Transcript of Episode #90 Featuring Dr. Ann Shippy!  The ULTIMATE Guide to Fertility!  Why are fertility rates declining?? How much do environmental toxins effect fertility? The impact of stress and more!

With over 20 years in the supplement industry, I have seen and heard it all. Empty promises, tricky marketing, wasted money, leaving so much left to be desired and creating feelings of resentment. Thankfully, I'm positive by nature and stay on the look out for the next breakthrough product. And then I found Tonum, a science-driven wellness company built on over a decade of research into natural solutions for metabolic and brain health. Tonum understands that it takes a mind and body connection to obtain full health alignment. With their featured products, Modus and Neuro, they address both aspects of this connection. First, Modus, an all-natural supplement designed to support fat loss, metabolic function, and energy. Then, Neuro, a cognitive performance supplement designed to support focus, memory, and long-term brilliance. Toneum has brought back my trust in the supplement industry with natural evidence-based ingredients that support long long term outcomes. So because of this, I want to share them with the world. Use my code Dylan for an extra 10% off and start to treat your mind and body today with Toneum. All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Dylan Jameli podcast. Podcast. So I'm on my Austin trip, so I get to go to all of these cool new studios, and my guests set this up for us today.

It's very sweet, and I love doing this and traveling and getting the opportunity to interview so many amazing people. And my guest today is a different topic, which I'm so excited to talk about because I know how passionate she is. She's got a new book coming out, but I'm also pretty passionate about this topic, which I haven't talked about a lot. So I'm looking forward to it just real quickly before we get going, because I want to get all the information out of her that I can today. So she's a board-certified internal medicine physician, and she's a pioneer in functional and environmental medicine. And she focuses on the 3-36 month preconception window, which is the most powerful determinant of a child's lifelong health. She's got this new book coming out. It's called The Preconception Revolution. I am excited as can be to get into all of these things. I like polarizing stuff. I like stuff to push the needle. I like to stir some feathers, and I like to get underneath the true realities of everything. I try to always stay as level-headed, and that's why people like me and follow me. So I like to bring people on that bring facts, not emotional criteria that they go on straight facts.

And that's why we're here today. So my friends, Dr. Anne Shippe.

Thanks so much for having me. We're going to have some fun.

We are going to have some fun. I got to speak with you a few days ago. Of course, I was hectic. I have read some of your things. I had been introduced to you, but I hadn't spoken to you. And after speaking to you, I became a lot more excited. I get thoroughly excited with all of my guests, or I wouldn't do this. Wouldn't make sense. But the passion that you had, and I could tell how much it affects you, and it's not that you're just doing this as a career, it's something personal to you, too. I want to talk a little bit about your main focus here, what you do, and why are you so passionate about this particular time?

When I look at the future for our children, it's really concerning. The 1 in 31 children being diagnosed with autism, and those statistics are lagging. The increased autoimmunity, obesity, cancer, diabetes. Our children are so ill. For the people that are thinking about starting or growing their families, it's a roll of the dice on whether they're going to get a healthy child or not, and it's getting harder and harder. I started seeing what's possible with my patients. My patient started teaching me even about this window. Almost 20 years ago, I had a patient come in. She was 42, and she finally got married and wanted to start her family a little later. She's like, I have a feeling there's some things going on with my body that won't be good for the baby, and I want you to figure out what they are. I was just starting functional medicine at the time, and she was great. We found her microbiome was a mess. Her toxin levels. She had really high heavy metals and a lot of inflammation in her body, some autoimmunity. Instead of being like, rush, rush, rush, let's go, we're out of time, we worked the process and we got her toxins down.

We the inflammation going away, the microbiome rebuilt, and she got pregnant super easy, and how to help the baby. I was like, yes. Then a year or two later, I had a patient come who was in her mid-30s. She had tried multiple rounds of IVF had gone Coast to Coast to look for IVF docs. They gave up on her. They're like, It's not going to work. Just stop now. So again, we just started looking at what was going on in her body, and we found a couple of autoimmune things going on, and more on the microbiome, several things. For about six months, she got pregnant right away. And then she thought that she was still going to have a little bit of issues with infertility, and less than a year later, still nursing, got pregnant with twins. Whoa. And then we quite hadn't finished her lesson. She's almost 40 at this point, got pregnant. Third time with fourth baby. She had it done before. Being told no babies to four and a machine. I started paying attention to what are the things that affect agility? What are the things that help people have healthy babies?

And just got so passionate about it because it's just one of the most fun things that I get to do.

Okay. Well, I've got a ton of different directions I want to go with you on this. Now, you were talking about functional medicine. You're talking about heavy metal testing. Autoimmune, all of these things that we know are of the utmost importance that have been overlooked for I don't know how long. I don't have a direct number, but I know for a very, very, very long time. I also know that there are way more prevalent problem now than they have ever been. And it's only progressively getting worse from things they put in our foods, high stress levels, et cetera. So let me ask you this. Let's say somebody has a and they're full of toxicity, whether it's aluminum or mercury or the mold, the big culprits. What effect is that going to have on the baby? And what effect is that going to have on even allowing for a pregnancy in the first place.

Right. I do think that these heavy metals and other environmental toxins are decreasing fertility. Because I see with both men women that when we test their levels to get them down, they get more fertile. But the really alarming thing is when people do get pregnant and those epigenetic messages from the toxins in the sperm and the egg, and then also basically bathing the baby and the toxins during the fetal period, increased the risk of all the things that we don't want, the autoimmunity, the autism, the other neurodevelopmental issues, to cancers, to diabetes. What I did with this book is I put a lot of these links together that people aren't making on what these factors are, how we can test them, and what we can do about it so that we can increase fertility and have healthier babies.

