Parasites: Stealth Infections That Can Cause Chronic Illnesses

Jaban Moore, DC

Well, thanks for having me and you know, I’ve talked about my story so many times and and really the key is I can relate. It’s the chronic illness journey brings our pain to become our passion. I just love researching and parasites. It’s been one of my, my biggest deep that I just love this information because it’s one thing that gets missed too often that has such a major effect on our gut health or gut microbiome, but also our mental health. I mean one of the things that I really see with clients with depression, anxiety, irritability is a correlation with these infections. If you take it all the way back to Eastern medicine, you look at how they affect the liver and they do so much damage to liver. The liver enzymes are elevated on labs from parasites quite often and when you look at the liver and the emotions tied with the liver. Even when you’re looking at Eastern medicine, it shows all the anger that irritability, that resentment which leads to a lot of depression and anxiety. So I see those mental health emotional symptoms so tied to parasites. But then beyond that, I mean just look at the research. You look at um autopsies of people with M. S. And people with M. S. Um in a study that was done 100 brains. So They dissected 100 brains. There was 100 out of 100 positive for nematode parasites. So if you want to talk about mental health or brain chemistry, brain health parasites are part of this and there’s no getting around that.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Thank you for sharing that context that’s really important. And there’s some things to unpack in there like nematodes and what are they? And also to look at the relationship between mental health and these infections as well as I love that you bring up liver and the eastern perspective that adds character. It adds a sense of emotional impact and it doesn’t just limit itself to physical symptoms that liver anger or that liver sense of frustration, irritability, being pent up and having that stance in yourself that could relate to maybe wanting to go get explore, explore and get more sense for diagnostics around if there is something going on. And so I have on here uh actually uh this is a bolo tie from my father, he was a doctor, he spent some time in Uganda and in Uganda there are these flies. Tsetse flies that are transmitting when they bite a parasite and a parasitic infection that can cause sleeping sickness and that can be really really significant. So we know insect bites sometimes as well as fecal oral transmission. So there’s lots of ways that people get. But I want to dive a little bit into that in more depth. Where and how does a person get a parasitic infection?

Jaban Moore, DC

Well let’s talk about the myth first. Here the myth is in westernized countries we don’t have parasites which is completely untrue. So I wanted to just attack that at the start because here’s why where do we get parasites? We get parasites from? Yes flies mosquitoes, ticks. I mean we all here a tick and transmit Lyme disease which is a bacteria. But then you’ve got the B. C. Another different types of parasites inside the tick that you can get. So that’s one way that’s more commonly known giardia which is in pond water or stagnant water which more than a million people in United States alone get giardia per year. CDCs where I found that stat um So we’re getting parasites from water. We’re getting parasites from organisms. So where else can we get parasites? Well you know people like, well do you eat sushi? Do you eat raw meat because parasites are gonna be in there which is true parasites can be in there. And for those of you who love sushi I still eat sushi sometimes if you have a healthy microbiome with a healthy gut and meaning your stomach produces hcl so hydrochloric acid properly you are supposed to be able to defend yourself to be able to not get those parasites. 

But then where else do we get it? Because what if you’re a vegan and you don’t eat meat and you’re not drinking pond water and you’re living in a bubble where you can’t get a micro mosquito to bite you or a tick. Well unfortunately vegetables also have parasites on them. Right? So when you eat let’s say broccoli or brussels sprouts organisms have been crawling all over those and they put their little spores or their eggs inside that and then you eat it especially if it’s raw. And then now you if you don’t have a healthy defense mechanism which is by the way your microbiome, there are specific bacteria that their job is to protect you from different organisms that did an entire summit interview where we went through different bacteria and please don’t ask to quote me because it’s like lactobacillus with seven numbers behind it had to have notes just to get particular but they’ve discovered that that specific bacteria defends against a stranger Lloyd’s so which is a nematode parasite. So you can get them from any plants, any meats organisms there in our environment if you ever go out in the soil and garden and then bite your nails or if your kids go out and play in the dirt and then touch your face or touch your mouth, which they do? You can get parasites. So parasites come from everywhere. And even if you’re eating organic food, you can still get parasites from that. And then let’s just stop and think for a moment. Do you deworm your dog, your cat, your horse, cow, goat chicken? Yeah, we do. And they’re in the same environment that we are right. And I’ll be honest there food is probably more processed and less likely to have parasites than some of the food that we eat. So parasites are all around us in our environment, no matter where you live around the world and those are a few of the places that we can possibly get them.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Yeah, that’s a lot. So insects ticks, food and water. And this is something that that in in my testing in my practice I see as well where I see people who do show in their stool reports giardia, even though they can’t remember drinking unclean water or water while hiking that wasn’t filtered. And I also see quite a few larval nematodes. And this is something that I’d like to dive a little deeper into the nematode aspect of things. Because I know before we like go into too many specifics, I would like to make sure people have a big picture context of parasites as a class, like what differentiates parasitic infections from bacterial infections or fungal infections or viral infections. What kinds of symptoms? How could people know that? They might want to investigate a little further and then if we can also look at a couple of the most common specific ones and get a little zoomed in on those that would be great as well. So what are some of those symptoms that can occur when people contract a parasitic infection?

