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Nafysa Parpia, ND has an independent practice at Gordon Medical associates, specializing in the treatment of Lyme disease and other complex chronic illnesses such as autoimmunity, mold toxicity, fibromyalgia, environmental toxicity and gastrointestinal disorders. Her patients with chronic Lyme Disease are typically those who either do not do well with antibiotics, or prefer... Read More
Lauren Tessier, ND, is a practicing Naturopathic Physician licensed by the state of Vermont. Her practice Life After Mold in Waterbury, Vermont is the East Coast’s only formerly certified, CIRS-literate Naturopathic practice. Life After Mold services patients suffering from multi-symptom, multi system illness, complicated by co-morbid conditions such as MCS,... Read More
- Mycotoxins as female endocrine disruptors.
- Symptoms of endocrine distruption.
- It’s not just mycotoxins (histamine, infection, etc.).
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Welcome to this episode of the mycotoxin and chronic illness summit. I have today with me, Dr. Lauren Tessier. She’s a dear friend of mine. I’m so happy to have you here, Lauren. And yeah, our guests are really gonna benefit today because we’re talking about mycotoxins, the hormonal system. And Dr. Tessier has done a deep, deep dive into the research behind how mycotoxins affect hormones, and not too many people have done this. So that’s another reason I’m super excited to have you here today, Lauren. We’re gonna talk about this. So thank you for doing this research for all of us on this important topic. So let’s-
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Thank for having me. So excited to be here for sure. Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Happy to have you here. So tell us a bit about yourself, Lauren.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Sure. So I’m a naturopath physician located in cold Vermont. Today, it’s, I think, negative 12 out . So that’s on the forefront of my mind today, at least. And you know, I have a mold illness specialty practice where I have people from all around the country and even internationally who come see me and my happy, little practice here. And what I really work on with people is helping them recover after having either historical or current long-term exposure with mold and mycotoxins. I’ve been doing it for quite some time now. I started in primary care and then kind of went through the Shoemaker Certification in 2016 and kind of evolved in how I now approach these cases with a combination of kind of all the predecessors that came before us with all that wonderful mycotoxin and mold information. And then also kind of with a twist based on my own research. And also, of course our naturopathic training, so.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Great. Well, thank you, Lauren. Let’s dive right in. How do mycotoxins act as female endocrine disruptors?
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Sure, and it’s a wonderful place to start. And what I really wanna do here is to really talk to people about the different mechanisms of action, of how it actually happens. So when we’re creating a hormone, we’re synthesizing a hormone. That’s one way in which mycotoxins can come in and actually change the production levels. Another way we can see it happen is through degradation of how we’re actually breaking down the hormones and how they’re leaving our bodies.
We also see an impact on our ability to navigate our hormones when we have mycotoxins that are gonna be impactful, of course, on the liver and kidneys, two of the powerhouses for a detox in our body. And then another way, the list goes on and on. But another way is through actually the receptors that receive the signal from the hormones. So we, for people who aren’t aware where, how hormones work is they have a receptor and they have this like locking key components. So what can occur is we can have a mycotoxin that’s gonna come in and block the receptor so that hormone can’t get in there, or we can have a mycotoxin that’s gonna come in and fit into that receptor and actually stimulate that hormone pathway and almost mimic the hormone. So that can be some funky stuff that can for sure happen with receptors.
Now, another thing that can also of course impact this stuff is just our environment. What is happening, our stress level, our nutrient status, other endocrine disruptors. So other things that are in our body that are wreaking havoc, like, you know, growth hormones from dairy and all that kind of stuff. And then, of course, also other hormones that our body is trying to process. So, you know, we need to keep in mind that when it comes to hormones, there’s nothing about it that happens in a vacuum and that’s really impactful on what we see clinically. And when people start digging into this information, what they’ll start to find is that there’s no beautiful, clear cut x equals this and y equals this when it comes to one mycotoxin and the outcome.
And we see this in both the human and animal literature. And unfortunately, we are placed in the position where we are using a lot of animal literature, and that really has to do with the fact that it’s not ethical for us to expose humans to mycotoxin. So when we’re trying to talk about how the mycotoxins can interact in different ways in the hormonal system, we are looking at animal data, both in the living animal and in the cell lines and we’re also looking at the human data in the cell lines and a little bit in the real life where we actually are able to collect the data.
