The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Why Thyroid Meds Don’t Work for Most Women | Thyroid & Weight Loss Expert
Episode Date: July 3, 20251 out of 8 women will develop a thyroid condition, and up to 60% don’t even know they have it, often because symptoms are dismissed or misdiagnosed. You might be one of the millions with undiagnose...d thyroid issues. In this episode, Dr. Axe sits down with McCall McPherson: licensed PA, TEDx speaker, and founder of Modern Thyroid Clinic, to reveal what most doctors miss when it comes to thyroid, hormones, and metabolism. In this episode, you’ll learn: Why standard thyroid tests like TSH often miss the full picture How hormones like cortisol and estrogen impact thyroid function The truth about perimenopause and HRT most women don’t hear Whether weight loss meds like Ozempic help—or hurt—thyroid healing #HormoneHealth #ThyroidHealth #HolisticHealing ------ Want more of The Dr. Josh Axe Show? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook TikTok Website Follow McCall McPherson Instagram Facebook Tik-Tok Website ------ Staying healthy in today's world is an upstream battle. Subscribe to Wellness Weekly, your 5-minute dose of sound health advice to help you grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. Every Wednesday, you'll get: Holistic health news & life-hacks from a biblical world view Powerful free resources including classes, Q&As, and guides from Dr. Axe The latest episodes of The Dr. Josh Axe Show Submit your questions via voice memo to be featured on the show → speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe ------ Links: Check out McCall McPherson’s thyroid lab guide → https://gift.modernthyroidclinic.com/thyroid-guide ------ Ads: Get your free wealth protection guide from Preserve Gold. Visit www.preservegold.com/axe or text AXE to 50505 to claim your free guide, and you could receive up to $15,000 in free gold or silver with a qualified purchase or account rollover. Don’t wait – claim your special offers today! Unlock targeted biomarker testing: hormones, thyroid, metabolism, plus a 1-hour consult with a Senior Health Advisor. Spots are limited, grab yours now at mybloodwork.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
How long do you think the average doctor visit is?
I can tell you that I was trained to see patients in four to eight minutes.
The average is seven minutes.
You know what you can't solve in four to eight minutes?
Complex thyroid problems.
Yeah.
No kidding. Complex anything.
Right.
Never, ever, ever believe that you do not have a thyroid issue driving your symptoms because your labs are, quote, normal.
What organs are most responsible for or when there's the greatest dysfunction of that are keeping T4 being converted to T3?
Your liver is huge.
We have a huge liver problem.
in our country. Our livers don't work really great anymore. Nutrient deficiencies are pervasive,
right? If people are not extremely intentional about eating a wide variety of nutrient dense foods,
of all the colors of the rainbow, it's honestly a problem. What number of people that have hypothyroidism
have Hashimoto's or have those antibodies out of balance? Research shows about 80%. Yeah, that's high.
It's high. You specialize in thyroid issues, but your secondary area of expertise is weight loss.
We are probably fairly well aligned on, but I know that you have recommended GLP1.
Yeah, I love that we get to talk about this.
So.
Hey, everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here.
We've got an incredible show today talking about how to reverse and heal, hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, Graves Disease, and hormone and balance in women.
And there are so many women today struggling with low energy, thinning hair, even losing their hair, just struggling with hormone and balance brain fog and a number of health issues.
And today I've brought in one of the world's leading experts in thyroid health.
Her name is McCall McPherson.
She is a board certified PA.
And she runs clinics all over the country that specialize in healing hypothyroidism.
McCall, welcome the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
And thank you for allowing me to share this message.
It's one that needs to be spread.
Yeah, you know, I think that when I first opened up my functional medicine practice, this was in 2007.
one of the things they don't tell you when you're training in medical school or chiropractic school or PA school is,
I think what you learn in school is so different than when you're in practice.
Because nobody told me that the majority of women that were going to be coming into my practice,
especially in their 30s and 40s and beyond, would have hypothyroidism or major hormone imbalances.
And I know you see the very same thing in your practice.
And so when you first got into practice, what was something maybe that surprised you?
when you got started?
Yeah, I mean, I would say in line with what you are thinking is, I mean, it's shocking the
percentage of women that have thyroid symptoms.
And medicine just says, no, you're good.
It's not your thyroid.
That was my story, too.
And it's almost at this point a pervasive issue.
I agree in the fact that, look, like, if you're a woman and you're a woman with children,
the likelihood of developing a thyroid condition in your life is not really a matter of if,
but when.
And that's pretty shocking.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
It is shocking.
What do you think?
I think there's a lot of myths out there about the thyroid.
A lot.
I want you to share, though, what is the number one myth you think that comes to when people
think about thyroid health or hypothyroidism?
What's the number one myth out there?
There are a lot, sadly.
And they're not getting debunked.
They're getting worsened.
But number one is certainly pervasively in the medical community, assuming that checking someone's
TSA is a good indication of their thyroid function.
And that could not be farther from the truth.
In fact, studies show TSAH reflects about 1% of output hormones,
meaning 99% of the time it can be wrong.
Other studies show at least 35% of the time.
In my clinical practice, that number is so, so far greater.
Wow.
Yeah.
You know, we have a lot of very educated people in the show, and still with this,
I want to mention this.
What organ releases TSAH?
Your brain.
That's right.
So it's not even a thyroid hormone at all.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of people probably think, and I know this because I've explained this to patients,
they think that most people do think, because, again, I think unless you're really dove
into the subject, you would think, oh, it's the thyroid that releases TSA and it's not.
So when you think about where hormone dysfunction starts in terms of what impacts the thyroid
causing that, where does it typically start?
What is, is there a master hormone or another hormone that sort of tips the scale and causes this cascade effect with other hormones being imbalanced?
Yeah, you know, I would say like our hormone system is interconnected, right?
Like it feeds back to one another in so many different ways.
So I definitely think your adrenals heavily influence your thyroid.
Obviously stress.
Your brain, of course, with your TSA, your pituitary is where your TSA is produced.
But there's feedback even from our reproductive hormones.
So they're all so integrally connected that we can't tease them apart from one another, which is why, like, your work with thyroid adrenal access, all of these things matter so much because they don't occur in isolation.
Yeah, and I think to your point, one of the things, if I were pressed on that question, I would probably have to say cortisol first.
Exactly.
But even with that, to your point, you know, if you're having issues with estrogen progesterone, those are going to impact it.
So there's so many different varying factors impacting thyroid hormones, which is also why any woman struggling with hypothyroidism should probably be getting a personalized plan.
One of the things I know that you've seen in mainstream medicine is that most doctors who have a hypothyroid patient, they treat them all the same.
