Sperm Counts Headed to Zero by 2045? Fertility Crisis Explained

Introduction to Natural Fertility 0:00

Welcome back to Everyday Ancestral. Fertility isn't something we should have to fight for. It's something that returns when we reconnect with how the body was designed to function. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Neshat Latif, a functional medicine trailblazer who's redefining what's possible for natural fertility She's helping women and couples overcome complex reproductive challenges without invasive interventions, using science-backed holistic strategies that restore the body's innate ability to create life.

We uncover what modern medicine has missed, how stress and disconnection disrupt fertility, and what it truly means to return to the bodies natural intelligence, the same intelligence that allows life to flourish. Dr. Nishat, thank you for joining me. Fertility is something that I know we really do associate a lot with women, but I think we gotta, we got to, you know, start looking towards the men as well. Would you agree? A hundred percent. And I don't know if you knew this, James, by sperm counts are actually headed to zero by 2045. Shocking.

Wow. Well, why is that? What is causing this? Is it environment? is it lifestyle? what are they blaming or putting the focus on around that. Yeah, so that's kind of a loaded question. But essentially, if you look at the data and the science, our average sperm counts have dropped 50% in the last 46 years. And so if actually put this on a graph, that is how we are coming up with this projected possibility of sperm count headed to zero by 2045, which, gosh, what does that mean for our kids and future generations, right?

And as far as like the reason that this is happening, it really comes down to root cause, right? We live in a toxic world. We are exposed to toxins on a daily basis and there's a massive amount of what I call oxidative stress and toxic burdens on our bodies, let alone the quality of our food, you know, has just plummeted. over the past number of decades. And I mean, it's really hard to get high quality food that is packed with nutrients and minerals and so forth. Unfortunately, the traditional paradigm really just overlooks male factor fertility, which unfortunately is accountable for 50%, believe it or not,

Male Fertility and Sperm Count Decline 2:23

of the responsibility when it comes to couples struggling with infertility. So really, one plus one is two. Wow. I feel like though, you know, as we started, like the woman gets so much energy and really blame around this. Do you find that part of your practice of supporting natural fertility is also kind of like supporting the emotions that come with it. Like just, you know, maybe people not shaming themselves for it, like what comes up when you first start working with people? That's a great question and a really loaded question.

Quite honestly, I feel like most couples and really women, right, because women are really on the hunt for a solution most of the time and the guy is just kind of He's supportive and he's alongside her, but the focus is not on him, right? So when couples come into my world, mostly women, they're often felt unheard. They're felt feeling like just a number. And the reality is that in modern day and age, women are definitely reproducing later on in life. And a lot of these women have gone through a lots of losses, whether it's miscarriages, or chemical pregnancies, procedures, endometriosis, PCOS, a number of conditions.

The reality is that nobody's really addressing the root cause. The traditional system is more of like a Band-Aid approach where we're trying to essentially push the body to do what we want it to by giving it pharmaceuticals or undergoing IUI or IVF or writing a prescription. In my approach, we're really just about addressing the root cause, but in answer to your question, the mind-body connection cannot be overlooked. And the reality is that one of the first things that I do when I work with couples is we have to step into a place of belief.

You know, I always say that babies are not going to be born in a place where there isn't love. And so a lot of times when I'm talking to my couples and like you're more likely to get pregnant if you are focused on love making and not baby making. Obviously that's not the full picture. But we have to move away from baby making to love making. And before we do that, we to heal the body first. One of the other things I say when I work with couples is, your body is smart, right? So the reason you're not reproducing may not be because you are broken.

It's not because your broken and it's because there's something wrong with you, it is just because it has not been set out for success.

Mindset, Shame, and Root-Cause Fertility Care 5:23

Does that make sense? Oh yeah. No, I like, like what you're, how you talking about this. Cause I feel like you not just bringing up the biological piece, which is what I think a lot of people focus on, but you are almost talking a cultural kind of disconnect that we have around. It's almost like the reproductive issues are coming up, kind a new phenomena, right? To a degree. And then from there, though, we still keep focusing on the biological to degree and trying to overcome nature's course and try to bring in the kind of like scientific lab kind there's also a cultural kind of like, like I think the fact that we have so many women in men's roles, traditional men roles.

