And

not only that, but what is really natural anyway? You know, is honey natural? Bee has to make honey.

It doesn't just pop out of the sky, right? So just because something is being made naturally Does it, if I make it in the laboratory, how am I different than a bee who's making honey? You know, so there's kind of a weird distinction, natural and synthetic and not natural.

And then at the end of the day, when a molecule hits a cell, and that's really where you're going to get effects, the molecule, the cell doesn't know whether that molecule came from a laboratory or came from a natural source.

You know, sometimes people will say, is that vitamin C natural? Does it come from a natural source or is it synthetic? Ascorbic acid is a pattern.

Molecules are patterns.

And really, they're not even things, they're just frequencies.

It's a

Why is that distinction important when we're talking about what vitamin D actually does in the body?

So important.

First of all, vitamins are helpers.

Hormones are activators.

Hormones do the work.

The word hormone actually means I arouse to activity.

Hormeo in Greek, I arouse to activity.

And

Can you explain what perioral dermatitis actually is and why it's so easy to misidentify?

Yeah, because it looks kind of like acne, but it's not.

Acne is kind of a weird term because there's different lesions that appear on the skin and they all get kind of lumped as acne.

Technically speaking, acne lesions are the end result of A, hyperproliferation of skin cells and keratin inside a follicle, B, hypersecretion of sebum inside a follicle, and then C, bacterial infiltration.

That's technically what a zit is, if you will.

Perioral dermatitis is not that.

Perioral dermatitis is an immune reaction.

I have heard of people with perioral dermatitis who that was their diagnosis and were told this is hormone related.

From your perspective, is it getting a fair reputation?

Well, it depends what you're looking for.

One of the major strategies historically for, um, for skincare has been to cover things up, to, like, smear goop on the surface of the skin.

And that's historical because for some weird reason, and you tell me why this is the case, when we put something on the skin and then we take our finger and we rub it along what we just put on the skin, we think we're moisturized, which is silly when you think about it, but that's just the mindset.

I mean, "Oh, I'm moisturized." No, you're not moisturized.

You're just feeling the stuff you put on the skin.

It's almost like this magic trick somehow that people... or a magic spell that people somehow fall under.

Couldn't you argue that it is preventing transepidermal water loss?

Totally.

It's, it's amazing, right? But when you first walk into the symphony, it doesn't sound amazing.

It's cacophonous.

It's noisy.

They're-- everybody's tuning up, right? And then all of a sudden, a minute later, the most beautiful Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff or Beethoven or whatever.

What's the difference? The difference is coherence.

Coherence is when all the music, all the parts, all the musicians are playing i-i-in a organized fashion, and it sounds gorgeous.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right? If you wanna-- don't wanna have all-- get Alzheimer's disease, do crossword puzzles, learn a new language, brush your, uh, teeth with your left hand instead of your right hand.

All of these put a stress on the central nervous system, on the brain, and you get more neural connections.

You get neuroplasticity.

So everywhere in nature we find this phenomena.

W- if you want your leaves to get nice and bushy, you cut 'em back, you prune 'em back.

This is a...

No, huh.

... mast cells, and allergic responses aren't just something we feel in the sinuses but are actually influencing what we see in the skin?

Oh, yeah.

Histamine is a major immune modulator.

It is produced by mast cells, as you mentioned.

In fact, uh, m- m-...

Let me just say this real quick.

Mast cells line the intestine, and under conditions of dysbiosis, changes in bacteria, leaky gut, et cetera, um, mast cells can release histamine into the blood, and you can be off to the histamine races.

Mm-mm.

Can you explain to us how much of this is biology verse perception?

Oh, it's biological.

Yeah.

As we age, the... our fats, you know, the body's lipid, um, compartment breaks down.

Lipids are very unstable anyway.

That's why, you know, we talk about seed oils and the problems with seed oils and fried oils and processed oils.

Um, oils are very unstable.

Do lipids or barrier changes play a role?