The Natural Healing Swaps Doctors Rarely Talk About | Dr. David Jockers

Millions of people are stuck managing symptoms with medications, but what if there’s a better way to support your body’s healing systems naturally? Dr. David Jockers joins Dr. Josh Axe to share practical “Green Pharmacy” swaps, while breaking down the nutrition myths and supplement mistakes that may be holding you back. Plus, discover why your cellular energy and mitochondria play a critical role in hormone balance, metabolism, and overall vitality. Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe?sub_confirmation=1 🎧 Early Access! Our podcast listeners get every episode early, and you can tune in and be a part of our exclusive listeners below → Spotify Apple Podcast Order my NEW BOOK, The Biblio Diet → https://bit.ly/4oPEP3t Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms → DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → DrAxeHormoneClass.com 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! → MyBloodWork.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram Facebook TikTok X LinkedIn Website Sign up for my newsletter Ask me a question CONNECT WITH DR. DAVID JOCKERS Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjockers/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrDavidJockers/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doctorjockers X: https://x.com/DrJockers Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-jockers-functional-nutrition/id1497791107 Book: https://a.co/d/0clLjSW7 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 information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 1:15Josh Axe?

  Every day you have a choice of whether to take a medication or take something natural. I remember growing up, when I was a kid, my parents were not very educated in natural health. So every time we were sick with a cold, a flu, an ear infection, you name it, we went to our doctor and we got prescribed an antibiotic drug. Today I've brought in a really good friend of mine. I've known him for over 20 years. It's Dr. Dave Jockers. And today we're going to be talking through the top natural remedies to heal your hormones, improve your energy, fight almost every disease you can imagine. So when you are thinking about next time, do I reach for the synthetic drug or do I reach into my natural medicine cabinet?

• 1:58Josh Axe?

  We'll talk about the top things in every category of what's natural to help you heal. So Dr. Dave, welcome to the show.

• 2:04Speaker 04

  Well, thanks so much, Dr. Josh. You know, I've known you over 20 years, the real deal, and just so proud of how Far you've come and excited for this conversation.

• 2:12Josh Axe?

  Well, thanks so much. I was thinking back. So I want to say that I remember going and staying with you. So we have to take boards, right, to get our medical license. And I remember staying with you. This would have been back in probably 2007. And I think I probably met you as early as it was probably 2005, 2004. So it was, it was, it was a long time ago. So we're talking, you know, 21 or so years ago. And so I remember that. And I remember us making superfood smoothies together. I mean, I think Vita Mix is just became popular. So we were putting in every concoction of these greens and red powders and a handful of spinach and, you know, all kinds of stuff in this, you know, making these superfood smoothies every morning for a week. And anyway, so I just going way back, I know that you have been in natural health for a long time.

• 2:57Josh Axe?

  But one thing I remember about you as well is you grew up more into natural health. I believe your parents were, were, were some of the first kind of people that were, because it used to be like 1% of people were into natural health. Now it's probably more like a quarter of people are at least interested or have some sort of focus on it. But, but you sort of grew up in that environment.

• 3:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, my mom actually was studying to become a massage therapist and then eventually a naturopath. And so she's a nurse practitioner and naturopath. So I grew up, she always had her own garden. And like, we never got antibiotics. She would just give us cloves of garlic, make chicken soup at home.

• 3:29Josh Axe?

  Wow.

• 3:29Speaker 04

  Right. And so I remember if I felt sick, I would eat cloves of garlic, which wasn't fun. But I mean, I got better quicker.

• 3:36Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  Right. And that was just what I knew. It was natural medicine. What was, what was interesting was my dad, he is like the most picky eater ever. And, um, you know, really, uh, he, he, he is kind of against, not really against natural medicine, but just against like eating healthy, healthy lifestyle. And my mom kind of drags him along. And I always tell people, you know, this is, this is a testament to a persistent mom. Right. Probably a lot of persistent moms that are listening to this right now.

• 4:06Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 4:07Speaker 04

  Every one of my brothers and sisters, I'm one of six kids, is into health, right? Like, we live a healthier lifestyle than most people. Obviously, I'm a natural health doctor, right? And that was because of my mom. It was in, in a sense. In spite of my dad's influence and it was because my mom was so persistent about helping us adopt a healthy lifestyle, eat healthy foods, constantly educating people. I remember my older brother had acne and she would say, that's because he's eating all this processed sugar. He's eating processed chocolate bars. He's eating french fries at school. And I was like, oh, wow. And I love french fries. I love processed sugar. And I was like, well, if he's getting acne eating that, I don't want that. I'm gonna avoid it.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  So I started making nutrition changes that way. She would have kale, mushrooms, things like that on our, on our dinner plate, which I hated. I didn't like the taste as a teenager, like, like most teenagers.

• 4:56Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  And so I was like, why do I have to eat this? And she would say, well, it's gonna help you. I was an athlete growing up. She's like, it's gonna help you have more energy.

• 5:03Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  It's gonna help you recover better. You're gonna be able to play better. Your, your vision's gonna be better. You know, and I was a pitcher, baseball player. And so I was like, well, if it's gonna help me be better, I'll eat whatever, you know, I'll, I'll have seconds of that.

• 5:14Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Right?

• 5:15Josh Axe?

  It's all about incentives. And by the way, I see this, it was a very similar thing, you know, up until, but until my, my mom got cancer her second time. And it wasn't until then till my dad really started to change his diet as well, because one thing was my mom is making most of the meals, not all. My dad does some cooking. My dad's actually a pretty good cook, but my mom probably makes meals, I don't know, five of the seven nights a week. My dad probably would make them a couple nights a week. And, um, but eventually my mom's like, this is what I'm making. And my dad adopted to it. But the thing that we found over time too, and I saw this, I, I learned this and then taught this to my mom and dad as well, who then started implementing it. It's like, we still eat chocolate cake. We just use coconut flour and almond flour and raw honey and monk fruit, right?

• 5:57Josh Axe?

  Like, we still eat chicken parmigiana. We just found the way to make these natural, like, growing up, we made a lot of things like salmon patties. We lived, grew up in the Midwest in Ohio, did a lot of Midwest dishes. But now we just found the way to eat almost the exact same thing. We just use the healthier version of the ingredients. And everything works out that way. But it's so common that a lot of times it's the, the female, it's the mom, who kind of brings the, the family into that, that form of sort of like that feminine leadership of sort of the home of getting the home healthy internally. And it's, it's just, it's, it's so important. So, and we didn't really have that. We had the major crisis in my family in a similar way. I'd love to dive into some of these different categories of natural remedies.

• 6:37Josh Axe?

  One drug I've heard you speak out on before, I've seen you write articles on are statin drugs. You know, share with me your thoughts on statin drugs. What is the root cause of the real way to heal? The reason why people take it for typically high cholesterol? And what are some of those natural remedies that can start to fix it?

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. So you and I are both, you know, we're advocates of emergency medicine. So life-saving medicine when it's needed. But the problem is that most medications out there, I would say probably 90% are prescribed when it's not a life-threatening circumstance. And they never actually get to the root cause. And statins are a great example of that. Because statins, what they do is they lower cholesterol. And so basically, there's this idea that high cholesterol equals heart disease, right? Cholesterol gets oxidized, causes damage to our endothelial lining, the inner lining of the blood vessel, which then ends up leading to a blood clot, plaque formation and a blood clot and a heart attack. And so it's only part of the story, though, right? Cholesterol is actually like, when we look at LDL, which is called the bad cholesterol, right? LDL is a bus.

