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Dr. Greg Mongeon

@drgreghealth

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👨‍⚕️25+ years in functional medicine
🌿Thousands of women's lives changed
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If I could only add and subtract one thing from my patients' diets, here's what it would be.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and after this many years in clinic it really does come down to these two things more than anything else.

What would I subtract? Added sugar, in every hidden form it shows up in.

The granola bar. The flavored yogurt. The healthy smoothie.

It is usually the last thing people suspect, because it does not taste like a problem.

What would I add? A real serving of protein at your first meal, and specifically before you touch any carbohydrate on your plate.

Research out of Cornell found that eating protein and vegetables before carbs lowered post-meal blood sugar by nearly 30 percent at 30 minutes and over 35 percent at one hour, with lower insulin to match.

So one change removes the biggest hidden driver of dysfunction.

The other actively protects you at every single meal.

That is the whole game.

Which of the two would be harder for you?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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11 hours ago

Ladies, here are three ways you can naturally slow your hair from graying.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and while genetics plays the biggest role here, it is not the only lever you have.

Way number one: Correct the deficiencies that mimic premature graying.

Low B12, low copper, low vitamin D and low ferritin are all independently linked to early graying, and every one of them shows up on a simple blood panel rather than a hair product.

Way number two: Lower your oxidative stress load.

Your hair follicles produce pigment using an enzyme system that is highly vulnerable to free radical damage, and a diet rich in antioxidants gives that system more protection to work with.

Think berries, leafy greens and green tea.

Way three: Stop compounding the damage.

Frequent bleaching and peroxide-based dyes directly degrade the melanin you still have, and smoking has been linked to graying at more than double the rate of non-smokers.

You may not be able to out-supplement your genetics.

But you can absolutely stop accelerating what your genetics never demanded in the first place.

Which of those four deficiencies has anyone ever actually checked on you?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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14 hours ago

Here's why your burnout in your 50s and 60s might be a lot more physiological than you think.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and I need you to hear this.

It is not a character flaw, and it is not just getting older.

Your HPA axis, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis that produces cortisol, does not operate in isolation.

Estrogen directly affects how your body metabolizes cortisol.

Progesterone, which normally has a calming effect on your nervous system, becomes erratic and unreliable as its production declines through perimenopause and menopause.

So the exact same stressors you used to shake off at 35 now land on a stress response system that has lost some of its own built-in buffering.

That is what produces the specific, miserable feeling so many women describe.

Wired but tired. Exhausted but unable to actually rest.

Then it becomes a loop.

Poor sleep raises cortisol further, which lowers your resilience to the next stressor, which disrupts sleep again.

This is a hormone and nervous system problem, not a willpower problem.

Treating it like one is exactly why just relax more has never worked.

Does wired but tired describe your evenings?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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a day ago

Here's what your bathroom habits are actually telling you about your gut health.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and this is one of the most useful and most ignored diagnostic tools you already have.

A 2024 study out of Zhejiang University tracked 20 adults for over three weeks and found that how often you go actually reshapes which bacteria live in your gut.

People going daily leaned toward one dominant family of bacteria.

People going only a few times a week leaned toward another, and that slower group showed more protein fermentation, which produces byproducts your liver then has to clear.

The people in the middle, going somewhere between four and six times a week, had the broadest and most diverse mix of anyone in the study.

Frequency is not the only clue.

Hard and infrequent usually means things are moving too slowly, which gives your body more time to reabsorb what it was trying to eliminate.

Loose and urgent usually means things are moving too fast to absorb nutrients properly in the first place.

This is not a taboo topic in my office.

It is one of the fastest and cheapest pieces of data you have about what is actually happening in your gut, and most people have never once stopped to pay attention to it.

When did you last actually look?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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2 days ago

Here's why you become more susceptible to disease as you age.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and this is not just a wearing out.

It is a specific, identifiable shift happening inside you.

First, your immune system develops a contradiction called immunosenescence.

It gets weaker at recognizing genuinely new threats while simultaneously becoming more reactive and inflamed in general.

