The Hidden Truth Behind Toxins, Detoxification & Detox Diets

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, if you're drinking water with a ph of 8 point something or 9 point something, you could be promoting the overgrowth of harmful bacteria.

A lot of times athletes, even though they may appear healthy on the outside, you know they may have a lot of imbalances on the inside.

Detoxification typically takes out a lot of the good stuff along with the bad stuff.

If you think about it, we breathe 12 to 16 times a minute. Multiply that out throughout the day, we're breathing out carbon dioxide and the other toxins that we breathed in that have been delivered to the capillary bed.

Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. We provide you with everything you need to know for total performance, fat loss, recovery, digestion, sleep, brain and hormone optimization. So whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you just want to shed a few pounds, get ready for non run of the mill cutting edge content from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.

My guest today is Dr. Tim Jackson. He is a medical ninja when it comes to nutritional biochemistry, digestive health, methylation and genetic testing, and functional endocrinology, also known as hormone balance. Now, Dr. Tim is not a stranger to BenGreenfieldFitness.com, so there are a couple of articles that he's written. One was called blame the how stealth pathogens are making you fat, tired and brain dead. And also love these titles, Broken gut to Big Butt How a busted digestive system can make you hormonally fat. I'll put a link to both of those articles if you want to read them over in the show notes for this episode. And those show notes are@BenGreenfieldFitness.com drainage well, now Dr. Tim is back with a vengeance. He actually was talking to me about detox in an email exchange that we had, and I pretty much thought that I'd kind of kicked the detox horse to death on this show and thought that I personally knew everything that there was to know about detoxification and detox diets. And then he started dropping these knowledge bombs like xenobiotics and words like depuration, miasm, emunctory, and even drainage, which kind of sounds like it has a pretty big yuck factor. So these are all things that people aren't talking about when it comes to toxins, when it comes to detoxing, detoxification. So I really had to get them on the podcast to open your eyes about what's really happening inside your body when you detox and what you really need to know about detox. So I guarantee that when you finish listening to today's episode, you, you're going to know more about detox than most of your neighbors and the other people that you play trivia with, even though I don't know anyone that actually sits around playing trivia these days. And you're also going to be familiar with a lot of these terms that frankly, most doctors aren't even really familiar with when it comes to what's really going on inside the body. And hopefully through that process, you're going to be able to really figure out how to take care of your body the rest of your life as far as keeping it clean. So, Dr. Tim, thanks for coming on the show, man.

Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure.

Well, you know, I have a lot of notes that you sent over to me about detoxification and toxins, and one of the first things that you start off with is health and how we define health and the importance of, of homeostasis. And I know that most of our listeners know what homeostasis is, but the way that you define it and some of the specifics that you get into are really, really interesting. So can you talk about the definition of health and where homeostasis comes in?

Yeah. So basically, the way I define health, and a lot of my predecessors define health, and some current physicians as well, is they define it as the importance of just maintaining balance. Intern and externally. In breaking down homeostasis, there's really four or five components that we look at.

Homeostasis obviously just means a state of balance. So at any point in time, our bodies can be in a state of homeostasis in a catabolic state, which you don't want. That's where you're breaking down tissue you're unable to heal, repair from injuries, or you can be in an anabolic state, which is typically what happens, you know, after you have a workout, have your post workout shake, you're recovering from the workout and you're synthesizing new proteins, etc. Homeostasis, you know, we always want to try to find that middle ground. So internal stressors and external stressors are kind of tugging away at us from both ends or both sides of the body, trying to pull us out of that state of homeostasis. But the components of homeostasis.

Are you saying that you want to be in a balance of anabolism and catabolism, or are you saying you want to avoid catabolism altogether?

Well, I would say in general you want to avoid catabolism for the most part. Obviously, there is a period when you work out where you're actually in a catabolic state. You're breaking tissue down. That's inevitable. But people with chronic illness, they tend to be in an overall net catabolic state. So when we look at their hormonal balance, their digestive health, their ability to detoxify, that leaves them in a state where they're unable to heal or repair their bodies.

Okay, gotcha. So you were going into some of the things that need to be necessary to be in this state of homeostasis or to not be in a state of constant catabolism.

Right, Exactly. So when we look at some of the components of homeostasis.

