Functional Medicine Doctor: The Hidden Toxin In Your Home! Why You're Constantly Exhausted

We really are seeing such an increase in all of these chronic illnesses. The 3 main drivers, I think, are the way we've changed our diet, and then we are putting so many environmental toxins into our environment unknowingly. And then the 3rd thing, which has been so alarming, is what we've done to our indoor air environment.

How do you have somebody determine if it's mold or if it's some other type of condition?

If you have any problems with your thyroid, especially autoimmune thyroid, It's a signal that you may not just be nutrient deficient, you may be toxic.

Are there any therapies or supplements or things in particular you think these, these are also really, really beneficial when it comes to, to supporting longevity?

All the B vitamins, the carnitine, and the phospholipids. A lot of these things that we've talked about, I think those are absolutely foundational. If our mitochondria are working well, a lot of our systems are gonna be working so much better.

There are two ways to heal and treat the body today: conventional medicine and more advanced functional medicine. And more and more doctors are starting to help people heal using functional medicine, with everything from how to help women get pregnant in their 40s and supporting for fertility, treating mold toxicity and illnesses and other chronic issues like autoimmune disease, and also promoting longevity. And the answers between conventional medicine and functional medicine are very different. Well, today I've brought in Dr. Ann Shippy. She is an expert in functional medicine and helping women get pregnant in their 40s and helping people heal from chronic issues. And today we're going to dive deep into the top diet, the supplements, and the ways to heal naturally using functional medicine. And Dr. Ann Shippy, she has been helping people heal for over 20 years now, has a really great thriving clinical practice in Austin, Texas. And today we're going to be talking about how to heal your body with the power of functional medicine. And welcome to the show.

Thanks so much for having me. So great to be here.

Yeah, well, I was just so excited to have you because I'd seen some, seen some of your videos online, and you've just really gained a really great reputation on helping women get healthy, especially in their late 30s, 40s, and beyond, and also just helping people with really with tough conditions, everything from mold toxicity to chronic infections and autoimmune disease, these conditions that are just continuing to grow today. The first question I have for you is, why are we seeing more chronic illness today? And you know, it's so crazy 'cause when I opened my practice 20 years ago, you know, it, it was a lot more of the same conditions, right? And now there are so many more of these, you know, rare autoimmune diseases and other health problems than I think even we had 20 years ago. What do you think the biggest reason for that is?

We really are seeing such an increase in all of these chronic illnesses. So you have it from compared to 20 years ago when I started my functional medicine practice, it's really alarming. So the children's health to the fertility issues to just a lot of human suffering. And the 3 main drivers I think are the way we've changed our diet. We're eating food that is highly processed, a lot of additives, a lot of pesticides, toxins in it, which disrupt the body in so many different ways. And then we are putting so many environmental toxins into our environment unknowingly through our air, our water, our food, and so many other things. And then the third thing, which has been so alarming and so fascinating to figure out how to help people get better, is what we've done to our indoor air environment. Mm-hmm. And this astronomical increase in the amount of people being exposed to toxic mold.

Well, you know, I've read that most indoor air is somewhere like 5 to 10 times more toxic than our outdoor air. And so people think, oh, I'm inside. Like, even, you know, I remember driving last summer through Nashville and there was a sign, and we rarely have this here. I mean, it's of course so much worse in places like California or Mexico or China, but a sign saying, hey, the indoor air quality is low today outside. And I thought, I mean, people should have these signs in their home. Like, you know, your indoor air quality is terrible, get outside. And so when you have patients who have mold issues or issues with the indoor air, what are some of the things you start to do to help them heal and overcome those issues? And what are even warning signs or symptoms that somebody maybe has a health problem that's related to indoor air?

Such great questions. Unfortunately, a lot of the mold situations are not as obvious as your potential with the broken pipes. A lot of times it's hidden. So it's some flashing in windows that weren't done properly, or a chimney, or an air conditioning system that's not, um, condensing and managing the air humidity properly. It's usually hidden. Like my mom just went through a mold remediation and it was all hidden. It was a little leak from the attic that you couldn't see that was going down into a bedroom wall. It was a slow leak behind a dishwasher that there was mold all the way up above a wall and a cabinet in the bathroom. That had a, had a little leak. She had no idea. So the first thing for people is just to have some suspicion about it, that, and we probably should just all be checking regularly to see if we have a mycotoxin level. I feel like it's important to talk the distinction between the mold spores that are being produced by having a mold problem and the toxins that the mold makes just as a byproduct of them living. And so it's those toxins that actually cause a lot of the health problems. So if you think about the mold as being a major environmental exposure, depending on where your weak spot is in your body, it can start to cause the symptoms. So some people might just have more frequent headaches. Some people might feel more, um, a lack of energy. Other people might notice some hormone imbalance. So it can be so many different symptoms depending on where your body is at the time. Yeah, I had a really— I first learned about mold on my own body. Oh, wow. Yeah, I had gone to a conference. It was early in my functional medicine career. I'd just been doing functional medicine for about 4 years. So I was looking for everything that I could to teach me more to how to help my patients. And I had gone to Bill Reis Environmental Health Conference. Yeah. And there was a little segment on toxic mold. And I'm like, wait, we didn't learn about that in medical school. I knew mold could cause infections in the body in people that were immunocompromised, but I had no idea that it could be such a major toxin exposure. And subsequently, less than a year later, after I'd started to try to learn how to test for it in my patients and how to treat it, I got very, very ill. I started losing all my hair so much that like the bathroom vanity was just covered in hair. And I was so tired. I'd get up on a Monday morning and I'd just be like, oh my God, I don't know how I'm gonna take care of my kids today, much less take care of my patients. And then I started having neurological symptoms like ALS. I started losing the strength in my, right arm, and I had so much pain in my body that I didn't really want any, even my kids to hug me. I was really getting scared. And that's when I, the light bulbs went on and I started investigating what was going on in my house. And so instead of having that continuous decline from a really bad toxic mold exposure, I was totally able to recover. The strength of my arm came back, the, the circulation, the little muscle all the jumping that I was having in my body, everything got better than ever. And it was by getting in a clean environment and then really starting to actually study my own detoxification pathways better to learn how to zip the toxins out. And what's really, like, I feel like as hard as that was to go through that and as scary as it was, the things that I learned have really helped me to know what to do to keep my own health protected, as well as how to help my patients better. So it ended up being a blessing.

