Protect Yourself From Mold With A Healthy Gut

Introduction and Gut Health Overview 0:00

Welcome to Mycotoxin, Mold, and Chronic Illness Summit. I'm your host, Dr. Ann Shippy. And today we get to talk with Dr. Steven Gundry. He's a distinguished cardiothoracic surgeon, and he's now focusing on dietary changes to cure modern diseases. He's a prolific, bestselling author, and he's also been very scientifically oriented with documenting his work in over 300 peer reviewed journal articles to really look to see how our diet can eliminate heart disease, diabetes, autoimmunity and so many others.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Well, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Yeah. I am so excited because we get to talk about how the gut is just so foundational and healing from mold and other chronic illnesses. And and you really have been such a pioneer in this area. So I really appreciate you taking the time to share your wisdom. Well, I don't know how much wisdom I have, and I'll share my time. Awesome. So in your practice, you know, it's so interesting because we in allopathic medicine, we get so siloed, right, with, you know, okay, cardiothoracic, you're just going to look at the heart, but you've now really expanded to to look at the whole body.

And so noticing that some of your patients are really needing to address mold. So what kinds of things are you seeing with your patients that alert you that there might be a problem? Well, I think so. About 80% of my practice now is people with autoimmune diseases who have been to, oh, I don't know, four or five, seven different physicians, naturopaths, alternative medicine, you name it. They've been there and a lot of them are on immunosuppressant medications for their symptoms. And most of them don't want to be on immunosuppression medications.

Most of them, when they wind up in my office, aren't getting any better no matter what they've been told to do. And I, I guess, approach it in a different way. Hippocrates is the father of medicine, said 2500 years ago, All disease begins in the gut. And I believe he's right, too. I spent the last 25 years of my current practice trying to figure out how we knew this, and my upcoming book, Gut Check, is really kind of a an ode in how he actually knew this and the science behind this. So that's kind of where we start.

One of the things that I've talked about in all of my books, kind of starting with The Plant Paradox, is we used to have a fantastic defense system against the various environmental troublemakers that we encounter, and that includes plants that we eat and that includes fungi and molds. And we had a really robust system that could hand not only handle what was thrown at us, but maybe just as importantly would educate the immune system that, number one, we've got your back that you guys kind of relax and don't worry about things.

We're going to inhale things we're going to ingest because we've got a system to handle these things and number two, we the immune system is educated, literally pre-birth about what things that it should probably be interested and the things that it really can disregard. And I like to use the example for my patients because it makes sense for them. When I was growing up very long ago, we knew nobody had peanut allergies. Everybody, we all took peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school. Peanuts were passed out, you know, at break time and peanuts were passed out on the airplanes.

Even some modern time. And nobody had a peanut allergy. Now, that's surprising because as I've written, about 95% of human beings carry an antibody to the peanut lectin. So it's like, well, wait a minute, we're all we all carry this antibody.

Leaky Gut, Microbiome, and Immune Triggers 5:36

But 50, 60 years ago, nobody reacted to this. Now, of course, some poor kid opens a package of peanuts in school and three kids are whipping out their EpiPens, having an anaphylactic shock. And what happened? Well, to use what I just talked about way back when, when our gut microbiome was first when the wall of our gut was intact, when we didn't have intestinal permeability, our immune system basically hadn't been taught, look, that's a peanut lectin. It's not very interesting. Yes. It's a foreign substance, but it's really not a troublemaker.

And I use the example, you know, the cops can go have a donut and a cigaret and. Really not have to. Worry. About we we don't have this defense system. Our microbiome is a wasteland. 100% of patients that I see have intestinal permeability, leaky gut, 100% haven't met one that doesn't. And the immune system, rather than having a smoke and a donut, is in a Kevlar best with two hoses and fingers on the trigger and what ever for and substance and even looks a little bit odd now comes through the wall of the gut or a wall of the airway, bam. You know, it's like it's open season and you're you're firing off 100 rounds of ammunition per minute.

