50: Dr. Jill Crista - Water damaged buildings and how they impact your health

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.

All right, everybody, Today is episode 50 of Mold Finders Radio. First off, I can't tell you how excited I am about that, because, I mean, it's like, 50 episodes. It's a lot of episodes. But even what's more exciting is that as, like, a little special treat for the episode, I asked my friend Dr. Jill Christo. She'd like to come onto the show, and. And she's actually going to be my first medical expert guest that I've ever had on. And honestly, she's the first person that I would want to have on, so I'm really, really excited that you. That you said yes on such short notice. By the way, guys, I asked her, like. Like two days ago. Like, she doesn't have. Like, she doesn't have enough going on.

But for those of you that don't know, Dr. Christa, she is the author of the book Break the Mold. She is literally my first phone call whenever I have any sort of health question that's tied to environmental exposures of any kind, not just mold. Hint, hint. We might be going down that road.

And. Yeah. Hi. Welcome. Glad to have you.

Hi. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is so exciting to be on number 50 because I turned 50 this year, so it's like, yes, this is. Yeah, it was.

It was meant to be. I literally didn't start the podcast until I knew you were going to turn 50, all for this reason.

Oh, that's so nice.

It's been planned for four months to get here.

No, congratulations. In all seriousness, congratulations on. On the success of your podcast. It's great.

No, thank you so much. It's. It's fun, and the feedback is great. And speaking of feedback, so I. And I probably should have thought this through, and I think the same with you. We were so excited that we were talking with each other that we posted on Instagram kind of before the show, before the recording. Hey, we're going to be talking with each other. What would you like us to ask the other person? And both of us just got blown up.

Yeah.

You know, the. The thing that we were talking about, and hopefully it's okay. With you guys, lots of questions came in and I feel like we literally could do like, I bet you we could sit down for three hours and just talk questions like, and just go through that.

Yeah.

So, you know, some of the questions we've already kind of talked through through, some of them are really specific and maybe aren't like broad scope. So what we were thinking about doing, and maybe we'll talk more about it afterwards, is trying to do kind of like a separate Q and A, maybe a little series or something like that, where the whole focus of our conversation really is on answering questions like that.

And instead today to kind of talk.

Conceptually through.

How, how the indoor environment, how it actually impacts health. Like on my end and, and you could tell me what happens on your end too. But like, on my end I go into homes a lot, obviously, and we're finding certain things and, and then we're recommending different testing types. And a lot of times people come to us because of mold. Right. That's kind of the, the big thing that people. That's like their entry point, it's like their gateway drug into this thing is mold. And it's like, like their marijuana pen and.

Which is an exit drug, by the way.

Oh, we got a whole nother thing to talk about.

Yeah, exactly.

But, you know, that's where it starts. And the thing that I've learned over the years from talking with people like you is that yes, that's a big component of what's going on, but that's not the only thing that's going on when it comes to a water damaged building. There's so many other things that happen in there. There's bacteria, there's different types of toxins, there's other stuff going on and we don't really. They don't get a lot of, a lot of press really, you know, because I think everyone's still kind of figuring out the mold thing. But, and you tell me if I'm wrong here, there's definitely, you know, cause for concern when you're in a water damaged building of more than just mold.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and in, sometimes even in things like where we find mold in a house that are, that's not related to a water damaged building, but like CPAPs and Keurigs and baby bath toys and those kind of things. Sometimes we test those for mold and mycotoxins and they're fine. But when we then test them for bacteria and endotoxins, now we have a problem. So yeah, in a moldy building, there's not just mold. So water damage building. And I'm sure you guys see this in the testing piece, but I see it in testing bodies. We're seeing the response in the body to more than just mold. Mold is a chief player and definitely not inconsequential. But anytime there's a water damage building, you're going to get a mixed microbial diversity and a biofilm. And I talk about biofilm in my book for that reason that people have to understand. There's now it's like a sick living environment that's hosting bad behavior of all kinds of different natural components. Yeah.

And it's happening in the body as well as in the house. Right. And that's.

Yeah.

And that's partially kind of how it's getting in the body. Does that make sense? Or is that right or.

Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things that. Again, I harp on this, and this is just a theory. So this is. But this is a theory that. That basically informed my whole treatment protocol. But it is that when you get into that water damage building and you get exposed. Exposed to the toxic air through mycotoxins, microbial VOCs, those sort of things, this then changes your internal flora. First of the sinuses, and then it gets down to the gut. Because the sinuses, you know, if you think about. If you sniff real hard and then you swallow, that snot's going to your gut. So the sinuses can see the gut. It's kind of like drop down little seeds there. So what is happening in the sinuses becomes what happens in the gut. And when you see these, the. There's sort of a continuum. So someone gets exposed to the mycotoxins. The body's first response is have a little inflammatory response locally in the respiratory passages and then get to work on detoxification. So sometimes people's first reaction will be have diarrhea. And that's a really healthy response to a moldy building because the body says, whoop, we got to get this out of here. But then as you get exposed, over time, those mycotoxins start to cause immune depletion. And they continuously send the message to the microbes of your natural flora, of your respiratory passages, and particularly your sinuses. It sends the message, we want to come invade you. That's what a mycotoxin is. It's a competitive block to any other living thing coming into the mold's environment. So its job, the whole point of making a mycotoxin for a mold is to kill everything, every living thing around It. So that's exactly what happens to us, is that those mycotoxins start to impede the immune system of our body, and then our own flora starts to defend itself. So it starts acting defensively, and you can actually get your own flora making endotoxin and mycotoxin. And then over time, if that keeps going on with that exposure now, the mold can come into your body and invade you, the actual spores. So this continuum thing is happening in a building at the same time as it's happening in a body. And it's. That's what. I love that we're having this conversation. I think, you know, when we were talking before, you nailed it with saying, you know, the connection between trying to help make that. That bridge between what's going on in the body and the building that's so important.

Man, that was. That was really cool. Okay, so. So I got questions now.

Okay.

Before I do that, though, let me, let me just kind of set up. So we're. We throwing out a lot of words here, right? A lot of terms.

Right.