Well, I mean, you mentioned some symptoms that most people wouldn't think, oh, that's mold. Like, I mean, I think when most people get a headache, their first thought isn't like, oh, that's mold. They're like, okay, my neck and traps are tight, and it's, you know, there's a, you know, that type of cervicogenic headache from just tension, or maybe it's a food sensitivity, or maybe it's stress, or maybe it's genetics, I don't know. But that's where I think most people's head goes with something like headaches or fatigue. Oh, maybe it's my sleep isn't, isn't as good as it should be, or I'm not getting enough B vitamins or something like that. But you mentioned some real headaches and fatigue. And then here's another one: thinning hair or hair falling out. Most people would think, oh, that's a thyroid issue or something like that. But you're saying, yeah, those are, those are 3 big things with mold. Here's my question for you. How do you have somebody determine if it's mold or if it's some other type of condition? Or is there specific tests or things that you like to do?

Great question. So there's a company called Realtime Laboratory that I think does the best job of checking for the mycotoxins in the individual. So it's a urine test, it's easy to do, it's a few hundred dollars, it's, it's very, very easy to do. And then I'll have them do it with a glutathione challenge. So glutathione is one of the main things we make in our body, but depleted, especially when we're being exposed to a lot of different toxins.

Yeah.

So I have them do it with and without so that the really bad detoxifiers that don't make glutathione very well, we don't miss because they're really the ones that are— yeah, most susceptible, me included. And then it's been so fascinating because I've also seen it impact especially men's fertility. So I've seen sperm counts really drop. So if anybody's experiencing fertility issues— and then I've also seen the mycotoxins cause an increase miscarriages. So it's, it's such a breadth. It really just depends on what's going on in your body as to, to, um, whether to think about mold as being a potential root cause. But especially if you're, um, you know, you're wanting to be super proactive about your health and you've had any leaks in your house, I highly, highly recommend doing the testing proactively even before you get sick.

We have a saying in my practice here in Nashville, and I've got two practices. I've got the Longevity Clinic, which is local, and I have a national clinic called the Health Institute, but I say test, don't guess. Yes. Right. It's like, I mean, hey, the number of people today that are wasting money on the wrong supplements— I mean, they saw an influencer online say, everybody take an apple cider vinegar gummy or this green or whatever. And it's like, well, there are probably 5 other things or so that your body really, really needs that you're missing. And that's really what you need to supplement with. Supplements are for supplementing those gaps of things that you're likely missing. But blood work or urine analysis or testing will just tell you, you know. Now here, let me say this though, if you're doing the right testing, because the other thing you'll find out is these conventional tests today— I was even surprised with this— even the company Function, their markers that they have, some of them are reading them in conventional ranges, not functional medicine ranges. And that's a really big deal. When you look at blood work and do the right blood work, it's so much different than conventional blood work today.

It's It's, yes, it's actually kind of upsetting the way that the lab normal values are set. Like a vitamin D of 30 is in the normal range, but it's so insufficient. You need a vitamin D level of at least 50 to 80 to have good strong bones, healthy brain, healthy heart, healthy immune system. So yes, you really, you need to look beyond the traditional labs. And what's been so exciting, so I was a chemical engineer before I went into medicine. Oh, wow, amazing. So I love data. What's been, absolutely so much fun over the last 20 years is to see the additional testing that we can do to really look deeply into the body, both for longevity as well as to solve some of these complex problems like Parkinson's and infertility and all of these things.

Yeah, so one thing we do in our local clinic, we do really advanced, uh, blood work panels of— we do intracellular nutrients. So, you know, so it's like people think, oh, my— the magnesium in my blood will tell me a lot, but Well, sometimes you have a lot of things in your blood, but they're not getting in the cell, right? And that's important. So there are things like that. And you mentioned glutathione. I mean, this is one that I feel like it's sort of— sometimes it's talked about a lot, other times it'll go years and people won't think about it. But I found when I really focus on— with certain patients on that one single thing, improving glutathione, for some people it is the single greatest— I don't know if the word cure is right, but, but, but remedy towards helping them overcome things, especially people with liver issues. Anything that's detoxification related, a lot of autoimmune disease. Like, there was a study done, and, and the other thing is a lot of people are underdosing it. Um, you know, a lot of the studies are more like at least 2,000 milligrams, some upwards of 4,000 milligrams of, of— I saw a recent study on it helping essentially reverse autoimmune disease in a really large group of people when they were doing higher dose of glutathione. So it's, um, it's probably the most underutilized, especially for detoxification protocols.

And what I see measuring the glutathione levels in people is that almost everybody's deficient. Like, it's very—

Yes.

Like, not even just sufficient, they're deficient. So to get optimal, exactly right. Like, for one of the things, for those of us that are really dedicated to having healthgevity, really knowing our glutathione levels and then dosing accordingly to get an optimal level changes everything. It changes what happens with our immune system. It changes what happens with how well our brain is healing, our heart. Like, so many things are affected by having an optimal glutathione level.

You know, example of this, so I, I treat a lot of women with hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's, and there's a lot of— what I see is probably the number one nutrient that I see really moves the needle, and there's quite a few, but the number one is probably selenium. Now, after that, I do think zinc is really important, and vitamin D, and even iodine in certain cases with certain people, and then a lot of times methylated B vitamins. But selenium is one of those nutrients your body needs for glutathione. And I think one of the reasons why it helps Hashimoto's so much is because you are boosting glutathione production. So I think for autoimmune disease, something that's not talked about enough and maybe the biggest root thing that's going to help people reverse it is actually greatly upleveling the glutathione level. One of the biggest health problems I see isn't diet or supplements. It's disconnection. People are overstimulated and running on empty. And that's why simple daily rituals matter. Small habits can either drain you or bring you back into balance. One of the simplest grounding habits I use every day is using Manuka honey. This is the real deal. It's raw. It's never overprocessed. And the jar I use has an MGO rating of 850, which is about as potent as it gets. That means real support for gut health, immunity, and for steady natural energy without the crash. What I love is the transparency. Every batch is third-party tested. It's certified glyphosate-free and fully traceable. And you can even scan the jar and see exactly which beekeeper in New Zealand it came from. My kids eat it straight off the spoon. I stir it in a tea or take a spoon before I record a podcast episode. It's not just honey, it's a daily health habit. Go to manukora.com/axe to get 31% off plus $25 in free gifts with their starter kit. Okay, can you, can you talk about what glutathione is as well, just so people understand too?

