Episode 115
Deborah Maragopoulos:
The New Frontier in Autoimmunity Treatment: Optimizing Hypothalamic Health
In this enlightening conversation I am joined by Debra Maragopoulos, Intuitive Integrative Family Nurse Practitioner with over three decades of experience. And in this episode, we delve into the crucial role the hypothalamus plays in autoimmunity and the actionable steps you can take to support its optimal function to heal and prevent illness.
First Aired on: Nov 27, 2023
Episode 115
Deborah Maragopoulos:
The New Frontier in Autoimmunity Treatment: Optimizing Hypothalamic Health
In this enlightening conversation I am joined by Debra Maragopoulos, Intuitive Integrative Family Nurse Practitioner with over three decades of experience. And in this episode, we delve into the crucial role the hypothalamus plays in autoimmunity and the actionable steps you can take to support its optimal function to heal and prevent illness.
First Aired on: Nov 27, 2023
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
Debra Maragopoulos’ Journey
- Transitioned to focus on endocrinology due to personal experiences.
- Intuitive research and practice led to spotlighting the hypothalamus.
- Identified hypothalamic dysfunction as a core issue behind multiple diagnoses.
Understanding the Hypothalamus
- Centrally located in the brain, the hypothalamus is unprotected by the blood-brain barrier.
- Controls hormones, immunity, appetite, circadian rhythms, and more.
- Recently, identified as crucial in Long COVID research with implications for hypothalamitis.
Supporting Hypothalamic Function
- Nutrition is key, along with healthy activity, sleep, and stress reduction.
- Developed “Genesis Gold,” a nutraceutical to optimize hypothalamic function.
- Important for healthcare providers to gain understanding and apply this knowledge clinically.
Resources Mentioned
Debra Maragopoulos' Books:Nutraceuticals created by Debra:
Support and Education Platforms:
Other Resources:
Connect with Deborah Maragopoulos
Deborah Maragopoulos has a gift for you!
Hormone Reboot Training
YOU’RE READY TO MAKE A CHANGE.You’re done suffering the effects of hormone imbalance.Sleepless nights.Night sweats.Fatigue.Anxiety.Weight-gain.Lagging libido.Unpredictable periods.Infertility.You’re ready to discover the root cause of your health issues and begin the healing process.And that starts right here.
Episode Transcript
Intro: [Page//00:00:00] Welcome to the inspired Living with Autoimmunity Podcast. The podcast for high achievers who want to stay sharp, focused, and full of energy despite their diagnosis. With your host, National Board Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach, Julie Michelson. Where Julie helps you take your power back from autoimmunity.
Intro: And now, here's your host, Julie Michelson.
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Debra Maragopoulos, Intuitive Integrative Family Nurse Practitioner, who has spent over 30 years blending the science of medicine with the art of healing. Specializing in neuroimmune endocrinology, Debra focuses on optimizing the function of the hypothalamus, the maestro of the symphony of hormones, [Page//00:01:00] and has helped thousands of people heal from a variety of symptoms.
Julie Michelson: She's the author of several books, including her latest, the hypothalamus handbook, which outlines the steps that people can take to start healing their hypothalamus on their own. In today's conversation, we are discussing the role that the hypothalamus plays in autoimmunity and the steps we can take to support the optimization of the hypothalamus to heal and prevent illness.
Julie Michelson: Deborah, welcome to the podcast.
Deborah Maragopolous: Thank you so much for having me.
Julie Michelson: I am, as I was saying, before we hit record, I'm so excited because I am such a geek and I know that, you know, there's just so many things that influence our bodies that we barely are scratching the surface on. And as I shared with you, we have not talked about the hypothalamus much on the podcast.
Julie Michelson: So I'm, I'm. Thrilled to have this conversation, but I want to hear a little bit [Page//00:02:00] about your journey. How did you get to focus on this field? So,
Deborah Maragopolous: I actually became interested in hormones when I gave birth in 1984 to an intersex child. So that was the beginning of me shifting gears from perhaps pediatric nurse practitioner to go into family practice and focus on endocrinology, which then expanded to neuroimmune endocrinology.
Deborah Maragopolous: When I started my integrative practice back in 1997, I started seeing what medicine would call train wrecks of patients. who had come with multiple diagnoses. And while medicine tends to focus on how I was trained, because as a nurse practitioner, you're conventionally trained, is on basically trying to treat symptoms, I've always focused on root causes, and that goes back to the birth of my child, because I felt like there was something related to perhaps genetics, which we weren't able to measure back then, perhaps environmental factors, [Page//00:03:00] hormonal factors that may have influenced.
Deborah Maragopolous: The genetic expression of this baby, so that started me doing a lot of research and back in the day, there was no Google, so it was all, you know, getting your periodicals and reading and then whatever I'd be researching, it seems like patients or the universe would provide me with patients that would fill in those gaps and let me practice.
Deborah Maragopolous: Literally, the medical practice is practice, right? So we would, I would practice on these patients. And when I started my integrative practice, I didn't take insurance. So people were coming in very committed to their own health care. Sure. Paying, you know, a fee for service. And I felt very much like I had to give them Everything of me, including all the research.
Deborah Maragopolous: So I really did a lot of research. And so what I found is that by 98 99 is that the majority of my patients with multiple diagnoses. So they had hormonal issues. They have neurological issues, and many of them had autoimmune conditions, either organ specific. Or, you know, autoimmune, rheumatoid type [Page//00:04:00] disorder.
Deborah Maragopolous: So it was more, um, generalized that there was, there had to be some kind of core issue. There had to be something behind all of this. So in my research, I had a Scientific America magazine that had a study that was looking at fat white mice. And they were trying to figure out, you know, what was going on with these mice?
Deborah Maragopolous: And they sacrificed these mice, well, these mice had all the, the same symptoms as the majority of my patients. They, they weren't sleeping, their cortisol was off. They had thyroid disorders. They were overweight, they were fatigued during the day. So they had a lot of, some, and they had in, you know, fertility issues as well.
Deborah Maragopolous: So they had all kinds of hormonal issues. They had pain issues. Of course, they weren't expressing this, so this was all very much right, what the scientists were seeing. And when they, when they sacrificed the mice, they found that there was a hormone that was missed, that was not being produced by the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: It was called pro opio melanocortin. And so I investigated this hormone, which is a big mother hormone to a bunch of [Page//00:05:00] smaller hormones. And it controls your adrenal function, your thyroid function, your glucose metabolism, your day night cycle, something called melanocyte stimulating hormone. And I thought, shoot, we learned about the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: You know, we're learning anatomy and physiology, but we really didn't understand the physiology of the hypothalamus. Perhaps it's the hypothalamus and some kind of imbalance there that is at the root of all of these issues I'm seeing. So instead of just treating adrenal issues and thyroid issues and immune issues and neurological issues and gonadal issues, it's like, well, maybe I should be looking at the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: Not that there was any treatment available, not that anybody was addressing it, but I started looking outside at different research, mostly animal research, and then research from Europe and from Japan. And it's been, it's actually only been recently in the last 10 years that we're actually seeing published research studies on the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's something that I've been, you know, treating for a long time, you know, almost 30, almost 30 years. So I developed [Page//00:06:00] protocols. I developed a nutraceutical. I focused on trying to get people to have optimal hypothalamic function. And then I was able to wean them off their hormones and wean them off their antidepressants and their sleep aids.
Deborah Maragopolous: And I, My autoimmune patients were able to wean down off of traditional, conventional medications. I had one of my first ones was a rheumatoid arthritis patient who came in and said, you have got to get me off these steroids. I, and I hate, I feel on the methotrexate and I can't take this anymore. And she was menopausal at this point.
Deborah Maragopolous: And she's like, it got it. She said for her, it got worse when she went into menopause. So I'm like, okay, here's some hormonal. You know, connection here. So I really treated her as if her hypothalamus was out of balance without knowing how to even measure that and started to do and started working on what were the pillars, what were the things I needed to do to help her have more optimal functioning.
Deborah Maragopolous: And we were able to wean her off all of her immune modulating drugs. And she lived a, you know, two more decades [Page//00:07:00] after that. without, without having significant, you know, life impingement. I mean, just at the very end, was she, was she bed bound, but she went from not being able to do anything to being able to function again.
Deborah Maragopolous: And one of the things she loved to do was she was a, she sewed. And so she hadn't been able to do that. So that fine motor skills and getting back the function in her joints was huge for her. And so she was sewing and crafting. And I mean, I still have stuff she made for me. Because she was able to get back to it, and it was something that she loved, and so that was, that's my goal, like, it gets you back to, to joy in your life, and, and if, if the medicines are, are causing more problems, then what could we do differently?
Julie Michelson: Yeah, which is incredible, and oh my gosh, where were you, you know? 20 something years ago when I, when I was going down that rheumatology rabbit hole with my RA and yeah, it's amazing. Can we back it up? First [Page//00:08:00] of all, I thank you for being curious, right? And being Willing to step out of the box and do the research and create, you know, and practice, you know, we do forget the medicine is a practice, you know, and get results before you even really maybe knew exactly why you were getting the results.
Julie Michelson: It's fantastic. Well, it really is. Yeah. So it's, it's a gift we need. This is why we have these conversations, hopefully to inspire others and inspire people to find whatever practitioner that is, you know, that speaks to you. Cause there are a lot of people stepping out of the box now. And usually it is through.
Julie Michelson: Our own life journey that will inspire us to pick a direction or, or, I don't know, add to the conventional training. So kudos to you. Thank you. I want to back it all the [Page//00:09:00] way up. Okay. What is the hypothalamus for people who don't know what the hypothalamus is?
Deborah Maragopolous: Well, first of all, let's locate it. It's right where your third eye would be, or between your eyebrows, in the center of your brain.
Deborah Maragopolous: It sits right above the pituitary gland. So most people know the pituitary gland is that little tiny pea off of a stalk, okay? Right above that is the hypothalamus. So if you think of the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, as middle manager, the hypothalamus is CEO. Okay, so we used to think of the pituitary gland, and a lot of people still refer to it as the master gland, it is not.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's the hypothalamus that's the master gland. So the hypothalamus is below the thalamus, and the thalamus is where your emotional center. What's interesting about the hypothalamus, it is not protected by the blood brain barrier. So the blood brain barrier is right above the hypothalamus, which means it's exposed to everything the rest of your body.
Deborah Maragopolous: body's exposed to, that your brain is not exposed to. That's toxins, that's infectious agents, but it's also exposed [Page//00:10:00] to nutrition and nutrients because your brain only pretty much runs on triglycerides and glucose, pretty much just glucose, but the hypothalamus is very amenable to nutritional shifts. It's also sensitive to everything that your body's going through.
Deborah Maragopolous: Four out of the five senses run through the hypothalamus, so it knows where you are in space and time. It directs your circadian rhythm, your day night cycles. It directs all of your hormones. Okay, and your hormones, it directs the pineal gland production of melatonin, the pituitary gland production of growth hormone, release of prolactin, and all of the stimulating hormones like thyroid stimulating hormone and ACTH and folate.
Deborah Maragopolous: Molecular stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone that's produced by the pituitary. It's a hypothalamus that tells it when to do that. The hypothalamus directs the thyroid and the adrenals. It directs your goads ovaries in a female, testes in a male, but it also directs your thymus. And your thymus is a [Page//00:11:00] small gland above the heart.
Deborah Maragopolous: That is where your white blood cells, the B lymphocytes become T lymphocytes where they get trained. It's kind of the bootcamp for the white blood cells, the. Hypothalamus is the director of that so it is Ultimately responsible for how your body responds in terms of its immunity, adaptive immunity, and so anything else going on with the hypothalamus?
Deborah Maragopolous: So, okay, so it's this master, CEO, the boss of your, your brain, the maestro of the entire symphony of hormones, and it's trying to pay attention to everything, and it's also connected directly to your gut. It, it controls your appetite, it controls, it literally controls your microflora and your microflora communicate back to your hypothalamus, and that's brand new research.
Deborah Maragopolous: So there's so much information going on about what's happening in the body is being fed to the hypothalamus, and then the hypothalamus has to make some choices. One of the big things that [Page//00:12:00] opened up hypothalamic research just really recently is COVID. Because the hypothalamus has as many of the ARB receptors.
