Environmental Toxins: Lethal Hidden Dangers

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I’m Laura. great to be with you.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, it is. We’re going to have a great talk about toxins today.  I want to introduce you to our audience. You’re an M.D., you’re an IFM-certified practitioner. You’re an absolute expert in toxins.  at one point you had the largest functional medicine practice in America. You still have a functional medicine practice on the East Coast. You have authored a book called Dirty Girl. You can see it right there behind you. Ditch The Toxins, Look Great, Feel Freaking Amazing. I love the way that you name books. It’s good. Are you free to say what your next book is going to be called? Because I shudder to think, What is it?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Sweaty And Bitchy. From sex to brain function, master menopause, and feel freaking amazing.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I love your story. You were a gynecology surgeon and dumped all that to work in functional medicine. I just love it. You and your husband have an amazing practice. I wanted to bring you on here because you’re an absolute expert in toxins. This summit is all about getting down to the root cause of what’s causing our issues and what’s causing our chronic health problems. Let’s get into it. Maybe we start with some myth-busting. What are some of the misconceptions about toxins, about the world we live in, and about the narrative that we’re being fed by, say, big food, big pharma, or the media? What is it? That’s why let’s talk about the untruths.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

What’s going on here?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Happening.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Laura, all those things you go to the doctor for, and you’re like, I have a little bit of a headache. I have a little bit of fatigue. You can’t lose weight. Whatever. Fill in the blank. The doctor says to you, Well,  you’re just getting a little bit older, or everyone in your family has that. Look at your family history. It’s just normal. You should expect it. You go home feeling like, okay, the future looks more of the same and is not very inspiring. That’s a huge myth. You don’t get sick because you get old. You get sick because the longer you live, the more toxins you’re exposed to those toxins make you sick.  Most of the time you can’t smell them or taste them or feel them. You only feel the impact of them. That’s the biggest myth. The thing that I’m dedicating my life to is you’re not getting sick because you’re getting old. You’re getting sick because the more toxins you accumulate the more you sick. Let’s pause there.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

We can stop now. That was perfect. It’s not a hormone problem. It’s not an adrenal problem. It’s not a thyroid problem. It’s not a gut problem. Those are all problems. But underneath that is the problem that needs to be solved, which is going to start making all those other systems come into balance.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You can’t get into balance until you’ve taken away that massive insult. For most of us, it’s not one thing I got to let exposure that caught the world’s attention. I got a diagnosis fast because everyone was talking about all 500 tons of lead that came out of Notre Dame. But for most people, it’s not one massive exposure. Even for me, I had a massive exposure on top of what I’ll call death by a thousand cuts. We have death by a thousand cuts every day from the things we’re eating to the things we’re putting on our bodies, to the look, I’m sitting on this gorgeous vegan leather chair. You can’t see it, but it’s a gorgeous vegan leather.

Guess what? That’s plastic.  Those are endocrine-disrupting it’s death by a thousand cuts. I’m sitting in front of these gorgeous lights that I texted you a picture of, but guess what? Those are EMFs.  You can’t get away from it if you live in the modern world.  oh, by the way, here’s my plastic-covered microphone, my plastic mouse, my air quality. It goes on and on. It would be valuable to talk about how we characterize these different toxins and how we get rid of them. But the second biggest myth is that you can get rid of all of them. You can’t.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You can’t. I was Iust talking to Evan Brand before you came on and he said, wait, I wrote it down because it was good. He said, There are no nontoxic people left in the world. Now we don’t want to paint a doom and gloom, but what we want to do is help you understand that there are strategies to live your best life in this toxic world. But before we go into that, we talk a little bit about the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. Are they protecting us?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

They have no teeth. They’re trying to chew our food with no teeth. No, the EPA and mainly if we are of the same age. We were both born in 1970, according to the EPA. The EPA is 53 years old, and in its lifetime, it has banned about nine substances. The last I read a year ago, they had not banned a substance since 1984. In other previous governments, their ability to enforce was taken away. they have a huge mission with very little enforcement ability and most companies are the way that toxins get to the EPA is their self referred. Well, if you make your business on some chemical use, you’re not going to self-refer. You’re going to you’re not going to say here’s a problem with my chemical because it would take your business. the whole system is very poorly designed because you’re not incentivized and we’re very different than Europe. You only have something removed from the market if it has a preponderance of the evidence. It states and shows that it’s harmful. Most of the things in Europe, you have to prove that it’s safe before you can use it. It’s a much better approach. But here it’s it’s still the Wild West and the EPA does not have the tools to monitor you. Take care of them.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

