BONUS: “The 11% Absorption Trap!” — Stop Wasting Money On Ineffective Magnesium Formulations with Wade Lightheart

Welcome to Everyday Wellness Podcast. I'm your host, Nurse Practitioner, Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives. Today I have the honor of reconnecting with friend and colleague Wade Lighthart. This is another in a series of highly vetted companies that we are bringing their mission and their business ethos to the Everyday Wellness community. Wade is a Certified Sports Nutritionist Advisor and President and Director of Education and Co-Founder of Biooptimizers. He is an incredibly accomplished bodybuilder and marathoner. Today we have the opportunity to dive deep into the role of sleep magnesium in the gut brain access, how magnesium is the miracle mineral, and sleep chronotypes, the role of sleep disturbances in perimenopause and menopause, and how magnesium influences nervous system regulation, insulin sensitivity, and more. The impact of the stress digestion and sleep loop and how chronic stress actually suppresses our digestive capacity and impacts hermetic stress in general. We spoke about why digestion matters more than we think and how low stomach acid or digestive enzyme insufficiency can affect not only our overall health but metabolic health, the role of blood sugar instability and digestion, the timing of macros, and several rapid fire questions that you will definitely enjoy. Biooptimizers is offering us 15% off. Go to biooptimizers.com slash Cynthia and use code SYNTHIA15 for 15% off. That will also be in the show notes. Wade, such a pleasure to have you back on the podcast. Welcome back to Everyday Wellness. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Yeah. You know, we were talking in the pre-chat about how sleep disturbances are so incredibly common for women in perimenopause and menopause. From your perspective, what role does magnesium play in sleep physiology? I think it's the, I call it the miracle mineral, to be frank. It was, you know, keep in mind that I've had an interesting sleep history as does my business partner. We have completely different sleep profiles. And there's a great book on your chronotypes for sleep. And I think that's really important because it kind of says some people are late night people, some people are. So you'll get these kind of predetermined of your, the person that you admire the most. And they're like, you got to get up at 4 a.m. And you're like, I can't do it. And you know, and the other person says, you need nine hours of sleep. And then I was like, you know, I need six. And so what was interesting is I inadvertently started in those sleep conversations with my business partner. He's the type of person that needs a lot more sleep than I do. And I need a lot less. And I argue this fact that I like, like, if I sleep as much as you, I feel groggy and tired. Like, I got to hit the deck running. I like to be, he likes to be up late. I'm like, I like to get up early and go. So then we've found this sleep chronotype book. I think it's a great thing because it really can help relationships and then remove a lot of the biases that are built in. So why am I telling you? Understanding your chronotype, I think is really like, what is your sleep cycle and your requirements? Second, the role of magnesium to speak to your point is a key component in neurochemical formation and nervous system relaxation. And I got into the magnesium inadvertently. I was a number of years ago, I was running three different companies living all over the world and really burned myself out. And we hooked myself up to an EEG. So an EEG is what they're doing when they do sleep stuff. It's also when you're doing biofeedback. My wife is studying to be a neurofeedback. She's doing her PhD and we do a lot of neurofeedback at the company at Metamorphosis because it's fascinating how your brain influences and you talk about that in your book about influences, you know, so much stuff. And when I did that and I correlated it with some testing with my a naturopathic doctor and I had a magnesium deficiency. Now, at the time I noticed my moods. I was not able to regulate anger or frustration very well. Number two, I had for the first time in my life, severe sleep disruption and sometimes nightmares. I was going through a very stressful period of time and that anxiety was building up and I had absolutely no tolerance for any stimulation. And on top of that, I was working seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day and saw the data as like, OK, what's going on? So I was like, how am I depleted in magnesium and why is that an impact? So we the long story short, we went on a journey to look at all the different magnesiums and figure out which one was the right one because we didn't know we did all the tests and we take it till we like had to run to the toilet and stuff like that and all kinds of crazy experiments. Then we got the lab team involved to kind of test how they work and what are cofactors and things like. But at the end of the day, as I began to research it, the population, particularly in North America, we can't get enough magnesium from our diets. A good indicator, by the way, I found just inadvertently side point chocolate cravings. Chocolate actually has magnesium and people who have incessant chocolate cravings almost always have severe deficiency in magnesium. Now, magnesium is involved in over 350 different processes in the body, all your enzymatic stuff, nervous system regulation, blood flow, neurochemistry. And when it comes to sleep, magnesium is digested in your intestinal track with the bacteria and then that bacteria builds a whole lot of neurochemicals. And if you're in a depletion of neurochemicals over time, it's oftentimes due to a magnesium deficiency. And it's interesting, too, because we have a microbiology lab and you see how the bacteria in your body and your gut actually change their operation. They make a whole new phytonutrients to make neuro, the chemistry like serotonin, for example, you're kind of happy hormone. 95% of that is made in the gut. Magnesium is a key component along with absorbing and efficient amino acids in order to make the precursors to your neurotransmitters. You don't get that done if you don't have the bacteria, you don't have that, you don't make it. So when you look at every different interaction in the body, blood sugar regulation, magnesium, if I contract my biceps, my triceps has to relax. And in order to do that, that requires magnesium. Well, magnesium is the relaxation molecule. Now, so we have a deficiency in our diet. It doesn't matter what diet you're on. We have an absorption issue in our gut because probably other microbiomes not ready. We have an RDA, which isn't significant enough. And then we have an environment where we're subjected to significant levels of EMF radiation. And there's good evidence that EMFs make it either deplete magnesium to an excessive rate or prevent magnesium from entering into the cell where it can activate some of these elements. So we've literally created an environment where magnesium is has now risen to the prominence, I would say, in the molecule. We used to hear about calcium deficiency and bone loss. That's true. But magnesium is the control element. If you don't have enough magnesium, your body dumps calcium. And this becomes really relevant for women who are going through menopause. So if you go back to sleep cycle stuff, so anyways, I started taking high dosages of magnesium because I knew I was deficient in our company by optimizers. I have a really succinct video called the bucket theory of nutrition. And I would give the course away, but you can just go sort that out on YouTube. I think you'll probably find it. And the concept was developed by ortho molecular nutritionist Dr. Abram Hoffer Linus Pauling and David Hawkins back in the day. That's the two time Nobel Prize