141: The Importance of a Healthy Microbiome: Insights from Dr. Jocelyn Strand

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Hey, everyone, what's going on? We're in for another episode. I don't know where this falls in the list of things, but I've recorded, like, five in, like, a day. So here it is. Here's one of them. So I'm with Dr. Jocelyn Strand. She is the director of clinical education and research at Biocide and Botanicals. Biocidin is basically a series of different supplements that help support different things in the body. I take a whole bunch of them. See, my cabinet is, like, literally aligned with, like, everything you guys have. So anyway, Dr. Strand is a gut expert, and she is, obviously, because she's on this show, very understanding of the mold gut connection and how all that works. And I think that's a really important thing for us to dive into because the gut is so important just in terms of overall immune system and what it does for us and our environment can impact that in different ways. And so you want to get all that stuff. Stuff fixed. We got to understand the mechanisms. This is the person to understand all that stuff. Dr. Stran, what's going on?

Hi. So nice to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to give anybody a little more, like, you know.

Sure, sure. So I'm. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a naturopathic doctor, and like you said, I'm the director of clinical education and research at Biocide and Botanicals. And I left my practice 2019, I guess, which was right before COVID hit. So it was good timing for me to switch over, but I left my practice to work for Biocidin because of the effects that I saw in my practice using this product line and really a strong desire to get the word out to practitioners and patients alike about the use of this product. Primarily, we're known for working with the gastrointestinal microbiome.

As a product line, but there is a whole lot more. We only have. It's a very small line, only 10 products, and most of them have biocide in it. And so biocide is a botanical, and we can go into that more later if people are interested or if you're interested in understanding Sort of how it works and when to apply and how to apply it.

Yeah, I might ask some questions. So you said you have 10. So I'm going to count everything that I have. So I have, I have regular biocide drops. I have the liposomal pump thing.

Okay.

I've got the toothpaste, I've got the oral rinse.

Okay.

I did have the probiotic, but I kind of went off of that because my gut's doing some things.

Okay. Pro flora, that one's called.

Yeah, pro flora. I have all of our ex, which is a general, just kind of immune support thing.

Right.

So it's like six. I don't know. So maybe I have a couple more I'm forgetting, but yeah.

So the most important one for the conversation today is the GI detox. The biocide and liquid and the. And the GI detox. So the binder is.

How did I forget the binder? That's like the one thing that everyone knows about. I got that too.

Then we have biotonic, which is an adrenal adaptogen basically, sort of increases digestive fire and immune fire. And from more of like a traditional Chinese medicine perspective, and I think you might have hit them all.

I have the tonic too. I was doing a full protocol, so I was. It was like, okay for like, I was. I was started with a parasite piece that was like a week long pharmaceutical parasite piece. And then after that was a two month long cycle of kind of the whole biocide and regimen on that front. Trying to kind of like reset and kind of get my gut back to where it needed to be. So pretty with all of it. I mean, I feel, you know, it's so interesting, like my symptoms weren't like anywhere near as severe as I think a lot of people's are. Mine were more skin stuff. So I was getting, you know, on my face and people would listen. Now I've talked about it, I get like, whether it's eczema, psoriasis, lucky things or whatever, like they would come and they would go.

And, you know, I've been. I was in the field inspecting houses literally every day. I don't do it every day now, but like every single day for almost 10 years. And it's like every house you go into is the worst of the worst houses because they're all referred by their doctors who are like, yo, you got a bad mole problem. So it was chronic exposures of all.

Sorts of things, I suppose, huh?

Yeah. So then there was suspected SIBO that came off of that. I had a candida overgrowth at one point that I had to beat down. There's like all these little gut related things that I've had over time. And so it's just interesting to kind of talk, talk through a lot of that and what like early science might look like and just kind of how it all works and all that stuff.

So talking about it, I'm thinking about, you know, what we're going to talk about today, right? Is that sort of how, how that cascade happens where we get an exposure and then all of a sudden we start having gut stuff, which is, doesn't necessarily, it's, it's not necessarily common sense that that would happen, I guess, but it does make sense once you understand the underlying physiology of how those mycotoxins and molds act in the body.

So yeah, so, so let's start at the top and we'll kind of work through some of this stuff, right? So let's just start big picture. I mean, I feel like a good amount of people, I mean people that follow this show are probably people that are somewhat in tune to their health. So they're probably around some of the stuff, I would imagine. But the whole like your gut, you know, is like your second brain. Your gut is like the driver of your immune system. And basically there's all these phrases that say your gut's really freaking important. So, so can we just quickly like top line, talk about the role that your gut has and just your overall health, your immune health and why we even need to be talking about it?

Yes, absolutely. So I think it's funny you should make a t shirt. It's really freaking important. Your gut.

Your trademark.

It, it was said here first.

So, you know, when I was in medical school, the gastroenterology teacher said it's all in your gut if the gut is the most important organ. And I was like, kind of annoyed by that at the time because I'm like, well, I have a brain and I have lungs and I have a heart. Like, why is the gut the most important part? Right. And so of course, now fast forward 15, however many years ago that was and, and I totally agree, right, that the gut is the most important organ or it's the first place that you have to start because it's very foundational for, you know, for our whole body health. You know, of course it's where we get what we need from the outside world in terms of nutrient absorption. And the microbiome plays a really pivotal role in gastrointestinal health. Like you said, the immune system is trained there. Whether it's competent, can it fight off pathogens or anything harmful that it meets in the environment. But also is it tolerant, does it not overreact to the inappropriate things like our own body? Or we think of a histamine type response where it's reacting against environmental exposures. We don't want that. If the gut is out of alignment, we can become intolerant or we can become immune suppressed, or we can become both at the same time. This bizarre mix of hyper inflamed and suppressed immune function. Very important. The microbiome. The microbiome being all of the bacteria, fungal, viral, yeast, mold, all of those things that live on our body, the microorganisms. That's our microbiome. And we have a different microbiome in different niches in the body. So we'll have a different oral microbiome. Even in the mouth. There's the rugae of the tongue, there's a periodontal pocket, there's the teeth and the cheek, all of that. The sinuses, the ears, the throat, the stomach, the gut, the skin, the vaginal tract, all of those different areas of the body have a microbiome. And the microbiome will look different in each of those locations. Very interesting. And we have to maintain balance. I think the main takeaway I hope that I give everybody today is that the most important thing is to maintain balance in the microbiome. We're not looking for a single evil pathogen to destroy. We're looking for a way to support the body's ability to maintain balance. That's the takeaway on the microbiome. And I'm going to take it one step further if it's okay. I'm going to wax on here, is that when we have a healthy microbiome, it does in the gut, it helps us degrade macromolecules like carbohydrates, proteins and fats. It helps us again with nutrient absorption and mineral absorption. And it also helps with enzyme synthesis. So important for all sorts of enzymatic functions, cellular function in the body. They synthesize vitamins like vitamin K, CoQ10B12. All of these things are synthesized by a healthy microbiome. Even amino acid synthesis happens in the gut. Things like neurotransmitters, serotonin and dopamine precursors produced in the gastrointestinal tract. What has a lot of study right now is that short chain fatty acids, things like butyrate is the most well known one. Acetate propionate. These short chain fatty acids are produced by beneficial microorganisms and they help the heal the lining of the gut, but they also have a systemic anti inflammatory effect. So when we, when we produce them, a healthy microbiome produce them, they're absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and they help to keep our inflammation down systemically. So if all of that gets disrupted, you can imagine the downstream effects, you know, can be very dramatic for some people. So, and the worse it is, the worse you feel. And the flip side is also true. You might have sort of chronic low grade dysbiosis causing chronic low grade symptoms and you may just feel tired and achy, you might not sleep well, you might have a little bit of anxiety or depression and all of that could be originating in your microbiome.

