E11: Health Breakthroughs You May Not Be Familiar With
Episode Description
Dr. Tiffani Huckels, Pharm.D, is The Herb Doctor (www.theeherbdoc.com). She is an herbalist with a background in pharmacy, she helps her clients take a holistic approach to health. In this episode, she talks with us about cold plunges, whole body vibration, and how food and exercise are the key to living our best lives.
“Well, vibration therapy has actually been around for years. Actually, back in 1895, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of Kellogg’s corn flakes, actually introduced a vibrating chair into his health clinic to help with circulation and other ailments. Later on in the 1960s, Russia actually used vibration therapy to strengthen the muscles and help with the bone mass of their astronauts traveling to space and coming back because they noticed that the astronauts lost bone density and muscle mass. So it’s been around for quite a while. Since we are in Colorado Springs, where we have a lot of Olympic athletes they also use it as a way to work different muscle groups and strengthen those muscle groups as well as help with balance and circulation.”
PAT: Hello everyone. We have a very special guest today, Tiffany Huckles, an incredible person. She is a doctor in pharmacy, which just elicits all sorts of questions in my mind. And she is also a herbalist. So I’m really interested in hearing what that is.
TIFFANI: Before we get into some of our other core topics today, some of my background. I grew up in a small town outside of Boulder, Colorado, with the hippies. I actually grew up with a lady that did live in a teepee, and I did grow up with her daughter’s rainbow and sunflower. And I did go to school with a kid named Rick.
So it was very interesting. But when I decided to pick a career, I wanted to go into plant chemistry. And so I chose a pharmacy school where the dean was a retired plant chemist. And she sent me on my career track to Canada to train as a master herbalist and holistic therapist because the Canadian government had licensure for that, whereas the American government didn’t.
That was my career track. When I finished with that track, she paired me with an MD and a toxicologist and had me start teaching a course for the pharmacy and med school. So that’s how I started out.
PAT: How did you get back to Colorado?
TIFFANI: Well, after spending 12 years at the Mayo Clinic, I had my first child and wanted to be closer to family. And so we moved back to Colorado, to Colorado Springs, with my husband at that time.
PAT I have gotten to know Tiffany through a new senior living facility campus that Carol and I are moving to. Her husband, Robert, is in charge of all the food service. He has five restaurants in this campus, which is pretty incredible. In the process of some of the social events at this senior living campus, I’ve found out that Tiffany has interest in cold plunges. And I think that she does those numerous times in the week. I have not taken the plunge, no pun intended. We also started discussing whole body vibration. And we were thinking that those might be interesting topics today. I don’t think a lot of people are very aware of cold plunges or whole body vibration.
And so I’m curious with your background, Tiffani, do you feel they are beneficial? What are some of the pros and cons and what is it?
TIFFANI: Well, vibration therapy has actually been around for years. Actually, back in 1895, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of Kellogg’s corn flakes, actually introduced a vibrating chair into his health clinic to help with circulation and other ailments. Later on in the 1960s, Russia actually used vibration therapy to strengthen the muscles and help with the bone mass of their astronauts traveling to space and coming back because they noticed that the astronauts lost bone density and muscle mass. So it’s been around for quite a while.
Since we are in Colorado Springs, where we have a lot of Olympic athletes they also use it as a way to work different muscle groups and strengthen those muscle groups as well as help with balance and circulation.
PAT: Now as it relates to balance, would that be good for seniors?
TIFFANI: Absolutely, it would be because it’ll definitely help increase stability. It’ll work all the little muscles that help hold you upright. And so it helps with balance and posture. So definitely something that older generations can benefit from. There are machines that vibrate and have vibration plates. I prefer the ones that have a standing handlebar so that you don’t have to worry about falling over. You get on them and a lot of them have different programs that they can run. I recommend starting out that you go at a low level so that you can see how your body responds to it. My 18-year-old actually tried my vibration plate for the first time like six months ago and he’s a football player. He plays varsity football. And so he was like, oh, you know, this will be nothing, right? So he did it for 30 minutes instead of the recommended 10. The next day I had to help him get out of bed. Quite humorous – because he had different muscles that were sore that he didn’t even know he had.
AMY: That is a story that puts it in perspective and thinking this through, because my dad did have a whole body vibration machine and standing on it, it feels a bit passive. You mean, all I have to do is stand on it? And yes, I understand that you can do pushups on it and do things that are a little bit more interactive. But I’m like, isn’t that the dream that we’ve all been seeking. Like I can just stand here and it does the work for me?
TIFFANI: I don’t know if you remember like in the 60s or 70s, they had the vibrating plate that actually had the band that went around you, kind of like the hula hoop. And so that was interesting. And what they actually found from that is that women’s bone densities actually increased. Oh, it did. Yeah. Because that was supposedly was to just get rid of the fat. Yeah.
