Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome back to Integrative lyme Solutions with Dr. Karl Feldt.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: I am so excited about the show that we have ahead of us. We have some phenomenal information that could save lives. You're gonna need to tune in to what's going on today. The information is jam packed, so don't step away.
[00:00:24] Speaker C: Hello. Thank you so much for joining Integrative lyme Solutions with Dr. Karlfeld. I am your host, Dr. Michael Karl Fe Belt. I've been in clinical practice since 1987. I've seen pretty much everything under the sun, worked with so many different Lyme patients, and I know what a devastating disease this is. That's why I'm doing this podcast to make sure that you are armed with the information that you need in order to be able to be successful in your struggle with Lyme. We'll be featuring authors, doctors, professors, and also people like yourself that have gone through the journey that you're going through.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: That have been where you've been and.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: Is now on the other side. And they get to tell their victorious story as to how they battle Lyme so that you can implement that in your life as well. Be sure to like us and write a review on whichever platform that you're listening on. What that does is it enables other people to see us more so that they have access to this information as well. So I'm so excited that you're tuning in and get ready for this upcoming show. It is going to be amazing.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Today's guest is Dr. Joseph Pizorno. Dr. Joseph Pizzorno is a naturopathic doctor appointed by President Clinton in 2000 to the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy and by President Bush to the Medicare Coverage advisory committee in 2002. He's one of the world's leading authorities on science based natural medicine. He's been a naturopathic doctor since 1975. He's been an educator, research and researcher and expert spokesperson. He's a founding president of Bastyr University. Under his leadership, Bastyr became the first accredited multidisciplinary university of Natural Medicine and the first NIH funded center for alternative medicine research. He was the founding board member of the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, served as chair of the American Public Health association, served as the integrative medicine and wellness expert for WebMD. Dr. Pizzorno has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In 2004, Natural Food Merchandiser recognized him as one of the 25 leaders in therapeutic nutrition while the Institute of Functional Medicine honored him with The Linus Pauling Award for his decades of work establishing the scientific and educational foundation of natural medicine. In 2003, the American Holistic Medical association recognized him as one of the 25 pioneer in holistic medicine. 2001 Natural Health magazine recognized him as one of the leading health educators in the past 30 years. In 2000, Alternative Healthcare Management recognized him as one of the four most influential leaders in alternative healthcare. He travels worldwide consulting, lecturing and promoting science based natural medicine and collaborative health care. In 2001, Dr. Pizzorno founded Saligenesis Incorporated to develop innovative science based artificial intelligence aided advice system to provide smart personalized health promotion and integrated care guidance for the public and practitioners. You can find that on www.s A L U G E N E C I s t s.com Dr. Pizzorno is a co author of 10 books including the internationally acclaimed Textbooks of Natural Medicine now in its fourth edition and over 10,000 or I'm sorry, 100,000 copies bought by doctors worldwide and the best selling Encyclopedia of Natural medicine with over 1.5 million copies in six languages. His most recent book, the Toxin How Hidden Poisons in the Air, Water, Food and Products We Use Are Destroying Our Health and what We Can Do To Fix it, clearly links the exploding burden of environmental toxins to chronic diseases including autoimmunity, obesity, cancer and more. It is a roadmap of of how these toxins impact our health, but more importantly, a practical plan for reducing our exposures and maximizing our body's own detoxification. Dr. Bizzorno, it's such an honor to have you on the show to discuss what we are being impacted by in our environment today.
[00:05:24] Speaker D: Well, thank you so much for the very kind introduction and thank you also for the work you do trying to help people understand that natural medicine is critical for promoting people's health.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's always stuck with me is that you can't cure a deficiency with a pharmaceutical drug.
And a lot of our illnesses are based upon nutritional deficiencies, but also the amount of toxins that we're exposed to nowadays. Tell me a little bit, how is our world different now versus let's say 50 years ago?
