Environmental Toxins: Can’t Live Well With Them, Can’t Get Away From Them

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Thank you. It’s so great to be here Diane. Like I love the things that we’re playing on today.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Me too. We got a great, great discussion on environmental toxins, on how to work with them. And let’s just start out our conversation by tell us a little bit about yourself your background, how you got into the world of medicine and toxicology and toxins in general.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Okay, that’s a huge question. So I got into medicine because I was a sales rep and all of my clients by the way, I was selling a v stuff, you know, back when you would still sell slides and all of my clients would say I have a question for you and they would ask me a health question. I go, you know, you’re like 22 year old sales rep for audio visual stuff, I’m not medical, they’re going no, but you just seem like, you know, and I went, okay, the universe is talking to me pretty loudly. So I went to med school and then I became an O B G Y N because I absolutely fell in love with it, like contributing to women. Being able to bring them through that phase of life was just a general honor and I didn’t take into account that I am not constitutionally very strong. So being up for 24 or 36, 40 hours, I was quite sick and that was the first sort of health crisis was I got diagnosed with celiac when I was 35 Which is the end result of an autoimmune reaction to gluten. And so at 35 and that was my entry into functional medicine. I I was a patient and then spent the next let’s think 13 years really not only being a provider but working on my own health and that’s how I come to this is because it’s personal.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah and so then at what point? So I love this story. It’s a good intro to functional medicine. I think so many of us get here because of similar type of stuff. How did you go from you know your medical school interested in women’s health understanding of celiac and auto immune to the you know to the layer of toxins and learning about the impact of toxins in the body. How did you get there?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah. Great question. So I was already in functional medicine when I learned about toxins because truly being diagnosed by a function the functional medicine doctor was my husband’s mentor and he went well before our insurance changes. Why don’t you just go see him? So that was my diagnosis and then it took me about two years to convert my life from traditional O. B. G. Y. N. Doing surgery delivering babies seeing patients in the clinic. 200% functional medicine. Okay so fast forward I’m doing functional medicine happy And then we go on the trip of a lifetime. We take our whole family to France. We spend about a week slogging through. It was very dusty in France. Then we went to London for a week and then we came home and the month after we came home I gained almost £10 and lost about half the hair on my head and had a rash on my face and would not quit and Diane, there’s a very small subset of women who were like, sure I want To gain weight, but I would say the vast majority of us are not like, yeah, sign me up for a £10 weight weight gain, right? So I was like, I was like, what is this? So I did all the testing on myself. I checked my thyroid, my thyroid was perfect. I was 48 at the time, so I was like, it must be the hormones, right? My hormones are perfect. 

And then I checked my gut because as a celiac, I usually have a messed up gut. My gut was pretty good. And now I’m really stumped. I’m like, what’s going on here? And it’s hard to treat yourself. So I’m like slogging through the how do I treat myself conversation? And I hear on the radio that when Notre dame burned, it released 500 tons of lead dust into the air and I looked at my husband and I said we were at Notre dame the week after it burned slogging through all this dust. I said it’s so dusty here and what we were slogging through was lead dust and it was enough of an exposure to push me over the edge. I had previously tested and been what I thought was mildly positive and like a doctor like I’ll get to that later right now. I didn’t have time. So it was significantly higher than it had been and and given that I was losing my hair, couldn’t get the weight off. Had this rash. I went oh wow, I actually got an exposure and then I went on to test all the other things like mycotoxins which are the mold toxins that live in your body once you’re exposed to mold. And then I was like in for a penny in for a pound check it also. I checked the environmental toxins which included things like nail polish, gasoline fumes, flame retardants, phthalates and I was high for a boatload of them. But most most heartbreakingly for nail polish. So I looked at my husband and I said I have such a dirty girl. And then I went were writing that book because if and by the way like we’ve eaten organic for years we didn’t allow V. O. C. Paints in our house. We really worked hard to be clean. So if I’m got this and I live a reasonably clean approach. What is the rest of the world have that may not have the the view of it that I did. So that became that moment where I transformed into really focusing on toxins.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, it’s a great story. It gives me actually chills the idea of like you slogging around in dust over in europe like that and all that lead you found. So you mentioned quite a few things, you know, you mentioned, you mentioned nail polish, gasoline, mycotoxins, some metals besides that. What are the top toxins do you think people need to be aware of? And because you make such a good point right? Like so many of us are especially probably a lot of people that are listening are already aware of eating organic and some of these basic things. So what are toxins that you think may be hidden that people, even with a, you know, a surface level knowledge base might not be thinking about?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Okay, I think I love this question and I think we should before I dive into it though, I think we should set the stage for why are we talking about this microbes and mental health summit? And that’s because let me just draw the line between toxins create a state of chaos in the body inflammation dysfunction. Certain microbes grow, they might not be in your in your favor and certain microbes get inhibited that are in your favor, that leads to a state of dysfunction in the gut and that alters your your mental health. So I just want to draw the line between that because it’s so important to deal with what’s around you so that you can deal with what’s in you. Okay, so let’s put toxins in three categories. The first category is what you’re putting in your body. So that’s what you’re drinking and that’s your food. Do you want me to just go into the categories? You want me to talk about what would be the most impactful ways to level up?

