February 12, 2024 • 66 mins
Today Dr. Bill Rawls shares how his own health decline led to his passion for cellular wellness and aging. Dr. Rawls explains how the concept of cellular wellness applies to every area of health. Through his journey he recognized an uptick in illness and wanted to offer solutions to that. There are five factors to every illness: bad diet, environmental toxins, chronic mental stress, inactivity, and the microbe factor. The body accumulates harmful microbes throughout their lifetime and when the cells are stressed, those microbes move into action. Our bodies are made up of cells and symptoms are an indication of cellular stress. Dr. Rawls explains that when our cells are stressed , they require more nutrients than normal. When our diet is lacking in the proper nutrients, our cells become overly stressed and illness takes place. In this episode you will learn how to mitigate that cellular stress, improve your cellular wellness and age well. Grab a cuppa something wonderful and join us for this powerful, practical conversation. https://vitalplan.com/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Hi, Hi'm Jennifer. Are welcometo the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a global
community of women in midlife. Wegather here weekly over a couple something wonderful
for real talk, life changing strategiesand a big dose of sisterhood. Now,
please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine Roadmappers. Welcome back to
(00:28):
Feminine Roadmap Podcast, the podcast thathelps you navigate the challenges and the changes
of midlife and live a more vibrantsecond half. Today. If you find
us on YouTube, don't forget tosubscribe and ring that bell. If you're
on a podcast platform, please rateand follow me there. Today we're going
to be talking about the importance ofcellular health. My guest is understanding of
(00:51):
the concept of cellular wellness and howit applies to every area of our health.
He has gained an awareness of anuptick in illness and he wants to
offer solutions that are possibly outside ofwhat we understand now, but things that
are more natural and supportive to ourbodies. My guest today is doctor Bill
Rawls. He is a doctor,the medical director of vital Plan and the
(01:14):
author of the Cellular Wellness Solution.Bill, thank you so much for being
on the show today. Oh,it's pleasure. Thank you for having me
my pleasure. I would love toget an insight into what led you to
this mission and message. What isyour journey here? Yeah? It was.
It was a crazy journey. Igraduated from medical school and was just
(01:38):
infatuated with delivering babies. I thoughtit was just the coolest thing, bringing
life into the world. So Ispecialized in obstetrics and gynecology, and I
liked it because it dealt with peoplewho were younger, healthy and wanted to
stay that way, and it wasless oriented toward treating chronic illness is with
(02:00):
pharmaceutical therapies, and it was justreally wonderful bringing a baby into the world.
The downside of that was that ina small town, I was required
to take hospital call every second tothird night. You know, I was
on call for I had to notonly work in the office, but for
(02:21):
a twenty four hour period, Iwas on call for labor and delivery or
any emergencies that came in. AndI traded off with my partners with that.
But typically that meant not sleeping orsleeping very little every second, third
night, every second to third weekendFriday till Monday morning, if you can
imagine that, and that balancing communityand being a dad and husband and all
(02:47):
of those things. What got shortedwas sleep and after twenty years of that,
my body just fell apart. Butso I was forced to stop doing
obstetrics at that point, at aroundage forty seven. But I just didn't
get better. Even stopping call recoveringthe ability to sleep. My body was
(03:10):
just falling apart, cardiovascular symptoms,neurological symptoms, and I identified with fibromyalgia
just because nothing fit. I finallyfound I was carrying some of the microbes
associated with lime disease, so thatled me to identifying with chronic lime.
(03:30):
Treated with antibiotics, got worse,and finally embraced herbal therapy as kind of
a desperate solution and gradually got welland rebuilt my life around this new concept
of wellness. And I've been healthynow for twenty years and still taking herbs
(03:52):
all of that time. So aftergoing through all that, there was this
why did the herbs work? Whatwas going on here? What is chronic
line disease? And it brought meto a new understanding not of just that
illness, but chronic illness in general, looking at the cellular level and this
(04:12):
relationship that we have with microbes throughoutour lifetime. And so those principles I
built principles that really can be appliedto any situation, whether it's a chronic
illness or whether it's something like midlifechanges with menopoise. So through that course
of that, I was still doinggynecology, and I went from you in
(04:36):
residency, I was using the standardpharmaceutical preparations for hormone therapy and that sort
of thing. Pretty quickly got awayfrom that and started using bioidentical therapy and
then later herbal therapy. So itreally totally changed my approach to my practice
of gynecology in the same respect.And yeah, it's been an interesting journey.
(05:02):
You know, you're actually not thefirst doctor I've talked to who had
a kind of an unsolvable health issueround about that same you know, forties
and had to step outside of thetraining, the medical training and understanding that
she had. And it's an interestingstory because I feel like I understand the
(05:26):
structure of the medical system. Iunderstand that they have their controls over you
know, diagnoses and the protocols forthose diagnoses, but it is not one
hundred percent and there are a lotof gaps in that process. So I
really appreciate that you. I'm sorrythat you suffered, but I really appreciate
(05:46):
that you took that suffering and foundthe solution that can help other people who
are in that same position of notbeing able to be well. And I
think our wellness is so important.Yeah, well, oddly I wouldn't jay
and trade the experience for anything,yet changed my life. It was like
it opened up my eyes to thisvery very different way of seeing that's so
(06:09):
important that conventional doctors they just can'tgo there. And being forced outside of
that comfort zone and being forced toconsider things in a different way, to
consider all other possibilities. Wow,And it's just really it's given me purpose.
(06:30):
It's affected my life in so manypositive ways, and I've been able
to use that and help so manymore people than if I had stayed with
those conventional roots. So in someways, yeah, I mean, nobody
wants to go through something like that, But in some ways I consider it
a blessing. I'm interested to talkthrough. When you talk about herbal therapies,
(06:57):
because I think a lot of peopleit's an it's an unusual topic for
them. I think you either knowabout it or you know nothing about it.
It feels like this is a topicthat is all or nothing, you
know. So I'd love to haveyou explain to us when you talk about
this cellular wellness. Maybe we couldstart there. When you say cellular wellness,
what exactly are you saying to usand what does that mean to our
(07:17):
health? Yeah, you know,it's we don't think about things that way.
And you know, looking about howI was trained and how people talk
about wellness or illness, they don'treally think about the fact that and it's
really important. We are made ofcells. All living organisms are made of
(07:40):
cells. Everything that happens in thebody, absolutely everything is the function of
cells. So if you want tounderstand something, break it down to its
smallest functional unit, and that's aliving cell. So whether it's your heart
beating, or thyroid hormone being produced, or brain functions or functions in the
(08:03):
ovaries, it's all done by cells. And every cell in the body has
certain requirements. All cells in thebody need to write nutrients, and that
varies for different cells, but theystill need a certain quantity of nutrients to
function. They need a clean environment. So when we're exposed to all kinds
(08:24):
of toxic substances that inhibit cellular functions, it compromises our cells. Cells need
good blood flow, chiefly from beingphysically active to flush away toxic stuff and
deliver those nutrients and oxygen. Cellsneed down time, and certain cells like
our heart cells rest in between beats. But most of our cells need a
(08:48):
good night's sleep to recover from thestress of working all day. And all
cells need protection from microbes. Soyou know where I've come is that we
have this very complex relationship with microbesin our environment, inside our body,
and that's the greatest threat to cellularhelps it your cells are weak, then
(09:11):
you're vulnerable to microbes. And hereI'm not talking about just things that you
would get, like COVID. I'mtalking about things that already exist inside your
body that are just waiting for anopportunity. And if your cells are weak
because you haven't slept for twenty yearsand you're not eating a good diet,
and you know and and and you'reyou know, all of these factors combined,
(09:37):
then it just makes you vulnerable.And so there is a I firmly
believe there is a microbe connection withevery chronic illness, even some you wouldn't
expect, like endometriosis and things likethat. I think it's there. Before
we hit record, I was usinga word picture to kind of understand what
(09:58):
I feel like midlife is health wise, and I feel like we are at
a fork in the road, likewe're in this place maybe between forty five
and maybe even sixty five, wherethe choices that we're making, like maybe
we've borrowed from our body bank fora very long time, like you did,
and now you have nothing left towithdraw, or you're actually overdrawn on
(10:20):
your energy and your health. AndI feel like, and maybe you can
tell me if this is true physically, I feel like we're in a window
where we the choice that we make, we can either turn this ship around
for those normal people who maybe haven'tbeen as managing their health as well,
yeah, or we're going to decline. Like I feel like we can manage
the aging process better in this littlemiddle window by the choices that we make.
(10:45):
Is that accurate? Yes? Yes? And it is. You know,
whether you're a male or female,that mid lifetime, that time like
from forty five on is pretty criticaland menopause of access women by it's kind
of the straw that breaks the camel'sback that things have been adding up for
all these years come forth. Andso let's talk about aging from a cellular
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point of view. People don't talkabout it, they don't think about it
that way. Right. So we'remade of cells, right, So we
start out as basically one cell.A sperm and an egg come together to
make one cell, and that celldivides, and the chemistry, the programming
there insider chromosomes, tells that cellhow to divide into all the other cells
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that make up our body. Sowe form and from the time we're born
to about age twenty, we're inthis accumulation phase that we're accumulating cells.
So by the time we hit twenty, we've accumulated five to ten times more
cells than we need to survive,and all of our cells are brand new.
(12:01):
So at that point that's the lowestrisk of chronic illness. That's why
we all feel invincible at age twenty, you know, in some ways we
really are. But after that pointwe start gradually losing cells. And we
lose our cells because they basically burnout their mitochondria, and you know,
when we look at the science ofwell, what do we do about aging?
(12:24):
Fixing that is something that you know, it's like going against the laws
of the universe. You're just notgoing to absolutely fix that one. So
we lose cells, and so bythe time most people hit forty, they've
lost half their cellular reserves and theircells have half the energy. That's why
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most professional athletes are done by theage of forty, because their cells don't
have the energy anymore to do whatthey were doing at age twenty. And
that process continues. So at agesixty six, I have a whole lot
fewer cells than when I started,but I'm in good health because I do
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the things necessary to keep my cellsreally really healthy. So fewer cells,
less energy, but I feel goodand I don't have symptoms because my cells
are healthy. But what's happening iswe typically aren't taking care of ourselves like
we should. You know, weare taking liberties with diet, We're exposed
(13:28):
to a lot of toxic substances.We don't get the rest we need a
lot of us we don't get theexercise, all the things that we need
to keep ourselves healthy. We're notdoing that, and it really starts to
show about age forty five. Sothat's when it's like, yeah, you
could get away with a lot becauseyou have the cellular resilience up until that
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point. But you know after that, yeah, it really starts to show.
And that's when we start saying,you know, maybe it's time I
need to do something here, andso we start, you know, working
on our diet and getting more sleepand different kinds of things. But what
I filled over time is herbs cangive you an edge, and that's where
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the herbs are so remarkably important.I'm fascinated with herbs. I was telling
you before we hit record that Iactually have a book about these things.
And your book, which is likean encyclopedia, is fascinating for those of
you on YouTube, you can seehis book here. It's a nice resource
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about the different things. So howdo people begin to use herbs and how
do they know, you know,what's safe for them, because the information
out there in terms of doctors trainedin this is kind of limited, you
know, unless you're dealing with likea functional integrative medicine doctor who's chosen to
include the herbal vein in their practice. Yeah, and actually a lot of
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functional and integrative doctors don't know verymuch about herbs. It's kind of crazy.
Even some natropaths don't get much trainingin herbs. And I see that
as herbs are probably the greatest forcewe have to protect our house over any
single other thing you can do.And they're very specific reasons for that.
So back to the book very quickly. Sometimes that description of an encyclopedia scares
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people away. I like to tellpeople that it's like four books. So
the first book is like one hundredpages and it's that sugtle wellness concept.
