Watch the episode here
Men tend to not go to the doctor until it’s too late. That is why it is important to share stories that give them the confidence to step forward. Dr. Jerry Bailey is someone who admits his humanity to encourage men to speak about their health, particularly on their experiences with Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone (PHAT) Syndrome. Having battled with this, Dr. Bailey has been on the other side of this diagnosis. He is then helping those who are on the same path by illuminating men all about this issue. Dr. Bailey is a certified nutritionist, acupuncturist, chiropractic, and functional medicine physician at Lakeside Holistic Health with over two decades in his field. He is also a prominent expert on men’s medicine and leads the world in the emerging science of Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone Syndrome. In this episode, he shares the who, the what, the why, and the how to fix the PHAT Syndrome. How can you identify it? What could you do about it? Dr. Bailey answers these and more in this conversation.
Key takeaways from this episode:
- What is Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone (PHAT) Syndrome
- How to navigate through PHAT Syndrome
- The root causes of PHAT Syndrome
- How to overcome leaky gut
Guest Social Links:
Lakeside Holistic Health Website: https://www.lakesideholistic.com
Guest Website: https://www.drjerrybailey.com
Lakeside Holistic Health Instagram: https://instagram.com/lakesideholistic
Guest Instagram: https://instagram.com/drjerrybailey
Lakeside Holistic Health YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/lakesideholisticholistichealthpllc
The Guy Show Live YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Theguyshowlive
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PHAT Syndrome: The What, Why, And How To Fix Issues In Men’s Health With Dr. Jerry Bailey
In this episode, we're going to dive into the topic of PHAT Syndrome in men, Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone Syndrome. To unpack this issue, I'm thrilled to be joined by Dr. Jerry Bailey. He is a Certified Nutritionist, Acupuncturist, Chiropractic, and Functional Medicine Physician at Lakeside Holistic Health with over two decades in his field. He's also a prominent expert on men's medicine and leads the world in the emerging science of Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone Syndrome, that PHAT Syndrome that we just talked about.
He has seen tens of thousands of patients. His clinical experience and acute awareness of current research as a former faculty member at the University of Western States in the Graduate Studies Department with a Master of Science in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine afford him a unique ability to apply research to clinical practice. He is truly evidence-informed and a fully practicing physician.
He, along with his physician wife, has been the top functional natural medicine practice in the Inland Northwest for many years. Their clinic is at the forefront of cutting-edge evidence, informed practice along with the development of new protocols to aid in reversing most of the chronic illnesses and hormone imbalances seen now. A renaissance man of sorts, a dad of two amazing sons, a triathlete, a drummer, all of this work, he has been featured in Bloom, Parade, HGTV, VeryWell Health, Spy, Medium, NBC News, QardioMD Entrepreneur, and Byrdie. That's a mouthful.
A lot of stuff there.
Dr. Jerry Bailey, welcome.
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here and I'm excited to talk about PHAT Syndrome in men's health.
You can talk about that PHAT, and I'll talk about my favorite fats. It'll be a beautiful synergy. I have to know what inspired you to drive forward and become a champion for men's health issues in particular, even hosting a podcast that you called The Guy Show a while back.
Being a guy, it's easy to be excited about men's health and in myself, too. That's what drives it. Often, we have our own health issues that come up that guide us along our path of healing and regeneration there. That's what drove me into the men's health realm of focusing on issues that I had, which was I had PHAT Syndrome myself.
I knew doctors and talked to many doctors who were specialists in different aspects of what is PHAT Syndrome and never got the full picture and was like, "You need to work on this." It was like medicine. "You need to focus on the cardiology aspect. You need to focus on the digestive aspect. You need to focus on the insulin aspect. You need to focus on the stress response." Instead of like, "No, this is one big thing that I was seeing every single day in my men and in myself, too.
In your men, I like that because they're more than patients to you.
Often, they end up being that patient friend, so to say. Even though that's a bad thing in medicine to say, your clients, your patients are your friends, but we have great conversations, and we're open, talking, and covering lots of stuff in their life and that's a rarity for men. As we know, men tend not to go to the doctor until it's too late and then issues that come up with that. I'm an open book with my clients. I talk about my life with them. My wife and I both do tons of posting on social media about our health and things that we do. Clients are excited about that to actually have a doctor who says, "I got a problem and I'm trying to fix it too." Instead of, "We're perfect. We have nothing wrong with us." It’s like, "We all got issues, and we're working on them, too.
Men tend to not go to the doctor until it's too late.
Perfectly imperfect in that way. You're admitting humanity. We were introduced by Dr. Shawn Tassone, who seems like the flip side of your approach because he's so focused on women's health. At the same time, he's real, comes forward, and talks about the real issues that women face. He isn't afraid to stand up and say that he thinks certain medical practices are frankly dumb. He guides his patients in a way that can ultimately help them champion their own health. From everything I've looked at in review of your work, I see echoes of that. I feel like you guys are birds of a feather. I'm thrilled to be having this conversation.
I would love to know a little bit more about how this whole PHAT, the Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone Syndrome, but what it really means for men's health. How would you identify first that you even had this issue, and then what you could do to help get you back on track? I know you have your personal experience to draw from, but I'd love to see more generally what you're seeing in your patients, too.
The Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone Syndrome or PHAT, if we're old enough to remember, way back when that was also called pretty hot and tempting, I like to call that as that. We have that pretty hot and tempting disorder going on there. I see this a ton in men. There are about eight different key elements to it. You can have six of them and still have the issue going on. You don't have to have all eight there for you. We'll see insulin resistance in the guys, increased body fat, cardiovascular dysfunction, and decreased muscle mass. We'll see the maladaptive stress response, or what we often hear is the adrenal fatigue or adrenal insufficiency, which exists, but it's not in the research literature yet, but the maladaptive stress response is.
We see the hormone imbalance in men, the testosterone and estrogen. We often see that conversion because of the increased body fat. We see that conversion from testosterone to estrogen, so we see elevated estrogen levels in them. We'll see the neurological dysfunction that comes from that: brain fog, brain fatigue, memory issues that occur there. We then see what I call pan membrane permeability issues. Often, it'll start with a leaky gut that permeability there, and it'll spread. If you got a leaky gut, you're going to have a leaky brain.
In men, you're going to have leaky testes also. We'll see decreased testosterone and autoimmunity against the testes and testosterone production. In women, you'll see the same thing against the ovaries. Also, in men, we’ll see leaky prostate, hence that PSA start to creep up in men's health because of that membrane permeability there. Those eight key things are the cornerstone of what I see in men with PHAT syndrome.
That was a laundry list. I know you have this also detailed on your website, DrJerryBailey.com. I would send people there to do a little bit more digging if they're really into this subject. I also want to comment that it sounds a bit like these symptoms could be related to a lot of stressors they might be seeing, but also environmental contamination, like eating bad food. I'm coming to these assumptions by thinking about the things that I've read over the years as well. It sounds like a conglomeration of many health issues that are ultimately rooted in this response, where our testosterone starts converting more to estrogen. Is that what I'm hearing, that could also exist in women?
For sure. What do we see with chronic disease now? It's diet and lifestyle. What is most of the chronic health issues? We see PHAT syndrome. Amongst one of them is in lifestyle and diet. If you're eating crappy, you're exposed to crappy things, you're going to have these health issues, and it's going to be a continued domino effect for issues on down the road for yourself.
One of those things we always do with clients is we work on three key things with them. We work on food as medicine, movement as medicine, and then mentoring as medicine for them itself. Within that mentoring, it's a little acronym I use to talk with them. We have mentoring and coaching. We look at their endocrine system, their hormone system. We look at their neuromuscular skeletal, so the brain, the muscles, and the joints as a chiropractor, your bones too. We look at testing itself. We'll talk a little bit about that here soon about what testing to run to look for this disorder, amongst other things.
We look at the outside environment, the exposures to what our outside world is, foods within there, chemicals in the environment, toxicity within the environment that we're exposed to, molds within the environment that we're exposed to. We look at their resilience. We then look at infections. We look at nutrient deficiencies. Overall, we look at their genetics, so we can see long term how we can prevent things from occurring there long-term.
Before we dig too deeply into this, I should mention for anyone tuning in to this show that this is offered for educational, informational, and possibly even entertainment purposes only. We're not here to treat, diagnose, or cure. If you are experiencing the health complaints, issues, or any related that we discussed, you should seek out medical care from a qualified health professional like Dr. Bailey or any number of functional medical practitioners and your local area. Ultimately, they are often better suited to help you manage your health from the ground up than somebody who is myopically focused on one breed of medicine. That's at least my personal perspective.
I like to call it edutainment. We're educating them but also entertaining them in that same process.
You're talking about all this battery of tests and also all of the things you look at. I think many people might be saying, "That sounds expensive." A lot of things that we are taught over the years is that you go to your general practitioner. Your insurance covers X, Y, Z, and you get the basic needs covered, but then you don't feel necessarily heard. Your health challenges continue to mount.
You might be prescribed yet another pill to take every day that may or may not actually improve the symptom. It might treat the symptom but not get at the root cause of what you're actually tackling. For that individual who might be a little bit overwhelmed by reading the laundry list and might be a little worried about something like that might run insofar as a ticket in their pocketbook, what would you say to them?
Health is an investment, truly. If you don't invest in your health, you're going to be forced to pay for it later on. Often, the key labs that we run are inexpensive overall. Looking at blood work, if you don't have insurance coverage, often practitioners, myself included, we can find significant reduced lab work for you and cover a majority of the testing we need to look at for the blood work itself.
For the more functional-based testing that we run, for example, I love the Dutch test, so we can see how your hormone cascade is working, how you're detoxifying, how your metabolizing hormones in the system. What does your stress response look like within there? That one runs, at this point in time, around $300 for cost.
What we do in our clinic, not all clinics do this, is any of our functional medicine testing, we don't raise the prices. You pay the exact same price I do for the lab itself. I want labs. I need labs to be able to see what's going on, and know how your system's actually functioning or not functioning to be able to correct the issue. We don't upcharge on any of our lab costs whatsoever. That's a Dutch test there.
