Discover with Dr. Dan | Proactive Health

Today we’re delighted to have the host of the anxiety coaches podcast. Gina is the producer of the top 50 mental health show on Apple Podcasts, and is a nutritionist and coach. She struggled with stress, anxiety, and panic for over 20 years, but was able to climb out of her fear and panic to peace, calm, and well-being by finding out what worked for her. We discuss what anxiety is, where it comes from, and why you might struggle with it. Finding the right therapist can be difficult, Gina suggests meeting with a therapist 2 or 3 times, having a conversation with them, and then making your own assessment as to how you should move forward. Practicing mindfulness is an important part of managing your anxiety by just having a non judgmental view of thoughts and just letting them be. Being OK with noticing it and acknowledging those thoughts, but not letting them define us. We also talk about how to handle someone else’s anxiety and not make it worse.

Where does anxiety come from? 2:25
Nobody is immune 4:43
How the amygdala plays a role 7:54
Some techniques to help overcome anxiety 13:00
Trying to find a good therapist 15:17
Mindfulness 18:33
Anxiety, stress, and gratitude 22:21
FOMO 27:43
How to deal with the anxiety of others 32:26

“As a coach we just deal with today. What are the things we can do today to help you to start bringing yourself out of this way of thinking, this way of behaving, this way of reacting, and move toward a more whole and peaceful life?” 16:01

https://www.theanxietycoachespodcast.com/

In this episode I speak with Dr. Amie Hornaman, AKA the Thyroid Fixer, a woman on a mission to optimize thyroid patients around the world, giving their lives back through her transformational program, the Complete Thyroid Fix Method (CTFM). We discuss what the thyroid is, what it does, how it’s important, and how to know if you have a dysregulated thyroid. The thyroid at times will need to be tested, especially when you’re showing symptoms of thyroid problems and we talk about how functional medicine can help you. We talk about different issues such as PCOS and how insulin affects you and your thyroid, and then we talk about whether men need to worry about their thyroid or not.

How Amie got into thyroid fixing 1:47
Thyroid 101 4:49
How to know you have a thyroid problem 7:56
Should doctors check/test the thyroid regularly? 9:19
How functional medicine can help you 14:53
PCOS 17:12
Insulin and the thyroid 18:48
Do men need to worry about their thyroid? 21:40
The gut and microbiome 23:54
Mental health 27:30

“It’s just a shame because I see so many of my patients either misdiagnosed or just mistreated, meaning with medication. They might be on not the right meds for them, nobody’s checking, nobody’s caring, nobody’s checking the reverse T3, and they’re left suffering, but no one’s stepping back and saying, ‘Is there more we can do to improve this situation, improve the quality of life for this person?’” 14:19

https://dramiehornaman.com/
https://www.youtube.com/c/dramiehornaman
https://feelbrilliant.com/

In this episode we’re going to talk about how to take control of your cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is needed for the body and is used for cell membranes, to make other molecules that are vital to catalyze millions of chemical reactions every second, but like anything, too much of it becomes a problem, which is a big issue in our society today. High cholesterol can cause all kinds of problems for the body, including heart disease and can even provide fuel for cancer cells. I talk about the various natural remedies you can take and use to lower your cholesterol and the science behind how these things can help.

Rating cholesterol 1:04
Treatment options 2:27
A new target that has come out recently 5:24
Compounds that help inhibit PCSK9 7:39
Polydatin and resveratrol 10:34
Combining these compounds 12:52
HDL ratio 14:29

“Twelve percent of adults have high cholesterol. That translates to 29 million Americans. High LDL levels significantly raises the risk for heart disease. Heart disease is a leading cause of death in America and accounts for 42% of deaths. What’s really interesting is high cholesterol plays a big role in cancer. Cancer cells love cholesterol.” 1:23

Today I speak with entrepreneur, Master Esthetician, and skin health fanatic, Lisa Richards about skin health. We discuss the needs of our skin and why it’s important not to just forget about this organ, but to take care of it by using remedies outside of what many might believe necessary. We talk about the importance of collagen and understanding what this is and how it is vital to pay attention to this protein in order to maintain healthy skin. “Really what aging is, is loss of communication between the cells. So the signals are just getting confused or they’re suppressed, so we see not the same repair. The body’s just working sluggish. And so you get the right signaling and that kicks into gear cells knowing what to do again, and it acts younger essentially.” 12:16

Lisa’s background 0:48
Is all natural skin good? 2:57
Do we really need products to take into our body? 4:03
Collagen 5:33
Pine bark extract 9:31
Micro needling 13:20
Hifu 21:25
Nutrition and beauty 24:21
Ceramides 29:11

“If you’ve got science to prove it versus like, you found a pretty model with the face to say I use this and therefore it works, that’s one test subject, which you don’t even know all the variables. Is she using other products that actually caused her more increased moisture, so just hearing one personal positive experience of saying, ‘I tried this and my skin is better ever since.’ This has to come down to--it has to be science based. You have to have something to measure it, again to really qualify that it’s working.” 9:03

https://skinboss.care/
@Skin.boss

Today we’ll be talking to Betsy Thurston about a lot of cool things related to eating. Betsy is a registered dietitian and health coach at the institute for integrative nutrition. She has a master’s degree in public health nutrition from the University of North Carolina. Her current work is in the area of Nutritional Psychology. We discuss how eating can not only affect how you feel physically, but also how it can affect your mental state and either improve or deteriorate your cognitive function. We discuss what having a vision for where you want to be physically can do for your goal setting and changing yourself and Betsy explains that you need to have the desire to change, but sometimes that desire can be too strong and damaging to our health.

