Unlock the Secrets to Health, Healing, and Longevity

Lorraine Maita, MD

Oh, it’s my pleasure. If I can help only one person, I feel like I’ve done my job.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

We all know that you help way more than one person. You’ve been doing this for a long time and doing it well, and you’ve made a huge impact. that throughout your career, you have helped a lot of women with breast cancer and, in turn, their families, because we know that when we heal a woman, we heal her family, we heal her community, and we make a larger impact. Today we’re going to talk about those people that you’ve helped over the years, and we’re going to talk about the impact of breast cancer because it is still making a huge impact. It may even be worsening because our society and our ecosystem continue to decrease in quality rather than increase. It’s my theory that that’s contributing a lot to the prevalence of disease. Why don’t we just start by talking about what you think is happening? What do you think are the contributors to the increased occurrence of breast cancer?

Lorraine Maita, MD

It’s a whole host of things. I think we beat toxins and microbes from elimination, liver, and gallbladder to death last time, and all of it’s not a one-trick pony. I’m an internist. I have to put my fingers into everything, and I have to look at everything, leaving no stone unturned. You know, I have learned a lot over the years. I worked more on prevention, but people came to me with breast cancer or after breast cancer after being treated with breast cancer. I wanted to help them. You know, over the years, you just keep adding to your repertoire, and you find things that can contribute. Our environment, our go-go-go information overload, working 24 hours a day, our electronics, the toxins that are everywhere that you can’t get away from—all of that contributes, and one of the things I learned when I was the chief medical officer of a very big company was that when we had people traveling back and forth to Asia all the time, they were jetlagged. You know, I didn’t know that it increased the risk of heart disease. It increases the risk of ulcers and gastrointestinal disturbances. I had to know all of this because I had to protect them. But it also increases the risk of cancer. circadian rhythm disruption. The circadian rhythm is,  when you get up in the morning, you’re go, go, go. Then,  you gradually calm down at night. It’s light, dark, sleep, and wake. Then we have these clocks. We have the master clock, which is the daylight clock, and the sleep-wake clock, but they control all the other clocks and every organ. Every organ has a clock. You know, our detoxification has to have the right time and place to do it. God has his clock; the pancreas, the livers, and the kidneys. When the clocks get out of sync, they’re like, What the heck? What just happened?

Jennifer Simmons, MD

First of all, what you’re talking about is the circadian rhythm. This is the rhythm of the sun. we are all tied to the rhythm of the sun. Every single animal, person, and human is tied to the rhythm of the sun. You hear about animals that are nocturnal because they are more active at night, and their bodies and their systems are acclimated to being active at night. Whereas humans, anyone knows we are designed to be active during the day and sleep at night. That’s why we don’t have great night vision, and we don’t have claws or things to protect us. We are meant to be awake during the day and asleep at night. So what’s happening with time travel is sleep disruption.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes. Also, being on all your electronics work doesn’t end anymore at five. It doesn’t. such a great point. Yes. you’re like, you’re on these electronics that emit blue light, and there’s light pollution.  No matter where I live, unless I blackout, there’s light coming in, and that can stop melatonin. Melatonin can reset your rhythm and reset the clocks, and it can stop the disruption that can cause the growth of cancer. It’s postulated to increase or decrease the risk of light pollution. You know, studies were showing that night shift work and jet lag increased the incidence of breast cancer and prostate colorectal cancer. At the macro level, it’s disrupting all the clocks, and they don’t know when to do their thing, so they don’t stop. Some get stuck. then it also happens at the cellular level. Our cells need to regenerate to repair, and a lot of that happens during sleep. is disrupted. That doesn’t happen. The cells have to recycle old stuff. We have to kick the old cells out, chew them up, and get rid of them so they don’t cause any harm. our DNA repairs and that doesn’t happen if the circadian clock is disrupted.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes. That’s an interesting thing because all these repair mechanisms that you’re referring to are happening when we sleep. We, as a society, we’re not a society that values sleep. We are a society that values waking behaviors. As a result, we are a society plagued by chronic illness. You alluded to some of them. People who are short sleepers—people who sleep less than five hours a night—are at increased risk for being overweight, obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and cancer.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes, and everything I’m saying here is because I don’t treat cancer, I help prevent it. If somebody has cancer, I prefer referring them to you because you are the expert there. I feel if they get somebody who has much more knowledge than I do, but when people come to me, I’m seeing this with autoimmune disease, I’m seeing this with chronic fatigue, and I’m seeing this with fibromyalgia. No matter what I say here, it will help prevent cancer from developing, spreading, or recovering. But it’s going to help with all those other chronic problems.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

That’s because at the root of all of that is inflammation. It’s the same inflammation that leads to all of these disease states. It’s why we don’t see them necessarily traveling alone, like people who get cancer generally. That’s not the only thing going on with them.