And it does help with metabolism. We actually use it in a metabolic reset program that we have at the med spa to actually help move lymphatic fluid, which will then help mobilize your fat and also increase muscle mass, which will also then increase metabolism. So it works on several levels to help with that.
PAT: For someone that really wants to dive into this to a greater level, are there some good resources? Do you just go in Google and say whole body vibration?
TIFFANI: You definitely can. There’s actually some really good articles out of the UK because they actually use it in their clinics overseas. But also companies like LifePro and Powerplate. There are also good articles on the information and the research behind using whole body vibration for many different things.
PAT: Now I want to brag about you a little bit because you have a great website. Tell us again what’s your website?
TIFFANI: I’m the herb doc so its www.theeherbdoc.com
PAT; Is there anything on your web site about whole body vibration?
TIFFANI: There is. There’s a whole article on whole body vibration, and there’s going to be more to come. I just have to get the time to do it. But yes.
AMY: So Tiffany, with your background and hearing your career path, the path you took compared to a more traditional career, it sounds like, it was not traditional at all. So pursuing plant chemistry, if I heard that right, tell us more about that path and where it led you and where you are now. As you think about about health and the practices that you’re recommending to people and even the state of health in America right now, what are your thoughts?
TIFFANI: You know, when I went into pharmacy school, at that point in time, I want to say probably 50 to 60 percent of our drugs came from plants. Now it’s probably less than 20. And so really the plant chemistry was something to know with regards to pharmacology. And now they’ve gotten so good at synthesizing the plant chemicals in labs and that is doing away with using the plants in a lot of our medicines.
I use it as a way to mesh both alternative and Western medicine together. I’m a diabetic specialist and a hormone specialist. I’ve developed a metabolic reset program and a longevity program. And basically, it’s just designed to try and get people healthier, get them on less medication. Getting them to pay attention to their own bodies and what their bodies are trying to tell them. Something as simple as paying attention to what blood type you are and the fact that your blood type will determine what enzymes your body makes to digest food, how your body responds to stress, what forms of exercise are better for your body, things like that. And so that is all relating to your blood type.
PAT: I’m trying to think what are there eight types of blood? Four? There’s O, A, B, and there’s AB. And the positive and negative?
TIFFANI: Positive and negative don’t really influence the enzymes in that.
PAT: Really? Okay. This is fascinating. Podcasts with Tiffany will require several episodes! I’m curious because you and I have gotten to know each other a little bit and the senior population at Aberdeen Ridge. Are you finding that that you’re working with seniors more because of your parents who are both in their 70s? Or is that just an extension to what you’re already doing?
TIFFANI: For me, it’s the fact that both of my great grandmothers on both sides of my family, one on my dad’s and one on my mom’s, both lived to be over 100. So I definitely have longevity. My great grandma, my mom’s side was 102, and my great grandmother on my dad’s side was 100 and a half.
And so I know I’ve got to take good care of my body. Otherwise, I’m going to have issues with diabetes and heart disease and all the things that actually run in my family. And so it’s a matter of prevention. I actually just recently did a blood panel with Dr. Mark Hyman’s longevity group that actually looked at 85 markers for health and longevity. And I was happy to see that they looked at my biological age by looking at the telomeres in my blood cells; They found that I have a biological age of 41, even though I’m 52.
PAT: Is that expensive?
TIFFANI: It’s $499 a year. So not bad when you figure they measure 85 markers of blood work. So you take all these tests initially and then it’s monitored over a year for the $499. You can do it twice a year for the $499. It’s currently a beta test that we’re doing in our longevity program.
Back to our discussion on whole body vibration as it relates to aging – basically, it’s going to activate your muscles and increase your strength, which we definitely want. Because as we age, we definitely see how strength can diminish for a large majority of the population. Our athletes use it to help with soreness and recovery. But also, as we age and we push the limits of working out, we’re going to also need that benefit in helping with soreness and recovery. It also helps with flexibility and balance, which again is going to help prevent falls, hopefully, because falls are the number one reason that elderly wind up having to have surgery. It’s actually the reason my great grandmother who was 102, wound up passing away. She fell at the nursing home. She lived through the surgery to pin everything back together, but then they over-medicated her for pain meds because they don’t really know how to dose a 102 year old. Yeah.
In the metabolic reset that I do, we actually use the vibration therapy to help burn fat and calories and mobilize that fat so that the body can get rid of it. What I’ve seen in studies is utilizing vibration anywhere between three and five times a week. You get the benefits of it and only for 10 minutes maximum. Not 30 like my son did!
Again, it will help boost your circulation, which helps your skin. It helps all sorts of things, you know, moves the lymphatic system. It’s great for the heart and I’ve seen in studies where it actually helps to prevent hardening of the arteries. By just mobilizing the blood flow and the lymphatic system as well as the circulatory system.
