How Hormones and Metabolism Shape Your Energy, Mood, and Wellness

Riordan Clinic [00:00:00]:
Hi everyone, just a quick message before the episode starts. This episode was recorded during our February 26th, 2026 Lunch and Learn, How Hormones and Metabolism Shape Your Energy, Mood, and Wellness. It featured Dr. Ron Hunninghake and Dr. Drew Rose. If you’d like to watch the full presentation, it’s available on our YouTube channel. We hope that you find it helpful. The information contained on the Real Health Podcast and the resources mentioned are for educational purposes only. They are not intended as and shall not be understood or construed as medical or health advice. The information contained on this podcast is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation. Information provided by hosts and guests on The Real Health Podcast or the use of any products or services mentioned does not create a practitioner-patient relationship between you and any persons affiliated with this podcast. This is the Real Health Podcast, brought to you by Riordan Clinic. Our mission is to bring you the latest information and top experts in functional and integrative medicine to help you make informed decisions on your path to real health.

Drew Rose, DO [00:01:19]:
So as Kelsey said, I’m Dr. Drew Rose, built by Dr. Drew. Keep it informal. I joined Riordan late September of last year, so I’ve been here for about 5 months now. A little bit about me if you haven’t seen any literature about me so far. I actually have a background in internal medicine. I am a DO, so Doctor of Osteopathy. There’s actually a great article about osteopathy in one of our most recent Health Hunters, so if you want to learn more about that, I’ll let you read about it. But I’m working here in the capacity of a clinical medical director and definitely being apprenticed by Dr. Ron here.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:01:53]:
So we’re so happy to have Dr. Drew join us. He’s, as an osteopath, he has the holistic perspective that Dr. Riordan has always, and myself have, we’ve championed that. And I knew he was going to be good because he did an extra year after you finished your 4 years in osteopathic school on osteopathic philosophy. So having the right understanding, the comprehensive perspective to me is makes all the difference in the world. Yeah.

Drew Rose, DO [00:02:24]:
So, all right. Without further ado, we’re here to talk about hormones, metabolism, and this essentially how that affects your overall energy, mood, overall health. So how many have actually seen the podcast that went live a couple of days ago? Anybody? That’s great. We’ll kind of start over. All right.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:02:45]:
So if you miss anything today, it’s in the podcast too. Yeah.

Drew Rose, DO [00:02:50]:
So kind of a question-answer conversation here that we’re going to have here, Dr. Ron. So what’s your 30-second elevator speech about what hormones and metabolism are and how it affects your overall health?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:03:00]:
Well, hormones are vitality. And if I’d say the most common concern that people come to us with is that, Doctor, I don’t have enough energy. And it’s the hormones in your body that really orchestrate the various metabolisms and organ functions and your brain function. Everything really has to do with energy. And if your hormones are not right, your energy’s probably not gonna be right. And probably the number one reason why people see doctors is because, hey doctor, I’m tired. And so if you’re in that boat, it’s possible that one of the hormones or several of them are not orchestrating properly.

Drew Rose, DO [00:03:41]:
Right. So kind of equating what hormones and metabolism are, a lot of people equate metabolism with like weight issues. Is metabolism and weight loss or weight gain, are they the same thing?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:03:52]:
Yeah, it’s the metabolism would be the whole, the whole symphony of hormones. Obviously there are different components. Thyroid would play a huge role. It’s not the only thing though. It’s, you can’t just say that the thyroid is the thing that regulates weight. Your adrenals. Could have a, a, a role to play in that. And we’re finding out if you’re not sleeping well, maybe melatonin’s a factor. Or if you’re menopausal or postmenopausal, could be your, your, your sex hormones are not where they need to be. So again, we can’t blame it on one hormone and it’s gonna be individualized. And this is where the importance of measuring to find out where you are can be most helpful in terms of answering that question.

