Know Your Physio
Knowing your physiology, the very science that makes you who you are, is the best thing you can do to optimize your health, bolster your performance, look and feel your best, and enjoy a longer and more fulfilling lifespan. My dedication to this field derives from a selfish place born out of necessity before it became the bright, selfless passion I'm known for. It was through my health journey (mainly battling ADD and ten years of Adderall dependency plus related side effects) and love for the scientific method that I found my way. Eventually, with the right knowledge and mentorship, I stumbled upon an enhanced state of awareness between mind, body, and spirit where healthy intentions met actionable steps and lasting, positive lifestyle change. Today I call this "physiological intuition," and to me, it's a right that every human being deserves to thrive with, without having to battle themselves or pursue a degree to discover it. Every day I spend on this planet, I get to connect with world-leading experts on my podcast and learn more of the substance I wish I could have gotten my hands on earlier, for YOU to apply and enjoy total mind and body fitness, personal mastery, and self-actualization! The more you #KnowYourPhysio… Enjoy the show!
Know Your Physio
Dr. Jessica Dupont: Navigating Fertility and Longevity - Empowering Choices, Mitochondrial Health, and Environmental Wisdom
In this episode, we welcome Dr. Jessica Dupont, a Naturopathic Doctor specializing in women's health and fertility. Dr. Dupont combines conventional medicine with natural therapies to tackle issues like hormonal imbalances, menstrual irregularities, and fertility enhancement. Her holistic approach is grounded in the belief that optimal health is foundational for successful conception and overall well-being.
Dr. Dupont discusses the impact of lifestyle and environmental factors on reproductive health, emphasizing the importance of mitochondrial health, detoxification, and nutrition. She advocates for proactive health measures for those planning to conceive, highlighting the need for both men and women to focus on their reproductive health well in advance.
This episode offers valuable insights for anyone interested in improving their fertility and overall health. Dr. Dupont's advice is a guide to navigating health challenges with a holistic perspective, providing practical strategies for a healthier life and a hopeful future for potential parents.
Key Points From This Episode:
Fertility and overall health [00:04:17]
Chemicals in newborn umbilical cords [00:08:09]
Understanding Hormonal Superpowers [00:16:42]
The estrobolome bacteria in gut [00:27:16]
Female biorhythm and self-awareness [00:33:03]
Exploring post-birth control syndrome [00:40:20]
Hormonal imbalances in women [00:53:11]
Icing the balls [00:56:08]
Longevity and fertility connection [01:04:13]
Fertility superfoods and raw liver [01:09:31]
Link between viruses and fertility [01:10:26]
Age and Egg Quality [01:16:11]
Men's physiological changes due to environment [01:26:39]
Women's health and keto diet [01:36:31]
Integrative approach to healthcare [01:39:40]
Looking to discover your science and optimize your life?
APPLY FOR HEALTH OPTIMIZATION COACHING
https://calendly.com/andrespreschel/intro-call-with-andres
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Click HERE to save on BiOptimizers Magnesium
People
Books and References
- Environmental Working Group Study on Chemicals in Umbilical Cords: Study indicating the presence of chemicals in newborns.
- "Countdown" by Dr. Shanna Swan: Discusses declining sperm count and environmental factors.
Products and Technologies
Health and Wellness Topics
- Estrobilome Bacteria: Gut bacteria affecting estrogen levels.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: A lot of women think they're fertile every day, that they can get pregnant every day. That's not the case, right? There's really this short window of time. It's different for men. Men can get a woman pregnant at any time. But there's just such a lack of knowledge. Assuming they have access to all kinds of women.
Andres Preschel: Of course. In different parts of the cycle all the time.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's right, that's right. Every day, every day.
Andres Preschel: It takes a special kind of man to be able to have that kind of luxury. Yes, yes. A real luxury is having one woman.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: When we get young women in our office and we'll often have either mothers usually with them. And the first question they usually have is, well, what about birth control? Because I don't want her to get pregnant.
Andres Preschel: There is only one supplement that I think almost everyone on this planet should be taking, and that's a full spectrum and highly bioavailable magnesium supplement, because, well, let's face it, ever since the Industrial Revolution, our soil has been depleted. of magnesium and therefore our food is depleted of magnesium and on top of that our modern environments which are inherently overstimulating and stressful are constantly depleting our body of magnesium and unlike other nutrients this is not something your body can produce on its own it literally needs to get it from the diet And one individual kind of magnesium alone is not enough. You actually need seven different kinds to support over 300 biochemical reactions that help regulate your nervous system, red blood cell production, energy production, managing stress and emotions, etc. And so the folks at BiOptimizers have made it very easy and convenient to add back in what the modern world leaves out. They've created Magnesium Breakthrough. Now I've been taking this for the past two years and the biggest benefits that I've seen are related to my evening wind down sessions and my sleep. I tend to be pretty overactive in the evenings, just totally overthinking everything that I do. And this has helped me wind down and get more restorative, more efficient to sleep. So I wake up feeling way more refreshed, more energized, more clear, more ready for the day. And the way that I see it, sleep is upstream of essentially every other health and wellness related habit and decision. Because if you're sleeping better, automatically you're going to have more regular cravings, you're going to have higher insulin sensitivity, you can derive more of all these inputs like fitness, right? You make more gains, you gain more muscle, you burn more calories, and you wake up feeling refreshed so that you can do it again and again and again. And then beyond the fitness, you have more energy to go for a walk, to do fun activities with friends. You are less stressed, so you can socialize anxiety free. And you're also going to be retaining, refreshing and refining your skills and information much, much better. So you won't forget any names. And, yeah, I mean, like I said, over 300 biochemical processes that you're supporting with magnesium. And then sleep, I mean, wow. Better sleep is just a better life in general. So, I found that extremely helpful on a personal level, and I'm sure that you guys will find it helpful, too. Your mind and body, and maybe even your spirit, will thank you. So anyway, if you want to get a sweet little discount off of this amazing, amazing magnesium supplement from Bioptimizers, all you have to do is visit the show notes. So you scroll down right now, takes just a couple seconds and boom, you'll have access to all seven different kinds of magnesium that your body needs. All you have to do is hit the link and use code KYP for Know Your Physio. KYP. That's all. Enjoy 10 to 22% off depending on the package you choose, whether or not you subscribe. I'm obviously subscribed because I don't even want to think about whether or not I'm going to get this essential supplement in the mail. And yeah, hope you guys enjoy that awesome stuff. And that's all for now. I'll see you guys on the show. Okay, all right, so we're here with dr. Jessica Dupont a naturopathic doctor and We're gonna have a little chat about fertility and I think one of all I'm sure we'll explore all sorts of themes within the umbrella of fertility, but one thing that I was fascinated by that we recently chatted about was how your fertility that kind of status is really like a Really paints the picture of your lifestyle and your overall health and well-being right like you can really tell based on someone's you know fertility and maybe sperm or you know Ovarian or egg health you can really tell how they live and the quality of life that they have So yeah before we dive in any of that Welcome to the show
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Andres Preschel: Thank you, Arno, for helping us put this together. Thank you, Brent, for sharing the space with us. Why don't we start with why? Why do you do what you do?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Oh, so why I do what I do is there's many reasons. Number one, becoming a naturopathic doctor, I was pushed through the medical system as many people are through my entire life with certain symptoms and concerns that I was just put on antibiotics for and being told to just go home, take your antibiotics, you'll be fine. I was on 30 rounds of antibiotics in a matter of two years. I knew, I didn't know any better. I just trusted my doctor. I trusted whatever the doctor said. I was 20 years old. I was in university and nobody around but myself. So walk-in clinics and things like that. And it wasn't until things got really bad where we found out that there was actually a physiological issue with my kidney that was making me have certain symptoms. And I didn't actually have to be on antibiotics all those times. And of course, that wreaks havoc on your gut health. It wreaks havoc on everything in your system when your gut is out of whack. And so at the time, I was kind of chugging towards going into mainstream medicine. It was always the plan, go into medicine, become an MD. And at that point, somebody said to me, well, you should go see a naturopathic doctor. And I had no idea what it was. It sounded like, a brain, something to do with the brain. I was like, OK. So I went to see her, and she completely changed my life. She sat with me for over an hour. She didn't just ask me about my physical symptoms. We went into stress, what I was eating. mental and emotional concerns. So we looked at the whole body, the whole picture and she just dived in, she changed my diet, we reduced inflammation, we did acupuncture, she put me on herbs, we did cleansing and I was symptom-free within three months. They've never returned so we really got down to the root cause of what was going on and that's when I decided that's the type of medicine I want to go into. So that's how I got into the naturopathic space, into more preventative medicine, and looking at the health of the overall person instead of just putting on Band-Aids, Band-Aid solutions for things. Why I do what I do now, my practice has sort of shifted. I kind of started off more in the pediatric space, And when I was working with pediatrics, I saw a lot of ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, kids with allergies popping up left and right, and verbal issues, behavioral issues, a lot of things, eczema. And when I was working with these kids, I started learning more about environmental medicine. getting into toxin exposure and heavy metals. And there was an article by Environmental Working Group that was released that showed up until this point, it was believed that babies were born clean and no toxins and very sterile. And this study proved that they found over 230 chemicals in umbilical cords of newborn babies. And these chemicals were It included heavy metals as well, so mercury, lead, arsenic, all these heavy… 230 modern chemicals. So interestingly enough, there was some chemicals in the umbilical cords that have been banned for over five generations. So they're now seeing that we're not only taking in chemicals in the womb that our mother is predisposed to, but there's chemicals from the father's side that are coming in through sperm from grandparents, from great-grandparents. So five generations worth of toxins and heavy metals are being passed down. And these chemicals are linked to reproductive issues, to ADHD, to autism, to even childhood leukemias and obesity, blood sugar issues. So that's when I shifted into fertility because I was like, I need to start working with people before they're born. And how we do that is working with women and couples before they even try to conceive. And the biggest reason I work with women mostly is I find there's such a gap in the knowledge around what women know about their health. So many women come into me- It's not their fault.
Andres Preschel: They're underrepresented in the research.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: 100% and you know women grow up, you know with painful periods. They're put on the pill, you know, they have irregular cycles I'll go on the pill come back to see me when you're ready to have a baby You know really heavy cycles and and some women don't even understand they think it's normal it's normal to have painful periods it's or it's normal to get pills to manage that and just band-aid solution, you know, whatever and So they're just doing the best they can with the knowledge that they're getting. But I know even me, I was taught nothing about my cycle as a child, other than the fact that we bleed once a month. So I was like, OK. And then once that period's over, we're done. But there's so much more into what goes on in a woman's cycle from week to week. And that cycle really does cycle over the course of the month. And the hormones shift and everything. And if I think about if I learned this stuff when I was a teenager, even in school or from my parents or from whoever, my entire perspective on being a woman, on my health, on what that means to be healthy would have been completely different. And I would have started looking at my cycle a little bit differently. I feel like there's, you know, this negative view on our menstrual cycles. We look at them as dirty, as I don't want them to come, and it's just annoying. And so there's all this negative language around it, when really we should welcome it, and watch for certain signs, and recognize what's happening in your body, because that can give you an indication of what's going on elsewhere in your body with your entire physiology. And so I think that's what I want to do. I want to close that gap and start teaching women more about their bodies, even men more about their bodies. Because I feel like sperm health is the last thing they even think about when they shouldn't be. And it doesn't all have to do with reproducing. You should know about this stuff, even if you're not trying to conceive or if you're done having children.
