EP : 110 Rethinking Aging: Precision Nutrition, Hormones, And The Five Pillars

What if the secret to aging well isn’t found in a clinic drip or a flashy device, but in your kitchen, your breath, and your calendar? We sit down with Dr. Rhea, a UK-trained GP turned longevity and functional medicine specialist in Dubai, to map a clear path to real health span. She shows how small, smart changes—like cooking apples into gut-healing pectin, fermenting foods to reshape the microbiome, and eating for blood sugar stability—outperform the trends everyone talks about.

Beyond food, we center the five pillars: emotional health, sleep, exercise, nutrition, and connection. Learn how breath work, humming, and cold exposure train the vagus nerve and lift HRV; why device-free windows restore presence at home; and how movement should shift from two hard sessions to frequent low-intensity motion inspired by blue zones. We also separate evidence from hype on red light therapy, NAD IVs, peptides, and GLP-1 drugs, offering safer, steadier alternatives like vetted sublingual NMN, balanced meals, post-meal walks, and short-term CGMs to expose hidden glucose spikes. For city living, we cover air quality, filtration, AC cleaning, and mold risks that quietly erode cognition and immunity. We close with a simple but powerful challenge: learn a few reliable dishes, stock your space for success, and set boundaries that protect your energy. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a science-backed reset, and leave a review to help more people find their way to better health span.

Transcript

Meet Dr. Rhea And Her Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Welcome back to another episode of the Detached Podcast. Recently, I've been really trying to unpack the longevity, the health and wellness industry with some of the most professional people who are in the industry. And I've found lovely Dr. Rhea. Can you fully introduce exactly what you do right now? Because I know since I've spoken to you, you've so many little nuggets of information and such experience that I would love to share on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Well, thank you so much for having me here, Sophia. I'm really looking forward to chatting with you and love seeing your own journey in longevity and how well you're doing yourself. So that's really great. So for me, my background is general practice. I um worked and studied in the UK, and um through COVID medicine, I shifted into a longevity approach. So I work in longevity medicine, functional medicine, I have a background in nutrition. I just finished my master's and about to start my PhD, which is really exciting because I feel like food and functional food is so incredible and so exciting. Um that's where I'm going to be taking my research a bit further. I'm a mum to a three-year-old and um just trying to juggle everything and whilst enjoying life in Dubai.

Functional Foods And The Apple Pectin Trick

SPEAKER_01 1:16

That's a lot to juggle. So let's like maybe peel this back one layer at a time. When you just mentioned their functional nutrition, what does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

So it's taking a normal food but elevating it. So, for example, if you take an apple, and you know this is a famous phrase, an apple a day keeps the doctor away. There is a special trick that can help with your gut barrier. So if you cook that apple to make it an apple sauce, so I mean you can add herbs and like spices and you know, like a little bit of lemon, a little bit of honey if you want to. But you cook that apple for 20 to 30 minutes, you release a compound called pectin. And pectin is super, super helpful for your gut barrier lining. So, you know, when people have infections, you know, like GI infections, and you're told to have like a bit of apple sauce, it really helps. But right now we have so many people with inflamed guts daily, right? So this is a great support for barrier function. So that's like one thing, like tweaking a food or you know, fermenting buckwheat to release more innostols with helps with like insulin regulation. So um fermenting foods to me is also functional foods as well. Um, that's really helpful with just building the gut further.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Is there any other kind of foods that you can alter in a way that will help the microbiome?

Fermentation, SIBO, And Gut Terrain

SPEAKER_02 2:29

So fermenting is one amazing way, so um, and that's something that we don't tend to eat so much. Like our ancestors used to eat so much fermented food, and that was incredible because it didn't just give good microbes. Um, and I think the rhetoric right now, like you know, kombucha and kimchi and all of that is like really good probiotics, which it is, but the most amazing thing about it is it actually changes the environment of your gut, it acidifies it, so it actually creates an environment where all these bugs don't last as much. So, right now we have what we call a lot of SIBO, a lot of IBS people having um the wrong bugs in the gut, you know, the wrong balance. But changing the environment, so changing the actual terrain of the gut actually really helps with um, you know, balancing that all out. So fermented foods is a great place to start. So even like yogurt, kefir, all of these things, even cheeses are fermented foods as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

What are some of the things that can interfere with our microbiome?

SPEAKER_02 3:25

So stress, alcohol, and mainly ultraporous foods. And people eat so many ultrapostas foods and they don't realize what they're eating. I mean, I'll have clients that will so I don't, I used to, when I take clients on, I like to know about their nutrition. So I tell them, give me photos of what you eat for the f for the next three days. Um I want two weekdays and one weekend, and not like what do you eat, because people tend to like over-exaggerate the good and under exaggerate um, you know, the bad. So if you just send pictures, you actually see what they're eating. Something like a coffee creamer or a healthy bar of um protein bar, they always see like the front, which is marketing, um, gluten-free, healthy, this, that, but then they don't flip it over to the back. Then you see the list of emulsifiers and the list of thickeners and these preservatives, and that alters the gut so much. So, ultra-processed foods I feel like is such a big problem because we live in worlds where we need a lot of convenience. And when you're just putting that into your system and you're not eating real food, a lot of damage does happen.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

How much of processed foods can we get away with on a daily basis?

The Hidden Toll Of Ultra-Processed Foods

SPEAKER_02 4:32

I like to say none. Well, some form of processing is okay, right? Um, but ultra processing, like ingredients you can't find in your own kitchen. So I'm quite strict with my family, like even with my daughter. So I'll make a homemade ice cream. Ice cream isn't evil, but like if you have an ice cream that you'll get from a shop, sometimes there's no like milk in it. It's just emulsifiers and thickeners. So you're just eating chemicals. And that may seem neutral, but it's telling your body very, very different signals, and it's causing a lot of inflammation, uh, causing autoimmune disease, all these other things. Um, and it compiles over a long period of time. So, all these sources, all these packaged foods, um, you know, anything ultra-processed, if you can try and not keep it in your home, at least you're less likely to eat it.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

I think we're going through such a different era now because I think there were stages where we had Slimming World, we had Weight Watchers, and often some of these kind of diet plans that you would see that would have ultra-processed foods because it was low calorie, low calorie and high protein. How do we change the mindset of these types of people that have gone from learning okay, it's just calories in and it's not quality? How do we unlearn that?