Basically they consist of concentration of salts and electrolytes in the body. Electrolytes aren't really a sexy topic like hormones or gut health, but they're incredibly important for membrane traffic, which all that means is getting things in to your cells and getting the bad stuff out of your cells. They also play an important role in maintaining proper ph in the bloodstream. We also look at the volume and the pressure, extracellular fluid, so fluid that's outside of the cell. We look at the ph of the internal environment. And it's important. I want to make a point here about ph. You know, a lot of people talk about acid alkaline diets, these sorts of things. It's like real estate. It's location, location, location. So if you look inside your cells in a part called the lysosome, ph is around one point something.

Because that's basically your cellular trash dump. But if you look in the bloodstream, your ph should be around 7.4. Extreme deviations from that will cause major issues.

Okay, so how are you, or are you measuring ph in the lysosomes vs.ph in the blood vs.ph in the stomach? When you're trying to figure out if someone is in a state of homeostasis, are these things you're actually testing or are these things that you're just kind of like. Well, yeah, I guess that's my question.

Is, are you testing these things for the lysosome? No, that's basically just a factoid from cellular molecular biology that the microbiologists have figured out. But the point being that if that ph was released into the other parts of the cell, that cell would die, and ultimately that tissue would die. As far as testing ph in the blood or in the urine or saliva, you can do that.

There are saliva strips, urine strips, there's some debate about which is more accurate. But in general you want to be more alkaline. Now you can be too alkaline. I see a lot of people using these alkaline water filters, which in my opinion is not a good idea because what happens is the behavior of the bacteria in your gut is very dependent on the PH there. So if you're drinking water with a ph of 8 point something or 9 point something, you could be promoting the overgrowth of harmful bacteria. So in order to balance physical. I typically prefer that people eat more vegetables to balance out their meat consumption. That's really where it's at in terms of balancing blood ph and overall body ph.

Determines. So yeah, ph determines so many things in the body. Our ability to detoxify, our brain chemistry, a lot of things are affected by it. And if you have say some adrenal issues and you're excreting a lot of your electrolytes, that can change the ph. So ph is something that's important and it's also affected by mineral balance. But to kind of finish up the other components of homeostasis, the concentration of oxygen and CO2 is another one. So basically to summarize the concentration of nutrients and waste products. So the good stuff and the bad stuff, the concentration of salts and electrolytes, sodium, potassium, chloride, etc. The pressure in the volume of the extracellular fluid. So what's outside the cell, the PH of the internal environment and the concentration of oxygen and CO2. So when any one of those things is too far to the right or too far to the left, your body has to exert extra energy and resources to try and bring it back into balance.

Who came up with these components of homeostasis? Are these things that alternative medical practitioners like yourself are now using? Are these kind of like your own, your own markers that you've come up with over the years of practicing or where do you find this stuff?

These came from my years of practice, but also from Dr. Dixon, Tom. He's a dentist and a naturopath out in Arizona and he's sort of an expert in biotherapeutic drainage and detoxification.

Does he have like a, like a book or anything like that?

Yeah, if you go to. The company's name is Soroyal. They have some continuing education courses.

How do you spell that?

It's S E R O Y A L. Okay, cool.

I'll put a link to that in the show. Notes for people who are read a phobes and want to go check out or read A Phil's and want to go check out the book?

Absolutely.

Or their website?

Yeah.

Okay. So we have all these components of homeostasis that you want to have imbalance and if they're not, then what happens when it comes to like disease or pathology or whatever?

Yes. So, you know, it definitely predisposes you to all sorts of disorders. And when we talk about pathology, you know, Dr. Tom actually in the course I took described it as a state of adaptive physiology. And what he meant by that was that your body is only attempting to return you to homeostasis. It's not trying to harm you or to become dysfunctional in any way. It's trying to achieve that homeostatic balance and in doing so, returning you to that state of homeostasis. So he also kind of says that if you look at someone's current pathology, it's sort of a window into their past. You know, physical injuries, emotional injuries, toxic exposures, but also their potential for future healing. So, you know, if someone comes to you with stage three pancreatic cancer and you know, they've never taken supplements, they've never exercised, then your chances of healing them are below. But you know, if someone comes to you at stage one, then you have a lot longer, generally, relatively speaking, to help these people return to a state of homeostasis and to work on all those five components of the homeostatic balance.

