Your Hormones: A Missing Piece To Preventing Chronic Disease

Lorraine Maita, MD

Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be at the summit to share whatever wisdom I have.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It’s going to be such a good talk. We’re going to talk about hormones today. You specialize in this. You specialize in hormones, detoxification, and energy. You’re a triple-board-certified physician, writer, author, and speaker. Your programs have impressively impacted over 300,000 people and three Fortune 100 companies where you served as chief medical officer or medical director of Global Health Services, as well as the thousands of people that you’ve helped in your private practice. We’re happy to have you here today to unpack this topic and give our audience some clear, workable information so that they can bring this back to their practitioners so they can understand what’s going on here with hormones. As we get started here, what I’d love to start with is, can you just first share with us? I mean, we’re talking about hormones, but what are the top silent killers? What’s affecting hormones here?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, I tell people everything. You eat your drink, how much you sleep, how much you exercise, the toxins you’re exposed to, the stress you’re under—all are going to affect your hormones. But when you look at overall health, you’re going to have your hormones change. In a man’s or woman’s life, you may have infections or inflammation that will cause immune dysfunction. You can have gut dysfunction, which affects many different parts of the gut. You’re the gut lady. mitochondrial dysfunction. All of these things have to be addressed because those are the things that affect your hormones, and what isn’t good is that you’re not absorbing nutrients. It’s going to affect everything.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I commonly make disruptive statements, like hormones are a distraction. Like you’re focusing on hormones, you need to be focusing on what’s causing hormone dysregulation. What I want people to understand, walking away from here is that when hormones are dysregulated, it is a cascade process leading to chronic disease. If hormones are dysregulated, you’re setting yourself up for chronic conditions, and we can talk about that. Osteoporosis comes to mind. Dementia comes to mind. I mean, many health problems can occur because of hormone dysregulation. But at the end of the day, if all you do is try to regulate hormones with supplements and medications and you don’t handle the sources of your hormone dysregulation, to begin with, it’s like being on a hamster wheel. It’s like, okay, well, you’re buying into this forever hormone supplement or something. What we need to do is get under this and help people get those hormones back in balance, which is incredible.

Lorraine Maita, MD

I couldn’t agree more because I used to think that when people came to me, they came out with hot flashes, night sweats, perimenopausal symptoms, or adrenal dysfunction. I gave them hormones, but not everybody did well. I learned now that I will not accept a patient and give them hormones until I fix their gut. I detoxified them. I want them to have a healthy lifestyle. I make sure they’re moving their bowels, that they’re eliminating, and that their gallbladder is working. I put all that in place first, and then whatever’s left over, if they still need hormones, they get hormones. People sometimes come to me too late and say they have osteoporosis. They’re losing their memory. They’re not sleeping. We need to address that so that they can feel rested and energetic enough to adjust to other habits.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That’s exactly why we’re bringing you into this conversation because you understand how important it is to solve the underlying issues. Sometimes, because somebody is so miserable with their symptoms, you just have to give them hormones to get them to a place where you can address their gut and where you can start solving their toxins and their mitochondrial dysfunction. Let’s talk about hormones. Let’s begin this journey with hormones today, talking about the changes throughout life that are inevitable. Females are going through some bigger swings and changes than males, but both genders have some inevitable shifts what we can do about that? What is this cycle of hormones in humans?

