Dive Deep Into The Effects Of Mycotoxins

Jill Crista, ND

Thank you for having me. This is such a treat to get to charities.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, we’re showing up on a Saturday.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, I love what you said. Let’s talk about our favorite topic.

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, it really is such an important piece to getting patients well, and I know you’re so like-minded and you like the data. You like digging into the science and then coming up with solutions.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, Actual practical solutions. Imagine that.

Ann Shippy, MD

This is perfect because I’d love you to describe what mycotoxins are, and then we’ll start talking about why we need to worry about not just grouping them into one category.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, so mycotoxins can make us sick with spores, spore fragments, and chemicals. The off-gas chemicals of happily living metabolize mold. We can test for one of those called MPA or micro phenolic acid. That’s just a kind of joke. I call them mold farts because they’re just like, off-gassing. 

Ann Shippy, MD

You may or may not smell them.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Those they’re just part of the living metabolizing, “Oops! My bad.” kind of thing if it bit off the gas. But mycotoxins are so unique. They’re made intentionally by the mold to compete with other species. Other types of mold, other bacteria, and even some other like in between bacteria and parasites that like to live in water-damaged buildings. They’re made intentionally to harm those other things, to kill their cells.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s like biological warfare between organisms.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Our military has picked up on that. There are militaries around the world using these mycotoxins as biowarfare.. Are they dangerous? Yes. Is everyone affected by them? Yes. Is everyone affected the same? No way. And you see that.

Ann Shippy, MD

I really love that you said everyone is affected by them because I believe that, too. I think it’s just like air pollution or any other type of environmental toxin. There’s a spectrum of how we respond to every. It’s not good for anybody.

Jill Crista, ND

Right. That’s the people that say, ‘Well, I’m not affected by them.” I’m like, “Yet, until you have the car accident, until you have a stressful thing happen at work until you have food poisoning that throws off your immune system.” There’s something that is going on that you’re building your cap and that’s just leaving you more susceptible. Everyone is affected, but everyone has a very different susceptibility to it. It’s like dose duration, previous exposures, and nutritional status. Are you a good detox or a bad detox? Are you constipated? Are you not all of them? Are you a kid? Kids are much more susceptible than adults. There are lots of different factors that make that susceptible.

Ann Shippy, MD

I’m glad you brought that up because that’s an important theme in this series, which is looking at how mycotoxins affect children differently and more profoundly. Any parent like us has to be looking at this to keep our children safe, it’s as important as having a roof over their heads and having locks on the doors, and getting them to school. Providing a safe environment is so important.

Jill Crista, ND

It’s so important. It’s right up there with lead. We wouldn’t have our kids drinking water out of lead pipes. You wouldn’t have them breathing air from a moldy building. It’s the same risk factors. Mycotoxins for me, they get a lot of attention because their intention is to harm something. They’re only made, they’re very expensive for mold to make. It’s very hard for mold to make these. It costs them a lot of energy. They only make them when they’re in a competitive environment. When someone says, “It’s okay, I only had one mycotoxin come up on my test. I’m like, If you had that mycotoxin, you likely have a layer of others underneath that because these aren’t made in a vacuum. These are made because there are other species around and it’s trying to gasp from the other species. We will find more mycotoxins as we detox somebody that’s normal. That means we’re doing a good job. But so that idea of like, it’s okay it was only Aspergillus and Penicillium that they found, I’m like, that creates quite a dangerous mycotoxins set up because Aspergillus and Penicillium are in competition and they will make mycotoxins and those mycotoxins are carcinogenic. They cause birth defects, they’re linked to all kinds of problems. They are toxic to genes, to cells because again, they’re intentionally made to harm another living thing competitively. We get, I don’t know if you’re hearing a lot from patients, some people saying, well I heard that mycotoxins aren’t that big a deal now, Actinomycetes are the thing we have to worry about that’s.

Ann Shippy, MD

I think that’s misinformation or malformation.

Jill Crista, ND

I agree, I agree.

Ann Shippy, MD

If there’s Actinomycetes there, there’s mycotoxins. They’re just eating them.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. You’re going to see more endotoxin and actinomycetes in a gray water spill. Like a sump pump that went bad or something like that where there’s bacteria in the water already, but you’re not necessarily not going to see more because it’s the same growing conditions. For me, actinomycetes are important to being paying attention to. Same with Endotoxin, they’re different. Endotoxins are just the cell walls of the bacteria in that area. actinomycetes, they emit like an antibiotic. You could be breathing this water-damaged building air and be kind of getting the same symptoms as if you were taking an antibiotic. That’s where we get yeast overgrowth. That’s where we get some of the gut disruption. They still, though, are not doing it on purpose. Mycotoxins are made on purpose energetically expensive, and made to harm something. Like you had said in the beginning that, we’ve scared everybody. This is very treatable. Yes, thank you for that.

Ann Shippy, MD

That’s why we’re here to provide solutions and understanding.

