Functional Medicine Doctor: The Hidden Toxin In Your Home! Why You're Constantly Exhausted

23:27I think the statistics are somewhere near 80 % of patients with hypothyroidism have Hashimoto's. And now here's another stunning one. 60 % of people that have hypothyroidism don't know they have it. So there's a lot of people walking around with a lot of women with thinning hair, low energy, just feeling off. Metabolism issues, and they don't realize they have a thyroid problem.

23:52Dr. Ann Shippy:Well, and unfortunately today, a lot of women are just being told, oh, you're just getting older. Yeah, that's right. It's so maddening. Like using my mother as an example, she just turned 95. amazing wow incredible as a you know a signal like if she doesn't if she feels tired she like she wants to know why even at 95 yeah exactly so you should feel great if you don't you know well into your 70s and 80s there's something going on there's an opportunity to optimize and certainly if you're only 40 or 50, you're still very young. And we just need to find the things that help you to feel energized.

24:35Yeah. You know, one of the other things I know you're an expert in and you actually recently wrote a book on is fertility. And I'm saying this more and more. I have a lot of friends. I can think of so many and they're in their 40s and they're trying to have kids later on in life. You know, like I had kids a little bit later on in life too. And so I'm 44 and I've got a two-year-old, a daughter. I've got a six-year-old daughter. and uh and chelsea's about six years younger than me she's 38 but um but you know we have so many friends and again just generationally especially millennials uh having kids much much later on and i think a lot of times they get all of a sudden women might get to their you know a little later on they're like oh i want to have kids and sometimes once you have one kid i mean let me just tell you this quick story so my so chelsea we had this period of time where i think chelsea She didn't know how many kids she wanted to have.

25:27I always, always said, hey, I want to have three kids or maybe even four. And so Chelsea knows this is just how I'm wired. She knows if she gives me an inch, I'll take a mile. So she was always hesitant to say, no, I want three kids or four. She didn't know. But after we had one, I think Chelsea just fell so in love with our daughter, Arwen. She was like, okay, I want to have two. And then I'd never heard her say this before. We were with a realtor in a house. And his name was Christian. And she's like, he said, hey, how many kids do you want to have? And she said something like three, well, probably four.

25:58And I was like, wait, what? What? But I share that to say, we love our kids so much. And I think sometimes once people have one kid and then a second they realize, wow, this is just so magical. It's so meaningful. It's part of God's design of us being able to flourish and add value and have this deep connection with kids. And that being said, I think a lot of times people start getting into their 40s and they think, well, I actually want to have another kid or I want to have my first kid. So all that being said, one of the things you've specialized in is helping women get pregnant in their 40s.

26:37What is the secret or what are the things that are most important for women to get pregnant late 30s and into their 40s?

26:45Dr. Ann Shippy:Well, first of all, I just want to address this conversation that's out in our conversations. And I'm even having 28 and 31-year-old women being afraid of their fertility being lost. Sure. So, you know, it's one in six couples that are dealing with infertility. And so especially for women that are not sure when they're going to have their kids, there's so much fear around this. So I just want to break that paradigm because, yes, if you have root causes going on in your body, the body puts on the brakes and it says no babies right now. So what I do in my practice is I get to work on the root causes and then also just have people come in and optimize.

27:28Dr. Ann Shippy:Like I have this patient, such a fun story. She even stretched my idea of what was possible. She came at 46. She had a couple of older kids. She had met the love of her life. They wanted to have a baby together. And so she was just coming to see if it was a good idea, if I thought it was possible. So I said, let's check some labs. Let's see what's going on. And we found some environmental toxins. We found some nutritional deficiencies. We found some disruptions in her gut microbiome. And so she worked really hard for three months. And then she got really busy with work for a few months. And then they had one night where they weren't careful because I had said, you've got to use condoms while we're doing this detox, while we're doing your microbiome reset.

