Face It
"Face It" is a podcast that cuts through the noise of the beauty industry by offering expert, practical insights that are to the point and value your time. We help you look and feel your best by uncovering what works, what doesn’t, and how to make beauty and wellness a sustainable part of your life.
Face It
Your Doctor Is Treating Your Symptoms and Ignoring the Real Problem
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Your skincare routine might only be solving half the problem. A leading functional medicine doctor is here to explain why.
In this episode of Face It, Bari sits down with Dr. Will Cole — bestselling author and one of the world's leading functional medicine practitioners — to explore the powerful connection between what's happening inside your body and what's showing up on your skin. From the gut-skin axis to hormonal imbalances to the everyday habits quietly driving inflammation, Dr. Cole brings over 16 years of clinical expertise to a conversation that challenges everything you thought you knew about healing your skin. This is skincare from the inside out — and it changes everything.
We cover:
- What functional medicine actually is — and how it differs from the conventional medicine most of us grew up with
- Why your labs can come back "normal" and something can still be very wrong
- The gut-skin axis explained — and why your skin is often a direct reflection of what's happening in your gut
- What leaky gut actually is, why it happens, and how it shows up on your skin
- The four foods most likely to be secretly sabotaging your skin — and the better-for-you swaps that don't require giving up everything you love
- Why alcohol is one of the biggest skin saboteurs nobody wants to talk about
- Whether probiotic sodas like Poppi and Olipop are actually doing anything for your gut
- The truth about probiotics — and why just taking one daily isn't always enough
- How to know if your hormones are out of balance — and the surprising signs hiding in plain sight
- Why birth control is still being prescribed for acne in 2024 — and what Dr. Cole thinks about that
- How chronic stress is quietly aging you faster than almost anything else
- Why fixing your mood might start with fixing your gut
- What "hormonal acne" actually means — and why it's often diagnosed without a single hormone being tested
- The supplements Dr. Cole says almost everyone should be taking — and the ones that are mostly marketing
- How sleep quality is directly impacting your skin — and the simple nighttime habits that can change everything
- What you can do starting tomorrow to begin healing your gut and transforming your skin from the inside out
Intro
I always lose friends every time I say this. The healthiest amount of alcohol is none. Because people will bring up their grandma that like drank every day. My grandma drank every day and she lived to 99. Grandma? She didn't have the stuff that you were exposed to. Yeah. What does functional medicine have to do with the skin? Oh, it has everything to do with the skin. The skin is an outer mirror. It's a proverbial check engine light of something going on in the body. Because you could take all the best skincare products out there, and that's one half of that puzzle, but you have to look at the inside out as well. Today we're going under your skin. Your breakouts, your dull skin, your flare-ups, you might see them on your skin. But actually, it could start inside your body. It's not a birth control deficiency. Yeah. That's causing those painful periods and cramping. If it's skin issues, it's not a birth control deficiency that they're having acne. And let's be real about probiotic sodas. So poppy, olipop, are they actually doing anything? Uh okay, here's the deal. Can fixing your gut actually change your mood? Oh yeah. 95% of serotonin, our happy neurotransmitter, is made in the gut and stored in the gut. So yeah, we see this all the time. People come in for anxiety, depression, brain fog fatigue completely heal their mental health when they deal with their gut. We're very medicated, but we're not really healthy. And I think there's there's a distinction there. Welcome to Face It, the podcast that cuts through the noise of the beauty industry. I'm your host, Barry. And today we're diving into the part of skincare nobody's talking about. What's happening inside your body, your gut, your hormones, your inflammation. They are secretly running the show behind every breakout and flare-up. My guest today is Dr. Will Cole, a best-selling author and one of the top functional medicine doctors in the world. He's helped thousands of people heal from the inside out. And today he's here to help you understand why fixing what's happening on the inside is the real secret to looking good on the
Meet Dr. Will Cole
outside. Dr. Will Cole, welcome to FaceIn. Thanks so much. I mean, the studio is beautiful. Thanks for having me. Yeah, we're so excited to have you. I feel like functional medicine is such a big topic today, but there's a lot of gray areas. So I'm just excited to pick your brain and have you here giving everyone all the information. We'll nerd out today. Let's do it. So,
What Is Functional Medicine?
like I said, everyone's talking about functional medicine nowadays. But what what actually is functional medicine? Yeah. So I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic over 16 years ago at this point. So we've been doing, we see people around the world, and um a lot has changed over the past 16 years as far as people awareness around it. You're right. The more and more people are talking about it. I'm happy about that. Yeah. Um, but still, we're scratching the surface of this the people really getting to know and um lots of myths and misconceptions about it. So what is it? If you had to boil it down, this is these are the three main things that kind of set functional medicine apart from what we'd call mainstream medicine or conventional medicine. Number one is we interpret labs using a thinner reference range. So, you know, anybody that goes to the doctor, there'll be this X to Y interval, this reference range of numbers that they are being compared to. So they'll have like their lab and then this reference range. And if you're outside of that reference range, it typically will be a bold font. It's high or low and it's being flagged. Where do we get that reference range? It's based off a largely for most of them, a statistical bell curve average of people who go to that lab. Who are the people that are typically going to labs? They're people that aren't feeling the best. They're people that are going through some health issues. They're not necessarily the healthiest group of people to be compared to. But that's how it's done. And there's a lot of people, especially women, that know intuitively something's off here. Something, my fatigue, my brain fog, my skin issues, my hair issues, my digestive problems, whatever we're talking about, these chronic health issues that impact your quality of life. They go to their doctor, the doctor runs the basic labs, but the labs come back largely for many people come back quote unquote normal. And they're told, you know, everything's fine. You're just stressed, you're just depressed, take this antidepressant, you're just getting older, you're a new mom. All these well-intentioned reasons. But what they're unintentionally telling you is like you're a lot like the other people with health problems that aren't in optimal health that we're comparing you to. So in functional medicine, we're looking at optimal, not average. Where is the body functioning the best? That's what we get our name, functional, functional medicine. So, where does vibrant wellness reside? Where does longevity reside? That's gonna be a tighter interval within that larger reference range. That's where your body's functioning the best. The second thing that we do differently in functional medicine is we run more comprehensive labs, which I'm sure we'll get into today. So, looking at things like underlying gut problems, looking at things like hormonal imbalances comprehensively, looking at nutrient deficiencies, looking at chronic infection like bacterial, viral, parasitic issues that can drive inflammation, looking at environmental toxins that can impact your health. So, and I would say this even mental emotional, even spiritual things like chronic stress, unresolved trauma, how is that stored in the body and showing up in somebody's health as far as their symptoms are concerned? Um, and the third thing we do differently is we realize we're all different. It's bioindividuality. So you cannot have a cookie-cutter approach when you're talking about human health. There's science. We have to apply the science, but there's an art to it. Art artists are science too. But we have to look at the ineffable, we have to look at bioindividuality and um be your own end of one experiment, if you will. Um, so that's what we've been doing for 16 years in the space. And we use food as medicine, we use natural medicines, herbs, botanicals, peptides, a lot of emerging therapies, biohacks, if you want to call it, therapeutics that are effective at dealing with these root causes, uh, and then mental emotional things like uh bagel toning and somatic practices, breathwork meditation, and medications when needed. We're not anti-medication. It's just what's your most effective option that causes you the least amount of side effects? And if that's a medication, then yeah, that may be a tool within the toolbox, and some people need to be on them. But it just so happens that medications oftentimes don't fit that criteria. Right. They aren't the most effective option for a lot of these chronic health issues, and they can have a lot of unintended side effects or, you know, they're just consequences of the pharmaceuticals. So that's what functional medicine is. I'm sorry for that long dissertation on it, but yeah. I feel like I have a better understanding of it now. Now you can go and teach the world. Exactly. I feel like it's more of like a natural way of healing the body, getting to the root cause versus maybe just being thrown a medicine and hoping it it sticks, you know? Yeah, exactly. It is just, I mean, people are not ultimately sick when you're taught dealing with chronic health problems, and maybe defining that. It could be a skin flare-up, it could be, you know, a metabolic problem, trouble losing weight, it could be brain fog, fatigue, it could be anxiety, depression. People do not have those issues due to a pharmaceutical deficiency. You know, they're not there's not lack of that medication in their body that they're gonna somehow fit and uh fix that deficiency and like just come off that medication because it's not dealing with the root causes. Again, there's a time and place for medic medication, but we're I mean, when you look at the epidemic rise of chronic health problems in the United States and beyond around the world, uh we have we're very medicated, but we're not really healthy. And I think there's there's a distinction there. Yeah. So that brings me to
What Does Functional Medicine Have to Do With Skin?
my next question. What does functional medicine have to do with the skin? Oh, it has everything to do with the skin. I mean, the skin is an outer mirror, it's a proverbial check engine light of something going on in the body. It's multifaceted, and but we need to have both an outside in and an inside out approach. Right. And if you do have one and not the other, it's just scratching the surface. You're gonna be really frustrated because you could take all the best skincare products out there, and that's that is one half of that puzzle, that outside in approach, but you have to look at the inside out as well. Right. And for people on the other side that just deal with the inside out and they they have a poor skin microbiome, or they're using inflammatory products or things that are irritating to the skin mantle, skin barrier, that's not good either. Right. So you have to bridge and have a both and not either or approach here. Uh so it has everything to do with it. And specifically, what my a large work is is looking at somebody's skin issues, looking at their health history, running appropriate labs to look at
The Gut-Skin Axis Explained
what's causing it. So it's it's multifaceted, it's multifactorial, it's not gonna just be one thing. But a big part of that I would say is looking at the gut. The gut is a significant component as far as the research is concerned. We have what's called the gut-skin axis or the connection between the gut and the skin. And the skin is oftentimes an outer mirror of what's going on in the gut. It's like think of if so you look at somebody's skin, that is in many ways what their gut lining is looking like. Meaning if their skin's inflamed, their gut should be we we want to rule out the fact that their gut's inflamed or not. For many people, it is. And depending on the study that you cite, we have about upwards of a hundred trillion bacteria in our gut. We have about thirty trillion human cells.