Deborah Maragopolous: Maybe more than the heart and the lungs do. So a lot of the long COVID symptoms that we're seeing is actually hypothalamic dysfunction. It's hypothalamitis, which is an inflammation of the hypothalamus. That was in the brain fog, the fatigue, the pain. The hypothalamus also controls your autonomic nervous system.
Deborah Maragopolous: So how fast your heart rate. Runs your parasympathetic side of the nervous system as long as well as the sympathetic side of the nervous system It controls your moods your memory you're learning your cognition your dream states. I mean, there's not much it doesn't control
Julie Michelson: Giggling and chuckling, you know Like a kid and and so many for me already light bulbs with light bulbs Of course if we're talking autoimmunity then right and holy wow It's, you know, incredible that [Page//00:13:00] this is a newer field.
Deborah Maragopolous: It is a newer field, and the reason it's a newer field is, number one, is you have to sacrifice the lab animal in order to measure the hormones.
Deborah Maragopolous: We're not going to do that to humans, so we can't directly measure the hormones coming from the hypothalamus. There's a few, like you can, you can measure like vasopressin, but there's not very, very much you can measure from the hypothalamus. So we have to, we have to really sacrifice the lab animal to look at the hypothalamus and look at which cells are, I'm not signing up for that.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah, nobody's going to do that. But we know now that hypothalamus controls aging, it controls your weight, it can, I mean, it controls everything. So we need to keep it happy. We need our hypothalamus functioning optimally. So what affects hypothalamic function is what are you eating? How much activity are you getting?
Deborah Maragopolous: Whether or not you're getting enough sleep, truly what your mindset is, and are you getting the, the nutrition, the specific nutrition that supports hypothalamic [Page//00:14:00] function, which most people cannot get just from their diet alone. So with all of those factors, and then part of the mindset is, is, Learning stress reduction techniques.
Deborah Maragopolous: Because stress is huge with the hypothalamus. That's the one part of the hypothalamus most people know about is the HPA axis, or the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Right. And that stress really interferes with the function of that axis, which then interferes with all kinds of other hormonal issues and immune issues.
Deborah Maragopolous: And
Julie Michelson: absorption and, and, and, and,
Deborah Maragopolous: and they actually research has shown that the majority of people that develop autoimmune disorder had some kind of neuroimmune endocrine imbalance or alteration years prior to the beginning of the onset of the disease. Say that again. So years before you're diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, your neurological system, immune system, and endocrine system become out of balance, or there's [Page//00:15:00] an altered balance there.
Deborah Maragopolous: And what controls that is the hypothalamus. So the research comes in an individual ways. Is it the HPA axis? Is it prolactin? Is it, you know, sex hormones? It's all of that. It's always all of them. It's all of it. It's multi factorial and it's the hypothalamus that's controlling that. Wow. I know. It is. It's amazing.
Deborah Maragopolous: It makes
Julie Michelson: me excited. Well, what makes me excited, but I also understand, okay, you know, cause those of us that have that scientific brain love to, you know, if you can't test and you can't watch, I just literally had this conversation with a client who is. It's going to get her labs back next week. And she's like, and I hope I see this.
Julie Michelson: And I hope I, and I was like, well, didn't you just tell me you can close your fists for the first time in years and your energy is great and your sleep is all, you know, and all of these things. And, and so, yeah, I would expect your labs to start to reflect that, but [Page//00:16:00] there's often a lag and what makes me excited is as you're talking, I'm like, oh, good.
Julie Michelson: So I didn't know I was making happy hypothalamus. Yes. Whatever the proper plural, I know, I, you know, usually you're only talking about it in the singular. Yeah.
Deborah Maragopolous: But,
Julie Michelson: but I love that. And even like what you, that if it's not behind the blood brain barrier, holy wow. I mean, in the toxic soup that we live in, that makes
Deborah Maragopolous: absolutely, it's absolutely affected.
Deborah Maragopolous: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, so I mean, I mean, the studies that come up when I was writing my hypothalamus handbook, which is the newest book I have, I was, you know, I was bibbing it like crazy because I really wanted a good reference book, not just for not not just for the public. So it's very story written so that you can understand it.
Deborah Maragopolous: And I have like 6 very well, integrated case studies. [Page//00:17:00] So it's people like you with multiple diagnoses. And I go in deep into each diagnosis and how it's related to the hypothalamus. And at the end, there's a therapeutic plan for each of them. And why I would recommend, so it is if you came to me as a consult, like, here's what I'm looking at.
Deborah Maragopolous: These are the labs I looked at. This is what was off on this person. And this is what I recommended for them. And then what was the results, you know, six months, a year later, whatever. So then I also put in a section for healthcare providers, the way we like to see it, which is much more annotated. It's, it's a lot shorter and then a huge BIP, a huge BIP.
Deborah Maragopolous: Well, as I'm writing this and we're like in the publication process, more research is coming in. And I'm like, the publisher, like, we need to add this. We need to add that. And he's like, we can't add any more.
Julie Michelson: This is book two. It'll go in the night.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. I told my, my team, I'm like, we just need to have like a live bib on the website so I can just keep adding stuff.
Deborah Maragopolous: Cause I bib all my posts. Beautiful. Because all this new [Page//00:18:00] research comes in. I've been Google, you know how you do those Google alerts and you, I Google my name and my, and my nutraceutical product and different things. So I Google alert the hypothalamus. And in the beginning it was like, nothing was coming up.
Deborah Maragopolous: Like nothing was, I mean, it would be layman's right things, maybe now all kinds of research every single day, a new research is, is coming through, you know, that's exciting world. So it's like, Oh
Julie Michelson: my gosh, that is so, so exciting.
Deborah Maragopolous: I want to have it proven. You know,
Julie Michelson: right. Because you already know, because you've been seeing it work, right?
Julie Michelson: It's the same, you know, and I was laughing at the, you know, as you're talking about these pillars or I remember. When I first started to learn that the body could heal and I started, started to learn the truth about autoimmunity and chronic illness. And as I was healing, you know, my, when my brain came back on, it was like, oh, I need to, you know, this [Page//00:19:00] is a completely different perspective than I, you know, first 45 years of my life.
Julie Michelson: I knew, and I remember like, you know, I used to use that word root cause, right? It's like singular. root cause. What's your root? What's my root cause? And I do love the concept of functional medicine as root cause medicine. But I remember just, you know, it was just kind of that funny, like, oh, it's never just one.
Julie Michelson: You can't separate out. Nutrition and stress and toxins and sleep and because they all interfere, they all impact each other. They're all intertwined.
Deborah Maragopolous: And that's why research is so hard. If I take a hypothesis and say, I want to prove this, but I'm only using one, you know, does A lead to B? And that's what, you know, one of my stories I, I, I tell my, I actually, it's in my first book, Hormones.
Deborah Maragopolous: and harmony, but it was a gynecological surgeon that I was using for my, for my surgery. So I'm now in integrative [Page//00:20:00] medicine. I'm doing all kinds of bioidentical hormones. I'm focusing on the hypothalamus. And he called me up and said, listen, I'm sending you all my weird hormone patients. And I'm like, why?
Deborah Maragopolous: He says, because in medical school, we learned that A leads to B, or maybe we'll try C. He said, I can get to Z and still not figure out these people. Can you just like, take care of them? And I said, that's because endocrinology is more of an art than it is a science. And that's, I really feel like as with the nursing background, I'm practicing the art of medicine, but I'm also practicing the science of medicine.
Deborah Maragopolous: Right. It's both. It's both. So you have to be a medical detective to figure out what's going on with the hypothalamus, because the clues are not You know, cutting stone,
Julie Michelson: you're not
Deborah Maragopolous: getting a lab. Yeah, you're not getting a lab value. It says, aha, which is great.
Julie Michelson: Because then you can't treat the labs
Deborah Maragopolous: people.
Deborah Maragopolous: You're treating people. And that's what I tell them. Like, you know what? It doesn't really matter what your labs. Show me right. I use it as a [Page//00:21:00] baseline to prove that this is how bad you felt. And this is what it looked like when you felt this bad. Now, as you're feeling better, the labs don't really matter unless I need to tweak a hormone or something.
Deborah Maragopolous: I'm not sure you're
Julie Michelson: going to fall, but you're probably also going to ask them how they're feeling.
Deborah Maragopolous: Oh, that's the biggest piece. That's the biggest piece.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, that's amazing.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's about, you know, then we get used to when we're feeling better and we want to do a little bit more. And then we think, well, I don't need all this stuff anymore.
Deborah Maragopolous: You know, I don't need to take the supplement. I don't need to like, you know, sleep like I'm sleeping. I don't need to eat like this. And then we start to fall off the bandwagon and realize, Oh my God, we're shocked. Yeah, these are all the things I needed to do to stay this optimally well. And that's what people say.
Deborah Maragopolous: Do I, you know, do I always have to do these things? I'm like, do you always want
Julie Michelson: to feel well?
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. Don't you want your hypothalamus to function optimally throughout your entire life? Yes. Don't, don't you want to age gracefully? Don't you want to avoid? You know, chronic diseases that can [Page//00:22:00] cause an early mortality and dysfunction, like, why wouldn't you want
Julie Michelson: to do this health span?
Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's, it's incredible. I want to I want to ask, because I know I, I'm already so enthralled that I'm going to forget to ask. So I want to ask while I'm remembering. Oh, you mentioned that there's specific nutrition The hypothalamus needs to be happy that we're not getting from our food sources now, which I'm assuming is what led you to create a nutraceutical.
Julie Michelson: Yes. Can you share with us about that?
Deborah Maragopolous: Yes. So the journey was is I, so I'm Italian. I married a Greek. I was born and raised on the Mediterranean diet. I have always eaten pristinely. And still I had hormone issues. Okay. So it wasn't until I started taking my own nutraceutical that my hormones got back into balance.
Deborah Maragopolous: So my feeling is, is that in the beginning, when human animals started hunting and [Page//00:23:00] gathering, we didn't really. move too much inland, we, we stayed around the coast and we got certain nutrients and our genetics actually kind of adapted to what we were able to get. So people from like Northern European ancestry have a genetics that adapts a little bit differently than people from my ancestry, which is Mediterranean, right?
Deborah Maragopolous: Versus It's way down in South America, South Africa, so it's different. So what I did with this nutraceutical is I put in it plants and from around the world from every continent, every sea to try to cover the genetic soup that I was seeing because I'm in America. Right. And most of us are mutts. Very few of us.
Deborah Maragopolous: So we have we have genetic genetics. And even if
Julie Michelson: we think we're purebreds, we're, we're not. Yeah.
Deborah Maragopolous: And you know, now we've got lots of things going on. But knowing that the genetics actually responds very well to nutrition. which is called [Page//00:24:00] epigenetics, where the DNA actually can shift. And what controls that, again, is the hypothalamus, because the hypothalamus controls the major hormones that actually interface with your DNA, which are your steroid hormones.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's not, not every, not all the biochemicals interface with your DNA, but your steroid hormones do. So there's definitely this connection there. So once I started feeding the hypothalamus, what I felt it needed, and I, and I came to that two ways. I was doing a lot of research, and most of the research was related to what amino acids the hypothalamus would respond to.
Deborah Maragopolous: And, but I was stuck with this research. I was like, I couldn't find anything. And again, it's just before good search engines. So I'm sitting in front of my, my desktop computer, you know, trying to work on it. We have one in the household. My, my firstborn is now a teenager. And they say to me, Mom, you know, why don't you just meditate about this?
Deborah Maragopolous: And maybe the answer will come in dreams. So I did and I asked what do you feed the what can I possibly feed the body to actually [Page//00:25:00] heal the hypothalamus and I had exactly the same dream every night for three months and I'd wake up and write down what came in the dream because what was happening in the dream I was standing by what was the tree of life I held this like Cup and people would drink from it and they've my sickest patients.
Deborah Maragopolous: And as soon as they drank for it, I knew they were better. We'd never spoke and I'd ask what's in the cup. And at first it was, it was chemical. I, the beginning of it came in, in basically another language. Okay. It was symbols, which related to acids. And so I put all of this stuff together, researched everything.