28:09Dr. Ann Shippy:but no getting pregnant right now. And then they had one night where they weren't careful and they got pregnant. When she was 47, she'd already turned 47. And so now just a couple weeks ago, she had turned 48. And she just birthed a beautiful baby girl at 48. Her pregnancy, her body was so tuned up. So she was super fertile. Her body was so tuned up. She had easiest pregnancy ever. She actually, I didn't, she didn't get my permission on this, But she had a home birth in water at 48. Perfect. Amazing. And everything's really, really great. So the message that I want women to understand is that when their bodies are super balanced, they're repleted with nutrients, they are not toxic, their microbiome is healthy, they get super fertile.

28:57Oh, yeah. It's so incredible. You know, when I have women coming in and we're working with them on pregnancy, and we've seen some similar things, it's just, it's so, yeah, it's so exciting. It's one of the most exciting things to be a part of and supporting someone in that. But, you know, there's a few hormones that I really look at. And I do think environmental toxins are incredibly important. But I really look a lot at cortisol and insulin as two of those hormones. What are some of the, and of course, estrogen, progesterone, those are, you know, some of the most important, if not the most. But when I start to see that kind of hormone cascade of, hey, what is typically tipping the thing off that's causing that hormone depletion or that may be causing hormone imbalance?

29:36I oftentimes look to cortisol, look to insulin first, impacting other hormones. But what are some of the hormones you look at that are the most important when you're looking at labs to say, okay, we really need to dial these in in order to support fertility?

29:49Dr. Ann Shippy:This is such a great question. So one of the biggest things, and when I was researching my book, there was so much data to back me up on this. So one of the things that I think is really happening today is just this pace that we're going in. And so the body doesn't know the difference between we're just working hard, playing hard and doing all the things versus we're in dire straits. We're moving the tribe. We're not ever resting. We're not getting into a relaxed state. So I don't count sitting on your phone scrolling as being a relaxed state, right? Exactly. So a lot of times what's happening when I look, I like to look at the whole hormone cascade.

30:27Dr. Ann Shippy:So what most people don't realize is that when the cortisol levels are going up, when the adrenal glands are working really hard, they're basically slurping up. When I explain this to patients, I'll make the little slurping sound. They're slurping up the progesterone and the estrogen and even the testosterone and running it over to make cortisol. That's right. You know, I recently did a podcast episode where I went through and sometimes people will call this the cortisol steal. Yes, exactly. To where essentially your body has this decision. Do I make sex hormones or do I make stress hormones? Right?

31:02And what happens is all of these hormones and energy can get diverted into making cortisol. So you don't have anything left for estrogen and progesterone to support fertility.

31:12Dr. Ann Shippy:And then that's the signal to the ovaries or in the men, the testes. Yeah. It's not a good time to make babies. So we're putting on the brakes. The check engine's light's on. And so that's such an important piece to address. So really taking a look at what's going on with that hormone cascade and finding the ways that you can put the right signals in. And sometimes it is the toxins. It's your body having to work so hard to try to get the toxins out that it's also sending you more into that hypervigilant cortisol state. Now, are there any specific, because I know, you know, and I know you think of the same way I do.

31:49Like when I'm looking at a patient, I'm not, like sometimes I see it could be practitioners get in this sort of ditch where it's like, everything's toxicity or everyone needs this keto diet or everyone needs this. I just really look at it. I know you too, it's personalized medicine. Everyone that comes in full, I look at the panel, I look at the history, I look at everything together. And then I customize something for the individual. And it's not just, so we're looking at toxicity, but we're also looking at what are the deficiencies? What are the hormonal things going on? All of it together. My question for you is this.

32:23So we talked a little bit about the toxins. We talked about cortisol and this being the biggest driver, I mean, this is the busy lifestyle. What are the most common nutritional deficiencies today that are contributing to fertility issues?

32:38Dr. Ann Shippy:There's so many of them. It's really quite remarkable how many deficiencies that we're seeing. And most people, even that come to me, they're already trying to eat well, right so they they they're surprised when we see these but there's um magnesium zinc selenium like we're seeing massive almost everybody is magnesium deficient yeah like that's just got to be one of those supplements that most people take yeah um and then there's a need for more antioxidants so coq10 vitamin c alpha lipoic acid uh the glutathione yeah i mean it really is we're energy sufficient. Like we're getting plenty of calories, but not enough nutrients.