Lorraine Maita, MD

I call them the four pieces. First, it’s puberty, and puberty and perimenopause are like two ends of two sides of the same point. One, your hormones are ramping up, and they’re not quite stabilized yet. On the other hand, they’re ramping down. There is puberty, or post-partum perimenopause, which people don’t realize can start in their thirties and can go on for ten or more years after postmenopause. Menopause is just a definition of one year without your period. But throughout those cycles, your hormones can be extremely erratic. A lot of it is based on your lifestyle, your environment, and your habits. We want to look at the underlying causes first to smooth it out. But when you go through those hormonal shifts, it can wreak havoc with your immune system.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Let’s not leave out the men. So what’s happening with them?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Men have a gradual decline. But the scary thing is that I am seeing men in their thirties, twenties, and thirties with big boobs and big bellies, and it’s all toxins or they’re stressed out. I see men with high cortisol, and it drives your testosterone down. Toxins are a big issue. We’re seeing precocious puberty in women. Men don’t have the clear demarcation that women have, but they do have a gradual decline, and believe it or not, I see very young men who have hormone dysregulation. What I do is tackle the lifestyle and environment first: nutrients, gut health, digestion, stress, all of that. What, many people, because of the way I do a systematic approach before I even consider giving somebody hormones? Once we clean everything up, they don’t need them. But men have a gradual decline. We call that syndrome grumpy old men. They just feel like they don’t have that zest for life. They’re a little more irritable. They don’t have the motivation. They don’t have the endurance or the muscle strength. It’s not as dramatic as a woman having hot flashes or heavy, irregular bleeding. But so men become a little later in the game, so to speak.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I mentioned earlier that hormone dysregulation is related to the development of chronic diseases and chronic health conditions. We have also established here in this talk that what’s causing your hormone dysregulation is gut imbalance and environmental toxins. We have a lot of speakers on this project talking about all different categories of toxins, from mold to metals to environmental toxins. Just know that in this conversation, we’re going to focus on the hormone piece, but know that everything you’re learning here applies to why hormones are dysregulated. Why do I want to spend our time with you? Why do hormones that are dysregulated cause autoimmune disorders? What’s the link there? What’s the link with osteoporosis? What’s the link with dementia? What’s the link between all these chronic health conditions that are directly impacted by hormones?

Lorraine Maita, MD

I spent 25 years in occupational medicine and environmental medicine, so toxins were my thing, too. But you’re the toxin queen, and we’re going to talk about that a lot more through your other speakers. Women have more estrogen than men. Estrogen is a big immune stimulator. It was thought that that was developmental, that you needed more immune cells and more antibodies to protect the unborn child and to protect children after childbirth so women are much more prone to autoimmune disorders because of their estrogen levels and because of the high numbers of antibodies. They even saw that men with two X chromosomes with Klinefelter Syndrome had more estrogen because of that extra X chromosome, and they had the same symptoms as a woman. Klinefelter is a man, but he’s got woman-like qualities. When these antibodies are meant to protect your unborn child, they surge postpartum. That’s when women are more likely to develop an autoimmune disorder.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That is when?

Lorraine Maita, MD

The more antibodies you’re going to get, the more susceptible you are to autoimmune disorders.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

But what I’m hearing you say is that there’s a direct correlation between multiple pregnancies and the increased likelihood of developing an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or celiac disease. It goes on and on with psoriasis. There’s an autoimmune disease for every system in the body. That’s what I’m hearing you say: that getting pregnant multiple times can increase our risk for this.

Lorraine Maita, MD

That’s why I take care of other things. Your hormones bounce back sometimes after pregnancy. Women’s hormones don’t bounce back. They don’t. There is some inflammation going on between the pituitary gland and the organs. It’s usually toxins, infection, inflammation, nutritional excess, nutritional deficiencies, stress, lack of sleep—all of these things. And that’s why women, after these four P’s, start gaining weight, and men, again, it’s not a clear distinction; men suffer from these things too. It’s just not as dramatic.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It’s interesting that over the years, as I interview more of our clients and patients as they come into our programs, something that I hear often is that my health was great until my pregnancy, my menses, something shifted, and I never bounced back after pregnancy. I hear that a lot. So,  every expert we bring on has a different piece to add to that puzzle. This is a very interesting piece of that puzzle; it could just be this connection between hormones and the immune system. You may not have a full-blown autoimmune condition yet that’s been officially diagnosed, but there could be one brewing there.

