Cancer explores the functional medicine approach to keeping your breasts and whole body well.  This episode is sponsored by AirDoctor. We need clean air not only to live but to create vibrant health and protect ourselves and loved ones from toxin exposure and disease. Learn more about the AirDoctor Professional Air Purifier system at a special price at www.drhyman.com/filter In this episode, Dr. Hyman and Dr. Boham discuss: Common factors that contribute to weight gain such as blood sugar and insulin levels, environmental toxins, hormonal imbalances, mitochondrial Issues, and more. The value in getting a detailed personal history from patients, and how weight loss is often a side effect of a personalized medicine approach. The connection between the gut, food sensitivities, and weight. The relationship between inflammation and weight. What someone’s waist to hip ratio tells us. Time-restricted eating and intermittent fasting. Why when you eat matters. How sleep issues and sleep apnea can lead to weight gain. For more information visit drhyman.com/uwc Additional Resources: Dr. Hyman’s 10 Day Reset free resource guide  getfarmacy.com/free “A Functional Medicine Approach to Obesity: 10 Ways to Lose Weight & Keep It Off” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2018/04/03/a-functional-medicine-approach-to-obesity-10-ways-to-lose-weight-keep-it-off/ “How Toxins Make You Fat: 4 Steps to Get Rid of Toxic Weight” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2012/02/20/how-toxins-make-you-fat-4-steps-to-get-rid-of-toxic-weight/ “Top 5 Tips for Weight Loss” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2018/07/11/top-5-tips-for-weight-loss/ “Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2012/02/13/three-hidden-ways-wheat-makes-you-fat/ “Is Intermittent Fasting Right for You?” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2019/03/27/is-intermittent-fasting-right-for-you/ “Ketogenic Diets: Sorting Through the Pros and Cons” https://ultrawellnesscenter.com/2018/01/06/ketogenic-diets-sorting-pros-cons/ “8 Ways Nutrient Deficiencies Cause Weight Loss Resistance” https://drhyman.com/blog/2016/06/02/8-ways-nutrient-deficiencies-cause-weight-loss-resistance/ “Why Can’t I Lose Weight?” https://drhyman.com/blog/2017/08/10/cant-lose-weight/ “Why Can’t I Lose Weight? (Part II)” https://drhyman.com/blog/2017/08/16/cant-lose-weight-part-ii/ “UltraMetabolism™ Myth #1: Eat Less + Exercise More = Weight Loss” https://drhyman.com/blog/2016/10/26/ultrametabolism/ “Why Diet and Exercise Are Not the Key to Weight Loss and Health” https://drhyman.com/blog/2014/06/09/diet-exercise-key-weight-loss-health/ “Three Days, Real Food, No More Insulin” https://drhyman.com/blog/2019/05/20/three-days-real-food-no-more-insulin/ “The 7 Ways to Fix a Slow Metabolism” https://drhyman.com/blog/2016/05/26/the-7-ways-to-fix-a-slow-metabolism/ “Is Your Lack of Sleep Making You Fat?” https://drhyman.com/blog/2010/07/18/is-your-lack-of-sleep-making-you-fat/ “Big Government and Big Food Give the Same Weight Loss Advice?” https://drhyman.com/blog/2014/05/11/big-government-big-food-give-weight-loss-advice/ “The Most Damaging Food Lie We Have Ever Been Told” https://drhyman.com/blog/2018/02/07/damaging-food-lie-ever-told/ “Sweet Dreams: How to Sleep Better, Lose Weight, and Live Longer” https://drhyman.com/blog/2010/05/20/how-to-sleep-better-lose-weight-and-live-longer/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. So often, it's the sleep apnea that's causing the weight gain. Yeah. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. This is a special episode called House Call, part of a little mini episode series that I'm doing with my colleague and friend, Dr. Elizabeth Boham,

who's the medical director at the Ultra Wellness Center in Las Vegas, Massachusetts, which started a long time ago. We've been working together for a few decades now, and she's an exceptional doctor who has a big heart, a brilliant mind, and knows a lot of shit about health and how to fix people. So today, we're going to talk about a problem that almost no one has, weight gain. Recent data is pretty striking. 75% of us are overweight in America. 42% are obese.

