Inflammation

Medical advocacy means staying open to your doctor's suggestions even when you've done the test before

Jennifer's doctor suggested repeating a test she'd done 12 months prior. Though reluctant, Jennifer remembered the team approach and agreed. The test revealed endometritis from a previous miscarriage, which once treated, allowed her embryo to stick successfully.

Traditional medicine often dismisses women's health symptoms as psychological, even when serious conditions are present

Katie Keen went to her OBGYN multiple times with weight gain, fatigue, and menstrual problems. After blood tests showed 'normal' results, the doctor told her 'it's all in your head' and gave her a therapist's card, despite Katie having undiagnosed PCOS, insulin resistance, hypothyroidism, leaky gut, and severe inflammation.

Inflammation reduction can produce rapid, visible results when the right protocol is followed

Katie Keen lost 50 pounds in 1.5 years after her functional medicine doctor addressed her leaky gut, non-alcoholic fatty liver, and severe inflammation. She notes 'every single day when I got on the scale, my weight was going down because my inflammation was just dropping and dropping.'

Chronic illness in children has become an epidemic, with one in five children now having neurodevelopmental disabilities, largely due to accepting inflammation and toxicity as normal

Dr. Palevsky notes that starting in the early to mid-1990s, mothers' conversations shifted from discussing family life to sharing their children's diagnoses - asthma, eczema, learning disabilities, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease.

Fertility struggles and chronic childhood illness share the same root causes: toxicity, inflammation, and overburdened stress responses that create infertile environments

Dr. Palevsky explains that fertility rates have dropped from one in eight to one in five couples struggling, coinciding with increased exposure to food additives, pesticides, electromagnetic fields, and endocrine disruptors in society.

You cannot get pregnant in survival mode because stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline create inflammation that blocks fertility

Dr. Palevsky explains that fight-or-flight physiology with elevated cortisol and adrenaline creates inflammation, and you need the exact opposite - dropped cortisol and lowered inflammation - to create fertile ground for conception.

Being open to different solutions and experts gives you a strategic advantage - but mindset is the foundation that allows you to see these options

Jennifer's mindset work opened her up to working with fertility yoga instructor Jennifer Edmonds, medium Diane Crew, and even consulting an embryologist in Australia. She discovered she had endometritis only because she stayed open to her doctor's suggestion for additional testing.

Infertility rates have doubled from 1 in 12 couples a decade ago to 1 in 6 couples now, with the CDC reporting 1 in 5, due to environmental toxins causing inflammation

Dr. Merhi cites specific statistics showing infertility has doubled in women in their thirties within a decade, which can only be explained by environmental factors since age groups are the same.

Systemic inflammation leads to accelerated biological aging and premature fertility decline, which laser therapy can help regulate

Dr. Brown explains that laser therapy regulates inflammation, blood sugar, and oxidative stress - all factors that contribute to fertility decline. Many of his patients have systemic inflammation that affects their reproductive health.

80% of people are gluten sensitive, and gluten causes inflammation through zonulin which creates leaky gut

Dr. Toker observed in her practice that patients with IBS and belly discomfort had associations with bread intake, leading her to discover published literature showing 80% gluten sensitivity rates

Going completely gluten-free for 3-6 months is required - you can't intermittently cheat and have it work

Dr. Toker compares it to addiction recovery - you can't be sober if you drink a beer from time to time. The microbiome needs 3-6 months to heal from inflammation, similar to surgical wound healing timelines

Modern wheat is more inflammatory due to high fertilizer use and chemical drying versus traditional sun-drying

Dr. Toker explains that fertilizer increases gluten content in wheat kernels, and chemical spray-drying preserves maximum inflammatory compounds, while European sun-dried wheat breaks down much of the gluten naturally

Cow dairy is inflammatory, but sheep and goat dairy is fine because their milk composition is nearly identical to human breast milk

Dr. Toker explains that when people say 'no dairy,' they mean cow dairy specifically - sheep and goat milk are easy to digest, so feta and sheep's milk ricotta are acceptable alternatives

Gut health directly impacts fertility and can cause inflammation that pushes out fertilized eggs, but it's rarely discussed in conventional fertility care

Dr. Angela Potter explains that gut inflammation can cause the body to reject a fertilized egg, tracing fertility issues back to digestive health that's not commonly addressed in primary care or OB offices.

