Unraveling The Root Cause of Hormonal Acne
Episode 168
Getting through summers with the fear of acne breakout is fairly common but sometimes the Sun is not always to blame. Dive into today’s episode of the Integrative Wellness Radio as Dr. Nicole joins us to talk about how hormones play a huge role when it comes to acne. She briefs the listeners as to why skin conditions such as hormonal acne manifest in the first place and what has to happen over time for acne in general to develop. Tune in and listen to the full episode to learn more! Interested in learning more about Dr. Nick & Dr. Nicole’s courses, memberships, or private work? Learn more at Integrative You . Have a quick question, Would you like to schedule a call, or just want to say hi? Text us at 732.913.0009. Our mission to innovate humans & Healthcare does NOT start and stop with us! This is why we are also dedicated to helping other practitioners in evolving healthcare too! If you are a healthcare leader and are looking to up-level your clinical + business excellence Learn more about our course membership: Limitless Healthprenuer and start boldly disrupting this industry! Noteworthy Time Stamps: 03:01 We need to understand the basic physiology 05:36 Childhood illnesses playing a role in acne 09:44 It’s not always aging 13:56 The alteration in testosterone 22:55 Toxins affecting the liver lead to acne 29:47 You don’t know what you don’t know
Topics: acne, hormonal, skin, because, learn, unknown, sense, integrative
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Unraveling The Root Cause of Hormonal Acne
- Understand the fundamental physiology behind acne development.
- Explore how childhood illnesses can be a contributing factor to adult acne.
- Recognize that acne isn't solely an issue of aging; hormonal shifts are key.
- Learn about the specific role of testosterone alterations in hormonal acne.
Pull quotes
Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems.
Nick and Dr. **Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey.
And also the therapies that are out there, and what can we do better from a lifestyle standpoint?
Transcript
**Unknown:** I been up all night, no sleep. Imagine if medicine actually looked at you as a whole, opposed to looking at you as a bunch of separate systems. Dive into Integrative Wellness Radio with Dr. Nick and Dr.
**Unknown:** Nicole to learn more about the top trends in integrative medicine, to learn about what the limitations are with testing, and what you can do to start your health journey. Sometimes I tend to lose myself when I'm out here on my own. Hey everyone. So this must be a, a hot topic.
**Unknown:** Definitely excited about talking about this specific aspect of skin conditions, as today is really understanding, first of all, how do skin conditions like hormonal acne or acne in general, how do they manifest? What has to happen over time to develop this type of condition? And also the therapies that are out there, and what can we do better from a lifestyle standpoint? What can we do better from an integrative medicine standpoint?
**Unknown:** And just being able to have you guys walk away with tools so that you truly understand where this came from, and also where it came from for you because everyone is extremely, extremely different with how it actually manifested. Because I know that some of you are here because your kids are struggling with acne, and you don't know what to do anymore, and you're tired of seeing them upset and self-conscious, and y- it's really just heartbreaking to you to watch your child just feel so uncomfortable literally in their own skin. But if you are that parent or if it, you're here for yourself, I just want you to understand, you don't know what you don't know. If you don't have a doctor asking better questions, if you feel like you got paralyzed because you tried to read about the best diets to go about it, and then you're just like, "I don't even know which one to choose," and you gave up, it's not your fault.
**Unknown:** There's a lot of information nowadays, and we have the beauty of the internet, but it's a lot of mixed information. So I'm here today to really help you make sense of things because that's how I know that I did my job, is when you're like, "Oh my gosh, that actually makes sense," or, "That is actually really makes sense for me." So like I said before, is that one of the reasons why I do what I do is because it didn't make sense to me that we separated out all of the body systems because dermatologists ask you zero questions about what's happening inside of your body. Didn't even look at the pattern of your acne or, or of your rashes and didn't even say, "Oh, did you ever have an infection there? Oh, do you have stomach problems?
