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Let's Talk Wellness Now
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Deep Health, Real Answers - hosted by Dr. Deb
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Episode 270 – Chronic Symptoms Are a Hidden Message: How to Listen and Finally Heal | Dr. Kelly McCann
6d ago00:46:10Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth 00:03What if your diagnosis isn’t actually your diagnosis? What if the fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and inflammation you’ve been told are normal are actually signals your body is reacting to something in your environment? Something no one ever tested.What if the reason you’re not getting better is because no one is asking the right questions?Today, we’re exposing one of the most overlooked drivers of chronic illness, and why so many people are being dismissed, misdiagnosed, and left without answers.You guys can insert, one of our ads in here, that’d be great.Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting-edge regenerative medicine, and empower you with the tools to heal. I’m Dr. Deb, your medical detective. And today, we’re diving into the hidden drivers of chronic illness through the lens of functional and environmental medicine.If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with a chronic condition or is struggling with unexplained neurological symptoms, like fatigue, brain fog, numbness, or chronic pain. This episode is for you. So, grab your cup of coffee, tea, or whatever helps you unwind.Settle in, and let’s get started on your journey to deeper healing.Today, I’m joined by Dr. Kelly McCann. A board-certified physician in internal medicine and pediatrics, with advanced training in functional, integrative, and environmental medicine. She’s known for her work in mold illness, chronic infections, MCAS, and complex chronic conditions And for helping patients who have been told everything looks normal. She helps them finally get real answers. Dr. Kelly, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here. Share a little bit about what you’re doing these days, and who you are, and who you’re serving with us. Kelly McCann 02:42Thank you. So, my favorite patient population is patients who deal with complex chronic illness, and I didn’t set out to deal with these kinds of patients, but I kept… needing to be able to solve the puzzles, right? So they would come in, and there would be so many things that just didn’t add up and didn’t make sense, and it started with,it started with just doing functional and integrative medicine, and GI issues, and hormone issues, and autoimmune issues, and then it was mold as a driver, and then it was Lyme disease and the other tick-borne infections, and then all of those patients, many of those patients developed mast cell activation syndrome.Which I’ve now gone on and become an expert in, because they all have it.And all the related conditions with MCAS, the Ehlers-Danlos, hypermobility syndrome, POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardic syndrome, and… The one thing that really stuck out to me over the years of treating these patients is the ones who were willing to take a deep look inside. And see how their… their belief patterns, how their thoughts how they perceived themselves, different traumas that they experienced. If they were able to reframe some of the ways that they were thinking about their illness, about themselves, their relationship to themselves, they were the ones who really healed.And not only did they heal physically, they healed emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. I have some patients who started out disabled, and now are running their own companies. One who, again, same thing, terribly disabled, lots of emotional issues, lots of ups and downs, food sensitivities, oxalate issues, and now she’s a medical intuitive. And she’s just doing fabulously, and has blossomed, right? So, this is a missing piece that we’re not really talking about. Dr. Deb Muth 05:04Yeah, I so agree with you. I see the same thing in my practice, and I treat a lot of the same people you do, and you are so right. Like, if we can get down to a deeper level with them, and address the trauma that happened.And it may be a trauma they never even remembered, right? It could be something that’s just seated in their cells and they don’t remember it. And you don’t directly think it’s causing the illness, but it is getting in the way of them healing. If you can address those things, those are the people that tend to do so much better, I think, versus the people who are getting some mileage out of their illness. That there’s a reason they stay stuck, there’s a reason they stay sick, they’re getting something from it, even though they don’t realize it in the moment.So let’s talk a little bit, before we hopped on the recording, you and I were talking about body, emotion, spirit. A little different than what we’re used to hearing with mind, body, spirit. Talk about your philosophy on this. Kelly McCann 06:01So what I’ve really come to realize is that the mind is getting in the way. And we have this perception that our mind is who we are. Right? We really think that who I am are the thoughts that I have every day. That’s me. And when I’m not getting better, it’s because my body is not… Falling in line with what my mind and my will want to do. So we set up this adversarial relationship. And this has been the philosophy in Western culture since Descartes said, I think therefore I am. Where the mind is supreme, and it is the all-knowing, and the body is just a vehicle for the mind. And every… Therapeutic intervention, from trauma-informed therapy, from, you know, wonderful people who have committed a lot of help and given great information. Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, Gabor Mate, you know, all of these folks who have done such great work in us understanding trauma I think… The next phase is really recognizing that the body is actually not against us. It is not our enemy. In fact, it is… The body that is speaking to us as the voice piece of our souls and our spirits, that is saying to us, hey. you’re not listening. The path that you are walking down and the way that you are being in the world is not really working for you. It’s not who you are. It’s not who you’re supposed to be on the planet. And we’re trying to get your attention, right? Dr. Deb Muth 07:59Yeah. Kelly McCann 07:59I mean… Dr. Deb Muth 08:00this thing, so I’m gonna talk louder. Kelly McCann 08:02Exactly, exactly! It’s like a little toddler who only can speak in so many words, right? There’s only so many ways that a younger version of ourselves, or our bodies, like, how do our bodies communicate to us? Symptoms and sensations. That’s it. Those are the ways that our bodies communicate. And if we don’t listen to sensations, well, it’s gotta turn it up, it’s gotta turn up the volume, and then we have more symptoms. And then if we’re still like, no, it’s gonna do it my way, it turns up the symptoms some more. And when… We are in this adversarial relationship, we can’t bridge that gap. Can’t bridge that gap, so… What… what happens is thatUnderneath the symptoms and the sensations are emotions. Emotions that have not been processed. Because we’ve been stuffing them down, we believe that they shouldn’t exist, we don’t want to face them, we’re afraid of them, they’re not acceptable, we’re ashamed of them, whatever the reason may be, and they’re stuck in the body. And so the way through is to actually just feel our feelings. Dr. Deb Muth 09:26That’s kind of scary for some people. Kelly McCann 09:28It’s… it’s scary for the… it’s scary for the whole planet! Dr. Deb Muth 09:32For all of this, right? Kelly McCann 09:33For all of us. When we start to feel our feelings, we don’t like it. We’ve been taught it’s not okay. Boys, it’s not okay to cry. Girls, don’t be loud, don’t be angry. You’re a B-I-T-C-H if you do that, right? So there’s so many taboos about feeling our feelings. I have patients who say, I can’t be mad at my father or my mother because I was taught to honor thy father and thy mother. Like, yes, but you’re angry, and guess what?] That ain’t going nowhere until you express it, so… you have a choice. Express it, or hold onto it, and then you just kind of stay here in this space where it’s never expressed. Dr. Deb Muth 10:19Yeah, except in your body, in your physical being, right? Kelly McCann 10:22Except in your physical being. And here’s the magic. Emotions are meant to move through us, right? Emotion. They don’t last for that long!60 to 90 seconds, really? Maybe a couple minutes? Yeah. You really, really feel them. Right? Dr. Deb Muth 10:44Yeah. Kelly McCann 10:46And we’re terrified of that 60 to 90 seconds. Dr. Deb Muth 10:50What might we do to ourselves or to someone in that 60 to 90 seconds, right? I may scream, I may cry, I may not be this person that everybody thinks I’m supposed to be. That person that holds it all together is there for everybody, holds everybody else’s space. So well put together, right? If you’re not that p...
