Recently, I interviewed Dr. Erin Kinney, and we talked about her health journey and expertise in managing stress and adrenal health. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am very excited to chat with Dr. Erin Kinney. We are going to be talking about adrenal health. Everyone is going to find this to be extremely valuable. 

Let me quickly dive into Dr. Erin’s bio. She is a naturopathic doctor, speaker, author, and podcast host who helps stressed-out patients improve their mood, balance their hormones, and increase their energy. She is incredibly passionate about teaching her patients to understand why stress causes so many problems in the body and how they can change their response to stress, so they can take control in both their bodies and their lives. Thanks for joining us, Dr. Erin.

Dr. Erin Kinney: 

Thanks so much for having me. It’s good to be here.

Dr. Eric: 

Adrenals is something that really applies to everybody, even though some people, like myself, are in denial. When I dealt with Graves’ years ago, I knew stress was a factor, but I thought I was good at handling the stress. When I did some adrenal testing, I realized that wasn’t the case. Definitely something that even if someone feels like they’re doing a good job of managing their stress, might not be the case. 

If we could talk about your background briefly, get more into why you are doing what you do now, how you started the podcast. Why are you helping so many people restore the health of their adrenals? 

Dr. Erin: 

Sure. Like many of us in this field, it started for me with a personal health journey. When I was in my early 20s, I went from being a marathon runner, like this happy, high achieving, college student to within a year’s time, I couldn’t get out of bed, my joints hurt, I gained 30 pounds, and I was crying all the time. 

When you’re depressed, it’s hard to admit that you’re depressed. After six months of living this way, my parents were like, “You need to go see a doctor.” I went to my primary care. Before I could finish telling him all the symptoms I was experiencing, because I had a lot more than I just mentioned, he said, “You’re depressed,” gave me some Wellbutrin, and sent me on my way. 

I left his office, feeling defeated. This is your answer? I had all these questions. Will I become vegan? I thought I was eating this healthy diet. Maybe I wasn’t doing the right thing with my diet. Maybe there is something emotional going on. He didn’t address any of that.

I was in therapy at the time. My therapist was listening to me talk after this experience with my primary care provider. She suggested I go to this holistic natural doctor. “I just had lunch with him. I don’t really know what he does, but I think you should go see him.” He was a naturopathic doctor. I went and saw him. He spent about two hours with me on the first visit. A lot of details. Really understood my symptoms. Really listened to me, which felt amazing. It’s really nice to feel listened to when you don’t feel well. 

He ran a bunch of tests. When the testing came back, my adrenals were really underfunctioning. My B12 was low. All my nutrient levels were low. My hormones were outta whack. He put me on a treatment protocol. About eight weeks later, I felt almost 75-80% better. I’d lost some weight. My energy was back. I’d stopped crying. I could actually enjoy life again. It was so cool. 

At the time, I was working for my family business, which was industrial manufacturing. It really wasn’t the best thing to be doing at age 23. I was living in the middle of nowhere in Delaware. He suggested maybe I wasn’t happy in my career. 

I got a job in recruiting. This is a long-winded story… I was doing temporary recruitment. I interviewed about 80-100 people a day. I love talking to people. Love it. My boss about six months in sat me down and said, “I don’t think this is the right career for you.” I asked, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, you keep bringing me all these resumes and you’re like, ‘Listen to this woman. She had lupus and had all these symptoms. Here’s what happened. Here’s why she left her job.’ I don’t really care that she had lupus. I want to know if she can do this job or not. But you really care. 

“You keep bringing me these resumes, and all you’re talking about is their health. I think you might want to go into the health field.” I sat with that for a minute and was like, “I think she’s right. I really like health.” 

I went back and had lunch with the naturopathic doctor who treated me. I said, “I want to do what you do. How do you do this?” He told me not to do it, which was amusing. He said, “It’s a really tough career. You have to run your own business. It’s going to be an uphill battle.” I was like, “That sounds like fun. Exactly what I want to do.” 

I quit my job and went back to naturopathic school. I really wanted to help people who were struggling just like I was. They had a bunch of random symptoms that sounded unrelated. Went to see their doctor, and their doctor said they were depressed, or they just needed the birth control pill if they were female. I felt very dismissed, and that didn’t feel good. 

I now specialize in treating men and women who come into my office feeling similarly to the way that I did. They are like, “I’m really tired. I gained weight. My joints hurt.” They have all these random symptoms. We will talk about what why that happens. For most of them, chronic stress has had a major impact on their body and has affected their adrenals. When we affect the adrenals, and I’ll talk about the physiology of this later, you will start to have an impact on every other system of the body. We can start to see these seemingly unrelated symptoms in different systems of the body act up. 

Some people are like, “I don’t know what’s wrong. Should I go see this specialist or this one or this one?” Theses specialists are like, “Nothing’s wrong with you. Your labs are normal. Everything checks out normal.” But they still don’t feel well. I get these people who see five specialists, their primary care, and they all tell me they’re normal, but they feel like shit. They don’t feel well. 

That’s how I got into this. I’m really passionate about it because it’s the medicine that really helped me.

Dr. Eric: 

As far as the physiology, if we could go even more basic. What are the adrenals? Why are they so important? If you want to talk a little bit about the physiology. 

Dr. Erin: 

The adrenal glands are the little glands that sit on top of your kidneys, and they are responsible for producing cortisol, epinephrine, and what we think of as your stress hormones, the catecholamines, like adrenaline-type things. 

I am going to describe what happens if you’re under acute stress. Let’s say I am sitting in this room, and a lion jumps in, which would never happen, but we’re going to pretend it happens. A lion jumps in here, and my body goes, “Oh my gosh, I either need to run or fight.” Hopefully I choose to run.

What happens is this part of my brain called the amygdala, which senses whether something is a stressor or not. It’s a very black or white- It’s a very old part of our brain. There is no higher reasoning. This is a stress, or it isn’t. If it decides it’s a stress, it will send a signal to another part of my brain called the hypothalamus, and that part of the brain will then send another signal called a hormone called cortico releasing hormone to your adrenal glands. There is a couple more steps, but I am going to simplify here. Your adrenal glands release this signal. They go, “Oh, stress. We better pump out some cortisol and adrenaline.” Those two hormones flood the system. 

What happens when those hormones flood our system is all the blood flow goes in our arms and legs because we want to be ready to run or fight. Meaning the blood flow leaves the abdominal organs, the testes, ovaries, the other organs that thrive when we are in that rest or digest state. Our heart rate goes up. Our blood sugar and blood pressure go up. We get into this state where this body is ready to run or fight.

What’s supposed to happen is once I get safe from said lion or whatever the acute stressor is, the body is like, “I’m safe.” That same cortisol molecule will go back to that hypothalamus part of the brain, and it will bind to what I like to call an off button. It binds to a receptor in the hypothalamus that then turns off further production of that cortico releasing hormone. Essentially turns off further production of cortisol. Then the body will go back into that rest or digest state. 

What happens is all the blood flow will come back to the abdominal organs. Heart rate goes down. Blood pressure goes down. Blood sugar goes down. The system then relaxes. We were designed to be able to go into this acute stress state when needed. We were also designed to be very able to quickly come out of that state.

In today’s world, most of us end up getting into that acute stress state, and we don’t come out of it. We stay stuck there. I love to use March 2020 as an example. Everyone remembers that really fun month where we had no idea what was happening. Every five minutes, new information was coming out, and our bodies were like, “More stress, more stress.” 

That hypothalamus part of our brain, where it should be receiving that cortisol to turn off, that off button, the body is like, “You know what? I’m pretty sure that my stress response is going to keep getting triggered over and over again,” so it stops making that receptor. It downregulates the production of that off button. It’s also known as a glucocorticoid receptor. We stop making that receptor. 

Now your body, even if the cortisol goes back there, it can’t turn off, so we get stuck in this fight or flight mode. This is where problems start to arise. We are only designed to spend a short amount of time, about 10-15% of our lives, in this acute stress phase. Most of us in today’s world spend about 80-90% in that fight or flight state. 

We can usually exist in the flight or fight stage for some period of time. If you’re in that stage, your adrenals are pumping out that adrenaline and cortisol over and over, constantly. Typically, when we are pumping those out, we don’t sleep or rest very well. The body needs rest in order to continually produce cortisol. 

Cortisol is what I like to call a very metabolically expensive hormone. It takes a lot of cofactors. It’s a big steroidal-type molecule. If you stay in that chronic stress state, you will eventually run out of the building blocks to build more cortisol. What we start to see is a decline in cortisol, the longer you stay in this chronic stress state.

Here’s the thing about cortisol. Most of us think of it as the stress hormone. It is, but it’s really the hormone your body makes in order to give you energy to deal with stress. It’s a slight distinction, but it’s very different. 

When I teach workshops, I ask, “What do you think about cortisol?” “It’s bad. It makes you fat.” Actually, too much cortisol is a problem, yes. Too little cortisol is also a problem. It’s very similar to blood sugar. We don’t want cortisol to be too high; we don’t want blood sugar to be too high. We want it to be right in the middle. Cortisol is the thing that gives you energy to deal with stress. 

It’s also the thing that gives you energy in your everyday life. It’s what wakes you up in the morning. It’s what governs your Circadian rhythm. We have this natural rhythm of what cortisol is supposed to look like throughout the day. 

A third function of cortisol is one of your body’s major anti-inflammatory molecules. Most of you listening may have heard of prednisone or a steroid at some point in your life. Cortisol is the body’s natural form of a steroid. Essentially, prednisone is synthetic cortisol. 

When we have stress for a long period of time, and we start to run out of the building blocks of cortisol and start to see a decline in the levels of cortisol, we can start to get unchecked inflammation in the system, which can look like joint pain, depression (inflammation in the brain), digestive disturbances, acne, skin flares. If you’re like, “Wow, I have a lot of these random symptoms,” it’s important to get your cortisol levels checked. 

Most of the patients that I see have been super stressed. Most people know they have been stressed. They come in and are like, “My cortisol’s gonna be high.” It’s actually probably gonna be low. It’s very rare I see a case of super high cortisol. Most people have low cortisol levels. “I don’t understand that. I thought cortisol was bad. Why do you want to raise it?” You need that cortisol to give you energy. I call it the fix-it hormone. It’s the hormone that fixes things in the system. If you don’t have enough of it, you will start to see things go wrong. 

That’s my basic physiology explanation. I could talk a little more, but that gives you the basic gist of things.

When cortisol levels are low, we call this adrenal fatigue. It’s what the functional medicine space has termed this state of the body. 

Dr. Eric: 

That described me as far as having low cortisol levels when I dealt with Graves’ years ago. I wouldn’t have guessed that my cortisol would be low. As you mentioned, some people would suspect their cortisol to be high, and then they look at a test, whether it’s a saliva test or dried urine test. We will talk about some of the testing that you prefer. When someone sees a high cortisol pattern, what does that mean? Their body is still adapting to the stress, whereas if it’s low, their body has lost the ability to adapt to the chronic stress? 

Dr. Erin: 

Here’s the thing. Let’s use you as an example. Your cortisol probably was very high for a period of time. I don’t know all the details about your case, but most people aren’t coming to the doctor when they are in that- Let’s say you go through a divorce, and your stress levels are really high for a couple years. Typically, when you are making excess cortisol to keep you going, you’re functioning okay. That cortisol is giving you energy. You might be not operating on a lot of sleep, but you’re getting through it. Over time, as the cortisol levels start to decline, this is when people start to feel bad. That’s when they go to the doctor. 

For most people with low cortisol, there was probably a point in time where their cortisol was high. It’s just probably not when they are getting it checked.

Now, you asked if people are seeing high cortisol, what does that mean? That usually just means they’re still in the initial phases of that fight or flight stage. I will tell you that the cases I see currently where people have elevated cortisol, and they feel like crap, those are usually the cases where people have chronic Lyme, mold exposure, or really bad EBV. I know we were going to talk about this, and we can get into it. 

Those are all things I like to call internal stressors. They are causing the stress response to go off on the inside of the body; the inside of the body is triggering that stress response, versus an external stressor, which might be work, pandemic, something outside of your body. In those cases, they will eventually have low cortisol. Some of them are actually coming in because they don’t really feel good because of the other things going on.

Dr. Eric: 

Could that be a reason why a lot of times, you see people with stealth infections having trouble sleeping? If they keep on pumping out cortisol. 

Dr. Erin: 

Yes. One of the reasons why the body does that is when cortisol is high, it will activate the immune system. It turns the immune system on. The whole fight or flight thing, we think of it as being like fighting something external when we are usually fighting something internal. If you get COVID and have a really high fever, your cortisol level will go up because that will turn on the immune system. if we are talking about autoimmune conditions, chronic levels of high cortisol can trigger the immune system to start attacking itself. Eventually, if that autoimmune thing has turned into a disease state, we will see low cortisol on the other side. Typically, in most cases, developing an autoimmune thing, there are a lot of other factors, but the high levels of cortisol can play a role in that.

Dr. Eric: 

Do you also see when someone typically has low cortisol levels, their DHEA will be low? That was the case with me. I see that a lot with my patients.

Dr. Erin: 

Yes. DHEA is a precursor molecule to both cortisol and testosterone. It’s something the body uses as a reserve that it can convert into cortisol. Yes, in most cases, once the adrenals have fully bottomed out, you will see low DHEA. It depends on when you catch it. It also depends on where the body is prioritizing things. With women and their sex hormones, progesterone and estrogen and sometimes testosterone, if the body is prioritizing the sex hormones, we can see a lower level of cortisol. 

I also have some cases where all the hormones are bottomed out, but the cortisol looks okay. That could still be an adrenal fatigue type state, where the body is stealing from those other hormones to shunt them over to cortisol, to keep up dealing with whatever stress is going on in their system. 

To answer the question about low DHEA, yes, it’s really common to see that. However, I will sometimes see DHEA being normal, and cortisol is low. In some cases, DHEA will be really high, and cortisol is low. There can be conversion issues there, which is a separate issue. You can see DHEA all over the map. 

Dr. Eric: 

Let’s talk about the testing. What testing do you recommend when it comes to evaluating the adrenals? 

Dr. Erin: 

I in my practice typically start out with just general bloodwork. I test a fasting DHEA, a fasting cortisol, and a fasting testosterone. Testosterone can also give me some insight. If it’s too low as well, it can tell me if my adrenals are stealing- Women test their other sex hormones. That is usually where I start.

That is just giving us a quick snapshot. If the cortisol is super low, and obviously your adrenals are low. If the cortisol is super high- If it’s middle of the range, and their symptoms are screaming adrenal fatigue, that might be where I might suggest further adrenal testing. 

There’s a test called the DUTCH test that I really like, which is urine. It looks at cortisol, cortisone, cortisol metabolites, and all of these other sex hormones. There are options. I like the DUTCH Complete because it gives you a complete picture of what’s going on. That can be great. 

You can do what we call a four-point cortisol, a salivary cortisol. You will collect saliva at four points throughout the day, and you will see the cortisol graph. You can see it’s low in the morning and high at night. Or we started out good, and we crashed mid-day. That can be a helpful test. 

What I will tell you is 90% of the time, you can probably guess what your cortisol is doing based off of your energy levels without caffeine or stimulants. If you wake up and don’t drink coffee, and your level is great, “I’m an 8/10,” and slowly your energy dwindles throughout the day, that’s a normal, healthy level. Your cortisol levels are normal and healthy. 

If you wake up and cannot get out of bed, and are super exhausted, but then by noon, your energy picks up, and at 4pm, you’re flying, that will typically indicate your cortisol is low in the morning and high at night.

For the majority of cases, when I am working with patients, I get that fasting morning cortisol to see where things are. Then I take a really good history. In some cases, if people are drinking a ton of caffeine, I tell people to go off of caffeine for a couple of days and ask them to let me know what their energy is like off of that. Caffeine will mask your energy levels, what you’re truly doing. You can usually get a sense for how your adrenals are functioning just by your energy levels throughout the day. 

Dr. Eric: 

Okay. It sounds like pretty much across the board, morning cortisol, DHEA, testosterone. All of this is fasting. And then it depends on the person. Not everybody will get a DUTCH test. Not everybody will get a saliva test.

Dr. Erin: 

I honestly don’t run them as often as you would think. It’s usually because I pretty much know what they’re going to say. Some patients will come in and want to run this. I have no problem running the test, but they’re expensive. I’d rather my patients spend their money on the treatment protocol to get them better. 

Unless it’s a case where they are not responding to the treatment, and it’s a little bit weird, then I would want to order the test. But the majority of the time, I am doing the general bloodwork and going off of clinical symptoms.

Dr. Eric: 

Do you see a relationship between adrenal problems and thyroid problems in your practice? 

Dr. Erin: 

Yes, 100%. I treat a lot of thyroid patients. Almost all of them, there is an interplay with adrenals. There is four major players in the endocrine system. We have the thyroid hormones, the adrenal hormones, the sex hormones, and the blood sugar metabolism. If you think about a triangle, the top three—thyroid, adrenals, and sex hormones—are in this very delicate triangular balance. If one goes up or down, it’s going to affect the other two. We can’t move one without moving the other two. 

If you make a triangle with your fingers and play around with moving one up or down, you will notice that if one moves, the others have to move. Typically, if we see the adrenal function go up, we will see a dip in thyroid function. If we see sex hormones go down, we will see a shift in adrenal and thyroid hormones. They are always connected.

This is where I get a lot of patients with thyroid, saying, “I went to my endocrinologist. They tell me my TSH is fine, and this is fine,” but they are exhibiting all these symptoms of maybe hyperthyroidism and maybe adrenal stuff. Sometimes, they have an actual thyroid issue. Sometimes, they have slightly underfunctioning thyroid because of what’s going on with their adrenals or their sex hormones. 

The last piece is your blood sugar. If you go back to making that triangle with your hands, the blood sugar is the thing that is holding the triangle up. It’s keeping all of these things steady. This is why keeping a healthy diet is important for all of your hormones. If your blood sugar is going all over the place- If you have a triangle sitting on top of something that’s wobbly, it’s very hard to keep those other hormones regulated, if we don’t have steady blood sugar. 

That’s a long-winded answer to your question. Yes, I do see patients with thyroid issues have adrenal problems. 

Dr. Eric: 

Let’s talk more about blood sugar and diet. What do you consider to be a healthy diet? 

Dr. Erin: 

That will vary per person. If we are looking at this hormone realm, the diet that keeps your blood sugar the most balanced is going to be a healthy diet for you. For some people, that may be eating animal protein several times a day with veggies and low carbs. For other people, that might be eating a really balanced meal three times a day. It will depend on a lot of other factors. If you have someone with severe food allergies and gut stuff going on, they might need a very different diet than someone who has a healthy digestive tract.

When I talk about this stuff on my show, the diet piece, it’s really helpful to get support for this. Work with a practitioner who knows what they’re doing to help you figure out what the right diet/lifestyle program is for you at this given point. Especially for women—men, too—women’s hormones change quite frequently throughout our lives. At each hormonal stage, you might have a different nutritional need. You might have a different diet that will keep your blood sugar more stable. 

To answer your question, there is not one diet protocol that I subscribe to. It will be individualized.

Dr. Eric: 

Good response. I agree with that. It obviously varies from person to person.

Dr. Erin: 

I’m currently a big fan of CGMs, using a continuous glucose monitor to figure out what kind of eating protocol will help keep your blood sugar balanced. The main way blood sugar has an impact on hormones is what it does to the adrenal system. if your blood sugar dips, that will send a signal to the hypothalamus that there is a stress. “Oh my gosh, we don’t have blood sugar.” It will activate your fight or flight response. 

