Transcript of Episode 83: Fertility Problems and Healthy Pregnancies
With Dr. Daniel Pompa
Meredith:
All right. Happy Friday. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV, Episode 83. How are you, Dr. Pompa?
Dr. Pompa:
I’m doing well, thank you.
Meredith:
Great! Awesome! We have a really, really huge topic for you guys today. We were just talking, this might have to be a two-part show because there is just a lot of information here. We will be talking about fertility challenges, hormone dysregulation, how to have a healthy pregnancy, and just a lot of the factors that are involved with reproductive health. Huge topic, and I know, Dr. Pompa, you’re really excited to talk about it because it’s something that affects so many couples today. It’s huge, and it’s really exciting. I guess we’re just going to jump in. Anything you want to start with before we jump in?
Dr. Pompa:
We had a past show. Leigh was on our show, and she was one of my clients. Of course, she was not able to get pregnant. During working with her for other reasons – we weren’t working with her to actually get pregnant – but she got pregnant. That’s what happens when you fix the cell. I’ve had that happen many, many, many times. I know some of my clients watch this show, and they’re probably raising their hand going, “Yes, that was me!” I can think of at least five right now that happened literally within the last year.
In not one I actually targeted for infertility, but all of a sudden, after years of not being able to get pregnant, they get pregnant. Sometimes it’s met with great joy. Sometimes it’s like, “Oh, my gosh. I wanted to finish detoxing.” I know that if they’re watching, they would relate to that. Yeah. It brings, then, to the topic, obviously is, yeah, there’s a solution. There’s some things that we do that are just part of healing the body that obviously have an amazing impact on infertility. We’ll talk about that.
Meredith:
Awesome. Awesome. Let’s backtrack a little bit and just talk about the reason why so many couples are suffering with infertility issues and hormone dysregulation. A lot of issues out there with hormones and couples just not being able to conceive naturally. Can you talk about some of these underlying causes and the reasons behind it?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. I think you’ll pull some out for me to talk about. Let me just talk very generally right now in the sense that hormone dysregulation is the epidemic within the epidemic. I always say that, “Weight loss resistance is more about hormones than it is even the food we eat.” We talk so much about hormone problems. Hormones are really how things communicate gland to gland, cell to cell. Hormones do all the communication. It’s remarkable what these hormones do and how they communicate to our cells, and they’ll carry these messages.
Right now, we are just under hormonal attack because of the – again, it’s not just one thing. If you look at last week’s show on anti-aging, we talked about these big things that are aging us prematurely. You could say, “These are the things that are causing hormone dysregulation, elevated glucose and insulin, driving cellular inflammation, of course toxins, bad fats.” When we look at all of our topics, this is what’s driving cellular inflammation. These are where the hormone receptors are, and therefore, we have hormone dysregulation because of the receptor to the hormone.
I think one of the big mistakes right now is that everyone’s just throwing more hormones at it and trying to give more hormones, give more hormones. There seems to be a little balance in the beginning, and of course, then you’re down the stream, and trying to balance things, and things are getting more out of balance. You’re never going to win that game. The analogy we love to give is like shouting at our kids. At first, oh, my gosh. They’re fearful; they’re listening. Then they start not hearing you at all. That’s what happening to our cells with the bombardment of trying to do different hormones.
It really is a cellular issue. I can even be more specific. Your pituitary hypothalamus in the center of the brain is what runs your whole endocrine system. Oftentimes, we see people getting pregnant when we start addressing that system with upstream detox. We’ve talked about how true cellular detox is getting up to the cell, and then there’s three phases, a prep phase, a body phase, then a brain phase.
If we look at the studies on where toxins really accumulate, especially heavy metals, it’s in the pituitary hypothalamus. Remember the hormones that we need for pregnancy like luteinizing hormone, LH, FSH. These are the hormones that really are communicated from this pituitary hypothalamus in really directing the hormones down below. Then that affects progesterone and estrogen. If these systems here, these glands, are not functioning because they’re highly toxic, according to studies, then nothing below is going to work. It’s the control tower. That’s just one of the problems.
Then, of course, we have certain toxins that attach to the cell that drive autoimmune, and much of infertility is autoimmune related where we’re attacking certain things. Matter of fact, women’s immune system can even attack the sperm in many of these cases because of autoimmune and even allergies to mercury. I’ll say this about a fact here beings we’re talking a little bit about toxins and mercury, which this is a big, big topic.
