The Energy Fix Episode 108 - FINAL.mp3
2025-04-03
Transcript
0:00:13 Tansy Rodgers: Welcome back to the Energy Fix, a podcast dedicated to help you balance your energetic body by diving deep into the sweet world of all things health and spirituality. My name’s Tansy and I’m an intuitive crystal Reiki energy healer, energetic nutrition and holistic health practitioner, and a crystal jewelry designer. It’s time to talk all things energy.
0:00:38 B: Let’s dive in.
0:00:40 Tansy Rodgers: There’s something so empowering about the reminder that our bodies were designed to heal, not just survive, but actually thrive. And I think this is so important to remember, especially as we’re getting older. Our bodies are meant to heal, not just survive as we’re getting older.
0:01:00 B: Right?
0:01:00 Tansy Rodgers: Like to actually heal and thrive. And remembering that can really shift your perspective on how you do actually heal. That healing isn’t just about avoiding the worst case scenario. It’s about building vitality from the inside out. And in today’s episode, I am joined by the brilliant Dr. John Newsted. He’s a neuropathic doctor, a best selling author, and an expert in functional healing and osteoporosis.
0:01:32 Tansy Rodgers: He’s here to really shine a light on something that we don’t talk about enough. And that is how medication, gut imbalances and lifestyle disconnects can silently contribute to actually weakening your bones and what you can do about it. Starting today, my creative soul, we are going to be talking all about prevention, root cause medicine, aging vibrantly, and reclaiming your bone health in a way that honors the whole body, not just the diagnosis.
0:02:08 Tansy Rodgers: So whether you’re actively navigating osteoporosis or you’re supporting someone who is or just ready to stop outsourcing your health, this episode will hit home for sure. And speaking of healing from the inside out, I am so excited today. If you are listening on this to this episode, on the day that this comes out, the doors to the Energy Alchemy Circle are officially open. This is my sacred community space and monthly membership where we are fusing functional healing, energy work, emotional regulation, movement and crystal medicine so that you can finally shift from surviving to soul aligned thriving.
0:02:55 Tansy Rodgers: And I’m more excited because it is creating that community. Community has been so important to me. It’s why I love doing this podcast, to create community for the listeners and for the guests and just to bring like minds together and to talk about these conversations. So I haven’t had a spiritual specific opportunity where I can really bring that community aspect into existence. And this is what it is.
0:03:25 Tansy Rodgers: It is the Energy Alchemy circle that is going to really fulfill that part of what I needed to fulfill. So if you’ve been craving a grounded place to deepen your healing, to awaken your intuition and feel supported by like hearted soul souls, then this is for you. This is my 20 plus years culmination of all of the aspects of the work that I do brought into one space. You can check it out and sign up over@tansy rogers.com
0:03:59 Tansy Rodgers: membership and if you’ve been feeling the nudge, this is. This is it. Don’t wait. This is your energetic yes, you can head down into the show notes and grab that link of course. And don’t forget the Crystal Reset workshop is happening this Thursday, April 10th at Reiki by Ricky in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. So if you are local and you’re looking for an an interactive immersive hands on workshop with me and with other like minds, then this is your chance to reconnect. To reconnect with your crystals, your intention and your body’s wisdom in a high vibe immersive space space.
0:04:40 Tansy Rodgers: Only two days left to sign up so make sure you head down to the show notes and grab that link and get your spot. It is spots limited. All right, let’s get into this powerful conversation with Dr. Neustadt and really dive into talking about what it means to fracture proof your bones and your energy. Let’s dive in foreign.
0:05:08 B: Welcome to the energy fix, Dr. Newsted. Thank you so much for being here today.
0:05:13 Dr. John Neustadt: Thank you and please call me John.
0:05:15 B: Sure will. All right, well John, as we get into this conversation, as we talk all about bones and skeletal structure, I want really though, the listener to get to know you, where you’re at right now and what’s important to you. So before we dive into all of the nitty gritty on bone health, let’s talk about what word or phrase is really embodying you right now at this phase of your life.
0:05:44 Dr. John Neustadt: I love this question because every year I do a word of the year. What is that one concept or word that I’m going to focus on? And I don’t. I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions, but if I got it pared down to what is the theme that I’m really going to focus on this year? That word that came to me at the first of the year was rekindle. And what does that mean to me? It means rekindle that flame of passion and excitement that maybe I’ve not been focusing on enough because I’m so busy with work and kids and my marriage and the house and all these things that we all have on our plates.
0:06:22 Dr. John Neustadt: That there, there are certain passions that I’ve, that I’ve had that are so important for my own physical, mental, spiritual. Spiritual and emotional health that maybe have, have taken a back seat. And so this year is about reconnecting, making sure I’m connecting with all parts of myself in that way.
0:06:41 B: I love that. John, that really leads me to ask you this next question, which is simple, but it’s also potentially really hard. Life gets busy, work, relationships to do, lists. When that happens, how do you stay connected to this rekindling energy?
0:07:02 Dr. John Neustadt: That’s such a great question. What I do is I have a morning routine. So the first thing I actually do in the morning when I open my eyes is I say a prayer and I set my vision for my future, not necessarily for today. I’ve set goals for what I want things to look like for me this year and five years down the road. And I, and I visualize that in detail. And through that visualization it becomes more, more real. And then my actions throughout the day, it’s just easier for them to comply with creating that reality.
0:07:41 B: I love that. That is an excellent answer. And I will tell you it is very, very helpful that visioning that connecting in it pulls you closer to your values. It reminds you every single day what your core values are and what’s actually important. So you can stay focused.
0:08:02 Dr. John Neustadt: Absolutely. And I, and I’m a big believer of, of energy, whatever energy that we are putting out, whatever energy we are creating within ourselves through our intentions, through our actions, through our energy state, whether it’s a low energy state with depression or a high energy state with excitement and being engaged. We attract others, we attract that same energy to ourselves. And so I try and embody that every day.
0:08:31 B: Well, let’s talk about that attraction. You know, you have such a great fusion in your career. You’ve dedicated time merging from natural and functional medicine and, or I’m sorry, merging to that natural and functional medicine. What was that pivotal moment in your life that really attract you to being focused on the kind of work that you’re doing right now?
0:08:59 Dr. John Neustadt: When I was in my 20s, I was a project manager for software companies in Seattle and I started to get sick. I was into healthy eating. Seattle, the gardening in Seattle is amazing. I grew quite a bit of my own food. I was rock climbing and bought biking to work and doing some mountaineering and hiking. I was into to fitness and yet I was getting sick. I went to a medical doctor at the time and he just had his, he had his prescription pad out when he walked in the room.
0:09:33 Dr. John Neustadt: I wanted to ask questions. I was asking questions, trying to understand what was going on with me, what could I do? And he became visibly impatient. He just wanted to write a prescription and move on. And his basic demeanor was, you just got, got to live with it. This is life. And. And off you go. I didn’t like the answer. I realized that medicine, like anything else out there, is really a service industry.
0:09:59 Dr. John Neustadt: And so I didn’t like the service I got. I had heard of Bastyr University, which is a naturopathic medical school in the Pacific Northwest, and they had a teaching clinic just, you know, down the road. I made up an appointment, I went in. I was fortunate enough that the chief medical officer at the time was the attending physician position with two student clinicians. They took their time with me. They answered all of my questions.
0:10:26 Dr. John Neustadt: They gave me things that I could do to improve my, my health. They empowered me. But at the very end, it was the last thing that Dr. Wallace told to me that had the greatest impact. He got to know me so well and what that he said to me at the end of that conversation, you need to quit your job. He recognized that it was the environment that I was putting myself in every day in this career, in this job that I really didn’t love.
0:10:56 Dr. John Neustadt: That stress, that chronic stress, which is so dangerous to our health, that’s what was making me sick. And I’d been thinking about toying with the idea of medical school. And I looked at, you know, conventional medical school and do school and nd school and really wanted to look at that integrative approach. And I think that was just the third party validation that I needed at that age and at that time in my life to know that I was needed to make a change.
0:11:26 Dr. John Neustadt: And so I did. And I left that career and started the enrollment process into medical school. And here I AM now, my goodness, 25, 26 years later.