What I’m hearing is that this is your job. I’m by your side. I’m saying, good listeners, right now it is your responsibility to understand what’s harming you and take steps to help yourself because nobody’s coming to save you, least of all the EPA and the government.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Correct? Agree.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That’s a bold statement.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I want to go back to something you said to Laura before we go on. You said before we jumped into the EPA, you said it’s not about doom and gloom.  I agree inevitably hopeful and what I will point out, though, is that there’s a group of people who need things to be doom and gloom and need it to be scary and need it to be bad enough before they’ll take action. I’m here to tell you it’s time to take action. We can no longer wait. If you’re listening to the summit, it’s because you have some motivator for wanting to be healthy and if you’re hearing it, I’m talking to you, it is time to get healthy because you’re only going to get more of the same and worse.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I’ve been trying to have our audience understand that this isn’t a one-and-done experience. myself, all the speakers on this summit, Wendie, we’re constantly working on detoxing our bodies. It’s as normal as brushing our teeth. That’s as normal as taking a shower. It’s as normal as vacuuming our home. We work on detoxing our bodies because they’re constantly getting dirty, hence the Dirty Girl behind you. We constantly have exposures coming at us. I just did a test, a toxin test recently and I have cesium and thallium that is shown up out of nowhere. Is it a new exposure? Is it something my body’s finally safely feeling like it can get rid of? Because I’ve done much detox work and my cells are just pouring,  toxins out. It’s new stuff that’s showing up because my body’s finally ridding of it.  Who knows? But we can’t tell. Is this new or is this an old exposure? The point is, my body’s releasing it and this is going for us. Now, we have speakers coming here talking specifically about metals, or specifically about mold. I brought you here to talk to talk specifically about environmental toxins. But before we jump into all those environmental toxins, I would like you to discuss the relationship, the interplay, and the connection between molds, metals, and environmental toxins.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

 I love the story. I’m glad you asked this. Think of yourself like a rain barrel, okay?  Your rain barrel when you’re born is hopefully empty. Now, we know it’s not because when newborns are born there, you have anywhere from 100 to 250 to 350 chemicals in their umbilical cord blood. You don’t technically start life with an empty barrel, but imagine you have this empty barrel.  As you go through your life and you eat and you live and you have stressors and you have trauma and you have exposures. Don’t forget, being born is an exposure because when women are pregnant, they release up to 50% of their body stores of toxins into the fetus and it crosses the placenta. this rain barrel starts to fill up.

When you overfill your rain barrel, you have symptoms. What does that have to do with metals, mold, and other toxins? Well, each of them independently acts to start filling up your rain barrel. When I got that LED exposure I gained all that weight and my hair fell out and I had that rash and I felt awful.  my brain wasn’t working that was a clear example of my mucket being pretty full, my rain barrel. And then that lead exposure served as the final straw that overflowed it. But I was pretty full before we even got there. How they interplay is that metals are corrosive to the gut, mold is corrosive to the gut, and environmental toxins irritate the gut. When they essentially synergize with each other. When you have all of them in your bucket, your body, they all independently act to irritate and inflame the system, but then they synergize. now you’re like, What’s going on? I eat well, but I have irritable bowel or I have to bloat or I’m fatigued and I get enough rest. It’s those times when you think you should feel better than you do, and then you go, I’m just getting older. My response is, no, you’re getting more toxic. they all interplay and interweave to make you sicker.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

This is mind-blowing for people as they sit here and listen. There’s much that we need to unpack here, and much is affecting us. In terms of emptying that rain barrel and being able to get ahead of it. We want to move toxins out faster than they’re coming in. We do need to address metals. We do need to address mold toxins. We do need to address environmental toxins. But I want you to talk about those environmental toxins now. Where are we getting them from? It’s known that people are drinking toxins. We’re eating toxins. We’re breathing toxins. But it goes even deeper than that. Where are these coming from? And let’s talk about the main broad categories.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

This is when we started this work, it was because I was such a mess.  As I said,  I created a system to think about it just because otherwise it’s just this ocean of exposure. I’ll invite you to think about it as one category of exposure to environmental toxins is the things you deliberately put in your body. Your intentions are good.  I’m not calling anyone a bad person. Your intentions are good. You’re working hard. But we get toxins through the air, through eating and drinking. If our food has pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and IDS, we get those into our bodies. If we, for example, eat lots of organic vegetables from California that have a lot of thallium in them. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Remember, I’ve got thallium.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I know you eat organic now because you have thallium. If you eat organic food that the soil in California has a lot of thallium, you get exposed. If you live in an area where there are wildfires, when wildfires burn, particularly the pine needle trees, they are those forests that tore mercury. They’re very generous. They store mercury. But when they burn, they give it back to the environment. It’s heavy, it falls. if you see.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