Looking at an organic acids test, we like the one in particular. It is the one through Genova. We like that one. That's another about $300 there itself. Those two tests plus some blood work, so roughly around $1,000 overall, we can get 3 to 4 great tests in there that tell us how your body's moving, functioning, detoxifying, cleaning itself out, and actually how your mitochondria functioning in your system itself, too.
I know that's a lot of vital information. How frequently do you offer these tests? Do you recommend them?
When we see a new client come in, we sit down with them and spend an hour with them, going through what's going on with them. We develop a plan from there and offer what testing we suggest they run. If finances are an issue, we try to go, "What's the widest net we can cast for the most efficient amount of money through there?"
If they've had blood work, great, we may just have to then run some additional blood work that isn't too pricey at all, just to get a little more thorough. As we know, looking at thyroid function, often docs run a typical thyroid stimulating hormone, your TSH, and maybe a T4. That's a small picture of how that thyroid functions in your body. We run about five additional tests on there for about $60 that tell you how that thyroid functions, how you're converting to it, and how your body's utilizing it efficiently.
I have a personal experience with this one, so I want to share. As it stands, I have hypothyroidism. I ultimately first self-diagnosed because I was returning from a fast and started to notice I was having difficulty swallowing food. I know this to be a symptom of a thyroid issue, so I had it checked. This had also come on the heels of actually having a Reiki session where the practitioner had stopped on my throat and said, there's something going on here. I remained a little skeptical. I was like, whatever, "I feel fine." I did, but I still felt fine.
I learned that my T3, T4 were essentially way off kilter like I was in the basement of where I should be. Even my Western doctor had said to me, "If you don't take this seriously and get the right type of medication, then you could end up in a coma." It was perhaps trying to shock me into actually following a medical protocol because I was resistant to taking a drug at any rate I have.
I managed that with a natural thyroid as opposed to a Synthroid. That works much better for me. If I'm on a synthetic hormone, essentially, it makes me wake up in the middle of the night with heart palpitations, and I feel anxious. It just doesn't work for me. The problem there was that they were looking at TSH. They weren't looking at free T3, free T4, and overall understanding of how my hormones were performing.
We then learned that to get the full panel that I should be getting on a routine basis my insurance doesn't cover that. I am now out of pocket, not $60, but $160 every time I have to get the test. This is because those PPO or HMO clinics tack on a premium to every test. Unlike what you're doing when you're going Dutch with your office, I was footing the bill. We also see this through most medical offices and insurance programs. It's part of the reason that insurance becomes so expensive for people because they'll cover a part of it, but then they're marking everything up.
Something as simple as an Omega-3 basic index test that we are offering with Orlo along with the subscription of our product, it retails for $50. They don't charge you that. They charge you $100, and then that makes your insurance rates go up because of what they're covering and what is not being covered. At any rate, it's the problem of the broken medical system that we live in.
I could give you story after story about that. Some of the blood work we run, people are surprised. When we get doctors that ask for the blood work that we run, and they're like, "What are half these tests? What is this?” I remember back to med school when you had your blood work, but you learned that stuff. We've had a couple of clients who were like, "I want to bill my insurance." We're like, "We don't know if it's going to cover it or not. We can't guarantee that. We have no idea.” They do it, and it's like $5,000 to $6,000 they were charged from the lab to their insurance. We know from what we've done in negotiating prices with the labs themselves is it was about $400. They would've paid out of pocket for that much blood work. It was crazy.
The insurance rates keep going up because of what their billing is and who makes the money. It drives me crazy.
That's what we did at our clinic. We just do it as a pass-through. You pay our lab fee company to them directly. We don't see a dollar to that. I want the results in front of me so I know how to work with you, and I know what your body's doing. That way, we can get it corrected and not just keep playing with this guesswork.
The reason I wanted to stop on this point for a moment is because when you said that you do a pass-through, this is not something that every office does. If you're out there seeking a partner in your health and you happen to find a functional medical practitioner like Dr. Jerry Bailey who's local to you and able to work with you, or even not local to you, and able to work with you over something like Zoom and Skype, then you have found someone who can truly advocate for your health. He can make informed decisions with you and help walk you through all of the challenges that you might be facing.
I think that's valuable. I love hearing it. We can get ourselves out of the horror story of trying to rely on a medical system that's somewhat broken to get the results that we need. That's my soapbox for the day outside of the nutrition side. I would love to learn a little bit more about the ways in which you help people navigate through this PHAT Syndrome, Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone Syndrome.
Anytime we find something or see something, we have to make acronyms for it to make it work or come up with it there. That one worked great for it for me because it's exactly what goes on. It's mimicking PCOS in women. It looks very similar on lab work symptom-wise in men. Of course, we're going to have a much larger testosterone level than women do in PCOS, but we'll actually have low testosterone and elevated estrogen in there. The lab work looks very similar.
There have actually been some studies on it. They didn't have it called PHAT syndrome. They called it PCOS in men. They looked at hair loss with it. They looked at men who were losing hair, and they discovered through that lab work like these men actually have very similar lab work to women with PCOS. There's been a few studies with that, too. There were other great studies years ago that looked at the membrane issue that permeability in the membrane was the gelding. If you type in gelding like horses, the male horses get castrated there.
