Dirty Girl: Ditch The Toxins & Feel Freaking Amazing

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Thanks, Heather. It’s so great to be here, especially on this topic where we know how impactful it is and the difference it makes. I’m so I, when you said, “Come on the summit.” I was like, “Yes, we need to get this word out.”

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Well, you, I mean, you really get like toxins, how big of a deal that is. And we have people talking about molds and people talking about metals and people talking about chemical toxicity. And so that’s all really exciting to go into the nuts and bolts and details. And yet you put a lot of it back together. Plus you have this personal experience and the lens of women’s health, and we know that Alzheimer’s affect women. It just so much more than men, both as patients, but also as caregivers. So understanding the nitty gritty of this is really important. So dive in, tell us a little bit more about your personal story. If you don’t mind.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

I don’t mind. I’m pretty much an open book. You can ask me anything. My story has two peaks. So peak one starts with being born to people who had terrible genetics. And I said at one point to my parents, I am delighted that you reproduced, but you really shouldn’t have, ’cause I got two copies for the MTHFR gene. I got two copies for vitamin D deficiency. I got two copies for celiac. So I entered life with a genetic disadvantage. And I didn’t know any of that of course it was the seven. I was born in 1970. Like, we were lucky we knew what a blood count was, right. It was kind of primitive. So we did that. And then of course, 70s Standard American Diet. I remember sloppy Joe dinners and my mom cooked a lot, but it was still a different flavor shall we say? And then I remember the advent of the microwaves and the microwaveable dinners that came in plastic and then the low fat craze and the high stress phase. And so you start to build all this up and if you fast forward peak one happens when I’m 35. And I get diagnosed with celiac after being sick for 20 years. And I wasn’t so sick that I was disabled. I was just suboptimal, which I think a lot of us can relate to. Like my periods were heavy. I had low iron. So we were like, “Oh, okay, well that makes sense.” I had low minerals and nutrients. I was fatigued. I was wasting, I had brain fog. But like when you’re in brain fog, you don’t know that you have brain fog until it goes away. And then you go, “Oh my, that was really profound.” So that was peak one. I got diagnosed by my husband’s mentor. Who’s actually retiring next month. That’s really sort of poignant ’cause it’s the end of the era. So he diagnosed me, I went gluten free. I started to feel better. 

And then all’s pretty good until I hit perimenopause, which I actually believe is cruel and unusual punishment. And I’m trying to mitigate it for all my patients ’cause it’s so such a potentially fraught time for people. So I hit perimenopause and I’m like, “I just don’t feel well.” And in retrospect I had, so in peak two, I had two lead exposures, neither of which I recognized at the time or one I kind of recognized, but didn’t realize how impactful it was. And the second, I didn’t know, until months later, so one lead exposure, my neighbor took his post-war led paint house down and I was like, “Shut the windows. I don’t wanna get exposed.” And then I promptly forgot about it. I don’t know, busy life, whatever. So a few months later my hair starts falling out. I’m starting to gain weight. It’s not terrible I’ve just gained three or four pounds. And I have a little bit of a rash and I’m like, “What’s going on?” But the hair loss was the thing I noticed. Fast forward another few months. And we went to France and it was the trip of a lifetime. And we spent a week right around Notre Dame right after it burned. So we didn’t get to go in it. And the reason this is important is that right after we came back from France, I gained more weight. So I had gained a total of like nine pounds after coming home from France, not in France. after France and then this rash on my face erupted. I literally, Heather wanted to rip my face off and it was on my eyes, my nose under my chin. I was just a mess. And then my hair loss was like clumps and I now I’m really freaking out and I’m like, “Oh perimenopause man, these hormonal shifts.” So I check my hormones. They’re perfect. I check my thyroid it’s perfect. 

Now I’m okay. I’m like always start with the gut. I do functional medicine. Always start with the gut. I do a stool test. It’s the best I’ve ever seen. I’m like, “What is going on here?” And I’m stumped. And then I’m listening to the radio one morning and I hear the reporter on NPR talk about how when Notre Dame burned 500 pounds of lead dust was released into the air. And the closer you were to Notre Dame, the more lead exposure you got and the further away you were, the less you got. And I looked at my husband and I went, “I got a lead exposure. I mean, we all got a lead exposure.” I took everyone, but it was bad enough that I really had a clinical response. Like I was really messy after we came home. And so I tested and I had previously tested and my lead was just slightly positive, but being sort of a not quick to panic person, I was like, “Eh, not too bad.” But this time it was 25% higher and it got my attention. And I said, “I really got a clinically relevant lead exposure because I’ve gained weight that I can’t shift. My hair’s falling out and this rash is killing me and my energy wasn’t as so great. But it’s sometimes hard to see all that. So I started to treat, I already knew about the mycotoxins. I did the test, like as we were leaving for the trip in April, I sent off the test for mycotoxins. So I already knew that I had four strains of mycotoxins. 