**Unknown:** Did you have infections in your gums, and that's why your acne's along your jawline?" That didn't make sense to me. I think it's common sense, but apparently I'm a little weird. Um, so I think that it's really important to look at the big picture and understand how things are tied together. And also, we need to stop ignoring basic physiology.
**Unknown:** And just alone from you having a bunch of imbalances in your gut, that is then going to manifest in different parts of your body, and it a hundred percent can manifest in your skin. There are many people that say, "Oh, I gave up dairy, and I immediately noticed that my skin got better." The problem is, is that you lose steam with those types of things because what you're doing is you're, you're dampening the fire, but you're not putting the fire out. So that's not a life to live. It's not a life to live to be walking on eggshells, to be like, "I can't do this because otherwise I'm gonna go backwards, or otherwise I'm gonna have a flare." It's about really being able to leverage better testing, and that's what we're gonna get into next, is really understanding what are the contributing factors.
**Unknown:** So number one is predisposition to acne can start in the womb. I'm a little bit like a broken record because I've done two other modules this month about skin, and I've said this in both modules. Literally, what is happening while you are in mom plays a role in what's gonna happen in your skin later. And what I mean by this is that that's the lovely fluid that you float around in at, when you're in mom's belly.
**Unknown:** And then you had antibiotics, so you further did the teeter-totter of bad bacteria, not enough good bacteria. Maybe Mom, you're the first, and moms are always, you know, they're terrified with their first baby. Should they wanna protect you? They wanna make sure that everything is super sanitary.
**Unknown:** And what they don't realize, again, no blame, moms, no blame at all. But you don't realize is that the more you wipe out bacteria, you create resistant bugs that are now antibiotic resistant, but you also are going to have the per- the, the baby or the child's body, their ecosystem is so off balance that now they're so much more susceptible to the bad bacteria. So we need to understand that getting dirty, allowing your kids to like, play outside and play in the dirt is not a bad thing, and it's not always about just, like sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. Get rid of those, the antibacterial hand sanitizers.
**Unknown:** One of the biggest things with those hand sanitizers is they contain a chemical called triclosan. Triclosan is not only gonna wipe out the good bacteria, but it also is a hormone disruptor. Childhood illnesses, this is gonna be the one that really blows your mind. The types of infections and the types of illnesses that you've had plays a role in where you might develop your acne.
**Unknown:** And then when it comes to the acne that truly is hormonal, food as a contributing factor. We have blood sugar as a contributing factor. We have stress levels as a contributing factor. How many of your kids are stressed right now?
**Unknown:** Yeah, comparison game. They can't-- They're getting bullied online. Like, the stress is never ending for the younger generations right now.It's actually a scary time for them. And then we also have liver function.
**Unknown:** Best part is, is that when your acne doesn't get cleared up by antibiotics, what do you go on? You go on Accutane. What do they do when you're on Accutane? They monitor your liver enzymes because it destroys your liver.
**Unknown:** And a compromised liver is one of the contributing factors to hormonal acne. Best part. Anyway, dental work is another big one that nobody is thinking about. So we're gonna start getting into these so that you guys kind of understand more about this.
**Unknown:** So I've given this away a little bit already. So number one, when the skin, skin conditions can start early on, it's because of toxins in the amniotic fluid. Number two is if you were C-section and born in a hospital, you already have not enough good bacteria and a boatload of bad bacteria, including strep and staph. Strep now is even more associated with neurological issues and developmental issues known as a condition called PANDAS, which is a pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder caused by strep.
**Unknown:** So there is a lot of things going on with strep that nobody's talking about, but it's not just about your sore throat. There is a lot more to the puzzle. So outside of that, when we get into, you know, some of the things that can be happening really, really young that also predisposes people to these-- to acne is eczema. And they call it baby eczema.
**Unknown:** Oh, baby eczema, it's so normal. Every baby has it. Oh yeah, they grow out of it. Eczema is not normal.
**Unknown:** It's never normal. It's a skin condition that is a result of an imbalance. So I had a two-month-old that came with head-to-toe eczema and was crying a lot. So I bring this up primarily because what happens is-- this honestly, this case specifically was a huge surprise to me because I deal with a lot of patients that once I do their evaluation, what I realize is that a lot of their detox pathways, it's like the concept of a vacuum.
