The Trusted Pharmacist

Most people think disease shows up suddenly. One day you're fine, the next day you're handed a diagnosis. But the truth is, disease and clues of dysfunction often start in a place most people don't think of - the gut.

We tend to treat gut symptoms like isolated inconveniences, but when you zoom out, a different pattern starts to emerge. Chronic illness rarely begins overnight; it's the final domino falling after years of microbial loss, antibiotics, stress, surgeries, and modern food systems stripping the gut of resilience.

The more we learn, the better we understand that the microbiome is the foundation of human health. It shapes how we age, how we respond to stress and infection, and how vulnerable we become to chronic disease.

It's also the reason why we've seen such a huge uptick in autoimmune disease, metabolic dysfunction, neurodegenerative conditions, and unexplained chronic illness.

Because here's the truth about health: the loss of microbes is what's causing us to break down faster than ever before. The process of disease and aging is actually the loss of different bacteria in the gut.

Dr. Sabine Hazan is a gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher who has analyzed thousands of stool samples and followed microbial patterns that most of medicine still overlooks.

Her work challenges the idea that there's a single "normal" gut, questions whether current testing even tells the full story, and points to something far more alarming than any one diagnosis: the steady extinction of the bacteria that once protected us.

We talk about why digestive symptoms are often the first signal something is wrong, how illness is usually the result of years of accumulation rather than a sudden failure, and why the process of aging itself may be tied to the loss of key microbes in the gut.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

The microbiome breaks down long before disease is diagnosed Most chronic conditions don't start when symptoms become severe; they start years earlier in the gut. What signs are we missing because we only look once labs turn "abnormal"?

Digestive symptoms are early warning signals, not side issues Bloating, constipation, reflux, and fatigue aren't random inconveniences. Why does the gut often sound the alarm decades before the brain, immune system, or metabolism collapse?

Chronic illness is an accumulation problem, not an overnight failure From antibiotics to stress to surgery, health rarely falls apart all at once. How does the domino effect of microbiome damage slowly push the body toward disease?

Aging may be driven by microbial loss. As we age, we don't just lose muscle or energy; we lose entire bacterial populations. What happens when protective microbes like bifidobacteria disappear, and can that loss explain why modern aging looks so different?

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist!

Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!

If you've been diagnosed with MS or you've been living with it for years, you've probably been told some version of the same story.

This is progressive, unpredictable, and something you'll have to manage for the rest of your life.

Maybe you were warned about what you might lose. Maybe you were told to be grateful if things don't get worse. Maybe you learned to brace yourself for fatigue, pain, brain fog, or the slow shrinking of what your body can do.

And once that story settles in, it's hard to imagine a different future.

The truth about MS is that it doesn't have to be a straight downhill line. You can reduce severity and regain function, and you don't have to rely on medication alone to get relief. Lifestyle modifications can meaningfully improve fatigue, mobility, and quality of life.

Lifestyle changes are "nice extras" or only worth trying once everything else has failed. Instead, it reframes them as core tools for reducing severity, slowing progression, and in some cases, reclaiming function that people were told was gone for good.

This is something Dr. Terry Wahls knows not just from treating patients with MS but from living through severe disability herself. She understands that you can restore muscle, rewire neural pathways, or give the nervous system the capacity to heal. What lifestyle measures can create the conditions for recovery instead of continued decline?

In this episode, Dr. Wahls shares how to support neurological repair, reduce fatigue, and rebuild physical capacity as an MS patient.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

MS doesn't always mean steady decline Many people are told MS only moves in one direction, but that isn't always true. Why do some symptoms improve, even after years, when the body is given the right support?

Fatigue isn't a personal failure The crushing exhaustion of MS isn't about willpower or motivation. What's actually draining your energy beneath the surface, and why do certain changes finally make a difference?

Medication helps, but it's not the whole picture Drugs can calm inflammation, but they don't rebuild strength, restore clarity, or give you your life back. What else needs to change for your nervous system to recover?

You don't have to fix everything to feel better Trying to change everything at once usually leads to burnout. Which small, realistic shifts can reduce symptoms and make daily life feel more manageable again?