We Are More Bacteria Than Human
So we are exponentially more bacteria than human. And with that amount of bacteria, it's known as a microbiome or small life microbiome. And we want to look at the balance of this microbiome. Right. It's 75% of the immune system is in the gut. Inflammation is a product of the immune system. So there's a crosstalk between what's going on in the gut and what's going on in the skin. And we have the skin microbiome, it's all the beneficial microbes on the skin, and that's intimately tied to the larger microbiome, which is in the gut. So, as someone that can have an unhealthy microbiome or imbalanced microbiome in the gut, it can show up on the skin through the sort of microbiome inflammatory skin connection. Um, so we would look at labs for someone that has skin issues. We would look at labs. One of those potential labs would be someone's microbiome, gastrointestinal health at large, looking at inflammatory markers in the gut, looking at bacterial imbalances in the gut, there's things, um a type of dysbiosis. If you break that word down, dysbiosis, it's like a bad, bad imbalance, bad balance in the in the gut. It's it's it's the sort of these uh uh proverbial weeds overgrowing in this gut garden. If your gut is the garden, if the microbiome is the garden, you have people can have these opportunistic and pathogenic bacteria in the gut. These are like uh these metaphorical weeds, right? They're higher in what are called lipopolysaccharides or bacterial toxins, which are pro-inflammatory. God made gram-negative bacteria, but we don't want overgrowth of these bacteria. It's it's the Goldilocks principle. It's not too high, not too low, but just right. Or homeostasis, right? And that applies to many things in the body. It applies to the microbiome with bacteria, it applies to hormones, you don't want excesses of hormones, you don't want deficiencies of hormones, it applies to inflammation, we don't want high inflammation, we don't want suppression of inflammation either. So it's it's we want balance, we want homeostasis in the body. So specifically with skin health, we have to look at the landscape of this gut garden, the landscape of the microbiome. So looking at bacterial imbalances, which there's a sp go back to what my point is, the dysbiosis piece, there's a type of dysbiosis called SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which is very, there's a lot of exciting research around SIBO and its connection to skin issues. And and it's also some researchers are postulating that SIBO may be an autoimmune condition in and of itself, but it certainly is associated with different autoimmune issues. And that's not to say, to be clear, not everybody with SIBO has an autoimmune condition. But there's somewhere on this inflammation spectrum. There's some dysregulation going on with the immune system. And for some people, not everybody, it can show up on the skin. So I want to look at things like imbalances or bacterial overgrowths in the gut, but not just bacterial overgrowths. But as someone can have SIBO, they can also have what's called SIFO, small intestinal fungal overgrowth. Or you hear oftentimes on social media about candida, right? Right. And what is that, right? Candida is part of the microbiome. It's not inherently bad. Small amounts are fine, just like it's back to that Goldilux principle. Right. We just don't want overgrowth of this, which is associated with skin issues and other inflammatory problems in the body. All of these imbalances in the gut, whether it's bacterial, yeast and fungal overgrowth, parasitic issues, can be another thing that can really stress the body out. Um they all of these overgrowths can increase an inflammatory response. Inflammation's not inherently bad either. But when the body has these overgrowths, it really can be stressful. The body's trying to maintain homeostasis, so it ramps up inflammation. It's the defense system of the immune system. But over time, that can wear down the intestinal lining. Uh, what researchers call increased intestinal lining permeability or hyperpermeability. The common term for it is leaky gut syndrome. Things passing through the gut that shouldn't be able to pass through the gut. Right. Oftentimes, what causes it are these bacterial, yeast and fungal or parasitic overgrowths. Environmental toxins can do it too, which we can get into, like herbicides, pesticides, microplastics, forever chemicals. But anyways, there's a there's a combination of things stressing the gut out. When things can pass through the gut lining into the bloodstream, the immune system says, What the heck's going on? Why is there undigested food proteins? And that can trigger food sensitivities, which can impact the skin health as well. Yeah. Or bacterial toxins, that creates an inflammatory cascade. Inflammation is really the common thread between all these health problems. So an inflammatory skin issue, whether it be acne or rosacea, dermatitis or psoriasis, those are inflammatory. Yeah. Okay, why is that check engine light? Why is that skin issue on on? And for many times, people, it's that gut-skin connection that needs to be looked at. Look, it's way more effective. It's there's so many other facets in that. Right. We have to look at hormones, we have to look at nutrient deficiencies as well. But it's gonna be part of that sort of trifecta of things that are there, but the body's interconnected. So if the gut's off, that can throw off hormones. But then conversely, if hormones are off, that can throw off the gut. So we have to look at these sort of what we would call upstream and downstream issues, the interplay between the different systems of the body. But you could see why. I mean, I didn't even get to dig into hormones, but you can see why it's not as simple as take that serum. Right. The serum's important, the products you use in your skin are important, but it's just one half of the puzzle. Right. So this was a great this answer was a great segue into the episode because everything that you touched on is what we're gonna dive deeper into. So I love
If You've Done Everything Right and Your Skin Is Still Angry
that. But it kind of just sounds like um, let's say someone's doing everything right, right? Like they're eating clean, they're using clean products, but their skin is still angry. It sounds like it's time for them to look internal. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, start with the outside in, right? Because you have to have good hygiene, right? We don't want anyone having dirty skin out here. But but the reality is, yes, if you've done that, if you've done all the things, and that's typically where I'm meeting people, is that they are doing more than most people are doing, but they're still struggling. They're still spinning their wheels, they're still stuck at this plateau. They know intuitively something is off here. Right. Um, and that's where, yeah, labs, health history, digging deeper. And it's just not done in the standard model of care. It's really not. I think times are changing. I mean, the amount of referrals we get from conventional doctors to us, there's more and more conventional doctors that are aware that, yeah, this is a thing now. This isn't some fringe woo-woo thing. The mainstream institutions like the Cleveland Clinic has a have functional medicine centers. I mean, there's so many functional medicine centers within mainstream institutions now because the data speaks for itself, the results speak for itself. So this is something that um again, it doesn't have to be us versus the rest of the mainstream medicine. It should be collaborative. Right. Um, and I think that's where we'll serve people the best when we are. Yeah, totally.
What Can Happen to Your Skin If Your Gut Is Off?
I I want to keep talking about the gut skin access. So what what would you say can happen to your skin if your gut is off? Anything and everything. So uh if you're dealing with the skin issue, if you're dealing with a skin issue, you are gonna wanna look at at the gut as being a component to that. So it it really could be any variety of skin problem out there. Um, because I mean the only exception to what I'm I could think of is if somebody's using a product that is irritating their skin. Or if someone is exposed to something environmentally that they're using topically, yeah, that obviously has nothing to do with the gut. That has to do with some irritation that's happening on the skin mantle, right? The skin barrier is is irritated or lost integrity and you have an irritation. Everything else, the gut should be ruled out because it is certainly is at the very least, if I'm just being careful and conservative with my words, at the very least it should be ruled out because it's typically at least a component, a piece of the puzzle. It may not be the entire puzzle, rarely is one thing, but it it is uh certainly a significant piece of the puzzle for many people. Yeah.
The Inflammatory Core Four: Foods That Secretly Ruin Your Gut
And what's something that might seem innocent, but it's secretly ruining your gut? Oh, that's a good answer. And I kind of go back to what your last question kind of we mentioned, like someone eating clean. I think we should probably even define what that is, right? Because that could be that means different things for different people. True. And it's also subject to bioindividuality. So I don't make a broad sweeping statement to at least I try not to, to say that this is the magic, like cure-all food plan that's gonna work for everybody. Uh, because what works for one person, even a healthy food, may not be loving you back so much right now. True. And what works for you now, as we improve somebody's gut health, improve somebody's resilience and their immune system and hormones, they're they're the list of foods that love them back will grow, and the foods that don't love them back will shrink. Yeah, it's not always one size fits all. It's not. So if I could go over to the four, what I would call the inflammatory core four, and we can kind of dig into like the nuance and context of each if you want, but these are the four things that I would say can be fine for some people,
#1 Gluten: Is It the Bread or What We've Done to It?
