Total Load Theory (Featuring: Patricia S. Lemer)

This week on the podcast, we welcome Patti Lemer who last year gave me the opportunity to do something I've never done before, write the foreword to her new book. Patti is an OG in the autism space and a true pioneer in understanding the environmental drivers impacting children's health. The book is Total Load Theory. Many people know Patti from her earlier work, Outsmarting Autism, which drew from decades of hands-on experience working with kids on the spectrum. Long before environmental illness entered mainstream conversation, Patti was already mapping the terrain, looking at toxic burden, immune stress, and the cumulative impact of modern life on developing nervous systems. As the cultural conversation shifted and the term "Outsmarting Autism" began to feel limiting, Patti revisited the work with fresh eyes. The result is Total Load Theory – a reframing grounded in functional medicine's understanding of total allostatic load: the combined environmental, biochemical, infectious, emotional, and physiological burdens our children are carrying.