ILwA 192 - Aly Cohen
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Aly Cohen: [00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for having me here, Julie,

Julie Michelson: I am so, so, so excited for this conversation that I had to make myself stop and hit record because I, I just can't wait to dig in and share detoxify with listeners this book. Is life changing, I think because of how you break things down for people to really just make simple, yet really impactful changes.

Um, so share a little bit of your, your journey. I know your, your stories in the book, but, but allow listeners to understand that you too, are. Just a person, right? Even though you're this brilliant doctor. Um, and we tend to show up here on the podcast through some kind of personal experience that shifted, right?

Yeah.

Aly Cohen: Yeah. No, I mean, listen, I am a regular person and that's how I've always, and I still see [00:01:00] myself as on this journey, but I, the journey began actually. I wouldn't say I chose it. Um, about, you know, I became a physician, internal medicine, then I went into rheumatology as a specialty. Uh, you know, I learned everything.

I was taught. I'm a really good student. I don't fight authority. I, you know, I kind of, my dad. Not technically. Now I'm different, but you know, my, my father's a physician 85 years old, still practicing nephrology and you know, it's baked into my family as a physician, right? Western trained. And I got out of fellowship.

I moved to the countryside in New Jersey, central New Jersey. Had two small kids and I had a golden retriever who is our first born, right? Our starter pup, our starter kid. And at four and a five, four, he was four and a half years old. Um, at the time that he got sick and I, here, I had a, I think a 2-year-old and a six months old, something like that.

And I. My dog, who was four and a half got sick and we didn't understand why he got sick, but he is [00:02:00] golden. We thought he ate something. We figured it would come out the other end, no big deal. And it turned out that he had autoimmune hepatitis and autoimmune Hepatitis is not only rare in dogs, but it's really rare in goldens.

And he was so young and experiencing an illness that. Dogs don't get that. I was so upset. I started thinking about what he was eating, what he was drinking, what kind of tick and flea, you know, medications were we using? Well, what about that red toy that was vinyl, plastic that he sucked on all day long?

And the more I was asking questions out of heartbreak and just complete confusion about his environment. I was finding out more and more about the lack of regulation, the lack of oversight, the the not even required testing for chemicals that are in human products in the United States and all the things we love.

And I didn't realize at that time, I mean, now I can look back and say that was an environmental health evaluation. I was doing a survey and now I have that in the book now for anyone [00:03:00] to read and kind of look over their own life. But that's how I got started in this. He took on a life of its own because I reached out to, um.

Environmental working group. Mm-hmm. Uh, at the time, that was all I saw on the internet 15 years ago when I said, Hey guys, I wanna do a local lecture. Would you guys teach me a little or show me some of your resources? Or, and they couldn't believe a doctor had actually reached out to them. Isn't that sad?

It's so sad. They said, you're the first doctor that ever reached out to us and we ended up putting together a CME lecture for, I think I, I lectured to 30 hospital systems, their grand rounds, but no one was really. You know, paying that much attention. And it was

Julie Michelson: very fringe back then and yeah, and like almost conspiracy theory 15 years ago.

Um, but it was all

Aly Cohen: based on data. Like everything they were telling me was in the medical literature, in peer reviewed journal around the world. And so I, there was such a disconnect between what I was discovering and what I wasn't taught in med school. And it was just [00:04:00] remarkable to me the journey. But 15 years later, I.

Two textbooks later. And now this consumer book, like I would say I pretty much have a handle on what's going on. Yeah. Um, and then what to do better. Like how we can actually really make ourselves feel better. You know, manage diseases, change the destiny of our health in many ways by what we choose, how we live our lifestyle, what we, you know, products we consume and use on our body.

So, you know, it's been a long journey, but I wouldn't say that I started by choice, but I am now. Oh, you're in

Julie Michelson: it. You can't, and you can't unlearn this stuff. One of the things I love about your book is that. We share the, which I think is so important for listeners to understand. Anytime we talk about anything toxin related, you know, it, it can be overwhelming.

It can feel overwhelming, and the underlying message in your book is the same as when I work with clients. [00:05:00] It we, it's A, we can't be perfect, but B, we don't have to be perfect to heal. For sure and or to prevent, you know, getting sick in the first place. And, and I love how in the book you break it down and you strategize like, hey, it, it's, I do the same thing.