Yeah, I was actually going to ask that as a follow up. Like so you know, we don't know what's in our gut, right? Like nobody knows.

Right?

So, so like what, right, Just look. So like what are, what are some of the clues and the trigger. So you mentioned for. So I didn't know, I didn't know the CoQ10 was synthesize in the gut. So like if you then went and did a blood test, let's say, and you got your CoQ10 levels and they're low, like is that like those types of connections, like things like that that you could look at and maybe like more traditional testing that people might be doing that aren't doing like the more in depth things that you would do at a functional doctor Just obviously you said a couple of the symptoms. It's tough though because some of those like low, like chronic symptoms are also a million other things that can cause those things too. So it's kind of hard to like point to that. So what are there a couple like kind of easy things that if you see it you're like, oh, this is something to be thinking about.

So if we're talking sort of generalized dysbiosis, so dysbiosis meaning that there's an imbalance in the, in the microflora. So whether it's in the gastrointestinal tract or the sinuses, wherever it is, if it's just a generalized imbalance, typically what you're going to see is a systemic rise in inflammation. So where if someone has a knee injury and usually it doesn't bother them, but it's flaring up, I always look at the gut. Every time that a person would come into my practice, I always evaluate and I ended up working with antimicrobial botanicals. To evaluate what role was the microbiome playing in, whether it was psoriatic arthritis or rheumatoid arthritis, or whether it was osteoarthritis, or whether it was fatigue or mood. I always worked with the microbiome and I used antimicrobial botanicals to evaluate whether people, if they felt better on those antimicrobial botanicals or if they got a flare when they started taking them, then I knew that there was a microbial flare on board. Does that make sense? So it was almost like a diagnostic tool for me, the way that I used it in my practice. Which disclaimer, Biocyte botanicals is not recommending that.

That's just me. But so where mold and mycotoxins are concerned, I look more specifically for those electrical symptoms. Anxiety.

Prickling, Weird for me. I've had mold exposure, mold toxicity. I've had a whole mold illness experience myself. For me, it was running sensations up and down the spine of electrical sensations. And then I get prickling and itching. And I, since then have found that. Have discovered that that's one of the most common sort of pathognomonic, which means it. It means that it is related to, like, a yeast or a mold. So that's mold overgrowth in the body or in your environment. That's another form of dysbiosis on the body. So did I answer your question? I kind of super.

It's super helpful. It's just tough because, like, I mean, mold, you know, this, like. Like, mold mimics so many things. Like, it could literally, it gets. It gets through the blood. It triggers something up here, triggers something down here for somebody else. It's like, how do you know? So, you know, it's not saying that every single one of these symptoms means that, but I think, like, if somebody's listening and they're trying to figure out, like, is it really impacting me? Is it not, oh, I have this, like, tingling feeling or, oh, I have this going on? Oh, maybe. Oh, that can happen. Okay, cool. Maybe that's enough for me to at least, like, dive into it and, like, look at it a little bit and go talk to somebody? And I think that's kind of the point of understanding, like, generalized symptoms because there's just so much. And it's, you know, I like, there's.

A strong case to be made from my perspective as a practitioner to working with the microbiome, regardless of whether you understand the underlying cause, because whether you have. Whether it is the trigger for the symptoms or not, when you Establish health in the microbiome. You're still tipping the balance towards reducing inflammation and towards health in general. But you are also, if there is dysbiosis, so overgrowth, say of gram negative bacteria or yeast, then those things all produce toxins that will contribute. So if you can, sort of the way I think about it as a practitioner, we're taking, kind of taking the load off. So at least if we don't hit the nail on the head, at least you're sort of like taking some of that load off the body so that it has more resources to address what is the underlying cause. Does that make sense?

It does. So I've been playing with this, with this analogy or framework for like, don't steal it from me because I want to do it at a conference.

But so we've heard, like terrain theory, right. You have this idea of germ theory. Terrain theory. Right. But it's all focused on the body. Like, it's always like the terrain of your body. But I had this idea of dual terrain theory. Like there's the internal terrain of your body, but it's where your body lives. That terrain is impacting your body terrain, which is impacting the other stuff. And so kind of what you said is like, it just ties like very much into that. Right. Like, if you have a, a situation in your gut and in your body that's helping reduce inflammatory things and things like that, then you're creating a positive terrain that your body can actually fight a little better if the terrain's the other way. You probably have. I mean, you tell me, but I'm sure part of it is that you have leaky gut. Things are getting out when they're not supposed to. That's just triggering some of this chronic inflammation that's going on as a result. And then your body is like overloaded and all that fun stuff.

Yes, very well put. And I love your. I love your theory. I can't wait to hear it come out.

I've been sitting on it for like six months. I'm just waiting for the conference that I want to do it at.

Yeah, I think it's going to be fun. While I was writing, I was like, I've never heard this before. I'm so excited to do this.

It's great. And just shifts the way that we're thinking, which is, you know, pretty powerful. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. All right, so. So let's get into, let's. Let's get into water damage stuff in an environment and then its impact on microbiome, specifically gut Microbiome, Right. So you have two sides of it. On one side of it you have your toxin load, right. That's your mycotoxins. That's possibly endotoxins too, which is when. So you know, which is when. When you say lps, that is basically what endotoxins are, which are the toxin offput from gram negative bacteria. So we can test for that in the house, in the body. You can see that obviously as you're referring to it, right. So those are kind of the toxin side of things. And then you have sort of the, the, the critters, the living things. Right. You have the actual bacteria of the actual mold itself. So first big question, I guess, and then we could get into it. Is there a difference in how the body reacts to one versus the other or how like you're Versus what the.

Bug is releasing, you mean?

Yeah, like the toxin as opposed to the actual bug.

Yeah, it's a really great question. So the way that I would think about it, I'm not sure I know 100% the answer to your question. So I just want to start by saying that. But I will tell you how I think about it, is that. So we have, most of us will have. I'm going to back up and say for most of the world that's not living in a mold damaged building. Food is the main source of mycotoxins. But that changes immediately when you go into an environment where there's water damage building or release of biotoxin for other reasons. And so that it's really important, of course, to pay attention to the route of where we're getting, the route of administration. Administration's not inoculation.

Can I just real quick dive into that? Because I think that's really, really important. I think there's a lot of times where it's. Yes, food is the most common place for it. But you tell me if I'm mistaking what you just said, if you live in an environment where there's exposure, that the environment becomes the primary source of it and not food. Right. I think that's just such a huge point to nail down for people. Because especially, you know, if you have one spouse is feeling it and the other one does, it's like, well, food is where you get all this stuff. You go talk to your doctor. Like, food is where you get all this stuff.

Like.

Yeah. Unless you're breathing it all day.

Right.

And that becomes the primary place where you're getting it. So, yeah, thank you for that.

