Dr. Carrie Jones 0:03

Unfortunately, as we know, more and more women at a young age are getting breast cancer, we're hearing of women, right? We have friends or colleagues or co workers who were young as opposed to in their 50s or 60s that are developing breast cancer. And so to know some of this hormonal information earlier may be part of the picture when it comes to cancer development.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:23

Welcome to the longevity blueprint podcast, I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear from Dr. Carrie Jones as this month is breast cancer awareness month we're going to talk about my absolute favorite hormone test the Dutch test and diamond to estrogen metabolism and ultimately breast cancer prevention. Let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of the longevity blueprint podcast today I have on guest Carrie Jones. She's a naturopath and is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant and educator on the topic of women's health and hormones. Dr. Jones graduated from the National University of natural medicine in Portland, Oregon, where she also completed a two year residency in women's health hormones and endocrinology. Later she graduated from Grand Canyon University's Master of Public Health Program. Recently Dr. Jones became board certified through the American Board of naturopathic endocrinology. She was adjunct faculty and u m for many years teaching gynecology and advanced endocrinology fertility. While in practice, Dr. Jones served as the medical director for two large integrative clinics in Portland. She is currently the medical director for precision analytical. So welcome Dr. Jones to the show.

Dr. Carrie Jones 1:44

Oh my god.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:46

I told her before we started recording, I want to say Dr. Jones, Dr. Jones from Indiana Jones.

Dr. Carrie Jones 1:53

Ever since I went to medical school, some of my favorite movies.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:57

Thankfully, thankfully, that doesn't annoy you too much. Well, welcome again, in every chapter of my book, Your longevity blueprint, I share the most progressive functional medicine testing options available for that organ system, aka room in the house. And it's in chapter six, specifically that I'm comparing our integrant system to the heating and the cooling of our homes. So I mentioned blood saliva and urine hormone testing in that chapter. Because I think there's a time and place for all of the above so many variables can contribute to what type of testing I decide to order on my patients that can include their age and their cycling status, that the day of their cycle, what form of hormone replacement therapy they're on, and their budget, of course, but one specific testing that I want to dive into today is the Dutch testing. And so we have Dr. Carrie Jones on specifically to talk about that urine testing and what Dutch even stands for a lot of people have heard of the testing, but they're kind of wondering what the heck is that Dutch testing that I've heard about? So full disclosure. Again, she's a medical director for precision analytical who offers this testing. But that's the that's the best guess I could have on the show to talk about her testing. So welcome to the show. Again, we'll get into testing. But I want to hear your story first. So how did you get interested in natural empathy? How did How'd your interest start?

Dr. Carrie Jones 3:05

So funny? So I was definitely added to conventional medical way. I was volunteering at two hospitals in Ohio. I went to college in Ohio, and one of the hospitals I worked in their community outreach program, I worked with two nurses who did a lot of diabetes education, hypertension education, we would go to different workplaces and do we would take vitals and we would you know, talk about how to prevent disease, how to prevent, you know, the symptoms and things that they were having, and I loved it. The other hospital I volunteered at was at the pediatric wing and it was very sterile and it was very cold. And it was very conventional. And I thought, No way, like if this is medicine, no way I way prefer to do the community outreach prevention education stuff.

So I moved to Oregon State Oregon, and decided not to go to conventional medical school found naturopathic medical school only because they claim an A in my undergrad I had a third job. And my third job was to work in my admissions department as a student. And so I thought, you know what, instead of becoming a doctor, I will get my PhD on in the academia side, I will be in higher ed admin. And so I got a job in the naturopathic admissions department, and I was there for two years and went, Oh, to be okay. And that was in 2001. That was in 2001. And I graduated in 2005. I did my residency, women's health and hormones and gynecology, endocrinology. I did that for two years. And then I've been impressed was in practice for years and years, primarily hormones, women, with a few men who would come see me that they thought was hilarious to come. See me write for they would say like, I'm gonna go see my gynecologist, so I was those hilarious men. And then I slowly started working for Dutch and now I'm their medical director.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 4:53

Awesome, wonderful. good story. So let's get to the Dutch testing. What does Dutch stand for and what is that test? All About

Dr. Carrie Jones 5:01

a test for Dutch heritage, we do get asked that question and is an acronym. It stands for dried urine tests for comprehensive hormones. And so it is, even though we do offer a salivary portion of it as an add on if you want it, we start with the name Dutch because everybody knows it's easy to say.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:21

Let's actually, let's tangent for a moment to the cycle mapping that you're referring to briefly, briefly talk about that add on. And then let's come back to the Dutch test. So what what was that that you were referring to?

