313: Parasites! Do We Have Them and What to do About Them with Laura Frontiero

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill and I help women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond redefine, rebrand and laugh with aging. Welcome to Midlife Conversations. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated information that is relevant in this point of our lives now, and break it down simply with actionable steps you can implement to level up your life. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring people living their best midlife years. Now on this show, I cover topics about our shifting hormones, weight struggles, our mood and focus changes, raising teenagers, our relationships, career changes, beauty, and more. If you are new here, I encourage you go back and listen from episode one, when this podcast was previously called Listen up for the full transformative experience.

Today on Midlife Conversations, I've got my good friend Laura Prontero and. Okay. She's the founder of Bioradian Health, a virtual online clinic rooted in functional medicine, and she is an expert when it comes to gut health, parasites, all root things that are causing disease, and us. She's an expert on so many things. She is 50 herself. She just turned 50. You wouldn't believe it. If you're watching her on video, she looks like she's 30, if even that. But the reason I had to have her on the podcast right now, in the middle of everything I had scheduled to air, and I'm putting this in as a bonus because it was. It was time sensitive to me, I felt urgent, is because I was scrolling Instagram the other day and I saw this video that, like, I have not gotten out of my head, Laura, I have not gotten this video out of my head. So I'm scrolling and I see her eating a piece of fish and it's cooked. And she says, this is why I never eat raw fish. And no joke, she pulls two disgusting worms out of her fish.

I could not believe this video.

Okay, before you tune out here, I promise you there's a happy ending to this. She's going to teach us a lot today. But I have so many questions, Laura, so thank you so much for being here today.

It's so fun. And, you know, it's so true that this impacted you because all of a sudden I start getting hit with all these texts from you. What is this? Fish is like the main part of my diet. Do you. Are you telling me I can't eat fish? What's going on? And then you proceeded to text me for the next, you know, several days about, yeah, so.

And then, funny story, she says, we're texting back and forth and she says, do you want to see what came out of me. And I said, and as you typed it, my husband sees that text and he takes the phone and he's about to type yes. And I'm having a panic attack. I'm like, I do not want this on my phone. I will obsess. I'll have anxiety. I can't. And we wrestle to the floor. So he does not type yes. I did not want the picture.

I didn't know that part. Okay, so next time I see you in person, which is, you know, soon because we live in the same city, but next time I see you in person, I'll just show you the picture of the parasites that came out of my body on my phone. Oh, God. So you don't ever have to look at it again. But I think you should. Oh, you know, I think you should really see this. So, you know, like, what we're dealing with.

I don't know that I want. Okay, so let's back up a minute. First of all, so many people think they live in the clouds around us. They're like, there's no parasites. Like we all have. Like, what, what do we really need to know about parasites? And how do we all have them? And is it in all the food that we eat?

Okay, so the answer to this is yes. Parasites are very common. So there's this misconception that parasites are from third world countries. So you must travel to a crazy tropical or Mexico or wherever to get a parasite or India or somewhere. And the truth of the matter is that parasites don't stop at borders. And we've just learned in the last several years with this pandemic that there are no borders, that everything that humans have can be carried from continent to continent. I mean, people travel the world. So when you travel to a foreign place and pick up a parasite and then come into the United States and then you start using the bathroom here and you start living here, does that parasite just go away because now you're on American soil? No, it gets into our system and it gets into our sewage system and it gets into our food source. And really how we get parasites is human transmission. So think about the person who's preparing your food at restaurants. I mean, seriously, if you're listening to this right now, just nod your head yes and admit that we eat a lot of takeout and at restaurants because it's convenient. And we have a very fast paced life. So we rely on food delivery or takeout or going out.

And.

And so who's preparing your food? Do they wash their Hands after they use the bathroom, did they recently, you know, travel somewhere and pick something up? So there are no borders for parasites. You asked how many people have parasites. So the World Health Organization gives us an estimate that one in four people on the planet has parasites. And I just established with you that, that there are no borders. So when we say one in four people and we think of places like Africa or India or South America and we think about, oh, well, it must be there. Well, there are no borders. And so if one in four people has parasites, that's a pretty big number. But I estimate that that is a conservative number. And I think personally it's more like 50% of us.