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

I think maybe let’s first go through the categories and then let’s hit the important level up.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Okay, so what’s going in your body, your food and your drink and your medicines? Right? What are these, what are those things doing then? What are you putting on your body? That’s your clothing, your beauty products, your hair dye, your your lotion, your nail polish, anything that you are applying to your body or that’s touching your body. And then there’s all the things around your body. So that would include your mattress, the air quality, the chemicals in the home, you just renovated or moved into the gasoline fumes, the tar that they laid everything in your environment that has the possibility of being toxic? Is that category?

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Great. And then let’s go into a little bit more around like how are they identifying? Like do you have for like a resource perspective? Right? Like so so imagining people are listening to like beauty products? Well, you know, I buy, I’m not buying things that that are just at Walgreens. What not? Like how are you instructing people from a resource perspective to really analyze from each of these categories? What is bad? What is building up, what is a problem? Can you talk about that a little bit?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I’ll talk about it actually. I have the brain space of a flea. So I’m going through my life and I’m, you know, I have four kids and I own my own business and I’m busy, I’m busy and busy. So I’m like, oh, that product looks great, right? It’s beautiful packaging, it looks good, I buy it, I get it home and I go, oh, it was green washed. Okay, so it’s very easy in our life to get what’s called green washed, where they say it’s natural and then you get it home and you have a moment and you think, let me look up these products and you go, oh my goodness, this is terrible for me. So the first thing is don’t be like me, slow down. And there is, there are a number of resources. My two favorite resources are environmental working group e W G dot org and think dirty. They both have an app. So if you’re motoring along and you have a product you’re inspired by look it up, it will tell you, you can also I use the E W G. At more and you can go to the app and say, okay, I want a house cleaner, I want a hair dye, I want make up what’s the best thing in that category? Okay. And it’ll give you, it’ll show you everything and you can pick from what’s the best. And so as you’re moving through your life, it’s really important to slow down. Now. Most people say to me at the end of listening to this, they want to go clean out their whole life, don’t do that, it’s expensive. Okay? You’ve been living with it for this long finish up what you have, it’s not going to move the needle, and as you start to run out of things, that’s the time to level up. You don’t have to get perfect, you just have to get better.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, I really like that advice. And and I also I’m thinking about going through and researching every single product at the house at one time, even beyond the expense, it’s like, that’s so overwhelming right to be like, I’m going to go through every single product and research, so, you know, doing what you’re saying run out of it one at a time, what is the best thing to replace this? And then once, you know, then, you know, and, you know, you know what to continue to come back to. So is do you recommend the same thing, like from an environmental pollutant standpoint? Like, what do you recommend? From that standpoint, as far as minimizing exposure gets so hard, right?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It is so it’s not about perfection just to be clear, You know? So especially when you’re listening to a summit about mental health, if you have any mental health challenges, this is going to trigger anxiety and it’s going to trigger your desire to be perfect. So let’s set that to the side. It’s not about perfection, it’s about making improvements, Okay, there’s no perfection, there’s only better. So it’s really difficult to live on this earth and be human and not get exposed to toxins. So the first thing is to accept the sort of general level of it’s never gonna be perfect, it’s you’re just gonna do what you can’t now within the realm of doing what you can my When you get a new car, get a get a high quality air filter to filter out the 300 plus chemicals that you’re getting exposed to from your new car because you don’t want to breathe those in. Similarly, if you did construction and you didn’t use V. O. C. Paints, get high quality air filters in your home if you have a bed now, mattresses are expensive, so you might not be in the market for a new mattress. 