So let's just kind of set up all this because again, most people, you know, they might know about mold, right? And then they may know about mycotoxins, kind of like where it ends for a lot of folks. Okay, so let's. Let's give the quick setup. So mold is a fungus. Okay. So that's what mold is. And it grows in water damaged environments. Okay. Mold releases spores off as part of its kind of living cycle. So it's actually, when it's growing and actually alive and feeding, it's releasing spores off as part of its cycle cycle. When it's not growing, meaning when the water has gone away, it stops that. That releasing process. Okay. So it's just kind of like waiting around for water to come back. And then when the water comes back, it starts working again. Think of like you're at a factory and like, you, you know, you leave work for the day and then you come back the next day. Right? That's kind of like how it works. Right? So that's the mold colony. That's the living thing, Right? That's the living piece of it. And then you have the mycotoxins. The mycotoxins are this chemical byproduct. So you, you explained it really well in terms of what the purpose of those are. The image that I always give is imagine that your mole colony is like a volcano, and the mycotoxins are like the lava that covers the whole volcano and then creates like a toxic lava moat around it. Right. And then anything that comes up near it dies, basically. And so if your colony gets covered by the, by the mycotoxin lava, right. And then now anything that comes off of the colony is covered in the mycotoxin. That's how it moves around, that's how we breathe it in, that's how it moves. So that's the mold front. But then we threw out, I think we threw out the word endotoxin once and we talked about bacteria. So here's the deal. Bacteria actually grows faster than mold does. Right. It's the primary colonizer. If you have enough water. And it doesn't have to be like a massive flood too. This is what a lot of people think, it has to be a flood. It doesn't have to be a flood. But if you do have a water event like that, you just need enough water and bacteria is going to grow first and it could grow within a few hours. Right. And then mold can take a couple of days up to a couple of weeks. And so bacteria is actually your first thing. So what's interesting is, is as we've, on my end, as I've continued to learn, you know, from you and just the medical field in general of understanding the bacterial load and how it impacts us and the way that you described how it actually, how our sinus feeds our gut is, is the best description that I've heard of it yet. Right, because. Because when we start talking about bacteria, so let's up real quick and then we can talk through other things. There's two types you have gram positive and gram negative. Okay. So gram negative bacteria produces what's called an endotoxin, but it's not a production like mycotoxins are. It's like part of the cellular structure of that bacteria. So it's interesting is when the bacteria starts dying off, that's when the endotoxin is more easily released. Right. Is that how you understand it as well? Am I right there?

Yeah, that's how I understand. That's how we see when we, when we put someone on a probiotic, sometimes they'll get a die off reaction of the bacteria that aren't supposed to be in their gut. Because now the guys that are supposed to be there kind of bump them out and they can get an endotoxin release which is part of the side effect from a probiotic sometimes.

There you go. It all makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Then the other side is gram positive bacteria. This is where like actinomycetes come into play, which is Something we'll probably talk about later. So we have mold, we have mycotoxin, we have bacteria, we have endotoxin, which is the toxic byproduct of gram negative bacteria. And then we have actinomycetes, which are a gram positive bacteria. Okay, so we'll kind of stop there. We won't go into everything else that happens in a water damage building. But that's a pretty big load of what's going on in the building. And what's interesting on my end about it is that, you know, we have an internal study running on all the mycotoxin samples that we've collected, and we're picking up mycotoxins about 55% of the time when we're in a home. And keep in mind, you know, our client base are typically people that are having some health issues. Right. So. So that's how we're picking it up. But the thing with endotoxins is that they're not a defense mechanism. Right. It's part of the, like the skin of the bacteria. So endotoxin production, when, in terms of frequency, is much more frequent than mycotoxins when we're in houses. And a question that I always got was, well, why are we testing for endotoxins? Why do we care about bacteria if endotoxins are in your gut? Right. And this has been this thing that has been a hard question for me to answer other than I've listened TO People like Dr. Christa say that it is.

Yeah, I might be able to help make that, make that connection. So the. And you described it really well. These endotoxins are part of. They're a lipopolysaccharide, which means fatty sugar. They're a sugar fat. Like think of ice cream, that's our favorite, favorite food. But, you know, a lipopolysaccharide. And these are things that are highly inflammatory. So they, if you are not. So people say, how. How am I having gut problems if I'm breathing bad air? And the thing is, when, when those endotoxins meet your respiratory passages, in their case, they're inducing this massive inflammatory cascade that's in the airways, but also in the blood system. And the blood system is what feeds our gut. Our gut feeds our blood. You know, our guts are very bloody because that's what. Where. That's how we pick up our nutrients to feed our body. So the, that respiratory interface with these lipopolysaccharides or endotoxins stimulate inflammation that goes all over the body. And that's going to be. These inflammatory things would be. We're hearing about it right now with coronavirus, people are starting to get familiar with the term cytokine. And that just means basically an inflammatory cellular messenger. Cytokines are just messengers and they're telling the immune system of the body and certain things like mast cells that release histamine and things that respond to inflammation, trauma and infection. These messengers are running around the body saying, we have a problem and we have to mount a response. And that mounting response is very inflammatory and affects all parts of the body and particularly the gut, because the gut deals with these same molecules dietarily. So we have a lot of soldiers dedicated to watching for them in the gut. So there's going to be a lot of receptors. If one call goes out, a lot of the gut soldiers are going to hear that one call.

Soldiers?

Yeah, soldiers.

I like gut soldiers.

Yeah.

I have to make it simple in my head so that, you know, I mean, we, we can get really in the weeds when we're doing research, but we go up to the top and people ask me all the time, they're like, I don't understand why, you know, why is it a gut problem if it's something I'm breathing?

Yeah. And it's, it's, it's why I wanted to bring that up. Because, you know, we go into homes, we're not testing gut. Right. Yet. People might have gut issues and they're like, well, why do I need to figure this out? I just need to know what's going on in the air and on our end. Because, for example, like I was saying, the frequency of detection between mycotoxins and endotoxins, just because of what they are inherently, because it's so different, Our cleaning protocols might not be correct if we're not testing for endotoxins or bacteria. Right. Because we have.

That's interesting. Yeah.

