The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
The Healthy Post Natal Body Podcast
Fertility Crisis: Why Couples Struggle to Conceive and what to do about it. With Dr Aumatma Simmons
This week I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Aumatma Simmons as we discuss fertility.
Dr. Aumatma is a double board-certified Naturopathic Doctor & Endocrinologist, in practice for close to 15 years.
She specializes in fertility and is the best-selling author of two books: "Fertility Secrets: What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You About Baby-Making” and “(In)Fertility: Struggles, Secrets, & Successes”
Dr. Aumatma was awarded the “Best Naturopathic Medicine Doctor″ award locally in 2015 & 2020 and recognized as a top “Women In Medicine” Doctor in 2020 & 2021.
We discuss many, many things;
Why couples seem to struggle to conceive more now than they used to.
The socio economic issues regarding conception.
The emotional impact of struggling to conceive, even when on IVF.
Why we often underestimate the emotional, and financial, impact of IVF and the stress that that brings.
Why lifestyle changes are preferred over supplements.
Why what works for your friend won't work you.
And, most importantly, the importance of having a good roadmap to fertility. You have to know YOUR starting point before you plot the route to your destination, and it has to be personalised.
You can find Dr Aumatma everywhere.
The Holistic Fertility Institute's website
Her TedX talk is also worth checking out
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So this means that you not only get 3 months FREE access, no obligation!
BUT, if you decide you want to do the rest of the program, after only 5 months of paying $10/£8 a month you now get FREE LIFE TIME ACCESS! That's $50 max spend, in case you were wondering.
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Playing us out "Wrecking ball" by Ryan Webster ft Moses Kidd
Hey, welcome to the Healthy Postnatal Body Podcast with your postnatal expert, peter Lap. That, as always, would be me. This is a podcast for the 21st of September 2025. And time flies almost for the year, people, almost for the year. I'm talking today to Dr Au matma Simmons and we're talking fertility. We're talking everything to do with fertility. Why are so many more people struggling to conceive? What can you do to help? What are the causes that you can do to help yourself and all that sort of stuff? What kind of supplements should you not take? Especially should you not take? Why supplements aren't actually the first go-to, and all that type of stuff. You're absolutely going to love this. I get quite a few emails about this. This is not my area of expertise and therefore I have asked Dr Simmons to come in and I know you're absolutely going to love this. So, without further ado, here we go.
Dr Aumatma:So why does it seem that more people are struggling conceive now than they used to?
Dr Aumatma:I think there are a few things that are happening simultaneously. One is that couples are waiting till later to get started with their families, and that's probably the most like fallback reason that a lot of doctors will go to. I think that there's another thing that we should definitely notice that is happening, which is there's a drastic decline in sperm health, as well as testosterone, in men, and then, simultaneously, there's a decline in hormonal wellbeing, hormonal health in women, and I think that both of those factors probably tie quite a lot to the rise in toxins in our environment, as well as, potentially, the use of birth control in women. That is very less studied way less than I would like to admit so.
Dr Aumatma:So let's start starting with the age thing. I think you're right, that's pretty much a given and everybody pretty much accepts that. That is you know, and there are many socioeconomic causes behind that particular one. But obviously women who are listening to this are already in their 30s. We can't change that element of their life. So, you know, we'll maybe focus on on the other bits. For anybody listening to this, um yep, especially I I find it's especially fascinating that most of the ivf treatment people that I speak to, the focus is very much on the woman. But the first thing you said was one of the main reasons is the map.
Dr Aumatma:Yes, right so so obviously we know that the mother will be the carrier of the baby and all that, but that seems to be quite a disconnect there yeah, I, I agree.
Dr Aumatma:I think that because ivf, specifically, is a technology that bypasses the need for good, high quality sperm, and the way that it does that is because the egg eggs are retrieved out of the one's body, the sperm are retrieved out of the man's body and then they're going to meet in a Petri dish.
Dr Aumatma:The sperm don't have to go through the normal challenges that they would have to go through in a female physiology to make it to the egg and fertilize it.
Dr Aumatma:So they have an unfair advantage in a petri dish.
Dr Aumatma:But if you extend that out to everyday populations of couples that are trying to have babies, of couples that are trying to have babies not everyone wants to or can afford to do IVF. Yeah, so I think that a lot of men are not being paid attention to, even when we know that statistically that their sperm counts motility morphology all of those have dropped to over 75% lower than where they were about 70 years ago. So not like a small decline there. It's a very fast kind of scary decline. And if that decline keeps going at the rate that it has been, we are looking at a male population that will probably not have any sperm in less than 15 years, so where it's a really scary statistic when we think about it. But then ivf is like oh no, your sperm are fine and the reason that they're saying that is because they know that inside of a petri dish it doesn't really matter because because that, obviously, because the reason I'm asking is indeed for for that reason that all this stuff carries through, right, I mean, we just go.
