Intro (00:01):

Welcome to practiceOmatic, where doctors and practice owners share business, lifestyle and marketing stories. All while, guiding you to more patients. Here's your host, Zach Greenfield.

Zack G. (00:14):

Welcome everyone. This is Zach Greenfield at practiceOmatic. Thanks for joining us on the podcast today. I want to welcome our guests, Dr. Marlene Siegel. She is a author speaker practicing veterinary and, and importantly, the founder of a raw food company, EVO love raw.com and she specializes in holistic integrated medicine. And that has driven her to launch spas, which is a family wellness center where pets and owners can detox together. She's founded the practice Pascoe veterinary medical center, just outside of Tampa, Florida. I'd like to welcome Dr. Marlene seagull. Hello,

Dr. Marlene (00:59):

Thank you so much for having me

Zack G. (01:00):

On. Yeah, this is awesome. So we had a chance to catch up about a week ago and kind of go over a few things. And I want to start with you just telling us a little bit about this, where, where you started and just how you started the practice. Cause it's been, it's been a while. Like how, how many years have you been at the same location now?

Dr. Marlene (01:20):

Rounding 40 years.

Zack G. (01:21):

Yeah. That's so that's a good four decades. Pretty amazing. And what was it like on day one? Just give us a little of that color.

Dr. Marlene (01:30):

So I was in a very rural neighborhood. I was in a little town outside of Tampa, a very small population. The closest restaurant was about 15 miles away and there's a fourth and a lot out there. And I purchased a five acre lot just off the highway. So I could either have gotten two and a half acres on the main highway or five acres off the highway. I worked for volume and no roads going out to my office. I literally bought a land and there was supposed to be road. They weren't. So I had to the road going in and my very first client was an elderly couple driving a Cadillac. And they literally had to drive across. It was a pasture and trees and all that to the back door of my trailer. Because that's what I started in. Was this a modular and even have stairs to it yet. And they had to hand me their dog up. They couldn't even get in the building and I thought, wow, that's pretty trusting.

Zack G. (02:31):

Well, I mean, what an awesome story though, like, you know, comparative to where, you know, I'd read just a good story about grit, you know, that you were willing to kind of risk on this sort of rural lot and with no access and launch this business, that's now carried you for decades forward to all of this stuff that you've got going on now. And it's just amazing. So for, you know, folks who are listening and they think it's hard out there, you know, this is a story of just doing it, no matter what.

Dr. Marlene (03:01):

Yeah. And then our second phase, I added on a kennel area and that was like phase two. And then I added on my third building, which is the building I'm operating out of now. And that's when it got pretty. And eventually we got rid of the trailer and where the trailer was is where spaz family wellness, our first franchise.

Zack G. (03:22):

That's that's amazing. So it turned out that betting on five acres was the right thing to do because you're starting to fill it up.

Dr. Marlene (03:30):

And then another thing I built on the property is an event center. So it's able of event center, which we hold all kinds of different meetings, both on the human side, the veterinary side. And then it's just a place where we can rent for weddings and churches and parties, all kinds of things. But it's nice to have it rightnext door, cause when we host meetings like ozone courses, we, I just literally walk right next door and we have this beautiful 9,300 square event center with a commercial commissary.

Zack G. (03:56):

That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, I think for whatever the reason it was back then, you just sort of went with your gut on getting this bigger space. But the doctors that I talk to regularly and that work with us, the practice that seemed to have more room to expand and become, you know, and sort of respond to the community, become more entrepreneurial launch, new services like board ordering, you know, boarding and kennels and grooming and all these other things that cut that just literally takes space, seemed to be able to grow and, and follow their hearts a little bit more than folks that are like maybe in a strip mall for instance, you know? So I, I just wanted to point that out. My that's been my experience, your story reflects what I've heard elsewhere as well.

Dr. Marlene (04:37):

Yeah. You never know where life's going to take you and you can start out in the shopping center and then perhaps you move to an independent building and know a lot of people have done that, but it is very nice when you have that opportunity to expand as your growth occurs.

Zack G. (04:51):

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, it's definitely served you. So you told me that you also like to keep things pretty tight with your team, right. So you're running a pretty tight staff and you're kind of running point and you're sort of, you're still like super active and doing everything every day. Isn't that right? Yeah.

Dr. Marlene (05:11):

So there, wasn't where there was a time where we had 14 staff members. And for me personally, I found that to be a nightmare. It was a lot of management involved. There was a lot of inefficiency and it was just, I didn't find it to be as rewarding. Right. But now that we're more integrative care, each case requires more workup, more in depth time that we spend with that case, we have much longer appointments I'm typically with a client could be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or longer. So we don't many cases, but each case that we do, Steve, we do a lot more on that case.