Transcribe →Episode 269 – Peptide Therapy for Women: How BPC-157 & TB-500 Heal Gut, Joints & Inflammation
2w ago00:23:28Tap to summarizeDeb 00:00:01Imagine your body has a repair manual, instructions written in your cells that tell tissues how to heal, blood vessels, how to grow, and inflammation when to stop. But what if those instructions got lost somewhere along the way? Well, today I’m talking about peptides, tiny protein fragments that act like biological text messages. Two of them, BPC 157 and TB 500.They’re showing remarkable promise for gut repair, joint recovery, and tissue regeneration. But here’s what nobody’s telling you. Women respond differently to these healing signals, especially during hormonal transitions. And today, we’re uncovering the science behind these regenerative peptides, who actually needs them, and why your doctor might not know about them. Can you guys put our ad right in here and then I’ll go to the standard intro?Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting edge regenerative medicine, and empower you with the tools to heal. I’m Dr. Deb, your medical detective. And today we’re diving into regenerative peptides BPC157 and TB 500. If you or someone you love is struggling with slow recovery from injury, chronic joint pain, gut inflammation that just won’t quit, or you just feel like your body doesn’t bounce back the way it used to, this episode is for you. Grab a cup of coffee or tea or whatever helps you unwind, settle in, and let’s start you on your journey to deeper healing. We’ll do another sponsor break here. Deb 00:01:52So let’s start with the question I hear constantly in my practice. Dr. Deb, I’m doing everything right. I’m eating clean, I’m exercising, I’m taking my supplements, but I’m still not healing. What am I missing? Well, that answer might surprise you. Sometimes it’s not about what you’re putting in your body. It’s about whether your cells are actually receiving the repair signals they need. That’s where peptides come in. Think of peptides as The body’s original communication system. These short chains of amino acids are like biological post-it notes carrying instructions from one cell to another. They tell your human system when to calm down, your blood vessels when to grow and your tissues when to repair. Now here’s where it gets interesting for women specifically. We know that estrogen plays a massive role in collagen production, vascular health, inflammatory response. When estrogen starts declining, whether that’s perimenopause, postpartum, or even from chronic stress, our natural repair mechanisms slow down dramatically. You might notice it as my joints are aching more, I’m a little more fluid filled, you know, they hurt when I bend them, my injuries take twice as long to heal.Gut issues that suddenly appear out of nowhere and no matter what you do, they don’t seem to repair. Skin has lost its elasticity or just this general sense that your body isn’t keeping up anymore. This is where BPC 157 and TB 500 entered the picture. So BPC 157, short for body protection compound 157, is a naturally occurring peptide sequence found in your gastric juices. And according to a 2024 systemic review published in emerging use of BPC 157 in orthopedic sports medicine, this peptide promotes something called angiogenesis. That’s the formation of new blood vessels and they deliver oxygen and nutrients to damaged tissues. Now TB 500 is a synthetic fragment of thymus and beta-4. Deb 00:04:17A protein your body makes naturally during wound healing and research published in therapeutic peptides in orthopedics in 2025 shows that it works like a cellular first responder rushing to injury sites and coordinating tissue repair through a process called actin regulation. But here’s what makes these peptides different from just taking another supplement. They don’t force your body to do anything.They simply remind yourselves how to heal the way they used to. And for women navigating hormonal changes, autoimmune flares, chronic inflammatory conditions, that distinction matters enormously. all right, let’s get into some of these mechanisms because understanding how something works helps you make informed decisions about whether or not it’s right for you. So,Let’s look at the science. Do these peptides actually work? And if so, how do they work? Let’s start with BPC 157. This works through multiple pathways simultaneously. First, it activates growth factor receptors that stimulate fibroblasts. Those are the cells responsible for making collagen and rebuilding connective tissue. And according to research published in Frontiers and Pharmacology in 2023, titled Regeneration or Risk, BPC 157 also modulates nitric oxide signaling, which enhances vascular repair and reduces oxidative stress at the cellular level. So this is really important because many of us are nitric oxide deficient, especially as we get older, especially since the pandemic, we’re seeing a lot of people being more deficient in nitric oxide and you’re taking nitric oxide, many of you, to help with this process. But if we’re having other issues that don’t allow that nitric oxide to get where it needs to go, that could render it completely useless. So in plain English, when we’re talking about how BPC 157 helps the blood vessels work better and protects your mitochondria, big word for your energy factories and your cells from that inflammatory damage. Deb 00:06:38Now there’s studies in musculoskeletal and gastroenterology models that show BPC157 decreases inflammatory cytokines like TNF-alpha and IL-6. And these are chemical messengers that keep inflammation turned on. So by dialing them down, BPC157 creates an environment where healing can actually happen. Now, where do we know about this?TNFL and IL-6, well, we know it from viruses, we know it from Lyme disease, we know it from mold toxicity. These cytokines are turned up, they’re creating a massive inflammatory response in the body, and you’re struggling to get these things down because of that or potentially other reasons. So here’s where it gets really interesting with women in perimenopause or menopause. When estrogen declines, collagen synthesis slows down. And that’s why we see increased joint pain, slower wound healing, and our changes in the skin’s elasticity during this transition. We see the little wrinkles, the fine lines, we see the subcutaneous fat going away a little bit more. This is partially why this is occurring. And so from research shown in the Journal of Orthopedic Research in 2023 by Leibowitz and colleagues, that they suggest that BPC157 affects on the endothelial layers. So the cells lining the blood vessels and these may mimic some of the estrogen’s protective vascular effects without actually affecting your hormone levels. This is really huge because we know that as women lose estrogen, they have a higher risk for vascular events, heart attack, stroke, things like that. And if people have already had a heart attack or a stroke, We typically recommend that they don’t use estrogen because that could potentiate the risk for another heart attack or a stroke. But that means that you don’t gain the benefits of estrogen either. So if we think about this, we could potentially use BPC 157 to give us some of the benefits that we lost from having estrogen and potentially not being able to use estrogen. And that would be huge for us. Deb 00:08:57And not to mention the reduction of inflammation and the joint pain and the wound healing and the energy and the gut feelings. I mean, there’s just so many benefits to BPC 157 that we could talk about them all day long. But we’ve got to move on. So let’s talk about TB 500. Now this peptide works very differently. Its primary job is promoting cell migration, essentially telling repair cells to go to this spot and what to do when they get there. So it sends a signal, puts a little post-it stamp there and says, Hey, when you get there, fix A, B, C, and D. And there was a study in 2024 in cell biology international that demonstrated that TB 500 increases epithelial closure and improves tendon elasticity in models of repetitive strain injury. So let’s think about that a little bit. What does that really mean?That means faster recovery from exercise induced muscle damage, better healing of overuse injuries like tennis elbow or plantar fasciitis, improved scar tissue remodeling after surgery or a C-section, enhanced recovery from chronic inflammatory conditions affecting soft tissues. And I’ve talked about this several times. I have used these compounds post-surgical personally.And I remember going back to see my surgeon at the two to three week mark for follow-up. And she was amazed at how well everything was healing. And when I asked her if she wanted to know what I was doing, her response was no, but keep doing whatever you’re doing because it’s working. And after three weeks of a major pelvic repair surgery that I had, four hours in surgery, lots of sutures, not comfortable. I was actually walking a mile and didn’t have pain and I was recovering really well and felt amazing. And that is just not typically heard of in surgical procedures like mine. It’s usually a minimum of a six to eight week recovery before you’re starting to do that again. And I give all of the credit to these two peptides. Deb 00:11:17In my clinical practice, I see this play out constantly. Women ...
Transcribe →Episode 268 – Mold+Lyme+Genetics: The Root Cause Most Doctors Miss
3w ago01:22:03Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth 00:00:09Hi there, how are you? Bob Miller 00:00:10Excellent! Pedaling as fast as humanly possible, but doing okay. Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:14Good, good. Well, I’m looking forward to our conversation today. This should be amazing. Bob Miller 00:00:20Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:22Yeah, anything that’s off-limits for you in, our conversation? Bob Miller 00:00:28No. Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:29Okay, anything you want me to make sure we cover for you? Bob Miller 00:00:33Well, I mean, is it okay if we put a little plug-in for our software? Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:35Absolutely. Bob Miller 00:00:36Yeah. Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:37Absolutely. Bob Miller 00:00:36Yeah. Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:37Absolutely. Bob Miller 00:00:38Hey, can we… can we do a screen share? Yes, we can. Yeah, because I want to show you some maps, and… Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:43Okay. Things like that, yeah, so… Perfect. So just let me know when you want to do screen share. Bob Miller 00:00:48Okay. Dr. Deb Muth 00:00:49And yeah, feel free to plug your software wherever you want to. Bob Miller 00:00:53Okay, well, good. Let me pull up a, a slide for that, and give me one second, I just want to shut the door to my office to get the noise down. Dr. Deb Muth 00:01:01No worries. Bob Miller 00:01:16And, how should I refer to you? Dr. Debb? Dr. Muth, what do you like? Dr. Deb Muth 00:01:18Dr. Deb is great, or Deb, either way, I’m pretty informal, so… Bob Miller 00:01:22Yeah, and… Bob is fine for me. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Why people feel like they need this, son. Special name, it’s like, seriously. Dr. Deb Muth 00:01:33Right? I agree. Bob Miller 00:01:35When I work with my clients, it’s like, Dr. Millison, just, just bop, just, just bop. Dr. Deb Muth 00:01:41Yep, that’s how I am, too. Just call me Deb, it’s good. Dr. Deb Muth 00:01:44They feel a little awkward with that, you know? They’re not used to that, but… Bob Miller 00:01:48Alright. And you’re a naturopath, medical doctor. Dr. Deb Muth 00:01:52A nastropathic doctor and a nurse practitioner. Oh, nice. Yeah, so I got the best of both worlds, right? Bob Miller 00:01:58Yeah, damn. Okay. Alright, so here we go… There we go. Alright, so I got that ready, and then I will do a, I will do a screen share. I think you’re gonna really, appreciate what we’ve come up with. We’ve come up with the concept of, Cellular CPR. Dr. Deb Muth 00:02:23Oh, nice! Bob Miller 00:02:24And that is, construct the cell membrane, Protect the cell membrane. And restore it if it’s damaged. Dr. Deb Muth 00:02:32Love that. Bob Miller 00:02:34I love that. Yeah, so that’s what we’re focusing on, and then how, You know, we want to get to the point that, you know, most people think of genetics, they think of, like, 23andMe or Ancestry. Dr. Deb Muth 00:02:44Yeah. Bob Miller 00:02:45And then you have the professional geneticists who are looking at, you know, odd things that could create a disease. We’re looking at functional genomics. Dr. Deb Muth 00:02:54Which is so much better. Bob Miller 00:02:56Yeah. Are you familiar with what we do here, or… Dr. Deb Muth 00:02:58A little bit, a little bit. So, it’ll be new to me, too, so I’m excited. Bob Miller 00:03:03And how much time do we have? Dr. Deb Muth 00:03:04We have an hour, give or take a little bit on either side. Do you have a hard stop anywhere? Bob Miller 00:03:10No, no, I put a, I moved my clients around, and I don’t have anybody till, 3.30, so we’re good. Okay. Dr. Deb Muth 00:03:16Perfect. Alright. Bob Miller 00:03:18It’s like we’re getting started early as well, so… Dr. Deb Muth 00:03:19Yeah, we’re getting started a little bit early, so that’s good. Bob Miller 00:03:22Yeah, I just got my office cleaned up, so… Dr. Deb Muth 00:03:23Okay, good. All right, are you all set to get started? Bob Miller 00:03:28I’m good to go, my friend. Dr. Deb Muth 00:03:29I’m gonna just record a little intro and a little bit of a, hook for people, and then we’ll get started. I’ll ask you to kind of tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we’ll just take this conversation wherever it’s supposed to go. Bob Miller 00:03:39Okay, you got it. Dr. Deb Muth 00:03:40Alright, sounds good. So what if the reason you’re not healing isn’t your diet, your supplements, or your labs, but it’s actually your genes? Dr. Bob Miller is uncovering how genetic variants, when combined with modern toxins, explain why some of us stay sick no matter what we try. Today, we’re talking genetic pathways, detox blocks, and the new science every wellness warrior needs to know.Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, exploring cutting-edge regenerative medicine, and empower you to heal from the inside out. I’m Dr. Deb, your medical detective, and today, our guest, Dr. Bob Miller, is a true pioneer in functional genomics. He’s a board-certified traditional naturopath and the founder of Neutrogenetic Research Institute. And he’s the leading groundbreaking research on how genetic variants influence chronic illness, inflammation, and detoxification. His work has been recognized on international stages, uncovering links between genetic expression and conditions like Lyme disease, mast cell activation, or MCAS, and mitochondrial dysfunction. I’m so excited to talk to Dr. Bob today. He is gonna reveal some things that even I don’t know about, so I’m excited to learn alongside of you guys. So… Dr. Bob, let’s get started. Tell us a little bit about yourself, and kind of how you got on this journey. Bob Miller 00:05:04Well, that’s, that’s interesting. I was sort of like a mid-career coming to the natural health field, because in my early 30s, I found myself with a severe case of ulcerative colitis. Bob Miller 00:05:15And I was in the hospital for 21 days. probably within hours of death, pleading to death. And they told me I’ve got one option, and that is cut out the colon and wear a bag. Didn’t sound like a lot of fun. Dr. Deb Muth 00:05:27Not an option I would want. Bob Miller 00:05:29So, you know, the medical folks wasn’t real happy with me, but I said, yeah, I’d like to explore some alternative things.Never thinking that I’d get into this field, and then I just, you know, worked with some herbalists and things that I found absolutely fascinating. So, that’s how I got into this around 30 years ago. And, haven’t looked back since, and just having a… having a blast as we now move into how our genetics impacts things. So, that’s what we’re gonna… that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. Dr. Deb Muth 00:05:58I’m excited to talk about this genetic thing. When you started over 30 years ago, what kind of patience and problems first inspired you to dig deeper into that root cause healing and kind of get into the genetic piece of it? Bob Miller 00:06:10Sure. Well, you know, as a… now, I’m in a part of the country called Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where there’s a lot of Amish and Mennonite, and they gravitate towards these things.So, this is their first thing to do, and that doesn’t work, then they’ll go other routes. So, you know, back then, we just saw typical, you know, a little tired, constipation. You know, a little bit of fatigue, arthritis, those kind of things. But things have changed dramatically over the years, as people are now getting more chronically sick....
Transcribe →Episode 267 – Environmental Toxins, Nutrition, and Their Role in Chronic Disease Development
3w ago00:38:26Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth 00:08What if the toxins in your food and water weren’t just harming our bodies, but rewriting the very code of human health? My guest today, MIT scientist Dr. Stephanie Sineff, has spent over a decade connecting the dots between environmental toxins, metabolic chaos, and neurological decline. You’ll want to hear every word of this conversation. You guys can put our, Serenity ad in here, and then I’ll do the standard intro.Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting-edge regenerative medicine, and empower you with the tools to heal. I’m Dr. Deb, your medical detective.And today, we’re diving into how environmental toxins and nutritional imbalances are silently shaping chronic disease patterns, from autoimmune disorders to neurodegenerative decline. And how we can take back control of our health. So, as usual, grab your cup of coffee, tea, or whatever helps you unwind, settle in, and let’s get started on your journey to deeper healing. So, Dr. Sunif, so glad to have you here. I can’t wait to have this conversation with you. We were just chatting off-camera a few seconds ago about what we’re going to chat about, but tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this field of looking at toxins and mitochondria. Seneff 01:50Okay, yeah, my background is a bit eclectic, so it starts out with biology. I have an undergraduate degree in biology from MIT. My PhD is in electrical engineering and computer science, so that’s quite a switchover. And most of my career, I was writing computer code to train computers to talk to humans in a natural conversation… conversational interaction with computers. We were pioneers in that space. You can see that it has really taken off now. And actually, by 2006, 2007, I started to realize that the kind of work I did already then was getting compromised by the, by the emergence of AI. And I got concerned that, I wouldn’t be able to sustain the path I was on. And it’s happening now, of course, to the young… many people, young people today, are facing a crisis in computer science, because it used to be if you had skills in hacking code, you were good to go, you know, and that’s just not true anymore, so that’s another whole story, but anyway, I decided I needed to do something different, and I pivoted in a big way in 2007. managed to get the company that had been funding me, a Taiwanese company called Quanta Computers, And they,We’re willing to switch over to funding me to do research on health and toxic chemical exposures. Which was a miracle that they let… they let me switch over to that, and that was fantastic, 2007. So it’s been almost 20 years. that I’ve been looking for toxic chemical exposures and their association with human disease. And I focused initially on autism and heart disease, kind of for personal reasons, because I knew people who had, you know, who had those issues.But it led into a much, much bigger story, and I’m super excited about what’s happened over the last 20 years. It’s been a continual learning experience for me, and I’ve just kept broadening my space in biology, furiously reading papers as I discovered new concepts and trying to explore those. opening up new windows, and it’s just been a profusion of learning over the past 20 years, and I’ve published many papers at this point. Peer-reviewed papers on the topics of toxic chemical exposures and disease. Particularly, glyphosate is the one I really focused on, and I wrote the book, Toxic Legacy, how the weed killer glyphosate is Destroying Our Health and the Environment.That was published in 2021. So. Dr. Deb Muth 04:18So I’m sure you have a few thoughts about the administration wanting to bring that back to be made at home instead of China, right? Seneff 04:26I know, that’s so interesting. And actually, you know, he makes a point that I agree with, which is that we are relying on China. for importing a whole bunch of stuff that’s really toxic, and we’re pouring it all over our food supply, so China’s probably very happy to poison us, you know? Oh, absolutely. It’s kind of ironic that we’re doing that, and he makes a good point that we shouldn’t be relying on China for these chemicals that are poisoning us, but where he misses the point is he says, well, we just need to poison ourselves, you know? Rather than getting rid of that chemical, we need to really change the way we grow food.I think it’s the number one most important thing right now. in America is to change the way we grow food, and it has to be certified organic, regenerative. We need to focus on healing the soil, just as we have to heal the gut. I mean, we’ve really messed up the microbes in both the soil and the gut, and the consequences, as you can see, are a huge problem with human disease. Dr. Deb Muth 05:20They’re devastating. I mean, we have so much chronic illness and so much neurological disease these days, and just the rise of autism, it should be telling us that we’re doing something wrong, right? Seneff 05:31Absolutely. Dr. Deb Muth 05:32We have a problem. For those people who are listening that don’t understand what the term glyphosate is, can you explain that a little bit to them? Seneff 05:39Yeah, so it’s one of the many herbicides that we use. We use herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides in agriculture, all these poisons, and it kind of seems crazy to me that we would think it’s okay to pour poisons all over our food supply. I don’t understand why we think that’s fine.Yeah. You know, categorically. Glyphosate is supposed to be a wonderful chemical, because it’s an herbicide that kills all plants except for those that have been engineered to resist it. And supposedly is completely harmless to humans. And that’s what gets to be, you know, disbelief, because how can something so toxic to plants be harmless to humans? Just, how can it be? Dr. Deb Muth 06:14We haven’t been re-engineered like the seeds that they use from Monsanto, so how can it not affect us if it only affects everything but their seeds that they’ve modified to make grow beautifully under that condition? It doesn’t make any sense. Seneff 06:32Right, and of course, the critical thing they missed is that our gut microbes do have that pathway. It’s the chicken mate pathway that it disrupts. Really critical in all the plants, and in most of the microbes. In the soil and in the gut, and so it kills off the microbes as well as the plants, and when it kills off your gut microbes, you gotta watch out, because gut dysbiosis is a huge thing. And we’ve had so many papers coming out lately that Talking about the relationship between gut dysbiosis and all kinds of different diseases. Dr. Deb Muth 07:01Do you think that’s why we see so much gut dysbiosis these days? Seneff 07:04Oh, absolutely. I think it’s not just glyphosate, because we have lots of poisons that are messing up our gut microbes, but glyphosate is a really big one, because the shikimate pathway is essential for many of the microbes, and they use it to make essential nutrients for the host. So we get compromised as well, just because they can’t make those nutrients in that. Dr. Deb Muth 07:22It’s so… Seneff 07:22lies. Dr. Deb Muth 07:23so much harder today to treat people with gut issues than it was 25 years ago when I started. It was so much easier. And now, it’s, like, nearly impossible sometimes to get some of these people back to a good, healthy gut microbiome, no matter what you do, no matter how well they eat, and all the things that they do. It’s a struggle, for sure, compared to what it was 20 years ago. Seneff 07:44It’s interesting that you have that personal experience, because I think people like you really can see what’s happening. Dr. Deb Muth 07:49and appreciate. Seneff 07:50the difference between then and now. I, of course, as a child, autism was not something I knew about at all. Really, when I was a child. It didn’t exist, basically. I mean, it was so rare. And now, you know, everyone knows someone with autism, you know, pretty much. Dr. Deb Muth 08:08Autism and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s seems to be just so much commonplace. Everybody knows somebody in their family that is affected by one of those disorders, if not multiples, and We tend to say it’s genetic, right? Well, there’s got to be a genetic… why wasn’t it genetic 50 years ago, or 100 years ago? But now, all of a sudden, it’s so prevalent in our environment that we’ve just become acceptable of it, and I think that’s wrong for us to do that. We shouldn’t be doing that. Seneff 08:38I know. I find it very interesting how quickly it appears that humans adapt to the new normal, you know? <...
