The Hidden Infections That Are Making You Sick | Dr. Clement Lee

If you're eating food and drinking water on this Earth, there's a likelihood of you experiencing a parasite or two. For me, personally, I do parasite cleansing about monthly, and it's around the full moon. You get more efficiency with treating for parasites around the full moon. That's the timing when parasites typically reproduce.

Hello, everybody. Welcome Back to the Dr. Joy Kong podcast. So I'm inviting a expert in this area, Dr. Clement Lee. I'm super excited to have him with me today so he can share some, you know, just incredible expertise with you. So, Dr. Lee, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Joy. I'm happy to be here to chat with you here.

Yeah, I've been looking forward to having this conversation. I've heard such wonderful things about you from multiple sources. I've got very smart doctor friends who said, you got to talk to, you know, Clement Lee. He's amazing. He's. He solves all kinds of problems other people have trouble solving. So. So I'm just excited to. To have you to share, you know, your. Your. Your knowledge and, you know, pointing people in the right direction. Let me introduce you a little bit first. So Dr. Lee is a naturopathic physician doctor and the founder of Optimal Health and Wellness. It's a comprehensive clinic in Pasadena, California, where he uses integrative approaches to offer best possible care for his patients. And he graduated from UC Irvine in 2005 and then went on to receive his Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from Southwest College of Naturopathic medicine in Arizona. Dr. Lee tries to improve the care of his patients by looking at the real underlying causes that are really not looked at by conventional medicine. So, Dr. Lee, thank you so much for all the great work you've done. I know you've helped, you know, a lot of people. You're a very hard worker. So I want to talk about the subject of environmental toxicities, which include various hidden infections, because I think a lot of people are not aware of it very much. And these days, we've come to know that even a lot of the chronic diseases that previously were not linked to infections, such as various neurodegenerative conditions, are linked to. To hidden infections. So can you speak a little bit to that?

Sure. Well, I see a lot of patients with multiple issues, but what I see a lot is chronic autoimmune conditions and also neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's and dementia. But going back to the autoimmune conditions, I see a lot of them having various triggers related to infections. For example, rheumatoid arthritis, usually. It could be a bacterial trigger. Ms. Could be also bacterial, viral, sometimes fungal as well. So when we see these cases, you know, we just get our radar widened just to look at, to see if there are these hidden infections as priming agents for the immune system to act in that way. And so that's kind of what we try to do when we first meet with patients is if they haven't had a appropriate diagnosis of their underlying issues, we help them to figure that out because they may have their conventional diagnosis, which is more of a description of their symptoms. But we got to figure out why, because you can know what you got, but if you don't know why you got it, you can't really undo it that easily. So for us, we have to look back and see if there are various infection drivers and, or their internal ecosystem, their environments, if that's also playing a role in immune suppression or immune dysregulation. And so then besides the infections, then you can go into the route of environmental toxins such as heavy metals, chemicals, pesticides, even mycotoxins. So mold toxins, and then other things like EMFs and emotional baggage too. Those are all things that tie in for why the immune system might be burdened because you have so many insults coming from different angles.

So which are the patients that you actually test for, hidden infections or environmental toxicities?

Pretty much everybody that comes through the door in various ways. So someone who comes in with like just a regular GI concern, obviously there's GI disruption and that could be dysbiosis. So there could be wrong type of bacteria or pathogenic bacteria or parasites that are hiding in their gut that cause them to have their bloating or indigestion or constipation, stuff like that. So then some people, somebody like that would have, or if you have chronic fatigue, you know, there's usually something that's draining you. And sometimes we might want to rule out if there's a viral insult and, or bacterial issue and sometimes parasitic issue. But someone who's healthy, they may not exhibit any symptoms, but they could have, you know, slightly off like white blood cells or high cholesterol even those things have some minor impact on labs. And then symptomatically just might have a little bit of brain fog fatigue or afternoon tiredness sometimes they might have some low grade infections too. I mean, it's hard to gauge it from seeing somebody. But with our questionnaire that we ask patients, it usually gives us an idea that there's something to look for because we're Living organisms, and we're host to many, many different things. Some are synergistic, some are not. And if our immune system's working at the highest level, it should be able to defend this on a regular basis. But sometimes you can't avoid eating out or eating sushi, drinking water from nature. You get, know, unwanted things coming in, you know, so that they're there and you're not actively trying to evict them or your immune system hasn't evicted them, then they're gonna just hang out with you for a long period of time.

Yeah.

So it starts manifesting itself, maybe not now, but maybe five, 10 years later down the road because the inflammation just starts ramping up and building up.

I see. So how many people do you think actually have problematic infestation of different bacteria, viruses, fungus? Is there an idea of how many people are adversely affected?