• 7:41Speaker 04

  It's actually carrying, it's carrying key lipids. It's carrying phosphodendral choline, all these key things that cells need. Fat soluble nutrients. It actually carries vitamin D, vitamin A, all those types of things to the cells. So the cell can heal and repair. When LDL goes up, what it tells me is the body's trying to burn fat. And it's also trying to heal, right? The cells are actually trying to heal. Doesn't mean that there's something wrong. It can be, right? And I've got to look at some of the other biomarkers, right? Triglycerides, HDL, things like that. So if we're just saying, and there are some medical doctors out there that actually believe we should put statins in the water. They think everybody needs to lower their cholesterol. Isn't that crazy?

• 8:23Speaker 04

  And so really, when we look at what's actually causing damage to the blood vessel. It's going to be high blood sugar, which causes A G Es, advanced glycation M products that damage the endothelial lining of the blood vessel. It's inflammation, right? I know you talk a lot about that. So high circulating immune complexes like, uh, like C reactive protein, right? If that's up in our bloodstream, that's damaging. It's like shrapnel going through the, the bloodstream, damaging those, those blood vessel walls. It's lack of nitric oxide, right? Nitric oxide helps dilate the blood vessel. When we have low nitric oxide, which is usually correlated with more inflammation in our system, then the blood vessel wall is not able to open up properly and there's going to be more damage on that endothelial lining.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  So we've got to actually get to the root cause. Just blanket lowering cholesterol isn't getting to the root cause.

• 9:12Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  And then when we look at what statins actually do, they actually poison our mitochondria. I know you talk a lot about mitochondrial and cellular health. Mitochondria are what produce all the energy within all the cells of our body.

• 9:22Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  And so we want healthy, vibrant, stress resilient mitochondria. What statins actually do is they actually inhibit the respiratory complexes in the mitochondria and shut down mitochondrial energy production. This is why some of the key side effects of statin drugs are things like muscle pain, because we know the muscles are loaded with mitochondria. Um, uh, early cognitive decline. So cognitive decline because the brain is so mitochondrial dense. That's one of the key side effects of taking statin drugs. And so basically it's damaging our energy producing, uh, factories, right? Within all the cells of our body and leading us to chronic disease. In fact, taking statins increases our all cause risk of mortality.

• 10:08Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  So dying of all causes. So the, the two things we know about statin drugs, they will lower your cholesterol.

• 10:14Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  But they'll also kill you quicker from all different types of causes, cancer, everything.

• 10:20Josh Axe?

  I mean, I really think if there are doctors out there that are just prescribing statin drugs without changing diet first, recommending supplementation, recommending exercise, it's, it's really a form of malpractice because it's first doing harm. You're harming your patients, you're increasing their mortality. I mean, that's the first thing we should be trying to focus on. Preventing, we should be focused on longevity there. And that's a real problem. So here's how I would like our conversation to go. I think this will be fun. I would like for you, when we go through these, because we're going to go through a lot of categories. We're going to go through everything from low testosterone, hypothyroidism, PCOS, diabetes, a lot of different conditions today, go through the natural remedies. I'm going to have you share your top three in ranking order, natural things people can do. And it can be a lifestyle, it could be certain foods, it could be supplementation.

• 11:06Josh Axe?

  I want you to give me your top three, and then I'll add in and lay on like my additional top three on to that as we dive into natural remedies.

• 11:15Josh Axe?

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• 11:59Josh Axe?

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• 12:05Josh Axe?

  When it comes to the cause, root cause of high cholesterol and heart disease, what are your top three recommendations and prescriptions for patients in ranking order?

• 12:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, number one is you've got to get your blood sugar stable, right? So we start, when it comes to blood sugar, we can start with diet. So when I'm looking at cholesterol, the key biomarkers I look at are triglycerides and HDL. HDL is considered the good cholesterol. Triglycerides are the amount of fat circulating in your bloodstream. And so basically, I want that ratio, triglycerides to HDL, under two and close to one. So ideally triglycerides are under 100. HDL somewhere around like 50 to 80, somewhere in that range. And that ratio is close to one, one part triglyceride, one part HDL. And so in order to get there, we've got to create good insulin sensitivity and blood sugar stability. And so what do we do with that? Well, high protein diet, right?

• 12:59Speaker 04

  So I always recommend when it comes to your meals, prioritizing protein, making sure you're getting at least 30 to 50 grams of protein in each meal. Yep. And then making sure you've got healthy fats on board. Usually your protein foods like grass fed steak, wild caught fish, eggs, they usually have the fat. In some cases, you have things like chicken breasts, which is really lean. You might add some extra virgin olive oil or like a little guacamole or something like that. So you get good, healthy fats in. Yeah. And then colorful fruits and vegetables. So when you're setting up your, your meal plan, think protein first, healthy fats, and then colorful fruits and vegetables. You want lots of colors, lots of smells. I know you're big on herbs. Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  So using things like, like Mediterranean herbs, basil, oregano, thyme, things like that. All fantastic. And then if you're going to have more starchy carbs or fruit, which I'm a big advocate of, have it at the end of the meal. So eat your protein and your healthy fats first, then have your sweet potato. Then have your, you know, pomegranate, your berries, your apple, orange, you know, whatever it is. And so my kids eat all of that kind of stuff. Like we give them all, you know, natural foods, they eat lots of fruit. But what I do is I, I have them eat it at the end of a high protein meal. And that's helped stabilize their blood sugar. And then we, and then you gotta move, right? So getting out, walking on a regular basis, getting 10,000 steps a day. This is big for nitric oxide, right? That's important, we just mentioned.

• 14:25Speaker 04

  100%. One of the best things you could do for endothelial health is just move your body on a continual basis. And there's good research on just taking like a 20 or 30 minute walk every day. But the best research is just staying in a, almost in a constant state of moving, like getting up every 30 minutes. And just walking around, even if it's just walking to the bathroom or walking out your front door and then coming back in. Just getting out and getting like a hundred steps every 30 minutes or so can be really helpful. And Then I recommend resistance training. So doing strength training to build muscle. We call muscle the organ of longevity. And the more muscle you have, the healthier your mitochondria are going to be. And then also, that's going to help, muscle actually acts as a glucose sponge.

• 15:08Speaker 04

  Meaning that when your blood sugar goes up, so let's say you are at a party and you have, you know, a piece of cake or ice cream or whatever it is. You're, the more muscle you have, the more you're going to actually pull the sugar out of the, out of the bloodstream and into the muscle, right? We can actually store that glucose in something called glycogen, or a storage form of sugar, and get it out of the bloodstream. Remember, high blood sugar, real high blood sugar is toxic. It creates these advanced glycation end products, AGEs. So if something is an AGE, what do you think that does to your body?

• 15:42Josh Axe?

  Ages.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  Ages you, right? And that's what they do, that's what these AGEs are really, they're, they're, they're really damaging to the blood vessel wall. They actually damage the endothelial lining of the blood vessel. That's going to elevate oxidative stress, plaque formation, you know, in, in the blood vessel and increase your risk of a blood clot.

• 16:00Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  So that's key. So you gotta move, resistance training, build muscle. Okay, we talked about the right diet.

• 16:06Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 04

  And then there are a couple of things that, you know, research has shown are pretty good, right? When it comes to good cholesterol.

• 16:11Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  Garlic can be really helpful.

• 16:13Josh Axe?

  Amazing, yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  So that lowers platelet aggregation. Not only can it lower cholesterol, which I'm not as concerned about lowering cholesterol. I'm more concerned about platelet aggregation, right? So platelets are your blood clotting cells. They're really important.

• 16:29Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  Some people like myself, for example, I have a, I have a tendency, a genetic tendency towards bloody noses. And so if I eat too much garlic, I get like these.

• 16:38Josh Axe?

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, so garlic has this platelet de-aggregation effect, right? It actually reduces platelet aggregation and it's really powerful.

• 16:47Josh Axe?

  Well, this would be really important, not just for this sort of condition, but also things like long COVID. I mean, it's really important for that.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, it has, it's, it's a multi-therapeutic approach with garlic, right? Because it's anti-inflammatory. Totally, right? So great for the immune system.