You know what I'm saying? Where they're now in very high stress environments that they may not have been in yesteryear. They're in roles that are pushing them to be potentially out of sync with their own rhythms, their on innate feminine rhythms to a degree. Let alone, The shame, as we mentioned, the shame and the pressures that we put on ourselves in these circumstances of like, I need to have a baby, whether it's the age thing or expectations of this is what it means when you're in a relationship, you have to a kid, whatever may come.

But I feel like it is a cultural thing, or at least that's that the piece that you are bringing to the table here. What do you think though has led to this disconnection from our reproductive health? Is it just food or what do think it is? Oh my gosh, it's so many things. So gut health is a big part of it, right? Cause that's a driver of inflammation. And of course, yeah, food is huge part it too. Food leads to poor gut, health dysbiosis like he got, which drives inflammation and food sensitivities, you know, drive things like Hashimoto's and thyroid issues, and so on and, so forth.

You know our overburdened systems with toxins and endocrine disruptors are everywhere that are causing wreaking havoc in our hormonal communication systems, all of this is driving infertility together. And I think that's one of my biggest frustrations with the traditional models and traditional approaches is we are so focused on trying to fix You know, what's going on rather than just taking a step back and appreciating that our bodies are protecting us. One of the things also is, and this speaks to what you're talking about, most of couples that come to me are very high achieving couples.

And I feel like a lot of these women are spending sleepless nights, you know, Googling for the answers and searching. They're all type A and they want to get it right, but the reality is that in order to where we are now to our optimal fertile state. It requires a 360-degree approach to the body, and it's about doing the right things in the order and the intensity for your personal biochemistry. So I also don't believe that there's a one-size-fits-all solution to get from our toxic, leaky gut, dysbiotic, inflammatory states to optimally fertile.

I feel like a highly personalized approach is critical. The other thing is, you know, I encourage my couples to appreciate that you may not be getting pregnant not because something's wrong with you and, again, not your body is broken, but because your is protecting you, right? Your body's smart. Your only wants to create life when it believes it's safe. And when it believes it will create a healthy, beautiful, vibrant life. And until it feels safe, it is not going to reproduce. So I'm hoping couples understand and reframe their infertility as actually a form of protection.

and to lean into the messages that our bodies are giving us, because symptoms and things that you may be experiencing on a daily basis are really just messages, you know, for us to pay attention to, rather than to try to like, fix or disregard You know, there's also a mindset shift,

Couples, Connection, and Personalized Healing 10:07

right? When they're working with me, I say it takes about 90 days from the time our egg and sperm start to develop until they are ovulated or ejaculated. And so I'm like, until we get you to the point where we have a super egg in a supersperm, let's focus on love making, not baby making. Right? Let's celebrate our period every month because it means that you are Fertile, right? If you're getting a period and you having a cycle, you are fertile, let's get out of this infertile mindset because you not infertal, your body is just protecting you and we're trying to take the time to set it up for success.

I love that. Let's get out of this infertile mindset. I, I loved it. Cause you know, a lot of times we are, we're focusing so much on the biology of it, but we not really talking about the mindset and, and I so I that we going into this place with this topic. Is there, I mean, you're already sharing some mindset stuff, but is there something like that you find the couple themselves can do independent of let's say you energetically or mindset wise? Because you mentioned the celebrating of the period.

the safety within, I feel like to a degree, those are almost individual things, but is there something that that couple together, like practices that coupled together can incorporate into their lives that will help to support this internal and external environment for fertility? Yeah, so it's funny that you say that. So my preference is to work with couples, not individuals. And that's one of the reasons that I do that is I have a lot of women that come to me and they're really interested in addressing their fertility issues and healing their bodies and addressing root causes.

I'm like, okay, great, we can do But I asked them to bring their partner to our initial call together because I want their partners buy-in because guess what? I do find that couples have the most success when they're on this journey together. Why is that? Because you're getting into rituals together, right? You're going into meal change and behavioral shifts and biochemical shifts together as a couple. And that speaks to what we've already talked about, which is, you know, creating a safe space for procreation.