Well, adversely affected. Anybody who probably exhibits with symptoms beyond feeling optimal, there's some level of, you know, I would say an infection of some sort. I mean, we all have a burden of viruses. So from day one when we're birthed, there's accumulation of viral particles that hang out in us. And like, for example, chickenpox and shingles and the common cold, they're going to be in our systems. And if our immune system is doing its job, you never have any symptoms. Maybe have a cold once in a while. So those are like, minor things in terms of viral things. So they're not going to leave us. But if your immune system is doing the job, then that's. That covers everything. Bacterial stuff. You know, sometimes you might get a, you know, a cough or, you know, congestion or mucus and stuff like that. So it's. It's there. But again, the immune system should take over and cover that. And then, you know, candida is also a very common issue that people deal with. Some people never have any symptoms. Some people get a yeast infection here and there or UTI here and there. But those are signs of, you know, a little bit of bacterial or fungal overgrowth. So we're not immune to these things. I mean, it's not gonna ever not have these things.

It's a constant tug of war.

They're there. This constant tug of war. Yeah. And then. And the other, like, thing that we don't talk too much about in the modern society is parasitic infections. Because if you're eating food and drinking water on this earth, there's a likelihood of you experiencing a parasite or two. It may not manifest into actual symptoms, but you might ingest a parasite or you know, eggs of parasites and they can just hang out in your system. And given opportunistic environments, like when you're under stress or you have increased toxicities, they might start becoming more active and then the symptoms can be a little bit more apparent in terms of GI discomfort, you know, brain fog, fatigue and then immune regulation or dysregulation at that point. But, or some people definitely know like when they went traveling abroad and they ate something and they came back and never felt the same afterwards, or the poops are never the same afterwards, then those are signs that you know, parasites are there. But just thinking about that is you can't avoid the parasites outright from whatever you eat. So in my philosophy of treatment is we can prophylactically treat with anti parasitic herbs or teas or medications annually or biannually or just depends on frequency that you want. But some indigenous cultures practice that as a normal ritual where they spend certain time of the year where they purge for parasites and, and then they maintain, you know, freedom in their gut. You know, it's some cultures, it's, it's, it's really available like you know, a lot of the, some of the South American countries you can buy parasite medications, you know, just off the counter. You know, you don't have to see a doctor because they just know that it's just, you know, you need it. So it's pretty crazy how in the US like we don't really talk too much about this and it's kind of overlooked.

Have you tried those yourself or on your patients? Were they able to see the parasites?

Some, some you do, some you don't. I mean like most of the parasites we think about are like worms and stuff, but majority of the parasites are like amoebas or are the single cell organisms. So they're not going to be visible to the naked eye. So if you, if you poop anything out, you may or might not notice anything. You might see like colonies of them which are like long stringy mucosae like things. So those are the biofilm and the structures that they've been existing in. But you're not likely to typically see like single cells at a time. And then some rare cases, you know, people do have like actual worms coming out. You know, if they have like the helmet types of parasites, but those are a little less common. But most people may have like these single cell type of organisms just floating around. You can't avoid them. But you know, the problem is modern testing also sucks for this too. So if you Go to your regular gi. You know, nine times out of ten you're not going to find anything. You know, if you're really lucky, you might show up with something here and there, but it's hit or miss. And then, you know, sometimes the treatments may not be long enough to actually get through the whole life cycle of parasite. So it's interesting, you know, like. Well, for me personally, I do parasite cleansing about monthly. I mean just there's, there's a timing to do it and surround the full moon. You get more efficiency with treating for parasites around the full moon. Oh really?

Why is that?

Yeah, because that's the timing when parasites typically reproduce. So they actually go through life cycles. And with the influence of the moon on our bodies, our bodies also create a little bit more endorphins around that time. Then it is a signal for the parasites to start reproducing at that period of time.

Interesting.

That's where they're more vulnerable too. So you can also knock a little more out. But if you did, just relate it to how the whole world behaves around the full moon. There's higher incidences of crime and people are just a little off around the full moon because a lot of that's just being driven by what's going on in us. So if you can see like there's dogs that are howling and animals because there's, there's parasites that are like just triggering, you know, various neurological or emotional activities.

You know, it's funny, I worked in a psych emergency room for 11 years and we were always talking about oh, watch out tonight. You know, we're, we're full moon. And it seems like, you know, we're joking around that that was, you know, myth. But. Yeah, but there, there's. It's interesting that you are saying that. There's definitely truth to it.

It makes sense. I mean if you ever try like treating for it. Some people, they feel after they clear it out, the full moons that come around, they just feel normal. You know, they're not angry at the partner anymore. They're not blowing up for no apparent reason. You know.

