Why Personalized Health Care Matters: Root Cause, Time, and the Doctor–Patient Relationship

In this episode of the Neurotrition Podcast, Dr. Jackson McKeehan explores what personalized health care really means and why so many people feel unseen in rushed, symptom-focused medical systems. He opens with a simple but important question: what if health care was not standardized and reactive, but actually built around the individual person sitting in front of the practitioner? From there, the conversation unfolds into a deeper look at how personalized, root-cause-focused care differs from the conventional model many patients have come to expect.

A major focus of the episode is the problem with short modern medical visits. Dr. McKeehan points out that the average appointment often leaves very little time to meaningfully address complex or chronic concerns, especially when multiple issues are discussed in a single visit. He argues that when time is limited, deeper context gets lost — and with it, the ability to really understand the patient’s history, patterns, lifestyle, stress, and environment.

The episode also highlights the importance of the doctor–patient relationship. Dr. McKeehan contrasts fragmented care with a more direct, relationship-driven approach built on trust, listening, and understanding the whole person. His message is clear: truly personalized care is not possible without actually knowing the patient. That idea becomes the foundation for the rest of the episode.

From there, the conversation moves into the difference between symptom-based care and system-based care. Using examples like fatigue, brain fog, and poor sleep, Dr. McKeehan explains that the same symptom can come from very different root causes, which means a one-size-fits-all approach often falls short. He challenges the “X symptom equals Y treatment” mindset and makes the case that if human physiology is individualized — from hormones and biochemistry to genetics and lifestyle — then treatment should be individualized too.

Dr. McKeehan also discusses why labs and health histories matter so much. Similar symptoms do not always mean similar lab findings, and even similar lab results do not automatically call for the same treatment plan. He emphasizes deep history-taking, pattern recognition, and thoughtful assessment as a way to save patients from years of ineffective or overly generic care.

Overall, this episode is a strong case for slower, more intentional, more individualized care — especially for people dealing with chronic issues, unresolved symptoms, or the frustrating experience of being told that everything looks normal even when they still do not feel well. It is a conversation about time, trust, physiology, and why your body deserves more than a generic plan.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to another episode of the Neurotrition Podcast where we give you the tools to balance the brain, optimize the body, and redefine how to unlock human potential. I want to think about what if healthcare wasn't rush, standardized, and just focused on your symptoms, but actually built around you as the person.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

I just think it needs to take more time for us to understand patients and how their bodies work to provide adequate care to specifically tailor their needs rather than these given protocols.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

The Neurotrition Podcast is sponsored by North Florida Spinal Wellness and produced by Jumine Delmas Studios.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Welcome back to another episode of the Neurotrition Podcast, where we give you the tools to balance the brain, optimize the body, and redefine how to unlock human potential. I'm your host, Dr. Z, and today we're going to be talking about personalized health care, or more so the lack thereof it and where you can find it. I wanted to think about what if healthcare wasn't rushed, standardized, and just focused on your symptoms, but actually built around you as the person. Don't forget to like and subscribe and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube at Neurotrition Podcast. And let me introduce my guest who's going to help us break this down, Dr. Jack McKinnon, who is a functional medicine uh practitioner out of Colorado. Dr. Jack, thank you for coming on the show. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. So, Dr. Jack, tell me a little bit about yourself. And, you know, obviously most people who get into um this line of healthcare have some sort of story behind it. Um, I'm always curious to understand how people decide to go in this lane of care versus some of the more traditional avenues.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, absolutely. So it's uh it's a little bit of a longer story, but my uh my dad, he was going into a procedure for a radio ablation of his uh cervical spine and was a very poorly done procedure, and he was left paralyzed after that outpatient procedure. So my family, we've always been around the the allopathic community, and we've seen what it's like to be in and out of hospitals and these these chronic care issues. Um so I mean, now I just joke about it with my dad. I'm like, hey, dude, you could have just got adjusted and been fine. So we'll joke about that. But um, yeah, I mean, I always want to be able to provide conservative care to patients before we go along these more severe routes. Um, similar to that, I just heard uh one of my uh other docs who works in the office is going to a funeral for uh a younger lady who had a hysterectomy, then had sepsis, and then multiple organ failure, and then passed away. So it's it's a lot of these. How can we do this in a conservative way? And then if our efforts do not give results, then we can start worrying about going down the surgical path.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Yeah, I mean, it it's amazing. You know, there was just recently a story here, um, uh up here in the panhandle of Florida, um, where a doc was supposed to uh pretty much uh, you know, the the patient was stable. They they saw like an enlarged spleen, and they, you know, essentially the doc kind of bullied the guy into he was, you know, he he probably did have to have needed to have his spleen removed, but he was stable enough. He he probably could have gone home to Alabama and had it done there and all the things, and the doc rushed him into it, and instead of taking out his spleen, they actually took out his liver instead.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

