79: Brendan Vermeire - The Mold / Gut / Brain Connection

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, what's going on? We're back, and today we got somebody that I'm really excited to talk to. I actually just spent like an hour last week talking to him in his sort of private practitioner training Facebook group that he has. And so afterwards, of course, I was like, hey, come talk on my show. Like, let's play together. And he was really cool with it. So, everyone, this is Brendan Vermeer. I'm going to let him introduce himself in terms of all the cool things that he does because he's a pretty awesome dude. And so, Brendan, what's going on, man?

Hey, Brian. It's good to be here. I love your casual flow. I think you're a pretty awesome dude too, man. So this will be a real pleasure today.

Awesome. So maybe just a quick little description of who you are, what you do, who you work with, that sort of thing, and then we can jump in and talk about. Awesome. Cool. Thanks.

Absolutely. No, I appreciate that. Little one on one synopsis. I'm a functional medicine consultant and mental health researcher, and I have a background in fitness and nutrition. Started my career back when I was like 18 and really just dove headfirst into the nitty gritty science of the human metabolism and human health. And here we are over a decade later, and I'm doing a lot of work around teaching the world a functional approach to mental health. That's kind of what I've devoted my career to. And I'm just having a lot of fun doing it and trying to get a lot of good information out there. And it's always such a pleasure to get to hang out with individuals, kindred spirits like yourself and have some good conversation that can educate and empower people. That's what it's all about.

Awesome, man. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, we, we literally. This is so funny. So, like 2021, and I'm sure way before that, like, people are meeting on social media, literally just chatting in messages and then like becoming homies basically. And like.

That'S kind of how this happened. And then, and then we start talking and no and behold, we have, like, people that we know that, you know, are like common people.

And it's, it's, it's. It.

It's like the, the modern dating app without the dating piece. It's like the modern friend meeting app is, is what it's turning into, which is cool. All of us stuck at home all the time, so it's kind of cool.

Absolutely.

So I love the whole thing.

What you're doing in terms of functional approach to mental health, brain health, and there's other things. I mean, you talk about more than that stuff, but.

It'S cool because as I started diving in and seeing what you were talking about, it really aligns with a lot of what our clients are dealing with and some of the roads. I hear so many stories, as I'm sure you obviously do too, of the path that people have been down and the doctors they saw that didn't really understand, like, how to figure out what was going on and the years that have gone by and the money that's been wasted and like all this stuff. And one of the big, big things that comes up so often is some form of neurological issue. Right. And it can. It could be so many different things, but you hear from brain fog to brain on fire to a bunch of stuff in between. Right. In terms of how, how it's, you know, being affected by whatever's going on. Right. And, and a lot of what I', know, seeing over however long it is that we've been going back and forth, is really that the connection between the environment, how it's impacting, you know, health in general, how then it might be impacting neuroinflammation and other things like that. And I just think that that conversation is really important to have. And to have like, almost a full conversation about a lot of that, I think could really help a lot of people. So that's, that's kind of what I'm. I'm excited for us to maybe talk.

About a little bit. Oh, absolutely. It's huge. And it's multifactorial. I don't think the importance has ever been greater because we really are in a true mental and metabolic health crisis pandemic if we, you know, which is kind of the word of the year at this point. And it's like, well, if we're going to throw around that word a lot, let's apply it to the elephants in the room that we're not talking about, which is chronic disease and the mental health crisis and just the crisis of the standard American metabolism. So there's a lot of conversations to be had. And I always welcome the opportunity.

Yeah, and even the connection you talk about, the metabolism piece, even the gut brain connection, like, that whole thing is an awesome conversation too.

