← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
590. Blood Pressure Lies You've Been Told-And the Thyroid Link No One Mentions
00:53:07
Loading summary
Transcript76 lines
- [00:01]
A
It should just be helping your body in a temporary way. But this idea that once we get put on an antihypertensive, this is now what life looks like is an absolute absurdity. And it's. I'm going to say it. It's the medical community building a customer rather than fixing a problem.
- [00:19]
B
Welcome to the new and completely reimagined Thyroid Fixer podcast, a podcast that refuses to sound like every other health show out there. We're here to disrupt this entire space, and now you are part of that disruption. If you're listening right now, it's because something inside you finally said, I'm done being ignored. And I'm here to tell you good, because this is where everything changes for you. This is where you say, no more. No more being dismissed by your doctor. No more being told your labs are normal. No more recycled medical advice. No more recycled biohacking advice. No more being told to accept what you know isn't right here. You'll get truth. You'll get clarity. You'll get information you can actually use, tools, strategy, and guidance you can apply right now to take back your energy, your hormones, your metabolism, and your life. Every episode will give you something real, something that moves you forward, something that reminds you that you were never the problem the system was. This is the Thyroid Fixer podcast. This is your turning point. This is where you rise. Get ready. We're about to disrupt everything you thought you knew about thyroid and hormone health. Let's go. You have questions about your thyroid, about your labs, what they mean. What about your hormones? What about insulin? Why are you gaining weight? Why are you so tired? Why are you losing your hair? Why won't my doctor listen to me? Why won't my doctor test these things? All of these questions that you have running around in your brain, and you know that if you just had the answers that that could push you over the edge into optimal health, that you could be that badass human that you are meant to be. Well, I got you covered there because I am going live every single week in the just fix your thyroid Facebook group. That is my Facebook group. A beautiful community just filled with amazing people where I am in there, my nurse practitioners are in there. My health coaches are in there. There are patients in there that have been with me for so long, they're experts in their own right, and they answered just the way that I would. So we have you completely covered in this group. So not only can you post your question every single day, every single hour, if you want, you can mark your Calendars for our weekly live Q and A sessions where you get to ask your question to me and I'm going to answer it live on air. And not only that, we are doing product giveaways. We're doing working with our team giveaways. You're going to want to be in there and actually be live on that call. If you're at work going in the closet, just shut the door. Take minutes for yourself. Take a half an hour for yourself. Take an hour for yourself so that you can get the information that you need to to bring yourself into optimization land where you're not looking sideways at a brownie and gaining weight at the same time, where you can feel amazing every single day. Because that's my goal for you. You know that I love, love, love to answer your questions and this is the place where you can get them answered live. I completely and totally hear you and I see you and I understand you and I know exactly where you're at. You're gaining weight. You can't lose. You have all the symptoms that no one's listening to. The fatigue, the hair loss, the brain fog. You can't remember why you walked into a room. You don't want to get dressed and go out because you know if you have that glass of wine with your friend, if you have that dessert with your husband or even order an appetizer, you're going to be five pounds heavier the next day and your clothes are already tight. Every single doctor is telling you that you're normal and everything is fine. You've been to multiple conventional medicine doctors trying to use your insurance, hoping to God that somebody has an answer. Then you've dropped thousands of dollars on functional medicine or integrative medicine because you keep hearing how functional medicine gets to the root cause of the problem. But not every functional medicine practitioner knows the thyroid and knows the hormones and can treat you as a nuanced, personalized individual, a unique person. That is exactly what my team and I do. We specialize in thyroid problems. We specialize in hormones. You can't do one without the other. You cannot just see someone for your thyroid and have them ignore your hormones or have them half ass your hormones. They better be a hormone and thyroid expert. If you are going to spend your time, your energy and your money, if you are going to invest in functional medicine, they need to be a thyroid and hormone expert and treat you as an individual. They can't have a cap on how much T3 that they're going to give you. They have to personalize Your treatment plan to get you feeling your best, no matter what that looks like, so that every system in your body functions at the very top, at the very best. And that is exactly what we do. I made it my mission because I went through this. I was dismissed, I was gaslit, I was misdiagnosed, and I dropped thousands of dollars before I found an answer. That is why I made it my mission to be able to treat people in all 50 states so we can prescribe via telehealth, thyroid and hormones and peptides. Yeah, the GLPs as well, to all 50 states, most of Canada and now Puerto Rico. That is my mission to be able to help you wherever you are, because I want you living your best life. I want you to join me in optimization land, where you can go out and love life and go out with your friends and go out with your partner and not gain weight looking sideways at a brownie. Yes, we do have financing options available. I'm talking like 0% or 12 months, the whole thing, based on your credit score. We got you. And our programs are affordable. They're completely and totally affordable. And they will get you from point A to point B. They will bring you into optimization land. So please don't waste another moment struggling, please. I want you living here with me, a great, happy life in optimization land. So go to my website@dramy.com, click the Become a patient button so we can have a chat. Let's talk it out. Let's hear what you've done, what you haven't done, what's worked, what hasn't worked, and let's get you on the right path to feeling your absolute best. If you can imagine the best life ever, that is absolutely possible for you. I'm not BSing you. I am not BSing you. I was in your shoes. Many of my patients have been in your shoes. We will get you there, and that is my promise to you. One thing we have not talked about on the Thyroid Fixer podcast is, is blood pressure. And when we're talking about hormone shifting, going into perimenopause and menopause, losing your estrogen, or even having a thyroid problem, blood pressure issues are a huge component of both of those things. So you could just have hypothyroidism, and maybe you were told your blood pressure is high or maybe it's too low, you could be going into perimenopause and menopause, and now all of a sudden your doctor's saying, you know, Sally, you need a blood pressure medication. I think we need to control this a little bit more. And, you know, I can't even believe that. It's not a topic that I have honed in on and really broken down for my listeners, but I know it's a huge concern because BP meds are one of the many band aids that doctors like to throw on people, especially when women come to their office with a slew of symptoms that point to a thyroid condition or to hormonal issues. And we're just given these band aid medications. So I am bringing on an expert, Dr. Mark Young, today so we can have this deep, educated conversation about blood pressure and give people answers as to what they can do about it outside of taking one of these band aid meds that I also want to discuss because, wow, those really kick your ass. So, Mark, thank you so much for jumping on the show.