Drew Rose, DO [00:04:36]:
Right. I’ve always been taught that, you know, hormones equate to the endocrine system. So like you talked about, You’ve got the thyroid, adrenals, all the other endocrine glands that secrete hormones that set kind of a metabolic rate. So they’re very much related, but they’re not exactly the same thing. So when we’re talking from a functional medicine perspective, one of the foundations of functional medicine is actually testing, lab tests, test, test, test, and make sure to see where your biochemistry actually is. But a lot of times, especially in conventional medicine, you’re going to hear that, well, your labs are normal, so I don’t really know why you’re feeling this way, or you kind of just get brushed off. From your perspective, why can the labs be normal but you still have some pretty awful symptoms?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:05:23]:
The labs are— there’s a, there’s a range of normalcy. And, and if you do the bell-shaped curve, it’s only— it’s like 95%. If you’re there, you’re called normal. And obviously, if you’re in the low end of the curve, and especially if you’re in the low end of the curve with several different hormones, Even though you’re normal, you don’t feel normal. You feel you can be tired. You can have other symptoms. You can have sleep disorders. You can have mood disorders. And a lot of times mood disorders, which we think of as being psychiatric, are not psychiatric at all. Right. They’re, they’re metabolic. And so matter of fact, that is the big change that’s going on in psychiatry right now is they’re finding out that the metabolic approach to psychiatric illness is much more effective than, than pharmaceutical approach. But it takes a shift in lifestyle. You know, we’ve gotten too used to just taking a pill, whereas we know that lifestyle changes can make a big difference. But we also now know that using hormones in a safe, effective way, because in the past there’s been a lot of fear around hormones, that this is maybe gonna cause cancer, is this gonna really disrupt my system? But, and, and that was reflected in the fact that in your PDR, the physician’s desk reference, they had a black box around a lot of the, the hormones. Those have all come off now. If you are monitoring a patient appropriately with your lab and looking at the whole person, then, which is what, what I think is special about the Riordan Clinic, it’s not just this hormone or that hormone, it’s your nutrients, your hormones, your lifestyle, all of that together. Is this orchestration that we try to help people achieve so that they can have the full benefit of a well-functioned biochemistry and metabolism.

Drew Rose, DO [00:07:14]:
Well, and I think that’s a good point to make too, is the, since we’re already on this topic, but talking about like bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, a lot of advancements have been made over the past decade or so of where we get these hormones and how they’re utilized. So it’s, it’s different. I mean, could you speak a little bit about the history on that?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:07:33]:
Yeah. So the, the Women’s Health Initiative which was, I think, 20-some years ago, again, came about because there was a concern that maybe the hormones were increasing risk for breast cancer or other types of cancers. And what they found out, and of course what was being used was Prempro, which was Premarin, was a, it was derived from horse, pregnant horse mare urine. So it was an equine type of female hormone, and then the Provera was actually a synthetic progesterone. And when they got through like several thousands of women that went through this evaluation, it turned out it was the Provera that actually was associated and not so much the hormones. Now, with that being said, the other big thing is the fact that when we see patients and we use hormone replacement therapy, we’re doing every 6 months, and initially maybe every 3 months, testing, making sure that we’ve got it right for you as an individual, because no one has exactly the same metabolism. I have some women that are on pretty low amounts of hormones, and other women need higher amounts in order to get the, the normal range to where we want it to be. So this biochemical individuality especially plays big in hormone replacement therapy.

Drew Rose, DO [00:08:52]:
Absolutely. And I think those advancements are very important to kind of keep in mind, so kind of take the fear out of it. Plus, go back to what functional medicine is—test, test, test—to make sure that we’re in the right, the right range for you. So I know a lot of you have a handout, at least here in person, as far as kind of looking at symptoms, and I kind of wanted to touch base on that a little bit. Dr. Ron, why would you say that, you know, why would it mean that the more symptoms you have, you have multiple kinds of symptoms, you have to look at multiple different systems then? Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:09:24]:
And so a lot of your specialists, a thyroid doctor would just be looking at just your thyroid, but maybe not your adrenals, and maybe not even thinking about that your, the sex hormones would have anything to do with it. So again, I think there’s a, at least when, when I try to see patients, there’s this kind of like Sherlock Holmes component to, to it where I’m trying to really listen carefully and try to look at the big picture. And then do the testing, because without the numbers, it’s a kind of guess. And so that’s why Riordan has, from the very beginning, has emphasized the importance of testing and then correlating that with the individual, making a treatment plan, whatever, whatever we come up with, the, the initial evaluation and testing, but then also using additional testing to fine-tune it. Because tuning, I think, is an important part of hormones. They’re not, they’re not just, you know, strict doses. They’re— I think you have to individualize it quite a bit.