Deborah Maragopolous: A lot of the herbs and things were things I was using in. with my patients, but not in these particular proportions. So like, you know, it's like the difference between chocolate chip recipes. They're all, they're all a little different in how much they put in that. It was that difference in the, in the synchronicity of these different ingredients over the years.
Deborah Maragopolous: I first started making Genesis Gold in 2003 is when I was able to manufacture it. The dreams were in like 99, [Page//00:26:00] but it took like that long to find a manufacturer for it. It's changed slightly because the earth has changed. Like I don't, I, we don't harvest from, we stopped harvesting from the, the North Pacific after the radioactivity in, in Japan.
Deborah Maragopolous: Thank you. So I'm changing constantly according to, and a lot of it's just kind of intuitive. Like I'll just like, Okay, we need to do something different. And then, and then I'll read the news and say, Oh,
Julie Michelson: that's why.
Deborah Maragopolous: That's why we need to be, you know, getting it from here instead of there. So, so some of the species have changed slightly because of what's happening in the last 20 years, but that's what's going on.
Deborah Maragopolous: So what I have found is, is that by feeding, My own my body by feeding my patients and the customers this it's a powder. They mix it in in water They take it every morning It keeps them in balance and it takes about 90 days to actually start to seal To see hypothalamic balancing and if you've been sick a long time Let's say you've been sick for [Page//00:27:00] 20 years then on top of that first three months You're looking at about 20 more months one month per year before optimal functioning.
Deborah Maragopolous: So it can be a period of taking it to really get to that optimal functioning, but you'll feel better in the first few months. But it's not, it's, you know, it's not like caffeine that gives you a jolt right away. It's, there's definitely a detoxification that goes on. It's kind of the hypothalamus decides with these nutrients, what are we going to do here?
Deborah Maragopolous: We need to clean house first. We need to improve, you know, the HBA access. This person has a lot of, you know, Psychological garbage going on that we need to deal with. And I've had people come to me and say, this feels like therapy. And, um, you know, when it was in a bottle and a bottle bag, yeah, stuff's going on in my like dreams and stuff.
Deborah Maragopolous: And it's because that has to be cleared too. That's the mindset piece. Yeah. Oh,
Julie Michelson: so fun. Amazing. It is fun. It is. So, I mean, for listeners, would there be anybody [Page//00:28:00] that. You know, again, because there's no testing, so I mean, it sounds like the assumption is this is a key player in your autoimmune expression in chronic inflammation and aging and all the
Deborah Maragopolous: things.
Deborah Maragopolous: So I have not found anyone in my practice or consumers that would not be a good candidate for taking the Nutraceutical Genesis Gold. But some people are sensitive to certain plant ingredients. Yes. So I did, I did manufacture the, the heart of it, which are the hypothalamic amino acids. Separately, without all the rest of the green stuff, for people who have food allergies, etc.
Deborah Maragopolous: After three to six months, usually they become less sensitive to things they thought they were sensitive to. Right. As their hypothalamus gets into better balance. And then they'll also add the sacred seven amino acids. And I call it that because the amino acids came in the first seven nights, and then the rest of the stuff came.
Deborah Maragopolous: So those amino acids came in first. [Page//00:29:00] They'll, they'll oftentimes add those, the sacred seven amino acids. back into genesis gold. So add an extra if they're exceptionally ill or they have very, you know, incredible symptoms. So anybody who's like weaning off antidepressants or major immune modulation medication, or they'll actually need more hypothalamic support, you know, severe hot flashes, severe insomnia, severe anxiety, things like that.
Deborah Maragopolous: They'll need a little bit more, but that's usually not forever.
Julie Michelson: Interesting, and is the sacred 7 is a powder as well to drink
Deborah Maragopolous: in the morning? just throw it right into the Genesis and or take it separately. Nice. And amino acids are interesting because they, I, I flavored the Genesis because the seaweeds were a little, a little strong, a little rough, but we flavored the Genesis, but the amino acids are as is.
Deborah Maragopolous: There's nothing else in there. So there's, you know, unless you have, you know, PKU, there's no way you can be allergic to anything in there. Okay. Cause these are, these are amino acids. They're just pure plant plant derived [Page//00:30:00] amino acids. So, but it's interesting because they taste different according to where you are in your healing process.
Deborah Maragopolous: Okay. Thank you. Oh, actually perceive like I when I first started taking I obviously need to detox because all I could perceive were the sulfur bearing amino acids. So it it tasted like garlic and onions to me. And then after a few weeks. you know, and a lot of, you know, defecation and urination and sweating and all this, you know, skin changes.
Deborah Maragopolous: I was detox and then it started tasting different, started tasting salty and that's a different amino acid. And then it finally started tasting sweet. And now it's, it's been kind of crazy. So when I have people say it tastes different now, did you change the formula? Nope. No, you
Julie Michelson: changed your body. You've changed.
Julie Michelson: That is so amazing. Oh, I can't, I can't wait to play with this.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. It's really, really an interesting process, but lots of people need help with this because this is a foundational support. Thank you. That was going to be my next question. Yeah. [Page//00:31:00] Yeah. Some help. So what I've developed is based on my first book, which is way easier read.
Deborah Maragopolous: I put it out in 2016, it's called Hormones in Harmony, there's no bib, it's got a lot more pictures in it, and even the print is bigger, it's, you know, just super short, but it's a super easy read, what I did is I actually created like a little video course on it, so it's like, it's almost like a book club, like I do a little video on what you're going to get out of this chapter, and then ask you, give you actionable items to do with each course.
Deborah Maragopolous: We call that the hormone reboot training. And that's what most of my people, when they go onto my website, that, you know, that's the sign up. So it's free, you know, sign up and you get into this and it answers a lot of questions in there. Okay. Yes, I have. Yeah. And I have, you know, a team that, and they come to me if there's any questions they can't answer because people ask me questions in it.
Deborah Maragopolous: Sure. So we make sure that everybody's covered. So they have that level of support. We also have a hormone support group, which is on [Page//00:32:00] Facebook where, you know, more questions are asked and answered. And I have a YouTube video which has tons of YouTube, you know, on everything you can imagine, everything you can imagine.
Deborah Maragopolous: Some are super short, some are a lot longer, and that's where most of my people find me because they're looking for, you know, how is this related? Why am I feeling this? And that's how they'll find me. And then we, we actually use those YouTube videos, create like blog posts for the readers. Because some people want to read this stuff.
Deborah Maragopolous: They don't want to watch it. And so we have different ways of educating people so that they can get the information that they need and the, and the support they need.
Julie Michelson: Which is amazing, but it does sound like as people are using the product and, and the process, right? There's, I'm guessing a lifestyle piece that goes with it.
Julie Michelson: Um, that if they're on medications, if they're being treated for stuff, that it's important that they're getting followed because I would imagine it is going to trigger, [Page//00:33:00] you know, lower dosages required as they are weaned
Deborah Maragopolous: off by their practitioners. Absolutely. And I talk about that in all of my, in all my books, you know, having how to, how to wean down and what to expect, but we also provide the support within the groups.
Deborah Maragopolous: And then for, I have some paid programs for like more intense support with me. So for those people who are like, okay, this is way too complicated. I need a little time with you. So it could be a single consult, or it could be like a year long program where we stick you in a group. And we like. Work that's out together, help you, help you do the five pillars, help you get, and that group's been interesting.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's called the Hormone Healing Circle. And, you know, I have people in there that have been there since 2017, because we're so easy up level. Yeah. Yeah. Well, where can they get this kind of, you know, advice from an expert? And face to face interact, you know, for so little every month, you know, so that's, so that's why they're, they're still in there.
Deborah Maragopolous: So that's, so trying to [Page//00:34:00] help people, you know, through this, what I would love to do is for more healthcare providers to read the book and get educated. And as soon as I get more of those available, that they're actually interested in getting educated. then actually start training them. So I've, I've actually worked in my, in my state nurse practitioner group and started some educational programs there.
Julie Michelson: That's exciting. Well, because that's how, you know, talk about expanding the reach and having more people. And so that's, that's fantastic. I, I know some practitioners I can send your way.
Deborah Maragopolous: That's the legacy piece. I mean, I'm 62. I like, I'm not going to be doing this forever. Oh my gosh, way,
Julie Michelson: way, way. Guys, I'm telling you to like pop on the video if you're listening to the audio because she does not look, you know, forget, she doesn't look 52 much less 62.
Julie Michelson: That's incredible.
Deborah Maragopolous: Well, I swear that's from supporting my hypothalamus. Yeah. I went, I went through the change a lot later than my sisters who did not support their [Page//00:35:00] hypothalamus. I just, you know, I feel very, you know, healthy and, you know, I got some gray hairs, but you know, that's, that's part of the, part of the process.
Julie Michelson: Well, that combined with some bioidentical hormones and, you know, nothing's stopping you now.
Deborah Maragopolous: Exactly. But you know, it's so it's, but it is about passing on the information and helping other providers who, you know, are. Are able to do this become a medical detective and figure this out and it's not going to be everybody, you know, not everybody at most people need protocols, you know, and just I just need to follow it A to Z.
Deborah Maragopolous: But some people are going to have that gut reaction where they just they just know.
Julie Michelson: Well, when they're in the art of it, I know I'm thinking of my life partner, who's, you know, it's, if you are somebody who's in the art of bioidentical hormone treatment, and you're not just looking at a range on a lab page, that's the kind of practitioner, I think that is going to just.
Julie Michelson: You know, this is perfect [Page//00:36:00] for really, because they're already in that world. This is just a whole, a whole nother layer, but it's a layer above and it goes
Deborah Maragopolous: deeper and it's also hitting the, at the, at the much higher level. So, yeah, so I, you know, I'm, I'm super excited about that, but like you said, you know, what the heck is the hypothalamus?
Julie Michelson: Well, I, you know, I know, I know a little bit, I certainly learned. So far a lot more and I want to ask you, because I already am gleaning, you know, like when somebody comes to me and they, you know, again, they've got that, whatever, however, the multiple multiple diagnoses and the long history, you know, it's, it's a no brainer.
Julie Michelson: That we need to heal the gut, right? We know, I don't have to, I don't have to look at zonulin. I don't need to do a leaky gut test. I know you have a leaky gut at that point. Guessing, you know, that their hypothalamus needs supporting, but what are, you know, for listeners who don't [Page//00:37:00] have autoimmune or thinking of loved ones that don't have autoimmune, what are some other signs and symptoms that the hypothalamus needs?
Julie Michelson: Love.
Deborah Maragopolous: Of course. Yeah. So, whenever you're not sleeping deeply, not able to initiate sleep, or getting enough rest or waking up in the middle of the night, if you have heat or cold intolerance, because it controls your temperatures, if you have trouble gaining or losing weight, if your blood sugars are off hemoglobin A1c is elevated because it controls glucose metabolism, if you have any daytime fatigue, so whether that's from thyroid, adrenals, or mitochondrial dysfunction, That's hypothalamic related.
Deborah Maragopolous: Okay. If you have issues with learning disabilities, brain, brain, we call it brain fog when it's not yet dementia, dementia, issues concentrating, focusing, adult ADHD, any of that. That's all hypothalamic related [Page//00:38:00] anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, seasonal affective disorder. Maybe,
Julie Michelson: maybe I should have asked you a different question.
Julie Michelson: What isn't it? Who doesn't need? Because it's controlling
Deborah Maragopolous: all of that. Sure. It controls your digestion, your appetite. It controls basically whether you're going to lay down, you know, body fat or not, and your metabolism. The hypothalamus controls, it communicates directly with the microflora of your gut. So there's that, you know, direct communication back and forth.
Deborah Maragopolous: If I, I did a lot of leaky gut therapies before I had hypothalamic, you know, nutraceutical support until I was able to do both and we finally get the healing. You know, at the, at the highest level, because that communication, we still have this micro flora that was still like not communicating well, two
Julie Michelson: way
Deborah Maragopolous: communication.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. So we've got the gut healed, but they're not talking like they used to any hormonal imbalances, any people, anybody with thyroid disorders, adrenal disorders, infertility, hypogonadism in [Page//00:39:00] men, no. libido issues, that's all hypothalamic related. So all of that is controlled by the hypothalamus. So there's not a lot that isn't.