Unlearning Low-Fat Dogma

SPEAKER_02 5:50

It's such an amazing question, and it's something I battle with daily, especially women in their current 60s, 50s, 60s, because these are the ladies that went through the Weight Watches phase, right? So fat was thought of to be the worst thing. Low fat diet, low fat diet, low fat diet. And looking at the number and the scale, that was what the fixation was, and rather than eating nutrient density. So I had a patient recently who avoids fat like the plague. She won't have olive oil, which is actually really, really helpful. Like extra virgin olive oil is actually a longevity food. She's um, she's just only um manages to like everything, everything low fat. Um, I did genetic testing on her, which shows that she actually um doesn't suit a low-fat diet. She actually suits a low carbohydrate diet. And trying to sort of explain that to her, like it's so difficult because it's it's the term fat is what I think is the problem as well. Um technically it's lipids, you know, from a medical point of view, but like that term fat, like a lot of women just associate that with gaining fat. And they think if you eat fat, you're just gonna gain it. And you don't actually think about the whole insulin pathway. So what I try and do is like I try and draw out things and say, this is when you eat a meal and you eat a lot of sugar, you get the spike here. When you get the spike, you release insulin. Insulin is a growth hormone, so it builds muscle, but it builds fat, right? So we're trying to think about building versus breaking down. So trying to do these little things, like trying to let go of like just focusing on macros so much and eating more nutrient-dense foods is kind of my go-to. Um, but little bits of education, I mean, you tell a lady in her 60s that what you've been doing for the last how many years is wrong, um, she will look at you a little bit like you don't know much, you're too young, you've not gone through menopause and all of this. That um sympathetic science says different things, right?

What Makes A Longevity Food

SPEAKER_01 7:41

You mentioned the word longevity food, that you know, olive oil is a longevity food. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 7:47

So it's really helpful with um what I like to use the term health span um when I talk about longevity. So health span is of course the years you live without disease. And without the four main diseases that are the chronic diseases that kind of cripple our societies today. So cardiovascular disease, uh, metabolic dysfunction like type 2 diabetes, cancer, and um neurogen degenerative disease. So foods that help stabilize your blood sugar, that you know, support the way that your body handles different hormones and also supports your gut, I like to think is um longevity foods. So like fermented foods, extravagant olive oil, high polyphenol foods, things like green tea or blueberries, um, they all have these little magic compounds that come into our system and tell our body really positive messages.

Smart Testing: Microbiome Overload Avoidance

SPEAKER_01 8:38

So you just mentioned genetic testing as well and the conversation that we just had before. Where does one begin when it comes to testing, when it comes to nutrition, where do you think they should start? What type of test should they do?

Flares, Perimenopause, And The Gut

SPEAKER_02 8:51

So I think it's depending on how much the person wants to know. Me as a physician, I love all the data in the world, so I'd love to do as many tests as possible. But I've learned through clinical practice, too much information can also be quite crippling for people. If you give them, make them do so much information and give them this really long protocol, they're like, whoa, this is too much, and then they don't actually take anything out of it. So it's kind of like what sort of bite size you want to do. Um or if the person is quite proficient in science and they really want to do a little bit more, um, or if there's a lot of family history about stuff, then we can go and look at that sort of stuff. But in terms of nutrition, I think a microbiome test is quite important, like you know, looking at symptoms and seeing how we can sort of work on that microbiome. So I think that's super helpful. More so than you know, the generic tests that are quite commonly available right now. Like, do you respond to fat better? Do you respond to carb better? Like, although we get some information from that, like I like to know what is really clinically actionable, right? So, with a microbiome test, um, if you do a GI map, it'll look at something like called zonulin, which shows how well your gut barrier is, or look at something like beta glucaronidase, which shows how your body metabolizes estrogen. So, if you're somebody who has fibroids or really painful periods, is there something going on there? So, what can we do to support that through, you know, a herb or eating more broccoli, which is really helpful for that, you know, beta glucaronidase pathway. Um, so understanding that and matching that with symptoms, I feel is like a very good starting point. And um, we can make these changes and hopefully test again and see things improve because there might be an imbalance of gut bacteria, some of the bad rather than the good. Um, or there might be something like an overgrowth of yeast. Is there something we actually have to treat? Because, for example, if there's an overgrowth of yeast, you're not absorbing all your great nutrients, you're not absorbing your your um vitamin, like if you're taking a multivitamin. So, what's actually going on? Like, I like to say um when somebody comes in with diabetes and um you and our doctor would take a blood test, right? And look at your blood sugar and then give insulin and then check it again, right? So if you're treating the gut, you kind of want to do the same thing, uh, like matching the interventions with the investigations and creating like a precision plan like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Do you think people go through a phase where maybe their gut barriers has taken on so much like processed foods, just managed and it's gotten away with it for such a long time that it comes a period where there's a build-up where it's like, look, I've had enough and then they have massive flares. Is that something that you see regularly? I do.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Um, and also when you're younger, you can get away with things a lot more. Absolutely. Um, I tend to see a lot of these changes start to happen during perimenopause and menopause with women because there's a couple of other factors that are contributing right now. Your hormones are kind of coming out of sync and they might not be supporting you as well as they did previously, or a period of stress, or moving to a different country, like that sort of kind of can trigger it. Um, and somebody said, Oh, I've always eaten this way and I've always been fine, and they've kind of just gotten away with it. But um, actually, unfortunately, I feel like as the years progress, the food gets worse and worse, and the quality gets worse and worse, which is quite worrying. Um, but then it does get to a stage where things do flare up, and um, a lot of people, you know, they'll have good bloods, good bloods, good blood, but they're not really looking deeper, so they're not really optimizing like from the ground up.

Bad Periods, DUTCH Testing, And Genes

SPEAKER_01 12:16

So you mentioned about like bad periods. I feel like females don't get enough knowledge to back okay, the menstrual cycle, perimenopause, menopause. Um, could you give some information as to what causes a bad period? What can we look out for? Is there any testing that we can do? Is there any supplements that you recommend?