It's all about the impact. One change at a time. Where are you going to get the most impact? Right. And then I am a lab geek too. I love to run labs and, and yeah, when you it, but you don't have to. You don't even have to do a toxin panel to reduce your burden and support your detox pathways. So no,

Aly Cohen: to use their money wisely, use their money on the solutions rather than the testing.

Because from any given blood test, we know this from. Any number of blood tests. Doesn't even have to be for chemicals or toxins. It could be for cholesterol or, you know, sugars or what have you, that any given, you know, um, evaluation or or set of labs. Results could vary from day to day, week to [00:06:00] week, depends on a lot of different factors.

Birthday, cake, vacation, you know, the holidays. So the idea is really if you test, you're gonna find the same thing over and over again, that we are filled with chemicals. Um, all right, done. Now what do we do to move forward? Right? In a way that's not only going to take it out of our systems, you know, hopefully, or reduce dramatically, but also how we feel, how we manage disease.

How do we stay in remission from cancers? How do we, how do we keep our bodies thriving? And it's not just removing the chemicals, as you probably saw in the book, it's also what do we add in to make us feel better and to give us the nutrition we've been missing.

Julie Michelson: I love that. And it's the, I mean, it is, that is the healing approach, right?

We're all missing important things. And then add in some of, I'm not gonna guess what your genetics are, but I know mine, you know, we're, we're typically, my tribe of people are not good detoxers and we're not, you know. Um, and, and so [00:07:00] there's so much we can do, and I I did love that part of the Okay. Also add these things.

You actually inspired me. I, I have been a little less practicing what I preach as far as my self-care. Lately, things have been a little busy at the clinic. And I'm like, you know, I, I used to be so much better at focusing on the, the variety in my veggies and, and I still always eat a ton of veggies, but I'm not as thoughtful and I know I feel better when I focus, you know, for myself in a very specific way.

I. On what kind of vegetables and how, you know, how many of, of the different, but especially the cruciferous veggies. So

Aly Cohen: yeah, they're,

Julie Michelson: yeah. Yeah. Even know half

Aly Cohen: of them, because I don't like to cook. I make reservations. So you know, I mean, the idea that there's this world of super foods that are available in your supermarket, you can grow them, you can get 'em frozen organic, which is one of my big recommendations is us.[00:08:00]

Yes. Frozen is actually really nutrient rich because they're flash frozen, but also, um, they have far less pesticides and fertilizer, chemicals and genetically modified ingredients. So, you know, there's lots of options for every one. But the idea that we have choices that I didn't even know we had, I just wanted that add all in the table.

Here are all your choices. You can do it yourself, right? Cleaning products, recipes, which we have, or you can go to the resources and just buy 'em if you don't have time to make stuff like I used. Right. Years ago, or, you know, there's just lots of different options.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. And I, and I love that it's like you just, you're meeting people where they are, so you're almost like coaching them through your book is, is really, um, and I am, I always say I'm one of those I, I wanted to ask you, 'cause you, you do give.

Wonderful. D-I-I-D-I-Y recipes and, and advice in the book as well. Um, do you make all of your own stuff? No. Me either.

Aly Cohen: [00:09:00] Years ago when I got into this, like back, you know, you had to, years ago. I was, so first of all, there wasn't the variety of products that are considered clean now. Sure. In terms of their transparency and their third party testing, that is all something that now people want to live up to.

'cause they want the market share of clean beauty, clean cosmetics, clean cleaning. Um, but I didn't have those options back then. So I remember making a whole va, um, of laundry detergent. I mean, if I tell you I had to go to like a Home Depot and get like one of those. Big plastic containers, and I was boiling Castile soap, and I was like all into it.

And I, and by the way, you could hardly find these, these ingredients let in, in Walmart. Yeah. I mean, or you couldn't even find clean basic ingredients because the shelves are so filled with, you know, crazy chemical cleaners and a million of them. Yeah. That I actually couldn't even find the ingredients of single, you know, ingredient substances.

So. The world has changed a lot. I think the world has changed, you know, especially even in the last couple weeks [00:10:00] for sure. But the idea that, you know, we have gotten to a place where people are aware of this topic, they're understanding, there may be questions about the safety of the chemicals that we're around, that there are options for what to do about it.

And by the way, I think regulation is great. Whenever you see it coming down the pike or, or taken off the table, who knows. I don't even care who's in charge. It's too slow for human health. We're never, you take red dye number three out, which is fantastic. It's, but it's like this one thing and. And that's the system.

