Decrease Your Exposure To Neurotoxins

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Well, thank you for the very kind introduction. And it is always wonderful to see those who were once my students now become my teachers. So congratulations on your work.

Heather Sandison, ND

Thank you so much. So let us dive right into it. Just describing and maybe defining for people who do not know what is environmental medicine.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

That is actually a surprisingly good question because I think it is a field that is evolved quite a lot in the last few years. So in the past, the doctors who specialized in environmental medicine tend to specialize in what I would call the yellow canaries. And I do not know if our listeners know about the story but the old-time coal miners had a serious risk of being poisoned by carbon monoxide, and by the time you recognize there is carbon monoxide they are often off and dying. So they would bring yellow canaries into the mines and when the yellow canaries started to fall over, they know, oh, there is carbon monoxide let us get out here because there are more sensitive to it. So just like the yellow canaries, there are certain members of our society who are more susceptible to environmental toxins, these are metals and chemicals in the environment. So the environmental neurotoxins movement focused on these people for good reason because commercial medicine had nothing to offer for them or very little to offer, I should say except acute poisoning so they specialize in that. But something else started happening and I’m part of that trend. About 15 years ago, after looking at a lot of research I started to realize that while yes, the yellow canaries were a big issue, there are now so much of these metals and chemicals in the environment that they were affecting everybody, not just those who are most sensitive. As a matter of fact, as I dug into the research, I started realizing that and I make this assertion very, very strongly because I believe that your research is there. Environmental toxins have become the primary drivers of chronic disease throughout the whole world. It is not just yellow canaries, it is everybody. Environmental Medicine is dealing with both.

Heather Sandison, ND

And can you give some examples? You mentioned metals and chemical toxins, but what are some of the names of those that people might be familiar with?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Well, let us start with number one, just the number one toxin according to the CDC, Center for Disease Control. And I independently just looking at the research that is where I came up with this as well. And I do not agree with everything on their list because they have this record list of thousands of toxins. I disagree with some of the rankings, but nonetheless, arsenic is number one.

Heather Sandison, ND

Arsenic. Wow. I was not expecting you to say that.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Yeah, I thought. Well, does not that only happen when a spouse is poisoning their spouse or something like that? The reality is you find these numbers stunning. So we know from that research that if people are drinking water with more than 10 micrograms of arsenic per quart of water they have a significantly increased risk for disease. I will talk about those diseases in a second. But the problem is, number one, with that ten microgram number it does not consider genetic variability or nutritional deficiencies but let us just stick with that test. And so it turns out that 10% of the public water supplies in the United States have arsenic levels of more than ten so these are public water supplies. Now, here is the kicker. Only half the public water supplies have reported arsenic levels. Why is that? This is like a $50 test. So why would these multimillion-dollar organizations not report them? 

Because and this is my pejorative perspective because once they are reported as being high, they got to fix it and it is hard to do. So not only is the water supply commonly contaminated in the United States but many foods that people can commonly consume have arsenic in them and now these numbers are changing. But in the past, you see rice and chicken are the primary source of arsenic, in addition to water. Now they are still a source, but there is another source as well. Nonetheless, when you say, okay, so let us look at now, the average amount of arsenic in people. The U.S. government does a good job of tracking toxin levels. And it turns out that 10 micrograms per liter, 10 micrograms of arsenic per quart, or slash liter of urine is researched in all these disease associations pop up. Guess what percent of the U.S. population is above 10?

Heather Sandison, ND

I have no idea. I mean, I test a lot of people for urine arsenic and in the majority of them, it is present. I guess I wonder how much is relevant. Is there some normal about or does everybody have a risk for instance?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Let us go a little further.

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

35% of the people in the United States have arsenic levels of about 10 micrograms per liter of urine, 35%.

Heather Sandison, ND

Wow.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Now, we look at genetic susceptibility. So we are actually very good to get rid of arsenic. The half-life of arsenic in the body is between two and four days. So that tells us as a species, we are exposed to arsenic as we evolved and we have a way to get rid of it. But we do not have a way to get rid of it if we are being constantly exposed. To think, okay, all it takes. So kind of rule of thumb in toxicology is that it takes four half-lives to get a toxin out of the body. With the half-lives are, let us say three days on average. That means almost two weeks to get rid of arsenic when a person is exposed to it to totally get rid of it. Okay. If you want to be exposed every two weeks that is just fine. But what if it is in your drinking water? What if you had a lot of rice and fish? Rice and chicken? What if all your other sources are there? So the reality is that it is a huge problem.

