Fertility

Boost Fertility With Ozone And Mitochondrial Therapy

The Super Fertility Summit

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fkKWrnAF1Wu3zarBPt2U1AKmbJHlqs7U/view?usp=drive_link

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Thank you so much, Dr. Cleopatra. I thank you for that kind introduction. I'm so humbled and happy to be here.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Thank you. It's exciting to have you here. I love your work, and I'm excited to talk about some innovative things for the people listening to us today. We're going to talk about the mitochondria and why they're so important for fertility. But we're also going to talk about some unique ways that you address mitochondrial health and fertility more broadly in your practice. You have a practice in Dallas, Texas, and a multi-state practice. I'm excited for people to hear about these exciting things that you're doing. I always start the interview thinking ahead to the end. When we wrap up our interview, what's the one thing that you hope that the mama, dad, and that human listening to our voices now will be able to take away from this interview?</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">You have more control over your fertility than, and 98% of the time in my private practice, it starts with nutrition. How are you feeding your body? What fuel are you putting in there for your success?</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">What do you say, Dr. Roxanne? I'm sure you and I have the same experience in your practice. Where? At the Fertility and Pregnancy Institute in the Primemester Protocol. We're the place where the doctors come for fertility help. Because even if you're an expert in fertility or an expert in some other part of medicine or health and wellness, when it's you going through it, you still need a guide. A surgeon can't operate on himself or herself or a family member. That's just one example. Being that we serve the doctors, we serve highly motivated, high-achieving, and often highly educated women who have done a lot of research and are obsessing over every detail of their fertility. Most of them feel that they're already doing everything. Because what they're doing hasn't worked thus far, they're starting to lose hope because they can't see what more there could be for them to do. I always say, If you have Primemester, there's still hope for you. But what would you say to a woman who is coming to you? 98% of the time it starts with nutrition, but they feel they're already eating clean. They're already doing all the things. What would you say to them?</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes, I would say then, there's some disconnect with your, with what you're eating and how it's getting to where you need to use it as fuel and energy. That's when so many of us talk about gut health, assimilation, and absorption. Are you having malnutrition, and then are you having true mitochondrial genetic diseases or disorders that are not allowing you to use those nutrients properly? Do we have to dove into some of those zebra diagnoses? That's thankfully in the functional and holistic spaces we have access to for doing that type of testing.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Absolutely. Talk to us about the importance of mitochondria for fertility health.</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes. It's of paramount importance and just always so. I mean, all we have is the president, and we can't go back and change the past. I often think about how my trajectory would have changed with my fertility had I known about my mitochondrial health, and at the time that I was trying to get pregnant, I was burning the candle at both ends. Residency training hours were crazy. I wasn't sleeping well, and I wasn't seeing sunlight. I wasn't feeding my body well. Mitochondria are, as everyone says, and the nose is the powerhouse of our cells. Our egg cells have 600,000 mitochondria per cell. You have to when you're talking about things like diminished ovarian reserve, low AMH, and poor air quality. If you're not putting mitochondrial health first, then you're missing the mark and you're going to not be able to have success.  The mitochondria are what help us when we're eating those nutrients when we're eating our proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, to take those in and energy that then fuels all other cells in our bodies. We know that for one egg cell to blossom into a blastocyst, then an embryo, a fetus, and then a baby, we have to take care of the energy supply to that one cell.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Absolutely. Tell us about your favorite ways to take care of mitochondria, both in day-to-day life. That way, people can do this for themselves, but also some of the cool, innovative, and powerful things that you're doing in your practice.</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes. I mean, I think that this is probably how you practice as well as that. I mean, you can get most people far with an overall general protocol. But many, especially those hard cases, are going to require just that personalized approach where you're ruling out experts. Do you have high levels of BPA? Do you have mold toxicity? Are those things that are hampering your mitochondrial health, and are things like sunlight exposure, grounding, or intermittent fasting that we would normally say are not going to cut it? But in general, yes, sunlight exposure, getting outside and reducing inflammation overall. I think for a lot of us in the functional space with fertility, that's insulin, that's glucose levels, that's reducing oxidative stress with avoiding and eliminating toxins and, and so vague about, cosmetic clean makeup and how much of toxins are in these over-the-counter products that are not being regulated properly for our mitochondrial health and so what they cause a lot of oxidative stress and oxidative stress happens when our DNA gets damaged. Then we need antioxidants to come in and do the job of cleaning up those reactive oxidative species. If we don't have enough antioxidants in our system, we're going to get mitochondrial damage.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">This is another place where nutrition, both in the form of food and supplements, comes into play to boost those antioxidant levels so that we can help reduce oxidative stress, but also these other lifestyle practices, as you are saying, to reduce them and reduce exposures that increase them. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">We talked about sunlight. We talked about grounding. We talked about reducing inflammatory load inflammation we all have some we all need some. It is a natural part of the human body. But having too much is profoundly aging. The reproductive system ages first. The consequences are enormous insulin and glucose levels related to oxidative stress. What other things would you emphasize for people? Anything else?</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes, that is what I mean. When you're talking about nutrition supplements, I think so many people just go straight to, Well, what supplements can I take? The list of my general health supplements is a mile long. I mean, you can do epileptic acid, you can do co-captain, you can do resveratrol, you can do acetal carnitine, you can do tumeric, you can do c-glutathione, etc. But all of those things you can get in a whole foods plant predominate lean organic meats and a nutrition plan that's personalized to you. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">I do encourage patients to think about getting a nutrient evaluation so we can see what deficiencies they have. B vitamins, such as magnesium, are essential for mitochondrial health. Iron is important for mitochondrial health. But iron overload is bad for mitochondrial health. Much of it is that Goldilocks approach. What do you personally need for your mitochondria to thrive to improve your ovarian reserve, knowing that you can improve it? Many of my patients are, well, I thought I couldn't change my AMH level. We see it all the time.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Every day we're improving and raising AMH levels even from zero, and not that we can promise that that will happen, but it happens so routinely that it happens over routinely with a direct correlation to the annual follicle counts and count increasing. with people being able to go on to get pregnant. Because of that, I wish every day that we would stop telling people that you cannot shape your AMH level, your anti-malaria and hormone levels, your ovarian reserve, and that, once it's below a certain threshold below one, and especially as it's approaching zero, there's nowhere to go from there because we just see over and over that as a general rule and in a general statement isn't the case. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">That’s absolutely important and so wonderful that you said that because I think that one thing that happens in the world of fertility maybe even more than other areas of health is that people feel, what I hear from our mama that FPI every single day is that they have felt in their journey until they came to us that they're reduced to a number, they're reduced to a number on a lab, a lab value. Sometimes it's not even their own. I mean, sometimes it is their own; their AMH level is this. But the lab value that's expected of someone their age or,  what's is for someone their age, they're they feel reduced to, to a number in terms of the people being seen and nobody seeing them as an individual with bio-individuality, with feelings, with a life, with aspirations, etc.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">I think it's important when we can say you're not just a number and don't allow yourself to be reduced to a number. It's just that I tell my super babies, Don't let anybody box you in. You guys are not just amazingly athletic; you're also insanely smart. As good humans, don't let people box you in, whether it's a good box or a bad box. We are more than just this one diagnosis, this one lab value, and this one number. I think it's important for us to keep saying it over and over again.</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Absolutely. I often ask people when they go and see a fertility doctor, well, how did it feel? People were going in and out, and it was a rotating door, and they were. I just felt a number,  and unfortunately, I think that conventional medicine has a lot of work to do to catch up to personalized medicine, but also, in a sense, there are so many benefits of conventional medicine that we do need. I love working with and supporting women who are going through IVF, which I can't say yes to, but it's almost like, for what we do, we can't see I see not seven patients a day, and there are so many empathy, research, and hard work that goes into each patient that conventional medicine just can't do. at the point that we carry them and we're able to support them. If they need to go see a conventional doctor, I'm glad that we are there to be with them.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">I agree with you 100%. and I think one thing about that is that doing the research and taking care and showing empathy, and that's a huge component of success. Support is a huge component of success. I think it's a highly overlooked component of success. It's documented and demonstrated when it comes to fertility outcomes, pregnancy outcomes, parenting outcomes, and every other area of life—entrepreneurship, everything that you could think of. But I think that another thing that you said about the research that goes into each person or, for us, the research that went, I mean, over 100,000 hours that went into the development, testing, refining, the constant refining where you will next week or doing a scientific update of the systemic deep scrub in the Primemester Protocol, is that as new data comes out and we're always updating things. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The thing is that scientific research and data take many, many years, if not decades, to become integrated into the standard of care or day-to-day medical, traditional, or conventional medical practice. I think one thing that's important to know is that when you're going to see a certain type of doctor, they are practicing in way more than by what they were taught in medical school or only a slightly updated variation of that, just by the limits of their scope of work in clinical practice and the time that they can dedicate to staying on top of emerging scientific data, and scientific data move very quickly. The discoveries are advancing very quickly, but it takes a lot of time for them to catch up. Dr. Roxanne, one of the things that you are using in your practice that is exciting for fertility challenges is ozone. Can you talk about how you're using it?</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes, absolutely. Ozone is an ETD gas. That's instead of oxygen is O2 or O3. Studies and research have shown that O3 is extremely amazing as an anti-fungal, anti-microbial, and powerful antioxidant. We use ozone. There are many ways that you can get ozone from administering it in the blood. But we, in the fertility space, want to use it in the vaginal route, which can be done in the safety of your own home or privately in our clinic, but it delivers that ozone-needed gas directly to your uterus, where it can be used as an antioxidant for your fallopian tubes and your ovaries. A lot of great research on tubal patency when you have blocked fallopian tubes and you've only been told that you have to have surgery and have it removed and only do Ida. We're seeing a lot of beautiful and amazing results with that. Then, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is also a great adjunct for mitochondrial health. Helping to reduce inflammation means helping to conserve and receive energy. Those are amazing modalities that we use in our practice for fertility.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">I love that so much. I would love to know if somebody had to choose just one thing to take care of their fertility and their future Super baby. What would that one thing be?</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">One thing, as far as you're talking about modality supplements:</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes. If, whatever it may be, they could only choose one thing, what would that one thing be?</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">I would have to say nutrition, for sure. Now I have to say food and invest in a personalized approach. Working with a functionally minded dietician, a certified functional health coach, or a functional provider, or getting into your program and getting personalized testing done, what are your exact nutrient needs? How are you getting those nutrients into your body and absorbing them? Because, I tell you, that's where we make the most gains in our practice. Just improving nutrition for women for fertility, again, so something that I wish that I would have known. Again, relating to that, no one size fits. You can't just put everybody on Paleo or everyone on vegan or everyone on, look, you can't just do one diet. It has to be personalized. I also love that in my space, if you do come to me and you're vegan or you do come to me and you have religious restrictions, that we're respectful of that and we're going to work with you. I know many patients who say, Well, my provider won't work with me because I'm vegan. She says there's no help for me if I'm not getting fat from meat. I love the challenge, honestly. I think that there's an opportunity to work with everyone in this space.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">That's incredible. Thank you so much. We consider food to be the third most important epigenetic input, just by the sheer frequency with which you're putting that information into your fertility and pregnancy systems. Because we spend a total of almost five years of our lives cumulatively eating. You could also, if you're taking supplements or you're drinking something nutritious, add that to that category of nutrients, but it's so critically important. I love that. That would be if you could only do one thing, and that would be the starting place because that's where you see the biggest gains in your practice. Last question before we wrap up: What does Super Baby mean to you? What does Super Baby feel to you? What does it look like to you? What emotion does it evoke for you?</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Pride is a weird emotion and word. I think in some senses it can feel boastful, but I do take pride in my Super Baby. Just the amount of work that we have put in.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes, it is.</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Something to be proud of, and we see, unfortunately, still some setbacks and some of our clients that don't have the outcomes that we wanted. When it does happen, I think it's something that we have to be proud of.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">I love it, and I know why you hesitated or thought about it for a second, but it's not about feeling prideful about necessarily the outcome, but just so proud of who we get to be to lay that foundation for these amazing humans who are meant to come through us or to us in some other way. That is beautiful. I love that so much. Thank you, Dr. Roxanne. It's such a pleasure. This is our first time being together, but I feel like I know you, and I knew I would love this conversation with you. happy to have you here.</span>

