Hormone Myths and Muscle Medicine Revealed

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Dr. Rob Silverman here, Proven Health Alternatives. I've got superstar doctor, Eric Fate. He's a fitness physician. He lives in Ohio, so we're gonna match Northeast and Midwest and we see who speaks quicker today. Dr. Finn, my pleasure. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, Rob, thanks, man. I appreciate you having me on as a big fan and I appreciated the time, yeah. All right, we gonna have some fun. We're going to share some leading insights into this hormone and weight loss. There's so many questions, but there's a lot of hormone myths.

So there are several misconceptions. Number one, particularly for women, can you address this for me? Hormone imbalance is always evident in women. Oh my gosh. There's so many myths with women, yes. And no, it's not always evidence. One of the big ones is PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome, is very common with woman. It's always not evident. Sometimes it was one of those that one my mentors told me, every woman has it until you prove otherwise. So always good looking for it. But yeah, no it is not evidence and I guess we'll probably dig into some more myths of women but there's a lot of them.

women don't need testosterone, or if you've had your uterus taken out, you'll need progesterone, they don t need anything. There's a lot of myths out there, but those are big ones. Here's another one for you. Metapause is the only significant hormone change that a woman has. That is a big one. No. Stress doesn't significantly affect women's hormones. My goodness. Yeah, stress is probably one of the top ones that affects men and women for sure, as you probably know as well. I find that more and more today, more than ever.

We're deluged with Wi-Fi and work and social media and toxins in our food and our water supply. And we're constantly being bombarded with physical stressors, emotional, mental, spiritual. So I think it's bigger than it ever absolutely affects all your hormones and your weight. mental health and everything else for sure. Let's talk a little bit about hormones and uh meta-pause and all the different stages of meta pause because you know it's a real concern for women let's say 40 to 55 if we could characterize that 15-year uh transitional phase.

It's difficult on the men because a lot of men just don't understand that this is a legitimate thing uh the women are really having this tremendous slippery slope this wave of hormones So could you address it in a manner where people would really understand it and things that they would need to do to avoid the pitfalls of a hormonal change? Yeah, for sure. So I think with women, it definitely went back to the first question about hitting them before menopause. Women get into perimenopaus, what we call kind of no man's land.

And I'm seeing, as you are, probably man and women having hormon issues at a younger and younger age, before Heck, I remember 10 something years ago, you typically would see guys or women having hormonal issues in their, not until their 50s and 60s or older. Now I'm seeing it in 20s, and 30s for crying out loud. And then a lot of that goes back to what we were just talking about with stress and the crappy environment we live in and everything else. So yeah, younger and younger. For women, definitely even before perimenopause, with everything they've got going on with stressed and if they're having children and a lotta women are on birth control pills for, years or decades and that can definitely affect their hormonal milieu and their body composition, their mental health and things like that.

That can skew things and throw things off and not to mention all the other synthetic meds and drugs and stuff that they're put on and then they get into

Hormone Myths and Women's Health 5:00

perimenopause and they start gaining weight and feel tired and get put in Prozac and statins and told to eat less and all this and it just gets worse. So yeah, there's a lot of things affecting that roller coaster. So give me three serum tests that you would recommend for people to or for women to ask their primary care physician, their OB-GYN to take, and then give three lifestyle supplemental changes you recommend. We're in the power of three today, buddy. The power three, I like it. Awesome. Cool.

That's a tough one, though, because there's more than three for sure. So blood work. notoriously underdone or misdone, I should say, if that's a word. But biggest one I think would be like a complete thyroid panel. A lot of times, traditional doctors getting a TSH or maybe a total T4, T3. So get the full thing. TSh, free T 3, Free T 4, thyroid antibodies, that kind of stuff. And get your hormones, all of them. Testosterone, freetestosterones, estradiol, progesterone. DHEA, SHBG. Those are rarely done in traditional medical practices, so I As you probably know, thyroid is a big one that's misunderstood, misdiagnosed, and mistreated.

Big one for sure. Lifestyle, man, that a tough one. I'm a super hero guy, so I always talk about superheroes and Superman has his red S. So I call it the double S, sleep and stress. Those are probably one of my top twos, because like we were just talking about, everybody's stressed and most people just don't sleep enough. We're staying up all night playing on their phones and their devices. Their circadian rhythms are big out of line. circadian rhythm, you know, quantum biology aspect, getting outside, sun in your face, that night flipping the switch and getting things dim and cooler.

Nobody's doing that and it's really messing up our biology and affects our hormones and effects our neurotransmitters in our brain. So sleep and stress are big. I know it's more than four, but I think if you had to focus, I'd want people sleeping, de-stressing, and moving every day. Diet's another one, too many of us are doing what we're doing. We're sitting, people in front of screens all day, we are ordering food from afar, so we don't have to leave our house and staying inside in a stale environment with artificial lights all-day.