We get the cortisol flood because another one of cortisol’s jobs is when we are in fight or flight, our blood sugar goes up, whether you have eaten or not. Typically, what we’ll see is if you skip a meal, and your blood sugar dips down, you will then get a blood sugar rise, whether you have eaten or not. Sometimes, if you haven’t eaten, you will get more of a spike. This is because cortisol will go tell your liver to break down stored glucose in a form of glycogen, which will cause the blood sugar to go up. 

I have several patients right now who are pilots. They fly all over the world. Their stress levels are super high. They eat no sugar. Their A1Cs are 7.8. For those of you who don’t know, A1C is a three-month average of your blood sugar. Normal is between 5-5.5. 7.8 is very high, which tells us their blood sugar on average is too high. These guys don’t eat any sugar. The reason their blood sugar is high is because their stress levels are so high. This is where using a CGM to figure out what the best diet is for you to keep your blood sugar balanced can be a helpful tool.

Dr. Eric: 

Do you have people on CGMs for many months, or just a few weeks? 

Dr. Erin: 

If we are dealing with a blood sugar situation, maybe we will have them on it for a few months. But a 2-4-week period where you try out certain things. “Let me see what intermittent fasting does to my blood sugar.” “Let me see what eating protein three times a day does.”
“Let me see what my exercise routine is doing to my blood sugar.” “Let me see what watching scary TV does.” Food is one input, but we have all these other inputs that can impact your blood sugar. 

A couple weeks can be helpful to learn what works and what doesn’t work for your body. You can get one of those finger prick things, but it’s annoying. 

The CGMs have been helpful for some of my patients where we struggled to figure out what is wrong with their insomnia, and they wake up frequently. A lot of patients are finding out that they get blood sugar dips when they wake up, which is what is waking them up. The blood sugar dips, puts the body in a fight or flight, and then the blood sugar spikes. We have worked with adding in some protein before bed and doing some other things to balance blood sugar during the day. Then their sleep improves, which is cool.

Dr. Eric: 

You spoke about diet. I want to talk about supplements. Before we do that, stress management. What do you recommend from a stress management perspective? 

Dr. Erin: 

I don’t love the term “stress management.” I use it sometimes as well, but most of the external stress in our life, you won’t be able to change that. Maybe you can. Maybe you can leave your job. But for most people, if your job is really stressful, leaving your job might be more stress. If you’re in a relationship where there is stress, leaving that situation- Getting away from it is not always the answer.

Essentially, if your body is stuck in that fight or flight state, you need to remind the body that it’s okay to chill out. Typically, my protocols are having the patient build in micro moments of relaxation throughout their day. I usually have patients start with finding 5-10 minutes to lay flat and listen to music or meditate or lay flat and chill out for 10 minutes. I like when you lay flat because it allows the blood pressure and the heart rate to go down. It’s telling the body it’s okay to come out of fight or flight. The more we do this, the more the body will be like, “It’s okay. Let me make more of those glucocorticoid receptors/off buttons,” so it will allow the body to turn off even more.

This is why meditation and the supplements we will talk about are helpful for helping the nervous system. They increase the production of the glucocorticoid receptors in the hypothalamus. One of my favorite herbs is rhodiola, which is a fantastic herb for regulating the nervous system. If the cortisol is too low, it will bring it up. If it’s too high, it will bring it down. 

One of its other actions is it increases the production of those off buttons. It gives the body more resiliency. It allows the body to be able to come out of fight or flight after it’s been stressed. 

I kind of rewire people’s thought processes. “I need to manage my stress.” No, we need to build in more relaxation periods. I work with a lot of high functioning individuals. I get CEOs and women who run their own businesses and a household; they do a lot of things. I’m not going to tell them, “You need to shut down your business or have fewer children.” You can’t change a lot of things going on in your life, but I can say, “I need you to sit down with your schedule and build in 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon. Have some downtime structured into your weekends.” It’s about making some lifestyle changes. 

We do supplementation as well and work on diet. But building in relaxation practices is the #1 thing that will get you better. I find my patients who add those things in fare really well. 

What’s interesting is when I was first doing this, I recommended meditation to everyone. Meditation is fantastic. It’s probably the best thing you can do for your health. If you’re stuck in this fight or flight stage, meditation is really hard. “I can’t get my thoughts to calm down.” Patients will do it for a week and stop. 

I started tweaking things to build in these micro practices that are much easier for someone to digest. It’s meeting the patient where they are in terms of where their nervous system is. Mostly what I find is when my patients will start to incorporate these little moments for a couple of months, they will say, “I finally downloaded that meditation app, and I have been meditating for 20 minutes a day. I lengthened the amount of time I lay horizontal, and I built in a meditation,” which is fantastic. That’s where I wanted you to be. But if I told them to do that initially, it wouldn’t have worked. 

That’s been the evolution of my work with my patients on that piece. 

Dr. Eric: 

If someone is working a 9-5 job, would you say during their lunch break, take 10 minutes, and go to their desk or their car just to have some- 

Dr. Erin: 

Yeah. If your workplace is busy, and you can’t do it in the office, go outside. I will have some patients go outside and lay on the ground. That’s extra credit. If you get the earth, you will get the good grounding energy. 

Occasionally, I will have someone try the lying down thing, and they say, “it feels too foreign. I feel like I can’t relax.” I will have them go take a mindful walk. Be outside. Try to do it quietly with no music, and enjoy the nature. There is so much research. Even just looking at a picture of a plant will help increase the production of those off buttons in the brain. Nature is really beneficial for helping calm our nervous system down. 

If you’re someone who can’t do the laying down thing, because that won’t work with your job, go take a walk outside. That can be really helpful as well. 

Dr. Eric: 

Supplements. You mentioned rhodiola as one of them. What are some of your other favorite supplements to support adrenals? 

Dr. Erin: 

When patients’ adrenals are pretty bottomed out- A typical morning cortisol range is 6-20. I like to see morning cortisol around 15. If they are under 15, especially under 10, I use a lot of adrenal glandular. I am giving them a bit of adrenal tissue that they take in the morning to bump that adrenal production up in the morning, and then we let the natural progression happen throughout the rest of the day. 

I like magnesium, B5, and B6 because those are the major cofactors the body needs in order to build cortisol. Those are my three favorites. They are also calming for the nervous system. Those can be fantastic.

Herb-wise, rhodiola, as I mentioned, and I really like ashwagandha. Those are the two primary herbs I use. There are tons of other adaptogens, but those are the two I use the most. 

If there are also some immune issues, I really like mushrooms, a mushroom blend. That helps stimulate the immune system, and they also act as an adaptogen. 

Dr. Eric: 

What are your thoughts on licorice root? 

Dr. Erin: 

Licorice root is okay. It tends to spike blood pressure a little bit. If someone has low blood pressure, that can be fantastic. Most people with low adrenals tend to have low blood pressure, but I like to be careful with that one. It tends to be pretty stimulating, so if someone is having trouble sleeping, that is not my favorite go-to. If someone is sleeping fine, and their energy is still pretty low, that can be a nice herb to use. 

Dr. Eric: 

It sounds like rhodiola is your #1. Ashwagandha, you like a lot. 

Dr. Erin: 

Yeah. Those are my favorites.

Dr. Eric: 

B5, B6, magnesium. 

Dr. Erin: 

Yep. B5 in the panthothenic acid form and B6 in the pyridoxal. You want to make sure you get the right forms of those guys.

Dr. Eric: 

Do you have them take it separately, or as part of a B complex? 

Dr. Erin: 

I typically have them take it separate. You can take a B complex, but I have some formulas in my office where it’s the adrenal cortex with the magnesium, B5, B6, and rhodiola. That’s a blend I really like to use a lot. 

When I am recommending things at workshops, in certain cases, if there is any sort of methylation issue going on, like if someone has a MTHR mutation, which I see a lot in people with adrenal fatigue, the B complex can set them off, particularly if their system has been stressed. I tend to stay away from too much folate or B12. Unless their B12 and folate levels are super low, which is a different case. 

I really like the B5 and B6 because they don’t cause the body to overmethylate; they help stabilize the methylation process as well.

Dr. Eric: 

Getting back to EBV, mold, and Lyme, which you mentioned earlier. How common do you see these stealth infections in your practice? 

Dr. Erin: 

Let’s talk about EBV first. Epstein-Barr Virus, probably 90% of the human population gets exposed to that virus at some point in their lives. 90% of people will usually test positive for an old infection of EBV, or a lot of my patients have a reactivated case of EBV. 

These stealth infections are major internal stressors. Sometimes, I’ll get patients who come in, and I’ll ask about their stress levels. They’ll say, “I’m not that stressed.” Everything else in their external world is pretty good. “I don’t feel stressed mentally, but my body feels stressed.” Those are the people who I am definitely going to look for a stealth infection. 

EBV is really common. It’s not always reactivated in people. but most people have had it. I screen everybody for EBV, mold markers, and Lyme to make sure that’s not something we are dealing with. 

Lyme unfortunately is becoming a lot more common. I wish that wasn’t the case because it’s complicated and difficult to treat. There are a lot of nuances even in the testing and diagnosing of it. It can be a major internal stressor that causes a lot of problems and can put someone in adrenal fatigue. 

Dr. Eric: 

It’s a catch-22. A lot of times, the emotional stressors can drag down the immune system, making someone more susceptible to Lyme, bartonella, EBV, and other viruses. 

You mentioned mold markers. Do you recommend mold markers in the blood or a urinary mycotoxin test? 

Dr. Erin: 

That will depend on clinical history. If someone says they were exposed to mold, “There was water damage in my house,” or “I lived in a moldy basement,” I will definitely run a mycotoxin test to look at what mycotoxins are coming out in the urine. 

If someone doesn’t think so, I will run blood markers. The blood markers I look at are a CD57 panel, which is a particular type of white blood cell that fights stealth pathogens. In some cases, exposure to mold can lower that quite drastically. A lot of things can do that, but that’s one thing I look at. I look at Complement C3a and C4a. I look at MMP-l9. I look at Melanocyte-stimulating hormone and trans growth factor beta 1. Those are the markers. 

If several of those are out of whack, and they have some Lyme markers and some weird symptoms, then I might run a mycotoxin test.

The reasoning for this is insurance will typically cover the lab work I order (if they have good insurance). The mycotoxin test is typically out of pocket. If we are 100% sure they have been exposed to mold, I will go right for the mycotoxin test. This is how I practice. Other practitioners will run all the things, but that’s how I work. 

The mycotoxin test is very useful to see if there are mycotoxins present in the system. As you mentioned, exposure to mold will weaken the immune system quite drastically, which can make you more susceptible to Lyme or other coinfections and adrenal fatigue.

The thing I was going to say is another reason why testing for these stealth infections can be really helpful can be for assessing thyroid stuff. A lot of thyroid patients have autoimmune thyroid, whether it’s Graves’ or Hashimoto’s. Hashimoto’s tends to be more common. 

EBV, for example, loves to live in the thyroid. If it’s hanging out in the thyroid in a reactivated state, the immune system will go nuts and try to kill the virus. It might make antibodies to the thyroid. A lot of my patients with Hashimoto’s, when we clear out these stealth pathogens, will see a reduction in their thyroid antibodies and thus an improvement in their thyroid symptoms.

The other thing these infections can do is they will affect the conversion factor from T4 to T3. If someone has a normal TSH, normal T4, but their T3 is in the tank, and they have hypothyroid symptoms, that is sometimes a sign to look for infections. Lyme in particular will wreak havoc on that conversion pathway that happens in the peripheral tissues.

Dr. Eric: 

You covered so much, Dr. Kinney. Is there anything else I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Anything else you’d like to discuss? 

Dr. Erin: 

If you’re listening, and you think your adrenals are struggling, the stress practices I talked about, layering some of the relaxing things. Going back to the basics is always a good idea. Making sure you have a good sleep hygiene practice. Going to bed at the same time. Turning off screens. Maybe some sort of calming routine in the evening. 

Getting morning sunlight is so beneficial for helping reset your Circadian rhythm. Without sunglasses. Go outside in the morning. Have your eyes exposed to sunlight. It’s really great to help boost morning cortisol levels.

The other thing I’ll have patients do, whether they have trouble sleeping or not, is I will have them take a little bit of melatonin before bed. That will help reset the Circadian rhythm. When melatonin is high, it tells the body to have cortisol be low. When melatonin is low, then cortisol naturally is high. If you are not producing enough melatonin in the evening, the body may think it should be making cortisol. A little bit of melatonin initially when I am treating someone will help us reset the Circadian rhythm. 

Dr. Eric: 

When you say a little, what do you mean? 1mg?

Dr. Erin: 

Usually 1-3mg. If they are having trouble sleeping, I might have them take closer to 3mg. It’s not usually for helping of sleep; it’s for resetting the circadian rhythm. 

Dr. Eric: 

If you could let everyone know where they could find you? Your podcast? Your website? Any other places you want to direct them to? 

Dr. Erin: 

I hang out a lot on Instagram, @DrKinney. We try to put out content there. My website is DrErinKinney.com. I am in the process of rebranding myself. Eventually, it will be TheKinneyClinic.com. 

My show is called The Dr. Kinney Show, which you can find on all major podcast platforms. Dr. Osansky will be a guest in a few episodes, so you can check that out. We have a lot of topics that we cover. A lot of thyroid stuff, adrenal stuff, different types of healing modalities. Those are all the things. 

Dr. Eric: 

I look forward to being on your podcast as well. That’s how I found you. Whenever I interview someone, I do research. I happened to have found your podcast through one of my guests. 

Dr. Erin: 

Great.  

Dr. Eric: 

I listened to some other episodes, and I recommend checking it out. 

Thank you so much, Dr. Kinney. I’m sure our listeners learned a lot about adrenals. I learned some things as well. I appreciate it, thanks. 

Dr. Erin: 

It’s why the podcast thing is great. I feel like I learn something from every episode I interview someone. It’s a win-win-win for everyone. It’s a win for both people on the show and the listeners. It’s a great medium. I love it. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, I definitely agree.

 

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Sachin Patel, and we talked about breathwork and its many benefits for your overall health. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I’m super excited to chat with today’s guest, Dr. Sachin Patel, as we are going to be talking about breathwork. Before we dive into that topic, let’s go ahead and discuss Dr. Sachin’s impressive bio here.

Dr. Sachin Patel is a father, husband, philanthropist, functional medicine practice success coach, speaker, author, breathwork facilitator, and plant medicine advocate. Sachin is convinced that the doctor of the future is the patient and has committed himself to helping others raise their consciousness, activate their inner doctor, and initiate their deepest healing through lifestyle and breathwork. Sachin founded the Living Proof Institute, pioneering a revolutionary approach to patient-centered healthcare. Sachin coaches hundreds of practitioners around the world, so they are empowered to deliver affordable, inspired care to their communities through his Perfect Practice mentorship program. He is an advocate of transforming the healthcare paradigm, and he has devoted his life to the betterment of healthcare for both patients and practitioners. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Sachin.

Dr. Sachin Patel: 

Thank you. Please call me Sachin. It’s great to be here, Eric. I am so excited and honored that we get to spend this time together and talk about what I hope people realize is one of the most important things we do, which is breathe.

Dr. Eric: 

Without question. If you could dive into your background a little bit, Sachin. How did you get so involved with breathwork? I have listened to some of your other podcasts, and this wasn’t always the case. If we go back 10 years, you didn’t do what you’re doing now. Is that correct? 

Dr. Sachin: 

Absolutely. I want to remind everyone who is listening that we are all on a journey. We all have permission to evolve and grow and learn and share new things. That’s been the story of my life. 

I started off as a chiropractor. I still am. I still believe in the innate forces that guide all living and nonliving things, and there is a universal embodiment of intelligence in every cell that we have. That is pervasive throughout the entire cosmos. That belief, you can’t take that out of me. Call me whatever you want. You can call me Dr. Sachin, or you can call me Sachin, but that philosophy will always exist. It’s baked into my DNA now, as I’m sure it is for you as well, Eric. 

I then started learning about functional medicine, which was essentially similar to chiropractic philosophy, which is to get to the root cause. Now we have tools to go a little bit deeper into people’s cellular biochemistry, into toxins that we can measure in their blood or imbalances that we can measure in their stool in their microbiome. Just going a little bit deeper and getting more granular into the causes of illness is what functional medicine was for me.

But that gets complicated really fast. As I’m sure everyone here listening is aware, there are thousands of tests out there and tens of thousands of different supplements out there. They can get really confusing and overwhelming for practitioners, but also for patients. 

Then I began a search, and I asked a different question: What if I could get people better without testing them and without supplements but show them without a shadow of a doubt that they’re getting healthier and moving in the right direction? What would that process look like? 

We went back to the drawing board and asked that question. If I didn’t have supplements at my disposal, and if I didn’t have any lab testing at my disposal, because at one point we didn’t have these things, how would I get somebody healthy? 

We realized we would go back to first principles. This might happen to you, as I know it happens to me often. When someone comes to you, and they have tried everything—every diet, different macros, different micronutrient profiles, all kinds of supplements—and their digestion still sucks, the question I will ask them is, “Are you even chewing your food?” Most of the time, the answer is no.

We realized when we were applying all this advanced testing and supplementation and knowledge that we acquire when we take all these trainings, my clients were so far down the mountain that these advanced strategies didn’t really apply to them. We went right back to the basics. 

My mantra is that of Leonardo da Vinci’s, which is the greatest science of sophistication is simplicity. The greatest science of sophistication that I’m aware of is the human body. Shouldn’t it be simple to take care of? It shouldn’t be complicated because that would mean it’s not sophisticated. What makes the software easy to use, our computer easy to use, is what makes it sophisticated. Otherwise, we’d be banging our head against the wall if we had to learn every nuance of how a car or computer works in order to be able to use it. 

That became my mantra: How do I solve people’s most persistent, most chronic, most challenging health issues? How do I apply simplicity to that instead of trying to match the body’s complexity?

If you look at research, one thing you’ll notice is every year, there is more research being done. It actually means that every year, we know less. If we knew it all, there would be less research happening, but we actually know nothing, so the joke’s actually on us.

We went back to first principles, back to the basics. Then I had to search for what is the zenith of simplicity? Then the question became: What do I do the most? Here is a fun fact: The thing I do consciously the most is breathe every day. The average person breathes more than the steps they take. The average person breathes almost as much as they think. That’s one thing. 

The second thing is I consume more air than anything else. The average person consumes 30 pounds of air every single day. I actually eat more with my lungs than I do with my mouth. Interesting fun fact, which is kind of fascinating, that we consume 30 pounds of air every day. 

The next thing is most people can’t go more than 4-5 minutes without breathing, so that should tell us how important it is. You can go weeks without eating. You can go days without drinking water. You can go a few days without sleeping, but you can’t go more than five minutes without breathing.

As I started studying breathing from an anatomical standpoint, from a dental standpoint, from a nervous system standpoint, from an environmental standpoint, from a biochemistry standpoint, I realized it’s actually the most important thing that we do that nobody has trained us how to do.

Dr. Eric: 

Makes sense. Visit the basics, the foundations, and you can’t get any more basic than breathing. I would hope a lot of people, because they hear me talk about stress management and blocking out time, whether it’s doing deep breathing or meditation or yoga. Would breathwork fall under the category of mind/body medicine? Is it something completely different? For those who are taking time to meditate or do yoga or simply deep breathing, how does breathwork differ from those? 

Dr. Sachin: 

There is a spectrum of breathing. There are different ways that we can breathe, cadences that we can breathe. Breathing through our nose, breathing through our mouth, left nostril or right nostril, holding our breath on full, holding our breath on empty, the pace at which we breathe. We can do so many different things with our breath to alter how we feel. 

