The Trusted Pharmacist

If nutrition can affect anxiety and depression, what should we actually measure, change, and investigate before reaching for another prescription? Knowing that mental health can have nutritional and biological drivers is one thing. Knowing what to do with that information is another. Should we start with fiber, test vitamin D and iron, examine thyroid function, or investigate what is happening inside the cells? Without a clear approach, nutrition can easily become another world of guesswork, conflicting advice, and supposed quick fixes. In Part 2, we move from understanding the nutrition, mental health connection to identifying the practical next steps. Dr. Oscar Coetzee explains why the average American may not be eating enough fiber to properly support the gut microbiome, which nutrient deficiencies he prioritizes when evaluating mental health symptoms, and how thyroid function can influence mood and energy. He also walks us through the organic acids test and what it can reveal about cellular energy, nutrient status, neurotransmitter pathways, stress, detoxification, and microbial activity. In this episode, I continue my conversation with nutritionist, author, and speaker Dr. Oscar Coetzee. We explore how to investigate the biological factors affecting mental health without falling for quick fixes, why antidepressants should never be stopped abruptly, and the emerging probiotic research that Oscar believes could change how we support the gut and brain. What You'll Discover in This Episode Why fiber matters for the gut bacteria involved in producing the building blocks for serotonin and dopamine How the average American's fiber intake compares with the amount Oscar believes is needed to improve the microbiome Why fiber should be increased gradually instead of added in large amounts overnight The connection Oscar sees between an underfed microbiome and rising levels of anxiety and depression Why vitamin D deficiency and iron deficiency are among the first problems Oscar investigates How anemia can affect mood, energy, and cognition, particularly in menstruating women Why B vitamins also deserve attention when evaluating mental health symptoms How selenium, iodine, and vitamin A support thyroid function—and why an underactive thyroid can resemble anxiety or depression The role omega-3 fatty acids and zinc play in supporting brain-derived neurotrophic factor How medication can provide short-term relief while nutritional deficiencies and other underlying problems are addressed Why Oscar is concerned about prescribing and combining multiple psychiatric medications in children and teenagers What an organic acids test can reveal that routine bloodwork may miss How this test can offer insight into mitochondrial function, B vitamin status, neurotransmitter pathways, cortisol, detoxification, and microbial activity Why mental health is too complex for TikTok remedies and one-size-fits-all solutions Why anyone taking an SSRI should never reduce or stop it without working with the prescribing healthcare professional How new technology is making it possible to deliver previously difficult-to-supplement anaerobic bacteria Why emerging probiotic research could create new possibilities for mental, metabolic, and immune health   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.    About the Guest   Dr. Oscar Coetzee is a nutritionist, published author, professor, and nationally recognized speaker, and VP of Clinical Education and Practitioner Support at Designs for Health. With more than 25 years of experience in nutritional science and research, he currently serves as a faculty member at the University of Bridgeport and Associate Director of the Nutrition Track within its Doctor of Health Sciences program. His work focuses on evidence-based nutritional science and developing nutrition intervention protocols for chronic disease. To learn more, visit https://www.designsforhealth.com/ or send an email to [email protected].    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

What if the antidepressant isn't failing because it's the wrong medication, but because the body doesn't have enough of what it needs to make serotonin in the first place? As a pharmacist, I've filled thousands of antidepressant prescriptions. But there is a question we rarely stop to ask before increasing a dose or trying another medication: Where does serotonin actually come from? An SSRI can help the brain reuse the serotonin that is already available, but the production of neurotransmitters also depends on what is happening elsewhere in the body. This means symptoms we identify as anxiety or depression may sometimes have more than one possible driver. Low vitamin D, iron deficiency, unstable blood sugar, poor digestion, inflammation, and an imbalanced microbiome can all influence how we feel.  In this episode, I'm joined by nutritionist, author, and speaker Dr. Oscar Coetzee. We explore the missing nutritional and biological "third leg" of mental healthcare and why mood disorders can have a lot more to do with what's on your plate than you think.  What You'll Discover In This Episode  The overlooked question we should ask before assuming an antidepressant has "stopped working" Why the gut microbiome helps provide the raw materials the body needs to make serotonin and dopamine How nutrient deficiencies can interfere with neurotransmitter production even when someone is eating a seemingly healthy diet Why poor digestion may matter just as much as the nutrients we consume The "three-legged stool" of mental healthcare and the leg that is often missing How low blood sugar, anemia, and vitamin deficiencies can mimic symptoms associated with anxiety or depression Why a healthy gut depends on microbial balance, not simply eliminating every "bad" bacterium How toxins released by certain gut bacteria may contribute to inflammation in the brain Why two people with similar gut problems can experience very different mental health symptoms How genetics can reveal vulnerabilities without determining someone's future Why Oscar now considers diet, gut health, and cellular function before turning to extensive genetic testing When medication may be urgently necessary and why nutrition should complement, not replace, appropriate psychiatric care   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.     About the Guest Dr. Oscar Coetzee is a nutritionist, published author, professor, and nationally recognized speaker, and VP of Clinical Education and Practitioner Support at Designs for Health. With more than 25 years of experience in nutritional science and research, he currently serves as a faculty member at the University of Bridgeport and Associate Director of the Nutrition Track within its Doctor of Health Sciences program. His work focuses on evidence-based nutritional science and developing nutrition intervention protocols for chronic disease. To learn more, visit https://www.designsforhealth.com/ or send an email to [email protected].    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

  What if the estrogen missing from your hormone therapy wasn't left out because it failed, but because no one could build a profitable drug around it? Your body naturally produces three estrogens: estrone, estradiol, and estriol. Yet most hormone therapy replaces only estradiol. It is easy to assume that estriol was studied, found ineffective, and discarded. But that is not what happened. It didn't necessarily lose a scientific argument; it lost a business one, and over time, we mistook that silence for proof. That missing conversation matters because estrogen does not produce the same effect everywhere in the body. And this could help explain why some women see their hot flashes disappear on estradiol while continuing to struggle with mood changes, disrupted sleep, brain fog, gut problems, recurrent UTIs, or unexplained inflammation. Their treatment may not be failing; it may simply be addressing only part of the hormonal picture. In this episode, I talk about why you never hear about estriol, why it's not about effectiveness, and when to consider asking your doctor about it.  What You'll Discover in This Episode Why your body produces three estrogens, while most hormone therapy replaces only one How estriol may have lost a business argument, not a scientific one Why the absence of an FDA-approved estriol product does not automatically prove that estriol is ineffective The crucial difference between a hormone binding to a receptor and fully activating it How estrogen receptor alpha and estrogen receptor beta can produce very different effects throughout the body Why estradiol can successfully relieve hot flashes while mood, sleep, memory, gut, or inflammatory symptoms remain What research involving the brain, gut, immune system, and urogenital tissue suggests about receptor beta What human multiple sclerosis trials may reveal about estriol's potential immune effects, and what those studies cannot yet prove Why elevated cholesterol and metabolic health may further complicate estrogen receptor signaling The strongest scientific objections to combination hormone therapy—and why they deserve serious answers Why estriol being a "weaker" estrogen may be a feature in some formulations, not necessarily a flaw How poorly timed blood tests can make a compounded hormone cream appear ineffective What to ask your provider if your current estrogen therapy is helping, but you still do not feel like yourself   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   Research Referenced in This Episode Every study below includes a PubMed ID (PMID), which you can use to find the original paper at PubMed. This episode discusses hormone therapy for educational purposes only. It is not medical advice or a substitute for a conversation with your healthcare provider about your symptoms, medical history, and treatment. Estrogen Receptor Biology Binding affinities of 74 naturally occurring estrogen metabolites at estrogen receptors alpha and beta. Estriol demonstrated preferential binding to ERβ. Zhu BT, et al. Endocrinology. 2006. PMID: 16728493 Comparative transcriptional activity of estradiol at ERα and ERβ. Bhavnani BR, et al. Endocrinology. 2008. PMID: 18599548 Crystal structure research examining how estradiol interacts with ERβ. Souza PCT, et al. Scientific Reports. 2017. PMID: 28615710 27-hydroxycholesterol as a negative allosteric modifier of estradiol binding at ERβ. Starkey NJE, et al. Endocrinology. 2018. PMID: 29579190 Brain, Mood, and Memory Effects of an ERβ-selective agonist and estradiol on serotonergic neurons after ovariectomy. Suzuki H, et al. Molecular Psychiatry. 2013. PMID: 22665260 Antidepressant effects of estradiol and an ERβ-selective agonist after long-term ovarian hormone deprivation. Hou Y, et al. Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience. 2019. PMID: 30565903 Effects of ERβ activation on synaptic proteins, hippocampal signaling, and memory performance. Liu F, et al. Nature Neuroscience. 2008. PMID: 18297067 Estriol treatment, cortical atrophy, remyelination, and neuronal preservation. Meyer CE, et al. Laboratory Investigation. 2023. PMID: 37245852 ERβ-mediated neuroprotection independent of peripheral anti-inflammatory effects. Tiwari-Woodruff S, et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2007. PMID: 17785421 Gut Health Effects of ERα- and ERβ-selective agonists and estradiol on intestinal cell proliferation and apoptosis. Schleipen B, et al. Carcinogenesis. 2011. PMID: 21856997 The role of ERβ in intestinal tight junctions and gut permeability. Braniste V, et al. American Journal of Physiology—Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology. 2011. PMID: 21252046 How the gut microbiome and the estrobolome influence circulating estrogen. Baker JM, et al. Maturitas. 2017. PMID: 28778332 Estriol and the Immune System Immune markers in postmenopausal women receiving oral estradiol. Itaborahy RM, de Medeiros SF. Climacteric. 2016. PMID: 27593223 Estriol treatment and changes in inflammatory and anti-inflammatory immune signals in women with multiple sclerosis. Soldan SS, et al. Journal of Immunology. 2003. PMID: 14634144 Estriol-generated tolerogenic dendritic cells in an autoimmune model. Papenfuss TL, et al. Journal of Immunology. 2011. PMID: 21317386 Estriol and pulmonary inflammatory gene expression during influenza infection. Vermillion MS, Ursin RL, Klein SL, et al. Endocrinology. 2018. PMID: 30032246 Estriol regulation of TNF and IL-6 responses in a murine endotoxemia model. Zuckerman SH, et al. Inflammation. 1996. PMID: 8979148 Review of estriol's immunomodulatory role across multiple sclerosis and other immune-mediated conditions. Ali E, Mangold C, Peiris AN. Menopause. 2017. PMID: 28375935 Human Clinical Trials of Estriol Phase I trial of oral estriol in women with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Inflammatory brain lesions decreased during treatment, returned after withdrawal, and decreased again when treatment resumed. Sicotte NL, et al. Annals of Neurology. 2002. PMID: 12436153 Phase II randomized, placebo-controlled trial of estriol added to standard therapy in 164 women with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Voskuhl RR, et al. The Lancet Neurology. 2016. PMID: 26621682 Estriol Physiology and Ovarian Function Ovarian transplantation and immune function in post-reproductive mice. King A, et al. Frontiers in Endocrinology. 2023. PMID: 36755910 Route of Administration and Inflammation Changes in C-reactive protein among postmenopausal women using different hormone preparations in the PEPI trial. Circulation. 1999. PMID: 10500035 Effects of oral and transdermal estradiol on C-reactive protein and other inflammatory markers. Zegura B, et al. Atherosclerosis. 2003. PMID: 12732395 An Important Note About the Evidence This research includes receptor pharmacology, animal studies, and human clinical trials conducted in specific patient populations, most notably women with multiple sclerosis. These different forms of evidence cannot automatically establish that estriol will produce the same benefits for every woman using menopausal hormone therapy. There is currently no large randomized controlled trial directly comparing estradiol alone with combined estradiol-and-estriol therapy in postmenopausal women. There is also no equivalent trial establishing that estradiol alone replaces everything women may lose when natural production of all three estrogens declines. The purpose of sharing this research is not to present estriol as a miracle or to suggest that women who are doing well on estradiol should change their treatment. It is to show why the scientific conversation remains open—and to give women and their healthcare providers the sources they need to examine the evidence for themselves.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

What if your go-to sleep aid was keeping you from deep, restorative sleep? People come into the pharmacy every day looking for over-the-counter sleep aids or sleep supplements, so I reached out to neurologist and sleep expert Dr Stasha Gominak.  She has a very different view on what's disrupting our sleep, and practical steps we can take to transform our sleep.   What You'll Discover In This Episode  How moving indoors wrecked the brain chemical our body needs How common sleep aids disrupt our body's natural sleep process The link between Vitamin D and sleep  Sleep Trackers: The only metric that might actually be correct The dosing mistake that might push you into Vitamin D deficiency Practical dosing and timing for key vitamins    About the Guest Dr Stasha Gominak is a former practicing neurologist and the creator of RightSleep®, dividing her time between helping individuals, through virtual coaching sessions and teaching clinicians and coaches how to use RightSleep concepts to improve their patients' health and well being. Dr Gominak completed a Neurology residency in 1989 at the Harvard-affiliated, Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2004 Dr. Gominak began to concentrate on treating neurological illness by improving sleep. She published a pivotal article in 2012 proposing that the global struggle with worsening sleep was linked to reduced sun exposure. In 2016 she followed with a second article linking the change in the intestinal microbiome to the epidemic of poor sleep, and described a simple process for normalizing sleep and the intestinal bacterial population, called RightSleep®.  Learn more about RightSleep® at https://drgominak.com/   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!

Why do mitochondria come up so often in conversations about energy and longevity, but rarely when women are trying to understand what is happening to their bodies in menopause? Most people have heard mitochondria described as the "powerhouse of the cell." But they also play a role in muscle function, recovery, cellular communication, and hormone production. As we age, damaged mitochondria can build up while the body becomes less efficient at clearing them away. Could some of the fatigue, brain fog, reduced strength, and poor recovery women are told to accept as part of menopause or aging also be connected to declining mitochondrial health? Perimenopause dietitian-nutritionist, Jen Scheinman, explains why mitochondria deserve a bigger place in the menopause conversation.  We explore the connection between estrogen and mitochondrial function, how mitophagy helps remove damaged mitochondria, and how urolithin A may support that process. What You'll Discover In This Episode  Why mitochondria are often overlooked in menopause conversations What mitochondria do beyond producing energy How mitochondrial decline may contribute to fatigue and poor recovery The connection between estrogen and mitochondrial function What mitophagy is and why it slows with age How urolithin A supports mitochondrial cleanup How urolithin A differs from CoQ10 and NAD boosters What the research suggests about strength, endurance, and recovery Why mitochondrial support cannot replace sleep, exercise, and nutrition PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Jen Scheinman is a perimenopause dietitian-nutritionist, longevity and healthy aging expert, and women's health advocate. She holds a master's degree in integrative and functional nutrition and is the founder of Next Jen Health. Jen also serves as Director of Science Communication at Timeline, where she helps translate emerging research on mitochondrial health, nutrition, and aging into practical guidance people can use to support their health and longevity. Her expertise has been featured in publications including Vogue, Glamour, Mindbodygreen, and Eat This, Not That! To learn more, visit timeline.com and follow Jennifer on Instagram.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

What if the medication that's helping one health problem is quietly contributing to another?  Many of the most commonly prescribed medications for cholesterol, diabetes, acid reflux, allergies, anxiety, and pain can affect nutrient levels, hormones, sleep, memory, and energy over time. But common doesn't mean the medication is harmless.  In this episode, I explain why medications should never be put on autopilot. From statins and metformin to acid blockers and antidepressants, I share the questions every patient should be asking to better understand the long-term effects of the medications they take every day. What You'll Discover In This Episode Why "normal" blood work doesn't always tell the whole story How common diabetes medications may contribute to fatigue, brain fog, and nerve problems The hidden nutrient deficiencies linked to acid reflux medications What statins can (and can't) tell you about your heart health and cholesterol Why some allergy and sleep medications may affect memory as you get older How certain antidepressants, pain medications, and anti-anxiety drugs can impact mood, balance, and cognition The questions every patient should ask before automatically refilling a prescription Why medications should be monitored just as carefully as the conditions they're treating   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

