The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Secondary Supplements with Dr. Paul Hrkal, ND - Spring/Summer 2024

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

In this segment, Gina chats with Dr. Paul Hrkal, ND, about the secondary supplements that can help support your weight loss journey and level up your health.If you are in the Spring/Summer 2024 Support Group, you can check out the full video here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024Topics covered:In case you missed it, review yesterday's conversation as a great lead into today's with Dr. Paul - found here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024/permalink/427685343524515Secondary supplements' role in supporting the body and helping to improve on any obstacles you may be facing.Building foundations in diet, using the primary & secondary supplements, and personalizing to meet your needs.Turmeric: Can be helpful when managing inflammation and joint pain.MCT Oil: A fat-soluble energy source.Trace Minerals: A great way to support your hydration goals.COQ10: A key antioxidant important at the cellular level.Adaptogens: A class of herbs that can be helpful when managing stress in the body.Cortisol patterns change over the course of a typical day.Bacopa: A helpful brain adaptogen used for brain fog, cognitive and memory improvement.When it comes to stress, the mindset you take matters!Berberine: Making a comeback with some benefits for glucose management and gut dysbiosis.Omega-3's: The benefits outweigh the criticisms.Insulin Resistance: what it is and isn't.Doses: read the label, work with your healthcare provider. Less is more and single-ingredient products are best.It is best to work with your pharmacist, health care provider, or a naturopathic doctor to determine which supplements are best for you.The Livy Method App and Program Guide include more details about secondary supplements, how much and when to take them. You can also find this information in the Facebook Support Group.www.paulhrkalnd.com@drpaulhrklTo learn more about the Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple,

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You're going to have this ability to now reframe. Allow yourself time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. The thoughts and the feelings and the behavior cycle can start changing. Dr. Paul is back with us after a phenomenal conversation yesterday where we talked about four main reasons why your weight might be slower to move. We talked about inflammation, digestive issues, gut dysbiosis, and hormonal health. Today we're talking secondary supplements. So a few weeks ago, we talked with Dr. Alinka about basic supplements, omega-3, vitamin D, magnesium, probiotics, prebiotics, digestive bitters, and whatnot. Secondary supplements are now that you put this kind of time and energy into actually helping your body get healthier. Can these

supplements help you take things to the next level? That is the question. And that is what we're talking about today with Dr. Paul Herkel. Hello, welcome back. Hello. Thank you for having me again. I love the back to back because now we can just kind of build on what we talked about today.

So I'd love that. We're going to kind of piggyback on that. Yeah. So where should we start with that? Should we start with what we discussed yesterday or should we have a basic sort of... I think that hopefully everyone listening has gone back to listen to that. And if you haven't, please do. And I think that's a good springboard into probably the question people are asking is, okay, so what do we do about this? And one of the things that come up is supplementation.

So to review, one of the big takeaways from yesterday was to address hormones, to address inflammation, to address gut health. The current Levy protocol is already doing that. So that's the first step. Okay. So to, to make sure that you're doing that to the best of your ability, go through those 20 questions, make sure that you've tried to level up. That's number one. Number two, implementing the initial primary supplements. I really think that, you know, the primary supplements that have been set out really address the foundations needed to address those four underlying obstacles. Like, for example, I mentioned yesterday that majority of the research on probiotics is that when it comes to the gut-brain axis, meaning the influence of stress on the gut,

is that probiotics prevent that negative influence. It prevents the inflammation starting to happen at the level of the gut, the permeability, which is kind of like one of the first steps for creating that inflammation. So I think if those things are in place, that is going to be the good first step. Now, what we're going to be talking about today is secondary supplements. Where I think now where omega-3s and probiotics and magnesium help lower inflammation, Gina, the secondary supplements now are going to be specific to inflammation types that we touched on yesterday. For example, turmeric. Turmeric is one of the most well-studied herbal extracts in the world. It is turmeric's a herb. Curcumin is the active component of it.

And it has been well-studied to lower inflammation, especially joint-related inflammation. Especially inflammation that's related to some of the pathways that are active in the joint degenerative process and the joint inflammatory process. It also helps lower inflammation at the level of the cells. And that is super important because that's important for any sort of chronic health issues. Like for example, Alzheimer's is one of the things that researchers are really trying to get turmeric. So that's the, I think that's the connection we're trying to make today. And that's just one, I think example that comes top of mind. Yeah, exactly what you said. We're trying to make that connection. If there's one thing that I've learned is that it's all, there isn't like one answer to, well,

I have hormonal issues. Am I going to be able to lose weight? What do I need to do? Right. Or I have thyroid issues. I can't lose weight. What do I need to do? Or I'm a diabetic and I have metabolism issues. What do I need to do? And this is where the living method systematically from the most basic, you know, food plan is giving your body what it needs nutrient wise. How your body breaks down that food and what it chooses to do with it is a whole other thing. And then supplements are there to supplement. When especially when our members have done diets for years where they just starved and deprived themselves. So we're assuming most people are coming in with some sort of health issues because it is a weight loss program and carrying excess weight is hard on

the body. And we could say because of people storing excess fat, there is a certain amount of inflammation because we know that people are stressed, their microbiome could be off. Because most people are deficient in magnesium or because we live in a climate where it's wintertime, people might need vitamin D. So that's where the basic supplements really come in. They're like the foundation of the most minimal that your body needs in order to function on a more optimal level, would you say? Yeah, I totally agree. And that's the way I kind of try to frame it is that the initial supplements is like, they're building blocks, they're extremely safe, they're well studied. And so I think that's a great place to start. Now, if you haven't mastered those initial supplements,

I would say maybe that's the good first step to go for. And then we can we can start looking at secondary supplements. So I, you know, I think one of the things is that we can go through each of the secondary supplements. And then as we talk about each one, Gina, I'll connect them back to those four main underlying issues on how that can possibly work. How's that sound? Okay. I love that. I see people in the comments asking about the, the, the primary, the basic set of supplements. So we have a whole post on that if you want to go back into the app, also into the Facebook support group or in the book, there's called basic supplements. There's all the information

that you need about them. We also did a conversation with Dr. Olinka and we've done many previously with Dr. Paul that are available over on our podcast, which you can check out. And before we get into these, this is sort of where I hear people saying, well, I'm doing all the things and my weight isn't moving. And then I have conversations with them and they're stressed and they've got these health issues going on. And I'm like, have you added in any supplements? And people are like, well, no, I didn't think I needed them.

