October 28, 2024 • 34 mins
Dr. Jay Wrigley explores the critical role of hormones in midlife health. Learn why traditional approaches often fail and how understanding your changing hormonal landscape can transform your wellbeing. Dr. Wrigley shares insights on recognizing hormonal imbalances, the interconnected nature of hormonal systems, and the importance of personalized care. Discover why becoming self-reliant in healthcare matters and how eating "like a predator" can optimize your hormonal health.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
The modern healthcaresystem won't help you heal.
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Join us as we getwell and stay healthy.
(00:28):
Hey, thanks forbeing with us, folks.
I am joined today by Dr.
Jay Wrigley, who I've actuallyspent a lot of time talking
with, and I knew this wassomebody I wanted to have on
the Predictive Health Clinic.
Jay, thanks for being with us.
Glad to be here, Jack.
All right.
What's the one topicthat you want us to focus
on in today's episode?
My specialty is in metabolicand hormonal health.
(00:52):
So anything that we can godown the road of that I can
help people with, and it wouldbe In those issues related to
hormonal changes in midlifethat would affect women through
peri and postmenopause, oreven men going through drops of
what we call now, andropause.
(01:13):
And how that affectsthings like you know, the
metabolic health issue ofweight and things like that.
So any, you know let'sordinarily, I would ask what
got you interested in this,but I'm going to, I'm going
to dive a little deeperinto your first answer.
look at their own setof symptoms and say, Oh,
(01:34):
this might apply to me.
You know, the, probably thebiggest one that, you know,
that I would deal with it again,I'm gonna try to stay within
my wheelhouse and ballpark.
And that would be whatwould be most common Jack
would be, um, that certainpoint in time of age.
And I think that you andI probably have both.
(01:56):
Already been there.
And that is where youget the first wake up
call of, okay, you know,things are changing and
The things that I used tobe able to do to correct
(02:19):
them so let me giveyou a better example.
It'd be a woman or a man who,you know, somewhere mid forties,
let's say, who has a tendencyto, you know, throughout the
holidays or whatnot, pickup an extra 10 or 15 pounds
their past history has been,hey, I'm gonna hit the gym.
Come January look at mydiet a little bit, and
(02:42):
that'll take care of thatin a couple of weeks.
Yeah, that'll all be back tothe way that I want it to be
in my energy will be betterand all that kind of stuff
only to find out that, oh, thatdoesn't work any like that that
it's not that easy anymore.
You just, you don't up yourgym going and cut back on a
(03:02):
few calories and things don'tgo the way that they used to.
So this is where we have reachedan area of our life where
the hormonal landscape in ourbodies, both men and women, I
primarily focus on women, butI do a lot of work with men too
is the landscape of hormonesis changing and all of these
(03:23):
hormones that are beginningto decline for various reasons
that are, you know, that arenatural, A lot of it would be
for women to, you know, theirbody or bodies are not looking
to support childbirth anymore.
And a number of other factors,but as these hormones begin
to decline, they all had ametabolic effect and they
(03:43):
all had a, they play so manyroles in how your moods.
Feel how well you sleep atnight, how well you burn
energy, how well you are ableto partition and not store
fat, but use it for food.
Fuel those things begin todecline and all of a sudden
you're finding yourself in asituation where What's going on?
(04:08):
And I can't get out of thislike I used to be able to so
those would be Those are thethings that crop up where give
you the first hint that there'ssomething going on here And
too many people just throwit out as a you know, either
I'm not working hard enough.
I need to do it harder orI'm just getting older.
(04:30):
That's what a lot ofdoctors, unfortunately,
would say to people.
Hey, you're not asyoung as you used to be.
Can't expect thisand that and whatnot.
You know, I call BS on thatbecause what it is that I do
as a physician is that it'snot just because you're four
years older than you used to be.
(04:51):
It's you're playing with awhole different, you're playing
a whole different game with awhole different rule book and
nobody told you about that.
So it sounds like thekey takeaway here is.
Most of us who are past 40have begun to experience this.
If you're seeing your bodydo things that it didn't
use to do, and you feellike you're doing the right
(05:12):
stuff and your body's notresponding, you may be dealing
with just a hormone issue.
Is that a good wayto summarize it?
Absolutely.
That.
Yeah.
No, actually, that's,you know, you nailed it.
I mean, you know, my firstthought was to go, OK
let's explain why that.
Is a hormonal issue because wecould say things like, okay,
maybe stress has elevated into,in your life at this period of
(05:36):
time, for whatever reason, COVIDfinancial stuff or whatnot.
So we all know that stressplays a big role in throwing
our health or our body functiona little bit out of balance,
but truth of the matter.
is that's all because of thehormonal response to stress.
(05:56):
Yeah.
All right.
So let me ask you, whatgot you interested in this
particular field of healing?
You know, it was notplanned out at all.
I just happened to, you know,when I was in med school you
when you began the clinicalpart of your work or whatnot
(06:18):
it was very common that some.
One of your clinical teachersbecame a mentor of yours.
You looked, you either wantedone or they were looking
to be a mentor or whatnot.
Just so happened that the oddestweirdest thing in the world that
could have happened to me was Ideveloped a relationship as a.
(06:44):
Southern raised male.
And I can probably just leaveit right there to be in medical
school on the West coast andhave a woman clinician who was.
A, can I say this, that shehad an alternative lifestyle?
(07:07):
How do you say thatnowadays that she'd
chosen for herself that,you know, that her partners
were not Bible belt material.
Not Bible Belt material, right?
And I was a jock on top of that.
So I meet this woman namedTori, this wonderful doctor.
But she's gay and is aboutthe opposite thing of anything
(07:32):
that I ever was raised with.
And we hit it off and developedthis amazing relationship out
of respect for each other.
And she taught me so muchabout hormones and how they
affect, you know, dailyfunction in life and especially
(07:54):
from the female side.