Peter:And then the five years yeah, you, you know, the man is fine, he doesn't need to do anything anymore. It's kind of automatically implied, um, and what? What then quite often happens is, of course, that, you know, couples keep trying for a baby the natural way as well, but the man doesn't need to change anything because he's fine, because he's just been told by the IVF guy now, don't worry, we'll whack your stuff in a dish and you'll be gone, you don't need to change anything. Meantime, the woman is making all the sacrifices.
Peter:Yes, um, which seems to be slightly problematic approach, especially when you're talking about the holistic fertility approach which you're talking about when you say, after a few courses of of ivf in the in the uk, everybody who's childless, uh, or without children, gets free. Uh, three free courses, uh, on on the health service, um, yeah, but when that doesn't work and I know the required number of courses is significantly higher in a lot of cases you can't afford it anymore. You carry that mentality with you that the man just goes. Yeah, the dog said I'm fine and my wife has to make, or my partner has to make, all the sacrifice. So how do you deal with that?
Dr Aumatma:I think it's in the education. So I think that there's an assumption that men don't want to do anything, but I think that's actually far from the truth. A lot of the men that we talk to are like I wish somebody would tell me what to do I wish somebody would just guide me and, like most of them, will come back within a month or two of starting working with us and say a I feel significantly better from where I started out.
Dr Aumatma:I didn't even realize that I felt bad, but I feel amazing now and b, I feel like I'm actually part of this journey, rather than being looked at a at as a sperm donor. That is irrelevant to the equation. So I think men are like desperately wanting to play a role and they're being almost shoved to the side as, oh, you're not that important, you don't need to do anything. So the message is two tiered One, it's patriarchal in the sense of oh, you're amazing, everything's amazing, you're perfect, yeah. But then the other side of it is like it also takes their power away, because they're told that there's nothing that they can or need to do, need to do where.
Dr Aumatma:In fact, I think that a lot of ivf cycles fall apart at the point of um, the merging of the egg and sperm. So the sperm look good, even if the sperm look great. The eggs were retrieved, there were lots of eggs, and then I talked to women and they're like, yeah, we've been through six cycles of this and every time the sperm and egg were met, they fertilized, but they didn't make it to day three or day five, which is kind of the process of IVF. So then you, it makes you wonder and you say, well, it could be the egg, it could also be the sperm. The problem is that the message that the woman will get is it's your age, it's your fault, it's your ex. Yeah, the part that I see often missing is it could have been 50. The guy, sure, right like the sperm and egg together made an embryo. So if the embryo is shit quality, then it's either the sperm or it's the egg. But we're missing the other 50 of the equation and a lot of testing will support this.
Dr Aumatma:So research has actually shown that not only is the quality of the embryo going to be dependent significantly on the sperm. The DNA of the sperm will actually inform the health of that future baby. Gestational diabetes. It's going to be dependent on what's happening in the male body and the sperm, that the quality of the sperm that are being transferred to make that little human.
Dr Aumatma:So even though mom carries the baby, it's so many factors are happening on his side that if he's told that he doesn't matter, he's not going to do anything about it, and he's going to eat, keep eating his candy bars and drinking alcohol and doing whatever and only to like pass off poor genetic material to that baby and the baby to have potentially health, to have potentially health factors or diseases that are going to happen in early childhood because of that epigenetic um kind of conception preconception yeah, no, see that, and that, to me, makes complete sense, and the reason I wanted to start from that angle is well, first of all, I think usually the onus gets put on the woman and this is is very much not a Joe Rogan male-centric, patriarchal podcast, but I think it's important to get that bit out there, because a lot of the stuff I've listened to it's almost the add-on oh yeah, by the way, the guy can also do stuff Whereas I think it's as a takeaway.
Peter:I think it's quite often it's an important one for, for both these reasons, that that uh, like you mentioned, just from education, from involvement, but also from uh, it's every woman that I've spoken to and I've spoken to a lot of, a lot of women that struggled with uh, that struggled to conceive, almost inevitably, almost immediately, they blamed themselves. So my wife and I can't have kids and I always just go. It's because I'm Jaffa. Do you know the Jaffa oranges? Jaffa oranges don't have seeds in them, so they're specially bred to not have sort of thing, so I just so.