0:11:38 B: Wow. You know, the last time I looked, and this was years ago, they estimated that it was about 80% of emergency room and hospital visits were directly connected to a stress related incident or a stress related issue. And I find it so interesting because unfortunately, there are so many people who experienced what you did when they went, when they, when they went or do go to the doctor. And then that just seems to give conventional medicine a really bad rap, you know, because it’s not really.
0:12:13 B: We want somebody to listen to us, but we’re not getting heard. And I love that you recognize that. You said, no, no, no, no, I’m not okay with that. Something needs to change and I need something different.
0:12:26 Dr. John Neustadt: The stress response is a body signal that, that something’s not right, something’s out of alignment. And we do know that when people are under chronic stress, it creates chronic inflammation. When people are under high levels of stress and cortisol increases. It also increases blood sugar and reduces insulin sensitivity and increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, for diabetes, for many other chronic conditions, including insomnia and depression.
0:12:56 Dr. John Neustadt: And one of the other things, though, that is not frequently discussed. In fact, I’ve never seen it discussed other than in my book. And the work that I’ve done is in the research. What it shows is that chronic stress elevated levels of cortisol even within the normal level. There was a study done where they looked at healthy volunteers, meaning without osteoporosis, and they looked, they tested their cortisol levels, and what they discovered was even people that were in the normal range, towards the high end of normal, had faster bone loss.
0:13:28 Dr. John Neustadt: There’s a category of drugs, glucocorticoids, which are essentially like our cortisol, that we produce, prednisone, prednisolone, dexamethasone, those are all drugs within that category. They are known to be powerful bone destroyers. And there are lots of drugs, I’m sure we’ll get into it, many medications that, that do that. But even our own natural cortisol in within the normal level, living that unbalanced, high stress life, it’s killing us and it’s destroying people’s bones.
0:13:57 B: Wow. How long do you think or have seen that chronic stress starts to play a big factor on bone health?
0:14:07 Dr. John Neustadt: So that we don’t know that data at all. And there’s no way for anybody, I think, to really, really answer that. What we know is that, you know, if people aren’t. The closest I can get is really probably the looking at insomnia, that the definition of insomnia is the difficulty sleeping for three months. So it has to be for three, three months. But what we know is even not sleeping well for, you know, 24, 48, 72 hours reduces mood, reduces energy, reduces ability. People’s ability to think can increase cortisol.
0:14:47 Dr. John Neustadt: In fact, not getting enough sleep is as dangerous as drinking. When it comes to driving, drunk driving, in terms of accidents, I mean, so there are, I believe it’s happening quickly, probably quicker than what most people think. But the reality is, is the stress response short term is important. It’s good, it’s positive, it can help us focus, it can help us get things done. And that Stress response, all of our natural responses is adaptive.
0:15:20 Dr. John Neustadt: So there are times in our life, there are times that, where, where it can be helpful. The challenges in our modern society where that stress response as we, when we are hunter gatherers was very helpful because it’s, it’s warding off all of these, these real dangers out there in the wild, in our modern day. The vast majority of the dangers are just invented in our head. Our brains are really programmed and wired to scan for danger, but we’re not living in an environment where there is a lot of real objective danger.
0:15:56 Dr. John Neustadt: And so the challenge then is to help people understand what they can do, to rewire their brains really essentially to calm things down, whether it’s through different techniques or dietary supplements, diet, lifestyle, those sorts of things, to just sort of reduce that heightened level of sympathetic nervous system or sympathetic overload is what I like to, I like to call it that we know has very damaging effects.
0:16:29 B: Yeah, we’re going to get into talking about that mind body connection and some of the foods that are really important to keep in mind when it comes to staving off some of these symptoms like osteopenia and osteoporosis and so forth. But you know, as before we do. As you were talking and you talked about the glucocorticorticoids, I had a huge realization. You know, I’ve worked in PT for many, many years and prednisone and dexamethasone were two very common drugs that were, that were seen in the practice.
0:17:08 B: And as you were talking about this, I was sitting here thinking to myself, how much was that actually, because I worked in orthopedics primarily. I worked primarily in orthopedics. So it was a lot of knee replacements, hip replacements, fractures, you know, that, that side of it. And how much of that was actually making the healing process harder?
0:17:30 Dr. John Neustadt: A lot of it. So what we know is about 1 to 2% of the general population is on chronic glucocorticoid medications. What we also know is that glucocorticoids, not only do they strip the bone of calcium and reduce that bone mineral density, but it also damages the connective tissue. It damages the collagen in bone. And it’s the collagen that gives bone its ultimate strength, not the minerals. Collagen is, is a protein and bone is highly protein dependent, just like muscle is.
0:18:04 Dr. John Neustadt: There are about 180 to 200 proteins in bone in addition to collagen. And collagen is so strong. It’s, it’s in all of Our connective tissue, it’s what gives the elasticity to skin. So those, you know, plump baby cheeks that we all love, when you pinch them and they just bounce back, you know, that’s the healthy elastic collagen. Collagen in our bone, and collagen in general is so strong, that strand for strand, it’s stronger than steel, but it’s also healthy. Collagen is also flexible.
0:18:38 Dr. John Neustadt: So you can take a chicken bone and soak it in vinegar, do it for about four or five days, replace the vinegar every day so it’s fresh. What’s going to happen is that the vinegar is going to demineralize the bone. It’s going to pull all of those minerals out of the bone, and what you’re left with is the collagen, the protein and bone. It is indestructible. You can bend it, you can run over it with a car.
0:18:58 Dr. John Neustadt: It will not break. But if you were to take all of the collagen out and what you’re left with is a column of just minerals, it’s brittle like chalk. And, you know, I’m at the age where we had chalk growing up. A lot of people maybe don’t know what chalk is, but it’s just a little brittle column of minerals and it breaks easily. And what happens with the glucocorticoids is not only does it strip the, the bone of the minerals, but it damages the collagen.
0:19:26 Dr. John Neustadt: It strips the bone of the collagen. It makes the, the collagen more brittle, less flexible. It decreases the production of collagen by the cells, but it also damages the microfibrils in the muscle. So people also get weaker. And in terms of testing a bone density test, the risk for fractures when people are on glucocorticoids goes up even before it is visible on a, on a change in a bone density test result.
0:19:56 Dr. John Neustadt: And one of the things that’s happening is it’s not only destroying the quality and the quantity of bone, but it’s destroying people’s strength and balance and increasing their risk for falls. 95% of fractures occur because somebody falls. So you’ve got this real multisystem challenge going on with these glucocorticoids. Long, long term.
0:20:20 B: Oh, wow. And so it’s not maybe even necessarily that. It’s just that it’s just an age thing, quote, unquote. But it’s that as we’re getting older, we are also having these corticorticoids or chemicals, maybe not eating the right foods. It’s this. This onset of all of these things piling up that are actually demineralizing our bone.
0:20:45 Dr. John Neustadt: It is definitely multiple things are happening. Like all chronic conditions, it typically does not come down to just one issue. But if I can for a moment, expand on the medication. Since we started on this topic, it’s a crucially important topic. A lot of people are taking medications, and as we get older, people start taking multiple medications. About 24, 25% of women over 65 now are taking antidepressants.
0:21:14 Dr. John Neustadt: And that age, as we get older, it increases the risk for osteoporosis, bone loss, and fractures. The category of antidepressants that increase serotonin, ssri, SNRI medications, Prozac, Lexapro, Duloxetine. Those medications are also powerful destroyers of bone. There are serotonin receptors in bone. Bone is a complex tissue, like all tissues. It’s not just. Again, not just the minerals, not just the collagen, but there are.
0:21:52 Dr. John Neustadt: It’s a. It’s a tissue that is also integrated with our entire body. There’s communication between the bone and the intestines and communication between the bones and our nervous system. And it produces our blood for us, our red blood cells, our white blood cells, our platelets. I mean, bo. An amazing, amazing structure. And these serotonin receptors in bone, when it’s. When the amount of serotonin is in its natural healthy state, there’s an equilibrium.
0:22:22 Dr. John Neustadt: You’re not getting bone loss, you’re not getting bone growth. And in fact, ultimately and fundamentally, osteoporosis is a condition of imbalance. As we’re getting older, as we’re growing, when we’re young, the osteoblast, those are the cells that build bone, are performing at a higher rate, doing more work than the osteoclast. Those are the cells that break old bone down. And as we’re in our teens and 20s, and we’re growing and getting taller, and our bones are getting thicker and wider, what happens is the osteoblasts are doing more bone building, and then we reach our peak bone density, our peak bone mass, typically in our 20s.
