Healing Psoriasis: A Comprehensive Approach to Treating Inflammation and Autoimmunity – Episode 198

Jeffrey Gladden (00:00.182)
better?

Jeffrey Gladden (00:06.602)
Welcome everybody to this edition of the age hackers podcast powered by Gladden longevity. I’m your host, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden and I’m joined today by my compatriot, Steve writer, Steve, how you doing buddy?

Steve Reiter (00:19.954)
Dr. Gladden, I’m doing well.

Jeffrey Gladden (00:22.414)
Okay, good. Yeah, you look good today. Unlike the last time we were here, you know, you didn’t look that good last time.

Steve Reiter (00:25.277)
I’ve well, I’ve been getting out in nature a lot more been hiking up to some alpine lakes doing cold plunges and I did forest lakes, which is West of Boulder, Netherlands area. And it was just, it was awesome. It was so peaceful while I was up there. And anyone that follows me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see some pictures of that hike and that cold plunge. And it was, it was delightful.

Jeffrey Gladden (00:35.211)
Nice.

Jeffrey Gladden (00:44.402)
Oh yeah, that’s beautiful up here. Yep.

Jeffrey Gladden (00:52.075)
Okay, nice.

Beautiful. Yeah, I got in a couple of mountain bike rides in Colorado this past weekend. I was up there with my son and his family, wife and kids. Anyway, we snuck in a couple of rides was super fun. So great.

Steve Reiter (01:07.989)
Well, you and I, you’re gonna be out here in a few weeks to record your audio book, because for your book that’s coming out, and we’re gonna get some hikes in and maybe record a podcast on top of Mount Muskoko here in the Colorado Springs area.

Jeffrey Gladden (01:12.302)
I am, yeah. That’s right.

Jeffrey Gladden (01:22.118)
Okay. All right. I don’t know what we’ll talk about, but we’ll probably be breathless the entire time, but it’ll be good. So it’ll be fun. Well, we have with us today, um, Daniel Horvath and, um, Daniel is, um, a physician’s assistant that works in the dermatology space, um, that, um, has a real passion for helping people with psoriasis. So any welcome to the, welcome to the show.

Steve Reiter (01:27.352)
Hahaha

Dayna Hrovath (01:49.033)
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Jeffrey Gladden (01:51.254)
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how you got to be a PA in dermatology. Not everybody wakes up at five years old and says, that’s what I want to do. So what got you to that?

Dayna Hrovath (02:01.185)
Yeah, no, I definitely did not know that that’s what I wanted to be at five years old. But in high school is when that journey started, I was seeing a dermatology PA, incidentally, for acne. And I knew I wanted to do something medical, but it was looking at different avenues of what that was going to look like. And my mom was like, oh, you know, you should really look into this whole PA thing. So

Jeffrey Gladden (02:18.466)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (02:27.693)
I did and I, from the beginning, really wanted to do dermatology, but, you know, thankfully you have to learn all the different sides of medicine. And my mom kept saying, you know, keep an open mind, keep an open mind. Maybe you want to do something different. But no, Derm was my love and that’s where it all began. And now 18 years later, it still is my love.

Jeffrey Gladden (02:55.806)
Yeah, well, that’s an interesting thing. I mean, I think there’s a lot of wisdom in keeping an open mind. I know when I went through my medical training, one of my guiding tenants to the whole thing was to keep my options open, right? So it’s like, well, I’ll go, I don’t want to be a surgeon. I’ll go into internal medicine. It’ll keep my options open, right? Then it’s like, I’ll do.

I don’t want to be an internal medicine doctor. I don’t want to do these. I’ll do cardiology, but I’ll keep my options open. I could be interventional. I could do this, blah, right? So there was this concept of keeping my options open as I went through. So I think there’s some inherent wisdom there, but I think it’s also nice when you just kind of fall in love with something and you just, you know you want to do it. There’s no downside to that either. So tell us a little bit about the acne. You were struggling with that as a teenager or, okay.

Dayna Hrovath (03:36.702)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (03:42.417)
Yes, yes. And it was treated and then flared back up into my later 20s and 30s and went after it a whole different way this time around than how it was treated whenever I was a teenager.

Jeffrey Gladden (03:53.991)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (04:00.706)
So how was it treated initially when it first started to flare up for you?

Steve Reiter (04:03.061)
Yeah.

Dayna Hrovath (04:04.581)
Yeah, initially we were doing the topicals like the benzoyl peroxides and the retinase and then topical antibiotics and oral antibiotics for months on end and then that turned into also then taking Accutane which did help for a chunk of time but sure.

