Oxidative stress is one of the most talked about topics in health and wellness right now... but what does it actually mean? And what does the body already have built in to fight it? In this episode of Wellness Wednesday, Marilee sits down with Nikki, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Certified Wellness Coach with more than 25 years of experience in health, wellness, nutrition, disease prevention, and integrative care, for a conversation that goes straight to the root cause of how we age at the cellular level.

Nikki brings decades of clinical experience evaluating supplements, working in prevention and integrative care, and helping people understand the real impact of nutrigenomics on their health. Her passion for finding simple, science-backed solutions to complex health challenges led her to Nrf2 activation 15 years ago... and this conversation makes clear exactly why that discovery changed everything for her as a practitioner.

Together Marilee and Nikki unpack oxidative stress from the inside out. They explore how free radical damage accumulates across every organ system, why this is influencing more than 200 chronic conditions, and why the research on PubMed has grown from 86,000 to more than 415,000 published studies in just 15 years. Most importantly they dive into what the body already has built in to address it... and why activating that internal defense system is fundamentally different from anything people have tried before.

In This Episode We Discuss:

• What oxidative stress actually is and why Nikki describes it as “rusting from the inside out”
• The connection between oxidative stress, inflammation, and chronic disease across every organ system
• How nutrigenomics works and why we are not stuck with the genes we were given
• The Nrf2 pathway and why it declines as we age, driving the changes we associate with getting older
• The four key antioxidant enzymes activated by Nrf2 and the research-proven percentages behind each one
• Why the body’s own antioxidants are more than a million times more powerful than anything we can supplement with from the outside
• What Nikki discovered 15 years ago that changed the way she approaches her work as a dietitian

Key Takeaways:

• Oxidative stress is a root cause influencing more than 200 chronic diseases and it affects every organ system in the body
• The Nrf2 pathway controls antioxidant production, detoxification, and the inflammatory response... and it declines significantly as we age
• Research shows that activating the Nrf2 pathway can lower oxidative stress by an average of 40% in 30 days
• SOD increases by 34%, catalase by 54%, Hemoxygenase 1 by 600 to 900%, and glutathione by 300% through Nrf2 activation
• Self-care is cell care... starting at the cellular level with the foundational piece creates a platform everything else can build on

Wellness Wednesday is a free weekly wellness conversation hosted by the FAB Collab and designed to bring real, research-backed health education to anyone who wants to understand what is happening in their body and what they can do about it. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone in your world who has been asking questions about aging, energy, or cellular health.

Thank you for joining us for another Wellness Wednesday discussion.

You can listen to all recordings via audio by visiting this link:

• https://biohackandactivate.com/activationpodcast

You can also find us on Apple Podcasts here:

• https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wellness-wednesday-activation-podcast/id1860715006

And on Spotify here:

• https://open.spotify.com/show/6wDumT9yTsCzNWD9LxzeIm

We release new episodes every week, so there is always fresh content to guide you on your wellness journey. Tune in, get inspired, and start supporting your body and mind from the inside out.