#145: Functional Medicine Doesn’t Have to Be Confusing—Here’s What It Really Means | Dr. Dusty Hess

Is your child struggling with ADHD, allergies, or chronic illness? Wondering why childhood health is declining despite modern medicine?

In this episode, functional medicine doctor Dr. Dusty Hess explains the root causes behind rising rates of ADHD, autism, and infertility—and shares practical solutions every family can implement today.

What You'll Learn: ✅ Functional medicine vs. conventional healthcare (firefighters vs. builders) ✅ How plastics, seed oils, and processed foods disrupt hormones ✅ The truth about vaccines and personalized health approaches ✅ Why inflammation is both friend and foe ✅ The shocking infertility crisis: sperm counts down 50% in 50 years ✅ Autophagy and intermittent fasting made simple ✅ Practical swaps for your kitchen, home, and daily routine ✅ Why homeschool families are uniquely positioned for better health

About Dr. Dusty Hess: Dr. Dusty is a functional medicine doctor, founder of Upstream Health, and creator of Upstream Magazine—a monthly publication helping Christian families get healthy from the inside out.

Resources: Explore everything Upstream Health has to offer at www.upstreamhealth.com

Our free ADHD webinar shares guidance, tools, and encouragement from our care team to support you or someone you love navigating ADHD. https://upstreamhealth.com/webinar-landing/

Upstream Health link-tree: https://upstreamhealth.com/link-tree/ 

Perfect for: Homeschool parents, Christian families, moms seeking natural health solutions, anyone dealing with chronic childhood illness, ADHD, autism, or fertility challenges.

📘 The Homeschool How To Complete Starter Guide
Thinking about homeschooling but don’t know where to start? Cheryl created this comprehensive guide, compiling insights from interviews with over 120 homeschooling families across the country. From navigating state laws to balancing work and home life — this eBook covers it all. Stop feeling overwhelmed and start feeling confident on your homeschooling journey.

🚨 Let’s Talk, Emergencies!
The most important lessons we can teach our kids aren’t just reading, writing, and math — they’re how to keep themselves and others safe. Let’s Talk, Emergencies! helps children learn essential safety skills in a fun, approachable way — from dialing 911 on a locked phone to staying safe online, around water, and in case of fire. Give your kids the knowledge and confidence to handle real-world situations.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker (00:00):
Welcome.
And with us today, I have Dr.
Dusty Hess.
Doctor, thank you so much forbeing here.
This is going to be so fun.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
Yeah.
Well, thank you so much forhaving me, Cheryl.
So excited to be here too.

Speaker (00:10):
So I want to just talk a little bit about what you've
done.
You are a functional medicinedoctor.
You have published the Upstreammagazine.
You're creator of the UpstreamPlus membership and founder of
upstreamhealth.com.
So this is going to be so funbecause I don't often get to
talk to the experts on health.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Yes.
Well, so excited to be here.
You know, I'm I love talkingabout health.
So I'm a little chatty Kathywhen it comes to this stuff.

Speaker (00:34):
Well, that's great.
And you know, for me, I comefrom the background of both
parents worked.
So it was like rush home fromschool.
You know, my mother would pickup takeout somewhere.
And we thought, because it wasfrom the Italian restaurant,
that it was somehow better thanjust getting like McDonald's
every night.
Yeah.
Um, and even McDonald's isdifferent in 2025 than it was in

(00:55):
1990 when I was growing up.
Um and we just thought that wasnormal.
I remember thinking, oh, soda'snot bad for me because there's
no fat in it, and totallyfalling in line with that food
pyramid that just said likecarbs good and protein was the
very smallest amount.
Like it's so backwards.
Everything I had been doing waswrong.
And I never understood, like,oh, why am I like the fat girl

(01:18):
on the cheerliving squad?
And then when I got into thehomeschooling space, I was met
with people that were superconscientious about what they
ate.
And I still make fun becauseI'm like just such the outsider,
but I'm learning from them,which is so cool.
Um, they probably look at melike like I'm an alien talking
to them because I'm like, whatdo you mean, sourdough starter?
And what's the stuff the thatthey put that little ball of

(01:42):
mucus that it looks like thatwhere they make like their
little mother?
Yes, and they're makingkombucha and all of this
fermented stuff.
But I've been learning the lastcouple years, and it's been so
exciting.
So, can I ask you first, howdid you even get into this line
of work?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Man, I thought you were gonna ask me the name of my
SCOBY, and I wasn't gonna tellyou on the air.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, actually, our SCOBY haspassed away.
We we're actually we're we'regonna be splitting up a new
SCOBY coming here soon for ourkombucha.
But yeah, how did I come intothis work?
Well, when I was younger, I wasdiagnosed with ADHD.
Uh, I grew up in a family ofholistic doctors from my my

(02:19):
great-grandfather all the waydown.
And so through the process, youknow, as you were talking
about, even McDonald's 50 yearsago or whatever, it was totally
different than it is now.
But if we unpack thattransgenerationally, we see our
health care changing from, youknow, a hundred years ago until
now.
And we see a dramatic shift inso many different areas from
even 50 years until now.

(02:40):
And so, you know, I'll I'lltell you a little story about
how I got into just becoming adoctor and then how I became a
functional medicine doctor.
But my great-grandfather was anosteopath.
Uh, we no longer really haveosteopaths in the United States.
I worked as a physician over inuh Europe for a bit.
They still have osteopaths overthere currently, but now we
have what's called a DO.

(03:00):
And how a DO came to be back inthe day, basically the AMA at a
certain point in time whenosteopaths still existed in the
United States, osteopaths, um,the AMA came to them and said,
Hey, would you like to become adoctor?
Basically, here's a slip.
You sign this and you become adoctor.
And then you literally comeinto the AMA because they were
short on doctors and we'retrying to find uh a suitable

(03:21):
alternative.
Um, because you have a lot ofdifferent varying degrees of
healthcare professions backthen, Cheryl.
You know how you hadosteopaths, you had
chiropractors, you hadnaturopaths and homeopaths, and
then you had doctors ofmedicine, you know, when we
started to make more syntheticsinstead of herbalists and all
these other tinctures and stuff,when you started to make more

(03:41):
in the lab with technology, thenyou got the birth of the doctor
of medicine.
And so, and that's not that'snot putting down any
professions, it's just kind ofseeing the landscape.
And so my great grandfathersaid no.
He was a handful of like maybe25 people and in California that
said, No, I'm not gonna turn inmy license, I'm actually gonna
stay an osteopath and I want tofocus on getting the body

(04:01):
healthy from the inside out.
And so that kind of perpetuateddown my family line to a lot of
different people trying to getthe body healthy from the inside
out.
And uh, when the craze of ADHDcame along um in the late 80s,
early 90s, and when they startedchanging a lot of things and
the DSM and other things that uhallowed for uh pharmaceuticals

(04:21):
to kind of come onto the scene,I was diagnosed with ADHD and
the way that the world kind oftreated me opened my eyes as I
grew up.
I looked back at my childhood,I looked back at my lineage, and
I said, is this how, is thishow we're getting healthy from
the inside out?
Like, how did how what's wrongwith my brain or what's wrong
with me?
And I started to unpack that.
I started to do more research.

(04:42):
I started to to dive in.
And I think that is exactlywhat I love about homeschool in
this parallel is that we're freethinkers, that we don't just go
with the status quo.
If we want to learn something,we adapt, if we we figure that
out.
When I was in the health, whenI was in the educational system,
the same frustration.
I was put into a box and I hadto kind of act a certain way.
And I was very, you know, hyperand let's go and let's deliver

(05:06):
and and I was very visual.
And I didn't have any of thosecues within school.
And so through that process,really made me dive more into
the functional medicine scapeafter I got my doctorate.
And that's where I reallywanted to learn why we are
having ADHD?
Why are we dealing with autism?
Why are we dealing with so manydifferent dysfunctions where

(05:28):
we're really not aligned withGod's original design?
And it's put us in a positionof seeing brokenness instead of
wholeness.