If you’re in the market for a new mattress, I would recommend leveling up and getting mattresses that don’t complain flame retardants because those are endocrine disruptors, Those throw off your hormones, the hormones throw off your mood, it plays in with the gut and it’s not a pretty picture. So try to avoid it if you can, but if you can’t get a high quality air filter, Make sure your pillow is is organic. If it’s off gassed for 15 years it’s fine. Keep your pillow as long as you’re happy with it. But it’s important to start walking through and cleaning up where you can, if you’re looking at buying a house, don’t buy a house by a highway. If you have the choice, if you live near a highway again, filter your air, it’s all about taking where you are and making it better.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, I love that advice like don’t live, don’t buy the house by the highway. Like think about the surrounding environment or their power plants nearby, what’s what’s happening there? So useful. So then in cleaning all of this up, you know, we’re going through one thing by one thing, cleaning things up. How do you recommend? People know when we’re talking about this thing that I a lot of us talk about total body burden, how many toxins are coming in versus how many are going out? Do you tend to just have people clean up one thing at a time? Do you use lab tests to kind of judge when, okay now we’re at a level. Like how do you recommend people know like okay what they’re doing is now lowering their load enough. Now they’re not in a, you know a slowing or speeding up their aging process or affecting their microbes in their gut. So how are you checking balancing this with your clients?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, it’s such a great question Diane. Especially because most people who come to see me and other providers in our practice, they’re like, I want to deal with everything, but that’s not really sustainable. Right? And so the first thing is if you, if you think my left hand is like really bad health and my right hand is optimal. Never better. That’s a huge spectrum. So what we have to do is start to meet people where they are, right? So if you’re super, super sick, we’re going to take baby steps. It’s starting to clean it up if you’re farther along the spectrum and you’re pretty darn good. But you want to optimize those are different actions. So every action is tailored to, where are you? First thing too? We love data. I love it. I love data, but it’s not the holy grail. Right? And it is expensive so often. So, okay, I know if you live on this earth, you’ve got environmental toxins, I might not know which ones, but I can know pretty close that Yes, you have environmental toxins. If you’re a woman of a certain age like me, you grew up in a house that had lead paint and you got mercury fillings. 

So I can pretty much guarantee you and if you were nursed, your mom gave you hers. And so I can pretty much guarantee you if you were born before 1978 and you ever had a feeling you’ve got lead and mercury right? Kind of I know I wouldn’t treat you without testing you because that’s not safe but you don’t have to do all the testing all at once. So it’s it’s it’s really tailoring what you need to what you’re up for. And I think you said you know, do you do it all at once or do you go slowly and kind of depends. I’m hardcore. So I was like I’m treating the micro toxins and the environmental toxins and the medals all at once. But it’s hard to do for some people. And you also have to help you have to heal the gut? Like the gut. And now it’s just catch 22 right? Cause you got micro toxins, It irritates the gut. So you can heal the gut till you fix the micro toxins. But you’re trying to mesh it together really? I think the thing that’s most impactful for people is to start with food because you do it every day, you know food and water, you do those things every day. So what are the ways that we can level up your food and your water? That’s um and it’s and again it’s not about perfection, it’s about making an improvement. So do you wanna talk about what that looks like or do you have other questions