Jill Crista, ND

Exactly. You had asked what about, why should we not see them all the same? There are things that are the same in all of them. They all deplete mitochondria function. They all deplete glutathione in the cells. When people say, “Oh, that mycotoxin doesn’t detox through the glutathione pathway.” That’s fine. It is depleting glutathione in the tissues which is making mitochondria go. You feel like you are constantly walking up an escalator, going down while the rest of the world is like riding the escalator, going up, I mean, it’s just like mitochondria dysfunction and depletion is so fatiguing. That doesn’t that’s not just muscle. That’s how our brain works, how our metabolic functions work, and our digestive juices are all of the things, making hormones, all the things that our system needs. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Services here. It’s part of what we need to be able to have the body replace itself.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, Yes. All of them do that. All of them are neurotoxic, which means toxic to the nervous system. This can affect the gut. Even if you’re not eating them, the destruction by insurance companies is, “Oh, if you just stop eating mycotoxin food, this isn’t from the environment at all.” This has nothing to do with your health issues. Total destruction, totally. Your environment matters. Even if you’re inhaling them in animal studies, we see that it affects the gut wall so you don’t have to be eating them to have gut wall effects. If they’re neurotoxic, that gut wall runs off neural programming. There’s reflexes and all of this neural neurological communication that’s happening and then communication from our vagus nerve up to our brain that says we just ate protein, we just ate fat, send those juices down so we can digest more gets in the way of all that communication. Then it creates this whole malabsorption problem. That’s a big problem because then you get more nutrition on the depletion. Maybe you can be eating your food, but you may not be taking it in.

Ann Shippy, MD

In it very well. Yes. It gets to be such a vicious cycle.

Jill Crista, ND

Totally. Yes. Many of the mycotoxins are genotoxic, meaning they change the genes and rewire you to be immune-depleted. Why would it do that? Because he wants to move in. It is going to impact all of the things that you would need to detoxify. It’s going to mess up your detoxification pathways through your kidneys, through your liver, and is going to change your gut microbiome and gut wall, which is where our immune system is. Then just in case that wasn’t harmful enough, it’s going to rewire your genes to make your immune system not function. 

Ann Shippy, MD

I mean, it is so profound and how many different mechanisms that mycotoxins affect in the body. It’s actually kind of amazing that we can even survive with them because it affects so many different aspects.

Jill Crista, ND

What are we? Yes, and that makes it really hard to recognize. That’s how it’s getting missed all over the place because depending on the mycotoxin that you’re exposed to or the mycotoxins soup and depending on your own susceptibility and I’m not Schumacher trained, but I’ve heard him say this is a multi-system, multi-symptom illness, and that makes it really hard to pick up. That’s when I developed my questionnaire because I was in practice working with Lyme patients and I was like, “How can I get it?” I found out a lot of my chronic Lyme patients had mold and that was the reason they had chronic Lyme and they weren’t responding to the Lyme treatment. I thought, how can I get to the mold answer faster? That’s when I created the questionnaire that I have in my book. It’s just like I was trying to find a way to quantify how to figure out if it’s Lyme or mold or both, and how do we get to the mold thing faster? Because if we’re not addressing the mold, we’re not ever going to make progress on chronic Lyme. The symptoms are completely varied.

Ann Shippy, MD

They overlap. In such a complicated fashion. Do you find a lot of times that the Lyme goes into remission once the mold is dealt with?

Jill Crista, ND

Certainly. Yeah.

Ann Shippy, MD

When the body’s not being immunocompromised like, “Oh, what is that? Let’s get rid of it.”

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. It can recognize it, it can pull it out of hiding, and it can do all the things it needs to do to get rid of it. Yes. Then some mycotoxins though each one kind of has its special sauce. It’s a special thing that it does. Dr. Neil Nathan and I are working. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Signature feature.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. There you go. The signature feature. Yes, special sauces. That sounds tasty. We don’t want to.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, the restaurant.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, we are. Dr. Niel Nathan and I are working on a questionnaire project right now.  He’s helped me refine my questionnaire, and we’re going to be doing a study that takes a look at the questionnaire. Hopefully from that, what we can determine is, first of all, is the questionnaire valid. But also are there signature symptom patterns that we see with certain mycotoxins being quite high at that time? That time you’re detoxifying it, that time you are loaded with it. That’ll be interesting to see because I have some fact sheets where I’ve kind of taken that from my practice and I’ve listed the symptoms that I most commonly see with that type of mycotoxins. In deep diving into that, I learned that certain mycotoxins that we see a lot. I kind of have like little nicknames for them because they all kind of do something a little bit different on top of the stuff we talked about and how they’re common. Like ochratoxin is a persistor mycotoxin. That’s what I’m calling it. It’s the persistor. Zearalenone is known as an endocrine disruptor, but it’s so much more than that. gliotoxin, one of my jokes is that it lays the red carpet for fungus to come and take over it. It just opens the doorway to fungal infection. We can talk about each one of those. I mean, I think it’s just really good for people to realize that each of these is a little different, not only in the symptoms they’re causing but then what we do to get that healed from the body.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes. Let’s dive in. Let’s start with ochratoxin.

Jill Crista, ND

Ochratoxin being a persistor means that it has a really high affinity binding to albumin, which is a protein in the blood. I’m explaining this for your listeners. I know you know this stuff. 

Ann Shippy, MD

You’re doing great.

Jill Crista, ND

This protein in the blood, we have to have a certain amount of it to maintain our blood pressure. It also carries around things like calcium. It’s a delivery system. Unfortunately, it delivers ochratoxin because it has such a high affinity. It’s like a magnet, like a super magnet to that blood protein, and such a super magnet, it’ll actually bump off things that albumin should be carrying around in the blood. That’s where we get into the pot’s picture because the calcium and magnesium can’t get delivered to tissue. The whole goal is to try to get that out of our body. The mycotoxins have a couple of pathways to get out of our body. When we breathe them in, they go into our bloodstream immediately and they can get carried anywhere in the body. That’s how we can see symptoms anywhere. The way that we get it out is we can pee it out, which is why we can test urine mycotoxins. The kidneys are the job there. We can package them in bile in the liver, and that is carried to the colon where we’re supposed to poop them out. Unfortunately, we recycle a lot of that bile, so we have to interrupt that with binders or things that block the reabsorption, like taurine. It’s a beautiful amino acid we can use for that purpose, or we can do some detoxification with our gut microbiome. Ochratoxin preferentially uses the kidney pathway and then the gut pathway. The third is the liver. Focusing on liver detoxification with ochratoxin is sort of like not paying attention to the primary pathway. 