So let's see where this kind of goes. So I'm going to give basics of kind of the limited knowledge that I have. I never pretend to say that I'm a doctor or know anything, but I talk to a lot of them. I pick up things along the way. And so the one thing, one thing that I saw that you posted recently, which I don't even know how long ago it was, it's like the eighth post down here, whatever it was, is Kim, old illness start in the gut. And that was so interesting to me when I read it, because I've been hearing this more and more lately. I did. I did a podcast or an episode with Jill Christa a little while ago. I did another one with Dr. Jess a few ago. And this keeps coming up as. Listen, guys, like, your breath is like, your nose and your mouth are connected to your gut. So, like, it can impact your gut. Like, what you're breathing in your house can impact your gut. And then. And then talking about, like, the permeability from the gut, how it moves and then can migrate up, you know, into brain. Like, that whole connection is something that I feel like if we put it out there in a way that's, like, easy to understand, then maybe it will help, like, listeners or whoever, maybe explain their significant other that doesn't believe them or whatever it is, like, to try to make that connection for themselves. So is there a way that you could just give, like, a quick overview? And I know it's like me asking you to, like, all of the stuff that, you know in like, a very short thing, but just how is that all connected? If there's a way that we can, like, start there.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it's. It's easy to kind of, you know, we'll crack the Pandora's box open with that one where a lot of the work I do, a lot of the research I do really centers around the gut brain axis. Of course, there's a lot of axes in the body and you could literally just make up a new one by, like, oh, I'm going to talk about how, you know, this tissue is connected to this other distal tissue, and here's the communication network between it. But, yeah, the gut brain axis has become a huge focal point in mental health research and gastroenterology. And then, of course, just about any sort of disease study that there really is can mold illness start in the gut? It's an interesting conversation because sometimes I think when we get to reductionistic and myopic, we're not seeing the whole picture right? So we kind of have to like, zoom out before we zoom in to really make sense of it. So, you know, obviously we're, we're both mold squad, you know, brothers for life at this point. And the mold thing is a super interesting conversation because mold illness is starting to become like, it is the hot subject in the functional medicine world. It is like the subject that if you know, you know, and if you don't know, you're not in the loop and you're, you know, out of date, out of touch. And it's interesting. Now, of course, with heightened awareness comes heightened sensationalism and some silly trend following, but ultimately I like to just zoom out and it's like, well, wait a second, gang. I mean, the human species, we have evolved with fungi for as long as we've been on planet Earth. I mean, fungi predates us by who knows how many millions and millions of years. So, you know, we've evolved with fungi. And although our current scientific understanding of the role that fungi plays in our microbiome, or what we call our microbiome, the fungal microbiome, we don't have a ton of research as far as the role that it plays in our physiological well being. But we do have, you know, early preliminary evidence that already shows that fungal dysbiosis in the microbiome is implicated and ibs, ibd, mental illness, things like autism spectrum and all sorts of other neurodegenerative or other types of mental conditions. We don't have nearly as much research on the fungal microbiome as the bacterial microbiome or the bacterium. So this is a huge area of focus as we move forward. Ultimately, it makes a lot of sense though, when you look at what does mold and yeast and fungi play in the ecosystem. You know, it's, it's the recycler of the natural world. And so I think like a little bit of common sense, a little bit of intuition would say that, you know, maybe this stuff plays an important role in our digestion and in our nutrient absorption. Right. So we actually seen the research that a more vegetarian diet actually promotes more fungal growth, whether that's a toxin producing mold like Aspergillus or more of a kind of commensal yeast like Candida. But either way, a higher carbohydrate, a higher fiber kind of plant based diet, well, you know, that's carbohydrate material, that's what fungi feeds on. So it starts proliferating and growing as opposed to a higher saturated fat diet, actually decreases. So, you know, ultimately what I was getting at with that post of can mold illness start in the gut? We're already kind of getting a little bit myopic with the mold illness conversation where it's like, oh, it has to be, you know, you're living in a severely water damaged home, you have sick bilge syndrome and biotoxin illness, and you're breathing in all these mycotoxins and all these mold spores and LPS and VOCs and all these things through the environment and that's what makes you sick. But we have to remember that breathing in mold spores, we all breathe in mold spores every single day. That's part of the human experience. And so of course we have our fungal microbiome of our sinuses, of our respiratory tract. But of course, hey, that is directly connected to the gastrointestinal tract. And so, you know, it's like every time you eat some blueberries or any sort of, you know, produce, you know, how many mold spores, you're probably eating with that. So this is where in a, you know, immunocompromised or kind of metabolically compromised host, those fungal spores can kind of take root a little bit more. They can start proliferating. And so if the environment is adequate, yeah, it will opportunistically start growing and proliferating, which, you know, the, the gastrointestinal tract, it's designed to hand, it's evolved to handle some degree of fungi in the GI tract. It probably has some beneficial purpose. You know, the mucosal barrier can withstand some mycotoxins. But if that proliferates out of control for whatever reason. Yeah. You know, it can start creating GI havoc and systemic inflammation just like any other kind of microbiome disturbance. So it's a, it's a really crucial part of a big conversation.

Yeah. So I'd like to, I'd like to ask you the difference between. So you're talking about like if you have colonization, right. So you're talking about Aspergillus and you know, Candida is obviously a different type, which I've had at some point. I had to get that knocked out a lot of things I've had going on from being in all the houses I've been in. But can we, can we talk the difference between colonization, which is actually like growth that's happening, right. Like it's actually kind of thriving and growing versus being exposed to, like, fungal fragments that aren't growing necessarily, or, you know, toxin fragments that are moving through and getting into your system. And like, how does your system respond differently to those two? Or does it. I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, that's. That kind of starts scratching the surface of a lot of things that we don't know about mold and our evolution with mold. And it kind of starts to, you know, it's like the question begs to be asked of how deep does that root go? Or, you know, what, what amount of fungi in the environment or in our internal environment that is our microbiota, how much is healthy and how much is helpful versus hurtful? And we just don't really know these things. But what we do know is, you know, every human on the planet has fungus growing inside of them and their sinuses and their gut and whatnot. Do we fully understand the nutritional role that it plays of, like, I would imagine, I mean, mold and, you know, whether it's Aspergillus or Candida or saccharomyces or whatever it is, it probably helps us break down fiber and carbohydrate material and probably helps us extrapolate some of the nutrients out of those carbohydrate foods. But yeah, I mean, let's say you're walking through the woods and you're breathing in all sorts of pseudo commensal, you know, microbes and viruses and even fungal spores or bacterial spores. And as you and I both know, it's like, okay, well, these microbial spores, that's the dormant kind of seed, if you will, to then grow into a live bacterium or fungal cell. But it's all about the environment, right? So if the environment has plenty of microbial diversity and the immune system is working to full effect, it'll keep the growth of the fungi or the bacteria or the parasites or whatever it is. It'll keep it in check to some degree. But then, of course, hey, you know, if there's a lacking of microbial diversity or a lack of short chain fatty acids, the intestinal lumen is compromised or inflamed. It does create an environment that allows the fungi to start overgrowing. It's starting to proliferate out of control, kind of a true colonization or infestation. And so, you know, with mold illness, and when I'm teaching practitioners about mold illness, it is kind of that three step of, you know, step one, what's the environmental exposure looking like? Which is obviously what you're the expert in. And then step two is Colonization has the fungus, whether it's mold or yeast or whatever, has it actually really colonized and or infected the body, which I think even colonization versus infection are slightly two different things. And then the third thing is the toxicity, the mycotoxicosis, the sequestration of mold toxins within the tissues. And it's kind of three boxes that you really have to check. And you know, some individuals have all three, some individuals, it's more just the latter two. But that's kind of what I'm getting at is like you don't even have to be living in a water damaged building or have like severe mold growth in your home or your office or whatever to develop mold illness. Because even if you're just like a standard American with really poor gut health, a high carbohydrate diet, you're immunocompromised because you're obese and diabetic and stressed out and chronic inflammation, well, that creates the opportunity for that fungus to start growing or bacteria or whatever to grow out of control. And so then before you know it, you do have this kind of pathogenic fungal overgrowth and colonization that can then start breaching the GI barrier and then start creating more of a systemic infectious sort of situation.