When we look at infertility, it’s known that 1/3 of men with infertility have high mercury levels. If we look at women, it’s 1/4 of all women with infertility have high mercury levels. It’s because there’s so many ways that mercury can affect fertility. The hypothalamus pituitary is where studies show that most of it accumulates. That’s why we have to get to the brain in true cellular detox.
Also, I had said that many women have allergies – make allergies to it, and they’re finding that – where is the mercury? We’re finding that men that have elevated mercury, we find it in the sperm, in the ejaculate and particularly the sperm. That, number one, is a problem for the sperm. Number two, the women’s autoimmune system can attack it, and number three, we know that it affects certain minerals that are needed even for the sperm to swim, which is called motility. It affects selenium; it affects manganese; it affects zinc, which really, are all about healthy sperm. Mercury affects those. Other metals like lead is, too, affects those directly.
Bam! How prevalent is this? There it is. There’s kind of an overview, and there’s so much more.
Meredith:
Yeah, huge. I think so many people, when they’re dealing with infertility issues, don’t think about heavy metals as being an underlying source of – being an issue to impact their fertility. I know that heavy metals, you said in the past, really affect the thyroid gland, as well, which is also intimately connected with fertility. Can you talk a little bit about that specific connection?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. They thyroid, we call it the canary in the coal mine because it’s so sensitive to toxins. Matter of fact, I would say it’s the first gland/organ/system if you will that we see affected, where we see people getting cold all the time. Their hair starts falling out. Their energy drops. They can’t lose weight the same or keep weight off and temperature dysregulation. We know that toxins are really the factor.
I give five toxins that really affect the thyroid and therefore affect infertility. Let’s see if I can get them. Bromine, chlorine – bromine, by the way is – they put it in things like energy drinks and Gatorade. You wouldn’t believe where you’re getting bromine, but the number one way is flame retardants that are in new computers, furniture. They use it in everything. Brominated hot tubs and pools – bromine’s everywhere.
Then we deal with chlorine and fluoride. All of these things that we’re exposed to so much today, they literally compete with the same receptors as iodine. Iodine is – we need it to make thyroid hormones. There’s a major link with those chemicals. We know that that’s been in the literature a long time. Of course, we talked about heavy metals. Heavy metals attach even to the thyroid receptor because there’s a selenium receptor, these thyroid receptors. That means that selenium is needed to make these hormones connect. It’s part of that process.
There’s a charge thing, whereas heavy metals and selenium, one’s negative; one’s positive. They attract one another, so selenium attracts mercury. Guess what? Mercury ends up on the receptor, and then that drives an autoimmune, Hashimoto’s, etcetera. That’s an issue for those chemicals.
Let’s see, I named three or four already. Come on, Meredith, help me out. Let’s see. What other thyroid – I have these top five here, but – oh! Pesticides, thank you. Pesticides are the link. Matter of fact, one of the studies there is that women who work – live with men who work around pesticides have a 70% increase in thyroid conditions. That’s a huge number. We know that pesticides is a very strong link.
Certain toxins obviously play a major role into the thyroid, and it is very sensitive. The blood flow into the thyroid is so great. That’s probably another reason why it’s so bombarded by toxins. The receptors, like I said, have an attraction to it. Toxins in the thyroid, big connection.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm. How about the adrenal glands, as well? Is there a connection there with adrenal dysfunction and fertility issues?
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. When you look at how the adrenals produce cortisol – cortisol disruption really affects our anxiety. It affects how we sleep at night. It affects our energy levels during the day. If cortisol’s elevated, you actually start to store fat. If cortisol’s low, we have a loss of energy. Cortisol plays into, really, the whole hormone cascade because it is a stress adaptation hormone. We know that if you over-stress the body any way, even increase in physical activity, it affects cortisol. Therefore, we know that women that exercise too much or get under a lot of stress can actually lose their period.
I don’t have to get into the nuances. If you lose your period, you’re not going to have babies. You can see there’s a very strong connection with women who exercise too much. That’s basically just a lot of stress that you’re not adapting to. Any stress, physical, chemical, we’ve been talking about emotional affects cortisol, the adrenals, the adaptation, and therefore, infertility.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that’s huge, too, just kind of in the natural health world, as well, with the focus on eating very well and exercising a lot. It’s like anything. It can be taken to the extreme. For some women, if you are exercising too much and not eating enough or your body weight gets too low, your body fat gets too low, that’s clearly going to affect your fertility, but there’s also a lot of other issues that are caused as well when you’re not having your period and your hormones aren’t functioning properly. I think that’s an issue in the community that isn’t always talked about a lot, but definitely, it needs to be addressed because it’s really important to have that monthly cycle and to maintain proper hormone balance for the rest of your body to function well.