The gelding theory in men where this dysbiosis in the GI tract, a certain bacteria, would trigger leaky testes, causing a chemical or physiological castration in the men decreasing testosterones spermatogenesis for them. There is some research, again, it's pulling pieces in through there. How do we help guys with this? The lab work is key. It’s knowing what sections you have the biggest issues with and then attacking those. Often those smaller fires start to decrease in their health there.
Diet is number one. I'm not going to be able to out-supplement or out-medicate a bad diet. There's no way that's going to happen. We work on dietary. We go through a month-long process with them. Food elimination. We keep it slow and simple versus, "Take all of this out right now." We just go through a step-by-step process for them. We take them then through a two-week detox, which is easy to do.
Often we hear the word detox and we go, "I'm going to be not eating for two weeks." No, you're still eating food. You're just doing some good high-quality protein shakes and some detox supplements to get the liver and kidney to start functioning, cleaning out the body the way it should, and then introducing foods back in over the next two weeks.
Over the first eight weeks of working with us, often, the guys have lost anywhere from 10 to 40 pounds we've seen. A good chunk of a lot of the issues they have are starting to decrease, and then we can start attacking the other additional underlying issues. The low testosterone that they have can be multiple factors.
I see a lot of men that come in that have been to the testosterone clinics that just go in. They have low They are on testosterone. They feel great for 2 to 4 weeks, and then the dose, they don't feel good anymore. They then keep upping the dose. They end up with even more health issues. We want to look at what's the smallest therapeutic dose we can do with anything to get the most benefit from.
We've discussed this on prior episodes as well because if you have the PHAT issue that you're covering here where testosterone starts to convert to estrogen, then you give them more testosterone. That testosterone is still converting to estrogen. Men can end up with moobs, the man boobs. Reversing that can be challenging, too.
Definitely, you'll see the breast enlargement in men. You'll see increased adiposity along the waistline and hips. You'll actually see increased neurological symptoms from it too. Estrogen is neuroprotective to a point in men. Once it starts climbing, it is actually inflammatory to the brain in the nervous system. We start to see more depression, more anxiety, and definitely more brain fog memory issues occurring in those guys with that elevated estrogen and moodiness.
Let's talk about some of the potential root causes from that poor diet. Generally speaking, the standard American diet is high in processed foods. Processed foods in America include a lot of soy and a lot of seed oils. The seed oils are very high in Omega-6s, which produce precursors to inflammatory prostaglandins that can then gunk up our systems. Leukotriene, cytokine storms, we've heard about all of these things, an imbalance, and frankly, not enough Omega-3, specifically EPA and DHA.
All of these fats are needed to create cholesterol and other hormones in our system that feed our overall health. Is part of this story just getting their seed oils of the Omega-6s to drop along with the arachidonic acid or other inflammatory fats are coming from the Omega-6 side and also increasing Omega-3s?
Yeah, for sure, because we know from literature, research, and clinical findings that Omega-6, as that elevates, then we see more rigidity within the cells. The cells in the body become less soft and less supple in there. They don't transport things. They don't transport the inflammation and nutrients back and forth within there. When we decrease those fats, decrease that inflammation, and bring in those Omega-3s, if they've had little or realistically probably none in their diet for a very long time, those cells, as they start to regenerate, become more soft and supple. They age better. They don't age as fast. They become healthier cells.
The mitochondria themselves, same thing. Their membranes, which are little cells in our body that produce energy for us, they become more metabolically active and more soft and supple in doing their job. That balance in getting out the seed oils, getting out that pro-inflammatory foods, not just the soy itself, which can be increasing estrogen in men and women but the grains. The grains in the diet that we're exposed to significantly with the pesticides and chemicals on those and the proteins in them create such inflammatory response in the body that leads to it also. Getting those things out, balancing the system, getting healthier Omega-3 fatty acids in the body itself, and fixing those ratios, they get better and healthier.
Is this also an issue of simply not getting enough clean protein in the diet of these individuals because protein affects muscle and muscle affects testosterone?
For sure. The protein itself, if it's grain-fed or corn-fed, that's high in arachidonic acids and the pro-inflammatory fats within the body. We've done some great studies years ago. When I did my Master’s in Nutrition, several studies we looked at were looking at grass-fed beef versus conventional-fed beef. Looking at that in comparison to the fats and wild-caught salmon, the grass-fed beef that both started and finished with grass was not too dissimilar to the Omega-3 content of the wild-caught salmon. I live in Idaho, so we have hunters galore here, so the wild caught is immensely part of their diets. That's what we love. Wild-caught and organic grass-fed are what we want to go to because it's healthier meat.
Let's talk for a moment about why that is because I think it could be a mystery to many people. They say, "What's the difference?" You have these animals that are fed corn and soy mostly, versus those that are fed grasses. Grasses aren't really an Omega-3 source. That's not true. Alpha-linolenic acid is a terrestrial form of Omega-3s that are present, and land animals eat. The land animals consume in the form of grasses. They might even eat flax and some other flowering vegetation.
Ultimately, all of these produce a balance of different fats. They have Omega-3s and Omega-6s in them. Plant-based form has to be converted to EPA and DHA in the animal itself if you're going to get the full benefit from that. Some of that work gets done because these rudiments and animals that subsist on grasses alone are machines at extracting nutrition from grass. They get out all of the protein that's in that grass. They become very large-bodied animals eating grasses. They get out the Omega-3s and the Omega-6s that becomes part of their flesh.