Jeffrey Gladden (04:09.399)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (04:14.818)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (04:24.842)
So it’s explained to the audience here. So what she’s talking about is benzoyl peroxide. I think everybody knows about that, you know, forget the name of that stuff. It’s like a oxidizing agent that you put on your skin that kind of tends to sterilize it and maybe clear up any infection. Then you take antibiotics for an infectious component. There’s vitamin A, retinoic A that’s kind of helpful.

in acne. I don’t know a lot about acne, but these are things that I recall. But then Accutane is a more of a heavy hitter. Tell us a little bit about that.

Dayna Hrovath (04:53.193)
Hehe

Dayna Hrovath (04:59.049)
It is. It’s like the atomic bomb for acne is how it’s often described and what it’s doing is it’s shrinking down the oil gland size. So you’re not producing as much oil, then things aren’t, your pores aren’t getting as clogged, you’re not getting as much bacteria stuck to you, and that then reduces the inflammation.

Jeffrey Gladden (05:02.935)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (05:08.681)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (05:16.676)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (05:20.989)
by that mechanism and it’s like a basically a very high dose of vitamin A. It’s not the same thing as taking high doses of vitamin A, but can work similarly in the body. And the goal for when people take that medicine is then to have lasting skin clearance, but that’s not always the case. And there’s negatives with it. You have to monitor your liver functions. You watch your triglyceride levels and can cause…

Jeffrey Gladden (05:41.508)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (05:50.417)
some mood changes and dryness and a host of other issues.

Jeffrey Gladden (05:56.415)
And so you went through the regular routine and then you did take the accutane as a teenager, is that correct or okay? And did that help? Did it work or?

Dayna Hrovath (06:05.638)
I did, yeah.

It did for the time and then later 20s things started kicking in again.

Jeffrey Gladden (06:16.194)
So how long did you take the Accutane for?

Dayna Hrovath (06:18.822)
It’s usually a four to six month course. I can’t remember which end of that spectrum I was on

Jeffrey Gladden (06:21.949)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (06:25.298)
Okay. So, so you take it and then things clear up and you have kind of a hiatus from your acne for a number of years, let’s call it the better part of a decade maybe and then it starts to flare up again. Was there anything that triggered that? Anything related to like pregnancy, childbirth, changes in other?

Dayna Hrovath (06:34.877)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (06:42.905)
Yeah, for me it did. Not for everybody, but for me it was after having my daughter that things started changing with the hormone changes and I’m sure changes in stress levels as you’re an adult and you’re having to work and parent and yeah, a long right. And my diet I know then wasn’t very good

Jeffrey Gladden (06:50.486)
Okay.

Steve Reiter (07:04.148)
New parent. Lost asleep.

Jeffrey Gladden (07:04.834)
Yep.

Dayna Hrovath (07:12.629)
compounding factors.

Jeffrey Gladden (07:14.194)
Yeah. You know, it’s interesting when you’re a college student, you think you’re busy, right? You think you’re busy. Then you go to, then you go to medical school, PA school or something. Then you, then you get really busy, right? And then, and you think I couldn’t be any busier. And it’s true on some level you can’t because you’re getting sleep deprived and all that. But then you get out into real life and now you’re juggling, you know, a business, medical information, a family. And

Dayna Hrovath (07:18.041)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Dayna Hrovath (07:26.863)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (07:40.022)
You know, you get really busy, you know, and it’s I used to have a definition of busy. I knew I was busy when I would be eating while I was sitting on the toilet. And I knew I was actually getting starting to get pretty busy. So that was my definition. It’s like, OK, I’ve hit my threshold here. So anyway, yeah. OK, well, good. So, so it flared up again after you got really busy having your child and then you took a different approach. So what was that all about?

Dayna Hrovath (07:51.029)
I’m going to go to bed.

Dayna Hrovath (07:57.008)
Yeah.

Dayna Hrovath (08:05.85)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (08:09.305)
Yeah, I was rather than just wanting to, especially now that I’m prescribing all these medications, I see they’re good and they’re bad. And thankfully, my eyes had been opened to alternative options other than just what we’re taught in school with some of those treatment options. I was saying that I personally did, but looking at how to help support my body. So for me,

dairy and sugar are huge triggers for acne.

Jeffrey Gladden (08:40.976)
Okay. And how did you figure that out? How were your eyes open to that? Was that you reading? You met somebody? You, what were? Both.

Dayna Hrovath (08:46.689)
Yeah, both. Yeah, I had come across a naturopathic doctor who really opened my eyes to a whole different side of medicine and then just really reading and researching and digging into things and just how different it is than what we’re taught.

Steve Reiter (08:47.108)
Yeah.

Jeffrey Gladden (08:59.279)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (09:11.073)
in our medical training. We get a little bit about diet, we get a little bit about supplements, but really that’s not the backbone of what we’re taught.