Jaban Moore, DC

The most common ones that people think about are going to be your digestive tract symptoms? Right? And those can be somewhat confused with bacteria because if you have a bacterial dis bio sis or if you have a parasitic infection you can have diarrhea or constipation bloating I. B. S. Like symptoms are all sort of colitis can also be attributed to some parasite infections but then when you start tying into it, grinding of your teeth especially at night when you add in irritability you have skin rash. Ng these are all common symptoms of parasites and some of the most common ones that I see also. If you expand out the bubble a little bit babesia and strong alkaloids which are other types of parasites can do some of those things but they also can create a shakiness in your joints or in your muscle tissue, strong gets in your muscle tissue and can start to cause more muscle pain or fibromyalgia like symptoms. I see a lot of headaches with parasites. Remember I mentioned. M. S. And nematodes in your brain. Um So they can give you more of that throbbing headache but be CIA which is a common co infection of line gets in the back of your head giving you some headaches in the back of the neck. Just kind of really tightening down because it’s a blood borne pathogen that can get in your blood cells and that just creates that achiness there. So those are some of the symptoms that I would really attribute and say, hey if you’re having digestive symptoms that just haven’t gotten better and maybe you’ve tried an elemental diet or you’ve done fob map, you’ve tried antibiotics or anti microbial herbals for bacteria. 

You know maybe start thinking as parasites possibly a contributor to my situation also because it doesn’t to me in my practice these are these infections rarely come alone. They usually come in tandem with other friends or a friend of mine always call them frenemies because they all come together and they all they weigh in on your body. So those are some of those common symptoms that I’m seeing and you mentioned, you know like what’s the difference between parasites the bacteria, viruses, and these other things. You know parasite originally. Its original concept was that it did nothing good for you and only harmed you. So then it got classified into this parasite classification. To be honest I kinda buck that a little bit and say that’s not quite right, parasites can be brought into your body for a purpose, your body. And some research will bring a parasite in to mop up the heavy metals maybe that you have in a tap water. This is not tap water, but that you would have in a tap water. 

They come into your body because you’re breathing in or you’re eating non organic foods, you’re breathing in bad air from your environment. And parasites come in because they can carry 6 to 8 times their body weight and toxicity. And they like that stuff, they like those heavy metals and those chemicals so they mop it up in your body. And so your body is working synergistically, the problem is if you go back to ancient times, maybe you drank from a bad river once or twice, but you probably were nomadic and moving around. Or maybe you um I ate some bad food, but then that food source ran out. Well, unfortunately today we have access to whatever it is and it’s all the time. And our food supplies are so toxic. The parasites when they get in you, you’re the perfect host, you consistently feed them with not only the food, but the toxic that they really like to mop up in your body at first liked it. And now your body doesn’t like it anymore because now the parasites have grown and multiplied and they can be controlled by your immune system. Well, so then it becomes another pathogenic infection over here also. So I just like to I always like to bring that up because people like why is parasites such a big problem now? And why am I having these symptoms and why is this coming up? Well our environment? So toxic parasites love us as a host.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Yeah, thank you for bringing up that bigger picture context because I do think that’s important to understand. Well you know, if these were a bigger problem than they are today because of less clean food environmental sources and sanitation practices before as opposed to today, then why are we seeing bigger problems today? You mentioned M. S. Which is an autoimmune disease and autoimmune disease being tied with a nematode in the brain. And there being some sense that autoimmune diseases are dramatically on the rise today. But wouldn’t we think that there would be more exposure back then? So thank you for bringing that context and also that they may serve a purpose. And there may be a purpose because one of the things that I’ve felt into also in addition to the problematic aspect and symptom picture related to parasites, which you’re right, it is the word is defined as don’t do anything beneficial for the host. Parasitic and not like symbiotic would be doing good things for the host and for surviving as an organism. But parasitic usually means doing nothing for the host. 

And yet there’s the old friends hypothesis, there’s really good ideas about research around certain worm infections through helmets infections that can actually regulate and manage immune system function, prevent autoimmune issues. And there are certain of these worm infections, these helmets infections that people have started to intentionally infect themselves and and I’ll get vulnerable and share here that I’ve done it. I’ve let parasites crawl in through my skin to see if I could manage something and I’m an innovator. I’ll try things on myself that are a little strange. I’m not recommending anyone do this. But there are, there are some interesting, there is some interesting research on certain ones being just enough of almost like a hermetic stress to the immune system that they’re managing and preventing autoimmune issues and allergies and and eczema and asthma and certain things are, are decreasing with a certain level of certain kinds of helmets or worms or parasites. And yet many other things like I treat a lot of obesity in the clinic, you mentioned a busy a and that can cause really significant symptoms, be very difficult to, to to treat and can become chronic and can lead to not only the aches and pains and back of the neck, like you talked about, but also the the temperature dis regulations, the mood changes and significant brain stuff as well. And so within that context, I’m curious to get just a little more into. 

Okay, so it’s not that parasites are bad necessarily. It’s that. And I think it used to be this thing where bacteria was bad in the perception of people and antibiotics became overused and now we know, oh, a bacteria can be good or bad for sure. And but parasites still have this connotation of only bad all the time with no purpose. It’s really interesting. So I’d love to hear just a little bit more about the that that bigger picture context of of some benefit, but also some problem and the continued ongoing exposure and how that contributes to chronic disease in particular, mental health concerns because we haven’t gotten there yet in terms of the brain and how do these things that there’s a gut brain axis and and how how does this these infections impact the brain, the nervous system? Mental emotional symptomatology, and might there be some good there? So all bad. How do we process through that?

