Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Rise of Thyroid Disorders: Causes, Symptoms & Solutions with Dr. Amie Hornaman

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Dr. Amie Hornaman does a deep dive into thyroid health to explore why so many women experience thyroid problems during perimenopause, understand the role of toxins, genetics, and stress, and discover effective lifestyle changes and medical strategies for managing thyroid health. This fascinating conversation unpacks both conventional and holistic approaches, highlighting the necessity of personalized treatment and the critical interplay between lifestyle and medication. Whether you're battling thyroid symptoms or simply curious, this episode offers a balanced, informative, and hopeful guide to optimizing your thyroid function and well-being! To view full show notes, more information on our guests, resources mentioned in the episode, discount codes, transcripts, and more, visit https://drmindypelz.com/ep250 Dr. Amie Hornaman, known as "The Thyroid Fixer," is the host of the top rated podcast in medicine and alternative health: The Thyroid Fixer™. She founded The Better Thyroid and Hormone Institute, offering personalized care for thyroid and hormone health across the U.S. and Canada. Dr. Amie also created The Fixxr™ Supplement line, targeting weight loss, fatigue, low libido, and hormone imbalances. Inspired by her own thyroid and hormone struggles, she is dedicated to helping others navigate thyroid and hormone issues with empathy and comprehensive care. Dr. Amie's mission is to optimize your health and restore your life. Check out our fasting membership at resetacademy.drmindypelz.com. Please note our medical disclaimer.

On this episode of the Resetter podcast, we are going to dive into thyroid health. So I have brought you a dear friend of mine who is a thyroid expert. Her name is Dr. Amy Horniman. And she's known as the thyroid fixer. In fact, she has a podcast. It's a top-rated podcast that I highly recommend you go check out called the thyroid fixer. And she founded a company called the Better Thyroid and Hormone Institute, which as you're listening to this conversation, I want to make sure that you know that's a resource

for you. And we will leave links in the notes for this. She has a really complete approach to looking at the thyroid that I really want you to hear. So a couple of years back, I brought you a thyroid expert. And it was one of the most popular episodes we've done here on the Resetter podcast. And as you'll hear in this conversation, thyroid health affects so many women, especially women going through the menopausal journey. And yet the traditional conventional healthcare system, it has a very limited view on how to address thyroid health. So if you're one of those people who is frustrated, you've been told you had a thyroid

problem, you were put on medication, you're not feeling. any better than absolutely this is a conversation for you. In fact, if you know anybody who has that, please send them this episode. So there is a, and Dr. Amy does this so well, there is a nuanced conversation that needs to be had around, around the thyroid and understanding the multifactorial pieces of our lifestyle that affects our thyroid health. And knowing when to use medication and when not to use medication and knowing what supplements may be helpful and when you don't need supplements. These are all the things we talk about in this conversation. I hope this is a more detailed version of thyroid health than you've ever been given. I hope that you find answers to your

thyroid problems in this conversation. And most of all, if you have a thyroid problem, what I don't want you to do is give up on yourself. because the traditional, conventional healthcare system has failed us when it comes to the thyroid. And Dr. Amy is going to explain why and what you can do to bring your thyroid health back. So Dr. Amy Horniman, enjoy. This is a deep one. And I'm excited for you to listen to it. Welcome to the Resetter podcast.

This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Okay, well, I have to start off by you and I have had so many conversations in other places, but we haven't had a formal conversation about your work. So I am so excited to have you on my podcast. So welcome. I'm so happy you're here. Oh, Dr. Mende, I love you. I'm super happy to be here. So it's interesting because I was thinking this morning as I was preparing for this, that I have not done a really thorough episode on thyroid health in a really long time.

And yet what I know, especially about women going through the perimenopausal journey, is that 50, the last stat I saw was 50% of the women going through perimenopause will have a thyroid problem. So I'd love to start this conversation with why is that happening? Well, actually, I think it's more like 90%. I was talking to one of my physicians the other day. And he's like, can't we pretty much assume that any woman entering perimenopause has a thyroid issue? I'm like, we're pretty close. Yeah. It's probably about 90%. Yeah. Because if you think about it, number one, the world that we live in, is not the same world as our mothers lived in. So we are loaded down with toxins,

additional stressors that they didn't have, you know, 40 years ago. And then we have the hormonal shift. So whenever we're talking about hypothyroidism, 95% of all hypothyroidism is Hashimoto. So it's the autoimmune form of a low thyroid. And the way I like to describe Hashimoto is is you have these little soldiers. And these soldiers are not working for you.

They're working against you, but they're just confused. They think that your thyroid is a bad guy. They think it's an invader. And so they go out and they attack the thyroid gland and they beat it up and they whittle it down. So it's all jagged and funky looking. And obviously it's not going to work the same way as it did when it wasn't getting attacked. So it stops producing the proper amount of thyroid hormones. So when we look at autoimmune in general, we have to go by that three-legged stool.

Number one, you have that genetic predisposition. So you could have autoimmune in your family. You know, your Graham had Hashimoto's. Maybe your sister has celiac. You have that autoimmune genetic predisposition. Then the other leg of the stool is leaky gut, which I'm pretty sure we all have these days. Right. And then numbers three.

Right. I mean, we all have it. And then number three is a trigger. So whether it's stress, like a death, divorce, you move, your business is crumbling, whatever it is, or a hormonal shift. Because hormone shifting is a stressor on a woman's body. Yes, it is. Pregnancy, perimenopause, menopause. Huge hormonal shifts. And this is where we see that autoimmune switch turn on.

and autoimmune starts to express itself. So that's where you hear women say, you know, it was after my second kid. It all went to hell in a handbasket. Or it was after I turned 42 that the weight just started coming. Yeah, because your hormones are moving around and shifting like crazy. And then that turns on the autoimmune switch. So it's interesting because when I was in my early 40s and I started having that hormonal shift,

