The Dirty Girl Doctor, Biotoxins, And The Heart

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

The preeminent expert on toxins, right? That’s why you’re on the summit, there’s no doubt about it. Thanks thanks for having me here Joel. And first off, it’s great to be with you and right back at you in terms of being an amazing doctor who is making a huge difference. So my husband and I own an integrative functional medicine and wellness practice. We’re actually in Massachusetts, I love New York but I don’t live there close enough. I did do residency there. So it’s close enough, right? I was there and then I moved back to Boston. So we’re in Massachusetts in Newton, Massachusetts. And we do telemedicine, we do I. V. S. We do nutrition. It’s all about getting to the root cause of things and really bringing your health to life right? Like leading a life in which you feel good, You look good, You have vitality alive, able, and interested in intimacy till you’re at least 100. That’s our philosophy.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

That’s what I think a lot of listeners and there’s a lot of listeners who now know they need to go to Boston or telemedicine to Boston for your clinic five journeys. And I’m sure, towards the annual, tell us how we reach out and find you, but who doesn’t want to feel better and not wake up, you know, with creaky body and brain fog and low energy. And you had that experience. So, tell us a little bit, you know, give us the short version of how you, you know, went from vibrant to not vibrant to return to vibrancy. 

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Sure. So, someone said to me is, “your mess, your message.” I said, absolutely, and it has two peaks. The first peak culminated in the diagnosis of celiac disease when I was 35 and I was at that point only getting out of bed because I was the primary breadwinner and I had to I was really sick and from head to toe, hair loss, Brain fog, anxiety, thyroid dysfunction, heart palpitations, everything got bloating gas, diarrhea, constipation sometimes back to back, right, you know, diarrhea, constipation to diarrhea in a day, fertility challenges, which I subsequently made up for by having four kids. I was wasting. I was nutrient deficient and everything. I didn’t have bone density loss. That was like the high point of the diagnosis. But I had everything else. And I got diagnosed with celiac at age 35 that was my entry into functional medicine and that really was that moment where I was like, I want to do that for people, I want to be that person who can transform someone’s health just like that. So, and Ed was already in functional medicine, but I wasn’t, I was sending him patients and so at that point, I was like, oh, it’s time for me to look at this. And I kinda got into it a little bit more. And then a couple years later made the jump from traditional obstetrical gynecological care into 100% functional medicine and never looked back. So that’s peak one.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Right. Tell us about all these depressing peaks in your health. But the story of victory.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It is ultimately a story of victory. So peak one was the celiac, which, you know, I was a genetic setup for it, but I didn’t know that. So ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power and know your genes because you can make an impact in it. And then peek too happened when I was 48. I was full on in the throes of perimenopause and we came back from a vacation in France and London and I, it was like, I dove down the green slide, I gained a whole bunch of weight, almost 10 pounds. My hair started falling out in droves. We’re not talking like a little hair last. We’re like, oh my God, my hairdresser was like, your hair is falling out. And I had a rash all over my face. I wanted, I wanted to rip my face off and I did every test, you know, we do this stuff. Right? 

So my thyroid first thing people think of thyroid, perfect hormones, perfect gut for me, amazing. You know, I’m a celiac with all kinds of weird stuff. But for me it was amazing. Adrenals. Pretty good. And now I’m stumped. I’m like, what’s going on here? And then one day I hear the support that when Notre dame burned down, it released about 500 tons of lead dust into the air and the closer you were to Notre dame, right after the fire, the more exposure you got and intuitively, the farther away, the less you got. But we spent a week right there right after it burned and I looked at my husband and I got a lead exposure. I mean we all probably did, but I’m the one who’s sick and I tested my lead and it was significantly higher than it was in the past. And I also had mercury now and that was what really opened my eyes. And then I said, well in for a penny in for a pound, I’ll test all the other mycotoxins which are the toxins that mold puts out when it’s in your body and I’ll test the environmental toxins. I got all these results back, everything’s positive. And I look at Ed and I said, I am such a dirty girl. And then I said, we’re writing that book because I’m like the poster child for healthy living, right? Organic, nothing processed, I don’t drink alcohol, I don’t need sugar, I sleep, I exercise, I do run hot, but it’s just my personality type and if I have all this, what does everyone else have and what impact is it having for them? So we wrote the book.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Wow, you are the original Quasimodo jumping around the roof of Notre dame and screaming out sanctuary, wow, that is really amazing. So you’ve, that was about how long going now you’re going to reveal your age if you tell us something.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I’m gonna be 52 in November.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So people will say you do not look 50 to you look more like your 35 year old self.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