- [09:14]
A
Oh, thank you so much for the invite, Amy. I appreciate it.
- [09:16]
B
All right, so blood pressure, hypertension. Let's just start there. Like, what is it? What causes it? I mean, I already said thyroid, low hormone function, but let's go over all of the different causes.
- [09:29]
A
All the different causes. My gosh, that. That can be crazy. I first want to start by saying something. I've said this quite a bit, Amy, in previous conversations with other hosts and in other lectures I've given, and I want to preempt the conversation a little bit, kind of setting the stage for your listeners and saying, we think of hypertension, and the FDA has considered it, and the HCPCS codes and everything else have called this a diagnosis. And I want to really stop that for a second and say my personal opinion. So everything we're going to talk about here is going to come from this worldview, and that is hypertension is a symptom of a deeper problem. It is the downstream to an unfixed upstream, and yet we're calling it a diagnosis. And my personal pet peeve with this is that when we call hypertension a diagnosis, we stop looking any further. And I know you know this in talking about thyroid issues, right? Like, oh, you've got a thyroid problem, do you? Or. Or is this. There's something else that needs corrected, and then everything else works just fine. Like, as soon as we call something a diagnosis, like hypertension, right, we give it a name. And once we give it a name, we give it life. And once we give life to it and we tell people you have high blood pressure, how it becomes part of their identity, and that diagnosis now becomes something permanent rather than causing more upstream investigation. And so I do want to Start from that perspective and say, sure, I'd love to talk about hypertension, but please let's make sure we're talking about it as a downstream symptom and not a diagnosis.
- [11:01]
B
Oh, I love that because I always say symptoms are literally gifts given to you by your body.
- [11:07]
A
Yeah, symptoms are signals.
- [11:09]
B
They're signals. It's like, hello, let's pay attention here because something else is happening. So I love that you started that way because I completely agree, especially when it comes to blood pressure issues that's always tied to something else. It's not just one day like our bodies go, you know what, we're going to bump up this systolic and diastolic pressure a little bit in this person. Because why not? Right? Why not?
- [11:31]
A
No, there's things going on. So like when, when your original question was, you know, what are the things that cause this? Oh dear God. Then that's probably the reason why people just stop. And I mean, you know this like, it's kind of like, well, what's causing weight gain? One of 32 possible issues. And calories is probably not the reason. Like.
- [11:52]
B
Right.
- [11:53]
A
It could be any number of things. And the problem is is people want to make a real cause and effect, you know, connect the dots kind of conversation. And often it is, it's an upstream thing. So what are some of the things that can be causing hypertension? Well, I'm not going to rule out stress. Right. Like just things such as stress are causing this. The inability to process nitric oxide correctly in the body, which itself is a downstream to a dozen upstreams. I mean using mouthwash for that matter. I mean you're actually killing your, your oral microbiome and causing nitric oxide production problems which could lead to vasoconstriction, which leads to hypertension. Right. Like so many things, but it can be something. And the thing that I talk about most often is that as we age, and I hate those phrases because if anybody knows about my aging defiantly community. So if any of my fitter over 50 fans are watching, the reality is, is that as we age tends to be the excuse or the throwaway line I call it that people use to just expl things rather than talking about, you know, blood pressure shouldn't be any different at 70 as it was in 20. Like blood pressure is, blood pressure, like it should be the same throughout life and yet we've accepted that aging causes it. Now the age related issue with most things, but hypertension especially is bad inputs lead to bad outputs. Right. It's lifestyle it's environmental factors, it's diet, it's exercise. All of these things are leading to your entire cardiovascular lining getting depleted of the nutrients that it needs so it doesn't function the way it used to. And then, as you said, we treat it like a diagnosis, we give it a pill, and we move on with our lives.
- [13:39]
B
Right.
- [13:40]
A
Like, not the answer. Like, let's get in and figure out what that looks like. Why the downstream signal that we're dealing with.
- [13:48]
B
Well, and I think people get scared. So the medical gaslighting comes from the doctors as well. I mean, they're telling people that this is a disease. They're telling people you're just getting older, so this is just something that happens. So I think there's the confirmation from their doctors, even though it is medical gaslighting when they're saying that. And then there's just the fear that, oh, you know what? It's my heart. Like, it's my heart health. So, yeah, doc, you better give me that pill. Because I, you know, I've heard all, all this talk about natural ways to control my blood pressure, but it's my heart. I don't want to take the chance. And I think that that fear drives people into making the decision to take the band aid medication without exploring other options or exploring the downstream effect.
- [14:35]
A
Well, and sometimes. And I don't want to rule out the necessity of intervention as well. So to a listener who's like, yeah, but I started taking the pills because it was urgent. Like, if you go and your blood pressure is way out of control, take the pill. Like, do that. And while you're doing that, give yourself a timeline that you start getting it under control in a natural way. Let your body learn to use its innate intelligence to heal itself. Give it the proper inputs so that you can get off of that pill. But the pill should be nothing more than interventionary, Right? It should be the splint that goes on a broken bone that just holds it in place until things go back to normal. And that's all that blood pressure medication should be. It should just be helping your body in a temporary way. But this idea that once we get put on an anti hypertensive, this is now what life looks like, is an absolute absurdity. And it's, I'm going to say it. It's the medical community building a customer rather than fixing a problem.
- [15:36]
B
Oh, all day long. And I will tell you, anyone that's listening, if you're on any kind of BP med, you know that it robs you of energy it kicks your butt. Butt. And I mean, I gotta tell you, my husband, who's very, very active, very type A driver active, the whole deal. Couple years ago, he was having this random. And now this is outside of bp, but they use the BP med. He was having this random AFIB attack that we kind of correlated to his exposure to some spike proteins floating around. Right. And because when he moved out of the environment where he was being exposed, they went away. But sure enough, doctors put him on Metropolis. And I mean, within weeks, he's like, I can't do this. I can't take this medication. I don't want to get off the couch. I have no energy. I don't want to work out. I mean, it literally robbed his life. So, of course we use it exactly how you said. We use it temporarily because it's like, okay, it's scary to see heart rate going up and down like a lie detector test. But then we figured out what was causing it, got it under control, implemented some nitric oxide and implemented some supplementation, and now he's back to normal. But those meds will kick your ass.
