Transcript of Episode 168: The Magic Mirror of Health
With Dr. Daniel Pompa, Meredith Dykstra and Dr. Trevor Cates
Meredith:
Hello everyone and welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m your host Meredith Dykstra, and this is Episode #168. We have our resident cellular healing specialist, Dr. Dan Pompa, on the line of course, and today we welcome special guest Dr. Trevor Cates. We have a very exciting topic for you guys today, and we’re going to be delving into the skin. Dr. Cates is an expert on the skin. Before we get into it, let me tell you a little bit more about Dr. Trevor. Dr. Trevor Cates is a nationally recognized naturopathic doctor. She’s also known as The Spa Doctor and was the first woman recognized as a naturopathic doctor in the state of California, appointed by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to California’s Bureau of Naturopathic Medicine Advisory Council.
She’s worked with world-renowned spas and sees patients in her private practice in Park City, Utah, with a focus on graceful aging and glowing skin. She has been featured on The Doctors, Extra, First for Women, mindbodygreen, and is the host of The Spa Doctor podcast. Dr. Cates believes the key to healthy skin is inner and outer nourishment with nontoxic ingredients. Her new book, Clean Skin From Within, was released in March 2017. Dr. Cates’s The Spa Doctor skin care and supplement lines are formulated with natural and organic ingredients designed to help you achieve the cleanest and natural path to confidence and beautiful skin, and more information is at thespadr.com. Welcome, Dr. Trevor Cates, to Cellular Healing TV.
Dr. Cates:
Thank you. It’s so great to be here.
Dr. Pompa:
Hello. Listen, for me it’s Trevor because we’ve wake-boarded together. We live here together in Park City, and we have such a close little group of amazing health people in Park City, Utah, right, Meredith? You see that, right? It’s like we could just interview people here from Park City, for goodness sakes. There are such amazing people here, and you are one of them, Trevor, and I’m just so glad you’re here.
I know you have a book that’s out and your product line. I want you to talk about both for sure and where people can get those, but look, I always love to start with this question. How did you get into this? I mean, I love to hear people’s why. You could have done a lot of things. Naturopathic goes one way, but you went skin. How’d you get that interest?
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, well it was kind of an interesting path, and like many people I had my own challenges, like many people that end up doing integrative naturopathic medicine, functional medicine. I struggled with my health when I was a kid and I had a lot of allergies and skin issues, so I had eczema, hives, and these little bumps, and my parents took me to see a lot of different conventional specialists and nothing really helped me. In fact, I just kept feeling worse and I would have adverse reactions or allergic reactions to a lot of the medications I was given, and it was really devastating on a physical level, but also with the skin it’s right on the surface. You can’t hide it. It impacted my self-esteem as a kid and how I showed up, and I was picked on at school and it was a really tough time. I remember that well. Luckily, my parents didn’t give up. They kept searching and they found a holistic practitioner that they took me to, and that’s the one thing that turned my health around.
From an early age of 12, I realized how there’s a different way of looking at health, of looking at treating our bodies, and also about our skin, and I learned so much about that. It’s eventually what led me to be interested in going into naturopathic medical school, because when I found out about naturopathic medicine and the training, I realized it really meshed with my core beliefs about health and wellness and how to take care of the body, and so I went that direction and I’ve been practicing for 17 years.
I wasn’t focusing on skin until about five years ago. I started working in certain world-renowned spas and I ended up seeing a lot of people with skin issues, but also I was doing a two-week program for weight loss and one of the things that people would say in addition to losing weight that their skin would clear up. They looked more youthful. Their skin had a glow to it. To me, that made sense because of my experience, but to so many people this concept that instead of suppressing and covering up skin issues, to realize that our skin is giving us messages about our health.
Dr. Pompa:
No doubt, yeah, matter of fact I always say look, there’s five areas that we all look at people and don’t even realize we do it and judge their health. It’s the eyes, the teeth, the hair, the skin, and overall shape. I mean, those five areas your subconscious literally assesses somebody and goes oh wow, you look so healthy, and it’s how good you put all those together no doubt radiates your health or quite the opposite, disease. I’ll tell you what, you’re right. I mean, skin is a reflection, and I know that’s something you talk about in your book. I mean, skin is a reflection of your health. I mean, I know. Listen, if you want to get the ladies’ attention, talk about hair and skin. They don’t like the way they look.