We have like a toxin cleaning protocol that we developed. Took a couple years, a few million dollars of our clients remediation budgets until we really honed it in, but now we got it. And what we ended up doing is we basically combined pieces of fine particle cleaning and pieces of chemical residue cleaning. And that's how we put it together.

And so when you think about these biotoxins, Right, which is what mycotoxins and endotoxins are, if you're only picking up mycotoxins 55% of the time, but we're seeing, we're picking up endotoxins closer to like the 75% range, then in that 20%, you know, difference there, we're not putting in the right plan to clean it. Right. And then maybe we're leaving it. And before we even knew what they were, we definitely were leaving them because we weren't putting the right plans in. And so now it's really important that we look at the whole as much as we can without going crazy. But because bacteria and mold are basically the two kind of primary living things that start happening in a water damaged building. And from your explanation, just about the inflammatory response. Right. That's the other thing. So it's not just mold that's creating these inflammatory responses. Right. It's these other things.

Right. And that's what's. So it's just really hard to understand what's going on on a, on a treatment side, you know, as well, when somebody has just exposure to an endotoxin, you can get massive respiratory inflammatory response. So, and it is one of those risk factors for people going into cytokine storm and acute respiratory distress when they've been exposed to mold, a moldy building, AKA water damage, building and bacteria, and have a coronavirus exposure. So we see that if I'm dealing with a patient who is getting, has a lot of gut disruption, has reactive airway disease, and we don't find mold in their house, it's very confusing to the patient because they're just like, well, are you lying to me, Dr. Jones? And you know, and then when we get into endotoxin testing, and I've started down that road as a naturopath running stool tests, you know, ages ago, when that was one of my main tools when I first started practice, is a stool test because it told us so much about the body. So, you know, then we can kind of close that loop for people like, okay, it's mold was in the environment that kicked all of this off, but so was bacteria. And now your body has gotten on top of the fungal piece, but not the bacterial piece. So things like sibo, which is small intestine bacterial overgrowth. That's a sneaky one because it's, it's not an infection, it's not something from outside your body that came in. It's your own bacteria in the wrong place. So that can persist far after the mold problem has been taken care of. And it's due to this endotoxin load that can happen and then it changes. The flora is in the wrong spot. Not necessarily the wrong flora. Yeah.

So asking for a friend.

Sibo, just for the record, I think that I have a SIBO issue going on.

And you know, I'm exposed a lot of, obviously a lot of buildings I've been around.

It wouldn't surprise me.

Yeah, I have three mycotoxins in my body already.

And I, I haven't tested them a little bit. I've been doing some stuff. I'm sure they're still there. So I actually would like to know just a little more about SIBO in general and maybe some other folks might be interested in listening to, asking for a friend.

But. But yeah. So when you talk about, it's like your body's natural bacteria. Why does having, let's say a mold or mycotoxin issue move that up into the small intestine? Or am I even understanding that right?

I'm so happy you asked that question. I'd love to make this connection for people. So the mold, mycotoxins are nerve toxins. So they mess up how the nerves work and our entire skin squishing down peristalsis of our gut. So we're supposed to have this two, two things driving that. One is a reflex. When the gut gets full, it has a reflex that it squishes back on the food. And then that's a local thing. And then there's this other, more organized one where.

It'S migrating motor complex where it's supposed to go from the top of the tube all the way down to the bottom. And that happens multiple times throughout the day when we're in like a calm rest and digest mode. When you've been exposed to a moldy building or water damaged building, you now exposed to mycotoxins, which impact not only the local gut lining, so you get inflammation of the gut wall that's going to interrupt that local reflux. And you also get nerve toxin or nerve buildup from the mycotoxin in that, that bigger, more organized sweep. So what happens is that your, as your colon fills and the colon bacteria can migrate up because those sweeps aren't happening. And because that, that localized reflex depending on your constitution, it might be causing diarrhea for you or it might be causing constipation in the small intestine. And so these bacteria can just migrate right up and it doesn't get triggered as an infection and something to be killed off by the body because they're commensal bacteria, you know. So then when the immune system gets there to the small intestine and says what, what? Where's the problem? It sees this colon bacteria says, we know that one it's fine. It's supposed to be here. And then the immune system leaves. So this can cause a perpetual inflammatory reaction in the small intestine.

Interesting. Now my. Now my systems are broken.

Broken.

No, but you can get it all back. You can get it all back.

So let me. Yes. So let me ask you this. So is that always going to persist, then, as long as you have mycotoxins in your body?

It can. It can. Because the. The. The mycotoxins are fat soluble. Our gut is mostly fat, the lining of it. And so you can accumulate these mycotoxins, and as they accumulate, they interrupt the nerve function.

Yeah, there you go. Let's just add it to the list. I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure. So many people listen. Listening are like, me, like, okay, cool. Add that to the list.

Yeah, but I. I can. We could talk solutions, though. I love to talk solutions.

Let's talk some solutions. I don't want to go too long because I know not everybody has this, but, you know, since, you know, it's my show, I figured, you know, I could ask some questions.

Yeah. So the. The key there is, is the taste of bitter and bile. So bitter taste on the tongue, and we taste it at the back of the tongue induces that sweeping of the colon, and it induces all kinds of other protective things. Like it brings immune cells to the colon. It gets things moving. It has. It causes a reflex to cause peristalsis and movement of the gut. So a regular.

Ingestion of bitters at the beginning of your meal is. Is just primo for that to get your body back into the habit of having the tube go down instead of things coming and migrating up. And bile also helps with that, too. I mean, people get worried if they've had their gallbladder removed. They think, oh, no, I'm never going to get better from mold because I don't have a gallbladder. Well, we make bile in our liver, so it doesn't even require a gallbladder. And you can use bile if you're not making your. If you're constipated, you can actually take bile and bile salts as a supplement. So it's really. We have solutions for this. And sibo, there's a whole treatment protocol for that. But where I start is first to see, can we use bitter and bile. Bitter inducing bile movement, which induces colon movement to get some of that mycotoxin load out of the. Out of the guts.

Interesting. So bitters is obviously like kind of the, you know, when I think bitters, I think what I put in my old Fashioned.

Yeah, exactly. Angostura bitters. Yeah, anything like that.

