Mold & Mycotoxins: The Unseen Effects

Margaret Christensen, MD

Glad to be here. You know, this is really one of my favorite topics to talk about because if we’re wondering why everybody is so sick, you know, why are our Children sick? Why are in everybody’s so much auto immunity and cancer and neurological issues? It’s the environment, and, and particularly the disruption that’s happening along the hormone lines. Now, we’re both July and so we understand that.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I know, I feel it. I’m like, I feel your sister. So, I mean, you got into this because this was personal for you.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Very, very personal. So, back 20 to 23 years ago now I was just,, for a couple of years I had been getting worse and worse and worse. I was running a big O B Gyn practice. I had you know, I was delivering babies. I had four of my own. I hadn’t slept in 16 years. I had no idea about the toxicants that we’re actually, we’re being exposed to in the hospital too. But, you know, I had made it, we moved into one of the fancy streets in Dallas, in a big old house and unbeknownst to me there was a black mold all over the house. It was blowing around. Everybody got sick. Nobody could figure out why I was so fatigued. So brain fogged and fibromyalgia that I actually had to close my O B Gyn practice. I couldn’t keep going and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. And, it just, it took, somebody handed me some vitamins and I started feeling a little bit better to understand. Oh, there’s something biochemical going on here. Unfortunately, my Children were also sick. Everybody was sick. 

My husband was irritable and fatigued and having his own hormonal issues. And a lot of guys will see also cardiovascular issues with this. And then my Children, everything from migraines to asthma allergies, really autism symptoms, A D D, A D H D, you know, nobody put any of the dots together. It took eight years to figure out what was really going on. Unfortunate that here in Dallas was the environmental health center of Dallas, Doctor Dr William Ray. So he was one of the first persons that I saw and who said, oh my God, this is some of the highest levels of mycotoxins I’ve ever seen get out of your office, get out, you know, you know, and so it took a while but, but that’s, that’s launched me into this area and I’m very passionate about and the environment and what were what we have to do to change things. 

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You sold that house, right?

Margaret Christensen, MD

Oh Yeah. Oh yeah.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So that really change your trajectory, right? 

Margaret Christensen, MD

Yeah, I was totally changed my trajectory and, and now, you know, I’ve been doing functional medicine also teaching, I teach for the Institute for Functional Medicine and did for a number of years and really to try and help educate folks about the fact that if you’re sick, look at what you’re eating, look at what you’re breathing, look at what you’re drinking. And also what’s going on in your mind? I mean, the, I think the other environmental pollution that we don’t talk nearly enough about is just the crap that’s coming over the television and through social media and, the brainwashing frankly that’s really happening unfortunately. And, you know, we certainly saw that over the past three years.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So you’re really, you really do a lot of work with women’s hormone balance and we’re talking about auto immunity and hormone balance and toxins. Can you put that together and draw it up in a nice big.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Yeah. Sure. So I think it’s really important to understand and this is what we teach in the functional arena is that the hormones are all involved together in a dance, you can’t just look at one and just correct one thing without understanding the impact of that one hormone on all of them. So, for example, we know that our adrenal hormones, adrenaline and cortisol very impactful on our insulin levels, which also can impact thyroid function and those are what’s impacting ultimately, sex hormones, the thyroid, excuse me, your testosterone, progesterone and estrogen. And so when I’m looking at hormone balance, I want to look at everything that’s going on. And then, and then the other piece of that is also our neurotransmitters. They’re, they’re not hormones technically. But then again, when we’re under a whole lot of stress producing a lot of adrenaline and cortisol. Then that is also impacting things like serotonin and dopamine and gaba, things like our sleep, our concentration, our focus. So it’s all tied together in a big package and it’s really important to, to kind of look in that whole, that whole big way when we’re looking at that.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So how do toxins play in? Can you draw the line? Because we talked about the hormone imbalances? But what role do mycotoxins and other environmental toxins? How they all play into that?

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

Let’s maybe do it one at a time because I think it’s too broad of a question. So let’s talk, let’s talk mold and mycotoxins and. 