Every single patient.
How do you operate differently in your practice?
Yeah, that's such a losing game plan, isn't it?
It is.
Gosh, especially with thyroid.
It is.
assumption of one size fits all. We've adopted this one medication, this one protocol. And if it
doesn't work for people, guess what? Your thyroid's not your problem, which isn't true, right? It is
your thyroid. And so when you take an individualized approach, when you do thorough lab analysis,
when you look at full thyroid panels, not just your TSA, not just your free T4, when you look at
other medication options, because everyone doesn't have the exact identical hormone issue presenting
with hypothyroidism when you address Hashimoto's, when you develop this intricate plan.
And truly, that's what it needs to be.
I tell my patients, look, like, your thyroid function needs to be perfect, certainly not normal.
Optimal almost isn't good enough.
Like, it has to truly be perfect to get the life back that women, people deserve,
the vitality that they deserve and work hard for.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Another issue I think in mainstream medicine that I see constantly is every patient that I have still
come see in my virtual practice. I know you have the same thing in your practice in Austin, Texas,
is when somebody comes to see you, they tend to bring their blood work that they maybe had with
their other doctor. And so there are so many different statements I think of, well, my doctor told
me this is irreversible. My doctor told me I need to be on this drug the rest of my life.
My doctor told me my blood work is normal. I mean, we're constantly hearing these things.
What is your response to us hearing those sort of things so often? Yeah, I mean, I absolutely tell
people on social media because those are the people that I want to educate and empower that
are that we don't get to touch their lives directly is never ever ever believe that you do not
have a thyroid issue driving your symptoms because your labs are quote normal there are so many
pitfalls in that scenario from what labs are they checking what time are they checking it um you know
what are the ranges that they're using because you're very well aware there actually isn't a quote
normal range for thyroid function at all there is no standardization of this
It's entirely subjective based on whatever lab the person goes to dictates their normal versus abnormal, which is insanity.
I tell patients too, I'm like, listen, you could show up to your doctor's office with a TSA of 4.5, hand them your lab work, and they look at it, they scan it and see if anything is in bold or off to the side.
For you, it might not be at lab core down the street from your house.
And so they say, hey, look, your labs are normal.
You can leave. It's not your thyroid. The next person that comes to that same doctor, the same day, can show up with the exact same TSA 4.5. But their lab may be quest by their office, says 4.5 is too high. So when the clinician or doctor scans it, it's in bold. And they say, oh, my gosh, you have a thyroid problem. We're going to treat you with love with it roxene. Even though the lab is the same. Like that is happening all over the country, all day, every day, because there is no adopted, standardized,
versus abnormal, certainly no one's taking into account optimal, which is absolutely what we need
to be doing.
How long do you think the average doctor visit is in terms of when a patient actually, how much time
they spend with their doctor on a visit?
I can tell you that I was trained to see patients in four to eight minutes.
The average is seven minutes.
Yeah.
It's four to eight.
Wow.
And so you were trained as a practitioner that you should only be with a patient four to eight
minutes.
Yep.
Wow.
Yeah.
You know what you can't solve in four to eight minutes?
complex thyroid problems. Yeah, no kidding, complex anything. Right. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. When you
think about hormone tests, so one of the things we want to be able to help people do is get to the root of
their hormone imbalances. What are the tests that you like to look at? What are some of the markers?
What are the things that you start to really look at to get a picture of what's going on in somebody's
hormonal health when it comes to testing? Yeah. So, I mean, obviously we are a thyroid-centric practice.
So, of course, we check a full thyroid panel, which you can get your pencils and paper out.
It's T-SH, free T4, free T3, reverse T3, and every person should be screened for Hashimoto's
antibodies if they have thyroid issues, which are TPO and thiroglobulin antibodies.
So that's just your basic thyroid panel.
By the way, what number of people that have hypothyroidism have Hashimoto's or have those
antibodies out of balance?
You know, research shows about 80%.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's not what I find at modern thyroid practice, but here's the thing.
My data is a little skewed.
So my people are, they've already put in the work.
They've done everything they can do to get their health back.
They're educated.
They're motivated.
And then they come to see us when they can't find answers.
So I think a lot of those people have already influenced their Hashimoto state, right?
But research shows 80%.
Yeah.
That's high.
It's high.
That's a lot.
To talk to me when we look at these, when we look at these thyroid markers,
let's say somebody, and I want to go through just a few different scenarios and how you think about it.
Let's say somebody's TSA is really in balance.
And then I want to ask you about, you know, the T3 being.
low and some others. But what is typically maybe one of the or a few primary issues when you look at
if somebody's TSA is very imbalanced? You know, it can be a lot of things. I mean, it can even be
stress. Adrenals can influence TSA. It can be your microbiome. It can be inflammatory. It can be
Hashimoto's having broken down actual hormonal secreting tissue in your thyroid. It doesn't work as
well anymore. So it tries to increase the workload. Your brain asks your thyroid to work harder.
increasing the TSA-micronutrient deficiencies can also influence TSAH. And then honestly,
the other thing that I see nowadays more than I probably did even 10 years ago is this phenomena
of women losing thyroid function over time, I think from environmental issues, hormone disruptors,
in the same way that our reproductive hormones are being influenced, I think it's also influencing
and attacking our thyroid gland.
So just that slow decrease over time will drive up TSAH as well,
especially as women get into perimenopause.
Menopause closer to those seasons of our lives.
Yeah, yeah.
To do your point, I do think that cortisol and stress is just a major, major driver
if I had to look at a primary.
But all of those play a role.
And this is why we have to look at the individual and create a personalized plan
because it's going to be different with everybody.
You know, when I look at sort of the way that I,
when I look at hypothyroidism, I tend to look at multiple organ systems as well.
And this is why, like, traditional medical training for an MD is so unhelpful in many cases
because one of the things that they're taught to do is just look at organs in isolation.
Absolutely.
This organ here, this one here, and then they don't impact each other.
One of the benefits of somebody that maybe has, you know, training as an osteopath or chiropractor.
Maybe it's true in certain medical schools is you're looking at the body more holistically.
you're looking at how one organ affects the other.
And one of the things that I found, as I know you have,
is the brain has a big impact on thyroid function.
The adrenals have a major impact on thyroid function.
And the gut microbiome has a huge impact on thyroid function.
And on occasion, the reproductive organs have an impact on thyroid function.
So being able to keep those things into account is so important.
One of the other things I want to ask you about is there are a lot of patients that I see.
And one of their issues is they are not converting T4.
to T3. Why is that in most cases with the patients you see? Yeah. So let's talk about the physiology of that.