- [16:50]
A
Yeah, my dad literally was in hospital two weeks ago. Super active guy. He's 68, super crazy active. He's. He races cars, you know, in his free time. That's his hobby. But has high blood pressure. He's been trying to get under control, super into natural health and supplementation and all the other kind of stuff, but still running the struggle. But a lot of his is not eating correctly because it's like, you can supplement all you want, but your diet sucks. Let's have this conversation. And he also suffers with. A lot of people don't realize that sleep apnea is also a huge cause of afib. And he's got to get those things under control. So get the sleep apnea under control, get these other things, which, again, whole nother issue. But, yeah, same thing. They ended up putting him on two different meds I was not a fan of. They put him on a beta blocker, which I was like, not a fan. And they put him on a blood thinner. And the reason for the blood thinner, for people who are not familiar with afib, is the biggest threat when you're in atrial fibrillation is stroke. Because what happens is that the blood in the upper chambers, the atrial chambers of the heart, it beats irregularly, which means not all of the blood gets out. So some of the blood gets trapped. And when that blood gets trapped, it can end up causing a blood clot, which can lead to stroke. So the bigger issue is keeping the blood thinner so that you don't have a stroke. But again, that's temporary. You can't live that way. And it was amazing because the next day or two days later or something, he was. I was up in Michigan when this was all going on, and he was going to the dentist. I'm like, people don't realize the dumb stuff because he's going to the dentist and his assistant happened to say he was at the dentist, and I started. I was. Text him immediately. I'm like, if you're on that blood thinner, do not not go to the dentist right now, because you're going to end up with your gums bleeding all over the place because you're not like. And he. He actually was funny because he replied. He goes, don't worry about it. I skipped the last two doses for that reason. I know. I'm like, all right. Yeah, like, I'm glad you're on top of it, But I'm also watching out. But the things you don't even think about. And how many people wouldn't have even. I mean, fortunately, I was thinking about it, and even more fortunately, he had already thought about it. But people don't know how to live that way. Like, right, we're. We're unicorns, right? Like, we happen to know these types of connections because of what we do all day. But I don't want to live that way. That's what I'll say. And I don't think there's any listener to your show right now that wants to live on a blood pressure medication.
- [19:17]
B
Exactly. Exactly. No, it does steal your quality of life. Now, I've heard you explain the whole process of what is happening to our arteries when we have this hypertension and you equate it to a garden hose. So can you give that analogy? Because I. I love using analogies. I love helping my people really understand and get that visual aspect of what's going on inside our. Our body. So talk.
- [19:41]
A
My life is a metaphor.
- [19:43]
B
Yeah, I know. I know.
- [19:45]
A
It's everything in my life. I can correlate something to everything. So, yeah, I mean, when. When we talk about high blood pressure, literally, what you're talking about is, imagine that garden hose, as you just mentioned in that metaphor, and that is pressure buildup. Happens when there's too much fluid moving through a limited space. Now, imagine the fact that your cardiovascular system, your blood vessel. Metaphorically, my hands, right now, that blood vessel is constricted for some reason. Well, the same amount of blood needs to move through that vessel all day, every day for your entire life. But what happens is that the blood that's moving through your system over the course of your life, if that blood vessel gets more constricted, it gets pressure buildup. Now imagine, like I said, that that garden hose. Put a kink in a garden hose. And then imagine what happens, you know, you know the pressure builds up because when you let it go, it explodes everywhere. Right. But only for a moment. Well, that's what's happening to your heart, though, and where people end up. The problem that your body is experiencing with blood pressure is not the pressure itself, it's the, the burden that you're putting on the heart. Because the heart is what pumps that blood throughout the entire system. So if your heart has to push the blood all the way through the entire system and back again, imagine, and I'll use the other metaphor I've talked about that garden hose, but it's like an on ramp on the freeway, right? Why is it that all of a sudden everything seems really congested and then it's not. It's that traffic builds up in a certain area, but then once you pass the on ramp, everything is normal. And you're like, well, there's same amount of cars, like what happened here. And it's literally trying to get your circulatory system to expand. Like, imagine that all of that happened, but you added a lane on the freeway. All of a sudden the traffic doesn't seem as big of a deal anymore, right? Why? Because you widened the ability for cars to travel through that exact same pathway. Like now there's six lanes instead of five. It's amazing what a difference that little extra space can make. And that's what happens with our circulatory system. The problem is, is when we don't have that extra lane in traffic or when we don't have that extra flexibility in the hose, what ends up happening is our heart has extra burden and it's only going to be able to keep up with that burden for so long.
- [22:01]
B
Okay, so then when that occurs over time, and let's say we ignore it, is that what is setting us up for a stroke or what? What can happen if we do ignore that?
- [22:14]
A
Yeah, and ultimately what happens in those cases is not even necessarily a stroke, because a stroke typically happens because of some kind of clot, which is a different issue. But a heart attack would be that the heart is just over tasked. So the heart attack would be that the muscle, that is the heart is pumping, pumping, pumping, pumping, but you're making it work so hard that eventually it's, like, done. Like, I just. I can't keep up at this pace anymore. And imagine the case, like, if you were out running, different people have different ability to run, but everybody expires at some point, right? Some sooner than others. So you're just exhausting that muscle to such a point that it gives up. And the heart typically only gives up for a second and then recovers. But in that moment is when you do experience that heart attack. Right? And multiple different types, as we just talked afib. I mean, there's all sorts of different types of heart conditions that can take place. But the thing that I really, really caution people on is that your heart is the one organ in the body that doesn't heal. And a lot of people don't even realize that, like, you get one. Your liver will hear, your kidneys will heal, your skin heals, your. Your blood vessels heal. Like, everything. Your lungs can heal. Like, all of these things happen. But when your heart has damage, your heart has damage. And that damage does build up over time. And that's why we can look at different biomarkers like creatine kinase levels or. Or troponin levels and stuff like that that are already in the blood or in that tissue and can tell if you've ever had a heart attack. I'm sure we all know stories of somebody who went to a doctor, and the doctor is just like, well, it looks like you've had a heart attack in the past. Well, how would I be able to tell if someone had a heart attack five years ago? Right. Like, that would be a really weird thing. It's because it leaves clues behind. The residue is still there because the heart doesn't go back to normal. And that's why people who have a heart attack tend to have another and tend to have another.
