Nutrition Strategies for Thyroid Support and Hashimoto's with Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo, DC

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 00:09

Hey everybody, welcome back to the energy MD podcast, where we're on a mission to help people with chronic fatigue and long covid live their best life. And I'm really excited today because we're going to be talking with my good friend Rita Rita Marie los causa, and we're going to be talking about thyroid and nutrition. So let's learn a little bit about Dr Rita Marie first. So she is the founder of the Institute of nutritional endocrinology, a passionately and is passionately committed to transforming our current broken down disease focused system into a true health care system where every practitioner is skilled at finding the root cause of health challenges and uses the wisdom of nature combined with modern scientific research to restore balance. Dr Rita Marie, a licensed doctor of chiropractic with certifications in acupuncture, nutrition, herbal medicine and Heart Math, specializes in insulin, thyroid, adrenal and digestive imbalances. She's also a master at using palate pleasing, whole fresh food as medicine, and is a best selling author, speaker and internationally recognized nutrition and functional health authority with over 30 years of clinical experience, her podcast, reinvent healthcare provides health and wellness practitioners around the globe to be part of the movement to provide root cause care to people in need. Doctor Rita Marie, thank you so much for joining me today.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 01:33

Well, thank you so much for having me, Evan, it's a pleasure and an honor.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 01:37

So we're going to be talking about energy boosting nutrition strategies for thyroid support and managing autoimmunity as well. So let's talk about thyroid. So how did you get into into this field? Why did thyroid become so important for you and endocrinology?

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 01:57

Yeah, so you know, some of it came from my own health issues, right? But some of it came from just seeing people and knowing that the way that it's taught to look at thyroid health, right, test of TSH, and if it's fine, the person's fine in spite of the fact that they have low energy, they're gaining weight, they're cold, they're depressed, and their guts debated, but it's not a thyroid problem, because TSH is normal, and you know better than anybody, that that was in an adequate way to look at it. And I kept seeing people with thyroid imbalances, like in thought in school, you're like, oh, thyroid imbalances or Robins. I think it's Robin's textbook of medicine, one of those textbooks of medicine. Thyroid issues are not things you're going to see very much in your practice. Well, fast forward 35 years, 40 years, and it's what we're seeing all over the place. And if it was infectious, right? We'd call it a pandemic. We'd call it an epidemic. But it's not, it's not communicable. So it's just a problem that some people have, and we have a solution for which is give them t4 I mean, in a nutshell, I don't think that works. And I kept seeing people over and over were on the t4 and they still were having symptoms. And I'm like, there's other things going on here. Then, you know, look, and nobody was testing for autoimmune, and 90% of people with thyroid, low thyroid function, it's autoimmune. Can we look at autoimmune and then can we address the immune system? Can we address the toxic environment? Can we address all these other things? So that's how I got passionate about it, because i My heart goes out to people who have been trying for a long time to get well, and they're still struggling. And so I started focusing on that. And one thing that I did find was that so many people have blood sugar imbalances, and now we're finding 93% of the population is metabolically unwell. Their blood sugars and the insulin levels are off the charts and ruined. And you can't really fix the thyroid unless you fix that. So then we look back. Okay, what is it? Well, nutrition, nutrient imbalances, foods, toxins in the food, toxins in the water, toxins in the plastic food containers people are eating out of, right? So I was like, Okay, we've got to focus on this. So that's one of the things I focus on. Is is thyroid, and, you know, the whole nutritional endocrinology, it's actually a funny story, if you don't mind me taking a minute to tell it how I came up with that. So I was having surgery on my elbow. I had broken an arm, and my phone got displaced, and I had to have surgery, and I didn't want anesthetics. And, you know, we went through this whole thing. I said, I have my ways. I'll relax myself. So I'm chatting with the anesthesiologist. How many people do you know having surgery or chatting with the anesthesiologist? Right? It doesn't really happen. And I'm like, this is going to be going on for a while. We talked about this, and his kid was into baseball, and so is mine, blah, blah, blah, and then the conversation kind of halted. I said, You know what? Why don't you just ask me anything you want to about nutrition? I'll talk for a couple of hours, and I won't even realize that. Having surgery, and he goes, Oh, nutrition. What branch of nutrition are you interested in? And I thought, huh, branch of nutrition. I never thought about a branch of nutrition. And as I thought about what I loved to work with people on was all hormone related. So I said, nutritional endocrinology. And that's how the name of my institute, the name of my programs came about was because I it just came to me and I'm like, Oh, my God, am I going to remember this? Am I going to remember after my surgery that I said this? And I did, and I went and got the URL that afternoon, and that was it. So I just have had a passion for endocrinology, because hormones control everything, and they don't get credit when you say to somebody, oh, I help people balance hormones. They go, Oh, hot flashes, low libido. They think the bedroom, right? They don't realize that all of the, what I call the everyday hormones affect everything in life. And all those hormones that the everyday hormones affect our energy level, which is what you're the brilliant master at. How do you help people with energy? Well, you have to balance their hormones to have them have the right kind of energy. So,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 06:08