Some people look really good, and I think that that’s a challenge for some women. They look at other women and women on magazines who are just super, super lean and think that they have that perfect body. Oftentimes, maybe they aren’t getting their period. Their hormones aren’t balanced properly. It’s really not always what it appears to be sometimes.
Dr. Pompa:
Let me just piggyback on that subject as another cause and a factor that people don’t think about. When the low fat craze was in – I think it’s still in. You turn on any channel, they’re still talking about low-fat, low-calorie menus. Guess what? Low-fat and low-calorie both can cause infertility. Fat is at the top of the hormone chain. The most important of all is cholesterol. Gosh, cholesterol, that’s the demon. Cholesterol turns into progesterones. If you understand how that works, progesterones, then, can go down into adrenal hormones. It can go over into anabolic hormones like testosterone, DHEA. All really important for libido and infertility. Then, of course, it can go into estrogens.
At the top of the hormone chain is, in fact, cholesterol. Women on low-fat diets are notorious to end up in infertility just because they’re not making enough hormone. There’s many other links because cholesterol also stabilizes the cell membrane, which is where the hormone receptors are. We need cholesterol. We need them for these hormones that we need to be fertile, and we need to help libido, and feel good, and anabolic, and heal, which helps us recover. The list goes on, but fat plays a big role.
Low-calorie – when women just stop. They keep pushing food away and try to restrict, restrict, restrict, again, they end up not having their periods. They end up really dysregulating a lot of their hormones, so low-calorie diets, another really bad idea if you’re trying to get pregnant or forget it. If you’re just trying to have normal hormonal function, bad idea.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Huge. Kind of piggybacking on the food component, as well, can you talk about digestive issues, and the gut, and how that can kind of be connected with fertility or infertility?
Dr. Pompa:
Obviously, we talk about the gut as driving autoimmune. Autoimmune can affect infertility in so many ways. Like I said, even just attacking the sperm, even just attacking the egg, the follicle. There’s so many things that can happen with autoimmune driving infertility. Again, people say, “I was tested for autoimmune.” Listen, autoimmune, the testing is in the stone ages. So many people are autoimmune, meaning their body’s attacking, driving inflammation, and there’s no test. It takes you years being in that state before you can actually even test for it. You could be autoimmune and not know it. So many people are.
Read my article, The Autoimmune Answer. Put it in the Article Search, Autoimmune Answer, and you’ll come up with it. You should read it. I was going down another road. Oh, the gut. The microbiome, this is more of a new idea of something that affects infertility. We have this whole array of all these bacteria, good and bad, that make up our microbiome. What we’ve learned is that these bacteria, which outnumber our cells 10 to 1, we realize that humans were human because of these bacteria. These bacteria actually share information with our cells.
Matter of fact, we don’t make certain cells without the communication of these bacteria to our cells. I talked in the past about autoimmune, how without certain bacteria, we don’t make certain immune cells that tell our immune system to back off, and that’s the connection to autoimmune. We don’t make certain brain chemicals in certain things without having certain bacteria, or when they get in too low a number, now, we’re not making those neurotransmitters, those certain hormones. We cannot be hormonally normal if we don’t have a normal microbiome. Again, it’s not about, folks, just going out – it’s not so simple as just taking a probiotic.
Matter of fact, I would argue most patients today take fish oil, vitamin D, and a probiotic. I’m telling you, every client that comes to me, I would say at least half of them are on those three. Those three just happen to be the three that can actually make you more unhealthy. Fish oil puts you in omega-3 dominance. Most of it’s rancid anyway, but let’s say you’re lucky enough to get a good one. If you’ve been on it for any length of time, it can actually make you more omega-3 dominant, which actually destabilizes the cell membrane, affects your hormones, etcetera. Not a fan of unbalanced fats.
I love fish oil when it’s in fish. Great. We can utilize it if we’re balancing it with other fats, but most people are staying away from cholesterol and saturated fat, which actually help balance it. That’s why it’s in fish. That’s why it’s in grass-fed animals. It’s meant to be there with those fish oils.
Then we have vitamin D, which most people take vitamin D without other fat-soluble vitamins – we talked about this on past shows – without vitamin K, vitamin E, and vitamin A. What happens is you throw yourself way out of balance with that, and that leads to even cancer, and hip fractures, and all these things. Before, we thought it was the vitamin D, and people were vitamin D overdosing. No, no, no. It has nothing to do with that. It’s that vitamin D blocks the same receptors as the other fat-solubles because you’re taking too much. You have to have a balance, folks.