Like, is it fair to say at this point, if you are following the food plan, and you're drinking the water, and you're trying to get better sleep and stress and whatever that it might be a benefit to to take a look at those supplements? Yeah, absolutely. And I understand it's a lot for some people that have gone from nothing to you know, the whole swath of them. But that's where I really emphasize yesterday, especially is that there is a need for personalization. We're not saying that you have to do all of them. We have we are saying that we want you to be mindful about which ones you should maybe implement. Like, for example, I mentioned turmeric and inflammation. If you have a lot of pain, if you have a lot of inflammation signs,

then I think that would be a good place to start. Also, you know, there's some blood work that you can do. There's some quantitative assessments that can be done to look at, you know, is inflammation elevated? I like that you already said if you're carrying around extra weight, there could be more systemic inflammation. That is well documented in the research. Now, as you lose weight, that inflammation is going to go down. But anything we can do to help speed that inflammation reduction, I think is going to be valuable.

So omega-3s are super helpful at promoting the resolution of inflammation. That's very unique. I specifically said the word resolution because something like Advil or ibuprofen, that will just block inflammation and stop that pathway where something like omega- know, Advil or ibuprofen that will just block inflammation and stop that pathway where something like Omega-3 will help it finish its normal homeostatic kind of mechanism and then resolve. And that can be applied to a lot of these secondary supplements too. It's not just a band-aid solution. That's what's unique about some natural health products is that it's not just going to, as soon as you stop taking it, it's going to be useless.

And I'll go back to the way it was. Well, it's the same with weight loss, right? We all know that losing weight is healthy for you. But when you do it in a way where you're literally starving yourself and depriving yourself and restricting your body from the nutrients it needs, that's not really healthy. So the only thing that's making it healthy for you is getting rid of that fat. So if you can imagine losing weight in a way where, yeah, your body was releasing that fat, but you were also simultaneously helping your body get healthier and function on a more optimal level. I mean, that's.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's, I think, where we're going with the supplement conversation. Unlike other weight loss programs I've had patients go through, they're like, well, you know, show up every week and we give you your dose of supplements and we give you kind of an injection or we give you a particular powder that replaces a lot of the foods you're supposed to be eating. Those are shortcuts that end up in the same place that a person started and sometimes even worse off. It's we really are encouraging. This is a compliment to the program. If you're not doing the diet, you're not going to be getting the max out of the first primary supplements. If you're not doing some of the primary supplements, I think the secondary

supplements are not going to be as effective. I think it's all about building on foundations and then personalizing. So hopefully today after this conversation, my goal, Gina, for listeners is people are going to understand which secondary supplement may be most applicable to them. Oh, I love that building on that foundation. Cause that's what we're doing with the program. There's like one week leads into the next leads into the next builds on the previous week. We're kind of building your body up. Okay. Um, I, I, people are asking about the turmeric. So let's start with that. We were talking about inflammation. You mentioned the turmeric or curcumin. So what do we need to know about this? Okay. So turmeric, it's part of the ginger family. So the culinary spice ginger,

lots of anti-inflammatory effects from ginger as well. It is found as a supplement, but turmeric really is a star because it has just so much clinical research supporting its effect. I even now have family doctors having patients telling patients that, you know what, if you have inflammation, joint pain, why don't you try some turmeric now turmeric, what you're holding there, I think it's about a thousand milligrams total, right? And so there, what's a little bit confusing about some turmeric is that some of the doses can vary dramatically depending on what type of turmeric. Like I took some turmeric this morning. I played soccer last night, a little bit sore for promoting recovery.

And the dose was much smaller, but it was using an extract that was more absorbable. So turmeric is a fat soluble, meaning it's absorbed with food better. So if you're taking turmeric, you want to take it with food. Secondly, a lot of people say, well, I've heard you have to take it with black pepper. There is some evidence to show black pepper improves the absorption, Gina, by preventing its breakdown. Now, the beauty about some of the technology that is now being put into the nutraceutical world is that you don't even need to use black pepper in some extracts. You're actually going to be able to absorb it better. But to start off with food, make sure there's

some fat in it. Ideally, same thing with your omega-3, same thing with your vitamin D. These are all fat soluble things. In fact, you could take those three all together. A lot of times, a common question I get is, you know, do I have to take them all separately? No, you don't. You can take those fat soluble things with a meal all at once okay so you mentioned omega-3 that's also good for inflammation is it not but it's a different mechanism of action and that's the important thing to understand is that the primary supplements probiotics magnesium vitamin d omega-3s b's these are things that your body needs vitamins by definition gina are things that our body can't create itself fully so vitamin d for

example you have to get it from the sun you and you and you can get it in small amounts from food um vitamin vitamins are essential we can't uh for example we can't fully make all them ourselves so that's why uh we we need to give the building blocks for proper cellular function. Unlike something like turmeric, we don't have a deficiency in turmeric, Gina, but we do have inflammation. So this is why it's in the secondary supplement category, I think, is that it's a complement to our diet and our omega-3s. Okay.