Dr. Carrie Jones 5:33

That I was referring to is the cortisol awakening response, in some way easier. So cycle mapping is when women has basically every day of their cycle, and it's one collection that they do in the morning. It's a urine test. So it's kind of a little bit like taking a pregnancy test, you know, every single morning, letting it dry and mailing it in. And what we do is we track estrogen progesterone through the cycle. So it's great for women who tell me like well, I kind of have symptoms all cycle long my symptoms, that oscillation and PMS, I can't figure out why can't get pregnant, I have history, recurrent miscarriage. And so it's more of a cycle long issue, as opposed to women who say, a very clear PMS, it starts on day 25. You know, it ends on my period comes. And so that's why we like the longer test. So it's more collection, but it is all in dried urine, super convenient. Now, the saliva when I was talking about was more for cortisol. So it's the cortisol awakening response, it's very specific collection, first thing in the morning, you do free tests, back to back within an hour. And so we're looking to see how quickly your cortisol does or doesn't spike, when you open up your eyes in the morning.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 6:42

A lot packed in there. So let me go back for a moment to the cycle mapping. Oh, that's great. So with this cycle mapping, obviously, some other companies also offer that sort of cyclical testing in saliva. So tell me why you think you're in is better? Or is it a convenience from from a cycle mapping standpoint?

Dr. Carrie Jones 6:59

It is, from a cycle mapping standpoint, definitely convenience. It's a lot easier than having to spit in a tube every single morning of your cycle. And so, especially, you know, if you're doing it 20 times, it can you know, by the 10th time, you're kind of annoyed trying to get up in the morning and collect saliva. And so, algae here coupled with we add in other hormone markers that you find in urine, so we call them metabolites, which is basically the pathways the pathway that those hormones go. So we'll tell you your estrogen. And then what we do is we narrow it down in the luteal phase, and we look to see how does your estrogen go through detoxification can really only find that in urine testing, we do look at like testosterone, testosterone, that going down the pathway that causes acne and hair growth and places we don't want or is it going down the other pathway. And so it's nice and easy to find that in urine. And so patients really like the ease of collection. Plus, you get all this extra comprehensive data that goes with it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:00

So what the cycle mapping, they're urinating every day, or every couple days, like, literally a whole month, but then you pick a day that you're going to do the deeper test and look at all the metabolites.

Dr. Carrie Jones 8:09

Women will say, well, can't you do this every single day? Can I see what's going on every day? Like, yeah, and it just becomes really, really expensive. The day that we pick is very well planned. It's a 28 day cycle, it's generally day 1920 or 21 of your cycle. So that's when your estrogen should be moderate and your progesterone should be at its highest. So we're taking it for strategic purposes.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:31

Absolutely. I tell patients it when your progesterone is supposed to be the highest, but it is an entire cycle. It's low, we have a problem, right? So we're strategically trying to capture it at its at its highest peak, before we dive into the urine testing and all the metabolites. Now I want to go back to the cortisol awakening response real quick. So for years, many companies offered, still do offer saliva cortisol testing, where I have my patient spit into a tube morning, noon, evening and night, and we really see their circadian rhythm. recently, in the last few years they have added while they give the option of adding on this cortisol awakening response. So what do we want to see on that test? And what would we do if the findings are not optimal? What's the benefit of this add on this cortisol awakening response?

Dr. Carrie Jones 9:12

That'd be a very cool add on and the doctor who kind of originated he kind of brought it to functional medicine. His name is Dr. Tom Williams, and he wrote a book on the HPA axis. It's I'm obsessed with it. I read it years and years ago, he has a new version come that just came out. I'm so excited to get it. And so I read his book years ago, probably six or seven years ago, and like, jumped right on it like this is this is amazing. The cortisol awakening response is the is the natural, well, it's supposed to be natural rhythm that happens right when you open your eyes. So you open your eyes in the morning, and light comes in and it triggers your brain to say to your adrenals now make cortisol now you just opened your eyes you just you're about to get out of bed, and in about 30 minutes your cortisol should peak you should have this right Really quick rise in cortisol. And what it does is it helps reduce inflammation and it helps get your butt out of bed and it helps switch you to be from conscious to fully alert.

It helps to manage your blood sugar because you've been fasting all night long. It helps reduce your autoimmune symptoms and even risk it plays a big role in your immune system and your thymus gland, not thyroid but but thymus. And so, what I can tell people is if your cortisol awakening response is too low, or is too high, then it leads me to like to other reasons like okay, if you're too low, this is probably why you need two cups of coffee, three cups of coffee to get going in the morning. This is probably why you feel so Draggy, and unmotivated in the morning. But why? Why is your cortisol awakening response so low? Do you sleep poorly? Do you snore? Do you have sleep apnea or you want a medication that's suppressing your cortisol? Have you hit your head and you're in your injury and your brain is affecting the way that you make cortisol? Is it that you've had high cortisol over time, and your high cortisol inax, what we know is called a feedback loop. And now you have low cortisol. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to get the brain to tell the adrenals to make cortisol, that's how we really encourage it, right. That's how we heal it. Just like the opposite. If somebody says, Well, I wake up in the morning with anxiety, I wake up in the morning with panic, I wake up in the morning with depression, then I know that their cortisol is actually probably higher than it should be, you go from zero to 100, you have up to 150 or 200, as an example.