The second book is a primer ofeverything that you know, just the functional
things you need to know about herbsand how to get started. The third
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section is lifestyle diet, all thesethings we need to do. And the
fourth section, which is a reallybig section, is taking those concepts and
applying them to specific problems like cardiovascularmenopausics, et cetera. But you know,
when I had this experience with herbsthat I got my health back.
I went into it thinking, Okay, I'm killing this microbe associated with lime
(16:11):
disease, and I came away afterreally researching it, understanding that that's not
what chronic lime disease is it's neveran infection with one microbe. It's a
spectrum of microbes. And when youlook at chronic lime, it really is
an example of how all functional,all chronic illnesses function, different microbes,
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different tissues, but same principles.So I don't really use the concept of
diagnosis the way that other doctors doso with an herb. So looking at
this, I first went and youknow, studied the traditional forms of her
biology, traditional Chinese medicine, aeruvedicmedicine, what was going on in Europe
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and North America, and it wasvery similar, and it was all observational.
It was like, okay, ifyou have these symptoms, you take
these herbs. But it really didn'ttell me what the herbs were doing.
Unfortunately, over the past twenty orthirty years, there's been an absolute explosion
of researchers around the world looking atwhat the herbs are doing on a biochemical
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level, you know, looking athow the chemistry of the herb is affecting
our chemistry and our cells. Andthat took me to a whole different place
because I like science and I likethings to fit logically, and that helped
me understand herbs better than anything else. So what the herbs are doing is
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protecting yourselves from all of those stressfactors that I was talking about. So
what you get with an herb isthis complex chemistry that we call phytochemistry plant
chemistry, and that chemistry isn't justa bunch of random chemical things. It
is the plant's defense and regulatory system. So the plant is using those chemicals
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to protect its cells and itself fromfree radicals, toxic substances, and microbes
of every variety. But it's alsousing hormones, chemical messengers very similar to
ours, to balance and restore normalchemical functions within the plant as a whole.
(18:32):
So when we take an earth,we're getting all of that. And
of course plants are managing problems indifferent ways, and it depends on how
a plant. You know, whatkind of stress vectors it has in its
environment. But it's creating these solutions, these chemical solutions, to protect itself
from stress in the environment. Andof course some ways that plants do that
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don't really mesh well with our chemicstry. In other words, some plants are
poison Nobody would make the mistake ofeating poison ivy twice. But these things
that we define as herbs are thingsthat humans have been doing for literally thousands
of years. So we understand thatthat plant's chemistry mess meshes well with ours.
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So when we take an herb,we are taking the plants defense systems
and regulatory systems. So it hasthe effect of protecting our cells against all
those same factors free radicals, toxicsubstances, microbes, viruses, bacteria,
all of these things. But italso has the effect of balancing stress hormones
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and restoring normal balance. So that'sthe real magic of herbs. And so
when you combine herbs, you youknow, subtle differences between the herbs blend
together, so you get this wonderfulsynergy that that gives you a higher impact.
(20:02):
It really helps you out quite abit more So when you're taking a
herb, it doesn't really matter whatsymptom you might have or what might be
going on in your body. It'sgoing to help that because it's helping cells
throughout the body. It's really interesting. I mean, early on, I
was trying to learn which herbs doyou get for this symptom and this disease,
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And now I'm realizing, you know, when you study it, you
find that one herb, well,it may have been used to help the
heart and the liver and all thesedifferent things, and it's like, well,
yeah, the plants aren't selective.They're protecting every cell in the body.
So it's this wonderful cell protection system. And when you look at it
that way, it's not as complicatedas it sounds. So when you use
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this basic assortment of herbs that Italk about in the book, you're affecting
every cell in your body and everypotential symptom. So instead of treating a
symptom, you're promoting wellness. AndI always say, you know, you
take herbs and they take a whileto work because healing takes time. So
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what healing is is the ability ofour cells to recover from stress. So
if we're reducing the stress, thenour cells are naturally recovering. Well.
That takes time, so I alwaystell people, you know, give it
a little time. But as you'retaking the herbs, typically over months of
taking them, the symptoms will graduallyfade away, not just one symptom,
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all of the symptoms in your body, and this thing of lasting wellness emerges.
And it's really just wonderful to seethat and I've just watched it on
myself and watched it in so manyother individuals. It has so much power.
I think it's fascinating the way theear explaining this, thinking about it's
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another organ is with cells and itsown natural function, and then our body
and it sells and our natural function, and how they're symbiotic to each other,
how they partner together. I thinkthat's really fascinating. I know,
for me, let's say, forexample, one herb that I came across
called Shadavari when my I didn't reallyknow I was in perimenopause. But that's
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not going to look back, youknow, Hindsight's twenty twenty, and Shatavarty
was very helpful for me in thosebeginning stages when my body temperature wasn't regulated
very well, and you know,and then I started doing I was doing
bioidentical progesterone. But I those thoseare plants that I've only engaged with a
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couple of them, but they reallydid. Like to your point, it's
the consistency of use and the topplus time. You know, we're so
used to a pharmaceutical mindset of takethis it's fixed or it's band aid.
Or whatever. So I love thatyou mentioned and I just wanted to highlight
it. The time, the lifestylechoices plus the time is necessary for healing
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to take place. And I justthink that was a really profound thought and
I appreciate that you put it thatway because it's a shift in the way
we think about wellness, isn't it. Yes, yeah, it is,
And a shift in the way wethink about herbs. I think most people
think of herbs is just weak versionsof drugs, and it's like apples and
arches. So what we're doing withthe pharmaceutical is blocking manifestations of illness,
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artificially blocking manifestations. So we're targetingenzymes, receptors, you know, various
kinds of chemicals in the body toblock that thing from happening. And that
can have value in reducing a symptom, but you know it all it can
do so manifestations of illness that what'shappening, what the illness, what that
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cellular stress manifest as, is symptoms, hormone imbalances, and inflammation. So
we treat those things directly. We'retreating the symptoms. And we do this
for so many things in our societythat we treat the symptom, but we're
not addressing the underlying causes. Andthere are no drugs that address the underlying
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causes of any chronic illness, Sopeople don't get well, they maintact,
they end up in the state ofmanaged illness. So what we're doing with
the herbs is addressing that underlying cellularstress, which ultimately is going to solve
the problem. So we don't reallysolve the problem with drugs. We just
covered up and suppressed the symptoms ofit, so we're actually solving the problem.
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And so it works very differently.So sometimes early on in an illness,
blocking a process or a symptom canreally valuable to keep someone sane,
comfortable, or possibly even keep themfrom dying. But if that's all you're
doing, they're not going to getwell. So the herbs will help that
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person restore wellness. And you know, we can look at any problem from
that cellular point of view, youknow. And it's so all cells in
the body send and receive messages,but some cells in the body are are
specializing in that. You know,our adreamal glands, our thyroid gland,
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all of these different cells. Thoseare functions that the cells are specifically producing
chemical messengers. So our brain isthe the the the monitor, So our
brain is constantly monitoring everything going onoutside and inside the body, and it's
sending messages through the hypothalmus and pituitaryand thyroid and a dreams and ovaries to
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regulate all the cellular functions in thebody. So if you have hormone imbalances,
it implies that your cells are stressed, not only just those glandular cells,
but sells throughout the body. Andthe only situation that is that that
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doesn't apply as menopause. So what'shappening in menopause is we lose the cells
that produce estrogen. So every cellin the body has estrogen receptors, and
if you pull that message away,then it disrupts functions, especially the hypothalmus,
which controls appetite and temperature and weightand all of these things. You
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know, it's regulating all of thesecellular functions. Well, if it's getting
bad feedback that estrogen isn't produced bythe ovaries anymore, then that throws off
the thermostack, so you end uphaving symptoms. So what rbs like Shadavari
and Ashua Gandha and Vitex, thereare a number of them. What they're
doing is they have chemicals that aresimilar to the feedback chemicals coming from the
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ovaries in other parts of the body, so they help with just kind of
soothing that hypothalmus to say Okay,it's not so bad. You know these
they just calm down, relax Soit helps balance those functions and it also
helps balance the brain with the brainis going, oh no, something's going
wrong. So because this hype ofalmus is out of balance, well,
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if you balance those hormones with thesekey phytochemicals, then then it just balances
things out so that symptom is better. Not to say that, you know,
low dose hormone therapy and things likethat can can't be beneficial on top
of that. But I always foundin my practice is if I could get
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someone working on their cellular health,you know, good diet, getting plenty
of rest, you know, justkeeping their cells healthy and using herbs to
balance some of that abnormal feedback,they were going to be a lot less
symptomatic. And if we needed touse hormone therapies, we're going to be
able to get away with a reallylow dose that isn't going to threaten their
(28:22):
risk of breast cancer and other kindsof things that we worry about. And
in the same respect, virtually everyherb I've studied has anti cancer effects.
So if you're taking the herbs,you're protecting yourself from cancer too. Hmm.
You know, it's it's such adifferent science than we understand. Do
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you find that you part of yourwork is helping people understand that they can
trust this process and kind of weaningthem off of the other. I think
that's why I was put on Earthand why I went through all these experiences
is so I could really explain thesethings. So it wasn't just that I
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went through this this crazy experience.I've spent the twenty past twenty years really
studying the science. And again,if this had happened like forty years ago
or fifty years ago, the sciencewouldn't have been there. But virtually everything
that I want to say, Ican back up with good science. That
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there's a piece of science that supportsthat logic somewhere, all the way to
the microbe theories or the way thatherbs work everything else. And you know,
the beauty of it is when youembrace that cellular model. You simplify
everything, you make it so muchmore consumable that if you can think in
(29:56):
those terms and think about what amI doing to myself instead of how do
I get rid of this symptom?Then then you really start. You put
you in a different place to moveforward, and you understand why you need
to change your diet and why youneed to do certain things and how they're
(30:17):
harming you at the cellular level,but also how herbs can protect you.
You know, all of these thingsare so remarkably important. Now we're talking
about my audience, especially as midlifeand beyond, so we're already at that
tapped out point where our cells arekind of like just in need of support.
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So is there a point an optimalpoint to begin to make these changes
or is this something that no matterwhere you're at on the timeline of your
life, that you can maybe reversesome of these negative effects from a life
of maybe not good sleep, notgood food choices, not good energy management
(31:04):
choices. Is it always turn aroundableto some degree? You know, I
never give I never give up hopeto anyone, all right, And it
is again it's about cellular health.So during that decade or more that I
was really struggling with chronic illness andI had some pretty serious issues. I
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was I had cardiac arrhythmias and chestpain and word z on the verge of
needing a pacemaker. I you know, it was. I was functional as
far as getting around, but Ifelt like I had a horrendous flu every
day. I had a range ofneurological symptoms. I mean, it was
bad. And I thought at thatpoint, now, this was around fifty,
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and I was going, I'm notgoing to be around very long and
as long as I I am here, I'm not going to be well.
And I frankly I burned a lotof cells during that time because of all
the stress. There's no doubt aboutit. So at age sixty six,
I've been pretty much symptom free.I mean, you know, we all
(32:15):
have little things that come up hereand there. But I am doing things
at age sixty six that at fiftyI thought I'd lost forever. You know,
I'm still doing things like kipe surfing, I'm learning a new sport called
wing foiling, and I didn't thinkI would be doing those things that at
(32:37):
this level. Now, granted Idon't do them with the same vigor I
did when I was in my thirties, because you know, there's no doubt
it's like my heart I reach acertain point that I know I just don't
have the stamina to go over that. And I know that there are people
at age sixty six out there whodo have much more capacity than I do
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because they never went through that stress. But my you know, so what
that translates into is I burned alot of heart cells. You know that's
compromised. I'll never get them back. But my heart cells are healthy.