Jeffrey Gladden (09:21.63)
Absolutely. Yeah. No, we all, we all got shot out of the same cannon when it comes to that. Right. And, and we all think that we’re God’s gift to, you know, medical practice, if you will, that’s kind of the downside of that whole scenario, but it’s interesting that you were open-minded enough, even though you weren’t open-minded enough to choose something other than dermatology, you were open-minded enough to use something different inside dermatology. So yeah, cool.

Dayna Hrovath (09:27.229)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (09:35.835)
Yeah.

Dayna Hrovath (09:45.562)
Yeah.

Jeffrey Gladden (09:47.606)
All right, so then, so you stayed away from dairy and sugar and some things like that. And did that kind of cure things for you then in your postpartum period?

Dayna Hrovath (09:51.376)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (09:55.813)
Yeah, that made a huge difference and that wasn’t the only thing over the years that I’ve done. I’ve done all different kinds of things to help detox and help with methylation and just trying to support my body as much as possible, but for me diet is absolutely crucial.

Jeffrey Gladden (10:09.021)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (10:15.702)
Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, that’s really kind of ground zero for most of these kinds of things, whether it’s irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn’s disease or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or whatever. You really can’t, you really almost can’t start anywhere until you kind of start to focus on the diet. And did you do genetic testing or anything like that or any kind of food sensitivity testing or gut biome testing or some of those kinds of things to help you in all this? Okay, good.

Dayna Hrovath (10:42.597)
Yes, all of the above.

Jeffrey Gladden (10:45.838)
Because I think the audience should understand that it’s not enough to say, well, I’m going to work on my diet. You know, it’s like, well, what are you actually going to work on? You know, and how do you know what you’re going to work on? How do you know what to work on, right? So I think it’s really important to get some of these foundational tests around, you know, genetic predispositions for numerous things that can contribute to this, not just genes for Crohn’s disease per se, but inflammation and oxidative stress and.

Dayna Hrovath (10:54.109)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (11:14.614)
A lot of these different genes that can be helpful. And then, you know, understanding what your body’s reacting to currently, understanding the level of toxins in your body that compound every problem and whether or not you’ve got infections inside of your gut and all these kinds of things really kind of add up, right? And so you’re, you’re kind of, you’re kind of, uh, going to war with a slingshot if you don’t really understand.

the enemy on the other side. And you really have to have a comprehensive intel, so to speak, to be able to get a comprehensive strategy to kind of do this. So having done that on your own part, you know, you learned about foods to avoid. Were there other things that you learned?

Dayna Hrovath (11:57.305)
Yeah, just though the foods were very a big surprise to me because in general, you know, you read about things and these are even true with psoriasis and the foods that often produce inflammation are your sugar, dairy, gluten, but whenever you’re looking at food sensitivities, it could be something

Jeffrey Gladden (12:04.416)
Okay.

Dayna Hrovath (12:21.277)
that you think you’re doing to be healthy, but it’s not healthy for your particular body. So for me, I was drinking, I moved over to almond milk because I was like, well, this isn’t dairy, this is a good alternative. And then found in my food sensitivity testing that was not a good choice. And I was still getting inflammation produced when I thought I was doing the right thing. So it really helped me hone in on…

Jeffrey Gladden (12:27.074)
100%.

Dayna Hrovath (12:47.397)
what is good for me, not what’s good in general for people. And that’s one of the things that I really recommend for people who I work with psoriasis is looking at food sensitivities and figuring out what your body likes.

Steve Reiter (13:02.977)
So I guess this is a question for both of you when it comes to inflammation What are some great markers for people to be tested to kind of figure out what their? What their baseline is and where they should get to?

Jeffrey Gladden (13:16.706)
Tanner, do you want to look at that through your dermatologic lens?

Dayna Hrovath (13:20.033)
Yeah, there’s a lot of different inflammatory markers. There’s not one specific to acne. There are one just specific for psoriasis. But if you’re looking at inflammation in general, you can look at your…

Dayna Hrovath (13:44.178)
Oh, the name just completely just come escape my head. But yes, yeah.

Jeffrey Gladden (13:46.634)
Well, there’s high sensitivity C-reactive protein. It is the one that we use for kind of a general take on inflammation. There’s C-reactive protein, and then there’s high sensitivity C-reactive protein. That’s probably one of the best general measures, right? And then from there, you can go into, depending on what you’re trying to go after, you know, like if you’re looking for inflammation related to cardiovascular events, you’re going to be looking at things like LPPLA2 and myeloperoxidase and.

Dayna Hrovath (14:00.104)
Yeah.

Jeffrey Gladden (14:15.71)
microalbumin creatinine ratios and oxidized LDL and things like that. If you’re looking for other things, you’re going to be looking at, you know, IL-6 and IL-10 and TNF-alpha and TNF-beta and some of these different cytokines that basically are associated with inflammation or anti-inflammation to see kind of what the balance is there. But it depends a little bit on the condition that you’re dealing with as to which panel of inflammatory markers is going to be most appropriate. So.