What we've done in this culinary process in the United States and all of the developed world by creating refined seed oils as we've actually removed Omega-3s from those refined oils. We've done that because it increases their shelf stability, how long they last on the shelf. That means that food can cost just a little bit less. Guess what? That's all subsidized.
All of these are subsidized so that they can stay cheap, and then you eat them because they're less expensive. All of the foods that you consume that are processed ultimately are present in just about everything, from the salad dressings you consume to the food bars. Look out for seed oils that could look like safflower, sunflower, corn, soybean, and peanut oil. All of those are very high in Omega-6s, with almost no Omega-3s. That's my second soapbox for the day.
You should change the show name to The Soapbox. That would be great. Wouldn't that be a great show?
Yeah. Maybe that'll be another one I host privately. What it comes down to is staying away from as many processed foods as possible while going to whole foods that you cook in your kitchen. Don't use a bunch of seed oils to make can be gloriously health-promoting, and people notice a difference almost immediately. One of the things I also like to point out, especially if they're fat and suffering from fat like you've got too much body fat, is that Omega-6s stimulate your appetite, and Omega-3s tend to quash your appetite. Getting that balance right can mean you don't feel like you're starving and you don't overeat.
Inflammation, our food is nutrient poor but calorically rich. We've seen that with the farming practices. We have the largest amount of bushel per acre that we can create. We've done that to the detriment of the plant itself and the food source itself. Our foods are completely nutrient-poor. Hence when they get processed, we have enriched foods. We put nutrients back into them, usually of poor quality, and we're starving. We're starving for nutrients. Our body runs.
I always tell my clients in chemistry, “A plus B equals AB.” That plus sign is not just calories for the fire, but it's the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. It's the things we have names for now and the phytonutrients that we have that all the scientists come up with these great names for. Even things we don't even know that are in there yet that are working in that process. The better we can get a nutrient-dense versus calorically-dense food, more colorful. I always say, "Eat the rainbow, but not Skittles." Eat the rainbow of colors because that's where we're going to get the nutrient-dense. All those phytochemicals that are based in those colors that we need and wouldn't even know names for that's going to make our body run better.
Get nutrient-dense versus calorically-dense food. Eat the rainbow, but not Skittles.
We've seen people drop cholesterol levels by 60 to 70 points just by changing the diet. We've seen non-insulin-dependent diabetes reverse completely. They don't need medications. We've seen it with our diabetic patients that need insulin. They can go on less insulin down to very small amounts because they're eating good foods instead of calorically and sugary-dense foods.
Let's talk about those individuals who might not be eating animal meats that are trending towards plant-based. What protein sources do you tend to suggest that they go to if they're not going to be willing to do that wild-caught salmon or hunted bison? Maybe not so much bison, but deer.
Deer, elk, moose, bear, or within there. A lot of my patients that come in that are vegan and vegetarian. They’re what I call grainitarians. They rarely eat vegetables. They eat mostly grains and sugars. As we work with them, it's getting them to get on good vegetables and good fruits within there. Looking at the higher density vegetables of proteins. Broccoli is a great source of protein for your beans, ideally through there. We want to try to introduce what they are willing to try. Can they do lacto-ovo? Can they do pescatarian? Will they do fish? To start working in there to get that in. Often, they're so nutrient-deprived, and their digestion is so poor. It's going to take a while for them to get any nutrients in.
How long does it generally take for somebody who might have that leaky gut issue to see results by making these shifts?
Usually, within the first 45 to 60 days, they're going to notice a big change. Once we find it and discover if there are any infections or anything going on, they notice within that first 6 to 12 weeks dramatic changes in their digestion, bloating, discomfort, and their overall health in there, too. We often tag with them because we know they're not absorbing well, as we do IV therapies with them to make sure we're getting nutrients in. They start to feel good a little bit, and help the body heal a little bit quicker that way, versus trying to rely on a faulty digestive system and absorption sips in there, too.
As part of my personal story, I used to consume a lot of fish. I have made the decision to walk away from consuming fish unless I catch it myself or I know right where it's coming from. This meant that I've been doing my own little test on my body. For roughly five and a half months, I haven't consumed fish. I have instead been working to get more proteins from things like protein powders.
I've tried quinoa. I tend to mix it up a lot. I'm going through different vegetable sources or vegetarian sources of protein powders to augment my protein because I'm finding it troubling to get enough from just eating things like beans. I'm allergic to broccoli, so I can't eat broccoli. There are some other crucifers that I do eat on a routine basis, just trying to keep myself up at a hundred grams or more protein a day.
I also lift weights, so I want to be able to perform in that way. That's part of my fitness journey. I like to lift heavy, and you need to be able to perform when you do that. Getting enough protein has been a little hard, but I also wanted to be sure that I was managing my Omega-3 levels. I've been basically doing my own little test.
We're doing this campaign now with Orlo Nutrition, where we have a Tested By You Campaign. Ultimately, you can check your baseline of Omega-3s. I considered my new baseline. This is my "without consumption of fish" baseline. I've only been supplementing with Orlo's active Omega-3s and the polar lipid form for the last 5 to 6 months for my EPA and DHA source.
