Why Detox Fads Fail and What Sustainable Detox Looks Like with Sinclair Kennally

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I had an overwhelming urge to die and I thought I was having a heart attack. Well, suddenly I ended up in the hospital. Is it a heart attack? Ah, no. Is there a tumor? What can we cut out?

Were you having like an anxiety attack?

I thought so, but it wouldn't go away. And it turned out I was living in mold and they never ever check for mold. Toxins love to get stored in the body, deep in the fat tissue, as part of a strategy to keep them away from our vital organs. To save your life.

It has been so frustrating to me to see these cleanses that have basically no protein in them.

The sickest people we see are vegans, and, you know, second to that are vegetarians. Because your liver gets a short-term vacation, and so they think they're healing, but it actually sets you up for greater susceptibility.

Hey, I'm JJ Virgin, PhD dropout— sorry, mom— turned 4-time New York Times bestselling author. As a certified nutrition specialist, Fitness Hall of Famer, and globally recognized leader in health, I'm driven to keep asking the tough questions and use my podcast to simplify the science of health into actionable strategies that help you thrive. Want an ad-free experience? You can now subscribe to my exclusive VIP podcast at subscribe2jj.com for just $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. It's like your daily latte, but better for your health. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on the show. And here's the fun part. When you send me your review, I'll reply to you using my on-demand virtual me. That's right. My team and I created a virtual JJ Virgin packed with my books, speeches, and wisdom so I can personally connect with you. Here's how you do it. Subscribe and leave an honest review of the podcast. Take a screenshot of your review. Text it to 813-565-2627. That's 813-565-2627. 2-7. My virtual JJ will reply directly. And trust me, this will make your day. So subscribe now at SubscribeToJJ.com and text me your review. Let's keep thriving together. Everywhere you look online right now, someone's doing a parasite cleanse or a 7-day juice detox or some other quick fix that promises to reset your system. Now here's the thing, your body already has a detox system and the question isn't whether you can flush toxins out, it's whether your detox pathways are working the way they're supposed to. Well, my guest today, Sinclair Kenley, has become one of the most trusted voices helping people understand what detox really means and what actually works. She's a certified detox specialist and award-winning host of the Detox to Thrive podcast and co-founder of Detox Nation, which is a company devoted to helping people heal from chronic chronic toxicity and gut dysfunction. And what makes Sinclair such a powerful messenger is that this work comes from a lived experience, which you are going to hear all about on this podcast. After years of battling her own mystery illnesses, she discovered that the root cause wasn't lack of willpower or a missing supplement. It was her body's toxic burden. And that discovery changed everything. Now today, she teaches others how to detox safely, effectively, and sustainably, not through extreme cleanses, but through understanding how your body's natural systems actually work. You're gonna walk away from this conversation, first of all, blown away. We really get into it deep, but with a completely different view of what detox really is. And by the way, she also provided a couple cool assessments that will make it easier for you to identify if this is something you need to go deeper and learn more about yourself on. And you'll be able to get those at jjvirgin.com/detox. Sinclair, S-I-N-C-L-A-I-R. I'll be right back with Sinclair.

Stay with me. All right, Sinclair, welcome to Well Beyond 40.

Thank you, it's great to be here.

Well, I would love to start with the obvious, and it would seem that everywhere, Instagram, TikTok, there's all this stuff with like parasites and jars of parasites and like the worm that came out of someone, or I'm doing my green drink cleanses, which, you know, makes me crazy. Why do you think that people are so drawn to these quick fixes? And, you know, what is it? What are they trying to figure out here?

Yeah, you're basically asking me what's gone wrong in the detox world. So it's, it's very hypey, I know, and it's fun to share a gross photo, but detox is a lifestyle, not an event, especially the more malnourished we are. Well, you know, which is we're heading in the wrong direction with food quality right now. We have been for a while. So it's safe to say many of us are malnourished and may not even know it. And of course, the more toxic exposures we have, and that's happening without our consent, food, air, and water. So doing a quick cleanse, a quick detox with, you know, expecting these big fireworks in the toilet and then you're gonna be just fine afterwards is actually really damaging and not safe.

That's what I wanted to know because quite often you'll hear someone say, and I'm like, don't you get what you just said? They go, I'm doing this detox and I feel like crap, like it's a badge of honor. Yes. You know?

Grew up in a bucket in the woods.

But quite often you hear, most often you hear, I feel worse, not better. You know, why is that going on?

Because improper detoxification is pushing too fast. It's actually a retoxification event. And that's actually the default of what's happening in the world right now. First of all, you're already a good detoxer or you'd be dead. So let's just get that straight. Everyone's detoxing all the time. When people attempt to speed speed up that process, they're often leaving crucial things out and it's compromising their safety, but it's also compromising their results. So you're mobilizing a bunch of stuff that's been stored in the tissues 'cause your body couldn't easily excrete these synthetic substances and you're actually just recirculating them instead of excreting them out. So, and that's actually the default, it's called enterohepatic recirculation. So, you know, we can do better.

So you talk about this, that detox is not this 3-day or 7-day or 10-day thing, that really it has to be something that's lifelong. And what's the reframe there for thinking about how we cleanse?