Margaret Christensen, MD

Okay, let me just talk biotoxins because you know, so a biotoxin is a fat soluble, it’s a tiny fat soluble toxin that gets in between our cell membrane layers and also our mitochondria layers. So many people have learned or maybe they remember from cell biology that your mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cells. Those organelles along with the cell membrane that’s just like your skin around the cells are created out of two layers that have fat in between them, they’re water soluble and fat. And so all these little tiny biotoxins, whether we are talking toxic mold and mycotoxins, whether we’re talking heavy metals, whether we’re talking plastics, whether talking pesticides, where they were talking viral particles. Those can all get stuck inside the mitochondrial membranes, disrupting energy production and function and setting off a whole cascade of auto immunity. 

That’s actually, it’s a lot of that’s coming from disrupted mitochondrial function. And the same thing they get inside the cell membranes and disrupt their function. So, depending on where that cell membrane is, depends on the function that becomes disrupted. So that’s one way that the biotoxins disrupt function. You can just, just basic energy production for whatever cells a second way would be hormonal mimicry. So in other words, you have a toxin that looks like or acts like a hormone in the body. And that’s the problem with all these pesticides. As well as mycotoxins, there’s a particular one that’s called celeron that is very estrogenic. So, and the plastics, that’s another thing. So all of those have, they can mimic or act like or block estrogen, testosterone, progesterone thyroid. So that’s, that’s another way you can see disruption and just a very simple comment on that is we know that in the last 50 years, men’s sperm counts has declined by a total of 50%. Right. Yeah, 1% per year, only in the last three years, it’s gone down 2.5% per year. So we’re seeing this rapid, you know, disruption of fertility and both in men and women sperm production. You know, we already know that in the environment we’re seeing hermaphrodite frogs and fishes and disruptions in infertility in animals. Why don’t we think that’s going to happen to people? 

And so we’re thinking we’re seeing all kinds of increases in birth defects and particularly with things like genitalia and yeah, just, you know, again, all different kinds of hormonal things. So that’s another piece. So you have first you have just, just getting stuck in the inside the cell membranes, then you have the mimicking hormones and then the other big piece and this is particularly important for inhaled toxins is understanding that our nose, when we’re smelling, there’s the olfactory nerve. So that’s the smelling nerve that goes right from the back of our sinuses directly back into our brain and into the part of the brain that ‘s called the limbic system. And within the limbic system, you have the hypothalamus, that’s a master regulator of everything. So, if you’re breathing in toxic substances and we’ll just use mold mold as one of them. So you get all this inflammation, you get a lot of boogies, you’re getting sinus infections, you’re getting all this going on. You’re inflaming that nerve that’s going back into the limbic system, which is inflaming the hypothalamus and the hippocampus and the amygdala. These are all parts of the limbic system. 

You get stuck in fight or flight, dumping adrenaline. And your body’s saying, oh, I need to make more adrenaline, more cortisol. And so you get this you’re in constant what we call in DRTalks, we call it sympathetic overdrive, but that’s just being in fight or flight anxiety, depression, depending on how long it goes on. And so that in and of itself disrupts hormones and then we have all the things that disrupt the gut and starting with antibiotics and frankly, antibiotics are just mycotoxins. Penicillin came from penicillium. You know, so we’re all way overloaded with antibiotics. We’re disrupting our microbiome. The microbiome is responsible for helping to metabolize hormones and also for absorbing nutrients and all that. So the good guy bacteria get disrupted. Then you lowering your immune system because of that, you can’t balance your hormones very well with that. You’re, you’re making a bunch of adrenaline and cortisol to go with it. And so, so you just get this cascade of hormonal disruptions and then you and I, we, we all know that our thyroid gland is one of the most environmentally sensitive and it’s the one that often goes first. 

And you know, so now we’re seeing, I mean, I’m seeing these kids coming in, these young ladies who got put on thyroid medicine when they were 15, you know, and that’s crazy. So anyway, so those, so those are the same things and, and heavy metals. That’s another thing again. There’s so many of our enzymes in our body that are responsible both in the immune system side as well as the hormone production and metabolism side that count on things like iodine or selenium or chromium or zinc. But when you’re being exposed to lots of aluminum or mercury or thallium or chromium or all this other stuff that’s both in our air, in our vaccines and lots of other things that can that disrupts the function of those enzymes. So, when you’re having, it’s a big old ball of wax and it’s a mess.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I have something to say. But I don’t know if you had something.