And so those people are generally very stressed, right? They have anticipatory stress for the day, they have a lot going on, they wake up worried about something their mind is always spinning, maybe they woke up in the middle of the night, mind spinning, maybe blood sugar, blood sugar can be a big reason. You know, cortisol increases blood sugar, it's a it's its primary job is to manage your blood sugar, inflammation, you woke up sick, you woke up with joint pain, you woke up and your dog threw up, you know, there's a lot that you go from zero to 100 and beyond. And so then we just have to address from there. And so it gives really good information to people. Oh, hold on your morning. And subsequently, how do you handle other parts of your body? Excellent. Yes, I i've, I haven't ordered a ton of these. I've been doing saliva cortisol testing for years. But on the patients that I have ordered, it is pretty interesting to see that. So it is a unique add on. And I think I'll be utilizing more in the future. Well used to like you said they do it in the morning, I do it at noon, I do it around dinner I do before bed and I and I'm like the cortisol awakening response, we actually tighten it up. So you collect right as soon as your eyes wake up still in bed, you collect 30 minutes later, and you collect 30 minutes after that. So it's waking 3030. So it's not the like grand sweeping through the day collection person very narrowed. Because I want to see like in your first hour, how do you handle?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:49

Well, it is October so it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And I I truly believe what's more important than estrogen levels is really the way that our body handles estrogen detoxifies or eliminates or metabolizes it, whatever word you want to use. And that's one of the big strengths with the Dutch test right on urine. We can see my tablet, what metabolites how you're excluding the estrogen. So can you go into what we're seeing on this year in hormone test, you can talk about the hormones, but then also all the different metabolites that your company offers.

Dr. Carrie Jones 13:17

Yeah, which is I think the definitely the big bonus to urine testing is because so many women get their estrogen. They're like, well, I went to my doctor, and I got my estrogen, and I got my progesterone and I was told I was fine. Everything's fine. Why am I fine? I don't feel fine. And so it's nice to go, Well, actually, let's take it some extra steps you make estrogen, but where does it go? And where it goes is where with what you said, it's these metabolites. And these metabolites can be helpful or harmful, depending on which route you're going down. And so with estrogen, you go through three phases of detoxification. So once you're done with your estrogen when your estrogen hormone molecule, and you need to get rid of it, it has to go through three steps to get eliminated. So the first step has three choices. Oddly, so one of the choices is called the two we call it a two hydroxy pathway. And we have four hydroxy pathway and we have a 16 hydroxy pathway is men and women we will always go down one of these pathways to some degree will never be zero. But are two pathways the more desirable pathway that's the least carcinogenic is what we say the cancer causing risk.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 14:24

And if you've heard me talk about these before when she's saying two hydroxy hydroxy can be interchanged with Oh, ah, so sometimes you'll hear these called the two oh H or whatnot 16 alpha. Oh, ah, so just know that you're listening when she's saying hydroxy if you're looking at your tests, or if you're looking at abbreviations, and those are interchangeable, but yes, so the two has been shown to be protective against breast cancer. So that's

Dr. Carrie Jones 14:49

the two methoxy is protective two hydroxy is not and so which is why it's really important that we look at both phases of the pathway because two hydroxy is not I say like, it's not no carcinogenic, which is less carcinogenic, but it's what it turns into the mythique. With an M, that is protective that has been shown to be productive. So the whole goal is to replace the O h or hydroxy, two hydroxy pathway, and then rapidly get you to a methoxy. Whereas you have two other pathways, right, you have the four, which we're saying and a 16. And the four is what's considered the most carcinogenic, it's the most risk for DNA damage. And then the 16 we call proliferative. It makes things grow so good for bones, bad for breast cancer, though, it's striking the Goldilocks for like striking a balance with all these pathways. But our whole goal is to get to the month methoxy. Because the two methoxy is what's been shown to be productive. And then methoxy phase two, that's the second step. Once you're a methoxy, we call it watersoluble. So now your body can urinate it out, or you can eliminate it through your intestines. And then that's phase three, basically, literally the elimination when it goes up in your toilet.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:03

So your hydroxy is turned in methoxy. So hydroxylation is a phase one pathway and then methylation next phase. So I guess what I was saying I want to go back to that too, for a moment. So when I was saying more than two hydroxy protective, what I was speaking to is the relationship with 16. So a lot of patients look at their two to 16 ratio years ago, that was a ratio everyone used to look at now we know there's more to the puzzle than just that. But you certainly want to have higher twos than six teens. So that's where I was saying to is beneficial and that you want it to be higher than the 16th. But you definitely want it to convert over for sure.

Dr. Carrie Jones 16:38

The most concerning buy to be concerned about any of the dials, it's the four for sure the 216 ratio, like you were saying years ago, lots of people really into that. And it's been largely debunked, because now we know about four and 1616 is estrogenic, meaning that little molecule 16 can actually bind to estrogen receptors. And it's not as strong as true estrogen, but that's why it's helpful for bones. And so there's show in menopausal women who have higher 16, they maybe have like better bone quality. But really ultimately, what the big thing is, is it's because it's estrogenic. So we have to look at the woman's whole estrogen picture. And then when it comes to cancer, it's that four that 408 or four hydroxy pathway. That's the one that if it gets out of hand, it really causes DNA damage. And we we don't want that,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 17:26

right, that leads to cancer. So we want to stop that. You may have heard me mentioned the nutrient dim on several episodes, and I want to take a moment to describe exactly what that is. When I was in graduate school, my doctorate focused on estrogen metabolism. Now, you're probably wondering what that even means and why it matters to your health. Well, research has shown that our risks for fibroids cysts and breast ovarian, uterine, prostate and colon cancer can all be linked back to estrogen. But it's not the levels of estrogens that can increase our risk. Instead, it's the way our bodies handle that estrogen that matters. We can run individual lab tests for this which I often recommend to my patients that's called estrogen metabolism testing, which has to be done in the urine. Even without the test however, it is safe to take a supplement an extract of cruciferous vegetables to improve your estrogen metabolism.