I mean, so, you know, people always ask me, what do you think about all this other stuff in politics? And I'm like, I applaud regulation, but I don't think in terms of human health that we're, we're really solving any problems in terms of disease prevention by just taking one thing out at a time. It's just, it's never gonna hit the mark.

Julie Michelson: And I get that they have to start somewhere, but when you think of how quickly we've created all of these chemical compounds, right. You [00:11:00] know, and it, it's just, it's kind of wild. It really is. And I am, I, I think one of the things, uh, I do, I, there's not a ton I really want. Extremely regulated. Um, but I do think people assume that if stuff is on the market, it's safe.

Right? Right. I think we're micromanaging the wrong things and we're not educating people about what's really going on. Um, I don't wanna presume, but I, I, I did, as I was reading your book, people ask me all the time, you know, when I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, I was 34. Even my rheumatologist said at the time, you know, you're so young.

Everybody was like, you're so young, and now I feel like if you make it to 34 without an autoimmune diagnosis or some other kind of chronic illness, you're rare like it. It has changed that quickly over the past few decades

Aly Cohen: for sure. I'm sure you've seen that in your clinic, but I've seen that as a [00:12:00] rheumatologist and.

Then it, it's mirrored by the epidemiologic studies from around the world. So we now know that between seven and 14% of even just the US population has one type of autoimmune disease. And there are about 80 Western, you know, diagnosable, um, autoimmune diseases. There's lots of things that are gray zone.

They don't fit all. Those criteria, which I talk about in the book as a rheumatologist, we're detectives. We have to come up with things and figure out stuff that may not hit the marks for all the classically taught med school, you know, textbook, you know, criteria for a disease or not. But we have such an epidemic that.

Look at the drug market, you know, and I use all the drugs by the way. I am not anti-medication. I look at it as another set of tools, which I think, you know, we can all wrap our head around.

Julie Michelson: Yeah, I, I mean, I went through that phase as the patient coming off of 10 prescriptions That didn't work.

Aly Cohen: Yeah.

Julie Michelson: I was a little anti med in, in the beginning of my journey until I really started to work fully in functional medicine and realized, okay, there's a [00:13:00] time and a place and the bigger toolbox.

Is, is the best. That's what we say at the clinic, right? Like, let's, but also let's get to the drivers, right? That, you know, I always say to people, you know, I, I, I want your doctors to do do what mine did, which is you don't need this anymore. Yeah, that's all. Like

Aly Cohen: let, but just being judicious, you know, do we need it?

What's the outcome? What's the goals? Did I meet the goals? Are there safer alternatives? What are the side effects? Do they mix with other drugs? These are the kinds of things that, you know, if you, I've had patients that have been left on medicines for 20, 20 years, and I'm always asking like, you, your body has changed.

You're not even. Gonna have gal the same person anymore, you're eating. Exactly. I'm like, your body is not even the same. So, you know, we have to attempt to see if we can, you know, get off of that particular drug. So I think it's just a matter of being a, an advocate, um, for yourself, having agency over your body.

Um, asking very simple, [00:14:00] reasonable questions to your healthcare provider. And then I believe in, you know, you know, being a, you know, a, an a savvy consumer, and this is why the book was designed to have ICD 10 codes. If you wanna get some metals tested and whole blood, and you wanna get it done through your insurance, like surprise, surprise, like have your insurance cover it, then you need the right ICD 10 codes.

You wanna hand that to your doctor and say, listen, would you mind just writing this on a script? You don't have to know, walk from power or whatever. You don't even necessarily have to look up an ICD 10 code. It's here or something. I love

Julie Michelson: that. I love that. You're like, okay, this is how easy we can make it for people, you know?

Um, and, and it, and we have come, that has improved as well that we can get. Some of this stuff. Um, I was kind of smiling as I was reading the book 'cause some of the, your favorite panels are some of my favorite panels. And those would be, I, I consider more of like in the functional medicine kind of cash pay.[00:15:00]

Um, but I love that we've gotten to a place where I. You know, there are ICD 10 codes that can use and to run some of this testing through insurance.

Aly Cohen: Yeah. Like, again, I want people to save their money for the important stuff, like getting a reverse osmosis water filter for $300 and playing a, paying a ru, you know, a plumber, 150 bucks here in New Jersey, just to put one in for an hour.

