The Dylan Gemelli Podcast - Episode #90 Featuring Dr. Ann Shippy!  The ULTIMATE Guide to Fertility!  Why are fertility rates declining?? How much do environmental toxins effect fertility? The impact of stress and more!

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Episode #90 Featuring Dr. Ann Shippy!  The ULTIMATE Guide to Fertility!  Dr. Ann Shippy is a fertility expert and HIGHLY respected and acclaimed functional medicine doctor.  She is the FIRST guest on the Dylan Gemelli Podcast to discuss everything we need to know about fertility.  Her new book, "The Preconception Revolution" is making major waves with the insight she presents!  Dr. Ann and Dylan discuss the importance of the preconception window, breaking down what it is and the effect it has on a newborn.  The discussion shifts to damaging effects of environmental toxins on fertility along with the role of nutrition in reproductive health.  Dr. Shippy takes a deep dive into the reasons for declining fertility rates and the impact that stress and mental health can have on fertility.  Hormonal balance and the impact on fertility is discussed which then shifts to other aspects of functional health that Dr. Shippy is also extremely well versed on.  Testosterone, blood sugar regulation, GLP-1's and the importance of muscle building as we age are all discussed!  Dylan questions Dr. Shippy in many aspects of health which allows her brilliance to shine even higher!  This is a conversation that is an absolute MUST LISTEN that you DO NOT want to miss!     Check out Dr. Shippy's homepage and ORDER HER BOOK: https://annshippymd.com/   Follow Dr. Shippy on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annshippymd/         Today's episode is sponsored by TONUM!    TONUM supplements for the MIND AND BODY!   USE CODE "DYLAN" to save 10%!!  https://www.tonum.com/DYLAN   _______________________________________________________________________________ To PURCHASE MITOPURE visit Dylan's landing page and use code DYLAN to save 20% OFF!! https://shop.timeline.com/DYLAN   Get the Apollo Neuro for $90 OFF!! USE CODE GEMELLI to save https://apolloneuro.com/gemelli     MESCREEN: The world's first and only at home mitochondrial efficiency test Save $100 with CODE   DYLAN   https://mescreen.com/cart/47561239626013:1?discount=&ref=DYLAN       HIRE DYLAN ON THE MINNECT APP HERE: expert.minnect.com/@DylanGemelli     Follow Dylan on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok @dylangemelli and PLEASE SUBSCRIBE and leave reviews!!   MAKE SURE TO GO TO DYLAN'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL for MORE video content!!    https://www.youtube.com/@DylanGemelliBiohacking Email Dylan for booking, collaborations and/or to apply for the Dylan Gemelli Podcast [e-mail] Visit Dylan's Homepage https://dylangemelli.com

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Then Neuro, a cognitive performance supplement designed to support focus, memory, and long-term brilliance. Tonum has brought back my trust in the supplement industry with natural evidence-based, ingredients that support long-term outcomes. So because of this, I want to share them with the world. Use my code Dylan for an extra 10% off and start to treat your mind and body today with Tonum. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Jameli podcast. So I'm on my Austin trip, so I get to go to all of these cool new studios and my guests set this up for us today. It's very sweet. And I love doing this and traveling and getting the opportunity. to interview so many amazing people. And my guest today is a different topic, which I'm so

excited to talk about because I know how passionate she is. She's got a new book coming out, but I'm also pretty passionate about this topic, which I haven't talked about a lot. So I'm looking forward to it just real quickly before we get going because I want to get all the information out of her that I can today. So she's a board certified internal medicine physician, and she's a pioneer in functional and environmental medicine. And she focuses on the three to 36 month preconception window, which is the most powerful determinant of a child's lifelong health. She's got this new book coming out.

It's called The Preconception Revolution. And I am excited as can be to get into all of these things. I like polarizing stuff. I like stuff to push the needle. I like to stir some feathers. and I like to get underneath the true realities of everything. I try to always stay as level-headed, and that's why people like me and follow me. So I like to bring people on that bring facts, not emotional criteria as that they go on straight facts.

And that's why we're here today. So my friends, Dr. Anne Shippey. Thanks so much for having me. We're going to have some fun. We are going to have some fun. I got to speak with you a few days ago. Of course, I was hectic. I have read some of your things.

I had been introduced to you, but I hadn't spoken to you. And after speaking to you, I became a lot more excited. I get thoroughly excited with all of my guests, or I wouldn't do this. Wouldn't make sense. But the passion that you had, and I could tell how much it affects you, and it's not that you're just doing this as a career. It's something personal to you, too. So I want to talk a little bit about your main focus here, what you do,

and why are you so passionate about this particular time? When I look at the future for our children, it's really concerning. The 1 in 31 children being diagnosed with autism, and those statistics are lagging. The increased autoimmunity, obesity, cancer, diabetes. Like, our children are so ill. So for the people that are thinking about starting or growing their families, it's a bowl of the dice. on whether they're going to get a healthy child or not, and it's getting harder and harder.

So I started seeing what's possible with my patients. My patient started teaching me even about this window. Almost 20 years ago, I had a patient come in. She was 42, and she finally got married, and wanted to start her family a little later. And she's like, I have a feeling there's some things going on with my body that won't be good for the baby, and I want you to figure out what they are.

So this, I was just starting functional medicine at the time. She was great. Like we found her microbiome was a mess. Her toxin levels. She had really high, heavy metals and a lot of inflammation in her body, some autoimmunity. And so we, instead of being like, rush, rush, right, let's go. We're out of time. We worked across us and we got her toxins down.

We got the inflammation going away. The microbiome rebuilt. And she got pregnant super easy and had to help the baby. I was like, yes. And then a year or two later, I had a patient come who was in her mid-30s. She tried multiple rounds of IVF, had gone coast to coast to look at the most IVF. They gave up on her. They're like, it's not going to work just off now.