Heather Sandison, ND

You know, I discovered recently with a patient he was eating a ton of chicken. It was all organic and his arsenic levels had quadrupled over the course of a year and we could not figure out why because I thought it was only conventional chicken. But it turns out even organic chicken has a significant amount of arsenic in it.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

And so in the past, arsenic compounds were intentionally added to chicken feed. It was the standard of care for the USDA that is no longer standard of care. However, the environment where the chicken had been grown has been saturated with arsenic. So if they stop and they start doing organic growing and everything else, well, if that is soil has arsenic it is going to end up in the chickens.

Heather Sandison, ND

How fascinating, man. What a mind-blowing statistic that 35% of people have enough arsenic. So what happens to them? What are they at risk for?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Exactly. So how does that translate into disease? One-quarter to one-third of the major cancers are due to arsenic. Lung cancer, prostate cancer, and pancreatic cancer, the primary causes of them are arsenic. You might say, well, lung cancer, I thought that was due to cigarette smoking. Yeah. Cigarette smoking is very bad. Cigarettes are high in arsenic.

Heather Sandison, ND

And cadmium as well. So when you start layering these heavy metals on top of each other and probably the chemical toxins that are also in those cigarettes.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Well said. Because so much of the toxin research is done on one toxic at a time. Who is exposed to one toxin at a time? Our whole population is exposed to toxins. And so what happens is one of the ways we protect ourselves from the damage from toxins is with good old glutathione. Glutathione is one of the best measures of longevity. People who take glutathione live longer because they are able to detoxify but the more and more toxin people are exposed to, the more they deplete the glutathione stores and the more susceptible they come to damage from other toxins.

Heather Sandison, ND

How can we support our glutathione pathways?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

There are basically three strategies. Strategy number one is to decrease depletion. So do not drink too much alcohol. Alcohol depletes the glutathione for example.

Heather Sandison, ND

Tylenol.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Second is to promote the body’s ability to produce glutathione, and its production is dependent upon the availability of cysteine, it is a great limiting factor. So, again, people in L-cysteine will increase glutathione levels. The third way is to give people glutathione directly. Now, you can not do that orally because the gut breaks it down so it has to be either liposomal or topical.

Heather Sandison, ND

Or IV potentially.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Or IV sure.

Heather Sandison, ND

Right. Right. And then are there foods that are high in acetylcysteine or glutathione?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

There are plenty of food that is high in cysteine for example, if a person does not want to take a pill but they were willing to take a food concentrate, a whey powder is very high and sustained and will increase glucose levels very effectively.

Heather Sandison, ND

From my naturopath training, the things that come to mind first are things like milk thistle, dandelion, and artichoke and that family of foods. And of course then also the brassica family veggies that are high in at least the sulfur compounds. So how fun to get into what we can do about this? I want to go back to that neurotoxins because of course, we are here talking about Alzheimer’s and how we can prevent it.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

If we could just back up just a bit on arsenic. So there is a really important thing I want to say to the audience, and that is the way we get rid of arsenic is through methylation. You may have heard of homocysteine. So if a person has high homocysteine levels it means they must have methylation problems, which means you have more problems with arsenic toxicity. The research is very clear. People that have high, homocysteine levels go up, so they are the more toxic forms of arsenic in the body go up. And so do correlations with diseases like diabetes for example, and strokes and cancer. So a lot of people still think that you take folic acid in order to decrease homocysteine levels. Well, the problem with folic acid is that it is not a natural molecule. Folic acid does not exist in nature. It is a synthetic chemical. So biosynthetically modified through conversion steps before a factor. Well, the problem is that people have the MPH bar polymorphisms and everybody knows about that. These are the enzymes that are supposed to help make folic acid available in the proper form so that it will detoxify homocysteine. Well, if those enzymes not working very well, the folic acid does not detoxify the arsenic very well. So you look at research on giving people folic acid who have arsenic, high arsenic levels, it is very mixed. Now, in contrast, if you give people natural folate such as is found in food that it very effectively goes right into making the homocysteine cycle better and making methyl groups available for getting rid of arsenic. So it is not folic acid it is folate that is important.