Menopause Research And Rapamycin

SPEAKER_02 12:37

So it's a great um space to look into. And um, I think a lot of women in their 20s will be doing okay, and then once they start to get to their 30s, um, you know, some sort of hormonal shifts happen. So um looking at everything in general, I think it's important to always look at the symptoms first. And um then we've the first line is just doing general blood tests, but that doesn't always capture everything very clearly. So we do another thing called dried um urine uh hormone testing. So basically, you take um these little blots of paper and you pee on them um every day in the morning for a month. So that kind of shows your life's little cycle of how does your estrogen go up and down, how does the progesterone go up and down, and how is it actually breaking down? Is there some sort of pathway barrier and it's not breaking down very well? If that's the case, like for example, with estrogen, it goes through four different parts. There's two positive parts and then there's two negative parts. If you're genetically predisposed to go through one of the other parts, it's more likely to have things like breast cancer, uh, fibroid buildup, and all that. So you actually see like women who have fibroids, their mums had fibroids. So breast cancer, of course, there's it's multifactorial, but one of these things run in the family. But if you know which gene is not working as well, you can do things like give some specific supplementation to really help with that, as well as like lifestyle changes in terms of stress and diet. And you see amazing things. Like last year I had um a patient who had severe, severe fibroids, and um she just wanted to go and have a hysterectomy. And I said, no, no, let's just do this and let's um let's put you on a new pathway. So I gave her a couple of supplements, but the main thing is I gave her a lot of cruciferous vegetables because that was really helpful from the testing I did with her. So I said, every Monday you get a big head of broccoli, a big head of cauliflower, and a big head of cabbage, and I want you to finish it by Friday. The weekend you can take off and eat a few different things. And um, within a couple of months that they just completely went. She, I mean, she looked at me like you're crazy. Like, how can I eat this stuff and it'll make a difference? But according to her pathways, it was something that could work. And of course, it's not always um um a straightforward path. There may be other contributing factors, but you know, understanding a bit more about genetics and understanding a bit more about these hormonal curves is really helpful. What can your genetics tell you? So, your genetics can tell you your risk uh of um certain diseases, and um what I like to do in terms of specifically hormonal risks, um, it's really the estrogen pathways I like to look at. Um, as I mentioned, there's the four different pathways. And um, if you're going through like pathway three or pathway four, um, we can see there's more of a likelihood of proliferation. When there's proliferation, there's growth. Those growths are not always positive, they can be like in the growth of a fibroid, in the growth of like a lump, breast cancer-wise, right? So um, although we can't completely override our genetics, um, it's super multifactorial, and there's a lot we can do to support.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Has there been anything that you've found research in recently to do with the menopause or in prairie menopause that's been quite interesting to you? Because I know there's a lot more data and testing that's happened recently, especially in the US recently, about uh menopause. And I think it was like I did hear it was Dr. Vonda right. She'd mentioned I think it was 7% of nurses only learn about menopause, which is crazy.

Health Span Versus Lifespan

SPEAKER_02 16:00

It's actually crazy. I barely got any medical menopause education in medical school. So everything I learned was actually through my functional medicine and like longevity work. But one really interesting thing that's happening in the research space is basically uh premature ovarian failure. So when people um when ladies go through um menopause in their 30s, um it tends to happen like mums and daughters, like it's genetically related, and we don't always know exactly what's happening with that. There's one drug called rapamycin that they're looking at at the moment. So there's a trial happening at the moment in Colombia where they're doing um trials of giving rapa on ladies who have premature ovarian insufficiency and seeing whether this can bring their periods back and bring back like ovarian regenesis and like bring back life to their ovaries, which is super exciting. We don't have much of the data yet, but I feel like that space is so exciting because um now is exciting and quite scary at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Because do you think maybe females are gonna start having babies when they're like 70, 80 years of age? Are we rejuvenated from that stage?

The Five Pillars Of Longevity

SPEAKER_02 17:06

I don't think as much as that, but I think You never know. We're able to give a bit more fertility support to ladies in their 40s. Um, I think that's quite amazing because if we look at our lives, for example, like we're so such career-oriented people, and you know, a lot of people put off having children, put off having children, um, want to be financially stable in a world that's really challenging, you know, to make ends meet, um, to be able to have that security, to give your child that best life, to finish your education, to do all of this stuff. You put this off, off, off, and then you have like this dramatic fall in ovarian function at 35. Like you see the graph, like from 30, it goes down, it goes down, and 35 is like poop. So unfortunately, a lot of ladies after 35 struggle, and it's quite challenging because life situations and circumstances, like, what if you haven't met your partner till your late 30s or your 40s, you know? Um, rather than rushing in to meet somebody and you're like just be with somebody in your 20s, just in the case, like I just want to start making babies, and you know, that mindset, um, finding that right person and finding that right companion and not feeling like you have that biological clock. I think that's really powerful if we have that ability to have a little bit longer. I mean, we're all living longer, so why can't we have reproduction for a little bit longer?

SPEAKER_01 18:23

So I know we're living longer. What's your thoughts on the quality of life in that like length that we've been given?

Training The Vagus Nerve

SPEAKER_02 18:31

I think um that's a most a super important question because right now um medicine has extended um lifespan a lot, but not health span as much. And I think this is where the new um era of longevity medicine comes in. Because um, last decade we had vaccines and um infection control and you know surgery, which allowed people to survive things like pneumonia or like a massive accident, and that allowed people to continue to live a lot longer because back in the day people would die in childhood because they'd have all these infections and stuff, like vaccination, like transformed um humanity as we know it. But it's not helped us with the causes of death today, which is those four diseases I spoke about, like metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, because people are living longer and having these medications just extend, extend, extend. But is it really extending their quality of life? And if you're not practicing longevity medicine, like looking after the five pillars, your emotional health, um, your sleep, your exercise, your nutrition, and your connection, um, community and connection, like these are really important baseline things to really work on to optimize your health span, um trying to avoid the risk of age-related disease.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Let's unpack the pillars. When you talk about emotional health, what do you mean by that?