Is there any parasite cleanse that you can recommend to the listeners?

Yeah, there's, there's one through Cellcore which we sell in our office. It's called the full moon protocol.

Oh really?

Which involves. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. I mean they make it very easy. They have instructions to go with it. But you take three different anti parasitic herbal combinations and then a binder. So you're just grabbing hold of the waste that can occur when these microorganisms die off. But you can take it for about three days to seven days around the full moon. And they have different dosing strategies depending on the levels that you want to treat or the intensity that you want to go for. So that's good for somebody like off the counter to start with that may want to purge a little bit. There's more aggressive ones which we combine with these herbs and other herbs along with prescription anti parasitics. So that is my typical go to like I take this myself, I to do the full moon protocol along with various biofilm disruptors and anti parasitic medications that just make sure that the house is clean.

And then what do you feel after you go through this? Three to seven days of purge.

If you haven't done it before, you can probably feel pretty poorly because you're evicting thing. And once you've cleaned it out, it doesn't feel like anything because there's not much to clear out. But initially when people go through it, they can get headaches, body aches, chills, changes in their gi, they can get constipated, bloated, diarrhea, any variation of those. And then sometimes they actually get anxiety or sometimes nightmares. Depends on what's being released.

Because when you're saying if there's not much to release then you're not going to feel a whole lot. But if there's definitely parasites and you.

Will feel it can be pretty intense. Yeah. And I've experimented with patients without just herbs with actually prescription anti parasites. Those are a bit harder or stronger on the body so they work faster. So there's a bit of increased that we'll call her reaction. So they can develop after that.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. You know the question about. Well, there are two big areas that I want to, you know, talk briefly about. One is Lyme and one is mold. So I mean Lyme is a very challenging condition for, for any medical providers to treat. What is your approach like how do you attack this, this very tricky organism?

Well, Lyme, one of the hallmarks of Lyme is it causes immune dysfunction. So your immune system is not capable of defending itself very effectively. But if you take a step back and this is what I've noticed in a lot of my Lyme patients and kind of in, in the more progressive Lyme community is that there's usually a priming effect where Lyme actually triggers things. But the environment of the body creates susceptibility or something in the environment of the body create a susceptibility for People to have worsening Lyme symptoms. And if you take it back, it could have been actually having mold in the body first. So mold could have been present. And some people may not have any major symptoms. But once you bring an immune priming event like Lyme, then a lot of symptoms can develop afterwards because some people can get bit by a tick and not never have any issues. And then some people take bed to get by, bit by a tick, and then they're bedridden afterwards. So what's the difference between those? Some might be the genetics, but a lot of what I see is just the environmental buildup that might have gotten to the point where their immune system was kind of on a teeter totter, and then Lyme brings it over the edge. So that's what I've seen. And some patients, they could overcome Lyme with just antibiotics, and they do feel better and some don't. And then you figure out, why don't those patients get better? But if they've never looked at mold as an underlying issue, then you're not getting to some of the root of the issues. Because, for example, mold is a major immunosuppressor, so it's going to suppress your. Your natural immunity. So you're not fighting things passively. So you might get better if you take antibiotics, but because antibiotics are doing the killing for you. But once antibiotics are gone, if the symptoms come back, your immune system should be the one that's defending you passively after that, but it could still be suppressed by something like mold. So that's kind of the approach I take is I rounded out because there's also other factors like parasites and heavy metals and other environmental toxins and emotional stressors that are basically forcing immune system to divert its attention. So you're focusing on so many factors that you can't really fight. You know, the thing in front of you. We want to make sure that we can clear those things out. And that way the body has more, you know, resources and attention to be able to deal with Lyme or any other co infections that come with it, too.

You mentioned something similar with COVID that, you know, people respond to Covid very differently. So why do some people, I mean, die and some others don't even notice, you know, symptoms?

Yeah, so a lot of it begins with their internal ecosystem. So if you're already unhealthy to begin with, you know, just having high blood sugar or high inflammation, you know, when Covid hits you, your inflammation is just through the roof. Their body can't handle it, then you might die. But those who may not have high inflammation but might have a suppression of their immune response, for example, people that have like long Covid afterwards, there's a correlation that they might have something like mold present that's kind of get their immune system on the, on the edge where they may not have any symptoms yet, but once a priming event, again like Covid hits, then their body can't recover afterwards. So in those situations, the immune regulation is important to address the underlying cause so that, that way they can get better.

You know, how do you address then like what, what is your approach? I assume nowadays long Covid is more prevalent than Lyme disease. I'm not sure, I'm not sure how the.