Heather Sandison, ND

In my clinical practice, I add methylated B9 or folic acid, methylated B12, and B6. So that combination of B6, B9, and B12 with the 9 and 12 being methylated. Am I doing the right thing? Usually, we see the homocysteine come down.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Right on. That is the way to go.

Heather Sandison, ND

And so we are also helping support, of course, cardiovascular risk, insulin resistance, detoxification, and particularly with arsenic.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Yes.

Heather Sandison, ND

Okay. So neurotoxins now.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Okay.

Heather Sandison, ND

The arsenic cousin, we have to talk about mercury.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Yes. So when, and I’m happy to talk about Mercury a lot. So, when we are talking about neurotoxins, there is an important concept that people need to realize. And that is as compared to other toxins there is a pretty big difference between which toxins are worst for a fetus versus which are worse for the adult. So it turns out that while our brains are evolving, we have a high level of susceptibility to neurological damage. But then and so there are certain kinds of toxins that are worse there. But then once the brain is developed, they are sort of toxic and make the brain degenerate more quickly. Now, it turns out there is only a couple of toxins that both affect the fetus and affect the adult. Mercury is one of them. So the fetus is very susceptible to methylmercury damage while the brain of the adult is more susceptible to much elemental mercury damage. But it does not matter where it is coming from, what matters is mercury is a huge neurotoxin.

Heather Sandison, ND

And we can get rid of those, both arsenic and mercury using similar processes. So certainly avoiding the exposure like you discussed and then adding glutathione. There are also silica products and then chelating agents. What is your feeling about chelating at this point?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

So that is another very good question because it is quite a challenging area. So when I try to help people decrease their toxic load, I have basically three strategies. Strategy number one is purge. I mean, there is nothing better than just not letting that stuff into the body. And I talk a lot about that. Second, is supporting the body’s normal routes of elimination. And then the third is directly killing it out. So, you know, I’m a naturopathic doctor. My preference is if the body can do it let us help the body do it. Because, yeah, we have all these processes, these enzymes, and various physiological mechanisms to get rid of toxins so let us make sure those are working properly. But sometimes the load is high enough or presents a genetic polymorphism where they are not as able to get rid of the toxin. Then we have to get into more aggressive interventions. Now, when we are looking at chelation therapy, there are two strategies. There is IV chelation therapy and there is also an oral chelation therapy. Now there are some topical and things like that, but in general, those are two categories used by far the most. The advantage of IV Therapy is that it gets rid of toxins much more quickly. The disadvantage when doing IV therapy is that when the organs of elimination are not functioning properly, what we naturopaths call the emunctories, the organs of elimination are not functioning properly, you could stir things up faster than we can get rid of them. So I prefer the oral chelation route because it is not as dependent on the how well the body’s mechanisms of detox are working.

Heather Sandison, ND

You know, in my practice, it is primarily older folks who are over 65, post-menopausal women who are at risk for developing dementia, and of course, men as well. But I really worry about their bones and I know this is a favorite topic of your wife. So hop on over to that interview if you are curious about osteoporosis and its links to dementia but while I’m chatting with you I really want to dive into this emunctories conversation because chelation is not without risk, particularly because of the potential to demineralized and that puts people at risk for osteoporosis when they are already at a phase in their life when they are at high risk. And so my preference, like yours, is to focus on those emunctories. Can we go through those and give our audience some really tangible takeaways that they can maybe think about at home? I have to tell you, I’m still shocked when someone tells me that they have a bowel movement once a week and that is their normal or when someone does not ever sweat, they can not remember the last time they were sweating. So let us dove into each of these organs and give people some tips for what they can start doing today.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Right. I think this is so important. I actually wrote a book on is called The Toxin Solution List, it is for consumers.  And in that book, I show people, well, here is the toxin causing disease, here is where they come from, here is how the body gets through them. And here is how you can help your body work better or get rid of these things. So I start with the gut. I mean, right now, so most people do not realize that a huge portion of the detox enzymes in the body are actually in the cells lining of the gut because in many ways their first line of defense against many of these toxins. So we have to make sure that the detox enzymes in the gut are working optimally. And one way to do that is to make sure they are not being overloaded by toxic things being released by bad bacteria in the gut. So yeah, leaky gut plus bad bacteria, now you are dumping all these toxins into the body. Okay, so now is the gut not able to do its protective mechanism but now it is overloading the liver. So second we work on is the liver. Get the liver as optimal as possible.

