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The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
145. Dr. Austin Lake: Biohacking Women’s Health - Birth Control, Hormones, Sleep & Nutrients
01:19:20
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- [00:00]
Dr. Austin Lake
A 16 year old or even a 13 year old on birth control to control an issue that doesn't actually solve any problems, but creates a lot more problems. You start seeing the side effects of not having ovulation, and that's a big problem long term. And you start seeing issues like endometriosis and pcos.
- [00:15]
Gary Breca
You look at these young, healthy, childbearing women and you wonder, why is it so difficult to get pregnant? Why is it so difficult to maintain a pregnancy?
- [00:22]
Dr. Austin Lake
Because of insulin resistance, right? You got all these high carb, refined carbohydrates being consumed in conjunction with endocrine disrupting chemicals, you know, fragrances, lotions, lathering on their skin. And next thing you know, you have this hormonal storm that happens.
- [00:33]
Gary Breca
You think about the fact that limiting that phase of the menstrual cycle could have that profound of an effect on a woman that she might not be thinking about. I don't think very often. Their OB GYN is explaining the consequences.
- [00:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
These women are getting testing done, they'll come back in six months and they'll put on a hormone replacement therapy and things will change short term. But then they go right back to where they were because they never fixed any of the foundational problems that were existing. And they don't know that there are alternative options out there.
- [00:55]
Gary Breca
When we look at the pandemic of autoimmune disease, the majority of this affects women. 75 or 80% of all autoimmune diseases are happening to females.
- [01:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
And that's why things like this is so important for people to know, like, you can improve your fertility and you can do these things and it's very inexpensive and most people can do it. Like, that's so empowering to know that that's an option.
- [01:11]
Gary Breca
For women that are having hormonal imbalance, where do they start?
- [01:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
This was like a more recent revelation that I had about.
- [01:26]
Gary Breca
Ultimate. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm your host, Gary Breca, human biologist, where we go down the road of everything, anti aging, longevity, biohacking, and everything in between. And I am super excited for today's guest on the podcast because we don't really get a lot of time to shed light on specifically women's health issues. And our next guest is an expert, as you heard, on women's health issues. Everything, women, menopause, cycling, birth, birth control, everything in between. And just so happens my wife is having the worst menstrual cramps of her life. And she was like, I want, I want to come in and Ask him questions during your podcast. So she's, she's waiting for you literally right outside the door.
- [02:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
Great. Good to know.
- [02:16]
Gary Breca
Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Austin Lake.
- [02:18]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, thanks for having me, Gary. It's been. I was very honored to get the invitation and honestly, the timing was great because we had the invitation, then we met at the Maha gala and it was like just mentally.
- [02:29]
Gary Breca
Yeah, we just set it up and then we, you know, met at the Maha gal timing.
- [02:32]
Dr. Austin Lake
So.
- [02:32]
Gary Breca
Yeah, and I love that movement. I mean, you know, Bobby Kennedy's officially confirmed now, so at the time he didn't. Praise God. Amen to that. You know, at the time he wasn't really in a capacity, official capacity, but that, not to get totally off topic because I know there's a lot of women like, hey, I want to talk about my menstrual cramps. But yeah, we'll get there. What was amazing was, dude, the energy surrounding, I mean, the whole inauguration, but specifically at that ball. And, and also how many people are just freely giving their time. You know, folks like yourself and me and Casey Means and Cali and Food Babe and Paul Saladino and, you know, so many of, of, you know, the folks in our, our industry are really excited about the opportunity to affect public policy.
- [03:24]
Dr. Austin Lake
Well, yeah, you kind of make a change. I think there's, there's the, the grassroots effect that has to be there. So there needs to be a, I think a bottom up and a top down to kind of solve the whole problem. Right. And so we have to have the top down. I think that's what RFK is going to give us the best chance for. I mean, there's not many options out there. When you compare to our last HSS secretary, oh my gosh, to him, I think we got a pretty good chance to make some change.
- [03:47]
Gary Breca
Yeah, I would, I would really agree, agree with that. And it's just so awesome to see our industry, you know, participating in it because, you know, even in the biohacking world, we obviously all don't agree on everything all the time, but that's the one thing we absolutely are, you know, enormously united.
- [04:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Well, there's core principles to it. Right. Like most biohackers or just people that are in this more alternative health space understand, like, there are core principles to health that you can't skip over. And I think our government has different ideas on that, and they think you can. And I think that's why we're seeing such issues with our health. It's just we've skipped over these core foundational principles of what it means to be a healthy human being. And you can't do that. Like there's consequences to that. So it doesn't need to be political. I think the whole thing making this whole conversation political, it's just ridiculous because it's crazy.
- [04:33]
Gary Breca
Not a single Democrat voted for Bobby Kennedy. I know one I was like, who wants to be on the side of, you know, the worst healthcare crisis in, in modern history that's going on in our country?
- [04:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [04:42]
Gary Breca
I like what Bobby Kennedy said because he said there's no such thing as Republican children and Democratic children. These are, these are children. Children. Yeah, there are. There are children.
- [04:51]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [04:51]
Gary Breca
And, and the most prosperous thing we can do as a nation is care for that next generation.
- [04:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right? Absolutely right.
- [04:59]
Gary Breca
Because who's going to, who's going to be running the show? And 77% of our military age men and women can't enter the military because.
- [05:05]
Dr. Austin Lake
Qualify qualified from health unhealthy.
- [05:08]
Gary Breca
And you got, you know, highest rates of childhood cancer. You got, you know, I don't want to mess up the quote, but you know, 13 of our teens are prepubescent. Teens are, are pre diabetic.
- [05:20]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [05:21]
Gary Breca
Or even diabetic.
- [05:21]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
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Gary Breca
And metabolic crazy syndrome is beginning earlier and earlier and earlier. I mean, I think people have this idea that, this notion that metabolic syndrome is something you get in your 50s or your 60s or your 70s.
- [05:34]
Dr. Austin Lake
Historically that was the case. Right. But that's all that old data at this point.
- [05:37]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [05:38]
Dr. Austin Lake
When you see the, the complete decline even in the last 20 years, like since 1990, especially last 30 years, but even the last 20 years, you see a shift where things are doubling and tripling in that short period of time. You have to ask the question of like, what's going on? And that's what's so puzzling, like you said about the Democrat thing. It's like, how could you not?
- [05:59]
Gary Breca
And you also have to be scared about when you see this parabolic rise.
- [06:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [06:03]
Gary Breca
So autism rates have gone. And I'm not saying all autism is caused by vaccines or all autism is caused by food dies, but.
- [06:09]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [06:10]
Gary Breca
We ought to be having the conversation of he, how did it go from 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 36 to 1 in 36 or I even heard 1 in 32, but because this, the stats after that are 1 in 15, 1 in 10.
- [06:24]
Dr. Austin Lake
Well, I heard Joel, I think Joel, you know, Dr. Joel Wash, or he was saying it's 1 in 22 in California.
- [06:30]
Gary Breca
Yes. Like, yeah, he said that on my podcast. And he's a pediatrician. So I. And you know, he even said during the course of his practice, the number of autistic kids is parabolic. And, and again, I'm. That's not to say that there's one single cause, but you, you look at the state, the overall state of health in this country and we want to balance that with our freedom of choice. So I'm not for getting rid of McDonald's or getting rid of smoking or stopping alcohol from being sold.
- [06:55]
Dr. Austin Lake
You know, it won't work anyway.
- [06:57]
Gary Breca
Yeah, it wouldn't work. We already had, we tried pro.
- [06:59]
Dr. Austin Lake
We tried that once.
- [07:01]
Gary Breca
The wealthiest people were like the bootleggers.
- [07:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, right. We'll make it work.
- [07:03]
Gary Breca
So we don't want to make a black market, but. And you also don't want to interrupt freedom of choice, but you also have to have an honest conversation of, well, why are we subsidizing the most chemical laden foods in our food supply and taxing and making cost unaffordable, you know, raw, whole organic foods.
- [07:23]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [07:23]
Gary Breca
And that's where I think the conversation on public policy needs to happen. And then if you have corruption in public policy, if you have private industry funding, public policy research, and I think.
- [07:33]
Dr. Austin Lake
This is where I. That question of, of, okay, if you incentivize people for, or. I don't even personally, I don't even think it's about money. I think it goes much deeper than that. I think it's something to do more because, like, you could make money off of healthy people, like incentivizing people to get healthier. You can make a bunch of money off that. Right? You could. And I think that's what's going to eventually start happening. But I think it really gets at a deeper issue of like, just nefariousness. I think there's like a, like a heart and soul issue of why people would want to see people not flourish and, and prosper and also not to be able to replace a population. Because that's what we're seeing now is you can, we can replace our population with what we're currently doing.
- [08:11]
Gary Breca
Yeah. Oh, no doubt.
- [08:12]
Dr. Austin Lake
That's extremely.
- [08:13]
Gary Breca
I mean, I mean, fertility rates in men and women, sperm counts in men, fertility rates in women. I can't tell you how. And I want to have this conversation even more in depth with you on the podcast, but I can't tell you. We, my wife and I started a clinic. You know, I'm not licensed to practice medicine, so I'm a human biologist, but we started a functional Wellness Clinic about 10 years ago. And I'm very interested to hear why you chose to go down the road of women's health, because that's a huge topic for us. But we started this clinic and just in the seven years that we've been. Eight years now that we've been intentionally in that space, you know, we have seen the impact of infertility. I mean, the vast majority of our clients that were coming in for hormone therapy and young, Young couples were having trouble either getting pregnant, whether it had to do with sperm counts, where they had to do with the fertility of the female, or whether it had to do with miscarriages, you know, frequent miscarriages. And it became such a hot topic within our clinic system because, you know, you look at these otherwise young, healthy childbearing women and young, healthy male, and you wonder, why can't they naturally conceive? Why are these. Are these birth rates? I mean, why is it so difficult to get pregnant? Why is it so difficult to maintain a pregnancy? And so I think a lot of that conversations is going to start in earnest, you know, because of this movement.
- [09:41]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [09:41]
Gary Breca
So.
- [09:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
Well, I think. I think because if people don't. If they. Again, if they associate it with, I can't get pregnant because of some external factor, and they don't realize, oh, I actually have some control over my fertility, and there are things that I can do to change it. I don't have to be on. Maybe I don't have to do ivf. Right. I don't have to just say no and look at adoption. Like, I can actually get my body in a state where fertility is more likely. Like, I think that's where that empowerment piece is so important with people. But it gets back to your belief to even understand that it's possible. People don't know it's possible. Like, think that's just the card the hands have been dealt, and they don't know that there. There are alternative options out there. And that's why things like this is so important for people to know. Like, hey, you know, I was watching this podcast, and they were talking about how you can. You can improve your fertility and you can do these things, and it's very free or it's free or, like, very inexpensive, and most people can do it. Like, that's so empowering to know that that's an option.