So again, we just started looking at what was going on in her body. And we found a couple of autoimmune things going on and more on the microbiome, several things. for about six months, she got pregnant right away. And then she thought she was still going to have a little bit of issues with infertility and less than a year later, still nursing, got pregnant with twins. Whoa. And then we quite hadn't finished her lesson. She's almost 40 at this point. Got pregnant.

Third time with fourth baby. She had a death before. Being told no babies to four and four. A machine. I started paying attention to what are the things that affect utility, what are the things that help people have healthy babies and just got so passionate about it because it's just one of the most fun things that I get to do. Okay, well, we're going to, I've got a ton of different directions I want to go with you on this. Now, you were talking about functional medicine, you're talking about heavy metal testing, autoimmune, all of these things that we know. are of the utmost importance that have been overlooked for I don't know how long.

I don't have a direct number, but I know for a very, very, very long time. And I also know that there are a way more prevalent problem now than they have ever been. And it's only progressively getting worse from things they put in our foods, high stress levels, etc. So let me ask you this. Let's say somebody has a pregnancy and they're full of toxic. whether it's aluminum or mercury or the mold, the big culprits, what kind of effect is that going to have on the baby? And what kind of effect is that going to have on even allowing for a pregnancy in the first place?

Right. I do think that these heavy metals and other environmental toxins are decreasing fertility. Because I see with both men and women that when we test their level, to get them down, they get more fertile. But the really alarming thing is when people do get pregnant and those epigenetic messages from the toxins in the sperm and the egg and then also basically bathing the baby and the toxins during the fetal period increased the risk of all the things that we don't want,

the autoimmunity, the autism, the other neurodevelopmental issues, to cancers, the diabetes, like what I did with this book is I put, like I put a lot of these links together that people aren't making on what these factors are, how we can test them and what we can do about it so that we can increase fertility and have healthier babies. So a lot of these fertility clinics that people do go to, do they take this approach, do they look for this type of thing? Are they only looking for like prior drug use, alcohol use, things of that nature. They don't do any of that. Nothing. There's none of that. I'm not even looking for some of the signs of the autoimmunity usually. Like that's so far down the line. But I really like for people

to be doing this proactively. And typically look, do you have an autoimmune process that's brewing in your body so that we can reverse it? But unfortunately, most doctors don't even know that we can reverse autoimmune disorders by taking look at these factors like toxin levels. microbiome, mitochondrial. And I know a lot of these terms your audience is already familiar with. It goes into everything that we do. And so we need to keep stressing it over and over

because the more we repeat it, the more people understand the importance and the level of importance. It's so critical in this preconception period because the sperm and the egg are like time papsules for the baby. So it really is this place that we can pass on the best imperfection. on the operating instructions to the genetics that they get. So just because you're not using drugs, you're not using alcohol, and you're doing all of these things,

you could potentially be carrying so many toxins and still not even quite know that. And you could be feeding yourself certain types of foods and things consistently while you're pregnant too and not know it. Exactly. And putting yourself into that. Yeah. So I test test for toxin levels on almost all my patients. and even people that think they're doing everything right,

there's always hidden things, including myself. Like, I think I'm doing everything right, but I know that you mentioned that you don't eat out. I think that that's actually probably really wise because so much of what I'm saying currently are from the takeout containers or probably the packaged juice that people are eating. And one of the exciting things for men that are willing to cook or, you know, make sure that they're having fresh dudes is they can make a dramatic change

in the quality of their sperm in just a few weeks. Really? Like, I prefer that people go three, six, 12 months where they're really optimizing things. So there's a study that just came out a couple months ago where they took them in, and for three weeks they fed them highly processed foods. And then they did a little washout period, and then they fed them, you know, fresh, healthy foods. and it dramatically improved their sperm count in just a few weeks, which is supposed to be like 74 days to get the full process of the storm.

So the fact that they could do it in three weeks, they could make such a difference in three weeks. And it was so statistically significant. It's so inspiring, right? Because just get started, start making the changes, take the time to cook and feed yourself the healthy brush foods. And I think we could even start thinking about, firm is being an independent longevity marker.

So there's a new sperm test by a company called firm QT where they can look at the epigenetics at the firm, not just the count and concentration and seed and all those things, but look at some of the epigenetic markers. And it's so fun to see those markers improve by putting a little effort in, right? Yeah. See, that's the struggle. I have, there's multiple reasons I don't eat out. One is because when I was modeling, I worked in many restaurants at bars, and I saw what was going on back there. But two, the understanding about the processed foods and how they cook and what they use. And now there's probably 5% that go seed oil-free or they care, but generally speaking, it's not affordable.

And they just don't do that, a lot of these places. I don't think that there's enough people that have a rational understanding of just how bad they're, these things are and many people are go, that's nonsense, you know, and then the people that are producing them and making the money put out their trolls or fake studies or whatever you want to do to manipulate and trick everybody and try to be the most rational guy around and given my background of my past, most people trust me. Yeah. Going through what I've gone through. But I want to, you know, it's always good to hear from professionals because there are doctors that are just trained a certain way and I don't even blame them. But then there's one.

like you, more functional, more open-minded, more understanding. How big of a problem do you think the food is that we eat in comparison to just literally anything else in terms of our health? It's so important, especially even seeing this, like the study that I just described. Like, you can dramatically change what's happening from a reproductive process in three weeks. And then, So the way that I think about food is that it's foundational. Like all these other things in the biohacking, if you want to do peptides, you want to do hyperbaric, you want to do the sauna, those are great. But if you're trying to build them on a foundation that isn't solid, it's not going to do much, right?

It's like building it on quicksand. So you've got to ask all my patients to really focus in on their diet and we do it additional testing to know what it is that they need to eat to get the best results and to have the low inflammation in their bodies that I don't have a single patient that I don't work with them on optimizing their diet because I don't get as good a result with them if they're not willing to to eat clean and really prioritize that. I feel like it's not going to they're not going to get the results that they want if they don't do that. All of the stuff you mentioned are bonuses after you have a foundation and you're optimized. And optimization isn't just the eating either.