What I was surprised to see, and I shouldn't be surprised, but most vegetarians and vegans come up around 3.5% or 4% on the Omega-3 index, which is dismal. It's on the low end. It's ultimately something that would be concerning for anyone who knows much about it. I was hoping to be close to that 8%, taking just 3 soft gels a day.
What would turn out to be is that I tested at 6.37%, which is pretty much in the middle between not great and pretty good, if I can get up to 8%. I've made the choice to now increase my dosage to three soft gels a day which is going to help me, and then I'll test again in a few months and see where I land. Shooting for that 8%, because we see, as Dr. Bill Harris shared when he came on this show, that when you get to 8% to 12% is like the sweet spot on the Omega-3 index that all-cause mortality drops.
To me, that sounds pretty good. I've wanted to stay there my whole life3. That's why I've spent 20 years in the Omega-3 industry. There's the protein side of things when you're going plant-based, but you also need to pay attention to micronutrients like Omega-3. I'd love to open the door and hear from you about what other insufficiencies that you see in your practice that you try to tackle. Perhaps that comes from a supplement base as well.
Add a different grain on there that a lot of people don't know about, Fonio. That's a good one. It's the African grain, nutrient-dense. It has a pretty high protein content. That's one to check out for yourself in there. Often, we get so much in our head, it's like we forget certain things. When you said quinoa, I was like, "Yeah, grains." We're often like, "I don't have grains." but quinoa, and then Fonio is another good one that you can add in also through there.
I've never heard of it. Where do you find Fonio?
You can actually go online and get it. Amazon has it. There are several different companies you can order it through. Check your natural grocery store. They probably have or can get it for you also.
What does it taste like?
Just like any other grain. It's not earthy, but woody-earthy taste, almost like quinoa.
I will have to go source that out. Perhaps even include a recipe with this show of how you can use Fonio because I'd never heard of it before. I'll commit to doing a bit of research and including a recipe in this episode. Speaking of, I actually have a favorite quinoa recipe. It's very simple and all it contains is lime juice, olive oil, dried cranberries, and salt and pepper. It's delicious. I've usually thrown in a bit of mustard too, but you just whisk it together because, essentially, you can mix quinoa once it's cooked with a whisk with all those ingredients, and it's just delicious. I wonder if I could try the same thing with Fonio.
You had asked the question, and I side-barred it. Let's come back to that question. Do you remember what it was offhand?
What are the key micronutrients people are deficient in?
CoQ10 is actually a huge one people are deficient in. That's one of the few that we recommend supplementation-wise. Vitamin D and your Omega fatty acids through. Those are the big three B vitamins. Again, we need to know your methylation status ideally. If you can do methylated or not. We've had people who shouldn't be able to do methylated vitamins but can. We have people who should be able to do them and can't do them. Even though we might see the genetic markers there for it, it depends on how you respond. B vitamins are a big one because of the stress in our lives. The stress and environmental toxins we're exposed to. B vitamins get driven out of the system pretty rapidly.
You want to make sure you get a good multi-B within there. B12, particularly if you're vegetarian or vegan. Make sure you're getting that in there. If your digestion is poor and you're not able to absorb B12, injections may be the way you have to go, and that's totally fine. Try not to use cyanocobalamin. Get a methylated hydroxy or adenosyl form of the B12 to make sure that it gets utilized rapidly for your system without causing any side effects from there. Those are the big ones that we see deficiencies in people.
Vitamin C is another one too. It's interesting that you get taught in nutrition classes to look for scurvy, rickets, and all these things that we don't see anymore. It's because the overtness of those foods are so fortified with nutrients now you don't see the overtness. We see the long-term effects of low-grade consumption of those. You don't see rickets, but you see osteoporosis, so the Vitamin D. You'll see issues with stress and degradation of the body. That’s Vitamin C itself too. We want to make sure we're getting good nutrients in ideally food sources, but if you can't, then getting good supplementation is key.
Make sure you are getting good nutrients in, ideally, food sources, but if you can't, then getting good supplementation is really key.
I want to ask a clarifying question about the methylation status. What you're referring to there is whether they have an insufficiency in the MTHFR genome or some inborn issue.
Yes.
How might people test for that? For instance, I took a 23andMe test because I wanted to find out how much Neanderthal I had. I'd already taken Ancestry, but when I took the 23andMe test, they came back and told me some other interesting things about my genome. One that I didn't want to know was that I actually have one representation of APOE4. The reason that's scary is because APOE4 and representation thereof, especially if you have two markers for it, is a predisposition for things like Alzheimer's and dementia. My grandmother suffered from those things, developed cerebral palsy in the tail end of her life, in addition to having Alzheimer's.
I know, for instance, that people like me, which is about 15% of the population, are less likely to absorb Omega-3s from triglyceride or other plant sources. Fish oil won't work as well for me as a polar lipid. That's 15% to 18% of the population. That's a huge amount, 1 in 8. We need to be careful about these things. We need to have some knowledge. I went digging into the 23andMe ancestry test to see if they actually had information on MTHFR. It seems like it's not decoded yet. I have all the results, but I have no idea what it means.
