From Mitochondrial Disease to Medical Innovator

Dr. Mel's journey reveals a broken healthcare system focused on symptoms over root causes. What if we asked "why" like she did?

Join Dr. Melinda Schottenstein on Ultra Life Today as she shares her remarkable journey from battling a life-threatening mitochondrial disease to pioneering integrative healthcare. Discover her innovative approach to health, which prioritizes targeting root causes of illnesses, utilizing therapies like acupuncture, antioxidants, and red light therapy. 

Hosts Josh Bellieu and Adam Payne delve into Dr. Mel's treatment philosophy, exploring the critical role of mitochondria and the impact of environmental factors on health. 

Gain insights into her comprehensive strategies for addressing cancer, heavy metal toxicity, and more.

Listen here or watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/s14Mpf3-UNc

Visit UltraBotanica.com to learn more about us and how you can get a free sample of our products.

Transcript

0:00:00 - (Mel Schottenstein): I just felt that medicine was so limited that I couldn't imagine, why is it that we're not targeting the root cause? Why are we not figuring out what's causing illness? Why are we just giving Band aids to everybody who's coming in through the door? And I even questioned a lot of the doctors that I worked with, too. I said, I just don't understand it. I said, we're not fixing the problem. They're going to be lifelong on this medicine, or if not, a ton of medications.

0:00:25 - (Mel Schottenstein): And I said, the surgery is just cutting out the issue right now, but not fixing the source. I said, I. I don't understand. And they're like, oh, well, this is. This is all we have. This is all we know how to do. And I thought, well, that. That doesn't make much sense. I mean, we do research all the time. Why are we not researching the source of things? And then I thought, well, there's. People have existed for hundreds of years. I said, we have to have even natural knowledge of what we're doing, too, to treat people.

0:00:54 - (Mel Schottenstein): So I thought, you know, thousands of years of all the medical information that we have, diets and herbs, why are we not utilizing any of that? So I thought, okay, well, I need to start looking into some of this.

0:01:18 - (Josh Bellieu): Hey, everyone. Welcome to Ultra Life Today. Listen, get ready for an absolutely riveting and inspiring conversation. In today's world, we're all facing severe health challenges. It's all around us. And overcoming them requires an incredible combination of mental fortitude, spiritual strength, practical strategies. Well, our next guest, Dr. Melinda Schottenstein, affectionately referred to as Dr. Mel by friends, she exemplifies all these qualities.

0:01:47 - (Josh Bellieu): She's a shining example of what's possible when determination meets innovation. Adam and I, and this is Adam Payne, by the way.

0:01:54 - (Adam Payne): Hey. Hey.

0:01:55 - (Josh Bellieu): CEO of Ultra Botanica. We had the privilege of meeting Dr. Mel at the International Society of Laser Applications Conference in San Diego. Yeah, and what was fun for me is when I. I was so fascinated with her personal journey because, you know, you and I love to ask people about the origin story of life.

0:02:14 - (Adam Payne): How in the world is there a superhero story?

0:02:18 - (Josh Bellieu): Right?

0:02:19 - (Adam Payne): And, you know, it's. Isla has changed so much over the years. We've been at Isla for more than 10 years. We know the Webers that started Isla. They are the guys that make a. One of the premier medical lasers that she used, not to kill and destroy, but actually to treat regenerating tissue. Crazy things, you know, go on for hours. But we met Dr. Mel there, and honestly, she was like, she is a shining star.

0:02:46 - (Adam Payne): You are exactly, exactly right. Incredible witness in terms of how she approaches cancer and, and different diseases, metabolic diseases. But what enthralled me most was her story.

0:02:59 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah. And you know, it shouldn't be a surprise. Once I got on her website, Adam, it was no surprise to me to see that she was at the Isla conference because she's always moving out there into what is the latest, greatest cutting edge therapy, listening to other doctors, learning from them. When I kind of glaze over her CV here in a minute, her curriculum vitae or her bio, I realize now she doesn't even have it completed and it just is going to be as long as my arm. But listen, we're going to explore Mel's remarkable journey today.

0:03:33 - (Josh Bellieu): Now listen to this. It began at birth. It was a life compromising mitochondrial disease. It later was escalated by allopathic and conventional medicine into basically a death sentence. So through sheer tenacity, never say die attitude, unwavering commitment to hope really and healing, Dr. Mel defied the odds. And you know, she now has her own practice in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's called Mitogenesis.

0:04:04 - (Adam Payne): That is the appropriate.

0:04:06 - (Josh Bellieu): I'm either going to name a band after that or just have to come out and actually see if that's really on the sign myself. Anyway, she partners with her own patient population to really bring them from where they are on this path to optimal health. Dr. Mel, welcome to Ultralife today. We're so happy to have you.

0:04:24 - (Mel Schottenstein): Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

0:04:26 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah, well, share some of this. I mean, I had to almost stop you and it's like, save it for the podcast. When you started giving me this little snapshot of your life journey, but dive in where you like.

0:04:38 - (Mel Schottenstein): Sure. So at birth I was born with a mitochondrial disease that kind of manifested itself as dysautonomia. It affected the autonomic nervous system and the body just couldn't regulate itself and showed itself a lot as a GI disorder. At that point in the 80s, we don't really have Internet and my parents first thought is, hey, let's go to the experts all over the country in some of the biggest hospitals and let's have them figure out what to do.

0:05:08 - (Adam Payne): And that sounds like it's, you know, it's a reasonable approach. Right, let's go to the experts.

0:05:14 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly. And you know, I don't fault my parents at all for not really looking into natural medicine because at that point what, what are their resources other than maybe going into library and digging deep and at that point, they're pretty much not going to see anything directly towards what's going on with myself. So. So at that point, we. We went from one doctor to another, each doctor adding more medications and wanting to do surgeries and one thing after another until.

0:05:43 - (Mel Schottenstein): And that went on for years, until finally when I was in my teens.