Yeah, well, I think healthy people can do short-term cleanses and every continent has known that's a good idea. We've built it into our season changes throughout the ages, throughout all of our spiritual traditions, this idea of just hitting the reset button when you're already healthy. But when you're malnourished and inflamed and depleted, it's actually important to take a different track that's a little bit longer term. So we start with replenishing, with foundational support, with rethinking food first, of course, like you do. Thank God you're teaching everybody this right now. And really adding energy into the system and supporting drainage before we mobilize toxins out.

You said something really important that I don't know if people would catch. Oh, you said, yeah, it's fine for a healthy person to do a 3-day or 7-day cleanse. I think the big challenge is, number one, I don't know what cleanse even means, but number two, the amount of healthy people— like, I keep looking for, where's the healthy person?

Where are they?

It's just like when they used to have the studies of people who weren't stressed. I go, where are those people? But now you look at it and you go, okay, if 75% of us are overweight or obese, considered that, and we store toxins in our fat. So there's one challenge. Then we have less than 7% of us who are metabolically healthy. We know one of the biggest things toxins do is create more insulin resistance. Like, where are the healthy people? I mean, they really don't exist. Hearing that piece of it, because I love that thread all the way through, what do you think some of the biggest myths are around detox? You know, these are the things that people are throwing money at. They're wasting time, they're wasting money, they're feeling worse doing What are some of those things and what's the truth behind all of them?

It's a great question. Well, one of the top myths that we still encounter is yes, this idea that I can just do some really short-term, you know, event-style exciting stuff over a weekend. Like I saw this big celebrity in the health world advertising for the last couple of months, a 3-day detox to get rid of all of your microtoxins, heavy metals, and mold.

What?

No.

First of all, that's not even a term. Don't use it. Those, those words aren't even real, and that's not safe. So, and you went referenced earlier how toxins love to get stored in the body deep in the fat tissue as part of a strategy to keep them away from our vital organs. That's why they're called obesogens, because your body's trying to pack on extra fat to save your life. So we need to understand that before we go in and design our own detox. And we also want to always be considering working with the body's own strategies instead of trying to override or outsmart the body. So, you know, when you ask for all the healthy people, it's the people who are actively working to understand this now. And so when we think about myth-busting, we think, let's do this long-term. It's not a weekend event anymore. It can't be. You know, the biggest myth I still encounter is, well, my doctor would have told me if toxins were a root cause for me or if I needed to detox. And the truth is, we're still struggling to catch up and connect the thousands of studies that have been done on toxicants and the way they harm the body and getting taught that in the classroom. Right. So there's a big gap there. And depending on the study you see, it takes 17 years to close that gap. Some studies show 40 years. We don't have that kind of time right now. So we need to close that gap ourselves.

I feel like that's always been sequestered too over into this world of environmental medicine when environmental medicine should be in all medicine.

Yeah, I think we all live in an environment of something inside, outside, you know.

Okay. So you said something else that I loved hearing was like, we're obviously able to detoxify, otherwise we would not be here. Yes. No, but you hear about this, you know, we're going to do a kidney detox or a liver detox. So let's just walk through the different roles of the liver, the kidneys, the lymph, bile flow, all of the things that you need to have working for this process and that you're not going to just go do a—

You're not going to do a surgical detox. No, the body's not going to allow that to happen, just so you know. Yeah. So we actually always think about detox in terms of starting with drainage, which is such a gross word because it brings to mind sewers. But that's actually—

I think of it as like zits. Oh, I don't know, my teenage angst coming out.

Yeah, your teenage voice, you know, raising voice.

Uh, yeah, so we think about drainage first. So we want to open drainage from the bottom up. So we want to think about supporting the bowels to move first before pushing detox higher up in the drainage funnel, and then making sure that you're supporting gut motility in the small intestine. Then you can add—

How would you know if you were supporting gut motility in the small intestine?

That's a really good question. Okay, so first of all, drainage matters, and we start from the bottom up because it's like trying to flush a clogged toilet when you're pushing detox. If you can't flush the toilet, it's going to overflow with symptoms that are not necessary to experience. So that's why we obsess about poop first. So you need to be moving your bowels daily before you increase the speed of any detox support. Otherwise, you're going to get this toxemia, right? Because bowel linings are really good at pushing stuff back into the bloodstream.

It's just such a problem in the system.

Yes, exactly.

So we want to make sure we're moving our bowels daily with non-habit-forming support. I like ozonated magnesium for that because it's going to support the colon and draw water into the colon, excess water, so that your colon can finally have this little bit of energy support to unpack those stuck pockets. We all think of the colon as like a beautiful string of pearls. Remember that? Seeing that in like 9th grade science? That's not what an adult's colon looks like. It's like distended pockets of junk. So we need a little bit of support before we try to get the liver to speed up and dump things in there.

Okay, that's a myth. Though, because I still hear this and I'm like, oh, come on. If that was the case, someone who was getting a colonoscopy would lose 20 pounds. 'Cause you still hear that you have all this undigested fecal matter and you're like, could we just blow that one up? Because we're not watching that.

Even though I think that some people do have—

20 pounds?

No, no, no, no. 20 pounds is excessive. Let's be real.