yeah, so nutrition is the study of food and food science, right? And then endocrinology is the study of hormones. So let's kind of, let's put them together. Let's talk about nutrition in the context of thyroid, how can you improve thyroid health by focusing on nutrition?

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 06:24

Yeah. So first of all, the thyroid is a very delicate organ, right? It's so sensitive to toxins, so you start with, you know, a low toxin diet, right? Organic foods, organic products, etc. So that's super important, and that's going to take some of the load that goes on the thyroid. The foods we eat are so important for the thyroid, because in order to make thyroid hormone, we need the amino acid tyrosine. How do we get that? Well, we have to eat protein and have it well digested. Oh, we have to look at the stomach acid and how is the digestion working? So super important for thyroid function, and oftentimes overlooked. And then iodine, and there's a whole controversy. I don't know where you stand on the iodine controversy that exists out there right now, but iodine is evil. Iodine is bad. We can't have iodine. It's going to wreck your thyroid. Well, the truth of the matter is, we need the Goldilocks amount of iodine, or without it, you can't make thyroid hormone, right? You need iodine and tyrosine, and you have to make it then you need all these other nutrients to help those processes along. Right? You need magnesium, you need zinc, you need vitamin b6 and a bunch of other vitamin b2 you need these nutrients to actually make have the thyroid do its job and make the hormones right. So it's really important that we have a clean diet, that we have the right nutrients, and that we have the balance of those nutrients, not too little, not too much, and look around like with what people are eating, it doesn't fit that bill, right? The standard American diet doesn't fit that bill, so it's super important for that. And then we can look at autoimmune right. 90% of all thyroid low thyroid function is because there's an autoimmune process, Hashimotos. There's a small percentage that might be hyperthyroid Graves disease and but, but the truth of the matter is, so many people have autoimmune and autoimmune conditions can be turned around with nutrition, with lifestyle, with stress management, and all the things that help support a healthy thyroid. So that's how I put them all together, selenium, I didn't even mention selenium, because most doctors aren't even looking, is how well is t4 which is made by the thyroid or taken externally converted to t3 and that's what I found really early on, was that these people who are taking all this synthetic t4 when you look at their numbers in full, they didn't have enough t3 because the body wasn't able to convert, because they're stressed out, there's too much cortisol, there's inflammatory cytokines, and they don't have enough selenium.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 09:09

Yeah, there's so much that you just mentioned that I want to kind of touch on. You know, the a lot of people don't really realize that t4 is actually the tyrosine, the amino acid that you were talking about, and the number of iodines that are around it, right? So t4 and then t3 and then there's t1 and t2 but we don't really talk that much about those, but, but, yeah, so I think that's really important. And then the other thing too is that thyroid is not just or or hypothyroidism is not just low thyroid. You know, where you're supposed to take Synthroid or levothyroxine, and that fixes the problem. The reality is, is that the root cause is that there's something that's triggering the immune system to attack the thyroid. And can you? Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 09:54