Margaret Christensen, MD

I could just, I could just summarize what I could just summarize what I said. So we have cell membrane and mitochondrial membrane disruption. We have molecular mimicry going on. We have disruption of hypothalamic function through inflammation, through the olfactory nerve. We have disruption of gut function and metabolism and it got liver function metabolism because again, a lot of the stuff that’s in our food and other antibiotics. And I think that was maybe I did one more anyway. So those are, those are all the things that I’m looking at when I’m trying to evaluate what’s coming in.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You know, Margaret. It’s so interesting because we have Stephanie Senate on this summit also talking about how amazing she is. Fantastic. But I noticed you didn’t say glyphosate, which is also its own independent microbiome disruptor. And you know, Stephanie gets into the whole thing with it. But, but when you were talking about. 

Margaret Christensen, MD

Foods and the top of the list. Get round about your diet and Atrazine. Yeah. Yeah.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s so funny. I just have to say a lot of people don’t recognize that when their landscaper comes and makes their lawn nice and green and sprays, they’re spraying glyphosate and that’s round up. So that’s glyphosate plus two, four D and other things. So, so just know if you have a nice green lawn, it’s because your landscaper spraying stuff and don’t let them do that because your kids are walking on it and you’re walking and they track into your house and then you know, and it, and it goes okay. So how do you fix it? How do you, how do you, where do you start untangling this ball of action?

Margaret Christensen, MD

Well, I think that’s a great identifying. So again, if you’re coming in with a lot of hormonal symptoms, whether it be fertility, heavy periods, pcos or Polycystic Ovarian syndrome, erectile dysfunction, hypertension, anxiety, depression, bipolar symptoms, A D D, A D H D. I mean, those are all things. We chronic infections of any kind, chronic sinus infections, chronic ear infections, get a good history and the whole family starting with the kids. and how many antibiotics you’ve been on in your life. So those, those are all things that we can start asking to figure out. Okay. Yeah, maybe there’s a hormonal component here. I think every person needs to be asked. Have you ever lived or worked in a water damaged building? It’s so common again, mold mycotoxins and toxic mold exposure is so incredibly common and so completely undiagnosed. And I know you guys are a big line people where there is lyme, there is mold first usually. And so one of the things that toxic mold does is it suppresses our innate immune system, the part of the immune system that goes after things like lime and bacteria, viruses and it over activates the adaptive immune system. 

That’s the part that produces cytokines and antibodies. So I think everybody knows what a cytokine is now that we’ve had COVID and so toxic mold throws this off like this. And that’s why we’ve seen also people, the people who got really sick with COVID, their lungs were just, were already full of multi crap and they were already, they were already imbalanced like this and then their side of clients went crazy. So I think that it’s important to get a good history and then be just, you know, whenever you are having a hormonal disruption of any sort and, or neurotransmitter disruption, getting a good history of what are your toxic exposures? And I’ll start with food.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

But there’s also like kids going to school.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah. Colleges, colleges.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Yeah, we’re talking about 50% of houses and 60% of commercial buildings have had water damage issues. If you have a pier and beam house or, you know, basements, those are more likely some of these super old houses really? It’s wet sheetrock of any kind. And, you know, people say, well, I’ve got a new house. Well, what, what, what when it was built, being built was the sheetrock up when it was pouring rain and then they just backed over it, you know. So anyway, that’s a, that’s a good question.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I’m vomiting in my mouth right now. Margaret thinking about, you know, we built our house and just, just the human. We had the winter of 2015, which was called Snowmageddon up in, up in the northeast. And yeah, so, but we had, we had a leak and I’m thinking to myself, we’ve had the house tested, but now I’m like,