Zack G. (05:46):

Right? Yeah. So it's kind of like, you're not in the volume vet business, you're, you're doing these specialty. I mean, a lot of these cases are terminal cancer cases. Isn't that right.

Dr. Marlene (05:59):

We don't call them terminal goal is better, very chronic degenerative diseases. Yeah. That over the past 20 years, my practice has evolved into that practice where we really do see the hard cases we do all of our own guts. We do our own ultrasound, our diagnostics. So our cases are from beginning to end, very rarely do we refer something out maybe for a CT or an MRI,

Zack G. (06:26):

Right? Yeah. So you got to kind of handle it. In-House for these like really tough cases that are beyond the expertise of maybe other doctors or they just not reached the level of specialization that you have.

Dr. Marlene (06:38):

I found that a lot of doctors, they don't want to work that hard and it is a lot of work and you have to really on your toes, you have to be constantly learning and evolving and seeking answers. And that's not for everybody. So some of the older practitioners, they're just kind of ready for the vaccines and the easy stuff and then go home. But if there's somebody who really enjoys practicing medicine or surgery, and we want those cases that at the end of the day, you feel really satisfied that you've just made that impact on somebody's life and that's practice that I enjoy.

Zack G. (07:11):

Yeah. I think, I mean, I also, I think it's important to know it's like that our pets are our family members and you know, and when they get into the situation where they need to keep seek, come see somebody like you, it's great that somebody like you even exists because I think, you know, like you say, I think a lot of other practices and vets are kind of limited in scope. And then I remember we had an animal that had cancer and it was kind of like suddenly, where do we go with that? Because the doctor that we were seeing didn't really have a whole lot of great suggestions. So there's definitely a market for, I guess that's important for, for other vets to understand that this is an area you can step into it. And a lot of times there's a void there and nobody's serving this type of situation.

Dr. Marlene (07:57):

Well, and the sad part is that most veterinarians don't know how to serve it. So when they literally run out of a tool kit and they have nothing else to offer, then they throw their hands up. But I haven't found a veterinarian yet that enjoys that, you know, they, they really went into this industry because they want to do good. They want to make a difference and they want to serve their patients. It's just that we have a limited toolkit when they come out of college. And, and it was that limited toolkit that actually drove me into integrative medicine because when my show horse and my youngest daughter were involved in a riding accident, thank God they were fine. But when I went to get help for the horse, the equine veterinarians literally said to me, we don't know what's wrong with her. We really don't have a solution, but she's not safe to ride.

Dr. Marlene (08:41):

You'll never show her again. And here are your two options. You can put her out to pasture and retire. Her seven year old Canadian and United States national champion who saved my daughter, which was the most important part and said, I could either put her out to a pasture or I could put her down and was not acceptable. And it just lit somebody up in me that said, I'm a different person now. And I know I'm not blaming you for not having the answers and that's okay, but I'm find the answer. And that's what really drove me out of my sandbox into a whole entire new world, which transformed my life, how I raised my children, how I run my practice. And now my commitment to my pet parents are that I will never say those words. I have nothing else to offer. And there are times feel like you want to say that you got that really challenging case. And I just take a step back. I take a deep breath and I go, what can I offer? Sometimes it's just quality of life, which is huge. When you really look at everything, that is the most important thing that we are offering is quality of life. It's not about quantity necessarily, although we would love to have more years or whatever time you have on this planet really should be thriving, vibrant, healthy, happy, and joyful.

Zack G. (09:57):

I think that's kind of the, there's always something can be done. Philosophy. We talked about that, you know, I think that's, I think that's great. It's definitely, you know, not to be giving up hope and that there's, you know, there's always possibilities between the cracks. I guess if you, you know, if you're willing to look, you know.

Dr. Marlene (10:14):

Yeah. Well, that's what I created. The transforming that medicine program. There is there's one for pet parents and there's one for veterinary men's because I had this huge toolkit. I don't think there's anybody in the United States that has a toolkit is why does I have both on the Eastern and Western side? It's a combination because there are great things that we use in Western medicine. And I don't give them up. I just add to the things that I can offer. So now I can really treat the root cause of the problem and actually make a significant difference.

Zack G. (10:44):

And so you're, you're you're coaching and helping other vets, is that right? To, to integrate this holistic approach into their practices. Yeah.

Dr. Marlene (10:52):

We actually teach veterinarians how to do all the things that I do and it's a multi-level course. And then they can go into advanced training if they have certain things that they really want to learn in more depth, but we certainly give them a toolbox that is expansive. And it's not really that expensive to be able to expand into these modalities. There it's part of a learning curve. And when we get done with this program, we're going to create one for the technicians as well. And that way, most of what we do is technician driven, but the doctor has know what to do and then the technicians carry it out. So we want to create a second program for technicians and then we have the same brand for pet parents. So now everybody's on the same page. You know, you've got a pet who is educated to know what diagnostic tests should they be running on their pets, not just a CBC chemistry in the thyroid. And then what are the treatments that are available and how do I detox my pet and how do I restore my out of control function? They actually understand the body's biology. So now when they go to the veterinarian, if the veterinarian understands the same thing, now they can talk the same language and we can accomplish a whole lot more in a very shorter period of time.

