133. Holistic Fertility Creating a Super-Hero Baby  | Dr. Katherine Zagone | Solana Beach, CA

Dr. Katherine Zagone form Orian Wellness talks about the benefits of following an organic diet and how eating an organic diet and eating healthy can make a difference in your life and how parents can work together to eat the healthiest way to create a super-hero baby!

Tell us a little about yourself.

So I am a naturopathic doctor, which means I am trained as a primary care physician  specializing in natural medicine and I have chosen to do a subspecialty in holistic fertility, it’s just where my heart is.

I like to say I bring in the next generation of super-heroes, because when the couples works on getting themselves as healthy as possible not only does it make conception easier but supports passing  down the healthiest genes to that baby so we make superhero babies!

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I was a kid, I grew up I Chicago and my dad every summer would do a garden in the backyard, so I vividly remember holding the hose and watering tomato plants, I was probably 5-6. It has evolved into my parents entire backyard… spinach, cherry trees, blueberries! Now when I go home over the summer I get a blueberry update …

So must be a suburb?

my families in the NW suburbs, Mount Pospeect.

born in

so when I was

with the gardening

for being in Chicago in the late 80s, my parents were very progressive, we were raised very naturally, born at home, breast fed till I was four, my friends still kid me about it!

all about

I remember when in school if we got sick  we didn’t go to the dr, we got probiotics and sleep and rest, we did go to the dr for severe things

for being, in Chicago, we were the hippy, granola, crunchy neighbors,

when I got to high school my mom,


mom was diagnosed with

what we know now those

in hs my mom was diagnosed with

chronic fatigue syestm, fibrioulas

those are just garbage bucket diagnoses.

went the conventional route

was on methotrexate

on steriods

into her eyeball


IDK how bad it was

I was mean to her

she would essentially stay in bed all day

so she could be there for us…

finding out she was sick … when someone says that she has a diagnosis, I didn’t know if  that meant she was gonna die, she could get worse or get better…

what pushed me into the natropathic medicine was she finally had enough, she was gtting sicker and sicker after not getting any better and said I can’t do this anymore. So she stopped taking all the drugs… she started to see a chiropracter, within 8 months she was like 60% better, now she’s like 99% … deals with the emotional issues with her mother-in-law that sort of thing…

seeing her get better with simple natural medicine

opened up my eyes to what’s possible in the world

being the smarty pants that I was, knew this was what I had to pursue.

First I was gonna do the chiropractor but that didn’t have enough, then I thought about doing an MD then I didn’t think I’d get enough of the the natural stuff…

most MD’s don’t have a nutrition class, or one in their entire medical program, but they are not trained in the healing power of food, found it was a 4 year doctoral program, board exams, the whole thing and I could learn everything I wanted to learn,

food as medicine

I knew that was absolutely knew that was what I was supposed to do in this world!

I rocked it!!!

I am super

Do you want to give listens a natural healing lesson.

So I’ll give you all a little rundown

on the basis of natural medicine, the body knows how to heal itself

if you get a cut, the skin heals, the body heals

you don’t have to stitch it up, you might get a scar, you don’t have to stitch it, etc. What prevents us from healing form other things?

  1. not enough of the good stuff
  2. too much of the bad stuff
  3. disregulation in the system

power of food

first two

if you don’t have the right nutrients your body can’t heal… if you don’t have zinc and vitamin c

can’t heal that cut

That’s the simplest example that I use…

the other piece is

you need to keep all the bad stuff out

howeer with the world that we live in

with everything that we breathing,, eating, touching,

the chemicals on our food supply, if you’re not growing your own organic food of course… what happens as we take those in… our toxins


could be the skin

a lot of plastics we touch affect our hormones, the liver..

inflamation can be

a cause for a lot of things

the keys to true health is to give your body all the right nutrients and to take out the trash make sure your avoiding all those things like pesticides and plastics that muck up the system. That way so your body has everything you have to function optimally.

organic food is the power of medicine

One you don’t have the pesticides and the toxins.

higher nutrient values

minerals, phytonutrients, all the colors, every color is a different phytonutrient…

from the photo every color

is a differnet



decreaese your

to help balance hormones

help brain function

If don’t have the basics in place

  • food
  • sleep
  • movement

you can throw all the

if you don’t have the main ingredients it’s hard to do anything

can’t build a house without wood or concrete,

food is absolutely the foundation.

