Sleep Apnea and Women: Why You're Being Missed and What to Do

Women, if you wake up with headaches, feel exhausted no matter how much you sleep, and your doctor keeps telling you everything looks fine, Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist Beverly Meyer spent a decade in exactly that place before discovering she had severe sleep apnea in her 70s. But she wasn't an overweight man. She didn't fit the usual sleep apnea pattern and went undiagnosed, like so many other women.

We are talking about why sleep apnea is one of the most underdiagnosed conditions in women, what untreated apnea quietly does to your brain and cardiovascular system over time, and what finally getting answers actually looks like when the medical system keeps sending you home empty-handed.

For anyone who has normalized waking up tired because nobody has given them a reason not to.

CHAPTERS

6:30 Who Gets Sleep Apnea

13:00 Brain Aging and Cardiovascular Risk

20:00 Symptoms That Get Dismissed

27:00 The Diagnosis Journey

33:00 CPAP Benefits and Practical Tips

Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. New episodes weekly. NewNormalBigLifePodcast.com

DrStellaMD Marketplace
Immune-boosting protocols Premium all-natural supplements Telehealth + wellness consultations

Ready Hour & My Patriot Supply
Best price on US-based preparedness and long-term storable food. Shop now with my affiliate link.

BeRootedIn
RootedIn: Magnesium Cream. Shop Now With My Affiliate Link

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Sleep Apnea Can Age Your Brain

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When when you have sleep apnea, particularly severe, but also moderate or mild, these cessations, this low breathing, stopping of breathing can happen dozens of times an hour. So think about that. None of your body is getting proper sleep. You're not getting good REM sleep. Your oxygen levels are deprived. Your brain is aging, your mood, emotions, fatigue, ability to drive a car. All of these things can be compromised. And doctors just don't think about it. If you're in a physician's office that's a general or a neurology, they may not think to ask, have you run a sleep test this year? So why not bring it up and say, Can I order sleep tests for me and I can do it at home? And they'll be happy to. And you'll probably flunk.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Hi, friends. Welcome to the New Normal Big Life Podcast. We're bringing you natural and integrative health information and stories about nature that we hope will inspire you to get outside an adventure, along with a step-by-step plan to help you practice what you've learned, create your own new normal, and live the biggest life you can dream. I'm your host, Antonette Lee, the Wellness Warrior. Let's get into today's topic. Welcome to New Normal Big Life, Beverly Meyer. Why don't you tell us who you are, what you do, and the one big thing you want us to remember from your expertise that you plan to share with us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Thanks for having me on. I've been in natural health practice for 36 years and been working on my own health since the 70s. So I like to apply my own experiences to my clients, my podcasts, my website, and my articles. I hope we can get a chance to talk a little bit about sleep apnea today. That has become a new passion for me in my 70s and being recently diagnosed. So I want to share with people about that, how to get tested and how to not be afraid of a CPAP.

What Sleep Apnea Really Means

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Well, we are definitely going to focus our conversation on all things sleep apnea and sleep in general today. And I want to give a shout out to a listener, Zip, for sending in a question about sleep apnea that I hope maybe you can share some insights that will help him. Thanks for being part of the wellness warrior community, Zip. We appreciate you. And I hope we get some answers for you. So, Beverly, for people who've heard of sleep apnea, but they're not quite sure what it is, can you explain what sleep apnea is?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yes, thank you. That's a really important question. So, number one, sleep apnea can be completely invisible, silent, and you have absolutely no idea that you might even have severe sleep apnea. So what it means, the word Nia has to do with breathing, and ap means not or negative. So not breathing is what sleep apnea means. That during sleep we have obstructions in our airway. So that's the air tube that goes down the back of our throat that we can breathe through. And when we shut off that airway, when then we can stop breathing for five seconds, 30 seconds longer, we're not breathing. And during that time, our blood oxygen levels are plummeting. And if you've ever used a pulse oximeter, you know we like it up around 97, 98, 96, 95, and they can drop down into the 70s. And and so that's number one. It means we don't breathe due to an obstruction in our airway when usually caused by when we lie down and sleep, the muscles that hold up all of our the back of our throat relax in sleep. And some of the back of the tongue muscles can can actually relax and block off our airway. And then if people are significantly overweight, there sometimes that extra fatty mass in the neck can also contribute to shutting off that airway.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