- [24:09]
B
Wow, that is crazy. And you can have a heart attack without even knowing it. Like you said, sometimes it's just that split second and then the heart comes back online. But it was still considered a heart attack.
- [24:19]
A
Correct. And it can still do permanent damage. So it is particularly. And again, I may seem a little bit biased in this category because of what I get to do all day, but the reality is, is that taking care of your thyroid, taking care of your brain, taking care of your muscle, like, all of that matters, but taking care of your heart's particularly important because it doesn't go back. So a mistake with your heart is a lifetime mistake. So early. Early health as it relates to Cardiovascular health is extraordinarily important. Now, that is true of the heart. That's not true of the cardiovascular system, unfortunately. So there are things we can do to reverse damage to the cardiovascular system, and by doing that, we end up keeping the heart healthy simply because damage that happens to cardiovascular system normally leads to a problem with the heart, not the other way around. And that is that vasoconstriction, that is that lack of flow or that increased pressure.
- [25:18]
B
Well, now talk to me more about that, because we know that when we see estrogen drop during. It starts to go crazy in perimenopause and then it drops off a cliff in menopause, that, that. That really can have a huge adverse effect on vasodilation and then raise blood pressure in menopause. So can you unpack that a little bit more for my menopausal ladies out there listening? Because I, you know, I try to tell them estrogen is great for your hair and your skin and our waistlines and. But then there's that whole other layer internally that we're not thinking about when it comes to hormones and protection of our heart.
- [25:56]
A
Yeah. And you're correct in saying that there's a number. I was actually trying to give you the correct and exact correct number, but I'll just throw the number out there and say roughly 45.6% of the population is diagnosed with hypertension. Now, that's US numbers, arguably, probably the same throughout the world, but it's tracked differently amongst different countries, obviously. But in the U.S. i mean, that's what, four out of nine people are diagnosed with hypertension. And that's just the people that have been diagnosed, Amy. Like that. That's the scary part is like, that's just the diagnosed numbers. That's not even estimating the people who haven't even been diagnosed yet. Because we talk about hypertension, high blood pressure as being the silent killer. Because people don't even know they have a problem until suddenly they have a problem. Right. They're usually formed most people, not all. Some people end up seeing, you know, flushing or migraines or exhaustion, things like that. Like your husband, right. Like something cued him in that something was going on, and it was that afib. Same with my dad, Right. He. He felt like he was having a panic attack, which then end up leading to him going to the hospital to check out, because that's very unusual. So there. Sometimes there's symptom, sometimes there's not. 50% of people who have AFIB don't even experience A symptom that this is all going on and they don't even know it. So, I mean, the reality is, is that both of them are fortunate that they were one of the 50% or two of the 50% who actually noticed the symptom. But four out of nine people have been diagnosed. Now, I'm going to go a little weird and say that's not coincidental. Like, that is what's happening. And that, that is a, that is a lifestyle issue where we're driving way too hard. And I'm one to talk to you of all people. Right, I know.
- [27:41]
B
Me too. Guilty. Guilty.
- [27:44]
A
Totally. I mean, you put a couple alphas on a call and that's what's going to happen. But you get the, the driving too hard, we get the lifestyle type issues. And it's, again, not to go too crazy, but I mean, everything from just the exposure that we get all over the place around us, right? Like, it's everything from the EMF to the pollutants and everything. I mean, I live downtown Fort Lauderdale. Like, I'd have to live in a Faraday bag to stay away from stuff. Like, I mean, it's absurd to think that, that we'd ever get away from all of it. It's diet and it's, it's the way that we're feeding our bodies. Terrible. It's movement. I mean, how many people are just completely sedentary? I just read an article today or yesterday saying that sitting is the new.
- [28:28]
B
Smoking as I sit here for the fourth hour of recording podcast. That's great, Mark, thanks. Right.
- [28:36]
A
I'm sitting here talking to you, like, but the reality is sitting's the new smoking. I'm like, oh, dear God. Like, I'm smoking eight packs a day because I'm sitting at a desk. I'm, I'm, you know, working. Now, you and I are both average gym freaks and stuff like that. So it's, it's not as if we're not getting an exercise. But the reality is, is that too much of our country is just a sedentary lifestyle. And then as you mentioned earlier, then you go on a BP medication that makes you tired, that just makes you sit more. That leads back to a higher blood pressure because you're not physically active, which leads you to increase your meds, which makes you more tired. And the cycle continues. It's like, when do we get off this merry go round and do something? You know, my entire message is all about what can we do to get in the middle of this and break the Cycle, especially for people that are on meds already.
- [29:26]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, have you seen women when they start hormone therapy and they start replacing their estrogen? Well, first I want you to explain why that estrogen depletion affects our vasodilation, our blood pressure so much. And then have you seen women reverse their hypertension when they start hormone therapy?
- [29:49]
A
Yeah. So as it relates to, I'll say perimenopause, pre menopause, menopause, so on. But one of the biggest things that we don't notice is that when we think of hypertension. Let me make sure I'm setting the stage here. When we think of hypertension in our generation, you and I are roughly the same age. Like, I grew up believing that this was a man's problem.
- [30:10]
B
Yes.
