Hello, hello, and welcome to our first Ask Us Anything podcast. We have a lot of questions and concerns from people — a lot of things they'd love to know — so today we're going to try to address some of them.
We put the call out, you gave us your questions, and we're going to try to do this regularly. We haven't decided on an actual timeline; it depends on how often the questions come in. So keep bringing the questions, and we'll keep showing up to answer them.
This is purely educational today. Some of the things we'll talk about may be controversial, may have multiple answers, and are very opinionated. There are studies that still need to be done to prove or disprove some of what we'll cover. There are a lot of sides and a lot of camps, and it doesn't mean one is right and one is wrong — it's just a difference of opinion, and it's kind of where you're at in life sometimes. So it's important to remember that it's always good to loop in your personal provider and talk to them about any questions you have.
Today we're going to talk about a wide range of things — food, cholesterol meds, and whether we ever disagree. (We don't disagree — she's always right. We disagree sometimes.) So let's dive right in.
How Important Is Eating Organic?
There's a lot of hype out there with the organic groups these days, but we really try to look at this and find good information. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts out reports where they look at different products and flag whether there's a problem for our health — chemical residues and the like.
You've probably heard of the Dirty Dozen — the foods you should try to buy organic when you can, because they have the highest potential residue if they're not organic. In order, they are spinach, kale, collard and mustard greens, strawberries, grapes, nectarines, peaches, cherries, apples, blackberries, pears, potatoes, and blueberries. If you look at those, they're mostly foods where you eat the whole thing — the outside and the inside. So that's a good indicator for how to think about organic: if you're going to take it from the garden and eat the whole thing, it's a good idea to look for organic if it's available. There's a lot of pesticide and herbicide use to control disease and improve yield, and that's some of what the Dirty Dozen has a hard time with.
On the other side is the Clean 15 — things where it's not as important to shop organic: pineapple, sweet corn, avocado, papaya, onion, frozen sweet peas, asparagus, cabbage, cauliflower, watermelon, mango, banana, carrot, mushroom, and kiwi. Those are usually things you peel before eating, so there's not as much risk of residue if you can't find organic.
Essentially, if you can't buy organic, make sure you wash your fruits and vegetables. The bigger win is simply to eat more whole foods that are naturally grown. You can also bring in the idea of regenerative farming here, which means the soil your food was grown in is higher quality and more nutritious. We try to encourage people to eat whole foods instead of processed foods — that's generally going to get you in better shape and healthier. So buy organic for the Dirty Dozen when you can find them, but don't let that be the reason you're not eating fruits and vegetables.
Pesticides, Parkinson's, and Chemical Exposure
That takes us into the next question: someone was just diagnosed with Parkinson's and told to eat organic. Is there research on pesticide residue and whether it affects health?
Yes — and most of that research was done on occupational exposures: farmers putting pesticides on their crops. Anytime we're dealing with chemicals like this, less exposure is better. And it's not just Parkinson's — we don't want everyone to think that's the only thing you might get from pesticides. But occupational exposure is the strongest link; the people doing the work in the fields have the highest risk because they have the highest exposures. A 2007 study suggested that occupational pesticide use raised Parkinson's risk by about 100 to 200%. That's something to consider, but a lot more studies need to be done to look specifically at the causes of Parkinson's. We know many things that can be associated with it — whether it's causal, more studies will have to indicate.
So if you're struggling with some kind of disease process and looking at food, definitely talk with your provider and do your own research. There's a lot of noise out there, and sometimes it's really hard, even as an expert in the field, not to have a hard-and-fast answer — because the truth is everyone is different. Chemical exposure is an issue and an interest to a lot of people. There was even a JAMA study last year, in 2025, that said there's a higher risk of Parkinson's for people living within one to three miles of golf courses. Does that mean everybody's going to move away from the golf course? Probably not, but it's an interesting point. When we were on a bike ride across Missouri, we drove past fields where they were spraying chemicals, and it gets in your mind a little. If you can smell it and see it, you're probably getting exposed to it.
Are Seed Oils Actually Bad?
Are seed oils actually bad, or is this just internet hype? These are opinions — take them for what you want — but at this point, my opinion is that it's hype. We've been in transition ourselves; we updated our thoughts. We kind of got sucked into this hype at one point, because seed oils are often found in ultra-processed food, which we know is not good for us — calorically dense, with a lot of other extra products in it. So seed oils get thrown in with that. Saturated fat avoidance is still a good thing to do, and seed oils are probably a better option than a significant amount of saturated fat.