What happens if the thyroid medication that finally helped you feel like yourself becomes harder to access? Natural desiccated thyroid has been used for decades, and many women prefer it because it provides both T4 and active T3. Proposed FDA changes have raised questions about its future, but they also bring a much bigger issue into focus.  Why do so many women still struggle with fatigue, brain fog, weight changes, cold intolerance, and low energy even when they are taking thyroid medication and their lab results are considered "normal"? Pharmacist and compounding expert Nat Jones explains what more complete thyroid care can look like for women in perimenopause and menopause. We explore why T4 alone may not be enough for every woman, how stress and cortisol can interfere with thyroid function, and how compounded T4/T3 therapy can offer a more individualized approach.   What You'll Discover In This Episode  Why some patients prefer natural desiccated thyroid to levothyroxine T4 vs. T3: why having both can make a meaningful difference What your options are if desiccated thyroid becomes harder to access Why women still feel hypothyroid when their TSH is "normal" How compounded T4 and T3 can be customized to the individual patient Why standard thyroid ratios do not work equally well for everyone The overlooked role of cortisol and chronic stress in thyroid treatment The additional thyroid markers that may reveal what TSH misses How ferritin and nutrient deficiencies can affect thyroid function Why Hashimoto's requires more than simply replacing thyroid hormone   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Nat Jones is a pharmacist and internationally recognized expert in pharmaceutical compounding. After more than 20 years as a compounding pharmacy owner, he joined Professional Compounding Centers of America (PCCA) in Houston, Texas, in 2014, where he serves in the Pharmacy Clinical Services Department. Dermatology is Nat's primary specialty, with additional expertise in wound and scar care, autoimmune disease, endocrinology, pain management, low-dose naltrexone, GLP-1 therapies, methylene blue, ENT, urology, and men's health. He has spent decades delivering continuing education lectures at medical seminars and webinars around the world and is known for translating complex compounding science into practical strategies healthcare providers can use. Nat was awarded Fellowship status by the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists in 2010. He has authored numerous professional articles, e-books, case studies, and consumer publications, and has helped develop hundreds of innovative compounding formulations used by practitioners across the United States.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

What if all the work you're doing to feel younger and healthier on the inside isn't being reflected in your skin?  As women age, collagen loss can accelerate, leaving the skin thinner, less resilient, and more prone to fine lines, wrinkles, and a crepey texture. But there are ways to support the collagen you still have and help your skin better reflect how good you feel. Pharmacist Nat Jones joins us to explain what happens to women's skin as they age and what we can do about it. We explore the role of hormones, inflammation, gut health, and collagen loss, as well as emerging ingredients such as GHK copper peptide, estriol, exosomes, and methylene blue.  His message? Supporting aging skin is not just about choosing the right ingredient. It's about understanding how the skin changes and making sure the products you use are actually formulated to work.   What You'll Discover In This Episode  Why your skin may not reflect how healthy you feel inside Why preserving collagen is easier than trying to rebuild it The connection between hormones, inflammation, gut health, and aging skin GHK copper peptide: how it supports collagen and skin renewal Why more copper peptide does not always mean better results The formulation mistakes that can make skincare products ineffective Why vitamin C and copper peptide should not be used together How estriol may support thinner, aging skin What exosomes add to anti-aging skincare The surprising potential of methylene blue for sun-damaged skin How long it takes to see visible changes in fine lines and skin texture   About the Guest Nat Jones is a pharmacist and internationally recognized expert in pharmaceutical compounding. After more than 20 years as a compounding pharmacy owner, he joined Professional Compounding Centers of America (PCCA) in Houston, Texas, in 2014, where he serves in the Pharmacy Clinical Services Department. Dermatology is Nat's primary specialty, with additional expertise in wound and scar care, autoimmune disease, endocrinology, pain management, low-dose naltrexone, GLP-1 therapies, methylene blue, ENT, urology, and men's health. He has spent decades delivering continuing education lectures at medical seminars and webinars around the world and is known for translating complex compounding science into practical strategies healthcare providers can use. Nat was awarded Fellowship status by the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists in 2010. He has authored numerous professional articles, e-books, case studies, and consumer publications, and has helped develop hundreds of innovative compounding formulations used by practitioners across the United States.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Perimenopause, testosterone, estrogen patches, pellets, and peptides are finally getting the attention they should have had years ago. More women are asking better questions. More providers are taking symptoms seriously. And more patients are realizing that brain fog, poor sleep, weight gain, anxiety, joint pain, skin changes, and muscle loss are not things they simply have to tolerate. But this hormone renaissance isn't always a good thing. When every social media post is talking about hormones like they are magic, some very important points and questions get missed. Are we using hormones, peptides, GLP-1s, or regenerative therapies in the right order, for the right patient, with the right testing, the right monitoring, and the right clinical judgment? In this episode, I'm joined by women's health, hormone and peptide expert Lexi Yoo. We talk about what women and practitioners are still getting wrong about hormone therapy, how to think about estrogen delivery when patches are hard to find, and why peptides should sit on top of the foundations rather than replace them. What You'll Discover In This Episode Why women don't have to wait until they are fully menopausal to start talking about hormone therapy The hormone myth Lexi wishes would disappear, especially around testosterone and women's brain health How perimenopause can change cycles, sleep, mood, metabolism, stress tolerance, and body composition Why symptoms matter, but testing still plays a critical role in responsible hormone care Why hormone therapy isn't automatically off-limits for women with a family history of breast cancer Why estrogen patches are becoming harder to find, and what other options may be worth discussing with a knowledgeable provider How pellets can be helpful for some women, and why poor monitoring creates so many bad experiences How hormone metabolites can reveal whether the body is processing estrogen in a favorable or unfavorable way Why gut health, detox pathways, methylation, bowel regularity, and inflammation can all affect hormone outcomes How peptides like BPC-157, tesamorelin, thymosin beta-4, and GHK-Cu may be used in gut health, recovery, body composition, skin, and hair conversations Why peptide sourcing, provider education, pharmacy quality, consent, and follow-up matter so much How the peptide conversation has been distorted by black-market products, online misinformation, and regulatory confusion Why GLP-1s can be a net positive when used correctly, but risky when prescribed without body composition monitoring Why muscle preservation has to be part of every serious weight loss conversation What women entering their 40s, 50s, and beyond should understand about hormones, strength training, skin, collagen, recovery, and long-term health PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Lexi Yoo is a double board-certified nurse practitioner, functional medicine–certified clinician, women's health expert, and longevity medicine educator. She is the CEO of Yoo Direct Health, where she helps patients get to the root of complex hormone, metabolic, and wellness concerns through a more comprehensive, functional medicine approach. Her work is especially focused on the women who have been dismissed, rushed, or told to "come back when it gets worse" despite struggling with symptoms like brain fog, poor sleep, weight changes, anxiety, low libido, fatigue, skin changes, and the physical shifts of perimenopause and menopause. In addition to seeing patients clinically, Lexi trains and mentors other providers through her academy, helping clinicians better understand hormone therapy, peptides, GLP-1s, body composition, aesthetics, and longevity medicine. Her work lives at the intersection of clinical care and education, with a focus on helping both patients and providers approach women's health with more precision, curiosity, and clinical judgment. To learn more, visit https://lexiyoonp.com/ and follow Lexi on Instagram.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Perimenopause and menopause are inevitable. But you can either crash into this transition or glide into it, and a few key factors make all the difference. This phase can feel like your entire body changed overnight and you didn't get the memo. Suddenly, you feel like a foreigner in your own skin. The clothes that used to feel fine suddenly feel irritating. Words disappear mid-sentence. You walk from one room to another and forget what you were doing. You're used to being sharp, capable, and dependable, but now getting ready, getting out the door, leading a meeting, keeping up at work, or holding the day together can feel harder than it used to. Then there is the part many women are least prepared to talk about: intimacy. Libido can shift. Sex can become painful, with burning, dryness, and discomfort showing up in ways they never used to. Then there's the impact this can have on your relationships and how this phase can leave you feeling confused, disconnected, and alone. But it doesn't have to be this way. Women are often told they have to push through or just accept this as a part of aging and carry the blame for how their bodies are changing. To glide into perimenopause and not crash, you need healthcare practitioners who understand that "normal labs" do not always tell the whole story. You need real conversations about estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, vaginal health, stress, sleep, metabolism, and the nervous system. You need a partner who listens without making the changes personal, and families, workplaces, and communities that understand this transition is real and support you. And you need to face an uncomfortable truth: that the stress, over-functioning, and constant responsibility that you used to carry effortlessly just won't work the same way anymore. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. LaKeischa McMillan, an OB-GYN, hormone expert, author, and speaker known as "The International Menopause Whisperer." We talk about what is really happening in the body during perimenopause and menopause, why some women feel blindsided by the transition, how stress can shape the experience, why progesterone deserves a much bigger conversation, why vaginal health is medical health, and how the right support can help women move through this season with more clarity, confidence, and care. Things You'll Learn In This Episode Menopause is bigger than the ovaries Perimenopause and menopause are not just sex-hormone events. Adrenals, gut, thyroid, brain chemistry, metabolism, and nervous system all shape this transition. What gets missed when women are treated as if only their ovaries are changing? The problem with "no uterus, no progesterone" Progesterone is often treated as estrogen's "accountability partner," or as something women only need if they have a uterus. But its role may extend into sleep, calm, anxiety, palpitations, and overall quality of life. How many women are missing support because progesterone has been framed too narrowly? Vaginal symptoms are medical, not personal Burning, dryness, painful sex, and vaginal atrophy are often misdiagnosed. How much confusion and distress could be avoided if women were given better language for what is happening in their bodies? Stress is not just a lifestyle issue Stress does not cause perimenopause, but it can shape how the body moves through it. When the adrenal glands and nervous system have been in overdrive for years, what happens when the body can no longer carry stress the same way? Partners need to listen before they fix Perimenopause can affect mood, touch, libido, patience, identity, and the way a woman feels in her own body. How can partners support women without blaming, minimizing, or taking the changes personally? PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Dr. LaKeischa McMillan is an Integrative OB-GYN, hormone specialist, and Amazon best-selling author, the International Menopause Whisperer™. She's also the host of the Hormone Hottie Hotline™️ Podcast. Through her practice, programs, and writing, she helps women (and the practitioners who care for them) move beyond confusion and dismissal toward clarity, balance, and energy. To take Dr. LaKeischa's free quiz, go to hormonequiz.co or go to https://www.talkhormones.com/ to register for a consultation. Follow @drlakeischamd on Instagram and TikTok.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most people think testosterone is either a man's hormone, a gym hormone, or a dangerous hormone. So when a man in his 40s starts gaining belly fat, losing drive, struggling with focus, sleeping poorly, recovering slowly, and feeling like he's not quite himself, he's usually told one of two things: his testosterone is "normal," or he should jump straight into replacement. And when a woman in perimenopause or menopause loses her libido, energy, muscle, confidence, motivation, and sense of vitality, testosterone often isn't even part of the conversation. But the truth is more complicated and more important. Testosterone is not poison, and it is not magic. It is a powerful human hormone that plays a role in libido, metabolism, muscle, mood, bone health, brain function, recovery, and overall vitality. The problem is that too many providers are either afraid of it, casually prescribing it, or treating one number on a lab report instead of looking at the full picture. That's why the testosterone conversation has to move beyond the simple question of whether someone is low or not. The better question is: Is the hormone signal actually working? In this episode, I'm breaking down what testosterone really does in both men and women, why "normal labs" can miss the bigger picture, how poor dosing and delivery can create side effects, and what patients need to know before starting testosterone. Things You'll Learn In This Episode Women need testosterone, too Testosterone can play a role in libido, energy, mood, muscle maintenance, confidence, recovery, and vitality for women. Why are so many women still left out of this conversation entirely? More testosterone is not always better Too much testosterone can convert into estrogen or DHT, raising the risk of side effects. How do you find the lowest effective dose instead of chasing the highest number? Testosterone can affect male fertility For men who want children, testosterone replacement can suppress LH and FSH, the signals needed for sperm production. What should younger men ask before starting therapy? The delivery method matters more than most people realize Creams, gels, injections, sublingual forms, oral products, and pellets all behave differently in the body. Why can the wrong route or dosing schedule create problems even when the hormone itself is appropriate? PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

When it comes to heart disease, conventional medicine has told us the same thing: watch your cholesterol, take the medication if you need it, eat less saturated fat, and follow the guidelines. And most women do. They get the labs done, they fill the prescriptions, they cut the butter, and they trust that the system has thought this through. What they're rarely told is that the approach they're following has been shown, in study after study, to have almost no impact on whether heart disease actually progresses.   The marker their doctor is treating, LDL cholesterol, turns out to be the wrong target. And the dietary advice they've been given may be making things worse. The thing that actually moves the needle looks nothing like a prescription. For thousands of patients, it started with removing one food most of them considered healthy. Dr. William Davis is a cardiologist and the New York Times number one bestselling author of Wheat Belly. He spent nearly two decades performing cardiac interventions before concluding that the system he was trained in was treating the wrong problem, too late. In this episode, he breaks down why the standard prevention advice doesn't work, what wheat is actually doing to the body, and what women can do right now that most cardiologists will never tell them. Things You'll Learn In This Episode Standard heart disease protocol doesn't always work Studies show it has almost no impact on whether coronary disease actually progresses. Why does the conventional approach keep getting recommended when the evidence doesn't support it? Wheat does far more damage than most people realize When patients cut wheat, they lost weight, reversed diabetes, and resolved conditions unrelated to their reasons for coming in. Why does one food affect so many different systems in the body? GLP-1 drugs may be trading one problem for a much bigger one. When weight is lost through calorie reduction, muscle loss follows, and the research suggests it may be permanent. What does that mean for women's long-term health? A bacterial strain that does things no supplement is supposed to do. Patients reported better sleep, muscle retention, improved skin, and mood shifts from something that looks like yogurt and costs almost nothing to make. What is this microbe actually doing, and why does it matter especially for women? PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Dr. William Davis is a well-known preventive cardiologist and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wheat Belly. He's also a major advocate in the health and wellness world. He is also the author of many other bestselling books, including Undoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Be Smarter Than Your Doctor. Dr. Davis works to provide powerful, personally empowering health information that frees you from the doctor and the healthcare system. His newest book, Super Body, is available to order now. https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2026/01/what-is-a-super-body/. To learn more, you can also go to williamdavismd.com and innercircle.drdavisinfinitehealth.com. For Dr. Davis Infinite Health lifestyle tools, supplies, supplements, and "yogurt" making go to: https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/shop/.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