**Unknown:** You literally have a vacuum with a filter, and you keep using the vacuum, the filter gets more and more full, and then it gets to the point that the vacuum's at max capacity. So the vacuum's not really working properly anymore. So that principle actually applies to our liver, it can apply to our lymph nodes. You literally have lymph nodes everywhere.
**Unknown:** Lymph nodes are like what hurts when you get sick. So when someone comes in later in life, and this is twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and they have compromised lymph, I'm not surprised. They've been exposed to a variety of infections and viruses and toxins, and it, it makes sense that it could get congested. But the most surprising thing to me was when I had a two-month-old that already had a compromised lymphatic system, and he was head to toe eczema, which all came from toxins that was in mom's body, in the amniotic fluid, C-section.
**Unknown:** In addition, mom had group B strep, which is a, a bacteria that he was also exposed to. So they gave antibiotics, and then on top of it, he was administered antibiotics, uh, quite a few more times for ear infections. This is literally all within two months of life. And this child had head-to-toe lymphatic issues already.
**Unknown:** And if you're curious, some of the things that are actually found in the amniotic fluid is everything from cigarette smoke. I'm not even talking about women who smoke, but like secondhand smoke, exhaust, gasoline, pesticides, herbicides, from colognes, deodorants. Like crazy stuff, guys. Like if you think that this stuff is not affecting you, if you think that you spray perfume on yourself every day and you rub tons of lotions and blemish balancing creams and you dye your hair, if you think that that's not getting into your system, it is.
**Unknown:** It's getting into your system, it's causing toxicity, and it's screwing up your detox pathways, and you're calling it aging. It's not aging. It's all the crap that's building up in your body that your immune system's like, "I don't even know what to do with this anymore." Let alone if you work in an industry that you're a mechanic, you're a hairstylist, you develop film. There's a lot of other, you know, aspects of people's professions that are also contributing.
**Unknown:** Okay, so we just talked about toxins that you literally could be exposed to from, from birth. Now we need to talk about toxins that you guys are all being exposed to now day-to-day, literally almost day-to-day in your life. So one of the things that all of us are using every day is toothpaste. Toothpaste, if you're using your more conventional brands, flip it over and look for an ingredient called triclosan.
**Unknown:** T-R-I-C-L-O... Triclosan is a hormone disruptor. Triclosan is also in most hand sanitizers, and it is in the hospitals that have to literally sanitize in between every patient. So not only are you getting the hand sanitizer that is depleting your body of good bacteria or your skin of good bacteria, then in addition, you're also being exposed to a hormone disruptor, which is then screwing up your hormones, which is making your skin worse due to hormones.
**Unknown:** And then toothpaste. Think about where most people have their acne. Tons of people have acne on the jawline. And what do they get told?
**Unknown:** It's hormonal. Yeah, maybe it's hormonal. Maybe it's because you have a bunch of crap in your mouth. Maybe it's because you have a boatload of silver fillings in your mouth.
**Unknown:** Maybe it's because you have white fillings. They're equally as toxic. Maybe you've had a bunch of root canals. Maybe you've had your teeth pulled and had infections.
**Unknown:** Maybe your gums bleed. Also, in addition, when you use toothpaste, you have triclosan, you have sodium phosphate, you have other things that are toxic that are also getting absorbed directly into your lymph nodes. So you have to think about the things that you use every day. In addition, we're all putting aluminum on our armpits every day.
**Unknown:** Aluminum is a massive hormone disruptor. So when we talk about how these things play a role, it's a couple of things. So let me just try to break this down as easy as possible.So mercury we get exposed to by eating fish. We also get exposed through light bulbs, by the way.