So seed oils by themselves are probably okay. It's the amount of food and the other things that go along with those types of foods that get you in trouble. These would be things like canola oil and vegetable oil. In our own kitchen, we choose to cook with olive oil, avocado oil, or coconut oil — but that's our personal preference, mostly around taste. A 2025 study of about 3,000 people found no link between blood linoleic acid and inflammatory markers, and another 2025 study found that higher linoleic acid tracked with lower glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR, and CRP. So a lot of other inflammatory processes may improve because we've changed our dietary activity. You can't drag down a seed oil just because of what you heard. But we will stand by this: ultra-processed foods are not good — avoid those at all costs.
Natural Flavors and Food Additives
What's the deal with natural flavors and all these food additives? Basically, they can put a "natural flavor" label on anything they take from nature — a spice, a dairy product, whatever. The problem is the processing and any added emulsifiers or agents. There's been a suggestion that natural processing can involve up to 90% man-made additives to that natural flavor before it hits the product. So that's something to think about.
This takes us into food marketing. In the '80s, everything was fat-free, and if it said fat-free, it was "good." Now things are labeled gluten-free and natural flavors — all of which give us a false sense of security. What we really need to do is read the labels. If you pick up a product at the grocery store and there are 20 ingredients and you can't pronounce half of them, put it down. Look for the emulsifiers, dyes, and preservatives. And be careful with the research: some of the studies done on these products are done by the industry company itself to market the product.
Studies can be deceiving, because you could probably find a study to tell you whatever you want the answer to be. To really read a study, you have to dig in and find out who funded it and what exactly was used. This was one of the big things with hormone replacement — so many studies just say "estrogen," and we don't know if they mean equine estrogen or estradiol. Those things can be deceiving. So when people give you a lot of studies, look in the fine print and see who paid for it. But the goal is still whole foods — clean whole foods — and not perfectionism or fearmongering. We don't want anybody going hungry because they can't find the "right" thing.
Amino Acids and a Protein-Rich Diet
We have a lot of food questions — everybody likes to know about food. Next: how do amino acids work with a protein-rich diet? Protein is very important — something we've hit over the head multiple times, and it still keeps rearing its head. About 0.8 to 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight of protein a day is ideal, spacing out the protein with about 30 grams per sitting to best trigger muscle tissue synthesis.
The primary trigger for muscle tissue synthesis is leucine, one of the essential amino acids — the ones our body doesn't make. There are nine essential amino acids we have to eat to get into our system. When we have those amino acids, we trigger a pathway called mTOR, which creates muscle protein synthesis. We actually need all the essential amino acids to make protein, but leucine is the big one — we need about two and a half to three grams in a sitting to trigger muscle tissue synthesis, and to get that, you need about 30 grams of good, animal-based protein.
When we eat plant proteins, they're about half as effective. Certain plant proteins have higher levels of leucine — soy-based ones, like tofu, are some of the better ones — but you generally have to eat about twice as much because it doesn't get absorbed as well and doesn't have the leucine content. So you have to get more variety in your plant proteins to reach that level. Vegans can do it; it just takes more work.
So if you're getting 30 grams of protein per sitting, you're probably getting the amino acids you need in that food. We frequently recommend branched-chain amino acids as a supplement — the three are leucine, isoleucine, and valine. If those are missing, muscle tissue synthesis won't be initiated, so you won't get the benefit. To do your exercise and build muscle, you have to fuel the body to make the muscle. A lot of us come up short on our protein levels, so hitting the branched-chain amino acids — especially with creatine — really activates that process. When we get older, in midlife and beyond, it's harder; we have anabolic resistance, so it's harder to build muscle than it was in your 20s. Use your tools — amino acids are the building blocks to make proteins.
Do I Need to Combine Plant Proteins?
We snuck into the next question already: if I eat mostly plants, do I need to combine proteins to get everything? This goes back to an old school of thought — a book that said if you're a plant-eater you need to combine beans and rice. Really, that probably isn't necessary. There are complete plant proteins — soy, which we mentioned, plus quinoa and buckwheat — and those eliminate the need to do some kind of extra combination.
Intermittent Fasting for Women Over 40
Is intermittent fasting good or bad for women over 40? There are a lot of schools of thought, and this is one topic where we may not always see eye to eye. Truthfully, there isn't really a right or wrong answer, but there may be a better or less harmful approach. This is one of those things that varies by person — some people respond really well to intermittent fasting.
