Finding Your Health Truth: Navigating Wellness Trends with Dr. Mark Sherwood - Episode 273 - Sandy K Nutrition - Health & Lifestyle Queen

Episode Transcript
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Sandy Kruse (00:02):
Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Kruse of Sandy K
Nutrition, health and LifestyleQueen.
For years now, I've beenbringing to you conversations
about wellness from incredibleguests from all over the world.
Discover a fresh take onhealthy living for midlife and

(00:25):
beyond, one that embracesbalance and reason without
letting only science dictateevery aspect of our wellness,

(00:46):
and my guests as we explore waysthat we can age gracefully,
with in-depth conversationsabout the thyroid, about
hormones and other alternativewellness options for you and
your family.
True Wellness nurtures ahealthy body, mind, spirit and
soul, and we cover all of theseessential aspects to help you

(01:07):
live a balanced, joyful life.
Be sure to follow my show, rateit, review it and share it.
Always remember my friendsbalanced living works.
Friends, balanced living works.

(01:30):
Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy KNutrition, health and Lifestyle
Queen.
Today with me I have MarkSherwood.
He is a naturopathic doctor andhe and his wife they tag team
often on social media.
His wife's name is Michelle LNeal Sherwood.
She is a doctor of osteopathy,and they have a full-time
wellness-based medical practicein Tulsa, oklahoma, called the

(01:55):
Functional Medical Institute,where they adopt a whole person
approach which is outcome-based,looking at each individual's
unique needs.
Their goal is to lead peopledown a pathway of true healing.
To that end, there are twopurposes.

(02:15):
One is to eradicate allself-imposed, choice-driven
disease conditions and is toeliminate the usage of
unnecessary medications.
Through their unique clinicvarious diagnostic tests, they
are used to heal and preventcommon disease patterns.

(02:39):
The couple has co-authored fourAmazon number one best-selling
books.
Couple has co-authored fourAmazon number one best-selling
books and they have been seen onnational TV, been quoted on CNN
, featured on CBN and areregular contributors to many
national publications.
Doctors Mark and Michelleappear twice weekly on many TV

(03:04):
networks and with their showcalled Furthermore.
Now today, dr Mark and myselfare going to talk about some
health trends.
This is going to be a funconversation because one of the
things that I've noticed in thisspace is we will almost and I

(03:26):
was talking about this today,mark we'll almost put this
health guru up on a pedestal andwe'll be like oh my God.
Well, he says we must do this,and then everybody does it and
they're like but wait a second,my health has gotten worse or my
health has changed, and sowe're going to talk about.

(03:56):
What are these health trends?
Is it myth?
Is it true?
Or maybe it's simply out ofbalance, or maybe it's just not
for you.
So it's going to be a greatconversation and with that,
welcome, dr Mark.
Thank you so much for coming.

Dr. Mark Sherwood (04:07):
Oh, sandy, thanks for having me.
I've been looking forward tothis and I appreciate all you do
and this is going to be a greatconversation, so I'm really
honored to be here.

Thank you.
So we have to always start withyour story, because you and I
talked a little bit beforehandand I know you know you and I
kind of had this inspiration.
Both of us did a little bitlater in life.
So tell us what your story is.

Yeah, everybody's got a story, don't
they?
My life has been characterizedby wearing a lot of different
hats.
I go back to just after college.
I played professional baseballin the country of Australia.
Just after college, I playedprofessional baseball in the
country of Australia and thenafter that I moved back to the
States and actually joined apolice department Tulsa,
oklahoma where I served for over20 years, 10 years of which on

(04:54):
the SWAT team, and during thattime I got involved in some
physique training, bodybuilding,and just tried to keep myself
fit for that job.
And towards the end of my careerI was put in charge of
developing the department'swellness program, which didn't
exist at the time.
So I had to learn from theground up what all that meant.

(05:18):
So I traveled around andstarted studying and I realized
that the law enforcementpersonnel didn't live very long.
Actually, the age of death wasaveraging for the 20-year
veteran at 66 years of age, andthat shocked me because I found
that that trend hadn't changedfor 50 years.
So I kind of went on a missionat that point to figure out the

(05:40):
whys behind that.
And, sandy, I just startedstudying.
You know, kind of like the movieForrest Gump who kept running,
I kept studying, I just didn'tstop and I started the wellness
program and got into my latteryears in the department and I
thought you know I'm intoprotection and service, why

(06:00):
can't I go into naturopathy andwhy can't I protect and serve on
a larger scale?
And despite all the criticismfrom my peers and the naysayers
that says you can't do it,you're too old, I decided to
keep studying in school andfurther my education to become a
naturopathic doctor and so nowI get the pleasure of working

(06:22):
with my wife every day.
You know she's my best friend.
I call her not just my sparerib but my prime rib and people
kind of like that a lot.
And so Michelle and I worktogether, the Functional Medical
Institute, and we get theopportunity to serve people
really around the globe.
I think last count we've beenable to work with 25,000 plus
people and you know and thebooks and we've made several

(06:43):
movies and it's just been a realblessing to be able to help
people and sort of get themessage that we're both trying
to get out there more on apublic scale.

I love that.
I love it because, first of all, it's very inspirational,
because it's leading withpassion, and that's one of the
things that I am a big believerin when you have passion behind
what you do, you're reallyalways going to be of service,

(07:16):
let's just say, and I love that.
And I went back to school latetoo, and I actually thought
about going back to become anaturopathic doctor, but I was
older than you, you were 40,right.

Yes.

So I went back to college when I was 46 and it
took me three years to do acollege diploma.
That's a two-year diploma.
I had kids that I was likedriving all over the place and
you know I was a busy mom.
So, going back to school and Ihad the same thing as you where
some people were like what areyou crazy?

(07:54):
Like why are you going back toschool at 46?
You're almost 50.
Like what are you doing, girl?
But you know, it was like Ijust had to, I had to have that
foundation.
It was like I just had to havethat foundation and, as you know
, the learning never ends inthis industry.