I would say

  • food
  • sleep
  • movement
  • mind body connection…


  • healing power of nature


Reinstilling the human power of nature.

Whole food and take out the trash by supporting our elimination mechanizms that are in the body… connecting that to the fertility piece, whether my couples are if they are struggling or not

whether they are working with a conventional fertility specialist or not, the way we see it in the holistic world, it’s really a bioproduct of being healthy

nutritioual stress

not enough of the good stuff and too much of the bad stuff so even eating too much trans-fats can cause problems or if you are taking in the plastics and those things you are not able to elimate.

How are people taking in plastic? Like from drinking in plastic water bottles?

so there are plastic chemicals in just about everything we use, so plastic water bottles. The worst culprit for taking in plastics is actually plastic coffee lids. The things that degrade plastic the most are

  • acidity
  • heat

and so coffees hot, so  pouring that degrading the plastic into your mouth

the more flexible the plastic is the more that the chemicals are coming off of it.and you could be taking it in…

So, this is the big questions going through my mind, what should I be bringing my coffee out of then a ceramic cup?

ceramic and stainless steel it’s the lids, more of the disposable ones at coffee shop that are not great. IF it’s a reusable mug that your using… that has a plastic lid in the top, its not as bad, as the diespsosable …  the chemicals that are coming off of it and you could be taking it in.

The other things I see especially with women are makeup:

  • personal care products
  • makeup
  • body washes
  • shampoos

a lot of ones I see now are cerrogan free…

  • bpa
  • bps

which are in a lot of plastic water

bpas & bps

a lot of ones I see say bpa free and they have bps which is just a different chemical

just haven’t studied it

acts like estrogen in the body, links to diabetes, choritizale, blood sugar, kind of what we call the chemical shit storm

salites and carorogens….

labels if they can be sal


environmental working group


body products

look up ingredients and learn exactly what each ingredient is doing for you or to you and really make some better choices

the way we live these days

we spend money chemicals  to wash all these natural oils off of our bodies and then spend more money to replenish that moisturizing


to make us all smell good, I’m all for heigene,

simply josepine (1)

One of my best friend Dacia from Simply Josephine and she sprayed something in my hair the other day that smelled so good and she makes soap, and it always smell goods in her house and always drinking water with the mint and cucumbers.  

She just wrote a blog post on Grapefruit cleaner! And her house is spotless! 


with the internet these days

there are recipes for homemade everything

homemade shampoos


some who want to take time to make stuff for themselves

get creative with what you buy and make

throwing in the essential makes it lots of fun!

If you are growing those herbs in your garden that’s probably more fun! I’m one of those people who’s not big on making my own things…

Two of my favorite herbs

Rosemary and dandelions are actually 2 of my favorite things to play with!

Growing up we had a lot of rosemary in the garden and when i lived in AZ in medical school it was growing all over and it’s

  • anti-inflamatory
  • antioxidant so 
  • anti-aging
  • stimulates circulation to the brain
  • helps with memory

Good for the heart and the brain!

so whether your adding it to food or adding it to water or even just smelling it, can elicit some of the same benefits! Rosemary is just the absolute  amazing!

Im the best dandelions gardener there is!

Cool, I’m big on bees, my husband was just saying I wish the dandelions were blooming, the bees are out today and nothings blooming. 

I love them one because you don’t have to work

as far as healing properties, they are one of the most poewrful medicines because they do so much for the body.

dandelion leaves you can do a salad

a tincture

a juice

incredible for the kidney

they’re a diuretic,

help you get

some of the pesticides go out through the kidneys

dandelion leaf can actually help flush that out faster…

flush out any other water soluble toxins

metabolic toxins

biproducts what our body normally makes

very rich in minerals

make sure you get all that your body needs

more deficitentin minerals then vitamins

  • mag
  • zinc
  • celienium
  • calcium
  • minerals on the periodic table

what’s cool about plants is they are

dandelion root

different parts have different benefits

amazing for liver and gall bladder


fat soluble toxins and water soluble toxins

whole other class of pesticides

are fat soluble tend not to be on fruits and vegetables as much…

dairy and meat, still want to get them out of the body…

bio aculumliation

toher things we take in that are

high collehesterol we want to

dandelion root can do that as well…

it supports

whole plant is amazing and then when it’s time and you get the head

to blow off the the seedlings and make a wish that’s fun too!