Then I have lead and slightly positive mercury. And then I was retesting. I start treating the lead and then I start retesting for the mycotoxins about eight months later. And I was like, “Well, they also offer environmental toxins testing and glyphosate.” So I love data. Let’s get the data in for a penny and for a pound. So I’m like, “Let’s do the whole it’s one test. It’s super easy.” So it comes back and I still have my four strains of mycotoxins. I haven’t gotten rid of any of them. And then the environmental toxins test shows eight different toxins at high levels. And I was like, I looked at my husband and I said, “I am such a dirty girl.” And then I went, “Oh, that’s the book we gotta write because if I’m like this and Heather we’ve been organic for years, I was on a Canta protocol for years. So I didn’t eat sugar. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t smoke. I don’t, I’m like wicked boring and yet I have these issues. So that’s why we wrote the book because we gotta get the word out because these are the things that make us sick and we can’t figure out why we’re not who we’re meant to be.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Why just think about all the women and men walking around with their hair falling out, feeling uncomfortable and lethargic and with a rash and being told by their doctors that, “Nope, your thyroid’s fine. Nope, your hormones are fine. We did all the testing. We did the most comprehensive testing and let’s send you to rheumatology and let’s send you to psychiatry.” And like, “We’ll send you all the specialists and like, we’ll see if they can do anything.”

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

How about it’s just an autoimmune problem.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Oh yeah. Right.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yeah, like we had a patient show up in our office with no hair on her body. Now the upside is she didn’t have to do any waxing south of the border. Right. I said to her, “There’s always an upside, but she had no hair on her head and that was really disruptive. By the way, her hair’s grown back ’cause she had metals and mycotoxins and Lyme and Bartonella and Babesia. So she’s at, we’ve actually reversed her autoimmune disease. And I think as we layer this onto Alzheimer’s, it’s really critical to talk about the reversal of disease because all of these chronic illnesses, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, even insulin resistance, diabetes is type three in Alzheimer’s is type three diabetes ’cause it impacts the brain and all of these toxins stand as these pillars of inflammation just chipping away and eroding our health. And that’s why it’s so important to go big picture, figure it out, start chipping away. So it doesn’t chip away at us start removing it.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And the fact that this could happen to you, not even that long ago, when you have functional medicine training, right. That there’s detective work that is required here. And when we take that perspective of what’s affecting us at the cellular level, what’s enhancing cellular productivity and optimization, optimal function, and then what’s degrading it. And when we address things at that level, that’s when you get these complex chronic diseases like autoimmune disease and the unresolved, whatever the bucket diagnoses like fibromyalgia and IBS and all of these other things, chronic fatigue syndrome. And then of course Alzheimer’s. So tell us a little bit more about, you mentioned micro toxins, chemical toxins and heavy metals. Are there others or, and how do we test for them where they found?

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Okay, so let’s back up even a step. So let’s go systematically. The buckets of toxins, there’s heavy metals and those are the metals that your body can’t get rid of. The ones we really pay attention to are lead, mercury, chromium, arsenic and Valium. Those are the big five. And even within that lead and mercury take pole position with each other those are the lead. If you’ve got osteoporosis, you need to look for lead. Mercury if your hair is falling out or lead, if your hair is falling out you need to look at these. Then the next bucket is mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are the toxins that molds put out when you have them in your body. And they can range from everything from respiratory disorders to skin disorders, to it’s implicated in brain dysfunction, autoimmune disease. Some of them are cancer promoting agents it’s really and that goes also for the lead and the mercury and the metals. And then the last category is other it’s the biggest, that’s your gasoline additives. That’s jet propane fuels, that’s perchlorate in your water, plastic Steyr nail Polish makeup, beauty products for Malahide from dry cleaning. It’s really everything. Insecticides, pesticides, herbicides. Herbicide is glyphosate, which is the most commonly used herbicide in the world. It’s pretty hard to get anything food wise that hasn’t been contaminated with glyphosate if it’s not organic. And even sometimes organic’s contaminated because of drift from not organic to organic farms, it gets sprayed and it drifts. So when you’re testing there’s a lot of ways to test. So if you test the blood, you can’t really test the blood for the toxins necessarily. It’s very hard because you’d have to do one at a time. So we tend to use urine testing for all of these. You can test for blood for the metals. Arsenic is the only one that tells you what’s stored. It’s kind of weird arsenic you can’t test. If you had an acute exposure, except through urine. The other ones, you can test acute exposure for lead, mercury, cadmium through the blood. But that only tells you the last four to six weeks. It doesn’t tell you if you had an exposure 10 years ago and you’re storing it in your bones, organs, fat. People say, “Oh my God, I can’t lose weight.” I’m like, “That’s ’cause you’ve got toxins in your fat.” You’re not gonna lose any weight until you get rid of the toxins.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