[00:06:01] Speaker D: Well, that's the key question, which is what's happened. So I've been involved in medicine now for about half a century, first as a researcher in conventional medicine and as a scientist, I learned about natural medicine and became quite intrigued. So as a student and then as a clinician and founder of Bastyr and now author of seven books for consumers and five books for textbooks. I've had a lot of opportunity to look at what's happened to people over the last half century and also to look at a lot of research. And what I've seen is that in the past, when I first started seeing patients back in the 70s, they were typically sick because of what I would call the active determinants of health. And what I mean by that is the choices people made every day. You know, did you choose to smoke? Did you choose exercise? Did you choose eat junk food? I mean, all these things that determine whether people's health. Because, as you know, only 20% of disease is due to genetics. All the rest of it's due to our choices. But then something started happening pretty dramatically with the best Data started about 30 years ago. And about 30 years ago, what I would call the passive determinant of health became much worse. By passive, I'm talking about what happens to a person's health independent of what they actually do. So there's been two big things that have happened. Number one, the food that we're eating because of the conventional growing methodologies has resulted in the food having much lower levels of trace minerals. And the reason that's important is that it's pretty easy to get things like protein, carbohydrates, and fats. But in order for the enzymes of our bodies to work, they need these much less common things called trace minerals. And the trace mineral content of the food has dropped between 50 and 75% in the last 50 years. Here we have a problem with the food not supplying the nutrients we need. But the second problem, and even bigger, is that we've been progressively increasing the level of toxins in our environment. We're putting metals and chemicals, both intentionally and accidentally to our food, to our air, into our water, the health and beauty aids. And even those chemicals we use around the house and use in the yard, those chemicals, if you use very much of them, turn out to be incredibly damaging to the human body.
So as I've looked at a bunch of research and seen how we've got an increase in virtually every chronic disease in every age group, As I started looking at the research, I was realizing these environmental toxins are causing all these diseases.
So now I'm on kind of a personal mission to educate people about this and say to them, best way to improve your health is to just get these toxins out of the body and get good nutrition.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: So, in essence, I mean, we're eating food that is much less. The nutritional content of it is so much less than what it used to be. Which means that we have to be very specific as to what kind of food we're eating. It's not just that you can eat a little bit of junk food here and there. And then, I mean, we have to be extremely diligent in order to be able to make sure that we get the nutritional content that we need to sustain health from our food. But then also we have then all these interferences, all these chemicals that are then putting extra energy, burden and interfering with the different enzymes that do all the work in the body. So we have less support and we have more burden. And which obviously that is what seems to equate to disease.
[00:09:40] Speaker D: Exactly. That's exactly what's happening. And one of the scary things is that as I've looked at the research, particularly foods are particularly depleted of trace minerals. I'm finding that when you. When the foods. And this is the reason I'm not finding, but seeing the research done by others, that when you grow food on soil that's deficient in trace minerals, it more efficiently absorbs the environmental toxins. And I'm seeing situations where a food may have more of the environmental toxin than it has of the nutrient, the trace mineral that we need. So it's pretty scary what we've done to us and just getting worse.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: So you were mentioning about some things that we do intentionally with food that, you know, makes it more toxic. Obviously a subject that we've discussed on the show. We had Dr. Don Huber on the show, very well versed, talking about gmo. I mean, what is your take on GMO and what happens to the food when we introduce that?
[00:10:45] Speaker D: I think the biggest challenge with the GMOs is that it makes it easier for the farmers to grow it because the resistance to Roundup. The roundup has about 50% glyphosate, and glyphosate tends to kill plants, and so it's a way of controlling weeds. But the problem is when you put the glyphosate on, there's a couple of things that happen. Number one is glyphosate is not inert. It does have toxicity in humans. But the second part, and this research is now just evolving, so it's pretty early, but nonetheless it's pretty interesting. It appears that part of the trade off in making plants resistant to the pesticides herbicide is that it actually makes it more difficult for the plants to absorb trace minerals. This is kind of a surprise when I saw this research so seriously a problem.
