Combat Gut Infections: Symptoms & Healing Protocols

Introduction to Gut Infections 0:00

Welcome to the conquering Chronic Inflammation Summit. I'm your host, Dr. David Jockers. And today, I have the honor of interviewing my friend Evan Brand. And he is a gut health expert, also expert in mold and mycotoxins. Works with people all around the world with complex health conditions. And today we're talking about the most common gut infections, symptoms and protocols. We're going to talk about age, pylori infections and how they impact stomach acid and bile. We're going to talk about some of the major parasites that can be found on, certain stool tests.

We're going to talk about key protocols for Candida H. Pylori and parasites, and what to do when your protocol isn't working to get results. So this is a really great interview. You can check out Evan's website Evanbrand.com again. He works with people all over the world. You guys are going to love this information. So without further ado, let's go into the interview. Well Evan, always great to converse with you. And I know you're in the field. You're working with people one on one on a regular basis, and you're seeing gut infections, you're seeing mold, mycotoxins.

You're seeing a lot of these root cause factors that are causing chronic health conditions. And so I know today we're trying to really target in on gut infections. So let's talk about some of the most common gut infections that you're seeing. Well first of all thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure to get together. We've done this like every year on the year here for a while now. So I love it. And yeah, you're right, I am in the trenches. I've seen over 2000 cases and still work in, give or take 3 to 4 days a week in the clinic where I'm seeing people that are at the end of their rope.

And we look at these cases and we do a workup on them. And many of these people have already had labs done, but maybe they didn't have the right ones done, or maybe they were begging their doctor or their practitioner to do the right labs,

Common Gut Pathogens and Symptoms 2:00

and then maybe those practitioners don't know what to do with them. So I see a lot of stuff I see like old labs, and then I'll typically run new ones. And usually it's a combination of the following. Some sort of bacterial overgrowth. You could call it dysbiosis, you could call it Sibo, whatever you want to call it. But this is something like Klebsiella. Morganella Pseudomonas. Central. Baxter, Proteus. These are different bacteria that not only secrete histamine. So this can further a histamine intolerance problem like flushing food sensitivities rashes, itching allergy type symptoms.

But these can also be autoimmune triggering bacteria. So we know there's a huge link between, rheumatoid arthritis and these autoimmune triggering bacteria. Also, Hashimoto's is linked to Klebsiella. So we'll look at these specific infection and then we'll try to match it up. It's almost like a game which is why I love it because we'll see the diagnosis on one side like okay Hashimoto's. And then we look here at the gut infection. We go oh well there you go. Ding ding ding. And so we'll try to match those two up.

And then we go into parasite infections, which that's what wrecked me years ago when I was known as the gut guy for a long time until I got sick from mold. And now I'm like the mold guy that still has gut knowledge. But I had giardia in crypto and these are water borne parasites. I grew up in swimming in lakes and rivers and creeks and streams and playing outside like kids, hopefully will do today. unfortunately, when you're in that freshwater, you pick up those parasites. You'll also see blast.

So you'll see didn't amoeba fraudulence into me? But his politica, blast. So a lot is, you know, I see blast a lot in, like, Latin America, South America. People that travel, maybe they go to next door Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, South Africa. I've seen a bunch of people that travel there to, like, do these safaris and they always come back with parasites. You don't have to travel, though. That's a myth. I had parasites and I'd never been out of the U.S. so this idea that this is a rare conversation here, that this is only for an exotic few listeners.

No, this applies to everyone because the Food Supplies International think about your, you know, your blueberries. They could be from Canada. your pineapple could be from Costa Rica. So the food supply is international and you could potentially get exposed that way. Also food, water I mean soil these things are everywhere. So we got bacterial, we got parasitic. And then you have fungal infections too. And this is the real to me, almost one of the bigger smoking guns because I've pursued these other parasites, I've pursued these bacteria and certain clients, and we don't get all the way to the finish line.

Like there's still lingering symptoms like anxiety, fatigue, depression, skin problems, insomnia, low libido, weight issues. And then all of a sudden we get to these fungal metabolite. And when we run the organic acid test, we can look at those now in Great Plains. Does a great job of showing specific fungal metabolites like Aspergillus and Fusarium. So these are type of molds that people may be growing. And when those fungi are growing, they're excreting these organic acids, which we then pick up in the urine.