I do want to remind people that there is a supplement, secondary supplement post is in the book. So if you have the book, you want to open it up, you want to follow along that the, this, there is a supplement, secondary supplement post is in the book. So if you have the book, you want to open it up. You want to follow along all of this information that Dr. Paul is sharing when to take it, you want minimum recommended doses, all included in the book as well. So if you're furiously making notes, I do suggest you kind of listen and absorb to this. And then you can also rewatch or relisten to the conversation along with the notes in your book, also in your app, also on the Facebook support page as well. Okay. Anything else you

want to add with this? No, you know, just taking one a day, most is not going to help. I think you have to get up to that therapeutic level. I know the book talks about that. And roughly it's about 1200 milligrams of a pretty standard turmeric curcumin, like what you're holding there. And that's ends up usually being about two or three capsules. Okay, so I want to run through these supplements. And then afterwards, I'm going to talk to you about finding quality supplements about dosing and whatnot at the end. Okay, what do we want to get into next MCT oil, adaptogens, CoQ10, trace minerals, which one? Well, let's do MCT because that's still in the vein of fat soluble. MCT oil is medium chain triglycerides.

Now, this is a type of fat we've heard here of triglycerides. That's a fat. There's also long chain triglycerides. So it's in the family of fats. Now, what's unique about MCT, Gina, is that it's absorbed differently. So it's absorbed through the stomach, unlike a lot of the other fats. And that means it makes its way into the body, kind of through like a shortcut. And then that allows it to be easily converted to something called ketones in the in the in the bloodstream. And that ketone is an alternative fuel source for our muscles, for our cells and for our brain. So this is kind of what a person's doing on a much bigger scale

in a ketogenic diet. We don't recommend the ketogenic diet, but ketones are helpful for people. It helps some people get a little bit more energy. I think you mentioned before in the past, you've heard the experience of like kind of a more focus, a brain energy. I've seen that with my patients. And so I like it because it's kind of on this sitting on the fence between a food and a supplement. So it's kind of like a really nice mix between the two.

So I think that, you know, one tablespoon a day in the morning can be easily mixed into this, let's say a cup of coffee like this. And that'll give you a little bit of a boost. Okay. Yeah, I've used this when it first came out. All the rage was Bulletproof Coffee back then. Now, Bulletproof is just simply a brand. It's a company who made MCT oil. And it was suggested that people add it to their coffee with rather

than using cream, adding in butter. So I used to suggest this for my natural bodybuilders and who I worked with and also like high stress moms who were just like had a lot going on, eight type of people, super stressed people. And they kind of the, the, the, the calming of the mind, the kind of little bit of a kick in the body. I love what you mentioned about ketones because people are always like ketones, that ketosis, that's keto, that's bad. And again, that's just an example of how extreme the diet industry is. Yeah.

I mean, I always kind of a little bit of a sidebar in terms of keto, but I always kind of think about on one side, you see the ketogenic diet and then you have people that are like, I love keto. It's so good. It's changed my life. And again, this is the, this is the noise you find online. But then you also have on this side, people that are vegans and they're saying like, that's the best, it's changed my life. And when you actually look at those two diets side by side, they're almost like on the opposite end of the spectrum, right? You have one eating bacon and steaks and, you know, just pounding sticks of butter. And on this side, they're eating like the opposite, they're eating lots of plants. So I think that there are those, those are two extremes,

what I what I was originally attracted to about the diet, diet program that you've put together, it was very similar to mine, where I think it a big component is compliance, long term compliance, blood sugar stability. Still, there's principles of a plant based diet in the diet, there's principles of the keto diet in the program, but it's not to the point that we are so far out there that, you know, people will say, you know, I've tried keto, and they might try for a month and they're like, I felt pretty good, but I couldn't stick to it. And I lost a ton of weight and then I gained it all back. And that is just really tough on a person's psychology. So, you know, if a person has epilepsy and that's what it's been studied for, and you have a doctor

guiding you through that, that's a different story. But in this this case when it comes to long-term weight loss i think we struck a balance and the mct oil gina is one way that we can still leverage some of the benefits of ketones and still give you that good fat remember when you eat good fat when you eat good protein especially early in the day this is why you mentioned in the morning you're going to get good satisfaction or satiety and that is going to make sure that you're're going to get good satisfaction or satiety. And that is going to make sure that you're not going to be trying to crave foods for the rest of the day. Yes. And it's going to really not let a person go down the easy, very, very desirable high carb foods that highly rewarding food. So I think that's one of the main macro reasons that I like

to have that in the morning. Well, the living method was created based on trying different diets with many of my clients. And there is truth and benefit in each and every one of them. It's just they get taken to extremes. There is benefit in fasting. There is benefit in ketones. There's a benefit in low carb for some. There's a benefit in carbo loading for others. And that's sort of where I've taken the best of the best,

what works and what doesn't work out of each of these diets over the last 30 years. And that's, that's essentially how the living method was created. And deeper than that, what we are teaching people is how to personalize it. So if you want to go for a little bit more plant protein, that's okay. You want to, you think you do better with meat protein. That's okay too, right? It's about figuring out what works best for you. Okay. What's next? Adaptogens, CoQ10, L-theanine, trace minerals. Let's do trace minerals because I think that's one of the things that, um, again, I would say is foundational. So trace minerals, uh minerals really shine when a person's gone from drinking, you know, one liter of water a day, or barely even thinking about drinking water. And

then now, part of the program, they're being challenged to drink three, four or five liters of water. And so it really comes down to chemistry. And so trace minerals are the things that hold the water in your body. So we have minerals throughout our body that hold the water in your body. So we have minerals throughout our body. We have minerals in our blood. And when we start increasing the hydration, we want to have the minerals going with it. So the water stays in our cells. We ultimately want to get the minerals into our cells.

And that's where the water is going to stay. Because the water follows the minerals. It's really as simple as that in terms of diffusion. So I think that adding in minerals in the morning or in every one of your like, you know, containers, people are walking around with these types of things and you know, you can put your trace minerals in there. This is over and above magnesium. I think it's important to understand is that it's not going to replace that.