The primary pathway is the kidney. It will if it can’t bump it off in the kidney because we have to have some amount of this albumin in our system. The kidneys will take the damage, so they’ll take it into the kidney tissue so that it can contribute some bioflavonoids to denature it on the of the albumin and put that back into circulation. But unfortunately, mycotoxins are hanging out now in the interstitial tissue of the kidney, which means the kidney, the stuff of the kidney. That’s how we get kidney cancer. That’s how we get nephrotic syndrome, that’s how we get IgA nephropathy from ochratoxin. That’s how we get ADH resistance, meaning the kidneys stop listening to a hormone that says to hold on to water because it says, “No, I’m not going to hold onto this. This is a problem. We have to get rid of the toxin here.” Bioflavonoids are the superpower for ochratoxin. Yes. The research shows it is zeaxanthin and astaxanthin. So I figure because there’s not a whole lot of research on these mycotoxins like there’s no human research because we can’t purposefully poison someone to figure out what to do to get you better. Because if it’s a poison, just, don’t expose the poison. We have to take animal research and translate that into human or molecular. But when I saw the two were zeaxanthin and astaxanthin, if you have a patient who is or anyone listening is allergic to fish, that may not be a source that you can tolerate because a lot of that comes from their sources, there are plant sources, but I’m like, those are common because they’re both orange, they’re both the color orange. I’ll bet beta carotene would work. I’ll bet that vitamin A would work. I’ll bet Quercetin probably a little bit because it’s close to that. Probably a little bit of lycopene would work. That’s what I will do for my patients who can’t tolerate anything in the zeaxanthin and astaxanthin. We just go for beta carotene. It is amazing to see that the upper toxin level just dropped because we’re now supporting the primary way that the body wants to get rid of it. Yes, so that’s my big tip for ochratoxins.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, that’s a great one.

Jill Crista, ND

Bioflavonoids, bioflavonoids, bioflavonoids, you know.

Ann Shippy, MD

Which are you going to be taking anyway? They’re helpful for so many aspects of the body.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. A lot of people with ochratoxins have skin problems because of this whole has been not the persistor part of it and because the kidneys are trying to grab as much of the bile flavonoids in your blood as they can. It doesn’t take on too much damage and the skin takes a hit. If you can support these five flavonoids, I have people who have chronic psoriasis, age spots, these kinds of things, acne, acne rosacea. When we get the bioflavonoids going, we get the orchid toxin out of their body. Then the skin says, ‘Thank you. I needed that.” I needed the bioflavonoids. But of course, the body, in its wisdom, if it’s being poisoned it is going to prioritize getting rid of the poison over having beautiful-looking skin.

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, and I think a lot of times it’s engaging the skin to try to help with whatever little detox that the skin can provide, too.

Jill Crista, ND

Right. 

Ann Shippy, MD

When I see that every time with psoriasis and so I’m glad you brought that up because it is an autoimmune. The immune system got confused and attacked the skin. But I think it’s partly because the skin has really been trying to be that fourth or fifth pathway to get rid of the toxins.

Jill Crista, ND

Absolutely. Yes. I love it. Do you want to know my gliotoxin tips? Shall we go to gliotoxin?

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, let’s hear gliotoxin.

Jill Crista, ND

I just love that I want this to be so actionable and helpful for people that they can take this and run with it.

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, and I really love how you’re pulling the science and then having an action plan. That’s great.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Thank you. Yes. I mean, that’s the best we can do. With functional medicine and naturopathic medicine, we know these tools already. When I see zeaxanthin, I’m like, Oh, I know. How do you know the dose? I know the safe area, I’ll use up to 24 milligrams of that, no problem, because I already have a friendship with these things.

Ann Shippy, MD

There are tools in your toolbox that you use for other things already.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Right. So, gliotoxin.

Ann Shippy, MD

Behind astaxanthin is like great data. It’s one of those supplements that if you’re going to like to do a top ten or top 15, like what do I want to prioritize putting in my body. It’s a really great thing to be prioritizing for prevention and anti-aging and all those things anyway.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, Yes. Then you think, Well, how is it really helping with anti-aging? It’s probably detoxifying you, helping you just get rid of all of the load. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Great connection. Good job.

Jill Crista, ND

That’s good. I should get that on my. It’s a good point. Even if I don’t know about work or toxins it is probably good to put in my rotation. Yes, for sure.

Ann Shippy, MD

Prevention.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Thanks, doc.

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, I’m having so much fun with this because I’m, like, getting takeaways from every one of these sessions, so this is great. Thank you.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Yes, that is the fun thing, isn’t it? I love to watch the summits, too, and I love to attend medical conferences, obviously, but with summits, just the contemporaneous, chatty so much comes out. There are so many pearls where it’s just like, “Oh, my gosh.” First of all, never would have thought to ask that question. The second, like I, I didn’t know that and about this or that. Thank you for doing this.

