Undoctrinate Yourself - #20 - Kelsey Dexter

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Dr. Kelsey Dexter MD is a board-certified endocrinologist, black swan mitochondriac, and herbalist based out of Tennessee. She brings cutting edge science and strategies in circadian and quantum biology to her patients, changing the game when it comes to addressing root cause-issues as it relates to diabetes, obesity, and hormonal health.Find Kelsey on instagram ⁠@kelseydextermd⁠Support the podcast by becoming a patron www.patreon.com/undoctrinateyourselfpodcastFollow the podcast on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@undoctrinateyourselfpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Dr. Alexis on Instagram ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@dralexisjazmyn⁠⁠

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Undoctrinate Yourself. Today, I have an amazing guest for you. This is Dr. Kelsey Dexter. She's a new friend of mine that I'm really excited to share with you guys. She's an endocrinologist, and she's based out of Tennessee. But we're going to learn all about her story and also her interest in vitalism and herbalism, which is of particular interest to me also. And I hope you guys are going to be hip to learning about it too. And I'm learning about how she's kind of synergizing and fusing all of these different modalities together. But first of all, welcome. Kelsey, I'm so happy to have you on. Thank you so much, Alexis. I'm really excited to talk to you. And like, it's an honor. So thanks for having me on. Oh, the honor's all mine. I, uh, so in your bio on Instagram, you literally say black swam mitochondria. Mine isn't there yet, but like I've been all in this world for gosh, I mean, about a year now. I'd say this has been like the most transformational year of my life since really getting into health in general, maybe in my late teen years. So it's been a really exciting time, but I'm just curious to start maybe. How did you find like Dr. Jack Cruz's work and just like circadian biology and all that? And then maybe we can backtrack and kind of talk about

how you got into medicine to begin with too, because I think that would be an interesting journey to kind of unpack. Oh, yeah. It was kind of crazy, to be honest. And I like to follow the golden threads. Okay. So I was working in my job here and I was a new mother. It was COVID times. Okay, every single pressure in the world was on me. And I started having chest pain when I walked into my office every day. And I honestly thought I was having heart attack one day when I went into work. And of course, I was fine. And this was anxiety, which I'd never had before. So I didn't recognize it. But my partner at the time took me to the mountains and we went hiking. And of course, I left everything behind my phone behind everything. We were walking up a mountain and talking

about this chest pain thing and my job and how discordant I kind of felt with what I was doing every day. And I heard in my mind's ear agrimony. Okay. And I didn't, I vaguely knew this was a plant. I know nothing about herbalism at this point. And I didn't have my phone to look it up. So I was trying to remember it all day long. And at the end of the day, I, I Google agrimony, you know, like uses of agrimony. And it talks about mucous membrane and genitoneary tract. And I was like, huh, it's not really fit. I wonder what this is supposed to mean. And so then I Google. the magic of agrimony. And this blog post pops up. And it's written by a man who was a biology teacher and sort of transitioned his life because he felt out of alignment. And now he is a professional wild man, survivalist, and said that he, his brother told

him to drink agrimony tea every day to help define his like soul path and ideal profession. And so I said, well, that's a good sign. I'm going to start drinking agrimony tea every day. And then I got more interested in plants, right? Because I thought if I'm getting these kind of messages, I need to dive into this. And so that was around 2020. And there is a wonderful herbalist in Tennessee that started an in-person, herbalism program. And I had known her when I lived in Nashville, and I just thought this is meant to be. It was during, like I said, during 2020 COVID times.

And so we were all kind of starved for interaction. And it was a really beautiful group of people. So I started dipping my toe into herbalism in that program, which was about six months long in Nashville. Meanwhile, I was starting to have these. weird symptoms with like flushing and heat in my lower leg, some weird neurologic symptoms. And I was concerned about the possibility of multiple sclerosis, knowing what I know, just being, you know, sometimes when you're a physician, you know, too much and it can be

scared right when you start to have these kind of symptoms. but I became a lot more interested in vitamin D because of the direct relationship between D deficiency and neurologic dysfunction in general and multiple sclerosis specifically, you know. So I, hmm, yeah, decided that I was going to make my own vitamin D and started working on a solar callus. Yeah. And how did I find Jack Cruz? It was through this searching about the sun and its therapeutic impact.

But step by step, I was led there and it's changed my life. This knowledge has changed my life and the way I practice medicine, you know. So, yeah, I have from a very young age avoided this. the sun, like aggressively avoided the sun. Okay. I think when I was in high school, I wrote my senior research paper on, on tanning beds and the damage of UV light. Oh.

And you can ask my parents, I've been wearing like SBF 100 every day of my life up until a few years ago. And so this has really been an education for me. And you know, the Western medicine paradigm teaches us to stay out of the sun. So I thought that I was justified in this action. And anyway, since I have leaned into the sun as a therapeutic ally and also leaned into vitalism, which that's come about really through listening to patients and realizing that, we are all kind of suffering in the United States and there's a pathway to better energy and

better metabolism that has nothing to do with medication. Right. So yeah, it's been transformative for me personally. And now I feel an obligation to share everything that I've learned. And thankfully, you know, I have a really busy allopathic, traditional endocrinology practice. And I am a touchstone for many, many, many people. And so I get to impart this little by little to patients, even when they are not quite ready to hear it. And so I feel very privileged in that regard. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love this, this story. I mean, starting with like the agrimony piece. I mean, that's just a beautiful, just like a beautiful testament to the power of like wisdom to just like come through you are you like Claire Audient typically or is that

like a one-off thing um so I didn't really know it at that time but yes I am that's amazing my mom was also and personally I'm more towards like a Claire sentient like I will just feel what other people are feeling and not I used to not know if it was mine or or theirs or like where it was coming from but I think once once you start to like detect the pattern of that and like see it showing up and then when you act on it and you like make decisions based off that and like the right things start happening it's like hmm there's clearly something there that if you trust that as some divine wisdom coming to you with intent then it's like your whole life can kind of shift and you're just have access to so much more data and information and

wisdom that you wouldn't have otherwise so I love agrimony too as like the first medicine I feel like a lot of people don't know about agrimonia as like a plant teacher, but it's in the Rose family, right? That's right. Yeah. Does it also have the benefits of like rose medicines for the heart too and just like the, like the more like emotional aspects of heart medicines like like Wild Rose does or is it any, is it different in that way?

I feel it a little bit differently than that, but it kind of is the, directional in a way. Like it helps, for me, it helps with decisiveness. I work with agrimony a lot. And actually, I'm, I'm in an advanced community herbalism program. Now it's a two-year program through the Territ Silva School. And it's herbalism centered around vitalism. So I'm studying this in depth in my, in my free time. And we work with an herb of the month and sort of do a diet of sorts, you know, where we really like dive into one plant and work with it. And Agamoni's my herb this month, too. Oh, wow. That's amazing.