winner. And they were using super physiological dosages of various vitamins and minerals in order to correct psychological conditions. Also, by the way, one of the key elements was they found that people that had psychological conditions, if they reduced their sugar intake, about 25 percent of them corrected. So they were actually insulin related blood sugar disruptions, which is prevalent as well, food cravings, etc. So Magni and sugar, by the way, disrupts your magnesium absorption. So what do you have? You have you get up in the morning, you have cafe latte with some caramel macchiato sauce or whatever in it, right? So you rev up the cortisol adrenaline side. That burns the nervous system. That creates contraction in the muscles. It starts dumping minerals out of the blood. So your magnesium levels to pleat, you then, you know, ride the sugar train, right? And so when you get to, you know, three o'clock in the afternoon, you're wired and tired. So what do you do? You take another hit of whatever to keep going. You get home from work or, you know, you got the kids to deal with, supper is a deal with, you got, you know, some bills piled up. You got to help marry down the street or you got to get the soccer practice. And then you're on screens. So blue light comes in. So this is a kind of just this is this normal life nowadays for everybody, which has been completely not like that for humans at any point in time. Like we have shifted dramatically since we went to the internet and phones. And like it is just ramped up all of this sleep. And you can see the correlation with sleep disorders with all the wifi and all the EMS and all the radiation and all the cell phones and all the blue phones and the blood. Like so, so we're living in an environment that has changed the dynamics of what we require in our dietary analysis. But the nutrition recommendations in the world haven't got to that standard, nor do they determine how much you're actually absorbing and utilizing. So when I started taking magnesium within a few weeks, I noticed, well, I'm starting to sleep better. Oh my goodness. And then within six weeks, we started to see positive aspects of my mood regulation in three months. I noticed, oh, I wasn't so sensitive to stimulants like caffeine or whatever. And then I started really paying attention to, OK, you know, turning the lights down, getting these environmentally friendly lights are actually really disruptive because of the way the light flashes on it or halogen lights or those types of things are not good for our sleep stuff. All of those lead to magnesium depletion. And so our system goes into fight or flight all the time when we're supposed to be regulating. So I think for a lot of people in order to and by the way, deep sleep, which is ideally you would like to get at least 60 minutes and ideally two hours. That's your regenerative recovery sleep where your brain starts, you know, dumping all the garbage out of it and all that sort of stuff. But architecting your sleep is a really critical element. I could just say, yeah, just take magnesium, but I think that will help. But you also want to really start recognizing that the environment you currently have isn't supporting your sleep recovery and regeneration cycle. And because of that, that's leading to the suboptimal behaviors I just outlisted because you can't unwind. So Matt, my business partner, of course, he had struggled with sleep. It's genetic in his family. A lot of his family suffered with it. So he had spent all this time, effort and money crafting a complete sleep. So I don't know anybody's that like these guys wear a device. He's got a ferrite AK. He turns the temperature down to a certain level. He's got a special bed. He's got a routine. He's got my blackout. Blonde like this guy is as deep as it gets. If you know Matt, he's like, there's nobody that goes deeper in a topic than him. When he gets into something, especially if he's trying to solve a problem. So I borrowed some of that sleep architecture elements from him. I didn't need it as much or as significant as him, but they certainly were really helpful in that process. So people can start there before they just dump the magnesium. One of the things that we did, though, is we made sure that you had sufficient amount of magnesiums that you could get all of the benefits to all the parts of the body because there's like 350 different functions. So sleep being probably the one that gets most reported in our testimony. So I tell people, try two caps before you go to bed and almost instantaneously people see a change. If you're measuring sleep scores, they will notice that their sleep score data improves literally overnight. If you're in perimenopause or menopause and are feeling more fatigued, dizzy, lightheaded, struggling with headaches or noticing your workouts feel harder than they used to, electrolytes may be part of the missing piece. As estrogen declines, we lose some of the fluid regulating and vascular protective effects that hormones once provided. That means blood pressure regulation can shift, cortisol can run higher, and many women become more sensitive to dehydration, especially if you're strength training, walking more, intermittent fasting or reducing processed foods. That's why I love Element. It is my favorite electrolyte formulation and I've exclusively used their products for the past six years. Element contains a science-backed ratio of sodium, potassium and magnesium without sugar, artificial ingredients or unnecessary fillers. It supports hydration at a cellular level, helps reduce muscle cramps, improves energy, as well as recovery and can even support better stress resilience. This is particularly helpful in midlife when we're prioritizing metabolic health and muscle preservation. I personally use Element throughout the day and it's become a staple in my routine as well as my household. If you'd like to try it, go to drinkelement.com slash Cynthia to receive a free sample pack with any purchase. Stay hydrated, stay strong, especially in midlife. If you're in your 40s and 50s and feel like your body suddenly stop responding the way that it used to, you're not imagining it. Bloating, waking, sleep disruptions, food sensitivities and unpredictable energy are incredibly common in perimenopause and menopause. But here's what most people aren't told. Your gut microbiome is changing right alongside your hormones. And those changes can influence everything from how you store fat to how well you sleep to how your body processes estrogen. That's exactly why I wrote my new book, The Menopause Gut. In this book, I walk you through the science of how the microbiome, metabolism, immune system and hormones are all connected during midlife. But most importantly, I give you practical, realistic strategies you can start using right away without extreme diets or complicated protocols. You'll learn why the same diet that worked in your 30s may not work now, how your gut influences hot flashes, mood and weight, the truth about fiber, protein and blood sugar in midlife and the daily habits that help your body feel safe, stable and resilient again. If you're tired of blaming yourself for changes that are actually biological, this book will help you understand what's really happening and what to do about it. You can pre-order The Menopause Gut wherever books are sold. And when you do, be sure to check out the special pre-order bonuses I've put together for you. Again, you can go to www.synthiatherlo.com. You'll click on the banner. It'll take you to multiple options for where you can order the menopause gut in pre-sale. It's really interesting. You know, I, in my past life, I spent 16 years in clinical cardiology. And so we did a lot of electrolyte replacement in, you know, in the hospital and in the office. The irony being in the hospital, if you give it IV, it's magnesium sulfate. It's readily absorbed. And