When I look at someone, especially as a practitioner, I immediately assess their hair and skin. I mean, whether it’s thyroid condition—we were watching a show last night and my son said something about a woman on television right now, and he said something like she doesn’t look healthy. I said yeah, she has a thyroid condition. How do you know? I said because she has these dark things under her eyes, and he’s like oh yeah, I see -inaudible-. It’s like immediately boom. It’s like one little thing I could tell no doubt she was struggling, and her hair definitely reflected that as well. Talk about that because I’ve heard you say the exact same thing.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, I do. I call skin our magic mirror that gives us great clues about our overall health. Like I said, the typical approach to dermatology is to just cover it up or suppress it, and so a lot of times women will put on makeup. They’ll just cover their blemishes. They’ll use a different moisturizer. They’ll use different things, or they go and get an over-the-counter treatment or even a prescription medication to calm down the inflammation externally to suppress the signs, but what I’m encouraging people to do is instead of covering up to use your skin as a tool. Don’t be hard on yourself about your skin.
I think that especially woman are particularly hard and they look in the mirror and they get frustrated with what they see, but in looking at skin, because it’s our largest organ and it’s right on the surface of our bodies, we can use it as a tool to give us information, what it really is about or what is the root cause behind the skin issue. If you have dry skin, eczema, psoriasis, acne, premature aging. If you feel like you’re aging fasting than people around you, these are all signs that your skin is giving you that something needs to change. There’s a genetic predisposition. There’s a genetic component to this, but as you know we can change our genetic expression by our lifestyle choices, by what we eat, by how we manage our stress, our sleep, and reducing toxins around us, those sorts of things.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, there’s no doubt. As a matter of fact, I had mentioned the dark circles and adrenal and thyroid conditions. You talk about different patterns of skin and different skin types. Talk a little bit about that because certain things, no doubt skin types, or you’re going to see presentations of certain things, and different things that we can see on our skin that would indicate certain things that were going on perhaps somewhere else in the body, like the gut or somewhere else.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, absolutely, well what I decided to do was to redefine skin types because instead of just categorizing skin as dry, oily, mature, sensitive, the typical skin types, I decided to redefine them and I created five different skin types. They all have human names because I see my patients, I see people as people, not just a skin issue or a skin disease, so they’re Amber, Olivia, Sage, Heath, and Emmett are my skin types. The other thing, in addition to looking at this more holistically, is each of these skin types I categorize them based upon some of the root causes behind them. I believe that there are six root causes behind skin issues, and I talk about all of this in my book, Clean Skin from Within. With each of the skin types, there’s a unique combination of those. This way, people can understand how to address the root causes because when I sit down with my patients one-on-one, it’s like solving a mystery, trying to figure out what are the root causes that are holding them back from having that really clear, clean, glowing skin.
When I was writing my book, I wanted to make it easy for people to figure that out on their own, and so that’s why I created the skin types. I created a skin quiz, and there’s actually an online version of this. It’s free, and it’s just ten questions. People can go to theskinquiz.com or they can just go to my website and they can find it there. It’s super quick and easy, and then they’ll find out which of the five skin types they are. Then in my book I talk about a two-week program to help people have more clear, glowing skin, and in Chapter 6 I talk about how to customize the two-week program based upon their skin type, so they know their skin type then they can make some adjustments that I talk about in Chapter 6. It’s like I figured out a way to reach more people and they don’t have to necessarily come in to see me. It’s a great way to get started.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no, that’s perfect because so many people want to start there, no doubt about it. Give your website as well because I’m sure—and can they get your book from your website or can they get it on Amazon?
Dr. Cates:
Yes. They can go to thespadr.com, and doctor is abbreviated D-R, so it’s T-H-E-S-P-A-D-R dot com. Yeah, so you can access the quiz there, you can find out where to get my book, and lots of information.
Dr. Pompa:
All right, so talk about the types. Talk about each type so people can just kind of get an idea, and then maybe as an example take one or two types and then kind of go from there.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, absolutely, so with the five different skin types, we have—Olivia is one of the skin types and—
Dr. Pompa:
That’s my daughter’s name.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah. These names are based upon some of my patients, but they’re not necessarily—
Dr. Pompa:
I’m sure they’re thrilled about it -inaudible-.