Lorraine Maita, MD

They see the worst cases where the people who were stressed out— they didn’t sleep, their cortisol was through the roof, and they were just not honoring their body’s needs.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes.

Lorraine Maita, MD

The interesting thing is that they’re now trying to,  use light therapy for cancer treatment and prevention. Also, the other piece that I discovered over time was that when you eat, it affects the clocks, too. It’s not just daylight, light, dark, sleep, and wake; it’s when you eat. If you eat at night, you’re disrupting the clock. Your body is not there. It’s throwing things off. Intermittent fasting can inhibit tumor growth and increase sensitivity to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. I urge people to take note of that. We’re driving our bodies into the ground when we’re constantly on the go, and we don’t honor the day-night cycles. This is why we get chronically ill.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

That’s an important point. We have to start to value, honor, and respect sleep because sleep is when healing happens. It’s when all those repair mechanisms are happening. If you’re not sleeping, you’re not healing. that goes across the board. It’s true for cancer, but it’s true for heart disease, it’s true for weight management, and it’s true for mood. Think about how you feel even after one night of poor sleep. You are cranky, you are irritable, and you’re making bad decisions. What do people go for? They don’t go for a bowl of broccoli when they haven’t slept overnight. They go for a bowl of French fries. Like we’re not making good decisions. So when you think about what happens with just one night, imagine layering that day after day after day, not repairing. All that repair needs is building up. Plus, you’re making bad decisions day after day after day. It doesn’t take too long to see that this inflammation buildup is going to manifest as something unwanted. 

Lorraine Maita, MD

It just prevents repair as well. It prevents it. It throws all your signals off, and all the things that are supposed to be happening can’t happen. But it also affects the other hormones. The big hormone that I see that can increase a lot of chronic illnesses is cortisol.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Let’s talk about cortisol. Can you explain to people what cortisol is? What’s the role of cortisol? Why do we need to worry about it and talk about it? Because it’s worrisome if it’s high, but it’s also worrisome if it’s low.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Exactly.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

A lot of people are caught somewhere on that cortisol imbalance scale.

Lorraine Maita, MD

That’s huge because I find that if you fix cortisol, you fix everything else. First of all, I want to say that there’s no such thing as adrenal fatigue. The adrenal glands don’t fatigue. What happens is that if you had a bell that would suck on and it was constantly buzzing, you would cut the cord, you’d cut the wire, and you would turn it off. Well, this is what happens in your brain. Your brain just said, Look, you’re just constantly stimulating me. I am not going to respond anymore. It turns off the signals to your adrenal glands. When it’s constantly high, it suppresses the immune system. We need cortisol. We need cortisol to fight or flee. We need it to mobilize energy. We need it to wake up; it mobilizes, gets your heart rate up, and gets your blood pressure up. It allows you to wake up. It mobilizes cortisol so you have energy, and it keeps your immune system in check too much.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It also increases blood sugar and glucose.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes, right. License to fuel that we need to function.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I think it is just to create a picture for people. We think of cortisol as like that fight or flight hormone. If you come out of the cave in the morning and you meet a sabertooth tiger, you will get a surge of cortisol that will allow you to run very fast to get away from the tiger, or you will die. But what we weren’t meant to do was run away from tigers day after day, hour after hour after hour. Now we’re getting so many cortisol surges from emails, disagreements, bad relationships, or stressful situations that, like, so many of us are just bathing in cortisol all the time. What does that mean? What does that do? What happens to people who are bathing in cortisol all the time?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, your brain, after some time, is going to turn it off. But when you’re high, it’s going to suppress the immune system. That’s your surveillance. It looks like your immune system is looking for cells that are just not quite right, eating them up, and spitting them out. Those are pre-cancer cells. We need that surveillance for the immune system. It breaks down muscle, breaks down bones, raises blood sugar, raises blood pressure, raises cholesterol, and makes you wrinkled. That’s what gets into women. It breaks down your collagen, and then,  you become more susceptible to infections, too.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It’s just logical. Because, like, if you’re running away from a tiger, you don’t need to worry so much about that virus that you might encounter because the immediate threat to life is the tiger. So when we have these big cortisol surges, we are immune-suppressed because we have to focus all of our energy on getting away from the tiger. We are modern beings living on a very old gene code. We only know these periods of acute serious stress or relaxation; we have our rest and repair mode. But we’re not getting into rest and repair.