So, uh, glutathione is something that we make in our body. It's the tail end of the methylation pathway. So as we're— those wheels are spinning to put a carbon group onto things, it makes glutathione. And then intracellular glutathione helps with so many different things. It's one of the most powerful antioxidants that we make in our body, and it is absolutely critical for eliminating heavy metals and many other pollutants. We really, really need it. And it's been like, if I was on a desert island and I could have two things dropped into me, that would be one of them. Like, I just, I know, especially for me and how, what my genes are, and then just the world that we live in today, that it's absolutely essential for me to be healthy.

And it's the number one thing to help your body deal with oxidative stress. So think about it, like, there, there, sometimes you're deficient in things, right? And so you need to go and kind of help, and sometimes you need to go and kill things. But glutathione is your body's number one protector to keep from further damage from happening. So yes, you need to help heal the area, but you also need to keep it from being damaged. And so it's sort of like creating a shield around certain areas of your body, like your cells. It's protecting all of these different areas. You were going to mention something about the thyroid. Would you, would you share what you were going to share there?

I think about the thyroid as being like the canary in the coal mine. Of course. So like, if your body is not able to eliminate the toxins that you're getting exposed to over time. I think the thyroid is letting— if you have any problems with your thyroid, especially autoimmune thyroid, it's a signal that you may not just be nutrient deficient, you may be toxic. And that's really focusing on the detoxification. Yeah, part of healing can make such a big difference. And it's so fun to see, especially if I can catch somebody early in the thyroid journey, to reverse the autoimmune markers and to have them not need the thyroid meds. If it's, if it's later, it's a little harder. We can usually get the dosing of the thyroid meds down by doing the detox and replenishing the nutrients, but it's such a great way to track, are we doing the right things for this particular person?

I don't know if you saw this. There was a study that came out last week from Yale, and it said that something like, it was 92%, I'm almost certain of this, and they said, But over 90% of women on levothyroxine, the conventional thyroid medication, likely it's doing almost nothing for them in terms of their symptoms. And I was even surprised— like, let me say this, I generally believe that, but also I was generally surprised that that came out. And then that was published in JAMA. And I thought to myself, wow, I mean, that is really telling. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

I think when we're helping patients with thyroid issues that we really need to look at their symptoms, and then we also need to look at the labs, and we need them to be optimal. So we need to do the full range of thyroid testing. So not just the TSH, but we need to get the free T3, the free T4, the reverse T3. And so when we start to help the body to detoxify with things like glutathione, and we build up the nutrients like selenium and other things that the thyroid needs, and we clean up the gut with, 'cause there's almost always a gut issue going on as well, right? They need to be absorbing the nutrients and not driving inflammation. That, that's really the key to feeling better. When we address all of these aspects of why the thyroid has been the canary in the first place, that's when people feel better. And I think when they're doing their studies, they're not looking at like, what's the root cause? What else does this person need? And how do we really help them to get the nutrients that that thyroid needs to run?

Now, when you're recommending thyroid, like, if you have a patient and you do have them take a thyroid medication, are you having them take a levothyroxine, or are you having them do more of an Armour or Nature-Throid, or what do you— what are you recommending? It's so patient individual, because the one's T4 and the others are T4 and T3, but various.

So for the patients that can do that conversion of the, the levothyroxine, which is usually Synthroid, Tirosint, levothyroxine. For the ones that can convert it into T3 just fine, then usually just treating them with the T4 is best because then their body knows what to do with it. For people that aren't converting very well, then a lot of times we do need to add in some T3, or even some of my patients will have some of the, Armor Thyroid or Nature Thyroid, which is the glandular from an animal, right? Yeah, yeah. So sometimes we'll use that with stacking some T4 or T3 to really get the full breadth of the thyroid hormone that they need. And it's all based on feel. Like if you just start the thyroid medicine and they don't feel a lot better, then we have work to do. We need to really customize things for that individual patient.

Yeah, I mean, I can appreciate the integrative approach. I will say for myself, I try and do everything I can to not have them do the medication at all. I mean, my focus is very much, hey, this first 3— we tend to have, hey, let's focus for 3 months. Once we have the blood panel back and we know every nutrient you're off on, we know all of these patterns, let's go fully at that. And I feel like almost— I'm not talking about 90+ percent of the time, it's typically not needed. Now, sometimes, you know, if you've had somebody who had their thyroid removed or there's still a major chronic issue, you know, that's when sometimes I, I, you know, I think that there's there's a place there, but there are so— I mean, let me ask you, what percentage of doctors today do you think are doing the full breadth of testing for hormones? Because I think a lot of times they're only getting their TSH checked or just their T4, but a lot of times they're not doing the T3 or reverse T3 or some of these other hormones. And so a lot of doctors don't even have the full picture of what's going on.

Not only do most doctors not order them, but if the patients ask for them, often they refuse to check them. Really? Yes. So it's important when you're choosing your doctor to make sure that you have a doctor that at least is willing to look at the things with you. And I really have so many of my patients that we regularly also measure the thyroid antibodies and a full autoimmune panel because I see that once they have one autoimmune disease, that they're, they're, that others are brewing. And we wanna make sure we're doing everything possible to reverse the autoimmune disorders.

That's right. Well, yeah, I mean, and I'm glad you brought that up. I think the statistics are somewhere near 80% of patients with hypothyroidism have Hashimoto's. And now here's another stunning one. 60% of people that have hypothyroidism don't know they have it. So there's a lot of people walking around with, a lot of women with thinning hair, low energy, just feeling off, metabolism issues, and they don't realize it's a, they have a thyroid problem.

Well, and unfortunately today, a lot of women are just being told, "Oh, you're just getting older." Yeah, that's right. It's so maddening. Using my mother as an example, she just turned 95.

Amazing. Wow.