Wow. Oh, yeah, I mean, I have so many questions on that. I mean, it could just go into forever tangent on the plants. But I mean, was this, so when did you start your herb of the month program? Is this like your first month for your advanced program or has it been going on for a while? It's the first month of the second year. Oh, nice, nice. So we took a little break over the winter, but yeah, I'm excited to be back at it. Wow. I also love the notion of like decisiveness. And I know, I mean, we've talked offline. You have a Libra moon. So I think that's something that probably is so important for you to cultivate. You are very correct. Yes, yes. It's one of my struggles.

Yeah, but I mean, it's also beautiful. Like the, the beauty of Libra is to be able to see all those sides and like have compassion for all of them. see the beauty and the validity and all of the position. So I guess it's a gift and a curse. Yeah. Can be, I guess. Yeah. And also with regards to like agrimony as like an astringent and the rose family is in astringent, I was just thinking also in the spring reset program that we just wrapped up yesterday. We were talking about how like having leaky barriers like leaky lungs, leaky gut, like leaky skin, like having skin issues and histamine issues in general, typically all related to like this leakiness in boundaries. And that kind of extends into all areas of our life, not just physically, but also, you know, issues with boundaries in interpersonal relationships

and work life balance. So it's so awesome to see how that kind of happened for you to have Agriamony helped shape your path and what kind of came into your field. And it seems to have been incredibly effective. Yeah. And I've always personally had issues with boundaries in every area of my life. And I really feel like I'm, I'm working through that. Maybe AgriMony is the and at least helping me. But yes, so much has changed since that time. I can't even explain.

I mean, I left a relationship. I sold my house. I moved in with my parents. Like renegotiated contracts and changed my practice and everything has kind of shifted, which is really great. I feel like I'm headed in,

a direction that's going to benefit more people. And so myself included. And yeah, I'm excited. Amazing. But I really, you know, feel like having a wider toolbox to help people heal. The bigger toolbox is really important. And I see myself a little bit kind of as a bridge, right? because I'm fully, I'm a Western trained MD,

but I know that we can help each other so much collectively with ancient knowledge, alternative therapies, vitalism practices. And I'm hoping, hoping that we're seeing a shift into more holistic care throughout our profession. but it's a slow process. Yeah, I mean, I think COVID was a major catalyst for that too because I think a lot of people just saw how much of a house of cards the like the institutional medicine community kind of is in a lot of ways

because they didn't have the right answers to these hard questions that came up during that time. And a lot of people suffered as a result of that. And a lot of things didn't make sense. And people started seeing like, this isn't really adding up. Maybe I'm going to look into, you know, other avenues or like start to question things at the very least because I think prior to that I mean even for myself like I have always kind of been skeptical and kind of like viewed harshly the standard

medical model just because of how it burned me growing up and I've always just kind of been wary of authority figures generally I just you know everybody's people and they all have their faults and biases and things like that so but with COVID when that happened I was just like at first thought it was the big deal that it was being marketed as and then slowly I realized like this doesn't really make sense what's happening like the two weeks to slow the spread turned into six months and it was like okay like what's actually going on here because at first I mean I think everybody was kind of fearful just because of the unknown aspects of it but I think it was ultimately a very eye-opening experience and a huge catalyst for for us socially and

and the way that we're approaching health medicine life in general so I know a lot of people that kind of quote unquote woke up during that time. So I think it's, it's been ultimately very powerful. Oh, yeah. I completely agree. I have just seen so many leaders in the health space who are popping up as a result of this, right, who are trying to teach other professionals. And it's really, really encouraging overall to see this shift. Yeah. It is. So, I mean, on that note, I would be curious to see, like, how did you end up going to medical school and specializing under chronology like what their interest part of that that kind of led you down that path um well as you may be able to guess by what I've said earlier I always wanted to be a dermatologist

so I I pretty much knew I wanted to be a doctor from the time I was a child and I worked toward that goal um but I when I was in college I worked for a skincare company while I was at at Vanderbilt and I really, really was planning on pursuing dermatology. And then when I got to medical school and I kind of thought about options and saw where the needs were and I just decided I wanted to be more general. I was like, I'm going to get into internal medicine. And so I was doing my residency in internal medicine and seeing these patients that I was just doling out blood pressure, cholesterol meds and managing chronic issues with medicine.

And I thought, I was like, I can't do this for the rest of my life. I just can't. This is not what I signed up for when I wanted to be a healer, right? So I thought about what I liked in the landscape of medicine and metabolism was really what I was interested in. So I honestly, I never thought I would go into chronology because it's quite an overwhelming area of study. and you really have to like it to take it on, but I do, fortunately, I love it. I did my fellowship at the University of Colorado, which they have a really robust obesity research center there.

But interestingly, so I was a research fellow when I was at University of Colorado, and instead of getting into obesity research, I was a research. actually more interested in public health at the time. So I was working in the, with a professor in the school of public health looking at urban gardens and biomarkers of like different health parameters and microbiome changes in new gardeners. And we were doing a pilot study that was being sent to American Cancer Association. But, you know, life happens. I met a partner and we decided to start a family. And so I finished up there and then moved to North Carolina and took a job in a private

practice there. So my standing research didn't last very long. But I've always been interested in integrative medicine and holistic health. And when I was a resident, actually, I was looking into ways to get certification. or fellowship in Integrated Medicine. And it just wasn't easy at the time. It was, you know, 15 years ago. And so any kind of training in Integrative Medicine

you had to pay for yourself too. So these days, you know, it's a lot easier to find sources of education and things and mentors. But yeah, I'm happy where I ended up for sure. Oh, my goodness, I love this. Did you have any health challenges as a kid or what made you interested in medicine and also what made you open to like integrative health? Were your parents super open minded in that way or was it just something that you kind of came across yourself? You know, I think that I became a physician because I was told to, honestly, you know, that everybody thought it would be a good idea, you know? So Kelsey, you're going to be a doctor. And I said, okay.

Leberman. Yeah. I thankfully didn't have health challenges as a child. And I didn't have much interface with medicine at all, in fact. And most everybody in my family was pretty healthy. So I'm thankful for that. Yeah. Amazing.

So you finished school when? What year was that? And then what happened after you finished up at, like, University of Colorado, you said you moved to North Carolina and you started in your practice. So at that point, was it you were just basically practicing how you were taught, but were you incorporating any sort of like alternative or holistic approaches then? Or what did that progression look like? Yes, so let's see. I graduated medical school in 2006. It's hard for me to keep all the dates together, but I think I was done with fellowship by, is that right?