Dayna Hrovath (14:44.453)
Yeah, the HSCRP is my favorite as well, and that’s the one that was escaping my head. And then IL-17 is another along with the TNF and IL-23s that are good for psoriasis in particular.

Jeffrey Gladden (14:53.35)
I, that’s right. Yep. Okay. So IL 17 and 23, I was not aware of that, but I don’t, psoriasis is not, you know, in my wheelhouse per se, but it’s, it, that’s how it works. So just so the audience understands, there are different markers that are associated with different things. And then of course, if you’re dealing with autoimmunity, you know, like lupus, there’s ANA and anti-nuclear antibodies and other derivatives of that, et cetera. So.

Dayna Hrovath (15:02.014)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (15:22.282)
Just know that you’ll need to get specific testing for the diagnosis that you have. So with all that, changing your diet, did you get to the point where really that became the mainstay of what you’re doing? Was there any other hormonal manipulation or any other anti-inflammatories that you took or anything else or was just came down to pretty much diet for you?

Dayna Hrovath (15:43.865)
Yeah, I didn’t do anything on the hormone side. I have done different anti-inflammatory things, mostly going after it from the turmeric and curcumin side of things, vitamin C as well, and just trying to keep my gut as calm as possible and trying to…

Jeffrey Gladden (16:08.119)
Okay.

Dayna Hrovath (16:10.937)
support it with the immunoglobulins or the zinc carnosine and different stages of these of the years I’ve done different things but diet by far is what’s been the most constant through all of that. There are the other supportive measures that I’ve done but diet is definitely the cornerstone.

Jeffrey Gladden (16:33.182)
Yeah, now that makes perfect sense. You know, speaking of diet, we actually have come out with a product that utilizes mushrooms, actually four or five different mushrooms that we put into a tincture. And the beauty of these mushrooms, there’s reishi in it, there’s

Jeffrey Gladden (17:03.414)
are the four mushrooms that are in there. Actually, a fifth one is agaricus. But one thing that these all have in common is that they down-regulate something called NF-kappa-beta. And NF-kappa-beta is kind of like a master switch for inflammation. And so this is a tincture, which means that we distill the essence of the mushrooms out into alcohol. This has been shown to be

very effective at getting high concentrations of these elements responsible for the anti-inflammatory part. And then you just take a dropper of the tincture and put a couple dropper fools into your tea or water or something like that and drink it. And so you’re kind of, it’s a natural way to kind of get a strong anti-inflammatory, if you will. So that’s called the, that’s the GLAD Longevity Shroom Formula, we call it. It’s not a psychedelic, but it’s an anti-inflammatory.

And so there’s that. And then there’s also special pro-resolving mediators that are derivatives of fish oil that are about 200 to 300 times more potent than fish oil at decreasing inflammation also. We find those to be helpful. And then combine that with molecular hydrogen, which down-regulates oxidative stress, which is caused by inflammation. You kind of get a nice combination of those things working. You can down-regulate inflammation using those. So I’ll just throw that out there.

So let’s talk a little bit about psoriasis, because tell me how this became a passion of yours. I get the acne story and I understand that and the dermatology piece, I understand. But what led you to psoriasis?

Dayna Hrovath (18:37.596)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (18:43.013)
And watching the transformation in someone’s life who has battled psoriasis, especially when it’s been for years, it’s just truly touching. You watch someone who’s embarrassed to even let you see their skin and where it affects how they present themselves to the world, whether they’re going to go get that, try to get the promotion, whether they’re going to feel comfortable to be in a relationship.

Jeffrey Gladden (18:56.042)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (19:13.561)
that they have to worry about are they can’t wear dark clothes because there’s flakes on their shirt and just really your whole life is based around How your skin is looking and how you personally feel about it so to have someone go from that to someone then wearing tank tops and shorts and bathing suits and having all this confidence, it’s just

Jeffrey Gladden (19:28.523)
Uh-huh.

Jeffrey Gladden (19:39.371)
Right?

Dayna Hrovath (19:42.617)
It’s so rewarding to see the change from one end of the spectrum to the other. And yes, other skin conditions, when you get improvement, you have that too. But I love, I just really love working with psoriasis patients for part of that reason, but also the part of the reason that they don’t realize that it’s not just a skin deep problem. And so you’re not just helping.

Jeffrey Gladden (20:08.526)
Okay.

Dayna Hrovath (20:10.525)
how they look, but when you’re helping reduce that inflammation, you’re also helping their health all around.