So it's kind of like if you are walking in the woods and you see a pile of ash, you'll know, oh, that was a campfire there. So that's how we're looking. We're looking at these metabolites, these things that get spit off from these fungus or bacteria. And that's a big problem because at an extreme level, you could even see it on a chest X-ray. They call it an aspirin Aloma. It's pretty creepy looking, but it looks like this almost like a black tennis ball growing inside of you. That would be a, you know, an extreme manifestation of this fungal problem.

So I'll usually come in and do herbal antifungals up the nose, and then we'll do those orally for a few months. But then we have to find the source. So if someone comes to you and they say, hey I treated these parasites and their back, I treated these bacteria and they're back. I keep running these protocols. I'm bouncing around from naturopath to natural path doctor to doctor, functional medicine guy to functional medicine guy. And they're running oregano anchor like acid and biocide and all these other things.

And they're still spinning their wheels. Usually the light bulb goes off for me and I'm like, okay, well, where's the hiding mold? And usually we find it. It's either in the urine excreted as mycotoxins. They're colonized and it's on the O test or they're still living in it. Oh yeah. I had a leak in my bathroom. You know, we just kind of painted over it or, we had a basement flood couple years ago, and we tried to dry it up and put some fans down there. It's like, that's not good enough. So usually if there's an infection that is chronic, there's an environmental piece that someone hasn't found yet.

Yeah. Because those environmental pieces will weaken the immune system. And we know that even though you're taking herbs like oregano, like you talk about copper like acid, you're taking all of these anti-microbial herbs that support the immune system. The immune system is if its baseline is already weak, then your body's really not gonna be able to eliminate these. and it's going to it's basically going to create a home. It's going to create an environment that's ripe for these infections. Tell me if this analogy is any good.

I've been using it with clients, and they haven't told me whether it was good or bad yet. So the analogy I've come up with is mold is almost like the bad guy at the back of the nightclub. He opens the back door and he lets all these scrubs in the club. So they're tearing things up, making a mess, crashing the party. And so you kick out all these guys, you kick out all the bacteria, you kick out the yeast, you kick out the parasites. But the back is still open, so they're just liable to come back in and tear the place up again.

Yeah, that is a good analogy. I've also heard this one where it's kind of like, you know, if you've got a dumpster and you've got a whole bunch of rats in there and you go, any spray rat poison. Yeah. Kills the rats, but you still have a dumpster if you don't clean up the dumpster. What's coming back? The rats. Yeah, right. This is true. And this is what so many people are doing, is they're going on short term protocols. They might feel better. They might not. Right? Their detox pathways may not be open, their drainage pathways.

So they may actually feel worse taking the herbs or if they feel better, it's only for short term because, you know, shortly later they come off of them. the symptoms return. Yeah. So we jumped into like a gut dysbiosis 201. Let's go backwards for a minute. Let's go back to like gut dysbiosis one on one. Like what type of symptoms will people be experiencing. Because I just went straight into the nitty gritty here. So let's back up a hair. Nausea is a big one. I had nausea all the time. Appetite swings.

So you could have an insatiable hunger, or you could have hardly any appetite at all. I lost weight, some people gained weight. There could be a swing of 20 to 30 pounds without trying. There could be depression. So any kind of mood issue? There's a big link. It's even in the literature about Helicobacter pylori, we call it H. Pylori for sure. And depression and anxiety.

H. pylori, Stomach Acid, and Gallbladder Function 9:00

So these gut infections can create neuropsychiatric manifestations. And your psychologist, your psychiatrist is not going to recognize this. They're not going to run a stool test on you at the therapist office. I promise that if they are sending my way, I'll do a podcast with them. I'd like to interview them about that. But I know a lot of mental health professionals and they're not looking in these places. Also, diarrhea, constipation. skin issues of any kind, whether that is like dry skin or rashes, acne, bloating, of course, burping gas, I mean, is, you know, me, people talk to me about their nasty, smelly farts, the like, oh, I clear a room.

It's like, okay, that's not normal. You shouldn't be clearing a room. Like, really, you shouldn't have much gas at all. Like, if your gut is optimized like people, you'll see these random memes on the internet. People say, oh, the average person farts 15 times a day. It's like, well, I don't, and you shouldn't if your gut is optimized. Now, maybe some is normal, but if you're clearing a room, it shouldn't smell that potent. Something's not right and people laugh at it. But really, this is an important thing to look at.

