Podcast Drop Date: 4/5/23
In this podcast episode, host Amber Warren, PA-C sits down with Dr. Nichola Conlon, a molecular biologist specializing in the study of cellular aging. Dr. Conlon discusses a range of topics related to longevity, healthspan, and aging, including biological and cellular aging, reversing aging, hallmarks of aging, and the role of NAD+. Dr. Conlon shares her insights from her extensive experience in drug development and her current work with Nuchido Laboratories, where she is focused on delivering disruptive innovation in the field of aging, rejuvenation, and healthspan. She also shares her passion for sharing the latest science with the wider population and translating advanced science to help people age well and achieve their optimal life experience. Throughout the conversation, Dr. Conlon provides valuable insights and actionable tips for those interested in improving their health and extending their lifespan. Listeners will come away with a better understanding of the science of aging and the latest research on how to support healthy aging!
Learn more about the many benefits of NAD+ IV Therapy here.
Transcript:
Amber Warren, PA-C: Welcome to Functional Medicine Foundations podcast, where we explore root cause medicine, engage in conversation with functional and integrative medicine experts and build community with like minded health seekers. I'm your host, Amber Warren. Let's dig deeper.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Hi, everybody. Welcome back. Amber Warren, your host here. And I'm honored today to have Dr. Nichola Conlon here. She is a molecular biologist specializing in the study of cellular aging after a career in drug development. Nicola founded Nichido Laboratories to deliver disruptive innovation in the field of aging, rejuvenation and healthspan. She has a passion for sharing. The latest science is and is an accomplished speaker with a skill for translating advanced science to help educate and support the wider population, encouraging people to age well and achieve their optimal life experience. Welcome, Dr. Nicola.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Hi, Amber. Thank you so much for having me.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Oh, goodness. Of course. Thanks for joining us. So this is just really good timing. As a group of practitioners here in Idaho, we have spent the last year just really digging into the science behind NAD the kind of why behind it. And we're starting to use a lot of really cool protocols really. We have an energy program for mitochondrial health. And so we're using your product, which I know you want to speak about today, and then also using some IV NAD. So can we just start with kind of what is NAD and why do we care about it?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah, of course. So nad is a word that's becoming a lot more familiar. And, you know, a couple of years ago, not that many people knew about it, but now there's a lot of excitement surrounding it. And and basically it's a natural molecule. It's found in every single cell in our body. And it's very important. And it's so important that, in fact, if we didn't have it in our bodies, we'd literally be dead in 30 seconds. And so that's how critical it is to our biology, because it's involved in over 500 different reactions in the body. And so that's why it's so critical. But I guess the two things that it's really most important for are firstly, energy production in our mitochondria. So NAD is part of the process that basically takes the food that we eat and converts it into the energy in the form of ATP that all of our cells and basically every part of us needs to function. The second thing that it's really important for is to act as a signal and molecule and where it switches on and off maintenance and repair. So as a general rule of thumb, if you have high levels of NAD, you will have high energy production and high levels of cellular maintenance and repair. And if nad is low, then energy production gets turned down and also cellular repair gets turned down.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I love it. So how are some of the ways that we as practitioners are that you look at or evaluate NAD deficiency from just a clinical standpoint?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Well, I think in everybody, when you talk about NAD deficiency. Nad declines naturally in everyone with age. So we know that nad halves by around every 20 years. So even by the time you're 20, you've lost half the NAD that you had when you were born. They spend halves again and halves again. So we know that in every every human, every species tested, every type of cell nad declines. So it's kind of like a given that as you get older you will become more deficient in NAD. Unlike some things like, I don't know, vitamins or minerals or whatever, where just, you know, some people may be deficient, some people may not be deficient. We know that nad decline correlates with age. And we know that this nad decline actually results in a lot of the sort of signs and symptoms of aging that we experience. And this is because if you think about it, NAD is so critical for energy production and also for repair. So if NAD is declining, that means you've got less energy available to the cell for it to be able to perform all its functions. And also you've got less repair going on. So this means that we get an accumulation of damage in our cells and ultimately that manifests as all the signs and symptoms of aging.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: So I think in sort of, you know, to answer your question in the presentation of like what symptoms you would have if you have low NAD, well, first of all, it would be any sort of sign or symptom of aging is generally linked to NAD via some route. And if you were looking at, you know, how a person would feel, the key things would be in their energy levels. So, you know, when you see a young child running around and you think, how have they got so much energy? Well, that's because they've got high nad and as opposed to when you're older and, you know, you just don't have those mitochondria functioning as well anymore because of the low nad. The other thing is recovery and repair. So people that are generally lower in NAD will struggle to bounce back from illnesses. They'll struggle to recover from heavy gym sessions or, you know, even just a night out will seem to take its toll a lot more. And the lower that your NAD is.
