Neuroinflammation: Signs, Root Causes & How to Calm It

Nick Urban [00:01]:
You’re listening to High Performance Longevity, the show exploring a better path to optimal health for those daring to live as an outlier in a world of averages. I’m your host, Nick Urban, bioharmonizer, performance coach, and lifelong student of both modern science and ancestral wisdom. Each week, we decode the tools, tactics, and timeless principles To help you optimize your mind, body, and performance span. Things you won’t find on Google or in your AI tool of choice. From cutting-edge biohacks to grounded lifestyle practices, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to look, feel, and perform at your best across all of life’s domains.

Nick Urban [00:50]:
Dr. Jaquel Patterson, great to have you on the podcast.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [00:54]:
Great, thank you. I’m really excited to be here, Nick, in the conversation.

Nick Urban [00:57]:
Let’s dive right in. For someone who’s listening to this and they’ve never heard the word neuroinflammation, in plain language, what does it feel like from the inside?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [01:09]:
So from the inside, what it can feel like is brain fog, lack of focus. It could be memory issues. It could be even mood changes. So when people are having neuroinflammation, think of it, the brain is like on fire, is inflamed. And so when you’re inflamed, And you don’t feel good, so you’re not going to think as well, you’re not gonna remember things as well, and you might be really irritable. And so that’s a common symptom I’ll see, or have a lot of mood changes and mood swings when somebody has neuroinflammation.

Nick Urban [01:40]:
And what is it that’s going on?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [01:42]:
So what happens is, is you have this,

Nick Urban [01:45]:
the,

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [01:46]:
what’s called the blood-brain barrier. So the blood-brain barrier is the thing that’s on the, you know, protects the brain. And so basically, about 98% of solutes don’t get into the brain, right? These things that That your body gets exposed to these things all the time. And so for the most part, it’s really good at keeping everything out. But about 1 or 2% of these, what they call solutes, can get through the brain. The issue is what is getting through the brain? So what happens is if there’s a lot of inflammation by way of, like, chronic stress or gut inflammation, what they call dysbiosis, or infections, these inflammatory, what they call inflammatory mediators, inflammatory cytokines, will cross through that blood-brain barrier and actually impact areas of the brain.

Nick Urban [02:27]:
Hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [02:30]:
that are responsible for our anxiety, our depression, our memory. And so what happens is this blood-brain barrier can get, through chronic inflammation, can get broken, and you have something called microglia. And so microglia or macrophages, the easiest way to describe them, I say, are like garbage men. Like, you have, you have, you know, inflammation, these things that, that need to get cleaned up, right? So you have inflammation, it goes on the brain, these things need to get cleaned up. The garbage, um, Men or women. They come in, they come to clean, you know, out the area, and they do their job, and it’s cleaned out. And so in a normal process, like, you get, like, a traumatic brain injury, you have an injury to the brain, things like that, you know, acute injuries, it comes in, it cleans it up, and it does its job, and it does what it’s supposed to do. The challenge is if you’re having, like, what they call chronicity, where it’s constantly needing to put out these workers to clean up the garbage on the street.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [03:25]:
And then what happens over time is there’s not enough workers, right? There’s not enough workers to clean up the garbage on the street, And you have litter. You have continued litter and things like debris that gets left behind. The challenge is that these are these, like, inflammatory cytokines, and so some of them you’ll hear of called IL-6, tumor necrosis factor. There’s specific ones that go up that impact areas of the brain. So some of the areas of the brain that can get impacted are the prefrontal cortex, which is the front of the brain. And that one is actually for making decisions. And interestingly enough, like, we, that part of the brain develops up until the age of 26. And that’s one of the reasons why you see like young adults, they’re not good at making decisions, right? Or adolescents, like they’re impulsive.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [04:10]:
It’s related to impulsivity and decision-making and things like that. So if that area of the brain gets inflamed, guess what happens? You start not being able to make basic decisions or doing normal day-to-day tasks, or you’re impulsive. So those areas of the brain get weakened also. So that’s one area, something called the hippocampus, which is our memory center, that can get impacted. And so what that does is it helps to allow us to make new memories, short-term memories, and long-term memories. So what you’ll start seeing in somebody that has, like, a lot of depression or anxiety, they’ll start having, like, they can’t remember things, and it seems like they’re flighty, or they’re like, I can’t, words can’t come out as well, or I just can’t think of things as easily. And so that memory center gets hit. Then there’s also other, many different areas of the body, like the amygdala, which is our reptilian brain.

Nick Urban [05:02]:
Hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [05:02]:
That’s, like, our fear response. So our body will know that’s the area of our brain to keep keep us protected, like, if something is safe or not. What happens if you keep having hits to that area of the brain, everything feels like it’s an immediate, you know, immediate stress. Like, every single thing is a fear response. You can’t start, you start to not be able to differentiate between, like, what’s a fear or not. And so what happens is you just have anxiety all the time for every single thing. And so all of these different, there’s many different anterior cingulate cortex, like, many different areas of the brain that get impacted that are often related to our mental health. And also related to our ability to, like, cognitive performance in terms of, like, being able to focus, in terms of our motivation.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [05:47]:
There’s a saying called anhedonia where there’s, like, kind of apathy, like lack of wanting to do anything. And also a lot of mood dysregulation, like irritability, emotional dysregulation. Those can all get impacted as a result of neuroinflammation.

Nick Urban [06:03]:
So, if I heard you correctly, it starts off by having a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier to some degree, and then things pass into the brain, which causes specialized immune cells of the brain to overclean, essentially overactivate and do things that they shouldn’t be doing. And as a result, that’s causing issues to various different structures and parts of the brain. And that comes out symptomatically with memory issues, like all kinds of just degenerative or brain-related issues, brain-related issues in the short term. And I’m guessing over a longer period of time, then you start to have Neurodegeneration.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [06:40]:
Neurodegenera, yeah. So you’ll see, like, people with Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, there’s much more, uh, much more, like, overactivation of microglia that you’ll see in that location. Like, you know, it used to be thought of only as the amyloid plaques and things like that for dementia, but now seeing that there’s an inflammatory component too, as well, that leads up to it. So, Nick, you said it a lot simpler, um, than I said it. So, but, um, you know, trying to make it simple is always hard, but those are, yeah, the basic And it’s implicated in so many studies. Like, there’s studies that show when people’s something called C-reactive protein, CRP, when that goes up, that has been connected, if those levels are high, for a much higher chance of depression.

Nick Urban [07:25]:
Hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [07:25]:
In fact, and even psychotic episodes, they’ve seen with schizophrenia, CRP levels going up significantly before a first psychotic episode. So, like, PTSD or trauma, a significant event, often causing the onset of that episode, and possibly not fully, but possibly inflammation being one of the definitely big factors related to it.

Nick Urban [07:50]:
Yeah. So, I want to go into that more in a second, but to me, it seems like that’s the downstream response, like what happens after there’s an assault to the blood-brain barrier and this whole system. You mentioned traumatic brain injury, and that’s one of the ones that I’m more familiar with because I played football and rugby for a while.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [08:09]:
Oh, which you gotta do, which you guys get tons of concussions with that, especially rugby more than regular football.