How common is sleep apnea? Is it something that only a few people have?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Actually, it's extremely common. And uh the the estimates are that one and and eight adults have undiagnosed sleep apnea. So we're talking tens of millions of people are getting really poor quality sleep and that can be fixed by certain techniques to get your airway open or using a CPAP, which blows pressurized air that you don't feel, but it blows it in there and kind of blows the opens up that that airway, kind of like swinging a gate, if you will. So it's it's once you get all comfy with it, it you don't even know you're you're on your CPAP. So and it it this this obstruction in your airway can occur men, women, children, underweight, overweight, any race, any time. So what I've been learning since I got diagnosed in October of 25 is that it's not just overweight males who snore, which is kind of the common thinking, because I'm not an overweight male, you know, which is why unfortunately many doctors don't test everybody. It's like you have to tell them, you know, I snore, or my bed partner says, honey, you wake up sometimes and with a gasp of air or coughing, or I wake up and I don't hear you breathing, you know. So someone else in your sleep bed, in your sleep company, can often pick this signal up. And for those of us that don't have a sleep partner, it can be completely invisible and it's easy to test.

Overlooked Signs Like Headaches And Fatigue

SPEAKER_00 6:09

So what are some of the overlooked signs and symptoms? Because although people may not know that they're having signs and symptoms, maybe something you say today might make them think, well, maybe I should get tested.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Well, for sure, if you snore, you you want to address that and and ask your physician for a sleep test. Now, I and many of us use a simple mouth tape that just simply tapes the mouth and keeps it closed. So I don't snore because I tape my mouth. But that's only one of the symptoms is snoring, waking up coughing or gasping. A major one is what we call excessive daytime sleepiness. So being really tired in the daytime. And and, you know, maybe we thought we had a good night's sleep, but we're having to rely on caffeine and stuff to get us through our day and also the evening, you know, not fall asleep on the couch at 7:30. We're just we're tired. So fatigue is definitely there. Nighttime urinations actually is a sign that it can be other things like a prostate problem or other things of that nature. But I noticed when I forgot on CPAP, immediately I don't have to get up at night and anymore to use the restroom and had to research. That's that's just incredible. Uh if you're over 65, you definitely want to have a sleep test. If you're overweight, you definitely want to have a sleep test, no matter your age. So fatigue, waking up, coughing, your age, your your weight, and nighttime headaches, so that you wake up with headaches. That's what got led me to this to be asking for a test. Was I'd had headaches at night for 10 years. And I had been to so many neurologists and osteopaths and dental and cranial sacral, and I mean, I mean, you name it. 10 years I've been working on this. And then suddenly I found out, oh, that's a key symptom to sleep apnea, because you're not you're not breathing. So, you know, your your oxygen's really low, and you can get get headaches.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Another population that has a high number of cases of sleep apnea are brain injury survivors like me. I'm a brain injury survivor, and when I'm talking with other brain injury survivors, sleep apnea is a common theme. Have you seen any data on this?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

You know, that's a good question. I don't have the experience of working with traumatic brain injuries. It's not the type of of person that I see in my 36 years of practice as a rule. And by the way, my website on Diet and Health, on dietandhealth.com, you can see there's hundreds of articles and podcasts there. But I don't know. So there are other types of apnea that can occur with problems with neurotransmitters and things. But even then, it's pretty simple to even it at home or you may already have the equipment yourself, to check your oxygen while you sleep. There are various little rings and wristwatches and asps and things. And if you if you get your app to tell you, let me know if my oxygen dropped below 87 or 85 ever, even at one point during the night, then then you know you need a sleep study, which can be done at home also. But that's definitely a clue. So that's one way you can kind of do a real quick check to see if you have sleep apnea. And there are milder forms of apnea where you're breathing just not very well, not very often, not very deeply. So there's a spectrum here.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Why are so many cases of sleep apnea misdiagnosed? Is it because people don't recognize the symptoms, or is it because in certain populations, like someone like yourself, for example, who's not overweight, doctors don't think that that could be a possibility?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