• 17:01Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  But also has that kind of natural blood thinning, platelet aggregation effect. So you're not going to get the clotting, right? It's going to help with good quality circulation. You want that. You want your bloodstream to be like a river, not stagnant like a pond. Right? I mean, you know, from Chinese medicine, stagnancy, that's the root of chronic disease.

• 17:19Josh Axe?

  Yeah, absolutely. So, so, so let's head on these. So we talked about, listen, if you're on a statin drug, the first thing you want to do is a diet high in protein, healthy fats, lot of antioxidants, full colored vegetables and fruits, as Dr. Dave talked about, talked about exercise, everything from walking to weight training, and garlic. Let me add on just a few things here. I just kind of want to, um, I like, the next thing I would say, and these are going to be just a little bit more simple, doing higher dose omega-3 fatty acids. When you look at the clinical research, high dose omega-3 fats. Now, the best place to get this is eat wild caught fish, eat sardines, eat salmons, eat black cod, eat, eat fatty fish is a great way to get your omega-3s. But just generally supplementation with a high quality.

• 18:02Josh Axe?

  I mean, it could be everything from a cod liver oil to a fish oil to herring roe oil to algae oil, but you want to do typically higher EPA, but omega-3s are really important. And then this is just sort of jumping on what Dr. Dave said here. Number two for me is increasing your fiber intake, and that's part of what he mentioned with the fruits and vegetables. Fiber acts as a mild binder to LDL and certain types of cholesterol, helping flush it out of your system and keeping those levels balanced. And number three for me would be, I, I would, I would just say magnesium. Part of what that's going to do is kind of relax those blood vessels that we talked about when those get hardened and stiffed. That increases your risk of, of a cardiovascular event. So that's a very important mineral for that. But those are some things statin wise. The next thing I want to dive into, Dr.

• 18:45Josh Axe?

  Dave, is Hashimoto's thyroiditis. You know, when you and I were coming out of school, I, I taught a lecture here at my clinic, the longevity clinic in Nashville this past weekend, and I was telling the patients there, I said, you know, when I graduated school about 20 years ago, none, none of our professors told us that nearly every woman that came into practice would have a hormonal problem, whether it be hypothyroidism, menopausal symptoms, PCOS and fertility. I mean, so many women today have hormonal issues. And one of the most common is Hashimoto's thyroiditis. When you think of that condition as a functional medicine practitioner, and by the way, I want to mention here just a few things about Dr. Dave.

• 19:27Josh Axe?

  Dr. Dave has run a functional medicine practice now for about 20 years. He has a really popular newsletter and podcast. He's one of the best practitioners in the entire world. So he has worked with a lot of patients. So when you are working with a patient and they come in and whether it's their blood work or their history and you're looking at it and they have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. What do you believe the root causes in most cases? And then what are those top three things you typically recommend to almost all those patients?

• 19:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. Hashimoto's is super common. So we've got elevated antibodies. It's an autoimmune condition where the body's actually attacking the thyroid tissue. So a couple of things we see with that, with autoimmune conditions across the board, I see vitamin D deficiencies.

• 20:06Josh Axe?

  Okay.

• 20:07Speaker 04

  In general, vitamin D deficiency tells me a sunlight deficiency. So getting these people in, you think about thyroid issues, right? The thyroid helps warm up our body, right? So it activates the mitochondria. It's the hormone that says mitochondria produce more cellular energy. And so getting out in the sun, getting infrared, getting UV light, getting red light, all the different wavelengths of light from the sun is critical. And particularly like that midday sun where you're getting vitamin D elevation there, right? And getting as much of your body in that as possible. Now, there are certain times, you know, times of the year where for example, winter, northern months, you're not going to be able to do that. That's where you can get like a red infrared light device. And there's actually good research

• 20:48Speaker 04

  on actually 10 minutes a day of red and infrared directly on the thyroid tissue.

• 20:55Josh Axe?

  I want to just pause there because that study that came out.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:57Josh Axe?

  That blew my mind. I mean, it was something like, like 75% of the women were able to reduce or get off their thyroid medication with red light therapy. I mean, now, again, this was a sample size of 74 women. But still was, I mean, just, I'm glad you brought that up. And of course, the sun, red light beds are amazing. You should do red light beds. You should do, you know, a device at home. But still, nothing's more powerful than the sun.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. So getting out in the sun, I mean, you're going to get all the wavelengths, you're going to get the vitamin D elevation. Right? And that was what's interesting about the, the study on red and infrared was that that's not elevating your vitamin D.

• 21:34Josh Axe?

  Right.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  And so, but infrared is able to penetrate in, increase circulation in that area, down regulate inflammation into the system. Increase nitric oxide, which we talked about earlier, so you get better circulation. Increase mitochondrial melatonin. We think about melatonin as a sleep hormone, but inside the mitochondria, melatonin is the most powerful antioxidant to protect the mitochondria. So when somebody has Hashimoto's thyroiditis, I think the mitochondria are damaged, right? They're in cell danger response. There's too much danger signals. So how do we elevate mitochondrial antioxidant production? Well, one way is infrared light. So red and infrared light directly on that is going to help stimulate that. But also elevating vitamin D, whether it's getting it from the sun or supplementation,

• 22:19Speaker 04

  that's going to be key. Also with Hashimoto's, obviously, blood sugar stabilizing diet, all the things that we talked about already, getting exercise in. But then some key supplements, selenium.

• 22:30Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 22:30Speaker 04

  Okay, about 200 to 400 micrograms of selenium has been shown to reduce the antibodies, thyroid antibodies, pretty significantly. And then zinc. I see a lot of zinc deficiency across the board.

• 22:42Josh Axe?

  Yep.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  But particularly women with these hormone problems or autoimmune conditions, right? They tend to be very low in zinc. Why is that? Because, you know, we're exposed to a lot of different toxins, including heavy metals, and a lot of those compete with zinc for absorption, right? And so a lot of times we're using up zinc. Plus, if you've had like a bad infection, maybe a cold, COVID, Epsom bar, something like that, all those things deplete your zinc.

• 23:06Josh Axe?

  Right.

• 23:06Speaker 04

  And zinc is really critical for your immune system, balancing your TH1 and TH2, the two arms of your immune system. Zinc is critical for that, right? Zinc is also really critical for steroid hormone production, like testosterone, estrogen production, progesterone. It's also very important for progesterone. So zinc plays just such a critical role. It's antiviral, right? All these different things. So typically, that's what I'm seeing is zinc, selenium, vitamin D as far as nutrients.

• 23:34Josh Axe?

  Man, that's so good. And I couldn't agree with you more. If I was going to pick my top three, those would have been my top three as well. And you know what's interesting, too? I think one of the reasons why selenium is so low has to do with its, the importance of it in glutathione production, right? I think there's just, I think so many women who have, by the way, this is, there is an interesting study on this, and I'm sure you saw this. Women who took birth control pills. For 10 years, so long-term birth control pill use increased hypothyroidism chances by 287%. And why? It's because when you look at what birth control depletes, it's selenium, zinc, and B vitamins. And especially if a woman has MTHFR gene mutation, well, I mean,

• 24:17Josh Axe?

  now they can't methylate properly. And so it's so hard for their mitochondria and their methylation to actually function properly that they end up with hypothyroidism. And to your point, I love that you mentioned this. You know, in Chinese medicine, the way that they would describe, uh, the way that they would describe hypothyroidism is a combination of a mitochondria, they call it qi, but mitochondrial deficiency combined with a lack of being anabolic. So, so you can't regenerate well or generate enough heat to your point. And that's really the problem there. And so what I would add on to what you shared, which again, I think yours are the top three, I would probably add in some adaptogenic herbs to help lower cortisol to support melatonin to your point. You know, ashwagandha is probably the most clinically researched. I think rhodiola rosea would

• 25:00Josh Axe?

  be another one that would be up there, drinking tulsi tea. But generally getting some adaptogenic herbs in, I think would be fantastic. And from a dietary standpoint, don't eat soups, don't eat salads, don't do ice cold drinks. Warm your body up. Do a lot of like chicken vegetable soup. Let's really warm your body as much as you possibly can internally. Ginger herbal tea, but do a very warming diet that's also immune friendly. A lot of organic meat, a lot of well-cooked vegetables, a lot of healthy fats. Really focusing on that is where I would focus. Um, and I don't have a lot to add on top of that. I think-

• 25:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say liver support. Some liver support would be helpful, like milk thistle, something along those lines.

