Compassionate Healing: Modern Advocacy & Traditional Herbal Wisdom with Tieraona Low Dog, MD

[00:00:00] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: We have in many ways been a victim of our own success in medicine, and we've lost sight of the human part of, of that human connection. And I love that we're refinding it. 

[00:00:12] Dr. Melinda Ring: This is Next Level Health. I'm your host, Dr. Melinda Ring, Director of the Osher Center for Integrative Health at Northwestern University. On this show, we explore ways to take actionable steps to Steps towards optimizing our health with leaders in the integrative, functional, and lifestyle medicine fields who believe in science-backed and time-tested approaches to wellbeing. Let's take your health to the next level. Today's guest is Dr. Tieraona Low Dog. She is truly one of the leading voices in integrative medicine. Her career is distinguished by her advocacy for compassionate, equitable, and environmentally sustainable integrative health care. Dr. Low Dog has served on the White House Commission for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy, advised the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health at the NIH, and chaired expert panels on dietary supplements at the U.S. Pharmacopeia for over 25 years. With over 54 peer reviewed articles, 25 textbook chapters, and multiple books, her work has earned recognition from the like of Time Magazine, NPRs, the People's Pharmacy, and numerous other organizations. She's also a leader in education, overseeing the Fellowship of Integrative and Functional Medicine at UC Irvine's Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute. And she also founded the amazing Medicine Lodge Academy to teach the beauty and science of natural medicine for both clinicians and health enthusiasts. Today, we are thrilled to have her here to discuss the future of integrative medicine, the role of botanical medicine and clinical care, and transformative ways to help you take your health to the next level. Welcome. 

[00:02:04] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: Well, thank you. It's wonderful to be here with you. 

[00:02:06] Dr. Melinda Ring: I think you have one of the most interesting backstories when it comes to what's led you to where you are now, at least the parts that I know. I'm sure there's much more, but your path was Anything but traditional. So can you share a little bit about how your journey unfolded?

[00:02:27] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: I've always had a passion for nature. So I was always very involved in being out in the natural world. And that, that came about from a very, very young age. And it was really nurtured, I think, by my grandparents. I studied midwifery. I was an herbalist, and became president, actually, of the American Herbalist Guild. That was a big part of my life was herbal medicine. I was a strong martial artist, advocate. I practiced, I earned my third degree black belt in Taekwondo. I started in her company. I went to massage school in 1977. So, I feel a very holistic way of thinking about the world. Very, very whole person oriented and very much believed that individuals had a lot of the healing power within them. If you could tap into it, you could help people tap into it. They could find their way to get better. That we had a magical being really inside of each of us. Um, and so it was after I'd sort of done all of those things that I decided to go on to medical school. So I was, I was older as a medical student, which was wonderful because I came having had a lived experience being a mother, having my own business, catching babies, um, rubbing people's bodies, you know, making herbal medicines. And medical school was illuminating to me. I absolutely loved learning. I learned so much about the body and also about, about how the body gets sick and how the body can get better. And sometimes I would see people come into the hospital, into the emergency room, and I would think they were not going to survive. I mean, they're not going to make it. And then I would watch them walk out of the hospital two weeks later. And it was a miracle to see that part of medicine, which I had very little experience with. The other part of that, though, was It felt like there was this whole other piece missing. So we were really great at people coming in that needed surgery or there was an emergency or things like this. But I went into primary care and in primary care, I just saw the short visits. With the constant problems of stress and insomnia and, and lack of purpose and meaning that many people found and chronic pain and depression and anxiety and diabetes and obesity and the answers were unanswered. So, this medication for this, and this medication for that, and this medication for this. And that felt, that felt like what I had known before I went to medical school actually had a lot more to offer than what I was learning to offer there. And that's why integrative medicine felt like such a natural home. Uh, for me, I met Dr. Andy Weill when I was at Columbia, I was teaching at Columbia at an herbal conference and I met a number of people there that are leaders in our field and we formed a friendship in 1998. And he asked me a couple of years later to come and help him with his fellowship program at the University of Arizona. And, and that was very powerful and very meaningful for me for many years, but it also felt extremely natural to me. And that's why I love integrative medicine, because we're not asking people to choose. You don't have to reject the wonders of modern medicine and you don't have to reject the wisdom that we have known actually as a people for millennia. And, and so it's this beautiful blend of being able to care for people. And as a physician, it feels also incredibly rewarding because I get the privilege of being with people who are seeking a partner to help them along their journey when it comes to their health and healing.