No, the learning is just going.
I mean, my wife and I are stillstudying.
It's like I'm not done, I'mjust beginning, and the more I
know, the more I realize I don'tknow.
And the wonder of the humanbody, the it works, the way it
operates it's, it's in itsintersection with society.
You know the world, theenvironment, etc.
You know all these epigenetic,um, interactive genetic

(08:35):
expressions just blow my mindevery day and I'm always trying
to figure out the whys behindstuff.
So so I mean, probably the whyor why not has been a question
that's driven me for the last 25years.

Yeah, I hear you.
I hear you.
So today we decided we bothkind of agreed on the topic of
just kind of breaking down whatthese health trends are and
whether it's even applicable toyou.
Because the one thing I havenoticed and I think you're going
to find this super, superinteresting is I'm not going to

(09:08):
name names, but there is a very,very large health guru that men
and women alike follow, and Ibought one of his books.
I thought, okay, I'm going todo this.
And then I started to dointermittent fasting and it was
all good until it coincided withthe same time that I was

(09:34):
intermittent fasting.
So how crazy is that?
It now so?

(10:07):
This was when I was 52.
I'm now 55.
The way that I look at it isthat it was probably causing my
body a lot of stress, a lot ofissues, and I wasn't flowing
with it.
So intermittent fasting, as weknow, is a massive trend and
everyone's like oh yeah, you gotit, it's good for everybody.
Blanket, intermittent fast,it'll solve all your problems.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on intermittent fasting

(10:29):
.

Well, principally speaking,
intermittent fasting does holdsome weight, because we know the
body really can't heal, itcannot regenerate, rebuild,
recover, recycle unless it's ina fasted state fasted, rested
state, rest being the key point.
So when the body, a female'sbody, gets into the

(10:51):
perimenopausal time, whichspecifically late perimenopause,
when you have this stillproduction of estradiol, that's
cranking out pretty good.
But you get this lack ofproduction of progesterone and
testosterone at that point,which can impair sleep, which
would create more cortisol ormore stress.
And then you throw on top ofthat, at that time in history of

(11:14):
your life, intermittent fasting, which also creates stress
because you're going withoutfood, right?
That's kind of a double whammyin that situation.
So I do think that it'sbeneficial as it is mixed into
the person's life in apersonalized way.
You know, I think everybodyshould be doing it to some
degree, but it should be morepersonalized and generalized.

(11:38):
And that's a problem with someof these trends, you know,
they're kind of marketed, as dothis.
One thing and all things arefixed.
But that's not how the bodyworks, because every individual
is responding differently toeverything around them.
Everybody's got differentfamily things going on,
different ages, different timesof life, whether perimenopause

(11:59):
or andropause, and you got thework stresses, the home stresses
, the job stresses the whole bit, and so all that needs to be
factored in there.
So as much as I like and dointermittent fasting, I
certainly can understand why inyour situation at that
particular time, it was probablynot just such a good idea.

Yeah, and you know, I think, just to pick out
something that you said there,it's all in the like how are you
doing it?
So I was doing the whole 16-8.
So 16 hours of no food, eighthour window of eating, and so,
when you like, when you readsome of it or you see a 30

(12:41):
second podcast clip, right, andthat's like it seems to be like
our brains can only absorb thatthese days.
It's like I will say, peoplelisten to the entire podcast.
Please don't make life choicesbased on a 30-second clip.

I'll second that motion.
Please listen to the wholestory, not just a sentence of
the story.

Yeah.
So you know, and often we willpick out one thing that we think
, oh, this has got to be it.
So I still do a 12-hour fastand I completely align with you
and I know that this isn't aboutaligning.
Completely align with you and Iknow that this isn't about
aligning, but I do align in thatyou know, if you give yourself

(13:28):
a break, if you're eating rightup until the point that you go
to bed, well, you're not givingyour body enough time to.
You know, do all the things torepair and to support a good
sleep, because I don't sleepwell.
If I'm eating at 930 at night,I don't sleep well.
So I guess it's balance.

(13:48):
And what about the differencebetween men and women?
Because isn't it true thatintermittent fasting typically
works better for men?

Yeah, it can.
And I think a generally truestatement is men have more
muscle tissue present thanladies, which does have a trend
towards having a highermetabolic rate, which is
understandable.
That's probably the difference.
There's a couple of things thatprobably would be principal in

(14:25):
a way that I think benefiteverybody all the time is one's
not eating late, you know.
I think you, if you can giveyourself a two to three hour
window at minimum before you liedown post last meal, you're
going to have a better, deepersleep and you're going to get
better digestion.
You're not going to have thislack of rest and digest going on
.
So it's, things are going towork better for you in that

(14:45):
anyway.
And then I've always been one tolook at the genetic part of
this too, because there's alittle enzyme that's called
TCF7-like-2 ortranscription-like factor-like-2
or like 7-like-2.
And it's one that sort ofcreates this.
Well, everybody's heard of theGLPs today, the GLP-1.

(15:06):
It creates that glucagon-likepeptide based upon the fullness
of the gut.
Well, some people create moreof that or less of that, and to
know that ahead of time givesyou insight as to whether a
person can or should be doingmore elongated fast or shorter

(15:26):
fast, and then putting that inthe place of where they are in
life as well, or male or femaleas well.

Oh, that's great advice.
What is that gene called?
Again, I'm writing that down.

Yeah, it's called TCF7-like-2.
Transcription factor 7-like-2.
Tcf-7-l2.

Ah, okay, I'm going to check that.

So check that out, if it can be upregulated
and it can be downregulated,because those are the enzymes
that are created by our geneticpatterns, right?
So some people create moreGLP-1 in a quicker manner and
some are delayed.
There's another one you canlook at called MC4R MC4R
melanocortin-4 receptor.

