Dr. Josh Axe, Dr. Will Cole & Taylor Dukes: Toxoplasma Gondii Is Linked to Brain Tumors |TUH #307

Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecka. Do you know that 1 in 5 Americans will develop cancer? The vast majority of autoimmune disease has no known cause, and millions of people with brain fog, joint pain, crushing fatigue, and mystery symptoms are told every year that their labs are just fine. They're not fine. What's happening to them is invisible to conventional labs. Mold toxins in the tissue, parasites suppressing the immune system, stealth infections that retreat and hide until the immune system is just too exhausted to keep them contained, and an immune system so overloaded that the circulating tumor cells it would normally catch every single day are slipping through. Today I have 3 people who found what was hiding: a functional medicine nurse practitioner who shrunk a plum-sized brain tumor in half before surgery using metabolic ketosis, methylene blue, and red light therapy; a functional medicine physician who has spent 15 years treating the patients conventional medicine just couldn't explain and knows exactly how to find what the standard labs miss; And one of the most respected holistic physicians in the entire world will lay out the complete protocol for tackling stealth infections, Lyme disease, and parasites that are quietly destroying the immune function while your blood work looks perfect. So let's get into it.

Yeah, so life was good. I've met the man of my dreams. He was an Air Force pilot. We have 2 children. I have a thriving functional medicine practice of my own at this point. I founded a wellness center with a partner, and I don't know if you're familiar with the Prenuvo full-body MRI company.

Very familiar.

Yeah, so I'm trying to put—

I'm trying to actually Bring them to the Middle East right now because I love it. I'm a huge fan. Huge fan.

Yeah. So they reached out and they said, hey, you know, we're getting a location in Texas near you and we would love to gift you a full body preventative scan. And I'm like, all right, cool. I'm healthy.

You know, this is 2020.

This is 2022.

2022.

Yeah. So, wow. 2 and a half years ago. Yeah. Yeah. So not too long ago. Um, and I got the curveball of my life. And so I did the scan, you know, took the picture, put on the scrubs and I was called and told that they found a massive brain tumor in my right frontal lobe. And I'm like, what? You've gotta be kidding. This is the wrong person because I have no symptoms. So it was a shock to say the least, but I did in fact have a huge brain tumor.

Wow. And you said it was the size of a plum.

It was the size of a plum.

How did it displace that much gray matter and you were having no symptoms?

Truly, I can't even explain it, 'cause from a medical perspective, I mean, the brain is so symptom, like 1 millimeter shift, you can have symptoms in your brain. So literally, it's a God thing. I have no explanation because it's truly beyond my comprehension.

Yeah, did you see this image yourself? I mean, did your heart just drop?

It did. It did. I'll never forget. We were headed to the museum with my children, and I remember opening the app, and I actually didn't get a phone call. I actually have to back it up. I opened up the app, and because I'm the practitioner, I'm the one who saw it first. No one had told me. So it said abnormal finding, and I look and it said nervous system, and I'm like, that's weird. So I went to go look at it, and it was a huge picture. And it does not take a radiologist or a trained medical professional. I'll show you after.

Okay.

I mean, it is huge. It's this huge white mass. So when I first got diagnosed, you know, I had a 10-month-old at the time and a 3-year-old. And so it was scary as all get out, you know. And as much as I know about integrative and functional medicine at this point, I know nothing about cancer. And now I feel like I have my PhD.

Right, right, right. It just was scary. I do too, just because of all the people I've worked with.

Yes. And it's only increasing. That's the hard thing. And so, I slowed down and I prayed and I said, okay, God, like, this isn't a surprise to you. You know this, you know the number of my days, but like, what do I do? And I didn't freak out. I didn't make decisions in fear. I wasn't reactive. And I knew that I probably needed to get it out.

So powerful.