These are important clues. floating stool would be another clue to that. You're not digesting your fat. There could be an infection up north that is impairing your fat digestion. So in the case of H. Pylori, it's a really common bacteria. It can overgrow. It can damage the parietal cells which make in secrete stomach acid. And that essentially turns down your digestive fire. And once that happens, now you don't get the release of the stored bile from the gallbladder. So your liver's making bile, your gallbladder, storing it in concentra.

And that's really important for having, fat soluble vitamins be absorbed by the body. But if up north in the stomach, this infection has essentially turned the key and said, hey, optimal digestion, go away. Well, this whole digestive domino effect that's supposed to happen falls apart. So then the floating stools happen. The hair loss, the nails, the, you know, the the brittle nails. Or you could have ridges on your nails. Those type of things all add up. And many people don't see the big picture.

So they go to these individualized places to do certain things. Let me just expand on this. They go to the, makeup artist to draw on their eyebrows because they're losing their eyebrows. Right? They want thicker hair, so maybe they go as far as hair implants or extensions, or they go get their nails done because their nails are just so weak. They're like, oh, might as well just cover them up anyway. Or they go to the skin treatment person and they're getting lasered, or they're getting a facial or some expensive facial treatment.

When your skin can thrive on its own. Look at these pictures of West a price that he gathered from his worldly travels in the early 1920s. All of these tribal people had perfect skin. They're not going in and getting Botox injections to get rid of wrinkles like these people looked healthy because they're eating good fats and they're digesting well. So and then they go to the psychologist because they're depressed or anxious, and then they go to the GI doctor for the diarrhea. And then they go to the dermatologist for the skin issue.

Right. So you see how this whole thing, you pay this guy, you pay that girl to fix you up. But really, if you just fix these key things here, you can eliminate the need for 5 or 6 other people all working on you and trying to treat you. Yeah, so important to understand that when there's inflammation in the gut, right, that's going to impact all these other areas. And for certain individuals based on their genetic structure, based on the unique bacteria or the unique, you know, infections that they have, it's going to it's going to affect certain regions more than others.

But you really have to get your gut healthy if you're going to be healthy in general. And you talked about, H. Pylori, which is one of the most common gut infections all around the world, and it can be passed by even, you know, things like kissing, for example, right, between spouses gets passed on a regular basis and it suppresses that stomach acid production. Stomach acid is kind of like your first line of defense. A lot of these microbes that we're consuming, even on cooked food, right? Even food that's been been recently sterilized, there's still the moment it's exposed to air.

There's some level of pathogens that are getting on it. Stomach acid is supposed to kill off a very, very large percentage of it and whatever. It doesn't get the bile, which this good stomach acid triggers good bile flow bile now, which is an alkaline substance. So of course ass stomach acid is acid, acidic bile. Now, comes in and it's an antimicrobial as well. So when you have a good stomach acid production, good bile flow, you're going to help prevent a lot of these, foodborne waterborne infections.

But but so many people, whether it's due to H. Pylori or chronic stress or whatever it is, they have diminished stomach acid production. Yeah. Not to mention if you've had your gallbladder removed. Right. That's a not that's a very common thing. I mean, they act like the gallbladder is like a fingernail, like, oh, let's just rip it off. No big deal. Well, when the gallbladder is gone now, you lose that ability to really concentrate that bile. So you're still making some bile. So don't freak out.

If you don't have a gallbladder, you can still be healthy, but it's going to be a little harder for you. And we typically see more infections in those people that don't have a gallbladder just because of that reduced antimicrobial activity. Totally. And if you've had your gallbladder taken out, that's a really good likelihood that that you actually already have gut infections, right. And that's actually one of the main reasons why you had, gallstones or just sluggish bile flow and whatever it was that that caused your doctor to want to take the, gallbladder out to begin with.

The problem is, it's not common for people to resist the scalpel. Like, if they go in with a gallbladder attack, it's very likely that they're going to be fear mongering into pulling that thing out. And we have seen cases where people have had gallbladder attacks and they don't get it removed. We start to increase bile acids. We do things to try to thin out the bile. We encourage nutrients like artichoke to help stimulate that. And people are okay. So you know, I can't tell you, hey, don't get the surgery.