So a lot of these fertility clinics that people do go to, do they take this approach? Do they look for this type of thing, or are they only looking for prior drug use, alcohol use, things of that nature?

They don't do any of that.

Nothing?

There's none of that. I'm not even looking for some of the things like the signs of the autoimmunity, usually. That's so far down the line. But I really like for people to be doing this proactively. And then, intently, look, do you have an autoimmune process that's brewing in your body so that we can reverse it? But unfortunately, most doctors don't even know that we can reverse autoimmune disorders by taking look at these factors like toxin levels, microbiome, mitochondria. I know a lot of these terms your audience is already familiar with.

It goes into everything that we do. We need to keep stressing it over and over because the more we repeat it, the more people understand the importance and the level of importance.

It's so critical in this preconceived period because the sperm and the egg are like time papsules for the baby. It really is this place that we can pass on the best information on the operating instructions for the genetics that they get.

So just because you're not using drugs, you're not using alcohol, and you're doing all of these things, you could potentially be carrying so many toxins and still not even quite know that. You could be feeding yourself certain types of foods and things consistently while you're pregnant, too, and not know it. Exactly. Putting yourself into that. Yeah.

I test for toxin levels on almost all my patients, and even people that think they're doing everything right, there's always hidden things, including myself. I think I'm doing everything right, but I know that you mentioned that you don't eat out. I think that's actually probably really wise, because so much of what I'm seeing currently are from the takeout containers or probably the packaged chips that people are eating. One of the exciting things for men that are willing to cook or make sure that they're having fresh chips is they can make a dramatic change in the quality of their sperm in just a few weeks. Really? I prefer that people go 3, 6, 12 months where they're really optimizing things. There's a study that just came out a couple of months ago where they took men, and for three weeks, they fed them highly processed seeds. Then they did a little wash-out period, and then they fed them fresh healthy goods. They dramatically improved their sperm count in just a few weeks, which is supposed to be 74 days to get the full process of the storm. So the fact that they could do it in three weeks, it could make such a difference in three weeks.

It was so statistically significant. It's so inspiring, right? It's just get started, start making the changes, take the time to cook and feed yourself the healthy brush foods. I think we could even start thinking about sperm as being an independent longevity marker. So there's a new sperm test by a company called FirmQT, where they can look at the epigenetics of the sperm, not just the count and concentration and seed and all those things, but look at some of the epigenetic markers. And it's so fun to see those markers improve by putting a little effort in, right? Yeah.

See, that's the struggle I have. There's multiple reasons I don't eat out. One is because when I was modeling, I worked in many restaurants and bars, and I saw what was going on back there. But two, the understanding about the processed foods and how they cook and what they use. Now, there's probably 5% that go seed oil free or they care. But generally speaking, it's not affordable, and they just don't do at a lot of these places. I don't think that there's enough people that have a rational understanding of just how bad these things are. And many people are going, That's nonsense. And then the people that are producing them and making the money, put out their trolls or fake studies or whatever you want to do to manipulate and trick everybody. I try to be the most rational guy around and given my background and my past, most people trust me. Going through what I've gone through. But it's always good to hear from professionals because there are doctors that are just trained a certain way, and I don't even blame them. But then there's ones like you, more functional, more open-minded, more understanding.

How big of a problem do you think the food is that we eat in comparison to just literally anything else in terms of our health?

It's so important, especially even seeing this, like the study that I just described. You can dramatically change what's happening from a reproductive process in three weeks. The way that I think about food is that it's foundational. Like all these other things in the biohacking, if you want You want to do peptides, you want to do hyperbaric, you want to do the sauna, those are great. But if you're trying to build them on a foundation that isn't solid, it's not going to do much. It's like building it quick stand. So you got to ask all my patients to really focus in on their diet, and we do additional testing to know what it is that they need to eat, to get the best results, and to have the low inflammation in their bodies. But I don't have a single patient that I don't work with them on optimizing their diet because I don't get as good a result with them if they're not willing to eat clean and really prioritize that. I feel like they're not going to get the results that they want if they don't do that.

All of the stuff you mentioned are bonuses after you have a foundation and you're optimized. And optimization isn't just the eating either. It's the hormones, it's the neuro side, it's the mental side. I'm going to shift over there to you because I want to talk to you about the effect that stress, anxiety, lack of sleep. I talk a lot about neuroscience now because I understand that being stuck in fight or flight mode is causing a lot of this. But do you find that now, more than ever, with all of the social media, the stress is the things that get shoved down people's throats, that stress and anxiety, and even hatred, is causing us to be more unhealthy in the biggest problem that you see out there for the mind?

It's very clear from the research, and this is actually addressed in my book as well, that Stress is such a driver for how fertile you are, but that genetic part of this is so important, too, for both men and women. So how are those genes going to be dialed up or down for the baby? It's so important to be mitigating your stress, managing the stress in relationships and work. So things like neurofeedback, meditation, the biggest nerve stimulator, really making sure you've gotten on the same page with your partner. I feel like it's super important for this topic, but every piece of help has got to be a part of the conversation as well. It's so fun to have the biohacking tools and to be able to delve into this. Even just 5 or 10 minutes of meditation once or twice a day. It can dramatically change your hormone regulation. It can change your microbiome. It can change your mitochondrial function. And yeah, just on and on and on. The data behind this is incredible. And what I've also found super fascinating is the effects of drama. Intergenerational effects can be passed on. So I think a lot of times we We put our own stress management in the best burner because we feel like we need to be prioritizing other people and not ourselves, especially when we become parents.