I believe we need to get back to nature, get outside, move constantly throughout the day and eat real food and be active. healthy peoples and other cultures. That's what they do. They're outside all day, they're interacting with others in a social manner, not on this damn thing. And getting out in the sun, the fresh air, and they are moving their bodies all-day. You know, that's we're meant to do Yeah. Fascinating suggestions. There's a bevy of things to and I'm sorry that I gave you the power of three.

I really didn't mean to limit you. But you know Again, I got a buddy of mine who always watches it and listens. And I really appreciate his support. He's an Oxford grad, but he makes really good points. Hey, guys, make sure you land the plane and give digestible takeaways. So if you gave them that list of seven to 10, which is what they would really get when they come in for a consult with you or I, that would be great. But on a podcast, we got to keep it tight. You talked about hormone levels. So there's normal, which is what would be okay for the population, what you would get from a standard Western medical doctor.

There's optimization levels, where you're really optimizing your health. And then there is the range, and what I like to refer to as the equivocal. It's in between everything, but it's where, you and I live, because it is not addressed. Its not bad, it not good, its harboring on okay. So could you pick that up for me? Take that baton and go? Yeah, for sure. And you're right. I think traditionally most people think normal. When I always like kind of related to like classroom grades that everybody's familiar with, you know, get your you could pass a class with an A or B or C or D.

Most people are like a D, so like testosterone test, it's whatever, 300 to 1,000. So there are 302, and they're quote unquote normal, right? But that's definitely not optimal. Same with all the hormones. You and I probably want our patients to be optimal, so at least the middle third or upper third are higher. But everybody's different, everybody responds at different levels. I want definitely at the least a midpoint or higher to the optimal and what's optimal for them is what important because I see this a lot where especially guys are just stuck on that number.

Doc, shouldn't I be 1,000? Or shouldn that be this? Hey, doc, my number moved five points. I'm like, dude, don't worry about it. How do you feel? I feel great. OK, well, Don't Worry About It. Everybody's different. So it's really about, again, treating the patient, not the number. But I just use that together. Number one, how do they feel, How are they responding, any side effects. And then I correlate that with the numbers. It's putting the two together, but optimal is definitely different from normal, for sure.

lot of people are like, you have to control this or raise this, or lower that. And again, everybody's different. But in general, the ones you want to optimize are the once we talked about the testosterone, and the thyroid, it's DHEA, et cetera. There's some you've got to have control. A lot times, cortisol or insulin gets demonized. It's bad. You've gotta lower, lower and lower. Well, not always. Sometimes you'll want cortisol high, insulin high at certain times. That's about timing. So you Basically, have the right time.

It's all about the timing. In the morning, your cortisol should be higher. When you're working out, it should higher insulin. After you eat it, should a little higher if you want to put on mass, you wanna optimize your timing of your nutrition and your workouts to get that anabolic spike. So it's not that it is bad, but too much or too all the time, like we're talking about stress. If we are stressed all of the times, our cortisol is always high. Well, that's good. But it not necessarily evil. I see that a lot on social media.

Cortisol bad, SHBG bad? Insulin bad. No, not necessarily. It's like water can be bad if you drink too much of it, right? But it's all about timing more than anything. So interesting, you lead in when we talk about testosterone, part of me wants to say, what are the right ranges? Because we hear 4 to 700, 6 to 900. But I gather you're saying it's an individual thing. How do you feel? So you may be 6-900. I may 4-700. My dad was 94. You may satisfied with 200. Right. Yeah. And the question is, do you think that they are in, you know, it's a little bit of a leading question.

I do apologize, but you want to be a bit controversial. Do you that these numbers are being changed and manipulated a to find a spot so more men want or have the ability to take the TRT? It's a great question. I think they have a lot of the labs. A lot has to do with the lab and the normative values and how they're being interpreted. It feels like a lots of ranges have changed or been changed to accommodate ill people. The numbers for testosterone have been changing. They've been lowered over the years.

There used to be 300, 300 or 400 to over 1,000. Now they are down to maybe it should be 200 to 800. They're kind of like the airplane seats. Let's make them bigger to accommodate bigger people. And not necessarily a good thing. I don't think we should be changing that. You know, I think back in the, Decades ago the ranges used to be like shoot up to like you know 1500 or something like that on testosterone. I can't remember now, but it was so they've definitely changed. But again, I think it's it is individual and I, think again symptoms come first and.

And sometimes it starts out because you, know with men, especially there's genetic variability right they have on their genetic code is that what they call a CAG repeated repeat of your DNA that. If it's long or short, that can tell them how much testosterone they need. The guys with the different lengths need, you know, I believe it fits short repeat. They need more testosterone or vice versa. I might have that backwards, but based in, there's no real way to test for that other than clinical symptoms.