**Unknown:** We also get exposed through silver fillings in our teeth. Aluminum we get exposed through aluminum cans, aluminum foil, and deodorant, or I should say antiperspirant. So you get exposed to these chemicals, and what they do is they screw up your liver function. And if you screw up your liver function, you're actually gonna have a really, really hard time getting rid of extra estrogen.
**Unknown:** So if you can't get rid of extra estrogen, not only are you gonna be bloated and have-- you don't want fat deposits like your abdomen and your hips, you're also going to have deposits in your pecs which they call man boobs. Literally this summer, you know, going to the beach, it's, it's heartbreaking that I see these kids that have-- that are, that are males that have figures almost like a female and have breasts. And these are kids that are probably self-conscious. Their parents are putting them on a diet, and they're missing the boat on the fact that it's toxicity, number one.
**Unknown:** And number two, it's all the-- that are in the food. We're literally eating meat that is produced through industrial farming, and they're pumping these animals full of hormones to make them fatter so they get more money for them. So we have a huge issue on our hands with what is screwing up our kids' hormones. So in addition to that is not only are we gonna have this elevation in estrogen, we're also going to start having alterations in testosterone as well.
**Unknown:** You might be thinking like, "Okay, like where the heck are some of these heavy metals coming from?" These kids are being born with heavy metals, and they're being born with heavy metals because now it's a standard that a pregnant woman gets the pertussis vaccine. The pertussis vaccine is not pertussis by itself anymore. It's actually DTaP. It's tetanus, pertussis, and diphtheria.
**Unknown:** But it specifically says formaldehyde, aluminum phosphate are two of the primary things that are in the tetanus or, or the DTaP vaccine. So childhood illnesses, we are talking about sinus infections, respiratory infections, ear infections, tonsil issues, adenoid issues, and then we might even have some dental issues from wisdom teeth getting pulled, and maybe they get infected, or they've had teeth pulled just to make room in the mouth. Or these kids are getting canker sores or even cold sores, or they've had hand, foot, and mouth. So most of the time what are we throwing at these?
**Unknown:** We're throwing antibiotics at them. And we have really normalized the use of antibiotics, and if anything, it's pretty normal to use antibiotics maybe every two weeks in a kid who's immune-compromised. First of all, all of you guys are getting exposed to antibiotics through your food because this is all part of the reason why we're sick, we feel like crap, and also why we have skin issues, acne included. Not only are we dealing with antibiotics through the food industry, then we get a cold, we get a sore throat, we get a sinus infection, and we're like, "Oh, antibiotics." And the doctors aren't giving you any, uh, recommendations to say, "Hey, don't do this too much." They're just like, "Yeah, dude, take another one.
**Unknown:** Oh, it didn't work. Take a different one. Oh, it didn't work. Okay, let's, let's put these two together." And we're constantly wiping out the good, wiping out the good, wiping out the good, and we are now a Petri dish of bad bacteria.
**Unknown:** So we need to understand that these antibiotics are playing a significant-- imbalances. But the more we take them, we think that they're actually wiping out the bad bacteria. But what's crazy, because of the testing that I do and because of the technology that I have, and all of these skin-based bacterias, they're not dead. They're still there, but all your good bacteria is gone.
**Unknown:** So these bacteria have evolved. They have learned to be resistant against the antibiotics. So when someone comes to me with acne, when we start doing testing, we find that they have strep in the sinuses, and now that's in the skin. We find that they have strep or staph.
**Unknown:** I've even found Lyme disease in people's gums, and that is pushing into the skin. So that is obviously going to be an acne that can come and go but will be further exacerbated based off of the hormonal changes, which we're gonna talk a bit more about. But you have to start thinking about this. Think about, "Oh, my gosh, do I always get breakouts around, you know, my cheeks because I've had a ton of sinus infections?
**Unknown:** Do I always get on the sides of my neck, but I had a ton of ear infections? Do I always get breakouts on this area here, but I also had my tonsils removed 'cause of tons of infections?" So you need to start thinking anatomically of where have you had issues, where are your weak spots, and where are your-- where is your acne? This whole conversation about infections affecting sinuses, tonsils, ears, you need to understand that this is actually going to play a role in the neurological system. Maybe not right away, but it is gonna play a role later.