Okay, of your video source. And yet, it really is one of the most important things that we can do for ourselves, to give ourselves the permission and the time to do the meditation, the neuro back to whatever modalities you were called to do around trauma?

So I'm 43, and it's taking me a little over 42 years to understand the control and the amount of impact that your nervous system and your neurological side has on every key aspect of everything that we do. And I'm one of those type ones that is like, when I'm on, I am on fire, but I can go this low from stress and anxiety, too. And that's all self done. And like you said about meditation, and I do it as prayer. And the more I do it, and the more I can get there. Can shut off because I have this distraction thing where because I know I have so much work to do. When I can lock in and really lock in, I hate to say untouchable, but you know what I'm saying? I'm at my best.

You're getting a flow. Yes.

Because you're at peace. That's why I was just telling you about playing the video games last night. I was at peace, and I know that sounds childish and immature and stupid, and I don't give a shit because it was fun and relaxing, and it got me ready today. I wonder, when you have people come in that have problems, that are having issues, and you're seeing it on this side, do you see continuously high levels of anxieties and stresses that aren't just related to the lack of ability to get pregnant, but other things?

I just had a patient in this afternoon who is in his mid-bitties. He's had normal cholesterol panels, extensive cholesterol panels, except for a high LPA. He's been on statins, he's been on RAPAPA. I had had him get an advanced technology test called a CLEARELY test that uses a CT angiogram, looks at soft, soft, medium, and he has some pretty extensive... So he's sitting there thinking, Oh, my cholesterol's good. My other doctors have me on the cholesterol medicines. I'm golden. And then when we got this test back, and these medicines have not been protecting him like he thought that they were. He's got some pretty extensive blockages at a pretty young age. We just had the heart to heart this afternoon about what else he needs to do. We've got some gut inflammation and gluten issues, and some heavy metals, and some other environmental toxins that we found. We're full court for us because we've got quite an issue here. But The most important conversation I think we had today was around stress. He's been very successful and is semi-retired at a young age as well, but he just stays in that high beta, go, go, go, go, even when he thinks he's just running kids around to their activities.

We had to talk about what does it actually take to change state. We probably do need to do some neurofeedback. He actually gets the opportunity to find out what it is like to not just be running in the high beta limbic survival state, but what is it like for his brain to run in alpha, maybe even in theta, brain state. So he was open to it because he could see what had worked for him to get him to where he is now, where he actually can light up on the gas a little bit and start to enjoy his life more. He needs to look it up because the stress probably is also somewhat of a dial, dialing up that information Does he have high inflammation? We had to really search for him. Really? So I did something called a Cleveland Heart or Boston Heart. It checks for PLA2 and NPO, high sensitivity CRP, which are traditionally the best markers for inflammation that correlate with advancing cardiac issues. His tour normal. I had to do a smart vascular test, which we also got back today, predicted his inflammatory age to be about 80 instead of 55.

So we had to dig a little deeper than the traditional way is to find the risk factors that now we can do our mini experiment every 6-8 weeks and try the diet, try the supplements, do the detox. We're also going to do some IV Fostal Choline and NAD, so that we can really get ahead of this.

Yeah, it's strange It should be on something like Rupatha and a statin. I mean, I am not a statin fan by any stretch of the imagination, but it should pardon any soft plaque that Rupatha see The LP little A is the issue because, as you know, it's genetic. I'm not going to control it with diet.

But I have so many patients with a high LP that have no zero.

It's weird because I see a lot of people that don't, but then there's There's always some. And I speak because I know everything where you're going, because I went to get a calcium score two and a half years ago. And I thought, the doctor I was working with said, I just have all my people that work with me go do it. He's like, I mean, look at you. And I went in there and it was 120. And I thought I had a damn near meltdown. And then I dug and dug and my LP little A was 330. So I've gotten it down into the '90s. I did a CT angio and it showed like a 35%, which, thankfully, that's early enough of a catch. But I was on the path of the SEPA and dropped the stat and didn't take it. And then I started to hack my way into other avenues that I know can reverse a thorough sclerosis because you can reverse it.

You can reverse it, especially when you're willing to do the work.

Yeah, that's it. There's plenty of things out there that can do it. Well, then I had some episodes, and I was having strange heart palpitations, went in and they did the catheter, and he looked at me and he said, There's no blockage here at all. And I thought, Okay, well, then what the hell is wrong with me? Ejection fraction is now low. So yeah, 44. When I had that done in June, I got on Jardiance, and in three months, I'm up to 50. I'm with D-ribose, Ubiquinal, and Jardiance. But that's the problem is you know this.

And that's the thing. I think sometimes when you lower the cholesterol, you actually make the cell membranes more fragile, and you get the toxic load or get the stress or whatever, and then it makes the actual muscle more weak.

Then I think, you tell me what you think, I think that a lot of this low fat diet that I did for so long and that I see people do contribute it to the heart problems, probably the plaque, and then Probably the other way. You know what? And I've had an eating disorder most of my life, but when I switched and I doubled my calories and went from 20 grams of fat today to now 130, my HDL went up 40 points. Yeah, from the low 40s to 80.

And so for people listening, that HDL going up is huge. It's like having more garbage trucks to go gather up the oxidized LDL. That's huge.

My LDL went up, and APO-B went up a little bit, but the other things...

I mean, it's more challenging to try to get the HDL to go up, than it is to get LDL to go down. It's really good work.