Drew Rose, DO [00:10:28]:
And when you’re fine-tuning those, you’re also looking at not just the hormone levels, but also the nutrient vitamins and lifestyle, sleep. There you go.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:10:37]:
Toxins, exercise, stress. So we find out that, that the practice of medicine is not just medicine. It’s more and more, I think, lifestyle. And looking at the whole perspective is what really helps people achieve a higher level of human functioning.

Drew Rose, DO [00:10:55]:
Right. So to kind of break this up a little bit, because the endocrine system, just from a medical education standpoint, is difficult, right? So to try to break things up a little bit, one thing that we hear a lot about these days is media coverage, magazines, lot of different things. It’s metabolic syndrome. Can you explain what metabolic syndrome is and what insulin resistance, how that plays in?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:11:18]:
Yeah, it is the syndrome that is sweeping the planet and causing not only obesity, but diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, increased risk for cancer, depress— I mentioned earlier, depression and psychiatric illnesses. So when your metabolism, and metabolism is the word to kind of look at— I don’t know if you’ve heard the term gestalt. The gestalt of how you are physically is your metabolism. If your metabolism is low, your brain’s not going to work as good. You’re going to be tired. You’re going to be more likely to pick up hypertension or heart disease or other conditions. So really what we’re wanting to do is try to look at the big picture, right?

Drew Rose, DO [00:12:03]:
I think metabolic syndrome, you hear about all the time, the obesity crisis, and it’s not just what you eat, it’s also where the hormones play into that, where, you know, lifestyle plays into that. And that’s ultimately what the Riordan Approach is.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:12:17]:
So I just recently saw a podcast on that everyone who has the metabolic syndrome has a higher, higher level of environmental toxins in their system. So I think environmental toxins is probably not as well appreciated, appreciated as it should be. So part of getting over the metabolic syndrome is detoxifying. Right. Absolutely.

Riordan Clinic [00:12:42]:
Are you looking for a delicious way to boost your immune system? Meet Sufficient-C, the crave-worthy immune support drink that makes staying healthy a treat, not a chore. Packed with 4,000 milligrams of non-GMO vitamin C, Sufficient-C is more than just a drink. It’s a powerhouse of immune-boosting goodness. With added L-lysine, bromelain, and 96% pure caffeine-free green tea extract. Every sip is a step towards better health. And the best part? It tastes amazing. Our Lemon Peach Immune Aid mix is sweetened with pure stevia. No sugar, no guilt. Plus, it’s plant-based, gluten-free, kosher, and completely caffeine-free. So why settle for boring when you can have a flavorful immune boosting refreshment. Visit sufficientc.com and mix up your health routine with Sufficient-C because your health deserves a delicious boost.