Lorraine Maita, MD

I always ask anyone who comes to me with an autoimmune disorder, What happened before then? Let’s trace back to what led up to this. Well, they had an infection and chronic fatigue. They were trying to raise children while running a full-time job. They were stressed. They weren’t eating right. They weren’t sleeping. It’s all of that comes down because one of my patients said, Well, isn’t everybody under stress? Doesn’t everybody go through that? But not to the same extent. Some people take better care of themselves. Some people eat healthier, and some people get sleep. Some people have ways to relax. For almost everyone who came to me with an autoimmune disorder, it happened when your hormones were changing: puberty, postpartum perimenopause, when the hormones were a little going crazy, and menopause, where it’s like you’re in the tank, and it’s usually something else layered on top of that.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Can we talk a little bit about a couple of those other diseases I mentioned, like osteoporosis and the link with hormones, hormone decline, and the brain? I think it’s important to talk about the brain and the impact of hormones there because we hear a lot of people say that my brain just isn’t as strong as it used to be after menopause. Talk about bones a little bit. Let’s talk about the brain.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well,  your hormones regulate your bones. parathyroid: your thyroid, cortisol, estrogen, and progesterone. All of them have to be in sync. Everything has to be perfect; I say it’s like baking a cake. If you leave one ingredient out and one thing is off, your cake’s a plop. It’s the same thing with your body, and it’s your adrenal glands. If you’re constantly under stress, it’s going to rob your bones of calcium if you don’t eat right. You’re not absorbing, and you’re under stress where you can either rest, digest, reproduce, regenerate, fight, or flight. The people who are multitasking and eating like this and answering the phone, and they’re not digesting. They’re not getting the nutrients that they need. The bone needs a lot of nutrients. Most people are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium helps with 300 enzymatic reactions in the body. You need a little bit of everything. You have to make sure you can’t look at just one hormone. You can’t just look at estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. You have to look at cortisol; you have to look at the thyroid. a lot of the women who want to lose weight. I have news for you. It turns off the TSA age in your brain, and you need enough of that to make bones. There are a lot of different hormone imbalances that are linked to osteoporosis. But after you lose most of your bones, when you shift into menopause, estrogen drops, and that’s where you lose the most. But you have to keep it; you have to develop it while you’re young and preserve it.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

We’re going to have some talks about bone at this summit as well. Tune into that, because we’ll look into that deeper. Then, in terms of the brain, are there any comments you want to make about brain health and hormones?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Your hormones are potent neuromodulators, and people are just saying estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are just for sex, just for reproduction. No, you have receptors in your brain for all of these in your eyes, in your ovaries, in your skin, in your kidneys, and your blood vessels. You have receptors for these hormones everywhere. There’s a reason for that if you’re lacking estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, or thyroid, you can’t think of a lot of the symptoms that people come to me with. It’s not just estrogen, but you do need all of them. Even testosterone, for men and women, regulates moods. It’s associated with low testosterone, which is associated with depression and anxiety. The same thing is true for low estrogen. Unbeknownst to many people, if you have brain trauma, progesterone is very healing for the brain. It is very good for most people because it helps regenerate the myelin sheath around your nerve cells. They’re potent neuromodulators, and they are important for memory.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

This brings me to what you’re talking about here. I’m thinking of the demonization of hormones in four women through post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy. I can remember when I was working as a nurse practitioner in Western medicine. I remember it was about 2008 that the big backlash against hormones happened, and everybody stopped them cold turkey. It caused a lot of problems for people. then, several years later, the statements came out that we got it wrong. We thought this was happening in the Women’s Health Initiative research, but now we know this. Let’s dispel some myths here. I think this is important. Fast forward: back to 2008, when I was in my forties, maybe it was in my thirties. At that time, I thought, I’m never going to take hormones. So here I am at 51 going. Give me my bioidentical hormones. I’m not about to experience the rest of my life without that. I’m a huge fan of bioidentical hormones and working with a practitioner to find out what the right amount is for you. Also, make sure that you’re doing your gut rebalancing and that you’re detoxing. Let’s talk about this a little bit. What it just felt like was the myth for us around here.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, first of all, hormones do not cause breast cancer. I repeat, hormones do not cause breast cancer. That women’s health initiative, when they compare the control group, is what’s the normal rate of breast cancer in the population. Here’s the normal rate. Their control group, which they were comparing, had a lower rate than the normal population. that it made when they did, they examined women on hormones. They had the same rate as the normal population. But because the control group was lower, it made it seem like they had more. They only had a case rate. then when they subdivided into women on estrogen alone and women who had no uterus, and that’s another myth.

If you have a uterus, you still need progesterone. The women on estrogen alone had a lower rate of breast cancer, and over the years, as they started studying some things with bioidentical, they realized that synthetic progestins increase the risk. Fast forward to 2017, when the principal investigator from that Women’s Health Initiative study came out and said, “Look, the press hijacked this study.” They released the results to the public without our getting to review them or put context around them. then no statement that came out after that took traction. It just blew up and went viral. It was misinformation.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It not only went viral to the public, but it went viral too. Smart practitioners know better, and they took myself included, like I’m going to lump myself in that 2008; I think I was in my thirties. I’m sitting here doing math in my head. I was in my mid-thirties. And I was one of those people who was like, get off your hormones. I did not. I fell for the hook, line, and sinker. It was crazy.