It takes an hour to put it in. I want people to really be thinking about how to use their money, their sacred, well-earned, hard-earned money, and put it to the right stuff so that you have solutions you can start to heal. You can start feeling how your body gets better, how you feel better, how your inflammation gets better.

'cause those patient patient cases in the book are really representative. A lot of patients that you either, you know, have seen or maybe you recognize in yourself. So it's just one of those ways. How do you get into the, the, the mindset of a practitioner to see how they whittle it down to solutions,

Julie Michelson: uh, which is, is so, and you [00:16:00] do, I I think that's one of the, the, um, brilliant approaches in the book is that I.

Anybody who has dealt with chronic just inflammation, forget diagnoses, any of those things. Anyone who you know has had the fatigue, the pain, the whatever, fill in the blank, their sys, their symptoms are. Um, I love just a, between your story and the, and the patient stories that you share in the book, they're so relatable.

Right. We were, we were joking, you know, earlier, uh, since I grew up in New Jersey as well, and, and even it's the garden state and it is one of the dirtiest places

Aly Cohen: you can be garden slash pesticide, fertilized state. Um, but they're, you know, they're great farmers. I actually live out with a lot of them in my town, believe it or not.

Julie Michelson: Oh, I do believe it. 'cause I, I know where I, I lived not far from where you live, so I, I, I, I miss how lush and green it, it gets there, but yeah. Um, [00:17:00] it, it's, we don't, you don't have to work in a toxic waste dump to be exposed. You know, one of my, my favorite stories you shared in the book was, was, um, the gentleman who owned the pizzeria, I.

Yeah. Right. Like, these are regular ways and you actually really got me thinking about, you know, 'cause one of the first things I tend to do with people that are kind of still in the, the sad diet, um, is the move off of soda, right? Yeah. So, so the, you know, and a lot of people are, are drinking seltzers and drink, you know, and we just, it's like we, the.

The packaging

Aly Cohen: you're talking about the food packaging? Yes. Things that are sort of outside of even the macros of food. You're making

Julie Michelson: a good choice, but then you're still getting exposed. Right. Um, and again, it's not about per and that is where sometimes testing can be great because, you know, we

Aly Cohen: sometimes it's a motivating.

Process. You know, sometimes you have to show people what they need to see in order [00:18:00] to get them moving. Mm-hmm. Sometimes you just have to say, well, what do you wanna be healthy for your kids? You know your career. Right. What's your why? Yeah. What is your why? And if their why is reasonable enough for them to get started, it's not my, you know, I, I, you and I are feed what we can.

Right. But really always going to be the individuals, whether or not they wanna move in that direction and how much they wanna do. And, and that's fine. The journey is, is long and, I mean, I'm still on it and I'm still discovering, you know, a new way to do this or a new way to do that. And it took, I don't know, 10 years to realize that I was washing my, rinsing my fruit under the regular sink instead of the reverse.

Those boat is 10 feet away. And I was like. Why am I doing that? Like, that's so silly. You know, I was, see there's

Julie Michelson: that human part again. I was literally writing a presentation on toxins. This was about probably six years ago. And I, I looked up and in that moment noticed that I was using like the old school drip coffee pot.

It, it had the [00:19:00] stainless car, but the rest of it was all plastic. And yeah, I used it every day for how long? And it was just like, all of a sudden I saw it.

Aly Cohen: And, and that's the, with the fact you saw it. I mean that's the ideas. And even I teach high school and I just spoke to 600 kids at my kids' high school.

And the kids, obviously my kids hated that, but I'm sure. But how wonderful. Find, they'll be proud at some point in their life. Um, but I said to them, you know, you're not gonna know the chemicals I talked about today. You're not gonna. These are, this is not the point. The point is your body's a sponge. Your body will absorb things throughout your life, whether it's your skin, whether it's intravaginally with feminine care, whether it's, you know, you're shampooing it, whether it's what you eat and what you drink.

The point is to be conscious, to have that awareness now that there can be problems from what you choose, and you just realize that you are walking around with a different vision of how you move through life. And I think that's really the big take home. Before anything else because all the minutia is enough to make anyone very scared.

It's so you [00:20:00] wanna do that way when you're re you know, when you can, uh, sit down and really think about it.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. It's so overwhelming. I wanna, you mentioned water and ro a couple times. Um. And not everybody I love again. I really do appreciate that. You like, 'cause I am somebody. I do, I have a whole house filter and an ro at my sink, you know?