And the guy died. And the the doc actually ended up being arrested and uh charged with uh manslaughter or something, something like that. So it's insane some of the stories you hear about that. And um, you know, what the thing we're gonna talk about today is like how medicine just doesn't become personalized and how it becomes this kind of a log rhythm system-based system that uh, you know, doesn't listen to the person. And I I think that's the problem, is it we're all individuals and we're all um have individual needs, and everything is complex. We're not we're not a simple, uh I think the bet best term I I can come up with is a log rhythm where you can just put in the data and then it spits out this uh this treatment protocol that's good good for everybody. So that brings us into I think the main topic is the problem when people first come in the door uh in a medical system now. Um how how would you describe what that problem looks like?

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Unfortunately, the the visit time that you see with your primary care on average is about 16 minutes. So if you have these chronic issues, how are these being addressed in such little amount of time? The fantastic thing that we are able to offer is we are not restricted by insurance to say, okay, you have this amount of time to allocate to a patient, and this is the protocol that you're going to use. We're only going to approve of this if you do it our way. We get to spend this adequate time with patients that they need. The 15 to 16 minute visits are not enough to go through complex issues that patients have been dealing with for 20 plus years. And it's the same thing of the algorithm of okay, you have X symptom, you get Y treatment. If that treatment does not work, then we go to uh plan B in the same protocol. So just as we learn in school or even through cadaver labs, where you're seeing these people who do not have anatomical exactly the same body-to-body. Um, we are so different with how we involved with our own makeup. So, how can we have treatments that are exactly the same for this symptom? People are so complex, there are anatomical differences, but also physiological differences. Somebody can um respond to a certain aspect of care, and then another person can have an adverse reaction to that. So I just think it needs to take more time for us to understand patients and how their bodies work to provide adequate care to specifically tailor their needs rather than these given protocols.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