- [30:10]
A
High blood pressure was a man's issue. And, you know, men were the ones who were at risk for heart attacks. You didn't hear much about women having heart attacks. Now, the reality is, is that once women pass menopause, so usually, you know, once they get, I'd say, a. The average age for a woman to go through menopause right now is 51. So once a woman goes through menopause, the number of women that experience cardiovascular events is 60% more likely than a man, which is.
- [30:38]
B
Yeah, I think that their biggest killer. Isn't it heart disease?
- [30:41]
A
It is, absolutely. And it flips like that switch flips, and then all of a sudden it's a female problem. Like, at 40 years old, it. It is like a. 60, 40 men. As soon as a woman goes through menopause, it is 100% up there. And you. You said it exactly right. And that is, estrogen is actually one of the body's greatest sources of vasodilation. So when we think of vasodilation, your body has this innate intelligence that it knows what it needs to do when it needs to do it. Right. And we do it reflexively. If I were to, like, move quickly, your eyes close, right. You flinch to protect yourself, and it's of kind, completely responsive. Same way, if the pressure gets too built up, what happens? Well, the body knows to expand the blood vessels, and they don't expand so much that your blood pressure goes too low. They stay in that Goldilock zone, which is right around what we call normal blood pressure, which, again, in our generation was 120 over 80. But they just went and changed it a couple years ago and said 110 over 72.
- [31:41]
B
Now, I have battled insomnia and had issues with sleep for 25 years. And I have tried it all, yes, even the sleep medications that I was relying on for many, many years just to get sleep. Until I discovered the unique stack of ingredients that I now have in Sleep Fixer. So I would experiment with myself, bringing in this supplement, bringing in this ingredient, combining them until I could find, find something that would actually help me fall asleep, stay asleep, wake up refreshed, and this is it. This is it. Finally all together in Sleep Fixer. So I'll tell you about just a couple of the ingredients. Number one, Gaba. Gaba is our calming neurotransmitter. So when you lay down and your brain is just chattering away and you're thinking of all the things you didn't get done that day, GABA comes in to chill you out. Stacked with L Theanine, which is a natural ingredient found in tea, L Theanine helps to calm the brain as well, promotes relaxing brain activity. Very, very safe for everyone, including children. And then melatonin at a very small dose, 0.5 milligrams. I know many of you say, I can't take melatonin. It gives me nightmares. I wake up groggy. I get that. But if we mimic the, the exact amount that your brain produces at night when it gets dark, then it's natural. It's in tune with your natural circadian rhythm. And you're not going to get those crazy side effects like you do with higher doses of melatonin. And then we have five HTP that helps you to stay asleep. Chamomile flower, Very, very soothing. Inositol, which is amazing for us perimenopausal and menopausal women. So this stack is the Mac Daddy stack that you need to get to sleep, to stay asleep and to get deeper sleep. So go to betterlifedoctor.com search for sleep fixer and get a good night's sleep, because without sleep, our health will suffer anyways.
- [33:50]
A
That's a different topic. But, but the reality is, is that as estrogen goes down in the body and hormone levels go down in the body, that ability for the body to naturally sense when something is off actually decreases. So it's not even that the blood vessels can't expand, it's that they lost the ability to know that they should. So estrogen would naturally increase vasodilation and keep blood flow. Which, by the way, is why when a lot of women go through menopause, not just hormonal changes and hormonal reduction, it's also the reason why many women go through menopause and actually lose interest or have trouble with sexual performance. It's a blood flow problem. Same as it is for men. You know, men who are experiencing, like we always talk about erectile dysfunction in men. ED in men is not a problem. It's a signal. It's letting you know something's up. Well, or maybe not, but it's, it's letting you know that, that there's a problem somewhere else. And again, typically, what do we do? We go end up, you know, getting people on an ED met. But for women, do they have the ability to reverse this with hormonal like HRT and whatnot? Sure. And you do end up noticing that HRT will actually help with that. But the reality is, is it's incumbent on women to do everything to try to increase that vasodilation to make sure that your body can actually expand those blood vessels when necessary. Else you are going to experience that high blood pressure. And HRT is not just the solution. It certainly helps, but it's not the only thing. Because your cardiovascular system is not just dependent on HRT because that's one element of vasodilation. But it doesn't get over the environmental or the nutritional or the lifestyle type things that we already talked about. That's happening anyways.
- [35:40]
B
Right? Right. Okay, so say someone, they know, they have a blood pressure issue, they're on a medication or maybe they've been told they need to get on medication, they've done all like the diet changes and the lifestyle and they're moving and all that good stuff. Maybe they throw in some HRT and it's just not, it's not getting them there, it's just not moving the needle. And I'm going to use my dad as an example. He has had blood pressure issues his entire life. And we've done the diet, we've done the exercise, we've done all the things. But it really wasn't until I gave him the Zona device that we're going to talk about that moved the needle for him. So I actually saw it change his blood pressure on a daily basis to where he's kind of like your dad, like he'll self medicate even though his doctor hates him when he does that. So if he takes his blood pressure in the morning and it's good, or if it's a little high end zone and brings it down, he'll skip his pill that day or he'll, he'll bite it in half and take a lesser amount. And that I'm totally Fine with him doing that. Because why not? I mean, no one has a lisinopril deficiency, right? So why not just dose it yourself if you can have something else that will affect it? So I want to talk about this device. And before we do, I just want to tell the listeners this one thing. This is not like a sponsored episode. I brought Mark on because, number one, we're friends. We started talking about blood pressure. He gave me the device to try with my dad, and it freaking worked. So now I'm bringing it to the world. So this is not like a plug for, you know, yet another biohacking tool. This is a biohacking tool that actually does work. So I just wanted to throw that out there to the audience because, you know, a lot of people talk about stuff and they're like, oh, yeah, they're getting paid well, okay, I have an affiliate code. We're going to give you a hundred dollars dollars off. But this isn't a sponsored episode. I'm bringing this to you because it's cool as. And I want to unpack it. So talk to me about Zona, because this is a. This is something else that people can do. No medication. No medication.
- [37:42]
A
And. And I'm gonna say I love the fact that you called it a biohack, even though the word biohack kind of gets on my nerves nowadays. Because it does.
- [37:51]
B
You're right. Yeah.