So, But the bottom line is, based on genetics and metabolism, things like that, some guys may walk around 400 and feel fantastic. And other guys feel like total crap. You know? They don't feel good until they're up to 900 or a thousand or whatever. That's where that clinical correlation comes in, because there's no way to know their genetics on that specific air variable.

Testing, Optimization, and Environmental Hormone Decline 13:00

So there is a big range, but that's why, again, it comes into how you're feeling, how are you responding, et cetera. The sidecar to what you said, the idea that testosterone has dropped in recent memory. It's true. As we all know, muscle mass is the longevity organ. And it's a currency of longevity, all that. What do you attribute to the fact that most men in our age brackets are having lower testosterone and loss of muscle mass. Yeah, yeah. Like we were saying, I think we're seeing that younger and younger nowadays.

And it's hard to say for sure, but I attribute that to our environment, really. All the plastics, the phthalates, BPA, EMF exposure, nutrients being depleted from our soil, all the crap in our food, Wi-Fi, like I said, living inside, stress, lack of sleep. staying up all night, playing on their phones. I think all these factors contribute to it. Is there causing things to mitigate our normal hormonal response and accelerate that decline compared to our grandfathers, for example? They didn't have a lot of this.

They lived in a completely different world back then. So more natural, more healthy, perhaps. You know, so I didn' get that declined till much later. so, I just attribute it... I really believe it has to do more with environmental changes and effects more than anything else. How long have you been a doc? There's a reason why I'm asking you this. Gosh, over 20 years, 20 plus 25 something years. Long time. Right. Same here, 26 years would you say, now obviously you're a better doctor today than you were when you came out of med school, osteopathic school.

Would you in the last 20 to 25 years that the patients have more complexity or Lex complexity in last two to two and a half decades? think more. I think we're all seeing a rise in autoimmune conditions, gut issues. We've all learned about the microbiome in the last 10 years. And we are still learning more about it. So I definitely think it's gotten more complex. Again, our environment has changed in our last 20-something years for sure, based on all the things we were just talking about. Of course, we all know about that debacle five years ago.

That really messed a lot of people up with the shots. All these other different things that messed up our immune system. So I think we're seeing a rise of all these, you know, turbo cancers, not immune conditions and cancers. And there's a reason for that, right? We don't have to get into all that now, but I there is a lot there. Without question, as you guys all know, I wrote a book, Immune Reboot, so I'm a big believer in the balance of the immune system. I think one of our biggest problems is we have an imbalanced immune systems.

Taking the next step, you've talked about a lot because I did a research on you before we got you to come on. And I appreciate it. You talk about the idea of fat loss and muscle medicine, not muscle mass. Muscle medicine. So why don't you explain that idea of how muscle medicine leads to fat loss and give me a couple of things you would do to improve my muscle. Yeah, for sure. That's like a little phrase I came up with. I kind of trademarked a phrase of muscle I've just always been involved in health and fitness my whole life.

And then when I got into medicine, you know, longevity, et cetera, it seemed like a good fit. Because I, there weren't a lot of people talking about muscle as an organ or as a endocrine organ, or is a muscle, more people now are talking, like you said, muscle is an agent of longevity. So I kind of took that upon myself to that's my mantra now. It's muscle medicine. That's what I do. Um, it kind of started like just as a something to niche down on to kind be my focus and, uh, be, my avatar. And, um, but it really means a lot to me because personally, and I feel that, like I said, has been undervalued.

So muscle basically is an endocrine organ. Is one of the largest ones in the body. I think that part has underappreciated. A lot of people talk about muscle as, of course, you can, Help you to move right it can help you look better and improves your insulin sensitivity can boost your metabolism and help with fat loss but it does a lot more. Because muscle creates myokines which are cytokine made by the muscle which a little chemical messengers for your audience who is not aware. People are getting more aware of the cytocines you know people talk about a lotta these these inflammatory ones the bad ones like they call.

Interleukin 6 or tumor necrosis, you know, tumor, necrosis, all these different cytokines, but myokins are made by the muscle, especially during exercise. So these myocines like they have all this crazy names like IRISIN and IL-6 and IL-10, always different names. But what they do is they almost act like little messengers, almost like hormones where they, when you, special when your exercise, they secrete out and they go to different parts of the body to Confer an effect. They can improve your bone mass.

It can prove your brain health improve Your gut health help prove you digestion and all these other things So basically they can help you to live longer improve. Your immune system like you were talking about and reduce inflammation So it does a lot more than just help. You handle blood sugar, which it Does so I think most people if they focus on optimizing their muscle mass kind of the rest will take care of itself because if you're building up your muscle Mass Keeping it healthy and functional, it will, of course, increase your metabolic rate, improve glucose disposal, all these myokines, and it can help you burn fat, which will help with body composition.