Peter:That's a saying that I like to use because it's the discussion that the conversation I have with many women that talk about struggling to conceive is always they blame themselves 99 of the time. It's very rare that they come out and and say that the husband comes out. They say, yeah, no, turns out right, it's me right, and it's usually the other way around. So what are some of the things that we really should be checking? Because, like you said, ivf is expensive and you know it's usually a last resort, let's be honest, and it doesn't always work within the three cycles that that you're given. So what sort of things? What should our starting point be if we find that you know we're trying for a baby, but after a couple of years it kind of just hasn't happened yet?
Dr Aumatma:yeah, that's a great question. So in my system and the way that we work through this is my first question is the with the assumption that your body and your partner's body are attempting to procreate, because that is nature and life that's the default set humanity like right, that, that's our default state is the um desire and um kind of life force, energy, moving us towards procreation.
Dr Aumatma:so if that's not happening, then what is standing in the way of that? Not from the perspective of what do we need to do to like, overpower it or make it happen, but from the perspective of we need to understand what the blocks are that are making this more challenging. So one of the first things that I do with people is sit down and this this used to be a very long process and I'll tell you in a moment what we've done to fix this.
Dr Aumatma:It used to be like a three hour conversation where I would go through with people what about this, what about this? How do you feel about this? What happens if you do this and we get into the nitty gritty to try and figure out what are the potential root causes of why they're not able to conceive, and I narrowed it down to about 15 root causes. There's quite a few in the gut. There's like inflammation, microbiome issues, nutrient deficiency, like nutrient absorption issues. Then we have quite a few that have to do with blood sugar and insulin regulation in our bodies. And then we have the hormone pieces and it's like estrogen excess, estrogen deficiency, progesterone deficiency. There's no really excess, but progesterone deficiency, testosterone excess or deficiency. Those are kind of the big picture underlying factors that could be happening. And then we have stress, which like it's a factor for everybody.
Dr Aumatma:And then thyroid issues, which tend to be predominant more in women than men but still need to be evaluated. So those are kind of the 15 or so things that could be happening under the surface that are very, very common. So we used to sit down for several hours and I would try to figure out, like okay, here's the things based on this, these are the tests that I would try to figure out, like, okay, here's the things based on this, these are the tests that I would suggest you to do. What we do now is we flipped it a little bit. There's one set of testing that I think all couples should start with and that is cycle day three testing in women, which is FSH, lh, estradiol and AMH. Those are the four hormones on the third day of our cycle that are really helpful in understanding kind of a baseline of fertility. It's not going to give us all the answers, but it's going to help us establish a baseline.
Dr Aumatma:And then for the guys to do a sperm analysis, because that's honestly the only way to know what's going on on the guy's side, and then so we start there as like getting the baseline.
Dr Aumatma:Then we can put all of that data plus kind of the questions around what they experience the stuff that I would ask them in a consultation. We've put it into an app that people can access for free and what that does is analyze all of their information and then give them kind of a fertility score as well as their underlying root causes, like here are the most common things that are happening for you, and you could do more testing if you wanted. Or you could say, hey, yeah, this kind of makes sense, I want to do something about it. Let's go ahead and start doing something about it. And if we can address these root causes before they go into IVF cycles, then the likelihood that they're going to have a more successful IVF cycle is much, much, much higher, right, so ideally we have crunch time to, instead of going through this three cycles, which could take like two years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure you can crunch that down. It takes a long, long time.
Dr Aumatma:Right, yeah, and like, three cycles may not be enough often. Our goal is ideally, you only have to do one cycle, and how nice would that be right?
Dr Aumatma:And like if we could change how much you have to go through this process, the better. But B you're going into that process in a much higher state of health, a much higher state of fertility, in a much higher state of health, a much higher state of fertility, and ideally, you're going to have different outcomes because you started working on the things that were actually going on and were in the way of you getting pregnant. So that's kind of the pathway that I think is the fastest For people that want potentially a slower path, they could, you know. Know, people are always like well, what if I don't do testing? Fine, you can do the analysis without testing. You'll get still some data. It won't be as amazingly accurate, but you'll have something.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, um, so that's kind of how we approach it and it kind of is really designed to simplify, streamline and speed up the process so that they don't have to spend years in this process, which I think is a little bit heart wrenching and not to mention, like in the US, we don't get any ivf cycles for free it's ridiculously expensive it's very, very, very expensive, yes, but even in countries where ivf is offered as kind of like okay, you've been through this for long enough, we're going to support you with it.
Dr Aumatma:Even then, that the toll that IVF takes on your body is pretty significant for a woman, so if we can like lessen the amount of hormones that she has to go through to in order to conceive and then be to make that process faster and see like we have addressed things on both sides that are potentially happening anyway, right, like the number of times we find guys that have pre-diabetes is really high, yeah now you can do yeah, you can do nothing about that pre-diabetes, and surely in five to ten years you will have diabetes.