No, that's not right. Anyway, I've been in practice eight years, okay, that's fellowship. I can't, sometimes I can't get this math together because there were so many landmarks along the way, step by step. But when I started my private practice, I was always really interested in nutrition. You know, that's been one of my main personal interests. And so I've always done some nutrition coaching with patients. but I, you know, had never learned or come across ketogenic diets or fasting protocols

or any of the things that I'm kind of interested in and promote for the occasional or depending on the situation now, you know. So I would say, you know, GLP1 agonist started really picking up in about the time I started practicing into chronology, and I didn't use very much of that in fellowship because they weren't available in lots of insurance formularies and things. And so I really got to know the GLP1 agonists well in private practice in my first job. And we were actually doing a lot of research studies using those medicines. and yeah, so that has been a big part of my practice in type 2 diabetes, right?

I think that there are definitely ways to improve insulin sensitivity without medication, right? We know that. And I talk to patients about, every way that they get help their metabolic health when I see them in the office. But I see people who, you know, have such severe insulin resistance that they may be on 500 units of insulin a day to keep their blood sugar under control. And as, since insulin is a weight gain hormone, effectively, it's an energy storage hormone to reverse that cycle and help them be able to overcome that resistance.

Sometimes medications are really helpful in that way because it sort of gets the ball rolling for the patient. But yeah. And over the past two years in my practice in Tennessee, so I had moved, I was in North Carolina for a couple years and I've been here for about six years in my current role. this has been the time when I've learned about herbalism. I've leaned in the vitalism.

I've learned about light and its impact on health. So everything has been shifting for me over the last couple of years as far as the way I interact with patients and how I see health care moving forward, what my goals are with patients. but I'm I'm always learning. I'm so excited for the future of medicine. I think that we're heading in the right direction. We're going to get there. And it's because of people like you, right, that are critically examining literature

and a voice to educate other providers. But I'm really, really thankful for everything that I've learned from you as well. Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you. I mean, I'm really also very hopeful, and I think more people are becoming receptive to. The crazy thing about it is, like, I think in the previous, maybe paradigm before the shift started to happen, a lot of people didn't even see any alternative to drugs available because, I mean, let's face it, like the medical training is really teaching to diagnose illnesses and prescribed drugs. There's not really many other tools in the toolkit, like you mentioned earlier. You want to have a big toolbox. You want to be able to pull from so many different modalities as you can. to support the person in front of you. You don't want to be so limited to like only these pharmacological approaches, which like when we learn about herbalism too,

it's like there's so much more to medicine than pharmacology. There's, you know, the energetics of the medicine too and like looking at the whole person in front of you and how you can help that whole body because that's another, I think, issue with the current medical model is the siloing of

practice and like specialties because then everybody just focuses on their one little niche. and nobody's there putting it all back together into the context of the whole. And we know, you know, so well that, like, all the organs are interfacing with each other. All the organ systems are communicating with each other through metabolites. They're communicating with each other through, like, exosomes and, and micro RNAs. And there's just this whole milieu of, of, like, contact that's happening between organs. And yet we're not really, I mean, in the research environment, we're starting to unpack that.

But that's not really translating yet into medicine, just because, you know, medicine is so slow to change also. Are there any areas of medicine that you're really excited about seeing develop or are you mostly focused on just trying to bring in these alternative modalities into your practice? For now, I'm most excited about light. Yes, definitely. And it's impact on physiology. Every patient that walks in the door is learning something about light and light environment these days. Yeah. And that's primarily what I'm studying. I'm kind of looking into the interface of leptin and thyroid also, and I'm trying to learn more about that. I get a lot of patients who come to see me because they think they have a hormone

problem, right? And I can do a lot of testing that shows no significant. abnormality, but I know that that person does not have good hormonal health, right? And it's kind of this, it's not, it's a common saying amongst endocrinologist. It's not your thyroid. It's not your thyroid. You know, patients who say, I'm tired and I can't lose weight. But it might be, right? It might be altered thyroid function, even when, even when levels look normal, if leptin is dysregulated and downregulating metabolism through thyroid conversion, right? So it's just that how do we, how do we go about resetting metabolism in a patient with normal labs?

That's one thing that I was really interested in in the field of vitalism because I want to offer help to people. I'm not going to have a patient come in, check them for a disorder, tell them that they're fine when they know they're not fine, and send them on their way. So there's always a way that we can improve, right? So that's my goal with everybody that I see. Yeah. And I mean, also because a lot of these labs, like it's just general ranges that's for like the normal population. But I mean, those ranges also change, I think, based on the averages within the population. And then whether that's optimal for an individual is a total different story versus like this is just within the general range of, you know, healthy normal.

We don't really know what someone's optimal is unless they have like a history and baselines to show like the differential. So that's another problem. And also on the topic of thyroid hormone, maybe you'll find this interesting. But before I left, for instance, the lab I was working out there, somebody came in and they started working on thyroid hormone and trying to. to understand it because although we've, you know, known about the thyroid hormones for a long time, a lot of what they're doing is still kind of poorly understood. And the postdoc who was working on that project had a theory and I really want to follow up with him about it because it's been something I think about almost every day since he said. And he was like, you know, I started studying

thyroid hormone going through all the old literature and then doing the experiments in mice. And I feel like thyroid hormone is actually acting as like its fundamental mechanism is by moving water around in the body and it's not directly stimulating metabolism, but instead it's changing hydration systems within like the different compartments of cells. And that's therefore triggering a change in metabolic rate or the expression of key enzymes. And so very compelling. Do you have any thoughts on that? Oh, I've never heard that theory. But it's really interesting. It is, right? Because I mean, we see all these changes in water just at the level of the whole body like water distribution and hyper versus hypothyroid.

But I mean, typically like macrocosm, microcosm, there may be some reflection going on there. Mm-hmm. And we know, you know, increasing structured water and our water battery and our mitochondria influences our metabolism in general, too, in the efficiency of mitochondrial function. And so, like, it could definitely, there could definitely be a link there.

Yeah. It's exciting to think about. It is. Maybe we should separately have a little. It would be fun to just do like a little research project together. We can unpack literature together. Oh, yeah. Journal club.

Absolutely, yes, the journal club. Cool. So I mean, okay, so tell me in the timeline. When did you start the herbalism courses relative to when you were in your practice? And then what did that look like as you started learning that information? How did you start incorporating it into your work with patients? So I started studying herbalism about three or four years into working as an endocrinologist. But unfortunately, and you kind of alluded to this, so the Western model of medicine is set up so that I really don't get that much time with every patient.

And I don't know, you know, this is a criticism of Western medicine. I hear from patients like, you know, the doctor was in there for five minutes with me. But there is pressure always from administration to see as many faces as possible in a day. And a lot of times the doctor doesn't have control over the number that a number of patients on his or her schedule. So I see right now about 16 people a day. which is about the max of what I can handle. And I am only allotted 20 minutes per patient. I always take more than that.