My heart is healthy. I don'thave any symptoms, and I can push
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pretty hard without having to worry aboutthat. And so my day to day,
you know, I feel well andI go about life just fine,
with a higher capacity than most peoplemy age. So, yeah, I
didn't regain I can't regain a lotof those loss cells, but my cells,
(33:45):
the cells that I have, arehealthy. Now, I'm pretty particular
about my diet. I'm not horrendouslyparticular about my diet, but I'm pretty
particular. I am very particular aboutmaking sure I get sleep at night,
do stay physically active through the day. You know, I'm very careful about
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my exposure to toxic substances as faras living with clean air and clean water
and clean food. And I takea regular assortment of herbs every day,
not to the volumes that I didwhen I was going struggling with with my
condition, but I do take herbsevery single day, and I think that
they give me a resilience that Iwould not have otherwise. So it's all
(34:30):
about cellular health. Yeah, youknow, I think that it's that our
bodies are talking to us. Yeah, And I feel like one of the
things that I had, a thyroidthing happened. I didn't know it was
a thyroid thing in my thirties,and I was I started paying attention to
my body. I was trying tofigure out because the doctors are like,
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you're fine, You're fine, You'refine. I'm like, I am so
not fine. I don't know whatit is, but I'm not fine.
So I think there's a innate wisdomthat we have in our own bodies when
we learn to tap into it towhether or not we are well. If
that makes any sense. Oh,yeah, absolutely, I'm very tapped into
(35:15):
what my body is doing. Butalso with other people too. You know,
I went through a phase that Iwas very much like most functional or
integrated doctors. I was doing alot of labs to try to assay what
was going on in the person's body, and I found that the more I
talked to the person understand stood whytheir symptoms occurred in the first place,
(35:36):
and in other words, understand whythey got ill, and then uncovering doing
the detective work to define what thosecellular stress factors were or I found that
labs really didn't add that much.And I don't do a lot of labs
myself. I get the routine things. But interesting way, at sixty six,
(36:00):
my cholesterol is better and my bloodsugar better than when I was in
my forties, just from doing thesethings, from protecting myselves, from keeping
things working. And I haven't defiedaging. I'm still aging and I'm going
to continue aging. But the wholeidea is aging without debilitating symptoms. I
(36:23):
like the way you put that.I think that's an interesting conversation anti aging.
I've talked to a couple of peoplewho really don't like the term anti
aging, because to your point,it is part of the natural process that
we go through. I think thequestion is how well can I age and
how can I maximize my resources,my personal physical and emotional mental resources in
(36:50):
order to go through that process withthe least amount of struggle. That's how
I see what they want to maybesay pro aging, because I feel like
we're looking for this fountain of youthand you've got these biohackers that are doing
all these things. And do youdo any biohacking things at all? Are
you strictly working with this herbal protocolthe herb to do the biohacking for me?
(37:14):
Right? So yeah, yeah.When we look at this anti aging
concept, you've got all kinds,You've got billionaires and all of these scientists
out there that are looking for themagic bullet to fix aging. And every
time I read some of these things, I just see huge flaws and it's
it's kind of like the hormone thing. You know, we should we be
(37:36):
taking growth hormone and all of thesedifferent kinds. Should we be taking testosterone?
And I'm looking at it and going, Okay, these things are produced
by cells, and it's cellular communications. What hormones do is connect all the
cells in the body. Because cellsfor us to function as a unit,
all of our cells have to talkto one another. Right, So that's
(38:00):
a conversation that's very dynamic, andit's going and it's changing with every second
that goes by, depending on what'sgoing on around us and inside of us.
So when we take a hormone nowis it's a little different with postmenopausal
hormone replacement, and we could getinto that, but looking at other kinds
(38:22):
of hormone therapies, what you're doingis throwing a monologue into a very dynamic
conversation. The level of that hormonedoesn't change. Even with thyroid. Now,
we can get away with thyroid replacementas long as the person still has
some thyroid function. But you takesomeone's thyroid gland out completely and try to
(38:43):
replace thyroid, it's really hard becausethat's constantly changing depending on what's happening in
the body. So I always say, your first best option is taking care
of the cells that make up theglands that the hormones so your body can
continue that normal, dynamic conversation.And then if that's just not working completely
(39:09):
in certain cases, especially like menopause, then some low dose hormone may be
a benefit in certain rare cases,but that's not what people are doing you
know, it's what people are doing. Is I relate it to an analogy
of like, if you've got agroup of people that are trying to solve
(39:30):
a problem, and they're sitting aroundthe pable talking and it's a dynamic conversation
and they're working to figure out thisproblem, and somebody walks in, pops
down a soapbox, stands up onit with a bullhorn, and starts screaming
their message. It just drowns outthat dynamic conversation. Well, when we
(39:52):
give a high dose of a hormone, that's exactly what we're doing, and
it can be extremely disruptive, sowe have to be very very careful in
how we do that. And ourbodies are so different. And I think
as you're talking about this fluctuation,I was developing graves essentially graves disease.
(40:14):
So I was thinking, it's food, it's this, it's that, because
it seemed to be like I wasnauseous after I ate, and it's like,
I feel like this. I lovehow you use the analogy of a
dynamic conversation. And I feel likethe more in tune that we can become
with our own bodies, the morewe understand that conversation, like understanding what
(40:36):
time exercise feels the best, whattime, how much, how many hours
of sleep you know, or certainfoods how they impact you. Like you
know, sometimes you can eat somethingand it's you love it and there may
not be anything wrong with it,but somehow you feel either like heavy or
tired or you know, it's it'sa that dynamic conversation, in my mind,
(40:58):
is going on in your body,and we're trying to pick up the
phone and get involved in that conversationwhen we begin to pay attention to what
it is our body is telling us. Now, you mentioned inflammation because you
talked about hormones and you've talked aboutthese other things. Now, inflammation is
a huge hot topic right now.I see the word inflammation everywhere on social
(41:19):
media and of course in my emailbox for my podcast. Let's talk a
little bit about inflammation and what thatis and what it does and what we
need to do about it. AllRight, there is a lot of conversation
about inflammation, and doctors continually talkabout information, and I found very few
people that actually know what it is. So give a shot at it.
(41:44):
What's inflammation? What do you thinkinflammation is well. I don't have a
great understanding, but to me,inflammation is when something's out of balance in
the body and the defense system isrushing to I think inflammation is your body
telling you something is out of balanceor something is wrong. But I'm not
(42:05):
sure if I'm anywhere close you're inthat right direction. But again, I've
had very very few people truly understandit, and I didn't for a long
time. Nothing in my training taughtme. It wasn't until I really sat
down and researched it and figured outwhat it was. So what inflammation is
is increased die off of cells inthe body. Okay, And you can
(42:30):
have a local effect, like ifyou twist your ankle, you've damaged tissues
and cells in your ankle, right, And what happens is those dead cells
die and create debris, and thatdebris is congestion. So our cells are
all kind of packed together, andso fluid has to leak out of our
(42:52):
bloodstream to deliver nutrients and oxygen andcarry away waste. Well, if you
have a lot of debris and cancongestion there, that doesn't work very well
and cells start to suffer, sothey start to so all of your cells
in that area become stressed. Soon top of that, we cand cells
(43:12):
are vulnerable to microbes. So whatmicrobes want from us, Bacteria, viruses,
whatever is food, and all livingthings are food for something else.
Our cells, our tissues are foodfor microbes. That's why they want to
get in our body. So whatit turns out is we have dormant microbes
in our tissues, in our bloodand they're just basically waiting. This is
(43:37):
pretty new science, only in thepast five years. They're stuck calling it
the dormant blood and tissue micromyome.So these things are just there, and
so you damage your tissues and youkill off these cells. Well, the
body the immune system responds to thatby sending in cells called macrifages that are
(43:59):
basically garbage collectors, and they startscooping up this debris and congestion, but
they break it up with potent acidand free radicals. So in the initial
stages, that creates a lot ofswelling and discomfort. So you know that's
what's happening in your ankle. Youdamaged cells, you've damaged tissue, you've
(44:21):
created debris congestion. There may besome reactivated microbes that are scooping up and
eating that stuff up. The macroflegescome in and cleaning up this mess with
toxic free radicals. So that's allgoing on. So if that's happening throughout
your body, that means you've gotwhole body cellular stress, increased die off
(44:45):
of cells, reactivation of microbes,over activity of the immune system, and
connections to illnesses like like lime disease. You know, the microbes and chronic
In these chronic things, the microbesare already there. I had been carrying
the microbes in my tissues since Iwas a kid. I got bitten by
(45:06):
ticks all the time. So whenmy cells were stressed, they started reactivating.
They started damaging my cells, breakingthem down, creating debris congestion,
and the immune system comes in andthen the microbes actually invade our white blood
cells and affect chemical messengers called cytokinesto increase that process. Because more free
(45:30):
radical and acid, that breaks downmore tissues, that makes more food,
and that's what chronic inflammation is.So our anti inflammatory drugs are basically blocking
the immune system from producing those freeradicals and other things that can be damaging.
(45:52):
But they're also blocking the recovery process. They're blocking healing. When you
hear about all these drugs for likerheumatoried arthritis or whatever, it's got the
you know, the fine print atthe end that they read is increase risk
of cancer blah blah blah blah blahblah blah. Well that's because you're impairing
(46:14):
healing every time you use one ofthose drugs. So what the herbs are
doing is suppressing the microbes, neutralizingthe free radicals, balancing. I just
finished this morning. I was lookingat some of our products in the effect
that they have on immune cytokines andhow they calm those those inflammatory cytokines down.
(46:40):
So the herbs are doing everything thatyou want to neutralize that inflammation process
and get about you back to cellularhealth. I'm the root of it is
always, always, always cellular stress, always cellular stress. So let me
ask you a question about that,because I've noticed that there's this if for
(47:05):
your term uptick in like autoimmune,like my Graves disease, it's autoimmune.
Your immune system just turned on itselfand we don't know why. Do you
know what I'm saying, But that'sthat's what I heard. I mean that's
probably about twenty years ago. Nowlet's say so, let's think about it
a different way. So, throughoutyour lifetime, you're exposed to viruses,
(47:30):
maybe bacteria from a tick bite,all these low grade pathogens that enter your
body from the time you start puttingstuff in your mouth ebstein bars, mycoplasmas,
sometimes things from an intimate contact withother people, like your real plasmas
and Michael plasmas, chlamydias, allthese microbes that are low grade pathogens that
(47:52):
typically don't make you very sick,but some of them slip past your immune
system, and when they do,they invade your cells. Now, if
your cells are healthy, and likewhen you're young, like when you're in
your twenties and you're getting all thesethings, your cells are healthy. Your
cells are actually part of your defensesystem. Healthy cells can prevent invasion of
(48:15):
microbes or kill microbes. But microbeshave this survival mechanism and it's called dormancy.
Sixty percent of the microbes of microbemass on Earth at any given point
in time is dormant. So ifconditions aren't just right for a microbe,
it can just go dormant. Itcan just go quiet in a quiescent state
(48:37):
that is just kind of sitting there, and it does that. So we
pick up things that they invade ourcells. They become part of our tissues
throughout of our body, but they'redormant. Cell keeps right on working perfectly
normally, like it was not eventhere. As long as the cell is
healthy. What you stress your cell, twenty years of not sleeping, bad
(49:01):
food, all of these stress factorsthat we're under. Then these things emerge.
And when they do, they startcreating an environment. They start breaking
down cells and tissues to generate foodfor more microbes. And as that's happening,
you have that congestion, that debris, that inflammation. But at the
(49:25):
same time, your immune system islooking at this and going, oh no,
we've got all these microbes emerging fromcells. We need to attack those
cells. And that's what it does. So there's a there's an autoimmune component
and every chronic illness, and itonly gets when it's it's only when it
gets to a really high level thatwe define it as an autoimmune disease.