Speaker (05:36):
Yeah, and you mentioned the late 80s, early 90s, and
that's when the NationalChildhood Vaccine Injury Act
came out, which took away theliability from the vaccine
manufacturers.
Meaning it, you know, whichreally just sums up you can't
sue Pfizer if their injectioninto your baby kills them or
gives them some sort of injury.

(05:57):
They call it injury.
I know that that word nevermade sense to me because they
always think of like, oh, Iskinned my knee, you know, but a
dysfunction or something, um,which really impacted the the
schedule that we pediatriciansrun by because it went from just
a couple vaccines that childrenwere getting to now 78 are on
the schedule from the timethey're born to 18.

(06:18):
Do you think that has anyimpact on the ADHD, the autism,
and all that?
I know that's a huge debate.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Oh, yeah.
No, I would say, you know, whenI speak across the nation,
that's probably the firstquestion I get asked at the end
of my talk.
Any talk.

Speaker (06:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
There's so many people that are that are really
up in arms with vaccines.
And I would say, you know, ifyou were a manager of a grocery
store and somebody walked intoyour store with, you know, a
mask on, with uh, you know, uhmaybe a shotgun and some some
and started demanding cash fromthe register, you know, you

(06:53):
would see them as a threat.
And that that's justautomatically, they didn't even
have to say anything.
Then we walk in and you justsee and then you react to that.
And so that's exactly what avaccine is.
When the vaccine comes into thebody, it acts as a threat.
It's coming into your grocerystore and your body is
responding to it.
Now there's different forms ofthreats and different levels of
threats, and whether it's avaccine or whether it's anything

(07:15):
else that comes in as a what wewould call a hormetic stress,
which means the body is underthreat or it's under stress or
it's under pressure, or it haslike almost like a little bit of
a negative connotation, butthen results in a positive
outcome through the stress ofthe body responding to it,
right?
That it becomes strongerbecause of it.
But in any situation, when wesee a personalized approach, we

(07:38):
can get upstream from that.
And this is the biggest issueis like the what's not in the
conversation is seeing theperson.
You can't put out a blanketstatement and say, you know, all
vaccines are good and all, youknow, you have to be able to see
the individual.
What is their lineage?
Where do they come from?
What are any predispositions?
Are they inflamed?
Do they have neurologicalinflammation?
Did they have good gut health?

(07:59):
Do they have good absorption?
How are their nutrient?
Are they nutrient deplete?
Are they nutrient sufficient?
You have to look at what you'redealing with, especially as a
child in this young state,because a lot of things cross
the placenta.
A lot of things are settingthese babies off not to a good
start.
And this is why we have to beintentional, as intentional with

(08:19):
our health as we are with oureducation, as we are with our
families, as we are with ourfaith.
And as a man of faith, when Ilook at the body, I see
something beautiful and powerfuland something that can
self-regulate homeostaticallyand allostatically.
And so when I look at vaccinesand it comes into the body and
it comes into your grocery storeas a threat, the body's going

(08:40):
to react to that.
And if it's not healthy, it'snot transgenerationally healthy,
the percentage and chance ofenergy of injury, of
inflammation, of damage, ofreaction is a lot higher these
days than it was just a couplegenerations ago.

Speaker (08:55):
Yeah.
And I always kind of had therealization that not everybody
can even have a strawberry onthis planet, right?
Some people are going to havean allergic reaction to a
strawberry, and that might closetheir throat.
It might give them a rash, theymight die.
So just like you were saying,you have to look as a person.
People might be fine with avaccine, right?
And then there might be somepeople where because of other

(09:18):
things going on, it has aneffect.
And that that rings true towhat you were just saying.
So a lot of people seem to notbe trusting in the healthcare
system today.
I know I went from someone thatcompletely did everything on
the schedule with my son.
He's now seven.
With my daughter, I dideverything totally different.
But I I know a lot of peoplelike me, kind of after 2020,

(09:38):
waking up to, oh, wait a minute.
Well, what are the ingredients?
I mean, I know friends now thathave never even taken ibuprofen
in their lives.
And I'm like, what?
Yeah.
You wouldn't even you have aheadache and you find a tincture
that you put together.
This is crazy to me.
But more and more people arerealizing, oh, you don't have to
just pop a pill and let it goaway.

(09:59):
Um, and then when you start tofollow the money, you're like,
oh, maybe there is a differentway, and maybe people are just
benefiting off of my illness andmy sickness rather than wanting
to get me health healthy.
So I have two questions.
But the first one, yeah, why doyou think people are not
trusting the system anymore?
Is it 2020?
Did that really was that thewake up call?

Speaker 3 (10:18):
2020 was a great example of what happens when
people started to become freethinkers instead of being told
what to do.
It gave opportunity for peopleto pull away the blinders and to
be able to see, seecommunication at the forefront.
Yeah.
You know, when when we'redealing with more and more
education on the side of gettingpeople healthy from the inside

(10:41):
out versus dealing with thesymptoms of acute care from the
outside in, so many people aretrying to leverage a system to
get them healthy that's notdesigned to get them healthy.
You know, when we're when we'relooking at the stats these
days, Cheryl, it's absolutelydismal.
It's absolutely dismal.
Three out of four adults are onat least one prescription drug.

(11:01):
80% of people over 60 are on atleast one, uh have at least one
chronic disease.
Despite more technology thanever before, we become the most
medicated and infertilegeneration, which I'd like to
touch on later on.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
On this side of history.
So you you see, you know, youtalk about like kids not having
ibuprofen for the first time,but you think about 150 years
and before that, by thousands ofyears, there was no ibuprofen.
And so when the way that thebody is beautifully designed and
beautifully crafted by ourcreator is incredibly
intelligent.
It knows how to adapt, it knowshow to respond.

(11:35):
And I think that the more welearn, the more we realize we
know nothing.
And on top of that, the more welearn, the more we realize we
have to be able to respect thecreation and the creator and
support, not control.
If we want health.
Look, if if you're in, and thisis where there's a parallel
here, because I'm sure we'regonna get into a topic where we

(11:58):
have to understand a littlephilosophy.
What do we want?
The future of healthcare is notscientifically driven when
we're talking about health.
We're talking about health.
If you want to become healthyfrom the inside out, the future
is not scientifically driven,it's culturally driven.
What are people's values?
What are people's values?
And and that might be what theyput in their mouth around their
bodies, that might be family,it might be faith, it might be

(12:19):
health, it might not be health.
You might they might want toeat whatever they want to eat
and and do whatever they want todo and put things on their skin
and just so that they feel likethey have more energy.
They might value finances morethan they value relationships.
You know, it it comes down towhat you're going to prioritize,
which then ultimatelydetermines what you'll say yes
and no to.
And I think that that's why somany people are really

(12:40):
frustrated with the healthcaresystem is they're looking at the
healthcare system to providesomething that really honestly,
it's not designed to provide.
I would say, I would say thehealthcare system in and of
itself is probably you couldparallel it with, I would say, a
firefighter, right?
Like if you had a house thatwas on fire and the firefighters

(13:04):
came out and they started toput out that fire of your house,
you're really not going toleverage them in a sense to
really protect your house.
It's when your house gets onfire, the firefighters are
there, but you're not gonna relyon the firefighters to really
make sure that the house doesn'tcatch fire.