Ann Shippy, MD

Putting the puzzle pieces together. It’s so fun. Now just makes us all better.

Jill Crista, ND

There’s so much to know. There’s so much to learn.

Ann Shippy, MD

No, I could just nerd out every day, and the practical part and seeing patients get better is even the most fun.

Jill Crista, ND

Great. I know there is no problem getting out of bed in the morning. It’s like, I love what I do. Yes. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Now, gliotoxin.

Jill Crista, ND

Gliotoxin lays the red carpet for fungus, particularly Aspergillus, which is the one that can become pathogenic and infective in our lungs. They’re seeing it in the sinuses. Dr. Dennis in Atlanta, he’s seeing Aspergillus fungal balls making mycotoxins in the sinuses. I am sure it’s also colonizing the gut. I mean. Or even infecting the gut because we’re able to see when people pass a biofilm, it is. I want to get a fungus test for these things. I haven’t done that yet. But, it’s just like a whole load just takes off of their body.

Ann Shippy, MD

I’ll tell you, just LabCorp has been a great way. They do a four-week stool culture. A lot of times they can pick up the gut Aspergillus with that and it’s usually covered by insurance.

Jill Crista, ND

Oh, fantastic. Thank you. Yes, that’s a great tip. Yes.

Ann Shippy, MD

Easy for patients. They don’t have to deal with test kits or anything, so. They’re not perfect. But a lot of times if it’s there, they will pick it up.

Jill Crista, ND

Don’t get it. Okay. Thank you for confirming that, because I’m like, I know it’s in the gut. I know for sure every time you swallow if it’s in your sinuses, it’s in your gut.

Ann Shippy, MD

Of course.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes.

Ann Shippy, MD

Especially if you think about how mold grows. It’s like contiguous taking over.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. If it’s neurotoxic and immunotoxic if it’s in your sinuses and able to make mycotoxins as well. Even if you’re breathing mycotoxins, we know it’s affecting your gut ball. Of course, it’s going to be easier for it to set up shop. The gliotoxin is a virulence factor, which in normal person language, means it assists the Aspergillus in being more effective and able to infect. It can take it from a spore to an active one where it’s invading from just a surface level. It can take it to an invasion and that’s where we get infection rather than colonization. gliotoxin is really tricky because if you have a high gliotoxin, it creates sort of a Goldilocks situation with sulfur. What I’m saying, is it’s sort of this middle window. If you don’t have enough sulfur, you can’t kill the Aspergillus. If you have too much sulfur and do not like a high amount of sulfur. If you have that middle where Goldilocks likes it, that can actually be helping the Aspergillus make more gliotoxin. Gliotoxin or sulfur fuels Aspergillus’ ability to make more gliotoxin. It’s a highly unique mycotoxin because it has disulfide bonds, which are similar to our IgG3. If you have patients that have a low subclass IgG3, that’s a gliotoxin problem. You don’t even have to test it. We know it. I know it from my practice. I’m like, Oh my gosh, all these kids with hypogammaglobulinemia, like I need to see subclasses. 

If I see that IgG3 low, I’m like, You’re in mold. I got to get you out of mold. This disulfide bond, when you take just enough sulfur to help the Aspergillus, but not you, and just enough to not overwhelm the Aspergillus and help your immune system kill it. Because too much sulfur is toxic to Aspergillus. It’s like it gives it way too much of its favorite food. There’s this weird little thing that you have to do with gliotoxin. If I see gliotoxin on any kind of mycotoxin testing, it gets my attention first because we can be, unfortunately, making the gliotoxin situation or the ability to make the gliotoxin situation worse if we try to address some of the other mycotoxins. We’re going right into glutathione, NAC Alpha lipoic acid. These are all higher-based molecules that contain sulfur. We see a lot of patients with high gliotoxin, do not tolerate sulfur. Typically also then what you see is they don’t tolerate oxalate foods, salicylate foods. 

This is the sulfur component or connection. If I see high gliotoxin, I take my patients off sulfur foods, I take them off sulfur supplements as much as possible, get the bile flavonoids on board, and get the antifungals going as quickly as possible in any way that we can get it. Nice statin in the nose if it’s anything. Because if we can get that Aspergillus low down, then we can come in with the sulfur-containing vials and they feel better. They can tolerate the foods they can eat, garlic again, they can eat onions again. The reason they couldn’t is because the gliotoxin or the sulfur was helping the Aspergillus out before. Their bodies were saying, “Don’t do this, I don’t like it.” Our bodies are so wise. Then when we get the antifungals on board, all of a sudden you can eat these foods again.

Ann Shippy, MD

What are your favorite antifungals you mentioned and a nice statin nasal spray? What else to is helpful?

Jill Crista, ND

It’s all over the board. It depends. If they handle plants. I’d love to have plants as the foundation. Because they have the wisdom, they know the kind of the instruction booklet and then that drug can come in with a single action and you’ve got now a wide and a high activity. I love to start with Thymus Vulgaris. It’s like a garden lead for people. It is amazing because it has this property where it actually stops the mycotoxins production of the mold. What molds would do if you start to add antifungals, we see that if you give Amphotericin B to Aspergillus, it will increase its production of gliotoxin to defend itself.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s getting attacked. Yes.

Jill Crista, ND

Of course, it would. That’s its vital weapon. Stop doing that to me. I’m going to poison you. What thyme does is it comes in and it shuts down that mechanism. If you preload with thyme, sometimes you’ll just need the thyme. Typically I use thyme and then for a couple of weeks and then add in some other plants like oregano or neem or Pau d’arco. It kind of depends on what they have going on. Pau d’arco is great for deeply embedded mucous surfaces. Somebody who started this or like this, we’re talking to you. I’m like, you keep Pau d’arco.