Deborah Maragopolous: If you get sick really often or anything related to autoimmunity, of course, because it's controlling the immune system. Yeah, there's just, there's so much and there's, and there are some things lab wise that can be done. So I actually go into that in the books, not for patients to say, and they can go at the back of the book and go to the, you know, the download page and get the, with my, my lab wish list that they can go bring to their provider and said, can we look at this, try to figure this out?
Deborah Maragopolous: Because she said, if this, this, and this is off, then
Julie Michelson: maybe Right, because they have that guide. I remember years ago when I first found out about functional medicine testing and I had a great GP who was very progressive and into an open a wellness and open and I did. I brought her. I was like, Yeah. Can, can you get me these?
Julie Michelson: And she said, sure. And then [Page//00:40:00] she said, I'm not going to know what to do with the results, but sure. But so this is perfect. Cause then they have that information from you, right? These are the things we're looking at and looking for. And so I love
Deborah Maragopolous: that. Yeah, they can start off with their primary and get this, get it done and then start looking for people who are willing either to do the research with them or look a little bit further or, I just, I really think that once that gets going, it'll be kind of like a grassroots efforts where the patients push the providers to learn more.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah, just like with the bioidentical hormone world. I mean, it wasn't a world at all, you know, and 30 years ago, we started playing around with it. And about 20 years ago, it became a thing. Where, you know, and a lot of providers got into it with, you know, they have, there was labs that would measure and tell the provider what, how much to use, you know, I'm like, no, no, no,
Julie Michelson: I don't, that's not the art.
Julie Michelson: No, yeah,
Deborah Maragopolous: they're trying to make it all by
Julie Michelson: numbers, but you're right. It is a grassroots. I literally, we [Page//00:41:00] had this conversation yesterday because we were giggling about, and I luckily didn't even pay attention. So I can't throw whatever publication it was under the bus. The cover article was, it was about PCPs, you know, patients are demanding hormone care from their PCPs.
Julie Michelson: So therefore now PCPs need to learn, you know, but, but we were laughing like, Oh, you think? But I said, I said, this is exciting to me because it means enough people are getting educated or hearing things and, you know, no longer believing that story that I was certainly told, well, you're a woman. I mean, that was the answer for all of it.
Julie Michelson: Right. And menopause should suck. And it's just a part of, this is a natural cycle. And sure, if you want to shrivel up and die or have brittle bones or all the things, sure. But no. You know, let's change the conversation. And so [Page//00:42:00] that's what we're doing here is changing.
Deborah Maragopolous: It really is about changing the conversation.
Deborah Maragopolous: The book I, I produced in between hormones and harmony and the hypothalamus handbook was called the menopause action plan. And at the end of that, they can download the plan. Now they've learned about what the plan is and they fill it out and bring it to their health care provider. Because they've already gone through their risk factors.
Deborah Maragopolous: We've talked about genetics. We talked about everything related to their hormones, etc. They know exactly what they need and what blood tests they want. Love it. And the, you know, and patients will bring the book in and say, okay, if you don't get it, can you just read the book? And then we will talk about it because I'm pretty sure my vagina needs this and my, and my
Julie Michelson: bones need this and my.
Julie Michelson: I have a client who is postmenopausal who was started on bioidentical hormone therapy three weeks ago, and I saw I got to see her this morning. And, you know, I just kept saying, just wait, you [Page//00:43:00] know, just just wait. And she. So it's, and she's doing the other, this again, no, one of these things is total magic, right?
Julie Michelson: So she's already working on mindset and lifestyle and talks all the things. And then this, I, you know, she was, so she already was feeling better. And I was like, Oh, you have no idea. Like you're, you're just not even. And she was like, Oh my gosh. You know, I
Deborah Maragopolous: was like, yeah, none of it's, you're not, nothing's
Julie Michelson: dead.
Julie Michelson: It's just dormant. She said, Tim, it's the desert, it hasn't been watered for a while. Yeah, yeah. And then she said, this may sound crazy, but I feel like, like all of a sudden my core is active and I'm like, well, you have building blocks now that you can use. It's not crazy at all. It makes perfect sense. So I love it.
Julie Michelson: It's, it's, so it is, it's a, it's a slow. Just like when you were starting to research hypothalamus, you know, there just wasn't a lot going on. And now it's like, really, every day, there's new stuff,
Deborah Maragopolous: there's lots of [Page//00:44:00] research now. So now it's about getting into clinical practice. So that's the, that's the beauty of having this integrative practice where I have my patients, you know, coming in saying, listen, Will you try to figure this out and it wasn't in my ballpark before that one person and now it's like, right, but then I get 20 of these people, you know, the
Julie Michelson: difference is, you know, in when you're locked in the Western box.
Julie Michelson: You're locked into standard of care and we joke because when you come to the clinic here, it's like, you're not coming to an integrative practitioner. If you want standard of care, you want out of that box, right? Yes. The tools in that box are, you know, important and amazing. You want access to the box, but you don't want to live in it.
Julie Michelson: And that's, that's what you're talking about is that ability to sit down with one patient and figure that out. And then you see, You see the threads and the patterns and [Page//00:45:00] it's like, oh. Oh, you know, that's people come to me and they're like, well, my diagnosis is an R. A. Will you work with me? And I'm like, I don't care what your diagnosis is.
Julie Michelson: Like, I'm not treating a diagnosis. You know, doesn't matter how many you have. If you don't have 1, if you don't feel amazing, whether you're 20 or 75, then there's work
Deborah Maragopolous: to do. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And there's so much that can be done and can be done pro, you know, proactively as well. And so it's not just about treating the diseases, but the majority of my customers and patients are middle aged women.
Deborah Maragopolous: in a little bit earlier because middle age is starting early around 35 ish to like 70. That's the big market. But they're key. My mom used to say, if you heal a woman, you heal her family, you heal her community. And that's what happens is they start. Yeah, they drag their [Page//00:46:00] husbands and they get their daughter in laws who are having trouble getting pregnant.
Deborah Maragopolous: And now this grandkid. Yes, it was just diagnosed with ADHD. Is there another another thing we could do? I mean, all these people start becoming affected by the one who gets well, right?
Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And the goal is when it does trickle down to the children, right? That goal is that, you know, these children are not showing up in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, having to fix Absolutely.
Julie Michelson: Because they've been able to prevent them,
Deborah Maragopolous: you know, so yeah, they have that, you know, great nutrition. They have that, you know, good sleep patterns. They have the good activity levels and, you know, and their mindset is, is one of healing, you know, victimization and illness. It's
Julie Michelson: exciting. It is. So with all of that information, I'm sure much of which is new for listeners because much of it was new for me.
Julie Michelson: Okay. [Page//00:47:00] What is one step that listeners can take starting today to improve
Deborah Maragopolous: their health? So I would say the most important thing that they can do that would start to improve their health is change their sleep habits. And the biggest issue is your devices. So if you can turn off your devices, and those are screens, after dusk, you will, you will trigger your hypothalamus to tell your pineal gland to start producing melatonin, and then the hypothalamus will start producing prolactin, which is a nocturnal hormone to get your immune system to function normally.
Deborah Maragopolous: Prolactin's high during the day, your hypothalamus is not functioning normally, and you will have autoimmune problems. inflammatory symptoms. So that's the biggest thing is turning those devices off and making sure you're sleeping in the dark. So I literally, when I go to like hotels, like I hotels over all of the little lights and everything like
Julie Michelson: I'm the same.
Julie Michelson: We could totally travel [Page//00:48:00] together. And I, I was so excited. We were just on a business retreat. This is brilliant. I don't know why every hotel doesn't do this. The blackout curtains, instead of being on 1 track, you know, where you're having to make sure they're not crack. It was 2 tracks and they overlap.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. So it was well, like, like. Almost a foot or two. It was beautiful. It was dark. I'm the same person. I'm putting, covering up all those
Deborah Maragopolous: little LED lights. The only way to do that better is put it on a timer and let it to start to open up slowly with dawn.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Because that
Deborah Maragopolous: is, that is key is basically, you know, going, yeah, getting, getting the light and starting that hypothalamic dopamine production and getting the adrenals on.
Deborah Maragopolous: I mean, there's, it's so key to your metabolism for the rest of the day.
Julie Michelson: Well, I didn't know that's what you were going to say, but I'm so excited because it is one of those things that like, we cannot talk about circadian rhythm and sleep enough. [Page//00:49:00] And, but everybody needs to hear it in a different way to, till they finally go, maybe I really should turn my screens off at the end of the day.
Julie Michelson: So that's
Deborah Maragopolous: really powerful. It is. It's so powerful. It is so powerful. I mean, I didn't, I didn't realize how powerful it was because I was doing all of those things, but my hypothalamus was out of balance. So it wasn't until I started taking the, the beta to the sacred seven that I finally started sleeping through the night.
Deborah Maragopolous: I had some ambulance. Where you sleepwalk, I would get like all through my youth, like maybe three hours of good sleep at night. I mean, it was horrible. Oh, my. I finally started sleeping through the night and that was what she started shifting everything.
Julie Michelson: Sure. Well, and I think that's another really great tip.
Julie Michelson: If you are doing the things, And you're not getting there. Right. If you're like religious about your sleep habits and, and, you know, then, and [Page//00:50:00] you're still not sleeping through the night. That's that sign that you really need to, you
Deborah Maragopolous: need to, you need to focus on your hypothalamus. Yeah. So, so the, you know, my five pillars, the nutrition, the activity, the sleep, the mindset, the fifth is hypoclamic nutraceutical support.
Deborah Maragopolous: And if you're doing those other four things. This is like the icing on the cake. If you're just doing the nutraceutical support, which is what people will come in like, they're just a train wreck and they're not willing to change any of their lifestyle stuff, it's not going to be enough. They will get somewhat better.
Deborah Maragopolous: But what is interesting is when the hypothalamus starts getting what it needs, it kind of pushes you to get what you need. Right. You start going to sleep earlier and you start wanting to get up with the chickens, you know, yeah.
Julie Michelson: And some of that though is, is pure energy too, right? If somebody is exhausted and flamed and pain, all the things, right.
Julie Michelson: And it hasn't slept for years, like the energy to say, okay, now I want you to eat. Right. I
Deborah Maragopolous: want you to like. [Page//00:51:00] And they, yeah, it's super difficult. So always I start my patients with, okay, we need to consider this support no matter how they're coming in and the consumers, the customers, they'll start it right away and then say, okay, but I'm still not seeing these things.
Deborah Maragopolous: I'm like, have you, are you turning off your lights or, you know,
Julie Michelson: all these other things. And we're still, you know, society is still looking for that quick fix and we still have that. Give me the magic pill mentality. And so, you know, this is, again, we're, we are complex. Creatures and there's no one thing we really need to be supporting.
Julie Michelson: There isn't
Deborah Maragopolous: one thing, there isn't one thing. But I do notice that in my, my patients who are supporting their hypothalamus nutraceutically. They start craving what their body needs. They, it's natural for them to shift. They can hear it and feel it. Yeah, they feel it. They're guided towards it. Although they're like, all of a sudden, I'm not like, I don't crave that sugar anymore.
Deborah Maragopolous: I don't. You know, I feel like I need to eat earlier in the day. I'm like all the things I've been, you know, preaching at them off. It's starting to click, you [Page//00:52:00] know,
Julie Michelson: I love it. Well, and there's nothing, you know, nothing is going to reinforce continued behavior. Like being finally able to hear and feel. What your body needs.
Julie Michelson: It's like, Oh yeah, that is why she's been telling me that for so long. And now I can, I can, you know, feel those signals on my own.
Deborah Maragopolous: So I talk about, I call it like body talk. Your body starts talking to you and you, and you're able to hear it and listen and take action,
Julie Michelson: which is. And that's the power. It's amazing.
Julie Michelson: I
Deborah Maragopolous: love it. So fun. Thank you. Thank you
Julie Michelson: so much. You have shared amazing. I'm like, listen to this episode five times so that we can really let it sink in. And, and for sure, I highly recommend whether you want to start with the first book, but I know I, I can't wait to read the hypothalamus handbook. Because and again, or everybody should read it and just pick whichever section you think it was, [Page//00:53:00] is the part that's for you.