Lorraine Maita, MD

I had a Department of Women at every stage, and people were bouncing off the walls, but I was still taking mine because I’d been studying this forever. Fast forward to the North American Menopause Society, and so many other groups now say the benefits outweigh the risks, that it’s cardioprotective, it prevents fractures, and it helps with osteoporosis. I’m on the firing line every day because I am a patient who goes to other doctors, and they say these are poisons. These are going to cause breast cancer. These don’t fix osteoporosis. I’m like, “Really?”

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Well, they did fix osteoporosis. I have worked in an osteoporosis clinic for 15 years. Part of my career and I remember the moment that estrogen lost its FDA approval for the treatment of osteoporosis, and it was reduced to the prevention of osteoporosis. But we know it does treat; there are a lot of reasons for osteoporosis. Don’t get me wrong, nutrient deficiency is caused by toxins caused by chronic infections like this, which are never addressed in Western medicine. But the truth of the matter is that estrogen prevents bone loss, it can be used, and it was proven in clinical trials that people who were on estrogen reduced fractures.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I mean, it’s crazy.

Lorraine Maita, MD

I’ve read osteoporosis specialists challenging me, and I give them my tome of studies; some read it, and some come around and just are all right, but for my patients, my job is to educate them. My job is to let them see both sides and make their own choices. But I support the studies, and I’ve had, I hate to say it, over 40 years of experience. I’ve been seeing people’s health turn around, and I’ve seen their bones get better. Do I have to take care of the other lifestyle pieces?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You do. In the last 5 minutes that we have in this first part of our conversation here, I want to expand on something you said. I think this is important. You said that hormones don’t cause breast cancer. I want to unpack that a little bit. You said estrogen doesn’t cause breast cancer. I want to unpack that a little bit. I want to leave people with some good information here. We know that there’s estrogen receptor-positive cancer in the breast. This is where this comes from, like, estrogen is going to cause that. So talk about that a little bit, and then talk about some of the things that cause breast cancer. If it’s not estrogen-causing breast cancer, what is it? Then, in the second part of our talk, we’ll get into some preventive strategies and some deeper stuff. But I want to leave us with this.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, the studies do show that estrogen, if you look and subdivide, is when you give it. It’s how you give it. It’s what you give. It’s the age you give it. Now, once you have a woman not on hormones, you get breast cancer. Women on hormones can get breast cancer. I tell patients, but it’s not necessarily the estrogen that causes it. It’s how you eat. It’s the stress that you’re under. It’s the lack of nutrients. It’s the toxins, especially the toxins. I remember when there was a big outbreak of breast cancer at such an alarming rate somewhere on Long Island, and they found the water was tainted. These are so important because we are exposed to over 200 chemicals a day. New ones are being introduced. We have to always be in a state of detoxification. We’re constantly bombarded by things that are damaging our DNA. The one cause of breast cancer wants to know that there are multiple causes of breast cancer. When somebody has breast cancer, I’m not brave enough to give them estrogen. I do know many doctors have said to do so, and God bless Suzanne Somers. She’s survived, like, ten, 20 years after breast cancer, on hormones. She had a recurrence. But what was that? If breast cancer caused it or was a problem, it should have happened sooner.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

What I’m hearing is that, yes, there’s estrogen receptor-positive cancer, but it’s not the estrogen itself that caused that. But the way I wrap my mind around it is that once you have estrogen receptor-positive cancer and you take certain types of estrogen, it may be like fuel to the fire. It may be, yes, but it wasn’t the actual cause. The cause was toxins. The cause was trauma and stress. The cause was nutrient deficiency. The cause was that something else was causing cancer. This is what’s so lovely about bioidentical hormones, as well as when you’re staying away from the synthetic stuff and you’re using hormones in the way that they’re made in your own body. That’s a huge difference. You also mentioned that synthetic progesterone is a problem, but natural progesterone is not normal.