Dandielion root? how do you consume that?

you could do it fresh or dried and do a fresh a tea or a tincture

everclear or vodka over it, and let it sit for 6-9 weeks shake it every day

powerful medicine and then it’s preserved for a long period of time…

dandelion root tea

soul medicine if you do it yourself…

fresh dig them up, chop them up, chop them up throw them in some water and simmer for 5-10 minutes for the roots.

If you’re doing leaves you want to pour water over it


cook it a little bit to get more healing properties out of it, if it’s dried it will last longer before you make tea out of it… prepare it the same way

Nice… If I think of minerals I always think of going to the health food store and calmag etc for sale… so this is for getting the calcium and magnesium etc.


got a broad spectrum

if you

more specific

food prescription and supplementaion

supportive, mineral rich

it’s not like if someones magnesium deficient they can just do the dandelion and be fine,

other teas that are more rich in minerals



certain plants

most people

are magnesium deficient, what I’ve been finding in practice is unfortunately

supplementing magnesum is often not enough…

I see general practice patients as well and magnesium is huge!

So what does someone do? get their blood checked?

you can do it a couple of ways,


  • consticpation
  • muscle cramps
  • fatigue
  • headaches

who doesn’t have those

testing wise

couple of different blood test

micro nutrient panel where we take some blood of all the vitamins, minerals, nutrients

what’s inside your white blood cell specifically, that’s a measure of not only what you’ve been eating, what you are absorbing and how fast you’ve been going through these minerals

if I get that test back if a lot of minerals show up, i can see it’s a digestion issue if there’s a lot

digestive track is not breaking them down properly

gut health

simple as your mag is low, supplement with magnesium either orally or iv, get you back to optimal levels

mag does really well with


and migraines

watch out if you are taking it orally

a lot of patients

hgih doses of magnesium

can help you fall asleep at night

a little before bed is great, but if you take too much at once it can cause diarrhea

multiple kinds  of magnesium …

magnesium oxide

all used for different things

some are more for getting the bowls moving

muskatel skeletal health

supporting the nervous system

talking to a naturapthetic dr.so  trained in micronutritient medicine would be a great way to go.

super safe


if you wanted to try a little bit

But it’s always good to personalize for each patient.

Im in North County of San Diego, north Solana Beach

rainy day to

Orian Wellness

kind of like the belt of stars

at that practice I do the holeisteic


first intake

what lab tests are important

more thyroid

more gut sac

general blood test

liver function

that sort of thing

customize lab panel because not everybody needs everything. I can do it a couple of different ways with distance patients.

lab corps stataion

for the exact tests, they send them to me and we go through them together on a follow up call.

on a

more advanced test

micronutrient panel

cortizol and saliva testing for different hormones. Those are kits to do a blood draw

ship it off to lab

and back to me

saliva kit, it’s kind of gross and kind of fun, you get to spit in a tube and then ship it and then the lab results

put all the pieces of why you are feeling the way you are so we get you feeling better as soon as possible.

I think listens are gonna be super excited to do this either mail it to you or find someone in their area. I think it’s hard to find a doctor to go into any go this… I just really believe in a lot of this, I’ve seen a lot of people who have been helped through diet and extend their lives. There’s a lot to everything that you’ve said…. When we met you were telling me about the Super Babies that there we’re things moms and dads could do to make a healthier baby.


SuperHero Babies…

What we’re learning now with science called epigenetics.

branch of science brand new

called epigenetic

you can turn those genes up and down, so we want to turn up the good genes and turn down the bad genes.

you can turn those

most imporatnt time for turning the genes up and down is around the conception

for that babies entire lifetime

things mom and dad can do during preconception and pregnancy that will reduce that childs risk for

developmental condition

even things down the line

if you were going to create the healthiest baby you possibly could a couple would want to give themselves one 2 two years to

the healthier the parents are the healthier the baby is gonna be

first thing

do the nutrition stuff, 

  • lots of organic veggies
  • super clean meats
  • free range, 100% grass fed for all the beef if they’re eating meat
  • lots of
  • eggs need to be
  • fish

if you can get your own chickens, that would be great as well, I know not everybody has save for

farmere marktes are high quality food.