Julie Michelson: I'm, I want to read all of it and I want to see the long bibliography because that's the kind of nerd I am. But I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us
Deborah Maragopolous: today. Thank you. Thank you for having me and sharing, sharing the hypothalamus with your audience.
Julie Michelson: I am honored for everyone listening.
Julie Michelson: Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living dot show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
Outro: Thank you for listening to Julie Michelson's inspired living with autoimmunity. Did you enjoy this episode? Please like, share, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Outro: If you'd like to get a transcript of this and every other episode, just head on over to inspiredliving. show or click on the link in this episode's description. There, you can also find everything we discussed in this episode, including links and information about our guest. You can [Page//00:54:00] even send in your questions to be answered by Julie in a future episode. That's inspired living dot show. Until next time, this is Julie Michaelson's inspired living with auto immunity podcast, helping you take your power back.
Intro: And now, here's your host, Julie Michelson.
Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Debra Maragopoulos, Intuitive Integrative Family Nurse Practitioner, who has spent over 30 years blending the science of medicine with the art of healing. Specializing in neuroimmune endocrinology, Debra focuses on optimizing the function of the hypothalamus, the maestro of the symphony of hormones, [Page//00:01:00] and has helped thousands of people heal from a variety of symptoms.
Julie Michelson: She's the author of several books, including her latest, the hypothalamus handbook, which outlines the steps that people can take to start healing their hypothalamus on their own. In today's conversation, we are discussing the role that the hypothalamus plays in autoimmunity and the steps we can take to support the optimization of the hypothalamus to heal and prevent illness.
Julie Michelson: Deborah, welcome to the podcast.
Deborah Maragopolous: Thank you so much for having me.
Julie Michelson: I am, as I was saying, before we hit record, I'm so excited because I am such a geek and I know that, you know, there's just so many things that influence our bodies that we barely are scratching the surface on. And as I shared with you, we have not talked about the hypothalamus much on the podcast.
Julie Michelson: So I'm, I'm. Thrilled to have this conversation, but I want to hear a little bit [Page//00:02:00] about your journey. How did you get to focus on this field? So,
Deborah Maragopolous: I actually became interested in hormones when I gave birth in 1984 to an intersex child. So that was the beginning of me shifting gears from perhaps pediatric nurse practitioner to go into family practice and focus on endocrinology, which then expanded to neuroimmune endocrinology.
Deborah Maragopolous: When I started my integrative practice back in 1997, I started seeing what medicine would call train wrecks of patients. who had come with multiple diagnoses. And while medicine tends to focus on how I was trained, because as a nurse practitioner, you're conventionally trained, is on basically trying to treat symptoms, I've always focused on root causes, and that goes back to the birth of my child, because I felt like there was something related to perhaps genetics, which we weren't able to measure back then, perhaps environmental factors, [Page//00:03:00] hormonal factors that may have influenced.
Deborah Maragopolous: The genetic expression of this baby, so that started me doing a lot of research and back in the day, there was no Google, so it was all, you know, getting your periodicals and reading and then whatever I'd be researching, it seems like patients or the universe would provide me with patients that would fill in those gaps and let me practice.
Deborah Maragopolous: Literally, the medical practice is practice, right? So we would, I would practice on these patients. And when I started my integrative practice, I didn't take insurance. So people were coming in very committed to their own health care. Sure. Paying, you know, a fee for service. And I felt very much like I had to give them Everything of me, including all the research.
Deborah Maragopolous: So I really did a lot of research. And so what I found is that by 98 99 is that the majority of my patients with multiple diagnoses. So they had hormonal issues. They have neurological issues, and many of them had autoimmune conditions, either organ specific. Or, you know, autoimmune, rheumatoid type [Page//00:04:00] disorder.
Deborah Maragopolous: So it was more, um, generalized that there was, there had to be some kind of core issue. There had to be something behind all of this. So in my research, I had a Scientific America magazine that had a study that was looking at fat white mice. And they were trying to figure out, you know, what was going on with these mice?
Deborah Maragopolous: And they sacrificed these mice, well, these mice had all the, the same symptoms as the majority of my patients. They, they weren't sleeping, their cortisol was off. They had thyroid disorders. They were overweight, they were fatigued during the day. So they had a lot of, some, and they had in, you know, fertility issues as well.
Deborah Maragopolous: So they had all kinds of hormonal issues. They had pain issues. Of course, they weren't expressing this, so this was all very much right, what the scientists were seeing. And when they, when they sacrificed the mice, they found that there was a hormone that was missed, that was not being produced by the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: It was called pro opio melanocortin. And so I investigated this hormone, which is a big mother hormone to a bunch of [Page//00:05:00] smaller hormones. And it controls your adrenal function, your thyroid function, your glucose metabolism, your day night cycle, something called melanocyte stimulating hormone. And I thought, shoot, we learned about the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: You know, we're learning anatomy and physiology, but we really didn't understand the physiology of the hypothalamus. Perhaps it's the hypothalamus and some kind of imbalance there that is at the root of all of these issues I'm seeing. So instead of just treating adrenal issues and thyroid issues and immune issues and neurological issues and gonadal issues, it's like, well, maybe I should be looking at the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: Not that there was any treatment available, not that anybody was addressing it, but I started looking outside at different research, mostly animal research, and then research from Europe and from Japan. And it's been, it's actually only been recently in the last 10 years that we're actually seeing published research studies on the hypothalamus.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's something that I've been, you know, treating for a long time, you know, almost 30, almost 30 years. So I developed [Page//00:06:00] protocols. I developed a nutraceutical. I focused on trying to get people to have optimal hypothalamic function. And then I was able to wean them off their hormones and wean them off their antidepressants and their sleep aids.
Deborah Maragopolous: And I, My autoimmune patients were able to wean down off of traditional, conventional medications. I had one of my first ones was a rheumatoid arthritis patient who came in and said, you have got to get me off these steroids. I, and I hate, I feel on the methotrexate and I can't take this anymore. And she was menopausal at this point.
Deborah Maragopolous: And she's like, it got it. She said for her, it got worse when she went into menopause. So I'm like, okay, here's some hormonal. You know, connection here. So I really treated her as if her hypothalamus was out of balance without knowing how to even measure that and started to do and started working on what were the pillars, what were the things I needed to do to help her have more optimal functioning.
Deborah Maragopolous: And we were able to wean her off all of her immune modulating drugs. And she lived a, you know, two more decades [Page//00:07:00] after that. without, without having significant, you know, life impingement. I mean, just at the very end, was she, was she bed bound, but she went from not being able to do anything to being able to function again.
Deborah Maragopolous: And one of the things she loved to do was she was a, she sewed. And so she hadn't been able to do that. So that fine motor skills and getting back the function in her joints was huge for her. And so she was sewing and crafting. And I mean, I still have stuff she made for me. Because she was able to get back to it, and it was something that she loved, and so that was, that's my goal, like, it gets you back to, to joy in your life, and, and if, if the medicines are, are causing more problems, then what could we do differently?
Julie Michelson: Yeah, which is incredible, and oh my gosh, where were you, you know? 20 something years ago when I, when I was going down that rheumatology rabbit hole with my RA and yeah, it's amazing. Can we back it up? First [Page//00:08:00] of all, I thank you for being curious, right? And being Willing to step out of the box and do the research and create, you know, and practice, you know, we do forget the medicine is a practice, you know, and get results before you even really maybe knew exactly why you were getting the results.
Julie Michelson: It's fantastic. Well, it really is. Yeah. So it's, it's a gift we need. This is why we have these conversations, hopefully to inspire others and inspire people to find whatever practitioner that is, you know, that speaks to you. Cause there are a lot of people stepping out of the box now. And usually it is through.
Julie Michelson: Our own life journey that will inspire us to pick a direction or, or, I don't know, add to the conventional training. So kudos to you. Thank you. I want to back it all the [Page//00:09:00] way up. Okay. What is the hypothalamus for people who don't know what the hypothalamus is?
Deborah Maragopolous: Well, first of all, let's locate it. It's right where your third eye would be, or between your eyebrows, in the center of your brain.
Deborah Maragopolous: It sits right above the pituitary gland. So most people know the pituitary gland is that little tiny pea off of a stalk, okay? Right above that is the hypothalamus. So if you think of the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, as middle manager, the hypothalamus is CEO. Okay, so we used to think of the pituitary gland, and a lot of people still refer to it as the master gland, it is not.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's the hypothalamus that's the master gland. So the hypothalamus is below the thalamus, and the thalamus is where your emotional center. What's interesting about the hypothalamus, it is not protected by the blood brain barrier. So the blood brain barrier is right above the hypothalamus, which means it's exposed to everything the rest of your body.
Deborah Maragopolous: body's exposed to, that your brain is not exposed to. That's toxins, that's infectious agents, but it's also exposed [Page//00:10:00] to nutrition and nutrients because your brain only pretty much runs on triglycerides and glucose, pretty much just glucose, but the hypothalamus is very amenable to nutritional shifts. It's also sensitive to everything that your body's going through.
Deborah Maragopolous: Four out of the five senses run through the hypothalamus, so it knows where you are in space and time. It directs your circadian rhythm, your day night cycles. It directs all of your hormones. Okay, and your hormones, it directs the pineal gland production of melatonin, the pituitary gland production of growth hormone, release of prolactin, and all of the stimulating hormones like thyroid stimulating hormone and ACTH and folate.
Deborah Maragopolous: Molecular stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone that's produced by the pituitary. It's a hypothalamus that tells it when to do that. The hypothalamus directs the thyroid and the adrenals. It directs your goads ovaries in a female, testes in a male, but it also directs your thymus. And your thymus is a [Page//00:11:00] small gland above the heart.
Deborah Maragopolous: That is where your white blood cells, the B lymphocytes become T lymphocytes where they get trained. It's kind of the bootcamp for the white blood cells, the. Hypothalamus is the director of that so it is Ultimately responsible for how your body responds in terms of its immunity, adaptive immunity, and so anything else going on with the hypothalamus?
Deborah Maragopolous: So, okay, so it's this master, CEO, the boss of your, your brain, the maestro of the entire symphony of hormones, and it's trying to pay attention to everything, and it's also connected directly to your gut. It, it controls your appetite, it controls, it literally controls your microflora and your microflora communicate back to your hypothalamus, and that's brand new research.
Deborah Maragopolous: So there's so much information going on about what's happening in the body is being fed to the hypothalamus, and then the hypothalamus has to make some choices. One of the big things that [Page//00:12:00] opened up hypothalamic research just really recently is COVID. Because the hypothalamus has as many of the ARB receptors.
Deborah Maragopolous: Maybe more than the heart and the lungs do. So a lot of the long COVID symptoms that we're seeing is actually hypothalamic dysfunction. It's hypothalamitis, which is an inflammation of the hypothalamus. That was in the brain fog, the fatigue, the pain. The hypothalamus also controls your autonomic nervous system.
Deborah Maragopolous: So how fast your heart rate. Runs your parasympathetic side of the nervous system as long as well as the sympathetic side of the nervous system It controls your moods your memory you're learning your cognition your dream states. I mean, there's not much it doesn't control
Julie Michelson: Giggling and chuckling, you know Like a kid and and so many for me already light bulbs with light bulbs Of course if we're talking autoimmunity then right and holy wow It's, you know, incredible that [Page//00:13:00] this is a newer field.
Deborah Maragopolous: It is a newer field, and the reason it's a newer field is, number one, is you have to sacrifice the lab animal in order to measure the hormones.
Deborah Maragopolous: We're not going to do that to humans, so we can't directly measure the hormones coming from the hypothalamus. There's a few, like you can, you can measure like vasopressin, but there's not very, very much you can measure from the hypothalamus. So we have to, we have to really sacrifice the lab animal to look at the hypothalamus and look at which cells are, I'm not signing up for that.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah, nobody's going to do that. But we know now that hypothalamus controls aging, it controls your weight, it can, I mean, it controls everything. So we need to keep it happy. We need our hypothalamus functioning optimally. So what affects hypothalamic function is what are you eating? How much activity are you getting?
