Reality Check

In this podcast, Dr. Rodney and Karen talk about their recent "Reality Check" with their Omega 3's and Vitamin  D levels.

Do you know what your levels are?

It can be important if you want to go the distance.

Our goal is to assist you in creating your own Blue Zone lifestyle where you can get older without declining physically and mentally.

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Transcript

Dr. Rodney: Welcome to Stance for Health podcast with Doctor Rodney and Karen Wirth, where becoming healthy is not complicated. Control your health by focusing on six areas of life that we teach you so you finally have the energy you want, have to do what you want instead of being a. A victim of your age. I have over 20 years experience working as a chiropractor, and Karen is an author, speaker and longevity coach. We've seen how a tiny change in your habits today can open up your life to a powerful future. Start today and take your stance for health. Hi, and welcome to Stance for Health podcast. I'm Doctor Rodney.

Karen Wirth: And I'm Karen.

Dr. Rodney: And today we're talking about knowing the way and acting on the way, the way that you know you should go, the awareness of it. There's the difference. And some of the wake up calls that we've had recently with regard to functional testing. And I know it's been a minute since we've talked this way, and part.

Karen Wirth: Of the reason for that is that Doctor Rodney is now certified functional medicine practitioner. And so our focus has always been on health, and now it's expanded even further. So we decided that we were going to practice what we preached and do a simple blood ***** test. We take the finger, we just your fingertips. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And what ended up happening? The results have lit us on fire.

Dr. Rodney: And basically we're talking about functional longevity.

Karen Wirth: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: In other words, how much longer will we be effective? Even though we're alive? We want to be both alive and effective. What you think about is disability. What are the things that slow people down in life and take them out of the long distance marathon we call life?

Karen Wirth: And we have done podcasts on the blue zones, so if you're not familiar with that, we won't assume that. You do know what a blue zone is. A blue zone is an area where they have large groups of centenarians. That means people 100 and over who are in great health and they don't have a lot of disability. They are doing well, and especially mentally. Great mental acuity, low disability. They are not doing what we have done with age. We have normalized that at a certain age, you fill in the number, you will begin to decline. And we want to challenge that because while it's common, it's not normal.

Dr. Rodney: Right? So just to follow that rabbit trail, and in our country, in western culture, we've become accustomed, and let's just say in rugged America that what we're talking about is Standard American Diet.

Karen Wirth: Sad, right?

Dr. Rodney: Christmas cookies around Thanksgiving dinner around basically 4 July apple pie and Chevrolet, all those different things. Right?

Karen Wirth: So Valentine candy.

Dr. Rodney: Right. We've become just so accustomed to industry standards for nutrition that we forget that there is an element of propaganda to that that got, you know, hey, let's think of ways to inculcate that into our lives so that we start to have some euphemisms, in other words, sayings that make that seem a little bit easier and kind of laugh about it and, you know, elbow each other about, oh, yeah, you know, we're gonna be in a rocking chair and, you know, drooling in a corner and, yeah, it's kind of funny, but it's not really funny.

Karen Wirth: It's not funny when it happens to, to you and your family like it did with my mom. And so this is what we wish we would have done for her at our age, was to take this simple test, because what came back is basically some specifics of things that need to change. Now, Doc took it a year and a half ago and he was doing it was stellar. So then we took it and I just never got the round to it. I never got around to doing it because I said I feel great.

Dr. Rodney: Right.

Karen Wirth: And the results had declined.

Dr. Rodney: As far as getting the results, responding to those results, we were just.

Karen Wirth: We took it in June of this year. Yes.

Dr. Rodney: And when we're due to retest is September.

Karen Wirth: Right.

Dr. Rodney: Okay.

Karen Wirth: Okay. So let's, let's back up all of that. Cause so Doc took it in 2022, in November, and his results were stellar. I didn't get around to taking it. So we both retested in June, and it was not good.

Dr. Rodney: Right.

Karen Wirth: So he had, he had gone back in many areas and mine wasn't so good.

Dr. Rodney: So the two leading indicators. So what they do with this pinprick test or what their able to do with your blood and just these little, these little blots of blood is determine your vitamin D. They're able to determine how much of a given type of essential oil or polyunsaturated fatty acids that are positive for you. They're able to do a lot with that. And plus you take this, this mental acuity test where you're doing short term memorization of certain things. I actually didn't take that last November. I didn't do that until this may. And I was a little surprised with how hard it was to negotiate that.

Karen Wirth: Part of the test and the challenges with that. And the results that we got have made some changes.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah. So we're just like, okay, let's not just say, okay, we've got, we've got some fish oil in the fridge. Hallelujah. We guys sitting in the fridge and.

Karen Wirth: You know, I will tell, say that Doctor Rodney will remind me because he is much more consistent at taking it because looking at it in the fridge and saying I'm going to do that and do that later does not get that omega three, EPA and DHA into my system.

Dr. Rodney: The high five to you is that you stand in front of the, the ovens and the, and the stove, you know, the, the burners, and you make the kind of food that keeps inflammation down.

