What Would You Do? 9 Real Health Cases Solved | Dr. Josh Redd

What if your thyroid isn’t actually the problem? In this episode, Dr. Josh Redd explains why millions of people are told their labs are “normal” while their immune system, gut, hormones, blood sugar, and inflammation continue driving fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, low testosterone, SIBO, and autoimmune symptoms. This is the conversation for anyone who has been told “everything looks fine” but still knows something is wrong. Uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! → http://mybloodwork.com Thank you to our sponsors! Sunlighten Sauna: https://get.sunlighten.com/axepodcast Manukora Manuka Honey: https://manukora.com/axe Caraway Home: carawayhome.com/drjoshaxe (Use code DRJOSHAXE) for an exclusive discount Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe?sub_confirmation=1 🎧 Early Access! Our listeners enjoy every episode before anyone else! Tune in below and join our exclusive group of listeners → Spotify: https://bit.ly/DrJoshAxeSpotify Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3JDvWcS Pre-order my NEW BOOK, Heal Your Cells → https://bit.ly/3QJBcQ5 Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms → http://DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → http://DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → http://DrAxeHormoneClass.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/ Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/ TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrjoshaxeshow/ X → https://x.com/drjoshaxe/ LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshaxe Website → http://thehealthinstitute.com Sign up for my newsletter → https://bit.ly/4oE9Jf3 Ask Dr. Axe → http://speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe CONNECT WITH GUEST Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/drjoshredd/ Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/drjoshredd TikTok →https://www.tiktok.com/@drjoshredd X → https://x.com/drjoshredd Website → https://drjoshredd.com/ Book: THE 30-DAY INFLAMMATORY RESET: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-30-Day-Inflammatory-Reset/Josh-Redd/9781668205341 00:00 — Why Your “Normal Labs” May Be Missing The Real Problem 00:02:48 Hashimoto’s Disease & The Normal TSH Myth 06:00 — Hashimoto’s, Homocysteine, Vitamin D & Autoimmune Triggers 12:00 — Why Your Thyroid May Not Be The Root Cause 18:00 — The Blood Markers Doctors Often Miss 24:00 — Omega-3 Index, Hydration, Iron & Hidden Fatigue 30:00 — Electrolytes, Adrenals & The Gut-Brain Connection 32:10 — SIBO: Bloating, Brain Fog, Anxiety & Food Sensitivities 36:00 — Vagus Nerve, Gargling, Motility & Parasympathetic Repair 39:21 — Low Testosterone, Libido, Muscle Loss & Male Hormone Collapse 45:43 — Stem Cells, PRP, Peptides & Chronic Joint Pain 50:50 — Who Should Consider Peptides — And Who Should Avoid Them 52:59 — Maximum Longevity Protocol: Tests, Hormones & Regenerative Medicine 57:00 — Budget Health Protocol: The Most Important Labs & Supplements 1:02:00 — Mold, Chronic Infections, Long COVID & Environmental Triggers 1:04:00 — Ozone IVs, Plasma Exchange & Microplastics 1:05:20 — Dr. Josh Redd’s Final Takeaways DISCLAIMER This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the informati

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  It'd be like your check engine lights on and all the doctors want to do is just like put tape over the check engine light. People are sick and tired of going from doctor to doctor, thinking they just have a thyroid problem, when in reality, they have a much bigger, more complicated immune issue that's never being addressed.

• 0:14Josh Axe?

  I started taking that one supplement and about two weeks later, I went from a six out of 10 energy tired all day to 10 out of 10.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  The sicker a population gets, the more broad that lab gets. If you don't know how to read labs from a functional medicine standpoint, you're going to fail that patient.

• 0:29Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 0:29Speaker 00

  Your doctor is a clinical dinosaur, if they say that. Find a different doctor, no questions asked.

• 0:49Josh Axe?

  If you've been to other doctors and you're dealing with something like hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, digestive issues, or any chronic health issue, maybe you've gone in there and you've had blood work done and your lab results came back and they said, hey, listen, everything looks good, but you still don't feel good. Well, today I've brought back a guest we've had before. His name is Dr. Josh Redd. And we had one of our most popular episodes ever, talking about the root causes of hypothyroidism and autoimmune disease, and even getting into things like stem cells and peptides. And on today's episode, we are going to dive deep and talking about how to treat different common conditions. We're going to go through Hashimoto's thyroiditis and hypothyroidism. We're going to go through

• 1:32Josh Axe?

  SIBO. We're going to go through leaky gut. We're going to talk about autoimmune disease. We're going to talk about chronic infections like mold and parasites. We're going to get into PCOS and infertility, low testosterone, and so much more in today's show. And what we're going to do is we're going to go through how if we had patients come into our clinics... How we find the root cause and the treatment protocols we do in order to help somebody heal and reverse the condition. So Dr. Josh, thanks so much for coming on again.

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Thanks for having me. It was great.

• 2:02Josh Axe?

  Well, cool. Well, I'm excited to dive in because this is going to be a type of episode that we've never done before, but really go through the root causes and how we discover the root cause, how we treat the root cause. And so I want to go through some different cases with you and love to hear your best recommendations.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm excited. It's interesting too, because I always say with patients, you can go from A to B in 15 different ways. And one way that you might treat a patient might be a little bit different than how I treat a patient, but the biggest goal is we want to get to the underlying mechanisms and not just treat symptoms. And if we can find and identify those underlying mechanisms, the patient ends up improving so much more. But how we do that could be a little bit different from one practitioner to the next. This will be great.

• 2:44Josh Axe?

  Yeah. All right. So here's first question. A 42 year old woman comes into your office. She has Hashimoto's thyroiditis, elevated TPO antibodies, fatigue, brain fog, constipation, and she's had some weight gain. Her TSH levels are normal. Her T4 is normal.

• 3:04Josh Axe?

  What do you need to test for in terms of other blood work? And where do you start?

• 3:09Speaker 00

  This is a great one to start with. When you have Hashimoto's, you have your immune system attacking your thyroid, right? Your thyroid is just a symptom of a much bigger problem. Our whole goal is to focus on why is the immune system destroying the thyroid at a rapid pace? So many patients will have a normal TSH, just like this one patient. They'll have symptoms like crazy. They'll go from doctor to doctor and they're given thyroid hormones, but nothing's being done to the autoimmune patient, you know, and to the autoimmune process. And so this patient goes from doctor to doctor. They feel like they're crazy. They're lazy. They've lost all hope. Nothing's being done to help manage their symptoms and their problems, but this is because the mechanism isn't being addressed.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  So in this case, it's the immune system, not the thyroid, which it'd be like your check engine lights on and all the doctors want to do is just like put tape over the check engine light. We want to actually identify what the heck is going on with the car. Like, let's look under the hood. Let's see. All the different imbalances that are causing and driving the Hashimoto's to flare up. And so that's the goal. Now, most low thyroid patients, it's more of a systemic issue. It messes with the adrenal glands.

• 4:18Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Blood sugar issues, intestinal tract, liver function, brain. The brain inflammation is a very real thing when it comes to a Hashimoto's patient. This pla- this patient is a walking inflamed nightmare and nobody knows what in the world to do to calm it down. Right? So as a practitioner, our biggest goal is to do like a very extensive systemic blood test. Let's look to see how your blood sugar levels are. Let's look to see how your hormones are. Too high of estrogen and too low of estrogen will flare up the Hashimoto's. If you have insulin surges, that will flare up the Hashimoto's. Cortisol defects in the adrenal glands, which are your stress glands, play a big role in flaring up and making Hashimoto's worse.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  And so if they have lower cortisol or higher cortisol, that will flare up the Hashimoto's. The intestinal tract, usually when we see a Hashimoto's patient, almost 99% of the time, they have intestinal permeability.

• 5:12Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Which means they're, when they eat, their fruit, food protein should be digested properly. If they're not, then it absorbs into the bloodstream. And then their immune system reacts to those food proteins and then flares up the Hashimoto's as well. Um, and so just looking to see and identifying what's causing leaky gut and what's causing poor digestion and absorption. That's a big thing for us too.