That's basically like taking in six pounds of those veggies per day in a capsule form without the gaps. That supplement is called dem dm. You can also use methylated B vitamins as well as specific targeted antioxidants like resveratrol to help improve your estrogen metabolism and help protect you from that cancer risk. Of course, also make sure you have your practitioner run a comprehensive genetic analysis to see from another perspective, if you are at increased risk and help you learn what you can do to lower that. If you're interested in learning more about dem read chapter six of my book your longevity blueprint and check out our product info sheet at your longevity blueprint.com forward slash product forward slash Tim to get 10% off demo alone or 15% off our estrogen detox bundle with dem methylated B vitamins and antioxidant support. Just use the code estrogen detox when checking out at your longevity blueprint calm. Now let's get back to the show.

So you've talked about a lot of different markers. So let's break those down and talk about what we can do. So dim is a supplement that is commonly recommended to improve estrogen metabolism. And I talked about this a lot but I'll let you speak to it. So how does dim influence these pathways for the better

Dr. Carrie Jones 19:33

dim comes from your broccoli, kale, cauliflower, brussel sprouts family, your brassica family so when you chew up or eat those foods, one of the molecules that is in them is called i three c indole. Three carbinol and i three c hit your stomach acid it requires stomach acid and it breaks my heart and one of those molecules that makes is dim. So the end goal that we want is dim die and all methane dim Up regulates a receptor in your body that prefers the to pathway, which is the better pathway that's and it also that receptor and up regulating the two will also pull or reduce estrogen in your body out of circulation. And we've seen it time and time again, on lab work. In fact, we're looking to publish study a study on it. So dim is helpful for that phase one, only dim is only helpful if you have a phase one problem. If you have a phase two problem, if you have a phase three problem, dim will actually make you worse.

So you want to be very careful, you want to test to know, but dim in the supplement been very, very potent, can really push that to pathway which can be great for a lot of women and reduce estrogen and circulation. Now, some caveats, right, so if you already have low estrogen, let's say you're menopausal, and then you go on dim, you can make your menopause symptoms worse, right? Women have definitely called me and said or DM me or messaged me and said I went on Damn, because I didn't know better and I feel terrible, like you might have lower dress and do something else. And so and then, like I said, If dim only affects phase one. So if you are just pushing pushing pushing the two pathway, you don't have an open as in the two oh h two hydroxy. But you don't have an open phase two pathway methylation, and you don't have an open phase three pathway, then it can lead to problems.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 21:29

Sure. So I want to go back to no three carbonyl for a moment. So I know a lot of the initial research was done on indole three carbinol not dim specifically, but more research is being done on them. But for which reason a lot of supplement companies put both into a bottle, they put in all three carbonyl. And in some patients, one, I three C which a lot of the literature research has been done on somewhat dim. So I and I'm fine with my patients taking either unless they're on acid blocking medications, because as you said, No three carbonyl has to have stomach acid to be converted to the active form dim. So if you're on, you know, a proton pump inhibitor, if you're on medication for reflux, then you really need dim, not just a three CD three c won't work. So I just wanted to clarify that. So So you talked a lot about dem helping phase one. So what do we do for phase two?

Dr. Carrie Jones 22:17

And like you said methylation so everyone thinks immediately mthfr Oh, it's mthfr methylation Actually, it's CMT. It's a different enzyme. So come CMT is the big player here. And mthfr does play a role fully is important, but it's not. It's not the star of the show. So we need to do a lot of CO mt support CMT likes, magnesium is one of its biggest cofactors magnesium is involved in over 600 enzymatic reactions in the body. And magnesium is also often really depleted in humans, right. And humans are often have a lot of low magnesium issues. So common right now. In the year 2020, in the month of October, yeah, we have a lot of stressed out humans, that's for sure. So I tell women, men too, but since it's breast cancer awareness, you know, like if you like Epsom salt baths, take your Epsom salt baths if you have magnesium and you've been forgetting to take it lately, like, you know, if you're working on with your estrogen, you know, talk to your practitioner about starting your magnesium backup. Look at your magnesium because that can be really helpful.