Amber Warren, PA-C: How about Ned? Just mechanistically and how it plays a role in detox.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: So NAD basically sits or should I say, works alongside a key family of proteins called the sirtuins. So the sirtuins are often referred to as the longevity proteins, because what they do is they almost sit at the top of a cascade, which then switches on a lot of downstream pathways that are involved in cellular health, detoxification repair, anti inflammatory, things like that. And the reason that NAD and the sirtuins are linked is because the sirtuins are absolutely critically dependent on nad to function. So NAD basically acts as their fuel. So if you don't have enough nad to switch on your sirtuins, this means all the beneficial downstream pathways won't get activated, such as your antioxidant pathways, your detoxification pathways, and basically all of those processes won't work as efficiently. So I think a key thing to remember is quite often when it's not NAD itself that is doing all the work, but it's NAD that's actually coordinating all the work.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I love that. I love that. So we've been looking at and utilizing an ad in some of these COVID long haulers. So are you are you guys seeing that, too? Is your product being really, really helpful for some of these people that have struggled with some of these long hauler symptoms of COVID?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: So yeah, there has been a lot of research and a lot of interesting research coming out surrounding NAD and COVID and particularly long COVID. And what what you tend to see is that when cells become infected with COVID, the level of NAD in the cells really, really plummets. And then what the cells try to do is they actually try to upregulate all the pathways and enzymes that produce nad to try and recover from this nad drop. All of a sudden, and this is one of the theories why some older people and some people with underlying health issues actually suffer worse with COVID and long COVID because they already have lower NAD levels to start with. So that when all of a sudden COVID is infected and it's dropping any further and they're almost starting from a worse start point and and then it's much harder for the cell to actually recover after that. And obviously, this can cause all sorts of damage and we see mitochondrial dysfunction. And so, yeah, restoring NAD levels, using a supplement and, you know, to try and really boost the cells back and seems to be very beneficial when it comes to people with long COVID, especially when they're suffering with, you know, real, really poor energy levels, brain fog. And those two symptoms seem to be ones that NAD really helps with.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That's wonderful. So we know that aging and you spoke to it. You said 20% each decade of life we see nad drop.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: A 50% every 20 years. Okay.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I was way off 50% every 20 years. So we know aging is worse. Yeah, right. I know. So we know that aging is such a significant risk factor for any D deficiency as it as it drops. What are other, I suppose, lifestyle factors that cause any D deficiency or any to further plummet?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah. So there were a lot of other things. Lifestyle does really influence nad so often when I do a presentation and I'll show a graph of NAD decline rather than just doing a big line going exponentially down, I kind of do a bit of a bumpy line going down and that's because everyone's slightly different. So yes, we know that age plays a big role, but lifestyle is also huge. And so what you tend to find is that the people that are most deficient in NAD are those that are suffering from some form of metabolic disease and something like obesity, insulin resistance, fatty liver. And obviously a lot of this is associated with two things, which is poor diet and also lack of exercise. Now, we know that both diet and exercise are natural ways that you can use to actually boost levels. And when you think about it, it makes total sense because what happens is when you're either fasting or you know, time restricted feeding and you're restricting the amount of energy that's going into the body in the same way as when you are exercising, you're also restricting energy because it's being used. And what this does is it triggers the body to think, okay, we've got a state of energy stress here, so we need to do something about it. So it actually boosts NAD production to signal to the cell that it needs to make more energy, it needs to increase energy production, and also that it needs to actually start repairing and maintaining the cells because it's got to survive this period of stress. So these two things naturally boost NAD and obviously have a whole host of health benefits. And it's thought that many of the sort of positive benefits of fasting and exercise are because of the NAD activation that they produce.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So neat, so intermittent, fasting time, restricted feeding. Are there any other approaches to nutrition or diet types of foods types? An anti-inflammatory paleo getting refined sugar processed foods out of the diet.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: You know, I don't think there's actually been any studies on specific types of diets. It's more about the energy status of the cell. So it's more about when you're eating and how much you're eating. And because nad sort of naturally rises and falls depending on on the energy status of the cell. And so it's a lot more to do with the timing and the quantity of food. And, you know, if you think about it, this means that our sort of modern lifestyles are actually really not suited to switching on natural NAD production because we're generally not as active as we should be. And also we're generally eating and snacking all the time, you know, and we're not giving our body enough chance to switch on the natural NAD production pathways.