 Hey everybody, we are live with Dr. Pam Smith. She's been on the podcast and show before and I am so excited. Not only is she a well-respected colleague and friend, just has been such a mentor and great influence in my life and I just have the utmost respect for her as a colleague, clinician, writer. She's done so many things. One of my heroes, Pam, you really are. And the fact that I get to call you friend as well is it's an honor and a privilege to have that in my life. So happy to have you here today. A little background before I introduce Dr. Smith, you can find us now on iTunes on YouTube and we've got over 70 interviews with great content, great experts. I always learn so much. It's kind of the little secret about this is I get to learn and interview some of my favorite people. Today we're gonna talk to Dr. Smith about her new book called Max Your Immunity. I'll be sure and tell you where to find that. And of course it's very relevant more than ever now. If you wanna find blogs or information about me, you can go to my website, jillcarnahan.com and the retail store is drjilhealth.com. So without further ado, Dr. Pamela Wharton Smith, she spent her first 20 years of practice as an emergency room physician in the Detroit Medical Center and then 26 years as an anti-aging functional medicine specialist. She has trained almost all of us in some way, and another because she's been so involved with A4M in these groups. I remember Pam years ago with PCCA, probably 20 years ago when I first heard you lecture. And what I loved about your lectures is you were so concise as bullets. Like here's a list of this, here's a list of this. And you have such a way of simplifying complex topics. So thank you for being such a pioneer in this field. She's a diplomat of the board of American Academy of Anti-Aging Physicians and is internationally known speaker and author on the subject of personalized medicine. She also holds a master's in public health along with master's in metabolic and nutritional medicine. She's been featured all over CNN, PBS and many other television networks and has been interviewed on numerous consumer magazines. She's hosted two of her own radio shows and featured as a physician in the PBS series The Embrace of Aging. So there are so much more, but she's got a lot of books out today. We are excited to talk about her latest book Max Your Immunity. So welcome, Dr. Smith, so glad to have you here. Thank you so much, I appreciate the invitation. Yeah, so tell us what led you to kind of write. I mean, this is such a relevant topic and I wanna dive into what the content is and why people wanna get the copy of their own, but what led you to write this next book? You've written so many and you've been so successful as a writer. Tell us more about this book in particular. Well, this is what the book looks like, Max Your Immunity and honestly, it is a book I never thought I would write. I was writing the second edition of my book, What You Must Know About Women's Farmants, when all of a sudden literally God brought this book to me and I mean that sincerely. I was like, no, you need to write about how people can improve their immune system. What is the immune system? How do you improve it? How do you not over improve it to the point where you develop an autoimmune disease? What 10 things can you do when they were just there along with looking at nutritional status and how you can improve that through nutrients as well? Well, I love that. And I love you, Sher, we both come from our perspective that we include spirituality in our practice and it's so important because mind, body, spirit, if we just fix the physical, but we don't have a connection to people or connection to God and what he does in our life, it's, we're missing part of the picture. And you and I were both talking about how that really defines who we are and what we do in the world and this is no different. I love that you were inspired in a way to move forward and it's such a needed topic and who knew we were gonna have the second wave? Some people did predict it, but it's even more important as people are dealing with what's coming down the pike. And what I think we've had this last pandemic, well, this last year is this sense of helplessness, right? Like we can't do much about it like we're victims and I do not believe that at all. And I know this book is part of that empowering because we really do have control to some extent over our immune systems, don't we? We absolutely do. We really are the keeper of it. And if we do bad things, it really makes the immune system worse. And there's so many things that we can do. Of course, it's great to see a healthcare practitioner, but that's not what it's all about. We can do many of these things all on our own. And it's actually a very positive book and it's a very exciting book to have written because there are so many things that we can do to help our immune system be balanced. And really that's what it's all about is balance. You have to have the immune system working the right way. Yeah, and first of all, I love that you mentioned balance because overactive immune system is just as bad as underactive. You wanna talk to us a little bit about what happens if you're, so you have this balance and you wanna have the immune system fighting