Then probiotics, same thing. Everyone’s taking the same probiotic. I say, “How long have you been on that?” “Oh, at least a year.” “Ah! You’re throwing yourself out of -inaudible- balance.” I like to rotate these bacterias so you’re not throwing yourself out of balance. Gosh, years ago, I read studies on why rotating bacterias, not staying on one, works better than the type and the amount. Everyone worries about they’re taking this slick, new probiotic. No, no. Rotate is the best. It’s not the answer.
We need our microbiome well. We need to be eating foods that feed our good microbiome, good, fibrous foods. Obviously, vegetables do that and other fibrous foods. Also, fermented foods, cultured foods, which, since refrigeration, we really don’t eat these foods anymore. Folks, we need some of these fermented, cultured foods in our diet that have been there for thousands of years, and now aren’t.
Of course, we talked about SueroGold fast in the past. Four days of SueroGold, whey water, it’s called. Whey water fasting, it brings in all types of unique bacteria. We talked about broth fasts and stock fasts, starving down all bacteria, then reinoculating, using some of our strategies. Yeah. A microbiome equals good hormonal health. That’s the bottom line, and may people are infertile because of dysbiosis or an alteration in their microbiome. New studies on that, lot of new information on that, but one more thing to consider if fertility’s a problem.
Meredith:
I guess you like to incorporate fasting when fertility is an issue.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. It’s one of the things that I do with these clients because we do so much intermittent fasts. Maybe it’s one of the things that’s leading to this – so many people that end up getting pregnant when they become a client. Yeah. I think it’s a combination of everything, but I guarantee you that’s part of it.
Meredith:
Mm-hmm. Awesome. All right. We’ve talked a lot about these different issues that impact fertility. We talked about blood sugar imbalance, and toxicity issues, immune challenges, thyroid and adrenal dysfunction, gut issues. Now how about some other conditions that can impact fertility like PCOS? It’s something that is very common and a lot of women are struggling with today. Could you talk about how that’s connected to infertility? -inaudible- is it. Maybe everybody doesn’t know what it is.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. That’s right. Polycystic ovarian syndrome, basically what it is is this: You get a hormone dysregulation, if you will, and women start producing too much – I don’t want to just say testosterone, but oftentimes, it’s more toxic types of testosterone. There’s something called the 5-alpha reductase that when it’s elevated, this particular enzyme, men start making toxic testosterone, DHT. We’ve heard of these things.
What happens is they could start losing their hair and even develop prostate cancer. We know this connection with these toxic testosterones causes hair loss, prostate problems in men, but in women, it causes PCOS. Oftentimes, they start getting hair on their face. They get massive disruption in their cycles, and it’s problematic, obviously, even in its link to infertility.
We like to do, Meredith, a 24-hour urine hormone collection where we collect the urine for 24 hours. That gives us a whole visual – I don’t know. I probably have one that I could grab to show you. If I get a second, I’ll grab one just to kind of show. It gives you a whole visual of the hormone cascade. Very accurate, very reproducible, and it really is the best reflection of someone’s whole hormonal status.
Saliva hormones can be good when we want to target what’s going on in that day or the cycle. Saliva hormone can be good. Blood hormone has a role, as well. I think when you kind of look at all of it, sometimes you can get the best picture. All in all, the 24-hour hormone test is the best. We like to use Genova Labs on that. I’m teaching more about this test and how it relates to a new product that we’re launching with Systemic Formulas. We’ll be having that product in a few weeks. It’s really inaudible- into a lot of the problems that we see in so many women, test after test after test. We really targeted this particular formula, so please don’t call for the formula yet because it won’t be there for at least three weeks. Meredith will know when it’s there. We’ll have to make a –
Meredith:
I will. I’ll keep you posted.
Dr. Pompa:
We’ll have to do a quick video. There’s forcing the hormones with a hormone, and sometimes that’s necessary. Sometimes a bioidentical hormone is used as a crutch, but what we call phytotherapy, our relationship with plants, has been a very amazing relationship for thousands of years. It is a really amazing relationship. We’ve lost a lot of the relationship with a lot of different types of plants and herbs that really produce something called phytoestrogens or phytochemicals.
Phytoestrogens, it’s not estrogen, folks. Certain chemicals in plants that are natural that we used to get a lot in our diet, they attach to the receptors, to, for example, estrogen or progesterone. What happens is that the body feels like it’s getting its message so it creates a reaction into the DNA, and we’re not having to get a lot of hormone. We’re able to produce less hormone because we have these phytoestrogens communicating to our DNA, and it makes the body really happy.