I was like, could you imagine like what would happen with every colonoscopy prep going on?

No, no, no. I think that's extreme for sure. But I think there's a little bit of leftover material that's definitely distorting the microbiome. That's the microbiome. Exactly. So that's kind of the default with the SAD way of eating, you know, Standard American Diet, because we're not getting enough motility support. We also have lots of reasons—

And motility support meaning like bulk, things like fiber or what?

Like fiber. That's a great thing to be thinking about for people who are healthy enough to withstand fiber. But once you get into like big, bacterial overgrowth issues in the small intestine, then suddenly can't even tolerate fiber anymore. And now that's the world that we're living in where you actually have to account for that, which, which is so weird.

Probably why we've had this popularity of the carnivore diet. It's because we have so many people— like, it's a perfect elimination diet when you really look at it. It really is, because someone who's got a lot of gut issues, you take out all that stuff. But again, the diet that's going to be great for you to heal isn't necessarily the long-term.

I also think that people are using carnivore diet as a Band-Aid without understanding what's really going on underneath. When you have fermentation issues, it's not an accident. Your body's not stupid. It could see the overgrowth in the small intestine, but it's there because you don't have enough bile flow. You have too many toxins that are inviting a pathogenic pleomorphic response.

Okay, a pathogenic pleomorphic response for the rest of us.

Yeah, which means your gut— your immune system is allowing bad bugs to transition into their aggressive form. And create an overgrowth because they're really good at holding on to those toxins for you. That doesn't hurt them. They're a little toughies. But the problem is that comes with a cost for the rest of your gut microbiome. Um, it harms your immune system. It comes with all these side effects that are not great. So it's an okay short-term strategy. I understand it. It just points back to how smart your immune system and your body really is. But we have to look at the root cause and support, you know, returning to gut motility and not just say, well, since my gut now overferments, I'll just avoid all carbs forever.

You know, like, how's that gonna go for you?

Okay, so we talked colon, gut motility.

Um, so we want to remember that the migrating motor complex is supported by key vitamins like B1. So many of us are actually deficient in B1 now.

And why would that be?

Because of our food supply issues and also because of certain toxin exposures. So it's harder for us to absorb B1 and utilize it appropriately. So it's a great thing to support your nervous system with B1. You will— yes, you'll get a boost of energy. Um, it also supports gut motility. But we also want to look at a number of micronutrients just to keep that migrating motor complex moving.

And the migrating motor complex is—

it's this beautiful instinct in the small intestine to keep your food moving so that it doesn't over-ferment and rot in your gut. So we want the small intestine to be moving food at the right pace for you to absorb the good stuff and also make sure that the bad bugs don't take over and let the food rot and then they start to feed on it and it gets all weird. So that's like the basics, you know, we could write a whole book on that. But we also wanna remember that to keep food moving at the right pace through the small intestine, you actually need good bile flow. Bile is made in the liver and it's kind of like your motor oil. It's carrying toxins out for you to get deposited out through the bowels, but it's also helping to speed speed up, you know, your food transit to an appropriate pace. So if your motor oil is old and junky because it's not moving out fast enough from the liver and the gallbladder, that means it's going to mess with your transit time in the gut as well.

So how would someone know if they have old junky motor oil?

Yeah, the typical issue is sensitivity to fats, right? Oh, I just need to eat lighter than I used to. I just can't tolerate those heavy butters anymore. You heard that from friends? Right? I just live on salads now. I'm like, well, you actually need, you know, fats for your brain, for your endocrine system. Like, we want to embrace healthy fats in the right amounts, right? And so if you can't tolerate them well, then of course we want to look at the gallbladder before we get a big event, and we want to make sure that we're supporting bile flow.

So really the only way to know would be those kinds of signs that you don't feel good when you eat a fattier meal?

That's an early sign. There's also weird ones like referral shoulder pain, like on the right shoulder side, that's very common. "Oh, I just have this frozen shoulder from that old tennis thing. It came back for some reason all of a sudden." Maybe, but maybe also, you know, go and take a look with your doctor. You know, there are better scans all the time for looking at, you know, your ability to excrete bile, but just an at-home test is how well do you do with a fatty cut of meat? And, you know, are you seeing stress from that show up in the gut afterwards, or, you know, on your skin, or achiness in the joints, like these are some good clues. Also stool floating or even oil floating on the surface of the toilet water means that you're not absorbing it well, which also has downstream implications for bone health. So we need to think about that because if you can't move your bio, it means you're not absorbing fat-soluble vitamins well.

And those important ones for bone are—

A, D, E, K. Also it helps with calcium. Calcium absorption, like, we want that. So this is why we want to obsess about, yes, healthy bile and bile flow and supporting to speed up detox, still keeping in mind your body knows how to do this. We don't want to override it. We want to work with its own strategies so that we can absorb our food well and live to a really healthy, you know, full health lifespan.

Someone saying, okay, I want to become more aware of this, and how would they be able to tell beyond just— you talked a little bit about like breakouts or little, you know, referral pain or aches and joints. Are there some key symptoms that someone's not detoxifying well? And, you know, I would assume this, this is what you probably hear often, is that someone goes to an allopathic physician, gets their labs done because they're tired or whatever else. Their labs are normal, and they're like, I don't know what to do because I don't—

yeah, where do I go from here?