Zack G. (12:01):

Yeah, it's really, I mean, that's empowering. So for pet owners to be able to become sort of informed parents, I suppose, you know, I mean, it's like, you know, for anybody that's had cancer in and around their lives, I mean, the folks I've known, they've kind of become like masters of that by, you know, really learning and diving deep into what it's going to take to, you know, like you say, have a quality of life, extend their life and so forth. I think that's great. So this resource that you've created, let's pet parents kind of do that on behalf of their pets.

Dr. Marlene (12:32):

Absolutely. It requires if we're going to make a difference in our lives and our pets lives. And I include mother earth in that as well, because we're polluting mother earth with all the behavioral things that we do, if you're really going to make a difference, we have to learn how to change our lifestyle, have to change our behaviors, how to make better economic decisions for us, for our pets, for our kids and for the planet.

Zack G. (12:55):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so let me ask you like a little bit, you know, let me challenge you a little bit here. What, what do you think, you know, for event that, you know maybe isn't familiar with all this, what do you, what, what do you get in terms of pushback from other veterinarians on starting to head down the road of offering a more holistic integrative approach in their practice? What do you think the resistance is out there?

Dr. Marlene (13:19):

Well, I noticed about 15, 20 years ago, there was a little bit more pushback, but now what I'm seeing, it's very interesting is now I'll have been in areas go and it's like university, right? These are board certified individuals out of universities and referral centers. And they'll say, well, I don't really have any understanding of what ozone or laser therapy or whatever. They don't understand it, but they're not poo-pooing it anymore because they're running out of tools in their toolbox. And when we were having a conversation and I start showing them case presentations of animals with cancer, squamous cell cancer in the nose or lymphoma in the spleen or a bone cancer, and these animals get better in five to 16 weeks. They're cancer-free right. So they're, they're paying attention now. They're going, okay, you're doing something I may not have understood it. I may not have learned it yet, but definitely a lot more receptive to hearing about it.

Zack G. (14:17):

Right. So, okay. So you think that now versus, you know, maybe a decade and a half ago, people are a lot more receptive to sort of maybe Eastern medicine or different just, you know, anything that's going to help bring some sort of possible solutions to the table. Do you think, do you think that's an age thing? Do you think younger vets are more receptive to that or do, what do you think changed out there where that shifted that

Dr. Marlene (14:41):

I think it's the need, you know, there are so many veterinarians out there that are just so frustrated and so disappointed in the inability to make a difference. When I first started practicing our big day was vomiting, diarrhea, parvo, fleas, ticks, and skin allergies, then flea, allergy, and refine this. That was what we spent most of our day on. Right. I saw two cancer cases a year if I was lucky. So I bothered treating cancer. But since the, since life of say being one of the big turning points, you know, the level of toxicity that we've had environment we've had over 85,000 synthetic toxins dumped on us since world war II. And when glide on board almost 20 plus years ago, it just changed the dynamics of our world. And we started seeing people getting a lot sicker and a lot sooner. And people are noticing that their animals are living shorter lifespans.

Dr. Marlene (15:37):

I had a guy come in yesterday and he goes, you know, this is the third English sheep dog that I've gotten. And every year they die younger. So he realized there was something wrong here in a state where we have a pill for every ill and a diet for every disease. And we have a shortage and that lifespan is not a healthy lifespan. These animals are sick and they're chronic relapses and people are getting smart. They are just tired of a pill for the ill and it not making it better. So I think we have savvy audience and there, a lot of people are actually doing this for themselves too. They're starting to clean up the toxins in their own environment because they're having so many more health challenges themselves. Yeah,

Zack G. (16:15):

Sure, sure. I get that. So, so it's kind of like, there's two things going on here that, you know, culturally, maybe we're more open, but it, but it sounds like also that there's just rising demand that you've seen over your career. That's really cranking up over the last 10 years for this type of stuff. Unfortunately.

Dr. Marlene (16:33):

Well, when we went through veterinary school and this is true for MDs as well, we're taught to recognize symptoms and back then it worked, you had a symptom, you gave it a treatment. It got better may relapse down the road, but not to the severity that we're seeing today. You know, right now cancer rates in dogs are one at a 1.6, five. That's almost a hundred percent of dogs getting cancer. Cats is supposedly one out of three. I think that's really under reported. I think it's much higher than that. So we were seeing that we have these complex diseases that we've never had at this level. And when you add GI disease, auto-immune diseases, obesity. When you add an arthritis, of course, when you add all those together, it's literally a hundred percent of our animals are having some form of illness, age independent. So we're seeing animals that are under two years of age.