0:23:04 Dr. John Neustadt: And then from there, there’s an equilibrium that hopefully exists. You’re not getting too much bone breakdown. You’re not getting too much bone built up, and you just have healthy bone. There’s this recycling of bone and remodeling of bone that goes on throughout our life, where old bone is being broken down by osteoclasts and new, healthy bone is being built up by osteoblasts and about every 10 years you have what’s called complete bone turnover, essentially your bones all new, about every 10 years.
0:23:36 Dr. John Neustadt: So what happens with these, these medications that increase serotonin is serotonin. And by the way, about 95% of serotonin isn’t even in the brain. Most people think of serotonin, I think as a happy chemical in the brain. It’s produced by our intestines. Yes, some is produced in the brain, but most of the serotonin is produced in our intestines. And then it gets taken up by platelets and it travels around the body, does not cross the blood brain barrier. It just is affecting things throughout the body because there are, you know, over a dozen different subtypes of serotonin receptors that can take that molecule and do different jobs in the body, including intestinal motility, including activating osteoclasts and bone breakdown.
0:24:24 Dr. John Neustadt: And so when somebody’s taking these medications, they are artificially increasing the amount of serotonin that is in their bones and in their body and they’re increasing how fast their bone is being destroyed. So much so that studies of multiple studies have looked at this and now we know for women taking an SSRI medication, for every 19 women taking one of those for more than a year, we expect one of them to fracture.
0:24:57 B: Wow. Wow.
0:25:00 Dr. John Neustadt: It’s scary.
0:25:01 B: It is scary.
0:25:02 Dr. John Neustadt: Most doctors don’t know about it. They’re not talking to their patients about it. I’ve written and there’s a whole chapter in my book about medication induced osteoporosis. There’s you know, articles on my website about it, you know, helping educate people, you know, talk to their doctors about it because there are lots of them. There’s a long list of medications like acid blocking medications, those proton pump inhibitors, the glucocorticoids that we mentioned, there’s the anti seizure medications, you know, certain one types of those.
0:25:32 Dr. John Neustadt: And again, there’s a, there’s a long list aromatase inhibitors often given for breast cancer. We expect 20%, basically one in five women taking an aromatase inhibitor for five years to fracture. And if you have breast cancer and fracture, end up in the hospital with a fracture, there’s an 82 or 83% increased chance that you’re going to die compared to a woman with breast cancer who didn’t fracture and ended up in the hospital.
0:26:00 Dr. John Neustadt: And I mean the statistics with osteoporosis are shocking. And there’s nobody walking around with this, you know, ribbons and doing huge campaigns for awareness and Raising money for this. But here are some of the scary in real statistics, if you have osteoporosis and you fracture a hip, there’s up to a 36% chance that you’re going to be dead within a year. A woman’s risk of an osteoporosis fracture is greater than her combined risk of breast, uterine and ovarian cancer.
0:26:39 Dr. John Neustadt: Osteoporosis causes more days spent in the hospital than other diseases like heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes. Globally it is second only to cardiovascular disease as a health crisis and health issue, public health issue. And finally, every 30 seconds someone in the world is breaking a bone because of osteoporosis.
0:27:08 B: Wow. Why, why do these fractures cause so many deaths?
0:27:15 Dr. John Neustadt: It tends to be the, the sort of the, the straw that, that or the, the event that creates this downward spiral. So there is not really an immediate threat in most cases of somebody’s going to die right away. What happens is they, it creates inflammation, it creates the risk of a blood clot that can cause death. It creates immobility. So you have inflammation that can decrease mood and decrease appetite and you’re not moving.
0:27:50 Dr. John Neustadt: So they’re recovering and they’re bedridden and so they start to get this further degeneration of muscle and of bone and they’re not getting the nutrition they need to replenish all of that. And it just, it starts this downward spiral. In fact, half of people who fracture hip with osteoporosis never regain their full pre fracture level of mobility and pain free free life that they had before.
0:28:18 B: Wow. What might be some signs that a person is having these negative effects from the medication? Are there actual signs that this medication is being a risk factor that somebody can feel experience?
0:28:37 Dr. John Neustadt: Unfortunately, there’s really not. It is, that’s one of the reasons why osteoporosis is called a silent disease. Typically the first symptom that occurs is somebody breaks a bone. The recommendation by the Bone Health and Osteoporosis foundation is that if you’re 50 years old, male or female, and break a bone, you should get a bone density test. Unfortunately, most people who are even in the, you know, fit the eligibility criteria that’s more conservative of the United States Preventive Services Task force even they’re not getting screened. So 95% of eligible Medicare patients are not being screened for osteoporosis.
0:29:17 Dr. John Neustadt: So unfortunately there aren’t signs that are noticeable. Typically there can be some small micro trauma in the bone. Maybe you’re getting bone aches and pains. You know that could be a symptom. But most of the predict. The predictions for fracture risk have nothing to do with, with the physical symptoms of what’s happening in the bone. There are things that people can look at that are predictive of osteoporosis that are physical signs and predictive of fractures. So just briefly with the testing, a bone density test is the standard of care. It’s the gold standard off of which, you know, all other tests are compared.
0:30:00 Dr. John Neustadt: But a bone, and it’s typically the only thing that’s tracked conventionally, people get their bone density test result and they have a diagnosis of osteopenia or osteoporosis, and the doctor says this is conventionally what is typically happens. You need to start a medication or you’re going to fracture, and we’ve got to get you started right away. And people are scared to death. And it is a scary situation. I don’t want to minimize them.
0:30:23 Dr. John Neustadt: When they come to me after having that diagnosis and having that unfortunate interaction and experience with their physician, the first thing that I do is have them take a couple of breaths and have them calm down. And I say to them, let’s put that bone density test into its proper perspective. Yes, this is a serious situation, but it’s not. In an emergency, there is time for you to learn and to put a holistic bone health program in place that makes sense for you.
0:30:52 Dr. John Neustadt: Any test is only as helpful as it can predict fractures. The most dangerous thing with osteoporosis is not a number on a test. It’s whether you’re going to break a bone. A bone density test only predicts 44% of women with osteoporosis who will fracture and only 21% of men. That data was published in 2008. We’ve known since the 1990s that a bone density test predicts less than half of women with osteoporosis who will break a bone.
0:31:22 Dr. John Neustadt: Medical organizations that have looked at this have correctly concluded that fracture risk depends on factors largely other than bone density. So there are things that I call modifiable risk factors, non modifier risk factors, and potentially modifiable risk factors, Things that you might be able to change to reduce your risk. What we know is one of the biggest predictors of osteoporosis is age. Just as we get older, it’s a disease of aging.
0:31:51 Dr. John Neustadt: Your risk increases. You obviously can’t change that. But the most consistent predictor of a fracture is somebody’s gait and mobility. How well do they stand up and walk across the room unassisted, are they wobbly? So when I look, when I am working with patients, if I’m seeing somebody in person, I look at the bottom of their shoes, I’m taking their shoes off, I want to see the bottom of their shoes to see if there’s abnormal wear on the bottom of their shoes. If they’re pronating or supinating and maybe need to, you should go get a, an insole or insert or get some corrective shoes put on.
0:32:30 Dr. John Neustadt: I look at how when I was in my, my clinic, I would always go to the waiting room and greet the person in the waiting room. Because that clinical encounter started the moment I laid eyes on that patient. I wanted to greet them, I wanted to see how easily they were able to stand up by themselves from the chair. And I wanted them to walk in front of me to the waiting room and I wanted to engage them in conversation to start assessing their mental status as well. Because cognitive decline is a risk for fractures.
0:33:03 Dr. John Neustadt: And so there are these things that are well documented in the research that just are not being clinically implemented, unfortunately in most conventional settings. And there are reasons for that. And the study looked at this and part of it is because doctors don’t feel that they’re well trained in this subject. There’s not a specialty, typically it’s the primary care provider who’s the gatekeeper, who is evaluating somebody and sending them for a test.
0:33:34 Dr. John Neustadt: There’s confusion over what the medications do and which ones are the most appropriate. There is a time constraint where they are, they’re pressured to see so many patients in a day. They are also constrained just simply by their education that they don’t feel educated or of the time to have the more nuanced, subtle in depth conversation about lifestyle and diet, environmental assessment and those sorts of things that the research knows is so, so important and crucial in this, in this matter.