Jaban Moore, DC

Well, there’s a lot of research that have gone into showing that microbes, whether it be parasites, bacteria or even viruses affect mental health and parasites specifically are shown even in rat studies that if you infect a rat with parasites, it almost takes over that rat and can direct it to do different activities. So there’s definite studies that are showing major mental health changes based off of an infection.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Are you are you talking about like toxoplasma toxoplasma with the rats in the 

Jaban Moore, DC

Yeah,

Dr. Miles Nichols

Fascinating to where the rats can become almost convinced that they’re left fearing of cats because cats are the preferred host. So like these felines are the preferred hosts for the parasite parasite infects the rats. The rats brains are changed with that fear response becoming lower two felines or cats specifically so that the parasite can get back to its preferred host. I mean that’s just fascinating to me. I love that one. Thanks for bringing that one up.

Jaban Moore, DC

Yeah. So it’s incredible the studies the the amount of information that shows that we are controlled to some degree by our microbes. I mean there are studies now coming out showing that Autistic kids are having even full recovery from fecal transplants. So you take the poop out of one person, put it into another person that the person that received the fecal transplant was autistic and now is no longer now it’s not 100%. We don’t have the full understanding of this. So we know microbes contribute to the brain into its function. So if we go down this path of parasites and understanding, okay, a parasite giardia or comparison extranjera lloidis into our digestive track, it creates immune responses. This immune response as collateral damage, that collateral damage being not only your gut wall. So it’s damaging your tissue your human tissue but it’s also causing collateral damage of death to the flora. So the good bacteria in your digestive track. So it’s disrupting your microbiome causing a dis bios is well that’s not just I have cramps and I have diarrhea that’s also different bacteria in your digestive track help you to produce and regulate serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps you with happiness. Dopamine. You want dopamine every time you win an award or you eat chocolate. Oh that’s so good. You know you’re so happy. 

These bacteria help you to regulate dopamine without specific bacteria. You can’t convert say dopamine even into epinephrine norepinephrine which helps you with being able to perk up and being able to have that excitability. So as these parasites come in and your body’s let’s just call waging war because you don’t want. Grd in there. That’s one of those ones that I don’t know a positive effect for. Maybe there is but I just don’t know it. And as your body is waging war you have these collateral damage which causes this bio sis which then affects your mental health. So long term effects of this right? Maybe you don’t get an acute infection of giardia. Maybe it’s more of a slower so you get a tapeworm and this tapeworms in your digestive tract. Your immune system is creating a slow immune response. Just inflammation that is affecting your bowels and now you have an immune response. So there’s immune there’s nervous system there’s microbiome and I’m gonna touch on all three of these pieces of the puzzle that I see uh one your nervous system knows there’s an infection here So it keeps you in a state of fight or flight. Well how do you know that somebody touches you on the shoulder and you jump? You’re a little bit more irritable. You are in a worry state more often. You know you can’t just calm down, you always feel like you’re kind of uptight.

So this is a fight or flight state when you have chronic infection. Most of the time we are in that state and it doesn’t have to be a parasite. But then then you have an immune response. So you got the collateral damage that I was talking about earlier in your digestive track. So there’s a constant battle waging in your gut that’s causing this display. Oh so so your gut doesn’t feel good but your immune system is also suppressed towards other things. Because when you’re attacking parasites is the th two side of your immune system which leaves you vulnerable to things like viruses and some bacterial infections. So now we’ve got the immune response issue and I’m talking about just a gut at the moment cause there’s a whole brain immune response that that I love to get into with autoimmune encephalitis which we can touch on. So now we have the immune response.

We have the nervous system response and both of these things in your gut are causing damage to to your autonomic nervous system, causing damage to your vagus nerve causing and then causing stress and damage to uh your gut microbiome and when you don’t have, when those three things are off, you are a anxious person, you are an irritable person. Oftentimes you don’t have that serotonin dope. Maybe you can become depressed. So just simply getting parasites into your system that are tagged as bad or that your immune system is fighting with are gonna lead to these mental health disorders. And we haven’t even gotten to deficiencies, right, parasites can cause deficiencies by that damage being done to your digestive tract. So now you’re having a malabsorption of magnesium. Well, what’s magnesium help with energy production. So now retired, we probably have a little brain fog. We’re not able to relax or muscle tissue so we’re tight. We’re a key. We have a deficiency of maybe potassium, which I see very often in heritage in mineral tests, so we’re excreting potassium due to a lack of absorption but also due to a leaky gut, also due to a stressed adrenal system that’s causing your body to try and do that fight or flight urinating too often. And then when we lose potassium. Now, now, what’s that do to our mental health? I see people that have a lack of potassium oftentimes worrying a lot. They’re feeling just kind of defeated. Their feeling that internal vibration or they just, they just can’t calm down. They’re messaging me endlessly because they’re so worried. So freaked out. Just trying to find an answer, Just want to be healthy and you can just see that energy that that like they’re just shaken on the inside. So when you have a parasite it is affecting multiple aspects of your health in different ways. That adds to that chronic illness journey. Um and I’m I’m I’ll let you jump in here but if you want to go into that autoimmune encephalitis, that is definitely a fun conversation.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Yeah, I’d definitely love to go into that. And you just laid out a whole lot of groundwork and context here for the relationship between parasitic infection and mental health stuff. I love that you brought up the aspect of how neurotransmitters can be affected the relationship between the gut and the brain. The serotonin and dopamine changes that can occur. Even the american psychological association’s now come out and talked about the neurotransmitters in the brain. Like serotonin have such a significant impact via, you mentioned the vagus nerve, that vagal nerve sending signals based on the bacterial populations. One of my favorite studies. This one that looked at mice and had my subjective distress and the ones who had a probiotic a certain kind of bacteria in their intestines and their feed had a much better stress response. They had more Gabba in the brain which is a neurotransmitter that’s relaxing and the ones that had the sterile broth feed with no bacteria and it didn’t have that Gabba response and weren’t able to handle the stress as well and got burnt out more quickly in that stress response. And then they cut the vagal nerve and when they cut the vagus nerve it actually regressed those ones that had the superior stress response that could manage their stress and produced gabba. They stopped producing gabba. 