Ann Shippy, MD

I love that I actually got to taste some kind of Pau d’arco when I was in the rainforest years ago.

Jill Crista, ND

Where did you go in the Rainforest?

Ann Shippy, MD

It was way deep into the Amazon in Peru like it wasn’t an overnight boat trip on a rickety boat with about 16 people. I can’t believe looking back, I did that now. But it was amazing to be with the typical people and have them show us some of the different plants that I was there. It’s the medicine they use.

Jill Crista, ND

So many things. Yes. Not just the fungus. “Oh, my gosh.” We have so much to talk about. I did a botany study in the Peruvian Amazon, so I guess when you meet these plants, like. Like I’m just chilling. Oh, my gosh, they’re just so benevolent and they’re so present, They speak to you. They are there. I just love to pick the plant, kind of person. A lot of times I’ll just kind of go to my medicinal shelves and be like, “Okay, who wants to play?” 

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, and for those of you listening, this is how pharmaceuticals were involved. Even back to some of these non-toxins that’s where penicillin comes from and it’s where micro phenolic acid is being used to do immunosuppressant for transplant patients. The whole pharmaceutical industry is based on these mechanisms of plants. But when we use them in the whole plant, a lot of times they’re much more in alignment with the body than just taking that high dose, one mechanism. There are lots of mechanisms in the plant. I just wanted to clarify that in case we sounded a little out there.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. So well-put. I can definitely sound very out there because I like that, because.

Ann Shippy, MD

I think I do the same thing where I really when I’m making these choices, even whether it’s a medication or whether it’s from our anti-fungal nutrition status like, I don’t do the same thing for every person. I just kind of tune in and see what I think is going to be the most gentle but effective.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Then they all have their different mechanisms and those mechanisms are pretty well studied now, which is nice. You can kind of get the idea that a clove is more resinous. It’s going to act like a Pau d’arco, it’s going to act on that really mucousy thick phlegm. There’s a whole lot of research on the alkaloids and on the components of the plant that the pharmaceutical companies said, “Oh, here’s the active component that’s antifungal. We’ll make a drug out of that.” But like you said, it was so well put. When you have all of it, then the body knows what to do with the debris and the detritus from the dying and off and the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory part. It’s more than just that one action that we need to do to clean up crew. The plants have all that stuff in it.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes. It sounds like you have a really similar approach to the pharmaceutical approach. It is just like one mechanism but especially with these I’ll just call them fungal infections or fungal overgrowth. I find that I have to hit multiple pathways to really get the infections down.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, definitely. That’s my kind of secret is with gliotoxin, start with thyme because we know that the gliotoxin is probably being made in-house, not just in your house, but then the Aspergillus gets into your sinuses, into your gut, and it’s going to start making it in house. We can take the thyme and say we’re going to shut down the mechanism for you to be able to make more gliotoxin. So you don’t have to burden the body that gives us a window to start some of the other ones. Quite commonly, like a really sick patient, I’m using IV nystatin or intranasal nystatin and Itraconazole within a blend of plants to kind of hold the space. My favorite plant to use for that is garlic because it’s safely used with every single antifungal pharmaceutical. There have been great studies on that. I use a lot of tinctures so I can kind of just mix and match what I want, which is really lucky.

Ann Shippy, MD

Is that how you do the thyme to sit on a tincture?

Jill Crista, ND

Tincture capsule, Tincture, I find works better because I think that it doesn’t because the capsule doesn’t open up early enough in the gut process to catch where the first feeding of the Aspergillus ended up in the small bowel. I love to use tinctures or glycerate for kids and then just say, here’s your two weeks of just thyme. Now here’s your bottle for the next period of thyme, which is usually I mean, it’s fungus can take a while. They’re very tenacious. It might take three more months. Here’s your next bottle with thyme plus and then we’ll add whatever we need. If it’s going to be like for women, it tends to be more things like sage, and rosemary. For kids more of the resins, like the cloves. Just whatever their symptoms are, if they’re SIBO, I throw oregano in there, if there’s Pau d’arco, if there is asthma or more deeply embedded mucus. It’s just really mixing and matching with the patient. Not everybody likes to take the tincture. There are some blends there. Yes, they’re a lot easier. They are. 

Ann Shippy, MD

If you can tolerate them and just have the conversation in your head, this is really helping to get my microbiome back into the positive rather than, “Oh my God, this is so strong or tastes so bad.”

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. I know some kids from my practice when I run into them, as young adults, they’re like, “Oh yeah, we remember when we had to take those tinctures.” Like you become part of, like the mythology or the stories of that family because they’re like, “Oh, yeah, our parents. You have to pay us for whatever you’re feeling. You want to get better.” That’s awesome. Yes. Yes, that’s kind of good.

Ann Shippy, MD

This is so good because I think this is such an important piece of understanding the impacts of mycotoxins. For those of you listening, like, just if you were wondering at all, like, is this real to be able to delve into this level of detail and science and making the connections is like it just there’s it all doubts should be removed what’s happening though is because this is such an evolving understanding in science, you get brilliant people like Dr. Crista putting really important puzzle cases together that help us all.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, Yes. Oh, gosh. Thank you so much. I’m going to zero in on it. Yes, that’s okay.