I started looking into what's happening to? us through the lens of toxicity. And one of the things I discovered is things like heavy metals, so lead being a big one, is stored in our bones. And when estrogen goes on this wild ride where she's up, she's down, she's up, she's down, what happens is that that roller coaster of hormones triggers lead to come out of the bones. And now it's circulating in your bloodstream. and it goes up into the brain, affects your memory, and creates depression, but it also goes to places like the thyroid. So mix that thought with what you just said, which is, you know, it's a hormonal trigger. I think it's a, it also, there's a toxin trigger there. And then the

thing that's so, I really want people to understand is your body always does the right thing at the right time. So it is attacking itself because it has there's something in the thyroid it needs to attack. Am I, am I accurate in that thinking? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So we have lead. We have mercury. So a lot of our generation in that perimenopause, menopause state right now, we got those silver amalgam fillings when we were younger and those are filled with mercury. So every time we bite down and chew food, we're off-gassing mercury, highly toxic to the thyroid. So yeah, you have lead, you have mercury, we can find trace levels of arsenic in people. All of those heavy metals will absolutely attack the thyroid, 100%. So as those heavy metals permeate and actually

move into thyroid tissue, your soldiers are kind of amped up. They're like, holy cow, things are happening in that gland that we don't like. And it looks like, ooh, there's bad stuff inside the gland too. Wow. Okay, we need to go get that and attack it and get it out of the body. And, you know, those soldiers just don't realize like, no, let's go a different route. We can get the heavy metals out and support the thyroid without you attacking it. And that's where we have to come in and calm down that autoimmune attack. So how do you know what the trigger is? Like, everybody's Hashimoto's, for example, will be triggered by something different. Yeah, that's a great question because I get the question of, well, what is the root cause?

So same thing, right? What is the root cause of this thyroid problem I have? And I go, the thyroid is the root cause. The thyroid is the root cause of your fatigue and your weight gain and you can't lose weight, and your constipation and your hair loss and your eyebrows thinning. That's the root cause. Now, at the end of the day, I don't really care if it's, you have EBV because all of us have Epstein bar virus. We all had mono at some point. So, you know, it could be that as a precursor. That's a strong correlation to Hashimoto's. It could be just the overload of toxins that we're all exposed to. It could be the hormonal shift. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter because we can't go back in time. We can, yes, we can heavy metal detox you. We can support, you. We can support. your immune system. We can use antivirals and support it that way. But we still have to address now that thyroid that's not working so well. So it doesn't matter if we eradicate the EBV and we do

a heavy metal detox. You still have this thyroid gland that's all jagged and itty bitty and it's not producing the right thyroid hormones and it's already beat up. So what are you going to do with that? So when you address that, then that becomes, yeah, this is the root cause to all of these symptoms that you're listing over here. So then is detox a necessary tool to repair your thyroid or is there a workaround? I think it's all. It's the both and. So number one, if we're addressing your thyroid and let's say, okay, we start you on thyroid hormone

replacement because we see the numbers are low and this is going to address your symptoms and it's all okay. But over here you have a boatload of heavy metals and you're super toxic and you're living a piss poor lifestyle. It's not going to work. So we have to do both at the same time. But then I can also flip that and say, well, over here, you can do the lifestyle changes and that's awesome.

You can heal your gut. That's awesome. You can do a heavy metal detox. Amazing. But you still might have to come to this side and do some thyroid hormone replacement because all of that, awesome for your body, but it's not going to magically regenerate your thyroid gland. So it's just about doing it all. You have to do it all.

You know what's really interesting is that as the conversation of H.R.T. and B.H.R.T. Bioidenticals, like as hormone replacement is coming into vogue, what I think hopefully podcasts like this will really help people see. And I hear this like I brought, I just, we released the episode with Dr. Mary Claire Haver on here. And she's a big fan of bringing hormone replacement back into the menopause conversation. And she also, is saying the same thing you're saying. You can't take, you can't replace a hormone without looking at the lifestyle that caused that hormone to go off. So that's what I just heard in what you're saying. And I feel like this is a common theme that we're hearing in all hormones

right now. If you choose to go on a medication, that doesn't give you a free pass from lifestyle. Am I hearing that right from you, went through the lens of thyroid? A million percent, one million percent, because I've even found myself. So on my podcast, obviously, I'm talking a lot about thyroid and, you know, this medication versus that medication and what to do to support it, blah, blah, blah. And even my patients, you know, they've almost been trained to a point to think that, okay, we replace thyroid, replace hormones, it's all okay. So now I've shifted over the last year or so. Yeah. And I'm really pounding the point home, driving the point.

point home that, but you also have to do all this lifestyle stuff. Because if you're not sleeping and you're eating like garbage and you're drinking alcohol three, four times a week because you just need your glass of wine at the end of the day, it's not going to work. I don't care. I can, I can throw on more hormones, more thyroid medication. It's not going to work. And ultimately, you're still going to say, hey, I still have all of these symptoms. Well, yeah, duh, because over here, your lifestyle is a disaster. So it doesn't matter. the hormones aren't going to work. They're not going to work unless you change. So I'm so happy you said that because I've really been working hard at driving that point home to my audience as well and my patients.

That listen, there are tools that we can we can use. Absolutely. Hormone replacement is a beautiful tool, but you still have to change your life over here. Yeah, I can't tell you when I had a, I can't tell you enough. Like when I had a clinic, I had so many women coming in with thyroid problems. and the chronic statement they would give me is my TSA was low and or my TSAH was really high. So my doctor put me on a medication and I don't feel any better. And I went back to the doctor and he or she said, well, your numbers are normal. So can you, right? Can you talk a little bit about that scenario and how lab work and why TSA is not the only thing.

we should be looking at when we're measuring the thyroid. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, this is so, it's so classic. You just nailed it. So classic. I know. It's crazy. Yeah.

Woman walks into her PCP and says, Doc, you know, I'm gaining weight. I can't lose weight. I'm so damn tired throughout the day. I'm dragging myself through the day. Losing some hair. You know, my skin's really super dry. And I can't poop every day.

And he goes, okay, well, here's a pill. That's Synthroid. That's going to be too. T4. So you're going to get Livo or you're going to get Synthroid and that is T4 only. And then just like you said, ultimately, they'll be like, why am I even on this medication? It's not doing anything. I'm not feeling better. I haven't lost any weight. I'm just going to go off of it. Okay. Well, it's not that you don't need thyroid support or thyroid hormone replacement. You need the right kind for you. Yes. In the right combination, in the right dose. So, and here. And he's, and he's, you. And he's a right kind. And he's a right kind for you. So, and he's, and he's a right kind. So. And he's, here's the other problem. Yes, just like you said, your average run-of-the-mill conventional doctor will only test TSAH. That's thyroid-stimulating hormone. Why? Why? That is like, it's archaic. Yeah, it really is. So interestingly enough, I gave a talk to a group of integrative wellness physicians a couple years ago. And the talk was all centered around, here's what we need to test

beyond TSA and why are you guys in the synthroid box, meaning you only prescribe T4, right? And I gave the example even of if somebody comes in and you give them an antidepressant, and an antidepressant, doesn't work. You'll give them another one. And if that one doesn't work, you'll give them another one.