But it'll also boost your brain health, your bone health and your gut health. It does so many different things. Doesn't birds with one stone, right? So I think it's an easy way of doing since we all tell people to exercise and this and that. It's just a good way to create a simple path. Like you said, what are those three actionable tips? Like lift, everything's move and move, move every day. I Think if you focus on helping your muscle be not just strong, not. Just look good in the mirror, be like a bodybuilder kind of thing, but really functional muscle.

Then a lot of these things will take care of himself. It'll definitely help you lose body mass. One of my colleagues, Bill Campbell, he's big on fat loss, muscle, body composition research. And he says the same thing, really focused on building up that muscle mass, and that'll help burn the fat. A lot people wouldn't talk about that for years. The bodybuilders have talked about this for many, many years, right? John Parilla's a big one on that. All these other people have been doing it for a very long time.

But for me, I not just do it from the body aspect, but the longevity. So that's because of the myokines and all the things they could do for your brain and your bone literally will help you live longer. For me, it's just a good focus to hit on and really push on my patients. I concur with you. The myocines are a hidden gem. It may be the secret sauce to our conversation. When I mentioned cytokine to most people, everybody thinks that they're all pro-inflammatory. There are 17 of them. 13 are pro inflammatory, 4 are anti- inflammatory.

The mitokine stimulates, as you so articulately said, interleukin-10, which is an anti-inflammatory cytokines, and it also conversely decreases interLEUKIN-1-beta, Interleucin 6, INTERLEUCIN 8 and TNF-alpha. So it kind of covers both sides of the coin. lift weights. Yes. Doesn't necessarily mean we all have to look like Arnold, although I wouldn't mind walking around that way one day every day just to get curiosity, just see how people would react to me. So some of the supplements, as I segue and I'm seeding you for a peptide conversation, one of supplements that I enjoy is creatine, wrote my thesis on creatinine.

To have some notes, improve muscle strength and performance, enhance brain health, especially in women. Potential benefits for bone density, helps with mood and cognitive function, really reduces fatigue because it enables you to go from ADP to ATP. So that is the then, the now, and the future. But I think the Now and The Future, a very crystal clear future, would be peptides, which are short-chain amino acids. Now, you're an expert in peptide therapy. Which peptids do you want to talk about? Which do recommend for men?

And which ones do we recommend women? That's a loaded question, bud. Yeah, absolutely. Well, to your first point about creatine, I agree 100%. I love it and it's probably one of the most well-studied supplements out there. I think people are finally picking it up and then that's just for performance but for brain health and a cognitive function. So, agree. That's a fantastic supplement. Very, very safe. Couple hours of conversation right there but there's a lot of them and of course we all know how you know big bad FDA is trying to you back in the fall try to take a while those way and.

Playing the playing the medical and political economic games with us back and forth so there is a controversy there, but I think more and more people. Medicals and non medical people are being aware and talking about it now everywhere on social media so. A lot to do, and I'm always a big proponent of, you know, using the right peptides, getting them from pharmacies, as opposed to you have to be careful a lot of these online places and things like that. So just there's a lots there, right? Which ones?

You know there are so many, I think for me, There's several that I like. I mean, for many, many years, I've used a lot of the GHRHs or growth hormone releasing hormone peptides, the CJC epimerelins, testimerelin, semerellin for a long time, especially combined with BPC157. Most people are talking about that for healing, repair, gut health. Another one I've been using a lot of off and on is, in addition to the BPC, is lorazotide. It's a great gut health peptide because, like we were talking about earlier, so many people have gut issues nowadays.

Muscle Medicine, Creatine, and Peptides 22:00

A lot people with mold and microbiome disruptions and gut-health issues. So it's really good one to help tamp down that inflammation in the gut. to seal that gut barrier and reduce an inflammatory mediator called zonulin. It can help with gut health. So that's kind of a cool one. I've been using it off and on a fair amount the last year. But I think most people, at least for me anyway, they're coming to me because they want to improve their body composition. They want lose weight, feel better, look better and live longer, stronger, better kind things.

What they call the GHRH is GHRP and the BPC157. The thymolins are fantastic. Thymus and alpha and thimus in beta, two different ones. You mentioned immune health. I agree. Immune health and immunometabolism, a burgeoning area of research of late. And I think more and more people are getting aware of it. So really, one of the first things I almost always do is work on reducing inflammation and improving immune system function because so many people have been affected in the last five years with immune systems, with all the viruses.

so on and so forth. So the thymus and alphas, the BPCs, and the thymolynes are fantastic for improving immune system modulation, improving the immune function. And sometimes it's a question of, everybody's like, why do I want to lose weight? I'm going to do this. But they're inflamed. Their gut's amassed. They're not thinking. I know you've got to just be patient, but we have to reduce that inflammation, heal the gut, improve your immune systems. Then we'll focus on the weight, as you probably see a lot, too.