**Unknown:** So when you have your kid who's struggling in school, they're really-- like can't get their grades up, they're, um, not developing at the rate that you hoped, or they're having social anxiety, or, or they're having brain fog, memory loss, things like that, all of those things that were going on in the tonsils, all of the issues that were going on in the sinuses, has that contributed to the inability for the brain to actually drain? We need to pay attention to these things because they're not normal. And why are we living in a world right now that so many kids are struggling academically, socially, and developmentally? So we really need to start asking better questions about this and start noticing these patterns in our kids.
**Unknown:** SoThe understanding more about the food with the hormones. Well, I've already kind of given it away, but understanding that animal products that are not local, you know, you're going to your ShopRites, your Costcos, and you're not necessarily aware of, you know, buying better quality meat, dairy, et cetera, you are being dosed with antibiotics and growth hormone every time you eat those foods. So first and foremost, with the whole industrial farming, the animals are being given-- plump them up and make them bigger so they weigh more to-- so they cost more. They, they, they get more money for them.
**Unknown:** In addition, is because these animals are in close quarters and they are not grazing, they're not eating what they're supposed to eat. Uh, cows are supposed to eat grass. They eat corn and soy. Soy, what does soy do?
**Unknown:** Hormone disruptor, increases estrogen, makes them fatter so they weigh more. Then they give them the growth hormone, and then they feed them corn, which is inflammatory, and then because they're sick, they give them antibiotics. So we really need to think about it in this way instead of it just being like, "It's cheaper. It's easier.
**Unknown:** I have a big family to feed." Because you can source it, you can go work with a local farmer, you can, you know-- no matter where-- we're in Jersey. Like, nobody even thinks about farms here. They think we live in a concrete jungle. But, you know, we have access to farms.
**Unknown:** Like, you have access if you start looking for it. But your kids or your boys have the shape of a female, and they have, you know, they have breasts or man boobs, whatever you wanna call it, and you need to feed them better food. It has nothing to do with them just being overweight. It has to do with what-- the quality of what they're eating.
**Unknown:** Then in addition to this is now we're also dealing with sugar. We all know sugar's bad, but we don't realize how much sugar is in everything. So I am just as guilty as anybody else. Literally, I grew up-- I n- I always said, I was like, "I'm not, I'm not a sugar person.
**Unknown:** I'm, I don't have a sweet tooth." I always thought I ate healthy. You know, I would go for sushi opposed to the pizza. But I would go to Starbucks when I was stressed out, and I would get a mocha latte. And of course, I did dairy before I knew better, and then I would, you know, there's like five or six pumps of chocolate in it.
**Unknown:** So then I was like, "Okay, that's not good." And then eventually, when they started to have milk alternatives, I did coconut milk lattes. And it was fascinating because when I finally was like, "You know, I'm gonna start making these at home," and I bought my own coconut milk and everything else, and I was like, "Wow, this doesn't taste close to as good." And what I realized is that when I went to Starbucks, I asked them, I was like, "Can I see your coconut milk?" And there was m- so much sugar in just the coconut milk. So the problem that comes in with the sugar is this is, this is two parts. Number one is so the sugar's feeding the bad bacteria, so if the strep is part of the problem or staph is part of the problem or, or anything.
**Unknown:** But more importantly here is that the sugar starts to screw up your insulin levels. Once you start to have something called insulin resistant, which means that your body cannot utilize the glucose properly, the sugar properly, then that is actually going to start to completely compromise testosterone levels and estrogen levels. What's gonna happen is you're actually going to have a spike in the estrogen and a decline in the testosterone, so that's when the boys start having the female body figures. And then for females, it's kind of, kind of interesting because initially, the estrogen spikes and the testosterone drops, and then eventually the testosterone starts to raise, and that's when the women become more susceptible to the fibroids and the polycystic ovaries, which they don't always get diagnosed with.