Speaker (13:19):
Right.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
But we're calling firefighters to protect our
house.
And that's the problem, isthey're not trained to protect
our house.
They're trained to put out thefires.

Speaker (13:29):
So true.
So my second question there waswhat is functional medicine?
Because from a layman like me,I would say maybe somebody that
doesn't deal with medicine, moreholistic, you know, but I
couldn't actually pinpoint it.
Can you lay it out for us?
Because that's what you do.
You are a functional medicinedoctor, correct?

Speaker 3 (13:46):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
This is, I'd say this isprobably the most important
topic that people need to betalking about these days.
Because if you think about it,it's like the difference between
a functional medicine doctorand a doctor of medicine or like
an acute style doctor.
Now, there are doctors ofmedicine that are colleagues of
mine, because you, you know, youyou get your doctorate, and
then from there, when you becomea doctor, then you go back to

(14:09):
school to become a functionalmedicine doctor.
And so there's differentphilosophies that will come into
that because it depends on whatschool you went through and
what philosophy you were taughtto then end up on the other
side.
And so the distinction here isjust as important as the
distinction between like theeducational school system that
we have, the conventional schoolsystem, and homeschooling,

(14:31):
right?
So the intention is eithergoing to be in the hospital in
and of itself, you're gonna befocused more on acute care.
It's gonna be for focused moreon symptoms or reactive care,
right?
Conventional medicine is more,let's say, crisis driven.
It's like an ER model.
It saves lives, but it reallydoesn't create health, right?

(14:51):
It's the firefighter.
And then you look at functionalmedicine and it looks upstream.
It's it looks at for the rootcauses before the symptoms
appear.
It's not reacting to thesymptoms, right?
So both have value.
It's not, it's not saying thatfirefighters are bad, right?
It's just about knowing when touse which tool.
It's like I don't want to put awhole mess of water on a house
that's not on fire, right,Cheryl?

Speaker (15:12):
Very true.
Yes, and this stuff rings sotrue.
And and it can be overwhelming,and we'll get into that, what
the first steps would be.
But I'm just thinking for likeme becoming friends with the
homeschool communities that Ihave become friends with in the
last five years.
I remember saying to one oneday, I said, Well, what would
you do if you got cancer?
What would be your protocol?
And she said, Yeah, well, whywould I get cancer?

(15:35):
And I go, What do you mean?
How am I living my life that'sgonna get give me cancer?
Of course, nobody can saydefinitively that I've never
been exposed to anything becausewe've got things falling out of
our sky that we're breathingin.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Absolutely.

Speaker (15:48):
But that was her, and I it was the first time I stopped
and said, Wait, are therethings I can do in my life to
prevent this?
So now the other side of myfamily that is very traditional
thinks I'm just the craziestperson ever.
Because I'm like, put thatmargarine down, just eat butter.
Why are you drinking milk,pasteurized milk?
Go get raw milk and so I'm likethe crazy one to them.
So can you talk a little bitabout why in school they never

(16:12):
do they talk to you in medicalschool about talking to your
patients to preventcancer-causing activities or
ways of living?

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, yeah.
So, so yeah, this is a greatquestion.
Because in this, in this kindof scenario, when my great
grandfather, I was theosteopath, when he didn't turn
in his license to become amedical doctor or a DO as you
see them today, which you can'treally tell the difference when
you go into the hospital, theycontrol the curriculum, right?
And so the AMA controls thecurriculum and figure out what

(16:42):
that looks like on the otherside.
And and, you know, let's givethem the, let's, let's give
everyone the benefit of thedoubt here.
Because I don't necessarilythink that painting a bad
picture of people is reallygoing to get us ahead in the
world.
Um, I, you know, I think thateverybody definitely wants to
help people.
People, I want to give peoplethe benefit of the doubt.
And just as much as any sidewill turn to the other side and

(17:05):
and demonize them.
But let's just rememberfirefighters are great people,
right?
Policemen, great people.
Now, are there bad apples outthere?
Yes.
Are there bad doctors outthere?
Yes.
Are there bad firefighters outthere?
Yes.
The ones that don't want to runinto the fiery, you know, house
to save the child.
Uh, you know, yes, those exist.

(17:28):
But ultimately, we have to lookat the curriculum like you're
talking about.
What are they trained to do?
They're trained to put outfires.
And so when we're looking atcurriculum for from a medical
doctor, my great-grandfather'san osteopath coming down the
line, trying to figure out whatI wanted to do in healthcare.
I didn't want to put out fires.
I wanted to make sure that yourstuds were made of the greatest

(17:51):
wood this side of eternity.
I wanted to make sure that yourin that your insulation of your
home wasn't going to give youcancer.
I was, I want to make sure thatyour flooring wasn't filled
with chemicals that's going tocause endocrine disruption,
right?
So when I'm the builder, thedoc the this type of doctor is
the builder and make sure thatyour home is safe and it's

(18:13):
protective.
And that comes from thetraining of where they got their
doctorate and what that wasabout, whether they're a
firefighter or whether they're aprotector, like a cop, or
whatever they are, is going todetermine what the how they can
better best serve you, how theycan serve your body.
So do they know nutritionreally well?
Do they know emotional health?

(18:35):
Do they know multiple differentorgan systems and how they all
communicate together?
Do they know more prevention orare they reactive?
Is their philosophy more so,you know, I focus on when this
happens and then I'm trying tofigure out why is that
happening, and then trying toput together something to stop
that symptom.
You know?

(18:56):
So it's all about thecurriculum, it's all about the
education, it's all about thephilosophy that then churns out
somebody that's either going toserve what you want in life, or
they're going to serve somethingthat you might not necessarily
want now, but you need later,i.e., the more ER-style
philosophy.

Speaker (19:15):
So when you talk about things like fibers in our carpet
or, you know, insulation, allof that does seem overwhelming.
And that's going above andbeyond just what are you eating
on your daily basis?

Speaker 3 (19:26):
100%.

Speaker (19:27):
You have scented candles, stuff that maybe I
could swap out my sheets forlinens that, you know, are
organic linens, and so I'm notbreathing in plastic all night.
But things like the carpets,and it is all so overwhelming.
So, how do you help the commonfolk like myself or my
five-year-ago?
Because I'm still on that path.
I mean, I'm yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Well, we are, we all are right.
Yeah.
I feel for you, Cheryl.
I mean, the that's the thing isis we didn't we did this to
ourselves.
We live in a Genesis 3 fallenworld.
We are so disconnected fromGod's original design for our
environment.
Our genes and biology are likethrowing up their hands, like, I
have no idea what to do.
You know, I always say that thedevil doesn't create anything

(20:09):
new.
He can't create anything new,he just changes things by one
degree.
And so when we look at alldifferent aspects, and I think
that this is of his design, isthat we feel overwhelmed because
every category has beentainted.
And this is really importantbecause so many people get so
sensitive with these healthcaretopics.
Like, you're gonna talk aboutwhat I can eat and what I can't,

(20:30):
and become so legalistic andblah.
This is about stewardship.
This is about awareness.
This is no different when we'retalking about all these things
that you're talking about.
There's no difference betweenour spiritual disciplines and
our family disciplines as thereare with our health disciplines
these days.
Because what you're talkingabout with all these additives
and all these different things,what we've done to our

(20:51):
environment, our behavior andour lifestyles, what we've done
to our textiles and ourproducts, what we've done to our
food, what we've done to ouragriculture, what we've done to
our air, our water, our wallsand our house, everything.
There's been enough time andenough technology and enough
additives and enough shortcutsthat everything has been
tampered with.
But that's not, it doesn't needto be overwhelming in a sense