[00:11:39] Speaker E: Hello, dear listeners, this is Dr. Michael Karlfeld, your host of integrative Lyme solutions. Today, I'm excited to share an exclusive opportunity from the Karlfeld center, where we blend healing power of nature with groundbreaking therapies to combat Lyme disease and its associated challenges. At the Karlfield center, we're not just fighting Lyme, we're revolutionizing the way it's treated with cutting edge therapies like photodynamic therapy, full body ozone IV therapy, silver IVs, brain rebalancing, autonomic response testing, laser energetic detoxification, and more. We aim to eradicate Lyme. Our approach is comprehensive, supporting your body's immune system, detoxification processes, hormonal balance and mitochondrial health, ensuring a holistic path to recovery. Understanding Lyme disease and its impact is complex, which is why we're offering a free 15 minute discovery call with one of our Lyme literate naturopathic doctors. This call is your first step towards understanding how we can personalize your healing journey, focusing on you as a whole person, not just your symptoms. Our team, led by myself, Dr. Michael Karlfields, is here to guide you through your recovery with the most advanced diagnostic tools, individualized treatment plans, and supportive therapies designed to restore your health and vitality. Whether you're facing Lyme disease head on or seeking preventative strategies, we're committed to your wellness. Take the first step towards reclaiming your health. Visit us at TheCarlefulCenter.com or call us at 208-338-8902 to schedule your free discovery call. At the Karlfield center, we believe in healing naturally, effectively and holistically. Thank you for tuning in into integrative lyme solution with Dr. Karl Feld. Remember, true health is not just the absence of disease. It's achieving the abundance of vitality. Let's discover yours through together.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So we not only then have less nutrients in the soil, which makes our food less nutritional dense, but then we're adding something like glyphosates that people are looking upon as a chelator, which means that it binds to minerals and holds on to them so that you really.
So there's less in the food and then you bind to the majority of what's already there. So Dr. Pisorno, tell me a little bit. Where do we.
You mentioned some examples, you know, these toxins, we get it through skin care, we get it through food. I mean, what are some of the common toxins that we are exposed to that people don't think about?
[00:14:27] Speaker D: So that's a very good question because when we start thinking about this idea of toxins causing disease, it's easy to get pretty scared. So what I try to focus on is which are the worst toxins and where do they come from? Interestingly enough, probably the worst toxin is one which I suspect would be a surprise to most of your listeners, and that is arsenic. And the reason this is surprising is because we start looking at which toxins cause the most disease, arsenic turns up to be number one. And in fact, the Centers for Disease Control US CDC has identified arsenic as the worst toxin. Now, you might think, well, how do I get arsenic? Because I like to tell people is not everybody is being poisoned by their spouse with arsenic.
So where's the arsenic coming from? And it turns out it's coming from three primary sources. Number one is water. It turns out that 10% of the public water supplies in the United States have arsenic levels that are known to induce disease in humans. And that's quite a big surprise because why would public health allow that to happen? But indeed, that's what's happening. The second primary source is rice that is grown in water that's contaminated with arsenic, because for some reason, rice is very good at absorbing arsenic. And the third primary source is chicken. Up until about two years ago, it was legal for the chicken growers to put arsenic into the food supply of the chickens in order to treat their parasites and in order to make them a little plumper, make them more desirable for those who want the white meat. So this has resulted in a pretty significant increase in burden of arsenic.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: So how would an individual be able to get arsenic out of their water? I mean, if you live in an area where you have water in the water supply, I mean, arsenic in the water supply, what, what would be the best type of system? Or what, what should they do?
[00:16:25] Speaker D: So, so there's, there's good news here. Number one is actually our bodies are quite good at getting rid of arsenic. One of the ways I determine what toxins we are likely exposed to as we evolved as a species is to look at how good we are at detoxifying various toxins. So the half life, in other words, how long it takes for the body to get rid of half of it. The half life of arsenic is two to four days for, like, 99% of the people. So as long as they're not being exposed to arsenic, we can actually not have a problem with it. Now, if the water supply does have arsenic in it, pretty much the only way I know of for getting arsenic out of the water is through a process called reverse osmosis. And unfortunately, that's a fairly challenging, expensive methodology, but that's the best way currently known to get the arsenic out of the water.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Would you suggest people then staying away from eating rice and chicken to reduce their exposure?