And I'll take it a step further. Uh, you know, I think it's more than that, even uh, that you mean time is definitely a limitation, but it's also that I find that, you know, a lot of primary cares now are they're part of large groups, they're part of hospital groups. Um, they're I think a lot of these docs actually have good intentions. Um, one, it's the training, right? They're trained to identify, essentially, at least at the primary care level, identify where they're supposed to refer to, right? Um, they're not really there anymore. I feel like they used to be back, you know, a couple decades ago, perhaps, uh even longer ago. But now they're pretty much designed to, okay, let's identify a problem. If I, if I can't handle it directly here in the office today, like I have a sinus infection or something, I'm gonna prescribe some antibiotics. I'm gonna refer out to a specialist. And that's all well and good, but you know, what used to happen is, you know, you would refer out, and then you know, the primary care would kind of help organize that and help, you know, uh formulate a game plan for the patient. I don't feel like that happens anymore. I feel like it's uh this fractionized care, and I know we're gonna talk about that a little bit more here too. Um, it goes into these um different groups. And and you know, I deal with a lot of things with uh neurology too. And I find um especially, I'll give an example of patients who have dysautonomia, so they have um imbalance nervous system reactions, um, fight and flight reactions, and they'll have a of a whole group of symptoms that are actually interrelated to that one problem, um, whether it's gut dysfunction, it's heart palpitations. And so they're gonna go to GI, they're gonna go to cardiovascular, they're gonna go to the cardiologist, they're gonna go to all these different providers, yet no one puts it all together for them. And um, I think that's that's a big problem. And I think a lot of that, uh, to get back to my point that I was trying to drive at, is that I think a lot of that is driven by almost this corporate structure that has gotten into healthcare. Um, you know, you have these corporate structures who uh these primary cares work under. And, you know, they they're kind of limited to what they can do. I mean, they're even limited to what labs they can order. God forbid uh a lab test is not gonna be covered by the insurance because they don't have a diagnosis code to meet um the requirements for that. It's not even like they can say, um, oh, hey, uh, Mrs. Smith, hey, this blood test is not gonna be covered by insurance, but you can pay out of pocket for it for 20 bucks, 30 bucks, whatever. Um they don't even give them that option. It's just it's just okay, we're gonna go through this system. And and that's that to me is is a big problem, is the patients, uh, in a sense, aren't even given given informed consent of what their options are.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Absolutely. It's the same thing of let's treat you, okay. I'm your primary care, you have a heart issue, I'm gonna send you to your cardiologist. We'll try to figure out some treatment here. Oh, but a side effect of that medication is gonna mess with your kidneys. So then we're gonna have you go see a nephrologist for that. And it's so divided. We aren't seeing patients in a systematic view. We are we are allocating them to different body organ functions, but that's that's not what we need. We need to see a full view of can this be causing that, or how can we look at patients at that that whole picture rather than just focusing on these minor differences? Same thing where uh let's say you have a a cardiovascular issue, or you have this blood pressure medication that is not making you feel good, or you're getting some some swelling or whatever is going on there. To get an appointment with your cardiologist, it's gonna take you six months to get in. And then what happens is okay, you're just gonna be hopping on the phone with the nurse, and they're gonna be trying to do this this telephone of, okay, the doctor says this, let me tell you this, and it's just lost that patient to doctor interaction.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Yeah, and you know, what's amazing about that too is uh I have a I have a patient who's actually a uh she's been a nurse in the uh cardiothoracic um uh surgical division for, I don't know, probably at least 30 years. Um, and she told me an amazing thing that you know they get grades from from Medicare that, you know, basically grade uh their standard of care, essentially. And she was mentioning that let's take you have a person with high cholesterol and they have, let's say they have 250 total cholesterol and they they get it down to uh you know 190. All right. Uh that might be considered a success in that area, but let's say patient A, they take them and they lower it from 250, 190 through diet and lifestyle and those kind of things. And patient B gets the same result uh on the on the blood labs, but they did it all through a statin drug. The per the patient who got a statin drug, that case would be rated an A. The other group would be rated like a B or a C. So they actually are de in the and that that actually affects the uh the payment to the provider. And so it it they're literally deincentivized to create an environment where we advocate for patients' overall health. Because yeah, you could you can do drugs, you can do, yeah, and I would argue you can even do supplements to make a person's labs look better, but that doesn't necessarily make them healthier, right? Um, and and I I think that's a real tragedy. And it I think that really digs into um all these factors, digged in dig into the lost trust. I mean, we lost a lot of trust with traditional medicine um during the COVID area era, and we've we've discussed that at length on this show. But you know, I think that digs, that's another factor that was already brewing. That was brewing before COVID, um, if you ask me. And so I'd like you to really uh dig more into you know that patient-doctor relationship and how important it is.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Absolutely. It's it's something that's been lost, like you said, over recent years. Um a lot of it too is patients can uh do a quick uh on their whatever health organization they're with, they can shoot them a text and be like, hey, I'm dealing with this. Then they're like, okay, script here, here's this, here's this pharmaceutical. So one, it's not being investigated. So we aren't taking time to truly understand what's going on and see what we can do from a lifestyle modification. Why is that not always the first place to start with? I mean, from what you said, they're not getting incentivized or they're not profiting off of doing it that way. So that makes sense why they're not gonna push for that, but that's gotta be the first thing. It's it's it's gonna be the most sustainable. Same thing, like you said, with medications and supplements. It has to come from the patient wanting to feel better and make changes in their lifestyle factors. If that doesn't happen, you're going to be on this constant uh bombardment of okay, are we getting symptomatic relief or are we relying on this medication? Are we relying on the supplement? So it is unfortunate, but the great thing that we can do is spend that time with patients. Um, our initial visit is 90 minutes. We get to go from everywhere, from head to toe, what this patient is dealing with, from a whole systematic view, uh, talking about digestion to the brain fog to thyroid issues, how's hair, skin, and nails, how's energy levels, all of these things where it's so surprising how so many patients are so absurd, they're they're confused, they're like you're spending all this time and talking about so many things. I'm not used to this. This is so abnormal for me. So that is probably the first thing that that truly develops the bond between the doctor and the patient. Um, and it's unfortunate that that is the way it is because a lot of these issues are are very intimate. These are very difficult things that the patient is going through on a daily basis. They they get stuck in this place where they think what they're dealing with is the norm. And they fall into this place where it's it's difficult because the patient is used to the symptoms that they've been dealing with for so long that they don't think it's a problem anymore. And that's one of the major things where it comes to optimizing somebody's health rather than just slapping a prescription on what they're dealing with.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, I mean, how many times do you have a patient come in and say, Well, I'm in my 40s now or I'm in my 50s now? And you know, I just think this fatigue is normal, right? I just I just feel like this is what I'm supposed to uh experience because they they they go to the they go get their yearly labs and you know what do they run at this point. I don't know how it is out in Colorado, but I can tell you um typically what I see in my community is um a primary care visit, is a metabolic panel, um, a you know so you're gonna look at liver enzymes and and sugar levels, and you're gonna look at you know your CBC, so you're gonna look at your blood count, so you might rule out some anemias. Um you you maybe get a TSH, so you get a very basic look at your thyroid, um, and a lipid panel. And that's that's essentially it. I mean, I literally had a uh patient who came in to me uh a few months ago who I said, why didn't they check your vitamin D level? Um and because they always had previously. And uh the primary care literally looked, uh uh told the patient that, oh, uh, vitamin D is a myth. Um, there's no reason to check it. And and I was floored by that. And and some of that is because we have these guidelines. And I think that's something that people have to realize is that um now some doctors embrace these guidelines more than others, but they there's these guidelines out there, and for those who don't know, I think it's important for people to know there was vitamin D guidelines that changed, I don't know, last year, I think. Um time is kind of molding together for me now, but that essentially what they came down to, they didn't deny the importance of vitamin D in the human body. They didn't deny that um in this new guideline, but they essentially said, hey, we don't really know what the optimized level of vitamin D is or what the normal should be. So our recommendation is just not to test for it because we don't know what that means. And and it's the most insane um kind of thinking that that I I can run across is like, hey, and of course that comes after after COVID, which if you want to put your conspiracy hat on, where we had uh a huge increase of deaths in people who had um lower vitamin D levels. And so it's it's it the problem is is that we try to make um and we can kind of transition into this system-based uh care that I think is really um dominating the system, right, or dominating our health care right now, is that we try to make these one size fit-all formulas for the population, which I I I understand the idea of that as far as like a guide for everybody, but we should that shouldn't be the rule, right? I mean, we should be able to, okay, this is the general idea, but we have to take each individual into consideration.