Dr Aumatma:But if we can do something about it now, when you're willing and able to do it, when you can support the health of your future baby by addressing this now, then we actually are moving towards creating a better society and a better world because we're supporting the health of our future children.
Peter:And that is a superb point, because I suppose you're not going to find more motivated people. I mean people with a higher level of motivation than people that are trying to have kids right. That is really especially if they've been struggling for a while and they're really committed to any sort of any sort of process. That is especially for let's let's especially for men that have health issues. Because we speak it as a middle-aged white guy, I'd like to point that out I know just about every podcast that for any listeners I am your classic middle-aged white guy.
Peter:I am the problem, right. This is uh, but it is because we are very much inclined to go. I'll be fine, right, if you tell me if you're pre-diabetic.
Peter:Yeah, but you know no big deal right five, ten years right because pardon my french any listeners listening to this with young children? Um, nobody, you know, nobody really. You know I'm 50, I'll be 60 by the time I get diabetes. What's the big deal? I'll eat a few, right, a few, a few candy bars, but right, when I'm talking about, oh, but I wanted a baby and I have a partner that's also really invested in in having a child, at that moment then I'm going to be much more inclined to change my behavior and change the things. And obviously, like you said, ivf is difficult enough for people Like, even without it's separated from the cost element, just the emotional buy-in and all that sort of stuff is through the roof.
Peter:I have never really seen people emotionally struggle with life as much as people that go through IVF for like the seventh or eighth time or something, and it's been years that they've been trying and all this. It is brutal. And then you're talking about things like oh, we also need to do stress management. Well, those things are almost mutually exclusive. Right, the course of IVF comes with so much, so much stress, so much, that's.
Dr Aumatma:It's crazy yeah, and even the fertility journey is stressful in and of itself. So you go through as a woman. If you're going through trying to conceive, then every month you have a week where you're super hopeful, like, okay, this is going to be the month?
Dr Aumatma:yeah this is it. And then two weeks later you get your period and you just crash because all of the hope that you had built up throughout those the week that you were ovulating and the two weeks that followed you tried to keep your hopes up. And then your period comes and you're like just done, and that amount of up and down, like there's no, there's no real way to temper expectations, to kind of have an even keel about it. It's hard, even after you've done all of the like we do so much mind, body support, so much support around shifting our super high, achieving type a mentalities, and still it's hard. So it's it's just a very taxing journey.
Dr Aumatma:And and then, if you have spent money on ivf, if you are like showing up with well, every round of this is 20 grand yeah then the amount of weight that each failed cycle carries is 20x, where you are when you're trying, naturally so, unless it is just um and and this happens a lot Like I see a lot of couples, especially men, that are like no, let's just give it another cycle, oh well, it'll just happen next month, it'll just be fine, it'll be next month, right and? And they have an easier time with it because their body is not going through this roller coaster of hormones and emotions that are tied to those hormones that are on this roller coaster of a wave.
Dr Aumatma:So when men are like, well, I'm OK giving it a few more months, it's like the woman is literally screaming inside because it's like, well, yeah, we can keep trying, but like I would like to know that this is going to happen. And the weird thing about testing that I for years I was saying this and people didn't believe me, but sure enough, they have come back and proven it over and over again which is doing the testing and the analysis and having a thorough analysis.
Dr Aumatma:I'm not talking about a doctor, that's just like takes one look at your labs and like yeah, yeah, yeah everything's fine, you're good, everything's normal, and they didn't even do the testing at the right point in the cycle, right like I'm talking about someone who's doing an in-depth analysis. You feel heard, you feel seen, you're like, okay, everything that I experience has been taken into account, and you get a output on the other side that still says you're good, like if, if and if. I only say it if it's authentic right, like I'm not telling everyone this but I will.
Dr Aumatma:I have told lots of couples this, like we've done all of our evaluation and I think that you guys are good, yeah, keep trying for a couple more cycles.
Dr Aumatma:And sometimes they'll be initially disappointed because they're like well, you didn't find anything either. And I'm like just try, just trust the process Right, and literally within a cycle or two they'll be pregnant, because just someone who was able to listen and analyze and assess took away a little bit of that pressure and stress and anxiety that the woman was feeling, and now she has someone else that is in her corner saying you're good, this is going to be fine, and that alleviates a lot of the stress. So I've had the opportunity to do that for a lot of couples who probably don't even remember my name, right, because they're like who was this woman? She did this analysis and here we are, um, but they will send messages the month after I talk to them. They're like oh, we're pregnant, thank you so much. So those are instances where we can actually like take away some of the stress and pressure and anxiety and then in other cases where things are actually going on that are blocks.
