Make it Happen with Dr. Beran Parry - A Passion for Health & Vitality

Join Ali Meehan in the Make It Happen Studio as we sit down with Dr. Beran Parry, a pioneer in functional health and the author of over 40 books on diet and wellness. In this episode, Dr. Parry shares her journey from conventional medicine to becoming a leader in functional medicine, focusing on reducing inflammation, the benefits of the Paleo diet, and the importance of following your passion. Learn valuable tips on improving your health, managing stress, and growing your business with Dr. Parry's expert advice.

Dr. Parry is a Fellow of The Complementary Medical Association and you can connect with her:

Personal Website: drberanparry.com
Functional Medicine: gen-xhealth.com
Diagnostics and Education: advanced-biogroup.com

Key Topics:

Functional Medicine
Reducing Inflammation
The Paleo Diet
Health and Wellness Tips
Business Growth Strategies

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the make it happen studio today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr Beran Parry. Dr Parry has written over 40 books about diet and health having trained as a licensed medical practitioner. Dr Parry now focuses on Functional Health and she's a fellow of the complimentary Medical Association so I'm really excited to have Dr Perry join me and to hear about her experiences. Come over and let's listen [Music]

Well welcome Beran. Thank you really good to see you so I'd love to hear from you what your favourite thing is about your career because you've got a very extensive and impressive career behind you in the whole area of medicine and health and you've written 40 books but I'd really love to home in on the the one thing that really lights your fire as it were for you in your business. I think what gives me the most fulfilment is being able to see my patients go on this amazing journey of transforming their health because when you see someone who doesn't have the benefits of good health and a high quality of life and you see them going through a process which then gives them, enables them to have a fantastic quality of life and transforms their health it really is life changing so it to be able to help on that journey is the most amazing thing to me Brilliant and was there actually a trigger for you exploring health? Obviously you're a you're qualified um GP but was there something that made you decide to go down this health avenue in life broadly Yeah actually the area I focus on is something called functional medicine which is not quite the same as conventional medicine although I have been conventionally medicine trained um the you know there were two triggers so one trigger is that I at a very young age I had my son um and I discovered all these huge changes in pregnancy and uh still you know I was only 19 and wow and I really re I realised at such a young age that our women's bodies, our bodies go through enormous change and I was extremely hungry to know so much more about why and how and what could be done to improve situations and what solutions were available that I at at that young age I started studying naturopathy at a Health Institute in Cape Town in South Africa so that was the first trigger but I was doing many studies at that time. I also studied Finance and Banking and ended up in a career doing that in Europe but then at age 40 I developed a tumour in my thyroid which um out of the blue I was already extremely well qualified in health and well-being but I was working uh only part-time in that my main work was very much in finance and banking which was going very well but by having this health issue myself I discovered that when you're not um following your life purpose which is I wasn't doing that I wasn't fully involved in health and well-being things happen to your body and you get you can become ill. Fortunately it was a very tiny pre-cancer so although I had the feeling the experience of what it's like to have cancer it's something that I was able to clear immediately and which never came back again until 20 years later but that was the second much bigger and permanent trigger that pushed me into going into health, well-being, function medicine and nutrition on a full-time basis. I went back to school I studied I had I got a Masters and then eventually a PhD and that was what set me on the road to where I am today. Amazing thank you for sharing that um are there any specific small changes that we can all make to our health to make a difference to our health and and what would they be and why? The biggest influence on our health is how much inflammation we have in our body. Inflammation occurs in many different ways it can occur in the gut, it can occur on any on every cell that's why when we take when the doctor does our blood test they do something called a c reactive protein marker which tests our general level of inflammation because if there's something wrong there there's something wrong in with our health so that's the first step so anything we can do to reduce inflammation is the best way forward So step one has to be to reduce two particular hormones that play a very important part in inflammation and they are insulin and cortisol okay so once we we uh reduce uh our insulin or rather let's say our regulate our insulin that's a better way to do it we are able to um go move away from having inflammation in our bodies and the same with cortisol so if we if we learn to manage our stress our cortisol levels don't rise which also causes inflammation okay so how do we reduce inflammation stop eating sugar because that affects the insulin in in our bodies insulin metabolism and the second is make sure you manage your stress okay yeah yeah which is easier said than done isn't it I was going to say that cortisol is obviously a stress marker um and and we all live with stress now unfortunately on a very regular basis