We were all put on this world to procreat. Were biologically designed to create life. So all we need to do is foster human connection. I feel like human connections in a couples, we're always go, go go running, running. Life is really fast. These high achieving career driven type A couples. often forget that connection and love is the epicenter of fertility and procreation. And while we do need to shift biochemistry, right, we need up-regulate detoxification, to heal the gut, decrease inflammation, balance hormones, do all of those things, but we can't do them in a silo.

We have to do it together with everything else. I love it. You know, it makes me think of when someone's in the process of getting married. I always tell them, I'm like, you know it's this process you're in right now, the planning of the wedding, that actual journey to the day, That's the marriage, how you treat each other, How you interact,how you communicate,How you work together. That is going to really mold your marriage. The day of your wedding is icing. It's just a party. But a lot of people disregard the journey.

They're just focusing on, I just want a baby. I don't care how I get it, just I want the baby and I think it's really fascinating because your approach is rooted in data, right? Your hormones and health and toxins, but it is also deeply holistic. So how do you combine science with intuition in your practice? That's a great question. I think it's really just about holding space for these women and these couples. Every single call that I do with my group starts with mindset work, right? Starts from a place of belief, starts from place positivity.

Everyone is required to put a win in the chat because it puts us in a positive mindset for the rest of the call. And a lot of times, you know, people get caught up in the details. You know? Why didn't I ovulate last month? I just had a call. One of my clients asked me that this week. Like, I'm so upset. My charts look great. And then this one, it looks like I didn' ovulate. I was like, well, what was going on? She was, like oh, oh I really was stressed out at work and I had this work trip and was traveling.

Do you think your body wants to make a baby? When you're traveling, getting irradiated in an airplane and really stressed out. And she just kind of looked at me and her jaw dropped. I was like, yeah, your body's smart. It didn't drop an egg because it didn' want to make a baby. So we don't have to... you know, be brought down when we're not ovulating. We have to create this shift and realize that we are not avulating because our body is smart. Like, let's give credit to our bodies for protecting us, and let us lean in with curiosity.

And so a lot of times when I'm working with couples, I am really holding a space. Were doing all the biochemical stuff, right? I giving them personalized protocols. Where you're optimizing health. But guess what? The other thing I always say is that optimal fertility obviously requires optimal health. So what else is happening when I'm working with couples? We are reversing diabetes. We're reversin blood pressure. Reversing hyperlipidemia. Healing the gut and getting people off of anxiety and depression medications all while optimizing egg health, optimizing sperm health and fostering connection and love within the couple.

I do actually have a mind-body coach that works with my couples regularly, and her calls are, you know, focused on, they're a place for couples just to lean in if they are having a struggle. You know a lot of times if I have woman who's gone through recurrent pregnancy loss, it's really hard for her to get into a space of positivity, especially when she gets pregnant with me. She goes into place of fear. And I'm like, no, bodies don't like fear, so you gotta get on the call. with my mind-body coach and let's work through those fears.

Let's do some inner work to get you into a place of belief and possibility, because that is when that baby is going to stick,

Science, Lab Ranges, and Treatment Success Rates 16:58

you know, of course, in the context of all the other work that we've done. Oh, that's really powerful. I mean, and it's such a different paradigm or even just a difference way of looking at it than, conventional medicine does. Are there other things that you find that conventional medicine is overlooking that have found to be really effective in your practice? You named a few right there, yeah. Right, I named few. I mean, the male factor is a big one because I feel like they're addressing the woman first and the mail is not addressed until much later.

One of the things I also talk about a lot are lab values and probably a little people don't realize this, but on like a lab core or a quest, form, there's a lab range. And that lab data is based on research on middle-aged white males, which most people who are working with me don't fit that category. So my goal is to get them into a much more narrow lab-range that is much, it's optimal for fertility and men and women in a reproductive age range. So that I feel like is often overlooked. And then the other thing is even on a semen analysis, when I get those numbers back, Those, oftentimes, when you get a semen analysis done, you go to a fertility clinic, right?