• 5:36Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Another really common thing that we see with our Hashimoto's patients is they'll do, they'll have what's called a methylation problem. So homocysteine, this is a really easy marker for anyone to check for. You can check in your labs and you'll check homocysteine, it's like an eight dollar test. If homocysteine is above eight, it's flaring up the Hashimoto's, no questions asked. And there's lots of easy things you can do to get the homocysteine to be below eight. And one of the simple things that you can do is just by taking methylated B vitamins, uh, to get homocysteine below that. Another really common thing that we'll do for a Hashimoto's patient is to look at vitamin D levels. Vitamin D levels, when they're optimal, they improve what's called the regulatory T cells, which actually calms down an autoimmune response.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  A lot of our Hashimoto's patients will have what's called vitamin D receptor polymorphism. Which means even though they have optimal vitamin D, it doesn't bind onto the receptor properly. And then you'll have the Hashimoto's flare up. And so if we can really optimize vitamin D levels, I like them to be around 60 to 80. If we can get vitamin D levels to be optimal, that will significantly decrease the autoimmune response and all that as well.

• 6:48Josh Axe?

  That's so good.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  There's a number of other things that you can do, like avoiding inflammatory foods right away. We'll do a food intolerance test with our Hashimoto's patients and we'll kind of see exactly which foods is that patient eating that's causing the Hashimoto's to flare up. If they're having an immune reaction to food, they're going to have an immune reaction to their autoimmune response as well. Those two kind of go hand in hand. You can't eat a food and your immune system freak out without your immune system also freaking out and attacking the Hashimoto's.

• 7:20Josh Axe?

  Yeah, right.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  A lot of times with our Hashimoto's patients too, we screen for other autoimmune conditions. Most of the time, they're not just suffering with one autoimmune condition. They have multiple autoimmune conditions creating problems. So we'll have our Hashimoto's patient that comes in, they end up having antibodies attacking neurological tissue, or antibodies attacking joint tissue, or intestinal tissue, or whatever that may be. And you typically don't see a patient just having one isolated autoimmune condition. And so that's, that's really important. Now, from a hormone standpoint, though, there's, there's a lot of things that, that can happen. So when somebody has Hashimoto's, especially in females, we see this a lot, estrogen tends to build up quite a bit because they have

• 8:06Speaker 00

  liver detoxification problems. If there's even an ounce of liver type issues in their blood work, that's one of the first things will get functioning the fastest, to get their liver to clear toxins, estrogen, thing like that. And usually when we do that, the patient improves just within that first 30 days. One of the things that we'll see is you have what's called phases one and two of detoxification. If that process doesn't work, then that really flares up the Hashimoto's and causes a number of problems. And then from a hormone standpoint, check this out, this is, I hope this isn't too much information, by the way, this is like rapid fire from my brain.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  But here's what we see. When somebody has an autoimmune disease, their body's in a lot of physiological stress. What this does to the adrenal glands is it makes the adrenal glands pump full steam ahead. And in order for the adrenal glands to function properly and to maintain optimal cortisol, it steals away progesterone. And so this patient with an autoimmune disease and Hashimoto's ends up having pretty much no progesterone whatsoever because it's being converted into cortisol, which is your life-saving hormone. So what that does is then it causes an estrogen-progesterone ratio issue. So we have estrogen dominance. Estrogen dominance is one of the biggest triggers for Hashimoto's. We'll have a lot of Hashimoto's patients that are on like birth control and other things that increase

• 9:30Speaker 00

  estrogen and that causes problems. But then to make matters worse, guess what's, your body can convert hormones into other hormones. It's, it's pretty intuitive about that. But once your hormones get into estrogen, estrogen has to clear through your liver and intestinal tract. If it can't clear properly, then that flares up the Hashimoto's even more. So now we have progesterone that's being stolen away, which causes tons of symptoms and problems. But then we have estrogen not able to clear properly, and that causes a ton of problems. And then what makes it worse is let's say estrogen can clear the liver properly. Once it gets into the intestinal tract, then it's bound to a protein. And there's an imbalance

• 10:13Speaker 00

  that will actually break that estrogen off of the protein and pump it back into systemic circulation as more of a toxic and inflammatory estrogen flaring up the Hashimoto's. And this imbalance is one of the most common imbalances that we see in America. Do you know what that imbalance is?

• 10:29Josh Axe?

  Well, I'm trying to think if, if you're talking about the blood marker, is it sex hormone binding globulin is part of that process?

• 10:35Speaker 00

  So, so here's this. When, when estrogen clears the liver, it's bound to a protein to get excreted.

• 10:42Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Blood sugar imbalances will activate beta glucuronidase,

• 10:46Josh Axe?

  Okay.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  which will break off that protein and pump estrogen back into the system. Almost all of our patients that have Hashimoto's have blood sugar imbalances.

• 10:57Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  And just stabilizing glucose is one of the biggest things that you can improve.

• 11:03Josh Axe?

  Sure. Yeah. I mean, what I found is, you know, if you can fix cortisol and insulin, I mean, it's like every other hormone just starts to come back into into balance. Those are the pathways.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're you're so right. If we can manage stress, if we can stabilize glucose, that's one massive trigger down and the patient tends to respond quite significantly. It's one of the first things that we'll do for sure. We'll look at liver dysfunction. We'll look at blood sugar imbalances. We'll look at cortisol defects. Those three, I kind of call the three-headed monster. If you can correct those three,

• 11:33Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  patient's going to optimally improve and have a lot better quality of life.

• 11:36Josh Axe?

  Yeah. I mean, you said so many good things there. I want to just overview a few of these things. One is when somebody has Hashimoto's thyroiditis, it typically isn't the same thing for everybody. I mean, oftentimes I think, you know, when somebody goes to see a conventional doctor, they'll tend to think, well, I've got Hashimoto's, it's a thyroid problem. And that's, that's where their head goes. It's the thyroid. You named several organs and hormones that are impacting the thyroid itself, or of course, the immune system itself. You mentioned the gut, you mentioned the liver, you mentioned the adrenal glands. So this is sort of a multi-organ issue, and it's also a multi-hormone issue. You didn't, you actually hardly mentioned a thyroid hormone, and you didn't.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  I don't care about the thyroid.

• 12:14Josh Axe?

  And insulin and cortisol, those are a much bigger deal.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:18Josh Axe?

  When it comes to it. And so, and you know, what I was, when, when, when I read off those lab markers, one of the lab markers that sometimes doctors don't even run, which is crazy to me with thyroid issues is T3, which of course is a much more important hormone, and that conversion, to your point,

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 12:33Josh Axe?

  happens in the liver, right? And so the liver might be the most important organ to a degree when it comes to thyroid health.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. You nailed it, though. I literally don't give two rips about the thyroid because this patient doesn't have a thyroid problem. They have an autoimmune problem. Their immune system is going crazy. So if you can correct the immune system or enhance it or improve it, then that improves the actual destruction that occurs at the thyroid. Now, if a patient has a low thyroid, I want them to be on thyroid hormones. I'll prescribe thyroid hormones and get their TSH perfect for sure. Because every cell in your body utilizes thyroid hormones for energy, right? However, if the patient has Hashimoto's, it's a much bigger, more complicated systemic problem. It's not just an isolated thyroid problem. And people are sick and tired of going

• 13:25Speaker 00

  from doctor to doctor, thinking they just have a thyroid problem, when in reality, they have a much bigger, more complicated immune issue that's never being addressed. Sometimes patients suffer for 20 to 30 years and never have a doctor that thinks deeper from a clinical standpoint and tells them, hey, you have a lot more going on than just your thyroid, right?

• 13:44Josh Axe?

  Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a study that came out recently, and you probably saw this, it was at Yale, it was also in the, in the GMA. And the study found this, it said 23 million Americans, mostly women, are taking levotiroxin, this common thyroid medication. According to the study, it said 21 million may not need it. Because when they looked at the study, they were getting people off of it, and people were saying, well, either my symptoms haven't changed, I feel just as good, or I feel better, once they were getting off the medication. One of the things I found is, you know, if we can start to support more cellular energy, this is why herbs like ashwagandha are so powerful, rhodilla rosacea, getting things, you know, changing the diet, getting B vitamins.

• 14:26Josh Axe?

  To your point, that is so critical, especially, you know, when I run blood work on thyroid hormone patients, we, we always run a MTHFR test, too.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  It's so critical.

• 14:36Josh Axe?

  For methylation, and more than half certainly have that variation.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:43Josh Axe?

  And it's not being addressed. And so, you know, what I, what I found is, is that most of the time, you know, these thyroid medications, of course, you know this, they're not fixing the root of the issue, but oftentimes you can get their TSH to where it needs to be. Because part of what they found in the study was, your TSH is changing based on the time of day, it actually changes based on the cycle, where the woman's on in her cycle. And, and, you know, most doctors aren't even, you know, bringing that into consideration.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. And here's the thing, when you have Hashimoto's, as it flares up, your immune system will destroy the thyroid more rapidly. And it'll actually release thyroid hormones into the bloodstream, the more rapidly it gets destroyed. And so Hashimoto's patients are in kind of a unfortunate circumstance, where they'll have hyperactive symptoms, where they're restless, they'll have insomnia, they'll have panic attacks, they'll have rapid heartbeat. And then when it calms down, You might have low thyroid. So their TSH is often like a roller coaster.

• 15:33Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  And so getting to the mechanism and addressing the overall physiology, not just addressing the thyroid is really important.

• 15:42Josh Axe?

  Well, and that's, that's why to your point is the only way you truly fix everything is you fix lifestyle, you fix diet, you fix stress, you, you, and you, and you get the right, the right nutrients in there.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:52Josh Axe?

  You know, and things start to balance.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  So to summarize all this, just for fun, you have a patient that comes in with Hashimoto's and the doctor sees the TSH is normal and they don't do any form of treatment. If the TSH is high, they'll give them levothyroxine.

• 16:07Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  Or some type of hormone, thyroid hormone, right? Now look at the difference between that versus what we would do. We'll do a way more extensive panel.

• 16:17Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Identify every possible imbalance that's driving the autoimmune response to flare up. We'll address liver function, the intestinal tract, we'll stabilize blood sugar levels, we'll work on the adrenal glands, we'll improve brain inflammation because brain inflammation is one of the biggest things for Hashimoto's. We'll look for and identify other autoimmune imbalances. We will work on digestion, we'll work on their diet, we'll work on their lifestyle, we'll examine their environment and see is there anything they're exposed to that's flaring up the Hashimoto's. We might prescribe the patient, uh, lotus naltrexone. We might do standard ozone IV treatments. We might do stem cell IVs.

• 16:55Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  We might do a number of other things. Alternatively, there are certain peptides that are awesome for Hashimoto's patients.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  That's 20 different things compared to, nope, your TSH is normal.

• 17:08Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 17:09Josh Axe?

  And again, you know, and this is what you're doing in your clinic is what we're doing in our clinic and it's really doing, again, it's personalized. That's the thing I would say, I'd call it personalized cellular medicine. We're going into, looking deeply into. Everything, including the blood work and other testing, and then dialing in the exact protocol to heal. Have you ever felt like you're doing everything right? Eating clean, working out, taking all the right supplements, but your body just won't cooperate? Maybe you're tired, you're foggy, you're gaining weight, you can't sleep, and your doctor says your labs are normal? Here's the truth. Normal blood work does not mean your body is operating normally. It just means the levels in your blood work look okay. Not that your cells are actually using them the way they should.

• 17:53Josh Axe?

  It's like using the wrong map and wondering why you're lost, or putting gas in the tank, but the engine still won't turn over. Because if your cells are inflamed, stressed, or in survival mode, nothing you do will work the way it should. Your body's been whispering for years. Now, maybe it's screaming, and you deserve someone who's actually listening. Go to mybloodwork.com and see what your blood work missed, what's really going on beneath the surface. Because you're not crazy, you're not lazy, you're just stuck in a system that was never built to find the problem. It was built to diagnose disease, not restore your health. At mybloodwork.com, we'll show you how to finally get your body and your life back. Let's dive into the next one here, case.

• 18:38Josh Axe?

  So here's one, okay? And you've heard this before.

• 18:43Josh Axe?

  A patient says, "Every doctor tells me my labs are normal, but I still feel exhausted, inflamed, achy." What biomarkers would you look at to uncover the hidden causes of inflammation?

• 19:00Speaker 00

  So, one, your doctor is a clinical dinosaur if they say that. Find a different doctor, no questions asked, right? On top of that, there's, has to be reasons of why a patient feels bad. If a patient has symptoms and problems, the doctor just isn't testing. The labs properly. Yeah. You have this lab range. This lab range will tell you what's normal and what's not normal. That lab range is typically a six month average of patients who've gotten their blood work done at that lab. And so no matter, there's different labs all throughout the country that will have different ranges. And the sicker a population gets, the more broad that lab gets. We had, you know, we do labs all over the world. We probably see 300 patients a day with my 10 offices combined.

• 19:43Speaker 00

  We had a lab in a rural area where like you would have full blown diabetes and the lab range said you're normal. It was absolutely insane. So, one, you can't trust the lab range. That's a sick range. Like when you get your labs tested and you go to the lab to get your lab work done. Just look around at the people. You got a lady on the couch. She looks like she dead. She's opens her eyes and like, oh my gosh, that lady's not dead anymore. Like, these aren't healthy ranges. These are sick ranges, right? Yeah. And so we have to look at those ranges and be able to look at, okay, what's optimal and what's sick. Over the last probably 40 years, these lab ranges in our countries, America gets sicker and sicker. Just get more broad and more broad and more broad.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  And so you'll have something that's just right, almost to the cusp of being high or low. But it looks like it's normal and it's definitely not. That's driving symptoms. That's driving problems for that patient. But if you don't know how to read labs from a functional medicine standpoint, you're going to fail that patient. That's right. So, one, even if I didn't even test further, I just knew how to read lab ranges from a functional standpoint. I guarantee that patient has reactive hypoglycemia, blood sugar issues. We'll do a thorough workup exam. They probably have low blood pressure. That's not getting blood and oxygen to the brain effectively. Just from that number of things, right? But then you look at inflammation. Then are they testing the C. rectorine protein? Are they testing LDH, which is one of my favorite markers to run?

• 21:12Speaker 00

  Because there's a few things. If LDH is higher, above 180, that means that patient has an inflammatory response occurring. If it's around 140 or below, that means the patient has reactive hypoglycemia and the cells are literally starving for glucose. So just that one is a pretty good one. Homocysteine, which we talked about, if it's above 8, they have a methylation problem. That in and of itself can cause lots of problems. Uric acid is an inflammatory marker, which is great. Another easy one is ferritin.

• 21:41Josh Axe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  Ferritin is an acute phase reactant. When that's high, we have inflammation. If it's too low, you know, below 75, then that patient could have iron issues, right? And iron is utilized to help transport oxygen throughout the body. So just optimizing that can really help, right? Other good ones are glucose serum. We love that marker. A morning cortisol or a salivatory cortisol test is great.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Those are the markers that I would check, along with some other autoimmune antibodies with this patient that says all of her lab work is normal.

• 22:20Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it. You know, there's one other test we started doing, which I really like, is really an oxidative stress test. You know, this allows us to know about, and of course, GGT is also good for this, looking at glutathion and acetylcysteine. But you're, and we found that really effective with autoimmune patients. But I mean, you really hit on the big ones. I mean, looking at the, look at the, looking at the antibodies, looking at CRP, looking at a lot of these other tests and being able to tell, hey, what's the root cause of inflammation here? And the majority of the time, with the right lifestyle focus, you know, the one, I'll throw out one outlier. On occasion, and by the way, this is not the majority of the time, but on occasion, we see people that have some sort of infection, right?