Margaret Christensen, MD

Well, you know, and again, you have to test with people who know what they’re looking for, you know, what they’re doing. I highly, highly, highly recommend the International Society for Environmentally acquired illness. ISAI.org. They have great courses. They’ve got great information online. And they’re particularly focused on toxic, you know, environmental toxicants, but particularly toxic mold. And then some of the vector borne infections like lyme as well.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Lauren Tessier is also on our summit. So.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Okay, perfect. I don’t need to talk.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Oh, it’s perfect. It’s great because it all like sticks together which, and you didn’t mention weight.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Wait. Oh my gosh, diabetes, diabetes and weight gain. Yeah. I mean, because again, just depending on your genetics, some, some people, will just create more fat to store their fat soluble toxins and they’re actually trying to protect their body and then, and, and actually in those cases you also have to be careful when people have rapid weight loss, they’re mobilizing a lot of toxins and you have to have, you have to have support for your liver and your gut and your kidneys to be able to get this all everything out of you before. You know, if you’re, if you’re losing weight and then feel crappy.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So okay. So I want to just back up a second because what you said, essentially anything that you are suffering with, even though it is common, it is not normal and there is a high probability that you were exposed to a micro toxin or other toxin that’s causing your problem. Do not blow it off. A B, rapid weight loss is not safe for. You. See, hormone should be balanced. And if they’re not C C 0.1, which is that something’s going on and then, and then, and they mean, so it’s, you know, it’s all tied together and we have, you know, seen particularly in the last 30 years, logarithmic increases in among, in auto immunity in you know, cancers in neural and neuropsychiatric syndromes. You know, everything from, again, autism and A D D in Children to schizophrenia and bipolar and you know, anxiety, depression, you know, a little bit later in life to Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s A L S towards the end of life. So, these are all connected, there’s a huge environmental component for all of those and autoimmunities just been skyrocketing.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So when we look at what’s a girl to do, talk about food, right? So, food, actually, I want to, I want to pivot for a second when you think back to that human who couldn’t work and closed her practice. What did you do? I mean, obviously people listening to the summit there already like so far along because they have the tools, but you didn’t have those tools when this happened to,

Margaret Christensen, MD

You know, I didn’t have those tools and I was going from doctor to doctor, you know, all my colleagues and my lovely good colleagues who were like, oh honey, you’re just depressed. Here’s your antidepressant. Okay. Yeah. Go see the physical therapist. Here’s your pain medicine. Well, two years later, I’m still not sleeping and I, I’m in chronic pain and, you know, and the antidepressants aren’t helping me. So, yeah, that is your question was when I first. Yeah. Well, no, actually Dr. Ray was actually that Dr. Ray was actually on round two. Yeah. So the, so the first thing I did I was very fortunately Dr. Bethany Hayes is one of the pioneers in functional medicine. She’s,, and she’s been a long term friend of mine and I called her up and I said, I don’t know what’s going on here. And she said, well, there’s this thing called functional medicine. This is back when we had 20 people or 30 people in the room coming for the A F M C P equivalent. And and this is also when my son who’s now 30 he’s nine and that’s when he has first psychotic episode, psychosis, not otherwise specified. 

And, so I just started going to some course again. I had taken, what happened is a friend of mine had given me some, some Shaklee vitamins. And,, and I’m like, you know, I was a physical oh expensive urine because that’s what we’re taught. You know, you don’t, you don’t need supplements. You can, you can get everything through your food. Well, not when the food supply is toxic and I started taking things and I felt better. So, so that, that’s kind of how it started at that point. And then I got into, I kind of fell into functional medicine through Dr. Hayes. And I, I changed my diet. Oh my God, I got off of gluten. I got off the dairy and, I, you know, tried to do a lot more inflamed and I started taking a B complex because lo and behold, of course, I have M th fr and is also a C O M T enzyme problems in there. So, those are enzymes that are involved in very involved in neurotransmitter production and excretion and detoxification and also hormones. So yeah, so that’s, that’s, that’s what I did and I, and I got better and I closed my practice, you know, and then I started getting into functional medicine. 

So I was, I was doing this a little bit by myself and I got better until I had a second massive exposure. And that was eight years later. So it took eight years from the, from, from when I closed my practice and, and started, you know, getting better just by just doing some basic functional medicine principles. And we, and then we, you know, unfortunately there was a divorce, by the way, there is a 90 to 95% divorce rate in multi houses because everybody’s sick or crazy and nobody knows why. And so, and that was the case in, in our, in our situation. And, so it took eight years in a second exposure in a really crappy office building and also in an apartment that I was living in part time that had been flooded. And then I got super sick again and I’m like, okay what’s going on here. And unfortunately, that’s when I called Dr. Ray. And, you know, I found out and I also worked with Dr. Schumacher. He’s very, also big in the mold mold arena. I, although the protocols that we have in ISEAI.org are much more nuanced now than Dr. Schumacher’s originals.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I want to go back to something you said because this literally burns my butt when I hear it. So my mom has Addison’s disease, which is complete failure of her adrenal glands and is an autoimmune disease. And for the listeners, it’s characterized, I think I might have shared this in the summit. It’s characterized by, by progressive lowering of your blood pressure because the adrenals are responsible for maintaining your blood pressure. So my mom would wake up as this disease progressed. She would wake up, get out of bed, faint crawl to the bathtub that the toilet vomit, try to shower, not be able to shower, sit in the shower, crawl out of the shower, go back to bed and she went to like six or seven doctors and, and almost all of them, this was in the eighties. Almost all of them said you’re just depressed and that line is like nails on a chalkboard to me because if anyone is saying to you, you’re just depressed, you might be depressed, but it is not causing you to be in a wheelchair or unable to stand or fainting that you get depressed because you have those issues. Your depression isn’t causing those issues.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

