Stop Taking Supplements Blindly: The Cell Signaling Truth | Dr. Tyler Panzner
78 min
•Jan 22, 20263 months agoSummary
Dr. Tyler Panzner discusses the cell signaling model of disease, explaining how vitamins, supplements, hormones, and lifestyle factors act as 'strings' that control cellular behavior. The episode emphasizes personalized medicine through genetics, pharmacology interactions, and the dangers of blindly taking supplements without understanding their multiple mechanisms of action and potential contraindications.
Insights
- Cell signaling pathways are the fundamental mechanism through which supplements, nutrients, and lifestyle factors influence health; understanding which pathways you're sensitive to is more important than following one-size-fits-all recommendations
- Genetic variants in nutrient receptors (like vitamin D receptors) can require significantly higher blood levels to achieve the same cellular effect, making personalized dosing essential rather than following standard reference ranges
- Supplements have multiple mechanisms of action beyond their marketed benefits; taking concentrated extracts amplifies both beneficial and harmful effects, and combining multiple supplements creates unpredictable interactions rarely studied in clinical research
- Histamine, sulfur, glutamate, and adrenaline are excitatory pathways linked to anxiety, depression, ADHD, and chronic pain; timing meals and supplements to avoid spiking these pathways can dramatically improve mental health without medication
- Environmental and psychological stress triggers the cell danger response, causing cellular dysfunction that can persist even after the stressor is removed; addressing safety and belonging is as important as biochemical interventions
Trends
Shift from population-level health guidelines to genotype-informed personalized medicine based on individual genetic variantsGrowing recognition that psychiatric conditions share overlapping genetic underpinnings rather than being distinct disorders, enabling targeted pathway-based treatmentIncreased scrutiny of supplement stacking and biohacking protocols, revealing dangerous interactions and contraindications not captured in single-ingredient studiesIntegration of pharmacology education into functional and naturopathic medicine to address gaps in understanding supplement mechanisms and interactionsRecognition of epigenetic factors and lifestyle (circadian rhythm, sun exposure, stress, movement) as primary drivers of gene expression over genetic determinismEmergence of cell signaling model of disease as alternative framework to conventional diagnosis-based medicine in holistic health spaceGrowing awareness of histamine intolerance and mast cell activation as root causes of anxiety, insomnia, and chronic pain in sensitive populationsPersonalized nutrition based on ethnic ancestry and evolutionary dietary pressures (e.g., dairy tolerance in Scandinavian populations) gaining traction
Topics
Cell signaling pathways and disease mechanismsVitamin D genetics and personalized dosing protocolsHistamine intolerance and dietary managementSupplement pharmacology and drug-nutrient interactionsGlutamate and neurotransmitter signaling in mental healthGenetic variants in nutrient receptors and metabolismEpigenetics and gene expression regulationCell danger response and chronic stress effectsPersonalized medicine and genomic health coachingSupplement stacking risks and contraindicationsCircadian rhythm and light exposure optimizationPerfectionism, rumination, and chronic pain pathwaysEstrogen and histamine bucket analogySulfur-containing foods and excitatory pathwaysFunctional medicine vs. naturopathic medicine training gaps
Companies
Cozy Earth
Sponsor offering luxury bedding and bath towels made with cotton and bamboo viscose for sleep optimization
Timeline Nutrition
Sponsor providing MitoPure longevity gummies with Urolithin A for mitochondrial health and cellular energy
BiOptimizers
Sponsor offering Masszymes digestive enzyme blend with 18 enzymes for protein breakdown and digestion support
Sundays for Dogs
Sponsor providing air-dried, human-grade dog food made by a veterinarian with real meat and superfoods
People
Dr. Tyler Panzner
PhD scientist and holistic genomic health coach specializing in cell signaling pathways, pharmacology, and personaliz...
Dr. Tina Moore
Host of The Dr. Tina Show, naturopathic physician with 20+ years of clinical experience in functional medicine and re...
Dave Asprey
Biohacker referenced for taking excessive supplement stacks without understanding pharmacological interactions and co...
Quotes
"Think of your cell as the puppet. The puppeteer are things you do or things you ingest in your body. Each string is a different cell signaling pathway."
Dr. Tyler Panzner
"It doesn't matter what's in your blood. It matters how much your cells respond to what's in the blood. Vitamin D blood levels mean nothing. Vitamin D cell signaling is what matters."
Dr. Tyler Panzner
"Every supplement does many things in the body. What's synergistically beneficial for me may be synergistically not beneficial for you."
Dr. Tyler Panzner
"The future of health is understanding all these flavors and having distinct guidelines based on which subset of genealogy you are."
Dr. Tyler Panzner
"I'm not here to completely eliminate all symptomology and make everything perfect. But it sure is nice to be able to understand what's happening when it's happening."
Dr. Tina Moore
Full Transcript
I'm here to really help people live a better life. And it's just one of those angles, perspectives that I've seen that a lot of people miss out on because it comes down to the timing and the interactions. And that's what pharmacology is. And there's just a massive lack of pharmacology education or knowledge in the holistic space. You are tuned into the Dr. Tina Show with Dr. Tina Moore. For more, visit drtina.com. My guest today is Dr. Tyler Pansner. He is a PhD scientist turned holistic genomic health coach. And I was absolutely fascinated by this guy. I found him on Instagram months ago, and I'm just blown away with the content that he brings and the unique perspective on human health and disease. His background is both as a cell biologist and pharmacologist, and this allows him to understand how vitamins, supplements, hormones, drugs, and lifestyle changes all interplay and impact our cellular biology. We had a fascinating discussion today about the cell signaling model of disease, as he calls it, and the different signaling pathways which impact like little levers every aspect of our health, from anxiety to pain and so much more. I think you're going to find this conversation mind-blowing and I was delighted to have Dr. Panzer as my first guest of 2026. So let's jump in. Dr. Tyler Panzer, thank you so much for coming on the Dr. Tina Show today here in the early January 2026. You're my first guest of the new year. So thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Hopefully we could start the year off with a bang, talk about some cell signaling pathways and how I view these things as basically the strings that you can puppeteer to puppeteer your cells. Tell them what to do, tell them what not to do. I love it. One of my good friends did a talk at A4M on the cell danger response, and it was over a lot of people's heads. I followed, I understand that concept, but I think it's such an important idea that people really need to get understanding of in a way that is digestible because it doesn't, the thing I love about you and your content and when I found you on Instagram is you're always explaining supplements and you're explaining actually why we should be hesitant in many cases. And I completely agree. As a naturopathic physician, I am not one to just throw most supplements, mamsy-pamsy at people. I'm always like, I'm always the one in the group chat that's like, hey, you might want to be careful with that. And here's why. So your content is spot on. And I know it ties in with that cell danger response. So let's just kind of unwrap that for the audience. Yeah. So, well, the cell danger response, that's a type of cell signaling, right? So let's just zoom out even more. There are, depending how you classify it, dozens or hundreds of cell signaling pathways. So when there's a cell, let's talk about a cell in a Petri dish. How does a cell know where to go? How does it know where they go left or right? If you put two cells apart from each other, how do they know to reach out to each other and connect together? Cell signaling pathways. So how our cells reach and detect, oh, I'm grabbing type 2 collagen. I'm going to remodel my extracellular matrix, which is my skeletal backbone to basically make an arm, grab, and reach out and pull myself around. This can be applied to everything. Let's take vitamin D, for example. We know that low vitamin D is linked to autoimmunity, inflammation, mental health conditions, you name it, so many actual hormonal issues. So when you get vitamin D, what happens? Well, we'll skip all the mumbo jumbo of how it gets made and transported this, that, but that vitamin D binds your DNA on a receptor, and that stimulates the cell signaling pathway of vitamin D. Now, depending the type of cell that it's talking to, if it's a brain cell, it'll tell to make more dopamine, make more serotonin. This is why seasonal depression exists. If it binds to a immune cell, it can quiet it down and shift away from a pro-inflammatory state. If it's an osteoblast or a bone cell, it stimulates the formation of bone. This is why it's linked to osteoporosis. So I like telling people, think of your cell as the