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:58Josh Axe?

  Could be some sort of, you know, microorganism that's kind of silently causing those issues in the body too. And I know you see that too.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yep, which is huge. A lot of times. When it comes to infection, these patients will have a chronic infection and you'll see white blood cells, not low, but they'll be really close to being borderline low. And you'll see the monocytes or you'll see neutrophils chronically low as well. And that typically means the patient is suffering with some form of chronic infection. And until you can improve that infection, that patient could have symptoms of fatigue and low motivation and all that as well. It's great.

• 23:32Josh Axe?

  Yeah, one other marker that I've really enjoyed running and seeing, and it comes back with a lot of patients, it's off is an omega-3 index.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  Love that one.

• 23:39Josh Axe?

  I mean, it's, you know, it seems so basic, you know, it's so funny. I started doing lectures about 20 years ago and I would ask people in the audience, when I first started, I asked a lot, I asked them a lot of questions to see what they may want to hear me lecture on and, and I would ask people, how many of you have heard of what an omega-3 fat is? Like 10% of people, this is 20 years ago. Well, now every single person would say, oh, of course I know what an omega-3 fat is. But it's so crude, you remember Dr. Sears, you know, wrote his book and all, so, but, um, but yeah, these omega-3 fats are off, are off on so many people. You know, what's interesting is I went, so most people are familiar with MTHFR, right? And this, these, this gene variant for methylation.

• 24:22Josh Axe?

  There are so many other gene variants out there. Like I did a genetic panel on myself and my daughter and I have a genetic variant where I don't convert omega-3s well. So, you know, some people can convert ALA well from walnuts and grass-fed beef into EPA, DHA. Mine was the lowest on the index. So really the only way I'm getting EPA, DHA is fish and fish oil.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. That's, that's brilliant. I love that. Another interesting one, which is crazy, but we see this pop up a lot more is just red blood cells, hematocrit and hemoglobin. And why I say this is that oftentimes we'll see these three higher. And all it essentially means is the patient isn't drinking enough. Like we see a lot of patients coming to our, coming to our clinics and they're just severely dehydrated. Well, that's like, what did you have for, like, how much have you drank today? They'll be like, I had a diet coke in the morning.

• 25:18Josh Axe?

  And a coffee.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. I had a, I had a Fresca at 4:00 PM and that's about it. And it's like, well, I have the best thing that's going to help you the most. It's called water. Drink more water and just by, just by being hydrated, all of a sudden the patient has more energy and things like that. But here's the cool thing is that instead of just guessing, you can run the labs, even basic labs. And if I know how to read them, or you have a practitioner that understands functional medicine and functional blood chemistry, you can see patterns and problems where the patient might have an imbalance, but it's not quite a severe pathology yet, but it's definitely driving symptoms and that's the key.

• 25:56Josh Axe?

  Well, especially if you have multiple going on. And one of the great things about blood work, you know, one other thing I just came to mind was ApoB, of course, for heart health when we're talking about inflammation. But there are, you know, when you start to see these patterns, like, okay, I'm seeing a liver problem, or I'm seeing a problem with insulin over here. And this is why, to your point, I mean, again, blood work is so valuable, especially running multiple markers. Because the thing that you and I have seen too, when we're looking at these functional medicine ranges versus the conventional, a lot of times, you know, they would have gone into their doctor, as you know, this question I posed, and their doctor says, hey, everything's normal. But you and I might have, you know, run our lab, and there's maybe nine markers

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:33Josh Axe?

  that are borderline or off, but those together are all pointing to maybe one or the same thing. And then, you know, I'll share a personal story here. I had, you know, this spinal infection I had about three and a half years ago, didn't walk for a year. And I had to get on antibiotics for a month. And I was able to cut down the time by, I was supposed to be on it for three months, but because I was in a hyperbaric chamber, like, living in there every day, really cut down the time, everything I did. But afterwards, I was fatigued, Josh, for about a year and a half.

• 27:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:04Josh Axe?

  And I was just so tired. And I hadn't run blood work on myself. And I did then, and of course, so many things were off that it was like, well, okay, I just need to do everything right. And, and I was just really tired. And I went, and finally, I did a blood work panel, really looking more at cellular micronutrients. And I really just had one marker off. And it was vitamin B2. But it was like, zero. I mean, it was absolutely at the very bottom.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:29Josh Axe?

  And then my also mitochondrial score was very low because of this. I started taking that one supplement.

• 27:36Josh Axe?

  And about two weeks later, I went from a six out of 10 energy tired all day to 10 out of 10.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  That's all.

• 27:41Josh Axe?

  It was that one thing.

• 27:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:42Josh Axe?

  But that's the thing, if you do the right blood markers, and that was another point is that, so you brought up these, the ranges. One of the other issues today is, most doctors not running the right markers.

• 27:53Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 27:53Josh Axe?

  To start, it's like, hey, we're gonna run a CBC and CMP, and that's about it. Versus, most people have never been to their doctor, they're not even testing for magnesium. Yeah, vitamin D, maybe iron, but they're not testing for, for most of these nutrients.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. I love that. Uh, one of the things that we see when somebody is tired all the time and they come back normal, one of the most common things that we see too, is just simple blood pressure. So, most people think their blood pressure is really good. Let's say they have, they've been tired since they were 16 in high school, and they've been tired for 25 years up to this point, always tired. Oftentimes, we'll look at that patient, we'll do labs, and their blood pressure is like, less than 100, over 60.

• 28:33Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 28:34Speaker 00

  And their blood perfusion's so poor. What this does though, is they'll go to the doctor, the doctor will be like, oh, your blood pressure's great. No, you have a blood pressure of a dead person, right? Of course you're gonna be tired, of course you're gonna have energy issues, of course you're gonna be depressed, you're not gonna be motivated, because your brain is literally starving for glucose and oxygen and nutrients, because your blood pressure is not pumping to the brain properly, and just the tissues, right? And so oftentimes, we'll just check their blood pressure really consistently, and if their blood pressure's really low, we'll do things to optimize blood perfusion and to increase their blood pressure, and almost overnight, you see their increase in energy just like that. They go from having fatigue for 20 years to within one week, you improve blood sugar

• 29:16Speaker 00

  levels and improve and optimize blood pressure overnight, they're way better.

• 29:20Josh Axe?

  That's so good. You know, a little bit of, uh, you know, well, a little bit of electrolytes will go a long way.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  Which is, which, here's the thing, so check this out. People wonder, well, how do electrolytes help you? Well, most of the time with blood pressure, you're gonna have cortisol and adrenal issues. Guess what helps that? Electrolytes. Electrolytes are vital to help with the adrenal glands. And all of a sudden, now you have this more optimal, you know, blood pressure. Licorice root is a really common one that we'll have. Increase their sodium content. Have them eat more frequently. If these patients skip meals, they're, they're, you know, they're gonna have lots of problems. But these simple strategies, the patients that have had chronic health issues for a prolonged period of time, they're typically frail, typically skinny. You know, they, they just don't look as,

• 30:10Speaker 00

  they don't look like they have as much vitality as they should.

• 30:12Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  These are the patients that have been suffering for 20 years that you make these subtle changes. And within one week, they went from zero good days a month to 30 good days a month.

• 30:21Josh Axe?

  Yeah, and probably the simplest fix too with that is just more sea salt. You know, I mean, it's just that, that, that really, I'm one of those people that would be more prone to that if I wasn't very conscious of it. And a lot of these people I've found as well, they're, they're craving salt. They're, they're, but they're, but they, but they're not using it. You know, and that's a, that's a problem. When we talk about rewiring the brain, we usually focus on things like mindset or neuroplasticity. But one piece that doesn't get talked about enough is inflammation. And even something like honey can matter here because not all honey is created equal. Certain types of honey can actually help support the gut environment where much of that inflammation starts. And your gut and brain are constantly communicating through what's called the gut-brain connection.