I like to think of breathwork as perhaps almost on what end of the spectrum. How we breathe throughout the day, 24/7, 99% of the time of the day, that’s on the other end of the spectrum. If somebody were to ask what is my breathing practice, my breathing practice is being conscious about how I breathe throughout the day. The last thing we want is to take time out of their day, that 10 minutes, do the Wim Hof breathing or holotropic breathing, and then they breathe unconsciously the rest of the day. The most profound shifts take place based on how we breathe the 99% of the day, not just the 1% that we take out. That 1% of your day is about 14 minutes. 

I want people to focus on how they breathe while they’re sleeping, while they’re on their computer, while they’re exercising, while they’re out for a walk, while they’re sitting next to their child, while they’re trying to go to bed. Those are the things I like to focus on. 

To me, that’s also breathwork because the hardest work is raising our awareness and consciousness. Bringing our awareness constantly to our breath, that’s the work. 

Once we’ve done that, the hard part, then the next decision that we make is how am I going to breathe based on how I want to feel? Just like we grab our steering wheel if we want to change the direction of our car, most of the time when we’re driving, the majority of the time you’re driving unconsciously. You’re talking to your spouse, listening to the radio, in your head having your own thoughts. A minute later, you go, how did I even get here? I wasn’t even paying attention, but somehow, I got here. For most people, that’s how they breathe. They breathe unconsciously.

Imagine if you want to change directions, or there is a turn coming up in the road, you have to grab that steering wheel, then you decide what direction the car is going to go in. Our breath is the same way. If we want to bring awareness to our breath, we ask ourselves, “Is my breath matching the state that I want my nervous system to be in?” For example, if I am eating a meal, I want my nervous system to be calm and relaxed, not all excited. My breath should then match a calm, relaxed breathing cadence. 

If I am going to go for a jog, or if I am going to go for a run, or if I am going to lift a heavy set, I come back to my breath, grab that steering wheel, and realize how I want to breathe to accomplish this activity. We use our breath to inform our nervous system on where to send blood to. We use our breath to move lymph throughout our body because the diaphragm acts as a pump and pumps the lymph. Some of our biggest lymph nodes in our body are underneath our diaphragm. 

We use our breath to inform our nervous system based on emotions. For example, if you and I went to a laughing yoga class, and we just started laughing for no reason whatsoever, if we did it long enough, just for a couple minutes or so, our breath would inform our nervous system that we’re happy, and we’d start making happy chemicals. In fact, I can do things like exaggerate sighing, something called a physiologic sigh, and create the feeling of relaxation in my body in less than two minutes. 

Our nervous system informs our breath, and our breath informs our nervous system. It’s actually a really interesting two-way street. For example, if you think about something like sobbing, sobbing is a breathing signature that babies use when they’re crying almost uncontrollably. That’s actually how they calm themselves down. It’s the nervous system’s way of releasing all that adrenaline, that breathing cadence of sobbing. What do most parents do? They tell their children to stop crying. Now, the child can’t use their nervous system and breath to calm themselves down. They bury those emotions. 

Breathing plays such an important role in so many areas and aspects of our life. It’s one of those things that is so critically essential and does so much more than we think. It’s not just delivering oxygen to our mitochondria, which is one of its functions; it’s promoting healthy circulation, healthy lymphatic flow, a healthy nervous system. It’s doing so many other things. 

When we breathe correctly, we also create the right environment, particularly in our nose, to purify and cleanse the air, and also create certain molecules, one of those being nitric oxide. The correct breathing, which is breathing through our nose, and we can talk about that, has such a profound effect on our physiology because it allows us to make a molecule called nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps with increasing microcirculation, healing and repair, killing viruses and bacteria on contact, and lowering blood pressure. Breathing also plays a role in our blood pressure. 

Another fun fact about breathing is the greatest predictor of lifespan is lung capacity. If you want to live long and healthy and vital and have lots of energy, guess what? You need to learn to increase and maintain your lung capacity so as you get older, you still stay vital. In Eastern medicine, they believe we are born with a certain number of breaths. What the yogis do when they want to slow down the aging process is slow down their breath. When we slow down our breath, we slow down our heart rate as well. We can control our breath. We can’t control our heart rate directly, but we can directly control our respiratory rate.

Dr. Eric: 

I have a couple of questions. When it comes to lung capacity, what are some things we can do to increase it? Also, when you say that we should breathe through our nose, should we both inhale and exhale through our nose, or just inhale through our nose and exhale through our mouth? 

Dr. Sachin: 

Sure. There are three gears to breathing. The majority of the time, we invite people to breathe in and out through their nose. Unless they have some sort of obstructive issue, of course, there will be people listening to this who for whatever reason can’t breathe through their nose. If you don’t use your nose, you lose it. If you are a habitual or persistent mouth breather, and you decide to start breathing through your nose today, it will feel restricted because you haven’t been using your nose appropriately. The more you breathe through hour nose, the more it will actually open up. That’s something to keep in mind.

When they did studies on people who had trachs put in, breathing tubes into their throat, what they realized is their nose essentially closed up. Over time, it will close up if you don’t use it. If you’re a persistent mouth breather, expect your nose to feel a little congested. You can use a Naväge to clean it out. You can use a salt rinse to clean up your sinuses as well. There are other things you can do to improve that, but those are good places to start. 

The first gear is breathing in and out through our nose. That is how we should be breathing the majority of the time.

Next, with mild exertion or when we’re talking, we might find ourselves breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth.

The third gear is if we are in extreme exertion, fight or flight, then we would be breathing in and out through our mouth. There are going to be times, like if you are running up and down the basketball court, and you need to breathe in and out quickly, you might breathe with your mouth open. You will then try to calm your nervous system down by breathing in and out through your nose, and then go back to breathing out through your mouth. Those are the three gears of appropriate breathing.

One of the best and cheapest ways that I found to increase lung capacity is to use diaphragmatic exercises, where you are working the trigger points out of your diaphragm. It expands and contracts appropriately. 

I like encouraging people to use an incentive spirometer. An incentive spirometer is something that they typically give people when they have pneumonia in the hospital. It’s a way for you to measure and work on improving your lung capacity. That’s a very easy and inexpensive way that people can increase their lung capacity. 

Blowing up balloons can also be helpful. Taking deep breaths in and deep breaths out. 

One other thing to help improve lung capacity and breathing is to strengthen your diaphragm. There is an easy exercise people can do called crocodile pose, where you lay flat on your stomach with your hands on top of your head, breathing into your belly. The resistance of your body weight is going to create resistance in the diaphragm to contract, which is going to then strengthen it as well. If you can’t lay on your stomach for whatever reason, you can put your old radiology textbooks on your stomach, breathe into your belly, and lift the books up and down. Those are some ways to increase lung capacity and strengthen the diaphragm as well. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned that if someone was used to breathing in and out through their mouth, it might take some time, like they might feel like they’re congested. Reasonably, how long on average would it take to inhale and exhale through the nose? If they are practicing on a daily basis, is it two or three weeks, or a few months from now, to where they really feel comfortable, and it’s almost like conscious yet unconscious? Kind of like you said, like driving, you want to be conscious about it, but not necessarily constantly thinking about it. 

Dr. Sachin: 

Right. Great question. The truth is it absolutely depends on the person. If somebody is a habitual mouth breather, chances are they have a narrow upper palate. Or in some cases, if somebody sucked their thumb when they were a child, they have pushed their hard palate into their airway, which means they have a smaller airway to work with. It’s going to depend on the anatomy of somebody’s face. It’s also going to depend on their diet, nutrition, how functional that tissue is, and how well their biochemistry is functioning. The correct answer is I don’t know because it will vary from person to person.

What I have found is the body always responds very quickly. It doesn’t have to take long for people to start noticing an improvement. There are other things people can do. There is a nasal oil we can put in our nose to lubricate the nasal passages. We can also wear breathing strips to open up the nasal passages. There are other ways we can enhance or support the anatomy, so it becomes easier for us to breathe through our nose. 

Some people also have challenges with stuffiness. There is actually nose clearing exercises that you can do. Simply by taking a deep breath in, followed by a relaxed exhale, and then plugging your nose, letting the CO2 build up. Within about a minute or so, your nose will start to unclog automatically. It’s almost like magic. Depending on what’s causing that stuffiness. Sometimes, there is instantaneous solutions. 

Sometimes, the solutions may be longer-term as well. Some people actually need to have facial airway reconstruction interventions because their airway might be very narrow. It just depends on what’s going on with the person.

Dr. Eric: 

Do you find once someone is breathing consistently, inhaling and exhaling through their nose throughout the day, does that automatically happen at night, too? Or do you find that most people need to incorporate mouth tape? Also, that is a process itself, trying not to breathe at night through the mouth, assuming they don’t have sleep apnea. I don’t know if you want to touch upon that. Assuming the absence of any physical obstructions. 

Dr. Sachin: 

About 66% of people breathe through their mouth at night. Breathing through our mouth is the #1 cause of cavities. Breathing through our mouth dries out our mouth, which makes our teeth and our gums more prone to disease and dysfunction. It dries out the microbiome in the mouth and kills healthy bacteria, which help us make nitric oxide, which naturally helps lower blood pressure. 

It also is important to note that our mouth is the dirtiest part of our body. Sleep should be the most rejuvenating thing that we do. If we are going to consume about 10 pounds of air while we’re sleeping, we don’t want that air to be going through our mouth. We want that air going through our nose because our nose is going to filter the particulate, temperature regulate the air, pressure regulate the air, recapture the moisture we would normally lose, and act as an antidiuretic, meaning people who breathe through their mouth at night are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. We want to ensure people are breathing through their nose at night for a variety of reasons.

The other thing to note is the most parasympathetic healing thing we do is sleep. We want our breathing cadence and our nervous system to be informed that we are in a safe and relaxed state. A safe and relaxed state is us breathing through our nose. We would be normally breathing through our mouth in a fight or flight situation. 

Many times, people don’t get restorative sleep because while they were laying there, their body was trying to repair, but their nervous system never got into the deepest stages of healing by being more parasympathetic. This is why people wake up and are more tired in the morning than when they went to sleep. Let’s say somebody had apnea, and their breathing stopped in the middle of the night. Imagine somebody is snoring all night, and then breathing like that during the day. Of course, they would feel tired. They would feel more tired than when they went to bed because they were breathing like that for the past eight hours. 

Some people wake up with high blood sugar, no matter how perfect their diet is. It’s because they were producing so much cortisol while they were sleeping because of the way they were breathing. The mouth tape acts as an insurance policy. 

I have been mouth taping for about three or four years now. One of the things I noticed, besides keeping my mouth closed and essentially eliminating my snoring, is I realized that I’m not waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. My wife is a much happier camper. 

The other thing I notice is I don’t clench my teeth anymore. What the tape does is keep my jaw naturally closed. My jaw muscles don’t have to do any work to keep my mouth closed at night. Some people are prone to grinding their teeth. A lot of times, that has to do with stress or magnesium deficiency and other things. I noticed I used to do that. I used to have a bite guard. I hated the thing. I never wore it. It was a big waste of money. What cured my grinding was the mouth taping because I didn’t have to clench my jaw to keep my mouth closed. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you still use mouth tape consistently every night? 

Dr. Sachin: 

Yep. I think I have missed fewer than five days that entire time. I forgot my mouth tape at home when I was traveling. Other than that, it’s been a big staple for me. My whole family does it. My wife, my son, we all mouth tape. It’s profoundly changed our lives and the lives of so many of our clients we recommend it to. 

Dr. Eric: 

Are there any specific brands? Should people just do a search for mouth tape? 

Dr. Sachin: 

I use the 3M Micropore tape. It’s not probably marketed as mouth tape specifically. It’s a surgical tape. There are versions for sensitive skin. It works well even with my beard. 

You are applying a vertical strip. You are not sealing your mouth. There is something called hostage tape. That seals the person’s mouth. That’s not the purpose of the tape. The purpose of the tape is to keep your mouth closed and relaxed. You can still talk if you need to. You can still breathe through your mouth if you need to. You are not trying to hermetically seal the mouth. You are telling the jaw to stay in that closed position while you sleep. 

The 3M Micropore tape is super cheap. It’s a couple bucks for a roll. A 10-yard roll will last you many months. It’s literally pennies a day to do the most important thing that you do better. The most important thing that we do for our healing is we sleep. How we breathe while we sleep, if that’s the other most important thing that we do, then it makes a huge difference. People notice within a couple days a significant improvement in their quality of sleep and how they feel when they wake up in the morning.

Dr. Eric: 

Sticking to the topic of sleep, do you believe we all need a certain amount of sleep? On average, do we need 7-8 hours that you hear that most other practitioners or people in general recommend? Do you think everybody is different, and some people can get away with six hours without a problem consistently? 

Dr. Sachin: 

We’re all wired a little bit differently. I know Michael Bruce, one of the leading sleep experts, will tell you there is different chronotypes. Some people need a little bit more. My wife needs more sleep than I do, which is not a bad thing. It’s just what her body needs. We need to be intuitive with our sleep. 

Certainly, you can wear an Oura ring or a sleep tracking device to see if you are getting the quality of sleep. I would say the best indicator is how you feel when you wake up in the morning. If you have got everything dialed in—your breathing is right, your room is set up right, you have your sleep hygiene dialed in—and six hours isn’t cutting it for you, listen to your body. 

I also believe there is seasonality to sleep. Us living here in the Northern hemisphere, now it’s winter. I believe in the winter, we should be sleeping a little bit more. It’s a season of hibernation. Animals do it as well. Humans keep the same hours and keep plugging away even though everything else around us has changed dramatically. I believe in the winter, people need more sleep than they would in the summer. That’s another theory. I don’t have any evidence or science to back it up. Paying attention to all the animals and what they’re doing, they’re sleeping a lot more than they do in the summer.

Dr. Eric: 

For a couple minutes, I wanted to talk about Circadian rhythm. What are some quick tips you would recommend to reset someone’s Circadian rhythm? Sticking to the topic of sleep, if someone has problems falling and staying asleep, besides breathwork and mouth taping, do you recommend getting regular sun exposure, like sun exposure first thing in the morning? Making sure the room is completely dark? What are your thoughts on staying off of electronics before going to bed? 

Dr. Sachin: 

I hate to be the bad guy, but I think there is some really important things that people can take away from what I’m about to say that can be really helpful for them. When you tell people not to be on their electronics, it almost shellshocks them. “Oh my god, what do I do?” 

There are definitely filters you can get. On my iPhone, I have an accessibility feature. When I press my Power button a few times, my screen actually turns red. On your Android, there is an app called Twilight, which will do that as well. It takes away the blue light from your devices. On your computer, there is a product called f.lux. It’s a free software that automatically adjusts your lighting from your computer monitor to reflect the time of day. There are some workarounds. There are blue blocking glasses, which block frequencies of blue and green light out. Normally, in the evening, there is less of that.

Another thing that is often not discussed is the directionality of light. You want to try to avoid overhead lighting after the sun goes down. The direction of lighting shines in the bottom of your retina when it’s coming from above, telling us it’s still daytime outside. What we encourage people to do is use red lights in the evening, coming from the ground up. We actually give all of our clients a special bulb that is a 640nm bulb. It’s a red bulb. It’s a flicker free LED. What that bulb does is lower our cortisol and help increase our melatonin. As many of you probably know, melatonin isn’t just for sleep. It plays a huge role in our immune system health. It’s probably one of the most important signaling hormones for our immune system. Avoiding overhead lighting in the evening. 

Avoiding daytime spectrum bulbs. Some people have these fluorescent bulbs. If you look at junk lighting through the same lens like you would junk food, you would see that it’s crazy that people use LEDs without knowing the potential harm they are causing to their health. A Tungsten bulb, which is the original bulb that was invented by Edison, that bulb is very similar. The spectrum of light that it gives off is very similar to a sunset. It will be a much more relaxing light. 

Even though it looks similar, the actual information that your eye and your nervous system is receiving is very different than receiving it from an LED bulb. There is lots of graphs you can look up. You can look up sunlight vs LED light spectrum. You will see the radical difference in how much information is missing from an LED bulb coming to your brain versus a Tungsten bulb versus sunlight. That matters.

Of course, getting daytime sunlight is a huge thing, especially first hour in the morning. I always say try to get green and sun before you take your caffeine. Usually, people want to wait about an hour before they have caffeine. 

You can also use certain breathing techniques in the morning to increase your energy. Cortisol should be highest when we wake up in the morning because that helps energize us. It also helps us raise our blood sugar. That’s cortisol’s main job. 

We can also raise cortisol using our breath. There is a special type of breath called Bellows breath. It’s really simple. We forcefully inhale, throwing our hands up in the air. We forcefully exhale, in and out through the nose, 30 times like this. You will get your heart pumping. Every time you breathe in sharply, your lungs expand, compressing your heart. As your diaphragm moves up and down, it will also compress your heart. It will get your heart pumping and your adrenaline up. It’s lovingly also known as yogic coffee. That could be a great way to energize you in the morning if you need something and don’t want to drink caffeine, or even in the afternoon as well. 

Dr. Eric: 

My final question before telling people where they can find out more about you, and it might tie into this question: What other resources do you recommend, especially getting back to breathwork? I have heard you on other podcasts talk about the book Breath by James Nestor. I wanted to ask you about that, too, because I don’t have that book. Do you recommend physically reading it, or is listening to it okay? 

Dr. Sachin: 

Breath by James Nestor is a book I gave to every one of my clients in 2020 when it first came out. It’s one of the most important books I have personally ever read. I recommend getting the audio version and the written version. 

James has become a friend over the years. I’ve had a chance to go to his retreats. If you ever have a chance to do that, it’s in beautiful locations with beautiful people. I would look into that a well.

We only literally scratched the surface today. I gave everyone a bucket out of the ocean of the knowledge that’s out there on breathing. I hope I sparked some people’s interest in going down this rabbit hole a little bit longer. 

I’ll share a link I created for a bundle called The Ultimate Breathwork Bundle. It’s got my keynotes I’ve done on breathing, breathing exercises, a breathing experience that people can go through for themselves. I know you have gone through it. I have recorded that and am happy to share that. It’s all absolutely free. They say the best things in life are free. There is nothing better for you than learning how to breathe, so I want to bring this information, knowledge, and awareness to as many people as I can. 

I created this free bundle, which has five of my most requested resources. I have a stop snoring guide in there, my notes from James’ retreat, the breathing experience, my breathing signatures guide, and my breathing keynote. People can request the slides if they want as well. A great set of resources for both practitioners and those of you who are learning to improve and optimize your health.

Dr. Eric: 

What is the website? 

Dr. Sachin: 

BreathWorkWithSachin.com. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you so much, Sachin. Like you said, there is so much more you could cover, but definitely visit Sachin’s website, and take advantage of those resources. Appreciate everything that you shared with the audience. 

Dr. Sachin: 

My pleasure. It’s an absolute honor. I’m so grateful that we had this time together.

 

Recently, I interviewed Jeffrey Smith, and we talked about the risks associated with GMOs and glyphosate, particularly their impact on thyroid and autoimmune conditions. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am super excited to chat with today’s guest, who I have been following for quite a long time. We have Jeffrey Smith, and we are going to be talking about GMOs and glyphosate. Before this conversation, I was sharing an article from 2013 that I wrote, telling Jeffrey that he was the one who motivated me to write the article on GMOs and how potentially they could affect thyroid health. I am absolutely thrilled to chat with Jeffrey.

I am going to dive into his bio here: As a global thought leader on the health dangers of genetically modified organisms for over 27 years, Jeffrey Smith has authored two bestsellers, directed five documentaries, delivered 2,000 lectures and interviews in 45 countries, trained 1,500 speakers, and organized more than 10,000 grassroots advocates. Jeffrey has counseled world leaders on six continents. His meticulous research presented at medical conferences has inspired thousands to prescribe non-GMO and organic diets. The success of the GMO education movement he pioneered is measured in part by the 48% of world consumers who acknowledge GMOs are unhealthy. 