If that one doesn't work, you'll stack a benz-o on it and give them a sleeping pill. But you won't do more than one thyroid medication. Dock raises his hand goes, that's all we've learned. I was just going to say they don't know. And so I just want to make a point on that.

That is such a good story because what I'm learning from just interviewing so many women specifically that were entrenched in the medical system and now are looking at our health through a more functional lens is they say that exact thing. They have only been trained one way and they haven't been trained on lifestyle. They don't know lifestyle. So, but yet we live in a culture that has our medical doctor on a pedestal. And so anything they say, we believe as gospel, and they've been trained to not say I don't know. So with with that in mind, is there a way to talk on this one topic of thyroid and TSAH?

Is there a way to talk to our doctor and say, could you look at other things? Could you refer me to somebody that would know? Like, is there any way to help change that broken model? Yes and no. So, number one, I tell people you have to go in to your doctor with a bulleted list of your symptoms. Don't write a book. Don't write a story. They don't have time to read five paragraphs.

Bullet list your symptoms. And then over here, I want you to put the tests that you want to have done. Now, a full thyroid panel is T-SH, free T-4, free T-3. So we want to look at the free means the unbound forms of that particular thyroid hormone. T-3 is active, T-4 is inactive. So we want to look at both of those. We want to look at reverse T-3. That's your anti-thyroid hormone.

And then we want to look for the two antibodies for Hashimoto's, TPO, thyroid, T-Po, thyroid-Proxidase, and thyroid, T-G. And if you go in with that list and you hand that to your doctor and you say, I would really like to thoroughly test my thyroid because here are all my symptoms. And they look pretty much like thyroid related to me. If your doctor says no to testing, it's time to get a new doctor. So you start there. You start with asking for a test. If your doc says, no, we don't test that or we only test that in the clinical setting, then your doctor doesn't even want to know your full health picture.

They don't even care and they don't know what to do about it if they do test. Right. So just move on. And I mean, and I just want to say, and they're trained to not say I don't know. That would be like that's, that would be like a massive or I, you know, a massive breakdown of their status as your medical doctor. Yeah. Yeah. They really are trained to not test anything that they.

don't know what to do with. So essentially, is there a pill for reverse T3? No, it's lifestyle. You have to lower your insulin. You have to control estrogen dominance. You have to support yourself with nutrients. They don't know that. They only know reverse T3 if you're laying in the ER or the ICU fighting for your life because you were in some traumatic accident. Then, yeah, reverse T3 is going to go up because it's built into our bodies as a survival mechanism. Why I want to test it when you're not laying in the ICU or the ER fighting for your life is because I want to know if your body is in survival mode as you're walking around trying to get stuff done throughout the day, trying to be a woman multitasking as we do. Do you really want to get through your day or can you

even get through your day if you're sludging through if your body thinks you're dying if it's like fighting for survival? Yeah. No. So we want to know that. And that's the problem is the doctors will give those answers just to kind of skirt the testing. Yeah. And reverse T3 is interesting. As I'm listening to, one of my new, like, thoughts around hormones in general is we always have to remember whether it's your sex hormones or it's your thyroid hormone, is that living in a female body means your body is constantly scanning your environment

to make a decision whether you're safe or not. And the minute you're not safe, it shuts down all that production and things like reverse T3 come in as a way of protecting the body. So I just want to be really clear on that because we have to, like you said, the modern world changed. We're living in the most toxic time in human history. So of course, hormones are adapting to that. And there's ways of reading blood work, like you said, with reverse T3, really, really important.

My other question, and I'd love for you to educate people, is if I have a thyroid problem, T4 is not the bioavailable form of that thyroid hormone. So giving me T4 doesn't mean that I'm going to be able to activate a thyroid, what the thyroid's supposed to do inside the cell. Can you talk a little bit about what T4 needs to convey? convert into in order to be bioavailable. Yep, absolutely. So that's a really important point that I want everyone to remember, especially when

you're looking at your own testing or advocating for yourself. T4 is an inactive thyroid hormone. So when I actually, quick story, I was misdiagnosed six times by six different doctors, and the seven doctor gave me T4. So back in the day, right, I was in my 20s. I was all excited. like, okay, now I have an answer for this 30-pound weight gain that just occurred. And I tried T-4 only for a while, and it did nothing. Then I started diving into research. And I'm like, wait,

there's an active thyroid hormone. It's called T-3. And it turns out that T-4 actually has to convert over and become T-3 to get to the cell. So every single one of your cells has a receptor site on it for thyroid hormone, but it's for T3. It's not for T4. So what we're doing is we're in conventional medicine. They're giving you T4 only and basically just crossing their fingers and wishing on a rainbow that it converts, not looking at all the factors that impair conversion. Number one, toxic world. You just said it. Number two, stressors that we have. Cortisol is out of whack with everybody, especially paramedopause and menopausal women. So now that elevated cortisol or a low cortisol will affect that conversion of T4 to T3, low iodine, low magnesium, low selenium,

low vitamin D, low, I mean, just any low nutrient or low mineral, low B12, elevated homocysteine, all of these things come in and impair conversion. So when you look at that, we look at our basic lifestyle, how can we expect anyone to properly convert T4 to T3? Yes. Anybody. It just doesn't work. Now, I did hear a stat. I heard this at A4M, and it stuck with me, and I agree with it.