Guest Bio

Dr. Terry Wahls is more than a doctor. She's an educator, a speaker, an author, and she's also a patient. In 2000, she was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Dr. Wahls was determined not to let the disease control her life, so she began doing her own research. In December 2007, she began the Wahls Protocol®, a therapeutic diet and lifestyle program that focuses on functional medicine and nutrient-rich foods. Learn more about Dr. Terry Wahls' story and her work below. Dr. Terry Wahls was dependent on a tilt-recline wheelchair for four years until she reclaimed her health using a diet and lifestyle program she designed specifically to restore her cellular health. Now, she pedals her bike to work each day. The Wahls Protocol® comes out of Dr. Wahls' own quest to treat the debilitating symptoms she experiences as a sufferer of progressive MS. Informed by science, she began using Paleo principles as guidelines for her unique, nutrient-rich plan. This book shares Dr. Wahls' astonishing personal story of recovery and details the program, with up-to-date research she's now conducting at the University of Iowa. To learn more, visit https://terrywahls.com/.

If you have an autoimmune disorder and want to take part in a clinical trial, go to https://terrywahls.com/trials/.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist!

Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!

Most of us treat our mouths as if they're separate from the rest of our bodies. We're taught that oral health is cosmetic, routine, or something to deal with when it hurts.

But your mouth isn't isolated. It's one of the most biologically active, information-rich parts of your body.

What's happening with your teeth, gums, and mouth can directly influence sleep quality, inflammation, cardiovascular risk, and even cognitive health. Often, long before symptoms show up anywhere else.

Dr. Katie To is a wellness dentist who practices dentistry as a full-body systems discipline, not a cosmetic service.

Here's what she sees: Most of us are doing what we were told is "good oral care." We go for regular cleanings, brush, floss, and buy pricey toothpaste.

And yet, almost none of this looks at what's actually happening in the mouth. No saliva testing. No assessment of bacterial balance. No evaluation of how oral health may be affecting breathing, sleep, or inflammation.

And the whole point of oral health gets lost in the confusion. We end up with toothpaste debates, mouthwash routines that damage the oral microbiome, dry out the mouth, and work against the rest of the body, too.

What are the actual essentials of oral health, and what's just hype? What does our oral health reveal about our entire bodies?

In this episode, Dr. To shares why the mouth-body connection has been overlooked for so long. We talk about saliva as the dental equivalent of bloodwork, and how small, overlooked factors in the mouth can become chronic drivers of dysfunction elsewhere.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

No pain ≠ no problem The mouth can carry chronic infection and inflammation silently for years; so, how much disease progression happens before symptoms ever show up?

The mouth is not separate from the body Oral health directly affects sleep, inflammation, hormones, and cardiovascular risk, so why are we still treating it like an isolated system?

Routine dental care cleans without diagnosing If no saliva testing or microbiome assessment is happening, what are cleanings actually addressing, and what are they missing?

Some oral hygiene habits quietly work against your health Could toothpaste choices, mouthwash use, and mouth breathing be undermining your oral microbiome and systemic health at the same time?

About the Guest

Dr. Katie To is a Houston-based wellness dentist who takes a whole-body, systems-based approach to oral health. Her work focuses on how the oral microbiome, inflammation, airway health, hormones, and dental materials impact overall wellness — not just teeth. She bridges the gap between dentistry, medicine, and preventative health, helping patients understand how what's happening in their mouth connects to the rest of their body.

Go to https://www.thewellnessdentist.com/ to learn more, and follow @drkatieto on Instagram.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist!

Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!

When you visit your doctor with a racing heart when you stand up, dizziness, flushing, gut reactions, fatigue, and brain fog, the appointments almost always end the same way.

Your symptoms get filed under the usual suspects. Allergies, IBS, stress, or the catch-all that shuts the conversation down: anxiety.

But what if the root cause is a condition you've never even heard of?

What gets called anxiety, IBS, allergies, or stress is often something else entirely: conditions like POTS, dysautonomia, or mast cell activation syndrome, which most people (and many clinicians) were never taught to recognize.

Amy Bryant is the person people go to when their symptoms don't fit neatly into any one diagnosis, and they've been passed from specialist to specialist without real answers.

She approaches these cases like investigative medicine. Not chasing symptoms one by one, but tracing patterns across the nervous system, immune response, sleep, hormones, and gut function.

The challenge with these conditions is that they don't announce themselves clearly. They show up in ways that feel familiar and easy to explain. People start questioning their own bodies. They learn to manage reactions, avoid triggers, and brace themselves for the next flare instead of expecting recovery.

How do you identify the underlying condition when no single diagnosis explains everything? How do you move from managing symptoms to actually dealing with what's causing them?