You've gotta detox. Get them healthy, then the way will come off. I think tamping down and improving that immune system function is a key thing. Sometimes it's hard to get people convinced of that because they want to lose the weight yesterday, but I that's important. There's a lot of other ones but those are some of the big ones that I use a The one that I had in my head, in addition, BPC 157, of course, Swiss Army Knife of Health, the Wolverine supplement. I'm a big, big proponent because of its gut-performing abilities, KPV.

Some of the benefits of peptide therapy, improved athletic performance, weight loss, metabolic boost. Reversal of aging effects, i.e. longevity, because isn't longevity our new anti-aging, which hasn't gone away over the last three years. Some real positive effects are neurodegenerative disease and cognitive function as well. So without question. Peptide therapies are a promising field of research with enormous potential for extending health span, lifespan. Now you're medical, I'm chiropractic, eye can't pierce the skin, so I use a lot of oral peptides.

So here are some of the positives for those who are looking for oral peptides, enhanced convenience, you can get them in a good quality healthcare facility, improved bioavailability, reduced risk of side effects, And I found an enhanced patient compliance because, as somebody said this morning that was acupuncturist, there are some people that are actually afraid of needles. Right. Now, we're using the peptides in order to recover and train smarter. Why don't you give me your laundry list, your litany list of things, so people can know how to train harder, smarter, more effective, and recover?

For sure. Yeah, it's a big question. I find a lot of people need to focus on recovery. And I always tell people, train hard, but recover harder. A lot people that just do too much, overtraining and things like that. So kind of pulling them back and really focusing on recovering. Not only just strategic lifestyle, taking time off, doing things sauna, cold plunge, red light, the usual kind of other recovery tactics are great. Peptides can definitely be helpful for that. And we talked about the BPCs and the KPVs, and thymacins, et cetera, to help boost repair, recovery, things like that, you mentioned creatine is great, obviously, some of the basic stuff that you know, collagen supplementation, nutraceuticals are fantastic.

Our friend, we were talking about Michael Antonella has some great products on his site that can help with recovery. Even basic stuff like alkalinizing, using things like Alka-Seltzer Gold or ketone esters are fantastic for, almost like you said, like a Swiss Army knife, reducing recovery, improving performance, and so many different things. I do like the ketones ester, even though they're a little expensive, but I found a few that actually taste OK. So that's a good one. Optimizing NAD status. different things like that.

So there's a lot of nutraceuticals that could be helpful, but a lotta times it's just the simple stuff, right? Just really taking some extra time doing deloads, cycling in your routines, making sure you're sleeping, and then doing some of those recovery strategies for sure. But biggest thing is on top of that would be adequate fueling, you know, Especially with women, they're hesitant to really load up on protein or amino acids. So many people just need more protein, more amino acid, and just fueling their bodies.

A lot of people want to just fast all the time and they have to fuel your body. You've got to give it what it needs. Give it those amino-acids, give the collagen, different things to heal and to recover. massaging and heating it up and eating the food, you're not going to build the muscles. So you have to recover. I agree. And I love the reference to the keto esters because I'm a big proponent of them because or they're on the ketogenic diet and they are in ketosis. And you and I both know that that doesn't happen that often.

The ketone esters are a great add. You mix that with MCT oil. Some of the things, and now I'm probably reiterating a lot of what you said, prioritized sleep quality, nutrition, clearly. I mean, that is the starting point. Everybody would benefit from eating a more whole food diet. That active recovery, hydrate and fuel wisely, manage stress. modalities or devices, PEMF, low-level laser, they're all going to stimulate healing within the body. Sleep, I mean I think we need to cover sleep and circadian rhythm, i think that's our next chapter in our conversation.

So why don't you explain what circading rhythm is, sleep, and how they need Yeah, for sure. I'm huge on that. Uh, I, uh, give everybody some strategies. Cause I like I said, um, big on, you know, getting that, a circadian rhythm in alignment, the whole I've been studying it in the last year, six months or more about all about quantum biology, really using the power of lights of water, of resonance, to heal the body and things like that? So I think I tell everybody like, try to get outside, first thing in morning, get out in this sun and you look at the sun.

It's just cloudy, you know, just getting the sun in your eyes and it's not just, getting your feet in the ground, grounding, get in earth, balancing it. It is great for reducing inflammation, promoting healing, managing stress. But looking at that sunlight, that gets through the retina into the suprachiasmatic nucleus in our brain and literally will get your hormones Sinked right it helps optimize your cortisol and actually will start the process of creating melatonin for later that evening so that you can sleep.

