Full Transcript 0:00 I was a software designer in Silicon Valley, and you're probably familiar with some of the companies I've worked. 0:06 I worked at Netflix, Silicon Graphics. 0:08 And so a new device came out, like the Palm Pilot came, out I had it the day it came. 0:13 All the new stuff that came on, I have it for everybody else. 0:15 The bad news and the good news is I got sick then before everyone else, didn't know what it was. 0:30 Hi, welcome to the MAPS webinar series, Healing Tomorrow's Future. 0:34 We are thrilled to be bringing you this series packed with valuable information and education within our community. 0:41 My name is Honey Rinusella and I'm the Executive Director of MAPPS, the Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs. 0:48 Within these webinars, we're able to empower clinicians on the knowledge and tools to support patients facing a variety of health challenges. 0:56 For more information on MAPS or to register for a conference, please visit us at www.medmaps.org. 1:11 Thanks for joining us on this journey towards a brighter, healthier future. 1:17 Tell me a little bit more about what you do and what offer. 1:20 Are we rolling now or no? 1:23 Yeah, we are rolling. 1:24 We are on. 1:28 I was a software designer in Silicon Valley and you're probably familiar with some of the companies I've worked. 1:37 Silicon graphics. 1:38 And so I was in Silicon Valley during the internet bubble for, if you know excite.com, I ran the front page of Excite So I worked my way up to Silicon 1:48 valley from customer support all the way, up, to an engineer and then a principal software designer and But I was getting sick, 1:59 and so were my kids. 2:00 So my kid's had some developmental delays. 2:03 And just so you know, I love technology. 2:09 I have two friends who are cell phone designers. 2:13 Yeah? 2:14 I'm one of those guys that had a new device came out, like the Palm Pilot came, out I had it the day it came. 2:21 So and I frequently knew the people who designed it and was really a big fan and so everything that came all the new stuff that Came out I had it for everybody else. 2:32 Well The good the bad news and the good news is you know, I got sick then before everyone else I didn't know what it was And it took me a while to figure 2:42 it out. 2:42 It actually took about I would say I started to feel in about 2004, I remember sitting down in front of my computer and I had moved offices and had a little 2:55 screen in the front, a glare screen that was grounded at one point that I put on my 20-inch monitor. 3:03 I didn't have it on and sat down and felt it. 3:06 like sitting in front of an old TV close, have you ever gone close to a TV and you feel that, whatever? 3:11 Well, I was sitting front a 20-inch TV, an ol' cathode ray tube, shooting, basically an electron gun was shooting me in the head all day long. 3:20 And so, my dad was a doctor and was always concerned about radiation exposure, used to keep us away from televisions and that sort of thing, 3:28 and so when he saw me sitting infront of a twenty- inch monitor all-day with a computer, he was like, dude, you know, what's going on, 3:35 but I loved it. 3:36 And that was the place to be. 3:38 I really wanted to in Silicon Valley. 3:40 But I did start feeling effects. 3:45 It took me a while. 3:46 At the time, I thought I was having food allergies and fatigue, and I had a lot of things going. 3:51 So I probably had yeast allergy, Candida yeast, allergy. 3:55 Yeah. 3:57 Fatigue after eating some foods. 3:59 So I was investigating a lot of these things. 4:01 And so I thought at the time that I had, it turned out that, I though I high levels of mercury, which is what we were looking at in the early 2000s. 4:10 We were kind of just, that was kind the thing. 4:13 So, did have high-levels and sorted my kids and removed, and we removed those and ended up chelating. 4:20 And I thought, OK, I'm going to be fine. 4:23 But it turned out it was quite a pile up. 4:25 And i had an infected root canal. 4:28 I had TBIs. 4:30 This took... 4:31 I have Epstein-Barr virus and a lot of low-grade infections. 4:36 It was a bit of a pile up, and it made me more susceptible to environmental stuff. 4:40 So I would be susceptible mold or chemical exposures. 