In this episode, Amy shares how syndromes like POTS and mast cell activation can sit underneath what gets mislabeled as common, everyday diagnoses. We also talk about how to finally deal with what's driving dysfunction in your body.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

Complex symptoms are network failures When multiple systems break down at once, medicine often fragments the problem. How does identifying the shared driver change diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes?

POTS and MCAS are rarely standalone conditions These syndromes often emerge from shared roots. How do we stop asking "which one is it?" and start asking "what's driving all of it?"

Hormonal transitions can expose hidden instability Perimenopause doesn't always create dysfunction; it reveals it. Why do estrogen shifts unmask mast cell activation and autonomic symptoms in women who were previously "fine"?

Recovery capacity determines quality of life Stress, trauma, poor sleep, and gut dysfunction all erode the body's ability to rebound. What if the real goal isn't eliminating stressors, but rebuilding the systems that allow recovery to happen?

About the Guest

Amy Bryant is a nurse practitioner at the Center of Lifestyle Medicine in Houston. She specializes in caring for patients with complex overlapping conditions like POTS, mast cell activation, dysautonomia, and chronic inflammatory syndromes using a lifestyle medicine approach and a trauma-informed approach. Amy is an investigator who helps patients get to the root of complex conditions that many practitioners shy away from. Her ability to understand the underlying causes of these conditions and her approach to providing supportive therapeutic elements and individualized protocols for her patients set her apart. Her expertise in Lifestyle Medicine makes her a valuable resource for patients seeking integrative care. Amy also leads the Cancer Support Group Visits at TCLM. During these visits, she provides a safe, non-judgmental, and compassionate space where patients can rely on each other for support, share their experiences, and discuss helpful tools to help navigate their journey in fighting cancer. Amy also provides education about the background of the development and physiology of chronic illnesses, options to manage symptoms holistically, and emotional support for those who need community support. To learn more, visit www.texascenterforlifestylemedicine.org/ or connect with her on LinkedIn.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Follow the Podcast

Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

Most people assume aging comes with an unavoidable trade-off: more fatigue, slower recovery, more pain, and less capacity to move the way you used to. You train less because you recover poorly, and you recover poorly because you train less.

What's rarely discussed is why recovery breaks down so early, or why all the usual anti-aging advice starts to feel incomplete. You can optimize hormones, prioritize protein, lift weights, and sleep better, and still wake up sore, stiff, and inflamed.

That's where an overlooked molecule called carnosine, and newer delivery tools like LactiGo, enter the conversation.

It buffers lactic acid, reduces oxidative stress, limits glycation, and protects muscle tissue. When that buffer disappears, even normal activity starts to feel taxing.

Recovery slows, inflammation lingers, and movement becomes something you have to "push through" instead of something your body supports.

Aging isn't about motivation; it's about biology. No amount of willpower overrides a system that no longer rebounds. And no single supplement replaces the fundamentals.

But restoring recovery capacity can make training, hormones, and metabolism work the way they're supposed to again.

Why does recovery fail even when people "do everything right"? How do you keep strength, clarity, and independence when recovery isn't automatic anymore?

In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Willie Villarreal, a hormone optimization and performance medicine specialist. He works with elite athletes, military operators, and everyday adults who all face the same question as they age.

In this conversation, we explore why restoring carnosine at the tissue level may be a true force multiplier for aging well when paired with the traditional pillars of longevity. We break down how LactiGo, a targeted carnosine delivery approach, fits into a broader anti-aging framework and why muscle is the real currency of aging.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

Recovery (not motivation) limits movement as we age Most people don't stop exercising because they're lazy; they stop because their bodies punish them for trying. How does restoring recovery change everything downstream?

The role of carnosine in buffering aging itself Carnosine isn't just about lactic acid or soreness. Why has this molecule been ignored for decades, and what changes when it's restored at the tissue level?

Muscle is the real anti-aging organ Muscle mass determines metabolic health, insulin sensitivity, and long-term independence. How does recovery failure accelerate sarcopenia, and what does that mean for longevity?

Hormones, recovery tools, and lifestyle must work together No single intervention can override poor foundations. How do hormones, protein intake, sleep, and recovery molecules reinforce each other, and what happens when one piece is missing?

PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.