And it.
At that point, I don't evenknow that I had made up my
mind that I decided to do that.
What ended up happening, I'llspeed the story up, Jack, is
that when I graduated and did myresidencies and moved around and
did talk about other educationthat I did in functional
medicine and traveling inSoutheast Asia and picking up
(08:17):
all kinds of education there.
But when I came back toCharlotte, North Carolina,
And built the clinic that Idid called the art of living
center, which was kind ofa complimentary holistic
model of a healthcare clinic.
It just so happened to be thatthe people that came in on
(08:38):
The majority of the patientsand clients that I got, and I
think that this is true for alot of general practitioners
anyway, happen to be women.
Women go to the doctorfar more than men.
You know what it's like, and youhave to drag men to a physician.
So there's already anoutnumbering of women to men.
And then I began to payattention to the fact
(09:00):
that most of them, whereI was demographically and
everything, happened tobe in the age bracket of
somewhere between 40 and 60.
And then I began to payattention to the fact that
what I had learned from Tori,my mentor that I was talking
to you about, and realizedthat It's all hormonal.
Every, you know, what they'recoming in here for what they
(09:25):
think is, I don't know, youknow, I'm gaining weight and
I don't have any energy andI can't sleep well at night
and I'm anxious all the time.
And I don't know where allthis came from or whatnot.
Basically there's You know,your answer is the progression
of the dropping of estrogen,progesterone, testosterone,
and how that played outfor this particular woman.
(09:45):
It all ended up being hormonal.
So that's where I began torealize that You know what?
Go with it.
It's interesting to me.
I love studying it.
I love learning all ofthe biochemistry behind
the hormonal pathway.
So that just turnedinto what I do.
And I've just kind ofguided you down that path.
(10:07):
Absolutely.
So let's talk aboutthe next question.
I normally ask acouple of questions.
What's the biggest misconceptionabout This particular
question and what's the truth?
Often the answersgo hand in hand.
So let's talk about what'sthe biggest misconception
about the role of hormonesand how they affect us.
(10:30):
And let's focus it on thatparticular cohort that you're
talking about folks north of,let's call it midlife 40 ish.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, that's a loaded gun.
That's a big one, huh?
That's a big one, butit's the most important.
(10:52):
I mean, it's so thebiggest misconception,
I'm going to guessone just sitting in
the chair of a layman.
Okay.
They don't play a big role.
It's kind of minor.
It doesn't affect many people.
(11:15):
I'm going to add to thatand say that you're right.
And but there's a reason forthat being probably right
up there at the top of theanswer to that question.
And that is because theydon't nobody ever told
them anything about it.
They don't know to even thinkthat this could be a hormonal.
(11:36):
issue along with them thinkingthat it's probably not because
they're not all that important,but it's a lack of knowing.
It's a lack of education.
It's a lack of doctors payingattention to that they're the
most important thing that weprobably have in our body.
You can't let every singlesignal that's sent from
(11:58):
anywhere in your body fromone part of your body.
Or one cell of your bodyto another cell to tell it
what it needs to be doingright now is a hormone.
And so it affects every singlething that's going on with you
every minute, every day, howyou, whether you're able to take
(12:18):
a breath or not, whether yourheart beats or not, whether or
not you have energy, whetheryou can sleep well, it's at
the heart of all this, butyes, the Like you said, is that
it's not talked about, it'snot well understood because
doctors don't have, and I'm nottrying to speak negatively, but
(12:39):
sometimes I do, against someof my colleagues or whatnot,
is that they don't, you know,once you've been trained in
what you do, doctors don'tlike to go out and think that
they need more education.
So they don't, unless theydo it on their own, they'd
have to go and learn a bunchof biochemistry that they
(12:59):
never was really never taughtin our medical schools.
And you know, in the model,it seems like the model of
allopathic medicine is toincrease the level of specialty.
I think I heard once that anexpert is somebody who knows,
learns more and more about lessand less until ultimately they
know everything about nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:20):
All right.
So Let's talk about, uh,you're somebody who recognizes
yourself in this description.
What's the most likelyoutcome if you don't get
the hormone issue addressed?
(13:41):
That may be toogeneral a question, but
so the answer to thequestion, Jack, is that if
you don't get it addressed,then you're going to have a,
these things are progressive.
They're going to get, things aregoing to get more complicated
because here's the thing,the challenge with hormones,
when one gets out of balance.
There's a, there's always afeedback loop and a safety
(14:07):
mechanism of somethingelse that's going to try
to rescue that condition.
It's so if this is thebeautiful thing about our
bodies is that they are soAlways striving for homeostasis
that, that balance, right?
So if one hormone getsout of balance here, it
(14:29):
would be a common one.
If somebody develops sometype of a thyroid dysfunction,
where they're not for a numberof different reasons, but if
they're not getting enoughthyroid hormone into the
tissues of their body, whichmeans they're not getting
enough oxygen into their body,which means, That they're
not burning fuel, very good.
And what that's going toaffect is your metabolism
(14:51):
is going to slow down.
You're going to gain weight.
You're not going tothink as clearly.
You're not going to sleep well.
You're not going to haveany energy if I didn't
say that one already.
So these are some commonsymptoms of somebody
with a thyroid issue.
Now here's what happens is ifthat's not dealt with, what's
going to happen is the twolittle glands that sit on your
(15:14):
kidneys, your adrenal glands.
are going to come to the rescueor they're going to be called
to come to the rescue to makeup for this thyroid deficiency.
In their toolbox, They don'thave thyroid hormone in their
toolbox of the adrenal glands.
They have ways of, okay,this person is, you
know, their energy levelsare running too low.
(15:38):
Their metabolism is slowingdown and this is beginning to
affect things like their bloodpressure is dropping too much.
Their hearts not beatingas strongly as it needs to.