(21:13):
that we feel like, oh, whatever,let's be apathetic and throw up
our hands and do nothing.
Just focus on one thing at atime.
If you can get the big idea,how about the big idea first?
Is that our bodies weremasterfully designed and they're
incredibly intelligent.
And we have to be asintentional with it as our
education for our families, asanything else, like I talked

(21:33):
about previously.
If you get that, then what youcan do is you can put up your
antenna and realize you haveskin in the game.
And if you can get thatphilosophy, then what you can
start to see is just one thingat a time.
You start to see, you know, isthere truth in this or there's
not?
Is this part of God's design ornot?
You know, should should thesesteers be eating this type of

(21:55):
food or should they be eatingwhat they're designed to eat?
You know, that's easy, right?
And then you unpack like,should I be, you know, plastics
are are these kind of thingsthat exist in nature or they
don't exist in nature?
And and, you know, if they comeinto our skin and understanding
the skin is the largest organof the body and absorbs things
and it brings it intocirculation, and and some things

(22:16):
don't get broken down.
And so then the body will reactto that.
So no unnatural products havemore of a threat than natural
products.
When we look at fats, like youwere talking about, it's a
perfect example.
And I think that this is agreat segue for people to start
to feel powerful.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
I want people to feel like, man, like there is hope
in the world because I have skinin the game to be able to make
a choice that's going to have aresult, and my choices matter.
And so as we start to press inand make little changes by like
having ghee or grass-fed butterinstead of margarine, like you
were talking about, these arehigher in omega 3s and omega 6s.

(22:55):
And so they're they're lowerinflammatory, they're natural in
nature, they're notsynthetically made.
This is this is made in God'snatural environment.
And what's made in God'snatural environment is a fat,
not a synthetic fat, a fat.
I don't even like to call themhealthy fats or bad fats because
bad fats don't exist in nature.
Like you have healthy fats.

(23:16):
And so when the body processesit in the environment that it
that it was designed for, itwill process it.
So that I would say have ahealthy mindset about it first.
So it doesn't become thisvictim mindset and you throw up
your hands and you feel like youcan't do anything.
And then I want you to takethat philosophy and I want you
to start being more aware of onething at a time.
Hey, maybe I'm not going tohave this plastic cup because it

(23:40):
can those plastic can cut,those plastics can come into my
body.
They can start disrupting myendocrine system and my
hormones, and they can startdoing things that isn't really
aligning with my values of whatI'd like to serve my house with.
Um, and when I say house, it'snot only my body house, but also
the house for my kids and myfamily.

(24:01):
And so you see that with yoursheets and and other things,
yes, but just focus on one thingat a time, and then you'll
start to see with that awarenessthat you'll start chipping away
things and and then give thebody the credit that's due
because it has an amazingdetoxification system, has an
amazing digestive system, hasamazing adaptability to be able
to adapt to things.
But when every area of life isin disarray and nobody has

(24:25):
intentionality with it andthey're not being responsible
with it, don't expect betterresults.

Speaker (24:30):
And that makes a lot of sense.
Okay, so that led me to twoother questions.
So you've talked a couple oftimes about the endocrine system
and endocrine disruption andalso inflammation.
So, you know, people understandmy child has ADHD, my child has
autism, my child has cancer, Ihave cancer.
But I don't think people, Imyself do not grasp what

(24:52):
endocrine disruption or whatinflammation can actually do.
I think, you know, the commonfolk like myself would say, oh,
inflammation, maybe my pants fita little too tight today
because I'm I have a littleinflammation.
But that's not exactly it.
I have a feeling there's alittle bit more to it.
Can you talk about what thosetwo are and what the long-term
effects of them actually do toourselves, our body?

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Absolutely.
This is a great question,Cheryl.
And I think that the thedevil's in the details here
because inflammation in and ofitself is not a bad thing.
So many people they like turnto inflammation and they call it
a bad thing.
Um, inflammation is a naturalprocess within the body that the
body is reacting to somethingto be able to disregard, the
package up, to be able to moveon.
It has damaged tissue, it hasdamage, and it's a natural

(25:35):
process.
And so we need to be able tosupport good, healthy
inflammation, similar to like agood healthy stress response.
I think a lot of people haveheard of the stress response.
Now, imagine this is verysimilar if a gazelle goes down
to the watering hole, right, inthe savannas and a lion comes
out and the gazelle just runsbecause it doesn't want to get
eat by the lion.

(25:56):
That is the sympatheticresponse, the fight and flight.
And then the lion gets tired,the gazelle wins, gazelle just
walks back down to the wateringhole to starts drinking the
water again because it's back inthat parasympathetic rest and
digest state.
That's exactly what we wantfrom our inflammation response.
It's like inflammation there,take care of the problem,
inflammation gone, right?
But we don't want to stop thatnatural process.

(26:18):
And that's what you get withthe, you know, the NSAIDs and
the anti-inflammatories of theworld is like you've demonized
all inflammation.
And if you have pain, well, yougot to figure out why the pain
is there and what's going on,especially if it's chronic.
And this is the differencebetween the firefighter and
let's say the cop or whateverthe metaphor might end up on the
other end, is that we're tryingto support what needs to be

(26:41):
supported and help the bodyadapt through the challenges.
And if we can minimize thechallenges and we can help with
the support, we can see werealign the system back to
proper functioning.
And so this is where chronicinflammation is at the root of a
myriad of different issues.
And when we have chronicinflammation, we can have, you

(27:03):
know, endocrine disruption, forexample.
We can have a myriad ofdifferent breakdowns of
processes of how the body can beable to function, how the body
can be able to process ordistribute funds to the rest of
the body.
There's a currency in the body,there's a transport in the
body, there's there's a there'sa cleanup process.
And when we have chronicinflammation, we have an

(27:24):
environment that's basicallylike your house is in a desert,
it's incredibly dry, it's veryhot, and there's like match
sticks all over the floor aroundthe house.
That's like what chronicinflammation looks like.
It's just one little snap awayfrom the house catching fire.
And that's the that's theproblem where people are at with
that.

Speaker (27:44):
So would that maybe be like a chronic back pain or
maybe a cancer, or maybe it issome form of AD?

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Oh, yeah.
No, the great, great follow-up.
So let me distinguish herebecause it's this is uh this is
there's like a back pain, forexample.
You can you can be dealing witha low back injury or maybe a
musculoskeletal injury, that cancreate inflammation.
Sometimes that can hang arounda little bit more locally, but
I'm I'm talking more aboutglobal systemic inflammation.
And this is where when we don'thonor our bodies and we're not

(28:13):
aware of the intentionality ofdifferent irritants and
different things that are comingin systemically, that can be
from what we're eating or ourgut's ability to be able to be
robust and strong.
And if that, if different organsystems are weak and they break
down, uh, this is the perfectexample of global inflammation
and the the issues with it.