Jeffrey Gladden (20:18.666)
Yeah, it’s really a systemic disorder. Can you explain to the audience a little bit just what psoriasis is? Not everybody knows what it is, but I will say this, that it really is a heartbreaking disease because you have people that become so self-conscious, right? And sometimes there can even be some odor associated with it, some other things to where it’s just difficult for them to navigate life in a confident way. You know, we did a podcast about hair.

Dayna Hrovath (20:21.393)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (20:44.746)
and hair restoration and people losing their hair and losing confidence. I don’t think I’ve lost much confidence but I have lost a bit of hair. But with psoriasis, it’s really a completely different story. I mean, it’s really much more, I think, debilitating than say hair loss per se, right? Just so people understand this can be a really big deal. So tell us a little bit, what is psoriasis exactly? What’s going on?

Dayna Hrovath (21:09.041)
Yeah, sure. So psoriasis is an autoimmune condition, but it’s very much based in inflammation. So it’s a condition where your immune system is overactive and it has an increased number of T cells in our blood and skin. And this causes the skin cells to shed a lot faster than normal. And that causes them to build up and form what we call plaques.

Jeffrey Gladden (21:32.034)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (21:37.009)
and it can look differently on different skin tones, it can look differently because there’s different types. So you could have the big silvery scale patches on the elbows and the knees is what often people think of with psoriasis, but it’s not just that. It could be hidden on only on the scalp, it could just be affecting the nails, it could be tiny little red patches that are covered.

Jeffrey Gladden (21:50.446)
Thank you.

Dayna Hrovath (22:03.053)
over a majority of the body. Some people will just get it on their palms or their soles of their feet where it can get little bubbles and deep cracks and be very painful just to try to walk or to open, you can’t even open a jar with your hands. Some people will get it in their folds, what’s called inverse psoriasis, where it’s very, very red and it’s not getting the flaky because it’s more

Jeffrey Gladden (22:13.28)
Mmm.

Dayna Hrovath (22:30.649)
inward than it is outward in those areas.

Jeffrey Gladden (22:34.295)
Yeah, fascinating. So is there something that triggers people to develop psoriasis or is there a particular underlying genetic predisposition or familial component to this or?

Dayna Hrovath (22:47.741)
There can be. Not everyone has the genetic predisposition, but genetics are definitely one part of the puzzle. Other things that can do it are if you’ve been exposed to infections. A common way for people to get their first flare up with psoriasis, especially the gut-tate psoriasis, those little circle patches, is after a strep throat infection. But there…

Jeffrey Gladden (23:13.632)
Okay.

Dayna Hrovath (23:16.921)
isn’t always one particular trigger. I liken it to our body as a vase. We can only pour so much water into us and water is just gunk before we overflow. And that overflowing factor could have been an infection. It could have been a stressful event. It could have been just a buildup of things that you were exposed to as a child and then you’re working around maybe toxins as an adult.

There are a lot of players, but genetics absolutely is part of it. A lot of times people say, oh yeah, this my mom had it or my grandmother did often, but not everyone will have that story of they recognize someone else in their family having it.

Jeffrey Gladden (24:01.528)
Right.

So sometimes with autoimmune diseases, they can be associated with each other, where somebody that has one is more prone to another. Is that true with psoriasis also, that they’re more prone to other things?

Dayna Hrovath (24:10.527)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (24:17.349)
They are absolutely. And there is even a connection between psoriasis and celiac disease. Not everyone with celiac disease has psoriasis and not everyone with psoriasis has celiac disease, but there is a lot of overlap between the two.

Jeffrey Gladden (24:29.623)
Right.

Jeffrey Gladden (24:33.138)
Right. So really it’s about, on some level, it’s about calming down the immune system. And if you have too many of the wrong T cells, typically T, correct me if I’m wrong here, but typically T helper cells will kind of settle this down if you can get T helper cells to start to modulate. And T reg cells, not so much T helper cells, but T reg cells to actually modulate the immune response.

It can kind of help to settle things down. And so what’s the normal treatment for somebody with this? You know, in the dermatology practice, they come in, they have something. What are they going to get tested with or treated with?

Dayna Hrovath (25:18.433)
Yeah, they’re almost always going to get handed a cream first and it’s typically a steroid. And so a corticosteroid cream and then sometimes a vitamin D analog called calcipitriene. Those are the most conventional treatment where people will start. But that gets annoying, especially if you have a large body surface area you have to

Jeffrey Gladden (25:23.947)
What’s in the cream?

Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (25:33.46)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (25:45.506)
Sure.

Dayna Hrovath (25:47.925)
once to twice a day and then you have to worry about using the steroids long term thinning your skin causing stretch marks and a pimply type of reaction and it’s not solving anything it’s just making you have some relief and kind of taking a step back now there are some other topicals that are newer that have come out but still it’s the same thing you have to keep using them

Jeffrey Gladden (26:05.454)
That’s right.