It's. Yeah, I'm not sure the demographics, but it's something that a lot of people are dealing with in some way, shape or form. So I mean, from a infection standpoint, and we try to address, to see if there's any residual infections of the virus still persisting or inflammation created from the virus that's still persisting. So a couple of approaches that we've taken that actually have cured patients with long Covid is antiviral approaches using some of our IV therapy. So like we, we do like a laser IV that enhances the antiviral effects in with the medications that we use or the supplements that we use. The technique is called photodynamic therapy. We do an IV that contains methylene blue, riboflavin, silver and ozone, and then we chase it with laser afterwards. So the effect of what that does is the riboflavin and the methylene blue, they're uptaken by the viruses or other pathogens that are hanging out in the system. So is soda, silver and ozone as well too. But the riboflavin has a unique effect where it's actually going into the DNA of the virus and bacteria as well too. So it's contained there. The thing with riboflavin is very light sensitive. So when you shine light to that organism afterwards, it's forced to take in more light. They can tolerate and cause oxidative stress in the presence of oxygen in tissues. So it's basically oxidizing the DNA structure that's in that virus with the light. So you can selectively destroy viruses, parasites, bacteria in the bloodstream by doing this laser IV treatment.

So your own cells do not uptake them.

The own cells do, but they have antioxidant mechanisms to defend against that, you know, oxidative stress. So there's really not much Damage that occurs to our cells. But bacterial cells and viral cells just can't handle that much energy that goes in. The other benefit is our cells are receptive of light. So the different frequency of your light actually turn on various mitochondrial functions. So we have photoreceptors for the light too. So that's why we can actually use this light to our advantage.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I. I've come to really respect and love energy medicine. And then you're using it beautifully. You know, combine light with different molecules and you can really tailor the treatment. It's, it's. Yeah, it's really awesome. So the methylene blue do the same things that they.

Yes. So sim. Similarly, so methylene blue, it's uptaken and it's also receptive to red light. So blue methylene blue enhances the absorption of red light. And so bacterial cell walls, they absorb the methylene blue and then when you shine it in, then they're forced to absorb more light and oxidative triggers and then they start to degrade as a result. So you're really selectively killing off these unwanted organisms very quickly in the presence of light. So going back to the long Covid in some of the cases that we've had with the patients, that was the way that they got better is that we basically cleared out any residual potentially viral and or other hidden infections from that. Just the IV treatments.

Hmm. Okay. And I know of course both sober and ozone are incredibly powerful. I've done podcasts just talking about sober and several two podcasts just about ozone therapy. So both are really powerful antimicrobial therapies.

They're all synergistic. So if you combine them together, you get multiple benefits on regulating the immune system and the anti effective approaches as well too.

Yeah, that's really awesome. So how long is one session this IV infusion?

This combination is probably like two to three hours because there's the IV laser part is about an hour because we go through different frequencies of color and then the other nutrients, IVs depending on what we do. If it's without ozone, it's usually hour shorter. But if we do the other things, it stacks up to about average about three hours or so.

I see. How are you doing the ozone?

We do the major autohemotherapy. Right now we're doing single pass, which I find, which is all we need in the presence of this light. Although like we're planning on getting the IBU technique, so.

Oh yeah.

Having you know, full, full circulation, eventually we just need more Space and more hands on, hands on deck. Because right now our staff are maximized with you know, all these different IVs that we got.

I see.

But for the meantime, the single pass ozone works well enough because we, we typically combine it with the light to make it more effective.

Wow. So how many sessions do people usually need?

Well, it always depends on what we're treating. You know, for the example of some of my long COVID patients, they, they needed maybe like three to six treatments to see some significant changes in their overall presentation. But those like that are dealing with Lyme or other more chronic infections, they may take a bit more, but it does make a difference like where they people have gone through like you know, antibiotics and know how they can respond. This one changes the game because first of all it's not, not toxic. Like you're not hurting anything. You're not actually harming the gut at all with the, with any compared to antibiotics. But you get the antimicrobial effects and the restoration of your mitochondria and other cells with the light. So you're actually tonifying the system as well as ridding it of pathogens.

And you use the same regimen for Lyme as well.

Similar. Yeah, you can use the, the same one works across the board for a lot of different infections. And then we're trying a couple other ones that also enhance. So you can also add like high dose vitamin C or now there's a new one which is cbd. It's. It's really neat that all these things have different antimicrobial effects for and also immune regulating effects too. And artemisin is another one too. Like artemisinin is anti parasit parasitic and immune regulating too. So there's some interesting things. But yeah, there's a variation of these. So I usually customize it depending on the patient. There's not like one size fits all for everybody.

Yeah. So now we come to the issue of mold, which is highly prevalent. How many homes do you think are affected by mold?