About the Guest

Dr. Willie Villarreal is a board-certified nurse practitioner, integrative health practitioner, co-founder of Core Health & Wellness, and a member of the LactiGo team. He specializes in men's and women's health, hormone optimization, and performance medicine. Dr. Villarreal integrates evidence-based medical care with advanced recovery and training strategies to help patients improve strength, energy, and long-term metabolic health. He works with elite athletes, military operators, and everyday adults, all focused on the same thing: helping the body recover better so people can stay strong, sharp, and independent as they age. To learn more, go to https://my.lactigo.com/doctorv https://www.corehealthtx.com/ and https://thecarnosinelab.com/.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Follow the Podcast

Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

Ever since platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini became mainstream tools, people are relying on AI for productivity and answers to different questions…including health and wellness.

More patients are turning to AI before they ever turn to a clinician, uploading labs, symptoms, even private medical records, hoping technology will give them clarity and answers faster than the healthcare system ever has.

On the surface, it feels empowering. But beneath that empowerment is a growing problem most people don't see yet. Unlike a clinician, AI doesn't see your sleep, your stress, trauma, your body language, or the patterns that only show up when a human being is actually in the room.

When patients start treating AI like a doctor, they often end up going deeper into anxiety, confusion, and rabbit holes that delay real care instead of improving it.

And it's not just patients; doctors are also using AI in the same way.

But that doesn't mean using AI is all bad. If we ask better questions, protect our data, and use AI through a holistic lens, AI can actually be a powerful tool for clarity instead of confusion.

And that's what Dr. Cheng Ruan is working on. As an internal medicine physician and AI engineer, he's been working at the intersection of trauma-informed care, consciousness, and healthcare systems for over a decade. What if the problem isn't AI itself, but the way we interact with it? How do you get AI to support your health instead of silently steering it?

In this episode, Dr. Ruan unpacks what AI is actually good at, where it becomes dangerous, and how it's reshaping the future of medicine.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

AI can make health anxiety worse

AI can trap people in endless rabbit holes. How do you stop AI from amplifying anxiety instead of clarity?

The hidden danger of uploading your medical data into AI tools

Many popular platforms aren't secure or compliant, yet people are uploading labs, discharge summaries, and even social security numbers. What should patients actually know before trusting AI with their private health data?

How to ask better questions so AI works for you "I feel" statements and emotional prompting radically change how modern reasoning models respond. Why does this approach lead to more useful insights and fewer dead ends?

Why AI won't replace doctors

As AI becomes better at knowledge retrieval, clinicians are being valued less for information and more for judgment, context, and relationships. What does the future of medicine look like when connection matters more than credentials?

PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.

About the Guest

Dr. Cheng Ruan is an internal medicine physician and founder of the Texas Center for Lifestyle Medicine, known for its pioneering work in trauma-informed care, AI in healthcare, and is the executive director of the Physician Transformation Institute. He trains clinicians nationwide on nervous-system-based medicine and how to use emerging technology safely and effectively in patient care. Connect with Dr. Ruan on LinkedIn, and follow him on Instagram.

For doctors: join the Physician Transformation Institute.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Follow the Podcast

Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

In today's world, GI problems are at an all-time high, and more people than ever are dealing with bloating, reflux, constipation, food reactions, irregular bowel habits, and even full-on gut disorders that disrupt daily life.

But gut health (or lack thereof) isn't random. Your gut reflects the state of your lifestyle, stress levels, hormones, diet, medications, and the microbial environment inside you. When those systems fall out of balance, your gut is the first place it shows up, and the last place most doctors look deeper.

Unfortunately, gut health is one area where the traditional medical system falls short, and this is something Dr. Radha Tamarisa knows all too well.

She's a gastroenterologist who bridges traditional GI medicine with a deeper understanding of microbiome science, immune pathways, and functional patterns that don't show up on standard scopes or labs. She's the clinician patients often find after years of being told "everything looks fine," even when they feel anything but.

The truth about gut health is that the real causes rarely show up on colonoscopies, ultrasounds, or routine bloodwork. SIBO hides behind an IBS diagnosis. Long-term PPI use can quietly reshape the microbiome. Stress and ultra-processed foods can weaken the gut barrier.

So why are gut problems exploding right now? How do you rebuild a gut that's been inflamed, slowed down, or overwhelmed for years?

In this episode, we talk about what people are rarely told about their gut, and why root causes, not symptoms, should guide treatment. We also break down the most confusing topics in gut health, and why your symptoms may have nothing to do with food and everything to do with stress, sleep, or motility.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

Why gut symptoms are exploding right now What's really driving today's rise in bloating, IBS symptoms, and inflammatory gut issues, and which pieces of this puzzle can you start improving right away?