[00:17:21] Speaker D: Probably. In this situation, what's most critical is what's in the water. Now, if you're eating rice and chicken every day, then that's a problem. But most people don't eat rice and chicken every day, but everybody drinks water every day. So if the water supply does not have arsenic in it and you need to have it tested, most of the public water supplies don't report their arsenic levels. And not only that, less than half of the public water supplies that even reported the arsenic in their water. Which frankly makes me suspicious because, you know, public health people know that this is a problem. And if they're not going to report the amount of arsenic in the water supply, most likely there's arsenic in it. Nonetheless, there's no arsenic in the water supply, then I wouldn't worry about eating rice and chicken a couple times a week. Arsenic in the water supply, chicken and rice may be enough to put you over the edge.
[00:18:09] Speaker B: And so arsenic is kind of a number one. I mean, what are some of the other. Yeah, I know like plastic and plastic water bottles were exposed to a lot of chemicals from there.
What are some of the other chemicals that easy to avoid and easy to address.
[00:18:27] Speaker D: Right. So then it turns out that you can look at the various toxins. And one of the ways I advise the doctors and the patients is, well, if you have a chronic disease, you should look at what are the worst toxins for that chronic disease. And the chronic disease which is increasing most in our society dramatically is diabetes. Now, when I was in ATRI Medical School as a student way back half a century ago, diabetes affected less than 1% of the population. Population. I remember I was so excited my first year in practice when I finally saw a diabetic patient. Unfortunately, that's changed dramatically. And diabetes depends on what research you want to look at. Around 10 to 15% of the population, and researchers are projecting that one out of three people will have diabetes in a lifetime. But what happened now, what's interesting is that everybody knows that as people get obese, they dramatically increase the risk of diabetes. Diabetes. But if you look at obese people in the bottom 10% of body load of environmental toxins, they have no increased risk of diabetes. So what's happening is it's more the toxins than the diabetes. Which toxins cause the most diabetes. Well, it turns out the good news is that these are things we can avoid. The bad news is that two thirds of the population has levels of these toxins in their body. That actually at least each of them doubles the risk of diabetes. So for example, you've got the phthalates. So phthalates are chemicals that are added to health and beauty aids to solubilize the fragrances and stabilize them. Well, these phthalates bind to the insulin receptor sites on the cells of the walls, on the cells. Those cells can't respond to the insulin. So then our poor pancreas has to over produce insulin in order to get sugar into the cells. Well, you flog the pancreas for 20 or 30 years like that, and as you might expect, it burns out at diabetes. So the phthalates, you find the phthalates not just in the health and beauty eggs, but also in plastics. Now the second big one is bisphenol A. Everybody's heard about bisphamol A being a problem. Well, this is the primary problem with bisphenol A and that is blocks in some receptor sites. And these things are everywhere. Anytime a person eats any kind of food that's been stored in plastic and or cans, because cans are lined with plastic.
If they have a shower and you have a shower curtain and that plastic shower curtain is hit with hot water, when you smell that, you put in as bisphenol A and phthalates and things like that into your body. So there are just lots of sources. I mean children with their bottles made out of plastic, with their little nipples with. Well, those things have phthalates in them and have the fist being leg. And that's one reason why we're having so much more diabetes in children.
It's actually kind of depressing looking at all this.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: It is sad because we created an environment, we created a society that promotes disease by all these products that are cheap to produce and very quickly consumable. And then we throw them in, they throw away products so they end up on a landfill and then get into our water supply in addition to our direct exposure. So it's like we're setting ourselves up for centuries of these kind of diseases. Even if we turn around right now.
[00:21:53] Speaker D: Yes, we just. Huge, huge burden of these diseases in our society.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So these phthalates, I mean, how will it be listed on the beauty aids or how do people find out whether this is included in their buty aids or the different products that they have?
[00:22:14] Speaker D: Right. So there's a big problem and that is the way the rules are established right now.
