What’s Really Driving “Metabolic Chaos”? A Functional Medicine Deep Dive with Dr. Tyler Hartmann

Introduction to Metabolic Chaos 0:00

When I talk about metabolic chaos, I use the analogy of your body as an orchestra and picture every section like your hormones, your immune system, digestion, detox, energy production, nervous system, all of them playing their part in perfect harmony. But what happens when one instrument or even a few fall out of tune suddenly instead of beautiful music? What you hear a lot of is ear screeching noise. And that's exactly what happens inside your body when things go off balance. That's the metabolic chaos.

Welcome to Healthy Choices with your host, Ray Solano from Austin, Now here's your host, Solano. Hi, this is Ray Solano with another edition of Healthy Choices, Dr. Talks podcast as we interview Dr. Tyler. And Dr. Tyler is a excellent pharmacist. Again, we're all part of the same group here that we are dedicated to helping patients get the most of their health. Dr. Tyler, thank you so much for being on with us today. Dr. Tyler Hartman. oh is been doing, solving patients' problems for over 25 years. And just uncovering the root cause of many of these illnesses, I guess that's kind of our religion and philosophy that we've both been following and it's served all of us well. it's, was something down a fringe area of medicine. And just coming back from A4M in... And West Palm is definitely becoming more mainstream. So we'd like to see when people start using those terms root cause and really actually practicing it. If I have to, know, Dr. Tyler, one of the things that for OptiHealth Diagnostics as the CEO, one of the things that you have coined a term that

From Pharmacy to Root-Cause Medicine 2:04

I think says it all, it's metabolic chaos. And wow. As says it all, maybe you can expand on that as we get into this podcast for Dr. Talks. Sure. Thank you, Ray. When I talk about metabolic chaos, I use the analogy of your body as an orchestra and picture every section like your hormones, your immune system, digestion, detox, energy production, nervous system, all of them playing their part in perfect harmony. But what happens when one instrument or even a few fall out of tune suddenly instead of beautiful music? What you hear a lot of is ear screeching noise. And that's exactly what happens inside your body when things go off balance. That's the metabolic chaos. And so I see it also as another analogy I talk to my clients about is it's kind of think of it as a wagon wheel. And at the center is metabolic chaos and each spoke represents a critical body system. As I said, I use the acronym hidden hormone immune system, digestion, detox, energy, nervous system. And if one of those spokes starts to weaken, then that whole wagon wheel is going to wobble and the overall health takes a, takes a big hit. Well, that's exactly right. That says it all. I like that wagon wheel. It's very descriptive for patients. Yeah. So the metabolic chaos means that several of the body systems are out of sync and not working properly. And it's all at the same time. It's rarely just one thing.

It's that domino effect. For example, a gut issue can set off hormone problems and then ripple out to the immune system and so on. And that end result is you, get a storm of symptoms that, don't seem related at times like fatigue, brain fog, weight gain, digestive trouble, skin issues. And then I've got severe headaches, Gwyn infections, food sensitivities. And when you look at that, it's not about chasing those isolated symptoms. It should be more about looking at the whole picture and the. And one pill does not take it all, it? No. And I'm sure we'll get into that about the difference from where we were in school with medicine and pharmacy. But the tricky part for metabolic chaos with these people is they don't really realize that they're in it until things get pretty rough. They might have bounced from doctor to doctor, run on sorts of tests, be told everything looks normal, right? But you know, they don't feel normal and that can leave them frustrated, confused, wondering what to do next. And then people get stuck in this storm often without realizing it. And there's lots of ways that they can end up there. And it's usually a mix of things. So I find in my people, that's the chronic stress, stress for a long time. It throws off the hormones, cortisol and DHEA, which are key for energy, mood and metabolism. If they're not getting good sleep, good high quality sleep, it's going to mess with hormone and weaken the immune system.

