How Mold & Environmental Toxins Damage Hormones with Dr. Francesca LeBlanc | Dave Asprey

But let's see. In my own past, I had actually brain damage from toxic mold. But it wasn't just that, because some toxic molds make xenoestrogens that are a thousand times more estrogenic than the kind of estrogens that we make in our bodies. I had a really hard time losing weight. The 100 pounds I had to lose. I. I worked out, I dieted. I mean, I. I went to the ends of the earth. All of my effort and willpower, and I believed that it was because I just didn't have enough willpower to eat even less. I came across research on zearalenone. Is that one of the mold toxins you've worked with?

Yeah.

Talk to me about what that does with weight gain.

I mean, estrogen dominance is one of the leading hormone imbalances that complicate weight loss for women. And if its root cause is mold, right in this mold family, it's an emotional roller coaster for women. Because when you talk about the eat less, exercise more, and all of that, when we get to this root cause of mold, this is a journey. This isn't a. We're going to apply these binders, and in three weeks, four weeks, this is what you can expect. I mean, sometimes this is a three to six month process because we have no idea how long or how much of this mold has been in the liver and creating all this inflammation. I mean, brain inflammation. Right. That's kind of what you experienced as well. It's a journey. It's frustrating. And it is so closely related to estrogen dominance. Definitely here in the south and the other moldier states, like Florida and Texas. So we see a lot of that.

When I did the documentary on toxic mold. And guys, if you're new to the show, you might not know moldymovie.com it's a gift. It's a professionally made documentary. The soundtrack is actually from the lead keyboardist and vocalist for Electric Light Orchestra. Like, it has its own soundtrack. And it was as professional as I knew how to do at the time. And I traveled around the country and I talked to leading experts in mold, and people were affected. And what you realize is that we think of the south as mold bomb Moldville. And it's consistently moldy because it's just wet. But the mold there usually isn't that bad. I mean, the mold levels are there, but the individual species aren't that bad. But if you go to where I grew up, like in Albuquerque, or you go to Phoenix, that is desert mold, it's dormant until there's moisture and then it's hyper aggressive. Like everything in the desert wants to kill you. Rattlesnakes and scorpions because it's a hostile environment. So if you go to a moldy place in Phoenix, it will trash you more than a moldy place in Louisiana. Except for New Orleans. New Orleans has its own unique species. After all the chemicals got mixed around. I generally don't want to go to New Orleans because you're just going to get sick. Even if you're highly resilient, like I am now because there's just so much mold and it's like mutated mold, like Spider man meets mold. Do you see that as well?

Yes. I don't go to New Orleans. I do not. I have to go to New Orleans. If there is a family function, I am literally. I'm pretty resilient as well. But I cannot wait to get out of there. I start to feel it. I really do.

The guy who did a lot of the air testing for moldy movie, let's see, this is John and Laura Riera from American Air Testing. If memory serves, they owned a bunch of rental properties in New Orleans. And after the hurricanes and all, they just said, you know, we're going to exit that area because we can't keep them mold free anymore. So we are changing the environment around us with things like glyphosate, which in studies makes mold worse. And just with things even like radio frequencies like emfs. You probably wouldn't know this if you're listening to this, but a lot of the citric acid that's in food comes from Aspergillus fermentation, which doesn't mean it's necessarily bad for you. But how do they make this modified form of Aspergillus produce more of its toxin? The toxin being, in this case, citric acid. They expose it to radio frequencies and EMFs that pisses off the mold so it's more toxic. So I think we've got something going on in the world around us where you just don't want that. If you're near a military base, you've got all the metal pollution and go to San Diego and breathe the mold there. That's the worst place in the country, as far as I can tell. And that's where the most radar is from the. All the military stuff there. So there's something going on where our hormones are being disrupted by mold. And if you get mold, you're much more likely to get Candida. Talk to me about Candida and what that does.

I Kind of explain to my patients, if you think about the way that the gut and the liver work, a lot like your kitchen sink, right? You've got your sink, that's the gut and you have your garbage disposal, that's the liver. And if one is clogged, how well does the other work? Right? So we have to kind of understand, even if we're going to go through a mold protocol, that we are also going to go through some sort of intestinal permeability protocol at the same time. For that reason, Candida is, if not the most, the most common gut fungus in women. It's overlooked, right? Because traditionally, you know, the symptoms that would be normally associated with, let's just say yeast infections aren't there. It's not that anymore. For women to come to the realization that we have like a fungal issue when they don't actually have those traditional textbook symptoms, again, it's a journey, it's a process, and it's a little bit of a roller coaster because sometimes things have to get a little bit rocky before they get better.

There's also a major link between Candida infections and pcos. They go together. And there's also a link between, ooh, a plant based diet and pcos, because it turns out that if you eat a lot of these plants that are full of oxalates, which I wrote about in my most recent book, they can also contribute to pcos. So you end up getting Candida, which raises oxalate levels and causes inflammation. And then you get extra calcification there because you're eating spinach and all kale and those things you think are healthy. And then you're wondering what the heck is going on. Well, you've got toxic metals, you've got Candida. If you have toxic metals, the body will allow Candida to grow because Candida will store mercury instead of putting it in your brain. So your body's just swimming in toxins. Just saying, well, let this bad thing happen because it's not as bad as this other bad thing. And it's trying to balance all this out. And at the end of the day, you're anxious and you feel like crap all the time and hormones don't work and you're infertile. And this is actually like the story of living in the US Right now.

Yeah, well, yeah, because you jump to the diet, you, you, you panic, you're desperate and you say, well, I'm, I'm cutting out all meat. I'm going, I'm going plant based. And then I did that okay, so I'm one of them. And then I was vegan, just like you. And, you know.

No kidding?

Yeah, because I was desperate. I mean, I was. I was sick. And you know, of course for like six months I was skinny. And it was great until my hair started to fall out.

Yeah, malnourishment is great for the first month, right?

It's all fun and games till your hair starts falling out. And that's the truth. You know, I think that that is what is happening in America. You know, we think that it's immediately dietary. If I take this all encompass follow this protocol, everything's going to go away. And sometimes it makes us sick.

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