So you see like a couple drops of that before for you. Yeah, that's kind of what you're thinking.

Yep. You put it right on your tongue. And the gold standard is 10 minutes. My patients usually go about five minutes because you're hungry. But yeah, there is also, there are herbal bitters that don't have, you know, additives and sugar and things like that from like Gaia herbs and wise woman herbs. So those are really, those bitters are an oldie but a goodie.

That was a very nice subtle way of saying, hey Brian, get off of that Angostura bitters and get some. Without all that other junk in it.

I mean I caught that, I picked it up.

No, it wasn't necessarily for you. It was going to be for all of the emails that I was going to get after this. But I can't have sweet because that is a big thing is like if you have been exposed to a water damage, building and mold is a problem. It's very common to have like a candida overgrowth as a question ask.

All right.

Yeah, yeah.

So I have also had a candida overgrowth at some point in my life.

As I've been going down the road. So listen guys, first off, I'm sharing all this because I, you know, I look like totally healthy, right. And, and for the most part I'm definitely in a better place than some other people are. But I got stuff going on and it's because I've been in these buildings all the time and I just think it's like really important for us to realize like, hey, it's not just me, right? I'm not just this weird with all this stuff. Like even the people that are going out there and actually trying to help, like they're getting impacted by it. And I'm wearing, and we were talking about this the other day. Yeah, I'm wearing, you know, I'm wearing like top, top end, like, like mask filtered respirators and I'm wearing full on Tyvek suits and I'm wearing gloves. I walk into someone's house like there's been a freaking chemical spill somewhere and they look at me like I'm actually, they don't anymore because of coronavirus actually, which is nice. But they looked at me before like I was a nut job and they're like. And then they almost kind of took it. Like I was assuming their house was like super disgusting and it almost kind of like put people off a little bit, you know.

Oh yeah, they take it personally.

They did take it personally. And I had to, I had to explain, you know, I need to protect myself. I'm in all these buildings. And then you and I are talking and we're talking about the P100 respirator filters.

And now mycotoxins can still work their way through those.

Yeah, that's right. Yep. They're, they're 0.1 microns in size. So you would have to have like a positive oxygen flow in a suit to be able to get enough air in and out at the pace that someone's going to respire. You know, there are, there are definitely air filters that move, you know, that filter down to 0.3 or 0.07 and you know, that definitely clear mycotoxins. But to put that on a respirator, we would respire so much faster. I don't think the filter could keep up with the need. So, yeah, these and all the remediators that we're working on, my patients in my own home, they're so used to me now saying, you need to be doing something to protect your cells. Take milk thistle, take dha, take quercetin, because, you know, they're being exposed to these toxins, you know, and like we were just talking about. Mycotoxins are the big kahuna. They do the most damage in a body, but there's also chemicals, you know, there's aldehydes, alcohols, microbial VOCs. There's all these other things that are just floating right through that filter.

Yeah. And you know, so I was talking to Mark. So people listening to this know, or if maybe they don't all know, but a good chunk of you probably know who Mark Levy is. He's my father in law, he was my mentor, he taught me everything. And so I was talking to him after our conversation of the day where we started talking about these respirators. And, and so he said, he's like, well, we don't actually wear P100s. He's like, we wear the P100 combo chemical filters. Right. And so his thought was, because there's the, the chemical filter piece, like the ones that you would wear for like spray paintings, like the bigger cartridges, you know, that, that he thought that that was covering off on that. And from what it sounds like from what you're saying, it's just the amount of air that we physically have to breathe through those filters. So there's still probably something coming through those as well.

I don't know. I'd have to look at what they're rated for as far as how, what particle size they. Clear.

Yeah.

But the reason why that there aren't a bunch of these kind of filters out there, respirators out there, is that we just. It would require moving so much air. That's, you know, because people are like, why, why don't they make a respirator that will block mycotoxins? And it's like, well, you, you just move a lot of air.

You wouldn't be able to breathe.

It'd be huge. You know, like you're. The little cartridges are already, you know, a mask. It's kind of heavy.

Yeah.

You know, if it's a silicone mask and you got two cartridges. But you know, if you had a cartridge large enough to keep up with your respiration rate, they would be monstrous, you know?

Yeah.

So I, I just think it's, it's notable and, and it'd be fun to look that up to see what particle size. Because these toxins aren't aerosolized. They're riding on ultra fine particles.

Right.

So if you can get the particulate down, then you've, then you've taken the load down.

And side note, everyone, that's how filters work in your house. Same thing, right? So toxins attach to fine particles. So you need a filter, the filters down to these very small levels. So you were saying 0.01 is about mycotoxin size. So then you're looking at the filters that filter down to 0.007 or 0.003 to try to grab the bulk of that, you know, as much of it as you can. So they'll be efficient on that. And there's IQR makes one, Air Oasis makes one, Intellipure makes one. So there's a few people, a few companies that have those two. I did an entire episode like way early on, maybe in the single digits on air filtration tech. So if you're interested in that, go scroll back and you guys can listen to all the different ratings and why I like one over the other and you can listen all that stuff.

So Candida. So this is a big thing that I hear. And again, not asking for a friend, but also I, I've actually heard a lot of clients talking about this too. And a lot of the different practitioners I talk to always talk about this too. And so like, what's the connection? So we talked about connection from like environment to Sibo. Right. So like, what's the connection and environment to Candida? Like, what is, like how does that work? Like, why does that happen?