Zack G. (17:25):

Yeah. I had, I guess I had two dogs that both got cancer under five years, which was challenging, you know, it was sad. And I, you know, and I, I wondered, you know, I wondered if it was pesticides from the yard guy or the bug guy and you know, other people that were spraying at that house or the park, or I dunno, you know what I mean? But it makes you think I was like, how could this make any sense that these two, you know, cause you look at the variables are like, these are two animals, both came down with the same type of cancer, both in the same sort of timeframe. And I was like, something's off, you know, it just, it just seemed way too coincidental. I guess what I'm telling you, I personally have experienced what you're saying, I guess what I'm,

Dr. Marlene (18:07):

And I don't think very many people out in the world today that haven't experienced either personally or someone close to them or a pet close to them are they're seeing these devastating diseases and we have soul pets. Now, Zach, they're not just the family dog. They are sole pets. So it's, it's really, it's a level again that we haven't seen before. And these people are not willing to give up on these animals. They're wanting to get the best care and they're willing to go that extra mile to do it.

Zack G. (18:38):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just, I, I mean, I think it's just important, you know, it's like, there's a lot of facets to the conversation because from a business standpoint, I mean, it's kind of a, win-win, you know, I love, I love decisions that are win-win for everybody. You know? So if event that's out there, that's considering this, you know, that's considering looking for more solutions for their practice, offering more possibilities, more hope for their pets and pet parents know that that's a win, but it's not a win. If it means, you know, you're going to stretch yourself and risk yourself, risk your business or stretch yourself financially. But what we're hearing from you, you know, out in the sort of front lines of this part of practicing medicine, that the demand is actually there. So not only can you go down this road and offer more hope, but you can go down this road confidently from a business perspective. And you know, everybody that's in this situation does better from making that decision. The pet does better. The pet owner does better. The doctor retains hope and has more, like you say tools in our toolkits, that's kind of a win-win win. That makes sense on a lot of fronts. Now that you're explaining kind of the, you know, the whole picture to us. Does that mean, does that sound right to you? I mean, I imagine you're getting amazing response to folks reaching out to you to, you know, work on this

Dr. Marlene (19:58):

Job satisfaction. You didn't mention that one, but that's where we went into the history for is we want to do good. You want to send that animal home healed. That's what we love going into work to do. And it's devastating when you run out of things to do. That's one of the reasons why transforming that medicine was such an important thing to get out there was because I would be lecturing at a conference when people would come up to me and they would say, oh my gosh, you know, I use ozone, but we don't get results like you do because they're using a tool to treat a symptom. They're not using that tool to fix the root cause of the disease. And that's where the differences, right? So I want to understand where is the root cause of that disease coming from and what can we do differently? So we allow the body to do what it intelligently knows how to do and that's to heal. So it's really awesome when you take this toolkit and you understand the biology of the body to the point where you can actually work with the biology, you can support the biology and then the body does what it's supposed to do. It's amazing. It's really ridiculously easy. It's just, we haven't taught to function that way.

Zack G. (21:08):

No, no. I mean it, and you know, what did you spend a long time since you've been in school, but I know you have, you know, team members and, and folks in the industry and so forth. Do you think that veterinary schools are doing a good job of introducing this to young veterinarians? Or do you think that there's still a big gap between the reality you're seeing in the field and what's being offered in formal education,

Dr. Marlene (21:35):

Huge gap, but you need both. All right. So you have to be a good diagnostician. So you have to be able to use your right tools to get a good answer. And that's very important. So taking a good history, taking a great physical exam from the tutor to the Snyder I say, and you know, not missing things. And then being able to run the right diagnostic test to be able to get your diagnosis. So my diagnostic tool kit is just a little bit wider than the trick because understanding the biology, these animals have either deficiencies or excesses that are causing a lot of these metabolic disgraces. So once you get your good diagnostics done, now you have an answer you've identified the root cause of the disease. Now you can start going in and helping to create the repair, whether that's getting rid of toxicity or that supplementing deficiencies, and then supporting the organs of elimination.

Dr. Marlene (22:30):

So the transforming that medicine program was designed to provide the education and the resources, but the spa family wellness was designed to be able to have these detox centers all over the country. We're hoping worldwide. And that way, either that an area either doesn't have the space to expand for these pieces of equipment, or they don't have the financial resources or for whatever reason, they can take their patients and send them to a detox center to get the therapies. And there they come back as their patient. But now you're supporting that body's biology in a way that allows that animal to start to repair

Zack G. (23:12):

That. That's amazing. And so the first one, so tell me, tell me about spas. Is it, I mean, you sort of birth this in your own practice and now it's being kind of put off into its own building. Where, where are we at in the process? Like how refined and how much more do you feel like how much give us a timeline a little bit and kind of how things are headed?