Yeah, so there's two things there. So I wrote a note on the second one. I'm going to, we're going to talk more about kind of what opens the gates of the gut that allows it to get in everywhere else. Because I think that's super interesting, the first thing. So you mentioned microbial diversity. And if you had, if, if your situate, trying to figure out the right way to say it, if it's in balance, maybe that's what I say. So if it's in balance and it helps to not allow these things to overgrow basically. Right. Is that kind of how I understood it?

Okay, yeah, absolutely.

So what, what affects microbial diversity? Just like big picture. What are the things that like what does that mean? Can we break that down a little more?

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's an interesting thing. You know, with microbiome research, of course the current narrative is still really centered around germ theory. You know, germs are bad, germs make you sick. We need to sterilize ourselves in the world that is still the leading sort of medical healthcare paradigm. I mean obviously 2020 really illustrates that quite profoundly. But you know, now we are starting to get into some new models because the research and the microbiome research and the human microbiome project and all of this cool research through microbiology and microbiome sciences, it's really showing us how flawed that thinking really is. We're really starting to realize that, you know, that garden of life, as I like to call it, that is our unique microbiome. It impacts virtually every aspect of our physiological well being. You know, we actually have 10 times as many bacterial cells in us and on us than human cells. So we're really a super organism, a walking compilation of human cells mixed with trillions of microbial cells. And so when it comes down to trying to characterize and map out the composition of microbiome, there's only some fundamental things that we really know. We have all sorts of cool technology, like 16s PCR testing for bacteria and 18s RNA sequencing for fungi in particular, because we're trying to map out like, what should the human microbiome look like? There's many, many bacterial lineages on planet Earth. And yet the human microbiome is 95% dominated by 2, which is Bacteroidetes and firmicutes. Those are the dominating lineages that dominate every single human's microbiome on planet Earth. And yet each of us, whether you're in Asia or Africa or North America, we do see some geographical, unique distinctions in between the microbiome. And it really comes down to the environment, the environment that we live in, the microbes that we're being exposed to through the environment and especially like at birth. So we see all this research that's showing how, you know your mom's microbiome before you were even concepted has a dramatic impact on the microbiome you're born into the world to, or if you were born via C section, that, that's been shown to be detrimental. So when it comes to, there's, there's a lot that we don't know about the microbiome other than, wow, this has a huge impact on physiology and disease. But one of the few things that is very well established is that diversity equals better health. Whereas low diversity is associated with higher inflammation and obesity and susceptibility to chronic inflammation and chronic disease. So we really, we could get really complicated with like oh, this strain or that strain. But ultimately it's just like growing a garden, right? If you think about, you've got acres and acres of nothing but corn, like that's not really natural biologically, right? For there only to be one species that's dominating an area. The beauty of life, the power of mother biology itself is diversity. And we just, we see that Same diversity trend play out in ecology or human microbiology, but ultimately we don't even necessarily know why, but we see that when there's a rich diversity to all the different species of bacteria and fungi in the human body, that somehow equates to better health. And that's such a huge area of research that we're trying to tease out of, like, well, what do we want the microbiome to look like and what can we do to grow that? And so I always use the analogy of gardening to grow that garden of life. So you have to be feeding it with a diverse diet that's full of all sorts of different nutrients that are going to have different effects on the soil that really is in your gut. So, you know, whereas things like stress or antibiotics or processed food or you know, different medications, all sorts of different things that really disrupt your garden of life and decrease the diversity of it, and that really sets the stage for inflammation and illness.

That's awesome. I was actually just going to ask you that last piece separately and you hit it. So the things that we do that affect it specifically. Right, so like food, you know, medications, antibacterials, like, like your antibiotics, like all that stuff. So cool. You're like reading my mind. Okay.

So now the next question. So let's say we have, we have issues in the gut, right. We're talking about how something might become systemic to the point where it then can work its way to the brain, right. Like through this path. So the next piece is, and correct me if I'm wrong on any of this, but your gut is supposed to be close, supposed to let stuff out, right? And then there are things that we do that basically open up. I've heard so many analogies. Let's just say open up doors, I guess, in your gut that allow stuff to escape. So.

What are the types of things that are like the key to those doors that open the doors? Because ideally we want to not be doing that. So we can keep everything in our gut in our gut, right?

Mm, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a really interesting conversation because ultimately your, your gastrointestinal tract or any external environment facing orifice. So it could be the genital tract or you know, sinuses or pulmonary tract, so on and so forth. But all of these exterior facing tissues, they are considered non systemic, right? It's, it's external face. So your, your gastrointestinal tract, starting at the mouth, ending at the anus, this, you know, 25 foot winding tube of organs, and it is exposed to the natural environment. You know, you, you swallow lake water, ocean water, when you're, you know, swimming at the beach or whatever. And it's like, well, you just swallowed all sorts of toxins and, you know, thousands, if not millions of, you know, microbes in that single gulp of ocean water. And obviously if you didn't have a physical and chemical barrier that prevents, you know, those toxins or bugs or whatever from just being able to enter right into systemic circulation, well then you, you know, you'd get sepsis, infection, toxicity, and you'd get sick and die pretty, pretty fast. And so that's where we have this highly adapted, evolved.

Barrier that's there to protect us. So we have obviously the lining of the gut, the intestines, the epithelial tissue, little cells packed together and tied together with these tight junction proteins like clawdin and Occludin and zonulin and all these, all these cool kind of shoelace proteins that hold the cells next to each other. But then we have all of this mucus membrane, the mucosal barrier, as we call it, mucin one, mucin two. And it's exactly that, it's mu slime, it's a thick layer. And then we have tons of immune cells, more immune cells in the gut than anywhere. So the enteric nervous system of the gut, the second brain that is in your gut. And so there's a lot of immune activity going on here. And we even see different types of immune cells and antigen presenting cells that basically hang out at the border, kind of the fence that is separating whatever the hell you just swallowed and your bloodstream. So that barrier to prevent bad stuff from entering in, but you even have immune cells that hang out to patrol that barrier, or they'll poke their arm through between the cells and kind of reach into the microbiome, reach into the gut to get a taste of what's going on in there. So that way, as an antigen presenting cell, it trains your immune system. So this is a huge focal point. Medical research is trying to understand how the microbiome is really what trains the immune system. And so if we have an improper training of the immune system, this is what sets us up for.