infections, but if it gets triggered or you do something way too extensively, you can go the other direction and fight yourself. Do you wanna frame that just a little bit for people listening on what that means in the balance aspect? Absolutely. First of all, your immune system, really there's two parts. There's the innate immune system and that's what happens when you get neurotoxin or infection, your body has an immediate response. And this is something that you inherit. And so how healthy your mother was and how healthy she was during pregnancy does play a role in that innate immune system. Then you have the adaptive immune system. This is a system that takes over after a while so that you create antibodies to the antigen and you fight the infection, for example, like COVID. And both of those have to be working. However, if you do things that make it hyperimmune, mean you overdrive the system, then the body literally starts attacking itself and you develop what we call an autoimmune disease. There's now 105 autoimmune diseases. And in my 44 years of practice, this number has grown dramatically. It really has. And anywhere from Hashimoto's thyroiditis to Graves' disease to MS to Crohn's and the 105th is chronic Lyme disease. So there are so many of them. The good news is you can actually work on that and you and I do. We very much do three things when it comes to autoimmune diseases. One, stop all gluten. Two, fix the gut. And three, we do prescribe something called low dose naltrexone. I'm actually happy to report that one of my patients never took me seriously. She's been my patient for 17 years and she had Hashimoto's thyroiditis. And as of last year, she actually ended up with four autoimmune diseases. And her ANA was positive, which is like a pre-lupus state. And then she developed lupus and it affected her kidneys called lupus nephritis. And so I asked her to please see a rheumatologist, immunologist about this because we need their help as well as things we're gonna do. She finally at 45 woke up and she said, you know what? I'm not gonna eat that gluten. I am gonna fix my gut. And she had been taking low dose naltrexone for five years. And I'm gonna take it diligently. And today, literally four hours ago, I called her with some results and she said, I went to see that rheumatologist and guess what? Because I've been gluten free, my ANA is now negative and my kidney function is normal. So yes, you can actually even reverse some of the disease processes as well. But that was all under her control. Oh, I love that because you're giving people like you can do gluten free. You can talk to your doctor about low dose naltrexone. You can do these things. And you know, Pam, sometimes I share little personal experiences. I am the poster child and really briefly in 30 seconds or so, I had breast cancer 25 and with that really toxic chemotherapy that saved my life but also damaged my gut. Unbeknownst to me, I had celiac. So gluten was a massive trigger. And then that drug plus the celiac, I went on six months later to develop Crohn's disease. That was my first official diagnosis at 26 of an autoimmune disease. And I was bent and determined to figure out how to fix it. I'm considered completely cured 20 years later because I went off gluten. I fixed the microbiome, I fixed the gut. In the subsequent years, I developed Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is now reversed. And then I also developed type one diabetes. This was after the mold exposure. Not many people know this. It was adult onset latent, autoimmune driven. I had auto, GAD, autoantibodies and went to an endocrinologist. She said, yeah, Jill, your A1C is high. You have this latent onset adult. Well, I was bound to determine even though that's considered incurable to figure out what was going on. And by detoxing from mold, going back to the gut and doing a number of things that you talk about in your book, I actually no longer am considered to have that. I don't require insulin. I eat a low glycemic diet. But other than that and my healthy nutrition, I don't consider myself to have those diseases anymore. So I am a walking testimony of anyone is of this exact principle. And it really is we have control. You do. My mother-in-law is a very interesting woman. I always remember her birth date, it's 10, 2030. So as you can see, she's going to be 91 this year. And when she was 25, she had a really bad virus that landed her in the hospital. And when she left, she was a type one diabetic. And she's required insulin all these years. But because she really does take bioidentical hormones, she does watch her diet. She does check her insulin all the time. She does those things. She is going to be 91 in October. I mean, how long, most people don't live that long when they have type one diabetes, but you can, you can actually balance these things. Yeah, and I love that story. Cause that's one of those. I'm almost afraid to say it because I know people look at me like, well, that's incurable. Like there's a lot of people who are going to even hear this and say, Jill, that can't be true. Now I know it's true. You know it's true, it's such an unheard story because our conventional system doesn't teach us that there are solutions. So let's dive more into your book. Did you say there's 