We're very well aware of the nutrient deficiencies if they're, or they're not being absorbed well. They're not going to have the building blocks needed for energy and detox. Leaky gut can trigger, can trigger an inflammation and immune issues. So then there's obviously toxic overload there. The pathways get sluggish, toxins start to build up, put even more stress on the body for them. But here's the kicker is that all these issues feed into each other. Remember they're interconnected and so stress can make those gut issues worse. The gut problem is best with your hormones, so the cycle just keeps going. It's a very vicious loop, Ray, in how metabolic... chaos takes hold. you know, that's a great description. Dr. Tyler Hartman is the founder and CEO of OptiHealth Diagnostics and may have failed to acknowledge your certifications in pharmacogenomics and nutrigenomics and certifications. It's really something different than any pharmacist have trained in pharmacy school. you know, it's up to us to be able to carry the baton to the next level to really start educating what really works. improve people's health. there's, like you said, there's a number of steps people have to do to be able to move forward. And unfortunately, some of these takes an investment on people under some of these costs are out of pocket,

OptiHealth Diagnostics and the DRESS Protocol 6:28

but they they're well worth it. It's the best investment in your health. We say most people are investing for their retirement, but I think it should be more spend the investment on in their health. So maybe if you can just walk us through real quickly how people should get started, because that's what we try to do is get them motivated in our practice here at the Laval Performance Health Center and PD Labs is how to get them started so that they keep on coming back and be able to make that journey. Maybe you can kind of walk us through some of your protocols or how, you know, that journey, how that begins to get people motivated.

Yeah, for me, being trained both as traditional and functional medicine, kind of the turning point for me from pills to protocols. Right. Pills to protocols. I like that. As a pharmacist, you know, our training was all about seeing medications as the main answer to health problems. And for acute issues, we know that they really do have their place. But over the years, I started noticing something that really bothered me for those patients and that people would come in with bags full of prescriptions, right? Right. In biotics, in acids, in presence, sleep aids, pain meds. And oftentimes the patients don't even know what they're on or what they're for. And sometimes they get feeling better, but oftentimes they felt even worse. I've experienced this firsthand myself, as many of us in functional health have gone through, gone through my own health struggles with years of exhaustion and brain fog, gut issues, you name it. And that's when it hit me, the meds were just covering up the symptoms. They weren't really helping and they definitely weren't getting to the root of what was going on. And I kind of viewed it as my, my physician at the time was kind of treating symptoms in isolation and missing the bigger picture. And for me, in my search, everything changed when I started working with a functional diagnostic health and nutrition practitioner. And we used advanced health lab testing to really dig in and figure out what was driving my metabolic chaos. And once we targeted those root causes and built a protocol just for me, I saw a an amazing and complete transformation. And for me, that was my light bulb moment. It made me realize why so many of my patients weren't getting better and they needed a different approach. So that's when I knew I wanted to help others who were stuck in that metabolic chaos and didn't know where to turn. I understand that OptiHealth is a program that you've developed. it maybe you can expand on the OptiHealth diagnostics? it maybe one of the deliverables patients will see from this program? So the company I founded was OptiHealth Diagnostics, a functional medicine, and where we do three key pillars. One is we incorporate functional health lab testing to undercover what the metabolic chaos that's going on. And then from there, once we've identified that, we put together a protocol that's individualized to that specific patient. And then building out that protocol as multi-steps for that. It's not just supplements. look at it as a foundation of health being the, call it the DRESS protocol, D-R-E-S-S. And that stands for therapeutic diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction, and supplementation. And if you're not focusing on the diet, rest, and exercise, and you're just taking the supplements, you're really wasting your money for it because most of the improvement can come from those other. prior things being that diet and the rest and exercise for them. So we really make a multifunctional approach to this. It's not just testing and here's some supplements for you, but we look

Modern Weight Loss and GLP-1 Support 10:11

at the whole system as a whole. So you intertwine pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals together, as well as lifestyle medicine with this and as simple blood tests that you... Is it a special test that you guys, your team has uncovered that maybe helps? people to get some of these underlying root cause issues? So we have a plethora of different functional health testing that we do. We have some core ones that we focus on around metabolic wellness, mucosal barrier assessment. We've got a clinical grade food sensitivity tests that we do that's a little bit more advanced than some of the others that are out on the market or that consumers typically will run. And then we've been incorporating a A gut health test now that's using AI technology and one that's got more markers on it, about 10 to 20 times more organisms can be identified for that. AI now, we know that's the hot topic for it. They can be able to scan the literature and have the latest and greatest up-to-date information to be able to help our clients.