0:05:48 - (Josh Bellieu): And the doctor was this 15 years old. By the way, did I hear that from you? Okay. At the conference? Yeah, this blows my mind. Okay, go ahead.

0:05:57 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah. At 15, the doctor said, okay, well, pretty much your only choice is to be on pharmaceuticals the rest of your life. Most people with mitochondrial disease don't really live past the age of 30. Their body can't handle having all of these pharmaceuticals over time. And I'm sorry, that is. That. That's it. And, you know, so went to a few more specialists, and pretty much their ideas of moving forward were not pretty great. Were not great either.

0:06:27 - (Mel Schottenstein): One major hospital wanted to do a form of brain surgery, treating it as a Chiari malformation.

0:06:33 - (Adam Payne): Wow.

0:06:34 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah. They thought if they could open up the skull and enable the brain stem to no longer be herniated, which they couldn't even really show me completely that it was herniated in the imagery.

0:06:46 - (Josh Bellieu): Imagine that.

0:06:47 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah. And they said, oh, well, this is a hypothesis. We think this would help. Well, my parents, fortunately, also agreed with me and said, we're going to run. This is nothing we're going to do at all.

0:06:59 - (Adam Payne): Wow. That. Well, we're grateful that they didn't and you didn't.

0:07:04 - (Mel Schottenstein): Me too. So dramatically changed what I could hear.

0:07:08 - (Josh Bellieu): So before we move on. Go ahead, Adam.

0:07:10 - (Adam Payne): I'm just, you know, there's. What was the nature of the mitochondrial dysfunction that you were dealing with? Was it a defect in their biogenesis, the homeostasis, or a functional missing step there?

0:07:27 - (Mel Schottenstein): Great question. Inability to generate enough mitochondria. So I actually don't have enough when they've taken tissue samples.

0:07:37 - (Adam Payne): Oh, wow. So there are alternate energetic pathways in the cell besides the mitochondria, and they just didn't. They just didn't think that you could keep up with those or.

0:07:49 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly. And plus testing at that point in the 80s and early 90s was a lot more limited compared to now.

0:07:56 - (Adam Payne): Right, interesting.

0:07:57 - (Mel Schottenstein): So after biopsies and tons of blood work and genetic testing, pretty much their thought was that the body was unable to even generate enough energy. And which I can attest to, too, if I overdo it in terms of exercise, let's say I do a 14 mile bike ride.

0:08:18 - (Josh Bellieu): I was about to Say, although you do hike and do mountain stuff and you bike and you do all kinds of crazy stuff.

0:08:25 - (Mel Schottenstein): I do, but it's. It's being aware of where my limitations are. And. And just so my body still has the ability to generate mitochondria. Not putting myself at a depletion.

0:08:38 - (Adam Payne): Wow. Yeah. I have a genetic thing that also damages my nerves and it's through mitochondrial dysfunction. But this was the driving passion that started back then when you were a teenager and drove you on a road to discovery.

0:09:04 - (Mel Schottenstein): Absolutely.

0:09:04 - (Josh Bellieu): This is a beautiful time for me to say a couple of quick things. Dr. Mel did undergraduate work at Harvard University. She's got a master's in bioethics from the University of Pennsylvania.

0:09:17 - (Adam Payne): Wow.

0:09:17 - (Josh Bellieu): She's got a naturopathic medical degree from one of my favorites in the world, Bastyr University in Washington. Brilliant place. Studied with Dr. Thomas Rao at Paracelsus Clinic in Switzerland.

0:09:30 - (Adam Payne): Wow.

0:09:30 - (Josh Bellieu): Masters in nutrition. I could just keep going. Swiss biological medicine provider. Integrative cancer therapy fellowships with A4 peptide therapy, stem therapy fellowships, integrative cancer therapy fellowships, and as we confirmed today, also with the Metabolic Terrain Institute, and probably a whole lot more that are too numerous to mention. So. Interest. I just had to throw that in because it's like the quest.

0:09:58 - (Josh Bellieu): You brought it up.

0:09:58 - (Adam Payne): It is a wonder quest.

0:10:00 - (Josh Bellieu): The quest, it's never ending with this lady. So anyway, okay.

0:10:04 - (Adam Payne): I. I have to imagine that you almost had like a war room of, like, papers and things that you mapped out and we're things that you were discovering. Did you have something like that?

0:10:15 - (Mel Schottenstein): Well, it is kind of funny you say that because I am such a mind mapper. So once I see something and I can see the connections and how it flows from one thing to another, then for me, that's. It's the whole picture right there. And that's even how I do all my visits with patients. I grab a piece of paper even though they tell me it's illegible because my hand running scared.

0:10:37 - (Josh Bellieu): Code.

0:10:38 - (Mel Schottenstein): But. But yeah, I'll be like, drawing out a whole mind map for them right there of where this is starting from. What the sources of the problem, what we need to do to fix it, how we need to clean the body out in the direction we need to go.

0:10:51 - (Adam Payne): Where did you go and what did you uncover on this journey at 15 years old?

0:10:57 - (Mel Schottenstein): That's a great question. And my first thought at 15 was, athletes can generate more mitochondria and why can't I? So I thought, well, what do they do to start restoring themselves? And I didn't like the answer from any of the doctors. I told them that this was too simplistic just to tell me that I had to be on medication. I said, why are we not fixing the root of the problem? Or why are we not finding ways to regenerate the mitochondria?

0:11:24 - (Mel Schottenstein): And their answer was, it's not possible. So I heard that, I thought that sounds to me like they're not willing to step outside their box, which unfortunately.

0:11:36 - (Adam Payne): Our bodies are replacing and regenerating mitochondria by the millions every day.

0:11:42 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah, that's why I was like, well, did you miss that unit in medical school?

0:11:46 - (Josh Bellieu): So, yeah, as they go out and compete in marathons and Ironmans and it's like, you know.