Ann Shippy, MD

Mine too.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. I’ll just recap on gliotoxin. Short term, no sulfur diet, getting on the antifungals as soon as possible and then moving into high sulfur to try to compete out that basically, it makes the Aspergillus for blow up swell and blow. Those would be the high sulfur things that are in the category alpha lipoic acid and acidosis and glutathione and those would be the things that can help with healing to get all that gliotoxin out and the Aspergillus presence. Yes. Yes. Then when you’re on glucose and then biomass takes off many, many more mycotoxins.. Yes. I’m sorry I cut you off.

Ann Shippy, MD

Oh, I was saying, I think this is so much more common than we think because it is a little challenging to test for. You don’t always get the easiest way to test, to see, to find the colonization.

Jill Crista, ND

Right. Yes. There are definitely some limitations on the testing strengths and weaknesses with every lab. Yes. The zero unknown is an endocrine disruptor, but it’s so much more than that. It’s also toxic to the heart muscle. That’s what a lot of people are missing. They’re like focusing on the estrogen part, which is really great. I love that people are paying attention. The fact that this mycotoxin acts a little differently than these other things that we’ve been talking about called mycotoxins. Helping the estrogen piece through i3C, that’s Indole-3-carbinol, think about what I was and then so I don’t even know what DIM stands for. But yeah, they’re like very similar molecules, a few molecules apart from each other, and using both assists because some people can’t move the pathway and so they need help on both sides of that metabolic pathway to get the estrogen detoxified. There aren’t great studies on calcium D-glucarate. I went and I dug and I dug and I couldn’t find anything more recent like 1993 or 95. I know that some people are using it and are seeing the level go down, but I don’t know if it’s as efficient as actually using them. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, I usually use a combination. I’m kind of just starting with the DIM, but then I just find people get where they need to go quicker. If I do the combination. And follow the lab. I love it that you take away the research. Thank you.

Jill Crista, ND

Thank you. That’s what I do. Yes, I just get on these like on a scent in our room. Just like I want to really know, as I was seeing in practice that it wasn’t coming down as quickly. I was thinking, Oh, it’s estrogenic. I’ll use calcium D-glucarate. My tools aren’t moving. What if I did it like my estrogen-dominant patients I put them in i3C and things are moving faster. Then I went out to research just to see if there is validity to that. First I practiced on my patients and then did the literature dive later to understand and I don’t know what that is. I’m sure people who really understand that metabolism, estrogen metabolism, people who specialize in women’s health, I’m sure they could just right now tell me exactly what that is. But that’s what I’m seeing in my practice.

Ann Shippy, MD

Eyes from what I see, I just think that the recirculation of the estrogen, and the reabsorption is diminished with it.

Jill Crista, ND

Oh, reabsorption. That makes sense because of the mineral and it’s already in the system. It also binds albumin with high affinity, not as strong as ochratoxin, but it’s a binder as well to the albumin. Using the things I was saying, the astaxanthin with zero unknown because you want to turn that off but there’s a little bit of a hack there, which is because they’re also known as also toxic to the heart muscle. We can use Hawthorn which contains a lot of those bile flavonoids and nourishes the heart muscle. What I love about Hawthorn is that it helps the heart feed itself first, because the heart doesn’t do that. It feeds itself. Second, I’m not sad to feed our hearts first. Well, I think that’s especially.

Ann Shippy, MD

As parents, we often are like it’s kind of how we do things, where we’re in that giving mode more than the receiving mode.

Jill Crista, ND

Right.

Ann Shippy, MD

That would be just what the heart does.

Jill Crista, ND

That’s what the heart does. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Don’t know that Hawthorn is so.

Jill Crista, ND

Oh, I love Hawthorn. Hawthorn, I like to use it in a solid extract. Ideally, I find that it’s more effective that way than in a capsule. If someone’s like you can’t taste it to me it does taste like you’re eating jam. I have a lot of patients who are just like, “Oh yeah, I’m picking my own hawthorn” and just licking it off the spoon. But for kids some are like, I don’t know if I want to do that, then I can use rosehip solid extract or rosehip syrup. What that’s doing is giving the lycopene, which we know has its own micro toxin protectant, but it is also full and rich in those bioflavonoids that can help adventuring. You can kind of take it that there are multiple mechanisms of action and multiple modes of benefit with reducing the total pill count and you know how many things someone has to take. I will combine that i3C with some hawthorn salad extract or rose hips. If it’s a kid who is like I don’t, I think it’s really yummy but I’m a weird herbalist. There have been some kids that don’t like the Hawthorn, that Hawthorn specifically has that heart feeding mechanism where it’s and I always get it wrong, but I know Tropic and ChronoTropic and what it’s doing, but it’s helping the heart muscle have a more complete contraction and then expansion to feed itself first. If it’s, if I have a kid who doesn’t like the Hawthorn, I have the parents try to mix it in with the rose hips so that we’re at least getting some hawthorn so we can prevent the myocarditis, if you like, for.

Ann Shippy, MD

Oh sorry. Finish up and then I’ll ask.

Jill Crista, ND

In the last few years there’s something circulating that’s pretty hard on the heart.

Ann Shippy, MD

Extremely.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. I’ve been just plowing through Hawthorn. Yes. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Do you have a brand that you like? Because that’s a new one for me.

Jill Crista, ND

Hmm. The Herbalist and Alchemist is one. Then Wise Woman has. I think they still have it. I’m just looking on my shelf real quick. My Wise Woman, one is still in stock, but those are two that I use. I think I’m right now because I’m doing mostly telemed. Then people can get Herbalists and Alchemist.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s just a matter of if you’re male or female for that one, like if you have an exposure.