Lorraine Maita, MD

It’s safer. In the last three years, two years, a lot more studies have come out about bioidentical being safer, and I was under attack by so many of the giants. But then they see the results in my patients, and they’re like just go to her. They want to, but they don’t want to take the time they can. They’re not trained in it. They want to know about it. They’re looking for the answer, but they just don’t get the training. It’s costly and time-consuming to delve into this. But it was a passion of mine.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Thank you for unpacking that. Dr. Maita, I want to thank you for joining us today for this talk on hormones for our audience. I hope you found our conversation insightful and helpful if you’re somewhat interested in staying right here because we are going to dive even deeper into this discussion with Dr. Maita. If you’re not, click on the button on this page to get access to a continuation of this conversation and many others, and get the tools you need to reclaim your health. If you’re watching this continuation of my talk with Dr. Maita, thank you for being a valuable member of our community. We’re going to dive right back in. What I’d love to talk about now are a few of my passions. I’d love to talk about hormones and mitochondria. I love to talk about hormones and the gut. Then I want to wrap a bow on this conversation by leaving our audience with some action steps that they can take right now, even if they’re not working with a hormone practitioner. Maybe there are also some tips on what to ask and how to find a hormone practitioner. So let’s talk about mitochondria because my last two big projects have been mitochondrial energy. We can’t heal unless we have mitochondrial energy production. We can’t even sleep unless we’re making mitochondria. It requires energy to sleep. and that blows people’s minds. Like what? “I thought I was supposed to have low energy when I sleep, which requires ATP energy to sleep.” Why are hormones so important to our mitochondrial health?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, believe it or not, estrogen controls mitochondria. That was a big surprise to me because mitochondria are extremely important. They’re like, You’re the batteries in your cell. Imagine if you unplugged your computer and didn’t have a backup. How long would it take for you to boot up? You need that constant juice. This is why the mitochondria are working silently to keep your cells alive. Without estrogen, they get old, and they die. Estrogen not only makes more mitochondria, but it also cleans out the old, inefficient ones that clog things up. It communicates with other parts of the cell. It helps the mitochondria communicate the danger response to the outside world, to the rest of your cells, and both internally, and it helps the mitochondria communicate with the nucleus because that’s where your genes are. That’s what makes or breaks you. It’s just making more of this stuff. We need it. Don’t make this stuff. We don’t need it, but estrogen has an incredible role. I try not to get too technical because you can put glazed people’s eyes over, but calcium goes in and out of the cells. that keeps us all alive. That potential, that electric potential, and estrogen control.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

We want high-level and easy-to-understand content here. We don’t have to get into it. What I want our viewers to understand is that mitochondria and estrogen are linked, and that’s important. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go into the second act of my life—in my 50s, 60s, and 70s—without estrogen because I plan on being just as energetic and productive, getting as much stuff done, and having just as much fun as I did in the first half of the second. I want those mitochondria to be supported. If that is an argument for keeping your estrogen in a normal range, I don’t know what it is. I try to wrap my mind around this, and I’m going down a rabbit hole here. But humans live a long time, and we have this natural decrease in estrogen, which is natural. However, life is so much better when we have more estrogen. I don’t know if it’s a design flaw in the human body or if it’s just that we’re living way longer than people did when they first showed up on the planet. We just haven’t evolved enough to keep that estrogen going. I mean, I don’t know if there’s even an answer to this, but what’s happening here?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, a lot of the theories of aging—I mean, we were programmed to reproduce and die because we were living in resources and people. That’s why I tell people middle age again—it’s in your thirties. It starts in your thirties because people rarely live beyond 40 or 45. middle age, I don’t like using that term, but now we’re living way beyond that. That’s why we’re seeing more chronic diseases, and mitochondria are linked to longevity. That’s part of one of the theories of aging. When did your mitochondria start aging? They have these zombie senescent cells, meaning that they’re just not working well. They’re just like chugging along dead weight, and they clog things up. that estrogen is like a clean mill. Let’s get some new bright guys that are raring to go. That’s why we need it all. We need it all. I have women who still have good estrogen in their fifties and sixties.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Not because they’re doing it; they’re detoxing. They have clean gut health. They’re living a healthy lifestyle. There’s probably genetics to the way people’s genetics are wired, which also probably has a role. I had terrible mitochondrial dysfunction after surgery. I had two operations, one on my foot and one on my shoulder, four days apart. This body has never seen drugs. But everything that they inject you with and all the IVs are preserved with mercury. I found out that mercury is toxic. I couldn’t exercise without, like, terrible pain. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t read a sentence without, like, what did I just read? I realized I was learning more and more about this and once that  I did the Mercury Detox, boom. My brain came back, my muscles came back, and my energy came back. I learned that I don’t make glutathione. I don’t make it very efficiently. I now know I need to be on glutathione forever and ever. That’s a small price to pay for my brain and my energy. That’s a whole other wormhole we could go down as to the dangers of IV treatments and the toxins that you get, but I’m just going to leave that there. So now I want to shift into gut health. Let’s talk about hormones and gut health. What’s the link there? Why is it so important? Why did you start this talk by saying, When people want to work with me, they also get to work on their gut health?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, after working with women and bringing them into balance with their hormones, they’re like, I don’t want the diet stuff; just give me the hormones. At that time, I did, and the people who had problems just didn’t feel right about them, or all of a sudden they’re going along very well, and then their breasts get big or they have irregular bleeding. One of the things I always ask people about is how are your bowel movements, and they say normal. I said, No, tell me, how often do you go? What do they look like? They go every two or three days, and they’re a little ball. If you’re not eliminating, your body is making estrogen; your liver is breaking it down, and then it breaks down into subcomponents that are active. If you don’t move your bowels, they’re the visual I use; it’s like flushing a backed-up toilet. It’s just going to go right back up into your system. You can’t measure those metabolites or those breakdown products. You’re just re-absorbing, and you’re making yourself estrogen dominant, and some people’s livers break it down into a toxic form, which is a known carcinogen.