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

We can talk about, we can go there next. I always have other questions, but I’m happy to go there next. So let’s talk about that next.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Alright, so this is the category of what you put in your body. So if you do nothing else after listening to this, it’s eliminate plastic water bottles, particularly the single use ones. Two reasons held up four fingers. Two reasons. One is it’s really bad for you because the water sits in plastic. The plastic puts out endocrine disrupting chemicals because it looks like what your body uses. It occupies the receptors. You have to process it just like you have to process your own hormones. So you’re making it harder for your body and guess what? Your hormones are ultimately discarded excreted through your gut. So if your if it has to do more work, you’re increasing the chance that you’re gonna throw off your gut microbiome and your mood. So it’s really important to not drink from the plastic water bottle, do your best. Right? I mean if you’re if you’re a soccer mom and you have all these kids, you’re gonna have to plan ahead, right? Bring a huge cooler with with water in it instead of a plastic water bottle. But so it takes something. It’s not easy to do if you’re on the road a lot. 

That would be one to do your best to avoid non organic foods and I say do your best because it’s not, you know, we travel and when we travel we don’t have access to the same food as when we’re not traveling when we control the narrative at home. So do your best to level up avoid processed foods because they’re heavily sprayed and things like high fructose corn syrup. They use mercury to process that corn into its highly processed syrup form. But when you do that, you also concentrate the glyphosate that corn was sprayed with. So you’re getting a double whammy. So you really want to avoid anything that’s highly processed, not only from the way it’s processed, but also because when you do that juices, wines, oats, legumes, you’re you’re you’re concentrating it into the form you’re consuming. So really work on not consuming things that are non organic only work on organic if possible.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

And I love some of these tips you’re giving right now because when you’re talking about one at a time, these are like easy fixes because food is perishable, you’re gonna run out of you know, some of the food fast. So it’s pretty easy to not have to use up an entire tube of shampoo or makeup and make these switches you know quickly. So I want to go back to something you said because I think it’s really important you’re talking about something that I tend to label as a vicious cycle where it’s like mold, you know, you’re giving the example of mold and mycotoxins affect the gut and then the gut comes back and changes our ability to properly detox mycotoxins. So when we’re talking about toxins, whether it’s toxins from mold mycotoxins or other toxins and we’re talking about the systems that are impacted. Can you talk a little bit more? You mentioned endocrine disrupting and hormone and that sort of system. Can you talk a little bit more on the effect of the gut and the toxins effect on the gut? As well as making any links for people to the story you started with around being over in Europe, getting this huge exposure and gaining weight. Like so can you tell us a little bit about how that happens and about the link both with the gut and with weight gain.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yes. So this is a huge conversation and it’s sort of a chicken or egg conversation because I will tell you I have terrible genetics. I have two copies of the M th fr jean. I have two copies for celiac have two copies for vitamin D. Deficiency. I think I have one C. O. M. T. I have a ton of genes that impair detox and methylation. So I started out behind the eight ball. Then you layer on. So every person has their own genetics and those genetics are not going to impact you. So when you start to look at if you’re not if you have celiac there’s also an association with lowered stomach acid and celiac disease. So if you lower your stomach acid, you can’t start processing your calcium, magnesium iron B 12, folate, B 12 and full later required from methylation And and methylation is required for detox. This is a massive question you just asked me. So we’re gonna start at all the little details. So you need B-12 and fully to support to be the methyl donors so that you can attach them to the toxins. But then you say, well, how are you getting rid of them in general? So let’s back up when you’re exposed to a toxin, your liver does 90% of the work in the sense of your liver is responsible for 90% of your detox. 