It's the hormones. It's the neuro side. It's the mental side. I'm going to shift over there to you because I want to talk to you about the effect that stress, anxiety, like a sleep. And I talk a lot about neuroscience now because I understand that being stuck in fight or flight mode is causing a lot of this, but do you find that now, more than ever, with all of the social media, the stress is the things that get shoved down people's throats, that stress and anxiety and even hatred is causing us to be more unhealthy and the biggest problem that you see out there for the mind? It's very clear from the research, and this is actually addressed in my book as well, that stress is such a driver for how fertile you are,

but the genetic part of this is so important to for both men and women. So how are those genes going to be dialed up or down for the baby? It's so important to be mitigating your stress, managing the stress in relationships and work, so things like neurofeedback, meditation, the biggest nerve stimulator, really making sure you've gotten on the same page with your partner, I feel like it's super important for this topic, but every piece of health that it's got to be a part of the conversation as well.

And it's so fun to have the biohacking tools and to be able to delve into this even just five or ten minutes of meditation once or twice a day. It can dramatically change your hormone regulation. It can change your microbiome. It can change your mitochondrial. function. And, yeah, just on and on and on. The data behind this is incredible. And what I've also found super fascinating is the effects of drama.

Intergenerational effects there can be passed on. So, you know, I think a lot of times we kind of put our own stress management in a burner because we feel like, you know, we need to be prioritizing other people and not ourselves, especially when we become parents. like okay everybody else and yet it really is one of the most important things that we can do for ourselves

to give ourselves the permission and the time to do the meditation and the nerve feedback to whatever modalities you were called to do around trauma so I'm 43 and it's taken me a little over 42 years to understand the control and the amount of impact that your nervous system and your

neurological side has on every key aspect of everything that we do. And I'm one of those type ones that is like, when I'm on, I am on fire, but I can go like this low from stress and anxiety too. And that's all like self done. And like you said about meditation and I do it as prayer. And the more I do it. and the more I can get there, like can shut off, because I have this distraction thing where,

because I know I have so much work to do, when I can lock in and really lock in, I hate to say untouchable, but you know what I'm saying? I'm at my best. You get in a flow. Yes, because you're at peace. That's why I was just telling you

about playing the video games last night. I was at peace, and I know that sounds childish and immature and stupid, and I don't give a shit, because it was fun and relaxing, and it got me ready today. And I wonder, when you have people come in that have problems that are having issues and it's, you're seeing it on this side, is do you see like continuously high levels of anxieties and stresses that aren't just related to the lack of ability to get pregnant, but other things? Like I just had a patient in this afternoon who as soon as mid-bitties, he's had normal cholesterol pills, extensive cholesterol.

channels except for a high LPA. He's been on statins, he's been on RAPA. I had had him get an advanced technology test called a clearly test. It uses a CT angiogram looks at

soft-cloth medium and he has some pretty extensive. So he's sitting there thinking oh my cholesterol's good. My other doctors have me on the cholesterol medicines, I'm golden. And then when we got this test suck and these medicines have not been protecting him like he thought that they were.

He's got some pretty extensive blockages at a pretty young age. And so we just had the heart to heart this afternoon about what else he needs to do. He's got some gut inflammation and gluten issues and some heavy metals and some other environmental toxins that we found. So we're, you know, full court for us because we've got quite an issue here. But the most important conversation I think we had today was around stress, you know, been very successful and is semi-retired at a young age as well. But he just stays in that high beta go, go, go, go, go, go, even when he thinks he's, you know, just running kids around to their activities.

And so we had to talk about what does. does it actually change state? Like, we probably do need to do some neurofeedback. So he actually gets the opportunity to find out what it is like to not just be running in the high beta limbic survival state, but what is it like to run for his brain to run in alpha, maybe even theta brain state? So he was open to it because he, you know, you could see what has been, what's working, what had worked. for him to get him to where he is now, where he actually can light up on the gas a little bit and start to enjoy his life more.

He needs to look at that because the stress probably is also somewhat of a dial, dialing up at inflammation. Does he have high inflammation? We had to really search for him. So I did something called a Cleveland Heart or Boston Heart, checks for LPPLA 2 and MPO, high sensitivity CRP, which are traditionally the best markers for inflammation that correlate with advancing cardiac issues. His tour normal.

So I had to do a smart vascular test, which we also got back today, predicted his inflammatory age to be about 80 instead of 55. So we had to dig a little deeper than the traditional ways to to find, you know, to actually find the risk factors that now we can do our many experiments every six to eight weeks and try the diet, try the supplements, do the detox. We're also going to do some IV-fostitolene and NAD so that we can really get ahead of this. It's just, yeah, it's strange to be on something like Repatha and a statin. I mean, I am not a statin fan by any stretch of the imagination.

but it should harden any soft plaque in the propathous. See, the LP little A is the issue because, as you know, it's genetic, not going to control it with diet. I have so many patients with a high health state that have no zero. It's weird because I see a lot of people that don't, but then there's always some. And I speak because I know everything where you're going because I went to get a calcium score. two and a half years ago. And I thought, you know, the doctor I was working was said, I just have all my people that work with me go do it.

He's like, I mean, look at you, you know. And I went in there and it was 120. And I thought, I had a damn near meltdown. And then I dug and dug and dug and my Lillet was 330. So progressively, I've gotten it down into the 90s. I did a CT angio and it showed like a 35%, which thankfully that's early enough of a cat. But I was on repath of the SEPA and dropped the stat and didn't take it.