but don't work for everybody. Yeah. So number one would be, and this is in no particular order, so don't come at me in the comment section and be like, he ranked these wrong. And I wouldn't do it like that, Dr. Cole. Um, number one would be gluten. Uh again, works. We could talk about the better for you versions of that. There's people that do fine on it, but it's the uh protein that's in wheat, rye, barley, and spelt, and oats can be cross-contaminated with it. So a lot of people have skin issues. A lot of people who have skin issues will have gluten sensitivities. And does that mean everybody? No. Back to bioindividuality. What works for one person may not be needed for the next person. And then we have to look at the this is all on a spectrum. This is all on a spectrum. Because some people may do fine with better versions of these things, some people will do fine on none of the versions of these things. So it's not all or nothing. And the greater question is, is it the gluten or is it what we've done to the poor gluten? Because we've hybridized the wheat supply, we've done we've sp sprayed it with herbicides and pesticides that things like glyphosate that can disrupt the microbiome. So is it really the bread, or is it what we what we've done to the grain supply? I think it depends on who we're talking about. I think it's a it's a multifactorial topic. All are being explored in the scientific literature. So I don't want to make like demonize one aspect of it. But look, humans I all of this is predicated on the fact that our genetics haven't changed in thousands of years as humans. But our world has changed dramatically in a very finite period of time, a few generations. When you're putting that into context with the totality of human history, a lot has changed. Even in our like great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, they wouldn't recognize our world today. And same with environmental factors. So researchers are exploring what's called the epigenetic genetic mismatch or uh an evolutionary mismatch, as they call it. And our world has changed so much, but there's this distance, this mismatch between our body, our microbiome, and the world around us. So that's the foods we're eating, we're not eating, it's stress levels, it's environmental toxins, it's chronic stress, it's all this stuff. So gluten's implicated in that. So our ancestors would have consumed the bread that we consume today. Yeah. They would have consumed ancient grains, they would have been properly prepared oftentimes, soaked and sprouted. They were not doing that anymore. So I don't want to say, well, it's just bread. It's it is a multi-layered conversation. Um, but so an ancient grain, organic, soaked, sprouted, fermented sourdough bread is going to behave very differently than the baguette that somebody's getting, you know, or some some whatever random bun or toast that they're getting from the supermarket. But even the best version, even the eight the the uh ancient grain that's fermented that breaks down the plant defense mechanisms, some people still don't do well with those. So we have to look at gluten. That's number one. Number two would be it's a little bit more controversial. People will come at you in the comment sections about this. So yeah. It's uh seed oils. So seed oil. I didn't think seed oils were that controversial, but then lo and behold,
#2 Seed Oils: The Most Controversial One
people really love their seed oils. I don't know what it is. Yeah. It's been politicized. I don't think it should be. Um, and I think the nuance and context can be lost. You have one camp that says it's gonna kill you, and just like don't even look at canola oil because your eyes will fall out. And the other side says, you know, it's heart healthy. People should be chugging it and, you know, just bathe in canola oil. So it's hard for people to understand what's right. Exactly. So the truth is oftentimes, I know it's not sexy, but sometimes it's oftentimes it's somewhere in the middle. Yeah. And I think it's an organic, cold-pressed sunflower oil, which is technically a seed oil, is very different than overconsuming oxidized canola oil in vast amounts. So, in the context of a whole nutrient-dense diet, I don't think some seed oils and like packaged pro like minimally processed foods or using them, whatever is dressing, is the end of the world. The problem is the modern Westerner consumes way too much high omega-6 fatty acids, which is very much connected to the skin. We can dig into this, and not enough omega-3s. So your skin barrier really is tied into all this conversation. Yeah. That gut skin axis is definitely connected to all this. Because when your diet is really high in omega-6, really low in omega-3s, we need both in whole food forms, but it's out of order. Yeah. It's it's it's just it's back to that mismatch. It's a pro-inflammatory state state. We need omega-6s. They're actually, these are essential fatty acids in whole food form in the proper amounts. But when they're processed and industrialized, there's chemical solvents like hexane, it's just a something in a whole food form becomes more oxidative and inflammatory in high amounts. So canola oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil, these types of seed oils, I would put in the inflammatory category, especially the way humans are consuming it in high amounts and not enough long-chain whole food omega-3, like fatty fish. All these things, if you get your omega-3 fatty acid ratio optimized, your skin's gonna love you
#3 Added Sugar: The Hidden Skin Saboteur
back. Uh, third thing would be added sugar. Another, it's like skin saboteur is processed refined sugar, not in its whole food form. I don't have a problem with someone having fruit because you have fiber, you have all the antioxidants, the vitamins. Humans, you know, there's people have not become diabetic because they've eaten too much fruit. Yeah. I don't have a problem. No, we've done a lot to go back to human history. We've done a lot to crossbreed fruits to make them sweeter and bigger and grow faster. Even those are different. We are consuming more sugar from fruits now versus our ancestors, but still, it's in its whole food form. I don't want to dramatize that too much. Um, and but we're looking at added sugar. People would be shocked if they just did even a week of tracking their breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snacks and drinks in like a food tracking app, not to become obsessive with calories. That's not what this is about. Right. This is just to be mindful, use it as a mindfulness awareness tool to say, I did not know I had this amount of grams of added sugar in a day, in a week. Yeah. Uh humans did not do that just a few generations ago. This is not a thing. But we are could have breathed, we're fuel, this is fuel for these bacterial and fungal overgrowths, but can which can show up on the skin.
#4 Dairy: Is It Really Bad for Your Skin?
Uh and the fourth would be dairy, another skin culprit. That's a good one. Yeah. So, but look, I think there's is it the dairy or is it what we've done to it? Right. Because humans would have consumed dairy for a long time with no problem. But humans would have consumed thousands of years ago beta A2 casein. The dairy had a different protein. So humans had a different had a different milk. Um, and because we've crossbred cows, we now have a brand new casein, dairy protein on the block. The OG casein is like hard to find now. And it's um, you know, that's why you see more and more in health food stores, and you'll see more of it over the next five years, is A2 milk. There's even commercials like A2 milk, A2 yogurt. What are they talking about? It's the OG casein. It's what humans would have consumed for thousands of years. So it's people are shocked to find out, oh, maybe I'm not lactose intolerance, maybe I'm not dairy sensitive, maybe it's just the type of protein. So uh, but again, it's how do we prepare this? How's the cow treated? Is it grass-fed or grain-fed? That impacts the fatty acid profile. Is it higher in omega-3s or lower and higher omega-6s? Back to the seed oil conversation. And then is it homogenized and pasteurized? And like, what's that? Like all the good nutrients are removed from a lot of milk that people are consuming, and then they're synthetically injected. So, like a grass-fed, organic, fermented dairy, raw dairy, treat is completely different food. It's a shell of itself. The standard milk is a shell of itself because it's homogenized, it's pasteurized, it's grain-fed and not grass-fed. It is ejected with all these synthetic things and gums, um, and it's A1 and not A2. So then we blame in the skincare world, we say it'll be advice from dermatologists, right? It'll be advice from skincare experts to say dairy's bad for the skin. Well, the context around that matters because I know a lot of people that do fine with dairy and it's better for you version of it. Yeah. Like a grass-ed, you know, kefir or cheese or yogurt, completely different than the you know, 2% milk you're getting at the supermarket. So I think that's why the the the better for you versions, the swaps, if you will, really are helpful for people. That way they don't have to live this boring puritanical life. Yeah. Um, there are swaps for all of these things. And that's the blessing of the time that we live in, where before it was like you didn't have access to A2 milk. You didn't have access to organic sourdough bread. Now we do if people want to have them. It doesn't mean like most of those things, people don't need them. But they're, if they're having skin issues or any inflammatory
Bonus: Alcohol and Your Skin
problem, I would look at the better for you swap for that inflammatory core four. And if I could add a plus one to my inflammatory core four, which I always lose friends every time I say this. Oh, gosh. And people come at me in the comments, it's alcohol. Yeah. And there's really not a, well, there's not really a better for you version of alcohol other than just less of it and drinks that have less alcohol. But all the other additives within the alcoholic drink, uh, talk about skin saboteur. I mean, alcohol will be a massive saboteur. So I would like to give someone like a better swap option for that. I would just say the research is clear. The healthiest amount of alcohol is none. Right. There's not like a healthy amount. And then people will bring, especially around the skin health, they'll say, but Dr. Cole, what about the resveratrol? What about the resveratrol? I'm getting the antioxidants. My skin loves that. But believe me, that is like spin from the alcohol industry. Like, there's a lot better ways to get resveratrol without neurotoxins involved. Yeah. So I would just say, look, I'm a pragmatist for telehealth patients. Most people don't want to be teetotalers about the rest of their life. But so if you're going to drink pragmatically, I would say an organic, low sugar, regenerative, biodynamic wine uh from Europe is probably the best option in small amounts. Yeah. And there are people that live long, healthy lives and do that. Yeah. But the problem is we're exposed to so much in our culture because people will bring up their grandma or their great great uncle that like drank every day. My grandma drank every day and she lived to 99. What are you talking about? She's like, the secret's red wine. Yeah, right. But the reality is, grandma, great grandma, whoever she is, she didn't have the stuff that you were exposed to. So if you lived in great grandma's time, maybe you could get away with it. Please find a time traveling at capacity and go back to the 1920s. But the reality is our soil microbiome, our environment, the foods we eat, the things we're exposed to, it is a brand a brave new world. Yeah. And our microbiome and our gut skin axis
What If You Just Want to Eat in Moderation?
is showing it. Yeah. So the core four, right? We have gluten, we have sugar, we have dairy, we have seed oils, and then we have our bonus alcohol. So what if people they swear by their cheese? You know, they swear by this certain yogurt brand, they swear by this cheese, they swear by this alcohol brand, you know, they love it, they don't want to give it up. What about consuming in moderation? Do you think that would make a difference? Yeah, it depends on who we're talking about, right? So if if what you are doing that you love and it loves you back, I'm not coming for anybody. Like I live your life. Live the life that you want to live. Uh, if your labs look good, if you feel good, more power to you. Who am I to say what to do and what not to do? I am, I spend my day with people that are overcoming these things. So I realize I don't have, I don't talk to everyone in the world. I don't know every population base, but I do know that increasingly so, statistically wise, statistically wise, if you look at their world, more and more of these foods aren't loving the human body back.
Does the 80/20 Rule Actually Work?