No, your body’s protecting you. It’s putting–

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

So it’s not in your brain or your thyroid or your ovaries or where it’s gonna do harm.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Except it is in your brain because your brain has a lot of fat in it. And so the brain does uptake toxins. So going back to how we test. So we tend to do a provoked test and a baseline test for the metals. The reason you do the baseline is to look and see if you’ve had some acute exposure. And then the provoked test, we use something called DMSA, which pulls the metals out, binds to them, sticks ’em in the urine and then you measure it. It’s not an exact science. So it’s not like if you know your level is 84, that it’s exactly 84. It’s not like that. It’s like, “You have high levels or you aren’t registering for any.” And then we need to figure out what’s in the middle. So it’s not the holy grail, but it’s a good guidepost. And then the mycotoxins also, we do provoked urine testing using glutathione and then a hot either bath or sauna kind of cool. Just make yourself hot, wait a half hour and pee. That’s the test.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And for some people, this provocation process can be a little uncomfortable. How do you help support them through it?

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

So one is by managing expectations, right? So I say to people, when they’re doing the middles test, you can feel one of three ways. You can feel nothing. In which case we have no early response notification that you probably have metals. We don’t know. We gotta wait for the test. You could feel like a truck ran over you terrible worst day ever. And in that case, you’ve got metals. Congratulations. You’ve got metals, right? ‘Cause you’re having that reaction. Your body’s telling you, “Oh, you probably have metals.” And then we wait for the results to see how high they are. And I’ll say something about that in a second or you could feel amazing. And that was a harder one to recognize because for myself I felt amazing. Every time I did my metals test and I would say to people, I always felt really great when I did it. And then one day I went, I always felt really great when I did it. That’s because I had metals. And when I did it, it was detoxing me so I felt great. So, you can feel one of three ways and prepping people for you might feel crappy. Most people recover within a day. My mom on her first test slept the whole day. Like she was able to get up and pee, but otherwise she slept and then she slept overnight. And the next day she’s fine. She had metals. So you can feel all different ways when you’re doing the testing. I was gonna come back to something and now I’ve forgotten what it was. I’ll think of it at some point.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

We’ll think of it.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yeah, I’m sure.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

So at the overall the impact of toxins that are health and you alluded to like this brain connection because our brain has made a fat in so many toxins are fat soluble, but like overall, what are things that we would expect if we have high levels of toxicity in our body.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Let’s back up a step, Heather, because we can’t talk about toxins without talking about the innate function of someone’s body. Because by the time toxins get to be an issue either it’s because you have crazy levels of them and your body is just completely going haywire or it’s because the rest of the system is dysfunctional and your body is crying for help. either way It’s a cry for help. So you have to look at what’s your genetics, what’s your epigenetics? Were your grandparents and your parents super stressed. Did they go through a famine or a feast? Did they have some trauma? Those things impact our genes turning on or off. Do you eat a standard American diet, which is full of omega six fatty acids, highly processed, very little natural food and greens and omega threes, or are you eating an organic diet that has minimally processed? And of course there’s a huge spectrum there. So where are you on the diet spectrum, eating spectrum, not diet. Do you sleep? Are you a stress ball? Do you have good relationships? Kinda like Dan Buttner’s healthy zones. The blue zones those matter because your balance impacts your response to the toxin. So first you have to make sure the foundational things of your health are well cared for. And then you look at toxins, but for example, you can have these toxins for years, but if you got a parasite or had some kind of infection or had an inciting event, the body can no longer compensate and it sets you back. So you start to notice symptoms as you age, it gets harder for the body to be resilient. And so it takes longer to recover. We’re not as we don’t dance with insults as quickly, as easily as we used to. So it’s more impactful.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And where do they come from? Like you described Notre Dame burning down and the destruction of old buildings around you.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And that’s one potential exposure. What are other common exposures that people come into contact with on a day to day basis?