Many of these chemicals are not listed on the ingredients because they can be covered up by what's called trade secrets. So it's important to get educated about what these things look like. Now, fortunately, there are a number of apps that have become available that will tell us what is actually in the product and rank them. The one that I use and recommend to people is called Think Dirty. Now, with Think Dirty is this little app you put on your cell phone and you just take a quick little picture of the coating on the back of the product, and it'll tell you how bad it is. Now, I have no commercial relationship with this company. I just am looking for resources for people to help improve their health. So there are things we can do and we can't trust the government will protect us because there's too many conflicts of interest there.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: Absolutely. If there's money involved, then there will be conflict of interest. Absolutely. And with one of the aspects that you're talking about, you're talking about the receptor sites, which is interesting. I don't think people really understand the importance and the function of these receptor sites. We're thinking that dealing with diabetes and then just pumping more insulin will then improve the outcome and control the disease. But in essence, you actually need to work on these receptor sites and clean off then these chemicals and metals, because they are the ones that are interfering then with these hormones, like an insulin to kind of lock into one of those receptor sites.
[00:23:59] Speaker D: Exactly.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah. And be speaking with Dr. Joseph Pizzorno. Dr. Pizzorno, so tell me a little bit about these receptor sites. I mean, how do they function and how do we clean them up? You were talking about insulin resistance, and obviously that's insulin not being able to lock into one of these receptor sites. But then we're dealing with things like thyroid, and we have testosterone, and we have all these other hormones that need to lock into these different receptor sites. And are they impacted as well by these different chemicals?
[00:24:36] Speaker D: Exactly. Exactly. Correct. So these things, not only do they block insulin receptor sites, but they also cause many other miscommunications between our cells and our regulatory systems. The way our cells are turned on and stimulated to absorb sugar or to produce glutathione or to respond to hormones. So, for example, for males to have more muscle mass and other male characteristics, well, the cells have to respond to testosterone. Well, it turns out the phthalates actually block the testosterone receptor sites as well. And you've got the PCBs, what are called the Polychlorinated biphenols. Now, the good news is that we banned these things over 40 years ago. But the bad news is that there are a category of chemicals called persistent organic pollutants. And they're called persistent organization because they were designed to be difficult for biological systems to break down. So what happens when these things get into the body?
The PCBs is when they're in the body, they start doing things like blocking the thyroid's ability to not only produce four, but they also block the body's ability to then convert T4 to T3, which is three times more active. So as people have higher levels of PCBs, it blocks their ability to produce the thyroid hormone. Not only that, but the PCBs are a major factor in inducing breast cancer in women. And there's a number of mechanisms by which that happens. Well, the reason they're so bad is not only do they cause all this disease, but they're classic. As I said, they're what are called persistent organic pollutants. And these are typically organic compounds that have halogens added to that, which means they have the organic compound to which we add chlorine or bromine, things like that. And it turns out that our livers do not have a very good ability to strip these halogens off of these organic compounds. So we can't detoxify them. And when I say we can't detoxify them, the half life of PCBs in the body ranges from three to 25 years. Once in our bodies, these PCBs increase breast cancer, block thyroid activity, and this whole wide range, they decrease IQ in children. I can go on and on and on how problematic they are.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: And that's the thing. I have patients coming in and they.
You say this is what's going on in the body and probably these chemicals are showing up. And they say, well, I haven't been exposed to that like 30, 40 years.
People don't recognize the ability of the body to store these chemicals for a long period of time and that it can then create health issues for that long period of time. You mentioned you were talking about breast cancer, and that's an interesting subject.
We hear a lot about these hormonally driven cancers like breast cancer, ovarian.
How does that play into all these different chemicals that we're exposed?