0:11:54 - (Adam Payne): Anyway, okay, so I really, I'm, I'm so curious. What were the step by step things that you learned that became your road to discovery? Dr. Mel.

0:12:07 - (Mel Schottenstein): So first thing I did was when I went to the library, since that was really my major resource at that time, that was to look at some what athletes were doing to help performance. And because I felt, well, if they were helping performance, they were going to be generating more mitochondria because they had to have more ATP.

0:12:26 - (Josh Bellieu): Thoughts for a 15 year old. Okay, keep going. I just had to say, yeah, that.

0:12:29 - (Adam Payne): Makes a lot of sense.

0:12:31 - (Mel Schottenstein): So I thought, well, what, what's going on there? So my first thought was increase antioxidants so that I had the nutrients that were needed, change my diet dramatically, eliminated gluten, eliminated dairy, eliminated anything that was causing major inflammation.

0:12:47 - (Adam Payne): Oh, interesting. Okay.

0:12:49 - (Mel Schottenstein): And then I started thinking, well, what supplements should I add in at that point that were actually mitochondrial supportive? So CoQ10, that was absolutely the first thing I added in that I found and put that in because I started seeing that that was included in a lot of cardiovascular health to help repair the body as well. And then I thought, okay, well how are athletes using CoQ10? And then started just bumping that up to a higher level.

0:13:17 - (Adam Payne): So where does CoQ10 affect mitochondria? Is it in the biogenesis or is it in the support and the kind of keeping them healthy and stable?

0:13:28 - (Mel Schottenstein): Absolutely. So CoQ10, it helps with mitochondrial biogenesis or essentially the creation of new mitochondria. It helps increase their number, their function, and basically it does so by increasing the expression of genes that are involved in mitochondrial biogenesis. The other component is it's used in the electron transport chain that helps our bodies produce ATP, which is our energy.

0:13:58 - (Adam Payne): So it makes it more efficient on the, on the, etc. That's so interesting.

0:14:02 - (Josh Bellieu): Okay, so meanwhile, back at the ranch, Melinda is discovering how she could get well.

0:14:09 - (Adam Payne): So you started. So you. You went out and you say. I mean, you. So you started to identify these different supplements that were aiding in sports performance, because you're thinking is, well, the only way to really increase performance is you're. You're literally creating more mitochondria or you're. You're increasing your oxygen capacity. But I guess that's why a lot of sportsmen train at high altitudes, because they can.

0:14:35 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly.

0:14:35 - (Adam Payne): Their hemoglobin can absorb more oxygen. So CoQ10 was your first kind of target that you gunned down. What was the next?

0:14:47 - (Mel Schottenstein): Increasing various antioxidants to try and reduce inflammation and any reactive oxygen species that might be in the body as well.

0:14:56 - (Adam Payne): So were you measuring any biomarkers in your own body as you were doing this, or what was your approach?

0:15:03 - (Mel Schottenstein): And to an extent, because I was dependent on other doctors willing to order them at that time. So we. So unfortunately, I was a little limited. My main primary care doctor was willing to do some basic labs, but really nothing that I could say, oh, you can see a huge change here. Yeah, the markers were more. How did I feel? And able to start getting off medications.

0:15:29 - (Josh Bellieu): Mel, as you began to do this, did you have a sense at, you know, 15, 16, 17 years old that, hey, this is my path now? I'm just curious if at that time you're thinking, I'm going to help other people, I'm going to beat this and help other people, or was it just evolving as you organically?

0:15:49 - (Mel Schottenstein): Oh, that's a great question. I knew I wanted to be in medicine for pretty much my entire life.

0:15:54 - (Josh Bellieu): Brilliant.

0:15:55 - (Mel Schottenstein): But since eighth grade, essentially doing all of these internships. Summer before eighth grade, I sent an email over to a doctor over at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati and said, hey, I'm only an 8th grader, but I want to see what you do. Can I do?

0:16:12 - (Josh Bellieu): Incredible.

0:16:13 - (Mel Schottenstein): Can I shadow you all summer? And I got some really fantastic doctors that let me shadow them for each of my breaks. And over all of those shadowy experiences, I found that I loved medicine, loved working with people, But I couldn't find an area in conventional medicine that I really liked. And that wasn't because I wasn't fascinated by the body or how it worked. Instead, it was my options for treating people were pharmaceuticals and surgery.

0:16:42 - (Mel Schottenstein): And I thought that that just didn't seem to resonate with me at all. And I thought, there's got to be something else out there. So why? Why is it that this is the only way that we can treat people?

0:16:53 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah, brilliant. Hey, I just want to let people know how they can reach out to you, because I discussed with you at the convention that even though you're licensed to practice medicine in Arizona, potentially other places as well, you do remote, like a lot of people do these days. Is that correct? In case someone is from the outside Arizona area. Okay, well, you can reach out to Dr. Mel or Melinda Schottenstein.

0:17:20 - (Josh Bellieu): There's a phone number for you old school people out there. 480-781-4800. That's 480-781-4800 or. Really cool website. I've dug way heavily into it. Mitogenesis health. Mitogenesis is spelled just like it sounds. M I, T, O. And then the word genesis. G, E, N, E, S I, S dot, H, E, A, L, T, H. I just find it fascinating, Mel, that, my gosh, what, were you, 14, 15 years old when you got to shadow doctors there in Cincinnati?

0:18:01 - (Mel Schottenstein): Oh, younger.

0:18:03 - (Adam Payne): Younger, yeah.

0:18:04 - (Josh Bellieu): Oh, you're one of those that was born where you were young for your age and all of your classes, weren't you in school? I was. I was one of those.

0:18:15 - (Mel Schottenstein): I was. And then when my family ended up moving from Columbus to Cincinnati, the teacher said, oh, well, you know, she's so young, she should repeat a year. So I did first grade twice.

0:18:25 - (Josh Bellieu): Oh, wow.