A lot of women hit their mid-to-late 30s or 40s and suddenly feel like their body changed the rules without telling them. They start waking up at 3 AM. Their anxiety increases, their weight starts shifting toward the middle, even though they're eating the same way and exercising the same way.  And when they finally ask for help, their symptoms are dismissed, normalized as stress. Or they are told different things: either they're too young for perimenopause, or this is just a part of aging.  But perimenopause is not always a clean, obvious hormone story. It can look like burnout, thyroid dysfunction, blood sugar issues, gut problems, stress overload, poor sleep, mood changes, or a body that suddenly feels harder to manage. That's why so many women (and clinicians) miss it. Dr. Anna Garrett, pharmacist and hormone expert, helps women understand what is actually happening underneath those symptoms. Her approach is not "everyone needs hormones," and it's not "just push through it."  It starts with the person in front of her. What are her symptoms? What is her stress level? How is she sleeping? Is she ovulating regularly? Is she constipated? How is her body clearing estrogen? What role are alcohol, blood sugar, gut health, exercise, under-eating, or over-functioning playing? In this episode, we unpack why your body changes so much in your mid to late-30s and early 40s, and what to do when you're sure that you're not the way you used to be.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Perimenopause can start earlier than you think Women in their 30s and 40s are often dismissed because they don't fit the outdated picture of perimenopause. So what are the signs that your body may already be entering perimenopause, even if your labs look "normal"? Your symptoms may be signals, not separate problems How do you stop treating each symptom in isolation and start asking what the body is trying to communicate? It's not random insomnia Middle-of-the-night wakeups can be tied to progesterone changes. If sleep is the symptom, what is actually waking the body up?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   Guest Bio Dr. Anna Garrett is a clinical pharmacist, functional health coach, hormone strategist, and midlife health detective. For more than 30 years, she's helped women understand their bodies, advocate for themselves, and create a clear path forward. Dr. Garrett's work combines clinical pharmacy, functional medicine, advanced lab testing, health coaching, and mindset support to help women in midlife feel clearer, stronger, energized, and in control. To learn more, visit https://drannagarrett.com/, join her private Facebook Group, The Hormone Harmony Club, and follow her on Instagram.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Food sensitivities and intolerances have become a much bigger conversation in health and wellness. More people are starting to wonder whether the foods they eat every day could be contributing to symptoms such as bloating, fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, skin issues, mood changes, weight-loss resistance, or inflammation.  And because testing has become more accessible, many people are now ordering food sensitivity tests themselves, cutting out the foods that show up, and trying to figure it out from there. But for most people, that creates more confusion.  Food sensitivity testing is still widely misunderstood. Some people dismiss it completely. Some people treat every result like a permanent diagnosis. And many people end up with a long list of foods to avoid but no clear understanding of what the test is actually showing them, why their bodies are reacting in the first place, or what they're supposed to do next. That's the problem. Elimination diets are not forever food ban lists. They were never meant to make someone's diet smaller and smaller until eating becomes stressful. They are meant to be used as a therapeutic tool: to reduce inflammation, calm the immune system, repair the gut, and eventually understand how and when foods can be reintroduced. In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Cheryl Burdette, a naturopathic doctor, co-founder of Precision Point Diagnostics, and medical director for KHS. We talk about the difference between food allergies and food sensitivities, and why a food sensitivity test is only useful if it helps change the plan. We also get into the bigger issue with advanced testing in general. A lab result should not just give you a number, a list, or another thing to worry about. It should help you understand the process happening underneath the symptoms.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode Elimination diets are not forever food ban lists Many people take a food sensitivity test, remove the foods, and then get stuck there. How are you actually supposed to use these diets?  Food allergies and food sensitivities are not the same thing An IgE allergy can be immediate and obvious, while an IgG sensitivity may show up hours or days later. How do we understand the difference without oversimplifying either one? Leaky gut changes how the immune system sees food When the gut lining becomes more permeable, food particles and bacterial toxins can cross into places they do not belong, triggering immune reactions. What do markers like zonulin, LPS, diamine oxidase, and food antibodies actually help us see? Advanced testing should help you know what to do next Testing itself isn't the problem; testing without a plan is. How do we use labs to guide diet, gut repair, probiotics, immunoglobulins, antioxidant support, and prevention instead of just collecting more numbers?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. Guest Bio Dr. Cheryl Burdette is a naturopathic doctor, co-founder of Precision Point Diagnostics, medical director of KHS, and Director of Education at Progressive Medical Center, which hosts a Naturopathic residency, at one of the largest integrative clinics in the Southeast.  She is the co-founder of Precision Point Diagnostics, a laboratory that focuses on gut-based health and wellness. There, she designs clinical profiles and trains clinicians on their utilization. She has a rich history in the integrative medicine laboratory space. She designed and teaches the clinical curriculum for Origins Incubator, a practice management group that has helped to launch many successful practitioners. She is on the board of advisors for TheraDura Diagnostik, a German-based lab company. She serves on IRB boards, is involved in study design and translational research, and has lectured extensively worldwide. Dr. Burdette's passion is teaching about the practice of Integrative and Naturopathic Medicine, to increase awareness of evidence-based natural therapies, to both rule in and rule out tools that are effective in-patient care. To learn more, visit https://www.progressivemedicalcenter.com/ or send an email to [email protected].    Resources  Here are the five biomarkers Dr. Burdette recommends paying attention to: 8-OH-DG / 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine - oxidative stress/DNA damage marker Oxidized LDL - damaged LDL; discussed as more predictive for cardiovascular risk than standard cholesterol Vitamin D - broad immune, hormone, bone, brain, and inflammation relevance CRP / C-reactive protein — general inflammation marker Hemoglobin A1C — blood sugar/glycation marker, long before diabetes becomes the only concern   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

  Most people still picture pharmacists as the people behind the counter, filling prescriptions, checking interactions, and putting pills in bottles. But the truth is, a growing number of pharmacists are asking a much bigger question: what if the answer isn't always another drug? For a long time, modern medicine has trained us to treat symptoms in isolation, but sometimes, the symptom is not the problem. It's the body's way of telling us something deeper is out of balance. What's interesting is that pharmacy didn't begin with synthesized drugs pulled off a shelf. Historically, pharmacists worked with plants, herbs, compounds, powders, tinctures, and preparations.  They understood medicine as something closer to the intersection of nature, chemistry, and the body. In many ways, the rise of the functional pharmacist isn't a rejection of pharmacy. It's a return to the deeper roots of it. We're now in an era where functional pharmacists can help bridge traditional herbal approaches, modern science, nutrition, medications, supplements, lifestyle, and root-cause care. Not in a way that dismisses medicine, but in a way that asks: where is medicine needed, and where can we use lifestyle, nutrition, stress reduction, gut support, and targeted natural therapies to help the body heal? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Lauren Castle, PharmD, functional medicine practitioner, founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Pharmacists Alliance, and board member of the Psychedelic Pharmacists Association. She shares how her husband's health struggles first opened her eyes to functional medicine, how her own hormone and grief journey changed the way she understands healing, and why functional pharmacists may become one of the most important members of a patient's care team in the future.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Symptoms aren't the problem… they're the signal We're often trained to lower the number, quiet the symptom, or add the next medication. But what changes when we ask what the body is trying to tell us? Pharmacists belong in functional medicine Pharmacists understand medications, supplements, interactions, biochemistry, and therapeutic decisions. So why aren't they more often treated as part of the root-cause care team? Your body may not be broken; it may be protecting you Hormone issues, burnout, amenorrhea, anxiety, and fatigue can look like dysfunction. But what if the body is responding intelligently to stress, under-fueling, grief, or unsafe conditions? Plant medicine is not "just herbs" From oregano and berberine to psychedelics and pharmaceutical compounds derived from nature, plant medicine sits at the origin of pharmacy. How do we use these tools responsibly without dismissing their power? Psychedelics are not magic pills Psychedelic therapies may hold promise for trauma, PTSD, addiction, and mental health, but they require preparation, supervision, and integration. What does safe, ethical use actually look like?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. Guest Bio Dr. Lauren Castle is a PharmD, functional medicine practitioner, and founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Pharmacists Alliance, the first professional organization representing pharmacists in functional medicine, now nearly 5,000 strong. She holds a Master of Science in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, is certified through the School of Applied Functional Medicine, and sits on the board of directors of the Psychedelic Pharmacists Association. To learn more, visit fmpha.org and drlaurencastle.com.     About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Vitamin D is a hot topic right now. Everyone's talking about it and supplementing with it, and I get countless questions on social media and in the pharmacy. "Am I taking enough?" "Is the specific dose I was told to take on social media better?" "Should I take D2 or D3?" Even though everyone's talking about Vitamin D, it's still so heavily misunderstood, and it starts with what people think it is. It's not just the bone vitamin; it's not really a vitamin at all. It works more like a pro-hormone, influencing immune function, hormones, metabolic health, brain health, inflammation, and thousands of processes across the body. And that's why it's so critical, and easy to get wrong. The first mistake people make: Thinking there's one dose of vitamin D for everyone. The truth is, vitamin D is very individualized; the dose you need is affected by everything from where you live, your skin tone, and how old you are.  So you have to know your number and test your levels to see what your body actually needs. The second mistake is thinking you can take Vitamin D in isolation for it to work.  To work effectively, Vitamin D actually relies on key co-factors like magnesium and vitamin K2, so if you're not also supporting those nutrients, you could be missing out on the full benefit. So how do you supplement your Vitamin D the right way? How do you know what to buy? In this episode, I walk through the truth about Vitamin D: why deficiency is so common, why "normal" levels are not always optimal, and why the safest approach is to test, dose, and retest instead of guessing.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Vitamin D is not just about bones Vitamin D acts more like a pro-hormone than a simple vitamin. What are all the crucial functions in our bodies that it supports? What are we missing when we only think of it as a bone-health supplement? Your Vitamin D dose should be based on testing, not guessing The same dose can produce very different blood levels in different people. How do you know whether your supplement is actually working? "Normal" Vitamin D is not always optimal What range of vitamin D should you be aiming for if your goal is optimization? Vitamin D can't work alone Magnesium helps activate vitamin D, while K2 helps direct calcium into the right places instead of soft tissues or arteries. So if you're taking vitamin D but not seeing results, what else might your body be missing?   P.S. Are you looking for a high-quality Vitamin D supplement you can trust?  Get our Vitamin D3 5000IU: https://magnoliapharmacy.com/products/vitamin-d3-5000iu    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Gut health is one of the most talked-about areas of wellness…but it's also still one of the most misunderstood.  Right now, it's very easy for someone to order a stool test, get a long report back, see a list of bacteria, parasites, yeast, or "imbalances."  But here's the problem: more data doesn't always mean more clarity. And when we treat gut health the same way conventional medicine often treats symptoms, we end up recreating the exact problem we were trying to solve. Because the gut is not static. It changes with food, stress, sleep, circadian rhythm, trauma, hormones, environment, and even the season of life someone is in.  A single test may give us useful information, but it cannot tell the whole story. And if we're not careful, we can become so focused on fixing the numbers that we miss the person sitting in front of us. So instead of asking, "What does this test say?" we have to ask, "What question are we trying to answer?"  In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Vivian Asamoah, a triple board-certified gastroenterologist trained at Johns Hopkins who went beyond conventional GI care to pursue integrative medicine.  She now leads Houston Gastro Institute and an integrative functional GI practice, where she helps patients look beyond "normal" test results and get to the deeper patterns driving their symptoms. We get into why microbiome testing has limitations, what comprehensive stool testing can actually reveal, how trauma and stress affect the gut, and why PPIs are more complicated than people think.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  A gut test is only a snapshot, not the whole story Your gut can shift based on what you eat and sleep, your stress levels, and even your circadian rhythm. How does current gut testing miss this? The real question is not "What test should I take?" Testing only matters when it answers a clear clinical question and changes the next step in care. So before ordering another lab, what should patients and practitioners be asking first? Gut symptoms can start outside the gut Trauma, grief, perimenopause, and nervous system dysregulation can all shape digestive health. What happens when we stop treating gut symptoms in isolation and start looking at the full timeline of a patient's life? The truth about PPIs Acid-suppressing medications like Nexium, omeprazole, and pantoprazole have become really popular. How do we know when acid suppression is necessary and when lifestyle, nutrition, and root-cause work should come first?   Guest Bio Dr. Vivian Asamoah is a triple board-certified gastroenterologist who trained at Johns Hopkins and did something that most GI doctors would never do. She went further. She pursued an integrative medicine certification because she realized conventional training alone just wasn't actually enough to fix her patients. She now runs Houston Gastro Institute and has built one of the most unique root-cause GI practices in the country. To learn more, visit https://www.houstongastroinstitute.com/ or follow Dr. Asamoah on Instagram and TikTok.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

When a woman is dealing with brain fog, gut issues, irritability, and just not feeling like herself… There are usually two paths she ends up taking. The first is the conventional healthcare one. A ten-minute doctor's visit, a quick look at basic labs, and then a prescription (often including an antidepressant) before being sent on her way. But here's the problem: that path never gets to the root cause.   Because when a woman presents with a cluster of symptoms like fatigue, mood changes, gut issues, and low energy, the default diagnosis becomes anxiety or depression.  And for many people we see, that's not what's actually going on, there's a deeper issue that needs to be addressed.  There's an underlying inflammatory or autoimmune issue, immune dysfunction, or there's a breakdown happening in the body that hasn't been identified yet. And what she's experiencing aren't random symptoms; they're signals. Traditional healthcare and 10-minute visits aren't built to uncover complex, multi-system. And you definitely can't solve them by layering prescriptions on top of symptoms without understanding what's driving them in the first place. You need time, context, and someone willing to look at the full picture. And that's where a root-cause approach changes everything. Because instead of asking, "How do we manage this symptom?" It starts with a different question: "What's actually causing this in the first place?" In this episode, Dr. Sakina Davis, a functional medicine practitioner who specializes in root-cause care, returns to the show. We unpack what's really happening beneath symptoms like fatigue, gut issues, and brain fog, and why so many women are being misdiagnosed or dismissed in the process. We get into how autoimmune and inflammatory conditions actually show up, the patterns most doctors miss, and what it looks like to take a more comprehensive approach to testing, diagnosis, and treatment.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Labs can look "normal" while your body clearly isn't Most standard testing barely scratches the surface. So if everything comes back "fine," what are doctors not testing for, and what actually reveals inflammation and immune dysfunction? What a deeper diagnostic actually looks like From expanded thyroid panels to inflammatory markers and immune testing, what does comprehensive testing really involve, and how do you know when it's necessary? Your gut might be the problem, even if digestion seems "fine" You can be eating well and still not absorbing nutrients properly. What does it mean if your body isn't breaking down food the way it should—and how would you even know? The test no one wants to do… but can explain everything Stool testing sounds unpleasant, but it reveals things that nothing else can, bacteria balance, inflammation, and digestion issues. So what can it actually uncover about your health that other tests miss?   Guest Bio Dr. Sakina Davis is a Bioidentical Hormone Specialist and fellowship-trained physician with 20+ years of experience. She is recognized as a pioneer in functional and regenerative medicine. As the founder of Woodlands Wellness and Cosmetic Center in The Woodlands, Texas, Dr. Davis offers a comprehensive range of medical and aesthetic services, with a focus on hormone optimization and weight management. Dr. Davis is a member of the American Academy of Anti-Aging, the Institute for Functional Medicine, and is part of the Longevity Docs group. Her approach combines cutting-edge treatments with a personalized, holistic focus. She is known for her dedication to patient care and for her active involvement in the community, supporting organizations like the Montgomery County Food Bank and CASA Advocates for Children. One patient shared, "Dr. Sakina Davis is very professional and spends enough time with you to treat the 'whole you'; everything is connected, and balancing hormones helps to treat and prevent many conditions." To learn more, visit https://woodlandswellness.com/.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