But thank you.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

No problem. So you’ve been on a detoxification, heavy metal elimination journey for 3 to 4 years and it’s working out pretty well. Huh?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s working out really well actually.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Not easy you’ve done. I mean just maybe give us again kind of a quick flavor of what you’ve done. That’s been most effective to lower the levels of so many of these bio toxins and heavy metal toxins.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah. I think we want to take this systematically. Which is how I think. So the first thing is don’t fill your pump up with toxins. So whatever the sources are removed the sources. So I had a number of mercury fillings. So I got those taken out with a biologic dentist. So that sort of stop filling up the pump. I was no longer in the dust of Notre dame. So that was eliminated. I made sure to test to make sure that I didn’t have mycotoxins in my house that I wasn’t living in a moldy situation. That was fine. And then for the environmental toxins, some of the things I had already fixed. So we got an organic bed about 10 years ago but I still had some flame retardants in me. But I had high levels of the chemicals from nail Polish and certain beauty products. 

So I stopped doing my nails so I don’t do my nails any longer which was heartbreaking because they were beautiful but now they’re beautifully bare. That’s what I’ll say. So start to systematically pull away the exposures. That’s part one, make sure to minimize processed foods because they’re high in glyphosate. You know, it’s really important to minimize exposure to pesticides. So eat organic. That’s the minimize exposure. And then I worked really hard on improving my liver and that’s something I’m gonna have to do for life because I don’t have the best genetics. So improving phase one and phase two in the liver both with food and supplements that improve its ability to mobilize and process toxins. You know, I hate cilantro but I love parsley. I got that but parsley so lots of parsley, alpha and beta carotene, rich foods, cruciferous vegetables. There’s a lot of ways to do this that are all natural and then where the gap was, take supplements. I did I. V. S to get rid of the medals and sauna. I’ve done sauna since we put it in almost three years ago, it must be two years ago because it’s a COVID thing. Instead of going to Italy we got a sauna.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Like hi and family size sauna can be equivalent to a couple of airplane tickets to Europe but well worth it. And they’re very durable. I’ve had my current version two seater for probably about 10 years. Works perfect. Very little E. M. F. Some people may be wondering, I’m going to bring this up why this really really fascinating story and interest topic but why on a reverse your heart disease naturally summit and of course I practiced cardiology and you do see patients with suspected and known heart disease. But I want to point out I just had pulled up, it took me literally 10 seconds on pub med. The National Library Medicine for example a medical journal May 2016 and the prominent medical cardiology journal Journal American College of Cardiology. A title of a review article Heavy metals which is mercury lead cadmium nickel cardiovascular disease and the unexpected benefits of E. D. T. A. Coagulation therapy written by one of the most academic cardiologists in the country. Gervasio LAMAs in Miami Beach. 