I saw this really early in practice, where you'd see people in all their thyroid numbers. Looked good, even when I did the full panel of, you know, t3 t4 free t3, free, t4 etcetera, plus TSH, but they still were having symptoms. And then I started thinking, Oh, what's going on here? Well, the doctors didn't check the the antibody. So how can the thyroid be healthy, right? How can we have enough of the right thyroid hormones in the system if the body is being attacked, and sometimes that attack will happen, like couple of years before that, but further than that, and this is critically important, because it affects nutrient. Nutrition affects it is the receptors there. I don't care how much thyroid hormone there is in the blood. What I care about is how much is in the cells. And if this, the receptors are not allowing that thyroid hormone to get deep into the cell. It has to actually get to the nucleus to affect the metabolic rate. If that doesn't happen, then we can have everything look normal. And that's where people are walking away. Their prescription is fine because their numbers look normal, but it's not getting into the cells, and that's nutritionally defined as well, right? So we need vitamin A for those receptors. It's a retinal dependent process to transmit that thyroid through the receptors, homocysteine. I don't know about you, but I see people with ragingly high homocysteine, or even marginally high homocysteine, homocysteine affects those thyroid receptors. So there's all sorts of things, and then inflammation, right? Inflammation affects the thyroid receptors, and inflammation is rampant today in our society and so and we we know that we can use food and herbs and nutrients to help bring down inflammation, and of course, there's the stress that causes those inflammatory cytokines that we can control when we have a balanced program and help people to get the stress under control.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 11:54

So let's talk a little bit about laboratory testing. You know, I used to check autoimmunity. I don't check it anymore, because of the stats that you mentioned, 90% of people are autoimmune anyway, and I feel like it's unpredictable when you know, depending on the time of day that you get it, and stuff like that. But I'm curious about your thoughts, since you're the expert in this, do you test for those and then what other thyroid lab testing Do you like to see? Absolutely,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 12:21

yes, I do test for it. And most of the reasons for me doing lab tests is to convince people that there's something wrong and that they need to take action. So then I talk to them, because I want to talk to them about healing their gut, to heal their thyroid. And they're like, Huh, oh, well, you have an autoimmune condition. And the autoimmune condition is go. It is related to stressors, right? And one of the big stressors is leaking gut. So it actually helps me to get people to move, to take action. But what do I like? I like the TSH, right? That's, that's the one everybody tests but T for, total T for, which tells me how much the thyroid is actually making. Lot of docs are skipping that free t4 which tells me, how are we unbinding the thyroid from the carrier protein? And that can be related to either testosterone or estrogen. And we see so many people that are either low or high in those and on birth control pills and all. So that's affected there. So I want to see how is it converted, because we can because we can look at total t4 and go, everything's fine. Well, it's not. We can look at free t4 and say, well, everything's fine, because we have to then look at t3 so I look at free t3 I mean, if they give me T total t3 I can deal with it. But I don't really need it. Or I really want to see is the total to see the capacity of the thyroid, whether it's actually able to produce it. And then I want to see the free and I want to see the free t3 and that gives me an idea of active and the free t3 is the active one, right? That's what gets into the cells and affects metabolic rate. So if t4 looks great, but t3 doesn't, what's causing that conversion to fall apart, and then we work on that. I sometimes do reverse t3 it's expensive, and I don't usually need it, because I can kind of guess it from everything else. Yeah, and that's about it. And if somebody is having high birth thyroid symptoms, in addition to TPO and anti thyroid globule mental throw in a TSI, thyroid stimulating immunoglobulin. So that's what I like to test.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 14:26

Thank you. Yeah, so you mentioned a little bit about this relationship with the gut, you know, and there's so much of the immune system in the gut and all that. So can you talk a little bit about the relationship between the thyroid and the gut? Yeah,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 14:40

yeah, absolutely. So I just talked about the t4 to t3 conversion. And people think that, you know, oh, the t3 is low. So it's a thyroid problem. It's not necessarily a thyroid you can have a perfectly functioning thyroid, but you have low thyroid function because it's not converting. Well, 50% of that happens in the liver. Or 25% zero, approximate numbers happen in the gut. So if the gut is whacked out, the microbiome is out of balance, the gut isn't working properly, then that conversion can happen very well when we have leaky gut, inflammation in the gut that allows antigens or food broken down. Food particles that shouldn't get into the bloodstream, right? They get into the bloodstream, and it creates an immune reaction, right? And then the immune reaction, there's all kinds of theories about how that immune reaction can lead to autoimmunity, but molecular mimicry like those look similar to the particular organ, in this case, the thyroid. What's the other one across reactivity, drive by shooting right happens to be in the way of the the immune system attacking the broccoli in your bloodstream, and it gets the thyroid. So we need to be looking at the gut, and when, if you look at studies, will show that there's virtually nobody that has an autoimmune disease that doesn't also have a leaky gut. So it's just a critical first step to address it. And if you're not testing it, great, we're still a critical first step to address because you're going to assume that they're in the 90%

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 16:20

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, yeah, I don't, I don't know what the stats are, but yes, you know, the almost everybody has a leaky gut in today's environment, unfortunately, because of all those exposures that we have. So I'm glad you brought that up. So coming back to the laboratory test for a moment, you know, I'm apt to say that all labs are imperfect. So there are times where you know somebody still has low thyroid symptoms, and their labs look normal, even by your standards, my standards, functional medicine. What do you do at that point?