4:44 But then it became very clear that if I put a cell phone next to my head, I could feel it. 4:49 And it felt like a headache, basically, a dull headache. 4:52 I don't know if you had that experience at all? 4:55 I am very interesting about I'm very sensitive. 4:58 As you're talking, identifying with that. 5:01 So we'll find people, especially for women, it usually ends up being they get exposed to mold and then they become chemically and electrically sensitive. 5:12 For men, for me, I think it was more the toxic metals, but I the infected root canal was a huge factor as well. 5:20 It's kind of like think of it as a total load of oxidative stress. 5:22 Yes. 5:24 Total load of oxidative stress and EMF is part of that load and part it incredibly part that. 5:31 So it took me a while to, I had the experience and I thought, and remember even one point I actually took my phone and reactively threw it to the side. 5:40 And I was like, oh my gosh, my body is getting nutty. 5:44 I just thought my was being over reactive. 5:47 And then at some point I was like, well, somebody's wrong. 5:49 My body thinks this is safe and well tested. 5:51 I'm sorry, my head thinks, this safe, and while tested, I mean the tech industry and how could they roll this stuff out without tech, 5:57 right? 5:58 And, then my body is like no. 6:01 And, but I learned to respect my body more. 6:03 And then I found some of the science. 6:06 So I had a building biologist invite me to a conference in, in Silicon Valley at the Commonwealth club in silicon valley, 6:13 a very credible place. 6:18 And they started talking about, and I had also been funding and following autism work and hearing about... 6:25 I really was interested in the environmental factors. 6:28 I thought they would be chemical. 6:34 And I had one scientist, chief scientist in one of the nonprofits say, Peter, take a look at, watch out for the calcium channels because, 6:41 you know, we've got some of genes are along that pathway. 6:44 I think that might be a key pathway, so I'm in the EMF talk with all these scientists and they're talking about ion dysregulation. 6:54 And they start talking to about the Calcium channels and a huge bulb appeared above my head and I'm like, oh my God, is it possible that this calcium channel 7:05 dysregulation is part of the autism thing? 7:08 And I went home and re-read the science and it started talking about calcium influx and calcium dysregation, mostly influcks, 7:17 but outflux too. 7:20 So I sent it to a friend of mine who was an autism scientist at Harvard, Martha Herbert. 7:26 And I said, is this plausible? 7:30 I mean, this seems like she called me back actually swearing. 7:35 I can't even believe talking about that there was blood brain barrier breaches. 7:41 And she ended up writing a paper, 100-page paper with one of the EMF experts, a 100 page paper saying it is plausible, given that the known symptoms of EMT, 7:55 known symptom of autism, match known of symptoms EMFT, is possible to consider this as a possibility. 8:02 And so she published that. 8:04 The 100 paged paper got broken down into two smaller segments for publishing, and that went out in 2013. And I thought, okay, 8:11 great. 8:11 So now this is all going to go crickets. 8:14 Nothing happened. 8:15 Yep. 8:17 So I heard one other doctor, Martin Paul, came out and started talking about this on video and said, oh, we're talking the calcium channels again. 8:26 And he was a biophysicist trained at Caltech. 8:31 What could be more credible than that? 8:32 And so I called him up and I said hey, would you be willing to write a paper on this? 8:37 He goes, yes, I will. 8:40 There are other factors. 8:41 Autism is not the biggest priority here. 8:43 I think we've got mental health and heart disease. 8:46 The calcium channels are most dense in the neurons and in heart. 8:51 And those are going to be more widespread. 8:54 Okay, I agree with you. 8:57 But I said, well, would you at least just do a quick talk, a slide deck at an autism conference? 9:03 And he agreed to do that. 9:04 So he spoke at a couple autism conferences and we got his deck. 9:08 And that was in 2016, 17. And still, so we got a little bit of word out there and I still waited for the paper. 