So when your body feels safe, it will activate T4. So think of T4 like crude oil. Think of T3 like gasoline.
Wow. We don't put crude oil in our car to make it run. We need to convert that into gasoline to put it in our car to make it usable for it to go, right?
same situation in our physiology. So our thyroid gland largely produces T4. Any 99% of people who are
put on medication are put on T4 or crude oil medication. Those are medications like levothoroxine,
synthroid, t-rescent, unithroid, lavoxyl. So the vast majority of everyone, it's certainly what I
was trained to use. It was the only thing that most conventionally trained clinicians are
actually taught how to use. And so what ends up happening is we're giving
all these people crude oil and they can't convert it into gasoline. And that is a purposeful mechanism
in our physiology. So if you think about it, it makes sense. When our body is stressed, sick,
inflamed, micronutrient depleted, we're not sleeping well, we're pregnant, we're breastfeeding.
Our body halts the activation and conversion of that crude oil so that we're tired, we lay down,
we rest, we recover, right?
Yeah.
Sadly, everyone ignores those symptoms.
Everyone ignores those symptoms.
And they're very non-specific, according to medicine, right?
These aren't thyroid symptoms.
There's two non-specific.
But sadly, in my opinion, there is an amount of the standard American lifestyle that facilitates the lack of conversion of our thyroid hormones.
And what that means is, if we just walk around living our normal average everyday life, we're not going to convert a good amount of our endogenous T4.
to T3 or if you're on lobothyroxine, synthroid, unithroid, that means likely you're going to have
persistent symptoms almost forever.
And that's why, I mean, there are, and then this blows my mind.
There are so many women who come in on thyroid medication, their doctor prescribed it,
and they thought they were going to feel it's completely different.
And they hardly feel different at all.
I mean, maybe one or two symptoms improved, but they still have numerous symptoms, but the
doctors are saying, oh, but your blood works normal.
Everything's completely normal.
and they're like, I don't feel normal.
Yep.
So this happens all the time.
What organs are most responsible for or when there's the greatest dysfunction of that are keeping T4 being converted to T3?
I would say your liver.
And I would also say your adrenals obviously play a big role because of that stress response will disrupt it as well and we're also stressed.
Yeah, your liver is huge.
We have a huge liver problem in our country.
Our livers don't work really great anymore.
And yeah, I mean, I was the woman that you described, totally.
I was in that chair getting the feedback from the doctor of, yeah, no, your labs are normal.
This isn't your thyroid.
So I feel deeply for those women.
And there are so many of them, which is why I'm so grateful for people like you, for my own platform, that we can let these women know that this is not normal, that you actually shouldn't still be having thyroid symptoms.
Yeah, yeah.
There needs to be a radical change.
It isn't our whole health care system.
It's not just an issue with hypothyroid or Hashimoto,
it's the whole system altogether that needs to change.
You know, one of the things that I really appreciate about you,
and I try, most people I have on the show,
I try and, if it's a practitioner,
I try and bring on people that share this sort of understanding in mind.
So can I tell you, when I, in doing this podcast,
you know, I started doing a podcast back in like 2010,
and it was like myself and Jillian Michaels
were like almost the only people doing a health podcast back then.
And sometimes I want to interview people, and I'm trying to think I don't want to be necessarily mean, but a lot of them didn't really, they memorized facts and they would just say them.
And I really couldn't necessarily sometimes have an in-depth conversation because they didn't necessarily know what they were talking about.
I love talking to practitioners who really understand the physiology, understand these deeper connection of what's going on in the body.
And so I really appreciate that.
One other thing I try and do, and I know you do as well, is I try and be very protocol oriented.
And I really learned this from when my mom was battling cancer.
When she had lung cancer, we decided to go unnatural.
And I knew in order to heal her that we wanted to do everything we possibly could.
So we went and we looked at multiple diets.
And we really did a combination of Gershian with Budwig, with looking at the Chinese sort of medicine diet, what they'd recommend and create a protocol for her.
We did very specific supplements.
We did herbals.
We really had her do a lot for, you know, prayer and meditation and life.
I mean, really this very, very built out protocol for her.
And she healed from cancer.
And then I went and I started my practice.
And I became very protocol oriented where I didn't just give somebody one supplement or the same diet.
It was and people were getting all, you know, and still today in my virtual practice,
people are getting off their diabetes drugs, getting off their thyroid medications.
And they are seeing great results.
Most practitioners today, even if they're integrative medicine or functional,
functional medicine. Most people aren't necessarily going that in depth of telling patients what to do
to that extent. But that's what people need today, right? I mean, tell me about your experience
of how maybe you were led into being more of a personalized protocol practice versus sort of
the sort of conventional practice that most doctors operate with today. Yeah. You know, truly it
came organically because thyroid was and still sort of is the Wild West, meaning there was
no book that I could go to to read to be like, hey, this is how you help these people. This is how
you heal them. This is how you give them their lives back. I had to create that, right? And that's
what I feel so fortunate that we've been able to do at Modern Thyroid Clinic. The only way that you can
create a method that causes healing and gives people back their lives is by analyzing data over and over and
over and over again. Right? You can't analyze data if every single thing is different, right? You have to
have a system, analyze thousands of pieces of data based on that system, adjust it, reanalyze,
adjust, and over 10 years, you end up with something really special and really effective.
Can I tell you what's so interesting about what you just said?
Most people don't realize this.
That's how Chinese medicine and I are Vedic came to be in terms of their systems.
No way.
Tell me.
Yeah, well, so if you think about it like this, today our entire medical system is based off
of a bunch of sort of very different, you know, double blind, plus.
and a lot that aren't double blind placebo, but a lot of a lot of these studies individually.
And we've been doing this really since maybe, you know, the early 1900, somebody could argue
maybe 150 years or so our current medical the way we practice. But Chinese medicine and I are
backed by 3,000 years. They've been around. Backed by what you said, millions of individual case
studies, looking at sort of the data, understanding with the patients, and them creating a system in
order to deal with those different imbalances in the body. So it's the very same way you practice
and you created your protocols is the exact same way that those people, you know, created the most,
probably the largest forms of medicine still used today. Right. They're just like 3,000 years ahead of
me. So they have a bit of an advantage, right? They're far into this. I love it. Well, but the other thing
that they don't have or the benefit of doing what you're doing is is that the modern issues today
might have been a little bit different, some of them than 3,000 years ago. But, but, but the other thing,
we weren't dealing with large amounts of glyphosate and forever chemicals and, you know, some of
the other thing, car accidents, you know, that sort of, you know, traumatic stress on the body.
Of course, you know, they say there's nothing new under the sun.
