Welcome to the Soul Touched by Dogs Podcast, the show for dog lovers who
see dogs not as toys or tools, but wise souls worth our respect and care.
I'm an Herrmann, and I'm your host.
I talk to poor some humans, people who do great work for dogs and their people.
So come and join us for today's conversation.
Hello and welcome, Dr.
Marlene.
I'm very excited to have you here.
Well, I am just thrilled to be here and to be able to share with your audience
all the things that I am passionate about.
Well, and we know there's a lot of it.
So let's just get started.
Let people know, where in this lovely world are you based?
And, you know, what is all the stuff you're passionate about?
Well, I physically have a practice in Tampa, Florida, but I do travel worldwide.
I lecture worldwide and I do consultations for clients worldwide.
Okay, so you're a holistic vet, like people like, you know, imagine
people know nothing about you.
So, you know, we talk about a holistic vet and a lot of people have a
misconception that holistic means woo woo and kind of out there crazy.
And what holistic actually means is that we look at the whole
organism, body, mind, and spirit and all the parts work together.
So holistic actually means that we're integrating the body as a whole
and treating the body as a whole.
We know we're trained in this western world that there's the eye doctor,
there's the kidney doctor, there's the liver doctor, there's the skin doctor.
And sadly, they don't talk to each other.
It's almost like they think their world is just their little topic.
And the rest of the body doesn't communicate with that.
Well, we obviously know that's not the case.
So I do what is more called bioregulatory medicine, which
actually comes from Germany.
And it's where we understand the biology of the body.
We're a big machine.
We're a big vat of chemistry and biological pathways that are going on.
And we were designed to be able to function with certain support.
And then there's things that will inhibit or damage the body from functioning.
So what I do is I help identify what are the things that the body needs and
how can we make sure that it's provided.
And, and we're in a world of deficiency.
So of course that's, you know, really, really big problem.
And then the other side of that is the toxicities.
We want to make sure that we're identifying all the toxins that this
particular animal may be exposed to so that we can help mitigate the
damage, remove it if it's possible, and help, help the owners be aware
of how to avoid it, which would even be the best of the solutions.
So all of that to said, to say that with bioregulatory medicine, we're
literally understanding the biology of the body, Helping it to function
in its highest and best way so that we have that health and longevity that
we came to earth school to experience.
I love that.
I love that so much.
And I think it's, you know, it feels to me, there's a bit of a wave towards
that in human medicine as well.
Right.
So we've started to recognize, yeah, when all the different doctors don't talk to
each other, we have a problem and things don't really get addressed at the book.
So we're just huffing around on the surface.
So you mentioned the parts that the body needs and often doesn't get, and
then there's the things that the body does get and shouldn't, so can you
mention a few examples on each category?
Absolutely.
So when we were kids, I don't know if they had it in Germany, but we had
Flintstone vitamins here in the U.
S.
Candies, you know, and your, your mom gave you your Flintstone vitamins.
So you had your vitamins for the day.
And we really didn't know, what do vitamins do?
Well, vitamins and minerals are the cofactors that actually
run our metabolic pathway.
So they are quite important.
Take vitamin D as an example, that's D like in dog.
Vitamin D in humans can be synthesized either from our diet,
the meat that we eat, or it can be synthesized from the sun.
Herbivores, like the cows and deer and the animals that are grazing on
grasses, they can only synthesize vitamin D from their outside environment.
So they get it from the sun.
If they're not in the sun, they can't synthesize vitamin D and
incorporate that into their meat.
Carnivores only get vitamin D from their protein source.
So think about the fact that if that cow was in a feed light all of its
life, was never really out in the sun, it was not grass fed, grass
finished, then that animal is going to be deficient in vitamin D itself.
Then whoever eats that animal is going to be vitamin D deficient if they're relying
on that protein to provide the vitamin D.
So that's just one example.
Eighty five percent.
of animals that were tested on a kibble diet through a university.
were found to be vitamin D insufficient.
Now why that's important is because vitamin D is one of the
two critical nutrients necessary to run the innate immune system.
That's the immune system portion that we don't have to think about.
Our body does it automatically.