(49:49):
But it can happen in specific areasof the body, you know, So
whatever microbes we pick up They mayemerge just from our thyroid or just from
our heart, or just you know, random areas in the body, and
the body starts attacking those things,So that mechanism has been defined for a
(50:09):
lot of illnesses. That's what happenswith type one diabetes microbes. It's associated
with a virus infection, and probablynot just one. Virus can be a
range of different things. But avirus invades the beta cells of the pancreas,
and the microbes emerge, and thebody attacks them and destroys all of
(50:30):
those beta cells because we don't havethat many of them, So we're starting
to be able to define that fora lot of other chronic illnesses. Mainstream
medicine they're way behind on this becausewe don't have any drugs that'll fix it.
They have nothing in their toolbox forthis, so they keep doing the
same thing of treating the manifestations ofillness instead of getting to those underlying causes.
(50:54):
But where I am, where thescientific literature is, is looking at
this concept of this dormant tissue andblood microbiome and recognizing how much of it,
how big an impact, how eleganta solution it is, no matter
what illness you want to explain itdoes. So now we've got a long
(51:16):
way before we completely understand it.You know, we don't necessarily know which
microbes are associated with which illness.But try to explain MS or Hashikoto's or
graves or really any kind of chronicillness, dementia, Parkinson's without that microbe
component as a possible explanation, andyou're going to fall short every time.
(51:42):
But you add that in and itstarts to make sense. And we don't
have any drugs to fix it.But herbs could really do wonderful things for
us. But even bigger herbs canprevent this from ever happening. So I
think it's an important for people totake a basic regimen of herbs like turmeric
(52:02):
and rodeola, you know, andsome basic kinds of things every day.
I think it's just really remarkably important. It's a maintenance support system. It's
a shift from medicine. It's ashift from band aid, you know,
like as I'm listening to you talk, it's more of a shift in lifestyle
(52:25):
and the way that we view ourhealth. It's a support system for what
our body needs as it ages.Is kind of how I'm hearing it.
There's nothing that can balance your microbiome, protect yourselves and do the things that
you need to do better than herbs. Now, you have to do your
part with diet and lifestyle and everythingelse. But you know, once again,
(52:50):
drugs treat manifestations of illness. Herbsaddress the underlying causes, and sometimes
you need both, but one withoutthe other is not going to and without
that foundation of herbs, you're justyou're not going to get where you need
to be. And you can makean argument for that, that's what's really
(53:12):
missing in our diet. So forhundreds of thousands of years, humans ate
of forged food diet we ate,and about two thirds of that was wild
plants, berries, leaves, roots, It was essentially the same thing that
we're using with herbal therapy. Humansate that for thousands of years, and
(53:37):
then we started farming about ten thousandyears and shifted to beans and seeds,
which don't have that photochemistry, andwe started cultivating our food. And when
we started cultivating our food, wecultivated the food to produce calories, not
protective photochemicals. So our food plants, even our healthy food plants like broccoli
(54:00):
and all these things don't have theconcentration of phytochemicals that wild plants do because
we've cultivated that plant to produce caloriesand it's lost the ability to protect itself.
So our flood plants have the lowestpotential for helping us in this regard.
(54:21):
So that's why herbal supplements are themost practical way to get that back,
because we're just not going to goback to a life of foraging,
So you know, taking herbs replacesthat that really important thing that we're missing
from our ancestral diets. Well,I think all of this is so fascinating
(54:43):
and I love the science behind it, and I do feel very passionately about,
you know, us be taking controlof our health and not just going
in for a band aid. Ifeel very passionately about that. I shared
with you, and my audience hasheard me say. I was medical power
of attorney for my mother in law. We went through some very dramatic health
(55:04):
things with her, especially the lastfour months of her life, and I
was in constant contact with the doctors, and I was frustrated. Even though
there was one doctor who was fantastic. He called me i was on the
road and he made sure to geta hold of me because he knew I
was traveling and that I needed totalk to him every day. So as
the doctors rotated, I would getthese different doctors throughout this time. And
(55:24):
I appreciated his letting me know whatthe symptoms are, letting me know what
his diagnosis were, but we didn'thave answers, and I think this is
the frustration ye for me. Andnow I'm caring for my mom's medical needs
and we're going we have a doctor'sappointment tomorrow, and it's like the things
go wrong or toe's doing something weird. They give her an antibiotic and they
(55:45):
send her out the door, andI get so frustrated with I know that
they're well meaning, and I don'twant to be a doctor basher, but
the system is not healthcare. Andso I'm glad that you came on because
I want to open up the conversationaround what really is health what really is
(56:06):
health care, and what can wedo without having to go through the testing
and the lack of answers my momwe went to emergency. I realized when
we left, I have no answers. I have another prescription, and so
I don't want to be that personwho's knocking doctors butt. I appreciate that
you have taken your challenge and youhave brought a protocol that is long term
(56:30):
going to create actual health care.And I appreciate that if people if you
had to give people like three thingsto kind of or if you have four,
I don't mind. I'm just sayingsome things to begin the process to
anchor themselves into this, because thisreally is I mean, you're a doctor,
you're an educated man, and lookhow long you've studied this and here
(56:52):
we are going, Okay, well, here's a book and a one hour
conversation. What three kind of startingpoints can you give people to help them
move towards this cellular wellness? Yeah? Well it's that concept of cellular wellness.
Your body is made exclusively of cells. If you have symptoms, they
(57:13):
are rooted in cellular stress. Themost important thing you can do, aside
from you know, eating good dietand lifestyle, the most important thing that
you can do to protect your cellsand keep yourselves healthy is take a regiment
of herbs every day. Yep,really important. How do you know which
(57:36):
herbs are there? Are there?Kind of like I guess fundamental herbs that
everybody can take that will get thisjourney started for them, or is it
specialized like a prescription. Well,you know, it's in you know,
the company that we have. Wedo have some basic products just on that
entry level to start people out withhigh grade extracts and you know, the
(58:01):
right combination of herbs. So whatwe're looking for for taking on a daily
basis is herbs that don't have druglike properties. So there are some herbs
that have more drug like properties,and the more it's like a drug,
the less I have a tendency touse it. So I'm looking at herbs
(58:22):
that mainly have this protective effect thatyou can take every day. They don't
have drug like effects, they don'tyou know, they're not going to have
side effects. They basically just makeyou feel well. So and there are
a lot of those herbs out there, but in the book, I categorize
some of my favorites, and wedo have those in a product called Daily
(58:44):
Orbal and combined with another one calledDaily Multi for people who really feel like
they want to take a multividimin everyday. You know, those two products
together give people a good foundation tobuild on. Question for you vitamins versus
(59:06):
supplements. Yeah, are they beneficialor would you suggest that possibly shift?
Well, there's herbal supplements right right, there are herbal supplements. Would it
be an idea to look to herbsas the bulk of that support system?
(59:28):
Yeah, that's that I've been tryingto preset message for a long time.
You know, half the population takesthe multi vitamin every day, even though
the evidence that we should be takinga multi vitamin is pretty sparse. So
I'd like to differentiate between the twobecause you know a lot of people are
taking what I would define as nutrients. So nutrients are things that your cells
(59:53):
need to function. You need carbohydrates, fats, and proteins or amino acids,
but you all also need vitamins andminerals that are co factors for your
cells to do the functions that theydo to do their job. And cells
need nutrients, but they can onlytake so many nutrients, so you know,
(01:00:14):
you don't want to overload your cells. The best way to get nutrients
is a well rounded diet because thosecells. A whole food diet is made
of whole cells, and that's goingto give you you know, those broken
down cells are going to give youall the nutrients that your cells need to
function. So that's the first placeto get it. That's that should be
(01:00:36):
your foundation of nutritional support is agood whole food diet. That being said,
when you're chronically when your cells arechronically stressed, they need more nutrients.
So sometimes taking a little bit extraand this is especially important for people
with any kind of chronic illness thatthey're struggling with, getting those extra nutrients
(01:01:00):
can really be beneficial at certain times. What's wrong with most multi vitamins,
though, is they're giving it ina form that the body can't readily utilize.
It's got to convert it into somethingelse. So you know it's in
our products. We're using what arecalled bioavailable nutrients, vitamins and minerals that
(01:01:21):
are in a form that the bodycan readily assimilate and use. And that's
not true if your average daily productout there. So there's value. But
let's look at the herbs. Sowhen we take an herbal supplement, we're
not getting nutrients. Herbal preparations arenutrient deficient. They don't have vitamins,
(01:01:44):
minerals, carbohydrates, amino acid,none of that is in there. All
they have is these protective photochemicals,and what these phytochemicals are doing is protecting
our cells from stress from all thesestress factors that I described right. So,
but interestingly, if your cells arestressed, they're working harder, they're
(01:02:07):
burning through more nutrients. So ifyou reduce cellular stress by taking herbs,
you're actually reducing the nutrient demands onyour cells. So one over the other,
the reducing cellular stress is really important, and taking a multi vinamin isn't
(01:02:30):
going to do anything significant to reducecellular stress. So if you can reduce
cellular stress with the herbs, thenyour nutrient demand, your need for a
multi vinamin is less. Now itwon't hurts you to take a multivitamin.
But of the two, the herbsare going to give you the most good,
(01:02:51):
no doubt. That's just, youknow, there's just any way you
want to argue it, the herbsare going to win. Interesting, So,
how can people get a hold ofthese resources? What is your website?
What's the name of your resources?I'm assuming it's a vital plan,
but go ahead and let us knowhow we can get a hold of your
(01:03:12):
resources. Vitalplan dot com is thewebsite, the Vital Plan, and you
can find me there and that's theeasiest place to find out about products that
I have. The book is forsale there. You can find the book
on Amazon and all the regular outletstoo. But you know, I've I
(01:03:36):
put a lot of written content outthere. I have another website called rollsmd
dot com that also has more technicalinformation about different kinds of chronic illnesses.
So it kind of depends on whatyou're looking for. Okay, Well,
Bill, I want to thank youso much for being on the show today.
You're such a wealth of information andwhat an incredible primer. I mean
(01:04:00):
it was deep, don't get mewrong, but what an incredible primer this
is to this place that we findourselves in trying to figure out what is
wellness. It's such a tossed aroundterm. And I'm so grateful for your
insight, your wisdom, your knowledge, this resource that is out there for
us to tap into. So Ireally appreciate your time today. Bill.
(01:04:23):
Well, thank you so much forthe opportunity. It's been a real pleasure.
Yes, and I have to saythat this message that Bill is sharing
today is such an important thing toshare. So before I get into my
outro. I really want to encourageyou to take this conversation and share it
with your friends. If you're onYouTube, just look down below and the
(01:04:45):
links will be there for you soyou can get to him quickly. If
you're not able to, you canalso go to www. Dot Feminine roadmap
dot com Forward Slash episode three fiveseven. I will have links there to
the resources and the website. Friends, this is I'm pleading with you from
a passionate place. Our health determinesthe quality of our lives, and if
(01:05:11):
what we can learn for ourselves takecontrol of our own health and wellness,
not that we don't go to thedoctor, but think about yourself as your
own most powerful advocate to what feelsgood to you, because only you know
what your body is going through.So I encourage you to delve into these
resources and to figure out if you'rein a place of unwellness, unhealth,
(01:05:33):
there's hope. I want to encourageyou that we do not have to age
poorly. We do not have tostruggle. Not the struggle doesn't happen,
but there are tools and resources outthere that we can use to empower our
bodies and our minds to age ina way that feels good and is more
healthy. Friends, thank you somuch for joining us today. I look
(01:05:54):
forward to sharing more inspirational people,conversations and strategies with you in the weeks
to come. Take care my friends. Bye bye m
Hi, Hi'm Jennifer. Are welcometo the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a global
community of women in midlife. Wegather here weekly over a couple something wonderful
for real talk, life changing strategiesand a big dose of sisterhood. Now,
please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine Roadmappers. Welcome back to
(00:28):
Feminine Roadmap Podcast, the podcast thathelps you navigate the challenges and the changes
of midlife and live a more vibrantsecond half. Today. If you find
us on YouTube, don't forget tosubscribe and ring that bell. If you're
on a podcast platform, please rateand follow me there. Today we're going
to be talking about the importance ofcellular health. My guest is understanding of
(00:51):
the concept of cellular wellness and howit applies to every area of our health.