- [10:32]
Gary Breca
What made you go the, you know, women's health route and functional medicine? Because you haven't. I mean, you're very educated. You have a really interesting career. You went to Tennessee for your.
- [10:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, that was. Well, so that's, that was where I got my doctorate. So I'm not a physician either. I don't prescribe medications. I don't even prescribe hormones.
- [10:50]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [10:50]
Dr. Austin Lake
I think there's plenty of people out there that do that. What I saw was that they were doing those things and it still wasn't working. And they were on all these medications. Thyroid problems, you know, hormonal issues and chronic pain. I was like, I just started, like, how do you, how do you sleep? You know, what do you, what, what supplements do you take? What's your diet like? And I started asking these questions back in 2017 and realized that those things were not being done and yet were assuming that they have a deficiency of medication when the reality is they have all these other deficiencies that aren't being met. And so I started seeing that happen. And then I started seeing a lot of women come through my practice just like having all those issues way more than men. And I think when you say your.
- [11:31]
Gary Breca
Practice, what kind of practice do you have?
- [11:33]
Dr. Austin Lake
So we have. So it used to be a brick and mortar practice in Colorado. We had. He wasn't a business partner then, and now we were, we took a break. Now we're business partners again. He's a, he's an md, Functional medicine certified, all that. And so we created this practice, Functional Medicine Based Alternative Health Practice, just out of need. Like, we saw a huge need in our local community in Colorado, Northern Colorado, and started to kind of just help women and men at that time. But we had way more women coming in with health problems. And I started to figure out, you know, I was just like, these, these women are not getting help with the implementation of this information. Like, they're getting testing done, they'll come back in six months and they'll get put on a hormone replacement therapy and things will change short term. But then they go right back to where they were because they never fixed any of the foundational problems that were existing. And so I started to ask the question like, well, if they're not going to take, like, if, if somebody else isn't, like, who else is going to do this if it's not for me, right? That was kind of the question I asked is like, I can't assume that somebody else is going to do this. Like, I have to be the one to, to fill the void here. So let's start filling the void. That combined with the fact that my mom had a ton of health problems. She was the ultimate mom. Gave of herself all the time to a fault to where she had nothing.
- [12:49]
Gary Breca
There's a problem right there to give.
- [12:50]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. To a fault. And brother had cancer when he was 14. Parents had an extreme amount of stress that they were going through. Mom became a really big worrier, rightfully so. You know, Senior, your 14 year old son go through cancer and leukemia and all this terrible things that he had to go through and the financial consequences of the care they had a purchase or I guess afford and all that. It was really difficult to do that with insurance and stuff. And so it put a ton of stress on my parents and then it affected my mom. Got a. She has adult onset stills disease. It's a pretty rare autoimmune condition. Her ferritin is sky high all the time because she's chronically inflamed. Her homocysteine is chronically high. Very, very. The highest I've ever seen, actually.
- [13:32]
Gary Breca
Wow. So her blood pressure is probably.
- [13:34]
Dr. Austin Lake
The blood pressure's. Her, her blood pressure is okay. But she's very. And I hope she's okay with me sharing all this information.
- [13:41]
Gary Breca
I hope so too, because yeah, she should be 27, 28 million people.
- [13:45]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Not a big deal.
- [13:46]
Gary Breca
It was not a big deal.
- [13:47]
Dr. Austin Lake
But she's, she's like very, she's, she's a excellent mom, but she gives of herself so much. Right. And so that, that's why I started seeing with my clients is like, okay, this is how my mom was and this is what's caused in her life. And is this happening to these other women? Like, so what, what's your, what's your sleep routine like? What's your sleep hygiene like? Well, you know, I take care of everybody, I feed them all, clean up the house, and then I have a little bit of time for myself. And so I don't go to bed right away and have, you know, like a decent bedtime. Like I'll stay up till 11, 11:30 and then I get like a second wind. I can't fall asleep and then I'm up and I have a hard time sleeping throughout the night. Well, what's your morning like? Well, I wake up tired, I drink a bunch of caffeine. You know, I don't eat breakfast and I kind of skip all that stuff. And then I go to the gym, I work out really hard and can't lose weight. I'm just like, okay, so like I'm starting to see this pattern here. Like I'm seeing why this is happening, but I had to figure out the why behind with my clients, like why it was happening. Because if you Just say, hey, you gotta do these things.
- [14:36]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [14:36]
Dr. Austin Lake
They're like, okay, great. But transferring that over to my life logistically is not that easy. And it's like, well, it can be if you start to kind of break it down in these little micro goals to where you can start to understand if you eat after 6:00 at night, your insulin becomes a little bit less sensitive, your cortisol is gonna be affected, so your sleep's gonna be affected and then you're gonna be tired the next day. And so if you don't break that cycle, you can't expect your hormones, which are being produced at night, to be well supplied.
- [15:04]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [15:04]
Dr. Austin Lake
You can't expect that your, that your immune system is going to be well supplied either because your natural T cells, killer T cells are going to be greatly reduced from having poor sleep. And so your, your thyroid's gonna be more subject to issues. And so you start showing them kind of how this stuff happens. And then they're like, oh, I need to go to bed at a consistent time.
- [15:22]
Gary Breca
We are incredible circadian creatures. And I think what you're touching on is, is when we look at the pandemic of autoimmune disease, the majority of this affects women. It's 75 or 80% of all autoimmune diseases are having to females and like.
- [15:36]
Dr. Austin Lake
Five, eight times more than the males.
- [15:37]
Gary Breca
Yeah. I mean, why, why is it so much more of a female issue than a male issue? And I think it has to do with how selfless most women are. You know, we, we used to call in mortality statistics, we used to call it caregiver syndrome. Sometimes they would call it broken heart syndrome.
- [15:54]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [15:55]
Gary Breca
You know, for spouses that have been married a long period of time.
- [15:58]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [15:58]
Gary Breca
But you know, women are generally the first to put themselves right in the back seat and say, I'm going to care for my spouse, I'm going to care for the kids. And of course, and then, then their mother falls ill and now they're caring for the whole family.
- [16:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [16:09]
Gary Breca
And so everybody's needs go before them and they think that that's a very selfless thing to do.
- [16:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [16:16]
Gary Breca
Sort of selfish to take care of themselves.
- [16:17]
Dr. Austin Lake
So I kind of look at from like as a Christian, like a biblical perspective on that conversation. I look at, I look at the husband and the wife. Right. It's like from the get go, if you believe in Adam and Eve, which I do. Like, you look at the tendency that we all have from more of like a sinful nature or whatever, men tend to be A little more passive. We have a leadership role maybe that we're supposed to be fulfilling. And we are like, nah, I don't really, that's too much. Like, I don't really want to do that. So we kind of pass things off to our spouse. And I think women kind of have this, like, okay, well, I guess I'll pick up and I'll run with it and I'll run the show here. So you're taking on all your regular responsibilities, family, the house, work, financials, all this stuff. And then it's like we expect them to have good functioning hormones. And our society is full of passive men and very strong, like women who want to take charge.
- [17:09]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [17:09]
Dr. Austin Lake
And I think we got to have a balance there. You know, we have to have a balance to how we're going to manage that long term, short term. I think, you know, having a female who wants to build a career and wants to like gain education and like work out like that, that can work. Like you can do that. But you have to have this, like this offloading these responsibilities in some capacity. And I think our society, financially or whatever, even just from our perspective on sex, like, I think we have this idea that it has to be a certain way and I just think that's, I think it's leading to our demise when it comes to our health problems. It's encouraging people to destroy their bodies.
- [17:44]
Gary Breca
Hi guys. Gary here. I want to take a few minutes of your time to invite you to my ultimate human VIP community. This is a private community with front row seats to my most advanced health protocols, exclusive monthly q and a calls, a private podcast where you can ask my guests and me your most pressing questions and my own personal wellness blueprints and everything you need to optimize your health. You'll connect with like minded folks in this community. You'll get firsthand access to cutting edge insights and enjoy special discounts on products that I trust the most. And here's the best part. Membership is just 97 bucks a month, a fraction of the cost my private clients pay for this same deep dive guidance. If you're ready to supercharge your wellness and skip the guesswork, I'd love for you to join us. Head to theultimatehuman.com VIP that's theultimatehuman.com VIP right now to become one of my ultimate human VIPs. This is your fast pass to better health, so don't miss it. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. So when you, when you have patient Come into your clinic, which I assume is majority females.
- [18:52]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. And now it's. Now it's just virtual. So it was brick and mortar. Now we just do 100 virtual.
- [18:55]
Gary Breca
Yeah, that's great. And I think that's the way to go. And I think, you know, eventually with. With AI and big data and early detection and, yeah. Telemedicine laws, it's. It's actually going to make this more accessible, not less accessible.
- [19:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [19:08]
Gary Breca
I think we also have to modernize the way that we're practicing medicine. It's okay for someone that's been seen by a physician, maybe examined, that's now having a virtual.
- [19:19]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [19:20]
Gary Breca
Visit with another physician.
- [19:21]
Dr. Austin Lake
It's more glorified coaching or consulting right now. And that's. I think people need that more than even realize. So.
- [19:28]
Gary Breca
So let's. Let's start with women. And I want to start at a young age, and I want to kind of work our way through postmenopausal, because there are lots of questions all along the. The path. And, you know, I have two daughters. I have a daughter and a stepdaughter. My daughter's 26. My stepdaughter's 16, so she's in the thick of it now, meaning, you know, the choices about centering around birth control and, you know, the prepubescent acne that's now kind of gone away and. And, you know, all the hormonal changes that are going on their life, which is a lot of fun.
- [20:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, I'm sure. I can't wait to experience it.
- [20:06]
Gary Breca
She's gonna watch this podcast.
- [20:07]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [20:07]
Gary Breca
So I won't say her name. Yeah. Kimball Hoy. Working a Brucker.
- [20:13]
Dr. Austin Lake
Nothing to do with that.
- [20:14]
Gary Breca
She's amazing. But. But, you know, I went through with my daughter, too, but the. The, you know, a lot of parents are, you know, watching this, and that conversation about birth control is coming up.
- [20:24]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [20:24]
Gary Breca
And maybe because they have hemorrhagic periods, but maybe also just for birth control. And I saw a podcast that you were on which one it was. But you were talking about birth control and the history of birth control, and it. It was like watching Bobby Kennedy talk about some of these public policy issues. It absolutely blew my mind. And I thought that I was pretty well versed in that area. I. I mean, I certainly don't understand.
- [20:47]
Dr. Austin Lake
You know, a lot of stuff, so.
- [20:48]
Gary Breca
Yeah, I mean, I certainly understand what they do. Hormonal. Right. SHBG and those other things, but I didn't know about the history of birth control, so can we talk about that? A little bit. And then I want to start talking about, you know, young women and the duration of birth control and what kind of effects that has.