So if you're deficient in vitamin D as a human or a dog or a cat, you are
not going to be able to utilize the importance of your innate immune system.
So that's just one example.
And another one would be when we have imbalances.
A lot of pet food companies that are making frankenfood, it's not
real food, and they're selling this kibble loaded sugar rich
enzymatically dead garbage to our pets.
They're using synthetic vitamins in order to be able to meet the AFCO standards.
That doesn't mean that it is bioavailable to the animal to utilize.
And if they get the percentages wrong, Everything is affected
on how it's absorbed.
So if you have too much copper and not enough zinc, you're going to
affect how each of them is absorbed.
Calcium in proportion to phosphorus and also the other minerals.
So it is really important that we eat real food.
with real sources of natural vitamins and then minerals and fatty acids because our
bodies require this in order to function.
And I do want to mention on the fatty acid side, we are so conditioned
now to be taught to eat Fish oils.
Oh, we have to have the Omega 6 and Omega 3 fish oils.
Well, what we aren't told is that that was a marketing craze
that happened some years ago.
And fish oils nowadays are extremely high in mercury and they go rancid
extremely quickly when exposed to air and then they become toxic.
So yes, we do need essential fatty acids.
We need the ones that I call the parent essential fatty acids because they make
up 40 to 60 percent of our cell membrane.
So yes, we do have to have them, but I use them from plant based
materials like Primrose oil and hemp oil and pumpkin seed.
There's so many oils that will provide, Flax, will provide the fatty acids that
we need, essentially need for our body.
And then how miraculous is this?
We have enzymes in our bodies that take those parent essential fats and
will convert them into those other fatty acids that we need to have
at the time that we need them and in the quantity that we need them.
Oh, that's, that's fascinating.
And it's shocking at the same time.
You know, when you think about it, it's almost like a miracle that.
You know, I think it feels to me like especially dogs that
don't live as long these days.
Oh, they don't.
Conclusive.
And so with what you've just explained, it's like it's a
miracle to survive at all, right?
Oh, absolutely.
And so two points that you just made.
Number one, the life expectancy of dogs right now is seven years
shorter than it was 25 years ago.
That is documented.
And we're not understanding the why.
We're just We're being taught to accept the fact that when we get old, we're
going to fall apart and get crickety and need a whole basket full of medicine.
No, that is not true.
I am reaching 70 years of age.
I feel 70 years young and I am vibrant and I have energy and I am more
functional than I was in my twenties when I was in Beth's school and I was
under so much stress and At that time, we didn't have genetically modified
foods, but we had junk food, right?
So people like junk food to just survive in college.
So yeah, it's a really big deal.
So, you know, we really need to be looking at why are we living shorter and then
what is happening in our lifestyles that is creating this dysfunction because we
are now, we are only in survival mode.
There's a difference between survival and thriving.
Our bodies, because we are regenerative machines and we were built to
adapt and survive, that means when circumstances are not ideal, our
bodies just don't stop running.
They don't die.
Like your car, if you didn't put in gasoline, that's an
essential nutrient to a car.
If you didn't put gasoline in the car, it just wouldn't run.
But we, if we don't get the right nutrients in our body, we have all these
adaptive mechanisms, and our pets do as well, obviously I'm talking to both,
they have these adaptive mechanisms that will help the body to survive
because it is assumed that once you get through the crisis, whatever that
cataclysmic Problem is, it will pass and then you can go back to thriving
because then your lifestyle will improve.
And the way it worked for our ancestors is when they had blizzards and freezes
and they didn't have enough resources to make it through the winter, they A lot of
people and a lot of animals starved, but those that could survive once the spring
came back and food was plentiful, then they stuffed themselves with food again.
And they were then being able to go back to thriving.
So these mechanisms, we call them hormetic stressors, that our bodies
were actually designed to adapt to.
For our purpose of surviving and then thriving in the next era that
was coming forward, you know, so it was basically all the time, right?
Exactly.
You have to go from that surviving phase into thriving.
And then you made these genetic adaptations so that you are now more
prepared to function well and pass on a better gene pool for the next generation.
But what's happening now is we're staying in survival mode and getting more and more
chronic degenerative diseases to where the body goes, I got to, I'm going to
give up because nothing's getting better.