[00:06:41] Dr. Melinda Ring: You came to medical school so deeply rooted in natural healing from all of these different experiences that you'd had. And I, I think what we now see in medical training is that much of the natural inclination A healing approach towards empathy, towards patience gets a little bit beaten out of students in the middle of their training just because there is so much focus on disease, on memorization of all of these different things that do not include that whole person aspect. Was that a challenge for you back then, navigating that, or were you able to hold on to the core of your beliefs? 

[00:07:28] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: I didn't find it challenging. And I think it's because I was also older, right? I think that if I would have gone when I was younger or hadn't had that whole background, it would have been very different. And I certainly saw this with colleagues and other of my students, my friends that were, In medical school and residency, I evolved as a person while I was going through my training, but, but the core of who I am was deeply rooted as a child. I mean, I, I've, I've had a core sense of who I am since I was very young. I was nurtured and nourished in a very beautiful way with family and, and an extended family and grandparents. And so, and nature has always been my greatest teacher and my greatest ally. And I have always kept myself very close to nature. The entire time I went to medical school, I still ran an ERT clinic. I mean, we ran one, we ran a free clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Everybody was like, you can't work and go to medical school. And I'm like, well, I have to work and go to medical school. I had children, you know, so I have to, I have to have a job. Um, and, and we have a free clinic and we're taking care of people, um, and just taking donations only. We trained, we, you know, we trained. I've trained hundreds of verbalists over the years, um, and so I think that kept me grounded. The medical training itself can be very technical. It's like you have to know all of the things. So you, you're trying to figure out, you're trying to figure out what the patient has. And part of that thing that we miss is to forget what we know for a moment and simply be with the person who's sitting with us. and listen to them. And it's like, what are they trying to tell me? And, and asking them, you know, it's like, what do you think's getting in the way as we're getting better?You know, what do you think's happening, going on inside? And how many patients tell me nobody's ever asked them that? And I, and I often find like, well, how did that happen? Because, because, I only see you for a short amount of time as your doctor. You live with yourself 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So you actually know a lot of what's happening to you.

[00:09:38] Dr. Melinda Ring: You know, in your view, what are some of the biggest health challenges our country, the Americans, are facing? And how do you think healthcare, society, like, the world? What is falling short in addressing them and do you think, like, is integrative medicine the solution to that? Like, what, what are your, what are your thoughts on how we can help address these issues?