puppet. The puppeteer are things you do or things you ingest in your body. Each string is a different cell signaling pathway. So imagine you have a puppet here and you pull the right arm up. Like I mentioned, the right arm for a brain cell does something different than the right arm of a bone cell than does the right arm of a skin cell. But that cell signaling pathway of vitamin D, it affects all the cells in your body. So there's things like nitric oxide for blood flow or dopamine, serotonin, glutamate. We could talk about a few of them here because not every single one of them is like, let me turn up this cell signaling pathway at will, right? That'd be really cool if we could do that. But it's essentially these strings, right? And the changes in our epigenetics, what's up and down by these different pathways. Well, and the microenvironment matters quite a bit too, that the cells are swimming in. So there's so many variables. There's our thoughts as well, right? Everything we're doing at any moment in time, if you're walking to work or walking to school and a car almost hits you and swerves away, Your heart's beating out of your chest. That's a change in cell signaling. When you're feeling good, you get that phone call from that one person you hate talking to, that sinking heart feeling, that's a change in cell signaling. So we're constantly changing all these different strings being plucked like an orchestra. Absolutely. So now the cell danger response, what is that in the most simplistic terms? And well, let's just start there. I have other questions, but I don't want to ask you five at once. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so the cell danger response is, I thought you could split it into a couple different facets, but it's essentially, it's hard to say exactly which cell signaling pathway it is. There's likely several involved. I do think of it as when there's biotoxins, right? You know, whether it's mold or viruses, those types of things. But also I think there could be more, this is more on the emotional, called spiritual side of things with you just feeling safe in your own environment. Because chronic stress to your cells, it's whether there's an actual toxin there or manipulative, toxic people, that can be a toxin in of itself, but it's psychologically driven. but it doesn't matter the route it's coming from. Whether it's something physically in your body or something mentally that you're thinking up, it's when the cells just don't feel safe. And that's one of those that it's not something that can be highly manipulated just by... I love the self-signaling paths. We could talk about two or three that can be easily manipulated by foods, supplements, or lifestyle habits based on the time of day. But I'll let you go with the other question. I don't want to pivot too quick. I just thought of something I want to share too. So my audience knows I was in Oregon. I freaking hated it there. I've been there since I was a kid. And I have been trying to get out of there and escape there for as long as I can remember. And it got real bad in 2020 and has been persistently bad since and going downhill quickly. So I finally got out a few months ago. And I have changed nothing about my life. In fact, if anything, my stress levels went through the roof because I undertook financially some pretty big risks and uprooted my whole life, my husband's life, and moved us on down the road to Arizona. And on and on, I mean, it was a lot. It took me like six months of trying to get the hell out of there. And so anyway, get here. I told myself I was not going to test my labs for 90 days. gave myself probably, oh, two and a half months, ran my blood work and all my labs, all my blood work normalized. Everything went back to the way it was. I had had the same lab work for decades and I've been, you know, very carefully monitoring my blood work from a functional perspective since, gosh, I don't know, the 90s, you know, when I got into all this and naturopathic medicine. And there was a blip. All of a sudden, my lipids went crazy and my blood sugar regulation went crazy. My metabolic markers, everything went crazy. And we could say there was probably mold in the house I was living in, but I'd been there for five, six years already. Why now? Why suddenly were the labs so horrific? So that was the beginning of 2025, towards maybe the early part of spring, latter part of winter, finishing. And I tried to overhaul my life. I tried to make a bunch of changes, but basically what it came to through a lot of prayer and meditation was I got to get the hell out of Oregon. I have to leave here. I do not want to be here. And that factor alone was it. Because I got to Arizona, nothing changed as far as diet. In fact, my diet probably got a little bit worse because I was in a place where I was like, I'm going to let myself heal. I'm going to quit hitting it so hard at the gym. I'm going to quit hitting it so hard with the weights. I'm going to do Pilates and I'm going to heal. And I had a very terrible spinal issue going on that was causing me a ton of pain. So I was like, I'm going to let my spine heal. I'm going to let my soul heal. I'm just going to relax in the sun. And that was what, I mean, the sun is a powerful needle mover on all these pathways. A lot of pathways there. Yeah. But I got, you know, not a ton of sun, just a daily dose of sun and got the hell out of tyranny. And my lab's all regulated. And it was amazing. I pulled them up the other day. They came over and I looked at my husband and I was like, I was right. Because I told him, I was like, if we move, if I uproot everything, I'm moving my parents, I'm moving my daughter, the whole family's coming. If we move and I'm still a shit show in six months, I will find a better doctor. I will go search deeper. I will cut all the gluten and all the alcohol and cut all the things again. But I don't think it's that. I think I'm just incredibly stressed out and unhappy here. And he was like, and it's his beautiful house in Oregon. I was trying to escape this. He built this house with his own hands. And it's a beautiful place on a beautiful farm on 40 acres. And again, it's not like it wasn't the house. It wasn't the area. It was just the more macro what's going on. I mean, I view that as, I don't want to call it a micro dose of the cell danger response, right? But you didn't feel safe. And like that perpetuated long term, that's what really opens the door for disease, right? And you mentioned the prayer meditation. I want to talk briefly about what I call it signaling. So this is a not yet identified self-signaling pathway. but you know when you are whether you're in church or at home meditating or praying and you feel that euphoria that warmth right you feel yourself connecting to source god you whatever you want to call we're not here to tell people what to label what things right or even if you're listening to a motivational speech and you kind of just feel really connected like you're in the right room at the right time. I call this it signaling because it's signaling from it, right? The divine, whatever you want to, we don't know what it is, right? We don't know what it is, but even looking back, you know, ancestrally, right? We did all of these ceremonies, you know, with ancient civilizations and things and literally doing sleep deprivation ceremonies, because I don't know if you know this, but sleep deprivation increases the amount of the serotonin 2A receptor on the surface of the brain. So that's actually the receptor that classical psychedelics bind to and cause psilocybin, LSD, DMT, mescaline. So when you think about this, when people start to hallucinate from sleep deprivation, it's because they're literally getting hypersensitive to their brain's own serotonin and DMT. And I think we fall in the same camp here. Like, you know, are these hallucinations always just fictitious hallucinations or are we tapping into other things, right? So again, you just look throughout history and then a lot of us are so disconnected from source, whatever you want to call it, right? So I don't know what it is yet. I don't know what can transmit certain downloads for people, shamans, this, that, right? But you mentioned that and you are tapping into it signaling. People just do it through different means, right? But connecting to that is incredibly important for overall epigenetic cellular health. If you want to feel better in the new year, start where you spend a third of your life, in your bed, and then move on to the next most underrated upgrade, your towels. That's why I love Cozy Earth. I recently refreshed my bed with their Baja bedding set and it completely changed the feel of my room. Everything actually matches, the sheets, the duvet, the quilt. It feels elevated but still comfortable, like turning your bedroom into a calm resort-style space without trying too hard. 