But I was also like, okay, if this has been growing for years, same thing with functional medicine, symptoms, a disease doesn't just happen overnight. It's drops in the bucket over time that lead to the full-blown manifestation of a disease and symptoms. And so I knew enough about the body that I wasn't just gonna like jump to surgery in fear. And I just felt led to take an integrative approach. And so I started doing research and reading books and contacting integrative cancer clinics. And, you know, it was also hard. We had to execute a living will. I had to make a lot of decisions as a mom and a wife and a business owner. Like I had to get my husband access to all my business stuff, 'cause I'm like, what if something happens?

Right.

So there was the life, part of me that was trying to figure things out. And I also am so blessed because most people that have a brain tumor, they have a seizure, they wake up in the emergency room, they get the next on-call neurosurgeon.

Right.

You don't have time to research, pray. I mean, it's like, you don't pack bags, you don't send an out-of-office email. It's, it's go time. And so for me, I'm like, okay, God, thank you for giving me this information. I just wanna like walk this journey well.

Yeah.

So I ended up going to Hope4Cancer. It's a holistic cancer center in Mexico.

Wow.

I went to the Cancer Center for Healing in California, in Irvine.

Mm-hmm.

And I did everything from hyperbaric oxygen, red light, beds, methylene blue, curcumin IVs, high-dose vitamin C. I mean, you name it, I've done it.

Yeah.

And so I spent 5 months prior to surgery. I did end up getting brain surgery, doing research, getting second opinion. And I was like, I knew a lot about nutrition, and that's the hard thing for me. I was already really healthy. So to feel like I had to take it up a notch was like, whoa.

Yeah.

What does this look like? But I treated healing like a job for a period of time, especially during those 5 months before brain surgery. And I was like, you know what? It'd be so cool if we could shrink this brain tumor. But if anything, I'm just preparing my body to be strong going into a brain surgery.

Right.

And so for me, I did high-dose vitamin C. I had to work my way up to like 75 grams.

Grams.

Yep.

Yep.

You started like 25 grams and just— Yep.

And then worked our way up. I did methylene blue infusions. I did methylene blue before doing a red light helmet, like 30 minutes before I activated.

Oral or topical?

Yeah, I did oral. So I do like my methylene blue drops. 30 minutes later, I'd put on my red light helmet.

Great.

I did molecular.

Was that a Neuronic helmet? Do you remember that? Because there's like Weber and Weber.

It's from Germany.

Okay, great.

So I did that. So we, you and I were offline talking about therapy stacking because you got to to be efficient. Yeah, you can't just all day do everything.

Yeah.

So I would sit at my desk, I'd check emails, I'd do my methylene blue, I'd put on my red light helmet, I'd do my molecular hydrogen oxygen. I have a hyperbaric chamber, you know, soft like a soft. I do. I have a soft chamber. I've gotten so claustrophobic though, so I haven't used it as much, but I had to get one of mine.

Yeah, seriously. I sat in there earlier and I I could do that.

Yeah.

But yeah, I did everything that you can imagine. Got into ketosis. I was checking not just ketones, but GKI, glucose ketone index, pricking my finger. I mean, it was, I did everything. I was taking so many supplements.

This is pre-CGMs.

I did CGMs, yeah. And for me, I was living abroad, so it made a lot of sense. And another thing, and I will say drops in the bucket, it was the perfect storm for me. The parasites was a huge contributing factor. I tested positive for parasites in stool. I actually— this is crazy, and for anyone listening that think parasites are woo-woo and they're like, yeah, but we don't live in a third world country.

Absolutely not.

No, no, we do worm our pets. Like, you can have exposure. And so one thing that I have to say specifically about parasites is, so when I got diagnosed, I did all the lab testing you can ever imagine on myself, you know, because I had practitioners, but I'm like, I'm going to cast the net. What are we missing here? And I actually found I was blood positive, serum positive for a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii that the International Journal of Cancer And the American Cancer Society link to brain tumors in middle-aged people.

No way.

Yes. And so—

Is this because of the outgassing of these or do you know why?