All right, so what happens? What do they do?

Well, that's usually happening in perimenopause or menopause too, right? And a big reason for that is, um, you're losing your estrogen halo that's super anti-inflammatory for the liver. So all the wear and tear that's been building up under the surface suddenly gets revealed, and you get told that's normal for this age. Deal with it. Or maybe if you're lucky, you get an HRT-literate doctor.

So don't be lucky, go get an HRT-literate doctor.

Yeah, you know, exactly right. We don't want to leave this up to fate, but we also want to understand that your hormones have been kind of glossing things over for you, and the wear and tear has still built up in there. So other signs of that wear and tear from toxin overload include, yes, digestive issues where you have more food sensitivities over time, not less. Where your food shows up on your skin, whether it's rashes. It's very common to see things like rosacea, histamine flushes, things like that, as well as those, you know, adult breakouts, which are so frustrating.

Histamine break— flush is—

good question. A histamine flush is really interesting because it can have a number of presentations. Histamine is this— yes, we call it like inflammatory because it is. It's released by your cells to actually help keep you upright. We need it to survive. It's not bad.

It's like cortisol.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. We need it to, you know, have some get up and go, which is good. But if we have too much of it and your liver can't break it down fast enough, then yes, you can have these frustrating symptoms like flushing when you eat the wrong foods, like high histamine foods, migraines after drinking wine the next day. And we start to have that more and more over time. That's a big giveaway, or sleep disruption. Anxiety is a big one. That people don't understand why they're more anxious now than they used to be. You're getting smarter and smarter as you age. You know more and more who you are. You should be feeling more and more emotionally resilient. And if you're being robbed of that, this is a great place to look under the hood. Have I become more histamine sensitive?

And how would someone be able to find that out?

So there are easy basic blood work markers that you can look like, how's, how's my histamine load doing? But there is not a clear diagnosis pathway that's definitive to be like, Oh, histamine sensitivity has now moved into full-blown MCAS.

You know what MCAS is?

Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. And we used to say, oh, like maybe 1 in 20 people has this. And it's just when the mast cells, which are like your alarm cells for your immune system, are going off too often. They're kind of getting stuck in the alarm position. So if you walk into a fragrance section of a shop with all the fake candle smells and you get an instant headache and you get really, angry, like ragey, you know? It's not just like hormonal. That's your mast cells going, oops, intruder alert, this stuff is fake.

Granted, those candles are pretty nasty.

They're really intense. I know. I can't reach you, but—

So it's like the alarm cells getting stuck in the on position.

Now, would a simple thing to do would just be either do like a histamine challenge if you're—

I love you, JJ. Of course you're like, let's make this—

You really want to find out if you've got a histamine problem?

Well, we can start with our histamine checklist, which we can give your listeners right after this. I'm happy to. And we can also do a liver self-assessment because those are great to just do together and those are free.

So easy peasy, you can do them at home. Exactly. Okay, well, let's, let's dig into some of these, uh, toxins, especially like you look at mold. I think we're now getting very aware of things like microplastics and mold and all the different skincare. Like, you've just explained why it's really hitting women over 40 hard, but it sounds like while estrogen's protective, it also might be giving us a false sense of security.

Exactly. That's the estrogen halo. And once it's gone, then you really see. Yeah, exactly.

It's like, I saw someone say this, I go, I agree. It's like, you will, you'll have to rip my estrogen patch off my dead cold body That's how that's going to work.

We're very lucky to live in the age we live in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. I know. I feel so bad for the women that were part of the Women's Health Initiative propaganda. It's just awful.

Right.

What about— because you mentioned obesogens and, you know, my next book is all about fixing your metabolism. Love that. And you look at detox and I'd love you to talk about how, you know, not being a great detoxifier, having a higher total toxic burden can fact can affect your metabolism.

There's no way to separate out your detox organs and your metabolism. It just isn't. So your thyroid is, of course, a part of regulating your metabolism, but your thyroid's the canary in the coal mine too for your toxin exposure. So once your thyroid starts getting sluggish, you're going to realize the rest of your body's hurting too. It just can't tell you that early on. So the frustrating thing about your liver is it's so amazing. Yes, it's like the big workhorse of your detoxification system in the body because it's clearing out your blood and deciding which toxins go out through the kidneys and which toxins go out through the bile and out through the small intestine. But it's not great as an early reporter of stress. So you can be deep into severe liver issues and finally notice something wrong with your liver enzymes. And that's like years into it where you're basically already developing full-on fatty liver disease.

Wow. Is there an early way to tell?

Uh, thyroid. That's why it's the canary in the coal mine.

Yeah.

Fantastic.

But I would assume when you say that it's not gonna be having like the TSH of 5 that the allopathic physician is like, oh my gosh, you have thyroid disease now.

Right.

So what would you be looking at?