Sometimes it is an emergency situation. But man, if we could get people listening to this stuff, improve their gut, treat these infections, it's likely that we can save a lot of gallbladder. Yeah, absolutely. And the surgery may alleviate kind of an immediate, pain that you're experiencing. But five years later, 80% of the people who have gallbladder surgeries still have a ton of different symptoms. In fact, they feel worse. Right? And that's because, again, they're not addressing the root cause.

And that's what we really have to focus on is getting to the root cause. And a lot of times it's these infections. So you mentioned H. Pylori. We talked a little bit about blastocyst awesomeness. and these are some of the most common ones that that you're seeing. How about larger parasites like worms, things like that. How common are those? It's been kind of boring in the clinic lately. I used to see a lot of worms a few years ago. I felt like I was seeing worms 510 times a month and. And now I'm hardly seeing them.

And I am confident in the testing. This is DNA sampling. So as you know, it's very accurate. And we were seeing whip worm and hookworm and all sorts of different worms. I don't know if it's that people just, are staying home. Maybe there's less travel like my clients. You know, a lot of them are interesting people that are like world travelers, and they're going to Bali and picking up worms or something there and bringing it home. So I don't know what's changed, but in the last few years, I haven't seen as many as previous years.

But the cool thing is the herbs and the nutrients we use to kill these small parasites, these microscopic ones like we're talking about, like giardia. You're not going to see giardia, okay? You're not going to poop it out. Go. Oh, there's already a swimming. Okay, guys, this is really small. But the cool thing is, by killing that, we sometimes also do kill worms. So there are cases where we'll see people poop out worms. And we weren't we weren't actually going after them. And the test may have been negative.

So the testing is good, but it's not perfect. And worms, they'll exhaust you.

Parasites, Worms, and Stool Testing 17:00

I mean, I mean giardia can too in a in a parasite format. Like it'll rob your nutrients, it will create gut inflammation. It may separate the tight junctions in the gut. I don't know if we fully understand all the mechanisms that it does. It is excreting toxins as well. So you have brain fog associated with it. But man, when you see people with worms, usually they're pretty tired. Yeah. Like fatigue is fatigue is being totally diarrhea. you know, a lot of different issues like that. And what I found is that with the GI map, which is a test that you and I both like to run the, the stool test, it's very good at picking up certain pathogens.

I think it's good with fact. If you see pylori show up on that, H power is coming all the way from the stomach down into the gut. And so like if you see where, you know, that person's got a H. Pylori infection, and then things like giardia, it's good at picking that up. It's good at picking up those amoeba blastocysts. I don't think it's very good at picking up the worms. I think you're right. I mean, I don't know what changed, though, because I feel like I used to see a lot of positives and now I don't.

So, yeah, I don't know, maybe the sensitivity a little bit changed, but, well, like you talked about, the good thing is there's a lot of crossover. So there are certain herbs that perhaps could be a little bit better for certain infections, you know, and you're going to get a little bit better results. But if you're using a blend of different herbs, you know, very rarely do we ever use like one only one herb. Right. We're using usually a blend. You're going to get a lot of crossover benefit that's going to kill off a lot of these pathogens.

Yeah I, I use a lot of what I call microbiome support too. This is my blend that has dill. It's got wormwood. It's got quasi a bark heady odors cut tree. So I like to combine antifungal into microbial anti-parasitic all in one. And the cool thing is you could potentially clear all of your infections just in one protocol. But that's like a celebration most of the time. It's like this. Let's let's just role play here. We've run a note, we've run a GI map. Now we see mold, colonization, Candida overgrowth off the chart.

We see bacteria on the. Oh and then on the stool, let's say Giardia h pylori. maybe some salmonella will show up. Okay. There. I don't know. Eaten raw eggs? Yeah, something like that. Well, let's say we run microbiome to two camps twice a day for 2 to 3 months. Depending on their symptoms. I may retest like 4 to 6 months, and or we may wait a year. Sometimes it depends on budget too. We may see that we we knocked out almost everything and then all of a sudden cluster idea pops up. We're like, oh, that's interesting.