For someone who would be interested in really pursuing this and having a home vibration plate, what is price range? I think the whole body vibration I bought was a cheap-o. So if you were going to estimate a cost, should somebody anticipate $1,000 or less?
TIFFANI: It just depends on if they want to buy used or new. You can get things on like Facebook Marketplace that are like almost professional grade because the one I got is almost professional grade and I got it for a hundred bucks. Otherwise you can just look for a good deal like on LifePro or Powerplate or any of those websites that have really good reviews on their Power Plates. Okay.
AMY: What tends to be the reaction of some of your clients who use the vibration for the first time?
TIFFANI: Well, they kind of look at you like you’re crazy, but the first phase of my metabolic reset is a loading phase where I tell them they have to eat between 3 ,000 and 5 ,000 calories per day for two days. And so they start to realize that I’m going to have them start thinking outside the box. And they’re going to have to start thinking outside the box to make changes that their body isn’t making currently with their current regimen. So it kind of goes along with that. We’re also looking at some red light therapy for really working on the mitochondria and things like that also.
PAT: So are you going to help us future residents at Aberdeen Ridge to lobby for a vibration machine in one of these in the fitness room? Ideally one with handles. So yeah, that way nobody gets hurt. We’ll work on that.
TIFFANI: My parents have one in their room. I need to get my mom back on it. We moved it with them.
AMY: I’d love to pull on the thread of thinking outside the box because over the many decades that I’ve had the opportunity to have my Dad as my Dad, he has really been the pioneer in trying to get me to think outside the box. Everything from grounding to infrared sauna that he has in the basement to…I don’t know. I can’t even count the way strange things in his smoothies that he tries. Some of his concoctions are better than others. We’ll just say that. But I think what strikes me at this phase of my life, so I will be 50 this year, is this whole idea of thinking outside the box because suddenly there are new problems showing up physically that I never had before. Like some strange like bubbly skin thing. It doesn’t itch but it looks like a rash – just like these strange things that start to happen. And so going back to like what I’m eating probably needs an overhaul. I love where I am with exercise and physical activity because now it’s out of joy versus out of some other strange reason.
I’m starting to think more about things we’re finally hearing and it feels like the world is catching up related to exercise or not exercise. I was looking at a post -it note on my computer that said exercise related to like how much we sit and just how that impacts our circulation.
What are some of the other things, Tiffani, that you’re thinking and excited about?
TIFFANI: Well, I just get excited about helping people realize that they can get healthier. Things like histamine intolerance, which people don’t know very much about and they don’t realize that some people don’t make the enzyme to actually process histamine.
And if you don’t have the enzyme to process histamine, it’s going to cause skin issues, it’s going to cause digestive issues, it can even cause pain, things like that. Basically just thinking outside the box as to what’s going on in the body. And what is a histamine? Histamine is a chemical that our body gives off in response to usually an allergen or potential allergen your mast cells give off. And people can have either mast cell disorders or just issues where they don’t make the enzyme to break down that histamine. And so that histamine is staying in the body way too long, which can cause a fluid buildup So swelling, things like that. Skin irritations, skin conditions, kind of like you mentioned, the bubbling skin. So that’s what came to mind. And, things like that, as well as pain and digestive issues. You give somebody a little tablet of the actual enzyme to process histamine and it starts clearing up. Give them a little vitamin C and some quercetin. Quercetin is what makes yellow onions yellow.
So very natural and things start to clear up. Did that help Amy?
AMY: Wow. Yeah, I’m going to try it. A little vitamin C and some yellow onions. We’ll see what happens.
TIFFANI: Maybe it’s a PAO because that’s the enzyme that you might be missing if you’ve got it.
AMY: Yeah, we’re totally going to talk about this. I’m like, you’re going to hear from me again. Because it is such an interesting love hate, I feel like as aging happens with Western medicine and also I guess being prescribed something versus really understanding the underlying cause. And it sounds like the way you come at helping people get healthier is to look more about the cause and what’s the root of this and even honoring who you were created to be going back to blood type. It’s like let’s start at your fundamentals and let’s build from there versus give you a pill to take care of the symptom.
TIFFANI: Although I do believe that sometimes the prescriptions have their place. Example being metformin has actually been linked to being very anti-aging and helping with longevity. But it’s gotten kind of a bad rap as being the diabetes pill. Statin drugs, believe it or not, also have their place.
If somebody’s got a lot of inflammation in their body, one of the things that a low dose of a statin drug is very good at is actually decreasing inflammation. So it’s actually just knowing the right times to use those tools instead of, oh, you’ve got this, you need to take that. And not looking at the whole person and not looking at their whole blood chemistry and things.