• 25:43Josh Axe?

  Yeah, because to your point there, uh, yeah, if you have excess estrogen- It is a big disruptor of thyroid hormones. So doing maybe a lot of steamed cruciferous vegetables, right, would be a good, good option there. I love that. So, so those are some of the best natural cures and remedies for Hashimoto's thyroiditis. And Dave knows this too. You know, when you, when we look at thyroid, when we have somebody coming with a thyroid issue, it's never the thyroid. From a cellular standpoint, it's the mitochondria. From an organ standpoint, it's almost always the liver, the gut, and the adrenal glands. And so those tend to be the issues. The thyroid is just kind of the innocent bystander. So if you can fix those other areas,

• 26:21Josh Axe?

  you can reverse hypothyroidism. Let's talk about the common cold and flu. Okay. So today, what doctors tend to do, and by the way, this is my family growing up, anytime we were sick, no questions asked, antibiotic, antibiotic, antibiotic. I had Dr. Marty Makary on here, who's the head of the FDA, and he told me, he believed, and I want to say his number was around, it was 90 or 98% of drugs, antibiotics prescribed should not be prescribed because the kids were struggling with a viral infection, not a bacterial infection. And antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. So we are doing so much damage to our kids today. Dr. Dave, when you have

• 27:04Josh Axe?

  a patient coming in as a child, or you, you have kids at home, what do you do for your family for the common cold and flu?

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is really important. So antibiotics can be life-saving in a certain emergency crisis situation. But like you said, most of the time, they're over prescribed. Most of the time, it's a viral issue. And so really, we just need to support the immune system. And so a couple of things that we always do. So one is typically we'll get, you know, all sugar out of the diet, right? Other, you know, we'll, we'll still do like fruit, things like that. But, but, you know, certainly no processed sugar. So that's, that's a big, a big element of it. And then when it comes to different nutrients, we like things like elderberry.

• 27:43Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Quercetin, elderberry is actually a natural source of quercetin. Okay. But we'll also do quercetin and zinc, right? And so zinc is very, very antiviral.

• 27:53Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  And quercetin is an antioxidant, right? So we can find quercetin naturally in things like, like onions, for example, elderberries, cranberries, stuff like that. And so we'll do higher dose quercetin, which actually helps get zinc into the cell, where it can stop viral replication. So that's really key there. Another big thing that I actually do is I'll actually take garlic and ginger and I'll tape it to my kid, bottom of their feet. Okay, and I'll put a little bit of extra virgin olive oil on their, the sole of their foot. Okay, tape that, put socks on it and then put them to sleep, right? Or if they're like, sometimes we have a PEMF mat, so this is, this is interesting because my kids,

• 28:38Speaker 04

  my kids recently got sick, my girls, my young girls got sick a few weeks ago. And so I was doing this. So during the day, they were just really, really tired. So I put them on a PEMF mat where they, where that was also heated with infrared, right? And these are things you can, you can get, you can, you can purchase that. But I would say that the major magic here was we did garlic and ginger. So I would cut it, fresh cut, okay, I'd rub some olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, which is rich in something called aliaropins, right? Particularly aliaocanthol, which they call nature's ibuprofen. Okay, because it's so powerful at reducing the COX1 and 2 enzymes in your system. That reduces inflammation. And so, so nature's ibuprofen there.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  And then the olive oil on there actually helps get the sulfur compounds out of the garlic. So I fresh chopped the garlic, the allycyn compounds, put it on their foot. And then the ginger with the gingerols, which are also very powerful for your immune system, right? Powerful anti-inflammatories. I put that, I taped it. So I just put tape around their foot, okay, and then put a sock on, right? And they would just lay there, right? And they would sleep with that overnight. We'd change it basically about every 12 hours and they were able to get well quickly. And so, simple, easy things. I was giving them zinc lozenges, right? And then also liposomal vitamin C and vitamin D as well with, with K2.

• 30:06Josh Axe?

  It's so great. I mean, it's great advice. And here's the reality is, like, the body can heal itself. It just, it tends to be deficient. I mean, if your body has, if your body can be well rested and has what it needs nutritionally, your own immune system, it just needs things like vitamin C and zinc and corsetin and D in order to activate and get your immune system to where it needs to be. So absolutely love that advice. Let me add a few things here. I would say, and you kind of already mentioned this, diet, chicken soup, chicken soup, chicken soup. Like when you look at Chinese medicine, they would say if you've got any type of virus or immune issue, eat a lot of light yellow foods. And you mentioned these, it's garlic, it's onion, it's chicken broth, it's miso soup.

• 30:47Josh Axe?

  It's, it's, it's those types of foods tend to be very immune activating. And so those can be fantastic for strengthening the immune system. So, so really eat a really clean diet of a lot of things like chicken vegetable soup. The other things I would add in are mushrooms have so many great benefits, you know, when you look at cordyceps or maitake or shiitake. So just even adding those to the soup along with a lot of garlic. I mean, what I would do is, I would make a chicken vegetable soup. I would load it up with garlic, load it up with onion. I would also throw ginger in there. I would throw mushrooms in there and some vegetables like celery, carrots, and then of course some chicken and chicken broth and that, and a tablespoon of miso. Like that is a powerful immune boosting soup. So I would do that along with the things Dr. Dave

• 31:32Josh Axe?

  talked about. And then listen, there's a lot of great immune boosters. I'm a big fan of echinacea as well. I will say this, and this is so interesting, you know, I never thought about this until I really started studying Chinese medicine, but there's almost always two different types of viruses. In Chinese medicine, one they would say it's cold wind and another one is hot wind. So if you have, if your body is more feverish and really hot, they would recommend you do more of the cooling herbs like andrographis and echinacea, things that are bitter, drive out the cold. If you've got the chills and you're cold, they would then recommend the ginger and the cinnamon and the hot toddies, maybe if you're in the south, but whatever you can do to warm the body up.

• 32:13Josh Axe?

  An infrared sauna actually can kind of help with both, actually. It just depended on about the amount of time you spend in there, but, but they would say, you know, Some of the remedies are a little bit better if you're a little too hot or a little too cold. So there's some, some thoughts there as well.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  You know, what I've found is the more that I practice this, the more my body naturally craves certain things at certain times. Like if I feel like I'm getting like a little bit of a sore throat, it's like I crave broth. I want, you know, cooked onions or something along those lines. My body will literally crave it. If I'm feeling like overheated, I want like sliced cucumbers, right? Things that are cooling. I just naturally start to crave this.

• 32:51Josh Axe?

  A hundred percent agree. Yeah. And there's so much wisdom in that. Just listen to your body. It's talking to you. It's telling you. Now, sometimes we have to learn to decipher because sometimes you're like, I want carbs. What your body's really saying is, I want cinnamon or I want sweet potato, not, you know, not processed sugar there. I mean, that would be a whole nother episode. Maybe we'll do that sometime in terms of, you know, like if you have this certain taste in your mouth or where the white dots on it, on your nails or how those are shaped or like, you know, your body is telling us, this is what you need.