Yeah. So does moderation, does the 80-20 rule, people want to know, like, oh, I just I just do it on the weekends. I just I have it here and there. The 80-20 rule works for some people, but increasingly it's becoming obsolete. Now, if you build resilience, meaning if you go off of it for a while and build resilience, you build gut health, you've you calmed inflammation, you've dealt with these other issues, then the 80-20 rule can work. But for some people, their immune system has a memory, right? And it's it is one of those things that it could be slowly irritating, driving it up. But look, I want people to live and have as much variety and diversity with their foods and live their life. And I want there to be a grace and lightness to this. I want them to eat intuitively. Uh, I want to get them to that place of resilience, but the problem that I have with people saying, well, it's just moderation and the 80-20 rule, if you're doing that and you aren't where you're at, I am not so sure that's gonna cut it. Yeah. So can we get you there? Possibly. But right now, it's stressing an already stressed-out system. I'm saying if somebody has a problem, right? If someone has a metabolic hormonal skin issue, an inflammatory problem, digestive problem. We'll never get your the head above water if we live by that rule. Yeah. Because you're constantly sort of irritating the system. So it's like the analogy that I use, actually, for that very question you gave me is like if somebody had a, God forbid, they broke their wrist, right? They had to wear a cast. It would be like taking the cast off 20% of the time and like going and doing yard work. And it's like, bro, you're not gonna get better if you don't give your body time to mend and gain resilience and strengthen and heal. So you can't take the cast. I mean, that'd be like telling a surgeon or a, you know, an osteopath or uh a doctor that that handles this, sort of an emergency room physician, take it saying, Yeah, I approve you taking the cast off 20% of the time. It would be ridiculous because you would not heal. You would slow down healing uh tremendously. Right. That's what I see for these sort of these gut inflammatory connections, is that the 80-20 rule isn't going to work until we build resilience. Right.
Is a Probiotic and Kombucha Enough to Heal Your Gut?
So I feel like I know the answer now to this next question, but it's a big myth that I really want you to debunk. Okay. So a healthy gut, is it as simple as taking a probiotic and drinking kombucha daily? Can can those things be a wonderful tool within the toolbox? Certainly. And both of those things, what are they? Those are probiotic sources of uh either a probiotic or a probiotic rich food, kombucha, kefirs, yogurts, these type of things. But for some people, they're not dealing with maze major issues, and it is just that tool that's that really moves things in the positive direction. So
Let's Talk About Pooping
is it okay if we talk about pooping here? Please do. Okay. So I mean, this is like too clean of a setup. Just spill all the tea, please. Uh so I would say this normal bow movements, like if I don't talk about pooping at least once on a podcast, I feel like I've failed. Okay. So I just needed to bring this up. So two, two to three snakes a day is what we say as far as the Bristol chart, which is people just Google the Bristol chart. Two to three snakes a day, you'll never look at a snake the same way. But that's what people should be doing. So I to answer your question here, many people have mild to moderate digestive problems. Or they have really mild digestive problems and they have these downstream effects. Like it's their brain fog or it's their anxiety or it's their skin issues, and they're not even connecting it to their gut. So I wanna, but those people oftentimes they won't be going two to three times a day with normal formation. Yeah. They'll go every two to three days or every five to seven days. But it'll when when it's nor but when they go, it'll be completely normal. So they think, I'm not constipated, I'm fine. Five to seven days can't be normal. Going up, no, going every five to seven, no, no, and nor is it's going every other day, it's not normal. And so we have to look at the frequency, but we also have to look at the formation. So if it's always loose or undigested, if it's incomplete, if you feel like you're not fully clearing, or it's looks like pebbles or something like that. We have to look at the Bristol chart as a simple check engine light as to what my body's telling me. So for some of these people with mild digestive issues, they take the probiotic and it really just improves things quite nicely. But for some people, it's not. Uh, and it's it's not enough. And it's it's it's almost like the 80-20 rule, it's become increasingly not that simple. Yeah. For some people, God bless them, it's that simple. Just take that probiotic and we'll see you later. But for more more people than not with digestive problems, it's gonna take a little bit more tools within the toolbox. Yeah.
Are Probiotic Sodas Like Poppy Actually Doing Anything?
Okay, and let's be real about probiotic sodas. So Poppy, Olipop, are they actually doing anything? Uh okay, here's the deal. Be honest. Okay. That they I they they have some redemptive value. I will say this. Poppy actually got in trouble a few years ago, right? Because someone sued them, which when you get to a certain level size, people just like to sue everybody. But um, so I felt I actually felt bad for Poppy at that point because I really felt like man, you really think Poppy is gonna like heal your gut? Like they're making it fun, they're talking about pre about prebiotic prebiotics and apple cider vinegar. It's not that serious. Like, this is a poppy is not your doctor, right? Like, get uh get a get a life. But we live in a litigious culture, right? People like to sue people, it's really sad and sick. Um, but they were sued because they were said that this was misleading and they thought that they it was like some therapeutic gut medicine was poppy. Um I can appreciate something like poppy for what it is because it has does it have enough apple cider vinegar to really move the needle? I don't know, probably not, but it tastes good, and I think it's better than drinking a high fructose corn syrup soda. Right. Uh Olipop, I do think has a little bit more as far as the the clarity of their prebiotics. Again, is it a gut healing magic? No. But it is a better for you alternative. Yeah. That's where I can get behind pragmatically, brands that are trying to do better for you versions. Yeah. I would just be mindful of the amount of grams of added sugar. They still are gonna have a lot of the brands. I don't know every single one of those brands out there that are the probiotic sodas, look at the grams of added sugar. And that kind of parlays into kombucha, right? And kefirs, you'll see those show up. Still look at the grams of added sugar. Um, they're fermented. The fermentation breaks down a lot of the sugar. That's how you make kombucha with the scoby and it's a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. But the tartar the better, I guess would be my pro tip there. If it's super sweet, look at the grams of added sugar. They may use a monk fruit or allulose or stevia or something like that. That's a low-carb natural sweetener, which I would say for many reasons, it's a better option than having high cane sugar or something like that. But look at the label, become label literate and look at the grams of added sugar, and then realize it is what it is. It's a fun drink that's enjoyable. It's not going to like heal SIBO. It is, it is definitely more complex than just drinking poppy. Okay. Good to know. I'm glad, I'm glad we debunked that. Clear
The #1 Simple Thing You Can Do Tomorrow for Your Gut
cleared the air. Yeah. So what's like one very simple thing I can do literally tomorrow to help heal my gut? Yeah. So I would say start with eliminating the inflammatory core four for at least four weeks and then add that bonus, the alcohol. Try it for four weeks. A version of an elimination diet is still a gold standard. It's an ele with for fruit sensitivities, gut skin access issues. Really focus on on that. Um I think a spore-based probiotic, these are things that are from the soil. So back to that ancestral mismatch. Humans would have been out in nature, they would have been farming in the dirt, foraging in the dirt, living in the dirt. Uh, and we we co we were co-creating, co-evolved of that over time, right? So we are intimately connected to the earth. So spore-based probiotics, unless you want to go out and just rub your face in the mud, you could do that too. But uh, I wouldn't recommend it necessarily. You don't know what's what's out there in the dirty world we live in today. But in a more of a sterile, uh sterile but not unsterile way, a safe way, would be uh spore-based probiotic. I I love pairing, and you'll see a lot of research coming out here with this with skin health specifically, is postbiotics and skin health. So I take one that is a combination of prebiotics, probiotics, parabio, parabiotics, which is another field that many people don't know about. Yeah, and then postbiotics. So parabiotics are basically dead probiotics that have a modulating balancing effect without sort of the uh Herx response that some people can have with like excess bloating and things from taking probiotics. So it's a balancing tool. And then postbiotics are the products of the probiotics. So if I could break it down, prebiotics are like the food for the probiotics. The probiotics are the bacteria, the parabiotics are the dead guys, and the postbiotics are the the products of the probiotics. It is the the actually what researchers are showing is like the main benefits or a lot of the benefits from probiotics is the postbiotics. But the problem is most people don't have the proper bacterial diversity in their gut because of modernity, because of the foods we eat, environmental issues, et cetera, to make the proper postbiotics. So I take one, it's called probiotic trillion from longevity or X. I formulated it. So it's has a uh pre, pro, para, and post. So I would say something like that, even if they don't take probiotic trillion, I would take a spore-based probiotic and then consider a postbiotic. I just like it because it's four in one. Um and then another gut tool. Oh, this is what I'll say.
The Bone Broth Fast: What It Is and Why It Works
You you asked for one thing, didn't you? You can give two. Okay, well, I'm I'm not giving you way more, but I uh bring more bone broth into your life. I've heard that. Yeah. So you back to that gut skin axis, collagen rich, you need that. Like, do this would change so many people's lives if they just did this. Do one week, if you're really feeling it, do two weeks. I would love if everybody listening to this did this one to two weeks of just brothing and souping. So they could just do nothing else, nothing else. So maybe just for a day, do brothing. Look, let me give some caveats here. There are people that shouldn't be fasting, there's people that shouldn't do this, so talk with your doctor if you shouldn't. But for the average person, they could do a good 24-hour brothing because it's not even a full fast. It's just drinking broth. Broth and electrolytes. I do cellular hydration electrolytes from longevity or x with broth, have it all day long for a day. That's gonna start tapping in lightly into something called autophagy, which your skin needs it. If you break that word down, autophagy, autophagy is self-eating. It's your body's ability to recycle and renewal. So think of like your body, your skin having the sort of accelerated renewing pathway. So a lot of beauty benefits, longevity health spend benefits are really uh research or centered around autophagy and mitophagy, these sort of uh renewing uh pathways. It's almost like reincarnation in a way, of on a cellular level. It's like cellular reincarnation. Your body's amazing to be able to do that. And and um and we all can do it and we all do it, but because of modernity, those pathways are bogged down and optimal. So brothing for 24 hours. I go up, we have telehealth patients do it of up to four days of just broth, broth and electrolytes. Have as much as you want, don't limit it. Because of the protein, because of the fats, like we want the gelatinous broth. Yeah. Not the skimmed stuff. I want you to like make a broth, make broth, or buy broth that has the fat in it. Because we want it to be nutrient dense. We want it to be calorically rich. Yeah. But it's a wonderful collagen-rich way to support that gut skin axis. But it also is acting like a proverbial siesta for your gut. Yeah. It's just like a break from things that are irritating to it. And it allows sort of these rapid healing mechanisms. So after the two to four days of brothing, transition into souping. Again, you can make those soups as hearty, as filling, as nourishing as you want. But it's like the adage of, you know, when somebody's sick having chicken soup, chicken noodle soup, it's not the noodles that are making people healthy. It's the broth. It's the soft cooked vegetables. It's the soft cooked, easy to digest proteins. Doing that for at least two weeks with electrolytes to make sure you're balancing your sodium, potassium, and magnesium. But that can do wonders to help their gut and their gut skin access and beyond. Wow. Okay. I'm gonna have to try that. Yeah, and it's just using food.