Dr. Cates:
-inaudible- Yeah, so Olivia skin types tend to have more oily skin. They can have combination, but they do tend to be prone to acne breakouts or enlarged pores, blackheads, whiteheads, those kinds of things, so that’s Olivia. Then also there’s Emmett skin types. They tend to have more inflammatory skin issues like eczema, so there’s an immune system component underlying a lot of the—with the Emmett skin types. With the Heath skin types, it’s more of an inflammatory skin condition, so rosacea for example. Some people -inaudible- perioral dermatitis. Those kinds of skin conditions would be more of the Heath. Sage is going to be more of the people that are experiencing premature aging, a lot of excess wrinkles, sagging skin, so those are our Sage skin types.
Then Amber, a lot of Amber types have hyperpigmentation or uneven skin tone, and that’s one of their struggles, so one of the big root causes with Amber types is oxidative damage. Sun exposure, also exposure to toxins in the environment can speed up that oxidative damage that’s occurring in the body, and that can show up on our skin as age spots, liver spots, hyperpigmentation, uneven skin tone, lots of freckles, those sorts of things. Those are real briefly the five different skin types. They each have their own combination of root causes, and you talk about their root causes some too. I find that there are six root causes.
I mentioned oxidative damage as one of them and inflammation being another big one. I call it skin-flammation because it’s internal inflammation that shows up on our skin. Other ones are hormonal imbalances. Those can definitely—because you mention thyroid, and a lot of times when they say hormone imbalances people automatically think sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, which certainly can play a role in our skin health. We know that during puberty or big changes in the certain points in our lives when hormones change, people can have flare-ups of acne, for example.
Also thyroid is another hormone where if we get low thyroid function we can be more prone to dry skin. That’s one of the signs as a practitioner we look for when we’re looking for hypothyroidism is dry skin. Then on the reverse side of that, if people are hyperthyroid then their skin can start to be oily, more oily or acne prone. Also cortisol, our adrenal hormone, triggers inflammation and inflammatory skin conditions, so that’s another one of the hormonal imbalances. Definitely hormone imbalances play a big role.
Nutritional deficiencies also—I’m sure you talk about this. When you look at patients as practitioners, one of the things as more functional medicine doctors look at is signs of nutritional deficiencies on the skin, right? That’s another one.
And, of course, the gut health, and the gut microbiome and the importance of our gut health is directly related to our skin health. There’s a lot of talk about the gut microbiome, the balance of the microorganisms in our digestive tract, but there’s less talk about the skin microbiome, the skin microbiota, but the skin has its own different microorganisms that live on the skin and when that gets out of balance is a big contributing factor to skin issues; acne, eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, premature aging. Most of the chronic skin issues, part of what’s going on is the imbalance in the skin microbiota, and so part of that’s related to what you’re doing with your gut and your digestion and then part of it’s also what we do topically on the skin.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, it’s funny. I had to give a talk about the skin and about the microbiome of the skin ironically enough, and I was able to find some studies linking, of course, the gut. We understand that it affects this, but the opposite even. This microbiome, as you just said, affects our gut microbiome, and it was cool. I am going from memory here, but they took mice and they changed their skin temperature so they literally were putting them from hot to cold, cold to hot, but what that did is it forced the microbiome to adapt. Here’s the cool part. They found that the mice were able to break through weight loss resistance, so what they said in the study was changing the microbiome of the skin changed the microbiome of the gut, which ultimately allowed for the mice to actually lose weight where they couldn’t. That was the whole study. It was pretty cool.
There was another one, but point being, I mean to your point this microbiome affects this. Now, we’re talking about microbiome. We’re talking about this bacteria, all types of bacteria, viruses, funguses, this whole ecosystem that lives on our skin. I think it’s one of the big criticisms I’ve always had about every school and daycare thing about taking the -inaudible- hand sanitizers and you’re just crushing the microbiome again and again and again, and I guess, you can speak to it better than I, we’re doing that with a lot of skin cleansers that people, women in particular I would say, use before bed, perhaps daily soap that they’re using, and even makeup. Talk a little bit about how we’re disrupting that microbiome and that it can be triggering those, obviously, skin problems that you were discussing.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, absolutely, and it is certainly a big thing. As I mentioned, part of it comes from internally what’s going on, but then also there’s the part of what are we putting externally on our skin? Like you mentioned, the hand sanitizers—we live in a germophobic society where we feel like anything that’s antimicrobial is good. Antibiotics are good. Antimicrobial soaps are good. We’ve got to kill those germs. When killing the germs, we’re also killing the probiotics, the good bacteria, and our skin really is delicate and that it needs these microorganisms to protect the skin, to keep it healthy, to keep it clear of breaking out, and when we are starting to break out that’s a sign that our skin microbiome is disrupted. What people a lot of times do is then they’ll start putting more products on. Well, a lot of these products contain antimicrobial agents that are designed to either keep the products from growing bacteria in them or to help treat what they think would be helpful to kill off bacteria, but that is all going to disrupt the skin microbiome.