Oh, gosh. Okay, okay, let's. Next question. Can we live with them? Is it okay to have them? Is, are they going to kill us all?

Like, what, What?

Where is it okay. And where is it not okay?

This is a great question. Okay, so the simple definition of a parasite is something that lives off of its host. So just think about, like if you Google, what does parasite mean? The sole objective of a parasite is to survive. A parasite is not trying to kill its host. So it wants to live inside of you and use you to survive. So think of it skimming off the top. It eats the top, best nutrients that you put into your body. So here you are trying to be your best, healthiest, 50 midlife self, and you want to go into your 60s and 70s and beyond, the most vibrant version of yourself you possibly can. But you've got this parasite inside of you, skimming the good nutrients off the top and taking it before your cells get to eat, before your body gets to eat. So do parasites kill us? Generally, no, but they cause a lot of problems and symptoms that we can unpack. I'm not sure what your questions are, but we can get into that and we can get into how it prevents us from aging. Well, but yeah, you're probably not going to die from a parasite.

So based on what you said about like if you're going to a restaurant and who's preparing the food and they this travel and 50% of people probably have them.

Is it.

I'm hearing that it's not really from one source either. It's not like just from fish or just from vegetables or just they can be from anywhere, any food they can.

We also get them. So other ways we get parasites. Our animals have parasites. So think about. I'll use a good example because our audience here is primarily midlife women. And so most of the women listening to this have probably had children. And they remember back when their GYN said to them, don't clean the litter box because you can get toxoplasmosis. Well, that is a parasite. And so here's the big question. So does it only infect pregnant women, or could anybody cleaning a litter box get this parasite? Well, of course. Anybody. It just happens to be very bad for a developing fetus. It could be very problematic there. So that's why they say don't.

So that's why they say don't have, like, deli meat and all those things. It's for that reason.

Exactly. So it can be our pets, our dogs, our cats, our, you know, lizards and snakes and whatever else your kids have in your house. Parasites live in bugs. So when we get bit by mosquitoes, flies, gnats, biting bugs, ticks, they can give us parasites as well. We get parasites from walking barefoot on the beach, on the grass. We get parasites from swimming in lakes, rivers, streams. So think about family vacations of water skiing and having all kinds of, like.

Fun, like, comes through our skin.

It can. So we can get it into any orifice so we can eat it. It can come in through our skin, like, through the bottom of our feet. If we're walking barefoot, it can come in through sexual intercourse. So we pass parasites back and forth with our. With our partners in saliva and tears and like. Yeah, parasites can get in us in a variety of ways. It's crazy. Whoa. Okay, so how.

Why is it okay? Like, why do you say, like, you were eating that fish and there was a gross worm in there, and I said, can we not eat fish? And you said, no, just cook it. But I was like, I can't eat that. If I saw a worm, does most food, like, have it? And we're just.

It's just.

That's why we cook it.

To kill it. Yeah. So cooking the food kills the. The worm. So what you saw in my fish was called a nematode. It's a round worm. It's the most common species of living thing on the planet. For every human on Earth, there's like a billion nematodes. It's crazy because they're. They're tiny and they're microscopic, and some are visible to the naked eye. But anyhow, if you cook it, then it's going to kill it. Also, it will help kill the larvae and the eggs that are in the fish because they can lay 100,000 eggs a day.

So you're just eating dead parasites then?

Yeah, but.

But that's okay, apparently, right?

Because that's not going to hurt us if it's dead. It's if it's alive. So that's why I don't eat sushi anymore. So I used to be a big sush and.

Yeah, and I clearly don't either after seeing that video.

Yeah, I mean, not that I don't love it. I do love sushi also, just in case people are wondering what the heck wasabi is for. So the whole reason that wasabi is served next to fish is to help kill the parasites because that, that spicy, spicy thing is antimicrobial. So that is why you should eat your sushi with wasabi. Does it work? Does wasabi does. Yeah. I mean, millions of Japanese can't be wrong, right? They.