Immune dysregulation and autoimmunity, amongst other things. So we have to have that super healthy integral barrier. But unfortunately, because the standard American lifestyle and kind of the modern lifestyle that we're all living is horribly destructive to the microbiome, it's horribly destructive to the epithelial tissue. You said something that was really powerful in there. Which is the lock or the key to the lock that opens up those tight junctions or causes that leaky gut, that hyperpermeability. I love that you said key to the lock because that's the same analogy I use with my practitioner students where, you know, I've got a door right next to me. You can't see it, but there's kind of two ways to look at it. There's. You could either walk up to the door with a hammer and you just start beating that door and hitting it and hitting it and hitting it. Well, eventually you're going to do enough damage to that door that you're going to bust it open. There's going to be holes in the door and things can just like leak through. I can reach my arm through, let myself in, whatever. So that's more of like the inflammatory wear and tear that the standard American diet and lifestyle does to the epithelial, the GI barrier. But then there are some sneaky things that they don't, they don't just hit the door with a hammer to bust their way in. They just have a key and they walk right up, unlock it and walk right through. And so the two things that we've identified that directly stimulate one of the gatekeeper proteins called zonulin is gluten, specifically gliadin. So talking about, you know, wheat proteins and grain proteins, there's a lot of different gluten proteins. But gluten regardless, if you're gluten intolerant or celiac or whatever, even if you're non gluten intolerant, it still stimulates the zonulin protein, which then opens the door, causes that leaky gut within minutes of ingestion. But then also the other one is glyphosate or roundup to herbicide that is, you know, being phased out of Russia and Mexico, but we're still horribly behind in the United States. So those are two things that we know. They don't just bust the door open, they just open it with, with a key. I suspect that there's probably a lot of other things that do that we just maybe haven't identified it yet. So gluten and glyphosate, which of course, you know, all grains are very glyphosate contaminated, amongst maybe being mycotoxin contaminated, which we know mycotoxins cause that hyperpermeable effect as well. But it's, you know, it's kind of this combination of all Americans and not just Americans. It's going on in other parts of the world. Too. But you know, think about how many grains, how much gluten, how much glyphosate everybody's consuming every day. The overuse of antibiotics, the stressed out, which lowers gut immunity, all the processed food, all the wear and tear. So yeah, I would say that, you know, gut health and, you know, having that leaky gut conversation and starting to regrow that garden of life and heal the intestinal barrier that is such a crux of the chronic disease pandemic that really isn't very well known outside of the like functional and holistic health space.

That, that was all amazing. I literally tagged the tag, the time stamp of when that started.

That's going to be whatever the promo is for this, I think, unless we, unless you just drop another amazing bomb later and then maybe I'll do two of them. I don't know.

I. So this is coming from me. So obviously not a doctor. I'm not trained. Although apparently I know one of the, one of the keys to maybe get into your medical group, maybe. But I've heard so many times, I specifically heard, like, no one should eat gluten, even if you're not celiac. Like, no one should do it. It causes gut problems. It's kind of like all that I've really heard. I talked to a lot of people. Like, I haven't really heard the full description of how all of that works. And so I'd imagine if I haven't heard it, then probably most people listening probably haven't heard it. So I think, I think that's going to be awesome. Just that little three minute snippet there. If nothing else, it's going to be a really awesome thing to take out of this. So that part's cool. Okay, so you were talking at the end of that. So I'm still working down this road. So we're still in the gut, then we're gonna get to brain in a second. So the last piece of this, I think is, and you said it just a second ago of, of like if your garden. I forgot exactly how I say you're talking about the garden. And it was like, okay, so it's, it's basically, it's not as healthy as it should be. You have to tend to the garden better. That's kind of the idea. And I don't know if this is true. Is that like the idea of what a gut reset is? And would that basically be the equivalent of you going garden and basically like fixing everything that got ruined? And what, what does a gut reset look like? I guess or is it not that easy?

No, this, this is a great question that, you know, I'm glad we're kind of teasing open a little bit because of course, you know, on social media that's what everybody is sliding in my DMs to ask me is like, all right, so how do you, how do you heal your gut and whatnot? And you know what I love about it is the mechanistic cellular science. It really just kind of points back to nature. It points back to common sense. We just monkey mind everything, which really kind of bastardizes the whole process. But when it comes to gut health, because we can get really. Oh, well, I heard that you need to eat more fermented foods like kimchi and sauerkraut and yogurt because it has lots of, you know, probiotics in it and those are beneficial. And it's like, well, I mean, you know, yeah, that's like a cute small, you know, component of it. But I like to just again, use the garden analogy of like, how do you, how do you develop a healthy garden? What's step one? Well, you got to have healthy soil. So how do we do that? Well, maybe we should start a compost, right? Like we take some soil, we start throwing away our, you know, our eggshells, our banana peels, our, you know, half rotted broccoli or whatever. So think about it like this. If you were trying to compost to make healthy soil to then grow a garden, what are you going to throw into that compost? Are you going to throw cheeseburgers, French fries, Coca cola? Or are you going to throw like, you know, lettuce and, you know, mushrooms and like kitchen scraps from real whole food, right? And so, you know, we think about all these, all this processed food with preservatives in it and all these artificial dyes and chemicals and antibiotics and hormones that's going to kill off whatever it enters, even though we could overcomplicate it. But it's like, if we think about how would I make healthy soil in a compost? And then I take that healthy soil and I go put it in a garden, I'm then planting the seeds for my crop. But also further, like, well, don't you want to put like a fence around your garden to protect it from invaders like the raccoon or the squirrel that's eating up your tomato plant or what happens if you over water the garden? You know, it starts getting moldy, fungus starts growing out of control, which can gobble up your crops and eat your crops. But what happens if you let it get too dry? Well, now it's dehydrated and it's withering, right? So in sunlight, before you know it, we are having a conversation about gardening, but we have to translate that into the garden of life that lives within your gut and your microbiome. So we can simply look at it like the processed food, standard American diet, the excess antibiotic use, which is such a huge thing. I keep mentioning it, where we have so much research that shows even a single round of antibiotics can increase the susceptibility to depression for months on end afterwards, like immediately. Or antibiotics in the early phase of life. Like you have a newborn and you pump up that newborn with antibiotics, that hurts their microbiome beyond repair and sets them up for long term microbiome and meta inflammation, chronic inflammation.