Which means what nutrients are necessary for the liver to work. Well, it turns out the liver needs almost all known required nutrients and the majority of the population is deficient in at least one, and many are deficient in many nutrients. So just something simple that needs B vitamins for the enzymes to work. No, B vitamins do not work. For women, so those detox enzymes in the liver half of them depend upon Iron. So whenever a woman is deficient in iron, erythropoiesis, or whatever they are not going to be able to make as many of the detox enzymes in the liver. She got to get work at the rate liver can work. And the third one is the kidneys. So it turns out the kidneys are just as important for detox as is the liver and many of the common experiences people have in the modern world are devastating to the kidneys. If you look at, for example, the consumption of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, there is a direct correlation between the use of those drugs and kidney failure. So I’m teaching my class the best here on Healing Systems. Well, the point I like making is the body’s tremendous ability to heal if we just give it a chance. 

I found this great study a couple of years ago they looked at people with stage five kidney failure scheduled for either dialysis or kidney replacement. So they had an EGFR of an average of 12 on this particular study. A healthy EFGR is about 65 and as it goes lower, you get to a point where keys can function, you either die or get fixed. So they took these people who are at stage five kidney failure, end-stage. Regard themselves they are going to die. All they did was they stopped taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Six months later, the EGFR was over 25, it has over doubled. All they did was stop the damage. Stop the damaged body has tremendous ability here but sometimes it is not so easy to stop the damage. Sometimes the damage is happening because of some environmental factors hard to deal with, or maybe some favorite lifestyle thing that person’s doing they do not want to give it up. But nonetheless, if you can fix the causes, things get better. And then the fourth emunctory is the skin and the research on sweating and how it detoxifies. It is really, really strong. It is really important.

Heather Sandison, ND

And can I add lungs to this list?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

You know, it is good. I never, I have never addressed the lungs. But I think you are right. Maybe I better pay attention to that. Tell me what you know about the lungs.

Heather Sandison, ND

Well, there is, I just think of when a cop pulls someone over because they think they have been drinking, they use a breathalyzer. And what they are measuring is a pseudo aldehyde. And this is a metabolite of alcohol. And so that is a way that we are detoxing alcohol, even. And there are also these, you know, wisdom traditions that have breathwork associated with them. And I have been in Breathwork classes where you can smell oil paint fumes and you can smell chemicals. As people start using their breath in this very particular way. And so I encourage and I think also the nervous system this being sort of a secondary detox organ. But if we are not in a rest digestion heal state. If we are always in a fight or flight freeze, a very tense state, we tend to hang on to things. And so by using breathwork to, of course, exhale and potentially exhale toxins and optimize that, and then also to balance the nervous system, I think we are able to let go of things a little easier. What does not serve us anyways? So I just offer.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Good idea and I need to pay attention. I think if I get to do a second edition, I will have to add that because you are totally right. As you may recall from class, I am very intolerant to garlic, I mean garlic scent and smell people’s breath all the time. So the bodies getting rid of the sulfur compounds. So it is not surprising they get rid of other things as well.

Heather Sandison, ND

Right. Right. And how we balance the PH in the system, I mean, so much is happening in the lungs that I think is underappreciated.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

By another one, another one detoxification I do not talk a lot about because kind of depressing that is breastmilk nursing.

Heather Sandison, ND

Right.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

It is very clear that when women nurse, they actually decrease, get rid of a lot of toxins, which is good for the woman. And I think I would say one reason why nursing is associated with decreased risk of breast cancer is because they get rid of things like PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, which are a major cause of breast cancer. And so the more the woman breastfeeds, the lower her bisphenol levels. That is the good news. The bad news is the babies get it right.

Heather Sandison, ND

And at a time when that developing brain is so susceptible.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

The worst possible time.

Heather Sandison, ND

And then you mentioned skin and so sweating, but also lymphatic. It is very moving lymphatics. And there are a lot of fun things that people can do, like the rebounder or mini trampoline and dry skin brushing and castor oil packs. There is a lymphatic massage and there is so many kind of fun and nourishing things that people can do to help support that lymphatic drainage as well. And then the glymphatic system in the brain is something I think even since you were my teacher, we have learned so much more about the glymphatic system in the brain and how during sleep that really supports the detox of the brain itself in this very unique system.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Yes.

