Transcription of Marcelle Pick for the show Replenish #4
Dr. Lisa: Today in the studio we have Marcelle Pick. Marcelle Pick co-founded Women to Women in 1983 with a vision to change the way in which women’s healthcare is delivered.
Marcelle earned at BS in nursing from the University of New Hampshire School of Nursing. A BA in psychology from the University of New Hampshire and her MS in nursing from a Boston College Harvard Medical School. She is certified as an OBGYN nurse practitioner and a pediatric nurse practitioner and serves on the advisory board for the integrated healthcare symposium as well as the renowned Hoffman Institute and lectures on a variety of topics including weight loss resistance, infertility, stress and illness and adrenal dysfunction.
She hosts a weekly radio show, Core Balance for Women’s Health on hayhouseradio.com. Marcelle published her first book, The Core Balanced Diet in 2009 and her second book, Are You Tired and Wired? earlier this year. We’re so grateful to have you here.
Marcelle: I’m delighted to be here.
Dr. Lisa: I also have next to me, Genevieve Morgan who I know spent some time in the last few years with you doing this exciting project, The Core Balanced Diet.
Genevieve: And much more. I was just saying to Marcelle that she was one of the first people who got me interested in topics around alternative medicine and self-care and self-help. She’s my guiding light in the field of wellness.
Dr. Lisa: I’m fascinated by this because in 1983, that was a long time ago.
Marcelle: It was a long time ago.
Dr. Lisa: You’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into a field that very recently has had a lot of success but you were doing this before other people were finding this as interesting as they do.
Marcelle: A lot of the things that we actually did in 1983 have actually proven now to be probably more accurate now than they were back then. We weren’t really well accepted back then so it’s definitely hard for us back then but we were persistent about following through with what we believe to be true. Also, science was supporting us although there was not a lot of literature to do that but there is now.
Dr. Lisa: What did cause you to be so sure of yourselves back in 1983, so sure that even though the science may not have been there you wanted to follow through, you wanted to push through?
Marcelle: A lot of it I think comes back to my background. I grew up in Australia and I spent a lot of time in aboriginal caves. I was very committed to the notion that there’s something a little bit bigger than we are that we don’t always, we can’t always rely on the absolute gospel of science to be so sure of things.
I came very early to understand that nature and connection to the earth is very, very important and that the healing modalities are also about connecting with yourself as well looking at nature for some of the answers, not always looking from the scientific model. I didn’t understand that until I was older but that was the foundation of what I grew up, it’s what I lived and breathed until I came to America when I was 11.
Dr. Lisa: I completely agree with you and this is one of the reasons why I started doing traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, I’m looking at other healing traditions because for me it is about what works, what works for the patient. Just like you, we are finding more and more in traditional Chinese medicine and even Ayurvedic medicine that the studies are backing it up which is what we were saying, right? Before we went on, that you went through 700 studies, something like this to create the background research for your book Are You Tired and Wired. Tell me what that was like.
Marcelle: One of the things that I saw in my practice, we have a culture of women that are burning the candle on both ends that are exhausted, they’re getting sicker more than they have before in their lives and I got motivated to write the book because there’s a lot of books on adrenal issues out there but they all talk about the quick fix.
When I started to understand is I would see the same people over and over in my office. I give them the supplements, I’d encourage them to exercise, change their diet and they were back in my office again.
I realized that if I didn’t write a book to help you understand if you don’t change your lifestyle, if you don’t change your script, if you don’t change your patterns of behaviors you’re never going to be able to get those adrenals well on term. That’s what motivated me to write the book is too many people were staying sick.
Dr. Lisa: Will you tell us about the adrenals, where are they and what do they do?
Marcelle: The adrenals I think are a very often not talked about and we never talk about them unless people have huge issues like adrenal cancer, adrenal problems. We never really talk about the fact that adrenals are crucial. If you don’t have adrenal function you can’t function, we have stress in our lives every day but their problem is that they were meant to work so that we had stress with a battle or war and the war would be over and we’d go back to life.