Other helpful things though, are your is like a b 12. b would be really helpful. Coleen so eat the eggs like your egg yolks if you're an egg eater. Get your Coleen in myth signing is another supplement that we hear about glycine, tri methyl glycine, which is also known as betaine, which we know about with like digestive enzymes, you will see betaine in there. There are a lot zinc. Zinc is a big cofactor. In fact, I read a study that said zinc at I can't read the exact number, I think it was in 70%. Like if you are magnesium deficient, zinc can substitute 70% of the time. But how many people are zinc deficient a lot with minerals, like you could have a real problem with your face to estrogen, detoxification. And so these cofactors you'll see I didn't say Damn it, all right, nothing. I didn't say dim the Pacific, for helping face to Ulsan better.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:22

So if you're watching here, because we will post this on YouTube. I'm just going to try to show the testing here. I use this earlier because I had a Facebook Live talking about this exact testing. So on paper here, if you do the testing on the far, right, you're gonna see your methylation gauge, right? That's looking at phase two. And if that's low, then that's where you're going to want to add some of the supplements that Dr. Jones has mentioned to improve that methylation.

Dr. Carrie Jones 24:49

Well, it's wheat so we Dutch does not test CMT. We are not a genomic test, but we do give you we call it a relative ratio. So from your ability to get from an O h or a hydroxy over to a methoxy. That's what we're looking at. So we're looking to see your conversion rate, essentially.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 25:08

And if your conversion rate is poor, what she's alluding to is you may have some genetic variants, some snips or polymorphisms, with CMT. So that is something that you can be tested for for sure. So my understanding of that is when you have a lot of those variants, you actually don't clear out estrogens very well. So you have room for improvement there. Yeah. The last marker on this test that's so valuable, that you said is the most risk inducing essentially, is that four hydroxy? estrogen correct. So if found to be elevated, I know just from my research, this has actually also been shown to increase risk of metastasis, unfortunately, what can individuals do when that marker is elevated?

Dr. Carrie Jones 25:50

Oh, damn, is another so improving all the pathways will help. So improving Phase One and two, three we haven't talked about yet. But anything you can do to improve or optimize your three pathways really will help the four marker. The other thing about the four marker is if it if it starts to head down the path of DNA damage, we call it adduct formation for whatever scientific reason to head down that pathway with the body is smart has to stop gap. So we've two enzymes there to help help redirect let's say, redirect that for back to the beginning. So it can't cause damage. One of the enzymes really, really, really likes broccoli sprouts, and specifically it likes in broccoli sprouts likes an ingredient called sulforaphane. Okay, so for pain is this a supplement, you can grow your own broccoli sprouts, you can you know, buy organic broccoli sprouts at the store. So that's one enzyme. The second enzyme is a Bluetooth bound based enzyme. And so improving increasing your glutathione and acetylcysteine, which helps make glutathione can be also helpful in that stop gap so that you don't want to the DNA damage. So those are two like really big ones that people can do.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 26:57

Wonderful. And I would add to that resveratrol so my doctor was actually on estrogen metabolism and i i really scrutinize the literature to see what else can we do to protect ourselves if this happens and resveratrol. And I'd not say drink wine wine has a very small amount of resveratrol, but taking a high quality supplement like 100 milligrams can be protective, as can the N acetylcysteine. And I even tell patients Bluetooth is like well, and its ecosystem is beneficial because it's likely boosting Bluetooth ion. So taking gluten can be very protective there as well.

Dr. Carrie Jones 27:27

Research on resveratrol is really interesting, because it's like curcumin I have found. So resveratrol in cell studies works really, really well. But when in the big, like resveratrol, anti cancer associations that meet, like they're not seeing the outcome in humans in the human studies. No trans resveratrol is the liberal kind. But no, the studies are like, ooh, totally crossing over from sell into human. However, this is my opinion. And what they do in the studies is that they give resveratrol and then they expect to see resveratrol when they test right. So in a cell, it's really easy. But in a human, you swallow it, you draw your blood and you're like, dang, I can't find the rest of what I think and I learned this again from that. From that doctor I mentioned earlier, Dr. Tom Williams, he was talking about curcumin in the in the gut microbiome.

And I sort of replied, crossed it over to resveratrol, I think what happens is resveratrol hits the gut microbiome, and one in the liver, it breaks apart to a lot of ingredients. And to the microbiome. It's like a domino effect. So the resveratrol does something in the microbiome positively. And a whole cascade of events happens positively reduce your risk against cancer, you know, to be anti inflammatory. It does. Bob, we just can't draw your blood and see one for one resveratrol because it's, you know, 54 dominoes down the chain. So when people I'll get pushback I when I lecture from practitioners who are like, well, the human studies show resveratrol does crap. I'm like, I know. But, you know, we can't we're only testing one for one. And we're not expanding our research beyond, you know, like metabolites. resveratrol breaks into metabolites. We're not looking at the resveratrol metabolites, like maybe we should gut microbiome play like we do with curcumin, like maybe we should look at my gut microbiome and resveratrol. So

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:18

there's just more to the story. I don't think it's going to hurt. I think it is very protective. Yeah. It's an antioxidant. It's, you know, going to be protective, and helpful.

Dr. Carrie Jones 29:28

Would you take it? I'm like, Yeah,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:31

do you want to get into phase three, you are talking about phase one and phase two, do we want to get into phase three.