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Very, very, very well said.

Heather Sandison, ND

So how do you personally avoid neurotoxic ions?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

That is a very good question. So my dive into environmental medicine started about 15 years ago last year, couple of wellness programs in Canada. So when the wealthiest man in Canada came to me and said and by the way, he came to me, he sent his personal Learjet down to Seattle to pick me up and fly me the Calgary Alberta, Queen. You know they get your attention when somebody does that. He said, I have all these oilfield workers and I have been doing conventional wellness programs for them and not much results. How about if you bring your naturopath medicine ideas? And I said, well, sure. But you know what I’m a true believer in natural medicine. I’m also very objective. So in order for me to determine what your people need. I want to do some lab tests on them and watch them for nutritional status or test for toxic status. One test for metabolic function. How much do I spend? He said a blank check. I said blank check.

He said yes, if you can convince me that this test will help improve my employee’s health, I will pay for it. Now, this was 15 years ago when the first one ran. I did at that time, 1500 dollars of lab tests on 4500 oilfield workers. So now, I mean, but twice as that, so now 3000. So when I found it, you are going to find this interesting. So all these people I tested for nutritional status, less than 1% did not have nutritional deficiencies. Okay? Neither 99% had to have at least one nutritional deficiency. When you look at the average person, it was like five nutritional deficiencies for the average person. Then I looked at toxins. I found these toxins, wait, what is going on with those toxins? And I did metabolic stuff, like insulin levels and fasting blood sugar, and whoa, look at this a lot of blood sugar problems. And I started kind of putting one and one together, two and two together, and say, wow, they are up. It looks like it is all came from environmental toxins. So that got me very, very interested in this area.

Heather Sandison, ND

Wow. You know, we did a clinical trial in my office. Now much smaller sample size, just 23 participants with measurable cognitive decline. And every single one of them had a measurable toxic burden. And so certainly I’m convinced that this is a major player in terms of cognitive decline.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Let me finish with that. One of the things we thought a lot of was mercury. Going on back to your original question. So that became so interesting to the funder that he wanted me to look at about 2000 studies on Mercury because I got really deep into, has Mercury caused that damage. How do you assess that? How to get that out of the body? Etc. And once we figure that out, that is also one reason why we went to oral chelating rather than IV chelation because we have to look, so we deal with people in the field like that, you do not see them very often. And IV is too much of a risk of adverse events without us when we are not around. So we did the oral, which was safer, but the case histories we had with people, we had one guy, for example, who had been chronically ill since age 13, had a mouth full of several fillings, was in out of the hospital, basically either a doctor’s office or in a hospital once a month for several years. Finally, in desperation, decided to try our protocol of getting all the mercury out of his mouth and killing out the mercury and all his symptoms went away. I got this list, a two-page list of all the symptoms, and a year later, they are all gone. Just by getting all the mercury out of the body.

Heather Sandison, ND

I mean, how incredible and what a gift, right? For somebody who is going from doctor to doctor to doctor and not getting an explanation for it to be that simple. And it is really curative, right? Those symptoms do not come back as long as it does not get re-exposed. The body has the ability to heal itself and fully resolve these things. Okay. So tell me again, what do you do personally?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Sorry. That is how it starts out. Okay. So as I’m doing this work, I started realizing that we have both direct measures of toxic load and indirect measures, sorry, so indirect measures as well. How much lead is in the blood or how much arsenic is in the urine? The indirect measures are like an enzyme in the liver called GGT. So in the past, GGTT both acronyms are used. It was a measure of liver inflammation or liver damage. But since then, better tests have become available to determine liver damage so this test was not routinely used anymore. But usually, a routine test is really inexpensive with such a GGT is that it goes up in the body in proportion to the toxic load. So that means that when a person consumed a lot of alcohol, has been exposed to mercury or cadmium or all these other kinds of things the GTT goes up. 