Yes. Thank you. And now, I don't like to over Medicaid. I have very low blood pressure as it is, and they put me on a trusto with the Jardiance, and I lasted a month or two and was right back in the hospital. Stop taking it. The problem with Jardiance is it sucks the electrolytes out of you. And so I keep getting low potassium. You got to be careful there, too. You can't win.

Be surprised if you could just get the heart muscle stronger and then get off that.

Yeah. Well, and see, you have to look at all of these things. And that poses the question, with cholesterol testing, my biggest issue is they look at LDL, HDL, and triglycerides, and don't look at what you're talking about. Particle sizes, APO, B, LPA. Why? Why don't they look at these?

They're just not trained on it. I actually get mad when people just order a regular cholesterol because it doesn't correlate with who actually gets heart disease very well at all. We really have to look at the particle sizes like the LPA, the LDL sizes, and the HDL sizes, along with these detailed markers for inflammation to know who's at risk. I think a lot of people are actually having a lot of harm done by lowering their cholesterol, when they don't have the cholesterol then to make healthy brain, and healthy heart, and hormones.

Yeah. You know my cholesterol got down to 38? My LDL? 38. And I said, Okay, I'm done. I am not doing this because I know better. And I went to the Mayo Clinic, and they told me to use RAPAPA would have been bad practice. I needed to stay on a statin. And I said, Statins increase your LPAA. And they got angry with me when I said that, and so did my mom and my wife until they came to and understood. But that's Mayo Clinic. So what does that tell you? I mean, That's why we need people like you more so than ever right now. My goal is to spotlight people like you to get them functional, get to functional medicine, to understand that we're missing. What do you think when you go? Because we know you get a CMP and a CBC. I mean, what percentage of a blood panel do you think we're missing? 70, 80% that we need? When you go to a regular doctor?

Oh, you're missing most of what you need. Most of the traditional blood tests that are done through, like the lab course West, you're only going to find things mostly when it's too late. If we really want to know how the body is functioning, we We need to do specialty tests through specialty labs. We need to look at toxin levels, we need to look at the microbiome, we need to look at how the mitochondria are functioning, more details for inflammation. I'd love to do genetic testing, so we can delve into where you might have some little pathway glitches, or if you don't detoxify, great. Maybe your immune system is upregulated. When we know what some of those specific genes are, then we can optimize by knowing how to have some workarounds. So, yes, I use traditional labs because sometimes we need to do that to really propel your help forward. You need so much more than that.

Yeah, it's troublesome.

It's so funny because for years I've thought about Medicare as being subpar to other insurances, and it turns out that Medicare actually covers some of these specialty tests that Really? Yes. They will cover some of the microbiome tests. They will cover some of the deeper nutritional testing to look at amino acids, essential fatty acids, trace minerals, a little bit about how the mitochondria are working. I think, covers it at least once a year or so. I don't know if traditional insurance will ever catch up with it. But it's expensive not to have this. Why? I agree. To wait until It's like you've gotten sick.

I agree, but therein lies the problem. It's more expensive to eat healthier. It's more expensive to get the testing you need. It's more expensive to go to the functional doctor than the regular doctor. It's more expensive to do everything that you need. It's almost, and call me crazy, but it's almost as if you're not wanted to get the things that you need. At least it would seem that way if it makes it harder for people. That's why when you write a book like this or you do what you're doing, it's more accessible and people can then say, Okay, this is what I'm missing. It needs to come from pros like you that are trustworthy, though. And that's another problem. And there's people that take advantage of people that put bad taste in people's mouth. I don't know what needs to be done, but I do know this. This message has to get out to more people. They need a better understanding and to understand that it's how necessary it is for you. Every single person that comes into you, do you put them through all of these tests? They have to do that to get optimized and to get ready?

Yeah, I really do. In my office, I can customize for each patient, depending on what their budget is and what's going on with them. Do they have an early dementia? Are they having fertility issues? Are they just being proactive and wanting to have health and longevity? Or are they dealing with some autoimmune?

So you take all kinds of patients or just- Oh, yeah, no.

I got so fascinated about this preconception period just from my- From your work. From the face of coming in. I sometimes don't see kids. So a story that just popped in my head was a mom and a dad who brought in their two young children. They had just gone through a big mole issue, and their little girl had autism, and the little boy was having a panda's work. He was having a lot of tics and behavioral things. We started working with the kid, got the autism turned around, got the pandas settled down. Then the parents started coming in to work on their health. Then suddenly, they're pregnant with their third baby, not I've been planning because they had had to do infertility treatments for the first two. It's been just the experience of taking care of my patients that I've, Wait, there is a message that's missing. The narrative is that women are old over 30. They need to save their eggs. Men don't know that their health really makes a difference for the health of pregnancy and health of the baby. I'm just trying to fill in the gap about what people need to know.

Especially, there's some books coming out this year that it's almost like they're just making IVF normalized.

Yeah, we were talking about that. What What is happening?

Well, there really is a drop in fertility. One in five or six couples can't get pregnant in a year, either with their first or future or additional kids. There is a decline in sperm Over 50% in the last 50 years, but it's accelerating. Instead of being a 1% a year, it's 2. 6% a year drop in sperm count globally. It's just a drop in the baby drop in the number of children being born. So we have a real thing going on. But this whole idea that women's ovaries age to the extent that they're talking about, I don't think that that is true, based on what I see. So there's a new study that just came out a few months ago that showed that the mitochondrial DNA of the eggs pretty well preserved. So I think the eggs are just picking up the environment the body is in, so the toxins, the and I find the hormone disruptions that we're seeing, and that when we address those things, women can help babies well into their voice. My oldest patient is 47 right now, and she had a situation where she already had a couple kids that then was at the love of her life, and they wanted to have a child together.