- [21:02]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. So from my understanding of the history, Margaret Sanger was one of the pioneers in the early 1920s of the eugenics movement. Right. They were for this whole kind of peer society. So they wanted to kind of control population and ensure that. I mean, it was very racist, it was very discrimination, discriminatory, and very much in line with Nazism and all that stuff. So not, not a good place to start.
- [21:26]
Gary Breca
Like, like white Aryan wanted up to.
- [21:29]
Dr. Austin Lake
Your peer society, like white society, I guess. And so a lot of this birth control was directed through Planned Parenthood and these, these areas that were, you know, not white. There were more, you know, lower income and maybe different ethnicities. And that was a tongue twister. But they were just, they were kind of targeting these certain areas of the population they didn't want. Right. And so that was kind of the beginning point of that. And I think since then, Planned Parenthood has obviously separated themselves with Margaret. But the thing that concerned me was looking into when birth control became a big deal was mostly in the 70s, like it became a little bit more popular and there was a different doctor involved with that, that kind of formulated that. And looking at the connection there with the feminist movement was also when that was happening. So it was empowerment of women, which again, we want women to vote, we want women to have free speech. Like all those things are good. Like, there's no question about that. Right. But it was more about, hey, if you want to get out and work, like, you don't want to be having babies, right? So like, let's just stop your ovulation cycle and let's just. You don't need to worry about that. Right. And so you start having more women doing that. And I think it's just that has only increased since the 70s and to where now a 16 year old is being put on birth control or even a 13 year old's on birth control to control. An issue that doesn't actually solve any problems, but creates a lot more problems. You know, you start seeing the side effects of not having ovulation and not having a, a proper cleansing of your, of your uterus like that, that's a big problem long term. And you start seeing issues like endometriosis and, you know, maybe pcos, depending on how far it goes.
- [23:05]
Gary Breca
And that's just so much pcos, it's crazy.
- [23:07]
Dr. Austin Lake
It's polycystic ovarian syndrome because of insulin resistance. Right. You got all these high carb, hard refined carbohydrates being consumed in conjunct in conjunction with endocrine disrupting chemicals. You know, fragrances, lotions. You know, people think are especially young girls lathering that on their system and on their skin. And next thing you know, you have this, this hormonal storm that happens and.
- [23:27]
Gary Breca
You'Re emitting a third of the menstrual cycle because you're essentially blocking the ovulation. So they're, they're going through the follicular and the luteal phases. Yeah, phases.
- [23:35]
Dr. Austin Lake
But not, not ovulation.
- [23:37]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [23:37]
Dr. Austin Lake
Which is, which is really when women are probably at their strongest and most resilient and high energy. So you kind of take a woman who's like going through a full gamut of, of emotions and energy cycles and just how they feel and then you take out the best period of that cycle and it's like you're dropping their, the way they feel like drastically. That's why I think depression anxiety is so high in women that take birth control. I mean it's, I think it's 30% or more maybe are having pretty severe anxiety and depression when they're on birth control. Like that's. And again, it's a third, you know, you're missing a third of that.
- [24:09]
Gary Breca
And I mean when we say that it affects your emotions or affects your mood, it also affects your desires. Meaning, like what are you attracted to? What are you not attracted to? You know, I've, I've looked at data that, that showed that, you know, women on birth control have a completely different attraction to their spouse or significant other than when they're not on birth control.
- [24:32]
Dr. Austin Lake
I've seen that.
- [24:33]
Gary Breca
Yeah, I was astounded by that. I mean, you know, I'd hate to be like the dude that's wife gets off birth control and it's like, hey, I also want a divorce.
- [24:41]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Right. Just so you know. Yeah.
- [24:43]
Gary Breca
You know, I'm not really attracted to you anymore. But you think about the, the fact that, you know, limiting that phase of the menstrual cycle could have that profound of an effect.
- [24:52]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [24:52]
Gary Breca
On, on a woman that she might.
- [24:53]
Dr. Austin Lake
Not know psychology about. Yeah.
- [24:55]
Gary Breca
Because we think that it's so simple. Well, if ovulation is the cycle duration where I'm most at risk for getting pregnant, then I'll just stop that.
- [25:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure. Now, no big deal.
- [25:04]
Gary Breca
Things are simple again. No big deal. But you, you think back to this circadian biology and you know, when you start really interrupting the circadian Biology. I mean, I had a client that I was sitting with, with a doctor. Our clinic director is a board certified OB GYN and she was mid, late 40s, like Peri. Premenopausal area. And she'd been to a bunch of hormone doctors and they told her, well, all your hormones are in range, but when you actually look at the range that they're in, they were in different ranges. You know, some are ovulating somewhere in the luteals.
- [25:37]
Dr. Austin Lake
Typically when you're optimizing that. Yeah.
- [25:39]
Gary Breca
So you know, so you're not a fan of birth control? Because I want to get, I want to actually come back to this, this, this client. I want to work my way up.
- [25:47]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [25:47]
Gary Breca
Through, through the ages of, of women. Like what can they do or how, how can they go about making this decision? Because parents are concerned that their, you know, young daughters are going to be sexually active and, and obviously they're considering birth control.
- [26:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [26:03]
Gary Breca
But not understanding the consequences. I don't think very often. Their OBGYN is explaining the consequences.
- [26:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Thoroughly enough, I think. Yeah. So if you had, if you had a teenager and I'm trying to like picture my own daughters here, it's like how I would tell, what are they, five and three.
- [26:19]
Gary Breca
Okay.
- [26:20]
Dr. Austin Lake
And then I have a seven year old son and then a four month old son.
- [26:23]
Gary Breca
Okay. Wow, you got four.
- [26:25]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [26:25]
Gary Breca
Wow, you're active.
- [26:26]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Six. Yeah.
- [26:27]
Gary Breca
You got six, dude. Holy cow. Yeah, I got three. I picked up one along the way.
- [26:32]
Dr. Austin Lake
And hey, any one and one and more is great. Yeah.
- [26:35]
Gary Breca
Yeah. I mean, and, and I, and I love it. Make fun of it. But I used to always tease my wife and she used to hate it. Maybe that's why she's my ex wife now. But, but when we had our third kid.
- [26:46]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [26:47]
Gary Breca
And she would leave town and leave me with the kids, I'm like, look, before you leave, just pick your favorite two and I promise you they'll be here when you get back. But three is just too much for my. Yeah.
- [26:55]
Dr. Austin Lake
Your planes.
- [26:56]
Gary Breca
And I have ADHD and I didn't know what it was back then. So.
- [26:59]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [26:59]
Gary Breca
You know, but I can keep an eye on two. But the third one's going to wander. I don't know where it's.
- [27:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. So.
- [27:03]
Gary Breca
And she's like, I hate it when you say that. I was like my baby just trying to make her feel guilty for leaving.
- [27:09]
Dr. Austin Lake
No, it's true. Yeah, I think so. If it were my kids, if it were my daughters. I think the, the whole sex conversations, that's. Its Own conversation by itself. Right. Like, kids are going to go off and do things that are maybe not what you plan for them to do. Right. But I think if you, if, if somebody, if somebody's saying you need to be on birth control, the first question I would ask is like, okay, well, what are they, like, what symptoms are they having? What kind of problems? Like, is this something that's you're trying to control? Like with, with menstrual cramping before cycle begins? Like, is it debilitating in that way? Okay, if it is, like, what are you doing leading up to the beginning of her menstrual cycle? Because once you enter that luteal phase, your need for, you know, B vitamins increases, Magnesium increases, Omega 3 increases as a foundation. And then you also have to understand that you're gonna be kind of on the tail end of this bell curve. And if you start here at the flicker, flicker phase and you kind of get ovulation, you kind of hit the luteal phase. It really is like you're kind of coming off this high. Right. And that, that high is gonna require you to understand, like, maybe I shouldn't be exercising quite as hard as I have been. And a lot of these young athletes that are being pushed and pushed and pushed, not considering their cycle and not. That's such a conversation, I think should be so foundational. But whoever does that, like, what coach is like, okay, girls, like, where you at in your cycles? You know?
- [28:31]
Gary Breca
Yeah, yeah, right. Where you're at in your cycles.
- [28:32]
Dr. Austin Lake
Instead of, it's like, go, go, go, go, Push, push, push. And it's like, hey, they may not actually have it in the tank right now.
- [28:37]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [28:37]
Dr. Austin Lake
And we can work on getting in the tank. But having to understand that female bodies are not consistent like a male. Male's hormones are very consistent for a long time. Females are all over the place. And that's why I think female are so challenging, is that we're not considering those fluctuations.
- [28:52]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [28:52]
Dr. Austin Lake
And I think that's. That would be the first thing is just like, are we pushing our daughter too hard?
- [28:56]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [28:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
Is she pushing herself too hard? If her coach is pushing herself too hard, is she sleeping? Circumstation? Is she. She taking basic supplements? You know, is she. Is she mthfr? Does she have mthfr?
- [29:08]
Gary Breca
I love that you're talking about mthfr. Nobody talks about that.
- [29:10]
Dr. Austin Lake
Nobody talks about that. And women have it more often than men.
- [29:12]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [29:12]
Dr. Austin Lake
And so it's like significantly more. Yeah. What, 60, 40 or something like that. Yeah.
- [29:15]
Gary Breca
60, 40.
- [29:16]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. So like that, those kind of conversations, just having that awareness of like, what are they actually up against on a consistent basis. And then obviously you have to touch on food. Like if they're eating everything else that their school's feeding them or their friends are consuming and they're consuming all these processed foods, like all the things that you always talk about that I love. Like, it's like if that's a part of their daily regimen where their insulin's becoming less sensitive, where their inflammation skyrocketing, their omega sixes are off the chart and they're deficient in all these other things, vitamin D, omega 3s. Like, you cannot expect that their hormonal building blocks are going to be there for their thriving of their, of their body because, like, they're pushing a, they're pushing a survival response through cortisol. And that directly will tank progesterone and that will directly affect conversion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sleep. And then convect. It'll affect their conversion of estrogens from testosterone and that aromatase pathway. And that's where PCOS becomes a lot more problematic for these younger women. And so I think there's so many things that need to be done before birth control is even considered, let alone the prevention of a child. But like, just in terms of prevention of the symptoms, we have to figure out, like, what are we trying to accomplish here? And I think that's, that's the starting point.
- [30:26]
Gary Breca
And I think a lot of it is obviously preventing pregnancy, but a lot of it is also like hemorrhagic, you know, menstrual cycles. I mean, because we see that a lot in our. Yeah, our clinic, that they're coming to our ob GYN and saying, you know, it's just, I mean, they're in school and they're exhausted because they're losing. Losing.
- [30:46]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, losing a lot. They're anemic.
- [30:47]
Gary Breca
Yeah, they're anemic basically for short term. And, and they're exhausted and, and already, especially in high school, you know, high school starts the earliest. I hope my understanding is we're going to actually start to change this. But I always thought it was odd that as my kids went from kindergarten to grade school to grammar school, you know, and then eventually to. To high school, that the, the start times got earlier.