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Um, if you So let's speak a little bit. There's a lot of precursors to med, right. Why are those not let's, let's speak to those and then why they're not necessarily sufficient to actually being able to increase NAD levels directly in the body.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah. So so when it was found that NAD declines with age and it you know, it seems to cause all of these different issues that are associated with aging and various conditions. A lot of scientists said, okay, if we've got a molecule, it declines, it causes all these problems, then why don't we just stop it declining? You know, why don't we boost it somehow? So the first approach to boosting it was, okay, well, let's just put some nad, you know, whole NAD in a capsule and, and give that it was very quickly realized that that doesn't work because NAD itself is actually really unstable. So it just gets destroyed in the gut. And the next best approach was, well, let's find something slightly more stable and give that. So lots of people started using NAD precursors. Now these are basically the raw materials that or the building blocks that your body uses to make nad with the idea being that if we can't give the whole NAD, let's give the body enough of the building blocks so that it can convert it into NAD and the common ones that people will probably know the name of will be GnRH, which is Nicotinamide riboside or which is nicotinamide mononucleotide. And for a long time it was thought that, you know, this this is the best way to boost nad because, you know, it's given the body more of the precursors and the body will make it into NAD. Now, unfortunately, the science that, you know, has evolved since then and what we now know that is that unfortunately, this is not the best way to boost NAD, and that's because we now know why NAD declines.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: And the main reason why NAD declines is because the pathway that actually converts these precursors into NAD declines with age. So this means that you can give as much precursor as you want, but actually if you don't have that functioning pathway that's actually making it into NAD and recycling it, then you're really not going to get a sustained boost from using precursors. So this you know, this this has come about as a bit of a problem because there's actually no evidence that shows that the reason our NAD declines is because the body has a lack of raw material. It actually gets plenty of precursors from our diet. The main issue is the fact that our bodies fail to actually make and recycle nad as we get older. And this is because there's what many people don't realize is the body is actually really, really good at making and recycling its own NAD it's got a pathway called the salvage pathway. And what this basically does is the minute NAD has been used, it gets broken down into precursors and the salvage pathway scoops them up and it converts them straight back into fresh nad again. So in young cells, when this salvage pathway functions correctly, we don't need any external source of precursors or nad our body just makes and uses and recycles and it just keeps going round and round. And again, it's kind of like, you know, a sensible approach by evolution because why would we want to rely on something so important coming from our diet? And so, yeah, a lot of people don't realize that our bodies are really good at making NAD and it just gets turned down.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Is there, I assume like most pathways in our body enzymatic reactions that there are genetics that play a role in how efficient this salvage pathway is. Have you guys studied that looking at different? Yeah, so.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: We haven't studied it ourselves, but I know there can be certain single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs in the. In the key enzyme in the pathway that actually makes and recycles NAD. So this enzyme is called nampt, and that's the one that actually declines with age. And interestingly, it's also the one that exercise will activate, and it's also the one that diet will activate. But that's the one that declines with age. And that's the that's what we call a rate limiting enzyme. It's the one that the amount of NAD made and recycled is directly dependent on the activity of that enzyme. So when that enzyme goes down with age, that's a major problem. And for the genetic side of it, some people have a snip which makes that enzyme not function quite as well. And so, yeah, it can have a slight genetic element, although I think, you know, as with with genetics, it's never usually just one thing that's playing a role. It's usually multiple different things interacting.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Different toxins and chemical insults or just insults in the body that can turn those genes on or off. So it's never just as simple as we want it to be, is it?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah, absolutely.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Very multifactorial. So tell us a little bit about your product that you designed. Yeah. So what's in it and how it works in the body to naturally help to stimulate energy production?