[00:27:35] Speaker D: There are a number of mechanisms. And so when I'm giving my lectures literally all over the world, when we're having this call right now, I actually just got back from lecturing in Australia and New Zealand about this. When we're looking at these toxins, not only the damaging effects of a specific toxin, there's also the issue of total body load of toxins. And when these toxins, when we look at what these toxins do, might say they have both their own specific damaging effect, but they also, in total, they also have increasing. They also increase oxidative damage in the body as we get exposed to more and more toxins. While an individual toxin may not look that bad, when you look at the total body load of these various toxins, action ends up being a huge problem. As this toxic load increases, you get more oxidative stress. Now, our bodies, our wonderful intelligent bodies will protect us from those oxidative, oxidative stress. But we have a limited capability of doing that. When the oxidative stress gets up too high, it then starts causing damage, like damage to DNA. Turns out there's a very useful test for determining a person's total body load of toxins. It doesn't tell us which toxins they have, but it tells us what the total body load is. And it's called 8ohdt. We don't need to get the technology what that means. But this is a product in urine, and it shows up in urine because when DNA gets damaged, our bodies are trying to repair that DNA. When it repairs that damaged DNA, it removes the damaged DNA, puts in the healthy DNA, then the damaged DNA shows up in urine. So this 8 oh DG turns up, turns out it goes up in direct proportion to toxic load. As mercury goes up, as lead goes up, as disease goes up, smoking, any of these kinds of things, the more the toxic load, the higher the chemical needs urine. And it turns out that chemical urine directly correlates with things like cancer and inversely correlates with longevity. The higher these things in the body, shorter the period of time.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be extremely useful test just so you can see where you're at and you can see when you're dealing with a complicated health issue how much these chemicals and toxins are related to it. And also obviously for preventative measures, you want to make sure that you catch this before something serious comes about like cancer or Ms. Or whatever it may be.
[00:29:57] Speaker D: The best treatment for cancer is to not get it.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:30:02] Speaker D: Kind of simplistic comment, but that's the world we're in, is that you've got to be really active about protecting your body from all this garbage that we're being exposed to.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's such an onslaught. And if you allow yourself to fall behind. It is hard to catch up. Once the body, all the compensatory mechanisms in the body are starting to fail, it is a tough journey to get back. So it's a whole lot easier to prevent than to fix. And so that is one of the tests to measure, then the toxic lows. Are there other lab tests out there to measure like the BPA or glyphosates? And I mean, can an individual test and see what their specific loads are?
[00:30:49] Speaker D: Yes. So there's one more test that's useful and that's called ggtp. So GGT or GGTP is the same test, is an enzyme in the liver. And the good news about this test is that it's rarely available because it's a standard laboratory test that's used to determine if a person has hepatitis. Turns out that within the quote normal range, which is about 10 to 60, the GGT goes up in proportion to toxic load. And the reason for this is that GGT recycles a critical molecule in the body called glutathione. Those people are exposed to more toxins. Our body then produces more glutathione to protect us from those toxins. That's another good test. So a good value of this one is that's more easily available than the 800 HTG. The disadvantage is that about 10% of the population, they have a version of their genetics where they do not increase production proportionate toxic load, so they're less able to protect themselves. And so it's not as useful a method for monitoring.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Okay, yeah. We are now impacted by all these chemicals. We know that they're around us. You know, one step obviously is to, to minimize exposure, to recognize where are they coming from. What can I do to minimize bio organic whenever I can to reduce the pesticides on the food, look at what kind of skin care products that I put on, what kind of cleaning agents that I have in the home. All these things that impact us when we use them.
What can we do?
We know that we've been exposed to them. What can we do to get rid of them?
[00:32:33] Speaker D: So there are basically two strategies.
But before I talk about strategies to get rid of them, I want to say the first three strategies are avoidance. Avoidance.
[00:32:42] Speaker B: Avoidance, Exactly.
In case the first three didn't work, let's do the fourth, which is also avoidance.
[00:32:50] Speaker D: Right, right. So I can't overstate the importance of avoidance. Now, having said that, what it turns out is there are ways to get rid of these toxins and there's kind of two strategies. Strategy one is to look at how the body normally gets rid of toxins, then to support those systems. And the second is to actually directly remove the toxins. The two main ways to support the body's detoxification is to increase first one is to increase dietary fiber. So as we evolved as a species, we're consuming between 100 and 150 grams of fiber a day. Now the average person consumes only about 20 grams of fiber. So the normal systems in the liver for getting these chemicals and metals out of the body is expecting there to be fiber there to bind to these things, get them out to the stools. If there's no fiber there, then unfortunately we reabsorb many of those toxins, something called intrahatic recirculation.