(28:35):
There are multiple differentorgan systems in the body that
have barriers that protect ourbody from the environment and
what's inside us.
So, like our skin, for example,the largest organ in the body,
like I said earlier, it's it's abarrier, right?
But it also absorbs things.
It uh it brings things in andit protects.
But you think about our lungs.
Our lungs also have a barrierand it will absorb things in our
mouth and uh the buccalmicrobiome microbiome and all

(28:58):
the different bacteria andorganisms that live in our
mouth, but under our tongue, itabsorbs and it will take in
nutrients.
And some of the best way totake in actually uh a lot of
different nutrients issublingual when we're when we're
taking in liposomal.
And so you think about the gutand the way that all the
microbes within our gut, andthen the barrier that's within
the gut, when that breaks down,when our lung barrier breaks

(29:21):
down, we get things likeirritations and asthma and
immune reactions to things.
And same thing in the gut,we'll get immune reactions to
things, and and you'll have moreglobal systemic inflammation
throughout the whole blob body,and that will affect the way
that organ systems function.
That will also create oxidationwithin different aspects of

(29:43):
cellular, uh um uh cellularfunction and distribution.
And so you see, you see thingslike uh you talked about butter
and you talked about margarine,talked about omega-3s and
omega-6s, cardiovasculardisease, for example, would be a
perfect inflammation of.
Of global inflammation and whatit would play a role within,

(30:04):
let's say, our lifestyle.
If we're eating a very highomega-6 rich and um diet that's
has very high PFAs and it has alot of, let's say, fake fats in
our diet, with the seed oils anda lot of these kind of things
that are coming up that are verypro-inflammatory because the
omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is off.

(30:24):
Now, this pro-inflammatoryenvironment around a plaque
that's built up that, or around,let's say, LDL cholesterol that
is that that due to higher highblood pressure has caused
striations within our arteriesand and now these smaller
particles have lodged in there.
And then the environment ofinflammation around that

(30:44):
particle causes it to thenbecome plaque.
It causes it to oxidize.
And it's the environment ofinflammation around things that
ultimately becomes the danger.
Interesting.

Speaker (30:56):
Super interesting.
Yeah, and even I I think aboutthe years I spent drinking
alcohol and just recentlylearning that, you know, the
alcohol is one thing, but yourbody produces, I believe it's
pronounced acetaldehyde,acetaldehyde.
And that's even more harmful toyour body.
And it kind of sounds like thesimilar thing that you're

(31:18):
talking about, probably causinginflammation too.
But so your body's not onlydealing with the alcohol, the
poison from that itself, butthen the poison from the
acetaldehyde.
And I was like, gee, they nevertaught us this in school.
Funny.
And then that got me kind oflooking into what can I do?
And I stumbled uponintermittent fasting and what
autophagy does.
And I another thing they didnot teach us in school.

(31:39):
Could you talk anything aboutthat?
Whether it's good or bad.
I don't, I don't care.
Whatever your thoughts are.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
On autophagy, I mean, yeah, it's a natural process
within the body that the bodythen targets cells that aren't
up to snuff, right?
So if you don't have cells thatare super strong and robust,
when the body's put underpressure where it doesn't have a
lot of fuel or anything elseand it has to, then it's kind of
like in this starvation modewhere it's it's basically
leaning out.

(32:05):
If you were in a boat, right,and you you had like a little
bit of a leak, right?
And you had a whole mess ofdifferent packages or things in
the boat, you're gonna figureout, and you maybe you had some
friends in the boat too.
You you're probably gonnafigure out, okay, what am I
going to throw overboard so thatthis boat doesn't go down, so
that we all don't go down.
So you're gonna, you're gonnafind things in your boat that

(32:26):
aren't of your value ofpriority.
You're not gonna throw yourbest friend out right away,
right?
Let's hope not.
Or your kids, right?
Let's even put like family intothe equation.
You're gonna throw out the, youknow, all the little items and
all the little weight that'sjust not up to snuff.
That's what autophagy is, isyour body's natural way, in a
sense of emergency, that it'sgoing to start breaking down

(32:48):
cells that aren't up to snuffand getting rid of them.
It's gonna clear out, it'sgonna clean out.
And with that, it's um, it'srenewing itself.
And the problem that we'rehaving these days is we live in
a culture of abundance.
And when we live in a cultureof abundance, our bodies never
have time to clean out.
We need enough struggle to beable to establish a clean boat.

Speaker (33:12):
Wow.
So for people that don't knowwhat it is or how to put your
body through autophagy, can youjust explain that a little bit?

Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, there's so many different ways that you can um
help support autophagy in thebody.
Um, number one, don't eat allthe time.
You know, you you have to giveroom for the body to be able to
utilize enough and notnecessarily have enough to be
able to then kind of shut downand then start breaking down
cells.
You can also you exercise.
Like you have to be able to putyourself under resistance and

(33:42):
bring yourself to a point whereyour body is going to need to
break down and need energy andneed things to be able to
rebuild.
The best way to reallystimulate autophagy is you can
intermittent fast, yes, but weintermittent fast when we sleep,
right?
If you get eight hours ofsleep, you're basically

(34:02):
intermittent fasting becauseyou're not eating for eight
hours.
That's why we call it thebreakfast is break fast.
You're breaking your fast.
That's what breakfast is.
And so, yeah, so when we havethat, when we have that idea and
understanding of what that is,then when we get great sleep,
we're actually putting ourbodies into a position where we
can have autophagy.
That's a natural design thatGod's built in.

(34:24):
The reason why we're notgetting autophagy in that time
is because we're not moving,we're not exercising throughout
the day.
And and that's something thatwe've created a world for us,
ourselves, that is so comfortingthat it doesn't really allow
for us to do the things that wewere designed to do.
We were designed to lift thingsand move things and and and
walk and move.

(34:45):
The way that our muscles andcirculatory system and our
lymphatic system is designed iswe need movement to move it.
If we sit, it becomes stagnant.
The same thing for autophagy.
If you if you are movingthroughout the day and you're
creating resistance training andyou're doing different things,
within six to eight hours, yourbody will enter into autophagy

(35:07):
naturally.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
Now, if you don't move throughout the day, right,
and let's say you're still youhave to intermittent fast longer
to actually get autophagy tohappen.
So the fastest way to autophagyis you want to be able to make
sure that you're not eating allthe time, right?
Imagine back in the day wedidn't always have grocery
stores right down the streetthat you can eat whatever we

(35:30):
want or drive through orwhatever.
Um, and and so you don't eatall the time and you create
windows of fasting, but then youalso exercise and you break
down muscle tissue, you breakdown tissue to rebuild tissue.
And through that process,you'll have breakdown of cells
and then rebuilding of bettercells.

Speaker (35:48):
And I love that because I think that does give that
hope too.
Like there are super easy ways.
Well, I can't say super easybecause it's hard when you want
that morning coffee and you'relike, I have to drink it black,
but that's okay because I'mgonna feel great later.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Oh, well, I mean, you know, I I have my morning
coffee.
I I love coffee.
I think you know, this isactually the number one um
antioxidant drink uh drink inthe United States.
Uh, it's also incredibly fiberrich.
So when we're talking aboutshort chain fatty acids for the
body to be able to utilize,coffee is great.
What I do is I add either heavycream to my coffee, or I'll add

(36:23):
some grass-fed butter, or I'lladd some MCT oil, or I'll add
some just natural fats,God-given fats, to my coffee.
And that will help slow downthe absorption of caffeine into
my system and give me all theother benefits as well.
And so that's just somethingthat um yeah.

Speaker (36:38):
Perfect.
But if you're intermittentfasting and you want to drink
coffee in that fasting window,black is probably how it should
be, right?