0:18:26 - (Adam Payne): Oh, my God.

0:18:26 - (Josh Bellieu): Okay. So I derailed you after your brilliant summer there in Cincinnati shadowing doctors, and you were recognizing, hey, these people aren't actually doing where I want to go. So continue with your own health journey and let us know what's going on there.

0:18:44 - (Mel Schottenstein): Sure. So. So with all the shadowing experiences, I just felt that medicine was so limited that I couldn't imagine, why is it that we're not targeting the root cause? Why are we not figuring out what's causing illness? Why are we just giving band aids to everybody who's coming in through the door? And I even questioned a lot of the doctors that I worked with, too. I said, I just don't understand it. I said, we're not fixing the problem. They're going to be lifelong on this medicine, or if not, a ton of medications.

0:19:14 - (Mel Schottenstein): And I said, the surgery is just cutting out the issue right now, but not fixing the source. I said, I. I don't understand. And they're like, oh, well, this is. This is all we have. This is all we know how to do. And I thought, well, that. That doesn't make much sense. I mean, we do research all the time. Why are we not researching the source of things? And then I thought, well, there's. People have existed for hundreds of years. I said, we have to have even natural knowledge of what we're doing too, to treat people.

0:19:43 - (Mel Schottenstein): So I thought, you know, thousands of years of all the medical information that we have, diets and herbs, why are we not utilizing any of that? So I thought, okay, well, I need to start looking into some of this. And then by the time I was in my late teens, 17, 18, I started looking into doing acupuncture and thought, maybe that's the direction I want to go, and started adding that as a modality to help me with my mitochondria, help with my overall energy, and started noticing that there is connection between Qi and how my overall energy was feeling. And yeah, I can't quantify Qi and ATP, but I do feel that there's definitely a connection between when you have all of the acupuncture channels really balanced, energy flowing as it should, and mitochondrial function.

0:20:35 - (Josh Bellieu): Yes. And I've, Adam and I, between us, we know a guy that has taught acupuncture all over the world, one of our, our chief medical officer. But I've seen individuals have one acupuncture treatment and it has revolutionized their life or a problem that they've had for 20, 30 years. So I'm a huge believer in balancing the energy meridians as well. So after acupuncture, where did you find yourself? And I do find it fascinating that you asked the question to these Doctors as a 13, 14 year old person. You know, I've got a three and a half year old granddaughter right now, Mel, and for the last year, she forces me into thinking through things because she says, why?

0:21:21 - (Josh Bellieu): Why, Pops? And it's like, okay, I need to. And. And so you classic example of true integrative functional orthomolecular medicine, health practitioners, why? You were asking the question why? And weren't getting the answer there. You moved into acupuncture. Where'd you go next?

0:21:40 - (Mel Schottenstein): I'm sure I was the thorn of many of my doctor sides.

0:21:43 - (Josh Bellieu): No doubt.

0:21:45 - (Mel Schottenstein): I still even remember when I was five years old, the, the doctor wanted me to eat this certain cracker because he thought it would help with overall metabolism. And I said to him, all right, I said that why? And the doctor said, because it's good for you, that's why. And I said, no, I want to know why. And we went back and forth of why. And finally I told him I wasn't willing to Take it until he ate it.

0:22:12 - (Josh Bellieu): Oh, wow, that's great. Physician, heal thyself. Take your own medicine. Right?

0:22:17 - (Adam Payne): Wow.

0:22:18 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yes. So I think I've definitely, I'm sure in my chart notes somewhere at all these different hospitals, it's written patient pushes back and.

0:22:30 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah, you're blacklisted all over the place. Right.

0:22:33 - (Mel Schottenstein): I would not be surprised. Well, at one, what, two clinics, basically, I was really fired as a patient because I was asking too many questions. One clinic in particular, which I won't go into names just so it's one.

0:22:48 - (Josh Bellieu): Of the top ones in the world and people fly in from all over the world to go there. I won't mention it either, but yes, one of those.

0:22:55 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah, exactly, one of those. And the doctor said to me, well, Mel, I think you need to go visit the psychiatrist because that's probably what's. What's going on here.

0:23:05 - (Josh Bellieu): Last ditch effort. Here we go. Right?

0:23:07 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly.

0:23:08 - (Josh Bellieu): We'll throw them to the wolves.

0:23:10 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly. And I said, I said, a psychiatrist. I said, that's really interesting that you're mentioning that. I said, I've had this issue since birth. I said, if you're able to give me five studies showing infants manifesting psychiatric disorders, creating problems. I said, I'm really happy to go see the psychiatrist at that point.

0:23:31 - (Josh Bellieu): Wow. Talk about. I don't ever want to get on your bad side. You could shut me down with one sentence.

0:23:38 - (Adam Payne): I can imagine the backlash. Patient, non compliant, you know, goodbye.

0:23:44 - (Mel Schottenstein): Oh, yeah. And definitely I've got. I'm certain it's non compliance written with that One doctor in particular. They actually sent a letter back saying you're not willing to follow our program. And because of that, we. There's no way we can help you.

0:23:58 - (Josh Bellieu): Okay. Late teens, antioxidants, Coenzyme Q. All this self, self work that you're doing to find a way to get well. You do acupuncture. Where did it go from there?

0:24:11 - (Mel Schottenstein): So from there then I convinced my parents that we needed to have red light to have a most likely.

0:24:17 - (Josh Bellieu): You were an early adopter. Oh, my gosh.

0:24:20 - (Mel Schottenstein): So my parents said, all right, we'll try it out. They were willing to try whatever was needed for me to really be better. And so really by the time I was 18, I was able to get off majority of my medications. Not all of them at that point, but. But a huge difference from where I was. And at that point I was well enough that my parents actually decided that it was okay for us to even travel to Africa and for me to do research in Africa on Female genital mutilation.

0:24:52 - (Josh Bellieu): Oh, wow.