- [31:12]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [31:12]
Gary Breca
You know, my sixth grader started at 9:00am My ninth grader started at 7:00am wow. And it's a big difference because, you know, you got to be in class to start at 7:00am you get in school 6:30 6:45, whatever.
- [31:24]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [31:25]
Gary Breca
Which means you're probably getting up 5:30, 6:00 at the latest.
- [31:27]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [31:28]
Gary Breca
And I still remember, you know, driving my daughter to school, you know, to high school, and just, you know, pulling into the, the parking lot and just watching the zombies walk in. And you could tell like, that kid has not been up for more than 10 minutes.
- [31:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, right.
- [31:43]
Gary Breca
10 minutes ago, literally, they were still.
- [31:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
Playing video games two hours ago.
- [31:46]
Gary Breca
Hair mess, you know, sweatshirt. Some of them have Starbucks coffees. They're sort of. And, and, and I know there's a whole conversation around the fact that, you know, teenagers actually need more sleep. These aren't lazy teens. They're growing.
- [31:56]
Dr. Austin Lake
Physiological for sure.
- [31:57]
Gary Breca
Yeah, it's physiological. And when you have all that biological activity in the body, it's exhausting. Growing is exhausting. You know, my son, I noticed the same thing. Both of, both of my sons, you know, when they're playing sports and they were just coming home, sometimes he would come home from, from football practice and just literally eat, go straight to bed.
- [32:17]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [32:18]
Gary Breca
And was still exhausted when he was awake.
- [32:19]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right. You can never recover.
- [32:20]
Gary Breca
But, but back to the, you know, the women's hormones. So I, I know a lot of mothers are facing this and so you're saying before you're using, you know, you, you think about birth control either as prophylactic measure against pregnancy or, or hemorrhagic periods is to look at the whole picture, this whole idea of let's call it lifestyle medicine.
- [32:41]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure, yeah, absolutely.
- [32:42]
Gary Breca
And, and I think we start factors a lot later in life. We don't think about them for teens.
- [32:49]
Dr. Austin Lake
I never did.
- [32:50]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [32:51]
Dr. Austin Lake
I mean, I knew nothing about this stuff and I, my parents didn't know either, you know, and so I think, I think for people like us who are in this world and this is constantly what we do and think about, it's like super obvious, right? Like, it's like, oh, just this is what you have to do. But to somebody else that's not in this world. They have their responsibilities, they have their job. They're doing what they're told and they're doing what they think is best. And so they think this birth control is the best option. So we love our daughter. Let's do what's best for her.
- [33:16]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [33:17]
Dr. Austin Lake
But I think if you, if you understand that, like, okay, maybe we can say, like, that's not best.
- [33:21]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [33:21]
Dr. Austin Lake
And just like get that out of the way, then it just opens the door for people. Like, let's, let's evaluate our life. Let's figure out what we can do. Again, that's not expensive. Like, this is not expensive stuff. Like, it doesn't need to be a $10,000 a night resort in Mexico to make this happen. Like, this is stuff that you can do starting now, but it requires intentionality and discipline and a belief that you can actually impact it and fix it.
- [33:43]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [33:43]
Dr. Austin Lake
So I think that's where, again, I always have to start there with my clients and just making sure that they understand what's possible. And then from there, we start. We just break down their life. We were talking about this other guy who's, like, a financial auditor, and he'll have people come in on his podcast and he'll just, like, rip them a new one and be like, you're spending all this money. Like, they said they have no money. And then he looks at their. Their finances, and they're like, you have way more money than you think you have. You're just, like, being foolish with it. You're not being intentional. And I. I kind of do it with my clients. It's like, I just look at, like, hey, you say you've done everything and nothing works, but have you done this? Like, have you tried getting your circular rhythm balance? Have you tried not eating these foods? Have you tried taking these supplements into being consistent with them? Have you actually followed a protocol? Like, have you kind of done some detailed lab work? Like, have you. Have you done this stuff? And then. Right, well, I've tried a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
- [34:23]
Gary Breca
And is this what your active life program is about? Yeah, yeah. Talk a little bit about that. Is there, there? Is there? So woman watching this podcast, that feels off.
- [34:33]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [34:33]
Gary Breca
It feels out of balance, which is very likely hormonal.
- [34:36]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [34:36]
Gary Breca
Could be a host of other things. And then I want to talk about, you know, autoimmune conditions as well. But where do they start? You know, what kind of panel do they pull? Where do they start? What are some of the biggest things that move the needle the most?
- [34:50]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [34:50]
Gary Breca
For women that are having hormonal imbalance, you know, like this. This woman that I was speaking of earlier, when I looked at her labs, I was like, well, look, you know, looks to me like, first of all, you're completely out of phase.
- [35:02]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [35:03]
Gary Breca
So the level of your hormones doesn't matter as much as your ratios.
- [35:06]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure, absolutely.
- [35:08]
Gary Breca
And your ratios are way off, even though they're in the normal range. Yeah.
- [35:13]
Dr. Austin Lake
One's really high, one's really low. And you have estrogen dominance.
- [35:16]
Gary Breca
Right. And you have estrogen dominance. And Then they blow up like a balloon. They think that they're fat, but they're not. They're just retaining water in that interstitial space. Estrogen is very good at doing that. There are gene mutations like COMP T that don't allow estrogen to be eliminated as, like, the E2 pathway as well. And so then they start retaining a bunch of water.
- [35:33]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [35:33]
Gary Breca
And nothing is more frustrating to a woman than, like, doing everything right and exercising.
- [35:39]
Dr. Austin Lake
And they're. They're not gaining or they're losing. They're not losing any weight. They may be gaining weight, right? Yeah.
- [35:43]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [35:43]
Dr. Austin Lake
So we start with whatever labs they've had done. We kind of analyze what. Where they. Where they currently are. Most panels are pretty basic, so we can kind of facilitate and recommend, like, what they think they should get. And we'll usually start with, you know, looking at micronutrients, making sure that they have sufficient B vitamins, you know, vitamin amazing. Yeah, we have that. You have to start with that Omega 3. We do a fatty acid panel just to make sure that they have that.
- [36:07]
Gary Breca
Wow.
- [36:07]
Dr. Austin Lake
Box check.
- [36:08]
Gary Breca
So can you see the Omega 6 is off the chart when you do that?
- [36:10]
Dr. Austin Lake
I've only had one person that was not ex, like, on the extreme side of the range. Like, they were actually, like, in the moderate area of the range with their omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acid ratio. Most people are, like, so off the charts with omega sixes. It's. It's unbelievable.
- [36:26]
Gary Breca
And when do you attribute that to seed oils?
- [36:27]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, seed oils are diet. I mean, a deficiency of omega threes in our food that they're consuming, so they're not getting any balance.
- [36:33]
Gary Breca
Like, yeah, I think everybody needs to substitute with. Yeah, Omega 3.
- [36:37]
Dr. Austin Lake
I heard you talking on a podcast, and my wife Carly, she showed it to me, and she's like, I. I wondered if he's like, seen what you talk about, because he asked you, like, what are the top five things you recommend everybody should do?
- [36:46]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [36:46]
Dr. Austin Lake
And like, you recommended the things. And I was like, he's like, that's exactly what you recommend. It's like, I agree. It's like, you gotta have vitamin D3 with K2. You gotta have magnesium. You gotta, like, make sure you have sufficient omega 3 fatty acids. And, you know, you can throw in a couple different things. Multivitamin, B complex, whatever. But, like, those are so crucial to just basic foundational health.
- [37:04]
Gary Breca
I agree.
- [37:05]
Dr. Austin Lake
For the human being. And they're. They're not being like, I talk about it all the time, and I know you talk about all the time too, but it's still. People don't know about it.
- [37:11]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [37:11]
Dr. Austin Lake
I'm just like, how is this, you.
- [37:12]
Gary Breca
Know, part of me thinks it's too simple. Like, you know, people want something extra, more extra complicated and I don't even sell those things.
- [37:19]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [37:20]
Gary Breca
So that freaks people out. Yeah. But, and, and you know, I get accused of trying to push things all the time. Like guys, I didn't, I. You can go to a thorn, you can go to pure encapsulation.
- [37:32]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [37:33]
Gary Breca
You can go to, yeah, there's, there's.
- [37:34]
Dr. Austin Lake
A lot of good options, a lot.
- [37:35]
Gary Breca
Of great options out there. But these are the basics.
- [37:36]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right? You can't skip the basics.
- [37:38]
Gary Breca
And, and I think too that, you know, my research, not my personal research, sorry, the research that I was reviewing when, when I was in that industry, there was clear pathways between nutrient deficiencies and the expression of, of disease. And I believe that the root of a lot of these consequences of aging just based in missing raw materials. I mean, if you don't have enough dhea, for example, you're never going to construct certain hormones.
- [38:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [38:08]
Gary Breca
If your cortisol is off the charts or you have adrenal fatigue, your, you're not going to make certain hormones, especially at night when your body's actually create when it's necessary. And we're such circadian creatures. So let's talk about a basic panel and then for listeners right now, especially my, my female audience, what, what lifestyle changes make the greatest impact on self correcting hormonal imbalances?
- [38:38]
Dr. Austin Lake
So we'll start with the first visit I do with my clients is we'll, we'll walk through their life. All the kind of things we're talking about the beginning of the podcast. Just like what is holding you back from being consistent? Like what, like what true obstacles do you really have? Because some people have legitimate obstacles in their way. We can't change everything, but we meet them where they are and I provide them a meal plan that I've, it's an elimination style process we go through. I call it diagnostic because it really is kind of helpful to diagnose like what I, you know, I always say, like what healthy foods are not healthy for you. And what I mean by that is.
- [39:10]
Gary Breca
Not healthy for you.
- [39:11]
Dr. Austin Lake
And what I mean by that is that for eggs, for example, that's a big spectrum of what quality is and also how your immune system responds to it. Eggs are a superfood. Like if you do all of them, they're fantastic. If you don't, they trash your Immune system. And so if you do.
- [39:28]
Gary Breca
Well, you mean if you aren't allergic to the egg protein, right?
- [39:31]
Dr. Austin Lake
Or the egg proteins or just like what's being in, what's in the egg? Corn and soy and all that stuff?
- [39:35]
Gary Breca
Oh yeah, yeah. Acid, yeah.
- [39:37]
Dr. Austin Lake
Like, so there's that conversation of like, hey, we got to figure out if that's a problem for you. But the only way to figure that out, at least in my opinion, is to get them to where they feel better. So the first four to six weeks, like I want to see that their, their weight has changed because if they have, if they have this inflammatory weight, like that should start to fall off. I want to see from an elimination diet that plus kind of like whatever protocol we get them started on from a supplement perspective, it usually involves the foundational principles that I talked about. Every once in a while it'll be a couple variations here and there, but we always meet where they are and say hey, like if you own these supplements that are quality and they, the dosages are seem to be sufficient, like let's keep those and start with those. You gotta, you gotta take em, but you gotta start with that. If they don't, I'll make some suggestions on different options and brands that I think are a better fit for them. But it's just, there is recommendations, right? So depending on where we need to go from there, we get that foundation set, we get their sleep circadian rhythm set, we get their hydration.