So the adrenals come in and go,okay, we can step in and help by
secreting things like adrenalinecalled epinephrine or raising
(16:01):
your cortisol levels, which isyour stress hormone, which will
keep everything in balance.
And it's a great thing thatwe have that are we, you know,
we wouldn't have survived solong without having these,
what we call flight or fright.
the adrenal glands.
The problem with them isthat they're doing a job
that they're not meant to do.
And they're not,they're long term.
(16:24):
It's makes more of amess than it does a fix.
Cause if you have a bunch ofadrenaline being secreted into
your bloodstream, to make upfor the fatigue and low blood
pressure of a thyroid problem.
Then after a while with all thisadrenaline in your system, it's
going to begin to wreak havocbecause it's a huge stimulant.
(16:46):
I mean, it would be likesomebody who's on amphetamines.
all the time, taking somethingthat's speeding everything up
because it's trying to makeout, you know, for, so the get
to get back to your question.
The problem is that if they'renot dealt with something else
is going to come in to try tohelp, then it's going to burn
itself out or cause problems.
(17:08):
And then something else is goingto try to come to the rescue.
And it's all, It's the it's whypeople need to love their bodies
is because to go, it's, it isworking so hard for you, even
when like you're doing all thethings that are causing most of
these problems, but your body isthere trying to keep everything
(17:31):
under control and in balanceas hard as it possibly can.
And a lot of those aresymptoms and their symptoms
that not only that don't feelgood, there's, but there's
symptoms that, that your body'sactually working for you.
But it's also kind of an alarmsystem of if this doesn't
(17:51):
get dealt with that theroot cause of this problem.
You're going to run intosome real big issues.
Let's talk about avoidingrunning into big issues.
What's, what are specificsteps that someone can take to
prevent this this catastrophicset of cascading failures.
What are the, what do you do?
(18:11):
This is called thepredictive health clinic.
So we're trying to say, Hey,if you don't do X, you're
going to end up with Y results.
So let's what is itthat folks need to do?
Okay, so there'stwo parts to that.
I would probably 10 partsof that, but let's start to
I, in the past and what mostphysicians would start this to
(18:33):
answer to this question off withJack would be to say something,
you know, if they were.
Holistically minded, let'ssay like functional medicine.
Like I do is you're alwaysgoing to go to you know, diet,
diet is, you know, by farthe number one foundational
thing that has the biggestimpact on preventability
(18:58):
of problems down the road.
And the biggestprobably ability.
To produce the level of healththat anybody would want.
So that, I mean, that standsout at the top of this.
I have kind of changed that ina little bit that I think that
there's a step before that,that I'm beginning to see.
(19:21):
And that is.
Because let's just get toit somewhere in there is,
there's a way of eating thatmost people know would be
better for them, even ifthey don't know the ins and
outs of metabolic health.
And some of the stuff thatwe talk about that, it's, you
(19:42):
know, the things around proteinrich foods and whole foods
and eating a little bit on thelower carbohydrate side so that
you're not stimulating insulin.
Even without knowledge aboutthat kind of stuff, most people
would know that if they, youknow, increase their level
of intake of clean foods andate more, you know, organic
(20:06):
vegetables and fruits and cleanmeats and things like that.
Anyway, I'm getting to,most people have this sense
of most of what they wouldalready need to know to,
if they just went out andchanged their diet that way.
That they know it would behugely beneficial to them and
it always would be So the reasonthat we have such a problem Is
(20:31):
that there's got to be a stepbefore that and that step before
that is you've got to havesome kind of reason to Do that
you've got to have a purposeof why it is that you want to
eat in a certain way Now oftenit becomes people wait until
they have some type of a majorhealth problem before they even
(20:53):
consider to change their diet.
Other problems here, and Ithink that this is the one
that's been on my mind for a lotlately is, and this is going a
little bit left hand turn, butI think you'll appreciate it.
Is that somewhere in there.
People have lost.
(21:15):
Yeah.
We talk about like strengtheninga muscle and making something
stronger by, you know,utilizing it or whatnot.
We have lost theability to make and keep
agreements with ourselves.
We don't do thatvery well anymore.
So many people on adaily basis are, I'm
(21:37):
going to change my diet.
I'm going to eat bettertoday or whatnot, or I'm
going on this or whatnot.
But look at how many timesthat where the weakness was,
is that the ability to makean agreement with yourself and
actually keep that agreement.
Is that's where itbreaks down right there.
(21:59):
So if you know, that's a wholenother podcast, but I'm trying
to put in there that there'smight be a step that we need
to, in order to get to thethings that are not as hard
as people think they are,like how to align your diet.
in a way that produces metabolichealth and energy and a great
cognitive functioning andleanness and strength and all
(22:23):
that, that's all laid out.
It's kind of right there,but the ability to do it.
and maintain it seems to becoming from a place of you've
got to first strengthen thatpart of you that has really
answered your why you wantto do this your purpose for
(22:44):
this and you've got to get alittle bit better at wanting
to or not to when you makean agreement with yourself
you keep that agreement.
I think you're right.
I think this is another podcast.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's move it along then.
Let's talk about, I'mgoing to back up and
(23:05):
just reiterate what Dr.
Wrigley said for our listeners.
What's the specific actionyou should take to prevent
this type of hormonalcascade collapse, get really
good at making and keepingagreements with yourself.
That's profound andpowerful right there.
(23:26):
Okay.
I'm going to talk to Dr.
Wrigley again.
I like to ask our guests aboutcommon complaints, common
compliments as a result ofthe type of work that they do.
What's one of the morecommon complaints that you
get from your patients?
My work is so kind of laid outthat's pretty easy to say that
(23:53):
Dr.
Wrigley, I am a 48,49 year old female.
I just in the last year, I just,I don't know what's going on.
I have no energy.
I can't stay asleep at night.
(24:14):
I'm finding thatI'm anxious a lot.
I brain fog.
I can't like my mind is notas sharp as it used to be.