Drew Rose, DO [00:13:40]:
So on to one of your favorite topics, the thyroid. So why is the thyroid so central to metabolism and energy in general?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:13:50]:
Well, where it really came clear to me is I’ve had a number of patients, especially female patients, that have come in with a condition called fibromyalgia. And it’s not on this sheet, but one of my sheets that goes into the whole thyroid, on the back page, there’s literally 75 symptoms that have been attributed to fibromyalgia. So, so if you, if, if you have it or if you know someone who has it, it’s a, it’s a very complex condition. And, and when you go into a regular doctor with one symptom, that’s, probably the most that most doctors are willing to see for these days. But when you have 50 symptoms, those patients tended to be pushed to the side, so to say, not taken seriously. And so what I started seeing is that there was a definite pattern to this. And I ran, I ran into a huge textbook by a chiropractor who pointed out that people who had fibromyalgia were metabolically very, very low. Yeah. And so that to me said, well, gosh, what’s going on here? Maybe it is the thyroid. Well, doctors will do a TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone test, and if it’s normal, you’re okay. Some doctors will do a T4, which is another part of thyroid testing, and that can be okay, but you still have the symptoms. Well, what I started finding out from this book on fibromyalgia is that the reverse T3, and all of you who are my patients, everyone probably knows about the reverse T3. The reverse T3 is not done by endocrinologists, and yet it’s the brake. You know, if we could say T3 is the accelerator that gets your metabolism going, the reverse T3 is the brake. And if you’re under stress, if you’re toxic, if you have all these other things, a lot of people that I see, they’re not only on— they’re on the brake, but the parking brake is on. And it’s stuck. And, and they feel that way too. And so that was a huge way of beginning to see that here was another factor and that we could modify it by modifying T4, T3. We could start doing some things with nutrients and minerals. The whole rest of the program still came into play, or other hormones. But this, this thyroid number was a key part of Adjusting the— when I grew up working in my dad’s gas station, we would adjust the engine, would come in, the engine was just real slow. There was a switch where you could idle it up. The T3 can idle up your metabolism. And a lot of the fibromyalgia patients started to see some light. They started to feel better once we got that, that ratio corrected. Right.

Drew Rose, DO [00:16:40]:
I think that was one of the biggest aha moments I had. Switching from the conventional side of medicine over to integrative medicine here. And as hearing Dr. Ron talk about the thyroid, what the reverse T3 is, and that analogy of you are a car driving down the highway and you quite literally can have all normal labs within reference range, but you’re driving down the highway with a foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. It made total sense to me. So this is why I love the Reuben approach. And, you know, definitely picking your brain from the decades that you’ve been able to do this.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:17:12]:
And throw in the adrenals too. You know, people who who have chronic fatigue also have higher levels of stress because they can’t adapt as well. And their— then their adrenal starts to go to a pot, and you’re not sleeping as well. So it becomes a kind of a domino thing. And so once again, the holistic approach is the way to deal with this. It’s not a single intervention, but it’s an orchestration of several interventions at the same time. Absolutely.

Drew Rose, DO [00:17:37]:
Uh, and I don’t know if it was this podcast or the last one, but we talked about how being a provider and trying to look at all of these labs, and especially with the endocrine system, it quite very really feels like you’re the conductor and there’s an orchestra out there and you’re trying to get everything up at the same time and balance, and it’s difficult. And you mentioned the adrenals. That’s kind of like where, you know, my fascination lies, actually. So how does stress show up, especially within the adrenal glands? Poor adrenal functioning.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:18:07]:
Well, what happens is when you’re stressed, your body will make more adrenaline. Well, what if you’re stressed 5 times a day and your, your adrenals are being kicked into 5 times a day? After a while, they don’t have the reserve to keep it up. Or there may be key nutrients, like another big topic that we get into, which is not hormones, but MTHFR. That’s a type of B vitamins that you really, if you’ve got that condition, you need some special B vitamins like B12, B6. So it’s not just the hormones, it’s working with the nutrient levels and the hormones in and syncing them up and balancing everything out there.