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah, well, that's, you know, that's exactly what we wanted to do. We recognize that actually the science has evolved and that precursors probably aren't the most sensible approach anymore to trying to boost energy. So we wanted to design a product that actually fixes the root causes of NAD decline. And it's probably important to point out as well at this stage that although we've just been discussing the fact that it's this enzyme that seems to decrease, and actually what we know is that our bodies, as they get older, also have an increased demand for NAD. And this is because we start to express a lot of inflammatory proteins that basically just eat NAD and and waste it completely. One of these is called cd38 and it's known to increase on our cells as we get older and, and use so much nad so you know, this is why nad depletion is so great because not only have you got as you get older, this inability to make and recycle NAD, but it's also right at the same time when you've also got an increased demand. So it's like the perfect storm for an NAD decline. So when designing our product, what we wanted to do was to actually fix those multiple issues. So we have ingredients in our product that are actually designed to upregulate the nampt enzyme. So that key enzyme that makes sure that your NAD is kept getting made and recycled.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: We also have ingredients in there that are designed to inhibit that inflammatory cd38 protein that's actually wasting NAD. And that's really important because not only are you decreasing the wastage of it, but also when you're boosting nad you want to make sure that NAD is being used by the things you want it to be used for. So you want nad you know, any extra nad you have to be used by your repair enzymes. You want it to be used by your sirtuins. However, we now know that Cd38 has a much higher affinity for NAD than any of those other beneficial processes. So what that means is that in older cells that have a lot of cd38, you know, even if you're successfully boosting your NAD levels, that cd38 inflammatory protein is going to grab onto it before the sirtuins can get it. And that's bad because that drives inflammation. So, you know, when thinking about boosting NAD, you also need to be thinking about the ways to inhibit some of those negative processes that are trying to grab on and use the NAD. So when we designed our product, it was all about looking at all the different things that are going wrong in the NAD network and trying to fix them.
Amber Warren, PA-C: I love it. So when you I mean, we use your product in house and I know the recommendations that I make to my patients as they're utilizing that product and, you know, all the other things that we want someone to do to naturally just increase nad. So what are things that you're recommending when you're recommending the product? Any other nutrients they should be taking? Obviously you mentioned they should be focusing on diet some time restricted feeding and exercising. Anything else to just maximize these key ingredients in your product, maximize their absorption and utilization by the body.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: So for us, I think what we tried to do was make sure that everything in terms of the absorption and the ingredients was in that product. So if you look at the label on our product, it has a lot of different ingredients, unlike, for example, a precursor that just has one. And so we've tried to cover all bases in there. So, you know, using our product alongside the more lifestyle things, which as you said, I've already mentioned the exercise and the fasting and really is a good way to boost your NAD levels. So some of the other ingredients that we have in there. So for example, we've got rutin in there which contains procerin and that's an empty activator. We've also got alpha lipoic acid in there that also activates nampt but via a different pathway. So you're kind of getting a two pronged approach to this activating this important enzyme and the ingredient that we use to activate or sorry to inhibit cd38 is actually parsley powder. And that's because this is known to contain a powerful ingredient known as Apigenin and which is a great CD38 inhibitor. We've also got green tea extract in there. And the reason that's in there is that because it contains a molecule called Egcg Now that is actually doing something else which which I haven't mentioned, but I probably should, and that is inhibiting a methylating enzyme.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: And so what we know is that in older cells, if they don't have that salvage pathway working properly, what happens is precursors such as nicotinamide actually start to build up in the cell because our cells simply can't recycle them. And when things build up in cells, they don't like that. They want to maintain homeostasis. And so they have to find a way to get rid of the buildup of waste products. And the way they do this is by overexpressing, an enzyme called Nnmt. And this enzyme basically sticks a methyl group on the nicotinamide precursor to signal that it should be excreted from the cell. And this is a problem because we know that methyl groups are very important for epigenetic regulation. So if all our methyl groups are being used up trying to get rid of excess precursors because our cells can't recycle them anymore, that means the methyl groups aren't getting used for more important processes. So within our product, what we do is we use Egcg, which is found in green tea, which is an inhibitor of this enzyme.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So beautiful. I love that. I did not know that specific detail about the green tea extract there.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah, that's one of the reasons. I don't know if you've ever come across it, but you'll hear people say, Oh, if you if you take or if you take GnRH, you better make sure you take in a methyl donor like Trimethylglycine or something like that. That's why. Because all of the clinical studies on GnRH demonstrate that as they increase dosage of GnRH, it increases excretion of methylated nicotinamide like hugely, which shows that your methyl donors are basically getting used up to do this, which you shouldn't. And, you know, and that's a key example of how if you ignore the root causes of nad decline, you know, you can actually start making other problems for yourself.