Now we have computers, we have iPads, we have iPhones, we have Blackberry’s, We have work, we have kids, we have parents that are aging and women now feel like they have to do it all.
They’re working and trying to be mothering and perhaps not mothering but working extra hours and they can’t do it all. What’s happening is that the adrenals, which is so important to deal with stress but they also produce 50 different hormones, they can’t keep up with the pace. They’re continuing to have to push out cortisol which is one of the things that they produce.
Ultimately they produce it for so long they get deplete and then they are exhausted and they can’t do their day.
Dr. Lisa: Did you find this relevant in your own life?
Marcelle: Are you kidding? Of course, who hasn’t? I had a one year old and then twins three weeks later. I had twins, I had a full time practice. I was on call. I was the person that was making the money in the practice and I was trying to be a mother. Oh yeah! Absolutely, who hasn’t?
It’s learning from yourself but also seeing it in your patients. I think one of the things I say a lot is I think the feminist movement was wonderful for us but it also cost us because we had to do both and I’m not sure you can. I’m not sure you can do it equally well, it’s just very difficult. Something’s got to give.
The thing I think happens for women is that they don’t take care of themselves and that’s ultimately what happens especially with the adrenal issues.
Dr. Lisa: Gen and I both understand exactly what you’re saying, both of us as parents, as mothers, we, and working women. We’re doing exactly as you’ve described. I think growing up in a time when we were told, go to medical school, go to college to get these degrees. At the other side somebody, not only does somebody have to take care of the children and the household but somebody wants to. For me, that was the bottom line is I gave birth to my children and I wanted to be there for them.
Genevieve: Then you’re also pulled with the work and you want to do that well too. It’s how do you find the balance and how do you find the dance of that?
Dr. Lisa: How do you? What is your solution?
Marcelle: I think the biggest solution is starting to understand that there are things sometimes if you’re a perfectionist, which many women tend to be or a multitasking, there’s things you’re going to have to prioritize. There are some things you just can’t do. Maybe the dishes don’t get done. Maybe you can’t do that extra thing. Maybe you have to say no to something at work but it’s learning to set those boundaries for yourself. Sometimes it takes you understanding what is it that I do consistently? What’s my pattern that I’ve learned that I need to unlearn and do differently? I think that’s where women have a hard time because they want to do it all and do it all well and you can’t. Something’s going to give.
As women, our adrenals tend to give. Ultimately what happens is when you have adrenals that are working too hard for too long. What people don’t understand is when you have adrenals that are not working it actually dis-regulates the hormones, it causes tremendous problem with blood sugar dis-regulation, GI issues that affects the immune system, down regulates thyroid functions. We’ve got this whole system including the GI system that then is not working the way that it should and people wonder why they’re sick more often. A lot of it we talk about, “Decrease your stress.” It’s much more complicated than that.
Dr. Lisa: The stress always exists. Gen you have a son in high school and a son in middle school.
Genevieve: Yes I do.
Dr. Lisa: I have a son who just graduated and then I have a daughter in high school and a 10 year old. This has been ongoing. You think, “Well, when the kids get a little bigger it’s going to get a little easier.” It does in some ways but not in others. The stress is always there. You can’t get rid of your kids. You can’t necessarily get rid of your job, and we don’t want to. Most of us want to be able to do lots of things to have a very rich and fulfilling life.
Marcelle: Of course. There’s things we can do in the day time. For example, not rushing for breakfast. Making sure that you have five to 10 minutes to sit down, breath and eat your food, to chew your food two times a day for two minutes, breath.
There’s small things you can do that have huge impact. There’s concepts of taking time for yourself and it doesn’t have to be ours but it’s just moments in which you really sit and smell the roses. If you have five minutes, great, if you have 15 minutes that’s even better. The more you fill yourself up the more you’re going to have for your children.
That’s the notion we talk about on airplanes putting the oxygen mask on yourself first. That’s really true. The more you have energy, the more you can give to others including patients. If you don’t fill this vessel up, you don’t have enough left over.