I'm so proud of her. As a, you know, a signal. Like if she doesn't, if she feels tired, she like, she wants to know why even at 95.

Yeah, exactly.

So you should feel great. If you don't, you know, well into your 70s and 80s, there's something going on. There's an opportunity to optimize. And certainly if you're only, 40 or 50, you're still very young and we just need to find the things that help you to feel energized.

Yeah. You know, one of the other things I know you're an expert in and you actually recently wrote a book on is fertility. And I'm seeing this more and more. I have a lot of friends. I can think of so many, and they're in their 40s and they're trying to have kids later on in life. You know, like I had kids a little bit later on in life, too. And so I'm 44 and I've got a 2-year-old daughter. I've got a 6-year-old daughter. And, uh, and Chelsea's about 6 years younger than me. She's 38. But, um, but, you know, we have so many friends. And again, just generationally, especially millennials, uh, having kids much, much later on. And I think a lot of times they get— all of a sudden, women might get to their, you know, a little later on, they're like, oh, I want to have kids. And sometimes once you have one kid— I mean, let me just tell this quick story. So my— so Chelsea, we had this period of time where I think I think Chelsea, we didn't, she didn't know how many kids she wanted to have. I always, always said, hey, I wanna have 3 kids or maybe even 4. And so Chelsea knows this is just how I'm wired. She knows if she gives me an inch, I'll take a mile. So she was always hesitant to say, no, I want 3 kids or 4. She didn't know. But after we had one, I think Chelsea just fell so in love with our daughter Arwen, she was like, okay, I wanna have 2. And then I'd never heard her say this before. We were with a realtor in a house and his name was Christian. He said, "Hey, how many kids do you wanna have?" And she said something like, "Three, well, probably four." And I was like, "Wait, what, what?" You know, so, but I share that to say we love our kids so much. And I think sometimes once people have one kid and then a second, they realize, wow, this is just so magical. It's so meaningful. It's, you know, part of God's design of us being able to flourish and add value and have this deep connection with kids. And, um, that being said, I think a lot of times people start getting into their 40s and they think, well, I actually wanna have another kid, or I wanna have my first kid. So, so all that being said, one of the things you've specialized in is helping women get pregnant in their 40s. What is the secret, or what are the things that are most important for women to get pregnant late 30s and into their 40s?

Well, first of all, I just wanna address this conversation that's out in our conversations. And I'm even having 28 and 31-year-old women being afraid of their fertility being lost.

Sure.

So, you know, it's 1 in 6 couples that are dealing with infertility. And so, especially for women that are not sure when they're gonna have their kids, there's so much fear around this. So I just wanna, I try to break that paradigm because yes, if you have root causes going on in your body, the body puts on the brakes and it says, "No babies right now." So what I do in my practice is I get to work on the root causes and then also just have people come in and optimize. Like I have this patient, such a fun story. She even stretched my idea of what was possible. She came at 46, she had a couple of older kids, she had met the love of her life, they wanted to have a baby together. And so she was just coming to see if it was a good idea, if I thought it was possible, So I said, let's check some labs, let's see what's going on. And we found some environmental toxins, we found some nutritional deficiencies, we found some disruptions in her gut microbiome. And so she worked really hard for 3 months, and then she got really busy with work for a few months. And then they had one night where they weren't careful, 'cause I had said, you gotta use condoms while we're doing this detox, while we're doing your microbiome reset, no getting pregnant right now. And then they had one night where they weren't careful and they got pregnant. Yeah. When she was 47, she'd already turned 47. And so now just a couple weeks ago, she had turned 48 and she just birthed a beautiful baby girl at 48. Her pregnancy, she was, her body was so tuned up. So she was super fertile. Her body was so tuned up. She had easiest pregnancy ever. She actually, I didn't, she didn't get my permission on this, but she had a home birth in water at 48. That's amazing. And everything's really, really great. So the message that I want women to understand is that when their bodies are super balanced, they're repleted with nutrients, they are not toxic, their microbiome is healthy, they get super fertile.

Oh yeah, it's so incredible. You know, when I have women coming in and we're working with them on pregnancy, and we've seen some similar things, it's just, it's so, yeah, it's so exciting. It's one of the most exciting things to be a part of and supporting someone in that. But you know, there's a few hormones that I really look at, I do think environmental toxins are incredibly important, but I really look a lot at cortisol and insulin as two of those hormones. What are some of the— and of course, estrogen, progesterone, those are, you know, some of the most important, if not the most. But when I start to see that kind of hormone cascade of, hey, what is typically tipping the thing off that's causing that hormone depletion or that may be causing hormone imbalance? I oftentimes look to cortisol, look to insulin first, impacting other hormones. But what are some of the hormones you look at that are the most important when you're looking at labs to say, okay, we really need to dial these in in order to support fertility?

This is such a great question. So one of the biggest things, and when I was researching my book, there was so much data to back me up on this. So one of the things that I think is really happening today is just this pace that we're going in. Yeah. And so the body doesn't know the difference between we're just working hard, playing hard, and doing all the things versus we're in in dire straits, we're moving the tribe, we're not ever resting, we're not getting into a relaxed state. So I don't count sitting on your phone scrolling as being relaxed, right? Exactly. So a lot of times what's happening, when I look, I like to look at the whole hormone cascade. So what most people don't realize is that when the cortisol levels are going up, when the adrenal glands are working really hard, they're basically slurping up. When I explain this to patients, I'll make the little slurping sound. They're slurping up. The progesterone and the estrogen and even the testosterone and running it over to make cortisol.

That's right. You know, I, I recently did a podcast episode where I went through, and I— and sometimes people will call this the cortisol steal, right?

Yes, exactly.

To where essentially your body has this decision: do I make sex hormones or do I make stress hormones, right? And if you're divert— and what happens is all of these hormones and energy can get diverted into making cortisol, so you don't have anything left for estrogen and progesterone to support fertility.

And then that's the signal to the ovaries or in the men, the testes.

Yeah.

It's not a good time to make babies. Yeah. So we're putting on the brakes, the check engine light's on. And so that's such an important piece to address. So really taking a look at what's going on with that hormone cascade and finding the ways that you can put the right signals in. And sometimes it is the toxins. It's your body having to work so hard to try to get the toxins out but it's, it's also sending you more into that hypervigilant cortisol state.