Okay, I'm going to check that out and since we're
on this topic, I'm just going tothrow this out there.
Okay, Okay, this I've seeneverywhere, Mark, is that if you
take Ackermansia, that it'sgoing to act like a GLP-1 in

(16:39):
your body and help you loseweight.
I want to hear your and maybe,maybe I think most people know
what GLP-1s we're talking aboutOzempic, we're talking about
Wegovi, whatever the brand is,but do you know a lot about this
?
Because I've seen a lot ofpeople say this and I actually
went on a protocol takingacromantia and I didn't test my

(17:04):
gut first because I know you'resupposed to, but I didn't
because it's expensive.
So I didn't test my gut firstbecause I know you're supposed
to, but I didn't, yeah, Becauseit's expensive, so I didn't do
it.
However, I saw nothing.
So I would love for you to weighin on this, because there are a
lot of things claiming thatthey are acting like GLP-1s and

(17:25):
this is a great, great topic,even though I'm just throwing
this at you.

Well, it is because, you know, the bottom
line is the sum of the GLP-1s.
And we've used it quitehonestly.
We've used a compounded versionof semaglutide, very high
milligram per milliliter.
We use it in certain verycontrolled windows and we can
talk about that which kind ofcan promote more longevity.

(17:52):
Pretty cool little experimentwe've been doing.
But with acromantia, it's one ofthe commensal or keystone
bacterias in the gut.
We do a ton of stool testing.
So generally we all have aboutnine or 10 between
intra-individuals of thesebacterial species, nine or 10
between intra-individuals ofthese bacterial species, and
acromancy is one of them thatmost humans have a good amount
of.
So we see it in the gut asnormal.

(18:15):
But to say that when you takeit it will do the same as a
GLP-1, in my opinion, would becompletely, patently false,
because it's not the same.
And in my opinion, when you getinto the marketing scheme of
these things, it's about sales,isn't it?
So if they know that GLP-1products have had big sales

(18:39):
which they have and they knowthat there's been some level of
success which undoubtedly theyhave along with some failures,
then people are going to try tofind alternatives to that, using
that as their hook to get theattention and then create the
cells of this.
So it's almost as like sayingthat you know, if you take this
pill, this one capsule ofacromantia, you will lose weight

(19:02):
, which is, frankly, that'sridiculous, because humanity is
different, man.
I mean to generalize things,which is where medicine went
wrong.
It generalized things witheveryone and when you generalize
things with everyone, you takeaway the personalization of it
and, frankly, within even thenatural side of things, I have

(19:25):
to deal with this stuff all thetime because everybody is trying
to sell something in the spacethese days.
And then the nutraceuticalfield, supplement field you're
talking tens of billions ofdollars that are going through
that thing.
So my opinion would be stronglythat just taking acromantia,

(19:45):
although you might need to takeit, would not always create a
GLP-1 increase.

Okay, yeah, my experience was I don't know, I
just took it.
Yeah, and that's the truth.
But since we're talking aboutGLP-1s and you mentioned
longevity, glp-1s semaglutide ismassive.

(20:11):
It is a massive trend.
I have heard everything frommicrodosing for inflammation.
I have heard how you know ifyou're on it for too long, you
could do some serious or haveserious issues with your gut.
I have heard that there ismuscle wasting.

(20:35):
I've heard it all.
So that's a great thing to talkabout, since you have a lot of
experience at your clinic, solet's talk about it.

Well, certainly, you know, to kind of
get people's minds going in theright direction to be able to
properly digest this I'm usingthat as a play on words there, I
suppose Right, but you know thestomach is the size of a fist.
So if people are listeningright now or not watching, hold
up your two fists together.
That's the size of the hearttwo fists and you take one fist

(21:06):
away, that's the size of thestomach.
So if the stomach is the sizeof a human fist, I think we can
all agree that's not very big,right?
So the purpose of the GLP-1,glucagon-like peptide one is
what that stands for is whenthat stomach gets full of a

(21:27):
substance, in this case food,and it starts going downwards
into the small intestine,eventually there's a signal
that's sent back to the brain,this GLP-1, that says hi, we are
full down here and you need toturn down the appetite because
we have no more room, and that'sbasically how that works.
So people today are takingthese GLP-1 agonists, which are
instigators to drive up thesignal in a faster manner.

(21:48):
Now we should understand thatit probably takes 20 minutes or
so.
In a normal person, you know,besides those TCF7L2 people it
takes about 20 minutes for thesignal to go northwards to the
brain.
But we eat in a hurry all thetime.
That's the styles that we eat.
We're always stressed andhurried.
So you can put a lot of food inthat stomach capacity in 20

(22:13):
minutes.
You could probably go throughtwo or three plates if you
wanted to.
And the stomach is made ofsmooth muscle cells so it will
stretch and expand and I've saidthis before.
It can be the size of a fist,but it can expand the size of a
volleyball.
It really can.
And so we've all had thatexperience at some point in our
lives, most likely where we'vesaid to someone, or even

(22:33):
ourselves gee, I think I ate toomuch because we did that Right.
So on comes and in comes thescene of these semaglutide GLP-1
agonists and people start usingthem, and certainly we know
that people are eating too fast.
Today, we know they're eatingtoo much and these actually did

(22:56):
for a while give people a senseof having lost weight.
However and this is a bighowever with these one should
not target weight loss, and Iknow that might be a shock
statement, because losing weightis not a good goal.
Changing body compositionshould be the goal we don't in

(23:17):
our clinic and our patientsaround the world.
We don't even want them toreally use the weight scale
weight as a measure of successor not.
I'd rather know the percentageof body fat how much fat do you
have in your frame and how muchmuscle do you have?
And so we like to get theladies somewhere between like 18
and about 26% body fat and welike to get the men somewhere

(23:39):
between about 10 and 18% bodyfat.
So we have used the GLP-1s in avery controlled environment as
follows I want to make surepeople understand that they
don't live on calories per se.
They live on nutrients.
So I want them to put nutrientsin that fist-sized stomachs.
So we're going to work on highnutritional foods regardless of