You end up less protected and more inflamed at the same time.

Second, that background inflammation has a name in the research.

It is called inflammaging, a chronic low-grade inflammatory state that rises steadily with age.

It is now understood to directly drive most of what we call age-related disease, from heart disease to dementia, rather than being a separate problem sitting next to them.

Third, your body starts accumulating senescent cells.

A senescent cell is one that stops dividing but refuses to die, and instead sits there releasing inflammatory signals that damage the healthy tissue around it.

The older you get, the more of these zombie cells are quietly working against you.

This is why I care more about reducing inflammation and supporting your immune system today than waiting for a disease to treat later.

The disease is not the starting point.

This is.

What are you doing about inflammation right now?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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3 days ago

When women come to me worried about Parkinson's, here are the first three lifestyle changes I tell them to make.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and none of these start with a prescription.

Change number one: Reduce pesticide and herbicide exposure.

A UCLA controlled study found a clear dose-response relationship between residential and workplace proximity to certain agricultural pesticides and Parkinson's risk.

The effect was strongest in people diagnosed before 60.

Buying organic for the highest-exposure produce and avoiding lawn chemicals at home are two of the simplest changes available to you.

Change number two: Take your gut seriously.

A leading theory, the Braak hypothesis, proposes that the misfolded protein behind the disease may originate in the gut years before it ever reaches the brain, traveling up the vagus nerve.

Supporting gut health is not a vague wellness suggestion here.

It may be addressing the actual starting point.

Change three: Exercise consistently and vigorously.

This is one of the most well-supported neuroprotective interventions in the research.

Regular vigorous exercise is tied to measurably lower Parkinson's risk and slower progression in people who already have it, likely through its effect on protecting the dopamine-producing neurons themselves.

This is not about guaranteeing you never get Parkinson's.

It is about addressing the levers you actually can move.

Is this one you have been quietly worried about?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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3 days ago

Here are three changes you need to make in your diet to retain muscle better as you age.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and the same eating pattern that maintained your muscle at 30 will quietly let it slip away at 60.

Change number one: Eat more protein per meal than you used to need.

Younger muscle responds to a modest protein hit.

Older muscle has what is called anabolic resistance, and it takes meaningfully more protein in a single sitting, closer to 30 to 40 grams, to trigger the same building response that used to kick in with half that much.

Change number two: Stop under-eating.

Chronic calorie cutting does not just slow your metabolism.

When your body is underfed it will break down muscle tissue for fuel before it touches stored fat.

Years of eating light is one of the fastest ways to quietly lose the muscle you are trying to protect.

Change three: Get more omega-3 fatty acids.

Research shows they directly improve how efficiently older muscle responds to protein, essentially lowering the threshold your body needs to start building.

Fatty fish several times a week does double duty here.

Muscle is not maintained by accident after 50.

It is maintained on purpose, at every meal.

How much protein was in your last meal?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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4 days ago

Here are three non-negotiables women need to start implementing when they turn 60.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and these are not suggestions.

At this stage they are the floor.

Non-negotiable number one: Resistance training at least twice a week, no exceptions.

This is simultaneously your best defense against muscle loss, bone loss, and the metabolic slowdown that gets blamed on just getting older.

Nothing else on this list works as well without it.

Non-negotiable number two: More protein than you think you need.

Your body becomes less efficient at using protein to build and maintain muscle as you age, so the amount that was plenty at 40 quietly stops being enough at 60.

Non-negotiable number three: Ask for your labs at your annual physical.

A lot of the time they are not running the right ones.

Fasting insulin.

A full thyroid panel including anti-thyroid antibodies, especially if you have been told you are hypothyroid.

Lp(a), and I also like apolipoprotein B.

A real hormone panel.

Almost none of that makes it onto a standard 60th birthday checkup, and every one of them can catch a problem years before it becomes a diagnosis.

You do not need to do everything.

You need to stop skipping these three.

What did your last physical actually test?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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4 days ago

As you age, here are three things you need to change if exercising feels harder and harder.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and this is not in your head, and it is not just getting older.