1 in 10 are severely obese. It's getting worse and worse and worse. And is it all about eating less and exercising more? Well, Mark, first, thank you so much for having me. And no, that's not, it's not all about that. There's so many more things going on than, than just that. It's so true. You know, I think we've all been brainwashed by the food industry, the government, nutritionists, doctors, that the best way to lose weight is just cut down your calories and get more energy expenditure through exercise. The problem is it's so much more complicated than that. Yes.

And I've written, I don't even know, a dozen books about this already. And I think that what I've come to learn and been humbled by as a functional medicine doctor is working with these patients, seeing the vast array of things that actually cause them to gain weight that have nothing to do with eating less and exercising more. It has to do with things like sugar and insulin. It has to do with things like environmental toxins. Yeah, like BPA, right? It has to do with your gut flora, your microbiome. It has to do with hormone imbalances like thyroid or estrogen. It has to do with mitochondrial issues that are your energy factories. So it's really important to understand that, yes, sometimes it is you eat too much or don't exercise enough, and that clearly plays a role, but it's not the whole

story. And it's why people struggle so much. If it was that simple, we'd all just eat less and exercise more. Why can't we do it? Right. And it's so, you know, I really like working with this patient population. I mean, I love working with all my patients, but with that functional medicine approach, it really helps us identify for that individual person where we need to focus and look at what's imbalanced in their body where we can have significant impact. Yeah. I mean, I remember this one woman, she was like 30s. She was a trainer.

She had 40 extra pounds on her. She exercised all the time. She ate a healthy diet. Yep. And I know she wasn't lying. Right. Right. She was trying, not lying.

Yeah. And we did a little digging and you know through her history i found out she had a lot of fish she had a bunch of fillings we checked her mercury it was super high yeah and i detoxified her from the mercury and she lost 40 pounds like that right and i saw her a few years later i didn't even recognize her yeah because i was like well i don't know that high toxic load right which can prevent prevent us from losing weight. I mean, there are a whole category of things called obesogens, which are environmental toxins that cause obesity.

And so that's a big factor in diabetes, obesity. We don't even talk about that. Right. I mean, we know that men that went to Vietnam and were exposed to Agent Orange, right? They got diabetes at a much lower weight than men that didn't were exposed to Agent Orange, right, they got diabetes at a much lower weight than men that didn't get exposure to Agent Orange, right? Because we know that those toxins, that being Agent Orange being one of them, you know, damages our mitochondria, which damage how well the body can take our food and turn it into energy.

Yeah. So in functional medicine, you know, in traditional medicine, it's pretty simple, you know, eat less, exercise more, that's the solution, count calories, you know, in traditional medicine, it's pretty simple. You know, eat less, exercise more. That's the solution. Count calories. You know, count your steps. I mean, it's just not working. So what do we do differently in functional medicine? You know, so first of all, we get a really detailed history, right? We find out from that person their timeline.

When did weight become more of an issue for them? Was it just this slow progressive increase over the years? Or was there a time where they had this big spike in weight? You know, that really impacts how we think about what could be that underlying cause for them, right? If all of a sudden somebody gains weight, then you go, okay, maybe there's something going on with their thyroid. Maybe something shifted there, right? If it's that slow, progressive weight gain, then maybe it's a combination of just getting the wrong foods and not sleeping enough or not exercising enough, right? So how they gained and

when they gained the weight really gives us information. Yeah. So everybody's different. This is what functional medicine is. It's personalized medicine, personalized health. And we actually dig into your individual imbalances and correct them. And that leads as a side effect to weight loss. I never get people to lose weight. I mean, I never say lose weight. I never say we're putting on a diet.