And some may say regulation. I mean my cardiologist doesn’t talk about regulation or nobody’s even thought of measuring heavy metals in me. So there’s plenty of articles. This was a review article. So you know I’m looking quickly but dozens in fact 51 references that are in that 2016 article. And I pulled up just again in an instant 2021 an area of interest I’ve had which is something called the dilated cardiomyopathy. A weak heart dilated, no obvious cause. Mrs. Jones Mr. Smith, your heart is a V. Four engine not a V eight engine and we can’t figure out why this is a pretty common situation. This paper’s called heavy metal exposures and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, a case control study. And they talk about exposures to selenium cadmium thallium copper zinc in excess. All of these are nutrients in general that have some role in the body. But heavy metals don’t really lead uh mercury cadmium don’t have any healthy role, only a toxic role. So I just only introduced those two quick topics to say. You may have written a very you know, interesting and sort of fun. It certainly represents your hot personality as you I think called it. I don’t want to cross the border and use that in its usual way. But the science that you quote and obviously the science and in my field strong but it’s so rarely done. I’ll just give one last shout out in early 2022. The famous Tony Robbins published a pretty big hardcover called Life Force, the new medicine precision medicine. And he really had a good team of advisors and one of the core tests he says to get and that is done at a high end evaluation clinic he has around the United States called fountain knife is to get a heavy metal screen which is really that’s the lowest and easiest. 

It’s just a blood test for Quest, LabCorp, your local hospital. Do a heavy metal blood. He introduces it as you know, a breakthrough that you should not avoid because I think he found out he was full of metal toxins. You have metal toxins. I do that routinely and maybe we’ll talk the other ways to know if you have heavy metals in your body. But even a simple blood test and I get the results back in a few days. My patients that have high mercury levels, it’s in the double digits 15 2025%. Usually big tuna eaters, big sushi eaters may have genetic, liver detoxification weaknesses, methylation and THR detoxification weaknesses. Obviously the easiest thing is just cut back. Don’t eat tuna wraps every darn day or raw tuna sushi every day. If you find out your mercury toxic, uh the lead academy and the arsenic is less common besides a simple blood test called a heavy metal blood toxicity screen. One of the other ways a person can find out if they’re loaded with heavy metal toxins.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I love talking about this, Joel. I just want to say those blood tests are both good and bad news. So if you have a blood test that’s positive, it indicates a recent exposure within the last 4-6 weeks that your body hasn’t been able to secrete and put away or deal with. But it’s only half or even a quarter of the story because if you had an exposure to lead or mercury or cadmium and thallium that was remote and you didn’t excrete it, but you stored it in your fat bones or organs, the blood test won’t pick that up. It’s only picking up recent exposure. So a whole group of people who have problems with metals because they’re storing it. For example, anyone with osteoporosis or osteopenia likely has lead because that’s where the lead sits is in the bones and it replaces the normal bone architecture. So the blood test is a great screening tool for someone who said, oh, I may have had an exposure, but it’s not good for people who, you’re trying to understand what’s the source of this inflammation because if it comes up negative, you’ve missed, you know, we’ve missed a likely source. 

So the other, the way that we love doing it, you can do hair. I’m not a fan of hair because it only shows what you’re voluntarily excreting. And so again, it doesn’t get at what’s stored in your body. It gets at what’s what’s your body able to move along in process. And then another way to test is urine. You can do it, we do a baseline screen on everyone to make sure like what you’re doing, which is, there’s no recent exposure that we’ve missed that’s been significant. And then we do a provoked urine test. It’s not the Holy Grail. Okay, so you’re not gonna get you get a number from the lab. But typically what you see is that the first pass number that you get when you challenge this, it’s actually higher than what you see because you are doing this with crappy detox mechanisms you have to improve your detox mechanism to really see, oh there’s actually a lot more present than I thought. Again, not the Holy Grail, not an exact science, but it gives you a sense. Low medium high. So What I typically say is if someone’s come up negative on a provoked test a number of times take glutathione. Do sauna increase exercise, improve the increase the foods that help with Phase one and Phase two and do a recheck. Just to make sure some people are really negative but some are actually positive and you miss it because they’re detox isn’t so good.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And the urine is a baseline urine collection. And what about six hours after a metal not provokes the release of stored heavy metals correct?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

We use D. M. S. A. Which binds to and pulls out both lead and mercury. So that’s great. It also pulls out the other metals And so you can get a sense of what’s being stored. What are you hiding because it won’t be in your stream. It’s toxic. You don’t want it in your bloodstream.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