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

I should just say before I answer this question, it’s horrifying. Okay. Like it’s when you start to really think about it, it’s horrifying. So let’s go systematically. So when you’re looking at the metals, if you’re focusing on lead and mercury, the lead comes from lead pipes and there are still 10 million homes in the United States that have lead pipes. So if you have lead pipes coming into your home, that’s a huge source of exposure and then lead paint. And now nobody licks the window sills. I know that however, you’re living in this house and as it settles the places where the walls meet the other walls or the ceiling or the floor, there’s grinding going on it’s grinding against itself and that’s dusting the paint and the lead gets into dust that we inhale, We eat, we touch, we absorb. So those are the sources for lead. Mercury is there’s a lot of sources, but the biggest ones are fish and fillings. So those mercury fillings that are silver are 50% mercury by weight and they never stop AF gassing. They, anytime you eat or brush your teeth or drink something, they’re off gassing. So that’s a constant source of exposure. And then fish especially, I think you’re out in California and everyone eats sushi. So of course that AHI tuna is delicious. And that AHI tuna has enough mercury in it for about six to 12 weeks of exposure on one serving. And a lot of people are eating it one to two times a week. So the exposure is tremendous. And then the parallel thing that’s going on is we’re all stressed and we’re not resting enough. And maybe we’re not eating as well as we should. And then detox gets shut down. So we’re not only getting more exposure, but our excretion is impaired and then everyone’s constipated. So you have to poop it out. So there’s all these layers. So that’s the metals. The mycotoxins are from two large sources. One is buildings, I live in Massachusetts. Everyone has an old musty basement and those are huge sources of mycotoxins. And then foods, grains are really contaminated because they sit and they’re wet and then you eat them and the mycotoxins don’t get killed off by the processing. They just get concentrated by the processing. So you eat them.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And then you also mentioned that you can Harbor fungus. Yes. But in your sinuses and gut, that can be creating mycotoxins.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yep.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Just get more fun.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yeah, it’s totally horrifying. And then there’s the environmental one. So as I mentioned, like, this was a good excuse to stop pumping my own gas because my gasoline fuel additives were high and I was like, “Well, I don’t really wanna be exposed to those either. So I’m gonna get an electric car when my car is up for assuming that we can get cars, ’cause there’s kind of a shortage, but anyway, going for an electric car as opposed to gas because of the exposure. But the here’s the downside new cars have like 300 chemicals in them. So when you look at plastics and VOCs, new cars are a huge source of off gassing. So you wanna filter your car. We actually got my daughter a new car back in November and I was like, “You have to have a filter and it’s gonna run. Anytime that car is running, you need to run it.”

Heather Sandison, N.D.

When I got my new car, my mom was horrified ’cause I just rolled all the windows down and I kept them rolled down for like a week or two until it had stopped until I stopped smelling it.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yep.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And mom was like, something’s gonna happen. I was like, “No, no. It’s way better to just get all that junk out of there.” It’s so I some people love the smell of a new car and I think it makes me on a gag.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yeah. I used to love the smell of a new car. And now because of that emotional response, I don’t love it. Construction sources, anything in construction is a huge source of toxin. So the VOCs and the paint, the VOCs and the stains and the varnishes, the plastics that we use, the chemicals in the particle board, it just sort of goes on and on. What you clean your house with, these are all sources of it really goes on and on dyeing your hair, don’t do it. It’s bad for you or use a supernatural one life goes on.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

It can affect every aspect of our lives. And especially this day and age where there’s hyper consumption and we’re burning through a lot of things, whether it’s plastic or consumables things, we eat things we put on our skin, as you’ve mentioned. And yet we have, you can kind of pick your poison, right? When you’re aware of certain things, you can decide, you’re empowered to make the choice. And so instead of just allowing all these toxins in and kind of saying, “Oh, well it’s too much. So I’m not gonna think about it. I’m not gonna do anything about it.” We can make this decision to have at least less of it. Not that any amount is good, but at least we can start to decide, okay, I really want my nails done so that’s what I’m gonna do, but I’m gonna forego getting my hair done and I’m gonna switch all my cleaning products.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yeah. I think you bring up a really great point. So it’s never no matter where you live in this earth, you’re exposed to toxins. So it’s not about no talks. It’s about mitigating your exposures. And I always say to people start with food, you do it three times a day, maybe more so let’s get, what’s going into your body as clean as possible. That means organic grass fed, grass finished flesh, organic vegetables and fruits, not too many fruits because they’re sugary more vegetables and then limited starches and grains don’t drink alcohol ’cause it impairs your body’s ability to get rid of toxins. And then don’t eat sugar, ’cause same issue. It’s creating an inflammatory problem. So start with that. Just master food. And then yeah, there’s a lot of ways that you can peel it off. So it’s tempting to be like, “Oh, forget it. I can’t deal with any of it.” But what you wanna do is pick one thing. So I always say pick food. And then for women, men use fewer products than women. So for women pick the product you’re running out of. Whether that’s your nail polish or your mascara or your facial toner, whatever it is or your toothpaste, whatever you’re running out of go to environmental working group or think dirty and look it up, get some data. Maybe you hit the jackpot and you picked something good. That’ll be cool. It rarely happens. But I did pick one thing that was good in my makeup that I didn’t have to fix. So I was like, okay, cool. So like check it out maybe you did a good job. And if you didn’t, then that’s the time to level up when you’re running out. So it can take you two years to get rid of all your products. The goals not perfection.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Right, right. I think that we have to keep that in mind that it’s not about everything being perfect. It’s just shifting the trajectory going in that direction. Layering each of these pieces on top of the last.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes. Yeah. And being nice to yourself, right? Like we’re so unkind to ourselves and that I will argue makes a state of inflammation because you can have a thought, imagine this thought you’re driving and you think, “Oh, that car’s gonna hit me.” You instantly have a domino chain of things that happens where your adrenals kick in saying, “Oh my goodness, you have a surge of cortisol.” The cortisol tells your liver, “Oh guys, detox is not a priority right now, focus on survival and getting sugar stores out of the liver so that we can have quick energy to run from the lion.” It also tells your gut. “We don’t need to be digesting right now ’cause we’re about to have a crisis here. A lion is coming to eat us. We’re super primitive. So same thing happens when you have these mean thoughts about yourself, “Oh, I’m so stupid.” It’s really unkind. It sets off that same chain of events. Your body experiences it as a stressor. And the same things happen. Cortisol goes up, detox goes down, digestion goes down.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