And now pathogens take over because they're going, the
motherships, it's crashing, it's burning, it's not coming back.
So let's become pathogenic and try to at least send
something that may survive this.
It's such a, it's such a vicious cycle as well, right?
So, so with what you explained at the beginning with the vitamin D,
so now we mess up our immune system.
So we have less to fight with against all the other toxins that we are exposed to.
So if I'm now determined to say, well, okay, at least for my own body and for
my dogs, I want to do the best I can.
What do you recommend?
Like, okay, where do I start?
That's a great question.
Um, and we start with education.
So I'm going to plug my Empowered Pet Parent course because it
is so critically important for people to start with knowledge.
You know, we have the internet, which is an amazing source, this amazing web.
However, not all the information that you get is good information, right?
And so we have to learn how to cut through the noise, how to cut
through the marketing, and the BS, which I call belief systems.
So, is it a belief system?
Is it BS that's supporting you?
Or is it BS that needs to be changed?
Because If you don't keep up with the changing times, then you're living
in the past and you're thinking about things in the past and you can't
adapt to what's happening in the now.
So it's extremely important to start with education.
Once we educate our pet parents, we teach them how to identify through testing.
We, we test, don't guess.
What are those deficiencies?
What are those toxicities?
And now we can very target what we need to do.
We know exactly what we need to supplement.
We know exactly what we need to detoxify from, and we detoxify
all six organs of elimination.
We have a kidney, colon, lungs, liver, skin, and lymphatics slash fascia.
We, I always include fascia now in my discussion of lymphatics.
So these are organs that were built into our pets bodies and our bodies,
and they were designed to get rid of the toxins that we were exposed to, because
there's always been toxins around.
The problem is that since World War II, 1942, there have been over a hundred
synthetic toxins developed, released into our food, water, our environment.
And so we just have this overwhelming amount of toxicity.
And then our lifestyles have dramatically changed to where we're so sedentary.
We're not out in the sun, we're not sweating, we're not
exercising, we're not moving.
And Now our organs of elimination aren't able to function, let alone
keep up with the level of toxicity that they're inundated with.
So it, when you say it that way, you go, wow, that makes a lot of sense.
So we start with, after you get your education, we start with
identifying the deficiencies and toxicities, really simple test.
I can actually mail a kit to people so they can even do
it themselves for their pets.
Uh, there, you will have to get somebody to draw some blood
and put it into the test kit.
But then you mail it off.
And then I helped with the interpretation of the results.
And then we start making sure we have all the essential nutrients that are provided.
So this magnificent machine that we call home in our bodies, it relies on a few
critical things that it has to have.
And those are essential vitamins.
minerals, fatty acids, and amino acids.
And these are the ones that the body cannot manufacture in
sufficient quantities on its own.
You have to get them in your food, or you have to get them as a supplement.
Well, everybody recognizes that the foods that we're eating today are
loaded with chemicals, pesticides, genetically modified ingredients,
glyphosate, and our foods are being grown on nutrient depleted soils.
So if you If that plant doesn't have the nutrients in the soil to
absorb, then when you eat that plant, you still don't have the nutrient.
So I think in today's modern age, it is critical that we are able
to supplement what we now know are those essential nutrients.
So that's what I did.
I created a supplement line so that I know my patients, no matter what their
deficiencies are, I can make sure that they have those essentials in their diet.
Now the metabolism has the ability to function.
Then number three is we heal the leaky gut and we know glyphosate being the number
one thing that damages the gut lining.
So our gut lining looks like a piece of cheesecloth and all those fibers that
hold the cheesecloth together, those are called actin filaments in our gut.
Glyphosate literally melts that.
So it'd be like taking and burning holes into that cheesecloth.
Now, what's the cheesecloth going to do when you're trying
to strain out your soup?
All the pieces, your vegetables and your herbs and all, they're going
to fall through into the soup.
And if you only wanted the liquid, you got holes, you're going
to get a lot of other stuff.
And that's what happens in leaky gut.
Things come in through that gut membrane that were not supposed to come in, travel
by the bloodstream, go to the liver, and then the liver mounts an inflammatory
response to get rid of the invaders.