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Don't let another year go by feeling less than your best. Grab 35% off your one month subscription of Mito Pure Gummies at timeline.com forward slash Tina 35. That's timeline.com forward slash Tina 35 while the offer lasts. Oh, I found God in September. So I like, that was probably a huge part of my labs regulating too. I went to church the other day. we went to a new church and it's outside and I'm outside looking up this cliff with all these saguaro cactuses, giant saguaro cactuses. Ravens are flying overhead. Music is playing. There's dogs everywhere and I've got free coffee. And I'm like, what is, and the sun's out. You're buzzing on the caffeine and the it's signaling. The sun was out. I'm like, I've got Jesus and sun and dogs and coffee and my beautiful husband's right next to me and there was a super nice old guy sitting next to me who was talking to me the whole time. And I was like, this is the best ever. Like, this is healing. This is like, this is going to heal me every day. I mean, or every Sunday. Like this is it. So yeah, I love it. I love it. I love your hypothesis. I think it's a good one. So tell me, let's talk about vitamin D. Let's talk about the sun. Tell me what the sun's doing for me. Because I mean, I know that it is the all healing, all wonderful thing. And I moved here specifically for it. So, yeah. And light and just light too. I mean, I think that there's a lot of signaling pathways that are. Oh, absolutely. You know, we could talk about vitamin D, you know, I think vitamin D, listen, nothing's better than the real sunlight, right? We want to have that steady, unprotected sun exposure, but in the right dosages. You know, I'm in New York, so I have plenty of time to micro dose before it gets really nice out, right? but at the same point as much as I'm vocal about trying to not over utilize sunscreen if I don't have a good base tan and I go down to Florida on the beach guess what I'm going to lather up in the sunscreen I try to do mineral base whenever I can and this is where you know you can't go too hypochondriac right like if I need to pick one day to put on regular sunscreen with the oxybenzones and stuff which I don't think are great for health guess what I think that's much safer than frying myself to a crisp. You want to avoid the sunburn, right? But you want to get that vitamin D signaling. But at the same point, one thing I'm very vocal about, I think vitamin D supplementation, I think it's one of the most wrongly demonized supplements out there. People think that you could just get more from sunlight, but a lot of people have genetic variants where they can't hydroxylate vitamin D. So that cold calciferol supplement that everyone takes. They can't convert it into the calcifidiol. So I got my blood work checked middle of the summer. My vitamin D was a 32 in the middle of the summer. And I'm like, I was at the beach all the time. I was tan, told me to take more vitamin D. Then they said they want to do vitamin D injections. So I got vitamin D injections. They went up like 11 points. And I'm like, something is not right. They want to do more, more, more. This was around the time I was familiarizing myself with genetics, probably eight, nine years ago. and turns out that gene, that CYP2R1 gene, and for you guys listening, a gene is instructions to make a protein. Think of a protein as a worker in the city, the city of you. The job of this protein is to take the inactive vitamin D, the form we supplement with, and turn it to the storage form that circulates in our bloodstream. So that doesn't work as well. And hey, I'm not saying everyone needs to take high doses of vitamin D. But I mean, I talked to more practitioners, like we never even knew that this was like a thing. They prescribe that pre-activated vitamin D for multiple sclerosis. It's called reality. But why aren't people aware of this if people can get the vitamin D levels up Right And there other factors I mean inflammation obesity there other factors that will keep you from Deezing deficiency Yeah having those levels come up Yeah and you know because I pretty deep we're both deep in this holistic space. So most people I talk to already have those things checked, right? So just because vitamin D is low doesn't mean that it's just due to this genetic factor. But I just, I'm honestly just so sick of seeing people, practitioners say they outright demonize vitamin D. No one should take it because it's a hormone. Yet they prescribe HRT to people. How does that make sense? It's bizarre. I remember, gosh, when was it? I think it was like 2006. I was in Grand Rounds in naturopathic medical school and we had a guy come in and he started talking about vitamin D. And I had never heard anybody talk about it at that point. And maybe 2005, 2006. Gosh, I know, somewhere early there. And he's going on and on about it. And I've watched this unfold over the past however many decades. And it's just back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And I do not waver. I try to get people's levels between 50 and 80 at minimum. And I'm dosing what I got to dose. And I will say, though, that living in Oregon and trying to take care of people in Oregon is a whole different bag than living in the sun. And so it's really different. But the vitamin D levels here in Arizona are abysmal. And in fact, my levels for as much sun as I've been getting since I moved here. And I mean, you have to look at the UV index too. It goes down in the winter. So even though I am getting sun, it's still much lower than it would be in the summer UV index wise. But my vitamin D was in the toilet too. It was like 30. I think part of that, I think going back to what you said about stress, you know, stress will hijack many of these pathways, correct? I mean, like just burning through cortisol, like it's water driving. I joke that I'm a cortisol addict and I'm on my cortisol detox program. It's like AA for cortisol because I will just drive that. If there's, you know, if they say burning the candle at both ends, I'll just make extra wicks and light them all on fire, you know, until my... And it gets harder to recover from that as you get older. Like I don't recover so good anymore. But anyway, I think that part of what was still a discrepancy in my labs was really just a lot of cortisol flooding the system. So yeah, like you said, pulling these different levers and they matter. I was just talking to my colleague. I did a webinar with him and he came on and he's a gut microbiome expert and long time in the field, really well, just really well studied. And he was talking about how every time you get hit with a big dose of cortisol or stress, it's like taking a little antibiotic dose. And it's obliterating your microbiome. So, you know, these bugs are also playing a huge role in how we're even metabolizing the supplements we're taking orally. There's a lot of factors. And it's hard with the internet because the internet wants one size to fit all. And they want everything to be black and white. And that's just not how it is, right? It's nuanced. I mean, that sells against views. and the answer to most questions people ask me are it depends, right? Like you mentioned, I'm in agreement with you. I usually shoot for that 50 to 70 range. But one last thing I want to add with the vitamin D, how do we detect vitamin D? How do we detect most nutrients in the body? We need receptors. Baseball, they grab things and it's how you detect it. But what if your baseball mitt, one of the fingers is messed up. The receptor has a genetic variant. Vitamin D can't bind as well. What if you have two, three, four clients I work with? I check up to 14 genetic variants. And the more we have there, the higher your blood levels need to be. Very important here. It does not matter what's in your blood. It matters how much your cells respond to what's in the blood. Vitamin D blood levels mean nothing. Vitamin D cell signaling is what matters. This is why for viral infections and things, it can block the receptor and you have the vitamin D. It's not doing its job, but that receptor can be hardwired to not work as well. So my rule of thumb that I use, and hey, this isn't the most evidence-based thing because no one's studying the people with 8, 9, 10 mutations. We only study one in a study here or there. For every variant I see, I scoot that range up, three nanograms per milliliter. So do the math. If someone has, I think that the most that I've seen has been 12. I've never seen someone with all 14. I'll push them up to 100 nanograms per milliliter. Oh, yeah. I'll buy 110. And they'll maintain that. And sometimes they're like, you are batshit crazy. Pardon my French. Like, what are you doing to me? And that for them, 110 for them can be like a 70 for someone else, a 60 for someone else. And I am not saying that as a sweeping statement. everyone maintained those levels. But the amount of fear-mongering I see around calcification from vitamin D, people think if you take 10,000 IUs for a month, you're going to be one big stone of calcium. We have clinical studies. They gave humans 10,000 IUs a day with no vitamin K2, which apparently should make you calcified. But they gave them 10,000 IUs every single day for three years. They measured their blood vessels, their arteries for calcification before and after three years. Not only did no one form any calcification, but the people that had existing calcification before the vitamin D had no more calcification. So bare minimum, 10,000 IUs for three years, there's no real risk of calcification, right? I'm not saying everyone go and do that. I just wanted to touch on the personalization, the receptors there. They're my favorite type of genetic variants because they inherently change how you read blood work. You know that everyone has that friend from high school that was just jacked out of their mind eating McDonald's. They probably have mutations in their testosterone receptors, your melatonin receptors, estrogen, hormones, neurotransmitters, you name it. It permanently hardwires your body to be more or less sensitive to certain hormones or nutrients in the body. The other day I was walking all three of my dogs at once and I realized something wild. Two of my dogs used to limp constantly from joint pain. I mean daily. And now no limping, none. 