So, you know, as we go on, I want people to keep that in mind. And so one of the major things I really want people to take away from the idea, I’m gonna give the spoiler alert now, is that, you know, mycotoxins in general are not dose-dependent, and that’s because of all the other stuff I just said, with the, you know, degradation and synthesis and blah, blah, blah, all that. So we don’t have these very clear instances where this mycotoxin, if I give a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, we’re gonna have a straight linear line of hormonal increases. We just don’t have linear dose dependence across the board.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
So now that makes a lot of sense because we’re talking about the molecular mimicry, right? Of how the mycotoxins can come in and they can behave like their hormones simply by sitting on the receptors or how they can degrade our hormones. So in some ways, when they’re sitting on the receptors, we can increase the amount of hormones people have. And we see this in our patients, right? They have too much estrogen. They’ve got estrogen dominance or women have testosterone dominance. Men, I’m seeing a lot of their testosterone in the toilet, like young men in their 30s, they have testosterone levels of men in their late 70s.
And we, they wonder why. So we’re seeing not only that the mycotoxins can cause amplification of the endocrine system, so causing increased hormones. But we can see that they can also rapidly cause degradation. So people might not have enough hormone. And then they can clog up our organs of detoxification. What might not be the mycotoxins themselves clogging up the organs but the inflammation that they create then clogs up the organs of detoxification. They reactive oxygen species. So now we are having people need more anti, increased antioxidant status. We have to make sure we’re giving them that at the right time. And then, Lauren, I love how you’re talking about the combination of mycotoxins and other toxins that are endogenous in the body. So our bodies create toxins.
That’s just a part of what we do, right? But when we’re working to, when our gut is clearing, for example, we create toxins or pathogens in our gut create toxins. Well, now the mycotoxins will interact with them. So those are, that’s an example of endogenous toxins. And then you talked a little bit about toxins from outside. So other toxins, maybe metals, maybe glyphosate, those interact with the mycotoxins. So all these toxins, whether they come from inside of us or from outside of us, they’re interacting with the mycotoxins. And I think that’s why it’s hard to find a linear relationship to how much mycotoxin we have and how sick we’re going to get. Because all these factors are playing off of each other, but we know that mycotoxins play a huge role. So tell us more about the data, Lauren.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah, and I think one of the things I wanna hone in on there for people to really wrap their head around is there are instances where we have a biphasic effect. So not only are we not getting that linear connection, low doses of certain things will suppress hormone production and high doses of things will increase hormone production. And for people, if you step back and you think about that, that is not a linear thing. That is an inverse thing that’s completely dependent on concentration. And that is, that has to be taken within the context of all the things you just said that can manipulate the hormones. So I, you know, that’s the one thing I want people to drive home here is there’s no, this mycotoxin equals estrogen dominance. It’s when stuff goes sideways, start thinking about mycotoxins and start thinking about the implication of hormones.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
So, yeah. Right?
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right, I love it because in medicine we like to, we acute, the acute care model of medicine is a goes to b. You know, you break a bone and we know what to do, or the hospital, the appropriate surgeons know what to do in medicines. Even if has a heart attack, for the most part, the cardiologist will know what to do. The heart surgeon will know what to do. It is a more linear model. Whereas this is a more ecological model, a doesn’t necessarily equal b. And so we’re looking at chronic illness and how everything affects each other. So there isn’t a one size fits all answer. It’s highly, highly personalized, which is what we both do in our practices for that reason.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right. Right. And to further compound that individualistic aspect, the data really shows that you can have one mycotoxin at the same concentration be completely different in effect and outcome from different age cohorts. So like a six-month-old female might potentially look different in the outcome from a group of 12-year-old females. And it’s the same mycotoxin, same dose. Another way which really, again, drives home. And, you know, we’re gonna dialogue more about the female hormones, ’cause that’s really what we’re gonna focus on today. But even just thinking about, you know, the genetic differences, like our two different ethnicities.
We’re gonna have different detox pathways, different detox mechanisms that are turned on, turned on, off, slowed down, sped up, all that kind of stuff. But one of the really important things and how this can focus on women is that we have what we call sex linked dimorphism. So what that means is our XY chromosomes or XX chromosomes are a combination of chromosomes are also linked to specific detox pathways. And those specific detox pathways are gonna be expressed differently in men and women. And these so happen to be some detox pathways that also are responsible for breaking down these mycotoxins.