Deborah Maragopolous: Whether or not you're getting enough sleep, truly what your mindset is, and are you getting the, the nutrition, the specific nutrition that supports hypothalamic [Page//00:14:00] function, which most people cannot get just from their diet alone. So with all of those factors, and then part of the mindset is, is, Learning stress reduction techniques.
Deborah Maragopolous: Because stress is huge with the hypothalamus. That's the one part of the hypothalamus most people know about is the HPA axis, or the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Right. And that stress really interferes with the function of that axis, which then interferes with all kinds of other hormonal issues and immune issues.
Deborah Maragopolous: And
Julie Michelson: absorption and, and, and, and,
Deborah Maragopolous: and they actually research has shown that the majority of people that develop autoimmune disorder had some kind of neuroimmune endocrine imbalance or alteration years prior to the beginning of the onset of the disease. Say that again. So years before you're diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, your neurological system, immune system, and endocrine system become out of balance, or there's [Page//00:15:00] an altered balance there.
Deborah Maragopolous: And what controls that is the hypothalamus. So the research comes in an individual ways. Is it the HPA axis? Is it prolactin? Is it, you know, sex hormones? It's all of that. It's always all of them. It's all of it. It's multi factorial and it's the hypothalamus that's controlling that. Wow. I know. It is. It's amazing.
Deborah Maragopolous: It makes
Julie Michelson: me excited. Well, what makes me excited, but I also understand, okay, you know, cause those of us that have that scientific brain love to, you know, if you can't test and you can't watch, I just literally had this conversation with a client who is. It's going to get her labs back next week. And she's like, and I hope I see this.
Julie Michelson: And I hope I, and I was like, well, didn't you just tell me you can close your fists for the first time in years and your energy is great and your sleep is all, you know, and all of these things. And, and so, yeah, I would expect your labs to start to reflect that, but [Page//00:16:00] there's often a lag and what makes me excited is as you're talking, I'm like, oh, good.
Julie Michelson: So I didn't know I was making happy hypothalamus. Yes. Whatever the proper plural, I know, I, you know, usually you're only talking about it in the singular. Yeah.
Deborah Maragopolous: But,
Julie Michelson: but I love that. And even like what you, that if it's not behind the blood brain barrier, holy wow. I mean, in the toxic soup that we live in, that makes
Deborah Maragopolous: absolutely, it's absolutely affected.
Deborah Maragopolous: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, so I mean, I mean, the studies that come up when I was writing my hypothalamus handbook, which is the newest book I have, I was, you know, I was bibbing it like crazy because I really wanted a good reference book, not just for not not just for the public. So it's very story written so that you can understand it.
Deborah Maragopolous: And I have like 6 very well, integrated case studies. [Page//00:17:00] So it's people like you with multiple diagnoses. And I go in deep into each diagnosis and how it's related to the hypothalamus. And at the end, there's a therapeutic plan for each of them. And why I would recommend, so it is if you came to me as a consult, like, here's what I'm looking at.
Deborah Maragopolous: These are the labs I looked at. This is what was off on this person. And this is what I recommended for them. And then what was the results, you know, six months, a year later, whatever. So then I also put in a section for healthcare providers, the way we like to see it, which is much more annotated. It's, it's a lot shorter and then a huge BIP, a huge BIP.
Deborah Maragopolous: Well, as I'm writing this and we're like in the publication process, more research is coming in. And I'm like, the publisher, like, we need to add this. We need to add that. And he's like, we can't add any more.
Julie Michelson: This is book two. It'll go in the night.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. I told my, my team, I'm like, we just need to have like a live bib on the website so I can just keep adding stuff.
Deborah Maragopolous: Cause I bib all my posts. Beautiful. Because all this new [Page//00:18:00] research comes in. I've been Google, you know how you do those Google alerts and you, I Google my name and my, and my nutraceutical product and different things. So I Google alert the hypothalamus. And in the beginning it was like, nothing was coming up.
Deborah Maragopolous: Like nothing was, I mean, it would be layman's right things, maybe now all kinds of research every single day, a new research is, is coming through, you know, that's exciting world. So it's like, Oh
Julie Michelson: my gosh, that is so, so exciting.
Deborah Maragopolous: I want to have it proven. You know,
Julie Michelson: right. Because you already know, because you've been seeing it work, right?
Julie Michelson: It's the same, you know, and I was laughing at the, you know, as you're talking about these pillars or I remember. When I first started to learn that the body could heal and I started, started to learn the truth about autoimmunity and chronic illness. And as I was healing, you know, my, when my brain came back on, it was like, oh, I need to, you know, this [Page//00:19:00] is a completely different perspective than I, you know, first 45 years of my life.
Julie Michelson: I knew, and I remember like, you know, I used to use that word root cause, right? It's like singular. root cause. What's your root? What's my root cause? And I do love the concept of functional medicine as root cause medicine. But I remember just, you know, it was just kind of that funny, like, oh, it's never just one.
Julie Michelson: You can't separate out. Nutrition and stress and toxins and sleep and because they all interfere, they all impact each other. They're all intertwined.
Deborah Maragopolous: And that's why research is so hard. If I take a hypothesis and say, I want to prove this, but I'm only using one, you know, does A lead to B? And that's what, you know, one of my stories I, I, I tell my, I actually, it's in my first book, Hormones.
Deborah Maragopolous: and harmony, but it was a gynecological surgeon that I was using for my, for my surgery. So I'm now in integrative [Page//00:20:00] medicine. I'm doing all kinds of bioidentical hormones. I'm focusing on the hypothalamus. And he called me up and said, listen, I'm sending you all my weird hormone patients. And I'm like, why?
Deborah Maragopolous: He says, because in medical school, we learned that A leads to B, or maybe we'll try C. He said, I can get to Z and still not figure out these people. Can you just like, take care of them? And I said, that's because endocrinology is more of an art than it is a science. And that's, I really feel like as with the nursing background, I'm practicing the art of medicine, but I'm also practicing the science of medicine.
Deborah Maragopolous: Right. It's both. It's both. So you have to be a medical detective to figure out what's going on with the hypothalamus, because the clues are not You know, cutting stone,
Julie Michelson: you're not
Deborah Maragopolous: getting a lab. Yeah, you're not getting a lab value. It says, aha, which is great.
Julie Michelson: Because then you can't treat the labs
Deborah Maragopolous: people.
Deborah Maragopolous: You're treating people. And that's what I tell them. Like, you know what? It doesn't really matter what your labs. Show me right. I use it as a [Page//00:21:00] baseline to prove that this is how bad you felt. And this is what it looked like when you felt this bad. Now, as you're feeling better, the labs don't really matter unless I need to tweak a hormone or something.
Deborah Maragopolous: I'm not sure you're
Julie Michelson: going to fall, but you're probably also going to ask them how they're feeling.
Deborah Maragopolous: Oh, that's the biggest piece. That's the biggest piece.
Julie Michelson: Yeah, that's amazing.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's about, you know, then we get used to when we're feeling better and we want to do a little bit more. And then we think, well, I don't need all this stuff anymore.
Deborah Maragopolous: You know, I don't need to take the supplement. I don't need to like, you know, sleep like I'm sleeping. I don't need to eat like this. And then we start to fall off the bandwagon and realize, Oh my God, we're shocked. Yeah, these are all the things I needed to do to stay this optimally well. And that's what people say.
Deborah Maragopolous: Do I, you know, do I always have to do these things? I'm like, do you always want
Julie Michelson: to feel well?
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. Don't you want your hypothalamus to function optimally throughout your entire life? Yes. Don't, don't you want to age gracefully? Don't you want to avoid? You know, chronic diseases that can [Page//00:22:00] cause an early mortality and dysfunction, like, why wouldn't you want
Julie Michelson: to do this health span?
Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's, it's incredible. I want to I want to ask, because I know I, I'm already so enthralled that I'm going to forget to ask. So I want to ask while I'm remembering. Oh, you mentioned that there's specific nutrition The hypothalamus needs to be happy that we're not getting from our food sources now, which I'm assuming is what led you to create a nutraceutical.
Julie Michelson: Yes. Can you share with us about that?
Deborah Maragopolous: Yes. So the journey was is I, so I'm Italian. I married a Greek. I was born and raised on the Mediterranean diet. I have always eaten pristinely. And still I had hormone issues. Okay. So it wasn't until I started taking my own nutraceutical that my hormones got back into balance.
Deborah Maragopolous: So my feeling is, is that in the beginning, when human animals started hunting and [Page//00:23:00] gathering, we didn't really. move too much inland, we, we stayed around the coast and we got certain nutrients and our genetics actually kind of adapted to what we were able to get. So people from like Northern European ancestry have a genetics that adapts a little bit differently than people from my ancestry, which is Mediterranean, right?
Deborah Maragopolous: Versus It's way down in South America, South Africa, so it's different. So what I did with this nutraceutical is I put in it plants and from around the world from every continent, every sea to try to cover the genetic soup that I was seeing because I'm in America. Right. And most of us are mutts. Very few of us.
Deborah Maragopolous: So we have we have genetic genetics. And even if
Julie Michelson: we think we're purebreds, we're, we're not. Yeah.
Deborah Maragopolous: And you know, now we've got lots of things going on. But knowing that the genetics actually responds very well to nutrition. which is called [Page//00:24:00] epigenetics, where the DNA actually can shift. And what controls that, again, is the hypothalamus, because the hypothalamus controls the major hormones that actually interface with your DNA, which are your steroid hormones.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's not, not every, not all the biochemicals interface with your DNA, but your steroid hormones do. So there's definitely this connection there. So once I started feeding the hypothalamus, what I felt it needed, and I, and I came to that two ways. I was doing a lot of research, and most of the research was related to what amino acids the hypothalamus would respond to.
Deborah Maragopolous: And, but I was stuck with this research. I was like, I couldn't find anything. And again, it's just before good search engines. So I'm sitting in front of my, my desktop computer, you know, trying to work on it. We have one in the household. My, my firstborn is now a teenager. And they say to me, Mom, you know, why don't you just meditate about this?
Deborah Maragopolous: And maybe the answer will come in dreams. So I did and I asked what do you feed the what can I possibly feed the body to actually [Page//00:25:00] heal the hypothalamus and I had exactly the same dream every night for three months and I'd wake up and write down what came in the dream because what was happening in the dream I was standing by what was the tree of life I held this like Cup and people would drink from it and they've my sickest patients.
Deborah Maragopolous: And as soon as they drank for it, I knew they were better. We'd never spoke and I'd ask what's in the cup. And at first it was, it was chemical. I, the beginning of it came in, in basically another language. Okay. It was symbols, which related to acids. And so I put all of this stuff together, researched everything.
Deborah Maragopolous: A lot of the herbs and things were things I was using in. with my patients, but not in these particular proportions. So like, you know, it's like the difference between chocolate chip recipes. They're all, they're all a little different in how much they put in that. It was that difference in the, in the synchronicity of these different ingredients over the years.
Deborah Maragopolous: I first started making Genesis Gold in 2003 is when I was able to manufacture it. The dreams were in like 99, [Page//00:26:00] but it took like that long to find a manufacturer for it. It's changed slightly because the earth has changed. Like I don't, I, we don't harvest from, we stopped harvesting from the, the North Pacific after the radioactivity in, in Japan.
Deborah Maragopolous: Thank you. So I'm changing constantly according to, and a lot of it's just kind of intuitive. Like I'll just like, Okay, we need to do something different. And then, and then I'll read the news and say, Oh,
Julie Michelson: that's why.
Deborah Maragopolous: That's why we need to be, you know, getting it from here instead of there. So, so some of the species have changed slightly because of what's happening in the last 20 years, but that's what's going on.
Deborah Maragopolous: So what I have found is, is that by feeding, My own my body by feeding my patients and the customers this it's a powder. They mix it in in water They take it every morning It keeps them in balance and it takes about 90 days to actually start to seal To see hypothalamic balancing and if you've been sick a long time Let's say you've been sick for [Page//00:27:00] 20 years then on top of that first three months You're looking at about 20 more months one month per year before optimal functioning.
Deborah Maragopolous: So it can be a period of taking it to really get to that optimal functioning, but you'll feel better in the first few months. But it's not, it's, you know, it's not like caffeine that gives you a jolt right away. It's, there's definitely a detoxification that goes on. It's kind of the hypothalamus decides with these nutrients, what are we going to do here?