0:24:52 - (Adam Payne): Wow. That's not a light topic. Oh, my God.

0:24:57 - (Josh Bellieu): That is not a light topic. Did they take you there because you had a desire to do the study and they just said, let's go. I'm curious what their interest might have been in Africa or was it to satisfy your curiosity?

0:25:11 - (Adam Payne): Oh, no. Secretly the doctor knows. The doctor from that clinic that fired her. She was just had a revenge motto going here.

0:25:20 - (Josh Bellieu): Yes, yes, yes. Let's, let's, let's get her as far off this continent as possible.

0:25:25 - (Adam Payne): Anyway, motif continues. Yeah.

0:25:29 - (Josh Bellieu): Okay, so well enough to be able to travel with parents to Africa to further your studies. And that is part of your undergrad Harvard. Right.

0:25:38 - (Adam Payne): This was Nutraceuticals. Yeah, Nutraceuticals, red light therapy. And any modifications to your exercise or anything that you were doing.

0:25:48 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah, great question. And yeah, I found, well, most of the. Pretty much all of the gyms really didn't want me working out there with. With my. Because of my health unless I had a personal trainer. So my parents agreed to get me a personal trainer and many of the gyms thought it was a liability for me to be there too. So we also tried putting me in cardiac rehab and they didn't want to take me because I was too young.

0:26:16 - (Mel Schottenstein): So. So then my parents found a personal trainer willing to come to our house and exercise with me. I wasn't permitted to be a part of gym class at school because the school didn't want to take responsibility if I were to get sick. So I was locked out from a lot of these. Even. Even in terms of driving. I wasn't even allowed getting a driver's license because the state of Ohio said that because I couldn't.

0:26:45 - (Mel Schottenstein): Because I could get dizzy spells or I could have a moment where I felt sick with autonomic dysregulation. Then they thought it was too much of a danger for me to be in the car.

0:26:56 - (Josh Bellieu): So here you are as a teenager wanting to drive a car and you're being told that you can't do that. It sounds like your world, as much as a teenager would want inclusion into things, you're being pushed out of things like gyms, gym class, have to have a personal trainer at home, can't drive a car. Continue.

0:27:18 - (Mel Schottenstein): Absolutely. I was even pushed out of some of the other extracurricular activities because, like, the drama teacher felt that with me being absent so much, I couldn't be in drama class. So the school, fortunately, that I was at was very flexible and willing to come up with other options, but it was. But I knew I was blocked out still of a lot of these things. I had so many absences in school that by the time we looked at it, nine through 12, I ended up missing what was equivalent to one full year of school in terms of absences.

0:27:55 - (Adam Payne): And that was just because of energy crash. Not being able to. Was it your recovery after spending a day in school, or would you just get. Was this episodic?

0:28:06 - (Mel Schottenstein): Episodic, yeah.

0:28:08 - (Adam Payne): Okay.

0:28:08 - (Mel Schottenstein): And very unpredictable. It would get to the point where my blood pressure couldn't be regulated, and I was extremely dizzy. My heart rate was irregular. They wanted to call it pots. Neurocardiogenic Syncope, Give it a ton of different names, which, in the end, it just was autonomic dysregulation and.

0:28:28 - (Adam Payne): Wow.

0:28:29 - (Josh Bellieu): So. So before we move into some really fun QA with you regarding mitochondria and your approach to cancer therapy and stuff, you're so much better today, right?

0:28:42 - (Adam Payne): Yeah. Yeah.

0:28:43 - (Josh Bellieu): So what were. What were some of these unique other epiphanies that you had to move from? You know, this. This. This dysautonomic situation where they're talking about it being, you know, post. Post orthotacardial syndrome and all these other labels they're trying to throw at you? What were some of the revelations along the way? Because today you're actually a very different person than you were.

0:29:09 - (Adam Payne): Yeah. I feel like we're waiting for the punchline from a. A very. One of the best jokes of the century, which is that you can't regenerate mitochondria. You have figured it out for yourself. So it's beyond what we've talked about so far. What are we missing, doc?

0:29:30 - (Mel Schottenstein): So between the exercise, between doing these different supplements, changing my diet, adding acupuncture, in doing light therapy, all of those were major things that started bringing. Enabling me to start turning around. Wasn't 100% by the time I graduated high school so much that my mom actually traveled with me to college. The deal that her and I made was that we had to fly home each weekend because my sister and dad were still back home in Cincinnati.

0:30:03 - (Mel Schottenstein): And, you know, that's okay. I was happy to do that, to be able to go where I. Where I wanted to go to school.

0:30:10 - (Adam Payne): And that was at Harvard. So you'd be at Harvard Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you and your mom would fly back for the weekend.

0:30:18 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yep.

0:30:18 - (Adam Payne): And then it was grueling.

0:30:21 - (Josh Bellieu): It was. I want to shake your mom and your family's hand and hug your sister's neck. That's incredible. What commitment. It's amazing.

0:30:29 - (Adam Payne): But. And so it was really as simple as the combination of all those things allowed your body to kickstart, making more mitochondria. And so you. So you would feel better and better over time.

0:30:43 - (Mel Schottenstein): Absolutely.

0:30:44 - (Adam Payne): Until your cells got to a saturation.

0:30:48 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly. And then by the time I got into college, I started learning about IB Therapy. There were more options over in Boston than what I had over back in Ohio. Learned about that and started incorporating that. Continued on with the exercise. Started seeing things like ewats and exercising with oxygen.

0:31:08 - (Adam Payne): Oh, yeah.

0:31:09 - (Mel Schottenstein): So oxygenating therapy started, adding those in that became very powerful.

0:31:14 - (Adam Payne): The more ozones.

0:31:17 - (Josh Bellieu): Hyperbaric.

0:31:18 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly.

0:31:18 - (Josh Bellieu): Okay.

0:31:19 - (Mel Schottenstein): And adding the oxygenating therapies for me was one of the biggest game changers.