So something like CYP3A4, 3A5, they’re expressed differently in men and women, and this one breaks down aflatoxin. Whereas something like CYP3A4 is breaking down aflatoxin B1, aflatoxin G1, ochratoxin A, and that can look very different at males and females. And that might be why when someone in the same family, on top of everything else that we’ve just gone over, gets a urine mycotoxin test, and they’re excreting completely different, and they’re like, “Well, we live in the same space, we eat the same food, why is this different?” It’s like, there’s a lot here. There’s a lot here to unpack at that’s why it’s different. So it’s just really cool to think that even with men and women, we can have those differences in genetics with how we detox.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
That’s really important. Thank you, Lauren. I love it. It’s like in some way we can get pretty specific with looking at the genes of detoxification that the patient has. And then we can map out the different mycotoxins to the different detoxification pathways. So we can tell a patient, all right, this, we think this is happening with you, but there’s so much more on top of all of that, right? So the patient might have tick borne disease, and then they’ve got biotoxins on top of that, which could be going down different detoxification pathways, which could be triggering different genes. And so we have so many different triggers for different genes all in, all at play. And so that’s why the keys are different for each person.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right, absolutely. And it kind of goes back to the idea of, you know, no grape fruit juice and no statins, and that’s because of that CYP modification, that detox modification. So you can even go a step further and say, you know, someone who’s drinking tons of green tea all day, every day might be modifying some of these different pathways, you know. It’s another individualistic approach to what’s happening with the mycotoxin. The one kind of last difference I really wanna suss out is with men and women, we have seen that testosterone can be beneficial in regards to some mycotoxin issues and can also be problematic. So for animal studies, we have seen that elevated testosterone can be helpful in protecting adrenal damage by T2 and even aflatoxin damage to red blood cells.
Whereas on the flip side, and sorry, men . Yay! Yay, females, in having a little less testosterone. We see in human settings that high levels of testosterone in the presence of elevated levels of ochratoxin A showed a increase in an inflammatory marker called CRP and also an increased risk for cardiac health issues. And this was specifically in men and not found in women. So on top of all of that, it’s a also, well, what’s even just happening with our own hormones and how is that gonna impact how we’re gonna relate to this mycotoxin too? So it’s just this crazy ouroboros like swallowing its own tail. It’s, you can get as nitpicky as you want in this stuff, and you can really get lost in it, you know.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
It’s true. So I think that’s why it’s important to look at all the different factors in a patient and look at it from a wide angle and then hone back in, really dial down and then go back again to get a broader view. And we keep going back and forth between broad view and dialing it back down. And each time, we find out more information. And the interesting thing is, patients, you might have already noticed this, every time you get a treatment, something shifts. All these things we’re discussing, they’re a moving target. You are moving target, right? It shifts as you heal.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
I’m like, yup. Amen to that.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right, sometimes you might feel worse for a moment in time. But usually, our aim is to steer you right back on the track of healing, but everything is always shifting.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Well, I wanna tease that out for a second though, too, because everyone thinks of cycles in life with hormones, you know. And the most obvious one is like hormonal cycles for females and menses, and, you know, the 28-day cycle. And then we have, you know, maybe our yearly cycle of you know, different hormones responding to winter and temperatures and that kind of stuff. And so we can also have an instance where women can be especially reactive or have a specific reaction to treatment, to an intervention, to an exposure in this small window of a few days within their cycle. And I always tell people like, “Give it a few cycles.” Like, you have to move through not only your big global cycle, but also your small monthly cycle, your small daily cycle. And even, you have a 90-minute cycle. No one talks about this. You have a 90-minute cycle, it’s mind-blowing. And so in order for people to really, it’s like clearing clock or circulating the clock. Like, I really find it’s important for people to maintain like a health or an intervention or something through all of the cycles nested within one another. I hope that makes sense, what I’m trying to convey.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
I love what you’re saying, ’cause there’s so much truth to that. Between each cycle is a renewal and then between each renewal is a new place to move forward. And so I tell my patients, “Think about it as different layers.” And I think about it as a circle. Like an atom, actually, where there’s different valances and-
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right, right, right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Where someone can be here in the atom at this lower level, but then you give a treatment and they reach a higher level. But then they might slip down a little bit more. But then as they complete a cycle, whether it’s the menstrual cycle or the 90-minute cycle or a sleep cycle in particular, they reach back up and they show a new valency.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
It’s a new level that they can be in, a new level of homeostasis. And so as the cycles complete the new levels of homeostasis, change usually feels better.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Yeah.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
And I don’t want people to get too like, bogged down in how like, esoteric, it sounds. Like it’s really like, biochemical. There are hormones that manage each one of those things that Nafysa just listed off, you know. So I’m getting goosebumps talking about life cycles now.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
It’s so exciting to share with people. It’s so important. So it’s like, you know, I never expect people to push through modalities, but I might try to help ease people. So we can at least try to make it through a cycle or whatever cycle is really being the most impacted, you know, at that moment in time.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
And patients know exactly when they’ve ended a certain cycle to treatment, you know. You know, they turn this corner. They become a new person in some way. There’s still more to go, but then there’s another cycle, another healing cycle to complete. And it’s true, as Lauren said, it’s esoteric and it’s biochemical. So yes, we’re thinking about you as this, as a human being, as a spirit, as a life force, but also as a biochemical being, and we’re looking at this through the lens of medicine as we’re applying an esoteric view around it. So we’re looking at you as the whole person, and I think that’s one of the reasons I love being in naturopathic medicine, actually.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
‘Cause we work with the person as a whole.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah, it really drives home the concept of as above so below, right?