How Quickly Will You See Gut Healing in Your Skin?
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. So if you are on a journey to fix your gut, how quickly would you say you would start to see it in your skin? Wow. You could if someone did those things like look the inflammatory core for the bonus, added a spore-based probiotic, did this brothing and souping, they could notice a change in those two weeks. Oh, wow. Yeah. Start start seeing a decrease of severity and frequency of flares over that time. For most people with more chronic issues, it's gonna take time. Yeah. There's studies to show for people that have more inflammatory issues, more like autoimmune inflammatory, which could be you know psoriasis on their skin, it could take a year to two years to really get to a place of true resilience. Right. So that's not to say they're gonna wait that long to feel better or see results, but it's like, okay, every two to three months, we shouldn't we want to look back and say, we're better than the previous two to three months. Yeah. And flare-ups can happen along the way, healing is nonlinear. Right. Give yourself grace, give the process some grace. Because it's gonna what took years to get to where you're at now, it's not gonna be this magic pilled out in two days. Yeah. But do we want to get nods that the body's moving in the right direction? Do we want to get some signs that the body is responding? Well, yeah, certainly. So looking at severity and frequency, the way the tip that telehealth patients will tell me is I'm having, whether it's skin issues or something else, I'm having way more great days and good days and a lot less bad days. Yeah. And the bad days aren't as bad as they used to be. So that could be a skin flare, it could be a breakout, it could be digestive problems or whatever we're talking about, hormonal issues. Um, so yeah, it depends anywhere from weeks for mild cases to year to two years for more severe and everything in between. Yeah, just like anything, it's about commitment, consistency, yeah, in order to get the results. Right. And another thing I would say here is if somebody's pay paying for it, or if it's like they're feeling horrible, if they feel like they have detoxy symptoms or hurt responses. Some people want to get better so and I understand this, but I I they want to get better so badly that they push through really an arduous journey. And there's a time and place for that. Doctors can monitor that and the context around that matters. But if somebody's doing this on their own, I would say, like, doesn't have to be horribly miserable. Yeah. So if you're if something that I said, or if you heard online, heard on a podcast, read in an article, read in a book, and it's not loving you back, even though you read, it's just loving so many people back. That's back to bioindividuality. Yeah. Is that it's you shouldn't be pushing a square peg through a round hole. It's okay. And that's sort of the science and art of all of these things. And that's why, you know, uh uh, there's no replacement for health history, labs, and seeing a doctor when you need
Can Fixing Your Gut Actually Change Your Mood?
it. Yeah. Okay. So another gut topic. Can fixing your gut actually change your mood? Oh, yeah. It really can. But people think, like in the West, we'll separate mental health from physical health. You know, it's it will you have any other health issue, you go to the doctor. But for some reason, with mental health, there's a lot of stigma around it, but it's treated as sort of a separate thing. And it comes from old science, it actually comes from the fact that science believed that the brain was immune-privileged, which is a big fancy way of saying that the inflammation didn't impact the brain. Yeah. Now we understand that's not only uh untrue, but the brain has a very sophisticated immune system called the microglial cell. So there's a whole field of research called the looking at neuroinflammation or nervous system inflammation, or what the they call it the cytokine model of cognitive function. Cytokines are pro-inflammatory cells. So remember, inflammation, it's a product of the immune system. 75% of the immune system's in the gut. Well, we have to understand inflammation. You have to understand where the predominance of the immune system resides. Also, your gut and brain are formed from the same fetal tissue. So when babies are growing in their mom's womb, the gut and brain are formed from the same fetal tissue and are inextricably linked for the rest of our lives through what's known as the gut brain axis. Like we talked about the gut-skin axis. This is the gut brain axis. And researchers have looked at this over the past increasingly so over the past 15, 20 years. And um, 95% of serotonin, our happy neurotransmitter, is made in the gut and stored in the gut. 50% of dopamine, our pleasure neurotransmitter, is made in the gut, stored in the gut. Oh, wow. So they work upon, they don't pass through the blood-brain barrier. They work on GA motility and they work upon the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve V-A-G-U-S, it's comes from the root word wanderer. It's the largest cranial nerve in the body. It's responsible for that resting, digesting, parasympathetic aspect of the autonomic nervous system. So a lot of people, when you hear people on social media or podcasts, they'll talk about nervous system dysregulation as implicated with things like mood, right? And anxiety, depression, mental health issues, right? Brain fog and fatigue, even. What are we even talking about with nervous system dysregulation? It's the sympathetic, the fight or flight response is overactive and the resting, digesting parasympathetic is underactive. What's regulating the parasympathetic, what is weak here, is the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is what's innervating the gut brain axis. So to answer your question, many ways, from an inflammatory standpoint, from a geomatility standpoint, from a vagal nerve stimulation standpoint, the gut is implicated in the scientific literature to people's mood. So
Antidepressants Work the Same as Placebos?
I'm not anti- People can do whatever they want, but I mean that this is another controversial topic, but like antidepressants for people that have mild to moderate depression anxiety. Um research is clear for those people, not we're not talking about severe mental illness. Mild to moderate depression, anxiety, antidepressants work about the same as placebos. That doesn't make it bad, per se. People can choose to take it. If anything, it shows you the power of placebo, which is the mind over matter. It's the power of suggestion. I've had people say when I talk about the research, and people get offended about it. I'm not saying it to offend anybody. Because if you need to be on it, talk with your doctor. I'm not telling anybody to come off of it. Um, but it is, I'm just talking about the research of what a the power of placebo and nocebo, which is the power of negative intentions. But people will tell me, look, I don't even know if it's helping or not, but it helps my mental health to know it's on in my medicine cabinet. Yeah. It's just knowing there's a tool there. Yeah. So the mechanism of action is very interesting. Is it actually working on serotonin? Is that really the case? Or there's research is to show and shows shows this that for some people, it's just the power of intention that's helping them. And another level is researchers are exploring the possibility of antidepressants acting like a mild anti-inflammatory. So maybe that's how it's helping some people. Is that it's it's really the inflammation that's causing the depression. But when you take something that lowers inflammation a little bit, maybe that's how antidepressants work for some people. So my back to the earlier litmus test is what's your most effective option that causes you the least amount of side effects? And for many people, it can have a lot of potential side effects, those antidepressants. And it's not really dealing with the root cause long term. Right. Um, so why not look at the gut? Why not look at the gut? Because it's it's such a powerful modulator for your brain and your mood. Um, so yeah, we see this all the time. People come in for anxiety, depression, brain fog fatigue, other neuroinflammatory problems completely heal their mental health when they deal with their gut. Wow. And I don't I don't want to say just the gut, it's other factors too, like hormones, look at nutrients, looking at chronic infections, other things that drive inflammation. But the gut is such a powerful tool when understanding the brain
Hormonal Acne: What It Actually Means
and the mood. Yeah. I feel like I've always known like the gut is so important, but everything that we just learned from you about it, like it really is so powerful. It really controls everything. So thank you for sharing all that. Of course. I want to talk about something else that's also powerful, which is hormones. Yeah. Um, so when it comes to hormonal acne, what exactly is that? So sometimes it's thrown around very flippantly and there's no hormones even looked at. So sometimes dermatologists, aestheticians, skincare experts, they'll say that because of the pattern on the face. Or they'll see it as around someone's menstrual cycle. They'll say, Well, it's hormonal acne. Yeah, mate, yeah, you could say that, right? But you don't really know what hormones you're talking about. You don't really know what's imbalance. You're just saying that because it's around someone's menstrual cycle. Yeah. Or it's presenting on a pattern on their face, like on their forehead, around their chin, their T zone area, they're gonna say, Oh, that's hormonal. Okay, that that's probably the case, but the solution then is what? They put women on birth control pills, they'll put peop people on these medications that of things they're not even measuring. Right. Like if there is androgen dominance going on here, then, or estrogen dominance or some sort of androgen or estrogen imbalance is going on here, let's measure it. And then two, why is it there in the first place? Yeah. That's never looked at, or I should say rarely looked at. They're just given the birth control, they're given, you know, uh an antibiotic or something like that, and they're not really addressing the root cause of why they have uh had the problem in the first place. Yeah. So I would do a blood hormone test and what's called a Dutch hormone test, which is urine and saliva, looking at both blood, urine, saliva, all three, that uh will be able to look at hormones comprehensively. And what it means technically uh is that there's imbalances going on, either high androgens, which are things like testosterone and in that sort of androgen family, and uh it could you can have estrogen dominances or high estrogens, and that's what they're talking about. So that's why they the solution is typically to just give out birth control for skin issues, which is in my opinion, a ridiculous it's a ridiculous uh thing to be doing in today's day and day and age. Maybe it's some decade in the 80s it made sense because nobody knew any better and it was just, oh, this works. Let's let's put them on in birth control forever for every problem uh centered around women's health. But um now we know better. And it's like Maya Angela said when you know better, do you do better? We know better. There's enough research around gut health and skin health to know the solution
Is Birth Control Ruining Our Hormones?