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 16:54

I assume Recep receptor resistance. In fact, I assume recept receptor resistance from the start. So even if I've identified, oh, there's a conversion issue, oh, the the ratio between the free and the and the bound hormones is off, and we're going to address that. I'm assuming that there's a receptor problem, because there's no test for it, right? And inflammation causes it. How many people have inflammation right? Inflammation causes it stress causes it excess or too little. Cortisol causes it right. Nutrients like vitamin A, like we talked about, and homocysteine being high, which could be 6012, or fully so I just assume everybody has receptor resistance, and I work with them on those things.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 17:39

And have you found, which of those do you find is the biggest bang for the buck when it's when it comes to turning on the receptors? Is it the vitamin A, or is it a combination of all those?

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 17:49

I think it's a combination. I think there's the way the human body works. It's just so complicated that you can never not nothing is single factorial, right? There's always multiple factorial factors in there. And the majority of people who have come in who have thyroid problems, they're also stressed out because their adrenals are not functioning, maybe properly because of the stress. And look around right people have a hard time not being stressed with the state of the world right now, and with constant addiction to listening to the news to hear of the latest. You know, earthquake here, disaster there, and everybody is taking on the whole world's stressors in addition to their family stresses and their own. So I think it's really common. And I think receptor resistance is is super critical to be looking at. We want to get it in. We want to get that thyroid in. It doesn't matter if it's in the bloodstream.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 18:42

Yeah, I almost never pay attention to the news, but for some reason, I've kind of gone down this path a little bit, you know, especially I'm Jewish and the whole Israel thing, and, you know, there's just a lot of a lot of different information out there. I'm trying to get educated, and I'm just finding that it's totally stressing me out. I almost threw my phone across the room today because I spent an hour like in on, like on YouTube shorts, just kind of doing a bunch of education, and it was just not, not the best use of my time. And so I know that you're trained in Heart Math. What sort of strategies do you have for people to kind of get out of this, this track, this stressful time right now,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 19:24

I would say, you turn off the news. You are going to hear if anything really critical, right? Cuz somebody's going to tell you that. To me, oh, well, what's your take on the Middle East crisis? I'm like, I'd rather not think about it or talk about it, because I can't do anything about it, and I'm just going to get myself, my system, in an uproar, if I do so, I think that's a first way. And if they're not willing to do that, at least limit the amount of time, at least maybe play some relaxing music before and after. Meditate before you watch the news. Meditate after, when you start to feel yourself getting in an uproar. So. Up yourself. HeartMath is a great way that you can do quickly to shift from sympathetic, which is what we're in when we watch the news, face it, to parasympathetic. If there were Kitties and weddings and babies being born on the news, then I would, there would be a different story. People don't, you know, they don't. The card the the advertisers wouldn't be happy with that, right? It doesn't keep people, you know, glued to the TV or the radio or whatever.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 20:26

Yeah, and can you tell us a little bit more about Heart Math?