Nick Urban [08:15]:
What are the other things that most people who don’t play either of those collision sports would experience? Like, how would they have an issue with neuroinflammation?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [08:25]:
So what happens is, especially if they’re having lots of concussive events, there is definitely gonna be issues with memory impairment and cognitive function and fogginess. So you’ll have a patient that comes and they’re like, yeah, I feel kind of out of it or foggy all the time. And so what happens is those chronic event, you know, chronic inflammation, which is just, like, low-grade inflammation, can be as bad as, like, an acute event, like a significant concussive or TBI, which will cause issues with neuroplasticity, which is, like, and the neuronal, like, the signals between the brain. So, like, can impact the speed. It can impact the body’s ability to, like, repair and, like, memory function. So you’ll see a lot of issues with cognition, and there are definitely many things, different things you can do to support it.

Nick Urban [09:11]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [09:13]:
Obviously, as we know, prevention is the most key, and it is challenging because a lot of those sports, especially rugby, is, there’s just a much higher likelihood of concussive events as a result. And sometimes people don’t know that they had a concussion, and they’re still out there performing too in the game.

Nick Urban [09:29]:
So, yeah. Well, concussions also aren’t unique to collision sport athletes. Like, your general population will trip and fall on an icy surface.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [09:38]:
Yes.

Nick Urban [09:39]:
TBI, like head heading, headering the ball in soccer that can cause it. Like lots of stuff that isn’t necessarily football or rugby can cause it. And beyond just TBI, your average person, if they don’t get a TBI, say they live their entire life with no TBI, how could they run into issues with neuroinflammation? Because as you mentioned, like the symptoms and the side effects of neuroinflammation, they’re pretty vast.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [10:04]:
Yes.

Nick Urban [10:04]:
So yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [10:05]:
And it, and it can also overlap with a lot of different things. So it’s like, how, how do we know it’s because of that? I mean, inflammation is the cause of so many pieces. But when you look at things outside of, like, a concussive event, and you’re right, I’ve had kids that have significant anxiety or depression, and they’ve fallen off the swing, or they’ve had concussive events many times. And I tend to see those people that had those TBIs, the symptoms of cognitive or brain fog tend to be a bit worse because it’s, that was already kind of weaker to begin with. But you’re, but there are many different reasons that could be, that could cause neuroinflammation. So, Type, like chronic metabolic conditions, like type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, definitely, because again, you might be having, you know, in terms of fat and things like that, there’s an increase of inflammation. Autoimmune conditions. So when you look at the studies, they show that most autoimmune conditions, there’s also much greater rate for mental health conditions, right? And that’s definitely ’cause of the connection with inflammation.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [11:11]:
So autoimmune conditions, metabolic conditions like diabetes, Obesity, also a factor. Exercise actually helps with all of those things in terms of like protecting the brain. We’re looking at things that actually help to support, but mostly it’s chronic disease, chronic illness conditions, and then also autoimmune conditions.

Nick Urban [11:33]:
You mentioned CRP earlier being one marker that might be out of balance, or if it’s out of balance, you’re more likely to have neuroinflammation. If someone who’s healthy comes to you and they have some of the classic symptoms that you were just mentioning, What would you, what would your process be of figuring out what is the cause of their neuroinflammation? And of course it’ll vary from one person to the next.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [11:51]:
Yes. And, and that’s always the, the, the tricky thing is the neuroinflammation. And when we look as, you know, a naturopathic doctor, we are always gonna look at the root cause. It’s like, why, why, why? So, so if you look at, for example, mental health and we’re looking at neuroinflammation, it could be the gut. There’s gut dysbiosis. So interesting. There’s a saying like leaky gut, leaky brain. So if there’s inflammation in the, in the, in the, in the actual gut itself, and there’s, let’s say, permeability issues, where the easiest way to know if you have that is a lot of, like, bloating or irregular stool, like IBS, or food allergies.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [12:28]:
Everything’s making you feel like you’re sensitive. That means there’s definitely what they call dysbiosis, which means that there’s, like, gut issues, right? Where the permeability, you want that barrier to be solid and strong. And what happens if there’s a lot of inflammation, which could be due to eating, you know, foods that aren’t good or stress and anything that’s going to weaken or actually even overexercise. People that exercise like marathon runners tend to have leaky gut because you weaken the lining of the gut. So what happens is that opens, right? So this, this barrier is supposed to be like this. It starts opening. And what happens is just like I mentioned with the brain, things are starting to go in and out. And what do you think happens? Like these go back and forth from the brain to the, the, the, the stomach.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [13:09]:
So there’s something called the vagal nerve. So when you look at the vagus nerve, there’s a bidirectional relationship with the gut. I always explain it like a telephone line, although that also ages me because not everyone’s used to, like, the phone. I think of the telephone line in the kitchen where you’re, like, sitting on the phone, and it’s basically, like, sending that signal from the phone to the receiver, the enteric nervous system, which is in the gut. And so, if there’s an imbalance there where there’s a lot of inflammation, that will cause, there’s also the neurotransmitters that there’s a connection there too. Like, 90% of your serotonin, for example, is located in the gut. But you have this with the gut. So that’s one.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [13:48]:
Hormones. So gut microbiome might be an issue, might be something related to neuroinflammation. Hormones can. So, for example, estrogen is more pro-inflammatory. Testosterone and progesterone are more anti-inflammatory. So if, when those levels change, when a woman has, like, has a child, when that drops down, if they have perimenopause, a man who, after the age of 40, testosterone goes down. Testosterone actually not only helps with, like, focus and mood and motivation, but it also,

Nick Urban [14:16]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [14:18]:
So, people don’t know it’s an anti-inflammatory and helps with your dopamine levels. So, all of those pieces, the hormones can impact it as well with inflammation. When we look at stress, the HPA axis gets impacted. And so, those cause those same inflammatory cytokines that I talked about to go up too and affects the brain. And anytime the cortisol is out of balance, it can affect your thyroid gland, it can suppress the thyroid hormone, it can impact your hormones directly, your reproductive hormones. So there’s definitely an, um, what they call negative feedback loop where all of these things kind of speak to each other. So you really, it’s really multi-pronged where you’re looking at gut hormones, you’re looking at your HPA axis, you’re looking at like food diet. Like if you’re eating obviously a lot of processed foods, those are gonna cause more inflammation, um, to the brain and also to the gut itself, which again, they’re having that signal of speaking to each other.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [15:16]:
Um, also just, you know, Like, obviously injuries and direct injuries or any, any events where there’s just a chronic infection. So we, in my practice, one of our areas of focus is like Lyme disease, individuals with post-treatment Lyme disease where they still have symptoms after being treated, which is actually not an insignificant portion of people after they’ve gotten treated with antibiotics. And so they can still have these levels of inflammation of fighting off an infection that also can have that same effect on the brain. So yeah, many different reasons and it really requires like a multi- pronged approach, not just like, hey, let’s do something for inflammation, but why, why is the inflammation there in the first place? If it’s like someone has type 2 diabetes and it’s because of lifestyle, can we get them on a good exercise diet, you know, getting good management of it that’s going to help it, you know, help the, the neuroinflammation. If it’s the gut, if I fix the gut, then maybe there won’t be any issues with like anxiety, which I’ve seen, or mental health or neuroinflammation. So they’re all, um, all those pieces need to be looked at. And unfortunately, the way current healthcare model is we’re looked at is in pieces, right? We’re not looked at in as a whole. And so, but we have to be looked at as a whole, especially when we’re looking at things like neuroinflammation, like where, where is it actually coming from? And it could be more than just one thing or one location or one organ system.