for everybody isn't like just throwing out birth control like it's candy. Yeah. Okay. Controversial question. Is birth control actually ruining our hormones? You one could say that. One could one could say that it's really doing a number on your gut health and your hormones. Yeah. Now the body's amazingly resilient. Yeah. The body is amazingly resilient. So I don't want to, you know, fear-monger people, I, but I do want people to be empowered to advocate for themselves. Yeah. I want people to add to have to have conversations with their prescribing doctor and say, you know what, I did this for a while. I don't want to do this anymore. And just research. Yeah, research, empower yourself, educate yourself. Um and the the problem is, I'll say this one people have a lot of people have, when they come off the birth control, they're never, they're not the same. Yeah. And they they really have a hard time bouncing back. Their body can bounce back. Some people get off the pill and they're fine. They're like their body will recover and heal and no big deal. So this is not everybody. Um, but long term, if you're if you're coming off the pill and your hormones are never the same again, what do what do we need to do to help the body out? Yeah. Because your body can recover and heal. Um, so this sort of post-birth control syndrome, if you will, um, can happen for a certain percentage of people and um they can really have a hard time. And it's ultimately not dealing with why they had the problem, whether it's the painful periods, the cramping, it's not a birth control deficiency that's causing those painful periods and cramping. Right. If it's skin issues, it's not a birth control deficiency that they're having acne. So let's figure out why they have the problem in the first place. And that's not to say people can choose whatever they want, they can choose it, but most people intuitively know this is not really, this is like a band-aid. This is not dealing with why I have
Signs Your Hormones Are Completely Out of Whack
the problem. Yeah. So what are some signs that your hormones are completely out of whack? We really could go like every top to bottom. So I mean, it could be starting looking at your skin, looking at your hair, looking at your temperature. Like, uh are do you are you having hot flashes? Are you cold all the time? Uh another interesting one is the outer third of your eyebrows thinning. Oh. That's a random one, but it's it can be a sign of thyroid issues, which is another hormone that needs to be looked at. And it's kind of connected to all of these things. Um looking at your weight, are you as you try are you having trouble losing weight, or are you really trouble putting on muscle? I mean, both of those could be a sign of hormonal imbalances, low testosterone for the not being able to build muscle or having fatigue, low testosterone, or is it cortisol or insulin, which is a hormone that regulates blood sugar, is cortisol and insulin off? It's caught it's trouble losing weight. Um, low sex drive, slow um GI motility, so constipation could be another sign. Uh weak nails can be another sign, irregular periods, painful periods, um, missing periods. Yeah. So those are some of the most common ones. Fertility issues, obviously.
Can Stress Really Mess Up Your Hormones?
And what about stress? Can stress really mess up your hormones? Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of our work in tell in functional medicine is looking at both the physiological and psychological components to this. So for the conversation we've had today, we've talked about a lot of different physical, physiological pieces to the puzzle that will show up on somebody's laps. But we could be eating the best food under the sun, but what are we feeding our head and our heart? What are we serving our head and our heart on a daily basis? Yeah. And that's a lot more nebulous because it's easy to say what I just said for the past whatever however time we've talked about food and nutrition and natural medicines and things like that, right? It's another thing to say, don't have that stress or don't have that trauma. You can't. Doesn't that's not how it works. So we have to metabolize things like stress and trauma just as much as we would an environmental toxin or inflammatory food. But it's a lot more nonlinear, a lot more complex. Right. But certainly, because uh your stress is going to bring inflammation, your chronic stress. Let me say that, the human bot humans, in some ways, I think the human species needs to get a little bit more grit and resilience because we're like too pacified. But chronic stress is like that proverbial like tiger that's always chasing us, and humans haven't adapted to that. Yeah. So that's resilience and grit is one thing, but that sort of constant sympathetic fight or flight hypervigilance that our world is kind of bent towards, can't, it will definitely dysregulate what's called the neuroimmundo endocrinaxis, and that's the intersection of the things we've talked about today between your nervous system, the immune system, i.e. inflammation, and the endocrine system, your hormones. So what do we have to do to build that resilience or to have healthy boundaries with things in our life that is increasing stress? You know, Eckhart Tolle, one of my favorite authors, he he talks about for any situation, can you have can you change, leave, or accept it? And I think that's a thing to maybe think about right now for everybody that's listening or watching this. If something is causing you stress, right, inner resistance towards it, anxiety, right? You know it's not good for your health, it could be a job, it could be relationship, it could be friends, it could be whatever in your life that's stressful, can you change it? Can you leave it? Or do you have to accept it? And there's many situations that people can change. Yeah, and they have to be brave and make that change. And whether that's healthy margins in your life or saying no to things or whatever, there's some things that people can leave. They can leave a job that's maybe toxic and they can go find another one. Not all the time. I'm not saying that. I don't want to be cavalier with that, but you know what I'm saying. Maybe I mean it's a friendship that's toxic, and you're like, nah, you know what? This is like too stressful and and and it's not good for my health. Um, and then sometimes it's radical acceptance. Sometimes they cannot, it's not, they can't leave their job. They can't leave their kids, right? They they they cannot change or leave it, they have to accept it. Yeah. And I see patients all the time find that peace that passes all understanding to really find that inner acceptance to something that it's just a season of their life. They can't change or leave it. But you have to pick one of those three. Right. Because if you're not picking one of those three, you are choosing suffering for yourself and those around you. And a lot of people aren't in that place and they have to because that's going to raise cortisol. Cortisol's not bad. Cortisol is an endogenous immunosuppressant, meaning it's a natural anti-inflammatory. Yeah. So cortisol's trying to bring balance to the body, but it's just unsustainable to always be in that fight or flight or freeze response. So, and there's a time and place. We've we prescribe, if you will, things like somatic practices and breath work and vagal nerve exercises to strengthen the uh what researchers call poor vagal tone or the vagus nerve is weak, and then we need to strengthen that parasympathetic aspect of the nervous system. Yeah. That was great advice. I love that. Thank
How Do You Actually Fix Your Hormones?
you. Um, so if your hormones are kind of all over the place, how do you actually fix that? Well, hormones are biochemical emails. And is it the hormones' fault or is there a larger context? So a lot of things we talked about today, looking at the gut, looking at inflammatory core uh foods that will dysregulate blood sugar and inflammation, looking at environmental toxins, looking at nutrient deficiencies, looking at stress and trauma. If we've done that, and labs will like kind of will tell us what and health history will tell us what tools are the most effective, where where are we at, where do we need to go for a lot of people, their hormones will improve. So if you just look at the hormone tests, which we run, but if you're just looking at the emails and you're saying, yeah, those emails are being sent too much, or those emails are not being sent enough, meaning hormone excesses or deficiencies, hormone imbalances, you could blame the emails being sent too much or not enough. But the larger context for many people is the things we've been talking about in today's conversation. So when you get the systems of the body working well, the emails will be sent appropriately. So it's uh hormones for many people, not everybody, is a downstream issue. Yeah. So if you deal with the root or upstream issues like we've been talking about, the downstream em cascade will be normalized. So if people have done that and are still spinning their wheels, then or you talk of people that are perimenopausal. That's different, right? I mean, perimenopausal is a normal life. So is there a life season of life? So is there a place for things that are supportive of hormones, like judicious use of bioidentical hormones, or even better, if you don't you can avoid those, I mean, I think that can be a great tool for people, but we start with the most conservative, then move into more interventionist. So the more conservative would be things like adaptogens. Adaptogens can be a wonderful tool. Even while you're healing your gut, bringing in things like ashwagandha or rhodiola or holy basil or Tulsi or Shoshandra. These are things that have been used for thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, indigenous medicines around the world, have used adaptogens to balance that word adaptogens means it's it's helping to modulate or balance the hypothalamic pituitary endocrine axis, the neuroendocrine communication line. So I would say adaptogens would be one tool. Precursors, if you need those, uh like DHEA and Pragnetolone have their place for some people. And then there's a place again for biodential hormone replacement therapy for people who need it. Um, but uh that's not the first step for most people. Yeah. For if someone's perimenopause, well, that may be the first step. If they're super healthy and it's just perimenopause, then maybe it is it is just BHRT. But for everybody else, I look at the things we've Talking about and then look at some of these sort of adaptogenic precursor botanicals, it could be helpful. Uh, peptides are another one that have an emerging place that we utilize a lot for telehealth patients, uh, that have that could be helpful in this tool as well. Okay, awesome.
Can Your Hormones Make You Age Faster?