Drew Rose, DO [00:18:45]:
Yeah. So with the adrenal glands, what I mean, just quick brief lesson here because I, like I said, I’m fascinated by them. They’re little glands that sit on top of your kidneys, but they do so much. I was, you know, in medical school taught there’s 3 layers to the cortex, then there’s a medulla. So imagine, let’s say, a pistachio, right? You’ve got the outer shell there. That’s the cortex. The cortex alone has 3 separate layers that control 3 separate hormones. The first layer is a mineralocorticoid, aldosterone. Things that it controls is blood pressure, blood volume. The second layer is going to be the glucocorticoids we talk a lot about. That’s where steroids can kind of mess things up a little bit if you’re on them too long or too high a dose. But that’s where you’re going to get your cortisol. You’re going to get that immediate energy release as it mobilizes glucose. And from what I’m hearing with you, you said it spikes 5 times a day. So if the normal AM cortisol is there, it doesn’t give you the whole picture, right? No. So, and then the third layer is going to be your sex hormones. It’s going to be the precursors to estrogen and testosterone. So there’s 3 layers there in and of itself that if one thing goes wrong, it’s a domino effect down the line. And then a lot of people, which we didn’t even touch on in our podcast, is the medulla. That’d be the seed, the inner portion of the pistachio, right? That actually is the neuroendocrine aspect of things where you get regulation of norepinephrine, epinephrine, also called adrenaline. So a quote that I found actually just kind of doing some reading last night in preparation for this was, if the cortisol is the furnace for your metabolism, the medulla is gonna be the lightning strike. That’s what balances out your autonomic nervous system even. So it does a lot, not just from a metabolic rate, but it also balances all of your nerves too. Yeah.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:20:33]:
And so just as a real simple thing, we, I’ve been having a lot of people do the adrenal stress index, which is just a saliva test. You take a morning saliva, a noon saliva, 4:00 PM, and bedtime, and you can see where the cortisol is. And there should be a nice peak in the morning. Coming down around noon and then bottoming out about 5 o’clock, which at our house we used to call it the gangrene hour when all the kids went crazy. Their cortisol levels were at the lowest point of the day, and then it comes up a little bit. You need a little bit of cortisol even just to sleep well at night. A lot of people are so tired they can’t sleep well, and a lot of that is adrenal exhaustion. So, so these, the thyroid and the adrenals are really the two pistons of energy in your body.

Drew Rose, DO [00:21:19]:
Absolutely. So kind of moving along there, ’cause you, you mentioned sleep multiple times. So where does sleep lie within this whole system or gestalt as you mentioned, especially when it relates to energy and mood?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:21:32]:
Well, during the night, the brain actually has a glymphatic system. The glymphatic system is, it’s the equivalent of the lymphatic system. So when you’re asleep, there’s a lot happening with your brain. That’s why you actually need energy to sleep well. And if, if you don’t have it, your brain’s not gonna, if you, if you’ve ever had a bad night, you wake up the next day, not only you’re tired, but you’re, you’re just plain fuzzy. Your brain has not gone through the wash cycle of getting whatever the stressors and whatnot has happened the day before. So melatonin can be an important part of that. Yep. But we’re, once again, cortisol, people who are low in cortisol, actually sometimes they need a little bit of hydrocortisone at bedtime. To even have a good night’s sleep. That can be a factor. Thyroid. There’s a factor there in terms of the metabolic rate of the brain. The brain has it, it, even though it’s like what, 4% of the body weight, it does 20% of the metabolism. So we really want to get a good night’s sleep. And so we need hormones to sleep properly. For example, in women, progesterone. Yes. Incredibly important in terms of having a good night’s sleep. And then with that, oftentimes you need to have the estrogen and the testosterone and the DHEA properly balanced. DHEA is an adrenal hormone. It comes from, I think, one of those layers.

Drew Rose, DO [00:22:53]:
Yeah, it comes from the third layer of the adrenal glands. Yeah. Yeah.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:22:56]:
So, so you start to see that this is really a symphony and, and just kind of doing a little bit here, a little bit there may not be enough. We may need to take a broader perspective on what’s going on in your particular case.

Drew Rose, DO [00:23:09]:
Lifestyle-wise too, I think sleep is— we’re in like a sleep crisis, essentially. We’re barraged with just a bunch of different kind of stressors throughout our day. You walk out and the amount of toxins that have increased over the past 100 years is insane. You watch TV, you watch the news, it’s just constant barrage of psychological, some sort of stressors there. Sleep hygiene is something that I very much preach a lot to my co-learners as well. Staying away from the phones, the backlit screens, TVs. Go back to, you know, candlelight, like, level of light, no overhead lights, calm everything down in the evenings, go read a book, paper book, you know, get away from the tablets and the iPhones and the TVs for at least a couple of hours and try to go, you know, try to have your last bite of your meal at least 2 hours before you go to bed. You don’t want to be digesting that as soon as you lay down. So sleep hygiene is also incredibly important. See, and that’s hormonal.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:24:07]:
I mean, the lifestyle choices we make influence our hormones. So it’s not just taking hormones or testing. It’s also learning to balance our hormones by making better lifestyle choices. Right.

