Thrive on Plants

When a substitute teacher mentioned that half his students showed up hungry, Elizabeth Potter didn't form a committee. She and her husband drove to Walmart, bought food and backpacks, and found a way to help solve the problem. That was the spring of 2010. This past year, Food 4 Kids sent home more than 17,500 bags of food to children across Lincoln County, New Mexico, and the Mescalero Apache...

Melatonin isn't just a sleep aid. It might be one of the most misunderstood molecules in your body, and understanding it could impact your healthspan. Most of us know melatonin from the supplement aisle: something you take when you can't sleep. But Dr. Deanna Minich has spent years making the case that this "sleep hormone" is actually a primordial, multitasking molecule she cal...

What if the missing piece of your menopause care isn't a hormone at all? Cynthia Thurlow, NP, has spent more than two decades in clinical medicine. But no one, not her training, her colleagues, or her own doctors, prepared her for what perimenopause would do to her body. Or for how much of it would trace back to her gut. After a serious infection, a 13-day hospitalization, and weeks of antibi...

She was born vegan. Her mother had been vegan for nine years before Anne arrived. Her father founded the American Vegan Society the year John F. Kennedy was elected president. And now, at 56, Anne Dinshah is the CEO of that same organization, taking up springboard diving for the first time since high school, rowing fifteen miles at a stretch on the Schuylkill River, and building bridges between pe...

What if the way you eat is directly shaping how you think, feel, and cope? Serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine- the molecules your brain uses to regulate mood, motivation, and stress response- are synthesized from essential amino acids. Amino acids that come from food. That means what you put on your plate every day either supports your brain health or quietly undermines it.  In this episode of Th...

Most women over 50 are doing everything they were told to do. Eating less. Exercising more. And getting nowhere. In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Dr. Daphne Bascom sits down with Debra Atkinson, an exercise physiologist, former Iowa State kinesiology lecturer, and founder of Flipping 50, to discuss why the old fitness rules stop working in midlife and what actually builds a strong, capable bod...

Everyone worries about losing muscle as they age. Almost everyone is worried about the wrong thing . Dr. Brad Currier has spent his career studying what actually keeps us strong and functional into our 70s, 80s, and 90s. He earned his PhD under Professor Stuart Phillips, helped write the latest ACSM resistance training guidelines, and now leads clinical research at Timeline in Switzerland. In this...

Beta-hydroxybutyrate, the primary ketone your body produces, is turning out to be one of the most compelling molecules in longevity and healthspan science. It fuels your brain when glucose falls short. It influences gene expression. It signals your cells to burn fat more efficiently. And a single dose has been shown to improve cardiac output, ejection fraction, and stroke volume in patients with h...

Most women are told menopause is a hormone story. The science suggests it is also an energy story, one that starts inside your cells decades before your last period. Dr. Siobhan Mitchell is a neuroscientist with a PhD, 80+ peer-reviewed publications, and 25 years of research on how nutrition shapes brain aging. She started this work after watching her grandmother die of Alzheimer's and she ha...

What if the cleanest, most complete protein you could eat wasn't made from animals, plants, or soil at all? In this episode, Dr. Daphne sits down with Walter Ross, founder and CEO of Spacemilk, to explore a category of protein most people have never heard of: single-cell yeast protein, grown in a closed-loop tank of water, free of heavy metals, pesticides, allergens, and the resource footprin...

What if the most powerful cancer-fighting tool isn't a drug, it's your muscle? Exercise oncologist Sami Mansfield spent 23 years building programs inside cancer centers and co-authoring ASCO guidelines before most oncologists were willing to have this conversation. In this episode, she joins Dr. Daphne Bascom to cover what your care team probably hasn't told you about movement, musc...

What if the healthcare system was never actually designed to make you healthy? Dr. Zeev Neuwirth spent decades inside major health systems as a physician, Chief Medical Officer, and Population Health Officer. What he found there shocked him, then frustrated him, then ultimately set him free. In this conversation, Dr. Neuwirth breaks down three phases of his career-long awakening: from realizing th...