The important thing to note is that this question is specifically about women over 40, and most of the intermittent fasting people talk about is what men do. Women are different — we are not just small men. There's a great book by Cynthia Thurlow, *Intermittent Fasting Transformation (IF:45)*, that goes through the specifics of women implementing intermittent fasting and how it should work. It's a great tool. One benefit of intermittent fasting is that it gives your body a break — from the last calorie of one day to the first calorie of the next, your body gets a break from taking in food, which lets the insulin rest and the gut heal.
It really depends on the goal. Does a person need to do intermittent fasting? What are you trying to achieve or improve? Is it your insulin, your caloric intake, your gut lining? The answer depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Fasting does raise cortisol levels, and in perimenopause and menopause, we have such significant estrogen and progesterone disruptions that they tend to make the fasting response larger, exaggerated, and maybe more prolonged. Cortisol can drive visceral fat, and insulin can drive visceral fat production; it disrupts sleep, too. So it really depends on your goal and your own personal experience with it.
The other piece is that protein is very important, and getting the amount of protein and fiber you need in a day can be tough if you're only eating in an 8-hour feeding window. Most individuals come up short on their daily protein requirements, and you just can't hit them when your feeding window is so narrow.
One thing we've talked about is having a cutoff between the time you stop taking in calories and the time you go to bed, because that really helps improve your sleep and your reflux symptoms — which so many people have issues with — and helps you repair and recover better. The general consensus is that people should not eat anything two to three hours before bed, and a majority also shouldn't be drinking anything. Some people think, "If I don't eat, I won't have reflux" — wrong. If you drink a lot of water, you can also have reflux, because it triggers gastric juice production and, no pun intended, waters down your gastric juice, making reflux easier.
Cholesterol Medications and Alternatives
How do you feel about cholesterol medications, and are there alternatives? There's a time and a place for cholesterol medications. This is my opinion: pharmaceutical companies have done the studies to drive this down not only healthcare providers' throats but the American public's throats, so it's become a knee-jerk response — "If your LDL is up, just take a statin." We have to back up and look at this through a different lens.
The most recent JAMA article suggested that the most cost-effective lab test is called an ApoB, which most people don't get done — it's not part of a general lipid panel. Hopefully that's changing. ApoB is a particle on the side of an LDL molecule, but it's more atherogenic — it can cause more clotting or plaque buildup. There are a lot of other components that determine whether a person actually needs to be on statins: insulin resistance, chronic inflammatory processes, cortisol levels. You can't negate the studies showing that reducing LDL with a statin reduces heart disease risk, but ApoB is a better marker, because not every LDL has an ApoB particle on it. We have lots of patients with an elevated LDL whose ApoB is not out of range. If we all had ApoB levels of 30, we'd never get plaque buildup — but that's not reality (we did when we were babies).
There are a lot of factors in when to start a statin: Do you have a history or family history of heart disease? Is it for primary or secondary prevention? What's your Lp(a) — the genetically predetermined marker for developing atherosclerotic disease? Those need to be looked at in the big picture. There are side effects to statins — we won't go into all of them — and there are ways to offset some of them if you need to take one, because some people really do. Statins reduce our body's ability to make CoQ10, so that's one thing to address.
Is there an alternative? Berberine has been studied quite a bit — it can help improve insulin resistance and also LDL particle number. It doesn't work for everyone, but it's worth trying. Still, it comes back to good old-fashioned lifestyle changes: exercise and proper nutrition. You cannot get a better medication than exercise and proper nutrition, period. You can't take a pill and wish your problem away — you can still get atherosclerosis while taking a statin. It's a part, it's well studied, but there's a lot more to it. Another thing that helps with lipids is hormone replacement — proper estrogen levels are a significant game-changer, along with progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid optimization.
Long-Term Acid Reducers
I've been on an acid reducer for years — is it a problem long term? There again, why are you taking it? What are you trying to fix by having to take your PPI or acid-reducing meds, and why is it happening? Is it because we're eating too late, eating the wrong things, or drinking in the middle of the night? Stress causes reflux. Is there a problem with the gut lining?