And my periods areall over the place.
Irregular.
I'll get, sometimes I'llskip a month with a period.
(24:36):
Sometimes I'll have twoperiods in the same month.
So that would be a, thatwould be a every single day.
I'm going to.
See a patient that'sgoing to tell me that.
Okay, ladies, I think, youknow, you're going to recognize
yourself in that description.
Let's talk about compliments.
What's one of the more commoncompliments that, that come
(24:59):
as a result of your work?
Frame that a little differently.
Jack said, I understandhow to play it into.
So somebody comes to you andsays, Doc, I need help and you
lay out a plan for them andthey actually follow the plan.
Is there a fairly commonresponse after folks?
You know, do they, what's thecompliment that they pay you?
(25:22):
What are they talking about?
Once they've followedyour guidelines,
what are they saying?
They're, they give me waytoo much credit.
This is what they do.
They, if they are compliantin what I build out
(25:43):
for them as a protocol.
To put this biochemistry backinto a balance that allows
them to now feel Fantastic andenergetic and they sleep great
and they've lost 30 pounds in75 days whatever they they're
(26:03):
on top of the world and theythink that that i'm some kind
of master genius who all thiskind of stuff and it's You
it's complimentary.
It's also,it's to me, I take it with you.
(26:26):
My job, I went to school tobecome a doctor, which you
know, the Latin word of thatis docere, which means teacher.
My job was to teach you how tobe well in the midst of what
it is that you brought to me.
You had to do all of the work.
(26:48):
I don't do the type of workthat some doctors do where some,
you know, somebody came in witha huge inflammatory response.
And I was there to give youan injection of cortisone
and then send you home with aprescription of prednisone and
(27:10):
just shut all the inflammationdown in your body and all of
your rashes and your jointaches and all of that went away.
And it was themedicine that did that.
Now, unfortunately, we allknow that once that medicine
is run through the system.
It's probably going tocome back and it's going
(27:31):
to come back roaring.
What I'm trying to get at Jackis though, is that in my work,
it takes a lot of workon the patient's behalf.
Because it's allabout compliance.
It's, I understand what needsto happen, but what needs
to happen requires you to docertain things that are, you
might be unfamiliar with.
(27:52):
I need you to eatin a certain way.
I need you to eatat a certain time.
I need you to shiftthings around.
That you usually have done intoa different way, and I need
you to utilize and take maybesome nutritional supplements
for a period of time to openup some pathways, so you're
going to need to swallow somethings on a regimen of how
(28:15):
it's laid out, whether it beone, one twice a day or one
three times a day or one a day.
So there's the person who getsthe success is doing the work.
And I'm answering yourquestion correctly, I get a
lot of feedback of, I savedthem and they, you know,
(28:38):
the thanks they give me isunbelievable to the point
of, it becomes uncomfortable.
Because I'm picking up your lackof comfort with this question
a little bit because it's likeyou did the work, you know,
I'm glad that I was there foryou and I had the knowledge
to build you out what to do,but you had to go do that.
Like I didn't, you know,there, I don't have some
(28:59):
kind of magic pill whereevery, you know, patient here
swallow two of these a dayand all your problems go.
No, you've got to.
You gotta do the work.
But I am, I'm rewarded in mywork with appreciation for sure.
But I want my patients to knowthat they should give themselves
a big pat on the back.
Yeah.
Because they're doing they'redoing some changing.
(29:23):
This is my, we're come, we'vecome to question, question nine.
This is my favoritequestion by far.
And I can't remember if Iframed this for you or not,
but, in my work my, my realjob that I get paid for,
we will occasionally recommendto our clients that they put
some ads up on billboards,but billboards are only
(29:45):
good as a complimentaryadvertising medium.
If you're depending onbillboards to drive your
business, you're goingto be very disappointed.
And then we go further andwe say, look, and if you're
going to use a billboard.
You have to limit the numberof words because most of the
people are going to see thatbillboard or driving by at
30 or 50 or 60 miles an hour.
(30:06):
And they don't have timeto read much more than
five, six or eight words.
So that's why this questionis, if you had to deliver
your message and you onlyhad Eight words, no more than
would fit on a billboard.
What would those eight words be?
And it can be less.
I wouldn't yeah, I'm notscared of that question.
(30:28):
I was, I just wasn't really,I didn't have something
already prepared for that.
So I've got twothat are on my mind.
One would be the bigger picture.
I think I would probablysay something like this.
Become self reliant inyour own healthcare.
That would be a big one becauseI think too many people are
(30:50):
leave their health care up towhatever doctor that they see.
And I think that's not agood practice anymore at all.
Another one in therethat just came to mind.
Oh, good.
He's got another onewas because of so
much of my work.
(31:13):
Does rely on changing people'sway of eating, because if
I'm going to influence theirbiochemistry and hormonal
balance or whatnot I definitelyneed them to understand the
relationship of food and whatfoods are best and, you know,
to promote hormonal balance andfat loss and energy production
(31:36):
and brain health or whatnot.
All right.
So if I had to say one thatwas more related to the nuts
and bolts of what I do, itwould be something like this.
Eat like a predator,not like prey.
Ooh, that's the micdrop moment right there.
Eat a predator, not like prey.
(31:58):
Most people areprotein deficient.
Most people fuel themselveswith way too much high
processed carbohydrate food.
You would not seethis in the wild.
You would see that the fastest,strongest, leanest, most healthy
animals are those that arepredators and they go after.
(32:22):
You know what they go after,but I love that.
Yeah.
So you, if you ate more likea predator and less like their
prey eats, which are usuallygrass vegetarian feeding
animals you, you do well.
Eat a predator,not like the prey.
(32:43):
Our guest has been Dr.
Jay Wrigley.
This has been PredictiveHealth Clinic.
Thanks for joining us.
We'll talk to you next time.