wild salmon

anything farmed is going to be full of chemicals, mercury, which is a heavy metal and it has the wrong ratio of fats

  • a lot of the good healthy fats

salmon is a great way to do that becasue it has a lot of omega 3s

unfortunately if you get  farmerd salmon and not wild salmon

fatty acid profile is off


ewg.org website you can read all about the different types of chemicals in farmed fish

what type of fish are great and not great. Then they also have another for the

cleanest and the don’t have to be organic, the dirty dozen never want to eat a bite of those

these toxins regulate the bad genes

hormonal imbalance

genes that affect hormones

a lot of the plastic studies

moms who have higher levels of chemicals in their systems


  • misformed genetals to varying degrees
  • early puberty of girls


these couples want to start a year in advance,

  • do a full cleanout
  • avoiding as many toxins as possible.
  • getting own health in order

if mom has an autoimmune system

dad has a heart condition already, things we want to get under control right away, from the time an egg and a sperm about 4 months from when they are released to greet each other

other things we can do to enhance the quality of sprem and eggs

have all the eggs we will ever ovulate there are ways to improve the quality and how many eggs we are maturing, there are things we can do even though typically in the past science has thought that this is the way it is. So we get

  • mom and dad are healthy as possible
  • sperm and egg as healthy as possible.

then you are getting not only

a beautiful

helathiest expression that you have

man and the woman

dad is contributing as much genetic info

when the mom is healthier the pregnancy is typically easier

lower rates of complications during pregnancy and labor as well.


so much enhancement! There’s so much that we can do for our own health for the experience of brining a child into this world and setting that child up for life!!!

if we could set a couple of hundred dollars in the bank and setting that child up for an amazing retirement, everyone would do it! I’m a big advocate of everyone bringing children into the world in the healthiest most conscious way that they can…

So we know we want healthy organic food.

is there anything about not eating meat, and being vegan that way and then Mike and I always worry about eating out of the Japanese nuclear explosion eating out of the ocean?


that’s a huge concern

fish sources

sea weed is a really amazing food and medicine again

meat vs non meat

depends on the person

for feritlity

I typically encourage my patients

to eat animal products as long as they’re super clean, grass fed,

slightly higher fat diet of the mommas-to-be

whole milk,

whole cottage cheese

I don’t recommend all my pateints eat diary it’s on a case by case basis

some patients are

a lot of the good fats

ok to up the fat content

make sure were getting healthy fats,

  • omega 3s
  • avacados
  • olive oil
  • hemp seed oil

avoiding the vegetable oils

I love  hemp seed oil it has a really nice ratio of omega 3s and 6s

seeds are really good too a good source of fiber…

If you could tell listeners anything you would like them to do to be healthier is there anything we haven’t covered?

Mind-Body Aspect

that’s something I work on a lot with my fertility couples and some with my general patients

beliefs the way life is

they cause us stress

physiology  because of how our hormones respond to mental or physical stress

number one thing everyone should do

every single study

  • shows that it lowers inflation
  • improves mental functiou
  • imprvoes focus
  • faster healing time
  • cool tests
  • on aging

Telomeres beneficial affected by this therapy anti-aging

Meditation cheapest easist thing  has the most broad spectrum


Shaun Stevenson, Michael Hyatt, even someone who’s like me a total hippie would be like no way not me, but having someone guide me through it the other day I was like that was pretty cool…

I totally agree if you can just  commit to 3 minutes a day

build it there

all the medical literature, seriously I’m blown away, its part of what makes me do it, IDK if it really works, I have excuses for everything that I don’t want to do, but every time I see another study, and then when I sit and do it, I love

there’s tons of apps out there, there’s lot of recordings out there on youtube and iTunes. You just listen and follow along.