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right. Exactly. Yeah. So Lauren, tell us about the research that shows us, well, tell us about the case studies in humans actually.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah. Yeah. So there is a good amount of case studies in humans from the perspective of mycotoxin as a food source. I mean, mycotoxins are just found in food, a lot of stored grain. So we tend to get a lot of data from developing nations where it’s a lot of grain that they have in their diet. Also, make no mistake. We have a legal, allowable, upper limit of mycotoxins here in the US. That level is higher than some developing nations. Let’s just put that out there and let it be said. But you better believe no one is going to try to get the gold star for not having mycotoxins in their food being completely void.
Maybe a couple companies here and there that are hip to the groove right now. But companies, how they mitigate this is they’ll put binders into a pile of corn that has fumonisin and then they’ll keep diluting it with fresh corn until they hit that legal allowable minute, limit. So the reason why I share this is a lot of the data that we see with humans right now has to do with food input. And food input, soon as it hits the stomach, it’s gonna go systemic. And once it goes systemic, it’s gonna land in the tissues, manipulate the hormones, everything. So whether you’re inhaling it in the environment, the built environment, or you’re consuming it, or you’re having some type of transdermal exposure, it’s still going to end up being systemic exposure.
So a lot of the data, again, developing nations, food-based, but still something we can extrapolate to. So some of the developing nations are also very concerned about populations and making sure that people stay healthy. So you find a lot of data about children and pregnancy in these spaces, which is great for this, you know, dialogue because we’re talking a good amount about women here. And we have seen in these studies that mycotoxins undoubtedly pass into the breast milk from mother’s diet. So go systemic again. And we also see that they pass through the placenta to the point that when mom’s diet potentially has high enough, something like fumonisin, there can be neural tube defects that can lead to miscarriage, to fetal death and miscarriage.
And then we also even see that something like alternaria toxin can degrade estradiol, which is really important for keeping that nice, juicy uterine lining for keeping that baby healthy and protected. And we can see a degradation of the estradiol which can, you know, essentially really wreak havoc on the pregnancy including pregnancy loss. So there’s just a lot of data, food data about mycotoxins and pregnancy, and even postpartum. And that’s where that breastfeeding component really comes in and-
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
This is really important data, Lauren. I wanna stop for a second here and say something to-
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
To women who are trying to get pregnant, right? Women, I see a lot of women in my practice. They keep having miscarriages before they come to me, and they don’t know why. So then they try IVF, they try other things. Still not working. And this is just something that’s overlooked. Sure enough.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
I’ve been in a whole panel of detoxification labs, of toxin labs including mycotoxins. And it’s very, very often the case that I’m finding mycotoxins are high in the patient along with other toxins that ties in with the, you know, the conversation we just had. The part of the conversation we had like, 10 minutes ago about toxins in their interplay together. And so bring it right back to here, women who are trying to get pregnant and it’s not working, it’s important to look at the mycotoxin panel and the other environmental toxicant panels. And then, of course, we do a lot of detoxification therapies and, voila, they’re able to get pregnant.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Takes a while. So what you’re saying about the research, we see it clinically-
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yes.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Every day.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Absolutely.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Yeah.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Absolutely. And you know, again, this is the estrogen progesterone component too that we have happening there. So not only just the toxic effect to the fetus, but if we step back and we think about, well, what about earlier in life where puberty is happening with young girls? There are some, again, cohort studies where they’re looking at people who have been incidentally exposed, where there was a group of very young female children in the ’80s who were exposed to zearalenone. And I have to check this data every time I say it ’cause it just, I can’t believe it. But it says it in black and white writing. They noticed that these girls who had high levels of zearalenone in their blood were developing precocious puberty, so early puberty, as early as six months.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Whoa.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
To eight years. And precocious puberty could mean breast bubs. It could be, you know, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these six-year-old, these six-month-olds were menstruating.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
But it’s still like. And here’s the thing with zearalenone is it’s so strong when it comes to being able to sit on our estrogen receptors that it ranks up there with our own estradiol. And in animal studies, we have seen it to be two to three times more aggressive at sitting in the estrogen sector compared to animal estrogen. So this mycotoxin is so strong, so powerful, so potent that they also use it in other countries for the whole purpose of maintaining cows and milking and everything. Like, it is such a strong hormone disruptor. But here’s where the craziness kicks in is that zearalenone, there was a study that was done in young girls ages nine to 10 in New Jersey. And they found that about almost 80% of these kiddos who had elevated zearalenone in their urine somehow had shorter height and a less likelihood to have developed their secondary sex characteristics with their breast tissue. So right there, you have it wreaking havoc in six-month to eight-year-olds. And then in nine to 10 it looks like it’s doing something completely different.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