Now we have a new bug to go after what's happening there. And then we see that the mold actually promotes Clostridium overgrowth and Candida. So we may have knocked out these parasites. We got the age problem right down. We treated the spouse. Maybe the kids had all right to their all share and water bottles. And the whole family was passing around. So maybe we fix that and then something new pops up, and it could have been that immune suppression from the mold. So sometimes it's whac-a-mole and people just have to understand it might be 2 or 3 different rounds that you have to do to fully get you clear to where you can get well and stay well, but all bets are off the table if you're still living in a moldy home, for example.

Yeah, that's super common. And when it comes to H. Pylori, you know, again, one of the most common gut infections, throughout the whole world, something like 50% of people have colonization. What are some of the best herbs that you like for that? So I use my microbiome one a lot. I'll just run you down the list because that's the easiest. mastic gum is, is always a piece of it. Mastic gum is really cool. It comes from a tree in Greece, and they get the resin from it. clove is in there. Berberine.

Annie's barberry, which is a bark Oregon grape root, wild indigo, which is a root. And then we threw in some slippery elm and eagles. So a lot of times. And don't freak out if you start googling or if you test positive because you will see things like esophageal cancer, you'll see ulcers, you'll see gastric cancer. That's typically only when the virulence factors are positive in the disease as much stronger. So not everyone who test positive and myself included, I had three years ago and I lost weight without trying.

I was really anxious all the time. My skin wasn't good and I looked into that research. I'm like, oh crap, am I going to get stomach cancer from this fortunate lead? That's not super common. But the nutrient deficiencies. The intestinal inflammation. That's bad enough. Yeah. So so it can still be an infection to you. But what I like to do is I like to use these anti ulcerative herbs like the DL. You could throw in camomile, maybe some glutamine, maybe some zinc cornicing if you want soup. So throw in those like calming soothing herbs too.

But then you're also using the ones that suppress the growth of it. And then I'll tell the clients to like, if you are married or you're in a relationship while the herbs are in your system, you're fine. But 2 or 3 months later, after you come off of those, you could get reinfected. So you know if the spouse is willing, we get them on that too. And if they're willing to test it and prove it, or sometimes they'll just say, hey, you know what? They're willing to do it and they'll just go for it on their own.

Yeah. Smart idea. Because again, it can be passed through through kissing right through. Just, sharing water bottles like you mentioned. Right. So, yeah, super important that we're treating the whole family there. now, how about people that have pets, right? What are you doing as far as that goes? Because a lot of times pets can be carriers when it comes to parasites. Different, different infections. Are you treating the pet as well? This is true. Well, I, I played with this years ago. I was like, okay, I'm not a vet and I don't even know any vets that are really doing functional medicine on vets.

Like I've heard of acupuncture on them. I've heard of people doing some probiotic and things like that. And I experimented with our dog. We had a 15 year old shitzu that we recently had to put down. I think it was probably cancer. We ran blood on her and her blood levels just looked terrible. She actually developed a lipoma when we all got exposed to mold. So we know that mycotoxins are carcinogenic, so our pets are often the canary in the coal mine for a bigger issue in the family. So, rest in peace to her.

She was a great dog. But, I did do some work on her, and I use that work to help other families with pets, too. And there are certain blends, funny enough, they're the same blends of herbs, right? They're just different dosing based on the weight. But there's no magic herb for the dog as opposed to a magic herb for the human. Now, marketing wise, some of these companies we use, these professional companies will market it for pet. But I broke down the recipe and it's the same thing. It's just as pet on it.

So we would rotate and we would do some of those. We would do some antimicrobial anti-parasitic rounds. At the same time, we're working on us just as an insurance policy. Now, could you go far enough to collect the feces of your dog and test it? Maybe. I don't know if these human labs are running pet microbiomes or not.

Mold, Candida, and Environmental Triggers 24:00

It's kind of an interesting thought. A lot of people are more passionate about their animals than their than their family members. Like, people love their dogs. So maybe we need to do that together. We'll go in on a joint venture and create a, a pet testing, you know, line. But the truth is, the conventional food that animals are being fed is, is generally pretty terrible. And they're nutrient deficient as well. They're eating lots of grains, they're eating gluten, corn meal, etc.. So yeah, if you do have pets and you want them to live a long time and you want to have the best health yourself, you should probably try to improve your your your pet food.