California is the Mecca of forest fires, and I’ve got mercury showing up right now, too, which has been lower at other times in my life. That one is making a comeback. I’m wondering: is this a new exposure in the last couple of years? Is this like what’s going on?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It certainly can be. If anything that you put in your mouth is contaminated food, your body gets exposed. Then you say, Laura, we haven’t talked about this, but I’m hoping that your listeners don’t go crazy. But there are two things that I put in the category of these: the devil. Alcohol and sugar are the devil. Sugar because they feed you.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That’s a bold statement. Wendie Trubow.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

But I’m waiting for the meme to come out. Sugar is the devil. Sugar is extremely inflammatory and alcohol is not only extremely inflammatory, it shuts down your detox. So, everything else just builds up while you’re dealing with what I’ll call a clear and present danger, which is alcohol poisoning because that will kill you. Those two things you put in your mouth and they are devastating for your health, not to mention the herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, heavy metals, artificial colors, artificial flavors, and preservatives. All of those ways we deliberately put into our body, let’s pause. Questions, comments, or do you want me to keep going?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Keep going.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Don’t say another word. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Be disruptive. This is a disruptive summit. By the end of this, people will either be like, I love Laura and all her friends or this is crazy. But most of the time people hear it and they think, okay, they’re nodding their heads like, thank you for having a real talk. Thank you for not just standing in front of a podium in a stuffy medical conference and, not talking real. At the end of the day, you and I are human and going through the same experience that our clients and our patients are and they appreciate the real talk. Trust me, they would much rather hear the down and dirty.  you wrote a book called Dirty Girl. 

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

If you want to be ultimately optimally healthy, sugar and alcohol need to be eliminated or decreased. That’s just there’s no nice way to say it.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It’s funny. We are functional medicine practitioners who live here in San Diego, there’s a group of us that get together from time to time.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I’m very jealous of that. By the way, I don’t live in California, but I’m jealous of that community.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That community we’re here. There’s a lot of us in Southern California, we’ll get together and go to dinner. It’s funny. If nobody orders alcohol and everybody wants to be early for dinner and wants to be home by 8:00 they could be in bed by nine. We are the most boring group to hang out with. We love it. We love getting together and talking, but we don’t. Nobody drinks and everybody goes to bed early.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s good. You can’t detox on a broken foundation, not drinking and going to bed early are supportive of your system. I’m in line with all that. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Here’s the interesting thing.  people listening right now are like no possible way. I cannot give up my nightly nightcap or I can’t give up, that’s when I have my me time, from 10 to 11 or midnight, when everybody in my house is simmered down. Now it’s my time to do me. What I will tell you is, if it sounds impossible, once you start to heal and you start to feel better, you start looking for things that you can do to feel even better. Once you start removing these things and shifting these habits, you feel good when you wake up in the morning and you can get you’re productive in your day. You don’t want to do those things anymore. Trust me, it becomes a don’t even want to drink that or eat that and I don’t even want to stay up late anymore because I feel much better when I don’t 