I would have to say, I mean this is just my guess, but probably from some of, some of the ways that our houses are built. Like 80, 80% of the houses or more might have some issue with mold. It can be minor, like in your bathroom you can see a little bit. Or it could be more major that that you actually see visible molds like growing. But the problem is like the building materials are cardboard and wood which are susceptible to mold growth. You know, if you get, if it gets wet, then you have a chance of mold growing really Quickly, because of the type of organic material that our houses are made of. And then also the way our houses are built with airtightness, so it can trap moisture in various parts of the house, that if the airflow is not working properly, then you end up getting condensation in various places, which then facilitate the growth of mold eventually. So it's tricky, and I'm not a building scientist, but I've studied a little bit of this just from, unfortunately, having my patients have to go through this. It's tricky because not all mold inspectors are good at looking at these things. And the testing techniques for mold are not the best either. I mean, there's not one size fits all for the best testing for the house, which then can lead to patients not knowing that they have mold. And so that can be tricky.

What do you do in your clinic?

Well, we check the patients. So we. We do. We check patients for the mold. So for. For testing the body, we typically start off with either urinary mycotoxins and. Or antibodies for mycotoxins. So I've found that more recently, antibodies and mycotoxins is a little bit more accurate on giving you a better interpretation of your immune systems having to deal with mold or not, because urinary mycotoxins, you know, people compete out, and they may not have an immune response if their body's detoxing well, and some people that are really sick, their detoxification ability is not so good, so they're not excreting it all the way through. So they can have false negatives, you know, on their urinary mycotoxin test. So not everybody's capable of excreting. Those are the ones that are building up of the mycotoxins inside. So then the antibody test typically is a better option, because if you have a reasonably okay immune system, and if you're not complete, like, immune system is not creating any antibodies at all, you'll probably have some type of response there.

So we've seen in people the same household, same, you know, problems with mold in the building. One member is debilitated, the other one is walking around as if there's nothing has happened. So is urinary excretion a large part of how, you know, the difference between these people are, like, what kind of factors affect how we process it?

Well, one is urinary excretion, which is the one that we can actually test for, but the other one is hepatobiliary excretion via your liver, gallbladder, and your stools. So that, that is a very important part, but it's not really easily testable. You can't really test the mycotoxin, the stool, so you can't really tell if someone's releasing things better or not. And there's also like a genetic component if their immune system is more easily primed in the response to mold as well. So that's why some people are, are able to walk around and deal with mold, and some people are not, you know, so some people will then have more severe symptoms as a result of mold because their body just may not be clearing the toxins as easily or their immune system is again primed and now they're creating an, like an autoimmune or inflammatory condition against themselves.

Do you find mold infections very difficult to treat or do you, you know, when you see them, they're like, oh, I got this, I'll get rid of it for you.

It's a mixed bag because there's some that are very straightforward. Like they respond well to antifungals, they detox well, and it's just easy breezy. And also they also are able to clear out the mold in their house. You know, they have either good inspection or very simple exposure where they could just change out like a windowsill or, or clean up the, the leaves in their yard that are blowing dust into their house. So those could be the simple cases, but there's very difficult ones because then mold can turn into a condition called chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome, sers, which is a multi level inflammatory response syndrome. And their immune system is then prime. So it affects multiple organ systems. And so it's not as simple as just killing the mold and detoxing, because that will get a good chunk of the symptoms cleared out. But sometimes other, you know, processes need to be managed, such as their histamine response, some of the neurological aspects. And sometimes the limbic system definitely needs to be rebooted too, because the, the brain will remember like the trauma from mold and that experience and then gets them stuck into a fight or flight mode all the time. And it's hard to heal when you're in a fight or flight.

Psychological. This is a physiological fight and flight.

Yeah, physiological fight or flight. So then when you're in that, you know, fight orf flight state, your, you know, your parasympathetic nervous system is, you know, suppressed or it's not functioning as well. So then you're already not detoxing well, you're not eliminating pooping that well. And then your, you know, your hormones are on high Alert or your cortisol is through the roof. So all these things get thrown off, you know, and that's where it gets tricky, because you have to manage those things. And some of those patients are not likely to be able to tolerate the antifungal medications that are needed to evict the mold, too. So you got to kind of work in a balance of doing what you can and then working on at least the foundation, which is the detoxification pathways. But sometimes the nervous system has to be rebooted and hormones have to be managed or set, and then definitely managing the histamine response, because that's the biggest thing that'll drive a lot of symptoms for people.

Hmm. Well, that sounds like a lot. The hormones and histamine. Okay, so you got a lot of work cut out for you. How do you modulate the histamine response?