Wearables, Data, And What Matters

SPEAKER_02 19:50

I think a lot of people come to me and ask me, you know, what's the most important thing about longevity medicine? And I think emotional health is the most important. You know, if you're not happy, whether it's your job, whether it's your partner, whether it's you're just not managing to deal with your anxiety because you've got a mental health challenge, or you're just not managing to deal with stress very well and every day is challenging. I don't feel like that's a great way to live, right? We want to do as much as we can to build that emotional resilience. And the world we live in today is so fast-paced. It's taking away a lot of those things that ground us, like waking up in the morning, putting your feet, like grounding your feet and having that morning light, or you know, spending time in the sun, spending time for yourself, um, having periods of mindfulness, meditation, breathing, all of this is super important because stress, um, stress is necessary. We need periods of stress to adapt, but we need to have that on-off switch, you know, and if emotional resilience isn't there and that stress is always turned on, like repair never uh like really turns on, like repairing your your body, like repairing um, you know, just having that sort of support to get through all the issues you're getting through and reduce the risk of developing so many diseases as well. Like high stress drives glucose, right? Which leads to diabetes or heart disease. Like I remember in when I was younger, my parents always used to say, Oh, he's so stressed all the time, he's gonna get a heart attack. Like, you know, it's that old wives' tale. And when I first started doing medicine and I was in med school, I'm just like, yeah, but I don't really actually see that. Like, you know, uh, this is the physiology, stress doesn't come into this little okay uh um equation, but like once you actually really understand it better, you do know that it does make a big difference. So, actually, there's been so many studies done on um blood pressure and um how anger and envy is so related to rises in blood pressure. So they've done scans where they um look at the brain.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Envy, that's an interesting one.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Like, I'm like, how envious am I on decades?

Connection, Presence, And Phones

SPEAKER_02 21:57

This shows that like this one area in the brain that lights. Up with envy, lights up with physical pain. So you understand that you're feeling envy, but your body perceives it as physical pain. So imagine what kind of stress that creates. And then it causes all the vessels to get aggravated, tighten up, blood pressure goes up. And as we know, blood pressure is really like high blood pressure is really bad for you, right? So there are so many emotional causes behind this. And the more people I see, like now I'm very privileged because I get to really know my clients. Like I call them clients, I don't call them patients because they come to me as what I like to say, a relationship together, we build a whole plan together, we spend months together, and I really get to know them. The people who tend to have like all these cardiac things happening, like they're very stressed in their life. They're not as chilled, they're a lot more type A's, a lot more stressed about a lot of things. And these emotional things I do feel like has a really big impact.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

So what are some of the things that we can do emotionally to regulate?

SPEAKER_02 22:56

So I think everybody's quite different. You know, some people therapy works really well, you know, talk therapy, other people that aggravates them more. Um, but things like you know, breath work is very helpful because we we actually see data. Like if you wear like um a strap, like I use a polar strap, um, which is a heart rate strap, and it looks at HRV. If I do a session of breathing, um, my HRV just shoots up, which is really amazing. Um, like humming is also really great because it like it takes that frequency to a different level and it just it calms the nervous system. It it like almost goes to that vagus nerve and it says, Wake up, wake up. Like, you know how you train your muscles in the gym? This is training your vagus nerve to come up because we have this misbalance between fight or flight and rest and digest, and it's just not that balance nowadays. And in order, like the stress is bringing all this up. How do we bring this up? What do we do to train this to bring it up?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Further listener, you just mentioned the vagus nerve. What does that do for the body?

SPEAKER_02 23:56

So the vagus nerve is your parasympathetic nervous system, so your rest and digest, it allows you to digest food, relax, it um helps create um, you know, it's important for neurotransmitter function like dopamine, serotonin, and it's basically your chill out, right? Um, you need your fire, like your starter, to go up, but you need something to chill you out too. So um your vagus nerve controls all of that. Um, it's it's really important in you know, human connection, emotional connection as well. Um and the one thing that it's so important is is with is with digestion. So many people eat on the go and eat stressed, and then they don't release enough stomach acid, and then they don't break down the food, and then all the long-term effects of that happens um with autoimmunity and all of this you see it quite clearly. So um it's a very powerful system, and it's a system we do need to train.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

When you say the system that we do need to train, what else can we do to train it?

GP Constraints To Longevity Care

SPEAKER_02 24:56

So I mean things like um cold exposure is quite helpful, like so uh that's why there's a lot of um new interest in like you know, ICE um like cryotherapy and cold plunges and stuff like that. That can also help with training. Um also like journaling, you know, writing down your feelings. Like you might be in a situation where you can't express to your partner or to your mother-in-law or somebody who's stressing you out, like how you feel, because it's not socially appropriate. But sometimes just writing those things out and like reframing them because in your mind things can go so quickly. But when we have to write it down, it sort of slows down a little bit and you slow down that moment of anger a little bit more, and sometimes like reframing that, digesting that's really helpful. Um, a more structured way of doing this is cognitive behavioral therapy, which is quite helpful where um you you have a coach and you take that one thought, and we play it around in so many different um scenarios. Like, what's the worst case scenario? You know, I'm I'm so stressed, like I'm always um you know, worried I'm really gonna I'm gonna fail this exam and worried I'm gonna fail this exam. So, what's the worst case scenario if you fail this exam? Are you gonna die? No, okay, so that's okay, right? So let's try and like of course it's important to you, this exam, but how do we take this like loaded, loaded feeling and like relax it a little bit? So it's like that's also like almost like exercising your thoughts and exercising your brain.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

So that's quite I see a lot of wearables now to like vagus nerve wearables. What's your thoughts on those?

Biohacking Versus Fundamentals

SPEAKER_02 26:23

So the evidence is limited at the moment. Um, I think they could potentially be quite great, but we don't have any long-term studies on them. Um, I've not really played around with them myself much, but um, you know, if you personally use them and you find benefits in them, that's great. But I want to ask, like, what are you tracking? Because a lot of people, we talk about wearables, like so many people will wear all their wearables, but like I'm like, what are you getting the data from? Uh, what are you doing with it? Oh, nothing. I just track my steps. Um, so you know, instead of like just investing in something like that, great, but is your HRV going up? Is your resting heart rate coming down? Are you physically feeling better? Um, I think there's a lot of like research that's going to happen in this space, and it could be really, really powerful. But right now it's early on, so I'm not too sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

One of the um key pillars that you mentioned there was connection, which I find absolutely fascinating because I feel like how modern society is going, we're kind of removing ourselves from connected communities a lot because we're on our phones, where screen time's going up massively, our jobs are all behind screens. So tell me a little bit more about that. What can we do from a connection standpoint in order to kind of regulate our systems?