Andres Preschel: And I'll tell you what, for the men that are tuning into this, that should be tuning into this, it really pays. It's priceless to know about your woman or your future woman's cycle and what she's going through and how you can be a better partner or more understanding, empathetic partner, cater to their individual physiological needs throughout the month or just have a better understanding of what they might or might not be struggling with. I think it's very empowering for men. My girlfriend, as you know, she's also in this realm, and I think it's been empowering for me, genuinely. And so, for the men that are tuning in, stick around.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: For sure. I think it's even a certain time in my cycle I might say to my husband, OK, that time I'm probably going to be a little bit more moody right now. It has nothing to do with you. I'm just going through. And he's starting to understand now that we do actually cycle. And the way we feel at different times of our cycle will influence our cravings, and how we want to move, and how much energy we have.
Andres Preschel: Yeah. Last week, actually, I looked at my girlfriend. And I was like, baby, you're ovulating. I was like goddamn baby you are ovulating right now and I love it alluding to you know We'll get into this a little more in depth.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, say baby She was like you think so because I haven't been wearing my aura rings I don't know if my temperature has gone up or whatever and I was like we're gone up or down. I think it's a Temperature will go up. Yeah by like 0.1 degrees or whatever right on the aura or is actually pretty good at capturing that baby She's like, she's like you think so. I was like, I was like, I think you're late ovulation, you know, like in your last few days, but you're ovulating for sure.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: You can just feel the pheromones in there. You can feel the pheromones and you can also tell when a woman is ovulating usually if they're in sync with their cycles. Yeah, she's in sync and she's healthy. This is the time when, you know, your estrogen is highest, your testosterone.
Andres Preschel: Like I can feel that craving, you know, and and she it's like I'm just gonna be honest Like this is the magic of knowing your physiology as a woman and knowing your partner's physiology Like I looked at her and I was like baby like wow, you know time. Yeah. No, no for real It's goes up, but that's the time. We have to be the most careful.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Right if you're not trying.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, so It's a cool, you know little game that we play like oh like let me try to guess where you're on your cycle and then oh, you know, I can
Dr.Jessica Dupont: So the week she's on her period, you're probably like, oh, you're definitely on your period right now.
Andres Preschel: No, no, no, no, no. You see, that's when you keep it to yourself. But you know about it, so you can still cater to it, but it looks like it's just subtle or she has no idea. And then, oh, my god, thank you for this, or thank you for that, or for the chocolates, or whatever, or take me on a date. It's like, oh, I didn't know where you were at.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Aw, that's so good. That's great.
Andres Preschel: But the other day with ovulation, that was a funny little interaction that we had.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: I actually really love that you said that because it's not often that I teach men, you know, the cycle of women. And so I think it is really important and that you might actually even change the way I practice in some way because not only teaching the female partner, I think it's just as critical to teach the male partner and understanding that.
Andres Preschel: I mean, I think that this area right now, this is a niche. I mean, I know it's been growing quite a lot. There's the women's health and hormones and the cycle syncing and female biorhythm. That's been growing a lot, and I think it is a multi-billion dollar business. Dollars aside it just shows the impact and how important it is for women to really dig into this So that's just one way I guess to measure the the growth, but I think that the next wave is gonna be in men getting their hands on this knowledge and Leveraging it, you know so that they can be as compatible with their female counterpart as possible even if it's you know beyond a romantic partner a business partner, you know, whatever and Mother a sister a friend, you know So that it's not like this weird You know taboo topic.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: It's just something that all right, like let's understand each other and we're gonna accomplish more together You know, and I think that you hit something there and you're talking about business and women in business because unfortunately, we do still live in a very male-dominant society, especially in if you look at the number of CEOs that are men compared to women, right? And when women are put into the environment where there's a lot of male energy and in big companies where you're go, go, go all day long, men can handle that a lot better because men literally cycle their hormones every 24 hours, right? Their testosterone is highest in the morning and the next morning it's right back up. Where women, it really only spikes once a month. And during different times in her cycle, she's going to be more inclined to get certain tasks done, do presentations, and things like that. But at other times, she's not going to be as optimal to do so. So if people in the work environment are understanding of that, and not to say you have to, as a woman, be like, this is where I am in my cycle. But as a woman in being in a business where I have been in an environment where it's very male-dominated, I knew when the right time was for me to do a presentation, to start new projects, or to settle down and just kind of get things done. Because I can read my cycle and I know. And I think it'd be very important for other people to know that. And I think there'd be more success in business and more success of women in business because of that, because we're not trying to push them through certain activities, driving up their cortisol, driving up their stress, when they should actually be resting and being more restorative. And just you can get work done still, but on a deeper level versus just being outward and going to meetings and everything, right?
Andres Preschel: I'll tell you what, I'm a CEO and founder and I have a to-do list of tasks. Some of them require me to be very stressed out. Some of them are more things that I have to delegate and communicate. Some of them are tasks that require me to be very empathetic. And I think that as a woman, if you get in touch with your physiology and you look at what's your superpower this week according to your hormones, you can select the group of tasks that make the most sense for you. And I think it's honestly a pretty, as a CEO, you tend to have that flexibility, and also the flexibility should work for you rather than against you, you know, being your own decision maker in a way. So I think women should consider this to be the most empowered CEOs that they can be. And they'll be able to navigate their to-do list more effectively than men, potentially.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: I'm like saying this, maybe it's a little bit too much TMI, but I scheduled this podcast for this time.
Andres Preschel: I figured. Are you kidding me? I was like, I know that. I woke up this morning and I was like, you know what? She's probably being very strategic about this.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: I was very strategic. That's amazing. Yeah. And I know because when I, and this is the time when I'm mostly most clear headed, more focused. And I know that if I'm at a different time in my cycle, I have a lot of brain fog, a lot more just like, right.
Andres Preschel: Why do you think I chose 11 a.m. rather than 10 a.m.? I see what you're doing.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: I see what you're doing.
Andres Preschel: So a little more mental clarity, more blood flow.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good that you're in tune with that. Right.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, cool. Awesome. So let's have a little chat about what you can actually measure as far as your reproductive health and what this can show you as far as changes that you might need to make in your lifestyle to be healthy, feeling great, and have your highest odds of reproductive success.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah. So let's talk about men and women separately, and then we'll talk about things that we can kind of test together. So in terms of, let's start with men, because they're actually a little bit easier. So I work a lot in the, because I work in the fertility world, I work a lot with fertility dogs. I mean, easier in terms of testing. In terms of testing. so you'll see that um when couples go to fertility clinics the women's file is like this thick yeah right and then the guys is like this and they do like one round of blood work for those who can't see what we're doing women tend to have a lot more testing there's a lot there's a lot more available for sure and there's a lot more conditions that right kind of need to need to look into but when it comes to men I really like to know if you're going through fertility for coming me fertility I would like to see a semen analysis number one and I'm not only looking at sperm count I have a lot of people come to me. They're in fertility clinics. And the men are like, my sperm's amazing. Look how many sperm I have. And even their fertility doctors are telling them their sperm looks amazing. And I'm going, but your morphology is borderline low. What's that? Morphology is the shape of the sperm. So it's looking at the head of the sperm and the tail of the sperm. The head, is it too small? Is it too large? Is the tail short? Is it long? Is it kinked? Is it different shapes and things like that? And it needs to be in an ideal shape for it to propel in the right direction. So usually, if morphology is on the lower end, or there is more sperm that is not in the ideal structure, you will have lower motility, because they're either swimming in circles, or they're swimming backwards, or they're not moving at all. So you know they might have like borderline motility issues and borderline morphology issues and I'm sitting here and I'm going if you don't take care of this now it's going to then affect your count. Right? So they just think, oh, I'm good. I'm good. And they go on eating terribly. Or maybe they're not active. Maybe they're smoking, whatever have you. So we want to look at a semen analysis in totality. We want to look at the pH of the sperm. And there's also something called DNA fragmentation. So we're looking at how much of the DNA in the sperm is actually fragmented. And that would be triggered by many things. We could talk about that, too, and what changes that. That's in terms of sperm health, but above that, what I want to see is if your sperm is not healthy, then why? So we want to do blood work. We want to look at total testosterone, bioavailable testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin. I want to see zinc because if zinc is low, then testosterone production is likely on the lower end. And then, of course, looking at things like lipids and liver enzymes and inflammatory markers, because all of those are going to tell me if you have more inflammation in the body, if you have a lack of blood flow. If there is high cholesterol, guarantee there's a lack of blood flow everywhere in your body, not just your pelvic floor. Other things with men I like to look at is digestion and blood sugar. We know that obesity and even just insulin resistance and blood sugar issues do cause a deficiency in sperm and affect men's fertility. And digestion, maybe digestion will save to kind of go through as men and women together, because there's a huge impact there. When it comes to women, there are certain standard tests that we do kind of like right away. Right away, I want to see day three hormones. So there's different ways we can test your hormones, right? There's blood. There's urine. Dutch test. What's that? Dutch test. The Dutch test, yeah, is good. I mean, there's definitely some… I have a love-hate relationship with Dutch because I hear so many things. Like, you know, I use it occasionally. Oftentimes, I find I don't have to. I like looking at the metabolites, though, to see, you know, how you're cycling your estrogen, for example. Is your DHEA being converted into testosterone? What form of testosterone? And even for men, that could be very helpful. Looking at the adrenal access, your cortisol awakening response, how your cortisol is moving throughout the day can all be really beneficial. And it's giving you more of a month-long perspective or for the course of, depending on which one you're doing, of what your hormones are doing versus just blood, which is literally a point in time. however blood is probably the most universal and easiest to get right like you're not gonna be able to get a Dutch through a conventional medicine practitioner you're gonna have to go through functional medicine or naturopathic doctor they're not necessarily covered by insurance so there's limitations there a lot of what I do in my practice is intuitive so a lot of times I shift and the testing depending on what I think is going on like after I've done like a full history. So when it comes to blood work I want to see hormones at two different times in the cycle for a woman. Day three is when we look at the majority of hormones and then seven days after ovulation is when I usually like to see progesterone and then occasionally look at a progesterone estrogen ratio at that time. When I work with women in fertility, though, and even men, a lot of the times, many of these tests are done, not in intense detail, but like thyroid, for example, is so underdiagnosed. And they'll say, my thyroid's normal. My TSH looks good. My T4 looks good. And I'm like, but they didn't test your T3. They didn't test your reverse T3, your thyroid antibodies. All those could be positive. And testing really does depend on someone's history. So if somebody's had frequent pregnancy loss, for example, I would want to look at phospholipid antibodies and if there's any autoimmune condition that could be contributing blood clotting issues. MTHFR mutations, which I'm sure you probably know a little bit about, right? But those aren't recognized by a lot of practitioners, but I see it in practice and there's lots of research coming out on it now. Heavy metal testing and toxin exposure, looking at micronutrient status. Those micronutrients, especially magnesium being one of them, are so critical to hormone production and your ability to even detoxify estrogens or sleep. It has an impact on so many avenues of fertility. And that would be for men and women. I would do heavy metal analysis on a man as well and look at that nutrient status. One that I feel like is really important, when I look at the HPA axis, everybody knows hypopituitary adrenal axis. It's like the be all end all. I kind of look at it even deeper than that. So it's kind of goes like hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, gonadal, gut. So there's so much more involved because we have hormones in all of those spaces that are now being effective. Gonadal being like your testes and ovaries. If you look at your hormones on a spider web, so if you picture a spider web, if you pluck the end of the web, the whole web shakes, right? It's the same thing with that entire axis. If one little thing is off, maybe it's your cortisol, maybe it's your thyroid, maybe something genetic even, the whole web will shake. So when we look at reproductive, Oftentimes, we need to look outside the reproductive system in order to figure out what's going on. And that's where I think a lot of Main Street medicine is failing, right?