you check a red blood cell magnesium. So for listeners, a traditional serum magnesium does not give you a sense of intracellular magnesium. So that's number one. Number two, what formulation of oral magnesium do you think we used in the hospital? I give you a guess. Glycinate? No, magnesium oxide, which has an about rate of about 11% is essentially like taking a museum and throwing it in the toilet. And wow, I was surprised to me. Like, why is that? But it just goes to show you that even clinicians, and obviously it was probably the hospital that made the decision that that's the formulation of magnesium they're carrying. Obviously IV magnesium was very effective, especially because we were giving that, you know, in the ICU or, you know, more acute carrier areas. But the irony was when I realized that 11%, I was like, no wonder why we couldn't budge their magnesium levels. And the other little like, pearl for any clinicians that are listening, if you're trying to correct a potassium and you cannot move it, you know why? It's because of magnesium. So a lot of times we would have patients who come in with low potassium. And of course that gets addressed and they're like, why can't we budge the potassium? And it's because of this potassium magnesium, you know, kind of like sparingness, intracellular, you know, cations and anions. But I just mentioned that just to mention that little nerdy side, but also magnesium is foundational. Like it's one of these few supplements that I think everyone needs. And especially if you're going through a stressful situation and I can't think of any woman in perimenopause or menopause who doesn't admit to me, I feel like I don't manage stress quite as effectively. And that is a byproduct of alterations and hormones and neurotransmitters. And then you layer in like, what's the health of your microbiome? You know, what type of food are you eating? And to your point, you can eat organic, nutrient dense whole food till the cows come home. But the statistical likelihood that you are getting sufficient amounts of magnesium is so low that this becomes a foundational supplement that everyone needs. And I sometimes will find that, you know, for patients, it shows up at sleep improvement, you mentioned mood. I think for a lot of patients, they'll just say that they feel like they're able to push their bodies harder, you know, if they're in the gym and they're exercising. I mean, you have a bodybuilding background. Did you feel that once you were supplementing with magnesium, you were able to achieve more in the gym in terms of results or metrics with weight training or other things? Oh, yeah, that data was settled probably back in the 80s or 90s in the early days of supplementing. Bodybuilders are the original biohackers, by the way, for people. Like, they are on the extreme side of everything because you're trying to overcome two genetic tendencies. And that is not build excess muscle and not and reduce body fat to unhealthy levels, essentially. It's a cosmetic sport. And in order to do that, you have to come craft all these ways to trick your body about its natural mechanisms. And so bodybuilders were probably the some of the first people that got into vitamins and minerals and supplementation and then, you know, all the hormones and then the peptides and like you go down that route and then that now became the de jure anti-aging stuff later on after they were put in the corner. Your average professional bodybuilder is probably understands biochemistry better than your doctor via a wide margin. And I train at Gold's Gym. So, you know, the side conversations that go on there are very interesting. But yeah, magnesium. And again, it's two levels. There is an increased resistance to training stress. The other thing is going back to the relaxation response of intramuscular friction because it's like if you're in a sport and you're tense, they talk about this in sport, if you tense, you're not as robust, but like someone that's naturally athletic is flowing and graceful and relaxed. They make extreme effort look easy because the nervous system is overtaxed. And, you know, fatigue is probably one of the factors that determines sporting success in any competitive sport because as you fatigue, you have slower firing levels. You go to make the pass, you do that. It's the same thing at work. Oh, I forgot to check that email. Oh, shoot, I got to pick up the kids and I'm 30 minutes late. You know, oh no. And my phone, oh, just died. Oh my God. I'm a bad mom. You know what I mean? And then this whole cycle because you're not able to zoom out and stay relaxed because the whole foundational system is in a hyper stimulated space. And so, as people who are looking to take control of particularly this transformative stage in life, the onus is on you to recognize, work with a professional and start crafting out like you are a product of your genetics and your environment and of course, your age. And the people who suffer the most are often people who were the, I would say, most hormonally advantaged in that they could get away with a lot of things that maybe other ladies couldn't get along with because they had superior hormones to kind of like lean on. And then when nose crash, those collective of unaddressed suboptimal behaviors now became glaring elements in their life and like, I don't understand. I never used to feel puffy. I used to sleep perfectly. I used, I'm so stressed. You know, I can't stand my husband. My kids are driving me crazy. I don't like my boss. I just wanted like, retreat in a dark room and go them. So those are all symptomatic that your nervous system is dysregulated. And I think magnesium is one of the elements that is best along with the architecture of your life. Because environment is stronger than will. And you need to consciously craft that environment. And that means, I think for a lot of ladies, they have a hard time saying no, they want it, they want to support, they want to be the super mom and the super wife and the super friend and the super employee. And you know, they want to be the fitness model. Like social media, I think impacts the female brain even more so than it does men. I think women are naturally more attuned into a lot of the comparison dynamics and things that I think register psychologically and emotionally in their nervous system much more, they're much more acute in observation and a lot of things. And therefore, I mean, that's a beneficial situation in a lot of social situations, a lot of structural, there's a lot of benefits to it. But then there's also these trade offs. You know, as Thomas Sol says, there's no solutions in life, there's only trade offs. So what are the trade offs you're going to accept? And you're going to have to, that's where I think a professional can really help. Because you need that person that earns your trust that has the expertise that can say, you know, Sally, Mary, your life's a mess. I can give you these hormones or I can give you these supplements or I can give you whatever. But unless you consciously craft this environment and inform the people around you that you're going to make some changes for your health and invite their support as to make yourself feel worse, then if you're not able to articulate and have your advocate in order to do that, you're going to end up in a much more serious situation. So there's no escape. It like as bad as it is today, if it's unaddressed, it's going to get worse. It's not going to get better on its own. No, I could not agree with you more. And actually, I was saying on a podcast earlier today, because this podcast host was asking me like, what are the secrets to navigating middle age? And I said, you have to do the work. There's no pill, potion, powder that's going to fix you. And so you mentioned the environment and how critically important it is. Most of us as women are people pleasers by nature. And that's