Dr Aumatma:Now you have saved this couple, sometimes like years worth of trauma, because they could have been on this roller coaster for years, while their doctors are saying everything is normal, they've been through IVF cycles, they've tried all the things, yet they're not getting pregnant because of xyz or there's multiple things on both sides. Yeah, and when that's the case, then I think the better solution is to actually work on those things instead of trying to like bypass it and overcome it through some other, like this like false hope of oh, it's going to be fine, just like leave it alone and it'll fix itself it'll magically get better yeah yeah, because, because that's because that's a good point, because something I see a lot within this, within the fertility sphere and you have the same postpartum and any sort of health related thing now is there are a lot of support groups out there, right?
Peter:so support groups for women and men who struggle to get pregnant and all that, and there you and you know everybody listening to this will know my opinion on support groups. They're great for support. Just don't get your information from them, right that is, that is, it's not for advice, it's for support.
Peter:Yes, they're supposed to be. Oh, I'm sorry you feel this way. Don't worry, it could get better. It's not supposed advice. It's for support. They're supposed to be. Oh, I'm sorry you feel this way, don't worry, it could get better. It's not supposed to be. Take a cardamom pod to bed with you every night and the next morning you will wake up pregnant because you will feel right. The thing is and this is why it surprised me you said earlier on that some couples do test and others say no, we'll just not test. I'm like information is everything. Right, your personalized information is absolutely key for whatever you do, because what works for your friend won't necessarily are actually nine out of ten times won't work for you, because you are not your friend, and when we're talking, especially with biology, that gets completely different. Uh, so what sort of thing would you do?
Dr Aumatma:yeah, and I'll just add, like it's especially true for fertility, because you have one diagnosis. Quote unquote which is infertility, which is based on a diagnosis of you can't get pregnant over a period of time, of trying.
Dr Aumatma:That's it. That's all that means. It is not defined by anything else. It makes it very challenging for people to navigate the what should I take? What supplements are going to help me? What's the right diet? So a lot of people are in these online support groups, especially for fertility. They're like, oh, this worked for me, you should try it too. And I'll see so many of these conversations and it makes me cringe because, like a, this person doesn't know anything about you, nor do they understand that it's different. Just because they got pregnant after two years of and they took coq10, that doesn't suddenly mean that coq10 is the solution for you no, it might even have held them.
Peter:They don't know. They just have to know they took it for sure yeah, um, yeah.
Dr Aumatma:So our approach is really diet, lifestyle and supplements. The diet is for everyone going to be, uh, unprocessed whole foods, a variety, ideally a lot of vegetables, some fruit, um, not skipping the carbohydrates, which is a trend that we're seeing here a lot.
Peter:Yeah, it doesn't work people don't skip in any food groups.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, right, don't skip any major food groups, but complex carbohydrates are essential, especially for your hormones. Um, eating adequate protein is not, um, not to be missed. And then healthy fats. So that's kind of the base of a good, healthy, well-balanced diet. Now there's gonna have to be lots of specific specifications of oh, you have this particular thing going on. We would dial this down we would dial this up, but a general baseline for everyone to follow. That's a good plan, yeah, and you don't need to veer a lot away from it.
Peter:You don't need to try the latest and greatest trendy diet yeah, we don't have to take nat plus and nmn and all that sort of stuff we don't have to have a bag of supplements before we start all this sort of thing.
Dr Aumatma:No, no, it's actually. I think that they're doing more harm than good thank you a lot of. I'm not the only one who tells you this a lot of couples, women especially, will come in like here's my garbage bag full of supplements and what should I take? And I'm like we haven't done urinalysis yet. I don't know what the heck's going on yet. So how about we just put a pause in all of it? And they're like, hey, what?
Peter:I can't live without my magnesium I can't live without 800 supplements.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, um, so yes, diet is gonna go a long ways then in terms of lifestyle, I think the things that are really important there are getting rid of toxins in the environment we're not smoking and drinking and all that sort of stuff anymore no smoking and drinking, yeah, um, smoking cigarettes are probably the worst thing that we can do for fertility.
Dr Aumatma:It takes about three to five years on average to recover from long term smoking. So a lot of couples will come and say, well, I stopped smoking three months ago, I'm still not pregnant. I'm like, yeah, three months is just not going to do it.
Peter:Now a very quick question, just because it so sorry to interrupt very quickly, just because it will come up. I will get an email about this. Smoking weed is different, right?
Dr Aumatma:yeah, uh, yeah. So yes and no, let's talk about it. Yeah, so so marijuana is very interesting. There is probably not enough research on the direct effect of marijuana, specifically THC, on fertility.