• 31:05Josh Axe?

  So when your gut microbiome is out of balance, it can influence mood, focus, and overall cognitive function. And that's why I choose Manucora Manuka Honey to balance this. Manuka Honey contains antibacterial compounds that can act as prebiotics to help support beneficial gut bacteria. And if you want to try it, check out Manucora Manuka Honey. It's become a staple of my daily routine. Head on over to manukora.com/axe to get 31% off plus $25 in free gifts with their starter kit for my exclusive listener discount. All right, I want to jump to the next one here. Okay, here's a case. A woman has bloating after every meal,

• 31:49Josh Axe?

  constipation, brain fog, struggling with anxiety, and even some food sensitivities. Okay, she's already tried probiotics and certain elimination diets. What makes you suspect SIBO? And what would you do for that patient? Any other testing, any supplements? How do we start to reverse and improve and even discover if it's SIBO in the first place?

• 32:10Speaker 00

  You just described 70% of Americans, right? Bloating and distension after meals. Now we think it's okay. As we age, this gets worse and we're like, oh, the bloating and distension is not normal? Like if you ask most of your patients that they have bloating and distension after meals, they'd probably say yes, right? SIBO is one of those things that can have kind of multifaceted as well. So just kind of explain this. When somebody has SIBO, they have built up bacteria in the small intestines. And when somebody eats, that bacteria kind of ferments the food that they're eating. Starches are likely to be fermented more. And then that causes more gas, more bloating, more issues.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  You really shouldn't have that much bacteria in the small intestines. But what happens is when this starts to occur, you're going to have a valve called an ileocecal valve. When the gas and distension occurs, it opens up that valve. And then also you have what's called translocation of bacteria from the large intestines into the small intestines. And this is like a vicious cycle. But this, this ends up causing brain inflammation. This ends up causing systemic inflammation. This causes a lot more problems than just bloating and distension, right?

• 33:24Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  A lot of the times too, so there's a few things is we can do a lot of things to help kill the bacteria in the small intestines. Now, that's pretty simple.

• 33:34Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  But we have to look at the mechanisms that drove this patient to get SIBO to begin with. One of the most common things that I see SIBO patients have is just brain inflammation and poor frontal cortex firing. And so let me explain this. The frontal cortex, when the frontal cortex fires to what's called the vagal nuclei, it increases digestive enzymes, which is huge for SIBO. You know, if you have improved digestive enzymes, it's great. It increases gut motility. It increases blood flow to the gut. It improves HCl. HCl is one of those things that sterilizes the small intestine so that you can't have bacteria overgrowth.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  And so at first, when we're treating a patient, we'll improve HCl because it sterilizes the small intestines, will improve digestive enzymes, will have them do things to improve gut motility. When somebody has severe constipation, if your guts not firing properly and you have slow gut motility, then your food can start to ferment and rot in the small intestines and that can cause SIBO as well. But most of the time, patients will just, or doctors will just focus on the intestinal tract and they fail all day long because the mechanism wasn't that. The mechanism was the brain.

• 34:51Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I totally agree.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  And so sometimes we'll have somebody with like, they'll get a concussion, they'll have trauma, they'll have brain inflammation, and then that ended up causing the SIBO. And so on top of that, we'll do a number of things that get the frontal cortex to fire. And some of my favorite things to help the brain fire to the enteric nervous system. So just to give you an idea, if I was, if I was going to dissect your brain and I had it like out just like this, you would see this, let's say neurological tissue, you would see this like huge webbing of net neurological tissue engulfing the whole intestinal tract. That's called the enteric nervous system. It's pretty much just one organ.

• 35:29Josh Axe?

  So much of it's called the second brain, right?

• 35:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. If we were to dissect your brain and all the neurological tissue with it, you would see it's all connected, like this enteric nervous system, this neurological tissue is all connected to the brain. And the frontal cortex, the brain fires to this enteric nervous system, and then we have all those really beneficial things to help improve digestion, absorption, gut motility, all that stuff. So what's fascinating is I have to do things from a clinician's standpoint to get the brain to start firing to this enteric nervous system more effectively. One of, one of the easiest ways that you can do is just gargling water aggressively for two to three minutes. That's such an easy thing. We had a patient with severe constipation, she would go weeks without going to the bathroom.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  And she started seeing us, like the second day in, she's like, hey, can I take this depository? I was like, hey, no, don't do that. Just gargle water aggressively every hour for the next five hours and let me know if that works. She texts me like three hours later and she's like, Dr. Redd, I pooed. And I was like, ew, that's nasty. But like, she was so pumped, but all she did was she gargled water aggressively and that caused the frontal cortex to fire to the vagal nuclei into the entire nervous system.

• 36:42Josh Axe?

  We know, so I understand. This lines up exactly what I see in SIBO patients. And so I think what I found is the single biggest thing that typically causes, and there's other causes, is just living in that fight or flight state. People are living in it all day long, cortisol is being released. And so basically, you're living in sympathetic with no parasympathetic. You mentioned the vagus nerve. And this is a lot of people that where, and I see this with a lot of moms, it's like, they have something scheduled every moment of the day. Their brains never have one second to rest. And so that this vagal response just isn't happening in the body. And the great thing about gargling and humming is that it is the fastest way, to your point, to just literally go right into that vagal state, right into parasympathetic.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  So right, so right. It's fascinating, too, to think that where I can just be overly stressed, so I can be this fight or flight, and that's going to inhibit my brain from firing to the vagal nucleus into the entire nervous system.

• 37:38Josh Axe?

  By the way, I found, this is a, most of the time, patients, when I tell them things like box breathing, or, you know, gargling, or these things, most of the time, instead, they do, they want to supplement.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 37:49Josh Axe?

  But, but, but the reality is, this, to your point, this is what you're sharing is the most effective way to, to actually heal SIBO. And you want to do all the other things, but this, when you're thinking about root causes, the highest things upstream, this is one of the, this is at the top of breaking the cycle. It's so good.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  It's exercise, right? It's, you have to now go, so here you have this sympathetic dominance. It's almost like me having a massive bicep and me having zero triceps. That's pretty much what's happening in the patient's brain, right? And so, we have to physically go in and you have to put in the work every single day to get this to activate and get this to fire and to strengthen this parasympathetic response in order for this to function properly. And so gargling, humming, there's a machine called an alpha stim, which you can clip to your ears.

• 38:37Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I've got one, I think it's called a neuropod.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 38:40Josh Axe?

  And I've been using that and it's, it's.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  I love the neuropod for sure. That's a great one. Uh, but anything, any machine that you can clip to your ear and it stimulates the vagal nucleus uh, is going to be important.

• 38:52Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 38:53Speaker 00

  One thing that people don't realize, and this is kind of a funny one for people, but there's a massive amount of research is coffee enemas.

• 38:59Josh Axe?

  Uh, yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Coffee enemas, the caffeine, you don't, you don't absorb it, but the caffeine uh, will stimulate the nicotinic receptors and then fire it back up to the brain and get this pathway to function properly too. That one's actually really beneficial because it helps with liver detoxification, gets the brain to fire more effectively. We'll typically have our patients do it one to two times a, a week and that's really effective too.

• 39:21Josh Axe?

  Yeah. All right. Next question here. Um, so a man comes in.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  Finally getting to the males.

• 39:28Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I know. Exactly. Thirty-nine years old, okay? Unmotivated, his libido's low, just doesn't feel like he's able to put on muscle anymore, just doesn't feel as strong as he used to be. And just low-grade depression, not really depressed, but kind of low-grade depression constantly. And just feels just a lack of sort of, you know, vigor.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:50Josh Axe?

  What do you think?

• 39:51Speaker 00

  Here's this, and it's unfortunate for the females because their hormones are a little bit more complicated, so it takes time to get them to improve.