It's going to complement it, Gina. And the difference here is that you have much smaller levels of multiple minerals. That's the definition of straight trace. Magnesium, calcium, these are more macro minerals. They're not really micro minerals. You're getting in there, you're getting a little chromium, you're getting molybdenum, you're getting really trace levels of some of these, but also valuable minerals. Just because they're traced doesn't mean they're helpful. So I think that's the way I would use it. I would add it into water, especially if you're struggling with that amount of hydration and you feel like you're peeing all the time. You want to retain that water and one strategy is to do with trace minerals. Yeah. I mean, we're not asking people to drink more, more water than they need enough to be hydrated. And that is very personalized. And if you find it that you are been drinking more water than you were used to

for a while, you're still headed to the bathroom. It definitely could be pelvic health issues, or it could be that you need to add in some trace minerals, right? So this especially is beneficial in the summertime, especially when it's sweating. Yeah. Yeah. You know, obviously, we have to be careful anybody that has like kidney issues, we have to be careful of that. Generally, hydration is good for your kidneys. You know, there are certain medications that deplete your trace minerals, like you know, there's certain blood pressure diuretics are notorious for that they are going to pull out a lot of that. So anytime we always say the caveat is if you're on any medications, you always have to talk to your doctor about adding in any sort of supplementation.

But generally speaking, trace minerals, just like Celtic sea salt, and using that type of high quality salt, that's not just pure sodium chloride, I think it's going to be more advantageous. We're generally I think, as a society be more advantageous. We're generally, I think as a society low in a lot of these, what are called trace minerals. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Adaptogens, CoQ10 or L-theanine. Let's do CoQ10. So CoQ10, this is a key antioxidant that's part of your energy production pathway. Okay, without going down the really dark rabbit hole of mitochondrial health and function, which a lot of people are like, I don't even want mito what, you know, like, this is where I geek out, but I have to be careful of not dragging everyone down into the into the hole with me. So to make things simple,

CoQ10 is an important nutrient that helps us produce energy right down at that cellular level. And that is the mitochondria, for those of you that have heard that term before. A lot of times when a person's going through a change, a transformation in their health, we want to increase their energy levels because that's going through a change, a transformation in their health, we want to increase their energy levels because that's going to allow them to continue to comply. And I think this is where

it kind of goes into why it's in the secondary supplements. Generally speaking, it's one of the more well-studied nutrients. It really is most well-known and you can probably see it even on the label. They'll probably say for heart health, the claim that the evidence based claims for CoQ10 are for cardiovascular function, which is great, we all want to have a healthy heart. Absolutely. There are certain situations that CoQ10 becomes even more important, Gina, where there are certain medications, the most commonly prescribed class of medications are called the statin medication, like Prestor, for example, or Lipitor, if anybody's heard of those before, and they are meant to lower cholesterol. However, they have a side effect. They also deplete CoQ10. So first and foremost,

we always are conscious of personalization. So if you're in that category where you're taking some medication for your heart, talk to your doctor about CoQ10. I think this would be a great conversation. If your heart is great and you have no issues and your energy levels are great, maybe you'll go on and look at turmeric because you have inflammation. So again, this is where there's some personalization. Could everyone take and benefit from CoQ10? Yes. If let's say someone like me or Eugene that took CoQ10, would I wake up tomorrow and be like, oh my gosh, my energy is through the roof? No, that does not the way this CoQ10 works. It's about giving you the building blocks of the

level. Now I've seen the complex, I've seen MCT to have that immediate effect because my issue is not, is not heart issues. It's more so like just a lot going on in my life stress. So that's where we're trying to give you the specific key sheets to know which ones you actually would want. So I think heart health and cellular energy, think chronic fatigue type situations. CoQ10 has some good research on that so that's

where i'd be thinking about coq10 and you pulled up two bottles just so people understand one is ubiquinone and one's ubiquinol the one in your right hand the purple they have the purple cap that is the standard coq10 ubiquinone been around for decades um yeah it's a bit fuzzy it's a bit fuzzy yeah that's okay the other. Yeah, that's okay. The other one is called ubiquinol. And this is kind of like the fancier new kid on the block. It is the one that's claimed to have better absorption. So if you're maybe a little bit older, and you really have those heart issues, I would splurge on maybe that one there. So ubiquinol. Personally, for most people, either one is fine, except for the reasons I just mentioned, you want to up. So ubiquinol. Personally, for most people, either one is fine, except for

the reasons I just mentioned, you want to up that with ubiquinol. That's that's the level up. You might be getting older. Is this something that as you get older? Yeah, I think so. Because I think one of the number one most common killers heart disease. And so I think cardiovascular functions super important. Generally speaking, as a person gets older, they're going to have probably greater chance of being in more medications probably have more concern about their heart, possibly things like cholesterol start going up. So anything we can do to support that from a cardio perspective, I think would be awesome. Yeah, I mean, also women, right heart disease and women. We I mean,

yeah, and it's not the first thing that women think of. They often think of like hormonally sensitive cancers, like breast cancers is their main concern. But heart disease is a major concern. Also note, CoQ10 has a ton of research on a whole breath. I've just scratched the surface. I've told you what what the label will show. Usually there's a heart on it or something like that. However, CoQ10 has been studied in fertility, for example, it's been studied in migraines. I mean, there are I could go on and on about all those things. But these are now the level ups when it comes to CoQ10. I use it effectively for migraine situations. Most neurologists that I know are recommending it for migraines, along with B2 and magnesium. We've talked about magnesium already. B2 is found in the B complex. So again, these additional supplements, these kind

of complementary nutrients, they are addressing more than just the basics. They can really be used therapeutically in some cases. Okay, amazing. adaptogens or L-theanine? Well, they both I think I left save them both for last because I wanted to really focus in on these ones because they're two of my most used in my practice. And I think most relevant to people listening, especially in terms of our conversation yesterday. So let's start with adaptogens. I mentioned that one of the ways to deal with stress and hormonal imbalance, I talked about adrenal function, which is a stress balancing system. Think of it as a shock absorber for your body, protecting you and cushioning you from the stress you experience on a daily basis.

