Neuroveda Podcast for Complex Health

Description.

This is a power-packed episode in which Whitney Mack walks us through what women should have been taught since birth about how our bodies work and how we can care for them lifelong. Turns out, we have an infradian (vs circadian) rhythm that drives our cellular communication/ hormones systems over time. This means that we are in constant cycles of change, just like the moon that cycles through from new to full and back to new. To anchor into our holistic health, we can emphasis sleep, nutrition and movement in alignment with these cycles.

Whitney's training & deep personal understanding of these concepts brings them to clarity throughout this show. We start with a complete definition of 'fitness' including muscle strength, endurance, cardiovascular capacity, flexibility & body composition. Then we interweave the hormones, recognizing the 'Queen' hormones of cortisol & insulin as they serve for survival (vs estrogen, progesterone & testosterone which are for life quality). Next we dive into the four hormonal stages across the lifespan: menarche, cycling, perimenopause and post-menopause. With each, we review ways to attend to our movement patterns. And then we bring it back to the daily life.

This is an episode not to be missed & to be shared with every girl and woman we know!

BIO:

As a holistic health, hormones + movement coach, Whitney Mack helps busy, driven women thrive in their bodies, reawaken their aliveness, and create a more purposeful way of being. Through her hormone-informed approach, she blends the science of female physiology with the sacredness of the body to help women achieve optimal health and well-being throughout all hormone + life seasons. If you're ready to heal your relationship with your body and unleash your feminine power, her signature method uses hormones as a compass to guide you back to your inner-knowing and cultivate deeper self-awareness for sustainable transformation in less time and with lots of love. Find Whitney through her website: WhitneyMack.com

Cancer is a tremendous topic. Dr Julianna Giles, ND, has focused her career on evidence-based approaches for this complex condition. Dr Giles now directs our Integrative Oncology program at Neuroveda Health in Seattle, Washington. In this podcast, she walks us through cancer, soup to nuts. This includes defining cancer, describing different types and stages of cancer, and the conventional treatments of surgery, radiation chemotherapy and now immunotherapy. Dr Giles then layers in integrative approaches including high-dose (aka ‘pro-oxidant’) IV vitamin C, other botanicals, metabolic approaches to treating cancer and the relationship between other immune dysfunction, like auto-immune disease or chronic viral infections, to cancer development. Next is a review of the core elements of our program, including specialty liquid biopsy testing, the timing necessary for balancing pro-oxidation (chemo) with anti-oxidant (recovery) targets, and the value we place on collaboration with conventional oncologists and treatments. We welcome patients to our program at all stages of cancer status including those with a family history seeking prevention, monitoring for early detection (we do pap/ HPV testing in clinic), treatment at all stages (early, middle, late), post-chemo/radiation recovery, prevention of recurrence and palliative care/ hospice as it’s needed. Listen in and please share widely with those who are being affected by cancer. This is a critical show for broadening ideas about treatment options and maintaining agency at a time when health stress can be overwhelming.

We discuss:

·     3:20 What is cancer?

·     6:36: How do we think and name different types of cancer?

·     9:09 Ayurvedic perspective of cancer

·     11:25 How does conventional care typically treat cancer? Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy

·     17:12 High dose IV (intravenous) vitamin C to make chemotherapy more tolerant to the body and prevent recurrences.

·     25:00 Fasting and chemotherapy treatment

·     28:35 Discussion about immunotherapy and metronomic (aka low dose) chemotherapy

·     32:12 Defining Integrative Oncology including the value of collaboration to help conventional treatments to work better

·     33:34 Looking at the foundations of health: asking and answering the ‘why’ and ‘why now’ questions

·     35:33 Molecular targets of botanicals, for example, p53 targeted by no drugs but impacted by curcumin;

·     36:55: Use of botanicals, diet and lifestyle as anti-inflammatory influences during pro-oxidant treatments like chemo- it’s all about timing!

·    42:33 Discussion of the Integrative Oncology program at Neuroveda Health

·     56:30 Liquid biopsies looking for cell free mutated DNA shedding from cancers in the body

·     1:03:33: Putting together integrative treatment plans including the metabolic approach to cancer treatment ( Care Oncology protocol out of the UK)

·     1:08: How cancer interacts with the rest of the immune system, including auto-immune disease

·     1:12:38 Recovery after cancer treatment

Bio: Julianna Giles is a Naturopathic Physician with a Masters in Ayurveda who specializes in integrative oncology, endocrinology, chronic infections, medical cannabis, entheogens and psychoneuroimmunology. After graduation from Bastyr University, she completed four years of residency training in integrative oncology. She is a core lecturer for the Academy of Cannabis Science and lead formulator for Polite and Lumna, both medical cannabis companies. While at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, she researched medicinal mushrooms and medical cannabis as adjunctive cancer therapies, as well as the neurological effects of mindfulness at the Wisconsin Institute for Sleep & Consciousness. Dr Giles is certified in Ayurveda Yoga therapy, Prana Flow and Kundalini Yoga. In her free time, she practices Yoga, is passionate about plant-based cooking, and loves exploring the wild Pacific Northwest.