I think that happens a lot to women. Women to try to do it all, it does happen to men for sure. Symptoms, I classify them in three ways. I think there’s more but I want it to make it easy in the book. I talk about the person who’s the race horse, the person who’s running all the time, burning the candle on both ends, can’t stop, has lots of bounding energy until sometimes they hit the wall. When they hit the wall they might be the person who then becomes the work horse, exhausted in the morning, can’t get to sleep at night or falls asleep and then can’t get back to sleep.
We have the person that I call the flat line who is just exhausted all the time and they’re usually the ones that whose cortisol levels are really low. They don’t fit the criteria that we call traditional medicine, Addison syndrome which is definitely a disease or cushing syndrome which is too much cortisol.
There’s so much room in between which people are on either extreme in which they really feel horrible because of all the things when the adrenals don’t work that it causes problems with.
It’s really important that all of us pay attention and to say, “What I am doing in my life that maybe contributing to my poor adrenals having to work too hard for too long?” The really interesting thing is 30% of estrogen and progesterone is produced by adrenals prior to menopause. 50% is produced after menopause.
What you see in women perimenopausally is the more stress they have, the more symptoms they have as they journey into menopause. The thing that they can work on then is working to shift that stress level. Again, it’s not that simple, it’s looking at, “What am I doing consistently that’s making me feel like I’m just always on the run. I never have time. I’m always exhausted. I’m not sleeping well. What do I need to change in addition to nutrients on my diet?”
Dr. Lisa: One of the things that I love to see is the rise in yoga, tai chi, qigong, all these very restorative, what we call yin practices. There’s yin and yang and yin is the very quiet energy, the nurturing energy. Is this something that you suggest people take advantage of?
Marcelle: Absolutely. The thing that’s so important is people have to find what works for them. Sometimes when I say it in my practice and say, “What about this? It’s just too much for people to take on because they’re so busy.” It’s an add-on.
I talk a lot about bursting exercise, but again, if somebody is the flat liner and they’re so tired, that’s not going to work. I don’t want their pulse rate over 90 until they’re healed first.
For other that might be the race horse, got a little bit of energy, they feel better after they exercise. I would give them small amounts of exercise to do so that they actually do it.
Sometimes when I say yoga it’s like, “Oh my God! It’s too overwhelming. I don’t have time for an hour.” It’s like, “Okay, how about 10 minutes?” Can we just start with that? Find something you love that makes you happy that you want to do often.
Genevieve: Lisa, you must see something like adrenal fatigue in your traditional Chinese medical practice. When I go to a regular doctor and talk about adrenal fatigue, a term I learned through my studies with Marcelle, they look at me askance and they say, “Well, that doesn’t exist.” I’m wondering, there seems to be some controversy about adrenal fatigue.
Marcelle: I think that whenever we start something new it takes about 30 years for medicine to catch up. At this point I agree with the notion that adrenal fatigue is probably not a great definition. It’s really more that the adrenals are hyper or hypo, they’re producing too little or too much cortisol. I think we really need to name it that and call it what it is. The reality is scientifically we know from the studies that when you have too much cortisol it has consequences and when you don’t have enough cortisol it has consequences.
The example I give is if somebody is diabetic and when they come in your office and they’re diabetic. If you look back at their blood sugars they didn’t become diabetic overnight. There was a trending that you could see. What I’m looking for with adrenals and the cortisol is what’s the trending. If I’m seeing high production all the time, what I know is that’s going to have a consequence. Let’s not call it adrenal fatigue, let’s call it something else. Hyper or hypo cortisol production or we’ll figure out a fancy word for it. That’s probably more appropriate. I think we call it that then maybe we won’t get as much pushback from the medical community.
I think the pushback is coming from the notion, a new age notion of adrenal fatigue. Fatigue doesn’t really describe what’s happening. There’s something even more important here and that is that we don’t tend to, in our practices, generally in medicine, talk about emotions very much.