Dr. Marlene (23:30):

Well, I'm hoping at the end of 2021, the end of this year or beginning of next year, we'll actually be open. So the plans are done. We know the protocols, I have the land and we're now doing work. It's just crazy because of COVID the building prices and materials. If you can find them, the prices are ridiculously high, but a lot of times you can't even get supply. So we're having to revamp and get rid of using a lot of wood and moving into metal and just, we're having to change things around a little bit, but essentially it's designed and done, and we're already doing it out of my office. The whole reason, making it an independent is so that people can see the model and a proof of concept. And now it's going to be outside of the veterinary office. So yes, we'll be referring cases there, but it's also going to be open to the public. So anybody who has a pet or they don't even have to have a pet, they can come in on their own,

Zack G. (24:25):

You know, just to be clear with everybody and myself, I just want to be clear. So as it relates to humans, when you say detox, I mean, we're not talking about substance abuse, we're talking about like Oregon's and environmental pollutants and food borne, nasty chemicals and that kind of stuff. Correct.

Dr. Marlene (24:45):

So we have six organs of elimination that our bodies were built with and our pets bodies as well. You have the kidney, the colon, the lungs, the liver, the skin, and the lymphatics, the two that do the most work. If we can be a little prejudiced or the liver in the lymphatics, and yet we don't have anything in our allopathic world that actually supports Liberty toxification and lymphatics. So your lymphatics are in charge of producing your T lymphocytes, your immune system. And they're also one of the primary ways that toxins get out of the body. So is it a surprise that we see so much lymphoma where it's disease in the lymphatic system, because everything's clogging it up. It doesn't have a place to go. So imagine you have your kitchen and your bathrooms and you live in the house and you're cooking all the time and you're going potty all the time and you never clean the bathroom.

Zack G. (25:41):

I don't want to imagine

Dr. Marlene (25:41):

That we've all had the toilet overflows now, not having that ability to flush toxins out through the organs of elimination and that stuff backed up. It's pretty funny. Now it's funny to me that when people mentioned, oh, well I was going through a treatment and I had a Herxheimer reaction. Well, what is a Herxheimer reaction? It's the body becoming toxic because it doesn't have a place to put all the crap that you're trying to kill and get rid of. So it's mitochondrial dysfunction, it's lack of communication within the microbiome and the mitochondria, and it's your organs of elimination that aren't functioning. And so we have all these different things that we can do to help repair and support the body's biology. So it can go on and do what it needs to do.

Zack G. (26:29):

I see. Okay. So, so this is, yeah. I mean, I'm glad I asked that question, cause I just want everybody to understand when you say detox, it's, you know, related to medical type detox, not what some humans might think, and clearly animals are experiencing the same issues we are with just the way that our environment has changed over the last, I don't know what 30 years or so, I guess, and acutely to me, even, I would say in 15 years, it just seems dramatically worse for, you know, which is the same in your vision. What would, how accessible would spaz be, say in the next five or 10 years? I mean, what's the, what's your,

Dr. Marlene (27:08):

Well, my vision is to have their franchises. So my vision is to have them in every city multiples in big cities so that people have access to them. And you know, the reason why I actually created spas was because I was consulting with a client out in California and the dog had cancer in its nose. And I was trying to find a place where he could do thought therapy for the dog. It's one of the tools that we use. And in all of Los Angeles, there was one salt booth and it was human only. And they would not let the dog go in even after hours. So we had to, you know, we had to be really creative and that was the impetus where I said, wow, you know, I'm doing all these things and I'm consulting with this guy. And yet he had no access to any of the things that we use.

Dr. Marlene (27:55):

And I thought he said, so our toolkit, interestingly enough, is actually accessible for owners to be able to do in their own homes. Now that doesn't mean every owner is going to want to buy a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for home, or maybe not. Everyone's going to want to have a salt booth at home then that may not make a lot of sense for them. But there's certainly a lot of things that they could that are cost-effective and affordable and the whole family can use them. So it really isn't about just the spas being a place to go. It's also about having the resources that some pet owners may want to have at home. I've had a lot of cancer patients that come in from outside of Florida and when they go home, they want to be able to still do the things that I was doing for them. And so they buy quite a bit of that equipment and take it home and use it and we just coach them through it.

Zack G. (28:43):

I see. So if you were talking to pet owners out there that are struggling with issues like this with their pet, I mean, without diagnosing, I'm not asking you to do that. Like what would be general guidelines for pet owners to reduce the amount of toxins that animals are exposed to today? Like what's a, what's a general sort of, you know, that we can all do here, you know, boots on the ground,

Dr. Marlene (29:05):

Plug an online free ebook with that.