Red Light, NAD, And Safety

SPEAKER_02 27:34

You know, it's it's such an important pillar to work on, and um, as you mentioned, our modern-day society, we're we're like so distracted from screens and stuff um stuff, which is really bad. But there's like a lot of data showing that loneliness is like worse than smoking 10 cigarettes a day. You know, it affects your longevity so much, and building a community, building connection is such a beautiful part of human existence. It's how we've done so well in societies and um you know looked after each other. Tribes used to look after each other, we look back on anthropological stuff. Um, I think it's about like sort of being aware of what where you're getting distracted and what can you do to sort of improve that. I noticed personally with myself, like um when I'm with my daughter, I think I was using my phone too much, and um, I was really disappointed because recently she said to me, I I want to go on your phone, I want to see mommy um making apples, and I'm just like, what? Because that's one of my Instagram reels I posted, and I don't show her my Instagram. And then she says, I want to see mommy making jelly, and I'm just like, and it was something I'd posted like a week ago, so I'm just like, I'm obviously being on my phone a lot around her to the point where she's actually realized what content I was posting, and that really upset me. And I thought since then, what I've done is like now I leave my phone in a different room when we have these hours together and we spend this time together because it really showed me that you know, we I don't give her screen time, I try and regulate that, but me being on my phone, even if she's just walking across for a second, she'll see that, like me editing that video or posting it or something like that, and that's horrible. Like these moments are so special, they grow up so quickly. So that's the one thing I'm trying to do to sort of help with connection a little bit. But I think it's kind of important to see. Of course, we can't get rid of phones and we can't get rid of all of this, but what what is the one area in your life that you're not connecting well enough? Is it your child? Is it your partner? And what little thing can you do to sort of improve that? I felt it's actually helped a little bit. Her tantrums have improved a little bit since I've started this phone away policy, which I just started about four weeks ago. Um craving connection, craving craving your attention. Mummy's at work, this, that, and you know, when I'm back, like I need to be there present for her, whether it's five minutes or five hours. She just wants that like focused me, that present me. Because kids are present, right? They're not running around seeing all these things. They're like, they'll look outside and they'll notice the most fascinating things. Like, she'll notice, like, oh, look at that tree, it's like that, or look at that. Oh, that's is that a mermaid on this painting here, like on a building, and you know, things you'll never look at, but they're so observant, they're noticing the whole world and they're connected in that moment. So they just want that little bit of connection back from you, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:20

They would probably make the best nutrition coach ever because they'd see everything that goes inside your mouth. Yeah. Okay, so when we talk about um you being a general practitioner, how does that differentiate to the longevity space now and the practice of it? Like, do you ever feel like you're a bit disappointed by modern medicine or previous general practitioner medicine? Because there is a lot of pro protocols that you have to follow, and I think sometimes you're put inside a bit of a box. Um, yeah, how do you feel about that?

GLP-1s, CGMs, And Meal Design

SPEAKER_02 30:55

Um, I think it's quite disappointing in modern medicine because unfortunately, in places like the NHS where I previously worked, as a GP, you get 10 minutes to see a patient, right? So you don't get to take that exercise history, that nutritional history, and really understand them. You kind of just have to treat there and then because they've taken so long to get the appointment with you because the waiting lists are massive. So there's, I feel like it's unfortunate because you're I'm a little bit crippled. I can't do that much. You know, somebody comes in and presents with a raised HBA1C, and you know, they fasting glucose is really high, they diagnosed diabetes. So you give them metformin, that's the protocol, and you tell them go home and eat better and exercise better. But that doesn't really help, right? So it doesn't really help change chronic disease, which is all lifestyle related. So, what I love now in the ability that I have is like my intro, I'll book up two hours to be with the person. So I really try and explore that. And then we'll talk about like what their lifestyle patterns are. You know, how exactly are you eating, how exactly are you sleeping, and let's work on something that's actually sustainable, not oh, just go be healthy, or you know what, add in like some zone two, add in some zone four. I'll actually ask which day I want you to do 10 minutes of hit. Which day are you gonna do it? Um, I don't know, I'll think about it. No, I'm asking you now. Tell me your schedule and tell me when do you think you can add in this and okay, maybe we can do it on a Monday. So let's create that like structure that was that's actually easy because I think unfortunately in life, like people blame motivation a lot. People aren't motivated to eat well, they're not motivated to exercise, but it's more their environment. You know, if you're working in Dubai, you're sitting in a car up and down to work, you know, you're stuck at a desk, where do you get that movement in? Where are you getting those steps in? You know, so little tweaks like if you're able to add like a walking pad under your desk, or if you're eating really poorly, like things like having five like a fiber blend in your cupboard, or having good protein in your fridge, like prepping and creating an environment where you have a structure, so you don't have to constantly make decisions like, you know, oh, when am I going to do my exercise? When am I gonna do this, that? You've got kind of got a bit of a blueprint that you don't have to follow to the T. But understanding a bit more of a structure and a bit more of I don't have to continuously make decisions, but I have a better environment that supports me. Rather than just blaming it on motivation, we have to look at environments and understand things like ultra-processed foods, it's so easy to eat on the go. To prep and do everything in advance is a lot more challenging, right? But instead of being like, oh, it's 5 p.m., what am I gonna eat for dinner? I haven't prepped, I haven't like I don't have anything at home. But if you've like made like that little grocery wrist on Sunday and done a little bit of prep, it's sometimes a little bit easier. If you have chicken or fish in the fridge and like some fresh vegetables, like that's easier than having to go to the supermarket and buy those things, come home and cook them, right?

Fiber Targets And Practical Eating

SPEAKER_01 33:46

So I've uh toyed with the word biohacking before. Um, to be honest, I don't uh personally speaking, I've gone through a phase of oh yeah, biohacking, and then I've gone come out the other side where I actually don't like the word. What's your thoughts on biohacking now? Because I can see there's a movement currently happening now where there's a lot of maybe even personal trainers or people who are not qualified and they're using the term biohacking and they're living a life that maybe um is supporting their current health goals and they're sharing that knowledge. Some people are taking it to the extreme. So, what's your thoughts on the word biohacking?