I don’t even think we completely understand how this unique connection comes, but I know this: We’ve lost a lot of this, these phytochemicals in our diet. The relationship with plants has really been affected, especially in the last 100 years, and therefore, it’s affecting our hormones. I think one of these best ways to balance hormones is using phytotherapy, but it just takes more time. Women don’t take it and go, “Oh! I feel better.” No. You have to be very patient with it because it’s more of a natural approach. The best part is you don’t get pushed in one direction. You’re relying on the body’s innate intelligence to really set up this balance. It’s a really neat subject, and I’m going to be teaching on it. It really plays into infertility, as well.
You have to understand what happens in a woman’s cycle. Before ovulation, estrogen is rising up, and it’s building. It’s building tissues, and that’s what estrogen does really well. It’s very anabolic, and it builds up your tissues because obviously, before you release your follicles, what’s happening is that you just came off of your period. You’re rebuilding the tissue. Right after ovulation, the progesterone is released because of the follicles exploding and releasing more progesterone. Then estrogen starts to fall, and then progesterone starts to rise. That leads to the tear-down phase, which is the period.
You can see how delicate this is. Of course, LH and FSH are played in here, as well right around that ovulation point. We talked about the pituitary controlling those hormones, FSH, LH, and the hypothalamus, and then we talked about estrogen and progesterone, how the fats play in there, how toxins play onto the cell receptor. My god, there’s so much room to cause this disbalance. Phytotherapy can bring some sense to the estrogen/progesterone balance without having to try to force the hormones in one direction. That’s probably another topic. Like you said, that’s a whole other topic.
I think that with the whole – soy, there’s some bad estrogens in nonfermented soy that can really do some damage, but we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Phytotherapy is actually very, very useful, and I believe, a missing, natural connection in the food supply today.
Meredith:
Very interesting. We hear a lot about xenoestrogens, which are the artificial estrogens that are just surrounded by – in our environment, they’re everywhere. The phytoestrogens, very different from -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
inaudible- As phytoestrogens go up, xenoestrogens’ effect on the cell go down. Xenoestrogens, where are we getting these things? Pesticides, organo-phosphates. Pesticides are ubiquitous in our food supply. We know that has a dramatic effect. They are xenoestrogens. These guys, they’re very strong. They drive estrogen, these chemicals. Unlike the plant estrogens, if you will, these guys are very, very strong. They drive hormones in the wrong direction, and here’s the problem, too. We’re also getting it from our water supply because people are taking so many hormones. We’re driving up hormones negatively even from our water supply. This is all new, too.
There’s many other things that – PCB, all the plastics, all the pipes. They’re putting in plastic pipes in the homes that carry water. That’s why it’s very important to have water filtration. These things, the PCBs, the PVCs, all these plastic chemicals are also xenoestrogens. Look at what we’re exposed to, and you think, “Oh, my gosh! We don’t have a chance.” Yeah, we have to avoid these, but I think increasing your natural phytochemicals is the – helps you balance and protect yourself against a lot of these xenoestrogens that we’re all exposed to in much larger amounts than ever before. Chemical estrogens and plant estrogens, this is a massive problem and a big, huge cause of infertility.
Some people think it’s the biggest. The exposure of these xenochemicals that are driving things. By the way, it’s the number one reason why we think children are going through – maturing too early, boys and girls. Girls are getting their period at 12.
Meredith:
Younger – eight, nine years old.
Dr. Pompa:
I know, right. Exactly. I’m talking averages, but yeah. Never before in history have we seen that. My boys are going to kill me for saying this right now. One of the things that they absolutely despise their mother and father for is because my boys didn’t mature until 16, literally. Sixteen years old, my boys were still going like, “What’s going on? Where’s my tea?”
I just had that conversation, taking my about-to-be-sixteen-year-old to school. It’s like, “It’s probably going to be another year based on your older brother.” Daniel’s 17, and this summer was the first summer that Daniel matured, put on muscle. It’s like my kids were late bloomers. Why? That’s normal. That’s the way it’s supposed to happen. Kids are not supposed to go through that. My kids were competing against these boys that had muscles, and chest hair, and armpit hair, and they didn’t. Imagine that.
Women, obviously these xenoestrogens are the big link to early maturation. Of course, what about all the diary products, the meat, all the hormones? Xenoestrogens, massive amounts coming through conventional meat and dairy. Grass-fed meat, yes. Grass-fed cows, yes. Conventional xenoestrogens, it is causing infertility and massive problems that go along with hormone dysregulation.