And the fertility clinical just wants to make sure that a male has sperm quality good enough for IURIVF. But the reality is that the sperm quality needed for natural conception, just given the physiology of the distance that a sperm needs to travel to find his mate. You know, you need much higher sperm-quality for a natural-conception versus IURI or IVF. And so that is another thing that's really critical in the way that I work with couples is I'm like, our goals are not the top of normal range on the lab range.

Our goals much are higher than that. And that is the reason that my protocols have an 80% success rate with couples that I work with. Obviously, I'm also doing, you know, screening couples before I worked with them because I only invite couples to work with me if I'm confident that I can help. So that's the reason my success rates are so high. But I mean, if you look at IUI or IVF success rate, I think it's hovering around 40% under the age of 35. And once they get above, i want to say the, age 38, it drops down to 20%. And that may not be per cycle.

That may be over a series of cycles. You know, oftentimes it is quoted on six cycles, You said IVR, is that what you said? IVF. IVS and what was the other one you say? IUI. Oh, IUI. Yeah, I UI is intrauterine insemination. So turkey baster into the uterus, get the sperm in there. IVF is taking the egg out of the woman, taking man's sperm, putting it in a Petri dish, creating an embryo and then putting that back into uterine at a later time. Okay. And a lot of my couples will come to me after failed rounds of IU and IV and so forth.

Um, and they'll get pregnant naturally with me. because we're addressing the root cause, and we are getting them into an optimally fertile state. I'll tell you a story about a couple real quick, which I think will probably be really inspirational for a lot of our viewers. They were a double-doctor couple. She's actually a board-certified endocrinologist, believe it or not. So she is a hormone doctor and her husband was an interventional cardiologist. Obviously, high accolades, very academic couple, both board-certified physicians.

I mean, talk about knowing science. You know, they both knew science inside and out. And they struggled with infertility for many years, finally did IUI. They did seven failed rounds of IUIs, and then they went on, which again, IU is intrauterine insemination, right? So turkey baster in the uterus. Did that seven times. It didn't work. Then they moved on to IVF. which of course is very expensive, very invasive, and they did three rounds of IVF, all of which failed. And she was actually hospitalized twice because of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which happens when, you know, sometimes the body is overstimulated with the exogenous hormones and drugs that are required to stimulate egg production for retrieval.

So when she came to me, she And they had been on this journey for about six years. And she's a board-certified endocrinologist. She realized, okay, I can't go back and go on any hormones or anything. I cannot do another round of IVF. You're kind of my last resort. Otherwise, we're going to go adopt. They came and they worked with me, James, and got pregnant naturally in eight weeks and had a beautiful, healthy baby girl. My message to go out there is that, again, you're not broken. And I do believe in traditional medicine.

I'm an ER doc by trade. But we weren't trained in a traditional medical school to address root causes. You know, I was personally taught that fertility plummets at the age of 35 and you go and do IUI and IVF. And I myself am a fertility warrior. I had my first child with IUi and I have my twins with IVS.

Dr. Latif's Personal Fertility Journey 22:48

So I know the journey well and is a large part of the reason that I am so passionate about this work is because when I went back and looked at my labs and my, you know data, I realized I didn't need any of those treatments. I just didn' have the proper guide or somebody who could help me unpack this and heal from the inside out. And so I think the main thing that the traditional paradigm misses is, again, that this phenomenon of not giving enough credit to our biology and enough to the body's innate ability to heal and reproduce.

That's probably the biggest thing that I feel is missing from the traditional approaches. And I think it's picking up a little bit, but we're not 100% there yet. Yeah, the human body is miraculous. It really is. So was it your own births? What changed for you? Here you were in the system as an ER doctor, but clearly you got curious about root cause. What made you curious? Yeah, that's a great question. So in the ER, I saved lives. I trained in a level one trauma center in The Bronx and kind of saw it all.