a byproduct, I think of many things. Social conditioning, estrogen is a bonding hormone. I think people forget this as estrogen is declining. Women in their 40s and 50s will say to me, I finally found my voice. I learned how to think. No, I know how to have and establish healthy boundaries. And it's not that you didn't have that ability to do it earlier. It's that you are kind of hormonally driven for certain behavior. Like, why was I such a good nurse practitioner working with predominantly men in cardiology and ER medicine? Because I was the perfect, like they used to say all the time, we wish we could replicate you. And I was such a people pleaser. I mean, I was so easy to work with, I would say yes to whatever they asked me to do. I look back now and I cringe. But having said that, you know, I think as women are navigating the second stage of their lives, it gives us an opportunity that word pause and perimenopause, menopause is so important. Because it allows us to kind of look and say, you know, let's look at a litmus test of my life. Are my habits serving me? Or are they making it harder for me to navigate my second half of my life? And I think in many ways, women start to reflect a whole lot more like, is my exercise routine serving me as intense as it may be? Is my lack of stress management, my lack of focus on sleep, my nutritional habits, which good or bad, they might need some help, they might not. And then you kind of all the other things, the things that, you know, disrupt the gut microbiome, all these things can chemically over time add up to circumstances where we really have to take a hard look at ourselves. And unfortunately, I was saying to this other female podcast hosts, I said, you have to do the work. So I can say that I, my life went 360 degrees 12 years ago, really 10 years ago when I left traditional allopathic medicine, because I made that decision for a variety of reasons. It was absolutely the right decision for me. I don't think that's necessarily anyone needs to go to that extreme. That was what I needed to do for myself. But I look back retrospectively, and the person I was 12 years ago is so different than who I am today. I was overexercising. I was probably too restricted with my food. I was really low-carb because I was doing paleo. I had a super stressful job. My husband traveled 10, my kids were younger. So like my stress bucket was so overflowing that it just got to a point where I was like, something drastic needs to happen. And so I did that. I don't think most people need to go that extreme. But the point being, you have to change your habits. Otherwise, you are going to struggle. And I think the people who have been exceed extremely successful have, you know, achieved great things, gotten all these degrees, traveled, whatever it is you wanted to achieve, I think sometimes these highly successful type A women will struggle more because the habits that got you to where you are have to change. Otherwise, you will not continue to evolve, shift, and change in a direction that's going to be contributing in a positive way to your health. And I think that is really hard, especially for transparently people like myself. It was like every habit that got me from my childhood to teenage years to young adulthood to married to having kids, all of a sudden it was like, wait a minute, all my coping mechanisms are not going to work. And I sometimes will say, perimenopause is this opportunity where if you're making changes in the right direction, the wheels may not fall off the bus, but the wheels will fall off the bus. If you think in a hormonally deficient and neurotransmitter deficient situation, they are going to continue to thrive. You won't. It'll be very, very hard. And so I think it becomes this like many reckoning. And I want to be really clear. I think it's important to really focus on the positive things that we can do because stress impacts our bodies significantly and profoundly. But one thing that I talk a lot about and I'd love to hear from you is how chronic stress appears to impact our digestive capacity. How does chronic stress impact digestion? I think this is a really fundamental concept, but one that is really important for my community to hear because we don't even think about digestion. We just assume it happens. And I'm the first person to say it's not that simple. I can speak directly to that because the whole foundation of my company is, I was going after some goal with absolute laser like unrelenting focus and determination and blew something up and had to fix it. So Matt and I started the company way back in 2003 when I got out of the Mr. Universe Contest. I've been in a perpetual state of dieting for a couple of years and competing at the international stage. And after the Mr. Universe Contest, I gained 42 pounds of fat and water in 11 weeks. So when clients or ladies would come to me and say, you don't understand what it's like to bloating and just inflate, I'm like, oh yeah, no, can you do 42 pounds in 11 weeks? I did. And they're like, what? I'm like, yeah. And what it turned out is the rigors of that successful restrictive diet and all of the training that goes involved in that and work and everything else, even though I was at my prime, you know, hormonally and that type of stuff, took a toll. Now, I could, and here's another thing I think a lot of people, you kind of like have this superpower as you're pushing through the stress and then the kind of stress and then the wheels fall off. It's like your body just says, okay, now take a deep breath and everything just falls apart. And you're going, wait a second, I just went through this two years or three years, like, you know, people were sick or dying or, you know, you were dealing with stress or loss of work or economic problems or all the things that face with people today are moving. And then it's like, well, everything's kind of good now. And then my body's falling apart. What's happening? And that's exactly what happened as soon as I was falling apart. Now, I happened to meet a fellow, his name was Dr. Michael O'Brien. And he was like a cast off of Coon, the movie where it had like these super senior citizens that were like so vibrant and this guy was amazing. He was so vibrant and energetic and healthy. And he was in his late seventies or eighties. And I never met anybody like, man, I want to be like him. And I asked him after attending his lecture, I said, look, you know, I just got out of the Mr. Universe. Body's kind of blown up. I don't know what's going on. I'm supposed to be at the peak of aesthetic health. And now I'm in the league. I went from Mr. Universe to Mr. Mushroom. What's going on? And he said, wait, you learned to build the body from the outside in, I'm going to teach you how to build the body from the inside out. And he started teaching us about enzymes, probiotics. This is 25 years ago. 25 years ago, we were learning about all this sort of stuff. So Matt and I became his students and we integrated everything he said it cost us at that time, like 1500 bucks a month. We went all in. I went on a completely raw food diet for two years. Like I went like hard. I went, so I went from bodybuilding diet to raw food. Like, so I went from one extreme to the next. It's my nature. And we just explored all this. And in that recovery regenerative process, I began to recognize the role of an unmitigated stress response. So we need a certain amount of stress. And if it's sequentially applied, like in an exercise program, you increase your capacity intolerance through this. This is why you have coaches and trainers and medical doctors or naturopathic doctors that can help you monitor your internal chemistry so that you can put the things to make your insides work so that your outsides look the way you want and you feel the way you want to feel. And I was very fortunate to go through that process. I was able to make a