Most women with unexplained infertility have underlying immune dysfunction and inflammation that prevents implantation and causes early pregnancy loss

Caryn Johnson discovered she had Hashimoto's-related antibody issues causing her body to reject pregnancies. After immune protocol including IVIG treatments, she successfully carried her son Elijah. She now has 17 documented pregnancies in women who addressed immune issues through BOND supplements.

High inflammation breaks your water early - your body has to go through an inflammatory flow during pregnancy and if it doesn't regulate down in second trimester, things like water breaking happen

Caryn Johnson's water broke at 35 weeks with her son due to inflammation, and again at 13 weeks with her daughter, causing pregnancy loss. Both instances were caused by her immune system creating too much inflammation.

Certain oral infections can increase your risk of fertility issues by three times, even when you feel no pain or symptoms

Dr. Katie Lee explains that Fusobacterium nucleatum bacteria specifically inhibits ovulation, prevents embryo implantation, and causes stillbirths. Megan, featured in a previous episode, had a 10-year fertility journey with failed IVF, surrogacy, and donor eggs until discovering and treating a raging oral infection.

Oral bacteria don't stay in your mouth - they circulate through your bloodstream and target your reproductive system

Dr. Lee explains that when gums become permeable due to infection, bacteria enter the bloodstream through an enzyme called MMP8 that breaks down protective tissue barriers. This creates 'leaky gums' similar to leaky gut, allowing bacteria to reach reproductive organs.

Forty percent of pregnant people have some form of gum infection, increasing preterm birth risk by 30-50%

Dr. Lee states that oral bacteria increases risk of preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, and preterm birth. Only 10% of women who develop gestational diabetes are prediabetic before pregnancy, suggesting something during pregnancy triggers the condition.

Oral bacteria are linked to major diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's

Dr. Lee directly links PG gingivalis bacteria to Alzheimer's disease and notes that oral bacteria correlate with pancreatic and colon cancers, heart disease, and diabetes. Seven out of eight leading causes of death in America are caused by inflammation.

Stress and elevated cortisol shut down immune function, allowing harmful oral bacteria to proliferate

Dr. Lee explains that chronic stress releases cortisol, which suppresses the immune system and makes the body more prone to infections. This creates a cycle where bacteria proliferate, causing more inflammation and stress.

Hashimoto's thyroiditis is largely environmental, driven by gluten inflammation, pesticides, and gut permeability

Dr. Watkins notes strong scientific evidence linking gluten to thyroid inflammation, plus environmental toxins from food, water, cleaning products, and occupational exposures. She sees genetic predisposition triggered by environmental burden in her practice.

Leaky gut allows food particles into bloodstream where they trigger autoimmune responses affecting fertility

Dr. Watkins explains when intestinal barrier breaks down, food proteins enter bloodstream as foreign pathogens, causing inflammatory immune response through same cell signaling pathways that trigger autoimmunity. She assesses every patient's gut regardless of symptoms because it can cause joint pain, brain fog, weight gain, depression.

Hidden dental infections can create chronic immune elevation that blocks pregnancy

Four days after Megan's positive pregnancy test, she discovered a missed root from a 2012 root canal that had been causing chronic infection for years, explaining her elevated immune markers and fertility blocks.

Ninety percent of fertility issues stem from inflammation and oxidative stress, primarily originating from gut health and mental/emotional stress, not age

Monica Cox couldn't conceive with medical assistance between ages 27-34 but got pregnant naturally at 36 after addressing gut health and inflammation.

Find your specific food intolerances rather than following a perfect fertility diet - there's no one-size-fits-all approach to reducing inflammation

Monica Cox still had high natural killer cells after a year of clean living because she was eating foods she was intolerant to, showing the importance of personalized nutrition.

Ninety percent of medical school curriculum focuses on pharmacology, while 80% of medical schools don't require a single nutrition class for doctors to graduate

Calley Means, former pharma lobbyist, reveals that Stanford Medical School and Harvard Medical School are among the institutions that don't require nutrition education, despite food being the primary driver of metabolic dysfunction affecting fertility.

PCOS and fertility issues are fundamentally connected to insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction, which can be reversed through dietary interventions

Calley's sister Casey, a Stanford-trained surgeon, discovered that patients with fertility issues, depression, diabetes, and high cholesterol all shared root metabolic dysfunction that could be addressed through food and exercise interventions rather than separate medications for each condition.