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I would say for people who when I just said, you’re like, how would I cut down my alcohol? I  ask people, Are you looking for the actual alcohol? Are you looking for stress relief? Are you looking for an experience? Figure out why you’re drinking. Are you drinking because everyone’s drinking around you?  Well, don’t hang out with those people, or then you’re looking for the experience. get sparkling water with a little bit of juice in a glass that looks like an alcoholic drink. You don’t want to look different if you’re trying to fit in, but if you’re drinking alcohol because you feel like it’s reducing your stress, it’s not technically. Let’s look for other ways to replace that. If you’re drinking alcohol because you’re addicted to it, then we have a different issue. We’re going to figure out what’s the issue that we’re solving. But for a lot of people, we’re looking for that experience. I say to people, get your drink, sit where you normally sit, do what you normally do, but just don’t do it with the alcohol, replace it or have a spritzer where you have 10% alcohol and 90% nonalcoholic that you tilt the scales. We’re just looking to tilt that seesaw enough that you can tilt it towards health and away from illness.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Exactly. As perfect as possible? This is what we talk about all the time in my community. I talk about traditions, culture, and family.  there’s a there’s a lot of experience around food and beverage. This is a  charged topic when we start telling people asking people or inviting people to start shifting the way that they’re experiencing food and beverage and family experiences. I’m like one of those I’m one of those people. It’s like on Thanksgiving, on Christmas, on New Year’s, like, do your thing, have your family fun. Like, don’t give up the family traditions. But unless you have celiac disease and should not be eating gluten. But others otherwise enjoy their family, have the experiences, and do well 95% of the time.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You’re funny, Laura, because I never thought about that. But like, I don’t need sugar. I made pies this year because they were pretty. I made a purple pie and I made a cranberry pie and that one was bright. They were both bright purple and bright red, bright reddish pink. But the recipes both called for over a cup of sugar in a pie. We’re talking like this big. It called for a cup of sugar.  I was like, no way. I cut it down by about 60%.  I would invite people to look at how can you level up and still have the experience. And the avoidance of pain is a huge motivator. If you feel good, don’t take yourself,  just to fit in because you don’t want to make a wave.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I want to dig deeper into more categories of toxins. I want to talk about solutions before we go into that second part of our talk, though, which will continue here in a moment. I want to thank you very much for joining us today. To our audience, I hope you’re finding our conversation insightful and helpful if you’re a summit purchaser. Stay right here, because we’re about to dive even deeper into this discussion with Dr. Wendie Trubow. If you’re not, click on the button on this page to get access to a continuation of this conversation and many others, and get the tools you need to reclaim your health. If you’re watching this continuation of my talk with Dr. Wendie Trubow, thank you for being a valuable member of our community. We’re going to dive right back in. Dr. Wendie, I would like to talk about some other categories of toxins. We’ve covered some food toxins and air toxins. What about things that we don’t even think about could be toxic to our environment? Everything from our furniture to the materials that are how the home is built to the soap that we use for our laundry to that concealer that we put under dark circles under our eyes or the anti-wrinkle cream or, whatever it is that we’re using or the even things that we’re giving our children, toys. What do you have to say about all these categories?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You just straddle the other two categories. the second category. the first category is what you’re putting in your body: food, drink, alcohol, sugar, water, whatever. The second category is anything that you’re putting on your body. That’s your head to toe, your hair coloring, your hair products, including your shampoo, conditioner, whatever you’re using to keep your curls tamed or your hair not frizzy, whatever that is, the makeup you’re putting on your skin. But before that, before you put your makeup on, you tone your skin, you moisturize your skin, you put on that anti-wrinkle and the anti-dark spot cream and all of those things. The lotion that you’re moisturizing with, the clothes that you’re wearing, did you dry the clean your clothes? Are they full of formaldehyde? Are they not full of formaldehyde? Did you wash them with something safe or not safe? That’s a category, especially for people who do a lot of self-care. That’s a category that’s it’s often rife with exposure because by the time as women, by the time we sit down to do our day, we’ve been exposed to 250 chemicals. A lot of them. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Let me talk about this for a second, because people want to know, like, Laura, you’re 51 years old. What the heck are you doing to look the way you do? I’m going to give some full transparency non-negotiables right now, and I’m going to follow it with my recent test. I have full transparency. I color my gray hair. I’ve been gray since I was 18. I have been coloring my hair the majority of my life and I do it every two weeks because I am I have a skunk striped and I am gray. this is my community knows this over and over and this is my non-negotiable. I color my hair. It’s my thing. What I don’t do I don’t do my nails. I don’t have lash extensions. I don’t have tattooed eyebrows. I pencil them in every day. I don’t there are a lot of things I don’t do.  I have swapped all of my skincare products from moisturizers to anti-wrinkle and there’s a lot of good products out there.

You guys, you just can’t shop at Target for them. You just can’t shop at Nordstrom for them. You have to go online and find clean products. Wendie’s book is probably full of suggestions and recommendations there, my website is full of suggestions and recommendations, but here’s my claim to fame. Even with my non-negotiable, I just ran a toxin test, the one that I found, cesium and thorium. I have,  like zero environmental toxins. I got no parabens, I got no phthalates. I got all the organic compounds. I got nothing crystal squeaky clean. Now, this is because of the products I switched out, but it’s also because of my regular detox routine that I do just like brushing my teeth. I’m going to have my non-negotiable and I’m going to live a real life in a first-world country and be a modern woman and fight aging. I’m going to keep my detox pathways.  I just have to get off that soapbox. First thing I say it is possible, you do not have to be,  to run around with stinky armpits and no makeup and gray hair if you don’t want to know.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Again, perfection is not the goal. The goal is to improve enough that your body’s natural processes can take over. My non-negotiable is that I have magnetic eyelashes. That’s my non-negotiable.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You have beautiful eyes. I love them.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

But I’ve got eyelashes on. That’s my non-negotiable. I don’t yet color my hair. I said to my husband, I cannot cope with that. I am just not organized enough. If you want a woman who does not have gray hair, you’re going to need to get another woman. He was like, We’re good.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I don’t think you have a gray hair issue.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Do you have a gray swath? Hold on. Let’s see. Can you see it?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It’s barely.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I have a lot, but it’s there.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I’m like 80% gray at this point.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s beautiful to have it be.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Gorgeous. I’m not ready.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