33:21Dr. Ann Shippy:So it's so great to be able to test and to be able to tell people which things they need. So I was kind of laughing because I've got this book that I think most people can read and know what to do to protect their fertility for both men and women. And then I've got my practice. It's super busy going on. So I've been working on this online program so that people can have access to the labs and to be able to know what to do, right? And to get a little bit more teaching than what I can offer in the book. Actually, a lot more teaching. And I know I need to simplify it, but I so want people to be able to have access to checking their nutrients, checking their microbiome, checking their toxin levels.

34:06Dr. Ann Shippy:It's really been hard. So right now in the program, we just give people a menu. there's a couple core things I really want everybody to test but then there's a menu but I'm laughing because there's so many things that we can be checking to really get our bodies optimal for fertility both the men and the women and for so that people are curious that they really want to know and to do that work to not just help their fertility but to help them have the healthier baby Because it's, you know, with the whole field of epigenetics where we know how our genes are getting dialed up and dialed down, like we can pass up on such better epigenetics to our children by having done this work up front so that they have less chance of having autism and diabetes and autoimmunity.

34:55Dr. Ann Shippy:Like it's such a great period of time that most people are missing out on that. I mean, I'm sure your kids are super healthy because you've known exactly what to be doing for both you and your wife to really have your body super strong and healthy and all these little epigenetic factors for your girls to be as positive as possible so that they're super healthy for their life and for their fertility. You know, we were joking around the other day. My wife was, so even though we feed our kids super healthy, they're very healthy. You know, when you have a two-year-old, they still get sick, you know, and you're like, gosh, you get kids just, you know, going to school and just all that.

35:35And then like our two-year-old right now, I mean, she puts everything in her mouth. And so like yesterday, she licked a fly swatter. We're like, oh, my gosh. And then she's like, well, eat dirt. My wife is like, well, you know, you did write a book called Eat Dirt. I'm like, okay, well, I did. And it has some of those principles. And so she's winning. She's doing good. Yes, we are very, very conscious of doing everything we can to keep our kids healthy. And so it's a lot of fun.

35:58Dr. Ann Shippy:And maybe you have another one or two coming. Yeah, yeah, maybe. Maybe everybody stay tuned for that. You know, as we've done a lot of these markers in our practice and like doing more of the cellular blood work, one of the other nutrients that's come up, basically you had the most common ones that we see too, deficiencies there. And I think most women know this, but like folate, I see deficient constantly, and especially in women that have already had a pregnancy, right? Because when you're pregnant, your body uses a lot of B6, a lot of folate, a lot of magnesium. And part of it is a lot of the blood building nutrients.

36:38I think the single reason, biggest reason why post-pregnancy, and this is a Chinese medicine principle too, But women after pregnancy oftentimes have major blood deficiencies. And they've never gone and actually gone and built their blood and ate the right diet post-pregnancy. And all these ancient cultures, they know it. So like a lot of these women are eating soups and very specific recipes for the following like at least three months post-pregnancy. But a lot of women, this hasn't been handed down in America today. So a lot of women don't know what to eat after giving birth.

37:08Dr. Ann Shippy:Exactly. And I really advise all of my patients to come back and do testing four to six weeks postpartum because you really don't know what the baby's going to take. There was just an article that came out in the last few weeks that shows that the baby can actually pull from your muscles. So we've known for a long time that the babies can pull from your bones when they need calcium to build their own bones. But they can actually pull amino acids from your muscles. So it's really important to know. And then the other thing that I really look for is for my patients that want to do, that have been doing a vegetarian or vegan diet.

37:45Dr. Ann Shippy:It's really challenging to have a sufficient amount of amino acids. So I know some people are doing it for ethical or religious reasons, but that's especially, it's so important to do those amino acid panels and the essential fatty acid panels to really know if you have the right fats and the right amino acids. And then my favorite supplement for preconception during pregnancy and postpartum is choline and phosphatidylcholine. So I think that should be a mandatory prenatal vitamin, preconception vitamin, and a postnatal vitamin. Because we really need the choline for our own body to continuously be doing repair and rebuilding.