Drew Rose, DO [00:24:18]:
So on that, what are a couple practical things that you wish somebody here would do this week to improve their overall hormonal and metabolic health?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:24:27]:
Well, go to bed on time. Yeah. You know, and get some exercise during the day. Be careful about what you eat. You know, it comes back to whole foods. People who are eating high sugar, they have ups and downs, which screws up their adrenal glands. If you, if you’re, you’re on a rollercoaster ride of hypoglycemia, every time you have a hypoglycemic episode, that triggers an adrenal response. And that’s one of the reasons why people burn out on their adrenals is they’re, they’re on this rollercoaster ride. So learning how to eat whole foods with high fiber, phytonutrients, those types of things happen. Getting regular exercise. That, that, that is hormetic. Hormesis is where you do challenge yourself and, but in a way that’s within your capacity and that challenge can help you get stronger. That can help your, your, your glands learn to orchestrate together in a better way. Right.

Drew Rose, DO [00:25:25]:
I think it’s also keeping in mind that, you know, you can’t change everything in one day. It’s, it’s small changes in a day definitely add up over time. I think I saw it was recently, I read an article where pretty well accepted, understand this, but it takes 90 days to create a habit. It takes 6 months to create a lifestyle. So a lot of people that I coach with these lifestyle changes, give yourself some grace, understand every day is different and you’re going to have good, good days and bad days. But the idea is to have an idea of where you want to be, find that health. And keep, keep consistent as best as you can.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:26:04]:
One thing I can say to that though is that hormones start kicking in a lot faster than—

Drew Rose, DO [00:26:09]:
Oh, definitely.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:26:09]:
So a lot of women that are not sleeping and they’re not feeling good and they’re maybe irritable and they’re maybe depressed, and we do the testing and we find out where the hormones are abnormal and get them on a trochee, a little thing that you put between your gum and cheek at morning and night. All of a sudden, within days or a week or so, things start to really settle out because now you’ve got those hormones back that you would otherwise not get back after menopause. They don’t come back. You have to do something to, to put them in. And in the past, there was this real fear about them. But, and there was actually a black box in the PDR saying these, this is dangerous. Hormone replacement is, that’s gone now. But even conventional medicine is pretty much saying, hey, these hormones, if used appropriately, can give pretty impressive results fairly quickly. Now, there’s a process of getting them balanced properly, sometimes a little bit too low to start with or possibly a little too high. So you have to individualize it using the lab. Right.

Drew Rose, DO [00:27:11]:
So since we’re talking about lab hormones notwithstanding, I mean, are there any other nutrients or supplements that you would recommend on people taking? Or you have Check Your Health coming up with a nutrient sale. Just kind of wondered if you had any ideas.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:27:23]:
Well, we’re talking about hormones today, but you can’t really talk about hormones without thinking about nutrients. And so the omegas are very important in terms of brain health. And most people have never really, I mean, you can take omegas, but we have a really good omega panel. The amino acids are probably in my mind, the big sleeper that we, we do them and we look at them, but we don’t think about ’em enough. There’s, there’s, there’s so many things like I’m just recently finding out a lot more about glycine. I don’t know how many of you’ve heard about glycine and sleep and inflammation. Most of the patients I’m seeing right now are not sleeping very well. At least that’s what they’re telling me. And I’m, and, and melatonin hasn’t worked or, or they, they can’t take enough. Glycine is a very inexpensive amino acid that not only helps you sleep better, but it also reduces inflammation. So this is a, this is something that you can do, but Again, that’s giving it as an individual thing. If you see the whole profile, then you can kind of orchestrate that to your advantage.