You know, it suppresses the immune system. Mm-hmm. So parasites, if we wanna talk parasites, they suppress the immune system. And so again, with cancer, we wanna do anything to boost our immune system and decrease inflammation, boost immunity. And so parasites suppress the immune system, right? Because they're a foreign invader in us.

Yes.

You know, and so for me, I did ivermectin, I did all sorts of mebendazole, flubendazole. I even did Alinea. I did all sorts of— I actually did pharmaceuticals. I think there are times and places for it.

Were you doing anything to— I mean, obviously you're conscious of your diet. And before your surgery, did the tumor actually shrink?

It did. Yes, it was a miracle.

That's so amazing.

Which is insane. Yes, because when I got the radiology reports—

That is incredible. I mean, first of all, was your neurologist like, what in the—

what's going on here? So actually, my coolest neurosurgeon, he's actually in— I flew to Arizona for my brain surgery. He's at Barrows Neurological, Chris Smith, if anyone needs a recommendation. And he believes in ketones too.

Uh-huh.

I was literally just there.

Yeah. So he, he operates in Scottsdale and in Phoenix, and we stayed in Scottsdale for me to recover. Mm-hmm. But he believes in metabolic ketosis. You know, he doesn't have the time to talk about all these things that stress the immune system cuz he's saving lives and doing brain surgery.

Mm-hmm.

But yeah, I mean, he's all in and he's like, he's the one that told me, I don't want you doing, cuz mine was stage 3. So it was, mm-hmm, stage 4 is the most aggressive. So it wasn't like this, you know, little tiny growing thing. It was a beast that we needed to get outta there.

Oh yeah.

So I'm grateful. And that's what I also want people to hear me say. I think it's easy to hear all the stuff that we talk about and think that it's all holistic. And I always say, I like saying integrative because you take the best of the conventional.

Yes.

The best of the holistic, and you integrate the two for the best possible outcome.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, just changing your diet alone is not gonna save your life. You know, you need to come into— Right.

And there are times and places for acute care. You know, let's get someone out of the acute flare of ulcerative colitis, and you sometimes have to get the steroids and get the iron infusion, but then you have to figure out what caused the inflammation and caused the immune system to go rogue. Not just with cancer, with anything, autoimmune disease. And so, Everyone was shocked, and it was truly a miracle. But I'm so glad I still did surgery to get the remainder out. And so I have a huge hole in my brain. I'm still normal. You wouldn't know, right?

I didn't even like when I first saw you. I'm like, dude, this chick's got a hole in her brain for sure. No, I'm just kidding. No, no, not at all.

Well, and even people that knew me, you know, they're like, you're still the same Taylor even 24 hours. I mean, the whole thing's a miracle. Yeah. And I didn't have any deficits, and. I was walking 6 hours after brain surgery. I was like giving them orders. I'm like, get this catheter out. I'm ready to get up and get ambulating.

You are? Wow, that's so—

And then I went home straight from ICU 24 hours after surgery. And so I really think everything I did to prepare my body—

So they went in through the temporal side?

Right here. I have a huge scar right here.

Well, yeah, you have one here, so nobody sees it.

Yeah.

And so he's the one that said, traditional oncology, and that's something else, when people are like, oh my gosh, but you did integrative stuff with cancer, isn't cancer scary? And for me, I'm like, well, no, 'cause traditional only offers Chemo, surgery, and radiation, and the integrative side offers all these other therapies and diet. And as a mom that wants to see her kids live a long life, like, why wouldn't I do anything and everything? And so for me, I didn't just do what traditional offered me, I did all the other things too.

Yeah.

But instead of doing chemo and radiation, that's where I'm still doing things to prevent recurrence.

Right.

And my neurosurgeon said, like, I want you to get into ketosis, I want you to keep focusing on everything you're doing with your immune system.

So no chemo, no radiation. And now post-surgery images are good.

Yeah.