The default rules of "healthy eating" are something we've all heard: eat whole grains, load up on vegetables, and if you really want to make an impact, go gluten-free. But what if the foods you're doubling down on… the ones you believe are fixing your health… are quietly driving inflammation, weight gain, and even chronic disease? When it comes to nutrition, the story isn't just that some foods are good and others are bad. It's that many of the foods we've been taught to trust contain naturally occurring compounds, like lectins, that can actually work against our health.  For some people, that doesn't just show up as digestive issues. It can show up as autoimmune conditions, brain fog, metabolic dysfunction, and even more serious conditions like neurodegeneration and addiction patterns. And here's where it gets even more interesting. Ancient cultures didn't blindly eat these foods. They prepared them in very specific ways, fermenting, peeling, pressure cooking, and processing them to reduce these compounds before consumption.  In other words, they understood that these foods needed to be handled carefully. Modern diets, on the other hand, often skip those steps entirely, exposing us to levels our bodies may not be equipped to deal with. So, could your "healthy plate" be causing inflammation and illness? What foods actually damage our health, and what do we eat instead?  In this episode, former cardiac surgeon, regenerative medicine expert, and bestselling author of "The Plant Paradox," Dr. Steven Gundry,  He shares how compounds like lectins interact with the gut, why so many conditions may trace back to gut dysfunction, and what most people are missing when it comes to food and long-term health.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The problem isn't just junk food… It's the stuff you trust It's easy to blame sugar and processed food. It's harder to question the "clean" staples sitting at the center of your diet. What if the issue isn't what you avoid, but what you keep doubling down on? It doesn't start where it shows up Inflammation, autoimmune issues, and even cognitive decline look like separate problems. But what if they're all downstream signals of the same breakdown happening in the gut? Your biology decides what's "healthy," not the label The same food can heal one person and quietly wreck another. If your gut and microbiome aren't functioning properly, are you eating foods… or feeding the problem? Traditional diets were protective Peeling, fermenting, and pressure cooking weren't random habits. Do these safeguards combat the compounds the body struggles to handle?   Guest Bio Dr. Steven Gundry is a former cardiac surgeon, regenerative medicine expert, Director and Founder of the International Heart & Lung Institute, as well as the Center for Restorative Medicine. He is also the author of the bestselling books "The Gut-Brain Paradox" and "The Plant Paradox." He is also the host of the chart-topping Dr. Gundry Podcast. He has worked in medicine for over 40 years, and today his focus is on teaching people how to avoid surgery by using my unique vision of human nutrition. Dr. Gundry's mission is to improve people's health, happiness, and longevity by making simple changes to their diets. To learn more, visit https://drgundry.com/ and follow @drstevengundry on Instagram.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most people think the reason their prescriptions are expensive is simple: drug companies set the price, insurance helps cover it, and what you pay at the counter is just "how it is." But that story falls apart the second you look a little closer. Because the price you pay for the same medication can swing from $6 to $200+, depending on where and how you get it. And most of that difference has nothing to do with the drug itself. What's actually happening is that there's an entire layer of the system most patients never see. A layer that doesn't just influence pricing, but actively controls which medications you can access, where you're allowed to fill them, and even whether your local pharmacy survives. And here's where the real cost shows up, because this doesn't stop at price. When patients are pushed into systems they don't understand, adherence drops. Medications get delayed, skipped, or abandoned altogether. Care becomes fragmented. And the one place that consistently acts as a frontline healthcare touchpoint, the local pharmacy, gets replaced with centralized, mail-order systems that were never designed to deliver personalized care. Because when a $6 medication turns into $211… when pharmacies close despite being essential healthcare access points… when patients are steered, restricted, or overcharged without realizing it… That's not just inefficiency; that's a system that quietly trades outcomes for margins. So the real question becomes: if the system patients trust is actually working against them, what's really driving drug prices, and what is it costing us beyond the prescription itself? In this episode, I'm joined by Monique Whitney, Executive Director of Pharmacists United for Truth and Transparency, who has spent over a decade exposing what's actually happening behind the scenes. She shares what's really behind expensive prescriptions, pharmacy closures, and the rise of mail-order pharmacies.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Drug prices aren't driven by the drug itself The same medication can cost a few dollars or hundreds. If pricing isn't tied to the product, what is it tied to, and who controls that difference? Access to medication is being controlled, not just priced The system can dictate where you fill prescriptions, what drugs you're allowed to take, and even push you away from your local pharmacy. Why is pharmacy access being engineered? "Convenience" platforms often come at a hidden cost From discount cards to mail-order pharmacies, many tools marketed as savings solutions are actually extracting value through fees, data, or steering. If it looks like you're saving money, where is that money being made back? A patient problem, not a business problem When pharmacies shut down, patients lose access, delay care, or end up in emergency systems that cost far more. If the most accessible healthcare provider disappears, what does that do to the entire system upstream?   Guest Bio Monique Whitney is the Executive Director at Pharmacists United for Truth & Transparency. As the Executive Director of PUTT, she works to advance the role of pharmacists as trusted healthcare providers and advocates for patient safety. PUTT is a 501(c)3 organization committed to promoting transparency, integrity, and accountability in pharmacy care. In Monique's role, she leads a team of dedicated professionals (who are also volunteers) in developing and implementing strategic initiatives to ensure patient access and end pharmacy deserts. She collaborates with key stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, policymakers, and industry leaders, to drive positive change and ensure patients can access safe, effective, and affordable medications at their local pharmacy. With a deep understanding of the complex healthcare landscape and regulatory environment, Monique brings a wealth of experience in advocacy, public policy, and organizational leadership. She is committed to fostering a culture of transparency and accountability in the U.S. healthcare system that works to the benefit of everyone. To learn more, go to https://www.truthrx.org/, and to look up drug cost disparities in your state, go to https://www.audittricare.org/.     About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

For most of their lives, high-performing women rely on their drive, willpower, and discipline to accomplish their goals, build their careers, and manage their busy lives. And then they get to midlife, and suddenly it feels like the wheels have fallen off. The same discipline, strategies, and mindset that once drove results suddenly stop working. The workouts don't hit the same; your metabolism slows down, and you can't push through things the way you could before. What if this isn't a failure of effort, but a fundamental shift in biology? Because what's happening in perimenopause isn't subtle. Hormones are fluctuating unpredictably, the gut microbiome is changing, stress tolerance drops, sleep architecture shifts, and systems that once buffered pressure start to lose that capacity. And for many, it goes deeper than physiology. Emotional stress that was once manageable suddenly isn't, and old emotional traumas start to resurface. What's actually happening in perimenopause and menopause to cause these changes? Cynthia Thurlow knows this from experience. As a clinician working in high-pressure cardiology, she hit a wall, dealing with weight loss resistance, poor sleep, anxiety, and burnout at a time when no one had prepared her for what perimenopause actually looks like.  Ultimately, it led to a complete re-evaluation of how she approached her health and a shift away from traditional clinical practice toward educating and advocating for women navigating midlife.  In this episode, speaker, midlife health advocate, menopause expert, and author of the new book The Menopause Gut, Cynthia shares what's actually changing in midlife, and why the answer isn't more effort, but a completely different way of working with your body.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  You don't have a willpower problem When discipline, restriction, and pushing through stop producing results, what does that reveal about the limits of willpower in a changing body? Perimenopause is a systems shift, not a single hormone problem If hormones, gut health, stress response, and sleep are all changing at once, are we oversimplifying what's actually happening? Why symptoms feel sudden (even though the process isn't) If these changes build over the years beneath the surface, why does it feel like everything falls apart all at once? You can't override biology; you have to realign with it When your body is asking for different inputs, more recovery, more nourishment, better boundaries, what happens if you keep responding the old way?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. Guest Bio Cynthia Thurlow is a speaker, podcast host, midlife health advocate, menopause, nutrition, intermittent fasting expert, and author of the new book, The Menopause Gut. She's a nurse practitioner, CEO, and founder of the Everyday Wellness Project. She has over 9.6 million views on her second TEDx talk (Intermittent Fasting: Transformational Technique). With over 20 years of experience in health and wellness, Cynthia has been featured on ABC, FOX5, KTLA, CW, Medium, Entrepreneur, and The Megyn Kelly Show. To learn more, visit https://www.cynthiathurlow.com/, follow Cynthia on Instagram, and buy her book on Amazon or your bookstore of choice.     About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most commercially available hormones are designed for population-level dosing - one-size-fits-all, and no room for personalization.  But hormones don't behave at the population level. Human bodies are uniquely shaped by metabolism, liver function, toxin exposure, and how each person absorbs and processes hormones.  And yet, the commercial market still tries to solve for all of that complexity with a limited set of fixed doses. Take something as common as an estradiol patch. It only comes in a handful of options. So what happens if your body needs something in between?  That gap is where a lot of people get stuck. They're technically "on hormones," but they don't feel right, they don't respond the way they should, or they're dealing with side effects that don't make sense. At the same time, we're seeing a new wave of messaging that says hormones are now "safe," and therefore easy to prescribe. But that creates a second problem. Because hormones aren't inherently safe or unsafe; they're precise.  And when you remove the precision, the testing, and the individualization, you don't get better outcomes. You just get more people on a one-size-fits-all approach that was never designed to fit them in the first place. So the real question becomes: if standardized options fall short, what does it actually take to get hormones that actually match what your body needs? In this episode, speaker, author, educator, and Anti-Aging and Precision Medicine expert, Dr. Pamela Smith, returns. Today, we're breaking down why compounding isn't an alternative approach; it's often the only way to truly match treatment to the patient.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Hormones don't follow averages Most medications are designed for population-level outcomes, but hormones are influenced by metabolism, weight, liver function, toxins, and more. What happens when we treat something highly individualized with standardized protocols? Convenience is replacing clinical rigor From telehealth checklists to "no-testing" approaches, hormone therapy is becoming easier to access, but less precise. Are we improving care, or just scaling shortcuts? Why "normal dosing" often fails patients Small changes like weight fluctuations or absorption differences can shift hormone needs significantly. If dosing isn't adjusted at a micro level, how many patients are being under- or over-treated without realizing it? Hormones aren't the starting point; they're the amplifier When upstream issues like toxins, gut health, or metabolic dysfunction aren't addressed, hormone therapy often fails. Are we blaming hormones when the real issue is everything around them?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. Guest Bio Pamela Smith, M.D., MPH, MS, is an internationally known speaker and author on the subject of Anti-Aging and Precision Medicine. She spent her first twenty years of practice as an emergency room physician with the Detroit Medical Center in a level 1 trauma center and then 28 years as an Anti-Aging/Functional Medicine specialist. She is a diplomat of the Board of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Physicians and is. Dr. Smith also holds a master's degree in public health and a master's degree in metabolic and nutritional medicine. She is in private practice and is the senior partner for The Center for Precision Medicine, with offices in Michigan and Florida. She has been featured on CNN, PBS, and many other television networks, has been interviewed in numerous consumer magazines, and has hosted two of her own radio shows. Dr. Smith was one of the featured physicians on the PBS series "The Embrace of Aging" as well as the online medical series "Awakening from Alzheimer's" and "Regain Your Brain". She is the author of fourteen best-selling books, including How to Prevent Breast Cancer- Before & After: A Guide to Taking Back Control of Your Life. To learn more about Dr. Smith and to get her books, visit https://mdpamelasmith.com/.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