So it's a 24 hour rhythm right so it was just getting that system in sync and then trying to get outside as much you came during the day not just to move but to give some fresh air get the sun in your eyeballs. Something to be said for UVA and UVB light you know it is a good thing that sun has been kind of demonized right and the whole sunscreen industry and I think that's mistake. I think that UVA and UVB are both beneficial for boosting mitochondrial function and helping your mitochondria to function better, to create energy, uh to, create water.

People talk about structured water in your mitocondria and your cells and this and that's a, it's new kind of a science but I, think there's something to that but i think it can definitely help with mitochondrio biogenesis or creating better mitochondrion. And of course making vitamin D in, your skin is the best way to do it so I. Think that a great way. To start and complete your day and at the end of the day kind, of doing the flip right still thing getting outside. But on the opposite side, getting off these devices, putting everything in night shift mode, wearing the blue blockers, dimming the lights, trying to get off electronics an hour or two before bed, because all that blue light screws up your melatonin production and increases stress.

So I think really getting your body getting that wind down. As you hear this a lot too, I can't sleep. I'm tossing and turning and I turn my brain off. How many people you know say that so i think that definitely helps and that'll help you get in that deep restorative sleep because like i always tell everybody like your day starts the night before you, know when you're getting that restorive sleep it's important not just to sleep but your body's rebuilding it, recovering your brain's detoxing you are making growth hormone you making all your hormones at night to help, burn that fat and help me build muscle all the things everybody wants but they forget about sleep so if you not sleeping.

I could have the magic pill, and it's not going to work. You've got to sleep. So the circadian rhythm aspect is very, very important for that. Proper hydration, cellular hydration and structural water formation in your cells, et cetera, but light is huge. Just like I said, just the sunlight is best. And then for those people that need more, you could do the other modalities where there's red light therapy, infrared sauna, different things like that can help with healing, helping with mitochondrial function, with all the things we were just talking about.

I think those are easy things. Most of them are free, You know, to piggyback on what you said before, I've got a study here from Diseases Periodical of 2025. It talks about cortisol, circadian secretion pattern. And if I could put the graph up, and we'll probably put notes so they could see the graphs, it really talks at 6 a.m., there's this precipitous rise in cortisol.

Recovery, Sleep, and Circadian Rhythm 31:00

So those people who live to about, or sleep to by 8 o'clock, that poses a problem. Most people, don't even have to ask you. I'm sure you're up by 6 am, if not before. Yep. So it's a fascinating thing what you talk about, but what does somebody do to attenuate the rise in cortisol because their sleep pattern is off? Yeah, it's a great point. It's funny because I actually literally had a call with one of my patients about that the other day about their circadian rhythm and I had her shift her schedule just three minutes and now her daytime grogginess is improved.

So it kind of depends on your pattern. Everybody has different sleep patterns or sleep cycles. They talk about the dolphin, the lion, and the bear based on what your sleep pattern or your early riser, late risers, this and that. our ancestors, they're pretty smart, right? Go to bed when the sun goes down, get up when it comes up kind of thing. And there's something to that. I think the science is starting to bear that out. So yeah, I thing getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning or so when sun's up is fantastic.

In that cortisol spike, like you said, it's supposed to happen. Our bodies are there to tell us to get the heck up and get on with our day. If you're sleeping through that, that can screw things up. Playing around with that shift, shifting your schedule just a little bit might be helpful, whether you might have to move it forward, a bit backwards. And I know some people have different work schedules and it makes it difficult, but best you can to sync it with the natural rhythms would be optimal.

The number one question I'm getting asked from my male colleagues is, can I have a testosterone protocol? And I feel amiss that I didn't pin you down on one. But I'm going to give you the mic. It's an open mic, share some suggestions. And they can be TRT. They can supplemental. I've got my list here as well. Yeah, for sure. Obviously, it depends on your situation, your age, you health status, things like that. So if you're younger, I think it's always best, as with everything, to, if there's and underlying issue, fix it.

If you are not sleeping, eating the wrong, not exercising, obviously fix those first. Same thing with thyroid. There's something causing it, got hit with a viral infection, your gut's a mess. Let's fix that and that may take care of it, period. You don't have to do anything else because if there's something holding back your testosterone production or hormonal optimization, let's fixed that. And it all comes to start with the basics. I always start lifestyle, sleep and stress and diet. Are you eating a whole food diet?

Are You know waiting all the bad stuff in terms of what you're eating are you lifting weights are moving sun exposure everything we're just we've been talking about so that's first and foremost okay are they doing that yeah if you are younger can you do you know the testosterone boosters and it's not gonna hurt anything there's some data out there. Think they're kind of mixed. I think it'll move the needle, but not some guys that will move it more. But for the most part, it's like a little bit, nothing great, I know some people that have had great success with it.