10 different things? Let's talk about some of the things in your book about how to max your immunity. Absolutely. So the first one is an interesting subject. They're in alphabetical order. And the first one is alcohol. It doesn't mean don't drink. I don't happen to drink alcohol. But the reason I'm a tea toddler is that I have a very strong family history on both sides of breast cancer. And the studies are now definitive. Women, they metabolize alcohol differently than men. And because of that, really any woman, honestly, the studies really do show you should not have more than one drink in a day. If you have a family history like I do or you've had breast cancer, then eliminating alcohol is absolutely beneficial. But as it pertains to the book, if you drink a lot of alcohol, you abuse it, it does compromise your immune system. That's been shown positively for sure. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I'm like you because of my history of breast cancer and I have no judgment on people who do have a drink a day but I have just chosen to have steam because I feel better. And I don't really find the need to add that. For an interesting perspective too, that acetyl aldehyde, which is the thing that causes a hangover feeling is also a toxic byproduct of fungal and yeast infection. So if you have a predisposition like I did for fungal overgrowth with the Crohn's and some of my gut issues, then you're also producing that in another form from your intestines. So if you add alcohol to that, they have to compete for your detox pathways. And it's just for me, there's no reason to add that in. No, I totally agree with you. The second one is exercise. This is the one that I personally have a problem with. I know you don't Jill, but I do. I honestly, I don't get a high from exercise. A lot of you out there do and bless you. I'm so glad you do. I exercise for one reason only and that is to maintain memory. I don't wanna have cognitive decline. So I do exercise, but great studies on exercise, building the immune system. So if people are staying home and they're not going out as much because of COVID, please still exercise. You could exercise anywhere. You could, I could exercise right here at my desk. So exercising builds immune system. Oh, love that. And just a really practical tip because I used to go out and do the high intensity and the running and what I've done a lot and this is so simple is incorporate it into your daily like activities. So while I'm brushing my teeth, I might do calf raises. When I'm walking the dogs, I might do lunges. And so maybe pushups after I wake up, I do different things, but I've incorporated these like secretly into my life. So I never feel like I'm really doing a big program and it's so freeing because I'm getting the exercise, but I'm not going to a gym for 60 minutes and feeling like burdened by it. Well, and that's all parts of your body. You may laugh, I just turned 67. And it's so funny to me because obviously no one wants to quote unquote age, not gracefully. So for years, I have literally exercised my jaw when I brush my teeth to dry and decrease any wrinkling in here. Of course I have some, I'm 67, but I don't have a lot. And I really, it's because of exercising my jaw when I brush my teeth. I love it and Pam, you look amazing. So you should be a role model for all of us. What's number three? Number three is to fix the gut. And obviously we could spend five hours talking about this, but 70% of the immune system is in the gut. And some of the symptoms, obviously if you have reflux, if you have GERD, you have constipation, diarrhea, loose stools, it's obvious that there's a gut problem, but many people have a gut problem and they don't realize it. They may just have muscle aches and pains. They may have brain fog, they may have just fatigue. And I know you've talked about this many times on your show, but you can't talk about it enough because 70% of your immune system is in the gut. It's imperative that it's healthy. Yeah, and how many patients do you have that are like, oh, I thought that was normal to go to the bathroom every three days. Like it's, people just assume that what their function is is normal. And then when they start to realize, wait, it could be different. It's pretty astounding, isn't it? It is, and optimal health of your GI tract is two bowel movements a day. That usually shocks people. Absolutely, totally agree. So number four. Number four has to do with inflammation. You know, inflammation actually a small amount is a really good thing because it helps the body heal. But when it gets way out of whack, then the inflammatory response goes crazy, then that's what causes disease. And most diseases, whether it's breast cancer, cognitive decline, COVID, they're inflammatory in nature. And with COVID, it's particularly interesting because some people can get what we call a cytokine storm. And I'm sure you've heard people mention that. Cytokines are proteins that produce an inflammatory reaction. So cytokine storm are things like cough, fever, fatigue, muscle aches and pains, you're too tired to walk, rapid breathing, rashes, seizures, shortness of breath. A lot of these symptoms that you hear related to COVID are from the cytokine storm. And we wanna settle that down. That's a major