Taylor's story raises questions that I think about constantly. She's a functional medicine practitioner. She was already eating clean. She was already doing all the things, and she still had a plum-sized brain tumor growing right in her frontal lobe for years without a single symptom. How does that happen? What was building in the background that her immune system couldn't keep up with? The parasite she tested positive for, the toxic load she had been carrying since her time abroad, the drops in the bucket. Because that's how disease works. It's not overnight. Not a single catastrophic event. Drops in a bucket slowly accumulating until the immune system cannot hold everything at bay simultaneously and something slips through. Dr. Will Cole has spent 15 years treating the patients who are exactly where Taylor was in those early years before the diagnosis. People with brain fog, joint pain, crushing fatigue, mystery inflammatory markers that conventional labs do not catch. People who have been to every specialist and been told their labs are just fine. He knows what to look for, and he's going to tell you exactly how to find it.

This phenomenon that you're explaining is something that I see on a daily basis. People that have things like brain fog, fatigue, digestive problems, anxiety, joint pain, food sensitivity. Yeah, yeah. Joint pain. What the world may call mystery illnesses. They're falling through the cracks. They'll be told from conventional doctors, well, it looks autoimmune, but they're not like checking all the boxes, right? They're somewhere on that autoimmune inflammation spectrum. And exactly what you're saying, where it's like, yeah, metabolic labs look pretty much okay. C-reactive protein, high sensitivity C-reactive protein looks normal. Homocysteine is sometimes suboptimal, but nothing crazy. These inflammation markers.

That's what I mean.

Conventional inflammation. But you're right, when you look at things like TGF-beta-1, C3a, C4a, MSH, these sort of other immunological labs that are conventional labs but aren't typically ran in the conventional setting, You will typically find for that subset of people, those labs will be off. And then when you start looking at biotoxins, it confirms those conventional labs in my mind. It confirms things like mold and bacteria and viruses and almost 100%. I don't know if you found this, but almost 100% of these people that fit the check all these boxes, what the world would call mystery illnesses, have these HLA gene variants.

Yes.

Like, they're all— which, for people that don't know, that's human leukocyte antigens. It makes your body More sensitive, if you will, to these biotoxins like bacteria, viruses, and mold. So whereas you know mold is everywhere, right? Bacteria and viruses humans have been with symbiotically for a long time. But these people, their immune system doesn't know how to calm down when they're exposed to these pathogens, right? And and then we could talk. I think in my mind there's an environmental toxin component to it when you talk about glyphosate or. forever chemicals. I think there's something manmade that is exacerbating these biotoxin sensitivity.

Oh, interesting.

Normally it's leaky gut syndrome. Normally when you look, and I would say most of the research is being done, is there's some sort of breach of the intestinal lining. So undigested food proteins and bacterial endotoxins called lipopolysaccharides, these bacterial toxins in gram-negative bacteria, are passing through the gut lining because there's these proteins that govern gut lining permeability. Called occludin and zonulin. Think of the Z in zonulin, this protein that protects the gut lining, the tight junctions of the gut, as a zipper. So if there's increased zonulin antibody activity, increased zonulin activity, you're going to have things breach, getting from the gut into the bloodstream. And that is at least part of it that researchers have looked at for the past 15 or 20 years or so, uh, as this event of what's happening As to why this molecular mimicry is happening, because the immune system sees undigested food proteins, sees bacterial toxins, and says, "What the heck?" It's not actually saying what the heck, but I'm I'm speaking for your immune system right now, and it it is tagging the undigested food proteins with that flags for flag for destruction, the antibody, and then cross reacts because it's similar enough in structure. The thyroid is similar enough in structure that it's attacking the thyroid, but then it could be. The joints, the gut, the brain, and for anything. So we have to look at what's destroying that gut lining.

Yeah.

And these environmental toxins like glyphosate.

Oh yeah.

You talk about herbicides and pesticides, what it's doing to decimate this gut garden.

Yeah.

The gut microbiome.

Big part.