onto their health journey. So there's a number of those. also do blood panels. We do a Dutch test. We do a mold test. We've got Lyme disease, but each individual is different and we want to sit down and understand what their journey is and how we can help them regain that health. You know, today we've had the biggest shift in healthcare that I've seen in 20 years, and we're seeing this shift to weight loss revolution with injectables. If you would have told me 20 years ago, 15 years ago, people would be doing injections like crazy. As a standard of care, would go, think so. Nobody's going to want to do injections. But evidently that paradigm is gone and people are doing injections and they're changing. Things are happening and if nothing else, the conversation's changed. Some people are looking for the quick fix as always, but for the first time we don't have a stimulant. uh causing a problem. So I think we're moving in the right direction. However, there is lifestyle changes in some fundamental metabolic dysfunctionality that's not being fixed. Maybe you can explain how you've modernized your program at OptiHealth to really help people do the one-two punch, I call it, for weight loss management. Yeah, thanks Ray. The GLP ones have obviously been revolutionary. Now near term, know that predominantly only brand names will be available for it and there's some patients that may not be feasible. But I think the whole, one of the big, there's two big challenges with it. One, patients oftentimes are not making behavior modifications. And so if they come off of those products, it's likely that the weight will return. Secondarily, that weight loss that patients do typically see from the GLPs. ones is 30 to 40 % of that is muscle loss. And commonly they're not going to be able to get that back. And the weight that they are going to gain afterwards will predominantly be fat. So what I do with what we do with our clients is be able to help to understand where they are, where their body mass, we do Dexa scans for patients to be able to understand where their building blocks are. And then to be able to build a nutrition plan. Based solely on them, what their weight loss goals are.

So we're dividing up the fats, proteins and carbs, making sure we get the strong protein

Patient Case Studies and Functional Testing 13:44

intake there. And then to help them work with a strength-based program, excessive cardio can increase the stress on the body and be more challenging for the patients to lose weight. So with a therapeutic diet, a strong exercise program, getting high quality sleep and reducing the stress. in their life, being able to manage that better, all have the goal of helping them have a healthier body, and more importantly, have a plan that is long-term beneficial for them and what they can adhere to without the need for medications. That's perfect. And the point is some of the things that you're doing is really stop guessing, really start testing, which is which is absolutely has to be done. People just sometimes just say that I don't feel like going through this, but if you don't, your blood never lies. Dr. Jim Laval has mentioned over and over again in his book and we follow that as well. But you know, I think sometimes we have to tell a story of how people, what they can expect. And I think you've got some studies possibly that you may want to kind of share some stories so people can validate. where they can go. Thank you. Um, I think about it though, in our careers, we all have these patients that really stick out in our mind. And I've got two, uh, that come to mind. One, we'll call him Zach. Uh, came, came to me with GERD acid reflux, a bloating, gas, weight gain, joint pain, fatigue, brain fog, sleep issues, skin rashes, migraines, mean a whole game at a basket of symptoms there. He'd seen multiple doctors and tried countless medications, lots of lab testing, uh, exams, but nothing worked long-term. But when we, uh, brought him into a program with his functional health testing, revealed a lot of things for that. And one of the key ones is parasites and gut food sensitivities, including gluten, is, which is common. I histamine, a sex hormone cortisol imbalances, thyroid antibodies and elevated estrogen. And all of those tests results, I can kind of point back to his numerous symptoms for it. So it all lines up. kind of like a detective array of gathering all the pieces together and putting that puzzle together to see what's the underlying cause and then how do we adjust that? So, so with Zach, his transformation protocol, we reset his gut health with a complete dietary change and targeted supplements. We incorporated anti-parasitic therapy in. A few months later, we retested him and he tested negative for parasites are actually very common in the human population that they don't know they have it. Most GI tests don't, aren't able to analyze it sometimes.