And for people who are sensitive it doesn't necessarily take much as, you know, Right. Of an exposure before people start to get symptomatic and skin can get quite sick from it.

Those mycotoxins, those spores, circulate through the air very easily. One place that that happens is if it's airborne, it will go. We'll breathe it through our nose into our sinuses and into our lungs in the sinuses in particular. It's a very warm, moist environment. It's a perfect spot where bacteria and yeast and mold can all grow. They do meet our immune system there. Right. So the immune system gets active. We might feel it in terms of like some chronic sinusitis or even just like restricted breathing. It does. It might be a little bit of nasal congestion and all the way to nasal blockage and chronic post nasal drip, you know. So again, just like mycotoxin illness, it's. The spectrum is wide. But what they do is create a biofilm in the sinuses. And so the biofilm is like, I think of it like an invisibility cloak, to use a little bit of Harry Potter terminology. Right. It's like they, they go behind it. It's a protective measure. They go, you know, they, they hang up, they hang out behind this sort of structure. And from that structure, they usually. There's almost always more than one species. So they'll be hanging out, they're exchanging DNA with each other, they're exchanging signaling with each other. And they become more problematic over time. They become, they hunker down there, they become virulent or they start to cause symptoms from that biofilm. They're continually releasing mycotoxins, they're continually releasing other biotoxins, lipopolysaccharides, one of the main structural proteins in biofilms. So constant inoculation. If you don't address the sinuses. And of course, then in order to get clearing in the sinuses, you have to address the environment as well, the sinuses. Automatically we get post nasal drip from the sinuses down the throat, and that will inoculate. So of course the esophagus, but the stomach and the gastrointestinal tract. So you then you do have an effect on the gastrointestinal microbiome as well as a really long.

Explanation.

That is awesome. So I just want to just re. Emphasize what you just said because one of the most common questions that we'll get will go in a home, will do testing, we'll see a bunch of molds with the potential to produce mycotoxins. They're capable. Right. But just because they're capable doesn't mean that they will. It just means that they're capable of doing it. And then we'll run a mycotoxin test in the house as well. And let's say it comes up negative. Right. And it happens, honestly, like, the majority of the time mycotoxins are negative in a house. I'm going off top of my head. I'm going to say maybe 25% of the time we pick it up. Right. So the majority of the time you're not. So if that's the case, then the question always comes back is, how is this possible? I have this in my body. It's not in my house. And sometimes people are upset that it's not there. The vibe behind the question changes, I think, sometimes. But the question is always there of how is this possible? And what you just said. I've had other people on the show say it too, but I think that piece is so important for people to understand. This stuff can get produced from inside your body. So if you were in a home, or you currently are in a home where there were those types of molds, they get into your sinuses or other areas, it's not the only place they could colonize, and they create the biofilms, they start producing it inside your body, you can fix the whole house, all that stuff, and it's still happening. Right. And so I just want to make sure you said it. You said it very clear, but I'm just, like, emphasizing it. So, like, whoever's listening to this, like, tag this for your husband or your wife and give them this timestamp and go. Let them listen to what was just said. Because if you did that in the house, and there's this whole question of, like, oh, this doesn't mean anything anymore. That's not true. Right. Everything is in super black and white. And it's. It's important to understand that. So that's. That's. I'm going to get off my soapbox now.

Yeah, well, and then we could even go further down that rabbit hole if you want to. But, you know, it's. It does. When we get colonization in the sinuses, it leads to a whole host of other issues, physiological issues that outside of the sinuses, of course, other than just the gut microbiome, you know, systemic inflammation and systemic suppression of hormones and all sorts of issues. So it really is essential, part of mold treatment or mold therapy to address any kind of issue in the sinuses or wherever. Like you said, wherever the biofilms are holed up and I'd love to. Can I share my own experience with biofilms?

Yeah, can I. One more thing then to button that up and then. Yes, you also said lps. Okay, so just so everyone knows, LPS comes from gram negative bacteria. LPS and endotoxins are basically the same thing. Endotoxins are the toxin that basically wraps gram negative bacteria organism. All right, so when we're in the house and we talk about the need to understand the full burden of water damage issues on a house, right? Part of it is mold, the other part is bacterial elements that are going on in the house. If we aren't understanding that and testing for endotoxins and seeing what's going on on that front. I've seen houses where there's a really high endotoxin load and there's no mycotoxins and the molds are like, you know, they're there, but it's not like out of, you know, it's not super crazy or anything, but there's a massive endotoxin load. And if we're breathing that in and the, in the biofilms create and all that stuff like you just said, that's causing a problem too. So these systemic health issues that come as a result from that, it is so, so important for us to be understanding the full breadth of what the water damage biome, micro, I don't know if you call it in a house of microbiome, but the water damage situation in a house on what's going on, because it all can contribute and trigger the same type of issues in the body and it could also like hold up and create it internally. So it's just super helpful to understand all that and how all that works together.

And lps, I mean, when you're talking about toxicity, endotoxin or LPS is the single most potent immune stimulator, human immune stimulator, that we know of. So it's really, really important to address lipopolysaccharides. And so that can be in the environment. It can also be an overgrowth of gram negative bacteria in the gut or the mouth or the ears or the sinuses. But the reason that it's important to talk about inhaled lps, like what you're talking about is that when we inhale it, when it goes in the lungs and sinuses or the mouth, it goes directly into the bloodstream from there. Which is why when you get an infection outside of your gut, so we have all these gram negative bacteria in the gut, if they stay in the gut, we're okay. And the reason that that is is because all of that endotoxin, first of all, most of it passes through in stool, but what does get absorbed goes to the liver, and the liver clears it immediately. And so if we don't have that first pass to the liver, the LPS goes directly to the bloodstream, and that's a problem because it causes things like cardiovascular disease. So people who have cardiovascular disease commonly have endotoxemia. So that's LPS elevated only two to three times the normal level. And so it's really, really important to address LPS as part of the therapeutic strategy. But also, you know, like you said, the terrain of the home, that multiple terrain theory that you're developing, right. Is to make sure that it's not present in the home because it's more. It's more. It will be more toxic, and it is toxic to everyone, not just people sensitive to mold. So, you know, I. I'm one of the people sensitive to mold, and so I totally get that how. And I get, like, a little bit of PTSD panicky if I see mold growing anywhere in my home. But really, truly lps, it would affect my whole family, not just me. Does that make sense? If LPS rose in our home environment?

100% makes sense. Yeah, that's super helpful. I think the clarity on that side of it, because the bacterial side of stuff is, like, newer than the mold side of stuff, just in terms of the understanding. So. So being able to hear how it actually works and the importance is part of the understanding of getting everything handled the right way. All right, I derailed you, so you had your own.

Oh, I get excited about things too. It doesn't take much to derail me.

I know we're a bad combination then.