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(00:28):
Hey, thanks forbeing with us, folks.
I am joined today by Dr.
Jay Wrigley, who I've actuallyspent a lot of time talking
with, and I knew this wassomebody I wanted to have on
the Predictive Health Clinic.
Jay, thanks for being with us.
Glad to be here, Jack.
All right.
What's the one topicthat you want us to focus
on in today's episode?
My specialty is in metabolicand hormonal health.
(00:52):
So anything that we can godown the road of that I can
help people with, and it wouldbe In those issues related to
hormonal changes in midlifethat would affect women through
peri and postmenopause, oreven men going through drops of
what we call now, andropause.
(01:13):
And how that affectsthings like you know, the
metabolic health issue ofweight and things like that.
So any, you know let'sordinarily, I would ask what
got you interested in this,but I'm going to, I'm going
to dive a little deeperinto your first answer.
look at their own setof symptoms and say, Oh,
(01:34):
this might apply to me.
You know, the, probably thebiggest one that, you know,
that I would deal with it again,I'm gonna try to stay within
my wheelhouse and ballpark.
And that would be whatwould be most common Jack
would be, um, that certainpoint in time of age.
And I think that you andI probably have both.
(01:56):
Already been there.
And that is where youget the first wake up
call of, okay, you know,things are changing and
The things that I used tobe able to do to correct
(02:19):
them so let me giveyou a better example.
It'd be a woman or a man who,you know, somewhere mid forties,
let's say, who has a tendencyto, you know, throughout the
holidays or whatnot, pickup an extra 10 or 15 pounds
their past history has been,hey, I'm gonna hit the gym.
Come January look at mydiet a little bit, and
(02:42):
that'll take care of thatin a couple of weeks.
Yeah, that'll all be back tothe way that I want it to be
in my energy will be betterand all that kind of stuff
only to find out that, oh, thatdoesn't work any like that that
it's not that easy anymore.
You just, you don't up yourgym going and cut back on a
(03:02):
few calories and things don'tgo the way that they used to.
So this is where we have reachedan area of our life where
the hormonal landscape in ourbodies, both men and women, I
primarily focus on women, butI do a lot of work with men too
is the landscape of hormonesis changing and all of these
(03:23):
hormones that are beginningto decline for various reasons
that are, you know, that arenatural, A lot of it would be
for women to, you know, theirbody or bodies are not looking
to support childbirth anymore.
And a number of other factors,but as these hormones begin
to decline, they all had ametabolic effect and they
(03:43):
all had a, they play so manyroles in how your moods.
Feel how well you sleep atnight, how well you burn
energy, how well you are ableto partition and not store
fat, but use it for food.
Fuel those things begin todecline and all of a sudden
you're finding yourself in asituation where What's going on?
(04:08):
And I can't get out of thislike I used to be able to so
those would be Those are thethings that crop up where give
you the first hint that there'ssomething going on here And
too many people just throwit out as a you know, either
I'm not working hard enough.
I need to do it harder orI'm just getting older.
(04:30):
That's what a lot ofdoctors, unfortunately,
would say to people.
Hey, you're not asyoung as you used to be.
Can't expect thisand that and whatnot.
You know, I call BS on thatbecause what it is that I do
as a physician is that it'snot just because you're four
years older than you used to be.
(04:51):
It's you're playing with awhole different, you're playing
a whole different game with awhole different rule book and
nobody told you about that.
So it sounds like thekey takeaway here is.
Most of us who are past 40have begun to experience this.
If you're seeing your bodydo things that it didn't
use to do, and you feellike you're doing the right
(05:12):
stuff and your body's notresponding, you may be dealing
with just a hormone issue.
Is that a good wayto summarize it?
Absolutely.
That.
Yeah.
No, actually, that's,you know, you nailed it.
I mean, you know, my firstthought was to go, OK
let's explain why that.
Is a hormonal issue because wecould say things like, okay,
maybe stress has elevated into,in your life at this period of
(05:36):
time, for whatever reason, COVIDfinancial stuff or whatnot.
So we all know that stressplays a big role in throwing
our health or our body functiona little bit out of balance,
but truth of the matter.
is that's all because of thehormonal response to stress.
(05:56):
Yeah.
All right.
So let me ask you, whatgot you interested in this
particular field of healing?
You know, it was notplanned out at all.
I just happened to, you know,when I was in med school you
when you began the clinicalpart of your work or whatnot
(06:18):
it was very common that some.
One of your clinical teachersbecame a mentor of yours.
You looked, you either wantedone or they were looking
to be a mentor or whatnot.
Just so happened that the oddestweirdest thing in the world that
could have happened to me was Ideveloped a relationship as a.
(06:44):
Southern raised male.
And I can probably just leaveit right there to be in medical
school on the West coast andhave a woman clinician who was.
A, can I say this, that shehad an alternative lifestyle?
(07:07):
How do you say thatnowadays that she'd
chosen for herself that,you know, that her partners
were not Bible belt material.
Not Bible Belt material, right?
And I was a jock on top of that.
So I meet this woman namedTori, this wonderful doctor.
But she's gay and is aboutthe opposite thing of anything
(07:32):
that I ever was raised with.
And we hit it off and developedthis amazing relationship out
of respect for each other.
And she taught me so muchabout hormones and how they
affect, you know, dailyfunction in life and especially
(07:54):
from the female side.
And it.
At that point, I don't evenknow that I had made up my
mind that I decided to do that.
What ended up happening, I'llspeed the story up, Jack, is
that when I graduated and did myresidencies and moved around and
did talk about other educationthat I did in functional
medicine and traveling inSoutheast Asia and picking up
(08:17):
all kinds of education there.
But when I came back toCharlotte, North Carolina,
And built the clinic that Idid called the art of living
center, which was kind ofa complimentary holistic
model of a healthcare clinic.