And then I started to hack my way into other avenues that I know can reverse a thorough sclerosis because you can reverse it. You can reverse it. Especially when you're willing to do the work. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. There's plenty of things out there that can do it. And well, then I had some episodes and I was having strange heart palpitations, went in and they did, you know, the catheter. and he looked at me and he says there's no blockage here at all and I thought okay well then what the hell's wrong with me

ejection fractions now well so yeah 44 when I had that done in June I got on Jardians and in three months I'm up to 50 I'm with Dribos ubiquitous and Jardians but that's the problem is just you know this and that's the thing I think sometimes when you lower the cholesterol you actually make the cell membranes more fragile and you, you know, toxic load or get the stress or whatever, and then it makes the actual muscle more weak. And then I think, you tell me what you think, I think that a lot of this low-fat diet that I did for so long and that I see people do contribute it to the heart problems, probably the plaque, and then probably the other way, you know what? And I've had an eating disorder most of my life, but when I switched and I doubled

my calories and went from 20 grams of fat today to now 130. My HDL went up 40 points. Yeah. From the low 40s to 80. And so for people listening, that HDL going up is huge. Yeah. It's like having more garbage trucks to go gather up the oxidized LDL. That's huge.

My LDL went up and APOLB went up a little bit, but the other things... And it's that, I mean, it's more challenging to try to get the HDL to go up than it is to get LDL to get down. Right. It's really good work. Yes, thank you. And now, I don't like to over-medicate. They gave, I have very low blood pressure as it is, and they put me on intrasto with the Giardians, and I lasted a month or two and was right back in the hospital, you know,

stop taking it. And the problem with Jardians is it sucks the electrolytes out of you. And so I keep getting low potassium, and you got to be careful there, too. You can't win. I'd be surprised if you could just get the heart muscle stronger and then get off that. Yeah. Well, and see, you have to look at all of these things. And that poses the question with cholesterol testing.

My biggest issue is they look at LDL, HDL, and triglycerides, and don't look at what you're talking about. Particle sizes, APO B, LP people who lay. Why? Why don't they look at these? They're just not trained on it. So I actually get kind of mad when people just order a regular cholesterol because it doesn't correlate with who actually gets heart disease very well at all.

We really have to look at the particle sizes like the LPA, the LDL sizes and the HGL sizes, along with these detailed markers for inflammation, to know who's at risk. I think a lot of people are actually having a lot of harm done by lowering their cholesterol when they use. don't have the cholesterol then to make healthy brain and healthy heart and hormones.

Yeah. Yeah. You know my cholesterol got down to 38, my LDL, 38. And I said, okay, I'm done. I am not doing this because I know better, you know. And I went to the Mayo Clinic and they told me to use Rapapa would have been bad practice. I needed to stay on a statin.

And I said, statins increase your LP. little A. And they got angry with me when I said that. my mom and my wife until they came to and understood. But that's Mayo Clinic. So what does that tell you? I mean, that's why we need people like you more so than ever right now. My goal is to spotlight people like you to get them functional, get functional medicine to understand that we're missing. What do you think when you go? Because we know you get a CMP and a CBC. I mean, what percentage of a blood panel do you think we're missing? 80% that we need when you go to a regular doctor?

Oh, you're missing most of what you need. Most of the traditional blood tests that are done through, like, the lab core west are, you're only going to find things mostly when it's too late. So if we really want to know what is, how the body's functioning. We need to do specialty tests through specialty labs. We need to look at toxin levels. We need to look at the microbiome, we need to look at how the mitochondria are functioning, more details for inflammation. I'd love to do genetic testing so we can delve into like where you might have some little pathway glitches.

Or if you don't detoxify, great, maybe your immune system is upregulated. So when we know what some of those specific genes are, then we can optimize things by knowing how to have some workarounds. So, yes, I mean, I use traditional labs because sometimes we need to do that. To really propel your help forward, which you need so much more than that. Yeah, it's troublesome. It's so funny because for years of thought about Medicare as seeing subpar to other insurances. But it turns out that Medicare actually covers some of these specialty tests.

Really? Yes, they will cover some of the microbiome tests. They will cover some of the deeper nutritional testing to look at amino acids, essential fatty acids, trace minerals, a little bit about how the mitochondria are working. I think covers it at least a year or so. I don't know if traditional insurance will ever catch up with an expect. But, you know, it's expensive not to have this. I agree. I agree.

I agree. into him. It's like you've gotten sick. I agree. But therein lies the problem. It's more expensive to eat healthier. It's more expensive to get the testing you need. It's more expensive to go to the functional doctor than the regular doctor. It's more expensive to do everything that you need. It's almost, and call me crazy, but it's almost as if you're not wanted to get the things that you need. At least it would seem that way if it makes it harder for people. And that's why when you write a book like this or you do what you're doing, it's more accessible. and people can then say, okay, this is what I'm missing. It needs to come from pros like you that are trustworthy, though, and that's another problem. And there's people that take advantage of people that put bad taste in people's mouth. And so I don't know what needs to be done, but I do know this. This message has to get out to more people. They need a better understanding and to understand that It's how necessary it is.

For you, every single person that comes into you, do you put them through all of these tests? They have to do that to get optimized and to get ready. Yeah, I really do. In my office, I can customize for each patient depending on what their budget is and what's going on with them. Do they having early dementia? Are they having fertility issues? Are they just being proactive and wanting to have health and longevity? Or, yeah, they're dealing with somato?

immune or So you take all kinds of patients or just Oh yeah yeah no I got so fascinated about

this preconception period just from my From your work From the face coming in Like you know

I sometimes don't see kids So like a story that just talked in my head was Mom and a dad

who brought in their two young children They had just hunt through a big mold issue and your little girl had autism

and the little boy was having a pandas where he was having a lot of ticks and behavioral things. And so we, you know, we started working with a kid, got the autism turned around, got the pandas settled down. And then the parents started coming in

to work on their health. And then suddenly they're pregnant with their third baby, not even planning because they had had to do infertility treatments for the first two. Wow. So it's been just the experience of taking care of my patients that I've, wait, there's, there is a message that's missing. The narrative is that women are old over 30. They need to save their eggs. Men don't know that their health really makes

a difference for the health of pregnancy and health of the baby. And so I just, I'm just trying to fill in the gap about what people need to know. And especially, you know, there's some books coming out this year that are, it's almost like they're just making IVF normalized. Yeah, we were talking about that. What, what is happening? Well, there really is a drop in fertility. Yeah. One in five or six couples can't get pregnant in a year, either with their first or future, you know, additional kids. And there is, you know, a decline in sperm over 50% in the last it's two years, but it's accelerating

instead of being of 1% a year, it's 2.6% a year drop in firm count globally. And it's just a drop in the big drop in the number of children being born. So we have a real thing going on.