[00:10:03] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: I'm disturbed by the fact that mental health challenges are so enormous now. When I see statistics that, you know, almost one in five teenagers have seriously thought about ending their life. I think back when I was a teenager, I realized that was a long time ago, but I can honestly say, I don't believe one in five of my classmates were actually thinking of ending their lives. It's just, the depression rates are very high. Anxiety is very high. I believe that we have a very, very limited way of thinking about mental health. I really do. It's like, well, your serotonin and your norepinephrine are a little out of balance. So we have a medicine that will tweak it, you know, and I'll give you an example of a woman who came to me And she wanted a refill on her Effexor. She was a new patient to me. I had not seen her before. So I simply was, you know, trying to get to know her a little bit. And I, I said, you know, how do you think it's working? And she goes, well, I don't know. She said, you know, I go to a job that I hate every day and I come home to a husband that doesn't talk to me and kids that are out of control. I mean, I don't know. Is it working? I guess. And I remember feeling the weight of that, like that somehow we thought that everything that's going on in her life, that we could get a pill in a 15 minute visit and that somehow everything was going to miraculously change. I'm not saying medication doesn't have a place, please don't get me wrong, but what I am saying is that I think that life is complicated, life is complex, and that we struggle from a lot of stress. We struggle from, you know, poverty and, and, and challenges that we have structurally in this country. But we have a food system that's broken. I mean, you know, I live in a very rural area of northern New Mexico and The 20 minute drive from here is like basically shopping at a truck stop. I mean, it's like you can't find fresh anything. And that's where people go because otherwise it's an hour almost. There's a real grocery store that you could shop in. I drove, my husband and I were just driving up to the Navajo reservation. And you know, we're out there and you know, 30 percent of Navajos out there have no access to clean running water. And 48%. You know, have to drive 150 miles round trip to get food. So, I get that we have lots and lots of challenges. I don't think the healthcare system is here to fix all of them. I think that there are public policies that have to happen. I think that communities have to take more ownership. And that individuals and families need to work together. Obesity is an epidemic. Diabetes is an epidemic. Heart disease is an epidemic. Mental health issues are an epidemic. And when it comes to the health care system, health is the first word. Health comes from the old word, chal, which means whole. It means to be whole and to be sound. And that means that technically our system should be all about helping people to be whole. Whole. Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically. We're helping people to find wholeness that is not. What mostly we do in a disease management system in the United States. So integrative medicine, when patients, of course, they want to see an integrative practitioner. Of course they do. I go places and people are like, how do I find a doctor like you? I see you, how do I get my daughter? She lives here in Oklahoma. How does she find a doctor like you? They want integrative medicine because most people want to be seen as a whole person and they want somebody to partner with them on all of those things we just talked about. You know, what's getting in the way that we get, you know, what's driving your stress? When you sit back and think, What is your best thing about five years from now? And they look at you, nobody describes, Oh, my arthritis is really bad. My back hurts. I'm, you know, on two more drugs and medications. I'm tired. I don't sleep well. They describe something. And then it's like, what do you think will have to change for you to get from here to there? What do you think would have to change? Those are, those are the conversations that help people find within them their own answers. Because I think it's a mistake for people always to think somebody else has all of their answers. Because most people already know a lot of what they need to do. They just need somebody to partner with them to help them.

[00:15:13] Dr. Melinda Ring: Whenever I ask a patient, when they're like, should I do this, or should I, or, or, students also, I say, what do you, what do you think you need to do? And they all almost always come up with almost exactly what I would think that they need to do. So they know it. I think that's a big part of the whole concept of motivational interviewing too. It's like people know you need to draw it out from in them, uh, whether it's their inner wiser self, you know, that, that we talk about tuning into that voice. And it's okay. It's okay not to word 

[00:15:47] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: change today. You know, sometimes, you know, people come in and All the things I think they probably need to do to have like what they want, you know, they're just not in a place and that's also okay. And I think that when clinicians and physicians can get away from, I need to fix people to, I need to partner with people, then it takes away You're not a good person. You're not a good patient because you're not, you're not doing the things. There's judgment that comes. I don't think most people really need to be judged. I think they already have a lot of self judgment about, about wherever they are in their life. And my own lived experience is the more you can accept them for who they are with where they are today, the more willing they are in the future to try to make the changes that they need to make to have the life that they want. But not on my timetable.

[00:16:45] Dr. Melinda Ring: We covered a lot of ground there. Um, and, and whole health, of course, you know, this is the hot term right now that's promoted by, by the VA and they're doing amazing work. But yeah, integrative medicine, functional medicine, lifestyle, we're all talking about whole health. And, uh, so I, I think it's a term that people intuitively understand and, uh, You know, hopefully it becomes something that moves beyond those who are trained in a special way to do it, but, but it actually just, you know, kind of like Andy always said, like, integrative medicine should just be medicine, you know, I think whole person, whole health has to just be what health is.