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 20:30

Yeah, for years, I wanted to meditate. I'm a I'm a type A, go, go, go, go, go. My brain is always thinking, and I knew I needed to calm it down, and so I tried meditation, and I did classes and, well, you have to do it when you first wake up in the morning, and it should be at least an hour, but have to get out of bed to do it, because you'll fall back asleep. And don't do it around meals and blah, blah, blah. There's too many rules I you know, and for me not to be to have my mind not active for that long a period of time felt like a prison sentence, actually. So I was looking for some other things, and I discovered heart map, the Institute of Heart Math, incredible research on how you can actually shift yourself from sympathetic, which is where a lot of people live during the day, to parasympathetic, which is where all healing happens, right? So those are the two branches of the nervous system, the fight, flight, or the calm, relaxed. And what I found was that with a really simple strategies, you can stop yourself, and I can actually do this on like webinars or events that I'm leading. And I just say, let's just take a moment to transition from where we just came from, whatever that was, into a relaxed state, and we take them through. All you really need to do is focus on your heart. Focus on appreciation. Remember, like, something that you really loved in your life. You know, like for me, I can I'm on the beach, I'm walking in, I feel the waves, I feel the sun, and I can just go, ah, and then I can feel appreciation for that, and that's it. I mean, you could do that in when you practice it. You can do it in 30 seconds. If you don't practice it at the beginning, it's going to take longer. But they actually have this little device you can stick on your ears. That's not what Heart Math is that the device is a way to measure to see if you're making a shift from parasympathetic, sympathetic to parasympathetic, but you don't need it, but a lot of people do, because they get that feedback right the when those devices first came out, my son was little. He's 25 now, so he's not so little anymore, but we were on a plane, and I took it out, and I'm like, Look at he goes, what is that, mom? And I told him what it was, and he goes, let me try it. And he took it. He was probably six at the time, and he tries it, and he puts the thing on, and he goes, Mom, look, I figured it out. So I went, Oh, I got a few minutes. I'm going to read because he's not, he's he's dealing with this other thing. Because, Mom, look at this, I figured it out. Like, what do you mean? So he takes the has a readout, and it goes into red when you're in sympathetic, and it goes into green when you're in para, and there's lines in between. He goes, watch, watch what I could do. And he went, and he got all upset, and, you know, and he goes like, and it went into the red. He goes, now, watch. And he got it into the green, right? So it's that easy to shift. And I didn't even have to teach him the method kind of new, because I always would say, Let's breathe. Okay, everybody's so agitated, let's breathe. So he just did what he'd been taught. So you just it's a way to take a pause break, and you can do it anytime throughout the day. You know, it's not like you have to sit for an hour and make sure that you're, you know, whatever, have a an altar in yoga and your bitter right post, no, you just have to do this and take an appreciation break throughout your day. And it makes a huge difference. Huge difference.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 23:54

Yeah, my Yeah. My question was going to be, how much you know? How important is this for overall healing. How important is this for healing autoimmunity and healing the thyroid? What do you think?

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 24:04

I think it's really critical. And whether you use Heart Math, or whether you do tapping, or whether you, you know, take a yoga break, or whatever it's throughout the day, it's not just meditating first thing in the morning. Now I meditate first thing in the morning. I've been doing it for 20, 283 days straight, because I wear a little headband that keeps me doing it. But I do 15 minutes. Sometimes I do five. If that's all I have, I don't do an hour, and I don't have that pressure on myself. Oh, I can sit for 15 minutes, and I can, you know, listen to the waves on my little device, and I can do that. So I do that. But this thing I do throughout the day, you just take a breathe break. And I find that I have seen people with autoimmunity have their antibodies drop down. Yeah, we're addressing diet, yeah, we're addressing all the other stuff. But when they don't do this, like when I'm working with people on blood sugar, I teach them. US, and I'll be God, but I'm eating all that good food, and I'm and I'm this, and I'm not eating before bed, and why am I still okay? Let's take how often are you doing that Heart Math technique I taught you? Well, I remember once or twice a week, I teach you to do it five times a day before every meal, beginning of the day, end of the day, and anytime in between that you start to feel the stress build up and like anything else you practice right? If you're doing it before every meal, it's not you're not waiting to be stressed, because it's hard when you're used to being stressed. And then, you know you're trying to do this technique to get you unstressed, unless you've practiced it. So I find it super important, super important,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 25:41

and it costs nothing. So for people who are listening to this and you want something practical to do, that is one of those things you know you that you have control over, that you can manage, that plays such a big role that puts you into your parasympathetic so that you can heal. Yeah,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 25:57

absolutely. And, you know, it's interesting, because I developed the I have to re record them. They're like 14 years old, but I recorded a series of of day, not 30 days. I call it the 30 day stress transformation, and it's just me guiding people through. And there's other more advanced techniques that Heart Math teaches, but I literally those are five minute audios every day, except the first one to teach and the last one to transition. But I still use that in all my programs.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 26:25