Zack G. (29:10):

You get plugged in, you got plugged, anything you want on this show.

Dr. Marlene (29:14):

Okay. So I'll, I'll take the website is holistic healing. That.Com. So holistic human, that.com. It's a free PDF. You can download. It's a little e-book and it goes through my five steps to healing in my office. I actually do a sixth step, which is also emotional healing, but, you know, step number one is we have to stop polluting the body. There's no shortcut, right? You can't fix stupid. Once you learn what you should be doing, then it's easy to do it. And you know what, you know, you don't know what you don't know. So I cover all the different ways that people need to stop polluting the body, whether that's their body or the pet's body. Number two is you have to supply the essential nutrients. And I think most people understand that the food that we're eating is nutrient depleted that's, you know, really Countrywide.

Dr. Marlene (30:02):

And so the body has essential nutrients. Those are the ones that can not be produced by the body in sufficient quantities to run the body. So we have to be able to take them in supplement form. Number three, we have to heal the leaky gut. And that's a whole, we could spend hours talking about leaky gut, but very, very important that we have to heal that gut. And the number four is proxification of all six organs of elimination. Number five is how do we fix the mitochondria? Those are the little guys that run the power centers for our body. So without mitochondria, we physically could not exist. So we need bigger, better mitochondria. How do we support them so that they do a better job for us. And then in my office, we also do number six, which is emotional healing as well.

Zack G. (30:46):

Got it. Okay. So folks can find that online and we'll, we'll definitely add that into the last part of the show so that the information is there for people we'll add links and all of that. But so those are the, those are the things that we can focus on as pet owners. And then those are the things that even doctors can start to focus on in a preventative way. Correct?

Dr. Marlene (31:06):

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And that's very first thing in our transforming that medicine program is helping doctors to get away from the story that we have been told about what is nutrition and how does that all work? I graduated from the same college, from the getting the same education where we have these big box companies that told us what nutrition was, trust me. It has nothing to do with that. And we've made really big mistakes. You know, one example is that kibble, when a lot of people feed their animals, a dry kibble, your little crunchy thing, cats and dog, a kibble is 40 to 60% sugar, sugar. Now you live under a rock to not know that sugar is not good for your body. It crushes one immune system. It feeds the cancer, not good, their biological diet ACAT, and the dog being carnivores. Their biological diet was designed to be less than 1% carbohydrates. So think about you have species appropriate diet that is under 1% carbohydrates, but we're feeding a diet that's 40 to 60% sugar carbohydrates. Right? So

Zack G. (32:18):

Where do you think it makes no sense,

Dr. Marlene (32:21):

Any sense? And yet we have been fed this story for so long that you think it's the right thing to do. Now. Some of them spend a day just being around my daughter and I, and the way that we eat, most people would go, oh my God. Now I grow most of my own food. That is not to that. Everybody should do that, but I have really adapted a lifestyle that supports my body. I'm in my mid sixties, phenomenal. I look around at my other friends that are my age and they have all of these ailments in their wrinkle. They don't feel good and they don't have energy and they've lost muscle tone. And their cabinet is filled with pills for the ill. And I don't have health insurance. I just think it's our responsibility to take care of our bodies and we need to start learning on how do we do that? And when we can, for ourselves, we can do it for our pets. And ultimately that means you're creating a lot less toxicity in the world. And that means the earth is going to be more sustainable as well. So we've really been sold a bill of goods. We've been sold fast, cheap, and convenient. We paid a very high price for that.

Zack G. (33:30):

Yeah, well, yeah, the whole, the whole food thing has gotten like way out of hand and that clearly it's mostly money driven and, and you know, there's a whole story with that. And unfortunately our pets got wound up into it probably to some degree, even worse than we have, because nothing, nothing that we're feeding our pets is actually like fresh or raw or anything. It's like, like you say, it's like dry, whatever it is stamped out of some machine or something 

Dr. Marlene (34:03):

Animal by that, in the wild, they wouldn't even stop and look at it twice because it doesn't even resemble it. But these companies have laced it with the salts and the sugars and, and then we train them cause they have no other choices, right. They're only eat what you put in their bowl, so they're going to eat something. Right. And they become a, to these food, just like people become addicted to sugar and bad fats.

Zack G. (34:27):

They experienced the same sort of dopamine release from sugars that we do. Absolutely.

Dr. Marlene (34:31):

And the same military side effects as well. Yeah.