But this whole idea that women's ovaries age to the extent that they're talking about, I don't think that that is true based on what I see. So there's a new study that just came out a few months ago that showed that the mitochondrial DNA of the eggs pretty well preserved.

So I think the eggs are just picking up the environment. The body is in so the toxins, the mycinaic biome, the hormone disruptions that we're seeing, and that when we address those things, women can help babies well into their bodies. My oldest patient is 47 right now, and she had a situation where, she already had a couple of kids and was, I met the love of her life and they wanted to have a child together. And she had heard about me. So she came in and we found some things that weren't optimal. So I'm like, wait.

Use condoms. And so she did, they did the work for about three months. And then had one night where they didn't use the condom at 47 and got for one try. Wow. So it just shows me that the eggs are really, when they're in a really healthy environment, it doesn't matter how old the rest of the body is, that you can have a very fertile and have a healthy baby, volunteer. Because, you know, it's always said that if the woman gets older,

there's way more risk, way more risk. How big of a risk is it as you get older in terms of the woman's health and then the health of the baby? Definitely as we age, we have more chance to have damage to our DNA. But we can mitigate a lot of that. For the men and women, we know that, you know, now there's the conversation about the male sperm increasing risk as well as we age. I really see, especially during doing the sperm test, that we can mitigate a lot of that by supporting mitochondria, making sure we're putting the good nutrients in by getting the toxins out and down. can see things to improve dramatically in very short periods of time.

So one of the things that I always have trouble with that bothers me is this like gradual, and I guess I would even call it gradual, this consistent decline in average testosterone levels among men as time goes on. And then you see these the Lab Corp and the Quest and everybody else that changes their range that's supposedly healthy. I talk about this a lot. I have more of a hormones background, but that obviously has to be contributing factor too to the fertility process, right? I mean, lower more stressed and strained testosterone levels certainly would be problematic.

Absolutely. So then we work on the things that help the body to make more testosterone naturally, lowering inflammation, being the healthier food. Like the study that I was mentioning on the sperm quality, part of just cutting out the processed food, testosterone went up. Crazy. So I think, you know, there's a lot of nutrients that are needed to make testosterone. Yeah.

And so, yeah, let's get inflammation down, let's get stress down. Eat the good fat so that you have a nice high cholesterol to start with. And a lot of times we can see testosterone come up natural. Yeah. Oh, it's totally doable. I've seen it year after year after year. and there's good herbs, there's good foods, rest, you know, less stress, all of these things, they all play a big role.

Sometimes, like, we really, we are kind of having an epidemic of young testosterone. Yeah. We have to look at that and look at what's causing it and help them to, I mean, it's just, it's a longevity issue, not just a fertility issue. Men don't feel like themselves. They don't feel good with low testosterone. to just replace it doesn't make sense. Like, we have to get to the root of why the body is ever forming at the level that it should.

Yes, because everybody, as soon as you say low testosterone immediately wants TRD. And I'm a proponent of it when needed. Right. When needed. But I really recommend not doing testosterone until after you've had your family. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big problem.

Brode things off. Oh, this is, this was one of the million reasons why I had to get more out of that bodybuilding space and everything because of the arguments of, oh, we, it only takes one and da-da-da-da-da. The impairment that you can have on fertility by taking synthetic testosterone is astounding. And then, well, you can just take clomb and you could just H-H-CG. It's just not true. I mean, I have had people that have been on testosterone and we've got. them back. Yeah, yeah. And kind of look back at, well, did you really need that in the first place?

Could we have done this before then? So I don't want to leave people with no hope that you have to testosterone and don't want to have a child. But it's so much easier to do this problem than to be like disregulating the system because when you take testosterone, all the pathways that help to give you the signals to make testosterone get quieted. But see, that's the problem is a lot of guys, they see one side of it, and they see a side that actually doesn't even exist because they think it does all of these things. When in actuality, it's just fixing what you're lacking. It's not turning you into what they think, but then they don't have any sort of concept or understanding of shutting down natural testosterone production and then what that does long term. Because once you shut that down and you think it's just going to pop right back because a lot of guys like to tell you that is not how it works.

So when that happens and you stop your LH and your FSAH from production, how do we fix that? And how big of a problem is that in terms of fertility? Coming from a doctor, please explain. Yeah. So just any, like, if you think about any system, the car is a good place to start, right? Like, if you just let a whole part of that car not, maybe you don't use the air congestion system for five years. and then you all of a sudden start trying to use the air finishing system. Quite the same, right?

Right. You've been using it a little bit all the, you know, every year. It can be very challenging to get that attunement because bodies constantly adjusting with so many different mechanisms. And even sensing, is this a good time to create life? It's especially true for women. Like, you're over-exercising, if you're extra stress, if you're not eating, enough food. If you're missing some vital nutrients, the body will often sense. Don't get pregnant.