She had heard about me, so she came in, and we found some things that weren't optimal.

So I'm like, Wait, use condoms.

And so she did... They did the work for about three months, and then had one night where they didn't use the condom at 47, and got freaking one try. Wow. So it just shows me that the eggs are really... When they're in a really healthy environment, it doesn't matter how old the rest of the body is, that you You can be very fertile and have a healthy baby. Go into your voice.

Because it's always said that as the woman gets older, there's way more risk, way more risk. How big of a risk is it as you get older in terms of the woman's health and then the health of the baby?

Definitely, as we age, we have more chance to have damage to our DNA. But we can mitigate a lot of that for both men and women. We know that now there's the conversation about the male sperm increasing risk as well as we age. I really see, especially during the sperm test, that we can mitigate a lot of that by supporting mitochondria, making sure we're putting the good nutrients in, by getting the toxins out and down. I can see things improve dramatically in very short periods of time.

So one of the things that I always have trouble with that bothers me is this gradual, and I guess I would even call it gradual, this consistent decline in average testosterone levels among men as time goes on. Then you see these lab corp in the West and everybody else that changes their range that's supposedly healthy. I talk about this a lot. I have more of a hormone's background, but that obviously has to be a contributing factor, too, to the fertility process, right? I mean, lower, more stressed and strained testosterone levels certainly would be problematic, right?

Absolutely. So then we work on the things that help the body to make more testosterone naturally, lowering inflammation, getting the healthier food. Like the study that I was mentioning on the sperm quality, part of just cutting out the processed food, testosterone went up.

Crazy.

I think there's a lot of nutrients that are needed to make testosterone. Yeah. So, yeah, let's get those in the body, let's get inflammation down. Let's get stress down. The good fat so that you have a nice high cholesterol to start with. A lot of times, we can see testosterone come up natural.

Yeah. Oh, it's totally doable. I've seen it year after year after year. There's good herbs, there's good foods, rest, less stress, all of these things, they all play a big role.

Sometimes, we really... We are having an epidemic of young testosterone. We have to look at that and look at what's causing it and help them to I mean, it's a longevity issue, not just a fertility issue. Men don't feel like themselves. They don't feel good with low testosterone. To just replace it doesn't make sense. We have to get to the root of why the body is at performing at the level that it should be.

Yes, because everybody, as soon as you say low testosterone, immediately wants TRT. I'm a proponent of it when needed. When needed.

But I really recommend not doing testosterone until after you've had your family.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big problem.

To grow things off.

This was one of the million reasons why I had to get more out of that bodybuilding space and everything because of the arguments of, Oh, It only takes one, and da da da da da da. The impairment that you can have on fertility by taking synthetic testosterone is astounding. Then, well, you can just take clome, and you could just H-H-C-H-C-E. It's bullshit. It's just not true.

I have had people that have been on testosterone, and we've gotten them back.

Yeah, yeah.

And look back at, Well, did you really need that in the first place? Could we have done this before then? I don't want to leave people with no hope that you have to have testosterone and don't want to have a child. But it's so much easier to problem than to be dysregulating the system. Because when you take the testosterone, all the pathways that help to give you the signals to make testosterone get quiet.

But see, that's the problem, is a lot of guys, they see one side of it, and they see a side that actually doesn't even exist because they think it does all of these things when in actuality, it's just fixing what you're lacking. It's not turning you into what they think, but then they don't have any concept or understanding of shutting down natural testosterone production and then what that does long term. Because once you shut that down, and you think it's just going to pop right back, because a lot of guys like to tell you that is not how it works. So when that happens, and you stop your LH and your FSH from production, how do we fix that, and how big of a problem is that in terms of fertility? Coming from a doctor, please explain.

Yeah. So if you think about any system, a car is a good place to start, right? If you just let a whole part of that car not Maybe you don't use the air conditioning system for five years, and then you all of a sudden start trying to use the air conditioning system. Quite the same, right? You've been using it a little bit all the time, every year. It can be very challenging to get that attunement because the body is constantly adjusting with so many different mechanisms. And even sensing, is this a good time to create life? It's especially true for women. If you're over-exercising, if you're extra stressed, if you're not eating enough food, if you're missing some vital nutrients, the body will often sense, don't get pregnant. What I worry about is the people that their assistance are actually strong enough that it overrides that sensing when it's not a good idea and still pregnant and then have complications. So that's why it's so great to be able do more of this advanced lab testing to really see where people are, to really make sure that things are tuned up.

I'm glad you brought that up. I didn't even think about the overtraining side of things and how big of a detriment that can be. I was the king of that for many years, and I've seen so many people that do that without the understanding of what that actually does.

It's easier to detect this in women because they often will stop having their periods, or their periods will change. It's harder to detect it in men, but I think it really holds true in men, too, because there's something called the cortisol steal. So the body will slurp up the testosterone, estrogen, progesterone side of things and send it over into the cortisol pathway. But then again, back to the epigenetics, the time castle, I could serve, the way that the baby's genes will get expressed also flex that state. It's really important for men to be exercising, get good app genetics for their babies. Good blood sugar regulation. I love for people to wear continuous glucose monitors, and that they have a good state there because that gets passed on. Blood sugar is just circulated. Those epigenetic changes are going to be impacted by the baby. There's so much data now around the things that increase the risk with a baby being obese or baby having diabetes, including the environmental toxins and fast food. So getting the bad fast, getting the chemicals can make such a big difference. Their long-term health and longevity, and maybe in future generations.