Okay, but you still won't eat it even with wasabi.

Yeah, I don't love wasabi. So I'm, I'm kind of a wimp. I'm a westerner who didn't grow up in that like super spicy food culture. And so, yeah, I can do some good Mexican food. We've got Baja Mexican here in San Diego. But I'm. The wasabi kills me. I can't do it.

So you won't worry about cooking fish and eating it though? Like, you don't care that you're eating dead parasites. Yeah, I ate fish yesterday and you don't care. You like do scour your fish looking for the worm.

I mean, I look, I look and there are some species of fish that are going to be more likely to have parasites. That particular fish that I, that you saw in that video.

I heard halibut has the most. Right?

Yeah. A halibut is a bottom fish, so it, it lives. I don't know if you've ever seen a halibut, but it's really interesting and flat. It almost looks like a fish that's sideways and it floats along the bottom of the, of the sea floor. And so it will have a higher likelihood of having those types of nematode worms. However, you can get worms in any fish. It can even be smaller fish and fish that don't live on the bottom. So here's something crazy. I mean, I don't want to gross you out too much, but my brother is a gourmet chef, like five star chef, works in five star restaurants. And he learned early on in his chefing career that, you know, they filet their own meat in a fine restaurant. They get the big meat in, the chef fillets it up. Same with fish. They just pick the parasites out and serve you the Fish. They just throw away fish that has parasites. It's. They'd be throwing away all their food. I mean, 20, 25% of fish coming into the restaurant has got visible worms in it. So they fillet it and they pick the worms out and they serve it to you.

So when you buy fish at Whole Foods or wherever and you go get. Do you literally look at the raw fish and find these things?

Yeah, I'm looking. I'm looking at it.

And typically find it.

Well, they're really pretty good at picking the visible stuff.

They're doing it.

Right.

The store is doing it.

Exactly. That one video that you saw, that worm was inside the flesh. So it wasn't on the outside. Well, yeah, it was inside the flesh. There was one little aspect of it that was kind of crispy because it got fried a little bit, but most worm was inside.

This is so gross.

Okay, okay.

I haven't. I have not had fish since I saw your video, so.

I was in Mexico too.

I know. And I didn't have it, but I probably had something where I did have shellfish, which I'm assuming now, based on what you said is actually worse because those are all bottom feeders.

Yeah, I mean, you can definitely get worms in your shellfish. It's in eggs. So I've got pictures. You know, when I teach classes, I show pictures of parasites, and I've got a great picture of the same nematode in an egg in an uncooked.

Oh, my gosh. So when we eat our uncooked egg, we're running into the same issue potentially.

So don't eat raw cookie dough.

Gosh, you're just. It's a buzzkill talking to you.

I'm a bummer.

Okay, let's go to the other side. What happens when we have these parasites? I know you said they don't want to kill their host because they're living off of it, but where is this? Like, this is dangerous. We need to cleanse. We need to know, can you over cleanse on this? Like, what's a healthy amount to be living with all the things?

Yeah, so, I mean, this is a serious thing because if they're skimming off the top and eating your food before your body gets it. So what is this going to do to us? What are symptoms of parasites? So low energy. Not having. Not having full energy throughout the day. That lasts all day. Sleep interruptions. So oftentimes, if you wake up in the middle of the night, like. Like clockwork, let's say you wake up at 23 in the morning and you're like, oh, I just have a, you know, I have an insomnia problem. No. Parasites are most active at night.

They're not because they're nocturnal.

They're nocturnal and they're going after your hormones that are being made while you sleep. So your body, while it's sleeping, you might, your brain may not be processing information, you may not be aware of what's happening when you're sleeping, but your body's going through a whole regenerative regeneration and restoring process during your sleep. And you're manufacturing hormones and vitamins and all kinds of cool stuff is happening during your sleep cycle. And these parasites want what's being produced by your body so they're going after it. So they'll wake you up in the middle of the night if you clockwork Wake up 1, 2, 3 in the morning, every night the same time. That could be parasite activity.