- [37:52]
A
Every. But here's. I'm gonna say that, though, like, everything is a biohack today. And it's kind of like, okay, yeah, but this is like the OG Biohack. Like, this has been around for a long time, but it literally is hacking your own biology. It is taking what your body already knows how to do and getting your body to just do what it already knows how to do. It's just providing the exercise is really what it does to get the very specific input to a very specific output. It's not a supplement. You don't add anything. You're not reducing anything. You're not restricting any. You're literally just using this very specific input. So I'm going to set the stage here for us, Amy, and tell you that Zona, the Zona plus device, it is a biohack device. And I say it's the ultimate biohack. It is the combo shot to the corner pocket. And that is when you're doing a biohack. It's like, well, this triggers this, triggers this, triggers this. So this, what looked like, like it has nothing to do with the outcome, ends up having an outcome that you're like, okay, I wouldn't have seen that coming because, you know, A triggers B, triggers C and then D becomes the output. And that's kind of exactly the way this works. So I'm going, I'm going to walk you through what it does. But Zona is a device that actually uses hand grip. And before everybody jumps to their conclusion and says, oh, it's like one of those ball squeezy thingies, I've got one like here in my ditch. No, it's not that. It's absolutely not that. It's like, oh, so it's like one of those squeeze things that you like. You like your grip exerciser. Nope, it's not that. It's literally the opposite of those things. And I always have to set the stage and say there's a difference between aerobic exercise versus anaerobic exercise. So I'll start by saying aerobic is like a sit up, right? There's eccentric movement which is when I go up and then there's concentric movement which is I contract the muscle and then there's eccentric movement which is when I go back down and elongate the muscle. I go up, down, concentric, eccentric. This is isometric. So like you would you like, a sit up would be one form of exercise which is aerobic. This is anaerobic. It's like a plank. It's holding a muscle group in exactly the same position for. We've got it calibrated at a two minute interval. But that two minute isometric is what causes the difference. Now doing a plank is a very different ab exercise than doing a sit up. And anybody who's a workout person knows this. And by the way, I would rather do sit ups all day long than two minute plank.
- [40:26]
B
Like that's tough for two minutes. My gosh.
- [40:29]
A
And that's the ideal plank time too, by the way. But yeah, so you've got this, this anaerobic versus aerobic. So before we go into this hand grip, what's happening in this is it's controlling your body to exactly the right thing. And it's all driven by algorithms that know exactly. It calibrates to your unique grip strength and does all this stuff. But what it does is it has you squeeze it as hard as you can and then let go and then it determines how much you should squeeze it. So you're only holding it for a part of a portion of your maximum voluntary contraction. So you just literally sit and hold this thing. But it's going to yell and scream at you if you go too much or too little. So it literally holds you in exactly the same point. And I tell people it's like putting your foot on the gas and staying at exactly 70 miles an hour. And if you go to 71 or you go to 69, the car starts yelling like, that's what using Zona is like. You've got to hold it in exactly that spot. And it's funny because at first, people really struggle with it, and you wouldn't think that would be hard. And then it's kind of like muscle memory. So here's our combo shot. What does this do? Well, the first thing that happens is that when my body goes into this isometric hold, it literally is thinking there's a problem because the body moves towards comfort. It's why we fidget in our chairs even while we're sitting here having this conversation, right? Because my body moves towards comfort. And anything that sticks in the same spot for this too long, it's uncomfortable, and I move around and whatever. When your body's holding an uncomfortable position, your brain assumes there's a problem, and it immediately responds. So if my arm is super uncomfortable in a position, imagine it's like crossing your legs until your leg falls asleep, right? Like, it's super weird to your body, and your body doesn't know why you're doing that to yourself. It triggers the sympathetic nervous system. And the sympathetic nervous system, for those who are not familiar, is the fight or flight mode. We've got sympathetic, which is that heightened fight or flight. And then we have the parasympathetic nervous system, which is what we call the rest and digest, that the body is at peace, or the body is an en. Heightened level of awareness. Picture it the, you know, caveman days. I'm being chased by a lion versus the lion is no longer in sight, right? I sprint or I rest. Those are the two speeds that humans were meant to move at. That being said, I'm triggering the sympathetic nervous system. Well, the first thing the body does when that sympathetic nervous system is activated is it increases vasodilation through nitric oxide production. So nitric oxide is produced. Your entire body gets flooded with nitric oxide, which, as we all have learned, is actually a vasodilator. So blood goes everywhere because your brain's first responses. There's limited blood flow. I need to get blood there. What's the best way to get blood there? Increase the size of the cardiovascular system so that blood can flow more freely. Great. Got that little push. I get some nitric Oxide release. That's fantastic. As a matter of fact, I will say because of the ability to increase nitric oxide production, other than cardiovascular health, the number two reason that people purchase Zona is actually to correct erectile dysfunction, because that increased nitric oxide actually increases blood flow, which is crazy. But it's a biohack, right? Yeah. Okay.
- [43:48]
B
I like it. A nice little side effect for the guys. I mean, I'm just saying.
- [43:52]
A
For women, too.
- [43:52]
B
Why not?