I say, here's the things that are out of balance. Let's get them back in balance. We'll cross our fingers and see what happens. And it's often a miracle what you see. Yeah. And then it just comes off. Yeah. And people, there are weird cases of things. I remember a case where there was a doctor who came to see me, a woman who had gained a hundred pounds in a few years. And her colleagues were like, oh, you're just eating too much. You know, don't eat so much. Get a gastric bypass, this and that. She's like, no, something's wrong. And I'm like, well, she showed me her driver's license picture. She looked like completely different. And I'm like, well, what's going on with this? And I just said, look, it's probably something weird. So let's check things like her cortisol level. And we checked her cortisol level.

It was off the chart. And she had a tumor on her adrenal gland that was causing high levels of cortisol, which makes you hungry and fat. And stress makes you fat in the same way. So you could be... I remember this woman who was... And so we had her adrenal gland tumor taken out and she lost 100 pounds like that. Right, right, right. And another patient I remember years woman who was, and so we had her adrenal gland tumor taken out, and she lost 100 pounds like that. Right, right, right.

And another patient I remember years ago was struggling, and she had gained 40 pounds, and her daughter lived in Israel. And she was so stressed because it was during the time of the conflict there and constant bombings and terrorist attacks, and she was just constantly stressed. Yeah. And as soon as her daughter came home, she lost 40 pounds. Right. Right. Right. Or, you know, I think there's a really

interesting connection with the gut and food sensitivities and weight, right? So when we put people on elimination diets, like, you know, somebody does like your 10 day reset or you pull away inflammatory foods and they lose weight so quickly, right? That's a sign that they're eating a food that's causing their body inflammation, right? Wait, what does inflammation have to do with weight gain? Oh, well, when there's inflammation, that causes us to hold on to water and that causes weight gain. And inflammation also damages the mitochondria and that impacts weight gain. So it has a huge...

And it also makes you pre-diabetic. Yes. So you could be eating the same things, but if you're stressed, you're actually raising cortisol. Yep. And if the insulin goes high, then you're going to gain more weight from the food that you eat. Yeah. So it's complicated. But in functional medicine, we really have a map to diagnose each person's dysfunction

and balance with their thyroid or mercury or cortisol or the gut microbiome or your mitochondria. There are all sorts of things that go wrong that most doctors overlook. And the problem with medicine today is that we sort of blame the victim. Like if you're overweight, it's because you eat too much and you don't have self-control and you're not taking personal responsibility. And we blame the victim. And we don't have self-control and you're not taking personal responsibility and we blame the victim yep and we don't actually have a way for helping these people figure it out so you know i think this is really important people understand that that we now know a lot about metabolism and weight and all the various factors that go into affecting it and how to fix

them where we necessarily didn't know a lot before yeah but now the more and more we're knowing and all the various factors that go into affecting it and how to fix them, where we necessarily didn't know a lot before. But now the more and more we're knowing, we can actually figure out how through food and various strategies, help people lose weight. So I want to talk to you about a few cases you had that were interesting about how we saw these patients at the Ultra Wellness Center and what exactly you did to help them figure out their issues.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first person that came in was, or one of the women that came in, she was 55, and she was overweight, about 40 pounds overweight. And she had noted that her kids had just gone off to college. It was time for her to start taking care of herself. But she had noted that over the years after her pregnancy, she just slowly started to gain weight. And, you know, she was exercising and taking care of herself.

But, you know, those 30, 40 pounds just slowly came on over the years. And what we noted with her, we did her waist-to-hip ratio. We saw her waist-to-hip ratio was elevated, indicating that there was insulin resistance. We also checked a fasting insulin. We saw that it was high indicating that there was insulin resistance. We also checked a fasting insulin. We saw that it was high, also indicating that insulin resistance. We saw that- And when insulin's high, you can't lose weight because it locks the fat in the fat cells, it slows your metabolism, it makes you hungry and crave carbs, and it makes your

body store fat. Exactly. So you're literally creating a total chaotic sabotage of your body when your insulin levels are high and you're eating all the starch and sugar. Right. So we had to figure out how do we help drop her insulin levels, right? How do we help drop her insulin levels? Well, you know, you can do that when you shift diet because we know that when we eat fat, right, the body doesn't need to make insulin to use that fat. So when you eat carbohydrates, your body makes insulin, you know, and when you eat a lot

of the refined processed carbohydrates, your insulin levels spike. So when we shift the diet to one that's a little lower or a lot lower in the refined and processed carbohydrates and more healthy fats, that helps with people with feeling better and not feeling so hungry. It helps prevent those insulin spikes and it helps us not gain as much weight around the belly. Yeah, it's so important to focus on insulin. And most doctors don't even test your insulin.