Nick Urban [16:39]:
Yeah. The bioharmonizer in me loves the idea of looking at all the different root causes and addressing them all at the same time. The biohacker in me sees that, okay, if you have an issue with a blood-brain barrier, say it’s a little too leaky, perhaps there’s something we can introduce at the same time we’re addressing all the other root causes to help mitigate some of the downside and damage. Of course, not taking the place of fixing the fundamentals, the root causes and everything, but like, are there things that people can do to help seal up a leaky blood-brain barrier?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [17:13]:
Yeah. So, so in terms of like thinking of like biohacking thing, I always say my, my, sometimes we have the basic biohacking of like sleep, you know, it’s like, I think we forget because we have the wearables, you know, I have my Whoop and things like that.

Nick Urban [17:25]:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [17:25]:
Um, but when you look at sleep, it actually clears something called the lymphatic system. So lymph we have, but we actually have it for the brain too. And if you don’t get enough hours in deep sleep, that’s where it’s actually like cleaning out and removing waste and toxins. So there’s definitely a direct relationship with like inflammation and sleep because ‘Cause it actually, you have like inflammatory cytokines that get like actually regulated, your T helper cells, T reg cells, like all these things happen at nighttime that if you’re not getting proper amount of sleep, or at least the right kind of sleep where you’re getting deep REM and deep sleep, that’s gonna be really critical. So those are, that’s like one basic thing. And so that’s all sleep hygiene. That’s like making sleep as a priority and that your total number of hours of sleep. The other thing is like sauna.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [18:14]:
So sauna has been studied to help deal decreased CRP levels, decreased IL-6. So those are pro, again, pro-inflammatory cytokines, meaning they cause inflammation in the body. They’ve been, they have been studied that the more frequent, um, more frequent the sauna occurs, I was like, oh, that’s nice. Where’s that coming from? Um, that there were some birds in the background. Um, the more frequent the, the sauna usage, the lower the inflammatory markers. Plus, um, it also has shown to be connected with the more frequent, in some studies, more frequent of using like a sauna, the less likelihood of like mental health conditions too. So there’s definitely not just increase, decreasing inflammation in the body, I’m sure, but also mental health, which I’m sure the inflammation is all playing a role. Um, there are a lot of other things I know a lot of people are using like, um, for neuroinflammation.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [19:06]:
They’re looking at things like peptides have been studied. Um, they’re looking at like BPC-157. I know Selank, C-Max. I know KPV. So that we look at those 2 when we’re looking at like sealing the gut and the barrier piece that you talked about. Those have been, have been looked at. And also, yeah, red light therapy is something I use in our office a lot. Cold plunge is a great one, but cold plunge still has not been tons of research, like as much studies have shown as for sauna.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [19:35]:
Has shown help with like endorphins and neurotransmitters, but not so much on the, helps with like acute inflammation, like an acute event, but not necessarily,

Nick Urban [19:44]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [19:45]:
as much research as it has been for sauna, although sauna has been probably more studied than like a cold plunge. So yeah, there are definitely some biohacking stuff. I love biohacking stuff myself. And, but I always say sometimes go to the basic things of like sleep, walking, activity, more days than less days of the week. Hydration is something people take 100% for granted. They either drink too much or drink too little. And the consistency of that is also equally important to flush waste and stuff.

Nick Urban [20:14]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [20:17]:
Uh-huh.

Nick Urban [20:18]:
I used to think of the blood-brain barrier as like a force field. And the more I learned about it, it’s not really a force field and it, it’s seemingly simple and complex at the same time.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [20:27]:
Mm-hmm.

Nick Urban [20:28]:
There’s also certain things that disrupt the blood-brain barrier, or at least some of the research I’ve seen that shows like certain things, like certain frequencies when you apply them like on the blood-brain barrier over extended periods of time, that can have a detriment, detrimental impact. It’s not the most compelling and like the most fleshed out research yet around like some of the different things that can disrupt it, at least the ones that I’ve seen, but like heavy exposure to,

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [20:51]:
Metals. Yeah. You think heavy metals, or, I mean, you think, I’m not sure, I’m not sure in terms of like all the research, but when you think of those things, they, they likely have some frequency to them, right? You look at parasites has been a conversation, metals. Phthalates, you know, these pesticides that we have, mold, all these environmental exposures. I didn’t yet mention that, so thank you for kind of prompting that because I, because those are also equally going to cause potentially neuroinflammation. So it could feel really overwhelming though, because some people, when I have these conversations, like, oh my gosh, then why do I do everything, you know, anything? Everything is, you know, everything is bad, right?

Nick Urban [21:32]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [21:32]:
So it’s really how do we have these things also in, in moderation, and what do we do to actually help to support our brain health as much as possible, given there’s a lot of both environmental exposure, stress, medical conditions that can all contribute to it negatively?

Nick Urban [21:52]:
Yeah, I mean, it’s one perspective that it, it’s all bad. Like, it’s, it’s scary, but at the same time, the converse, the inverse of that is like, okay, you do something for your gut, you’re also going to be improving your brain to some regard at the same time. So it’s like any change you make is also going to be changing more things than you can imagine. You sleep a little more, a little better, better sleep hygiene. That’s going to have all kinds of effects on the whole body. So each little change can also be super profound. You’ve mentioned several times the impact of neuroinflammation on mental health. And I’ve heard you mention previously that the rates of anxiety and depression somewhere around 1 in 4 people and dementia is also climbing fast.

Nick Urban [22:35]:
What’s the scale of what we’re talking about here?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [22:38]:
Yeah, so really good question. I just looked at some recent stats that showed about 1 in 5 adults have, which is about 20% of the population, have a mental health condition diagnosed every year. And when you look at younger people, it’s even higher. It’s like 1 in 3. And that raised significantly, especially for young adults and people under 18 after actually 2020, which likely, obviously, the social, lack of social connection and things like that, So that, and obviously the advent of like the increasing advent of like social media and things like that and engagement. So, so it’s unfortunate because like it’s definitely present in adults, but the group to look, keep the biggest eye on is really the younger generation because their rates of mental health are much higher than, than, than, than my generation, than the generation before me. Some of it could also be cultural, like maybe we’re also more aware, right?