• 39:58Josh Axe?

  Men are so much, it's so much easier.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Men, if a male patient is somewhat motivated, he will dominate rapidly. And it always drives this, the wife crazy.

• 40:09Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Um, but in this case, that this patient clearly probably has testosterone issues, probably has blood sugar imbalances and, and has inflammation.

• 40:18Josh Axe?

  And here'd be another thing with it. Actually, regular testosterone's just, it's, it's, it's somewhat low, but free testosterone is absolutely just tanked.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. So here's the thing, in males, they have a number of problems is blood sugar imbalance, imbalances, or insulin resistance will cause testosterone to turn into estrogen. And then that will cause further insulin resistance. And then that causes more testosterone to change into estrogen. It's this vicious cycle. So now this male has more of a higher estrogen, lower testosterone pattern, which is really bad for males. And then they're tired, moody, depressed, have these issues, right? That's, that's problem one that we see quite often. So just stabilizing glucose in males can make a huge difference so that testosterone doesn't aromatize faster into estrogen.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  The other thing is that when you have insulin resistance, it will also cause problems with inflammation. Inflammation increases. When inflammation is high in males, it degenerates the lytic cells of the testes, which are the very cells that produce testosterone. So just calming down inflammation will inhibit or diminish the lytic cells from degenerating, which will allow those cells to produce more testosterone naturally. And then all of a sudden, this male has a lot better pattern. A lot of times too, when you see these males with lower testosterone, they typically have like a sedative lifestyle. They're sitting at a desk all day long. Their caffeine, which is their adrenal glands are shot because they're consuming a massive

• 41:54Speaker 00

  amount of caffeine, their blood sugar levels are really unstable, they're not getting sunlight first thing in the morning, their circadian rhythm's off. And just improving that towards, hey, let's get out first thing in the morning when you wake up, let's get sunlight, let's exercise, let's get your cortisol waking response up, let's start to stabilize glucose levels, let's calm down inflammation. And all of a sudden, that patient in 30 days feel better than they have in, in five years.

• 42:20Josh Axe?

  If men did three things, eat a diet where, to your point, is good for blood sugar, eat a lot more protein and fiber. If men then would go and lift some weights and if men would then go and just not overwork and have a little bit more fun, boom.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  Done. It's unfortunately, and now with men, now we have peptides, like as you get, as you get older, there's lots of things that we can do for longevity, right? We always want to optimize testosterone. We want to improve certain things. Now with peptides and with other things, if you can do diet, lifestyle, find the underlying mechanisms for that male patient, in 60 days, that patient, if they're motivated, will look like a human specimen where they're just like, complete transformation really quick.

• 43:06Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah, I'll say, you know, I'm thinking about, I had somebody come up to me in the gym recently, a guy, and he, he had said, hey, listen, he said, you know, we're trying to get pregnant and my, he said, I lift weights. He was a college athlete, really great college athlete. And he said, you know, I'm eating really good. He told me his diet, I'm like, man, that is really good. He's like, my testosterone's still low. But he was a type A achiever, working 50, 60 hours a week, you know, nonstop. And it's like, well, that's.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. Just like females, when, when we are constantly consumed with stress and we're constantly going in this fight or flight, in females, progesterone will be stolen away into, into cortisol, right? With males, when we're in this fight or flight response, our, our testosterone will be completely taxed. And so we have to get out of that fight or flight response in order to optimize testosterone.

• 43:58Josh Axe?

  Well, in a very similar way, you know, there's this whole pathway that you're, that you, you're talking about, but you know, typically it's called this, you know, cortisol steal, right? We're basically cortisol. It's like your body's making a decision. Do I make stress hormones or sex hormones, right? Sex hormones, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. No, but cortisol is stealing all of these materials to, to, you know, to make stress hormones rather than, you know, the sex hormones.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  Which that's the number one cause of infertility right now, right? What you just described is, is literally now we have infertility rates exploding. Exploding. That's the number one cause of infertility right now. If they just fix that, pregnant alone still is what we called it.

• 44:40Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Then all of a sudden, now we have optimal sex hormones and now having babies, kids and all that stuff becomes so much better. But it's shocking how many people miss it.

• 44:51Josh Axe?

  Yeah. You know, I had another patient recently came in with that same pathway and it was for fertility. And the other thing that was high though, was a sex hormone binding globulin.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:00Josh Axe?

  You know, and, and that was basically just, I looked at the diet, it was so mineral deficient, you know, it was like no, no zinc, no boron. Like those were coming low on labs and it's, you know, so, so sometimes there are other things, but to your point, it's the biggest thing. It's definitely the biggest thing. Okay. Here is another one. A former athlete has shoulder pain, knee pain and low back pain. Physical therapy helps some, but they are still limited. They eat pretty healthy. They still try and exercise consistently. When do you start considering peptides, PRP, exosomes or stem cell injections? And which of those do you like the most? And what would you typically recommend for this person? Or how would you evaluate them?

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. We probably see the most professional athletes in the country when it comes to stem cell orthopedic injections in our clinic. We see a really high volume of pro athletes. It's, it's fascinating too. We don't want to just right away inject stem cells. That's not really how I do it. The biggest goal for us is are there underlying imbalances that's impeding this athlete or this ex out, you know, ex NFL player, or whatever it may be, from improving or optimally healing. A lot of times we can have micro adhesions in our shoulder, in our joints. Because as we age, stem cells don't migrate properly. And when we're younger, stem cells migrate and start to heal things really fast. Right?

• 46:26Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  As we age, stem cells or own stem cells don't migrate properly. So we end up having micro adhesions, almost like where we have scabs that are constantly being ripped off, um, different like small little adhesions that are bleeding, causing problems and inflammation, and the patient just doesn't ever improve. So typically we'll look at underlying imbalances that might be causing that patient to not heal properly. When we look at those two, and the patient's willing to improve those, that's when we'll jump into stem cells and peptides as well. Now, with the advancements that we have, stem cell orthopedic injections are absolutely incredible. Like I broke my back, um, probably about eight years ago. I was paralyzed for a few days, in bed for a few months. Even

• 47:11Speaker 00

  after a year or two, I couldn't even sit down for more than an hour. I couldn't golf more than nine holes. And I was just gonna go, um, to Germany and get a disc, disc replacement. And I was already in the field of, of regenerative medicine and stem cells. And so I was like, you know what, I might as well give this a shot and see since I'm going into that anyways. And, uh, I remember I got my, uh, stem cell injections. They injected my disc, they injected my facet, they injected my tailbone, they did epidurals. Um, and it was the guy that I was doing my residency with. And, uh, I remember I drove from Chicago to Utah after 60 days after I got the stem cell injections, and I had zero pain. It was the first time that I was able to like sit for more than one hour and notice like this made a huge difference.

• 47:55Josh Axe?

  Yeah. You know, I have a similar story in terms of I injured my back about 10 years ago, uh, weight training. And, um, and, and basically I had pain for years and years and years. First time I really saw a big difference with stem cell. One thing I found with stem cell though, that's really important, and you kind of alluded to this earlier, is you need to do stem cell plus other things. Stem cell's incredible, but two other things to think about. One is getting on the right diet and supplements to support and keep inflammation levels low. The other thing is retraining the correct, you know, posture and the correct function when you're exercising, because I had a lot of sort of dominant patterns. Like I, growing up, I was a cyclist and a soccer player. So everything was about my,

• 48:38Josh Axe?

  you know, a lot of quads. And so, and I was never taught properly how to squat. You know, I'll give you an example of this. I had my weight trainer, my, my strength coach in high school taught people, don't let your knees go over your toes. You know, so like, but all of that was more pressure on my back.

• 48:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:57Josh Axe?