We do find that a lot of pets, I don't know so much about the parasite transfer you're asking about that. I mean, it makes sense. Like, if your dog is slobbery all over the tennis ball, and then you grab the tennis ball and throw it, maybe start picking your nose, or, you know, you bite your nails after. Maybe there could be some, like, fecal or saliva transfer, like that. But I do know candied is a big one, so I won't say, hey, like your dog's going to give you parasites, but I will say, hey, your dog will give you Candida for sure, because when we take these petri dishes that we use to test people's homes, we'll have them do a tap test where they'll take their fingers and kind of overlayed over the plate, and then we'll tap it against the pet's fur.

And man, I'll tell you some of the nastiest plates we've ever seen come from dogs where they're actually containing Candida, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, all sorts of different mold and fungal colonies that are just living in the fur of these animals. And that can essentially off gas into the air. You can breathe in these spores and become re colonized. So I had a woman who, despite all the efforts on improving her home in her master bedroom, we continue to see a massive amount of Candida.

Turns out her big golden retriever, big old fluffy dog full of Candida. That pet was off the charts on these petri dishes. I mean, the candy too just took over the entire plate. And so I just said, hey, my, I want to do some antifungal anti yeast products. You know, try to do these tinctures, throw them in the water or something like that, or, you know, sprinkle it on a treat and see if you can get this guy improve because he's part of your problem, because he's sleeping in your bed. So either kick him out, she didn't want to do that or try to get his microbiome improved.

And then also, we do have a pet shampoo that we'll use, which is like an herbal into microbial antifungal. So like an essential oil based pet shampoo. And we'll put that on topically to try to improve the fur. But I tell you, it's it's interesting because most practitioners aren't thinking that far. They're not thinking, okay, is it the dog in the bed that's off gassing the Candida? And that's why we can't beat this Candida? And sure enough, it was once we got the dog under control, did a petri dish.

The levels were way down, not gone, because the dogs are going to go roll outside. It's impossible not to bring something in, but the levels were manageable. And then, of course, as we detoxed her, her immune system came back online. And then I think at that point she was able to gain the upper hand, because that's the thing that people may not recognize with these infections. They're called opportunistic infections. Okay. So it's not like everyone who gets exposed to something like this is just going to be wrecked.

Like it's called opportunistic because there's an opportunity where they have the chance to take you down. So that could be a death, a divorce, a big move. Travel. dehydration and nutrient deficiencies, low stomach acid being on proton pump inhibitors, right. Acid blocking drugs, taking antibiotics, being exposed to heavy metals, getting viruses, being exposed to bioweapons. These things all weaken you. And then they go, oh, look at him boom. And they take you down. So I don't want everyone being paranoid, thinking like, if you ever eat sushi ever again, you're screwed.

That's just not the case. But most people in the modern world, they unfortunately they are so stressed and are so depleted that a lot of us are more vulnerable than we were even ten years ago. Yeah, it's a really it's a really good point. I think a lot of it has come down to our resilience factor. And so some level of pathogen exposure is actually really healthy for you. It's it's a higher medic stressor. It helps your body adapt, become stronger, more resilient. Your immune system gets more primed and healthier.

However, if your body's already worn down right, if you're being exposed to chronic toxicity, whether it's again, heavy metals, mold, mycotoxins, you know, environmental toxins, whatever it is that's wearing your system down, you're under chronic stress, then your resilience factor is low. So the tolerance point for you when it comes to exposure to these pathogens is very, very low. And it's easy to overshoot that and then develop some sort of chronic infection that that really takes you down even worse.

Right. You even more. And so I think that's really the issue. So somebody that's, that's healthy, that is feeling really good and keeping their body, really primed and doing all the right things that we talk about getting regular sun exposure, exercise, sleeping, really prioritizing good sleep, keeping stress under control, eating a healthy diet can be exposed to a larger amount of pathogen and not have any sort of, you know, colonization take place because their body will just eliminated, on its own, whereas somebody else that is living in a moldy home or that is going through a divorce or something along those lines, they're not going to be able to handle that same pathogen load.

And so now they're going to get the symptoms. I mean, you could have to two people even possibly in the same family eat the same food. Right. One person gets sick. The other person feels fine, right? No, no major issue. And we see this kind of stuff all the time. Oh, yeah. You're right. I mean, this is why a lot of marriages have been saved by me because of the testing, because the wife gets blamed for being crazy and hormonal. And no, she's full of mold. That's why she's irritable and she's got low serotonin, and that's why she can't sleep.