Um, because I was like in the heat of, of learning all of this stuff when I built this house and I, I was like, I, I want this and that. They were like, are you crazy? They said the same thing though when I, I said, you know, I want incandescent light bulbs. They were like, nobody does that anymore. Like, well. I do.

Um, but water is one of the, is like kind of step one, right? This is this, we're we're all impacted Yeah. By water. And, and you, you share such wisdom because I, I think most of us tend to, I see it all the time. [00:21:00] Um, you did it in your journey. I did it in my journey at one point. We think that the bottled water, um.

You know, is a, is a great solution without considering a, what's, what's in it. Um, can we just touch on that a little bit as, as far as bottled water and then obviously the packaging.

Aly Cohen: Yeah. So, you know, when I did a deep dive into water, I thought to myself, first of all, there's no books on this. Well, there are a few really good ones out there, I think since that time.

But, um, there's no, there's no one really talking about water. We spend a lot of time about which diet? Whole 30 Mediterranean. You know, like keto. We spend a lot of time on the macros of food. We don't really talk about the quality and we also don't talk about water. And the thing about water is that we ma, we're made up of water 85.

You know, percent of our body is water. Um, and in order to really help our body rinse from anything we're exposed to, you really kind of need to start with water coming in. So I thought to myself, well, let me learn about this. So it turns out [00:22:00] that wastewater treatment plants that are make our tap water, so to speak mm-hmm.

Not coming from a, well, it comes from Municipal Tap, and it's a system that we have in the us. And there are about 160,000 of these wastewater treatment plants that, that scatter the country. And, um, then there's 15% of the US population is serviced by wells, whether it's under your home or a local township.

Um, and more rural, you get, of course, you're not gonna be connected to the water systems. So those are wells. Either way, you get your water, you are going to wanna clean it when it hits your home, because that's where you have the greatest amount of control. And the reason we really need to think about this.

Is because the wastewater treatment plants, those 160,000 of them only follow a law from 1974 still. Oh my BES called the Safe Drinking Water Act, which has not really changed at all in 50 years. And under that law, only 91 chemicals, um, like arsenic [00:23:00] and benzene. Um, and there's a bunch of others people might recognize, but only 91.

Chemicals are actually measured routinely and remediated. If they hit a level called an MCLA maximum concentration level, which by the way is arguably a lot higher than EPA than most humans would deem safe, right? But it has to be regulated by the EEPA at that level. But we have thousands of chemicals that get into our municipal tap water from lakes, from streams, from aquifers, from sewage, from.

Oh, of course there's farms. Yeah. Even in 91 is gonna do really anything, especially when it's treated with chlorine, fluoride and detergents before it leaves, you know? Uh, and then travels through PVC piping and lead potentially. So the idea that water is not clean when it hits your house,

Julie Michelson: but

Aly Cohen: we need

Julie Michelson: to drink a lot of water,

Aly Cohen: of course.

And so water's so critical. It's part of detoxifying, it's part of keeping your kidneys healthy, keeping your liver flushed, keeping your lymphatic system moving. But we wanna think [00:24:00] about what we put in. And so bottled water is regulated by the FDA, not the EPA. So it doesn't even have to go through any stringent 91 Chemical Safe Drinking Water Act, you know, oversight.

Oh goodness. It's often municipal tap water, 75% is just, you know, a company filling up their tap, you know, using tap water and then selling it to you or me. Yep. Four bucks. So the idea that we can control our water at home, um, and bring it with us to dinner like I do, or a three gallon one on weekend trips or to lacrosse practices with my kids, or, there's lots of options that I talk about in the book, but I want people to understand why there's value in at least moving forward in a filtration process.

Julie Michelson: Absolutely. And with that being said, back to the, it's, it's not about being perfect, right? Correct. You correct. You mentioned in the book you travel, I travel. There is a time where your best option is going to be bottled water. I tend to go for Italian mineral wa mineral [00:25:00] water in a glass bottle. Um, but.

You know, and, and that's just my easy routine. I land wherever I am traveling, I go, you know, to to Whole Foods and buy the, my favorite brain, you know, but, but that's me. And you don't, it doesn't have to be that perfect.

Aly Cohen: Oh, and, and on that note, I mean, which I agree with a thousand percent, is that you can also bring a big stainless steel bottle.