• 33:21Josh Axe?

  Hey, so if you've ever thought something is wrong with me, but I just can't prove it, then this is for you. Now, you might be eating clean, even what you feel like is perfect, working out, taking all of the right supplements, but you're still exhausted, still foggy, gaining weight, and you're not sleeping. And every time you ask for help, you hear the same thing, but your labs are normal. Here's what that actually means. Standard blood work only shows what's in your blood, not whether your cells can actually access it or not. You can give your body all the right inputs, but if your cells are in danger mode, chronically stressed or inflamed, they can't absorb or use those nutrients properly.

• 34:03Josh Axe?

  If you're finally ready to heal, go to mybloodwork.com. You'll get an at-home cellular blood work panel shipped straight to your home and reviewed on a private call with one of my senior health advisors at the Health Institute. And this will help you finally connect the dots between your symptoms at the cellular level. We'll also determine if you're a good candidate for one of our cellular healing protocols, so you can finally experience lasting healing. Once again, go to mybloodwork.com to check it out.

• 34:35Josh Axe?

  I want to dive into low testosterone because this has become such an epidemic. And there are so many things today that are just taking testosterone. I mean, I want to say the latest research is, you know, over the last 50 years, men's testosterone is 33% lower. If you go back even further back to World War II, it's even further diminished than that. So like there are men today in their 30s that have the average testosterone of what men should have in their 70s. I mean, that's, that's, that's the, that's the reality. So when you see a man come in and we're looking at the blood work, we're looking at free testosterone, some of those issues, and you see that, what do you think tends to be the biggest root cause of that? And then what are your top three recommendations for those men?

• 35:15Speaker 04

  For sure. Well, there's a couple of things. Number one is some of the medications we already talked about. Statin drugs deplete testosterone, metformin. 2024 study just came out, you know, a few years ago showed it lowers testosterone. And so for men and women, this is why some women with PCOS who have high testosterone actually feel much better and get better results on metformin. But in general, other than if you do have PCOS, you don't want to lower your testosterone. Testosterone is critical for muscle mass. For men, it's really important for our, our mood, right? For energy, for drive, for boosting dopamine. And we're really across the board for men and women.

• 35:52Josh Axe?

  I mean, longevity, it is huge, too.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. So that can be one thing, medications. Also just exposure to microplastics in general, right? That is really critical. So if you're drinking out of plastic bottles, if you're using plastic cutting boards, even plastic blenders, like we, we switched out, you know, a few years ago, my family, we were using the Vitamix, right?

• 36:13Josh Axe?

  You now have the stainless.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, the stainless steel.

• 36:16Josh Axe?

  Well, so Vitamix just came out with a few years ago and we switched over to the stainless steel. So anyway, yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  You gotta look for ways that you can, you can't, you can't get rid of plastic, but you can reduce your exposure and that's important. And then getting moving and then building muscle. You know, we talked about the importance of muscle, muscle as the organ of longevity. Well, actually doing strength training is really critical for testosterone production. So that's for men and women. Really, men and women should both be doing strength training on a regular basis, at least. I would say three days a week.

• 36:45Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  And doing full body exercises. Some of the best exercises for testosterone are squats, deadlifts, lunges, things where you're using a large amount of your muscle mass. Compound exercises, that's going to naturally increase testosterone. And then high protein diet, like we already talked about. And so things like grass fed beef, wild caught salmon, that's going to help. Getting enough protein is going to help your body produce the testosterone that you need. So that's really important. And then when it comes to nutrients, zinc is really important. We already talked about zinc for steroid hormone production. Vitamin D is really critical. If you're low in vitamin D, you're not going to be able to produce enough of these key hormones, these sex hormones.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  And then I would also say like, there's some different herbs, like for example, Tongkat Ali.

• 37:32Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  That is probably the most powerful herb that I've found for increasing testosterone production.

• 37:38Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Right? As a man in my mid 40s, okay, you know, I do all these things, right? But I also take Tongkat Ali from time to time because I notice, you know, I cycle it. And I noticed that I just feel like I've got better drive, uh, better strength and energy in the gym. I take cordyceps as well. I'll kind of cycle those. And that's one of the keys with some of these herbs is if you go like two weeks on, one week off, you tend to notice better benefits than if you just stay on it prolonged.

• 38:06Josh Axe?

  Yeah. Yeah. This is great advice. And I think you hit on the three biggies there. Listen, if you did these three things, and one you didn't hit on, but it was going to be the fourth thing you'd probably say, if you do these three things, your testosterone is going to go way up. Number one, eat this diet that Dr. Dave's talking about. Okay. You want to eat very high protein, moderate fat, low moderate carb. It's a lot of grass fed red meat. It's extra virgin olive oil. It's, it's nuts like Brazil nuts and walnuts and pumpkin seeds. It's, it's that sort of diet, high in vegetables and organic meat, very high protein. Number two, it's weight training. You gotta lift weights. And number three, I would say sleep. Okay?

• 38:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:49Josh Axe?

  If you are not sleeping, your testosterone is just gonna totally tank. And so you want to make sure you're getting those eight hours of quality sleep a night. And if you can do that, that's gonna make a big difference. And stress does play a key role. Listen, man, we're meant to go hard. But you also need to rest. You need to work hard and play hard and rest well. Okay? Getting in those right daily rhythms is really important. And Dr. Dave, everything he hit on is pretty much what I was gonna share. Tongkat Ali is amazing. I mean, there are others out there, I think, that are good at cycling. He mentioned cordyceps. I mean, Panax ginseng would be another one, I think, that has some benefits. There's things like deer antler, there's tribulus. So there are a lot of good ones. If I had to add in one more, though, I would probably add in, just to go with your weight training, creatine. You know, I think just five grams of creatine with your workouts

• 39:33Josh Axe?

  has loads of benefits. But Dave, I really think you nailed it there. And of course, again, staying away from microplastics. But if a man can do that, they're gonna see massive benefits in their testosterone. I'll mention this, I've noticed a, I saw a bump in my testosterone markers by doing a red light bed and just getting more sunshine. That was the other thing I've noticed, and that probably has to do with the vitamin D that you talked about. And when I looked at the clinical studies, the two things that shined always were, to your point, vitamin D and zinc. Those are the two nutrients you gotta pay really close attention to if you want to keep those testosterone levels up. All right.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, and actually getting red and infrared light, like in your genital region for a man, will actually also help boost testosterone.

• 40:12Josh Axe?

  You know, I saw this, I don't know if you saw this, did you see the Saturday Night Live skit where they did the Maha Hospital?

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:18Josh Axe?

  I mean, I sent it to Jordan Rubin, I sent it to Will Cole, I sent it to a lot of people. And the part where I laughed the hardest was, you know, they, there was this part where there was a person on life support, and then he said, he's a vegan, and they just pulled the plug. Anyways, I, I just, I literally, there were parts there, I just laughed out loud. Because there were a lot, there were, there were some truths in some of that, in terms of like, yeah, that actually worked. And then there were some things like, that were so ridiculous and out there. You're like, but it was, it was funny and it was well done. So.

• 40:49Speaker 04

  That's so funny. One thing I wanted to add is, I always talk about the two biggest deficiencies. To autoimmune disease and cancer.

• 40:55Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  They're not actually nutrients. They're sunlight and darkness. So getting good quality sunlight.

• 41:01Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Right. Or if you can't getting in infrared, red, right? Getting in a bed or a box that has that. And then darkness at night, we need to be in darkness. And most of us have artificial lighting on in the house. We're on devices at night. When it's dark, we need to be putting on, we need to dim all the lights in our house.