0:34:12 Tansy Rodgers: Okay, real talk here. Gut health isn’t just about bloating or digestion. It’s the foundation for everything. Your bones, your hormones, your immunity, your brain function. They all rely on a balanced microbiome. And here’s where it gets wild. Because most, most probiotics, they don’t even survive your stomach acid. And your gut health is critical for keeping your bones strong. Your hormones stabilize, your immunity strong and your brain functioning optimally.
0:34:50 Tansy Rodgers: That’s why I just love, just thrive. It’s a clinically proven probiotic that actually makes it to your gut where it can, can help you absorb the nutrients that your bones and body need to thrive. If you’re working on inflammation, emotional regulation, functional healing like we’re talking about in today’s episode. This is a total game changer. The gut is where it starts and just thrive is the tool I trust.
0:35:19 Tansy Rodgers: It’s the tool that I use. It’s the tool that I found successful success with. Check the link in the show notes to grab yours and give your healing journey the support it actually needs to stick. And when you click on that link in the show notes and you use code TANSY15, you get 15% off your entire order. Here’s to a stronger gut and stronger bones.
0:35:45 B: This is such a refreshing perspective. I’ve worked with many older folks over the years and when they come to me after getting their DEXA scan and their either good or they’re right on the cusp and they’re like, oh, what do I do? And they’re freaking out about it. It’s so refreshing to hear somebody say there is more to it than just the scans. You talked about the three different kind of risk factors. Can we talk and elaborate a little bit more about some of the risk factors that can be changed?
0:36:21 B: What are those things to be looking for that we actually have control over?
0:36:27 Dr. John Neustadt: There’s quite a wonderful list. Much of this is in our control, which is fantastic. I’m going to start with the basics. It was the beginning of every one of my treatment plans and it’s diet and lifestyle. Those are the foundations of long term health. What we know is that people who follow a Mediterranean style diet, which is a plant forward diet rich in whole foods, whole fruits and whole vegetables and whole grains, low in processed foods, the, the closer somebody adheres to that, there is greater benefits not just for bone health, but for cardiovascular disease, Reduction in diabetes, risk, reduction in cancer, cancer, death, all cause mortality, obesity. There’s just a long wonderful list of benefits just from eating. And look, we’ve all got to eat with every, you know, spoonful of food you’re putting in your mouth, you’re either feeding your disease or you’re promoting your health.
0:37:22 Dr. John Neustadt: So hopefully people are going to be making decisions to transition away from that standard American diet, which is pro inflammatory, nutritionally poor, it creates a lot of chronic inflammation and chronic diseases towards this Mediterranean style way of eating that I definitely advocate and I teach people how to transition into. And what we know is that there’s a 20% reduction in risk of osteoporosis, but more importantly hip fracture associated with following this Mediterranean style diet. So that’s first and foremost.
0:38:00 Dr. John Neustadt: The second thing is exercise. Obviously I think the doctor will say, exercise, take calcium and vitamin D and we’ll talk about supplements and take this drug. I mean, that’s pretty much that. Usually the extent of it, the challenge with exercise is people really are confused. Do they go pump iron at a gym? You know, what do they do? What’s healthy exercise, what’s, what’s safe exercise to do? And a lot of it depends on, on where they’re at in their life, their strength, their cardiovascular disease risk. So I do recommend people, you know, over the age of 50, they consult their healthcare provider just to, just to make sure if there are any limitations.
0:38:38 Dr. John Neustadt: But what we know is you don’t have to go pump iron, you don’t have to train for a triathlon. Triathlon. And in fact, marathon runners are at higher risk for bone loss. Elite athletes are at much higher risk for bone loss. What we know is even if you just walk 7,000 to 7, 500 steps a day on average, that’s associated with a 50 to 70% reduction in all cause mortality. That’s death from any cause, including osteoporosis. And it doesn’t have to be all at once. It’s cumulative throughout the day. So, you know, park a few lanes away, further away from the door at the store, you know, take your dog for a walk, go walk with a friend.
0:39:17 Dr. John Neustadt: There’s ways to just work things into your daily life, which I love. I love practical, easy solutions that people can work into their daily life. Another one that I like is the stork exercise. And you know, storks, they, they can stand on one foot and you stand on one foot while you’re brushing your teeth. So in your bottom teeth, you’ve two minutes and you’re balancing on one leg and then you switch to the other leg for the top teeth, another two minutes. You’re doing that twice a day if hopefully you’re brushing your teeth twice a day.
0:39:50 Dr. John Neustadt: And that helps to increase balance. A little bit of balance, you get a little bit of core strength, a little bit of leg strength. And anything that we’re doing to increase balance, reduce risk of falls is incredibly helpful. There are things that people can also, you know, great classes they can take with, with a friend. Gardening. It can be incredibly helpful. And just body weight, you don’t have to necessarily lift weights. Every time you go up a flight of stairs, you’re lifting your body weight, you’re doing weight against gravity.
0:40:23 Dr. John Neustadt: So take stairs. Those are simple things. And then of course their classes and Pilates and yoga and all those sorts of Things. I would just be cautious though, that especially as people get older. There was one study done a long time ago, and there’s only one study that’s been done on fracture outcomes when it comes to exercise, because you need a huge number of people to actually look at outcomes in a controlled clinical trial when it comes to osteoporosis and fractures and exercise.
0:40:54 Dr. John Neustadt: But one was done many years ago where they gave the women several different exercises to do. One was flexion exercises, so basically sit ups. The other was extension exercises. So laying down and, and you may have heard of it, the Superman pose with your kind of lay, you know, arms behind you. And the other was sitting in a chair and doing extension or leaning back or a combination. And what they found is that the women who did those flexion exercises where they’re doing push ups, they’re compressing their spine forward, were at a much higher risk of fractures. They had more fractures than, than any of the other types of exercises.
0:41:36 Dr. John Neustadt: And I think part of it is you’ve got this. Most people are sitting forward most of the day. They’re on screens, they’re watching tv, they’re driving. There’s this pressure already that’s put on the front of the spine already. And then you’re increasing it even more. If you have some, some brittleness to your bones, you’re just putting more and more pressure on an, on a type of tissue that’s already been experiencing years of that.
0:42:01 Dr. John Neustadt: But, but my point with this study and bringing it up is just because you’re exercising doesn’t mean you’re exercising safely. And that’s a really important consideration when it comes to this. Sleep is something that’s not often talked about. I mentioned it before, but if you are sleeping less than an average of six hours a night, there is, there are studies that have shown a faster rate of bone loss and higher risk of osteoporosis.
0:42:29 Dr. John Neustadt: And that might be due to melatonin, maybe. People as, as we get older, it’s harder to get into deeper stages of sleep. Those restorative stage three, stage four types of sleep, sleep become, can become more fragmented and it might be due perhaps to decrease in melatonin production. Melatonin that I’m sure people know is it’s a nutrient. It’s available as a supplement, but it’s supplement, but it’s also a hormone. It has different actions in the body. It works also as an antioxidant and it helps people fall asleep.
0:43:02 Dr. John Neustadt: Well, there are melatonin receptors on bone and there’s a Clinical trial that was done with women with osteopenia where they took 1 or 3 milligrams of melatonin and the women, and in both doses, 3 milligrams being more effective, bone density increased. And in fact you have people on beta blockers, heart medication, that, that decreases melatonin. And so one of the challenges is not just the direct destruction of bone by, by medications, it’s the indirect problems that it may cause.
0:43:33 Dr. John Neustadt: So people then who are on beta blockers, if, if then they find that they’re having difficulty sleeping, it might be because they have, it’s depleted their melatonin, which then increases their risk for osteoporosis and fractures. And just giving them melatonin, there’s a clinical trial that showed could improve sleep. You know, similarly with other medications, with, with blood pressure medications.
0:43:55 Dr. John Neustadt: It’s not that blood pressure medications directly damage bone, but as people get older, they are, they, their ability to metabolize and, and remove medications from their system tends to go, go down. And so even if somebody was on a, on a well controlled, had well controlled blood pressure and they were younger and on a blood stable dose of blood pressure medication, as they get older, that same dose of medication may be too much for them.