  And so I literally, I found a guy's name Steven Shin. Incredible. And, and he does, you know, this really advanced type of postural correction PT. And I do zoom videos with him and I've seen him in person too, but having him do that with the stem cell together got me a hundred percent of pain, a hundred percent.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  And that's always important. If we can send our patients to somebody who can help with the muscular side of things and the physical therapy side of things, it makes our stem cells so much better.

• 49:26Josh Axe?

  I mean, the problem is all says, I mean, most physical therapists are not, they're not trained in the right type of movements. I mean, you really have to find that top, you know, two to 5% of the muscle guy who understands that.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  So when I was at Johns Hopkins, my professor's lab, they could sever a mouse's spine and make it quadriplegic and then inject stem cells and it could fully walk again.

• 49:46Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  And so we're in that lab and I was like, holy crap, this is going to change all of medicine. And so I went back to naturopathic medical school, then into residency, and now we're doing the stem cells. But here's the cool thing with stem cell injections, we're clearly not there yet, but the advancements are getting better and better and better every single year. So the stem cells that I would use, like the umbilical cord stem cells that I would use two years ago are, the ones I'm using now are significantly better than the ones I'm using two years, two years ago.

• 50:12Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  And five years ago, we would do like bone marrow and fat from, you know, get stem cells from the patients on bone marrow and fat. But yeah, it's stem cells every year, it's getting better and better. It's going to change all of healthcare soon.

• 50:25Josh Axe?

  It is. I agree. I think, I mean, people think peptides are big and we'll hit on that next and they are, but, but I think, I think stem cells are the other one up there with them. It's not bigger in terms of creating miraculous

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:35Josh Axe?

  results in people, which brings me to the next question. All right. Who is the ideal candidate for peptides? What symptoms or conditions make you think this person needs peptides at the forefront? And so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  So here's the thing, when it comes to peptides, and this is where we've seen problems within our clinic, is sometimes you have peptides in the gray or black market that can actually cause more problems than good. And we've seen that within our, within our clinics. Our patient population is extremely sensitive to their environment, to the food they eat, to what they put in their body. And so if they're getting it from the gray or black market, that's like a huge red flag and that could be really problematic because you don't even know what's in there. Is it?

• 51:18Josh Axe?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 51:19Speaker 00

  Completely, you know, watered down? Is there other things in there? Do they have a C of A, a certificate of analysis to see exactly what's in there? The peptides that we use are all, are all pharmaceutically, um, you know, manufactured and we have a certificate of analysis. So we see exactly what is in that peptide and that's, that's really important for us, right? Now, there's a number of ways, I love peptides done the right way. If I'm just doing a shotgun approach with peptides, I think we fail.

• 51:49Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  Just like supplements, just like medications, just like whatever, right? I love peptides, similar to how I, how I do functional medicine, I do the exact same thing with peptides. I'll do extensive lab testing, I'll identify what's, what's going on with that patient. And if there's a peptide that could help get that patient from A to B faster, I'll use that peptide for a short period of time. Most peptides aren't, aren't to be used for long-term use. In fact, they can even be more problematic if you use them for long-term use, right? So a lot of times I'll use peptides for one to two months to help make a physiological change within the labs. And then we're done, we're rocking and rolling to something else, right?

• 52:28Josh Axe?

  Yeah, so good. All right. And I know you have these people, if you're taking care of a lot of professional athletes and things in Utah, okay.

• 52:36Josh Axe?

  A wealthy patient comes to you with unlimited resources, okay? They want your maximum longevity and performance protocol. What are the most important tests? Name three to five of those, the most important peptides, the most important supplements, any regenerative therapies? That are going to be the best for longevity, unlimited resources.

• 52:59Speaker 00

  You're putting me on the spot there. So I did a residency, uh, his name's Harry Adelson, where we just did full body stem cell treatments.

• 53:09Josh Axe?

  It's the biggest thing.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  On celebrities and pro athletes. We literally injected stem cells in every single joint in your body, your whole spine, epidurals, shoulders, knees, toes, scalp, face. It was about a two hour procedure, but with unlimited resources, we saw massive improvements, just that.

• 53:30Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 00

  Uh, that's a really expensive procedure, though. Uh, on top of that, when it comes to peptides, uh, or supplements, or what tests to do. Obviously, when somebody's looking for longevity, we'll look at blood sugar imbalances, we'll look at inflammation, we'll look at heart disease, cardiovascular health, intestinal stuff, right? So we'll do a DNA stool test, we'll do extensive blood work, we'll do a cortisol, uh, salvatory test.

• 53:59Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 00

  And we'll literally pinpoint every possible imbalance that we can correct there. And so we'll put them into a full functional medicine treatment plan, where we'll literally just find every possible imbalance that we can, and then work to correct it there.

• 54:12Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  Then from, you know, you have your options with stem cell treatments, um, hormones. As somebody ages, we now know beforehand, we used to think hormones were really bad for you, right? Now we know, if you do hormones the right way, where you're not just guessing, you're doing the right tests, and then you're implementing, um, hormone therapy, and then you're retesting, you can optimize hormones, and you can really improve someone's quality of life and their longevity, if you do hormones the right way, utilizing bioidentical hormones. So as you age, I'm a big fan in optimizing hormones, and research shows that that minimizes cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, dementia, all sorts of things, if it's done the right way. So I love optimizing hormones, if that patient is older.

• 54:59Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  Um, and then, from a peptide standpoint, there's lots of really good peptides, but I usually don't prescribe peptides, just as a shotgun approach. Um, I, I, I don't mind, um, you know, doing microdosing GLP-1s for somebody that's looking for longevity. There's a lot of uh, research out there that suggests that's, that can be really helpful. Um, but based off of what that patient needs will be based off of what I actually do. Now, from a supplement standpoint, this is, let's get there.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  As we age, our glutathione demands increase. And so I love glutathione for patients as they age. I love things that will help decrease inflammation for patients. Things like, you know, bioavailable turmeric, risveratrol, boswellia, those types of things. Omega threes, which you touched on, are huge. Magnesium is one of those things that it does 600 different processes within our biochemical processes within our body. If you are deficient in magnesium, we can have lots of problems. So I love, I love magnesium. We talked about methylation and MTHFR gene mutations. Most of the population as we age have methylation issues.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  In fact, there's research that shows if we have high homocysteine, it's almost paralleled with our risk of Alzheimer's. The higher homocysteine, the higher Alzheimer's and dementia will be for that patient. And so from a neurological standpoint, just improving methylation as that patient gets older is huge. So taking the right methylated B vitamins can be such a game changer and that could be the most important thing that that patient takes every single day for the rest of their life, on top of obviously eating healthy and avoiding inflammatory foods.

• 56:41Josh Axe?

  Okay, one more question. Somebody comes in with a limited budget, okay? What are the most important blood work markers to look at if they have a limited budget? Typically, the top three supplements and the things that they can do on a budget that will make the biggest difference in their health when it comes to longevity?

• 57:00Speaker 00

  We touched on them earlier. Stabilizing glucose, right? I'm going to look at glucose serum. I'm going to look at cortisol and stress hormones. And I'm going to look at liver, liver markers. Those three, if they're on a limited budget, I'll do in a heartbeat. And ironically, a blood test for this individual might cost $40 if they're on a limited budget. Some people think functional medicine is incredibly expensive. It's really...

• 57:26Josh Axe?

  What, it should save you money in the long term, absolutely.

• 57:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. But we could do a blood panel for $40 and know that you have blood sugar imbalances. Wear a continuous glucose monitor, let's stabilize your glucose. So that your blood sugar levels are in between eighty to one thirty regardless of what you eat. Just that one change puts so much stress off the adrenal glands and decreases inflammation. So if somebody was on a limited budget, I'd say, hey, let's dial in your blood sugar levels. And let's eat in a manner where your blood sugar levels are stable, just that one thing. And then we do things to help with their stress response. When they wake up in the morning, let's get sunlight, let's get that cortisol waking response high. Let's do things as we wind down for bed to keep that cortisol levels low so that you have a good restful night's sleep.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  And then from a supplement standpoint, again, kind of similar, but if they can't afford much, glutathione could be really beneficial, methylated B vitamins, magnesium. I'll tell you my top five supplements. You want to know my top five?