0:31:24 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah.

0:31:24 - (Adam Payne): Really. So tell us a little bit about that and what it is and how it's. How it's actually implemented.

0:31:33 - (Mel Schottenstein): Sure. So what I did is a combination of hyperbaric oxygen Ewan exercise with oxygen, and then did some ozone therapies. Didn't do all of them on the same day too much, but would try to do hyperbaric about twice a week. We try to do E What, three times a week since that.

0:31:52 - (Adam Payne): So what does E. What stand for?

0:31:55 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exercise with oxygen therapy.

0:31:56 - (Adam Payne): Oh, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Yep.

0:31:58 - (Mel Schottenstein): And I did it three times a week for 15 minutes, based on the research from Van Arden. And noticed that in his research, he found that by doing just even the 15 minutes was enough to start enhancing metabolic function in the body.

0:32:15 - (Josh Bellieu): Excellent. Fifteen minutes three times a week. Incredible.

0:32:20 - (Adam Payne): And is that just with supplemental oxygen attached to you with a. With a tank.

0:32:25 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly.

0:32:26 - (Josh Bellieu): Wow. That's really. Adam.

0:32:29 - (Adam Payne): I want to do that.

0:32:30 - (Josh Bellieu): Yeah, I bet you I should do. Okay, well, we're gonna. I've got to give your contact info again to people who are probably wiping their chins right now with your story and some of the cool things you've mentioned that are practical and things that people can engage in even if they don't have a whole lot of money, which is awesome. You can reach out to Dr. Mel Melinda Schottenstein there at our Scottsdale clinic in Arizona. Phone number 4817-8048-0048-0781-4800.

0:33:09 - (Josh Bellieu): And then you can contact her by just popping on their website. They've got a contact form and a way you can get a hold of them. Mitogenesis Health. That's M I, T, O G, E, N E, S, I, S, dot H, E, a, L, T, H and Let's. I want to know a little bit because I've been being educated by the man to the left of me, Melinda, as it relates to the mitochondria in the last especially year, because he's taken a deep dive and is going deeper because of some ingredients that we're looking at with our patented technology.

0:33:50 - (Josh Bellieu): Can you, for the layman in the room, explain the role of mitochondria as it relates to overall health? And then why does mitochondrial dysfunctionally to disease?

0:34:02 - (Mel Schottenstein): Sure. So mitochondria is, I think the most basic way to look at it is it's our source of energy. It does a lot more than that, but that really is one of the number one things. It also does affect the expression of various genes inside our body. But number one is we need it to survive in terms of energy. When you're not producing enough, you don't have enough energy and you don't regulate any of your body functions as well as they should be regulated.

0:34:32 - (Mel Schottenstein): So maybe your heart's not beating the way it should be beating. Maybe your nervous system is getting the wrong signals. It GI system. Maybe it's not processing and digesting. It's. I mean, any number of things can be affected. Just depends on where the mitochondria are dysfunctional or if it's dysfunctional in the whole body, which in many cases I see at the clinic with people coming in where it's dysfunctional in their entire body in terms of chronic conditions, variety of chronic conditions, whether it's a virus pathogen that people have been exposed to of some sort or it's cancer.

0:35:10 - (Mel Schottenstein): I definitely see people getting a lot of symptoms of mitochondrial dysfunction. And where their mitochondria have likely decreased in number and they're not producing the level of energy, they have large amounts of reactive oxygen species, inflammation in their system. And so that's. That's kind of what.

0:35:32 - (Adam Payne): What I see is it a truism that as we age, our cells produce less and less mitochondria without any kind of outside influence.

0:35:46 - (Mel Schottenstein): I would say that if we're basing that on research, I do think that's true. But I think with the caveat with that would be we can adjust the functionality of our body and make it more metabolically efficient and just overall enhance the functionality, enhance our ability to produce mitochondria, that maybe we're actually producing more than what we were prior. And I would argue that I'm definitely producing more now than what I was as a child just because of my patients.

0:36:17 - (Adam Payne): Yeah, I think this, the tie in Dr. Mel is really. I look at mitochondrial dysfunction as one of the. The core reasons for most diseases. Right. We were on a shtick and we've been on a shtick for a while. I don't know if you know, Dr. Shailesh Kaushal out of Florida, He's a fellow of the American College of Nutrition and he's one of those key opinion leaders that hangs out with other key opinion leaders. He's a retinal surgeon.

0:36:51 - (Adam Payne): But we interviewed him one of our first interviews, like years ago. We asked him, you know, what percentage of human disease is associated with inflammation? And I was thinking, you know, 80%, 90%, maybe probably closer to 80. And he's like, it's 99% in this beautiful Southern Indian accent that was sharing with us. And I've more. Over time, I come to believe that and understand it. But I think what's even more primary to a swath of suffering that the human experience has is because of mitochondrial dysfunction.

0:37:35 - (Mel Schottenstein): I agree.

0:37:36 - (Adam Payne): And those connections are so important to understand medically, especially if people are dealing with chronic illness, because fixing the mitochondria is not necessarily, you know, the top checkbox answer that allopathic medicine is not even going to think about it. But as a naturopath, as a functional, in the functional area, I think it's becoming more and more primary.

0:38:03 - (Josh Bellieu): So I'm going to be my three and a half year old granddaughter for a minute with this next question. Sure. It's a why question. What are the primary factors that contribute to mitochondrial dysfunction? And I bet a whole lot of our viewers are going to go, oh, yeah, people have been telling me, I needed to. So what are some of the contributing factors to mitochondrial dysfunction?

0:38:28 - (Mel Schottenstein): I think most of it is epigenetic or environmental exposure. I think that's actually majority of it. And I would say that probably 99% of the people I see at the clinic, it's not because they were born with a dysfunction, it's because it's developed over time from whatever exposure they've had. And most common exposures that I see that are causing it are toxic chemical exposures, heavy metal exposures, EMF vaccination, Covid, other viruses.