Andres Preschel: The branches on that spider web?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, exactly. It's like, they're just looking at the eggs, and they're just looking at the ovaries, and they're just looking at the sperm. And I'm going, well, what's happening with their microbiome, right? Have you ever heard of the astrobelome?
Andres Preschel: Astrobelome?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Okay so the estrobilome is a subset of bacteria in the gut that is basically there to produce and cycle out estrogen like that's what they do and so they produce estrogens in the body and they cycle out and so if they're in excess or deficient that's also going to affect how a woman cycles estrogen and it could influence endometriosis and fibroids and PCOS and these other conditions. And so we need to look outside the box. This is why so many people are diagnosed with unexplained infertility, right? And then when men, particularly, come to me and say, well, my sperm is great. I'm fine. And then I go in and I find these little things like, well, your motility is slightly low, or this is slightly low. they say to me, OK, well, if I fix this, and all I've got to do is get her pregnant, right? That's what they say. So I say, OK, I'll detox, and I'll do all this stuff, and I'll eat the way you want me to. But as soon as I give you my sperm, I'm done, right? And then they go, but why? You're a 25-year-old young man, or 35, or sometimes 40. And if there's an issue with your sperm, then there's got to be other issues elsewhere. You know, like if your sperm is damaged, think about what your other cells are doing. So why would you go back to eating the way you're eating or loading your body up with toxins?
Andres Preschel: Can I tell you something more like philosophical? Yeah. The way I see fertility is like, your fertility is basically like, I think reproduction is a luxury. Relatively speaking. I think it's the the Most incredible luxury that your body can reward you with is your reproductive health like we're here on earth to survive and to reproduce I Mean, obviously we're here for more than that. But yeah, but I think Just to put it as simple as that like we're here so I reproduce. Yeah survival of the fittest is real whether you believe in science or not.
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm
Andres Preschel: And so I think that it's really representative of that yeah, and so like if you're just getting someone pregnant for the sake of being pregnant like it great, but like There's so much more to life than that 100% all the way through It's your fifth vital sign if what is fertility? Yes, there's six six
Dr.Jessica Dupont: It's your fifth vital sign right a vital sign like, you know your temperature or your heart rate they're all things that you can monitor like, you know symptomatically or on the level so For a woman that can become very easy if you're monitoring your cycle, that's your fifth vital sign that's telling you how healthy you are even if you're not getting pregnant even if you're 15 years old and you just got your period, what does that look like? Yeah. Men, a little bit harder, but what men can look at is their libido, right? Their energy and, um, you know, waking up hard in the morning. Right. Right. And what does the ejaculate look like? What color is it? How much is there? Right. So all of that is their pain during intercourse, like all of these things that we should be paying attention to. And you're right, it doesn't have to be just about reproduction. But when it comes to reproduction, I work with a lot of people three months to even a year, two years before they even start trying to get pregnant, because they know how much their lifestyle and even there's some genetics, of course, how that impacts their egg quality and their sperm quality. So when they go to get pregnant, they want to get pregnant with the healthiest sperm prop possible, the healthiest egg prop possible.
Andres Preschel: You're your fittest version to reproduce. Nowadays, we're not gonna be killed off by a storm or predator, but we're slowly, well, I guess more quickly, we're killing ourselves through toxic exposure to poor lifestyle habits, lack of discipline, heavy metals, microplastics, EMF, like terrible sleep, blue light exposure. Name it. Yeah, so it's like you're doing yourself the favor and you're doing your Offspring and their offspring the favor. Yeah living the best life that they can live Yeah, and I think that is the biggest luxury that we can afford.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah. Yeah, so so it's so great too that you and your partner are starting to just look at the health of that even like before you're ready to conceive because you guys are just setting your future child if you decide to go down that road uh for just a better foundation at life and yeah reducing a lot of risks and we can't We can do a lot in terms of the health of our eggs and our sperm. But we can't stop exposures to everything. Even if you eat organic and if you buy all the clean products and all this stuff that don't have endocrine disrupting chemicals, you're still going outside and you're breathing in the air. And our air is far from clean. Our water is far from clean. So it's it's everywhere unfortunately, but all we can do is kind of reduce our exposure and fix what's in our control, right?
Andres Preschel: What do you have to say about the Controversy of taking Women off of birth control like I know that you know this whole theme unfortunately this theme of cycle-seeking female biorhythm is relatively new and I mean it's an ancient physiological response that we're now becoming familiar with and it's empowering us and it's giving us this like health freedom and this incredible quality of life and intuition and interoception and self-awareness but it's like given the structure and the society that we live in right now and the medical system that we're in Or I guess not in but that we're exposed to Getting women to stop taking birth control to regulate their cycle, right whatever that means and Telling them a start looking at your physiology start getting curious about it and just kind of giving women that responsibility I'll tell you what I think the what is my opinion the most difficult thing is to assume that a woman even especially a young woman can take on the responsibility of getting to know her body and regulating her life and For the sake of oh my god, my female biorhythm. So like what do you have to say about that relative controversy? And how can young women? Navigate that change or even open their minds to it when they are more responsible and they can Make the best decision for themselves
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, so you're talking about kind of like the fertility awareness method, right, where you're kind of tracking your own cycle, right? And so there's definitely a movement now towards many women wanting to come off birth control because they're learning that the birth control, I think that it's being over-prescribed, right? There's probably about 50% of the population is not using it necessarily for birth control purposes. They're using it to control their painful periods or regulate their cycle.
Andres Preschel: It's an umbrella method for just like, hey woman, just be normal. Assimilate to our standards, our society. Just normalize yourself.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: lack of education in our medical system and in what they're teaching their patients as well. This is where that hole comes in that I was talking about, is we're being pushed aside as women. You have a 15, 16-year-old coming into office to see a medical doctor and I'm not just saying this is all all medical doctors do this right I'm just saying these are patterns we're seeing you know they're saying I have extremely painful periods and they're put on the pill you know and they're not there's no investigation into why their periods are painful my sister being one of them on the floor passing out with her period since they first came at the age of 13 her entire life ended up finally getting a diagnosis of endometriosis when she was in her 30s and ended up having to get a fallopian tube and ovary removed. And that's because the pill is not fixing the underlying issue, right? And even with PCOS, when you have irregularity in your cycles, that's a whole metabolic syndrome that's gone missed. And now here you are 10 years, 15 years down the line coming off of birth control trying to get pregnant and you can't. And you're going, well, why? It's like, well, because your underlying issues were never addressed. And now they've gotten a lot worse. So unfortunately, a lot of these reproductive issues have been getting suppressed. And then the other things that the pill does is it depletes your body of essential nutrients that are critical for reproduction. So you're looking at depleting CoQ10, depleting magnesium, and zinc, and selenium, and a lot of your B vitamins. So the first thing I do when somebody is coming off birth control is you need to go on a B-complex and some nutrients to try and get your nutrients.
Andres Preschel: Methylated B vitamins, since most people can, I think it's 40% of people have MTHFR.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, so you want a methylated folate, methylated B12 for sure. But then the issue comes in, of course, where I can teach the fertility awareness method, which is teaching you to track your cycle, your temperature, looking at your cervical discharge and all this stuff, and what you should expect week to week so that you know when you're ovulating, when you're not, when you're fertile, when you're not. A lot of women think they're fertile every day, that they can get pregnant every day. That's not the case, right? There's really this short window of time It's different for men. Men can get a woman pregnant at any time. But there's just such a lack of knowledge. Assuming they have access to all kinds of women.
Andres Preschel: Of course. In different parts of the cycle all the time.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's right. Every day.
Andres Preschel: It takes a special kind of man to be able to have that kind of luxury.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yes.
Andres Preschel: The real luxury is having one woman.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: He meant that. No judgment.
Andres Preschel: I'm just scoring brownie points for my girlfriend as she's tuning into this. No, but I'm being serious.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: And I love her too. She's such a beautiful person. When we get young women in our office, and we'll often have either mothers usually with them, and the first question they usually have is, well, what about birth control? Because I don't want her to get pregnant. And I can't trust that she's going to be tracking her cycle properly and all of this, 100%. It's busy. Everybody's busy, especially teenagers, being a young adult. There's so much other stuff going on. You forget to track, or you're out all night, and that affects your temperature the next day. Temperature charting is only going to work if you're consistent with it. So then we have conversations about the best form of birth control, which we can go down a whole avenue of that. but in my mind if I can have somebody on fertility awareness method amazing if You can't condoms would be my next choice, especially for somebody who's young right and not trying to conceive and with spermicide a pardon with spermicide like some condoms have like no a Gel that like kill sperm No. Are you familiar with it or are you against it? No, I'm against it. I just don't like the idea of any form of chemical going into the vagina or being on the penis. Even latex? I mean latex isn't… There is latex free for sure. I mean latex is what it is. It's going to be your best option versus putting like a hormone in your body or a copper IUD. which we can talk about as well, but there's no perfect solution. And I think that what women need to understand is you need to just know all of your options and then decide what's best for you and your body. There have been times when I've had conversations with patients who have not wanted to come off birth control, but they have a crazy amount of hormonal issues happening underlying that I can see. And we have conversations about taking time away from birth control and how to be safe during that time so that we can really establish what's going on. Because you can't test your hormones when you're on birth control. So I'm never going to be able to get an understanding of what your body is actually doing, what your cycle actually looks like if you're on birth control. so sometimes we go off for a while until we get an understanding of what their body's actually doing and we can treat it properly and then sometimes they go back on yeah but at least now they know what works at a baseline well that's it and i and i think it's uh
Andres Preschel: women are starting to they want to know now you know and they've been like i was on birth control for 10 years i didn't know any different right and uh um i mean parker for example she was on it for a few years before i met her and then uh she got off of it and she didn't get her period for like a couple years yeah she had some serious issues and that's what got her interested in you know this science that's right so she had what's called post-ocp syndrome post-ocp
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah. So it's basically post-birth control syndrome. And likely, all of her nutrients were depleted. So she couldn't properly produce. And it'll take time for her. And she went vegan, too. She went vegan.