So, I mean, there's definitely some overlap, but it's a powerful way to practice.
So if somebody comes into your clinic, walk me through, what are some of the things you do
protocol-wise to help people heal?
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Yeah.
So we kind of start with the foundational pieces of like thyroid first.
Honestly, part of the way that we start to is like, what can we do to help this person that can barely get out of bed every day, take care of their kids, can't go to work or barely goes to work and then spends the rest of the day in bed?
What can we do for them with the least amount of work on their part to give them an advantage to be able to start working to feel even better?
So that was kind of really early on in my functional medicine journey.
I figured out, hey, you can't have these people who can't function do 50 million things in their lifestyle and take 50 supplements every day.
they're too tired, right? So I try to create that edge for them, and that's, you know,
part of what I feel like is advantageous for us. So right out of the gate, we fix their thyroid,
we start that process. And we do it in a way, I won't get it, bore you with too many details,
but we do it in a way that creates about a year's worth of work in a month. So most people
feel better after their first round of treatment, though they're not ultimately where they need
to be, and that involves medication. Most of the people, by the time they come to see us,
the vast majority of them need some form of supplemental medication.
So we do that very quickly we address adrenal dysfunction.
I would say 99.9% of thyroid patients have adrenal dysfunction.
Yeah, that's very hard.
And if you don't fix it, if you don't help them, they're not going to feel better with their thyroid.
And then we move into lifestyle, Hashimoto's, hormones, addressing imbalances there.
Because as you know, our systems are interconnected.
And if we try to treat and handle the thyroid in isolation, we're not really helping these people.
we're not truly giving them back their lives.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things to your point is, and this is something I try and do very early,
is address the adrenal issues because if somebody's energy is in the tank, you have to fix that.
And so really looking at how can we support the adrenas, how can we support the mitochondria,
how can we start getting that energy up?
Because, you know, I think for myself, you know, outside, I mean, I think the two things that probably
plug people the most that keep them from enjoying time with their family and a number of those things.
I mean, energy is high chronic pain would be another one too.
But, you know, those can ruin your life.
I mean, they're going to affect everything.
Yeah.
Everything.
So that makes a lot of sense.
Are there any favorites you have or things that you like to do to support adrenal function
specifically?
Oh, if I'm going to get very specific, I absolutely love orthomolecular's adrenal as a supplement
for it.
For whatever reason, it seems to work so well.
I mean, obviously it has some micronutrients and herbs to help nourish, kind of restore
adrenals, but it also has cow adrenal gland in it. So we're like supplementing what these people
are missing. And again, for me, it's all about what can I do to give these people a little energy
so that they can take that energy, pour it back into their lifestyle and create more, right? And
adrenal is a powerful, powerful way of doing that. Yeah. You know, I was mentioning Chinese medicine
earlier. One of the things that they would do is, you know, if we would go into an ancient apothecary in
China, they tended to have herbs and spices, mushrooms, and then glands, you know, and organs.
And so they would tend to do a combination of thyroid gland, thymus gland, and adrenal gland
for, you know, for treating hypothyroidism.
Which is interesting because, you know, they, you know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
So the, by far the most prescribed medications, right, are synthroid and levothyroxin in terms of, you know,
those T4, focusing on hypothyroidism.
But there are a number of people taking things like nature,
throid, an armor, and taking them like that.
Now, historically, before those around, people would take thyroid glandular,
but one of the issues was, you know,
every different gland you got from porcine or from bovine from cow or pig had different levels
of active T3 and T4 in them.
And, of course, the medical community is like,
well, I don't want to have to take the time to dial it in for people.
And that's too much work.
And so we're going to kind of, you know, synthetically make it or create a standardized extract.
What are your thoughts on all that?
Do you tend to like to use more of the, you know, mainstream?
Do you like to use nature, throid, or armor?
Like, what do you personally like to use with patients in order to, from a medication standpoint?
Yeah, this is a great question.
Thanks for asking.
You know, Armour thyroid is the oldest thyroid medication that's, you know, it was around half of the century before
Leithyroxine synthroid. Okay. So that was our only option for a really long time. It started about
1920. And at first, just as you said, it wasn't stable. It wasn't predictable. It wasn't controllable.
So medicine kind of completely abandoned it when Leboithyroxene came out. Well, in 1983, it might have been
84, we were able to really standardized armor and the dosing. We were really able to like hone in and
create stability, consistency with potency, et cetera.
Medicine has not adopted its viewpoint or re-adopted its viewpoint of armor since 1980s.
So we've had this access to this stable glandular-based hormone for decades.
Yet, we're taught in medicine.
Do not ever use armor, desiccated thyroid.
It's horrible.
It's unstable.
It's dangerous.
You'll kill people.
You'll give them a heart attack.
And first, the thing I would say is how many people have ever died from taking desiccated thyroid?
Right.
One in, you know, 500 years, how many people have probably died as a side effect of taking
synthroid?
Well, I have an opinion on that, but it's, it's more than that.
Right.
I mean, the data, I was reading a study from 2020, but I just ran across it a couple of weeks ago
that literally looked at the comparison of health outcomes with people on higher levels of T3 with
higher levels, still within the confines of what would be normal or close to normal.
Higher levels of T3 was associated with less cardiac mortality, which is exact medicine says
T3 equals cardiac issues, heart issues, stroke, heart attack. No, it was inversely proportional.
So the higher T3, the lower risk for heart disease, cancer. What was the other one?
Stroke, which falls under heart disease, even related to higher socioeconomic status and longer
employment in your life.
Higher levels of T-O and osteoporosis osteopenia levels were, or risk was reduced.
On higher doses of T4, which is what everyone is on, love with the roxy and cincide,
the higher the dose, the higher risk for heart disease, heart attack, stroke, osteoporosis,
lower socioeconomic status, and higher rates of unemployment.
Yeah.
And, you know, the thing here is that if somebody is really a practitioner that understands what's
going on in people's hormones today. And so much of it is an issue where T4 is not being converted
to T3. If you're going to do a medication, of course you want something that's going to have more T3.
Right. Or at least some. Some. At least some. Now, it's not the way that I tend to recommend things,
though I do like it much better than the conventional medicine. I do appreciate you focusing on helping
relief, and I'm sure patients appreciate it, getting that relief very quickly. Because, again,
people are so tired and so frustrated with sort of, you know, where their health is at.
So that makes total sense to me.
You know, one of the things I mentioned, too, and the thing that I like about the desiccated
thyroid tissue that's been used for so long throughout history is that it not only has those
active hormones, they also have peptides in there, you know, and one of those peptides in particular,
well, let me just let me just say this.
I'm a fan of peptides.