The habits that determine how healthy you'll be in your 70s and 80s are usually already visible in your 30s and 40s. If you want to feel strong, energetic, and independent later on in your life, you have to take care of your health today. Between work, stress, and sedentary lifestyles, modern lives make these things difficult to achieve, but that doesn't mean we can't take simple steps to protect our long-term health. There are a few key signals that protect our long-term health, but they aren't often the ones people obsess over online. People often get lost chasing trendy metrics and complicated protocols. Meanwhile, the most powerful predictors of lifespan are surprisingly simple: staying physically active, preserving muscle, catching disease early, and addressing risk factors long before they become medical problems. How do we focus on the habits and health markers that actually move the needle? In this episode, physician and longevity specialist Dr. Hugh Coyne unpacks what actually determines long-term health, which markers reveal cardiovascular risk decades before a heart attack, and how to actually feel good in your 70s and 80s.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode    A strong predictor of lifespan Strength, power, and muscle mass don't just affect fitness; they determine resilience during illness and aging. How does losing muscle accelerate health decline? Overlooked biomarkers that hide Cardiovascular risk Traditional cholesterol tests don't always reveal the full picture. How do markers like ApoB and Lipoprotein(a) reveal cardiovascular risk decades before symptoms appear Modern lifestyles erode metabolic health Which everyday habits are silently pushing people toward diabetes and heart disease? Longevity isn't complicated; it's discipline In a world obsessed with cutting-edge health metrics, what are the simple, real drivers of long-term health?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   Guest Bio Dr. Hugh Coyne is a physician and co-founder of Coyne Medical, a private medical practice in London focused on preventative medicine, cardiovascular health, and longevity. Through his clinical work, he helps patients understand the biomarkers, habits, and lifestyle factors that influence long-term health and disease risk. With a background in sports and exercise medicine, Dr. Coyne has a particular interest in how movement, muscle health, metabolic function, and cardiovascular biomarkers shape lifespan and overall health outcomes. His practice emphasizes early detection, genetic screening, and proactive testing to identify risk factors for conditions like heart disease, metabolic disorders, and certain cancers long before symptoms appear. At Coyne Medical, he works with patients to combine medical testing with practical lifestyle strategies, such as exercise, nutrition, and preventative screening, to help people extend both their lifespan and healthspan. To learn more, go to https://coynemedical.com/ and follow Dr. Coyne on Instagram and TikTok.  About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most people think thyroid disease appears suddenly. But what if thyroid disease actually begins years earlier, quietly signaling that something in the body has already been off for a long time? According to today's guest, pharmacist, thyroid researcher, and bestselling author, Dr. Izabella Wentz, the thyroid isn't just a malfunctioning organ. It's more of an early warning system, the body's canary in the coal mine.  That's why some of the earliest signs of thyroid dysfunction show up in places we don't immediately associate with the thyroid. For many women, hair loss is the moment something finally feels wrong enough to investigate. And in many of those cases, the underlying issue isn't simply "low thyroid." It's Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune condition where the immune system slowly attacks the thyroid gland, sometimes for five to fifteen years before diagnosis. In this episode, Dr. Wentz unpacks why thyroid disease, especially Hashimoto's, rarely has a single cause or a single solution.  We talk about the early warning signs most people miss, why autoimmune thyroid disease often goes undiagnosed for years, and why restoring thyroid health often requires adjusting many different "dials".   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Canary in the coal mine Symptoms can appear years before thyroid tests become abnormal. How does the thyroid warn us long before conventional testing catches the problem? Hashimoto's: hiding in plain sights Autoimmune thyroid disease may be active for years before hypothyroidism appears on lab work. What early clues could reveal the immune attack sooner? "Normal" thyroid labs don't always mean a healthy thyroid Many patients continue to struggle with fatigue, weight gain, and hair loss despite having normal TSH levels. What other markers can reveal what's really happening? Beyond single medication "treatment." Conventional medicine often treats thyroid disease with hormone replacement alone. Why does a functional medicine approach focus on adjusting multiple "dials"?    PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. Guest Bio Dr. Izabella Wentz is a pharmacist, thyroid specialist, and bestselling author known for her work on Hashimoto's thyroiditis and autoimmune conditions, and now gut health. After being diagnosed with IBS during pharmacy school and later with Hashimoto's, she began researching the root causes of thyroid dysfunction and has since helped millions of patients better understand their thyroid health. To learn more, visit thyroidpharmacist.com or find Dr. Wenz on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or listen to her podcast.  Buy her new book, "A Comprehensive Guide to Healing Your Gut, IBS and Autoimmunity" on Amazon, Barnes or Noble.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Peptides aren't a fringe, advanced biohacker topic or the future of healthcare anymore. They are becoming more mainstream every day. They're gaining traction online, influencers are hyping them up, telehealth clinics are moving fast, and patients believe they've found a shortcut to better health, faster recovery, and even longevity. But as a compounding pharmacist, this explosion of peptides concerns me.  While peptides promise to be powerful tools for improving healthspan, they aren't a cure-all, and most consumers aren't being told this. The issue with peptides is that demand is high, but it's outrunning discipline, regulation, clinical, and consumer understanding. So while consumers are asking where they can get peptides and how quickly they can start, I'm asking if you can trust what's on the label, or if the peptides are even approved. I'm also wondering if people are using peptides as a shortcut, not a tool. So what's the better way to approach peptides? How close are we to peptides that are actually backed by rigorous research, standardized dosing, and long-term safety data? In this episode, I talk about takeaways from a recent compounding pharmacist conference and why peptides may be one of the most dangerously misunderstood shifts happening in modern healthcare right now.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode    Peptide demand vs. discipline Patients are already hearing about peptides online and seeking them out. What happens when demand outpaces regulation and provider education? Hype is outpacing understanding Peptides are being marketed as solutions for everything from weight loss to longevity. But how much of that is grounded in real science versus early-stage enthusiasm? The problem with telehealth Telehealth clinics and compounding pharmacies are accelerating availability. How does this shift change who controls access, and what risks does that introduce? Before peptides go mainstream… As peptides become more widely available, quality, sourcing, and education matter more than ever. What should patients and providers be paying attention to before using them?   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most people are told that autoimmune disease is bad luck. A genetic glitch, a random malfunction, or an immune system that simply "turned on itself." But what if that explanation is incomplete? What if autoimmunity isn't random at all… but the predictable result of cumulative stress on the body, building quietly for years until one final trigger tips the scale? That's the framing we rarely hear. In conventional medicine, autoimmune conditions are often managed as isolated diagnoses. Graves', Hashimoto's, Crohn's, and rheumatoid arthritis are each treated with their own specialist and their own immunosuppressant protocol. But what if they're not separate diseases? What if they're different expressions of the same underlying immune dysfunction? In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Amy Myers to explore what's changed in the autoimmune landscape over the last decade, and what hasn't. As the author of The Autoimmune Solution and The Thyroid Connection, she helped bring the gut–immune connection into mainstream discussion long before "leaky gut" was widely accepted.  Now, more than 10 years later, she's revisiting her work because the environment we're living in has intensified. Because here's the truth: when it comes to autoimmune disease, the ante has been upped. We have more environmental toxins, more immune triggers, the long-tail effects of viral infections, the overlooked role of trauma, and the subtle ways chronic stress reshapes immune signaling.  Today, we talk about what conventional medicine continues to miss about autoimmune conditions, how to actually calm the immune system instead of just suppress it, and what it really takes to rebuild resilience from the inside out.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Autoimmunity isn't random; it's cumulative Genetics may load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger. Which stressors quietly build toward immune dysfunction long before diagnosis? Leaky gut is a prerequisite for immune activation Intestinal permeability allows immune confusion to begin. How do gluten, chronic infection, and toxin exposure disrupt immune tolerance at the barrier level? Latent infections can hijack the immune balance Viruses like Epstein-Barr don't always leave; they hide. How does viral persistence contribute to chronic fatigue, thyroid disease, and post-viral syndromes like long COVID? Trauma programs the immune system Two people can experience the same event and have radically different biological outcomes. How does chronic hypervigilance keep the immune system in fight-or-flight mode?   Guest Bio Dr. Amy Myers is an accomplished, formally trained physician, author of The Autoimmune Solution, founder of Austin UltraHealth, and host of Take Back Your Health. She received her Doctor of Medicine from Louisiana State University Health Science Center in 2005. From there, she served as an Emergency Medicine resident at the University of Maryland Medical Center from 2005-2008, and an Emergency Physician at both Dell Children's Hospital and the University Medical Center Brackenridge from 2008-2010. She was the founder and Medical Director at Austin UltraHealth from 2010-2018, where she helped thousands of patients get to the root cause of their autoimmune, thyroid, and digestive issues. She was able to help them reverse their conditions and reclaim their health. While running Austin UltraHealth, she also completed her certification in Functional Medicine at The Institute of Functional Medicine in 2012. To learn more, visit https://www.amymyersmd.com/.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most people think heart disease is something that happens suddenly. A blocked artery. A heart attack. An emergency that seems to come out of nowhere. But what if that entire framing is wrong? What if cardiovascular disease isn't an event, but a decades-long metabolic process quietly unfolding beneath the surface? Plaque building slowly, Insulin rising gradually, inflammation simmering in the background, and hormonal protection shifting over time.  All while your labs look "normal," you feel "fine," and no one is sounding the alarm. That's the gap. Our healthcare system is exceptional at saving lives in crisis, but it was built to respond to heart attacks, not to ask what was happening 10, 20, or even 30 years before that event. And labs are where most people get falsely reassured. A standard lipid panel might look acceptable, your glucose might fall within range, and your doctor might tell you everything is stable. But stable doesn't necessarily mean low risk. LDL alone doesn't tell the full story, normal glucose doesn't rule out insulin resistance, and inflammation can be actively contributing to vascular damage long before symptoms ever show up. In this episode, interventional cardiologist Dr. Sanjay Bhojraj and I pull back the curtain on what most people miss when it comes to cardiovascular screening.  We explore the hidden metabolic dysfunction that drives plaque progression, the advanced labs that reveal risk earlier, and how to think differently about prevention if your goal isn't just surviving a heart attack… but never having one in the first place.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Heart disease is a process, not a sudden event If plaque progression begins early and builds silently, what markers reveal that process long before a crisis ever happens? "Normal" labs can hide real cardiovascular risk When cholesterol, glucose, and blood pressure fall within range, what underlying dysfunction might still be developing beneath the surface? LDL isn't the full story If ApoB reflects the number of atherogenic particles driving plaque formation, why does it often tell a different story than a standard lipid panel? Hormones and inflammation reshape cardiovascular protection How do shifts in estrogen, chronic inflammation, and metabolic stress alter plaque progression, and what does that mean for long-term prevention?   Guest Bio Dr. Sanjay Bhojraj is a board-certified cardiologist and interventional cardiologist who spent more than two decades in the cath lab treating heart attacks and complex coronary disease. After years on the front lines of acute cardiac care, he experienced a pivotal shift in perspective, recognizing that while conventional medicine is exceptional at saving lives in crisis, it often misses the opportunity to create health upstream. He is a recently appointed faculty member with the Institute for Functional Medicine and brings together advanced cardiovascular training with a root-cause, systems-based approach to metabolic and vascular health. Dr. Bhojraj is the founder of the Well12 Program, where he focuses on cardiometabolic optimization, hormone-informed cardiovascular care, and helping patients get off medications by rebuilding health at the foundation.   Follow @doctorsanjaymd on Instagram or visit https://lagunamedicine.com/ to learn more about Dr. Bhojraj's programs.     About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Healthcare has a reputation for moving slowly. Most people assume the guidelines we follow today are built on current thinking. But the reality is, many of the beliefs, rules, and strategies shaping patient care were formed decades ago, and in some cases, they've remained largely untouched. But in just the 12 months I've been hosting this podcast, I've watched several of those long-standing assumptions begin to shift. Not in small, cosmetic ways, but in meaningful ways that will change lives.  Conversations around hormone therapy are changing. Pediatric care is becoming more nuanced. Nutrition guidance is being rebalanced. Weight loss medications are forcing deeper discussions about body composition and sustainability. And chronic disease is increasingly being reframed as something we can influence earlier, not just manage later. Healthcare is moving away from fear-based generalizations and toward personalization, better data, and earlier intervention, and that's amazing.  If the system is evolving, the real question becomes: are we evolving with it?  In this one-year reflection, I walk through five major shifts I've seen and what they practically mean for how we think about our health going forward.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The hormone narrative is being rewritten For years, the dominant message around estrogen was fear. How has updated guidance and deeper clinical understanding reshaped our thinking about HRT?  One timeline doesn't fit every child Immune development isn't identical across children. How might pediatric care look different if readiness guided the discussion? Rethinking the food pyramid We're finally shifting away from grain-heavy messaging toward protein, metabolic stability, and reduced ultra-processed foods. What does this mean for our daily nutrition?  The scale is a blunt instrument GLP-1 medications have changed the weight-loss landscape, but they've also exposed how little the scale tells us about metabolic resilience. If weight drops but strength declines, what are we really optimizing for?   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

For years, we've approached gut health like a math problem. If you introduced more strains, higher CFUs, ate more fiber, and fermented foods, the body should fall in line. But if that were true, the people doing everything right would already feel amazing. Instead, I see people following the "rules" but still dealing with bloating, skin reactions, hormone chaos, new food sensitivities, and rising inflammation markers. What if the issue is that we're trying to win biological battles in a system that runs on diplomacy? Because the microbiome isn't a product we install, it's an ecosystem we're supposed to manage. Ecosystems depend on infrastructure, communication, territory, timing, and balance. For most people, those things have collapsed from stress, antibiotics, hormonal shifts, or years of under-feeding the right organisms. Throwing more microbes into the chaos makes recovery harder, not easier. Research microbiologist Kiran Krishnan has seen this in both the lab and in clinical outcomes across thousands of patients. What we now know is that the gut ecosystem actually needs stability, fuel, and coordination, not force. So how do we restore order instead of creating more noise? In this conversation, Kiran talks about the gut health practices that actually help microbes rebuild structure and train the immune system properly.  We also discuss why stress behaves like repeated antibiotic exposure, and how tiny breaches in the gut barrier can quietly build toward chronic disease long before symptoms appear.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode More probiotics don't mean better outcomes Flooding the system with high doses of foreign strains can interfere with how the gut naturally rebuilds and organizes itself. When might doing more actually make things worse?   Gut health depends on infrastructure, not just ingredients Bacteria have to survive stomach acid, control their environment, and coordinate repair of the intestinal barrier before benefits can happen. If that terrain isn't stable, what are supplements really able to accomplish? Stress reshapes the microbiome every dayRepeated cortisol spikes can increase permeability, shift microbial territory, and give opportunistic organisms an advantage. How is modern life pushing the ecosystem toward dysfunction?   P.S. Are you looking for gut health supplements that support clear skin, recovery, energy, and immune health? Explore our gut health collection to find the best solution for you: https://magnoliapharmacy.com/collections/gut-health.    Guest Bio Kiran Krishnan is a research microbiologist and the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Microbiome Labs. He specializes in the human microbiome, immune regulation, and systemic inflammation and is widely recognized for translating complex microbiology into practical, real-world strategies. Kiran works closely with clinicians to rethink how gut health influences the entire body. He has been involved in the dietary supplement and nutrition market for the past 17 years. He comes from a strict research background, having spent several years with hands-on R&D in the fields of molecular medicine and microbiology at the University of Iowa. Kiran is also a co-founder and partner in Nu Science Trading, LLC., a nutritional technology development, research, and marketing company in the U.S. Dietary Supplement and Medical Food markets. Most recently, Kiran is acting as the Chief Scientific Officer at Physician's Exclusive, LLC., and Microbiome Labs. He has developed over 50 private-label nutritional products for small to large brands in the global market. He is a frequent lecturer on the Human Microbiome at Medical and Nutrition Conferences. He conducts the popular monthly Microbiome Series Webinars through the Rebel Health Tribe Group practitioner training program, is an expert guest on National Radio and Satellite radio, and has been a guest speaker on several Health Summits as a microbiome expert. Follow @kiranbiome on Instagram.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

When someone is diagnosed with a disease, traditional medicine takes the pill-for-every-pain approach, trying to rifle shot medication to treat the loudest symptoms, not the system that created it. And while medication has its place, it doesn't tell the whole story. Sometimes getting well requires solutions outside of any medication I can dispense as a pharmacist, outside of a protocol a doctor provides.  This is where the science stops, and the spiritual side of healing and treatment comes into play. Going back to nature, community, diet, regulation, and meaning. Dr. Patrick Hanaway knows this from lived experience. When he was diagnosed with stage four laryngeal cancer, what put it into remission wasn't a more aggressive protocol. It was rebuilding the internal and external conditions that allowed his body to heal. He understands that a systems biology approach, not a drug-disease model, is what often determines whether someone recovers or simply manages decline. How do we shift from attacking illness to cultivating health? How can the more spiritual side of disease treatment change outcomes?  In this episode, we talk about how to bring spirituality into your own healing process and how to get your body to repair itself.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The problem with "a pill for every pain." When we treat symptoms in isolation, what deeper processes are we missing that actually drive long-term health? Healing is a biological process, not a technical fix What changes when we stop targeting parts and start working with the whole body, nervous system, and environment? The overlooked role of community and nature in recovery Why do connection, belonging, and time in nature often shift health more than the most advanced interventions? Listening as a clinical skill If patients' bodies already carry the answers, what happens when we finally slow down enough to hear them?   About the Guest Dr. Patrick Hanaway is a board-certified family physician trained at Washington University. Dr. Hanaway served on the Executive Committee for the American Board of Integrative Medicine and is the Past President of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine. For more than 25 years, he has worked with his wife, Dr. Lisa Lichtig, in clinical practice @ Family to Family: Your Home for Whole Health Care in Asheville, NC. After 10 years as Chief Medical Officer at Genova Diagnostics, Dr. Hanaway became the Chief Medical Education Officer for the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) where he oversaw the development and implementation of IFM's programs worldwide, while leading the GI Advanced Practice Module. In 2014, Dr. Hanaway worked with Dr. Mark Hyman to develop the collaboration between IFM and the Cleveland Clinic, where he was the founding Medical Director, then Research Director. The primary focus of Dr. Hanaway's work is to leverage his skills and perspective to add value in healthcare organizations through education, research, and clinical care, particularly in the areas of nutrition and the microbiome. In 2018, Dr. Hanaway was diagnosed with Stage IV Laryngeal Cancer. His life has been transformed through a functional and integrative approach in concert with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, community support, 'forest-bathing', and prayer. 'No Evidence of Disease' is considered a cure, though life continues to be filled with uncertainty. Importantly, Dr. Hanaway was initiated in 2009 as a Mara'akame [indigenous healer] by the Wixarika [Huichol] people of the Sierra Madre in Mexico. He is chairperson of the Blue Deer Center in upstate NY. Patrick holds community fires, leads ceremonies and pilgrimages to sacred sites, and offers traditional healing sessions around the fire at the Sacred Fire Council House in Weaverville, NC. To learn more, visit https://www.familytofamily.org/our-services/traditional-healing and https://www.yourhealingroots.org/.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