• 41:19Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 41:19Speaker 04

  Put on blue light blocking glasses. If you're gonna be on a device, right? You can listen to an audio book or, you know, read or have a casual conversation with your spouse. Um, all of that's great. You don't have to go to bed immediately. But you need to be, you need a certain amount of darkness on a regular basis.

• 41:35Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  And that's going to release melatonin, which is your sleep hormone. And that's going to increase your growth hormone, right? Which is your quintessential anti-aging hormone. And growth hormone is going to help you elevate your sex hormones like testosterone.

• 41:47Josh Axe?

  I mean, to your point, probably the single greatest factor influencing your hormones is light and dark. I mean, because really cortisol and melatonin, those are your master hormones. I mean, those are the ones where, I mean, if cortisol is up or down, everything else is the domino effect to your point. So I'm so glad you mentioned that. That's, that's so key. I want to hit on now peri-menopause and menopause. Okay. And that we have several others I want to get into. What do you think is the general root cause? If a woman is having, dealing with a lot of the hot flashes and dryness and, and slower metabolism, some of those issues as they go through peri-menopause and menopause. And what are your top recommendations for, for those women?

• 42:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, typically a big thing here, so all women start to naturally reduce their production of sex hormones, progesterone, estrogen. There's not really anything we can do about that, but we can kind of have that drop be gentle rather than extreme. And the key there is keeping stress under control and really prioritizing sleep. So just like we talked about sunlight during the day, right? In the morning, midday, and in the evening ideally. So you're getting all the different wavelengths of light. And then also really prioritizing good sleep, getting good darkness at night is super critical and keeping stress under control. Because if a woman is under stress on a regular basis, if she's constantly telling her nervous system that we're in a danger zone, right?

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Like, things are really stressful. The body's always going to prioritize stress over sex, right? Meaning, stress hormones over, or, stress hormones would be associated with survival, right? Over reproduction, over fertility. And so, therefore, we're gonna have a big reduction in estrogen and progesterone. And oftentimes, women get an even larger drop in progesterone than estrogen, even though both are dropping, which can be related to a lot of these, you know, hot flashes, trouble sleeping at night, weight gain, low libido, all of those types of things. So, keeping stress under control is super important. So, things you can do for that, gratitude, prayer, right? Reading scripture. Yeah. You know, for my wife, talking is really important.

• 43:59Speaker 04

  I find that for most women, right? For me, I'm the opposite. For me, it's like, I kinda need to just move, right? Getting out and walking is like, is, lifting weights is like, the greatest thing for me. It's the release, yeah. But for a lot of women, for extroverted people. Well, it makes sense, because men are more physical and women can be more verbal in that way, in terms of that form of detoxification and release. Absolutely. So, my wife will be stressed, and if she can talk to me for five minutes, it's like an ana-, it's like, she just feels so much better. Like, oxytocin is released, and oxytocin helps buffer the negative effects of cortisol and norepinephrine, adrenaline. So, oxytocin will help balance that. So, if she feels connected, right? If I give her a hug, right?

• 44:43Speaker 04

  Or, she's able to talk with me, then, and I'm able to actually listen well, right? Doesn't always happen, as you know, right? But if I listen well, then she feels connected, now her stress hormone goes down, and she feels better. And most women will say this, like, if, if, so for men out there, if your wife, like, if you guys are having trouble in the bedroom, You're probably not connecting well with her emotionally.

• 45:09Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Speaker 04

  Therefore, her stress hormone is higher and her sex hormones are down.

• 45:13Josh Axe?

  You know, I, I, I see this with so many women when they get really stuck. It's like they've, they've, they've changed their diet. They started, you know, exercising, they're doing all that stuff right and they're still, maybe they get 25% better, but they start to hit a ceiling. It's always, it's always something emotionally that's really keeping them stuck. It's the relationship with their spouse. It's something that's happened 20 years ago that they haven't been able to move on from. It's a relationship with their kids have moved on. I mean, there's something there that is sort of keeping them stuck. And oftentimes it's lack of nourishment. Sometimes it's they've, their whole life been a people pleaser and they've just sort of given everything and they have nothing left. So they're, you know, going and addressing that past trauma, going and addressing and trying to build quality relationships. And some of it's out of your control, but doing everything in your control. To your point, that's really important.

• 45:59Josh Axe?

  You know, in, in, in, we've talked about some of these ancient forms of medicine, you know, the way that TCM sees it as well is they would call it a yin deficiency, right? So yang is more of the anabolic, the testosterone, the, the growth of, of, of the growth hormone. Whereas the yin is really more the progesterone and estrogen, and that's really tied to nourishment, being well nourished yourself. It's getting proper sleep. It's good self-care, it's gratitude, it's prayer, it's going deep in meditation. It's doing things that are really stillness and peace and sort of building and growth. Self-nourishment is really important there. And what's interesting is there are some foods, even though they're gentle in doing this, there are some foods that promote, that have some estrogenic effects. There are some that have some progesterone boosting effects.

• 46:44Josh Axe?

  You know, soy and flax are two examples of this, right? To where you don't, if you're already estrogen dominant and you're in your twenties, you don't really want to do a lot of that. But if you are going through menopause, and this is what they do in Japan, I mean, they do consume a lot of organic soybeans and natto in their diet, especially women going through perimenopause and menopause because it can support estrogen. So there is a time and a place, I remember years ago, it was like, all organic soy is bad, or all soy is bad. No, it just, it, it's food is medicine for different people. And this is where personalized medicine comes into play. But doing some flax, doing some organic soy, doing some things that bring moisture and coolness. What estrogen and progesterone do for, for a lot of women is, think about what happens.

• 47:27Josh Axe?

  When you have a hot flash or you're getting dryness, your body no longer can cool and moisten itself. And that's what estrogen and progesterone partly do. So doing yogurt, doing egg yolks, doing avocado, you know, those sort of foods are Yin boosting in Chinese medicine, a lot of steamed vegetables, those can help offset some of those symptoms as well. And you could look, Google, do a search for this. What are YIN, Yin-producing foods? Yam, right? That has some progesterone-supporting properties. So doing some of those, I think, would have great benefits. And then herb-wise, black cohosh, probably the number one herb for supporting some of those hormones, red clover, chitavry, there's quite a few there that are good as well. I want to dive

• 48:11Josh Axe?

  into, and I want to kind of do these together because they can be seen like this. Really, it's insulin resistance, but I want to talk about type 2 diabetes and PCOS together. And I'd like for you to share the root cause and even the relationship between those two conditions.

• 48:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. Well, type 2 diabetes is insulin resistance. And actually, we started this interview out, we were talking about insulin resistance as a factor for heart disease, right? High cholesterol. And so with somebody with type 2 diabetes, it's gotten to the point where they're insulin resistant. So insulin, what its job is, is to take glucose out of the bloodstream to prevent the AGEs from building up, right? And put it into the cell where it can be used for energy. And that's normal and natural, right? We, if, you know, if you and I were to go and, you know, eat a bowl of fruit, our body would start doing that. Okay? And so it's just normal and natural process. However, when our body just, when we're constantly bombarding our system with glucose, right? Insulin just continues

• 49:12Speaker 04

  to have to push it into the cell. Eventually, the cell starts sending signals saying, hey, I've got too much glucose in here. There's too much oxidative stress taking place to the mitochondria. I'm going to down-regulate these insulin receptors. So now we can't get the glucose into the cell, right? And this ultimately results in insulin resistance. When I look at blood work, when I'm looking at fasting insulin levels, which you should always ask for, anytime you're getting blood work, you should look at fasting insulin.