Thank you. Can your hormones make you age faster? Mm-hmm. So if cortisol is high all the time, that'll make you age faster. If you're because that's typically blood sugar, inflammation's high, like all of that's off. So it's what they call inflammation, is the term for it. So it's like, uh, yeah, it is. It's part of that sort of inflammatory cascade, and hormones are implicated in that. If c if cortisol is always high, it's it's that fight or flight stress response and that sort of adage of the stress, stressful AG. What's why? It's it's because the body is in that hypervigilant state, and it that hypervigilant state, the inflammatory state, uh decreases these end caps called telomeres. They're basically like if someone has uh shoes with a shoelace, they get the plastic bit at the end of the shoelace, the longer your telomeres, these this plastic, I think that's the analogy that's used, but the longer your telomeres, the longer your life, the shorter your telomeres, it's associated in scientific literature to a quickening or an acceleration of aging, stress, inflammation, things that drive inflammation, like we've been talking about, tend to shorten those telomeres, which is associated with shorter, like accelerated aging. Gotcha. Okay. So I feel like it's crazy because it's all really connected. And we've been talking about inflammation a lot too. So would you just say that like healing your skin isn't always going to be about the products? It's really about healing the inflammation. Yeah, it is. Again, it's both and not either or. Um, we always want telehealth patients to have a great skincare regimen. So it has to be congruent to the skin barrier, it has to be congruent to the skin microbiome, something that's gentle for the skin microbiome. So yeah, skincare matters, but it is again, it's just if for many people, it is the tip of the iceberg. The tip of the iceberg matters, but the two-thirds of the iceberg is underneath
What Else Causes Inflammation Besides Food?
the ocean. Yeah. And that's the things we've been talking about. Yeah. And then aside from food, what other everyday things can cause inflammation? Like could it be a lack of sleep? Could it be the products you're using? Yeah. All
How Sleep Destroys (or Heals) Your Skin
of that can. I mean, sleep is a is an interesting one because people don't realize the power it has on their skin health. Yeah. Because they are staying up too late, they are on watching their screens too late at night. That that blue light will really impact their REM and their deep sleep. So it's specifically not just the quantity of sleep, but the quality of sleep. So we measure on telehealth patients, we measure their REM and deep sleep and something called heart rate variability or HRV. It's an aspect of the parasympathetic, back to my earlier point of that resting, digesting. So the resting part is the sleep part, but the digesting is back to that good old uh gut health. But the resting part of the parasympathetic matters. Uh, so if they don't have good sleep hygiene, they could be eating the best foods under the sun or taking all the peptides and biohacks out there. They sometimes it's just the simple stuff of just getting good sleep and optimizing it. So I have
Mouth Taping and Blue Light Glasses: Do They Work?
nearly every telehealth patient. There's people where it's, you know, if they have like um breathing issues through their nose, like deviated septum, you wouldn't want to do this. But mouth taping, something as simple as mouth tape, can do wonders at improving someone's REM in deep sleep. Interesting. So you look like a complete freak, but you tape, you put tape over your mouth, and there's ones that have like a little slip for the mouth, so you can kind of move your mouth. It's just encouraging the mouth to be shut. Uh or you can go full like Hannibal Lecter and look like you're you're being never mind. So uh tape, yeah, but uh I so I would say mouth taping and then you can track it. There's you know, aura ring, whoop band, watches that will track your REM in deep sleep and HRV. Try it again, deviated septum. If you can't breathe through your nose, then don't do it. Yeah. Um, but for anybody else, mouth taping is a great tool. And um blue light blocking glasses. Oh, yeah. So if it's not like you want the ones where you're looking like bono if you know you too. Like you want it full-on yellow during the day if you're looking at screens and orange at night. It's you will look weird. But I wear them and people always comment on them. But they're extremely effective uh at blocking the blue lights from your cell phones, from your screens. So if you're inside during the day looking at screens, I would get where don't wear the mouth tape during the day. Just wear the blue light block glasses during the day, mouth tape at night, dark amber glasses at night. Um, if you're consistent with those things, keep a nice cool, uh keep the room colder. So the research is about mid-60s Fahrenheit to 67, I think. It's like mid-let's just say mid-60s to high 60s research shows is the best night sleep. So I don't know how the I don't know how you guys do it in South Florida, to be honest with you, 67. Oh really? Yeah. You just you're around, yeah. But you're but I'm saying people are like, my my AC, my electric bill would be so expensive. I I don't know what to tell you, but I it's the best sleep. And but they also have cooling um things that can go over your mattress. So if you don't want from a power standpoint, it's just like keeping your bed cooler. That's a good idea. 67 here too. Always. If it's I if it's like above 70, I can tell. I my No, I feel it. I I I start then my our then I think of our ancestors, like how weak we become as a species, that it's like I can't handle 70 degrees inside inside. No, I please someone sponsor me. No, yeah, I can I can feel 68 over 67. Like I'm like a strict 67. Yeah, me too. Me too, 100%. But it's your s it's reflected on your sleep scores. Yeah. So you can see that reflected on the sleep scores if people can test it out for themselves. Yeah. Okay. So I have kind of like a what came first chicken or the egg type of question. Yeah. So if your gut and your hormones are thrown off, is that what then causes inflammation? Or what's the what's the order of the great question? So inflammation's a product. So if you notice, I my words were uh inflammation is the commonality between just about every health problem. So I don't like to say inflammation is the cause of all these health problems. Okay. Because something caused the inflammation to be dysregulated in the first place. So something's dysregulating it. The unhealthy gut, the inflammatory food, the environmental toxins, the bacterial, viral, parasitic issues, the um the stress or trauma. We have to look at those issues. Those imbalances are what will drive the inflammation. Yeah. So the inflammation's the byproduct, the through line, the commonality. Now, inflammation will cause symptoms, but something caused the inflammation to be dysregulated. So that's typically, and what came first, the chicken or the egg between hormones and gut and all that stuff, it's about that's where health history comes into play. Yeah. There's these negative feedback loops, it's bi-directional, the body's interconnected. So it's that's where health history comes into play. Of what came first for that person, what was their sort of first symptoms, what's their lab showing, what's the context of that case? Um, and we get nerdy about that kind of stuff and to explain to the telehealth patient like what I feel like is showing up here as far as more of the root causes. Um, but at the end of the day, as far as like getting better and what matters, it doesn't necessarily matter per se, because it's all in the past, it's all there now. Yeah, yeah. Um, but we just have to understand the mechanisms and and what's causing
Do Supplements Actually Work or Are They a Scam?
it. Yeah. Okay. And when it comes to like supplements for healing all these different issues, do they actually work or would you say they're kind of a scam? Uh supplements can be a scam, certainly. They're just because it's marketed well doesn't make it a good thing. Right. So I think it's but there's a lot of great things out there too. Yeah. So I think the nuance and context around that matters too. I think people that say, well, everyone, you know, just take everything under the sun and we lovingly call it a supplement graveyard, where it's just like, all right, all of these things kind of sound good in theory, but they're not necessarily great quality. They're not third-party tested, they're not sort of you don't, they're not, they're just branded well. Yeah. And they don't necessarily have the sort of science and evidence behind it and the third-party testing and the purity transparency that I would advocate for. Yeah. Um, but then you have the other side that says like they're complete quackery and you don't need them. Yeah. Well, again, back to the truth is oftentimes somewhere in the middle. And I think I would just look for purity. I would look for transparency. Like, are the brands telling you they're sourcing? Is it third-party tested where possible? Uh, meaning it's looking for heavy metals and you you are getting a certificate of ingredients, you know what you're getting. Um, so those are the things that I would look out for. And it's what does your body need? You don't necessarily need what everybody else needs. Yeah. So I think that's where what are your goals when appropriately, what are your labs? And then let's check in. Do you feel better on it? Is this moving the needle and how you feel, or is this moving the needle on your labs? Whether, you know, like a magnesium or vitamin D or iron or selenium, whatever you're talking about, some sort of um B a B vitamin for homocysteine, which is an inflammatory marker. There are things that you can quantifiably measure. That research is very clear, is associated with longer, healthier life. There's no really conversation on like believing in it or not. It's does it move the needle or not? Right. Um, both in how you feel and/or labs. But there's a lot of extraneous stuff that may be good in theory because there's some good research around it, but is it really going to be a needle mover for that person? Yeah. Or is it just going to add to your supplement graveyard of like well-intentioned things, but it's just expensive pee at the end of the day. Yeah. So I I think I tried my part of my job is editing of just curating what are the biggest needle movers for our telehealth patients. So they're not taking these sort of well-intentioned but kind of overboard things sometimes where it's like, let's what's going to be effective for that person versus what's and then look, you I get the people that are just the biohacker, they know it's not core for them, but they are interested in seeing what this can do and experimenting with things and they enjoy it. And let's let's do it. I think that we can do it, but it's not necessarily, in my opinion, like the biggest needle movers for all of these things out there. Right. I think sometimes the most well, not sometimes, most of the time, um, the most effective things are pretty foundational for people.