Another big factor that I think a lot of people aren’t aware of is that the skin actually in its healthy state does best in a mildly acidic environment, so it does best with a lower pH, so neutral pH being 7 our skin does best with a pH in the 4-5 or 5.5 range. When using skincare products, they should be in the 4.5 to 5 pH range generally just to help the skin microbiome flourish and be healthy, and there’s actually been studies, too, on the aging effects of our skin and that if our skin pH is out of balance, if it’s too high, then our skin can age rapidly.
Dr. Pompa:
Oh, I know.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, so a lot of -inaudible- people are using these products on their faces that are also the pH of the products are too high. Like a bar of soap that foams up and suds up like that, that’s a sign that it has a high pH, and even water has a neutral pH of 7, which is too high for our skin, so when we rinse our face with water ideally we should be putting something on afterwards to restore it to a healthier pH, and especially for people who have skin issues, that already have inflamed skin, rosacea, acne, the premature aging, all of that, especially for those people it’s so important. Here we are, and people are doing the opposite of what they should be doing by putting on these toxic ingredients, and I mean we haven’t even touched on the idea of these hormone-disrupting chemicals and carcinogenic ingredients that are in personal care products too.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt, which disrupt the microbiome and the bacteria. You know what? Bacteria like a more acid environment just like in your gut, right? That’s an acid environment, so that’s the same with the skin, no doubt, and when you get that elevation in pH and more alkaline, just like in the gut you disrupt the microbiome. It’s funny. I mean we can go internal now and we can talk about some chemicals in this stuff too because, obviously, you developed a line without chemicals, but I have to say this from an internal perspective. One of the things I always say is if you want to age faster than anybody is elevate your glucose and insulin continually. I mean it just oxidizes the collagen.
No doubt you can tell—you can look at a smoker and know that they’re a smoker because of their skin, right; I mean severe oxidization from a chemical standpoint. No doubt you can tell your carbohydrate addicted people. You can tell people who even are skinny but with bad skin. Just because they don’t get fat this way, that doesn’t mean that they’re not elevating glucose and insulin, probably have a fatty liver, and typically destroy their collagen, so what you put in absolutely matters from that, so you can speak to that.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, and blood sugar is, I think, the one that I didn’t mention on the root causes, the six root causes. That is another one of the big root causes. As you mentioned, it’s a big aging factor because when we get too much sugar and our blood sugar’s elevated, or foods that turns into sugar and our blood sugar’s elevated, it causes glycation problems in the body where glucose will bind to proteins. In the case of skin, that’s our collagen and collagen gives our skin the texture and firmness, and so when glucose binds to it, it makes it break down and so we’ll get more wrinkles and sagging skin like what you’re talking about.
In addition, acne is the most common condition really in the world. Well, I guess it’s the 8th most prevalent disease worldwide, which is amazing that acne is that worldwide spread, but it’s definitely the #1 skin condition in the United States. With sugar, people are eating a lot of sugar and their blood sugar is increasing, and that means insulin will rise and increased insulin will trigger excess sebum production, the oils in our skin, as well as androgen activity, and so that causes people to have acne breakouts. The glycemic index of foods and balancing your blood sugar is really important. I mean, we’ve all had those acne breakouts and sometimes wonder why am I breaking out, and a lot of times it’s related to sugar. Sometimes it’s hormone imbalances, but sugar and gut health definitely play a role in that too.
Dr. Pompa:
We did an interview. Meredith, you were on the call with my daughter, and one of the things she said is what motivated her to change her diet was her acne. She took grains away, and lo and behold her acne cleared up. Of course, she went through that path to realize cause and effect. I watched my boys go through puberty, hormones, acne, but hormones don’t cause acne, right? It was like they all had to realize that it was something causing the imbalance of the hormones that was driving the acne, so they all had to realize their diet is playing a role.