9:15 Well, 2024, he came out with a paper and honestly, it was the most cohesive and inclusive autism paper I've seen that really talked about intracellular 9:26 calcium being kind of a key common factor in autism, excess intracellular, calcium coming from EMF, manmade EMT that's disrupting the calcium channels 9:38 and chemical exposures. 9:40 that were going through the NMDA receptor, the glutamate receptor like glyphosate. 9:48 So that made a lot of sense to me. 9:50 And then when he did the paper, which was he came out in 2024, it was fabulous because he had narrowed down chemicals down to 12 classes of excitatory toxins. 9:59 And there were things you know that have you've talked about. 10:01 Yeah. 10:02 Tylenol. 10:03 I mean, and he gets into Tylinol and glyphosate. 10:07 And so he really he linked some. 10:10 You have to look at the paper, but it's if you search for Martin Paul, P-A-L-E Martin, Paul Autism, you'll see the. 10:17 It's about 37 pages. 10:18 That's quite complex and deep. 10:19 . I've done a mind map of it on my website. 10:23 and that tries to show you all the different categories. 10:25 Because I had done that before, but I didn't have a scientific paradigm around it. 10:29 We all kind of speculated, hey, what about glyphosate? 10:32 What about this? 10:33 And we didn' really narrow the pathway down so much. 10:37 And there's certainly more. 10:39 It's not an entirety of all of the experience of what's going on with autism parents. 10:44 But it's the most comprehensive thing I've seen. 10:49 I think it's really interesting. 10:53 So I'm excited to have that out there. 10:56 And now I take the question is, what do you do? 10:58 I know. 10:59 I was just going to say, I am thinking as you're talking, because that's my primary case. 11:04 My clients are complex autism. 11:06 Okay. 11:09 When they see me and they're bringing their iPads and their iPhones, that is a regulation strategy for them. 11:17 And I agree with you on this. 11:20 I read it. 11:22 And parents are like, look, the alternative is complete and utter dysregulation. 11:28 So it captivates the kids. 11:32 There's definitely this addiction captivation thing. 11:34 Yes. 11:35 Victoria Dunkley is a psychiatrist from LA who was on screen time back in 2007. She's been actually getting people off of screen. 11:46 So the issue is, it's addicting for adults and children. 11:50 Of course, yes. 11:51 But it is addricting, but then it actually, you think it regulating, But its actually dysregulating. 11:58 I agree. 12:00 It's really hard to get over the addiction. 12:01 As a Silicon Valley person, I was addicted to computers in the 80s. 12:05 and locked in. 12:06 And it took a long time to kind of like wean things down and to go down. 12:13 Because the excitement, that excitatory factor, it's a lot like MSG with food. 12:18 So you put MSD in food and that addictive pathway creates addiction. 12:27 The NMDA receptor in the glutamate creates an excitement that says that something important is happening in your body and you get that boost, 12:34 right? 12:35 So you do need to kind of like wean off of it. 12:38 And what I tell people to do, I think getting people off like addictions, like food addicitons and screen addicitions are hard. 12:47 So what, and we will fight with your own spouse, there'll be fighting in the family between usually the mom, usually stereotypically the Mom is more sensitive 12:57 and aware of and then the dad is tech pro and it can be vice versa. 13:01 There's all kinds of stuff going on. 13:04 So you can get a lot of conflict in the family. 13:07 And I had that in my family with food stuff. 13:10 So I got kind of blocked out. 13:12 I have a kid with milk allergies and the mom was still giving the milk. 13:18 And so it was a little bit challenging. 13:20 And we both worked for tech companies. 13:22 So it hard for us, we had a lot of identity around low situation. 13:27 What I actually recommend is to focus on the sleep environment first. 13:31 If you can clean up the sleeping environment, so you turn off the Wi-Fi, but usually right now, people who've got fitness trackers. 13:38 We've a fitness tracker with a Bluetooth. 13:41 You've frequently parents with the cell phone next to the bed. 13:44 Even you've kids sleeping with phone under the pillow. 