Yeah, very similarly. And again, this theory that I've been going off of is, is just a theory. It's not anything we have human clinical trials on or anything like that. But this is also why I harp on on you guys, inspectors and remediators, to protect yourselves, because it is, it's more than a spore story. You know, you definitely get exposed to spores and spore fragments, and those are bad guys, especially the fragments, because they can lodge into your lung tissue. I call it moldothelioma. It's like mesothelioma, but with mold fragments. All the same kind of symptoms that you would see with mesothelioma. So you have that and a respirator is going to be blocking that out. But the toxins are what trigger the response. Like we were talking about with the, the endotoxin, the interaction with those toxins with your respiratory immune system triggers all of these downstream responses, localized and also downstream. So the connection there is that by breathing in a mycotoxin, your flora of your sinuses, which are very similar to the flora of your gut, you know, it's really, sinuses are kind of the top of that tube. They now are sending out a trigger that are saying, okay, something fungal wants to invade us, we gotta, we gotta watch out for fungus. And the mycotoxins over time reduce your resistance to fungus. That's why, that's why mycotoxins work for a little mold growing in a water damaged building, because they kill off all their competition and now they can grow more. So those mycotoxins are now literally trying to send a message of not only do you need to die, whatever the little thing that wants to come into territory, I'm also going to invade the space because I want to grow. And you get an overarching fungal burden in the body. And Candida, which is normally a commensal bacteria or fungus, it's normally living. We have a certain percentage of Candida in our gut that we need that a healthy, robust gut uses. It says, woohoo, reinforcements are coming. And then it starts to overgrow. And so that's the, that's the theory. The other theory could be that, and these are both just my weird theories, but that the trigger of the mycotoxins tells the immune system something. Fungus is trying to invade us. And then it plants Candida at the surface and encourages Candida growth. So we don't know if the candida growth is a. And I know this is going way off, but is a benefit or a problem. But once it's overgrown, it's a problem. So either way it needs to be knocked back and controlled.

Yeah, I've had a lot of knocking back and controlling I've had to be doing.

Yeah, well, every time, I mean it makes sense because then every time you go in a moldy building, the same the message gets triggered again.

Yeah, yeah. It's just like this never ending cycle.

Yeah.

So obviously a lot of this ties back to mycotoxins. Right. And how this is kind of triggering all of these things. So is the idea like when we're talking water damage, building again, let's say we're going into a building, you know, we're looking obviously at the mold and mycotoxin piece. We've talked about looking at the bacterial piece. Is it when we're going through and we're wanting to get the full scope of what's going on in the home. Right. Like there are times actually, let me ask you this. I just changed my question and I don't know if you know about this or not, but I've, I've seen a couple papers on it. I don't know if you've seen them, but I've seen studies that have talked about how mycotoxins are actually produced from inside of your body once the mole colonizes. And then you're like your immune system basically tries to get rid of it. That's the invader that's now and it's defending itself. Have. Is that at all true or do.

You know.

That'S still in theory mode?

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, when I explain this at medical conferences, it does get some people's ire up. Like certain infectious disease doctors because they're saying, you know, you're. First of all, they feel like I'm scaring people. And I don't mean to scare people. I'm just trying to make sense of why, of how to treat people. You know, I deal with people, sick people, and I need to create a protocol and for my mind to make sense why certain things were working and certain things that should have worked actually made people worse. I have to create stories in my head about why that is. So, you know, there's there, there are a couple of studies out there that show that if you were to take two groups of people and you break them up, a control group of healthy, robust people and then a group of sick people and all of them. All of the sick people had been exposed to a water damage, building. So they were sick, and there's a water damage, building exposure. If you tested all of their noses, healthy people and sick people, we would all have fungus in there, Aspergillus, you know, that kind of thing. In the healthy people, once we do washings and we look for mycotoxins, there's nothing there in the sick people, there's mycotoxins in those washings. So what's the difference? The difference is how the flora and the fungus that we find are behaving. So the aspergillus in a healthy person is probably a traveler through, whereas the aspergillus in the sick person is now starting to. And trying to become part of a sick biofilm. That's how my brain thinks of it.

Yeah, that makes sense. So the reason I asked that question is that there are times, so like I said earlier, when we have. I want to say it's like over 700 mycotoxin samples now kind of running in this. In this internal study we have, and mycotoxins coming up 55% of the time in the house. Right. And so one question I get all the time, it's like, how is it possible that there's no mycotoxins in the house, but I have it in my body? Right. And I feel that there's a couple answers. I mean, one.

It could have been from previous exposure because it stays in your fat and it doesn't detox unless you pull it out, basically. Is that right?

Yeah. So, wait, what's the question? They're saying, how is it in my body if we're not finding it in the house?

Exactly. Right. So basically, so here's the setup. So they. We go in and we kind of talk to them beforehand. All right. I always have this conversation. Sometimes it lasts, like, up to an hour. Just kind of like history. What's going on in the house? What's up with you? Why did you call us out? You know, what are you concerned about? That sort of thing. And a lot of times we get into talking about what have you been tested for, Right? What are. What. What's going on? And so mycotoxins is usually a piece of that. And they'll say, oh, I have, you know, tr. I have, you know, gliotoxin or whatever it is. And then we go through and we do the mycotoxin testing in the house, and it comes up negative. Right. And they're like, well, how is that possible?

Right?

How can it not be here? But it's in my body. I have a couple theories, but I was wondering if you've ever worked with any of your patients where that has happened. Right. And if you see anything on your end that I don't know about, Obviously, because I don't see this stuff on your end.

Yeah. I'd be curious to know your theories too. This will. This is another one where infectious disease doctors don't like when I say stuff like this. But this is from my experience. I can only speak from that. I have had a number of patients where they are sick for mold in a building they no longer live in. So that's where I kind of tease. I'm like, well, the building. You are the sick building now. You know, like, be having that exposure, whether you were raised in a moldy basement or had a bad college house or something like that, just simply by. By living in that space long enough for your immune system to get tweaked and you become the moldy building. Remember that? Study healthy controls and sick people. Now you're. You have mycotoxins. We don't know if it's from spores that have come into the body and are making it or if their own flora is making it. But we do know there's a difference. And I've seen definitely where people had their. Their moldy building exposure could have been even 10 years prior. And they're just now able to show us on a urine test by getting healthy enough to excrete it and to detox it from their fat stores that now they're. Was. Is mold the problem? Yeah, but it's from a past mold exposure.

Could we talk about that real quick?

Sure.

So you just said this. They're just now healthy enough to where they're actually letting the toxins out in their urine. So can you talk about that?