Lorraine Maita, MD

That’s where I see the big problems occurring. I don’t always give hormones to people, but some people come in with very high cortisol. I saw that as a danger signal. It’s almost a predictor. Yes,  it was a predictor because, over time, this person developed cancer, but the opposite is true. Once your brain turns off, you’re done, and you’re not giving signals to make cortisol. The cortisol is flatlined because I measure cortisol in every patient. Then you have a much higher risk of cancer, autoimmune disorders, and chronic fatigue. 

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Can you talk more about that? Can you talk about how you measure cortisol and what you mean by flatlined?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes. I have people spit into a tube four times a day. 

Jennifer Simmons, MD

You are measuring cortisol in people’s saliva.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes, in saliva. They spit in a tube when they first wake up because that’s when cortisol has its circadian rhythm. It should be at its highest in the morning. That is going to get you up and going. That’s going to make your body wake you up and get you ready to face the day. Over the day, it’s going to go down. We measure another one at noon. We measure one between four and five, and then we measure one at bedtime. We have some people who can’t sleep. They can’t turn their minds off. They’re waking up at night? Well, they can sometimes have a flipped curve, meaning it’s low in the morning and it goes way up at night, and they just can’t stop. I usually give some phosphatidylserine, which is a phospholipid that lowers cortisol. It’s very benign. It protects your brain against damaging effects.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

We should note that we see brain atrophy in people who have elevated, prolonged levels of cortisone. When you say your brain turns off, your brain does turn off. Yes, it has very detrimental effects over the long term.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Those flatlines are harder because then they go from being stressed out to burned out. That’s like having a car with no driver, where you’re self-driving and your immune system just does not work. There’s nothing to keep it in check. You either get autoimmune, where it just turns on and attacks you, or you get cancer, where it’s just not on at all and there is no surveillance going on. It’s important to measure cortisol to manage that. You do it the same way: stop a proper high-nutrient diet,  moderate amounts of exercise, get light and movement in the morning, and,  chill out at night. As the lights dim and dusk approaches, dim the lights, quiet your mind, and don’t eat late-night snacks. Don’t do your harvest exercise at night under blue light. then we’re living with the rhythms because your cortisol rhythm is off, your circadian rhythm is off, and we all know goals in them, if they’re off, can increase the risk of cancer.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It sounds like most of the things that we need to do to correct our cortisol rhythm, where it’s supposed to be highest in the morning, have a peak about 30 minutes after we wake and then steadily drop throughout the rest of the day. It sounds like most of the ways to correct that and get into a normal rhythm are lifestyle measures.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Exactly. Lifestyle measures correct everything.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Now, those are terrible. 

Jennifer Simmons, MD

What kinds of things in our lifestyle are throwing off this cortisol rhythm? Then what kinds of things can people do to reestablish this normal cortisol pattern?