So we have some answers for hormonal disruption in children. So when we’re seeing them develop too quickly or not at all, definitely, this is something that needs to be looked at. And I don’t think endocrinologists are looking at it too much. So it’s a good thing we are. It’s really important. I see it in my practice. I’m sure you do too. You know, so really, really important things to think about and to assess and to treat . Yeah.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
The urine collection can be a little harder on the young ones for sure. But, you know, we have contraptions that help you do that for sure.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Exactly. So let’s talk about symptoms of endocrine disruption in women.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right. Right. So again, thinking about estrogen and progesterone, anything that shifts or has to do with estrogen progesterone. So all of the menstrual cycle, anything that happens in the urogenital area for women or in the breasts, anywhere where the secondary sex characteristics are happening, that’s where things are gonna happen. So we have menses that are stopping, starting, spotting, you know, premenopausal that just keeps carrying on and on and on and on and on. Severely painful menses. You know, I, clotting. Heavy, heavy clotting is another, it’s even another one. Mid-cycle spotting. Post-coitus spotting, so spotting after sex, spotting after intercourse. Obviously, the shift in puberty and the timing of puberty, PCOS, absolutely.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
That’s a big one. I see a lot of PCOS in my practice with women who have mycotoxin mold issues. No doubt. And so then, you know, maybe some Metformin, maybe.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right?
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Maybe some other herbs, maybe some berberine. But really, those are just, those are gonna help with symptom relief, perhaps. Not all the time. So we’ve gotta dial down again. What’s causing this sure enough? Mycotoxins are there in a big way.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right. For sure. And it’s always, and I know that we’re, it’s the mycotoxin summit. We’re talking about mycotoxin.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
But, people, also keep in mind, there are lots of other reasons, but just keep this on your radar ’cause it’s the one that no one ever thinks of.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
And that’s why I’m bringing it up today because we do know there’s so many reasons for hormone dysregulation. This is one of them. But like Lauren said, it is the one that no one’s really looking at.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right. Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
And the one that we look at. Some big changes can happen when we treat.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right, and you know, it’s not just like what’s happening in the uterus when it comes to hormones. We’re also thinking of bone density. Right? Because estrogen has a huge implication there. Interstitial cystitis and recurrent UTIs, you know.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
That’s a big one.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
That’s a huge one no one’s talking about.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
No, it’s huge.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
And speaking of bone loss, right? So then metals get stored in the bones. So when there’s bone turnover, when there’s menopause, metals release, so now-
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
The combination of mycotoxins and metals and we have to double detox there. So all components that work together in a system.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
That’s such a good point. That’s such a powerful point. That’s such a powerful point. And it’s so interesting ’cause I think a lot of people think about the urinary connection to mold and how it maybe shifts ADH and then I can’t hold onto my water and-
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
But there’s, people need to sit with their body and say, “Am I going to pee a lot because I have big fluid voids or is it because my bladder is irritated? Is my bladder irritated because mycotoxins are being detoxed through it or is my bladder irritated because I don’t have enough estradiol?” Like, it. Yeah. It’s-
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
It’s often both when it’s a mycotoxin issue.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right. Right. Absolutely.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
We’re giving you bioidentical hormone therapy is a fantastic bandaid.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
While are treating the sources, whether it be mycotoxins or other toxins, a combination of them, so yeah.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
And it’s not just, again, the, you know, secondary sex characteristics that we see that are very much female that are being impacted, we have to remember that libido, which testosterone for women has a huge implication of. And how that fits in though there too is, testosterone gets converted into estrogen by aromatase. And we have this in any of like, anywhere we have a little extra fat, we have some aromatase.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