Jeffrey and IRT are now sounding the alarm about new genetic engineering techniques, such as gene editing. Unregulated GMO 2.0 can cause health and environmental disasters. The most urgent danger comes from genetically engineered microbes. Jeffrey is stewarding a global effort to prevent their release. 

Thank you so much for joining us.  

Jeffrey Smith: 

Thank you, Eric. It was fun seeing a 2013 article by you because we haven’t spoken. I have been doing this for 27 years, on the global scale for 20 years. I was at a conference two days ago. Someone said, “You came around 2004 to Navy Pier in Chicago. You brought 100 CDs and passed them out to everyone.” Someone else changed their diet and was growing their own food, planting non-GMO and organic seeds around the world. Not even knowing what’s happening until some chance meeting like this. 

Now, we have a lot more evidence linking GMOs and Roundup to thyroid conditions, which I’m sure your audience will want to know. I am excited and thrilled to meet you because evidently, the relationship has been one-way, and now it gets to be two-way. 

Dr. Eric: 

Definitely. I didn’t realize until you sent me your bio that you have been doing this that long. February 2013, as of recording this, over 10 years ago. You have been doing this for 27 years, which is just amazing.

Jeffrey: 

It is. I am celebrating our 20th anniversary since Seeds of Deception came out, since I founded the Institute for Responsible Technology at ResponsibleTechnology.org. We are about to do a big celebration of the 20 years. I am looking back at the kind of influence. It’s amazing. This is an example of something that I get to add- I get to celebrate you now, Eric. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thanks again. If we could start off by talking about what GMOs are, just for that maybe a small percentage of people who don’t know what they are. If you could not only talk about GMOs, but what’s meant by GMO 2.0.

Jeffrey: 

Sure. I do want to say that I am going to be showing some jaw-dropping charts in just a few minutes, linking GMOs and the Roundup sprayed on most GMOs with about 40 different diseases, not just linking them, but showing that as the use of GMOs and Roundup increased, these diseases skyrocketed in parallel. It’s not just another health issue to worry about; it may be one of the most serious and impactful environmental insults, which lead the way to all sorts of diseases. 

We understand in many cases why. We know the modes of action. We have the animal feeding studies. I wanted to make sure I said that up front because if people know GMOs, and they go, “Okay, yeah, I know them and try to avoid them,” they may not know that Roundup is sprayed on wheat, oats, lentils, mung beans, and more. We will get into that, too. It’s not just avoiding GMOs, but how to protect yourself from both GMOs and Roundup. 

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were originally brought to market for food by Monsanto. The reason was that glyphosate was going off patent in 2000. Glyphosate kills bacteria. It’s a big antibiotic. They found bacteria growing in a chemical waste dump near their factory that wasn’t dying in the presence of glyphosate. Great, let’s put it in the food supply. They took the gene from the bacterium that allowed it to survive and inserted it into soybeans, corn, canola, and cotton. 

Roundup Ready crops were created, so you can spray the field after the crops had already started growing with Roundup herbicide and not kill those crops, just all of the other plants and biodiversity. It was a method to make weeding easier for farmers.

With glyphosate mixed with the other ingredients like the surfactant and PEOA in Roundup, it’s designed to break into the cell walls of the plant and get inside the plant, where it migrates to the food portion. About 15% leaves the roots, but the rest is still in there. We actually end up eating the soy and corn, cottonseed oil, canola oil that are from seeds and plants that have Roundup in them because of the Roundup Ready crops. 

The Roundup is dangerous in ways that are very well understood, and more is coming each day. There was research last week and the week before showing serious issues: children cognitive disorders, kidney problems, and more. The GMOs have been shown to have all sorts of health dangers in virtually every organ and system studied. Now, you have a combination of those two. 

It gets worse. The corn in the United States, most of it also produces a pesticide and insecticide to kill insects. They took a gene from soil bacterium, which normally kills insects, but then it washes away or biodegrades. Now it is encapsulated in the corn that we eat. In high concentrations in laboratory settings, it pokes holes in human cells and causes allergic reactions in humans. Now we have three toxic conditions in GMOs: the GMO itself, which has massive collateral damage due to the insertion of foreign genes; the Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides; and Bt toxin insecticide. We have tracked these and the modes of action in the animal feeding studies to a long list of diseases. 

The good news is, as we’ll see in one of the slides, people have reported getting better from at least 28 different conditions when they switch to organic food, which does not allow either GMOs or Roundup.

Dr. Eric: 

It’s not about just eating these GMO foods directly, but for example, if you were to eat meat, whether it’s poultry or grain-fed beef, I imagine that could also have an indirect impact, too. 

Jeffrey: 

Gerald Guest, who was the head of the division of veterinary medicine of the FDA, wrote a memo saying there are unique risks associated with eating the meat and milk from animals that have been fed GMOs. He, like all of the other scientists at the FDA, were ignored. 

In fact, their concerns about the health dangers of GMOs, which reveal in memo after memo that became public from a lawsuit in 1998, show that they wanted not only animal feeding studies but human toxicological studies to prove that GMOS were safe. The person in charge of policy at the FDA, Michael Taylor, was Monsanto’s former attorney, later Monsanto’s vice president, and said, “We know of no difference between GMOs and non-GMOs. Therefore, no testing or labeling is necessary.” That was fraud. That was a lie. But we didn’t know it at the time that the policy was created in 1992, which was a look the other way policy, which is still in place.

It turns out what Gerald Guest said makes sense. If an animal is eating grain with Roundup Ready crops, there could be something called bioaccumulation, where the Roundup gets stored in the animal. We know now from radio labeled assays that a lot of it can stay for a couple of weeks and concentrate in the bones and certain organs. Most of it goes out through urine, but some concentrates. In addition, it’s been found in mother’s milk, so we can assume it’s in the cow’s milk as well.

Also, the impact can change the structure and health of the animal. The GMOs and the Roundup can both do that. We have seen massive problems with the health of animals that are fed GMOs. These are serious conditions in pigs with ulcers in the stomach and changes in the microbiome of animals that have caused serious problems. 

Veterinarians and pet owners tell us that when they switch their animals to organic, older dogs become like puppies again, and serious chronic issues go away. In fact, I spoke to Dr. Michael Fox, who wrote the column for 25-30 million readers “Animal Doctor.” When GMOs were introduced, all of these pet owners sent him letters saying now there is intractable diarrhea and itching. “Get your pet off of GMOs.” Sure enough, things got better. 

Same thing with pediatricians dealing with children. All of a sudden, these complicated diseases came up. When they put the family on organic, things got better. 

We have that level of evidence. It goes much deeper. We know that Roundup binds with minerals, making them unavailable. The minerals are still there, but they’re hugged by the glyphosate molecules, and they can’t be used by the human, animal, or plant. Most of the livestock that we eat or get eggs or milk from have as the majority of their diet Roundup Ready crops. They not only have the poison aspect, but they end up minerally deficient. That may explain some of the serious diseases, the chronic and widespread diseases, including the infertility in many of the livestock in the United States and around the world as well as chronic botulism and other things. We now understand the modes of action from that as well. 

Yes, now, anecdotal evidence is just that, but it’s compelling if it’s yourself or your friend or your family. A farmer told me about a good friend of his who had their own chickens. They were eating the eggs of the chicken every single day. All of a sudden, one morning, after eating the eggs, the mother and the daughter were rushed to the hospital, having anaphylactic, allergenic shock. The father called the feed supplier and said, “Was there any change?” He said, “Couldn’t get the non-GMO anymore, so I gave you the GMO.” The family didn’t even know it, but the day they ate it, there was a change. I know other people who cannot eat animal products from animals that are fed GMOs. Even though it’s one off here and one off there, it makes a difference if you’re that one-off. 

Dr. Eric: 

Definitely want to eat not just organic produce, but any animal-based foods, whether it’s eggs, dairy, meat, poultry. And your pets, too. That’s also a good point. Some people tend to focus on just eating organic food themselves, but how about their pets, who are eating GMO food? Appreciate you mentioning that.

You mentioned minerals. We chatted a little bit prior to recording this about thyroid and selenium. Is it all the minerals? With thyroid, selenium is very important. A lot of controversy around iodine and thyroid health. Can glyphosate bind all of these minerals? Does it have an affinity for certain minerals? 

Jeffrey: 

The chelation coefficient is higher for certain minerals than others. Manganese, very high. Selenium, high. Cobalt, very high. Vitamin E. You end up with a situation where a lot of the trace minerals, which are in small amounts, are unavailable. We know that thyroid health is intimately connected with selenium. You mentioned magnesium. If the selenium that we are getting in small amounts anyway is bound up with glyphosate, then we may end up with that deficiency, and that’s linked to some more severe diseases. 

From a layperson’s view, it’s like all of the workers are there, ready to work, but the foreman hasn’t shown up. The foreman is the mineral. Some call it the key in the ignition. Without that, all these metabolic pathways that help the body sit idle and do not function. When you end up with mineral deficiency, there is a long list of diseases that can result from that. Thyroid conditions are just one of them. 

Shall we look at some of the diseases related to GMOs and Roundup that we’ve found from an epidemiological basis? 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, let’s do it. 

Jeffrey: 

All right, I am going to share some slides. As you will see on the screen now, this is inflammatory bowel disease in the U.S. from 1990-2011. The orange line is the amount of glyphosate-based herbicides, or glyphosate sprayed on soy and corn. Remember, soy and corn became Roundup Ready. Now, it’s over 90% of both. It was introduced in 1996, which is that big leap up of the amount of glyphosate sprayed on soy and corn. Americans eat more than their weight in GMOs each year. A lot of it is corn and soy. 

As the glyphosate increased, inflammatory bowel disease went up. Now, this is correlation, and it doesn’t prove causation. We have a lot of evidence to suggest that this is a causal relationship. In fact, at about 150 lectures, I asked the audience, “What have you noticed you got better from when you switched to a non-GMO and organic diet?” The #1 most common reported benefit was digestive disorders. We surveyed 3,256 people who reported getting better from 28 conditions. The #1 most reported was digestive disorders, 85.2%. 

In a peer-reviewed published article that I wrote in the International Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine, not only did I present the evidence of these surveys that we did, but I went into all the potential reasons why GMOs, Roundup, and Bt toxin might cause digestive disorders: leaky gut, problems with the microbiome, suppressed digestive enzymes, damage to the microvilli. Plus the animal feeding studies showing that it actually does. 

But I am only going to present the slides showing the correlation. You should know that we have evidence that suggests in some cases pretty much nailed down, causation. I am going to go through these 40 slides very quickly, in about a minute and a half. I will read the name of the disease. Those who are watching can see the dramatically tight correlation between the slope either of the Roundup. In some cases the Roundup is one line, and the percentage of GMO soy and corn is another line. Sometimes, there is a trend showing that if there hadn’t been a new environmental insult, it would have been way less. 

Here we have deaths from obesity. Those who can’t see, I will name them: 

• Anxiety. 
• Diabetes. 
• Deaths from Alzheimer’s. 
• Deaths from Parkinson’s. 
• Deaths from hypertension.
• Autism in six-year-olds.
• Insomnia 
• Celiac
• Acute kidney injury
• Death from kidney failure 
• Kidney and renal pelvic cancer 
• Liver cancer 
• Liver and bowel duct cancer

Thyroid cancer, which I’ll leave on for just a moment. The pre-1990 trend for the age-adjusted thyroid cancer was flat, but it goes up rather dramatically when GMOs are introduced. The R value, means the correlation value, is .9377. A 1 is a perfect correlation. The World Health Organization linked Roundup or glyphosate with cancer, calling it a probable human carcinogen. 

• Here’s deaths to acute myeloid leukemia.
• Breast cancer
• Deaths from intestinal infection
• Deaths from disorders of lipoprotein metabolism 
• Peritonitis 
• Hepatitis C 
• Dementia
• Deaths from senile dementia
• ADHD
• Schizophrenia
• Suicide by overdose
• Birth defects
• Congenital heart defects 
• Newborn metabolic disorders
• Newborn genital urinary disorders
• Skin disorders
• Newborns with lung conditions
• Newborn eye disorders
• Newborn blood disorders that are related to the immune system.
• Anemia
• Lymph disorders
• Age-adjusted deaths due to stroke 

Now, here’s 28 conditions that people got better from when they switched to non-GMO:

• Digestive problems are at the top, 85%. 
• Fatigue, 60%. 
• Overweight or obesity, 55%. 
• Brain fog, 52%. 
• Anxiety and depression, 52%. 
• Food allergies and sensitivities, 50%.
• Memory
• Concentration
• Joint pain
• Seasonal allergies
• Gluten sensitivity
• All the way down the lowest, which is Parkinson’s. 

These are examples of two different sets of data. One is self-reports. Some of these are reports from physicians about their patients. Then there is epidemiological evidence. We are not going to bring up the trove of animal feeding studies.

What I will mention is sometimes we have modes of action that are so logical that it’s hard not to mention. Insomnia, how can insomnia be related to GMOs and Roundup? Everyone knows melatonin is something you take if you can’t sleep. It’s a neurotransmitter that governs the daily rhythms. That is converted from serotonin. Serotonin is produced largely in the gut. Its precursor is L-tryptophan. L-tryptophan is produced in the gut by the gut bacteria by something called the shikimate pathway. The shikimate pathway is disabled by glyphosate.

Now we got the other way. If we don’t have a shikimate pathway, we don’t have L-tryptophan. If we don’t have L-tryptophan, we have a deficiency of serotonin, which has its own problems in terms of cognitive disorders, anxiety, etc. There is also less tyrosine, so the dopamine doesn’t necessarily get made. The happy chemicals aren’t there. The serotonin can’t be converted to melatonin, and now we have insomnia. 

1/3 of the people who switch to non-GMO and largely organic diets said that their sleep got better. Their insomnia conditions got better. We have personal reports, clinical evidence, modes of action, and epidemiological evidence.

It’s pretty strong. We understand so many modes of action. I want to leave it there, Eric. I think people get that this is absolutely fundamental to healthy life. That is to eat organic. When you eat organic, create a spreadsheet every day, all the symptoms 1-10: your energy level, mood, percentage of organic, and watch what changes. Could be your acne, weight, mood. Who knows what? That’s the question. We don’t know which is related. But track them all and see. Then you will be more committed to an organic diet if you’ve seen the change. If you decide to go back, you can change that, too. You can monitor that and see if your symptoms return. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m so glad that you pinpointed insomnia because you covered all of these scary conditions. Some might overlook insomnia, but so many people experience sleep disorders, and yet don’t make that connection. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of that, too. Even though I tell people to eat organic, it’s not because of the sleep issues that they could potentially have. Obviously, there are a lot of other health conditions as you revealed. That’s amazing that just changing one’s diet from conventional to organic, 1/3 of people experience an improvement in sleep, which is quite amazing. 

I also want to bring up for those listening with Graves’ and Hashimoto’s, which a lot of people have those conditions, that was on the chart, too. Not specifically those conditions, but autoimmunity. That makes sense with glyphosate’s impact on the gut microbiome, and most of the immune system cells are in the gut.  

Jeffrey: 

I can talk a little bit about autoimmunity because I think there is some interesting information. First of all, Roundup Ready soy, when cooked, does not denature trypsin inhibitor, hardly at all, according to Monsanto’s own study that was attempted to be hidden. The amount of trypsin inhibitor was as much as seven times that of natural soy after it was cooked. Trypsin inhibitor in large amounts is extremely dangerous. It blocks the ability of trypsin to break down proteins. When you have proteins lasting longer in the digestive tract, they are more likely to create an immune response, an allergic response. Resistant proteins are one of the characteristics of an allergy.

At the same time, you have Roundup sprayed on the soy. Roundup, you can look at cells in a microscope where you put glyphosate in there, and it splits apart the tight junction. Now you have intercellular leaky gut created by Roundup. It also can affect the zonulin, which is a biochemical pathway related to it. Even without the zonulin, it can do that. It also affects the microbiome. The microbiome, it damages that which keeps the mucosal barrier intact. Many ways that Roundup might be causing this intercellular, between the cells, opening up the tight junctions.

Then you eat corn that has Bt toxin, which might poke holes inside the cell. That is how it kills insects. Now, you may have intracellular leaky gut. That is two different types of leaky gut. Now you have leaky gut, and you have these proteins that don’t have the access to as much breakdown because your trypsin isn’t working as well. 

Glyphosate doesn’t stop there. That was the GMO soy. Glyphosate, in studies on carnivorous fish, suppressed the production of enzymes to break down foods, all the digestive enzyme classes. Also, the microvilli that absorb are damaged by glyphosate and Bt toxin. Now you have these holes in the gut. You have undigested proteins, which then can potentially make their way into the bloodstream. 

The immune system considers it an attack, and they all gather around and start attacking it. They get out their iPhones and take pictures of it and post it on the body’s Facebook and say, “Anything that looks like this, you should attack.” But it’s pixelated. The rest of the immune system attacks anything that looks like it. The thyroid looks like it, so they attack the thyroid. The pancreas looks like it, so they attack the pancreas. That is basically how autoimmunity works. It’s leaky gut and faulty iPhones. That is an example. It’s a gang-up just in that gut. 

On top of that, there is a triggering off the immune system. The Bt toxin can create an immune response. Now, there is a heightened immune response: a systemic immune response, a mucosal immune response. That heightens the reactivity of the immune system at the same time. 

We can track not only autoimmune disease to this package of GMOs, Roundup, and Bt toxin, but also gluten sensitivity. In fact, I think I was the first person 11 years ago to raise the relationship. It’s since been the subject of peer-reviewed articles and a lot of clinical evidence. In fact, in our individual reports, gluten sensitivity reduced by 42.2% in the 3,256 people who we surveyed. A lot of people say that sometimes people are gluten-sensitive when they switch to corn. Wrong. If the corn is not organic, or it’s not non-GMO, it might be actually exacerbating the situation. 

Dr. Eric: 

You brought up years ago that some people, when they have what they think might be a gluten sensitivity, actually might be glyphosate. It could be a combination of both. How about for those who are listening and wondering, “I’ll try to eat organic, but it’s just choosing foods that are non-GMO enough? Ones that have the label non-GMO but are not organic. What are your thoughts on that? 

Jeffrey: 

Not good enough. Here’s the reason: I’m not an expert in all the food toxins. I’m not a nutritionist. I follow two or three, Roundup and glyphosate-based herbicides, and GMOs. Roundup is seriously dangerous. It can damage the foundation of our health. 

For the geeks among us, I’m going to list the things that glyphosate does on the foundational level, not at the disease level. You have already seen some. It can: 

• Block the ability for certain minerals to be used.
• Damage the microbiome.
• Cause leaky gut.
• Cause cancer.
• Birth defects.
• Damage the mitochondria. 
• Damage the ability to produce neurotransmitters. 
• Mess up the hormones. 
• Damage digestive capacity. 

I’m just getting started. You don’t want Roundup in your food. Glyphosate-based herbicides, like Roundup, are sprayed on the grains and beans. It’s on the wheat, the oats in particular, the mung beans, lentils, chickpeas. So hummus is out. All these things, unless it’s organic, can contain high levels of glyphosate residues. 

If you can’t get organic, then eat non-GMO, and avoid those specific foods whenever you can that have high levels of glyphosate residues. On the website ResponsibleTechnology.org, we have a database of all the different tests that we can find by organizations, including our own, that test for glyphosate residues. You can see which ones have high levels. You can see how organic in almost every case has either very low levels by comparison, or no detectable levels. 

Why would it have any detectable levels? Sometimes, there is accidental contamination. Glyphosate is used so much; it’s the most used agricultural chemical in history. 300 million pounds a year. It’s in the air now. It’s in the rain. Even trying to grow organic in certain parts of the country may end up with glyphosate contamination at low levels. We can’t eliminate it completely, but we can certainly reduce it. 