What I worry about is the people that have their systems are actually strong enough that it overrides that sensing when it's not a good idea and still pregnant and then have complications. So that's why it's so great to be able to do more of this advanced lab testing to really see where people are to really make sure that it is, things are tuned up. I'm glad you brought that up. I didn't even think about the overtraining side of things and how big of a detriment that can be. I was the king of that for many years and I've seen so many people that do that without the understanding of what that actually does. It's easier to detect this in women because they often will stop having their periods or their period world will change. Right. It's harder to detect it in men, but I think it

really hold true in men too. Yeah. Because there's something called the cortisol steel. So the body will kind of slurp up the testosterone, estrogen, estrogen, progesterone, side of things and send it over into

the cortisol pathway. But then, again, back to the epigenetics, the time castle that I can serve, the way that the baby's genes will get stressed also flood that state. So it's really important for men to be

exercising, get good abgenetics for their babies. Yeah. You know, good blood sugar regulation. I love for people to wear continuous glucose monitors and that they have a good state there because that gets passed on. Blood sugar is dysregulated. Those epigenetic changes are going to be infected with the baby. There's so much data now around the things that increase the risk with a baby being obese or baby having diabetes. including the environmental toxins and the, you know, in fast, too.

So getting the bad thoughts, getting the chemicals and can make such a big difference. So their long-term health and longevity and maybe even future generations. Sometimes these things get passed on for more than one generation. This is just so important to take this time to probably get your own body tuned up so they can help baby to... Data, Longevity. Data, data, data, data.

I am a big data guy, and I'm glad you brought up the CGM because, just because you tell me that you wear a CGM and your blood sugar or your glucose doesn't spike when you, I don't know, have a bowl of oatmeal, doesn't mean it's not going to spike for me. And also, it'll give people an understanding of how their body reacts and responds to types of foods. And then you can play with that and say, okay, well, when I eat this carb by itself, if I'm having this problem, but maybe if I prioritize protein fat and then this carbon, then check and see if that controls it like it should or not. And then you can go, well, if that's not controlling it, well, shit, I just can't do it, right? But you never know. You can't just guess.

Just so individual. Yeah. It's actually kind of one of the fun things about the ECGF. I learn things all the time from my patients on what can work for different people. Like somebody, it'll be like, oh my God, I could never eat rice. Like it just spikes even if I have plenty of protein or fat or go for a walk afterwards. And then other people might be like a potato or just no-go. It's so individual. You just brought up one of my favorite things too. So speak on that if you would please.

But going for a walk after a meal, why that is so important. Please explain. What is one of my biggest takeaways for me wearing the CGM is if I would just to move my body for even 10 or 15 minutes after eating. My cold sugar was so soft. Almost regardless of what I ate. That's wild, huh? A couple of crazy things that I kind of pushed the envelope one year.

I did it over Thanksgiving and I just wanted to see. I had gluten-free dairy, three pumpkin pie for bright. It's way. We're just gathering data. I think it was a combination of probably the coconut milk and the fiber in it. Yeah, of course. But that's great to learn and see. You know what?

I bought me and my wife like bicycles, bikes because I walk every day on this path. And I told her, I said, damn it, this looks so cool, it's something for us to do. And so that's what I do after I eat now. So I do it at night after my biggest meal. And I go on like a 25 minute bike ride. And it's so nice because sometimes when you walk or something after you have a heavier meal, it does kind of disrupt your stomach. But this, I'm moving.

And it doesn't do that. And so that's a nice way of moving to actress. So I was, I offer that to people as something else to do. It's a great idea. Yeah, it works. It's nice. And the other thing I did was I had a chai latte. Oh, yeah?

Almond milk chylotte. It's like my blood sugar is so high. I haven't had one since. No. It's been a couple years since I did. Wow. I was like, this is not worth it. Why would I ever have this again?

No, there's way better options. I love the CGM. M-AMs are great. Which one do you use? I used the stello, I think, is the one that, yeah, Stella is the one I used. The one that I usually used, my patients is a freestyle league, right? But I think they're all similar.

Yeah. It is some of the most phenomenal data to collect of pinpoint accuracy. And it's such an important piece of all the risk factors, right? So when we have better, let's check control, we're less likely to have. the heart disease, we're less likely to have cancer, the autoimmunity, like just having a really stable blood sugar can be massive prevention. Even certain parts of dementia can be increased at risk when they increase blood sugars spike. I'm curious on your end, and I always ask this to everybody that I know that is a specialist or a pro that deals with anything nutrition. And this is more just

for fun discussion on beliefs and belief systems. And I know and realized most people that I know what I'm talking to somebody extremely intelligent because they'll always answer, well, it's subjective to the person. And that's what I know. And it's a test. So I gave the answer away. But I am curious on your end because I get into these discussions and people get so angry if you're low carb or high carb or, you know what I mean? It's very polarizing.

They get so like hurt. I'm like, are you married to the diet? Let's just talk facts here. How do you feel on micron or macronutrient balancing between carbs, fats, and proteins? Are you like an even split? Are you more low carb or you think carbs are more important? Where do you fall? Do you think it depends on the person and having one of fans?

And even on the situation the particular person has their life. Like I think there are times when doing a carnivore diet for a few weeks can be a really great microbiome reset. It's a mix, right? Yeah. There's no doubt that phytonutrients are very preventive for very many things. Like just having green leafy things decreases risk for dementia and cancer and many other things. The cruciferous vegetables for most people are, you know, really enhanced detox and therefore do a whole bunch of good things. So, you know, some of it does just boiled down to preference too. We all have to feed ourselves and prepare food, but I don't think you can go wrong with

super high quality protein and the best plants that you can find wherever you live, organic, seasonal, raised really well so that you get those nutrients in that are going to really run your biochemistry physiology. And then it's very clear we've done America a disservice. is I doing low-fat diet. Oh, shit. You have to get good fat into your diet to have a healthy brain, to have healthy. It's just a non-negotiable.

Of all the mistakes I've made, which are a mound of, there's just amounts of mistakes that I've made. I think that that living on that low-fat diet for so long, it's probably the biggest nutritional mistake I've ever made that I could ever made is just, I would do this thing that I can't stand that other people do. did it and I can't stand myself for doing it. I'm the exception. I can't eat that without even trying, just convinced in my head that it was going to have a negative effect on me. When I did that switch and I increased the fast to the level I have, my whole world opened up. I'm kind of of the mindset at this point because I did, I don't do low carb, especially with the training I do, but I keep

the carbs probably the lower end of my three. And I've raised them now a little bit and I'm finding that I feel more stable. Electrolite loss, you know, and not getting enough of the carbs is detrimental if you train hard. I like to think about having a dual engine, like kind of a hybrid model. Yeah.