38:29Dr. Ann Shippy:But especially for the babies, they're growing cells so rapidly. They need the choline to build those cell membranes. Hey, so if you've ever thought something is wrong with me, but I just can't prove it. then this is for you. Now, you might be eating clean, even what you feel like is perfect, working out, taking all of the right supplements, but you're still exhausted, still foggy, gaining weight, and you're not sleeping. And every time you ask for help, you hear the same thing. But your labs are normal. Here's what that actually means. Standard blood work only shows what's in your blood, not whether your cells can actually access it or not.

39:11You can give your body all the right inputs, but if your cells are in danger mode, chronically stressed or inflamed, they can't absorb or use those nutrients properly. If you're finally ready to heal, go to mybloodwork.com. You'll get an at-home cellular blood work panel shipped straight to your home and reviewed on a private call with one of my senior health advisors at the Health Institute. And this will help you finally connect the dots between your symptoms at the cellular level. We'll also determine if you're a good candidate for one of our cellular healing protocols so you can finally experience lasting healing.

39:47Once again, go to mybloodwork.com to check it out. You know, something I learned as I've, you know, when I was studying nutrients is that choline used to be called vitamin B4, but it's essential and it's part of that, you know, and for creating glutathione and blood, just it's critical for a lot. I'm so, and one of the things I just wanna mention is that a lot of people probably aren't familiar with phospholipids, especially phospholipids like phosphatidylcholine. And these are typically found, it's found in the highest levels, I believe, in like caviar, like fish eggs. It's found in egg yolks.

40:28It's found in organ meats like liver. These are things in our modern world that almost nobody is getting in their diet. And it's also probably the most critical thing for healing your cell membranes. And when we're talking about cellular medicine and health, you know, you want some good, healthy fatty acids, but also those phospholipids, and that allows more oxygen and nutrients to get in and out of the cell. So that's gonna, I mean, that's gonna help with a number of things.

40:51Dr. Ann Shippy:So I mentioned that if I was on a desert island and I could only have a couple things dropped in, one's liposomal glutathione. The other one is phosphatidylcholine because I just, I know, I personally can feel a difference in my body when I'm taking it regularly. My brain works better. my, everything just works better. I do about a tablespoon. So I have this, uh, yeah, glass bottle and I was doing it this morning and, um, and, uh, it's great. And I also, you know what, it's counterpart, uh, phosphatidylserine I really like for sleep. And so sleep, I'll do things like glycine, magnesium glycinate, and, uh, and phosphatidylserine, but yeah, the phospholipids, I, I think we're going to see those growing in popularity because they are really, really powerful for, you know, the first time I got turned on to those compounds was when my mom had cancer.

41:39And I was studying and reading all of the science behind how do you heal your cells. And I got turned on to Joanna Budwig, who created the Budwig Protocol as a cancer protocol. And she believed that the cause of cancer was lack of oxygen getting in and out of the cell. And so she created this recipe with flax meal, flax oil, and quark, which is a type of fermented raw dairy product and all those essential fatty acids with the flax and what that did. But again, it got turned on to sort of one of the greatest ways to repair the cell there and support that oxygen exchanges, the phospholipids.

42:14Dr. Ann Shippy:And all the chemical messengers in our bodies work better because our receptors are handling everything better. I mean, there's just so many benefits. And for people that are just interested in longevity, it should just be part of our checkup. And there is a lab now, the nerdy part of me, the Prodrome Sciences has a lab that you can start to check some of those. It's still an evolving science, so it's not that straightforward, like what's your level of selenium? Yeah, rarely people test for this, but actually even Questonell has, because we've ran it on patients, you can do phospholipid panels.

42:52And I will say this, I mean, it's like, you know, like doing a CBC or CMP, it's just not that expensive. testing for phospholipids. I think we're going to see the prices come down on some of these over time.