But within the normal range to normal raises between 10 and 16. So since it goes up within the normal range, it was not considered significant, but it turns out GTT directly correlates with the risk of disease, risk of death. For example, looking at GTT, remember the normal rates 10 to 60 and above 40 are associated with a 26-fold increased risk for diabetes, a GTT above 30 between 30 and 40 is associated with an eight-fold increased risk for diabetes right smack in the middle of the normal range. So why did my GTT? It was 27 and when I first saw the 27 I thought, wow, that is good, the range is 10-60. Then I start seeing all the diabetes research. Wait a minute, maybe I have more toxic load than I realized, so I then start becoming more and more careful. So I went from 27. Then a few years later after that, it went down to 24. And then just last year I checked it again it was down to 17. That is telling me I’m doing a good job of decreasing my toxic exposure because my body is not having to produce as much GTT.

Heather Sandison, ND

Fantastic.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

So one more thing now. Sorry, I keep on monographic here or monologue in here. Anyway, what does GTT do in the body? It recycles glutathione. Our body produces glutathione, and our smaller body says, oh, we are on a toxic load we need more glutathione. It recycles glutathione efficiently. It is just another example of how incredibly adaptive our bodies are.

Heather Sandison, ND

Because of you. I run GTT on everyone.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Oh, good.

Heather Sandison, ND

And I’m curious. So what did you change when you saw that 27 and now you have it down at 17? What was it that you did differently?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Oh, I just became more and more stringent about avoiding toxins in every way possible.

Heather Sandison, ND

So food.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Food, water, air, health, and beauty aids. So you look at our home, okay? So you come into our home, you have to take off your shoes. When the water comes into our home, it goes through a very sophisticated filtration system. And our home and our air conditioning. We have what is called a MERV 16 air filtration system, along with an electric precipitator. We only buy organically grown foods at all possible. We grow as much from produce as we can. We only use health or beauty aids that do not have phthalates in them. So we just. Everything we can do to decrease toxic exposure we do and it works.

Heather Sandison, ND

Cleaned house so literally and I love that you said you take your shoes off at the door. Right. This is such a simple, easy habit to form. To just wear different, if it is cold wear different shoes inside. And a patient said to me one day, she is like, You are right, it does not rain in the house. Outside we have rain that will wash away the toxins that are sprayed and H0A and, you know, out outside wherever you are walking around in the parks and on the sidewalks. But inside, if we track them in, there is nothing that really gets rid of them. They just accumulate in carpets and rugs especially. So this is a really important thing to not ever track them in. And I notice with my patients who have animals that go roll around in these toxins and walk around in these toxins, they do not wear shoes that they can take off and they get in bed with them. They tend to have higher levels of glyphosate even if they are eating organic.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Interesting. Very good. Very good observation.

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah, it is fascinating. Because we are doing that detective work often when we get a toxin panel that comes back elevated, we have to sit there and kind of brainstorm and I list the most common things, right? For my patient, I described she was eating organic chicken and so we thought it can not be that chicken that is creating this arsenic issue. And so we are brainstorming and asking the experts and trying to figure it out. And sometimes we are just planting a seed. We do not fully arrive at what the exposure is. And then I have also had patients who, after we have the conversation, they go home and they were like, I read the ingredients on my hairspray and that is where it is coming from.

Heather Sandison, ND

And so then they have the opportunity to switch brands.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

That is, that is, yeah.

Heather Sandison, ND

So what are your, like if you had overarching strategies for protecting the brain? Have we covered them all or is there anything else that you would suggest?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Oh, absolutely. So of course, number one is avoiding neurotoxins religiously and, I try to plan, and make with people. Is that the exceptions in this area may be problematic. What I mean by that is people they what you do not like your function, you know, healthfully as much as possible. You know, the occasional lapses into the conventional way of living. Yeah, it is okay. Just as long as it is occasional. In general, that is true. Unless that occasional lapse is to expose a person to these neurotoxic to have a long half-life. So look at PCBs. Polychlorinated biphenyls half-like the body is measured in a few of them in months, but most of them it is years to decade. Oh, wow. So, for example, you go to restaurant, you have farmed fish. Farmed fish just right now, as near as I can tell, the primary source of PCBs for people. You eat that farmed fish and the PCBs in there if they have a 20-year a half-life that. PCBs on before the rest of the person’s life. So we have to be careful when we do these now, not being quite as careful at times of our lives. We do not do things that will be permanent.