So, good to be able to burns of carbs. Yeah. And it's good to be able to burn some fat. Metabolic flexibility. Yeah. So I think we have to mix it up a little. And I think, like you said, there's a lot of determining factors,

how often and how often and how, How hard do you work out? What kind of conditions are you dealing with? How old are you? Because you know this. As we get older, some things don't agree with this as we age like they used to. And combinations and correlations, what order do we eat in? What kind of things do we have in our plate?

I don't think people understand how important it is to prioritize certain nutrients on your plate in order for like the spikes and things like that too. And I like to have meals that are pretty consistent with all three involved, if I can. Yes. You know. And do you start with protein? Always. Yeah. Always.

Unless it's a heavy or fat. And, you know, but the proteins and the fats too, right? So, oh yeah. No, no, I always do. Unless I, I do mix vegetables in with, with meats a lot that I like to do. But, yeah, 100%. Yeah. And then I, um, so I, I,

I've had a couple of run-ins with my body, too, some healing journeys. And there were times where doing a vegetarian, macrobiotic, gluten-free diet actually was very healing for me. And then I love to go do Pontcharmat. Did the Indian Ayurvedic once a year? And so that's like nine to 12 days at doing a vegetarian diet. But I have to, like, kind of cheat and do extra protein. I see I stick it into the center.

But otherwise I just dropped too much weight to feed the purpose of the whole thing. So it's kind of an interesting process to just play with it and see what feels good, what works. And just like you said, as for aging, things changed. Like I found as I'm aging, I need so much more protein and I ever did before. And I really think that the study that shows that you need to get 30, at least 30 grams of protein to stimulate muscle synthesis, I think there's something to that. 30, at least 30 grams of protein than an hour of getting up and it's a game changer. Yeah.

I'm, you know, like in the bodybuilding area, they're always wanting super ridiculously high amounts that I don't find necessarily. But I've always been a one-to-one ratio, one gram per pound of body weight, I think is pretty damn solid. I mean, you could go a little bit under that, but the importance of preventing sarcopenia as you age, which is a prevalent problem. And here, let me ask you then, as a functional doctor, because some people struggle with this. I don't think people realize how difficult it is to add one to two pounds of lean muscle a year. It is not easy. Well, shall we go to the GLP ones? Please.

We can do that for sure. So I think we've probably got a whole new epidemic going on because people are not doing the GOP1 as well. And they're easily losing pounds and pounds of muscle, not realizing it. So to do the GLP 1 safely, I really think that people need to start with the Texas scan, full-body Dux scan, know how much muscle they have. And then follow it every three months. and then they have to be very proactive about getting at least a gram or pound body weight of protein every day, and then to take the supplement that really help with building muscles with the carnitine, creatine,

all other mitochondrial support. There's a peptide that I like by how longevity called longevity, and then another supplement called myos, which has boritopin in it, and then extra amino acids sometimes are required. to keep the Texas skin solid. If patients are not willing to do that work, I am not willing to prescribe the gulpulence for them because they're going to be worse off metabolically

than they were when they started. And they might feel slimmer. But the sarcopenia, the muscle loss, is going to lead them so set out for disaster in our lives. I think everybody over the age of 10 to 12 should be taking creatina. And I think anybody that's on GLP1, it should, you know,

when you get peptides and it comes with bacterial static water to reconstitute the peptide, I think it should just be a mandatory thing that goes along with your GLP1 as you take five grams of creatine a day. I think that that should be mandatory. And for some people need to do even more reconsider. Oh yeah. Yeah. Even more to boost some of this long lean. People that's kind of, it's been, it's not been easy for me to build muscle my whole life. What I've learned by helping patients to not lose the muscle has told me to actually build more muscle than I've ever been able to fill it before because I'm like, I'm not doing this if we're going to actually make you worse on the long run.

So I've been doing these things myself. Great. The creatine and taking the longevity peptides and the portidrop. Have you tried the borderline? I have it personally, but I am very, very aware of it. Those three things together have been a game changer. Really? As far as how much I need to work out and still actually build muscle.

Okay. So fun. And that's not an easy thing ever. Me and Sean, well, today, we discussed the best protocol that was the safest for gaining size and strength, natural supplement was. So obviously, creatine, betane, HMB, these were three absolute, essential that we have to take that we're all safe and effective to use and those were like the top three that we came up with that were like a perfect stack you know natural stack and and dilucine was the big one interesting dilucine was actually he I mean he was talking about just creatine really

for muscle building like the creatine I think is like I said because I firmly believe like I have my 73 year old mom in there who was like scared of her shadow and she still takes it too. I think everybody should be taking it. I wish that it was more prevalently known what it did for so many years when it first came out because you know this. Everybody thought it was just for strength and muscle and water retention. Yeah. All true in a sense, but nowhere near what we're seeing, right? So I think, and you tell me, do you think part of the problem with the GLP ones too is the lack of of education on the importance of the diet that needs to go along with? Yeah.

It just needs to be part of the vertical. Yeah. Right. I think it's gotten, it just has gotten on track, you know, starting out as a diabetes medicine and not really thinking through what the long-term repercussions are with the muscles. And that's just it. And that's what sucks about things is then somebody gets a hold of it, sees what it does, tells one person, tells another,

and especially with something like weight loss, it explodes. And people have a more is always better concept with everything. And I've found, and I'm curious on your opinion on this, the microdosing with the GOP ones can have some good neurological benefits long term and would certainly have a less likelihood of stress on muscle loss, but people want to go for the gold, and they want to dose way too much. what do you feel about the microdosing side?