But what I realized was when I first in medical school was going into the emergency room, to save lives and, you know, it's going to be a one and done and I'm never going see these people again. But what I realized over the course of my many years working in the ER, over 20 years, is that the era was like a revolving door. So people were coming in having an acute emergency, and then we're helping them and they're leaving. And then a week or two later, they come back with the same thing. Because we are not We're not reprogramming what's happening at the base of the pyramid, at root cause level.

And so we're basically throwing pharmaceuticals and Band-Aids at it. Obviously my own journey with infertility was part of this dynamic that was also kind of playing into my questioning the traditional systems and the things that I was learning and I started diving into the data. But I'll tell you the moment that everything changed for me, James, is when my mom, who was healthy as a horse and an amazing woman, went from spinning with me five days a week to not being able to sign her name to dead seven months later.

And I saved lives for a living. And here I am trying to figure out what I needed to do to save my mom, and the traditional system just really failed me. So I think the combination of what saw in the ER and my journey with infertility, when I was going through infertilty at IUI or IVF, I had a healthy weight, exercising, you know, ate healthy. I did all the things and my body was not getting pregnant. And I had a regular cycle. I mean, there was really no rhyme or reason as to why I was able to have a baby naturally.

So I think the combination of all of those things just made me take a step back and say, what are we missing? Like, what is the future of medicine? You know, where are we now? Where do we need to be? And why does the system feel so broken to me? When I started diving into the literature, right, I'm traditionally trained, and very scientific, very database and evidence-driven. And when I start looking at all the scientific data, the lightbulbs started going off. That's when i started to dive into functional medicine, regenerative medicine and anti-aging.

peptides, you name it, and started connecting the dots and realizing that we're actually very far behind. I don't know if you're aware of this, but it takes about 50 to 100 years for for something to become the standard of care. So what I learned in medical school is based on, you know, scientific data, literature, and studies that were done 50 plus years ago, whereas what i do with couples and what we do in functional medicine is, based, on literature and data that is one or two decades old. We're not doing things that are new or just came out we don't have a lot of information about, we're just a Yeah, that's amazing.

I'm curious though, now that you have that functional medicine, you know, knowledge, were you able to look back at your own situation and see new things that didn't know before? And if so, what were they? Because you were sharing how you did everything, You were doing everything you thought was right, but now looking back with this new lens, What was missing, do you think? 100%. So there were a lot of things missing. First of all, I wasn't a yard doctor. I was doing all sorts of crazy shifts, nights, weekends, holidays.

You know, my body was not on a regular schedule at all. And I don't think that... I work with a lotta couples that do shift work and, you know... Actually, a lot physicians come to me for support with respect to fertility, given my journey. But for me personally, there were multiple factors. I think I had a very high toxic burden. They didn't understand. You know, I always say the liver is a laundromat. It didn' understand the importance of detoxification, right? And I didn''t understand how many toxins I was being exposed to on a daily basis and how that was impacting my body.

. I did not understand that the critical nature of gut health. The other really important thing which I talk about a lot is stress. And stress, I always say there's three forms of stress there is the stress that we all know and recognize as like a stressful day or an argument with your family or marital stress or whatever it is teenagers. making life challenging. But the other forms of stress are dietary, right? You can probably speak to this, so things like yo-yo dieting or super high carb diets or whatever.

Stress, Gut Health, and Hormonal Balance 29:28

Inflammatory foods, yeah. Or nutrient poor diets, or you name it. There's dietary stress. And then there is stress that we don't even see or know is there. So, for instance, chronic back pain can be a form of stress on the body. A hidden parasite in the gut can rhythm. And the reality is that when our body is producing cortisol, and we're in cortisol overload, what happens? And this is getting a little biochemical, but our bodies take progesterone and turn it into cortisol instead of it going down the other hormone pathway, which makes all our sex hormones.

So I teach this a lot in my classes where I'm like, when your body is in cortisol overload, the things that aren't being made are testosterone, estradiol, DHEA, you know, which are critical hormones for reproduction. So a lotta times, hormone imbalances are driven by stress. And it's not just emotional stress, so the other thing I promise my couples is I not gonna just tell you to relax and let it happen. Because like couples are sick of hearing that. I was sick hearing of that, I was like, I'm not stressed out.