He has gained an awareness of anuptick in illness and he wants to
offer solutions that are possibly outside ofwhat we understand now, but things that
are more natural and supportive to ourbodies. My guest today is doctor Bill
Rawls. He is a doctor,the medical director of vital Plan and the
(01:14):
author of the Cellular Wellness Solution.Bill, thank you so much for being
on the show today. Oh,it's pleasure. Thank you for having me
my pleasure. I would love toget an insight into what led you to
this mission and message. What isyour journey here? Yeah? It was.
It was a crazy journey. Igraduated from medical school and was just
(01:38):
infatuated with delivering babies. I thoughtit was just the coolest thing, bringing
life into the world. So Ispecialized in obstetrics and gynecology, and I
liked it because it dealt with peoplewho were younger, healthy and wanted to
stay that way, and it wasless oriented toward treating chronic illness is with
(02:00):
pharmaceutical therapies, and it was justreally wonderful bringing a baby into the world.
The downside of that was that ina small town, I was required
to take hospital call every second tothird night. You know, I was
on call for I had to notonly work in the office, but for
(02:21):
a twenty four hour period, Iwas on call for labor and delivery or
any emergencies that came in. AndI traded off with my partners with that.
But typically that meant not sleeping orsleeping very little every second, third
night, every second to third weekendFriday till Monday morning, if you can
imagine that, and that balancing communityand being a dad and husband and all
(02:47):
of those things. What got shortedwas sleep and after twenty years of that,
my body just fell apart. Butso I was forced to stop doing
obstetrics at that point, at aroundage forty seven. But I just didn't
get better. Even stopping call recoveringthe ability to sleep. My body was
(03:10):
just falling apart, cardiovascular symptoms,neurological symptoms, and I identified with fibromyalgia
just because nothing fit. I finallyfound I was carrying some of the microbes
associated with lime disease, so thatled me to identifying with chronic lime.
(03:30):
Treated with antibiotics, got worse,and finally embraced herbal therapy as kind of
a desperate solution and gradually got welland rebuilt my life around this new concept
of wellness. And I've been healthynow for twenty years and still taking herbs
(03:52):
all of that time. So aftergoing through all that, there was this
why did the herbs work? Whatwas going on here? What is chronic
line disease? And it brought meto a new understanding not of just that
illness, but chronic illness in general, looking at the cellular level and this
(04:12):
relationship that we have with microbes throughoutour lifetime. And so those principles I
built principles that really can be appliedto any situation, whether it's a chronic
illness or whether it's something like midlifechanges with menopoise. So through that course
of that, I was still doinggynecology, and I went from you in
(04:36):
residency, I was using the standardpharmaceutical preparations for hormone therapy and that sort
of thing. Pretty quickly got awayfrom that and started using bioidentical therapy and
then later herbal therapy. So itreally totally changed my approach to my practice
of gynecology in the same respect.And yeah, it's been an interesting journey.
(05:02):
You know, you're actually not thefirst doctor I've talked to who had
a kind of an unsolvable health issueround about that same you know, forties
and had to step outside of thetraining, the medical training and understanding that
she had. And it's an interestingstory because I feel like I understand the
(05:26):
structure of the medical system. Iunderstand that they have their controls over you
know, diagnoses and the protocols forthose diagnoses, but it is not one
hundred percent and there are a lotof gaps in that process. So I
really appreciate that you. I'm sorrythat you suffered, but I really appreciate
(05:46):
that you took that suffering and foundthe solution that can help other people who
are in that same position of notbeing able to be well. And I
think our wellness is so important.Yeah, well, oddly I wouldn't jay
and trade the experience for anything,yet changed my life. It was like
it opened up my eyes to thisvery very different way of seeing that's so
(06:09):
important that conventional doctors they just can'tgo there. And being forced outside of
that comfort zone and being forced toconsider things in a different way, to
consider all other possibilities. Wow,And it's just really it's given me purpose.
(06:30):
It's affected my life in so manypositive ways, and I've been able
to use that and help so manymore people than if I had stayed with
those conventional roots. So in someways, yeah, I mean, nobody
wants to go through something like that, But in some ways I consider it
a blessing. I'm interested to talkthrough. When you talk about herbal therapies,
(06:57):
because I think a lot of peopleit's an it's an unusual topic for
them. I think you either knowabout it or you know nothing about it.
It feels like this is a topicthat is all or nothing, you
know. So I'd love to haveyou explain to us when you talk about
this cellular wellness. Maybe we couldstart there. When you say cellular wellness,
what exactly are you saying to usand what does that mean to our
(07:17):
health? Yeah, you know,it's we don't think about things that way.
And you know, looking about howI was trained and how people talk
about wellness or illness, they don'treally think about the fact that and it's
really important. We are made ofcells. All living organisms are made of
(07:40):
cells. Everything that happens in thebody, absolutely everything is the function of
cells. So if you want tounderstand something, break it down to its
smallest functional unit, and that's aliving cell. So whether it's your heart
beating, or thyroid hormone being produced, or brain functions or functions in the
(08:03):
ovaries, it's all done by cells. And every cell in the body has
certain requirements. All cells in thebody need to write nutrients, and that
varies for different cells, but theystill need a certain quantity of nutrients to
function. They need a clean environment. So when we're exposed to all kinds
(08:24):
of toxic substances that inhibit cellular functions, it compromises our cells. Cells need
good blood flow, chiefly from beingphysically active to flush away toxic stuff and
deliver those nutrients and oxygen. Cellsneed down time, and certain cells like
our heart cells rest in between beats. But most of our cells need a
(08:48):
good night's sleep to recover from thestress of working all day. And all
cells need protection from microbes. Soyou know where I've come is that we
have this very complex relationship with microbesin our environment, inside our body,
and that's the greatest threat to cellularhelps it your cells are weak, then
(09:11):
you're vulnerable to microbes. And hereI'm not talking about just things that you
would get, like COVID. I'mtalking about things that already exist inside your
body that are just waiting for anopportunity. And if your cells are weak
because you haven't slept for twenty yearsand you're not eating a good diet,
and you know and and and you'reyou know, all of these factors combined,
(09:37):
then it just makes you vulnerable.And so there is a I firmly
believe there is a microbe connection withevery chronic illness, even some you wouldn't
expect, like endometriosis and things likethat. I think it's there. Before
we hit record, I was usinga word picture to kind of understand what
(09:58):
I feel like midlife is health wise, and I feel like we are at
a fork in the road, likewe're in this place maybe between forty five
and maybe even sixty five, wherethe choices that we're making, like maybe
we've borrowed from our body bank fora very long time, like you did,
and now you have nothing left towithdraw, or you're actually overdrawn on
(10:20):
your energy and your health. AndI feel like, and maybe you can
tell me if this is true physically, I feel like we're in a window
where we the choice that we make, we can either turn this ship around
for those normal people who maybe haven'tbeen as managing their health as well,
yeah, or we're going to decline. Like I feel like we can manage
the aging process better in this littlemiddle window by the choices that we make.
(10:45):
Is that accurate? Yes? Yes? And it is. You know,
whether you're a male or female,that mid lifetime, that time like
from forty five on is pretty criticaland menopause of access women by it's kind
of the straw that breaks the camel'sback that things have been adding up for
all these years come forth. Andso let's talk about aging from a cellular
(11:15):
point of view. People don't talkabout it, they don't think about it
that way. Right. So we'remade of cells, right, So we
start out as basically one cell.A sperm and an egg come together to
make one cell, and that celldivides, and the chemistry, the programming
there insider chromosomes, tells that cellhow to divide into all the other cells
(11:37):
that make up our body. Sowe form and from the time we're born
to about age twenty, we're inthis accumulation phase that we're accumulating cells.
So by the time we hit twenty, we've accumulated five to ten times more
cells than we need to survive,and all of our cells are brand new.
(12:01):
So at that point that's the lowestrisk of chronic illness. That's why
we all feel invincible at age twenty, you know, in some ways we
really are. But after that pointwe start gradually losing cells. And we
lose our cells because they basically burnout their mitochondria, and you know,
when we look at the science ofwell, what do we do about aging?
(12:24):
Fixing that is something that you know, it's like going against the laws
of the universe. You're just notgoing to absolutely fix that one. So
we lose cells, and so bythe time most people hit forty, they've
lost half their cellular reserves and theircells have half the energy. That's why
(12:46):
most professional athletes are done by theage of forty, because their cells don't
have the energy anymore to do whatthey were doing at age twenty. And
that process continues. So at agesixty six, I have a whole lot
fewer cells than when I started,but I'm in good health because I do
(13:07):
the things necessary to keep my cellsreally really healthy. So fewer cells,
less energy, but I feel goodand I don't have symptoms because my cells
are healthy. But what's happening iswe typically aren't taking care of ourselves like
we should. You know, weare taking liberties with diet, We're exposed
(13:28):
to a lot of toxic substances.We don't get the rest we need a
lot of us we don't get theexercise, all the things that we need
to keep ourselves healthy. We're notdoing that, and it really starts to
show about age forty five. Sothat's when it's like, yeah, you
could get away with a lot becauseyou have the cellular resilience up until that
(13:50):
point. But you know after that, yeah, it really starts to show.
And that's when we start saying,you know, maybe it's time I
need to do something here, andso we start, you know, working
on our diet and getting more sleepand different kinds of things. But what
I filled over time is herbs cangive you an edge, and that's where
(14:13):
the herbs are so remarkably important.I'm fascinated with herbs. I was telling
you before we hit record that Iactually have a book about these things.
And your book, which is likean encyclopedia, is fascinating for those of
you on YouTube, you can seehis book here. It's a nice resource
(14:35):
about the different things. So howdo people begin to use herbs and how
do they know, you know,what's safe for them, because the information
out there in terms of doctors trainedin this is kind of limited, you
know, unless you're dealing with likea functional integrative medicine doctor who's chosen to
include the herbal vein in their practice. Yeah, and actually a lot of
(15:00):
functional and integrative doctors don't know verymuch about herbs. It's kind of crazy.
Even some natropaths don't get much trainingin herbs. And I see that
as herbs are probably the greatest forcewe have to protect our house over any
single other thing you can do.And they're very specific reasons for that.
So back to the book very quickly. Sometimes that description of an encyclopedia scares
(15:26):
people away. I like to tellpeople that it's like four books. So
the first book is like one hundredpages and it's that sugtle wellness concept.
The second book is a primer ofeverything that you know, just the functional
things you need to know about herbsand how to get started. The third
(15:46):
section is lifestyle diet, all thesethings we need to do. And the
fourth section, which is a reallybig section, is taking those concepts and
applying them to specific problems like cardiovascularmenopausics, et cetera. But you know,
when I had this experience with herbsthat I got my health back.