So a lot of these functional health tests are able to uncover that. And that's a big step towards that healing journey. With Zach, we also, we balanced his hormones, his thyroid or his estrogen was significantly elevated. His thyroid was off balance. And then we really worked with him on stress management. the challenges at work and quality sleep. ready, this guy wasn't getting his sleep till 1, 1.30 in the morning and getting up at six. That's not a lesson in quality health. So helping him to backtrack his clock to getting to sleep closer to 10 really helped with him too. He's a lot leaner now. He's stronger. He's been lifting.

His gut is calm and he's energized. And then the second one I think about is, which is pretty common. We'll call her Sarah. She was mid forties, working mother, drowning in chronic stress, mood swings, extreme fatigue, brain fog, bloating, migraines, weight struggles, insomnia, and her dreaded hair loss. That was very, very challenging for her. We ran several panels of functional health testing. She had high cortisol from the stress, thyroid was dysfunctional, she low zinc, she wasn't eating nutrition. meals very well, low testosterone, DHEA, she was at a lot more estrogen dominance, chronic inflammation, leaky gut, which is common for most people that I see, food intolerances. We also uncovered heavy metals, toxicity and mold toxicity. utilize, which we utilize a uh mold test that's serum based, it's not urine.

I've got my thoughts on the difference there. But we can uncover the in-unological responses going on behind that versus the urine excretion. So we were able to identify that for her, but with her transformation protocol, we reset her gut health with a complete dietary change and in targeted supplements. We balanced those hormones with the targeted therapy, supported the detox pathways, helped to remove the mold and heavy metal exposure. And again, implemented that dress protocol, the therapeutic diet rest. stress management in the key supplements. There, she's had great results. You know, that's a, oh if somebody is on the outside just listening to this, they'll say, wow, that's a lot of work. And that, you know, that's, but unfortunately it's not as simple as people would like, but maybe uh parasites, that's one of those misunderstood areas of overall health. Do you have a particular protocol or a particular supplement? that you've found to be very helpful to remove parasites? There's several different ones out there that we utilize, usually from Fullscript. Cellcore has got a nice line of antiparasitics and a lot of their focus is on that. One of the challenges with the parasites is that oftentimes they have a biofilm around them. And that biofilm, can kind of think of as a force field. Right.

A shield around them to try to protect them from other pathogens or the immune system from attacking that. And so sometimes we've got to be able to find some products that will break away that biofilm so that the anti-parasitics can get in to that as well. and that biofilm also makes it difficult to be able to pick up in some of those GI tests. Oftentimes some of the other tests use PCR and they need the DNA shedding in order to be able to capture that parasite. Some of these newer tests are, more of a shotgun technology and are able to pick up some of those that may not be seen on those other tests. So there's a lot of patients that have parasitic infections that don't know it. And again, health starts at the gut. So we try to get those uncovered early on. Moray, you also said you touched on, can be challenging for sure for patients and they feel overwhelmed and where to start and how to do this. So that's

Parasite Treatment and Biofilm Challenges 20:38

one of the things, the third pillar of our service is to be able to have one-on-one consultation with that accountability and walking them through, helping them implement those protocols and to stay on course for them because you need some expert guidance, be able to walk you through that and kind of give you the cliff notes so you can get there much faster than trying to do it all on your own. know, one of the things that, going back to Parasite is Mimosa Pudica. Yep. We work with. the founders of doctor-inspired formulas and put together a unique formula.

Mimosa pudica is found in many of these formulas. It's very difficult to get the right strains and the right leafs and extracts because they're all not the same, but it's a powerful product. uh And you get results and that's important, especially for children and adults. We just don't realize what impact it does have. uh And just to make sure to people to get started on the program is maybe you can walk us through your website and maybe where as far as do do telehealth visits and maybe you can our listeners be able to get the how to get started. Sure.