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<h6><b>Roxanne Pero, MD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to more conversations with you.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">You need to be my pleasure to be continued. to all of you listening to us now, thank you so much for being here with us. I think time is the most important and valuable resource on the planet, and I don't take lightly that you're spending your time here with us to learn, I'm so happy that we get to pour into you as much as possible. Come with me to the next interview and I'll see you back here at the Super Fertility Summit.</span>

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<h6><b>Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD</b></h6>
<span style="font-weight: 400;">Welcome back to the Super Fertility Summit. We have an incredible guest, Dr. Roxanne Pero, with us today. She's a Board-Certified Obstetrician and Gynecologist with over 15 years of clinical experience in women's health. Cataracts in your practice of integrative and functional medicine, marrying the best of conventional and holistic practices to create a precise and personalized plan for your clients. You have become passionate about healing women suffering from infertility after your five-year fertility struggle. Your life is full of a multi-state private practice for children actively participating in medical research, nonprofit board duties for the Magdalen House for Alcoholic Women, and so much more that you do. Thank you so much, Dr. Roxanne, for your beautiful work and for being here with us in the middle of your busy schedule to contribute to the Super Fertility Summit.</span>

https://drtalks-media.b-cdn.net/Summit%20Audio%20Files/2024%20Summits/2024%20-%20The%20Super%20Fertility%20Summit/Transcript%20Files/2024_Fertility_Roxanne%20Pero%2C%20MD%20Transcript%20File.pdf

<p>Dr. Roxanne Pero is a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist with over 15 years of clinical experience in women’s health. She practices integrative and functional medicine, marrying the best of conventional and holistic practices to create a precise and personalized plan for her clients. She has become passionate about healing women suffering from infertility after her own 5 year fertility struggle. Her life is full with a multi-state private practice, 4 children, actively participating in medical research and non-profit board duties for the Magdalen House for alcoholic women</p>


Roxanne Pero

Roxanne Pero, MD

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dr. Cleopatra is The Fertility Strategist and Executive Director of The Fertility &amp; Pregnancy Institute. She is a scientist and university professor who pioneered the field of fertility biohacking and creating superbabies. To date, Dr. Cleopatra has scientifically studied tens of thousands of women and families and has helped women in 18 countries on 6 continents have their superbabies. She has received nearly $3 million in grant funding from multiple arms of the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute on Standards Technology, and private foundations, including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. </span></p>


Boost Fertility With Ozone And Mitochondrial Therapy

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Roxanne Pero, MD

Summary

Content Provided By

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Guest Experts

Roxanne Pero, MD