When a child suddenly develops anxiety, rage, tics, restrictive eating, or emotional volatility, the system rushes to label and medicate it. But what if those behaviors aren't psychological at all? What if they're inflammatory? What if the brain isn't "misfiring," but reacting loudly to an immune system that's overwhelmed, dysregulated, and unable to turn itself off? In my work, I've watched this pattern repeat over and over. Kids change "overnight," parents think "I've lost my child," and the healthcare system rarely asks the most important question: what happened before the behavior changed? In today's world, children are exposed to environmental toxins, infections, immune stress, chronic inflammation, and genetic vulnerabilities. These lead to the very common sudden behavioral and emotional changes we're seeing in so many young people. And childhood immune dysregulation doesn't stay in childhood. Untreated neuroinflammation can follow kids into adolescence, adulthood, and eventually shape entire family trees. How do we reduce the physical stress driving these changes in so many children and families? What's actually happening beneath the surface of conditions like PANS/PANDAS, eczema, autism, anxiety, and sudden behavioral regression? To unpack this, I'm joined by Dr. Paula Kruppstadt, a board-certified pediatrician and functional medicine physician who works with some of the most complex pediatric cases.  She explains what's driving these sudden changes, why standard approaches often miss it, and what actually helps kids stabilize and recover.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode    When behavior is actually a physical issue Sudden mood swings, anxiety, rage, tics, or regression are often treated as "behavior problems." What if it's a sign that inflammation or infection is affecting how your child feels and acts? Why "it happened overnight" actually matters If your child seemed fine and then suddenly wasn't, that change isn't random. What can abrupt shifts tell you about underlying health issues that often get missed? Food programs immunity How can common foods like gluten, dairy, dyes, and additives quietly contribute to eczema, anxiety, and emotional ups and downs, even when kids seem otherwise healthy? A more precise way to vaccinate Most parents are told to stick to the routine vaccine schedule, but that can push a child's system too hard, too fast. How do we give kids vaccines in a way that protects immunity without unnecessarily adding inflammatory load?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Dr. Paula Kruppstadt is the founder, CEO, and Medical Provider Team Leader for Hope for Healing. She graduated in 1990 from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and completed her pediatric internship and residency at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso in 1993. She promptly earned her Board Certification from the American Board of Pediatrics in 1993, and she is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She served as a U.S. Army pediatrician at Ft Hood, Texas, and then relocated to The Woodlands, Texas, in 1995. She has since worked as a general pediatrician in various venues, including Texas Children's Pediatrics and Texas Children's Urgent Care. Dr. Kruppstadt also served as a pediatric hospitalist and faculty member for Baylor College of Medicine at St. Luke's Hospital in The Woodlands, Texas. Dr. Kruppstadt is a Certified Practitioner of Functional Medicine by The Institute for Functional Medicine—IFMCP. She is one of the few board-certified pediatricians in the world who are certified IFMCP. Because she is an expert on PANS/PANDAS, Texas Governor Greg Abbott appointed her to be a member of the Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome Advisory Council. The Council advises the commission and the Texas legislature on research, diagnosis, treatment, and education related to pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome. Dr. Kruppstadt is the mother of four daughters, who have all worked at Hope for Healing, and she has two grandsons. She is married to Tom Kruppstadt, JD, who serves as COO/CFO and General Counsel for Hope for Healing. To learn more, visit https://get2theroot.com/. You can also schedule a free discovery call or buy a genetic panel here.  About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most women grow up believing estrogen has one job: periods and pregnancy. Nothing you're taught about this hormone would explain why it becomes the invisible force shaping how you think, feel, and function later in life. I have women show up all the time telling me the same story: They don't feel like themselves anymore, their mood feels unstable, their mind feels slower, their sleep is off, and their body feels unfamiliar and unpredictable.  A life that once felt simple and predictable now feels exhausting and hard to manage. We're often told this is just stress, or aging, or something we need to "push through." But these experiences aren't random, emotional, or simply what getting older looks like. They are what happens when a hormone we were taught was minor is actually one of the body's master regulators. Estrogen doesn't operate in one system. It has receptors everywhere. It doesn't influence one function at a time; it helps coordinate all of them.  So when estrogen signaling begins to change (whether slowly through perimenopause, suddenly through surgery, or dramatically through menopause), it doesn't disrupt one area of your life. It destabilizes the whole network. How does estrogen control just about every body system, and what happens when levels become erratic and then depleted? If your estrogen is no longer sending a clear, steady signal, how do we start to restore balance, clarity, and stability inside the body again? In this episode, I talk about how estrogen actually works in the brain, heart, bones, and metabolism, why fluctuating hormones create full-body symptoms, and where most women are being misled about menopause and aging. I also share how to identify the real root cause of your symptoms and take back control of your health and your future.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Estrogen is a master signal, not a sex hormone It influences nearly every major system in the body, so why are women still told it only matters for reproduction? Fluctuation causes chaos, not deficiency alone Why does hormone "instability" trigger symptoms more aggressively than low levels by themselves? Most estrogen fear is based on outdated data How did the wrong hormones, wrong timing, and wrong delivery methods distort the entire narrative on estrogen? Topical estrogen changes the risk equation Why does bypassing the liver make transdermal estrogen safer for the heart, brain, and metabolism? Bone loss, heart disease, and dementia are not inevitable What does the research say about starting estrogen within the "golden window" after menopause?   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most people think disease shows up suddenly. One day you're fine, the next day you're handed a diagnosis. But the truth is, disease and clues of dysfunction often start in a place most people don't think of - the gut. We tend to treat gut symptoms like isolated inconveniences, but when you zoom out, a different pattern starts to emerge. Chronic illness rarely begins overnight; it's the final domino falling after years of microbial loss, antibiotics, stress, surgeries, and modern food systems stripping the gut of resilience. The more we learn, the better we understand that the microbiome is the foundation of human health. It shapes how we age, how we respond to stress and infection, and how vulnerable we become to chronic disease. It's also the reason why we've seen such a huge uptick in autoimmune disease, metabolic dysfunction, neurodegenerative conditions, and unexplained chronic illness.  Because here's the truth about health: the loss of microbes is what's causing us to break down faster than ever before. The process of disease and aging is actually the loss of different bacteria in the gut. Dr. Sabine Hazan is a gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher who has analyzed thousands of stool samples and followed microbial patterns that most of medicine still overlooks.  Her work challenges the idea that there's a single "normal" gut, questions whether current testing even tells the full story, and points to something far more alarming than any one diagnosis: the steady extinction of the bacteria that once protected us. We talk about why digestive symptoms are often the first signal something is wrong, how illness is usually the result of years of accumulation rather than a sudden failure, and why the process of aging itself may be tied to the loss of key microbes in the gut.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The microbiome breaks down long before disease is diagnosed Most chronic conditions don't start when symptoms become severe; they start years earlier in the gut. What signs are we missing because we only look once labs turn "abnormal"? Digestive symptoms are early warning signals, not side issues Bloating, constipation, reflux, and fatigue aren't random inconveniences. Why does the gut often sound the alarm decades before the brain, immune system, or metabolism collapse? Chronic illness is an accumulation problem, not an overnight failure From antibiotics to stress to surgery, health rarely falls apart all at once. How does the domino effect of microbiome damage slowly push the body toward disease? Aging may be driven by microbial loss. As we age, we don't just lose muscle or energy; we lose entire bacterial populations. What happens when protective microbes like bifidobacteria disappear, and can that loss explain why modern aging looks so different?   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 1M on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

If you've been diagnosed with MS or you've been living with it for years, you've probably been told some version of the same story.  This is progressive, unpredictable, and something you'll have to manage for the rest of your life. Maybe you were warned about what you might lose. Maybe you were told to be grateful if things don't get worse. Maybe you learned to brace yourself for fatigue, pain, brain fog, or the slow shrinking of what your body can do. And once that story settles in, it's hard to imagine a different future. The truth about MS is that it doesn't have to be a straight downhill line. You can reduce severity and regain function, and you don't have to rely on medication alone to get relief. Lifestyle modifications can meaningfully improve fatigue, mobility, and quality of life. Lifestyle changes are "nice extras" or only worth trying once everything else has failed. Instead, it reframes them as core tools for reducing severity, slowing progression, and in some cases, reclaiming function that people were told was gone for good. This is something Dr. Terry Wahls knows not just from treating patients with MS but from living through severe disability herself. She understands that you can restore muscle, rewire neural pathways, or give the nervous system the capacity to heal. What lifestyle measures can create the conditions for recovery instead of continued decline? In this episode, Dr. Wahls shares how to support neurological repair, reduce fatigue, and rebuild physical capacity as an MS patient.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  MS doesn't always mean steady decline Many people are told MS only moves in one direction, but that isn't always true. Why do some symptoms improve, even after years, when the body is given the right support? Fatigue isn't a personal failure The crushing exhaustion of MS isn't about willpower or motivation. What's actually draining your energy beneath the surface, and why do certain changes finally make a difference? Medication helps, but it's not the whole picture Drugs can calm inflammation, but they don't rebuild strength, restore clarity, or give you your life back. What else needs to change for your nervous system to recover? You don't have to fix everything to feel better Trying to change everything at once usually leads to burnout. Which small, realistic shifts can reduce symptoms and make daily life feel more manageable again? Guest Bio Dr. Terry Wahls is more than a doctor. She's an educator, a speaker, an author, and she's also a patient. In 2000, she was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. Dr. Wahls was determined not to let the disease control her life, so she began doing her own research. In December 2007, she began the Wahls Protocol®, a therapeutic diet and lifestyle program that focuses on functional medicine and nutrient-rich foods. Learn more about Dr. Terry Wahls' story and her work below. Dr. Terry Wahls was dependent on a tilt-recline wheelchair for four years until she reclaimed her health using a diet and lifestyle program she designed specifically to restore her cellular health. Now, she pedals her bike to work each day. The Wahls Protocol® comes out of Dr. Wahls' own quest to treat the debilitating symptoms she experiences as a sufferer of progressive MS. Informed by science, she began using Paleo principles as guidelines for her unique, nutrient-rich plan. This book shares Dr. Wahls' astonishing personal story of recovery and details the program, with up-to-date research she's now conducting at the University of Iowa. To learn more, visit https://terrywahls.com/.  If you have an autoimmune disorder and want to take part in a clinical trial, go to https://terrywahls.com/trials/.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

Most of us treat our mouths as if they're separate from the rest of our bodies. We're taught that oral health is cosmetic, routine, or something to deal with when it hurts.  But your mouth isn't isolated. It's one of the most biologically active, information-rich parts of your body.  What's happening with your teeth, gums, and mouth can directly influence sleep quality, inflammation, cardiovascular risk, and even cognitive health. Often, long before symptoms show up anywhere else. Dr. Katie To is a wellness dentist who practices dentistry as a full-body systems discipline, not a cosmetic service.  Here's what she sees: Most of us are doing what we were told is "good oral care." We go for regular cleanings, brush, floss, and buy pricey toothpaste.  And yet, almost none of this looks at what's actually happening in the mouth. No saliva testing. No assessment of bacterial balance. No evaluation of how oral health may be affecting breathing, sleep, or inflammation.  And the whole point of oral health gets lost in the confusion. We end up with toothpaste debates, mouthwash routines that damage the oral microbiome, dry out the mouth, and work against the rest of the body, too.  What are the actual essentials of oral health, and what's just hype? What does our oral health reveal about our entire bodies?  In this episode, Dr. To shares why the mouth-body connection has been overlooked for so long. We talk about saliva as the dental equivalent of bloodwork, and how small, overlooked factors in the mouth can become chronic drivers of dysfunction elsewhere.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  No pain ≠ no problem The mouth can carry chronic infection and inflammation silently for years; so, how much disease progression happens before symptoms ever show up? The mouth is not separate from the body Oral health directly affects sleep, inflammation, hormones, and cardiovascular risk, so why are we still treating it like an isolated system? Routine dental care cleans without diagnosing If no saliva testing or microbiome assessment is happening, what are cleanings actually addressing, and what are they missing? Some oral hygiene habits quietly work against your health Could toothpaste choices, mouthwash use, and mouth breathing be undermining your oral microbiome and systemic health at the same time?   About the Guest Dr. Katie To is a Houston-based wellness dentist who takes a whole-body, systems-based approach to oral health. Her work focuses on how the oral microbiome, inflammation, airway health, hormones, and dental materials impact overall wellness — not just teeth. She bridges the gap between dentistry, medicine, and preventative health, helping patients understand how what's happening in their mouth connects to the rest of their body. Go to https://www.thewellnessdentist.com/ to learn more, and follow @drkatieto on Instagram.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Stay Ahead with Steve the Pharmacist! Loving the show? Want more insights into how your body works? Head over to TheTrustedPharmacist.com and sign up with your email! You'll get the latest episodes, plus exclusive health tips to help you take charge of your wellness. Don't miss out – join me today!    

When you visit your doctor with a racing heart when you stand up, dizziness, flushing, gut reactions, fatigue, and brain fog, the appointments almost always end the same way. Your symptoms get filed under the usual suspects. Allergies, IBS, stress, or the catch-all that shuts the conversation down: anxiety. But what if the root cause is a condition you've never even heard of? What gets called anxiety, IBS, allergies, or stress is often something else entirely: conditions like POTS, dysautonomia, or mast cell activation syndrome, which most people (and many clinicians) were never taught to recognize. Amy Bryant is the person people go to when their symptoms don't fit neatly into any one diagnosis, and they've been passed from specialist to specialist without real answers.  She approaches these cases like investigative medicine. Not chasing symptoms one by one, but tracing patterns across the nervous system, immune response, sleep, hormones, and gut function. The challenge with these conditions is that they don't announce themselves clearly. They show up in ways that feel familiar and easy to explain. People start questioning their own bodies. They learn to manage reactions, avoid triggers, and brace themselves for the next flare instead of expecting recovery. How do you identify the underlying condition when no single diagnosis explains everything? How do you move from managing symptoms to actually dealing with what's causing them? In this episode, Amy shares how syndromes like POTS and mast cell activation can sit underneath what gets mislabeled as common, everyday diagnoses. We also talk about how to finally deal with what's driving dysfunction in your body.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Complex symptoms are network failures When multiple systems break down at once, medicine often fragments the problem. How does identifying the shared driver change diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes? POTS and MCAS are rarely standalone conditions These syndromes often emerge from shared roots. How do we stop asking "which one is it?" and start asking "what's driving all of it?" Hormonal transitions can expose hidden instability Perimenopause doesn't always create dysfunction; it reveals it. Why do estrogen shifts unmask mast cell activation and autonomic symptoms in women who were previously "fine"? Recovery capacity determines quality of life Stress, trauma, poor sleep, and gut dysfunction all erode the body's ability to rebound. What if the real goal isn't eliminating stressors, but rebuilding the systems that allow recovery to happen?   About the Guest Amy Bryant is a nurse practitioner at the Center of Lifestyle Medicine in Houston. She specializes in caring for patients with complex overlapping conditions like POTS, mast cell activation, dysautonomia, and chronic inflammatory syndromes using a lifestyle medicine approach and a trauma-informed approach. Amy is an investigator who helps patients get to the root of complex conditions that many practitioners shy away from. Her ability to understand the underlying causes of these conditions and her approach to providing supportive therapeutic elements and individualized protocols for her patients set her apart. Her expertise in Lifestyle Medicine makes her a valuable resource for patients seeking integrative care. Amy also leads the Cancer Support Group Visits at TCLM. During these visits, she provides a safe, non-judgmental, and compassionate space where patients can rely on each other for support, share their experiences, and discuss helpful tools to help navigate their journey in fighting cancer. Amy also provides education about the background of the development and physiology of chronic illnesses, options to manage symptoms holistically, and emotional support for those who need community support. To learn more, visit www.texascenterforlifestylemedicine.org/ or connect with her on LinkedIn.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Follow the Podcast Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!    

Most people assume aging comes with an unavoidable trade-off: more fatigue, slower recovery, more pain, and less capacity to move the way you used to. You train less because you recover poorly, and you recover poorly because you train less.  What's rarely discussed is why recovery breaks down so early, or why all the usual anti-aging advice starts to feel incomplete. You can optimize hormones, prioritize protein, lift weights, and sleep better, and still wake up sore, stiff, and inflamed.  That's where an overlooked molecule called carnosine, and newer delivery tools like LactiGo, enter the conversation. It buffers lactic acid, reduces oxidative stress, limits glycation, and protects muscle tissue. When that buffer disappears, even normal activity starts to feel taxing.  Recovery slows, inflammation lingers, and movement becomes something you have to "push through" instead of something your body supports. Aging isn't about motivation; it's about biology. No amount of willpower overrides a system that no longer rebounds. And no single supplement replaces the fundamentals.  But restoring recovery capacity can make training, hormones, and metabolism work the way they're supposed to again. Why does recovery fail even when people "do everything right"? How do you keep strength, clarity, and independence when recovery isn't automatic anymore? In this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Willie Villarreal, a hormone optimization and performance medicine specialist. He works with elite athletes, military operators, and everyday adults who all face the same question as they age. In this conversation, we explore why restoring carnosine at the tissue level may be a true force multiplier for aging well when paired with the traditional pillars of longevity. We break down how LactiGo, a targeted carnosine delivery approach, fits into a broader anti-aging framework and why muscle is the real currency of aging.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Recovery (not motivation) limits movement as we age Most people don't stop exercising because they're lazy; they stop because their bodies punish them for trying. How does restoring recovery change everything downstream? The role of carnosine in buffering aging itself Carnosine isn't just about lactic acid or soreness. Why has this molecule been ignored for decades, and what changes when it's restored at the tissue level? Muscle is the real anti-aging organ Muscle mass determines metabolic health, insulin sensitivity, and long-term independence. How does recovery failure accelerate sarcopenia, and what does that mean for longevity? Hormones, recovery tools, and lifestyle must work together No single intervention can override poor foundations. How do hormones, protein intake, sleep, and recovery molecules reinforce each other, and what happens when one piece is missing?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. About the Guest Dr. Willie Villarreal is a board-certified nurse practitioner, integrative health practitioner, co-founder of Core Health & Wellness, and a member of the LactiGo team. He specializes in men's and women's health, hormone optimization, and performance medicine. Dr. Villarreal integrates evidence-based medical care with advanced recovery and training strategies to help patients improve strength, energy, and long-term metabolic health. He works with elite athletes, military operators, and everyday adults, all focused on the same thing: helping the body recover better so people can stay strong, sharp, and independent as they age. To learn more, go to https://my.lactigo.com/doctorv https://www.corehealthtx.com/ and https://thecarnosinelab.com/.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare. Follow the Podcast Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!  