Dayna Hrovath (26:14.789)
And then the next kind of rung on the ladder, there’s UV treatments where people are standing and basically like a glorified tanning bed getting UVA and UVB depending on the type that you’re doing. And same, that works while you’re using it, but it doesn’t work for everybody, but increases risk of skin cancer over time.

Jeffrey Gladden (26:21.456)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (26:36.739)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (26:37.165)
And then we have oral medications. A common one that’s been around for years is methotrexate, but it suppresses the immune system. It’s very hard on the liver. It’s got its issues for sure. And same thing, it only works while you’re taking it. So you’re looking at these medications as a long-term. And we have then the newer medications, the biologics that you see all the TV commercials for that are most of them are shots, but not all of them.

Jeffrey Gladden (26:56.064)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (27:06.141)
and what those are doing is those are combing that immune response or they’re working on the IL-17s, the IL-23s, or the TNF, and depending on which one.

Jeffrey Gladden (27:16.534)
But again, I think they’re only working while they’re in your system, right? They’re not really changing the substrate per se.

Dayna Hrovath (27:21.145)
Right there. No, they’re a…you look at them as I’m going to take these forever.

Jeffrey Gladden (27:28.386)
Yeah, which is a nice for a pharma model of recurring revenue, but it’s difficult for a patient, right? And so, yeah, and people just so people understand people with autoimmune diseases and the inflammation that goes along with it, they’re at higher risk for other things, right? Whether it be cardiovascular events or stroke or dementia or, you know, other things that could shorten your life expectancy, if you will.

Dayna Hrovath (27:35.209)
Right.

Dayna Hrovath (27:46.334)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (27:55.434)
you know, serious things that can shorten your life expectancy are all associated with this and then add to that the fact that you’re taking medications that are also beating up your liver or, you know, the long term steroid use osteoporosis, gastric ulcers, these have a systemic effects, even though you’re just applying them to the skin, right? So it’s, it’s a big, it’s a big deal. Um, so then, you know, you’ve have, you have some real joy though, in this whole field, because you’re actually.

helping people. So what are you doing that’s different? Because you’ve got an approach here that I think that’s helping people in a way that these other approaches are not.

Dayna Hrovath (28:32.829)
Yes, so I help them through what I call the 3C Skin Saving Method and it’s where we address three main areas. So the first is calming the gut and you’re looking at removing the bad things like the standard American diet, looking at your food intolerances. You want to optimize the good that you’re putting in, replace what is needed like omega 3s or probiotics.

Jeffrey Gladden (28:52.732)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (29:00.945)
repairing the damage that’s been done to that gut lining. So, so many people with psoriasis have leaky gut. And I tell people what leaky gut, think of it as like having a hose with a bunch of holes poked through it. When the water goes through, it’s not just going from A to B, it’s seeping out. And what happens whenever we have leaky gut and we’re ingesting food, then those little particles of food are seeping out and our immune system comes and starts attacking them, which…

just stirs the immune system up further and drives more inflammation. And as we were just mentioning, psoriasis is a disease of inflammation.

Steve Reiter (29:38.717)
Is there a way that a listener can test for leaky gut? Both of you?

Dayna Hrovath (29:44.209)
Yeah, there’s a test called zonulin.

Jeffrey Gladden (29:46.398)
Yeah, there’s zonulin. It’s a stool. You can get it in a stool test. We get it in a stool test where when you measure the stool test, you can get, you can get stool tests with or without zonulin, quite honestly, but we always get it with zonulin because we want to see if there’s leaky gut or not. And zonulin levels are elevated when leaky gut is present. I won’t go into all the biochemistry and physiology of that, but it has to do with the tight junctions and the way zonulin kind of.

Steve Reiter (30:08.79)
Yeah.

Jeffrey Gladden (30:14.634)
it’s released there and causes the junction to open up. So anyway, but yeah, so that can be tested. It is a stool test. There may be blood tests too, but we always do it with stool tests. Is that, do you do it differently, Daniel?

Dayna Hrovath (30:27.042)
No, I do it with a stool test also.

Jeffrey Gladden (30:28.83)
Okay, okay, got it. So that’s the first C is going after the gut. And then what’s the next one?

Dayna Hrovath (30:32.401)
Yes. The second is clearing effects of stress. And that includes how to incorporate stress-reducing activities because we can’t eliminate all of our stress. That’s not realistic. But finding ways to better deal with the stress. Incorporating movement that’s right for you. Sometimes people are not moving enough. Sometimes people are.

having too intense of workouts that are creating more inflammation in their body. Looking at people’s sleep, most people only get, I think the average in America is like six to six and a half hours of sleep every night. That’s not enough. That’s creating more inflammation in the body. We need, you know, ideally seven to nine, better towards the eight to nine to really help with the inflammation side of things.