Adaptogens are herbs. There are a class of herbs. there's many in this class that help you and your adrenal system do their job better. And it helps balance a hormone like cortisol. And so for example, ashwagandha is one that maybe people have heard of before. Ashwagandha is a herb that's been used for thousands of years in Asia, in traditionally, especially in Indian medicine and Ayurvedic medicine. And it has this unique ability to balance high levels of cortisol. When we talked about yesterday,

the levels of stress, when your stress goes up, your cortisol levels usually go up. They're high throughout the day. And then they kind of crash in the afternoon. And then they might come back up again in the evening. And then they kind of crash in the afternoon and then they might come back up again, uh, in the evening. We want it high in the morning and then dipping throughout the rest of the day. Yeah. Ashwagandha or other adaptogens, they can actually help balance those

cortisol levels, bringing them down to the proper point, uh, rather than being erratic throughout the day at the wrong times. routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Okay, so I usually show the Adrenal Smart. So the combination of a variety of different herbs, I picked this up, this Ganda 600. So that Ganda 600 is short form for ashwagandha. And the 600 is referring to the amount. Now that's a really good dose. That one, I think you picked up the OG of adaptogen ashwagandhas. That's the one that's been around for a long time. And it's actually still one of the best on the market because it'sandhas. That's the one that's been around for a long time. And it's actually still one of the best on the market because it's so potent. I use that one all the time with my

patients. Ashwagandha specifically, Gina, because it's lowering cortisol, there's good studies on helping sleep. So insomnia, also anxiety. And so taking it in the evening is the advantageous time. So I think that one there that you're holding would be a wonderful one to think about. I want the additional thing I want to tell people, ashwagandha and other adaptogens, if you're dealing with a lot of stress, I think they're a really good compliment to the program because stress is one of the main underlying obstacles. We talked about that at length yesterday. And so yes, the adrenal system is the system that's trying to deal with that stress, but stress comes in many different forms. It disrupts your sleep. It creates anxiety. It puts us in a state of high sympathetic, which is a type of nervous system

that's stimulating state. And so these herbs like ashwagandha and the next nutrient I'm going to talk about called L-theanine help bring us down from that high, amped up, hypervigilant state. And it complements things like deep breathing and mindfulness and meditation and prayer, all these things that we know we should do. However, we don't maybe have the time to do them as much as we want. We're trying to learn a new diet program and we're trying to do all the things, trying to get my freaking water in. And now I need to like, so this is a little bit of, I'll use the term like cheat code or a little bit of a shortcut to temporarily helping and assisting your body do what your body needs

to do. These herbs have been studied for and used for hundreds of years. And the modern research is now catching up to the that traditional and a body of evidence. So extremely well tolerated, extremely safe, but there are some cautions with medications. So if you're on some medications, you can see it on the side, always talk to your naturopathic doctor, talk to your doctor, see if it's right for you. And you'll, you'll notice that that Gonda one does have a couple of those cautions in the back. Yeah. I was going to ask about that because this is a, I mean, it's not just a, I mean, go to the health food store, talk to your doctor, naturopathic doctor, like really, if you're so stressed out to the point that you're, you're just like, it's affecting your life you really it's

worth investing your time and energy into going to your doctor with the list of supplements that we have today or going to see a naturopathic doctor talking to your pharmacist heading to your health food store like really just not just buying whatever i'm holding up or really kind of get into it and there's again there's more extensive information about these adaptogens in the book, in the app, in that post itself, right? This is just like an overview awareness conversation because adrenal fatigue was a big buzzword a couple of years ago. Everyone was talking about a dream. People have like forgotten about adrenal fatigue, more stress than ever. And no one talks about it anymore. No, I think adrenal fatigue had its day probably 10, 15 years ago. Partly, I think because some naturopathic influencers were kind of really pushing that and even some of the herbalist and nutritionist types.

I think adrenal fatigue is a very, just I would say vague and inaccurate way of saying it because your adrenals don't get fatigued. They still produce cortisol. They still produce hormones. But the big difference here is that it, the production of those hormones becomes dysfunctional. So I find it's not that it's very rare for a person to have no cortisol, very little cortisol. Usually a person's ending up in the hospital. It's called Addison's disease. That's extremely rare. I've seen that maybe once in my, you know, 12 plus years of practice. However, I have seen a lot of people that their doctor says, Oh no, you're fine. Your adrenal system's fine. I checked your cortisol. It's okay. It's kind of in range. It's not too bad. But then when we start checking it throughout the day, doing saliva testing or doing urinary

testing, you start seeing a pattern of you're actually low in the morning. So you're, you're in range, but you're low. And so you're sluggish and tired, and you're not getting that get up and go. And then you're craving things throughout the day, and especially in the mornings, and then you may, you might feel the best during kind of like the noontime period, you finally like had your couple cups of coffee, and you like prop yourself up. And then you crash kind of in the afternoon. Three, four, you're like, I'm super dead tired. I really tank.

And then you kind of like crawl to the finish line of the day, make your food, get home. And then when you should be kind of going home and sleeping and resting, nine o'clock, eight o'clock rolls around. You're like, all of a sudden you're like getting a second wind. So, I mean, how do you explain that pathway, that pattern? Well, that's a perfect example of adrenal, not fatigue, Gina, but dysfunction. Dysfunction. It's producing it at the wrong time. And if you want to really get evidence-based, I'm sure there's some people thinking about, okay, Dr. Paul's talking out of his ear here. Yeah. No, if you want to search it, search HPA axis dysfunction or hypothalamus brain pituitary

master hormone gland in the brain. And the A stands for adrenal HPA axis, hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis. Axis means the way it all works together. There's a ton of research showing HPA axis dysfunction leads to weight gain leads to insomnia increases chronic pain is related to chronic fatigue fibromyalgia i mean like i could literally go on and on about the evidence behind it so we're not talking gina just you and i's opinion here we're talking about like pretty good science but just it hasn't translated down to most of your clinicians. A lot of people are confused and frustrated because they feel crappy. They feel like they have bad energy. However, everyone's just dismissing them saying, Oh, it's, it's your age. It's your, it's your this. And so I'm trying to wait. Yeah,

exactly. And so I'm going to pause. Yeah. Yeah. There might be a smidge of truth to that, but I think that the underlying elephant in that room is we have to make sure your hormones are working well. And something like Gonda is a good first step. Now, can I make one other point that you just reminded me of? You held up Gonda. That's one ingredient.