They’re toxic thoughts.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes. It is taught any type of toxic can create a toxic environment. So toxic thoughts are just as bad for you because they’re shutting your system down even faster. It never… So I say it’s horrifying. So that’s why I’m like just chip away at one thing. Right. Just do one thing. And so I screw things up all the time, Heather. I’ll tell one on myself. Like I was so proud of these little pods that I got for my dry clean, not dry clean my laundry. I mean I have four kids. We go through a ridiculous amount of laundry detergent, but I was like, “Oh, look at me. I got these little pods. I didn’t actually check to see that they were good. I was just like, they’re good for the environment ’cause there’s not a lot of plastic packaging.” I forgot to check about the ingredients. So one day I wake up and I go, I never checked on that. Oh oops. So I check on it and it wasn’t terrible, but it was not where we wanted to be. So I was like, “Okay, well the delivery is renewing next month. So I’m just gonna cancel the delivery and we’ll switch over to this other brand. I found Aspen clean, which is EWG certified. I love them. They have everything and they have autoship. So I don’t even have to like think too much about it. But the take home message here is not that I found Aspen Clean, although that’s a great brand. The take home message is don’t spend any time when you screw it up, berating yourself for screwing it up, your humanity’s gonna happen and you get busy. We’re all busy. Be nice to yourself. Just say, “Okay, I’m gonna try to remember to check it next time and let’s fix what I didn’t do perfectly this time.” Nobody died you know. And it was.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

The odds were better than tied, right? Like you had moved in the right direction.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Bingo.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I said, based on like previous decisions before understanding all of this. So even just going in that direction makes a difference.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Everything matters, so be nice to yourself about it.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

And then there are things that we can do on the level of just this acceptance, right? Like we’re all gonna be exposed to things that we’d know nothing about that we have no control over. So that’s gonna happen. What can we do to support our natural detox processes?

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

I love this question. Okay. So you are what you eat, right? So you are what you eat. So there’s two parts to it. One, the body loves minerals, nutrients, spices. The body loves these things. It supports detox. The body loves parsley and cilantro. The body loves flesh. So you can eat your way to supporting detox. It doesn’t have to be this fancy stuff. It’s like add a little scoop of Asian or east Indian spices. These can support detox, make sure you’re adding. We had falafel night last night and I had three bunches of organic parsley. And I was like, you think about it. We’re eating the falafel and it’s parsley. So here we are, we’re supporting phase one and phase two detox just by eating.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I can attest the fact that you live this because I had, and you were eating just this amazingly gorgeous, beautiful salad that you had brought and packed. And really you had put a lot of effort into making sure that you were nourishing yourself in a really healthy way. When the rest of us were like, “Oh, screw it. We’re out. We’re gonna eat whatever tonight.”

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Well, the one thing I’ll say is I have celiac. And so I’m pretty sensitive to cross contamination. And because I was speaking the next day at that conference that we were playing at, I just didn’t wanna be off my game. And I have said, food’s a priority. So we always travel. Like I never here’s when a hot tip, I never leave home without food. Literally, I never leave my house without food because I don’t wanna be stuck somewhere and be hungry and then eat something that doesn’t work in my body. And by the way, I never say like, this is a bad food or you’re a bad person. It’s not in the realm of morality. It’s in the realm of what works for me or it doesn’t work for me. So I don’t like how I feel when I eat certain foods. So I and I got a lot of peer pressure for this. Like people would say, “Well, why aren’t you eating the dessert?” I’m like, “I don’t feel well when I eat it, forget the gluten.” It could be gluten free. I don’t feel well when I eat sugar. And by the way, when you have metals, sugar loves the state of inflammation and chaos that metals create. So you often have Candida going along with it. So I’m like a Candida profile and it bugs a living daylights on me. I don’t wanna be like out of off my game. So food is a huge priority. I never leave home without it. I always make sure, okay, you can find healthy food at well, where were we? We were somewhere in the depths of Pennsylvania in like the middle of nowhere. I could not find any fresh food in the grocery store. That was the only time I was ever really shocked. But that’s one in a million you can almost always find even just lettuce and chicken and vegetable and tomato. You can find the basics. It’s not perfect, but yeah, food’s a huge priority. And I always like to get two for one, I think Shepa talks about two for one. So, artichokes have high fiber and they support detox as do chickpeas have fiber. So that supports gut health and detox. Parsley support that. So I try to fermented food support the gut and digestion. So I try to get things in that are not only tasty, but can serve a dual purpose for, “Oh, this is like helping me detox.”