How many people do you run into who are healthy? Because a lot of our listeners, they don't have stage one cancer. They're not necessarily people you would consider to be unhealthy. They the people who walk around looking pretty good in spandex, frankly. How many people like that, the hard charging athletes do you find have some of these components of homeostasis out of place, like acidic gut environments or improper concentration of salts and electrolytes, nutrient waste product concentration imbalances, things along those lines or have you tested those type of people?

Yeah, a lot actually. When I was doing orthopedic rehab, we had quite a few minor league athletes and some NFL and professional baseball players. And it's amazing, you know, that they perform as well as they do when they're typically so out of balance. You know, some of them are health nuts. But there's another portion that, you know, eats fast food twice a day, goes to bed at three in the morning, and all of those things, you know, obviously add up. We'll get into this more later. But you know, there's basically three stages of a disorder. Energetic imbalance. It would typically be the first One. And if you ask these people with an energetic imbalance if they feel poorly or if they feel bad, they're going to almost always say no. And so an energetic imbalance can be something that can be measured by bioelectrical impedance or EAV testing. You might have heard of different devices like the Zyto, which is a hand cradle, or the Azure system, which is supposed to detect the primary, secondary and tertiary stressors on the body.

I actually haven't heard of any of these. Are these things you would find in a doctor's office or are these things that people can actually purchase for themselves?

People can purchase for themselves and you can actually, you know, if you have a physician who's out of state or far away from you, there are certain software you can download and they can test you that way. It's just the hand cradle that you put your hand into and it detects the primary and secondary and tertiary stressors on the body at that point in time. So these might not be things that you're aware of, but they, you know, it may come up with an active virus or mercury toxicity.

And depending on the software, there's different, you know, versions of the software. Some are more comprehensive than others. But the ones that are more comprehensive not only test what the stressors are on your body, but what remedies may work best for you at that point in time. So, you know, if there's a prescription antiviral or nutraceutical antiviral, you can have all those entered into the system and test to see which one the person would respond best to. And you know, at first I thought it was complete hocus pocus and I still don't use it a ton.

They do sound like the kind of things you see at like a kairo's office where they, I mean, you know, and I totally don't want to shove kairos under the bus because like, you know, some of the most intelligent folks I speak with are chiropractic docs and alternative medical practitioners. But it sounds like one of those things will sometimes have in the office is a way to make money. Put your hand on this and it spits out computer information, but there's actually something to these things, huh?

Yeah. And the way I found out was that I was running all this lab work on people and they would say, oh, by the way, I had a Zyto scan and it showed exactly what you said based on the lab work. So in many cases it was sort of corroborating, you know, what the blood work or the urine hormone test or the stool test said the ZYTO was you know, basically spitting out the same information.

Now is it 100% accurate or foolproof? No, you know a lot of times I still, if something comes up on the ZYTO I tell people to still if it's something serious to have it confirmed via blood work or urine testing etc. The other system is called the ASRA and I believe that's a S Y R A that one I've never used. It's really similar to the ZYTO and you know, measures the stressors on the body but also potential remedies that would work best for you. And if you did a zytoscan today.

And you implemented some of the remedies and then you retest in say a month or six weeks the results are going to be different because your stressors are going to be different.

Interesting. So these are all forms of energetic testing, you're testing the body's energy basically.

Exactly, exactly. So that that's, you know those are sort of the physical energetic imbalance test, also a type of testing called autonomic response testing. It was developed by a doctor named Dietrich Klinghardt and he's an MD, PhD and if you just see someone doing it it typically looks like your normal chiropractic muscle testing but it's actually.

Measuring the autonomic nervous system's response to different vials. So typically the doctor or the practitioner will have an assistant hold the vial and then try to pull your fingers apart and they can test again. Sort of the same thing as the zyto, what your stressors are and also which remedies may work best for you and it's actually incredibly accurate. It was the first test that ever picked up that I had Lyme disease and so you know, at first I brushed it off and then three years later it was confirmed via blood work that I did have it.

I've personally always brushed that stuff off. I mean everything from like these like I think I've actually done this ASRA screen that you were talking about at somebody's office at one point. Like you know I go to so many health expos and stuff I always forget where I've tried what and thought it was totally right, thought it was total woo woo and same with the autonomic response frankly like holding the vials and the muscle testing like that's never seemed to work for me. But what you're saying is that you've actually combined this type of testing with blood testing or with other things to see that it really matches up with more, I guess, quantitative measurements.