Peter:What we can say is that we know it affects mitochondrial function in a bad way, and mitochondrial function for fertility is probably 200 times more important than anywhere else in the body because, there are that many more mitochondria in your ovaries and testes than there are anywhere else in your body and we all know about the mitochondria being the powerhouse and the blah blah blah, so everybody knows how important they are.
Dr Aumatma:Yes, yeah. And then the second piece is that THC has a very weird effect on cortisol. So, even though your body feels chill, it's actually driving up your cortisol production. So for someone that is using weed to relax, for example, their body is actually producing more cortisol um, which is not always a good thing.
Dr Aumatma:it's almost always a bad, thing, yeah you over over, produce cortisol, especially at a time when you probably should be sleeping. So let's say, you're using that cortisol product, you're using weed at night, which which is the way most people will take it right. Like I use it, it helps me sleep, I feel better, blah, blah, blah. So, unfortunately, you slept through the night because your muscles gave out, gave into the thc, right, but your physiology was actually driving the production of cortisol, so you didn't get the depth of quality of sleep that you think you got. Okay, cool, yeah, and you wake up refreshed quote unquote refreshed in the morning, but because you, your muscles, stayed asleep the night, but your brain and your heart and your adrenals were active. There you go.
Dr Aumatma:So it's probably. My thought is, it's probably not a good thing.
Peter:No, we're not going to smoke Like. I said, just because it's so popular these days to give up smoking, smoking and then replace it with this. And I'm Dutch, right, I was basically raised on cycling milk and marijuana that was kind of. That's kind of how Dutch kids used to get raised and even I am aware that you know, because marijuana is completely illegal in Holland and it's been for like 40, 50 years or something like that.
Peter:Um, but, even I know that is not a good idea. It just seems to be popular right now as a well it's better than smoking tobacco type thing so that's why I followed.
Dr Aumatma:Well, yeah, and, and I would say like if it's between tobacco and marijuana yeah I would choose marijuana all day long, yeah, but if it's between tobacco marijuana and get pregnant.
Peter:I would probably say don't do either of those if you're trying to get pregnant, exactly exactly, sorry, sorry, we got a bit of a time. No, no worries, I think.
Dr Aumatma:I think it's an appropriate question because everyone is wondering it. Um, alcohol is um toxic on several levels. Uh, most of the research is that it's not good for fertility. There's some debate about the resveratrol in wine that people are like well, but what about that? It's like yes, maybe, but you can get resveratrol from grape juice. You don't need to drink wine for that.
Peter:And we kind of need and we kind of know that the, the, because you see a lot of those articles right. The glass of red wine a day is good because of the blah blah blah in the internet. Before you get enough from the wine, you'll be an enraging alcoholic right Before to make any qualitative difference to your health.
Dr Aumatma:So let's not.
Peter:It's the same way that dark chocolate is good for you, right? It's the no, there is something in dark chocolate that that is okay. But you know, let's not get it through five campers dark chocolate right, you don't need it every day, all the time.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, exactly so. Um alcohol, the other thing that I think a lot of people are not thinking about is that when you consume alcohol, it's basically a sanitizer. Right, we use it well, we've created to use in soaps and stuff to desanitize our skin, um, get rid of all the bugs.
Dr Aumatma:Unfortunately, what you don't want to get rid of is the bugs in your stomach. Without those bugs, you don't have a protective immune system, you don't absorb nutrients, you don't make hormones, you don't get metabolized hormones. There's all kinds of effects that happen when your microbiome gets affected, and alcohol is going to be the. It's basically going to have that desanitization effect or sanitization effect in your gut.
Peter:And that's a great point, and I will do a joe rogan here and just go so and link stuff. Um, so do you reckon a lot of the gut health problems that you were talking about earlier, when you're talking about gut health, insulin resistance and all that, are actually linked to increased alcohol consumption over, say, the generations, over the last 20, 30 years?
Dr Aumatma:I think, Well, I think your gut microbiome will adapt. So if you let's suppose your parents' generation drank a lot of alcohol and then you came around and you were like, yeah, I don't know if I'm going to do it the same way, I'm just going to like there's this movement on social media to like cut out alcohol and get sober right.
Dr Aumatma:So let's suppose that you stopped drinking it. Then you had a predisposition of microbiome imbalance, but you potentially adapted for it by cutting out alcohol. And let's suppose that you added in healthy microbes in addition. Then you help to support uh and shift your microbiome for the better. So I think it's not um.
Peter:Luckily it's a fixable problem yeah, but it's still something that needs. It's a problem, yeah, okay yeah, yeah, um.