Emotions was part of what drove me to write this book is that if we don’t understand some of the ways we hate the patterns that we have which are founded in emotions we’re not going to change.
They did a very large study that was not given much publicity in 1998. It was 50,000 men and women that were evaluated with Kaiser Permanente and the CDC looking to see if they had adverse childhood events in their childhood, did it impact health later on life? Things like heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer. Those are pretty big problems in our culture. The answer was a resounding absolutely. The more the adverse events including just verbal abuse or neglect or criticism, judgment, perfectionism, that affected health outcomes later.
We know scientifically that there’s a direct relationship but we don’t talk about that very often in medicine and that’s another piece to the puzzle. Certainly with the adrenals is if someone’s pushing themselves so hard, who they’re trying to prove themselves to and how can they change that model and start loving themselves enough that they’re going to change what they do and how they do it, just in baby steps. It doesn’t have to be big things, just baby steps.
Dr. Lisa: I feel like this notion has been around long enough that maybe we should be a little closer to this. Does it sometimes frustrate you that this has been out there so long and you’ve been talking about it for such a long time and yet these issues are still there?
Marcelle: Yeah, of course. I sometimes, I’m always surprised doing my own practice when I see a very complicated person that’s been to 15, 20 people because I see it often, they come to see me from all over the country and I look at the record and then I sit down with them and I look at the tremendous pain they had as children. Huge amounts of pain, horrible, horrible things.
We talk about it, what are some avenues that we can help you heal with yoga, with body work, and of course physically to support the adrenals because that’s usually the organ system that gets depleted the fastest. Those people then start to heal.
I don’t know the answer to why in medicine, we’re not talking about it. It’s crucial that the A study should have been on the front page in New York Times. I actually called the New York Times and said, “Why is this not front page material?” Any drug that had this impact would have made headlines.
It doesn’t have to do with money, it doesn’t have to do with politics. I don’t know the answer to that, I’m suspicious but I don’t know. It’s definitely something we know is true and many people don’t know this study exist.
Genevieve: Marcelle, how did people find practitioners in their community? How did they find a clinic like women to women?
Marcelle: Are there people out there doing the work you do? The good news is yes there are a lot of people that do it but I’m also cautious because I think some people really need to have the bigger perspective.
I practice functional medicine which is means that I’m trained to look at if somebody’s having a problem what’s upstream, what’s going on to cause that problem instead of figuring out what the diagnosis is. I’m not always so concerned about a diagnosis. I’m concerned about a symptom set.
I have a practice in Yarmouth, Women to Women, and we’ve been around since 1985, a long time. That’s one of the options they have. I have a website, womentowomen.com, I have lots of information there. Also, there’s ways to find practitioners that practices Chinese medicines really important. There are acupunctures that are around that are great. There are MDs, DOs that are practicing this kind of medicine too. It’s finding somebody that knows how to look at the big picture not just the diagnosis.
Dr. Lisa: Speaking of the bigger picture, you had rather interesting experience a few weeks ago, I understand with another famous doctor and you’ll be able to give us a little information on that.
Marcell: Yes. I did a taping last week for Dr. Oz and that will be aired probably in the next week or two and you can go to Women to Women and look at it to see when that’s going to see when that’s going to be aired. It’s a live audience but not live that day so it will be taped in the next couple of weeks or shown in a couple of weeks.
Dr. Lisa: Also, it will available on your Facebook page for those people who …
Marcelle: It will be available on my Facebook page and there’s also an interview with several questions about adrenals on there, as well as a chapter of the book will be on there as well as on the website, Dr. Oz.
Dr. Lisa: I’m feeling very grateful for having had the chance to speak with you today Marcelle. Your name comes up often. Like Genevieve, I feel like you’ve done a lot of work that has built a foundation for many of us who are now practicing to continue to work with. I thank you for coming in, taking the time to come in. Thankfully you had time to write these books and go out there and speak your part and I appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Marcelle: Thank you very much.