So it all comes down to getting back to a more primal, more natural way of living. Because, you know, I almost kind of have to zoom back out of, you know, why. Why are humans so unhealthy? Why are Americans in particular so, so unhealthy? We, we kind of conquered germ theory with rolling out antibiotics and what like the 1940s and that saved millions of lives during the world wars and you know, Nobel prizes all around for antibiotics and giving rise to this germ theory that's still the dominant medical model. But now we're seeing the pendulum swing too far the other way. We're like, wait a second, we are sterilizing ourselves and trying to sterilize the world and there is nothing, nothing about the human body that's sterile. We used to think the blood was sterile. Now we know there's all sorts of microbes and bacteria floating around in your blood. Every time you do like a blood donor transplant or whatever, transfusion, you're putting somebody else's bacteria into your blood. So it's just, this is why microbiome research is so exciting, is it's poking holes through our medical model very profoundly. But again, it all just gets back to we have to live closer to nature. That's really the issue. We're the only living species on planet Earth that lives dysbiotically with the natural world. And you know, usually when we say dysbiosis, we're referring to a disturbance in your gut microbiome. But it's like, well, let's zoom that out. Let's apply that to how humans fit into the ecosystem of Mother Nature. Like, we're the infection, we're the ones that are proliferating out of control. So, you know, by Returning to symbiosis as a species and eating real food and living in the natural environment, or at least closer to. We have to breathe our biome. We have to engulf ourselves. So you think about where we came from, our more primal ancestors. We lived in the Earth. Now we're so cut off, and we live in the Matrix and our pseudo caves that are sterilized and clean and got to put on your hand sanitizer and wear five masks over your face. So we have. We have scared ourselves of the very building blocks of life itself, which are the microbes.

Whoa, dude. That was that guy that got really deep at the end.

Yeah, we kind of went down the rabbit hole with that one.

I use the Matrix analogy all the time. Just. I use it differently. I love the Matrix. The Matrix Just so, so hard.

But, yeah, if you're a 90s kid.

We are the infection of the world thing. Like, not to get too, like, down the hole, but. Holy crap. Like, I've never thought of it that way, but I guess, like, it makes sense.

Okay, so we're gonna start working the brain. All right, so we've kind of, like, talked about all this stuff.

Yeah.

So you said one thing which is really cool that I didn't really know was the microbes that are in our bloodstream. So here was my initial thought on how this happened, which is clearly not true. Like, not right now. I was thinking that when the gut barrier breaks down, when, you know, when stuff gets through, then that's where the microbes get into our bloodstream, and then that's how it moves into other parts of our body. But it's not that simple because that's always happening anyway. Right. So, I mean, I'm sure that's part of it, I would imagine. But, like, what. How does that. How does something that is maybe originating in the gut work through bloodstream to then get to brain? And then you. And then one other thing where you just, like, throw it all together. How does it permeate the brain? What is leaky brain? Is it the same thing as leaky gut? Is it different? Like, how does. How does it get from one to the other? This is kind of where I'm going.

Yeah, yeah, no, and you're right on track with. Right on track with that. You know, we do have. And this is something I think is important for the listeners of, you know, leaky guy or leaky brain. It's not something you do or do not have. It's. It's. It's a gate. It's a Door that's being opened and closed constantly, kind of all day, every day. You know, as far as the gluten thing, we don't really know. Like, not everybody necessarily needs to avoid gluten from like an intolerance perspective. But that's kind of the big question that we don't have an answer to is even if you're not immunologically reactive to gluten, could it still be hurting your health because it stimulates sonulin and the tight junction opening which then allows that translocation of bugs and toxins and undigested food antigens and all these other things? Yeah, you know, the floodgates are open, there is more translocation across the GI lumen into the bloodstream, into circulation. And what we're talking about, I think it's important to almost put like, I mean, not that I'm a licensed medical professional, I'm a, I'm a researcher that, you know, reads a lot of medical research. So but what we're talking about is basically sepsis. So sepsis, you think about, you get an infection, you go into septic shock. Sepsis is like the super severe life threatening situation that we're talking about the mechanisms of right now. So you could think of.

We have what's called endotoxemia, which is just a fancy way of saying endotoxins or gram negative bacterial toxins called lipopolysaccharide or lps. So these are just components of bacterial cell walls and they slough off all the time. And they're very, very toxic, they're very pro inflammatory. In fact, we use these bacterial toxins in research settings all the time to induce inflammation or induce depressive like behavior. In fact, in mental health research, the number one thing that researchers use to create depression in a controlled environment, experimental setting is using these LPS bacterial toxins, injecting them into mice. This causes peripheral inflammation, this causes brain inflammation, this causes leaky gut and leaky brain, the breakdown of these barrier tissues. And so it creates the cytokine storm, the inflammation that causes the depression or the anxiety or mental illness. And then we do experiments on them to figure out how to treat the depression and illness that we just induced using these bacterial toxins. All of that is to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally.