Dr. Carrie Jones 29:36

Phase Three is either out your kidneys or out your intestines, right? So either pee it out or you poop it out. And so they're in the intestines. Our microbiome is very, very important. If you have a lot of inflammation infection going on in your in your gut, that is going to affect your estrogen. So think of it like this. Your estrogen has gone through phase one. It has gone through phase two, and now it is in a box with a lid on it and a bow and it's getting ready to be excreted. out. If you have an entire lot of intestinal stuff for microbiome infections, whatever, there is an enzyme specifically called beta glucosidase. And it will snip off the bow and it will take off the top of the box and now your estrogen flies free. And when it flies free, it just gets reabsorbed, so that estrogen you're trying to poop out, it's pulled back into the body and gets reused again. And so you can ladies have estrogen issues because you have gut issues, if it's a recycle thing. And so by cleaning up or gut health, improving, you know, constipation, having regular bowel movements, again, enough fiber and water and things, getting rid of infections that will believe it or not really helped your estrogen.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:48

Very good point, I actually, so we can test four levels of beta glucuronidation on a stool test, actually. So when that markers really high, to me, that's not good. That's actually independent risk factor for colon cancer, which is related to it's an estrogen related cancer. So related to breast cancer, similar cause there. So essentially, for those patients who have very high levels of beta glucuronidation, we do need to obviously get to pooping regularly. But there's another supplement called calcium digluconate, which can help do you want to talk a little bit about

Dr. Carrie Jones 31:18

that? Great. So evanna glucuronidation are like the scissors that snip off the bow, calcium D glue created the anti scissors and blocks the scissors. So it doesn't really, really lower the levels of beta glucuronidation, you have to work on your gut for that, and you have to work on your microbiome. But it does help protect the bow in the box so that it can be safely excreted out. So it's like a it's like a personal security guard, you know, so you can you can excrete it out of the body. So it can be a really nice Band Aid supplement while you're working on your gut at the same time, which is why I really like it. Now, interestingly, Beta Glucan, excuse me, calcium digluconate, the supplement is expensive. And studies on animals show that you have to take a really high dose. In fact, I believe the dose is like 3000 milligrams or higher to get the therapy to quote unquote, therapeutic level of practice, and you probably have to is that even a little any dose, any amount counts.

So even 500 milligrams makes a difference. And so when people go, Oh, I can only afford to do one capsule a day. It's 500 milligrams, I'm like, do it. Absolutely do it. No, if somebody has breast cancer, then I might say, look, we need to we need to increase Shouldn't you know, let's get therapeutic here. But if final effect PMS or you know, clots, periods, fibroid, stuff like that 500 milligrams coupled with everything else is helpful. Now, food wise, one of my favorite things to do, which people think is hilarious is carrots are our carrots. You want the whole carrot, not the baby carrot, the whole carrot, and you want it to be organic, and you don't want to peel it. So wash the skin but don't peel the skin. So the fiber and a carrot and the fiber on the outside of the carrot on the skin are a little bit different. And they help get estrogen out to the body. And so I actually had people write me and say I've started eating two or three carrots as I get close to PMS time. And it makes a huge difference. Interesting. And I was like carrots so

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:12

so carrots have beta carotene is already beta connection there. Am I just pulling it strings? I don't know. It's just the fiber. Fiber. Since we're talking about beta i just okay. So what else can women do to reduce their risk and improve their overall detoxification and really improve all these markers lifestyle wise?

Dr. Carrie Jones 33:33

big one is chemicals. Right? A big one is our our exposures. We have a lot of the environmental endocrine disruptors, we have what we call them, and we don't our endocrine system is already disrupted for a lot of us so we don't really need to disrupt it more by adding in all these chemicals, like plastics is a really good example. BPA, you know, even the alternative BPC like mostly BPA free, you're like well, you just used its sister right BPA which is not necessarily any better fragrance. So I'm constantly telling women look, I want you not drinking out of plastic. If you can afford it, I want you in glass or I want you in stainless steel, I want you to read your skincare products, I want you to read out what you wash your hair with and what you use in it.

I want you to read what you clean your house with I want you to read about the thing that is hung in your car because you think card smells bad. You know, I want you to read ingredients and that spray you spray in your candles that you burn that you put in your garden to get rid of bugs, like all these things add up and our body absorbs them. And we're led to believe that like Well, there's there's they're safe, because they you know they do a little dose and they're like, well, this little dose isn't going to hurt you. It's not going to kill you. I'm like why no, it's going to kill you. But when you do the same lipstick with letting it every single day. When you've got the hanger in your car and you're driving all over and you're breathing that in it's 100% affecting all your hormones but more importantly you're deep toxification everything you eat, breathe, drink, swallow or slather on, it's sucked right into your body and your livers like, how do I handle

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:09

this? Yeah. This is like the biggest one of the biggest human experiments. I know there's a documentary about it. And I can't remember the name, but that there has not been any research done on the layer upon layer upon layer, right dose and dose, a dose of all these chemicals that were exposed to in everything you mentioned, and what we're eating and breathing and drinking and whatnot. So just because one little ingredient or one little product is supposedly safe, well, and we don't know how many dosages of that is safe, and we don't know the the unfortunate negative effects of the combination of all these chemicals on our body. So it's pretty scary. We didn't used to have chemicals, and we didn't used to have a lot of cancer. Well, now we do and we have a lot more cancer. So there's likely a relationship there.