So you don't even know what it is. Right. But if you check it and it should be less than five, you're good. And if it's over 10, it's pretty bad. And it can go up to 50, 100 or more. And especially after you eat, it can get worse. And I wish we had a little like monitor where we could quickly measure insulin for people, like a continuous glucose monitor, a continuous insulin

monitor. I think it would be way more interesting. And I think that, you know, we actually know how to fix it. And, you know, people need to realize that without insulin, you can't gain weight, right? If you take a type one diabetic whose pancreas is damaged by an autoimmune disease and you look at their symptoms, their weight loss and hunger, they're eating 10,000 calories a day and losing weight. Right. Why? Because without insulin, you can't store the fat. Right. So this is really important people understand. It's so powerful. And that's why strategies that help fix insulin are so key for weight loss for most people.

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we were so, you know, 20 years ago or so, we were so programmed on that pyramid, right, where we were making sure we were getting enough grains. Oh, yeah, six to 11 servings of bread, rice, serum, pasta a day. That seems like a recipe for disaster. Yeah. And so it really, it caused a lot of high insulin for people.

And they're having a harder time with, they're feeling hungry all the time, and they're having a harder time with weight loss because of it. Hey, everyone. It's Dr. Hyman here. Now I know we're all focused on being as healthy as possible during this unprecedented time. And that means drinking clean water, eating loads of anti-inflammatory foods, and it also means keeping our homes clean.

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on this amazing filtration system. Right now, if you go to drhyman.com forward slash filter to access the Air Doctor filter for $329, and that's $300 off the normal price of this filter. And this is their biggest deal yet. You definitely want to take advantage. So head over to drhyman.com forward slash filter to access the deal. Thanks for tuning in. So sometimes people get really surprised when we pull away, either pull all away the grains or keep them very minimal. They're like, really?

I thought I was supposed to eat all of these, right? And that can help, really help with those cravings. It does. And getting more fat. Yeah, and getting more fat. You could eat so much fat and not gain weight because we used to think that fat made you fat, right? Because that has nine calories per gram versus four for carbohydrates or protein. So if you want to cut out the calories, you just cut out the fat. Well, that's what

happened. We cut out the fat and had a low fat craze where low fat salad dressing and low fat snack well cookies and low fat muffins, and they were all full of starch and sugar. And that was the worst thing that could have happened. So when you eat fat, you don't increase your insulin. You actually, you speed up your metabolism. There's that study by our friend David Ludwig where he basically gave people food. So he knew what they were eating. It was either 60% carbs, 10% fat, or it was 60% fat and 20% carbs. And on the 60% fat, eating exactly the same amount of calories every day,

the metabolism increased on a high-fat diet. So doing the same level of activity, the people who are the most overweight and insulin resistant, their metabolism increased by 400 calories a day. That's like running over an hour a day without getting off the couch. And that would account for the entire obesity epidemic if we could fix that. So this is a really important strategy. Yeah. And so she then lost, her numbers came down beautifully. Her blood pressure was a little high and it came down. Her insulin came down and she lost about 10 pounds, but she- She went to another 35. came down and she lost about 10 pounds, but she got a little bit stuck. And I think that's where we shifted things a little bit. And I think sometimes that's really important is that,

you know, sometimes the body gets a little used to a certain plan and you have to change things up. And I think that's where intermittent fasting can be really helpful. And so we put her on a program, it's called a 5-2 program, where two days a week, she cut down her calories significantly. You know, it was like 500 to 600 calories on those two days, because she was really not eating very much on those two days. And she could pick whatever two days she wanted. And the other five days, she wasn't as strict. And that's when when you know her her body started to kick in and her metabolism improved and i think probably because of the