My son Daniel, he talked about when he had to detox actually to get rid of his acne, so his toxic exposure, he had very high lead levels like his mother, really played a role of dysregulating his hormones and he had to go to that source to control his hormones to control his acne. Just giving our viewers and listeners the idea of we want to put the right stuff here but please, it is an internal problem. I mean, it really is, and Trevor is making that point, I think, so perfectly.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, and when we talk about hormone imbalances—I love that you’re pointing that out, because a lot of times I have women that come to see me and say, “I think my hormones are out of balance; I need hormones,” and I’ll say, “Okay, well maybe we can do some bioidentical hormones, but let’s figure out why your hormones are out of balance first.” Yes, there are changes that happen throughout our lives where our hormones will change, but there’s so much we can do with our diet and lifestyle. I’ll talk to people about their diet and their stress management, and they’re like why are you talking to me about this when it’s my hormones that are the issue? This is how you’re going to help balance your hormones. I’m not going to just give you an herb or a bioidentical hormone to make your hormones magically balance.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, people want the simple thing, Trevor. People want the simple thing, right? Here’s the other lunacy, and I’ll let you speak to this while we’re on the subject of acne. My kids did that. They got to the cause. They fixed their problem, right? However, a lot of their friends, oh they fixed their problem with Accutane, right, or Retin-A. Speak to some of those fixes, if you will, only to lead to massive problems later. Speak to that.
Dr Cates:
Right, yeah, a lot of these medications have horrible side effects. I’m not saying that medications should never be used. There is a place for medications, I think, in some cases [crosstalk] . What’s that?
Dr. Pompa:
I said there’s always a time and a place for -inaudible-.
Dr. Cates:
Yes, there is a time and a place for them. As a licensed naturopathic physician, we’re trained to be able to prescribe medications, so we know when to use them but we don’t like to use them—I don’t like to use them as a first resort. The problem is that many of these have side effects, and some of them can be debilitating if they do develop the side effects. I’ve seen it just—
Dr. Pompa:
I’ve seen it.
Dr. Cates:
– ruin people’s lives; depression from some of the acne medications and being suicidal. It’s so disturbing to see that happen. When we go back to some of these root causes, talking about gut health and addressing inflammation, and looking at these things and changing your diet and lifestyle, and there’s so much that can be addressed by doing that. If we skip over that, we’re really missing an opportunity.
It’s so great. When I see people and as I see their skin clearing up and they’re so relieved to see that and I remind them—you also mention the side benefits. Instead of side effects of getting medications if you’ve gone that route, instead you get the side benefits of having more energy, sleeping better at night, losing, getting to your ideal weight. These are the kinds of side effects that we want to have from a treatment.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, no doubt, well, Meredith, speak to some of your story because skin played a role in Meredith’s life, and matter of fact she even used some of your products.
Meredith:
Yeah, Dr. Trevor, I’ve really enjoyed a lot of your products, and it really just kind of helped me, helped to decrease some inflammation in my skin. I remember in particular I liked the oil that you had. That was really, really soothing on my skin, so can you talk about how you design those and what was the philosophy behind them?
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, absolutely, as I mentioned, I started to focus a lot on skin when I was working in certain spas. One of the things I told my patients was make sure you’re using nontoxic skincare, natural skincare products because I was aware there are so many toxins in skincare products and I wanted them to reduce that. Then they started asking me where they could get them. The reason why we want to be careful with skincare products is on average we use nine personal care products a day, which exposes us to 126 unique ingredients. I think if you start adding up the number of products you use from shampoos and conditioners to deodorants and men aftershaves, women makeup, all the different products you use, you might use more than nine. It’s a lot of ingredients we’re exposed to and, unfortunately, in the United States the FDA has not regulated personal care product ingredients very well. Where in Europe they’ve banned over a thousand ingredients in personal care products, in the United States, they’ve only banned 11 ingredients, so it’s really left up to the consumer to figure out what’s safe because manufacturers, they want to make cheap products. They want them to last a long time, and they want people to feel shiny and happy. It’s not what’s healthy, what’s best for your skin, unfortunately.