It's a puzzle to me that that everyone over the age of 65 is not being tested, because there are, as I say, tens of millions of people who are have not been diagnosed. I was one of them. And I'm smart and I research and was trying to find answers and finally stumbled on it. But I think there's a the common misconception by doctors and by us people population, that that it's overweight males who snore. That's that everybody nobody else has this problem. Well, no, that's completely false. That's just the population that a doctor might think, hey, let's check you for sleep apnea. So, like I say, it can be completely invisible, and your sleep partner may be used to you waking up gasping for air and and not even think to mention it. Or they've been bugging you to get tested and you just won't do it because you're afraid of having to use a CPAP. And that's one of my missions being here today is to tell people that it's not as hard as you think it is.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Before we get into the interworkings of a CPAP machine and how that all works, can you walk us through what happens inside the body when we stop breathing because of sleep apnea?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Well, needless to say, oxygen is a pretty important nutrient for us. And so when when you have sleep apnea, particularly severe, but also moderate or mild, these cessations, this low breathing, stopping of breathing can happen dozens of times an hour. So think about that. None of your body is getting proper sleep, you're not getting good REM sleep, your oxygen levels are deprived, your brain is aging, your mood, emotions, fatigue, ability to drive a car, you know, all of these things can be compromised. And doctors just don't think about it. If you're in a physician's office that's a general or a neurology, they may not think to ask, have you run a sleep test this year? So they may not think either. So why not bring it up and say, hey, can I can you order sleep tests for me and I can do it at home? And they'll be happy to, and you'll probably flunk.

CPAP Stigma And Why It’s Worth It

SPEAKER_00 12:44

You mentioned that a lot of people are afraid of using a CPAP machine. I've also heard people say they don't want to use a CPAP machine because the stigma that the person that needs a sleep, a CPAP machine is someone who's overweight and active, has made lifestyle choices that created this inability to breathe while they're sleeping. Other people don't want to wear it because they feel like it makes them look a certain way, that feels unattractive. What can you say to people who have some feelings about using a CPAP machine? I know what I would say is your good health is more important than how you think someone else who loves you because they're in the same home with you might view you for having to use a CPAT machine.

New CPAP Masks That Feel Minimal

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Well, first of all, what what you do in the privacy of your own bedroom is up to you. And if you think that, gee, maybe I would be a nicer, happier, safer person and not have more prone to dementia and strokes and so on, if I breathe a little better while I sleep and not have my body woken up, we call them micro arousals. So hundreds of times of night, your body is sending you signals to wake up and breathe. Wake up and breathe. And this really takes a toll on our adrenal glands and our brain and all of that. But the other thing is, is when we get on good sleep forums, one of the things you hear a lot is thank goodness my wife is so happy that I'm not snoring anymore, that I still don't stop breathing at night. You know, she's so happy she she wants to make sure I've got my mask on and it fits me and before we turn out the lights. So, you know, it's it it's on to the opposite extreme that the sleep partner is often thrilled beyond measure. Would you like me to show you what some of the new masks look like? Please do. I think it would alleviate a lot of concerns people might have. Because it in one hand, this is hard, on the other hand, it's simple. And and yes, it's it's a big thing. But anyway, so there is a traditional mask that covers your your nose and mouth. We've all seen that, and that's fine. It straps around your head until you get it comfortable and it's not leaking, and then you just plug the hose into your little machine that sits over there, and that's fine. There's 10 or 20 or 30 models of that that you can try until you find one that's comfortable. On the other hand, the new the new masks that people try. Here's an example of one new type of masks, and you can see it's really it's really tiny. So it's simply below your nose. It's just cupping the nose, and then you have the strap around the back of your hand. So it's very, very modest, and then it's little, it's a little air tube, and that connects to your hose on your CPAP machine. So, you know, this is pretty pretty pretty simple. And then, even more simple, and this is what I use, this right here, this is the mask. Wow. This is the mask. Very, if you can see this, you see these little ovals that have a steel ring on them. You you simply align that with your nostrils, stick it down with the little stickies, and that is magnetically charged or whatever, and these are magnets. So the magnets go click, click, click, click, click, and they're on your nose. Wow. Incredible. That's it. That's it. And then this little hose hooks up to your machine. So you have nothing on your face, nothing on your head. You just have these little dudes clicked on your nose.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

What is the name of the two models or styles that people could ask for?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

I'm glad you asked because this is called the eclipse, like a solar eclipse. And it was developed by an individual who said, you know, all this stuff with masts and and they're charging so much, and it's just crazy, and I'm gonna invent something better. So this was invented by an individual just a couple of years ago, and his company is named Bleep, as in what the bleep do I know? Bleepsleep.com. Bleep sleep. And even Amazon sells the eclipse. So there's there's about 10 models of these that are called pillow masks, because it's squishy like a little pillow. So these are pillow masks, and then the other one is called a full face mask, and many people love those. They're much happier in every way with their full face mask. So there's about 70 different masks, and a a lot of people end up trying different ones, and so there's a one website is cpap.com. CPAP, by the way, stands for continuous positive airway pressure. So that's what a CPAP machine's doing is continuously blowing pressurized air in your nose, and so that it can keep your airway open. And you don't even feel it. It's not like it's weird or anything. It's just you don't even feel it. That's great. But cpap.com is a big most probably the largest supplier of all of the masks and everything possibly that you need. CPAP.com is one place to go. I know that you can often buy masks and refund them and return them. So they have quite a liberal try-it-out refund policy exchange and/or refund. So that's something to keep in mind.