Dr. Eric: 

The problem with non-GMO essentially is it does not mean that it’s glyphosate-free. You are avoiding GMOs, not glyphosate. 

How about water? What water would you recommend? If I may ask, what water do you drink? I imagine you are trying to avoid glyphosate in water as well.

Jeffrey: 

I have a purifier that adds hydrogen to it. We did a couple webinars about it because I was impressed on its impact on the microbiome. I didn’t do any webinars until I got the certificate that it had no detectable levels of glyphosate. In the lab, they added glyphosate at a certain level. Then they put it through the filter. Then they tested the water afterwards. There is a few like that.

If you have a water filter, RO are always supposed to do that, reverse osmosis. I talked to someone two days ago, but they said their RO is not doing that. They may have a faulty RO. You can send your own water for a test for about $250, last time I checked. You can also test your own urine for about $100, or your hair. Hair gives it over time. Urine is more of a spot check. If you change your diet the night before, it can spike. If you cut out glyphosate for a week, it will go down dramatically. Most of it goes out in the urine. 

Dr. Eric: 

I did a urinary glyphosate test a number of years ago. I don’t think I’ve seen one that doesn’t have any glyphosate. It was within the acceptable limits, but still tried to do things to decrease it, including sauna. I don’t know if there is actual research. When I did a retest, it showed that it was lower. I was already eating organic. Whether or not it’s coincidental, it did seem to help. 

Jeffrey: 

I did a whole program called Healing from GMOs and Roundup, where I interviewed 18 experts. I think it was Lee Cowden and Dietrich Klinghardt who both said detoxification using a sauna would be helpful for the process of getting rid of glyphosate. It was interesting. Dietrich said something I hadn’t heard until that point, but I have heard since. His most seriously damaged or unhealthy patients, like the autistic kids, had no glyphosate detectable in their urine until he started the glyphosate detoxification protocols. Then the glyphosate started coming out. It was as if they could not detoxify, and it was being held in their system and wreaking havoc. I have heard that at least one other time by another practitioner who does regular urine testing for glyphosate. 

Dr. Eric: 

Interesting. If someone does a test, and if it looks great, it just might be that it’s stored in the tissues. It might be worth doing it again. We live in a toxic world regardless. Obviously, we’re doing things naturally to detox. In this day and age, we need to do more than just trying to detox through diet. That’s very interesting. 

You probably know exactly. As far as the number of foods that are genetically modified, do you know the current number? 

Jeffrey: 

Sure. We’ve held it down to a dozen for many years, but I’m going to transition to GMO 2.0 because this is the issue. Soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, and alfalfas, those are the main six GMOs with the largest anchorage. Alfalfa, not just alfalfa sprouts, but hay for dairy cows. Canola and cottonseed oil. The sugar beets are not the table beets; they’re for sugar. We also have zucchini and yellow squash. We have papaya from Hawaii or China. We have apples that don’t turn brown when sliced. Don’t buy the pre-sliced apples from Amazon. We have potatoes that don’t turn brown when sliced. They’re throughout the food supply now, so that’s a big problem. There is a recent addition of a pink pineapple, which is weird. 

We also have a group that has introduced genetically engineered salmon into Canada. I think it stopped for a while, and they are going to reintroduce it into the United States through catering and restaurants, so they don’t have to label it. In South America, there is an herbicide tolerant wheat. In Bangladesh and India, there is an eggplant, and they are trying to get some other things approved.

Those are the only GMO commercial crops that we know about, except the new gene edited GMOs. Gene editing is a newer way of creating GMOs. Instead of taking a gene from one species and putting it in, using a gene gun or bacterial smuggling, you can cut the genome at specific places. When it reattaches, you can have it build something or take in a foreign gene, or just cut out and knock out a gene so it doesn’t produce a protein. 

The way they describe it and the way that I just did sounds very precise. In reality, it’s an absolute massive collateral damage show. In the fact, the journal Nature described it as “chromosomal mayhem,” deletions, additions, scrambling, chromosomes moved onto different chromosome sections. 

You can watch a six-minute animated film at Responsible Technology.org called “Seven Reasons Why Gene Editing is Dangerous and Unpredictable.” There is the possibility of new DNA from bacteria or other animals being put in there. There is the possibility of proteins being truncated, causing allergens or toxins. There are epigenetic effects that can be inherited for at least 10 generations. It’s absolutely a disaster when applied to food. 

You would think the regulatory agencies would say, “No, you can’t put any gene-edited food onto the market unless it’s thoroughly tested.” They don’t. They have been tricked by the biotech industry, who created an echo chamber of scientists saying, “Oh, it’s safe. It’s natural. It’s precise.” Using the same adjectives they tried to describe GMO 1.0 years ago, and finally people realized that wasn’t true. They have gotten countries to deregulate, turn the other way, on gene edited products that don’t have foreign genes put in, thinking it’s not a GMO. It is a GMO, and it’s very dangerous. 

In the United States, no labeling and no testing. In Canada, the UK, Japan, Australia, India, Brazil, Argentina. There is a company that is bragging, Conscious Foods, creating mustard greens and other greens, saying, “We’re gene-editing our salad for delivery to you through catering organizations and restaurants,” so they don’t have to label it. That is a disaster. 

Now, virtually anyone can create a gene edited food. A CRISPR lab, which in its most basic form, can cost less than $2,000. You need to do more to create a food. It’s being distributed in high schools. We’re in a situation where stealth GMOs will flood our food supply, and you can’t easily test for them, unless they’re registered, and you know what to look for. Our entire food supply is about to be contaminated unless we do something to stop it. 

The Institute for Responsible Technology, which has been pioneering evidence about the health dangers around the world, building up a global movement, we see the possibility of a reversal of all of our wins because of gene editing. That is just in food. 

Eric, the worst situation is there is a gene rush to create GMOs quickly to solve all sorts of problems, real or made up, by entrepreneurs and academics, who are going after insects and fish and trees and grass and pets. We are talking about GMOs that once you release, you cannot recall. You don’t know what the outcome is going to be years on. The 24 rabbits released in Australia in 1859 so that visitors felt more comfortable, so they can hunt rabbits. In the 1920s, there was over 10 billion because rabbits multiply like rabbits. We don’t know what’s going to happen when we introduce these GMOs from gene editing. 

We do know the most common result of gene editing and GMOs in general are surprise side effects. We may end biological evolution as we know it in this generation now that we have the capacity to redirect the streams of evolution intentionally or accidentally. Even by high school students who are assigned to use CRISPR kits and labs in science class. The most serious, the most dangerous, the most urgent situation is also around the most common species that are genetically engineered, and that’s microbes. 

On our website, ResponsibleTechnology.org, you can watch a 16-minute film called “Don’t Let the Gene Out of the Bottle.” It’s about the dangers of genetically engineered microorganisms, and it’s way worse than you can imagine. In the early ‘90s, there was a genetically engineered microbe that was nearly released. If it had been released as scheduled, as you will see in the interview of this former professor at Oregon State University, it may have theoretically ended terrestrial plant life. Another one could have theoretically altered weather patterns. These are just two genetically engineered microbes that might have caused these cataclysms simply doing what they were designed to do but better than the engineers thought in more ecosystems. 

When you release a genetically engineered microbe, microbes travel. Microbes mutate. Microbes swap genes with other microbes. The microbes co-evolve with us so that we actually rely on each other. They’re an intimate and intricate part of our health and our ecosystem and our soil. Algae produces most of the earth’s oxygen. Mycorrhizal fungi networks shuttle nutrients between trees, keeping forests healthy. Soil microbes support the health of plants and draw down carbon. Up to 80% of human diseases find their basis in dysbiosis or dysfunctional microbiomes. We have outsourced up to 90% of our metabolic and chemical functions to the microbes living inside us. We can get away with a measly 23,000 genes because we use the genetic information from the 3.5 million genes of the microbial communities living inside us. 

But we have co-evolved with that. Now, you introduce a genetically engineered gene that didn’t co-evolve with us. You release it from a science student or university student or someone who is trying to fix the soil, and it ends up in our gut. It changes the nature of nature in ways that we can’t predict. It swaps the gene with genes inside us. 

One microbiologist talked about when you release microbes into the soil that are genetically engineered, you equip them with antimicrobials to kill other microbes to survive the competition. You equip them with antibiotic resistance. What if the antimicrobial/antibiotic resistance genetic set is eaten because it’s on soil? You lick your hands, and now some pathogen picks those up. Now it can kill other microbes, and it doesn’t die from antibiotics. It can live long and prosper. That can get out and create new pandemics. We can create these new pandemics just by distributing CRISPR kits to schools.

There is an urgency like never before. Institute for Responsible Technology, we’re taking the lead on building a new global movement. We’d like to invite all your listeners to come to our website, sign up for our newsletter, and please make a recurring donation, even $5. It’s so much more expensive to create new national laws and international treaties than it has been for the 20 years in consumer education. 

We’re building movements of movements, health care practitioners. We have a program we’re launching for them. We’re bringing natural products companies and supplement companies, regenerative agriculture, which relies on microbes. The climate change movement, which relies now on drawing down carbon, using the soil microbes, being healthy, and doing what they were designed to do. Ocean preservationists, environmentalists, even the spiritual and religious people who believe GMO means God Move Over. All of them coming together to focus our energies on massive education, popular culture, and new laws and international treaties to lock down and protect the microbiome from this unprecedented threat, from cheap, unregulated, irrecoverable, irreversible, accident-prone gene editing technology.

Dr. Eric: 

Wow. Very scary, but very important that you mentioned this. I actually watched that 16-minute video. Definitely recommend visiting ResponsibleTechnology.org. Make that donation. We definitely want to prevent GMO 3.0 from developing. Try to do what we can right now with existing GMO 2.0. 

One more quick question, as far as lab-grown meat: Is that also under the category of GMO 2.0? Is that something separate? 

Jeffrey: 

Some of it is, and some of it isn’t. You can clone things without it being genetically modified. A lot of them use gene editing at the same time. I’m not an expert on the cloning. I do know that when you create a GMO, you can clone in advance cells before you insert the gene editing or regular GMO mechanism. Once the cell is transformed with the GMO, you then clone it into a plant. That causes massive collateral damage. Hundreds or thousands of mutations from that process alone.

Even if you happen to get lucky, and your gene editing happens not to cut in all the wrong places and create deletions and additions, and any mutations that it will inevitably do don’t turn out to be mission-critical, just growing the plant for food can cause serious problems that may end up in the food we’re eating. 

I also am in favor of avoiding these fake meat programs. One example that I think is particularly dangerous in my opinion is Impossible Burger. Impossible Burger not only has genetically engineered soy, sprayed with Roundup. You can calculate how much Roundup is there by sending it to a lab, and it’s high. 

The red color that makes it look like fake blood in meat comes from genetically engineered yeast, where they put in genes from the roots of soy. We don’t eat soy roots, so this has never been in the food supply. When they asked the FDA, “Can you give us ‘generally recognized as safe’ status?” The FDA scientists under the Obama administration said, “No way. This has never been in the human food supply. By the way, when you scoop this up from your fermentation vats, this hemoglobin that’s red colored, 30% of that scoop are other stuff you don’t purify out that has 46 other uncharacterized proteins, also not part of the food supply. No, we’re not giving you any letter.” 

But because Monsanto was in charge of policy at the FDA over GMOs, the Impossible Burger company said, “All right. We’ll put it on the market anyway. We don’t need GRAS status.” Under the Trump administration, with no additional data, the FDA reversed its position and said, “We’ll call it GRAS.” 

We know that many people who have eaten the Impossible Burger have reported problems, sickness, or symptoms. We have heard that from other nonprofits that haven’t yet published their results. It’s hard to point to that. I wouldn’t test it. I wouldn’t test my body on this genetically engineered situation. 

I mentioned that you genetically engineer yeast with genes from soy to produce the protein that is normally created in the root. That is called synthetic biology. That is not new. It was used in the ‘80s to create L-tryptophan, the supplement we talked about earlier. That had some problems. It caused the death of 100 Americans, and 5,000-10,000 fell sick from the genetically engineered bacteria used to create the L-tryptophan. We now think it was the GMO that caused the problem. That is now being used to create proteins, enzymes, medicines, and supplements. They are genetically engineering yeast or algae or bacteria and then fermenting it and then supposedly purifying and isolating the byproduct.

What do they do with their yeast and bacteria and algae? What if it escapes? What if it’s not killed completely? That is another source of genetically modified microorganisms. We may end up with them in our gut. The ones that are producing opioids or CBD or medicines may be in our gut, producing it 24/7, or industrial enzymes. 

Or the two companies we know about, because they are bragging about it, have genetically engineered soil microbes, up to 43 million acres and up to five trillion microbes per acre. What happens when that gets into the gut bacteria? That industry is about to explode. 

We are in an urgent situation, Eric, to stop the release of genetically engineered microbes while we still have a rather young industry with less power, and we are just coming off a pandemic where we realized that microbes can travel, mutate, and wreak havoc. We have a growing ban gain of function movement that have the right idea as a start. They just don’t understand the biology, that it’s not just potential pandemic pathogens that need to be banned from gain of function, but any microbe. Common everyday microorganisms cannot be released if we are to maintain nature as it has been inherited by us to give to future generations.

The good news is I think everyone just got it. It doesn’t take long to go, “Oh my god, that’s so important.” That’s one of the greatest assets. We have all these different groups that rely on a healthy microbiome for their success. They just need to hear this. 

Please share this recording with other people. Send them to Responsible Technology. Share the 16-minute video because we need a critical mass. It turns out that ends up changing human history. Somehow, consciousness doesn’t act in a linear, local fashion. We do tend to shift as a system. it takes a critical number of people getting it. Don’t just look at it lightly. Be one of those critical numbers. Understand this. Even just understanding and appreciating and realizing we need to protect nature now. We need to protect nature immediately. Change our relationship with nature, now that we have the ability to damage all living beings and all future generations. That shift in relationship is what we intend to create globally as the antidote to this new dangerous technology. 

Dr. Eric: 

Protect nature now. That says it all. Thank you so much. Right after you finish listening to this, ResponsibleTechnology.org. Just go on right now. Load that on the website. This is really important. This is one of the most important, if not the most important, interviews I have done. I can’t thank you enough. Any other websites or resources? Is that really the main one? 

Jeffrey: 

I would say SecretIngredientsFilm.com. It’s a film that shows how switching to organic can change your health dramatically. It’s the most effective tool to convince people to eat organic. It’s not just for those who are wanting to switch to organic and wanting to know why. It’s for those who are the food fanatics who people run away from because you have been talking about food for so long. Just don’t try it anymore. Let me do it. Show them the film that I did with Amy Hart. Spouses say to me, “I’ve tried for years to get my husband to change. Now he’s more fanatic than I was because he saw Secret Ingredients.” It’s a very powerful film. 

IRT has Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, too. The mothership is ResponsibleTechnology.org. 

Dr. Eric: 

Jeffrey, thank you so much. It was an honor speaking with you. You shared so much valuable information. Definitely take action while you can. 

Jeffrey: 

Thank you, Eric. Safe eating.

 

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Felice Gersh, and we talked about PCOS and its connection to thyroid autoimmunity. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am very excited to chat with Dr. Felice Gersh, as we are going to be talking about polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), diving into hormones, especially estrogen. 

Let me go ahead and give Dr. Gersh’s impressive bio: Dr. Felice Gersh is a board-certified OB-GYN in integrative medicine and is a multi-award-winning author, speaker, and busy clinician. She was one of the first board-certified integrative gynecologists in the United States. She is the author of multiple bestselling books, including PCOS SOS: A Gynecologist’s Lifeline to Naturally Restoring Hormones and Happiness; PCOS SOS Fertility: The 12-Week Plan to Optimize Your Chances of a Successful Pregnancy and a Healthy Baby; and Menopause: 50 Things You Need to Know: What to Expect During the Three Stages of Menopause. She combines the most evidence-based, safest, and efficacious ways of helping all women of all ages optimize their health. Thank you so much, Dr. Gersh. It’s a pleasure having you on the podcast. 

Dr. Felice Gersh: 

Thank you for inviting me. I’m really excited, forever and always, to get to talk about my favorite issue that so many women face: PCOS. 

Dr. Eric: 

With that being said, let’s give a little bit more of your background. How did you focus on PCOS? Obviously, you’re an OB-GYN, and you deal with women’s health issues and hormones. You have a great deal of experience with PCOS, so if you could talk about that please? 

Dr. Felice: 

This is a familiar story in many ways for us in healthcare. We do often get the most interest in our own personal journeys involving our own health. I had to diagnose and treat my own PCOS, and I didn’t get any help from highly respected OB-GYNs in my medical school, my residency. Finally, I had to do my own deep dive and discover that the reason I went two years without a period, I had endless acne issues, and I couldn’t get pregnant was because I had PCOS. 

I saw in my own private practice so many women developing PCOS, many more so than I saw in the early stages of my career when I was a resident. This is an epidemic now. So many of them came to me after seeing many previous doctors and didn’t even get a diagnosis, let alone a therapeutic approach to treating it. 

Like so many of us, we just took the bull by the horns, and I had to figure it all out. Looking at the science, the data, and doing a deep dive into what is going on in the bodies of women with PCOS? Whenever you hear the word “S” for “syndrome,” it means it’s a grab bag. It’s an all-inclusive syndrome. That means there can be different etiologies. You have to go through and see what is the underlying cause? 

That’s where the integrative approach becomes so critical. We don’t just treat symptoms, which is not an insignificant thing to do. You do want to treat symptoms. But we want to get to the basic root causes as much as possible to try to really resolve the problem, not just cover up symptoms. It’s been an ongoing journey for me for decades, trying to unravel this issue. 

After many years of starting and never finishing, I got together with my brilliant daughter, who is my co-writer on all my books. She put me on a schedule of delivering this chapter and dictating for her. Together, we got our books written on PCOS and continued the journey of treating PCOS, educating on PCOS, and helping women all over the world to deal with this very common but often devastating healthcare condition.

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned very common. How common is it? 

Dr. Felice: 

No one keeps good data. From the best we can judge, it’s anywhere from 10-20% or more of reproductive-aged women. It doesn’t go away when you hit menopause; it blends into the other issues that women with menopause are dealing with. Now finally, it’s been recognized—it wasn’t for many years—that women who have had PCOS for all their reproductive years, when they get into menopause, they have a higher rate of developing cardiovascular disease and other issues involving metabolic dysregulation. It’s not like it disappears. It just becomes less readily evident because of some of the symptom changes. The underlying metabolic changes and underlying risks remain and are actually accelerated in women who’ve had PCOS. 

It’s such a prevalent thing. When you think about it, the bare minimum is 10% of reproductive-aged women. I really think it’s closer to 15 or even 20%. 

When I was talking about PCOS a few years back, a little before the pandemic, I was in India. Nobody wants to admit they have PCOS there if they are women in India because it’s a fertility problem, as well as other things, and they don’t want to have that stigma. They think in that particular population, it’s well over 30% of young Indian women who are dealing with PCOS. It’s a worldwide problem. There is no continent that doesn’t have it. In fact, some of the best research on PCOS has come out of China and Iran. It’s amazing how this problem is everywhere in every group, every ethnicity. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wow, 30%. Even 10% is pretty high, so 30% is really astronomically high. Like most other health conditions, do you find that it has been increasing over the years compared to 10-15-20 years ago? 

Dr. Felice: 

Absolutely. That has been not only my observation, but it’s everyone’s who is in this field. We believe it’s driven by modern lifestyle changes. What we call the SAD diet (Standard American Diet), filled with processed foods, devoid of essential nutrients and fiber. 