Andres Preschel: She went vegan. And then she met me. And we got some blood testing. And I mean, I don't want to go off the deep end with her health.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: No, that's OK. We can go there.
Andres Preschel: That's fine. But I mean, she was definitely deficient in a few vitamins and minerals.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
Andres Preschel: So she went from being vegan. To like adding in like organ meats.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Okay, that helped her a lot.
Andres Preschel: But now she's like back to like mostly plant-based I'm gonna play devil's advocate there for a little bit.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Okay, so I was vegan for 10 years My iron levels have always been low even as a child. I have something called thalassemia and My doctors kept trying to tell me to eat meat eat meat eat meat and what was that called? Thalassemia. It's a type of genetic anemia.
Andres Preschel: I have hemochromatosis, so I store too much iron.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Oh, so you use too much. That's so good. Come on, donate. But what's interesting is that we're always taught, oh, you know, like increase iron-rich foods, right? Now, if you are on a plant-based diet, You can absolutely keep your iron stores up, keep your B12 stores up, but you have to be very conscious of it. You can't just carb load and expect to have all your nutrients. You need to be conscious of leafy greens, of lentils, of foods that will help with iron. But B12, of course, is that one that you do have to supplement. You're not really going to find that in vegan or plant-based diets. But what I have learned being a practitioner over the last decade is that any diet, whether it's vegan or keto or paleo or even carnivore diet, you can be deficient in many things. And it all depends on, like it could be unhealthy or unhealthy, right? You can have a healthy vegan and an unhealthy vegan. You can have a healthy person who's doing keto and an unhealthy person that's doing keto that's doing like fat bombs every day and eating bacon and you know. So majority of my patients are not plant-based. I would say 95% are, they eat meat. All of them are iron deficient. All of them are B12 deficient. The meat eaters are deficient? Yep, all of them are B12 deficient. Let me tell you why. um mostly what we're seeing now is this gut issue in people right like you like the amount of people that have gut health problems now is just exponent every single one of my patients i could tell you maybe five that are like i poop every day and have warm stools and it's great and i have no bloating every single one of the other ones have issues and When you have gut health issues and there's a lot of inflammation, you're likely not absorbing your nutrients. Your stomach acid is probably low. You're not absorbing. So if somebody is coming to me and they're like, I eat tons of meat. Why is my iron low or this and that? I begin to question their absorption. And then we look at vitamin D. Oh, that's low too. We look at magnesium. Oh, that's low too. So there's definitely this almost like epidemic of gut issues that are starting out and that's because of again toxins in our environment, pesticides in our food, eating poor quality foods, high sugar, all this junk, we're not sleeping, there's so many different things involved. Women as well cycle every month so they're naturally losing blood every month so it's hard for women to have higher stores. I was vegan, like I said, for 10 years and very low energy. But I was very conscious, I thought, of getting in my iron, my nutrients, and all of that. Started introducing some meat. Energy started going up, but I was also more active and having more like more grass-fed beef and wild fish. And so very conscious of again, I was trying to basically test and be like, let's see what my iron does. So it's been since January now. And so what are we at? Like nine, 10, 11 months. And I would say in the last five months, we've started incorporating more and more animal products. So and I'm very healthy in general. Like I don't have gluten. I don't do dairy ever unless it's like extremely I don't have sugar in my diet. I'm very clean I went to get blood work done just as like to see like just check on things. My iron is lower than what it was when I was vegan. So I think diet is important when it comes to nutrients, 100%, but we have to look at is, so then what I'm doing now is I'm working on my gut. Cause I'm like, there's gotta be something here with my gut where I'm not absorbing or I'm not like, you know what I mean, right? So yes, diet is always number one, but if you have to see if there's other stuff going on, that's maybe stopping you from, this is why people supplement forever and then like it does nothing. right well what are your supplements working is your liver detoxifying properly and allowing you to absorb nutrients right so it's it's just interesting you know has she noticed her nutrients go up since yeah but she's been working with you know functional medicine yeah all kinds of people and
Andres Preschel: Since then so yeah, yeah, she's she's she's good now, but good took us a lot of experimentation finding the right specialist.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's it. That's it fasting is There it's it's it's so hard because there's so many, you know New diets that come out all the time and this diet is the best and this one isn't anymore and fasting is great fasting isn't great It's you know, you hear so many different things. It's so individual. Mm-hmm And like you said, for women, your cycle, where you are in your cycle depends. How old you are depends. Also, when it comes to men, though, the adrenals. If you are somebody who runs with higher cortisol, if you have adrenal dysfunction, you shouldn't be fasting. You don't want to go even sometimes four hours without putting something in your body because then your blood sugar is going to tank and your adrenal glands are going to go with it. So you have to watch that. but it can be beneficial for some women, you know, especially if weight loss is there, if they, if we need to kind of work with that and work with insulin resistance and things. Um, so some women I do have fast, but the majority of the time we're, we're looking at a lot of like food timing and like what nutrients they are putting in. Um, so yeah, it's,
Andres Preschel: Did you hear that? Did you hear my stomach?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: No, I heard you. I'm fasting now. Oh, you're hungry. I mean, I told you you're going to be hungry.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: I'm like, I don't want to go into this podcast hungry. So I'm eating. Um, but, uh, I think it's recognizing, I think that some people force themselves to fast, but they actually really are hungry and they start to fade and they go into kind of like a, a low blood sugar state. Like if you're hangry, that's a sign that maybe your body's not ready for it. Or maybe you just need to like decrease that fasting window.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, you know what I what I realized was um, I like Fasting what I liked about fasting the most this is after several years actually of experimenting with fasting looking at blood work Being intuitive listening to my body with it What I realized was that it's not the fasting per se that helps me get that flow and clearness, you know clarity and productivity in the morning it's More so being a ketogenic state right or being in a blood glucose regulated state, right? So what I do now is I don't fast as much Most of the time I actually eat within two hours of waking Otherwise, you know in the past I'd wait four or five six hours before I Now it's like within the first couple hours and what I do is I just have a glucose friendly meal So like yeah, like pretty much just protein and fat. So there's a little bit of carbohydrate like a little bit of honey, maybe But I'm pretty good about keeping the glucose levels low and then I just stay, you know, my glucose is regulated so I stay in that kind of like really nice stable energy and mental clarity zone and Then towards the middle of the day after I've moved around a little bit maybe gone on a walk than some exercise Then I can introduce carbs and because I'm so much more insulin sensitive I can add this in and I'm still glucose stable Yeah, so that's the issue that I was having is, you know before I was doing like let's say protein. Sorry oatmeal in the morning and that was like giving me a big glucose spike and then a big glucose drop and then like feeling overwhelmed, brain fog, you know, lazy, whatever. So that's basically the happy medium that I found. And you still actually can elicit some of the benefits that you see with fasting because you're still getting that, you know, glucose to ketone switch to happen, which is I'm going to spare the physiology lesson on all this stuff. I can do another podcast on it. but uh, that's the kind of the happy medium that I found and so My follow-up question for you is you know how do you think most people can find a happy medium when it comes to a lot of these like health trends such as fasting or cold exposure or Fasted training, you know, yeah, how do you think? women and men can uh pay better attention to their body when it comes to adding in these like hormetic stressors and turning that stress style in their favor to make them more resilient yeah healthier i think number one is if you're going to be going into anything like a keto diet or um fasting and things like that get your adrenals under control first and how do you know if they're under control
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Um usually like so signs to me if your adrenal glands are struggling is usually they are people who live in I mean we all have stress and when I'm talking about getting cortisol under like stress under control as well it's like your perceived stress right because I do know people who thrive on stress and they sleep immaculately and they digest just fine and they don't have brain fog but then there's some people who have what I would perceive is very little stress but to them it's like you know So there's certain hormonal conditions like PCOS for example that predispose women to cortisol dysfunction. They have a harder time metabolizing their cortisol and so they do tend to go through more high cortisol states and then their adrenal glands will tank a lot quicker. But what I'm looking for I would say like 90% of people that come in, a lot of their issues are driven by stress and driven by the adrenal glands not functioning optimally. That's right. And so if you are waking feeling fatigued, like that's when your cortisol is highest. It's supposed to keep you alert and awake. If you're having trouble falling asleep at night or you're waking at night, that's the sign to me that your cortisol is spiking at night when it shouldn't be. It's supposed to be nice and low, keeping you asleep. And if you have an afternoon slump in energy, so if you have that afternoon slump leading into your afternoon and you're like, I need to have that coffee to just kind of perk me up a bit, that's a sign that the adrenal glands are kind of like slowing and not really functioning as well. Lack of focus and concentration, brain fog, if it's extreme, where you know now you're it's kind of like the adrenal glands are trying to pump out all this cortisol to keep you functioning all day long right so that's like what I call like the the CEO type person I was like go go go all day drinking coffee go go go so the adrenal glands are keeping up with you initially and they're pumping out cortisol and adrenaline to help you you know function but then you usually crash at night right so like I sleep great it's because they're crashing But over time, the adrenal glands become tired and they can't do that anymore where it's telling, like basically your body's saying, go, go, produce all this cortisol because they have all this stress and we need the cortisol to help manage the stress. But the adrenal glands are going, I'm trying, but I can't. So then you start seeing a lot of fatigue. You might see anxiety, depression. So a lot of people are misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression.
Andres Preschel: And dependency on stimulants, which then keeps you up, makes the problem worse.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's right.