Yeah. So here's another. This is another theory, and this is kind of taught to me through my naturopathic teachers. If you imagine like a. A speedometer or a needle that can. That it's a half moon, and it can point either to the left, up to the top, or down to the right. And it's this half moon thing. The needle likes to be at true north. It likes to be right in the middle. And this is the needle between accumulation and detoxification. So the accumulation of stuff that our body doesn't need and the ability to get rid of it. And so in the old days, this would have been soot from fires. You know, I don't know Lead from, from clay. So the, the body wants to be true north, but at any moment you will be exposed to something. It could be a spider bite toxin, you know, something we've evolved with lots and lots of toxins. So if you, if the body has been exposed, that needle will bounce over to accumulation until the exposure or whatever, the body kind of figures out what, how to get rid of it. And then it can pop over to detoxification, if it's a healthy body. So it will bounce over to accumulation. The body figures it out and then it bounces over to detoxification and it can get rid of the toxin. If you stay too long in detoxification, you're going to lose the necessary nutrients. If you stay too long in accumulation, you're going to gain too much toxin. The body doesn't handle that well. And that's when you get autoimmune diseases and cancer and stuff like that. So there's this, there's this constant bouncing between the two states. And if you're in a persistently being exposed to a water damage building, that needle is persistently moved over to the accumulation side. Now let's add fire, smoke, let's add, you know, viral burden. Let's add all these things that keep you in accumulation. Bad diet, pesticides in the food, food coloring, high fructose corn syrup that's laden with all kinds of heavy metals. I mean, there's all kinds of things that we do on a daily basis in a western culture that keep that needle toward accumulation. So it can take, if you're really loaded, it can take a long time for that needle to not only move back to true north, but to start to move into the detox phase.

So how do you know that? Right, so you're, you're working with somebody and they're not, not, they're not at the point where they're detoxing. But are you still suspecting environments or do you have to wait until you see detox and you'll be like, oh, they're, whoa, mold. Didn't, didn't see that coming. Like, how, how do you see that? Do you have to wait for that dial to switch the other way? Or is, or do you kind of know that already?

Yeah. Wow, that's a really good question. We are going so deep here.

So guys, by the way, just for everyone listening, like these are the talks that, that me and Dr. Jill like off on the side.

So.

Yeah, which I was just thinking that, that. I'm so glad you got that on tape. That accumulation detox And I'm going to ask you if I can grab that and put it on my website because I want people to. I get these, you know, it, it helps get your brain around what the heck is going on with your body. So if I can.

Yeah, that's really cool.

That'd be great.

And also the whole you are now the moldy building thing is great too. I let that go because I had another question. But that's such a. Yeah, that's it. Like you were there, your body's turned into it and now you're.

Anyways, now you're the multi building. Yeah.

So many good things. You are.

Okay.

That's what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. So you ask how do I know that? That's the art of practice. You know, there are some, there are some things that we look at and that's where, where I think or why people that are trained in more functional medicine, like naturopathic doctors, functional medicine doctors. I think that's why people are, are gravitating to them because in this space, because they're looking at the functional part, you know, and functional means how functional are you? You know, we're, we're not just looking at a lab normal range, which you have to be completely out of the normal range to, to trigger anything in conventional medicine. We're looking at the nuances and not just one data point, not just one marker. We're looking at the story that all of these markers are telling us. And that's where some things like an organic acids test, that's like casting a very wide net of like what do we see, you know, and that there might be some things on there. Stool testing. That's where I learned a lot of this is looking at people's blood labs from a functional or naturopathic view and looking at a stool test. And it tells us so much about someone. So the. How do I know that is. It's kind of experience, but it's a fair question.

It's like when someone's like, how do you know there's something going on here? To me when I'm like, well, I mean I've seen a million of them.

I don't know. Yeah, right. But there are telltale signs. Just like in a, in a building. I love your, your pamphlet with, you know, the things to look at that tell the story of water damage in a building. It's kind of the same thing with, with the body. Like if you can't sleep, if you can't poop or you're pooping too Much, you know, if your diet is super, super restricted because you have food reactions, if you can't exercise or, you know, there are just some telltale signs if you can't miss a meal without falling apart, if you can't go into the, the fragrance aisle where all the laundry detergent is in the grocery store, those are some signs to me that somebody is, their needle is way to the toxic side or if there's a cancer diagnosis, I mean, that's, that's our diagnosis now for the needles. Way too far to the accumulation side and why wait till that, you know.

No, you're right. That's one of my biggest, it's one of my biggest concerns. We go on about everything. I just got a new infrared sauna that's coming soon. I do red light stuff. I got like these things that I'm, that I'm doing on the side too.

Yeah, I mean those help our, those help us hit that middle ground, you know, those help us with the detoxification and force it a little bit. So, yeah, there's lots of, lots of talk right now in, in my realm of what do we do for a body before we test so that we get a good test?

Well, that's a good question.

That's a whole other big discussion.

So one thing I see a lot bouncing around is, is do you provoke before mycotoxin testing or do you not?

We don't know. And it's patient specific. My answer to that is it all depends on the person sitting in front of you. I think that there can be a, I think we can actually miss the picture. If we have someone like do a sauna, take a bunch of glutathione, I think you can get a bolus of detox which then puts someone into a trough. And we don't know what that window of time is. Dr. Brewer did a test, a pre and post test of sauna with one of his patients and they saw that after a 20 minute sauna, I think it's 20 minutes at 1, 25 at 6 hours, 4 to 6 hours, their mycotoxins went up tenfold. So if you have someone do a sauna at night before bed, and then you're doing a first morning urine, are we missing actually the window? You know, are they now actually in a trough? And we're going to see less mycotoxins than they really had in their body. So we don't know that. And we really need some clinical studies to answer that question. So I take it with the patient in front of Me and try to create a plan for them as an individual.

A question off of that. Would you say, so if you're going to sauna, would you then want to bind immediately afterwards if you're going to be releasing stuff?

So that. Yeah, that's a big question. Also, if, if you can poop. Yes. But if you can't and if you take a binder and you get constipated, we've just blocked your body's ability to get rid of that. So I use pre binders.

Before any kind of detoxification therapies like sauna or lymphatic massage, which is things that are going to get the bile moving. So it'd be, you know, maybe something like bitters. If you're going to do something like a sauna and you're not having at least two regular bowel movements a day, then we go for something stronger like bile acids or something like that. Because what, what's being bound is mycotoxin laden bile or endotoxin laden bile. So really you're trying to bind up that bile, but if you're not moving any bile, then you're just binding nutrients.