Only 2% of those with Hashi Motors or hypothyroidism on medication do well on T4 only, and I'll use do well on in air quotes. I'll come back to that. do well on T4 only 98% need a combination of T4 and T3 or T3 only. Now, even that 2% that say they do well on, what's doing well? You know, are we polling these people that just really don't care how they feel, or it's the way they feel has become their new norm and they actually think that that's okay? Like, oh, yeah, I feel okay.

do you do you because you're 25 pounds overweight you have type 2 diabetes you're taking antidepressants and sleeping pills to mask your symptoms are you okay right or can there be something blood pressure blood pressure medication and cholesterol and statins so i had always learned also i love the way you explained it of all the little nuance that needs to happen to get t4 to convert to T3, I've also heard that the liver and the gut are what's going to break those down and convert that. Well, when we look at the gut, here's the rub that I've thought of for women, is women have been on the birth control pill, most many women, for years and years and years, which is a massive destroyer of the gut microbiome. And then we start to see a breakdown of thyroid,

and we get our given T4, and that poor gut microbiome isn't able, you know, to break down that and can do the conversion that's needed. Is that, so can you talk, you talked about how the second leg of the stool was leaky gut, where does gut health come into this conversion? Yeah, no, it's huge. So conversion happens, like you said, in the liver, in the gut, in the thyroid gland itself, and peripheral tissues. So if we basically wipe out one of those conversion locations, i.e. the gut, well, now you're down to

three. Well, wait, what if you have a fatty liver, which a lot of us have? If you have insulin resistance that actually could be caused by low thyroid function, now that high insulin is contributing to fatty liver. Oh, wait, and you also have leaky gut. So what are, oh, wait, and did you have a thyroidectomy too? Did we take out one of the glands that actually helps you convert? So, yeah, I mean, It just makes sense that we have to address gut issues at the same time as we're addressing thyroid issues because you need the gut working properly. We need it de-inflamed in order for it to help with that conversion process. Yeah.

And the tricky part about the gut from a conventional medicine standpoint is they don't, the gut really is healed by lifestyle. There's no like medication per se that's going to heal the gut. gut. Is that still the same, do we still have that same belief system around microbiome repair? Oh, yeah. And I think the problem is, is that, you know, with all these activia commercials, people are just throwing down some probiotics and thinking that's all they need to do to help their gut. And they're not changing their diet and they're not changing their lifestyle. And they're still popping Advil for every eight of pain. So it's, yeah, we really need an educational

revamping in conventional medicine. I mean, we're doing it. You're doing it on this podcast, but we need everybody to listen. We need doctors to listen. We need conventional medicine to listen so that they can start, you know, planting these seeds in women to say, like, listen, we can help you, but you need to be a participant in this. You need to help yourself. You need to change what goes into your mouth, what goes onto your body, what's in your home, and then we can all work together. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think a rebrand of our health care system would be really helpful. One of the things I love about what Mary Claire is up to is she's trying to take her more elevated, I'm going to call it enlightened view of menopause and then turn around and teach the OBs that are up and coming how to look at this differently.

And I feel like we should probably do the same for the endocrinologists and really look at how do we get moved. beyond this testing T-S-H and then giving T-4 and then saying your blood works fine, you're going to be okay. I feel like you're a rebrand of that whole system is due, especially as women are becoming so empowered and they're like, wait a second, you're not addressing and hearing me. So I really love that. Where does trauma fit in? You know, Sarah Godfried's a good friend of mine. She is really on a mission right now to talk about how trauma is destroying female bodies. Can it can emotional traumas that from like childhood can those show up in our thyroid health? Definitely. Definitely. So I think we're we're in an age now where we are almost focusing in a good way on trauma. And we're actually

seeing how it affects the body. And I always, yeah, I always say, if you would have asked me, you know, 20 years ago, well, can our thoughts and emotions actually affect our health? I'd be like, that's too woo for me. Yeah, I would have too. I would have too. Go ahead. I've changed my opinion as well. Same. Same because now we know, like I need a little bit of science behind things. So now we know that even unresolved trauma from childhood has an effect on our endocrine system, has an effect on our adrenals and our cortisol. Because essentially, what is PTSD? It's bringing that emotional response to an incident that happened in the past, but you are literally re-experiencing it with the full body response to that stressor that you had when that original event occurred. So as we

deal with trauma as we don't deal with trauma, because trauma will deal with us anyways, whether we want to or not, those emotions absolutely come back and affect our body. We know that stress affects our body. We know that hands down. We can see it immediately. We can see it immediately in the skin. Someone can break out in hives, right? That's your response to stress. We can see it in disease. I mean, we can see cancer pop up moments after a stressful situation. My dad was diagnosed with cancer two weeks after my mom took a decline with her Alzheimer's. Coincidence? I don't think so. So we can see disease pop up really close to stress. So how can we be so naive to think that traumas that we went through 20, 30 years ago,

aren't affecting us now. They are. They absolutely are. So it's going to be cortisol, it's going to be thyroid, hormone regulation, blood sugar regulation, insulin secretion. So a lot of insulin resistance with unresolved trauma, we see it pretty much across the board in the endocrine system. Yeah, and I have a theory that I actually bounced off Mary Claire when I interviewed her, which is when we look at the perimenopausal journey, you're not just losing estrogen and progesterone. When you look at those two hormones, they actually stimulate about six different neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine, acetycholine, like the list is long. So, you're, it's like a neurochemical armor that protected you from your stressors.

So the, you might have been able to get away with not dealing with that trauma that happened to you in your 20s or your childhood, you know, when you were younger. But once you hit that perimenopause, years, that neurochemical armor is coming down. And all of a sudden those traumas that you maybe could ignore, you can't ignore anymore because you don't have a neurochemical buffer to be able to handle that, which I think is one of the reasons we're seeing 90% of women going through this menopausal experience have all of a sudden these thyroid problems because all this unresolved anger, all this unresolved trauma, has just been under the surface of all these neurochemicals that hit it from you.

And now all of a sudden it's there. So through a thyroid lens, what do you think of that hyperbole? hypothesis. Oh my gosh, you nailed it. Well, first of all, I have to comment. I heard you at HOS in London. And what you said literally rocked my world. And I never thought about this way. So I think this came from your interview with Lisa Moscone. But that that neurochemical shift in periomentapause and menopause, on the one hand, puts women into, I don't really give a crap about much. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's me now. Things that used to bother me in the past, don't bother me now.

Yeah. However, to your point, with that neurochemical armor kind of going down, yeah, you might not be affected by little things. Like your friend's mad at you. Oh, okay, whatever. But, you know, you can brush that off. Yeah. But then, you know, another stressor might happen. And you might be like, why am I crying today?

Yeah. Why am I so bothered by this today? Why am I like feeling this anxiety where I'm not usually an anxious person? Why is that happening? And again, that hormonal shift, even the lowering of progesterone alone, which is our calming hormone, is affecting us mentally. So on the one hand, we don't give a crap about the things that we used to, but on the other hand, stressors are all of a sudden hitting us differently. Yes. And yes, that's going to affect the thyroid.