They weren’t able to manage their stress response anymore. So it was clearly and obviously and without a shadow of a doubt signals from the gut to the brain via the vagus nerve that were causing an ability for stress management and regulation through brain chemistry and so and and then the direct production of serotonin in the gut itself. And then the dopamine piece of of having not only dopamine issues but the conversion issues with dopamine and those dopamine receptor sites in the brain that we know can be damaged by an autoimmune brain autoimmunity that can attack dopamine receptor sites and impact dopamine in its ability to be able to be produced adequately. And like you mentioned so much of drive and motivation and and and pleasure is associated with that dopamine response to someone who has a flat affect. Doesn’t feel like they’re getting pleasure from things that they normally other people seem to be getting pleasure from that might be a sign that there could be some dopamine dysregulation. And I love that you also added that buzzing, that buzzing and the nervous and I call it buzzing.

But that sense of a vibration of buzzing in the nervous system that so many people get when they’re dealing with infections and parasites would be one that can come from other infections too. But that sense that that the nerves are inflamed and they there’s even evidence that some microbes can get into the nerves and effect nervous system directly. And that that vagus nerve connection tremendously impacts not only brain function but I was also reading about post covid association with vagus nerve dysfunction and things like other infections. Even sepsis has a big relationship. So these infections that can be big problems for people have this big relationship to the vagus nerve and we know the vagus nerve is able to be influenced with brain communication through the gut. And so we have this big picture context of it. It makes a whole lot of sense now you know with this context I think for the audience will make a whole lot of sense why a parasitic infection could impact brain function. Not only because some parasites can actually physically get into the brain, like those things you’re talking about with M. S. But also even locally in the gut that inflammation there has the link to immune system function. Nervous system function, has the link to the vagus nerve neurotransmitters in the brain. So that’s so important as context. So thank you for bringing all that up. So now please do go into the encephalitis piece and let’s talk a little bit more about how does this translate into some some some other a little more like technical we can get a little technical here. So so go ahead.

Jaban Moore, DC

So yeah there’s this thing called autoimmune encephalitis which if you want to break this down this is the immune system having a reaction in the brain because it’s autoimmune encephalitis. Encephalitis being part of the brain that creates inflammation which then leads to symptoms. So a e autoimmune encephalitis is the big parent of a lot of smaller types of these conditions two of these conditions that I work with extensively our pans and pandas. So it’s a pediatric version of autoimmune encephalitis triggered by different types of infections. Panned pans itself. It’s basically the catch all where it can be any infection or talks and that triggers a child’s immune system to lead to behaviors like O. C. D. Losing handwriting social social cues kind of breakdown. They can become aggressive so aggressive that I mean one of my clients picked up and I can change his parents so it’s this cascade effect of the immune system has been triggered by something. So let’s call it a parasite today because that’s our talk that then leads to a a not a purposeful but the body accidentally basically marks your brain is being a part of the attack and I’m gonna get into molecular mimicry in a second which is how that happens. But then now your brain is being attacked it’s leading inflammation and then your behavior just goes haywire and the other one was so this was pans. 

Then there’s pandas which is triggered by specifically strep which was identified by a researcher uh from the NIH. And that researcher was an autism researcher that was noticing that these kids seemed autistic but there was something different and then identified that it was an encephalitis that was causing it. And then they set up a lot of standards around ok, strep causes this kid, this kid gets strep and then within a few days after healing from strep then we have this encephalitis reaction and now the kid has all of these symptoms of O. C. D. Irritability uh sleep. That can be off sensitivities to clothing where you know they don’t want to have uh any sort of texture on their skin. From the clothing. So they get really particular that looks autistic but it’s not. So how this happens. Because you know when I first heard about this, I’m like how does strap go from a sore throat too? I’m angry don’t wanna have clothes on and attacking people. Well what happens is strep is this ancient bacteria that got really smart and what it’s done is it grabs a piece of your tissue. 

So let’s say it’s basil ganglia which has been highly associated with pandas and it grabs this little piece of tissue and then it sticks it on the outside of itself and then when your immune system comes over to look because it thinks something’s over here that’s bothering you um It sticks it on itself and then your immune system sees basal ganglia and then goes away. Well eventually your muscles catch on to this because that bacteria is doing some damage releases some neurotoxins and it’s causing your body issues. Now when it does identify that that bacteria is a problem it sticks a flag banana body into both your brain tissue and the bacteria. And now it’s waging war on both things which creates inflammation because your body almost attacks itself. So when I actually run tests like the Cunningham panel which is the gold standard of pans pandas or the neural Zoomer from vibrant America which actually has a lot more antibody tests on it. 