Ever since platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini became mainstream tools, people are relying on AI for productivity and answers to different questions…including health and wellness. More patients are turning to AI before they ever turn to a clinician, uploading labs, symptoms, even private medical records, hoping technology will give them clarity and answers faster than the healthcare system ever has. On the surface, it feels empowering. But beneath that empowerment is a growing problem most people don't see yet. Unlike a clinician, AI doesn't see your sleep, your stress, trauma, your body language, or the patterns that only show up when a human being is actually in the room.  When patients start treating AI like a doctor, they often end up going deeper into anxiety, confusion, and rabbit holes that delay real care instead of improving it.  And it's not just patients; doctors are also using AI in the same way. But that doesn't mean using AI is all bad. If we ask better questions, protect our data, and use AI through a holistic lens, AI can actually be a powerful tool for clarity instead of confusion. And that's what Dr. Cheng Ruan is working on. As an internal medicine physician and AI engineer, he's been working at the intersection of trauma-informed care, consciousness, and healthcare systems for over a decade. What if the problem isn't AI itself, but the way we interact with it? How do you get AI to support your health instead of silently steering it? In this episode, Dr. Ruan unpacks what AI is actually good at, where it becomes dangerous, and how it's reshaping the future of medicine.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  AI can make health anxiety worse AI can trap people in endless rabbit holes. How do you stop AI from amplifying anxiety instead of clarity? The hidden danger of uploading your medical data into AI tools Many popular platforms aren't secure or compliant, yet people are uploading labs, discharge summaries, and even social security numbers. What should patients actually know before trusting AI with their private health data? How to ask better questions so AI works for you "I feel" statements and emotional prompting radically change how modern reasoning models respond. Why does this approach lead to more useful insights and fewer dead ends? Why AI won't replace doctors As AI becomes better at knowledge retrieval, clinicians are being valued less for information and more for judgment, context, and relationships. What does the future of medicine look like when connection matters more than credentials? PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Dr. Cheng Ruan is an internal medicine physician and founder of the Texas Center for Lifestyle Medicine, known for its pioneering work in trauma-informed care, AI in healthcare, and is the executive director of the Physician Transformation Institute. He trains clinicians nationwide on nervous-system-based medicine and how to use emerging technology safely and effectively in patient care. Connect with Dr. Ruan on LinkedIn, and follow him on Instagram.  For doctors: join the Physician Transformation Institute.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare. Follow the Podcast Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

In today's world, GI problems are at an all-time high, and more people than ever are dealing with bloating, reflux, constipation, food reactions, irregular bowel habits, and even full-on gut disorders that disrupt daily life.  But gut health (or lack thereof) isn't random. Your gut reflects the state of your lifestyle, stress levels, hormones, diet, medications, and the microbial environment inside you. When those systems fall out of balance, your gut is the first place it shows up, and the last place most doctors look deeper. Unfortunately, gut health is one area where the traditional medical system falls short, and this is something Dr. Radha Tamarisa knows all too well.  She's a gastroenterologist who bridges traditional GI medicine with a deeper understanding of microbiome science, immune pathways, and functional patterns that don't show up on standard scopes or labs. She's the clinician patients often find after years of being told "everything looks fine," even when they feel anything but. The truth about gut health is that the real causes rarely show up on colonoscopies, ultrasounds, or routine bloodwork. SIBO hides behind an IBS diagnosis. Long-term PPI use can quietly reshape the microbiome. Stress and ultra-processed foods can weaken the gut barrier.  So why are gut problems exploding right now? How do you rebuild a gut that's been inflamed, slowed down, or overwhelmed for years? In this episode, we talk about what people are rarely told about their gut, and why root causes, not symptoms, should guide treatment. We also break down the most confusing topics in gut health, and why your symptoms may have nothing to do with food and everything to do with stress, sleep, or motility.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  Why gut symptoms are exploding right now What's really driving today's rise in bloating, IBS symptoms, and inflammatory gut issues, and which pieces of this puzzle can you start improving right away? The effects of long-term PPI use PPIs help in the short term, but years of acid suppression can weaken digestion and alter bacterial balance. What's the safest way to transition off them if you no longer need them? When microbiome and specialty gut testing actually helps Scopes and scans often miss functional issues like dysbiosis, low stomach acid, or motility problems. What can newer testing approaches reveal, and how do you use that information without overdiagnosing yourself? How GLP-1 medications impact the gut GLP-1s reshape appetite and metabolism, but they also slow motility and change digestive rhythm. How can you manage these side effects so the medication supports your health instead of disrupting it? PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   About the Guest Dr. Radha Tamerisa is a board-certified gastroenterologist and the founder of KatyIntegrative Gastroenterology. She has spent more than a decade helping patients finally understand the gut issues that standard testing often overlooks. Her work blends traditional GI medicine with a deeper understanding of microbiome health, motility, inflammation, hormones, stress, and the lifestyle factors that quietly shape digestive function. She's the doctor people end up seeing when they've been told "everything looks normal", even though nothing feels normal, and she's helped thousands of patients get real answers and real relief. To learn more, go to https://www.katygastrodoctor.com/.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare. Follow the Podcast Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

Most women don't enter perimenopause and menopause with clarity; they enter it with fear. That's because so much of what you've been told about hormones comes from outdated education, scary anecdotes, or someone else's terrible experience.  Hormones are framed as a burden, bad experiences are treated like inevitabilities, and hormone therapy is framed as risky, confusing, or something you only try when you're desperate.  Even perimenopause itself is misunderstood; not as a nuanced hormonal transition, but as a chaotic, mysterious stage women are expected to simply "get through." That's why this conversation with Dr. Carrie Jones matters. She's one of the most trusted experts in hormones and women's health.  The truth about hormones is that everything varies: the type, the dose, the delivery method, the timing, the testing, and even the way your body metabolizes them. There is no universal starting point. There is no standard dose, and there is no one "best" hormone.  Yet millions of women today are trying to crowdsource hormone therapy from social media comment sections, which is a bad idea.  Hormone replacement therapy, when done correctly, is far more flexible, safe, and effective than most women have been led to believe. Feeling terrible is not the default. Feeling dismissed is not the expectation. And feeling confused is not a requirement of this stage of life. So how does DIM, one of the most popular supplements online make menopausal symptoms dramatically worse? What kind of testing actually helps you understand where your hormones are going, not just what your levels are?  In this episode, we talk about what women are rarely told about hormones, and why personalization, metabolism, and timing shape everything about the HRT experience. We break down the most confusing topics in the hormone world, from progesterone sensitivity to the myth of "normal labs," to why the route you choose matters just as much as the hormone itself.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The truth about perimenopause  Women are told perimenopause is unpredictable and beyond their control. What's really happening, and what can you do to feel more grounded, comfortable, and supported through it? Progesterone sensitivity isn't random Nutrient levels, liver function, metabolites, and even the ingredients inside your capsule can completely change your experience. Why does progesterone feel amazing for some women and unbearable for others? The route of hormone therapy matters How do you choose hormone therapy that fits your body and your real life instead of trying to force something that fights against it? Hormone testing isn't about a single lab value Standard labs miss the daily fluctuations that explain your symptoms. What can pattern-based or cycle-mapping tests reveal that a one-day blood draw simply can't? PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. About the Guest Carrie Jones, ND, FABNE, MPH, MSCP, is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant, author, and educator on the topic of women's health and hormones with over 20 years in the industry. Dubbed the "Queen of Hormones," Dr. Jones is a Naturopathic Physician who did her 2-year residency focused on women's health and endocrinology. She went on to get her Master of Public Health (MPH), was one of the first to become board certified through the American Board of Naturopathic Endocrinology (FABNE), and is a Menopause Society Certified Practitioner (MSCP). She was the first Medical Director for Precision Analytical (the DUTCH Test), the first Head of Medical Education at Rupa Health, and was on Under Armour's Human Performance Council. She serves as a consultant and educator for several women's health and lab-focused companies. Dr. Jones co-hosted the highly popular show, the Root Cause Medicine Podcast, which has over 10 million downloads, and now hosts her own Hello Hormones podcast. She is the Chief Medical Officer at NuEthix Formulations. To learn more, go to https://www.drcarriejones.com/.  Follow @dr.carriejones on Instagram, subscribe to her YouTube channel, and listen to Hello Hormones on your podcast platform of choice.  About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Follow the Podcast Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

For many women, vaginal health is defined by recurring UTIs and endless cycles of antibiotics. Each treatment brings temporary relief, but the symptoms eventually return, often with no clear explanation and no lasting change.  Over time, the pattern stops feeling like a series of separate infections and begins to resemble something the body continually recreates. Dr. Sebastian Faro, a clinician who has spent decades treating persistent and recurrent vaginal and urinary conditions, knows this all too well. The truth most clinicians miss: what we call "BV" or a "UTI" is often the visible expression of something deeper, a vaginal ecosystem that's been disrupted over time. What gets overlooked is that these recurrences aren't random. They're part of a larger biological pattern that doesn't show up on a quick test or in a routine visit.  The vaginal environment is influenced by pH, lactobacillus levels, gut health, estrogen, and even the way the colon and bladder interact with the vagina. When that system is out of balance, antibiotics may quiet the symptoms, but the underlying conditions remain… and the cycle continues. How can someone on the "right" medication still struggle to find permanent relief? What does it actually take to address vaginal dysfunction so it resolves rather than resets? In this episode, we discuss why these problems persist despite the medication seeming effective, and what needs to change for the body to finally stabilize.  Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The problem isn't the infection, it's the ecosystem Most women are given antibiotics without addressing the disrupted gut–vagina–bladder axis that keeps recreating symptoms. How do you rebuild the microbiome instead of attacking it?  Why antibiotics can make the problem worse Repeated prescriptions kill good bacteria, select for resistant strains, and strengthen biofilms. How does treating BV or UTIs like a simple infection create long-term recurrence?  The "vital sign" no one checks anymore A healthy vaginal pH protects against pathogens, but almost no clinicians measure it. What happens when you restore pH instead of chasing symptoms?  The estrogen connection most clinicians overlook Estrogen determines glycogen production, which feeds lactobacillus, and without it, no probiotic can take hold. How does supporting estrogen change vaginal health in both pre- and post-menopausal women? P.S. Are you looking for targeted support for recurring UTIs, BV, or vaginal microbiome imbalance? Explore Nature's Women's Restorative Probiotic and see how it can help you restore long-term balance: https://magnoliapharmacy.com/products/natures-womens-restorative-probiotic   About the Guest Dr. Sebastian Faro is one of the world's leading OB/GYNs who has practiced general obstetrics and gynecology for over 40 years. He is an expert in vaginal and urinary health with decades of clinical experience treating complex cases of BV, UTIs, and microbiome disruption. He's authored numerous scientific publications and helped develop Nature's Women's Restorative Probiotic to support optimal vaginal pH and microbiome balance. To learn more, visit https://luna-obgyn.com/ or call 713-465-1800.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Follow the Podcast Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!    

Every year we tell ourselves the same lie: "I'll just eat a little differently during the holidays… it won't affect me that much." But the truth is, it's not the cookies, casseroles, or holiday punch that hit you the hardest; it's the silent blood-sugar roller coaster underneath it all.  Most people have no idea how dramatically their energy, mood, sleep, and cravings shift simply because they ate the right foods in the wrong order… or they sat down instead of moving for 10 minutes after a meal… or they drank their carbs instead of chewing them. What I've learned working with patients is this: you can eat the same foods, at the same time, with completely different outcomes, because what spikes one person's blood sugar barely moves another's.  So what do you do when you want to enjoy the season and avoid feeling exhausted, puffy, stressed, and foggy for three straight weeks?  In this episode, I unpack simple strategies that flatten glucose spikes, the food-order tricks that change your metabolic response instantly, and why artificial sweeteners may be doing more harm than sugar.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The myth of "same meal, same impact" Blood sugar responses vary dramatically from person to person based on gut bacteria, stress, sleep, and muscle mass. How do you figure out what your body is actually responding to? Why eating order beats cutting carbs The sequence of protein, fat, fiber, and carbs can flatten glucose spikes more effectively than strict restriction. How do you build meals in a way that supports stable energy without giving up the foods you enjoy? Movement that outperforms medication Short bursts of walking or resistance work after meals can lower glucose spikes by 20–30%, so how do you use small, doable movements to support better metabolic control?   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Follow the Podcast Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

When Tramadol hit the market, it was hailed as the miracle middle ground. A safer opioid that could ease chronic pain without the addictive risks of morphine or hydrocodone. Doctors prescribed it widely, pharmacists trusted it, and patients finally felt like there was something they could take long-term without fear. But now, a new British Medical Journal study has revealed a very different story. For chronic pain, Tramadol barely outperforms a placebo, and worse, in many cases, it causes more harm than relief.  What once looked like a gentler alternative is now revealing a more complicated story, one that has less to do with strength and more to do with how this drug interacts with your body over time. Because the truth is, pain isn't just a signal to suppress; it's a system your body built to protect you. When that system gets out of balance, it can amplify even the smallest discomfort into chronic suffering. And while medication can help short term, it rarely teaches the body how to reset itself. Understanding that difference is the key to real, lasting relief. So what do you do when the medicine that's supposed to help starts making you feel worse?  In this episode, I break down what this new research means for long-term pain management, why Tramadol may not be the "safe opioid" we were promised, and how to start your own pain reset.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The myth of the "safe" opioid Tramadol was once seen as a breakthrough for chronic pain, but what does the latest research reveal about why it may actually work against long-term healing? The pain system, explained Pain isn't your enemy; it's your body's alarm system. What happens when that system gets stuck in the "on" position, and how do you turn it back down? Why medications lose their power over time If painkillers stop working, does it mean your body is failing or that your nervous system has adapted in ways you can reverse? How to reset pain naturally From movement and sleep to supplements and low-dose naltrexone, what small, daily changes can help you calm your pain system and finally feel relief?   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.  

Most people are shocked to learn that a 40-year-old drug originally used to treat opioid addiction is now one of the most promising tools for reversing chronic inflammatory disease. It's called low-dose naltrexone (LDN), and instead of shutting down your immune system like steroids or biologics, it rebalances it. Because here's what almost no one is talking about: the vast majority of health issues we're dealing with today, from autoimmune flares and chronic pain to long COVID, gut disorders, infertility, and even depression, are rooted in one thing: an immune system stuck in a constant state of inflammation. And while most medications are designed to slam that system into silence, LDN does something completely different. It teaches the immune system how to reset itself. We're talking about a medication that's helping people with autoimmune disorders, long COVID, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, infertility, depression, and even weight resistance, not by suppressing symptoms, but by getting the immune system back into balance. What makes Low Dose Naltrexone such a game-changer, and why is it having a resurgence? How does it work on a cellular level to calm inflammation? In this episode, I'll walk you through everything I've learned after years of dispensing LDN: the research, the real-world results, the dosing strategies most people get wrong, and the conditions that respond the best.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The inflammation trap Chronic inflammation doesn't just create symptoms; it drives disease. What would shift in your treatment plan if you worked upstream instead of chasing symptoms downstream? LDN as an immune modulator, not a suppressant Most drugs silence the immune system and leave you vulnerable. How does LDN restore balance instead, and why does that matter if you're battling autoimmunity, long COVID, or depression? Why dosing is everything LDN isn't one-size-fits-all. How do you find the "sweet spot" dose for your body and condition, and why do most people start too high? Stacking LDN for better results From vitamin D and omega-3s to probiotics and gut support, what combinations help unlock LDN's full potential?   Want to learn more or find a doctor who actually understands LDN? Go to LDNResearchTrust.org; it's the best resource for research, dosing, and prescribers who know how to use it properly.   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.  