inflammatory reaction. And so we do wanna work with patients. I know you do, I do and other people do to try and settle down that inflammatory reaction. Yeah, and would that be where low-dose naltrexone can play in? Absolutely. I really, my patients that have COVID, I do put them on low-dose naltrexone to prevent. And if they already have cytokine storm to treat it, you know, they usually treat cytokine storm with steroids and people get very concerned. Can you take low-dose naltrexone and steroids at the same time? You can't because their conventional doctor will say, oh no, you can't stop steroids. You know, that's the only way to treat inflammatory conditions. But yes, you can take low-dose naltrexone and steroids at the same time. Some of my patients have stopped the LDN if they've gone to the hospital, did the steroids, when they came back, we restarted the low-dose naltrexone because we don't want them to get what we call long-haul COVID where the symptoms drag on for months and even years. This is great and such a practical tip because LDN we've used with auto immunity, like we mentioned. And the first studies, I think we're in the 80s with HIV patients and they all of a sudden found some really big improvements because when you block that opioid production endogenously, which means in your own body, then all of a sudden your body's like, wait, we need to make more. And so not only do you make more endorphins, which make you feel good, but that endorphin actually calms the cytokine response. And I might be oversimplifying, but it's pretty fascinating, isn't it, the mechanism? I think that's a great way to explain it actually. And people don't realize that we even use low-dose naltrexone for cancer. All kinds of cancer are inflammatory in nature. I have a friend of mine who is an oncologist. He uses a lot of low-dose naltrexone. He actually is taking a baby dose to prevent cancer. There's no studies on that, but I thought it was interesting that an oncologist would do that because cancer is so inflammatory. Yeah, oh, so what's number five? Number five is to get a good night's sleep. Have great sleep hygiene. If you don't sleep well, then your immune system is compromised. Perfect sleep is six and a half to eight hours, not less, not more. And some people are like me, you're a power sleeper, your head hits the pillow and you're out. Some people go to bed like my husband and he kind of stays awake for a while and his brain doesn't turn off, but it really is good REM sleep. And a lot of that has to do with the hormone melatonin. A melatonin is so important for the immune system. In fact, we use melatonin to even treat some kinds of cancer like breast cancer, we use melatonin to treat it. So it's huge, it's a hormone. Yeah, you can overdo it. So if you take too much melatonin, serotonin, your happy neurotransmitter goes down. The good news is there's a very inexpensive test to measure melatonin levels. It's a saliva test and we measure eight in the morning, five PM and three AM with the lights off. So you can know if you have too much melatonin. It's very scientific, but important. Another thing I wanna point out is that there's a lot of hormonal function in the gut. And we used to talk about the pineal gland that's up here, it's in your brain and it makes melatonin. And we thought, oh, a baby amount's made in the gut, the GI tract, that's not true. A lot of melatonin is made in the gut. So if your gut's not healthy, you're not even making as much melatonin to keep the circadian rhythm so that you eat at the right time, you sleep at the right time. So again, gut's healthy, but you have to sleep to have really a great immune system. Oh, I love this and you're right, sleep is like the number one thing when I start getting patients well or trying to help them, I'm like, how are you sleeping? And I'm a big fan of the tracking devices. Obviously we get a little Bluetooth, so you might wanna turn them off at certain times for the transmission, but I wear an aura ring or the Fitbits or the Apple watches. And again, you have to weigh if you're electromagnetic sensitive, you may not wanna wear those devices all the time, but I found because I have a tracking device, I can do an intervention like lie on my PMF mat or take melatonin or stop coffee earlier and then look at the data of how my sleep is affected. And I learned so much through that because each person's different. And so what you wanna do is hack your sleep and your patterns and what works for you. One question on melatonin that I get a lot, Dr. Smith from patients is that there was some talk on I think news or media about it suppressing your natural production and be worried about it or maybe don't give it to younger people. Are there any contraindications or concerns that you have about using melatonin? That's only if you take too much. And the good news is the body is actually very smart because melatonin also modulates the immune system. It helps it if you take a big dose like 20 milligrams, which is what we use for stage four breast cancer instead of half a milligram or a milligram, which would be a more traditional dose, the body when you measure melatonin it's actually not overdosed. The body, if you have cancer goes, oh, I need this for my immune system and I'm gonna use it for