**Unknown:** They just get diagnosed with terrible periods, and they have to stay home from school because their periods are so brutally painful. So outside of that, when it also comes to the toxins in food, so the toxins come from the pesticides and the herbicides and all of these things that are sprayed on the foods. That is then gonna screw up the liver, and then the more we screw up the liver, the more issue we have, especially with estrogen levels. So really most of all of this starts with the spike in the estrogen.
**Unknown:** Spike in estrogen is one of the biggest contributing factors, and the estrogen is becoming elevated because we're getting exposed to hormones through the food, are screwing up the liver, which doesn't allow your liver to break down the extra estrogen, and then we have the sugar, which is further really altering these levels as well. So it's a perfect storm. So if you can't tell by now, this is not about take an antibiotic and call it a day. This isn't even about, like, just clean up the liver and call it a day.
**Unknown:** If this has been going on a long time, then there are multiple aspects that have to be balanced out. And, you know, some of you might be thinking like, "Wow, this sounds, like, really complex and a lot of work just to fix acne." But I'm gonna tell you this, is that your kid might have acne right now, or you might have acne right now, but this becomes other issues later down the line. This becomes autoimmunity. This becomes celiac disease.
**Unknown:** This becomes neurological degeneration. But all of it just brews and brews and brews, and it's like a snowball that's happening. So we need to be conscious of the warning signs. And with this whole conversation, we talked obviously a lot about liver, but the other aspect of all the antibiotics and not having enough good bacteria and having too much bad bacteria, this is definitely something that is gonna throw off gut health.
**Unknown:** And yes, the gut is always something that has to be considered, but I'm not gonna sit here and say that the gut is the only contributing factor to skin 'cause that is completely not correct.But if you have bad bacteria in your gut that's maybe causing you to be bloated, maybe it's causing you to have heartburn or indigestion. All of those are signs of you having imbalances in your gut, by the way. So if you have this bad bacteria, then that is gonna give off something called endotoxins, and those things get into your lymph nodes, and then that pushes out into your skin and causes you to also have more issues with your skin as well. So I don't want you to think that you have all of these problems, and I don't want you to think that you have one of these problems.
**Unknown:** The most important thing is that every single one of you are extremely different, and maybe it's stemming from the liver. Maybe it's stemming from the bacteria from the sinus infections. Maybe it's stemming from sugar in your diet. It really is a matter of leveraging better testing to decipher which is the root for you.
**Unknown:** So another big thing when we talk about hormones that we have to consider is stress hormones are something that I think we all know when we're stressed, but I know that at least living in New Jersey, um, and being close to New York is that, uh, the nature of our personalities growing up here is that we're like, "I can handle stress. I-I'm tough. I'm a survivor. Like, ride or die, push through." And we just kind of like attribute stress to just be a normal part of life, and we just, just do what we have to do, and we put our head down, and that's the way we are.
**Unknown:** And as much as I relate to it, uh, because I was very much that person a-and probably am till to some capacity still these days, but I realized that no matter what I thought that I was capable of, my body internally still was pumping out a ton of cortisol and a ton of adrenaline and completely compromising, which was my feel-good hormones and my sex hormones. It doesn't matter if you're tough and resilient, and you can handle stress, you are still creating a lot of issues with your sex hormones, like your estrogen and your testosterone and your progesterone if you run on adrenaline and you don't sleep and you pump out tons of cortisol. So the way that you can know if your cortisol is off is if you can't get to bed, you have trouble falling asleep, and you then try to lay down, you toss and turn, and your r-mind is racing, and then you get up in the morning, and you're completely exhausted. That shows you that your cortisol and melatonin cycles are completely off.
**Unknown:** So if your cortisol and melatonin to definitely be in adrenal fatigue, which is going to completely compromise how your body is regulating and producing estrogen and testosterone. So this is also another part of the puzzle when it comes to acne. Going to be a come a time that you are going to burn out, and I know it because that happened to me. I powered through for literally like fifteen years, and then my body was like, "No, you're done." And it shut me down hard, and it was actually scary how hard it shut me down 'cause I was barely able to function.