Living Well In Unnatural Environments

SPEAKER_02 34:28

I'm not so fond of the word in particular because I think it also gets mistaken for longevity medicine, which I think is a very different field. Yeah. And in terms of um, like a lot of the principles that they do, like sauna, this, that, you know, um, red light, like there's positives to that. But if you don't get your fundamentals right, which is the biggest worry, you know, if you're sleeping extremely poorly, like one IV NAD drip isn't gonna make you go younger, right? Like you can do cryo four times a week, but you know, if you're eating ultra-processed foods, like so we have to think about it as a pyramid, right? Your like your pillars are your base. You get that right, and then we can go to next step, then we can go to next step. So if somebody's doing all this red light and doing all this cryo and all of this, but they've got all their fundamentals right, then great, because they're optimizing and that can be beneficial. But I think it's sometimes thought of as a shortcut, you know, like let me not fix my emotional health, and let me not fix my sleep. Um, I'll still drink a lot on the weekend and go out and be crazy because on Tuesday I'm going for my sauna, and that mentally fixes everything, right? But it unfortunately doesn't. There are benefits, but it's layered on your base, right? So, what's your thoughts on red light therapy? Um, the evidence still is not like very, very um profound. We still like uh we don't have enough proper human clinical trials to see what benefits it does, but um, there's like a little bit of mild evidence that shows that there is some improvement, you know, things like you know, for the skin, for collagen, um, you know, um, there is a little bit of evidence for like helping with mitochondria. Um, it's not um that profound yet. Um, I don't think there's anything really negative about it. So um, but I wouldn't be like, go prescribe yourself this and you know get a massive red light panel at home if you've not fixed all the basics first. Um, but I do think we will get more evidence soon. Like there's a lot more research that's happening at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

So when you just mentioned mitochondria there, um NAD springs to mind and IV drips with NAD in them. Um, can you share a little bit more information on that? Because I know when they first kind of started to hit the mainstream, it was like I think the Kardashians in particular, it was like, I'm never gonna age another day in my life, you know, when NAD drips came out. Um, do you see the benefits in them? And is it a cookie-cutter approach where anyone can have them and see the benefits?

Movement Beyond The Gym

SPEAKER_02 36:57

I think you have to be quite careful. So um IVNAD works quite well in a lot of functional disorders where you know um the person really needs a lot of detox. But for a general um longevity protocol, I'll never suggest IVNAD because firstly it's so expensive, it's um a massive stress on the body. If you don't have like if your cortisol isn't functioning well, if you're if you're not slept very well, like it's gonna cause too much of a reaction um if your thyroid function is poor. Or if you have an underlying malignancy, if there's any cancer there, this NAD will grow it. So um you need to check all these things first. Like these toys like may look fun and shiny, but like they do have effects to them. Um, I prefer sublingual NMN um in a safe manner because it's like I what I like to say firstly about longevity is about consistency, right? Um, if you're gonna do two IV NAD drips, you know what's the benefit in that, right? Like if you've checked all of your markers, um, you know that you're safe to take on something and it's actually clinically needed to, you know, boost this, then trying like a sublingual NAD, like you can I've seen it quite happen um often where somebody's VO2 max is quite low, and then we add that in, and then it starts helping with training, it starts helping, and then you see these like graphs go up nicely. So there's it's a very promising science, and there's a lot that we can take from it. Like, you know, taking um the NAD pill, uh like NMN pill, so many of them are are created so impure. Um there was a study done in Singapore in the University of Singapore, and actually they looked at all these NAD supplements, and um, 70% of them didn't have the amount that they pretended to have. Only 30% had. And 30% had zero, like absolutely zero. So you're spending that$100 a month and you don't know what you're getting. So that's why it's super important to track and really understand like what are you taking it for? What's the purpose? Am I seeing the benefits? Um, and it's like a whole holistic approach, right? Like, I'm not going to put somebody on sub lingual NAD, but like um N M N, sorry, but like not change anything else, right? It's quite easy, especially like you mentioned when the Kardashians came on. Like, I I think now we live in a world where instant gratification is there, right? You know, we've got AI. You want an answer to any question. It's not even Google where you have to like sift through the results. It's there. It's just told to you whether it's right or wrong, you've gotten that answer, right? People get that answer immediately, and people don't have that patience. So I want to de-age, like, let me do this IV NAD drip, it's gonna help me immediately. And unfortunately, it's very unsexy to say, but like eating your vegetables, sleeping, and having this consistent bedtime, all of these things are far more um effective in your longevity journey than these few things here and there.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

When we talk about anti-aging and what like the Kardashian said about uh, you know, living a young life, I guess. Um, what's your thoughts on GHKCU now, the copper peptide?

Cooking As A Core Health Skill

SPEAKER_02 39:57

So, um, in terms of peptides, I think it can be super promising, but right now we don't have any human clinical trials at the moment. So we don't like without trials, we don't really know. There's a lot of um, you know, um observational data of, you know, somebody taking it, like seeing better collagen production, this, that, but we don't have any long-term information. So I'm not anti-peptides, I'm in an I don't know phase because like as a scientist, I like to see proper trials, like I like to see proper research and really understand what's evidence-based and what's safe. Because all these things are fun and exciting, but we still have to remember safety in medicine, right? And um, you know, if somebody comes to me and they really want to try it, is that we discuss the benefits and um the um, you know, what the potential fallbacks are. Um, because these things aren't FDA approved. Um, but I mean hopefully we will get some more evidence, and you know, the the science behind peptides is incredible, right? A lot of the stuff looks really amazing, but um, I still like to be more cautious. Like insulin was our first peptide and it's revolutionized type 1 diabetes. Now, GLP is one of the GLP's uh other peptides that have come out, which our FDA approved, and they've improved a lot in chronic disease in terms of um obesity medicine. So, you know, once it's gone through those trials and once we've seen all of this, I think it's a bit safer. And I like to be a lot more cautious than a lot more fun.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Because you're cautious now, what are kind of some of the natural ways that we can like add to our lifestyles to avoid having to take GLP one drugs?