Andres Preschel: you get poor sleep, you need more caffeine the next day, and you're developing a tolerance for it, and it's like this positive feedback loop, but in the wrong direction of like, you know, really working against you.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: And I see this especially in women after their ovulation period too, when we are more susceptible to stress, because then it's it kind of worsens the issue and now we're seeing a lot of young moms with a ton of irritability, rage, you know, they're not feeling… I went through this, I went through this postpartum myself of just a year of not feeling like myself going in the last half of my cycle going into almost like this rage state or being so extremely irritable that I was like lashing out on everyone. It wasn't fair to them but I felt like it was out of my control. and I knew that my adrenal glands were just, they were tanked. And so definitely like recognize, you can test your cortisol of course, your morning, afternoon cortisol, you could do salivary cortisol test, which is probably the best in my opinion in terms of finding out. Really, and it's very accessible too. Yeah, very accessible and it can give you just a really good idea of what your cortisol is doing over the course of 24 hours. Cortisol awakening response is another one. So once we know what the adrenals are doing, we can get them regulated. But in terms of finding out what diet is right for you, if you should do cold plunging, all these things, it's funny because a lot of the stuff in the longevity space that might, say, increase our longevity, or research is showing to, might not be the best for fertility. Sometimes they are, like NMN, NAD plus precursors, CoQ10, all those things that activate mitochondria, help reduce oxidative stress, amazing for fertility, amazing for longevity. But would I tell say a male who is working out constantly and doing tons of cold plunges to do cold plunges? Probably not. Because what we want is those testes to actually remain a specific temperature. We also don't want to be cutting inflammation right after a workout, right? If you have general inflammation, cold plunging is great. but not right after a workout. Like if your goal is to build muscle.
Andres Preschel: Unless you're like an elite athlete, you need to have back-to-back competitions, you need to diminish the inflammation. That's right. You have that range of motion, but most people should not be doing it afterwards because yet the heat component of exercise alone helps drive hypertrophy. There's heat shock proteins, there's a lot of things that happen that are related to that kind of heat response that promote hypertrophy. And so I always say like, you know, me and a lot of physiologists and people like Huberman even like, suggesting that cold exposure is best pre-workout or on days that you don't have activity. Heat exposure is actually better post-workout like sauna, steam room to increase the heat shock proteins and promote that inflammatory drive, blood flow, etc. You mentioned how the cold plunge might not be good for the testes, but I know actually another naturopath, Lucas Aoun, who's a big fan of icing the balls, because he thinks And well he the research he's looked at is like You know most men nowadays We actually put too much heat on her.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yes, you know, yes compression underwear.
Andres Preschel: So I see where he's going materials We're sitting in a car with the seat. Well, that's right. You put your laptop laptop phone, right? Yeah, so like he said yes that the tatties are actually external to keep them in Cooler, there's supposed to be like one or two degrees cooler than the rest of your body. Yes, but in this modern world It's not the case. So he actually is a huge huge huge proponent of icing the balls like it's like Every morning I take a cold shower and I get a lot of time for water to go directly in that area for that reason Okay
Dr.Jessica Dupont: So if you're putting ice on your testicles, or if you're submersing yourself in a cold plunge, what's happening to blood vessels? Yeah, they're constricting. They're constricting, right? So if, so now again, this depends again on a man's certain concerns, but if a lot of men's fertility issues are usually because of something called a varicocele. Yeah.
Andres Preschel: Right? They have reduced blood flow.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: So they already have reduced blood flow.
Andres Preschel: By the way, I had the varicocele full disclosure, so I know, yeah.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Okay, have you since had it resolved?
Andres Preschel: It's a long story, but I got it. Oh my gosh, you just opened up a whole can of worms. That's funny, because can of worms, they describe it as like a wormy, you know, whatever.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: No pun intended.
Andres Preschel: No pun intended there. But it's actually extremely common. Varicocels are extremely common. And I had a large varicocel. I went to this doctor and got it checked out. And I actually had a procedure done. Varicoselectomy. Okay, so they go up in here. Yeah, they kind of go in and they I Honestly wish I hadn't done this. I wish I had taken a more natural approach. It's okay because there's only one side of those fight typically to the left side and They went in and they cut both of like the blood vessels. I think I forget what it is. They cut both and They did both just in case. They did both sides. I actually got so mad. I almost sued these people because they went in. I had for months planned the surgery and we knew it was going to be just the left side, just the left side, just the left side. Once I was actually in the operating room, They did both? No, I was in the operating room, there's like five nurses around me, there's two doctors, there's like all this stuff going on, they're injecting stuff, like I'm in the operating room, they brought this paper out, they're like, oh, just sign the thing, just sign the paper, like real quick, just sign the paper, sign the paper, sign the paper, just sign the paper, and I signed the paper, and I'm like, okay, yeah, like the surgery, yeah, sign the paper, and they were like rushing me, like rushing, rushing me, and then I didn't realize until later that the paper said something about bilateral whatever, and they did both sides, I woke up and had two scars, I was so, and they told me double, you don't understand how furious my whole family became. So I'm not gonna name names here, but actually a local doctor. And he, I'm actually, this happened a couple years ago, but I, you know what the worst part is? The reason why I'm even bringing this up the story, the worst part is that the varicocele came right back. It never helped. The whole thing didn't even help. So and now that it's been it's been long enough now where I know that the procedures didn't help because sometimes it takes a Few months for the kick in or whatever. Yeah, but now i'm actually going to send a formal complaint to the board of you know medicine the medical board to Yeah, you know because apparently he's done this to a lot of people
Dr.Jessica Dupont: yeah and that's just that's a lack of informed consent like even though like well i have his consent it's like well it wasn't informed you know and um that's i mean we'll talk about that after for sure yeah uh but that's really unfortunate and um so like varicocele i mean the first line of treatment usually is to have it you know removed if somebody's going through fertility stuff for example i had no fertility issues no but how did you find out you had it you felt it
Andres Preschel: Yeah, I mean it's visible. Yeah, like you felt it.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: So now it's back.
Andres Preschel: I got it. I got a sperm quality test done and It's like 800 million sperm count. So really high super high.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: What was it?
Andres Preschel: I forget but it was everything was great. I actually made a joke He's like, oh man, I was going to college at that time. He's like, oh you should wear two condoms But but uh, he was like, yeah, you know, there's no issues whatever but I just didn't like it I didn't like having it there. And so a couple years later to make the decision But I regret making the decision because even help I
Dr.Jessica Dupont: And especially not under his care and supervision. You did what you could with the information you had at the time. So you can't regret it. I'm not fucked though, right? No, but it came back because the root of the issue wasn't addressed, right? There's obviously a lack of blood flow happening. So the question is why? What can you do now to increase the blood flow? Like L-carnitine? I do like red light therapy every day.
Andres Preschel: Red and infrared every day.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah. So and then the question becomes okay so so sperm analysis looks good now what will it look like in 10 years? Yeah right what would it look like in five years if the varicocele isn't addressed? So these are conversations that I have with people and then I would question you know if you have a varicocele there could there be potential arteries that are blocking elsewhere or can we like why do you have this predisposition to these varicose veins right like you like the always question is always why and that's what we try to figure out and it's nothing to be like concerned about or like oh my god or like you know um i think that you've since then probably done so much in terms of lifestyle changes in terms of nitric oxide and you know um getting you know like cardiovascular health and all of that which is exactly where you want to go when you have a varicose seal so A lot of the things that actually help with cardiovascular health help with men's fertility too. So because of that.
Andres Preschel: It's interesting, I also had Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome. I had tachycardia.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Oh yeah.
Andres Preschel: And I got that, what's it called? embolized no an ablation an ablation done yeah yeah yeah so I don't know if those two things are related potentially yeah potentially okay so we're gonna have to have a little consultation after yeah but I mean it's good that you know you're talking about it because I'm sure a lot of your viewers like maybe I'm dealing with the same thing honestly the reason why being open is just to get men to check themselves out and to take it seriously because this could have affected my yeah
Dr.Jessica Dupont: future kids you know for sure and let's be honest men are touching their balls every day all day long so if anything feels different out of the ordinary if anything's new like absolutely get it checked out don't ignore it I know somebody that ignored it because they were just too scared You know, I think it was an ego thing and like that's fine and they were just too scared to get it checked out and then it turned out to be something that you know, so We shouldn't ignore anything and I think that people really just need to start listening to their bodies because our bodies really are Telling us every day what it needs and it could be something as simple as you need to drink water you need to go take a break and go to the washroom and we ignore it and I don't know how many hours I sit there with patients and I've had to like literally pee for five hours and I just don't go and then I'm running thereafter. It's very stressful building up all that nitrogen. Oh my god, but it's like you're back-to-back and you're just like go go go go obviously not ideal long term. But you know when we start listening then your body will start to respond. you know a lot of people who go through fertility stuff or even in the longevity space they're not listening until we get them to listen and they go oh I didn't realize that my constipation that I've had for five six years is contributing to this.
Andres Preschel: You know, it's interesting about longevity. I definitely want us to make the transition but a great transition to longevity with fertility is the idea that longevity Isn't just happening here in our lifespan like our longevity is in our DNA Right fertility is the longevity of our DNA. Mm-hmm So it's like yeah, maybe you'll have a long healthy life but you having a long healthy life means that your offspring will likely have a long healthy life because of The environment that you're surrounding yourself with the toxins that you are not, you know encountering and that's the steps that you're taking to make sure that you're as soon as the even before the babies born it already has better odds of survival in this, you know new life in this new world, so So, longevity isn't just limited to us, it's limited to our DNA and our DNA has the potential to go millions and billions of years in the future.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Well, it's interesting you say that, you know, kids born today are, you know, they have such a long life and all this now, but what we're actually starting to see is that sometimes parents are even outliving children more and more and more and more. And I feel like even now we're seeing, what is it, like 1 in 15? The stats on the autism rates and ADHD rates and all this stuff that we're seeing now is just exponential since the introduction of pesticides in our environment. and blue light and blue light like electricity and toxins and um so no longer is it just you know half the genes from the mom and half the genes from the dad and that's what makes the baby It's yes, the genes are there, but those genes have been shifted in terms of their expression. And this environment is just so toxic. Because of their environment. Toxins are being passed down in the womb. Heavy metals are being passed down. Nutrients are being passed down. So genetics are a part of it. And that will, say, if you have a family, a bloodline that's, oh, they live forever. Yeah, potentially you will as well because that those genes are there But more importantly are those epigenetics, right? It's the What like what what is the health of that DNA look like?
Andres Preschel: right and then as far as I mean if you look at longevity and fertility and like the quality of life component You know, the quality of life rewards you with fertility and rewards you with longevity. I always say lifespan or longevity isn't about living for the sake of more moments. I mean, everybody wants to live longer, but longevity is what you get by really honing in on the quality of the present moment.