Pay attention to your TSH. T4 to T3 ratio. So how efficiently is your liver converting T4 to T3 for you? So if you need to really prop up that part of your thyroid hormones, it's not enough to just take the medication and stop asking questions. We wanna dig in and see, okay, do I have also maybe some digestive issues? Does that pair with the signs of low bile flow? That might be occurring. And also know that a sluggish thyroid is correlated very strongly with a very sluggish sphincter of Oddi. And that is a teeny weeny tiny little trapdoor from your gallbladder to your small intestine. So when your thyroid is sluggish, it doesn't let your sphincter of Oddi let the bile out. And remember, that's your motor oil.

How would one know if they have a sluggish sphincter of Oddi?

You know, all these new problems to worry about. Yeah, you can do an ultrasound. You can also, um, that's, that's easy to do actually with a literate doctor. But again, you have to actually go in and ask for that.

Backing up though, looking at thyroid, what you want to do is get a TSH, get a free T4 and T3. Correct. Look at that T3. If the T3 is— if you've got a normal TSH and your T3 is low, that's the sign that you're not converting well. Correct.

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And so it's— do not listen to a doctor that only wants to test your TSH because it's never a good enough picture of your thyroid anyway, and it's not going to tell you how things are going downstream.

How did you get so into all of this? I'm assuming, you know, it's like you look at most people who've gotten into kind of the other side, they've gotten out of a lot of the mainstream medical Usually there's a story behind it. What's yours?

I got into this the hard way. I got really, really sick to the point where I couldn't run my own practice. And I really thought I had it under control until suddenly I ended up in the hospital. And I remember they were really excited, the hospitalists were, because it was a slow day for them, clearly.

And they were like, ooh, we got a live one here.

Is it a heart attack? Ah, no. Well, maybe we should run an MRI and a CAT scan. Is there a tumor? What can we cut out?

Like, what were your symptoms when you went into the hospital?

I had an overwhelming urge to die, and I thought I was having a heart attack, so I couldn't breathe, and I had— I felt like my heart was exploding out of my chest.

Like an anxiety attack?

I thought so, but it wouldn't go away for hours, and it turned out I was living in mold.

Oh, where were you living at the time?

Portland, the mecca of mold.

Yeah, it sounds like everywhere is a mecca of mold.

I know, right? It's true.

And I just say that because Everyone needs to test for mold and not just once. It's not a one and done.

It is not a one and done.

Come at any time. Like we just, I think I told you Vibrant Labs wanted to do some tests. I'm like, okay, fine, send me tests. I'll do some tests. And I'm looking at my gut test. I go, well, I've always had pristine gut tests. What's going on? Then I did the Total Tox and the cold plunge that was leaking that my husband assured me the the floor was fine. That was just the way the floor was put in and its air pockets. It was like black mold. No. Like, oh boy. Yes.

So it can happen.

I just say this because just 'cause you had your house tested when you moved in doesn't mean that it's stayed that way.

Yeah. Where there's a leak, there's mold. We have to think about that.

Yes.

Yes. And I've had so many clients tell me this later. I showed up in the hospital thinking I was having a heart attack and they never ever check for mold. They just say, "Nothing is wrong with you," and send you home. Now, my guys, because apparently I seemed drastic, I was kept for observation. And I was so sure I was dying because I still could not breathe hours and days later, and they could not figure out why. You know, there was nothing wrong with me. Like, my labs were fine. I actually just walked out of the hospital without even taking the hospital gown off, checking myself out, I had no health insurance. I was so sure it didn't matter because I thought I was going home to die. It's like, if you can't save me, I at least want to die in my own bed. These bills aren't going to apply to me.

Yeah. That's one way to get out of paying them.

And I wish I could tell you it was like a fast epiphany after that. We're so much more mold literate now, but it took us almost 8 years to figure out how to get me all the way well again.

Well, wait a minute. So you, you felt like you were dying. You come back home into the same environment.

I crawl into bed and I do not get out for 6 months. I write my goodbye letters many times. I try to figure out how to commit suicide from that bed.

So then how, like, okay, so you're in bed trying to figure out how to commit suicide in bed. How did you go from that to being like a leading detox expert? Like what's that, like where's the little leap? Like it's like there's a hole there.

Can we fill it?

So it was Michael, you know, Michael was the one who refused to give up on me. He was working double shifts at the hospital. Like, we had just moved in together, by the way. Like, we were still on like the honeymoon.

That ended fast.

Yeah, I know. Poor man.

And he basically refused to let me die.

So—

And what was his background at the time? What was he actually— what was he doing?

He was actually a therapist at the time. And he was working with the criminally insane.

So he would go— Perfect. Oh, yes.

That's why I fit right in.

It can't faze him. Nothing fazes this man.

It's amazing. So he was pulling double shifts at the hospital, working with the criminally insane, trying to keep them from harming the staff and all sorts of things throughout the day, and then doing this in his spare time. And I remember him calling me from a European toxicology conference saying, "I know what's wrong with both of us." Oh, because he was struggling too? He was not well either, but he was— he had more stamina than I did. So he had the big histamine flushes and the skin that would just crack if he ate the wrong food, like instantly. And his gut seemed to just turn on him overnight. He had the teeth grinding where he would wake up every morning with bits of his teeth gone. More teeth.

Yeah.

And he had the world's worst case of parasites I have ever seen to this date. He was pulling out 3-foot-long snakes out of his body and he was extremely underweight.