It just so happened to be thatthe people that came in on
(08:38):
The majority of the patientsand clients that I got, and I
think that this is true for alot of general practitioners
anyway, happen to be women.
Women go to the doctorfar more than men.
You know what it's like, and youhave to drag men to a physician.
So there's already anoutnumbering of women to men.
And then I began to payattention to the fact
(09:00):
that most of them, whereI was demographically and
everything, happened tobe in the age bracket of
somewhere between 40 and 60.
And then I began to payattention to the fact that
what I had learned from Tori,my mentor that I was talking
to you about, and realizedthat It's all hormonal.
Every, you know, what they'recoming in here for what they
(09:25):
think is, I don't know, youknow, I'm gaining weight and
I don't have any energy andI can't sleep well at night
and I'm anxious all the time.
And I don't know where allthis came from or whatnot.
Basically there's You know,your answer is the progression
of the dropping of estrogen,progesterone, testosterone,
and how that played outfor this particular woman.
(09:45):
It all ended up being hormonal.
So that's where I began torealize that You know what?
Go with it.
It's interesting to me.
I love studying it.
I love learning all ofthe biochemistry behind
the hormonal pathway.
So that just turnedinto what I do.
And I've just kind ofguided you down that path.
(10:07):
Absolutely.
So let's talk aboutthe next question.
I normally ask acouple of questions.
What's the biggest misconceptionabout This particular
question and what's the truth?
Often the answersgo hand in hand.
So let's talk about what'sthe biggest misconception
about the role of hormonesand how they affect us.
(10:30):
And let's focus it on thatparticular cohort that you're
talking about folks north of,let's call it midlife 40 ish.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, that's a loaded gun.
That's a big one, huh?
That's a big one, butit's the most important.
(10:52):
I mean, it's so thebiggest misconception,
I'm going to guessone just sitting in
the chair of a layman.
Okay.
They don't play a big role.
It's kind of minor.
It doesn't affect many people.
(11:15):
I'm going to add to thatand say that you're right.
And but there's a reason forthat being probably right
up there at the top of theanswer to that question.
And that is because theydon't nobody ever told
them anything about it.
They don't know to even thinkthat this could be a hormonal.
(11:36):
issue along with them thinkingthat it's probably not because
they're not all that important,but it's a lack of knowing.
It's a lack of education.
It's a lack of doctors payingattention to that they're the
most important thing that weprobably have in our body.
You can't let every singlesignal that's sent from
(11:58):
anywhere in your body fromone part of your body.
Or one cell of your bodyto another cell to tell it
what it needs to be doingright now is a hormone.
And so it affects every singlething that's going on with you
every minute, every day, howyou, whether you're able to take
(12:18):
a breath or not, whether yourheart beats or not, whether or
not you have energy, whetheryou can sleep well, it's at
the heart of all this, butyes, the Like you said, is that
it's not talked about, it'snot well understood because
doctors don't have, and I'm nottrying to speak negatively, but
(12:39):
sometimes I do, against someof my colleagues or whatnot,
is that they don't, you know,once you've been trained in
what you do, doctors don'tlike to go out and think that
they need more education.
So they don't, unless theydo it on their own, they'd
have to go and learn a bunchof biochemistry that they
(12:59):
never was really never taughtin our medical schools.
And you know, in the model,it seems like the model of
allopathic medicine is toincrease the level of specialty.
I think I heard once that anexpert is somebody who knows,
learns more and more about lessand less until ultimately they
know everything about nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(13:20):
All right.
So Let's talk about, uh,you're somebody who recognizes
yourself in this description.
What's the most likelyoutcome if you don't get
the hormone issue addressed?
(13:41):
That may be toogeneral a question, but
so the answer to thequestion, Jack, is that if
you don't get it addressed,then you're going to have a,
these things are progressive.
They're going to get, things aregoing to get more complicated
because here's the thing,the challenge with hormones,
when one gets out of balance.
There's a, there's always afeedback loop and a safety
(14:07):
mechanism of somethingelse that's going to try
to rescue that condition.
It's so if this is thebeautiful thing about our
bodies is that they are soAlways striving for homeostasis
that, that balance, right?
So if one hormone getsout of balance here, it
(14:29):
would be a common one.
If somebody develops sometype of a thyroid dysfunction,
where they're not for a numberof different reasons, but if
they're not getting enoughthyroid hormone into the
tissues of their body, whichmeans they're not getting
enough oxygen into their body,which means, That they're
not burning fuel, very good.
And what that's going toaffect is your metabolism
(14:51):
is going to slow down.
You're going to gain weight.
You're not going tothink as clearly.
You're not going to sleep well.
You're not going to haveany energy if I didn't
say that one already.
So these are some commonsymptoms of somebody
with a thyroid issue.
Now here's what happens is ifthat's not dealt with, what's
going to happen is the twolittle glands that sit on your
(15:14):
kidneys, your adrenal glands.
are going to come to the rescueor they're going to be called
to come to the rescue to makeup for this thyroid deficiency.
In their toolbox, They don'thave thyroid hormone in their
toolbox of the adrenal glands.
They have ways of, okay,this person is, you
know, their energy levelsare running too low.
(15:38):
Their metabolism is slowingdown and this is beginning to
affect things like their bloodpressure is dropping too much.
Their hearts not beatingas strongly as it needs to.
So the adrenals come in and go,okay, we can step in and help by
secreting things like adrenalinecalled epinephrine or raising
(16:01):
your cortisol levels, which isyour stress hormone, which will
keep everything in balance.
And it's a great thing thatwe have that are we, you know,
we wouldn't have survived solong without having these,
what we call flight or fright.
the adrenal glands.
The problem with them isthat they're doing a job
that they're not meant to do.
And they're not,they're long term.
(16:24):
It's makes more of amess than it does a fix.
Cause if you have a bunch ofadrenaline being secreted into
your bloodstream, to make upfor the fatigue and low blood
pressure of a thyroid problem.