0:39:01 - (Mel Schottenstein): Those are some of the most common that I see.

0:39:05 - (Josh Bellieu): Wow.

0:39:07 - (Adam Payne): So mitochondria are delicate. They can be damaged if we don't take care of them. Most of them, they're inside the cytoplasm of our cell. Right. And they're spread out. And literally, like Dr. Mel was saying, these, these are the organs inside of our cells that create ATP, which is the energy of the cell.

0:39:30 - (Josh Bellieu): So I want to make a distinction because you used the word epigenetic, and I don't even think I knew what that word meant until a couple years ago, this guy. But when people hear that, they probably immediately go, oh, yeah, at birth, you know, genetically predisposed. But when you're talking epigenetic signaling, you're actually talking about something that an individual can actually take control over and do things within the body to help stimulate epigenetic signals. Is that correct?

0:40:00 - (Mel Schottenstein): Absolutely.

0:40:01 - (Josh Bellieu): Okay.

0:40:02 - (Mel Schottenstein): There's. There's a lot of power in. In your hands once. Once we know the source, it's definitely something where you people. It's not where people don't have any type of control. I feel like that's a double negative. But they have control. Let me just rephrase it. That way, people have power. It's just a matter of figuring out what it is that you've been exposed to. And most of the time, I find that that is the biggest thing that's been overlooked.

0:40:31 - (Adam Payne): Interesting.

0:40:32 - (Mel Schottenstein): I'll be doing a history with the person, and first thing I hear is, okay, there's a dental issue that's going on. They have, like, a root canal or cavitation. They have. Maybe they've had a history of working on, you know, doing. Drilling somewhere and been exposed to both metals and chemicals. You know, maybe they work in a hair salon. And now there's all those chemicals they've been exposed to. It's. You know, it's everyday people and their regular exposure.

0:41:01 - (Mel Schottenstein): I had one family that I worked with, they were exposed to basically a 5G cell tower. And right after the exposure to that, the whole family developed problems.

0:41:11 - (Adam Payne): Wow.

0:41:12 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah. It just activated everything that was maybe dormant, or maybe it wasn't even such a level of toxicity that the body was overwhelmed by it. But the 5G tower, boom. After that was built.

0:41:25 - (Adam Payne): So. So the energy from the tower was somehow res. Passing energetics in a negative way onto the family.

0:41:33 - (Mel Schottenstein): Absolutely. So it's. It just was too coincidental how. How everything manifested within five months after that was built.

0:41:41 - (Adam Payne): Oh, my God.

0:41:42 - (Josh Bellieu): No kidding.

0:41:43 - (Adam Payne): So did they move away and things got better?

0:41:45 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah, this. They. They moved away right after we were. We met and talked about everything. They. They moved completely to a different house.

0:41:53 - (Adam Payne): That's awesome.

0:41:54 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah. So. But not everyone has to have that extreme of a fix. Most of the time. It's. It's something where we're having to remove the exposure. And not only just remove the exposure, but remove whatever it is the toxin inside their body. And then as soon as we get that out, that's where we're seeing like leaps and bounds improvement. It's, that's, that's so remove.

0:42:18 - (Josh Bellieu): So removing the offender is literally that core why that you're talking about and in this instance, in this example of this family or those that have cavitations, root canals, still have amalgam fillings in their teeth, all those types of things.

0:42:35 - (Adam Payne): Yeah, I mean mold exposure in the home. A lot of people become nose blind to the musty odor in their house and they just think that's the way it's always going to be and not realize that it's. They're breathing in toxin every moment.

0:42:47 - (Josh Bellieu): Is there a short, is there a short list? Because some people are not going to immediately go to a practitioner like you get identified with the fact that they have heavy metal toxicity in their body or there's been environmental exposures at another level outside of heavy metals. Do you have kind of a short list for those individuals that maybe they're not ready to see you? But what are some lifestyle changes, some practical things they can do even if they're currently haven't removed the offender from their life? What are, what's the short list of some things they can do?

0:43:23 - (Josh Bellieu): Lifestyle change wise to begin to start their health journey. Take that first couple of steps.

0:43:28 - (Mel Schottenstein): That's a great question. I think the number one thing I would say is eliminate pesticide. I have so many people that come in, they're exposed to glyphosate, their levels are off the charts and that, that is definitely something that impacts many of the people I see.

0:43:47 - (Josh Bellieu): I have a weed infested lawn now because I've been boycotting my neighbors have beautiful lawns.

0:43:56 - (Adam Payne): Beautiful weed filled lawn.

0:43:57 - (Josh Bellieu): Yes. It's obviously not blowing onto my lawn which is, which is nice but I know it blowing everywhere in the air. People, I mean I understand that people are picking this stuff up that don't live anywhere near glyphosate is they're testing pregnant women. You know, they're testing mothers and finding 100 different toxins that they should have never seemingly been exposed to the way they grew up or where they lived. It's exactly, it's remarkable.

0:44:28 - (Adam Payne): So help us understand because we. The glyphate question has been everywhere else in the world except the United States and maybe some of the friends of the United States had banned glyphate. What is it doing to the human body or what deleterious effects are you seeing? Dr. Mill help us put to bed here? That Question. For people that are saying, ah, it's just a bunch of.

0:44:56 - (Mel Schottenstein): I would say that, I mean if we're looking at, on like a gross scale, I would say I'm seeing a lot of blood based cancers with people who have high glyphosate exposure and pretty much toxic chemicals in general. That's the number one most common thing I see in a lot of the blood based cancers.

0:45:14 - (Adam Payne): But as so in association with exposure to that.

0:45:17 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah, yeah, exactly. I will see also a lot of the chemical based exposures with glyphosate, also with people who have mold exposure. And I've seen it with some of the people with Lyme and I think that's partially because the body is having such a hard time detoxifying.