I can't yes I can't say get rid of your stress I can say manage your stress okay do you have any specific tip for measuring how do you measure your stress for instance well you know let's go into functional medicine and what we call lifestyle medicine because that's ideally what I practice as well so that's about looking at the entire person holistically and environmentally but also medically so we keep the medical aspect to it but what we make sure of is that the overall health so whether it's a nutrition whether it's how we move our bodies how we manage stress obviously how we manage stress is to sit down and take a deep look into why we're getting stress what we can cut out what are what are our priorities in life and in health and in order to do that it's best to have a professional who helps you with this somebody who is in either a life coach, a clinical nutritionist or functional medicine doctor whatever type of person you can get to help you with this it's well worth the investment. Okay thank you for that advice you've obviously written over 40 books um many of them are recommending the paleo diet or paleo diet why do you specifically recommend that way of eating? It goes back to who we are biologically, so biologically we are what I call hunter gatherers so right back to when man began if we put it that way we spent our entire day either hunting or gathering food and then we'd come back at night and eat whatever we'd manage to obtain and hunter gatherer biology is all about how your body functions in that environment so that's an environment of of very regular ongoing movement, it's an environment of collecting whatever you can in the fields to eat or hunting whatever you can to eat and it's about then coming back back and enjoying uh a meal in a very stress stress resilient environment if you like and and so the paleo diet very much follows that premise it follows the scientific uh aspect of being a hunter gatherer biologically and it appeals really appealed because if we looking at natural medicine and how do we approach our entire medical strategy but naturally we we we need hunter gatherer approach if you like to understand our bodies okay and the diet is a hunter gatherer diet which is the Paleolithic or Paelo diet. The recipe books that you've created will help support that what is the biggest challenge you think we face with today's diet that um you know is it getting particular Foods is it um not finding the the right um not eating at the right times or eating the wrong types of food what what do you think are the big biggest challenges that we currently face? I think it's the temptation to go with processed foods because massive amount of money is spent on promoting and advertising and marketing foods that are supposedly healthy uh but the moment we actually mess with nature and process of food it it loses its uh its integrity yeah so so the so the best and it's tempting to do that because we have busy lies we don't have time to cook on the run we grab something to eat and we think we and we are trying to do our best we are but unfortunately there's a lot of influence now in what we choose and it's not helping us okay good yeah yeah so it's it's finding the time for us to actually cook and enjoy um what we make as as well as you know maybe making snacks that we can take with us when we know that we've not got a lot of time um to actually stop and eat and it's a change of mindset it's about being creative about it about knowing that the same amount of time to put a you know a tin of salmon and a bag of salad uh into a bowl and some salad dressing into your bag and then have that wherever you are rather than grab a sandwich from the the garage shop yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah good advice do you have a specific business role model who has made it happen for you and if so why? Well there's two really you know Tony Robbins of course he is very famous about how he approaches his business and he's taught hundreds of thousands of students to um to have the same passion that he has and and I think his story is very interesting because he came really from a point of great um disability in that not just physically disabled but mentally disabled because of his background and he managed to change it around by educating himself so my I think my business model is help people to educate themselves because then then they are much more convinced and they have much more conviction about approaching their health in a positive way and sustaining that approach so so that's the thing and and then I think you know uh from there we we go into the latest developments in health Dr David Sinclair has come up with an amazing longevity model which which we follow and which we've expanded on and I've just been lecturing about that this morning because it's all about reversing uh any type of degenerative condition we have in the body and are we able to and and can we actually you know uh preserve our health and our well-being and our vitality which we can do if we follow the right paths yeah yeah yeah I mean they they say going back to your first point they say if you teach a man to fish he'll he'll eat for the rest of his life so it's actually teaching people at the in the very outset how to maintain and sustain that that um diet and that lifestyle that's right so the first time I see someone it's more about educating them in that first session because that's what's going to be most valuable to them right yeah yeah yeah so your business has grown uh exponentially you're now flying all around the world are there three things that you could teach us for our own businesses yes you know uh becoming an entrepreneur is um is a big is a big decision I mean it's exciting it's scary it's exhilarating it it has everything in it and and and some sometimes there are moments where uh we we really enjoy it