And why she's not as bubbly as she was when you married her. Because her neurotransmitters are low, because she has gut infections screwing up her digestion. But the men trudge on like a foghorn. I'm fine. It's her. Right. And so there's this big marriage cons like that happens. And so in those cases, if I know there's a relationship on the rocks, I say, look, get your husband on the call. I want him to hear this from me. I'll be the bad guy. You want me to tell him, hey, your wife's not crazy. You know, you need to be more supportive.

So I've been fortunate to help many relationships like that in a functional medicine way. Because I'm showing on paper what's leading to the symptom, which is then causing the problem. Right? Like, oh, she has no sex drive. You know, our marriage is dead because there's no libido. It's like, oh, well, I can show you why. Let me help you. Let me support you this way. Let me support her that way. Let's keep you guys together. And I really love doing that. I get a lot of joy out of that, and even more so than just seeing a new test result that says we cleared the infection,

Supportive Protocols and Recovery Strategies 31:00

knowing that we've been able to save our relationship and let's say, prevent children from dealing with divorced parents, you know, that that's really rewarding for me. And, you know, you made a comment about kind of like the the chronic stress bucket. What's all in there? I mean, I hate to tell you this, but you know it too. You know that this is the truth in the last ten years, it's gotten worse. It's gotten more intense. The smartphone addiction is out of control. Adults that are 40 and up weren't on social media that much ten years ago.

You know, we're talking what, 2013? That would have been a decade ago. I mean, it was kind of just the the youth that were really into these. And now, I mean, everywhere you go, I'll see people at the beach or in the most beautiful setting ever. And they're 55 and up and they're both heads down scrolling on their phones on a bench at the park. And I'm like, oh no, the social media virus has infected the older people, too. Holy crap. So what? What does that mean for us? Are we all doomed? No. But what it means is you're going to have to be very intentional about putting your phone on airplane mode, leaving it behind.

Or maybe if you're listening to our podcast, thanks for the support. But otherwise you got to know when to tune out of this stuff. Because that's going to be waiting for you later. But if you don't prioritize you now and prioritize calming your system down and trying to self-regulate, you're going to develop problems. Our modern life is not compatible with our DNA and what our genetics expect. And what I mean by that is, if you think of ancestral context of hanging out in the tribe, we were not isolated.

We weren't just looking and communicating with a couple of people through the screen. We were in the same room, in the same circle. It was common for mothers to even, breastfeed other children. Like there was this maternal support that was massive. We had this, this tribe that we just no longer have anymore. It's a digital tribe now. It's a social tribe. So we lost that. Social isolation is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarets a day. We know that literature is out there, and we also had time to stargaze.

And we had time to look at the way the wind is blowing. The average hunter gatherer worked about 18 hours a week, and now people are working more than that. So I'm not saying everyone can live the four hour workweek dream. Like you know, it takes a special circumstance to be able to achieve something like that. But I think people need to be intentional about this downtime and recalibrating their nervous system, because if you work all day, you come home, deal with your kids, cook dinner, sit on your phone till bedtime.

Where is the time for you to regulate that nervous system? Where was that time for you to tell your body everything's okay if you go from like, eating dinner, having a stressful conversation about your bad day at work, to then reading negative news, to then trying to get restful sleep, that's not a good recipe for you. And I call this out. I know this is a diversion from the gut infection topic, but this is the everyday life that overall brings you down and makes you more susceptible. And I talk with people all day, every day.

So I know this is not an uncommon story. This is like the average American. Now it's and they may even have the TV on to blasting pharmaceutical ads in their face while they're scrolling. Like, that's the commercial. So they hear that garbage. But then now they're scrolling and looking at other stuff and comparing themselves. And so they're jealous. They're envious. They're, you know, it's just it's a toxic stew. I'm not saying you have to totally eliminate these things, but I think you got to be more aware of your use of them.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm right in alignment with you on that. And last question, when you're going through your protocols, right, you're using the herbs to help bring down the infectious load. Are you also using stomach acid support, digestive enzymes? What are some other things that kind of complement what you're doing while you're bringing down, the pathogens? Yeah, I love it. Great question. So it depends on the symptom and it depends on the biomarkers. So on the GI map, if we're going to see that there's a cold blood, there's some microscopic bleeding happening or we see there's elevated cow protect in the guts really inflamed.