I went into it thinking, Okay, I'm killing this microbe associated with lime
(16:11):
disease, and I came away afterreally researching it, understanding that that's not
what chronic lime disease is it's neveran infection with one microbe. It's a
spectrum of microbes. And when youlook at chronic lime, it really is
an example of how all functional,all chronic illnesses function, different microbes,
(16:36):
different tissues, but same principles.So I don't really use the concept of
diagnosis the way that other doctors doso with an herb. So looking at
this, I first went and youknow, studied the traditional forms of her
biology, traditional Chinese medicine, aeruvedicmedicine, what was going on in Europe
(16:57):
and North America, and it wasvery similar, and it was all observational.
It was like, okay, ifyou have these symptoms, you take
these herbs. But it really didn'ttell me what the herbs were doing.
Unfortunately, over the past twenty orthirty years, there's been an absolute explosion
of researchers around the world looking atwhat the herbs are doing on a biochemical
(17:23):
level, you know, looking athow the chemistry of the herb is affecting
our chemistry and our cells. Andthat took me to a whole different place
because I like science and I likethings to fit logically, and that helped
me understand herbs better than anything else. So what the herbs are doing is
(17:45):
protecting yourselves from all of those stressfactors that I was talking about. So
what you get with an herb isthis complex chemistry that we call phytochemistry plant
chemistry, and that chemistry isn't justa bunch of random chemical things. It
is the plant's defense and regulatory system. So the plant is using those chemicals
(18:10):
to protect its cells and itself fromfree radicals, toxic substances, and microbes
of every variety. But it's alsousing hormones, chemical messengers very similar to
ours, to balance and restore normalchemical functions within the plant as a whole.
(18:32):
So when we take an earth,we're getting all of that. And
of course plants are managing problems indifferent ways, and it depends on how
a plant. You know, whatkind of stress vectors it has in its
environment. But it's creating these solutions, these chemical solutions, to protect itself
from stress in the environment. Andof course some ways that plants do that
(18:57):
don't really mesh well with our chemicstry. In other words, some plants are
poison Nobody would make the mistake ofeating poison ivy twice. But these things
that we define as herbs are thingsthat humans have been doing for literally thousands
of years. So we understand thatthat plant's chemistry mess meshes well with ours.
(19:18):
So when we take an herb,we are taking the plants defense systems
and regulatory systems. So it hasthe effect of protecting our cells against all
those same factors free radicals, toxicsubstances, microbes, viruses, bacteria,
all of these things. But italso has the effect of balancing stress hormones
(19:42):
and restoring normal balance. So that'sthe real magic of herbs. And so
when you combine herbs, you youknow, subtle differences between the herbs blend
together, so you get this wonderfulsynergy that that gives you a higher impact.
(20:02):
It really helps you out quite abit more So when you're taking a
herb, it doesn't really matter whatsymptom you might have or what might be
going on in your body. It'sgoing to help that because it's helping cells
throughout the body. It's really interesting. I mean, early on, I
was trying to learn which herbs doyou get for this symptom and this disease,
(20:25):
And now I'm realizing, you know, when you study it, you
find that one herb, well,it may have been used to help the
heart and the liver and all thesedifferent things, and it's like, well,
yeah, the plants aren't selective.They're protecting every cell in the body.
So it's this wonderful cell protection system. And when you look at it
that way, it's not as complicatedas it sounds. So when you use
(20:51):
this basic assortment of herbs that Italk about in the book, you're affecting
every cell in your body and everypotential symptom. So instead of treating a
symptom, you're promoting wellness. AndI always say, you know, you
take herbs and they take a whileto work because healing takes time. So
(21:14):
what healing is is the ability ofour cells to recover from stress. So
if we're reducing the stress, thenour cells are naturally recovering. Well.
That takes time, so I alwaystell people, you know, give it
a little time. But as you'retaking the herbs, typically over months of
taking them, the symptoms will graduallyfade away, not just one symptom,
(21:37):
all of the symptoms in your body, and this thing of lasting wellness emerges.
And it's really just wonderful to seethat and I've just watched it on
myself and watched it in so manyother individuals. It has so much power.
I think it's fascinating the way theear explaining this, thinking about it's
(21:59):
another organ is with cells and itsown natural function, and then our body
and it sells and our natural function, and how they're symbiotic to each other,
how they partner together. I thinkthat's really fascinating. I know,
for me, let's say, forexample, one herb that I came across
called Shadavari when my I didn't reallyknow I was in perimenopause. But that's
(22:23):
not going to look back, youknow, Hindsight's twenty twenty, and Shatavarty
was very helpful for me in thosebeginning stages when my body temperature wasn't regulated
very well, and you know,and then I started doing I was doing
bioidentical progesterone. But I those thoseare plants that I've only engaged with a
(22:45):
couple of them, but they reallydid. Like to your point, it's
the consistency of use and the topplus time. You know, we're so
used to a pharmaceutical mindset of takethis it's fixed or it's band aid.
Or whatever. So I love thatyou mentioned and I just wanted to highlight
it. The time, the lifestylechoices plus the time is necessary for healing
(23:11):
to take place. And I justthink that was a really profound thought and
I appreciate that you put it thatway because it's a shift in the way
we think about wellness, isn't it. Yes, yeah, it is,
And a shift in the way wethink about herbs. I think most people
think of herbs is just weak versionsof drugs, and it's like apples and
arches. So what we're doing withthe pharmaceutical is blocking manifestations of illness,
(23:37):
artificially blocking manifestations. So we're targetingenzymes, receptors, you know, various
kinds of chemicals in the body toblock that thing from happening. And that
can have value in reducing a symptom, but you know it all it can
do so manifestations of illness that what'shappening, what the illness, what that
(24:00):
cellular stress manifest as, is symptoms, hormone imbalances, and inflammation. So
we treat those things directly. We'retreating the symptoms. And we do this
for so many things in our societythat we treat the symptom, but we're
not addressing the underlying causes. Andthere are no drugs that address the underlying
(24:25):
causes of any chronic illness, Sopeople don't get well, they maintact,
they end up in the state ofmanaged illness. So what we're doing with
the herbs is addressing that underlying cellularstress, which ultimately is going to solve
the problem. So we don't reallysolve the problem with drugs. We just
covered up and suppressed the symptoms ofit, so we're actually solving the problem.
(24:49):
And so it works very differently.So sometimes early on in an illness,
blocking a process or a symptom canreally valuable to keep someone sane,
comfortable, or possibly even keep themfrom dying. But if that's all you're
doing, they're not going to getwell. So the herbs will help that
(25:12):
person restore wellness. And you know, we can look at any problem from
that cellular point of view, youknow. And it's so all cells in
the body send and receive messages,but some cells in the body are are
specializing in that. You know,our adreamal glands, our thyroid gland,
(25:36):
all of these different cells. Thoseare functions that the cells are specifically producing
chemical messengers. So our brain isthe the the the monitor, So our
brain is constantly monitoring everything going onoutside and inside the body, and it's
sending messages through the hypothalmus and pituitaryand thyroid and a dreams and ovaries to
(26:00):
regulate all the cellular functions in thebody. So if you have hormone imbalances,
it implies that your cells are stressed, not only just those glandular cells,
but sells throughout the body. Andthe only situation that is that that
(26:22):
doesn't apply as menopause. So what'shappening in menopause is we lose the cells
that produce estrogen. So every cellin the body has estrogen receptors, and
if you pull that message away,then it disrupts functions, especially the hypothalmus,
which controls appetite and temperature and weightand all of these things. You
(26:48):
know, it's regulating all of thesecellular functions. Well, if it's getting
bad feedback that estrogen isn't produced bythe ovaries anymore, then that throws off
the thermostack, so you end uphaving symptoms. So what rbs like Shadavari
and Ashua Gandha and Vitex, thereare a number of them. What they're
doing is they have chemicals that aresimilar to the feedback chemicals coming from the
(27:15):
ovaries in other parts of the body, so they help with just kind of
soothing that hypothalmus to say Okay,it's not so bad. You know these
they just calm down, relax Soit helps balance those functions and it also
helps balance the brain with the brainis going, oh no, something's going
wrong. So because this hype ofalmus is out of balance, well,
(27:38):
if you balance those hormones with thesekey phytochemicals, then then it just balances
things out so that symptom is better. Not to say that, you know,
low dose hormone therapy and things likethat can can't be beneficial on top
of that. But I always foundin my practice is if I could get
(28:00):
someone working on their cellular health,you know, good diet, getting plenty
of rest, you know, justkeeping their cells healthy and using herbs to
balance some of that abnormal feedback,they were going to be a lot less
symptomatic. And if we needed touse hormone therapies, we're going to be
able to get away with a reallylow dose that isn't going to threaten their
(28:22):
risk of breast cancer and other kindsof things that we worry about. And
in the same respect, virtually everyherb I've studied has anti cancer effects.
So if you're taking the herbs,you're protecting yourself from cancer too. Hmm.
You know, it's it's such adifferent science than we understand. Do
(28:45):
you find that you part of yourwork is helping people understand that they can
trust this process and kind of weaningthem off of the other. I think
that's why I was put on Earthand why I went through all these experiences
is so I could really explain thesethings. So it wasn't just that I
(29:08):
went through this this crazy experience.I've spent the twenty past twenty years really
studying the science. And again,if this had happened like forty years ago
or fifty years ago, the sciencewouldn't have been there. But virtually everything
that I want to say, Ican back up with good science. That
(29:30):
there's a piece of science that supportsthat logic somewhere, all the way to
the microbe theories or the way thatherbs work everything else. And you know,
the beauty of it is when youembrace that cellular model. You simplify
everything, you make it so muchmore consumable that if you can think in
(29:56):
those terms and think about what amI doing to myself instead of how do
I get rid of this symptom?Then then you really start. You put
you in a different place to moveforward, and you understand why you need
to change your diet and why youneed to do certain things and how they're
(30:17):
harming you at the cellular level,but also how herbs can protect you.
You know, all of these thingsare so remarkably important. Now we're talking
about my audience, especially as midlifeand beyond, so we're already at that
tapped out point where our cells arekind of like just in need of support.
(30:41):
So is there a point an optimalpoint to begin to make these changes
or is this something that no matterwhere you're at on the timeline of your
life, that you can maybe reversesome of these negative effects from a life
of maybe not good sleep, notgood food choices, not good energy management
(31:04):
choices. Is it always turn aroundableto some degree? You know, I
never give I never give up hopeto anyone, all right, And it
is again it's about cellular health.So during that decade or more that I
was really struggling with chronic illness andI had some pretty serious issues. I
(31:29):
was I had cardiac arrhythmias and chestpain and word z on the verge of
needing a pacemaker. I you know, it was. I was functional as
far as getting around, but Ifelt like I had a horrendous flu every
day. I had a range ofneurological symptoms. I mean, it was
bad. And I thought at thatpoint, now, this was around fifty,
(31:55):
and I was going, I'm notgoing to be around very long and
as long as I I am here, I'm not going to be well.
And I frankly I burned a lotof cells during that time because of all
the stress. There's no doubt aboutit. So at age sixty six,
I've been pretty much symptom free.I mean, you know, we all
(32:15):
have little things that come up hereand there. But I am doing things
at age sixty six that at fiftyI thought I'd lost forever. You know,
I'm still doing things like kipe surfing, I'm learning a new sport called
wing foiling, and I didn't thinkI would be doing those things that at
(32:37):
this level. Now, granted Idon't do them with the same vigor I
did when I was in my thirties, because you know, there's no doubt
it's like my heart I reach acertain point that I know I just don't
have the stamina to go over that. And I know that there are people
at age sixty six out there whodo have much more capacity than I do
(33:00):
because they never went through that stress. But my you know, so what
that translates into is I burned alot of heart cells. You know that's
compromised. I'll never get them back. But my heart cells are healthy.