It's hard to overstate the importance of fiber. The second main factor is increasing glutathione levels in the body. Because glutathione does multiple things. Number one is it acts as a critical antioxidant to protect us from the oxidative damage from various toxins. The second thing it does is that it binds to many of the toxins in the liver through something called phase two conjugation to get them out of the body. The third thing it does, and this is pretty particularly important for people who eat fish or have a mouthful of amalgam fillings, is it actually helps bind to mercury in the cells and get them out of the cells into the blood so they can get rid of the kidneys. So one of the simplest things, NAC plus our fiber, is a really, really effective intervention.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: So NAC is actually a substance that you can use to upregulate and the glutathione production in the body, right.
[00:34:39] Speaker D: So the rate limiting step in the production of glutathione in the body is the availability of cysteine. So N acetylcysteine is the most effective way to get cysteine in the body.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Perfect.
[00:34:51] Speaker D: Now, the second method then, is to look at what particular toxins a person has and then develop strategies for getting those toxins out. Now, this is going to be highly dependent upon the kind of toxins versus being supposed to, and also how much the patient wants to or the user wants to get involved in drug treatment as well. So, for example, looking at something like PCBs. So it turns out a good way to get rid of PCBs is to increase fiber. But an even more effective way to get rid of PCBs is to give people something called what are called bile sequestrants. So these biosquestins are things cholestyramine and cholestamide and things of this nature. So these are drugs that were developed to help lower people's cholesterol levels. And it turns out that not only do they bind to cholesterol, but they also bind to these environmental toxins, the fat solvent toxins. So that's a useful strategy. Then we're looking at something like, oh, let's say mercury. So with mercury and lead, I also prescribe something called dmsa, and this is oral. And by the way, on only do oral protocols these days, because although they're slower than iv, they're also safer. So something like DMSA will bind to mercury and lead in the body, help get it out. And it's particularly effective at getting rid of what's called the methyl, which is particularly problematic because it's very, very neurotoxic.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: So just if an individual because is dealing then with, let's say diabetes and PCB may be kind of a factor that's blocking the receptor site. Just doing these simple steps like NAC fiber and also then like DMSA or cholestyramine to help to bind to these chemicals. That would be a very effective strategy.
[00:36:44] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: And I know that the body is designed in a certain way to move these toxins out. And because we have so much exposure around us, somehow these systems tend to get clogged up. And I always say we have one way in and four ways out for a reason, because we're exposed to so many toxins that we the body really needs to move them out, being like kidneys, colon, skin, lungs, and then obviously liver is a huge factor. So what kind of strategy is that Part of the strategy as well to support these eliminatory organs?
[00:37:30] Speaker D: Yes, and a great example of that is sweating. Those saunas turn out to be a very effective way of getting rid of some of the really difficult to get rid of metals and chemicals. And so what we need to do with the saunas is the typical protocol is at least 20 minutes and preferably more than a half an hour. And you want to get a person in a situation where they're sweating pretty profusely. And as the sweating continues, it goes from kind of a wet sweat to kind of an oily sweat. When we get into that oily sweat, that's when you really get rid of the toxins. Now, when doing this, first off, make sure you talk with your doctor and that you're healthy enough to do sweating, cardiovascular, et cetera, and then also use lots of towels and such to absorb the stuff to get rid of it. And then make sure you're drinking lots of fluids and electrolytes, because as you sweat, you will not only lose toxins, but you lose some electrolytes as well. Kind of look at the whole picture.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And how big of a role does your gut play? I mean, you hear a lot about gut and brain connection and how important the gut is.
How important is that in regards to detoxification?