I didn't know that. And anyone who's been listening knows that I've talked multiple, multiple times about how when we go through homes, tying this back, that we can't just look for mold. We have to be understanding the bacterial component of what's moving around. And a big piece of that is understanding the endotoxin load in a house, because, like we talked about, the breathing, the mouth, the nose is a direct path to the gut, the same way that you swallow the lake water that you talked about earlier. And, and if you're getting there, then if endotoxins are really. It almost sounds like they're kind of. Almost like a master skeleton key of some kind, from the way that you described it, that's causing all of these things. That's why it's so important. That's why I keep hammering it all the time. And, and you were so right, like, earlier, where mold is like the big thing that everyone's, like the new hip thing that everyone needs to know about right now. But it's funny, I feel like the trends of, like, what everyone needs to know about is always behind what the true thought leaders are actually already knowing. Right? Like, it follows that trend. Like, we've known about mold for a long time, but it's now becoming more of a hip thing that, like, if you don't know about it, then you know you're not a good doctor, you're not a good whatever. Right. Well, the people that knew about that five, ten years ago are already down the path of. Listen, it's not just that there's all this other stuff. And anyways, when you said that, I haven't heard the description. I've heard a lot of different kind of pieces of that endotoxin description and how it impacts us, but that was the best description that I've heard about it. So I just wanted to, like, throw that in there for. For folks as they know that I've been kind of beating that bacteria drum for a while, so I didn't mean to cut you off.

Oh, no, no, no, no. It's. It's. It's really. It's really good input, and you. You couldn't be more. More. Right. And so, you know, the. The thing that's, I don't know, like conventional medicine and healthcare and kind of conventional medicine research, it is just. It's very. Not holistic. It's very reductionistic. You know, it's very micro. And like I was saying, it's like, you know, you can't. What's the phrase? Like, you can't see the forest through the trees or something like that. Whereas holistic is the opposite. You know, holistic is the idea of seeing how everything's connected and integrated and affects other components of self. And so the truth is kind of Always somewhere in the middle. Because from more of like a conventional medical perspective, like it's, it's sepsis that we're talking about. But we have to realize that sepsis is a spectrum of itself. It's not, you know, maybe sepsis as we know it medically, it's like. Well, yeah, that's like you have a bacterial infection, you're going into septic shock that might cause encephalitis and brain inflammation and organ failure if it's severe enough. You know, you think about like you have a gash, it becomes infected. You know, you have a severe acute fever, your white blood cells are through the roof. But leaky gut and the concomitant endotoxemia, as we call it, that, that leaking of bacterial toxins, mold toxins, you know, glyphosate and other xenobiotics and stuff, you know, undigested food proteins and antigens, whatever it is, you know. Yeah, when the floodgate opens, it allows more of that to breach in. And so it's kind of like basically like a subclinical sepsis in a way. And this is why in the mental health space we all like to preach that mental health begins in the gut is because, well, yeah, I mean the integrity of that gut lining, that's what really is going to, if compromised, create that leakage into the bloodstream, causing a heightened immunological reaction, causing heightened peripheral inflammation. And so how this then connects to the brain, there's kind of a few, a few routes. For one thing, there's the vagus nerve, very popular subject, that connects the brain directly to the gut. So we do have this direct nerve that is communicating afferent efferently. So brain is communicating with the gut, the gut's communicating with the brain through this vagus nerve. Vagal nerve stimulation was approved in 2010 by the FDA as a treatment for treatment resistant depression. So, you know, we know that the vagus nerve itself is a huge communication aspect of the gut brain axis of that just direct nervous system communication. But the other part is what we're kind of currently talking about, which is, okay, well once we have this kind of leakage into systemic circulation that then causes the immune system to be like, whoa, we're under attack. Let's start increasing the cleansing purging fire that is inflammation to go burn off all the bad guys, well that then also then drives the breakdown of the blood brain barrier. It's, it's very, very similar mechanisms. Some of the proteins, the tight junction proteins are the same. And it's kind of this complex storm because some of the cytokines are the pro inflammatory immune messengers. Well, some of those can cross the blood brain barrier even if it is intact. But that blood brain barrier also starts breaking down when there's some sort of like infectious kind of pathogenic antigenic load or inflammatory load. So you kind of get hit from both ways. Your gut is yelling at your brain pro inflammatory signals through the vagus nerve directly. And that can start causing a breakdown of the blood brain barrier and imbalance of imbalances in your neurotransmitters. But then you also get hit from the other way, which is the outside in which is that peripheral inflammation that then starts causing inflammation in the breakdown of the blood brain barrier from the outside. So then before you know it, the same thing's happening in the brain. Bad stuff's getting through that just heightens the inflammation further. It becomes a very vicious and self perpetuating cycle that can ultimately lead to, you know, the exacerbation of any mental illness or predisposition along with neurodegenerative disease as well.

That was such a good description too.

You just like.

Thanks, man. It's almost like I teach this stuff.

It's so weird that people sit there and learn from you. Who knew?

Yeah. One of the awesome things is to be able to explain stuff like this in a way that can make sense for someone who doesn't know anything you're talking about. Right. It's always, it's always something that I've tried and it's. I almost feel like it's a gift.

To be able to do that.

Right. Because we can know so much about the actual textbook everything and know it to that point. But I heard this quote the other day. Oh gosh, what was the full quote? Somebody told me, they said it was something like the sign of like a true expert is to be able to talk about something super complex in a way that like a fifth grader can understand. And like that's, that's when you really know that you're talking to somebody who knows what they're talking about because they know it so well that they could just create all these different scenarios that resonates with whoever they're talking about and the message gets across, you know. And so yeah, I'm a fifth grader.

Yeah.

Scenario.