quick recovery within six months, got all my health back on my physiology and I felt amazing. And it took about four more years to completely figure out all the nuances. I worked in a holistic health clinic and we'd get all these people stressed out. And what happens when you're stressed out, particularly in digestion, you're not in the rest in the digest phase. Okay, so that's when your body is relaxed. So if you think about going to a really nice restaurant, right, think of your favorite restaurant in the world that you go to. Is the lighting glaring? Is the music pounding? Is there TVs with the latest calamity in the news on? No, they don't do that. Think about your phone scrolling. They capture your attention through fear. Fear, it's not the information society, it's the attention society. And fear and threats are the way to activate you, which puts you in that fight and flight or freeze. And so so many people are now are freezing in their life. They're getting paralysis. They've gone beyond fight or flight. They're actually so overwhelmed. They're in the freeze. I don't know what to do. I've heard all these things. I can't imagine. And they doom scroll all night long with all these influences like Mary says this and Bob says this and Fred says this and should I do this? And so now they become in the freeze stage paralysis, which further amplifies that stimulation. Now, what is that effect? For example, and Dr. Brian told me this years ago, one major stressful event, like let's say you just got into a car accident or just missed one or something happened with your child, you thought they were going to fall and you grab them like that. Flight or flight response on extreme levels literally can completely disrupt your microbiome. And your digestion process first starts in the central aspect of your food, the environment you're in, your the site, the sound, the smell, the touch, the taste of the food before you did that first taste, then you use enzymes to break down the food in the first stage. Seconds that the next stage is hydrochloric acid coming in that changes the pH. Some enzymes are activated, some are deactivated. If that's can disrupt it permanently, you get things like H. Pallori in there that start to proliferate and gets the acid reflux and heartburn and makes things impalpable. Then it goes into the intestinal stage and this is where you have 10% good, 10% bad and 80% opportunists and bacteria cultures. And the blend of those things and the diet that you're using is going to make some grow or some not grow. And having a healthy, rich, robust microbiome, well, number one, help you regulate your dietary elements. But number two, help you enter into a more relaxed state. So when you go back to that restaurant, you think of the best restaurants understand these fundamentals. Just like I said, you need to carve out your life. You got to carve out your life in that restaurant. Soft music playing, low lighting, deep colors, a place where you can have a conversation, you know, at a very low level in a relaxed setting. And you think about those, what we call intimate environments. I think a lot of people have lost how to be intimate with themselves to pay attention to what's going and to take the time, as you said, to pause and craft that restaurant. So how many people don't sit down to, you know, the leave it to beaver dinner? Like I became, we just have a 16 month old son. My wife did not grow up in an environment where you all sat down to dinner. And I grew up in that environment. And I was like, no, no, no, we sit down at the table. And the psychology elements say that children who sit down at the table together with a family actually have better psychological profiles. Why? There's a supportive environment that's going on. So again, these little elements of crafting these stability moments and taking in your environment and being aware of it. And then as you do that more often, you start picking up the things that are disrupting it. No phones at the table. How about that one, right? No phones for the first hour or so when you wake up in the morning, because he's fired up, no phones and blue screens in the evening to the last couple hours, no eating in the last three hours, by the way, talking about food and sleep, I got to tie those together. When we did all of our sleep data analysis, the most disruptive thing that you can do is eat before you sleep. The last like, if you can get to a stage where you don't eat for like two or three hours beforehand, that is a big boom because that means, okay, I'm not spending all this energy to digest, I'm now ready to go to and then you're turning the lights down and your body's like, like, I have an upstairs and downstairs in my house. My office is downstairs. When I go up to the main floor in the evening, we turn the lights all down dim and we see the natural changing of the light. My son will go to sleep early and I'm spending evenings with him. I find myself getting sleepy. I just did this last night and I'm gonna now break the pattern. I was like, oh, I'm getting sleepy and I'm gonna go fall asleep. So I said, I got to get out downstairs so I can my nice bright lit office. And as soon as I come downstairs, bang, I'm wide awake again. Like two minutes before, I was ready to go to sleep. I had some things I wanted to do. So I had to get out of that environment because it was only seven o'clock at night and I was ready to pass out. So I think people have to really, really get after that and recognize that that resting digest to be in a safe space, to be in a pause space in a curated environment, that sets you up for a diet. I should yes enzymes will help. Yes hydrochloric acid will help. Yes probiotics will help, but they will not overcome a disruptive environment. It's another band-aid on top of it. And you know, that's the guy that sells, you know, I sell all those products. I do this stuff, but I always want to advise people first to get the other things right first. Oftentimes that'll correct it. And then these things, when you do take them, it's turbo charging. Yeah, it's interesting. Another conversation I've had over the past couple days with another licensed medical provider and we were talking about what it was like to eat in the hospital as a clinician with a, we had a spec for it. We had a pager. I had my personal cell phone. I remember getting yelled at once by one of my cardiologists, cardiologists I was working with. He was like, why didn't you answer your phone? I was like, because I was peeing. I was in the bathroom. What do you mean? You know, we forget that clinicians or anyone for that matter, you have to eat. You have to stop and you have to actually empty your bladder during the course of the day. Maybe you get some water, but I can recall over the course of 20 years of working in medicine, more often than not, I would eat and dictate. That was common. And or I would eat a protein bar, which is disgusting when I think about it now, or I'd be pumping when my kids were little. I'd be pumping, you know, with my foot up against the door, trying to, you know, pump so that I wouldn't be so uncomfortable. But then I also think about, you know, very few times over the course of that medical career that I was probably in a parasympathetic state while I was eating at work. The irony being when I left clinical medicine 10 years ago, one of the things I promised myself I would do was that I would sit and eat for lunch and I would just look outside. And it was amazing how much better I felt because I was totally relaxed. I wasn't reading anything. I wasn't looking at a tablet. I wasn't looking at my phone. I was not distracted. I was just very present. And I think that that is such a gift for so many people. And we forget that because we're so busy living our lives. Your other point about having meals with your family is so, so important. I am sometimes stunned. I have an 18 