When you’re ready, I’ll cheer you on. That second category is all the stuff that you’re putting on your body. Again, you don’t have to be perfect; you just have to be better. That’s the stuff you put on your body. Then you touched on all that other stuff. That is your air quality and water quality in both. Air and water quality, according to a 1989 study from Massachusetts, and I’m from Massachusetts, indicated that one in every six deaths can be traced back to air or water quality. That was in 1989. It’s gotten worse. The air quality that you’re breathing, the water that you’re drinking—these can be highly contaminated. The products that you’re using for your furniture to clean your home—for while I mentioned the EMFs—anything that is around you, particularly if you’re doing construction on your home that often has volatile organic compounds, VOCs. These are pro-cancer-forming. If you get a new bed, there’s a flame retardant in it. Guess what? That is thyroid disruption. That’s part of your endocrine system. That throws off the system. And then, don’t forget, one out of every two buildings has had mold damage. I’m sure Nafisa talked about this: that it’s almost impossible to get away from water-damaged buildings between our home, school, or work and our dorms, where we hang out. Visiting a friend, we went to look at a property three months ago, and I got three steps into the house, and I went, No, this house has mold. I left. But not everyone’s lucky enough to experience it very quickly; you can get mold exposure.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

This is a blessing and a curse. You have very bad mold detox pathways. Yes, immediately. That’s good. You have like spidey sense for mold, but it’s not. What happens when you check into a hotel and there’s mold there and you’re there for a conference, you’re stuck or you got to move?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Know that there’s an upside. If you’re sitting there thinking, “Oh, I’m like that, and it’s awful.” No, it’s good that you can protect yourself. It’s an upside. That other category is everything around you—your car’s 10,000 chemicals. essentially, unless you’re clear that it’s clean.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

All that new car smell is not good for you. People who love new car smell, I hate it. It gives me a headache. It makes me feel sick. I’m very sensitive to fragrances. I know my genetics. I’ve done my DNA company. I know that I suck at my detox pathway. I’m one of those people who feels it when I get in a new car. I hate that smell. It makes me sick. I’ve dumped all my perfume. I had all these beautiful, expensive perfumes, Chanel and I was like this stuff makes me sick every time I put it on. I cannot do this anymore.  

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Laura, you’re like you’re like the epitome of that old joke where the guy goes dark. It hurts when I do this. What should I do? I  meet everyone who comes to my house. They can’t wear perfume. I can’t stand the smell. I’m like, If you’re going to come to my house, you have to take your shoes off. You can’t wear perfume. Those are the ones, and it’s gluten-free. Those are the three rules. If you don’t like the rules, we can Zoom otherwise. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I’ll have a coffee date via Zoom.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Where you slather it on. We don’t let patients wear perfume in our office either because we have many sensitive people, including myself, that we just said, this is a safe space. No cologne, perfume, no smells. If I can smell you more than, like, six inches away, that’s too strong.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I want to invite people watching right now to let go of their people pleaser and let this be an inspiration and an example to you of what’s possible when you stand in your power and say, these are the rules in my life. If you’re going to be in my life, this is how it’s going to go.  you have to say it like that and do it nicely. But stand in your power and don’t be you do it in an empowering way. You don’t have to be a high-maintenance relative. Get some labs done and show them my detox pathway sucks. This is why this is happening. Do you see I have all these exposures here it is in black and white. This is what’s happening.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Let’s back up a step. I don’t know that people understand that when you have things that are scented, the delivery mechanism to make that scent stick around is endocrine-disrupting. Air fresheners, diffusers, and perfumes, all fall into that category of endocrine disruption because what’s used as the delivery mechanism makes them potent, but it also makes them bad for you. But here’s what I’ll tell you. Look, I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’m old. I’m older than you. what I say to people is that doesn’t work for me or I don’t feel well when I do it. Those are two things that nobody can argue with. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I used to tell a story about the day I fell in love with you. You were at a medical conference, and we went to this dinner. We were invited to this dinner together. You sat across the table from me in this fancy steakhouse, like, fancy. They were bringing towers of seafood, and it was all family-style. It was just this beautiful display of food. You’re sitting there, not eating anything. When the main course came, you were under the table, you had a little ice chest, and you pulled up your little metal bento box, a takeout container that you had prepared in your hotel room. You bring a full kitchen with you when you travel because you are a severe celiac. If you get gluten, you’re done. You were speaking at this conference; you couldn’t afford your brain to go south. You were here at the steakhouse and you put your your dinner on the table and you just started eating it while everybody else was,  being served. I’m like, who is this woman? Like, she’s powerful. She has no problem being here at this dinner and just bringing her food. I’ve been to multiple dinners with you where we went to a fancy place. Remember the Greek place where we all it was here, you put this on the table, I got my food and I’m here to socialize and have fun and I’ll have a beverage, and here’s, my dinner. You stood in your power because that didn’t work for you and it doesn’t affect our friendship or our ability to have fun. That’s Wendie like Wendie does Wendie, Laura does Laura. And we just do it in the same space.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