43:03Dr. Ann Shippy:But especially for people with any neurological illnesses, the Parkinson's, dementia, that kind of thing. I think it's really, really helpful to take a look at those things. Yeah. You mentioned the word longevity. This has become a personal passion of mine. And part of it was due to, I had a spinal infection about three years ago. I didn't walk for a year. And honestly, it was the first time in my life where I thought, you know what? I need to think about even more about my future. And one, I needed to heal myself. And a big part of it was learning everything I could about cellular regeneration, reversing irreversible conditions.

43:36And so I spent a lot of time studying this. But part of that was, here's what I basically was my conclusion of all the research I did. If I want to heal my body, the greatest thing I can do is focus on actually cellular regeneration and promoting longevity is actually a way of healing chronic conditions. And so I would love to hear your take on just the whole longevity space today. What do you think the future is? What do you think the things are? Here's the question. What do you think the things are that people are doing now that are working that's going to be the future of longevity medicine?

44:12And are there any things or trends around it that you think is really probably not a good long-term longevity play?

44:24Dr. Ann Shippy:so i think the thing that a lot of people are really missing in this longevity space is what you and i focus on which is having a really great foundation they're looking for like what's the pill like is there can we take rapamycin or can we take exactly or whatever and they're not laying a really solid foundation it drives me crazy because they're it drives me crazy like they're and if and by saying oh yeah this is going to help you they're they're i think they're really doing people a disservice like i'll give you an example this this is gonna be fairly controversial, but I remember reading, Peter T wrote a book on longevity, and there were a few things in there.

44:59I thought, this is good VO2 max. I thought that was good. But basically, there's some longevity doctors that are put, I mean, listen, I've had certain longevity doctors pushing things like metformin for sure, raptomyosin, taking aspirin every day. And maybe there is a very small subgroup where one, like, but also, why wouldn't you take natokinase or turmeric or do something else that's probably more.

45:24Dr. Ann Shippy:Work more with your own biology. Biology, yeah. And don't have side effects. Like these drugs have pretty significant potential side effects. Right. Actually, I mean, I went and did a, I mentioned this on a recent show I was doing that metformin depletes your body of a lot of the nutrients you need for mitochondrial health and methylation. I think there's a lot of, just the way that longevity is being thought of to me doesn't make sense. A lot of what's happening. Yeah. So first, if people will do this work and really lay a great foundation. And then I got my my 95 year old mom. Right. Where. Yeah.

46:00Dr. Ann Shippy:She's the living example of that for me. She's really done everything that I've asked her to do. She's got a really healthy diet. She takes the key supplements that I think are great. She works out almost every day. She gets her 3 ,000, 5 ,000 steps in and goes to the gym for 20 minutes and uses the oil of Olay on her face. So she looks like she's 70 instead of 95. That's so great. And it's so much the attitude. Like I remember going to see her shortly after my stepfather died about a year ago. And we were all still really in this deep place of mourning. And I got to her place and she said to me, I felt so bad today.

46:46Dr. Ann Shippy:I just made myself go to the gym. So, you know, you could see the mindset and then she'd cook her greens for breakfast and make sure she was getting adequate protein. And so I really want people to be focusing on those things. And then, yes, I love things like stem cells. Like I feel like they're when they're not injected in your spine, that they can be super, super helpful. And I just Monday went and got stem cell therapy, got an IV. And I mean, I think stem cells are the absolute future, the number one thing for longevity medicine. Now, let me say this as well, though. Let me just say this. I don't think it's the number one thing.

47:23I think it's the number one therapy in terms of something that's advanced medicine for it. You know, one of the things I think about a lot of times when I think about longevity is, I think, why in America today, why aren't we looking more to Asia and what they're doing over there to live a long time? I remember going on a trip to Asia, a mission trip years ago. And one thing they would do there is like around lunch. People would eat lunch. Nobody was rushing. And then they would go out and do, the city I was in, it wasn't every city, but this one small city. Literally, it's like the entire town flooded out and started doing Tai Chi.