Transcribe →Episode 265 – The Future of Healing: How Exosomes Re-Educate Your Body to Heal Itself
May 2000:51:27Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth 00:04What if the future of healing isn’t about replacing cells, but about teaching your body how to heal itself again? We keep hearing the words stem cells and exoomes thrown around like they’re interchangeable, but they’re not. One is regulated, controversial, and often misunderstood. The other is rapidly emerging as one of the most exciting communication systems in human biology. Dr. Deb Muth 00:33And here’s the real question no one’s asking. Are we actually regenerating tissue or are we just stimulating the body to remember how it used to heal? Tired of being told your labs are normal, but you still feel terrible? At Serenity Healthcare Center, we don’t chase symptoms. We find the root cause. hormones, gut health, autoimmune conditions, chronic fatigue, brain fog. Dr. Deb Muth 01:02We use cuttingedge functional and regenerative medicine to get you real answers and a real path forward. This isn’t your average doctor’s office. This is medicine the way it was meant to be practiced. You deserve to feel like yourself again. Visit serenityhealthcarecenter.com to book your appointment today. Let us help you heal from the inside out. Dr. Deb Muth 01:28Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now. I’m Dr. Deb, your host. And if you’ve been following regenerative medicine, you’ve probably noticed the confusion. Patients are asking me every week, are exoomes stem cells? Are stem cells legal in the United States? I heard the FDA is shutting down all these clinics. Can I even get this therapy? Do I have to leave the country for treatment? Today, we’re cutting through the noise. This episode is not hype. Dr. Deb Muth 01:54It’s not sales. It’s education so you can understand the science, the regulatory reality, and the clinical difference between stem cell therapy and exoome therapy. And here’s what I want you to know right up front. Yes, these therapies are being used in the United States every single day. Yes, they’re being offered by highly trained physicians in integrative and regenerative medicine clinics across the country. Dr. Deb Muth 02:22Some are being used in FDA registered clinical trials. Some are being used in observational studies and some are being used in clinical practice under physician discretion. The landscape is nuanced and you deserve to understand it. So, grab your cup of coffee or tea and settle in for a deep dive into the most understood therapies in regenerative medicine. Dr. Deb Muth 02:43what they actually are, how they work, the regulatory landscape, and how they might support your body’s natural healing capacity. Let’s talk wellness now. So, let me start by asking you something. When you hear the word stem cell, what do you picture? Most people imagine damaged tissues magically regenerating or a torn meniscus growing back, cartilage reforming it into an arthritic joint or damaged brain tissue being replaced with healthy new beautiful cells. It’s a beautiful vision. Dr. Deb Muth 03:15And while it’s not quite that simple, the reality is actually more sophisticated and honestly more beautiful. Stem cells are powerful and they absolutely work, but the way they work and the mechanism by which they support healing is far more elegant and more so than most people really understand. And if you’re going to invest in regenerative therapy, you deserve to understand what you’re actually receiving. Dr. Deb Muth 03:44So, let’s start at the beginning. What are stem cells? At their core, stem cells are undifferentiated cells. That means they haven’t yet decided what they want to be when they grow up. Unlike a heart cell or a skin cell or a bone cell which have already committed to a specific function, stem cells exist in this beautiful state of potential. Dr. Deb Muth 04:05They have two remarkable abilities. First, they can self-renew. They can make copies of themselves, maintaining a reserve of these powerful cells throughout your lifetime. Second, they can differentiate under the right conditions. They can transform into specialized cell types. Bone cells, cartilage cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, even blood cells. Dr. Deb Muth 04:27This is why they’ve captured the imagination of the medical world. The potential is extraordinary. Now, there are several types of stem cells and understanding the differences matters tremendously for both understanding how they work and understanding how they’re regulated. Adult mezzenymal stem cells. We call these MSC’s are the most commonly used regenerative medicine. Dr. Deb Muth 04:54These come from bone marrow, atapost tissue, that’s fat, and other adult sources. They’re what we can call multi-potent, meaning they can become several types of cells, but not every type. A bone marrow stem cell isn’t going to become a brain cell, for instance. It has potential but it’s directed potential. Dr. Deb Muth 05:19Then we have perinatal stem cells. These come from umbilical cord blood cord tissue or something called Wharton’s jelly which is the gelatinous substance inside the umbilical cord. These cells are younger, more potent, and research by Weiss and colleagues published in stem cells back in 2006 showed that Wharton’s jelly derived MSC’s have superior proliferation and differentiation potential compared to bone marrow derived cells. Dr. Deb Muth 05:48They’re like comparing a 20-year-old athlete to a 50-year-old athlete. Both can perform, but one has more reserve capacity, more vigor, and more regenerative potential. And this isn’t this is very important because the perinatal sources umbilical cord tissue Wharton’s jelly amniotic tissue these are what many regenerative medicine clinics in the United States are using today and they’re using them because these tissues are incredibly rich in not just stem cells but growth factors cytoines and exoomes. Dr. Deb Muth 06:21Then there are embryionic stem cells. These are pur potent and they become any cell type in the body, but they’re highly regulated, ethically controversial, and honestly, they’re not being used in clinical practice in the United States outside of the very specific FDA approved research trials. Dr. Deb Muth 06:41So, when clinics talk about stem cell therapy, they’re almost never talking about embryionic stem cells. Now, here’s where it gets interesting and this is the part that changes everything about how we understand regenerative medicine. When you receive stem cell therapy, let’s say someone injects umbilical cord derived messenymal stem cells into your arthritic knee, those cells do not typically engraft or become new tissue in any permanent way. Dr. Deb Muth 07:12They don’t set up shop in your joint and start cracking out new cartilage cells for the rest of your life. So what are they actually doing then? Well, in 2011, researchers Arnold Arnold Kaplan and Dennis Korea published a landmark paper in stem cells translational medicine that fundamentally changed how we understand MSC therapy. Dr. Deb Muth 07:35They proposed that we should stop calling memal stem cells and start calling them medicinal signaling cells. Why? Well, because their primary therapeutic benefit doesn’t come from what they become. It comes from what they secrete. Think of stem cells as incredibly sophisticated biological pharmacies. When you inject them into damaged tissue, that arthritic knee, that inflamed autoimmune condition, that injured brain, that don’t just sit there passively, they sense the environment. Dr. Deb Muth 08:07They detect inflammation. They recognize the tissue damage and they understand that the immune dysregulation is present and they see that and respond. They start pumping out hundreds of bioactive molecules, growth factors that tell your cells to repair and rebuild, cytoines that modulate inflammation, chemocines that recruit your body’s own healing cells to the area. Dr. Deb Muth 08:32And these tiny membranes bound packages called extracellular vesicles, including exosomes, which we’re going to talk about extensively today as well. These secreted factors are giving instructions to your native cells. They’re saying, “Let’s reduce inflammation. Let’s modulate your immune response. Let’s promote angioenesis. Dr. Deb Muth 08:53” That’s the formation of new blood vessels, bringing nutrients and oxygen. Let’s stimulate your own resident stem cells to wake up and get to work. Reduce cell death in damaged tissue and restore normal cellular function. This is called paracrine signaling. It’s the cellto cell communication. And this is where the real therapeutic power lives. Dr. Deb Muth 09:14The stem cells themselves, many of them die within days to weeks, but the cascade of healing they trigger, the signals they send, the programs they activate in your own cells, those effects can last for m...