No judgment. No, but I have gotten peer pressure for not drinking. I stopped drinking when my second kid was like a year old because I drank a whole bottle of Saki myself. Taste agree. But it took me a month to recover. I wasn’t hungover; I was messed up, and I said to myself, if you have no adrenal proper function and until you can tolerate small amounts, you cannot tolerate large amounts, and we’re not going to do any. I stopped drinking, but I’ve had people over who are like, You should drink. Like, why? I don’t feel good when I drink. Like you should still drink. I’m like, I don’t feel good when I drink, but thanks.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You still get pleasure. We’re not drinking. We’ve done some fun trips in Las Vegas and been to some crazy places where you didn’t drink.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I don’t drink. I don’t like how I feel when I drink. It’s very hot for people who are into peer pressure. It’s very hard to counteract the comment. I don’t feel good when I do it because then you’d be like, You should feel bad when you do it. Nobody says that to you. It doesn’t work for me, is what I say to my kids when they propose some cockamamie thing like, Oh, that doesn’t work for me.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I don’t feel good when I do that. These are no fucking opening statements. In the time we have left, what I love to do is cover the main categories there. Any other category we need to cover?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Just those three, in, on, and around.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Now keeping ourselves safe. So strategies around staying safe and getting these toxins out of our bodies.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I have to be honest with you, Laura; it’s not that interesting, and it’s not that sexy. The majority of what I’m going to recommend is stuff that 80% of people can do. If you’re listening to this, you can do this. Focus on the foundations of your health. What do I mean by that? Put food in your body that looks like food that isn’t preserved, and you don’t need to read a whole bunch of labels for food that’s minimally processed. You can cook your vegetables but don’t cook them to death. There should still be some nutrient value in them for the broccoli. It should be bright green. You want your food to be pretty. It’s pretty food. Move your body regularly, get sweaty, and sleep enough. Most people, particularly North Americans, are chronically underslept. Get to bed by ten because, after ten, your adrenals kick out a second wave of cortisol that can impair your sleep. There is a reason to go to sleep by ten. It’s because you kick out cortisol if you don’t. Make sure you poop every day at least once. After all, otherwise, you’re just building up toxins in your gut, and that messes up your hormones and puts you at risk for endocrine dominance. You don’t want that. Eat, sleep, move, poop, and de-stress every day. That’s the foundation. Then it’s not sexy. We’re not like, Here’s the lean mean machine.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

There’s no magic pill. These are not what some will say.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

That’s it. That’s the magic pill. But it’s not sexy.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

There is not a supplement protocol that I can use to substitute that.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

then,  we just completed our program, and every week we go to people. Okay, now we’re going to wash, rinse, and repeat. We’re going to do the same thing every week because consistency and maintaining yourself are where the value is. Because then you can tolerate those excursions on the holidays. That’s the first step: manage your foundations. The second step is that: as you run out of something, Rome wasn’t built in a day; you were not going to fix your toxin exposure in a day. Don’t freak, out because that messes up your stress. Just know that when you run out of something, that’s when you want to level up. You’re running out; level up. Do you want me to mention specific brands that I love here? Let’s make it easy on you because I’ve made all the mistakes you don’t have to. My favorite brands for facial care and facial products are Purity Woods, Beautycounter, and Vintage Traditions. Those are the things that I use for skincare. Then, for makeup, I use Mineral Fusions and Beautycounter. To clean my house, I found a great brand. It’s EWG Environmental Working Group-certified. They have; I’ve made some mistakes and not gotten the best. Now I’ve gotten the best: AspenClean.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

AspenClean, I don’t know about that one.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

They’re fantastic.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I love Branch Basics, and I love Truly Free.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I don’t know them, but I love Branch Basics. I just happened to put Aspen in the AutoShop because they have window cleaner, floor cleaner, bathroom cleaner, laundry detergent, etc. They have everything. It’s just easy, and it’s on AutoShop.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I might change your life in the laundry world with Truly Free.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Truly Free, I’ve outsourced it, but yes, I’m happy with anything that makes it better.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