You can ask a naturopathic doc if you have one in your community a functional medicine train doc in your community. Probably not your usual primary care physician obstetrician. They’re just not going to be familiar with ordering that insurance coverage or probably a cash pay test.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s a cash pay test but it’s not crazy expensive. The DMS say we use a compounded pharmacy to provide that and it’s 30 bucks so that’s not terrible. And then each test costs about 70. So as functional medicine Tesco they’re not crazy expensive.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Not at all. Pretty much can low bar for most people to get in and then and then like you say retest using natural approaches supplements avoidance and we’ll come back to sauna in a couple of minutes now. Yeah you mentioned your home hormones were good but you know people are being bombarded just shifting away from heavy metals for a minute. But let’s talk about endocrine disrupting chemicals that are called E. D. C. S. Again for the heart. The heart is you know very importantly controlled by hormones and we don’t want to have interference with our elegant symphony of balanced hormones. And yet we can buy simple lifestyle mistakes. We live in an era that’s not like grandma and grandpa with a little more pure environment out there. So tell us what EDCs are, how they interrupt hormones and and therefore secondarily cardiovascular health and how you measurement. What do you do about it? How do you avoid them?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Oh my God. Okay there’s a huge topic. So let me sort of boil it down. So the first thing is that endocrine disrupting hormones are substances that your body sees as mimicking a hormone looking like a hormone. So things that are the two top top ones plastics B. P. A. These are the highest things if you think about walking around with a plastic a soft plastic water bottle from a company we won’t name but that it’s disposable. You don’t reuse it, it’s soft sided. Those are endocrine disrupting hormones. 

Okay. Also per chlorate, which is in most of our water systems to prevent the water from having bacteria parasites. Perchlorate is a thyroid disruptor and thyroid is part of the endocrine system. So that jet fuel, jet fuel, jet fuel, jet fuels gasoline flame retardants. These are all endocrine disruptors. Now. Most people are like, well, I’m not playing. I’m not a firefighter. So what role does flame retardants have? But a lot of people are sleeping on a bed that has flame retardants in it and not even really knowing that that’s in it. So unless your bed is organic or says no pesticide, sorry, flame retardant free. Your bed may have this in it. 

And I think we want to take a step back. Maybe Joel and look at why what’s the line between cardiovascular disease and toxins right? Like let’s draw that early for people. So toxins create an extremely inflammatory state. And if you’re someone who’s going to go down the cardiovascular path, you could go down the diabetes path. You could go down the obesity path. You could go down an autoimmune path. You could go down all of them at once. If you’re like people in my family. But if you go down the cardiovascular path, what you will develop as cardiovascular disease and that raises your risk for heart attack stroke bad out comes cardiomyopathy. And so it’s an inflammatory process. The reason this matters is we want to interrupt and remove the inflammation so that your body can stay functional because it wants to be in balance.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So you know, simple lab test high sensitivity c reactive protein did by Harvard Medical school 25 years ago. And I’ve read that all the royalties on that and actually go to an animal welfare shelter in Boston, your hometown. Which nice little Harvard story. And I hope that’s true. But I’ve heard it more than once. You know, simple testing and you’re right. It’s absolutely frustrating when I get a panel of blood in the high sensitivity c reactive protein is very high and you go down to sleep apnea, obesity, processed food um psoriasis, eczema, terrible vitamin deficiencies. And then what you’re left with is bio toxins which are pretty much everywhere. And we’re all exposed. So don’t drink out of that plastic water bottle sitting in your SUV while you’re playing pickleball and tennis. That’s not a good idea.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