Lorraine Maita, MD

There is a lot of sugar. Sugar is very detrimental to our health; eating nutrient-poor foods. We need nutrients. We need a lot of B, C, and magnesium to manage the stressors in our lives. It’s also our stress reaction. Nobody can say stress causes cancer, but people who have a lot of stress are much more resistant to treatment. They’re much more likely to have a recurrence. Your mind and your mindset are important to how you perceive things because we can’t change the world. We can’t change anyone. We can only change our reaction to it. If we’re stressed out and,  you grab a drink, you grab a chocolate, ice cream, and carbs, and you just,  you then try to drive yourself to work out hard late at night and you’re,  just to squeeze it in. We’re not using our bodies well. We have to live with the rhythms of life, and we have to feed our bodies properly and get a good night’s sleep. I don’t care what it is;  sometimes you can take melatonin to help you sleep. You can take phosphatidylserine if your cortisol is high at night. You can also take calming herbs. There is relaxing cheese—something to just calm your mind and body down—and blocking blue light at night.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes, that’s a great point. I want to talk more about the EMF and light exposure because you did talk about overconsumption in the beginning. I do want to get back to that, but I just want to call attention to what you said about working out because there is this perception that if you’re overweight, you should eat less and exercise more. For cortisol, all body types of the person who has elevated cortisol are putting weight around their middle, like their abdomen, but also their back. That body type, that person whose cortisol is elevated, doesn’t do better with more exercise. Do that.

Lorraine Maita, MD

No, they don’t. They burn out more. They end up gaining more weight. They stress their bodies out. Sometimes I have them do cortisol after they work out. It’s through the roof. It’s totally through the roof.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes. They’re just perpetuating their situation when they’re exercising, exercising more, and exercising heavily.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Your body is going to respond to any distress. I would like to expand the definition of stress because people think stress is just mental. Now, it could be lack of sleep, toxins, inflammation, infection, adverse food reactions, allergies, nutritional excess, nutritional deficiency, solitude, having a sedentary lifestyle, or anything that your body senses as distress because it could be physical, emotional, or chemical. Yes.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Again, just reiterating the point that the stressors aren’t going anywhere. You’re always there’s always going to be stressors. You’re always going to be put into these stressful situations. But it’s not the stress that matters. It’s your interpretation of the stress. That’s why it’s so important to have a skill set that allows you to manage it—to consciously decide what comes in and what doesn’t. To build up your own emotional Teflon so that you can decide. You can decide what you internalize. You can decide what is important to you, and things like meditation and gratitude—practices like that—make a tremendous difference in the impact of stress on you.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes. I give that advice to almost every patient who comes in to see me. Plus, I also give them some exercise to do. I tell them that if they only worked their biceps, their arm would be stuck in a Popeye curl. But then you’ve got to work. The other part of your nervous system is the parasympathetic nervous system. things like humming and singing—I sing in the shower, —just because it’s a good release and it works. Parasympathetic parasympathetic nervous system guard doesn’t,  massage,  rubbing your feet. I also love heartMAP. I don’t know about that, but it’s a way of practicing deep belly breathing. Deep breathing is my go-to at any time because you can do it anytime, anywhere, with anyone. You can’t just sit and meditate or do yoga poses in the middle of a heated argument; you can do deep belly breathing. then, when you focus on. Something somewhere, someplace you’re grateful for—oh my God, the whole nervous system calms down. If you do that, I do that in between every patient I clear, or whatever. I’m just clear. I get focused, I calm down, and then I’m ready to go and focus completely on that person. But it’s all technique.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It is. It’s something that is taught to us. At the Institute for Functional Medicine, we talk about clearing ourselves in between patients so that you are refreshed, you are refocused, and you’re not carrying one into the other, because that’s not good for them and it’s not good for you. Exactly right. So, having that skill set is very important. Having a breathing practice is important because it’s something you can employ anywhere.

Lorraine Maita, MD

I studied HeartMAP when it was on cassette tape. Now I’m showing my age on cassette tapes, and be sure, there are 200 studies on this. It works. It helps people sleep. It decreases anxiety, decreases depression, and increases creativity and innovation. It was developed for CEOs and elite athletes. They showed so much benefit that,  you don’t need the equipment. Yes. They sell an app for the phone. They sell. I used to do this on all my executive physicals. I would train people on the heart map, where you put a little sensor on their ears. You look at the before and after. When I had somebody, I had a person working for me, and she was a meditator. She said, Bring it on. She was meditating. You know, there was like a choppy sine wave, meaning it goes up and down, but it was a little rough-looking;  it wasn’t smooth. Then I said, She loves her dog. I said, focus on your dog. Oh, my God. You saw her face. Just relax. She’s just glowing. then that sine wave was smooth with an even. That’s how a nervous system should be. Should be flexible going up and down. That’s heart rate variability. that’s also linked to mortality.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

The less variability you have, the more likely it is that you will develop a chronic illness.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Exactly. You feel that that’s working—that parasympathetic nervous system—because you have to be able to respond to an emergency boom or to then stop the flow of adrenaline and stop that cortisol reset. This is why we’re always chronically ill because I listen to people and what their lives are like. That’s what people are going through. They’re just doing too much for too many people and not doing self-care, and they’re not properly caring for their bodies. 