Amber Warren, PA-C: It's a fine, fine tuned symphony. It's all about balance in the body. Yeah, Interesting. So if you had to. Label nad as like one claim to fame, right? I assume you would say like anti-aging, just the power and anti-aging that that your product and just increasing NAD has anything else that you would mention where we just see really, really incredible things with with NAD.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah I mean I think I always talk about cellular health. Um, and that's because, you know, when you think about anything, whether it's to do with aging or any disease or, you know, just anything at all when it comes to biology, although we're seeing things at the surface level or are experiencing things physically, ultimately everything that is happening is actually starting at a cellular level. So there's always some sort of root cause at the cellular level. And what NAD seems to do is it seems to be able to impact so many different cellular functions that, you know, it it almost has a list, you know, so long of benefits that it sounds too good to be true. You know, it can help everything. But when you when you realize that it's involved in 500 different reactions and actually it's driving a key, the key energy process in our cell and also the key repair enzymes, etcetera, in our cell, then actually it does make sense that it really does, you know, benefit all round cellular health. And if your cells are in good health, then the rest of your body will be in good health.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we know the data and the science on on poor cellular health. And as it relates to cardio metabolic disease and cancer and lots of different disease states in general. So yeah, that's incredible. Amazing. Is there anything else we didn't touch on that you really want to share on on your product specifically, or the impact of NAD the power of of NAD in the human body?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah. I mean, I think one one thing to point out about our product is we've actually done human clinical trials on it and which is fairly unusual for, for supplements. You know, many supplements are on the market and they've never been tested in humans. But when I founded the company and my background is actually in drug development and so I was really keen on having very good science and also clinical trials. And so we did a double blinded, placebo controlled crossover study of 28 people. And you know, in, in that study, which is just been unblinded and we're just going into publication now with the results. And, you know, we did test multiple different biomarkers to see what the product was doing. And so the first one we obviously looked at was nad like, is the product increasing nad as it should be? And it does it significantly increased nad over the 28 days that we ran this trial for. And, you know, we actually took blood samples and they were taken every week. And even after a week you could see a significant elevation in NAD levels in the subjects. And, you know, so that was that was really promising. We then also wanted to look at are we actually, you know, fixing the root causes of NAD decline unlike or in and the other precursors that don't.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: And so we looked at measuring the levels of that nampt enzyme in our subjects. And again, we saw a significant increase in the levels of that enzyme. So we're really confident that it's actually switching back on our body's own natural production of NAD as opposed to just, you know, putting a load of precursor in there. And we also looked at levels of the sirtuins. So sirt1 was significantly increased, which is great because, you know, sirt1 and NAD work together to increase all the and switch on all the beneficial pathways. And and then in terms of more clinical type biomarkers, we looked at inflammation because we know that chronic low grade inflammation is a huge, huge area of, you know, linked to aging. And, and we saw a reduction, a significant reduction in four different inflammatory cytokines. So again, you know, this tells us that we're not driving cd38 inflammation, that we're actually reducing inflammation across the body and which is obviously highly beneficial. And we also measured Glycation. So Glycation is involved in a lot of different aging processes, everything from you, you know, loss of skin elasticity through to stiffness of our arteries and cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: And we also saw a significant reduction in that. But I guess the thing that was probably most excited about was we measured biological age, um, in this, in this study as well. And I like biological age because it's quite a simple thing for anybody who's, who's not a scientist, um, you know, to. Understand because you've got your chronological age, which is just the age you are, but then you've got your biological age, which is the age at which your cells are on the inside. So it's how well you're aging really inside. And obviously you don't want your biological age to be higher than your chronological age because that's bad. And so what we found in our study was that within a month of using the time, plus it actually reversed biological age by 1.2, six years. And, you know, so we were we're really pleased with with that result. And and again, it just emphasizes how important nad is and how important it is to make sure that you're maintaining your levels or at least topping them back up to more like what what they were when you were younger.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, that's amazing. And that's a really hot topic right now, right? The concept of inflammaging and cellular senescence. We've been studying cellular senescence a lot in our clinic and just as it relates to aging and just chronic disease development.