This is why your gut health is so important. You have to eliminate those things. You have to make sure you have the right microbiome in there because when your bile is flowing and so many women have had their gallbladder removed now, please don’t do it if you have to. But the bile will find these metabolites, and your bowel movements will release them. But the microbiome in there—if you have a bad one, you have some bad gut bugs. They’re just going to cleave it; they’re going to break it off. Those things are going to get reabsorbed again. You need a good gallbladder, and you need a good microbiome. You need to make sure your liver is breaking it down in a safe way, and you need to eliminate it because the pipes have to be clear and everything has to move and flow.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Then there’s the other side. Is that your good bacteria, the commensal bacteria in your gut? They help make hormones, but they’re unhealthy and they’re not thriving. You’re not going to make hormones in your body in the right amounts. I mean, that goes for many things. You’re not going to make enzymes. You’re not going to make neurotransmitters. You’re not going to assimilate nutrients. It’s going to screw up everything. That’s why, no matter what we’re doing in terms of detoxing or replacing nutrients, whatever your symptoms are or whatever your diseases are, we must begin with balancing that gut because, truly, it is involved in nearly every aspect of your wellness and it’s connected to every system in your body.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Absolutely.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You mentioned that you spent a career in environmental medicine. Tell us what that means. What were your biggest takeaways from that time, and how did that apply to helping people solve these foundational health problems?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, I was frustrated by that. I helped a lot of people because I worked in companies where people were exposed to chemicals, and I had to make sure that the job wasn’t endangering their health and that their health wasn’t endangering the job or other people. I had to learn a lot about chemicals, and when people would come to me for the health service, we did a lot of wellness. We did a lot of preventive health work. We did travel health, executive health, and occupational and environmental health. We had to learn about all these occupational exposures. Some were where people worked with known products, and some were with experimental products. These were unknown entities. When people came to me with symptoms, I had to be the detective and then I had a question: is this real? It is not real. I always took people seriously because it’s real. I worked a lot on safety. You could do a lot by just getting rid of the toxin. Your body does the rest. But some people are a little broken. Like what happened to me after that surgery, I got rid of it.

I’m not pouring metals into me anymore, but people don’t realize they’re stored. All these toxins are stored in your bones and your fat. Why women get sicker around menopause because they start losing bone; the metals come out. People want to lose weight. They feel crappy because their detoxification systems aren’t working well. I was frustrated in occupational and environmental medicine because I learned what these toxins did. We learned how to mitigate the risk; we learned how to protect people. But unless it was a very acute illness, they weren’t treated. I knew I was doing people a disservice. That’s how I started learning functional medicine to be able to help them more.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I’m going to throw stones a little bit for a second. What’s your opinion, and how did it feel to realize that we didn’t have safe regulations in place to protect people? The EPA is supposed to be in charge of all of this. Even as I research toxins, I come across these statements online that’s by the EPA that are like these,  brainwashing statements that say all about mercury. I use mercury as an example, saying that there is no safe amount of mercury. It is one of the most toxic and lethal things that can ever be put into the human body, period. We should have never made amalgam fillings out of mercury. We should never have put mercury in medications or IV fluids. We should never have used mercury. Yet it’s defended by the EPA. There’s a safe range of mercury,  and you see these brainwashing statements out there. What’s your thought on this? I’m sure it frustrates you.