Drew Rose, DO [00:28:30]:
So I’m going to borrow a question from you, but what is the most important nutrient? Yes.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:28:35]:
How many know? That’s my famous question. How many of you heard that question? What is the most important nutrient? Yep.

Drew Rose, DO [00:28:42]:
Plenty of hands in here for those who can’t see.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:28:44]:
The one you’re lowest in is the most important. And you know, how do you know which one that is? That’s the one that’s pulling the rest of the team. Nutrition is a team sport. Hormones are, is a team sport. Who loses the game? It’s the worst guy on the team that loses the, the game. And so, so by doing the testing, you’re able to identify the most important thing you can do because there’s, you walk into a health food store or any place, there’s so many to choose from. So the, the whole idea of testing is to find out what your body needs right now. And it may be more than one thing.

Drew Rose, DO [00:29:16]:
So, and this is a perfect segue in towards the end of our talk here too, because as Kelsey said earlier before she introduced us, we are having a Check Your Health Fair coming up starting Monday with how many is it, 5 or 6 different panels that we have discounted here. So are there any panels that you would recommend to people?

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:29:34]:
We have a hormone panel. It’s a pretty— that’s probably the least expensive one too. So if you’re thinking this might be something you’re interested in, that’s— this is a good time to do that. The panels go up in price, but they’re at half price. But they’re an opportunity. And I think one of the panels, there is an appointment that you can have with one of us. Yeah, that’s included with the panel.

Drew Rose, DO [00:29:57]:
I believe it’s the 3 largest panels that we have, the Mega, the Nutrients, and I believe it’s the Advanced as well. There are hormones that are tested all the way from the Basic, Advanced, and the Mega panels as well. So it’s not just the hormone panel. The mega panel gets you everything though. I mean, it’s going to get pretty much everything that we can test and the price compared to what it normally is, compared to what it is with that, that pricing I think is pretty incredible. So and it does, it gets you a 30-minute sit down with Dr. Ron and I so we can kind of talk about some of these things and look into your lifestyle and see where we can improve some things and potentially do some hormone replacement.

Ron Hunninghake, MD [00:30:36]:
We live in a pretty treacherous time right now. The United States is said to be like 48th in the world in terms of our healthcare, in terms of our, the level of sickness that we’re dealing with. We’re, we’re, we’re number 1 in costs. But, but we, we really are not, we have a system that’s focused on specialization and, and, and trying to deal with one thing at a time. And so, and I’m, you know, let me say that I’m, I’m grateful that we have the system that we have and, And over time, our focus has been on integrative care. So integrative care is we want the best of both. But right now, our current system is mostly specialization. It’s really hard to find a family physician these days. So here at the Riordan Clinic, we want to take in the best of both, but we want to provide that nutritional, hormonal, lifestyle, you know, kind of also supportive care. My goal when I sit in with the patient, I truly do want to be a co-learner with that patient. Exactly. I’m not there to just preach. Sometimes it sounds like, but I’m really wanting to have that dialogue, that give and take. And when we have the data, when we have the lab work in front of us, it’s not just maybe this, maybe that. It’s kind of like we’ve got some numbers to work with, and when we have numbers, then we can make specific plans that are are specialized for your situation, not just an average person, but here’s the things that are low for you. How does that play into your symptoms and your past history? So really, the, the doctor-patient relationship is much more dynamic here at the Riordan Clinic, in my opinion. And I know there are doctors out there that are great, but we, we have something, a special opportunity here to work with patients that I treasured. I’m in my 37th year here, and I would— I’m so— I feel so fortunate to have ended up here because this to me is the type of medicine that I’ve always wanted to do, but it’s not always hard. It’s not, not available in a lot of situations. So thank you for all of you here and people that are listening in that have supported the Riordan Clinic. We think it’s kind of growing. There are more, there are more doctors that are seeing that this is, this is a good way to practice just good healthcare.

Riordan Clinic [00:33:00]:
Thank you for listening to the Real Health Podcast. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. You can also find all of the episodes and show notes over at realhealthpodcast.org. Also, be sure to visit riordanclinic.org where you will find hundreds of videos and articles to help you create your own version of real health.