And so the same thing that would not cause a big problem 50, 60 years ago now inciting World War three. And when people hear that story, a lot of times things start clicking so up there. And it gets to be a feedforward loop. So there's so much good data, especially animal data, on mycotoxins and mold being one of the triggers of leaky gut or the increased intestinal permeability. What are some of the other things that you think are really have created this epidemic of of leaky gut? Well, I think, number one, the this this great microbiome known I mean, we have normally there are bacteria that like eating gluten.

They really enjoy it. Doesn't everybody now. I get a kick out of you know oxalate sort of the new trend but most people would normally have oxalate eating bacteria that make them totally harmless. I was just on an Instagram discussion recently and people were screaming about how, okay, you're missing the point. Oxalate or the great health menace. And I said, Gee, and how dare you recommend sweet potatoes which have oxalate? And I go, Well, wait a minute. I guess somebody should tell the Okinawans, one of the longest living people in the world who ate 85% of their diet is a sweet potato.

Oh, I didn't know that. So it is a sweet potato. And it's like, well, they're living a really long time and they're not, you know, dropping over with arthritis and they haven't killed off their kidneys. Why do you suppose that is? Well, because luckily, back when they were great, long live people, they lived on a remote island and they had a great gut bacteria that wouldn't normally detoxify oxalate. And one of the things I write about in the new book, one of the brand new findings, is that these super centenarians, these people who are 110 years old and older.

One of the unique findings now is that these people have microbe, a microbiome that detoxifies xenobiotics and not only are molds and fungi producing xenobiotics, but also all of our crazy plasticize xenobiotics. They have a system that handles these guys and we all should have had a system that handles these guys, you know, after all, bacteria and fungi in general don't like each other very much. Most of our antibiotics, of course, are fungi and mold derived. And so it makes it makes great sense that these two are major competitors.

And one of the interesting things we know about bacteria is that they can rapidly evolve to handle a new mold toxin or toxin, as we're only finding out from using too many antibiotics. So so what you're referring to is the antibiotic resistance and fungal resistance. We're seeing such an increase in fungal resistance, too. Absolutely. So so one of the things that I see is that so all my patients have leaky gut, a weakened heel. Leaky gut. And there's lots of ways to do that. But my problem, as I tell my patients, is, look, we can heal your leaky gut.

I can give you supplements that'll do it. But if you keep swallowing razor blades every day, then you're just going to slice it right back open. And so what I started going after as a research interest were these plant components called Lectins. And they're just one of the plant defense system. Oxalate are another one. And let's, you know, let's get these out of your diet and then go from there. And so we so we we used to have a great microbiome. We clearly don't we used to have a great defense system of acid in our stomach.

But now, thanks to acid reducing drugs which are used by, you know, millions and millions of people, we no longer have, number one, and the acid barrier that is actually really good against breaking down proteins. And for most of the time these toxins are proteins and that's gone. And the other thing that continues to shock people is one of the best producers of leaky gut is nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory. And it can you just for those listening, explain what those are, because I suspect a lot of people are taking them.

Ibuprofen, naproxen, Aleve. And you think anything about it, it's like, oh, I got a little headache, I'm going to take it. Yeah. The sad thing is these drugs were introduced back in the 1970s and the drug companies knew exactly what they did. They were introduced because at that time, aspirin, which is also a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, was known to damage the lining of the stomach. And so drugs were designed so that they wouldn't damage the lining of the stomach. Unfortunately, these new class of drugs damaged the lining of the small intestine.

Now, from a drug company standpoint, that's a great thing because a gastric scope can't see down into the small intestines. And so when all the studies were done, lo and behold, miraculously, no more stomach ulcers. What they knew from animal experiments is that they ulcers were farther down in the small intestine where the GI doctors couldn't see. But when they were first approved, this was known. And so they were only by prescription. And you could only take them for two weeks because they were so dangerous.