But when it comes to really learning about a person and understanding their constitution and their energetics and their habits and their goals, it takes much more time than that. And luckily for me, I have a really business. busy practice that I, so I see the same people, you know, I've been seeing the same people effectively for five or six years now. And so I have a lot of long-term relationship. So that helps me be able to dive into something every visit with patients. But I, since I learned more about herbalism, I have, I have a lot of my patients on herbal protocols. But my goal,

I would love to have my own herbal apothecary and be able to create custom tinctures and and teas for patients because I can sit and talk with somebody and think, oh, this would be great for them. This would be a great fit, a great match, you know, but I don't have the resources currently. So a lot of times I direct them to my friends who are herbalists who do. I have many, many patients who don't want to take medicine, right? And or would rather limit the amount of pharmaceuticals that they use. And I think that's wise. The less medication it takes to solve a problem, the better overall. And so often, you know, I have patients who just really can't tolerate any of standard diabetes

these medicines. And so we lean heavily on herbal insulin sensitizers to help them, along with diet changes and light optimization and all these other things. But so yeah, that's really how I integrate it currently. But I would love, and I'm in the process, I'm working on this, a practice transition where the people that really want to take ownership over their health, they want to be their own healer and they will change their environment. They will they will change habits to improve health. Like those are the people that I really want to work with. Right.

And eventually I will be able to integrate all of these modalities for every patient and spend the time needed to really know everyone. But I do the best I can in my current, in the current paradigm. Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, 20 minutes isn't bad compared to the average. Yeah, it does feel a little luxurious compared to other jobs that I've had in the past. Oh, my gosh.

I bet. Do you ever get pushback from patients about like herbs or anything that's like not the status quo or do people tend to be quite receptive to it? Quite receptive. Yeah. You know, all my patients know me really well. And they expect that I'm going to. to come up with something that's outside the standard medical paradigm if there's something

available that will be helpful. Right. So I talk a lot about red light therapy and about blocking blue light, changing your environment when you eat. We, you know, use a lot of supplements for issues like peripheral neuropathy, which is notoriously difficult to treat even with medications. So there are lots of different ways that I kind of bring in alternative types of therapies to try to help patients.

Amazing. So if somebody's coming to you with like diabetes or like maybe they're recently diagnosed with insulin resistance or something like this, what is your initial approach look like for them? Like what do you have them changing about their life and their diet and maybe. and maybe some common supplements or herbs you would incorporate in that just so people can get an idea of what this might look like. Yeah. So that's very individual depending on the patient, right?

So if I have a patient who comes in with an A1C of 11, which is very, very high average blood sugar, I treat that person differently than someone who has moderate insulin resistance and doesn't have a lot of. problems with glucose handling, right? So in a patient who I know is insulin resistant based on testing, so every patient that comes in with some kind of blood sugar issue, I do fasting insulin levels on and just kind of attest, see where they're landing in that landscape. I really love barboreen as a supplement.

So if we're not doing medication, we're not using metformin or a GLP1 agonist, then berberin is probably my top choice for helping insulin sensitivity from a supplement standpoint. But I really, of course, focus on diet with every patient. And avoiding processed foods is probably my biggest challenge. You know, and I try to meet patients where they are because keep in mind, I'm in the South. I am in the diabetes belt. Obesity is very common here.

And many of the patients that I see don't really want to change habits. And they don't even know how to do it. Okay. So if I tell somebody to cut out sugar and processed foods and they say, they say, what's a processed food? Right. So there's a lot of education that has to happen. and it usually happens over several visits.

But everybody has different preferences with their diet. And so many people say, well, just give me a piece of paper and tell me what to eat. But dietary preference is very so much that I can't just give a patient a generic list of foods that will work for him or her. And again, depending on insulin levels, leptin levels, how much body fat a person's carrying, how much inflammation they have, there are different allowances for carbohydrates. For instance, when you have metabolic disease versus when you're just trying to optimize your health. So I talk to these patients about what they're willing to do, right? along a spectrum of effort. And a lot of times, um, we may just be working on cutting out liquid sugar or trying to restrict, um, calories to daytime hours. Um, those are really big hurdles

for a lot of people that I see. Um, and after we can accomplish that, um, depending on how much help they need with, uh, their metabolic health. Um, We go sometimes all the way to carnivore, ketogenic. But it just depends on what a person's capable of. Yeah. Have you, so something that I've seen in my collaborative work with some clinicians and it seems to be talked about more recently is this notion that in the long term with these very low carbohydrate diets, the carnivore and ketogenic diets,

that we see some level of hypoinsulinemia where it's like the pancreas becomes sluggish at producing insulin when it's not been really engaged that frequently or that robustly over the longer period of time of carbohydrate restriction. Have you seen that at all in your practice? And do you think that's problematic or do you think it's like worth the tradeoff essentially? So I've personally seen that. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I was actually talking to one of my friends about this this morning. But I did, you know, some sustained ketosis back when I was trying to heal some inflammatory problems related to my nervous system.

And I wear a CGM quite frequently because I have access to that. And I would see where I, you know, had been either fasting for 24 hours, or I'd been eating very low carb for days and days. And if I broke my fast with some carbohydrate, it didn't matter even if it was mixed meal. If I had protein fat, fiber along with it, I would see that blood sugar go over 200. And you know, a serum glucose over 200 is a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes, right?

So I checked my A1C. and it was 5.8, which is pre-diabetic. And I had been eating a ketogenic, mostly ketogenic diet for months. So I really think, you know, the body is very adaptive. And whenever you chronically suppress is islet cells, they do get sluggish. That's going to happen. So to maintain metabolic flexibility, you have to stimulate those cells from time to time. And I think that especially in females, there are times within, well, for menstruating females,

premenstrual females, sorry, premenopausal females. And there are certain times in the cycle when carbs are really necessary for normal hormonal function too, after ovulation and ludial. And every person's a little bit individual. But I've done a lot of personal experimentation with this over the past few years, made lots mistakes, learn lots of lessons. But I really don't think once a person achieves metabolic flexibility and metabolic health, continuing on a very low-carb diet is probably counterproductive at some point.