Dr Aumatma:And then the. The third piece of the alcohol is, if it's wine, which a lot of people think, oh, that wine is the best, or beer is the best.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, those are unfortunately going. Those beer and wine are often highest in glyphosates, which again kill the microbiome but also are very detrimental to reproductive organs. So glyphosate is one of the biggest like reproductive toxins that we know of. So it is and and like there are studies on quote-unquote organic wine that still have so as much glyphosate as the non-organic wine yeah, because we know organic and non-organic doesn't really matter from doesn't matter from that perspective, no, yeah
Dr Aumatma:yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so we're getting rid of all of that. Other toxins to pay attention to are going to be the plastic in our environment, the phthalates, which are basically all the things that make your stuff smell good, whether that's your laundry detergent or your lotion or whatever perfume, cologne, all of that um, for men, a lot of times it's the car fresheners.
Dr Aumatma:So the little things oh yeah, thanks, yes, of course, yeah uh, so paying attention to all of the things that are in your environment that, like make your environment smell good, are going to be toxic to fertility. And then, um, the last one we kind of talked about it with alcohol, which is the glyphosate, but you're also going to get it from non-organic food, and then women have to watch out for it from tampons and pads.
Dr Aumatma:So feminine hygiene products have a lot of that glyphosate on it which is detrimental to the reproductive microbiome which is going to have an impact on whether or not you get pregnant.
Peter:So we're using cups, ladies.
Dr Aumatma:Yes cups discs, whatever so we're using cups, ladies. Yes, whatever, yeah, um, yeah, so those are the toxins that I think are most important to pay attention to, then, ideally, the lifestyle includes adequate amounts of hydration, water intake being key. Yeah, there's a movement of all the electrolytes. I don't know like every day I'm like another new electrolyte really another new thing to buy electrolytes
Dr Aumatma:yeah um, but I really like most of them are sugar, like high amounts of sugar, and sodium chloride, which I don't see the health benefits of so. I'm having a hard time getting on this electrolyte bandwagon.
Peter:It's kind of like what you said as long as you have a healthy diet, you don't need to have the Gatorade and the Powerade and all the electrolytes and all that type of stuff. There's just no need.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, exactly. So get adequate hydration and then good, high quality sleep. And this is the part where I think a lot of people struggle, uh, between, oh, I have to work late, or oh, I need to, like, watch my tv for three hours every night or whatever it is. Um, and combine that with not getting enough sunlight in the morning, um, that can wreak havoc on our circadian rhythm, which is going to be the foundation for the production of hormones, sure, for the female hormones. Yeah, so those are kind of the lifestyle bits that are really important. And then, as far as supplements go, I like, outside of a good prenatal, maybe some fish oil, maybe vitamin D. There isn't like a global everyone take this, it's going to help you.
Peter:No, this has to be personalized. It has to be, yes, individualized, right. Yeah, who takes what? Yeah.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, exactly, and even individualized down to. We're working on this specific thing for now. You're going to take these supplements After we finish that and we've healed your gut or whatever it is then we're going to go on to the next thing, and you're going to get different supplements for that.
Peter:That is such a great point. That is such a great thing to say, because everybody thinks that I need to take X supplement and they'll take it for years. I have never come across anyone that started taking a supplement from their own volition and then just stopped going. I think I'm done now. We just keep taking them forever.
Dr Aumatma:Ever right, that's a good yeah and the problem, and and it's because there is no target right like supplements are, especially nowadays, I feel like more and more are being sold directly to the consumer, yeah, and they're being targeted as the end-all, be-all supplement. So now you have this marketing that is telling you you need this thing to feel amazing, and then you have the lack of true understanding of, like, what is this thing actually doing for? Me.
Dr Aumatma:And then if you haven't built in some sort of system to track it, then you're like well, I think I've been taking it for a year. I don't really know how long I'm supposed to take it for, so I'll just keep taking it. It's not doing me any harm, right?
Peter:Yeah, that's a good point.
Dr Aumatma:And, unfortunately, I think that the harm that these supplements can cause is really A. If they're not good quality, then you're getting all of the binders and garbage that's in the supplement B. You have an overwhelming amount of nutrients. Even if they're good for you, your liver still has to work to process all of those things, so you've added extra liver burden, which, if your liver is healthy and can handle it, great. But I will tell you like we have a 43 year old guy. They just got pregnant, but when they started with us eight months ago, this man had liver enzymes that were the highest I've ever seen and he took 40 supplements literally just like 40 different things that he self prescribed and most of them were not great quality, sure, um, most of them were unnecessary and um he like.