Any kind of stress is going to affect the thyroid. And it cracks me up when a patient will reach up. I don't be like, you know what, I think I need a change in my thyroid medication because, you know, all of a sudden I'm really tired and I gain five pounds. I go, okay, well, let's test you. But before we do that, are you under any stress? You know, have you changed your eating or you're not sleeping? What's going on? Oh, well, yeah, you know what?

Actually, we just moved my mom into our house. And, you know, my husband and I are battling every single day and he's fighting for his job. And I'm like, do you think that you need more thyroid medication or should we maybe dive deep and deal with this? as much as we possibly can. You know, I mean, it does. It affects you. And it will bring on, that stress will bring on symptoms of low thyroid function. Yeah.

Maybe, yes, maybe you need a thyroid med change. Maybe we need to retest you. Maybe we need to adjust your dose of hormones. Maybe, maybe, or maybe we just need to deal with this over here. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Here's a new theory that I'm working on right now for the next book that I'm writing. And it's really about the menopausal.

brain experience. I'm calling it, after talking to Lisa, I'm like, I'm calling it a brain remodel project. If we just look at what happens to us in the perimenopausal years, you're literally, your brain is shifting into this beautiful brain. Well, in the research on that, I found a feminist philosopher, and this ties into thyroid hair, who wrote a book called In a Different Voice. And she has a belief that at 12 and 13 is when girls start to disassociate and move away from their authentic selves and because they have to adapt to a patriarchal world that says you need to operate like this. This is what success looks like. This is what a woman looks like. Now, of course, that's different for the younger generation

that's growing up compared to what we grew up in. But society at 12 and 13 starts to change women and we start to lose our voice. And we start to adapt our voice to be accepted by the culture. And it wasn't lost on me when I was reading this book. It's literally called In a Different Voice. It wasn't lost on me that 12 and 13 is when hormones come in. And so then I started thinking, well, during our menopausal years, hormones start to go away. And is it possible that we are actually coming back?

back to our authentic selves and we're actually coming back to using our own voice for the first time in our life. And it's not lost on me that there has to be a connection between the thyroid and our voice and being able to use our voice. And in a culture that hasn't allowed women to use their voice to their authentic selves, is there a piece of thyroid health? that is, I didn't get to fucking say what I wanted to say in about a thousand different experiences in my life.

And now this neurochemical armor is coming down and I really wanna tell you what I have to say. Like do we have, I know this is getting really woo-woo, but I think it's part of the thyroid conversation that's not being talked about. Is Hashimoto's because we wanna use our voice, we wanna be authentic. Is there a piece of,

what women really the cry that women want to say in today's world that we're not able to say because the world is very patriarchal. Oh, what do you think? Man, I love that. Okay, so it's not too, Wu. If you look at Chinese medicine, which predates anything that conventional medicine has ever done, you will see that, yes, that when you have issues in this area, in the throat area. So a lot of women will say, you know, I clear.

my throat a lot or I feel like there's something stuck right there all the time. And then to your point, the overall voice. Like I haven't spoken my true self. I haven't spoken my thoughts. I feel constricted. I feel confined. Like I can't speak up. I'm in a man's world. I'm in a man's working world where I need to be the woman and I need to be quiet and docile. Can that absolutely bring on thyroid issues? I believe so. I mean, Chinese medicine says absolutely yes. And I'll hang my hat on that all day long. So I think it's that combination. You know, maybe that is part of the not genetic predisposition, but that could be kind of

one of those legs of the stool that maybe it's the trigger, the stressor, maybe it's a contributor kind of tied into the genetics. But it plays a role. It plays a role. Yeah. Which is why we can't throw a pill at it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, listen, the thyroid medication. is a beautiful tool. And I put that in the category of hormone replacement. So, you know, when I have a woman that comes in, her thyroid's in the tank, and it's like, well, okay, we need to replace those thyroid hormones that are no longer being properly made by your thyroid because, hey, we ultrasounded it, and your thyroid's itty-bitty, and it's been beaten up, and you have Hashimoto's, and you probably had it for 20 years. Just no one told you.

And she says, you know, I just really don't want to go out of medication. I go, okay, wait. If you or your child had type 1 diabetes and the doctor said, you know what, your child needs to go on insulin. Insulin's a hormone. They need to go on insulin because their pancreas no longer produces adequate amounts of insulin. You wouldn't be like, yeah, you know what, I really don't want my kid to go on a medication. No, because your child would die without insulin. Now, you're not going to die with low thyroid hormones, but you're not going to live a great life. I think that the pill or the medication or the hormone replacement comes in handy there. But what I say about the Band-Aid pills that women get instead, yeah, don't take that antidepressant.

You probably don't need it. I mean, it's a very small percentage of women that they really do need an antidepressant, maybe short-term for something they're going through, or maybe it really is a brain chemistry imbalance. But I would say that 80 to 90 percent of all antidepressants given, are given for Band-Aid reasons that maybe you're not addressing or the sleeping pill or the statin or the blood pressure medication. Those are the pills that I would want to avoid, but we can avoid those pills maybe by taking this pill, which is thyroid hormone. So it just, and you know, it just comes down to the person. It's so,

the thyroid treatment is so nuanced and so personalized to each individual. This is not a one-size fits all treatment. That's what conventional medicine does. Here's a pill. Here's a pill. T4. T4. Oh, you're not feeling good. Let's raise your T4. I'll give you 125 micrograms instead of 88 micrograms. But it's not going to do the trick. We have to, we have to nuance, treat each person, each individual as their biochemistry shows us, as their lifestyle shows us. We have to treat that full person. Yeah. So I love that. And if, If I do go on to a medication, I love looking at it like a tool, I feel the same about hormone replacement.

It's a tool. It's right there. And I change my lifestyle. I address all the things we're talking about. Can I get off the medication? Sometimes. Sometimes. It just depends.