Sometimes these things get passed on for more than one generation. This is so important to take this time to really get your your own body tuned up so then you can help the baby to have better longevity.

Data, data, data, data. I am a big data guy, and I'm glad you brought up the CGM because just because you tell me that you wear CGM and your blood sugar or your glucose doesn't spike when you, I don't know, have a bowl of oatmeal. It doesn't mean it's not going to spike for me. Also, it'll give people an understanding of how their body reacts and responds to types of foods. Then you can play with that and say, Okay, well, when I eat this carb by itself, I'm having this problem, but maybe if I prioritize protein, fat, and then this carb, and then check and see if that controls it like it should or not. Then you can go, Well, if that's not controlling it, well, shit. I just can't do it. But you never know. You can't just guess.

It's just so individual. It's actually one of the fun things about these CGM. I learn things all the time from my patients on what can work for different people. Somebody will be like, Oh, my God, I could never eat rice. I It just spikes even if I have plenty of protein or fat or go for a walk afterwards. Then other people might be like, Well, our potato, or just no go. It's so individual.

You just brought up one of my favorite things too. So speak on that, if you would, please. But going for a walk after a meal, why that is so important, please explain.

Was one of my biggest takeaways for me, wearing the CGM, is if I would just move my body for even 10 or 15 minutes after eating, my blood sugar was so soft, almost regardless of what I ate. That's wild, huh? I've done a couple of crazy things that I pushed the envelope when I did an overthink Thanksgiving, and I just wanted to see. I had gluten, dairy, pumpkin pie, right?

It's way we're just gathering data.

I think it was a combination of probably the coconut milk and the fiber in it.

Yeah, of course. But That's great to learn and see. You know what? I bought me and my wife like bicycles, bikes, because I walk every day on this path, and I told her, I said, Damn it, this looks so cool. It's something for us to do. And so that's what I do after I eat now. I do it at night after my biggest meal, and I go on a 25-minute bike ride. It's so nice because sometimes when you walk or something after you have a heavier meal, it does disrupt your stomach. But this, I'm moving, and it doesn't do that. That's a nice way of moving too, after. I offer that to people as something else to do.

It's a great idea.

Yeah, it works. It's nice.

And the other thing I did was I had a chai latte, an almond milk chai latte. It's like my blood sugar is so high. I haven't had one since. It's been a couple of years since I did. I was like, this is not worth it. Why would I ever have this again?

No, there's way better options.

I love the CGM.

Cgms are great. Which one do use? I used the Stello, I think, is the one that... Yeah, Stello is the one I used.

The one that I usually use to my patients is a free style Lepre, but I think they're all similar.

They're all similar. It is some of the most phenomenal data to collect a pinpoint accuracy.

It's such an important piece of all the risk factors, right? When we have better blood sugar control, we're less likely to have a heart disease, we're less likely to have cancer, the autoimmunity, just having a really stable blood sugar can be massive prevention. Even certain parts of dementia can be increased at risk when they increase blood sugar.

I'm curious on your end, and I always ask this to everybody that I know that is a specialist or a pro that deals with anything nutrition. This is more just for fun discussion on beliefs and beliefs systems. And I know and realized most people that I know when I'm talking to somebody extremely intelligent because they'll always answer, well, it's subjective to the person. And that's what I know. And it's a test. So I gave the answer away. But I am curious on your end, because I get into these discussions and people get so angry if you're low carb or high carb. You know what I mean? It's very polarizing. They get so hurt. I'm like, Are you married to the diet? Let's just talk facts here. How do you feel on macronutrient balancing between carbs, fats, and proteins? Are you like an even split? Are you more low carb? Or you think carbs are more important? Where do you fall?

I do think it depends on the person. Even on the situation the particular person has in their life. I think there are times when doing a carnivore diet for a few weeks can be a really great microbiome reset.

I was looking for it. It's a mix, Yeah.

There's no doubt that phytonutrients are very preventive for very many things. Just having green leafy things decreases your risk for dementia and cancer and many other things. The cruciferous vegetables for most people are really enhanced detox and therefore do a whole bunch of good things. Some of it does just boil down to preference, too. We all have to feed ourselves and prepare food, but I don't think you can go wrong with super high-quality protein and the best plants that you can find wherever you live. Organic, seasonal, raised really well so that you get those nutrients in that are going to really run your fat chemistry, physiology. It's very clear we've done America a disservice by doing low fat diet.

Oh, shit.

You have to get good fat into your diet to have a healthy brain, to have a healthy... It's just a non-negotiable.

Of all the mistakes I've made, which are just mounds of mistakes that I've made, I think that living on that low fat diet for so long Probably the biggest nutritional mistake I've ever made that I could ever make is just... I would do this thing that I can't stand that other people do, and I did it, and I can't stand myself for doing it. I'm the exception. I I can't eat that without even trying, just convinced in my head that it was going to have a negative effect on me. When I did that switch and I increased the fast to the level I have, my whole world opened up. I'm of the mindset at this point because I don't do low carb, especially with the training I do, but I keep the carbs probably the lower end of my three. And I've raised them now a little bit, and I'm finding that I feel more stable. Electrolyte loss and not getting enough of the carbs is detrimental if you train hard.

I like to think about having a dual engine, like a hybrid model.

Yeah.

So I think it's good to be able to burn some carbs. Yeah. And it's good to be able to burn some fat.

Metabolic flexibility.

I think we have to mix it up a little.