But that 

[00:17:32] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: was the way it was in most of the world and through most of time. So we like to act like it's something very new that we've discovered, when actually, you know, Aristotle, you know, Avicenna, traditional Chinese medicine, Vedic scholars in India, were speaking about this 2, 000 years ago, right? So, I, I, I find it, you know, I always find it somewhat amusing, also, that we like to somehow act like we've discovered something that people have always known.People have always known that, that it's hard to have, to have a healthy body if you don't have a healthy mind. And that it's, and it's hard to be a whole human if there's not some deeper meaning and purpose that you feel in your life. And that is known in most cultural or indigenous medicines. Most indigenous forms of medicine all recognize this, and it's fundamental.I think that it's really important. The beauty and wonder of the technological advances in modern medicine that we began to think that that was the magic and that it wasn't the relationship. The relationship has always been where the magic happens. And in the 1960s and the things we were able to do, I mean, my grandmother's brother died of a ruptured appendix. There was no surgeon, there was no hospital, there was nothing around. It's rare that people die from those things today. So we've been, we have in many ways been a victim of our own success in medicine and we've lost sight of the human part of, of that human connection. And I love that we're refinding it. And I love that integrative medicine, lifestyle medicine, anything you want, whatever the name you want. I'm so glad we moved away from complementary and alternative medicine. I'm just like, That was me, like midwives, burbalists, massage therapists, indigenous healers, those were all complementary and alternative. And, and until you move away from that language, basically what you're always saying is you're second class. Alternative medicine is somehow less than, right? And it's rather insulting in many ways. So, I love that we're moving away from that. Is nutrition really alternative? Is spirituality really alternative?I mean, come. So I, I, I'm excited by our future. I mean, I'm excited by our future. I, I, I see the future is bright because that's my nature is to be optimistic about things. And I do see, I see the younger people saying, I think there's something different. I say, I see patients saying, you know, that doesn't work for me. I'm looking for something more. And, uh, and we've still got a long way to go, but. It's a good time. 

[00:20:27] Dr. Melinda Ring: True. I totally agree. I'd love to talk because of your immense knowledge and background about one aspect of this, which is botanical medicine, which I love learning from you. And so it is just one of many areas of expertise for you. Can you, and you said you continued it even through medical school. All of the traveling you've done and the studying you've done, could you share some examples of how you've seen plants truly act as a natural pharmacy for healing? 

[00:21:07] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: It would be silly to think that plants aren't Pharmacologically active. They are. Why do we tell people to have more plants in their diet? Because there are things in plants that are so healthy for you, you can't get them any other place. So, we know that many plants sort of bridge the span the range between food and medicine, right? Like, garlic. Is garlic food or is it medicine? Well, it's probably both, right? Oregano, food, medicine, probably both. Turmeric, my goodness, everybody's loving turmeric today. But I have seen really powerful effects from herbs in, in, in my, in my practice of, of four decades now. And, and sometimes Sometimes they've been, I mean, they've been profound, you know, I've seen wounds heal that weren't healing with  comfrey and aloe and packing them into these bed sores that just wouldn't, wouldn't heal. I mean, they just wouldn't heal. And, and, and even if the individual passed, in this case, the individual passed away in Las Cruces. But as Weiss talked about the fact that Like, what it meant to him, she started to have new tissue growing where none had grown for months, and that his, that he felt like his body was like, was doing better.Um, and, and comfrey, we don't use that really internally, but, but topically, it's amazing. Echinacea was always the herb for so many years. that made people believers in, in herbal medicine. I mean, I remember back in the 1980s when I had my herbal clinic down in Las Cruces, some people would have these bad colds, sore throats, you know, they'd come in and wait, having on like echinacea. And of course you use a lot. You don't use a little, you use a lot of echinacea. That's the trick, right? And people would come back in and they're like, like, do you think I could have really gotten better like in a day? And the, I was like, I feel so much better. And I'm like, wow, you know, that must just be your herb, right? I mean, people just were, they just couldn't believe that it can work like that. Mother words, you know, you'd have people that had this kind of like stress kind of blood pressure, you know, and they're working on their diet and everything. You give them mother word and the palpitations ease and they start to quiet and they say they're sleeping better. And miracles can happen just like over a cup of cow meal with somebody, you know, you serve a cup of cow meal and you, you talk about the little herb, you know, the manzanilla here in New Mexico. My licorice: Yes, it's a, it's such a powerful one as people love it here, but there are, you know, and then there's the, there's the more powerful ones like andrographis. I mean, andrographis is the king of bitters. It's one of the most widely used plants in the world, even though we don't know about it as well as many other parts. It's known in 39 different languages. It's a huge medicine around the world. And it showed during COVID in Thailand, in Thailand, uh, where there was fewer resources, they made a public statement that people who had mild forms of COVID, that they should use andrographis before trying to come to the hospital. And they did that because there were quite a few studies that showed it was very good for viral infections and flu and things like that. And then there were several studies done actually looking at andrographis showing that it dramatically reduced the symptoms in people with milder forms of COVID, not people that were very sick, but people with milder forms. And I'm like, well, that shouldn't really surprise anybody. We have 33 randomized controlled trials on andrographis showing it shortens the duration of pole to upper respiratory infections. It is one of the best things for easing a sore throat I've ever found. So, you know, there are so many botanicals that have so much value and they can be some, some can be added to food. Others are consumed as tea and some are truly just medicine. They're not added to food. You don't just drink them as teas. They're really medicine and they're used for when people have illness, but, you know, I'm intrigued even by one right now, hops. Hops is an herb many people know because they might know it from beer, right? People use it in craft beer. Then hops, about 10 years ago in Italy, they started looking at it as a plant that could bind to the, that could stimulate something called GLP 1, the same thing that Semaglutide does, right? Ozenthic, these kinds of drugs. And then New Zealand started doing the research on hops.