I had a spinal issue, and I used BPC-157, TB-500, CHK-C-C-C-U, and saw great results, I mean, in helping me heal.
And then I've recommended these to a number of people, different thyroid hormones over time.
But there's some studies around TB 500 for thyroid health, and it being really, really good for specifically Hashimoto's because it helps stampen the autoimmune, the antibody response.
And so I think we're going to see, I think over the next five to 10 years, a big part of the future of medicine, what we're going to see is peptide therapy.
I think we're going to just see it just grow through the roof.
Now, one of the things I know that I think we are probably fairly well aligned on, but I know that you have recommended GLP1.
Now, listen, if people go back and look at my shows, they'll see, I have hammered GLP1.
And I've done loads of posts on it because there's a couple studies in particular, one showing the average.
person lost and by this is such a short period of time but some people lost 20 pounds of muscle
40% of their muscle by being on glp1 there's another state showing around 50% of the total
weight lost was muscle and so those early studies I I've been venomately against generally
glp1 however glp1 is a peptide and sometimes when you do things in the wrong dosage
there are unwanted side effects.
And this can be said for, you know,
if I overdose somebody with vitamin C
for a really long time,
it can cause loose stool,
can disrupt their kidneys
and even irritate their gut.
I mean, there's a number of things there.
So that can happen with even natural compounds.
You do GLP1 a little different.
You do microdosing.
Yeah.
Okay.
Share with me your philosophy,
your results,
some things,
because you specialize in thyroid issues,
but your secondary,
area of expertise is weight loss. So talk to me about your philosophy and thoughts around
GLP1. Feel free to share some of the things I, you know, share your opinion on some of the
things I said. And then, yeah, I love to hear. Yeah, I love that we get to talk about this. So,
you know, at the core, the poison is in the dose, right? And I think what's happened in medicine is
we have tried to oversimplify and create to a fault, a protocol that fits everyone that is
based on people with diabetes. And so now we are applying the doses that historically we have
used to treat diabetics to people who do not have diabetes to simply lose weight. Okay? When I started
this journey three and a half years ago specifically for my thyroid patients, I figured out very
quickly that these people were getting over-medicated. They were sick. They were not eating food, right?
They were just hardly eating at all. They were losing hair. They were losing too much weight too
quickly. And so we adopted microdosing before the word microdosing was ever applied for GLP. So we're
very, very far into this journey. It shouldn't be called microdosing. It should be called
therapeutic or normal dosing. Right, right. It shouldn't be the alternative. Every other doctor out
there's just overdosing their patients with GLP1. Absolutely. Like I think essentially there is no place
for the dosing protocols that are happening to be almost with anyone. I think everyone is grossly,
medically, negligently overdosed on these meds. And, you know, people do lose muscle. They do lose
collagen. They do lose hair when they're not eating any food. And they truly are not. I mean,
people will eat two, three, 400 calories a day. They're so sick they want to only eat carbohydrates.
They're not getting any protein, micronutrients. And so my philosophy is microdosing,
tailored dosing. These people do not need to be increasing their dose every four weeks because
the box like tells them to. No, if the tiny bit of medication is working, you're still having an
appetite, you're still getting enough protein, you're still getting enough micronutrients,
wonderful, there's no reason to increase. And inherently, GLPs have muscle protective effects.
They actually have a built-in mechanism to keep us from losing muscle, but we are overriding that
mechanism by not nourishing and feeding our body what it needs to actually function.
Yeah, I am, that's interesting you say that because I haven't heard that before.
I don't know if it doesn't take this the wrong way.
No.
I don't know if I fully believe it.
Here's why I say this.
You know, it's not that I don't believe it.
It's that, again, the studies are showing.
Now, this isn't microdosing.
Right.
But people are losing a lot more muscle than they are fat.
So they're, and maybe that is just from doing the high dose.
Now, there are obviously, GLP1 is something your own.
body manufacturers. Right. Right. There are even foods and supplements, certain types of fiber,
higher protein, certain even types of probiotics like Archimansia. Like there are, there are studies
showing there are things burbering. There are things that there are things that can support your
body and producing more GLP one. So I, let me tell you how I like to typically handle this.
one, my general philosophy as a practitioner has always been first do no harm.
Yeah.
And do things as naturally lifestyle driven as possible.
I truly believe, and this might sound like a really bold statement, I believe if we did
completely away with all conventional medical offices, not hospitals, but every other medical
office in the country, and we got rid of 90% of medication prescriptions, maybe even night.
probably 95, we would be radically healthier.
Like I'm talking about as a country so much healthier.
Because one of the things that happens today, if you go into a practitioner,
and by the way, this is conventional or natural,
if you go into a conventional doctor and they're like, here's synthroid,
here's level thyroxin, or let's say it's another person,
and they're saying, here is armor or nature throid,
or here's some selenium and some ashoaganda.
But that's all they do.
And they don't change your diet.
and lifestyle, you're truly not getting better in addressing what is causing that thing in the
first place. I would say the same thing with diabetics, let's say that insulin for type 2 diabetics,
let's say insulin and metformin did not exist whatsoever. And there weren't even any herbs or supplements.
That person would have to change their diet. They would have to exercise because that's the only
other option available. By giving people the options of something that's actually truly unhealthy for them,
we're a lot unhealthier for it.
And so part of me wishes a lot of these options were never invented and they weren't because overall it's, it's, yeah, it's making a sicker.
Can I tell you a follow-up thing about GLPs in line with that?
And this wasn't just about GLP.
Right, right, right.
This is in general.
And I so appreciate that.
But as to portray a picture to you.
So obviously, like I told you, the people that come to see us are super invested in their health where they like do all the things.
not all of them, but the vast majority of them, right? It's a big investment to come to modern
thyroid clinic and so they make it worthwhile. The whole reason I ended up getting into GLPs is
because I had all these women and I completely was able to transform their lives. I was able to
give them back their energy, their vitality, their libido, their ability to show up as a mom
and a wife and all the things. But I could not fix their metabolism. I couldn't.
Yeah. And I mean, and these are people who did everything. Like, I mean,
I remember one of my patients right leading up to when we started our program. She's like, I've been on
Whole 30 since 2017. And I'm like, oh, dear Lord. You know, they exercise, they eat well, they eat
a low inflammatory diet, but they were so metabolically disadvantaged by the time we fix their thyroid.