Transcribe →Episode 263 – Functional and integrative psychiatry: combining nutrition, biochemistry, and lifestyle with mental health care
May 1100:25:28Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth 00:03Welcome to Let’s Talk Wellness Now. I am your host, Dr. Deb.And today, I have the pleasure of meeting with Dr. James Greenblatt. I’ve known Dr. Greenblatt for a very long time. We, started lecturing together, gosh, over 15 years ago.And he is an amazing practitioner. Dr. Greenblatt is dual board certified in psychiatry and internationally recognized.as a pioneer in functional and integrative psychiatry. He’s widely regarded as the leading expert on the clinical application of low-dose lithium for mental health.Dr. Greenblatt has spent more than 30 years advancing precision medicine-based approaches that move beyond symptom management to address the root causes of mental illness.And after earning his medical degree at George Washington University.Dr. Greenblatt completed his psychiatry and residency there as a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry.Joined John Hopkins Medical School, and he currently serves as an assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University. He is a prolific author. Dr. Greenblatt has written 9 books, including his newest book, Finally Hopeful. in… available in January of 2026. We can ask him about this today.And his bestsellers finally focused the breathwork, natural treatment plan for ADHD,Answers to anorexia, Functional and Integrative Medicine for Antidepressant withdrawal, and nutritional lithium, and Untold tale of Mineral and Transforms Lives, that heals the brain.He has founded, in 2019, the Psychiatry Redefined, a leading educational platform training clinicians worldwide in functional and integrative psychiatry. He is a sought-after international speaker. Dr. Greenblatt regularly lecturesOn nutritional psychiatry and the transformative role of functional medicine.I am super excited to have him here with us today. This is going to be a pleasure. You guys are going to love this conversation that we are going to have. And I am going to pick his brain today on functional and integrative psychology and psychiatry, and combining nutrition, biochemistry, and lifestyle with mental health care.I’m really, really happy to have Dr. Greenblatt with us, so I am going to bring him on, and we are going to have this amazing conversation with my friend.Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now. I’m your host, Dr. Deb, and I have with me Dr. James Greenblatt, who I have followed for… we were just chatting about this for over 20 years.He is amazing in what he is doing, and we are going to have this conversation today about integrative psychiatry and the future of mental health. So, welcome to the show, Dr. Greenblatt. James greenblatt md 03:20Thank you, Dips, good to be with you. Dr. Deb Muth 03:22Now, you’ve been pioneering this integrative psychiatry for decades. What really inspired you to bridge nutrition and psychiatry long before it’s become mainstream? James greenblatt md 03:35You know, I developed an interest in college, you know, studying nutrition, and then I remember writing papers on orthomolecular psychiatry, high dose, vitamin B3 for schizophrenia.So, I really did not think I’d be a psychiatrist. I wanted to be a pediatrician when I went to medical school, but, just early interest in nutrition and brain function.And it’s been my career now for 30-plus years. Dr. Deb Muth 04:05Wow. Can you define what integrative psychiatry actually means, and how it’s different from traditional psychiatry for most people who wouldn’t be familiar with that term? James greenblatt md 04:17Sure, I mean, I have to add the word functional as well. I mean, I think, you know, I call myself a functional psychiatrist, but for most of my career, and every book, and everything I did, I would have to use words like functional and integrative.Medicine for mental illness. And, you know, I define integrative medicine as the… Adjunctive lifestyle, mindfulness. And diet, sleep, and exercise. Dr. Deb Muth 04:46Mmm. James greenblatt md 04:46And I kind of use the term functional for kind of a deeper root cause dive, looking at nutritional deficiencies, looking at hormones, looking at genetics. And, you know, to treat patients with mental health challenges, we need both integrative and functional medicine. Dr. Deb Muth 05:05That’s awesome. You know, in our integrative space, we often kind of joke that there’s no such thing as a Prozac deficiency, right? Can you explain to our listeners how nutrient deficiencies, gut health, or inflammation can play a role in mental illness? James greenblatt md 05:23Sure, I mean, I think the most importantBeginning of this conversation would be that, you know, 10 people with depression, there might be 10 different underlying factors. Dr. Deb Muth 05:35Yeah. James greenblatt md 05:35And we do know that there’s not an antidepressant deficiency, so we have to look deeper. And… and that’s,just different than our current psychiatry model, where it’s just symptomatic-based medicine. Everyone who’s depressed. It’s an antidepressant.And by looking at functional integrative medicine, we’re looking at B12 and vitamin D and zinc and magnesium. We’re looking at hormones, we’re looking at the gut, and we’re trying to determine what might be either causing or contributing to that person’s depression. Dr. Deb Muth 06:10Is there a particular, flavor that you see more commonly with others, like depression versus anxiety versus bipolar. Is there a particular underlying factor that you see more commonly than others? James greenblatt md 06:27Well, the short answer is no, and that’s why this work takes time, because you have to think.You know, every patient that walks in the office is different. I mean, I think the overarching umbrella is nutritional deficiencies, you know, whether… regardless of weight, regardless of diet. I mean, I have people coming in who’ve been eating…You know, these ketogenic or paleo diets, you know, perfect organic foods, and are profoundly nutritionally deficient.So I think nutritional deficiencies would be number one, and then, you know, the whole host of, you know, infections and hormone problems and inflammatory issues related to celiac disease is really common in the mental health space that’s ignored. Dr. Deb Muth 07:14Yeah. Celiac disease is really not paid attention too much, other than thinking that it’s damaging the gut. They don’t really think about all the other aspects of the body that are being affected by the gut not being able to absorb the nutrients properly and then utilize them properly. It’s really sad. James greenblatt md 07:34we find out… and there’s research to support it. That’s the tragedy. This is not something, as clinicians, that we found. We have many, many years of research showing high rates of anxiety and depression, you know, amongst those with, celiac disorder because of this chronic malnutrition, and many patients present without any GI symptoms, just mental health complaints, but nobody’s looking at celiac. Dr. Deb Muth 08:02Yeah. You know, I’m sure there’s people that are listening to us thinking, there’s no way thatEverybody who’s depressed or anxious has a nutritional deficiency. When we’re… live in a country where there’s so much abundance of food, and the obesity rates are high, and most people are very plump, how could those people be deficient in nutrients? What do you say to people who think like that? James greenblatt md 08:28Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, we have, what’s called high caloric malnutrition, so regardless of weight, I would say the vast majority of patients with a mental health issue I would say my best guess would be 90-plus percent. Dr. Deb Muth 08:47Wow. James greenblatt md 08:47We would find nutritional deficiencies. Dr. Deb Muth 08:51And part of this, we’ve discovered, is genetics. James greenblatt md 08:56People having, kind of, genetic needs for Higher amounts of certain micronutrients. Some of it is just the kinds of foods people are eating. The kind of ultra-processed food actually strips the body of micronutrients. So, it is just so common, and many of these tests are pretty simple that your primary care doctor could do in the office. Dr. Deb Muth 09:22So, traditional labs can identify some of these nutritional deficiencies. They don’t necessarily have to invest thousands of dollars in advanced nutrient testing to find these things out. James greenblatt md 09:35Absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, oftentimes when we’re working with a patient who has failed traditional psychiatric treatment, we do need some functional, testing, but I’m quite convinced we could change the trajectory of our mental health epidemic in this cou...