The liver is presented with the toxin. It has two phase that goes through one phase Phase one. It’s pretty fast, especially for women. And you take that toxin and you make it more toxic, you make it a toxic intermediate a reactive oxygen species. Now you gotta get to phase two pretty quickly or your body is going to have something even more toxic floating around. So phase two takes that toxin and either binds it to a method group self puts a sulfur group on it. Glue Khurana dates it there’s six pathways that it can go down. But what it does ultimately is it makes that reactive oxygen species inert, that’s the goal, make it inert and then most of the time you put it in your gut and you poop it out. Sounds great. There’s a lot of things that can get in the way of this stress can get in the way of it. Because if your body thinks a lion is about to eat you, it’s your adrenals will say deliver, stop the presses. We really need to focus on survival folks. Detox is not a it’s not a priority. Shut it down. So you’ll shut down or if you drink alcohol, alcohol is an immediate toxin. 

So instead of dealing with routine cleaning house things, you’re now dealing with what your body considers to be a higher priority, which is processing the alcohol. As women, we don’t process it as fast as men. And we often try to keep up with the men that were with who were drinking with and that’s not good for us because we can’t process it that fast. Another place this can go wrong when you’re having when you’re so you you put it into the gut. If you have over active enzymes in the gut called beta glue communities, they’re not only in the gut, but they happen in the gut and they throw off your system. These little enzymes come around and they disconnect the toxin from its binder. Now, what’s really magical about the binder is it makes that toxin water soluble, which is why it hangs out in your gut. But if you disconnect it from its binder, it’s now fat soluble it goes back in the bloodstream, your liver has to do the work again and you put additional burden on the system. So there’s a lot of levels at this which this can go wrong. And when I said it was a chicken or egg conversation, it’s what comes first. Does the exposure to the toxin that overwhelms the system come first and really throw off the system or was the system not so great to start with? And then the exposure happened, You couldn’t compensate. I don’t know the answer to that. I would say, I mean I grew up in the 70s with terrible genetics and processed food. So I would say by the time I got to that clear mycotoxin exposure that I had when I was in college and and after college the system was already primed. It’s hard to tell for people right?

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

I feel like it’s one of the number one questions I get is like what is the route? You know, everybody wants to know the route and in these vicious cycle conversations like it becomes very difficult and I agree like sometimes like pretty much impossible to say, I don’t know what the chicken or the egg is like, we just know that all of these issues are part of the picture. I want to make sure that everybody understands when you’re saying beta glue Khurana days that this enzyme actually is in higher amounts when people have infections in their gut typically. And so that increases that enzymes. What Wendie is saying here is like we have higher levels of the enzyme. Sometimes dude infections sometimes due to other reasons too. But then that can actually change the way we are unable to excrete the toxins because we’re re absorbing them. So that link of like oh here’s the chicken in the A. We have higher infections and all of a sudden we’re not excreting are toxins so much. So my next question is because I feel like what’s what’s probably coming up for people especially in our chicken and egg conversation is like okay besides the basics that we’ve talked around, you know these three categories of toxins and making sure we’re slowly removing things one at a time as we run out of things choosing organic, not drinking out of plastic water bottles, all of these basic levels when it really comes down. two. Okay now I’m ready to do an actual detox. What do you recommend from you know more on like the supplement or the pharmaceutical more the treatment side besides removing the you know the actual toxic type of element.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah I like this question too. Okay so so the first thing I’ll say is think of it like a bank account except it’s not one you want to fill you want to stop filling the bank account with toxins. So do your best to remove all the sources set them to the side and then you’re left with what is my vessel holding my body has it. So the first thing I’ll say is no human is an island. Do not do this alone. Don’t do it without a functional medicine provider who’s seasoned and comfortable with toxins. It’s not a weekend thing. It’s not a three day, you know, detox thing that you can get online. Those aren’t bad, but those aren’t detox is those are resets. Okay? If you want, if you need a reset because you feel like you’re foods out of control. Those are perfect. If you want to detox it’s it’s a program. So there are things you can do on your own that aren’t gonna harm you. So for example, the proper man in contact fiber that is going to bind to toxins in the gut, bind to mycotoxins bind to help you excrete your heavy metals. It’s gonna give you the fiber that your gut needs that you could safely do on your own. 