Karen Wirth: Exactly, and that's why our ratio was so concerning, because it wasn't extremely high, but it was high enough considering how we eat. Don't eat the omega six s, those.

Dr. Rodney: Oils and we can go, we can actually reference some of the other podcasts that we've done. I'll do that with, with, in terms of avocado oil, olive oil, and even, you know, let's get into fish oil because a lot, when some of you, when you hear fish oil, you're like, well, if that's what they're testing, I'm going to be 50 to one. And some people are 50 to one.

Karen Wirth: And that has so many repercussions because we have eliminated the processed foods, we have done a lot of things well. But I think what you can do is you can get complacent and basically say, ah, I'm doing great. And that's, I think, something to, to think about. What I love about this particular assessment is that it not only gives you your score, but it says this is how you can improve it. So it's very specific. And I really, really like that, that we're able to do certain things and basically we do read labels, we do a lot of things well. So I was surprised. What do you think the main difference in yours was that it had regressed.

Dr. Rodney: I think it's the consistency with which I was taking the fish oil myself and the amount. Because inasmuch as you had steamed me high when it came to taking it and doing so consistently, when you look at the 365 days out of the year, I might have been taking it, you know, if I'm being brutally honest with myself, probably less than 300 consistently out of those days. You know, I'd look back on the, on the vitamins and there might have been two or three days out of the, our little system that we have for taking supplements, 30% adds up. And so I say that, and I'm being, when I say I'm being brutally honest, that's in terms of taking supplements, even though our diet is free from trans fats, a lot of the oils that we take are just neutral. They don't move the needle on therapeutic levels. Does that answer your question?

Karen Wirth: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: Plus, getting outside, I'm sitting in front of my computer, or standing in front of my computer, and I'm not outside in the sun, giving myself an opportunity for vitamin D, naturally.

Karen Wirth: And I think that's both of us need to look at that. It's hard in Texas because it's hot. You don't necessarily want to be out at the wrong times. But I think that is something that we definitely need to change and move forward. So what we're talking about is supplements are not optional with the way that we eat.

Dr. Rodney: True.

Karen Wirth: You would like to think that even as healthy of a diet, as our way of eating, as we have, that we're okay, but we're not. And so I think that that is something to really look at. And as far as the sustained attention and taking that assessment, I tell you what I thought.

Dr. Rodney: I know, I know. Go ahead, tell them. But I. When I'm playing a game on the computer, that takes some level of mental acuity and it takes some hand eye coordination, and that, apart from that, while I'm doing that, you're doing Sudoku and you're starting at one level and you're trying to go to the next.

Karen Wirth: I am. And the numbers are starting to pop out at me. So it's something that you can do that's fun in getting you to basically work on that. And I have to say that I went through a few months where I did what my dad said not to do. Oh, my dad.

Dr. Rodney: Wow.

Karen Wirth: Was brilliant. His mind was very sharp up until his move to heaven at almost 102. And he had a practice, and it was that he would not watch television alone. And so I had started to do that. I had slipped into a pattern of that. I wonder if that made a difference.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah. My slip, if you want to call it a slip, too, was if I. You know, one of the things that you hear in scripture is if you don't have a vision, then you'll perish.

Karen Wirth: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: And without vision, that people perish. So, in a way, I think what had happened to me, since we're being honest and brutally honest here, if you're listening to this in my age group and the six decades of life, right, if you're in that or older, then you, like me, probably had early impressions of life and what life is supposed to look like, it's that moment of truth. And then what to do about it. You always have those moments to realize, hey, I stopped shooting past the day that I retire.

Karen Wirth: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: Or, or, or thought, okay, what will life look like when I slow down? And I started to act as though that was already happening.

Karen Wirth: Just because of a certain number birthday. We have been geared towards retirement.

Dr. Rodney: Right.

Karen Wirth: Which mentally puts you in a place without purpose and passion for many people.

Dr. Rodney: Which in the reality is you can't. I work better when I have a daily routine. I can't be permanently on vacation. I can't do it.

Karen Wirth: Most people cannot. And that's really not what we should aspire for. Instead, I love what you mentioned about that the people without a vision perish. That ties us back to the blue zones. In the blue zones, people do not retire. Remember that when we saw the documentary? We saw where the shepherd is 90 plus years old and he's climbing up the mountain. He has an assistant, but he is still taking care of those sheep.

Dr. Rodney: And I'm still thinking about the guy in Costa Rica, in the Nicoya peninsula. They can't tell you how old the guy is. How old do you think he is? And I don't know, forties, fifties, maybe sixties at the most. And he's nineties or hundreds, I think. Right. Still riding a horse, herding cow in the Nicoya peninsula. One of the blue.

Karen Wirth: Absolutely.

Dr. Rodney: Since you mentioned blue zones.

Karen Wirth: You know, when we think about cognition and about flexibility and speed of thinking, we need to get off our devices. You have this, basically this report at the end of each week, how long you were on your phone.

Dr. Rodney: Okay.

Karen Wirth: Challenging.