Did you save them to put them on TikTok?

TikTok was not invented yet, but boy, I sure wish we had. 'Cause I would love to scare those guys. Yeah. And I had so much denial about it. I was watching him do this going, "I'm so glad that's not me." Sucks for you. But yeah, we call them murder parasites.

We think we got them from the murders.

So he had parasites. You both had mold.

Yes. We both had heavy metal exposure, early childhood mold exposure, things like that, that had just been building up under the surface.

But this is like everybody.

This is so normal now.

Very, very important to understand. This is why we are not well. It is like, this is everybody.

Yeah, it just happened to me a little earlier in life than it is happening to other people. But the bill is coming due for all of us, whether it is showing up as ALS or it is showing up early for kiddos as their food allergies and skin conditions and baby eczema. Like, no matter what stage of life, the bill is coming due for us now.

Yeah, Tim's mom died of ALS. She grew up the whole family, everyone worked in coal mines.

Yeah.

Coal mine town.

Yeah.

What did it take for— and the fact that you both were doing this together mentally, physically, like what were the steps that get you out of that hole?

Well, it is one of the reasons why I am so passionate about teaching safe detox that is actually meaningful and useful, because we tried all the internet scams accidentally because we did not know any better. So I got taught, you know, how to like, oh, just Put a little cilantro tincture in and, you know, some chlorella and chug it and you will be fine. But when you have amalgam fillings in still, you are suddenly mobilizing a ton of mercury. And actually, it was the best thing that could have happened to me because I was standing in the kitchen, I took this stupid tincture, I was standing right in front of the knives, and I was overcome with this need to pull out a knife and stab myself in the stomach. And so I ran out of the kitchen. I threw myself onto the couch, and thankfully Michael was home. And again, he has dealt with the Kremlins, and so I cannot scare him. Nothing I could do. And he held me down and tried to help me make sense of what had happened. And I had mobilized so much of the mercury that it activated this very quiet suicidal—

Mad Hatter's disease. Yes.

Yes. And when you are slowly getting poisoned by your own amalgam fillings, it is very subtle, but you have all these— it is very common to have OCD. Social phobias. Like, we have memes about that now, but this is like 100 million Americans have this problem, all the way to suicidal thoughts, big swings of emotion. It's not human to want to harm yourself, right? That is a sign of toxin exposure.

This happened to my son. Um, I don't think you even know this story. He got like this styptic pencil and he was breathing it and chewing on it, and he was going Crazy. We did not know what he was doing. I mean, he got pulling a knife on his dad, the police coming. And then we finally— John saw this and was like, oh. I mean, we had to take him and do— and this is the important piece of this, depending on where you are at. This is why you do not do a week detox online with some green juice, because if you mobilize these things and do not get them out, you make yourself worse, not better. And we had to be very careful working with a really great doctor out in the desert to do this correctly, to get this out, because you have to get it out.

You have to get it, but you have to get it out. Do it slowly.

Yes.

I'm so sorry that happened. I had no idea.

Okay, so I don't want to leave people absolutely freaked out, which is where I think we are at this point in the show.

Well, um, I think we got to remember overwhelm is optional. When Michael was learning all this stuff, he would go through our tiny little mountain town of Ashland, Oregon, and like the little co-op that everybody knows each other when you go in. And he would yell loudly as he walks through the aisles, "Poison! Poison!" In the hippie co-op.

I was like, "Oh God, please do not do that." We do not have to freak ourselves out.

It is just we are forewarned is forearmed. And I love talking about poison because it sets us free. It would— all of this is fixable or it wouldn't even be worth talking about, first of all. And we're going to chip away at it slowly at a pace that's safe and right for us. And that looks different depending on your budget, your family structure, all of that. But there's always one step you can take. Just make sure you're pooping daily and you're protecting your brain for the future. Like there, there's just always something you can do.

Okay, the first step is poop.

The first step is poop.

Pooping daily.

Yes.

What about some other daily or weekly habits? What are some things that people could incorporate in that? Just some of those little things that are going to be helpful to start to move the needle. If this is a lifetime, not a, you know, as you said, this is something we should just incorporate in as a lifestyle, lifetime thing.

Well, there's stuff you can control and stuff you can't. One of the things you can control is your food quality. Within your budget, there's always something you can do to make a nourishing choice for you. So prioritizing clean protein is going to make you more resilient to so much more of these onslaughts.

Because—

And why is that? Because if you don't have the building blocks of life in your body, you will become so much more susceptible to these toxicants because they are harmful to every system of your body. So you must, must, must have clean protein and clean fats.

I'm so glad you said that because it has been so frustrating to me to see these cleanses that have basically, you know, no protein in them.