Yeah, and I haven't taken the autonomic response testing courses yet, but all the top environmental medicine docs I know, especially mold and Lyme docs, use it and it's crazy accurate. You know, when I first had my test done, I brushed it off. Completely inaccurate. You know, how could this possibly pick up on anything? But then, you know, I would go and have blood tests confirmed or have blood tests done that would confirm exactly what the autonomic response testing says. So on the surface, it looks like your typical applied kinesiology, but it's very, very different than that. And I probably don't do it justice in how I explain it, but Dr. Klinghardt, I think, is a genius. And, you know, it's like anything else. It's not 100% accurate, but I've seen it be incredibly, incredibly accurate. And it obviously cuts down on the cost for the patient or client because they're not having to pay thousands of dollars for blood tests.

Okay. Yeah. And that's what I was going to ask you actually, if like the Zytoscan. Well, you just talked about four different forms of energetic ways that we could test the body. The Zytoscan, the asra, EAV screening, and autonomic response testing. It sounds to me like what you may be suggesting here is we use these as a ways to get clues about the toxic versus non toxic status of the body to then be able to delve more deeply into other types of testing.

Right, exactly. So, you know, you may have eight to 10 issues that you're concerned about. Well, if you do a Zytoscan or the autonomous response testing, it may help narrow those down so then you can go have those blood tests done and, you know, maybe narrowed it down to three or four tests versus eight to ten tests. And you know, there are some people who've had the art testing done and it missed some things, but in general, I think it's incredibly accurate. And actually a colleague of mine had the art testing done and the doc told her that the EMFs in her bedroom were too high and she brushed it off. Three weeks later, the electrical socket caught on fire in the middle of the night. So this sounds like complete hocus pocus type stuff, but.

The way Dr. Klinghardt has developed it over many, many years, almost 30 years, has been pretty incredible. And I'm not an art practitioner, but I just bring that up because that's one way to energetically test the body.

Now what's another type of testing in.

Addition to the energetic after energetic testing?

Basically, if you're in an energetic imbalance, those tests will reveal that a functional imbalance would be the next stage. That's where you have things like chronic fatigue syndrome, where there's no specific blood markers per se. There are some that are correlated with it, but none that specifically define it. But it's still a very, very real and serious disorder. It's not just, like, I worked out too hard, I'm tired. It's a complete neuroendocrine immune disorder. So that would be the next stage. Certain types of blood work could pick up on that.

And.

The final stage, which we call the lesional stage, which is the physical stage, is typically where you see people present with disease. So that's where x rays, MRIs, traditional blood work would pick up on in the functional category. So, you know, you might have some fatigue and stuff like that. We could run blood work to see if you have high viral titers, and that would pick up on it. But, you know, most of the medical academies and organizations don't recognize viral titers as being specific for detecting chronic fatigue syndrome.

Okay.

Even though that may be causing it.

Gotcha. Interesting. So these three levels of imbalance, energetic imbalance, functional imbalance, and lesional imbalance are basically three different areas that people should test for if they want to get a full picture of what's going on inside their body.

Yeah, and I tell people, test, test, test, you know, at least once a year, preferably every six months. I'm sure you've heard of the nutritionist Robert Crayon, who looked great, felt great. He was, you know, a brilliant guy. He hosted Boulder Fest every year, and he didn't do any lab testing because he didn't have any symptoms. And then they found out he had pancreatic cancer, I believe it was, and it was too late. So I tell people, you know, no matter how good you feel, no matter if you have 6% of body fat, you know, do some form of blood testing, even if it's just your basic metabolic panel, vitamin CRP testing at least once a year. You know, that way we can kind of gauge over time where things are headed. Ideally, if people can afford it and their doctor is open to it, I think they should have thyroid and adrenals tested probably once a year, especially if they have any sort of symptoms. But you asked earlier about testing athletes and, you know, how they feel and things like that. I've seen quite a few people, you know, with very low Percentage body fat, who are very muscular and worked out a lot, you know, who had so many imbalances. And a lot of it came from abusing, you know, pre workout supplements or stimulants. Combined with over training, you know, it really led to a state of metabolic derangement, for lack of a better word. So a lot of times athletes, even though they may appear healthy on the outside.

