Dr. Tania Dempsey: Mast Cells, Chronic Fatigue, & Hidden Inflammation
5/19/20261 hr 8 min
Up to 1 in 5 people may have this condition and never know it and the diagnoses they've been handed instead, from PCOS to IBS to chronic fatigue, may all be pointing at the same hidden cause. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Tania Dempsey, Johns Hopkins-trained internist and one of the leading researchers on Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, who tells me that 100% of her PCOS patients test positive for MCAS, and walks me through why mast cells may be the most overlooked driver of chronic illness in modern medicine. If you've been told your symptoms are idiopathic, or...
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First 90 secondsTanya Dempsey· Guest0:00
Right now, in my practice, 100% of patients with PCOS have mast cell activation syndrome.
Gary Brecka· Host0:05
Up to 17 to 20% of the population may have mast cell syndrome and not know it. It mimics dozens of other conditions, allergies, IBS, anxiety, chronic fatigue, skin issues.
Tanya Dempsey· Guest0:15
Mast cell activation syndrome, it's a chronic inflammatory multi-system condition. Everyone has mast cells. Mast cells are your front line of your immune system. They're helping us, but they can also damage us.
Gary Brecka· Host0:28
They're chemical messengers, and when their system is faulty, they can chronically secrete these without an invasion as if one was occurring.
Tanya Dempsey· Guest0:37
But let's look at the root and understand, you know, that the mast cells are affecting the motility to causing inflammation in the gut. They're making it more difficult to tolerate certain foods.
Gary Brecka· Host0:45
This is such a fascinating underserved area of medicine where we start really looking at root causes and how symptoms don't necessarily link back to the pathology that people are diagnosed with. It may be something even deeper.
Tanya Dempsey· Guest1:00
But also I wanna give hope because I think there's so much that we can do, and that's why I do the work that I do, 'cause I help people every day.
Gary Brecka· Host1:06
For someone that's watching this, what would be some of the category of potential symptoms or ailments, right, that they would be suffering from where you would say, "This might be at the root of that"?
Tanya Dempsey· Guest1:15
I always think about it as three themes that we see very commonly in people who have this. One is in... Ultimate Human.