13:47 And we've got data showing if you give a kid a phone before 13, there's some potentially long-term consequences, hopefully not long term. 13:56 So what you probably want to do is start having a digital bedtime. 14:02 OK. 14:02 Let's say the kid's bedtime is 9. You may want a bedtime an hour before that for the digital devices. 14:11 So there's a little bit of a wind down. 14:13 So we've got multiple factors when we're dealing with screen time. 14:30 is also excitatory for the nervous system. 14:34 So part of the winding down is getting away from the blue light, not just to calm down, but it will... 14:43 Your melatonin will not... 14:45 It will dis... 14:45 What do you call it? 14:46 Turn off. 14:47 It'll suppress. 14:48 Blue light will suppress melotonin. 14:51 When I was just learning about all this stuff, I remember getting... 14:55 full spectrum lights in my office. 14:57 And I thought it was the greatest thing. 14:59 I am so energized, I'm staying up late, and I don't need to sleep as much. 15:05 No one tells you this stuff. 15:09 So what the confusing part is, is you think you're feeling, dysregulation feels exciting and energizing. 15:19 And so it's like coffee. 15:20 You're kind of like, I'm a coffee achiever. 15:22 And I didn't really understand this whole nervous system balance thing. 15:26 I don't understand sympathetic, parasympathetic. 15:28 and I did understand that when you're in fight or flight mode, your body's gonna release this energy to run and everything. 15:35 Matter of fact, one of the doctors I talked to who worked on screen time stuff, had this brilliant thing and said, when your bodies in fighter flight, 15:43 it is not safe. 15:45 Your body does not feel safe to have two feet on the ground. 15:48 So it's a very, and Dr. 15:50 Dunkley talks about this too, it is a mixed signal for biology. 15:54 You're having a stimulating experience which feels like you should be running. 15:57 Like you're watching Jurassic Park, but you are sitting down. 16:01 So you've got all this cortisol, all of this energy being released. 16:05 And then it needs to move. 16:09 It needs just wind down and stop. 16:11 So I would say start with a digital bedtime. 16:14 And everything goes in these little boxes. 16:16 They have these beautiful things on Amazon now. 16:18 These little Faraday boxes, and you throw these things in there. 16:22 What it does is you not only get the screen and the content to go away, but the blue light will go and then also the wireless throwaway. 16:30 So a lot of the studies you're seeing now in screen time, there's a confounding factor, which is they're frequently also studying wireless. 16:38 And wireless, it's not just the blue light causing oxidative stress, It's the wire itself. 16:43 Wow. 16:44 OK. 16:44 And the content. 16:45 Yeah. 16:46 Even a new one I just found is just switching, having a lot of switching scenes. 16:53 Every time a scene switches, your amygdala rescans for safety. 16:57 So it's kind of like amyglala exhaustion. 17:00 Oh my gosh. 17:01 We're not designed to have this many screen. 17:05 It's like living five lifetimes in a day. 17:08 You know what's interesting on that? 17:09 Two things that popped into my mind. 17:10 The first thing, just before I forget, I was watching a cartoon or, no, it wasn't a cartoony, It was a show from the 80s, 17:21 right? 17:22 Just in the, there's a sitcom. 17:25 And I was like sitting there and I'm going, this is slow. 17:28 This is slowly. 17:29 It's it's cut in it. 17:31 Yes. 17:31 Very slowly, it is almost boring. 17:33 You go back to things and it like, hey, when do we get on with this? 17:36 Right. 17:36 Totally. 17:37 Except for me, though, that was what was interesting is calming. 17:41 Right? 17:41 And that's what I noticed. 17:43 I Was like wow, I am not feeling so when you said sitting watching Jurassic Park, just it hit me. 17:51 Okay, that's I felt the difference between the two, you know when I was watching that Joe I Was like this is actually relaxing Exactly. 17:59 Yeah, go so my friend Len did a podcast with me Len who's here? 18:03 I know one and Len Len said after you did the podcast He says his way a great way of summarizing he says Peter what your base is saying is tech is the 18:10 great dysregulator and nature is the great regulator. 