Meredith:
Yeah. We’re just surrounded by all these xenoestrogens, all these hormones on a daily basis. Then we take more, too. We can talk about the model, too, of the replacement model of taking more hormones, too. If your hormones get measured, they’re low, just to take more hormones versus focusing on the underlying cause. It is crazy how not only are we so surrounded by hormones, but then we’re taking more hormones.
Dr. Pompa:
Here’s the thing. PMS or perimenopause, symptoms in menopause, perimenopause, we used to – we know that most women today have this massive fall in estrogen, which is a big problem. Many people say, “No, this is not just of a lack of estrogen, but it is actually estrogen dominance that’s driving this.” We know now that we can actually have estrogen dominance with low estrogen. I know that sounds like I just made a complete opposite statement, but it’s these xenoestrogens that are causing the estrogen dominant symptoms, but our actual estrogen levels are actually really low, good estrogens. We’re in, actually, estrogen dominance with low estrogen.
Once again, phytotherapy is a great answer to this because it blocks the estrogens. The body can function with much lower estrogen when you have the phytochemicals, the phytoestrogens from the plants and the herbs. Blocking the bad guys, making the cell feel happier with less amount means you don’t go through this massive drop in estrogen and then go, “My god! I feel like I don’t even want to live. I have no desire to live.”
This product that we’ve been working on for the last six months really is out of a lot of this research, so what’s going on with women in perimenopause, in menopause? Why is it this horrible thing? In most countries, it’s this amazing time of a woman’s life. They become stronger. They become wiser. It’s such a good thing for them physically. It prevents cancer. Here in the United States, menopause is the dreaded 50s or early 50s, late 40s.
Meredith:
-inaudible- on it. It’s not just the challenges of menopause, so culturally, yeah. That’s how we look at it.
Dr. Pompa:
It doesn’t have to be. Go back and watch all of our previous shows. The five strategies, my gosh. When you say, “Read those articles,” if you’re looking for just kind of generally what to do, the five strategies has true cellular detox, which I’ve been telling everyone to read that article, True Cellular Detox. It has the intermittent fasting. It has the glucose control. There’s five articles there and videos that is a great starting point for you.
Meredith:
Are there cases where you would suggest synthetic hormones, bio-identical hormones? Are there situations where that would be the right thing to do?
Dr. Pompa:
I think bio-identical hormone is the way to go. I think you’re going to run into less trouble than synthetics, I believe. Yeah, there is. Sometimes a hormone level can get so low that you need a crutch, but again, I think that – and it can be dangerous. Estriol, when we look at that 24-hour test, I find estriol too low in many people. It’s the most protective estrogen, where estridiol is the potentially more toxic, but estridiol’s good. We need it because it’s the one that drives the libido. It’s the one that drives even feeling well, but it can be the more toxic of the estrogens.
Yeah. We sometimes see estriol very, very low, which low iodine levels also play into estriol. I like to go at it with iodine and some of the phytotherapy first, and if it’s still not coming up, then there might be a good reason to use estriol. Women can go, “Oh, my gosh! I feel so much better!” Even vaginal dryness can go away. Yeah. Sometimes you have to go in with a crutch, but we want to be upstream dealing with the problem if we’re using crutches, knowing that this is not an answer.
Doctors today, even alternative, make this the answer. No, no, no. You’re never going to win the battle there. You have to be upstream, detoxing the brain, getting the toxins out of the hypothalamus, pituitary, bring balance to the thyroid, the adrenals, downregulating cellular inflammation, detoxing the cell. That is the answer.
I know it’s not easy. I know you may have to hire a coach to do it because – but my gosh, we hire coaches to improve our golf game, for goodness sakes, and yoga instructors, who knows. This is important stuff. It’s the real deal. We’re not talking about the 10-day cleanse here at your health food store. True cellular detox is the real deal, getting the toxins out of these endocrine tissues, off the cell, downregulating the cellular inflammation. Ultimately, detox is a cellular issue and the answer.
Meredith:
Huge, yeah. Then that kind of brings us, too, to the second part. We’ve talked a lot about why so many people are struggling with infertility, the root causes of hormone dysregulation. Now we can kind of talk about some solutions. Do you just want to share your over-arching approach to fixing infertility -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
-inaudible- slide back here. We’ll get to that. Let’s see. I’m going to slide back and see if I can grab a quick test here. Maybe not. Dr. Pompa, disappear. Entertain them, Meredith, while I’m gone here.