0:44:26 Dr. John Neustadt: And when people have too much blood pressure medication and their blood pressure drops too much, it creates dizziness, it creates instability and increase the risk for falls and fractures. And seldom are physicians doing medication reviews with people. I write about it, I’m an advocate for it. People should become friends with their local pharmacist, ask for a medication review, ask about the bone effects, the osteoporosis effects, the fracture risk effects of different bones and how these different medications may interact with each other. Because most doctors aren’t doing that. They don’t have the time and frankly, they don’t have the education.
0:45:05 Dr. John Neustadt: We are not the experts in medications. Pharmacists are.
0:45:09 B: Yeah. So, okay, these medications, thinking about that, going back to what you were talking about, the medications that can cause bone damage, what if somebody needs to take these for their health? I mean, is it simply enough to shift and change their exercise, their diet, their sleep patterns, these risk factors that we can change, is that enough to offset some of the medication potential damage?
0:45:35 Dr. John Neustadt: So that is one of the medications fall into that category of potentially modifiable risk factor. It’s possible in some cases to maybe reduce the dose of a medication to possibly switch to a safer medication. So if you have to be on an antidepressant medication, there are categories of antidepressant Medications that don’t damage bone or get off the medication altogether. So they’re integrative and functional approaches, naturopathic approaches to mood disorders like depression, where I’ve gotten people off of their antidepressant medications, they don’t need them anymore.
0:46:12 Dr. John Neustadt: Or with acid reflux, dietary changes alone can get rid of acid reflux and, and just getting rid of the foods that are aggravating it, like you know, maybe spicy foods, raw onion, raw garlic, chocolate, citrus, you know, those are things, tomatoes, those are things that can, can stimulate acid reflux and create that problem in people. And in fact, 50% of all acid reflux medications are prescribed just for acid reflux. And what we know is that with those modifications, and maybe somebody has an H. Pylori infection that, that can cause acid reflux, maybe somebody has a food intolerance and they’re reacting to a food, you know, that there’s testing that can be done for that. There are ways to approach this where you might be able to discontinue that medication or there might be natural approaches that allow you to stop that medication or frankly to switch to a safer one.
0:47:08 Dr. John Neustadt: So for example, the most dangerous category of acid blocking medications are the proton pump inhibitors. Those are like Prilosec, protonics. There’s another category of acid blocking medications called H2RA blockers, histamine 2 receptor antagonists, blockers like Tagamet. And that while it does still damage bone, is safer, has shown to be safer than those proton pump inhibitors. And by the way, this is not a new issue.
0:47:36 Dr. John Neustadt: The FDA sent out its first warning letter about proton pump inhibitors in 2010 in terms of a bone and fractures. So that’s how I kind of talk about, about, about those medications. And there, there are some studies, clinical trials with, with some nutrients, specifically a nutrient, MK4, it’s a specific form of vitamin K2 with some medications and that is shown to stop the bone loss caused by the medication. So glucocorticoids in particular leuprolide, a form of what’s called androgen deprivation therapy that’s used prostate cancer and other, some female health conditions.
0:48:18 Dr. John Neustadt: Their clinical trials with MK4, 45 milligrams per day, showing it stopped the bone loss caused by those medications. So based on that, I’m, I’m an advocate and you know, in full disclosure, I created products for my patients with MK4 in it back in 2006, 2007, the clinical trial doses, because they didn’t exist as I’m working with them and their bone health and trying to Promote it. And the aromatase inhibitors are doctors who are prescribing my products.
0:48:47 Dr. John Neustadt: There are three different versions of it. Osteo K, Osteo k minis and osteomk4 for these people on aromatase inhibitors. And helping people support and promote healthy bone density and maintain strong bones. Because of the strength of the clinical trials on MK4 in that dose, it’s been shown to, as I mentioned, stop the loss of bone and when it comes to those medications. But it’s also improved bone density in women with osteoporosis. But more importantly, it’s been shown to maintain strong bones as indicated by over 70% fewer fractures in clinical trials.
0:49:28 Dr. John Neustadt: And so that’s where you know, what can you do if you have to take a medication? Well, you’re looking for nutrients that have been shown to stop damage to bone in your situation, you know, somebody on your medication or on a medication, you know, that’s a good place to start. And you know, obviously diet, lifestyle, exercise, you know, those things that I mentioned. And back to diet real quickly, because there is one crucial piece to the diet that I see over and over that people are missing.
0:50:02 Dr. John Neustadt: Even when they’re following this, you know, healthy plant forward Mediterranean style diet. That’s the amount of protein they’re getting. The amount of protein. If you’re just following the US Recommended Daily Allowance, the RDA for protein, it’s insufficient as you get older to maintain healthy bone and, and muscle. I’ve already mentioned, you know, how many proteins, 180 to 200 proteins in bone. It’s highly protein dependent.
0:50:25 Dr. John Neustadt: So the research is clear that to maintain muscle strength you need to get more and do resistance exercise. But to maintain bone health, a European consensus, consensus statement came out from some medical organizations there saying that the amount of protein somebody consumes can account just that alone for 2 to 4% of bone mineral density. And so I recommend people get at least they take their body weight and multiply it by 0.59 or you can round up and say 0.6.
0:50:56 Dr. John Neustadt: That’s the minimum number of grams of protein somebody should be getting every day. Most people aren’t getting that. Now. If you have chronic kidney disease, you know, that may need to be modified. Talk to your, talk to your healthcare provider. But in general, that’s the recommendation and people aren’t getting that. And studies have shown with vegans and vegetarians that they’re at higher risk for bone loss and osteoporosis and fractures.
0:51:21 Dr. John Neustadt: And the consensus seems to be in the literature or the speculation is it’s likely due because they’re not getting enough protein.
0:51:29 B: Wow. I want to talk more about these foods. I want to expand on this, but before we do, I just want to take one step back. You talked about that supplement that you had created. Is that a practitioner’s line where you can only get that through your doctor, or is that something that the average Joe could order?
0:51:47 Dr. John Neustadt: I made it available to everybody. We are distributor through the largest distributor to healthcare providers in the country. And I lecture at medical conferences on this all the time. It is available though, directly through my company, NBI Health.com and other stores also carry it on the Internet, but we also have it directly through us.
0:52:13 B: Great. And I’ll link that down in the show notes for anybody who wants to check that out further and get their hands onto it. Now, let’s talk more about this food. Since we’re already diving into that, I want to. You know, earlier when you talked about the glucocorticoids you talked about, you explained what was going on with the calcium and the collagen in the bone and what that makeup looked like. What started to happen?
0:52:42 B: Is it simply enough to eat foods or take supplements that have more calcium, more collagen to help offset that? If you do find yourself needing to take one of those medications, we already discussed about changing medications and doing all that. Is it enough to take some of those foods to offset that? And, and, or are there other foods that are really going to help you and your bone health to get stronger?
0:53:09 Dr. John Neustadt: Yeah. So the short answer is, is in terms of the research, the published, peer reviewed research, the answer is we don’t know because those studies have never been, they’ve never been done. What we do know though is that in general there are things that are healthy and promote your bone health. I said before, with every bite of food, you’re either feeding, you know, your, your disease or promoting your health. Health.
0:53:31 Dr. John Neustadt: Right. So we just want to do things, and I just want to recommend things that we know in general are bone building, our health promoting. If there are clinical trials with a medication and a nutrient or a dietary pattern or a lifestyle pattern, you know, I would mention it. I would love that. I would, I would sing to the heavens about it. It would be amazing. Right now what we have is clinical trials just with the MK4, 45 millimeter milligrams per day. And by the way, there’s another form of vitamin K out to a vitamin K2 out there called MK7 that people have probably heard of that’s never been shown to improve bone density. It only slows down how fast somebody loses bone in clinical trials, and there are no clinical trials out there showing that it maintains bone strength as indicated by reduced fractures.
0:54:19 Dr. John Neustadt: Looking at fractures in the, in the studies, in the clinical trial, volunteers, when it comes to these other medications, you know, part of it is looking at, okay, what is the mechanism of action for these. The that is, that is creating these problems and can we push against that? There’s not always ways to do that. They’re just not. But we could try as best we can to stack the deck in our patients favor with taking collagen, which has been shown to improve bone density. Now, when I look at dietary supplements, there’s a hierarchy of how I evaluate the studies.