SPEAKER_02 41:36

So I think just having a very personalized approach is important. So, like understanding like like let's plot your your energy. Like, how do you wake up? Groggy, awake, when do you have slumps? Is it mid-morning? Is it afternoon? Then we like sort of plot what you're eating. Are you snacking all day? Are you like you'll often find people who are snacking all the time and eat like a lot of snacks at lunchtime, it's because they've not they're very underfueled and then they'll eat like a big dinner, like eating like one egg or two eggs for breakfast, which is probably not enough for most people, and um a very light lunch, you know, they'll try to be healthy and have a salad, but there's no proper fats there and there's no proper protein. And then no wonder you're hungry and having like snacks later. So, um, in terms of like trying to avoid having to go onto that GLP one, like um understanding your metabolic health and understanding what's causing things to go up and go down, and wearing a continuous glucose monitor is really helpful. Um, I've worn them to a lot of these restaurants in Dubai, I don't want to name any names, but so many of the most popular ones, the way my sugar spikes is crazy. I mean, I'm quite sensitive, so I can taste a lot of sugar and food. But so many places where you think you're having a really, really clean meal, yeah, and you see like the spike like crazy, which is more than I'd get from eating like a bowl of pasta and a cake. Um, like a place I went to eat sushi, and it was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

And um I'm like off camera, I'm gonna ask. Because I know we're not in Dubai, you need to be quite discreet with some of these.

Detaching From One-Sided Relationships

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Uh and when I've shared some of these things with a couple of friends, they're like, oh come on, you've just ruined it for me. But understanding what kind of glucose monitors have you used? So I like to like use Freestyle Libra. Um, you know, just it's quite simple, um, easy to use. You use it for two weeks, and it's quite helpful to see like difference in trends. Like, you know, a day you've not slept well, you're more reactive to carbohydrates. Um, or you know, when you've not been training so much, you've lost a lot of muscle mass. Um, I see that all the time with myself when I go through busier periods and I'm not as diligent with my resistance training. I spike a lot more. Um but I think it's super helpful, especially in things like pregnancy as well, where you know, um the risk of gestational diabetes is quite high. And um that's because your body uses sugar in a different way. It actually increases the level of sugar in your body because you want that to go to baby, because baby needs to be fed, so that's the priority. Not the priority is not to like be medical. As flexible as possible. But that's why some people develop type um gestational diabetes during pregnancy, it's because of the way the hormones work. So that's quite a smart way to like keep yourself in check. I think it's quite helpful.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

How can we regulate your insulin levels?

SPEAKER_02 44:16

So eating balanced meals, so not having naked carbs. So I mean like don't just naked carbs. Don't have like an apple on its own. If you're gonna have your apple, like put some um like almond butter or some nuts or something to like I won't forget that one. To slow that spike makes a big difference. Have a walk after, you know, um, even like doing one minute of breathing before eating something regulates your stress, which also regulates your response. Um, but also just being a bit more structured and eating like honestly, having three balanced meals, which have all the food groups you need, and eating a lot of vegetables is really helpful. Increasing your fiber diversity is the most important thing. Like people drastically underate fibre. We should be getting 30 to 40 grams a day, which is equivalent of about two heads of broccoli or like eight cups of blueberries. So it's very difficult to hit, right? And most people are getting like 10-15. And not having that fiber, there's so many issues with um firstly glucose control, uh, looking at your microbiome support, cholesterol metabolism, all of this.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

So when you mentioned like on a realistic scale, I know you mentioned two heads of broccoli and eight cups of uh blueberries, on like a general basis, like what can we eat that would hit that target? So the um foods that are I don't recommend eating two heads of broccoli.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

So just having a big diversity, including a lot of nuts and seeds, is quite helpful too. Um, this was something I struggled with hitting myself, so I created a fiber blend, which is um something that like now I'm in soft launch, which is quite exciting. So um I've got a blend of six different things that really have different fibers, you know, insoluble, soluble, you know, fermenting versus the non-fermenting, which is um I just put it in water and I drink it. So it's got like chia, flax, psyllium, green banana powder, a couple of other things, which just helps me top that tank up because I'm not being I'm not able to eat that two heads of broccoli. But having something consistent, um, whether it's um, you know, creating a homemade blend yourself or you know, um really starting the day with something really helpful and like having a fiber-packed meal. Um, there's this really um cool porridge recipe that I saw on Instagram recently, and I've been making it myself, and that has almost 20 grams of um of fiber. It's incredible because you only have like two spoons of the oats, and then you add some chia, add some flax, add some grated parsnip, some grated apple.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

Um great, grated parsnips. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

And when you cook it all together, it's actually really delicious. And that base, you add like some um almonds, um, some hazelnuts, a bunch of different things, pumpkin seeds, um, all of that to the base. Then you can play around with that base. You know, if you want to do cameraalized bananas and put on top with yogurt, or if you want to put some cacao powder in or put some matcha, it's like a really good base.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

You're making me hungry.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

You can hit that 20 grams like early in the day, which is quite helpful.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

So I just want to ask you a question now because I feel like we're entering such an era that is just so unnatural, right? And especially in Dubai, like you know, we're we're not supposed to live here. What are the things that we really need to pay attention to now to work inside this unnatural environment? I know you're gonna probably bring it back to the pillars, but if there was any advice to someone now living in Dubai, for example, what are the things they should really pay attention to?

SPEAKER_02 47:51

Air quality is quite an important one. Like um, we're now one of the top ten worst air quality in the world, which is horrible. Um, it's gone up quite high in the last couple of years, especially with so many people moving here, which is a shame. So things like having a good air filter at home is quite helpful. And um another issue that I'm seeing so often here is mold.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

I was just about to say so.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

Cleaning your your air conditioning and cleaning it properly. You know, if you live in an apartment building, it's more challenging than a villa, but like really spending that money on getting that proper um team to come and clean, not just like a little spray here and there, but like actually taking the things out, cleaning it, and seeing the actual gunk that comes out of it, which is awful.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

Listen, I had four I was out of my apartment for four weeks, and when I came home, there was black on my bed. Oh, and I was like, what's this black stuff? And it was mold coming in through the the vent. I had to get it removed. What does this do to the our health?