One of the things that I do is I try to educate. I’ve been educating my patients and educating with my book and everything, about why we need to reduce our toxins in skincare products. There are ingredients that are hormone-disrupting chemicals, that are carcinogenic that are in many of the personal care products you use, and I want to share a few examples because I know sometimes it’s hard to believe that this would be in our products, that these would be allowed, and I also want to remind people that skin is an organ and it’s permeable, so what you put on your skin doesn’t just stay on the surface; it actually can get absorbed, does get absorbed. That’s why people use hormone creams and hormone patches and nicotine patches on their skin because things can get absorbed.
An example is a group of chemicals that are used in so many products that are called formaldehyde releasers, and you’re not going to see formaldehyde releaser on the label. You’ll see things like DMDM hydantoin and other big long words, and what this group of chemicals has—what happens is when you apply these products to your skin, they release formaldehyde into the air around you. Formaldehyde is a known carcinogen, and it’s most toxic when inhaled, so you’re breathing in formaldehyde. It’s also getting absorbed in your skincare. You could walk down the aisles of any department store, drug store, grocery store, and pick up a handful of different products. They’re probably going to have one of these formaldehyde releasers in there, the products that people are using every day. I know that a lot of manufacturers will say well, there’s not enough in there to cause harm.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s what they always say.
Dr. Cates:
Yes, and that’s the thing. The problem is that everybody’s saying this, and we live in a very toxic world. We have more toxins in our environment that we’re exposed to than we ever have been because we’ve got all the new fancy chemicals that are being developed and then we have all the chemicals that have been banned that still continue to exist in our water and our soil and that might still be manufactured in China or other countries and they travel over in clouds and then rain down on us. We have more toxins in our environment than ever, and we don’t have control over toxins in certain places. Where we live, we can’t control the air we breathe when we walk outside, but we do have control over certain things like the personal care products we use and what we bring in our home, the foods we eat, so that’s where I tell people to start.
This is what I’ve been educating my patients on for a long time and about the importance of reducing toxin exposure and starting with things that you have control over like your personal care products. When I would tell my patients that, they would say, “Okay, but what products do you recommend?” so I started asking people that I knew, dermatologists and aestheticians, and what they told me really bothered me. They told me well, you have to choose between natural or effective because you can’t have both. I thought well, that’s ridiculous because I know of the healing powers of nature. I think people might just be missing out on something.
That’s when I started really digging into the research on not only nontoxic but what are the natural ingredients and components and formulations that make products effective at helping clear up the skin, help us age gracefully, and that’s when I started finding the research on the pH of the skin and the skin microbiome and also learning which natural actives, which natural ingredients and in what forms are most potent. I couldn’t find anybody that was doing what I wanted, so that’s why I created my own skincare line, The Spa Doctor -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s awesome. Grab your book behind you there because there’s a glare and I can’t see it. There you go. All right, there it is. I love the title, by the way.
Dr. Cates:
Clean Skin from Within, yes.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly, that’s awesome.
Dr. Cates:
I’m super excited about it, yeah. We’re getting great reviews, number one in a couple of categories on Amazon Bestsellers and other places too.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s fantastic.
Dr. Cates:
We’re very excited about it, and also in addition to my two-week program and talking about toxins and how to reduce them and natural alternatives, I also have recipes in the book so lots of delicious recipes for foods to eat as well as do-it-yourself skincare recipes, so it’s lots of fun stuff.
Dr. Pompa:
That’s awesome. I mean that’s why you’re getting good reviews. You have a lot to offer, no doubt about it. Yeah, so Meredith, I know you have more questions because this is your love. Look at her. You can just tell.
Meredith:
All these questions. We haven’t quite dug into the food component, and I’m wondering—I know you’ve mentioned there are some great foods for our skin and then some that aren’t so good, so can you kind of explain that a little bit more?
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, well I touched on one. As far as foods that aren’t good for the skin, I kind of touched on the idea of sugar or foods that turn to sugar and how those aren’t good for our skin. Sugar really is one of the biggest trigger foods for skin. If there’s only one thing that you can try to cut out or reduce to help with your skin, I would suggest at least starting there.
Another big trigger food are dairy products, and they tend to really be one of the biggest things, especially for people with acne issues but also other skin issues. For some people, it’s all dairy products, and for some people are able to identify certain types of dairy, skim milk being the worst especially for people with acne. I think that’s probably because you’re also taking out the fat that helps with blood sugar so maybe that’s part of the reason why skim milk is particularly an issue, so I would be careful. Those are two that I would be careful of just because they’re pro-inflammatory foods.