I'm pretty sure I have them based on this.

Yeah.

Now, now I'm self diagnosing myself.

Yeah. They can cause brain fogginess and difficulty concentrating and remembering. They dysregulate our hormones. So if you feel like you can't get on top of your hormone problems, it could underlying be a parasite. And then there's all kinds of interesting symptoms. Parasites are, you know, they're a living, be a living creature and they go through their own metabolic process and they secrete toxins into your body. So think about like they poop. Parasites poop too. Right. So they're pooping inside of your body and so those toxins make all kinds of problems happen. Like do you have acne that's coming out of nowhere in the middle of, in your midlife? Do you have, you know, skin eruptions and eczema and dry spots and irritations? This could be parasite activity. It could be the toxins that are. Your body just can't deal with it. There's too much coming out and it starts to seep through our skin. Dry chapped lips that you just cannot resolve. That can be a sign of parasites. Grinding your teeth at night can be a sign of parasites. I mean there is so many weird symptoms.

And my theory, I, I'm waiting on a test that to find out if I, if I do or don't it takes. But my theory is because I was having some serious blood sugar issues, not just high, but crashing low in the middle of the night. I'm guessing because they eat live off of sugar that could have something to do with it.

Yes, absolutely. They do live off of Sugar they love to send. So those of you who have cravings, you're like, I can't stop the cravings no matter how much I eat healthy. So your parasites have a direct line of communication to your brain, and they send signals to your brain to say, eat the things that I love. So they're going, not only do they skim your good nutrients off the top, but they also want sugar. And so they will send messages to you to create cravings for the things they want to eat.

Eat smart little suckers.

Yeah, and there's something else that I really want to unpack here is toxins and parasites go together. So parasites are like a Trojan horse in terms of holding on to toxins. So what I mean by that, if you know the story of Troy and the Trojan horse, this was a situation where the Trojan horse was full of soldiers. The horse got rolled into the city, and the soldiers came out in the middle of the night and destroyed the city. And so that's what I mean, they are hidden. There's little toxins, bad soldiers hidden inside of your parasites. And when they die and go through their life cycle, when they die, they excrete the toxins back in your body. So toxins, I mean, that's a whole other topic that we could do a whole nother podcast on, but it is aging us and is preventing us from living our best life and having normal hormones and normal blood sugar and high energy and a functioning brain. Toxins are a part of that, and parasites are part of the toxin puzzle. So all this to say, if you want to solve the toxin problem in your body, you must address the parasite problem. They go hand in hand. How do.

Okay, I have a lot of questions now. How do we know that we have them? How do we kill them? Because I'm going to slaughter them. And how do we. And can we be proactive and just kill them if we don't even know we have them?

If that makes sense. All the above. We can test for parasites with gut testing, which is pretty amazing. You just send a little tiny poop sample in the mail. It's super easy. And you do it.

You make it sound like it's nothing. You just poop and send it in the mail.

It's so easy. Okay. It's so easy. It's like you don't have to try to hit a test tube when you're pooping. They give you a little. Like a. Like a corn dog tray, like a fair. And they give you a tray with your corn dog.

I know. I did that test, that's the one I'm waiting on.

So I did it. I did it. You pooped in your corn dog tray.

And I mailed it off.

Yeah, see, it was easy, right? It was no big deal.

It was easy. I was more. It was the more the thought of it that was making me anxious.

Yeah, that does make people anxious. But it's super simple. And, and just. It astounds me that we're allowed to send poop in the mail. I just need that. So you can send.

You can send it in the mail.

Yes, send your poop in the mail.

And there was that job of opening that mail is what I know.

Yuck. Right? So we send the poop in the mail, and then the lab runs a simple test on it and tells us what we see in there. But not only do you find out what bacteria are in there with that sample, you learn all kinds of things, like what bact or what. You learn what parasites. You also learn what bacteria are in there. Do you have candida or fungus? Do what's happening with your digestive health and your digestive enzymes? Do you have inflammation? Do you have. Is your immune function not working? I mean, there's so much information we get from this gut test. But we can also see parasites, which is really cool.