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yeah, absolutely. Especially, I get pretty frustrated when I have patients who say, my thyroid's completely fine. They ran it last year, and my whole thyroid is okay. And then you see it and it's a TSH. And it's like, right, there's so many underlying things that can be going on that could throw off a free T3 or a reverse T3 or never run the antibodies, no thyroglobulin or thyroid peroxidase. Um, same thing with the lipid panel, it's it's a calculation of the LDL, they're not measuring what that level is, it is some absurd uh calculation of crazy numerical values thrown in between dividing this times that. It is more expensive to run an NMR lipid profile, but you get so much better results of truly seeing what those numerical values are for the LDL particle. You can see the actual size, you can see the amount. So it is really unfortunate where patients are like, my labs are completely normal, there's nothing wrong on them, but something feels off. I don't feel right. And that's because it's so baseline or so basic of what they get done, you're not gonna find any of these abnormalities. And if you do, it's critical care issues. That's that's their main thing they're looking for. Is if you have something abnormal in these basic annual labs, there's something we need to do immediately. Again, and if we would have ran a little bit more in-depth markers, we could have preventative care. So we don't get to this point where you're having major thyroid dysfunction. If we get at it at an earlier stage, then we we decrease the risk of you developing chronic issues.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah, and the NMR is a great example. And for those who don't know, that's basically taking um, it's a little more complex than this, but really simply, it's taking that LDL, that bad cholesterol, and breaking it down into size. What people don't realize, there's all different sizes of your bad cholesterol. Some of them are big and fluffy, some of them are small and dense, and those small and dense are the ones that create more harm, right? And you can have essentially, and uh Dr. Jack, uh feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this statistic. But last time I looked at some of the research, you could have you could essentially have somebody, like if you had two people with, let's say um 150 LDL, okay? You could have two people with the exact same 150 LDL, but depending on the um size of those LDLs, uh the density of those LDLs, the person with the smaller density could have a 200% increase in cardiovascular risk, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Absolutely. Yeah, it's one of those things where we focus so much. On that LDL number, we need to know what the size of the LDL is. I always like to give a super basic example of let's say you have an LDL of 100, is that 100 pennies or is that four quarters? So the four quarters, those are those are cardioprotective, those cannot slip through the the endothelial layer of the the internal part of the artery, they can't deposit fat to create atherosclerotic placking. So if we have a hundred pennies, so those smaller pieces that can slip through that endothelial layer, they can cause way more issues. But if you're just reading this off of an LDL calculation of 100, you could still be at more risk for cardiovascular disease, even though it's not as bad.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yeah, I'll I'm just gonna let you know I'm stealing that uh analogy from you. That's that's really good, actually. Yeah, just so you really so uh I I mean I guess that's a good way to transition and how we look different. And I I want to start off by um, you know, going away from protocol medicine. I think a great um example to do this is one thing that a lot of people experience, and it's fatigue. Because fatigue to me is something that can be um so many different factors, right? Uh your immune system, it can be endocrine systems, so it can be hormones, it can be your thyroid, um, it can be purely energy production at the mitochondria level. Um I make the argument too, because I do uh a lot of neurology as well. I also make the argument that it can be brain-based, like the motivational systems in your brain, especially on that left hemisphere, that drives our uh a desire to achieve goals and different things like that. I think it's a perfect way to describe how we look at a person um holistically. And I almost say that not with an H, but with a with a W, you know, more looking at the whole body and how and how the system interacts. Uh maybe let's run through uh, if if this makes sense, maybe run through an example of a fatigue um, you know, as a generic patient and uh what different things you look at that uh can tell you the story.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Absolutely. So a lot of the times when it comes with fatigue, it can be something as simple as uh you have uh iron deficiency. So you have this microcytic anemia where you're not getting oxygenation to the tissues, and that's causing your fatigue. Um that's always like the favorite thing to see. Like, oh my gosh, finally, it's this textbook. This works so well. We just need to give you some iron and help you with some absorption things. But a lot of the times, this the basic things would have been already figured out. The reason they're coming to see you is some of these out-of-the-box things. Um, a big thing with fatigue is uh something like mold. Uh, same thing with like the chronic uh stuffiness or sinus issues that could be due to that mold issue. And one is we have to figure out where that's coming from, and then how can we mitigate getting that fixed or getting you out of that environment before we even talk about treating you? We got to get you out of that place that's that's causing this mold issue. Um, but the same thing with a lot of the times it's it's hormones and uh patients who are specifically females who are postmenopausal, they go to their primary care and they're like, you don't need hormone therapy, you're you're postmenopausal. We're not working for fertility cases or anything like that. This is normal. You should be feeling this way, you should be having uh some hot flashes, you should be having a little bit harder time to fall asleep. Like, this is again where it comes to that we need optimization, we need to stop having these patients feel like they they can't get help, or my primary care says that this is normal, so I'm going to deal with this. Um, back to the fatigue aspect, there's so many different ways that patients can have fatigue. And a lot of the times it's it's a it's a similar thing of what you said, where it's just a lack of motivation. Somebody who's sitting on their couch watching TV all day, they're gonna be fatigued because they're not stimulating their brain. They aren't they aren't going outside, they aren't getting some some sunlight, they aren't walking, they aren't moving around. So there's so many different aspects when it comes to fatigue, um, especially when we're trying to figure out why you have that fatigue. Some of the mold testing, uh, ruling out thyroid issues, doing uh a saliva panel to look at that free portion of all your sex hormones is so important. And it doesn't have to be this uh, oh, you're over this age. You don't need to be tested for that.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, and I'll take it a step further. Let's let's even talk about you know ruling out thyroid issues. I mean, that's one of my favorite things to talk about because so many times um you'll see people on uh you know levathyroxine or synthroid or you know, take your pick of whatever thyroid replacement they're on. Um, but even endocrinologists very, very rarely, at least in my experience, um, don't even look at um the levels of free T3, what their cells actually going to be uh utilizing. And for a lot of people, you know, you get these people who um have low TSH, and which, you know, typically, you know, if you uh for those people don't really know how this works, when you have low TSH, typically what theoretically should be happening is you should have higher thyroid hormones. You should be more hyperthyroid than you are uh low thyroid. And what a lot of people have is they really have an adrenal issue or they have an adrenal, uh, an HP, you know, hypothalamus, adrenal pituitary axis problem where the essentially um the endocrine system in the brain aren't communicating properly, and you're not converting that T4 to T3. And so when you're not, and that goes back into how we, you know, look at more comprehensive labs. If we're not looking at that, then we're not gonna identify those people. I mean, I know I have one patient whose uh uh doctor who's uh regulating or you know, prescribing her thyroid medication is obsessed with her TSH level and will totally ignore her T3 level. And she feels terrible. She absolutely feels terrible because her real problem is she's not converting that T4 to T3. And there's really not, you know, other than the rare endocrinologists who might replace the T3, um, there's really no one working on uh those conversion issues. And and those people are never gonna feel better if if you don't handle that. And I think that's um why um how we look at healthcare and how we look at every individual patient, and looking at people personalized is is so important. Now, are people who have conversion issues like that um a minority compared to um uh the general population who has thyroid issues? I would say yes, but it's it's a lot more than the medical community um gives credence to. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