year old and a 20 year old. You cannot imagine the things my kids will tell my husband and I when we are sitting at seated at dinner, even if we're on vacation or we're at home. I get the best information. It's like all the Intel people say, my boys don't talk to me now that they're teenagers, young adults. Oh, yes, they will. It's like you feed them and all of a sudden all this stuff comes out and my husband and I have the best poker faces. There is nothing they can share that is going to shock me. So I just sit there and I listen and I'm like, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then me too, I'm like, you know, nudging my husband, unrate the table like, holy cow. But I think it's important to have some type of a ritual in your home environment. Or even if you're in an office, if you can carve out 15 minutes, shut the door, don't feel like you're tethered to your email, to the desktop, to your laptop, to your phone, to whatever device you have. I think these rituals are really important and actually imperative, not only for our peace of mind, but actually to be able to digest, assimilate, absorb, detoxify in our digestive system. And I think so many people think that this just happens all magically. But we truly need to be in that parasympathetic to be able to properly assimilate our food. I was always shocked where I would go to hospitals or deal with medical professionals who are the best, the brightest, the hardest working, most competent people, you know, to get into those situations. You are literally, you have people's lives in your hands every single moment of the day. Like, it's a level that you, and you get used to, but I was always shocked at the environments, the food selections, the lighting, the electrical, like when my wife had her, our baby there a year and a half ago, I couldn't believe how much the lights and those beepers and buzzers and people working the shift work in there. And I was just like, man, this place is not bar, man. This is the unhealthiest place I've ever been in. You know, it's crazy. And it's funny. I don't know why that is. Do you have any idea why that is? Well, I think it's, you know, first of all, the hospital runs 24 seven. So, you know, those lights are on so you can see everything, you're alert. I mean, when you're suppressing melatonin because you're so stimulated, you know, there's a very specific reason that so you can see everything, have a sense of what's going on, watch monitors. I mean, I tended to round in areas of the hospital that were very technology oriented. So I'd be looking at monitors and, you know, depictions of vital signs and all sorts of things. But I would imagine it so that you're paying attention because if it were, as you said, different lighting, quieter, I mean, everyone would probably fall asleep. I mean, that's true. That's what makes sense. That totally makes sense to someone that's been there. You would get it. You know, working in an ER and I lived in Baltimore and Baltimore is big on Krispy Kreme donuts. And so every time I came in for, because I worked night shift to start, there would be a display of junk that usually was Krispy Kreme donuts, whoever the doc was would bring in Krispy Kreme donuts. And depending on where you grew up in the United States, you're either a Duncan donuts person or a Krispy Kreme donuts person. And if you're from Canada, it's a Tim Horton's donuts. So same type of thing. Do you like a cakey donut or a light donut? And so I just remember, like we were infiltrated by all the stimuli and all the sugar because no one brings in like healthy food. Well, I did, but most people are not eating healthy food and they're caffeinating or they're drinking copious amounts of coffee and it's all to stay stimulated so that you're alert so that you don't get sleepy and think about how it's three o'clock in the morning and you're like, I'd like to be a home in my bed. That's such a crazy Krispy Kreme donut story. I should share it sometime, but those things are hyper addictive. The drug release when you take a Krispy Kreme donut is the equivalent of a heroin shot. Yeah. And being in Baltimore heroin was a lighter one. What's heroin or Krispy Kreme's, right? I mean, a little bananas, totally bananas. Okay. Common questions that we get. How do I know if I have low stomach or low stomach acid, low hydrochloric acid or enzyme deficiencies? What are some of the common things your customers will tell you? Oh, the easiest way to do the hydrochloric acid test is to take like a half teaspoon of baking soda, dump it in four ounces of water, drink it on an empty stomach. If you burp within five minutes, you're good. If you don't, you could probably benefit with a little hydrochloric acid. A lot of people as they age, we sell our hydrochloric acids called hydrochloric breakthrough with, and it's got some enzymes in it as well. It continues to gain, we put no marketing in this product. I think it's one of the best performing products as people get on it, and it's transformative if you have low hydrochloric acid. And that's often tied to H. Pallori overgrowth as well. And so sometimes people will go on hydrochloric acid consistently for like three months and find that they don't need it as much after. And I think it's because they beat down the hydro, they beat down the H. Pallori. You can get a test for that as well because H. Pallori is serious and has very significant consequences. So people need to do that. If you're getting acid reflux and heartburn and stuff, you want to get after it on those things because the consequences of esophageal cancer and stuff is massive. And all of the liquid stuff and all these little pills that make it all go away, they make it a problem worse over the long term. The second thing is, if you look at every single animal species in the world, they eat their food in a raw state. When you consume the food in a raw state, whether you're a carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore, so this is dietary independent, you get the enzymes present in the food. And the enzymes, there's over 25,000 different enzymes in the body that they know of and probably a lot more. And they basically, enzymes and probiotics do all the work in the body. And so humans, in our infinite wisdom, found a way we solve preservation issues through radiation, pasteurization, and cooking. And hey, I'll take all those advantages in a lot of ways for a lot of reasons and have allowed the modern world to evolve because of that. But every time that you cook food or irradiate food or pasteurize food, you eliminate all of the enzymes that are naturally present in that food. And so they irradiate food in your grocery store so the apple stays on the shelf longer. It doesn't, the natural enzymatic activity is what breaks down food. And essentially, that's what's going on in your digestive system. So when I disrupted myself, what was happening was taking a high protein diet, particularly in powdered form or protein, I was doing a lot of that stuff. And I had disrupted my proteolytic enzymatic activity. And so when I went back on to enzymes, I found that I could use and assimilate the food much better. My body, once I let off the gas, it just swoll up and I could have these food cravings, I went all the way, I couldn't stop myself. It was the worst out of control period I ever had. It was very unusual. And I'm glad I had it from an experiential standpoint. But then as I introduced enzymes in the body, I found that I could get more out of less food. So your conversion enzymes are going to convert the first part of your food and break it down so that it's prepped for when the bacteria get it. If you don't break down, for example, certain key amino acids, at that first part, you're not going to be able to form up properly. And then that you can get overgrowth of bad bacteria, which feature on, on protea, like particularly proteolytic enzymes and