And that is the source of our dis ease, is inflammation.
Inflammation will hit the weakest link in the body, or plural, weakest
links, depending on the individual.
And so for our dogs, our weakest link is typically the skin.
So we see ear infections is number one because the ear canal is skin wrapped
into a tube and stuck down a deep hole.
So it's usually the first place that we'll see an issue and then once it moves
out of the ear canal it moves into the skin of the body where now it becomes
very visible and we have itching and scratching and seborrhea and hot spots
and hair falling out and all the symptoms that people recognize in their pets.
Sadly.
Our industry treats the symptoms.
It's literally symptom suppression.
And so they get stronger and stronger immune suppressive medications to
make the immune system stop when the immune system isn't the problem.
The problem is toxins coming in through that leaky gut inciting the inflammatory
reaction, which is doing its job.
So wouldn't it be kind of novel if we maybe fix the reason why we have the
leaky gut, stop doing the things that are causing it and then heal it and
then let the body go back to doing what it innately knows how to do.
Yeah.
So, so let's take the, the skin, like, you know, I don't know, like,
Example, a friend of mine, you know, her dog licks his paws the whole time.
So she goes to the vet, they give her some cortisol kind of cream thingy.
And it doesn't help, you know.
What would you suggest?
Like, is there, you know, where would she start?
Or is there a lot of, you know?
Yeah, she's going to start.
Especially if she's in Europe, like, okay, you know.
Even in Europe, actually, they have some really good raw food companies out there.
So she starts with, once she understands what the problem is, stop doing the
things that are causing the disease.
Stop feeding processed foods.
Stop Exposing our animals to toxins in the water and in the air and in
products that you put on their skin.
You know, our laundry soaps is a great example.
They're loaded with xenoestrogens.
These are estrogen mimicking compounds and they're disruptors to our hormones.
So we're touching something 24 7 as humans and our animals are typically
on our lap or they're laying next to us or they're in our beds so they're
exposed to this stuff as well and with their body surface area they're probably
absorbing more than we are because we know our skin is the largest organ of
absorption and excretion so We have to stop doing the things that are causing it.
You cannot keep taking a medication to suppress the
symptom and expect it to go away.
So she has to feed a better food.
She has to make sure the water quality is good.
She has to make sure that the essential vitamins, minerals, fatty acids,
and amino acids are provided in the diet and then heal that leaky gut.
And step number four is detoxification of the six organs of elimination.
So I actually have a I have two courses on my website.
One is for lymphatic therapy and the other one is fascia
decompression for your fur baby.
And these are things that we teach pet parents how to relieve fascia compression
by using their hands and gravity.
So you don't have to have any equipment whatsoever and you can
improve the fascia network in your own pet's body in your own home.
I love that.
So where can people go and find out more?
Because we obviously can't go and scratch the surface.
It feels like, you know what I think is actually interesting?
That if I look at everything you've shared through the lens of, okay, this is for
my dogs, I'm like, yeah, you could have just as well talked about us, right?
So it feels like it's the same for people and, and dogs.
So maybe.
The exact vitamins and minerals and proportions might be a
different species, but the underlying principles are the same.
So if we were to say, well, actually, let's kind of live a bit more consciously.
And, you know, I think, Everybody wins.
Wins.
Including including our dogs, right?
So where can people go and find out more about your work?
Can get on your email list, can check out the courses.
Where are we gonna send them?
Thank you Dr.
Like in doctor marlene siegel.com made it super easy.
That is the hub of everything me.
So the hospital website is there.
My.
We have blogs, my courses, we have an online store.
I don't, I think we can ship some things into Europe.
I don't think we can ship everything, but even equipment things to
be able to empower people to detoxify at home with their pets.
I have created a It's a blueprint for people to follow so that
you are truly empowered.
That's why it's called the Empowered Pet Parent Course.
But I also have a course for veterinarians because my other massive
quest is transforming vet medicine.
You know, we, we don't do a lot of work to do that.
Here I am trunking along, right?
But I still remember the vet when I first got my first dog, you know, and
I asked the vet about like, okay, so I don't know, new dog parent here.
What should I feed my dog?
Oh, you've got to give him that kibble and never give him anything else.