Transcribe →Episode 262 – The Root Cause of ADHD & Autism: Beyond the Diagnosis with Dr. Anju Usman Singh
Apr 2701:03:11Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth 0:03What are the answers to your child’s chronic allergies, ADHD, or autism?weren’t just in another prescription, but in restoring balance to their body chemistry. Today’s guest has spent nearly two decades uncovering those answers through integrative and biomedical medicine. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?Helping children heal when nothing else seemed to work.This is the conversation about science, compassion, and changing the future of pediatric care.Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now. The show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore regenerative breakthroughs, and empower you with the practical tools to heal. I’m your host, Dr. Deb, your medical detective, and today’s episode is one every patient should hear.My guest is Dr. Anu Usman Singh, Medical Director of True Health Medical Center in Naperville, Illinois, and the owner of Pure Compounding Pharmacy.And for over 17 years, she has been pioneering evidence-based integrative interventions for children with ADD, autism, allergies, and complex gastrointestinal and metabolic disorders. She’s not only a practicing physician, she’s a researcher who’s investigated copper-zinc imbalances.metallonine dysfunction, biofilm-related infections, vitamin D in pregnancy, and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.Dr. Usman serves on the executive board of TACA, and is a faculty member at MAPS, training other practitioners in pediatric integrative care. So get ready for a conversation that will open your mind and heart to the possibilities of when medicine truly becomes holistic.If you guys can insert the ad in here, that’d be great.Well, welcome back. I’m so excited to have Dr. Usman with me today. I have known her for, oh my gosh, 15, 17 years, something like that. We’re aging ourselves. Anju 02:32Oh, yeah, when we were in our 20s, right? Dr. Deb Muth 02:35Yes, exactly. So, welcome back, and I am so excited for you to be here, because you have literally helped thousands of families over the years.But I’d love for you to share a little bit about your journey, kind of who you are, what drew you into exploring integrative and biomedical approaches for helping children and families. Anju 02:58I think my journey is similar to a lot of you out there, the audience. I mean, we’re looking to help our families, and our kids, and ourselves, and I was doing my residency at Cook County Hospital, downtown Chicago, in the 80s.And I thought, oh my goodness, if I could take care of the sickest patients, then I can take care of anybody. So I came from Indiana, and I went to Cook County, and my children, my eldest daughter, started having, severe allergies and asthma, really, really at a young age.And I went to, like, my residence, and I went to my attendings, and I said, this baby is wheezing. And they told me, babies don’t have asthma.And I said, she has all the symptoms of asthma. She has asthma. And I remember with, in her crib, I would just nebulize her, you know, and I was like, what is going on?And I figured out that she had a lot of food allergies, and I was nursing her, eating the foods that she was allergic to, and back then, in the 80s, you know, we didn’t have the internet, we didn’t have Whole Foods, and I just…being a doctor, and I didn’t even know what to do, and I felt so hopeless. And I thought, gosh, you know, I’m a doctor, I have these, like, skills, I have… people I can talk to, and I still feel so… it’s so difficult. And then this… my particular daughter, the oldest one, her name is Priya, and she developed severe, asthma, and I couldn’t figure it out. She was in junior high. Every time she would walk into the lunchroom, she would have a severe asthma attack.And I’ll be like, what’s going on? What’s going on? I kept her home over the weekend, she was better. I sent her back to school, she was bad again.And we figured it out that it was other people eating peanuts. Dr. Deb Muth 04:54Severe peanut allergy. Anju 04:56And I went to the school, and I said, she…can you, like, put her somewhere else? Can… they said, oh, no, that’s not fair to other kids and their food. And this was in the 90s. Dr. Deb Muth 05:10Yeah. Anju 05:10And so, I just…You know, my heart goes out to families who are struggling to find answers for their kids, and my daughter Priya, the one I told you about, she ended up passing away from a peanut allergy.And so, I’ve just… Dr. Deb Muth 05:26Yeah. Anju 05:27My heart goes out to parents and my own kids and their illnesses.And so I just started working with families, with kids, andIt just kind of grew from there. Dr. Deb Muth 05:40Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think being a mom who went through that yourself, and…was seen but not heard, and turned away from the traditional medical community, you’re forced to start finding answers on your own. And we always feel like we’re on an island by ourselves in the medical world when we’re doing that. Anju 06:01Yeah, I, it was really hard when I found out, you know, about…Integrative medicine, and just different…ideas and approaches to diet and supplements, I thought, how come I wasn’t trained in any of this?And… Dr. Deb Muth 06:21So angry when I learned some of the things that I learned in the beginning. I was like, same thing, like, how did they not teach us this? And then I think, you know, it’s my fault, was I asleep, was I not paying attention, whatever. And then you just realize, like, there’s this whole part of the human body.That they just didn’t teach us. Anju 06:42Yeah, so then I… I, probably like you, we had to learn it on our own. There weren’t, like, classes or any way to learn this stuffAnd I just reached out. There’s a clinic that,I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Pfeiffer Treatment Center? Dr. Deb Muth 07:00No. Anju 07:01Do you know Carl Pfeiffer from the attendees.He has a clinic called the Pfeiffer Treatment Center in New Jersey. It was called the Princeton Brain Bio Center. Dr. Deb Muth 07:12And in the 70s, they did orthomolecular medicine for patients with ADD. Anju 07:18And schizophrenia. Dr. Deb Muth 07:20Mmm… Anju 07:21and depression.And they used to categorize them in 3 categories, and at the time, they called them histopenics, histidelics, and pyrolurics. Dr. Deb Muth 07:31Okay. Anju 07:32Histapenix were low histamine patients.Delix were high histamine patients, and pyrolurics were their own kind of category. We added another category of copper-zinc imbalances, and then we would categorize that population into high histamine, low histamine, pyrolurics, and copper-zinc.Now we talk about under-methylation, over-methylation. Sure. So, under-methylation is the, you know, the high histamine people, they can’t clear the histamine. And the over-methylators are, you know, what we call about low histamine now.And, and then pyrolurics and copper zinc. So…I lost my train of thought, but in the 80s, when I was going through this, in the 90s, I reached out to the Pfeiffer Treatment Center.He’s like, can I calm and just hang out and, like, see what you guys do? Because I need some answers.And I started working there and, started doing research on copper-zinc imbalances, and I did it in children with autism.And that’s how people started coming to me, and I kinda got, like. not famous, but I, you know, the word spread about, okay, we could talk about it, and Dr.Walsh was the, you know, PhD there that did a lot of the research, so we worked together for 8 years. Dr. Deb Muth 09:05Isn’t it crazy to think that we knew about histamine issues way back in the 70s? You know, I got the pleasure of being trained by, environmental medicine doctors. Dr. Wayne Konetsky and Glenn Toth taught me about environmental medicine, and what we called histamine issues that we call it today, mast cell, right? But when I was learning in the early 2000s, it was labeled as chemical sensitivity. And so it was just people that would react to everything, and we really didn’t know why, and they didn’t necessarily have this very specific allergic reaction, but we knew they were reacting, and we would try to treat them, to lower the histamine way back then. And it’s taken all these years, 25 years, to get to a point where we understand mast cell activation now, and histamine issues.And it’s really sad to me that it’s taking this long for us to identify things.And we’ve all got our journey, and I loved back in those days, too, because as I learned, I would call people up and say, hey, I just got a patient from you, and they told me this ...
Transcribe →Episode 261 – Root-Cause Healing and Whole-Body Wellness
Apr 1800:46:53Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth 0:03What if everything you’ve been told about getting healthy is backwards?What if chasing symptoms with pills, procedures, and quick fixes is exactly why you’re still sick? Tired, inflamed, and frustrated. Today, I’m sitting down with Dr. Holly Donahue, a naturopathic doctor who walked away from corporate burnout to discover the truth.Your body already knows how to heal. You just need to remove what’s blocking it, and give it what it’s missing. If you’re done with Band-Aid solutions and ready for real, lasting transformation, this conversation changes everything. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, explore cutting-edge regenerative medicine, and empower you with the tools to heal. I’m Dr. Deb, your medical detective, and today, we’re diving into the hidden truth about whole body wellness, and why treating symptoms will never give you the vibrant health you deserve. I’m joined by Dr. Holly Donahue, a licensed naturopathic doctor with over two decades of clinical experiencing Helping high performers heal from burnout, chronic fatigue, hormone imbalance, and stubborn weight issues. She’s the founder of Simple Health, and she’s here to share the science-backed approach to root cause healing that addresses your body, mind, and spirit, not just your lab values. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with a chronic condition, or is struggling with unexplained symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, hormonal chaos, or chronic inflammation. This episode is for you. Please share it with them. So, as usual, grab your cup of coffee, tea, or whatever helps you unwind, settle in, and let’s get started on your journey to deeper healing. And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsor. All right. So, Dr. Donahue, let’s start with the question that’s on everyone’s mind, right? How did you transition away from corporate and into the world of, naturopath… natural medicine, naturopathic medicine, root cause medicine, all the wonderful terms we’re using for this these days? Dr. Holly Donahue 02:56Yeah, first of all, thanks for having me, Dr. Debb. I so appreciate it, and that is a beautiful question, and I will share with you my health journey and why I got into this, and… how I got to do this amazing work, right? Because I always believed, for me, my higher being is God, and it walked right into me, right? Because I was pretty happy in the apparel industry. So, just as you said, I was in the apparel industry, I, my education doesn’t really matter, but double, like, marketing and textile marketing, and I was in design, and I was working in design. from LA to London to the East Coast. And 2 days after September 11th, to sum it up, I got laid off. Even though I had been pulled out of a job where my vice president of the company was like, I want you to come down here with me, and the apparel industry, you’re switching every two to three years. For those that don’t know it, that’s just how the journey works, and I was known as a changemaker in the field. And so, here we are two days after September 11th, and I was seeing a naturopath, and I was, let’s see, 29 to 30, right? And so, prior to that, the reason why I searched out for a naturopath was because in my teenage years, and… Up until that time, I was suffering with horrible menstrual cramps and horrible depression, hence why I moved to LA, thinking if I was in the sun all the time, my life would change, which we all do, change our place, change our time, things will change. Had nothing to do with family or roots, but I thought, if I’m around sunshine all the time, I won’t be depressed. Well, wherever you go, there you are, because it went with me, right? So I had my foot down to the ground, and I was just like, I am committed to not living life like this, right? Even at 7 years old, I had strep ear all the time, and my mom’s like, we’re gonna have your tonsils out, and I’m like, no we’re not. And she goes, no, you’re gonna feel so much better, no more strep ear. And I’m like, God gave them to me for a reason, you’re not taking them out. She’s like, okay, like, I was really strong. And so, let’s wind up to 2 days after September 11th. Prior to that, I had started to retake chemistry and biology, because I haven’t taken it since my textile years, which was a different chemistry, right? And so, I thought, well, I’ll just start and see where it goes, because my naturopath at the time. Dr. Dadama was like, we need more naturopaths, and I’m like, I’m really good where I am. I love what I do, I love corporate America, I love designing, I love product development. And