I remember those days. And now, of course, they're, you know, this. Why does use, you know, over-the counter drug There is and they're used constantly. I mean, we have children's Advil and people don't realize and I've written extensively about this, this is like swallowing a hand grenade. This is such a great question. As a cardio thoracic surgeon, is there ever a time that you think that people should use NSAIDs, including aspirin or should they just find another alternative? I don't have you know, it's a it's a kind of aside, there is a benefit for very low dose aspirin.

Very like when you say low dose, less than 81 milligrams. Sodium, 81 mg. Yeah. The reason why that is and tear coated means it won't dissolve and stomach acid and aspirin has to have answers to be absorbed. Salicylic acid. So in a tear coated 81 milligram aspirin dissolves down in your small intestine. And so because it's not much of an acid environment at all, very little of it's absorbed. But here's the good news. A little tiny bit of salicylic acid converts omega three fats into their active anti-inflammatory compound, which is called resolving.

And without resolvers, you actually will get very little

NSAIDs, Aspirin, and Gut Damage 16:48

anti-inflammatory artery benefit from fish oil, from long chain omega three fats. So it's a little fun thing and really fun. Yeah. Patients look, you know, one or two times a week, take a baby aspirin. It's not to prevent a heart attack. It's not to relieve pain. But I just want you to have a little bit of salicylic acid to activate resolve. And so it's cute little it kind of off the subject. But I think it's a good trick tip and it gives people some perspective when we're putting some context around things.

So it's not like never take it. There may be times to take it, but don't take it very long and take it at the right dose and and find other substitutes if you can. And so, I mean, these these in general, these compounds are COX two enzyme inhibitors. There's a really good COX two enzyme inhibitor buzz volume, which is, you know, the Indian plant. And it's in one of my formulas and I like it a lot. The good news about it is that it doesn't cause damage to the gut wall. It works in a totally different way.

So you can get the benefits of the Cox two inhibitor without swallowing a hand-wringing. Beautiful. So when you're doing your testing to check out your patients, what tests do you like to do? Well, so I use I use vibrant, vibrant wellness. And what I do, I mean, we talk about how leaky gut has proven, I guess, by Alessio Paisanos now at Harvard. And I've been on a few panels on I mean, he's a really funny guy and he's great. But I think when I started this, if you would ask me 20 years ago when I thought about leaky gut, I would have told you it was pseudoscience because there really weren't any mechanisms, number one, and there certainly wasn't good measurements.

And even following, you know, the history of Dr. Pizarro when he was trying to figure out how gluten caused celiac disease, and he looked at a model of cholera and cholera, of course, a bacteria causes, you know, watery diarrhea enough that kills you. And he was trying to figure out why did it do this? So he found a compound called zon and zon, your know, of course, hits another receptor which breaks the tight junctions and that causes intestinal permeability. And he was able to show that gluten, which is a lectern, binds to the same receptors that cholera hit and make Zaire annular.

And so when when this when he discovered this every one of us in this area said, oh, this is great. All we got to do now is measure ZONEALARM and we'll know who has leaky gut and great. So we all measures on him. And lo and behold, maybe 10% of people, maybe 20% of people who we were convinced had leaky gut, had a positive annual in in their in their serum. And you go, wow, so much for that theory. And then people like Viber in America said, you know, hang on, hang on a second. He's proven this mechanism.

Maybe we're measuring the wrong thing and so on. You learn would be attached to receptors. It wouldn't be in the bloodstream. But if you had leaky gut, the you would have a space and zonealarm would now be recognized by the immune system on the side of the gut. And they would make an antibody design unique because it's a foreign company. Maybe we should measure antibodies designed, you know. And when they did that, it was like the floodgates opened and you go, It's gone in there. It is. It's so accurate, it's so helpful.

And then I'm so aligned to because then when you get the gut feel that those numbers come down. But you're right, come right on down. And the thing with anti anti-acne so active fuels that forms the junction and if you break it that they're not going to be seen by the immune system and you would make an antibody to active. And what's fascinating is so you can give people a report card you can say here it is, you know, you're all of your you know, everybody says you're crazy and you're a malingerer and look, you know, you've got wide open, leaky gut.