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Start 2026 with a stronger gut because more energy and better digestion start in your stomach. and again this is not medical advice guys and we are not talking about prevention treatment or cure with vitamin d i very much encourage people to talk to their doctors and worry about their levels with their doctors because that is very individualized as tyler is saying however i have been cranking high doses of vitamin d into people for 20 years and we have not had a problem i'll tell you a story i had a buddy of mine who he was we're kind of trading he was a lawyer and i it was right in my beginning days of practice and I needed some contract readings or whatever. And so I was treating him and he was not listening to me. I don't know what he was doing there, but he thought he needed a naturopathic doctor and he wasn't listening. And I told him to take one drop a day and he was taking a dropper full a day of the vitamin D and it was in an oil immersion. And his levels got up to, I think, I mean, he did this for months and he wouldn't come and get his blood work and he wouldn't come get his blood work. and finally he gets his blood work done. And I said, dude, your levels are like 120. How are you feeling? He's like, I feel great. All of these weird autoimmune symptoms were gone and he was feeling awesome. And I said, what are you doing? He goes, I actually just, because it was a squirt bottle, he was just like turning it upside down and just going for it. And that's when I learned that like, oh, nobody's gonna die. It's okay. He was fine. Because I remember there was a case report study that came out of someone kind of like that, but more severe. They were overdosing. They don't know the exact dosage, but they actually had some pretty major side effects. But they were off the chart. The highest the test could measure was either 200 or 250 nanograms per milliliter. So again, I'm not recommending anyone go out and try this without medical supervision. but at least we know that 200 nanograms and above, I think that's where you can really get some of these actual, I forgot all the side effects. They were pretty severe, how to get hospitalized for it. But again, that's your friend client, they were literally doing like 10 times the dose and end up being okay with that. So again, nothing beats the sunlight, but how do we make vitamin D from sunlight? It's done by an enzyme, which is made by a gene. I don't make vitamin D as well from sunlight in my skin. That's one of the reasons why I was low on the low end, even though I was tan as could be, going to the beach multiple days a week. Yeah, it's crazy. And you hear this a lot. I think just running your labs and making sure that you keep track of them if you're going to start dosing high, guys. I just want to qualify that. But otherwise, yes, there are so many variants here that can change how you absorb, how you express. And let's talk about epigenetics. Is there any tie-in epigenetically to the vitamin D receptor? Like how does our lineage or our own, you know, because we can't say the word, but, you know, genes load the pew-pew and lifestyle pulls the trigger. So I don't know. I just, I'm not the expert. I'm only asking and wondering. So, you know, there are certain things like certain steroid hormones can affect the epigenetic expression. Inflammation, you know, whether through infectious things, that can also affect the expression of the vitamin D receptor itself. And this is why some people say, oh, well, genetics don't matter because you don't know if it's being expressed or not. And I think about that and I'm like, do you realize what would happen if your cells just flat out turned off the vitamin D receptor? That would never, ever happen. It's up or down, right? But we also need to remember if those receptors, if you make more or less of them at a given period of time, they're always going to be limited by the genetics. So if you're that person with 10 variants in that receptor, your cells can make more, but it's not going to be able to compensate. And how do we know this? When we look at the literature, people with just one variant in this receptor, they have higher risk of insert 10 different vitamin D related ailments or diseases. And then there's another study that says if you have variant B, you have that. See, where are the studies checking if you have three, four, five, six of them? So you can see when you think about that for a moment, not to go too deep, we really are underestimating the power of genomics, of genetics, because we only study one variant at a time. It reminds you of how we test supplements for safety or efficacy. Just take one supplement and see if it does something or messes you up. Well, how many people take just one supplement? How many people have just one variant in that receptor or in that gene? Yeah. Speaking of supplements, I always think it's so interesting because I'm always thinking about synergy or contraindications that we don't know about between supplements. And people are, this biohacking movement has just so blown me away because it's, you know, these guys are taking, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen Dave Asprey's post, but he's got handfuls and handfuls of supplements and things that he takes every day, medications, different things. and it's like creating a little cocktail inside your body and hoping for the best. You know, peptides right now with the whole just crazy wild west that the peptide scene is and it's just mind boggling that people are taking advice from online influencers and injecting things into them and then stacking things and it's just this big DIY experiment. I get it. Our healthcare system is so busted and it's so ass backwards and it is so crazy and difficult to navigate at this point for people. So I get it. The reason I became a physician was so that I could navigate it for myself and my family at the end of the day. But this sort of like self-experimentation thing, a lot of my following is middle-aged women. And that is such a hotbed of just dysregulation, right? That's like the wheels really start falling off the car and they're trying to scramble to keep them on. But even with best intentions leading up to it, a lot of what's happening in middle age is stemming from what you were doing in your 20s and 30s. And so it's like, there's only so much we can do. How much are those wheels? Like my wheels are starting to rattle a little and that's uncomfortable. I can't imagine some of the folks that I work with that I and I hear from in my following, it's just, you know, the wheels are falling off. So I think a lot of that does come down to some of these pathways being turned on, activating, shutting down. It's like the perfect storm. Yeah. You mentioned synergy and synergy goes both ways, right? What's synergistically beneficial for me may be synergistically not beneficial for you. So let's run through an example here. Let's say you see Dave Asprey or you see... Yeah, run through an example. Let's see you see a biohacker guy or girl saying, I take quercetin to help with my zombie cells. I take resveratrol for my mitochondria. I take curcumin to help with my inflammation. Great. But what else do those things do? Every supplement does many things in the body. I look at that. I take it. I may feel better. Well, I wouldn't feel better. So I'm not a good example, but let's just assume I would feel better. I would feel better. You feel worse. Why? What else do those supplements do? All three of those are also iron and copper chelators. So if I have high iron, if I have high copper, I'm going to feel better. But if you have low to moderate copper or iron, it's going to make you anemic. And I've seen that so many times. What else do they do? They also slow down the breakdown of neurotransmitters, including adrenaline. I have genetic variants. I already don't do that very well. That's why I'm extroverted, type A, go, go, go, but very prone to overthinking. I can't watch scary movies. I could be my fight or flight can really go off really quick, very jumpy. So if you're someone that has lower neurotransmitters, that's why these things help with depression because they raise neurotransmitters. So these evidence-based gurus look at it and say, what are you talking about? The studies say it helps with mood. Read between the lines. More neurotransmitters is not always better. So you see, through someone's limited perspective, mitochondria, zombie cells, inflammation, I see iron chelator, iron chelator, iron chelator, right? So this is how people land in hot water when taking supplements. I will guarantee you that biohacker that made that post has no idea they do that. And I'll guarantee you, well, most likely the manufacturers of those supplements don't even know they do those things because there is no, you don't need to know anything about the supplement that you're making a product out of, except maybe if it's a novel ingredient you're bringing to the market. You just take what other people do. You copy their marketing, you throw it into chat GPT, you reword it, and boom. Now you have these buzzwords. You look at the label. I mean, what does curcumin bottles say? They say brain health, joint support, inflammation. But what if it said boost neurotransmitters, can raise adrenaline, iron chelator, copper chelator, lowers DHT? You see all these other mechanisms that may be good for me, but not be good for you. or good cyclically or good, you know, for a time, for a moment in time. Yes, for a season. Yes. Absolutely. Yes, that's the beauty