he’s like, no, no, no, so he kept talking. Well, when this all fell… And 2 days after September 11th, I raised my hand and I said, God, I hear you. I went off to naturopathic medicine school in my 30s. And I never looked back, and I just really believe the gift of healing was, put together for me in so many ways. And so, why do I love talking about natural medicine, naturopathic medicine? Because I was not gonna just take an antidepressant, which is what the medical world… they wanted to give me a pill for a nail, that’s what I call it. I didn’t need to be on birth control. I wasn’t sexually active. Right? So none of that made sense to me. And it wasn’t until I really changed my nutrition, began to understand who I am as a person, and what my body really needed, did I heal. Dr. Deb Muth 06:20Isn’t that amazing? Like, I think so many of us enter into the alternative quote-unquote world. Because what is happening over here in what is known as the traditional medicine world isn’t working for people, and no one’s listening to them, and we just follow the traditional protocol, whether it makes sense or not, this is the protocol, everybody gets it. There’s no individuality, no personalization, nothing that happens in that world. And so, people tend to go looking for that… that uniqueness that natural medicine and naturopaths allow to happen. And that’s where true healing actually begins, for so many people. Dr. Holly Donahue 07:02 Yes, and honestly, once my hormones were healed, hence why I talk about hormones all the time, and my thyroid was healed, and I was eating the right nutrition, and for those of you that are listening, please stop playing with nutrition, like, get on that… get on that connection of what works for you. And I’ll be honest, like, none of us as doctors can… we can guide you. what’s really good in eating, but figuring it out for yourself is important. And the other naturopath that I saw. Never healed me. I only got so far by just taking supplements and herbs. And I speak that into that, that’s why I’m so driven around the foundation of our medicine. I am not just saying this, is your nutrition. And until I changed my nutrition, and I figured out what workouts work best for me, and I took all the toxicity and mucus out of my body, I was just inflamed, and I didn’t really it. I was eating all the wrong foods. Right? My body can’t do searches and simple sugars, hence why I talk about it, and so many people are addicted to sugar, and they deny it. Dr. Deb Muth 08:11Yeah. Dr. Holly Donahue 08:11It’s a comfort food, right? So, I always say, I can’t heal you until I fix your nutrition and your sugar, and if that’s not something that you’re willing to work on with me with love, I am not the right practitioner. Because I remember it didn’t heal me. Dr. Deb Muth 08:29Yeah. I think we forget that nutrition is our medicine, right? Food is thy medicine. And it’s so easy for us to just say, but it’s easier to just take 10 supplements than it is to change my diet, cook for the whole family, and then cook for me. Nutrition is really, really difficult for people, because so much of who we are is born into nutrition, right? All of those family traditions of what we make at Christmas, or Easter, or what do you do for a celebration, when all of that changes, you kind of… you have a loss for things. So how do you work around that with people? Dr. Holly Donahue 09:12Yeah, so I look at that as, I’m always suggesting to individuals in all these different celebrations, like, if you’re the one, kind of. that is the pinnacle that’s creating the celebrations, could you change that, right? So maybe you always have people over for your children’s birthday parties, and you have cake, and, you know, you have a spaghetti dinner, whatever it looks like. I’m not judging, I’m not here to judge, I just know what works, right? Then maybe you get to change that. How about doing an outdoor activity with the children? Maybe choosing to go on a hike to the beach where they’re active. And then, you know, you do a healthy treat with them, or do we always have to have these celebrations around sugar? And I’m talking America, because I never saw this when I lived in Europe, like, the way it is here, right? Or, a...
Transcribe →Episode 260 – How Trauma Passes Through Generations: Epigenetics, Trafficking and Chronic Illness
Apr 1300:13:45Tap to summarizeDr. Deb Muth February 2026, 3 million documents released, a network exposed. But here’s what no one is sayingThe trauma of trafficking doesn’t end when the victim escapes It doesn’t even end when that survivor’s lifetime. It writes itself into DNA. It alters the stress response of children not yet born. And it creates epigenetic markers that echo through 3, 4, and even 5 generations. This is not a metaphor, this is molecular biology. And if we don’t understand how deeply trauma sees itself. Biologically, genetically, and spiritually, we will never understand why autoimmune disease, addiction, and chronic illness are epidemic in families that carry this hidden history. Today, we’re going deeper than headlines. We’re going into the cells, the genes, and the soul. Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now. We’re here to uncover root causes, explore regenerative medicine, and empower you to heal from the inside out. I’m Dr. Deb, your medical detective, and today we’re confronting one of the most important and least discussed wellness topics of our time. How the exploitation and trafficking of women and children doesn’t just harm individuals, it damages bloodlines. And if you’re someone who carries an unexplained chronic illness, autoimmune disease, addiction, or trauma that seems to have no clear origin, this episode may finally connect the dots. Grab your cup of tea or coffee, settle in, and let’s go deep into this subject. Can you put an ad sponsor right here before we get started? Let’s start with what just happened. In February of 2026, the Department of Justice released over 3 million pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. According to The Guardian, on February 2nd, 2026, these files contained allegations that Epstein didn’t just abuse women, he provided them to other powerful men. One accuser identified Harvey Weinstein from a photo lineup. Describing coercion and payment. Another FBI document described threats of force. Lativia launched a criminal investigation after the files linked Epstein’s network to modeling agencies overseas. But here’s what I need you to understand. As a practitioner who treats trauma survivors, Epstein’s operation was not new. It was ancient. From Mesopotamian slave codes to Roman markets to the transatlantic trade, trafficking has always been about the same thing. Power, and exploiting vulnerability for profit. The tools change. Private jets instead of ships, social media instead of market squares. But the wound, it’s identical. And that wound… It doesn’t heal when the victim is freed. It embeds itself into biology. Let me explain what happens when a human being experiences the kind of trauma that trafficking creates. The immediate biological response. When someone is trafficked, their body enters a state of chronic survival mode. The autonomic nervous system, which controls unconscious functions like heart rate, digestion, immune response, it gets locked into a fight or flight. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, floods the system. At least, at first. This is protective. But when the threat never ends, when abuse is daily, when escape is impossible, cortisol stays elevated for months and even years. And here’s what chronic cortisol does. It suppresses immune function, making the body vulnerable to infections, cancer, and autoimmune disease. It disrupts the gut microbiome, leading to leaky gut, food sensitivity, and systemic inflammation. It dysregulates hormone production, thyroid sex hormones, insulin, and it creates metabolic chaos. It damages the hippocampus, the part of the brain region responsible for memory and emotional regulation. But it goes deeper than that. Cellular memory, trauma written into our tissues. Research published in the Biological Psychiatry of 2025 and Frontiers in Psychiatry 2025 shows that trauma doesn’t just affect the brain, it reprograms cells throughout the body. Mitochondria, the energy factories inside every cell, shift from producing ATP energy to producing reactive oxygen species, stress signals. This is why trauma survivors often develop chronic fatigue syndrome. That cortisol, over time, starts to dive down, and eventually can’t be produced when it’s supposed to be during a traumatic episode, and it stays at this low level, creating what we now know as chronic fatigue syndrome. Inflammatory genes turn on and stay on, even after the threat is gone. This is why we see such high rates of autoimmune disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, inflammatory bowel disease, in trafficking survivors. The fascia, the connective tissue that wraps every muscle and organ, stores trauma physically. This is why survivors develop chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and tension that no amount of massage can release. The body literally remembers the violation at a cellular level. The ACE study, Childhood Trauma as a Disease Predictor, the CDC’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Study in 2025, showed that 64% of the U.S. adults had experienced at least one ACE abuse. neglect, or household dysfunction. And nearly 1 in 6 has experienced 4 or more. And the data is devastating. The ACE that you have maybe experienced, if you have had this, you have a higher risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune disease, depression, suicide, and addiction. Trafficking survivors often score 8, 9, or 10 out of a 10 on the ACE scale. Their bodies are biologically aged by trauma. And according to the VA’s National Center for PTSD, PTSD is associated with excess mortality, meaning survivors die younger, not just from suicide, but from the stress related to chronic disease. Now, here’s where it gets even more profound. What is epigenetics? Well, your DNA is like a library of instructions, but not every book is open all the time. Epigenetics is the system that decides which genes get turned on. or off, without changing the DNA sequence itself. And here’s the critical discovery. Trauma can change those epigenetic marks, and those marks can be passed to your children. The Science of Inherited Trauma. The studies on the Holocaust survivors and their descendants showed that children and grandchildren of trauma survivors had altered stress hormone regulation, even though they never experienced the original trauma themselves. Research on famine shows in the Netherlands during World War II, Found that children born to mothers who were pregnant during starvation had higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease decades later. This happens because stress during pregnancy alters the developing fetus’ stress response system, and when a pregnant woman is trafficked, abused, or living in chronic fear, her elevated cortisol levels cross the placenta, and the baby’s developing brain is bathed in stress hormones. And the child’s HPA access, the stress regulation system, Is programmed for hypervigilance. The child is born with a biological predisposition to anxiety, depression, autoimmune disease, and addiction. And it doesn’t stop there. That child grows up, and if they have children, their altered stress response can influence the next generation through epigenetic inheritance, and through the environment they create. This is why we see patterns of addiction, autoimmune disease, and mental illness running through families, even when there’s no clear genetic mutation. It’s not just genetics, it’s inherited trauma written into gene expression. There is also a spiritual dimension to this. There’s something beyond biology here, something that science is only beginning to touch. Survivors often describe feeling disconnected from their bodies, as if their spirit left during the abuse. And never fully returned. This is disassociation, a survival mechanism. But in many healing traditions, somatic therapy, internal family systems, even ancient spiritual practices, there’s recognition that trauma fragments the self. And healing isn’t just about regulating cortisol or repairing the gut, it’s about reuniting the spirit with the body. It’s about teaching the nervous system that it’s finally safe to be fully present once again. And when that happens, when one person heals that fracture, it changes the trajectory for everyone else who comes after them. So what do we do with this knowledge? Well, first. Trauma-informed root cause medicine. Healing trafficking survivors and their descendants requires more than talk therapy. It requires nervous system regulation, vagal nerve stimulation, somatic experience, breathwork. Gut healing, repairing the microbiome, addressing that leaky gut, and reducing the inflammation. Hormone balancing, supporting adrenal function, thyroid, and sex hormones, detoxification, clearing accumulated toxins that the stressed body couldn’t process, both physically and emotionally. Nutritional restoration. Replenishing the nutrients depleted by chronic stress. This is functional medicine. This is what I do every day with my team. Second, we need epigenetic reversal, and that is actually possible. <p class="wp-bl...