[00:38:40] Speaker D: Yes. So the gut plays an important role in detoxification, but in many ways the most important role of the gut in terms of toxicity is actually if you have a toxic gut. What I mean by that is if you got a lot of the wrong bacteria in your gut, these wrong bacteria are going to be producing chemicals that are actually toxic to humans. And so when they're in the gut, and particularly if you have leaky gut, they'll get into the body and they go directly to the liver and the liver has to get rid of them. Well, when the liver is spending all its energy, get rid of these excess toxins from the gut, it then has less energy and metabolic capability to get rid of the toxins better, other kinds of toxins. But one of the biggest reasons why the gut is important is because of it, you have an unhealthy gut, dramatically increase your toxicity, even though that may be a little surprising. And same thing for the kidneys. That is when your total toxic load gets high and the liver can't handle all of it anymore, then there's a bigger and bigger load on the kidneys. And another problem we're having in society is not only are we having more cancer, more dementia, more ADHD and increasing infertility and all these bad things, we're also seeing kidney failure and we're seeing more and more of these kidney dialysis centers all over the place because kidneys aren't working anymore because they're being poisoned.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: Yeah. It's atrocious what we're seeing. So in your book you have this kind of intense. It's like a two week jumpstart diet to get going. I mean, how can a listener. Obviously they do need to get your book the Toxin Solution.
I would say that that's an absolute must read out there. But can you describe the two week jumpstart diet? A little bit. And what does that look like?
[00:40:32] Speaker D: So I have as a recommendation in my book an eight week process and it's broken down into four two week sequences. The first two weeks I say to people, okay, there's not much point going through a detoxification program if you, first off, heaven opened up your organs of elimination. And second is if you keep on taking toxins in. So I say to people, okay, first you've got to be aware where the toxins are so you stop putting them into your body. Because it's going to be much, much harder to get the organs of elimination working properly if you're continuing to dump toxins into them. I put people on a two week diet which is relatively vegetarian in nature. It's using foods that are low in toxins, increases fiber and also increases alkaline in the body. The reason for increasing alkalinity in the body is that it then makes it easier for the kidneys to get rid of toxins. Then I put people through a two week program on cleaning up the gut because again, the biggest law in the liver is from the gut. So let's get the gut cleaned up. Then we work on for two weeks on the liver, in the liver, dumping the bile more effectively. Make sure all nutrients are necessary for the enzymes to work away at the supply. Supposed to make sure everything's properly there. And then I put people on two weeks worth of kidneys. Real interesting strategies to improve the kidney's ability to get rid of toxins. And once that's all done, then I put people on detox program. That detox program will last as long as necessary to get the toxins out. I feel very, very strongly, don't go on a detox program and loosen things up and release them from the cells until your body's ready to get them out of the body. Cause otherwise you can actually make yourself more sick.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what I see with people again and again. They go to the health food store and they see a supplement that says detoxification and they take that supplement and think that now they've cleaned everything out. But in essence they are stirring things up. Instead of then opening up the exit pathways first, which your book so beautifully delineates, we need to open up the pathways so that when you're detoxifying, things can actually just can come out of your body. Otherwise you're just rearranging furniture. You're just moving toxins from one location to another, which may be more dangerous the second place than it was initially.
[00:42:48] Speaker D: Exactly. Very well said.
[00:42:50] Speaker B: Yeah. This message is something that can't be talked about enough. And I love your book. It's a, it's a how to book. It's a very practical process that the reader can go through to help to clean out their body and then obviously avoid the toxins and find out where they're at and how to go about doing that. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Dr. Pisorno, thanks for the invitation.
[00:43:18] Speaker D: Good luck with your work.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: Thank you so much.
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[00:43:30] Speaker A: Educational purposes only and is not designed to diagnose or treat any disease. I hope this podcast impacted you as it did me. Please subscribe so that you can be notified when new episodes are released. There are some excellent shows coming up that you do not want to miss. If you're enjoying these podcasts, please take a moment to write a review. And please don't keep this information to yourself. Share them with your family and friends. You never know what piece of information that will transform their lives. For past episodes and powerful information on how to conquer lyme, go to integrativelimesolutions.com and an additional powerful resource, limestream.com for Lyme support and group discussions. Join Lyme Conquerors Mentoring Lyme warriors on Facebook. If you'd like to know more about the cutting edge integrative Lyme therapies my center offers, please visit thecarlfeltcenter.com thank you.
[00:44:27] Speaker B: For spending this time with us and.
[00:44:28] Speaker A: I hope to see you at our next episode of Integrative lyme Solutions with Dr. Karl Feld.