My heart is healthy. I don'thave any symptoms, and I can push
(33:22):
pretty hard without having to worry aboutthat. And so my day to day,
you know, I feel well andI go about life just fine,
with a higher capacity than most peoplemy age. So, yeah, I
didn't regain I can't regain a lotof those loss cells, but my cells,
(33:45):
the cells that I have, arehealthy. Now, I'm pretty particular
about my diet. I'm not horrendouslyparticular about my diet, but I'm pretty
particular. I am very particular aboutmaking sure I get sleep at night,
do stay physically active through the day. You know, I'm very careful about
(34:05):
my exposure to toxic substances as faras living with clean air and clean water
and clean food. And I takea regular assortment of herbs every day,
not to the volumes that I didwhen I was going struggling with with my
condition, but I do take herbsevery single day, and I think that
they give me a resilience that Iwould not have otherwise. So it's all
(34:30):
about cellular health. Yeah, youknow, I think that it's that our
bodies are talking to us. Yeah, And I feel like one of the
things that I had, a thyroidthing happened. I didn't know it was
a thyroid thing in my thirties,and I was I started paying attention to
my body. I was trying tofigure out because the doctors are like,
(34:52):
you're fine, You're fine, You'refine. I'm like, I am so
not fine. I don't know whatit is, but I'm not fine.
So I think there's a innate wisdomthat we have in our own bodies when
we learn to tap into it towhether or not we are well. If
that makes any sense. Oh,yeah, absolutely, I'm very tapped into
(35:15):
what my body is doing. Butalso with other people too. You know,
I went through a phase that Iwas very much like most functional or
integrated doctors. I was doing alot of labs to try to assay what
was going on in the person's body, and I found that the more I
talked to the person understand stood whytheir symptoms occurred in the first place,
(35:36):
and in other words, understand whythey got ill, and then uncovering doing
the detective work to define what thosecellular stress factors were or I found that
labs really didn't add that much.And I don't do a lot of labs
myself. I get the routine things. But interesting way, at sixty six,
(36:00):
my cholesterol is better and my bloodsugar better than when I was in
my forties, just from doing thesethings, from protecting myselves, from keeping
things working. And I haven't defiedaging. I'm still aging and I'm going
to continue aging. But the wholeidea is aging without debilitating symptoms. I
(36:23):
like the way you put that.I think that's an interesting conversation anti aging.
I've talked to a couple of peoplewho really don't like the term anti
aging, because to your point,it is part of the natural process that
we go through. I think thequestion is how well can I age and
how can I maximize my resources,my personal physical and emotional mental resources in
(36:50):
order to go through that process withthe least amount of struggle. That's how
I see what they want to maybesay pro aging, because I feel like
we're looking for this fountain of youthand you've got these biohackers that are doing
all these things. And do youdo any biohacking things at all? Are
you strictly working with this herbal protocolthe herb to do the biohacking for me?
(37:14):
Right? So yeah, yeah.When we look at this anti aging
concept, you've got all kinds,You've got billionaires and all of these scientists
out there that are looking for themagic bullet to fix aging. And every
time I read some of these things, I just see huge flaws and it's
it's kind of like the hormone thing. You know, we should we be
(37:36):
taking growth hormone and all of thesedifferent kinds. Should we be taking testosterone?
And I'm looking at it and going, Okay, these things are produced
by cells, and it's cellular communications. What hormones do is connect all the
cells in the body. Because cellsfor us to function as a unit,
all of our cells have to talkto one another. Right, So that's
(38:00):
a conversation that's very dynamic, andit's going and it's changing with every second
that goes by, depending on what'sgoing on around us and inside of us.
So when we take a hormone nowis it's a little different with postmenopausal
hormone replacement, and we could getinto that, but looking at other kinds
(38:22):
of hormone therapies, what you're doingis throwing a monologue into a very dynamic
conversation. The level of that hormonedoesn't change. Even with thyroid. Now,
we can get away with thyroid replacementas long as the person still has
some thyroid function. But you takesomeone's thyroid gland out completely and try to
(38:43):
replace thyroid, it's really hard becausethat's constantly changing depending on what's happening in
the body. So I always say, your first best option is taking care
of the cells that make up theglands that the hormones so your body can
continue that normal, dynamic conversation.And then if that's just not working completely
(39:09):
in certain cases, especially like menopause, then some low dose hormone may be
a benefit in certain rare cases,but that's not what people are doing you
know, it's what people are doing. Is I relate it to an analogy
of like, if you've got agroup of people that are trying to solve
(39:30):
a problem, and they're sitting aroundthe pable talking and it's a dynamic conversation
and they're working to figure out thisproblem, and somebody walks in, pops
down a soapbox, stands up onit with a bullhorn, and starts screaming
their message. It just drowns outthat dynamic conversation. Well, when we
(39:52):
give a high dose of a hormone, that's exactly what we're doing, and
it can be extremely disruptive, sowe have to be very very careful in
how we do that. And ourbodies are so different. And I think
as you're talking about this fluctuation,I was developing graves essentially graves disease.
(40:14):
So I was thinking, it's food, it's this, it's that, because
it seemed to be like I wasnauseous after I ate, and it's like,
I feel like this. I lovehow you use the analogy of a
dynamic conversation. And I feel likethe more in tune that we can become
with our own bodies, the morewe understand that conversation, like understanding what
(40:36):
time exercise feels the best, whattime, how much, how many hours
of sleep you know, or certainfoods how they impact you. Like you
know, sometimes you can eat somethingand it's you love it and there may
not be anything wrong with it,but somehow you feel either like heavy or
tired or you know, it's it'sa that dynamic conversation, in my mind,
(40:58):
is going on in your body,and we're trying to pick up the
phone and get involved in that conversationwhen we begin to pay attention to what
it is our body is telling us. Now, you mentioned inflammation because you
talked about hormones and you've talked aboutthese other things. Now, inflammation is
a huge hot topic right now.I see the word inflammation everywhere on social
(41:19):
media and of course in my emailbox for my podcast. Let's talk a
little bit about inflammation and what thatis and what it does and what we
need to do about it. AllRight, there is a lot of conversation
about inflammation, and doctors continually talkabout information, and I found very few
people that actually know what it is. So give a shot at it.
(41:44):
What's inflammation? What do you thinkinflammation is well. I don't have a
great understanding, but to me,inflammation is when something's out of balance in
the body and the defense system isrushing to I think inflammation is your body
telling you something is out of balanceor something is wrong. But I'm not
(42:05):
sure if I'm anywhere close you're inthat right direction. But again, I've
had very very few people truly understandit, and I didn't for a long
time. Nothing in my training taughtme. It wasn't until I really sat
down and researched it and figured outwhat it was. So what inflammation is
is increased die off of cells inthe body. Okay, And you can
(42:30):
have a local effect, like ifyou twist your ankle, you've damaged tissues
and cells in your ankle, right, And what happens is those dead cells
die and create debris, and thatdebris is congestion. So our cells are
all kind of packed together, andso fluid has to leak out of our
(42:52):
bloodstream to deliver nutrients and oxygen andcarry away waste. Well, if you
have a lot of debris and cancongestion there, that doesn't work very well
and cells start to suffer, sothey start to so all of your cells
in that area become stressed. Soon top of that, we cand cells
(43:12):
are vulnerable to microbes. So whatmicrobes want from us, Bacteria, viruses,
whatever is food, and all livingthings are food for something else.
Our cells, our tissues are foodfor microbes. That's why they want to
get in our body. So whatit turns out is we have dormant microbes
in our tissues, in our bloodand they're just basically waiting. This is
(43:37):
pretty new science, only in thepast five years. They're stuck calling it
the dormant blood and tissue micromyome.So these things are just there, and
so you damage your tissues and youkill off these cells. Well, the
body the immune system responds to thatby sending in cells called macrifages that are
(43:59):
basically garbage collectors, and they startscooping up this debris and congestion, but
they break it up with potent acidand free radicals. So in the initial
stages, that creates a lot ofswelling and discomfort. So you know that's
what's happening in your ankle. Youdamaged cells, you've damaged tissue, you've
(44:21):
created debris congestion. There may besome reactivated microbes that are scooping up and
eating that stuff up. The macroflegescome in and cleaning up this mess with
toxic free radicals. So that's allgoing on. So if that's happening throughout
your body, that means you've gotwhole body cellular stress, increased die off
(44:45):
of cells, reactivation of microbes,over activity of the immune system, and
connections to illnesses like like lime disease. You know, the microbes and chronic
In these chronic things, the microbesare already there. I had been carrying
the microbes in my tissues since Iwas a kid. I got bitten by
(45:06):
ticks all the time. So whenmy cells were stressed, they started reactivating.
They started damaging my cells, breakingthem down, creating debris congestion,
and the immune system comes in andthen the microbes actually invade our white blood
cells and affect chemical messengers called cytokinesto increase that process. Because more free
(45:30):
radical and acid, that breaks downmore tissues, that makes more food,
and that's what chronic inflammation is.So our anti inflammatory drugs are basically blocking
the immune system from producing those freeradicals and other things that can be damaging.
(45:52):
But they're also blocking the recovery process. They're blocking healing. When you
hear about all these drugs for likerheumatoried arthritis or whatever, it's got the
you know, the fine print atthe end that they read is increase risk
of cancer blah blah blah blah blahblah blah. Well that's because you're impairing
(46:14):
healing every time you use one ofthose drugs. So what the herbs are
doing is suppressing the microbes, neutralizingthe free radicals, balancing. I just
finished this morning. I was lookingat some of our products in the effect
that they have on immune cytokines andhow they calm those those inflammatory cytokines down.
(46:40):
So the herbs are doing everything thatyou want to neutralize that inflammation process
and get about you back to cellularhealth. I'm the root of it is
always, always, always cellular stress, always cellular stress. So let me
ask you a question about that,because I've noticed that there's this if for
(47:05):
your term uptick in like autoimmune,like my Graves disease, it's autoimmune.
Your immune system just turned on itselfand we don't know why. Do you
know what I'm saying, But that'sthat's what I heard. I mean that's
probably about twenty years ago. Nowlet's say so, let's think about it
a different way. So, throughoutyour lifetime, you're exposed to viruses,
(47:30):
maybe bacteria from a tick bite,all these low grade pathogens that enter your
body from the time you start puttingstuff in your mouth ebstein bars, mycoplasmas,
sometimes things from an intimate contact withother people, like your real plasmas
and Michael plasmas, chlamydias, allthese microbes that are low grade pathogens that
(47:52):
typically don't make you very sick,but some of them slip past your immune
system, and when they do,they invade your cells. Now, if
your cells are healthy, and likewhen you're young, like when you're in
your twenties and you're getting all thesethings, your cells are healthy. Your
cells are actually part of your defensesystem. Healthy cells can prevent invasion of
(48:15):
microbes or kill microbes. But microbeshave this survival mechanism and it's called dormancy.
Sixty percent of the microbes of microbemass on Earth at any given point
in time is dormant. So ifconditions aren't just right for a microbe,
it can just go dormant. Itcan just go quiet in a quiescent state
(48:37):
that is just kind of sitting there, and it does that. So we
pick up things that they invade ourcells. They become part of our tissues
throughout of our body, but they'redormant. Cell keeps right on working perfectly
normally, like it was not eventhere. As long as the cell is
healthy. What you stress your cell, twenty years of not sleeping, bad
(49:01):
food, all of these stress factorsthat we're under. Then these things emerge.
And when they do, they startcreating an environment. They start breaking
down cells and tissues to generate foodfor more microbes. And as that's happening,
you have that congestion, that debris, that inflammation. But at the
(49:25):
same time, your immune system islooking at this and going, oh no,
we've got all these microbes emerging fromcells. We need to attack those
cells. And that's what it does. So there's a there's an autoimmune component
and every chronic illness, and itonly gets when it's it's only when it
gets to a really high level thatwe define it as an autoimmune disease.