It depends on each person. So for me, my thyroid gland was so shot by the time that I actually went to functional medicine, my functional medicine provider, changed my life and changed my career. It was so shot, I'm at the point, or I was at the point, and I am at the point now, where you would have to pry my thyroid medication out of my dead cold hands because I'm living my best life right now. I'm good. Like, I'm optimized. I'm good. So if it means that I have to take a little pill every day, that's fine. But for some people, if we're catching it early enough where that destruction hasn't occurred for 20 years. And maybe there's just like a little bit here and a little bit there that we need

to address. And yeah, you have some symptoms over here. At that, in that case, we might be able to lower the antibodies, put the Hashimoto's into remission, stop the soldiers from attacking, support the thyroid gland itself to start producing adequate amounts of thyroid hormone, support it with nutrient, support nutrient deficiencies, change the lifestyle, address, address, address sleep, then maybe, yes, maybe you can get off your thyroid medication. And, you know, I mean, these days we can use things like bioregulators, peptides, all of these things that actually improve the thyroid gland in and of itself that you only have to use short term. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's so many other solutions. And I also think medication needs a rebrand

because, you know, there's a little bit of this idea you go on a medication and then you just stay on it for the rest of your life. And I like thinking of it like a toolbox. Like you go on, work with your lifestyle to solve the problem and then see if you can get off or not get off. So I think that is, I love your approach to that. And some people are like, this is great. I'm going to stay on this forever. And that's fine as long as you're like cleaning up the lifestyle. So I think that will be a really interesting over as we start. I feel like the world is waking up to lifestyle perhaps for the first time. It sounds so silly, but a lot of people are talking about the power of lifestyle.

And then it'll be interesting to see where the cultural conversation goes in trying to look at medication as you, like almost like a supplement. You come in, you use it, you get off of it. Like, you know, that's not a profitable model for Big Pharma, so they will do everything to make sure that we don't do that. But as you and I know, I think there's a really interesting place for the, I mean, the, the conversation around lifestyle has been lost and it's coming back which is really great so okay I have to ask you a really interesting question that I I can't believe all the times I've been with you I haven't

asked you this question so one one of the biggest criticisms on fasting is that it destroys the thyroid so I did I did a lot of research on this and there's a couple things that I found calorie counting over time destroys the thyroid. And one, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, so I'll just tell you my theories of what I see and then I really honor your opinion on this. So what I've seen is if you are under 1,200 calories consistently over time, yes, that will absolutely affect your thyroid. Now, on the other hand, I've looked at a lot of studies that say when you go into a fasted state, your T3 goes down. But then when you bring food back into the equation, your T3 actually doubles and goes up. So we have all the many health influencers right now that are

like, it destroys your thyroid. I'm looking at this study. This study says T3 goes down. And I'm over here saying, yeah, but bring a good meal back in. Bring food back in. Make sure you're getting at least 1,200 calories a day, and you're actually going to see your thyroid improve. So what do you think of that hypothesis? Okay, I love this. I love this. So I get this question a lot as well. Number one, any kind of caloric restriction below, like they push you into a starvation mode, let's face it. Under 1,200 calories, your body is in starvation mode. And we can bring back that conversation from the 80s and 90s of starvation mode because it's real. Your body will shut down your metabolism, which is T3 production, thermogenesis, all of that. I mean, the thyroid gland is a

huge, if not the master regulator of whether or not you burn fat. So yes, everything will shut down if you're in starvation mode. So if you're fasting and you're not getting in your calories, 100% you're going to tank your own thyroid. And if you're over exercising, on top of that, you're going to tank your own thyroid. But if you do fasting the right way, and to your point, yes, it will drop T3 will drop temporarily. So if we test someone in that, let's say, you know, at the 12 to 14 hour mark of their fast, T3 will probably be a little bit lower than it would be if we tested them, you know, on a day where they ate for 16 hours or whatever. Right. But like you said, as soon as you eat and what you eat matters, as soon as

you eat, then it's going to kind of spring back to life again. So as long as you're doing fasting, the way that you teach it, then you'll be fine. And the only other issue I have with women over fasting. So when somebody comes in, they're like, yeah, I eat two males a day. I'm like, how are you getting in your protein? Because if you're only getting in two meals a day, are you taking in 60 grams of protein in each meal? I don't think so. So that's the other factor too that just, I mean, that's not even just correlated to thyroid. That's overall health. That's your muscle mass, which is our organ of longevity. Everything is correlated to protein intake. So if you're fasting, you're not getting your protein, that's a whole other body health thyroid problem.

But no, I'm a huge believer in fasting the right way. You have to fast the right way. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. And it's a part of the, I see it on socials a lot, especially coming from men that like to say, you know, don't fast because it damages your thyroid. And one of the challenges I think we have when we look at science and isolation is exactly that. You're just seeing one side of the equation. And fasting isn't just about not eating. It's also about what do you do in the eating window.

So I think, so thank you for confirming that. If you were to create a checklist of like, like, let's say you and I are like, you know, on a train together. I just meet you. You're like, hey, I'm a thyroid expert. If I said to you, oh, God, I don't know what to do with my thyroid, is there a checklist, a lifestyle checklist that you could give people? Oh, that's a good question.

Okay. So first we want to test. I want to see, okay, what are your numbers? So we can really make decisions. decisions from there. Do you have Hashimoto's? Let's add in some black cumin seed oil. Do you have elevated reverse T3? Let's add in some iodine and magnesium and selenium and vitamin D. That'll help with that. That'll help with conversion. So I would say test, don't guess. Support with nutrients. So I have my list. I call them the no-due supplements. Like, duh, of course you take these every day.

So that is the vitamin D, the magnesium, the iodine. I don't take selenium every day. I tell people like, eat a Brazil nut every day. Yeah, I like Brazil. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, I mean, they're loaded with selenium. Just do that. You know, get out in the sun.

Reset your circadian rhythm. Definitely. I mean, if you're not sleeping, nothing's happened. Nothing is happening. So you better do whatever you need to do for sleep. And that's a whole other episode, right? the blue light blocking glasses, turning off your computer, getting off your phones, you know, read a little bit before bed, whatever. But you got to be sleeping. And then I would say,

let's go over here and, yes, make sure you're moving. Movement is imperative for, I don't care whether we're talking about thyroid or type two diabetes or heart disease, right? Movement is key. We all have to move. We have to control our insulin. We need to improve our circulation. We need to move. And then there's the diet aspect over here. So over here we go, okay. So we know that gluten-containing foods act like a molecular mimicker to the thyroid gland. So what I mean by that is, you know, we talked about your little soldiers. You get these little soldiers. And they're just wanting to go out and beat up the thyroid.

Now in comes gluten. Of gluten, we have gliadin, which is the protein of gluten. Looks like the thyroid gland in chemical structure. So your soldiers see it coming in. They go, oh, there's an invader. We need to go launch an attack. This is an all-out war here. So those soldiers go out and they start beating up your thyroid gland again.