Optimal health, especially during warmer months when there's more sun available, I think probably requires some carbohydrate intake. Yeah, and I mean, it's just totally in alignment, too, with like the ancestral dietary patterns we would have seen where when the ground's not frozen and plant foods can grow, you would have just naturally accessed more of them versus in the winter months where you're mostly relying on proteins and fats because there's no plant foods available. I think, I mean, even the equatorial cultures always have some level of like animal products in their diet as well. but then they just have a much higher fraction of plant foods because they're around. And of course, they're going to eat them. So I think just like the whole idea of modern humans being so detached from our environments and having like an endless option for different foods throughout the year, it doesn't matter what season it is. It's just like you always have every option available

because we have this global supply chain. It has, I think, confused a lot of people as to like how to eat because now it's just like we don't have those same like patterns that our ancestors would have encountered just based on availability. Yeah, what a time to be alive, right? Where you, I mean, most people can go to a grocery store and pick anything they want to eat at any given time. So when you live in a world where there are few restrictions, you have to impose your own restrictions. And that's difficult for a lot of people. But we've grown up. in this era where this is the norm. And so most people don't know that they don't need to eat a banana in the middle of the

wintertime, that it's not appropriate from a physiology standpoint. So, yeah. And I love like Uncle Jack's theory about light, well, food being like a barcode of the light environment. It just makes so much sense. And I really hope that more research has also done on this in the future where we're looking at like the molecular chaos or like the way that cells are changing their behavior. in response to like inputs that are kind of divergent.

So on the one hand, maybe it's cold environment and no like UV light, no good quality sun. And at the same time, we're getting this influx of carbohydrates. Like what is that actually doing to the mechanisms within the cell that are actually regulating how it's functioning? Not to mention, like I think this springs up a whole can of worms that I recently was talking about with somebody about how in the research environment we're not actually studying sunlight because you can't really control it. So like if your studies are outside, there's a whole bunch of different variables

that are being introduced. I would really like to set up a research lab that has like the quartz glass ceiling. So we get the full spectrum of sunlight coming through and then we can, you know, study mice in natural light rhythms and we can, you know, do our studies in the actual sun. I think that would be really, really dope. But even when I was pitching some projects to some PIs when I was at Penn,

they were saying like, oh, like how can we mimic the sun indoors? Maybe we can get a little UV light and we can get a little red light. I'm like, let's just the start is right outside. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe someday that'll be our reality, right? And it's so cool that you're thinking of these different ways to study it. But when you take anything out of a complex system and isolate wavelengths, right?

It just doesn't, it doesn't behave the same. So, anyway. Yeah, totally, totally. And I think, I mean, I think a lot of this stuff is very intuitive too. And so on one hand, people get very confused and overwhelmed with the amount of information there is within the spaces of like just health in general and trying to understand what's best for them. But like, bottom line is like if we can just get back to the very basics of kind of trying to mimic how our ancestors are living to the best of our ability. it's going to pay off dividends. And that's also where it becomes interesting to look at like somebody's heritage,

especially their maternal heritage. Do you like look at that in your patients at all when you're thinking about what might be best for them with an approach? I would say that the majority of people that I see don't know a lot about their heritage. I wish that I could do some genetic typing on patients, but that's not within the scope of what I can accomplish right now. But we do talk about known ancestry and haplotypes and what kind of environments our ancestors might have come from.

You know, in the United States is such a melting pot of different ancestors, and heritages. And so unless you do a deep dive, sometimes you don't know where your ancestors. ancestors came from. I honestly, what my parents told me versus what I found out when I did 23 and me, there was, there was no alignment there. Really? Yeah. That's interesting. Well, actually, that was pretty similar for me too because both my, so on my maternal side, both of my grandparents were from Germany. And, but I mean, Germany isn't also that old of an area per se. So like, I wasn't sure if my ancestors were from there or somewhere else, but when I did the genetic

testing, it was like all Scandinavian. So they must have been some Viking, you know, shenanigans going on there or something. But yeah, so I mean, a lot of people could probably just at least roughly estimate, you know, their mitochondria habitat from looking at like the race of their maternal side. Because, I mean, if the skin is pale, then it's probably their ancestors came from somewhere where the ground froze in the winter. and then like the whole, you know, kind of progression that comes from that, where you may be doing better on like a higher fat, higher protein diet, especially like during the winter times and you might have an uncoupled phenotype where your mitochondria can make heat better and then like just be able to handle cold environments more.

And yeah, what did you find out about your 23MA if you want to share? I have a lot of Scandinavian descent, which I never knew. and then mostly, you know, Western European otherwise. Yeah. But that's, it's very true. About looking at, you know, the melanin that a person has and knowing what their haplotype might be. It's really challenging overall in clinical practice.

to get the average person to consider these things about what is most appropriate for them based on heritage. But we're leaning in little by little. And it's amazing to me when, you know, I work with patients who really come for medicine management. And that's not what they're getting, right? and it might take five years of visits and then all the sudden one day it clicks and they come back and say you told me this and I tried it and then all the sudden their health's improving so I I do know that there are many there are many physicians who want to do better right and we do the best we can with with the environment, with the time allotted, with the knowledge we have.

But my biggest frustration is that I see my colleagues, many colleagues, who get stuck in this rut of just following algorithms and listening to guidelines from high up, not ever, reading studies for themselves, not thinking critically about what they are doing. And my hope is that we can step out of that and get interested in health again as a profession, right? Get curious about different ways that we can help people. And so that's what I'm trying to do. and trying to spread some ideas amongst my fellow practitioners.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I feel like it's so needed. Your perspective is just a breath of fresh air within this, like, largely stale area of our society, which is sad because medicine is like the most sacred of all the professions, and it's just not treated that way. And it gets frustrating, too, because on one hand, there's this. lack of critical thinking and curiosity like you just alluded to. And then on the other hand, there's also this level of arrogance that often comes along with the profession too. So it's like

the worst combination. Oh, yeah. I encounter that arrogance quite frequently. Yeah. How did this happen? And like, why, I don't know why. Any physician would think just because they have a degree that that lets them hold ownership over knowledge and they know the most, right? That's just not true. There is so much that we don't know. And there are so many new studies that come out every day. And there are so many brilliant scientists who are chasing these ideas. And it's just like if you don't stay curious and stay open-minded and learn from other people, learn from other scientists or healers or people who are outside your realm, then you're going to be left behind.

We all have to work together to share knowledge and share experience and work together to help people. Yeah, I mean, especially because in medical school, I mean, the information that's being taught is sometimes, you know, more than 20 years out of date because just that whole education process is very slow to kind of adopt new information. So there's that. And then there's also like this kind of cherry picking that occurs to just kind of fit within the status quo. Like a lot of the light research has been done a long time ago, but that's not being taught in medical school because it kind of goes against what the, the, the general paradigm wants to kind of portray. So there's also just kind of some level of dishonesty within what information is being made available to students.