But I want to go back to another big point that you made Margaret that I mean, from our personal as we were sharing earlier, all our kids had lime. And for our son, it was characterized by being really aggressive, really aggressive, really crazy. He was a sweet, sweet kid. And then something happened and we were in this field, we do this all the time, all day long and we thought it was just hormones.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

No. Hold on. He was four years old. And I said to his doctor, I think he has Lyme. And she said to me, don’t be crazy. You’re so you’re because you do this, you’re like neurotic about it. And I’m like, I think he has Lyme. He went from being super sweet to being the biggest jerk. He’s four.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

I had to like hold him down. His behavior is up and the thing that burns me is if we weren’t in this field, he’d be on 3 to 5 antipsychotics. He’s 13 now. He’d still be on him. Like, and how many kids? And that’s like slightly huge is huge. But how many kids have A D H D? How many kids are just medicated? Oh God. Anxiety. I mean, all kids are anxious right now. How much of that is the environment like you said, social media and how much of that is what we’re eating. 

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

And exposures and the infections and the antibiotic use that throws off the gut. So what’s the take home message for? The listeners could reject the conventional wisdom that you’re supposed to continually fail and get worse and it’s normal to suffer. Right. That’s the take home message.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Right. Right. And, and that the depression is caused by a deficiency of an antidepressant or anxiety about a deficiency of an anxiety agent. And it’s not. And we all know it’s neuro inflammation, what’s causing the neuro inflammation, is it, you know, is it truly, you know, trauma and PTSD and stress? Which is, yes, that’s, that’s, that’s all of us. We have actually collective trauma now globally. And you know, and, but how much is it because we, you know, we start, um we, we start with our Children when they’re babies, giving them a medication that’s supposed to prevent diseases, multiple occasions over multiple times. And that, I mean, completely bypasses our innate immune system and starts triggering auto immunity very early in life. 

And yeah, and then, and then you get your kids get sick and they get put on antibiotics. And so round after round after round of antibiotics and they get their ear tubes in. So right there, we’ve just disrupted their gut function where all of their hormones are being processed in their liver and their gut you and I know that and all of their neurotransmitters, 90% of your serotonin is produced by the, by the microbiome, by your good guy bacteria. So when those are disrupted from an early point in life from multiple factors, that’s why we’re seeing what we’re seeing and the fortunate news is, our bodies are amazing at healing themselves. And when we take out what’s toxic and put in what’s missing, we can heal.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You don’t mention alcohol.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Oh, alcohol. That’s oh boy.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Let you be the bad guy.

Margaret Christensen, MD

He’s good. Yeah. You know, a lot of women don’t, don’t realize the risk of breast cancer and alcohol is huge with daily consumption. You know, with my ladies are limited to two glasses a week. We have to understand that alcohol is processed in the liver with the very same enzymes that are detoxing or getting rid of our estrogens and our testosterone and whatever. So when you are consuming alcohol on a regular basis, it disrupts your gut flora and it also taxes the enzymes in your liver. And if you’re already dealing with a bunch of pesticides, the crappy standard American diet, your, you know, everything is genetically modified and I’m sure Stephanie talked about the genetic modification itself and how that triggers auto immunity. So all of this is completely tied together and I’m glad you got out there helping to educate.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