They may have a lot of these imbalances going on the inside. But I know people like yourself, you're a fitness junkie, fitness guru, but you also maintain your health and homeostasis as well.

Yeah, and that's what I want to get into. And really kind of the meat of our discussion is when we find out that there are imbalances in people who maybe do appear healthy on the outside but feel like crap on the inside or even have, like, underlying issues that they're unaware are churning away inside them, potentially causing, as you alluded to, risk for things like cancer or chronic disease in the future. What's going on from a toxin standpoint? I'm curious to hear kind of like how you would define a toxin. And then I think we should probably jump into some of the types of toxins that are out there.

Yeah. So toxins were originally defined as something that were capable of creating or inducing antibody formation from the immune system. So the immune system would recognize it as a foreign body, bind to it, and now an immune response. We've since broadened that definition to something that can be either endogenous. It's produced from our normal cellular metabolism to external toxins that we ingest either through the food supply, the air we breathe, or the water we drink. You know, some of those toxins, endocrine disrupting chemicals is I guess, is kind of the broad heading. But phthalates are very common from plastic BPAs.

You know, which are even on receipts, you know, from a cash register. Heavy metals, mercury, aluminum, lead, arsenic, cadmium.

You know, those are the most common toxins, along with glyphosate or Roundup. You know, there's a lot of research. Dr. Stephanie Sunif at MIT, that's all she researched. We actually recently effects of Roundup.

We recently had her on the podcast talking about vaccinations and glyphosates. So, yeah, fascinating stuff, but yeah, that's a scary one.

Yeah. So, you know, all of those things have the potential to disrupt normal cellular energy production and normal cellular function. If we get into, you know, some of these xenobiotic type things from plastics and other chemicals, pesticides, herbicides et cetera.

May not be recognized by the body very well. And so, you know, it may take technically detoxification to deal with them. So if we can just kind of brush over the difference between detoxification and drainage. Detoxification is where we push the body beyond a normal physiological limit. An example would be IV chelation, where we provoke heavy metals out of your tissues and force them out through the kidneys. Drainage is simply supporting normal physiological action that may have diminished over time, and the gland or organ or tissue or cell may just need to be nourished. So typically drainage would see something that would be done first because you're restoring your normal physiological action. And, you know, that will help to some degree get rid of these endogenous and exogenous toxins. As far as detoxification goes, you know, far infrared saunas, IV therapy like glutathione pushes, IV chelation. All of those are things that would be considered under the detox category because even though they're good for us, they are really putting a stressor on the body. So if you have someone who's very sensitive to supplements, they react to a lot of things, or they're just extremely toxic. You know, maybe they grew up near a power plant or something, or had a lot of toxic exposures to pesticides and herbicides. Then you would want to start them with drainage remedies.

Drainage you can think of as a much gentler form of detox.

So what would be an example if somebody didn't want to start with one of the more advanced detoxification strategies, which I guess just to clarify, because I'm a little bit confused myself in terms of the difference between detoxification and what you're calling drainage. Detoxification would be like one of these detox diets. Would that be like the cayenne pepper water diet? Is detoxification like enemas is detoxification, taking a high fiber supplement or what would be, I guess, a really, really clear example of this, things that would be considered traditional detoxification and not fall under the category of something like drainage or some of these other methods of getting toxins out of the body that you're going to talk about?

Yeah, so detoxification can be anything from dietary changes like you mentioned, to avoiding tobacco, caffeine, et cetera, avoiding drugs to help lower the toxin load, drinking more water, increasing your fiber intake. That's part of detoxification. Because even though we do need a certain amount of fiber, if you're going above and beyond that to try and increase bowel movement frequency, then that would be considered going above a physiological limit. And so you only do them typically for short periods of time. So another classic example is IV chelation. That's something that certainly puts a huge stressor on the body, and you have to do it at the correct time. If you do it in someone whose detox pathways are really messed up, you may only redistribute metals to other areas of the body. And that can just stir up symptoms, reactivate viruses and pathogens, can even drive metals like mercury and aluminum into the brain. So IV chelation is a classic example because, you know, you can only do so many in a certain period of time. And on your off days, you know, you replenish the good minerals. So detoxification typically takes out a lot of the good stuff along with the bad stuff.

Okay.