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It’s about being able to transition into and then out of that state. It’s that flexibility that you can respond appropriately when you’re supposed to respond, but then to be able to get back into that parasympathetic rest and repair phase where that’s the state that we’re supposed to be spending most of our time in, but we’re not.

Lorraine Maita, MD

One of them at a time. But you meditate for, what, 10 minutes or a half hour of the other 21, 24, and 23? This is why I try to practice it throughout the day so that,  I have that flexibility.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

But one of the major reasons why we don’t have that flexibility and why we’re not in a parasympathetic state most of the day is because of our electronics. Yes, this is a huge issue. Can you talk a little bit about the electronic electromagnetic field, what it means, and the impact that it’s having on us, especially when we are hearing about 5G, and 10G? What’s going to happen to us with all of this?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, I’m not an expert on this, and I’m studying it myself because,  like everybody else, I love my electronics. I do block the blue light at night. I do turn off the notifications at night because I don’t want that constant distraction. However, I have some patients who are extremely sensitive to Wi-Fi. Now, with 5G, we’re electrical beings. what? What’s running out?

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I can tell you that the second I get into a car that has Wi-Fi, I have a headache immediately. I just can. I’m so sensitive to the electromagnetic field. I happen to know that it’s because I’ve had mold exposure, and I’m one of the 25% of people who cannot metabolize mold. You know, 75% of people have enzymes to be able to metabolize mold. They get mold exposure, and they don’t have a problem. But 25% of us have a problem. For people who have a problem with mold and then get mold exposure, you can be very sensitive to seemingly innocuous things. I can tell immediately, like, I can’t sit near a printer. I can’t. I have to be away from the Wi-Fi to sleep.

Lorraine Maita, MD

I didn’t think I was sensitive. It’s going to be very hard to tell people there’s no Wi-Fi. But I just bought a little thing to put over my router because the only place with the router is where I work. Now I have a protector, and I just started to turn off my Wi-Fi at night. What I’ve noticed is that I sleep a little deeper.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

That is very true for everyone.

Lorraine Maita, MD

My sleep was always pretty good, but I do notice it’s just a somewhat deeper sleep. I don’t know that everybody’s sensitive, but I do know that there is no escaping it. Some people have to be careful and protect themselves. It’s worth trying. I experimented by turning my Wi-Fi off at night. I have a timer, and,  I do notice a deeper sleep.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes, well, you may not have problems sleeping, but insomnia is an epidemic in this country.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Totally.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It is the reason why the sleep medicine industry is like a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

But we could talk about that a little bit because, with these sleep medicines that are being prescribed, people do perceive that they’re sleeping, but they don’t allow for all of the sleep cycles.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

They don’t end up making a difference in terms of chronic disease.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Exactly. I have patients who have the aura ring, and they’ll report on their sleep. Then,  I blogged a lot. I’ve been blogging for about 15 years. If I run across something, I want to research it. I research it, and then I write a blog about it because it’s going to help them. You know, my patients say, Oh, you wrote that blog for me. I said, Yes, I did. I wanted to help other people. Certain things will help you get into deep sleep or REM sleep, but it is an epidemic. There are some people I can throw the kitchen sink at, and they just don’t sleep. That’s where I start. I look at the cortisol, I look at the hormones, and I have them practice heart map. It’s not just,  magnesium and melatonin and phosphatidylserine and calming herbs, but sometimes you need it. You need it all. where we don’t know how people don’t know how to turn their minds off, and they don’t know how to turn that adrenalin cortisol off either.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Yes. Listen, it’s hard, and there’s a lot to know, but small changes end up making a big difference. You know, if you start to respect that circadian clock and maybe wear blue blocking glasses after dark, maybe shut down your router at night, turn off your Wi-Fi, put your phone in airplane mood mode, and get the electronics out of the bedroom, that’s going to go a very long way towards restoring your sleep. I’m also hugely in favor of creating a welcoming sleep environment.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Oh, yes.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Let’s just transition to whether there are supplements that you like that you think help promote healthy cortisol levels and, in turn, help you get restorative sleep because this is so intertwined. If your cortisol levels are off, you’re probably not getting restorative sleep. This is a negative feedback cycle that people get into.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes,  one of my favorites, if your cortisol is high, is Phosphatidylserine. It’s a very long name. We call it P. S, for short. It’s P.H.O.S.P.H.A.T.I.D.Y.L.S.E.R.I.N.E. Everybody asks me to spell it.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Phosphatidylserine.