Jill Crista, ND

It is also really bad on men because not only is it estrogenic it is toxic to this or totally cells in the testes so you get actual destruction of the testes. When in families when I kind of a classic picture is mom and kids are sick dad is not. Dad is irritated. That’s really more and I say let’s test your testosterone and if there’s zero in on in the house the testosterone is below 300 easily. Yes. When they say it’s not affecting me, I’m like, yeah, it actually is. It’s going to show up in loss of muscle mass, insomnia, irritability, libido issues, and hair loss, that’s not what any guy wants. It’s affecting them, but not in a way like an allergy. That’s the thing we have to get people over is that we hear about mold allergy, but it’s so much more than that. We’ve just talked all this time about these mycotoxins that’s not an allergy thing. That’s a toxin. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes. Yes. Which I think most people understand about lead now. It’s just as toxic or more than lead or cyanide. Yes, it’s just like common things that you hear about wanting to avoid. To me, these are even more toxic. Those things went.

Jill Crista, ND

Because they do. They’re genetically toxic. It can be a heritable trait basically to be immune deficient. Yes. Just sets kids up for autoimmunity. I mean there’s a huge one. My second book is on Pandas and Pans because mold is so often that core exposure is so often a contributing factor to developing pandas and pans because mycotoxins, because they’re fat soluble, like to go to the fat of your tissues. One of those is our brain. Brain, bone marrow, gut. Yes. These kids, then they’re totally treatable. Once it becomes autoimmune, then we’re dealing with a little bit of a different situation. Your kids can be treated for mold. I mean, I have a whole class called mold in kids because not everything we would do for an adult we do for kids. There are certain things we want to make sure we’re not detoxing too hard. You don’t bind them too aggressively because it could cause nutritional deficiencies. There are certain things that we need to modify when we’re working with kids, but it’s completely treatable. Once you’ve been exposed, I mean, you’re living proof of that, you and your family.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, I think that’s really what’s inspired me to be able to hold space for people. As you can tell, you can recover and be even better than you were before you got sick.

Jill Crista, ND

I guess so. Do you hear this from families? I hear families say, “Well, now that we’re past it and we’re looking back, this is probably the best thing that could have happened to us because we declutter our life, we simplified and we became so health conscious that it probably is setting us up for not having the diabetes and hypertension and all those things later.”

Ann Shippy, MD

We feel that one. The case when we implement what we’ve learned and stick with it. The lifestyle changes and the most important supplements and really learning better how our detox pathways work.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Are there any other mycotoxins that you find, particularly important or interesting, any of the trichothecenes family, any Chaetoglobosin A? Is there anything else you want to add to any of the other toxins?

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, Oh my gosh, those get scary. Yes, but the Chaetoglobosin A is from Chaetomium, which is a water-loving mold. So, if you have Chaetomium in your environment, you have a water problem and it doesn’t mean flood, that means a consistent slow drip somewhere. That can also be in your refrigerator filter. I tested a bunch of refrigerator filters and I found Chaetomium in them. Took them out.

Ann Shippy, MD

No way. That’s a good tip.

Jill Crista, ND

I have a little video on my website. I do these short little video blogs for a minute or less. I try to keep them because a small brain is a real thing. Yes. I was just curious. I tested a refrigerator filter because I was in the mode of testing everything so I could learn.

Ann Shippy, MD

Where did you send it?

Jill Crista, ND

I work with my inspector. I just said, “I want to test this, send me some stuff, what do I need?” She said, ” I’ll send you some swabs and some containers and whatever.” I had started testing galore on that and I found Chaetoglobosin A and Chaetomium in the filter and then I actually found Chaetomium not Chaetoglobosin A on that first one. So, I called my parents. “How long have you been using your filter?” They were like, “Oh, two or three weeks.” I’m like, “Can I test it?” I’ll buy you a new one. I tested their filter, Chaetomium, and I tested a friend’s, Chaetomium. I keep testing.

Ann Shippy, MD

“Gosh!” Do I think it’s coming in the water? Or do you think it’s already present in the filter? Where is it coming from? 

Jill Crista, ND

I have no idea. But there is no standardization on any of those refrigerator filters, first of all. I think because it’s stagnant, Chaetomium loves stagnant water. It’s not going to be one from a flood and then it’s dried up. It’s from a drip, drip, slow drip, trapped water, which is the situation for a lot of our families because they didn’t know it was the problem. The refrigerator line in the back of the fridge can just have this slow drip leak.

Ann Shippy, MD

It happened to my job.

Jill Crista, ND

My God.

Ann Shippy, MD

Not enough. But you could actually see it behind the wall or under the floor or anything. But it was creating a pretty massive meltdown. That’s why I try not to even connect the water filter.

Jill Crista, ND

I recommend that people don’t because you are going to run it through a filter that has Chaetomium, which has a mycotoxin called chaetoglobosin, which can cross the blood-brain barrier. It’s one of the few. Any autoimmune trichothecenes can do it too. A lot of them can ride our olfactory bulb back up to our head, but chaetoglobosin can cross the blood-brain barrier.

Ann Shippy, MD

That’s the one that made me so sick. It was in my air conditioning system. I thought, this being in Texas, it’s like we just get condensation in our AC systems. They run through the attic. Even if they’re insulated, they just condense. 