Then after a while with all thisadrenaline in your system, it's
going to begin to wreak havocbecause it's a huge stimulant.
(16:46):
I mean, it would be likesomebody who's on amphetamines.
all the time, taking somethingthat's speeding everything up
because it's trying to makeout, you know, for, so the get
to get back to your question.
The problem is that if they'renot dealt with something else
is going to come in to try tohelp, then it's going to burn
itself out or cause problems.
(17:08):
And then something else is goingto try to come to the rescue.
And it's all, It's the it's whypeople need to love their bodies
is because to go, it's, it isworking so hard for you, even
when like you're doing all thethings that are causing most of
these problems, but your body isthere trying to keep everything
(17:31):
under control and in balanceas hard as it possibly can.
And a lot of those aresymptoms and their symptoms
that not only that don't feelgood, there's, but there's
symptoms that, that your body'sactually working for you.
But it's also kind of an alarmsystem of if this doesn't
(17:51):
get dealt with that theroot cause of this problem.
You're going to run intosome real big issues.
Let's talk about avoidingrunning into big issues.
What's, what are specificsteps that someone can take to
prevent this this catastrophicset of cascading failures.
What are the, what do you do?
(18:11):
This is called thepredictive health clinic.
So we're trying to say, Hey,if you don't do X, you're
going to end up with Y results.
So let's what is itthat folks need to do?
Okay, so there'stwo parts to that.
I would probably 10 partsof that, but let's start to
I, in the past and what mostphysicians would start this to
(18:33):
answer to this question off withJack would be to say something,
you know, if they were.
Holistically minded, let'ssay like functional medicine.
Like I do is you're alwaysgoing to go to you know, diet,
diet is, you know, by farthe number one foundational
thing that has the biggestimpact on preventability
(18:58):
of problems down the road.
And the biggestprobably ability.
To produce the level of healththat anybody would want.
So that, I mean, that standsout at the top of this.
I have kind of changed that ina little bit that I think that
there's a step before that,that I'm beginning to see.
(19:21):
And that is.
Because let's just get toit somewhere in there is,
there's a way of eating thatmost people know would be
better for them, even ifthey don't know the ins and
outs of metabolic health.
And some of the stuff thatwe talk about that, it's, you
(19:42):
know, the things around proteinrich foods and whole foods
and eating a little bit on thelower carbohydrate side so that
you're not stimulating insulin.
Even without knowledge aboutthat kind of stuff, most people
would know that if they, youknow, increase their level
of intake of clean foods andate more, you know, organic
(20:06):
vegetables and fruits and cleanmeats and things like that.
Anyway, I'm getting to,most people have this sense
of most of what they wouldalready need to know to,
if they just went out andchanged their diet that way.
That they know it would behugely beneficial to them and
it always would be So the reasonthat we have such a problem Is
(20:31):
that there's got to be a stepbefore that and that step before
that is you've got to havesome kind of reason to Do that
you've got to have a purposeof why it is that you want to
eat in a certain way Now oftenit becomes people wait until
they have some type of a majorhealth problem before they even
(20:53):
consider to change their diet.
Other problems here, and Ithink that this is the one
that's been on my mind for a lotlately is, and this is going a
little bit left hand turn, butI think you'll appreciate it.
Is that somewhere in there.
People have lost.
(21:15):
Yeah.
We talk about like strengtheninga muscle and making something
stronger by, you know,utilizing it or whatnot.
We have lost theability to make and keep
agreements with ourselves.
We don't do thatvery well anymore.
So many people on adaily basis are, I'm
(21:37):
going to change my diet.
I'm going to eat bettertoday or whatnot, or I'm
going on this or whatnot.
But look at how many timesthat where the weakness was,
is that the ability to makean agreement with yourself and
actually keep that agreement.
Is that's where itbreaks down right there.
(21:59):
So if you know, that's a wholenother podcast, but I'm trying
to put in there that there'smight be a step that we need
to, in order to get to thethings that are not as hard
as people think they are,like how to align your diet.
in a way that produces metabolichealth and energy and a great
cognitive functioning andleanness and strength and all
(22:23):
that, that's all laid out.
It's kind of right there,but the ability to do it.
and maintain it seems to becoming from a place of you've
got to first strengthen thatpart of you that has really
answered your why you wantto do this your purpose for
(22:44):
this and you've got to get alittle bit better at wanting
to or not to when you makean agreement with yourself
you keep that agreement.
I think you're right.
I think this is another podcast.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's move it along then.
Let's talk about, I'mgoing to back up and
(23:05):
just reiterate what Dr.
Wrigley said for our listeners.
What's the specific actionyou should take to prevent
this type of hormonalcascade collapse, get really
good at making and keepingagreements with yourself.
That's profound andpowerful right there.
(23:26):
Okay.
I'm going to talk to Dr.
Wrigley again.
I like to ask our guests aboutcommon complaints, common
compliments as a result ofthe type of work that they do.
What's one of the morecommon complaints that you
get from your patients?
My work is so kind of laid outthat's pretty easy to say that
(23:53):
Dr.
Wrigley, I am a 48,49 year old female.
I just in the last year, I just,I don't know what's going on.
I have no energy.
I can't stay asleep at night.
(24:14):
I'm finding thatI'm anxious a lot.
I brain fog.
I can't like my mind is notas sharp as it used to be.
And my periods areall over the place.
Irregular.
I'll get, sometimes I'llskip a month with a period.
(24:36):
Sometimes I'll have twoperiods in the same month.
So that would be a, thatwould be a every single day.
I'm going to.
See a patient that'sgoing to tell me that.
Okay, ladies, I think, youknow, you're going to recognize
yourself in that description.
Let's talk about compliments.
What's one of the more commoncompliments that, that come
(24:59):
as a result of your work?
Frame that a little differently.
Jack said, I understandhow to play it into.