Lorraine Maita, MD

It coats the nerves in our brains. It coats the nerves everywhere. Some people have said they experience brain freezes all of a sudden, like when you’re stressed and then no words come out. You’re paralyzed by a brain freeze. High levels of cortisol will disrupt the repair of the hippocampus cells, which are responsible for your memory. phosphatidylserine protects against that. It can lower cortisol. I get to see a side effect for that, and it doesn’t interact with any other medications. I feel very good about that.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Okay. Do you think that people should measure their cortisol first before taking phosphatidylserine?

Lorraine Maita, MD

I do. I do have the measure first, but if you’re one of the people, it’s not going to hurt you. If you’re one of those people for whom your mind is racing and you can’t fall asleep, or if you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with this boom of energy, it’s not going to hurt you. But I always do; I just don’t guess I prefer doing that. 

Jennifer Simmons, MD

 Agree. But I think that’s an interesting point. If you’re someone who is under a temporary period of stress and you can’t sleep because your mind is racing and you’re waking up in the middle of the night thinking about whatever that thing is, phosphatidylserine is one of those things that you can use in these special situations. It’s far more effective than an antidepressant would be. While a sleep medicine may help you sleep, it doesn’t allow for the reparative things to go on while you sleep. Because it doesn’t allow you to sleep with purpose. Whereas Phosphatidylserine will. 

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes. The other supplement I like is L-theanine. It’s an amino acid; it’s an extract from green tea, but it doesn’t have caffeine in it. I give that to people who are anxious, or if they wake up in the middle of the night and they need to sleep, they,  don’t want to take anything because it’s four in the morning and they have to get up at six in the morning. I tell them to take one to two L-theanine because it allows them to sleep. It’s not habit-forming. It calms the monkey’s mind. It calms your nervous system down, and it allows you to sleep, so you can even take it during the day. I have some anxious people who take it during the day, and they feel it just takes that edge off the anxiety, and I feel like it’s very safe. I have holistic friends, the psychiatrist even gives people 16 a day. I don’t generally tell people to do that, but if you’re anxious during the day, it’s hard to stop a train at full speed. If you take a little bit throughout the day, it keeps it slowed down so that at night you can come to a full stop, you can take it before bed, and you can take it if you wake up. It doesn’t make you feel hungover. I love that supplement.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

What about melatonin?

Lorraine Maita, MD

I like melatonin, but some people get very vivid dreams of melatonin. Some people have gotten hung up on melatonin. You should always start low. People are stronger, which is better. No, you have to understand what your body responds to. I will give melatonin, especially to people who have circadian rhythm disturbances. I like it. If they have trouble falling asleep because I used it a lot with jetlag, I had people going back and forth to Asia all the time, and we had a reset that constantly reset their clocks, and it was a lifesaver. But you need a short act to fall asleep, and you need a long act to stay asleep. Some of them are called controlled release, slow-release, or long-acting. You have to know how to use it, and you should always start low because more is not necessarily better.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

To be clear about melatonin, there are relatively low sleep doses, three milligrams, up to three milligrams, or, for the long-acting, up to six milligrams. But then there are anti-inflammatory doses of melatonin because melatonin is that hormone that balances cortisol. Cortisol is our dominant day hormone, but melatonin is our dominant night hormone. That’s the hormone of repair. It’s for that reason that we’re seeing nice data in the breast cancer population about high doses of melatonin. These are not sleep doses. These are very high inflammatory doses. We’re talking about doses anywhere from 20 to 100 milligrams of melatonin. This is very different from what we’re using for sleep. That’s just something to think about in terms of melatonin. Yes.