Jill Crista, ND

If you’re not managing that, that’s the thing, maintenance is the key, running dehumidifier by the air conditioning system.

Ann Shippy, MD

Having the right size air conditioning system. So it actually dehumidifies.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. There’s so much science to it that we know. HVAC I think is a very important specialty to have right and hiring the right people.

Ann Shippy, MD

I had somebody have a huge Aspergillus problem in their coffee maker, they had like one of those really fancy $3,000 coffeemakers and it was full of Aspergillus.

Jill Crista, ND

The truth is anything that has sitting water. That’s why I just tell people don’t even hook up the line to your fridge. Just go old school ice trays because anything that has sitting water, we have a problem. CPAP machines. I had a patient with dementia completely cured by making sure she cleaned her CPAP machine. We got her a new one after it was tested with Chaetomium and Aspergillus and high endotoxin. Very high endotoxin because there she’s like, that’s bacteria probably, from herself that was able to kind of set up in her CPAP. I like the system. It’s called So Clean, it’s an ozone-cleaning system for CPAP. 

Ann Shippy, MD

That’s a really good tip.

Jill Crista, ND

It’s so great. It’s a closed system. You don’t get ozone out into the atmosphere because that’s toxic to the lungs. It closes it in and it runs it even through the fan and the air handler part of it, because that’s where a lot of the mold is, is on the little fan and it will degrade valves and things like that. You need to know there’s a risk factor that it’s going to age your CPAP machine a little faster. It’s shocking you get dementia. 

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s not a bad idea to replace that with something regularly, anyway,

Jill Crista, ND

I agree.

Ann Shippy, MD

Don’t need to be an annual purchase.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, agreed. With So Clean. It’s testing really nice and clean even years later. Yes, I know. It’s simple and it’s such an easy system. You take it off, you plunk down, close. You don’t even think about it. 

Ann Shippy, MD

What other places do you look for mold when it’s not obvious?

Jill Crista, ND

One of the baby bath toys. Yes. If they have a little hole for the aeration, that’s a place for mold. Then the baby’s taking a bath and mold and mycotoxins and goes right through the skin. These mycotoxins can go right through the skin very easily. Checking baby bath toys, making sure you don’t have anything that has that little air hole. If it’s plastic, it’s just whole. I’ve had parents cut them open and send me pictures as yet there we go. There it is. 

Ann Shippy, MD

You’re doing great detective work.

Jill Crista, ND

I’m obsessed. I think it’s probably a problem.

Ann Shippy, MD

No, because it really is. Sometimes it’s challenging to find the sources.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, I know. They can be so weird. A baby bath toy is a big deal because it’s a little person with a big bath water and our skin is so efficient at taking in mycotoxins. Some of the other ones like Michael Rubino have great he has a great Instagram @themichaelrubino. He has all these little things where they found mold like at the bottom of your, if you have toothbrushes, if you have a toothbrush holder like that should be, make sure that’s drying out. That should have air in it, not a holder with a contained airspace because that’s wet every day.

Ann Shippy, MD

I just had one with my toilet bowl cleaner.

Jill Crista, ND

Oh, yes. 

Ann Shippy, MD

If it had a lid over the top of it and it was like I just wanted it to look nice. It was totally sealed.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Then there you go. It’ll grow. And a little tip too is people say, oh, doesn’t every toilet tank end up moldy? I can say in my experience so far, if your toilet tank grows mold, you have mold in your house somewhere. It’s not natural for that to grow mold in most situations. There may be a situation where you haven’t used that toilet for months, and maybe that makes sense. But now if you’ve got it growing with the frequency of flushes that happen in most family homes, there’s mold in the environment and there are a lot of spores available to that. Yes. Just little things like that. 

And then trichothecenes. The main thing that they do is protein synthesis inhibition. I like to use any kind of amino acids that we can get into their body, like the essentials either branch chain amino acids or mixed amino because all the systems in our body are enzymes and everything is the runoff protein of amino acids. If they’re not if the trichothecenes are sitting there saying, “No, you can’t make that protein, that’s going to slow healing, especially the gut wall.” Yes.

Ann Shippy, MD

That’s a great tip. It’s just such an amazing source of information. I feel like I could just talk to you all day.

Jill Crista, ND

If we could. Then we can talk about the Peruvian Amazon. That’s going to be fun. 

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, definitely. I know you are just on such a mission to get information out to the public, but then also to health care providers. For anybody listening in either of those categories, how do they find you?

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, they find me at drcrista.com. That’s D R C R I S T A .com. and I have courses for the public and information for the public fact sheets on mycotoxins and then I have a doctor training course they can become mold literate you get CME for it and everything’s amazing.

Ann Shippy, MD

Congratulations on that. I did not know that was a big deal. That is it being medical education has to be approved by an allopathic model. The excellent job.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes. Thank you. Then I have a short course coming up called Updates and Mold-Related Illness, which is going to be a few months yet. Then I have a training course on Pandas and Pans for practitioners as well. That’s my other passion project as a mama of kids with pans from our mold.

Ann Shippy, MD

I did that. Yes, 

Jill Crista, ND

Been there, done that.

Ann Shippy, MD

Makes you really learn it to the deepest level.

Jill Crista, ND

Yes, you got it.

Ann Shippy, MD

Well, thank you so much for your wisdom, and your huge heart. Your brilliance, and I know this interview is going to help a lot of people to better understand what’s going on with them and how to help.

Jill Crista, ND

Great. Thank you so much for the invitation.

Ann Shippy, MD

Thank you.