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
Andres Preschel: You know, so I think that if you can put in on the quality of your daily life Then you're boosting your fertility and by definition similarly You're boosting your longevity. That's right, and I just within your lifespan, but the longevity of your Well your DNA yeah on this planet Yeah, and you're so you're also kind of touching on the difference between like health span versus lifespan.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah, and It's like I I would rather live a shorter life That's you know healthy and fruitful and happy versus a longer life that I'm I'm sick and I'm tired and I'm irritable and I don't like to be around anyone and I'm depressed and You know, so there is a big difference that people need to understand for sure.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, and actually I have some questions about um So for the folks that have had some trouble Getting pregnant. Mm-hmm. What are some let's say What are some checklist items that you have to take someone through to ensure that they're taking care of themselves? What are some things that everyone has to do when they're having pregnancy issues?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah. So first and foremost, when we do a consultation, I'm going in detail, you know, trying to find out as much as possible about their lifestyle. You know, we're talking about perceived stress and how to manage stress and cortisol. We're talking about their daily nutrition and, you know, how much nutrients they're getting in. We look at nutrient status. their water intake, so making sure you're getting in adequate water for your size, adequate protein, removing foods, like a big part of what I do with nutrition is removing foods that generally drive inflammation. Anytime we see fertility concerns, I know there is fertility issues. Or sorry, I know there's inflammation issues. So the question is, where is the inflammation coming from? What's driving it? But in the meantime, let's remove the things that will naturally drive inflammation. For example, sugar, processed foods, seed oils. Gluten is usually one that I do take out, also because gluten drives autoimmunity. And autoimmunity will usually be, for some people, cause fertility concerns. Um, one food that, um, this is going to be very controversial. This is very controversial among other naturopaths that I work with. Raw liver. No, I don't do raw liver. But in terms of fertility, what I'm saying is eggs. So most of the research out there says that eggs are one of the fertility superfoods, right? Because they're high in choline. And B vitamins. Yeah, which I get. But a lot of the research that I've done and with working with my patients, I'm starting to look into viral causes of endometriosis and PCOS and other reproductive conditions. One of those viruses being Epstein-Barr virus. Epstein-Barr virus is a hacker, like, in a bad way when it comes to the mitochondria of the egg cell. Not a biohacker, it's a hacker. No, it's a hacker. Like, it's hacking it. So, When Epstein-Barr virus, Epstein-Barr virus, I would say, is probably like there's probably some form of the virus in like 90% to 95% of the population. But like any virus remains dormant in our bodies and then becomes reactivated under times of stress. And it'll remain dormant in different people's tissues. For some people, it remains dormant in the reproductive organs. And so there is a link now where we're seeing more research coming out about the link between Epstein-Barr virus and endometriosis or PCOS, which we know are huge reproductive issues when it comes to fertility. When it comes to removing virus from someone, I have to think about what's feeding it. Okay, so again, this is going to be controversial, but let's kind of like step away from science for a second and think about logically.
Andres Preschel: Let's say something just proactively and preventatively. We might get cancelled for this.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: No, no, we will, we will. We'll be fine. But it'll be interesting to see the comments. Sure. But let's put science aside for a second, because we know even research changes. And science changes constantly, right? One supplement is good for you one week, and then in two years it isn't, and whatever. So we're just doing the best we can with the knowledge we have. But let's think of actually logic. So when you have a live vaccine, what do they put in it to keep the virus alive?
Andres Preschel: In a live vaccine?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: They put egg protein. OK. OK. So then if we start kind of going down the rabbit hole a little bit and thinking, well, if eggs are keeping a virus alive and I'm trying to starve this virus out of their bodies, then logically I shouldn't be giving them eggs. So I have been now for probably about five years removing eggs from a lot of my fertility patients diets. Definitely if there is endometriosis and PCOS, those are foods that I remove. But it's going to be interesting to see the comments on that one. I'm trying to remember your original question. Oh, right. So what would you have people do? So from a nutrition perspective, it's about, of course, making sure you're getting in enough protein, healthy carbohydrates, healthy fats.
Andres Preschel: How much is enough protein?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: I go about one, what is it? One gram per pound. One gram per pound. Yeah. Of body weight. Yeah. And then always pairing your carbohydrates with the protein so that you're not carb loading too much. But I don't want people to go carbohydrate free. Healthy carbohydrates like that glucose is essential for brain development in the fetus. It's essential for reproduction. So we never want to go like fat free or carbohydrate free, nothing like that. I want people to keep in the foods that they love. It's just about like, let's take out foods that might be driving inflammation. and, you know, up the foods that are going to be more nutritive to the womb, nutritive to sperm, nutritive to the egg. Healthy fats are huge, right? Like when you think of the phospholipids and so omega-3s, omega-6s, in balance of course, are going to be essential for the mitochondria. So a lot of what I do is working on the mitochondria with my patients. And I'll go into that in a second, because I want to answer the question you had. Activity is another one. So obviously, if you're sitting all day, you're not getting any blood flow to the pelvic region. And we're all about trying to increase blood flow, get new blood flow in, so you're bringing oxygen, nutrients to the womb, to the penis, to the ovaries. and removing kind of like old stagnant blood in women as well. So a lot of women, for example, will have brown spotting before or after their period comes. That brown spotting is a sign to me of hormonal deficiencies, but also the fact that their entire lining is not shedding every month. And so there's an old kind of stagnant blood that's been sitting there. So lack of blood flow. So I developed a fertility massage that you can find on YouTube. I could put the link in under your show notes. And this massage is really good at getting the old blood flow out, getting fresh, or kind of get the old blood out, fresh blood flow in. It also breaks up adhesions that might be within the pelvis or other things that are kind of like, even like a tilted uterus or a uterus that might be, have a septum or different structural anomalies. The massage can be really good at kind of like moving all those reproductive tissues and detoxifying the uterus. So those are kind of like the basics, right? So nutrition, exercise, water intake, you know, movement and all of that. Then we go into the specifics in terms of like what is going on with them and then, you know, tailoring supplement protocols or potentially other treatments depending on what comes up in results. But I feel like for most of my clients, one thing I work on 100% is going to be egg quality, right? Not the egg you're eating. Nope. The egg you're producing. The egg you're producing or sperm quality, just making sure that the quality is there even while we're investigating other things.
Andres Preschel: That's the main KPI, the main key performance indicator of your health and your space is how's the sperm doing?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yes. And then tailor lifestyle around that. Yeah, and I have developed now two online programs, one specifically for sperm health, one specifically for egg quality. And these can be done by people who are struggling with fertility or even not. I oftentimes have people do them just if they're in their 30s and thinking about conceiving in the next few years, they'll get on the program and just start learning about how their eggs and their sperm are affected by their outward environment and what could be contributing to more oxidative stress and therefore more damage to the cell, and then how to reverse it or stop damage in the future. So when we think of longevity and age, right? So I get this question a lot of, well, I'm over 35, should I be panicking about my egg quality? I'm over 40, am I gonna have to do IVF? You know, there's a lot of panic over age because as we age- IVF? IVF is, do you know what IVF is? So it's when couples would go in and they would remove the egg from the female, they take the sperm from the man, and they put them together, create an embryo in a lab, and then they would implant the embryo back into you. In vitro fertility. Yes. Yes. Sorry, I should have. Then you would have known. Context clues. Yeah. But I can tell you, I've had young women the age of 28 have complete ovarian failure, meaning that their egg quality, their reserve is almost at zero, their estrogen's in the toilet, their LHFSH, all their hormones are in the toilet. And then I've had women who are 45 have amazing eggs, amazing quality, get pregnant like this. And so age is a factor, but more so, it's not. We know women are born with all the eggs we're ever gonna have and every time that we have a menstrual cycle every time we ovulate we lose a certain portion of those eggs so maybe like 10 to 14 right?
Andres Preschel: How many do you have typically?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Oh gosh so we're born with a few million by the time you reach puberty you're down to Oh god, you're testing me now. I haven't looked at these numbers in a while. You're down to like a few hundred thousand. Like it really, really drops by the time you hit fertility. And then even by the time you're like 35, it's in half again. Like it just declines over time. Once you reach the age of 35 in both men and women, we see egg numbers begin to tank even more dramatically. And that's because our DHEA, so our hormone DHEA, drops significantly. DHEA is what we call a pro-hormone. It produces your testosterone and your estrogen, so that will naturally decline. So oftentimes we actually give patients DHEA. to increase the amount of eggs that they get every time that or amount of follicles every time they go in through a cycle and you know so as the eggs begin to age then of course quality will begin to naturally decline so we need to hit it harder when we're older, but you should start younger, because there's other factors that will diminish egg quality early. Like this 28-year-old woman, I'm thinking, what happened? And so we're going, do you have endometriosis? Do you have PCOS? Do you have a thyroid condition? Is there heavy metal exposure? So we went through all the things there, and we did find out what it was. and we were able to reverse it. And that's something that in the medical field has been shown to like, oh, you can't reverse. Endometriosis? No, premature ovarian failure, right? We're told that, oh, we can't reverse it. Your eggs are where they are, you can't do anything about it. You can't reverse it. Well, I did it in my practice. Not to say that I'm like a miracle worker, but it just took to finding out what was causing it. Because it was very interesting. It just happened really quickly. She was a patient of mine for a couple of years. Her hormones always looked good. Periods always looked good. And then all of a sudden it was like, right. And so once we found out what the issue was, we corrected the issue and then her eggs were able to get the nutrients that they needed. The phospholipid membrane among the mitochondria became stronger and she was able to conceive on her own. And prior to this, she had gone through four rounds of failed IVF, canceling her cycles over and over again because she wasn't getting enough follicles. So you have to get like a certain amount of follicles for them to retrieve. or else they're not going to get enough eggs. It's not worth going through the whole treatment or the whole protocol. We were getting her prepared for another cycle and then she called me and she's like, oh my god, I'm pregnant. I literally fell off my chair. Because even in my mind, I was like, oh my god, this is going to be impossible. Because we're always told, this is impossible. Once it's like this, this is the way it is. But we have to remember that science is so limited. And so this is where I say, sometimes you have to take off the science hat. And you have to think about things logically. And just a lot of what I do, and I was telling you this prior to shooting today, is I do a lot of intuitive work. So even when a client is talking to me, I can feel certain energies in different parts of their body. And I could sometimes just know, be like, no, this has nothing to do with that. I think it has more to do with this. And then we attack that. approach and even when it comes to testing I don't test everyone like sometimes I'm just like let's do this and let's see what happens and then they'll get pregnant and it's just so so sometimes it's about just realigning or some a little shift in lifestyle it could be a nutrient deficiency you know so sometimes you don't have to go through all this testing in order to figure it out
Andres Preschel: What are your thoughts on the xenoestrogens and the EMF? I'm a big fan of Dr. Ashana Swan in her book, Countdown, all about the declining sperm testosterone. I'm actually wearing, this is a surprise I had for you. Oh God, what are you wearing? Drumroll please. This red underwear is EMF proof underwear.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's unreal! It's by Lambs. That's great.