Complex Sleep Apnea And Better Data

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Very nice. Before we cover the next topic in this episode, I want to introduce you to the adventure sports lifestyle with a micro story about an adventure that I've had. The adventure sports lifestyle and my deep connection to nature is essential to my good health. So here's the story. This is a cautionary tale. I was fishing from shore the day before, and I saw a man and his dog in a kayak. What struck me was that the dog was wearing a personal flotation device, a life jacket or a PFD is what we like to call them now. Because they don't necessarily save your life. They just make you more floaty until you can save yourself or be rescued. So PFD, personal flotation device. I thought it was odd that the man took the time to put a PFD on his dog, but not on himself. And then the next day I read that a kayaker was missing, who was an experienced boater, was a very good swimmer. The dog was rescued, but they never did find the kayaker, to my knowledge. What sometimes happens, even with experienced boaters, is that something causes you to fall out of your boat for whatever reason. And because the water is so cold in some places like Colorado, which the lakes are fed by snow melt. So even in spring or summer, the water is still very cold, it can cause your brain to freeze up, so to speak, meaning that you stop thinking. So you stop trying to resurface from under the water, you stop trying to tread water or to swim to shore. Sometimes you will take a breath underwater just from the shock of the cold water. And this might, one of these scenarios might have happened to this boater. So I hope this inspires you to get outside an adventure safely. And even if you are an experienced boater, an experienced swimmer, an experienced river tuber, wear your personal flotation device because humans are not well, I guess we are somewhat inherently buoyant, but you have to make do some sort of action to float and to uh swim. And so the personal flotation device just makes it easier when things go wrong. Now, back to the episode where we're talking with Beverly Meyer, and we're going to take a listener question. So, Beverly, one of our community wellness war members in our wellness warrior community is Zip, and Zip has complex sleep apnea. And his doctors are really wrestling with the root cause of his problem. And on average, he has 15 events per hour per night where he just stops breathing, and he only gets an average of about three hours of sleep where he doesn't probably doesn't interrim sleep, that deep restorative sleep where our bodies heal and prepare for our day, and our metabolic system does its work. Work while we're sleeping. So he's missing out on all of this because he's not getting restorative sleep. Can you think of any insights or tests or things that maybe his doctor overlooked in helping to get him diagnosed to find out the root cause of his problem?

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Thank you. It's a good question. The root cause, most likely, is he's not wearing a proper mask. The mask isn't properly fitting. And the settings on the machine that he has are not properly adjusted to him. So this is like driving a car or whatever. You, you know, you have to learn how to use this machine, how to, you know, I don't know, the analogy, but you know, there are things to be done. And one of the issues that I see is that on the one hand, it's good if your doctor is in charge of your sleep apnea. It means he's controlling your machine settings and he sold you a mask, but it's also bad when someone is setting your settings, they're not adjusting it based on each night of the week, and they may only have offered you one mask or something. So I think it's really important that people take more control and learn how to get the readings off of their nights of sleep and try different masks. And there is a sleep forum. There, there's there's several, but none of them, you never know who's going to answer a question for you, right? But the sleep forum, this is really important. So everybody write this down. It's sleephq, like headquarters, sleephq.com. I'm I'm not associated with them. I'm just another person that that uses this huge forum with people from all over the world. They're in Australia, but they have set up terrific apps basically where you can download all the data every night or once a week, whatever you want, from your machine. And they have terrific graphs and and and showing like seven different factors that are happening while you're sleeping. And then they also show, they rate 50 different masks on a scale of one to 50, you know, popularity, leak rate, number of hypopnia events, 15 per hour is is unfortunately not it's it's yeah, that's a lot. But that yes, this is exactly what we're seeing is that people stop breathing multiple times per hour. So most likely he he has a mask that's not fitting, a setting that's not appropriate, the mask is leaking. And here's a big factor is what we call chin tuck. So if you if you tuck your chin it and you're lying down, it very often will shut off your airway. So, in addition to the mask, there's other little tips and tricks and things to work on as to how to either sleep on your side and keep your chin up on your pillow, or if you're gonna sleep on your back, to the things that we do to avoid chin tuck. So you're gonna learn all of this on sleep HQ. It's an incredible, incredible resource. So that sounds like a great forum.

