Speaker 1: From water to the air that we breathe. We all depend on the environment to sustain life, but the quality of our surroundings can significantly affect our health and well-being. Dr. Erica Steele from Holistic Family Medicine in Virginia Beach joins us now to discuss; Dr. Erica, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I’m doing well. How are you?
Speaker 1: Sure? I’m good, thank you. So I wanna ask when we talk about the environment, what are we specifically referring to?
Speaker 2: So we wanna look at three layers to the environment. Number one, it’s your genetic environment, right? The genes that we’re built off of. It’s much like the foundation of your house, right?
And then there are all the walls of yours. Which that’s more of your internal environment. Your lifestyle, the food you put in, the health of your organs, et cetera. And then we have the roof of your house, which is gonna be more of the external environment that’s going to be more of the surfaces you touch every day, the computer, all of the things that make up our external environment and our external.
Speaker 1: Got it. Speaking of environments, we recently had the CDC mask advisement; some people are concerned and fearful about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, they are. And so that’s why I really wanted to reassure people. So if going back, genetically speaking, genetics accounts for less than 30%, which is incredible because previous to all of our genetic research, we thought it was so much more if my mother had this disease than automatically I’m gonna develop this disease.
That sort of mindset. But we’ve learned it actually has. To play. And even though there can be defects in your genetic code, it’s really up to your lifestyle, meaning the environment you put your genes in. So that comes back to your diet. It comes back to proper health. Organ hygiene means detoxifying your organs regularly in a healthy way.
That means making sure that you’re moving your mental and emotional states. And then, of course, our external environment. So even with the masks removed, we still wanna make sure. That we keep our sanitation practices up. This whole experience with the pandemic has taught us to be very mindful of our sanitation practices.
Speaker 2: And even with sanitation. Using a lot of chemical cleaners can also negatively impact our bodies because it can be cumbersome and intense on our immune systems.
Speaker 1: Got it. Okay. So how can people take ownership? Over their environment and health, significantly when it’s impacted by other people.
Speaker 2: Yes. So that’s one of the concepts, right? So our immune system is powerful, and it’s actually made to experience exposure, right? And so the germ theory in terms of these evil germs out here and there, my innocent, precious body, really comes down to how you take care of your own health, right?
What are you eating? What are you thinking about? How are you moving your body? Are you digesting an assimilating property properly? Excuse me, Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, says all diseases begin in the gut, which is accurate. So if you’re gassing, bloating, or constipated, you do not have healthy bowel movements for two to three days.
You’re not eliminating properly. So that means some imbalances are going on with your digestive system. And then, in turn, your immune system’s gonna be inhibited as a response, which then means that when, if you are exposed to things in your external environment, your immune system is not gonna be able to have the energy that it needs to fight against whatever it is being exposed to.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay. So these questions have prompted more questions for people with more; you have some classes to tell us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I’m a scientist at heart. I love laboratory diagnostics and biochemistry, so I teach classes about knowing your numbers. And so if you don’t know your numbers, you obviously can’t measure them.
You can’t create goals and don’t really know where you are. So we do have a few classes coming up. I’m really gonna teach from a fundamental level how to understand your laboratory and what your labs look like. They are still held on Zoom. So you’ll be able to do that from the comfort of your home. They’re on our website as well as the event break.
Speaker 1: All right, Dr. Erica Steele, always great to see you.
Speaker 2: Likewise, take care. Thank you.