Andres Preschel: And it's like silver, you know, fibers in it. Yes. And it's interesting because I had to go with red, you know, that's number one. you know that was kind of funny but anyway um i wear it in the airport because the airport is like probably you're going to get the most emf you're on a plane you're in the airport all this electromagnetic you know frequency whatever yeah and even your phone yeah exactly your phone too so but when i wear this in the airport i have to go through the metal detector they always you know the ones you have to put your hands up yeah and so they can see where on your body you might have something that You know what stands out? Every time I go into one of those, there's a big yellow square on my penis. And so what happens is this big buff TSA guy has to go pat me down every single time. Yeah, my girlfriend thinks I secretly enjoy it. That's why I wear it. No, just kidding. No, but I always tell them, I'm like, yeah, there's silver embedded in my underwear, you know, the EMF. And they're just like, dude, just go, just like take your stuff, whatever, you know. But anyway, I'm very serious about the xenoestrogens, the EMF. So like even my bed, for example, I mean, I don't, I have an avocado mattress, it's like made of natural fibers. I have like all cotton, you know, all is polyester-free. I don't wear, I used to, you know, I was into, I mean, I'm into fitness. I think about all the fitness, you know, attire that it's made with polyester. You know, you're putting it on your private area and then you've got the pants, like everything is polyester. So, not only does it compress and reduce the blood flow, but it also is xenoestrogen. So, my mattress, my clothes, I've gone totally polyester-free. I have an air purifier in my room. I actually sleep my bed between the mattress pad and the mattress itself. I have an Ultimate Longevity, it's called Ultimate Longevity grounding mat. So I'm grounded, no polyester, no whatever, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job. But I know that this stuff is everywhere. It's everywhere. So what are your thoughts on, and what have you seen in the research and the literature as far as how this actually influences sperm quality?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah you know what there's more and more research coming out all the time and even on forever chemicals right like PFAs and I actually just I wrote a blog post about that recently there's more research on men's fertility I think I posted this literally yesterday on my Instagram and these idea of forever chemicals and
Andres Preschel: Yeah, I think I did see that on your Instagram story.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, and decreasing sperm quality and motility. Yeah. And xenoestrogens are everywhere. It's insane.
Andres Preschel: Because we're also eating the microplastics that have them.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Eating microplastics. So they're like in our body. Yep. Yep.
Andres Preschel: And they're in water, everything. Yeah.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Shampoo. If I'm staying at a hotel and I… Parabens, the parabens. That's right, parabens. Fragrance, be careful of fragrance because it might say phthalate free, but fragrance is also always put in and fragrance usually is phthalates. You gotta be kind of careful with that. And so there are definitely cleaner products you can choose that don't have these. And for anybody who don't know what xenoestrogens are, essentially they're estrogen mimicking chemicals that we're putting in our body that are binding… Estrogen mimicking. estrogen mimicking chemicals that are binding to our estrogens, right? And then they affect how we perceive our body in terms of like, okay, do we have too much estrogen? Do we have not enough estrogen? And then, so our body thinks it's our own estrogen, but it isn't. And so this is where there's tons of research now linking xenoestrogens to endometriosis. So to all those estrogen dominant conditions, right? So we're seeing more women with estrogen dominant cycles, meaning painful periods, more PMS. We're seeing more tender breasts and fibrocystic breasts, fibroids. And in men, we are particularly seeing testosterone begin to drop and more and more seeing this. And there was even a study I saw once where in water, we were seeing a lot more estrogen because women were urinating out their pills, right? Like they're on OCPs and then it's going in the urine and then it's getting into the water and then men are drinking the water. I can't, I got to find that study. That was actually a few years ago when I saw that one and it was affecting the fish.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, the fish started changing sex.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's it. They were like, why are all the fish turning female? And so, um,
Andres Preschel: That's another epidemic, is men are turning female. I mean, not to say the gender or whatever, but… Yeah. And this is something I can actually get cancelled for, but… What I actually intend to say is a lot of men are becoming like androgynous because of the environment that they're in. You know, there's xenoestrogens, there's terrible sleep, you know, you don't get to support your testosterone and so you naturally will…
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, coming away literally like physiologically more feminine Yeah, and it's not even affecting just like it's affecting so many things because estrogen affects so many things right estrogen affects your sleep Your microbiome everything like that So, somebody asked me the other day, or they said, oh yeah, so periods normally start for girls between, you know, age 13, 16. I'm like, no, it used to be that way, but now we're seeing young girls have periods at the age of eight, nine, 10 years old. And so it's happening earlier and earlier, and this is because of estrogens in our environment.
Andres Preschel: Our body takes us under that, in that stage of their life cycle already.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah. Yeah. So it's a big problem. It's a big conversation that I do have with my patients that for sure, you know, I'm not expecting them to go change out every single product they're putting on their body or eating with right away. But, um, but we start kind of weaning it out and animal products being a, one of them where I'm like, you absolutely, if you're having animal products, it's gotta be hormone free, antibiotic free. Like if you were trying to like balance your own hormones, don't go putting excess hormones in from like your foods. So we have big conversations around that.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, so it's like there's hormones in our food, there's microplastics in our food and our water, and our shampoo, and our other beauty products. When we put fragrances on to smell better, that stuff's also littered with xenoestrogens. We're wearing clothes that have the polyesters, and especially in our private areas, that's compressing the blood flow, so your body can't even effectively, I would say, deal with or filter that out or clean it out. reduction in blood flow reduction in oxygen you just have this Xenon astrogens and I mean there's like so many of these things right then that you know, the poor sleep in the poor diet.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: It's like Yeah, we live in an environment unfortunately that doesn't favor fertility which is why we are seeing Like infertility on the rise, right? So I think they're like one in six couples and have fertility issues. And we often think, well, it's mainly a woman's issue.
Andres Preschel: And the rest are on a spectrum. You know, the rest are like, maybe you're not getting pregnant, but you're still, you know, your baby can have higher incidence of ADHD, autism, you know, whatever.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: And that's not like, it's no fault of, of the mother or the father, right? It's, um, but the idea here is that if we can control some of these factors, there's some things that are out of our control for sure. Right? Like we can't, when it comes to, um, the sperm and the egg and their DNA, we can't necessarily change the actual chromosomes yet, right? Yet. But we can, we can alter, you know, what's happening around them and how those chromosomes are being shifted and, um, and expressed. And, um, it comes down to the mitochondria, right? All the factors that you just listed here, the sleep, the food, the microplastics, the PFAs, everything. all are detrimental to the mitochondria. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. So it's what's driving DNA production and energy metabolism. And it also gets rid of reactive oxidative species, all of that. And so each one of our cells has about 1,000 to 2,000 mitochondria. The egg cell has hundreds of thousands. It has the most mitochondria than any other cell.
Andres Preschel: I touched upon this briefly on one of my latest podcasts with the woman. I think her name is Dr. Emily Werner. She works for Timeline Nutrition. They have a product called MitoPure. And it's got the urolithin A. That was a fascinating podcast. And I've been taking the urolithin A. I feel a little more energized, actually, more clear since I started taking it. And I was like, I didn't believe in it, by the way. I think I honestly noceboed myself. out of like more benefit potentially like that's how I like I was right if you're skeptical I was very skeptical yeah but um yeah anyway that we spoke a little bit about how it can influence reproductive health because there's these concentrations of mitochondrion areas that are I guess the most relatively the most important well they need the most energy they need the most energy and I guess for the sake of reproduction and safety and survival, they're the most important. So it's like the brain, the heart, and the reproductive system. So the thing that's worth exploring is more research on urolithin A and other nutrients that are just tough to get in these modern environments that our bodies need to thrive.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's right. We are, there's more and more research coming out about like NAD plus precursors now. So NMN, which we are exploring now in fertility. So, um, I definitely have, um, we talk about NAD plus precursors with my patients and what we've seen is that when it goes up to egg retrieval, we're seeing, um, healthier eggs. We're seeing more eggs that are retrieved. So we know that it's impacting the mitochondria of the egg cells and helping with the longevity of the eggs. CoQ10 and PQQ being another one.
Andres Preschel: Yeah, I think Symbiotica actually, it makes an incredible, I think it's a blend of CoQ10, PQQ, and something else I forget, but they sent me something.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: There's a lot of blends like out there for mitochondrial support. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a pretty cool one. And then they'll even have, you know, alpha lipoic acid or they'll have your B vitamins, selenium, zinc, all those nutrients that are essential for mitochondrial health. And so in the longevity space, which I know you're in a lot, where you talk about the mitochondria and how that can like lengthen, you know, lifespan or health span, it's the same thing when it comes to the eggs and the sperm, because they're also a cell, right? So one day we'll get to change the actual genes, but the fact of the matter is, is you get half the DNA from dad, half the DNA from mom, but what we can change is all that those, the inflammation and the oxidative stress around that DNA and we can see for example a man coming with say a high DNA fragmentation rate, remember we talked about that with sperm testing, have a very high DNA fragmentation to six months later having a very low DNA fragmentation by just changing lifestyle factors.
Andres Preschel: Meaning the DNA is intact?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: It doesn't have as many nicks and stuff in it. So in that respect, we are seeing that, OK, we can shift the quality of the DNA. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I just wanted to clarify that in case people were confused about, what do you mean you can change your DNA or this? So it's really interesting the new research that is coming out and so my focus has been Really into that lately and the getting chemicals and toxins out. That's actually a number one thing I do with everything on my patients is detox Every single one. Yeah.
Andres Preschel: Yeah fighting chance like your body has a certain kind of wisdom and intelligence that it wants to heal itself and And to have a fighting chance, you need to detoxify because there's trillions of dollars that go into these products and how widely accessible they are and they influence both our internal and our external environment and we're just one human being, we're just one person.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: That's it. And it's your liver's job to metabolize your hormones, to help with digestion and absorption of nutrients. to process blood sugar. So if the liver is bogged down by all these chemicals and not functioning well, then nothing's going to work properly. So if we're going to be working on reproduction, for an example, just even just put into that little box, then the liver has to be functioning well. I can give you all the supplements in the world and you're not even going to absorb them if your liver is not working properly. So we get the toxins out and if anything, at least you're now not going to be transferring as many chemicals and toxins to your growing baby.
Andres Preschel: Right now you're really honing in on things that you do have control over. 100%. And if you can notice and manage all these things to the best of your ability, you're going to have the best odds in this modern world because there's some things that are inevitable. Hey, what are we gonna stop having babies because we're living a sick planet like no Let's just make the effort to have healthier babies and maybe they can take care better They can take better care of our planet, you know, yeah.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, so yeah, it's all about education and That's what we're here to do. I mean, that's what you're here to do That's why you have a podcast and it's so great that you know you have such a great like a lot of viewers and people who are really listening and great people who've been on here to talk about you know what they love and what they do and because knowledge is power you know and being having experience on top of knowledge is also great and that's gonna pull you out of sometimes the science you know we often have I have patients I said was this scientifically proven is this scientifically proven nine times out of ten yes here's the research I'll show it all to you but sometimes you just have to let's think about this logically and let's think about what your body's doing and how your body's responding to certain things yeah and you know that you're like your body is not going to respond the same way as someone else yeah and then look at like a lot of the keto research and fasting research is done on what men athletes so when it comes to women might not be the best for that.