Ooh, something else to talk about. And also. So. Well, the reason I wanted to share this is because. Because I think it speaks directly to what. What we're talking about today, which is, you know, the. The microbiome and biofilms and mycotoxins or mold. Mold growing behind biofilms. So I guess it would have been about maybe 12 years ago that I had exposure at our. At the home that we were living in at the time to black mold that we never did test for what it was. We just remediated the. The area at the time. We. We had a. An air exchanger installed, remediated the area, and my symptoms resolved, I mean, almost within an hour of having an. Of an air exchanger installed. In our home. So it was pretty dramatic. And I started to feel better. At the time, my symptoms were so bizarre because I'd never experienced it before. But my symptoms were histamine mediated from the waist down. Just like my skin was swollen. I don't know how else to describe it. Like red and swollen. All of my lady parts red and swollen. Just tons of. And I know this is personal, so if you're uncomfortable with personal information, the reason that I share it is because I feel like it normalizes the conversation and I'm not embarrassed. Well, maybe I'm a little embarrassed, but no, I'm not embarrassed to talk about. Had a very profound effect on my vaginal tissue, the mold exposure did. And so I ended up having swelling there. And I had swelling or I had hyper secretion, which is one of the effects of mold exposure on. On our gut, on all of our mucosa, is this hyper secretion of all the glands. And so I just was miserable. Laying on the couch at night, scratching until my legs bled. It was awful. And then we installed the air. We remediated, we installed the air exchanger and things were better. I still couldn't drink any or eat anything that was fermented. Like I still was. Reacted to yeast and moldy. All things dank is how one of my patients described it. And then I kind of went along my life and gradually was improving. And then biocidin came into my life and I tried. I was like, oh, this is good for Candida. Maybe I have Candida. I'm just gonna take it. And I did not. I didn't titrate. And I. So I went straight to max dosing. I didn't know anything about binders. And I had. When I started taking it at a full recurrence of my mold toxicity. And so in my mind I was like, whoa, what the heck? You know, was it Candida that was causing it? What was it? And I didn't understand biofilms at that point. Now I understand, or I think what happened was that all of the biofilms that were existing in my gastrointestinal tract, my sinuses, wherever they were, were broken open. And I was re exposed to mycotoxins and mold. But it didn't last, thank God. So it was three or three or four days. And I'm really grateful my body cleared it relatively quickly of misery again. But.

It'S such a unique constellation of symptoms that I always know when I've had an exposure to mold, because there's nothing else that creates that kind of symptom for me. So that's my own story around mold and the importance of biofilms in the microbiome when you're working with mold as well.

Yeah, listen, I think you said it.

Talking about it helps normalize it. There's a lot of things that are normalized or shouldn't be, and then there's a lot of things that should be normalized that aren't. And so we have to.

I love that.

I don't know if you could dilute the bad normalized things, like with more good. I don't know how that works in the grand scheme of what we take in or take out. But we're behind the eight ball on things that should be normalized and we're pushing things out that shouldn't be. And it's just kind of of, you know, it is. It's like a battle that we have to do. So. Thanks. I mean, it's super helpful.

100 agree with your statement.

All right, so we, let's, let's get moving on now. So we've kind of talked through biofilms, how they work. We stuff's getting produced in the body, kind of got all that stuff.

Where do we go now? Let me ask you. I don't know to go like you do. Where do you go next? What, what, what's kind of. Let's just kind of work through this in motion and then we kind of talk.

Okay, next up. Well, so let's assume that we're getting. Or we could talk about the microbiome. Right. What happens to the microbiome or how mycotoxins are mold affect the gastrointestinal. And the research that I looked at is also the oral microbiome. So anything inhaled, eaten, of course, or like we talked about, that's being produced on the body, say by Aspergillus or another fungal element that's producing it. So what happens is, and I did mention this already, is this hyper secretion, glandular hyper secretion. So it affects the glands are trying to respond to the immune activation by producing more mucus, more.

Antimicrobial peptides, by producing all sorts of. They're trying to manage it, but it causes these hyper secretions, which eventually does burn out those cells and then that results in a swing to the other direction where it damages those glands and your body can't produce the secretions that it needs to, whether it's enzymes. And so that's one of the things that happens or one of the ways in which the mycotoxins damage the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. And the other is that they are just pro inflammatory, they cause inflammation. Lipopolysaccharides also or lps, very, very inflammatory. The problem is you have this hyper secretion of the mucosal lining and then when you can't produce it, you get patches where all of these toxins are directly exposed to the epithelium or the lining of the gut. And then you'll start to get I guess the release of pro inflammatory mediators like cytokines at that site. You can see how then those cells when they die. And this is one of the effects of mycotoxins, it's called apoptosis where the cell just goes up. I'm going to kill myself now so bad.

I can't take it anymore.

I can't do it. So we have suicidal cells as a result of mycotoxin exposure. And when they break open they are full of antimicrobial peptides. And so that's to try to fight the mycotoxins. But when you're looking at the inside of the gastrointestinal tract, we want a thriving microbial population there. And if your body's releasing these antimicrobial peptides, then it suppresses the growth of the beneficial microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract as well. So over time what happens is this sort of movement from healthy, robust, diverse microbiome, which is what we're looking for in a healthy microbiome, towards more pathogens. So these harmful microorganisms towards pro inflammatory microorganisms. And that can be gram negative bacteria, that can be fungal, you know, like Candida as well. So it starts to create this shift in the composition of what's in the gastrointestinal tract.

It sounds interesting. The suicidal cells, which I'm going to steal by the way. That's an awesome phrase.

You're welcome.

So they release basically a bunch of antibiotics. It sounds like. So it's the equivalent of somebody overtaking antibiotics and wiping out their entire. We aren't supposed to take antibiotics if we shouldn't be because have on our gut. It sounds like it's a similar thing.

That happens does right. I mean what it. I don't know if it would be the same degree, but it's the same. It's an imbalance between you know, typically in a healthy gut we have that, that immune system that knows just the right amount of antimicrobial versus anti inflammatory versus you know, the, the immune system is behaving Appropriately, when we release a bunch of antimicrobial peptides and create inflammation, then that starts to go awry. And so then you'll start to have this again, this sort of skewed dysbiotic microbiome instead. So it's. It probably isn't as dramatic as taking, like, you know, an antibiotic would be. It's more chronic and over time, sort of shift.

Got it. Got it. All right, cool. So now we get an understanding of how it works in there and how the gut is working. So I guess let's get into, like. I mean, we could do Myco and LPS and kind of talk both of them through if they're different, if they're the same, because. Because they're connected in the house, too. But, like, so how does, like, that either one of those toxins or if one is different than the other affect, like, influence the microbiome directly?

So the mycotoxins. So I'm not actually sure about, like, LPS and its influences on the microbiome directly. It's a really good question, and now I'm curious, but I don't know the answer to that.

Let me know when you find out.