Lorraine Maita, MD

That regulates estrogen receptors, and if it’s the estrogen that stimulates breast cancer growth,  I didn’t know they were using doses that high. I don’t treat breast cancer, but I help people recover from it or prevent it. But it has a lot of antioxidants, and they’ve been using it for viruses at night, usually at doses of ten milligrams, and it has some antiviral activity as well.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

Then we have talked about turmeric before. Just tell me your thoughts on tumor risk and what role you think it plays in someone’s health plan.

Lorraine Maita, MD

I love it. Now,  if you want to restore the gut microbiome, you want one that’s not as easily absorbed. It helps with the gut microbiome. It’s a good anti-inflammatory and antibacterial antioxidant. Now, I use it a lot with people who have chronic pain and inflammation because I try to use a more absorbable form, one with a BCM 95. That’s the third generation because it’s not very well absorbed. If you put it in your food, you’re not going to absorb much, but it’s going to do a good job for your gut. It was talked about a long time ago about the gut microbiome and how that can hijack your immune system, your nervous system, and your hormonal system. Curcumin is a go-to, especially when people can’t sleep because of pain.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I think that the point that you bring up is important to talk about because oftentimes when people are getting chemotherapy, they’re told not to take turmeric because of its anti-inflammatory effects. But if you’re taking turmeric, that’s not absorbable. Most of it stays in the gut. The purpose of doing that while you’re getting chemotherapy is to protect your microbiome because your microbiome is so often damaged by the chemotherapeutic agents that you want to give them some protection. Turmeric, in its non-absorbable form, is a great way to do that.

Lorraine Maita, MD

We’re both in love with turmeric.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

We are. We always see the world through a very similar lens anyway. Let’s sum up what we talked about today. We talked about the importance of being in the circadian rhythm, being aligned to the rhythm of the sun, and prioritizing sleep. Because sleep is where healing happens. that cortisol, which is our waking hormone, is pretty much the dictator of our immune health because elevated levels of cortisol will depress the immune system, and quite frankly, that is how cancer happens. I right. My cancer isn’t a perfect storm. It is a result of immune suppression. It is a manifestation of immune suppression. Managing cortisol levels and making sure that you have balanced and appropriate cortisol levels is important. You can easily test for it with a saliva test where you measure cortisol at multiple points throughout the day and know where your cortisol is.

If your cortisol patterns are abnormal, as so many of us are because we are so subject to the stressors of our daily lives, you can correct those things with dietary and lifestyle recommendations like the ones that you made. Getting rid of processed food, getting rid of sugar, eating a whole food diet, but also exercising thoughtfully. You don’t want to overexercise, which will only exacerbate what’s happening to you. You have to have some stress management techniques. Because the stressors aren’t going anywhere. It’s your interpretation and your internalization of the stress that matters. You mentioned heart maps and deep breathing techniques, which are wonderful. Meditation is wonderful, but not just to live in meditation because there is the rest of the day. So to have this flexibility, to have these techniques, and to build your toolbox so that as the stressors come out during the day, you’re able to deal with them in a meaningful manner, You can have your own Teflon, and we talked a little bit about the impact, about the importance of blocking blue light at night, trying to stop the electronics closure at night, turning off your WiFi, getting a route, or covering all of these things to preserve your sleep. Because at the end of the day, if you’re not sleeping, you’re not healing. 

Lorraine Maita, MD

Beautifully said. Well, you did a great job of that. As you always do.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

She told me that it was wonderful to see you today. Where can people find you?

Lorraine Maita, MD

howtoliveyounger.com. But I am going to rebrand because somebody said to me they think it’s geriatrics or they think it’s botox. You make people feel good again. I’m rebranding as the Feel Good Again Institute. I just have to get it. All the pieces in place and letting people know howtoliveyounger.com will redirect to the feel-good again institute because I want people to feel good again.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

I happen to love the Feel Good Again Institute. That sounds amazing. I wish you lots of luck in your rebranding. As always, I can’t wait for our next conversation. They’re always wonderful.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Yes, me too.

Jennifer Simmons, MD

It’s Dr. Jenn Simmons, Real Health, M.D. Thanks for joining us today. I’ll see you real soon.