and other times it's really tough so I think it's about understanding that when things don't go according to plan it's a lesson if you can really believe that that what is the lesson in what's just happened because that lesson lesson will give you so much more wisdom yes how you run things in the future so number one is I think make sure that it's that you see it as a lesson so it's how you view how you perceive what's happened that's the first thing The second second item is choose the right people around you make sure that that positive environment whether they're helping you in your task whether they even just friends or people that are advising you it's so important to get that right to have the right people around you and and when you have that it's a huge benefit to your business If you don't have it it can be a real liability y yeah and the third thing? And the third third thing is self-esteem so we need to understand that we are worthwhile being being understanding that you have enormous worth and therefore you have self worth it really propels you into a new way of not only how you regard yourself but how you conduct your business and that I think is the third one that will really get you where you need to go yeah great tips there they and really useful and and so practical because we do um I I see so many women that start a business and then it doesn't quite work out how they thought it would work out and they just give up rather than thinking what could we learn from this and how can we grow from that experience and then improve what we had as a business to to make it the better Business than it would ever have been if we hadn't had that hiccup so yeah of those tips Do you have a favourite book that you've read this year that's made a difference to your life and why yes A lady called Jamie Jamie Kern Lemur has written a book called Worthy okay so that fits with the last point yeah yes yes and and she is a lady who's been through a lot of trauma and a lot of a lot in her life she now has an extremely successful business um and she was recently actually interviewed by Oprah because um the overall impact of of improving your self-esteem or obtaining self-esteem esteem is so huge throughout everything in your life how you conduct your business how you conduct your relationships how you take care of your own health that it really is the stepping stone to what what you want to achieve in life so that's being the most impressive book of this year for sure okay good I'll put it in the show notes then anybody can order it and have a read Do you have a superpower? Superpower is in my own superpower or yeah I think it's uh it's uh definitely determination and resilience but the most one that's the two but the biggest one on top of that of the triangle of power is uh passion okay for what you're doing in life and yeah and then communicating it yes yeah yeah Is there something specific that you want to achieve by the end of this year yes we are uh we we in 2020 we launched our natural natural medicine business and what's been wonderful about that is that we've had so many people that have benefited and taken the medicines that keep taking it so what we really want to do is to bring that to a much larger audience and at the moment I've been in America working on that but also locally here as more and more clinics and doctors are taking note of this natural medicine because it's all science-based it's all has evidence uh science evidence and research material to to back up the medicines we we're really looking to bring that medicine to a much wider audience who can then benefit from it so that's a big task for this year Right do you think that doctors are becoming more aware of natural um ways of treating health than before because I think particularly I mean you and I both live in Spain I think they're generally getting more and more aware of it and and don't just prescribe the latest thing they actually do say well you're better off taking natural products rather than and chemical products as it were That's such a great subject that you've brought up because even this morning I had a meeting with one of the top Internal Medicine doctors here on the coast in one of the biggest clinics and he has asked me to come and join the practice simply to bring that natural that functional medicine diagnostic into the practice and say you don't have to go with a chemical solution if there's a natural solution so and but it's all about education he's someone who's educated himself myself we have a course that helps to educate uh uh medical practitioners as well so once these doctors have time and make time to get educated they will go in this direction yeah yeah wow amazing and that's that's really going to open up what you do and be able to offer it to more people yes um as you go forward Would you have any advice for your younger Beran? Yes so I would say when we go back to when I had my baby very early and and then listened to my parents and followed a career of their choice which was Banking and finance that went very well Follow Your Passion even from a young age whatever your the age group is of the Ladies that are going to listen to this podcast never be never have fear about following your passion because that is what will come through your belief system when you do the work and that will give you the most reward, the most joy, the most fulfilment yeah yeah no really good advice Do you have any tips for finding that passion because I quite often get asked by Ladies that they'd love to follow the passion but they're not really sure what it is so do you have any tips for actually finding out what your passion is or could be? So so that's a very interesting question because a lot of us women or all women really get very involved in you know the normal life of a woman which is you know have a bit of a career get married maybe