Meredith:
Do a little dance? Sing a little song?
Dr. Pompa:
That would be fun and exciting. Let’s see here. I’ve got zillions of these things, but I can’t – ah! Okay, here’s one. Uh-huh. All right. I’ve got some gifts. I went away, but I come back. First of all, a heavy metal test would be very advisable. That’s a heavy metal test, where we –
Meredith:
-inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
There’s no perfect heavy metal test, but when you do a challenge the right way, which we train our doctors to do, this would be a really smart place to start considering – and I didn’t even talk about lead and other metals. Cesium is big infertility metal, and we’re seeing that elevated on so many people. Oh, yeah. There you go. My daughter actually has elevated cesium.
Meredith:
I remember when I did the test, I did, too.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. We’re seeing that – [Fukushima -inaudible-] is the big culprit there, we believe, scientists believe, so it was [0:38:38] that. We see that more on people that live in the west side of the country, for sure. We’re not sure what happened to you, Meredith. It might have been a lot of that – some fish-eating of yours, but –
Meredith:
-inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
I talked about mercury, right, and the strong connection. Infertility in dental offices is – it’s massive. I should have looked up the statistic on that before the show. I don’t want to misquote it, but it’s really a big problem. I believe that dental assistants and women that work in dental offices have the highest out of any occupation of infertility. That shows you the mercury connection. I said that 1/4 of all women with infertility have elevated mercury. I said 1/3 men, so really a smart place to start.
This is the 24-hour hormone test. All those arrows, that’s the whole hormone cascade. Up here, if it were labeled, would be cholesterol, and then it goes into your progesterones, and then this is your adrenal function here, your cortisol levels, and then this comes over here. I can’t show the name. I’m not. Okay, good. This comes over here to the anabolic side of things, all your anabolic hormones, your testosterones, and there’s your DHEA. All play major roles in infertility. Down here’s your estrogens if you can see right here.
If the screen is shaking, it’s because that pesky little dog is back. She always does this when I have this here. She rubs against it, and the thing shakes.
I want to just point out one thing. I know I haven’t completely answered your question yet, but I’m working on it. This test measures phase I and phase II estrogen metabolism. What that means is how your body gets rid of toxic estrogens. It does it in two phases. We look at when this phase – oh, this dog! I’m going to have to give her a boot here in a minute. In phase I, we look at this 2-hydroxyestrone versus the 16-hydroxyestrone, and when that’s out of balance, it puts women at a great risk for breast cancer and men at risk for prostate cancer. Very, very important. It also drives infertility.
Phase II is methylation, which we’ve talked a lot about. When that is down into the red, that’s a big problem, and it leads it to many, many hormonal issues, imbalances, increases in cancer, etcetera. Very important when we look at not just estrogen, but its metabolites, meaning these things that are very toxic that our body has to get rid of. This test shows that.
I think those two tests are very important just right off that bat. Reading those five articles, the five strategies to the best health ever, are really important. Where would they plug in to read those five articles?
Meredith:
DrPompa.com – D-R-P-O-M-P-A.com, and on the homepage there, you can click on the Articles link, and that will lead you to the entire article archive. You can see all of the articles and read those top five strategies because as Dr. Pompa said, they really, really play into this topic as well as so many of the topics that we talk about because they are just such foundational approaches to getting your health back on track.
Dr. Pompa:
We touched on, I think, almost all of those, even exercise, which is one of those articles, The Right Exercise for Weight Loss. I think the importance here is doing the proper exercise, but not overdoing it. A lot of people that do a lot of endurance exercise, Meredith, they’re the ones really at risk. You see the women, the aerobics instructors, they’re the ones at really great risk. The long-distance runner women, they really are at greater risk of losing their period, infertility, and all that.
I think we brushed on all five of those strategies, but for more detail, read them. We brushed on detox. Strategy 5 is True Cellular Detox. That’s the article, which I think you should read anyway. In general, eating all organic, you have to get away from the pesticides. They’re major culprits of xenoestrogens. I think whole-house water filtration is very important, getting rid of a lot of these plasticisers that are xenoestrogens. Obviously, protecting yourself from the water supply, which is not filtered out when they process the water, -inaudible- county you’re in.
You’re getting a lot of bad hormones from the water you drink, the plastics from the water you drink, the chlorine, the bromides, all these things, the chemicals that we said are causative. Please, even if you just got an RO unit, reverse osmosis, at your point of service, that’s huge. I recommend a whole-house filtration unit. Dime Water is the one that I got mine from, and I think that they do a great job. Yeah. I believe filter your water, eat all organic, please, grass-fed meat, free-range chicken.