Oh, my gosh. Okay, so how do you kill them? If you have them, can you. Can you starve them? Can you just, like, not eat and go on a fast and they go, or do you have to actually do something?

Yeah, you have to do something. So fasting's not enough. I mean, that's, that's a nice try. But they'll just start feasting on your body. If you're not giving them the food they need, they're going to start breaking down your tissue and feeding on that. So you do need to assist them.

On the way out.

So the Western medicine way to do this is to give an antibiotic, which I would contest is not actually going to solve the full problem. Because an antibiotic, you think about it, if you take an antibiotic for two weeks, so you're killing maybe what's big and alive right then and there. But remember that parasites have stages. So they've got eggs that they've laid and then it turns into larvae and then it turns into adults. And so there's this whole life cycle. So you might kill some of it, but you won't kill all of it with antibiotics. So how do you get rid of all of it? That's where it's so wonderful that we have botanical, you know, herbal ways to do this that are gentle on your body and that you can easily.

Daily to support removing this without all the damage that antibiotics can do to your good healthy bacteria and your microbiome. So once you do your first parasite cleanse, then you can go into monthly or quarterly parasite cleanses. So somebody like me who's done a lot of gut work and bacteria and parasite cleansing, I'll do a big protocol, a cleanse like once a quarter. Okay. And then that, because I'm still going to be traveling, I'm still going to be eating, I'm still going to be exposed, I'm still going to be, you know, petting my animals. I'm still going to be hanging out with people.

So you did it as like one, like the full test and then knowing, and then you just kind of proactively, like insurance, just make sure you're managing it well.

Yeah, because. Because we're still going to live on planet Earth, right? So chances are you're going to be re exposed. So we want to just clean that out. It's like maintenance.

Right, but you don't recommend people just go try to clean it out without doing a test first?

Well, no, I recommend that you like get some knowledge about what's happening because not only does that test tell us if there's parasites, it tells us what else could possibly hold you back from being successful. So what if you need a little bit of other support? What if there's some other things going on in your gut microbiome that if we support those aspects, you're going to get way better and faster results.

So when we've heard, you know, obviously this goes dates way back before our time that all disease begins in the gut. Like all the. I think it's probably. It sounds like it's coming from this, that like so many diseases are coming from these undiagnosed parasites.

It's a part of it. Right. So when we think of all disease begins in the gut. Your gut does a lot of things, right? It makes hormones, it makes neurotransmitters, it digests and breaks down your food to shuttle it around to your body. It communicates with your immune system, communicates with the energy producing parts of your cells called your mitochondria. So there's a lot to. All disease begins in the gut and part of it is the pathogens that come into your gut. So I would call a parasite, a pathogen, a bad thing. And so, yes, this is really critical.

Oh my gosh. Okay. So when you Posted this video that freaked me out. Apparently so much so that I had to rearrange my whole podcast schedule to get you on because I had so many questions and I blew up your phone for a couple days. There were a couple of people in the comments that were like, that's pseudoscience. That's not true.

Why do people, why are so people.

So anti believing of this? Or what's, what's the other side of that?

Oh, well, I'm so glad you asked this because I actually worked in the western medicine world for 20 years as a, a nurse practitioner. I worked in internal medicine and metabolic health. And we really don't believe much that parasites are the problem in the western world. We do this test called ova and parasites at your doctor's office that looks for like three parasites. And unless they are really active and you have that pathogenic bacteria.

That's the first test I did, by the way. I literally did one for the three. Yeah.

And it was negative. It always is negative. Unless you are literally severe diarrhea, abdominal cramping and digestive symptoms, chances are that's going to be negative. And so what the gut test does is it looks for a lot more. There's a particular test I like that looks for 15 different parasites that western medicine doesn't even search for. And the other thing I will say is that parasites can live beyond your gut as well. That's a whole nother talk. But I mean, we can. You know, I pulled a parasite out of my sinuses once.