Microplastics. When that's what they're finding at 90% of human tissue. Yeah. And there's no healthy amount of microplastics in the human body.

Right.

And we should not be like microdosing microplastics, but we are doing more than microdosing these.

Plastic. Yeah. I heard on average, um, was it Dr. Gundry that I saw on a podcast? I heard on average, you know, about a credit card a week.

Yeah. So remember mold, the, the context around this is mold is everywhere, right? So we're joking about Miami. It really can be any state. I have patients in very dry, arid place and it's not, you know, in Arizona, for example, it's not the desert that's necessarily moldy, but it's their piping, their plumbing within their home.

Mm-hmm.

It's leaking behind the walls. So the more humid a climate is, the more obviously it's gonna be, you know, conducive to growing mold. But don't count yourself out if you live in a dry, arid place and they go, I don't live in Florida, I'm fine. Really, it really can be anywhere. It's just more likely to be in more humid areas. So how— and the other context is not all mold is toxic. So we have to understand what type of mold are we talking about, how much and how long have you been exposed to the mold, and then what's your bioindividual tolerance to that mold, that genetic epigenetic puzzle, right? So all these variables matter because I think one accusation that we can get in functional medicine is like fearmongering around something like mold, but it's, people lose the context and the nuance. Like you, when I do a social media post, it's not a 2-hour consultation. So forgive me if I give you statistics about mold and realize that, yeah, I don't want everybody to be freaking out, but the reality is it is a piece of the puzzle. And when you talk to people for a living, it's something that's missed very often. So I wouldn't want to shut out, like, just want to bring the awareness. Exactly. Like, exactly. So to answer your question pointedly, just It's a blood, a blood test or a urine and/or a urine test. And I would say both are important because I want to look at the immune system's response to the pathogen, whether it's a mold, bacteria, or virus. And I want to look at if you can measure it, and a lot of these things you can actually quantify the mycotoxins in the body. So looking at the blood, the immunological and the toxic burden of mold, and then these other manmade toxins that can be exacerbating it. And a lot of these like Epstein-Barr virus and other things that can be reactivated are because of these other toxins. Because like, it's— the statistic is like somewhere like 90-some percent of people have Epstein-Barr virus antibodies, right? 90% of people don't have reactivated EBV. So just because you have antibodies doesn't mean it's a reactivated—

yeah, yeah, there's IgM and IgG too. So exactly, I can see the difference between dormancy and—

but I see a lot of people, they'll see like antibodies and then they'll automatically think it's reactivated. Not necessarily, but it can be. And mold and man-made toxins can be something that's perpetuating these viral reactivations. So that's you would start. And then I would look at the genetic component because almost always it's going to be this big aha moment of like, oh, that's why I'm sensitive to mold, but my spouse isn't.

Right.

Because there's a lot of marital relationship gaslighting going on where it's like they think they're hypochondriacs. Like the husband, not to generalize, but the husband typically is like, yeah, she's a hypochondriac. She's just making it up. But you measure, you run his genetics. He doesn't have the same methylation and HLA gene variants. So you could be in the home, And she's reacting very hypervigilant. Her immune system is very sensitive to it, but he's not. It's not healthy for the family. Our telehealth patients are typically that canary in the coal mine for the family because these things are carcinogenic. Yeah, it's not healthy for anybody. So maybe the guy, it's just going to be this slow burner for decades, right? And it's going to be fueling cancer over 15 years. But she's having problems right now and she's going to save his life by getting that mold remediated.

That's so good.

So, I mean, look, Yeah, I mean, what we do, if they have access to these biohacks and tech devices and therapies, yes, let's give it to them. But it starts with some basic stuff, right? It starts with let's clean up the gut. Let's lower inflammation levels in the body. Let's see how resilient you can be by just allowing your body to do what it was created for.

Oh my gosh. Amen.

So it's like you— most people, yeah, like, let's— if we need to jump to hyperbaric, we will do that when we need to. But most Americans, they're not there. Like, let's just see how much of a needle-moving capacity with the free and low-cost and accessible stuff.