- [40:30]
Gary Breca
How do you, how do you set their sleep circadian rhythm? What, what, what do you tell them are the do's and don'ts for sleep?
- [40:37]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, it's all the typical, you know, limit blue light, you know, limit your intake of food a few hours before you go to bed. Make sure you're not over, over hydrating right before bed you need to wake up, go to the bathroom, make sure your electrolytes and minerals are all balanced beforehand. Make sure that you know, you're not just zoning out watching TV before you're trying to go to sleep and then fall asleep 10 minutes later and you wake up an hour later and you're all disrupted. And I think the biggest thing that I try to tell people though is there's this, I like to use this example of missing the bus to Sleepytown, which is very childish, but it works for people. And it's just saying like, you know, there's, there's a bus that's going to take you right to sleep. It's the first bus is great. Like it's going to take you right to your destination. You're going to get there feeling refreshed and all good to go. The next day if you miss that bus, like, you know, you're getting tired at 8:30, 9:00 and you're like, oh, I'll just push through and I'll catch the next bus at 10:30. I'll go to bed then. You may not go to sleep right away. Like, you might have a cortisol spike. You're gonna have an issue with your melatonin dropping. The next thing you know, you're having a rough road all night long and you wake up feeling tired and so understanding, like.
- [41:33]
Gary Breca
And the later bus is even worse. Oh, it's terrible. Sometimes catch a second wind. That happens to my wife all the time.
- [41:38]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, second wind phenomenon.
- [41:39]
Gary Breca
Like, man, you're like Captain Chatty at one in the morning, right?
- [41:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
You gotta cut it off here. Yeah, but it makes sense for monoli. Right. And so, and again, for women to understand how cortisol will directly affect their progesterone and how it'll affect their sex hormones is critical because you're robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of situation with your hormones. There's a certain number of hormones you can make from your cholesterol and it's going to be diverted depending on what your body needs. Cortisol is a surviving hormone. Like, if you're like, hey, I'm stressed out. I'm watching something that's stimulating, I'm staying up past my bedtime and now we're getting into a stressful conversation and now all of a sudden I'm hyped up. Like, you're not going to fall asleep. Like, that's not how your body's designed. Like, it's making you more alert. So those basic things, just making sure people understand. And I never assume with anybody. Like, I always make sure, like, this is what we have to do. They tell me all the time, I've done everything. I'm like, I, I, I take your word for it there, but more times than not, we're not actually doing it. It gets back to this whole idea of honoring your body and understanding. Like, what am I trying to do with this? And I can, we can get in that a little bit. But you have to do all those foundational sleep hygiene principles first. Like, those are, those are absolute necessities. Now. I totally agree. In terms of supplements, you can't supplement.
- [42:45]
Gary Breca
Your way around poor sleep.
- [42:46]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. But if you, so if you do those things and then you start supplementing with like magnesium Glycinate, L theanine or, you know, something in that ballpark, that's usually enough for most women to start initiating a good sleep cycle. And then from there, if they're having like true insomnia, you know, where they, they can't fall asleep or they can't stay asleep. That's where I have, I have a couple different protocols I've used in the past where it's like, we'll do a short, short term of a low dose melatonin, like 0.5 milligrams. And if they're not on any SSRIs or anything like that, we'll maybe recommend like 5 HTP for a short period of time just to kind of help that process get going in condition or in conjunction with magnesium glycinate or L3 and 8, depending on what kind of issues. That's usually more for like a racing mind, in my opinion. Yeah.
- [43:32]
Gary Breca
The 3 and 8 and the methylfolate, just in my opinion, from my experience with, with clients, it seems to work really, really well, especially for women with mthfr, which my wife has.
- [43:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [43:43]
Gary Breca
And she'll take methylfolate before bed religiously every night.
- [43:47]
Dr. Austin Lake
Just a 5 methylate, calm the brain down.
- [43:48]
Gary Breca
And, and, and magnesium 3 and 8. We take something called magnesium breakthrough, which is amazing.
- [43:53]
Dr. Austin Lake
It's just like combo, right?
- [43:56]
Gary Breca
Yeah. All seven forms of magnesium. And, and the other thing it does is it makes you very regular.
- [44:01]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, for sure.
- [44:01]
Gary Breca
It's. And I always tell, you know, clients that, you know, if you're not having a bowel movement at a relatively consistent period of time, usually within 45 minutes of waking. Yeah, that's something that we need to address.
- [44:14]
Dr. Austin Lake
Well, that's one of the primary ways we detox, Right?
- [44:17]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [44:17]
Dr. Austin Lake
And so, so many women, they have thyroid issues and they have sluggish bowels. You know, they don't detox. And they're like, I go every once every couple days and.
- [44:25]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [44:25]
Dr. Austin Lake
Like that's not normal. You know, you should go multiple times a day.
- [44:28]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [44:28]
Dr. Austin Lake
Ideally. So you go back more to sleep. Or do you want to talk about.
- [44:32]
Gary Breca
Well, I want to continue with the, you know, the women. So they get this panel done. You start with the basics. You fix asleep, you, you start them on basic supplementation, which I would so far agree with every. Everything that you're saying. And I think these are the simple building blocks. These are the easy building blocks that get, get really overlooked and they want to go right to hormone therapy and I want to. Which I'm a fan of, but you got it.
- [44:52]
Dr. Austin Lake
We can talk about that too. Yeah. And I think I want to get back to what you said. You said something really interesting of this idea. Like, it can't be that simple. It must be something more difficult. And I. And sometimes it is really tricky because we're dealing with human beings and you don't always know everything that's going on. But I think, I think we want an excuse to, to be able to kind of just, you know, do what we want. Right. It's hard being consistent.
- [45:15]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [45:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
Like, it's hard being disciplined. Like, it's one of those things that.
- [45:19]
Gary Breca
I think it's one of those, like, choose your heart, you know? Yeah.
- [45:21]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right. Like, what do you want down the road?
- [45:23]
Gary Breca
But like, hard work sucks too. Yeah, being broke is really sucks.
- [45:26]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [45:26]
Gary Breca
I mean, they're both hard.
- [45:27]
Dr. Austin Lake
But like the short term satisfaction, short term, you instantaneous gratification idea is like, that's what Instagram is all about. Like, it's just hitting that all the time. And so we're getting that programmed into our cells like constantly. So putting our effort towards something that we won't see results on for like two to three weeks. Which is to me, it's like, I mean, I've had people that had fibromyalgia, that had like debilitating hormonal issues, you know, diabetes, autoimmune conditions that were just debilitated. And like three weeks, they don't, like, their symptoms start going away and they're just like, I didn't even know this was possible. Like, they lose weight, they start feeling energized. Like, what am I supposed to do with this energy? I'm just like, God created our bodies to heal. Yeah. You cannot miss that.
- [46:07]
Gary Breca
Amen.
- [46:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
Like that. Like, your body is craving healing, but.
- [46:11]
Gary Breca
You also need the raw materials.
- [46:12]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right. You gotta have the raw materials.
- [46:13]
Gary Breca
DHEA, elevated SHBG, you know, vitamin D3, which is, I think, the most overlooked.
- [46:18]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [46:18]
Gary Breca
Supplement in of all.
- [46:20]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, right.
- [46:21]
Gary Breca
And D3 with some K2, I think that is, that gets overlooked. And some. Either. Either in an oil that already has the fat so it's soluble. Or. Or with food.
- [46:31]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, with food.
- [46:32]
Gary Breca
And you look at the levels of chronic deficiency in vitamin D3, you know, they say it's 50% of the population. I think it's more like 85%.
- [46:39]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, I think so too. I would agree. Especially dark suboptimal. Suboptimal deficiency, for sure.
- [46:43]
Gary Breca
Yeah, yeah. Suboptimal.
- [46:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
That clinical deficiency is like, that's below what, 30. 30.
- [46:47]
Gary Breca
Yeah, 30 nanograms.
- [46:48]
Dr. Austin Lake
Okay. And that's crazy too. But like below 55. Below.
- [46:51]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [46:52]
Dr. Austin Lake
Like that's most people.
- [46:53]
Gary Breca
And there's some really interesting research around breast cancer risk and other things in women with functional ranges being between 60 and 80 having, you know, prevented protective.
- [47:02]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [47:03]
Gary Breca
And. And I knew from the mortality space that, you know, the second leading cause of morbidity in Covid was a clinical deficiency in vitamin D3.
- [47:11]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [47:11]
Gary Breca
No one wanted it to be that simple, but it was.
- [47:13]
Dr. Austin Lake
There was a stat. I'm trying to remember what the percentage was. It was like 70 or 90% of people that died from COVID were like deficient.
- [47:22]
Gary Breca
Very accurate.
- [47:23]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [47:24]
Gary Breca
Just wild. Yeah.
- [47:25]
Dr. Austin Lake
And also. And also like they were calling it a racist virus because, you know, blacks were having higher death rate mortality rate because like. Well, yeah, they. If they're up in the north northwest and like you don't get much sun and you have more melon in your skin, like you're not going to absorb as much.
- [47:38]
Gary Breca
Yeah. It was all darker complected like Latinos.
- [47:40]
Dr. Austin Lake
And there's probably a metabolic issue there too, potentially. But I think the vitamin D component is. Yeah, it's so, so critical.
- [47:46]
Gary Breca
Huge. I mean, it's a huge component. And I think that's where there was this. Where it seemed like covet was a little selective, but it was. I think it was selective to the. The biomes that were most likely for it to flourish, which are going to be people that are immuno compromised.
- [47:59]
Dr. Austin Lake
Have you been hearing about the amount of smokers that didn't die from coven?
- [48:04]
Gary Breca
Yeah. Because of the nicotine bound to the same receptor.
- [48:06]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [48:06]
Gary Breca
We. Nobody wants to talk about it.
- [48:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
I know. I was hoping.
- [48:09]
Gary Breca
I'm not, I'm not trying to bring.
- [48:10]
Dr. Austin Lake
It up on purpose, but like I thought it was a good opportunity.
- [48:12]
Gary Breca
I'm like this close to going down the nicotine bandwagon, you know.
- [48:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [48:15]
Gary Breca
Just, just.
- [48:16]
Dr. Austin Lake
Well, there's some components to it. Yeah, I think, I think.
- [48:19]
Gary Breca
And we can talk non tobacco nicotine. Obviously not vaping. That's. But some, some folks that I really hold in high regard have sent me some really compelling research.
- [48:28]
Dr. Austin Lake
Same here.