So is it going to hurt anything? Probably not. If you're a young guy, can you try something like Shilajit, Ashwagandha, et cetera? Great. Yeah, absolutely. However, most guys, as they find, especially as we get older, in their 40s, 50s and 60s we're all going get some hormonal decline as age, unfortunately. Dealing with the toxic world we live in, at some point, it's going to be inevitable. So I think always starting with everything else first. And then, does somebody need to optimize their testosterone with some hormonal treatment?

Yeah, more than likely. That's probably what's gonna happen with most people. Again, try the natural stuff. Now, if they're a younger guy, say they in their 40s, or if there's any question of having children, I always try to save testosterone for later. Start with something like Clomid or ACG. One of these other modalities that's going to boost testosterone naturally maintain their fertility and I've had a lot of success with that with some of my patients. I did it myself for some time and they can definitely work.

Now at some point if that stops working or they don't have success or if they just don t like how they feel on it Then we can graduate to testosterone. I don't like to do it right out of the gate because then I feel like I like options. You know I'm a former ER doctor and I always like think three steps ahead. Like if this doesn't work then let's do this. If that doesn t work let s do that. So start with that if that does not work or we get to that point okay now we go to Testosterone. testosterone replacement therapy obviously with injectable testosterone or compounded cream.

They work fantastic. Now there's the new oral form, the Kaisertrex, etc. that can do it as an oral formulation which I've had some pretty good success with. So now there are a few more options out there for men but that's kind of my progression. I'll start with the lifestyle, natural stuff. pre-test hormonal optimization, then move on to testosterone. So that's kind of like a standard progression for most guys. And there's little tweaks here and there, little things we could do, peptides and stuff like that, but that is kind the general progression.

I had a couple of follow-up questions for you, but I'm going to dump the testosterone protocol. Natural approaches, ashwagandha, as you said, magnesium zinc, B6, Tribulus, not sure how you feel about that, fish oils, DHEA, acetylalkarnitine, creatine BPC157. Here's a question that every guy comes in who's going take TRT, they ask me. If I go on TRT, do I have to stay on it for life? I hear that a lot too. I always say, no, you don't have. However, most guys I find, once they get to that point where they need it and they have do it to optimize themselves, they're not going to want to stop.

Why would you? Now, the follow up question is always, will Doc, won't my buy stop making on its own? And I say well, yeah, I will. If you do for a certain amount of time, it will stop, but if you're already down here, and you are not making much, What are you missing out on? You know what I mean? If you're on a scale of 0, 10, or 1, yeah, you could stop. Why would you stop if you not make enough to have a clinical effect anyway? So what's the harm in shutting it down further? But you can stop at any time, and you always do a reboot and let it go back to where it would be.

But if start up here and your 40 and optimize it for a while, then you stopped it. You're just going to go down to were you would have been at that age anyway. So it'll just revert to normal. And so you totally stop it anytime, but most guys are like, I feel great. Rapid fire factor fiction. Will I get muscular if I take TRT? Obviously, we're talking about males right now. Youth facts. If you're doing all the right stuff, eating, lifting, stuff like that, you can't just stay on the couch eating bonbons and get big, right?

But. Factor fiction, if i take testosterone, will my hair thin? Fiction. Fact or fiction? Will my prostate grow? Fixion. Typically, fact, yes. Well, you just sold half of America on it. I just saw the survey and it said 93.2 million Americans said that. In fact my libido goes, I'm going to take TRT. Dr. Fiction, will my mood change? That's a tough one. I would say fiction. What is the top level number you would want somebody to attain? I know it's generic. It's not individual in a testosterone blood serum test.

There really isn't a magic number. I just where you feel good at, you know, but in general, I want them to be the upper third. So most guys are feeling pretty good anywhere between 600 and 1000 somewhere in that range. 80% of your immune cells are in your gut. It has its own nervous system called the enteric nervous. We converse probably every week on this podcast about how improving gut health will improve overall health.

Testosterone Protocols, Gut Health, and Nutrition 38:00

Everybody's got a different approach, begs the question, what's your approach to improving good health? Yeah, it's a big one. I agree. Uh, I see so many people with gut issues. So number one is just removing any offending agents, right? Some people are unknowingly doing stuff that bothers them. Maybe they're eating too many seed oils or processed foods. They don't realize until they kind of do an audit or look at themselves. Oh yeah. piece of processed junk every day. I didn't realize it or whatever.

Stress reduction, of course. But for me, I always like to start with whole food. Do you give your body what it needs? And so a whole-food diet and like prebiotics, using pre-biotic like resistant starches, more fibers, berries, polyphenols, et cetera, usually does a great way to get your microbiome, giving the microbiomes what they need to take care of itself. If that doesn't work, then, of course, we could do other things, whether it's probiotics, things like butyrate or tributrin, lactulose, peptides that can help with gut health.