No. No please. No. Glass or metal.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I keep a nice glass jar here just as a demo for patients or ah or a stainless steel one or something that isn’t better for the environment in the ocean. But it’s also better for the human. There’s a way if you do uh separate lab panels, you can measure your glyphosate in your urine you can measure and you can disrupting chemical levels. The same process of boosting liver detoxification, avoiding the input of these biotoxins and uh perhaps assisting with Sana and other what have you done to where where E. G. C. S. And disrupting chemicals a factor in your hair loss and poor health Phase two.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It was not actually but partly because my husband really was the vanguard when no one was talking about this stuff. He was like, we’re not going to have plastic water bottles. I was like, okay okay. I mean, you know, if you feel strongly about something in our family will honor it. So he felt strongly that we weren’t gonna have that. So we didn’t have that in our house really. So we had we had hard sided and still have hard sided. We don’t put any hot liquids in them. It’s only cold but we don’t have any soft sided plastic. So we had been on metal and glass for a while. So that’s one I mean, you know you say, what have I done? I’ve done everything right. I’ve eliminated processed carbs. So I don’t get the glyphosate exposure. I don’t eat sugar so that I don’t throw off my gut. I don’t drink alcohol which challenges the liver. I work on getting I actually need like 8.5 hours of sleep at night. 

So I work really hard on getting enough sleep. So usually nine hours in bed gets me 8.5 hours of sleep. I’m happy with that. I don’t eat any artificial colors, artificial flavors. And again to tie it back these are all inflammatory. And I know about myself that my genes are not good. And so I recommend you know your genes and navigate against them. Right? If you have amazing genes you can probably tolerate a little bit more excursions. I have terrible genes. So and I and I do lead a high stress life so I don’t tolerate excursions the way some other people do. So in terms of back to detox, what have I done? I have done and continue to do glutathione, vitamin C. I do my parsley. I work on getting I don’t I don’t get nine cups of vegetables a day by any means. I work on getting enough vegetables at least two meals a day. 

But it’s hard it’s really so vegetables, sauna. I do I. V. S. And I do both. A. T. T. A. And D. M. P. S. Which one is better for lead and one is better for mercury and I have both. So I do that. And I think there’s a point you can stop I do for a recheck actually. So once I recheck and have a negative test I’ll then stop doing the above and beyond things like I won’t do the I. V. S. But I’ll continue to sustain and support detox with vitamin C. Minerals that support phase one and phase two glutathione ongoing because I know that I’m not the best detox or if you’re an amazing detox or you probably don’t get into this corner in the first place. But if you’re not the best thing once you get rid of it you still support ongoing detox doing is if I have an I. V. And I’m doing acid. If I don’t have an I. V. N. I do oral liposomes glutathione and see.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

If I may ask what genetic panel for detoxification do you and your husband using your clinic?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

We use a couple so we use the Nordic D. N. A. Testing. I sometimes will refer people to 23 and me and have them run it through genetic genie because it’s cheap and it’s clearly communicated and it’s I mean you know not everyone has millions to say oh throw all my money at this. So it’s a relatively inexpensive way to get the data that you’re looking for. Those are the top two for me.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

A lot of options out there. I’ve been using Aperion, A. P. E. R. I. O. N. Which is another good panel and really a couple $100. Not crazy crazy expensive. The key is to get the good interpretation manual because the raw data is very very difficult to interpret. Even when you’re doing this regularly. Maybe in the last little bit you’ve mentioned sauna a few times. Maybe talk a little bit we did go deep in sauna with Connie Zack during the summit, but give us a little bit how that’s played. And you and I both have a little odd habit doing something called the Hubbard protocol. Nobody spoke to that during this healthy heart summit. So tell us a little bit about your, your use of sauna. What settings how often along and the Hubbard protocol?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Sure. So when I first got my sauna, I went in every day for an hour and jacked up the heat as high as I could go. And so it would be in the one fifties, occasionally would hit 1 60 but usually it’s around 155 and I’d stay in for an hour and then I would go shower and go to bed. I take Niacin part of the Hubbard protocol, Hubbard protocol is really extensive. So I have exactly one patient in my practice who can manage it because they’re really committed to it and and they really also can only do it for about a 4 to 6 week time and then they’re like, okay, we’re done. We have to stop, it’s very intricate like go on the treadmill, take the knees and go in the sauna, take more nice and go on the treadmill, go in the shower, you’re, it, it’s a full time job so I can’t claim to do the Hubbard protocol myself. 

