Your body has been talking to you your whole life. The question is whether anyone ever taught you to listen.
In this episode, I want to widen the lens on how you read your own body. We have lost so much of the generational knowledge our mothers and grandmothers once passed down, and now we tend to wait until something hurts before we pay attention. But your body speaks in subtleties long before that.
I share one of my great loves, Ayurveda, the 5,000-year-old healing system I studied for three years, and its practice of observation called the eightfold examination. What fascinates me most is how closely it aligns with modern functional nutrition's Nutrition Focused Physical Exam. We walk through what your tongue, skin, hair, nails, and eyes may be reflecting about your gut health, your nutrient status, your oxidative stress, and even your blood sugar, backed by research going back nearly 80 years.
Here is what matters most. This is not about self-diagnosis. None of these signs are proof of anything on their own. They are invitations to pay attention, not verdicts to fear. My hope is that noticing your body builds confidence instead of anxiety, the quiet confidence of a woman in a loving conversation with her body rather than at war with it.
If you take one small thing from this episode, try this. Tomorrow morning, look at your tongue and just notice. Do it for a week. That is the practice.
Resources Mentioned:
Work with Laura:
https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/health
Download for iPhone:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kajabi/id1485646310
Download for Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kajabi.kajabiapp&hl=en_US
Here is the link to the FREE Ayurveda Mini-Course that I talked about in this episode:
https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/mybody
Here are the references:
Foundational
Asif T, Mohiuddin A, Hasan B, Pauly RR. Importance of Thorough Physical Examination: A Lost Art. Cureus. 2017;9(5):e1212.
Newton C. The Functional Nutrition-Focused Physical Exam. IFNA Track 3 Module 2.
Tongue
Jeghers H. Nutrition: the appearance of the tongue as an index of nutritional deficiency. New England Journal of Medicine. 1942;227:221-8.
Khayamzadeh M, Najafi S, Sadrolodabaei P, Vakili F, Kharrazi Fard MJ. Determining salivary and serum levels of iron, zinc and vitamin B12 in patients with geographic tongue. J Dent Res Dent Clin Dent Prospects. 2019;13(3):221-226.
Chiang CP, Chang JY, Wang YP, Wu YH, Wu YC, Sun A. Atrophic glossitis: Etiology, serum autoantibodies, anemia, hematinic deficiencies, hyperhomocysteinemia, and management. J Formos Med Assoc. 2020;119(4):774-780.
Skin
Salem I, Ramser A, Isham N, Ghannoum MA. The Gut Microbiome as a Major Regulator of the Gut-Skin Axis. Front Microbiol. 2018;9:1459.
Wang X, Li Y, Wu L, et al. Dysregulation of the gut-brain-skin axis and key overlapping inflammatory and immune mechanisms of psoriasis and depression. Biomed Pharmacother. 2021;137:111065.
Jafferany M, Franca K. Psychodermatology: Basics Concepts. Acta Derm Venereol. 2016;96(217):35-7.
Reunala T, Salmi TT, Hervonen K, Kaukinen K, Collin P. Dermatitis Herpetiformis: A Common Extraintestinal Manifestation of Coeliac Disease. Nutrients. 2018;10(5):602.
Stefanadi EC, Dimitrakakis G, Antoniou CK, et al. Metabolic syndrome and the skin: a more than superficial association. Diabetol Metab Syndr. 2018;10:9.
Hair
O'Connor K, Goldberg LJ. Nutrition and hair. Clin Dermatol. 2021;39(5):809-818.
Arck PC, Overall R, Spatz K, et al. Towards a "free radical theory of graying": melanocyte apoptosis in the aging human hair follicle is an indicator of oxidative stress induced tissue damage. FASEB J. 2006;20(9):1567-9.
Zhang B, Ma S, Rachmin I, et al. Hyperactivation of sympathetic nerves drives depletion of melanocyte stem cells. Nature. 2020;577(7792):676-681.
Poonia K, Bhalla M. Premature Graying of Hair: A Comprehensive Review and Recent Insights. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2024;15(5):721-731.
Nails
Singal A, Arora R. Nail as a window of systemic diseases. Indian Dermatol Online J. 2015;6(2):67-74.
Cashman MW, Sloan SB. Nutrition and nail disease. Clin Dermatol. 2010;28(4):420-5.
Eyes
Knapp A. The Eye as a Guide to Latent Nutritional Deficiency Diseases. Bull N Y Acad Med. 1946.
Wakamatsu TH, Dogru M, Tsubota K. Tearful relations: oxidative stress, inflammation and eye diseases. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2008;71(6 Suppl):72-9.
Seydou A, Arnould L, Gabrielle PH, et al. Plasma Fatty Acids Pattern and Dry Eye Disease in the Elderly: The Montrachet Population-Based Study. Nutrients. 2022;14(11):2290.
Bu Y, Shih KC, Tong L. The ocular surface and diabetes, the other 21st Century epidemic. Exp Eye Res. 2022;220:109099.
Rahman A, Yahya K, Ahmed T, Sharif-Ul-Hasan K. Diagnostic value of tear films tests in type 2 diabetes. J Pak Med Assoc. 2007;57(12):577-81.
Seifart U, Strempel I. Trockenes Auge und Diabetes mellitus [The dry eye and diabetes mellitus]. Ophthalmologe. 1994;91(2):235-9.
Campagnoli LIM, Varesi A, Barbieri A, Marchesi N, Pascale A. Targeting the Gut-Eye Axis: An Emerging Strategy to Face Ocular Diseases. Int J Mol Sci. 2023;24(17):13338.
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