Are you more comfortable with that? Yes, for sure. So it's really interesting because what I'm actually really new for is my taking care of patients who have been exposed to toxic mold and a lot of environmental medicine. So with toxicity and with toxic mold, a lot of people get something called mass cell activation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's really been fascinating with the gLP ones, especially. Trisotide is that microdosing terseptide

helps to stabilize muscles. Really? Yes. So it's been a very interesting process to use it in like quarter doses. I didn't know. Doses as part of the Massel protocol.

Again, you know, mold toxicity cell activation are very complex illnesses. It's very challenging to to say, okay, here's the protocol and go figure it out. A lot of times it does take a lot of fine tuning and iterating. If for people that can tolerate the GLB1 with the mass cell,

it can really speed up the trajectory of their healing. Wow. That's, I see, this is why I love this because I always learn new shit and I love it. Let's touch on your book because I don't know where the time went, but I didn't. We see we went a lot of places you didn't expect. But I am spotlighting everything that you do, not just one thing. I know that you wrote the book. I know that we're talking about that.

But see, this is great because you've touched on so many things. We get to so the multifaceted knowledge base that you have. And that's why I love doing this. And I don't do scripts because we would have never done this had I ever gone up any script. That's why don't we use scripts. That's great. Because you're just so curious and interested in. I am. So many different area that you've explored. So it's fun to chat with you. It's fun to bring out so many different avenues of a person that you maybe don't ever get to talk about or you're not known for. Or that only people

behind closed doors sees that are your patients. You know what I mean? Somebody's known as a specialist in this or that and then you never get to see or learn. and what all they do. You know what I mean? And so that's awesome. Let's talk about your book that's coming out here. Yep. Preconceptive.

Yeah. When is it coming out? Well, it's out. It's out. It's out. So people can buy it right now. Right now. Easiest to buy on Amazon that any place that books are sold.

And it's really like it ended up being a big book. A big book because I really wanted to address a lot of these things. I wanted people to. understand the impacts of toxins and blood sugar and mold and all these things that I've learned over the last 20 years helping my patients so that they can really be prepared to have a healthy baby and not have to go down these infertility paths and take your healthy families without all the fear. When I talk to you, what hit me probably one of the hardest things was your concern about the lack of preparation and understanding for people that were becoming new parents.

I have the biggest soft spot in the world for kids. I don't necessarily have my own, but I have stepkids, I have grandkids, and I have always been the guy that comes in and plays with the kids and is the one that they go to and they flock to. And I have this utter care where so many things affect me. Like I recently did an interview with Aaron Siri, who did the vaccine book, And, you know, I was like, man, I don't know if I should do this. I want to, but it's pushing it. And I was on the airplane. And I was reading it because he sent it to me because he wanted to do the interview.

And as soon as I got to the thing about the kids, I set the book down. As soon as I got off the plane, I called my wife and I said, I don't give a shit. I am doing this because it was relation to the kids. And that's what drew me to you the most on our conversation was your care for the way that parents were going to bring them into the world. and I feel like that's a lot of the reason why you wrote the book. Really hard to see it, you know, it's hard to see people going through infertility, but it's harder to see people that have such a child.

Yeah, it's worse. It's devastating when parents bring in their child with autism or autoimmune issues, mental health, all the things that we're seeing, and me knowing that it might have been preventable. Well, I think that what you're doing, and it's amazing because that's your goal and that's what you're trying to do. So we've got to make sure people read this book, take everything that you're saying for what it is and how valuable and

important it is. These things that we talk about, we're not just saying them because we're fear mongering or because we're crazy. It's because it's a damn fact. You know, I've been practicing functional medicine for 20 years and our, we really do have a children's health epidemic. Like, it's it's very daunting what's happening with our kids. And I feel so lucky that the research to back up what I believe is, it's here, it's in the book. We can make such a huge difference to the health of our job by really focusing that three, six, twelve months on for both partners. It's just one of the exquisite things about humility. It could really make huge changes really fast.

We've got to try because it's affecting our kids, their kids, their kids as kids, and it's going to keep going down the line. And this is an epidemic along with several other things, as you know, and it's all kind of correlating into where it's coming from and why. So it needs to have a continuously growing group to address this and talk about it and do something about it. And the only thing we can do is be a voice. and we need more and more and more. And that's the goal.

Thank you for caring so much. I think that's really what's going to move the needle is to people that really do care. We care about each other. We care about the kids, care about the communities, and future generation having good life. That's it.

Salplessness is undefeated because you're always helping. You know what I mean? And when you do that, I am only an expert by the people I hang out with like you that I talk to that I learn from. I'm good at letting everybody see you and bringing out the best in you, I hope, in terms of what you do. So that is always my goal. And I love talking with people like you and showcasing probably what you don't get to showcase, which is I think we did today. Thank you so much. I hope this really inspires anybody that is starting or growing their family to,

press the pause button and we learn what it is that they can be doing to help their babies be healthier. So where can people come follow you or even sign up with you, get with you, like you're taking patience and then where do they buy the book from? Yeah. So my website's an shipbmd.com. We're on Instagram, lots of good information there. And then we have a new site that we've just developed for this particular topic called Every Baby Well. That's the goal is that every baby gets a better. For start, their parents

are doing on board ahead of time. And then the book is on Amazon and every place that's all preconception revolution because it really is time to help people to tap into this period that really will get them the best shot with being fertile and having it.

Amazing. I will link everything in the description. So everybody listening, no excuse. Click on the links they put in there, but thank you for having me here. Thank you for getting this all set up for us and for everything that you do. I immediately knew by talking to you and in a million times more now.

I'm pretty good with the judgment after all these years on people. And I feel like I hit a home run with you and I really appreciate the time and all of your efforts. And it will not go on Don, I assure you. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. All right, everybody. That wraps up another one. I know, I always say I hope you get a lot from this.

I know you're going to get a lot from this. So stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Chimeli and Dr. Anne Shippey, signing off. That was fun.