Jeffrey Gladden (31:14.164)
Okay.

Dayna Hrovath (31:22.217)
So that’s another big section is the clearing effects of stress. And then the third is cleaning out toxins, teaching people how to avoid toxins in their personal care products, the things that you use on a daily basis that you just don’t think about from your shampoo to your lotion to everything, your toothpaste to your household products, what you’re cleaning with, what you’re doing laundry with.

Jeffrey Gladden (31:29.874)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (31:42.023)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (31:48.761)
your air fresheners that you’re plugging in or spraying, all of these things that can affect our health over time. And then also looking at environmental toxins that we have some control over, not the things that are out blowing in the air. And then looking at how to incorporate general detox strategies on a regular basis, because detox isn’t just a one event thing. And poof, you’re detoxed, you’re great. You know, the, you’re

constantly getting things in that your body needs to better handle and teaching ways to be able to keep things moving.

Jeffrey Gladden (32:20.918)
That’s right.

Jeffrey Gladden (32:25.218)
Yeah, there’s some nice genetic testing around people’s detox systems also that can give people insights in terms of how well they detox. There are various stages of detox, you know, stage one, two, three. And interestingly enough, you know, in stage one, as you detox a molecule, let’s say, you can actually make it more toxic than it was initially, accounting on

Dayna Hrovath (32:36.663)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (32:52.366)
phase two to actually then clean it up and turn it into something that’s less toxic. So depending if your genetics around phase two are not working properly, but your phase one are working and you’re exposed to stuff, you can actually be making yourself more toxic, right? So really important, I think, to do the genetics and kind of see, okay, where am I challenged? Where am I? What are my assets here? What are my liabilities? And then you can actually manipulate those.

those genetics and their expression based on different supplements you might take, things you might do, you know, calcium deglucurate, sulforaphane, you know, or just a couple of things that work there. Other ones too that become very specific to an individual. So yeah, that’s interesting, really interesting. Cool.

Dayna Hrovath (33:23.614)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (33:35.685)
Yeah, it’s like a bathtub with detox. If you keep the water running in your bathtub, but you have a clog in your drain, you’re going to have a big problem.

Jeffrey Gladden (33:44.862)
Right. That’s right. That’s right. And that’s where that’s where genetically you can actually have a kind of a rate limiting step right or a clog that will back everything up behind it and then you kind of get pretty sick. So yeah and it’s you know toxins are unavoidable. Unfortunately we live in a toxic world is getting more toxic all the time. I mean we do toxin testing on all of our clients to see what they’re dealing with. And it’s interesting everybody.

Everybody that lives in the city, everybody has signs of gasoline, toxicity, so to speak, you know, byproducts of that. It’s really high. And people that like to race cars and stuff like that, of course, but, but we’re all exposed to, you know, glyphosate and everything else that shows up. So we live in a toxic world. It’s not, I don’t think, you know, you’d have to get in a bubble, not to be in a toxic world. So it’s really super important to actually understand your detox and be able to detox.

right, because you’re not going to be able to avoid the toxins completely, although you can get rid of your cleaners in the house and things like that, or you know, making it worse. But nonetheless, I think it’s really, really important if you’re struggling with anything like this. This is a really important element. The other two C’s are important as well, but this is one that you can also really dive into and make some headway, I think. So yeah, cool. Cool, cool. So with that approach,

Dayna Hrovath (34:41.458)
Hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (35:01.887)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (35:09.298)
what kind of results are you seeing?

Dayna Hrovath (35:11.877)
Yeah, so it’s not something that, you know, you change your diet, you get rid of your toxins and one week later your skin is clear. That’s something that with many autoimmune diseases can take six to 12 months to really reset the body where you’re getting lasting skin clearance. But usually even within the first month of people making these major changes in their life, they’re starting to notice they’re not as itchy.

Jeffrey Gladden (35:21.548)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (35:39.169)
or they’re not flaking as much, the redness has died down. So you can start getting some encouragement earlier then it’s not like you’re going from zero to 60 and then you’re like, well, nowhere did I get any encouragement to continue, you’re getting little benefits, but then you’re also going to see when you go to your yearly.

Jeffrey Gladden (35:43.004)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (36:03.593)
checkups with your primary care doctor, oh, you know, maybe your blood pressure has gone down, your blood sugar has improved. So even though a lot of these things are focused at trying to get people’s skin clearer, they’re gonna notice their joints aren’t as stiff, they’re getting these other improvements, they have more energy, and it definitely should notice a full body improvement, not just a skin improvement.