of good medicine done right. And I think that's a place where naturopathic physicians hopefully still shine. It's just really understanding the nuances there because I always look at these things and I was taught that they were medicines. They are not just, it's not water. It's not candy we're popping over the counter, you know? And I'm really careful about the supplements that I promote. We were talking about this off air that we you know the supplements we promote are we really believe it and we being careful about because when I talk about something it has to be more of a one size fits all There's so many things I turn down that come my way because I tell my brand agent, I'm like, it's too clinical. That is too clinical. That is too specific for a condition. That is too specific for, because there's like nine different ways it could go wrong for the individual. if they, you know, the ingredient. I was going to say from my perspective, it's so hard for me because even some of these, even some of these collaborations I've done, I try to include how it could go wrong. And a lot of brands don't, they don't want me to say that, but it's very tricky. I don't want to tell you the one thing that's best for everyone. What's the right specific thing for you? And another really important thing to think about, nowadays we have all these modified, concentrated extracts that are 40,000% better absorbed, you need to remember, you don't get to pick and choose which mechanism or which things that supplement does you boost. So that supplement, let's just say it does five things. Most of them do more. Let's say it does five. If two of those don't align with you, three of them are great for you. If you boost the absorption 5,000%, you're going to get 5,000% more of the good and of the bad. So when I talk about a curcumin I've seen make people anemic, people will say, where are the studies that show that? But where are the studies where you're giving someone a highly concentrated form, not just 500 milligrams of just the root itself? Or where are the studies where someone's taking the quercetin, the rutin, the, what was the other one I said, the resveratrol, the curcumin, all these together in one product or in one zombie cell biohacking stack. These studies don't exist. And guess what? They're never going to exist because there's no financial incentive. Where's the money in figuring that out and telling a certain subset of people that shouldn't take those natural supplements that can't be patented? No, it's crazy. The supplement industry is crazy. I've tried many times to formulate my own supplements. And every time I pull the plug because I'm like, there's too many variables here. I do not look at nutraceuticals as one size fits all. There are certain ones, but even magnesium, you know, if you've got a nasty biofilm and a nasty, you know, situation going on in your gut, magnesium might not be your friend. You know, there's just so many different things that could go wrong. And I wish that it were easier for people to find good practitioners to work with. And I wish for my followers, because I hear from them all the time that they're like, I don't, there's no one in my town. I don't know what to do. And many don't want to pay out of pocket or they can't. you know, financial resources are limited. So it's really, interestingly, I don't know if you saw it today and I'm not trying to get political, but Trump just announced that he is going to completely overhaul the health insurance industry. And I did not see that. Oh, he is literally, and we'll see, he is, we'll see what happens. A lot of people, you know, a lot of promises are made by politicians. We don't ever see contribution, but on either side, but he said that he is going to make our health insurance the lowest in the world, which is, I mean, And the world's lowest is free. So that's interesting. But go on Instagram when you get off this recording with me. It's everywhere. It's crazy. Here's the thing. My first thought about that is like, sure, make health insurance more affordable. But how do we fix the system? Well, he's going to make the health insurance companies publish all their numbers transparently on one big database. Some deep pockets are not going to be happy about that at all. If something happens, it's all part of the Trump Rx thing. I'm really interested. I'm really excited. I don't care what side people are politically or people who really hate Trump, whatever. I get it. It's fine. But this is really interesting. And this is such an interesting time to be alive. I told my husband last night, I'm like, I feel like I'm on a game show. Every time I turn around, something's happening. It's just crazy. But this would be a real win for Americans if this could get dialed in because health insurance is such a scam. Anyway, I digress. So... I wanted to talk... I know we're just ping-ponging all over the place, which I absolutely love doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stand target. I want to bring it back to some of the cell signaling things. Let's go through some real world examples of the cell signaling pathways I think are highly controllable. You can manipulate them by what you put in your body and what you do. So this mainly, you know, my main area of, I help people with all different types of things from the genetic side and supplement signs, but mental health. So neurotransmitter systems. So histamine, which most people in the holistic health space are familiar with nowadays, it's getting a lot of traction. Sulfur, or more specifically sulfites, glutamate, and adrenaline. Those are four that are all excitatory to the brain. They pump the gas. They rev up the brain and excite our brain cells. All four of those in excess levels are linked to anxiety. Adrenaline is mainly anxiety, but if you look at the histamine glutamate sulfur, It's also linked to OCD, depression, ADHD, Tourette's syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, so many different things. So instead of someone thinking, help me with my, I think I'm on the spectrum. I also have OCD. I'm also a perfectionist. I start thinking glutamate system. That can be overactive. Now, so instead of just thinking these separate issues, the genetics of all these mental health conditions, there's so much overlap that people don't understand. A new study came out just basically said every psychiatric disorder is pretty much subclusters of the same genetic underlying underpinnings. So again, when you understand the pathways and how to manipulate them, and I'm not selling this as a cure to all these mental health conditions, but they absolutely can help. I've seen it firsthand in my practice. So let's give an example of histamine. We know inflammation can raise that, histamine intolerance, anxiety, brain fog, headaches, but foods can be high in histamine. Certain supplements can raise histamine. So I'll give you an example. I've seen this with people. So they wake up in the morning, they have apple cider vinegar and black coffee. so they're fasting in the morning. Those are both high in histamine. So you're just ingesting histamine right when you wake up in the morning. Then they go and exercise. Exercise releases histamine. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but that's how we dilate our blood vessels to get more blood flow. This is why some people can feel busy while they're working out. Some people can have really bad exercise intolerance. Then after they're done, they may have two people that did this. They would have like a kombucha protein drink. Oh, no. That's high in histamine as well. So you're spiking up all of this histamine. If we look at the sulfur pathway, let's do the real world example there. Someone wakes up, they have their eggs high in sulfur. They have garlic and onion powder high in sulfur. They also have their glutathione supplement and their multivitamin has alpha lipoic acid. That is a massive sulfur bomb first thing in the morning. I can feel within minutes, my heart will start to increase, my heart rate, get a little anxious, racing thoughts, brain fog, headaches, later at night, insomnia. They did a study. They injected humans with pure liquid histamine. Oh, God. What was the first? Yeah, right? Crazy study. What was the first symptom that showed up? if here's the range of normal histamine levels, even going from middle of normal to upper normal, that is still in the normal range, first thing that happened was increased heart rate and anxiety. So, so many people don't understand. They're going throughout the day. They're already pre-stressed because of foods that they're having. So, let me give you an example. Let's say we could break up two timelines, Tyler 1 and Tyler 2. Both Tylers have to give a presentation, a live talk or something. So, you know, little revved up, little nervous. Tyler one has a high sulfur, high histamine meal. So that would look like maybe a salad with vinaigrette, with onions, tomatoes. I have that. And then other Tyler has a low, I just have, I don't know, ground beef with rice, let's say. Tyler one, I will be so much more stressed going into it. but most people can't pick up on, if I'm stressed, what is actual life triggers and what is my internal biochemistry? That is one of the most important distinctions to make if you're a sensitive person or struggling with mental health issues. People don't understand that glutathione supplement that your naturopath told you to take, if you're sensitive to sulfur, a lot of this can Indigenetic, also micronutrient deficiencies as well. Gut-related things, of course. Gut health. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really can rev people up. Headaches, brain fog, glutamate. Glutamine is the biggest mistake I see people make. It's recommended so often for the gut. Hey, does it help those gut enterocytes link together? Yes, it does. But that also can get converted into not just glutamate, but also ammonia as well. which can cause issues for people. And I'm not saying no one should be having that ever, right? But these cell signaling pathways, I like batching people with their genetics. Are you a glutamate dominant anxiety? Are you a histamine dominant anxiety? Or both. I mean- Oh, yes, yes. You can definitely, yes. That's the ultimate hell is when you got both revving. And yeah, there's so many things I want to say there. I just won't even get into it. Yeah, I know that was a lot. So it's like, that's a long conversation, but man, it is so true. There was a popular strength and conditioning coach who since passed, who brilliant guy, but one of his big things was for athletes to take copious amounts of glutamine in order to offset high loads of training and to not get sick, you know, because when you overtrain, it's pretty easy for your immune system to crash out. And so he was always suggesting high levels of glutamine, but I've seen people- What was he doing for high? I've seen people do a hundred grams plus a day for like a gut healing. Do you know? Like high, high. Well, and I'm a naturopath. So yes, we were taught that too. And I have seen people go just absolutely batshit crazy on glutamine. Because if you don't have enough B6 and like you said, the pathways and just the cofactors are not there, then it goes glutamate, which is an excitatory neurotoxin versus GABA, which is your major inhibitory neurotransmitter, which is calming. So it's really, you know, it's anyone's guess which way it's going to go. It's like Russian roulette with that one. And you're right, it's so right with a histamine. I just always go back to the gut. If someone's hist... I was trying to tell a girlfriend this the other day. She's been really strict with her histamine, anti-histamine diet. And I was like, but I want to know why your histamine's sitting... Like, why are your mast cells ready to blow? Like, what is driving that, right? Genetics play a role, but I'll never claim that that's all... It can really set the tone for a lot of people. Yes, for sure. When I talk about... Like, my histamine intolerance, that was one of the main things I struggled with. Luckily, knock on wood, you know, I'd never been chronically sick. I've never had, you know, mast cell activation syndrome. So for me, it's, you know, mild anxiety. It affects my day, right? But some people, again, like you mentioned, the toxins, a lot of these other things can really pour gasoline onto the fire with that. So like that line of histamine intolerance, which means the body just can't naturally process histamine very well. Genetics absolutely play a major factor in that. But mast cell activation syndrome, the genetics of histamine production and metabolism, that's not going to be causing MCAS. That will potentiate it and make it worse. But this is where the more functional side of things come into play. There's something inside the body that is driving these mast cells haywire. Yeah, and all hell breaks loose. It's interesting. I was sitting in my office the other day and all of a sudden I got really hot. I got really flushed. My heart was just beating out of my chest like a tiger was chasing me. And the anxiety, I mean, the crippling anxiety that I had until I figured some of these pieces out for myself years ago was, and they still come back to haunt me, but it was very familiar to like my 19-year-old panic attacks that would drive me into a complete, I mean, I remember having to leave class because I couldn't. All of a sudden, I'd completely melt down. I had just drank a ton of pickle juice because I was having- Oh my God, that is the worst. I get the screaming, yes, yes. I was dehydrated and I was getting muscle cramps. So I chugged some pickle juice and then I started chomping on pickles while I was working. And then I don't even know, 20, 30 minutes later and I wanted to crawl out of my skin. And for a split second, I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna have a heart attack. What's wrong with me? And then I was like, Tina, you just gotta get through the histamine. This is, it's gonna be okay. But you don't know. And I was struck down by this at a very young age and it ruined my life. I mean, it really ruined my young life until I started figuring out some of these pieces. And it's evolved and we learn more and more every day. And it gets more nuanced and it gets more teased out. And we get the different... I mean, back when I was first hit with pots, we didn't even have a term for it, really. It was like, why do you keep almost passing out, Tina? Why does salt make you feel better? I don't know. I just carry salt in my purse. So I just think that you're so right. I have struggled with mental health issues my whole life and predominantly like an anxiety, depression picture. And so much of it is what you're saying. So much of it. Sorry, you finish. Well, it just hurts my heart that people struggle so much and get so medicated when a lot of it is truly multifactorial. There's levers you can pull as you're trying to describe here. I'm so glad you just shared your instance of that too. And a similar one, I got bronchitis in the summer, who gets some bronchitis in the summer. I don't know. Anyways, my wife and I both got to, we called it bronchitis summer because we were just out for like three weeks, kind of like middle of this gorgeous summer. We're just in our beds dying. But anyways, so she made some homemade, you know, chicken soup, bone broth and kind of similar. I know it's high in histamine, but I couldn't really eat much else. I had the worst headache, migraine. I don't know what everyone would call it, of my life within 10 minutes after having that. So my point is whether it's a headache, brain fog, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, what you just mentioned, chugging pickle juice, chopping pickles, feel like you're gonna have a heart attack. My whole point is with this cell signaling model of disease, I call it. Imagine that, but a micro spike that you're living with these micro spikes every day, that's why you have, I call it the monkey on your back feeling. You can't fully be at ease. Whether you're taking a quercetin supplement that raises adrenaline or a rhodiol rosea that can do that, or you're having tomatoes or vinaigrette for lunch, or you're having garlic, onions, or tomatoes for dinner. Swear to God, I've literally had people get off of sleeping medications by removing the sulfur and histamine at dinner. Now, I could go viral saying that's the cure for everyone always, but that's not true. It depends on the person. But that example, imagine shrinking that down to maybe 10, 20% of that. We have the wherewithal to connect the dots. But Sally over there, she's just eating the nice fermented food diet that she was told or read on Instagram was good for her gut health, right? So that's the exact point I'm trying to make mainstream whatever for people, right? That this really can have an effect. And which string are you most sensitive to? These are what's dictated by genetics. Not everyone needs to go low histamine. You really can't do low histamine, low sulfur, low glutamate. You can't do all of it. It's impossible. You got to figure out the biggest leverage points for you. You got to quit bombing yourself. Like you said, you gave so many good examples of where you just like front load the day with, and then wonder why the dress. The peak, like I'm thinking in my head, if I'm thinking, all right, I have a really big day tomorrow. I really got to sleep well. Like, okay, I can have some onions and I'm okay, or garlic, but if I really got to sleep well, I'm doing no garlic, no onions, no broccoli for lunch or for dinner, just to really cross my fingers and really, really make sure of that. And I think another important point to make, A, high histamine. It's like a bucket, right? People heard the bucket analogy, right? I'm not wrapped by them. No affiliation, but just good for the demonstration here. Oh, there we go. Cheers. Yeah. Oh, that's hilarious. I've been on such a kick lately. This gets filled up. The more it gets filled, the more of these anxious effects, overstimulation, et cetera, excess sulfur will also dump into this. Now, what else can raise histamine? Estrogen can. So, I work with a lot of women and around ovulation, I'm sure you know this, estrogen goes up, histamine follows up with it as well. So, the most important time, if you're sensitive to histamine or sulfur and you're a email. The most important time are those couple of days leading up to ovulation. And some of the women I work with say, okay, I did very strict low sulfur, low histamine for a month or two. Now I realize I just really got to dial it in those few days because the bucket isn't as drained, right? Same thing if it's allergy season. If it's allergy season, my bucket's already going to be a bit more filled. And if I have that same little bit of broccoli I have for lunch, allergy season, guess what? I get a headache. So understanding this bucket here, right? And different levers to pull this and that. And yeah, like, so I have, we're going to have that free resource for the cell signaling model of disease, like a free course I made to begin to understand these things. And again, I'm not sitting here and saying these