AMY: So do you have some additional questions, Dad? Do you want to talk about cold plunges?
PAT: I wanted to make sure we really emphasize Tiffany’s website.www.theeherbdoc.com. And I don’t know if there would be any suggestions for the listening audience, things that that you might encourage them to look at.
TIFFANI: I would just recommend looking to see, okay, what do you need to improve on your body? You know, are you having some stability issues? Because I know like my father who’s in his early 80s, has some stability issues. So that’s where the vibration therapy would come in. Or I have an entire pickleball group that swears by a collagen product that’s designed to help with skin tightening and bone density because it has a collagen peptide that helps with the bone matrix and then it also has a collagen peptide that helps with ligaments and tendons. They literally buy it from me by the case because they want to keep playing pickleball. So just different options there depending on what you want to do and what you want to change or how you want to maintain your health.
AMY: I’m going to check out that collagen. That’s on your website. Okay. That sounds very interesting.
TIFFANI: It’s a whole body collagen.
AMY: I would love to talk a little bit about cold plunges because that is definitely a frequent topic. I’m in South Florida and it’s a growing business down here – places where you can go. They’ve got cool names like Float and I’m sure there’s one called Plunge. But I would love to hear a little bit about what are the health benefits as we start to see it emerge and trend upward.
TIFFANI: Sure. It actually really helps with metabolism. What they found is that it’ll actually help your body burn that visceral fat, which is the fat in your organs, which is the dangerous fat. Basically, it’s been shown to also elongate your telomeres, which is the sign that they look at in your blood cells to see your biological age. Therefore, it’ll actually decrease your biological age. So very anti-aging. Yes, but only do the plunge for a minute or two. That’s about as long as I can go.
AMY: And so do you do this regularly?
TIFFANI: My girlfriend is an Eskimo and she can go and play in the snow banks with hardly any clothes on and I’m like, girl, you’re killing me. The cold plunge is typically recommended for a two minute time. It is a good target.
PAT: And as I understand it, you don’t put your head under.
TIFFANI: Right, usually you do some breathing exercises so it can be very meditative. You do some breathing exercises before you get in to just kind of prepare your body for the cold. And then you get in slowly so that your body can acclimate. And then no longer than two minutes. I have to be careful because I frostbit my feet three times as a child due to childhood stupidity. If somebody is interested, they can do it at home if they wanted. You could do it in your shower, you could do it in a bathtub. If sure to use good sense. Maybe start out at 65 degrees and then work your way down. Your body would adjust. Definitely.
PAT: Would you convince my favorite daughter that she should try it?
TIFFANI: It definitely has been shown scientifically to increase those telomeres and help with the anti-aging. They’ve actually shown it’ll actually decrease wrinkle production and then increase metabolism.
AMY: Well, how interesting. Good timing for that for me. I remember there was a cold plunge when I was a kid and I loved that thing. It was at the health club that my Dad was managing at the time. This was probably in the early 80s. I think I’d spent more time in that thing than I would in the hot tub. So there must be something in me that wants to return to the cold, but I’ll let you know how it goes.
Well, I have learned a tremendous amount today. I think you validated my Dad’s think outside the box ideas. So I am appreciative and I’m sure he is appreciative as well that he’s legit and some of these things that he’s suggesting are not so crazy after all. And it’s been such a gift to talk with you.
AMY: I thank you for just investing in people. I guess I’m coming out of this conversation feeling really hopeful about health and just that there’s other options and just knowing that there are people like you to turn to help navigate what some of those other options. And I’m so glad, Dad, that you recruited Tiffany for this time together.
TIFFANI: Thank you both.
AMY: It’s been a while since we recorded one of these podcasts. We like to end with gratitude. Dad, are you still up for that?
PAT: Absolutely. My gratitude is that your Mother and I are headed for a brand new independent living campus. My gratitude is I think we’re getting closer for this deluxe campus to be completed. Many construction delays along the way to test our patience.
We’re so thankful we have not sold our house prematurely and have to come to Fort Lauderdale and live with you for a couple months.
AMY: Well, my gratitude is that you’re not coming to live with me here for a couple months because I would probably end up having to go to the cold plunge place with you at least eight times during those couple months. So I’m grateful that I get to take it at my own pace. But of course, I would love it if you were living closer. But I’ll pass it to you, Tiffany. Any gratitude you have today as we close this out?
TIFFANI: Well, I’m also thankful for the retirement community that’s coming up and for because of it, I was actually able to move my parents out of the home that they were in for 50 years and move them closer to me so that the next time they call 911, it doesn’t take me two and a half hours to get there.
AMY: That feels a lot better.
TIFFANI: Yes, for sure.
AMY: Well, that was fun. Anything else for anyone?