Zack G. (34:33):

So I guess diet, I mean, I get, I think I heard once and you know, I like to exercise and I've kind of focused on a lot of the things that you just discussed throughout most of my life. And I, I feel great too, by the way, I, I once heard somewhere and I can't remember where I read it, that the sugar was really like the sort of the, you know, like it was like the poison inside all of our food. But, but more importantly, that food is the medicine you take every day, which I thought was pretty insightful because we don't, you know, I think in, you know, especially here in Western medicine and stuff, there's never really been that discussion. That food was the way that you were caring for your body. It was food was the way your, you know, feeding your body nutritionally. And then medicine is a whole different category. But in this discussion that I had, you know, I don't know where I came across this, but I thought it was really insightful that that thinking was that food was actually part of your, you know, the care and medicine that you're putting in your body, both in a good way. And in a lot of cases, unfortunately can be in a bad way.

Dr. Marlene (35:39):

It actually came from Hippocrates. Hippocrates is the father of medicine. And he literally said, let food be thy medicine and medicine, be thy food.

Zack G. (35:49):

You're pointing out where I, where I learned that from somewhere obviously way beyond I can remember. Yeah. So there you go. So that's, so it's ancient wisdom really that we forgot.

Dr. Marlene (35:59):

That's what Eastern medicine is. It's really going to the root cause of medicine and understanding the body's biology. We've just gotten so far away from our roots that when kids grow up, they don't even know where their food comes from. They've never seen a banana tree. They don't know how apples are grown. They don't know where their vegetables come from and everything is picked green. And then it's shipped before it's even right. And it doesn't even taste like food. You know, when I go out my garden and I eat a banana, it has little tiny seeds in it. And it has the most unbelievable taste. It tastes like a banana.

Zack G. (36:35):

Well, you're lucky. You're lucky you can grow bananas where you live. Not everybody gets to do that.

Dr. Marlene (36:40):

Yeah, no, I get it. But you know, there, there are, co-ops, there's a ways to get around it. But my point is that we have become so far removed from our food sources, that it isn't our medicine. It isn't our nutrition anymore. In fact, another example, there's a group of compounds that are called south. It was named by the scientists who discovered them. And when fruit is ripening on a tree and it is exposed to the normal stressors of fungi and parasites and bugs and stuff like that, these plants will produce compounds that will call foul best drawls. And they keep the parasites from attacking the fruit. When we food that is high in salvage astrology, it actually turns on some of our anti-cancer pathways. Yeah. But if you're eating food that has never ripened on the vine, then you're not astrology in your diet. Same thing with [inaudible] 17 comes from many different food groups like mung beans and casaba. But if you're not eating those things, then you become deficient in B 17 and your P four 50 pathway doesn't get turned on. So your body doesn't have the mechanisms with which to fight abnormal cells.

Zack G. (38:00):

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I think like, you know, as it relates to pets, it released to people, but it, it just tells us that it's actually the, the small things, that small choices in the small things you do every day that actually can make the biggest impact on your life before you end up having to come see somebody like yourself and, and, you know, deal with a bigger problem. You can actually make these small decisions and set yourself up for success. And, and like you say, longer life, perhaps better quality of life for the years that you are here and that your pets are here. So it's actually not as complicated as it's probably everybody's making it. And I think that's one of the things that's so frustrating these days is that we've been marketed, you know, from the human health and fitness industry, the animal nutrition industry, that all of this stuff is actually complicated because, you know, if they create complexity and they create confusion, then they can continue to sell us solutions. Right. I mean human fitness industry as the, the biggest offender in that sort of whole train of thought, but really it turns out if we just look to our past, it's, it's all there and it's not that complicated. It's actually pretty straight.

Dr. Marlene (39:14):

Absolutely. And there were a few turning points in history that actually drove us to this allopathic model that we're living in. And one of them was the difference between the germ theory and the terrain theory. So Louis Pastore was a believer of the germ theory. So he believed that the germs are what caused disease. And if you could get rid of the pathogen from the body would be healthy. Then there was another guy, Anton Beauchamp who believed in the terrain theory. And he said, if the terrain is healthy, then the pathogens don't have a place to thrive. And Louis Pastore actually passed. He actually acknowledged that it, that he was wrong. Wasn't the germ theory. It was the terrain. Well, most people are still based on that germ theory. That's why we have antibiotics. That's why we have vaccination because we're trying to get rid of the viruses.

Dr. Marlene (40:06):

We're trying to prevent the germs. And we're trying to kill those pathogens. When in reality, this is something most people are not aware of. We have functional genes, a functional gene is a gene that dictates what things are going to do. So it's your DNA. Is it going to turn it on? Is it going to turn it off? How is it going to respond? And these functional genes are what code for your DNA expression? Well, interestingly enough, we only have around 20,000 of these genes in our human body, but we derive most of our coding from the microorganisms, from our microbiome. So the bacteria, the viruses, the Fung guy, they actually run most of our biological pathways. So think about that, wipe them all out. We cannot survive.