• 49:39Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 49:39Speaker 04

  I always want that under six, okay? And a lot of people, their blood sugar and their hemoglobin A1C will look great. But then their insulin is 14, right? And that's a sign of insulin resistance. That means insulin's elevated in the bloodstream. And when insulin's elevated, it doesn't allow us to burn fat. So it actually blocks what we call lipolysis, which is the breakdown of fatty acids for fuel. And then we're stuck in sugar burning metabolism. And the issue with sugar burning metabolism, for short periods of time, it's great. But when we're in it for a long period of time, it's a dirty energy source, meaning that it's going to create a lot of oxidative stress. And we really don't get that much cellular energy. We get it quickly without oxygen. So like when we're exercising, we want to burn sugar.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  However, when we're just sitting here, you know, having a conversation or sleeping at night, we want to primarily be burning fat. Fat produces so much more cellular energy than glucose does with significantly less oxidative stress, significantly less free radicals. And so it's easier on the mitochondria. So when we're burning sugar, we're damaging those mitochondria. And then high insulin puts us in a place where we don't undergo natural autophagy, where our body actually breaks down old damaged cellular debris, and in particular, the mitochondria, and replaces them. So we end up with all these senescent, old damaged mitochondria. So by the time somebody has type 2 diabetes, it tells me they're extremely metabolically damaged.

• 51:09Speaker 04

  Their mitochondria that are in the cells are very sick. They're senescent, they're old, they're damaged, dysfunctional. And so PCOS, where that comes in, PCOS is also insulin resistance. So for these people, if we were to look at their fasting insulin levels, it's really high. So it's got them stuck in this sugar burning mode, and they're not burning fat effectively for fuel.

• 51:32Josh Axe?

  Now, I want you to, if you would just explain this too. What happens with PCOS? It's kind of like diabetes plus androgens. So talk to us, how do women start producing this extra testosterone? Why does that happen in women with PCOS? Because it's kind of the two things we have to fix with that.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. So basically, normally for women, so for some women, they get high estrogen when they have insulin resistance. But then for other women, there's certain enzymes that are blocked. I can't remember off the top of my head. But because of that, they end up with elevated testosterone when they have insulin resistance. And then that ends up creating cyst formation in their ovaries, right? Where they end up getting kind of this scar tissue in their ovaries that we call, you know, polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can be extremely painful, can cause infertility. Right? A lot of different issues. A lot of these women have a lot of acne as well. In fact, a lot of skin issues, whether it's acne or skin tags, that's very much associated with insulin, high insulin resistance.

• 52:30Speaker 04

  Insulin tells cells in our body to grow, grow and divide.

• 52:34Josh Axe?

  That's right.

• 52:34Speaker 04

  Which is important, especially, you know, if we're trying to build muscle. We need a certain level of growth and division, particularly when we're young, or if like a pregnant woman needs to be, you know, there's going to be a lot of growth and cell division that needs to take place. As we get into adulthood, we should have less growth and division and more cellular healing and repair.

• 52:53Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 52:53Speaker 04

  And so if our, if we're insulin resistant, we have high blood insulin, we're constantly sending the signal of growth and we become deficient in cellular healing and repair. And so over time, we end up with all this scar tissue, whether it's skin tags, right? Whether it's just damaged aged skin.

• 53:12Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  Okay, so skin aging, wrinkles, things like that, all can be associated with high insulin, right? So it's gonna, it's gonna accelerate the aging process of your skin. You're gonna get more scar tissue in your blood vessels. So we talk about atherosclerosis. You're gonna get more scar tissue in your ovaries, you know, for certain women that are more genetically predisposed to that. So that's where we have our PCOS. All across the board in our brain, right? We know that Alzheimer's, they call type three diabetes because it's insulin resistance in the brain.

• 53:41Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 53:42Speaker 04

  And so now the brain, the actual neurons are not able to get fuel that they need. And so therefore they start to die. And then when the, the neurons die, they actually, um, they actually release their contents. We call it neuro excitotoxicity. It's almost like a domino effect. When one neuron dies, it spills out calcium, which over excites the neuron next to it. And now that neuron dies and spills out its calcium, its glutamate. And now we just get this cascade effect of neurons dying in our brain. And then, you know, over time, we end up with dementia, Alzheimer's disease, right? Parkinson's, there's a metabolic component.

• 54:20Josh Axe?

  And the root of all of this is insulin resistance.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 54:23Josh Axe?

  Walk me through, what are your top three remedies and things you'd like to do for people to start to fix insulin?

• 54:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we talked about obviously the diet, right? High in protein, healthy fats, colorful fruits and vegetables. That's the key right there. Making sure we're getting good movement. So walking, strength training, all super critical. Sun and sleep, like we talked about, really critical. And then when it comes to like herbal formulas, different things like that, chromium is really important. Usually if you find a good quality multivitamin, you can usually get enough chromium in that. Chromium is called glucose tolerance factor because it actually activates the insulin receptor. And so if you're chromium deficient, even if you're on a good diet, you're still going to have elevated insulin. Right? We need to activate that insulin receptor. So getting good quality chromium and really only need about, you know, roughly about 500 micrograms or so a day.

• 55:12Speaker 04

  Eating healthy foods, grass fed beef, wild caught salmon, pasture raised eggs, a good way to get it.

• 55:17Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Okay. In some cases, especially if you've had kind of a persistent insulin resistance, just taking a good quality multivitamin with 250 to 500 micrograms of chromium can be really key. Berberine, right? Berberine is a, a natural herb, right? Well, it's a, it's a compound within herbs like golden seal, bayberry, things like that. And that actually helps to regulate the gut microbiome. And the gut microbiome actually plays a really critical role with blood sugar stability as well. And so by regulating the microbiome, berberine has been shown to improve lipids, right? Increasing um, HDL, lowering triglycerides, lowering LDL cholesterol, um, reducing fatty, fatty liver disease. Blood sugar stability, right?

• 55:59Speaker 04

  So you'll find a lot of blood sugar formulas that have things like berberine, chromium in them. Cinnamon, you mentioned that earlier.

• 56:05Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 56:05Speaker 04

  So that's great for insulin sensitivity. That's another really good one. Apple cider vinegar, taking a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and let's say four to eight ounces of water. You don't want to take it straight, you want to dilute it. Taking a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in four to eight ounces of water before a meal can reduce the glycemic impact of that meal by thirty to forty percent. That means if that meal were to elevate your blood glucose levels, right? Let's say from like a hundred to two hundred, okay? Instead, it's gonna only elevate it to roughly like one sixty, okay? So that alone is a huge change. And that's because there's something called acetic acid that's in the vinegar.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  Not only is the acid great for, just in a sense, keeping things in the stomach so they don't release quickly, like if you're gonna have high glycemic carbs, but also that acetic acid actually helps feed the mitochondria. It's a postbiotic that actually feeds the mitochondria in your gut and creates stronger, more stress resilient mitochondria in your intestinal lining.

• 57:11Josh Axe?

  That's so powerful.

• 57:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:12Josh Axe?

  Yeah, I agree. I think when we're thinking about the biggest needle movers, you know, one of the things I've had patients do for years is I will have them get like a teaspoon of Cylon cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice and do it once to twice daily. And that alone, just again, that's pretty inexpensive. You know, get some good quality cinnamon, add that to food. You know, like if I do a protein shake, I'll do some protein powder in there that comes from bone broth, some plant protein, maybe some coconut milk, and maybe some sort of fiber from berries or something. And then I'll do a big teaspoon of that pumpkin pie spice or Cylon cinnamon. So to your point, that is such a great thing to add in. And there's, listen, there's a lot of herbs and supplements that are helpful. Alpha lipoic acid, mulberry leaf, fenugree, gymnema, there's a lot there. But I think the biggest ones are chromium and berberine,

• 57:56Josh Axe?

  probably the biggest needle movers clinically. And I'm so glad you said that.