That's one herb. Do you have the AdrenaSmart there in front of you? I don't, no, it must be upstairs. Okay, the AdrenaSmart there in front of you? I don't. No, I must be upstairs. Okay. The AdrenaSmart is a combination of adaptogens. But one thing, if you put both of those side by side, there is ashwagandha and the AdrenaSmart, but you'll notice the dose is very different. It's much lower. So I just want everyone to understand there's a difference between single ingredients and combination ingredients and they are there's pros and cons ashwagandha is 600 milligrams per capsule now

adrenosmart again i'm not knocking either one i'm not promoting either one i'm just saying adrenosmart has maybe 100 or 200 now that's a third of the dose. That's a big difference. Now, if you really want to be focused on being evidence-based, the single ones might be the best place to start. And then you can look at maybe a combo for maintenance, just the thought, this is what some, a conversation I would have with a patient, but this is the type of thing that I want people to be aware that there are differences in types. And I think this is a good segue into the question you had about how do we find good stuff? What should I look for? Right. So anyways, I'll turn it back to you, but I think that's a good, good, good thing to remember in terms of what you were

holding up and what the differences are. Yeah. I mean, some other adaptogens, ashwagandha, ginseng, reishi, rhodiola, holy basil. I mean, again, people are asking about when to take doses recommended. It is all in the book. So we put it all in the book here. So I'm not going to spend too much time on that. I do want to get into L-theanine before we get into... Best for last. Okay.

L-theanine, it's my bell. It's the one I use all the time with my patients. The reason being is that so many people are in that high sympathetic state, they're in that high stress, fight or flight. L-theanine is an amino acid naturally found in green tea. And that's one of the reasons tea and green tea specifically where the levels of theanine are the highest. Even though there's caffeine in it, patients and people don't feel like it's super stimulating like coffee. So it's the L-theanine that has a calming counterbalancing effect to caffeine. In fact, there's research showing that it helps reduce excess caffeine effects like the jitteriness, for example. Lots of evidence on L-theanine for things like anxiety, insomnia, things that have and related to a high kind of amped up nervous system state.

Anxiety. Nice thing that I like about theanine is that it's quite gentle. It is easy to take. Usually the capsules are quite small and the effect takes only about 30 minutes to be seen. So it's not like you have to take, like ashwagandha is one of those things that a person has to take for a week or two at least

to start noticing a difference. Some people notice the difference quickly, but L-theanine, it's within a couple minutes for a lot of people. So if you're in that wired state, if you're feeling totally stressed out, like I know a lot of people. So if you're in that wired state, if you're feeling totally stressed out, like I know a lot of people listening to today's and yesterday's podcast probably were thinking after we talked about stress, L-theanine is a way of, again,

counterbalancing it with a natural ingredient. And this is, I think, important. It's meant to be used to get us in a better state that we're not making emotional, really, uh, kind of, um, impulsive decisions and not being in that state of fight and flight. Okay. I mean, this is a game changer. This is a game changer. Um, I do want to get into, again, I guess, depending on how long it takes when you do start adding these things in. I mean, it just takes the body time to make change in general. I want to just talk about stress for a minute and just your top, what would be your top three for stress? I think you hauled up already too.

Ashwagandha, L-theanine, I think would be the two top ones. You mentioned another botanical called Holy Basil. It has some evidence for anxiety. I think that's a great adaptogen. Like you said, it's written out in the book. There's a couple other ones, but I think the ones that we've talked about so far, I would say B-complex. B-complex and magnesium. ashwagandha and l-theanine i think that's a great foursome for having uh kind of the building blocks and also having the symptom resolution and the immediate effects of it because b complex helps

produce your amino acids so that's your focus dopamine serotonin your happy neurotransmitter and then yeah your gaba which is your calming neurotransmitter so if you don't have enough of those magnesium also gets you deeper sleep helps you combat the effects of that cortisol all over the place. Biggest piece of feedback I see, people start MagCalm, they'll say, I get a deeper sleep. Yeah. That's what magnesium does. What about something like this? Bacopa, I picked up.

Enlightened. Stuff for the brain. Yeah, you're picking up all these good ones. Bacopa is a herb that is similar to ashwagandha in terms of where it comes from in the world however uh it most of the evidence for bacopa is to do with uh brain blood flow brain antioxidants been studied for things like uh memory uh protection as a person gets older also for things like adhd so there's evidence on it a little bit more specific. So I would probably best term it as like a brain adaptogen. So if a person is

struggling with, you know, memory and brain fog and, and those cognitive issues, Bacopa might be that. And that's what I love about botanical medicine, Gina, is that with all the different options and botanicals that you have, once you start understanding, and this is again, where I highly encourage you to work with your naturopathic doctor, because if you start DIYing this yourself, you may not, you may not be able to kind of pick up on this nuance. That's why we go to school for eight years to figure that out. However, my point here is that you could combine like ashwagandha and bacopa and tailor something to what you really need for you you might be really concerned about memory and brain function and brain fog but you also don't

sleep very well you can you can tailor that on the flip side something like you mentioned ginseng ginseng is excellent for an immune function so if you're struggling with constantly getting sick flus colds uh you might have some chronic fatigue issues, ginseng would be wonderful because that's specific for that. And I could go down the list forever. Blood sugar with holy basil, rhodiola for more like focus and brain function. Like, you know, there's some really unique personalization that you can do. So you held up a great one for the brain. Well, this is what I'm thinking. Okay. It's one thing. So I am super stressed and I, you know, I want to have a conversation with you about stress. Like there's good stress, there's like