Home Sleep Tests And Doctor Gaps

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah. Thank you for that. And for people who are not familiar with sleep apnea, and you're starting to think maybe I might have a problem and I'm going to get tested, some of the settings that you can change on the machine from my research is that you can change the air temperature, the humidity level, the amount of air, continuous air pressure. Of course, all the adjustments on your headgear, on the mask itself. So there's a lot that you can adjust. Beverly, let's talk about the GABA neurotransmitter and what role it plays.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

I do thank you, but I want to step back one question, and that is the different ways that people can test for sleep apnea. Because, yes, your doctor may send you to a sleep lab. If you have bad snoring and bad fatigue, and you're very overweight, and you know, we think, boy, this guy, he's really got a major problem, not just the normal, quote-unquote, normal bad sleep that apnea people have. Anyway, you can go to a sleep lab and they just give reams of data that's really, really helpful. You can also ask any doctor to order you an at-home sleep test. And there are several ways that they can do that. One is with a really large ring that fits over a thumb or another finger. It's it's a big thing, and it can record a lot of data. What I use and what I recommend to my patients is it's a box, an electronic battery-powered box that sits on your chest and you you strap it on before you go to sleep. It has a little cannula, the nasal cannula, so it's registering the amount of air coming in and out of your nose. It has a pulse oximeter on your finger, so you're getting your oxygen readings, your pulse. The box itself is recording. Inhale, the box rises, exhale, the box falls. So it can record just enormous amounts of data. And I found that very easy to use. And there are numerous rings and watches and other things that can do some of that data and that you can do on your own, and then feel more empowered to ask your doctor, look, I ran this at home, and look, my oxygen sank down to 80. I definitely have a problem. What can we do? The other problem, Antoinette, is that many doctors do not have a clue about what machine you should be on, what masks you should be on, what settings you should be on. You're you're just another one of 500 and patients this month, and they're not monitoring you. They're just putting you on, here's a popular mask, and and the machine will set you up. And people are abandoned on their own. This was what happened in my case. I was literally handed a piece of paper. Here's your sleep test results. And that was it. Literally, that was it. I had zero advice. On the other hand, a close relative of mine, their doctor has control over their machine, and they can't even make adjustments without permission. It's it's very strange. So what you want is possibly going to a sleep doctor who that's what they do. And after a period of time where they're controlling your system, they allow you to manage and control your own system. Meanwhile, you can be downloading information to your sleep HQ and seeing, look, everything looked perfect, but I had leaks 25 times a night, clearly not fitting the mask correctly, or I'm on the wrong mask for my facial structure.