Nick Urban [23:34]:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [23:35]:
And we’re looking at it and diagnosing the same, you know, could be said with like ADHD. And things like that, are we actually more aware of it? And also, the one positive thing is this generation, the younger generation, has also shown to be more health-conscious and into biohacking and longevity, not doing as many of that negative lifestyle stuff like alcohol, the same as my generation. I’m in my 40s. So there is also, it’s interesting, even though mental health is on the rise for that age, Yeah. That age is also much more health-conscious than, like, the generations before it. So it’ll be interesting to track and see how that plays itself out. But I think a lot of it is all of these, like, environmental exposures they’re exposed to at a much higher level in terms of, like, I talked about, like, heavy metals and toxins and pesticides and things like that than prior.

Nick Urban [24:29]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [24:29]:
The food, you know, food quality and the quality of the food that we’re getting is really not as as good as 50 years ago. You can’t really get as much nutrients as you could before. So because of that, we have to supplement and augment by way of multivitamins and multi-minerals and things like that, because unfortunately, even eating right is not going to unfortunately be enough. We have to be able to add other things to it. So even though the mental health crisis is increasing significantly, there is some hope. And what’s nice to see is just interest in what do I actually do?

Nick Urban [25:03]:
What can do?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [25:04]:
And what power do I have in my own right to be able to try to change this? Yeah.

Nick Urban [25:09]:
I think a lot of these fall under the category of, you have deficiencies and you have excess. A lot of these things are, I guess toxicity would be a better way to put it. Of course, an illness or a viral illness, bacterial illness, that kind of thing could fall under toxicity as well. Parasites, Lyme, could fall under toxicity. Like, how often are you seeing people coming in with either a toxicity or a deficiency, and when you address either end of those, that they get better?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [25:41]:
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I’d say almost every one of my patients. Like, I, because what one thing we see is a naturopathic doctor or anyone functioning medicine trained, when someone first comes in the door, we are gonna do much more comprehensive testing. So I, and but when I ever do, I do testing though, I always say I wanna do it with reason. So I’m, I’m, there’s 50 different specialty tests I can do, but I really wanna see like, what is the root of like, hey, if you’re having a lot of GI issues, I’m probably gonna do a stool test. And if you have anxiety, I’m probably do a 4-point cortisol test. If you also have hormone and environmental and other things, I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to decide like, what are the top 3 things causing, this is just my process, the issues. And then we kind of will take it off. I say like an onion, like peel it off like on layers, and we’re gonna do the other testing.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [26:24]:
‘Cause it could be really overwhelming when you see a naturopathic or functional medicine doctor some run like 10 specialty tests and they come back with all this information, everything’s wrong, you know, because the more, the more you test, the more you’re going to find out too, right? And then it’s like, well, where do I start? Like, how do I know what’s most important? So I really try to focus on what are like the very key things that are feeling like they’re making up most of the picture. So when someone comes in, in terms of nutrient testing, I do like, so like NutriEval, which is like a nutrient testing where it’s going to tests like their omegas, all of their co-nutrients, all of their amino acids, something called an OAT test, which is like different genetic SNPs, and checking on their ability to, let’s say, methylate, or are they going in a pathway that’s more inflammatory, like the kynurenine pathway? That test tests for metals, it tests for mitochondria markers, like CoQ10, and glutathione, and 8-OH, which is a marker, is a good longevity and anti-aging marker for inflammation. So, I like that as a good wellness test, which is called NutraEval. But I will often find in those tests, people have a mineral deficiency, and you can’t get those specialty tests. I will often do those in the conventional labs, particularly like magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, and iron and ferritin. You’ll be surprised at, people are surprised at how many people I have that are really deficient in iron and ferritin. And if you do the conventional labs, they’re often doing just CBC, which is a complete blood count, and the doctor might just check for your red blood cell or hemoglobin, and they go, oh, you’re okay. Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [27:58]:
But guess what? Then when I test their iron and ferritin, they’re deficient. And so, interestingly, the RBC, which is just the general test they do on, like, the finger, the regular test, that doesn’t show when you’re iron deficient until much later.

Nick Urban [28:11]:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [28:12]:
So, that’s the thing, is it will show it, but typically, it’s when it’s progressed long enough, like 3 to 6 months later. And so, that’s one of the reasons why I always do the iron and ferritin from day 1, because our focus is, like, how do I make you feel functionally well and functionally good, versus in conventional medicine, it’s really, Really, like, what is it? So your absence of, like, illness, right? So it’s like, if your TSH is at 10, then you have thyroid condition, right? Hypothyroid. But we’re gonna say, hey, your number’s at 4.2. Like, it’s a little far off, not far from being positive. What’s going on? Like, this is not working optimally. So our numbers are also, like, different within ranges because we say, like, what, what, where will you feel, like, optimally well and healthy?

Nick Urban [28:55]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [28:57]:
So I’m always checking those nutrient tests in addition to some specialty tests. And to your question is like, like 99% of the time, I rarely have someone that doesn’t have like a nutrient that’s missing or there’s an infection. I’m going to check things like mono or walking pneumonia or tick-borne infections. I’m also going to rule out any autoimmune condition, Candida. So oftentimes, unfortunately, more often than not, you’re going to find some kind of deficit in one of those things. Yeah.

Nick Urban [29:25]:
Couple things here. Organic acid testing. How do you settle on that specifically? I know that’s one of those tests that’s fairly controversial. Like conventional medicine says that there’s no utility there. And then a lot of the functional medicine crowd says that yes, they’re actually, they can be very helpful. And then a couple other things when it comes to testing, if you test enough things because of statistics, you’re bound to find one thing.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [29:47]:
Yeah. They’re gonna find something. Yeah.

Nick Urban [29:48]:
You’re gonna find something that might be a false positive just because of how many tests you’re running? And then third of all, I, this is a bad question. I mean, bad series of questions cuz you’re giving me a lot to answer. How do you incorporate the patient’s story and like their perspective into the whole process?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [30:07]:
Yeah. So the, the great thing is your second question. I think second and third can kind of be kind of put together, right? So the first one in terms of the OAT test, everybody’s different with that. I, I actually personally don’t use the OAT test oftentimes in the beginning to start with. I tend to do the OAT test when I have people that are like very sensitive, like they’re reacting to things more, or, um, other pieces, like the other tests all came back normal, and I’m like, maybe something else is going on. But it’s great to look at it for like yeast and fungal markers. It’s great to use, I mentioned kynurenine pathway tests for things like Quin-1, which is a marker when you’re looking at neuroinflammation and kynurenine pathway. So I, I use it when I’m trying to get more minutiae detail.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [30:48]:
However, personally, the reason I don’t like it from jump, from the beginning, is because it shows a lot and it’s really hard to go over and review and understand as a patient. So, I don’t personally like, this is where stylistically it’s different, giving all of that and someone being like, oh my gosh, what does this mean? I’m overwhelmed. What do you do? And actually, what are you supposed to respond? How are you supposed to respond to it? So, I tend to do that a little bit later.