Drainage, on the other hand, simply supports physiological action, and it only helps to get rid of the bad stuff. It may provide some nutritional support to the organ or tissue, but it's not gonna, you know, completely change things. It's just gonna provide some gentle support. And so that's what you would typically start with prior to using things like IV chelation. Just to give you a quick example, I had a client who was very sensitive to supplements, and her MD wanted her to do a provocation heavy metal test where, you know, if your listeners aren't familiar, you take a chelation agent orally like dmsa, and then collect your urine a few hours later. Well, she did the test, and she reacted extremely poorly to it. And she was basically bedridden for about a month to a month and a half because you really, you know, if you're not moving your bowels daily and you're not staying hydrated with electrolytes and things of that nature, you know, taking a chelation agent, especially if you've had, you know, 40 or 50 or 60 years of your life to accumulate metals, then that's a huge stressor to the kidneys. Wow.

Okay, so basically the takeaway message from this part of what you're saying is if you're going to detox, look into one of these methods of drainage first, that you remove some of these toxic compounds that might accumulate or kind of overwhelm you during a detox.

Right, Exactly. And so, you know, we can kind of go back and forth, but in general, I mean, there's several different drainage remedies out there, but the most famous are the unda compounds spelled U N D A. And those compounds, there's 76 different ones and they're made from plants and they all have different functions and typically they're used in combinations of threes.

Would these be considered like homeopathic remedies? Undas?

Yes, you could consider them homeopathic because there is in some of them metals that have like a 12 times or 12x dilution, etc. So you could consider the unda as homeopathic.

Okay, and can you go into. And we're all nerds, all the listeners, every single one is a propeller hat wearing geek, of course. And we just lost all the listeners that aren't. Can you go into how these things actually work? And I know this could be a little bit detailed, but what they are like what an UNDA number signifies and what a homeopath actually is. I realize that's like a year. That's like a year multi year long medical course. I just asked you, but give us the overview.

Yeah, so generally hemopathy, you know, it comes in different concentrations. You'll see a number and then a letter after it. So 10M for example, would be the strongest. And a homeopathic remedy in general is a diluted form of whatever pathogen or whatever toxin that you're attempting to get rid of. So you know, a lot of people say, oh, homeopathy or homeopathy, you know, is quackery. But it really depends on the company that you're using and you know, how it was formulated. I use a lot of Desiree Biologicals, which they have an md, the head over their company who formulates their compounds. And you know, they're very potent. So as far as homeopathy goes, you know, it's just a diluted form of whatever you're attempting to eradicate. The UNDA numbers, specifically, they were formulated in the 1920s when people were looking for a cure for TB. They're considered a single remedy, but they contain generally a few different things. They have alcohol that helps to deliver.

The plant cells to the site that you're wishing to enhance the drainage of. And they also contain, some of them contain metals and that scares some people because they'll see aluminum and It'll have say 12x after it. But this is not aluminum as in toxic aluminum that you measure on a heavy metal test. This is like one or two particles of aluminum that's in there for a specific reason. The course that I took didn't really go into a huge role, but to give you an example of one is that gold is used in a lot of the UNDA remedies because it's very Important for RNA and DNA synthesis.

And optimizing the terrain of the body.

So what do you mean when you say the terrain of the body? What does that mean?

So the terrain, you know, it could be the gastrointestinal terrain, it could just be the.

Terrain in the blood itself. You know, the ph could be the extracellular matrix, which we kind of skipped over a little bit. But a lot of toxins are stored in the extracellular matrix, which are basically how your cells suspend themselves from the extracellular matrix and how they connect with one another. And so the extracellular matrix is important for storage and nutrient transport and intercellular communication. So, you know, when you dissect a body or if you've ever dissected a cadaver, you'll see all this connective tissue. And really beneath that is the extracellular matrix which organizes these groups of cells ultimately into an organ. And so that extracellular matrix is where a lot of toxins are stored. And so, you know, depending on the unda remedies you use, a lot of them will target this extracellular matrix to help to try and slowly drain out gently the toxins that have accumulated.

Interesting. Okay, gotcha. So these homeopaths, like these undas they're made up of, primarily.

It sounds like some plant based remedies, along with some type of ions derived from minerals like aluminum and gold and things like that.

Exactly, exactly. And a little bit of alcohol to act as a carrier.

That's it.