Inflammation is such a big trigger for skin issues. Especially when people are doing my two-week program, I’m trying to reduce, get rid of all of those big trigger foods and those pro-inflammatory foods and instead replace with things that are actually going to really help heal the gut and provide antioxidants and great solutions. Good foods are going to be things like avocados, which have great fats, monounsaturated fats. We need good healthy fats for our skin. Our skin cells really need those good fats and—
Dr. Pompa:
I agree.
Dr. Cates:
Trans fats, hydrogenated oils, we want to get rid of those and using things like avocados, avocado oil is a nice alternative. They also have great antioxidants in there too. People don’t need to overdo it. It’s not that more is better. An avocado a day is plenty. People don’t need to do more than that. In some people half of an avocado a day is plenty as well.
Another one of my favorite foods is wild Alaskan salmon because wild salmon has those beneficial omega-3s that are anti-inflammatory as well as containing astaxanthin. Astaxanthin is a potent antioxidant that protects the skin from the inside out from oxidative damage, and it’s one of the things that gives it that pink color. There are other nutrients in wild salmon that are also great for the skin. I’m saying, of course, wild because you’re not going to get the same benefits from farm-raised salmon, and then also with farm-raised you’re going to be getting more PCBs and other environmental contaminants.
Dr. Pompa:
You know what, here’s a couple—in my talk I found some maybe these foods would shock people, but the burnt on—let’s say you burn something, burn your hamburger on the grill, caution with grilled foods. The HCAs, as they’re called, come off of there and they’re cancer causing, but, interestingly, I found studies showing how oxidative they are to the skin and how they break down collagen, so there’s one maybe some people are surprised about. What was the other one? A lot of the gluten-free products.
Dr. Cates:
That plays into the glycation issues, -inaudible- yeah, certainly. Grilled vegetables don’t have the same effect, though. It’s grilled meats that have those problems, so if you’re going to do something on the grill maybe skewer veggies.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly, it’s the proteins where these are forming and then we’re ingesting them. Then the other one was a lot of these gluten-free products, beware. They’re higher glucose drivers than the regular products, if you will, so people reaching for gluten-free just because it’s a hot-selling point today, especially probably for a lot of our viewers and listeners, but be cautious. The potato starches and the corn starches, I mean there are so many super sugars now, as they’re known, that drive glucose and really even more than, say, regular wheat. Yeah, so just some surprises. That’s awesome.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, and gluten can definitely be one of the trigger foods for skin issues but, like you’re saying, you’re not just replacing gluten with gluten-free items. You still have to be careful because they’re still going to play into the glycemic index issues, the increase in the blood sugar and all that comes along with that, as well as just some of them are so heavily processed and there are hidden ingredients. I’ll walk into certain grocery stores and I’ll see big gluten-free section and then I’ll look at the label and just think oh my gosh, there are all these people that are buying these products thinking oh, I’m being good by shopping gluten-free and giving these to my family and not realizing how much processed ingredients are in there.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, we’re kind of hearing the same thing. Remember back in the day it was well, hey, at least it’s low-fat, right? Then they’re sitting there eating their yogurt, right? It was sugar loaded, which is actually even a bigger problem. We’re hearing the same thing now. Well, at least it’s gluten-free and there they are with their cookie or ice cream, whatever it is, and it’s the same thing. It’s just people use it like justification. At least it’s this and gosh.
Dr. Cates:
Just get back to eating more veggies. That’s the thing that everybody will—we need more vegetables. We need more antioxidants. We need more fresh food.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, people go, oh yeah, I know that, and they’d rather eat their gluten-free bagel, yeah.
Meredith:
I’m curious too, Dr. Trevor, what are your thoughts on fasting? I know Dr. Pompa used that a lot for clients who have skin challenges. Do you appropriate that at all?
Dr. Cates:
Fasting? It’s not something that I recommend for everyone, but I think it can be great for certain people and at certain times. I always am cautious with people because I see a lot of very sick people. People come see me in my practice. They’re not just sort of like hmm, maybe I should do something different; they’re usually like multiple issues including skin issues, and so I usually need to build them up before doing a fast. I do a fast once a year, so yeah; I think it can be great when you’re in the right state of health.