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Great, the food is medicine.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes. Food is medicine. So you can if you’re super sick, it’s hard to eat your way to help. You often need help with additional nutraceuticals, but food is its own nutrient dance possibility.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Yeah. And then do you incorporate sweating or lymphatic? Like what other things do you do to help people support you? Yes.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

So I’m a huge fan of everything’s better than nothing. Okay. And what I mean by that is in an ideal world, everyone’s gonna be like the Norwegians and the people in Europe who go and they do, everyone has a sauna in their basement. That’s the ideal, right?

Heather Sandison, N.D.

The non moldy basement.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes, yes exactly. So everyone’s gonna do that in an ideal world, so in an ideal world yes. So when I turned 50, it was during COVID and we were gonna take a trip to Italy, except it was COVID so we didn’t do that. And so instead we took that money and we finished our basement and bought a sauna. And it’s been the best purchase ever because you can actually sweat your skin is a tremendous detox organ. So sweating will get rid of toxins, but not everyone can finish their basement and put in a sauna takes up space. So let’s start with, okay, there’s portable saunas that pop up. They’re like these little popup sauna pods, and they range in price from like 150 on Amazon, which is not the best quality, but we’ll get you through to like 1200 or $1,500. And some of the specialized vendors. These are fantastic. Right? And so everything that gets you sweating is better than not sweating at all.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I have at home, I have a sauna blanket, so it’s a sleeping bag and it folds up it’s a vinyl, that’s low VOC, low EMF. And I can just wipe it out and it folds up so that I can put it away in the closet and I can just take it out and put it on the floor or on something that’s not gonna burn from getting hot. And it’s so easy. I love it. So I, at this stage, I get in it about once or twice a week, but it’s one of those things that, because it’s easy and because it works and I think it was 450 or $500. So it’s not free, but I’ve had it for a few years. It still works. It works great. And it’s easy for me to do so I actually do it.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes. And let’s talk about sort of, what can you do at home if that’s not realistic? You can do EPSOM salt foot baths. You can do EPSOM salt, full body baths. You can do dry brushing. I mean, a dry brush is like 10 bucks. You can do a dry brush. What that does is it gets the lymph flowing that starts to move lymph, drain your body. So that starts to move the toxins. You can go for a walk. If you don’t sleep, you don’t detox. So make sure you sleep ’cause the space is in your brain start to separate when you sleep and get to deep sleep so that your brain can actually drain its toxins out of the brain. So even sleeping is an impactful detox behavior, but yeah, there’s a huge spectrum of what you can do. And everything that you do is better than nothing. That’s the message it’s like, you don’t have to be perfect. That’s only on the Hollywood movie screen is perfection. It’s not like that. That’s not life.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Well, and then speaking of everyone poops. So hopefully yes. Right. So you mentioned constipation. What do you do if a patient tells you that they’re constipated, they’re not having bowel movement every day.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

I’m really into poop. That’s gonna be one of our books actually is all about no pooping that that’s like our third. We have another book about the joys of being premenopausal and how to maintain your relationships healthfully as you transition. One day, my husband talked to me while I was having a really bad hot flash. And I was like, “Dude, do you value your life?” Having like a really bad hot flash here I don’t care what the question is stop talking to me. That’s the next book. And then the one after that is all about pooping, because let’s drill into this. The we’ve mentioned phase one and phase two in the liver. So let’s drill into it for the audience. So phase one, your liver takes some substance that needs to get out of your body. That is fat soluble and converts it into what’s called a toxic intermediate. I don’t know why it does that. It does it okay. It’s just the way it is. And that toxic intermediate basically generates free radicals. So your body’s like hot potato. You wanna deal with that. Phase two, you take that toxic intermediate and you bind it to a metal of a glutathione group, a sulfur group you bind it. The take home messages, you bind it. And when you bind it, that makes it water soluble. Now the things to know about phase one and phase two. Phase one is really fast especially women we’re like really good at phase one, phase two is slower. So you often have more production of these toxic intermediates. Where do you put them? You’re fat. So you get all these women who are like, “I can’t… Men stop eating diet soda, and they lose 10 pounds. Women we stop drinking diet soda and nothing happens. That’s because we are slower at phase one, we store fats and we store toxins in our fat. So now you put this bound water soluble toxin. 