They couldn't lifestyle their way out of that. They couldn't, you know, and so at that point,
and those are truly my favorite people to use GLPs with, if people can influence their weight on their own,
they don't really need it. It's the people that can't. And then it gives them the ability to do that,
even when they come off, because our goal is always to get people off of them is not to be on them
forever, to create that metabolic healing and reverse, you know, metabolic dysfunction. And then they can
continue to lose weight and influence their metabolism in a healthy way with effort. But in true
transparency, there are a huge percentage of people, especially women, I think, in the country, that they
can't they can't lifestyle their way out of it anymore yeah it's very hard i don't know if it's
impossible but i think that maybe their level of stress or where they're at currently makes it
yeah not possible yeah so so and here's how i like to approach this so if i have a patient come in
let's say that very safe they have hypothyroidism and hasimoto's and hashimoto's and
they're overweight they want to lose 30 pounds okay something like that what i will try and do
first is get them on a diet that's very very healing i'll try and recommend supplements will
recommend herbs, I'll recommend walking, or recommend weights, let's get outside more.
All of those things, infrared sonnet, let's do all these things together.
And then as we go, if we get a few months in and things aren't moving, I'm actually okay at that
point with a GLP1, a hormone replacement therapy.
Yeah.
But my philosophy has always been, first do no harm, and let's do everything we can to truly
change someone's lifestyle.
And then if we need to plug something in like that, then let's do it.
Again, my biggest problem with doctors is laziness and not believing patients are capable.
Yeah.
Because it's not what's best long term.
You know, like the principle of success is do what's best long term, not in the short term, do what's best long term.
And most doctors aren't doing that.
Now, again, and I think you're doing a great job.
I think what you're doing is very, it's slightly different, but very, you know, I think there's a lot of alignment in terms of the way we practice.
And not to say, I'm the perfect practitioner.
I mean, you're getting an amazing result with your patient.
It's amazing.
So I like what you're doing, but I think that personalized touch is probably maybe the single biggest thing we're missing today, along with focusing on helping people physically, mentally and spiritually.
You know, there are so many patients that I'd love to hear your thoughts on this that are struggling with their identity, with their faith, not having a purpose, having abusive relationships.
I mean, is that something that you're aware of in your practice and anything you do to try and help people with stress and some of these other issues that may be more, you know, mindset?
set related? Absolutely. Strangely, my journey to thyroid was via psychiatry. And in this whole
thyroid thing almost happened randomly. Like I ended up treating enough treatment resistant depression
patients that actually had a thyroid issue, gave them back their lives. And then they just took my
my information and spread it all over the internet on thyroid advocacy platforms. They actually
created modern thyroid clinic while I was practicing psychiatry and never had marketed myself as a
thyroid person. So totally. I mean, I so appreciate what is going on in your mind, in your heart,
in your soul grossly impacts how you feel and show up in the world, right? And so that part is not
detached. And it's so cool because I get to practice this kind of medicine where I am like
deeply, intricately involved in the lives of my patients in terms of our vulnerability. I can't,
this might be too personal. I can't tell you how many women have told me they've caught their husband having an affair and I'm the first person to know that they have never told anyone. That's happened more times than I can count on one hand. So there is so much healing involved in going deeper in those aspects, but also being able to share with your clinician openly and have those conversations so that they can help direct you and where to go to get the help you need, whether it's spiritual mindset,
that therapy even, those are vastly, vastly important and obviously neglected in the conventional
approach.
You know, I think about my first few years in practice.
And one of the things that happened continually is, you know, and you're like this too.
Most of the time, by the time people see you or I, they've already been to several other
doctors.
And then they'll come in and I'll ask them, what did your other doctor have you do?
and they'll say things like, I remember, again, this happens so often, it still happens, and they'll say,
well, my doctor's more holistic, he told me to reduce stress.
Yeah.
That's so great.
That's so great.
What did he tell you to do?
Or she tell you to do?
Well, they didn't.
They just told me I needed to reduce stress.
It's like.
So they created more stress because you don't know how to reduce it.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So, I mean, think about how crazy that is, if you would go to see a doctor, let's just say with whatever you have going on, you should eat better.
You should take something for that.
Okay, I'll see you later.
It's absolutely crazy.
And so, you know, one of the things I try and do, and I'm curious if you have,
maybe like, you know, feel free to share one thing or multiple things, but I try to be very practical.
So like one thing I have patients do with stresses, and this is a simple exercise, but I think it's effective, is I will have them get out a piece of paper or they can use it Word Doc in their computer, whatever it is.
And I'll have them write down.
What are the things truly stressing you out?
Yeah.
Let's identify those things.
On another side, I want you to write down, what are things you love to do?
What are your hobbies?
What builds up?
Reading a novel.
Why don't you have the best friend?
Hiking, playing pickleball.
What is it?
And then I say, let's go through.
And I want you to maybe even work with somebody who you trust on this.
Let's go through and figure out how to deal.
What things can you totally get out of your life here?
How can you address some of these things?
You need to get some things off your play.
Maybe give some things to God.
Let's do that.
And then I want you to go and schedule out several hours a week where you're doing these things you love.
So my point is, and there's other things too, right?
I love if somebody is dealing with trauma, there's some words by Dr. James Pennebaker, which is just writing.
You know, writing about your trauma, seeing it in a different light.
So there's a lot of benefits.
Is there anything that you like to have patients do for building peace, working on some of these, you know, issues that are more of the mind and spirit?
Yeah.
You know, I think getting in nature is huge.
I love to that you brought up the concept of adults doing things that make us joyful, right?
Like we lose the appreciation for that as we age and we exit it completely in a lot of cases.
And that connects us to our humanity, to ourselves, to our family, to our kids, when we can experience these things that truly create joy.
So doing more of those is really powerful.
And then like a tangible thing.
And this isn't like sponsored or an ad or anything.
I've never even spoken to these people.
But when people are really stressed and they can't meditate on their own.
own, even myself and I'm an experienced person of meditation. I'll use new calm. Have you heard of
this app? No, no. I've done I've done apps like um like headspace and like pray and more, uh, what is the,
what is the app? How, hallo. Yeah. So I've used pray and hallow, but I've not not used,
uh, the one you're referring to. It's like it's passive. It you put on headphones. It plays music.
And behind the music is something that takes your brain waves and kind of slows them down and
it takes them out of the stress state. So I find when people are in that stress cycle and they can't
quiet their body enough to meditate or really hone in and connect and pray, this is a way they can
kind of passively do it that I found useful myself and for my patients, actually. It's been something
I've been referring to for the last couple years. It's really neat. You'll have to check it out.
I love that. You know, I have something, and this was from years ago, there was a practitioner online
and he sold this, it was a, I don't know if it's a company anymore, but it was called Holosync.
And basically it was, they did like theta brain waves and other brain waves of, you know, nature noises.
But I would listen to this when I would pray and meditate oftentimes.
