Today we’re kicking off a new series, Detox in a Toxic World, with a deep dive into environmental toxins and their impact on health. In this episode, we break down what environmental toxins actually are, how they affect the body, and why this topic is both real and often wildly misunderstood. We walk through the major categories of toxins in modern life, including microplastics, pesticides, mycotoxins, heavy metals, food additives, and synthetic dyes, and explain the key mechanisms through which they may drive inflammation, oxidative stress, hormone disruption, mitochondrial dysfunction, and more.

We also explore one of the biggest questions in this space: why do some people seem to tolerate environmental exposures just fine, while others develop chronic symptoms and disease? This episode is here to give you a more balanced, evidence-based, and deeper look at a topic that is too often led by fear, oversimplification, and misinformation, so you can better understand what matters, what may not, and how to think about your health more clearly.

Companion Guide: drmaryellawood.com/guides

Longevity medicine is one of the most exciting frontiers in modern healthcare. With new technology, more advanced biomarker testing, deeper aging research, and emerging interventions that aim to help us better understand and potentially shape the biology of aging, the field is opening up an entirely new level of conversation about healthspan, vitality, and the future of medicine.

Today, we dive deeper into the roots of longevity medicine and why, in many ways, those roots have long existed within integrative medicine. We explore how the science of aging is evolving, why the most evidence-based longevity interventions still bring us back to foundational principles, and how older healing systems were thinking about vitality and healthy aging long before the modern longevity movement had a name for it.

In this episode, we cover:

• why longevity is having such a major moment
• what longevity medicine actually is
• the future-facing power of the fundamentals: nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, and connection
• functional medicine as a longevity framework
• the wisdom of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine
• what this means for the future of medicine
• what you can start focusing on today to support your vitality and healthspan

Website: drmaryellawood.com

Instagram: @drmaryella

Women’s health is often approached through a hormonal lens, but hormones are only one part of the story. In this episode, we explore a broader framework for women’s health that includes the neuro-endocrine system, inflammation, metabolism, the gut, autoimmunity, and the mind-body connection. We talk about PMDD, perimenopause, PCOS, endometriosis, IBS, autoimmune disease and why so many conditions that affect women are better understood through a more expansive, systems-based model. We also touch on rhythm, intuition, and the cyclical nature of the female body, and why the future of women’s health may depend on a framework that can hold all of that complexity.

drmaryellawood.com

The modern psychedelic renaissance is teaching us something important, not just about psychedelic substances, but about how healing actually happens. Beyond the molecules, psychedelic science is revealing the conditions under which the human nervous system becomes capable of change.

This episode explores the idea that psychedelics have long functioned as teachers, not only through ingestion, but by showing us how context, meaning, and state shape healing. By looking across history, neuroscience, and clinical research, we ask what psychedelic wisdom offers people who may never use a psychedelic drug at all.

In this episode, we cover:

• Psychedelics as ancient teachers through indigenous and ceremonial traditions
• What modern neuroscience reveals about neuroplasticity, psychological flexibility, and meaning-making
• Why preparation, set, setting, and integration matter as much as pharmacology in therapeutic outcomes
• Non-drug pathways that open windows of change, including meditation, mindfulness, nature exposure, and dream states
• Exploratory experiences that can feel truly psychedelic, such as breathwork, ritual, childbirth, and near-death experiences
• How the psychedelic movement serves as a mirror for modern medicine and challenges intervention-based models of healing

Psychedelic medicine is moving fast. Faster than regulation. Faster than standardization. And in many ways, faster than the data itself.

In this episode, we explore what psychedelics are teaching us about practicing medicine under uncertainty. From the rapid rise of training programs and self-identified experts, to the tension between lived experience, emerging science, and clinical responsibility, this conversation looks beyond hype or skepticism.

Drawing on psychedelic research, integrative medicine, and historical parallels like psychotherapy, biofeedback, and hormone therapy, this episode asks a deeper question: how do we determine expertise in an emerging field? And what does responsible leadership look like when certainty would be premature?

This is an invitation to steward a powerful field with humility, honesty, and care.

Psychedelics are teachers, let’s let them teach us.

Our understanding of how psychedelics work has evolved in meaningful ways over the past several years. While earlier neuroscience frameworks helped move the field forward, newer research has added important nuance and depth to how we interpret brain imaging, network behavior, and subjective experience.

In this episode of The Trip Lab, I offer a refresh on psychedelic neuroscience, focusing on key updates from the past four years and how they change the story we tell about what’s happening in the brain and the body during psychedelic states.

We explore:

• How the Default Mode Network is better understood as dynamically modulated rather than simply reduced
• Why psychedelic brain states are best described as time-varying and network-based rather than static
• How neural entropy is now understood as increased flexibility through relaxed constraints
• Why brain, body, and context are inseparable in shaping psychedelic experiences and outcomes

This episode is designed to update earlier explanations, clarify what has changed, and highlight why the newer neuroscience offers a more accurate and more interesting framework for understanding psychedelic effects.

Microdosing has gone mainstream and is often described as a tool for creativity, mood, productivity, and emotional healing. But what does the science actually say?

In this episode of The Trip Lab, I take an evidence-based look at microdosing psychedelics. We explore what microdosing is, how it differs from full-dose psychedelic therapy, and the proposed neurobiological mechanisms that have been suggested in the literature. I review what current clinical trials and placebo-controlled studies are showing so far, and where the data remains limited or inconclusive.

A central focus of this episode is the placebo response. Rather than treating placebo as “fake” or irrelevant, I explain how expectancy, meaning, belief, and context produce real, measurable changes in the brain and body. We discuss why placebo responses are especially strong in interventions involving consciousness, perception, and mental health, and how this helps explain why many people genuinely feel better with microdosing even when objective outcomes are mixed.

This episode separates enthusiasm from evidence, explores where microdosing may be helpful, where claims get overstretched, and what questions researchers are actively trying to answer next.

If you’re curious about microdosing and want a grounded, medically informed perspective that respects both science and lived experience, this conversation is for you.

Functional medicine testing is everywhere. It is often marketed as “test, don’t guess,” and just as often dismissed as invalidated or unscientific. So what is the truth?

In this episode of The Trip Lab, we take a deep dive into what functional medicine testing actually is, how it differs from traditional laboratory testing, and what clinicians really mean when they say these tests are not “validated.” We explore why some advanced tests can be genuinely helpful when used thoughtfully, where their limitations lie, and why more testing does not always lead to better care.

We walk through several commonly used functional medicine tests that I actually do use in my practice, including DUTCH, GI-MAP, and Organic Acids Testing (OAT), breaking down what each test measures, when it can add value, and … when it might not be helpful as well. We also discuss why I typically don’t recommend mold or environmental toxin testing, and why exposure history and foundational interventions often matter more than identifying a specific toxin.