I totally agree with that.

And then from there, then we have in such— we live in such a blessed time where we do have access to technology that our grandparents, great-grandparents, all the generations before us never had access to. So, but yeah, so I would start with really, if we're saying 70, 75-some percent of the immune system's in the gut, really focusing on gut health. So we do a lot of souping and stewing, like things that are really gentle, calming to the gut instead of lots of raw foods, being on very like a proverbial siesta for the gut. This little break, this reprieve, this Sabbath where you can allow— when you're brothing and souping, like just think having hearty soups for meals. And they could be bone broth based with lots of good meats in them and pureed vegetables or some soft cooked vegetables. Um, and then when they have fruit, I even cook the fruit down or have people cook the fruit down to sort of a compote, like an inside of a pie, because these people, their immune system is stressed. It's digesting even healthy foods is stressing an already stressed out gut immune axis. I'm talking about if you're, you have to meet your gut where it's at. And a lot of people are there because we have really messed up microbiomes in our culture today. But, you know, carnivore, carnivore adjacent, GAPS, there's a lot of different Therapeutic food protocols that could be helpful to, from a clinical nutrition intervention standpoint, to calm inflammation, to untangle these inflammatory cascades. As far as like supplementation is concerned, like glutathione or some glutathione precursor like N-acetylcysteine, a great binder is going to be needed, like some charcoal, activated charcoal.

Zeolite.

Exactly. Zeolite, diatomaceous earth. Um, modified citrus pectin. We're seeing some great success.

And where do you fall on like sauna?

And I think we— it's a, um, I don't want to say non-negotiable, but it's, it's on my list of non-food, non-supplement protocol. It's one of the first things, if not the first thing, that we recommend. So if they— even if they don't have access to a sauna, like even a sauna blanket, like just getting the body sweat, get some exposure to infrared or traditional sauna. And obviously there's a lot of, you know, better, better, you know, good, better, best when it comes to all of these things. But doing something versus nothing is going to move the needle. Most people aren't sweating enough. So yeah, supporting sweating detoxing is, is, uh, supporting detoxification pathways through sweating is definitely, uh, a one of the first things we do. Ozone is another game changer.

I believe, I totally agree with that too. Dr. Cole just gave you the testing framework and the treatment foundation. Find the biotoxins, check the genetics, start with the gut, sweat, use binders, and allow the body to do what it was created to do. Now here's the part that most people skip. Before you kill anything, you need to strengthen. Your immune system is the weapon, the infection is the enemy, and if you go straight to killing without first building up the weapon, you lose the battle. The infection retreats, the immune system stays depleted, and 6 months later— You're exactly where you started. Dr. Josh Axe has built an entire career around this. He's seen it with parasites. He's seen it with Lyme disease. He has seen it with long COVID, reactivating dormant infections that were sitting quietly in people's tissues for years. And he watched his own cousin beat a glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive brain cancers on earth, using the same philosophy: strengthen first, then kill, then bind. Dr. Axe is one of the most respected holistic physicians in the world, a New York Times bestselling author, and a man who could not walk for a year. after a spinal infection, and he rebuilt himself from the inside out. He's now going to give you the most complete framework for fighting stealth infections that you will find anywhere. If someone falls into that category of my labs are great and I just don't feel good, I know something's wrong. I've got brain fog, I've got, uh, poor focus and concentration, I wake up feeling like a lead balloon in the morning, you know, I have days where I have crushing fatigue, you know, all of those things that these little bugs cause on the parasite side, where do they start and how do we get rid of parasites?

Yeah. So, first off, I think, and you brought this up earlier, one of the greatest things making people sick today, and most every person in longevity would agree with this, is this sort of immunodeficiency. And, this is where your immune system is taxed, you're building up these immunosenescent cells, and our immune system's sick. I think that in order to address that in find that and find the cause of that. Well, let me, let me go to the blood work thing first. You and I have both experienced this. I have had thousands of people come into me saying, I feel awful, but my blood work is normal.