Dr Aumatma:so he's going through life taking all this stuff and I looked at his enzyme, his report, and I was like I'm sorry, you need to go see a doctor like. You need to go see a doctor. Like you have to go right now and talk to your primary care, get them to do some kind of MRI. His doctor takes a look at the same report and says you're fine, you'll be okay.
Dr Aumatma:Let's just wait. And I was like, oh my God, Like internally freaking out like he's going to die. It's weird. And we ended up taking him off of all of the supplements, detoxing him for months and his liver enzymes got into like a normal-ish range. Still not optimal, but normal, and he started feeling better. He's like oh my God, I feel so different. His sperm improved, but I feel like most of that was let's just stop all of this stuff. That you're putting into your body.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah. And then the other piece of it is if you're taking 40 different things but there's no strategy behind it, you're basically trying to get your body to multitask on 40 different things all at once.
Dr Aumatma:So you're like improve my brain function and relax my muscles and energize my muscles and heal my gut and heal my intestine lining and do this thing to the microbiome. And you're giving all of these signals all the time. Your, your body, is like what? What do you want me to do exactly? I don't understand. And you're like, essentially, if you had 40 tabs open on your computer, trying to do all of it at the same time, your brain would be like I'm done, I don't know what I'm doing so I'm just gonna sit here and do nothing.
Dr Aumatma:Yeah, it's that level of overwhelm that it really doesn't work.
Peter:Um, yeah, supplements, like like you said.
Peter:I mean, I'm not a big fan of supplements at the best of times, but supplements without testing is just a huge no-no for me, right, it's just I take a multivit and, like you said, you know every, every registered dietitian for all the listeners, every registered dietitian I have ever spoken to on this podcast says take a multivit just because it's not gonna harm you, take one. You don't take a pack a day, you buy a multivit and and you know, that's that. Yeah, that that's all right. Everything after that, and we're looking at creatine now and all that sort of stuff NMA, nat Plus, all that sort of stuff. You see, instagram is full of them. That's where most people get their information about supplements from.
Peter:Unfortunately, absolutely, and you know we're doing TRT and we're doing absolutely everything now all untested, because you can just buy it and it all gets shipped over from china. Like you said, you don't know where it's made. I'm not saying chinese manufacturers are terrible, I'm just saying you don't know where your stuff comes from. You have no quality control and and you just start taking this stuff expecting to feel better, because andrew huberman, or something like that, told you you'd feel better for it.
Peter:And whatever you do, we don't believe Huberman anymore, at least not as much as we used to, and that's kind of the thing. I know you're very tight on time and all that sort of stuff, and that was amazing. Was there anything else you wanted to touch on? I think we covered quite a bit of Bern.
Peter:Yeah, I think we covered Bern, everything that I would like to share yeah, lovely, that's amazing because, on that happy note, I will press stop record here and, as you know, press stop record is exactly what I did. Thanks very much to uh, dr simmons for coming in again. You'll find all the information in the podcast description. Uh, if you are struggling to conceive and know someone is definitely um, check out her, um, her website or instagram and her tedx talks and all that sort of stuff. Obviously, you'll find her at Holistic Fertility Institute and this is one of those cases where holistic actually means whole body rather than let me give you loads of supplements. So, you know, we've done an episode about how holistic has lost its meaning before. Well, this is one of those cases where it still actually has the meaning it originally intends to. You take, um, you take the conventional medicine, you take complementary medicine, you take look at all the things diet, exercise, sleep, exercise, sleep, stress management and all that type of stuff. Anyways, you're absolutely, like I said, it's well worth checking out if you're struggling to conceive or you know someone who is.
Peter:Anyways, that's me done for another week. Here's a new bit of music for you, peter, at HealthyPostNationalBudgetcom. By the way, just in case you forget. And again, rate the podcast, if you can. I can do more ratings. People, I get downloads but no ratings. It's so tragic. Anyways, here's a new bit of music. You take care of yourself. Bye now.
Speaker 4:Bye now. Love takes to faraway places. Love makes fools of us all. Love, don't ask for forgiveness or permission to what you fall. I'll take you to a place where no hope is found, abandoned and afraid In pieces on the ground. You'll find me in my fortress. The walls go ten foot tall, rolling in like thunder. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Love is a wrecking ball. Love is a wrecking ball. Love brings us out the darkest of places. Love's there to catch our fall and love don't need a reason or a warning To scale you over and take you to a place when no hope is found, abandoned and afraid. The beast is on the ground. It'll find you in your fortress when walls go ten foot tall and roll in it like thunder.
Speaker 4:That love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Guitar solo. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Yeah, your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Yeah, your love is a wrecking ball. Love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. Your love is a wrecking ball. I'm out.