Well, you know why? Because your liver gets a short-term vacation, and so they think they're healing. So it's the primacy effect of like, oh, I stopped asking my liver to do any work and actually move any bile and actually break down any fats, and I don't have to deal with any proteins, which actually create a lot of work for the liver. So they think they're having a healing response when actually it's a very short anti-inflammatory Band-Aid, but it actually sets you up for greater susceptibility. The sickest people we see— I'm sorry, I always get so much hate mail for this. It's fine. I can take it from you guys. The sickest people we see are vegans. And, you know, second to that are vegetarians because you have higher exposure to herbicides and pesticides now. And you are more susceptible without animal fats protecting you and animal proteins. So is it any animal protein is acceptable? Absolutely not. You know, it's grass-fed, grass-finished. It's clean grass-fed ghee, grass-fed goat butter, all this. Yes, I know it's expensive. Get on the discount lists, vitacost.com, US Wellness Meats. They send out discounts like clockwork. And stock up. Thrive Market is great.

You know, that's what I'm— you know, I love anything on sale. I love a discount.

I do, I do.

So I just watch for everything. It's like sales, you've got me. You had me at sale. Yeah. So, all right, so clean protein with healthy fats. What else?

So don't be afraid of healthy fats in the right amounts because it will force your bile to move. So that is your reason to have an ongoing oil change.

Are people still afraid of fat? Yes. Listen to Dr. Ben Bikman. I love how he says, don't fear fat. I'm like, that's a great quote there.

I'm like, they're still catching up to that and they think, okay, well maybe fat's good for other people, but now I don't tolerate fat well and my doctor said just stay away from fats. That's the worst advice you could give to somebody who has slow moving bile because then you have less reason to work that.

Well, are there supplements you can take that would to support your bile flow?

Absolutely. We want to think about bile builders and bile movers. So there are bitters, right? So we love reincorporating these bitter flavors back in. It is not all gross. I mean, citrus is bitters. Chocolate is a bitter. Coffee is America's favorite bitter.

I am a supertaster though. You know, supertasters are not good with bitter.

Yes, that is true. That is true.

So for my coffee, like French press has to be drank immediately or I cannot drink it. Oh, wow. Yeah. Total baby about bitters.

Oh, you're so fancy.

I know, very precious. Okay, so bitters.

Yeah, our bile movers. So we can take bitters before a meal as a little herbal tincture. You can always find one in your local store for just a few bucks. I like Bitter-X from Quicksilver. That's my favorite. Take that before a meal because it tells your body, oh, we should get ready to digest and move some bile soon. That's a good idea. So we kind of reclaim the bile moving response. For the body with bitters. We also like things like TUDCA because that's the king of bile builders.

I have been doing the TUDCA. Yeah. I have been, yes.

Exciting. Well, TUDCA is really expensive for your body to conjugate, and it's an essential part of bile.

So tell everyone what TUDCA is because—

Tauruso oxy something something. It's the worst name.

No, no, you don't have to say the name. We'll just call it TUDCA. But what does it do?

So it's an essential part of building bile, and when you give it to your body, By the way, this is a great thing to do if you're— anybody in your audience is already missing your gallbladder. Take a cap of Tutka with a meal to support digesting your food and, you know, encouraging greater bile flow for you.

Good, because you'll hear when people are missing their gallbladder, just stop eating those things.

No, no, don't ever eat any eggs again.

Yeah, no. So we actually desperately need those foods even when we're missing a gallbladder. And your liver is amazing. People who are missing their gallbladder can have wonderful lives, but you want to be proactive. So a cap of Tutka with a meal is one of your best lines of defense for that, because not only does it help you, yes, deal with the food at hand, but also encourage more bile flow out of your liver. Because if you're missing your gallbladder, chances are that stagnation is built up in your liver as well. So we want to have reasons to build bile. So your amino acids are your friend. We want to think about— yes, your cholesterol is like an indicator. Are you making enough bile and moving it out fast enough? 'Cause one of your biggest ingredients for bile is cholesterol.

So how would cholesterol, what would we be looking at to know if this is working well or not?

Well, cholesterol is a really big topic that we could spend an hour on just in and of itself. But I would like you to open up your minds to a broader viewpoint of cholesterol first and realize that maybe because most of it is produced in your liver, maybe it's there to help you. So we don't wanna be afraid of it. And who has, ratcheted down the appropriate cholesterol ranges? Could it perhaps be influenced by the pharmaceutical companies? The pharmaceutical companies? Yes. Who benefits from this? I want to ask different questions.

I mean, you dig through the literature, it does not support this.

No, it does not. And like a healthy cholesterol in the '90s versus now, like it is a totally different range. So yes, we have more people on statins, but do we actually have healthier livers, healthier hearts?

Are we healthier people?

Right, exactly. That's what we have to ask. So cholesterol is often elevated to fight infections because, remember, your liver is one of the major seats of your immune system, and cholesterol is a great resource for fighting infections. But also, if your cholesterol is high, are you able to use enough of it and add enough of it to make fresh bile, or is your bile really sluggish and you're having a hard time getting the old bile out? So there's no way to make new bile. So we want amino acids, we want healthy fats, because we want to be able to make fresh bile to move out those old yucky toxins, because that's your body's favorite way to excrete toxins. It's the safest way. And if it's— if your liver isn't able to keep up, then you see things like your skin trying to be a second liver for you, right? With that flushing, with the rosacea, with the acne, with the rashes, the eczema, the psoriasis. Which can all, you know, have amazing, amazing progress made on them if you support your liver.

Are there any supplements that would be good for liver support?