have some kids and then you kind of sometimes get stuck because then you lose yourself in becoming a mother, or a wife, or even if you get divorced you're still a mother or whatever it is so how do we get back to who we are is the question and that's about you know using um uh some kind of uh process where you really focus inwards on yourself So to give you an example I'm putting together a a natural medicine um day or or a retreat, a day Retreat experience and and we're looking at you know first get yourself into balance so do a bit of yoga meditation and then really look carefully at what is it that really excites me about my life so is it is it something is it art, is it health is it um just simply helping other people is it is it a particular area do I want to teach something thing and really take a look at what is it about life that excites you the most and most people funnily enough either want to help other people or help animals okay so I get that a lot yeah and then if you want to help people then then you know the door opens very wide because then you can either teach something, you can advise something, you can, so you can become qualified in that, you can uh simply just volunteer somewhere that needs your help um or you can help someone else that's helping people so there's so many different routes you can go from that so find out what what your own passion is Brilliant love that done great tips there How best can the Ladies and listeners and viewers connect with you we'll obviously put links to your websites below but but you've got more than one so is there a specific way that's best to connect with you and also find out about those functional medicines that you offer yes so so there's three websites the first one I think to look at if you want to know more about what it is that I'm doing or what we are doing in functional medicine is to look at my private site which just gives a just a brief summary it's drberanparry.com that one gives a brief summary of the process and what we do and a bit of background about myself but if you want to go directly to all the medicines and there's a lot of background about each medicine a medical link to check the research on it um www.gen-xhealth.com is the one to go to um and if you want to look at the overall impact of what we do the Diagnostics we do the education we offer um you go to our new website which is the uh biog group.com advanced-biogroup.com so those are the three because we have different people who have different interests so those three will give a lot of different informations about what you might be interested in Sure and you mentioned the diagnostic because you do actually help people diagnose and then support them with the health journey so um tell us a bit more about that. So with the Diagnostics what we realised is that while conventional medicine itself does have limitations with having to give chemicals there are some really good diagnostics so things like blood tests, DNA tests, gut tests and hormone tests are all extremely helpful in finding out what's wrong with us So in functional medicine that's what we do we use all the normal medical diagnostics so I would prescribe probably an even much more in-depth blood test than a normal doctor would and if necessary if there was a specific health problem I would maybe look at a DNA test to find out more about what's going on in every cell of the body rather than just the blood right yeah other people come to me with you know substantial digestive comp complaints so there's continual bloating or discomfort or there's just never a really successful digestive path going on and then we would go you know we do a stool test and look at very deeply into what's going on in the entire gut a lot of women come to me pre or post menopause and they're never able to get uh a balance they're either putting on weight or they feeling unwell or they're just simply not feeling themselves and then I'd look at some very advanced hormonal testing that will tell us exactly what's happening with their hormones not just a simple blood test but something called the Dutch test or a test that looks via urine for example at how the hormones actually metabolise in the body it's not only how much hormones do we have it's how well are they used by the body and you've got to go into functional medicine testing to find that all out and the normal doctor doesn't have time for that they are, bless them, you know very very uh busy just dealing with making sure people stay alive from one day to the next so when somebody wants a much more in-depth look at what's going on with their health they would come to somebody like ourselves Okay sounds brilliant so they Ladies can find out more about you through the links which I will share Thank you very much for this interview today it's been really interesting and look forward to connecting with you more over the coming days That would be lovely I've enjoyed it thanks for the opportunity and I'm really open if somebody just wants to even just have a general chat for 10-15 minutes I'm very open to talking uh about how they might approach their health uh free of charge of course and wonderful thank you for the offer yeah thank you very much for the offer see you than lovely to see you thank you so much bye bye I really hope you enjoyed this latest recording of the make it happen series and I'd love you to subscribe to our podcast Channel or if you're watching this on our YouTube channel just click the Subscribe button we'd love you to continue hearing and seeing more of our make it happen interviews if you're not a member of cost of women yet but you're a woman who is living in Spain or a woman who is thinking about moving to Spain do come and join us at costawomen.com it's completely free to join in the meantime I look forward to sharing more make it happen interviews with you bye for now.