bad stress, like crappy things. And then there's exciting, amazing things that are also stressful. And then there's just like constant state of hypervigilance stress. And then I'm also 51. I know my hormones are a little, you hormones are a little off with the stress, with the physical breakdown of my body. My brain is, I'm in a constant brain fog. So I'm just really building on the conversations that we've had and what I'm already doing with the program, be like, okay, how can I step this up a little bit more? But I mean, but taking this for your brain ain't going to do much for you if you're not sleeping and you're magnesium deficient and you're not eating right. And you're just not doing anything to manage your stress, but all together. I mean, this is that bigger conversation

of, you know, when it comes to being, you know, perimenopause and menopause, they're like, what, what do I do? Tell me what to do. And it's just like, Oh my gosh, a lot of what I see, I would say like 90% of the patients I see, especially members of the program are like somewhere between 45 and 55. And they're in that menopausal transition time. And that is a huge X factor, Gina, for a person's not just their weight, but also all those things you mentioned, joint pain, memory issues, libido, energy levels, skin health. I mean, you can go down the list because it's all affected. And so menopause affects every woman differently. And what we do see and we do know is that it is

another thing to kind of manage when it comes to weight. Sometimes it doesn't affect a person's weight and other times it dramatically can affect it because those hormonal shifts do play a role in all the things I just mentioned, including metabolism. So it's just, it's not impossible. It's just another stressor for you to deal with. Not every stressor is bad, Gina. I think I liked that you said that. I've said this with you before. The most important thing to think about when it comes to stress is the mindset you take around it. If you constantly are like if somebody says, How are you doing, Gina? And the first thing out of your mouth is, Oh, my gosh, like this,

I have this problem, I have this. And if that's the mindset and mentality that you have, then you are going to constantly look at everything around you as a negative stressor. However, I think what evidence shows is that if you take a more of a posture of gratitude and you start thinking about, yeah, I have all these things going on, but that's not the first thing out of my mouth. And usually the first thing out of our mouths is reflective of what the thoughts that we're having. The thoughts that you're having are, yeah, I'm dealing with menopause. I'm dealing with back issues. I'm tired. I got brain fog, but that's not the primary thing that's driving my mind thought processes. So I have some really great things going on. This is happening. That's positive. And what that does,

Gina, is that that sends a signal down to the rest of your body, all your cells to say, I'm under stress, but I'm not going to be as stressed about this. Because one of the key ingredients to make things stressful is that, is it unpredictable? Is it uncontrollable? Is it going to be harmful or negative to you? So if you constantly keep focusing on those with your thoughts and words, then it's going to definitely be a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I think that's one of the most important things when it comes to stress, in addition to some of the things that we've already talked about yesterday. And these adaptogens can be complimentary to helping you reduce that, but it's not going to change

your mindset. And that's a huge step first. Yeah. And then this is why setting your intentions each day, right? End of day reflections, taking time to be grateful, like how you wake up in the morning and the mindset you are in, like if you roll out on the opposite side of the bed or whatever that saying is, if you start your day in that shitty mindset, you're going to have a shitty day, pretty much guaranteed. So mindset is a big part of it. But if we can physically calm the body and help the body be as strong as possible to help manage these things that that'll give you that room to work on the mental health okay a couple things i want to talk about berberine everyone is asking me about it this i you know i used to take this back in the 80s

why is this having why is this having a research resurgence what's what's going on with this one word ozempic that's the reason that uh that berberine's having such a resurgence yeah because there's again some online influencers and that's literally where the evidence stops uh it's said that berberine's like ozempic it's a natural ozempic and and honestly it's been flying off the shelves in health food stores ever since then isn't it just an enzyme isn't it isn't it no yeah so no so berberine is a herbal extract actually it, it's, it's from a number of different plants. You know, there's, there's lots of different plants that have it, but the idea behind it is that it works very similar to a drug called metformin. Metformin is a common drug used

for diabetes. And it, what it does is that it prevents the production of new blood, new sugar out of the liver. It prevents something called gluconeogenesis. And this is helpful because, again, it decreases the load of sugar that's in your body. There are some additional things that berberine does that I think this is where the kind of nutraceutical world tries to lean on some of these things on a mechanistic level is that it helps lower cellular information. It has some of these like benefits, but not as well documented as curcumin or turmeric, which we talked about early on. So I think there's some definitely some clinical benefit of using berberine. However, it's not ozempic and it's not going to do the same thing. But I think as part of something like the Livy method or, you know, a health protocol that I'm putting together with patients, it can be quite helpful. I also use it a lot to help with people's guts because there's evidence on it for addressing dysbiosis.

Berberine has an antibacterial effect in the gut. So it's from just from what I said, you can see how broad the effects are. Yeah. Okay, great. So it can be a compliment again, not a magic miracle pill, like people are talking about. Yeah. Okay. Amazing. Um, the other thing I noticed that people were talking about was there's, I guess some, there's some bad news that like people aren't talking so kindly about omega-3. Have you heard any of that people are talking about yeah so when you've been around as long as i have this goes in cycles because there's always every couple years there's a new supplement that comes up and omega-3s have been in this cycle for a long time where uh you know that they might say that the evidence is not good enough and um so i mean i

don't know what they're specifically talking about necessarily this time. But my understanding is that the breadth of the evidence, meaning the overall balance of the evidence, is still overwhelmingly positive. Despite the fact that there might be one study that throws a little shade on something. I could talk about specifics, but off the top of my head, I don't know which specifically the negative thing you're talking about now, but I haven't heard about anything that has made me rethink omega-3s. Okay, great. What about insulin resistance?