Well, the. The simple thing is to use antihistamine, you know, supplements or medications. I mean, those are all nice band aids with symptoms peptides I. I found really effective, like the KPV peptide you're familiar with. That one's a really good mast cell, you know, stabilizing it also helps with the immune system a bit. But the thing is, like, those are all just managing the symptoms. But really treating the root of why the body's creating a lot of histamine is where it gets into more of the, what called the cell danger response, which is another kind of pathway which. Where the cells start creating a lot of histamine to defend yourself against the mold or other infections or perceived infections, too. So a lot of that goes back to, like, stabilizing the cell membranes. So if you can stabilize and protect the cell membranes, they're not going to have so much of these insults that are triggering then the release of histamine. So that's one of the ways of doing it. The other way is also working on the limbic system, making the body feel safe. You know, if the body feels safer, it doesn't have to then create these defensive mechanisms to defend against targets that are known or unknown.

How do you work on the limbic system?

I don't personally do any of the work on patients, although I do recommend lots of ways of doing it. But there's quite a few limbic system programs that I Recommend, such as DNRs or Gupta or Primal Trust or like meditation, guided meditation work. And then also sometimes they use, you know, recommend the use of psychedelics like ketamine or mushrooms, microdosing mushrooms, as a way to facilitate the brain neuroplasticity to take place. And then also the use of their own, like, conscious or subconscious meditation work to get them, you know, to let the body know that they can repair themselves.

Okay, yeah, that sounds, yeah.

And sometimes, you know, there's hypnotherapy, there's like, there's other type of techniques, like a neuro emotional technique or like emotional release techniques. These are all good ways of kind of letting the body feel safe again. So that, that way your, your immune system is helping you out. Like you're not fight or flight all the time. You, you have a lot more reserves in, in tolerating some of the stressors that are coming physiologically.

That's so interesting because people don't talk about mold toxicity and, and resetting the limbic system. So this is, you know, very interesting. So when a patient comes in with all kinds of strange symptoms, you, you definitely, you're checking their mycotoxins for, for fungal infections, and also you're checking all kinds of bacterial and viral infections at the same time.

It depends on their budget and also the symptomology. But yeah, I do. In a perfect world, we'll try to check out Lyme, other infections, bacterial, parasitic, heavy metals, environmental toxins, and mold toxins or mycotoxins, and then also various testing on the immune system response to these things. So yeah, in the perfect world, if we test everything, that's what we would try to find out. Because this gives you more information of what has affected the immune system. Because it could be any number of these things. It could be a combination of them all, depending on how severe the cases are.

And as far as environmental toxins, what can people do? I mean, besides not to include these toxins in their, you know, in, in their daily, you know, consumption of food or their, you know, use of, you know, household or cosmetic products. What can they do to detox?

Supplements are always good. Like there's various, like, nutrients or the simple one is magnesium. Most people are magnesium deficient. You know, magnesium helps a lot with some of your detox pathways. But I typically recommend, if you're not eating already healthy and clean, definitely do that. But like a good multivitamin because it'll have like substrates and micronutrients and that are catalysts for some of your basic and enzymatic functions. So like a multivitamin and then supplements of like fish oil can be helpful for some people just to have some essential fatty acids which help with some of the cell membrane repair. But I think the more specific supplements I'm Recommending now that are good for probably everybody in the long run are things like phosphatidylcholine. And actually there's a new product I love, it's called fatty 15. They're just really great cell membrane stabilizing cell memory repairing products because if you have any of these toxins, they're gonna eventually punch holes into your cell walls and then migrate into the cells and eventually migrate into your mitochondria, damaging mitochondria and eventually sometimes finding themselves into actually DNA. So if you can stabilize the cell wall and make it less permeable to things or actually repair it after the damage has taken place, your cells can have the stability in the long run to defend against aging and degeneration. So that's kind of a more of an essential nutrient that people should have is those phospholipids or cell membrane supporting nutrients because our cells need the replacement, you know, because if you have, you know, damaged wall and you don't repair it, you're going to have holes indefinitely. And same thing with the cell, you know, if you don't have the material available to repair those things, then you'll eat it. So the thing about phosphatidylcholine is it does help you in general with detoxification on a regular basis. So you know, the liver and gallbladder use it, you know, in, in those, some of the clearance abilities. So that's one of the things that you can do that's pretty simple. But there's very specific herbs, you know, like milk thistle or other like liver supporting nutrients that you can also add in. But I say this, the simplest thing for anybody to probably maintain on is some type of phospholipid product. And then if you can get fatty 15, I think everybody would benefit with that too.

I see. What do you think of sauna as a way to detox?