Okay? I'll shoot you. I'll shoot you a message. However, with mycotoxins, what we do know is that. Is that it has that. So the antimicrobial. Well, it damages the cells directly. They are antimicrobial in their own right. Mycotoxins are. And so they will suppress the growth of the beneficial microorganisms. And it's not the same in different areas of the body. It's not the same with all different mycotoxins or different mold species. And so it looks a little bit different depending on where in the research, where they're sampling it. Are they sampling it in the stomach or low intestine? You know, so it. It's. I think you nailed. Or, you know, you nailed it earlier when you said, we don't really know what's happening there. Like, for me, I think I would love to know exactly what's happening. I don't think I ever will know exactly what's happening because it's so truly, so complex. But when you have a healthy microbiome, it metabolizes the mycotoxins. It's like your first line of defense. And the way that I would think about it is, like, they're there as the first barrier to whatever we consume because they have to live in this environment, too. So if a microorganism is being exposed to toxins whether it's. I mean, I really do want to know now about lps. But for sure, mycotoxins, when they're exposed to it, it damages the microorganisms. Right. They have antimicrobial effect. So they do what they can to metabolize those mycotoxins as quickly as possible. So if you go into an environment where you're exposed to mold and you already don't have a healthy microbiome, then you're like, behind. You're already behind one step behind. So making sure that you establish and maintain health in the microbiome creates that sort of first barrier. It also keeps the epithelial lining healthy. You referred to leaky gut. So if we get damage to the epithelial lining, then we will start to have leakage of mycotoxins, lipopolysaccharides or endotoxin as well, other food antigens. So we start to develop food sensitivities. Or the microbiome will keep that epithelial. A healthy microbiome will keep that healthy as well. And then the last thing and which was news to me is that they're binders. So things like that Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium in their cell wall, not all species, but some of them will actually bind mycotoxins and other toxins as well. So that then they get excreted in the stool. They aren't crossing into the body where they create inflammation.

I didn't know that. That's interesting. I know that there's supplements for those specific ones that you just talked about to. Because they're like the healthy ones that you want to put in and rebalance. Right. So it's interesting. So they, they. It's. You have a binder that's more of a traditional binder, like a GI detox. It's just soaking up everything like a sponge that it touches. Right. And then you have more natural kind of. Predator is not the right word. Like a competitor that just kind of does it more from like a organ.

Yeah, it's a perfect word for it. Yeah.

Yeah.

It is part of their. For survival. Right. And so that's what I think. I think the same thing with botanicals as I do with a healthy microbiome, that this is their. Their strategy for staying alive. And we're basically like borrowing their plants, immune systems. We're borrowing the. The immune system of the microorganism in order to protect us and protect our bodies. And. And you. I mean, I guess that's. That's the easiest way to say it. I think I could get out there because they have a life force too, that we're consuming in some way, you know, so it's all of us. Like.

I think you just gave me the triple terrain theory. I gotta stop. I'm gonna start going down like. Like when ant man's going through all the different quantum phases, there's like a million of them. I need to stop now.

You're a thinker.

What's that?

You're a thinker.

Yeah, well, you know, it helps sometimes.

Okay, so that's all super helpful. I just learned like five things I know off of that, which is awesome.

So I guess on the flip side, like, how does. Is it if you're. If your gut or your microbiome is out of balance, does that in a way this might be totally wrong. Does it, like, increase the badness? That's such a bad way to say it. Does it magnify the.

Negative effects of mycotoxins? Like, can it amplify it?

Or Is it just 100%?

Took me a while to get there.

You did it. I got it. I picked up what you're putting down. So. So yes, it does. And so the reason is that. So a couple of things. If we get dysbiotic, whether it's because of mycotoxins or because you took antibiotics or because, you know, all of the reasons, stress, you know, an unhealthy diet, whatever it is that can create. There are many, many ways that we can get dysbiosis or unbalance growth. But if that tends towards gram negative bacteria. We already talked about this, right? Then you're going to have LPS secretion, hyper secretion of lipopolysaccharides. Even if your liver is clearing it, it does take a toll on the liver. So it causes. So that there are some certain cells in the liver called Kupfer cells that they're immune cells in the liver that are responsible for clearing lps, but it causes collateral damage to the cells that are responsible for producing bile for detoxification. And so you get this. Have you heard of non alcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD?

I feel like I have. Yeah.

It's 24% of the adult population now has NAFLD, and they're changing the name to MAFLD, which is metabolic associated fatty liver disease. And it's caused primarily by lipopolysaccharides. It's the overproduction of LPS or the overexposure of lps. I need to Learn more about the exposures in the environment where LPS is concerned. I'm really curious about that 24%.

I'm sure this isn't a correlation, but that is also the same number of people that have the genetic predisposition to.

Oh, interesting. That's true.

It's 25%. What if we just made a Nobel Prize type of discovery just now?

I don't know. We need to talk more often.

I'm sure. Not a straight line like that. It was just that that number popped up.

Well, I mean, it's interesting, right? It's, it's that genetics that. These are the canaries in the coal mine. I am one of them, right, that start to exhibit symptoms with increased toxic exposures. But where, what I was getting at with dysbiosis is that whether it doesn't just have to be gram negative bacteria, gram pot overgrowth of gram positive bacteria, overgrowth of anything is going to create a problem of any pathogen or even opportunistic organisms. So something like say Candida albicans, which most of us have a little bit growing in our gut, but if it overgrows, it can become a massive problem, systemic problem for people, for all people, but at any rate different metabolites, we have LPS that one creates acetaldehyde or gram positive bacteria creating extra peptidoglycans. All of these things create inflammation and toxicity in the body. If you are already heavy with toxic load produced inside your own body, you add what's in the outside terrain, whatever your external exposures are, and you're already walking around in that sort of chronically inflamed state and then you get a mold exposure. You can imagine that your ability to manage that additional pro inflammatory load and toxic load is going to be very, very difficult for your body to manage. And so it makes a huge difference. And managing your, not just microbiome, but I would say health in general, right? Your liver health, your movement every day, keeping your stress load low, all the, all the good lifestyle things that I'm sure all the other people you've talked to have recommended on the program. You know, making sure you're eating a low and low inflammatory diet, getting lots of fruits and vegetables, that sort of stuff, sleep, hugely important for, for this as well.

So you know, it's really interesting that you say that. I've never thought of it that way, but like, like it's, it's so similar. So like if you have like Lyme or an autoimmune disease or like something where your immune system is just constantly being taxed, basically. And then you get a mold exposure, then it's like a massive hit. And then there's always the question of which was first I have lime to that sugar mold or do I mold in that sugar lime or like whatever happened. Right. And the same with the others, but kind of the way that you just said it, like the damaged gut is the same type of thing of like this sort of the. You have your immune bucket that everyone talks about. And if your damaged gut is popping up, the capability of your immune system because it's chronically releasing out inflammatory triggers and stuff like that, like simply just not having any other type of disease, like Epstein Barr or Lyme or any of this stuff, like none of that stuff. Everybody thinks that like, oh, I have this underlying thing and mold triggered because it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. Like take all of those things away and just talk about like an unbalanced gut. And it, it sounds like from the way that you're saying it could have essentially the same accumulative effect on the immune system and trigger the same way.

Yes.

And the way, the way that I would talk to my patients about it is not a three legged stool, but maybe like a ten legged stool. Right. And that we have. So we have all of these different. Our bodies are really smart, they're really wise. Something way more intelligent than I am designed it. Whether you believe in creation or evolution in. I couldn't do this. You know what I mean? There's no way. Right. And so I tend, as a naturopath, I tend to lean back into the wisdom of the body. And if people are that symptomatic, then there's a lot that's already gone awry in their bodies. So most, if it's a first hit, your body can manage it. It's people with, I mean, chronic Lyme. I live in northern Minnesota. This is one of the highest endemic areas in the country for Lyme disease. And it's something I saw up a lot of in my practice was chronic and also acute Lyme disease. And so at any rate, these, the chronic people, they've already, you know, they've already had whatever it would be, eight of the legs pulled out. Right. So it's not a three legged stool. It's like. And sometimes what's amazing is you only have to restore one thing and the body can start to do its work again. The body can start to, you know, you take that load off, you give the body what it needs, you get it out of the way so that, that it can do. And of course in your world that would mean like remediating the environment, identifying the cause, removing the cause, whether that's mold or gram negative bacteria, or is it gluten or is it Lyme disease or is it Epstein Barr like you said, or is it stress? What is it that's the underlying cause of dysregulation across the whole system. When you start to give the body what it needs, take away that cause and give the body what it needs. It is incredible how people start to revive, I guess is the word that I would say, or come back. Like their body starts to heal itself and you know, we're just getting out of the way.