- [43:53]
A
But, yeah, absolutely. So there's a deeper level that goes on here, though, is because the nitric oxide is one thing. But I want to get to that combo shot real quick. What ends up happening when you're doing this isometric hold is, as you know, you're a fitness enthusiast, that anytime you stress a muscle like that and the muscle is in some static motion, the body's response to it is to increase sodium release, because the sodium release will actually stop a muscle from spasming. It's why electrolytes and everything are so important. When we're especially doing distance runs or working out heavily, we have to keep the sodium high because the sodium levels being high actually decreases the muscles, like, likelihood of spasming. Well, at every cell, sodium and potassium must always remain in an equal balance. So if sodium gets released from a cell, potassium gets released from a cell also. Okay. Kind of an interesting little fact there. Well, let's go back to our cardiovascular system. It is lined with what's called the endothelium or the endothelial lining. And that endothelium is what decides whether or not the blood vessel will expand or contract or not. So if the endothelium begins to harden over time, based on lifestyle, based on nutrition, based on any number of things, that endothelium over time, and I'll use the phrase as we age, because that's where the bad inputs or lack of inputs happen. Ends up like drying out like a sponge. Imagine it like a spongy material that dries over time. Now, try washing a glass with a dry sponge. Right. You can't even get the sponge inside because it's hard. Well, that hardening allows zero flexibility. So in that zero flexibility endothelium, the pressure increases because it's not expanding. It's not moving at all. Here's the crazy part to our combo shot. Potassium is the only thing that softens the endothelium. So what's happening is potassium being removed from the cell and pushed into the bloodstream has to pass through the endothelial wall. And as it does, the Endothelium begins to soften as that endothelium softens, which happens over time. It doesn't happen in one. One day, over the course of a few weeks, that endothelium actually begins to soften. And then your body's innate intelligence turns back on and says, oh, gosh, like, our pressure is too high. Like, what? Whoa. How long has this been going on? Right? And it begins to expand and pressure begins to go down to normal levels simply because we've just. All we've done was hacked into what already existed. You already had potassium in your cell, so we're doing this weird muscle movement because the muscle will hack the potassium, and the potassium will actually soften the endothelium, which gets the cardiovascular system functioning correctly. So it's. I'm using one system of the body to hack into the other one, which is, you know, like I said, it's the ultimate biohack. It's that OG of biohacking. Like, it's not a fancy supplement. It's not some, you know, sexy new product. It's not red light. It's. It's just getting your body to do what it does.
- [46:57]
B
Oh, my God. It really is the OG of biohacking. Because, you know, everybody talks about the innate healing capacity of our body, but this is literally kicking up the innate processes that are built into us to improve our blood pressure and heal. Okay, you just blew me away a little bit.
- [47:17]
A
Yeah, it's the og.
- [47:19]
B
It really is it.
- [47:21]
A
It legit is the OG of biohacking. It is. It is. How do I get one system? And I use the example. When people don't know what biohacking is, I always use the example. I'm like, well, it's like tanning. And they're like, tanning is a biohack. I'm like, yeah. Truthfully, I expose my body to UVA or UVB light, which actually increases melanin production. And as melanin is produced in the skin, the UVA light oxygenates it. The oxygenation process turns the melanin brown. And I like the way I look. I've literally hacked into my body's defense from overexposure to UVB light. And my body creates a tan to stop it from baking from the inside out. And because I hacked into its defense. Oh, look, I look nice, like, and people have picked up. Oh, I get it. Like, that's all it is.
- [48:07]
B
There you go.
- [48:07]
A
I like them to get an output on another.
- [48:09]
B
Well, and it works. You know, like I said, I've Seen it with my dad. So he's significantly reduced slash, eliminated throws in every once in a while when he has to his BP med. But what else have you seen, like, anecdotally from your customer base? I'm sure you've had a multitude of stories from people coming in.
- [48:27]
A
Yeah, well, the biggest thing that we see, and what I'm always cautious about, is that anytime that you add something into your health program protocol, particularly if you're already medicated, is make sure that you're not over medicated. That's always my caution to people. Like, I. I'm glad to see that people are using those types of hacks. But make sure you're not over medicated now, because it's no different than if you were using blood pressure medication and took up jogging. Like, I would also tell you, pay attention to your blood pressure, because your blood pressure's natural state will never just push you way too low. But if you normalize your blood pressure and you're taking an anti hypertensive, you can push yourself into too low of, like, hypotenusive, where you actually take your blood pressure too low. And it's because your body's natural system regulated, but you're putting in this additional substance that's too much, so you don't want to have normal blood pressure. And a blood thinner, that would. That would be terrible.
- [49:25]
B
Right. Right. Now, can Zona help? There are those small subset of people, but especially the hypothyroid people that have too low of a blood pressure. And literally I'm like, eat some salt. I don't, like, eat garbage food. I don't know how to. Can Zona actually help them bring it up? Is it a regulation device or just.
- [49:47]
A
So interesting that you say that? Because people look at a thing like zone, and I want to get into the salt thing in a moment, but people look at Zona as an example, and they're just like, oh, well, my blood pressure is already too low. I shouldn't use this. I'm like, like, well, that's kind of like saying I'm at normal weight, so I probably shouldn't exercise. Like, no, it means that you still have to do things that keep your body healthy. Right? Like, just because you used the treadmill to lose ten pounds and now the ten pounds is gone, do you stop using the treadmill? Like, is the treadmill going to make you too skinny or is it just going to get you to normal? And then you're going to be normal? And the answer is you're going to Go to normal. So in using Zona, even for people who are hypotensive, the reality is, is all it's going to do is polish off your. Your, your cardiovascular system. It's just going to make you healthier because you are caring for that cardiovascular system. So whatever the reason is that you run low doesn't mean that you shouldn't be exercising because of it. Right. In fact, I would say everybody ought to be doing this type of exercise because if we call it cardiovascular conditioning and everyone needs that, that's not exclusive to a disease stay. That's that upstream. We're talking downstream being high blood pressure. But the upstream is everyone should have a healthy cardiovascular system, regardless what the downstream diagnosis is.
- [51:10]
B
That's true. That's true. So this is actually an everyone device too, like prevention and improvement of your.
- [51:17]
A
Yeah, we actually find that a lot of people who are like extreme athletes even use this. And it's because it actually increases that nitric oxide production naturally without supplementation, which increases muscle recovery. I mean, nitric oxide increases blood flow and it actually helps for muscle recovery. So people who are using it for even like competition or people who are using it who are just, you know, heavy lifters or anything like that, you just end up saving yourself recovery time because you're able to fast track the recovery through increased blood flow. And a lot of people, and I say, like, this is funny because, you know, my gym just installed a bunch of cold plunges and all the cells. It's the new trendy. And I see these guys who are just like, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift. And like, oh, come on, bro, we're gonna jump in the cold plunge. And I'm like, cold plunging after a heavy workout is the worst thing you can do because you're gonna get rid of all of your results, right?
- [52:05]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yes.