Yes, there are problems with chronic reflux — you can get Barrett's esophagitis, a precancerous esophageal condition — so you do need PPIs when you need them. But could there be an infectious problem in the gut, or a food sensitivity, creating this chronic problem? Try to correct the root problem so you don't have to take the PPI. And if you have to take it, know the risks: it decreases absorption of calcium, B12, magnesium, and iron to an extent, and you can have dysbiosis. If you're on long-term use, know those risks and take steps to mitigate them.
Metformin and Natural Blood Sugar Support
Metformin for pre-diabetes — are there natural ways to support blood sugar first? So many. A lot of them are lifestyle- or nutrition-related, and guess what — they're zero cost. Well, time, but no money.
The way you eat your meal is one: start with protein, fat, and fiber first, which blunts your blood sugar response through the meal. So if you're going to have a biscuit with breakfast, eat it at the end. There's a significant change if you front-load with protein, fat, and fiber and then have your carbs at the end. Eating that biscuit first raises your blood sugar; eating it at the end makes that less likely. Moving after meals is also a great tool for blunting the blood sugar spike — nothing crazy, just a walk around the block or some air squats. Your muscle is a glucose sink: it will absorb the glucose, and insulin will take it into the muscle for energy, so if you're using it, you're pulling it out of your bloodstream. More muscle is better, and sedentary behavior makes it very hard to achieve that.
And all this being said, if you need metformin, that's okay too. The biggest drawback I've heard is that it can cause some muscle weakness or inability to build muscle. Even so, a lot of people who study longevity believe metformin is a wonder drug — there's a Harvard article asking, "Is metformin the wonder drug?" because it's been shown to improve longevity. The problem is we need a lot of human randomized trials, since some of these papers are done on mice. But metformin can be used to offset pre-diabetes and stop it from becoming diabetes, and it's very cheap and very safe.
Lightning Round
That sums up some of the questions. We were also told to try a lightning round — quick questions with short answers.
**Coffee — yes or no?** Yes, no question. It's safe, and as long as you don't take it too close to bedtime to disrupt your sleep, I'm okay with it — it's a good antioxidant. The biggest problem with coffee is everything you mix in it. It's not the coffee; it's the caramel-syrup-dessert-in-a-cup problem.
**Red wine?** Nope. Unfortunately, there's no alcohol that's good for your system. Is it yummy? Heck yeah — I like it as much as the next person. But I know what it would do to my sleep, and alcohol is like sugar: it creates glucose spikes, and insulin follows. People talk about resveratrol in red wine, but there's just not enough in it to make a difference — you'd need a bathtub of red wine, and you can't do that every day.
**One supplement you wouldn't skip?** We both agree on this: vitamin D. I know it's important, and I know when I don't take it, my level is really deficient. I have yet to see one person walk in to get their blood drawn whose vitamin D isn't low — and the only reason it's ever elevated is that they're taking replacement. We don't walk around outside hunting and gathering in our loincloths anymore; we're inside, wearing clothing, with sunscreen on, so we just don't make the vitamin D. It's very important for everything from immune health to hormone regulation, thyroid production, and energy levels. Vitamin D is probably the biggest-ticket item I see out there.
Do We Ever Disagree?
Now the really good question: do we ever disagree? We do disagree — there are a lot of opinions, because we're humans. Men and women disagree over a lot of things; it's normal. Do we find common ground? Sometimes, but it depends on your opinion and your experience.
One thing that's really important about disagreement is the ability to promote conversation — to create awareness about a topic and, just as importantly, create curiosity so we can try to determine what's going on. "Is this something I need to look into?"
A classic example was from the beginning, when we first met and started down this health and wellness path: thyroid. Thyroid is such a misunderstood topic that we have a whole other podcast on it. Traditional Western medicine thyroid treatment is different from optimal thyroid treatment. Just like anabolic resistance and insulin resistance, we can have thyroid resistance. How many people have had their labs drawn, been told their thyroid is normal, but still feel cold, tired, and fatigued, or have thinning hair? This is one where we disagreed — there was a style-point difference when we started this journey — and it opened the door to conversation, and now we don't disagree anymore. (She's always right. We know that's not true.)
We also have different style points in how we practice, which is one of the great things about working together — we get to see both sides and have conversations. Sparking those conversations really helps us learn. So disagreement is good. It's always good to not have cognitive dissonance — you can always open your mind and learn a new trick.
That's it for the questions today. Thanks so much for joining us on this first Ask Us Anything, and we look forward to doing it again. Keep dropping your questions, and have a healthy day.