Dr. Pompa:
It’s funny. This particular client I had this morning, we started doing one 24-hour fast a week and it was the only time that, during the fast, she could actually close her hands. Then this was another client. Then we started her on actual partial fasting where we actually do between 500 and 1,000 calories, and we’re doing that once a month, and lo and behold that client yesterday, during the partial fast is the only time that all of her—hers is autoimmune driven, but her skin issues actually clear up, and then she starts introducing food again now they’re coming back but it’s lessening. An interesting—
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, that is interesting.
Dr. Pompa:
A fast doesn’t necessarily mean we have to go just water, although I love water fasting. Don’t get me wrong. However, there’s many different types of fasts because, as you point out, different needs for different reasons.
Dr. Cates:
Right, and certainly a 24-hour fast is very different than a 10-day fast, so a lot of people could do a 24-hour fast that wouldn’t be ready to do a week-long fast.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, every time this gal does one she can literally wake up—her hands, she’s not able to do anything, and her ankles don’t swell, but she’s getting more efficient as we go on.
Dr. Cates:
Right, I think so many people get to a point where everything that they’re eating is inflaming them and it becomes—
Dr. Pompa:
That’s most of my clients.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, they’re becoming more and more limited in what they can eat, and so I would think that fasting could be a good thing to do while you’re healing the gut and addressing some of the issues so that people aren’t reacting to everything they eat because that’s not a normal response. That’s not what we want.
Dr. Pompa:
The clients that, not just myself but my practitioners and doctors see, it’s impossible to heal their gut without fasting them. It’s just you’re never going to heal a gut by just throwing bacteria down there, and fasting, multiple types of fasting in some sort, is the way, number one, to rest, number two, to reach the microbiome, and number three, to down regulate the inflammation without the change of the genome, the epigenetics, so multiple ways we use that. The skin, give our viewers and listeners just some things that they should do. If you had to pick three things they should start doing right now, what is it? I mean boom, boom, boom because people, you know this Trevor, if it’s not simple enough they’ll walk away and say this was great information and they’ll do nothing.
I’ll start with one. Get your book because that’s an action step that puts it in your face every day, and then you have somewhere where you can go and inquire more information. Get her book. There’s my one. Now, go ahead. You give them three action steps for better skin.
Dr. Cates:
Yeah, and the book I’ve put years of research and practice experience into that, so I share everything that I have my patients start with so there’s so much great information there plus the recipes, so definitely it’s very much a—I explain why and how and what they need to be doing, so it’s certainly a great place to start.
Then as far as skincare products, start looking at the ingredients in your skincare products. I have a list of 20 ingredients in my book of the worst ingredients you definitely want to avoid and why, so start looking at those, at your skincare products, and figure out how you can start transitioning at least the ones you use every day to something more natural and nontoxic. Then also looking at things like the pH because just because it’s nontoxic doesn’t mean that it’s going to be good for your skin, which is a big thing that I think a lot of people are learning. I didn’t even know that as a naturopathic doctor. It’s something that—yeah, so I would say that.
We’ve talked about blood sugar and how important that is. I would say that’s one to really think about. What are you eating? How is it impacting your blood sugar? How can you maintain a healthier blood sugar throughout the day? It’s not just eating one thing, but it’s on a day-to-day basis and an ongoing basis what is your blood sugar doing. Go and get your blood sugar tested, your fasting blood sugar, your hemoglobin A1c. See where you are because you should be in an ideal range with your fasting blood sugar, not just a normal range, so like an 80-85 would be the upper end of a healthy number for fasting blood sugar. I would say that, look at blood sugar. Also, do things to help support your gut, if it’s just eating more fiber in your diet.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, fiber, feed the bacteria out. It’s actually the best way to do it. Well, listen, I want to thank you for coming on. I know that we’re going to get a lot of viewers—every time it’s skin, skin and hair. By the way, ladies, hair—it’s really the same as the skin. I mean it’s an extension so what you do in here for your skin is ultimately going to affect your hair too, so—
Dr. Cates:
Another side benefit.
Dr. Pompa:
Exactly. Go ahead, Meredith, take over. Thanks, Trevor.
Meredith:
Thanks, Dr. Pompa. Thank you so much, Dr. Trevor, for joining the show. Amazing information and everyone thanks for tuning in. Have a great weekend and we’ll catch you next time. Bye-bye.