Andres Preschel: I mean, most people, what do they do when they look at a study? They look at the conclusion, but they don't look at the methods or the participants or whatever.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, was it a good study? Who funded the study? How many people were in the study?
Andres Preschel: Oh, fasting works for fat loss and whatever, and it's like, you know, everybody wants that.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Not necessarily for women. No, I know, I know. I'm saying they're underrepresented.
Andres Preschel: Definitely don't. I mean, most research, the vast majority of women are underrepresented, or it's post-menopausal women that don't have the same fluctuations pre or post-menopausal. So it's like…
Dr.Jessica Dupont: There's a lot of factors involved. So it's actually Sarah Gottfried is really good. I don't know if you know who she is. She talks a little bit about how you can do a little bit of a keto diet as a woman. So taking into consideration hormones and stuff but having a little bit more carbohydrates than say necessarily a male counterpart because just our reserves are different and our hormones fluctuate differently and we need different things compared to a male, right? So it's it's cool. Like everybody is coming out with new research now and everybody's questioning which is really great And if you're questioning things that you're taking if you're questioning If you're questioning me as your physician or your other physician, that's great.
Andres Preschel: I want you to question me Yeah, that helps us that helps the literature to grow and develop as well people have to ask these questions and that's the problem is like well, that's one of the problems is like You know these modern doctors, which I know they place pivotal role, they play a crucial role. My parents are doctors. There's a lot of physicians in my family. I wanted to be a doctor. But it's like, if you look at where the research is at with women and women's health and hormones and the lack of evidence that there is, then what are we doing? We're basically telling them, no, take this birth control because we don't understand you yet. It's like, just stay normal because this is what we know. So just hey, go over there.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, or they're testing hormones on days of the cycle that I'm like that's irrelevant to me Like I need you to test it on this day And then or they're testing women's hormones, but then they don't know how to interpret them.
Andres Preschel: I mean, that's that's that's our I guess Obviously a little controversial, but I think that's my interpretation is like, oh, I don't understand you Let me just give you this thing to like regulate.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Or they refer, right? So, actually that's one of the discrepancies we see is like, you know, from a functional medicine perspective or, you know, in naturopathy when we're looking at hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal, thyroid, gut, gonadal that whole kind of interconnection we need to think about okay how does this all come together now and what do we do where's the root where is it starting so that all these other things resolve but unfortunately the way our medical system is set up is they they know like a lot of medical doctors know that there is this hpa axis and it is related but they don't know how to integrate the knowledge and they were just weren't taught for you know and maybe they will we will be I'm sure like it's over evolving um but so it's okay well I'm gonna I guess refer you to um you know an ob-gyn for this part and I'm gonna refer you to uh oh you have joint pain I'll refer you to uh you know so a rheumatologist so they get referrals out to all these different specialists none of those specialists are talking to each other Meanwhile, the constipation, the inflammation in your joints, and your reproductive stuff is all related. But they're not talking.
Andres Preschel: They're being treated independently.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, and they shouldn't be. Yeah, so it's just our medical system and how it's designed right now. There is pros, there's cons. There's pros in functional medicine, cons in functional medicine too. Like we all have our limitations. So it's just about like, it's great when you see practitioners who are MDs who have that knowledge and then they're also, you know, a functional medicine practitioner or bringing in the knowledge from sort of that natural world too. And they're integrating them. Like when you have that integrative approach to your health, that's like your gold.
Andres Preschel: And if we want our kids to change the future we have to change ourselves now to give them a fighting chance and help them show up as the best versions of themselves and and Yeah, because currently with all the different ways that our minds and bodies are polluted, you know Yeah, it's not in our best interest to take better care of ourselves in the planet.
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm Yeah, for sure.
Andres Preschel: And well before we sign off here. I'm curious if you have one phrase, word, or sentence that you could put on a billboard somewhere in the world? What would it say and where would you put it?
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Okay, can I give you two? Okay, sure. I was trying to think about this. Let's start with the first thing I say to my patients all the time, which is always in a relativity to reproduction because that's what we've been talking about. I always say, if you were to get pregnant today, you are getting pregnant with an egg and a sperm that is as healthy as you were three months ago. Okay, so thinking about that, it takes the egg to mature until ovulation is about 90 days and sperm is about 72 days. So it's about three months. So you need to do like three months of work to really like up that quality in sperm. Even more is better, but at least three months in order to see some change, right? So thinking about that, a lot of people start thinking about their health once they fall pregnant, right? And you're like, well, no, you should actually be thinking about it ahead of time. That I don't know where I would put. I feel like I would put in every single fertility clinic on the wall because many fertility clinics don't even talk about nutrition, don't even mention CoQ10. Oh, you sit on your bum all day and don't exercise? That's OK. We'll do IUI. We'll do IVF, which is unfortunate because IVF and IUI has its place, 100%. It's a miracle that we even have that technology. And it's amazing for a lot of people. But there's a lot of people that can avoid it if they're addressing other things first. And it is expensive. It's not cheap for everyone and it's hard on women's bodies, you know, having all the hormones and stuff. So that's the first one. So if you were to get pregnant today, your sperm and your egg are as healthy as you were three months ago. The second one is sort of like more like a life mantra that I follow. And it's don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle. Have you heard of that before? No. Okay. So this is in the context of when I first started in practice and then it came up again when I first started launching online programs. so when I it's it basically the whole thing is we compare ourselves constantly to people who maybe we admire people that we follow on Instagram who have hundreds of thousands of followers who have a podcast that's super famous maybe they have an online program that everyone knows about or they've written books but you're just starting out but all these anxieties come up right these um What do you call it? Imposter syndrome and all these anxieties of okay Why why am I not selling on my program right now? Or why do I only have this many patients in my practice and everybody, you know, she's full in her practice What am I doing wrong? And so even like me when I first started out I was doing that right I was comparing myself to other people and it would cause me a lot of anxiety and and I quit a lot of my online programs that I launched never finished or never went to launch or I quit halfway through because I was like well nobody's gonna buy it or you know it didn't sell enough within the first month so I'm just there must be something wrong with it and so then I saw this I heard this I don't even remember from where and it said don't compare your beginning to somebody else's middle because the people that we're comparing ourselves to are those that have been doing this for months, years, some even decades. Right. How many failures have they had to get where they are now and what struggles might they be having on the side? And so all we can do is really just like be in the present moment and be confident that, you know, what we want to share with the world is going to fall into the hands of the people that you want to see it and not have expectations of like selling this much or making this much money, you know, this month and selling this many programs or having this many patients or whatever it is in your life that that you're trying to achieve is just you're at your beginning. So you're at your, where you're at and that's it. You can't compare yourself to somebody who's already down the line and the person behind you can't compare themselves to you. And I've had people say that to me like, Oh, I wish, you know, that my practice was as full as yours, or I wish, you know people knew me for The fertility stuff I do like they know you and I'm just like I've been doing this for over a decade girl You've been practicing for a year like you'll get there right? You got it to make your place and don't compare yourself and it's um So that's something where would I put it? That's a good question and a billboard somewhere Miami going into South Beach Yeah Because yeah, I think it applies to so many things. Yeah. Right. So and it's just I think it would just decrease so much anxiety in people. Oh, yeah. Don't you think?
Andres Preschel: Yeah. Absolutely.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Like, do you find yourself comparing? I mean, you're very well off and doing so great. But do you feel like at the beginning you felt like you had to
Andres Preschel: Definitely. I mean, I think it's natural to compare yourself to other people. Yeah, but I've I learned that Nothing is more valuable than authenticity 100% a lot of that authenticity You know, you have to be you have to know when you're vulnerable when you're not maybe doing so hot, you know So yeah, but I think the process of being authentic Really helps you align with and be clear on who you really are, what your purpose is, and where you are in life, and what you can really, what kind of value you can actually build in someone else's life, especially being in the healthcare field. So I think it pays to be authentic. And so I found myself that the more I compared myself, the less authentic that I was, and ultimately the more short-sighted that I was in actually accomplishing greatness.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: And when I started letting go of the fact that I needed to achieve and do all this, and just started being more authentic in what I was doing, then I saw the growth. And the right people found me.
Andres Preschel: Exactly. I'd rather have less people love me than a lot of people like me, honestly. So the more things that I get, the more I feel like this sense of alignment, like everything, all the opportunities that people come my way, I'm like, wow, that's perfect. That's like the perfect fit.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: When I first started launching online programs, I did like, you know, all of those. Oh my God, they charge you like 10 grand to do this program and they're going to show you how to do your email marketing and how and exactly what to say in them. And that's how you're going to sell your program. And then you're going to have an upsell and you're going to have this. I did all that. It caused me so much stress. I felt so slimy. I felt like, I'm like, Oh my God, I feel so slimy. I felt so salesy. I'm like, I'm like, this is not me. Like I can't stand this. And I stopped completely. And that's what we're like. I had a huge shift. Yeah. Yeah. Like if it does not feel good to you, you should not be doing it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I could feel that.
Andres Preschel: Yeah.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
Andres Preschel: Well, Jess, it's been an honor and pleasure.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: This is great. Thank you so much for having me. Of course. You know, I hope that there was something somebody could take away today, even if it's just something small.
Andres Preschel: No doubt. Yeah, I've learned a lot and I'm sure that our audiences learn a lot too.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: And I as well from you. I might go buy some of these underwear for
Andres Preschel: I make female, male underwear, all kinds of underwear. Yeah, it's great.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: I might grab some for my way home on the plane. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Just to go through and be like, look at that. Lamb's underwear.
Andres Preschel: Lamb's underwear. It's great.
Dr.Jessica Dupont: Oh, that's great. Thank you so much for having me. And keep doing what you're doing, because you're inspiring so many people. Thank you. Likewise. And just stay authentic, because that's number one. Yeah. There you go. Awesome.
Andres Preschel: Thank you, guys. Thank you, Arnold. So that's all for today's show. Thank you so much for tuning in today. For all of the show notes, including clickable links to anything and everything that we discussed today, everything from discount codes to videos, to research articles, books, tips, tricks, techniques, and of course, to learn more about the guest on today's episode, all you have to do is head to my website, AndresPreschel.com. That's A-N-D-R-E-S-P-R-E-S-C-H-E-L.com. and go to podcasts. You can also leave your feedback, questions, and suggestions for future episodes, future guests, so on and so forth. Thanks again for tuning in and I'll see you on the next one. Have a lovely rest of your day.