• 58:28Speaker 00

  Vitamin D with K2, but we have to make sure that there's MK4 and MK7. So two different forms of K2 because those two, one's long acting, one's short acting. But what that does is it pulls calcium from your arteries, follicles, lungs, and puts them into the bones. So you have to make sure that you're doing vitamin D with K2. I add magnesium is a second supplement that I'll have my patients take. If there's five supplements that I have to take, magnesium is definitely one of them.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  Methylated B complex, because so many different people have methylated issues. That's in my top five as well. Omega threes are huge and we like omega threes from like wild caught fish. What I love is omega threes with astaxanthin because it helps so that the omega threes don't oxidize and go into problems there. And then my last one is micronized and purified creatine. Ironically, for male and females, the research now is staggering where it helps with your brain. It helps with anti-aging, it helps in so many different ways, far beyond just that. And if with creatine, you just have to make sure that it's tested for impurities.

• 59:44Speaker 00

  That's huge. There's a lot of creatine out there that's absolute garbage because it has a ton of different things in there that will cause. Endocrine disruptors, it can increase cancer, it has a lot of impurities in there, it can cause problems. So you just want to make sure that you use a creatine that is tested for impurities and contaminants. But I use a micronized creatine. Micronized will help it absorb better. It just makes it more like powdery. It's almost like powdered sugar.

• 1:00:10Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah. And some of these too, I know there's, there's crealkelin now. There's some that are, some people have some digestive distress. Not a lot of people, but there are some people with creatine. And so I think these forms are more, more absorbable, which is great.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Absolutely. So those are my top, so those are my top five for anyone. Omega threes, vitamin D with K2, magnesium, methylated B vitamins and creatine.

• 1:00:34Josh Axe?

  That's a, that's a great list.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  What's your top five?

• 1:00:36Josh Axe?

  That's a great.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  If you only had to take five supplements, what's your top?

• 1:00:39Josh Axe?

  I mean, it's going to be hard. So yeah, I mean, you know, statistically, vitamin D and magnesium are going to be up there. Um, I, I really love taking magnesium glycinate, but let me go back to this. Knowing my own blood work, I probably don't need vitamin D just because my D levels high. I probably take magnesium glycinate as my number one. I would take a B vitamin. Um, actually what's interesting is I did this whole genetic panel. I don't, I don't do well with methylcobalamin. So I wouldn't take a typical methylated B. I would probably take one that's B2.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  So check this out. This is huge. Most people don't realize this. The most common thing is methylcobalamin. You just said it.

• 1:01:19Josh Axe?

  Hydroxy.

• 1:01:19Speaker 00

  But yeah, so you have the hydroxy and you have adenosyl as well. There's three different forms of B12. If you have a methylation issue, the best supplement on the planet will have all three forms, not just one, which nobody realizes it. So keep going. Sorry.

• 1:01:35Josh Axe?

  Yeah. So, but, but, but I would have that because, uh, I, I would do the methylated with the, with the three different types. I can do some methylcobalamin, but higher doses, I get the wired but tired feeling. So, so I would do that. I would do a high dose probiotic. Um, I've just noticed for myself, it's good for, I mean, there are so many studies on nutrient absorption and GI regulation. And so that would be on my list. I would probably then do two more. I would probably, I mean, omega threes. Because I don't convert well, that's going to be a high on my list. Creatine, you know, it could make it. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. I mean, I might go for like a, a superfood formula that has turmeric and, you know, pomegranate extract and a bunch of superfoods.

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 1:02:20Josh Axe?

  But creatine would probably rank six or seven for me too. But those would be the ones, those are the ones that I, now listen, I take a lot of stuff. But, but, uh, you know, I probably take, I don't know, I probably take, I don't know, 13, 14 different supplements a day or so. But, but, but that's, but those would be at the top.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Josh Axe?

  Our last question.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  Rapid fire all day is great. I love it.

• 1:02:40Josh Axe?

  Well, this may not be, well, rapid fire this as much as you can. Okay. You're the patient. Okay. You have come down with, all of a sudden your energy has dropped. Your gut's been inflamed. You, you have autoimmune markers that kind of out of nowhere, just all of a sudden started coming on. What are the top five tests you would do on yourself? And what would your own personal recovery protocol look like likely?

• 1:03:06Speaker 00

  If I instantaneously came up with something like that, I would check for mold.

• 1:03:11Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  Uh, I would check for my environment. I would check more things outside of my body than I would inside my body to see what am I being exposed to? What change in my environment that is now causing my immune system to freak out? Is there an infection? Is there a virus? Is there mold? Are there other environmental things that are maybe causing, uh, me and my immune system to freak out and to cause these issues?

• 1:03:39Josh Axe?

  It's so good. It's so good. Yeah, you know, I totally agree. I totally, yeah. If you have something come on like that, you know, it was a virus, a parasite, mold. Typically it's going to be a, you know, a pathogen causing issues. And we see this with people, right? And, and sometimes these people, they feel bad, they feel a little, you know, they, they get somewhat better, but they never fully heal. Of course, we see this with our, with long COVID people. But there, there's a lot of people out there living with these, these infections. What are some things in terms of just the process quickly? When it comes to dealing with infections?

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  One of my favorite things is obviously removing the patient away from whatever could be making it worse. But one of my favorite treatments now, uh, when it comes to mold and infections is actually standard ozone IVs.

• 1:04:28Josh Axe?

  I was gonna say ozone.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Josh Axe?

  I mean, do you guys do Ebu in your office or 10 pass?

• 1:04:31Speaker 00

  We do, but I've actually seen that like, we can do high dose, um, ozone IVs or standard ozone, and I almost see this almost just as effective.

• 1:04:41Josh Axe?

  Yeah. So you're doing MAH or?

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:04:43Josh Axe?

  Okay. Yeah. So great.

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  We now just have, uh, TPE in our office, uh, as well, which is kind of the plasma exchange. Like you've seen in the social media where they're holding like the big.

• 1:04:52Josh Axe?

  Of course.

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  Bag of, yeah. We now do that too, which is really cool. And you can test microplastics, all sorts of stuff before, and then you get it done, which is about a three hour procedure. And then, you know, afterwards, you almost have no microplastics. All the environmental toxins are decreased. And so now we have that too, which is super cool.

• 1:05:09Josh Axe?

  Super powerful.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Josh Axe?

  I love it. Well, Josh, thanks so much for coming on. Uh, again, we've had Dr. Josh Redd here and, uh, you're one of my favorite people I have on. I mean, I love.

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  I love coming on yours as well. Thank you.

• 1:05:20Josh Axe?

  I love your depth of knowledge and I love the way that you, um, have this really incredible root cause approach of doing this advanced testing. And then you have so many different therapies and tools to help people heal and recover. And so absolutely love it. I want to encourage you to check out Dr. Josh Redd. He's got clinics all over Utah, 10 clinics. In addition, he has a great social media channel you can follow, uh, at Dr. Josh Redd. Redd is R E D D. So you can find him on social media, but check out his practice. Check out him on social media. He's got great content out there. He's got a great book out called The Inflammatory Reset. I want to encourage you to check out his book as well. And we'll say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Ak Show. Remember every week we're diving deep into how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health

• 1:06:05Josh Axe?

  and your life to the next level. Also do us a favor, subscribe to the podcast. It's the number one thing you could do to support the show and allow me to bring on incredibly brilliant doctors like we had with Dr. Josh Redd on. Also, you're not going to miss a thing. Sometimes because we cover controversial topics here, uh, it doesn't always pop up on your feed. So make sure you're subscribed. Also, think about who's one person who could benefit from learning about some of what Dr. Josh and I talked about today. Uh, share this with them on social media or as a text message. I want to say, thanks so much for listening. We can't wait to see you on the next episode.