- [48:29]
Gary Breca
Nicotine and cancer. Nicotine and viruses. Nicotine and cognitive function.
- [48:34]
Dr. Austin Lake
Testosterone too.
- [48:35]
Gary Breca
Yeah, testosterone. And we have nicotine receptors. And you're right. In. In initial, you know, in. In early Covid because it bound to that. Those same receptor sites. A lot of smokers were not getting covet.
- [48:47]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Because. Yeah, right.
- [48:49]
Gary Breca
They'd be the most. There's even some sort of a groundswell now around nicotine. And cancer.
- [48:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [48:58]
Gary Breca
You know, before I get anywhere near that, you know, I'll be, I would bring somebody qualified onto the podcast, but I, I've seen the, the positive benefits of the non tobacco nicotines. I think a lot of times it's also the delivery mechanism.
- [49:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right. That's hugely important, you know, is, well, because even, even if you're using like a pouch or something, there's a bunch of aspartame in their bio, you know, bio engineered food ingredients and stuff like that. So it's like a lot of gums have. By the way, people never talk about gum. Like gum's one of the worst things that we're chewing on all day long that have all these chemicals in it. But.
- [49:31]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [49:31]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that's just a fun conversation. But yeah, I'm the same as you.
- [49:35]
Gary Breca
I'm like, I'm very interested to it then I would have been, oh, 100. But the same. I'm, I'm getting the same way with cannabinoids because we haven't done an endocannabinoid system. We create cannabinoids in the body. People think cannabinoids are thc. They're not. You know, and you know, and cbd, even, even micro dosing of, of mushrooms. You know, they, yeah, the, not the psychedelics, but yeah. You know, Rishi cordyceps, you know, these.
- [49:59]
Dr. Austin Lake
You know, for cognition and.
- [50:01]
Gary Breca
Yeah, for cognition. Replacing caffeine with those. I, I, I think there's a, a role for all of these things.
- [50:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [50:08]
Gary Breca
It's just that they get so abused that as soon as you bring those up, people think of the abusive roles and not possibly.
- [50:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
Well, it's just, it always gets back to this concept too of like the things that are coming from our earth that are healing. You know, like there's, it's an alkaloid from like this Madagascar periwinkle plant. It has this is, this is a.
- [50:29]
Gary Breca
Good, like you just made that up.
- [50:31]
Dr. Austin Lake
No, you can, you can go.
- [50:32]
Gary Breca
The Madagascar periwinkle plant. I grow those on my balcony.
- [50:35]
Dr. Austin Lake
I, I practiced saying that like 20 times.
- [50:37]
Gary Breca
The Madagascarian periwinkle.
- [50:39]
Dr. Austin Lake
You don't have periwinkle in your fridge?
- [50:41]
Gary Breca
Not thematic. Ascarian.
- [50:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, not that form.
- [50:43]
Gary Breca
South Polynesian.
- [50:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
No, but there's this, there's this alkaloid compound that's, I think it's called Ben Christine. It's what they use for chemotherapy. It's, it's like $28,000 a gram, you know, 10 times what it is for gold. And it's like, so what it does is there's. This is something else that sounds weird, but the shikimate pathway within plants is like what allows this to be produced. And there's other plants that have the same pathway that is producing these alkaloids that are very helpful for the human body. Right. When we consume them. Well, glyphosate blocks that pathway. And so there's all these other foods that we're consuming that are not getting, we're not getting this access to these alkaloids that would normally be there. And so you're eating this food that's like cardboard that doesn't have any nutritional, real nutritional value and anti cancer properties to it. And that to me is just like they know it's worth that much, they know it's beneficial in that way and they're harvesting it. But yeah, I didn't hear about this until like a few weeks ago.
- [51:36]
Gary Breca
If you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need perfect amino. It's pure essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins in a precise form and ratio that allows for near 100% utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as whey, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need perfect amino. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Wow. I was unaware of that too. Yeah. So the, the, I mean, I know glyphosate, it's terrible for us. It's one of those forever chemicals.
- [52:19]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [52:19]
Gary Breca
Right. Interestingly, I accidentally got heavy metal poisoning recently. Yeah. I'm actually in the metal detox now. I'm doing with my VIP community. I'm actually walking them through.
- [52:32]
Dr. Austin Lake
That's a good opportunity.
- [52:33]
Gary Breca
Yeah, yeah, it was, it was amazing for you. But, you know, but it's an amazing opportunity because a lot of people, you know, have metal toxicity. Number one, they don't know it. Number two, they have no idea what to do. So I've just been very transparent and very, you know, vulnerable and authentic about it and said, here's, here's my blood work and.
- [52:51]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, that I did. Yeah.
- [52:53]
Gary Breca
But here's the, the protocol that I'm going to follow to get out of it. 45 days, they're down almost half, which normally would take eight months to a year. Wow. And so I've been just documenting everything and I got it because I believed a, it wasn't even a friend of mine. It was a doctor that I was referred to that had this machine to reach that he said was restructuring the water. And, and, and scientifically the explanation made perfect sense to me. And he had, he had a PhD in this arena. It's just that the piece of equipment that he was using was, was actually made to be a welder, not, not to restructure water. Long story short, you know, I ended up getting lead, which is really bad.
- [53:38]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [53:38]
Gary Breca
And also, you know, very high levels of, of mercury and, and also iron. So I'm, I'm chelating those out of my body. I'm doing EBO2, you know, sauna. That's great. I'm using non chemical binders like activated.
- [53:52]
Dr. Austin Lake
Charcoal, zeolite or anything like that.
- [53:54]
Gary Breca
What's that?
- [53:55]
Dr. Austin Lake
Spirulina.
- [53:56]
Gary Breca
Spirulina Cholera. Cholera. But, but my whole point in, in saying that is that, you know, a lot of folks just don't, they don't know what to do when they encounter these, you know, toxic or the, or even to test for these things. Mold, mycotoxins, viruses, heavy metals.
- [54:16]
Dr. Austin Lake
Big point. Yeah.
- [54:17]
Gary Breca
And a lot of those are flying under the radar of modern medicine because they also don't just pop up on your labs. Right, right. They don't, they don't usually throw lab values into a tailspin.
- [54:26]
Dr. Austin Lake
So they just sort of, they're very, very hidden. I had a client recently. She, we, she had mold. So we tested her. She was having terrible issues with thyroid. Estrogen was just all out of control. So I was like, do you have any, like, where do you actually live in Florida? And so I was like, well, we're.
- [54:41]
Gary Breca
The capital of the world right here. And I won the mold lottery in Miami.
- [54:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
Oh, I'm sure I can't imagine. And so I was like, if you check for mold and all that. And we did it. We had to do mold test. And sure enough, zeroone or I can't remember how to say it, it's a type of mole, but it's, it helps or it, it affects estrogen activity. Activity. Right. And so she was very estrogen dominant. Dominant. And her also her thyroid was just completely out of whack. And sure enough, like, she's starting to see huge improvements by getting that. But that was something I didn't even realize.
- [55:08]
Gary Breca
Well, the amount of metals in, in thyroid issues is, is mind numbing because the thyroid has a special affinity for heavy metals.
- [55:14]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [55:14]
Gary Breca
And the amount of mold, mycotoxin that flies under the. But but what I've noticed is when I test the, you know, what, what some of these filters are pulling out of my blood. Thankfully, I'm seeing the metals coming out.
- [55:29]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [55:29]
Gary Breca
And my, and my serum levels are dropping and my urine levels are dropping. But, and I feel fine now. I did, didn't initially, but this, you know, I saw the glyphosate and the aflatoxins and I was like, somebody like me is getting glyphosate now. I travel so, you know, occasionally it's, you know, a 16 hour flight.
- [55:48]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [55:49]
Gary Breca
I eat, you know, I am eating, you know, restaurants. Even though I'm trying to be as intentional as possible. Not perfect, then I've got to think, man, the population has got to have so, so burdened by these hormone disrupting chemicals. Oh yeah. Anyway, let's get, I'm going to get back to the female journey. So now they, they get a hormone panel. We put them on basic talking supplements. You fix, you fix their sleep. I want to move towards the, you know, the women that are perimenopausal premenopausal because this is a really interesting time for them because some of them go through it asymptomatic.
- [56:24]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [56:25]
Gary Breca
And I know several of those, but some of them have, you know, crippling technology. And tell me where you fall on the hormone scale. Are you pro hormones? Are you anti hormones?
- [56:36]
Dr. Austin Lake
I mean, yeah, I mean, considering hormones rule the world, I'm very pro hormones. But you're talking about like hormone supplementation. Yeah, yeah, obviously bioidentical is what I preference. I've had a lot of clients that have come to me after they've been on bioidentical hormones for a while and they're like, hey, it was great. The first few years doesn't seem to be working anymore.
- [56:56]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [56:56]
Dr. Austin Lake
And that's where we start to intervene. I always tell my clients, if you're on them currently, you may not need to be at the same dosage that you were on to start. And so as you start fixing some of these issues, we always recommend they go back to their, whoever the doctor is and have them reevaluate it and adjust it and change them down because we don't want to start creating more problems. If you give them testosterone and she doesn't convert it well and she starts converting more androgens and she's not going to have, she's going to have more problems than she started off with long term. And so I, I think it has to be a very complimentary kind of approach with it, and that's where again, where we fit in. We're like, we're not prescribing them, we're not telling to get off them. We're just saying, like, hey, this is where you are with your lifestyle. This is how we're going to help support you in that and help you implement these changes. And then let's let your body tell you via testing, like what you need to do next. And they, they love that because there's no shortage of hormone prescription out there. Like, everyone wants to do that.
- [57:51]
Gary Breca
But what about, what about a woman who knows that she's estrogen dominant? Is it as simple as taking something like dim? Or do you in your practice, do you guys rebalance the hormone? Do you actually put them on hormone therapy and fix progesterone levels and estrogen levels and, or do you try to take somebody that's estrogen dominant and, and, and deal with that, you know, different way.
- [58:18]
Dr. Austin Lake
So again, it's going to depend on what's kind of driving it, if it is a deficiency or if it is something like their gut health because of how involved your gut is in detoxing estrogen and metabolizing it. And so a lot of women have, and I shouldn't say a lot, but women that have high estrogen, they have also high beta glucuronidase. And so that, that is a, affects the enzyme that will help to detox estrogen out of your system and phase two detox. And so if the body doesn't do that because they have a processed diet and all these deficiencies, then like, that's, that's the first place I assume is like your microbiome is probably disrupted. And that's a very, again, that's why they see a huge effect with the diet we put them on that's very focused on their microbiome and getting beneficial bacteria and eliminating processed foods and high inflammatory foods and also getting their macros corrected to where they're getting sufficient fat and protein, along with all these other things we've talked about, their body starts to rebuild their microbiome and then when it does that beta glucuronidase comes down to a normal level and their detox levels go, or their detox ability goes up. And next thing they know they've lost 15 pounds in four weeks. None of it is usually you're not losing muscle like they're losing water weight and water fat, you know, but mostly water. It's inflammatory. And so when they see that happening, then it gets, we get their Estrogen to where it's more appropriate. And at that point in time, like you were saying, we look at the ratios. Is the ratio between progesterone and estrogen? Is that. Is that more imbalance? And I think as women are transitioning from, you know, 45 to 55, their. Their primary ability to produce progesterone is limited because they no longer produce in their ovaries. They produce in their adrenal glands. So if your adrenal glands are tack tax all the time, you're not gonna be able to produce as much or progesterone as quickly as you need to when you need it.