Now, are there any specific— because I, I know, you know, and I know you think of the same way I do. Like, when I'm, when I'm looking at a patient, I'm not like— sometimes I, I see it could be practitioners, uh, get in this sort of ditch where it's like everything's toxicity, or everyone needs this keto diet, or everyone needs this. I just really look at it— I know you too— as personalized medicine. Everyone that comes in, full— I look at the panel, I look at the history, I look at everything together, and then I customize something for individual. And it's not just— so we're looking at toxicity, but we're also looking at what are the deficiencies, what are the hormonal things going on, all of it together. My question for you is this: so we talked a little bit about the toxins, we talked about cortisol and this being the biggest driver, I mean, this, the busy lifestyle. What are the most common nutri— nutritional deficiencies today that are contributing to fertility issues?

There's so many of them. It's really quite remarkable how many deficiencies that we're seeing. And most people, even that come to me, they're already trying to eat well, right? So they're surprised when we see these, but there's magnesium, zinc, selenium. Like we're seeing massive, almost everybody is magnesium deficient. Like that's just gotta be one of those supplements that most people take. And then, there's a need for more antioxidants. So CoQ10, vitamin C, alpha lipoic acid, the glutathione. I mean, it really is, we are energy sufficient. Like we're getting plenty of calories, but not enough nutrients. So it's so great to be able to test and to be able to tell people which things they need. So I was kind of laughing because I, you know, I've got this book that I think most people can read and know what to do to protect their fertility for both men and women. Yep. And then I've got my practice. It's super busy going. So I've been working on this online program so that people can have access to the labs and to be able to know what to do, right? And to get a little bit more teaching than what I can offer in the book. Actually, a lot more teaching. And I know I need to simplify it, but I like, I so want people to be able to have access to checking their nutrients, checking their microbiome. Checking their toxin levels. Like, it's really been hard. So, so right now in the program, we just give people a menu. There's a couple core things I really want everybody to test, but then there's a menu. But I'm laughing because there's so many things that we can be checking to really get our bodies optimal for fertility, both the men and the women. And, um, for— so that people are curious, that they really want to know and to do that work to to not just help their fertility, but to help them have the healthier baby. Because it's, you know, with the whole field of epigenetics where we know how our genes are getting dialed up and dialed down, like, we can pass up on such better epigenetics to our children by having done this work up front so that, um, so that they have less chance of having autism and diabetes and autoimmunity. Like, it's such a great period of time that most people are missing out on. Yeah, I mean, you're— I'm sure your kids are super healthy because you've known exactly what to be doing. Yeah, for both you and your wife to really have their— your body's super strong and healthy and all these little epigenetic factors for your girls to be, um, as positive as possible so that they're super healthy for their life and for their fertility.

You know, we were joking around the other day, my, my wife was, uh, so even though we feed our kids super healthy, they're very healthy, you know, when you have a 2-year-old, they still get sick, you know? And you're like, gosh, you get kids just, you know, going to school and just all the— and then like our 2-year-old right now, I mean, she puts everything in her mouth. And so like yesterday she licked a fly swatter. We're like, oh my gosh. And then she's like, well, I eat dirt. My wife is like, well, you know, you did write a book called Eat Dirt. I'm like, okay, well, I did, and it has some of those principles. And so, so she's winning. She's doing good. Yes, we are very, very conscious of doing everything we can to keep our kids healthy. And, um, so it's a, it's a lot of fun.

I did want to— and maybe you have another one or two coming.

Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe. Everybody stay— everybody stay tuned for that. Um, you know, as we've done a lot of these markers in our practice and like doing more the cellular blood work, um, one of the other nutrients that's come up— basically you, you had the most common ones that we see too, deficiencies there. But, uh, and I think most women know this, this. But like folate, I see deficient constantly, and especially in women that have already had a pregnancy, right? Because when you're pregnant, your body uses a lot of B6, a lot of folate, a lot of magnesium, uh, and part of it is a lot of the blood-building nutrients. I think the single reason, biggest reason why post-pregnancy— and this is a Chinese medicine principle too— but that, but women after pregnancy oftentimes have major blood deficiencies, and they've never gone and actually gone and built their blood and ate the right diet post-pregnancy. And all these ancient cultures, they know it. So like, a lot of these women are eating soups and very specific recipes for their— for the following, like, at least 3 months post-pregnancy. But a lot of women— this hasn't been handed down in America today, so a lot of women don't know what to eat after giving birth.

Exactly. And I really advise all of my patients to come back and do testing 4 to 6 weeks postpartum, because you really don't know what the baby's going to take. There was just an article that came out in the last few weeks that shows that the baby can actually pull from your muscles. So we've known for a long time that the babies can pull from your bones when they need calcium to build their own bones, right? But they can actually pull amino acids from your muscles. So, um, so it's really important to know. And then the caution, the other thing that I really look for is for my patients that want to do, that have been doing a vegetarian or vegan diet, it's really challenging to have sufficient amount of amino acids. So I know some people are doing it for ethical or religious reasons, but that's especially, it's so important to do those amino acid panels and the essential fatty acid panels to really know if you have the right fats and the right amino acids. And then my favorite supplement for preconception, during pregnancy, and postpartum is choline and phosphatidylcholine. So I think that should be a mandatory, like, prenatal vitamin. Yeah. A preconception vitamin and a postnatal vitamin because we really need the choline for our own body to continuously be doing repair and rebuilding, but especially for the babies. Like, they're growing cells so rapidly. Yeah. They need the choline to build those cell membranes.