No, I, I appreciate, I would, I would agree with that. No, I really do appreciate it. It's. I mean, I love this stuff. But yeah, I mean the. Believe me, a lot of my professional friends or PhDs and doctors have been in practice for years, and they might be brilliant, they might be really good at what they do, but when it comes to teaching it or explaining, it might be really boring, really monotone. Doesn't make any sense. Too jargony. So I really do strive to explain the technical, but in a way that's like, wait, that kind of makes sense. And now I feel like I know what I can do, you know, with my environment, my lifestyle, my psychology, to kind of reverse engineer that. Right?

So. So maybe we could try to wrap up here with. We've talked about how all this happens, right? We talked kind of diet component on how to kind of reset the gut, right? With the, you know, with the. The garden example and then starting with the soil and kind of all that stuff, right? So what. But what happens? Like, how does brain detoxing work? I know the one element of brain detoxing is, like, during sleep. Actually, your brain detoxes some at that point. But, like, if you're. If you've gotten to the point where you've gotten the chronic inflammation, it's opened up the gates to the brain. Some of these stuff. Some of these things are getting in there, you know, from the mold perspective alone. Mycotoxins are fat soluble. Our brain is mostly fat. So it's gonna soak up into all that stuff. Right? So how does the brain detox process? And I know it can be different for everybody or whatever, so maybe just kind of like a big picture sort of view. Like, how does that work? What are some of the basics like on that?

Yeah, so this. This is really interesting and something. Let me see if I can pull this off. I think I can.

So just throwing, you know, with no prep.

I feel pretty well prepared, fortunately. And it's fun where. So brain detoxification is huge because ultimately the kind of quote, unquote, root cause of mental illness or the physiology that causes what we experience and get diagnosed with as a quote unquote mental illness or neurodegenerative condition. Like, it all comes down to inflammation, technically, oxidative stress and inflammation. The two go hand in hand, they perpetuate one another, but it just becomes that inflammation sort of conversation to just keep it simple. And so, you know, we talked about these barriers, which are so crucial, that gastrointestinal barrier and the epithelial tissue that is the lining of your gut and separates, you know, the gut from your systemic circulation. The same thing with the brain. You know, we used to think that the brain was totally, like, insulated and protected and nothing could penetrate that barrier. Whereas now, you know, now we have a deeper understanding of like, oh, actually that thing can get leaky at any point in time. You know, my friend, my good friend Jill Carnahan, who's, you know, leading expert in my space, she always says Swiss cheese. You know, she'll joke that she used to have Swiss cheese for guts. You know, it has the holes in it and it's just letting all sorts of stuff. So I always like, you know, I see this like chunk of Swiss cheese in my head. But that is, that's a, that's a good visual if you're thinking about whether we're talking about your gut lining or that blood brain barrier. And so with the blood brain barrier within that barrier, you know, this wall of cells that separates your central nervous system from the rest of your body, the periphery, the bloodstream, the general circulation. Well, in that barrier we have what are called ATP binding cassette transport proteins or ABC proteins for short. Now that's a big word. But ultimately it's a pump that allows the detoxification of the brain and the central nervous system, which is pretty important. If we have a toxic brain or a bunch of toxins sequestered, we can't get it out, we can't get into circulation, we can't then detox it and expel it from the body. Whether that's through sweating, peeing, pooping, whatever, that becomes a problem. And so this is actually a big area of research for neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's, for example, where we actually see that increased inflammation. So all these pro inflammatory cytokines, the cleansing fire that is inflammation. Well, inflammation actually inhibits and down regulates those detoxification proteins or those detox pumps that allow the brain to get these bad chemicals, substances, toxins, including things like beta amyloid, which is the plaque that's the hallmark characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. So it's through these protein channels that we pump out all the toxins. But we see that inflammation down regulates that, whereas things like vitamin D3 or St. John's Wort or other sorts of compounds increase the expression of this. So it's interesting because, you know, all of these things that we're talking about, it creates this inflammatory storm or what we in the research called the cytokine storm. And that storm of inflammation inhibits our ability to detoxify. So this is where, when we start having conversations around how do we detox the brain? It's like, well, we really have to address inflammation above all else and decrease any of the Things, whether it's gluten or glyphosate or too much sugar or being diabetic or being stressed out or having dysbiosis or sibo or parasites or mold or you know, like that's a whole conversation in itself. But we have to start decreasing the pro inflammatory input signals way before we can even really start successfully detoxifying. So it's, it's really interesting how the body works.

Super cool.

I think, I think we made the whole connection. We did it in 54 minutes.

I think we went from start to finish and we started at diet and microbiome and how it gets in the blood, how it gets to the brain, how it all works. I think that that was pretty awesome.

Is there, is there anything else that you feel like in wrapping up that would be good to kind of throw in here and in connection with everything we've been talking about?

Sure. You know, I think because I want to give the audience almost like a good take home because that was a lot to cover. I mean that was like multiple like medical level lectures that we sort of just blazed through. But I think we did a good job of connecting all of that. And so then it's like, well, what do I do to fix all of it? But here's the beautiful thing. And you know, it would take hours and hours to explain the science, but you don't need to worry about the details. But the beautiful thing is, you know, just adopting a healthier lifestyle. And when I say healthier, I think of a sort of as primal as we can get in modern times. Right. So spending as much time in nature as you can, getting that sunshine, sleeping like a baby, stressing less, laughing, more loving, more singing and humming for vagal tone, eating real food and nothing but real food that is as clean source as you can afford. Moving your body active and often.