- [60:01]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [60:01]
Dr. Austin Lake
And that's why I think, again, women.
- [60:02]
Gary Breca
Have a game changer for sleep. For women, too.
- [60:05]
Dr. Austin Lake
So huge, actually.
- [60:06]
Gary Breca
For men too. Oh, yeah.
- [60:07]
Dr. Austin Lake
For all of us. But so the hard part, though, is like, okay, where are they from from here to getting to here? And like, sometimes it does require dim or, you know, chase tree berry or whatever it is to kind of help get those balances right. But that's not the first place we start like that, to me, is. So we have four phases. The. The third and fourth phase are really focused on metabolic and sex hormone health. But I don't. I always tell them, like, we can't get here until we get this. This. Your. Your inflammation, your detoxification under control.
- [60:35]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [60:35]
Dr. Austin Lake
If we do that, like, it'll pave the way for rapid success in these other phases. With your thyroid and your sex hormones.
- [60:41]
Gary Breca
Yes.
- [60:41]
Dr. Austin Lake
That's where I think. That's where I think people need to start. That's where we start.
- [60:46]
Gary Breca
You know, you've talked about the dangers of certain supplements and additives and so what are some things that people should look for in. In. In a supplement to maybe avoid something? I mean, especially, you know, women, since.
- [61:00]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Besides all the, like, additive. Like, I have a whole, like, I have a book on all this stuff, but, like, one of the. I have a whole list of, like.
- [61:06]
Gary Breca
You have a book on it?
- [61:07]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, I. It's not officially out. It'll probably out by the time this is out, but.
- [61:10]
Gary Breca
Okay, great.
- [61:11]
Dr. Austin Lake
Probably gonna just be an ebook. It's called Holy Health.
- [61:14]
Gary Breca
Okay.
- [61:15]
Dr. Austin Lake
It's gonna. It's like, wh. All right. Yeah. W H O O or O L L Y. And it's like a play on just, like, being whole. Right. But also it's kind of funny. So I talk about, like, a whole list of ingredients like caragean and titanium dioxide and magnesium stearate, like, all these, like, basic ones that shouldn't be in there. But then you have to look at the quality of whatever supplement you're taking. So if you're taking something like, like, you know, a B6 supplement, it's like there's P5P, you know.
- [61:44]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [61:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
And there's also pyridoxine, HCL or whatever it is. So that's synthetic, not, not a natural form of that. And that's going to be a danger. Not a danger, but more, less easily absorbed for the body.
- [61:54]
Gary Breca
It's like folic acid and. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
- [61:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
Perfect example.
- [61:58]
Gary Breca
So, huge fan of that.
- [61:59]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And, and so getting those things right is where I just, I try to educate them, I try to show them. That's why I think for the, for them coming to me, they're like, what, what do you think I should be taking? Like, even the supplement conversation, like, I'm taking this one. Is this okay?
- [62:12]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [62:12]
Dr. Austin Lake
Or you're just like, well, not so much, you know.
- [62:14]
Gary Breca
Right. Same thing.
- [62:16]
Dr. Austin Lake
And it's like this is an alternative option you can look at and it's natural and it's going to be absorbed and this is how you can absorb it. And so this is when to take it, this is how much to consider taking. So that's where we start with a lot of these people. But I think if you, I don't even know where to start with that because there's so many supplements that we could talk about depending on which supplement you want to know, but I think it just depends on the supplement. You're.
- [62:34]
Gary Breca
Well, I'm excited for this ebook to come out.
- [62:37]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [62:37]
Gary Breca
Because I, I, I, you know, I do the same thing. I have a, a guide online too. And I, there are certain contents that are in really inexpensive supplements that, not just fillers, but, you know, folic acid, cyanocobalamin. Yeah. B12 does occur naturally in nature, but it's also cyanide based.
- [62:56]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [62:56]
Gary Breca
You know, B12, your body's gonna have to convert it anyway, so not very efficient. I'm just saying if you're, if you're actually going to go out and intentionally purchase a supplement, usually it's, it's a marginal increase in price to get one that doesn't have the binders, the fillers, the additives. Right. And has already been methylated. And it could be a game changer, especially for women, younger women, menstruating women and pregnant females, to take, you know, methylated nutrients versus the other one.
- [63:26]
Dr. Austin Lake
And that kind of just you know, sparks me in my mind. But a lot of, you know, we talk about Food, like we always want to start with food, right. Like, I think supplements, I'm a huge fan of supplements. I use them all the time, endorse them a lot. But some people are like, why can't I get it through food? Like, well, there's a lot of reasons for that. But if you're eating even quality food, I switch my clients over to, you know, grass fed, grass finished beef if we can and of course get them all those staples going.
- [63:48]
Gary Breca
Yeah, yeah.
- [63:49]
Dr. Austin Lake
But some people are like, I'm doing that, I've been doing that and I'm still not seeing. My B12 is still low. I'm like, right, okay, well how's your stomach acid? What do you mean? Like, well, I, I don't have any acid reflux. Or maybe I do have acid reflux. I'm on a PPI, a proton pump inhibitor.
- [64:04]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [64:04]
Dr. Austin Lake
And my B12's low, my iron's low, my vitamin D is low. It's like, well, like your stomach acid is not acidic enough to actually absorb these things and break them down. And the way you can figure that out is that intrinsic factor is what helps, you know, B12, for example, actually get into your cell. And so that's a, I always forget to mention this, but like, that's one of the starting points with this whole conversation with our clients is like, how is your stomach acid? Like that is a starting point of health. Like if you don't chew well and you don't break it down well. Like, and you're expecting your microbiome to be good. Yeah, it's impossible. Like you're, you can take a bunch of these supplements, but you could get it through eating grass fed beef and some of these other nutrients, these other amino acids and you would probably be better off than where you currently are.
- [64:43]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [64:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
And then we can start to fill your, your needs with supplements and things like that. So it has to start with that whole holistic diet wise.
- [64:49]
Gary Breca
First of all, I'm happy you're mentioning grass fed beef. I mean, where do you fall in like the vegan vegetari, veganism versus meat eater category?
- [64:56]
Dr. Austin Lake
I'll just say I've converted a lot of vegans into, you know, regular eaters. Okay. Omnivores, regular eaters. Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I haven't seen enough to support that. That's a good idea. You know, and I've had a lot of clients that were really struggling, very, very clean in their life, you know, very low chemical toxins coming through their diet and things like that. But they were, they weren't getting enough of the foundations through, through animal products.
- [65:20]
Gary Breca
So. So what are the most common, I guess, misconceptions for, for women of all ages that they make about hormone therapy or about hormones in general? You think that women are put on hormones too early? Do you think that hormone therapy is not used often enough? Like, what are some of the big misconceptions that you see coming through your practice that you're clearing up?
- [65:44]
Dr. Austin Lake
So in, at least in my experience, a lot of them have tried hormone replacement therapy. So I think I'm kind of speaking to that crowd, and I think I, again, I have a hard time getting a blanket statement on that because I think it can be very helpful and effective for women, depending on where they are in their journey. I would just encourage women to, like, again, get back to this misbelief that they, they'd have no role in this whole conversation.
- [66:13]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [66:14]
Dr. Austin Lake
I try to explain things in very, like, kind of like analogies. So, like, if you think about, like a king in a castle who has his people in front of, peasants in front of him, he has his knights and protecting him and all that. Like, if there's a threat, he's gonna be the first one to leave. He won't return until everything's all safe and sound. And that's kind of what your hormones do. Like, they're very much responding to an environment, at least your sex hormones, like, they're not going to be there when you're surviving. And so if your environment is constantly sending a signal to your hormones that they need to respond to this dangerous environment, you just can't expect your sex hormones to be well supplied.
- [66:47]
Gary Breca
Yeah, I hear Mark Hyman talk about all the time, if you have a sick fish, the first thing they do is clean the tank. Yeah, right. Like, yeah, they filter the stuff out of the water. Like, they clean up the environment.
- [66:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
Right.
- [66:57]
Gary Breca
And the fish heels. But it's. It. I completely agree with you if you.
- [67:02]
Dr. Austin Lake
You have to, like, believe that first. Right? Like, start with that. Like, don't let that, don't let the, the misconception or maybe even deception of our society tell you, like, it's not in your, not in your hands. Because I think a lot of it can be in your hands. From there, you can make an informed decision about what hormone replacement therapy will look like. Like, how much, you know, what kind. Like, am I doing testosterone, progesterone and estrogen, or am I just doing testosterone, or am I just doing some progesterone? Because getting a, a multitude of different hormones coming into your system and not converting well, because you still are lacking B5 and B6 and you still have issues with methylation. You still have this issue with your gut. Like, it's not going to go well for you long term, at least in what I've seen. So you have to kind of build. Yeah. Get the fish tank clean and then start to figure out what you need to do from there.
- [67:44]
Gary Breca
Yeah, yeah. They rarely isolate the fish and then start injecting the fish or.
- [67:49]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [67:50]
Gary Breca
Putting chemicals or synthetics or, you know, pharmaceuticals into the fish. They really clean up the environment.
- [67:56]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [67:56]
Gary Breca
The, the.
- [67:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
And again, that's, that's not like going to solve every single problem.
- [67:59]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [68:00]
Dr. Austin Lake
But I think. And so I think you have to start there.
- [68:02]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [68:02]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. And, and I think a lot of people get so discouraged and hopeless with their effort. And I always tell people it's like, if you can get that set up first, it's like a good financial investment. Like, you can make money while you're sleeping. You can be building better health while you're sleeping. If you get these things in alignment, your body can move away from just being like. I think people focus on doing a lot of healthy things, but they don't focus on healing.
- [68:26]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [68:26]
Dr. Austin Lake
And there's a big difference. Like, healing is very active and very intentional and very specific. And it's figuring out what your problem is with a qualified practitioner to then identify, like, what your healing protocol looks like. If you broke your wrist, you wear a cast. Like, you don't just take it off on the weekends. Like, you keep it on, you heal it for eight weeks and then you get back to rehabbing. And like, that's the process. But with our hormones and with our health, we don't, we don't view it that way. We kind of just like, well, I'm eating pretty healthy.