Most people believe the way to fight cancer is to attack it. Shrink tumors, blast cells, and destroy anything abnormal. But what if the real key isn't killing cancer… It's creating a body where cancer can't survive? That's the philosophy behind Dr. Nalini Chilkov's life's work. As a globally recognized leader in integrative oncology and founder of the OutSmart Cancer System, she's spent decades teaching patients that cancer doesn't arrive out of nowhere; it finds the conditions it needs. Stress, toxins, inflammation, and neglect turn the body into fertile soil for disease. Health, just like illness, is cultivated over time. The other issue is how conventional oncology deals with cancer. Most people are rushed into treatment before they've even caught their breath. The diagnosis hits, the fear takes over, and suddenly life becomes a calendar of appointments and infusions. But cancer is rarely an emergency; it's a signal.  Because the body is never neutral, every thought, every bite of food, every night of broken sleep is information. When you start to see your biology as responsive rather than static, treatment stops being something that happens to you and becomes something you actively shape.  Your gut health, your blood sugar, your breath, your rest; they're not afterthoughts, they're instructions you give your own cells. What's the difference between traditional oncology and Dr. Chilkov's approach? Beyond shrinking tumors, how does it influence the terrain that determines whether that tumor can return?  In this episode, we discuss how to build a body that resists disease rather than harboring it. We explore the connection between gut health and immunity, the role of sleep, fasting, and protein in recovery, and how lifestyle signals can either promote or suppress cancer growth.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The terrain theory of cancer The goal of an integrated approach to cancer isn't just to kill cancer cells, but to change the environment they grow in. How does your body's "soil" determine whether disease takes root? Why cancer isn't an emergency Most people are rushed into treatment out of fear. What happens when you slow down, ask better questions, and design a personalized plan that fits your life? Gut health and immunity A healthy microbiome is one of the strongest predictors of positive cancer outcomes. How can simple habits like fiber, fermented foods, and hydration transform your recovery? The power of protein, sleep, and fasting How do everyday choices like protein intake, intermittent fasting, and consistent sleep literally reprogram your immune system and enhance treatment success?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people.   Guest Bio Dr. Nalini Chilkov is a globally recognized expert in integrative oncology and the creator of the OutSmart Cancer System. She combines the best of modern medicine and traditional medicine to help patients create a body where cancer can't survive. She's the founder of the American Institute of Integrative Oncology and author of the bestselling book, 32 Ways to Outsmart Cancer. To learn more, and to get the free guide, "The Cancer-Fighting Supplements To Create A Body Where Cancer Cannot Thrive," go to outsmartcancer.com.  About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.  

We've been taught to think of the brain as the command center of our mental health - sending orders, dictating moods, and controlling focus. What if the brain is just half the equation? What if the real commander is your gut? The brain and gut are far more connected than most people realize. Every bite you take sparks a chemical conversation between them; one that can calm your mind or trigger anxiety, brain fog, and low motivation. For years, we've tried to fix those symptoms with pills, hoping chemistry alone could restore balance. But the truth is, no drug can outsmart an inflamed gut. The science now shows that your mental health is not just in your head. It's shaped by the bacteria in your intestines, the food on your plate, and the way you manage stress, sleep, and community. When the gut falters, the brain follows, but when you repair the gut, you can literally rewire your mood and energy at the genetic level. How do we fix the gut, and how does that impact the brain?  In this episode of The Trusted Pharmacist, I break down the five-step process to restore a healthy gut-brain connection. I talk about how to remove irritants, re-inoculate with key psychobiotics, repair the gut lining, and rebalance lifestyle habits that calm the nervous system.  Things You'll Learn In This Episode  The gut-brain highway Your gut talks to your brain every minute of the day. Could the anxiety and brain fog you feel be signals of distress from your microbiome? Inflammation: the hidden saboteur When gut bacteria leak toxins into the bloodstream, they inflame the brain's immune system. How do you quell this invisible fire? The nutrient-absorption trap Even the best diet or supplements can fail if your stomach acid and bile aren't working. Are you actually absorbing what your brain needs to thrive? Five steps to rebuild the connection From removing irritants to restoring vagal tone, what evidence-based strategies can transform mental clarity and mood from the inside out?   References  PMC 12436269 (2025) – Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis in Neurodegenerative Diseases. Microbiota–gut–brain axis in neurodegenerative diseases: molecular mechanisms and therapeutic targets ScienceDirect (2025) – New Insights in the Gut–Brain Axis: Bioelectrical Microbiome. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214799325000839 Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (2025) – Microbiota–Gut–Brain Axis in Mental and Neurodegenerative Disorders. Frontiers | The microbiota–gut–brain axis in mental and neurodegenerative disorders: opportunities for prevention and intervention PMC 12405295 (2025) – Neuroplasticity and the Microbiome. Neuroplasticity and the microbiome: how microorganisms influence brain change PMC 11846350 (2025) – Plasma Short‑Chain Fatty Acids and Cognition. Association between plasma short-chain fatty acids and inflammation in human immunodeficiency virus-associated neurocognitive disorder: a pilot study PMC 11959655 (2025) – Bile Acid Signal Transduction and Neurological Function. Dysregulation of bile acid signal transduction causes neurological dysfunction in cirrhosis rats PMC 12071821 (2025) – Mechanisms of Bile Acids and Receptors in Brain Inflammation. Research Progress on the Mechanism of Bile Acids and Their Receptors in Depression PMC 10051340 (2023) – Tryptophan and Kynurenine Pathway in Microbiota–Brain Interactions. The Tryptophan and Kynurenine Pathway Involved in the Development of Immune-Related Diseases Nature (2025) – The Stomach's Turn: Elucidating the Gut–Brain Axis. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220‑025‑00489‑1 10. Gut (2025) – Fasting and Cognition Via Microbiota Resets. https://gut.bmj.com/content/74/11/1828 11. Nature (2025) – Probiotics Reduce Negative Mood Over Time. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44184‑025‑00123‑z   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.       Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!  

Most people think of food as fuel: calories in, calories out. But that's not even close to the truth. Food is information. It's the language your body speaks in to turn genes on or off, to heal or to harm.  Every bite you take is either moving you closer to inflammation and disease… or reprogramming your body to perform like a Ferrari instead of an old pickup truck. That's not an exaggeration. It's the foundation of Dr. Barry Sears' life's work. Long before "biohacking" was a buzzword, he was using food as a drug, manipulating macronutrients and omega-3 fatty acids to literally engineer metabolism at the genetic level.  What if you could treat your metabolism the same way an engineer tunes a high-performance machine, not by adding more fuel, but by optimizing the signals that keep it running?  That's the promise behind using food as a drug. Because inflammation isn't random, it's a software glitch. When the signals between your cells and hormones get scrambled by poor nutrition, stress, or the wrong kinds of fat, your metabolism breaks down. You gain weight, lose focus, and speed up the aging process without realizing it. But the same mechanism that breaks you down can also rebuild you. The right balance of protein, carbohydrates, and omega-3s doesn't just prevent disease, it reprograms how your genes behave. You can turn off chronic inflammation, sharpen mental clarity, improve insulin sensitivity, and even reverse conditions like type 2 diabetes with precision nutrition.  How do we eat to reprogram our bodies? Why does the balance between omega-6 and omega-3 fats determine everything?  In this conversation, the leading biochemist, Metabolic Engineering pioneer, and creator of the Zone Diet shares how food can do what a pill can't, and how to lower inflammation, reverse diabetes, and improve performance at every age.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  -Food as genetic code What if food isn't fuel but software? How can the right mix of protein, carbs, and omega-3s reprogram 30 trillion cells for peak performance? -The real cause of aging and disease Most people think it's genetics, but what if it's unresolved inflammation below the pain threshold, silently damaging your cells every day? -The omega-3 to omega-6 equation Japanese longevity isn't luck. What ratio of fats keeps inflammation in check, and why are most Americans twenty times out of balance? -Why "balance" beats every fad diet From keto to fasting, extreme diets miss the point. What happens when you bring your metabolism back to its therapeutic zone instead? P.S. Are you looking for a high-quality Omega supplement? Buy our Ultra Omega Max here:  https://magnoliapharmacy.com/products/ultra-omega-max.  Guest Bio Dr. Barry Sears is an author, leading biochemist, and creator of the Zone diet. He is considered the founder of Metabolic Engineering based on his ground-breaking research on the dietary manipulation of the hormones that control the initiation and resolution of inflammation. Dr. Barry Sears' groundbreaking research on diet, hormones, and inflammation has sold millions of books worldwide. As the founder of the Inflammation Research Foundation, he has dedicated his career to showing how food acts as medicine to treat chronic disease and extend health span. To learn more, go to https://zoneliving.com/ and https://drbarrysears.com/.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!  

When most people think about hormones, they think sex, reproduction, or maybe aging. But that's far too narrow. Hormones are the Wi-Fi of your body. They are the invisible signals that keep your brain sharp, your gut sealed, your heart protected, and your immune system resilient.  When that Wi-Fi weakens, nothing else runs the way it should. That idea comes straight from Dr. Devaki Lindsey Berkson, a trailblazer in functional medicine who has spent decades translating complex hormone science into clear, practical insights. And it matters, because the story most of us have been told about hormones is flat-out wrong. Estrogen has been vilified, progesterone dismissed, and women told they've "missed their window" for therapy. But that narrative isn't based on science; it's fueled by fear, bias, and outdated education. The research actually shows that natural hormones protect against disease, support healing, and can transform quality of life well into a woman's seventies, eighties, and nineties. In this episode, we cut through the myths and confusion about hormones.  We unpack why synthetic progestins are so harmful, how emotional arguments have overshadowed evidence, and what the science really tells us about hormone therapy at every stage of life.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  -Hormones as the body's Wi-FiHormones don't just regulate reproduction; they run the signals for your brain, gut, immunity, and healing. What happens when that Wi-Fi goes offline? -The progesterone vs. progestin problemMost women are prescribed synthetic progestins, not real progesterone. What harm do these impostors cause, and why aren't patients told the difference? -Emotion vs. science in hormone debatesMuch of the fear surrounding hormones is emotional, rather than evidence-based. How does science actually stack up against the myths? -The myth of the "estrogen window"Is it really too late to start hormones after your 60s or 70s, or can thoughtful replacement transform health at any age?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. Guest Bio Dr. Devaki Lindsey Berkson, MA, DC, CNS, DACBN, ACN, is known as a thought leader in functional medicine. With an emphasis on hormones, nutrition, and digestion, Dr. Berkson has been a distinguished scholar at an estrogen think tank from Tulane University. She is a best-selling author of 22 books, such as the first gut/body/mind/nutrition book (Healthy Digestion the Natural Way, Wiley, 1998) and the breakthrough book on endocrine-disrupting compounds (Hormone Deception, McGraw-Hill, 2000). Berkson has taught relicensing seminars to professionals (MDs, pharmacists, chiropractors, NDs, acupuncturists, nutritionists) as well as symposiums for the lay public for almost four decades. Dr. Devaki Lindsey Berkson specializes in complex cases, high-risk hormonal patients, and severe gastroenterologic cases, trying to avoid surgery. Berkson knows how to connect the dots of cutting-edge research and has a large background of personal clinical experience with success in difficult cases to pull from. Dr. Berkson is an agile thinker with lots of clinical, academic, and scientific background and has been in practice as a nutritionist since the mid-1970s and as an integrative nutritional, gastrointestinal, and endocrine specialist since the early 1980s. Berkson consults all over the world. She works remotely as a consultant and can also work with your own doctors and become part of your personalized healthcare team. Visit https://drlindseyberkson.com/ to learn more, or subscribe to her Substack https://drlindseyberkson.substack.com/.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.   Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!

Hormones are at the center of women's health. Unfortunately, the stories we've been told (and the treatment that's provided) about are riddled with myths.  Women believe that hormone replacement therapy is dangerous.  They're handed birth control pills for years without being told what it might mean for their long-term health.  Perimenopausal women are told they can only get hormone replacement when they are in menopause.  New mothers are left believing there's little they can do about the hormonal crash that comes after pregnancy. The truth is far more nuanced. Hormones aren't villains to fear or band-aids to hand out without thought.  That's where Elise Clark comes in. A nurse practitioner with deep experience in endocrinology, women's health, and functional medicine, she's made it her mission to dismantle these misconceptions and give women the clarity they deserve. Hormones are powerful tools that, when understood and used correctly, can protect long-term health and restore quality of life.  Yet too often, women are left in the dark, navigating misinformation and missing out on solutions that could change everything. What are the biggest misconceptions about hormones? How do we tackle the hormone-related health challenges women face?  In this episode, we dig into the most common hormone myths, from the breast cancer stigma around HRT, to the hidden downsides of birth control to postpartum hormone therapy.    Things You'll Learn In This Episode  -Hormones and cancer: myth vs. reality The data is clear: bioidentical hormones don't cause cancer; in fact, outcomes are often better. So why are women still told the opposite? -Birth control's hidden costs Beyond pregnancy prevention, long-term use can disrupt metabolic health, mask PCOS, and raise inflammation. What are the overlooked tradeoffs no one explains? -The overlooked phase: perimenopause Hot flashes, heavy periods, mood swings, these aren't just "part of life." How can progesterone make the transition smoother? -Postpartum recovery and progesterone From anxiety to sleep struggles, women are often given expensive infusions or antidepressants. Could a simple, affordable hormone be the safer solution?   PS. If you enjoy the show, remember to leave a review on your favorite podcast app! Reviews help the podcast reach a wider audience and help more people. Guest Bio Elise Clark is a nurse practitioner, functional medicine expert, and health optimization expert. She has been in the nursing field for over 15 years, with the majority of that being as a nurse practitioner. She found her way into functional medicine after gaining experience in family practice and endocrinology. Elise realized there was more she could be doing for patients than what the traditional model offered, and she wanted to truly help people. She has been in the functional space for almost 10 years and has extensive experience with hormones, thyroid issues, female issues, gut health, nutrient deficiencies, and overall health optimization. Most recently, Elise co-founded a joint practice, Evergreen Functional Collective, to help expand patient access to functional care. To learn more, go to https://www.eliseclarkhealth.com/ and https://evergreenfunctional.com/. Follow @eliseclarkfnp on Instagram.    About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today, Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.       Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!  

Most of us know the gut microbiome matters, but hardly anyone talks about the vaginal microbiome. Yet this tiny community of bacteria plays an outsized role in women's health. When it's in balance, you don't notice it. But when it's not, it can quietly set the stage for a long list of problems: recurring UTIs, yeast infections, BV, dryness, painful intimacy, even infertility and pregnancy complications. What's surprising is how often these issues get treated as separate problems when, in reality, the common thread is usually the same: an unhealthy or depleted microbiome. cause of stress, the microbiome weakens, and all those symptoms start to appear. The hopeful news is that balance can be restored. From vaginal probiotics and targeted strains to supplements, science now shows there are practical, effective ways to strengthen this first line of defense. And when you do, the ripple effect often improves far more than just vaginal health; it changes overall well-being. In this episode of The Trusted Pharmacist, I share how to finally break the cycle of antibiotics and recurring infections, and what it really takes to build lasting vaginal microbiome protection.   Things You'll Learn In This Episode  -Why diversity isn't always better Unlike the gut, the vaginal microbiome thrives on just a few defenders. What happens when too many different strains compete for space? -The hidden role of estrogen Estrogen protects your vaginal health. Could falling levels explain the sudden rise in UTIs, dryness, and discomfort during menopause? -Oral vs. vaginal probiotics Most people take probiotics orally, but evidence shows vaginal use resets the balance far faster. Which approach works best, and when should you use both? -How to stop the UTI spiral If you've been on antibiotics over and over again, you know the relief never lasts. What simple shifts and natural supports can actually stop infections from coming back?   P.S. Are you looking for a vaginal probiotic tailored to your unique needs? Explore our Women's Restorative Probiotic and find the best solution for you: https://magnoliapharmacy.com/products/natures-womens-restorative-probiotic   About Your Host Steve Hoffart is an award-winning pharmacist, entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster. As the visionary founder of Magnolia Pharmacy, Steve saw a need for a more personal pharmacy that could make a bigger impact. Today Steve and his team of experts deliver on that promise, working with patients and their physicians to solve medication problems and offer personalized solutions to achieve better health and wellness. As host of The Trusted Pharmacist podcast and through his combined reach of over 250,000 on social media, Steve shares actionable advice on nutrition, supplements, and wellness strategies while advocating for meaningful change in healthcare.     Follow the Trusted Pharmacist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you get the latest episodes! If the show has been helpful, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts —or simply tell a friend about the show. Each time you share the show, you are potentially changing someone's life!