Julie Gibson Clark is not a billionaire with a team of longevity doctors. She is a full-time recruiter, a former structural engineer, a single mom from Phoenix -- and she has outperformed most of the world's highest-spending biohackers on the most rigorous biological aging leaderboard. Her DunedinPACE score of 0.665 indicates she was aging at a rate of 65 days per 100 days. She got there with...

Forty percent of women are not being heard by their doctors when they report menopause symptoms. Andrea Donsky was one of them. She is a nutritionist with 26 years of experience. She had studied health and wellness her entire career. And she still spent 14 years in perimenopause without knowing it. When she finally understood what had been happening to her body, she did not keep it to herself. She...

Lori Baum is a medical assistant who has spent over two decades working in oncology. She knows cancer. She knows screenings. She eats well, stays active, and has been proactive about her health for years. And still, in November 2022, she found the words "invasive carcinoma" on her phone screen at lunch. In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Lori shares her full story: a heavy family histo...

Content Warning: This episode includes an honest, courageous conversation about the mental health toll of hormone deficiency, including a moment of profound hopelessness. Sarah speaks to this with full self-awareness and strong support in place. If you or someone you love is struggling, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. What happens when a nurse pra...

Most of us were never taught about the pelvic floor. And yet it affects everything from bladder control and bowel health to sex, exercise, and how we age through menopause. In this episode, Dr. Daphne sits down with Dr. Sara Reardon, board-certified pelvic floor physical therapist and author of Floored , to have the conversation most of us never got from our doctors or our mothers. In this episode...

Description: 268 million years. That is how much collective life the Black community in America is on track to lose to preventable chronic disease. Kwame Terra, a plant-based public health strategist, walked over 2 million steps in 30 days to launch bEHR Health, a platform designed to recapture that time. This conversation will change how you think about health, community, and what real prevention...

"Why wasn't I taught this?" If you've ever felt this way about your health, this conversation is for you. In this episode of the Thrive on Plants podcast, Dr. Daphne Bascom is  joined by award-winning health journalist Meghan Rabbitt, author of "The New Rules of Women's Health: Your Guide to Thriving at Every Age." They dive into the health conversations women de...

What if the biggest obstacle to your health and fitness goals isn't discipline, it's who you believe you are? Who you believe you are shapes everything from your habits to your health to the risks you are willing to take. In this conversation, recorded at the annual Vegan Superhero Retreat, Dr. Daphne Bascom is joined by Coach Arman and Vegan Superheroes Toosdhi and Kaitie to explore ide...

Chronic pain is real, and there is hope. In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Dr. Daphne Bascom sits down with Dr. Michael Lenz, a Med-Peds physician board-certified in internal medicine, pediatrics, clinical lipidology, and lifestyle medicine.  Dr. Lenz specializes in what he calls "invisible illnesses" including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, migraines, IBS, and other nociplastic pain...

Weight loss and weight maintenance are not the same skill set, and treating them as if they are is one of the biggest reasons so many people lose weight only to regain it. In this episode of the Thrive on Plants Podcast, Dr. Daphne Bascom sits down with Dr. Holly Wyatt and Dr. James Hill to unpack what actually changes in your body, brain, and environment when you lose weight, why maintenance is h...

Big hikes don’t just “happen.” They’re earned, through smart training, durable joints, and a fueling plan you’ve practiced before the trail gets serious. In this episode of the Thrive on Plants Podcast, I’m joined by Mikey Bell, founder of Outdoor Adventure Training (OAT), NASM Certified Personal Trainer + Corrective Exercise Specialist, professional mountain guide (Mount Shasta), and a plant-base...

Toxins are everywhere, but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. In this episode, Dr. Aly Cohen breaks down the surprising places toxins hide in our homes, how they impact our hormones and health, and the simple, low-stress steps we can take to reduce exposure and protect our families. Main Topics Covered: How environmental toxins disrupt hormones, immunity, and child development Common sources of to...

In this episode of Thrive on Plants, Dr. Daphne Bascom interviews Dr. Ruby Lathon, a former NASA engineer who used a whole food, plant-based lifestyle to overcome thyroid cancer and then turned her healing into a mission to help others do the same. Dr. Lathon shares how she transitioned from a high-dairy, high-egg diet to a fully plant-based approach, the mindset shifts that supported her recovery...