But I do take Niacin and um start with 500 mg of flushing Niacin and I take up to 1500 depending on how much I flush and how I’ve done. So that was the beginning sauna protocol. I did that for almost two years. We just came back from a vacation in which I got really sick and I wasn’t strong enough to be in the sauna every day for an hour at those heats. So the thing I’ll say is, you know, listen to your body if your body is tired or you’re recovering, you may not want to go hardcore into detox if you need to take a break, it’s okay or go less. So what I did was the relaxation protocol that it has, which keeps the heat around 130 still near mid and far pulsing energy, but it’s lower, so it’s less stressful on the body. And then I just eased back into the detox protocols this week, which are 37 minutes and I do a 10 to 15 minute warm up while I’m in the sauna. So I still have the hour, but it’s at lower heats so you’re gonna want to meet your body where it is and in case you don’t feel like you can tolerate that.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Certainly, you know, anybody listening should talk to their healthcare practitioner of functional medicine practitioner before slamming down a lot of niacin. I mean it is over the counter and available, but it’s not for everybody and not everybody tolerates that flush with the the grace that you might red, bright red face that I get out of doing it. But it has a role just for maintaining health and advancing health when you’re sick and something that I’ve heard. Yeah, I mean, you know, there comes a point, how much do you do and how much does it allow you to have a normal life? I was listening to another functional medicine doctor on social media who I respect and he’s showing his sleep ring at three hours of deep sleep, which is crazy. But that’s from using in the hour before bed sauna, 20 minutes, ice bath, five minutes, sauna, 20 minutes ice bath five minutes. And there’s only a couple of people in the world that could ever sustain that habit, let alone just actually do it one night, but do it night after night after night. So you get to the point where, you know, health is, what do you got, Health is wealth, but you know,

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Time is money.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Time is money and it’s expensive to have a nice plunge set up in your home and us on. And that’s also for certain cardiovascular patients. Clearly something you need to discuss with your medical team before you plunge up to your neck and ice. I’ve done that only occur couple of times and I don’t think I’m geared to be a regular ice plunger, but perhaps I can learn to do that. So tell people are probably fascinated by this point and I will say um, I read a lot of medical books and this one just was a page turner. And is sitting on my, that’s why it says office copy on my office table so that people can look at its thumb through it and get their own copy. But where do people find you and Dr. Ed Levitan And now that we know the proper city and just two minutes on your clinic and how people find you.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Sure you can get the book on amazon. I do not recommend just typing in Dirty Girl because it will not bring you to my book. It will bring you other places. So just be sure to add in Dirty Girl, detox, Trubow or Levitan. That’ll get you to the right place. Our practice is a functional medicine wellness practice located in Newton, Massachusetts. And we do tell medicine and it’s a membership based practice because we spend a lot more time with you. So we have people belong to the practice and we take insurance and it’s called five journeys. And that website is five journeys dot com and you can get to our podcast. Our blogs are, we have a nutritionist. We have I. V. S. We just have really, our goal is to bring all the things to one place so that you can be healthy and it works.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

FIVE or the number five.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Thank you. Great question. It’s the word spelled out. F I V E J O U R N E Y S dot com.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And then certainly give a plug to the fact you have a very interesting podcast. You had me honestly guest and I think I have the best guests on my podcast.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You are my guest.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

But you know many people, whether they’re walking, jogging, biking or in their car, you can get a great education through cast and your podcast is excellent. So I certainly want everybody to check that out. Well, thank you so much after starting off with a little faux pas about erroneous city attribution. But I must have sensed that you’re from there. But anyways, thank you, say hello to your husband and so many people are going to benefit from this and you know, sharing your health journey. What could be more authentic, this great transition you made in your practice. So we’ll catch up soon and everybody, thank you for tuning in to another episode of the natural heart healthy reversal summit. Have a great day.