My teenager said, Mom, I love the smell of this. Can you get this more often? Like, what is it? What teenager cares about cleaning products? It’s all essential oil-scented. We’d like a scent if you like unscented. They do have an unscented one as well. But if you like scents, which we love, we have essential oils around our house. This is amazing. But anyway, AspenClean. I had to check that out. What else did you get?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

We were talking, and I got distracted. Things you can do as you run out of something to level up.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Do you have any good hair products? Like, that’s a thing that is so hard. The hair products.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s like Organic Baby. I haven’t used it in a couple of months because I stopped using the product on my hair. I was just like, What do I need this for? 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

But for shampoo and conditioner.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Shampoo and conditioner. What was your Attitude toward shampoo and conditioner? I can’t think of the name of it. I’ll have to get that offline, but it’s in a brown bottle, and it smells lovely and they’re both good.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I think Sure is good too.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Here’s what I would recommend: Go to the Environmental Working Group at ewg.org. They have an app, and you can type in shampoo, conditioner, or hair products, and you can sort them by the cleanest. I go for one or two, and it goes all the way up to like ten. Don’t get the ten. If you look up what you have, you might have nailed it. Ten is bad.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

In most of the world, a ten means a perfect. In the EWG world, a ten means the worst; a one is correct.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Go for the ones or the twos if you can’t find something and systematically level up because it’s a new app.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

There’s a new app, by the way; are you familiar with Yucca?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yes, I’ve heard of it.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I haven’t used it yet. Why do you like Yucca plants? I’ve been playing around with that app, and they claim that it is bias-free. They don’t accept money from their companies that are there to rate them higher, like the Better Business Bureau. As a big frickin joke, you pay money to be part of the Better Business Bureau, and you can pay money to get a bad review. This is because my husband owns a business and paid for the Better Business Bureau forever. I was skeptical. Like, is Yucca like that where people pay and they claim they’re not? I’ve been playing with it, and you could do a bar code, and they have more products on it than EWG does. I feel like EWG is forever trying to catch up on products. But I’ve been testing my products and finding that they rate from 1 to 100. I scanned a product the other day that was a four, which is bad in that one. The higher, the better, or the lower, the worse it is. 100 would be better there. But anyway, look up that app to.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Okay. As you’re running out of things, level up, and then there’s some things that you can do, like. don’t get too close to the dry cleaner. Most people will say to me, but my dress and I’m like, you don’t need to dry clean it. Most things. I have one item that I am not sure how to wash, and I don’t wear it because I don’t know how to wash it. But for almost every other item that says dry cleaning, you can probably put it on a gentle cycle and wash it.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You can just spot-wash it. 

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Wash the stinky bits of it; you don’t have to wash the whole thing. The reason I’m picking a dry cleaning is because it’s the best, even the clean ones. I’m excited. I saw one that said, We’re clean. I was like, Great. I called him. I said, What do you use? He told me this thing that was this long, that the word was this long, and to write it out. then I had to go look the word up. I looked the word up. It’s just a fancy way of saying formaldehyde. I was like, But you’re clean because I knew it’s a clean form of formaldehyde. I’m like, No, dude, that’s a total oxymoron. There is no clear form of formaldehyde. That’s the stuff they use to preserve you when you’re dead. They’re not using that on my clothes. Don’t dry clean your clothes wherever possible.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Speaking of formaldehyde, you and I both got a lot of it when we were in medical school. You’re working over 12 hours, and these things are preserving your breathing. Great. a whole thing. 

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

They got them. I’m far away from medical school at this point because I’m old. That’s a benefit. Then you want to make sure that you’re filtering your air and your water, because, remember, air and water are implicated in lots of issues. Here’s where whatever you can do to the best of your budget is more impactful than doing nothing. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get everything, and it’s okay. This is probably going to be heresy, but it’s okay if you can’t deal with something right away to deal with it later. Don’t let it be a source of stress. Filter your air if you can use a portable filter that you take with you. Cool. If you can do a whole house, even better. We filtered the cars because both my husband and my oldest kid got new cars, and I was like, 10,000 chemicals later. We’re not going to do that.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

What do you like about the car filter? Let’s talk about that.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

IQAir, ATEM. They make a portable; it’s about 12 inches; it goes on the back of the seat; and it filters the car.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

That is as Evan Brand suggested in his interview. That’s two of you now who are saying this is the product.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Great minds think alike and are false; never disagree. Here we are. Filter the air in your car, filter the air in your home, or test it to see how it is. Then,  my husband thought I was nuts when I went through this crazy, toxic overload, and we’ve spent the last four years. It takes a long time. It’s not an overnight thing. But about two years ago, I said to my husband, We got to filter the water because we live in a municipality, and technically it’s good, but there’s FPAS that they’re not even testing for. We filter this.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