And then that's kind of shaping the way that they're thinking about the world and they're thinking about medicine and what's going to help people. And sometimes, oftentimes, it's like the exact opposite of what should be taught and should be, should be like conveyed to the students. And so that kind of, I think, creates this issue with like, making, you know, sending doctors out into the world who have a certain worldview that's not necessarily accurate. Also, that also reminds me that there's also this issue of like things being taught as facts in medicine where it's like this, like science is constantly evolving and

new information is being gleaned and we're incorporating that into make new models. And so if you're taught things as facts, then that kind of eliminates the possibility of that ever changing in somebody's mind. So I think that's also just some weirdness that happens within like medical education. Oh, yeah. So my medical school experience was learn about normal physiology, learn about common types of pathophysiology, disease identification, pharmacology, right? You know how things work, how things shouldn't work, you see the disease, you give the person of medicine. So our alternative health or complementary health. Or complementary, they called it complimentary medicine day was one day. One day. And we met an acupuncturist. We met a chiropractor.

We met a Reiki practitioner. Wow. That was pretty progressive for my school. And I remember the attitudes of my classmates. Like I was so interested. Everybody else was, well, not everybody, maybe. I want generalize, but there were lots of jokes being made, like not a lot of respect shown to the practitioners that we met, right? And that maybe that's when it started, recognizing that there was more. There was more to learn. And I always want to be open to that. But, yeah.

here we are and we have systems that obviously need to be, need to be reworked. And we are the people, we're the people that are going to do it. So we have to start somewhere. It's a big task. So you mentioned Lepin earlier. Do you want to talk a little bit about it for the listeners? I think it's kind of very fundamental within like regulation of physiology. and metabolism, but not a lot of people know exactly what it's doing. Most people just think of it as

the thermostat for how much fats in the body, but do you want to unpack it a little bit more for us? Yeah, sure. So interestingly, you know, I did an endocrinology fellowship several years back, and I don't remember anybody really teaching me about leptin. Yeah. So I knew about leptin as an energy signaling hormone, right? It's a satiety hormone. But leptin is so, interesting. But everything I know about Lepton, I've learned on my own time, just kind of researching it and learning from other practitioners who are talking about it. Lepton is made by fat cells. And Lepton tells our brain effectively how much energy reserve we have on board. Right. So in my practice, I see a lot of patients who say that they can't lose weight.

and in the vast majority of cases, right, leptin resistance is at play in this population. So whenever a body has plenty of fat stores or like excess adipose tissue and leptin levels are high chronically, the brain stops sensing that sensing leptin, and that's called leptin resistance, right? So the brain doesn't really know how much energy there is on board. And when you don't, so in normal physiology, leptin helps suppress appetite. So if leptin signaling is not functioning correctly, then that can impact appetite in the, in the, and patients can be chronically hungry. They can be hungry all the time and not ever get that satiety signal. Um, but, you know, leptin, um, has a direct impact on many different hormonal systems. And whenever

the body can't sense safety in the form of satiety, um, reproduction is impacted too. So, um, you know, I see a lot of women who have leptin resistance, insulin resistance, PCOS. And whenever we really start to target the insulin and the leptin fertility comes back online right and period start to normalize so um we have that association and then you know there's i don't i don't know the direct mechanism of the association between leptin and thyroid function i told you this is something i'm actively studying i'm trying to to figure out um so i can talk about it with a little bit more clarity but we can have relative hypothyroidism from decreased conversion of T4 to T3, which is a downregulation of metabolic function in a way.

And I think that this probably relates to leptin resistance. It's something that I'm studying. You may know more about that than I do. But I am sure that these touch each other in some way. And yeah, so I'm excited to learn more about that. Yeah, I have a friend who's doing a postdoc in Jeffrey Friedman's lab who discovered Lepton back in the 90s. And she's, her project is literally to figure out why Lepton resistance happens because, like,

the cellular mechanisms of that aren't understood yet even, even though we understand that, like, there's something happening where the signal isn't being conveyed into the brain to, like, tell the brain what's going on with regards to how much body fat is in the body, the actual like cascade that's resulting from that kind of incoherence isn't understood. But I think it's super interesting to think about because we know that it has this very central role. And I also do you think the thyroid leptin story is probably happening in the brain like in the hypothalamus? Or do you think it's happening peripherally or do you have any clues? I think it's probably happening in the hypothalamus.

I've read a little bit of data about some of the neuronal pathways that connect. I can't talk about it in detail because I'm not quite sure I understand the mechanism. But yeah, I'm especially interested in. and how the, our brain not knowing about energy reserve and like considering us to be in a low energy state because it can't sense leptin translates to body temperature and how that relates to thyroid conversion because I think that there may be a tie there. I, it's hard to know, but I'm just anecdotally thinking about patients that I see that are leptin resistant and say that they feel like they have hypothyroid.

because they're cold all the time and they are losing hair, et cetera, right? Yeah, but I lost my train to fall. It happens. I mean, I have plenty of things that I would like to chime in with, so no problems. I'm thinking that, so this is reminding me of in, let's say, like, Western herbalism or in TCM, There's this idea of like damp stagnation and it seems to go so closely with like PCOS and insulin resistance and probably leptin resistance too. And this idea that things are just sluggish and not moving and it's creating this swampy,

boggy internal environment and it just really needs to be stimulated. And that also makes sense why that would also correlate with like living an indoor lifestyle and living a sedentary lifestyle because both movement and sunlight are both directly stimulating mitochondria to help them move. and to engage metabolism. And when metabolism gets slow, things start backing up. And so I also wonder, now that I've been like taking herbalism courses also, I'm like connecting dots in my mind between things that I've learned in like the,

you know, in academia, let's say. And then things that I'm learning now and like drawing connections between them, like between insulin and leptin and like these tissue states. I think it's really, really interesting to think about. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I have, I've definitely noted that connection as well. And I wonder about circulatory stimulants and other types of herbal therapies that could be helpful in these patients with specific diagnoses. Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting also because there's, I mean, a lot of these things people can use from just like a culinary system. standpoint. So personally, I think I tend more towards stamp stagnation. And I have a lot of fixed

earth in my astrology chart. So that's not really a surprise. And like a lot of tourists, it's like Venus and fixed earth. And so for me, like I will often have cold hands and feet. And I was also obese, you know, in my past life, like a 13, 14 years ago or whatever. So automatically I know that like I'm just tend to be more sluggish and accumulate. And so over the past few weeks as I've been taking my course, I've just been incorporating more like, um, like spicy peppers in my meals and taking more ginger and using like ginko and just taking them regularly like multiple times a day and I've noticed such an incredible difference in just like the way that my fingers and toes feel like they feel warm when I'm just chilling and I just feel like

more like my energy just flows a bit better and also when when my period came this month it was like so effortless and that's a lot of things I also think about with regards to like women and their cycles and like painful periods or irregular periods is literally like either the stagnantial. that's happening or maybe this like dry atrophy phenotype of the uterus where it's just like dry and it's not working properly. So like this like intense cramping happens to try to get things moving. And if you're using circulatory stimulants, that just helps kind of push things along. And I've noticed such a dramatic difference in myself that I also, actually, it's funny, I initially noticed this when I was dealing with some like post-COVID histamine stuff in 2022 and also