Nick Urban [31:15]:
Okay.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [31:16]:
more nuanced when there are things that are also, like, kind of not matching up or adding up in terms of how they respond to things. And then to your other pieces, you’re right. So the more you test, and I’ve heard that from conventional doctors when I have patients that I’m seeing that might be shared patients, they’re like, well, of course, if you test a whole bunch of things, something is gonna show up. But the piece with it is, like, sometimes I have things that are really basic that are not, of course, you’re gonna test a lot of things, things are common. Like, someone didn’t get, like, they’re losing their hair and they’re tired all the time, Mm-hmm. And no one checked their iron and ferritin. And I’m like, okay, like, is that excessive testing by testing that? You know, they just checked their thyroid. Or they just checked their thyroid and they didn’t check like their thyroid antibodies and they have Hashimoto’s.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [32:01]:
And I, or I’ve had a young person that gets like written off that, oh, you’re just tired and it’s because you need to be less stressed out or you need to eat more or you need, and it’s like, well, okay, that’s all great, but like, did you actually do a full workup to see everything on. And it could be basic, it could be their autoimmune markers, a CBC, the iron, and their thyroid. But sometimes even those basic things aren’t done. They just do a complete blood panel and they check their glucose and that’s it, and they’re done. So, I think there’s different extents to it and how much blood work you do. Now, in terms of the piece of like, that personal story, that’s where all that ties into how I personally decide on what I’m gonna run for somebody.

Nick Urban [32:42]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [32:42]:
So, if someone comes to me and they’re like, I have a lot of pain, I have a lot of pain, I have a lot of fatigue. I’m gonna ask a lot of questions about, like, when did that start, right? So, like, if someone says, hey, this started when I was 17 years old after I got sick, and then my question is like, okay, what did you have? I’ve had some people like, I had mono. And so I’m gonna test, like, is there, there’s something called EBV, which is the cause of mono. Do they have their early antigen? Is it reactivated?

Nick Urban [33:14]:
Right.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [33:14]:
or did they have, like, walking pneumonia? Or they say, like, hey, after the wintertime, I got sick, and then I feel like I haven’t recovered. So I’m gonna check for infections to see, like, hey, are those still lingering that cause an issue? Some of my patients have, like, long COVID, and they say, like, after they got COVID, and then I test, and, like, their nutrients are all, honestly, all the nutrients that help with infections, like vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, all of them will be really low. So for them, I just need to replete their nutrients, or maybe be I need to give them more mitochondrial support, like high dose of CoQ10, like 300 milligrams, and glutathione. Because those cells, when you’re sick or have infections, they need to feed off mitochondria. Like, they take the energy centers, right? And so that’s why you get tired. So you need to do a lot of things to support the mitochondria for someone that’s like has a lot of infections or is sick all the time. So that’s where that story comes in. If someone’s like, I’ve had patients that are, um, and young people, they’re like, I’m sick every And so I’m like, of course that means I need to support their mitochondria, their energy center.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [34:17]:
That means they’re probably really nutrient deprived, and I’m gonna be testing for that because that is their foundation is down here. So me putting them on antibiotics or antimicrobials, like herbs for that, yes, that might get rid of that infection, but what happens is they’re already down here, right? So I need to get them foundationally stronger. And so that’s what happens sometimes, patients I see where they’re like, yeah, I got put on antibiotics, or I got put on antimicrobials. Like, okay. but now they’re still down here. Like, you need to build them up too because all those infections hit all of their cells, right? And so they’re nutrient deprived. So that’s where that story is helpful, is that detective part of like, where do I begin? Or someone that has like, they had celiac, they got diagnosed with celiac. Well, yes, I’m gonna work more on supporting the gut, maybe more so than other things that I could focus on.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [35:10]:
So the story is really helpful for me to insight like what testing I’m gonna do. And I always try to do the things that are gonna have like your best bang for your buck, like, that are gonna have the biggest impact, that are gonna improve, like, over half the symptoms so that there’s less to do, you know, versus some people might test, yeah, like, 10 different specialty tests and you’re throwing 40 supplements at somebody. How do you really know what’s working? If I just focus and it was, let’s say, their gut health and I fix their gut, maybe 20 of those other symptoms went away because I fixed their gut. So you really wanna work with somebody that’s going to be, like, looking at it from that, I mean, like 30,000 square foot, like what is gonna have the biggest impact rather than you have these 40 things that are wrong and I’m gonna give you something for every 40 things. Because when you’re practicing that way, you’re really practicing like allopathically where you’re just symptom.

Nick Urban [36:00]:
You’re just,

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [36:00]:
Yeah. You’re just giving something for the symptom. You’re not actually stepping back and saying like, why is this actually? Because sometimes those, like I said, the 10 things I might be able to put someone on, let’s say glutathione, which help with their metals, which help with their antioxidant status, which help with this, and it might hit 5 or 6 things, Rather than putting them on something for every single positive lab value.

Nick Urban [36:22]:
Yes, exactly. I was just thinking of the example of thyroid and you see that say thyroid stimulating hormone is really high, so the body wants more thyroid. It’s not able to use, like get enough and use thyroid adequately. Right. So one solution would be just to give thyroid hormone, T3 or T4 or something like that. But that’s obviously not actually addressing why the body is wanting this. And on the other end, you would have the natural approach where you say, you see that you’re low in zinc or vitamin D. or whatever nutrient it is, and you could say, oh yeah, just take the nutrient that’s missing.

Nick Urban [36:51]:
And that’s like the obvious solution there. But why are you low in that nutrient?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [36:55]:
Exactly. And those all feed. So like when you, I’m glad you just brought up the thyroid. So like iron, for example, when I see someone become really iron deficient, their thyroid will start, TSH will start going up, the numbers worse. So like vitamin A, iron, um, certain B vitamins, zinc, they all help with like the uptake of, uh, of, of like thyroid hormone and things like that. So there’s these, these nutrients are helped with cofactors.

Nick Urban [37:19]:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [37:19]:
So that the glands can do what they need to do. And so if you’re at a deficiency of like, let’s say iron, you’re gonna have less reuptake of, you know, your thyroid is not gonna work as well. And so lots of times doing those, just those core nutrients rather than just giving, like you said, a medication might actually resolve the issue itself, or at minimum help to keep it managed. Where I have patients that are like, oh yeah, they have to keep changing my thyroid medication. My Synthroid keeps going up to like, now it’s a, you know, it started at, you know, 37, then it was like 112, and now it’s 137, and it’s not managed. If a patient, if anybody, that kind of goes back to my inflammation thing, if someone has to keep going up in their medications, especially in like a short window of time, and all of a sudden it’s shifted, especially if I have someone that’s like, I’ve always done X amount of thyroid medication, and all of a sudden it seems like nothing’s working, or I have to keep going up, that’s when you definitely wanna look at like inflammation, because that will actually block, like when you look at psychotropic medication, 30% of treatment 30% of people taking psychotropic medications are treatment-resistant. And when you look at some of the studies, they’ve shown, like, inflammation will increase, decrease the effectiveness of those medications or those organs, those, like I said, the thyroid working as well. And so if it keeps changing, you have to think, what’s going on? Is it like, is there an environmental exposure, a metal or something? Is there inflammation that’s going up? Like, why,

Nick Urban [38:47]:
Right.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [38:47]:
would these things that worked before start changing pretty rapidly? That’s always a red flag to me. And so oftentimes the solution is just increase up the medication amount rather than trying to figure out, well, why, what shifted it? What caused it?