Doing the exercise, doing the spiritual practice. It's just all the fundamental stuff of a holistic lifestyle. And that really is like 80 to 90 plus percent of the equation. It's only if you already have a solid foundation with that and you're still like really suffering. That's where it's like, alright, why don't we do some lab testing, like dig deeper, figure out, you know, do you have mold colonization, do you have sibo, do you have leaky gut, do you, you know what, whatever it is that we need to go looking for, but here's kind of even kind of the problem in my own functional medicine industry is we overemphasize that 10 to 20% which is the lab testing and the protocols. And we under emphasize the behavior modification and the mindset modification needed to really master those fundamentals. So that's the beautiful thing is anybody can start healing themselves and improving their situation by just doing the stuff that we all know you got to do the exercise, the nutrition, the sleep, all of it. And so any kind of program or whatever it is that helps you adopt those healthier lifestyle habits, that's the focal point. But yeah, if it's really severe or whatever, then probably need to work with somebody privately and go digging for some of those root causes too. Because in today's modern America, the masses are really just struggling with standard American metabolism. But then you have this kind of smaller demographic, the canaries in the coal mine, if you will, that, you know, they're that 10 to 20% of like, well, they had the standard American metabolism, which is super compromised already. But then they ran into something like, you know, Lyme or mold illness or mercury or whatever, and that sort of, you know, root cause that they want to address on top of the fundamentals. But I just can't overstate it enough that the fundamentals are really where the magic is.

That's a great, a great closing piece. And you know what? I think I get caught up in it a little bit too. Right. Like I know some of the fundamental things that I doing. Like this morning, like I'm supposed to be waking up at like 5:30 and working out because that's my time. And you know what, the alarm went off. I was like, yeah, I don't feel like it today. But like, like little things like that.

Yeah.

Then to kind of connect it, to understand. It's more about just like, you know, getting, getting myself looking. Okay. For a Mexico trip that's coming up. It's, it's about something that's something that's more than that. And, and then in your mind, like this is something that I've, I've always done. It's worked really well for me. I've talked about this before. I think mindset is such like an important piece of like adopting new things that you do. Right. So like, like for example, I'll talk to, you know, I'll talk to a client. They're like, well, I'm trying to do this. I'm like, if you're trying to do it, you're not going to do it. Like the way that I get myself to do something is just me talking personally. I say I don't do this anymore. Or this is what I do or whatever it is. It's very definitive. And it's just a completely like, this is just what I do now. That's it, right? Like I was, I was working on.

SIBO issue before and I was, you know, kind of, kind of directed that I should, in addition to a couple other things, maybe adopt a low fodmap. Low fodmap diet for a short period of time to kind of help that stuff work, right? And like, it's not the easiest diet to do, you know. And so like, for example, one of the things in the diet was you, you know, like beans and avocado, for example, are two things that like you don't eat on that diet, right? And it was just very simple at that point. Like, I don't eat beans or avocados anymore. And then, and then when it came up, it wasn't like, I really want this, but I'm gonna try to not eat it. It was like in my mind I was like, I don't eat this. Get it away from me. I don't eat this. And so when you're talking about like that lifestyle component of things and just what's worked for me, it's I do this now, I whatever, very specific. It's almost like the affirmation piece that you talk about like in the mornings with like other things that you maybe talk about. You could do that for lifestyle too. Like you, you tell yourself that I now do this, I now do this. And all of a sudden it's not like a negotiation in your mind anymore, right? Because every, every time this comes up it's like, well, I'm trying to do this and then it's like this negotiation. How hard am I going to try today? Like what am I going to do? Right? It's just, I wake up at 5:30 and I work out and that's it. And there's no question about it, right? And you know, you don't succeed every single time. Like this morning didn't work, but most days it's working. And I wake up and the alarm goes off. It's like, ah, it's time to get up. This is what I do. And that's what you do. So the one piece I would throw on to what you said is to, is to think about like, how do you implement that stuff in your life and the idea of like trying to do something versus just doing it right? And like how different that is in the mindset.

So.

Yeah, it's a, it's. I'll just comment on it's funny because behavior modification based coaching is really my background. I mean, you know, before I kind of steered exclusively into functional medicine, it was always that. It's how do we induce behavior modification and kind of hack the psyche, if you will. So I always like to joke because in today's world, we, we just want that instant gratification. So how can I biohack that? Or just give me a protocol that fixes all of that because we don't want to actually put in the real work that needs to be done. And so I always like to say we need less protocols and less biohacking and more behavior modifications. So it's exactly that and that's kind of its own whole subject. But yeah, it's the baby steps and applying those fundamentals and, you know, treating yourself with love and respect.

Love it. All right, so let's, let's wrap this up. Where. Where do people find more of you? Because you're pretty awesome and people should be finding you.

Hey, man, no, I, I really appreciate you. It was so cool having you on that webinar for, for the Facebook group. And, and like, I knew that you were cool. I could tell just through your Internet aura. But then getting to talk to you, I was like, oh, man, this dude's super rad. Like, we're going to do roast. So I appreciate that. But, you know, my Instagram is kind of my primary platform that I just pump out content on. So that's at the Holistic Savage. But then we've got our Metabolic Solutions, which is the business name. So that's my institute for professionals. I train professionals, I work with clients. So Metabolic Solutions is the business. But at the Holistic Savage, that's the. Where I'm pumping out all the free content every day and having awesome.

And if you're interested in seeing him pump massive amounts of weight and deadlifts, you should look at that too. Like, holy crap. I commented once. I think I was like, I think my entire body was just on one side of that bar.

So.

Yeah, I can, I can pick. Pick heavy things up too. I try to be well rounded, but, you know, you know, actually I'll. Then I'll shut up, I swear. But that's actually where the whole Holistic Savage thing came from is when I first got on Instagram, I'm like, I didn't want people to think of me as like a meathead or as like a bodybuilder dude. So because, like, I'm just, you know, I, I do. Like, I'm a yogi. I'M a runner. I'm a lifter, I'm a crossfitter. I'm a. I'm a everythinger. But, like, I didn't want that to be my identity, so I was like, no holistic savage, because, like, Yeah, I can deadlift 650, but, you know, I'm also super. Anyway, so it's just kind of funny. But I appreciate that. We'll hit the gym sometime.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm a little guy that's like.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for taking the time out of your. I really appreciate it, dude.

Oh, thank you. It's such a pleasure, man. Anytime. And I'm sure this is just the beginning of many conversations we'll have, so.

I'm glad our path. We'll talk to you later.

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.