And telling somebody to relax doesn't really help them relax, it makes them more stressed-out. It makes that cortisol go up even more. So I always tell my couples, don't think that you're gonna come here and I'll just tell you to just relax. Don't you think you'll come and tell me to meditate because we have to figure out the root cause of the stress. Because stress is not just emotional, its multi-layered. you know, it's critical to get to the root cause. And one more thing on that is that a lot of people don't realize that 90% of our serotonin is produced in our gut, right, by our microbiome.

So if we don�t heal the gut it�s very hard to achieve emotional homeostasis. And so that is the reason a lot of my concierge practice patients will end up weaning themselves off of their anxiety and their depression medications because we do gut healing, all of a sudden neurotransmitters are produced and serotonin is produced. And they forget to take their medications. Sometimes I'm like, OK, well, you shouldn't really do that. We need to do this in a methodical way. But I can't tell you how many times my patients have just forgotten to make medications, because they're feeling good.

So it's all a system. It's a complex web. And I always say like, you know, every system in the body is relevant to fertility. There is not a single system that we can disregard. When we shift one thing, the whole body shifts, which is why, when I work with couples, I'm like this is a process where we're going to be tweaking on a very regular basis as we start to see how the Yeah, wow, I really love this conversation. Given that you've worked with so many different individuals, couples, given that yourself have gone through reevaluating your own life and dealing with root cause as well, what are some practices that have found are very effective that the person watching or listening to this could immediately take away and start incorporating in their lifestyle?

Yeah, that's great. Well, first and foremost, food is central to fertility. One of the things that I say right off the bat is anti-inflammatory diet, right? If we can just start by doing simple things like eliminating gluten, dairy, corn, peanuts, alcohol, tobacco, what am I forgetting? I think those are the big ones. But you know, if we can get, because the reality is that 90% of the population or more have some sort of intolerance or insensitivity to one of these foods. They just don't realize it.

And so there's like a subclinical sort, it's sort like, a slow burning fire is what I call it, you in our bodies when we're eating these types of foods. And then, you know, if you want to keep it really simple, just perimeter shop, right? Perimeter shop and, because then what are you doing at the perimeter of the grocery store? You're going to perishables. Anything in the middle that can live on the shelf for a really long time is probably not great for you. So when I tell my couples to go to the store, I just tell them don't buy anything that's not perishable.

You know, anything that is perishable is going to be healthier for you. And if possible, get your food from a local farmers market, you know. And then, of course, when it comes to going down the road of seeking help for fertility, I always encourage my couples, you really want to take a step back and lean into root cause medicine. Don't go running straight to IUI or IVF before you've really had an opportunity to work with a provider who can address the root causes. And I also think one of the critical things that couples can do is to take a break from trying.

Again, shifting from baby making to love making is huge for personal biochemistry. And that is actually one the things I ask my couples to do when they work with me. You know, and I only ask them for three months like let's just take a break from trying for 3 months. Let's get into a place where we celebrate our period for a 3 month. That's getting into place for you guys are doing date nights and connecting and making that a priority with your time for. a little while and weave it into your life.

I actually have a behavioral analyst on my team that coaches these couples too, because sometimes it's hard to form new habits and it is hard lean into a new way of doing things and connecting.

Practical Steps for Supporting Fertility 35:48

But those are probably the critically important things that I think will jump start a healing journey is to, again, nourish the body, decrease inflammation, focus on human connection and love. You mentioned, and I'm curious, that there sometimes are couples that you, after you interview them, you decide not to go with. So what is it that they show up with that makes you feel like it might not work out for them? That's a great question. Well, I would say first and foremost, obviously, there may be couples who have an organic issue, but I can't help.

What do you mean by that? What's organic and true? For instance, if a woman has both fallopian tubes blocked. Got it. Okay. I can't get you pregnant naturally. And I'm very transparent and honest with couples that I am like, this isn't going to work. Or if I have a women who I've had women over the age of 50 come to me, like I never had a baby, I really want to have baby. and I ask some basic questions, and if they're not even having a cycle, there's some very clear biological reasons that I'm like, I am not going to set you up for failure.