The foundation of the American diet consists of three ingredients that didn't exist 120 years ago: highly processed grains, added sugar, and seed oils

Calley Means explains that these ingredients make up 75% of ultra-processed food in America, with added sugar consumption increasing 100-fold in 100 years and seed oils being industrial byproducts originally created by John Rockefeller as oil industry waste.

Americans are the only animals, along with domesticated pets we feed, that have systematic rates of metabolic dysfunction, depression, and fertility issues

Calley Means points out that wild animals have close to zero percent obesity and cancer rates, while dogs fed human food have 50% cancer rates and 40% depression rates, demonstrating that our lifestyle and food choices are the root cause of chronic disease.

Your electromagnetic field extends 8-10 feet from your body and can be detected to reveal your emotional state, affecting those around you including unborn children

Dr. D'Eramo explains that electromagnetic measurements show emotional states create detectable frequency patterns. She's seen children's severe medical conditions including Crohn's disease, neurologic problems, and inflammatory bowel disease resolve when mothers released emotional repression.

The body can reverse disease, rebalance hormones, and regenerate organs when you create the right conditions for self-healing

Dr. D'Eramo reversed severe rheumatoid arthritis, returning all inflammation markers and white count to normal. She's seen children's Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, severe neurologic problems, and behavioral issues resolve when mothers released emotional repression.

Inflammation from endometriosis, toxins, and aging reduces egg quality, which ozone therapy can address as a holistic anti-inflammatory treatment

Dr. Merhi has published two papers showing ozone therapy improves both endometriosis and poor egg quality, using the same technology used for sterilization since World War I and treatment of HIV, AIDS, and inflammatory conditions.

Plants contain natural carcinogens that outweigh pesticides by a factor of 10,000 — Brussels sprouts have 136 known human carcinogens, spinach and kale have 60-80 each

Professor Bruce Ames from Berkeley published research in 1989 showing naturally occurring plant poisons outweighed pesticides by weight by 10,000 times and were orders of magnitude more likely to cause cancer than pesticides.

Autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's thyroiditis resolve on carnivore diet because plant lectins create leaky gut and molecular mimicry that causes antibodies to attack your own tissues

Dr. Chaffee reports that patients with Crohn's and ulcerative colitis achieve complete resolution of inflammation on biopsy within three months on pure carnivore diet, and he has yet to see someone take longer than three months to resolve these conditions.

Plants contain natural toxins, hormones, and antigens that create inflammation in the body, potentially interfering with fertility

Dr. Kiltz explains that heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and birth control pills all come from plants. He notes that plant compounds like lectins, oxalates, and phytates act like 'splinters' in the bloodstream, causing autoimmune-like reactions.

One meal a day of fatty meat (at least 50% fat) can reduce inflammation and support fertility better than frequent plant-based meals

Dr. Kiltz personally follows one meal a day consisting of fatty meat like ribeye, along with bacon, eggs, butter, and cream. He reports increased energy and vitality at 66, maintaining an active lifestyle including piloting planes.

Inflammation is one of the biggest triggers preventing fertility, manifesting in conditions like endometriosis and creating an unwelcoming environment for conception

Dr. Palevsky has observed that when women eliminate fibroids or endometriosis, they often get pregnant easily, and he's seen parents-to-be conceive after changing diet to reduce inflammation from dairy, gluten, and processed foods.

Fear creates inflammation by increasing adrenaline and fight-or-flight response while decreasing higher brain function

Dr. Palevsky explains that staying in fear physiologically prevents fertility and emphasizes the need for curiosity, uncertainty, and unknown to break free from fear-based decision making.

Toxic exposures from mercury amalgams, aluminum deodorants, processed foods, and household chemicals create inflammation that prevents conception

Dr. Palevsky has guided couples through comprehensive detox protocols including removing mercury fillings, switching to organic foods, and eliminating toxins from skincare and cleaning products before conception.

Processed foods with inflammatory omega-6 oils create immune system overactivation that prevents conception by attacking and preventing implantation

Dr. Cole explains that canola, soybean, grapeseed, safflower, sunflower and peanut oils found in 80% of processed foods create inflammation that causes the immune system to attack and prevent conception.