You know, think about it. If someone said to you, okay, I want to give you a toxin and it’s going to make it more difficult to get rid of other toxins and it’s going to make you not think well, and it’ll make you feel terrible tomorrow. Oh. And it increases your risk of cancer and throws off your gut. Would you like some? Nobody would say yes. No. But that’s a glass of alcohol.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Except it’s a social norm and everybody does it and it’s on TV, how people drink all the time and that’s how young people are supposed to do it. Well, if you’re strong, like bull, you can, but I’m not strong like bull, everybody. Right. Right. Well, and I think, you know, I, again, you know, that, that’s a whole another beef that I have. You know, you have the Bureau of Tobacco and Alcohol, tobacco and firearms who are not who squelch anything counter to their narrative of, and, and, and are there squelching a lot of natural, natural remedies and, you know, things like cannabinoids to be able to use the alcohol, tobacco industry is not interested in you know, people using cannabinoids because it cuts into their profits.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Is it legal? You’re in Dallas, right? Is that legal in Texas?

Margaret Christensen, MD

No, not really. Yeah. Where are you guys in Massachusetts?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s legal in Massachusetts. It’s legal all around, but you can’t cross state lines with it, which is so interesting because it’s still a federal offense.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

So, just for our listeners, we’re talking about marijuana.

Margaret Christensen, MD

And also, but I’m talking about CBD and, and you know, which is very important for use as an anti inflammatory and has a lot of great ecological effects. And, you know, a lot of people don’t understand is that every single cell in our body actually has cannabinoid receptors along with thyroid receptors. So, it is part of our, you know, but anything that’s coming from the earth plants, herbs, all that big pharma, big tobacco, big alcohol. They want none of that. They’ve got, you know. So, yeah, I’m not a big fan.

Edward Levitan, MD, ABIOM, IFMCP

I don’t believe we are. Yeah, we’re in line with that, so what are the, maybe, I just want to make sure that we honor your time and what are your kind of 35 things that are the top things to do to help regulate hormones, help regulate toxins. What, what, what’s your take home because.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this, this can be a kind of an overwhelming thing. It’s like, oh my God, people are, so there’s four things that I talk about and if you can remember nothing else but these four things then do that. Clean water, clean air, clean food and a clear mind. Those are, those are the things that, so just start with, you know, clean water, at least get water filters, at least get a Brita filter, bring a picture or something like that. I mean, there’s a lot better options but, if nothing else start their quit drinking out of plastic and plastic bottles and go to glass, you know, super simple, and, and drink water, drink, drink water, drink water instead of coke or anything else. So, and then clean food. So this is, this is where I am. I’m, I’m actually, I’m actually on the advisory board of the Institute for Responsible Technology, which is Jeffrey Smith Organization, and he has been the leading educator and advocate about genetic modification and, and round up. And so eating food that is organic number one, because all those pesticides are hormone disrupting and they’re neurologically disrupting and genetically modified foods, I’m sure you’ve had doctors talk about it triggers auto immunity. We have these really weird genetically modified by humans, new D N A that our bodies have never seen before and starts reacting thinking it’s an invite. Er, so clean water, clean food again, anti inflammatory diet. I’m sure you’ve got, you know, folks talking about what to do that and we have that all at molddetoxdiet.com. 

So yeah, and clean water, clean food, clean air, you know, at a minimum, every person should have a air filtration system in their bedrooms. So that’s at, at night you’re, you’re sleeping. But then, but just even having the awareness of gosh, you know, molds Febreze, I mean, all this crappy stuff, all these fake perfumes, all of the, all of that, all the fake smells. That’s, that’s top of the list. Get rid of all of that. If you’re going to use any kind of sense, essential oils are, you can use essential oils. One of the symptoms again of of toxic mold exposure is this hyper sense. You become hypersensitive to everything smells, supplements everything else. I’m sure you see that that’s limbic system dysfunction. That’s that, that is your limbic system that is starting to dump histamines, triggering your adrenals and then you start just overreacting to everything. So clean food, clean, clean water, clean food, clean air and a clear mind. That’s probably the hardest piece. A lot of people that we see also have had what we call aces or adverse childhood events. And now we have adult adverse events. So trauma of any type along the way also, again, primes our limbic system from early in our life to, to be on hyperactivity and over reactive really overstimulated way too easily. 