(24:03):
the calories.
So we're going to work on highnutrient foods regardless of the
calories, and we're not goingto think about calories.
We're not going to think aboutweight loss.
We're going to think aboutlearning to use the semaglutide
to hear the voice of fullappropriately.
So I look at it like trainingwheels on a bike.
You know riding your bicyclealong as a little kid with a
training wheel so you won't fallover.
That's how we view semaglutideand we want to train them along

(24:30):
the way, with a lot of control,to hear that voice, so that
they're not dependent uponsomething to help them, but they
learn to do it theirself overtime.
So we have used that a lot inthat manner.
The wrong way to use it, in myopinion and you brought this up
because this is very common isto lose weight.
And people put so much emphasison that.
They don't talk about nutrition.
They're still stuck on calories,they're taking in foods that

(24:52):
were high calorie, low nutrients, and they've dropped it to low
calorie, low nutrients, so thebody is lacking.
So in that context, thesemaglutides and Wagobe's,
majaro's, ozempic's of the worldthose would be a negative
because you're actually creatingmalnutrition in your life and
we see people lose muscle, losehair, get this really almost a

(25:16):
starvation.
Look in their face, it lookshorrible and they lose bone and
it's hard to get that back, soit can become a very deleterious
situation.
So we are really adamant aboutusing that one directionally and
we won't support the other sidea lot.
So we've used it a lot, even to.
On a side note on theintermittent fasting concept, we

(25:38):
know we need to do thatoccasionally, but when we get
the system working in a way thatwe understand it.
We've used it in little microdosings, maybe once a month, to
promote maybe a once a monthmore elongated fast, to say 24
hours or 48 hours, which makesit easier.
So you can actually use that topromote a context of longevity.

So I'm going to guess that you, as a doctor,
will really make sure that yourpatient has the resiliency to be
able to handle all of thatfirst, because here's the thing

(26:32):
I once, mark, I once did.
And going back to the fasting,I once did I think it was a
two-day water fast, it was that,and all I did was drink bone
broth and water and I really gotsick, like it wasn't hard, yeah
, and and so it kind of goes tothat whole point of, oh, I read,
this is good and you know,whatever I'm going to try it,
but was it really good for me atthat time?

(26:55):
And I guess it's the same thingwith what you're saying with
you know, something like a GLP-1.
Like there are situations thatpeople would be really a lot
better off if they put off, theygot off some of the fat on
their body 100%.

(27:15):
You know, like you know, that'sjust the way I look at it and
you know the whole thing thatyou talk about Ozempic.
They call it Ozempic face.
You know, you see, every singlereal housewife that has the

(27:42):
Osepho face of where they canhave influence, they're not
really doing a lot of justice toother women because it's like
this is becoming the norm tohave this skinny body, this you
know, frail looking body and theskinny face.

(28:02):
So I look at it from, listen.
It's not their responsibilityto.
For me, I'm an adult, meaning Ican make my own decisions.
But at the same time, when allyou see is that, then it's like,
well, what's right?
Anymore we don't even knowwho's real.

(28:25):
Anymore, we don't even knowwho's real anymore.

The whole world is becoming more of this
fake prototype that becomesthese Internet influencers or
whatever worldwide influencers,and it's very sad to me, sandy,
because, as you mentioned, thathas become a trend and it's not
a good trend.
I mean, we know that thefatness and I'm using that word

(28:49):
not to be inflammatory but bedescriptive there is an increase
of fatness across the world,especially in North America, and
it's not okay.
I mean, we are in the worsthealth condition in North
America than we've ever been inthe history of mankind's
existence right now, and so weknow that what we're doing is
not working.
We know that we need to dosomething different to bring
about change, and I look at theinvention of some of these

(29:14):
GLP-1s as probably could be good, but contextually they're not
being used for good under thevery thing that you talked about
, and I frankly see more peopleusing them incorrectly than I do
see them using them correctly.
And you mentioned conditions,like you know, the paralysis of

(29:36):
your GI system that can happen.
There's a lot of issues withloss of things, as I mentioned,
muscle specifically, and frailtyincreases.
You know those are not goodthings.
You talk about people that arenot menopause yet I've seen it
where their hormone cascade hasbeen all messed up because
they've created so much stress,and that's not a good thing
either.
So there's a lot of negativesto this and we've spent a lot of

(29:59):
time over the last you knowprobably two years really.
Every person we deal with thatasked that question.
We're going to highly educatethem to stay on it.
You know and stay with that,and we use it under that very
tight controlled.
You know rules and regulationsif you will process and we've
seen great success with it underthat.

(30:20):
But I've also seen and heard alot of horror stories on the
other side of the thing.

So let's move on, because this is a good segue to
move on to a few other mythswhich you know.
I grew up.
I'm Eastern European, croatiandescent and my parents were very
old school farmers.
Parents were very old schoolfarmers.

(30:54):
So my dad is going to turn 88this month and my mom 79 this
year, and they still live intheir own home and they still,
you know, but they grew up likeMark, we're talking old school
farming.
They lived off the land.
So, you know, when you'reyounger, you you kind of ignore
it all and then, as you getolder, I'm like mom, tell me
more.
Like tell me more about this.
And you know, now we see allthese things about how you know,

(31:18):
vegan diets are the healthiestdiets and there's a lot of
argument back and forth, and sofor me personally, I always go
back to how they lived.
I'm like, listen, if theysurvived this long and they
didn't live on a lot.
They were very poor farmers andthey ate meat.

(31:43):
They didn't stuff their facewith meat all the time, but they
ate meat and they ate proteinand they ate dairy and they you
know it was raw dairy Like theykind of ate everything.
So I would love for you to.
You know I've read books.
I've read Sacred Cow.
Have you read that one?

I have yes.

So you know, I would love to hear your thoughts
on this whole vegan dietmovement.