(49:49):
But it can happen in specific areasof the body, you know, So
whatever microbes we pick up They mayemerge just from our thyroid or just from
our heart, or just you know, random areas in the body, and
the body starts attacking those things,So that mechanism has been defined for a
(50:09):
lot of illnesses. That's what happenswith type one diabetes microbes. It's associated
with a virus infection, and probablynot just one. Virus can be a
range of different things. But avirus invades the beta cells of the pancreas,
and the microbes emerge, and thebody attacks them and destroys all of
(50:30):
those beta cells because we don't havethat many of them, So we're starting
to be able to define that fora lot of other chronic illnesses. Mainstream
medicine they're way behind on this becausewe don't have any drugs that'll fix it.
They have nothing in their toolbox forthis, so they keep doing the
same thing of treating the manifestations ofillness instead of getting to those underlying causes.
(50:54):
But where I am, where thescientific literature is, is looking at
this concept of this dormant tissue andblood microbiome and recognizing how much of it,
how big an impact, how eleganta solution it is, no matter
what illness you want to explain itdoes. So now we've got a long
(51:16):
way before we completely understand it.You know, we don't necessarily know which
microbes are associated with which illness.But try to explain MS or Hashikoto's or
graves or really any kind of chronicillness, dementia, Parkinson's without that microbe
component as a possible explanation, andyou're going to fall short every time.
(51:42):
But you add that in and itstarts to make sense. And we don't
have any drugs to fix it.But herbs could really do wonderful things for
us. But even bigger herbs canprevent this from ever happening. So I
think it's an important for people totake a basic regimen of herbs like turmeric
(52:02):
and rodeola, you know, andsome basic kinds of things every day.
I think it's just really remarkably important. It's a maintenance support system. It's
a shift from medicine. It's ashift from band aid, you know,
like as I'm listening to you talk, it's more of a shift in lifestyle
(52:25):
and the way that we view ourhealth. It's a support system for what
our body needs as it ages.Is kind of how I'm hearing it.
There's nothing that can balance your microbiome, protect yourselves and do the things that
you need to do better than herbs. Now, you have to do your
part with diet and lifestyle and everythingelse. But you know, once again,
(52:50):
drugs treat manifestations of illness. Herbsaddress the underlying causes, and sometimes
you need both, but one withoutthe other is not going to and without
that foundation of herbs, you're justyou're not going to get where you need
to be. And you can makean argument for that, that's what's really
(53:12):
missing in our diet. So forhundreds of thousands of years, humans ate
of forged food diet we ate,and about two thirds of that was wild
plants, berries, leaves, roots, It was essentially the same thing that
we're using with herbal therapy. Humansate that for thousands of years, and
(53:37):
then we started farming about ten thousandyears and shifted to beans and seeds,
which don't have that photochemistry, andwe started cultivating our food. And when
we started cultivating our food, wecultivated the food to produce calories, not
protective photochemicals. So our food plants, even our healthy food plants like broccoli
(54:00):
and all these things don't have theconcentration of phytochemicals that wild plants do because
we've cultivated that plant to produce caloriesand it's lost the ability to protect itself.
So our flood plants have the lowestpotential for helping us in this regard.
(54:21):
So that's why herbal supplements are themost practical way to get that back,
because we're just not going to goback to a life of foraging,
So you know, taking herbs replacesthat that really important thing that we're missing
from our ancestral diets. Well,I think all of this is so fascinating
(54:43):
and I love the science behind it, and I do feel very passionately about,
you know, us be taking controlof our health and not just going
in for a band aid. Ifeel very passionately about that. I shared
with you, and my audience hasheard me say. I was medical power
of attorney for my mother in law. We went through some very dramatic health
(55:04):
things with her, especially the lastfour months of her life, and I
was in constant contact with the doctors, and I was frustrated. Even though
there was one doctor who was fantastic. He called me i was on the
road and he made sure to geta hold of me because he knew I
was traveling and that I needed totalk to him every day. So as
the doctors rotated, I would getthese different doctors throughout this time. And
(55:24):
I appreciated his letting me know whatthe symptoms are, letting me know what
his diagnosis were, but we didn'thave answers, and I think this is
the frustration ye for me. Andnow I'm caring for my mom's medical needs
and we're going we have a doctor'sappointment tomorrow, and it's like the things
go wrong or toe's doing something weird. They give her an antibiotic and they
(55:45):
send her out the door, andI get so frustrated with I know that
they're well meaning, and I don'twant to be a doctor basher, but
the system is not healthcare. Andso I'm glad that you came on because
I want to open up the conversationaround what really is health what really is
(56:06):
health care, and what can wedo without having to go through the testing
and the lack of answers my momwe went to emergency. I realized when
we left, I have no answers. I have another prescription, and so
I don't want to be that personwho's knocking doctors butt. I appreciate that
you have taken your challenge and youhave brought a protocol that is long term
(56:30):
going to create actual health care.And I appreciate that if people if you
had to give people like three thingsto kind of or if you have four,
I don't mind. I'm just sayingsome things to begin the process to
anchor themselves into this, because thisreally is I mean, you're a doctor,
you're an educated man, and lookhow long you've studied this and here
(56:52):
we are going, Okay, well, here's a book and a one hour
conversation. What three kind of startingpoints can you give people to help them
move towards this cellular wellness? Yeah? Well it's that concept of cellular wellness.
Your body is made exclusively of cells. If you have symptoms, they
(57:13):
are rooted in cellular stress. Themost important thing you can do, aside
from you know, eating good dietand lifestyle, the most important thing that
you can do to protect your cellsand keep yourselves healthy is take a regiment
of herbs every day. Yep,really important. How do you know which
(57:36):
herbs are there? Are there?Kind of like I guess fundamental herbs that
everybody can take that will get thisjourney started for them, or is it
specialized like a prescription. Well,you know, it's in you know,
the company that we have. Wedo have some basic products just on that
entry level to start people out withhigh grade extracts and you know, the
(58:01):
right combination of herbs. So whatwe're looking for for taking on a daily
basis is herbs that don't have druglike properties. So there are some herbs
that have more drug like properties,and the more it's like a drug,
the less I have a tendency touse it. So I'm looking at herbs
(58:22):
that mainly have this protective effect thatyou can take every day. They don't
have drug like effects, they don'tyou know, they're not going to have
side effects. They basically just makeyou feel well. So and there are
a lot of those herbs out there, but in the book, I categorize
some of my favorites, and wedo have those in a product called Daily
(58:44):
Orbal and combined with another one calledDaily Multi for people who really feel like
they want to take a multividimin everyday. You know, those two products
together give people a good foundation tobuild on. Question for you vitamins versus
(59:06):
supplements. Yeah, are they beneficialor would you suggest that possibly shift?
Well, there's herbal supplements right right, there are herbal supplements. Would it
be an idea to look to herbsas the bulk of that support system?
(59:28):
Yeah, that's that I've been tryingto preset message for a long time.
You know, half the population takesthe multi vitamin every day, even though
the evidence that we should be takinga multi vitamin is pretty sparse. So
I'd like to differentiate between the twobecause you know a lot of people are
taking what I would define as nutrients. So nutrients are things that your cells
(59:53):
need to function. You need carbohydrates, fats, and proteins or amino acids,
but you all also need vitamins andminerals that are co factors for your
cells to do the functions that theydo to do their job. And cells
need nutrients, but they can onlytake so many nutrients, so you know,
(01:00:14):
you don't want to overload your cells. The best way to get nutrients
is a well rounded diet because thosecells. A whole food diet is made
of whole cells, and that's goingto give you you know, those broken
down cells are going to give youall the nutrients that your cells need to
function. So that's the first placeto get it. That's that should be
(01:00:36):
your foundation of nutritional support is agood whole food diet. That being said,
when you're chronically when your cells arechronically stressed, they need more nutrients.
So sometimes taking a little bit extraand this is especially important for people
with any kind of chronic illness thatthey're struggling with, getting those extra nutrients
(01:01:00):
can really be beneficial at certain times. What's wrong with most multi vitamins,
though, is they're giving it ina form that the body can't readily utilize.
It's got to convert it into somethingelse. So you know it's in
our products. We're using what arecalled bioavailable nutrients, vitamins and minerals that
(01:01:21):
are in a form that the bodycan readily assimilate and use. And that's
not true if your average daily productout there. So there's value. But
let's look at the herbs. Sowhen we take an herbal supplement, we're
not getting nutrients. Herbal preparations arenutrient deficient. They don't have vitamins,
(01:01:44):
minerals, carbohydrates, amino acid,none of that is in there. All
they have is these protective photochemicals,and what these phytochemicals are doing is protecting
our cells from stress from all thesestress factors that I described right. So,
but interestingly, if your cells arestressed, they're working harder, they're
(01:02:07):
burning through more nutrients. So ifyou reduce cellular stress by taking herbs,
you're actually reducing the nutrient demands onyour cells. So one over the other,
the reducing cellular stress is really important, and taking a multi vinamin isn't
(01:02:30):
going to do anything significant to reducecellular stress. So if you can reduce
cellular stress with the herbs, thenyour nutrient demand, your need for a
multi vinamin is less. Now itwon't hurts you to take a multivitamin.
But of the two, the herbsare going to give you the most good,
(01:02:51):
no doubt. That's just, youknow, there's just any way you
want to argue it, the herbsare going to win. Interesting, So,
how can people get a hold ofthese resources? What is your website?
What's the name of your resources?I'm assuming it's a vital plan,
but go ahead and let us knowhow we can get a hold of your
(01:03:12):
resources. Vitalplan dot com is thewebsite, the Vital Plan, and you
can find me there and that's theeasiest place to find out about products that
I have. The book is forsale there. You can find the book
on Amazon and all the regular outletstoo. But you know, I've I
(01:03:36):
put a lot of written content outthere. I have another website called rollsmd
dot com that also has more technicalinformation about different kinds of chronic illnesses.
So it kind of depends on whatyou're looking for. Okay, Well,
Bill, I want to thank youso much for being on the show today.
You're such a wealth of information andwhat an incredible primer. I mean
(01:04:00):
it was deep, don't get mewrong, but what an incredible primer this
is to this place that we findourselves in trying to figure out what is
wellness. It's such a tossed aroundterm. And I'm so grateful for your
insight, your wisdom, your knowledge, this resource that is out there for
us to tap into. So Ireally appreciate your time today. Bill.
(01:04:23):
Well, thank you so much forthe opportunity. It's been a real pleasure.
Yes, and I have to saythat this message that Bill is sharing
today is such an important thing toshare. So before I get into my
outro. I really want to encourageyou to take this conversation and share it
with your friends. If you're onYouTube, just look down below and the
(01:04:45):
links will be there for you soyou can get to him quickly. If
you're not able to, you canalso go to www. Dot Feminine roadmap
dot com Forward Slash episode three fiveseven. I will have links there to
the resources and the website. Friends, this is I'm pleading with you from
a passionate place. Our health determinesthe quality of our lives, and if
(01:05:11):
what we can learn for ourselves takecontrol of our own health and wellness,
not that we don't go to thedoctor, but think about yourself as your
own most powerful advocate to what feelsgood to you, because only you know
what your body is going through.So I encourage you to delve into these
resources and to figure out if you'rein a place of unwellness, unhealth,
(01:05:33):
there's hope. I want to encourageyou that we do not have to age
poorly. We do not have tostruggle. Not the struggle doesn't happen,
but there are tools and resources outthere that we can use to empower our
bodies and our minds to age ina way that feels good and is more
healthy. Friends, thank you somuch for joining us today. I look
(01:05:54):
forward to sharing more inspirational people,conversations and strategies with you in the weeks
to come. Take care my friends. Bye bye m
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