Yeah.

And then doctors—

Thousands.

Yeah, and doctors will say oftentimes, it's all in your head, you're fine. Here's the thing about a lot of lab work though, it might look at what's in your blood, but it doesn't look at what's going on inside your cell. It doesn't go and look at what's going on in every organ system. So, I mean, you're only seeing a snapshot at one point in time, not what's going on in terms of trends on a regular basis. So, to your point, I think that— and then a lot of the lab tests, I don't want to necessarily say outdated, but they're not enough. I mean, there are a lot of other things we should be looking at there.

Very, very basic.

And so, when it comes to these microbial overgrowth, the first thing that people are getting wrong whether it be with a parasite or long COVID or Lyme disease or mold, is that the first thing they try and do is go and kill the infection. That's the first thing they try and do. And oftentimes, it's with an antibiotic drug. That is today statistically the most common thing that people are taking.

Doxycycline for Lyme disease, for example.

Exactly. By the way, I will say we both love Cancun. We got one of our favorite clinics, Re-Health, there. So, it's— Okay.

So, if you get a parasite, you can go to Re-Health.

Exactly, I go regularly, so I love Cancun.

So.

But, you know, I think for most people, they actually get the infection and it spreads because their immune system is depleted to start with. I think if most people's immune systems were strong and bolstered enough, they would have the infection come in and their immune system would kill it. They would kill the parasites, it would, but that's not happening. And so the first thing people need to do if they have a parasitic infection, or any infection, Lyme, long COVID, they need to strengthen their immune system, get more rest, spend more time in the sun, spend more time with community, and then take herbals and eat foods that are immune strengthening, not the ones that are killing things, but that are strengthening your own immune system. And then your immune system will kill the infection in part. So this is where I really like an herb like astragalus.

Mm-hmm.

I love reishi mushroom. I even like ashwagandha to a degree. These things are very, very building over time of the immune system. And then also taking things to just get out of the fight or flight state, everything from skullcap to higher doses of magnesium to, you know, magnolia, like things that kind of help lower fight or flight, strengthen up your body's mitochondria, and then your body can kill a lot of it itself. I typically have people do capsules or tinctures. Of black walnut and wormwood. And, there are others that are great too, but those are the 2 most commonly recommended and prescribed by holistic practitioners for parasitic infections. And then, along with that, ivermectin. Now, those are things you don't want to be on long-term. It's anywhere from typically a 2-week cycle to a 6-week cycle of those. And then, with that, you oftentimes want to do binders. Now, a lot of people like activated charcoal. I'm not as big a fan of that. In the short term, I think it's great. If I have somebody having the silver fillings removed or a 2-week cleanse, I'll have them do that. And, I think it's fantastic. But, I think if you're going to do something a little more long-term, I really like clay, I really like chlorella.

I guess silica clay, chlorella.

Exactly. I like pectin, like citrus pectin. So, those are—

And zeolite.

And zeolites are great too. And then, very high-dose probiotics. I'll have people do a trillion a day of probiotics, especially post-treating. But, if you follow that right process of strengthen, kill, and bind, And then, of course, with that, infrared sauna sweating is just absolutely amazing to support the process. But, you've helped a lot of people get rid of and kill parasitic infections, long COVID, these different types of infections. But, a lot of people don't do the right process. It's like, I'm going to take one supplement or I'm going to take just an antibiotic, and then they never fully get rid of the infection. Well, the first thing that happened is people skipped a step. They didn't strengthen. You know, Lyme overcame your body. You know, this is years ago. My whole family, like my immediate family, like my sister, my brother, my dad, my mom, we all took a— and we did a very— this is like ultra-powered microscope and did test it to see if we had Lyme. I'm the only person in my family that didn't show up. All 4 of my immediate family members had Lyme disease.

Hmm.