Well, there's a lot to that.
I'll just one little caveatwith the dairy.
You know there's as muchgenetics as I do.
You know there's some peoplevery small percentage that don't
tolerate or break down thelactose sugar in dairy and they
don't have a lactase enzymepresence.
So we need to know that there'ssome level of allergenic

(32:36):
sensitive reaction to that in asubpopulation.
But with that said, you go backto the way we used to live and
they ate natural.
It was off the land, it was theway things were produced, it's
the way nature got intendedright and it was just like that.
And so you know the cows ategrass, they walked around, they
got rained on and bug bit andthey weren't raising little pens

(32:59):
, they weren't given massiveamounts of steroids and
antibiotics and the farmers grewtheir own crops on their own
ground and they didn't spray thecrops with Roundup containing
glyphosate and atrazine.
So it was a whole differentworld.
And you look back at the healthtrends of those times, you know
you did not see the amount ofcancers which I know is rising

(33:22):
rapidly in the nation of Canadaright now.
You didn't see that obesitytrend.
You didn't see type 2 diabetes.
You didn't see that at all, andpeople today want to come up
with some kind of angle on adiet.
You know well, don't eat meat,or do eat meat or eat just
vegetables.
Stay away from meat.
And I look at it from probably adifferent angle.
I want people to eat naturalthe way that they want to, as

(33:47):
long as it's naturally produced,and so we kind of cut them a
break on that.
Somebody wants to eat plantsgreat, but I don't want them
eating so much plants.
Specifically, and I'll give acouple of examples of this the
grains that we have produced inAmerica, probably North America,
have got a lot of problems.
A lot of times we eat so muchof that stuff, it will drive

(34:12):
blood sugar.
The soy has a lot of problems,genetically altered.
We eat too much of that.
It will drive blood sugar andalso drives estrogen production
as well.
So there's a lot of problemswith what we have, with the
vegan situation, and we needproteins.
I do not see that we're gettingadequate protein in singularly

(34:33):
and only a vegan diet.
I can't see that because wewant to hold as much muscle
tissue as we can as late in lifeas we can, so that we can
generate movement, becausemovement, Sandy, is life.
Lack of movement is rigormortis.
So we want to maintain themuscles.
So we do need a good balance ofthe macronutrients of proteins,

(34:53):
carbohydrates and fats.
But I like to put thosemacronutrients in these
categories natural, in theiroriginal packaging, in their
original form proteins,carbohydrates and fats and I
believe if we do that as ageneral rule, we get health out
of it, Because if it was goodfor grandmother and grandfather,

(35:15):
it's probably good for us too.
And clearly we can't ignorethat the body needs the
phytonutrients from plants andwe cannot ignore that the body
needs some of the nutrients, theamino acids, from the proteins.
So we need it all and I thinkthere's got to be a balance

(35:35):
there somewhere.
And as much as I appreciatepeople not wanting to eat meat
for just conscience or religiousreasons fine, but I've not seen
a vegan yet that has beenefficient in omega-3 fatty acids
.
I'm not seeing them beefficient in total protein and
I'm not seeing them beingefficient typically in things

(35:55):
like iron and B12 as a generalrule.

Me neither.

And so you know, I look at that whole diet
thing and everybody's got it'slike almost like people want to
have a different angle to comeup with the diet that does
everything, and I just don'tthink that's possible because
we're all.
We're all.
It's all unique.
I know we hit that a couple oftimes, but some people operate
better, you know, within their,their window of life, you know

(36:24):
they just they have access to alot of plants and they can do
that.
Some people don, but we need itall.

I really believe that yeah, I, I, I agree with
that, because there was a timethis was back when I was uh
recuperating from having mythyroid uh removed and I found I
like I was trying everything,mark, like I was, because I'm

(36:51):
that person that can chug whattastes absolutely horrible if I
know it's going to support myhealth.
Right, like I'm that person.
So I tried all these differentdiets because I'm like, oh my
God, like what's wrong with me?
Why do I feel this way?
Why am I not able to keep theweight?

(37:12):
Like I'm a small woman, I'monly 5'2", and my whole life I
was tiny.
And then, after I had mythyroid removed, they're like,
oh, yeah you'll be fine.
Just take this one pill.
And it happened to be T4 only,of course.
There you go oh yeah, and so Istarted to have a lot of
problems.
So I tried different things andyou know I had other issues in

(37:36):
my 40s.
But you know, when it was outof balance and this is the
biggest thing as soon as itbecame out of balance I had
something go wrong.
Whether it was I was borderlineanemic or, you know, like
something in my body would beoff.

(37:56):
And I've literally tried everydiet.
I even did raw food for a while, mark, I know right, I did not
go fully vegetarian, but almost,and that was when I became
almost anemic.
And then I did keto.
And then I had other issueswith keto.

(38:19):
It was great at the start, andthen I had other issues and then
I'm like I just need to eatbalanced.

That's the key, right there, you know, and
that's life, isn't it?
You know you got to findbalance like spiritually,
intellectually, emotionally andphysically, life is not one leg
of a stool, it is four legs of astool.
All those areas I talked about,and finding balance is for me,
is finding balance with sleep,with movement, with food, with

(38:51):
stress management.
It's all of those things, andevery day I'm going to do
something with theintentionality of benefiting
those areas in my life.
You know, on a daily basis andyou're right, if you get
imbalanced in diet or anythingelse, and you're right, if you
get imbalanced in diet oranything else, it puts too much
weight on something that's notanother system or area of your

(39:13):
life that's not supposed to holdthat much.
And so I think we live in aworld where there's a lot of
extreme pushed on all sides.
We probably need to get out ofthe extremes and get into more
of the harmonious action, ormaybe just take a step back to

(39:33):
try to build more foundationalbalance, things going on and
move up from there.

I think you said it right there the key is this
intention.
So every day I listen.
I have two young adult childrenand you know, when people say
they have toddlers and they'restressed, just you wait, just
you wait.
I'm like, okay, so maybe youdon't have a lot of independence

(40:00):
, but wait, because then whenthey're older, they have adult
problems.
So it's different.
So, you know, I'm like my lifechanges constantly, mark, and so
I kind of roll with it.
I'm like, okay, you know whatI'm dealing with?
A lot of stress.
Right now I'm going to focus ondoing something.