potentially like a parasite issue. I was just getting like really bad like anaphylis. and just terrible histamine responses. And I basically like very much simplified my diet and my lifestyle. I stopped all caffeine. I was just really focused on the basics. And I was drinking a lot of ginger tea, not knowing anything about like ginger as a circulatory stimulant in the herbal context. So I was drinking ginger tea all day every day. And when my period came during that time, like I literally had zero cramps, like no symptoms. I didn't even know I was having a period. And then I looked into some literature and I saw that like ginger's been used. you know, in, like, it's been shown in some studies to be good for, like, dysmenorrhea or

painful periods and stuff like that. But then when I've been taking the course now, now I can totally connect the dots. And it's like, it's because it's a circulatory stimulant. And now with that understanding, like that broad energetic understanding, it's like, it becomes very easy to apply that thinking to like, oh, that's why, you know, garlic would also be good and like spicy peppers would be good. And anything that's going to, like, lie within that class of herbs is going to kind of support similar outcomes. And I think it just opens so many more doors when you're thinking about like different approaches that we can use for ourselves or if we're working with people, that we can help kind of make formulas or approaches for them too. And I think it's just ultimately

very empowering. Absolutely. So you had a really strong experience with agrimony. Have you had any other powerful experiences with any other herbs that are like major allies for you? Oh. So interestingly, my Claire audience almost always shows up in relationship to plants. Wow. So I feel like plants speak to me in a way, which I have so much gratitude over this in general. But I will, I hear plant names with some frequency whenever I have particular issues going on. But so I, one night, well, I've had a very, very stressful last year and a half. You know, I went through a divorce.

I've had like issues with custody. I've had a lot of heartbreak. And I opened my eyes one night. And I literally, I was in, I was asleep. I woke up out of my sleep. And I saw my bedroom wall roses just running across the wall. and it was so bizarre. But I started working with Rose Medicine about a year ago.

And that has been really healing for me as well from an emotional heart space kind of center. Right. I have a special relationship with Violet also. And maybe that has to do with heart energetics as well, heart shape leaves. but I have always, I've always been drawn to Violet since I was a really young kid. Wow. What are the energetics of Violet? I don't know much about that as like a medicine.

So Violet is a lymphatic. Oh. And it is very moist, cool and moist. If you chew a violet leaf, you can get some mucilage. You can tell, right? Yeah, lubricating, soothing, has some affinity for lungs as well, but lymphatic. Yeah. That's amazing.

That's beautiful. Have you worked with Violet in that way or do you mostly, I don't know, do you just like sit with the plants or have you also ingested that one internally? I, let's see, it's a little bit. I've made violet infusions. You know, if you, if you heat the leaves, you lose them. mucilage. But in the spring, if I really want like deep hydration and lubrication and lymphatic clearing, I like to take fresh violet leaves and I blend them with water. And it's not pleasant to drink. I'll just tell you. It is, it's a little slimy. But yeah, it's a beautiful medicine

that way, like coding the entire digestive tract, helping with digestion, elimination, in the spring, right? It's really nice. And then we, um, my kids and I pick violet blossoms and we put them in honey. Right. We make violet honey and we, we work with that all year. And it's very, very tasty. That's beautiful. So you may, for the infusion, is that a cold infusion then? Mm-hmm. Cold infusion. Right. I got it. And for the rose medicine, how do you work with that? Is it a tincture or do you work with another way's tea? Um, I have a, a glycerite that I really like. So I put that in formulas a lot, just sort of as an adjunctive agent. And then I drink a lot of herbal infusions. I wish I could show you my cabinet. But I make

a different herbal infusion pretty much every day. And I always have rose. And so I drink a lot of rose infusion. But it's quite astringent too. Yeah. It is. I think I need some. Well, we actually have a row of rose bushes right next to our house and I'm really excited this year to work with them and also just sit with them but also them make some medicine with them as well because personally I tend towards like a very lax tissue state just like in general I had issues with like leaky gut and just like loose skin also and just also like respiratory stuff and runny nose all the things that are basically hypermobility and literally just like a walking I had acne walking lax like a flopping arm flailing inflatable person that's out in front of the car dealer

that's me yeah so i really want to work with rose i think it's it'll be really really nice for me do you make your own medicines typically like what with the glycerite are you making it yourself or are you typically buying from somewhere um yeah i generally make my own medicine My teachers really, really help with, like, good minstrum, you know, and like I just have some amazing contacts in the cerebralism space. And we share a lot to share medicine. So that's nice. Oh, that's really nice. Yeah.

Do you grow yourself or do you wildcraft? What does that typically like? Oh, I would love to. So historically, I'm a very enthusiastic gardener. but the last house that I lived in was in the woods. And so I got no sunlight. I couldn't grow very much in the yard, but I was foraging in my woods with regularity.

And I had a lot of agrimony in my woods, which was sweet. Oh, wow. But, yeah, with new motherhood and moving from house to house, I haven't gotten to grow very much lately. So I sourced a lot of plants from my friends. I just recently acquired a space where I can do some growing and this is my season. I'm making a list of all the plants I want to work with. What are like the top three that you want to grow yourself?

Oh, top three. Well, I, you know, I always want to have fresh culinary herbs because they have so many medicinal uses too. So that will be a priority. I've already got rosemary and thyme and sage. and mint. Those are already established out here. But I've been working this year a lot with motherwort.

Oh. Or heart medicine and some womb work, et cetera. So I'm excited to grow motherwort. I really want my own mugwort patch. That's powerful. Yes. Let's see. What else did I have?

plan. I love anise hyssop too. Okay. Yeah. Interestingly, I was sitting with anis hyssop during an herb school intensive and I saw this, um, what looked like light coming up through water. This picture in my head. And then when I read about antisyship's essence and its uses, it was about clarity of fault. And I felt like this synchronicity with the plant like it was trying to help me. And I told you that I am working on boundaries and decisions. And so I love that plant in particular, too. Wow. What are what are some ways that, so you said that's good for mostly energetically or is there also like organ affinities that are useful for anis hissup? Annis Hissup is. an aromatic and it's used a lot for, let's see, I think energetically, it's pretty warm to me.

Like a carminative? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It has sort of that anis flavor too. It has some antiviral, antimicrobial properties. People use it in respiratory issues of respiratory infections. Yeah. It's just, it tastes lovely, too, as a tea.

Is a tea a good way to consume it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, that's super easy. And can that be fresh and or dried or is fresh better? I think either one is great. Whatever you get. So herbalists, I feel like, are very much focused on using fresh plants and saying that that's, like, the best way to do it.