Or, obviously, if, heaven forbid, somebody has a really bad dysbiosis, they may need to do a gut protocol, like kill the bad bugs, feed the good bugs with supplements, nutraceuticals, antibiotics, and things that. But typically, by feeding the bacteria, you can turn around, feeding them acromansia, Bifidobacteria, etc. with polyphenols and fibers. Usually that can turn around, but sometimes I've had a lot of people with some crazy stuff, whether it's mold or an infection. We have to do a more advanced protocol for a month or two to really reboot it.

Back to fiction. Hey, Dr. Fate, if I take probiotics, will that fix and figure out everything I need in my gut? Probably a fiction, usually not. Not good enough pre and probiotic. Here's a more delving question. What's the number one thing that you see that patients do wrong before coming in your office to help themselves lose weight and gain muscle? That's a tough one. I would say most people are doing nowadays too much restriction, too many fasting or too extreme stuff. They're doing these crazy extreme diets or they're going for way too long.

Have been doing keto for three years or carnivore for eight months or something. Or I'm fasting 24 fasts three times a week or whatever, something off kilter. So my buddy's listening, and he's writing this all down. And he said, Rob, at the end of every podcast, I need one thing to chew on to make my life better, to take a step forward. Now I'm going to also give you the caveat that he is now improving his tennis game. So what would you suggest? Just give him the one things. He'll do it. We're improving this tennis games or just living better in general?

Well, we'll start with living in better general, which will definitely segue into a better tennis outcome. Gotcha, gotcha. Ah, we talked about sleep. I think focusing on your circadian rhythm and breath work, I that gets neglected a lot because that can improve so many things. Nobody breathes properly. If you do a bolt test or something like that, you can really see how bad it is. Most of us are not doing abdominal breathing. We're breathing too quickly. It's affecting our sympathetic tones, affecting sleep, it's effecting our digestion, our performance.

So I this is something that anybody can do and it' free. Focusing on breath, getting outside and focusing your breathing multiple times a day can You know, you're so correct about the breathing, especially expired air. 70% of our toxins are removed from expired. Air 84% fat is burned to CO2 is removed through expired Air. So one of the biggest weight loss hacks that I share with my patients is learning how to breathe and breathe more appropriately. Give me the number one food that you would remove to raise testosterone and give me number food you'd add to increase testosterone.

I think most people are pretty aware of protein, healthy fats, everybody's doing low carb. Don't fear the carbs. A lot of guys just need to add more healthy carbs back in and they'll feel a hell of a lot better. Removing, that's a tough one too. Alcohol is probably up there, seed oils. I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm happy that you said that because that's one of my bane of existence. We have a lot of influencers saying there's no data to indicate human clinical trials to indicated that processed seed oils are deleterious.

There are no omega-6 everybody. Absolutely. Yeah. It's yours now. No, I appreciate that. And it's a big one for sure. I think seed oils and obviously anything that's processed chemical, blah, you know, most people know that, but the problem is they're sneaky. You've got to read the labels and everything. They sneak stuff in all the time. Oh, this sounds healthy. Then line three of the ingredients like, oh, genetically modified or you know, canola oil or whatever. Ideally, you shouldn't have to read ingredients, right?

You know it's food, oh, this is an avocado or, whatever, but it is what it. You are the human species, the smartest species in the world. We're able to make our own food supply. Unfortunately, we are dumb enough to consume it as well. Maybe I should put that on a bumper sticker if I can shorten it up. Love that. Let's close it off. Change in administration. We're not talking politics. Changing outlook on health care. Where do you see the seed that's being planted to turn around the reversal, if you will?

Where you do see America's health going in the next five years? Man, I love that question. And based on what they're trying to do right now, we're moving in a good direction. I think the biggest thing is, unfortunately, the politics and economics is a huge role. Get that out, get the big pharma toolbox out. Let's get back to natural health, man. You know, getting outside, eating real food, get rid of the chemical process crap, the glyphosate. Get us back, to eating, real, food that's growing outside and getting, outside.

And I think if we can continue that trajectory, I, think we'll be in a much better place. But like you said, we've made this world. We've, made the food. That we eat worse. deleterious fashions. I think if we need to pull that back a little bit, let nature do its thing and get back to nature. If we can continue that, I'll think we'll be in a good place. As Dr. Jacqueline once said, if man makes it, i won't eat it. if God gives it it's a gift. Dr Eric Fate, it has been my pleasure. Thanks so much.

We need do this again. Absolutely. Thank you much, appreciate. Great questions and I appreciate you having me on. My pleasure, Dr Rob Silver and Dr Erick Fate Proven Health Alternatives.