Lorraine Maita, MD

It frustrates me. I work within the system. I do the best I can. I can’t always be out there, trying to fight everything. Because of the answer I got back, I was very lucky that when I came to my company, I said, This needs to be done. This is a problem. They listened, and I was very grateful because other people in my position, in other places, were pooh-poohed and they were like puppets. I am not a puppet, and I will never be a puppet, but I will work towards some people who can detoxify better than others. That’s why some people say, Well, I smoke. My husband smoked, he lived, and he drank a lot. You’ll always get those stories. The truth is always somewhere in the middle. But detoxification, some people do it better than others.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, one of my grandmothers lived to 96 and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. She was born in the 1920s, and she didn’t have the exposures that, for example, I had when I was born in the 1970s. She had strong detox pathways. She was like the salt of the earth. I mean, she was indestructible.

Lorraine Maita, MD

Is it safe? No, but can people live with it? Many people can, but you don’t know. then, back then, there were fewer chemicals. Now we’re bombarded with more and everything we come into contact with has chemicals in it. Whether it’s the air you breathe or the food you eat, even if it’s organic, people don’t realize organic foods can still have metals. They just don’t have the same pesticides and in organics, you can use a certain amount of safer. I’m all about decreasing the load and increasing the detoxification taken out because this problem may not be settled in our lifetimes because you’re always going to have other people say, “Nothing happened to me.” My job was to be an advocate for the people who were vulnerable and were affected by this.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I have a feeling many of our viewers are vulnerable. That’s why they’re information seekers. That’s why they watch summits. That’s why they’re listening to these talks, because they feel oftentimes like, “Hey, I’m the canary in the coal mine. Everybody else seems to be fine, but I’m not making this up. I feel terrible.” So this has been such an enlightening discussion in the last couple of moments that we have here. Could you just give any final thoughts that you’d like our audience to hear about, such as solving the hormone crisis and supporting them, and also let our audience know where they can find you?

Lorraine Maita, MD

Well, I’m the thefeelgoodagaininstitute.com; it has to be the institute at the back of the wise when it comes to some drug rehab centers. I changed the name. I always end with something totally off the wall. You can choose all those checked by: eating clean, drinking clean, removing your toxins, sleeping, exercising, and having nutrients—all those things could be perfect. But you have to live life. You have to have joy, and you have to have an attitude of gratitude. Because once you respect yourself, respect others, and take care of your body, the rest is cake. Just have fun. Have joy in your life. Because in a life with all the checkboxes, no joy is alive. That’s how I like to leave things, so thefeelgoodagaininstitute.com

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I love that feels good again instituteto. One time I did a program called Feel Good Look Good, and it’s just so simple. We all just want to feel good. I love that. Thank you. Dr. Maita, it’s been wonderful to pick your brain and to speak with you and have an honest discussion about what’s going on here and how to support people. I always tell people, “I am a gut detox specialist. I’m doing cellular detox, where I’m an energy specialist.” People in my programs always want to know, like, should I be on hormones? Should I take hormones? What I encourage everyone to do is build their team of health practitioners. Just like in the Western medicine world, you’ve got a cardiologist, a dermatologist, an endocrinologist, a primary care doctor, and a massage therapist. You may see a chiropractor. Do the same in the functional medicine world. Find yourself a hormone specialist. I do. I refer to all my people. I say I want you to work with a hormone, do the detox, do the gut work, do this, and find a hormone specialist. So, Lorraine or Dr. Maita. 

Lorraine Maita, MD

My patients call me Lorraine too. I don’t need the title. I don’t. But I do have an educational program HRT for you so that people can make their own decisions. What are the benefits? What are the risks? What are they suffering from? What good hormones help? Thefemalehormonequiz.com is free.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Build your team. Find someone who specializes in hormones to work with. I think it’s important I do it myself I take bioidentical myself I’m not going to stop.  Thank you so much. Until next time. Take good care. Bye now.