47:56And it was pretty amazing. But these were people in their 70s, people over 100 years old out there doing that. There was a very different lifestyle there. And I would say it was the single biggest thing was, well, there's two things. One, they were not rushing. And the other thing was, it was very, very, like their meals were just clean and easy. There was no fast food restaurants. It was just, it was, I mean, so there was a big difference there in cortisol and insulin probably.

48:25Dr. Ann Shippy:community like they're doing the yes together they're eating together i'm a huge fan of um tai chi and qigong i've learned several different forms i just don't have a practice right now writing the book really got me off my my practice but you're inspiring me to get back because i do think they're the that presence that you have in your body and the the movements it reconnects you to yourself and also is that signal to your brain to go into the restorative state rather than let's moved the tribe state. So I'd love that you brought that in. Yeah. I mean, the fastest way to get your body at a sympathetic state is to breathe properly or to do a breathing practice.

49:05And this was practiced all the way Qigong. I mean, Chinese medicine is probably about 4 ,000 years old. And so Qigong is a way of doing certain movements while doing very specific breathing patterns that kind of reset your nervous system, get you out of fight or flight state, and also build your lung energy. I mean, in your ATP, your cellular energy. I mean, it's incredibly powerful.

49:26Dr. Ann Shippy:There's even studies on it for like helping with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and all kinds of things. So I have a chemical engineering degree, a master's degree in engineering and an MD, right? So I've done a ton of school. One of the hardest things that I ever did, like I could just feel my brain rewiring was to learn Tai Chi. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It was so hard. Yeah. But then once you learn it and you get that body memory, it's like you just start doing it and your body instantly starts to go into that relaxed state. Yeah. And I love the data that's coming out behind it. Yeah. I think we're going to see more and more there.

50:02I was going to mention this too. You know, I think, uh, breathing is very good. Humming is also very good. You know, a lot of the, uh, um, a lot of the ancient, uh, religious practices, both in the Christian faith and the Buddhist faith specifically, those two, you'll see there's a lot of humming. In fact, monks, Catholic monks would do specific humming and rhythms in order to honor God and as part of their prayers. And so, I mean, if people go and research this, and you can even look this up on AI or Google or somewhere, but go back and look at monks humming, chanting, things like that. And specifically, you could look at both the Christian or Catholic, and also, again, it's prominent in Buddhism as well.

50:42But again, it's getting your, think about this, if you're trying to pray and connect with God, does it seem like it would be easier when you're in a fight or flight state and your mind is racing, or when you're in a state of just serenity and peace and calmness? And so it's something they would do is, like they would hum, it would help get them more and they believed a state of, a better state of mind for prayer.

51:07Dr. Ann Shippy:One of my favorite forms of meditation has been something called centering prayer. It's sitting in silence with God and just being silent. And then every time your mind starts going just to come back to the presence with him, it's really such an easy but beautiful meditation and then can take a lot of practice. Yeah, there was a monk and he was a Christian monk and he was speaking and he said, most people, when they pray, pray and talk, they're talking to God 90 % and then listening for 10 or 11. Really, it's like 99 to 1, but he was being generous in 90 to 10. I'm guilty of this as much as anybody, but he said, he's like, but I found that the best ratio is 10 to 90, listening to God 90%, sitting there in stillness.

51:55It sort of goes back to what you talked about with fertility today. I think one of the greatest things making us ill today is the state of business. And I tell my patients this all the time. I was sitting down with a woman who had thyroid issues and major hormonal imbalances this week. And I said, tell me if this is your schedule. From the moment you wake up, probably around 6 a.m., to the moment you crash around 10 p.m., you have something going on every second of the day. And this is happening Monday through Friday, most of the day, Saturday, even part of the day into Sunday. Does that describe your life?

52:28She's like, oh, yes. I'm like, you have to have some margin, some time for you to go on a date night, lunch with a best friend, read a book. I'm like, you know, so it's one of the greatest drivers of illness today is being in this fight or flight state and raising, you know, cortisol, staying elevated all day.