Yeah, I like the, the Tedka. I like the bitters because those are easy at-home things. I like bowel support that's non-habit-forming, like the ozonated magnesium. That can be very gentle. Um, you know, Oxy-Powder is a great one from Global Healing Center, if I can say that.

Or no, you can't say that.

Okay, um, you know, and then Mago 7 is also a nice one, um, or magnesium citrate is a much milder milder form of bowel support. So those are good base level supplements for that. But if we're gonna do deeper work with the liver, we can also consider adding in some aminos, essential aminos, so that we're really laying the foundation for the work. And then we can add in things like, you know, taurine, phosphatidylcholine is a great one. I like Chanca Piedra, but I like using it as a suppository.

What is Chanca Piedra?

Chanca Piedra means stone breaker. So you can actually break up your liver stones. Like, I'm a Virgo, so yes, I counted these over a period of 6 months. I was taking Chanca Piedra as suppositories along with all this liver support and getting out broken up stones. And I kept a tally on my phone.

Wow.

And I have so many photos in my phone of these stones.

Did you post them on TikTok?

Not yet.

Wow, you missed like this opportunity.

I know.

Amazing.

Maybe I'll share with the world. Maybe that's coming next.

Oh my gosh.

Yes. So it's possible to break up all that stuff because gallstone, gall just means bile. And if you have gallstones in your gallbladder, you usually have gallstones in your liver as well. And you can actually break that stuff up. It's not too late. They're usually just made of bile salts, cholesterol.

They would make a great Instagram post. So it serves two purposes.

All right.

I'll add that to my to-do list.

All right. Well, in terms of supporting more than one purpose, Yeah. Let's just talk high level as we tie a bow on this. Supporting detox, how does it impact your overall health?

I don't care about you being perfect at all. I only care about detox because it helps people feel like themselves again. I was never interested in just doing everything right because, oh man, because plastic is terrible and glass is better. This is about feeling like who you really are.

Who's got the freshest thing?

Yeah, I just can't be bothered. Life is hard enough. The only reason why I teach about detox is because I watch people become themselves again. You get your sense of humor back. You get your clarity back mentally, right? Because your mitochondria get to come back online. The brain drains last. So start with your poop, work your way up.

And their brain drains when you sleep, people.

Yes, exactly. So you get your sense of humor back, your creativity, your stamina for life, your energy. We, as we age, should be having a sweeter and sweeter time. Every decade should be sweeter.

It is.

So, well, that's because you detox.

So, yeah.

Yeah. And I do believe this just has to be a lifestyle. Yeah. A short thing done correctly for me is— I've always done as a surprise. You know, we did this for a week.

No, we're going to keep going.

Like, it is literally just, let's get your foot in the water and then we'll jump in.

Michael used to do that to me. We'll just try this for a few days.

That's exactly it. We're just going to eat more protein for just a week here. It'll be fine. Don't ever stop. So, so you mentioned a couple things that we are going to put all of this. We'll put it at jjvirgin.com/sinclair. Um, what were the cool things you said you were giving us?

I want to give you guys a couple of free self-assessments so people know whether or not it's worth it to look deeper in that direction. So Liver Stagnation Self-Assessment, because it's a weird smattering of symptoms that don't seem to relate. So before you even go pay for labs, let's see if it's worth it.

Well, it sounds like the labs may not even tell you.

Correct.

Like, they're, they're late. It sounds like fasting blood glucose. Like, by the time that's elevated, you've been messing things up for a long time.

Yes, exactly.

And then, uh, the histamine self-assessment— have you become more histamine sensitive over time?

Okay.

Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you.

Happy to.

All right, Sinclair, it's been amazing. I appreciate you.

It's a joy talking to you. Thank you for your advocacy for women.

I stand for powerful women, you know.

So today was all about pulling detox out of the crazy fads on TikTok and bringing it back into the science, back into the physiology. And Sinclair did an amazing job really explaining every single thing that goes on. And hopefully I've done a good job pulling it into regular speak too, so everyone understands what's going on. I highly encourage you to take those assessments. I love that she put those together. And here's the reality. Every body wants to heal, right? Your body is set up to heal, but it can't do that if you keep hitting the detox button without getting your pathways working well first. And then of course, it can't do it well if you're continuing to surround yourself with toxins. Remember, real detox is not about doing some crazy juice cleanse. It's really about restoring your body. So super excited about having this grounded, science-backed, and compassionate voice on the show today. And again, to grab her assessments, go to jjvirgin.com/sinclair. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can use to look and feel your best and be built to last. Would you prefer an ad-free experience? Join my VIP podcast at subscribetojj.com for just $4.99 a month. Or $49.99 a year to unlock uninterrupted ad-free access to all the episodes and insights you love. Also, I'd love to connect with you and hear your thoughts on the podcast. Here's how. First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review. Second, take a screenshot of your review. And third, text it to 813-565-2666. 26, 27. That's 813-565-2627. When you do, I'll reply using my brand new Virtual JJ Virgin. It's my on-demand virtual self built from my books, talks, and years of experience so I can interact with you directly. You'll make my day and I can't wait to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next episode. Hey, JJ here, and just a reminder that the Well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness, and nutritional information that's designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid, or delay obtaining medical or health-related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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