Deborah Maragopolous: We need to clean house first. We need to improve, you know, the HBA access. This person has a lot of, you know, Psychological garbage going on that we need to deal with. And I've had people come to me and say, this feels like therapy. And, um, you know, when it was in a bottle and a bottle bag, yeah, stuff's going on in my like dreams and stuff.
Deborah Maragopolous: And it's because that has to be cleared too. That's the mindset piece. Yeah. Oh,
Julie Michelson: so fun. Amazing. It is fun. It is. So, I mean, for listeners, would there be anybody [Page//00:28:00] that. You know, again, because there's no testing, so I mean, it sounds like the assumption is this is a key player in your autoimmune expression in chronic inflammation and aging and all the
Deborah Maragopolous: things.
Deborah Maragopolous: So I have not found anyone in my practice or consumers that would not be a good candidate for taking the Nutraceutical Genesis Gold. But some people are sensitive to certain plant ingredients. Yes. So I did, I did manufacture the, the heart of it, which are the hypothalamic amino acids. Separately, without all the rest of the green stuff, for people who have food allergies, etc.
Deborah Maragopolous: After three to six months, usually they become less sensitive to things they thought they were sensitive to. Right. As their hypothalamus gets into better balance. And then they'll also add the sacred seven amino acids. And I call it that because the amino acids came in the first seven nights, and then the rest of the stuff came.
Deborah Maragopolous: So those amino acids came in first. [Page//00:29:00] They'll, they'll oftentimes add those, the sacred seven amino acids. back into genesis gold. So add an extra if they're exceptionally ill or they have very, you know, incredible symptoms. So anybody who's like weaning off antidepressants or major immune modulation medication, or they'll actually need more hypothalamic support, you know, severe hot flashes, severe insomnia, severe anxiety, things like that.
Deborah Maragopolous: They'll need a little bit more, but that's usually not forever.
Julie Michelson: Interesting, and is the sacred 7 is a powder as well to drink
Deborah Maragopolous: in the morning? just throw it right into the Genesis and or take it separately. Nice. And amino acids are interesting because they, I, I flavored the Genesis because the seaweeds were a little, a little strong, a little rough, but we flavored the Genesis, but the amino acids are as is.
Deborah Maragopolous: There's nothing else in there. So there's, you know, unless you have, you know, PKU, there's no way you can be allergic to anything in there. Okay. Cause these are, these are amino acids. They're just pure plant plant derived [Page//00:30:00] amino acids. So, but it's interesting because they taste different according to where you are in your healing process.
Deborah Maragopolous: Okay. Thank you. Oh, actually perceive like I when I first started taking I obviously need to detox because all I could perceive were the sulfur bearing amino acids. So it it tasted like garlic and onions to me. And then after a few weeks. you know, and a lot of, you know, defecation and urination and sweating and all this, you know, skin changes.
Deborah Maragopolous: I was detox and then it started tasting different, started tasting salty and that's a different amino acid. And then it finally started tasting sweet. And now it's, it's been kind of crazy. So when I have people say it tastes different now, did you change the formula? Nope. No, you
Julie Michelson: changed your body. You've changed.
Julie Michelson: That is so amazing. Oh, I can't, I can't wait to play with this.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. It's really, really an interesting process, but lots of people need help with this because this is a foundational support. Thank you. That was going to be my next question. Yeah. [Page//00:31:00] Yeah. Some help. So what I've developed is based on my first book, which is way easier read.
Deborah Maragopolous: I put it out in 2016, it's called Hormones in Harmony, there's no bib, it's got a lot more pictures in it, and even the print is bigger, it's, you know, just super short, but it's a super easy read, what I did is I actually created like a little video course on it, so it's like, it's almost like a book club, like I do a little video on what you're going to get out of this chapter, and then ask you, give you actionable items to do with each course.
Deborah Maragopolous: We call that the hormone reboot training. And that's what most of my people, when they go onto my website, that, you know, that's the sign up. So it's free, you know, sign up and you get into this and it answers a lot of questions in there. Okay. Yes, I have. Yeah. And I have, you know, a team that, and they come to me if there's any questions they can't answer because people ask me questions in it.
Deborah Maragopolous: Sure. So we make sure that everybody's covered. So they have that level of support. We also have a hormone support group, which is on [Page//00:32:00] Facebook where, you know, more questions are asked and answered. And I have a YouTube video which has tons of YouTube, you know, on everything you can imagine, everything you can imagine.
Deborah Maragopolous: Some are super short, some are a lot longer, and that's where most of my people find me because they're looking for, you know, how is this related? Why am I feeling this? And that's how they'll find me. And then we, we actually use those YouTube videos, create like blog posts for the readers. Because some people want to read this stuff.
Deborah Maragopolous: They don't want to watch it. And so we have different ways of educating people so that they can get the information that they need and the, and the support they need.
Julie Michelson: Which is amazing, but it does sound like as people are using the product and, and the process, right? There's, I'm guessing a lifestyle piece that goes with it.
Julie Michelson: Um, that if they're on medications, if they're being treated for stuff, that it's important that they're getting followed because I would imagine it is going to trigger, [Page//00:33:00] you know, lower dosages required as they are weaned
Deborah Maragopolous: off by their practitioners. Absolutely. And I talk about that in all of my, in all my books, you know, having how to, how to wean down and what to expect, but we also provide the support within the groups.
Deborah Maragopolous: And then for, I have some paid programs for like more intense support with me. So for those people who are like, okay, this is way too complicated. I need a little time with you. So it could be a single consult, or it could be like a year long program where we stick you in a group. And we like. Work that's out together, help you, help you do the five pillars, help you get, and that group's been interesting.
Deborah Maragopolous: It's called the Hormone Healing Circle. And, you know, I have people in there that have been there since 2017, because we're so easy up level. Yeah. Yeah. Well, where can they get this kind of, you know, advice from an expert? And face to face interact, you know, for so little every month, you know, so that's, so that's why they're, they're still in there.
Deborah Maragopolous: So that's, so trying to [Page//00:34:00] help people, you know, through this, what I would love to do is for more healthcare providers to read the book and get educated. And as soon as I get more of those available, that they're actually interested in getting educated. then actually start training them. So I've, I've actually worked in my, in my state nurse practitioner group and started some educational programs there.
Julie Michelson: That's exciting. Well, because that's how, you know, talk about expanding the reach and having more people. And so that's, that's fantastic. I, I know some practitioners I can send your way.
Deborah Maragopolous: That's the legacy piece. I mean, I'm 62. I like, I'm not going to be doing this forever. Oh my gosh, way,
Julie Michelson: way, way. Guys, I'm telling you to like pop on the video if you're listening to the audio because she does not look, you know, forget, she doesn't look 52 much less 62.
Julie Michelson: That's incredible.
Deborah Maragopolous: Well, I swear that's from supporting my hypothalamus. Yeah. I went, I went through the change a lot later than my sisters who did not support their [Page//00:35:00] hypothalamus. I just, you know, I feel very, you know, healthy and, you know, I got some gray hairs, but you know, that's, that's part of the, part of the process.
Julie Michelson: Well, that combined with some bioidentical hormones and, you know, nothing's stopping you now.
Deborah Maragopolous: Exactly. But you know, it's so it's, but it is about passing on the information and helping other providers who, you know, are. Are able to do this become a medical detective and figure this out and it's not going to be everybody, you know, not everybody at most people need protocols, you know, and just I just need to follow it A to Z.
Deborah Maragopolous: But some people are going to have that gut reaction where they just they just know.
Julie Michelson: Well, when they're in the art of it, I know I'm thinking of my life partner, who's, you know, it's, if you are somebody who's in the art of bioidentical hormone treatment, and you're not just looking at a range on a lab page, that's the kind of practitioner, I think that is going to just.
Julie Michelson: You know, this is perfect [Page//00:36:00] for really, because they're already in that world. This is just a whole, a whole nother layer, but it's a layer above and it goes
Deborah Maragopolous: deeper and it's also hitting the, at the, at the much higher level. So, yeah, so I, you know, I'm, I'm super excited about that, but like you said, you know, what the heck is the hypothalamus?
Julie Michelson: Well, I, you know, I know, I know a little bit, I certainly learned. So far a lot more and I want to ask you, because I already am gleaning, you know, like when somebody comes to me and they, you know, again, they've got that, whatever, however, the multiple multiple diagnoses and the long history, you know, it's, it's a no brainer.
Julie Michelson: That we need to heal the gut, right? We know, I don't have to, I don't have to look at zonulin. I don't need to do a leaky gut test. I know you have a leaky gut at that point. Guessing, you know, that their hypothalamus needs supporting, but what are, you know, for listeners who don't [Page//00:37:00] have autoimmune or thinking of loved ones that don't have autoimmune, what are some other signs and symptoms that the hypothalamus needs?
Julie Michelson: Love.
Deborah Maragopolous: Of course. Yeah. So, whenever you're not sleeping deeply, not able to initiate sleep, or getting enough rest or waking up in the middle of the night, if you have heat or cold intolerance, because it controls your temperatures, if you have trouble gaining or losing weight, if your blood sugars are off hemoglobin A1c is elevated because it controls glucose metabolism, if you have any daytime fatigue, so whether that's from thyroid, adrenals, or mitochondrial dysfunction, That's hypothalamic related.
Deborah Maragopolous: Okay. If you have issues with learning disabilities, brain, brain, we call it brain fog when it's not yet dementia, dementia, issues concentrating, focusing, adult ADHD, any of that. That's all hypothalamic related [Page//00:38:00] anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, seasonal affective disorder. Maybe,
Julie Michelson: maybe I should have asked you a different question.
Julie Michelson: What isn't it? Who doesn't need? Because it's controlling
Deborah Maragopolous: all of that. Sure. It controls your digestion, your appetite. It controls basically whether you're going to lay down, you know, body fat or not, and your metabolism. The hypothalamus controls, it communicates directly with the microflora of your gut. So there's that, you know, direct communication back and forth.
Deborah Maragopolous: If I, I did a lot of leaky gut therapies before I had hypothalamic, you know, nutraceutical support until I was able to do both and we finally get the healing. You know, at the, at the highest level, because that communication, we still have this micro flora that was still like not communicating well, two
Julie Michelson: way
Deborah Maragopolous: communication.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah. So we've got the gut healed, but they're not talking like they used to any hormonal imbalances, any people, anybody with thyroid disorders, adrenal disorders, infertility, hypogonadism in [Page//00:39:00] men, no. libido issues, that's all hypothalamic related. So all of that is controlled by the hypothalamus. So there's not a lot that isn't.
Deborah Maragopolous: If you get sick really often or anything related to autoimmunity, of course, because it's controlling the immune system. Yeah, there's just, there's so much and there's, and there are some things lab wise that can be done. So I actually go into that in the books, not for patients to say, and they can go at the back of the book and go to the, you know, the download page and get the, with my, my lab wish list that they can go bring to their provider and said, can we look at this, try to figure this out?
Deborah Maragopolous: Because she said, if this, this, and this is off, then
Julie Michelson: maybe Right, because they have that guide. I remember years ago when I first found out about functional medicine testing and I had a great GP who was very progressive and into an open a wellness and open and I did. I brought her. I was like, Yeah. Can, can you get me these?
Julie Michelson: And she said, sure. And then [Page//00:40:00] she said, I'm not going to know what to do with the results, but sure. But so this is perfect. Cause then they have that information from you, right? These are the things we're looking at and looking for. And so I love
Deborah Maragopolous: that. Yeah, they can start off with their primary and get this, get it done and then start looking for people who are willing either to do the research with them or look a little bit further or, I just, I really think that once that gets going, it'll be kind of like a grassroots efforts where the patients push the providers to learn more.
Deborah Maragopolous: Yeah, just like with the bioidentical hormone world. I mean, it wasn't a world at all, you know, and 30 years ago, we started playing around with it. And about 20 years ago, it became a thing. Where, you know, and a lot of providers got into it with, you know, they have, there was labs that would measure and tell the provider what, how much to use, you know, I'm like, no, no, no,
Julie Michelson: I don't, that's not the art.