Yeah. So sauna is great if you have access to it. So not everybody has access to it. But if you can get yourself to sweat by other means, that's also good too because you know, you just want to work on like your basic elimination pathway. So the body has these naturally designed. Even when you're sweating, you're moving stuff out through the skin or you're peeing and pooping. So those are things like water is overlooked too. But water, if you're not drinking enough water, you're not filtering out a lot of this, you know, waste through that, those means. So if you, if you have adequate hydration and then incorporate the sauna Usage, you'll clear out some of these toxins a little bit faster. But yeah, it's, it's in part of the protocols I recommend if you want to clear out mold toxins faster or other chemical toxins faster. Sauna does speed that up a bit.

Do you use nitric oxide in your practice? I'm curious.

Yes, I do, yeah.

Because there's, you know, I've, I had Dr. Nathan Bryan on the show as well, and he talked about antimicrobial properties of the nitric oxide. How do you use it?

I use his products, actually. I use the Neo 40 quite a bit in my, my practice. I've used some of his other products. But Neo40 is kind of a common standard product that I use of his, which is great. I mean, it's, it's just a nitric oxide, you know, releasing supplement. So it helps the body to generate more nitric oxide. And usually like, the reason why I prescribe it for patients is most of the patients that we see, they have poor circulation because of some of these hidden infections to begin with or poor gut function. That could be dysbiosis from these infections or the lifestyle or other things. So the nitric oxide supplementation helps to offset that as we're trying to correct our own internal natural production of nitric oxide. So that's kind of the supplemental route that I take as I use the Neo 40 quite a bit. But in terms of like fixing the underlying issue is working on the oral microbiome, you know, making sure that there's good bacteria back in the mouth and also eradicating the pathogenic ones and improving better stomach digestion and also getting good bacterial balance in the gut. So then the body can then endogenously produce, you know, nitric oxide on its own eventually.

So do you find probiotics as one of the best ways to change the microbiome?

Yes, to, to an extent. I've, I've been playing around with a few other things including postbiotics. But probiotics are typically like the great way to start. But yeah, in certain cases I use a combination of postbiotics with probiotics. There's a really neat supplement called the biotic that I've been utilizing recently, which is a thena. Yeah, you could T H, you may want to E A N A T.

H E N E A N A.

T H A E N A A E N A.

Okay.

Yeah. So it's, it's a fecal derived postbiotic. It's basically healthy person's poop. That's Been freeze dried. So the bacteria are not living anymore. So they're basically postbiotic nutrients at this point.

Over the counter.

Over the counter. It's over the counter. Yeah, you can just buy it through online or through the doctor. You might, you actually need a doctor's recommendation to order it. So I have a link available to people interested in ordering it.

Okay, maybe we'll. Yeah, yeah.

It's really interesting. So because it's basically they're derived from healthy donors, so it's similar to a fecal transplant. So the fecal transplant, you're getting live bacteria from a healthy donor and then you're swallowing a bunch of pills that are getting into your gut and then reorganizing your gut to the right, you know, diversity levels of that healthy person. So this is a similar concept, but instead of using live bacteria, using dead bacteria. The thing is the dead bacteria still elicit signals. So the cell walls actually signal your existing live bacteria with information to act upon and then they, they modify their diversity to match that of the instructions that they're getting from the donors. So over time this is, this doesn't take place overnight, but over time, if you're actually taking the antibiotic long enough, you're actually reorganizing your diversity to match that of somebody that's already healthy. So it's really interesting.

You're almost like sending in frequencies. So information.

Frequencies, just information of some sort. Yeah. Because you know, the cell bacteria is when the, when they, when they have their structures, they have still signaling fragments that are left over. So when they're going in, like your bacteria, take that information and do something with it.

So these are different bacteria, but then they are receiving information from other strains and somehow that modifies them.

That modifies them. It changes a lot. So there's a lot of research into postbiotic therapies. So there's a lot of information on that already. So this just takes it to a whole different level because some of the research is there's already existing commercial products that are using like one to five strains of postbiotic strains that have been studied. This just takes all of the strains into one. So you're changing the, the gut a little bit more dynamically.

Wow. And what kind of results have you seen when people take this? It's considered a postbiotic.

This postbiotic?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, postbiotic. And kind of like prebiotic material. It's subtle for some patients, but they, they can eat foods that they haven't been able to eat before because their gut becomes desensitized to Some of those things or they just have better overall digestion or like lessened immune response because immunity, a lot of it dies within the gut. So they just have a little less inflammation over time in their GI tract, which leads to less inflammation systemically too. So. Yeah, I've only been using it for maybe like six months on patients, so some of them are pretty still early stages. But yeah, the thing is there's a noticeable change on food tolerances.