impact on the mitochondria yeah you know but um it was it was impressive because let's back up and talk about this because you know i think uh there's so much information now online in the media about this whole intermittent fasting thing. And there's lots of different terms like time-restricted eating, intermittent fasting and fasting mimicking diets and ketogenic diets. And it turns out they all do the same thing. And so tell us a little bit about each of these and how they work and why they're so effective. Right. So, you know, time-restricted eating just means that you're not eating for specific periods of the day or you are only eating for certain times of the day.

So a typical way that somebody will do a time-restricted eating plan is say, okay, I'm only going to eat for eight hours in the day and I'll eat between 11 and 7. And you fast for 16. And then you fast for the other 16. I mean, even just 12 is good. Most people eat all day, eat all up to the time they go to bed and then they wake up and they like, you know, eat again. I think you're absolutely right. I think that is a great place to start with everyone because if we can just get people to not eat after dinner, right, things will improve. Because we know that the food that we're eating later in the evening, that nighttime eating, will cause more of an insulin spike, right?

So we know that that's really important to pay attention to. So saying to people, okay, let's try with at least not eating for 12 hours a day. Then you move to 14, then to 16, right? Yep. And not everybody needs to go longer, but there's good research with the 12 to 13 in terms of helping with longevity, helping decrease risk of cancer. There's some interesting research on breast cancer and not eating for 13 hours at night. So I think that that's something that we can really work with a lot of patients to do and say, okay, let's say at six to seven at night, that's when you stop and not eat until the next, you know, the next 7 a.m. time or whatever, whatever, whatever that is for them.

Yeah. There's so much research on this now, you know, and they all do similar things, whether you're time-restricted eating, whether you're intermittent fasting, like, you know, fasting one day a week or the 5-2 program, or whether you're, you know, trying a ketogenic diet, which activates the same systems in the body.

All of it does the same thing. It enhances your energy production, your mitochondria health, which is really important. It fixes insulin resistance and gets rid of belly fat. It builds muscle. It improves your brain chemistry and your cognitive function.

It helps your bone density. And it even helps production of stem cells. It reduces inflammation and it reduces your antioxidant burden. I mean, it reduces your oxidative stress. You get more antioxidants produced. So it's a very powerful way of focusing not on what you're eating or how much you're eating, but when you're eating.

And that's a very interesting angle that we really haven't focused on. We always focused on how much and then we're now focusing on what because not all calories are the same and now we have to focus on when. And I think that's a really important thing for people to understand

that there's a lot of ways to hack weight loss that have to do with the right kind of approach. And, and if you're not doing it right, you can kind of get in trouble because, but you need to know what you're doing. And I think there's a lot, uh, that we can share about this and we'll share at the end about how to actually do this. So that's a key thing. So what other things, you know, we had this other patient that you had that was a male who really struggled. He was overweight, about 40 pounds. So tell us about him.

Yeah. So, you know, he came in and he was 55 and he was really struggling with his energy. He was very low energy. He was really frustrated with his sexual function. He noticed he had a low libido. He was having some erectile issues. He had gained these 40 pounds around his belly, but he was really having a hard time with losing that weight. And the higher your belly fat, the lower your testosterone.

Yes, because that belly fat has that aromatase enzyme, which takes your testosterone and converts it into estrogen. Yeah, and then they lose the hair on their body. They get man boobs, right? They get breasts. It's a real thing. It's a real thing. And it's a great motivator for men, right?