Oh my gosh. So is it true when people say they like pooped out a snake and all that? Like, how does it get to that point? And how long does it take to get like, is that going to happen to all of us if we don't address this? How realistic is that?

Well, chances are if you don't do something, you're never going to see them because they're masterful at hiding inside of you. And when they die, they, they, they secrete toxins that decomposes them right away and then they feed on themselves. So chances are you're dead parasites. You're never going to see them unless you're using assisted particular herbal, herbal products to actually assist them out. So the way that I do it is I give you some, a protocol with herbs that will kill the bacteria or kill the parasite. Excuse me, I keep saying bacteria because we want to kill bacteria along with it. But it'll kill the parasite and then it will help you excrete it before it reabsorbs. And becomes a food source for the other parasite. So a lot of parasites are microscopic, so. Meaning the protozoa size that you can't.

So we might not have to see them. We might see them. Okay, good.

Now, the truth of the matter is, if you have a tapeworm or if you have large round worms or something like that, you might see them come out of you. But you don't have to dig around in your poop.

I will not be looking.

Yeah, you can just flush. Unless you are. So the people who want to see it. Or if you love popping pimples and you love that.

That is not me.

There are people who love it. Like, don't let me pimple on your back.

Apparently, you like to take pictures of it and keep it on your cell phone. So we are different people.

This is my business, right? Like, I need to show people, like, this is what we're. This is what we're after. So if you like to dig around and look and see if they're there, by all means do it. I mean, you just put a fork next to your toilet and you just dig around.

No. I can't believe I'm having this conversation right now. Okay.

A fork. A fork.

Like a fork that you eat with.

I have a toilet fork. So if you come to my house, there is a toilet fork. I've accidentally left it out a few times when the housekeepers come, and they must be going, why is there for.

This is really something I did not need to know about you.

Yeah. So this fork, I put it away when the housekeepers come. But if I'm on a parasite cleanse, I want to see what's coming out of me. Okay. Because I am going to take pictures of it. I'm going to use it to teach. Right. And show people what's possible. So if I said what you do, you just kind of break it up and look for it and grab the worm. So if it's a worm, you grab the worm, you lift it up out of the toilet flush so everything gets flushed. Worm.

This is really not okay.

Okay. Then you put the worm back in the toilet and you can take a picture of it. So you're not looking at my poop. You're looking at just the way.

I don't. I don't. I. I can probably finish the rest of my life without seeing this worm.

But.

Okay, Okay. I know people listening, have questions because I. I had 20 million questions, and I. I still have a lot more. I've not gotten through them. So this is what we're going to do. I knew this was going to come up. So we are going to host a class that Laura is going to lead. This is a free class and I want you to go to midlife conversations.com forward slash gut, gut. Midlifeconversations.com forward slash gut. Depending on when you're listening to this, we're going to do a free class. It's interactive, which means she's not only going to teach how to kill these suckers and find them and all the things you need to know here, but we're also going to take questions. So if you've got your questions like you're listening, going, but, but, but you can jump on this free session and listen. So I hope you'll join us on there. I'm gonna put the link below. Laura, thank you so much. I know I'm gonna have to, we're gonna do this class. I'm gonna have to have you back on for more because I, I just, I can't even without this whole conversation.

This is all new to me. So what I want to say in close is, yes, we will teach an amazing class. I will have pictures of parasites. I will tell you when I'm going to show them so you can look away your eyes and then I will tell you when the picture is gone so that you can come back and look. So don't worry, you will not have to look at them if you don't want to, but if you can see them. So what I want to say is that there is hope for each and every one of us. I mean, we can clear this from your body. We can help you balance your hormones, get rid of inflammation, sleep well, you know, have beautiful, vibrant skin. All of that is possible when you remove this barrier to achieving that. So it's very easy to solve. The question is, are you open to learn about it and face it? Because it's a reality. It's true. Like I said, Probably 50% of us are dealing with it. This. Oh, I love it.

All right. I hope to see so many of you on this free session that we're going to be doing. I have it in the show notes here and in the links below, but otherwise you can go to midlife conversations.com forward slash gut.

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