The loss of our vital Circadian rhythm due to all the blue light exposures and lack of adequate sunlight. People are often in rooms with no windows, or they’re covered. They have all that blue light, television, computer screens, phones, that they look at into the wee hours of the night often. Sometimes, people are checking their cell phones at 2am and getting that blue light into their eyes. 

The loss of activity. The sedentary lifestyles that so many people are leading. 

The ubiquitous chemicals, the endocrine disruptors. These chemicals that interfere with the normal hormonal signaling functions in the body, particularly estrogen. Endocrine disruptors that we call xenoestrogens. 

It’s the conglomeration of all of the things that have changed in the world since ancient times. Now, people live longer, and that’s fantastic. But we have a whole new array of medical issues that we’re confronted with. This great increase in the incidence of PCOS is one of the offshoots of modern living. The chemicals, the diet, the stress, the change in sleep habits, light exposures, and so on have all joined together to exacerbate the underlying issues that are causational in terms of PCOS.

Dr. Eric: 

The endocrine disruptors are still very rampant. Especially with bottled water, you’d figure that fewer people would drink it. I think there is more awareness. It’s in the research; it’s not just people saying that bisphenol A (BPA) and these other endocrine disruptors are issues. If you walk into Costco, it’s amazing how many cases of bottled water there are, and people drink that every day. I assume a lot of people listening to this are not doing that, but in general. I’m not surprised you mentioned that.

Getting into the Circadian rhythm and blue light, you’re saying that not getting enough sleep and being exposed to blue light could also be a developmental factor?  

Dr. Felice: 

Absolutely. It’s all related. I’m glad you mentioned BPA. BPA is the endocrine disruptor that has the most research in women with PCOS. I’m sure they’re all involved, and there is some about phthalates, the pervasive scents and soft plastics. BPA, they have shown that in women who are pregnant, the BPA in them- BPA is in so many different things, like plastics and can liners. It used to be in dental sealants, baby bottles. It’s in almost every single person when they test for it. It actually concentrates in the fetus. The levels in the mother are significantly lower than the levels in the fetus. 

This is a very powerful endocrine disruptor. When the endocrine system, the hormonal system of the body is being developed during fetal times, it only gets one chance to be developed properly. What they’ve found is that the receptors for estrogen, and there are three types, but the alpha and beta are altered in women who develop the worst PCOS because of these exposures in utero. Like I said, the most research is with BPA. 

It turns out that estrogen that comes from the ovaries, estradiol, known as E2, because there are three estrogens in an adult female. E1 is estrone. E2, which is the one the ovaries make, estradiol. E3, which is estriol, the dominant estrogen that the placenta makes in pregnancy. It turns out that inherently, genetically, women with PCOS have a little bit less ability to convert testosterone, the precursor hormone that is also made in the ovary, into estradiol through the action of an enzyme called aromatase. 

Now, that is a very mild deficiency of estradiol in a healthy woman from ancient times. But now, this problem of not adequately producing estradiol becomes magnified in ways we’re still learning about in women with PCOS. It’s like fuel to the fire when you don’t make enough estradiol in the ovary, and then the estrogen receptors are not working well. They are not receiving so well. The signaling function of the hormone is sub-optimal because the receptors are not as receptive because of the impact in uterine life. Also, probably at key times during puberty. 

In fact, when they have done levels of adult women with PCOS, they’re finding higher levels in them even as adults. Not because they are exposed to more, but maybe genetically, they are not as good as getting rid of it and processing it through the liver. It’s this whole perfect storm in women. 

It turns out that estradiol is really critical for managing and maintaining our master clock, which sits atop the optic nerve in the hypothalamus portion of the brain that helps to control all the timing of our organs and our Circadian rhythm. When you don’t have enough estrogen being made by the ovaries, or the receptors aren’t working properly, you innately have a state of jet lag. You’re living across different time zones. That is a disaster for metabolism, which is creation, distribution, and utilization of energy. 

You have this problem. When you compound it, that is why it’s always an insult to injury by getting too much blue light, not getting adequate sunlight, going to bed at the wrong time. Then you are taking, once again, a problem that is already there and making it that much worse. 

I always say the first step in solving a problem is to understand it. That is why it’s important to understand how foundational it is to have the Circadian rhythm, to have light, to have the right foods, to have a healthy gut. All that plays into having a healthy metabolism and a healthy reproductive system, how it’s all intertwined. All of this is in disarray in women with PCOS today.

Dr. Eric: 

I want to talk more about estrogen. When it comes to testosterone, you mentioned the problem with conversion of testosterone into estradiol. Is that why one of the characteristics is higher androgens, higher testosterone? 

Dr. Felice: 

That’s totally perceptive of you. That is correct. Remember, PCOS is a syndrome. I’m going to talk about what we’ll call classic, or the most conventional form of PCOS. It’s also other ways that you can have the manifestations that are very similar, but they’re actually from different underlying causes. That’s what makes it confusing to a lot of people. 

Let’s call it the mainstay type of PCOS. If you think of it as an assembly line, first, the ovaries make testosterone. Then the testosterone moves from one part to a different part of the ovary. It moves to the granulosa cells, where the enzyme aromatase, under the influence of the hormone from the pituitary gland called FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) converts the testosterone into estradiol. 

Now, the pituitary gland, under the influence of the brain, makes LH (luteinizing hormone). That is the hormone that tells the ovary to make testosterone. The brain has censors. It’s mastering everything, keeping control, keeping tags on everything. If the brain notices there is not enough estrogen being produced from the ovary, it will put out a signal to the pituitary to make more LH because from LH, you will then trigger the production of testosterone. All estradiol that is produced in the ovary, E2, is derived from the conversion of testosterone. 

The brain says, “Please, ovaries, make more estrogen.” It tells the pituitary gland to tell the ovary to make more testosterone. But, uh oh. There is a snag here in the assembly line. You’re making plenty of testosterone. Totally different skillset to make testosterone. You are not efficiently converting it into estrogen. You end up with too much testosterone, not enough estrogen. The brain keeps saying, “Where is my estrogen? Make more.” So it keeps putting out more LH through the pituitary, and making more testosterone.

Now, when you have more testosterone, it actually begets more testosterone. It changes the gut microbiome. When you have an altered gut microbiome under the influence of testosterone, it turns out that it stimulates more testosterone. Then you have all that testosterone, not enough estrogen. It creates inflammation in the body through an altered gut microbiome. There is a whole bunch of different mechanisms that come into play. When you have more inflammation, you have more insulin resistance. Then you have more insulin, which also triggers through the increased production of another little hormone called IGF1 (insulin growth factor 1), which can move into the ovary and trigger the ovary to make even more testosterone. You have inflammation, insulin resistance, more testosterone adding fuel to the fire. 

You can see where this dynamic is going. You have a woman with not enough estrogen, too much testosterone, too much inflammation, insulin resistance, abnormal gut microbiome, leaky gut. It’s like metabolic havoc. 

You have to look at each part of the equation to help each woman to overcome what’s going on in her body that is causing so much havoc. Because of the elevated testosterone, women with PCOS often will get cystic acne in the jawline, which is very resistant to conventional treatments. It’s very difficult to clear it up. 

They will often have facial hair, and they have to deal with electrolysis, laser, shaving. There is extra hair that is not making women feel feminine. They have the female version of male pattern hair loss, which is called androgenic alopecia. They often have fine, thin hair, which also isn’t feeding their egos either. 

Because of all of these problems, they are not ovulating because the same trigger to making the estrogen is also helping to trigger ovulation. That is not happening regularly. They are having irregular cycles. They are having infertility. PCOS is the #1 cause of female infertility. They have very high rates when they do get pregnant of complications because of all this inflammation and insulin resistance going on in their bodies. They have high rates of miscarriages, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, hypertension, babies that are too large or too small because of placental problems, preterm delivery. It’s a really huge problem in terms of their overall body health and their reproductive function. 

Dr. Eric: 

If I’m understanding you correctly, it seems like all of this is stemming from too much testosterone caused by the lack of conversion of testosterone into estradiol. The excess testosterone alters the gut microbiome, causes inflammation, which leads to insulin resistance, which I was going to talk to you about. It’s a whole vicious cycle. It sounds like testosterone, that conversion process, is the culprit. 

Dr. Felice: 

Well, that’s the initial. When you add in, like I mentioned, that the estrogen receptors in the body are malfunctioning because of exposures to endocrine disruptors, it’s adding that much more level of complexity. 

It turns out that estrogen in the form of estradiol, which is the form that is essential from the ovaries, that hormone has receptors in every single organ system of the body. It’s key to regulating our gut function, neurological systems, cardiovascular systems, musculoskeletal systems, skin, and so on. It turns out if you have malfunctioning of the estrogen receptors, they’re not as sensitive. 

A lot of people have heard of insulin resistance. The insulin doesn’t work properly because of resistance of the receptor. That is the same thing. You can think of it as estrogen receptor resistance. It’s caused by the exposure to these endocrine disruptors. 

Without adequate estrogen being produced in the ovary, and without adequate function of the receptors, then it’s just that much worse because estradiol actually maintains the production of nitric oxide, which keeps arteries dilated and healthy, so you don’t get hypertension. It works to keep the proper neurotransmitters, like serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, which are involved with memory, focus, emotions of all kinds in the brain. It maintains the autonomic nervous system, so you don’t have sweating or problems with sleep and emotions and tachycardia. So many things are going on when you don’t have enough estradiol being produced, and it’s not functioning properly on the receptors. 

Then you have all of this surplus testosterone, which is another big problem from so many perspectives. Having all of that extra testosterone is interfering as well in metabolic functioning, gut functioning, and of course, all the side effects that it creates, which are horrible for a woman’s life. 

You can see, it’s a big deal. That’s why I’m so passionate about it. The only conventional treatments have hardly changed at all in many years. We need to think out of the box a lot more about how to approach this condition. 

Dr. Eric: 

Estrogen gets a bad rap sometimes. When you hear the term “estrogen dominance-” I am guilty of using that as well. In most cases, it’s the xenoestrogens and synthetic estrogens like birth control and oral contraceptives. That’s another question. Can taking the pill be a factor in the development of PCOS? 

Dr. Felice: 

I actually think so. I can’t prove it. This is a theory that I have been basically thinking about. It turns out that birth control pills, which are one of the mainstay treatments of PCOS- It’s clearly helpful in certain symptom control issues. It basically shuts down your ovaries. That whole thing I described about the assembly line, where you make too much testosterone, and it’s not converted to estrogen properly, that is shut down. If you take the ovaries offline, then a lot of that is going to be better. 

When you have a lot of birth control pill estrogen on board, it increases a protein made by the liver called sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), which helps to bind up excess testosterone that is circulating. That can help with acne. 

When you are on birth control pills, it’s not real human hormones. Actually, if you looked at it on Toxicology.gov, which is a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the ingredients in birth control pills are technically endocrine disruptors themselves designed to prevent fertility. It’s used in other ways, these hormonal but fake human hormones. They are not human hormones at all. They can disrupt the way the ovaries work completely. They shut them down. Then you get the hormones that give you the illusion of having regular cycles. You have regular bleeding, but you are not ovulating. Your ovaries aren’t doing a darn thing. But it can improve symptoms.

Here’s the problem: they are not real human hormones. Most birth control pills have a chemical in them called ethanol estradiol. It’s not real estradiol. Just putting on that extra molecule changes everything. It’s a different chemical. It turns into estrone primarily when it gets metabolized in the body and through the liver. 

Most of the estrogen that is circulating turns out to be estrone, which only binds primarily to one of the estrogen receptors called alpha. That creates an imbalance in the body. The ovaries make estradiol, E2, which has a balanced effect on the different receptors. 

Remember, what birth control pills are are endocrine disruptors. That is what they are. You have a different effect. What is happening is that particular type of estrogen is more pro-inflammatory. That’s why women on birth control have higher risk of getting blood clots. Fortunately, because they are given to people who are younger, their incidence is so low. Even if you increase the risk quite a bit, it’s still in terms of absolute numbers going to be a low incidence. 

The problem is that birth control pills can also tend to cause high blood pressure. That’s why we never give birth control pills to old women, to women who are smokers, especially over 30-35. We don’t give it to women who just had a heart attack. We don’t give it to women who have had blood clots of any kind, in their veins or lungs. We don’t do that. These are real risk. 

Here is the problem: Women who have PCOS already have an inherent higher risk of blood clots and hypertension, high blood pressure. This is a higher risk group. There is published data to show that women who have PCOS and are given birth control pills have a higher risk compared to the average population of women of developing a blood clot. I feel that women with PCOS should be viewed similarly to women who have had prior blood clots or women who have uncontrolled high blood pressure or smoking women, older women, and so on. It’s a higher risk group. 

Here is the other thing. When you are on birth control pills, you’re not activating anywhere near as much as you would normally the beta receptor. Mostly, what you’re putting into the body is estrone, which activates and binds to the alpha receptor.  If you are on birth control pills for a very long period of time, the beta receptor may start to malfunction. We know this when we have done research in women in menopause. It’s a little bit of a use it or lose it. If nothing is working on the receptor, over time, the hormone receptor becomes less functional. It may or may not come back into pristine shape, or whatever best shape it would be in, after you give them the hormone that they haven’t had for quite a bit of time. 

What I’m finding is women who have never had any sign in the past of PCOS got put on birth control pills because they had cramps, or they were sexually active at a young age. A whole variety of reasons. They didn’t have PCOS-like symptoms at the time they went on birth control pills. Then they are on them for 15, maybe even 20 years. Now, they’re in their early 30s and want to think about having a baby. Then they go off, and suddenly, they have every symptom of PCOS. They have irregular cycles, terrible acne, and growing hair. They go to their doctor and say, “You have PCOS.” I never had PCOS before I went on the pill.” 

I think what’s happening is that it’s creating that problem with the receptors that I talked about, that women with PCOS have from their exposures to endocrine disruptors. Maybe it’s also impacting how the ovary itself is working because remember, when you are on birth control pills, the ovaries aren’t doing anything. They are put out of commission. The ovaries may be rusty and are working to create estrogen.  There is something going on here. I have no published data. But my observation, and I do believe in observation. It’s a lower level of evidence than a peer reviewed, placebo controlled, double blinded study. Observation is how most every great discovery in the history of mankind was made, not through a pharmaceutical study. 

My observation—and I think it’s valid, but I can’t prove it—is that long-term use of birth control pills actually can promote the development of PCOS in women when they go off of them.

Dr. Eric: 

As far as alternative treatments, is it as simple as trying to minimize, if not completely eliminate, exposure to synthetic estrogens, birth control, xenoestrogens, doing things to detoxify estrogens from your body? Does it go beyond that? 

Dr. Felice: 

It’s everything you just said. I always have to say, being pregnant when you’re not ready and don’t want to be pregnant is a very big deal. I am totally in favor of birth control. I just feel everyone needs what is called informed consent. If they do go on birth control, there are certain better choices than others. They need to have a full array of options. Then they can choose. What do they feel is their best option at that time? Understanding potential pros and cons. 

In terms of approaching women with PCOS, it’s a global lifestyle program. You have to deal with everything that you mentioned and more. You have to lower exposures as much as humanly possible to all kinds of chemicals in cleaning products, personal care products, air that we breathe, water that we drink. It comes off of clothing that we wear. There is nothing we can do to make us live in a pristine world. That’s not gonna happen. But we have to try to make the best choices that we can to lower our toxic exposure, to lower what is called our toxic load. Then, to do everything we can to improve gut and liver health, how most of these toxic chemicals get eliminated from our bodies. 

There are other things we can incorporate, like saunas, which are helpful. Hydration, because we do also eliminate through the kidneys. There are a variety of things we can add on. But the primary is healthy liver, healthy gut. We deal with that by doing certain- We call that in my office a reset, or others call it a detox. It’s giving supplements and food that will support healthy gut integrity, gut function, and healthy liver function, to help the liver do its job. We can’t actually eliminate toxins by anything that we do. What we’re doing is facilitating our own bodies to do the best job that our bodies can do to eliminate the toxins and lower the toxic exposures. 

We have to work on our Circadian rhythm by going to bed at a reasonable time and trying to go to bed and getting up at the same time. Sleeping in a very dark room so that we can have the optimal production of melatonin, which has been shown to have receptors on the ovaries. The melatonin that a woman produces at night while she is sleeping is optimizing her ovarian health and fertility, thereby her metabolic health. Getting adequate sleep is so critical. Like I said, a dark room. I wear a sleep mask because there is too much ambient light coming in my windows, and doodads that have lights in my bedroom. I like a sleep mask. They come in very comfortable designs, so everyone can find one that is agreeable to them. 

Trying to avoid blue light. Ideally, none for a good two hours before you go to bed. If you absolutely must, then get blue light-reducing glasses to try to reduce the exposure. Try to do other things before you go to bed like take a relaxing bath or shower. Listen to podcasts or audiobooks. Play board games with someone you live with, like Scrabble or Bananagrams. Read a paper book or magazine. Those things still exist. Try to stay off of devices as much as you can for a couple of hours before you go to bed. 

Take some time to do some exercise if you can. Any movement is better than no movement. Fitness is a vital sign. Exercise is medicine. Fitness and exercise play a huge role in everyone’s health, definitely in women with PCOS.

Eat a whole food, plant-focused diet. Predominantly eating plants, lots of different vegetables, colors of the rainbow. Eat some fruit. Don’t go crazy overboard. Try to have a lot of servings of vegetables and some fruit every day. Go as much as you can organic. I know it’s hard and impossible to be 100%, but as best you can, choose organic. Try not to eat too much animal protein, which is a little harsh on the digestive system. Try to keep it to three ounces or so. 

If your gut is not SIBO, another topic, then you should try to eat a lot of fiber foods. Fiber is the food for the gut microbiome, which is disrupted. The first study of this came out from China: Women with PCOS have an abnormal gut microbiome and have impaired gut barrier or leaky gut. We have to work really hard to nurture our gut microbial population, those trillions of microbes that are essential to every health function of our bodies. The way that you nurture them is with plants and lots of them, and high fiber foods that they love. They will love you back. They will help you maintain a proper weight and feel good and have good brain function, good mood. We now know it’s linked to everything in the body, having the right microbial population or gut microbiome. I love plants. 

Eat diversity. Lots of colors. Nuts and seeds. Whole grains can actually help you lose weight and lower insulin resistance, like buckwheat or millet or quinoa. They are not powderized. They are not milled. The whole grain itself. Resistant starch, like cold potatoes, can actually also nurture your gut microbiome, and they won’t raise your blood sugar. 

The other thing that is so critical now, and this is very trendy but appropriately so, is time-restricted eating, or intermittent fasting. It’s really important for everyone, particularly for women with PCOS because they live a naturally jetlagged life because of not having their Circadian rhythm innately right. You have to do everything to try to work through our peripheral clocks. Every organ has cells that have their own clock genes. By eating in a timed way, you can actually help properly set the Circadian rhythm, so that all the organ systems of the body will be working in the same time zone, which is really important for overall health. 

By timed eating, try not to eat more than three times a day. Try to have at least a 12-13-hour fast from dinner to breakfast. Try to have your first meal by two hours after you’re awake. Try to eat more of your food in the first part of the day when we’re most insulin-sensitive. Our digestive tract works the best in the first half of the day and goes on strike as the night progresses. That’s why people who eat late at night often have heartburn, indigestion, and so on. Eating late at night is really prevalent. Especially women with PCOS tend to have a disrupted appetite system and often want to eat at night. That’s the worst thing you can do. 

You have to work really hard to get into the habit of trying to eat more food in the first half, and then stop eating at least three hours before you go to bed. Have about a 13-hour fast until breakfast. All of this can work dramatically to improve the health status of women with PCOS. 

Dr. Eric: 

With any health condition, you want to take a whole body approach. It seems like there is no exception with PCOS. Appreciate you sharing that. 