that and we will go back and measure and the body will have a very normal melatonin level. It usually figures it out. A melatonin also has a lot to do with that sleep wake cycle and how you intake food. And we've helped people have normal melatonin levels in the gut, it's help them lose weight. There's so many reasons why you can't lose weight but that's what I don't think we talk about very often. Love that, so practical and so easy. Where are we at number six? Let's talk about number six. Smoking, it's hard to believe but one billion with a B, one billion people in the world still smoke cigarettes, cigars, et cetera. And I would be lying to say that everybody who smokes gets lung cancer. That's honestly is just not true. They don't get lung cancer but almost everybody who smokes has cognitive decline. Many people who smoke get macular degeneration. It decreases their vision or they can lose their vision. If you smoke, it does increase your risk of heart disease and stroke and it severely compromises your immune system. Nicotine is a toxin to the body. Yeah, now I'm glad you brought that up because it's so critical and sadly there still are billions who are still smoking. It's so highly addictive that it tends to be one of the issues. Now I wonder, I am completely out there postulating but I have a thought and I love throwing out new thoughts. We know that nicotine hits acetylcholine receptor and acetylcholine can down regulate inflammation. And I often wonder if some of that addiction is because they secretly have inflammation and it's not helping, this is not a solution but they have that effect. And I wonder if LDN might be a piece of the puzzle in helping some of our, I have no idea. I have no data to support this. I'm literally just talking off the top of my head but I just have this wonder. I wonder if LDN could be a solution in helping people who are addicted to nicotine. Who knows? I don't know that for a fact, I'm just curious. That's a great question. I have thought of the same thing myself. So I have two patients in my practice who smoke and right now that's a sole reason why I put both of them on LDN. So I'm happy to look at it again at some time because I do think part of it is the inflammatory response. I do too. I think they're inflamed in their self-medicating in a very dangerous way. So very important. Number seven, where are we at here? Let's... Stress, I mean, that's another one you could talk about forever. When you're stressed, it does compromise the immune system. Everybody has stress. We all do. But it's up to you whether stress, you let it affect yourself or not. From my office here at home, I have a sign right across from me and it says the following, God calms all storms. When he doesn't calm the storm, he will calm you. And everybody has many ways to decrease stress. The stress reduction techniques are key. Prayer, meditation, Tai Chi, yoga, chagang, exercise, massage, breathing techniques, acupuncture. There's many more, but modulating stress. Because if the cord is all the stress hormones too high or too low, either way, the immune system becomes compromised. Yeah, gosh, and I love that because like we started in the beginning, we were talking before the show just about how do we deal with these stresses at the office or with different things? And we were both saying, you know, ultimately prayer and surrender for you and I, it really does help that. And it's so often, usually, at least I'll just speak for myself, if we get into fear or if we get into controlling, feeling like we have to control the situation. I learned a long time ago, Han Selie research on cortisol and what regulates the cortisol response. And it's an acronym called nuts, novelty, something new, unpredictability, threat to self or threat to health or threat to ego and sense of control. And right now in the pandemic and in our lives in general, that nuts acronym is quite accurate. Most of all four of those are activated. But again, for you and I, part of the solution is that surrender and knowing that we have a God who really does have things under control and that we can trust that. For me, that's a real powerful stress reliever. It really is. We also give people adaptogenic herbs, ashwagandha, ginseng, rhodiola that really does help cortisol if it's too high or too low, calming herbs are fabulous. Lemon balm, chamomile. I actually keep a bottle in my dusk if my day is not going great. Fortunately, most of them don't make you sleepy. They work right away. You can take them. They're absolutely fabulous. So a lot of it really is just knowing your own triggers and what trigger you to have that stress response and to try and settle down that trigger for you. Love that. And I have at my desk, alfionine, which is another one of those. So we each have our own little adaptogens that we use. Let's see, am I number seven? Did I miss a number? Are we on the right number? We are number eight is sugar. This is my second one that is a personal issue. I have gotten much better because I knew Nancy Appleton when she was alive. Dr. Appleton, if you're not familiar with her work, she's a PhD. She unfortunately died of cancer about three years ago, but I had the privilege of knowing her because we share publishers. And she really did teach me that sugar is a toxin. It