The FPAS Forever chemicals are the ones that are in nonstick cookware.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Endocrine disrupting.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

In sporting equipment that’s flame-retardant and waterproof.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

When they show pictures of putting the catsup on a shirt, it doesn’t stain. Those are endocrine disorders.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

When you go camping, your little tent has all kinds of flame retardant, crap, and water repellent sprayed all over it.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

We filtered our water, and we thought our water was pretty good. What was amazing was that our filters filled up. They told me when I bought the system that, oh, you’ll need to replace that filter every two years and this filter every year, and the big filter needs to be replaced every year and the little filter needs to be replaced every six months. On the one hand, I was like, It’s expensive. Then I kept thinking about all those things I didn’t get exposed to. You can’t study yourself; you don’t see the parallel track of what you didn’t get. You can’t see that. But it’s very impactful because the water is different. When we filter, especially with a new filter, we can feel the difference in the water. It’s amazing. I highly recommend filtering those things. then if you can get a leather chair, if you need a new chair, do that. If you’re getting a new bed, get one without flame retardants because you don’t need to sleep on it.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You have a brand that you like.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I do. My favorite is Birch, and my second favorite is Avocado. Birch has the most certifications and Avocado does not have as many certifications, but they’re both good, they both have toppers, they’re both firm, and I like a soft bed. I got two toppers for my Birch bed. We’re filtering the air. If you’re going to do construction on your home, don’t use products that are off-gas. Just like that new car smell, there’s that construction smell that aims for products that don’t smell. That includes paint; no VOC paints because it takes forever for them to go off-gas. Don’t use them. We found a stain from Vermont coatings. It’s good for the outside and inside; you can use it on your treads on your stairwell. We used it on our chicken coop because I said, well, why would we put toxic stuff on the chicken coop? Then we’re going to eat the eggs.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

There’s something.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I didn’t want my chickens to be toxic to make any sense. Vermont natural coatings make an indoor nature. It’s derived from way. If you’re severely allergic to dairy, you probably shouldn’t use it. But otherwise, everyone else should be fine. Once it’s dry, I would imagine it’s not.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It might not even be the way in dairy that you’re allergic to. It could be some other component.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I would start with those things because they’re very impactful. But again, you cannot detox on a broken foundation; you must eat, sleep, poop, move your body, and de-stress every day. I love that it’s the foundation that’s the boring stuff. But you do the sexy stuff.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

In the last few moments that we have here, I would love to hear final words of encouragement and support, and I would love for our audience to know where to find you, how to get in touch with you, how to work with you, and how to get your book through this. It’s on the bookshelf behind me here.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

The most important thing to remember is that you are on a journey, and you’re not going to be perfect. You’re going to have setbacks and detours. It’s all part of the journey, and you’re meant to take it like that. It’s okay. Don’t go crazy with small things. Focus on just moving forward every day. You will make massive improvements over a year. Don’t give up. It’s not perfection. It’s an improvement that you’re focusing on. That’s the inspirational thing. On all social media, I’m @wendietrubowmd. We have a Brick-and-Mortar in Massachusetts. If you feel like you need functional medicine with insurance coverage, we do that in Massachusetts. It’s a membership practice; that’s fivejourneys.com. Then we have an online brand for people who might not want to come to Boston in the winter. That’s drwendie.com. which has programs, coaching, testing, supplements, and community. It depends on where you want to go. Then, if you want the book, you can get chapter one at drwendie.com, or you can get the book itself from Amazon. I would recommend if you type in if you want the book, don’t just type in Dirty Girl because you’re not going to get the book, you’re going to get something else. Take your Dirty Girl Trubow book or detox book, and that’ll lead you in the right direction. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You don’t want to end up on a porn site. This is like the thing you didn’t realize when you named the book, which is funny. I hope that Bitchy and Sweaty doesn’t end up down the wormhole as well.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I don’t think it will. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

For people wondering, what am I talking about? That’s your next book.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

That’s a book to know. Dirty Girl has been censored by Facebook because they thought we were porn and we’re like, We’re advertising supplements, guys. It’s not porn. But the things you don’t know and learn you don’t know, you don’t know.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

We looked hilarious. Wendie, it is an absolute pleasure to chat with you, to spend time with you, and to do life together. I’m honored to be your friend and glad that you came on to speak with the audience. Thank you very much for all the wisdom that you’ve dropped on our audience today.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Laura, my pleasure.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Right back at you. until next time, everyone. Take care, bye now.