Dr. Carrie Jones 35:53

Coupled with things like this stuff we can't control, you know, so I live in the Pacific Northwest, so much like everyone in California, we know the fires. And so for 10 straight days, my air quality was listed in my little air quality app is like horrendously toxic, I can't control that. I mean, I could control not going outside, I have an air purifier, I can control that stuff. But like on top of the fact if I was using chemical lens, or if I was using roundup in my garden, you know, and absorbing it, I was just using bare hands, and just all these things on top of smoke, you know, on top of poor water quality, we know there are cities in the United States, as well, water quality is horrible, you know, it makes the news.

And so if you're not filtering your water in any kind of way, if you're just drinking out of plastic water bottles and getting all that plastic into your water, you know, that's just things that just adds it just adds more fuel to the fire, it adds more burden to the liver. And it really affects hormones, because what happens is these chemicals, I am in my like, how do I understand that analogy. They're strong and they're stronger than estrogen. And so your liver is going to process them first or maybe preferentially and then your estrogens like, Alright, well, I'll go to the back, I'll just keep circulating. And then as a woman, we get bad PMS, and we get fibroids and we get cysts and we are prone to cancer and all of these things because our liver is so busy processing all the chemicals we're exposed to.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:17

Yeah, I like that you pointed some of those symptoms out because everything we're talking about today, really removing or reducing can always remove it by reducing our toxic burden and improving our phase one, phase two. Phase Three pathways isn't just important for breast cancer, it's important for Well, all cancers, but also for things like fibroids and cysts and endometriosis and heavy bleeding. There are other benefits here. So if you're listening, you don't have breast cancer, this still applies to you. And not just to women also to men, because men can get prostate cancer

Dr. Carrie Jones 37:48

and other cancers. The documentary you may be referring to is called skin deep. I saw earlier this year last year, and it was astounding one of the women there she the a lot of the women that they interview, like they count, there's a woman you know who's who's into makeup and you know, makeup artist, and she counts like how many things she puts on our skin in our hair or interface a day. And then she starts to read it and she's having all sorts of health problems. And then she starts to read the labels. And she's like, you know, does research and then she becomes part of the documentary of like, oh, my goodness, like this could be really affecting me and really worsening a lot of my symptoms.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 38:26

The good news is we can change this right by making wise swap switch to safer products, work to detox the body. I think sweating is amazing getting an infrared sauna that helps detox from all sorts of chemicals and mold toxins and whatnot so we can help the body detox better. So there is good news here. There's good news here. I know this podcast isn't exactly about detoxification, but there are things we can do to improve that.

Dr. Carrie Jones 38:49

A lot of companies are really changing their ways, right? A lot of companies are really, you know, a lot of cleaning companies have come out and be careful of greenwashing. Like really do you know people will say green or they'll put green leaves all over their products or whatever it says natural and there's nothing natural about it. They're like this is the same as my you know, super toxic one, like what the heck. But there are a lot of really good companies out there that are really trying hard to be transparent. And then we'll see as to what chemicals they put in either their your your face lotion or your shampoo or your you know, your kitchen counter spray or shower, whatever it is.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:24

Yep, yep. And you can use, we've mentioned this app on the podcast many times with the skin, deep cosmetics database or the think dirty app, you can certainly use to type in your brands of products or to type in individual ingredients. And that will rank kind of how dangerously high that ingredient is,

Dr. Carrie Jones 39:40

or my appointment or that app all the time to say right if you don't believe me, just look it up.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:46

So on the Dutch test, there are there are different companies that offer urine hormone testing, but back to your company. What else do you include on there that's even important for breast cancer, that maybe some other companies do not what are some additional markers that you're Looking at on your test?

Dr. Carrie Jones 40:01

Yeah, so interestingly, I'm gonna go back to cortisol just for a second even though I know other companies do this, but there is research to show that if you have a lot, we call it a flat slope of cortisol. So cortisol should look like a mountain, it should go up like a mountain and then come down like a mountain and and be low as you get closer to bed. But if your mountain is more like a, you know, flat Hill, or maybe even a straight line, research has showed that you have an increased risk for earlier mortality with breast cancer and prostate cancer. So we do want cortisol testing as part of your prostate or breast cancer journey. Because I don't want your mortality, of course, to be cut short, I want to get your cortisol up to an appropriate mountain peak, and then come back down. So that is one thing that's important now just included

Dr. Stephanie Gray 40:44

in the Dutch test. Like that's just part of it. So other companies may offer that but it's, it's an add on to also do a four point kind of cortisol test. So you're saying that's part of your Dutch testing,

Dr. Carrie Jones 40:57

or me are two main Dutch tests that Dutch complete and Dutch quas. It is there it is part of that automatically. We also include melatonin and there's a lot of research on melatonin, in cancer risk, not melatonin and so many other conditions. But we do include melatonin especially because sleep is so important for recovery. Melatonin is a very potent antioxidant. Some of the, like Cancer Treatment Centers of America are using melatonin as part of their breast cancer. But even just oncology treatments is one of the supplements, we know it's great for the immune system. And so Melatonin is something we look at. We also look at DNA damage marker, it's called it's a very long scientific name. I don't know who named these things, but we shorten it to eight, oh, h dg eight hydroxy to deoxy guanosine.