As you know, most people listening to this podcast have thyroid or autoimmune thyroid conditions. One question I wanted to ask is is there a relationship between thyroid and PCOS? One connection I can make is with the disruption of the intestinal barrier. At least with autoimmune conditions, you have that leaky gut component. Having PCOS in that way might predispose someone to an autoimmune condition such as Graves’ or Hashimoto’s. I don’t know if there are any connections you are aware of.

Dr. Felice: 

You hit it right on the head. That is the main one. After that first study came out of China in 2015, multiple other studies have come out, showing consistently that women with PCOS have in fact impaired gut barrier/leaky gut, the wrong gut microbiome, or dysbiosis. That definitely is a precursor to autoimmunity. 

We know that Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is the most common autoimmune. Women with PCOS have substantially higher incidence of Hashimoto’s, or autoimmune thyroid disease, than the average population, which is high enough as it is, as I’m sure all of your listeners are aware. 

This is a big deal because a lot of conventional doctors are not even screening for the antibodies for thyroid. Anti-TPO, thyroid globulin antibodies. They just get a TSH. They are missing the whole picture of what’s going on in women with PCOS. This is really important because this is critical for overall health. You talk about thyroid all the time. Thyroid hormone has receptors everywhere. It’s critical for every metabolic function in the body.

Here’s another interesting fact: Estrogen, in the form of estradiol, when you have a normal menstrual cycle, and the estrogen levels in the first half are rising, and then spike, which creates ovulation, that upregulates or turns on and makes more functional thyroid hormone receptors. Without adequate estrogen present, women will often have symptoms of hypothyroidism, even if you test the levels in the so-called range. 

They have symptoms of low thyroid because once again, it’s not just having the hormone. It’s having it work properly on the receptors to create the effect in the cells. When you don’t make enough estrogen, then you’re not going to have proper thyroid receptor function. 

That is an extra problem for women with PCOS. Even the thyroid they’re making isn’t working optimally. This is a huge deal. Thyroid is so critical for everything: for heart function, for brain function, for metabolic health, for reproductive health. This is such a big area that every woman with PCOS needs to have a very comprehensive workup of her thyroid tests. Looking at the gut to repair the gut. 

Of course, it’s so complicated. The whole thyroid story is so complicated. You can’t properly convert from T4 to T3 if you don’t have a healthy gut and liver and have all the right nutrients on board, which means you have to have proper digestion, which is often impaired. 

Thyroid is a huge issue in women with PCOS. I’m so glad you brought that up.

Dr. Eric: 

I had to bring it up since this is the Save My Thyroid podcast, so I wanted to pick your brain. With testing, you’re absolutely right about doctors not doing a full thyroid panel along with antibodies. 

When it comes to testing for PCOS, with all your patients, do you do all the sex hormones and the pituitary, FSH, LH, SHBG, insulin? Pretty much does everybody get the work in your practice? 

Dr. Felice: 

They do. I love data. I’m good at guessing, but I’d rather have data than just guess. In women with the mainstay form of PCOS, they will have a high LH to FSH ratio. Their LH is going to be produced in really high amounts because the brain says, “Make more estrogen,” so the precursor is testosterone. The LH goes up. 

There is a problem with the FSH, which we don’t even fully understand. The FSH receptors don’t seem to be working well. The production of FSH from the pituitary gland is also inadequate. There is not a problem with the feedback system. You get too much LH and not enough FSH. That’s a very classic finding, to have what they call a high LH:FSH ratio.

You always want to check prolactin. Prolactin is a hormone that the pituitary gland makes. If you have too much prolactin, that itself increases androgen, or testosterone production, and the androgens from the adrenals, which includes testosterone. 

You have to do a workup to do the rule-outs. I have said that PCOS is a syndrome. There can be other etiologies besides the mainstream, mainstay one. That is a diagnosis of exclusion. Everyone out there who has PCOS or thinks she has PCOS needs to know this. 

You have to go to a doctor who rules out that you have an adrenal tumor, or what you have is something called acquired or late onset adrenal hyperplasia, or you have a pituitary tumor producing too much prolactin. There are things you have to rule out. When you rule out those things, you’re left with the more standard type of PCOS. It’s really important to understand to a significant degree that because PCOS is a syndrome, and it’s based on findings and symptoms. You need to rule out the other causes of those same symptoms that would have a different treatment approach.

Dr. Eric: 

Makes a lot of sense. You shared so much valuable information. I could talk about this for another hour. Before wrapping up, is there anything specifically that I didn’t ask you that I should have asked you? Any last words that you have? 

Dr. Felice: 

I think the message I want to make sure I leave everyone out there with is a message of hope. When I describe what goes on, I know it can be overwhelming, and it sounds so negative. I want you to know that honestly, through lifestyle changes, that alone, just changing what you eat, when you eat, exercise, sleep, working on stress. We didn’t have time to talk about mind/body practices and stress. Discovering what your thyroid is like, treating it as necessary, and so on. When you actually make lifestyle changes, you can have unbelievable transformations in the body.

I’m not getting into pharmaceuticals. There are some appropriate uses of pharmaceuticals that I call “a bridge to health,” which can help to slow down a lot of the progression and reduce symptoms in a very safe way while you work on healing the body. Sometimes, I have to give hormone therapy in terms of giving human bioidentical estradiol and progesterone. It’s one of those catch-22s. You have to give the hormones to allow the body to heal. Once it heals, you don’t have to give the hormones because it will make them so much better and naturally by themselves. Sometimes, you have to give drugs to slow the production of testosterone.

I’m an MD. I will prescribe drugs when they’re needed. I always look at the safest, most efficacious approach. What are the risks and benefits of every drug? 

I want to leave a message of hope. If you have PCOS, there is so much that we know now that I didn’t know back when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. You can get your life back. You can have a beautiful life. Don’t give up. Keep working ‘til you find the right person to help and work with you. 

For people who want to learn more, I wanted to share that I have a health summit that is coming out right after Thanksgiving, November 28-December 4, being produced by Dr Talks. It’s The PCOS SOS Summit. I’m the host, and I interview about 50 experts in the field. We cover so many aspects of PCOS that you will eat up. 

I want people to know this is available. It can be purchased, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s available for free online. Anyone who signs up can access it. If you go to DrTalks.com, you can sign up. If you go to my website, you can find it as well. 

Dr. Eric: 

Where can people learn about your books or buy your books? Amazon. Can you also mention your website? 

Dr. Felice: 

Sure. My website is named after my medical practice, which I am in. This is a converted exam room. I have an exam table over there. This is my makeshift studio. It’s called TheIntegrativeMedicalGroup of Irvine. It’s a brick-and-mortar practice. I see patients all the time. I can also do telemedicine. My website is IntegrativeMGI.com. for Medical Group of Irvine. I hope you will come and visit me. Maybe I can help you. 

Follow me on Instagram. I try to post reasonably frequently. I wish I could get time to do more. My Instagram is Dr.FeliceGersh. 

My books are available on multiple sites. The easiest of course is always Amazon. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful. Thank you again, Dr. Gersh. It was a pleasure chatting with you about PCOS, talking about estrogen. Thanks for tying it into thyroid health. I’m sure my listeners learned a lot. I did as well. 

Dr. Felice: 

My pleasure. Anyone who needs me, just let me know. That’s my mission: to help women with all sorts of problems. Thank you so much for inviting me on. 

Dr. Eric: 

Thank you. Definitely visit Dr. Gersh’s website if you need a consultation, or again, if you want to check out her books. Definitely register for her summit.

 

Recently, I interviewed Dr. Brian Plante, and we talked about vector-borne infections, including Lyme, bartonella, and babesia. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.

Dr. Eric Osansky: 

I am super excited to chat with Dr. Brian Plante as we are going to be talking about vector-borne infections, including Lyme, bartonella, and babesia. 

Let me give Dr. Plante’s impressive bio here: He is a licensed naturopathic doctor with extensive training in integrative, whole-person healthcare approaches. He works closely with those suffering from complex immune dysfunction, including Lyme Disease, chronic viral infections, environmental toxicity such as mold illness and heavy metal toxicity, autoimmune disease, mast cell activation syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic encephalomalacias. Through compassionate listening, detailed instruction, and a commitment to helping patients see lasting change in their lives, he hopes his presence will leave each person feeling deeply supported through their journey to optimal health. Thanks so much for joining us, Dr. Plante. 

Dr. Brian Plante: 

Thanks so much for having me. 

Dr. Eric: 

I’m really looking forward to having this conversation about vector-borne infections with an emphasis on Lyme, bartonella, and babesia. Before we do this, can you give your background? You focus on a lot of complex conditions. How did you start down this path? 

Dr. Brian: 

I was always really interested in some of the more challenging cases, where you have to think like a detective and put all the pieces together. When I did my residency at a naturopathic clinic in the Sacramento area a few years ago, I saw a lot of tick-borne infections and mold toxicity. I don’t think I had realized, being in school in Portland, Oregon, just how prevalent it was in California, particularly northern California and the Bay Area. Part of it arose from an aptitude and desire to work with more complex cases. But a big part of it came from the demand. There was just such a need in that area geographically, and there weren’t many of us. 

The doc I trained with, Dr. Jamie Kunkle, taught me most if not everything he knew about it. I got about five years of education in about a year and a half, and it took off from there. Like I said, the need for support with those conditions. 

Dr. Eric: 

How common are vector-borne infections? Some people get the impression that they’re only common in certain areas, for example, the Northeast. Other areas, they are not as common. Do you see them pretty much everywhere? I don’t know if you work with people remotely, so if you have an opportunity to work with people in different states, and you see them being widespread. Or if you consult with colleagues who say it doesn’t make a difference where the person is if they are susceptible to getting these infections. 

Dr. Brian: 

I do work remotely and get some of that first-hand- I don’t necessarily want to call it data, but exposure. They are a lot more prevalent than people realize, including in places where we previously didn’t see a high prevalence. There are places in the country where it is much higher incidence, particularly the East Coast. When we are working with cases like that, it’s not uncommon for people to have had two, three, or more exposures to an infection. This time, it’s a lot more severe in their acute presentation.

Even in southern California, I have seen cases of Lyme. The ticks that are endemic to this area are not well known to be carriers of Lyme. We are scratching our heads a little bit about that. I have also seen cases in Arizona, where it wasn’t suspected to be as common. 

I’m always asking about tick bite exposures as well as fleas and other biting insects. Cats and dogs because they still think there is a lot we don’t know about just how these organisms can be transmitted. I suspect they are a lot more prevalent than we realize. 

It is important to delineate between a Lyme infection, maybe where you have the organism, and Lyme disease, where there are a lot of observable symptoms and an increased need for treatment. I still think there is a lot of debate on just how common these organisms are and to what extent we really need to be screening for them and treating them in patients with a variety of chronic degenerative conditions. 

Dr. Eric: 

One of the questions I was going to ask is can there be vectors other than ticks? You answered that because you mentioned fleas. I don’t know if mosquitoes could also transmit; there is some controversy over that. Would you say ticks are the most common? Is it just something we don’t know? 

Dr. Brian: 

Good question. For Lyme, the black-legged ticks on the Pacific side and the East Coast. I am not remembering the exact species names. They are the primary vector for Lyme. 

With bartonella, it’s cats and fleas that are more common transmission vectors than ticks. We can talk in more detail about that if you’d like. 

The jury is still out on mosquitoes. I wonder about babesia because it reads a lot like malaria. There have been instances where I have had people with babesia with no other known animal exposures, and their mother didn’t have it, so they weren’t born with it. 

The ones leading the research are the veterinarians, particularly in the bartonella landscape. I still think unfortunately there is a lot we don’t know as a medical community, and even in the veterinary community, about how these organisms can be transmitted. 

Dr. Eric: 

I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme in 2018. Not only did I test positive for Lyme but also bartonella. There was no evidence of a tick bite. Just because there was no evidence doesn’t mean I wasn’t bitten by a tick. It makes me wonder if fleas could possibly be a source. Whether it’s a flea or tick, it sounds like with Lyme, there is a greater chance of ticks. Is there any evidence of fleas with Lyme? Or is it pretty much ticks with Lyme, and then with bartonella and babesia- 

Dr. Brian: 

I haven’t heard specifically about fleas with Lyme. I would have to do a more updated literature review on that and see if there is anything newer out. The statistic that is most recent that I heard is about 30% of people living in the United States with Lyme disease never recall having had a tick bite. I suspect that is underreported. There are questions about tick size, particularly the young ticks. Whether we did actually get a bite but didn’t see it, or if there are other animal and insect vectors. It’s probably a little bit of both.

Dr. Eric: 

For those who have gotten bit by a tick, and they know they got bit right away, how soon- Obviously, the sooner you act, the better. Let’s say within three days, but others say a few hours as far as transmission of someone getting Lyme or bartonella. 

Dr. Brian: 

We used to think the tick attachment time, like how long it was embedded before it was removed, was a significant determinant of the risk of transmission. Some of the newer data has questioned that and suggested that it doesn’t really matter how long the tick has been attached. It was only attached for a few hours, but we did have to remove it with tweezers. 

I still recommend sending off the tick to be tested as well as testing the person for antibodies although there can be issues with that test in terms of how quickly we are going to see those responses. It’s very common to do some sort of empiric therapy or treating early if there is suspicion. There doesn’t seem to be a clear association with how long the tick was attached. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you have a favorite lab that you send ticks to that you recommend? 

Dr. Brian: 

I thought you were going to ask me that. I remembered the University of Massachusetts for a while had one. I should have looked that one up before this. I haven’t had to do it in a while, to be honest. I don’t see a lot of acute cases where I’m located. If you have a resource page, I can give you an updated list after this. 

Dr. Eric: 

Yeah, that’d be great. I can put it in the show notes. Medical Diagnostic Laboratories, they do some testing for vector-borne infections. I think they also look at the tick, too. I don’t know if these other places are free. I’m pretty sure they charge to evaluate the tick. 

Dr. Brian: 

I think so. 

Dr. Eric: 

How about symptoms? What are some of the common signs and symptoms? I know there can be a lot of them. Not to focus on all of them, but I guess, some of the more common ones. If there are differentiating factors. With babesia, night sweats are common. That’s maybe one differentiating factor. If you could dive a little bit deeper. 

Dr. Brian: 

There is a lot of overlap. There can also be some variation between acute presentations or new infection versus chronic or long-standing, well-established infection. 

With Lyme, we can see the hallmark summer flu symptoms, in the sense of feeling flu-like headaches, fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches, or joint pain. We tend to see a lot more joint pain with Lyme than with the other ones, at least in my experience.

With bartonella, we can see more neurologic or neuropathic symptoms: numbness, tingling. I see a lot of foot pain with bartonella, like pain in the bottoms of your feet. Bartonella infects the blood vessels. Anywhere where there are small blood vessels, if there is inflammation in those, we can see more unusual pain presentations. We can see headaches as well. 

The hallmark for me is the psychiatric symptoms: irritability and rage, especially if folks have reported parents or the patient themselves. “It doesn’t feel like it’s really me; I am overcome with this episodic rage and irritability.” That was one of the most eye-opening symptoms for me when I was in residency. I saw a few teens and young adults who presented, and they were quite irritable and difficult to work with. When we did antibiotics, we started to see some improvement in their entire temperament, which was very eye-opening.

With babesia, the differentiating symptoms are the night sweats and air hunger, feeling like you just can’t get enough air in. That’s because it’s a protozoa or microscopic parasite that infects the red blood cells. It can affect oxygen uptake at that level. 

We can see fevers and chills with all of those. Of course, the classic tick-borne relapsing fever, which is a type of Borrelia infection in the same genus as Lyme but a different species. Actually, there are several species that can cause that. We tend to see relapsing fever, meaning you have fever for a few days, and then not for a while, and then it comes back.

Lyme and babesia, we can see some psychiatric symptoms as well. I often recommend testing for all three because there can be so much overlap. There can be times where you’re like, “This is for sure babesia,” and babesia is negative, but bartonella is positive. And vice versa. You think it will be bartonella because it’s a pediatric, autoimmune, psychiatric, or PANS case, and we end up finding it’s babesia driving the neuroinflammation. 

Dr. Eric: 

If you will test for Lyme and bartonella, even if it’s someone not experiencing the night sweats and air hunger, would you still recommend testing for babesia? 

Dr. Brian: 

If their budget allows. Cost is the biggest barrier when it comes to some of the specialty, higher sensitivity testing. We could do a whole talk on testing. There is not a perfect test. Ideally, yes. I would test for the big three. I might even look for tick-borne relapsing fever or Rickettsia as well, which includes Rocky Mountain spotted fever, anaplasmosis, orientia. I am more concerned about those on the East Coast, or with acute presentations, than I am with chronic ones. 

Dr. Eric: 

Are you able to rank the prevalence? Would you say Lyme is the #1 vector-borne disease that you test for that comes back positive? Bartonella is second, or maybe bartonella is #1. 

Dr. Brian: 

Some of this is regionally dependent. In the current CDC statistics, Lyme is by far the most prevalent. Part of why I got so interested in bartonella as a topic and specializing in working with that in my time in the Sacramento area is I was seeing quite a bit more bartonella than Lyme in that region. That has not been the case in southern California, where I have been for the last year. It was also less the case in the Bay Area, where I was practicing for a year as well, and San Jose. Of course, we work with people all over the San Francisco Bay Area, where tick-borne infections are well known to be prevalent, particularly Lyme. But I remember being surprised. 

I don’t want to misquote him, but at the time, Dr. Kunkle was fairly convinced that bartonella was as common or more common than Lyme. Babesias, we are seeing a lot more around the east coast, but it is here on the west coast and beyond as well.

Part of that is tick habitats are expanding. With climate change, we have longer seasons. Ticks are surviving through the winters more. There is also a lot more transportation, so you have ticks going to regions where maybe they weren’t in previously. It’s very difficult for us to say definitively just how prevalent these infections are, not to mention the issues with diagnostic testing. 

Dr. Eric: 

In your practice, it sounds like you help with all of these, but you have more of a focus on bartonella. That is more of a specialty when it comes to these vector-borne infections.  

Dr. Brian: 

Initially. Like I said, I’m seeing a lot less of it in the last couple of years, which I suppose is good, that it’s not present in this area. I was fairly well trained in managing bartonella in my first couple years. It’s thrown me for a loop a little bit. What I’m finding is that I am needing to test for all three as a result because I’m seeing the ones that I didn’t expect to see, and I’m not seeing the ones, particularly bartonella, that I was expecting to see. 

Dr. Eric: 

Before I pressed record, I asked you if we could talk a little bit about dysautonomia, POTS, because in some cases, that is associated with these infections. 

Dr. Brian: 

Yeah, I see it frequently, as well as with long-haul COVID. What dysautonomia is is any condition affecting the function of the autonomic nervous system, which is the automatic nervous system, the part that regulates non-voluntary functions, like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, temperature regulation. Those are the primary ones. 

We can have a variety of mechanisms from these vector-borne infections that trigger dysautonomia. One is the actual direct infection of the Vagus nerve by some of these organisms. That has been postulated as one theory of chronic Lyme or differentiating between chronic Lyme as an infection and post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome, which is when you have all the same symptoms but are not responding as favorably to antibiotic therapy. That can occur in the Vagus nerve. I suspect that is a big part of what we are seeing with long-haul COVID causing dysautonomia. The inflammatory signaling that happens with these infections is very complicated and part of why they are so difficult to test for.

The primary assumption, which is that an infection is going to stimulate the immune system to make antibodies, and we are going to rely on those antibodies to determine whether or not that infection is active. That assumption doesn’t apply with some of these low abundance chronic infections. 