We know that as your waist circumference goes up, so does issues with erectile dysfunction. So, you know, but we need to give them the tools to be able to lose that weight around the belly, right? So he had all these other issues and you, you know, you sort of figured out that he had insulin resistance too, that we were talking about. Yeah, I mean, the first thing, the first thing we did with him was put him on like that 10 day reset that, that you've put together, which really, I think, is a great jumpstart for people because it can help them say,

okay, I'm just going to try this, but I need the tools, I need the map to do it. And it's really motivating because many times, because people were eating inflammatory foods before or they were eating the wrong foods at the wrong time, right? And they do this and they notice a significant improvement in how they feel. And then they're like, okay, I can really shift this. I can make a change. So we did that before any tests came back. And the 10-day reset is based on what we've been doing in our center for decades, which is anti-inflammatory, low glycemic, higher fat, phytochemical rich, fiber rich diet. It actually helps to reset your whole biology, not just about weight, but any chronic illnesses or symptoms you have is so effective. Right. Because you're pulling away the

inflammatory foods, which for a lot of people, those inflammatory foods are triggering a lot of their symptoms. And you can actually get access to the free program at getpharmacy.com. That's G-E-T-F-A-R-M-A-C-Y.com. And if you want the upgrade on it, you can get with the coaches that help you go through it with the shakes and the supplements that help enhance the program. So it's all on there. Just go to getpharmacy.com and you can try it because a lot of times you don't really need the doctor. You can sort of biohack your own biology and figure out what's working, what's not working. And then once you figured out, oh my God, I lost 10 pounds this week and I feel so much better and my joint pain is gone and my headaches are gone and my noses are running and my digestion is working and I sleep better. And it's like, well,

how did that all happen? It's because your body is so powerfully influenced by food. We always talk about food is medicine, not like medicine. It is medicine. And it has tremendous effects on curing all kinds of illnesses if we actually use it. And that's what this is. It's a very medicinal diet that tastes freaking amazing. So it's not like you're suffering. Right. And he felt really motivated. He was really happy. But he actually had a lot of other things going on. So he had lost some weight, but, but then we also, we also noted, we also, you know, through questions, we found out that, okay, this, he might have some issues with sleep. You know, he was snoring. His blood pressure was a little high. He had all this weight gain. So I said, you know what, we really need to get a sleep study on you. And so when we did the sleep study, we found out that he had sleep apnea.

Which is so common and underdiagnosed. Yes. And sleep apnea, where people stop breathing in the middle of the night, even though they don't realize it, right? They're snoring and then they have episodes of apnea where they don't get any oxygen into the body. That in and of itself triggers insulin resistance. So that causes high levels of insulin in the body, which then, as we've been talking about,

causes us to gain weight around the belly. So what you're saying is if you don't sleep, you get fat even if you don't change your diet. Absolutely. Yeah. This is something people need to realize because people think it's, again, it's about what you eat and exercise. And yes, it is.

But there are other factors that have to be looked at that most doctors miss. So often when somebody has sleep apnea or might have the signs of sleep apnea, they think, okay, I'm just going to lose weight and then it will go away. Right? But so often it's the sleep apnea that's causing the weight gain. Yeah. And, you know, of course it becomes a vicious cycle. Sure.

But that sleep apnea causes high levels of inflammation in the body and it causes high levels of insulin and it just causes us to put on weight. And it also is one of the biggest causes of high blood pressure. Absolutely. I remember this one guy I had, he was like a lawyer, he was in his 50s and he's like, you know, Mark, I have to work at my desk, but I have a standing desk because, and this is before standing desks were popular, because if I sit down, I fall asleep. And I'm like, you fall asleep driving home? You fall asleep watching TV?

Do you snore? He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, you need to have sleep apnea. Let's get you tested. We got him a sleep apnea machine. He lost 50 pounds. Just boom, like that. Putting on a sleep apnea machine every night.

Right, right. Because you're actually getting oxygen into the body. So the body's not at stress anymore. And so the insulin levels come down, the inflammation comes down in the body, and then the weight comes off. I think when people have undiagnosed sleep apnea, when it's not being treated,

we can do all these great things in terms of shifting their diet and putting them on an exercise regimen and looking for other issues. But if we don't deal with that, it's almost like I always say to them, it's like you're running against the wind. You're not going to get to your goals. And so we've got to deal with the sleep issues. And like you said, it's so common. And this guy didn't just have sleep issues. He had the insulin issue, he had sleep issue. His thyroid wasn't right, right? Exactly.