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah. So NAD is very intertwined with senescence. So senescence is an area that we work on a lot as well. And it's basically it's kind of a vicious circle. So what we see is that a decline in NAD levels actually drives senescence because you have less repair going on in the cells. And basically it's in essence, cell senescence occurs when a cell generally becomes so damaged that it can't be repaired and it may be dangerous and, you know, may become cancerous. So the body triggers some pathways that actually just shuts that cell down, stops it from replicating. But unfortunately, the cell isn't recycled. And, you know, it's it's actually still there. And we now know that these cells sit there and cause a lot of trouble and secrete a lot of inflammation. And so what we know is that NAD declines. That means our cells aren't getting repaired as they should be. This means they get damaged. This means senescence is triggered. You get an accumulation of senescent cells, these secrete inflammation. And guess what this inflammation does? It switches on 3806. So then our NAD goes even lower. So then we get more damage. So then we get more senescence and more inflammation and that drives more cd38, which eats even more NAD and it's just a vicious cycle. So, you know, again, this is another reason why when increase in NAD you really need to be looking at inhibiting that inflammatory cd38 as well, which is exactly why we put that design in our product.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And it makes so much sense. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Um, you know, you. You guys have a lot of your really amazing research published on your website. Could you tell our listeners your website so they know where to find you and where they they know how to find this research?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah, of course. So our website is WW dot nuchido.com and that's spelled n u c h i dotcom. And we also put a lot of, of you know, educational posts on our Instagram account and that's just at nichido and, and also on my Instagram account which is at Dr. Nicola Conlon and but you know, a key part of what we do as well as is products is education. And where, you know, when I founded the company, it was all about how can we take this science that is locked up in labs and get it out to people and get it out there as consumer products, but also as information so people can understand a bit more about aging and a bit more about, you know, what they can do to reverse the biological age and improve the health span. And so, yeah, we do quite, quite a bit to try and help educate people on that.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, you guys do a fantastic job. Yeah, I've been really impressed since I started reading your stuff and just investigating your work in the past year. Wonderful. Thank you. So I like to end every one of my interviews with, you know, if there was one piece of advice that you were to give people that you educate, right? Whether it's patients or practitioners, you educate or just the community that's moved the needle the most has the most significant impact on on an individual's health. What would that advice be?
Dr. Nichola Conlon: So my advice would be, get to know your own body. And that would be by having regular blood tests and blood panels done, even when you feel good because everyone's an individual, everyone's different. We're not an average. And and quite often, you know, people only end up going to a doctor when they're sick. And then the doctor looks and says, Oh, well, it all looks normal. You're within normal ranges, but how do you know that's normal for you? Right? And quite often, you know, a lot of a lot of things can pop up in our blood while we're feeling well that can be treated really quickly and reverse really quickly, if only you know about it. And and quite often people can be surprised with what they see. Just recently, you know, one of my friends who I persuaded to get like just some at home blood fingerprint testing, and they actually sent me a message going, oh, my goodness, Like my LDL is right up. Like, I can't believe it. You know, they fully thought that nothing you know, everything was going to be fine. And I was like, you know, you just don't know. So it's it's so important to know what's going on, you know, underneath and at the cellular level.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, that's great advice. You know, when you were talking about glycation and inflammation, I'm thinking like, yeah, we can look at biomarkers, we can look at just generic blood tests that a lot of times insurance cover hemoglobin A-1C that can be reflective of like glycation. That's not just that's not just a marker of blood sugar. It doesn't mean you just have to stop eating sugar and carbs, right? There's other things in the body that are triggering that a-1c to go up that can clue us in that there's something wrong. A CRP or a high sensitivity. Crp is a way that we can look at inflammation or inflammation in the body. Yeah, LDL that goes high, right? It's not just stop eating red meat and fat that that can be liver congestion. It can be just inflammation in the body, toxins in the body that are driving some poor efficiency essentially in the body. So, yeah, I think that that is really important for patients to to understand it. It doesn't always have to be an onset of migraines or a diagnosis of autoimmunity to get somebody to start paying attention to their health.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: Yeah, I completely agree.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time, Dr. Nicola. I just appreciate your time and all the work that you've done and and just poured into the science and the data to try and get people to to find health and wellness.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: No, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed that chat. So thanks for having me on. Amber.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Of course. Thank you. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day.
Dr. Nichola Conlon: You, too. Bye. Bye bye.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Thank you for listening to the Functional Medicine Foundations podcast. For more information on topics covered today, programs offered at FMF and the highest quality of supplements and more. Go to Fun Med Foundations dot com.