I just took away these massive exposures to xenoestrogens just by doing those things. Yeah, absolutely. Eating, obviously, more plants, and herbs, and different things in your diet is going to be helpful because we need those phytochemicals.
Meredith:
Lots of good quality fat, as well, which is so important in controlling blood sugar, which is connected to insulin resistance and connected to all these hormone issues, as well. -inaudible- so important to control your blood sugar, which is Strategy number 1.
Dr. Pompa:
We gave them the answer. That’s the answer. None if it’s easy. Fermented products have a lot of these good phytochemicals and the phytoestrogens. Even fermented soy is good. The fermented soy is much better. Be careful with soy because the problem is is most of it’s GMO just like corn. If you get a good, fermented, organic soy, no problem. Again, these types of plants, hops – how much of us are eating these types of herbs and plants on a daily basis? We don’t do it as much, so a little support there, I think, is really useful.
That’s why I love this product because it’s not forcing the hormones in one direction. I think females just wanting to be healthy, taking a little bit of this product is just really bringing back to what we used to have, and that was a better relationship with plants. We’re remiss of that today. I think that’s keeping it simple. There you go. That’s the answer.
Meredith:
Speaking of herbs, too, how about some supplements? Do you have specific supplements you recommend along with changing the diet? True cellular detox is obviously a massive component, fasting like we talked about. Do you have some particular supplements you recommend that would be really supportive of -inaudible-.
Dr. Pompa:
Obviously, waiting for the new one to come out. The core cellulars – when we look at these – like I said, my clients are getting pregnant, we’re not trying. They’re always on some of the core cellulars at different points in the program. The core cellulars – why? This is a cellular issue, folks. This is a cellular issue. Absolutely the core cellulars just to broad blanket it. There you.
Meredith:
Yeah. I was thinking of one of the products, too. I know you use DIM -inaudible-, which helps remove excess estrogen from the body. That kind of came to mind, too. It might be supportive.
Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Absolutely. When this particular ratio is off, this 2:16 ratio, which so many people, it is, then we actually use DIM as one of the things to help move it in the right direction. Cruciferous vegetables is really where DIM comes from. Again, it’s that relationship with plants that helps the estrogen so much. Absolutely. If we juiced a lot of green juices and things, that would be helpful, too. DIM is definitely one, and we sell DIM. D-I-M, if you’re wondering what we’re talking about.
Iodine – we talked a little bit about iodine. TMI is the one that we use, and it has the balance of iodide and iodine, which they work differently in different receptors. Yeah. No. Iodine plays a big role in hormones. So does selenium, which is in MORS, active selenium. Yeah, absolutely. To add to the core, absolutely, iodine, potentially DIM, so there you go.
Meredith:
If you’re listening and interested in any of these products, we have them online at RevelationHealth.com, or you can give us a call at 888-600-0642. We’re happy to give you some product support and assist you if you’re interested in those products. Awesome. We talked about the problems, and then we’ve talked a lot about he solutions.
Dr. Pompa:
Meredith –
Meredith:
Yeah.
Dr. Pompa:
I have to say this. Meredith’s been on the show a lot. She’s got great reviews. A lot of these shows’ ideas are Meredith’s ideas. She talks to many of you. Honestly, she talks to many of you, and she knows what you all want. If you have a show idea for us or something that you want us to address, research, somehow email Meredith. I don’t know the best way for them to get in touch with you, Meredith. She really brings a lot of the ideas. That’s why I like to bring her on. I’m sure you guys – we’ll bring Warren back on and David. You haven’t seen them in a while, and Phil Kaplan always loves to come on. We haven’t ditched those guys completely.
So many of these topics, Meredith, though, you really love, and I couldn’t imagine doing so many of these topics without you. When she has a great idea, I love bringing her on. I just got an email yesterday, maybe the day before – this week, I’ll say. “Meredith’s great, by the way. I love Meredith.” You got major thumbs up, so good stuff.
Meredith:
Oh, thank you all. I’m so grateful to be here with you and with all of you. I always learn so much during these shows, as well, and all of our listeners do, as well. If you have show ideas, you can definitely give me a call at 888-600-0642, or you can email me Meredith, M-E-R-E-D-I-T-H@DrPompa.com, D-R-Pompa.com. We’re happy to bring the topics on that you guys care about, so let us know. Those can be future shows. Awesome.
Dr. Pompa:
Thank you, Meredith. All right.
Meredith:
Thanks, everyone. Have a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you next week.