0:54:54 Dr. John Neustadt: So for me, the highest level of evidence is obviously a clinical trial, but with fractures as the outcome. They looked at fractures. Did people break a bone in the clinical trial while they were taking X or y or Z compared to people not taking that, then if that level of evidence, that highest level of evidence, what I would call the gold standard is not there, the next level of evidence that I look at is, okay, is there something showing that it improves bone density?
0:55:21 Dr. John Neustadt: At least that is a surrogate marker. We know, you know, it has some predictive value. Not fantastic, but some. Collagen fits into that category. Collagen has been shown when people supplement with hydrolyzed collagen to improve bone density. Okay, great. And we know just then mechanistically. So if there’s not a. If there’s not bone density, clinical trial data on it, the next level of evidence that I want to look at is, okay, what’s the molecular mechanism, mechanisms? Is there something that I can just, you know, hang my hat on to say, okay, this seems plausible? These mechanisms seem plausible?
0:55:58 Dr. John Neustadt: Well, with collagen, we have both plausible mechanisms and we have bone density data, so that’s good. It’s not my first line approach. My first line is the MK4, the one of those OSTEOC products in terms of dietary supplements to promote and support somebody’s bone health. And the only difference between them, by the way, is the amount of calcium. I’m sure we’ll get to that. And then if somebody wants to be more. And. And so first line is that that one of those supplements with diet, with lifestyle.
0:56:30 Dr. John Neustadt: What I don’t want to do is give people the impression that all you’ve. All you need to do is pop a bunch of pills and powders and you’re fine. No, that’s not how health works. If you want to do that? Just go take, just go take a drug, right? And, and, and we can have a whole conversation about the medications and how well or how well they don’t reduce fractures in this condition. The, the research is just actually quite shocking.
0:56:59 Dr. John Neustadt: And, but when you’re talking about a holistic approach and what people can do regardless of the medication they’re taking, we want to optimize diet, movement, you know, which is exercise and sleep and lifestyle stress reduction, stress management. And one important piece to that holistic approach that we haven’t mentioned that also is. I’ve never seen it talked about anywhere else is connection. Connection with other people. Your social network research has shown is that the stronger somebody’s social network, if they have friends that they do things with that they talk to, that’s associated with reduction in all cause mortality.
0:57:36 Dr. John Neustadt: But also research has shown that if you fracture people with a strong social network, they heal faster from a fracture. And so that’s really important, that connection. And what does connection do? Well, not only does it raise our happy chemicals like dopamine and serotonin, but it increases our oxytocin. And oxytocin, which is our, that’s called our love hormone. Connection hormone is associated with longevity, gravity, and is associated with better bone health. There are oxytocin receptors on bone.
0:58:07 Dr. John Neustadt: So it’s this holistic approach that’s really important.
0:58:11 B: I had never heard that oxytocin was directly connected to bone health and because of that longevity factor. That’s so interesting, huh? And this is why I love holistic health, because there’s so many lesser known, yet affected treatments, just like connection, for helping to heal fractures quicker and helping to increase your bone health. I mean, it’s just fascinating thinking about these holistic health factors that maybe go unseen.
0:58:45 B: Is there an unconventional method for osteoporosis, osteoporosis prevention or reversal that you have shown promising, having promising results in your practice?
0:59:00 Dr. John Neustadt: Well, you know, unconventional method. I think this approach is unconventional. So again, when I hear. And maybe this isn’t what you meant, but what I hear, you know, an unconventional method, I think of one thing, like, is there this one thing that’s, that’s making the, the biggest difference? And I would say no, it’s, it’s a, the biggest difference is when you’re all in, when you’re ready to make that decision to do the lifestyle modifications, to make the changes to, to, to turn your life into a life that you want to be as healthy as possible, and you’re going to put in the work, that’s when the greatest benefits, yes, people can take, you know, osteoc, Osteo k Minis or Osteomk4 to support their bone density. In fact, we guarantee it.
0:59:50 Dr. John Neustadt: Within six months of taking it, people will either their bone density will either stabilize or improve in one or more areas, but more importantly, it will maintain strong bones. Meaning if somebody breaks a bone, we will refund their money for all qualifying purchases between their two bone density test results. You can do that, and that’s great, and that’s why that’s my first line therapy. But again, and I would say this to people who came into my office, if they just want me to prescribe a pill, I send them away. I won’t work with them because that’s not what I do.
1:00:26 Dr. John Neustadt: And that’s not what the research supports as the healthiest, best way to help people get strong and healthy and live vibrant lives. What we know you talk about the surprise about oxytocin and bone. One of the problems and challenges with the conventional medical education system and this, this, this specialization that exists within, you know, hospitals and, you know, medical specialties is people are, are identified as different organs. Well, you’re the bone guy, you’re the liver guy. Okay, you’re the internal medicine guy, you’re the, you’re, you’re the intestines, you know, GI person, you’re the neuro person.
1:01:09 Dr. John Neustadt: Well, the reality is that that’s not reality. The reality is that it’s all connected. And when you’re doing things that are healthy for your bone using this holistic approach, not only are you improving your bone health, and I talk about this in my book Fracture proof your bones or walks people through, you know, how to create a bone health program for themselves and questions that they ask their doctors. When you’re doing those things, not only are you improving your bone health and reducing your risk for osteoporosis and osteoporosis fractures, you’re also reducing your risk for heart disease, dementia, diabetes, obesity, cancer, death from cancer, you know, on and on and on, because that’s what the research shows are the benefits of these lifestyle and dietary approaches.
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1:03:44 B: And I love too that you look at the research that is outside of just bone health. You’re looking at the research of how to be a healthy person and how that impacts your overall skeletal structure. So thinking about that, the mind body practices that connection. How have you incorporated this into your method? How have you incorporated this into your practice to help manage osteoporosis? And what impact have you seen that has had on patients?
1:04:18 Dr. John Neustadt: Well being, that’s a great question. And I think it’s one of the more challenging issues that people have because it’s that mindset, that mind body connection that is going to allow somebody to be consistent and persistent. Because this is not an overnight fix. This is something that has gradually developed, usually unless it’s a medication induced issue, which can happen quickly. But typically with postmenopausal osteoporosis, this is a situation that has developed gradually over many, many years.
1:04:58 Dr. John Neustadt: And so it takes persistence, it takes consistency to make the changes to create new habits. So a lot of it is about creating new habits because most of us are, well, all of us really, you know, we’re not making every decision in our life consciously. You know, who of us has not, you know, realized before we even knew consciously that we had a bag of chips in our hand and we’re eating and, and we’re just unconsciously doing it because that’s how the mind conserves energy. We live our lives mostly based on habits and routines.
1:05:31 Dr. John Neustadt: And so that mindset piece, first of all is about making a decision, making a decision that the status quo and where your life is going is not acceptable. And there’s an exercise that I like, that I learned that I liked taking people through. And it’s where they sit and you close your eyes and they visualize if they don’t change, where are they going to be in one year? And in detail, what are they going to feel like?
1:06:03 Dr. John Neustadt: What are they going to think when they look at themselves in the mirror? What are their relationships going to be like? What. What is it going to be like in terms of how they think? And they’re modeling behavior or what a role model they’re being for their children? What’s the relationship and interactions going to be with their spouse and their friends? What is that? And then what about two years, four years, five years?
1:06:25 Dr. John Neustadt: What does that look like? And I take them on this, this journey of really visualizing in detail, what are they going to see in the mirror? Five years, because their skin’s deteriorating, they’re aging, they’re. They’re maybe getting more humpback, they’re getting more wobbly on their feet, they’re having less energy, whatever it is. And then I have them write that down. I want to memorialize it. I’ve had people in tears. I did this myself.
1:06:52 Dr. John Neustadt: We’ve all had challenges in life. And this whole thing of this doctor with the white coat who, you know, I don’t want that. I don’t want a doctor in a white coat thinks that, you know, comes off as somebody who has. Has never had a problem in their life that they’ve had to dealt with. I want people who have had problems in their life and had to overcome them, because we can only take people as far as we’ve been willing to go ourselves.
1:07:15 Dr. John Neustadt: So I’ve done these exercises. I live this way in my own life. When it comes to the recommendations in the book and when it comes to this exercise, then I have them do the reverse, meaning sit with their eyes closed. Imagine now you’ve made the changes. How are you going to feel when you’ve made those changes A year from now, two years from now? Imagine your relationships, your interactions, your energy, what a role model you’re being, how you are in your community, how you look in the mirror, how you feel looking at yourself in the mirror.