No problem. And it’s going to help you excrete ongoing li you could safely do parsley and cilantro. No problem. These are dietary approaches, right? You could eliminate alcohol because that’s huge If you’re drinking to drinks tonight and that’s going to significantly impair your body’s ability to to process the other toxins. So these are all very simple things. Get enough sleep when you sleep when you hit your deep sleep. The cells in your brain gets smaller. That allows the toxins and the debris from the day to drain out into the bloodstream. So if you’re not sleeping enough, excuse me or properly, you won’t detox manage your stress because again, if you’re too stressed, it’ll shut your system down. So these are all things you can do alone. You can take a nice little Sistine and awfully poke acid to support the liver’s ability to make glutathione to pull out the toxins. Again, safe things to do on your own. You don’t need oversight. But what you don’t know is what’s your data, you know, how much do you have? And are you putting your attention and finances on the right needle? Are you moving the right needle or not? So I would always recommend working with someone so that you’re not just doing stuff and spending money.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, thank you for mentioning the whole thing around the, you know, the three day, the weekend type of cleansing. Because I think so often that’s what happens as we go online or people go online. It’s like, oh, you know, I’m into efficiency. I know a lot of my clients are into efficiency. So it’s like if we can get this done in three days, like let’s do that. But it is you’re saying it’s such a lifestyle thing and it’s a program. So do you have anything else that you would recommend from a because I feel like another thing that comes up in, you know, in toxins and working with toxins is this whole concept of her cursing the whole concept of, we’re going to have to feel worse before we get, you know, feel better. And I feel like it’s a little bit of a debated area in the profession. So what are your, you know, thoughts, what’s your perspective on when you know, when with detoxing when we are doing things and more of a program, working with a practitioner and these sorts of things, when are we gonna push and say, we just got to get through this versus when are we going to say, Hey, that’s not a very good idea.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, this is great. I love distinguishing this. I love your questions. Diane we’re having, I’m having a great time. I think this is great. So when you think about this, the goal isn’t to make you suffer, the goal is to make you healthier. But sometimes yes, you will experience discomfort that the times that I’m totally fine with her saying and totally fine with, yeah, this don’t worry about it is if you’ve removed something that’s harmful to you. So say you’re altering the way you eat and I don’t say the word diet because it’s not temporary diet and temporary. This is really if you’re transforming the way you eat and you’ve removed processed food and sugar from your diet if you’re someone who is really high levels of yeast, you will hurt, you will feel terrible sometime between day five and day 14, you’re going to feel like a truck ran over you. But that’s a good thing. You’re actually detoxing from that. 