Yeah, interesting. So you're just. And then it just hangs out and then it just stays and it recirculates and then is there like a certain amount of. Yeah. Before it recirculates, there's like kind of a, an amount of time that that happens or whatever. So you kind of have to be moving your stuff through regularly in order.

For that to happen. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. You want to be pet. You want your bowel transit time that you're pooping out what you ate in 8 to 12 hours after you ate it. So you can do the beat test. If anybody wants to do this test, it's really fun, is eat a bunch of beets for dinner or for whatever meal, and then you see how long it takes for you to poop those beets out because you'll see them, it's red. I mean, I've gotten panic phone calls from people, oh, my God, I'm bleeding. And you know, it was. The first question is always, did you have beets perhaps? Yeah. So you can do this beat test and test your own transit time. And if you're not, you know, pooping between 8 to 12 hours after you ate whatever you ate. And that's, that's. And some windows say 12 to 18 hours. But if you're detoxing, you want to have that moving a little faster.

Yeah. You do?

Yeah.

Add it to the list.

I mean, start at the bottom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's where you start.

Yeah, that's funny. Oh, man. Okay.

See, what else. What else have we taught? I feel like. I feel like we got through a lot. So let me. Let me just kind of like big picture summary, right. Do you find value as a practitioner in seeing more of the water damage, building data in a house to. Does that help you at all figure out, like, the order of events that you want to attack stuff or anything like that? Like, how is that beneficial to you?

Totally. It's super beneficial. So if we're dealing with somebody that is. They're sick from the building they're actively in, not somebody who is now the sick building, but they're actually being affected by the building they're in or have. Have recently been in. That is so helpful for us to know because again, these, The. The tests for the body have their limitations. And the limitation is the sponge filter that is the human body, you know, that we may not be seeing, may not be able to see everything that's going on with that body. If, depending on what test we chose or what, you know, provoke or not and that kind of thing. So knowing what's going on in the building, we know what their exposures are, then we don't have to be guessing. And we could maybe even save money on body testing if we have building testing information, assuming it's done well with somebody like you, that's approaching it much more thoroughly and holistically. But yeah, that's so helpful because every mycotoxin is a little different. I group them, you know, and I talk about them, but their. Their structural diversity is different. Their affinities in the body are different. And this is all stuff I teach in my doctor course. Their way they are detox through the liver is different. So we need to know it helps us as a practitioner because certain molds, fragments and mycotoxins need certain types of bioflavonoid treatment and detoxification treatment.

I love that I remembered to ask that question. So, so I'm. I'm literally winging this whole thing. Like, I have nothing written down. I'm just like, oh, hey, what about this? That's why I've been asking so much for a friend.

I love it.

But that, that little piece, I feel like is so helpful because there's so many times, like, where I go into a. Into a home and I'm talking about the different things that we see and, you know, kind of standard as I go through. We're spending, you know, six, seven, eight hours, however long.

And we're showing not only, you know, where we think the sources are, right? That's always the first step. So I say there's two things we got to try to do. We got to figure out where the source is. Then we figure out how it's moving through the house and actually how you're being explained, exposed. So those are the two things. And so we're going through, we're picking out, you know, we think there's X number of sources or whatever. And then I start talking about, okay, so for us to figure out kind of what's moving through the house, it, it involves doing some more of the progressive sampling. And those tests are inherently more expensive just because of the analysis that's behind them. Right. And so that's where the price can start to elevate. When we're sitting there and talking with somebody about what a sampling plan looks like. And, and you know, it's like, well, why do I need to do all this stuff? Right? Part of it is on our end, so we know how to remediate it, right? And then they say, well, listen, just give me your, your biggest remediation protocol and I'll just do it. Right? I don't care if it's here or not, right. I'm like, okay, I get that. Although I don't think you understand that that could be like, it could literally mean thousands and thousands of dollars of difference, but like much more than the difference in what you'd be spending on testing, right? So I still think you should probably test for it. But the other piece is what we just talked about, right? Let's, let's just get your house completely out of your mind process right now, right? Who cares, right? Let's say I'm just going to give you the full on protocol. You're just going to kind of throw it into the wind and spend the extra money and just assume that all those are problems. But understanding exposure is so important, it sounds like on your end too, right? So it's not just about what's in the house and how we clean the house, but it's how, how you're going to kind of strategize how you're going to work with them on, on their body.

Yeah, yeah, a little bit. I mean, I'm. It's a little bit splitting hairs.

It's somewhat splitting hairs there. What we would do different, like whether I would choose turmeric over artichoke. They're both good detoxifiers. They both protect the Liver and the kidneys, they both help boost glutathione. You know, there again is down to the art of medicine. Matching the drug or the plant, it's not a drug plant to the patient, but also matching the plant to the exposure. But both are going to do an okay job. One will do a little bit better job than the other depending on which mold and mycotoxin. So there are somewhat, you know, basically there's a plan that can work for most water damage exposed people and you know.

Yeah, you were talking before though about like if they're in that heavy accumulation zone, that understanding what's in the house can help you maybe read and I'm not putting words around, tell me if I'm wrong, but it can help you kind of read the data that you're getting because maybe you're not getting all of the data that's there because they're heavy accumulation and they're not moving.

Exactly. Yep.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. So we can assume, I mean people need to realize these mycotoxins, militaries around the world are using them and accumulating them as biowarfare tools. So do they affect the body? Yeah. Do they affect everybody? Yes. If they didn't, we wouldn't use them as biowarfare. So the difference there is, you know, dose duration, which mycotoxin we're talking about and then genetic susceptibility and nutritional susceptibility, that kind of thing. So we do know that's what you know, in an ideal world we would know exactly what's going on in that building with of all, all the testing and does it in a perfect world would we know all that treatment wise it'd be great. And that does make an easier job for the practitioner. But I just want everybody to not feel freaked out if they truly can't afford all that extra.

Then you know, you can still get better. It's just going to be more efficient and probably spend less treatment money. If we know exactly what's going on in your house.

Yeah. And that's kind of where I was going with it too. And it's interesting because you know, you think about the other side like when money is a big thing that comes up a lot and we could, we'll stop after this because I know we've been going for a while but.