So for a clear mind every day, working on whatever prayer or meditation practice that is meaningful to you, be incredibly mindful about what you’re watching, what you’re listening to the negativity of it, the energy behind it. A friend said to me if it doesn’t, if it doesn’t raise me up, I’m not participating. I think that that’s a really good thing to do. And then we do a lot of limbic system retraining through anti hoppers program, her dynamic neural retraining system or group to make delivery training. There’s other versions of things out there. There’s actually the PQ positive intelligence. That’s a whole different realm, but basically you’re doing the same thing. Brain tap there, but we have to get the mind to help, slow down, to get out of the limbic system dysfunction and every day doing something that makes you laugh. That’s, that’s joyful, that’s playful. It doesn’t matter what I don’t, you know, just, I mean, and that is where you can watch some youtube, you can watch laughing babies and, and, you know, kittens and puppies. And that, that’s okay, but you really focusing on helping to calm the brain down. You know, we, I sent a lot of, I sent a lot of people to 12 step programs. So, Alcoholics Anonymous or Alanon or Co Dependents Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous or Shoppers Anonymous. Because those are, those are some very simple, inexpensive tools. The 12 steps are to help people calm themselves down and also to be in a community of others who are struggling as well. So I think communities is critically important you know, doing something that connects you to all that is whatever that means for you. 

And you know, if you have a faith background or not and if that’s gardening or hiking for you, then making sure that you’re doing something that nurtures you that fills your soul. That helps your heart. Because a lot of people that we see, they have PTSD just from going through the medical system, they’ve already been to 15 specialists and they’ve been to the Mayo clinic and then they show up on my doorstep. So you have PTSD just from being in the medical system alone. And then, you know, then I get a real history on them and lo and behold, they grew up in an alcoholic family or with neglect or abuse of some sort or have experienced trauma. Now, we have an entire generation of kids who’ve been exposed to school shootings.. And then this, this whole, the whole very purposeful fear inducing crap that we watched for the last three years. And so that collective trauma going, going on in one fear, way after another, after another, turn off the television, go dig in your garden, go to your place of worship or your community of fellowship of, of your book club, anything where you are being lifted and nurtured, get out in nature and move your body a little bit.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

This is fantastic. Margaret, Margaret, like this is scratching the surface but fantastic where, so where can people find you? Because this has been magical.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Well, before I say anything, that one of the very simple thing and I’m sure somebody’s talking to you sweating. You have two basics. Okay. Clean air, clean, clean food, clean water. Then the next, the next layer is poop every day. Poop. Every day. At least once.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

At least reflects, eat, poop.

Margaret Christensen, MD

Right. Yeah. If you could do it two or three times a day, even better sleep hygiene. Number one, I mean, if you’re feeling crazy or you’re feeling distressed, anxious, whatever, depressed we’ve got to get you sleeping and so that’s those, those are the two, those are the two top things I stole that I’ll start with. And then, and then I’ll move into all the other things. I’m sure that you’ve got on this program.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So yeah, where can people find you? 

Margaret Christensen, MD

So I’m at Carpathiacollaborative.com Carpathia C A R P A T H I A. The Carpathia was the ship that picked up the survivors of the Titanic. We have the Titanic of Western. Yeah, the Titanic of Western medicine treating the tip of the iceberg and foundering because of it. So the Carpathia comes along, the functional medicine comes along to help pick up, you know, the survivors are, are failed Western medicine system which by the way is very good and not for emergencies and all that. But we were just doing nothing with all the chronic illness we see all has an environmental component. So Carpathiacollaborative.com. But really, I have a lot of information at molddetoxdiet.com including a very simple videos that folks can watch to, to help explain a lot of this and I don’t care if it’s mold or if it’s heavy metals or if it’s a lot of these same principles apply. And then we also have a module for practitioners and advanced immune system module which specifically goes into the auto immunity that is triggered. And Dr. Gail Clayton was my co author with that and she is amazing on understanding the auto immunity component of all of this and what to do. Yeah. So we’ll send in our history and questionnaire from molddetox.com that’ll help.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Okay. Perfect. All right, Margaret. Thank you. And to the listeners, first off, Margaret, thank you for being here and to the listeners, you have a lot to chew on. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Environmental Toxicants, Auto Immunity and Chronic Diseases Summit. I’m Dr. Wendy Trubow. This is Dr. Ed Levitan and our guest is Dr. Margaret Christensen. Thank you so much for being here. This is fantastic.