There's several ways to get ahold of me. One, you can just look at go to drtylerhartman.com. That's D-R-T-Y-L-E-R. H A R T M A N N two N's. Our business, also have OptiHealthDiagnostics.com. Commonly we'll do an initial consult, try to understand what the underlying issues are, why they think they have it, accomplish the goals that they're looking for, and then be able to offer them the opportunity to develop a testing plan that we feel will be suitable for them. Be able to purchase those lab tests and get them out to them. And usually within about six weeks or so. We'll have those test results back and be able to put it together a health protocol that's specific to them. you have a brick and mortar location that people come into? Right now we are fully virtual before, so we're open to all 50 states. We see patients all across the country. We're doing it over telehealth. It's an easy way of doing it.

Once you start, some people really enjoy the flexibility. Correct. From the privacy of their own home or from that? All of our kits, they can be shipped directly to their home. We do blood tests that go to a local lab to be able to get the blood draw there. So pretty simple and easy to get started. Well, if you can give out your contact information one more time as we wrap up here for another edition of Healthy Choices, Dr. Talks with Dr. Tyler. Maybe you can give out your contact information for our listeners. Sure. Again, it is Dr. Tyler Hartman, DR. or uh they can give us a call at 913-210-1045. We'd be happy to get you started and dig into your history more, be able to help you on your health turning. Well, we're

Getting Started with Telehealth Care 23:38

going to post that on our website as well for that contact information. And we also really, we want people to get started and do something. And I think that's what we are really looking forward to. uh You know, as far as pharmaceuticals, you know, we can definitely work with you together. Sometimes pharmaceuticals have a place, especially for some of these systemic infections that we're finding, especially from old conditions that we have found. And, you know, we get asked this question all the time. Is there their stance on methylene blue? And I'm just wondering if I get your opinion as a pharmacist and as a functional health practitioner. How do you feel about Methylene Blue interfacing in this ear protocols? So Methylene Blue does definitely have a place for it, especially with some unique formulations that are available there as well.

think the classic, each patient case is unique. You need to be able to identify that. You need to know what their history is, what they've been on, what they've tried, what has worked, what hasn't worked. Make sure we understand their environment. Are they still being exposed or not? For that, we want to get them out of that. And we want to make sure that there's good high quality testing in the first place for their environment and for their body. But I think methylene blue does definitely have a place in the treatment protocols for sure.

And we're also letting people know since everybody is doing self medicine and self diagnosing and self health is be careful. You have to treat with a, get with a practitioner like yourself, Dr. Hartman to be able to. plot a course through here because there's a lot of products in the market that are adulterated, counterfeit, contaminated. So if people are sick in the first place, Tyler, we always tell people we got to know the source where they come from as licensed professionals. You and I are very well trained and being able to make sure that a pharmaceutical standards are for anything that are you put in your mouth or put on your skin. that just because it's cheap and it's available on Amazon or someplace somewhere in the world doesn't mean that it's

Methylene Blue and Safe Supplement Use 25:48

worth it. I've seen that Ray, some patients that get who knows where they got them, but they're contaminated products. They're not pure. There's one reason why they're cheap. I think that's really a place for us pharmacists to step in and say, or for instance, with magnesium, there's over 10 different forms. Which one is the appropriate one? If you're trying to do uh for brain calming or you're doing it for constipation, what's the right form? What dose? How often? There are all questions that patients should be asking, be able to make sure they're on the right product, the right dose, the right time. Well, we're all speaking with the same voice and we enjoy you spending your time today on our edition of Dr. Talks and we look forward to having you back again. Check out our podcast on healthy choices, a doctor talks podcast for Dr. Hartman's interview and others as well. And feel free to give us a call if you need any of assistance as well. our website is pdlabsrx.com for our pharmacy and be able to answer any of these questions. Cause that's what we do is we give out free information, right? And we be able to help people as they Want to know what the next steps are. You know, we're kind of like the ER of healthcare, right? You can pick up a phone and give us a call and we can give you some answers pretty quickly. And we think that's still our purpose in life, right? Yes, absolutely. It's always, always a goal of helping people. Well, great. Well, thanks again for your time today and we'll post your contact information on our, on our website.

Awesome. Thank you, Ray. Take care. All Thanks again. All right. Take care. Thank you for listening to Healthy Choices podcast on Dr. Talks, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Leave us a review and like us on socials to stay up to date with our upcoming shows and guests.