sets up an inflammatory response and it's really sugar is in many forms. Alcohol is liquid sugar. Soft drinks or what we say here in the Midwest, pop, you know, it really, it's just sugar that also does include sugar substitutes because aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar. But Dr. Appleton spent her life working at looking at this, there's 167 different diseases that are either caused by or make you have an increased risk for by ingesting a lot of sugar. And that's something everybody can do. Everybody who's on with us, we can all cut down sugar intake. It sounds like, well, you can't cut it out. It's very addicting, but you can certainly cut it down. They actually did a study and I mentioned it last time when I was on your podcast, but I'd like to take a second to mention it again. They did a great study. They took little laboratory animals, two bowls. One bowl over here, they put cocaine. This bowl, they put sugar. Guess what happened? The little laboratory animals all went to the sugar, not the cocaine. So it really is addicting, but it very much, very much compromises your immune system. Yeah, gosh, I love that study. And I so think it's so relevant because when we think about that to be more addicted than cocaine, that's a pretty big deal. So first of all, have compassion on yourself. If you're a little bit addicted to sugar, I find it's better for patients to completely eliminate it as best as possible because if you get a little sugar, you'll want more. So for me personally, I really try to keep cane sugar and most other sources completely out because if I have some, I want more. And if you're really struggling with that kind of sense of craving, there's probably back to the gut, back to number three, I think we were, you're probably dealing with dysbiosis. It's kind of driving those cravings because we've shown that microbiome changes can actually cause some of the cravings to increase. Another thing interesting, like you said with aspartame or some of the artificial sweeteners, we were told they were harmless, but what we know now is they have a massive effect on the gut microbiome, which affects us, which affects our cravings, which affects inflammation. So they really, really do have an effect and they alter their study after study that shows artificial sweeteners will actually decrease diversity and alter the microbiome. So there is some pretty big impacts there. And as you mentioned, Dr. Smith, just the sweet taste, even if it's non-caloric, will stimulate the pancreas to secrete insulin and then we're dealing with metabolic issues. Absolutely. Dr. Carnahan, you are pointing out all the things that go down this road. I do wanna give you an actual report when I've been speaking for many years. I've been very blessed to be invited to speak around the world and those who know me well know that I love Krispy Kreme donuts. I really do. So every year on my birthday, I get two Krispy Kreme donuts. Okay. I just love them. This is the first year. It took me 67 years. But guess what? I did not have Krispy Kreme donuts on July 24th. Wow. So even, you know, anybody can, it may take you 67 years, but that's okay. Work toward it. No Krispy Kreme. I love it. We are never at a point where we can't make these little, I love it. And I do the same every year. I'm like, okay, well, I can make this next step. I remember back in the day when I took out gluten and all the different foods that were I was sensitive to, the last print year for me was cheese. I was like, oh, and I finally gave it up. I'm fine now. That was an allergen to me. But it's those things and we can always make those changes and it still makes a difference. So thanks for sharing. So number nine, what's number nine? The regulator of the whole body, the thyroid. The thyroid has to be functioning perfect optimally in order for you to have a great immune system. If it's under functioning or over functioning then both ways, compromise your immune system. For those of you who are not familiar with thyroid, hypothyroidism, meaning low thyroid function, 70% of people who have it actually have an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto's thyroiditis. For people that have a hyper system, it's over functioning. The majority of those people have Graves disease, also an autoimmune disease. So both ways, the body is literally attacking the thyroid gland and when it does that, your immune system is compromised, please see your healthcare provider and make sure that they actually measure the right things. So if you're out there, write these down, type this in your tablet, PSH thyroid stimulating hormone. You do have to measure both hormones, free T3, the free component, free T4. What rarely gets measured unless you're seeing someone and Dr. Carnahan in my field is reverse T3, stored thyroid and then thyroid antibodies. Of course, you don't know if you have Hashimoto's or Graves if you don't ever measure the antibodies and again, autoimmune diseases, fix the gut, no gluten, low-dose noprexum. Oh, excellent, cause so many people and the thyroid is like the canary. Back in the old days, you've probably heard this, if you don't know what that means, back in the coal mines, they take a little bird down with them and since the gases or toxins in the mine would