are cures for actual diseases, right? But these things, these problems they create, are they life-threatening? No. are they life impacting? Absolutely. I'm here to really help people live a better life. And it's just one of those angles, perspectives that I seen that a lot of people miss out on because it comes down to the timing and the interactions And that what pharmacology is And there just a massive lack of pharmacology education or knowledge in the holistic space. I mean, how much pharmacology were you trained on regarding natural supplements in your training? Oh, a ton because we're naturopaths. I mean, that's- Okay, you did, okay. A ton. It was, I mean, we spent more time in nutrition and supplements and herbal medicine. But now I guess my point is, Were you focusing on the pharmacology of the individual or was it the interactions, like the sulfur interactions, the contributions between? I guess the interaction side of stuff is where I see the biggest lack. Not so much, I know how this works in the body. No, this was a while ago. I'm an old one. So no, I don't think people cared as much or even had been thinking about that. You know, we took hours upon hours upon hours of herbal medicine and really going into mechanism of action of all of these. And I firmly believe if you cannot explain the mechanism of action of a supplement, you should not be prescribing it. And I tell my colleagues all the time. Well, you got to remember, you should be able to name at least three to four because there's usually dozens, right? Yeah. I just bring that up because when I talk about these things, I don't mean any disrespect towards any practitioner. We're all trying to do the best job that we can. And I ask this because I've been trying to reach out and get a better idea of what's currently being trained. And I say this because I'll get pushback sometimes from functional medicine practitioners or naturopaths saying like, oh, we get trained on supplement pharmacology. The number of people that come to me from naturopaths or functional medicine, and I look at the supplement stacks, and I'm like, what in God's name is going on here? So I'm just wondering, are some people just not good students, not really learning and paying attention? Or is there just that knowledge gap? Probably a mixture of both. Some people are greedy bastards too. Some people, some doctors' whole shtick is let me test you and then let me load you up with supplements to match your lab tests. I mean, that's like pretty much the functional medicine model and how they're trained. And it's the naturopathic model in many cases. And now the naturopathic doctors are being convinced that they're primary care physicians. So it's just crazy what's going on. I really, really, you know, I'll run tests because I think that tests help patients see objective data and it gives them something to hang their hat on. It helps them with goal setting and it maybe helps them with follow through and, you know, staying on target, staying compliant with a treatment plan. But I could tell you within five minutes of talking to somebody whether they've got histamine issues. And we know the big levers to pull. And like you said, I think what you're saying is so important. I hope people understand this and I just want to rephrase it. and it's something I share with my patients too. My goal isn't to completely eliminate all symptomology and make everything perfect. That's impossible. But it sure is nice to be able to understand what's happening when it's happening. And so for instance, I treat a lot of chronic pain because I do a lot of regenerative medicine and helping patients sort out what's the pain drivers. It's rarely just biomechanical. It's very often and most often systemic and many of the things you're talking about. And so if we can help people figure out what to do when they're symptomatic to first pause, understand what's happening. Oh, like I did. Like, oh, I'm having a histamine response. That's why I feel like I'm having a heart attack. I'm not really having a heart attack. I just drank a bunch of pickle juice. And God knows what I ate that morning. But understanding it and knowing what tools we can grab or what lifestyle thing modifications we can make, it's so helpful. And it just completely changes the game because I was a completely suicidal teenager when my brain decided that it was going to go off the kilters. I mean, I don't know what happened, but somewhere around 15, the lights went out and everything went dark and things got real difficult for a long time. I can look back now that I know what I know and I can see where my thyroid bottomed out and I can see where this histamine picture came on. I mean, I was that little kid who was having histamine blows, I call them, where I would want to rip my skin off itching. I'm a little kid. I'm sitting in an oatmeal bath bawling. My mom's crying because she doesn't know what to do with me because I'm screaming about how bad my skin burns and itches. And there's nothing there. There's no rash. There's nothing visible. And then I go to the doctor after. I mean, I spent my entire life in doctor's offices to the point where I was like, fuck this. I am going to just become a doctor. Because this is your wife's story. These people did not know what the hell they were doing. They were just poking and prodding and biopsying and all of drugging me to death. I was on so many pharmaceuticals that were pulled from the market that were in that allergy realm of class of medications. Anyway, all that to say, understanding the levers that you can pull, what's happening to you, it's really powerful and it changes the game. So while you still might suffer, like you've described multiple situations where you suffered personally, you know what's happening and it just, it changes it. Yeah, that migraine was awful, but you knew what caused it and you knew what to withdraw to come down the mountain from it, you know? And that just changes everything for people. And so that's really my goal with everything I do is to empower patients through education because then they know, okay, at least I'm aware of what's happening. I'm notorious as a physician for just pulling everything off. When a middle-aged woman comes to me and she's on a whole ton of supplements and she's on a whole ton of hormones, or maybe she wants to get on hormones, I'm so careful about how I on-ramp hormones. And I have a very systematic approach that is very slow. It takes about nine months to get the full arsenal of hormones out of me when you come see me as a patient. And I really will not send anyone out the door with more than three bottles of anything in their hand at any time because I don't want all those interactions. I don't want to know. I'm constantly telling them, we don't know what's causing what, so we're not going to start everything all at the same time. But if we're in a hot mess and the flare is happening or the histamine bomb's going off, I take everything away. Everything. I withdraw everything. And I'm like- Well, we need to remember adrenaline, stress itself releases histamine, right? So that stress itself, I want to share a recent study I think you're going to love regarding chronic pain. But first, we know that histamine and glutamate signaling and therefore sulfur signaling, these are linked to chronic pain. It's literally the cell signaling of pain. Now, the study came out that was linking perfectionism to chronic pain. They scored people based on perfectionism for themselves holding others to impossibly high standards. So they were very high in that, the chronic pain versus the control group. And then they had low self-compassion. Now, when I think about this, there's two angles of this, two explanations. Of course, I'm sure you're in agreement with this. Our cells are always listening, right? The stories you tell yourself in your head, the words you say out loud to yourself, like my wife is great at reminding me, but I say like, oh, that was dumb. I'm stupid. Don't say that. We all slip up here and there. You need a good mono-e-mono to help remind you that. The negative self-talk, trapping the body into chronic pain, but also what is linked to perfectionism, rumination, and chronic pain is glutamate signaling. We know genetic variance in glutamate signaling are linked to chronic pain. So you see, it's like how your cells are listening to you versus is the same exact reason why you have chronic pain, the same reason you have perfectionism. It's the same string that we're plucking. Yeah. Yeah. So well said. It's true. Completely agree with you. And it's, yeah, it's crazy. Chronic pain. I've spent my whole life dealing with patients with pain and they're a particular group. and I always have to gently explain to patients. It sometimes takes them a while to understand it, but I have to gently explain, we got ourselves here. Like, yes, there's genetics and yes, there's other factors, but... These are all contributors, not just direct causes. Most all people with really severe chronic pain that I cannot move the lever on have very similar personalities. There's a similar... And I am one of them. I get it. I'm somebody who lives with chronic pain too. So I get it. like really, really debilitating chronic pain at times. And yeah, it's a certain kind of person. And I do understand that now that there is a huge genetic component and a huge part of what you're talking about with many of these cell pathways. And I still will say though, the best thing you can do is good clean living because I was just talking to a friend about obesity genes and epigenetics. And then I talked about it on my podcast that's coming out here in a day or two. And I was like, we know that exercise, the diet that we eat, the sun that we get, the circadian rhythm, the sleep, the stress levels, those all impact the genes and how those genes express themselves and the epigenetic profile. So it all goes back to that base foundation of like, you got to knock off, you got to check off the boxes every day. You got to hydrate, you got to move. You got to, you know, check, check, check. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that's, that's really the base foundation of how these genes are going to decide to show themselves really, you know, behave as I say. I mean, again, just, just think about what we evolved to do. We, we didn't evolve, we, we evolved to be pretty much walking many, many, many miles a day, you know, under the sun and tangent back to the vitamin D, there were studies of tribes in Africa, their natural levels, I think, are over 150 nanograms per milliliter. Naked in the sun. Going back to what we evolved to actually be doing. We evolved to have intense life or death stress when you got to defend yourself against a tribe or against, I don't know, saber-toothed tiger or something, right? But it was supposed to shut off. And then you were supposed to spend a lot of time relaxing with your loved ones and falling asleep with that high red light profile by the campfire sunset. And that's... Nowadays, we have all the red lights everywhere, the blockers, which I love the blue blockers. I believe in that. Changed my life personally. But again, it's all an attempt to mimic what we should be doing in the first place. Yep. 100%. I saw one of my friends posted today about red light bulbs because they're LED and they're putting off spikes in the wrong range. And he was testing them all with a little gadget. And I just, it's like even the biohackers are not, you know, we're trying best that we try. Well, red light isn't always red light if that makes sense, right? Like there's certain, you're talking about the spikes of the wavelength profiles too, right? You don't necessarily, you want to have different shapes of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I am such a fan of that. It's funny, before I bought this house, I made my real estate agent. I was in Oregon and I was like, I need you to go over there at seven in the morning and I need you to open your camera and videotape for me where the sun is. And he's like, so I have to ask the seller to get up and let me in the backyard. And I'm like, yes, I need to know where the sun is. You're looking for the shade. You're trying to see what the shade is like. I was looking for the morning sun. I wanted to know where the sun was all day long because I am a big fan of that first morning sun. I'm a big fan of that midday sun. And I'm a big fan of that evening sunset sun. And I needed to know where, like was there going to be a clear, like was the house gonna block all of that or any of that actually? I was, it was a no-go. It's depending on how- I'm gonna say you ended up getting it or no. Okay, it was a no-go. I did, but my husband was like, I can't believe it's coming down to this as to where the sun is on the pool deck. And I'm like, that's the whole reason I'm moving there, sweetie. Do you know me, sweetie? Like, do you know me at this point? Like, this is everything. And so I'm buying my parents a house and I did the same thing. I'm like, where's the sun in the morning? Where's the sun? Because I, and I've seen the house at three different times a day so that I could check where the sun was because I was like, that's everything to me. It's that red light at different times a day is to me like the secret to health and life. So, and I think I want to add to your walking in the sun because I have three dogs. I have a German Shepherd, I have a Havanese, and then I have a midsize like Carolina dog. And we, all three of them were farm dogs. So they had only known the farm and they had been running on the farm for like acres and acres. I mean, we literally just let them out and they patrol the farm and come home. Not the little one, but the other two. I was so worried. My biggest concern was how are my dogs going to adapt to this neighborhood? Because we're now living in a neighborhood and we have to be on leashes. And I was like up night after night after night, just wracked with anxiety about my poor dogs and like what was going to happen to their muscular physiques because they're so muscular and were their joints going to degrade because I'm a chiropractor too. So I'm like, what about their biomechanics and I don't need arthritic dogs. Anyway, we have a routine now where we go out the door at about 8 a.m. And I have all three of them. I have one tied to my waist, one big one here, one little one here. He's actually the hardest one to deal with is the little one. And we all three go out and we've like synergized our walks. And we're like this pack. And I was thinking the other day, like, you know, that meme, what makes people feel powerful? And, you know, I was like- The bar graph, the bar graph, right? With the ones off the charts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, me walking down the hill with three dogs, like people just see us and they're like, what is happening? And I'm like, yeah, I'm a badass. I got a pack. That's funny. But it's the sun. Like there's this whole, like, I pray, I walk, there's mountains, there's cactus, there's sun. I got my dogs, which I love more than anything. And I swear, that's what's healing me. So, but more than anything else, more than any supplement, that's my healing. Anyway, well, this has been so lovely speaking with you. And I know we could go on and on. So you'll have to come back and come to the studio live and we'll do a part two. But I want everyone to know where to find you because I've been to your website. It's just, you have great content for people. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so Dr. Tyler Panzer, P-A-N-Z-N-E-R. So there's a little N sandwich between the Z there. www.drtylerpanzer.com. On most of the socials, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube. Go for 2026 to start doing long form on YouTube. So I feel like looking, future me looking back, I never have just a little bit to say, yet somehow I've only done short form. But even my reels now with the whiteboard stuff, some of them are like three and a half minutes. And I'm like, just take a couple breaths and make it a five-minute YouTube video, right? So like, I'm going to get over to that. But yeah, we're going to leave that free resource for the cell signaling, kind of that type of stuff there. You know, I have courses around the histamine, sulfur ones and yeah, just really here just to help people figure out what's right or wrong for them in the world where it's so contradicting and overwhelming. You know, this is great for everyone, but some other shirtless guy says it's horrible for everyone. But then some other doctor in a white coat says that guy's a liar. All these people are right and wrong, depending who's the one listening. Yeah. Amen. Yeah, even like the dietary changes. One last thing, like the saturated fat stuff, right? Red meat is highly nutritious, but one third of people are hyper responders to saturated fat. So their LVL goes through the roof. It could be linked to more weight gain. So those dietary guideline changes, I think they're a bad idea for around a third of us. But the other two thirds being told by, you know, conventional medicine cardiologists to not eat any red meat because it's going to clog your arteries. I don't think that's true if you're someone without those genetic factors, right? So again, we try to make these sweeping recommendations and health things, but the future of health is understanding all these flavors and having distinct guidelines based on which subset of genealogy you are. I mean, we're a melting pot, America especially, right? So all different ethnicities from all over the world, we're going to respond differently to different food we put in our body, different nutrients, because that evolutionary pressure, so you could survive eating only red meat or blood-breed animal fat or mostly plants and vegetables. I was just talking to my husband about this today. I was talking about Scandinavia and high levels of dairy intake and the studies that have come out on that. And in that particular group, it's incredibly helpful. And that's why they're tall, lean. Yeah, Tall Lean. Tall Lean Vikings. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Lots of dairy there. I love it. Well, this is so fun. And I'll put everything in the show notes. We'll get all the links in there for everybody. And I hope you guys will go check out Tyler because his content's fantastic. You're very entertaining, very lively. You give great information. Every time I come across your Instagram, I'm like, hell yeah. I'm so in agreement. So I love it. And I'm so glad you came on the show today. Thanks for having me. And hope you guys all found value. Thanks. Thanks for listening to The Dr. Tina Show. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson. Theme song is by John the Guilt. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can email the podcast at podcast at drtina.com. That's D-R-T-Y-N-A. And if you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast app. You can also find all of my offerings on my website at drtina.com. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time and thanks for listening. 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