Bodies are crazy. Like, and you could. Yeah, I mean it's almost like somebody's like just punching you in the face for 10 years and then they stop punching you for three days and you've like healed. Like it's just absolutely crazy.

Exactly.

So nuts. You know, one thing I wanted to. And I don't know if you have an answer for this or not. So we're talking about gram negative bacteria. Like on the bacteria side of stuff, the gram positive side, is there anything to speak to on like an over exposure to gram positive bacteria? So like in the environment, you know, one thing that there's been research tied to recently in the last few years we started looking into is actinomycete bacteria, which is a gram positive. Is there anything from like an overexposure to more of a gram positive piece? Obviously the LPS isn't there because that's a gram negative thing. But is there anything else like on that side that could be contributing to the triggers and the different things that we kind of see in these people that are having like, you know, chronic exposures?

So I don't, I can't speak to the environmental exposures like in a home, but I can speak a little bit to what, what happens on the body, which again is that imbalance. So gram positive bacteria, kind of the most note, I think are stressed. Strep, you know, strep, streptococcus or you know, when people say I strep throat, that's a gram positive organism. And, and staphylococcus. So staph infection is also a gram positive organism and it can cause, it can also cause death. Right. Septicemia and death. And that's. We typically think of that causing, you know, of LPS being the cause of that. But it can be a gram positive bacteria that is problematic as well, and one illness that comes, I'm sure that you've heard Marcons, right? When you're doing mold stuff. So that's, I'm not going to remember the acronym. It's like methicillin. I can't remember.

Just say Marcons. It's fine, nobody knows.

I don't remember what it stands for, but it's coagulase negative staph. Staphylococcus. And when people get exposure to mycotoxins, they often get the overproduction then of this antibiotic resistant infection in the sinuses. And it does, it's also cause suppression of something called melanostate stimulating hormone. And then that has all these downstream effects that are very difficult systemically for the body to manage. And so it does. Yes, you can also have an issue. I mean that's the long answer for yes. You can also have an issue with overgrowth of gram positive bacteria, which is why again that balance is important. And there are gram negative bacteria that are beneficial too. Too, right? To some degree. So it's not like I said, it's not all bad guys, all good guys. It's that, that sort of the blue or the, the microbiome balance that becomes important is they're, they're all weighing each other, you know, and, and keeping each other in check in combination with our immune system and you know. Does that answer the question?

Yeah, yeah. There's just been. So like it's, it's newer I feel like in just like, like at least on our side it's newer. So then I'm sure a lot of the questions haven't been asked yet. So like it's just harder to kind of find some of the specific answers, you know, like I guess.

Is there. So we're talking about gut in and out of balance. I'm sure there's not a number but like how do you know if it's out of balance? Like is it a percentage base of different types of bacteria versus fungal versus this versus that? Is there like a ceiling on the. Just the sheer number of a type that you should be over and under? Like, like. I'm sure it's a long explanation so you can give the summary if you want to, but I'm just kind of curious, like how do you even know that when you're looking at it?

Well, so it's hard to know. You can do stool testing, but even that is sort of controversial. Depending on the stool testing, so you could culture out what's growing there. Typically we would have a very small quantity of bacteria and yeast and fungal elements growing in the small intestine and then a much larger quantity growing, or basically it's housed in the colon or the large intestine for the most part. So it depends on is it growing in the right location. Because if it starts, if we start getting overgrowth in the small intestine, even of bacteria that aren't typically problematic, we don't have the same safeguards there that we do in the colon to protect us. And we have a much larger surface area there. And so we have much stronger absorption of the, of the biotoxins from the, the bacteria when it's in the small intestine. So that's sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or sifo. So if it's fungal overgrowth as well, and then, so you can, you can do a SIBO or a SIBO test, you could test, do a breath test to see if there's overgrowth in the gut, in the small intestine. And we, in our company, we use full genome sequencing. So we've worked with some pilot research with Sun Genomics, which is full genome sequencing. Biome Effects by Microbiome Labs is the same, same technology, full genome sequencing as well. The benefit to that is that 80% of what's growing in the gut dies when, when you, when it comes out of the gut. So you can't culture and really get a clear picture of what's going on in the gut. And then I don't know all of the, all of the ins and outs of all of the other genetic testing, but that's the one that we've used. So in terms of symptoms, the most, you know, some of the common symptoms would be if you, you feel full after you eat, you don't feel like your food's moving down, if you get reflux or heartburn, burping after meals, if you get gas or bloating, if you get diarrhea, of course, constipation, if you get tired, extraordinarily tired after you eat. I mean, it's common to have a little bit of a lull after you eat when your body focuses its energy on digestion. But if you're like, if you eat and then you're like, oh, I can't do anything that's not normal and healthy. And so I would think about those kind of those as sort of basic GI symptoms that you might look for. But some people are totally asymptomatic in their gut and they're celiac and they have anxiety and insomnia so it's just.

There isn't always an easy way to define what's happening. And that is why I ended up using antimicrobials to establish what role is, what role is the microbiome playing in this person's insomnia or in this person's joint pain or in their mood swings or their pms. Right. So, and if I worked with balancing the microbiome and I watched that improve, then I knew for me that that was playing a role in their, in, in their total picture. Does that answer your question? It feels kind of vague.

I mean, it makes sense. It all makes sense, right? I think part of it is that the whole thing's kind of vague. So we're just trying to like wrap our heads around like how, you know, different ways to understand what might be triggers. I mean, I think the way that you talk about how you used the botanicals or the antimicrobial stuff to try to feel out if that's a player, I mean, that makes sense, right? So it's, you know, you're, you're, you're doing an inspection of the body blind, basically. So you got to go in there and kind of see how it reacts and like what goes on. So that, that makes total sense.

Well, not everybody can afford a 400 stool table test to evaluate what's happening in their gut, right? And so whereas like $50 in botanicals, you know, it's, it's a significant cost saving and they don't have to wait for test results to come back, they don't have to retest. You know what I mean? So for me, where I live, it's. There I saw a lot of low income patients or people who, you know, were on a much more finite budget than say, like, you know, LA or something. Northern Minnesota, we don't have that many of those people here.

So.

I used to live in la.

What's that?

I said I used to live in la, but I wasn't like, I, I left though. I'm in Orange county now.

Oh, you are?

There's nothing wrong with, with LA or money, don't get me wrong. It's just that that wasn't my basic population.

No, I, I hear you, I hear you. Okay, so I have two more kind of selfish questions asking for a friend. One is real and one is a funny one. And then we could get into like kind of some solutions and stuff on the back end. We kind of wrap it up on the back end. So, okay, I did a stool test, I did a gi map a while back and my H. Pylori was high and everybody that you know, luckily I know people like you. So I'm like, hey, what do you think of this and that or whatever. It's like H. Pylori.