I see that the brain of a person that has these conditions the A. E. Conditions is attacking itself. So it’s identified the dopamine receptor, it’s identified a calcium channel. It’s identified tubular in which is a protein structure of the brain as being bad. And by the way if your body got rid of all of those structures you don’t function anymore. Which is why we have to go through a process of getting rid of the bad stuff. So the strap the bacteria the um parasites whatever it is it’s triggering you and then we have to calm the nervous system and allow it to stop doing what I call a autoimmune encephalitis reaction. Right? So what I call it is autoimmune PTSD where it’s shooting first at your body and then asking questions later, we gotta calm the whole system so that it can go back and go, oh that’s just a dopamine receptor. That’s okay. Oh that’s just a protein structure, that’s part of me. That’s okay. Um and then your body calmed down and you go from this O. C. D. Aggressive, socially awkward, sensitive to light, sound, clothing textures and that’s just a few of the 50 to 100 symptoms that are part of this. A diagnosis as possibilities. You go from all of that. I’ve seen kids come totally back. Whether there the average age range is somewhere between like eight and 13, but they come back from those symptoms back to a neuro neuro typical 13 year old that’s completely fully functional and rational. Um to the age range. But I’ve seen this happen from the age of three all the way up to 30 and by the way, since it’s pans, it’s a pediatric condition past 18 is no longer pediatric. So if you’re an adult listening to this, it could happen to you too and Lyme and mold like both of us work so much on the parasites can do that to you too.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Yeah. Thank you for that context. Really important because so many people and I’ll just add a couple of common symptoms to the encephalitis. Pc autoimmune encephalitis. Not only is, I mean, it’s well known for these behavioral issues and Children. It’s well known for pediatric concerns. It’s well known for causing not only that anger, that irritability, those behavior changes that socially awkwardness, but also even things that are more commonplace today that you’ll see a lot like anxiety or depression, eating disorders. Food sensitivities. A lot of people think food sensitivities. I need to do a food sensitivity test and then eliminate those foods. Many people are missing that that could be a sign that there has been an infectious cause of an autoimmune encephalitis. That’s led to brain chemistry changes that lead to their becoming more and more food sensitivities. I mean, these things go missing and anxiety or depression. Usually people get referred to the blood work. Most of the blood work looks normal and most doctors aren’t going to do a Cunningham panel or in neural Zoomer and they aren’t gonna look at antibodies against spring tissue. 

So they’re gonna say everything looks normal. Maybe go to a psychiatrist, maybe try a medication that’s going to help with anxiety or depression and the path generally is that the person either decides to go down that route and go those medications or try counseling, but then counseling doesn’t acknowledge or address the infectious component of what might be going on. Although it can help emotionally and maybe that emotional help balances the nervous system and helps somewhat with the immune function because a balanced nervous system can help with immune function. And then maybe it does help the infection and that there’s a link there, but it’s not the full story in a bigger picture would be so helpful for people I think, to understand that counseling is amazing and can go together with looking at causes for things like autoimmune encephalitis and looking at infections and if we’re expanding it, I see it not just in Children, but in adults as you mentioned. And when I’m doing case histories all the time, I see people who say, you know, I was pretty like I manage stress pretty well. I felt like, you know, stuff came up and I dealt with it, I could I could handle issues and then all of a sudden in my thirties or in my twenties or at some point like I was 25 years old and all of a sudden I remember I just couldn’t handle stress anymore. I was just frustrated and upset with my family for little things. I had a short fuse. I was starting to feel anxious a lot of the time and there was no trauma. Like no, no one died. 

No significant dramatic event occurred at that time and I don’t know why, I don’t know why I started to have this this issue and when I hear that I’m immediately beginning to ask myself, was there some infectious trigger to the immune system function cross reacting as you’re mentioning and attacking not only the infection, but also brain tissue inadvertently in the as collateral damage and that attack against chronic infection. And that has that attack continued. And is that something that’s causing ongoing inflammation in the brain and uh issue that’s creating a lot of problems for people, ongoing li so I love that you’re bringing this up and I love that you’re expanding it beyond pediatric, because it’s not just in Children. And I do see it many times for people who had some issue and it was maybe in their twenties, it was sometime after being a kid, but they had these things developed and no one tells them to look for infection, to see if it might be playing a role. So, I’d love for you to go a little deeper into other links to, we’re talking about infection with these mental health links. How about Because I brought up food sensitivities that that’s not always obvious to people. And so how about mold toxicities? Heavy metal toxicity, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, Candida overgrowth are these things connected with parasites? Maybe, possibly.

Jaban Moore, DC

So, I love that you brought up food allergies by the way, because food allergies is one of the things I just forgot to even say if you’re reacting to a ton of foods, it’s not probably the food’s fault, you’re not actually in some way a um beef or a strawberry or a raspberry. These are probably not toxic things to your body, they’re not going to damage your body, people, humans have been eating these things for as long as humans have been around, they’re probably not the problem. Now. Maybe the pesticide that’s on them or something else is sure. But I always turn back in and I go if all of a sudden you’re reacting to 30 or 40 foods. there is a trigger and oftentimes to me the number one thing I find for food allergy triggers is parasites. If I remove the parasite, you get to eat your foods again, there are still some things out there like gluten which has been modified and dumped chemical on and processed and and that’s a whole nother story, but that’s not what we’re talking about today and somebody else can go into that. But if you have food allergies, look at parasites and then yes, is your immune system just simply attacking everything that’s coming in because it’s overburdened with stress with all the things you just listed off that do come into context with this parasite conversation. So what I talk to people about is root cause and root cause really turns into root causes because parasites, metal mold bacteria, all our root causes individually, but then also bring each other along. 

