A woman in her 40s came to me completely destroyed by stress. Doctor said she was fine. She was not fine. We fixed her cortisol, her gut, her nutrients, her sleep — comprehensively. She got her life back. Then she told me to write it all down. So I did. The Cortisol Fix — available for pre-order now, releasing May 15. 🧵👇

So is smiling-give everyone a big smile always and a big hug when you can ⬇️

Most “liver detoxes” get it backwards. Juice cleanses, detox teas, 3-day flushes. Here’s what actually happens when your liver detoxes. It works in three steps: 1️⃣ Break it down. Liver enzymes start taking harmful substances apart. The catch: partway through, some briefly become MORE harmful, so you need antioxidants from colorful plants. 2️⃣ Make it harmless. Your liver attaches protective molecules like glutathione. This step runs on protein. A juice cleanse starves it. 3️⃣ Remove it. Waste leaves through bile, stool, and urine. If you’re not having a daily bowel movement, some of it gets absorbed back into your body. That’s why my 14-day protocol is food-first: ➡️Protein at every meal ➡️Cruciferous veggies + broccoli sprouts daily ➡️Bitter greens for bile ➡️30+ g fiber and plenty of water ➡️Fermented foods for the gut-liver connection ➡️Sleep, sweat, and fewer chemical exposures One standout: in a 12-week trial of 291 adults, a daily broccoli sprout drink helped people clear 61% more benzene, a common air pollutant. And here’s the part most programs miss: apart from short-term tools like activated charcoal, almost all of this should become your everyday life, not a 2-week event. Test, don’t guess. Get a liver panel before and after. Full protocol 👇 thehealthyrd.com/liver-detox… #TheHealthyRD #LiverHealth #Detox

Lion’s mane mushrooms for the win yet again. I always notice that they improve my focus and clarity!

Inflammation is one of the most misunderstood drivers of chronic symptoms, because it rarely looks the same in two people. After 25+ years as a dietitian, here’s what I see. The most common pattern: puffiness A swollen face. A bloated belly that won’t budge no matter how clean you eat. In some clients, a buffalo hump on the upper back, a sign that inflammation and cortisol are working together. But inflammation can also show up as: → Migraines → Asthma and seasonal allergies → Vestibular problems and dizziness → POTS → Joint and muscle pain → Skin rashes → Gut issues → Fatigue → Poor sleep → A slow metabolism That last one matters. Chronic inflammation hijacks your hormones: cortisol, thyroid, insulin, sex hormones. When that happens, your metabolism slows down and weight loss feels impossible. Why generic advice fails Most people are handed a standard “anti-inflammatory diet.” But inflammation is personal. A food that’s healing for one person can be a trigger for another. My own reactive foods? Olive oil, halibut, egg yolks, sunflower, and mustard. Olive oil and halibut sit at the top of nearly every anti-inflammatory food list. For my body, they were doing the opposite. I never would have guessed it. Food sensitivity reactions are sneaky They can be delayed by hours or even days. Today’s migraine may come from yesterday’s lunch. That’s why food journals and guesswork so often come up empty. What I use instead: MRT + LEAP MRT (Mediator Release Test) measures how your white blood cells respond to foods and food chemicals. From there, the LEAP protocol builds your eating plan around your least reactive foods. The focus is on what you can eat, not just what to cut. The results In my clients, fixing their foods has near completely resolved every symptom on that list: the puffiness, migraines, asthma and allergies, dizziness, POTS symptoms, aches, rashes, gut issues, fatigue, poor sleep, and sluggish metabolism. No drugs. Just nutritious, personalized food. Read more: Why MRT changes everything: thehealthyrd.com/the-best-fo… My personal MRT case study: thehealthyrd.com/how-mrt-tes… Food sensitivities + blood sugar, with my CGM data: thehealthyrd.com/food-sensit… Your symptoms are information. Your plan should be as unique as you are.

For almost all of human history, medicine came from plants, foods, and minerals. In about one century, that changed. Here’s how 👇 In 1910, Abraham Flexner published a report on American medical education for the Carnegie Foundation. He wasn’t a physician. He was a schoolteacher and education reformer. To be fair, the report did some good. It raised lab and science standards at schools that badly needed it. But it also dismissed schools rooted in herbal, eclectic, and homeopathic medicine. Between 1910 and 1922, U.S. medical schools dropped from 131 to 81. Most natural medicine colleges closed in the decades that followed. Five of the seven Black medical schools and the women’s medical colleges closed in that same window too. Fast forward to today. Follow the money: → NIH budget: ~$47 billion → NIH center for complementary & integrative health: ~$170 million → That’s about 0.36% Plants and nutrients usually can’t be patented, so few companies will fund large trials of them. Here’s the irony. Drug companies never stopped mining nature: 🌳 Willow bark → aspirin 🌸 Foxglove → digoxin 🌲 Pacific yew → paclitaxel 🌿 Goat’s rue → inspired metformin 🍃 Sweet wormwood → artemisinin (2015 Nobel Prize) About half of approved small-molecule cancer drugs come from natural products. So the question isn’t whether plants work. It’s why we only respect them once they’re patented. And no, supplements aren’t “unregulated.” The FDA regulates them as a category of food under DSHEA (1994). They just don’t need pre-market approval like drugs. Quality is the real issue, so choose third-party tested brands. The tide is turning. In May 2025, the World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034, which aims to strengthen the evidence base and integrate traditional and complementary medicine into health systems. I was trained in the most conventional way possible. I’ve also been the primary author of an RCT on vitamin D3 in heart failure. Nutrients deserve the same rigor, and the same respect, as any drug. Hold every medicine, natural or synthetic, to the same honest standard. Full article: thehealthyrd.com/why-are-nat…