30 seconds on H. Pylori. And is it really as bad as I kind of feel like everybody's making it up to be, or like what's the like like in comparison to other things? Like how does it work? So I mean, if people have it and you run a test like this and you see it like I've been to, you know, you go to your doctor and like half of them don't even know what they're looking at. Right. So it's just kind of nice to, to hear something about that specifically.

Yeah, I mean, I think so. Very similar to what we've already talked about.

Most people have H. Pylori. More than half the population has H. Pylori growing in their stomach. And it's usually if it's overgrowth, it's triggered by something else in your environment. And that for most people that's it can be mold, it can be Epstein Barr, it can be stress is a major cause of underlying infectious triggers because it suppresses the immune system as well. And so most people walk around with it asymptomatic. Right. But if it gets again it's that imbalance piece, if it starts to overgrow, then it can be a major problem for people. I mean joint pain, fatigue, and of course all the GI stuff as well, like reflux. It does impair or consumes iron on its own and it does impair the production of stomach acid. And so when that happens, then you think of stomach acid is really what initiates everything else downstream from there. So you won't release as much in the way of pancreatic enzymes to break down your food, bile acids to maintain a healthy microbiome to absorb your fat soluble nutrients. All of that can get impaired when H. Pylori overgrowths. And for some people, if you are reactive to it, just a little bit of overgrowth will cause joint pain or fatigue or irritability. And so it just really depends person to person, but I would call it a pathogen, at the very least an opportunistic microorganism that given the chance, plants will overgrow and cause a problem. And also it can be very pathogenic, it can cause ulceration in the stomach and small intestine as well.

So we're going to talk solutions and ask you like botanicals tied to that in a second. But I have to ask you this. My wife and I have been together for like 10 years, basically since we started dating.

She's been saying this happened since the beginning. And I tell her she's just freaking nuts and I don't believe her. And I have someone who can actually tell me if it's true or not.

Not.

She tells me. And, and I purposely not looked it up because it's just more fun to keep saying that like you're nuts. This isn't a real thing.

So I don't wife to hear that you're nuts.

I mean that's like a, it's like a fun like just thing that gets brought up. Okay, so when we're done eating like dinner, she'll be cold and she'll tell me, well, I'm cold because all the blood is rushing to my stomach to digest my food. It's science. Look it up.

Up.

That's what she'll tell me. Basically. I want to know because you said something about like when you eat, like what's happening as I like triggered me. Is that a real thing or can I definitively tell her that she's nuts?

Well, first, I would never say that to your wife again.

In my mind. In my mind.

And secondly, I would say that. I would say that yes, your, your body shifts towards its, its resources and especially from like a Chinese medicine perspective, which I'm not trained in Chinese medicine, but the owner of Biocytin is, is, is a TCM practice. She was a TCM trained practitioner when she formulated Biocidin. And, and I have enough classes just to. Just to sound like a little bit like I know what I'm talking about, but I don't know that much. But that being said, you need good stomach fire so that heat in order to digest your food from a Chinese medicine perspective. So I would give her the biotonic after, before and after her. Or before her meal. After her meal and see if it helps. Because that is actually increases heat in the stomach burner. So it will help with her digestive fire so that she can digest.

I was just running this. This is like a real thing. I got a real recommendation off of this.

I just thought it's a real thing, a fun joke.

So like, would somebody possibly feel cold because they don't have enough of that fire happening and it's pulling it from the rest of their body?

We need to, we need to hit up Rachel Fresco for that for the answer to that. But it makes sense to me me that that would be the case.

Wow. So I could tell her you're right, but we got to fix something. That's what I got to tell her.

All right. She just needs a little, I mean, it's possible all that she'll need is a little bit of digestive support and those in the traditional Chinese formula. That biotonic. Yeah, it has. That specifically supports the stomach burner. So you can, you can look at, you can have her try it and see if it makes, it makes her feel better.

How about that? How fun was that? That was.

Okay. It's so funny when we're sitting and you're just like, oh, I'm so cold. And I'm like, I'm like, this isn't true. This can't be true.

It's so funny. Okay, cool. So let's, let's wrap it up. We've, we've talked a lot about how stuff works. So let's do like a few minutes on the back end of like, stuff we could do. I know, obviously, like, what you're eating. An anti inflammatory diet is probably ideal, but maybe, you know, like, diet a little bit. We could talk about like botanicals too, and maybe more of like overall, like kind of what they do, how they work, you know, that sort of thing.

I think that I, I think that's useful so as I always like to understand why things are happening. And I think probably the people listening to your podcast are what we call at our company prosumers. Like, they've already done a lot of research, they understand a lot of what's going on. And so I'll speak a little higher level than, you know, than 101. Right. But what I would say is that in general, that botanical. I have such a strong reverence for botanicals because they've been around. We have been around them for all of human history. Plants were here first. Right. And so we have grown alongside them. And they have an immune system. It's different from ours, but they have a lot of the same immune components. They have to live in the same environment that we do. And they're full of extraordinary. I mean, they take the sun and create material from it, you know, so I think of all this, like we were talking about that kind of map. They're magical, really, to me, you know, plants are magical and we have all these, you know, phytonutrients we haven't even identified still. All these different things that give the plants color and all of that that we, that we can't, we can't manufacture and that we need from the outside world. So that being said, that's my little pitch for botanicals and why I love them so like I do. But they also have activity. So if you think about like something like an antibiotic which comes in and it has like it forces is something right. We're going to wipe up all of this kind of particular bacteria. It doesn't care if it's, if that's good for the body or not. Right. So that's just one example of a way that we kind of, it's kind of a, I would say patriarchal, not to start any arguments, because it's more like sort of the way medicine is right now, which is this like wipe it out, push it out, right. It's a pathogen, we're going to get rid of it. Instead, I would say more of like a matriarchal or sort of a nourishing and whole body approach would be to support the body with botanicals that have the effect of balancing the microbiome, so helping to restore the balance. They also are anti inflammatory, they're immune modulatory, so they work with our bodies to increase immune activity where it needs to be increased and to downregulate inflammation so that you again are restoring balance. It's more like adaptogenic in terms of how it works with the immune system. And then it also can break down biofilm. So depending on the plant, the botanical, and then when you layer them in a formula, you can imagine that if you're just going after a microorganism that if it's hiding behind a biofilm, you're not going to get the job done, at least not long term. But if you combine that with the botanical that breaks down the biofilm, then you have a longer term solution on hand. Does that make sense? Because you're working the underlying cause, you're working the sort of underneath at the root of the issue.

So it makes, it makes 100% sense to stick it. In my world, which everybody hears me talk about all the time. It sounds like if you're just doing like sweeping.

Antibacterial stuff, it's like the equivalent of someone saying they're going to come in and like fog your house but not actually find where it's all coming from.

Exactly.

If you get the botanicals in, that's the equivalent of like opening the wall where the root of the problem is and actually like getting rid of it so it doesn't come back in like a week, basically. So like at 100. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yeah, very cool.