Jeffrey Gladden (36:16.661)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (36:30.774)
Yeah, that is the other thing that we didn’t talk about is there really are systemic symptoms to this. It’s not just the skin, right? I mean, anybody with an autoimmune disease typically has some element of fatigue. And many times there’s some associated joint pain. Sometimes there’s associated shortness of breath when they try to exert themselves, you know, things like that. So it’s really it’s really a big deal. I think so when you.

Dayna Hrovath (36:37.98)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (36:58.366)
When you do treat people like this, and let’s say it is a year, 12 or 18 months later, have they gotten to a point where they’ve actually solved it, where they’re, you know, people that are lesion, let’s call it skin, skin lesion free, and they’re, they’re living their lives and they’re, they’re wearing their tank tops and putting on their bathing suit and all that kind of stuff. And you know, how often does that happen?

Dayna Hrovath (37:19.961)
It happens very frequently as long as people don’t get to the point where like, oh, I’m doing better. And then they revert back to their old habits. So it’s a lifestyle change that you have to keep up with. It’s not a I’m going to do this for X amount of time. Poo fall is better. And then I can go back to eating my Big Macs and all of your exactly. So unfortunately or fortunately, however, people want to look at it.

Jeffrey Gladden (37:27.722)
Right. That’s right.

Jeffrey Gladden (37:42.668)
Ice cream.

Dayna Hrovath (37:49.225)
for me it’s fortunate because it’s protecting you from a lot of different things, is you gotta keep up with those changes that you made. It’s not a magic wand.

Jeffrey Gladden (37:59.362)
Yeah, perfect. Well, that’s been, it’s been an interesting conversation with you. It’s been kind of enlightening really, I think for people to see this that, um, and this is kind of true across the whole category of autoimmune diseases. These approaches will work, you know, psoriasis is kind of your passion. And, and I get, and appreciate that. I’m really glad that, uh, that you can help people with that, but it’s also true if you’re listening to this and you know, somebody else

Dayna Hrovath (38:17.165)
Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey Gladden (38:26.254)
that has any kind of autoimmune disease, this kind of approach is universally helpful. May not be curative, but it’s certainly substantially helpful. So that’s very, very cool. So how do people get ahold of you if they wanna get more information or something like that? How do they track you down?

Dayna Hrovath (38:43.301)
Yeah, sure. You could go to just my website, which is FountainMillsFunctionalWellness.com. Or if you’re interested in, I have a free giveaway, it’s called The Three Day Jumpstart to Loving Your Skin. It’s a three day meal plan with easy recipes, some stress relieving tips, and just a simple detox strategy to get you started with something that’s easy. And you can access that at

Jeffrey Gladden (39:08.73)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (39:11.637)
three than not the number three but writing it out T H R E three day jumpstart.com.

Jeffrey Gladden (39:18.934)
Okay. And where are you located physically? Where’s your clinic? Where do you work?

Dayna Hrovath (39:23.701)
Sure, I live in Pennsylvania outside of the Pittsburgh area, but for working with people with psoriasis this way, it’s all just through the internet, online, so people can access me from wherever. If you’re wanting to actually come into the office, I work as at a conventional dermatology office in La Trobe, Pennsylvania.

Jeffrey Gladden (39:29.419)
OK.

Jeffrey Gladden (39:40.001)
Okay.

Jeffrey Gladden (39:48.338)
Okay. So are you leading two lives? Are you like a secret agent there? You work, you work in the dermatology office, but on secret agent, you’re basically out curing the world on the internet. Is that what’s happened?

Dayna Hrovath (39:53.109)
I am.

Dayna Hrovath (40:00.457)
That’s exactly what’s happening because this way I can meet people where they’re at. There are people who don’t want medicines at all, which is great. But then there are people who don’t want to hear anything about changing their diet and are not going to hear it. So this way right now, I’m able to see the good and the bad of the pharmaceutical world and the conventional medicine world and still be able to…

Jeffrey Gladden (40:05.698)
Okay.

Dayna Hrovath (40:27.753)
help the people who aren’t ready to look at my way as the better way.

Jeffrey Gladden (40:35.658)
Yeah. So fountain mills functional wellness. So fountain mills, is there an actual fountain involved in this someplace or?

Dayna Hrovath (40:38.718)
Mm-hmm.

Dayna Hrovath (40:42.697)
There’s not. The town I live in, its name is Scotdale, but when it was founded, it was originally called Fountain Mills.

Jeffrey Gladden (40:50.834)
Okay. Got it. All right. Just thought I’d double check. So good. Well, we really appreciate you. Yeah. Really appreciate you being on the show. And yeah, and stay around. We’re going to ask you a few more questions here in the H hackers plus segment. So thanks again.

Dayna Hrovath (40:54.513)
Yeah. No fountain.

Dayna Hrovath (41:04.282)
Okay, thank you.

Steve Reiter (41:09.126)
Perfect.