GABA Support For Calm And Sleep

SPEAKER_00 29:24

And as for a mask or uh CPAP machine management, you can also have another model where you and your care provider, and in this case, it's usually like a respiratory therapist or a sleep therapist, can co-monitor your sleep activity, and you can make adjustments, and they can also make adjustments on your behalf, and so you work together as a team. So when a patient is experiencing sleep apnea, another often overlooked possible root cause is, and we'll come back to GABA, but with vocal cord dysfunction, what happens is there is some event that injures your vocal cords. Sometimes it could be something like smoke inhalation or uh industrial fumes or something along those lines, and then you have a second event, and your esophagus can begin to close your airway as a protective measure because it's thinking that it needs to protect you from an allergen or a toxic chemical or smoke, and so it lets very little air in and very little carbon dioxide out, and it feels like you're suffocating. And I experienced that for myself. It was triggered by a wildfire in a place where I lived out west for a time. So I just wanted to mention for other people who have complex sleep apnea, maybe having some breathing tests and testing for vocal cord dysfunction, you might realize that that is a problem for you. And for me, it was solved with some simple breathing techniques, believe it or not. So that's something else you can explore. So let's go back to what is GABA neurotransmitters and what role does it play in calming your brain?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Well, we have four major neurotransmitters. Two that are more active, make the brain work, make your body work, let you think and work and reach for things and make decisions and motion and be all parts of your body in more activity. And then we have two major neurotransmitters that are more of the balancing and calming and stability neurotransmitters, and that those are serotonin and GABA. And everybody's heard of serotonin, but I had my own experience 15 or more years ago where I had some issues and where I was very anxious all the time. The world was just overwhelming to me. I didn't want to work, I didn't want to answer the phone, I didn't, I was just, it was like everything was on overwhelm. And I wasn't sleeping well and tired, and it was, you know, I was a little crazy. And uh I know from my experience working in the field of natural health since the 70s that I knew there were answers, and so I wasn't particularly panicked about it. I just kept waiting and researching and trying to figure out what's going on. And eventually I remembered a book that had been referred to me years before, and I read it, and this author spoke about GABA neurotransmitter, which I had never heard of, and it's not as well known as dopamine and serotonin. So GABA is the great stabilizer, equalizer in the body. We don't want to breathe too fast, we don't want to breathe too slow, we don't want to have food move through our digestive system too fast, we don't want to have food move too slowly. We don't want to be have anxiety, we don't want to be depressed. So it's it's kind of the light and dark, yin and yang, cold and hot of everything in the body, and every cell has receptors for this neurotransmitter. And many doctors don't deal with GABA because that the substances they're taking, whether it's alcohol or oxycontin or you know, heroin or all the bad things, they address the GABA neurotransmitter and mellow people out and make them emotionally more mellow, they sleep better, they're just their digestion is better, they're just more functional, not when you're taking heroin, but that those neurotransmitters can be affected by the bad drugs, which are a universally GABA type of drugs. But there are supplements and nutritional ways to support GABA, obviously, without the drugs. And so for me, it was life-changing for me to get on some GABA support. And in my case, both prescription and non-prescription, and there are seizure medicines that that are often used for people with these low, low GABA problems and very, very low-dose seizure meds. And wow, within a week I could tell that I was gonna make it. Recovery was going to happen. My my brain was getting what it was missing. And now I use the non-prescription types of things like Passion Flower and Pharma GABA, pharma-like pharmaceutical, P-H-A-R-M-A, pharma GABA, which is different than just GABA on the drugstore shelves. So pharma GABA, theanine, T H E A, N I N E, Thianine, and Passion Flower Herb, all of these work really well to help increase your GABA. So you can take them right before bed, you can take them during the night, you can take them during the day if you're wound up and a little anxious or having some anger or you're just a little wound up, you can take some passion flour and and other herbs and things that just kind of take the edge off a little bit. And then you can take higher doses if you need them to help you sleep.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Beyond sleep apnea, what are some of the biggest mistakes people are making?

SPEAKER_01 35:35

In general, people are eating too much carbohydrate. The bread, the rice, the pasta, the beans, the cereal, the cookies, the corn chips, the tortillas, the desserts, the alcohol, the sodas. We we as a culture we've become very addicted to carbohydrates. And but that is not our biological nature. So one of my mottos on my the website on dietandhealth.com and on my podcast, Primal Diet, Modern Health, I teach people that we want to follow the biology. What foods and beverages are we intended to eat and drink? What is correct for I'm one of the founders of what we call the paleo diet, the paleolithic diet, and now there are many versions of that ancestral and biological and primal and gaps and specific carbohydrate and many more, but we all have as a basic rule no grains, wheat, rice, corn, oats, barley, because humans never in our history we never bent over to graze for our food. So those grains are the seeds of grass. Those are grass seeds we're eating. When you eat bread, you're eating grass seed. So that that is not our normal food. We're hunters and gatherers. And we eat a lot of things, but we don't bend over and graze on grass seed. And that's how we've gotten into the carb kick, in addition, of course, to sugar and fructose and and all of that, which clearly are not right.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

So, Beverly, this has been so insightful. What more do you want to leave listeners with today?

SPEAKER_01 37:16

You know, hope and work, that it's empowering yourself and giving yourself permission to do some research, to get online, to find people with with professional, real websites and and podcasts that know what we're talking about, and try to understand and learn pieces of the puzzle. And people can be amazed at how things can change simply, or how with some work and research and understanding. But we've we've got to be motivated. And I'm here to tell people have hope. The body can change sometimes very, very quickly if you find out, hey, what's going on here? You mean maybe I shouldn't have 60% of my calories and carbohydrates? Correct. You should not have 60% of your calories and carbohydrates. We're hunters and gatherers. So any piece of the puzzle that you can feel empowered to go after and try to address, that's that's what my whole career has been about. Can you remind us again how listeners can find and connect with you? Sure. It's Primal Diet, Modern Health, because we want the best of modern health care. So I'm I'm big on how to read labs and run labs and do sleep tests and all this. What's the best of modern healthcare? Primal Diet Modern Health. And the website is on diet and health. Thank you so much for joining us on New Normal Big Life Beverly. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. The information in this podcast is not medical advice and should not be treated as such. Always consult your physician or healthcare professional before pursuing any health related procedure or activity.