Zack G. (40:56):

That's an interesting, that's a, that's a really like counterintuitive thought that you just threw on us, like right there. I mean, I kinda just was like,

Dr. Marlene (41:04):

Yeah. So what that means is that the pathogens are not the problem. It's us not being a good host. So we have supported the good bacteria. We haven't given them an environment to thrive in because we keep pouring all these toxins on including stress. You know, stress is a toxin as well. It produces cortisol, cortisol, punches, holes in your gut lining. So you can, I'm kind of throwing out little pieces here for people to understand that it's not one thing. It's a perfect storm of a lot of things that come together to create illness. You mess up the terrain, you're not supporting the microbiome. You've got increasing stress. You've got leaky gut. You have deficiencies in essential nutrients. You have an excess of toxins. And last but not least your microbiome can't talk to the mitochondria because that's where all the communication goes, right? They're the ones deciding what functional genes are going to turn on and turn off. So they're able to communicate, then your cells are out there going, I don't know, I don't know what to do. I lost communication with the base station. So I don't know if I'm supposed to die. I don't know if I'm supposed to repair myself. So, you know what, I'll just keep growing and then into tumors,

Zack G. (42:18):

The best, that's the best sort of straight forward explanation that I've heard for all of this and that. And as long as I can remember, thank you very much for that. And thank you for sharing all of this stuff on the show. So I just want to let everybody know that, you know, you can reach Dr. Siegel through holistic healing, vet.com, right? For, to start thinking about

Dr. Marlene (42:42):

That's the ebook holistic healing vet, Tommy's the free ebook, right? But the way to contact me is through Dr. Marlene siegel.com and that's Dr. Marlene Siegel dot. And then that takes me to my office site. It takes you to spas. It takes you to the food site. And so,

Zack G. (43:00):

Right. So even if, so, if they're a vet and they're interested in integrating holistic integrative medicine into their practice and start heading this way and adding more possibilities for their patients, their pet patients, then that's a great resource. And if you're a pet parent and your pet is suffering, and even if you're in California or it doesn't matter where you are in the country, right? Because you're willing to work with people remotely and, and consult and guide them through this whole process of extending and quality and quantity of life,

Dr. Marlene (43:34):

Wellness care. That's really where, like we we've been taught to wait until it's broke to fix it and broke hair is not working very well. So this is all about preventative health care.

Zack G. (43:45):

Thank you. Yeah. Thanks so much. Okay. Well, we're going to wrap it up. I can't wait to hear what happens with spas and the next chapter. So I want to just kind of leave it out there that we're going to hear more from you in the future.

Dr. Marlene (43:59):

Oh, it was great talking to you and thank you for getting this out to so many people.

Zack G. (44:03):

Well, yeah. You know, I mean, this is the kind of stuff, I mean, in this industry, for whatever reason, this is the stories that I didn't see being told in this type of format where everybody could kinda, you know, have added on their own time and schedule. So it's great to be able to do it. We got a lot of great doctors that have been on the show and we're just going to keep dropping episodes and keeping up with the stories and learning more from all the different perspectives. Yours is amazing. And then we have other, I mean, just, I've just heard, it's like, it's been an awesome privilege. I got to tell you just to, to hear there's so much color and, and knowledge and wisdom and experiences from all the vets that I've talked to and owners, you guys say you guys play a special role in our lives of caring for our special family members and also guiding us through, you know, pet ownership is kind of one of those challenging human experiences.

Zack G. (45:01):

I mean, it certainly has been for me that, you know, pets never really live as long as we do. So we kinda, we have this like miniature life arc with them and you might have several dogs in your life throughout your lifespan. And you kind of, you know, you raise them from a little puppy and then they, you know, kind of live their lives. And then you go through this sadness and, you know, it's this whole thing. And veterinary doctors like yourself kind of walk us through that whole arc time and time again. And it's like a reflection of our own situation in a smaller package, if you will. And it's you know, it's it can be challenging, but that's play that special role for all of us and guiding us through that, you know, and, and making it the best that it can be. So thanks for that. And thanks for all the wisdom.

Dr. Marlene (45:47):

You're welcome. And besides that a last thought that shouldn't live into their thirties and we, as humans should live past 120 and thriving, not just this thing, but we're arriving, That's a goal of the pet parent or the goal of a veterinarian. Then I would love to connect our tribe and really help people to see how to make that happen because it is possible.

Zack G. (46:16):

Awesome. Okay. Well, we'll leave it on that. Thank you so much. And we will see you on the next time we can get you on the show and for everybody else out there, watch for more great stories, just like we heard today on practice romantic. Hi everybody.

Intro (46:34):

Thank you for listening to this episode of practice. So matter, subscribe to the podcast. So you don't miss any future episodes for additional help and resources for your practice. Visit Zack greenfield.com to connect with Zach. Visit Zach greenfield.com/zg.