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Yeah, well, yeah, that's that's the thing, is is I
think that this is a philosophywhere people will usually get
into like I I love hope.
I love giving people hope.
And in in functional medicineor in myriads of different
areas, this is where thebreakdown happens.
People feel overwhelmed, peoplefeel like they don't know what
to do, they feel likeeverything's out of alignment.
Now they've got to get thesewater filters, now they've got

(37:06):
to get these air filters, nowthey've got to change their
sheets, now they've got tochange their food, now they, you
know, how am I gonna afford allof this?
Is like we live in a Genesis 3fallen world.
Our environment is sodisconnected from our genes and
biology the way that God'sdesigned it.
And we have to just at leasthave awareness.
Start with one thing at a time.
There is hope, right?
So, in, but if we look atautophagy from the same

(37:27):
perspective of like, hey, I wantto control this because this is
good, or hey, here's thiscolostrum.
I I think this is really goodfor my this is gonna heal me.
If we take the philosophy ofpill for an ill, but just put it
herb for an ill or supplementfor an ill, there's no
difference.
So we have to create the rightphilosophy of supporting the
body from the inside out to beable to get it healthy from the

(37:50):
inside out.
That robustness is builtthrough our belief subset.
It's it's it's what we say yesand no to.
It's the culture, it's the it'sthe I value this based off of
my beliefs.
And since this falls on myvalues, then I'm gonna
prioritize these things.
And and when we prioritize, youknow, as Christian families, we
prioritize faith, family, andhealth, right?

(38:10):
With maybe a sub-littlecategory of finances, but how we
honor those finances is totallydifferent than other cultures
honor those finances.
So if we take our top three offaith, family, and health, how
are we gonna honor that?
And so that's really where wecome back to the philosophy of
looking at anything.
And if we can look at it fromthat powerful perspective, we
can take back control of what'salready ours.

(38:30):
It's not, hey, I want, I seethat autophagy is good.
What do I do to createautophagy?
It's like, no, let's just comeback into alignment of just
getting good sleep, likeprioritizing bedtime,
prioritizing a wake up time andkeeping it.
You know, get moving morethroughout the day because our
bodies were designed to do that.
If you the more you understand,the more you get educated on

(38:53):
understanding God's originaldesign and just work back
towards that.
Don't focus on trying to fixall the things that are
misaligned.
Come back to the way that God'sdesigned our environment, our
genes, our biology, and how wecan best come into prioritizing
faith, family, and health, andeverything else will follow.

Speaker (39:11):
Well, and that's true.
I think that's it.
Sounds like, gee, that's I needa checklist, right?
We're kind of like a nation ofgive me the checklist, the steps
I have to follow.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah.

Speaker (39:22):
So that I can do it.
But yes, if you just kind ofhave faith that it will all fall
into alignment with, you know,you do start seeing the okay, do
I need the ice cream beforebed?
Is this what they did a hundredyears ago?
Maybe if they made it from, youknow, their their cow that was
outside and you know, theirhomegrown sugar.
But yeah, it's and we we watchLittle House on the prairie a

(39:44):
lot.
So I have to like relate thatback to my son.
Like, well, do you think theywere doing this in Little House?

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah.

Speaker (39:51):
No, they didn't go trick-or-treating and asking
strangers for you know, candyand chemicals.
Well, maybe we could dosomething different then for
this little festivity.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there's so manyparallels to that.
We were just reading thosebooks.
My my daughter was readingthose books, and we watched a
couple of those movies not toolong ago, just a few months ago.
So I can totally relate tothat.
I yeah, I think that there'swith going back a hundred years,
and there's so many people thatare looking at, well, how do we
just go back to the way that wewere before?
And I think that we can alsorevel in the modern technology

(40:24):
that we have now, but still alsohonor God's original design.
And we can do thatsimultaneously, but we have to
say yes and no to things.
We have to be able to separateourselves from what the world is
offering and the way that God'sdesigned it.
Every aspect of manipulation isat play here.
When somebody is selling yousomething, they're playing, they
have scientists andpsychologists and people working

(40:47):
on trying to, the more weunderstand about the human
psyche, the more we understandabout the human, the more we can
be able to tailor things tosell you things.
So we have to be absolutelydiligent with our health and our
emotional health or physicalhealth, our spiritual health, as
we are just like education.
This goes back to, you know, Ireally want my kids to grow up

(41:10):
as free thinkers.
It's really hard to do that.
Like you're talking about thechecklist.
It's really hard to step outinto the world as free thinkers
when we are trained to bechecklist checkers.

Speaker (41:20):
Very true.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
And so we, as homeschool parents, we step into
the world saying, no, we'regonna create free thinkers.
That's gonna challenge thestatus quo, that's gonna create
an environment and customizepersonalized education to them
so that they can rise to theoccasion to tackle whatever
comes their way.
And they're gonna love learningwhile they do it.
And those are going to be theindividuals in the future that
will change the world.
And we look at the same kind ofself-discipline with that and

(41:44):
open-mindedness that we have tohave with our health is we need
to create youngsters that seewhat the world has to offer and
say, no, thank you, no, thankyou, no, thank you.
This is designed for me.
This is not designed for me.
And that's not legalism, that'sstewardship.
And so we have to be able toseparate out the legalism from
the stewardship if we want ahealthier next generation.

(42:05):
I think this is a topic thatwe're coming into, Cheryl, that
I'm super passionate aboutcoming up is infertility.
And I don't know if you knowtoo much of the stats on
infertility.

Speaker (42:15):
No, but why don't you tell us about that and then
we'll just kind of tie into howhomeschooling is it's really
hard to do all of this in thepublic school system because of
the food there, the sitting inthe chair.
So yeah, that's how so talk tous about that because there I
know I'm 41 and I have a lot offriends that have had so many
issues with fertility, or evenkeep you know, getting pregnant,

(42:38):
but miscarrying.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, absolutely.
And you're spot on, you know,and we especially with
education, you know, we kind ofcreate our own fires when we
don't even realize it.

Speaker (42:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
You know, and and that intentionality is so
important.
Um, and we've also been trainedto really believe that like
just a little bit of this isokay, a little bit of that is
okay.
And and, you know, we just kindof tweaked it around to really
make it just what we wantinstead of what we need.
And some of the best things inlife come through sacrifices.

(43:09):
And we look back and we, youknow, look back on the history
of our lives, and the vastmajority of people would say
some of the most challengingtimes of their life were the
most growing, the mostdeveloping.
But never do we ever want tostep into those challenging
times.
Never, you know, we're like, ohwow, I really want to be
challenged today.
I really want to struggletoday.
Healthcare and education, faithand family, those are all

(43:33):
struggles.
All the disciplines, thefinancial disciplines, like
they're struggles because we seethat the world has a lot to
offer and we have to say no tothings.
And so when we are looking atinfertility, there is no
difference or anything.
And this is why I want to tryto keep it super simple.
Anything that comes againstGod's alignment with God's
design, physiology, biology,your environment, behaviors, and

(43:56):
lifestyles, there's going to bedissonance.
There's going to be afractionation.
And when as we take that, eachgeneration down will be affected
by our choices, by our actions.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
And this is where it, I want to start at this and
preface this in a way that itdoesn't sound like, oh, wow,
this is really morbid.
Or like, wow, like I'm likethis really doesn't, this is
really uncomfortable because Iplay a role in my great
grandchildren's future.
You know, there's a lot ofresponsibility in this, and and
that's actually biblical whenwe're thinking about
multi-generational andtransgenerational health and

(44:31):
transgenerational futures.
You know, there are a myriad ofdifferent stats out there that
can make this sound very dismal.
You look at the past 50 years,and sperm counts have gone down
one to two percent every year.
So now sperm count is down 50%today than it was 50 years ago.
50.
50 years.

(44:51):
That's a generation.
Right.

Speaker (44:53):
So what's one generation?
What's the next 50 years?
Where will it be?
Zero?