That being said, the other factor that that i consider is because i'm not giving anybody a magical prescription. I'm not writing a prescription that is going to fix the body the way the traditional paradigm has programmed people to believe. You go to the doctor, you get a description, and you'll get all better, right? That's how we are trained traditionally to think. And my support requires participation. So if I don't feel like there is enough buy-in for change, or I don't feel like, you know, there's a supportive system, because some of these changes are hard, and so if I feel that's not present, You know, I'm not in the business for setting anyone up for failure.

And I tell them that at the very beginning of our call. This is about not only figuring out if I am the right fit for you, but if you're the fit fit me, you know? And if this is going to work. Because I've been, failed. And on my fertility journey time and time again, I know how hard and lonely the journey is. And so I want to be, you know, the secret to success. I wanna be setting people up to win. Um, and if I see signs or red flags, whether it's biochemical or, um, emotional or... Well, actually emotional is not an issue because I can help emotional.

But if find red flag, if have a guy get on there and, He's not willing to change at all, you know, and he's drinking every night and smoking weed, smoking cigarettes. I'm like... You know, like there's only so much that I can do for your sperm quality if you're not willing to embrace change, you know? And we don't have to do it all at once. I mean, the other big thing about it is that, I meet people where they are, right? So I don' have anything against somebody coming to me, with a smoking habit or whatever it might be.

But my whole thing is, are you open to listening to your body and what it may prefer? so I'm not telling you to give everything up. I'm just asking you to listen to your body because as you start to heal, if you can participate, you actually may find that the things that you once loved are not going to be as palatable. And are you open to listening to your body, right? I'm sure you've experienced this a hundred times over, when you change, like as a chef, you're asking people to change the way that they eat.

I am all about people listening their body. Yeah. But I like, your is going to tell you what it likes and dislikes. And your's body is gonna tell when it is ready for change. Just are you open to that? You know, and as long as I have an openness and a curiosity, that's enough. You said in there that you failed your reproductive health and I would offer that that now we can look back and say, you know what? You actually didn't fail, that life needed you to go on that journey so that you would come here so you could help so many people.

Like sometimes we, in the moment, something can feel one way, but we don't really know sources. Plan for us you know i'm saying we don't we dont know what the end result is just like and just we want the people in your practice to be focusing on just having a baby but we wanna focus on the holistic journey i would say your holistic is absolutely successful. Yeah, no, I agree. And I tell my kids too all the time, you know, life happens for you, not to you. Yes. Right? And every obstacle, every bump in the road, we may not understand in a moment why it's happening, but at some point things become abundantly clear.

Who Is and Isn't a Fit for This Approach 41:18

But there's one more thing that I think is critically important too that, I really want our audience to understand. And this is a part of my mission and message too, is I feel like on the fertility journey, because of the traditional paradigm and how it works, every time I want a couple who can't get pregnant when I have a baby, they need to go pay a reproductive endocrinologist and go through rounds of IUI and IVF. They have the baby. they go back. I do IUIIVF and it's like this cycle. But what my whole mission and message is, is if we heal the root cause from the inside out, you can rinse and repeat everything that you learn.

to have as many babies as you want. Because it's sort of like you crack the code in your body, right? You heal it from the inside out. And I can't tell you how many of my couples will struggle. They'll get pregnant with me. Then they go off and they have their baby. I just got an email from a client about a month ago. that said, you know, my baby is five months old and I'm so fertile because of you that I just got oops, pregnant with my second baby before I was ready. It's like, yes, that is awesome, and that happens time and time again because what they're learning in their time with me is how to optimize health and fertility, of course, in the process, but then a lot of times they feel so magnificent on the other side of it that they can't go back to the old way.