get high, that poor little canary would keel right over and the guys are like, we gotta head up because that was the indicator of there was something toxic cause that canary was more susceptible than the men or the women down there and so we call the thyroid the canary gland because it's very susceptible to endocrine disruptors. You know, Pam, I don't know if you know this but I had breast cancer at 25, you know that but my sister had thyroid cancer at 28. So what does that tell you about? Number one, our genetics, number two, our environment, these are two endocrine organs that were affected in our 20s and so it's an interesting little story because clearly we had some environmental toxicity and also genetic predisposition towards those endocrine issues. Absolutely and there is a lot of genetic predisposition to all of these things but the good news is you don't have to turn on a bad gene. If you start young enough, even with diabetes, you literally, if you're predisposed to type two diabetes if you change your diet, you exercise, et cetera by the age of 25 and you don't fall off the wagon, shall we say, you don't even have to turn on the gene. You can inherit it but they've proven you don't ever have to get the disease. It's just the science is here to really help people be healthy. It really is. So we are to number 10. What's the last thing for max your immunity? Something we can all do and again, they're in alphabetical order. It's water, drink enough water. You do have to hydrate. If you're not hydrated well then your immune system does become compromised and there's no substitute for water. I really do mean water. If you find water boring then put a lemon in it, lime, raspberries, strawberries, organic of course, then zest it up a little bit but there's just no substitute whatsoever for water. If you want youthful looking skin, drink more water. Oh, love it. So practical and clean hair, clean water, clean food is something people hear me say a lot. Clean water, you cannot even underestimate the power. So you wanna make sure you have filtered water and if you're using an RO system, you're taking out minerals so you wanna replace those minerals. There's nothing wrong with RO systems, they're amazing but any sort of filtration system that's good quality. I've been doing some research for years I've had a Berkey filter, love that. Recently I've been using some clearly filtered products and it's like I think 201 different contaminants and there's others out there but find a good filtration system because sadly much of our water supply is also contaminated so you don't wanna be adding to your toxic load by drinking water that's unfiltered. No, and because of my family history of breast cancer my water filtration system honestly is my whole house. I don't even wanna shower in water that is toxic to my body and has things in it that don't belong. I could not agree more. You may or may not have any answer to this but I'd love to know and I'm sure listeners would love to know have you found a particular RO or a whole house system that you like? Or are they? I'm still looking, I truly am. I haven't found the perfect one yet. I'm still looking for the perfect mat too to put next to my computer. Yeah, me too, both of these things I get asked about that way I ask you. I'm like maybe Pam knows cause I'm the same way. I'm like I haven't found the perfect system for whole house but it's really important. Pam this is such important needed information. As no surprise you always make it so clear so simple anyone could take these things and start to implement them. Where can they find your book? Where can they find more information about you? Well, you can certainly find my book on Amazon. You can find it at Barnes & Noble. You can find it at every major bookstore. I love to put a plug in for independent bookstores because they're grand. I love to spend my time in them. They're just fun. So if they don't have it on the shelf they can always order it. So that's a great thing. I'm from my landing page a little bit more about me. Actually, you just heard about me. I do have a landing page. Dr. Carnahan's gonna put that up for you. But I really just love everybody to read the book, match your immunity. I made a paperback so it's affordable for everybody so that you can understand the balance. You don't wanna over maximize it but there's a lot of things you can do to help prevent disease. Wow, Pam, this is amazing and so practical. I don't know if I've ever heard a lecture just so simple, so concise, so practical. I am glad you were inspired to write this book. So you guys get your copy, share it with friends and family because it's just a super simple way to empower people to take charge of their health, especially this fall as we continue to see cases and things out there and people are in a lot of fear which doesn't help the immune system at all. It does not. Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are a blessing to the world. Thanks for all you do and thanks for today for sharing your time with us. Well, thank you so much for the opportunity and I really am blessed to know Dr. Carnahan. I truly would never ever be able to be and do what I have done without her help and many other people's help. So thank you very much. You're welcome. Thanks, Pam.