So then you end up with root causes. So people are like, well what caused this whole thing? Can we get rid of that and then get better. I’m like sorta if you moved into a crappy apartment that was brand new build looks beautiful but they let it sit outside in the rain for six months and now all the wood had mold on it when they closed it in with sheetrock so it’s moldy and that suppresses your immune system and then you ate sushi and then you could not fight the parasite that you got that then created a dis bio sis in your gut that let Clostridium grow out of control which is a bacteria that’s in all of us that unfortunately when it gets out of control becomes very pathogenic that then between the three of those things backed up your liver and now you no longer can process out the daily toxic burden that we get in from the teflon pan that you’re cooking on or the tap water that was full of arsenic and now you have a metal toxic metal burden in your body. These things accumulate and you have to address each and every one of the ones that I just talked about to then get back to a neuro typical health place and I said you’re a typical because any one of those creates toxins or is a toxin and all of them affect your mental health. 

If you come into my clinic with raging anxiety and paranoia and fear I am probably going to go what’s in your water and what’s in your air because it’s likely going to be mold or heavy metal toxicity If it’s more towards just the really anxious side and your body seems really weak, probably gonna go more toward the mold side of things if you’re in the paranoia. Um almost illogical fears. I sometimes I go more into the metal side of things because any of these can affect our brain and our body because they all disrupt our bacteria mold can kill. Because what is mold, mold creates different or fungus is mold is a fungus, fungus create antibiotics, antibiotics disrupt our microbiome, Different metals that come into our body, like mercury or uranium that are in our water supply. A 163 million Americans drink radioactive water as that comes into our body as we drink and it goes into our gut and that disrupts our microbiome. Then we go back to that vagus nerve microbiome chain that goes all the way up that we talked about earlier. But then what happens if you actually get those metals into the brain itself? Well, creates inflammation. And I just remember back to books like brain on fire. I look back to um studies that I’ve seen an inflamed brain because I remember the turmeric craze of like 2008, 910, something like that, like to America fixes everything. Not so much, it’s a good, it’s a really good er but it doesn’t fix everything, but when you take to America it helps with decreasing inflammation. So I realized an inflamed brain, no matter the cause an inflamed brain equals a depressed or anxious brain. That’s just what I say to clients, it’s that simple if you have these toxins and infections, it’s going to affect your brain in a negative way. So you know, I didn’t per se deep dive one of those topics, I gave a few symptoms of each one, but it’s it’s so much about just finding out your individual journey, your individual roadmap that you have for yourself. So when I’m working with clients, I go through all of these labs all these talks and screenings these urine, saliva blood hair tests and then I just go, here’s the stuff that we found, this is your deficiencies. We gotta get those gonna give those to you, but you’re not gonna stabilize those on your own until we get rid of these things which are your infections, in your toxins and then when those things are done, your anxiety, depression, thyroid disorder, cortisol, elevated estrogen dominance are gonna reregulate on their own even if I didn’t do anything for them. 

So it’s really just about and when I say for them, I mean directly, like give you estrogen or give you thyroid, your body will almost fix that on its own. When you remove the problems and you fill the deficiencies that were caused by the problem. So it’s great. Get that roadmap for yourself and then just start at the top of the list and you may need a practitioner like the two of us sitting here to help you navigate which step comes first because at least in my clinic I’ve got to make sure that we get some mitochondria back online a little bit. We give some things for the deficiencies that we open up the detox pathways before we just go hard with trying to detox somebody from parasites or from mold. Because if you do it in an order that that person’s body can’t handle, that’s when we have even further worsened symptoms.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Fantastic. Yeah, this is so good because we’re putting it in a bigger picture context of everyone wants the smoking gun. The one thing that’s causing what’s going on and it almost never is one thing. And I mean this happened with my own health journey dealing with chronic fatigue. I thought you know, first it was thyroid related. That led me to look at gut and find H. Pylori and then that led me to find an autoimmune attack against parietal cells in my stomach and that led me to find chronic infections with busy being one of them we’re talking about today and let me to see that I figure out I was living in a multi environment. I mean it wasn’t it wasn’t the one smoking gun that I thought or wanted and that most people want is often not the case, there’s the Alice static load that we can handle a lot but once you exceed a load you have this stress and this trauma and this infection and this dysbiosis and this toxin exposure like that’s like the body can handle a lot. But once you exceed pass a certain threshold now symptom comes and people want to say, well what’s causing the symptom? Well there’s a lot of things that have led to crossing that threshold, valid static load and moving into systemic inflammation and dis regulation. So I love that you bring that context up and how do we unpack that? Well you’re talking about, Okay, we do a series of testing. 

We look at nutrient deficiencies, we look at infection and toxins, we look at hormones and but we’re not going to necessarily address everything all at once. We’re going to take some steps in order to have a step by step process to guide people through the experience because it might not work to try to address everything at once. And some things might reregulate on their own. And other things might need direct intervention and other things might have some resiliency or resourcefulness or mitochondrial function that needs to be built up before dealing with or it might be too much or create overwhelm our system overload or excessive detoxification reactions if there’s not that detox pathway flowing and open. And so I love that context and work very very similarly. So how do people know like where is the testing at in relation to parasites specifically? Because I know I tests for parasites and find parasites in testing. And I also know that there are some things like you mentioned autopsy being the time that they find parasites and not testing before and being able to discover those ahead of time. So where is the testing at in relation to parasites? How good is it? How much are going missed? How many are found with good lab testing?