Um, I wonder if I have it here. I have one here. Uh, I don't talk about brands, but just uhhuh, basically. Stainless steel glass. You empty it before security. On the other side, there's all these carbon block filters that are not necessarily as aggressive as I would at home. Yeah, but now you don't even have to buy plastic water bottles.

You can literally, it's true.

Julie Michelson: I, I am a bit of a water princess and most airports I. Don't like the taste of, I can still smell like the chemicals. Yeah. Um, it depends on the airport. Some of 'em are good, so I do travel with that and I [00:26:00] try it first. Um,

Aly Cohen: but even with plastic water bottles, you can look at the ingredients.

People don't even realize that even in an airport or in a store, you could literally, if there's none that are made in glass, obviously that would be a good choice. Yeah. You can look at the ingredients and it'll tell you how that water was cleaned, whether it was made, you know, cleaned by Distillation or Oz Nation Municipal Tap, or even reverse osmosis, which I would recommend people, you know, consider, because you have options, even when you need to take, you know, to, to use plastic

Julie Michelson: water bottles for sure.

Yeah. Which I love again, 'cause you, you, it's, you give so much. I think really doable. Again, don't, listeners don't read the book and try to do everything she says in the book in a weekend. Like that's not, it's a process about one up level. You mentioned detergent. It's funny, that was the first, you know, a homemade cleaning product I made.

Mine came out. I did it once and I never did it again. Um. But even like the, you know, [00:27:00] water, when we're talking about what's going in our body, um, you know, water is a number one hit and, and same, you know, really think about that impact as you trade out products over time. And I do have people start with detergent because everything you wear, the sheets you sleep on, the towels, you dry with your dish towels, like everything.

Yeah, pretty much it is touched by your detergent and so it's one swap.

Aly Cohen: Yeah, one swap is a great way. Yeah. I could do one swap a month. You could do, you know. Yeah. Literally there's no pressure. There's, it's a journey. I mean, I, like I said, um, but like one swap I even said to, when I first learned about all these cruciferous vegetables, we actually started using one new cruciferous vegetable in our diet.

Per month. I love that. Yeah. And that to me was enough to try one recipe and one food. And I, like, I'm telling you, I don't like to cook and I, I am busy. But I think that that was just a really interesting learning experience. Didn't last forever, but it did. It was a great attempt [00:28:00] to, to sort of open up my mind and, and expand my palate a little bit to see what else is out there.

That's yummy.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. And it's one of my favorite things about when, you know, going to farmer's markets is trying. We actually, yeah. Um, act. I see. I'm not perfect. I got my groceries delivered and I am a little bit of a control freak. I don't usually order produce. For other people to choose for me. Um, but I, there I, whatever I wanted to make a pot of chicken soup.

We, we were sick and, and instead of sending me turnips, they sent me, um, hi curry turnips, which are one of my favorite vegetables that I had never heard of my entire life until I was doing a, a community share at a, at a local farm about probably. 10, 12 years ago. Mm-hmm. And it was in one of the boxes and they taught me how to, you know, we grow them all the time now.

Um, you know, but ours are still seeds at the garden right now. Um, but so that [00:29:00] I, that idea of, we, we tend to, we eat the things we were raised being fed. Right? Right. And so this, there are so many veggies that actually really do a lot of work for us. Um, yeah. You know, and yeah, food,

Aly Cohen: medicine, food works for us.

So aside from even water, you know, in the book I talk about all the foods that actually are remarkable because they've been around for millions of years. Just like our bodies, just like our gut microbiome that needs all of this good stuff. And there are compounds in regular vegetables and produce that actually offset.

Some of the harm that is done to our epigene epigenome, which is our genetic expression. Um, but we know some of these chemicals can affect our, our epigenome and these compounds have been remarkable in reducing those changes. So food is medicine and it's really a powerhouse against, you know, this, this topic of environmental chemicals that you don't always know that you're exposed to, right?

And so I wanted [00:30:00] people to know about that and also understand how onions and alliums and that whole group and the sulfur containing foods are so good for the body and how the liver just churns these chemicals up and breaks them down with cruciferous vegetables and all the antioxidants. So it's, it's about empowerment, but it's also about choosing the right things for, you know, really, um, you know, reduction of harm.

Julie Michelson: Which is, is, again, so important. And I think s so many of our listeners are women, 'cause so many with autoimmunity are women. Um, and when you think of something like, like, you know, s um, dim. Like, like it's not just offsetting environmental toxins in that way. You know, I think that this hormone disruption because of the toxins and you do a beautiful job in the book explaining kind of the why.