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Potentially.
I don't think so because theremore and more people like me are
whistleblowing and coming outand and jumping ship and
changing careers.
And you know, you know, it'skind of like uh procrastination.
You know, you get to a pointand all of a sudden there's this
explosion of like, I'm gonnaget it done, right?
But the get it done is it mightbe a point where there's so
much transgenerationaldestruction that it's going to

(45:19):
take a lot to come back.
And this is why I thinkhealthy, whole Christian
families will change the world,Cheryl, because if we can hold
true to a culture thatestablishes the yeses and the
no's and the honoring of God'stemple and what we surround
ourselves by and how we educateourselves and how we choose to

(45:40):
be able to place things as faras priority and value in our
lives and for our families,these subgroups will say no to
things before others say no tothings.
And we will say no to thingsthat are very comfortable.
And other people will say, ohno, that's not that bad, or
that's not that bad, or that'snot that bad.
But we will say no to them.
And that will determine whatour not only our next

(46:02):
generation, but the followinggeneration will experience.
And as there's more disarray,more disarray in other cultures,
you'll see other cultures thatare the cream of the crop,
right?
That are the the salt of theearth, right?
These kind of phrases.
Um, you know, if you thinkabout all the stats on um
infertility are just through theroof, but I don't want to focus

(46:24):
on the dismal.
I just want to really focus onunderstanding that the awareness
and the philosophy and theculture is really going to
determine what the nextgeneration is going to look like
and understanding how itaffects one another and what
roles they play.

Speaker (46:38):
Yeah, and it's funny as you're talking, I'm thinking of
even the shows that have beenpopular over the last decade or
two.
And they I'm thinking of like ahandmaid's tale off the top of
my head, where the premise wasthat none of the women could get
pregnant.
So they actually like enslavedthese other women to, you know,
sleep with the the husbands inthis sort of like weird fashion

(47:01):
with the wife right there,because the the wives to these
wealthy families cannot getpregnant.
They never tell you why theycan't.
Like, and I'm like, was it avaccine?
I'm like, they don't they don'ttell you, and I but they're
putting it in your mind thatthis is gonna be something in
the future.
Women just won't be able to getpregnant.

(47:22):
And you know, things like youknow, friends or sex in the
city, where they just glorifythat single lifestyle and who
needs to be married and whoneeds to have kids, they just
tie you down.
And that just goes hand in handwith the entire like what
they're feeding us through, youknow, food and what what we're
breathing in through our, youknow, our clothes and uh the

(47:42):
air, and then they're putting itin our minds too.
And it it does it's like wow,they're getting it every angle.
I and it really does.
That was a big reason to stepinto the world of homeschooling
too, because it was like this isalmost impossible to combat in
the school system when your kidis in there and every other kid,
you know, maybe in third grade,fourth grade, fifth grade, has

(48:02):
a phone, and maybe you don'twant your kid to have a phone
and they're all watching thismovie and you know, eating this
type of food.
You can send your kid with allthe organic food you want, but
most schools have free breakfastand lunch.
So your kid can throw out theorganic, expensive food and go
eat the pizza and whatever elsethey're giving them, high
fructose corn syrup.

(48:22):
So it is, yeah.
How do you how do you look atthat?
I know you have three littleones.
Are you planning onhomeschooling?
And is that part of the ohabsolutely.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Yeah.
No, I mean, uh, I speak athomeschooling conventions across
the nation.
I, you know, like I said,you're intentional with the
things that you value.
And if you're intentional, ifyou value education, if you
value bringing up the nextgeneration to be free thinkers
and to personalize theireducation, I believe the same
kind of thing with healthcare isyou want to personalize it, you

(48:51):
want to be intentional, youvalue it.
You best take, um you bestinvest as much of your time and
energy into the things that youvalue.
And for for our family, and I'mnot gonna speak uh uh, you
know, anybody else's family, butour family, we value faith,
family, and health.
And so of those things, we putthose paramount.
And so you know, I want to getback to what you're talking

(49:11):
about with um with just, I wantto unpack to help people
understand what's behind thecurtain.
I think a lot of people don'tunderstand all the different
doctors, what their backgroundsare, who to trust, who to be
able to go to for help or tolisten to.
And when it when it comes tofunctional medicine or when it
comes to doctors that are tryingto get you healthy from the

(49:32):
inside out, when it comes todoctors that are trying to help
support you, make good habits oror create an environment around
your family that's going tonurture you, it has to align
with your values.
It's culturally driven.
And it's kind of like you go toa wealth management, right?
And I we we put finances belowfaith, family, and health, but
they're still a priority.
And so when we look at, when welook at wealth management, how

(49:56):
they're going to tell you toinvest your money or take care
of your money is going to bebased off of certain values.
So you look at that wealthmanagement company and say, do
they align with my values?
There's no difference withinhealthcare in this type of
healthcare, right?
Not acute care, not thefirefighters.
No, like, look, if I've got abrain tumor, right, and I'm
reacting to that, I want, I wanta specialist that is focused on

(50:17):
exactly that.
I don't want somebody that isthat knows about like all whole
mess of different organ systemsand how they all communicate
together.
I want the brain surgeon thatis going to help scrape that out
of my brain.
But when it comes to gettingthe body healthy from the inside
out, you have to be able to seeall the threats in the world.
You have to be able to see whatis how we're so our genes and

(50:39):
biology are so disconnected fromGod's design.
So I want to unpack this alittle bit for you, Cheryl,
because we have the endocrinesystem, right?
Like as I talked about before.
When we start messing withthings like uh plastics or like
uh endocrine disruptingchemicals, we call them EDCs.
We look at uh BPA orphthalates, pesticides, all of
these can interfere with.

(50:59):
Let me let me choose a topic sothat we can bring it back.
Well, you're talking aboutinfertility.
So BPA, phthalates, uh,pesticides, all of these things
can interfere with testosterone,estrogen, and other hormones
that ultimately can disruptfertility and fetal development,
right?
So that's where these kind offake manufactured things that
come in and controlling ourenvironment, whether it be

(51:21):
pesticides or whatever, they cancome in, they can start messing
with our hormones.
And that can, you can imaginethat that would cause issues in
getting pregnant.
We look at nutrient depletion,right?
Now, nutrients are so vital inmaking sure that we can build
things in the body and repairthings.
Uh, look at our modern dietsand our soil that we have that
that's depleted of magnesium andzinc these days.

(51:42):
Our topsoil is so horriblebecause we monocrop and the way
that we've controlled theenvironment for the overall gain
of production, we've destroyedGod's original design.
And we're not herding cattle onit, and we're not doing things
that are restorative andregenerative.
We're just stealing from it.
And so our modern diets arecalorie-rich, but nutrient poor.

(52:02):
And the deficiencies in theseareas of zinc, selenium, vitamin
D, um, and omega-3s, theyreally build sperm.
They build eggs.
So, as far as like spermquality and egg health and
hormone balance, like thesenutrients are vital.
We talked about uh chronicinflammation, right?
Chronic inflammation.