And it really, it's powerful.
So anyways, I love that.
I think that's a great idea.
Yeah.
It's great.
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When you think about nutritional deficiencies that people have when it comes to their thyroid, weight loss, Hashimoto's, what are some of the biggest nutrients, nutritional deficiencies you see in practice?
You know, honestly, I think to broad brush it, nutrient deficiencies are pervasive, right?
If people are not extremely intentional about eating a wide variety of nutrient dense foods, of all the colors of,
the rainbow, it's honestly a problem. But obviously vitamin D, right? Vitamin D is pervasive. I think I've
ever seen two people that aren't vitamin D deficient that aren't supplementing. You know, so trying to
get out in the sun, really important. Checking your vitamin D especially, I mean, even in Texas,
like I'm in Texas and everyone's vitamin D deficient. Zinc. Selenium's huge. I know you mentioned that
when we were chatting before this. Selenium's a huge issue with Hashimoto's, with hypothyroidism.
It helps convert your hormones. It helps in a lot of studies reverse.
Hashimoto's antibodies and reduce the severity of them.
Another big one, B vitamins, huge, especially when you get into the adrenal
piece of things.
So really, I think focusing on your diet, creating a plan that allows you to get a lot of
nutrients is very, very important.
And then targeting and supplementing where you're missing can be powerful.
Yeah, I totally agree.
Is there any blood work outside?
You mentioned a hormone panel.
Yeah.
Is there any other tests that you like to run with patients?
Absolutely.
We check everyone's hormones.
So estradial, sex hormone binding globulin, testosterone, progesterone, DHAs, sulfate.
And then for men, obviously, we check a slew of other things.
We do full metabolic panels, leptin, insulin, obviously hemoglobin A1C, kidney function, liver function, red blood cells, white blood cell analysis.
So we try and look deep.
We have a narrow niche, but we also want to cover the things that are.
driving women's health down. And if it was as simple as like just fixing their thyroid,
I know here's a quick prescription for thyroid medication, our jobs would be very, very easy.
It's not that simple. You know that. There's so many other pieces that have to be addressed
from a lifestyle, nutritional, stress, supplementation, hormones, all of it. And then when women
have thyroid dysfunction, they often have hormone imbalances. And those two go hand in hand in addition
to the adrenal piece. So I know you're very well aware of that. So approaching women from a
global standpoint of health and vitality is necessary and so so important in helping them on their
journey yeah um one of the things that i know that i've seen over the years too is i remember i was i was
doing an interview with actually ali best stucky and i mentioned this to her and i think she she found it
pretty surprising it was this is that there was a study that came out um a few years back and it was a 10
year study and they found that um women that have taken birth control pills long term have nearly a
300% increased risk of having hypothyroidism.
Yep.
Crazy.
Yeah.
And we wonder why it's almost ubiquitous.
Yeah.
Right?
Like these girls are getting put on birth control at 12 or 13 for heavy periods and literally
they're on it until they're ready to have children when they're 34.
Yeah.
And then they come off and they're like, I'm ready to get pregnant.
Why don't I have periods?
And a lot of them are on continuous birth control where they don't have periods.
Yeah.
For 15 or 20.
20 years, you know.
And then.
And one of the things that's doing, according to the literature, I mean, it is just sucking
the B vitamins right out of your body and selenium.
Yeah.
I mean, those are the main, and then good bacteria.
I mean, those are the main things depleted.
And of course, that's just a recipe for hypothyroidism.
Absolutely.
And poor fertility, all of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, and I, so I don't think people realize how certain drugs, you know, whether it's
an aspirin or an antibiotic or birth.
control is affecting their hormones.
It's affecting their nutrients and causing a lot of these, you know, a lot of these thyroid
issues.
It's, it's, it's, it's pretty frequently.
So one of the other things I've been pretty outspoken about is hormone replacement
therapy.
And I know I've been injecting my opinion because one of the things I want to do is I, I truly
do want to understand the nature of because you're getting great results of how you view
this.
My, my view of hormone replacement therapy has been, it's okay to do.
But don't do it first.
Like, again, the whole mentality people have today of just take a pill, just take hormone
replacement therapy, just take gLP one, just take cynthroid, is not helping them long term
truly.
It's not going to help them heal.
And there are side effects of anything you put in exogously for most of the time,
even though sometimes the benefit outweighs the side effect.
What are your thoughts on hormone replacement therapy?
How often do you utilize that in your practice?
Oh, all day, every day.
Okay.
Yeah. So I have kind of a different approach. And again, it's like, what works for my people
isn't necessarily extrapolated to society at large, right? Like, I serve this certain type of person. And by
the time they come to see me, they've had usually 10, 15, 20 years of a thyroid issue that has
impacted their adrenals, which has impacted their hormones. And they end up in a depleted
state, particularly honestly, mostly with testosterone and progesterone. They show up and they don't
have hardly any testosterone.
And their progesterone is wildly imbalanced compared to their estrogen, which for women
is so uncomfortable.
It makes us feel extremely agitated and anxious and we can't sleep.
It's awful.
So a lot of what I do is for women with low progesterone, I'll work on supplementing their
progesterone.
And I think about estrogen progesterone like a seesaw.
When the seesaw is so heavy to estrogen, it's hard to create more balance again, even
with lifestyle modifications, et cetera. If I can create balance of that seesaw and then remove the
progesterone after we've done work on their adrenals, their thyroid, a lot of those women can
maintain that balance. But creating it is difficult. Obviously with testosterone, you want to build
muscle mass, right? Like that's an important thing in your lifestyle to produce more testosterone.
That's very hard to do when you don't have testosterone. It's hard to build your endurance. It's hard
to physically build muscle mass. So supplementing them with that, while they,
increase their activity, build muscle mass, remove it so they can produce their own testosterone,
works really well in so many cases. So for me, it's so much about the edge, right? I want to give
these people the edge to improve their lifestyle to create more health and longevity without medications
or whatever that might look like for them. But supplying them with the support up front can be
helpful. So what you're doing, and the way you're using HRT is actually less common than other people
from this standpoint most of the time the predominantly not always of course but predominantly when
women are on hormone replacement therapy it's during paria in menopause right so so but a lot of
your patients are going to be in their 30s they're going to be premenopausal yeah and so how how is what
you're recommending going to be different in terms of are you saying that you're going to not do
any or lower estrogen and more progesterone with most of these women and maybe some testosterone in their in their
in their in their comp in what you're doing.