Brilliant. Yeah, so important. So let's, let's switch a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about the relationship between thyroid and adrenals. So one interesting thing that I saw a while back a number of years ago, that I've that I've noticed since, and I'll be curious about your take on it is that when somebody has thyroid issues, or when somebody has adrenal issues, and you're looking at the thyroid labs, the thyroid labs seem to be falsely elevated. They look better than they would normally appear, because then you treat the adrenals, and then all of a sudden, the thyroid labs actually come down, so they look worse after you treat the adrenals. And I'm curious, my take on that is that the thyroid has been falsely elevating itself, that it's been compensating for low adrenals, and then it can show its true colors when the adrenals are supporting themselves. I'm curious, what if you've seen that? And I'm curious what your take is on that.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 27:23

That's an interesting perspective that I haven't thought about it that way before. I think about the interaction between the thyroid and the adrenals in terms of the effects of cortisol on thyroid conversion and the effects of cortisol on the receptors, the effects of cortisol on TSH, and I wonder, given that perspective, if, yeah, I don't, I'm not sure, I'm not sure how to answer that, because it's not right something I really thought about it in that way that the thyroid is responding to The adrenal being right, the cortisol being, you know, not working properly. I mean, it could be because I see it as there's either high the adrenals are either producing too much cortisol overall, and somebody's in that sympathetic, dominant state, or they've been doing that for so long that they they're not producing enough cortisol. I wonder if it has to do with so cortisol is a precursor, you know or not, precursor. It's in that steroid hormone pathway, right? So pregnant alone at the top, and progesterone and estrogen and our bodies naturally want to keep us alive, alright, as opposed to making babies. So, and that's just a simple way to say it. But like, given the choice between having libido and having fertility and all that, or staying alive, keeping away from the tiger, we're going to go that way. So we drain those pathways down to thyroid, because the thyroid, not the adrenal, the cortisol, right? So we drain those pathways down to cortisol, and then we experience what you probably see a lot when people are are stressed out and fatigued, is that they have no sex drive. They have difficulty getting pregnant. Their periods are a mess. They have PMS, they have terrible menopause symptoms, if that's the age they're in. And when we get the stress piece under control, when we get the actual stress right, whatever those stressors are, and they could be a mental, emotional stressors, but also physiologic stressors from toxins in the food, etc. When we get those things under control, then the other systems work better. When the other systems work better that might, that might relate to the thyroid, because, like estrogen, if there's too much estrogen, we're going to have a too much of the binding globulin, the thyroid. Thyroid binding globulin, if we have not enough estrogen or too much testosterone, we have too little of it, and we see a lot more free thyroid. So when we have less of the bound and more of the free thyroid, we might be seeing the. You know that the thyroid is, you know, pushing itself to function. I don't know. I think it's an interesting question. And then, of course, there's reverse t3 right, which the body tries to put on the brakes. Right? When there's an illness, when there's an inflammation somewhere, an infection somewhere, we think, oh, let's just get that t3 up. No, let's think about, why is that t3 suppressed? Because the body's putting on the brakes to try to deal with healing.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 30:30

Yeah. And would you say the reverse t3 is a stress marker? Or, how would you how would you use it practically? What does it tell you?

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 30:40

Yeah. I mean, when I see the reverse t3 being elevated, yeah, it's kind of like the body saying, Whoa, slow down. We've got to slow down. We got to put on the brakes, because we got to focus on these other things. And if you just have this high metabolic rate, and you have all this energy, and people are out there, you know, jumping and swimming and skiing and whatever, the body's not going to necessarily heal on the inside. So I see, I do see it as a protective mechanism, absolutely. Yeah.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 31:10

So let's talk a little bit about mitochondria and thyroid. What's the relationship there? And if you can just remind us what mitochondria is,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 31:18

sure. So mitochondria these little powerhouses in every cell, and that's where our energy is made. So we feed it with oxygen and glucose, and then it goes through this process, and I go like this, because it's called the Krebs cycle that happens, and there's a series of biochemical processes that take that glucose and oxygen and take it through and spit out ATP 36 for every molecule of glucose, if things are working right, so we spit out energy. So how does so mitochondria affected? So every cell in the body is affected by thyroid, because it affects metabolic rate. And if, if the metabolic rate of any area of the body is low, we're going to have sluggish function, which is why we see depression and constipation and dry skin, and, you know those sorts of things when the thyroid is not functioning well. So if the mitochondria don't have the oomph they need to take the glucose and turn it around, plus, if there's deficiencies of any of the nutrients that are in there, plus, if there's toxicity, and if there's, you know, foods that are containing toxins, environmental toxins, then that's going to affect the functioning of the mitochondria. Because, again, I think that, I think what we overlook a lot is a glow mitochondrial function, yet might be related to nutrient imbalance, but could also be related to, like the high river c3 the brakes, right? We're sensing that it's not safe, therefore we're going to turn on the brakes. Right? Yeah,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 32:53