Heather Sandison, ND

So that is interesting. I say to my patients, because of listening to your lectures when I was in school, please do not eat farmed fish. Salmon, people associate salmon with good brain health, and is really good for you. However, what I say and correct me if I’m wrong is that farmed fish is not only not good for you, it is bad for you. So ask at every restaurant because this is where it often happens, right? Is they do not say if it is farmed or wild. And I know I’m always that person that is like, sorry, guys, I’m going to ask and I’m not going to get the salmon if it is farmed. It is just not worth it to me to be exposed to those toxins.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

And people sometimes do not like having dinner with a lot of myself, because I remember we are in Florida at a conference and the Texas fancy restaurant and their big thing was fresh fish. Well, that is just fine. But then they started looking at the kinds of fresh fish like Chilean sea bass, one of the worst sources of mercury. And so everybody was already there, Mercury sea bass. So we were asked this, why? We said, well, you are going to consume several milligrams of mercury if you eat that stuff, and it is going to be with you for a long time to start to damage your brain. Do you really want to eat that food?

Heather Sandison, ND

I know it is hard. And I think, you know, your commitment, like watching that GGT come down, certainly with my patients watching that when they avoid these toxins, they feel so much better. And in my office, we measure that their cognitive function improves. And so, yeah, it is a little bit inconvenient.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

What measure are you using?

Heather Sandison, ND

We use MoCA scores, as well as Cambridge Brain Sciences’ battery of neurocognitive testing. And then we also use the WAVY, which is an EEG measure. And what we see is as, and we do not just do one thing right, we do the environmental medicine piece, we add nutrients and get them dialed. We also add hormone replacement exercise and sleep management. We really are throwing all of the functional matters that are naturopath medicine at patients with cognitive decline but we see that measurably among multiple measures they get better and their quality of life scores go up, their relationships improve. Of course, their sleep improves, so their energy improves. And just it is an absolute privilege to watch these people blossom in the last half of their lives.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Would you send me the link to those tests?

Heather Sandison, ND

Of course.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

I look at the online neurocognitive tests and they seem like a good idea. But the one time I tried it, they did not have the user interface set very well. It was just too difficult for patients. So if you are going to work it better, I would love to see it.

Heather Sandison, ND

Maybe CNS Vital Signs is another really common that Dr. Bredesen uses because it can be done at home. The MoCA score as I’m sure you are familiar with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. This one needs to be done in person by a trained, somebody who is trained to do it. It only takes about 15 to 30 minutes may but you do need to have that interface directly with usually a tech nurse or somebody who is trained and then the Cambridge Brain Sciences is an interesting one with a lot of scientific backing. And it breaks things down into like verbal ability, executive function, focus, and different components of cognitive function. So we had statistically significant increases in memory scores as well as overall cognitive scores with these interventions over time.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Have you published any of this?

Heather Sandison, ND

It is in peer review right now.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Oh, great.

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah. I’m really excited to get the word out there. Very consistent with what Dr. Bredesen’s research is also showing.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Right?

Heather Sandison, ND

Yeah, it is a lot of fun. So I want to make sure that our audience knows how to find out more about you, where to get your books, and where they can learn more. And do you see patients?

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Oh, so thanks for the implied compliment. So these days I think my job is teaching the doctors. Okay, so that is what I mostly do now, write textbooks and books for consumers. What is the first part of question?

Heather Sandison, ND

Books and where people can learn more.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Okay so you will have a website www.DrPizzorno.com and I think it is down right now because we are glad to have this interview because we are doing an update on it. Just go to Amazon, put my name Joseph Pizzorno at Amazon, and if you are a consumer, my book The Toxic Solution. I think you will find an interest. It is one of eight books I have out that I will offer to coauthor. If you are a doctor, I have a book I coauthor with another master’s graduate, Dr. Walter Cronan, called Clinical Environmental Medicine. And that is where we lay out a lot of this, the foundations of environmental medicine. And I think people find it very useful.

Heather Sandison, ND

Very I certainly can attest to that. I find them all very useful. I have read them all and suggested the toxin solution to my patients, as does Dr. Bredesen. So yeah, we really, really appreciate the work that you have done there and how you explain that and make that really practical. Dr. Pizzorno, It is an absolute privilege to have your time and expertise, and I just could not be more grateful to have you here today. Thank you.

Joseph Pizzorno, ND

Well, thank you for the interview, and I wish you success in your venture here.

Heather Sandison, ND

Thank you. Thank you.