Dr. Rodney: You all right? Yeah. I'm getting uncomfortable because I know it's hours. It's like I used to watch tv. And speaking of early impressions in life, I had a friend, I think it must have been first or second grade, had a friend, went to his grandma's house and she had retired. And her life, I can tell, was centered around the tv tray, watching tv, smoking, sitting on the couch, game shows and soap operas. And that was her life. And I thought, huh, well, she seems to be having a good time. You know, that's the way my life is going to be. And the reality was I never really dispelled that. And I feel like that's been brought full circle to this test, to not just the realization, but what am I going to do about it? I still have to do something. I have to do a different. I have to act differently. I can't just be aware.

Karen Wirth: Yes. And with that, basically that mental flexibility and that ability to continue to connect and do all those things that basically requires your stomach to be okay.

Dr. Rodney: Hmm, I like that.

Karen Wirth: Because you've got the second brain, your probiotics, your microbiome is so important.

Dr. Rodney: So what you're talking about, for those of you that perhaps have never heard this before, is that there is both a gut blood connection or blood gut connection and a blood brain barrier, but they also are connected through, in large part, by either the spinal cord or the vagus nerve. So what you do to the gut through the blood, you're going to do to the brain through the blood. And what you do to the brain through the vagus nerve, you do to the gut through the vagus nerve. And not just the gut, but also some other essential organs. Like, yeah, it might be important, the heart, the liver, the spleen, as far as the immune system goes. So if your blood values are down for vitamin D, then your immune system is going to be down through vitamin D in the gut. So enteric nervous system, autonomic nervous system, and central nervous system, as well as peripheral nervous system. It's not just a nervous system. It's several different aspects, or facets of the nervous system. And the, the blood is just a slower version of the nervous system, but that's still communication. Wow. Right?

Karen Wirth: Wow.

Dr. Rodney: It's not just about getting oxygen and nutrients to your target tissues. There's so many other second messengers coming from the brain through the pituitary and hypothalamus and all those different axes, if you will. So we're always sort of teetering on a multidimensional, multifaceted balance, being that balances in so many different directions. Right. It's not just left or right, up or down. It's so many other different directions, everything working together.

Karen Wirth: And I have to believe that as we pursue this, we're going to see changes. I can't wait to take this again because I want to know what supplements to take. But it's more than that. I want to add things for the way that we eat and which supplements to take and how much to take. And all of that is so critical. It comes down to exercise, it comes down to sleep, prayerfulness, and meditation. I'm doing the reaction games, but also engaging activities and learning. Sitting down and playing the piano could be important to me, could be part of what I could do in engaging activities.

Dr. Rodney: I can see you doing much better on this exam because there is life isn't the final exam, right? You cross the finish line and then it's just absent from the body of God, absolutely. We definitely want you to go the distance with us. And if you've been following us and you wondered what happened to us, we were kind of like knocked off our rocker, literally. We were getting comfortable. I was getting comfortable, yes. And I was, you know, after the death of my brother, I think I was just kind of stunned in life for a moment and had, you know, just kind of went inward rather than outward. So sense of purpose was stymied a bit. It's like, what's it all, what's it all worth? You know, what? In the end, you know, at the same time, it's also now become more of a burn to, hey, if I'm to. At my present level, I was only going to be functional, have a higher level of functional capacity to someone near and dear to me's age. You know, there's got to be more than this and to awareness. I have to act. But it's worth saying again, are so.

Karen Wirth: Excited as we embark on our functional health journey here, because we will have these tests. Basically, you cannot wait until you have the symptoms to take action. You need to be proactive and find out ahead of time to prevent, vent, and not just throw handfuls of low quality supplements at something, but very specific, high quality and certain ones know when to take them. And we are ready to prepare that kind of report for you. You don't even have to be in our office to do that. And I'm so excited about this new journey. It's a little overwhelming now. And yet this is what we needed.

Dr. Rodney: I want to. I want to speak to what you said, because if you hear what we're saying, what we're really talking about when we say high level supplements, but it's a little bit like saying if you're a plant and your roots are trying to pull from the soil, you got to have good quality soil.

Karen Wirth: Exactly.

Dr. Rodney: When we're talking about the supplements. Right. And so, yeah, you might be able to grow certain plants with fertilizer and it looks really good. But what's, what, how, what kind of nutrients do you have in the, in the plant or the fruit or the. Whatever that is? We are that plant growing in the soil, and we want our. We want your soil to be rich and we want our soil to be rich with you. That's just what that made me think about.

Karen Wirth: Absolutely. We want to partner with you in your health. And it has been fun just to talk about our lives.

Dr. Rodney: So glad you joined us today.

Karen Wirth: Yes. Please let us know if this has helped you. And we love your feedback.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen Wirth: Yeah. We love you. And we're back. We're going to start back on schedule doing podcasts again. We've missed you and trust you missed us as well.

Dr. Rodney: We'll talk to you again.

Karen Wirth: Take your stance for help. For help.

Dr. Rodney: Thank you for joining us at Stance for Health podcast, where getting healthy and staying that way are not as complicated as you might think. Subscribe now and discover steps and small changes that can increase your energy and open the door to vibrant health and longevity. If this podcast has been helpful, please write a review. We'll see you next time.