Joel Evans, MD is a board-certified OB/GYN, Director of The Center for Functional Medicine in Ridgefield, CT, and former Chief of Medical Affairs for the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), where he led IFM's Post-Covid Initiative. A practitioner of mind/body medicine since training with James Gordon, MD in 1997, he worked with the FDNY after 9/11 and with mental health practitioners in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Evans has a special interest in breast cancer prevention and serves as Medical Director of the Keep A Breast Foundation. He is also UN Representative and Chief Medical Advisor for OMAEP, the World Organization of Prenatal Education Associations, and has spoken at the United Nations on the prenatal origins of violence.

In this episode, Dr. Evans explains why he sees metabolism as the foundation of nearly every chronic disease, and walks through a patient case — a woman in her 40s dealing with fatigue, poor sleep, and perimenopause — showing how he untangled her metabolic and hormonal issues.

"Metabolism is everything. It's the operating system for the body. It's almost like talking about how a car works — if there's no engine, the car isn't going to work. If metabolism doesn't happen, the body isn't alive."