Nick Urban [39:03]:
So what I’m circling around here is the idea of like, perhaps there is a reason that these levels are high or low out of balance. And in certain circumstances, I’m sure you see this, that like certain infections They will deplete certain nutrient levels. So perhaps it’s not because you’re not getting it from diet, you’re not getting enough of say vitamin D from the sun, whatever it is, it’s actually because something is stealing that or preventing its absorption. So with that idea alone, how do you discern if something is actually a root cause or it’s just like another link in the causal chain?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [39:41]:
Yeah. So you want to, so the biggest thing is working as, or anyone you’re working with, you need to really be the detective of like, what are Yeah. So, the biggest thing is the pattern. So, for example, ferritin, I mentioned. So, you have iron, and then you have something called ferritin. So, ferritin is for iron storage. Now, one thing people don’t know is that ferritin is also a marker for acute inflammation. So, when you have more inflammation, that marker will oftentimes initially go up, which I saw a lot during COVID and then after, it goes down.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [40:11]:
Now, why does it go up? And it’s because it’s trying to bring more iron oxygen to the, like, the tissues, right? It’s trying to flood the tissues because Because infections actually feed off of, like, iron to survive. So when you have, like, a bacterial infection, it’s going to sequester more and more iron because it allows it to, like, proliferate more. So you’re gonna see the, as a result, like, the iron will go low over time. So because, or if you see somebody, like, outside of, like, because they have a women’s health, like, fibroids or endometriosis or something like that, and their iron just keeps going up and down or stays low,

Nick Urban [40:46]:
Right.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [40:47]:
there could be, it could be because there’s a chronic dormant infection. That’s why you’ll see someone with, like, celiac disease, their ferritin will be lower, all their minerals and nutrients will be low. You know, vitamin K gets absorbed in the gut, so all of these nutrients also get absorbed in the gut. And so, they start going lower, and you can’t really find a reason, you wanna look at, is there a gut, you know, inflammatory bowel disorder that’s going on? Is there, again, like, an infectious process? Because it’s actually utilizing that to kind of live or to thrive, right? And so, you’ll start seeing dropdowns or It starts being a pattern where you can’t seem to get it to go up. You know, you can’t seem to get the number to change. Vitamin D, that’s connected with, it’s a hormone precursor, and you’ll see that shift also like hormonally. And so, all of the, or it’s one of the number ones, like if you look at some of the studies, people with autoimmune conditions, if their vitamin D levels, And like the conventional labs are below 40, you will have, tend to have a higher progression of disease symptoms. And they’ve shown that for the study with rheumatoid arthritis, I think it was MS.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [41:58]:
I know for sure rheumatoid arthritis, and I believe it was MS, and there was another condition. Yeah, I was about to say rheumatoid arthritis again. But so basically it showed increase of disease progression. So that’s just showing how helpful vitamin D is used for like immune regulation, um, T helper cells, hormones. Um, but it’s also one of the ones the body is using when it’s under duress. It’s going to be, um, counting on stores of that.

Nick Urban [42:28]:
Earlier in our conversation, you mentioned long COVID. You’ve also mentioned dormant infections and Lyme. How big of issues are these?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [42:36]:
So if you look at, like, the rise of autoimmune conditions is going up, the rise of mental health is going up. And when you look at both of them, autoimmune conditions, most people have 1 or 2 persistent infections in the studies, like, 1 or 2 persistent chronic infections that they may or may not have been tested for. So I think that it’s, I think that obviously infections and things were always there. So I don’t think that that part is new. What I do think Hmm. …is that we have such a high bombardment of these, like, environmental exposures, for example, poor food, higher stress levels, that’s preventing us from, like, really, like, healing and really taking care of the cause of it. So I mentioned earlier when we first started talking about those, those, like, litter, you know, being left, left around on the ground and, like, not having enough workers to come and clean it up, and there’s just, like, a buildup over time. It’s that same concept as Because it’s like, foundationally, we don’t have as strong of a foundation.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [43:38]:
So when these things come, you know, mental health, or when we look at autoimmune conditions, we’re not really having the proper way to prompt a response to it. Because inflammation actually is good in some things. Like, you need inflammation to go in, do what it needs to do, and then come out. The problem is if it keeps happening all the time, or if the body’s just, like, after time, not able to repair itself.

Nick Urban [44:01]:
Right.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [44:01]:
itself well. And so I think that’s often more of the issue is because we have so many things. We have stress, like I said, environmental exposures, we have food issues, we have that, plus there are higher levels of, like, infections compared to more before, like, in terms of, like, more persistence of it or severity of that, but then also our ability to kind of, like, recover not being as high because of all these other,

Nick Urban [44:26]:
Right. Are there things we can do to make sure that we recover? Because of course there’s actually feeling recovered and better after an illness. And there’s also the, like, I feel partially recovered and it’s been 6 months and I don’t feel 100%, but I feel like 90%. Is there anything we can do at that point?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [44:46]:
Yeah, that’s a good point. Because what I always want to tell people is that we want to do things for like maintenance after I put people on, let’s say antimicrobials or herbals for a period of time. And then it’s like, oh, Okay, what do we do now to build your immune system? So there are a lot of different things that have been studied. So I’m always very going to be supportive of gut health. And the reason why 78% of the gut, if you look at the lamina propria, helps with immune function. So we have helps with T-reg, what’s it called, the regs, which are, like I said, the peacemaker of the system that helps to, helps with immune function and dysregulation. And so that usually comes from good short-chain fatty acids. And where do short-chain fatty acids come from? Fiber.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [45:26]:
And where do you get fiber from? Like dark green leafy vegetables, and fiber sources. But unfortunately, even with all that, we can’t get enough of the fiber in foods we need to have. So, this is where things like butyrate, sodium butyrate are good.

Nick Urban [45:38]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [45:39]:
Or prebiotics are gonna be good, in addition to probiotics, which are from, you can get from fermented foods, like, you know, sauerkraut, and yogurts, and things like that. But I’m always looking at like prebiotics for the short-chain fatty acids that help with immune regulation. Another thing I like is like arabinogalactan, or larch, which is an herb, and that helps with that prebiotic and helping to regulate the immune function is super key for anyone with autoimmune condition. And then the probiotics, I mean, they even have studies to show, depending on disease condition, there’s a different microbiome. So, like, someone that has anxiety has less Lactobacilli, let’s say, rhamnos, and also less Bifidobacterium longum. So, that’s why they have probiotic strains that are just for mental health to give that, because they’re lacking of some of these, what they call keystone bacteria, or they’ll show higher, you know, Faecalibacterium is, is not a good one, which is connected with, like, cognitive disorders. Akkermansia is another one. So, there are a lot of different ones in the microbiome we’re gonna look at supportively.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [46:42]:
So, obviously, through the diet, but then those are good things to look at. Now, other pieces, like, to support the brain and inflammation, like fish oil, omega-3, SPMs, which are pro-resolving mediators, which is from the part from omega-3s that helps to decrease inflammation. It also helps, like, DHA helps to protect the brain. Other things I love for protecting the brain are things like phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylserine. They do, some people do IVs with those 2, but those help with neuroplasticity and help to protect the brain. Then there’s,