We may be cautious about using supplemental acids at first. We may come in with just some enzyme products with no SQL, and then wait for the infection to be tamped down a little bit. We feel like inflammation down, bleeding is down. Then I would love to throw in some extra acid Saccharomyces boulardii. I do quite a bit of because that's helping as a gentle binder for mycotoxins. That's also helping in the fight against candida overgrowth. I will use like extended release, low histamine probiotics.

I've got a blend that we've had for several years. That's all low histamine strains because we talked about in the beginning how all these bacteria are producing more histamine and encouraging more of this histamine intolerance, or even at the extreme, a mast cell activation problem. So we'll do those probiotics that helps reduce histamine. We'll do the Saccharomyces. We'll do the binders. I'm often doing some sort of liver and adrenal support. So this is usually a combo product either capsules or tincture.

We're helping with bile flow. So there may be supplemental ox bile in there. There may be taurine methionine some of these nutrients to encourage that flow of bile. Because mycotoxins hang out in the bile. So if we can get more bile flow, in theory the binders will have more toxin to get access to. So that may speed up the protocol. And then if there's mitochondrial damage, which there usually is in the case of mold toxin or chemical exposure, we're doing things there. So it could be carnitine, creatine, ribose B vitamins, malic acid, CoQ10, things to help encourage mitochondrial ATP output.

Because these people are so tired, if we want them to function, we've got to get them charged. So we're plugging them in to the little battery pack to try to get them back up on their feet so they can be strong enough to live their life while doing the protocol. there could be brain chemistry support there if there's massive brain chemistry issues where they can't sleep, they're too anxious, they're having panic attacks, they're really depressed and apathetic. We may come in and boost them. We may do DiPhilalanine.

We may do some rhodiola to help give a natural antidepressant effect. We may throw in some Siberian ginseng to help them. If they're trying to get back into exercise. We may do cordyceps to encourage more oxygenation of the tissues. if there's Lyme and co-infections, we may bring Japanese knotweed in. We may do some eatable bark. We may do cats claw. we like to do a lot of crypto. Lepus. That's a great herb that acts against Sibo, but it's awesome against Bartonella and babesia, which I've dealt with those infections.

Unfortunately. So that's kind of the stew that we end up with. It's a combination of the brain the adrenals deliver, the digestive support, the enzymes, some of the probiotics. The binders are a big piece, though, that many people just did. They're not consistent enough with them. Like, I'll follow up with people. I'm like, hey, you keeping up with those little black capsules? Oh, I forgot, it's like, well, you really need that because all this work upstream here is supporting you. But we got to get this, you know, this dream, this, this clog of toxins.

Courses and Where to Find Evan Brand 38:00

We got to get this crap out of you. So I really have to hit people hard on the binder conversation. Yeah. For sure. You know, the binders are like the the, garbage garbage trucks, right? So they're actually taking the trash and bringing it to the landfill, right. Getting it out the system. So super important that we're adding that in. And, this is great. One wonderful interview, Evan. guys, you can check them out. Evanbrand.com. Check them out. He's got a great functional medicine course that you guys can check out.

I know you've got the belly better. Belly course. what what are your other courses? Yeah, I've got four now. Better bellies to flagship. Got a hundred students in there that teaches you how to read your own labs. So if you're a do it yourself person, you want to run your own functional labs. If you're ordering through doctor Jockers or wherever you get them. Doesn't matter to me. But let me teach you how to, like, read these and then how do you make a protocol? And I've got tons of case studies from one year olds to 80 year olds in there, which is killer.

A lot of practitioners in that. And then I've got Better Home, which is like mold, air purification, good flooring, how to avoid toxic glues, furniture advice, etc. and then I've got better energy, which is like a chronic fatigue course, more designed for like mitochondrial issues. And then better coach is my practitioner exclusive course. That's for coaches that either have a practice or want to practice or want to grow one. It's all about the nitty gritty details of that. Great, great guys. Check it out Evanbrand.com.

You can also work with him and his coaches, his health coaches as well if you're looking for one on one support. So Evan thanks again for your time and guys. We'll see you on a future interview. Be blessed everybody.