SPEAKER_02 48:50

It's awful because breathing these microtoxins and brain inflammation, not creating the right amount of serotonin to dopamine balance, like things like that. Think about like development of children's brains, which is a scary thing, and I also personally don't like thinking about it much having a young daughter here. But um, autoimmunity. Like I've I have so many functional medicine patients that will come to me and be like, I've got long-standing eczema, um, I don't know what's happened, it's it's so affects me so much, I can't wear makeup, I feel so um insecure about my my appearance. Um nothing I do fixes it. When did this happen? Two years ago. What changed in your life two years ago? I moved to Dubai.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

Is it worth is is is this simulation worth? The air quality, like I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

I'm I we've moved here from the UK and my um I love Dubai, but my husband loves Dubai more, and I I sometimes miss the UK and I miss being in Regents Park in that fresh air, and we we will I'll often be like, you know, everybody has this conversation, like, aren't you so happy you moved to Dubai? And of course I am, like it's been a great experience, and um, you know, that he'll be like, but she complains sometimes, you know, she misses that fresh air. I'm like, yes, I do, because I know what's happening, unfortunately. Um, I'm seeing it so much clinically, and I I'll get some um patients like it's really difficult to treat. Like you'll you'll do like a toxin panel and you'll see their mycotoxins are really high. And I mean you can treat it, but like if they're living in that same apartment, it's just gonna come back, right? And you move to a different place. Who's to say that doesn't have the same problem?

SPEAKER_01 50:31

What's your thoughts right now on the blood filtration now you're starting to see now? Because I think it's getting quite common here in Dubai now, people are filtering out all the toxins inside their body.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

You know, um, the evidence also on this is quite limited. So I think it will be a great space eventually, but safety is the most important thing. Like you know, absolutely we need to have somebody have a full blood panel done on you. We need to understand what's going on. Like, not just like a lot of people will just do like a G6 uh PD like issue to see like how your blood cells will react to that. But I mean, a lot of places don't even do any bloods, and then you just go and you book for it, and that's that can be quite dangerous because you don't know what's happening. And in terms of the filtration, like if you have autoimmunity, if you have issues, there are there are a lot of benefits to this, but if you're just feeling like, oh, I want a bit of a change, let me see what this does. Um, it's quite an intensive thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

I think it's trending more than actually understanding the science behind it.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

Back to the quick fixes again.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But uh this is the way the industry is going, right? You know, as in, like you said, people are becoming way more impatient, they want an answer there and then. So they look to social media, they see this new trend that's happening. Um to revert back to also when we were talking about how what things that we need to pay attention to, what else would we need to pay attention to now?

SPEAKER_02 51:53

I think especially in Dubai, like people just don't move enough, right? So you'll see people who like we're not walking enough, and um, we'll have like you know, one Barry's class in the week and one strength training, and it's scheduled, and you feel like really proud that you know. Um, but if you look back to like the blue zones, the the places where people you've got all these centenarians, and how did they have such great health to live into their hundreds and you know, do so well? Like, if you look at like a place like Okinawa, like the women get up in the morning and they squat to start the fire, you know, like gentle movement that I like to call like zone 1.5. So I recently started um a newsletter, so I write a weekly article, and the first article I wrote was actually called The Forgotten Language of Movement. So this slow-paced movement, you know, running after the cattle in the field, you know, um, having a dinner and then walking home because you don't have a car, this that continuous movement is so good for you. It's amazing, but you know, it doesn't negate like these two high bursts of activity. Um, it's not natural, right? Um, this pre exercise prescription, the scheduled exercise. Although I'm definitely not saying doing your berries and your weightlifting is bad, it's excellent. Do some movement, but we're not getting enough in the day, and that's something I personally also struggle with. Like, you know, I'll be in clinic and it's patient after patient, you're writing documentation. I don't take the time to get up and walk around. Um, I wish I could have a situation where like I had a walking pad and all that, but unfortunately it doesn't work in the situation I'm in now. But eventually, hopefully, I'd love for everybody to have like any workplace where you know um can go for walks and stuff. I try and do a couple of walks when um when I do my longevity programs and I have a check-in with the um the client like at the end, and it's just more not medical, but more like let's go through everything. I'll be like, can we try to do a walk instead? And um, it doesn't always work out, but when it does work out, it's quite great. And it's also amazing because there's a lot of evidence on you know, um, cognitive improvement while multi-du-dual tasking. So if you're walking while talking about your bloods and this, that your body is your mind is doing two different things, and that's quite good for blood perfusion to different areas, and um, you have um really great cognitive gains with that.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Is there anything else that we can pay attention to that you would recommend to the listener?

SPEAKER_02 54:10

I mean, I think I've covered quite a few of the places, nothing that's like sticking out particular. I mean, of course, just food, right? That's the drum that I I don't stop beating the ultra-processed foods and just eating whole foods, real foods as much as possible. I think um it's quite an um challenge, is a lot of people don't know how to cook. And um, you know, it's like a basic thing to be able to be able to feed yourself and eat, I think is a basic um skill everybody kind of needs to have. You know, we we have especially here, we're in a culture where a lot of people have staff that help cook for them, but when that staff member is off or that staff member has gone away for that month, like you know, um a lot of things go, but I'm having basic nutrition, being able to make, I'm not asking you to make like the most fancy dish, like we're not asking for like a bœuf bourguignon or like some fancy French dish, but like like you know, steaming fish and steaming some vegetables, making a simple sauce with it or whatever is quite important. And I've known so many people in the nutrition world that actually don't know how to cook. So it's quite funny because I love cooking, and this is like a reason why I've gotten also so into nutrition because um I love putting flavors together, and like out of all my friends, like I'm the person that always hosts and and makes these dinner parties, so I thoroughly enjoy it, but I just think it's a basic skill everybody should have, you know, like even if it's just learning how to make your omelette and making like three dishes, like three healthy dishes is really important.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

I'm going home to cook today. Well, because this is called the Detach Podcast, what would you detach yourself away from that's limiting you today?

SPEAKER_02 55:47

So, from people who take too much and don't give as much, I'm I'm quite a giver, and um, with my nature being a medic, I'm always giving, giving, giving. But I found recently um being a mum, running a clinic, running a functional foods brand, you're if you're giving too much and you're not filling that cup back up, you're burning yourself from both um ends of the candle. I'm a major empath and I struggle, but I'm trying to create a few more boundaries and look after myself a little bit more. And when I see a person who is too much of a taker and not giving anything back, I need to also stop and say, Look, I'm important too. We need to have a bit better of a balance.

SPEAKER_01 56:27

I can relate to that. Anyway, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 56:32

Thank you so much for having me. It was lovely speaking with you.