Following the breath is the easiest.

counting in

four counts out

every buddhist, every teacher, guru has their own method.

sure theres different methods that have different effects

What Ive found is that any of it is way more beneficial then not at all. Find what works for you. I’ve been doing a progressive relaxation guided meditaiton, so

finding the one that works for you

being consistent and notice what’s in your body…

I always thought it was just sitting and then make mind go blank, my mind doesn’t stop… to have someone talk through it, he was talking about how much it will calm you in real life… Do you know who Shaun Stevenson is, he has this calm voice, it’s like I wasn’t always like this, I wasn’t calm at all, but because I’ve been doing this for so long, that when I get upset my body just goes through things because I can be an uptight new yorker who can snap and it would have been nice to have that to fall back on and I also had this running trainer and he would have me run fast sprints on the long straight parts and running on the curve I’d walk and he’d say deep breath and he was like that’s not deep breathing, do it like this breathe in deep and hold it… so you don’t always know what you should do…

It’s the very essence of what’s keeping us alive!

Can I ask what’s the difference between adrenal and thyroids?

we don’t have a concept of knowing what it’s supposed to be

adrenal glands

are 2 glands on top of each kidney, they make a couple of hormones

they make epinephrine… norepinephrine,

fight or flight or

and they make chorizonl which effects.

stress respones

blood sugar

if your choritzol is too high for too long, it can cause all sorts of problems it can affect thyroid

and male hormones


when we typically talking about chrortizol, the stress hormones. the way were are stress in our lives these days we’re pumping out a lot of it too frequently.

In the past if you see the tiger in the bush, you’re body shoots up choritzol and epinephrine and you run away from that tiger, and you sit down so you burn off those stimulating chemicals when you relax.

relaxed baseline

pumping out so much choritzol

can affect

thyroid function, fertility, and your gut lining…


basic on adrenals.

thyroid is the gland in the neck, the lower half of the gland in your next that looks like a butterfly

thryoid have a lot to do with, body temp,

energy and also plays a role in hair and skin and




  • dry skin
  • losing hair
  • fatigue
  • constipation


  • agitaion
  • anxiety
  • nervousness
  • trouble sleeping
  • maybe deareaha or frequent bowl movements


paly a

role in energy

someones like Im just so tired all the time, I want to look at those…

typically I’ll treat the adrenals first, if we fix the thyroid, and it’s caused by the adrenals,

higher doses of medication

treat cause, it can be the choritzol issue in the adrenals

pushing and stress of todays world,

you can burn out and not be able to make enough choritzonl..

delicate interplay



labwork done for yourself and sitting down with a naturapathic

who knows what thy’er doing in this realm. can give eye beautiful picture of wants going on in your body and what’s happening could be you don’t have enough b5 to make

don’t have enough iodine to make enough thyroid hormone or enough

could be much bigger picture going on, there’s a lot to investigate. Best to work with a practicioner to customize your plan so you can feel as awesome.

I’m just gonna say on that note makes a big difference! There’s probably a longer system… I had a job, the mentor at the problem was like this is unacceptable, it was funny they called me on new years day and they checked my iron levels and my husband said the dr called. The next day is new years day and they call and I’m really nervous and he’s like the hospital called and I thought it’s cancer. She’s like are you ok, how are you? They said my iron level was so low, they put me on super high iron pills that day… Tell us does health insurance cover it and how much it costs etc. 

Unfortunatley most health insurance won’t cover naturopathic medicine but that’s not a reason not to do it…

$220/full hours in that viti we take a full treatment history and


some patience where the will cover

We do have special agreements with certain cash labs to make it affordable.

followups are based on time. So the first followup wouldd depend.

might be another would be $220.

1/2 hour would be $110

maybe a 10 minute visit or a 20 minute visit.

most patients notice  a difference within the first few weeks treatment if they get on their plan especially if their lab work comes back with something specific to treat right way…

by 3 months most patients are feeling pretty good.

finagling it…

special cash prices

if insurance

follow ups based on time

lab review 1/2 hour

full treatment plan

and recommendations

most people it takes a bout 3 months… to get to where they want to be

6 or more months to hit optimal…

Let’s wrap it up …

Love sharing who to share

  • how important to eat healthy organic foods,
  • how to make super hero babies
  • using rosemary for memory

That also my be how I graduated at the top of my class.. Give it as a gift.

The practice is called Orian Wellness

760 – 593-4613

You can call and schedule  a first consult that’s an hour long and we go through entire health history. You can call the office and schedule with Dr. Zagone.

If you want more info on the fertility stuff



things that we talked about or any kind of speaking you can connect with me drz@orianwellness.com