Nick Urban [47:12]:
Can you explain those?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [47:13]:
Oh, yes. So phosphatidylcholine, you can actually get in like lecithin, sunflower lecithin that it comes from oils. There’s several companies that make it, but some of them have a blend. So there’s something called phosphatidylcholine, phosphoethanolamine, and then phosphatidylserine. So I usually like the blends, but phosphatidylserine, in particular, has shown to increase the, what they call synaptic connection, like the speed. So, phosphatidylserine, interestingly, has been studied for dementia and ADHD because it increases the speed. Phosphatidylcholine, they often help for just, like, protecting the brain, like the phospholipid bilayer, ’cause your brain is composed of that. So, those are really, really helpful, and you can get through, like, those food sources I mentioned.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [47:58]:
DHA is in, like, a fish oil compound. They usually have EPA and DHA. So, DHA is more protective protective for like your brain memory function and things like that. Then there’s tons of herbs that have shown to cross the blood-brain barrier that can help. Things like Scutellaria lateriflora crosses the blood-brain barrier, helps with neuroinflammation, protects the brain. Turmeric has been highly studied. People only think of turmeric for inflammation, but it’s been highly studied for depression. Actually, the most studies was for depression.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [48:31]:
People just know of it for that, but for,

Nick Urban [48:33]:
It’s interesting Interesting that you say turmeric and not curcumin.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [48:36]:
Oh, curcumin, yeah. So, turmeric, so they, curcumin is the active, they have curcuminoid, which is like the active ingredient in turmeric. So, you might hear those used interchangeably, and lots of times we’ll have like fennel or black pepper to kind of like activate it, but curcumin is one. And so, interestingly, curcumin has been studied to downregulate IL-6. So, I mentioned, I talked about IL-6 before, but IL-6, tumor necrosis factor alpha, And so, those are 2 markers that are actually very, very much implicated for inflammation, neuroinflammation, and also gut inflammation is, like, kind of the hallmarks of it occurring. And so, turmeric has been studied, or curcumin, has been shown to actually downregulate IL-6. And so, that’s why you’ll see improvements not only in inflammation, but sometimes even Yeah.

Nick Urban [49:33]:
There’s also water-soluble substances in turmeric itself, like the turmerosaccharides.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [49:38]:
Mm-hmm.

Nick Urban [49:38]:
It’s like only like 5% by weight. I think curcumin is like 95% or something. Yeah. So it’s like a very small percentage, but it’s interesting to see like how many different bioactives there are and things that have been used for a long period of time.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [49:49]:
Yes.

Nick Urban [49:50]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [49:50]:
And you know, you think of like turmeric, they, they’ve even had, uh, um, uh, studies that showed the more, um, cuz in certain cultures like Indian culture, they’re having turmeric or curcumin on all their food as spices. And they’ve shown, like, in the studies, like, a 4.5-time improvement in stress resilience, ability to, like, actually manage stress. But it’s interesting, in other cultures, they just have this all the time. Or, like, fish oil, in many cultures, like European and, like, Caribbean cultures, they would give it to their kids starting school. And it’s just, like, kind of these, like, wives’ tales that they just do it, but it actually has shown to help with brain development and memory as well. So, It’s always neat to see when some of these things come up, or different herbs. I know saffron has been another one that helps with SIRT1 and SIRT2, helps with mental health, tons of different benefits of it. It’s a little harder to get access to.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [50:41]:
Not many companies make this supplement, but ginger is another one. Ginger, people just think of for digestion, but it also has been studied to help with what’s called the 5-LOX pathway, which is there’s psychogenes, COX-1, and then there’s also something called the LOX pathway, but ginger has been helpful for or one of the pathways for inflammation. And it’s also studied to help with some of the, I forget the exact neurotransmitter, but one specific neurotransmitter.

Nick Urban [51:12]:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [51:13]:
So yeah, these things can cross over. And so when I’m working with a patient, or when you’re thinking of, or not, or even working with me or not working with me, you wanna see like what can help with a couple things, right? So what I love about turmeric or curcumin, if someone has inflammation in their body, I can use that. If they’re also like have mental health issues, I can use that. covering that. If someone, if a woman, like, right before their cycle has PMDD, curcumin is a great one to use because guess what? One of the reasons that happens is there’s a prostaglandin release, there’s a shedding of the uterus, and IL-6 and all those inflammatory markers go up. So what do I do? I put them on, like, natural anti-inflammatories, like curcumin, like 5 days before their cycle, which helps. So what I love is things that I can get, like, 4 or 5 benefits of basically the issues that they’re coming in with me, uh, for, for rather than having them on something for every single something, I try to see like what can actually overlap. Um, if I have a kid that has, let’s say, ADHD, or somebody that has like focus and memory issues and also sleep issues, I might put them on phosphatidylserine like I mentioned, because phosphatidylserine drops cortisol.

Nick Urban [52:22]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [52:22]:
So that could be helpful for their sleep at nighttime. That’s actually one of my favorite personal favorites to take at nighttime because you get into deeper REM, it drops your cortisol, but it also helps with focus. and attention and speed, like speed processing. So again, that’s an example where you’re getting like a few things in, in one, in one, you know, ingredient.

Nick Urban [52:45]:
Yeah, I love the phospholipids. They’re super cool. They also help with the integrity of the cell membrane, which is sometimes called like another brain of the cell too, because it’s really important to how the cell functions.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [52:56]:
And so one of the big ones when they talk about in longevity, because the cell membrane Cell membrane is a huge, cell membrane, we’re looking at longevity, is going to be huge because that’s going to help with the integrity of those membranes as we age. And then also, like, mitochondrial support, which all help with the integrity of those, of that as well.

Nick Urban [53:14]:
Dr. Jekyll, how do you conceptualize whether when you’re introducing something, say a curcumin or a different botanical or substance, how do you know if you’re working with the body and you’re helping it, like say you’re bringing down inflammation or you’re countering its like protective response. Like the body does a lot of things in attempt to protect us, and those can be helpful under certain circumstances, but not others, of course.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [53:38]:
Yeah. So, I think the biggest thing is I don’t keep people on things also like forever. So, that’s one thing is that these things can work just as well, if not, you know, as strong as like when you’re looking at medication. So, that is one thing because I have some people that come in, they’re on 20 things, and it’s really hard to get people off of things because they’re sometimes used to it. You know, I have, I have both. I have a mix of both. But if it’s really working as kind of like medicinal, you really should, it shouldn’t be something that you’re on forever. There are certain things I think are good to be on like forever, like good probiotics, because unfortunately we’re not usually in prebiotic getting the right, what we need from our food.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [54:15]:
A good multivitamin, a good mineral, you know, and fish oil. There’s like 4 or 5 base things I say that you probably wanna do all the time. But in terms of, like, your question is that, yeah, if I have someone on antimicrobial, let’s say, like, oregano, you don’t, I don’t really want them on it for past 6 months, but typically, like, 3 months, because you’re gonna affect the microbiome as well, ’cause you’re getting rid of stuff, right? Just like an antibiotic would. Now, there’s less of an issue compared to, let’s say, the medication. However, you know, why should you need to be on it forever? That goes back to the same question. Are you really fixing the problem if you’re needing to be on something, like, forever?