So somebody comes to you andsays, Doc, I need help and you
lay out a plan for them andthey actually follow the plan.
Is there a fairly commonresponse after folks?
You know, do they, what's thecompliment that they pay you?
(25:22):
What are they talking about?
Once they've followedyour guidelines,
what are they saying?
They're, they give me waytoo much credit.
This is what they do.
They, if they are compliantin what I build out
(25:43):
for them as a protocol.
To put this biochemistry backinto a balance that allows
them to now feel Fantastic andenergetic and they sleep great
and they've lost 30 pounds in75 days whatever they they're
(26:03):
on top of the world and theythink that that i'm some kind
of master genius who all thiskind of stuff and it's You
it's complimentary.
It's also,it's to me, I take it with you.
(26:26):
My job, I went to school tobecome a doctor, which you
know, the Latin word of thatis docere, which means teacher.
My job was to teach you how tobe well in the midst of what
it is that you brought to me.
You had to do all of the work.
(26:48):
I don't do the type of workthat some doctors do where some,
you know, somebody came in witha huge inflammatory response.
And I was there to give youan injection of cortisone
and then send you home with aprescription of prednisone and
(27:10):
just shut all the inflammationdown in your body and all of
your rashes and your jointaches and all of that went away.
And it was themedicine that did that.
Now, unfortunately, we allknow that once that medicine
is run through the system.
It's probably going tocome back and it's going
(27:31):
to come back roaring.
What I'm trying to get at Jackis though, is that in my work,
it takes a lot of workon the patient's behalf.
Because it's allabout compliance.
It's, I understand what needsto happen, but what needs
to happen requires you to docertain things that are, you
might be unfamiliar with.
(27:52):
I need you to eatin a certain way.
I need you to eatat a certain time.
I need you to shiftthings around.
That you usually have done intoa different way, and I need
you to utilize and take maybesome nutritional supplements
for a period of time to openup some pathways, so you're
going to need to swallow somethings on a regimen of how
(28:15):
it's laid out, whether it beone, one twice a day or one
three times a day or one a day.
So there's the person who getsthe success is doing the work.
And I'm answering yourquestion correctly, I get a
lot of feedback of, I savedthem and they, you know,
(28:38):
the thanks they give me isunbelievable to the point
of, it becomes uncomfortable.
Because I'm picking up your lackof comfort with this question
a little bit because it's likeyou did the work, you know,
I'm glad that I was there foryou and I had the knowledge
to build you out what to do,but you had to go do that.
Like I didn't, you know,there, I don't have some
(28:59):
kind of magic pill whereevery, you know, patient here
swallow two of these a dayand all your problems go.
No, you've got to.
You gotta do the work.
But I am, I'm rewarded in mywork with appreciation for sure.
But I want my patients to knowthat they should give themselves
a big pat on the back.
Yeah.
Because they're doing they'redoing some changing.
(29:23):
This is my, we're come, we'vecome to question, question nine.
This is my favoritequestion by far.
And I can't remember if Iframed this for you or not,
but, in my work my, my realjob that I get paid for,
we will occasionally recommendto our clients that they put
some ads up on billboards,but billboards are only
(29:45):
good as a complimentaryadvertising medium.
If you're depending onbillboards to drive your
business, you're goingto be very disappointed.
And then we go further andwe say, look, and if you're
going to use a billboard.
You have to limit the numberof words because most of the
people are going to see thatbillboard or driving by at
30 or 50 or 60 miles an hour.
(30:06):
And they don't have timeto read much more than
five, six or eight words.
So that's why this questionis, if you had to deliver
your message and you onlyhad Eight words, no more than
would fit on a billboard.
What would those eight words be?
And it can be less.
I wouldn't yeah, I'm notscared of that question.
(30:28):
I was, I just wasn't really,I didn't have something
already prepared for that.
So I've got twothat are on my mind.
One would be the bigger picture.
I think I would probablysay something like this.
Become self reliant inyour own healthcare.
That would be a big one becauseI think too many people are
(30:50):
leave their health care up towhatever doctor that they see.
And I think that's not agood practice anymore at all.
Another one in therethat just came to mind.
Oh, good.
He's got another onewas because of so
much of my work.
(31:13):
Does rely on changing people'sway of eating, because if
I'm going to influence theirbiochemistry and hormonal
balance or whatnot I definitelyneed them to understand the
relationship of food and whatfoods are best and, you know,
to promote hormonal balance andfat loss and energy production
(31:36):
and brain health or whatnot.
All right.
So if I had to say one thatwas more related to the nuts
and bolts of what I do, itwould be something like this.
Eat like a predator,not like prey.
Ooh, that's the micdrop moment right there.
Eat a predator, not like prey.
(31:58):
Most people areprotein deficient.
Most people fuel themselveswith way too much high
processed carbohydrate food.
You would not seethis in the wild.
You would see that the fastest,strongest, leanest, most healthy
animals are those that arepredators and they go after.
(32:22):
You know what they go after,but I love that.
Yeah.
So you, if you ate more likea predator and less like their
prey eats, which are usuallygrass vegetarian feeding
animals you, you do well.
Eat a predator,not like the prey.
(32:43):
Our guest has been Dr.
Jay Wrigley.
This has been PredictiveHealth Clinic.
Thanks for joining us.
We'll talk to you next time.
Are you a healthcarepractitioner?
Eager to escape the grindof corporate medicine?
Are you ready to make a massivedifference in your world?
Listen up.
We are the Wizard of Ads.
For 40 years, we'vecreated dominant brands in
(33:06):
a variety of industries.
Now, we're bringing ourmagic to healthcare.
We're seeking one extraordinaryhealth care practitioner to
help us build the first nationalbrand in direct primary care.
If you think you could bethat person, let's talk.
Email us at health atwizard of ads dot com.
Tell us why youthink you're the one.
(33:26):
That's health atwizard of ads dot com.
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