And I get this question like, do I really have to avoid gluten? Oh, it's so cliche. Everybody's gluten-free these days. It's a fad. No, it's not. Because we have science backing the fact that a molecular mimicry happens with gluten. And you launch an autoimmune attack. Now, can that be translated to, let's say, ciliac, Crohn's, lupus? Yeah. I mean, we're tying gluten into all autoimmune conditions, especially the gluten over here. You know, if I have, if I've heard it 10 times, I've heard it 100 times, the people that go to Italy are not affected. Right. So it's the, it's the wheat and the gluten and the processed foods here that we really, really have to avoid and we have to avoid it at 100%. And that would be the lifestyle, that would be the main lifestyle.

checkbox that I would tell you could check and address. Because once you do that and you change that up, and I know it's hard for a lot of people, I say, listen, go ahead and use the gluten-free versions as a crutch before you move into just eating real food. But you have to do that. If you don't do that, then it doesn't matter whether you're low-carb or vegan or whatever you are. It just doesn't matter. You have to be gluten-free. Yeah. It's funny, you know, when I was in Europe a couple of weeks ago, we were in Denmark with some friends. And I, you know, I usually when I'm like around, you know, on vacation mode and I'm in somebody else's house, I was like, I'm not going to worry too much about, you know, standing up

to being gluten free. I'm just going to eat the gluten. Like, I want to eat the cultural food. And so a week of gluten, you know what? The biggest thing, because I don't normally eat gluten, the biggest thing I noticed is my hunger went up. I was famished all the time. And I think that gliadinin part of gluten stimulates your appetite.

So if you are struggling to understand, okay, I got to stay off gluten because it's going to affect my thyroid, what if there's more motivation if you understood that actually that part of the gluten that breaks down into this gladinin component actually stimulates appetite? And the fact that you can't get your appetite under control may actually be helped. by staying off gluten. I don't know if you've seen that with the people you've worked with. I haven't. That's interesting though. That's very interesting. So I would think it would be related. Were you wearing a CGM? Because I'm also thinking about just the yeah, like the carbohydrates,

maybe in the gluten spiking your blood sugar super high and then you crash low and get kind of hangary in that low maybe. Yeah. I don't know. I just was like, wow, it was like a combination of of not skipping breakfast, so I wasn't fasting and I was eating gluten. And after a week of that, I was like, I am famished all day long. And so I came home, started fasting, got off the gluten, which I normally am off, and like immediately the hunger went away. So, you know, an interesting thought I hadn't really, I hadn't really wrapped my head around is what do you, what do you think Ozempic is doing to our thyroid? Do we have any research on that? So, yeah, we're actually seeing the positive when it's used properly, properly.

So we're seeing an inflammation reduction with these GLPs. When they're used, so a lot of biohackers, myself included, are using it in microdoses. So not enough to kill, it does not kill my appetite. I'm using literally like one, one milligram. and maybe every other week in a very low microdose. So it's enough to reduce inflammation. We're seeing some brain protection from Alzheimer's, which I have in my family, so I'm all about that.

We're seeing slight decrease in antibodies. So over here, I usually use either low dose and altrexone, correlate with black human seed oil or I'll use black human seed alone if someone doesn't do well on LDN. That reduces inflammation. But then we come over here and we use these microdoses and the gLPs that help with inflammation and lowering antibodies to push Hashimoto's into remission. I think it can actually help.

However, the caveat is I also, because there's a flip side to everything, I also call these GLPs, the Beverly Hills Soccer Mom drug of choice for weight loss, where these women are using it, they're losing weight, they're not changing their eating, they're starving themselves. Now, guess what? Just like you talked about, hello, thyroid problem. Because you put your body in starvation mode. You've been eating 900 calories a day and 50 grams of protein. Yes.

So you have to make sure. So I think it can help and hurt. Yeah. And then, you know, you actually have me thinking I might bring Nat on to this podcast because I know she is a fan of triazepine, a triazepan, which is a peptide you can take that acts like OZempic. And I've been experimenting a little bit with that with some of the patients that I've been working with and seeing good results.

So, you know, I think. there are, we are rebranding the initial way that we looked at OZempec and there could be some some other side effects or some other positive ways to approach this GLP one, you know, a view of the weight loss that we now are all looking through. The thing about lack of appetite is now you're not getting the nutrients in, now you're not getting the calories in. So losing your appetite too much has a dark side is what I just heard you say. Oh, absolutely. I mean, when you're not eating properly, you're not eating enough. You're not getting in the nutrients.

You're not getting in the protein. Your body is going to suffer. I mean, and absolutely, the thyroid gland is, I would argue, is the first gland to be hit because it's so dependent on the nutrient status. It relies on you to properly fuel yourself. And again, like, just like we talked about earlier with the fasting topic, if you're not getting in enough calories, that thermostat turns down. So your metabolism turns down. You know, I saw, I was in the competitive world. I did fitness and figure competition. So I'd see the bodybuilders

and figure girls. And, you know, a lot of them, I remember this one girl said she was on 900 calories a day. Well, then after the show, and this happened to me too, after the show, people would balloon up. And I mean, within two weeks, they're 30 pounds heavier than they were the day of the show. I mean, A, that's not healthy at all. And B, what happened? Well, they starved themselves getting ready for the show. And their metabolism dial turned all the way down, thyroid gland tanked. Now they're eating regularly.

And they're even doing the reverse dieting and they're still eating clean. You know, you'll have your day of eating pizza and brownies. But then you get back into, you know, the chicken, broccoli, steak, asparagus. But the weight keeps coming on. And that's the perfect example. when we serve ourselves through whatever mechanism, through doing a show and doing a strict diet or using these g-lps and not eating, our metabolism gets turned down and it absolutely affects the thyroid.

Yeah. So it's like I think with the conversation around OZempic, what I'm hearing is we always need a long-term vision of this, of like, again, making sure that lifestyle stays in the equation here and that we don't look for free passes. What would you say to the woman that's listening to this podcast and is like, whoosh, I got, that's a lot of things I have to focus on to get my thyroid well. You know, what kind of encouragement can we give her? Because I do think that there's a bit of, it can be disheartening to go from, shoot,

my doctor said, just take this pill to improve my thyroid, to listening to a conversation like this and going, oh, my God, I got to do all that work. to get it back on track. How can we shed some light and give her some hope? Okay, so I would tell her it's all going to be okay. It's not as complicated as you might think it is or as it sounds in this conversation. Step one, I want you to bullet point out your symptoms. Just do it for yourself too, just to kind of see.