That’s no longer toxic, but you still need to get rid of it. You put it into your poop to poop it out. Your poop is water soluble. If you’re not pooping, there’s an enzyme in your gut called beta glucuronidase. Think of it like a scissor enzyme. It comes around and it separates the toxin from the binder. Now don’t forget hormones are toxins in our body. So you separate these toxins and from their binder, when you separate them, what happens? It’s no longer water soluble. It can’t stay in the poop. It goes back in the bloodstream and the liver. I think if the liver was a person, it would be a face palming person. Like I already dealt with you. Now I gotta deal with you again. But I’ve all these other toxins I have to deal with. Hang out in the fat until like, it’s like the waiting room fat is your waiting room. Hang out in the fat until I can get to you. But of course, because we’re exposed to all these toxins and we’re stressed and we’re busy. You never really get to it. And then you just keep building it up. So if you don’t poop, you separate these toxins from the binders, circulate them back into your body. For women in particular, this is deadly because your estrogens are on their way out of your body. You’ve now recycled toxic estrogen. And that raises the risk for estrogen dependent cancers like breast cancer, uterine cancer. These are an ovarian cancer. These are not good for you. So it’s like it… So the reason it’s so important to poop is if you’re not pooping, it’s sitting there, it’s getting recycled. You can inhibit beta glucuronidase. And what you wanna do is move the poop along, ’cause your poop is a huge way to get rid of waste toxins.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Yeah. An essential way to evacuate that. And so do you have people try, maybe exercise, hydration? Like what first understanding that every 24 hours you must have a bowel movement. If you’re not, you need to see a doctor and do something about it.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yeah, I remember learning about the oral anal reflex in med school. I thought it was hysterical because every time you eat, you’re supposed to poop. And I was like, by that point I was already well into my like celiac development, even though I don’t think I had it fully, but I was on my way and I was already constipated. And I was like, who does that? Like, I didn’t know that. So I remember learning that. I mean, this is 25 years ago, so you should eat and poop. That’s how it goes. ‘Cause the mouth eating stimulates the gut to move. So, okay maybe that doesn’t happen for everyone yet. But the goal is at least once within 24 hours, if not two to three times. Right? And it should be like a pipe that just plops in the toilet with not a lot of splashing, not bunny poops, not floating. Doesn’t fall apart. It’s like a lot of rules about poop, but even just get to pooping. So then the question is what can you do? And there’s a ton you can do. So you start with, I would call this low hanging fruit, but it might not be low hanging fruit. So start by eliminating processed carbs and sugar because those throw off the balance of the gut and replacing those with high density, nutrient foods that have high fiber. So increasing your fiber content can be really impactful for people and it should be soluble fiber if you’re constipated. Now you need to make sure for chia, like if you’re gonna drink chia seeds, you need to soak them beforehand because otherwise it’ll make it worse. You don’t want it. These are things that pull water into the gut. So you wanna give it enough water so that it doesn’t make it worse. So fiber magnesium is very helpful. If you take too much magnesium, you’re gonna have diarrhea. It’s okay. Just take less. Colon hydrotherapy. That’s basically like a monitored enema where they’re monitoring the pressure in the colon to make sure that it’s safe. As they systematically empty it out. Exercise abdominal massage. There are aloes, there are tons of things that can promote the gut to move, but you first have to take away what’s causing it, not to move. Do you have bacteria that are pathological? Do you need probiotics? There’s so many causes. So this is the plug where I say, “Okay, see a functional medicine doctor. You’re not an island don’t go it alone.” Okay. Like do it as a team so that you can figure it out. But you do need to start with the gut and fix that poor little gut. ‘Cause it can’t do its work if it’s outta whack.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

No. And then what about other organs in the location? Do you have any tips for how to get those optimized?

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Oh, tons. So I mean it’s also, this is where people are like, “Oh yeah, I’m done with her.” Don’t drink alcohol it’s bad for you. That’s the point. It’s really unpopular but if you need to drink alcohol, especially if you’re female, we don’t process alcohol the same way men do. So a guy drinks a glass… We go out to dinner with your partner and if it’s male, female, and you go, okay, your partner has a drink, you’re gonna match them. And then they have another drink. You match them. Nope. You should be at like 50 to 25% less than what they are. I’m sorry, 25 to 50% of what they drink is what you should drink at the max. So if your partner’s drinking two to three drinks, you should be drinking max one because you’re not processing it as well as they are. So it impacts us more. And that shuts down detox, ’cause don’t forget your liver’s supposed to be detoxing you, but now it’s like, “Oh I gotta deal with this toxin.” ‘Cause this is a toxin. Alcohol is a toxin. So try not to retox as you wanna detox. That’s what I say to people. So sweating, don’t drink alcohol, don’t eat sugar. Try not to be a stress ball, have good relationships, eat high quality food. These are the basics. And they’re very impactful. So it sounds like, “Oh just eat good food.” But no you really can impact your health. You can eat your way to health.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Amazing. That really is so hopeful and so empowering. And we’ve seen that certainly with reversing dementia, I think 50% of the work is dietary changes is what you are putting into your body. And in an ideal world, it’s an organic ketogenic diet most of the time. And then adding in as your keto adapted, adding in those great, some fruit, some sweet potatoes, some starchy vegetables, but really keeping it paleo even if you’re not ketosis. And that alone does so much healing. Wendie, I couldn’t thank you enough for being here and sharing your expertise and wisdom. I wanna make sure our audience knows how to find out more about you.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