Jaban Moore, DC

So after doing a whole entire parasite summit and talking to a bunch of people that spoke on parasites, I learned of some testing that was stuff that I didn’t do and honestly some of it I just don’t want to do. But one of the more accurate tests that I heard of and talk to people was literally a spinal tap and they pull spinal fluid out and then they look for parasites in the spinal fluid which you find a parasite in there. We already know it’s in your brain. That’s an option. Not one that I highly recommend because it’s pretty invasive. There are stool samples which are probably the gold standard at this point. And unfortunately for me, a stool sample, if you find a parasite great to make a stool sample more efficacy more more likely to give you the the parasite. As a result, you got to take something that will dislodge parasites, biofilm disruptors, give a little bit of herbal protocol to help force some of that out, which with some of the clients I work with and they’re very sensitive. It’s hard for me to do that before we get them to a healthier state. But that would be a better way to see parasites. 

In my personal opinion parasites go missed almost always because certain labs do good jobs at finding this one or that one. I don’t think any lab tests for the majority of parasites because again we’re a globalized economy. We have food from around the world which means that we have parasites from around the world and even doing D. D. N. A. Or PcR testing. That lab is probably not going to do from everywhere that you’ve gotten food from. So I just don’t find that parasite testing is the yes no answer that we would like it to be. So I do a lot of symptomatic checks. So I have surveys that people fill out. I do look at your liver tests if your liver is stressed and we have high A. L. T. A. S. T. I’m starting to think, okay is there some assault on the liver. Is it possible as a parasite if I. C. E. S. Cinephiles which is a type of white blood cell elevated over percentage of five as far as the type. Again I’m starting to think parasite essentials are tied to allergens or parasites. And since I said earlier I think a lot of allergies are caused by parasites I kind of go back to the essentials are high it’s probably a parasite. So stool samples, spinal taps, um general just blood testing concepts, surveys, I take all of that into context. And then even on top of all of that, I just come to, I’ve come to realize that especially if you have mold, if you have line, we are likely dealing with a suppressed immune system. And since parasites are all around us, we probably at that point have gotten a parasite. 

So it’s quite often that I will do a parasite protocol with clients even if I don’t have the testing to prove out that they have it. If I have some of these other symptomatic and just case history. Pieces of the puzzle. I was still likely to a parasite protocol. It’s almost to the point now in my practice where parasites are just part of opening up the detox pathways because they’re they can be not all 70% are actually single cellular or at least not visible to the human eye. Whereas the other 30% can be larger and they can do what I call gum up or detox pathways so they can get in the liver. They can get in the gut. They can cause you to be constipated. They even release certain toxicities that constipated so they stay inside your body. So I do like to do a parasite as part of my opening the drainage pathways and I joke I’m like you’ll know when they come out. Oftentimes people see them. I’ve had people hold up one next to their body that was, you know, a foot or two long. I’ve had people see lots of flukes in the stool. So I don’t love the testing where we’re at today. I think we’re going to continue to get better. Just like Lyme disease testing, it’s continuing to get better. It’s still not good on that side either.

Dr. Miles Nichols

Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for that context. And the questionnaires are a great way. I use them in the practice to not only in the beginning to assess for what might be happening, but as we go along in order to look at progress and change in symptom picture over time, which can be really helpful on top of lab changes to help people understand the progress, tracking aside from just how they’re feeling, Which can be really helpful in staying motivated on the journey because it can take some time to unravel these different layers and levels of things. So if someone does suspect they might have a parasite infection, what steps can they take? What kinds of we talked testing? Well, yes, you could do a spinal tap, you could do a stool test, you could look at some blood work, you could work with a practitioner who can see the patterns and look at questionnaires and blood work and you know, most aren’t going to do spinal tap because these are invasive, but stool tests and and and blood tests and see the patterns. And maybe some questionnaire see the symptom picture and starts understand. So that’s one way. What else can people do if they suspect the parasite infection? Should people be going to the health food store and buying the parasite cleanse box that they see the narrower, like what I mean? What what should people do and not do to as the next step here.

Jaban Moore, DC

I love to empower people and just give trust to them. So if you’re a person that’s already done a bunch of things and you are curious about parasite and you want to do a parasite cleanse. Just know the risks. Right? Know the risks of you might have a reaction. You might hurt, you might flare your symptoms, you might not feel well. So I say, you know yourself know if that’s something that you can handle or if your body is prepared for that, it’s best to be with a practitioner because they’re gonna be able to have experience testing surveys. Symptom guides to help guide you. That would be the absolute best uh, is definitely be with a practitioner. But if that’s not an option. And you know yourself, there are other resources out there. I have, even on my website, I have a full moon kit, which is a parasite cleanse. It starts with a really, really gentle start point so that we’re not going to just crush your body and really flare you up and then it builds to stronger options. But if you are a practitioner definitely do that and then do the other side of this, which is if you’re going to eat things that might bring parasites to you, do what the people have been doing for 1000 years, oregano on your food. 