And basically, when the DNA is getting damaged, it leaks this molecule that shows up in the urine. And so the higher it is, I know the higher DNA damage you have. And now we have to address that. lots of reasons for DNA damage, cancer can be one of them. So mitigate that and see what's going on. And then other things we include, we do include a b 12, marker, and I mentioned b 12. earlier with the estrogen detoxification, but also, D, we include to be six markers, B six is also important for estrogen, detoxification, and, of course, hundreds of other enzymatic reactions. We include a dopamine, a norepinephrine and epinephrine metabolite marker to sort of give you a little insight into how those hormones may or may not be doing. So we do give you some extra great stuff that are just overall like comprehensiveness of your health.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 42:38

Very fancy test, I think everyone should have this test run, I have a lot of patients who come see me who do have challenges. And then they start thinking, well, I don't want my daughter to have these challenges. I think she should have her hormone levels tested. And I agree, I think starting in our 20s 30s 40s 50s, we need to be checking these things. So we can track progress, we can track if something's popping up that suspicious. So I think this is a wonderful test for men and women starting at a young age.

Dr. Carrie Jones 43:01

I agree. And unfortunately, as we know, I mean, more and more women at a young age, are getting breast cancer, what's hearing of women, right, we have friends or colleagues or co workers who were young, as opposed to in their 50s or 60s that are developing breast cancer. And so to know some of this, some of this hormonal information earlier, may be part of the picture when it comes to cancer development. And to be really helpful.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 43:23

Totally agreed, I want to just mention one more benefit of your testing. So I have many patients who are on hormone replacement therapy, whether they're on topicals, or orals or sublinguals, or hormone pellets. This is a great test for monitoring again, estrogen metabolism for someone I'm prescribing hormones replacement therapy to, but I I personally do not like saliva hormone testing when patients are on sublinguals, that sublingual hormone is going to skew the saliva. And even for topicals, the levels come back way too high. So this urine test is the test I require of my patients at least once annually, after we're smooth sailing, and they're on dosages that we think are appropriate for them. So this isn't just a detection test, or like a prevention test. It actually is a test that I use to monitor my patients, hormone replacement therapy as well. So great utilization. It's just it's a wonderful Comprehensive Test, as you've heard today.

Dr. Carrie Jones 44:12

Well, thanks. I think they do.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 44:15

I will tell us what your absolute top longevity tip would be. Oh my

Dr. Carrie Jones 44:19

gosh, my top longevity tip is by far taking advantage of the light and dark so your circadian rhythm, which has a lot to do with cancer prevention as well. So in our brain, we have what we call the master clock gene. That's that's our that's our rhythm for the day. And this master clock is that by light, natural light and darkness. And so notice I didn't say ashwagandha and I didn't say Damn, and I didn't say yoga, light and darks. I tell people in the morning when you wake up I want you to get natural full spectrum light not your phone that's not full spectrum.

I want you to open your curtains open your blinds go outside or if it's dark when you wake up for me right now in the fall. Buy a full spectrum light box. They're like 20 or 30 bucks, make sure it's full spectrum and have it on, you know, for 1520 minutes while you're in the kitchen, getting ready in the morning at your desk, and at night do the opposite at night you want to wind down so start to dim the lights, wear your blue light blocking glasses, be careful of the light on your computer or your phone, maybe switch the background to a red or orange tint and then sleep in complete darkness. And that is what helps to set and reset our master circadian rhythm which sets all the rhythms for all the glands in our body. So that's my favorite tip.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 45:36

I've had no guests allude to that at all. So that was a wonderful unique tip. So I like that thank you

Dr. Carrie Jones 45:44

to these clock genes because they are the main You know, they're our main circadian rhythm setter so to speak and they'd like light and dark and like they don't you know, they don't like like other triggers are important and I joke about it and say Yo guidance a breeze. I didn't say ashwagandha they're important but like they literally need light and darkness at them and what they want. good tip well

Dr. Stephanie Gray 46:07

tell our listeners where they can find you. I know you have great social media you do tons of videos. So tell us where listeners can find you.

Dr. Carrie Jones 46:15

I'm it's my favorite. So I am at Dr. dot Carrie Jones on Instagram and then everything including this podcast we do put on Dutch test.com all our videos are free. You can you can watch podcasts such as this one and and learn right along. And so those are my two favorite places to hang out.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 46:35

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on the show and explaining the importance of testing not just hormones, but estrogen metabolism and talking about all the extra fancy add ons that your company offers. I think this will be very valuable to our listeners. So thank you so much for your time today.

Dr. Carrie Jones 46:50

Thank you

Dr. Stephanie Gray 46:52

I just love talking about hormones. And I know this testing may have sounded complicated to you today. But know that that collection is actually not difficult and that this test provides comprehensive results that we discussed today. Find a functional medicine provider who can order such tests on you and interpret the results and get you on a path of healing and risk reduction. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck, you can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time Not only is the course 50% off, but you also get your first consult with me for free. Check this offer out at your longevity blueprint calm and click the course tab.

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The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.