You go, oh, man, wow, okay, those are a lot of symptoms. And even, I mean, symptoms tied to thyroid go beyond what I do. just said, even frozen shoulder, joint pain, muscle pain, sleep disturbances. I mean, all of that is tied to thyroid. So bullet point out your symptoms, get the testing done. And then from there, at the same time, you know, you're just one step at a time, one change per day, one change per week, if that's all you can do. Don't put that kind of stress on yourself. Just those little tiny changes make a huge difference. And then if you have to work with somebody to use the tools that Dr. Mayna and I talked about

to say, maybe you need some thyroid hormone replacement. Maybe you need some bioidentical hormone replacement because I do that too with my ladies. Testosterone is a fantastic tool to lower thyroid antibodies and get the thyroid working again. Progesterone helps with insulin resistance, which then helps with reverse T3. So let's use the tools that we have and you will feel better along the way. while you're making the lifestyle changes. So it's just a nice step-by-step process, but it's okay. Even if your doctor says you're normal, everything's fine, it's all in your head and medically gaslights you, there is hope and there are answers. So you don't stop. You don't accept that because you know yourself.

You know when something is off. You know when something's just not right. And I always say that those feelings that you have, they are a gift to you. They are a gift that your body is giving you to say, you know, honey, maybe you just need to go check this out because there's something, there's something off. So let's get some testing done and we'll just address it. I really like the way you talk about symptoms because we have been learned, we have learned to villainize symptoms. And I really feel like symptoms, if your body had a language to talk to you, it talks to you in symptoms and it's trying to tell you something. You just don't read that language. So I love that. Before I ask you,

you ask you the last question, how do people find you? Like, do you have resources so if people are peaked by this conversation and maybe they want to work with you or they want to find you, how would that look? Absolutely. So on my website, Dr. Amy Horneman.com, we have actually free guide. So the tests that I talked about today, if you didn't write them all down, it's cool. We have a download that we have all the tests. And we actually have the optimal lab value ranges for those tests. So it's one thing to get tested, and then you look over here at the standard lab value ranges. And you go, okay, well, I'm within normal limits. I'm normal.

And that's what your doctor will say. You're normal. Everything is fine. But we provide you with where you should be with the functional medicine optimal ranges. So we derive those ranges from looking not at sick people. We look at the badasses. We look at the fit people. We look at those people that are walking around, they're 70 and they're like water skiing and stuff.

Those are the people that we test and we go, okay, where are they? Because that's where we want to be. And that creates the optimal range. So you want to compare. So we have those on the site. And then we have a book a call. You can book a free call. We can go over what you've done, what you've tried, what your symptoms are.

Have doctors told you you're normal? Okay, not a problem. We got you. And we can absolutely fit you into a program that we take. care of you and give you what you need. Test what you need. Amazing. Okay, we'll leave links. So I appreciate that. I mean, what a resource we really, I'm listening to and going, wow, that was, you know, when I was in clinical practice, I was like, I needed a resource like that to send people to. So amazing, well done. Okay, my last question, and this is the one that I've been

really geeking out on, I really feel like we are so focused on trying to be healthy, but we don't have a good definition of health. So if you could describe your definition of health, what would it be? And do you have a measurement you use to make sure that you're living a healthy life and your body's in a healthy place? So I love this question. So first of all, measurement of health, I always use the term shored up. I've been asked like, what does that mean? Well, short up, like armored up. armored up. So as we age and that that neurological, neurochemical armor is going down, I believe we should get our body armor up. And what I mean by that is let's shore up our bodies and make them strong and healthy. You're eating enough protein. Your thyroid is balanced. Your

hormones are balanced either with biodecical hormone replacement therapy if you choose or significant lifestyle changes to support those hormones. You support your immune system. You know, you deal with stress, you get into some trauma work, you know, reduce your cortisol, get that meditation in, do hot yoga once a week, for goodness sake. It's going to reduce your stress and you're going to detox a little bit. So you're shoring up your body, building up that body armor so that when those things start coming at you, oh, sick parents, got to move, loss of job, your body isn't going to crumble. And you go into some disease state that pops up. It's like, oh, wait a minute, now I have heart disease. Wait, now they found a cancer?

What the hell? Sure up your body so that you can deal with those stressors. Amazing. The measurement, honestly, the measurement I think is subjective. Because just like I said, like I'm optimized. I always joke that I live in optimization land and I want all y'all to come join me. It's a beautiful place to be. It's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful place. It is beautiful. So it's where I get up in the morning, I have a little cup of coffee. I don't really need it. I do my four sigmatics, so it's only 50 grams or 50 milligrams or whatever of caffeine. And then I have energy through the day and I get a workout in and I work and I'm not looking at my couch at 2 p.m. wanting a nap. And my brain functions most of the time. And so it really is

subjective. When you're at the place where you're like, this is good. I thought 50 would suck, but it really doesn't. Then that's kind of my subjective measurement of health. Yeah. You know, one time I was at the only time I ever went to a UPW with Tony Robbins. They had a day, they had a day of where they were teaching health. And I remember saying to myself, like, what can Tony Robbins teach me about health? Like, you know, I think I have a pretty good handle on health. But he started off the day and he said, there's only one reason to focus on health. And that is because healthy people have energy. And when you have energy, you can accomplish anything you want in your life, which is exactly what I just heard in your answer,

which is when you armor up with a good lifestyle, you're not freaked out about a pandemic. You're not worried as much about menopause. Like you have an inner knowing that you're doing all the right things. And I think your explanation was beautiful. So thank you for that. I geeked out on it. I really think it's so interesting to me how people say they want to be healthy, but we can't define it.

Yeah, that's true. That's very true. You know. Yeah, but every person I've talked to, even the health experts on this platform, they all have a different explanation of what health is. So how can we walk around and say we have a chronic health problem and we can't even define it? And we can't even agree on a definition. So anyways, I loved this conversation.

I really appreciate what you're doing in the world. Thank you for letting me geek out on some of these topics and just keep doing the amazing work you're doing because it's incredible. It's my pleasure. No, thank you so much for having me on. This has been great, great conversation. Awesome. Great.

Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.