TUDCA vs milk thistle: they're both called "liver supplements," but they are NOT interchangeable. Here's how I break it down 👇 🌿 MILK THISTLE is a plant antioxidant (silymarin). Best for: • Fatty liver and high ALT/AST • Blood sugar and A1C • Cholesterol and triglycerides A 2024 analysis of 33 trials found it lowered fasting glucose ~22 mg/dL and A1C ~0.85%. It's also the more affordable option. 💧 TUDCA is a bile acid your liver already makes. Best for: • Sluggish bile and trouble digesting fat • Pale, greasy, or floating stools • Life after gallbladder removal • Bile-flow (cholestatic) liver conditions In a 199-person randomized trial, TUDCA worked as well as a prescription bile acid and relieved itching better. The nutrient nobody talks about: phosphatidylcholine. It's a building block of bile, your liver needs it to move fat out, and it's the carrier in the best-absorbed milk thistle. One of the best natural sources? Beef liver. Can you take TUDCA and milk thistle together? Yes. They work through different pathways. Just add them one at a time so you know which one your gut likes. My rule: get labs first. • High alkaline phosphatase + GGT → think bile (TUDCA) • High ALT + high fasting insulin → think metabolic fatty liver (milk thistle) Test, don't guess. Full comparison with dosing, safety, and a decision guide: thehealthyrd.com/tudca-vs-mi… #TheHealthyRD #LiverHealth #GutHealth #TUDCA #MilkThistle #FattyLiver

Say no to sunflower oil

Chronic work stress keeps cortisol elevated, which can disrupt sleep, increase cravings, and slow digestion. That’s why diet changes alone sometimes don’t stick. Calming the stress response is part of the nutrition plan. alignwellness.ai

Creatine for women is everywhere right now, mostly as a perimenopause and muscle supplement. The research is broader than that, and more honest. Here’s what the studies show: 💪 Muscle and strength: yes, at about 5 g a day with strength training. Without lifting, the effect mostly disappears. 🦵 Knee arthritis: in postmenopausal women doing strength training, creatine improved physical function, leg muscle, and stiffness more than training alone. 🧠 Mood: in 52 women starting an SSRI, adding creatine led to faster improvement and a bigger drop in depression scores than placebo. It was an add-on to medication, not a replacement, and it’s not for anyone with bipolar disorder. 😣 Fibromyalgia: creatine boosted muscle energy and strength, but not pain. 💊 Statin muscle aches: the evidence is mixed. One surprise was that low vitamin D was linked to double the muscle damage after exercise. And the part nobody mentions: creatine doesn’t agree with everyone. I’m one of those people. If I take it without enough food, my gut lets me know. With a real meal, I’m fine. If it bothers you: eat a real meal with it, skip the loading phase, split doses, and go unflavored. Full breakdown with every study: thehealthyrd.com/creatine-fo… #TheHealthyRD #Creatine #WomensHealth

The low FODMAP diet didn't fix a single one of my gut issues. I did it carefully. I gave up garlic and onion and counted my blueberries. Nothing changed. It wasn't because I did it wrong. My problem was never fermentable carbs. It was my immune system reacting to specific foods, and some of them were foods the low FODMAP diet had me eating every day. I'm a dietitian with 25+ years in gut health, and I see this constantly. Here's what the research says: • Even in the best recent trial (CARIBS, 2024), about 1 in 4 people didn't respond to low FODMAP. Monash, which created the diet, puts non-response at 20 to 40%. • In a 2021 Nature study, food proteins like wheat, soy, and milk triggered mast cell activation in the gut lining of people with IBS. Low FODMAP doesn't screen for food proteins at all. • In people with IBS who tested negative for food allergies, 70% showed breaks in the gut barrier within minutes of a food touching the lining. Wheat was the top trigger. • More than a quarter of people diagnosed with IBS-D actually have bile acid diarrhea. That's not a carb problem. • Gut-directed hypnotherapy worked as well as low FODMAP in a head-to-head trial. • The diet lowers Bifidobacterium, one of your most protective gut bacteria. It was never meant to be forever. If you followed low FODMAP perfectly and you're still bloated, that's not failure. It's a clue that something else is driving your symptoms: SIBO, histamine, bile acids, an immune reaction to "safe" foods, or a stressed gut-brain connection. For me, MRT testing and a LEAP plan finally found my triggers. My symptoms dropped 96%, and even my seasonal allergies cleared. Test, don't guess. All 9 reasons, plus what to do next: thehealthyrd.com/why-low-fod… #IBS #GutHealth #LowFODMAP #TheHealthyRD