And it just becomes this natural tendency and a massive lifestyle shift to health. And to fertility and to abundance and two possibility. And so what I'm seeing is that these couples are not just having one baby, but I like rinse and repeat what they teach you. Like take notes, keep a notebook. If you fall off the wagon, go back to your notes. Don't come pay me again. You don't have to. you have everything you need. So it's also about empowerment and about health advocacy, which I think is also very much lacking in our culture.

and teaching them to ask the right questions, their provider, teaching what to accept and what not to expect. Obviously, we want to respect all providers, and I have respect for the entire institution of medicine, but to lean in with curiosity to what they're getting. You've been talking about when people come in like focusing on the journey, right? So we're talking individual journeys, but what about the Journey of Humanity? And in many ways we have veered so far away from our humanity of what's natural, of whats ancestral, that do you almost think that what's happening with fertility and what is potentially not going to happen with Fertility, meaning that people are going struggle even more with pregnancy, is in a sense humanity's journey of like, hey, we need to course correct.

Do you think it's about something deeper than just the individual's issue of fertility? Oh, absolutely. It's a whole ecosystem, right? And it's sort of like we're getting further and further from the heart of it all. And distracted, and I mean, there are so many outside factors that are coming in and pulling us away from the center of reproduction and the Center of Fertility and The Center Of Humanity. So yes, I can definitely resonate with that. I feel like our culture as a whole, we're on this hamster wheel, which I often call a road to nowhere.

And I felt like that road nowhere is making us less and less fertile and lesson less in touch with the things that will keep us healthiest and the thing that drive longevity and health span. So yes, I 100% agree. So let's leave the audience then with this. So if you could wave a magic wand and bring back one ancestral practice, what would it be?

Ancestral Simplicity and Closing Thoughts 45:58

Oh gosh. Well, I think simplicity. I One of the things that we often overlook right now in our society, I feel like everything is a lot more complex than it needs to be. And when I think about ancestral health, think simplicity, right? Less about convenience. I mean, everything now is more about convenient. So we need to get away from that. Kind of go back to our roots. What do you think is an example then of like, what's an examples of simplicity, you know, where we're choosing something more complex, but we could just, this other choice is actually far simpler.

I know I'm putting you on the spot on that, do think there's, there is example you could give around that? Well, I mean, food is a really easy one. I feel like life has become about, again, this hamster wheel and the convenience of the food. And simplicity is bliss. It might take a little bit more time, but I also feel When I think about ancestral health, I thing about meal prep, families creating meals together in a kitchen with real ingredients and the conversation, the love and connection that happens in that environment.

I feel like has pretty much gone out the window. I personally don't know many people who have that type of culture in their home. And I'll be honest, I struggle with it myself just because of the pace of life. But if we could get back to simplicity. when it comes to food and simplicity in terms of, you know, time management and connection, I feel like it would probably breed health in ways that we haven't seen in a very, very long time. Nishat, it's been really nice talking with you. This has been a really powerful conversation.

I really hope that the people watching are listening are able to take something away, particularly because whether you're trying to get pregnant or not right now, I think this conversation of like looking at yourself as that onion and that, you know, we wanna peel away each layer and we don't wanna, and look for the root cause of whatever is ailing us, that you don' have to be trying have a child or to still look root-cause. Or I should say, You don't have to be trying to have a child to still care about root cause.

Like this applies to anyone. So thank you for this conversation. Thank you, James. It was a pleasure. How can people work with you or what's the best way for people to find you and reach out to you? Probably the best way is on Instagram. My Instagram page is Your Functional Doc, so very easy to find me there. You can also search by my name. Um, my website is drnishatlatib.com. That's pretty simple, but Instagram is the way. I encourage everybody to DM me because I am the person behind the DMs. So it's not a bot.

It's not an assistant. It is not a team. it's actually me. So I have lots and lots of conversations with women on Instagram who are looking for support. If you want to talk directly to me, that's a fast track. Wow. That's great tip. There you go, everybody. Just go to Instagram, DM, the power of DM. Thank you again. Thank for joining us and thank you all for joing us. It's so powerful having these conversations with people like Dr. Nishat and where we're really getting to the heart of humanity, I would say.

You know, that it's about us trying to reclaim our humanness. So thank for all being curious enough to listen. Thanks for sharing it with your loved one or the person that you think could hear this message. And I ask one thing of you every week is just stay curious. Thank you. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.