Like a martini amount of alcohol, but yeah, yeah, exactly like a martini. Detox or drainage.

Okay, so how long would someone use something like these drainage remedies prior to doing a detox, like a traditional, like a food detox or water detox or using like a traditional detox supplement?

Yeah, I think it would probably depend on, you know, their symptoms and their age and level of toxicity. The drainage remedies, a lot of times you use them in combinations of threes. And you may use three, a certain three for the first four weeks, Then you may switch to another grouping of three for the next four to six weeks and continue doing that, depending on the health of the person. If they have cancer, and they've been dealing with that for a while, then obviously supporting these drainage remedies or supporting their organs with drainage remedies is incredibly important. So the unda remedies aren't used in replace of something else, they're just used in addition to it to help facilitate it so you can continue your normal supplementation. But the unda remedies will generally work by opening what's called the emunctories of the body, which are basically how, you know, toxins exit the body.

An emunctory. What is an emunctory?

An emunctory is any organ or part of the body that can give off waste products.

Such as the kidneys, the lungs, or the skin. The primary monctories would be the lungs, the kidneys, the liver, the GI tract and the skin. The secondary amunctories would be the musculoskeletal system, mucous membranes, and mental and emotional changes to give off, you know, emotional stress charges.

So the lungs.

So on a monctre, again, you said the lungs.

So the lungs are something that actually secretes waste products.

Yeah. So, you know, if you think about it, we breathe, you know, 12 to 16 times a minute. You know, if you multiply that out throughout the day, you know, we're breathing out carbon dioxide and potentially other toxins that we've breathed in that have been delivered to the capillary bed. But, you know, they're incredibly important because a lot of people, you know, especially if you're exposed to mold or something of that nature, this may be one route of excretion for mycotoxins, but in general, yeah, the primary monctaries are going to be the lungs, kidneys, GI tract and skin. And the secondary will be the musculoskeletal system, mucous membranes, and mental and emotional changes.

Wow, interesting. So the idea behind drainage is that you are stimulating these lungs, kidney, digestive tract, liver, skin, et cetera, to basically accelerate the detoxification process. Or I guess detoxification would be the wrong word. I guess, like the. What would you call it? The discharge of some of these waste products.

Products, yeah, exactly. So you're attempting to reestablish what should be happening on its own, but over time, toxicity, stress, etcetera, has slowed down the function of this tissue or this organ. So we're attempting to bring it not to supraphysiological levels, but just to a normal physiological level that will allow you to gently begin excreting some of these toxins.

Now, another thing that you mentioned to me prior to our podcast was that in addition to before doing a detoxification protocol, doing drainage, you should also do something you called depuration. I'm not even sure if I'm pronouncing that properly, but what is depuration? What would be examples of that?

Depuration? You can kind of think of that as being grouped in with detoxing, detoxification, but it basically the Definition is to cleanse or purify usually refers to endocrine disrupting chemicals like xenobiotics. So different methods or mechanisms of depuration include massage, blood and fat level monitoring, vitamin and mineral replacement, far infrared sauna, deep heat, dry sauna, chelation, and these often exceed the physiological limits of the body, much like detoxification does. So deperation is basically a term that just more specifically refers to xenobiotics.

Okay, gotcha. So these would be things like, things like doing an infrared sauna or doing like a, like a massage or I guess even would like to foam rolling and things of that nature fall into this category as well.

Yeah, exactly.

And what you're saying is do these type of things, should you do these type of things just as like a daily or a weekly habit, or should you have like this intense period of time each year where you're just like maxing out some of these depuration strategies that you're talking about, like the deep heat and the dry sauna and the infrared and the, and the massage and things like that?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the far infrared sauna, those types of things can be done year round, you know, as long as you're maintaining your electrolyte level, etc. And as long as you can tolerate it, you don't have any problems like Ms. Where you can't control your body temperature. But depending on if you're dealing with a very serious illness like cancer or Lyme disease, you know, that will determine how aggressive and how long you need to be using these different techniques. So you may start off with drainage and you can continue the drainage while you begin the detox phase. So you may do say three to four months of drainage remedies and then you may start say IV chelation, but you can still continue the drainage remedies and it'll actually help facilitate the detox process. So depending on the severity of your illness or issue will determine how many of these methods you need to use, how long you need to use them for, and whether you need to do them a couple times a year or most of the year.