Absolutely. I have a lot of patients who that's kind of like my first selling point. Whenever I get my labs back, it it usually shows the TSH in free T4 right off the bat. It'll be something like a TSH of like 3.55. So it's getting up there. So the body is signaling somehow like, hey, we want some more thyroid hormone, but my free T4 is completely fine. Then we go down to the next page and we see the free T3 and it's something 1.5 or 2.0, where it's at that low end where it is a conversion issue. Why are we focusing on on levothyroxine or T4 levels when the patients still feel terrible? So it is unfortunate that I would assume most primary care and and especially endocrinologists understand that T4 is the most abundant but less active at the cellular level. T3 is the one that is doing all the work, focusing on improving metabolism and uh proper hair, skin, and nail health, um brain function, energy-wise. So why would that not be a standard of care to see what that level is? I I don't understand that piece.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Yeah, I I mean we could talk all day about how we uh you know do or don't understand uh that complex um or that um not complex, but that very basic uh thought process. That is um something I I don't think I will ever understand. Um But what I wanted to uh transition to next is um, and we've kind of already talked about this, I guess, to some extent, but what are some of the what will you say is some of the most underrated lab tests that are not traditionally run that you run on a daily basis on a on a patient um coming to your care? And of course, that's gonna be that's the whole point of this conversation, is that it's always gonna be personalized. I know um I have some general panels that I I run on on most patients, but almost always there's some you know little nuance to what I'm gonna run based off how they present their history, all of these things. But what are the most underrated uh you think lab tests that uh aren't run on the typical basis?