But we also see certain mycotoxins boost up that are aromatase too, so it’s another double whammy. So we also start thinking about women, like what happens when our testosterone drops? So we get like the low libido, we can have that weight change, appetite change, mood change, sleep issues, exercise intolerance, anemia, you know, mood and cognitive stuff. I mean, the list goes on and on. And you really have to think about what’s happening to the testosterone in the female body.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
And in men, I’m seeing the testosterone very low and the estrogens, estradiol, estrone very high.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
You know, and so we’re seeing, what we’re seeing is the opposite effect in the bodies in men and women with the same hormonal systems being impacted just showing up differently, symptomatically in people. And so then we have to treat people, men and women differently.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right, and it sucks because I’ll just be that abrupt with women. You know, I think that, usually, you see, if we’re gonna do this even though I said we’re not gonna do this, you’re gonna see in most instances an increase in estrogen. But poor men, mycotoxins never increase testosterone. They just don’t.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
No.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
They just don’t. So there, they really get the short end of the stick on that front. You know, and so it’s, yeah. You just really gotta think about what is coming into and what’s presenting to you or how you are presenting to your physician, really talking to them about it.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Right, and so men, often I’ll see men with decreased libido. Absolutely no sex drive. And they could be in their 30s and 40s and feel like an old man. Erectile dysfunction, and just even body changes, more body fat on men’s bodies and what they would think is inappropriate places. For example, the chest, you know, or around the middle. And that is about hormone dysregulation, hormone disruption. Yeah, oftentimes due to mycotoxins and other toxins.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right, and other toxins.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Other toxins and infections . So the whole combination, but mycotoxin is a big overlooked piece.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah, absolutely.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Yeah. Yeah. So Lauren, when would you consider mycotoxins as a source of endocrine disruption in women? When would you start looking?
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah, I think from a clinical perspective, it depends on what type of mindset you have. You know, if you see that, if you see the patterning that someone’s coming back and back and back and things aren’t changing, that’s the first thing. So people who are more algorithmically mindset of if this then this, if they’re going down the chart or looping back over again, you need to think about it. Versus if someone’s a little bit more of the emotional kinesthetic person where someone comes in and they go, “Why I feel that this isn’t working, it’s not working.” And you pick up a little bit more on the, why isn’t this working, it works for other people, that’s really when you would also need to think of, but it shows up differently in the different-minded providers from, I hope that makes sense. Do you know what I’m saying when I say that?
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Absolutely, ’cause everyone comes in with their own personality.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
The way that they want to be treated. And we’re seeing things, you know, from over here, ’cause we’re not in their body. And then we can dial down into really experiencing the patient and what they want, what their approach is. Some people come in and they say, “I know my hormones are being disrupted. I just know. I know I need bioidentical hormone treatment first.” And some people say, “That is not where I wanna go at all first.” And then we’ll explain the benefits of why one person might be better off going on them first or not. So again, it’s down to what’s different for each person. But a lot of the times these hormonal interventions that the bioidentical hormone therapy treatments are just not working for these patients. We try, here, have some bio identical hormone therapy, and the patient comes back, “No, my periods are still dysregulated.” Or the man, “My testosterone is still in the toilet.” Okay. So then we might wanna do other laboratory work.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think about it like a little bit, maybe Schrodinger’s box isn’t what I’m looking for. But think about like a black box that you put in an input and a certain output comes out and you have to think about that as the body, ’cause you don’t know what’s in that box. Like, anything could be in that box.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Exactly.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right, and so if you are like, well, if I put in a, or how you were talking about the law of mass action and the bone fixing with Western Med, if you put in a and usually b comes out, if you’re putting an a and z and y and x or a comes out again, like, think mycotoxin.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Exactly. And in fact, this happens in every single patient in my practice, probably yours too, right, Lauren? ‘Cause it’s our specialization, these mystery cases. Anytime we put a in, I’m gonna see h or z and, or a come right back out again. I love it. Dr. Robert Navio actually, the doctor behind the cell danger response.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Research calls it the black box of healing. You don’t know what’s going on there. It’s an ecological model.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Right.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
So that would be a reason to look for mycotoxins. Yeah.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Yeah. Thank you so much, Lauren. It was so great.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Yeah.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
So much fun. Always. Is there anything else that you wanna share?