But we’re not. And that’s why when we do our candida protocols, we say to people, make sure you’re on that program for at least two weeks and feel fine before you start the medication because we don’t want to do anything that’s gonna make you hurts even worse because if you kill it and stop feeding the yeast at the same time and you have high body burdens, you’re gonna be sick. People don’t like that. So it’s good when you hurt when you start to remove something that’s harmful to you, then there’s the, when we’re removing something in your body that’s harmful to you and we actively do something. My personal goal is to minimize those reactions. So we have a pretty standard detox metals, heavy metals detox protocol that we have for people. But I say to people no one size fits everybody. So I have some patients who are super sensitive. So instead of six pumps of the liposomes glutathione, they could do one. And I see that, you know, when you do four, you have a crazy her works. It’s working really well, but we don’t need you to be that uncomfortable. So go back down until you have mild to no symptoms, you don’t have to suffer for it to work. You just have to keep getting better. But there are certain pain points and I would say herc sing when you remove something particularly food that you’re addicted to, you’re gonna hurt.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Thank you. I think that’s a really helpful distinction for people and I want seasons, we’re bringing up food. I think it brings us into that topic around other than organic like you mentioned and other than than just kind of cleaning up the from the toxic perspective more from like the nutraceutical perspective when somebody is detoxing, do you have a specific diet that you recommend? And let’s not use diet as you said, a specific food plan like you recommend because I find that so many people are so like so confused about what they read. And sometimes I find, I don’t know if you do where people will come in and they’re on a I. P. There on a low oxalate diet, they’re on a Los Angeles affiliate diet, they’re on a low histamine diet and they combined all these things and there are like six foods which is obviously problematic. So besides organic, how do you guys, how do you guide people around? Okay, we gotta detox. We’ve got to get your body functioning your liver functioning yourselves functioning. How are you guiding them down what particular organic positive choice foods to even choose? You know beyond just hey get the organic out or get the organic and the inorganic out. I mean.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah. And this again goes back to where are you on the eating spectrum, right? We all eat. So are you someone who’s eating out three times a day and all of your food is prepared by a restaurant that’s either fast casual or fast. You can go in and get it. You don’t have to wait for it to be prepared If that that’s one end and then the other end is you’re eating everything at home, You’re preparing everything yourself. Right. Those are the two extremes. So I think there’s a lot of room for, what style are you going to eat, meaning, are you going to be vegetarian? Are you going to eat flesh or there’s a lot of room for all different types of things and people know what works for them better than I can. But what I would say is wherever you are on that spectrum level up. So if you’re eating three meals a day out of the house, try to eat one meal a day that you’ve prepared yourself. That is minimally processed. So it’s not like replacing the Mcdonald’s burger or morning breakfast burger, It’s actually let’s go and and make myself an egg and bacon with a whole bunch of greens and eat that or a shake. 