yeah. And all those heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections and trauma are informing that, would you agree? Oh, absolutely,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 33:02

yeah, absolutely. And it's rampant right now, right? The trauma for sure. Everybody's, like, emotionally traumatized over the last few years, and I think that's part of why we don't see people really healing when they get that infection, right? They their body is traumatized, and then it brings up the old imbalances, infections, inflammations, etc. So yeah, I think that all those things need to be taken into account. If somebody wants to get well, it's not just what's the best herb for this. Do you see that a lot? You see people saying, What's the best herb for this? And you're like, wow, I wish it was that easy. I wish it was that simple that I could just give you an urban because we're looking for this, for that approach, because that's what everybody's been trained in, because that's what Mr. Western medicine teaches. But no, we have to tease it all out and find all the interactions between the different systems, between the nutrition, nutritional, endocrinology and hormones are affecting everything, right? Not just your sex drive. It's affecting everything, not just your thyroid, not just your insulin levels. It's affecting everything, right? There's gazillion hormones in the gut, more so than anywhere else, right? So the hormones are affecting function. They're the master controllers, so we need to keep them healthy and happy, and the toxins just affects all the activation pathways and the receptor pathways and everything. Yeah,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 34:31

so in that vein, and just a couple questions before I let you go. So what about what about herbs for thyroid healing, knowing that you know this is more complex, and you have to focus on the causes and all that. Yeah,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 34:46

so, yes, you have to focus on the causes. But there's one herb that helps to increase production of thyroid hormone, and that's ashwagandha. It's an Ayurvedic herb. It is a nightshade, so people who are completely. To nightshades, may have to be careful about it. The contraindication to using Ashwagandha is if you have hyperthyroid, right? So if you find yourself with a racing heart and sweaty palms and losing weight, do not take ashwagandha. It's going to make you worse, right? If you do have those sorts of things, things that can slow down the thyroid function are. We can look at lemon balm, that's a very common one, cabbage juice, and there's a number of things like that. For the majority of people who have a hypothyroid I think Ashwagandha is good. Anything that calms down the nervous system and calms down the stress system is good. So there's any number of nervines and relaxing herbs like rhodiola, and there's Tulsi, which is holy basil, and all these things can be helpful. I don't think there's a prescription for a condition. When it comes to herbs, you've got to look at, what else does that herb do, and how does it fit the person? Kind of like homeopathy, similar, you have to look at the full picture, not just so this person's primary complaint is hypothyroid, therefore this affects the thyroid. But like, for example, somebody's enraging menopause, and you give them ashwagandha, they can get worse, because it's a heating herb, right? And so what I believe that with herbs, we try, I'm a tiny dose kind of person, try a small dose, increase it, increase it, and see if you get the minimum effective dose to get the the desired effects.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 36:35

Yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more. Start low, go slow. And I think it's important for people to realize that, you know, if you take ashwagandha and you're not noticing a difference, it doesn't mean that Ashwagandha is right for you. It, you know, it's, it's like a it's like a puzzle when you're working on all these different causes, and you know, root causes and even natural band aids, where a lot of them have to fit together, where, you know, a number of, you know, you've got to have the nutrition and the additional hormonal support, and then you plug in the ashwagandha, and then it works right,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 37:07

exactly, exactly. It's just very different. It's a very different way to think about things. It's a whole paradigm shift to go from Western medicine to using a more holistic and natural approach. And you know, you've, you've been on both ends of the spectrum. So you know that there's definite advantages to Western medicine, which is a this for that, you know, you just got bonked in the head and you're bleeding out, and your head is, you know, there's things that you do for those sorts of things, but the long term effects are not there when you just take a drug to to dumb numb down the pain, we have to look at why is the pain there in the first place, and how can we adjust the diet, the lifestyle, the attitude and heal old traumas to get there? Yeah,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 37:52

amen, yeah. So you've got a couple of free gifts for our folks here. You've got a hormone hacking breakfast menu and a hormone balancing elixirs. Can you tell us a little bit about those? Sure,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 38:05