We checked his thyroid and he had some elevated TSH. He had some low thyroid and he had some thyroid antibodies that hadn't been discovered before. So then we dealt with all this autoimmune stuff going on. And so we took him off of gluten. Well, he was already off because of the reset, but we kept him off of gluten. And so we were working on every aspect of his health. And that's when he got to his goal weight, right? When we worked on every aspect of his health.

And we helped him also get on a diet that he could maintain forever, right? Which is what the goal is. It's so true. And, you know, it's important. Like we often joke, we say we're holistic doctors because we take care of people with a whole list of problems. And, you know, it's often not one thing, it's many things. Yes.

And, you know, everything's so solid in medicine. So there's a sleep doctor, there's a thyroid doctor, there's a weight doctor. It's like, forget it. You know, in functional medicine, we take a step back and we look at the whole system and we're able to map out. And this is this one guy, another guy who's overweight might have different issues, right? And so we might have to look at their toxin load or their gut microbiome or their, you know, levels of nutritional status that affect their metabolism. So, you know, we

really, we really have a very sophisticated lens to look through, to understand what are all the imbalances and all the systems of the body and how they affect any different disease. The truth is, you know, we have so many different illnesses that we diagnose in medicine, but they're all connected by very common root causes. You know, just like, you know, you can send a man to space with, with an incredibly few simple physics laws, right? Very few laws of physics, and they actually can help you do something incredibly complex. The same way the human body has some basic laws of biology, and we follow those laws, we can help people get better. It's just learning how to unlock all that. And that's really the beauty of functional medicine. And we actually have the ability to personalize our

treatments to get people better from things that often they don't get diagnosed or that traditional medicine doesn't have a great approach for. So it's just so gratifying to be doing this. You know, it's really so satisfying every day to go to work and see patient after patient who's seen everybody, done everything, gone everywhere, tried everything, and they're not better. And they come in and we sort of like a magician, we find the thing and it's like, oh, it's so easy. But it's so easy if you know the questions to ask, right? It's really fun too. It's really fun. It's a fun way to practice medicine. You just have a great team. And, you know, we've been doing this for a long time at the Ultra Wellness Center. We have collective experiences of over 60 years of functional

medicine, more than probably any other center in the world. And, you know, there's not everything we can fix, but most things we're really good at either totally fixing or dramatically improving. And I just encourage people to seek out functional medicine in their community. You can come see us at the Ultra Wellness Center. You can learn more about how to deal with the obstacles to weight loss and things you want to look at at a handout we provided on our website, drhyman.com forward slash UWC and get the information you need to really succeed in every aspect of your health and not just treat disease, but optimize your health. You know, functional medicine is a science of creating health and I want everybody to have that. It's

our birthright and sometimes you need a little help and we're here to help you. So thank you for listening to this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy with Dr. Bohm, my friend and colleague and partner on this week's episode of House Call and the mini episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy with Dr. Bohm, my friend and colleague and partner on this week's episode of House Call and the mini episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. And if you liked it, please share with your friends and family on social media, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave a comment. I'd love to hear from you and we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Thank you, Mark. Hi everyone, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. So two quick things. Number one, thanks so much for listening to this week's podcast.

It really means a lot to me. If you love the podcast, I'd really appreciate you sharing with your friends and family. Second, I want to tell you about a brand new newsletter I started called Mark's Picks. Every week, I'm going to send out a list of a few things that I've been using to take my own health to the next level. This could be books, podcasts, research that I found, supplement recommendations, recipes, or even gadgets. I use a few of those. And if you'd like to get access to this free weekly list, all you have to do is visit drhyman.com forward slash pics. That's drhyman.com forward slash pics.

I'll only email you once a week, I promise, and I'll never send you anything else besides my own recommendations. So just go to drhyman.com forward slash pics. That's P-I-C-K-S to sign up free today. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner.

If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their Find a Practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.