And then, you know, you give them a program and they can watch. And what's at least in my practice, what's interesting is most people's anti acting kind of heads down first followed by and then you can just watch this progression. And the other fascinating thing, kind of getting back to what we started with. So 100% of people in my practice have antibodies, IgG antibodies to the various forms of gluten, and there's lots of form to the late 1980

Testing for Leaky Gut and Mycotoxins 23:00

when 90% of people have antibodies to wheat germ, 100% of people have antibodies to non wheat proteins, 100%, 100% to you even my patients who have been gluten free for ten years have antibodies to gluten. And you know, there's their shock that they go bye bye, but I don't eat gluten, you know, I'm gluten free and I go, you know, I understand your your immune system is armed and dangerous and they may have seen this ten years ago, but because you got wide open, leaky gut, they're still ready in case it comes across.

What's really exciting is that when these people heal their leaky gut, all of these antibodies to gluten, to wheat germ of gluten and non wheat proteins go away. They're gone and that gets back to what we started with originally. You've got you've done two things now. You've got a much more diverse gut flora now they're communicating to the immune system, said, Hey, we're back. The third stringers are gone. You know, we're healthy, we're ready. We've got, we've got we got your back, go have a donut and a cigaret.

And the other thing that's happened is now the wall of the goddess heal. So you don't have constant invaders that the immune system is you know armed and dangerous. And when people see this it's you know, it's it's like, you know, it's so reassuring that every thing that they knew, they they had a gut feeling that something was wrong. And to actually see it and then resolve it. I mean, that's why I keep seeing I see patients six days a week even. Amazing. You're doing all of this. The research, the patients, the the writing, the expert speaking.

You're a tough guy on a mission. You know, Hippocrates is, I think, wanted me to do this. I guess you have a special brain to put all this together. And I love that you started out with surgery and and ended up for food and supplements. It's really beautiful. So what else were patients with? Is there anything else other than the vibrant labs that you like to do to kind of get a baseline to measure progress? Is there any other areas. Docs and testing? I do. Quite frankly, I don't do it very often because most people who we do it on have a fairly standard set mycotoxins and it's, you know, a flavor toxins, lots of other mycotoxins they're all coffee drinkers.

Do we sometimes see folks with black mold? Yes, we do. And oftentimes we we have a sick building that we fly. And the reason but go back to what I started with originally, I, I went to medical school at George in Augusta, Georgia. I lived in the South quite a bit of my life. If these molds were as deadly as they appear to be now, then everybody in Augusta, Georgia, should be dead. Everyone in New Orleans should be dead. Everybody and half of people in Austin, Texas, should be dead. Yeah. It's the construction here is really gone downhill.

So people won't be for all of our stupid things happen. We had a system that defended against these toxins, and so we've now these things have always been there. We've always our bacteria have always competed with mold. Mold and fungi have always competed with bacteria. They, they competed with us and we've just lost the that ability and we can bring it back. So getting back to those, interestingly enough, I'll still have people who will test for mycotoxins after they're cured. They're still have mycotoxins, but they no longer react to them.

And I think to me that's empowering because a lot of times people throw up their hands and they go, Oh my gosh, you know, I'm I can't get rid of all this. I can't move. I can't you know, I'm not going to stop drinking coffee. Dave Asprey, you're. Going to have some coffee that I would really recommend switching to. So but I think the the benefit, at least the direction I go is, you know, I'm not I cannot get these things out of you for the most part, but I certainly can get a defense system against in you and and that's I'm a surgeon I'm I'm practical.

You know. This is great. So when you're starting to work with somebody on their gut, you've got some testing to see what the degree of the the intestinal permeability is. And then what's the approach for really helping them to get their gut healed so that then their body can handle getting rid of the toxins better? It's it's multi-factorial. Just there are there are certain plant compounds that we test for Lectins and there are certain plant compounds that are mischievous. They do not plants don't want to be eaten.