- [52:08]
A
But people think that cold plunging after a workout helps with recovery. I'm like, no, it actually downregulates your body's ability to repair. Like, you're actually hurting your results because the growth happens in the repair stage and you just shut it off. But you're actually diminishing your results by cold plunging afterwards versus using something like a Zona that's increasing nitric oxide production post workout. Like, nitric oxide before a workout will provide energy because you'll increase blood flow. Nitric oxide after a workout actually improves recovery. Like, I'm a fan of both.
- [52:43]
B
I'm totally gonna add this in now, Mark, because I have such supplement fatigue. Listen, I own a supplement company. I get sent A bunch of different supplements from a bunch of different companies, and I have supplement fatigue. So I know I should be doing something, something for my nitric oxide, but I would much rather do a non supplemental approach for my nitric oxide. So this is cool. This is great info. I'm going to start adding it in.
- [53:09]
A
I just hired a new executive assistant. Literally, part of the interview was, you need to keep track of my supplements. Like, I take too many in a day. Like, I go through and, like, track everything I do. And I'm like, but I am so over what subscription gets this and what subscription gets this. And then I run out of one, and then the other one I've got six bottles of like. Like, this is part of, is to keep real. The struggle is real.
- [53:38]
B
Yes, it is. It is. So this could be an answer. I mean, listen, we've talked about nitric oxide production with already erectile dysfunction with Raynaud syndrome. Blood flow, ladies, any kind of circulation. And by the way, your hair. A lot of my hypothyroid peeps have hair that is. Is hurting. It's falling out, it's breaking off. Well, if we can increase no production. I'm not saying again, that's not the be all end all of hair loss, but it helps. It's one of those things that we can plug in to help. So we get the muscle recovery, we got improved hair, we got improved circulation, improved sex life.
- [54:16]
A
Well, part of, part of what we hear in this is like, you know, you ask the question, like, what system? You know, what does it impact? And I'm like, well, definitely the cardiovascular system. But if you want to give me a list of the order organs that don't require blood flow, you know, maybe we can strike those from which are none.
- [54:34]
B
So, okay, that was a simple conversation. They all require blood flow.
- [54:41]
A
The whole body requires blood flow. So anything that you're doing with your cardiovascular system is a systemic change. And that is, you know, I'm a big fan of treating the system and not the symptom. Like, if you're having a digestive issue. Well, let's treat the digestive system. If you're having an endocrine issue, let's treat the endocrine system. Let's get that system back to where it should be functioning because it knows how to function, right? It did 20 years ago. Let's get the system back online and the symptoms solve themselves. Because as we said earlier, these are signals. So I'm a big fan of while we're chasing, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So whatever symptom is the most debilitating to my lifestyle gets more, more of my attention. The reality is, is fixing the cardiovascular system or supporting that cardiovascular system is going to have a systemic downstream to the entire body. Everything is going to run better. So yes, we can talk about, you know, the heart, we can talk about sexual function, we can talk about hair, we can talk about skin, truthfully, we can talk about kidney support, digestive support. All, yes and all of that.
- [55:51]
B
And yes, check. Yes, I love it. No, I love it. I love that it's a full body kind of full body product, you know, more bang for your buck, which is beneficial.
- [56:02]
A
Every part of the body is attached to something else. But cardiovascular system, you can't get around that. Like that's supporting everything.
- [56:09]
B
It is, it is. So we need to do things, take care of our heart and if it's something that is not a pill, even, even it's not a supplement, I, I think that that's just a huge benefit to people everywhere, especially these days with the amount of, like we said, supplements, biohacks, all of that. This is an all in one. It's an all in one OG Biohack. So I absolutely love it. And like I already said, we do have a discount code for you. So we're going to put the link in the show notes for anyone interested in grabbing a Zona and trying it out, making it part of your life. Guess what? You don't have to put it on subscription. It's not going to come every month. It's just a one time purchase that you can, you can literally use over and over and over again. But we are going to give you a hundred dollars off. Use the code. Dr. Amy D R A M I E links will all be in the show notes. Any last comments that we want to leave the listeners with?
- [56:59]
A
Mark, My recommendation to people is obviously support the system in whatever way you can. And I think especially in the biohack crowd, like we all listen to our favorite podcasters, you know, we all do that and usually each of those people are very aligned with whatever symptom we struggle with. Right? And if that's hormone irregularity, if that's diabetes, if that's cancer survivors, like all of these things have an impact and we tend to follow those people. But it's like I really make the recommendation to people that, you know, make sure we're doing things that are not just chasing the one diagnosis, but supporting the entire body because the cardiovascular system is so such an upstream to all of this. I mean how often do we end up with endocrine disruption because we've got poor circulation or we end up with fatigue because of poor circulation. Like so many things are a circulatory issue and we don't think that far upstream. And as you said, for a one time investment I laughingly tell people, like people say, well how long does this device last? And like we literally build it to get crushed every day. Like, like you're taking the device every day. I tell you squeeze it as hard as you can. Like we build them to crush them. So you're doing this one time. And so I mean strongly recommend anybody try this. But in particular anybody who's having some kind of, you know, cardiovascular issue. And we do. Just so you know. Dr. Amy A hundred dollar discount on the product. Call reach out to me. I answer all of my emails. So if anybody emails me, I'm just markelna.com someone's got a question, reach out. I'll reply to you personally.
- [58:37]
B
That's awesome. That's customer service right there. I can get behind that all day. Love it. Well, Dr. Mark, thank you so much for jumping on and unpacking something that I have not yet in like 580 episodes. So I appreciate it and I love the fact that there's an answer for it too. So thank you so much for your time today.
- [58:55]
A
I appreciate you Foreign.
- [59:02]
B
The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, treatment or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplements, or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provider relationship between you and the host or between you and any other healthcare professionals featured on the show. Any medical opinions or statements made by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties. Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not been evaluated by the fda. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Some episodes of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast may include sponsorships or affiliate links. The host may receive compensation for discussing or promoting certain products or services. Any such sponsorships or affiliations will be clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the host or guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service does not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.