• 57:59Speaker 04

  And then one more thing, intermittent fasting. I should have talked about this first. I wrote a whole book about fasting. But intermittent fasting is one of the most powerful ways to bring down your blood sugar and your insulin levels. Every time we eat, even if we eat a high protein meal, we're gonna have an insulin release, right? And again, if the meal is done properly, that's not a big deal. But we want periods of time where we're allowing our insulin levels to really drop. And that's gonna be longer periods. Time between meals. So if you follow the nutrition recommendations I talked about where you're doing high protein, healthy fats, colorful fruits and vegetables, you're avoiding ultra processed foods that are really high glycemic, highly insulogenic, then it becomes easier to go longer periods of time without meals.

• 58:42Josh Axe?

  That's so good.

• 58:42Speaker 04

  And you got to hydrate well between meals. You'll not, you'll have natural satiation. So for a lot of people with insulin resistance, I'll drop them from three meals a day down to two meals. They get to choose if they want to do them in the morning and midday, right? Morning and night, or let's say midday and night. A lot of people will choose based on their schedule. They find it easier to fast in the morning and they'll eat from, let's say 12 to six, right? And have two big meals with high protein, healthy fats, things like that. If you're not able to consume a, like a, a large amount of food in a meal, and there are a lot of women, for example, that have had their gallbladders taken out.

• 59:18Josh Axe?

  Yeah.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  In that case, we'll do three meals, but in an eight hour eating window. Let's say from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Or it could be from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Okay. And high protein in those meals, right? Healthy far, you know, healthy fiber, healthy carbs in there, good, healthy fats, and that's going to provide satiation where they're satiated. And then in the evening, they can drink herbal tea, right? But we want to give a good 16 hour fast overnight to really bring that insulin level down.

• 59:48Josh Axe?

  That's so good. All right. What I want to do now is we're going to wrap up here, but I want to do rapid fire. Now, what my rapid fire here is you have 60 seconds to give me your top three things for, for these conditions. And here's the other thing I'll say, you can't just say diet. Now, if there's one particular food or thing, you can, you can include that. Okay. So, so we're going to do this. So, so, okay, first one here, SIBO.

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  SIBO. So first thing I think about is fasting. Fasting is really key because it's too much bacteria in the small intestine. So that will actually give us some time. Ileosequel valve massage. So it's a, it's a massage, starting roughly around, around your belly button, just below your belly button. And you're going up, you're going down across your appendix and then Okay. And so you're helping open up that ileocecal valve, which is what separates a muscular valve that separates the small intestine from the large intestine. A lot of people have that closed. So we're trying to open that ileocecal valve and that can be really key there. And then I think oil of oregano, right? To help naturally kill off some of that bacteria

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  that's in there. If there was one more thing, I would, I would really focus on vagal nerve stimulation, or things to help increase, increase stomach acid production.

• 1:01:04Josh Axe?

  That's so good.

• 1:01:05Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:01:06Josh Axe?

  ADHD.

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  ADHD, I think, uh, number one, I think movement, getting a lot of good quality movement. Okay. Is super critical for brain health. I also think about magnesium, which can naturally help calm the brain. See with the brain, we have glutamate, which is like the, uh, gas pedal in the brain. It's a neurotransmitter that we step on for the gas. And then GABA is our inhibitory neurotransmitter. So it's gas and brake. When we're driving, we need good gas, we need good brake. With ADHD, we're just, we're, we're stepping on the gas pedal. We don't have a whole lot of brake. And so magnesium helps elevate GABA, right? For natural calmness in the brain. And then B vitamins are key for that as well. B6, folate, B12, across the

• 1:01:51Speaker 04

  board, we see a lot of deficiencies with these key B vitamins with kids that have ADHD and adults that have ADHD.

• 1:01:57Josh Axe?

  Totally agree. Long COVID.

• 1:01:59Speaker 04

  Long COVID, uh, number one, I think zinc, right? Making sure we're getting that zinc, antiviral hormone benefits there, uh, mitochondrial support. So whether it's coenzyme, Q10, PQQ, NAD, different things like that to help support, uh, mitochondrial function and vitamin D.

• 1:02:17Josh Axe?

  That's so good. Um, well, I want to add a couple of other things on there. I think we, uh, breaking up the blood and moving the blood, turmeric, ginger, galangon, natto kinase, in addition to that would be an amazing therapy. Mold exposure.

• 1:02:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, so mold exposure, number one, getting out, out of the mold. Yes. Right, I find that to be obviously super important. Glutathion, increasing glutathion levels, right? So you could take NAC. Yeah. Right, you could do an acetylated glutathion, liposomal glutathion. You could do glutathion IV, right? Different things like that. Also, red infrared is really powerful. So getting light exposure, sun exposure, and then binders. So some good ones would be like fulvic, humic acids, charcoal, zeolite. All of those things can be helpful for helping bind and pull mycotoxins out of the system. So good. Depression and anxiety. Yeah, so depression and anxiety, couple of things I think about.

• 1:03:15Speaker 04

  And one is walking. Actually, there was a study that came out two days ago. It's March 19th as we're talking here. This is March 17th. It was a French study. And what they looked at was something called Nordic walking, which is this sort of, it's almost like cross-country skiing. You've got poles. Yeah. And what they did was they had 19,000 people in this study. And they, they had one group that, you know, didn't do any, any major movement. They just got a newsletter about things they could do to help improve depression. The other group, they had this, they had them do this Nordic walking two days a week for one hour each time. Okay? And by five weeks, people with even severe depression saw dramatic improvements. Wow. After five weeks of Nordic walk.

• 1:03:57Speaker 04

  So you think about that, that was only two days a week, right? So if you were to go out and get like a 20-minute walk every day and get in the sun, now you're stacking some of these, you know, biohacks. You can see significant improvements. That's because we know that depression is related to brain inflammation and low circulation, low oxygenation into the brain. And so we want to make sure we're getting out, getting that movement is going to be really critical for getting more circulation into the brain. So that's key. I also like vitamin D in general, sunlight in general, and then really good sleep. Getting out of the blue light at night, right? And prioritizing good sleep. That's when your brain drains, the lymphatic system. Of your brain is activated and now you're able to dump toxins out of the brain and the brain's actually able to heal and repair.

• 1:04:40Josh Axe?

  That's so good. Well, Dr. Dave, thanks so much for coming on the show today. I know, I mean, we've been close friends for years. I've been going back more than 20 years and I want to encourage you to follow Dr. Dave on social media. He's got a great podcast. Dr. Dave is an expert in functional medicine and natural remedies. And again, he's one of those people that I go to and follow and listen to advice. He's got great, great content. Want to encourage you to follow him. This is Dr. Dave Jockers, one of the world's leaders in functional medicine. Well, say, want to say, hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Act Show. You know, every week we're diving deep into how to heal using natural remedies to promote longevity and resilience for you and your family. The number one thing you can do to support the show, asking you for a favor

• 1:05:23Josh Axe?

  here is subscribe. It allows me to continue to bring on amazing, high-profile guests here like Dr. Dave Jockers. Also, there are so many people out there. I think about my family growing up. We just kept living in the medical model, taking drugs because we didn't know there was a natural way. My mom ended up with cancer. We ended up having some major health crises in our family because we didn't know there was something natural. So by simply sharing this podcast and episode, we can save and transform lives together. So just know, we are so grateful for you subscribers that were locking arms together, changing the world together. I'm so grateful for all of you sharing this content as well and so grateful for Dr. Dave Jockers coming on as well. Hey, and do me a favor. Let us

• 1:06:06Josh Axe?

  know, jump on Instagram on my channel. Let me know what you loved here about the episode. If you're watching on YouTube. Hey, let us know, maybe that thing that you really loved that Dr. Dave shared today. And hey, if we missed a remedy, let us know what you'd recommend. We know a lot of you guys have some amazing wisdom. We would love to hear from you in that way as well. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you on the next episode.

• 1:06:31Speaker 05

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