The effects of long-term PPI use PPIs help in the short term, but years of acid suppression can weaken digestion and alter bacterial balance. What's the safest way to transition off them if you no longer need them?

When microbiome and specialty gut testing actually helps Scopes and scans often miss functional issues like dysbiosis, low stomach acid, or motility problems. What can newer testing approaches reveal, and how do you use that information without overdiagnosing yourself?

How GLP-1 medications impact the gut GLP-1s reshape appetite and metabolism, but they also slow motility and change digestive rhythm. How can you manage these side effects so the medication supports your health instead of disrupting it?

PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.

About the Guest

Dr. Radha Tamerisa is a board-certified gastroenterologist and the founder of KatyIntegrative Gastroenterology. She has spent more than a decade helping patients finally understand the gut issues that standard testing often overlooks. Her work blends traditional GI medicine with a deeper understanding of microbiome health, motility, inflammation, hormones, stress, and the lifestyle factors that quietly shape digestive function. She's the doctor people end up seeing when they've been told "everything looks normal", even though nothing feels normal, and she's helped thousands of patients get real answers and real relief. To learn more, go to https://www.katygastrodoctor.com/.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Follow the Podcast

Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

Most women don't enter perimenopause and menopause with clarity; they enter it with fear. That's because so much of what you've been told about hormones comes from outdated education, scary anecdotes, or someone else's terrible experience.

Hormones are framed as a burden, bad experiences are treated like inevitabilities, and hormone therapy is framed as risky, confusing, or something you only try when you're desperate.

Even perimenopause itself is misunderstood; not as a nuanced hormonal transition, but as a chaotic, mysterious stage women are expected to simply "get through."

That's why this conversation with Dr. Carrie Jones matters. She's one of the most trusted experts in hormones and women's health.

The truth about hormones is that everything varies: the type, the dose, the delivery method, the timing, the testing, and even the way your body metabolizes them. There is no universal starting point. There is no standard dose, and there is no one "best" hormone.

Yet millions of women today are trying to crowdsource hormone therapy from social media comment sections, which is a bad idea.

Hormone replacement therapy, when done correctly, is far more flexible, safe, and effective than most women have been led to believe. Feeling terrible is not the default. Feeling dismissed is not the expectation. And feeling confused is not a requirement of this stage of life.

So how does DIM, one of the most popular supplements online make menopausal symptoms dramatically worse? What kind of testing actually helps you understand where your hormones are going, not just what your levels are?

In this episode, we talk about what women are rarely told about hormones, and why personalization, metabolism, and timing shape everything about the HRT experience. We break down the most confusing topics in the hormone world, from progesterone sensitivity to the myth of "normal labs," to why the route you choose matters just as much as the hormone itself.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

The truth about perimenopause

Women are told perimenopause is unpredictable and beyond their control. What's really happening, and what can you do to feel more grounded, comfortable, and supported through it?

Progesterone sensitivity isn't random Nutrient levels, liver function, metabolites, and even the ingredients inside your capsule can completely change your experience. Why does progesterone feel amazing for some women and unbearable for others?

The route of hormone therapy matters

How do you choose hormone therapy that fits your body and your real life instead of trying to force something that fights against it?

Hormone testing isn't about a single lab value

Standard labs miss the daily fluctuations that explain your symptoms. What can pattern-based or cycle-mapping tests reveal that a one-day blood draw simply can't?

PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.

About the Guest

Carrie Jones, ND, FABNE, MPH, MSCP, is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, author, and educator on the topic of women's health and hormones with over 20 years in the industry. Dubbed the "Queen of Hormones," Dr. Jones is a Naturopathic Physician who did her 2-year residency focused on women's health and endocrinology. She went on to get her Master of Public Health (MPH), was one of the first to become board certified through the American Board of Naturopathic Endocrinology (FABNE), and is a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner (MSCP). She was the first Medical Director for Precision Analytical (the DUTCH Test), the first Head of Medical Education at Rupa Health, and was on Under Armour's Human Performance Council. She serves as a consultant and educator for several women's health and lab-focused companies. Dr. Jones co-hosted the highly popular show, the Root Cause Medicine Podcast, which has over 10 million downloads, and now hosts her own Hello Hormones podcast. She is the Chief Medical Officer at NuEthix Formulations. To learn more, go to https://www.drcarriejones.com/. Follow @dr.carriejones on Instagram, subscribe to her YouTube channel, and listen to Hello Hormones on your podcast platform of choice.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Follow the Podcast

Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

For many women, vaginal health is defined by recurring UTIs and endless cycles of antibiotics. Each treatment brings temporary relief, but the symptoms eventually return, often with no clear explanation and no lasting change.