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Yeah, there's a a good amount of abnormal, but is normal to us lab tests that I like to run. One is a GGT. It's such a basic, simple, cheap marker, but shows so much more of the intracellular amount of glutathione. So patients who have moderately elevated ALT and AST and their primary care says, well, it's it's within normal limits, it's it's at like 30, 35, consistently somewhat low grade elevated, but it's within normal limits, it's fine. A GGT marker is fantastic for that. And it's another, it's a simple fix where if there is a level of GGT that is above, let's say, 20, and anything higher than that, we're a little bit concerned. Um, you can do simple things of like liposomal glutathione or Nacetylcysteine, and then both the AST and ALT markers drop, and so does that GGT. Um, another really good one is homocysteine. Homocysteine is so important from a cardiovascular aspect. I don't know why that isn't standardized care for uh throwing that with a lipid panel. Um another one is that the the comprehensive thyroid panel, we have to have TSH, free T4, free T3, reverse T3, and then anti-uh thyroglobulin and antithyroid peroxidase antibodies. That should just be standard of care. Um because a lot of the times you can have, let's say, moderately or subclinical hypothyroidism and it's due to the Hashimoto's thyroiditis. So we're having the antibodies be elevated, and then the patient is not at a place where their thyroid is getting to a level where their T4 has dropped significantly where it's affecting the TSH. If we can correct the immune system, that thyroid, that's the bystander, is going to be corrected as well, and we won't have the need to have the replacement of T4 when that thyroid poops out. Um, couple other ones. I almost do uh a salivo hormone panel on every single one of my patients. Hormones are so important for so many different functions, and we get stuck in this thought process of testosterone is for men and estrogen is for women. I've seen so many cases where uh I have a patient who is wanting to focus on uh weight management things, um, but they have like severe brain fog and they have really bad issues with word finding. And this patient, a male patient, has very low levels of estrogen. So most likely that lack of estrogen is not propelling the brain to have enough power or energy to use it efficiently. So it's it's I always want to break out of that where anything from progesterone deficiencies can be super common in men and can throw off issues with insomnia and things like that. Uh, same thing with women who have testosterone deficiencies. It's a similar thing where we need to break out of this understanding that hormones are are sex specific. Men should have these, women should have these. We all have the same hormones. It's just the levels of those are are different.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Yeah, and and your point with estrogen, I mean, uh people don't realize, you know, from a from a brain-based perspective, the amount of estrogen receptors in the brain. I mean, the amount of patients who go into uh perimenopause or menopause, and all of a sudden they start developing vertigo or, like you said, brain fog or different different, you know, dizziness or um all kinds of different symptoms. And um now, I I make the argument that that usually there is some imbalances in their vestibular system and um some of those areas where the estrogen receptors are to begin with, and this worsens that that imbalance, but you know, that's a that's a whole different podcast. But yeah, um, yeah, there's there's a lot of of you know counter, you know, balance between all of these systems that are really important. And uh I I echo your sentiment on testosterone, especially in women, you know, that is something that is overlooked all the time. And it's one of my favorite recommendations for women to um actually do first, especially if they're a little hesitant to do on estrogen replacement. You know, there's um a lot of people who have concern about that and and and for different reasons. Um, but you know, testosterone is going to uh help bump estradiol as well through the aromatase pathways. And so that's that's a great way, especially um if I see patients with an estrogen is not you know terrible, but the testosterone is totally in the tank, they're super stressed out. Um, I'm I'm gonna recommend testosterone for women first. Um, and of course, it can be uh a great intervention on on men as well. Um but yeah, that's that's a great example. And and I agree. I mean, these shouldn't be this shouldn't be something that people are having to seek out and and find these specialized doctors to do this. I agree with you. This should be um the standard of care. So uh Dr. Jack, uh what does it look like? Uh kind of run through a patient or uh the audience here through what a patient experiences um with a provider like you. What is like an average uh first-time uh look at their health issues?