18:15 So nature and sleep, we use nature in sleep to re-regulate ourselves. 18:19 Minimize your tech and screen time exposure and maximize your nature time. 18:23 I used to do a thing with our kids and we said, okay, you could do some computer stuff, but then if you do an hour of computer, 18:29 then you need to an our of nature. 18:32 You go out and either play outside before or after, whatever. 18:36 But just have some sense of balance. 18:38 Yeah, and we we kind of had that and but in Silicon Valley was really hard stuff to do that to get that So the other question that I had was, 18:47 you know parents that i see even personally, right? 18:49 So i'm wearing an apple watch, but I don't have it connected. 18:53 It's on it's there's no airplane mode and bluetooth off Fabulous and wi-fi off too. 18:59 Yeah everything off. 19:00 You're fantastic. 19:00 So I use it for an actual watch and a step tracker. 19:03 Yes Now, is that like, and then when I have my phone, if anywhere in my, I've airplane mode on all the time, unless I, you know, 19:12 during the day I need it. 19:14 Is that sufficient? 19:15 Is it helpful? 19:16 Because I think about the parents where you said like my child sleeps with it, And it's almost a comfort. 19:21 It's not that they have to have it on all the time. 19:23 Just it needs to be there. 19:24 If I was to go and take it and put it in the kitchen or a box or anything, that would be very, yeah. 19:29 So is the airplane mode sufficient? 19:32 Yes. 19:32 OK. 19:32 Yes, I would say the one thing that will be tricky is you probably don't want it, in-the-room charging. 19:38 Even though, OK, so airplane modes off, and you could get a meter to measure this. 19:42 I've got some meters I'm recommending for parents. 19:45 The Tri-Field TF2 is a good starter meter for parent, like $189. Yeah. 19:50 So you can then double check your work and go in and you'll find, I found the other day I bought a hot water heating device that had a Bluetooth signal 19:58 coming off it. 19:58 I was like, what's going on here? 20:00 So even me, once in a while I'll leave my phone, my Bluetooth will come on without me explicitly doing it or I forget it in my watch. 20:10 Like you, have a Garmin watch and I use it as a fitness tracker and it's got some great stuff in it and like getting all my sleep scores and everything. 20:19 But I, you know, and then you turn on the Bluetooth to transfer it and I don't even have it on me when I do the transfer, 20:24 right? 20:25 So I think unless you're super, super sensitive, I've had times where my body doesn't want anything electronically or anything metal near me, 20:33 but my bodies more resilient now and i can deal with all this stuff and it doesn' t bother me and actually enjoy that. 20:39 Ideally we really want safe technology. 20:42 We want to have other technology but we want it to be, we wanna make technology safer neurology. 20:48 That's great. 20:48 That the goal. 20:48 I love that. 20:49 And I don't, I'm not a, love all my Silicon Valley friends. 20:54 But I also love people and my kids. 20:56 Yes, yes. 20:57 We have to make this work. 20:59 Yeah. 20:59 For sure. 21:01 Anything else that is important that we didn't talk about that you wanna make sure that people know? 21:07 You know, the last thing I would say is a lot of times people get focused on external things like the cell tower outside their building, 21:12 but usually, and they freak out and can't control that and that is concerning. 21:16 But frequently the biggest exposure will be the things that are closest to your body and especially in your sleep environment. 21:23 So it's usually the thing that we can control like a smart watch or the fitness tracker or a cell phone next to the bed and the wifi at night and these 21:31 sort of things. 21:34 Focus from your and just clear space around yourself and your children and family. 21:40 And spend time in nature. 21:42 Exactly. 21:42 Yes. 21:43 To re-regulate. 21:44 Fantastic. 21:44 Thank you so much. 21:45 It's great. 21:49 Thanks so for joining us today. 21:51 I'm Pani Rinusella and this is MAPS. 21:54 As we heal tomorrow's future, we appreciate you joining on the journey. 21:58 We'll see you next time.
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