Over time, the pattern stops feeling like a series of separate infections and begins to resemble something the body continually recreates.

Dr. Sebastian Faro, a clinician who has spent decades treating persistent and recurrent vaginal and urinary conditions, knows this all too well. The truth most clinicians miss: what we call "BV" or a "UTI" is often the visible expression of something deeper, a vaginal ecosystem that's been disrupted over time.

What gets overlooked is that these recurrences aren't random. They're part of a larger biological pattern that doesn't show up on a quick test or in a routine visit.

The vaginal environment is influenced by pH, lactobacillus levels, gut health, estrogen, and even the way the colon and bladder interact with the vagina. When that system is out of balance, antibiotics may quiet the symptoms, but the underlying conditions remain… and the cycle continues.

How can someone on the "right" medication still struggle to find permanent relief? What does it actually take to address vaginal dysfunction so it resolves rather than resets?

In this episode, we discuss why these problems persist despite the medication seeming effective, and what needs to change for the body to finally stabilize.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

The problem isn't the infection, it's the ecosystem Most women are given antibiotics without addressing the disrupted gut–vagina–bladder axis that keeps recreating symptoms. How do you rebuild the microbiome instead of attacking it?

Why antibiotics can make the problem worse Repeated prescriptions kill good bacteria, select for resistant strains, and strengthen biofilms. How does treating BV or UTIs like a simple infection create long-term recurrence?

The "vital sign" no one checks anymore A healthy vaginal pH protects against pathogens, but almost no clinicians measure it. What happens when you restore pH instead of chasing symptoms?

The estrogen connection most clinicians overlook Estrogen determines glycogen production, which feeds lactobacillus, and without it, no probiotic can take hold. How does supporting estrogen change vaginal health in both pre- and post-menopausal women?

P.S. Are you looking for targeted support for recurring UTIs, BV, or vaginal microbiome imbalance? Explore Nature's Women's Restorative Probiotic and see how it can help you restore long-term balance:

https://magnoliapharmacy.com/products/natures-womens-restorative-probiotic

About the Guest

Dr. Sebastian Faro is one of the world's leading OB/GYNs who has practiced general obstetrics and gynecology for over 40 years. He is an expert in vaginal and urinary health with decades of clinical experience treating complex cases of BV, UTIs, and microbiome disruption. He's authored numerous scientific publications and helped develop Nature's Women's Restorative Probiotic to support optimal vaginal pH and microbiome balance. To learn more, visit https://luna-obgyn.com/ or call 713-465-1800.

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Follow the Podcast

Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

Every year we tell ourselves the same lie: "I'll just eat a little differently during the holidays… it won't affect me that much." But the truth is, it's not the cookies, casseroles, or holiday punch that hit you the hardest; it's the silent blood-sugar roller coaster underneath it all.

Most people have no idea how dramatically their energy, mood, sleep, and cravings shift simply because they ate the right foods in the wrong order… or they sat down instead of moving for 10 minutes after a meal… or they drank their carbs instead of chewing them.

What I've learned working with patients is this: you can eat the same foods, at the same time, with completely different outcomes, because what spikes one person's blood sugar barely moves another's.

So what do you do when you want to enjoy the season and avoid feeling exhausted, puffy, stressed, and foggy for three straight weeks?

In this episode, I unpack simple strategies that flatten glucose spikes, the food-order tricks that change your metabolic response instantly, and why artificial sweeteners may be doing more harm than sugar.

Things You'll Learn In This Episode

The myth of "same meal, same impact" Blood sugar responses vary dramatically from person to person based on gut bacteria, stress, sleep, and muscle mass. How do you figure out what your body is actually responding to?

Why eating order beats cutting carbs The sequence of protein, fat, fiber, and carbs can flatten glucose spikes more effectively than strict restriction. How do you build meals in a way that supports stable energy without giving up the foods you enjoy?

Movement that outperforms medication Short bursts of walking or resistance work after meals can lower glucose spikes by 20–30%, so how do you use small, doable movements to support better metabolic control?

About Your Host

Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.

Follow the Podcast

Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!