Thought something is wrong with me, but I just can't prove it, then this is for you. Now, you might be eating clean, even what you feel like is perfect, working out, taking all the right supplements, but you're still exhausted, still foggy, gaining weight, and you're not sleeping. And every time you ask for help, you hear the same thing: but your labs are normal. Here's what that actually means. Standard blood work only shows what's in your blood, not whether your cells can actually access it or not. You can give your body all the right inputs, but if your cells are in danger mode, chronically stressed or inflamed, they can't absorb or use those nutrients properly. If you're finally ready to heal, go to mybloodwork.com. You'll get an at-home cellular blood work panel shipped straight to your home and reviewed on a private call with one of my senior health advisors at the Health Institute. And this will help you finally connect the dots between your symptoms at the cellular level. We'll also determine if you're a good candidate for one of our cellular healing protocols so you can finally experience lasting healing. Once again, go to mybloodwork.com to check it out. You know, something I learned as I've— when I was studying nutrients is that choline used to be called vitamin B4, but it's essential and it's part of that, you know, part of that larger methylation pathway that's really critical for detoxification and for creating glutathione and blood. Just, it's, it's critical for a lot. I'm so— and one other thing I just want to mention is that a lot of people probably aren't familiar with phospholipids, especially phospholipids like phosphatidylcholine. And these are typically found— it's found in the highest levels, I believe, in like caviar, like fish eggs. Um, it's found in egg yolks, it's found in organ meats like liver These are things in our modern world that almost nobody is getting in their diet. And it's also probably the most critical thing for healing your cell membranes. And we're talking about cellular medicine and health. You know, you want some good healthy fatty acids, but also those phospholipids, and that allows more oxygen and nutrients to get in and out of the cell. So, so that's gonna, I mean, that's gonna help with a number of things.

So I mentioned that if I was on a desert island and I could only have a couple things dropped in. Yeah. One's liposomal glutathione. The other one is phosphatidylcholine because I just, I know, I personally can feel a difference in my body when I'm taking it regularly. My brain works better, my everything just works better.

I do about a tablespoon. So I have this glass bottle and I was doing it this morning and it's great. And I also, you know what, its counterpart phosphatidylserine, I really like for sleep. And so sleep, I'll do things like glycine, magnesium glycinate, and phosphatidylserine. But yeah, the phospholipids, I, I think we're going to see those growing in popularity because they are really, really powerful for, for, you know, the first time I got turned on to those compounds was when my mom had cancer and I was studying and reading all of the science behind how do you heal your cells. And I got turned on to Johanna Budwig, who created the Budwig Protocol, the cancer protocol. And she believed that the cause of cancer cancer was lack of oxygen getting in and out of the cell. And so she created this recipe with flax meal, flax oil, and quark, which is a type of fermented raw dairy product, and all those essential fatty acids with the flax and what that did. But again, I got turned on to sort of one of the greatest ways to repair the cell there and support that oxygen exchange is the, you know, phospholipids.

And all the chemical messengers in our bodies work better because our receptors are handling everything better. I mean, there's just so many benefits. And for people that are just interested in longevity, it should just be part of our, like, our checkup. And there is a lab now, the nerdy part of me, uh, the, uh, Prodrome Sciences has a lab that you can start to check some of those. It's a, it's still an evolving science, so it's, yeah, I mean, you can add straightforward, like, what's your level of selenium?

Yeah, rarely people, um, tests for this, but, but actually even Quest now has, because we've ran it on patients. You can do phospholipid panels. And I will say this, I mean, it's like, you know, like doing a CBC or CMP, it's just not that expensive. Test— testing for phospholipids, I think we're going to see the prices come down on some of these over time.

But especially for people with any neurological illness, dementia, that kind of thing, I think it's really, really helpful to take a look at those things.

Yeah. You mentioned the word longevity. This has become a personal passion of mine, and part of it was due to— I had a spinal infection about 3 years ago. I didn't walk for a year, and honestly, it was the first time in my life where I thought, you know what, like, I, I need to think about even more about my future. And one, I needed to heal myself, and a big part of it was learning everything I could about cellular regeneration, reversing irreversible conditions. Um, and so I spent a lot of time studying, studying this. But part of that was— here's what I basically was— my conclusion of all the research I did. If I want to heal my body, the greatest thing I can do is focus on actually cellular regeneration. And promoting longevity is actually a way of healing chronic conditions. And so I would love to hear your take on, um, just the whole longevity space today. What do you think the future is? What are the— what do you think the things are? Here's the question: what do you think the things are that people are doing now that are working that's going to be the future of longevity medicine? And are there Any things or trends around it that you think is really probably not a good long-term, you know, longevity play?

So I think the thing that a lot of people are really missing in this longevity space is what you and I focus on, which is having a really great foundation. They're looking for like, what's the pill? Like, is there— can we take rapamycin or can we take metformin or whatever? And they're not. Laying a really solid foundation, it drives me crazy because they're—

it drives me crazy.

Like, they're end up— and by saying, oh yeah, this is going to help you, they're— they're— I think they're really doing people a disservice.

Um, like, I'll give you an example. This is gonna be fairly controversial, but I remember reading, uh, Peter Attia wrote a book on, on longevity, and there were a few things in there I thought, this is good. VO2 max, I thought that was good. But basically, there's some longevity doctors that are put— I mean, listen, I've had certain longevity doctors pushing things like metformin for sure, rapamycin, aspirin, you know, taking aspirin every day. And maybe there is a very small subgroup where one, like— but, but also, why wouldn't you take nattokinase or turmeric or do something else that's probably more—

that work more with your own biology? Biology, yeah. And don't have side effects. Like, these drugs have pretty significant potential side effects, right?

Actually, I mean, there— I, I went and did a— I mentioned this on a recent, uh, show I was doing, that form and depletes your body of a lot of the nutrients you need for mitochondrial health and methylation.

I think there's a lot of just the way that longevity is being thought of to me doesn't make sense. A lot of what's happening. Yeah. So first, if people will do this work and really lay a great foundation, and then I got my 95-year-old mom, right? Where she's the living example of that for me. She's really done everything that I've asked her to do. She's got a really healthy diet. She takes the key supplements that I think are great. She works out almost every day. She gets her 3,000, 5,000 steps in and goes to the gym for 20 minutes and uses the Oil of Olay on her face. So she looks like she's 70 instead of 95. That's so great. And it's so much the attitude. Like, I remember going to see her shortly after my surgery My stepfather died about a year ago, and we were all still just really in this deep place of mourning. And I got to her place and she said to me, "I felt so bad today, I just made myself go to the gym." So, you know, you could see the mindset. And then she'd cook her greens for breakfast and make sure she was getting adequate protein. And so I really want people to be focusing on those things. And then yes, I love things like stem cells, I feel like they're, when they're not injected in your spine, that they can be super, super helpful.