Wasabi decreasing carbs, decreasing sugars, um, eating foods like walnuts and adding these types of anti parasitic foods, help to defend you. And and and cultures. We’ve done that for years, but now it’s fallen out of favor and we just put sugar on everything. And I also want to throw out there And many cultures around the world, even in the United States, especially the farmers up until the 60s and 70s, they de-wormed themselves two times a year. This concept that parasites don’t exist here or in Westernized countries is new. This is not something that’s been around for a long period of time. I’ve got farmers that I treat that are still alive, still farming that were like, yeah, I remember when mom and dad used to deworm the cows that give us a little bit. So it is a good idea to do something for yourself. It’s the best idea to work with somebody who can guide you. I guide people and then I put them onto my uh full moon cleanse and then they do it for themselves and and a year once or twice a year for forever. Honestly, just like we recommend take and eat good food. Make sure you do a multivitamin at this point it’s not an apple a day keeps the doctor away. It’s a detox cleanse every so often keeps the doctor away because we’re just in a toxic environment. So yeah, there you go. 

Dr. Miles Nichols

Yeah. Yeah. Well thank you for that context. So I think this really helps ground in what people can do, how they can start to get a sense through parasites or an issue some initial steps that people can take either through understanding the kinds of tests and questionnaires that might be asked by a good practitioner understands and knows how to work with infections, including parasites. And also people aren’t going to work with practitioner where to start, but maybe some cautionary notes around that and that you’re offering a way for people to be able to self manage some of that is fantastic. So any last summarizing points that you’d like to make here around this topic or what you’d like to leave people with in terms of some messaging. And then I’d love for you to also share how people can find out about you. And if they want to learn more about the full moon cleanse or anything else related to your practice.

Jaban Moore, DC

You know the biggest thing I get to end up one of these conversations and I’m just like man, I said a lot of scary stuff. Your body is built to survive, Your body is built to adapt. Your body is built to thrive and live optimally. Yeah, there’s some things that we have to do to keep ourselves well, just like you have to maintain your home, your car, your computer, right? So there’s some things we have to do, so don’t don’t leave this conversation going, oh there’s nothing I can do, parasites are gonna just take over my body. It’s done. Don’t leave with that. It’s yeah, you might have some cleaning up to do, but once you get yourself healthy and strong, whether that’s through working with us, whether that’s through going through my full moon cleanse um your body is built to thrive. So don’t be afraid of these parasites. Don’t tell yourself now, I can’t even eat food because you just said vegetables and meats don’t take that, know that your body is an amazing mechanism of physiology and and just it’s built to do life in this planet. So take some of this information, make yourself safe or make yourself stronger. Look at the resources that we provide. I mean this entire summit by it, by the summit so that you can know how to manage your mental health, go out and listen to all of the talks. 

Take the information that you hear and the things that you can apply to yourself because that’s gonna be really key in making this information valuable and at the end of this talk that you hear today implement some of the things we’ve talked about, which is add some value to your health, through avoiding, you know, eating raw meats or vegetables when your gut isn’t healthy. Do a full moon cleanse, go grab one or for that matter, if you listen to other talks to implement something tonight. The worst thing you can do is let that parasite freeze you in place right? It’s telling no, no, you don’t wanna do that. Don’t take that worm water walnut, don’t get the blue tin Z. Don’t take any oregano. And it’s saying no, no, don’t do that tonight. Make a change to your health, whether it’s going to bed a little earlier. Whether it’s click by on the summit so you have more information to bring in but make sure you’re implementing something into your life and take action. That is the best thing you can do for your health. Take action. Take intelligent action. Don’t be don’t go over do something. Take intelligent action tonight. And how you can find me how you can find my full moon cleanse is I have an instagram page, a website and a facebook, all of them under Dr. Jaban Moore, which is my name, Jaban spelled J A B A N and I’m I’m putting out new information every single day for free to those places because I just want to help people get well that’s my passion. I was sick. I had line. So it’s my passion to get information out there. And if you ever want to work with me, those are the places you can go to to get help in any way I can help you. 

Dr. Miles Nichols

Fantastic. That’s Dr. Jaban Moore and thank you so much Dr. Jaban the context at the end is so important. Don’t take this information and just build a few response to life and living life in the world and take it as empowering action possibilities and also here and do take to heart the pieces about that we are strong organisms that we can as humans have resiliency that we can handle a lot. And that even small steps like Dr. David mentioned of going to bed earlier, like doing some action, even small actions can build up and can have an impact. And if you’re in a bad way and you’re really struggling, then please seek professional help or do something more significant. Just don’t passively resign and and and not do anything and add to your fear because the way we relate to stress the way we relate to issues and challenges and struggles in life that’s important. 

And if you’re relating to life with more fear and no extra empowerment, that’s not in a service to people. So so I think both of us are really wanting to emphasize to you that it’s important to become empowered to take action and to accept and embrace and not excessively stress, worry or concern yourself over the things that either you’re not ready to change or that just are a part of the world we live and we’re all exposed to toxins, infections, microbes. So to get overly worried and concerned about all the problems they can cause is not healthy because everyone is exposed to them and they don’t cause problems in everyone. So it is an aspect of your individualized response, how you relate to these things. So thank you so much. Dr. Jaban Moore. It’s been a pleasure chatting here. And I do hope that people will seek you out and look at your information or other information, whatever people are resonating with. So thanks everyone and have a healthy and a happy day.