protein, I think is one of the big ones out there. There's also a genetic component. So if you analyze your genetics, someone that really knows, you're going to see why some people do better on a keto diet or a plant-based diet. Almost always, it's related to the natural enzymatic production of that particular system. And so, for example, I never did that well on fats. My business partner went on fats, we went to genetic testing and bang, there it is in the genes, right? You know, I do really well on a plant-based diet. He does really well on a keto-based diet. It has nothing to do with, you know, which diet guru we are. It's in my genes, and I had to learn that. And so, all of these elements, I think, I don't think there's a person out there that can't benefit from taking exogenous enzymes. And there's a great book by Dr. Edward Howell called Enzyme Nutrition, and another one, if you're a little bit more on the geeky side, Food Enzymes for Health and Longevity, and it shows all the research about animals fed enzymatically deficient foods versus ones that were fed with raw foods and then one with exogenous enzymes after, the longevity studies, the procreation elements, the sociological behaviors, and the genetic disease elements all support increasing your amount of raw food or your amount of enzymatically rich food or adding enzymes. So, I'm not saying don't eat the steak. Take a few mass enzymes before you have your steak, and you're going to find that heavy feeling that people often get in their stomach. If you're getting that from your food, take a few mass enzymes before you eat. You're not going to experience in that, and it's like the light bulb goes off. Oh my god, I've been not breaking my food down properly, and that's what's causing that pooch to hang out after I had that meal, or feel like I got a stone in my stomach for days. And the other thing is people that are not regular will find that all of a sudden they become regular much more often. And that's a big disruptive element for women in the menopausal stage, because against that hormone crisis, and now all of these things get amplified even more. If you're a woman in midlife or beyond, you'll probably notice those changes in energy, strength, and recovery just don't feel like they used to. And what's frustrating is that for many women, this happens even when you're eating well, lifting weights, prioritizing protein, and doing all the right things. You're not lazy, you're not unmotivated, and you're not doing anything wrong. A big part of what's changing actually starts inside your cells. As we age or mitochondria, the energy producing structures inside our cells become less efficient. And when mitochondrial function declines, it can show up as lower energy, slower recovery, reduced muscle strength, and feeling less resilient overall. This is a normal part of aging physiology, and it's one of the reasons midlife can feel so different. And that's why I've added mytopur gummies from timeline nutrition into my daily routine. Mytopur is the only clinically proven form of urolithin A, a compound shown in human clinical trials to support mitochondrial renewal. In simple terms, it helps your cells do a better job of making energy. And when your cells have more energy, your body is able to support strength, endurance, and recovery as you age. What I appreciate most about mytopur is that it's foundational, not flashy. This isn't a stimulant or a quick fix. It's a daily habit that supports how your body actually works at the cellular level. And the gummies make it easy. They're just two sugar-free gummies per day. They're vegan and cleanly formulated. They're independently tested and certified for quality. And if supporting your energy, muscle health, and overall resilience as you move through perimenopause and menopause is important to you, mytopur is worth considering. You want to go to timelinenutrition.com slash Cynthia and use code CYNTHIATHERLO for 20% off your order. Again, that's timeline.com slash Cynthia and use code CYNTHIATHERLO for 20% off your mytopur gummies. Do you ever feel off after meals? Perhaps bloated, sluggish, or just uncomfortable? You're not imagining it. Many women in the perimenopause to menopause transition notice changes in digestion that can affect, normally, energy, mood, but also even focus. I used to finish meals years ago and immediately felt bloated. Just like my body wasn't getting everything it needed, it wasn't about having a gut issue per se. It was about my body navigating natural hormonal shifts and digestion is part of that story. That's when I added mass enzymes to my daily routine. It's a comprehensive digestive enzyme formula designed to support your body in breaking down proteins, fats, carbs, and fibers so you can feel lighter and more comfortable after your meals. What I appreciate is that it's not a quick fix or even a stimulant. It's 18 different enzymes working together to support digestion and nutrient breakdown, including enzymes that help break down protein more efficiently and even help unlock key minerals from food. And it works across different stomach acid levels, which can matter as we age. It's vegan, clean, and thoroughly formulated. No hype, just smart support for your body as it evolves. If you want to support digestion and feel more nourished from the food you're already eating, go to Buy Optimizers and use code SYNTHIA15 to get 15% off today. Again, that's Buy Optimizers, B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S dot com slash SYNTHIA and use code SYNTHIA15 today. And if you subscribe, you'll lock in your supply and enjoy special gifts with purchase. This product I've used exclusively for the last five years is the only digestive enzyme that I recommend. It is incredibly effective. Yeah, it's really interesting. So number one, I've been taking your digestive enzymes for the past three years and I've gotten to a point now where I just need, I used to have to take two, now I can take one, they're so effective, but I've gotten to a point now where I can take one with the largest meal of my day. And it's interesting when I was writing the book and realizing what are the hormonal impacts of a reduction in progesterone and estrogen in terms of gut motility? Because a lot of women will say, I notice in perimenopause that when I eat, it just feels like it sits in my stomach. And I'm like, well, it could be low hydrochloric acid, low digestive edulence, but it's probably also attributable to, you know, progesterone is a smooth muscle relaxation hormone and estrogen interfaces with nitric oxide signaling and nitric oxide is an important signaling molecule. And I said the combination of both of those with those other two things that we've already discussed can really amplify why women feel like they're just not digesting our food quite as well. And I think in a lot of instances that we write this off as like, this is just the way things are. This is the way things are because on X age, and I look at that more as limiting beliefs around digestion in general, that digestion is meant to be optimal and there are ways that we can support it without having to make things complicated. I think in many instances, we just have kind of been so disconnected from our bodies that when we start experiencing these things are like, well, wait a minute, I've never paid attention to how I feel after I eat, I just eat my food, I go about my day, I don't think anything of it until I have to go to the bathroom. And then I'm like, okay, I have to acknowledge that I ingested my food, it's gone through my digestive system, and now I'm, you know, taking care of the waste. One thing that I want to make sure we jump on into before we get to my rapid fire questions, which is my favorite new thing that I'm doing, a common issue that I notice with women in middle age is that they suddenly become less carb tolerant or carb sensitive. Talk