Nick Urban [54:48]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [54:51]:
Now, when it comes to mental health, you know, someone might need to continue to be supported. I try to, like, maybe it’s like a 5-HTP or something, and then I try to go to more gentle stuff like L-theanine, which is safe, like, for me to use with kids. And then that’s where I’m trying to move people to lifestyle stuff. So if it’s like, let’s say anxiety, how do we first get you out of the fire, right? And then maybe they’re on medications. We might have to work with them, the psychiatrist, to get them off that to supplement. And then over time, are we able to manage this by lifestyle, by like breathwork?

Nick Urban [55:20]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [55:23]:
Mindfulness-based stress reduction, meditation, exercise, consistent, regular exercise, a community, because anxiety has been, and mental health has been connected with a good, strong community and friend network. So I try to build other resilience things as we try to get them off those things because there is, especially when we’re looking at antimicrobials, you don’t necessarily, those aren’t things that you want to have Beautiful.

Nick Urban [55:52]:
Well, Dr. Jekyll, I have a couple more rapid-fire questions for you, but before we get there, if people want to connect with you, to follow your work, to work with you, how do they go about that?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [56:01]:
Yeah, sure. So I practice in Connecticut, but we provide telemedicine services. I’ve been practicing for 16 years. So my medical practice, it’s a multidisciplinary integrated practice that I own. There’s 9 doctors actually. The cool thing is we all have different areas of focus, right? So that’s, and we’ve developed that over time, ’cause we have people that say for oncology that they want to come and we have someone that focuses on that. So my practice website is fairfieldfamilyhealth.com, F-A-I-R-field-family-health.com. And you can follow me, we’re on Instagram and Facebook with Fairfield Family Health, but my personal is, um, at Instagram is @naturopathic.physician.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [56:38]:
And I really would love anybody listening in to try to follow me on YouTube, which is just my name, Dr. Jekyll Patterson, because I just recently launched my YouTube account as well.

Nick Urban [56:47]:
Perfect. And I will put a link to all of those in the show notes for this episode. Now onto a quick rapid-fire round.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [56:56]:
Okay.

Nick Urban [56:57]:
What’s the cheapest thing that someone can do this week for their brain for the next 20 years?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [57:02]:
I feel like it’s so simple. Sleep. It’s like sleep at least 7 hours, at least 7 hours a night.

Nick Urban [57:08]:
What’s one brain supplement the internet loves that you would skip?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [57:13]:
I would say, it’s funny, I mentioned it, but I would say to be hesitant of things that are very expensive, like saffron, for example, is a great one for the brain, but it’s also very expensive. And are there cheaper options to get the same benefit? So, same as peptides, I’m supportive and provide education on that, but those are maybe more expensive options. So, I guess that’s, I’m kind of answering them, but not answering them, but saying, be mindful. Is there something you can do that’s effective at a lower cost than the new fad item that’s actually What’s something we haven’t discussed yet that you do for your own brain? Meditation is, like, super key for me, and I see a huge difference when I don’t do it. That one, and the other one I love is, which we talked about earlier, is phosphatidylserine. And whenever I do it, my sleep quality’s a lot better. I’m much more focused throughout the day. And just like my patients, I still forget to take it.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [58:12]:
So, when I take it, I’m like, oh, this is why I take it. And it’s super helpful for me. and my brain and just my quality of what the day looks like. It’s also meditation. Like, when I start my morning off, even if I do 5 or 10 minutes, it sets the tone. And we have that in our office where we try to do like a meditation thing for 5 minutes before we start our day.

Nick Urban [58:34]:
Cool. Yeah, that’s, I’m the same way. What’s a question that you wish an interviewer would ask you?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [58:41]:
It’s funny the questions you ask because I didn’t know how to answer them. Usually I’m always ready to answer the questions. Like, what I really love the question that you said about what’s out there that, because that’s always my, that’s one of my challenges is like, we’re always trying to do the sexy new thing. And it’s like, but are we going back to the basics? And I think we oftentimes forget that. And so I think that what you asked in that was was really a really, really great question because it got me to think about that exact piece that it’s like, okay, can we not always talk about the cool things out there? But some of the, but because some of those aren’t necessarily needed, you can actually do something at a much less lower, let’s say, force or intervention.

Nick Urban [59:31]:
You’ve got a TED Talk coming out later this year. What is the main idea, without giving it away, that you want to land in that room?

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [59:39]:
It’s all about, really about naturopathic medicine and the approach to care, which is great because we really talked about that, finding it’s about, really about root cause medicine. And the reason it was really important, because I could speak on so many different areas, so many different topics, but when you’re looking at a TEDx, it’s really about spreading a message, right? And so my message is that the healthcare model can’t continue the way it is. And it really needs to take this root cause approach, and we need to be side by side in that conversation because it’s not working. And so, you know, that was, that’s more of my call to action than anything else. And it’s kind of a very simple, a simple statement, but it’s not happening. And so, and so that was really important to me, a philosophical shift on the delivery of how our healthcare Well, I usually ask how you want to leave listeners, if there’s any final parting thoughts or ideas, but you’ve kind of just answered that. Yeah, I always love, I always tell people to have grace, grace with themselves and to do one step, like, which you kind of had said, like, what’s the one, what’s the one thing they can do kind of for the rest of life? But like, what is the one thing? Because I think one of my favorite books, uh, Darren Hardy says The Compounding Effect. It’s a, it’s a business self-help book.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [1:00:59]:
But what I love is it talks about like the tortoise and the hare, uh, you know, the tortoise and the hare. And, like, that impact of those small monumental changes, because oftentimes those small changes, those can stick and we can keep them. So I’m always, we’re in such a world that we wanna do these, like, very high force or significant, you know, changes from 0 to 60. And then those things don’t have the staying power, right? The things that are gonna have the staying power is like, hey, I’m walking every day with my dog for 30 minutes every day, and I’m committing to that every day, versus I’m gonna commit to doing an hour and a half in the gym 5 days a week.

Nick Urban [1:01:33]:
Yeah.

Dr. Jaquel Patterson [1:01:35]:
times a week, you’re not going to stick with that for the rest of your life. So, I always say, like, try to have grace and have those, what I call, micro-moments of those 5 or 10-minute things you’re doing to contribute to your health every single day. And, it sounds really simple, but most people do not do that. They don’t do their micro-moments of those 5 minutes in a day. So, what can you do that’s going to be a good health habit that you know has staying power?

Nick Urban [1:01:59]:
Perfect. Well, Jaquel Patterson, thank you so much for joining me on the Podcast. This is,

Nick Urban [1:02:04]:
Thanks for tuning in to High Performance Longevity. If you got value today, the best way to support the show is to leave a review or share it with someone who’s ready to upgrade their healthspan. You can find all the episodes, show notes, and resources mentioned at outlier.com. Until next time, stay energized, stay bioharmonized, and be an outlier.