52:45Dr. Ann Shippy:Well, and I think it's becoming just such the normal state. People don't even realize that they're in it. Right. They're in it. Their friends are in it. Their family's in it. And so to even have the people in their lives that encourage that true rest and relaxation. And a lot of us, me included, I end up using technology to help me refine that state again. So there are nerve feedback devices. There's vagus nerve stimulators. If you're in a time of your life where you have little kids and you don't get that, you can't even find the five minutes to do much more than use a neurofeedback device or a vagus nerve stimulator.

53:23it can help, but I started using a neuropod recently. And so, so what I'm trying to, um, you know, as a parent, uh, it's tough. It's tough. Chelsea and I were talking about this recently. We're like, you know, when, when, especially different ages need different things and, but we're trying to get in this rhythm of like, here's what I found for myself. Once we have dinner, it's typically, I don't know, 530. Once we have dinner, I cannot keep working. Like it's, it's my, like that for me is the single thing. Honestly, I can work most of the day, but if I keep working after like even, even do anything, I don't sleep as well.

54:00I start waking up at 3am. I just, it, it really negatively affects me. If I can just stop working after dinner and not look at my phone again, essentially, I'm honestly pretty good to go. You're giving your family the greatest gift because what they've, what these little

54:15Dr. Ann Shippy:kids really want and what your wife really wants is your pure presence with you. And so giving yourself permission to do that, it's so beautiful. I want to talk a little bit more about longevity because this is something you really focus on with patients. And honestly, my practice is actually called the longevity clinic. And the reason I called it that was even if somebody comes in, like we have multiple patients right now with cancer, people with infertility, people with a lot of people with really serious issues. I still, even when they're at their worst, I still want them focusing on longevity.

54:51I want them focusing on the future, getting healthy. Well, I think about this with my mom. Even when my mom had cancer, I was having her think about what she was gonna be doing in her 80s and 90s with her grandkids. And so, and I know you think about the same way as well, because I've seen your side, I've seen you speak. You're helping people of all ages, but also think about longevity. So when you think about longevity, we talked about sort of building the foundation in some of that. You talked about stem cells. Are there any therapies or supplements or things in particular you think, these are also really, really beneficial when it comes to supporting longevity?

55:24I want to tell a quick story.

55:27Dr. Ann Shippy:Please. And then I'll come back to the question. So I had this 88 year old woman that I'd seen her grandson and her son, and they really wanted her to come in. So she's 88. And the first time she's sitting there, she's like, yeah, I'm having trouble following the conversations at dinner. I'm not winning at bridge anymore. I'm, uh, I can't get down on the floor and pick things up. I'm so achy in my body. Like she was like ready to kind of give up. She's ready to call it. And I just saw her back. She's now 92. I hadn't seen her in a year. just like yeah i'm winning at bridge and no pain in my body and i've got all the energy to do everything i want to do and i accidentally dropped something she picked it up quicker than i could so the message with that is even for people that aren't feeling well your example exactly like let's shoot towards the 92 year old feeling great because our bodies are so remarkable they can so much heal.

56:33Dr. Ann Shippy:So, you know, she was not on the right diet for her. She was creating a lot of inflammation, eating way too much sugar. She was depleted in some nutrients, her microbiome was off, and she had some toxic exposure. So, you know, we worked on a lot of things and she was highly motivated because she had seen what had happened with her son and her grandson. So she really wanted to put the work in. And then just thinking about, especially tying in fertility, like we know that people who have issues with fertility, both the men and the women, their trajectory for their health are at just greater risk for all the complicating chronic illnesses.

57:10Dr. Ann Shippy:What are your point? Low testosterone in men, and I know this for fact, is a major mortality risk long-term, takes, I mean, maybe a lot of years off your life. So yeah. So what we, instead of just putting men that haven't had their children yet onto testosterone, we need to be asking why. That's right because we're affecting their fertility by just jumping the the root cause analysis i mean it still blows my mind it's like if you have a man with low fertility i mean the studies show you got to get vitamin d you got to get zinc you got to do boron take some herbs lift weights eat more protein i mean you know but but and get to the root there's more beyond that but it's super men i actually really love to use the sperm analysis there's a company called sperm qt that cannot just look at the traditional sperm testing, but they could look at the epigenetics, like how are those genes getting influenced in the sperm sample.