But, but in some way level up from what you’re doing and make it less processed when you have a win, Make it harder. But don’t try to do your whole don’t go from three meals a day to cooking everything yourself because that’s not a recipe for success. So I really am a huge proponent of cruciferous vegetables. I’m also a huge proponent of microgreens because when they’re born they have the same nutrient density in them as they do when they grow up. So that tiny little handful of microgreens has more nutrients in it than a huge handful of adult greens. So you get more bang for your buck, even though they’re kind of expensive, you get more bang for your buck. So I’m a huge fan of microgreens uh and then I’m a huge fan of parsley and cilantro. I can’t see stand cilantro, I’ll eat as much partially as you want me to though. So finding some way to increase, like we have a whole list of foods that increase phase one and phase two. So working on what can you do to increase the phase one and phase two uh function through food because you can really heal yourself. You got to set the stage.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, I feel like one of the things that is just so well emphasizing your work is this baby steps one step at a time for success and I see that with what you’re describing diet too the same like I want to kind of go lifestyle approach to and let’s talk a little bit about from a lifestyle and you mentioned sleep, which is I think a super important thing that we have to mention beyond that when it gets into some of the other things we hear about in the field, You know, pulsed electromagnetic frequency, hyperbaric oxygen infrared could be far, could be near some of these other therapies that come up in the detox world. How much do you find that those are necessary? Do you recommend people just go try them on their own or be under the supervision of somebody. So you can talk a little bit more about some of those extra, you know, types of therapies that we do sometimes in functional medicine beyond some of these basics.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I honestly love them all. Diane. Yeah, I have a so, so we actually, instead of taking a family trip a few years ago for What will not be named. I’m not going to say that word because anyway, we took instead of a family trip, we finished our basement and we put a sauna in. So it’s a near mid far infrared sauna and I use it 3-6 nights a week, depending on that. I used to do it every day. But it’s just, you know, an hour every day gets a little bit much. So I cut it down to about 40 minutes, like five times a week is my goal. So that’s my favorite. And my favorite is hyperbaric oxygen. Honestly, there’s like those two were going to buy one for our practice and I can’t wait because I saw I’ll stay after work and use that. So if you have the resources ability access time, then I’m a huge proponent of it because everything is better than nothing, right? Take any step you can and then add any way into it that you can you can’t do it wrong though. If you say okay right now, all I can focus on is food, then I would say focus on the best food you can if you say okay I got food and a little bit of supplementation, then we make a plan based on that. So it’s all based on bandwidth, financials and time, right? But I’m a huge fan of all of those red light therapy dry brushing even, which is free. You can just it’s a little brush that you can brush your skin with. So I think everything is impactful over where you’re starting.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Perfect. And then what do you think we have not covered that you want to make sure that we leave everybody with? Do you think there’s anything that you we have left out that is just important for people to understand when it comes to toxins and detox.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I actually do think because I was thinking about in the realm of lifestyle. So we talked about sleep and stress. We didn’t talk about divesting yourself from toxic relationships because those will keep you sick. We didn’t talk about making sure that you’re living a life that’s consistent with your purpose and goals because if you’re living the wrong life with the wrong partner that will make you sick. That because that’s a stressor, right? These two things I just mentioned are stressors, they’ll shut down your detox. We didn’t talk about making sure you poop every day at least once a day. If not every time I remember learning this in med school, I thought it was crazy. Called the oro anal reflex. I already was developing celiac and was constipated by that point. So when they said every time you eat you should poop. I went what it’s called the oro anal reflex babies still have it. Older people like us should have it. So whenever you eat you should poop. That’s actually what we’re driven to do. So pooping at least once a day. And then so we did it all right, sleep and then making sure you have intimacy. It doesn’t have to be sex. But having special relationships in your life decreases your stress level, decreases your cortisol. Okay, so though it’s you can’t understate the importance of your environment and I mean you’re emotional, you’re emotional soup environment because you can’t be isolated. Isolation is a huge risk for disease.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, thank you for naming all that. And I think that the social isolation component definitely came out more in the that should not be named situation in life that we’re talking about. But I think it’s a really under talked about thing yet and health around our relationships and partnerships that are not healthy for us and and these types of things, friendships that are not healthy for us working relationships that are not healthy for us and the impact on the health in general, but in this conversation certainly under toxic stress. I really appreciate you bringing that up. I want to make sure we have time to tell everybody about your opt in. So you’re giving away so everybody on Dr. Trubow find the first chapter of her book, Dirty Girl as a opt in for you for free. So, do you want to tell us anything about that giveaway that you’re giving out?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I’m always interested in decreasing the barriers to transformation. And so so people might not want to buy the book, right? Like I don’t know, I don’t know if I like the book. So there’s the first chapter you’ll see if you like the book and we give away tips like how do you start to level up? Where do you go from from ground zero? Where do you go? But really whether it’s my book or something else, start the process today, right? Today’s a great day to make some kind of improvement in your health because we only have one life. We might as well make the most of it.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yeah, yeah. And I like the idea of starting right now, like why waste time because there’s always gonna be something else that gets in our way of tomorrow. And then also how tell us a little bit about some of the way you work in your clinic and other opportunities people have to work with you and to be involved in in the the world that you are in in medicine.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Sure. Thank you. We have a bricks and mortar practice in massachusetts. We take insurance. It’s a functional medicine practice. So that means that everything we do is founded on functional medicine. And we do a little bit of primary care, but mostly functional medicine. We have a membership practice because insurance just doesn’t allow us to keep the doors open given the time we spend with people. And then that’s one way for people to work with us. We also have online programs like the feel freaking amazing program which is an eight week, I’ll call it a reset because again, I really think that eight weeks is a start, right? But that gets you on, how should you be eating for you? How do you start cleaning out your health and your life and your your cleaning products and your makeup, and your hair products. It’s all about cleaning everything up and focusing on your mitochondria and the toxins around you and your hormones. So we have an online program. And then we also have quizzes on our website that people can take at five journeys dot com to look at, you know, how sick am I do? I really need you or just kind of need to

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Perfect. Perfect. Well all of that you guys can find on her speaker bio and thank you so much Wendy for being on the summit with us. I’ve enjoyed every moment of our time. Really, really appreciate you.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

My pleasure Diane. Thanks for having me here.