Genetic testing is the key. You can do blood work itself through your primary care, or any functional medicine office can do simple blood work to look for your two statuses on those. Again, the same thing, 15% to 20% of the population may have MTHFR duality, they have both genes, and the rest have less effects. It can vary. From there, you can see if you have both, you probably have an 80% to 90% deficiency rate of methylation there and not being able to use methylated forms of it. If you have less gene, 1 gene or 2 genes, as you go down, it becomes less effective in the system. You then look at the epigenetics. How does it present within there?
You mentioned the APOE4. I'm a 3/4. I can't have high levels of saturated fat. I have to have super low levels of saturated fat, or I increase my risk factors for Alzheimer's, dementias, early onset of aging, and cardiovascular issues in there, too. Again, the same thing, genetic testing or epigenetic testing, can tell us this information. I also have a certification in epigenetic coach, so we do coaching on these with the genetic testing to know how we look long-term for somebody's health right there.
When the coconut oil craze was there, we jumped on board that too because it's a good saturated fat. After testing our genetics and after being on it for a year, I didn't feel very good. I am more fatigued than I have been in a long time. We did the testing. I'm a 3/4. My wife and I joke like she was trying to kill me for the insurance money earlier than we knew for that because of me being 3/4.
Personally, I actually don't know my three status, but I'm going to check now. I will say that when I eat a diet that's high in saturated fat, my hands start to be inflamed. Clenching your fist and unclenching it, there's some soreness there. When I tried the Whole30 style diet to see what that was like, it ended up being fairly high in saturated fat. While I lost a little bit of weight around my waistline within about two weeks, I just felt stiff. I imagine I may have a 3/2.
It's a 1, 2, 3, 4. If you have a 4, is your other number a 1, 2, 3, or is it a 4? 4/4 is the worst. 3/4 is the two on down within there. That percentage of the population, we've actually seen a lot of our clients have a four status. They're either a 2/4, a 3/4, or even a 4/4. We had to get them off. They were on the coconut oils, too. We're like, "We got to get you off because it's setting you up for issues coming forward.
I don't do a lot of cooking with oil. I did interview Dr. Joel Fuhrman on this show earlier. He tries to get people off of all processed oil, even olive oil. He says, "You can cook by poaching, steaming, and baking. You can cook in all of these other ways. You don't have to use additional oil. You can do things like take seeds and pistachios, puree them, and make phenomenal dressings that include fats from these nuts that you would otherwise consume. You can include things like orange, lemon, and vinegar as the assets in there. Assets that give it some more liquid body, and then you've got delicious salad dressings that you didn't buy off the shelf that wasn't full of canola oil and other Omega-6s."
I think too often we forget that a lot of the foods we consume come with plenty of fat in them. The one exception, the one thing that's hard to get if you're not eating a lot of fish and if you're not eating wild hunted animals is the Omega-3s. We'll be back to that for a moment. Get enough EPA and DHA. Check your vitals.
Test, not guess. That's what it comes down to in everything. I know it's almost cliche in the functional medicine world of that, but it's so true. If we don't test, we don't know. I've been doing this for many years now, and the first 10 years in practice turned to 12 years in practice. We had like 1 or 2 tests we could use on different things, and that was it. It was that in blood work. Since then, it's exploded the number of tests that we have available for checking for different things. It's always trying to find what are a couple of key tests that we can run to figure out what's going on for somebody. Also, to cast that wide net to hit everything and then get more specific if we have to.
It's a nutrigenomics approach to medicine. This is biohacking, essentially. It's figuring out what your individual genetics look like so that you know how you are going to respond to treatment. It's getting into this space of personalized nutrition, understanding the foods that help you thrive, learning to listen to your body when you have something erupt like, "My hands are achy. Why is that happening? That shift didn't work for me."
We always try to we try to say it too. It's personalized performance medicine. It's based on you. How do we make you perform in life the best possible, and where do you want to go? Some people want to feel better and drop a few pounds and just be able to do stuff. Some people want to do Ironman. I've done Ironman. People want to do different things. It's always, "What are your goals? How can we work with you to get them attained?
Before we wrap, I want to remind everyone that Orlo Nutrition is doing a Tested By You program. Anybody tuning in to this show, you can go to OrloNutrition.com. You can get two Omega-3 index test kits along with your subscription of Omega-3 DHA or prenatal DHA, depending on which phase you want to go for. I personally take our DHA because DHA makes up half the fat in your brain and eyes.
I have this predisposition for Alzheimer's and other neurocognitive issues. I'm like, "Give me more DHA. I'm going to take that." I personally am taking that one. It gives me 350 milligrams of EPA and DHA plus a day and the polar lipid form. Its absorption is better. It gets into my cells. It doesn't repeat on me. No fishy taste or aftertaste. No fish. It's from algae.
The cool thing is that we're not only giving you the baseline test, but after your fourth month, you actually get a second test. It comes with your fifth and sixth-month subscription so that you test your baseline and you test after four months. Much like I'm running the experiment personally by now, upping my soft gels daily to three because I'm not consuming fish. I'm not consuming wild-hunted bison or reindeer or any of that other stuff that would give me a direct source of EPA and DHA. I'm relying on the algae Omega-3s from Orlo Nutrition. These active Omega-3s are in a polar lipid form.