**Unknown:** And fortunately, I do what I do, and I was able to get myself back. Being able to create some type of balance while still maintaining your life. The other thing too is when it comes to stress hormones, there's gonna be a big talk about cortisol and melatonin. So like let me just give you this baseline so you actually know what the heck I'm talking about.
**Unknown:** So your cortisol gets you up. It's like, get up, energize, get to work. Like, do your thing. So cortisol is really high in the morning, and then it starts to taper as you go through the day.
**Unknown:** And then as you get into the evening hours, your melatonin starts to go up, so they work inversely. So now your melatonin's going up 'cause it's starting to get you tired to go to bed at a normal time, allow you to go into rest, relaxation, and detox 'cause that's what happens when you sleep. And then all your melatonin tapers off, and then your cortisol goes back up. One of the reasons why people can't sleep and also run on adrenaline and run on stress hormones and have bad skin and all of the rest is because we completely screw up these cycles when we're constantly being stimulated by blue light.
**Unknown:** Blue light comes from our technology, and I actually should be talking. I literally have blue light blocking glasses that I should be putting on right now. So, um, but it's going to be coming from our cell phones. It comes from our Kindles.
**Unknown:** It comes from our tablets. It comes from our computers. It comes from all of those things. So you guys might be trying to like get in a better routine at night, and you're like, "I'm gonna read," but you're reading on a Kindle or you're reading on a tablet.
**Unknown:** We gotta go old school, guys. Get a book out. And reading on a device are completely different, uh, activations to your brain. So it's very, very important for you to understand these things.
**Unknown:** So if you guys really haven't realized at this point, it's you don't know what you don't know. Like it-- nobody is thinking about all of these different factors when they're thinking about their skin. They're thinking like, "Do I need to go on birth control?" if you're a female. They're thinking, "Oh, do I need to go on antibiotic?" And like I said before, is they're going to completely screw up the overall bacteria in your body, which doesn't just cause skin problems.
**Unknown:** It's gonna cause a boatload of other issues. What I think is really important is stop using so much crap on your face. Stop using so many cleansers, so many face masks. People will say like, "Wow, your skin is like pretty balanced overall." And I'm like, "I literally do nothing." I use Dr.
**Unknown:** Bronner's Castile Soap. It is the, the more simple you go, the better. If you, you need to stop like clearing all that bacteria off of your face 'cause the more you wipe out the good, you're gonna have the bad come in, which is gonna create issues. Um, and if you are gonna use stuff, just try to use non-toxic stuff.
**Unknown:** It's just so, so, so important. So my biggest thing for you guys to take away is that we need to stop blaming this on bad genes. The healthcare is supposed to be about answers because nobody is connecting the dots like this. So it's really, really huge for you to be able to walk away just having peace of mind.
**Unknown:** And this is such an educational experience for all of you guys. I just really hope that at some point in time you'll be able to have your own breakthrough experience, and that is really comes from finally knowing what's going on in your body and also being able to be preventative in a lot of the things that we're fearing. A lot of us are sitting around fearing cancer, and we're fearing Alzheimer's, and we're fearing Parkinson's, and we're fearing the conditions that we've watched our loved ones deal with. And, you know, you don't know what you don't know until you do.
**Unknown:** And you know that there is an option out there that can help you to get clarity on your body and also really negate the possibility of those chronic illnesses. So I really hope that you got tons of value out of this and, uh, and I hope that we do see you in the future. But again, I really appreciate you guys being here, and I hope you take advantage of the strategy call, and I will see you next week. We thank you for being a listener and subscriber to Integrative Wellness Radio.
**Unknown:** If you're looking to learn more about Integrative Wellness Group as well as Dr. Nick or Dr. Nicole, you can check out integrativewellnessgroup.com. All night, no sleep 'cause I feel like I'm always dreaming.
**Unknown:** Wide awake, that's okay.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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