Okay, gotcha. So when you're, I would imagine you're walking your patients through some of the stuff you're not doing, like a 1-1-20 day detox type of thing, it sounds to me like when somebody comes to you and you do some of this functional testing that we talked about, like for example, the energetic testing, the functional testing, the blood testing, etc. It is a process of drainage of depuration and then detoxification that might last, it sounds like several months or up to a year of time to really clean somebody out or to push the reboot button on their body.

Yeah. And you know, even after that, I tell people, especially if they have certain genetic polymorphisms which, you know, we've talked about before, like MTHFR or gstm, which is a polymorphism that affects glutathione levels. If you have those polymorphisms, you know, it's probably more important that you take your round preventatively some extra glutathione, because every time you're exposed to pollution or car exhaust, you're using up your molecules of glutathione. And if you have a polymorphism where the body doesn't make as much as it should, that leaves you with very low levels of glutathione, which basically increases your risk of every disease out there.

Okay, gotcha.

Wow.

Stuff can get really complex, but these are some good resources that you've gone over so far. And I've been taking notes for people who want to read up more on like a Zytoscan, an Asthra scan, EAV screening, autonomic nervous system, this unda homeopathic remedy type of system. The Sea Royal website that you talked about, because I know some docs listening to you may be interested in the continuing medical education that they provide. I'll put a link to all this stuff in the show notes and the thing you can type in for today's show notes, you just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com drain and I'll have all of that over there at that URL. Anything else that you wanted to highlight as important here, Tim, as we wrap.

Up.

Outside of the unda remedies, there's different other types of drainage remedies. One is called gemmotherapies G E M M O therapies. And those are plant stem cells from the bud of the plant, which is the most potent part. And those can be incredibly important because they not only provide nutrition to the organ, but they can also help to support drainage and detoxification. And there's different ones for adrenals. Ribes nigrum would be one, but those are something to consider. Typically you would start with the undas and then progress the gemotherapies. But those are something that people can look into as well as I've seen some pretty good results with those.

Gotcha. Interesting. Those are called Gemma therapies.

Yeah, exactly. G E M O therapist.

Okay, cool. Interesting. So similar to stem cell therapy. Except this is from plant stem cells.

Right? Exactly. Cool.

So that type of thing, like stem cells, a lot of times you'll hear those being injected or used to like speed up recovery rather than being used for drainage and detox. Can you use those same type of things for enhancing recovery or is that a use that would be contraindicated for something like a gemo therapy?

So you're asking can you use like traditional human stem cells to facilitate drainage and detox?

No, I'm saying could you use plant stem cells like after a workout to enhance your recovery from a workout since a stem cell can actually be used for recovery?

Absolutely.

Where do you get stuff like that?

Absolutely. Actually Soroyal also sells that. And actually the remedy I just mentioned, it's Ribes R I B E S nigrum N I G R U M. It supports the adrenals and the HPA axis and that's one that's very good for recovering from exercise.

Yeah, that's like an extract of like current, isn't it? Like current the, the plant or the fruit. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

It's interesting, huh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, we could probably go on all day about all these different types of therapies because I know this is a huge, huge area and you've done a ton of continuing medical education in this. Dr. Tim. I will of course link to your website healyourbody.org in the shownotes. But for me the big takeaway message here is, seems to be that you got to do this stuff in a stepwise fashion. You test, you.

Do the drainage and the depuration, preferably in an intelligent manner, not just throwing homeopaths at your body necessarily. And then as you're transitioning from that, you get into a detox. Like if you really want to properly heal your body or fix your body from a toxic overload, if you've been living in unhealthy or an, you know, over trained lifestyle for a long time and you just need some TLC that this would be a way to do it properly versus just say wandering into Walgreens and buying a bunch of Metamucil.

Right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's a great takeaway.

Interesting. All right, well, cool. So again, if you're listening in, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com drain you can read some of Tim's other articles that have been published@BenGreenLefitness.com visit his website, Knock yourself out. Taking the deep dive down the rabbit hole with a lot of these other resources that I've noted as we've been having our discussion today. And Dr. Tim, thanks so much for coming on the call and sharing this stuff with us.

Thanks so much for having me. It's always a pleasure.

All right, folks, well, this is Ben Greenfield and Tim Jackson signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a great week.

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