(40:20):
I have tools in my toolboxbecause for me it's really
important that I sleep well.
Well, if I'm stressed, well,you know, maybe I'm not sleeping
that well, so maybe on that dayI'm going to make sure I take a
nice long, intentional walkwith my dog in the forest, maybe
I'm going to do a littlemeditation session to calm my

(40:41):
nervous system.
So I think we got to get out ofthis whole robotics way of
living, right.

We do and I guess it's good and I have got
routines that I do.
But the routines that I do inthe morning are setting me up so
that I can be balanced the restof the day.
And so there's things in mylife that are non-negotiable.
If I don't, I'm not the besthusband, friend, mentor, teacher

(41:16):
, physician, et cetera.
So you know, I will exercisedaily, I'll do something, you
know, whether it's some kind ofresistance training or some type
of aerobic training.
I will do some meditation orprayer because I got to get
quiet.
I want my mind and my heart toquiet down.
I will breathe, I'll work onthat.
I'll get plenty of water and behydrated.

(41:37):
I always remind myself thatstress is not a noun but it's a
verb.
It's something that I do inresponse to something I perceive
or think I perceive.
So I kind of put that back inmy control and don't let that
control me.
Then I make sure that I get mysleep, and I'm always tracking
the sleep, you know.
And what can I do with that?
And in between, that is liferight.

(41:57):
And so I want to do a good jobat life.
And if I don't putintentionality on those things
that are non-negotiable things.
You know I'm doing a disservice, and even with my wife, I mean,
we have a date night everyFriday night.
That's non-negotiable and I'mnot going to miss that because
we need that.

(42:18):
So it's like finding out youknow what the rhythm is there
and then getting into the rhythmof it Not robotic, but rhythm.
It's got a flow to it and thatgives life perhaps greater
meaning and purpose.

I like that Rhythm, not robotic.

Yes.

Because I agree with you.
I have certain practices.
I usually write every morningbecause it grounds me and I
usually wake up very, very early.
So I feel like writing helpswith just kind of setting the
pace, and you want to know whatI do when I because a lot of

(42:57):
people were like, well, what amI going to write about?
Like, what for?
And I'm like you don't have tobe a writer to write, and I
actually have when I don't knowwhat to write, often I'll wake
up and whether it's like stressfrom something that's going on
or whatever, and I'll I'll putit down on paper and leave it
there, and if I'm not sure whatto write, I will write one

(43:21):
blanket line what does my soulwant me to know today?
Do you like that?

I do.
I like that a lot.

Because people will say well, what do I write?
And you can buy all thesedifferent journals that are
really expensive.
I buy a pack from Costco ofjust plain line journals, I'm
like, and then if I don't knowwhat to write, I'll write that
one line.
You don't need journal prompts,because if you write what does
my soul want me to know today, Ibet you're going to write
something down.

Yeah, I like that a lot.
The essence of who you are isspeaking to you all the time,
isn't it?
You know, if we just listen,you know to what we all have.
I've kind of described this topeople, sandy.
With this, I mean, we've allbeen places as kids where, like
you know, a little voice insideyou, I need to get out of here.
Right now, this is not a goodplace, right.
And then you've all had thesame opposite of this.

(44:12):
A little voice inside you saysyou know, this is good, I'm at
peace.
We listen to that voice insideof us and it can guide you, it
can direct you, it can give yousheer wisdom and I like what you
put, because our bodies aregoing to be talking to us and
communicating with us.
This whole idea of life is, youknow, body, mind and spirit.

(44:36):
You know it's all of thosethings combined and you can't
separate them.
If you do, you're going to findmisery there.

Yeah, I'm with you.
So let's get into a couple morethings, because I think we've
got a lot of great topics here.
Okay, I'm going to start bysaying I used to be like oh yeah
, I'm a biohacker and I'm notinsulting anybody who still

(45:09):
calls themselves that, but whathappened to me in the last year
is I've resonated less with thatterm because I've seen a lot of
things that like, just didn't,it's almost like that robotic
thing that I was saying and I'mlike, okay, I'm just going to

(45:30):
back off from that and Iactually removed that from my
podcast description andeverything, because I felt like
it was a very, you know,masculine energy like biohacking
, and nothing against masculineenergy.
I feel like every single personhas both and that's balance

(45:50):
right.

Right, but biohacking has become massive.
I would love to hear yourthoughts on it because I know
you're kind of in the same worldas me.
Encompasses what a person canknow about biology, anatomy,
science, practical experience,wisdom, trial and error, all the
things you know aboutsupplementation genetics it's
all that put together.
It's really understanding howyour body works and then doing

(46:30):
what you can to make it workbetter.
It's the kind of way I simplifyit.
You're right, the biohackingmovement's got a little bit odd
in some places.
It's got weird in the sense ofsome modalities, machinery,
things that are done.
It's like, oh boy, you know, Isuppose in that there's some

(46:52):
good things that people canlearn.
I like to look at it.
You know people have referredto us before as the original
biohackers because we were doingthat kind of thing before it
was known as biohacking.
So I guess it's.
We probably have a lot ofexperience in that, just doing
that, because my wife and I'vebeen doing this for, you know,
40 years apiece, you know,individually and together, and

(47:14):
that's a lot of time.
But I like to look at it likethis.
I want to like do what I can doto increase health span and do
what I can do to decreaseself-sick span so that I can
have a better mix of that in mylifespan.
And so I don't really controlhow long I live, but I do

(47:35):
control how I live.
And so in that whole space, youknow biohacking, longevity,
whatever you want to call thatyou know it.
Really it boils down to Sandyjust doing the things that we
know to do to benefit our livesso we can benefit others in a
better manner on a daily basis.

Yeah, but like, when I look at you, you're
pretty balanced, you know, inthe sense of body, mind, spirit.
I've gone to some conferencesand you know it's just like whoa
, like no, that paleo stick overon that table is not going to
serve as my lunch, it's just not.
You know what I'm saying.