I know that's a big conversation to bring up when I only have literally five more minutes with you. Wow, you're doing all these like door knockers right at the end. Always patients like leave the door and they're like, oh, by the way, Dr paul uh what about this and it's like um something that takes up 15 minutes to do anyways uh insulin resistance uh is is really the problem of if a person is constantly eating foods that's promoting insulin to be increased eventually it's kind of like the boy that cried wolf, that fairy tale where

the body's constantly saying, hey, look, I got tons of blood sugar, insulin, come address this. Insulin is the hormone produced in the pancreas that pulls sugar into your cells. So we don't want to have sugar in your bloodstream. It would damage your sugar if it's not used. It constantly has to be used or processed or stored. The challenge is that when we become less active as a society, then blood sugar after we eat, it has nowhere else to go. So it has to constantly be relying on insulin to be putting it away. If you're moving your body, now your insulin has to do a heck of a lot less work because exercise pulls the sugar out of your bloodstream. So if you constantly have insulin being produced,

eventually the receptors all over your body, all of their cells, it's going to stop being sensitive to insulin. That's called insulin resistance. And eventually that is going to get so bad that your, um, your sugar is not going to be able to properly be responding to insulin. And it's just going to be staying your bloodstream and therefore you kind of go on the route of diabetes. And is this sort of something where that berberine would help? It could because it's, it is lowering blood sugar. So if a person comes to me and they have insulin resistance, they have diabetes. Berberine is one of those things that I do talk about with them. And I, and I have prescribed many times in the past as part of kind of like a blood sugar management protocol. You know, insulin resistance ultimately is going to be the you can't shortcut it.

It's diet and exercise. So, you know, if you don't do those two things, berberine is not going to really do that much for you. And you really have to do those first foundational things. But I think it could complement that, Gina. Yeah. I mean, so would a lot of other things like that, you know, your mitochondria health, your CoQ10, like decreasing your stress levels, like everything in combination. I think that's the takeaway here. Okay. So before we go, lots of people asking about doses, quality products. I mean, again, I want to remind people

that any sort of major interactions we've made note of when to take we've made note of minimum recommended doses we've made note of in the book but what say you yeah so generally speaking if you live in Canada the doses that are on the label are related to what's called an NPN a natural product number so this means that Health Canada's at least looked at the ingredients that are in that product, and they've assured the consumer that the doses are in a safe range and safe also should be effective. So but when you if you're in another place of the world, like the you know, the US or Europe, there doesn't have this type of like, you know, a safeguard. So I think that I think

that's a little bit of an issue. And I would refer back to the books to look at those doses and try to find products that have doses that I think are going to be affected. The biggest problem I see with patients is they come in, they'll show me a product and say, what do you think about this, Dr. Paul? I'll say, a lot of the ingredients kind of like check the boxes. However, when you look at them, they almost always are insufficient for them to be therapeutic. They're below therapeutic drills. One really important point that I always make up here at something like athletic greens or a happy juice or these like these kind of like new, really buzzy supplements. They have slick marketing, but when you start looking at

their labels, they have something called proprietary blends. And these proprietary blends, you don't actually know the dose of these things. It combines three or four different things all in one, and they say a thousand milligrams, but it could be 900 milligrams of chlorella or chlorophyll or spirulina. And then it has a tiny amount of all these other really super good things. So my point is, is that really you want to look for products that have the dose well documented, clearly stated. And you're wanting to match that with what you see in the book and what your naturopathic doctor says. Sometimes, in my opinion, when you're

starting off especially, less is more. Less ingredients in a product is better so you can really get the best dose. Majority of the stuff you talk about here, Gina, it's single ingredient, magnesium, CoQ10, theanine. These are things that are going to be easy to get the right amount. When you start getting into these products that have a whole laundry list of ingredients, maybe other than the B-complex, because that's just really well known and well documented, especially the ones that you're recommending, you really start running into problems that you're not going to get nearly enough. And then people will get into this problem and be like, I took it and't really do anything. And I'm just pissed off because I got expensive. I don't want that to happen. And I think if you start going down that path of the happy juices and et cetera, you're going to, you're going to possibly putting yourself at risk of that.

Again, nothing against happy juice. I picked on that because that just what came across my feed, but there's lots of other ones like that. I mean, the point of these conversations to actually help people's not to try to trick you or get you to spend more money. We do not personally benefit from you taking these supplements at all. So this is just really an awareness conversation and it's really up to you to go and seek out your healthcare professionals and talk about what's going to work for you and whatnot. I know Dr. Paul, I have maxed out my time. People are going to want to find you. Your website is paulherkelnd.com. They can also find you on Instagram at Dr. Paul Herkel. I know you are an extreme people. He is

an extremely busy man. So we are, you can definitely reach out to him. He's got a whole team of amazing people, but you gotta be ready to work if you reach out to this man. He does not mess around. So what I'm gonna do and what we're working on, just a little heads up, is some like bonus sessions

where we can go down the rabbit hole of these conversations. So I'm gonna bring you more, Dr. Paul, but I'm just gonna give you a little heads up. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, I'm excited. Thank you again for having me today. It really I hope what comes through is that people leave this conversation motivated about thinking their health at the next level, personalizing their health. My big takeaway

yesterday was, how do we be mindful about some of the obstacles that really, really are affecting us. And today, the goal was, how can we maybe use some of these supplements to augment and address those particular obstacles? We are not saying you need to take everything that's in the book. We're not saying you need to take everything we talked about. We are saying, think about maybe what you feel is necessary for yourself. And if you feel like I have no idea where to start, then go and work with your natural, the doctor reach out to me, reach out to the clinic,

whatever you need to do. We want to ultimately get you feeling healthy, happier and healthier. And so that's the first step today. Amazing. On that note, thanks for joining us, everyone.

A special thanks to Dr. Paul. He's got to go. Awesome. Thanks everyone. See ya. Paul. He's got to go. Awesome. Thanks, everyone. See ya.