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Oh my goodness. So I know this is the mycotoxin summit for sure. However, when I approach mold illness with people, I kind of break it into four global categories. I think of like infection colonization in this bubble, this imaginary bubble here. I think of kind of allergy and tolerance, you know, anything, like, histaminergic, that kind of picture here. Down here, I think of mycotoxins, mycotoxicosis, the toxic state of being mold-exposed. And then there’s the whole SURS realm. That’s kind of how I approach cases. People are gonna do it a little differently, but it’s not, everything that we just spoke about was down here with the mycotoxins. And it’s so interesting because if you’re thinking like colonization where it’s the actual organism in the body. You know, that can cause lots of other non-mycotoxin-related hormonal issues.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Exactly.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
You know, for instance, we see that mold exposure, obviously from an allergenic perspective, can spike histamine. And then we also know that estrogen, when there’s too much of a signal of it in the gut can prevent histamine from being broken down, so we’re adding to the histamine pile. And then we also know that estrogen can stimulate histamine release. So we’re adding to the histamine pile. And then over here in the estrogen pile, we have the mycotoxins that are building up the estrogen and then we can also have histamine stimulate the estrogen a bit. And then here’s the issue. As these two are rationing each other up, they have the ability to come in and sit on the H1 receptors together, which sets off that allergic cascade of the itching, the swelling, the whole entire algae picture.
So it’s not just, you know, mycotoxins impacting the hormones. It’s also that allergic picture impacting the hormones. And we’ve even seen, you know, issues where women are on long-term oral contraceptives, hormones, and it shifts their terrain and allows for like more pathogenic bacteria to, pathogenic fungi to develop in the mouth. So it’s the mycotoxin summit, but it’s also, there’s so many other ways that we can see fungus and fungi and everything interact with the hormonal system and vice versa that, I mean, I think we need to have like 30 more of these conversations.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Absolutely. I look at it in those same arenas as well. And I tell a patient there’s the bug itself. There’s the mold itself. You can have an allergic reaction to that. There’s the toxins. You can have an allergic reaction to the toxins. Plus the toxins can interfere with your neurological system, your hormonal system, your musculoskeletal system. And then there’s the mass cell activation syndrome, which we’re talking about, the histamine. And there’s a repertoire of a thousand other chemicals that the mass cells send out. And mass cells, they occupy many different sites of our body. Our general urinary system being one of them, muscles, our bones, our brain. And so now we have symptoms everywhere.
So there’s these primary aspects to the illness, the mycotoxins, the bugs, the moles themselves that create the toxins, and then everything else. But as a cascading ripple out effect onto the rest of the body and the psyche as well. So it’s important for those of us, or those of you listening that, yes, it is the mycotoxin chronic illness summit, but, and chronic illness summit. So we’re talking about how the mycotoxins affect the whole system and how we, as your doctors, what we do is work with you on your whole system, body, mind, spirit, includes your biochemistry, includes your toxins, it includes your gut, includes your sinuses, your hormones, your neurological system, your thoughts. The whole thing. Yeah. Thank you so much, Lauren. Always a pleasure.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Thank you so so much. It means a lot to be here. And I thank everyone for your time today. And if people want to find me, I’m Lifeaftermold everywhere, on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok . And then I also have a mold prevention 101 document available on my website that’s kind of just like a nice global walkthrough of your home to kind of just keep an eye on what might be of concern and what to pay attention to. So Lifeaftermold in pretty much on every interface, platform. Come find me and say hi.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Fantastic. Thank you, Lauren.
Lauren Tessier, N.D.
Thank you.
Nafysa Parpia, N.D.
Take care.
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