And I'm so, so excited. Well, actually, I just Monday went and got stem cell therapy, got an IV. And I mean, I think stem cells are the absolute future, the number one thing for longevity medicine. Now, let me say this as well though. Let me just say this. I don't think it's the number one thing. I think it's the number one therapy in terms of something that's advanced medicine for it. You know, one of the things I think about a lot of times when I think about longevity is I think why in America today, why aren't we looking more to Asia and what they're doing over there to live a long time? I remember going on a trip to Asia, mission trip years ago, and one thing they would do there is like around lunch, people would eat lunch as a community. Nobody was rushing. And then they would go out and do— the city I was in, this was— it wasn't every city, but this one small city, literally it's like the entire town flooded out and started doing tai chi. And it was pretty amazing. But they were— these were people in their 70s, people over 100 years old out there doing that. There was a very different lifestyle there. And I would say it was the single biggest thing was, well, there's two things. One, they were not rushing. And the other thing was, it was very, very, like, their meals were just clean and easy. There was no fast food restaurants. It was just, it was, I mean, so there was a big difference there in cortisol and insulin, probably.

And community, like, they're doing the tai chi together.

That's right.

They're eating together. I'm a huge fan of, um, Tai Chi and Qigong. I've learned several different forms. I just don't have a practice right now. Writing the book really got me off my, my practice, but you're inspiring me to get back. Cause I do think they're the, that presence that you have in your body and the, the movements, it reconnects you to yourself. And also is that signal to your brain to go into the restorative state rather than let's move the tribe state. So. So I'd love that you brought that up.

Yeah, I mean, the fastest way to get your body out of sympathetic state is to breathe properly or to do a breathing practice. And this is practiced all the way— qigong. I mean, Chinese medicine is probably about 4,000 years old. And so qigong is a way of doing certain movements while doing very specific breathing patterns that kind of reset your nervous system, get you out of fight or flight state, and also build your lung energy. I mean, and your ATP, your cellular energy. I mean, it's incredibly powerful.

And but this is— studies on it for like, um, helping with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and all kinds of things. Like, yeah, so I have a chemical engineering degree, a master's degree in engineering, and an MD, right? So I've done it.

Amazing.

Yeah, one of the hardest things that I ever did, like, I could just feel my brain rewiring, was to learn Tai Chi.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh, it was so hard.

Yeah.

But then once you learn it and you get that body memory, it's like you just start doing it and your body instantly starts to go into that relaxed state.

Yeah.

And I love the data that's coming out behind it.

Yeah, I think we're gonna see more and more there. I was gonna mention this too, you know, I think breathing is very good. Humming is also very good. You know, a lot of the, a lot of the ancient religious practices, both in the Christian faith and the Buddhist faith specifically, those two, you'll see there's a lot of humming. In fact, monks, Catholic monks would do specific humming and rhythms in order to honor God and as part of their prayers. And so, I mean, if people go and research this, and you could even look this up on AI or Google or somewhere, but go back and look at monks humming, chanting, things like that. And specifically, you could look at both the Christian or Catholic, and also again, it's prominent in Buddhism as well. But again, it's getting your, think about this, if you are trying to pray and connect with God, does it seem like it would be easier when you're in a fight or flight state and your mind is racing or when you're in a state of just serenity and peace and calmness. And so it's something they would do is, "Mm," like they would hum and it would help get them more in, they believed, a state of, a better state of mind for prayer.

One of my favorite forms of meditation has been something called centering prayer. It's sitting in silence with God and just being silent. And then every time your mind starts going, just to come back to the presence with him. It's really, really such an easy but beautiful meditation, and then can take a lot of practice.

Yeah, there was a monk and he was, there was a Christian monk and he was speaking and he said, most people when they pray, pray and talk, they're talking to God 90% and then listening for 10 or 11, and really it's like 99 to 1, but he was being generous in 90 to 10. And I'm guilty of this as much as anybody, but he said, you know, he's like, but, you know, I've found that the best ratio is like, you know, 10 to 90, you know, listening to God 90%, sitting there in stillness. And it sort of goes back to what you talked about with fertility today. I think one of the greatest things making us ill today is the state of busyness. And I tell my patients this all the time. I was sitting down with a woman who had thyroid issues and major hormonal imbalances this week. And I said, tell me if this is your schedule. Schedule. From the moment you wake up, probably around 6 AM, to the moment you crash around 10 PM, you have something going on every second of the day. And this is happening Monday through Friday, most of the day Saturday, even part of the day into Sunday. Does that describe your life? She's like, oh yes. I'm like, you have to have some margin, some time for you to go on a date night, lunch with the best friend, read a book. I'm like, you know, so it's, uh, that is one of the greatest drivers of illness today is being in this fight or flight state and raising cortisol, staying elevated all day.

Well, and I think it's becoming just such the normal state. People don't even realize that they're in it. Right. They're in it, their friends are in it, their family's in it. And so to even have the people in their lives that encourage that true rest and relaxation, and a lot of us, me included, I end up using technology to help me refine that state again. So there are neurofeedback devices, there's vagus nerve stimulators, If you're in a time of your life where you have little kids and you don't get that, you can't even find the 5 minutes to do much more than use a neurofeedback device or a vagus nerve stimulator, it can help.

But I started using a NeuroPod recently. And so what I'm trying to, you know, as a parent, it's tough, it's tough. Chelsea and I were talking about this recently. We're like, you know, especially different ages need different things. And, but we're trying to get in this rhythm of like, here's what I found for myself. Once we have dinner, it's typically, I don't know, 5:30. Once we have dinner, I cannot keep working. Like, it's my, like that for me is the single thing. Honestly, I can work most of the day, but if I keep working after, like even do anything, I don't sleep as well. I start waking up at 3:00 AM. I just, it really negatively affects me. If I can just stop working after dinner and not look at my phone again, essentially, I'm honestly pretty good to go.

You know, you're giving your family the greatest gift because what they've— what these little kids really want and what your wife really wants is your pure presence with them. Yeah. And so giving yourself permission to do that, it's so beautiful.