And I, you Know, for me, watching them work in practice, it's just really moving. And I have, you know, some really, really, you know, stories that are the reason that we go into practice, that, that practitioners do what we do. You know, my very first patient that I used with biocide was a three year old girl. And she was so profoundly ill with so many hyperactivities, mold exposure, history of mold exposure, and we were just working on balancing her microbiome and little did I know that I hit the nail on the head with all of these different little things that she had going on. But her health in three weeks went from this sort of listless kind of failure to thrive. Picture gray. And she didn't really want to interact. In three weeks, I wouldn't even have recognized her. It was unbelievable how different she was. It speaks to that, especially in pediatric patients. How the body, once you identify the cause can like write itself around it is a really remarkable thing. And it was so like, whoa, what just happened? And I knew in that moment like that I was onto something in terms of a therapeutic. But it was also, you know, it's just, it makes. Makes. Gives me a great deal of purpose on the planet to watch stuff like that happen.

I love it. It's amazing. That's, that's how people do this kind of stuff is because you're actually like connected to it and it means something to you. So, and you can tell by the way you talk. So I appreciate you taking. I don't even know how long we've been on now, but it's been a while.

So I don't want to leave off binders either. And because I think that that's really important piece. And so in, in our line, the binder is GI Detox. It's our single best selling product actually. And the reason that it's a really useful if, if there is overgrowth of, you know, whether it's overgrowth of pathogens or whether it's exposure to mold or whether, whether it's exposure to toxins, if it's a food reactivity, whatever it is, when you take a binder, the binder will soak that up. So it. Basically what it's going to do is diminish the reactivity in the body and it will help to. So once it soaks it up, you can't absorb it then into the system. You actually excrete it in stool. It's really important to make sure you're already pooping when you start to take something like this so that you're. And it's a really important part of any of these therapeutics is regular bowel movements too, so that you're excreting mycotoxins and other toxins as well. But the binder, just the binder on board for people can make them more comfortable if they're, if they're in a mold environment because it does help to bind it so that it's not active in the system. It is definitely imperative that you address the underlying cause. It's a band aid, but. And also when you're, when you're breaking down biofilms, when you're taking, you know, using botanicals that, that kill microorganisms that are irritating to the immune system, if you don't have a binder on board, it can be very, very uncomfortable. So making sure that that's a part of the treatment strategy is very important.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. I was going to ask you one more thing.

Should people just be taking these things as general maintenance, even if you're not, not dealing with some sort of specific issue?

I tend to prescribe. I tended to prescribe and for my family we do at least twice a year we do like that's the bioclear cleansing program which comes in a kit and it's just that it's the biocide and liquid or capsules. I wouldn't go straight to the liposomal solution. And that's because it's just a little, it's a higher level, especially for mold exposed patients. It's systemic. So people need to start with the gut if they're going to be comfortable. So I would do either the liquid or the capsule and then the probiotic pro flora and the GI detox. So just twice a year doing that 30 day cleansing program is something that, because it restores balance because it doesn't create imbalance in the gastrointestinal tract. And we've actually researched that it caused an increase in probiotic abundance, the biocidin did, in the small research that we did.

So that's cool.

Very, very cool. Very exciting. You know, a research pilot outcome. And we're actually reproducing that with a published, publishable, independently done research right now. So very exciting to see that. And the outcome is looking very similar, which is that it, it absolutely does not wipe out the beneficials. But so it's a selective, I can't, there's certain words I can't say. So if you hear me talking around things, that's why. But it's very selective in its activity to help restore balance Rather than, than creating, creating this sort of unilateral life out that you might expect from other therapeutics.

No, that's really cool. I mean can you overtake stuff? Like if I was, if I'm gonna. Every day I'm gonna take a certain amount of something like can you overtake this stuff? Is or should you be doing it like on and off or should you be doing 30 day things like you're saying like for somebody who's not obviously if you're like dealing with a specific issue, you got to have like a practitioner kind of like that sort of thing. But as like a general like multivitamin for your gut, let's say like, like that concept like is there. Can you overdo it? Can you, you know, should.

So what we've never had in 30, whatever 33 years of being around, we never had a reported adverse response to the long term use of the product. So somebody gets on it, they can tolerate it, they can stay on it as long as they need to. So someone who has, you know, autoimmunity Lyme disease mold, we're looking six to 12 month protocols and it really is important to work with a practitioner on those, those cases like you said. But as far as like everybody needing it. No, not necessarily all the time. I think of microbial cleanse with biocidin. But the probiotic, yes, it could be daily and it's, it's a great daily probiotic. The pro flora is. And the GI detox. So I mean a case in point right now in Ohio with the production with a spill train, train spill that happened there and the toxic exposure, the environment is full of toxins. So supporting your body's excretion of toxins through something like GI detox, a binder like that, it can be very, very helpful in just keeping your total toxic load down. Anytime I put someone on a binder, I make sure that they're taking regular, regularly taking minerals, electrolytes as well because it will bind and you take it away from everything else. So you definitely don't want to take it near medication or other supplements because it will bind those things as well. So you think about maybe it could potentially bind some of the minerals and nutrients that you're taking.

And you take it away from food for that reason too. But so I'm taking a multi mineral if you're going to be on it long term. Got it.

Super helpful. Cool. Well, this was cool, I think. What do you think?

Well, I had a lot of fun. You're really fun to talk to hey, thanks. Yeah.

Awesome. So I don't know if there's like a. Usually people, you know, they have something like hey, go find so and so here. But so you're at Biocytin. So like what, what do we do? What should we do?

You can check out biocidin.com b I o C-I-I-N.com and so some of the products are there. We just launched a YouTube channel. I think we have 37 subscribers so far. So we're hoping to grow that. I think if you do subscribe, we're hoping to sort of continually launch some education, direct patient or consumer facing education there. We're pretty, we're pretty careful about what we say because we are a practitioner line of products and so we're very, we don't have a ton of consumer facing information just yet. Although we do have a blog on the website as well. So if you want to read our blog, which is some basic information, you can, you can go there. We do have, which I think is really exciting, our first ever Gut Summit that's coming up in the spring. So if you, if you go to, and sign up, go to the website and sign up there, then you'll get an advertisement. When we launch the advertisements for the Gut Summit, we have Cass Nelson Dooley talking about the oral microbiome and the connection to gut health. We have Siobhan Sarna who's coming on to talk about SIBO and sifo. She's got a huge, huge, I mean she's talked to every expert in the industry. So she's very, very knowledgeable. I'm very excited to talk with her. And we also have Elisa Song, Dr. Elisa Song, and she's a functional pediatrician and she's coming on to talk about pediatric gut health and then each of our own practitioner team. So we have I think nine people, eight or nine people on our practitioner team will do a small like 15 minute talk on different areas of the microbiome and how it affects Systemic Health or Microbiome 101 or Biofilms 101. So that will offer a huge amount of consumer facing content. And the first we, we do for practitioners out there, we're doing the practitioner facing Gut Summit as well with we have right now six different doctors and professionals in the industry coming on to talk about the microbiome and gut health.

So awesome. Well, I love it. I love putting out more stuff for people. There's, so we said it earlier, there's a lot of things normalized that shouldn't be normalized. It's time to start talking about the stuff that should be so.

I love that. I might steal that one.

I got so many. You can steal whatever you want. Just don't take my dual terrain theory. I really want to do that.

I totally get it. I totally get it.

Awesome. Well, thanks, Dr. Shan. Really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, of course. All right, Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

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