I think, like you said, there's a lot of determining factors. How often and how hard do you work out? What conditions are you dealing with? How old are you? Because you know this. As we get older, some things don't agree with us as we age like they used to, and combinations and correlations. What order do we eat in? What things do we have on our plate? I don't think people understand how important it is to prioritize certain nutrients on your plate in order for the spikes and things like that, too. I like to have meals that are pretty consistent with all three involved, if I can. Yes.

Do you start with protein?

Always. Yeah, always. Unless it's a heavy or fat, but the proteins and the fats, too, right? Oh, yeah. No, I always do. Unless I do mix vegetables in with meats a lot that I like to do. But yeah, 100%.

Yeah. I've had a couple of run-ins with my body, too. Some healing journeys. There were times where doing a vegetarian, macrobiotic, gluten-free diet actually was very healing for me. Then I love to go do Pontipharma, the Indian Ayurvedic detox once a year. That's like 9 to 12 days of doing a vegetarian diet. But I have to like, cheat and do extra protein. I stick it into the center because otherwise, I just dropped too much weight to feed the purpose of the whole thing. It's an It's an interesting process to just play with it and see what feels good, what works. Just like you said, as for aging, things change. I found that as I'm aging, I need so much more protein than I ever did before. I really think that this study that shows that you need to get at least 30 grams of protein to stimulate muscle synthesis, I think there's something to that. At least 30 grams of protein within an hour of getting up, and it's a game changer. Yeah.

In the bodybuilding area, they're always wanting super ridiculously high amounts that I don't find necessary. But I've always been a one to one ratio, one gram per pound of body weight, I think, is pretty damn solid. I mean, you could go a little bit under that, but the importance of preventing sarcopenia as you age, which is a prevalent problem. Here, let Let me ask you then, as a functional doctor, because some people struggle with this, but I don't think people realize how difficult it is to add one to two pounds of lean muscle a year. It is not easy.

Well, shall we go to the GLP-1 Please.

We can do that for sure.

So I think we've really got a whole new epidemic going on because people are not doing the GLP-1s as well. And there We're easily losing pounds and pounds of muscle not realizing it. To do the GLP-1 safely, I really think that people need to start with the DEXA scan, full body DEXA scan, know how much muscle they have, and then follow it every three months. Then they have to be very proactive about getting at least a gram per pound body weight of protein every day, and then to take the supplement that really help with building muscle. So the carnitine, creatine, all other mitochondrial support. There's a peptide that I like by longevity called longevity, and then another supplement called Myos, which has Bordetropin in it, and then extra amino acid sometimes. Are required to keep the Texas skin solid. If patients are not willing to do that work, I am not willing to prescribe the GLP ones for them because they're going to be worse off metaphorically than they were when they started. They might feel slimmer, but the sarcopenia, the muscle loss, is going to leave them so set at for disaster in their lives.

I think everybody over the age of 10 to 12 should be taking creatina. I think anybody that's on GLP-1, it should You know when you get peptides and it comes with bacterial static water to reconstitute the peptide, I think it should just be a mandatory thing that goes along with your GLP-1 is you take five grams of creatine a day. I think that that should be mandatory.

For some people, you need to do even more. Oh, yeah. Even more to boost some of this long lean. It's not been easy for me to build muscle my whole life. What I've learned by helping patients to not lose the muscle has told me to actually build more muscle than I've ever been able to build before because I'm like, I'm not doing this. We're going to actually make you worse on the long run. I've been doing these things myself.

That's great. Nothing else.

The creatine and taking the longevity peptides and the portentrome. Have you tried the portentrome?

I haven't personally, but I'm very, very aware of it.

Those three things together have been a game changer. Really? As far as how much I need to work out and still actually build muscle. It's so fun. That's not an easy thing ever.

Me and Sean, well, today, we discussed the best Protocol, it was the safest for gaining size and strength, natural supplement. So obviously, creatine, betaine, HMB, these were three absolute essential that we have to take. It were all safe and effective to use. And those were the top three that we came up with that were a perfect stack, natural stack. And dilucine was the big one.

Interesting.

Dilucine was Actually, he was talking about just creatine, really, for muscle building. The creatine, I think, is, like I said, because I firmly believe I have my 73-year-old mom in there who was scared of her shadow, and she still takes it, too. I think everybody should be taking it. I wish that it was more prevalently known what it did for so many years when it first came out, because you know this, everybody thought it was just for strength and muscle and water retention. All true, in a sense, but nowhere near what we're seeing, right? You tell me, do you think part of the problem with the GLP-1s, too, is a lack of education on the importance of the diet that needs to go along with it?

Yeah, it just needs to be part of the vertical. I think it's just gotten off track, starting out as a diabetes medicine and not really thinking through what the long-term reprogressions are with the muscle loss.

That's just it. That's what sucks about things, is then somebody gets a hold of it, sees what it does, tells one person, tells another, and especially with something like weight loss, It explodes. People have a more is always better concept with everything. I've found, and I'm curious on your opinion on this, the microdosing with the GLP-1, it's going to have some good neurological benefits long term and would certainly have a less likelihood of stress on muscle loss. But people want to go for the gold, and they want to dose way too much. What do you feel about the microdosing side? Are you more comfortable with that?