The New Zealand government started to do the research on it. And they've published now their third study showing that indeed, it does seem to curb appetite. It does seem to, you know, help people, not like the drugs, but help people with managing weight or losing some weight. And I look at that and I think, you know, people knew hundreds of years ago that when people took bitters before a meal, that it often, one, stimulated the appetite immediately, but then caused an early sense of fullness.And now we understand all the reasons that it does that, because that's been so eloquently, you know, described. But think about, think about an herb that is so safe that some people, if the research is validated, might be able to actually use a dose of bitters like that before they had an evening meal to maybe help them not overeat or overindulge, especially given the cost of the drugs that are out there today.So I love the science of plants. I love the science. Obviously, I've been involved in research. Much of my publications have been on plants. And I'm also very intrigued by their tradition and their historical use, because if you spend much time learning about their history, you get a pretty good idea of where the science is going to lead you, because people weren't foolish. They didn't use things for thousands of years because they didn't work. 

[00:27:22] Dr. Melinda Ring: As we see this increase in demand for botanical medicine, there's been concerns about things like over harvesting as the somethings. get used or, uh, that maybe things are becoming commercialized and not honoring indigenous knowledge.So how can we, both as patients and as practitioners who want to incorporate, uh, herbs and plants into our health routines, how can we do that in a way that, uh, really honors where it comes and doesn't place a stress on the natural system? 

[00:28:03] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: Threatened, endangered, you know, sustainability and more than sustainable, regenerative, right?Like how do we continue to keep a robust pharmacopeia globally, right? And when it comes, so that's vital and we call that good agricultural practices. We try to work with companies that do that. I've consulted with companies for decades, helping them to devise practices around good agricultural practice.Um, so that's not just regenerative and sustainable harvesting, but it's also many of these plants are harvested in the wild. So how do you tend wild gardens so that you don't over harvest? So those are huge issues. And I think, you know, rhodiola was a classic example. We didn't, Get to threatened or endangered, but we put it on the slide use list for one of the lists where we need to be more concerned about rhodiola. That list now open opened up some wonderful opportunities with cooperatives like growers that are that are like in a cooperative, there are growing rhodiola specifically for this. And, and that also offers opportunities for working with First Nations in Canada, um, rhodiola grows in the very far north.So there's ways in which we can do this responsibly. I think that what people need to remember is that there is a common knowledge that people have around herbs, which is You know, people know that peppermint's good for an upset tummy and that chamomile's good for sort of upset tummies and to relax and to calm. And those are kind of common knowledge that people know, and it's been around a long time. And then there's sacred knowledge. There's knowledge that is unique to people and that comes with. That comes with training, expertise. And it should not just be casually used without, without proper training. So I think one needs to distinguish between sort of the common knowledge plants that people have, and then those that are more sacred to people and to, to indigenous populations.