(48:19):
Like you see some things thatare really imbalanced in the
biohacking world and I know alot of people in the industry
and I'm like that doesn't looklike that's going to support my
longevity and that doesn't look.
You know that, to me that thatlooks like frailty.

(48:39):
And you know what I'm saying.
Like, I'm like, listen, I'm not, I'm not a skinny woman, I am
not a bodybuilder, I am, I'm,I'm your average woman that just
wants to really support myhealth as I age.
And that's kind of where I'm at, mark.

Yeah, you bring up a very good point and I
appreciate, you know, yourcompliment about being balanced.
I really worked on that becauseI probably used to be more
imbalanced, quite frankly.
You know, because you knowthat's the truth.
When you find something that'strue and you become passionate
about it, you know which is yourpurpose, which drives you, know
your passion.

(49:24):
It's a wheel.
Sometimes you can become sopassionate you close your mind
to listening to other people'spoints of views, and I was
probably like that in my life alot of times and I realized over
time that every single personthat we deal with is different.
You know, whether we live inToronto or Oklahoma, it's just
different.

(49:45):
And so in all the places andtimes we've been on the stage in
front of thousands of people orwhatever the case may be, I
keep in mind that everybody'sdifferent.
And, to your point, I wanteverybody to raise their bar of
average higher and to raisetheir bar of acceptance higher.

(50:06):
I don't want people to haveless than they want or less than
they could.
As a leader, an influencer,whatever that means, you know, I
always want people to push to ahigher level of what you want
to achieve, and that means inall areas of your life you know
physical, emotional, spiritual,intellectual and, to me, in your

(50:30):
own world, within thatuniqueness of society.
Everybody can find somethingthere and you can rally behind
that and then you can help eachother.
And you know, in communitieslike yours, you know people can
lift up each other.
Maybe someone's stronger inthis area and someone's stronger
in this area.
It doesn't mean either one'swrong, but you can glean
something from everybody inevery situation to raise the bar

(50:52):
of excellence for all of us,from everybody in every
situation to raise the bar ofexcellence for all of us.

I love that, so let's get into.
Okay, this is reallyinteresting.
Mark, you're going to find thisinteresting.
I was just listening.
I didn't finish it.
Do you know who William Davisis?
Dr William Davis.
He's the author of all theWheat Belly books.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard the name and I had to
put the connection there.

Okay.
So I interviewed him a coupleof years ago.
We did a show on cholesterol,but he has his own podcast and
has like over a year ago, Ithink it was over a year ago,
and I was like over a year ago,I think it was over a year ago I
started going.
No, it was way, it was even acouple years ago.
I was in remember Clubhouse.

I do.

Remember that.
So it was in a Clubhouse groupand it was with a large group of
women and they were talkingabout how cold plunge is the be
all, end all and everybody's gotto do it, and all this stuff.
And I'm like I don't agree withthat and they're like, but the
science says so and right.

(52:04):
And so I was like you know what?
I don't think that that's true.
So I we had a cold plunge tubin our backyard last year and I
did it.
And then a couple people wereat my house and there was
somebody who could not do itunder any circumstances.

(52:26):
There was no way.
It was like they were going todie.

(52:53):
And Dr William Davis released apodcast recently about how we
ought to be careful with givingthis cold plunge advice as a
blanket thing for everybody todo, because there are
cardiovascular risks.
If you have a condition, thereare Right.
So I'm like, well, that kind ofexplains it.
And then there's also the wholenervous system thing going on.
That can happen with a lot ofwomen at menopause.
They've got a lot of stressorsgoing on, and while stressors
can be good A lot of stressorsgoing on and while stressors can
be good, we know that they canalso maybe not be so good, so

(53:18):
I'd love to hear your thoughtson cold plunge.

Well, I look at cold plunge much in the same
way that William Davis does.
Is the sense?
Because we actually runperformance and longevity
genetics as well and,interestingly enough, we have
the genes that really deal withthe ability to tolerate cold on
there, and so we're able toderive that individual person
who, from a genetic standpointat least, does not tolerate cold
.
Well, and then they do.
There's some that do, andobviously the more you tolerate

(53:52):
it, the science would show andwould indicate that it would be
better for reduction ofinflammation, which probably is
true.
But if you're a person thatdoesn't tolerate it, that can
become a negative because it cancreate great stress.
And maybe you don't toleratethe cold.
Well, you can't get that switchfrom white fat to brown fat.
The same is true with the sauna, you know, regulating those

(54:13):
heat shock proteins.
There's some people that can'thandle that heat, some people
can, some people get morebenefit, some people get less
benefit, and I think both of thetheories behind that are
accurate.
But again, they're toogeneralized and the theme here
is the too much generalizationof these topics.
It sells a lot of productsbecause it's like the end-all,

(54:34):
be-all and it seems to me thatwhen profit drives principles
versus principles driving profit.
There's kind of two differentangles there, and so, for one, I
can tell you that I do coldplunge at times, because my body

(54:56):
does tolerate the cold well andI do tend to get reduction of
inflammation.
On the other side, I also use asauna because it's like the
cold brings that internalconstriction of the blood and
then as soon as you get hot, itreleases it, so you get this
better blood flow and thehealing is in the blood.
And then as soon as you get hot, it releases it, so you get
this better blood flow and thehealing is in the blood.

(55:17):
Right, but it's very importantto know that people don't
tolerate that the same.

I like what you just said about.
I'm using that line.
I'm stealing it, mark.
You got it, it's free whenprofit drives principle yeah, so
we built.
This would be going back seven,probably seven years ago.
Eight years ago we built alittle small therapy room.

(55:46):
We were doing a renovation inour basement.
We're like this is wasted space, let's put a little therapy
room.
We put uh, it's a far dryinfrared sauna good and then we
put a juve panel.
This is back.
You know, juve, do you know?
You know who juve it?
They were like kind of like theog of the red light therapy

(56:09):
like eight years ago.
So we did that and we made acute little room and I was doing
red light with infrared sauna,almost, I would say, five days a
week, I would say.
And in the last year I don'teven go there.
Is that bad?