But, I mean, I think whatever you can have access to is also good. Mm-hmm. probably many constituents are higher in fresh plants but access is an important point. So dried plants when they're dried correctly have a lot of medicine in them. Yes. Oh, that reminds me. I just picked a bunch of purple dead nettle before we got on this call. And I was curious if have you worked with it before and if so do you have any ideas about

like how to use it. I know it has some astringent and diuretic and laxative properties, but I wasn't sure. if I should tincture it or if I should make a, if I should dry it and make a tea or what you have thought on it. I've actually never worked with it aside from like being excited to see dead nettle every spring because it means spring is here and I taste it, you know, a lot. My kids and I walk around the yard, we do little plant walks and so we taste a lot of things. But I know it has some antihistamine properties too. Yeah. But I've never tried to. to make medicine with it.

I'll keep you posted then. Yeah, cool. I'm going to do a little bit of reading. I'll probably just experiment and make a couple different medicines with it and try it out. But I also love the reflection that it's antihistamine at the beginning of spring too. So it's literally nature providing that balance that people might need to not have those kind of responses when they're going outside. Oh, my goodness. So let's, I mean, I would love to talk a little bit about your training in herbalism.

if you're open to it. So what it looked like, the importance of sitting with plants and what that means and what you're actually cultivating there. And just maybe some different ways that people could learn how to work with plants at home if they want to work with some local herbs or if they're wild crafting or if they're growing things themselves, maybe a couple easy ways to work with herbs that they have available to them. Yeah, so like I mentioned before, my training was a little bit. It started out serendipitous. But all of my teachers that I've come across and worked with intensely, they really have emphasized the importance of relationship, right? So plants are not something that we use.

They are sentient beings. and they usually are happy to help us and we can work with them. But whenever we first have a relationship with plants, it changes the interaction, I believe. So I really, before I pick any wild plant, I sit with that plant. I think it's a really nice practice to feel the energy of a plant. And I always ask permission of the plant before I pick a plant. And energetically, I can feel a response, right? And that's something that's really nice to cultivate.

But I think when anyone, is looking, thinking about herbalism and working with plant medicine, trying to establish relationship is a good way to start. So if you're interested in a particular plant, to sit with it, to taste a little bit of it, to notice what you feel in your body, to notice energetics of the plant and kind of learn about plants one-on-one instead of just having someone tell you reading monographs and experiencing someone else's ideas, right? That's how you truly learn about them is direct experience and relationship. It's really, really easy to work with plants. I mean, the most common ways

to work with them or through infusions and through tinctures in our modern Western medicine. But, you know, herbs, you can ingest herbs too. The most accessible ones are the ones that are available to you, right? And we have so much medicine that grows around our yards. But you have to be really careful about sourcing, about proximity to roads and things that the plants can absorb, right, from pollution. standpoint. Sorry, I got a buddy. Okay, I'm always covered in cats. I have many of cats. I support this.

Yeah, but for someone who is sort of new to herbalism, kitchen herbs are such a great entry point, right? So eating, eating your medicine is a really good option. And, um, working with, you know, aromatic mints in the kitchen and can be really transformative when you know kind of what the benefits are. Transformative to health. I'm getting kitty biscuited. Oh, so sweet. I could totally test that, though.

So rosemary is something that my body just loves. I do really well with it. It's very new tropic for me. I get very, I can feel like focus. and just enhanced energy levels and just like better mental clarity. And it's so common. People don't even think about it as medicine. But the reason that it's become so kind of normalized is because ancestrally, like, we

had that wisdom that it's really nice to have around and it's really good for you and supportive. And I'm also like in the very beginning stages of writing a book. But I really want to unpack a lot of, you know, the things that we kind of take for granted. Like we have black pepper on the table usually. Like, why do we have that there? I mean, it's so interesting. It enhances nutrient absorption from a lot of different types of foods. And there's a lot of wisdom to be unpacked with just like things that we consider as normal, just like the culinary herbs where people just don't even think twice about them. But if you actually sit down and learn a little bit about their history, they have a very rich history in medicinal use and also just like combining them with certain foods to help with, you know, maybe either balancing the effects of those foods out in the body or like the energetics of those foods and also creating a delicious flavor, which is an added bonus. But I think our ancestors definitely knew what was up when it, when it came to these things. Yeah. Even, you know, food preservation. That was another reason that herbs were utilized so much

in the past. But yeah, there's there's so much to learn. There is. There is. And I think starting in your backyard is like a really, obviously, if you're not spraying round up, another garbage there, just go out on your yard. And ever since I started taking like the herbalism classes that I've been working on, I just see the whole world through new eyes. Because I'm constantly looking for little herb friends and what they're doing and what they look like. And the course I'm taking right now is also astro herbalism. So I'm like, hmm, that looks like a moon plan. That's definitely a sun plan. And it's just, it makes life more magical and fun too. Oh, it sure does. It's just incredible how abundance the world is, right? And how they're so.

many plants all around us all the time. And if you don't know who they are, you miss out on that magic. But the earth provides so many, so many remedies for us that are at our doorstep. And so I think it's really beautiful to develop relationship, notice who's around you, and work with those plants. it's appropriate. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of times we end up, I mean, at least once we become open to it, we end up kind of magnetizing the teachers and the allies that we need into our lives at the right time, which seems to have been your experience, too, based on what you told us and shared.

And I think that's so beautiful and it also just opens up so much opportunity for us to grow and to evolve with these beautiful botanical allies and work with them and just start to, I mean, just get out of like the humdrum daily life that so many people are kind of. kind of just going through the day, kind of bored with existence when there's so much to explore and to learn and it's exciting. So I hope people feel inspired after listening to us go to their backyard and go check out the little friends out there. Yeah. Well, with that, maybe we can wrap it up, but I want to let you share where people can find you. And if they want to work with you, are you only working with people in person? Or do you also have any

sort of online practice available? So currently I have an in-person practice, but I do telehealth. I'm licensed in Tennessee, so I don't have any extended capabilities at this time. I will in the future. I've just got to figure out how to make all this happen. But I am on Instagram at Kelsey Dexter MD. I don't post a whole lot there, maybe mostly in stories, right? I'm leaning into it, leaning.

into social media. But yeah. So if you're in Tennessee and you want some holistic hormone assistance, I would be most honored to help. Yeah. Amazing. And do you only do your herbalism practice through your medical practice at this point? Or are you going to start to like veg out and just offer herbalism like consultations

for people separately from your medical practice or what is that going to look like in the future do you think? That's coming. Okay. Hey, we'll stay tuned. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. Kelsey, thank you so much for coming on.

You're just a ray of sunshine. I adore talking to you, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you even more. And ideally meeting in person one day. Oh, what a dream. Thank you, Alexis.