Change number one: How you are training your mitochondria.

Your muscle cells' actual energy-producing capacity declines measurably with age, which is a real part of why the same workout feels harder now.

Steady, easy-paced cardio, true zone two training, rebuilds mitochondrial density better than always pushing hard.

Most people are doing the opposite of what their cells actually need.

Change number two: Your recovery window.

Older muscle takes longer to repair after a hard session, and training through that gap the way you did at 30 compounds fatigue instead of building fitness.

More recovery time is not falling behind.

It is the training stimulus working.

Change three: Your warm-up.

Connective tissue loses hydration and elasticity with age, so the warm-up you used to skip at 25 has become a completely different risk.

Five minutes of real mobility work before you start is not optional anymore.

It is what lets the rest of the session actually happen.

You do not need to exercise less as you age.

You need to exercise smarter.

What part of your routine have you not changed since your 30s?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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5 days ago

Ladies, here are three things you could be doing to reduce your risk of breast cancer.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and these are the three with the clearest evidence behind them.

Thing one: Cut back on alcohol.

An American Institute for Cancer Research report found that one small daily drink raises breast cancer risk by about five percent before menopause and nine percent after.

That is at a level most people would call moderate, not heavy.

Thing two: Move, and move hard sometimes.

In the same body of research, the most physically active post-menopausal women had roughly a ten percent lower risk.

Vigorous activity specifically, not just walking, showed the strongest protective effect.

Your effort level matters, not only whether you technically exercised.

Thing three: Address excess body fat, especially around the midsection.

Fat tissue makes its own estrogen through an enzyme called aromatase, so carrying more of it means manufacturing more estrogen exposure over a lifetime.

One more reason visceral fat is never just a cosmetic issue.

None of these three guarantee anything.

All three measurably shift the odds in your favor.

Which one of those is the one you keep putting off?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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5 days ago

Here are three common denominators in women in their 50s and 60s who have a heart attack.

I've been a functional medicine doctor for more than 25 years, and almost none of these three show up on a standard annual physical.

Denominator number one: Undiagnosed insulin resistance hiding behind a normal cholesterol panel.

A huge share of these women had unremarkable lipid numbers right up until their event, because cholesterol was never the whole story.

Fasting insulin is the test that catches it early, and it almost never gets ordered.

Number two: Inflammation nobody measured.

Chronic low-grade inflammation damages the lining of your arteries for years before a single symptom shows up.

The marker that would catch it is hs-CRP, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, and I want that at 0.3 or less, which is tighter than the standard lab range.

That one is not part of a routine panel either.

You cannot manage what was never tested.

Denominator number three: Undiagnosed sleep apnea.

Hormonal shifts around menopause make airway collapse during sleep far more common in women than most people realize.

Untreated, it puts repeated nightly strain directly on your cardiovascular system for years before anyone catches it.

Three things in common, and three things a standard physical does not check.

That is not a coincidence.

Which of those three has anyone ever actually run on you?

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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6 days ago

Today I want to talk about whether you should be taking glutathione as a woman in midlife.

I've been in functional medicine for more than 25 years, and my honest answer is that you probably shouldn't be taking it in the form you're picturing.

Glutathione is your body's master antioxidant, and it genuinely matters more as you age.

The problem is that most oral glutathione is broken down by an enzyme in your gut before any meaningful amount ever reaches your bloodstream.

You are largely paying for very expensive urine.

Here is what actually works instead.

Broccoli sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables are rich in sulforaphane, a compound shown to switch on your body's own pathway for producing glutathione from scratch.

You're upgrading your own factory instead of shipping in a finished product that doesn't survive the trip.

Adequate protein matters too, since glutathione is built from three amino acids your body needs a steady supply of.

And if you do want to supplement, the form is the whole argument.

Mine is a liposomal reduced L-glutathione, which is where the oral category actually holds up right now.

So skip the expensive injection and feed the system that makes it instead.

Check out my favorite liposomal glutathione in my shop.

Find the root. Heal the whole. by @drgreghealth

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8 days ago