0:45:34 - (Adam Payne): Right.

0:45:35 - (Mel Schottenstein): Many of the exposures that they have, I see it as a dysfunction in terms of oxidative phosphorylation. So in terms of electron transport chain, I see it blocking that, blocking our ability to actually produce ATP over time. I see people who come in who've had substantial exposure, their energy levels are depleted when they come in are. They're tanked, you know, they, they can't do much at all. And they, they're like, I, I used to be able to do this, but now today I have to just sit on the couch.

0:46:11 - (Josh Bellieu): Are you seeing that at a younger and younger age too?

0:46:14 - (Mel Schottenstein): Oh yeah, I see. I would say most of my population now is younger than what it was even three years ago.

0:46:21 - (Adam Payne): Wow.

0:46:22 - (Josh Bellieu): Heartbreak.

0:46:23 - (Adam Payne): So this. So glyphosate is really affecting electron transport chain, which limits directly the amount of ATP that can be produced in the body. Is it be. Where is it a forever impact on that mitochondria? Does the glyphosate or if you, if we deposit, if we get out, if we get glyphosate out of the cell somehow, how do you recover from exposure?

0:46:56 - (Mel Schottenstein): So it's, there's, there are some treatments. I would say the most common thing that I've been doing is glutathione.

0:47:05 - (Adam Payne): Interesting.

0:47:06 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah, that's. But that's not the only thing. I'll, I'll use other things to help with the people detox, but so you know, coffee, enemas, anything to help with the detox pathways within the body.

0:47:19 - (Adam Payne): But so upregulating phase one detoxification.

0:47:22 - (Mel Schottenstein): Exactly, yeah.

0:47:24 - (Adam Payne): Interesting.

0:47:25 - (Josh Bellieu): Excellent. Listen, if you'd like to get in touch with Dr. Mel, you can reach her at 480-781-4800. That's the Mitogenesis Clinic there in Scottsdale. 4807-81-4800 and then of course, great website Mitogenesis Health. M I T O G E N E S I S dot Health. Hey everyone, if you love what we're doing, this is Ultralife Today. You can find us wherever you like to find your podcasts. You can also find us@untra today.com if you want to learn about the unique patented technology we employ to be able to take plant bioactives and get them in the bloodstream at exponential levels.

0:48:13 - (Josh Bellieu): And we can't wait to talk to you on future episodes as well. But we're going to go ahead and continue here and get into some treatment philosophy with Dr. Mel. And also she has a very thriving patient population that is dealing with the cancer journey as so many people are now. And so we want to dive into that.

0:48:36 - (Adam Payne): And I'm, can I, can I, can I say cancer epidemic at this point?

0:48:40 - (Josh Bellieu): I think so. I mean, let's, let's ask the doctor. What do you think, Mel?

0:48:45 - (Mel Schottenstein): I definitely think so. I think that, I mean, now it's, I think the statistics are somewhere between one and two and one and three individuals. So it's a lot of people and it's younger and younger. I think that's the most startling thing I see is the number of young people that are coming in.

0:49:05 - (Josh Bellieu): Do any of us know anybody right now that literally falls out of our almost nuclear or falls within our nuclear circle that has not been affected? I can't, I don't know anybody these days that it's either brother, sister, father, mother or grandparent. And oftentimes, as you say, this younger population of people that just out of left field and I, I know we could get ourselves kicked off of a lot of things if we started going down that road and talking about certain things. But you have a, you have some answers for people. There is hope for people.

0:49:41 - (Josh Bellieu): And you see this. Can you give us, can you, can you take a moment to talk about your treatment philosophy as it relates to someone maybe that comes in and says, what's going on with me? And then all of a sudden you come back with a, the dire, you know, the dire diagnosis.

0:50:01 - (Adam Payne): I can imagine everybody gets almost the same mind map on a piece of paper saying, here's what, here's what's really going on and here's what we're going to do to get you to a place of wellness. So what do you, what's your approach, Doc?

0:50:18 - (Mel Schottenstein): Sure. So with everybody that I sit down with, first thing I want to do is find out a thorough history of what they've been exposed to through their entire life and or even if their parents have had a really major exposure to something because sometimes I've actually even seen that play a role for some of the people, depending on what it is the exposure was. And when I say exposures, it may be, you know, some sort of environmental toxin.

0:50:46 - (Mel Schottenstein): It might even be emotional stress. It's toxins are in many forms. I think it's not simply were you exposed to this pesticide? It could also be is your job so stressful that it's basically killing you? I think it's also the, you know, how's your gut health doing? It's what are you eating? What are you exposing yourself to through food? And sometimes I actually see it where people are trying to do the right thing and they're actually going the opposite direction because they're doing too much too.

0:51:20 - (Adam Payne): Oh, interesting.

0:51:21 - (Mel Schottenstein): Yeah.

0:51:22 - (Adam Payne): So, so, so you, you really hope that the Metabolic Terrain Institute of Health, which is one of the fellowships you finished, their approach is saying, well, cancer doesn't just happen on the background of, of a normal healthy life or a well balanced metabolic terrain, as they coin. We're going to go in and look at on what metabolic terrain did this cancer emerge that contributed to the cancer's emergence?

0:51:56 - (Adam Payne): Because we not only want to get rid of the cancer, but if we heal the terrain, then we are going to help the body not manifest cancer anymore.

0:52:07 - (Josh Bellieu): Okay. If you've been listening to Dr. Melinda Schottenstein, we call her Dr. Mel. She's our friend, new friend to us. You can reach out to Mitogenesis Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona at 480-781-4800. That's 480-781-4800 or you can go to her website to learn more about the interesting approach that she has for cancer, for Lyme, for mold, for heavy metal and other types of things that are really environmental struggles these days for people.

0:52:44 - (Josh Bellieu): Mitogenesis health. That's M I T O G E N E S I S dot health H E A L T H Mel, I know we're going to have you back. Thank you for coming on.