1:07:46 Dr. John Neustadt: Then five years down the road, and I want them to sit in that for a moment. Moment. And then they open their eyes and write it down. That’s the starting point. You can’t go. What? You can’t go to a place that you can’t see. So I want people to see their journey. I want them to see themselves. In fact, when I said at the beginning of this conversation, what I do every morning, I wake up, I say a prayer, a prayer of gratitude.
1:08:15 Dr. John Neustadt: And then I visualize not, not necessarily what I want today, but I want to. I, I’m, I’m looking at what I want five years from now, and I’m seeing it in my mind. And that sets the pattern for the day. Our mind, our body is going to go where our mind leads it. And it can’t tell the difference between imagined back to that stress response. Imagine stress and real stress. So if we can imagine an alternate future for ourselves, our body, our mind is going to help create that.
1:08:45 Dr. John Neustadt: We are always looking for answers to questions. Our brain is looking for answers to the questions we ask it. So if you ask it the question, why am I so tired? Why am I so sick? Why am I so depressed? Your brain’s going to create the answers, it’s going to tell you that, and it’s going to just reinforce that icky, awful feeling, that low energy state. But if you learn to ask new questions, how can I have more energy?
1:09:13 Dr. John Neustadt: How can I feel better? How can I get stronger bones? How can I have better connections with people? Your brain is going to start giving you those answers. It may be as simple as, oh my God, I’ve got brain fog right now and I’m tired. I realized, shoot, I forgot to eat, I haven’t eaten lunch yet today, or, oh, that’s right, I didn’t sleep well last night. You know what, I’ve got a little time. I’m going to lay down for a 20 minute power now. It could be that simple.
1:09:38 Dr. John Neustadt: This stuff doesn’t have to be complicated. And in fact, health is not complicated. When you find the right process, the results take care of themselves.
1:09:50 B: And the fact that you practice what you preach, but also you practice these mind body connections, I think is so huge for you and the work that you do. It makes us better practitioners when we do the work, but also our patients know. They know when we are telling the truth versus when we are not. And when we’re trying to feed them this line of things that we have no clue if they actually are going to resonate or if they work or if it’s just something that we’ve heard, they’re going to know.
1:10:24 B: And I’m sure that that is part of why your patients respect that mind, body, practice that you lead them through, why it can bring them to tears, why they respond to that so well. I love, I love that, I love that.
1:10:45 Dr. John Neustadt: Yeah, I’m Glad. It’s powerful.
1:10:48 B: Yeah. Okay, so say everybody’s done all of these things. They’re. They’re changing their mind, body connections, they’re learning how to exercise that’s right. For their body. They’re eating the foods, they’re changing their diets, they’re making these shifts. They want to take some supplements. Let’s talk about the supplements that are really important for overall bone health and also the amount of calcium, because you had brought that up earlier. Let’s talk about some of those details.
1:11:16 Dr. John Neustadt: So undoubtedly, people have been recommended who, you know, they go to their doctor, maybe their bone density is low, take calcium and vitamin D. All right. Calcium. Vitamin D. So if you remember before I. I told you the question that I asked, the hierarchy of how I evaluate the research. So, and I go over this in my book time and time again, what is the most important thing to ask? Well, with the bone density test or any test, it’s how well does it predict my fractures?
1:11:41 Dr. John Neustadt: With anything that anybody’s recommending, whether it’s diet, lifestyle, exercise, dietary supplements, the most important question in this instance is has it been shown in clinical trials to reduce fractures, which is the ultimate indicator that it maintains bone strength? By definition, dietary supplements are. They’re not drugs. They’re not approved by the FDA to diagnose, treat, or prevent diseases.
1:12:05 Dr. John Neustadt: But what we do know physiologically is they can powerfully promote health and can help maintain strong bones. And the most important indicator of whether your bones are strong is if you break a bone. So what we know with calcium and vitamin D is they have been shown to reduce fractures by about, you know, 18 to 20 to 23%. Right. Okay. Not great. And it’s really. You have to have a. A sufficient amount of both. They work synergistically.
1:12:35 Dr. John Neustadt: One of the problems I have with calcium is most people are getting too much calcium. So obviously, diet. I go back to diet. Diet is the primary driver of health. Ideally, you’re getting most or of your nutrients or all of your nutrients in diet, and a dietary supplement should be used as the FDA intended, and that is as a supplement to a healthy diet. The US RDA for calcium for women is 1200mg per day.
1:13:05 Dr. John Neustadt: There is no indication that getting a higher amount of calcium is better for bone. And in fact, the current recommendations are that if you get 2,000 to 2,500 milligrams of calcium, it actually can start to become dangerous. So the average American woman gets about 800 milligrams of calcium in her diet, right? And that’s st following the standard American diet, which we, I alluded to, we chatted briefly about is not a great diet, not a real healthy diet.
1:13:35 Dr. John Neustadt: A lot of doctors, though, are recommending patients will come to me. My doctor told me to take, you know, a thousand, twelve hundred, fifteen hundred milligrams of calcium as a supplement, and then it pushes them up into that range where they are potentially getting a dangerous amount. They don’t need that much. So for most women, just getting 400 milligrams of calcium as a dietary supplement is going to be sufficient for getting in that US RDA range. And that’s the amount that’s in my Osteoc Minis product.
1:14:03 Dr. John Neustadt: For those who for some reason have a more restricted diet aren’t getting that much calcium, Osteo K has a thousand milligrams of calcium. And then for women or men, frankly, who are getting enough calcium in their diet, there’s the Osteomk 4 that has no calcium. Each one of those products has the 45 milligrams per day of the MK4 that was used in the clinical trials, that dose and 2000ius per day of vitamin D3.
1:14:32 Dr. John Neustadt: Because what we know with vitamin D, and I’m a big fan of getting your vitamin D tested to make sure it’s in the healthy range, is that a test result of 30 to 44? And to get technical, 30 to 44 nanograms per milliliter, that’s what’s used in the U.S. if you’re, if you’re, if your listeners are in Canada, then it’s about two and a half times that. So, you know, about 70 or so would be the number they use different units.
1:14:59 Dr. John Neustadt: But that 30 to 44 nanograms per milliliter, that is associated with the greatest hip fracture reduction. So interesting in the, in the studies. And back to that bone density story, you see bone density increasing with vitamin D as low as when, when vitamin D is as low as 9 on test result, all, you know, 9 to 30, you see it increasing, but you don’t get that fracture reduction until it’s 30 and above, you know, 30.
1:15:23 Dr. John Neustadt: So, so bone, again, bone density is not the ultimate determinant here. So, so I’m a big fan of testing and then supplementing. A lot of people just need extra, extra vitamin D. And even for immune support, many practitioners, myself included, you know, recommend you want to want a higher amount so that 2,000 units per day, the research shows sufficient to get most people into that healthy range of 30 to 44 nanograms per milliliter for bones. And then obviously if they need more, they can supplement with more for, for other reasons. Men.
1:15:54 Dr. John Neustadt: The US RDA for calcium in men is a thousand milligrams per day. Most men are getting that in diet so they typically don’t need extra, extra calcium as a, as a dietary supplement. And those are, then there’s only, you know, those are the nutrients that I recommend. There are only a few nutrients that have been shown to maintain strong bones in studies with looking at fractures. A lot of the other nutrients you see in these products like magnesium and boron or silica and you know, none of these have been shown ever to reduce fractures and they weren’t required.
1:16:30 Dr. John Neustadt: The only thing that was used in the clinical trials with the MK4 that showed over 70% reduction in fractures in the volunteers was the MK4, 45 milligrams per day and vitamin D3 and calcium.
1:16:45 B: Wow. Okay, well, and what’s so great too is that you have this comprehensive guide of everything we’ve been talking about and you have that in your book, your book called Fracture fracture proof your bones. So let’s talk a little bit about your book and how it is a comprehensive guide for osteoporosis. Is there a myth about osteoporosis that your book debunks, which might surprise some of us that are either not informed or think that we’re well informed about osteoporosis and what it is.
1:17:19 Dr. John Neustadt: The first thing that comes to my mind that I write about, that I talk about in the book is that when, when I was in medical school and even how bone is often discussed now, is that I was taught, and it was typically understood that once you re reach your peak bone mass, peak bone density in your 20s, that it’s basically a one way street from there, that it’s just this long slow degeneration until you finally just die.