What was weird is, is that none of them had symptoms, but my sister had, my brother had Hashimoto's, my mom, you know, like, like there were other symptoms, but not like these common symptoms that you would see with like the joint pain and some of the things you'd see of Lyme. A lot of people have Lyme, but if your immune system is strong enough, you will have no symptoms. So my point there is that you do need to take something to help kill Lyme, but more importantly, you need to strengthen your own system so your own immune system can keep Lyme and cancer and all the other co-infections at bay. There's another study that was really interesting. They said if you get long COVID, that viral infection, it activates these other co-infections like Lyme disease. Like, your chance— if you got long COVID, your chance of expressing Lyme, uh, and other types of infections—

If it was dormant, for example.

That's right. If it was dormant, it's like waking it up. And so, so that's an issue too. But when it comes to Lyme, what I, what I like to do specifically is I like to do a lot of a stress— well, one, let me go to diet. Most people Don't— we try and treat it all with supplements and not with diet.

Mm-hmm.

I really want to do more of a traditional diet based on, like, Weston A. Price Foundation. It's a lot of soups. It'd be a Chinese medicine diet similar to what you'd find in the Bible too, but it's a lot of soups. It's meat, it's vegetables. That's the primary part of the diet. Then again, I like pomegranates, I like berries. If that's the basis of your diet, maybe there's some sweet potato there as well, but, but that's the basis of the diet. And then from there, I actually, I do think that working on your emotional mental health is really important there. And then from a supplement standpoint for building, I like astragalus and schisandra. Those are—

Astragalus?

And schisandra.

Schisandra.

Schisandra is a berry that's used in Japanese medicine and Asian medicine that oftentimes it's the main supplement they recommend for mononucleosis if somebody has mono, but it's extremely immune boosting. Same with astragalus. So doing high doses of that, high doses of probiotics, and then a lot of vitamin D and zinc.

Hmm.

And so really bolstering up and strengthening your own immune system. And then from there, there are supplements to take to fight Lyme, like one called Japanese knotweed, that's really high in resveratrol. And then you've got cat's claw is popular, and Andrographis would be another one. But yeah, I mean, and those are probably some of the best. And then, but that's what I would do. And then take your time, you know, and do a lot of the other biohacking things you talked about. I really think deep breathing and red light therapy are so, so good.

Deep breathing, red light therapy, sauna.

Yeah.

3 people, 3 different entry points into the same truth. The body already knows how to heal. The question is always what's in its way? From Taylor, a plum-sized brain tumor found with no symptoms in a healthy functional medicine practitioner who had already done Everything right. The immune system had been fighting something it couldn't fully contain for eight to ten years. When she stopped acting in fear, removed the things that were suppressing her immunity, got into metabolic ketosis, and used methylene blue and red light therapy along with molecular hydrogen, she gave her body the environment it needed to fight, and the tumor shrank in half before her surgery. She walked out of the ICU twenty-four hours later. No chemo. No radiation, and that's not a coincidence. That's a body that was finally able to do its job. From Dr. Cole, your labs look fine, but you don't feel fine. You haven't been tested for the right things: TGF-beta-1, C3a, C4a, MSH, blood and urine for mold and mycotoxins, your HLA gene variants that determine how your immune system responds to biotoxins. The person in your house who's reacting while their spouse shows nothing may be saving that spouse's life by finding the mold. Start with the gut, sweat, use binders. The body, given half a chance, will do the work. From Dr. Josh Axe: The single biggest mistake people make when they find out they have a parasite, Lyme disease, or a stealth infection is going straight to the kill. Strengthen first. The immune system is the weapon. If it's depleted when you go to war, you'll lose. Astragalus, reishi, Ashwagandha, and get yourself out of fight or flight mode. Feed the mitochondria, then kill with black walnut, wormwood, and where appropriate, ivermectin. Then bind with clay, chlorella, and zeolites. Then sweat. And do it in that order every time. The diagnosis shouldn't be where the search ends. It should be where the search begins. And that's just science.