About Nutritional Psychology 2:00
Some tips to get out of eating unhealthy 4:56
How to go about having a self conversation 7:35
A great way to control habits 14:02
Obesity and obsessing about losing weight 16:58
How to get to a healthy state of desire 22:56
Food diary 25:26
Last thoughts about Intuitive Eating 28:24

“So if we’re not so obsessive about it and we are reasonable, and we know, you’re right, it would be very helpful to lose weight for many reasons and we’re here, but you’re forgiving and you’re general, and you’re not beating yourself up, then you’re much less likely to go off the rails and eat. You’ll stay in the middle zone.” 20:08

Betsy’s podcast: Binge Dieting: Learn How to Change Your Relationship with Eating
https://feelbrilliant.com/

Today we have Brunde Broady on the show to talk about an enzyme you probably haven’t heard of: Calcium ATPase, and its impact on human health. When Brunde’s infant son experienced an onslaught of health issues that conventional medicine could neither define nor treat, she began her own research based quest for answers. Over the course of 10 years, Broady has studied and researched the importance of Calcium ATPase and has written a great book called The Calcium Connection. She tells me about her story, learning and studying about the importance of this enzyme, and why you and I should treat it with the attention it deserves.

What is this enzyme? 3:20
Her story 4:13
Regulating our Calcium ATPase levels 6:21
What this does that magnesium does not do 10:34
The type of exercise to maintain it 11:30
Diet 13:00
The future of this research 17:57

“What Calcium ATPase does is a special enzyme whose only job it is to regulate calcium levels within the cells. So this not working properly is as if you’re trapping signals within your body, not working properly, which can cause all sorts of mayhem.” 3:39

https://www.brundebroady.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brunde-broady/
@brundebroady

In this episode we will be talking with Dr. Gail Saltz, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill-Cornell School of Medicine, author of The Power of Different: The Link Between Disorder and Genius, and host of the How Can I Help podcast from iHeartRadio. We discuss mental health and how modern medicine has evolved and continues to adapt to the needs of our society, and Dr. Saltz explains the increase of mental health issues today and what’s being done to treat it. She tells us that to help someone struggling, you don’t want to tell them they have nothing to be sad about, but instead to empathize with them.

How she got into studying mental health 2:03
Mental health and shame 5:23
The rise in mental health numbers 8:46
Is the mental health pandemic following the Covid pandemic? 14:00
Medication 21:56
Advice for friends and family of mental health sufferers 29:07
Additional thoughts on recognizing and dealing with mental health issues 33:27

“And of course really over the last several years, as you know, it’s been a stressful time in this country. We definitely, this past year rates of clinical depression and anxiety disorders have gone up, according to the CDC, 41%. That’s enormous. So we’re really looking at a mental health pandemic.” 11:01

https://drgailsaltz.com/
https://www.senecawomen.com/
@drgailsaltz

Snooze | Learning to Improve Your Sleep

Today we’re going to talk about how to snooze the night away, or sleep and it’s importance, and then what we can do to be better. There’s a common misconception in the business world that people can be fine on just a couple of hours of sleep every night, but study after study has shown this just isn’t true. I discuss why we need sleep, and then go into how we can sleep better and what sleep does to our physical well being and talk about the science behind this. Studies have shown that there are many negative effects to not getting enough sleep, such as disease, obesity, higher insulin levels, and various others. I go over various ways we can improve our sleep, such as cognitive therapy, sleep restriction, sleep hygiene, nutrition, and exercise.

Our need for sleep 0:57
Why do we need to sleep? 1:46
How sleep impacts overall health 3:58
Lack of sleep and the workplace 5:32
How do we sleep better? 6:40
Melatonin 9:53
Chaperonins 11:20
Honokiol 17:46

“If you haven’t slept well for 2 or 3 days, it’s the same as being severely intoxicated. Cognitive function is significantly impaired, the world is different when you don’t sleep. There’s a myth that some people, due to genetics, only need to sleep 3-4 hours a night and they can still function while other people need 7, 8, or 9. That is false.” 1:11

https://feelbrilliant.com/

In this episode we’re going to talk about novel ways to level out blood glucose levels. Blood glucose levels are a plague today, leading to type 2 diabetes, which is a big problem. 10.5% of the population in the US is diabetic with the number of people undiagnosed being about 35% or so. Continuous stacking throughout the day will cause your insulin levels to remain high, not giving it enough time to lower. This is a destructive cycle because insulin is one of the root causes of inflammation, which is the root cause of all disease. So when insulin is high, cardiac events are higher, and you have higher risk of sickness and disease.

Reactive vs proactive wellness 2:12
Sugar is found in nature 4:21
Effects of excess sugar intake 6:32
Finding natural compounds from plants 9:08
Quercetin 11:50



“The recommended daily intake amount of sugar is 6 teaspoons for women and 9 teaspoons for men. It’s kinda weird, men I guess can tolerate more sugar than women, but that’s the recommended intake. However, the average American consumes 20 teaspoons of sugar per day, which equals 66 lbs of added sugar per person, per year.” 2:46

https://feelbrilliant.com/

Today we’re going to talk about the multivitamin and myth-bust the question of whether it is needed or if we’re just wasting money. This is the best selling supplement in the world and makes over 32 billion dollars of revenue in the US alone and estimates are 200-300 billion dollars worldwide. People see this supplement as an insurance policy, or essential for your health. I look at the history of the multivitamin and where the beliefs about it came from, and then discuss the actual science behind these beliefs.

Vitamin origin story 1:41
The research 5:31
Study on cognitive function/memory 7:08
Why is health at a crisis point? 10:28
One of the major things bioactive compounds do 12:18

“The multivitamin doesn’t have any beneficial effect on human health in living in first and second world countries, but it can potentially be dangerous, because some multivitamins contain 400-10,000% of the recommended daily intake of vitamins and minerals.” 9:01

https://feelbrilliant.com/