I do, but you know, here's where I know that there's hope because there is not
a single veterinarian I have ever met.
that intentionally, willfully, and consciously wants to harm an animal.
We do not go into this industry because we want to do harm.
We all want to do the very best.
We want to be the heroes to our pet parents and the heroes to our patients.
However, If you don't know better, you can't do better.
And you only know what you know and you don't know what you don't know.
And sadly, our education was influenced by the Rockefellers and the
Carnegies through the Flexner Report.
If somebody doesn't know what the Flexner Report is, you look up that report and you
now know why all of these other modalities are no longer taught in the mainstream
educational process because the whole idea was to get us hooked onto pharmaceuticals
and a pharmaceutical company.
model of health care, which is really a broke care model
designed to be a cash cow.
I can't say that any nicer.
You know, that's what it is.
And it's time for all of us to Wake up and take control because no
one's out there going to save us.
There is nobody coming down on a white steed who is going
to say, look, I'm your savior.
It isn't going to happen.
There's not one government out there that is really going to protect us.
We the people, we have to be responsible for our own health.
We are the only ones that are going to be there for our pets and our
pets rely on us We are it for them.
They can't make choices for themselves because they don't have access
to go out and hunt and forage.
So we really have to start taking responsibility and owning their
health, owning our health, and owning the health of our planet.
So I, I'm going to go a little even broader because all those toxic decisions
that we make affect Mother Earth.
Everything we're talking about will be a mute issue if we don't
have a planet that's alive.
Right?
I think the planet will kill us off before it'll kill itself.
But If, uh, if you listen to Zach Bush, Dr.
Zach Bush, who is world famous, he talks about we have 70 years left on this planet
as a species before we go extinct because we have not lived a sustainable lifestyle.
And it's not about, you know, climate warming and all that.
It's about our lifestyle.
It's about the things that we're doing that are killing ourselves,
our pets, and our planet.
And it can be turned around in one single thought.
Stop doing the things that are harmful.
Read the ingredients.
Don't buy from companies that are making toxic products.
This is not hard.
This is really, I guess, especially with the awareness, right.
And then knowing what the alternatives are.
So, you know, there's a one thing, go, go, go check her out, you know,
educated and, uh, let's turn this around.
Yeah, there's a wonderful website for consumers.
It's called ewg.
org.
It's the, you know, consumer awareness program.
And so people can go online and look up products if they're not sure.
For me, if I can't pronounce the name and I don't understand what that
product is, I'm not going to use it.
Right?
If there's more than four ingredients, I'm probably not going to eat it.
That didn't come from nature.
I live in a food forest.
I literally created a food forest.
I grow food 360 degrees around my home.
I use all organic products in.
We're going to come to your place.
Watch it.
Yes.
Come and learn how to grow food.
It's, it's amazing.
Um, you'll see every Friday I post food forest Friday.
So I do things showing how food is our medicine.
It really is.
It's where medicine originally came from.
They took compounds out of natural products and then made a patent with it.
But they also took it out of its natural form.
So now you don't have all of the other synergistic pieces that go along with it.
So it's really, it's a symphony of things that help to keep us healthy.
And when you take one element out and you say, Oh, that's the only element
that's effective, you've lost all the other parts that add to that.
Beautiful, cooperative, cohesive type of exposure that nature gives us.
We just need to go back to nature.
I think so.
Who are we going to give our dollars to?
We are voting with our dollars.
Are you going to vote to keep companies out there killing us and killing
our children and our pets or are we going to stop giving them the money
and give it to companies that are really trying to do the right thing,
sustainably, ethically, morally, etc.
Thank you so much.
I, I just hope people will literally just like flush to your website and, and check
you out because it's like, it's kind of like you, you've got a movement going
and I think we'll wanna be part of it.
So thank you so much.
I hope so.
For coming and um, yeah, I can't wait to find out more.
I'm gonna go and follow the , you know.
Thank you.
Food Friday, forest Friday.
Thank you so much.
Food Forest Friday.
That's it, right?
That's it.
Thank you so much.
Bye everyone.
Thanks so much for listening.
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That's A N k E at Soul touched by dogs.com.