I'm consuming a lot of walnuts. I'm not consuming a lot of Omega-6s. I add walnuts to my smoothies. That's a great terrestrial source of Omega-3s, but it's a precursor to EPA and DHA. I'm doing these things to shift and ensure I'm getting more Omega-3 and not so much Omega-6 at the same time to hopefully drive up my body's ability to integrate EPA and DHA. Synthesize EPA and DHA, even from these terrestrial sources like flax oil, walnuts, and chia seeds. Ultimately get me to that 8% from the 6.5% where I presently set. That's my goal. Join me on the journey. Dr. Jerry Bailey, I'd love to include you in this. Do you want to give it a shot?
Yeah, I'm going to do it. I know it's one thing. I like fish, and I've had a lot of fish in the last 30 years. If I eat some more fish, I'm going to go crazy, but I'm going to jump on board. The audience, you'd be crazy not to do this. Again, testing, taking, and proving it's working for you. That's key. Does your practitioner do that? “Here's the testing, here's post-testing.” This is a great opportunity. You'd be crazy not to do it.
That's how I feel. It's $100 additional value. They already get 15% off on the subscription, but the audience to this show can actually use the coupon code, TESTNWC, for Nutrition Without Compromise. You'll get a bonus, discounted checkout specifically for the Tested By You Campaign. That was the last soapbox of the day for me.
I want to say how much I've appreciated this conversation. Dr. Jerry Bailey, I love what you do. I love your approach. I love that you're not amplifying the cost for your patients of the testing to help them hack their health. I want to say a tip of the hat to you for that. I want to offer you a point here. I know you have your website for your practice and also DrJerryBailey.com. Which do you prefer that they go to find out more?
Either/or is fine. If they decide they want to talk and maybe work with me, they can go to my business website, LakesideHolistic.com. If they want to keep more in touch of all the stuff I'm doing outside of practice, all the articles, news things, and everything that I'm in and continue to do, then it's DrJerryBailey.com. Either of those, you'll have great content and great exposure and great learning from.
Thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks for having me.
Remember, if you're trying to jumpstart your health and you've never taken Omega-3s or even if you have, there's no time like the present to start taking more and to get started tracking your health. You can jump right over to OrloNutrition.com and buy that Tested By You subscription. You'll get an Omega-3 Index Test Kit with your first shipment so you can get your baseline results. You'll get your second kit with your third shipment. This will mean you get a snapshot of your before and after. Not only is it $100 additional value to you, you'll feel better taking these Omegas.
As a reminder, this is a third-party test. It's not us that's performing it. It's done by OmegaQuant. If you want to learn more about OmegaQuant and all of the research that they've done, I did interview Dr. Bill Harris on this show a few episodes back. You can go and find that episode. He's the creator of the Omega-3 Index and the President and Co-Founder of OmegaQuant. Again, use the code TESTNWC at checkout, and you'll receive a bonus discount on your order.
If you have questions about what we cover in this episode, topics that you'd like to see us cover more deeply or any discussion points, you can always reach out via social channels at Orlo Nutrition or send me an email note directly to Hello@OrloNutrition.com. As we close this show, I hope that you'll raise a cup of your favorite beverage with me as I say my closing words. Here's to your health.
Important Links
- Lakeside Holistic Health
- The Guy Show
- DrJerryBailey.com
- Tested By You
- 23andMe
- Ancestry
- Become A Nutritarian To Supercharge Your Immune System And Health With Joel Fuhrman, M.D., The 7x New York Times Bestselling Author Of Super Immunity And Eat For Life – Past Episode
- How To Check If You Are Getting Enough Omega-3 (Free Test Offer Included!) With Dr. Bill Harris – Past Episode
- OmegaQuant
- Hello@OrloNutrition.com
- https://Instagram.com/LakesideHolistic
- https://Instagram.com/DrJerryBailey
- https://YouTube.com/c/LakesideHolisticHolisticHealthpllc
About Dr. Jerry Bailey
Dr. Jerry Bailey is a certified nutritionist, acupuncturist, chiropractic, and functional medicine physician at Lakeside Holistic Health with over two decades in his field.
Bailey is also a prominent expert on men’s medicine and leads the world in the emerging science of Poly-Hormonal Adrenal Testosterone Syndrome. He has been in practice for over two decades seeing tens of thousands of patients in that period.
His clinical experience and acute awareness of current research, as a former faculty at the University of Western States in the Graduate Studies department in the Masters of Science of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, affords him a unique ability to apply current research to clinical practice to be a truly evidence-informed practicing physician.
He, along with his physician wife, has been the top Functional/Natural medicine practice in the inland northwest for many years Their clinic is at the forefront of cutting edge evidence-informed practice along with the development of new protocols to aid in reversing most of the chronic illness and hormone imbalances seen today.
He is a dad to two amazing sons. He is also a triathlete, and a drummer, gig his day job supports. He has been featured in Bloom, Parade, HGTV, VeryWell Health, Spy, Medium, NBC News, QardioMD, Entrepreneur and Byrdie.