Yes, for sure. It's really interesting because what I'm actually really new for is my taking care of patients who have been exposed to toxic mold and a lot of environmental medicine. With toxicity with toxic mold, a lot of people get something called mast cell activation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really been fascinating with the GLP-1s, especially tersuptides, is that microdosing tersuptides helps stabilize mast cells. Really? Yes. It's been a very interesting process to use it in quarter doses, quarter to a half dose doses as part of the mast cell protocol. Again, mold toxicity, mast cell activation are very complex illnesses. It's very challenging to say, Okay, here's the protocol, and go figure it out. A lot of times, it does take a lot of fine-tuning and iterating. If for people that can tolerate the GLP-1 with the mast cell, it can really speed up the trajectory of their healing.

Wow. This is why I love this, because I always learn new shit, and I love it. Let's touch on your book, because I don't know where the time went, but we went a lot of places you didn't expect. But I am spot highlighting everything that you do, not just one thing. I know that you wrote the book. I know that we're talking about that. But see, this is great because you touched on so many things. We get to show the multifaceted knowledge base that you have. And that's why I love doing this. And I don't do scripts because we would have never done this had I ever gone up any script. That's why I don't use scripts.

That's great. Because you're just so curious and interested. I am. So many different areas that you've explored. So it's fun to chat with you.

It's fun to bring out so many different avenues of a person that you maybe don't ever get to talk about or you're not known for, or that only people behind closed doors sees that are your patients. You know what I Somebody's known as a specialist in this or that, and then you never get to see or learn what all they do. You know what I mean? That's awesome. Let's talk about your book that's coming out here.

Yeah, Reconception.

Yeah. When is it coming out? Well, it's out.

It's out. It's now out.

So people can buy it right now.

Right now, easiest to buy on Amazon, but any place that books are sold. It ended up being a big book. A big book. Because I really wanted to address a lot of these things. I wanted people to understand the impacts of toxins and blood sugar and mold and all these things that I've learned over the last 20 years helping my patients so that they can really be prepared to have a healthy baby and not have to go down these infertility paths and get their healthy families without all the fear.

When I When I talk to you, what hit me, probably one of the hardest things, was your concern about the lack of preparation and understanding for people that were becoming new parents. I have the biggest soft spot in the world for kids. I don't necessarily have my own, but I have stepkids, I have grandkids. I have always been the guy that comes in and plays with the kids and is the one that they go to and they flock to. I have this utter care where so So many things affect me. I recently did an interview with Aaron Siri, who did the vaccine book. I was like, Man, I don't know if I should do this. I want to, but it's pushing it. I was on the airplane, and I was reading it because he sent it to me because he wanted to do the interview. As soon as I got to the thing about the kids, I set the book down. As soon as I got off the plane, I called my wife and I said, I don't give a shit. I am doing this because it was a relation to the kids. That's what drew me to you the most on our conversation was your for the way that parents were going to bring them into the world.

I feel like that's a lot of the reason why you wrote the book.

Really hard to see it. It's hard to see people going through infertility. But it's harder to see people that have such a child.

Yeah, it's worse.

It's devastating when parents bring in their child with autism or autoimmune issues, mental health, all the things that we're seeing, and me knowing that it might have been preventable.

Well, I think that what you're doing is amazing because that's your goal, and that's what you're trying to do. We got to make sure people read this book, take everything that you're saying for what it is and how valuable and important it is. These things that we talk about, we're not just saying them because we're fear mongering or because we're crazy. It's because it's a damn fact.

I've been practicing functional medicine for 20 years, and we really do have children's health epidemic. It's very daunting what is happening with kids. I feel so lucky that the research to back up what I believe believe is it's here. It's in the book. We can make such a huge difference to the health care of our child by really focusing that 3, 6, 12 months for both partners. It's just one of the exquisite things about humanity. You can really make huge changes really fast.

We got to try because it's affecting our kids, their kids, their kids as kids, and it's going to keep going down the line. This is an epidemic, along with several other things, as you know, and it's all correlating into where it's coming from and why. So it needs to have a continuously growing group to address this and talk about it and do something about it. And the only thing we can do is be a voice. And we need more and more and more. And that's the goal.

Thank you for caring so much. I think that's really what is going to move the needle, is to people that really do care. We care about each other. We care about the kids, care about the communities, and future generation having good life.

That's it. Selflessness is undefeated because you're always helping. You know what I mean? When you do that. I am only an expert by the people I hang out with, like you, that I talk to, that I learn from. I'm good at letting everybody see you and bringing out the best in you, I hope, in terms of what you do. So that is always my goal. And I love talking with people like you and showcasing probably what you don't get to showcase, which is, I think we did today.

Thank you so much. I hope this really inspires anybody that is starting or growing their family to press the pause button, and we learn what it is that they can be doing to help their babies be healthier.

Where can people come follow you or even sign up with you, get with you? Like, do you take in patients? Then where do they buy the book from?

My website's anshippiemd. Com. We're on Instagram. Lots of good information there. Then we have a new site that we've just developed for this particular topic called Every Baby Well. That's the goal, is that every baby gets a better start by their parents. I love it. We got on board ahead of time. Then the book is on Amazon and every place that they're sold, Preconception Revolution, because it really is time to help people to tap into this area that really will give them the best shot at being fertile and having their days.

Amazing. I will link everything in the description. So everybody listening, no excuse. Click on the links they put in there. But thank you for having me here. Thank you for getting all set up for us and for everything that you do. I immediately knew by talking to you and in a million times more now, I'm pretty good with the judgment after all these years on people, and I feel like I hit a home run with you, and I really appreciate the time and all of your efforts. It will not go undone, I assure you.

Thank you so much.

You're very welcome. All right, everybody. That wraps up another one. I know, I always say, I hope you get a lot from this. I know to get a lot from this. So stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Chameleon and Dr. Anne Shippe signing off.

That was fun.