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yeah, so what we do in our office is we take that time with the patient that is needed. We take a full 90 minutes to have a new patient exam where we do our vital signs and then we go through systematically from head to toe how you're feeling, what is going on, sleep issues, um, have you recently had any infections, um, any of these underlying things that that may be causing more issues than patients think of. Um but the main thing is we're here to provide the the allocation to these specific tests that we talk about that are so common to us, where patients have no idea how to advocate for themselves to even try to get this rant through their primary care. And it's starting to change with that with with the AIs and Chat GPT, and patients are starting to do their own work. Like, right, how can I do this from a supplement standpoint? Um, but the great thing that we can do is facilitate their care. Um, we also do free 15-minute new patient discovery calls. So if anybody's interested to becoming a new patient, they can uh have a call with Kelly. And what she does is go over cost, how to uh schedule the appointments, what those appointments will look like, how we differ from a normal pharmacological standpoint to our natural-based therapies. Um but yeah, it is the great thing is we can do this from the phone, we can do this telehealth, uh, we do in-person visits as well. Um, but with our our clinic phone number, if they reach out to 970-532-2755, somebody will hop on the phone and they will get you to the right person you need. If you're interested in a new patient discovery call, we can have that set up. Um, and if anybody has any questions or hears something that they want to talk further about, uh, I always have my email open to everybody, uh Jackson at gateway natural medicine.com. And I just want to be able to be the allocation for these patients. Um, if they're trying to seek out these alternative ways of of treating or diagnosing, that is exactly what we're here for, what we can offer.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

That's great. And uh uh is uh Gateway Natural Medicine is that a website they can go to too? Yep. Awesome. All right, Dr. Jack. Well, I this is great information. Uh I really appreciate you uh coming on the show. Um I hope everybody who who listened to the show, I I hope this gives you a new standard of of care, uh, of what you everyone deserves. Um, this is not something that um should be, you know, uh just this this is how medicine should be. I think that's the message we wanted to send home today. And and I hope that gives you an insight that you can uh challenge your current provider or uh start looking for providers who start thinking this way. So um, you know, definitely think about reaching out to to Dr. Jack in his office. Um, also, you know, of course, uh you can look at our website at healthytalhassey.com. And uh, you know, I really hope that this guy gave you some hope that you don't have to feel and you don't have to uh settle uh for uh what is the standard out there, unfortunately. Dr. Jack, I really appreciate you coming on the show.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

All right, that's it for this episode of the Neurotrition Podcast. Again, don't forget to like and subscribe and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, uh, YouTube, and TikTok. And we will see you on the next episode.