There's a lot of noise. There's been a lot of noise. And unless somebody is really into this [00:31:00] stuff like me and wants to do their own research right, and gets excited about it. Um, it, it, it just becomes noise and, and Right. What does it really mean? You know? And for so many women, you know, so many of us recycle our estrogen and, and so it e eating these good veggies, uh, we don't need a medication to fix something that's not a.

Medication deficit. We just need the things, you know, it's, it's all back to nature, right? You talk about, oh, fiber

Aly Cohen: is remarkable. Fiber is remarkable for bowel health and colon cancer. Also happens to, you know, sop up a lot of the chemicals in our gut. So you get nutrition from nutri, Nutri from certain foods, but you can also get the mechanical stuff, which is really so important to human evolution and human health.

So there's so many, like, I hope I, I, I explain these things well because I'm trying to get people to think about the fact that we have the power to [00:32:00] do so much. Yes. That's the key take home, you know, and some of the, it's,

Julie Michelson: and I, I really feel. That the book is, it is so empowering and obviously that's the whole reason I started the podcast.

Right? I remember that point of diagnoses, feeling like that was it. I mean, I was basically told, I. You know? Yep. Expected decline. We will try to slow it down as much as we can. Yeah. That was what I was told. I'm guessing that is not what your patients hear when they come

Aly Cohen: see you. No, actually, they hear a lot of what they haven't heard in a very long time.

Uhhuh, which I think, uh, part of why a lot of people do better just by hear, by having me hear them, listen to them, validate them, make sure that even if their labs are normal doesn't mean that they have to, they don't need an

Julie Michelson: antidepressant because they don't feel well with normal labs. Yeah.

Aly Cohen: Absolutely.

They look great on paper, but they don't feel good. So, I mean, I think there's a lot to be said for the way you practice. The way I practice, and how the mind, when [00:33:00] you're told positive reinforcement and hopefulness and empowerment, it really changes actually how you are. Health moves forward for sure

Julie Michelson: it does.

On a cellular. We know that on a cellular level there, there's big impact there. But when I. When I, you know, even reading the book, all, all of this is, I feel like we have come so far away from how humans were designed to live, that none of this is rocket science. It's. It's, you know, you make it so digestible, you give the science for, again, those of us that love those rabbit holes, right?

Or just additional information. Right. Um, 'cause I do feel that accurate information is empowering as well. Um, but it, it, it, if we just simplify the approach. To, okay. You know, maybe we're not supposed to drink treated wastewater. Maybe we're [00:34:00] not, you know, like all of these things is just getting a little, maybe we are supposed to move our bodies.

I loved that you mentioned trampoline and rebounding. You know, our lymphatic system plays such a huge role, but also, uh, that's why I was like, we speak the same language, you know, it. It should be fun. Who jumps on a trampoline and is like, oh, I have to exercise. Like, no, and

Aly Cohen: sit there watching your favorite show while you're trampoline.

You don't have fun in the house. You don't have to do much. Don't fall. But yes, it's the idea. Give people as many options to just get their body moving because that too is part of this evolutionary anthropological. Process that we've sort of stumbled over because life is busy, you know? Yeah. We're all busy, but we have to bind that time, um, and make it kind of something we enjoy instead of a burden.

Yeah.

Julie Michelson: Well, uh, and so where can folks find the book first, and then I have a couple other questions for you, but where's the best place to get detoxify?

Aly Cohen: Um, Amazon, um, Barnes and [00:35:00] Noble, I think it's easy as Amazon. They, it comes in the same day, which is so funny 'cause my husband just ordered a few copies. Um, but yeah, no, you know, anything online, uh, certainly and you can support your local bookstores wherever you feel comfortable.

Um, but yeah, that's, and also my website, the smart human.com. There you go on social media are the smart human. And that's where I post on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, all that stuff. I have a web, I have a paid, uh. A podcast too for environmental health. If you wanna do deep dives into breast cancer or you know, integrated cardiology.

There's a wonderful interview with Vivian Caminos, all these things. But I also have courses, very small but powerful little courses on the smart human.com. Like one's on heavy metals exposure, one is on EMF radiation, one is on, um, detoxifying. It goes into more detail of course. So, you know, wherever people can find me is fine.