Interesting. Yeah. I want to come back to the nitric oxide because I want to ask you about the debate between nitric oxide and methylene blue because people are saying that they. I mean that there are some opposing mechanisms of actions and seems like different camps don't really like each other as far as what the other supplement does. What's your view on because you use both in your office?

Well, methylene blue lasts for quite a while. Nitric oxide is produced just briefly. Like the half life is very, very short. So your body produces all the time. So I don't see an interference with it. Honestly. I know that there's some issues with the issues with nothing. Blue and nitric oxide. I don't have any issues with them combined together, like there's nothing. I don't see a problem with it.

Yeah. Yeah. Even being used at the same time, you don't see a problem?

No.

Okay. All right, that's great because yeah, I utilize it, but there were some, some concerns about too much nitric oxide being harmful for the brain and not really.

Okay, again is the half life is so short. So it's, it's not like it's going to persist, creating damage. I mean, I haven't seen any issues in that department here.

Yeah. Okay, great. So I think we've got a lot of great information out for people and if people want to learn more about this from you, how do they find you?

Right now my website isopt health wellness.com so I have some general information on the type of services that I offer. I'm going to be revamping that website. So in the probably next month or so it's going to be probably having better information on there. I have my Instagram Dr. Clement Lee. I don't post nearly as much, but that's a work in progress. So we're gonna put probably more content eventually. So those are the main two ways to, to reach me and then eventually YouTube channel. But I think I gotta start with Instagram content and some of that will be overlapping to YouTube as well. But those are the primary ways to find me Here.

Right, right. There's always, always this, you know, finding the balance between doing your work as a doctor and then posting it to let people know that you're doing the work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But this is really great. And hopefully this will really, you know, light up, you know, light bulbs in people's head and get people to think about what may be the underlying issues for their troubles and then, you know, find good solutions. Do you find that the majority of people suffering from these chronic infections can get really good relief that they are able to be fairly free of these infections?

I believe so. If you get enough of the burden decreased, whether it's the toxins and, or the infectious burden, and then the immune system comes back online to defend it the way it's meant to be, then I do see that it's possible. And I've seen patients recover from these things. There's other things that we didn't really get to talk about, but this, this is something that you also do, which is stem cell therapies. And these things can be like major catalysts to allow the body to heal faster. So because when you have all this damage that's taking place, you need to repair that. And sometimes your own repair mechanisms are as good as they can, but they might have been through a lot already. So the repair process can be rather slow. So in this case is stem cell therapy, if those can afford it. It's amazing way to get back on track in the shortest amount of time possible.

So I'm so glad you mentioned that, because that reminded me of a few Lyme patients. Not I have seen, but the doctors I've trained, you know, have treated and seeing drastic results with people with chronic Lyme, you know, like decades long of Lyme, and within weeks, tremendous improvement, energy level, neurological symptoms, and then doing brain scan with, you know, most of the lesions completely going away. So that speaks to how if you can give your body the blueprint of the right signals for repair, which was a clear signal when we were first born. Right. We were very robust, very adept, adept at fighting off problems and quickly repair the body. But as we get older, those signals get more and more deteriorated, and they are having more trouble really mounting an attack and mounting this repair response. So when you give the body this pure signals, all of a sudden the body knows what to do. And then you have drastic improvements.

Yeah, because then you're repairing the immune system primarily, as well as other, you know, other parts of the body. But the immune system is the one that's actually defending you against These infections. So that way your body can mount up the proper response to put them all to the wayside and then you're not dealing with anything anymore.

Right.

Or the, the immune system. Not just the immune system, but it restores some of the natural detoxification process so the body can start more effectively clearing out these things on their own. So it's a combination of all that.

Yeah, exactly. I think a combination is really important, which is why the. I founded an academy, American Academy of Integrative Cell Therapy. You know, I'm not just talking about cell therapy as an end all be all because the body is so complex. There's so many things at play. You know, if you don't have the right, let's say, you know, the cell membrane, you know, the, the lipids. Right. And your cell membrane is not going to function no matter how much stem cells I give you those, you know, the holes on the membrane is, are still. Right. It's, it's very, it's difficult for you. If your body doesn't have enough amino acids and, you know, the essential amino acids, how do you make enough of the proteins and the enzymes and the peptides for your body to function? So you've got to address. Yeah, and you've got all these parasites floating around and, you know, there may, you may need extra, extra guns, you know, to fight them off instead of just relying on stem cells boosting your immune system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation. I look forward to, to, to learning more from you over time. I'm sure I have questions, clinical questions that sometimes I will, you know, hit you up on.

Okay. That's awesome.

All right. Okay, you take care and thank you everybody for listening. And if you enjoyed this, make sure you like and subscribe. So thank you again. Bye now.

Thank you so much. Bye bye.