Where to Start If You Feel Overwhelmed
Yeah. So for anyone that's feeling a little overwhelmed, like what's the absolute first thing you would have them do? From supplement standpoint, just in general. Uh well, I would say look at the inflammatory core four, look at your stress. And uh I have every telehealth patient fill out what's called an ACE score, which stands for adverse childhood, adverse childhood experiences or events. So it's looking at very heavy stuff, yeah. Like sexual trauma, physical abuse growing up, neglect growing up, substance abuse in the grow home growing up. Because we higher the somebody's ACE score is, the more likely you're to have autoimmune, inflammatory, metabolic, hormonal, and mental health issues. So we have to look at that stress-trauma component. We have to look at the other stuff we talked about. So lean into this stuff. Yeah. I would say go back. My advice would be this go back and listen to this episode and then pick two or three things. If you've not done it, lean into two, three things. Don't get overwhelmed. Stressing about healthy things isn't good for your health either. So pick a few things that resonate with you and lean into
Essential Supplements Everyone Should Be Taking
it. Um, that's what I would say. Uh, I if you had to ask me, like, what are some essential supplements that I think pretty much everybody should be taking because of our soil microbiome and our food nutrient density, I would say a methylated B vitamin complex. You can get that from whole foods, and this is important here. You cannot supplement your way out of a poor diet. You have to start with food and nutrient density, bioavailable nutrient density. So start there. Like the supplements are gonna be they're just the next level. Right. Um, but because of our soil and nutrient density, even if you do this for a living, and I talk to people like myself and I talk to my colleagues and people in my space, we all eat nutrient dense foods, but even with the best of intentions, the markers are still not optimal because of our food isn't what it once was. Back to that sort of ancestral mismatch bit. So methylated B vitamins like methyl 12 B12, methylfolate, something called proxidine. Um I I a methylated complex would be number one. Uh, I take what's called the methylator. I take two. I take um mitomultiply from longevity or x, and I take the Art of Being Well supplement line, which is my line. I take um the methylator. Awesome. Um, I alternate it, but I like metal multiply because it has organ meats in it. Organ meats are a great way to do it. So if you even if you don't want to do supplements, bring some organ meats in your life. You may not need any supplements there. True. Um, but most people don't like the taste of organ meats. That's things like liver. Like liver. Like liver, like beef liver, chicken liver. Okay, okay, okay. Uh so certain cultures have no problem because they grew up eating it. But most Americans or people that have like raised in our culture, they don't like it. But then you can take them in supplement forms. You can take them in supplement form, yeah. So uh I don't like the taste of it either. Yeah. I I a pro tip is if you want to start with food, I would do a third of ground liver, grass-fed liver, and then two-thirds of regular ground beef. So you can kind of hide it. Yeah. And it's like two-thirds regular, you won't notice it. And there's different brands out there that have ancestral blends. Force of nature is one of them. It's a regenerative farming. You can get them at Whole Foods in different places online as well. Um, but get their ancestral blends. You can do it with beef, you can do it with chickens and deer and um pig, I think, as well. Bison, bison as well. And um, so the second would be vitamin D3, K2. Both of those fat-soluble vitamins, we have to be supplementing them. Look, you all live in South Florida, so you're getting more direct sunlight than I am. Yeah. But even people that live out here or, you know, in sunny places, we're still inside a lot of the time. So you want to make sure your vitamin D is 60 to 80. Most people, even if they're outside a lot, it's not. Yeah. So supplementing appropriately, between two and 5,000, I use with vitamin D3 with a K2. Um, it's the sunshine vitamin. I would get out appropriate amounts of sunlight from a light therapy and a vitamin D standpoint. Um, but you know, it's not practical to be. And I would never advocate anyone getting burnt or anything like that, but appropriate amounts of sunlight. Um, and third would be magnesium. We run a magnesium RBC test. Most people are low. You need a um, you need magnesium. Your nervous system needs it, your hormones need it, your mood needs it, your sleep needs it. So I take mag 18, I take two. I take a magnesium threatonate, which your nervous system loves. It's called the magnesium from the Art of Being Well, and I take longevity RX's Mag 18, which is 18 different forms of magnesium. It's a whole food source of magnesium. So I take that. But honestly, for a lot of people, starting with those core things that I just said, yeah, it's gonna do tremendous things for how they feel and their labs. That's awesome. And that's all stuff you can measure. You can s see improvements on your labs. Totally. How many supplements would you say you take daily? Those basically are all I take. Okay. Which there are some people in the biohacking space, they'll like Dave Asprey, I just saw him the other week, you know, he's like the father of biohacking. He takes over a hundred supplements. A day? A day. Wow. Like insane. I love you, Dave, but I could never do that. I could never do that. So I cycle on and off. If I go or or I take and I take the probiotic trillion that I told you, which is a pro. Um, and what else do I take? I take basically nothing else. I take peptides. I I do peptides. I do BPC157, which is great for your gut skin axis. I take copper peptides, anybody that's interested in skin health, copper peptides. Uh, you can use them topically on your skin. You can also do subcutaneous copper peptides. Okay. Um, so I do a few peptides that I even cycle on those. I'm on them all the time. And then I take those supplements that I just mentioned pretty much all the time. And then the rest I just do intermittently as I need to, or as I'm testing something out or trying something out, or if I have need it for a finite period of time to help support my health in specific ways. Yeah. That's about it. Yeah.
Lightning Round
That's a good routine. Yeah, exactly. I like it. Okay. I want to do a little lightning round with you. So basically, I'm gonna ask you a question and you just respond with the first thing that pops into your head. Sure. Awesome. Okay. We just went over supplements. So this one, you might have to choose just one, but what's one supplement you'll never skip? I would say magnesium. Okay. Yeah. My mag 18 or the magnesium, both of those, yeah. I I would say that I notice the most difference. Like vitamin D, this is supposed to be rapid fire, I'm sorry. But the vitamin D, I take it because I know the research. I don't necessarily notice a difference, but I know you need to have vitamin D and optimal levels. And some people do notice a difference with their mood. For me, I notice the most with magnesium. Okay, good to know. Um, are gummy vitamins actually doing anything? Some are. I'm not the biggest fan of most of them because they're just do we need some added another source of sugar, we're even gonna make our supplements sugary. Yeah. Like, uh seriously, we don't need that. But there's there are ones that do low sugar options, sugar-free options with like a monk fruit or stevia. I think they have their place. I think you could make the argument that consistency is key. So if something is good quality, that uh they, if they're consistent with it, that creates a better result if they're gonna if that's the only way they can have it. Yeah. But I think it's like in many ways, look, there's some brands that are doing it great, yeah, great. So I don't want to dog on the entire industry. Yeah. But I think it's like our generation's Flintstone vitamins. I was just going to say the Flintstone vitamins. I still love that. Yeah. Most of them, not all of them. Yeah. Okay. The first thing you should do every morning for your health gratitude practice. I love that practice. Yeah. Prayer. Do have a prayer practice, gratitude practice. It is reflected in the scientific literature too. People are happier, they have better markers, they live a happier, healthier life. People that have a gr consistent gratitude practice. I love that. What's one wellness or beauty myth you wish people would finally stop believing? Hmm. I would say that more is always better. Because back to that earlier concept of, and that happens in the beauty world too. It's like they're huge, like massive be like they're all the products they have. Yeah. Uh, and or all the supplements they're having. What's the biggest needle mover for you? And back to that sort of curating, editing, and simplif simplifying. Yeah. Like what are gonna be the handful of real needle moving tools? Yeah. And maybe it's just like we we've been talking about, same with skincare. Yeah. Like maybe it's just this really good serum, maybe it's really good hydrator, maybe it's a really good cleanser, and that's it. Yeah. Um, you don't have to be super fancy, especially when you deal with the inside out. Yeah. No, less is always more. Yeah. For sure. Um, I feel like you mentioned a few, but if you have any others, I'm on top of your head, any sleep or bedtime ritual that you swear by. Yeah. Um, I I'll tell you one other thing. I'd mouth taping, the temperature, the blue light button glasses, and then one other thing is for me, it's something very easy at night. In addition to the things I talked about, it's reading before bed. Like not on your phone, but actually getting a good book and reading. And it it's amazing how much it supports your REM in deep sleep when you're reading before bed. So I would say it's a simple, simple one. I take magnesium in the afternoon. I don't take it so close to bed because I don't like I drink it with water. I don't want to be up going night to pee all through the night. So that's another thing too. Yeah, that's another pro tip there. It's like, yeah, water's good. Taking supplements is gonna be good. Drinking, being hydrated is good for your skin. But if you're like loading up on water at the end of the day and you're waking up to pee, or you're not waking up to pee, but you're tossing and turning because you have to pee, that's not good for your REM in deep sleep. So try to, if you can, especially if you're a light sleeper, to try to end the so much water consumption towards the end of the day. Okay. I like that. Uh, what's your go-to food that your gut thanks you for? Hmm. Uh I would say bone broth. Yeah. Yeah. I knew you were gonna say that. Yeah, bone broth for sure. What's one thing people ignore about their health that they really shouldn't? I would say these mild symptoms that are little check engine lights, little nudges, not to fear, but nudges that your body's saying, pay attention to me. So for some people it could be brain fog, some people it could be fatigue, some people it could be their mental health, their digestion. These are nudges. And if people pay attention to the nudges that their body's giving them, they won't have to deal with the screams of higher symptoms, bigger symptoms. So pay attention now. Be proactive, not reactive. Yeah. And what's the most underrated thing that you could do for healthy skin? Hmm. That's a good question. I would say underrated thing we can do healthy skin. I would say two nutrients come to mind that we didn't talk about so much. Omega-3 fatty acids we did talk about. So increasing fatty fish, you can get a good clean omega fatty uh fish oil, which I take those occasionally and I'll take it that much, but I focus on food here. Yeah. And really focused on things like anchovies and sardines, even in the extra virgin olive oil, and like get good olive oil and get good fatty fish that are the smaller fish that are really fatty, uh, but good sources of it. Um, I think that's one underrated skin tool is increasing these long chain omega fatty acids and the protein and the minerals that are also in these foods. And uh number two would be true vitamin A, like true retinol. So beta-carotene is in a lot of the plant-based sources, like things like sweet potatoes, carrots, things like that, which have their place. They have fiber and antioxidants, a lot of other things. But the conversion rate from beta-carotene to retinol isn't the best for a lot of people, especially if they have poor gut health, right? Yeah. And there's different genetic variants that can inhibit the conversion. So getting retinol in food form, and that is mainly from back to the organ meats. So getting organ meats a good amount, not excessive vitamin A. I'm not talking about overdoing it, but getting a good amount of vitamin A could be wonderful. I mean, that's why we we know retinol from a skincare regimen can be a great tool when done appropriately. Um, but it starts from the inside out, and getting good bioavailable retinol in food form is a wonderful tool for your skin. Yeah.
Where to Find Dr. Will Cole
Okay, well, awesome, Dr. Cole. Thank you so much for being here. I'm confident you are going to live till you're one, 150. But this was such a great conversation. And I feel like I've learned so much. Our listeners have learned so much. If you want to let our listeners know where to find you on social media. Thank you so much. Yeah. This is this great time. Thank you. Everything's at drwill cole.com. That's D-R-W-I-L-L-C-O-L-E.com on Instagram at drwill cole, all the all of the socials, like uh at dr will cole. Um, my podcast is called The Art of Being Well. It's with Dear Media. Love it. And um, what else I don't do? Oh, longevity or X. I talked about that. Yes. They can search that separately, but it's on my site too. Everything's at drwill cole.com. Awesome. Well, thank you again. And this has been Face It where we get real about what works and what doesn't