(56:31):
No, I do know why I'm not goingthere.
It's because in the last yearI've had a lot of ups and downs
with my hormones, so I justdidn't resonate with going in
the heat.
It just it did not resonatewith me at all, and so I just

(56:51):
kind of avoided doing that roomfor the last little while.
But now things are starting toget more balanced with me that
I'm going to probably try again.
But I think listening to yourbody is a good thing as well,
like there might be, you know,stages in your life where

(57:11):
something just doesn't work, sodon't force it if it's not
feeling good.
I did do cold plunge.
A couple weekends ago, though,I went with my girlfriends away
for just a girls weekend upnorth, and it was like this spa
that does hot and cold plunges.

(57:32):
So we did do that and Iactually lasted over one minute
in the cold and I was like oh,not bad, sandy.
So, yeah, I like what you'resaying, though what gene is that
, though, mark?

Well, I don't have those genes memorized.
There's a whole panel.
What I'll do is I'll take asnapshot of those various SNPs
and I'll send that to your emailso you can research those.

Yeah, and I'll do that for anybody who's listening
, we will have your link in thein the show notes as well, so
that they can see.
Okay, maybe we have time forone more, and this is going to
be a good one.
I think you're going to likethis because I know my opinion
on it.
But I'd love to hear youropinion on psychedelics, because

(58:24):
everybody and their mother'stalking about it.
You're hearing celebrities andbiohackers.
Biohackers, and you know, whenI went on my ayahuasca journey,
I came back and completely toreup my life and divorced my
husband.
You see what I'm saying, so youkind of probably have an idea
of my opinion on it too.

(58:44):
But yeah.
I would love to hear yours.

Well, they're very popular in discussion
today, you know, and obviouslythey operate on parts of these
serotonergic receptors in ourbrain and you know, we all know
there's LSD, there's thepsilocybin, the mushrooms, mdma,
et cetera.
You know, all these things areout there and it's.
I suppose it's there's somelevel of intrigue there for some

(59:12):
people that are trying to maybeget off of addictive things.
I suppose that's probablysomething that could be
considered.
It's out there.
Do I think they're foreverybody?
No, I don't, because I'm alwaysagainst things that alter brain
state from what is normal and Irealize people have different

(59:36):
levels of normal from abnormalbecause we still have to face
life and a lot of the sellingpoints of the psychedelic
industry is it is a greaterconsciousness or a greater
awareness of things.
You know and okay, fine, um, if, if that's trying to translate
to getting high, you know Idon't think that getting high is

(59:56):
necessary to experience life tothe fullest.
I don't want my brain to beimpaired.
I also know from my previousbackground in law enforcement
there is a level of addictionthat can happen.
There is a level of paranoia.
I have seen people haveparanoid outbursts with my very
own eyes using psychedelics,specifically LSD, pcps and

(01:00:20):
things like that.
I've seen people feel no painwith PCP and even in my own
experience I've had them fightme and several other police
officers way back when, and theyseem to have supernatural
strength Highly dangerous,highly addictive sold on the
street.
They used to dip cigarettes inPCP.
Back in the day People wouldsmoke those things.

(01:00:42):
So as much as it intrigues mesome of the potential therapies
that could be used in isolatedsituations to help addicted
folks, I can't get myself to thepoint and maybe I'm not up on
it all the way, maybe I'mmissing something,
self-admittedly, but I can't getmyself to the point where I can

(01:01:05):
say that it'd be good foreverybody to get out there and
just try psychedelics, you know,because sometimes going down
the wrong path, where what youthink is the right pathway, can
be a dreaded wrong pathway.

Sandy Kruse (01:01:18):
Yeah, I kind of I align with you in that you know
there's, I think there's a placefor it.
So I've done two shows on it,just because I find it kind of
fascinating.
Yeah, I do find some of theresearch behind it interesting
fascinating.
Yeah, I do find some of theresearch behind it interesting.

(01:01:39):
But I think that you knowgeneral people without
addictions, without issues,without you know serious traumas
, without, like I'm like,proceed with caution, you know
just 100.

Dr. Mark Sherwood (01:01:51):
you better be cautious because ultimately
anything that that sort ofalters brain chemistry I mean
you can take another angle atthis that's very similar to the
same principle.
You know a lot of theantidepressant drugs that work
on the serotonin receptor.
You know you're talking about amedicinal principle that's
doing the same conceptual thingas maybe a natural thing that's

(01:02:11):
doing the same thing, and sojust caution is the word there.
I don't think it's foreverybody.
I mean we know people we sentfor using ketamine.
They were trying to get off ofsome pain pills and things like
that.
Okay, fine, sometimes that canwork, but it needs to be under
supervision and direction andnot just haphazard.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've, I've, I've heard of some
horror stories too, like youknow where these, these plants,
plant medicines don't ever allowyou to forget things, and
that's kind of, I guess, wherethat paranoia comes in, what you
were saying.
And, anyway, that's great thatwe covered off.

(01:02:52):
There's some more that we couldtalk about, but I know, you
have a hard stop, and so I wouldjust love for you to tell the
audience where they can find you.

Well, I appreciate you, sandy.
Thank you so much for thisgreat time.
They can find us at SherwoodtvSuper easy, and there's all
kinds of free information thereand free stuff and, like you,
we're just trying to be ablessing to people out there and
give them some hope.

Yeah, I loved my conversation with you.
It's just been great to meetyou and chat with you.

Well, I feel the same way.
I'm very fortunate and blessedto be with you today.
Thank you.

Thank you, mark.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Be sure to share it withsomeone you know might benefit
and always remember when yourate, review, subscribe, you
help to support my content andhelp me to keep going and

(01:03:52):
bringing these conversations toyou each and every week.
Join me next week for a newtopic, new guest, new exciting
conversations to help you liveyour best life.

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Finding Your Health Truth: Navigating Wellness Trends with Dr. Mark Sherwood - Episode 273

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Finding Your Health Truth: Navigating Wellness Trends with Dr. Mark Sherwood - Episode 273