I wanna, I wanna talk a little bit more about longevity, uh, because this is something you really focus on with patients. And honestly, I, I have my art— my practice is actually called called the Longevity Clinic. Okay, and the reason I called it that was even if somebody comes in— like, we have multiple patients right now with cancer, people with infertility, people with auto— a lot of people with really serious issues. I still, even when they're at their worst, I still want them focusing on longevity. I want them focusing on the future, getting healthy. Well, I think about this with my mom. Even when my mom had cancer, I was having her think about what she was going to be doing in her 80s and 90s with her grandkids. You know, and so, and I know you think about the same way as well, because I've seen your site, I've seen you speak, you're helping people of all ages, but also think about longevity. So when you think about longevity, we talked about sort of building the foundation and some of that, you talked about stem cells. Are there any therapies or supplements or things in particular you think these are also really, really beneficial when it comes to supporting longevity?

I wanna tell a quick story. Please, yeah. And then I'll come back to the question. So I had this, 88-year-old woman that I'd seen her grandson and her son, and they really wanted her to come in. So she's 88, and the first time she's sitting there, she's like, "Yeah, I'm having trouble following the conversations at dinner. I'm not winning at bridge anymore. I can't get down on the floor and pick things up. I'm so achy in my body." Like, she was just like ready to kind of give up. She's ready to call it. And I just saw her back. She's now 92. I hadn't seen her in a year. She's like, "Yeah, I'm winning at bridge and no pain in my body and I've got all the energy to do everything I wanna do." And I accidentally dropped something. She picked it up quicker than I could. So the message with that is even for people that aren't feeling well, Well, your example exactly, like let's shoot towards the 92-year-old feeling great because our bodies are so remarkable. They can so much heal. So, you know, she was not on the right diet for her. She was creating a lot of inflammation, eating way too much sugar. She was depleted in some nutrients. Her microbiome was off and she had some toxic exposure. So, you know, we worked on a lot of things and she was highly motivated because she had seen what had happened with her son and her grandson, so she really wanted to put the work in. And then just thinking about, especially tying in fertility, like we know that people who have issues with fertility, both the men and the women, their trajectory for their health, they're at just greater risk for all the complicating chronic—

What do you put low testosterone in men? And I know this for fact is a major mortality risk. Long-term takes, I mean, maybe a lot of years off your life, so yeah.

So what we, instead of just putting men that haven't had their children yet onto testosterone, we need to be asking why.

That's right.

Because we're affecting their fertility by just jumping the root cause analysis.

I mean, it still blows my mind. It's like, if you have a man with low fertility, I mean, the studies show you gotta get vitamin D, you gotta get zinc, you gotta do boron, take some herbs, lift weights, eat more protein. I mean, you know, but, and get to the root. There's more beyond that, But it's—

So for men, I actually really love to use the sperm analysis. There's a company called SpermQT that cannot just look at the traditional sperm testing, but they could look at the epigenetics, like how are those genes getting influenced in the sperm sample? And so we can get a sense of what's really going on in the men epigenetically a lot easier than the women. And what's really fun is that we can see, oh gosh, there's problems. Your, you know, your count is down or your epigenetics aren't good, and we can see a total turnaround. So we can actually start to use that as a marker for longevity for men. But then if we think about this testicular function and ovarian function as being a marker for longevity, one of the key things for both of those organ systems, as well as our brain and our heart, is to feed our mitochondria. So I love all the research on NAD and CoQ10, and I love a specific form of CoQ10 called MitoQ, all the B vitamins, the carnitine, and the phospholipids, a lot of these things that we've talked about. I think those are absolutely foundational for longevity. If our mitochondria are working well, a lot of our systems are gonna be working so much better.

I'm so glad you said this because I think this is something I think about a lot and speak on a lot is that the mitochondria, these engines of our cells, if you don't have cellular energy, energy, your body can't do anything. I mean, it's literally the battery— batteries of your body. And so if that battery's low, hormones are off, every organ is off. And so if you can go and start fixing and improving the health of your mitochondria, I agree, it's probably one of the greatest things to focus on for longevity there is. And of course, NAD+ is important, whether it's NMN or NR or, or niagen. I mean, these are, these are things that are wonderful. Eating pomegranates, right? I mean, there's a lot of great what are some of the things people can do in order to support that?

It's so fun. It is. There's so many incredible researchers that are giving us bits of information that when we put them all together, that's how things like my book come about, right? It's like, if we just look at one thing at a time, it's hard to get a plan together. But if you can see the picture and see the remarkable shifts that happen in human health from applying these things, It's just, it just really gives us hope so that we can not be afraid, you know, especially one example would be like for people that know they have an APOE4 gene. So most people with dementia, with Alzheimer's have an APOE4 gene. But most people with APOE4 genes don't get dementia. So we know it's an environmental factor. So that example alone can be inspiring carrying us regardless of what our genes are, that we look for those epigenetic factors that help our genes behave. Yeah. Do the best job. Yeah. And provide the environment for that in our bodies.

I love it. Well, Dr. Anne, thanks so much for coming on today. This is such a wonderful conversation. I wanna encourage everybody, check out Dr. Anne's book. It's called "The Preconception Revolution." It's on Amazon, it's in bookstores nationwide. I know that it is a book that's really gonna help if you're a person looking to conceive, conceive at any age, whether you're a woman or a man. This is a great book where she really dives deep into— here is how to truly support conception with the right nutrients, with the right diet, with the right lifestyle, with the right holistic treatments. And she goes through how to do it all naturally. So I encourage you to get the book The Preconception Revolution here by Dr. Ann Shippy. Dr. Ann, thanks so much for coming on today.

I really appreciate it. Great conversation. I so enjoyed talking with Thank you.

Same. Well, I always love talking to people that have your depth of knowledge and wisdom and just expertise in practicing functional medicine for, for over 20 years now. So thanks so much. I want to say thanks everybody for watching and tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we're diving deep into the science and the principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Also, don't forget to subscribe, that way you don't miss a thing. Incredible interviews like we had today here with Dr. Ann Shippy. And also, thanks for sharing. You know, there There's actually right now millions of people that are struggling with infertility and don't know about longevity and how to truly heal their bodies. And so think about, is there someone you know who is— needs to know more about, or maybe they've asked questions, or you just know they want to support their own fertility? Think about that person. Maybe, maybe text them this episode, share it with them. Thank you, all of you, for being on mission with us, and I can't wait to see you on the next episode.