(52:23):
We look at processed foods, welook at seed oils, we look at
sugar, environmental toxins.
All of these things drivesystemic inflammation.
And systemic inflammationhanging around, like we talked
about earlier, damagesreproductive tissues, reduces
fertility potential, it createsan environment like around your
house of match sticks andeverything, just ready to catch

(52:43):
on fire.
And then you look at the energycurrency of the body, you look
at mitochondria, right?
And so I know I'm talking aboutand listening all these things
off, and it might sound likeoverwhelming, but I want
parents, I want people andlisteners, I want you to
understand something.
This is the definition ofbeautifully crafted body made by

(53:04):
our designer.
And it's detailed and it isincredibly intelligent.
So, what I'm going throughright now is just defining that.
But when we tamper with ourenvironment and our families and
our food and our and our airand our water, it affects all of
these systems.
So, why I'm bringing all thesethings up is because we're so

(53:24):
disconnected that it's caused alot of dysfunction.
And now we have to go in andsee all the damage that we've
done and what's happening.
It's not that I'm I'm talkingabout things that, oh wow, look
at we got to fix this, we got tofix this, we got to fix this,
we got to fix this, andoverwhelming people.
When we start realigning backto God's original design, these
things go away.
Like when you start just beintentional about what you're

(53:46):
cooking with or like how youprepare your food or what you're
putting in your body or whatyou're putting on your body and
around your body, thatintentionality goes a long way.
If you were just intentionalwith some change or a dollar
bill, or just putting fivedollars, you know, like the
typical, hey, if you put fivedollars away for, you know, a
day and you did that for 30 daysand you put that in compounding

(54:08):
interest and you put that inthe bank and you would you
realize how much you would havewhen you were 40 years old.
You know, like that, it's thesame kind of thing.
If you're just intentional alittle bit about this, you'll
notice that your entire lifewill change within six months.
Within six months, it's notthat difficult.
So mitochondrial depletion, Ijust want to, there's probably
like uh, let's see, gut brain,axis, epigenetics.
That's a that's a a big onethat people talk about, or

(54:30):
chronic stress.
You know, the body has acurrency.
Talk about finances.
That's mitochondria.
So mitochondria produces theenergy that the body can be able
to run on.
But the problem is that when wehave overexposure to to blue
light or lack of sleep orsedentary behavior and movement,
and we're not exercising, ourenergy is poor.
We can't produce reproductivecells.

(54:51):
We're not thinking about likepreparing a baby when we can't
even produce enough energy tostay alive.
So it's a protective mechanism.
And then the gut, brain, andhormone access, we have so many
different organisms thatcommunicate together.
So if your gut from all thiscrummy food that we're eating,
and the gut is a perfect exampleof what the external

(55:13):
environment is within us.
So if we don't take care ofthat, then we have this
dysregulation and we become weakand our immune system drops.
And then we can start to breakdown that barrier, like I was
talking about earlier, and thenwe get inflammation.
And we also have what's calledlipopolysaccharides that that
start to create a lot ofreaction.
And that could actually breakdown the barrier of our brain

(55:33):
and cause neurologicalinflammation because there's a
connection between the gut andthe brain, because the gut is a
reflection of our externalenvironment.
The brain wants to know what'sgoing on outside, and so the
brain uses the eyes to be ableto get information, but it also
uses the gut to see the micromicrobes and every all the
bacteria and other things thatare in our environment as hey,

(55:54):
is there a threat going on?
What's going on?
It's incredibly intelligent.
Well, when that starts to breakdown, we start to see estrogen
dominance, we start to seeinfertility, we start to see
autoimmune conditions, thingslike that.
And all of this environmentaround it, like chronic dis
chronic stress and emotionalhealth.
And when we have our kidslooking at health, it's not just
about what's on their plate andhow they're moving.

(56:15):
Their emotional health plays ahuge role in their physiology.
How they think and how theyreact to things will change
their physiology.
So we have to prioritize thatjust as much.
And that all comes around tocreating kind of like
inflammation.
It all bathes our genes.
And when all of thatenvironment bathes our genes,
our genes will either expressthemselves in a healthy way or

(56:38):
an unhealthy way.
Our genes aren't just set instone.
Our genes are expressed, turnedon, or turned off in an
epigenetic fashion, right?
We're talking about theepigenome.
And this is where kind of wherefuture quote unquote medicine
or healthcare is going in tryingto manipulate the body from the
outside in is trying to controlour peptides, trying to control
our epigenome.

(56:58):
The more they know, the morethey learn, the more they're
trying to control.
The epigenome is not set instone.
So if we work on all thesethings that I'm talking about
here and have a little bit ofawareness over the course of six
months, your genes will startto express themselves better.
Some people might have more prepredispositions to things, but
they will be expressed betterwhen you create a better
environment around them.

(57:19):
And that's the culture is goingto drive that, not the
products.
Oh, that makes so much sense.

Speaker (57:24):
Dr.
Dusty has, is there anythingelse you wanted to say before we
close up?
Because um, you know, I feellike this has been such a wealth
of knowledge, and people reallywant to make these changes.
And you've talked a lot aboutnot overwhelming yourself, but
it's almost like this is like aseed to plan.
And once you kind of open upthat arena, you know, when you

(57:44):
hear more things, it's like, oh,I made the connection there and
I made the connection there.
And like you said, it cannot bedone overnight.
So I guess is if there wasanything else that you wanted to
just make sure the listenerswere taking away from this, and
then we're gonna get into twowhere people can find you
because and I will put all ofthat, the links in the show's
description.
Um, because you have some greatresources that people don't

(58:06):
have to memorize this episode.
They can, they can just checkout what you're working on and
and sort of you know, allow thatto change their lives slowly in
a great way.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Yeah.
So I was first off, thank youso much for having me, Cheryl.
Um, I just love greatconversations um that you know
people can learn from.
And you've created just such agreat platform to be able to
have great, honest, transparentconversations.
And so I'm just honored to beon, honored to be a part of the
conversation.
Um, love your podcast.
Uh, and I love the fact thatwhat you're doing is bringing
more awareness towards educationand taking back control over

(58:40):
how we can be able topersonalize something that we
value.
And, you know, you didn't youdidn't choose homeschooling
because it was easy.
You chose it because yourfamily was called to something
better.
You know, and that's a thathealth is the same way.
When you realign with God'sdesign, you reclaim your story,
and that's the culture shift weneed.

Speaker (58:57):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, where can people find you?
And I will put the links in theshow's description.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
Yeah, so you could find us at um
upstreamhealth.com,upstreamhealth.com.
That right there is our websitethat houses our uh publication
for our magazine, UpstreamMagazine.
Also has our upstream plusmembership.
And what we really focus on ishelping Christian families
getting healthy from the insideout.
We we help them understandtheir environment, but also in a

(59:22):
very positive light that'suplifting, that help them not
feel like victims, but feelinglike, hey, we can take this one
step at a time to be able toreally educate our next
generation on food, on movement,on swapping out things that are
not good for the body, not ofGod's design, how we can be able
to see what the world has tooffer versus what God's designed

(59:44):
our bodies to be able to growup with.
And these these topics are allin our magazine.
And we try to break it up in away that even homeschool
families absolutely love ourmagazine because we have
devotions in there.
We've got a family spotlight.
We've got a functional medicinecabinet to kind of like clear

(01:00:04):
out the the Tylenol and theibuprofen that you that you
have, you know, and then you canyou can swap it out for
something better.
We have a functional swap, wehave a meal plan in there every
month, we have an exerciseroutine in there every month,
and we have uh an avoid chronicdisease section where I go
through uh, you know, the topicof the day and really unpack it
from a worldview that reallygives the power back to

(01:00:26):
individuals to feel like theycan navigate their own health.
And when it comes to chronicdisease, you're in the driver's
seat.
When it comes to acute care,you want the specialist, right?
So you need to really openyourself up to educating
yourself a little bit more abouthow disconnected we are from
our environment.
And our magazine is exactlythat educational material to
help Christian families getupstream.

Speaker (01:00:48):
Oh, fantastic.
I can't wait to get it and useit as part of our homeschooling
because we have to teach ourkids this stuff.
This is the most importantstuff to teach them.
It is way more important thanPythagorean's theorem.
I'm sorry, I never needed thatone day in my life.
But you know what I did need toknow?
What plastics do to my body.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Yes.

Speaker (01:01:07):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Absolutely.

Speaker (01:01:09):
So wonderful.
Dr.
Dusty, thank you for being heretoday.
Check out the link in theshow's description so you can be
part of this journey rightalong with me.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Thank you so much, Cheryl.