to me about how digestion influences blood sugar control. And I know that, you know, you've probably talked to many, many customers, but I feel like in a lot of instances, women are baffled by suddenly being unable to consume carbohydrates in the amounts or the quantity that they were able to before. Oh boy, that's a loaded topic. I'll add one element to this I wanted to mention. We did a whole bunch of studies at our bio lab, and we also found that mass enzymes wipes out glyphosates, breaks down glyphosates. And so, yeah. And you know, with the recent stuff that happened in the States, they were looking, a lot of people are upset with the current HHS director because they maintain glyphosates, but it's in 25% of the food production. And if they were to cut all the glyphosates out, genetically altered crops to meet with that, we would lose 25% of our food chain. So they're going to have to wean ourselves off of that element for, and it's going to be, you know, maybe a decade in order to correct that food chain issue. So glyphosates, which can be often present in, you know, traditional things like oats and, you know, pastas and things like that, particularly if you're in the genetically modified durum semolina stuff and things like that, which is really popular in Canada from where I'm from. All of those wheat products are different. People could say, I went to Italy and ate all that stuff and felt great. Well, that could be a glyphosate issue. The second thing is if you're riding the roller coaster highway by starting your day off with those sugar thick, those elements. So I am liking the trend that's coming out, which is an old bodybuilding thing is getting protein into the diet or relatively early in that when you are taking your carbohydrates, number one, you will eat less if you it's directly correlated with satiety. And there's two ways to cut that protein and fiber. You can do it with fats. The problem with fats is the caloric content of fat can get really high, really fast. Yep. And that's always been the enemy. So I used to do it through a rich in protein diet, but as I went to a plant based diet, I just made sure I was making lots of fiber. So if you think of that, you know, that your meal, a good rule of thumb is palm size, your protein, fist size, your carbohydrate, two fists on your fiber. So, you know, the vegetables, those two elements are going to slow that down. And if you can get to the protein in the fiber first, if you hit the carbs first, you're going to gobble through those spike blood sugar relatively quickly. And then you'll want to eat more because actually insulin, interesting enough, is the most anabolic hormone in the body. People think it's testosterone or growth hormone, it's not. So body builders will manipulate insulin in order to gain muscle mass. They'll strategically use the combination of high carbs and high protein diets to ride these insulin roller cussers. And that's why they have to time their meals so quickly. Well, if you are not adding that extra protein to slow that down or the fiber in that, and ideally it's both, because, you know, fiber will make you feel full, there's a whole lot of benefits to it. Now, if you're someone who has trouble with fiber because of a disrupted microbiome, not uncommon, go with the protein, keep the carbs things, and then find the carbs that are right for you. So years ago, there was a bodybuilding coach by the name of Chris Asito, who is coach all these different experts in there, and he did what was a taboo subject. And that is, he was able to correlate variances in blood sugar response through race. In other words, if you had people from Southeast Asia that grew up on a high rice diet, they had no problems with rice. And from a blood sugar perspective, then if you took people from like Ireland and stuff like that, they could eat potatoes all day long, but that's the same Asian person eat those potatoes that spikes inversely the other way. And so he used to correlate this with dietary plans for his athletes. So you also have to look at what, and this is where genetic testing and epigenetics is great, what carbohydrates are you going to have a lower response to and what ones are going to send you through the moon? And there are other elements. Some people will get a massive spike of insulin off coffee. Some people, it's no effective also. There's all kinds of little elements that will teach you what carbs work for you and what carbs don't. And that's an individual thing. And you know, the easiest way to do it is a little journal, write down when you eat, how you felt before, were you hungry, tired, whatever, what did you feel after where you bloated? Were you, you do that for two weeks, you're going to see correlation that you cannot believe on how to select carbohydrates that's right for you. But again, making your meal balanced is the way to go. Yeah, I think that's really invaluable information. I sometimes will, depending on the patient, if they're particularly motivated, sometimes using a glucometer or CGM can be helpful. And I always use the example, I like plantains, they do not like me. I eat plantains as an up, them with how I eat them spikes my blood sugar. And I was like, it was such a sad day when I realized that was just not the right carbohydrate. Right. Okay, we've got some rapid fire questions for you. Love it. One habit that dramatically improves digestion. Enzymes. Most overlooked cause of poor sleep. Eating before bed. Biggest myth about magnesium. One form will fix everything. One digestive sign people should never ignore. Acid reflux. Most important habit for stabilizing blood sugar. Properly balanced meals. One habit that damages digestion the most. Chemical additives. And one food you believe most people under consume. Protein. I love these new questions. I've kind of been integrating these with conversations and it's just a fun way to kind of end the discussion. Wait, I always enjoy our conversations. Please let listeners know how to connect with you outside of this podcast, how to learn more about your work and you have given us a generous discount for your supplements, which we will include in the show notes. Yeah, well, you can reach us at bioptimizers.com or all the social media handles. So whichever way that or format you like to go by and go on that. I did refer to the awesome health course, which is a free course we give. And there's these are all like five to 15 minute videos. Most have nothing to do with supplements. So just on like putting stuff, I do recommend again that bucket theory of nutrition so that how you can use kind of schematically super physiological dosages to correct imbalances in a quick way. Yeah, and then, you know, our books, you know, all that sort of stuff, you want to dive deep, we've got Sick to Superhuman, The Ultimate Nutrition Bible, things like that. We have a lot of free content and it's a delight and pleasure. I know we could talk all day because you're so smart and you have such a great experience and I just want to recognize and honor you because, you know, it's very seldom that someone, the intellectual capability in the competence level in one field goes and translates and makes that pivot and goes and uses all that skills that you have in the other area. So if you're a grace to the world and I wish you the best of success in your continued journey. So because you're, you know, the passion there and, you know, you talked about being so helpful to other people, I think you still are kind of because now you're just doing it on a big level with the book and promoting because you know things that other people don't know and can help. Thank you. That's a wonderful compliment that I will accept. Thank you so much. Grateful for the opportunity to reconnect again. You bet. Take care. Have a great day. If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating and review, subscribe and tell a friend.