58:00Dr. Ann Shippy:And so we can get a sense of what's really going on in the men epigenetically a lot easier than the women. And what's really fun is that we can see, oh, gosh, there's problems. Your count is down or your epigenetics aren't good, and we can see a total turnaround. So we can't actually start to use that as a marker for longevity for men. But then if we think about this testicular function and ovarian function as being a marker for longevity, one of the key things for both of those organ systems, as well as our brain and our heart, is to feed our mitochondria. So I love all the research on NAD and CoQ10, and I love a specific form of CoQ10 called MitoQ, all the B vitamins, the carnitine, and the phospholipids, a lot of these things that we've talked about.

58:50Dr. Ann Shippy:I think those are absolutely foundational for longevity. If our mitochondria are working well, a lot of our systems are going to be working so much better. I'm so glad you said this because I think this is something I think about a lot and speak on a lot is that the mitochondria, these engines of our cells, if you don't have cellular energy, your body can't do anything. I mean, it's literally the batteries of your body. And so if that battery is low, hormones are off, every organ is off. And so if you can go and start fixing and improving the health of your mitochondria, I agree. It's probably one of the greatest things to focus on for longevity there is.

59:25And of course, NAD Plus is important, whether it's NMN or NR or Niagen. I mean, these are things that are wonderful. Eating pomegranates, right? I mean, there's a lot of great things people can do in order to support that.

59:37Dr. Ann Shippy:It's so fun. It is. There's so many incredible researchers that are giving us bits of information that when we put them all together, that's how things like my book come about, right? It's like if we just look at one thing at a time, it's hard to get a plan together. But if you can see the picture and see the remarkable shifts that happen in human health from applying these things, it's just it just really gives us hope so that we can not be afraid. You know, especially one example would be like for people that know they have an ApoE4 gene. So most people with dementia, with Alzheimer's, have an ApoE4 gene.

1:00:21Dr. Ann Shippy:But most people with APOE4 genes don't get dementia. So we know it's an environmental factor. So that example alone can be inspiring us, regardless of what our genes are, that we look for those epigenetic factors that help our genes behave, do their best jobs, and provide the environment for that in our bodies. I love it. Well, Dr. Ann, thanks so much for coming on today. This was such a wonderful conversation. I wanna encourage everybody, check out Dr. Ann's book. It's called The Preconception Revolution. It's on Amazon. It's in bookstores nationwide. I know that it is a book that's really gonna help.

1:01:00If you're a person looking to conceive at any age, whether you're a woman or a man, this is a great book where she really dives deep into, here is how to truly support conception with the right nutrients, with the right diet, with the right lifestyle, with the right holistic treatments. and she goes through how to do it all naturally. So I wanna encourage you to get the book, The Preconception Revolution here by Dr. Ann Shippey. Dr. Ann, thanks so much for coming on today. Really appreciate it.

1:01:26Dr. Ann Shippy:Oh my gosh, what a great conversation. I so enjoyed talking with you. Same, well, I always love talking to people that have your depth of knowledge and wisdom and just expertise in practicing functional medicine for over 20 years now. So thanks so much. I wanna say thanks everybody for watching and tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we're diving deep into the science and the principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Also, don't forget to subscribe. That way you don't miss a thing. Incredible interviews like we had today here with Dr.

1:01:58Ann Shippey. And also, thanks for sharing. You know, there are actually right now millions of people that are struggling with infertility and don't know about longevity and how to truly heal their bodies. And so think about it. Is there someone you know who needs to know more about, or maybe they've asked questions or you just know they want to support their own fertility, think about that person. Maybe text them this episode, share it with them. Thank you all of you for being on a mission with us and I can't wait to see you on the next episode.