Julie Michelson: No, yeah,
Deborah Maragopolous: they're trying to make it all by
Julie Michelson: numbers, but you're right. It is a grassroots. I literally, we [Page//00:41:00] had this conversation yesterday because we were giggling about, and I luckily didn't even pay attention. So I can't throw whatever publication it was under the bus. The cover article was, it was about PCPs, you know, patients are demanding hormone care from their PCPs.
Julie Michelson: So therefore now PCPs need to learn, you know, but, but we were laughing like, Oh, you think? But I said, I said, this is exciting to me because it means enough people are getting educated or hearing things and, you know, no longer believing that story that I was certainly told, well, you're a woman. I mean, that was the answer for all of it.
Julie Michelson: Right. And menopause should suck. And it's just a part of, this is a natural cycle. And sure, if you want to shrivel up and die or have brittle bones or all the things, sure. But no. You know, let's change the conversation. And so [Page//00:42:00] that's what we're doing here is changing.
Deborah Maragopolous: It really is about changing the conversation.
Deborah Maragopolous: The book I, I produced in between hormones and harmony and the hypothalamus handbook was called the menopause action plan. And at the end of that, they can download the plan. Now they've learned about what the plan is and they fill it out and bring it to their health care provider. Because they've already gone through their risk factors.
Deborah Maragopolous: We've talked about genetics. We talked about everything related to their hormones, etc. They know exactly what they need and what blood tests they want. Love it. And the, you know, and patients will bring the book in and say, okay, if you don't get it, can you just read the book? And then we will talk about it because I'm pretty sure my vagina needs this and my, and my
Julie Michelson: bones need this and my.
Julie Michelson: I have a client who is postmenopausal who was started on bioidentical hormone therapy three weeks ago, and I saw I got to see her this morning. And, you know, I just kept saying, just wait, you [Page//00:43:00] know, just just wait. And she. So it's, and she's doing the other, this again, no, one of these things is total magic, right?
Julie Michelson: So she's already working on mindset and lifestyle and talks all the things. And then this, I, you know, she was, so she already was feeling better. And I was like, Oh, you have no idea. Like you're, you're just not even. And she was like, Oh my gosh. You know, I
Deborah Maragopolous: was like, yeah, none of it's, you're not, nothing's
Julie Michelson: dead.
Julie Michelson: It's just dormant. She said, Tim, it's the desert, it hasn't been watered for a while. Yeah, yeah. And then she said, this may sound crazy, but I feel like, like all of a sudden my core is active and I'm like, well, you have building blocks now that you can use. It's not crazy at all. It makes perfect sense. So I love it.
Julie Michelson: It's, it's, so it is, it's a, it's a slow. Just like when you were starting to research hypothalamus, you know, there just wasn't a lot going on. And now it's like, really, every day, there's new stuff,
Deborah Maragopolous: there's lots of [Page//00:44:00] research now. So now it's about getting into clinical practice. So that's the, that's the beauty of having this integrative practice where I have my patients, you know, coming in saying, listen, Will you try to figure this out and it wasn't in my ballpark before that one person and now it's like, right, but then I get 20 of these people, you know, the
Julie Michelson: difference is, you know, in when you're locked in the Western box.
Julie Michelson: You're locked into standard of care and we joke because when you come to the clinic here, it's like, you're not coming to an integrative practitioner. If you want standard of care, you want out of that box, right? Yes. The tools in that box are, you know, important and amazing. You want access to the box, but you don't want to live in it.
Julie Michelson: And that's, that's what you're talking about is that ability to sit down with one patient and figure that out. And then you see, You see the threads and the patterns and [Page//00:45:00] it's like, oh. Oh, you know, that's people come to me and they're like, well, my diagnosis is an R. A. Will you work with me? And I'm like, I don't care what your diagnosis is.
Julie Michelson: Like, I'm not treating a diagnosis. You know, doesn't matter how many you have. If you don't have 1, if you don't feel amazing, whether you're 20 or 75, then there's work
Deborah Maragopolous: to do. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And there's so much that can be done and can be done pro, you know, proactively as well. And so it's not just about treating the diseases, but the majority of my customers and patients are middle aged women.
Deborah Maragopolous: in a little bit earlier because middle age is starting early around 35 ish to like 70. That's the big market. But they're key. My mom used to say, if you heal a woman, you heal her family, you heal her community. And that's what happens is they start. Yeah, they drag their [Page//00:46:00] husbands and they get their daughter in laws who are having trouble getting pregnant.
Deborah Maragopolous: And now this grandkid. Yes, it was just diagnosed with ADHD. Is there another another thing we could do? I mean, all these people start becoming affected by the one who gets well, right?
Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And the goal is when it does trickle down to the children, right? That goal is that, you know, these children are not showing up in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, having to fix Absolutely.
Julie Michelson: Because they've been able to prevent them,
Deborah Maragopolous: you know, so yeah, they have that, you know, great nutrition. They have that, you know, good sleep patterns. They have the good activity levels and, you know, and their mindset is, is one of healing, you know, victimization and illness. It's
Julie Michelson: exciting. It is. So with all of that information, I'm sure much of which is new for listeners because much of it was new for me.
Julie Michelson: Okay. [Page//00:47:00] What is one step that listeners can take starting today to improve
Deborah Maragopolous: their health? So I would say the most important thing that they can do that would start to improve their health is change their sleep habits. And the biggest issue is your devices. So if you can turn off your devices, and those are screens, after dusk, you will, you will trigger your hypothalamus to tell your pineal gland to start producing melatonin, and then the hypothalamus will start producing prolactin, which is a nocturnal hormone to get your immune system to function normally.
Deborah Maragopolous: Prolactin's high during the day, your hypothalamus is not functioning normally, and you will have autoimmune problems. inflammatory symptoms. So that's the biggest thing is turning those devices off and making sure you're sleeping in the dark. So I literally, when I go to like hotels, like I hotels over all of the little lights and everything like
Julie Michelson: I'm the same.
Julie Michelson: We could totally travel [Page//00:48:00] together. And I, I was so excited. We were just on a business retreat. This is brilliant. I don't know why every hotel doesn't do this. The blackout curtains, instead of being on 1 track, you know, where you're having to make sure they're not crack. It was 2 tracks and they overlap.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. So it was well, like, like. Almost a foot or two. It was beautiful. It was dark. I'm the same person. I'm putting, covering up all those
Deborah Maragopolous: little LED lights. The only way to do that better is put it on a timer and let it to start to open up slowly with dawn.
Julie Michelson: Yeah. Yeah. Because that
Deborah Maragopolous: is, that is key is basically, you know, going, yeah, getting, getting the light and starting that hypothalamic dopamine production and getting the adrenals on.
Deborah Maragopolous: I mean, there's, it's so key to your metabolism for the rest of the day.
Julie Michelson: Well, I didn't know that's what you were going to say, but I'm so excited because it is one of those things that like, we cannot talk about circadian rhythm and sleep enough. [Page//00:49:00] And, but everybody needs to hear it in a different way to, till they finally go, maybe I really should turn my screens off at the end of the day.
Julie Michelson: So that's
Deborah Maragopolous: really powerful. It is. It's so powerful. It is so powerful. I mean, I didn't, I didn't realize how powerful it was because I was doing all of those things, but my hypothalamus was out of balance. So it wasn't until I started taking the, the beta to the sacred seven that I finally started sleeping through the night.
Deborah Maragopolous: I had some ambulance. Where you sleepwalk, I would get like all through my youth, like maybe three hours of good sleep at night. I mean, it was horrible. Oh, my. I finally started sleeping through the night and that was what she started shifting everything.
Julie Michelson: Sure. Well, and I think that's another really great tip.
Julie Michelson: If you are doing the things, And you're not getting there. Right. If you're like religious about your sleep habits and, and, you know, then, and [Page//00:50:00] you're still not sleeping through the night. That's that sign that you really need to, you
Deborah Maragopolous: need to, you need to focus on your hypothalamus. Yeah. So, so the, you know, my five pillars, the nutrition, the activity, the sleep, the mindset, the fifth is hypoclamic nutraceutical support.
Deborah Maragopolous: And if you're doing those other four things. This is like the icing on the cake. If you're just doing the nutraceutical support, which is what people will come in like, they're just a train wreck and they're not willing to change any of their lifestyle stuff, it's not going to be enough. They will get somewhat better.
Deborah Maragopolous: But what is interesting is when the hypothalamus starts getting what it needs, it kind of pushes you to get what you need. Right. You start going to sleep earlier and you start wanting to get up with the chickens, you know, yeah.
Julie Michelson: And some of that though is, is pure energy too, right? If somebody is exhausted and flamed and pain, all the things, right.
Julie Michelson: And it hasn't slept for years, like the energy to say, okay, now I want you to eat. Right. I
Deborah Maragopolous: want you to like. [Page//00:51:00] And they, yeah, it's super difficult. So always I start my patients with, okay, we need to consider this support no matter how they're coming in and the consumers, the customers, they'll start it right away and then say, okay, but I'm still not seeing these things.
Deborah Maragopolous: I'm like, have you, are you turning off your lights or, you know,
Julie Michelson: all these other things. And we're still, you know, society is still looking for that quick fix and we still have that. Give me the magic pill mentality. And so, you know, this is, again, we're, we are complex. Creatures and there's no one thing we really need to be supporting.
Julie Michelson: There isn't
Deborah Maragopolous: one thing, there isn't one thing. But I do notice that in my, my patients who are supporting their hypothalamus nutraceutically. They start craving what their body needs. They, it's natural for them to shift. They can hear it and feel it. Yeah, they feel it. They're guided towards it. Although they're like, all of a sudden, I'm not like, I don't crave that sugar anymore.
Deborah Maragopolous: I don't. You know, I feel like I need to eat earlier in the day. I'm like all the things I've been, you know, preaching at them off. It's starting to click, you [Page//00:52:00] know,
Julie Michelson: I love it. Well, and there's nothing, you know, nothing is going to reinforce continued behavior. Like being finally able to hear and feel. What your body needs.
Julie Michelson: It's like, Oh yeah, that is why she's been telling me that for so long. And now I can, I can, you know, feel those signals on my own.
Deborah Maragopolous: So I talk about, I call it like body talk. Your body starts talking to you and you, and you're able to hear it and listen and take action,
Julie Michelson: which is. And that's the power. It's amazing.
Julie Michelson: I
Deborah Maragopolous: love it. So fun. Thank you. Thank you
Julie Michelson: so much. You have shared amazing. I'm like, listen to this episode five times so that we can really let it sink in. And, and for sure, I highly recommend whether you want to start with the first book, but I know I, I can't wait to read the hypothalamus handbook. Because and again, or everybody should read it and just pick whichever section you think it was, [Page//00:53:00] is the part that's for you.
Julie Michelson: I'm, I want to read all of it and I want to see the long bibliography because that's the kind of nerd I am. But I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us
Deborah Maragopolous: today. Thank you. Thank you for having me and sharing, sharing the hypothalamus with your audience.
Julie Michelson: I am honored for everyone listening.
Julie Michelson: Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspired living dot show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
Outro: Thank you for listening to Julie Michelson's inspired living with autoimmunity. Did you enjoy this episode? Please like, share, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Outro: If you'd like to get a transcript of this and every other episode, just head on over to inspiredliving. show or click on the link in this episode's description. There, you can also find everything we discussed in this episode, including links and information about our guest. You can [Page//00:54:00] even send in your questions to be answered by Julie in a future episode. That's inspired living dot show. Until next time, this is Julie Michaelson's inspired living with auto immunity podcast, helping you take your power back.
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My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Deborah Maragopoulos
Deborah Maragopoulos
Deborah Maragopoulos is an intuitive integrative family nurse practitioner who has spent over thirty years blending the Science of Medicine with the Art of Healing to help thousands of people heal from a variety of symptoms and thrive by treating their hypothalamus. Specializing in neuro-immune endocrinology, Deborah focuses on optimizing the function of the hypothalamus - the maestro of the symphony of hormones. She is the author of several books including her latest, "The Hypothalamus Handbook," which outlines the steps people can take to start healing their hypothalamus on their own.
Known as the Hormone Queen®, she's made it her mission to help everyone balance their hormones and live optimally - no matter their age!
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