These organisms have evolved and adapted the capability of creating anti-inflammatory and immune disruptive signaling molecules as a response. They can often confuse the immune system, which creates a very altered landscape of cytokines and other inflammatory mediators. Those can impact how blood flow to the autonomic nervous system is regulated. It can cause oxidative damage to autonomic neurons. Of course, that gets complicated quickly if we add environmental toxicants, like mycotoxins for mold and toxic metals and organic chemicals. 

The short of it is I do frequently see dysautonomia with chronic infections, especially when there are several infections present and environmental toxins. Our approach is to not only address those contributing factors, but to restore regulation to the nervous system. Depending on where the damage is, that can look different from person to person. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned mold. How common is it for people who have mold when dealing with these infections? 

Dr. Brian: 

Arguably, extremely common in my experience. I often use the analogy of the overflowing bucket. Anything toxic, inflammatory, infectious, or traumatic, both physically or psychologically, which are not ultimately separate in terms of the effects they have on our physiology, gets added to the bucket. When we start seeing the bucket close to overflowing and actually overflowing, that’s when we see symptoms. That is when we see chronic illness not responding to conventional, symptom-based management. 

More often than not, the folks who have the most severe, nonresponsive cases other than vector-borne infections have unaddressed environmental toxicity. They may have genetic factors that influence how quickly they are able to metabolize those things, or they have an ongoing exposure that they don’t know about, or they thought they were fine until they moved to a moldy apartment, and that’s what overflows the bucket. They find out they actually have Lyme. 

In fact, I was just seeing somebody about a month ago, maybe 2-3 weeks ago, who knew she had chronic Lyme and was doing treatment in Mexico—stem cells, ozone, those kinds of things. She thought her Lyme was flaring but found out that it was actually a severe mold problem in her new apartment. Now, we’re working on detox. It oftentimes is the obstacle that people don’t realize is still there. 

Even just a couple of days ago, I was talking with somebody who I have been working with for a while. We were going down the bartonella rabbit hole. We assumed mold was already dealt with because she had already worked with a provider who had done detox therapies. We found there were still significant levels of mycotoxins, all of the classes of them, in the urine. There was some ongoing excretion going on, or colonization of mold in probably the sinuses or GI tract, which hadn’t been addressed. 

It’s difficult both for the practitioner and the patient to try to parse these things out and figure out what’s making them sick. Is it Lyme, bartonella, or mold? Yes. To some extent, it’s how these organisms and toxins have dysregulated the immune system, mitochondrial energy production, and the nervous system, and how all of that can affect hormones, the gut, other organ systems. We often have to repair and support those organs in their function while also addressing the things that are triggering the imbalance in the first place.

Dr. Eric: 

Since it is so prevalent, do you do a urinary mycotoxin test on everybody? Does it depend on their history? If you suspect that it might be a mold problem, that’s when you have them do it? 

Dr. Brian: 

Similar to specialty testing for vector-borne infections, none of these tests are perfect. We have to think about their limitations. I am always transparent with patients about that. 

Urine mycotoxin testing is one way we can determine if there are elevations in mycotoxins coming out of the body. Because it’s only measuring what’s coming out of the body, we don’t currently have blood mycotoxin testing available although I’m told it’s being looked at. Food can affect it, if there are food-borne molds. 

Also, the rate of excretion, which depends on how able a person is to detox, if we are going to see those levels high. People always want to know, “Does this tell me there is mold in my environment now, or does it tell me it’s from a previous mold exposure?” We don’t know that. We just know it’s coming out of the body. 

Usually, my approach to mold assessment in a patient is to have them do a screening. Can I mention specific labs? 

Dr. Eric: 

Sure. 

Dr. Brian: 

I do a screening home test kit, like a self-collect, dust sample through EnviroBiomics. I like the Actino Plus HERTSMI-2. It looks for mold. Like an ERMI, but more refined though. The Actino looks for a bacteria that is associated with water-damaged buildings that some of the newer research suggests may be more responsible for chronic inflammatory response syndrome or sick building syndrome than the mold itself. But it does not produce mycotoxins, at least not to my knowledge. They are looking at slightly different things. 

Test the home, and test the patient. If a screener like that comes back positive, I try to get them have an inspector come out who is sufficiently trained. There is quite a bit of debate as to what criteria are needed for an inspector to be trustworthy in that regard.

Also, I might think about doing a Lab Corps or Quest blood panel looking at the chronic inflammatory response markers, which are immune markers that tend to be dysregulated and in mold illness. 

If budget allows, I will also do a nasal culture for antibiotic-resistant Staph, which is associated with water-damaged building exposure. I will do fungal culture as well. 

Maybe an organic acid test, which is a urine test, but it will tell us if there is GI colonization of mold. By colonization, we mean there is living mold, mold spores that got in and created an infection in the area rather than just inhalation or ingestion of mycotoxins without there actually being living mold. 

The diamond approach would be to test the home, urinary mycotoxins, test the sinuses and/or gut, and look at how the immune system is behaving. Usually, if we get two, three, or even four of those things, it gives us a clearer idea as to where we need to be focusing our energy. 

Dr. Eric: 

How about Lyme? What are your favorite labs to look at Lyme, bartonella, babesia, or other vector-borne infections? 

Dr. Brian: 

I still prefer IGeneX over Lyme. It’s reliable. I haven’t seen a lot of false positives with it. 

People often ask me about Vibrant Wellness given the low cost. I have not found this to be a particularly sensitive test, which is maybe a point of contention with some. I have talked to other colleagues in my profession who find that test to be fine. In my experience, I have done split sampling before with patients who could afford it and done either IGeneX or Galaxy Diagnostics for bartonella. We found it on those and did not find it on Vibrant. 

I usually use IGeneX. It just came out in the last year and a half with a Babesia ImmunoBlot that I have found to be quite helpful. Currently, I am using IGeneX for Lyme, babesia, and tick-borne relapsing fever. Using Galaxy Diagnostics, which is co-founded by a lot of veterinary researchers, I am using that one for bartonella. 

You mentioned MDL. That is a decent screener as well. I just have less experience with that one. 

Dr. Eric: 

When I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme, I worked with a Lyme literate practitioner. I was mentioning IGeneX because that is who I was familiar with. She mentioned MDL. She is like, “Let’s do that. It’s less expensive. It may not pick it up, but it might. If it does, it could save money.” I was listening to her advice, and it did pick up chronic Lyme as well as bartonella. IGeneX is the most well-known lab for those.

Why do you prefer IGeneX? I know they test for different species of Borrelia. I don’t know if it’s the same with other vector-borne infections. Is it because they look deeper than the antibodies, the comprehensiveness of the test? 

Dr. Brian: 

I was an undergrad chemistry major, but I don’t have a lab science background. I’d have to get into the methodologies that they’re using. I’ve just found it’s a relatively low false positive rate. Of course, there will always be false negatives that we have to think about. Is it missing an infection? If suspicion is high, the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS) still recommends that these are clinical diagnoses rather than laboratory diagnoses, meaning if suspicion is high, and other conditions have been ruled out, you still want to treat them. As well as talking with other professionals who are Lyme literate physicians, it has stood the test of time. 

They continue to refine their approaches by adding new tests, but they don’t seem to be- Excuse me, in my experience, chasing bells and whistles. I don’t do PCR through them. I just use the ImmunoBlot, which is a more sensitive western blot for Lyme as well as the Babesia ImmunoBlot.

I have seen bartonella missed a couple of times, which is why I use Galaxy. I use their antibody test, the IgG immunofluorescence assay, which is about $500. It’s about the same cost as the individual infections on IGeneX. It gives you a titer number, which I like. If you see it as borderline, you may be interpreting that a little different than if you see it as maxed out to the maximum dilution. You will see those numbers come down with appropriate treatment. 

Dr. Eric: 

A lot of people listening to this have Graves’ or Hashimoto’s. Have you seen a relationship between these vector-borne infections and autoimmunity, whether it’s thyroid autoimmunity or other autoimmune conditions? 

Dr. Brian: 

Empirically and clinically, yes. The data varies on which organisms are associated with what in terms of autoimmunity. Essentially, the way I explain it to patients is the concept of molecular mimicry, which is that there is a molecular structure or protein on the bacterial cell wall or cell membrane that looks structurally very similar to the proteins on our own cells. 

If a battle ensues between the immune system trying to get rid of the organism, there can be priming of the immune system to react to very similar molecules that it may see in the wild, so to speak, aka in the rest of the body. The immune dysregulation that we tend to see in autoimmunity is often activated initially by an infection or toxin or both. 

When we’re thinking about autoimmune thyroid disease specifically, I am almost always having a conversation about vector-borne infections, opportunistic viral infections like the herpes viruses or COVID. I have seen some Hashimoto’s specifically following COVID, as well as mold and heavy metals because we know mercury can be thyroid-toxic.

Dr. Eric: 

Quick question with viruses. Would you consider Epstein-Barr to be more like a stealth infection when it comes to viruses? 

Dr. Brian: 

Good question. The herpes family of viruses is a large family. It includes herpes simplex 1 and 2, which are the viruses we typically think of when we think of herpes. The virus that causes chickenpox and shingles is also in that family, as is EBV and cytomegalovirus, as well as a few others. One of them that is often tested for is human herpesvirus 6 or HHV6. 

I consider these to be opportunistic infections. What that means is they are fairly ubiquitous. About 90% of adults have been exposed to them and produce antibodies to them. But under normal, healthy conditions, the immune system is able to keep them in check, and we don’t seem to have major problems. 

When the immune system is compromised, either from a more primary infection like the ones we’re talking about, the environmental toxins, or just being in fight or flight all the time, whether that’s from PTSD, chronic illness, the medical trauma of living with these conditions, we tend to see a lot more reactivated and chronic herpes viruses. 

I see a lot of providers going and trying to play whack a mole with these infections. To some extent, people can get transient relief. Oftentimes, if they are persistently activated, not seeing those antibody levels come down on blood testing, there is something more primary going on that needs to be addressed. 

Dr. Eric: 

If you could talk now about some of the treatments that you prefer for these vector-borne infections. Related to that, you mentioned with bartonella, you will see the titers going down. I am guessing the same with the others. 

The second part to the question: Can you get rid of these permanently? Are these like EBV, where you will always have it? Is it possible to permanently eliminate Lyme, bartonella, babesia from your body? 

Dr. Brian: 

I am skeptical that we can entirely eradicate these infections permanently, in the sense that we are not going to see eradication, and then they return later at another time. That’s not the goal that I communicate to patients. It’s a great question though. I think I’ve talked about this in the past as well. 

The goal is to promote more of—it sounds hippie to say this—a harmonious relationship between the immune system and the other microbes. Essentially what we want to do is restore appropriate immune signaling, or promote more immune regulation, where it responds as needed to an acute infection, but is less reactive in an ongoing sense to organisms that may not be causing active problems. I’m saying that overly simplifying the TH1, TH2, TH17, T regulation, regulatory T cells, different branches of the immune system that have different jobs in all of this. If we can marginalize the infection, if we can get the relative burden of it down to the extent that the immune system can pick up the slack and do what it’s supposed to do, we tend not to see as many problems. 

I have often said that if we had enough money to screen two million people in the general population who are asymptomatic for these infections, we would probably find positive results in several of them who were not sick. When we’re starting to see problems in terms of chronic degenerative disease or complex chronic illness, it tends to be when the immune system has multiple insults that it’s trying to deal with at the same time. Restoring immune competence, regulating the nervous system, and marginalizing the infection are the primary goals, as well as correcting any damage these infections may have caused by activating the immune system in the way that they do. 

Dr. Eric: 

Do you use a combination of treatments, like antibiotics or other things you may use? I don’t know if you use herbs or ozone. 

Dr. Brian: 

I highly individualize it. When I was trained, Dr. Kunkle used a lot of prescription antibiotic therapy, including IV antibiotic therapy, along with the best of what naturopathic medicine has to offer.

I always joke that my last name, Plante, was fitting for using a lot of herbal medicine. I love plants. They are incredibly useful in that they tend to be a little more sparing of the good microbes and tend to be broadly acting. They have a lot of coverage against a variety of not only vector-borne infections, but several of them are also anti-fungal, if there is opportunistic yeast overgrowth. Many of them are also anti-viral. If we don’t entirely know what we’re treating, or testing is cost-prohibitive, or it’s really complicated, I will often rely more heavily on the botanicals. 

The best results that I’m seeing are when there is a combination. If a patient can tolerate prescription antibiotics, I will use those alongside herbal medicines as well as trying to correct the underlying immune signaling, promote adequate detoxification, and die-off support. If hormones and other systems are impacted, we target those as well. 

In my current practice, we don’t do IV therapy, at least not in the Orange County location. In my previous offices, we did quite a bit of IV therapy. This is a little more for viruses than for cancer, but high dose IV Vitamin C is an oxidative therapy that has an antimicrobial effect. We did a lot of IV ozone therapy, including EBU, or extracorporeal blood oxygenation and ozonation. You take blood out, ozonate it, and put it back in continuously although people have often done the 10 pass as well. I do find ozone to be helpful. I don’t think it is a miracle. It won’t do all the heavy lifting, but it can be very helpful.

The one that I am probably the most passionate about Is methylene blue, whether oral or intravenously. There are a lot of cautions to be mindful of if you are doing it intravenously. I like it because it has a mitochondrial regenerative effect. It enhances oxygen utilization by the mitochondria. It is also neuroprotective, in which many patients infected by these infections have neurological symptoms as well as complications. It is a mononucleooxidase inhibitor, so you get more serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Brain fog, depression, anxiety, those kinds of things, it can be very helpful for. It tends to be a little gentler on the good microbiome. 

I call it a prescription antibiotic, but it doesn’t really fit into the classic categorizations of antibiotics, like doxycycline. We can talk about specific regimens, too, if we want to. I’ll use a variety of tools tailored to what the person can tolerate and what they need. The best results I’m seeing are a combination of prescription antibiotics and herbal antimicrobials. 

Dr. Eric: 

With methylene blue, do you recommend IV or orally? 

Dr. Brian: 

It can be administered IV. You have to be very careful of its serotonin effects when it’s administered intravenously. If folks are on prescription antidepressants that interact with serotonin or other medications that raise serotonin levels, if you do either oral or IV methylene blue, you can cause serotonin syndrome, which is a toxicity caused by too much serotonin in the brain. IV, the risk is much higher. If that was being administered in the hospital for a non-antimicrobial purpose, but for something else, you’d have to be off antidepressants for several days to minimize that risk. 

I’m always cautious about that with folks, but I have done it. It can have a pretty potent effect. It’s potentiated by red light. It’s a photosensitive molecule that becomes more oxidative when exposed to red light wavelengths. There are some devices that shine red light on it. We used some at my last clinic. It was a wristband that shined red light on your wrist as the IV methylene blue was being dripped into the other arm, with the idea that it activates it from the inside. It is a lot more potent intravenously, both therapeutically and with the risks. 

Dr. Eric: 

I know everybody is different, but on average, how long is someone taking the methylene blue, either orally, or maybe not as long with the IV since it’s more potent? 

Dr. Brian: 

With oral, I’m typically averaging around six months, sometimes longer. Sometimes 9-12 months. Sometimes shorter, depending on how they’re doing. It will turn your urine blue. Some folks say their toilets got stained. 

I have only had a handful of folks over the years report a digestive upset or a urinary pain, which prohibited us from continuing with it. In many cases, it’s very well tolerated, and we don’t tend to see the GI side effects that we might see with prolonged other classical antibiotics. 

Dr. Eric: 

I know you have to go soon. I do want to ask you what are some of your favorite plant-based botanicals that you use? 

Dr. Brian: 

What I will often do is start with a broad spectrum formula, like a biocytin, which has a variety of botanicals in it. It’s a mild biofilm disruptor as well. It’s often not sufficient, but it’s a good place to start because it breaks up biofilm, but not in a way that flares people the way I see with the phase two biofilm disruptors. It has broad action. 

The one that has been shown in the research to be the most potent against multiple vector-borne infections is Cryptolepis sanguinolenta, which is a West African shrub. Sometimes, they can experience more significant die-off symptoms, so I don’t usually start with that one. 

I usually start with biocytin or Japanese knotwood, which has also been shown to be effective against all three. 

I think LymeDisease.org just recently published a post on a research article they were citing that made this chart, where they looked at what was effective against stationary phase bartonella and the Borrelia, Lyme, as well what was effective against babesia. They didn’t differentiate between the different phases of babesia. You look at it and go, “Okay, methylene blue has activity against all three. Japanese knotwood has activity against all three. So does Cryptolepis.” 

I like Japanese knotwood because it has resveratrol and other anti-inflammatory molecules in it. The die-off symptoms tend to be more mild. What I see with that one from a side effect standpoint is nausea, particularly at higher doses, like encapsulated versions of it.

Chinese skullcap can be helpful as well. 

Those are the main ones that I rely on. 

Cistus incanus, which is a rock-rose. That is a fun one that less folks are familiar with. It’s very broadly antimicrobial. If someone is dealing with viruses, yeast, tick-borne infections, a little bit of everything, you can make that as a tea. It’s a traditional Mediterranean herb that was used to keep people’s teeth clean. It has this wonderful floral flavor to it. That’s another one that is often used as a preventative. Dr. Kunkle, when he lived in Maine, would drink that as a tea every day to prevent infection. Those are just a handful of them. 

Dr. Eric: 

Just curious: Do you have any experience using homeopathy? 

Dr. Brian: 

I was trained in naturopathic medical school with some bioclassical homeopaths. I am using it a lot less in my own practice. It’s one of those tools that I really wish that I knew more about how to use expertly, particularly constitutional or classical homeopathy. It requires quite a bit of effort to get proficient at. 

I have had some folks report that DesBio was helpful, which I think is homeopathic in nature, as well as some of the nosodes, which are diluted forms of microbes themselves. I have a little more experience with low dose immunotherapy, which is in my opinion a cross between vaccines and homeopathy, but that’s the extent of it. 

Dr. Eric: 

You mentioned DesBio. I actually took some of their products when I was dealing with chronic Lyme and bartonella. 

Dr. Brian: 

The best thing I have heard is their viral protocol is apparently pretty good.

Dr. Eric: 

For EBV and cytomegalovirus, and parvovirus and herpes simplex, yes, they have a whole line against all these different viruses and vector-borne infections. 

Before we wrap it up, is there anything else that I should have asked you that I didn’t ask you? Anything else you want to wrap up with? 

Dr. Brian: 

I think what I would say is a lot of folks are asking the question about what is long-haul COVID? What is going on with that? We could do a whole talk on that. We won’t. What I often find is folks have undiagnosed and untreated vector-borne infections and/or environmental toxicities. That is what is causing the bucket or cup to be close to full before they got COVID-19. I’ve had a number of folks post-COVID-19 vaccination experience symptoms of long-haul COVID. Of course, there are approaches that are more specifically targeting the spike protein and issues with that. More often than not, I’m seeing untreated other infections. 

If you’re struggling with long-haul COVID, and are working with an integrative practitioner, don’t hesitate to bring the question of whether vector-borne infections could be influencing what your immune landscape is doing and why it is responding so significantly to COVID or the spike protein. 

Dr. Eric: 

You shared a lot of valuable information. Where can people find out more about you, Dr. Brian? 

Dr. Brian: 

If you go to our clinic’s website, AmenClinics.com, you can find me. You can also just Google me, Brian Plante, MD. I am not super active on social media. I do have pages, but I’m not super active. 

If you’d like to get some support, I do some health coaching out of state. I am currently only licensed to work deeply with patients in California. If folks have outside providers they are working with, I will often act as a consultant, which tends to work well if they are able to manage prescriptions. I’d be happy to support you. 

I’m going to put more content like this out there. Stay tuned if you are interested in learning more about these topics. 

Dr. Eric: 

Wonderful.