Or the book, it's pretty much online or I'm in Princeton. So

Julie Michelson: I love it. And I know there's so much I wanna talk about we didn't get [00:36:00] to, but listeners are leaning in 'cause they know, as I'm wrapping up, I always ask for what is one step that people can, it's a trick, it's a tough one, one step people can take starting today to improve their health.

Aly Cohen: One step today to improve their health? I would say the first thing is stop buying junk. I would say, in terms of this topic, I think we save money if we just stop buying a lot of products. I think the more you know, the more we bring into our home, the more likely we're gonna get exposed to stuff we don't even know about.

So I'm all about kind of keeping it simple, you know what I mean? I love it.

Julie Michelson: Yeah, it's one of the, my, the, the kiss. Keep it simple, stupid. Not that we think you're stupid. This is my big takeaway from undergrad was keep it simple,

Aly Cohen: buy less and whatever you like, just swap out to better, safer stuff. But we buy a lot of junk.

I, I, I cleared out a whole drawer, as you know, in the book of, of. Plugin [00:37:00] scented, you know, air fresheners and the whole drawer was filled with every flavor, scent of places I wanted to be. Ocean breeze and Uhhuh. I realized very quickly that that was not something I needed in my life.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. Which is great. I, I laugh 'cause I used to be like, I was also a, a centa holic.

Yeah. Before my toxic burden just tipped me. Now I, I am. Still, I'm so sensitive to fragrance and, and things less reactive than I used to be. But I, I, I joke 'cause I'm like, I wonder if that's why. I mean, I had candle trays on a, you know, in every room and a plugin in my car. All the things. Now I am like, I wish they would have a button on Uber where you could do the fragrance free.

Aly Cohen: I know when I travel, because one of the biggest areas, people always talk about that in, in terms of the, uh. But I, I mean, it's, I've taken pictures and I'm like,

Julie Michelson: it's awful.

Aly Cohen: It's awful. But, you know, no one, they didn't get the memo. And I know, I know we're not [00:38:00] there yet. I don't know. But uh, yeah, eventually we'll give 'em all copies of detox.

So I will let Uber know.

Julie Michelson: Well, I, I already told you I'm ordering a, we're, we're gonna stock it at the clinic. It is for anybody even listening on the go. I keep holding the book up, but you, you just. Order one, like you said, support your local store if you ha if you still have one, if you're lucky enough to still have a local bookstore, but Amazon is pretty quick.

So, um, Ailey, thank you so much for the, the work you're doing, but the, the getting the word out there in a way that, that people can really just take some simple actions, um, and then hopefully not need a rheumatologist at some point. That's the goal.

Aly Cohen: Amazing. So let's keep from, you know, needing to see me or anyone else in Mount in healthcare, so, yeah.

Julie Michelson: Yeah. Are you working with anybody outside of your physical practice? Do you, if somebody is like, oh my gosh, there is [00:39:00] such a thing as an integrative rheumatologist.

Aly Cohen: Yeah, I mean, I, I have no ego about it. I, I actually consult with lots of patients all over the country. I can't order or prescribe, uh, outside of, say, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, people who live, you know, and can come in right,

Julie Michelson: local.

Aly Cohen: But the, you know, a second opinion was that came about in the United, you know, with doctors, right? So I always like to weigh in if people wanna hear my opinion. Or at least just contribute, you know, a nutritional or environmental piece. You know, the thing is about Western rheumatologists is they're very excellent at what they do.

Mm-hmm. You know, I'm not against doctors. I'm not even against, you know, the ones practicing now that maybe didn't get that training. But I'm happy to weigh in so that we support the patient. It's about the patient, not me. Sure. As long as people want that opinion, I, I'm happy to offer it and, and weigh in.

And usually I've never had really any pushback from even other rheumatologists. Yeah.

Julie Michelson: Well most of us are doing what we're doing because we wanna help people. And, and so I do feel like if you have that occasion, if you have a doctor who doesn't wanna learn. [00:40:00] Find another doctor, like Yeah, it's probably not a great sign.

Yeah, yeah. It might not be the best match, but, um, so, so good to know. Check her out on her website, but get the book, um, and just take one step at a time, so for sure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much,

Aly Cohen: Julie, for having me and for inviting me into your special community, so I appreciate it. Thank you everyone for listening.

Thank

Julie Michelson: you for everyone listening on the go. Remember, you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting Inspired Living Show. Hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.