Money comes up a lot. Right. And it's, you know, I've spent so much on testing and then we spent on remediation and then I have all these medical bills and like obviously there's A big expense to this stuff. Right. And the thing is, though, is that there's kind of like a correlation between the two the way that I see it. Right. Like if you're. If the home isn't fixed, then the medical bills will continue. Right. Because you're still being exposed. And so it's almost like this investment upfront to long term, lower the medical bills and at some point it'll be a net positive for you. At some point, you know, I don't know what the dollars look like. Right. But if you're able to bring down your medical visits, all the supplements you're taking, all the IVs, you're doing like all that stuff and you can start coming off of all of that and the cost to every. To go into your doctors every week or two or three times a week, depending on who you're with, and get your glutathione iv and you're this and you're that iv. Right, right. And. And start limiting those out that. Yes. The upfront costs. I get it. It's not super cheap, Right. Not all the time, but like long term, if you're able to actually get the environment to the point where you're not getting the constant re exposure, then like all these things that we've been talking about, from mycotoxins to Sibo to Candida to like all these things that we bounced around on today, like it's all. A lot of it is being driven by the mold, mycotoxin exposure piece. So by getting that away, then like, what you're doing can have a better effect, you know? Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there are occupational studies that, where you have a moldy building and the, you know, everyone is removed from the building, they're not taking stuff with them. So that's nice about occupational studies because then we don't have to have this whole discussion, well, what about my stuff? So, you know, they're out of the building where they work, and half of those people get better just being out of the building. So, you know, I think that's really valuable for people to know that you may not need to do a big hairy body cleanup or remediation if you can take care of the building. It all starts with the environment.

Yeah.

It'S good. There's a lot of good stuff here. How do you feel about it? I feel good about it.

I feel good. I hope I didn't scare people too much.

Nah, listen, I think I'm good at that. I think the folks that listen to this. Listen, mold is really scary just in general, right? And especially, like, you know, there's not a lot of good information out there. I think that's why it gets super scary. So then you're in Facebook groups, and you have, you know, so and so who claims to know everything? And then you go look at what they're telling people. Like, what are you doing to people? This is terrible. And then you have people that are in there, and they're commenting like, you have to burn your house down. You can't do remediation. Doesn't work. Like, sure, remediation works. You just have to do it the right way, right? And. But the problem is, is that, like, they're not seeing that. You know what I mean? Because it's not as readily available. And I think, like, what I'm getting at is that mold itself, the people that are dealing with this are out. They're doing their research. They're in these groups. They're doing this stuff. I think that they're seeing a lot of scary things already. I actually feel like this conversation makes it less scary. Right?

Good.

Because it's not like this big thing that we have no idea, you know, like, for example, like, oh, well, see what's happening, because this and this and this. So if you just do, you know, you can fix that, right? Like, this is happening because this happens. So you can fix that. Versus, how the hell do I get rid of Candida? I got oral thrush on my tongue, and I'm breaking out on my face. I have no idea what to do. Right?

So that's the scary piece. That's. That's the scary piece for me, anyway.

Yeah, that's a good point. You know, a lot of people say, how can you be so perky when you deal with chronically ill people and mold and lime and all these, you know, pandas? And it's because I. I am in the world of solutions, and it's a really great place to be. And I see miracles. What. What conventional medicine would call miracles. I see them happen on a daily basis. So, you know, that's. If. If it can. I can infuse anybody with my inner light of hope. I hope that I can do that, because this. I see people get better all the time. It's really inspiring.

It's amazing. I. I see it, too, on my end, which is cool. You see it on both sides. And listen, you're doing a lot of great stuff. You're. You're getting more recognition, and rightfully so. I'm really Excited that. That, I mean, everywhere I look, you're on. You're on another podcast now. Like, you're. You're. If you're not already there, you're. You're getting to, like, one of the top of the tops, you know, And I think that's amazing, and I'm happy that we're friends.

Yeah, thanks. Yeah, it's been fun to develop a friendship from a professional thing because, you know, it's been so fun to talk at conferences and realize, hey, these guys think the same way I do and. Yeah. That we're. We're not the norm, I would say.

Yeah.

Not from my direction of naturopathic view and all these, you know, crackpot wacko theories I spewed today. That is not the norm. If anyone's listening and doesn't know. And for you guys, too. The reason that. That I've enjoyed our conversation so much is that you understand how to work with a sensitive person and do it very holistically. You know, you. You investigate a building like a nature path investigates a body, so I love it.

Yeah, I know. I think it's great, too. Well, listen, I'll let you go. I think it's been like, an hour or something. I think we set, by the way, this is the. Oh, yeah. 62 minutes. This is set.

The record.

This is the record. This is the longest episode that's ever happened. Number 50 was really long, so.

Oh, my gosh.

I hope people enjoy it. I'm sure they will. I know you saw it, too. We're getting a lot of feedback about us talking. I've actually had comments on other threads. Like, you should get. You should get Dr. Jill on your show. Like, you guys should talk. Like, yeah.

You'Re like, we do. We just need to record.

Yeah, we just need to record one of these things.

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well, congrats again on the success of your podcast. I love it. I'm glad you're getting your word out there so much. So. So, yeah, who knows what we'll do next for all the questions we didn't get to today.

Yeah, we got to do something. I will figure something out, because I know.

I feel bad that I asked. And then I was like, well, we may not.

I know. Me too. I was so excited that we were doing. I'm like, hey, what do you guys want to know? And then I was like, well, actually, I just had all these things I wanted to talk about, so. Sorry, guys. Sorry. But don't worry. We'll figure something out. But hopefully, even though we might not have answered a specific question that you might have that you got some value out of this, I think that this is, this is honestly and I, I'm excited to listen back to it. I think this is one of the, I listen to a lot of these things. I think there's so much good information this that is not in a lot of the other podcast episodes where we're talking with like a medical expert. And.

I hope that other people feel that way too. I want it to be valuable. So thank you again so much. Super excited. We'll talk to you later.

Okay, bye.

So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment and subscribe and give a rating wherever you get your podcasts. It'll help spread the word to those who really need it the most.