Transcribe →Episode 259 – The Desiccated Thyroid Crisis: FDA’s Unseen Impact & Corporate Manipulation
Mar 3100:49:20Tap to summarizeDeb (00:03.606)Within the next seven months, up to 1.5 million Americans could lose access to a medication that they’ve relied on for decades. Not because it’s dangerous, but because a pharmaceutical giant may have lobbied the FDA to eliminate their competition. And if you’re one of them, your doctor may already have told you about this issue and stopped prescribing it.This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is documented in federal court filings. This is happening right now. And the company that stands to profit, well, they’re the same ones manufacturing the only product that might survive.Today on Let’s Talk Wellness Now, we’re exposing the desiccated thyroid extract crisis, the corporate manipulation behind it, and what you need to do right now to protect your health. Stay with me because I’m about to share what could save your access to the medication keeping you alive.Welcome back to Let’s Talk Wellness Now, the show where we uncover the root causes of chronic illness, expose regulatory capture in healthcare, and empower you with the tools to advocate for yourself. I’m Dr. Deb, naturopathic doctor, your medical detective, and today we’re diving into one of the most consequential and corrupt healthcare decisions affecting patients right now. If you or someone you love takes Armour thyroid, NP thyroid, or any desiccated thyroid extract,for hypothyroidism or if you’ve struggled to find a thyroid medication that actually works for your body, this episode is absolutely critical. And if you have celiac disease, gluten sensitivity or corn allergies, what I’m about to reveal will make your blood boil. Now grab your cup of coffee, don’t forget your notebook and settle in because what’s happening to this medication right now is a masterclass in how pharmaceutical companies use regular Deb (02:06.544)agencies to eliminate competition, control markets, and price gouge patients. And I have all the receipts. Deb (02:20.982)Let me start with what might surprise you. Desiccated thyroid extract, or DTE as we call it, is actually one of the most oldest thyroid medications in the world. And I mean old. From the 1890s through 1970, this was the standard treatment for hypothyroidism.Now let’s really dive into that. From the 1890s to the 1970s, this was standard hypothyroidism treatment.In 1965 alone, and this is documented in peer-reviewed literature published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, approximately four out of every five prescriptions for thyroid hormone in the United States were of natural desiccated thyroid preparations.The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism is a very high-end journal. Now think about that. This wasn’t some fringe therapy. This was mainstream medicine. Armour Thyroid, the most recognizable brand name, has been manufactured since the early 1900s, well over a century ago.and this is cited again in NIH bookshelf. When the FDA was officially established in 1938, Arbor thyroid was already on the market. And this is important and I want you to understand why. Under the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, any drug that was already being marketed before 1938 was automatically grandfathered into the system. That means it didn’t have to Deb (04:08.112)go through the formal FDA approval process. And this again is cited under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, grandfathered drugs and exemptions. And this is crucial to understanding what happens next. By the 1970s, synthetic levothyroxine, brand name Synthroid and generics became the preferred treatment. Hmm, wonder why?It was easier to standardize, came into consistent doses, and worked well for most patients, and could be mass manufactured. By the 1980s, levothyroxine had largely replaced desiccated thyroid in clinical practice, according to the American Thyroid Association 2014 guidelines for the treatment of hypothyroidism. But here’s what matters. Some patients…a very significant minority of them, never felt right on levothyroxine alone. Despite their lab work looking normal, they still had fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, cold intolerance, and depression.These patients often found relief when they switched back to their desiccated thyroid, which contains both T4 and T3 hormones, the way human thyroid naturally produces them. And this is not anecdotal. This is documented in randomized double-blind crossover studies published in Endocrine Practice.For decades, that was fine. Their doctors prescribed it, insurance sometimes covered it, patients were getting better, and the system worked really well. Until August 6th of 2025, just a short time ago, everything changed. On that date, the FDA sent letters to manufacturers, importers, and distributors of desiccated thyroid extract products stating that these medications would need an approval. Deb (06:04.654)a biologics licensed application, a BLA, to remain legally on the market. And this is cited in the FDA’s official statement, FDA’s actions to address unapproved thyroid medications. understand it says unapproved thyroid medications. However, desiccated thyroid, specifically Armour, has been approved since 1938. And this was dated August 6th through 7th, 2025.This wasn’t a guideline. This wasn’t a suggestion. It was an endorsement of action. And the timeline they gave them? Well, just 12 months to transition patients to another medication before enforcement action could begin.This was also cited by an FDA notice to the industry, animal derived thyroid products notice to industry, August 6th, 2025. Now do the math, that means August 2026, seven months from now, 1.5 million Americans currently taking this medication. And this number comes from the FDA official statement, citing that it’s an estimation of 1.5 million patients receiving prescriptions for these medications.could potentially lose their thyroid access. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. The FDA didn’t wake up in August of 2025 and decide to regulate desiccated thyroid after a century. This decision has a much longer backstory. And understanding that backstory is critical to understanding what’s really happening in this industry.The shift started in 2022. Back in September of 2022, over three years ago, an FDA branch chief sent a letter to the National Associations of Boards of Pharmacy noting that the agency had decided to designate DTE as a biological product, which would affect its eligibility for compounding. Deb (08:13.972)This also is cited in an FDA letter to the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy September 2022.Then two months later, in November of 2022, the FDA’s Office of Compounding Quality and Compliance sent a softer letter acknowledging that many Americans take medication to treat hypothyroidism and some choose to take DTE products. The letter stated that the FDA would focus enforcement on cases that pose the greatest public health risks, such as serious adverse offense or serious product quality or adulteration.also is cited by an FDA letter from Francis G. Bromel, the director, Office of Compounding Quality and Compliance, November of 2022. Now, let me just think about this for a second. If this drug has been on the market since the 1800s, been FDA approved since 1938, would we not have seen a health crisis long before 2022?I honestly don’t know of any other drug that’s been around this long that’s used by this many people. Now granted, I haven’t done the research on it either, which I can do for you guys, but I’m just thinking if a drug is on the market today and it causes harm, it doesn’t make it three years, five years before you see lawsuits everywhere. Why are there no lawsuits on this drug? Why are there no major reactions that people are seen having?Hmm, just thought. But here’s the pattern. The FDA was already laying the groundwork back in 2022, testing the waters, signaling where this was headed. The August 2025 action. Then this came down. Deb (10:09.806)August 6, 2025, the FDA announced its position publicly and sent formal letters to all DTE manufacturers, importers, and distributors. This was cited by the FDA Enforcement Action August 6, 2025, letters to manufacturers, importers, distributions of DTE products. The agency stated several concerns. First, DTE products have experienced quality and dosing issues.The FDA cited, and I’m quoting directly from their statement, over 500 adverse events reported associated with DTE products from 1968 to 2025. From 1968 to 2025, we had 500 adverse reactions? What is that math equate to?A couple a year? Come on guys, this is insane! With a substantial increase, you, between 2019 and 2020 that the agency suggested was related to voluntary recalls of sub-potent or super-potent products.This was cited in the FDA statement, over 500 adverse events reported associated with ADT products from 1968 through 2025.Second, the agency expressed concern about batch inconsistency. According to the FDA’s official statements, tablets made from the same manufacturing batches may not always provide the same thyroid hormone levels. Okay, this was cited in the FDA statement, tablets made from the same manufacturing batches may not always provide the same thyroid hormone levels. Thirdly, and I want to actually let’s back up. I want you to remember I said that Deb (12:11.216)because further down in this podcast, w...
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