- [68:47]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [68:48]
Dr. Austin Lake
I'm doing some things. I wear my blue light blocking glasses and I try to keep my stress low. And it's like, okay, those are all very good things. But, like, what is, what is missing in your specific system requires specific information. And then you have to follow that, that, that pathway.
- [69:00]
Gary Breca
I, I love too that you're very open about being a. You call it a biblical rooted health practitioner.
- [69:07]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [69:08]
Gary Breca
Talk a little bit about what the role of faith, at least for you.
- [69:14]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [69:14]
Gary Breca
Right. Plays in this, in, in this scheme. Grand scheme of things. And, you know, I feel like Bobby Kennedy is the same way. You know, he talks about his, his journey and how I might be bastardizing his story a little Bit, but he stumbled upon a book on. It wasn't really a faith based book, but it was a book that had him begin to consider, you know, faith and beliefs.
- [69:40]
Dr. Austin Lake
Interesting.
- [69:40]
Gary Breca
And I don't know the story. It's, it's a really interesting story. And he tells this story about how he wasn't a believer and God didn't believe in Jesus. Dad really had, didn't have faith in his life. He was an addiction and. But he knew he would do anything that would help him overcome his addiction. And I forget the name of the book. I'd have to find it and if I do, I'll put it into the show notes because it was such a compelling story. Then real quick, yeah, I'll cut it in or I'll just drop it in the show notes for, for the podcast listeners. But essentially he stumbled upon this book and, and basically it wasn't a pro or anti faith book in and of itself. It wasn't like he found the Bible. He started to read it and was like, oh man, I'm going to start following Jesus. What he found was this book that said it was basically, what do you have to lose? Because if you believe in a higher power and you have faith in and higher power and you have something to fear and you believe that there is something that is observing you when no one else is looking, then you can begin to live a life that is one that's the same whether or not you're in the presence of other people or not. So in other words, you know, he was like, it really spoke to his heart because the addiction is something that you hid.
- [70:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
Sure.
- [70:57]
Gary Breca
You know, it's not like you would shoot up in a room with a bunch of other people. You know, you would, you know, you go blindly around the corner into the bathroom so nobody's watching. And. But this, this whole idea of a belief in a higher power said that there's never a time that you're not, you know, being watched. You might not be being judged, but you're being being watched. And it, it started this road to faith. And while he was considering it, he talks about this volleyball game that he was playing. And, and while he's playing volleyball, somebody hit the ball and it bounced off of a pole. As soon as it bounced off the pole, he goes, that's going to get hit by a truck. And the ball, you got to look this, yeah, you have to watch us. And, and it literally, the ball bounced out into a street and got run over by an 18 wheeler. And everybody on the volleyball court Was like, what? And, and he said it was right after he found this book. And he was like. He thought that this was a sign.
- [71:47]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, sure.
- [71:48]
Gary Breca
And so he took a right turn. That's what it took for him.
- [71:52]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [71:52]
Gary Breca
So I think everybody has it, you know, a different story about. Yeah, maybe you grew up and in faith was always, you know, rooted in your family. It was easy for you. You know, for me, I was saved by a Promise Keepers convention years ago. But. So tell me about, you know, a little bit about what that.
- [72:08]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, so the biblically. Biblically rooted thing is probably the most important aspect of this whole thing from my practices perspective in my life. But I think there's two, again, two simple ways to think about it. There's a conversation that we are ignorant to things we don't know. God says in Hosea, chapter four, verse six, I think that my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. That's a problem. You know, we don't want to be destroyed by things we don't know. The second thing is iniquities. Those are things that we do know, we do anyway and like, don't really care. It's like, I'm going to harm my body. And this was like a more recent revelation that I had about the verse. I think it's First Corinthians 13. Like, you know, your body's a temple of the Holy Spirit in that it says like, you know, your bodies are not your own. They were bought with a price, therefore honor God with your bodies. And the thing that stuck out to me was like, oh, this isn't mine. Like, if I brought somebody's car, like.
- [73:01]
Gary Breca
I feel I always call it the temple.
- [73:03]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, but like if I brought somebody's car, like I fill up full of gas, like I'll maybe clean it out a little bit. If it's my car, I'm like, yeah, I don't know, it's fine, I'll just maybe not wash it this week or fill it up. But I think having that perspective, like, this is not mine. Like, this is a vessel that God gave me to be a steward over that. That belief is. Is so impactful when it comes to this health stuff because you can have all the information. Like people have so much information these days about what they could potentially do with their health, yet most people don't take any action on it. And I think we were talking about this today on the way over here. It's just like in Ecclesiastes, you know, King Solomon had everything and he richest.
- [73:37]
Gary Breca
Person probably ever thousand Chariots, a thousand wives.
- [73:40]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. Everything. Yeah. He had it all.
- [73:42]
Gary Breca
A lot of wives.
- [73:43]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah. I mean, maybe that's. Maybe that's where he went wrong.
- [73:44]
Gary Breca
That's tough. That was his downfall, for sure.
- [73:48]
Dr. Austin Lake
There's one right there. But, like, you know, he's talking about. And he always says meaningless. It's all vanity under the sun and all this stuff. And I think from a believer's perspective, or even just like an average person that doesn't believe her, it's like, well, it's all meaningless. What does it even matter? But that's not the point of Ecclesiastes. Like, the point of Ecclesiastes is that it's not like the actual real word is like, a Hebrew word is like heavel. It's like what meaningless means. So we associate with, like, nothing heavily is like. It's like you can't grasp it. It's like seeing fog go across. Like, you see it, you don't understand it. You can't, like, put your hand on it. Right. So.
- [74:17]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [74:17]
Dr. Austin Lake
That's kind of what life is like. Life is heavily. Like, it's not something that we can fully grasp and put our hands on, but it's not. It's not, like, pointless. Like, there's so much value in our life, but we can't go one side of making it all about. Might as well not do anything because what's. What's the point? And we also can't make it about making it an idol to where, like, this is all it's about. And, like, my health is everything and my biomarkers are everything, and, like, my fitness is everything because, like, that's. That's not healthy either. So.
- [74:42]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [74:42]
Dr. Austin Lake
I think for me, as a Christian, it's like, I have to kind of constantly be in this. This mindset of, like, it's not this. It's not meaningless, but it's not everything at the same time. And, like, this is for me, it's like God has a plan for my life that is bigger than I even understand, and he has an impact. And I can tell you a bunch of stories about this, but before I even blew up online, I prayed that God opened the floodgates and bring people to me, like, two years ago. And each time sitting here with you right now is just, like, so, so surreal because, like, I never would imagine this would ever happen. But, like, when it happens, I'm like, oh, like, I prayed for this to happen. And as a child of God, he likes giving good gifts and he likes showing off a little Bit, you know, I'm saying, like, hey, like, I showing off. I am in control here. Like, don't forget, like, I am control. And that this, this life is not meaningless. It's not pointless. Like, you are here for a reason. And I think as parents, as people who are trying to better their health, you have to figure out what is that reason for you? Like, what is that why to where all this effort that you're putting in all this toil, like King Solomon talks about Ecclesiastes, like, the toil is our reward. Like, the toil is worth it. Like, hard work is good.
- [75:46]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [75:46]
Dr. Austin Lake
But understanding why you're doing it is better. And I think if people can get that correlation dialed in to where they know that if I do these things, it's going to yield a result and that it's worth it. People are going to. They're going to invest in their health and that they won't have nearly the issues that they're having now because they see that what they do matters and that there is. That there's. There's some level of, like, purpose and all that. And it's not about all the money we make and all that stuff, like, that's all gonna fall away at some point. It's like if you build a sandcastle, like, you start at 7am in the morning, you build this magnificent sandcastle, and it's beautiful. You're like, really, you, you're like toiling with it, you're laboring with it, doing with your child or something like that. And then next thing you know, the tide comes in, it washes it all away.
- [76:31]
Gary Breca
Right.
- [76:31]
Dr. Austin Lake
Like, that's what our life is.
- [76:32]
Gary Breca
Yeah.
- [76:33]
Dr. Austin Lake
But like, all that, that whole process, building sandcastle wasn't for nothing. It all had value.
- [76:38]
Gary Breca
That's amazing, man. Well, first of all, this, this has been amazing. I'm definitely going to have you back. I want to follow your journey. Cool. Tell my audience where they can find you.
- [76:49]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yes. So online at my Instagram, you guys can link that. I usually have a link at the top of my page.
- [76:55]
Gary Breca
That is Dr. Austin Lake.
- [76:57]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah, Dr. Austin Lake.
- [76:59]
Gary Breca
Dr. Austin Lake.
- [77:01]
Dr. Austin Lake
That's right.
- [77:01]
Gary Breca
Okay.
- [77:02]
Dr. Austin Lake
I also, I currently have a website that's transitioning, and so it's going to be under Holy health.
- [77:08]
Gary Breca
Transitioning to what? A male or female just transitioning.
- [77:13]
Dr. Austin Lake
So we're building, we're building. We're going to start training coaches to operate in this because we've had such a high demand for what we're doing, like, just like yourself. And so we're we're building a training program for coaches to help them to go out and to service these people that can help to help implement this stuff. And it's, again, it's not that it's, like, secretive information, but it's just people need help with implementation. So it's going to be this new thing that we're doing. That's why it's transitioning to a different website. But I'll be talking more about that on my social media and stuff, so you can find. You can also just Google my name and you'll find stuff on me.
- [77:43]
Gary Breca
Okay, great. Well, I wind down all my podcasts by asking all my guests the same question.
- [77:48]
Dr. Austin Lake
Yeah.
- [77:49]
Gary Breca
So there's no right or wrong answer to this question, but what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?
- [77:55]
Dr. Austin Lake
Oh, man. Russell Brand stole the answer. I watched that episode.
- [78:00]
Gary Breca
I asked Russell Brand. He sat right in that chair.
- [78:02]
Dr. Austin Lake
That dude is amazing. He is. He is so smart. But, yeah, he said Jesus Christ, which. That's like such a perfect answer, like, how you're gonna beat that. I think it's. I think it's along those lines of imaging who Christ is. And, you know, it's loving the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, and soul, and then loving other people as yourself. Those are really hard things to do. Like, those are the two greatest commandments that God has put in our life. Very simple. But to be able to do that, to have the mental clarity, to be able to have the energy, to be able to be the hands and feet of. Of our. Of our creator, it's very difficult. And so being an ultimate human for me is really getting my body in a position, getting my mind a position to where I can be obedient to God's calling. That, to me, would be an ultimate human.
- [78:47]
Gary Breca
That's amazing. Well, guys, what. What an amazing podcast. You know, Dr. Austin and I are going to move into the VIP Ultimate Human Group. Now, if you're interested in becoming a VIP ultimate human, it's 97amonth. You can sign up in my website, just go to the ultimatehuman.com we do private podcasts. We do all kinds of challenges. We do live group Q&As in there. So go over to my website and check it out. And otherwise, as always, it's just science.