And then there's the third part, which is where pharmaceutical companies or companies want to come in and they want to use traditional knowledge to create a new drug, a new pharmaceutical. There's huge money in this. And a lot of that's being done in Africa and, and there, there are now methods in place where if you're going to use that kind of knowledge, the community has to agree to it and there has to be a funding revenue source that gives back to the community for that knowledge.So it's, it's, it's a multitude. It's not, it's not a simple, easy thing. I would say one of my bigger concerns. Around medicine is the amount of pharmaceuticals that we prescribe, how many of them end up in the water system, in the soil, and how harmful that has been. You know, one man using testosterone cream, just one man applying testosterone cream topically. In the water system, it's like 300 men, just the natural testosterone that they excrete into the water system. So many people now are taking hormones. It goes into the water and we're seeing actually sexual changes in, in, in animals. So for me, I'm like, okay, I, in my world, all pharmaceuticals, we come to some sort of environmental impact statement so that we would know kind of, okay, what's the downstream effect of this.We, if there was a choice of four drugs that all do the same thing, we picked the one that has the least environmental impact. And, and that we realize that especially for like antibiotics are modern warriors that we must have and we must keep so that they're effective. We should use them when they really need to be used and we should look to botanicals and we should look to other things that are help the body fight off on its own the infection and save the antibiotics for when they're really needed.

[00:32:17] Dr. Melinda Ring: So you have really dedicated your life to the study of health and healing. I know you live it. I know you share that wisdom. What one more piece of personal wisdom would you share with the listeners to help them reach their own next level of health? 

[00:32:38] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: Be your own advocate. You have to advocate for yourself.You really do. You have to, if, if the person you're working with in your medicine is not what you, what you need, you need to find somebody else, right? Always advocate for yourself. Take somebody with you. Also, maybe, if, if that's hard for you. Remember that until the moment of our death, we're living, and we're alive.And it's like, when I work with the dying, that word is interesting because until the moment they're not here anymore, they're not dying, they're living, they're alive. And so, think about the preciousness of your life. And every morning when you wake up, it's an opportunity to think about what do you want to do today in this one precious gift that you've been given.Be tender with yourself. Be so tender with yourself. And know that Most of your life, you were probably doing the best you could, given what you knew at the time. And, and, and, and so many of us carry the weight of things that we did or that happened a long time ago. And, and I think that, that self love, that ability to just love oneself and know that we probably just did the best we could when we were 14 or we were 25. We just did with what we knew and that today we can choose to do something different if that's what we want. That whenever you see somebody, how can you make their day better? So when you're at the grocery store and somebody's checking you out, what could you say today to that person to make them smile?Because no matter how bad our day is, when you can make somebody else's day better, make sure it's better to you. So, you know, I think those are the things, because if you can, if you can be in that place and you can love oneself, then okay, maybe it, I can eat better. I can love the way I am and maybe I'll start moving more, you know, it's like, but it all starts at that place. Because if one doesn't love, truly love themselves, it's hard to truly love somebody else. And it's hard to take care of something that you don't truly love. 

[00:34:53] Dr. Melinda Ring: Well, thank you so much for spending this time with me. And I always learn from you and love to Your stories, and the science and the stories, so thank you again, and I, I look forward to seeing you again one of these days. 

[00:35:12] Dr. Tieraona Low Dog: And let me just say, Melinda, what a star you are. What a light you are in the world, and all that you've accomplished, all that you continue to do for patients, for education, for the field of integrative medicine. I know your family. I know you as a mother and as a physician. And it's just. A wonderful leader and human being. It was my absolute joy to be here with you today. 

[00:35:38] Dr. Melinda Ring: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Next Level Health. I hope you found some inspiration and practical insights to enhance your wellness journey. Don't forget to leave a comment on YouTube or review on Apple Podcasts. I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions for future topics or speakers. Be sure to follow Next Level Health with me, Dr. Melinda Ring, as we continue exploring the path to healthier, happier lives, together.