absolutely. The breakfast one is, how do you start the day, whether you eat breakfast or not? A lot of people intermittent fast and don't start eating until noon or later. But it's what's that first meal of the day to keep your hormones balanced throughout the day. And I give you five different components that need to be in that meal, and then I give you menu plans and recipes. It's life changing for some people. The other one, the elixir. Is it? These are, like, I got really interested in elixirs, probably about 10 years ago, and I started combining herbs and nutrients and foods to make these things that had, you know, this might have more of an effect on detoxification. This one might have an effect on thyroid. It might have an effect on adrenal. So there's a bunch of different very tasty recipes in there that you can make instead of the morning coffee, not not that everybody has to get off their morning coffee, but these are going to actually affect the way that the body works, instead of just stimulating and then having that let down. So I use a bunch of herbs. And there's a little chart in there that shows you how to you know, how to mix and match and how to make your own combinations. And there's one is the thyroid adrenal one that's in there. It, I found that there are people who started using it and they're like, Oh, let me give this a try. And they, one person said, my hair came back. I had this thick head of hair, and my hair was falling out. My hair started coming back. I'm okay, that's that's good. So other people heard her say that because she said it on a coaching call and and they're like, Oh, let me try it. And I just kept getting these reports about how their hair was growing back from this elixir. So we can't call it the hair regrowth elixir, but it's,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 39:44

I love that. Well, we'll put the links below and in the show notes, and then best place for people to find you will be at Dr Rita marie.com, is that correct? Absolutely.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 39:54

I'm there, and then on Facebook, at Doctor Rita Maria, Dr Rita Marie, and Facebook. And Instagram and all over the place. So yeah, and YouTube, too,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 40:03

excellent. And then I'm really excited about the challenge you've got coming up the fasting while feasting. Can you tell us about that? Yeah,

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 40:11

so fasting is an is a miraculous for many people, for many conditions, and it can really turn things around by giving the whole body of fat break. But not everybody can do it. Not everybody it can do it with their lifestyle the way they are. You got six kids running around and, you know, fasting is not a good thing to do and some of the health conditions. But few years back, there was a researcher named Walter Longo who came up with this idea of the fasting mimicking diet. He did a lot of research and checking to how can we mimic the effects, the positive effects, of fasting, while not not having to fast? And so he came up with this idea, and then he came out with a product line, which is powdered stuff that's make easy, but I like real food, so I decided that I would take on the challenge of creating menus for five days. And this was something you just do for five days. You don't do it every day because your metabolism will slow down too much. But five days and you're you're eating, and people say to me, do I have to eat all the food I'm supposed to on that day? Or Can I skip some because I'm so full and satiated. I'm like, whatever you want to do, you don't have to, but it's just this is the maximum that you can do. And we give them recipes, and for five days they do it. I mean, literally, have seen people who were on insulin and metformin and had been diabetic for 15 years go and completely go off their metformin and got their insulin down to like 25% with the supervision of their doctor. And you know the agree, but that's what was happening to people. And ketones went up, glucose goes down, insulin levels regulate. And when you repeat this on a monthly basis, you know, depending on how much weight you have to lose or how far off your hormones are. It just has this cumulative effect.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 42:06

Wow, amazing. So if people are interested in that, if they opt in for any of the free stuff, they'll get

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 42:15

they'll get notification, right? We'll probably start announcing it at the end of December, because we're going to be doing it in, I think, the second week in January, excellent.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 42:23

It's very exciting. Lots of lots of good work that you're doing. Thank

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 42:28

you. Yeah, that's fun. We got to change the world. That's that's the thing. And I, you know, the thing that turns me on and lights me up is seeing people who have been struggling, and I'm sure that you find this every day in your practice as well. They've been struggling for so long, and we just kind of find those fine tunings that they need to do, and suddenly they're like, they get their life back, and that's the most rewarding thing I can think of. I

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 42:52

agree. Yes. Thank you so much for joining me today. Rita Marie, it was great to be with you. I really appreciate your sharing your knowledge with our community.

Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo 43:01

Thank you.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 43:06

I hope you learned something on today's podcast. If you did, please share it with your friends and family and leave us a five star review on iTunes. It's really helpful for getting this information out to more people who desperately needed, sharing all the experts I know and love and the powerful tips I have is one of my absolute favorite things to do. Thanks for being part of my community. Just a reminder, this podcast is for educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. It is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. Thanks for listening and have an amazing day.