Description: Dr Todd Levine, with 20 years of experience as a clinical neurologist with specialty in disorders of the peripheral nervous system, shares with us about the Syn-One skin biopsy run by his company, CND Life Sciences.

Against a backdrop of clinical information about the divisions of the nervous system (central vs peripheral and sensory vs motor vs autonomic), we review the 3 tests in this procedure: small fiber nerve counts, synuclein and amyloid deposition.

Dr Levine notes that brain & skin both come from ectoderm tissue in the embryo, meaning they arise from similar roots soon after conception The skin, unlike the brain, is readily available for testing, and can offer insight to what’s potentially happening in the central nervous system without having to go there directly.

It’s also a fascinating conversation that one-half to one-third of all neuropathies end up classified as ‘idiopathic’, meaning we can’t identify a trigger, like toxic chemical insult or injury. Most likely, these neurons are injured by ‘an accumulation of small insults” which can include low but recurrent or persistent viral illnesses and environmental chemical exposure all further complicated with and by metabolic syndromes. His most exciting area of research is looking at the potential of this test to give predictive insights for diseases decades in the making (like Parkinson’s or Lewy Body Dementia), all work that we agree with & support at Neuroveda Health when we apply personalized medicine plans for your best health.

BIO:

Dr. Todd Levine has over 20 years of experience as a clinical neurologist with a sub-specialty in disorders of the peripheral nervous system. He received his medical degree from Duke University and did his residency and fellowship at Washington University in St Louis. He has served as Chairman of the Neuromuscular Division of the American Academy of Neurology. In 2010, he founded his first medical diagnostics company called Corinthian Reference Lab (CRL), and has processed over 50,000 skin biopsies, receiving specimens from over 4,000 different neurologists across the US and Canada. Dr Levine is one of the three founders of CND Life Sciences and serves as its Chief Medical Officer, playing a key role in the delivery of diagnostic services and ongoing technology development. Dr. Levine also serves currently as the Director of Neuroscience Research at the Honor Health Research Institute in Phoenix, AZ.

Dr John Moos, MD discusses his transition from trauma surgeon to psychedelic healer- the unifying factor being proximity to trauma. He notes the trauma he initially treated with surgery most typically occurs within a container of many other traumas- social, political and economic violence, resource scarcity, fear, addiction, intergenerational traumas, ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and others. His (to-be) wife looked at him one day and said “I wonder if it’s possible to heal it before it happens”, meaning, is there a way to pre-emptively address the container of trauma before the physical trauma results as the outward explosion of inner distress. Dr Moos was hooked. He completed personal experiences with plant medicine and trainings with the Psychedelic Research and Training Institute (PRATI), California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) for their MDMA (3,4-Methyl
enedioxy
methamphetamine) protocol and now runs MoosMD.com to offer service to people with psychedelic medicine.

In this episode, we start with a discussion about trauma. Trauma can even be created in as simple moment as a mis-attunement with a parent as a child in a critical moment and we all experience various levels of trauma throughout the lifespan. Psychedelics can be a tool (not a panacea) to understand the impact of our history on our current, daily moment. It’s the alignment and integration of your three lenses of understanding: cognition (head), somatic (heart) and embodiment (intuition).

Dr Moos recognizes that psychedelics give us a chance to step to the side of our default mode network which can also be described as a type of our identity of our consciousness. Our conversation ranges to the benefits of relationship to help us access our consciousness (this is the definition of Tantra) and these relationships can be our mind to ourselves, us to our container, or us to each other.

Then, we dive into the current research and legal perspectives about the various psychedelics- ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, LSD and other plant medicines for treatment resistant depression, anxiety, stress, PTSD and others. He reviews the importance of set and setting which recognizes that intentional and introspective work versus the external recreation of these medicines when they are used in a non-monitored ‘party’ state. As therapy, this is to dissolve ego boundaries to better understand yourself.

We also review the chemical nature and physiological impact of these medicines including the specific activities in the brain and the impacts on our neurobiology.

Is anybody damaged beyond repair? Is any person too traumatized to heal? On being asked this question, Dr Moos offers a compassionate and insightful response about the power of our neuroplasticity as well as the tremendously oppressive conditions of social, political and economic injustice and the persistent squeeze of growing pollution and climate change.

We close this show with a description about the Ketamine Assisted Therapy (KAP) process and what to look for in finding a safe and insightful session.

What I love about this show is that while we talk about ketamine and other psychedelics as a medicinal tool, this show is really about the nature of healing and reality.

Find out more about Dr Moos & his practice at https://moosmd.com/