I would love that Heather. Thank you. And it’s been a pleasure to be here too. So all of my social media is Wendie Trubow MD. And my first name is spelled funny. I changed it when I was 13, ’cause I had a best friend who was Wendie. So we didn’t wanna have our name, the same spelling. So it’s W-E-N-D-I-E T-R-U-B-O-W MD. And that’s on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. My company, which is where we see patients is Five Journeys and that’s five journeys.com. And we also have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for the company too. And then we have a podcast of our own, which is called “The Five Journeys” podcast live like you matter. And that’s all about, we explore everything about health, where it’s really, how do you get healthy? An then– And though, wait, I have a free gift for the audience. Did I mention that?

Heather Sandison, N.D.

No. Tell us about the free gift.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Okay, so we’re all about how do you detox your life and get rid of toxin? So we put it all in a guide because we get this question a lot. Like what can we do? What can we do? So we put it in a guide and it’s free for the listeners. It’s on our website, fivejourneys.com/promo. And that’s the guide to detoxing your life. Okay, and coming soon is the first chapter of our book that you can read online, but the website’s not live yet, but that’ll be dirtygirldetox.com. It’s coming soon.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Excellent. You kept saying we, and I just wanna point out that you and your husband have like this power dynamic, this loving, amazing relationship. And that I think fortifies us, right? Like those relationships build that resilience when hard things come up, when life gets tough or when there are toxins present. Like whether they’re environmental or in relationship, relational or those mental, that mental chatter, you guys have this just incredible relationship and you really live it. So seeing that is inspiring.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Thank you. We really try. And I will say it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. I mean, we’ve been together for 22 years and we’ve had hard times and I think what underpins it is a commitment to how do we be our best selves together and who can I be for you that will build you up? And I’m not naturally someone who is good at relationships. I’m someone who’s kind of like, I grew up an only child. I’m like a loner. I’m just kind of doing my own thing, but he really gets me into partnership and it’s been a practice, but, and it’s a practice. It’s not necessarily like, “Oh yeah, it’s amazing every day sometimes I’m like, why did I marry you?” But even being able to say to him, “Wait, I can’t remember why I married you. I’m so annoyed with you right now.” Sort of diffuses it and goes, “Okay, wait, that’s why I married you. ‘Cause I can say that to you and you don’t get hooked and like stuck on any of the oh my God, she’s gonna leave me.” No, I’m not gonna leave you. I’m just irked. I’m perimenopausal. You’re irking me. It’s like, but healthy relationships are really critical. And if your relationship isn’t healthy for you and you’ve done everything you can, it’s time to get out. That would be my vote, my plug for like, have it work for you or end it.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Find something that does work that is fulfilling. And there are so many inspiring relationships in this Alzheimer’s community. So many really dedicated spouses. I see that over and over again. And people who I see in my clinical practice who do the best, have that amazing, incredible partnership. Someone that’s there to support them. And so just a Testament to you doing that, even though I know it’s not always easy and also to our patients and the people who show up and do that and put the work in because it’s so worth it. And it is so healing.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yeah. It’s huge.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Wendie, thank you again for joining us. It’s always fun to see you and–

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

It’s fun, I can’t wait to play with you more. I’m like.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I know we’ve got lots on the calendar and then reminding everybody “Dirty Girl” this week.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Oh yeah. It’s on Amazon. I forgot to say that, sorry guys. Don’t type in dirty girl. No, well, no don’t type in dirty girl, unless it’s “Dirty Girl Detox” or Dirty Girl with my name. ‘Cause you’re gonna get all kinds of you’ll get porn. Like you don’t want that. You’re well, maybe you do, but you’re not gonna get the book. If you just type in dirty girl on Amazon use “Dirty Girl Detox”.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Unless you’re looking for different kinds of thrills.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Correct.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

Wendie, thanks again. I’m gonna let you go ’cause I know you have four kids. Then you are on east coast time.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes. Nice to see you Heather.

Heather Sandison, N.D.

I’ll see you soon.

Wendie Trubow MD, MBA

Yes.