Totally. So a lot of my women, especially younger, premenopausal, perimenopausal even have too much estrogen compared to progester. So it's almost like we want to help them detox their estrogen with liver support, with targeted supplementation, with removing plastics, et cetera, to create that balance too. So that's a little different. I think what does make a modern thyroid clinic a little unique in this situation is what's become, you've probably seen this. What's become normalized in medicine is putting women on these crazy,
supernormal levels of testosterone, of estrogen.
I mean, I have had women transfer to me with a testosterone over 2,000,
1,200, 800, 600.
Just so everyone knows.
That's crazy.
A high man's levels, like a thousand.
So we are, and we're normalizing this in medicine.
People are not being held accountable.
This is becoming strangely standard of care.
And it is dangerous, can be.
permanent in terms of side effects. So in a lot of ways, I agree with you. Absolutely. But
targeted and lower doses, I think, can be really beneficial. Yeah. Yeah. Again, one of the things in,
and some of it has to do with probably training. Again, I've studied a lot of herbalism. And so what
I try and do is, I try and do it with herbs, you know, initially. And diet, you know,
yam is good for progesterone, you know, certain types of even hemp seeds are good. There's a number of things.
chickpeas. So I try and do it with food and then I'll try and do for progesterone things like
time and again other herbals do actually yam extract. And for the progesterone I try and do
black cohosh, red clover, chitavri, and try and bring it up that way for the most part.
And then for the testosterone, fenugreek, Toncata Lee, Deer Antler. I mean, there's some things,
panics ginseng that'll help there as well. So I try and do with herbs at first. And if it doesn't,
I'm okay with HRT for a period of time,
but I really don't like it long term from this standpoint.
This is a Chinese medicine philosophy.
When you take a hormone exogenously, like testosterone,
your body stops producing on its own.
We know that.
Now, I know people can mess around with HCG
and maybe change the feedback,
reverse feedback loop a little bit,
but there's still, when you turn off your own internal tap
in Chinese medicine, that creates chi-schiz stagnation in the area.
And they believe that is the cause of cancer.
And so there are some long term studies on, now, by the way, it's more estrogen for what I'm about to say.
But there are some studies on increasing the risk of certain types of cancer and women when they're doing HRT that tends to be more estrogen based in that way.
But again, overall, but here's also my opinion.
Exogenously, there's a side effect, whether people know or not, there are some studies on it.
However, if you have a man or a woman and their energy is.
absolutely in the tank. And I think about this as a male. And because of it, they're not working
out. They're not motivated and they're not doing anything. And they get on a little bit of hormone
of testosterone. And then they start working out. They start pursuing their wife. They start feeling
like a man again. The side effect that they're going to have of that stagnation probably is going
to be at least less than the side effect that they would have of having low testosterone because
now they're actually active and feel well enough to do the thing. So I do understand the benefit
of doing HRT for a period of time.
Again, my problem is, and I've done videos on this, is that just to your point, they go in
there and doctors are like, here is a whole heaping amount of hormones.
We're not even going to try and let your body do anything.
And by the way, we'll just probably keep you on this the rest of your life.
Right.
And then never even test you to see where your levels are at to adjust.
Like that's also standard.
No, I completely agree.
And what I really love and admire about you and your work is, hey, there's not this like one
road that fits everyone that everyone should do and works every time. It's like, I love that you
appreciate, hey, let's look at the full picture and determine what's best for this unique person
at this time. That's powerful. Yeah. So obviously, in personalized medicine, we look at
men and women very differently. In fact, when we look at the data on the nutrients med needs versus
the nutrients women needs, there's a difference there. And there's a difference in conditions that
men and women tend to struggle with. Generally speaking, why do you think far, far more women
struggle with hypothyroidism than men do? I think it's a couple of things. It's multifaceted,
but one is generally speaking women are at much greater risk for autoimmune disease than men, right?
And so if Hashimoto's statistically drives 80% of hypothyroidism, obviously for women, that is a much
more significant risk than it is for men. And I can vouch for that, I think 99.9% of my patients
or the patients at modern thyroid clinic in general are women, right?
The only men that are there are their wives drag them in kicking and screaming and are like,
I think you need to get this looked at.
And then the other thing is we have these hormone fluctuations that at certain times are very much tied
to increased risk of hypothyroidism, chispartum, perimenopausally, and significantly postmenopausally.
So hormone shifts directly relate to inflammation, which puts us at risk for Hashimoto's.
they also directly relate to the function of our thyroid gland.
And so I think the bulk of the reason is those.
I think there's additional ones.
But certainly the autoimmune piece is a significant risk factor.
Yeah, I would totally agree.
You know, when I think about one of the biggest, there was a survey done on what is your,
what is your biggest health problem in terms of a symptom?
Yeah.
And I think the number one thing was fatigue for people generally.
I mean, so many people are tired.
And when I see it in women fatigue, it tends to be related to thyroid.
When I see it in men, it tends to be due to low testosterone, you know, some of those issues there.
But there's obviously a lot of the same symptoms.
But, you know, sometimes different reasons due to the difference in hormones there.
I've really enjoyed this conversation.
I think as a practitioner, I always really appreciate it when somebody, one, really cares about their patients.
to when you have someone like yourself who's battled that condition yourself, you dealt with
hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, you were stuck in that mainstream medical model like a lot of people
were and broke yourself out to find answers for yourself. I found a lot of the best practitioners
overcame a battle themselves or helped a family member do so. So I think it's great and I think
there's a lot of wisdom and around the way you're practicing. I know you're getting amazing results.
And thanks so much for coming and sharing your wisdom with us today. Thank you. This conversation was
informative and delightful and just thank you for your work. I've followed your work for so,
so long and appreciate the path that you've carved out for so many clinicians and patients in this
sector of medicine. So keep doing what you're doing. Awesome. Thanks, McCall. Hey, thanks so much for
tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I hope you've enjoyed this conversation like I did with
McCall McPherson. By the way, you can find out more about her and her incredible work at McCall
McPherson PA on Instagram and Tech Talk as well. She also has a great podcast. Again, McCall McPherson
You can find her there on all the podcast channels as well.
And hey, thanks so much for tuning in.
You know, there are millions upon millions of women today struggling with hypothyroidism,
Hashimoto's unwanted weight gain, hormone imbalance.
And then you need to know the truth about how to use food-based medicine, how to do the right lab work, the truth about peptides like GLP1, and how to have a personalized plan created for them.
And there's so much power in personalized functional medicine.
And, hey, do us a favor, subscribe the show.
Do you know that's the number one thing you can do to support the show?
That's how I can bring on some of the world's premier leaders in natural health care like McCall is because you are subscribed and because you share the show.
Thank you all of you that are on mission here with me to help heal the planet and transform the health of this nation.
I'll see you on the next episode.