1:17:45 Dr. John Neustadt: And that’s not the case. We know that’s not true. Your bone is a dynamic living tissue. It has blood circulating through it, it has nutrients that it’s using, it has waste products that are being taken away, it’s metabolically active. It’s doing lots of things. When we give the environment for our bones to be healthy, to grow, to repair, to do the job that your biochemistry wants it to do, it’s naturally going to just be healthier.
1:18:20 Dr. John Neustadt: And I think that’s one of the biggest myths. People get this, this diagnosis of osteoporosis and they’re just have this fatalistic attitude that has been promoted and propagated out there in the conventional, I think, media and by medical professionals that, you know, sorry, take this drug. We’ll retest you in two years. Good luck.
1:18:47 B: Yeah. And so I think even just learning more about what is true versus what is a myth is just one really important reason to read your book. Because I feel like we’ve been fed a lot of information that may not necessarily be true.
1:19:04 Dr. John Neustadt: Yeah. And let me just say another really important myth out there, and that’s about the medication patients, that if you take a medication, you’re protected. What we know is that, first of all, bone density is what’s tracked. It’s what’s tracked by the, by the Dexus test, the dual X ray absorptiometry test that people get for diagnosis. And it’s tested repeatedly about 18 to 24 months apart, typically to see if somebody’s bone density is improving and if their fracture risk is reducing and if the medication is being helpful.
1:19:39 Dr. John Neustadt: Well, the change in bone density that an osteoporosis medication creates is actually not a good predictor of whether or not it’s reducing your fractures. The change in bone density only accounts for about 20 to 25% of any reduction in fracture risk. And what we do know is that if you’ve never had a fracture with osteoporosis before and you start taking the medication, that most of them, almost all of them, only reduce vertebral fracture risk.
1:20:11 Dr. John Neustadt: They don’t reduce hip fractures. Now, if you’ve had a fracture with osteoporosis before, they’re more effective at what’s called secondary fracture prevention. But most people think that in most doctors that, well, a bone is a bone is a bone. So, you know, if, if, if, you know, it helps one bone, it helps your entire body. But that’s not really true because there’s different stresses and vectors of force that is put on, you know, different bones in our body. And so that’s, that’s not actually accurate.
1:20:42 Dr. John Neustadt: But also what’s not accurate is that if you just take this, this, this medication that you’re protected. And in fact, why I became interested in bones, I never saw myself following this path professionally was because my mother in law had osteoporosis and I was helping her with her bone health with just some recommendations for diet, lifestyle supplementation. And she was taking Fosamax that her physician had had prescribed to her, and her bone density was going up.
1:21:11 Dr. John Neustadt: So she was happy. Her physician was happy, I was happy. You know, I had other patients whose Bone density was going up using, you know, kind of some integrative approaches. And then she tripped on a throw rug in her house and she fractured her hip. And I thought to myself, what’s wrong here? Something is wrong with this picture. And so I started diving into the research and look, I was a baby doc then. I was just new out of medical school. So like all baby docs, we, we do what we’re trained to do. We’re following the protocols, we’re following, you know, what we learned in our, in our rotations and by our mentors.
1:21:45 Dr. John Neustadt: But when I started diving into the research, I was shocked at what I found. And that’s when I discovered that the bone density test only predicts 44% of, with osteoporosis who will fracture. And that’s when I discovered all of this other research out there on these nutrients and on these lifestyle changes and on these other things that we can do and the damaging effects of, of many medications and the limitations of the, of the, of the osteoporosis medications.
1:22:14 Dr. John Neustadt: And that’s when I just kept learning more and more and more. And it became really a passion and a mission of mine to get this information out to people, people to try and save their lives, because this truly is a deadly condition that is being mistreated, not being discussed properly, and people are not getting the information they need to make the decisions they need for their health.
1:22:40 B: As we’re coming to a close in this conversation, you know, I know a lot of the listeners here are very proactive about their health. So are there some first steps that you recommend to help them take some proactive forward movement in their bone health?
1:22:56 Dr. John Neustadt: That’s a great question. I would say get my book because it’s in there. Chapter by chapter. There are, you know, things in there. Additionally, on my website, tons of free information that people can read. My articles on medications, on nutrients, on exercise, on diets. And then there’s stuff in the book. There’s an article on my website on the gut bone connection. But one of the challenges is this piecemeal approach where somebody’s looking at all of these selections and like, okay, I’m going to do just do a little bit of this, and I’m just going to do a little bit of that.
1:23:34 Dr. John Neustadt: The reality is it’s like four legs of a stool. If any one leg is weak, the whole stool is not as strong as it could be. So I’m a real advocate of, yes, making incremental steps. It can be overwhelming. Where to start? Just start somewhere the research has shown that people who start following a healthier diet also are more likely to exercise and vice versa. So it doesn’t really matter where somebody starts. Just get started.
1:24:00 Dr. John Neustadt: But understand that that’s a starting point and not an ending point in a, in a journey that will be promoting your health for the rest of your life.
1:24:10 B: And where can people find you, your book and all these resources that you just talked about?
1:24:17 Dr. John Neustadt: My website’s probably the best place. N B I Health.com NBI Health.com is the website.
1:24:26 B: And do you have any other places that you hang out that you would like people to check you out at?
1:24:31 Dr. John Neustadt: That I hang out. Well, I’m, I’m on your podcast so this is a great place to, to, to hear me, me speak. I’m going to be at probably about 12 conference medical conferences this year speaking at many of them, exhibiting with my, my company. So if people are healthcare professionals out there, you know, follow my social media sites, channels because my marketing team announces different conferences that I’ll be at and speaking.
1:25:00 Dr. John Neustadt: There are also virtual ways to do listen to my, my see continuing education talks through these conferences. I’m giving an oncology talk virtually coming up in just a couple of weeks and I’m giving a talk on vitamin K at another medical conference that’s going to be recorded coming up. And there are also some summits that I’m on that people who are create these health summits have invited me on. So those get announced in our newsletter.
1:25:26 Dr. John Neustadt: So sign up for my newsletter on the website and those are probably the best ways to find out where, where my information is going to be and where I’m going to be.
1:25:34 B: Right. And I will link all of those, all the links that we talked about, but also all of his social links down into the show notes. So make sure you jump on down there and get your hands on. John, this has been a great conversation, so enlightening, so refreshing. And I really encourage you, the listener, to get your hands on this book because like he said, I mean, I’ve worked in this field too to a certain degree, not doing bone health, but with individuals that are having bone health issues. And this is a real issue, this is a real problem.
1:26:08 B: And I know that John has talked about it a lot today, but I feel that there’s so much more we can do. It’s just about enlightening ourselves and taking those steps forward. So John, do you have any last words that you want to lay onto the heart for the listeners for today?
1:26:26 Dr. John Neustadt: I would just say if this is something that somebody’s struggling with. I’ll repeat it, and this is one of the most important things. Take a deep breath. It’s serious, but it’s not an emergency. There’s time to educate yourself and create a bone health program holistically that makes sense for you.
1:26:45 B: Thank you so much and thank you for all the work that you’re doing in the community and in the world.
1:26:51 Dr. John Neustadt: Thank you. Thanks for the opportunity to share what I’ve learned.
1:26:57 Tansy Rodgers: What a powerful reminder this episode was. Healing isn’t about slapping on quick fixes or waiting until something breaks to start paying attention. It’s about choosing to listen earlier. It’s about honoring your bones, your cells, your breath. Not just as a physical thing, but as sacred messengers asking you to tune in. So I want to leave you with a few soul prompts to carry into your week. Where are you outsourcing your vitality and what would it look like to reclaim it today?
1:27:34 Tansy Rodgers: What’s one belief about aging or healing that you’re ready to rewrite with more power and possibility? And what support, physical or energetic, do you need to rise fully into this new version of yourself? You don’t have to have all the answers today, you just have to be willing to ask the deeper questions. If this episode spoke to your soul, take a moment to share it with somebody that you love. Subscribe to the channel.
1:28:07 Tansy Rodgers: Leave a review. Your voice helps spread this ripple of healing so much further than you know is how this shows, grows and gets into the hands of other people. Until next time, my friend. Keep spreading that beautiful energy you were born to share.