They they were here first laying them. Yeah. And you know, they are they're chemists of incredible ability. I mean, they can turn sunlight into matter and we haven't figure it out. Yeah. So they use chemical warfare, biological warfare against their predators. And the idea was that plants, if they make you feel bad with leaky gut, for instance, then a smart animal says, you know, every time I'm eating these things, I don't feel very good. I'm going to go eat something else. And the system for brilliantly for millions of years.

So one of the things I do is, look, you know, let's get recently introduced foods into the human diet. What are those recently introduced foods? Well, it's grains and pseudo grains. It's beans and, you know, other legumes and surprising to a lot of people, vegetables and fruits from the Americas. And, you know, the nightshade family, the squashes, unfortunately, even believe it or not, goji berries are nightshades. Sorry about that, everybody. And so yeah. People get so confused. Right. Because the what's the supposedly the best thing one day is like, oh we're wrong.

And chia seeds are we see a number of people where chia seeds are inflammatory. Well they're in American, they're South American food.

Dietary Triggers and Food Reintroduction 31:00

So, you know, most of us are from Europe, Africa or Asia, and none of us were ever exposed to or North or South or Central American plant until 500 years ago when Columbus brought them. And I'm fascinated how cultures have figured out how to detoxify these these plants. I mean, for instance, the Italians refused to eat tomatoes for 200 years after Columbus brought them back their native son. I didn't know that. That's interesting. And to this day, an elegant culture to make tomato sauce. You always peel and see the tomatoes.

In fact, the Roma tomato, which is has the most pull to seed ratio. And they were hybrid eyes by the Italians. So that all you did was, you know, pull the peel off after putting it in hot water or scorching it, cut it in half, scoop out the pulp and then throw it in the pot to make way. And that's I mean, it's just fascinated the Italians or well, the southwestern American Indians always peel and deseeded they're pepper What's really funny? An Italian pizza. Everybody gets the pepper flakes and the the seeds and the the top.

That was what was thrown away from the peppers. Smart said, Hey, you know, let's not waste these. But that's how those came about. The people go, well, what they do, they harvested the seed in the in the skin. All that was what was thrown away. And that's what I you know, I love going around the world, finding out how these culture was detoxify these foods. Most people don't realize that beans have their own set of bacteria and that principle of soaking the beans was actually to ferment the bean and ferment the lectins off of the skin.

And everybody who's ever so beans knows that this bubbly stuff rises to the top. Well, that's the fermentation process. And so you start, you know, you look at these cultures that go, you know, in these guys. They knew something. You're probably more in tune with their bodies than and just developed the tech the techniques from there. So initially you would say take all of these foods out, but then maybe sometime in the future, if you prepare them differently, you might be able to add them back in.

Yeah. And the other thing we've seen with some of our really mischievous autoimmune patients who have four or five back warrior immune diseases, a lot of those folks react all forms of dairy and a lot of those folks react to all forms of milk, of eggs or both yolks and whites. Now the good news is once we seal everything up, we can reintroduce a great number of these foods. Sometimes not all of them, but most of the time we can reintroduce these things, which is exciting. That's that's the carrot on the stick.

Hold off, hold out for people. There's hope. Yeah. So you start with cleaning up the diet so that the the gut isn't getting reinjured all the time when it's already inflamed. And then what's next? Well, so you've got to, one way or another, reintroduce bacteria that are capable of making post biotic short chain fatty acids. And there's there's various ways to do this. I happen to be a big fan of a company called Pendulum Life that, yeah, not only Akkermansia but other butyrate producing bugs. I think that's not I think that's a great start.

I make a compound called Bio complete three. That pendulum happens to love because I was able to nano encapsulate butyrate and so that it's actually delivered to your lower gut. You can swallow all the butyrate in the world. It's not going to do a thing. And Ben John agrees with me, but you have to deliver it where it needs to be. Now, the other thing that I write about in the new book, Gut Check, which is exciting news but bad news in that you could swallow all the soluble fiber in the world that these fermenting bacteria really like and really need.

But bad news, you're not going to make much butyrate. And the reason for that is the butyrate producing bugs actually have precursors of other short chain fatty acids and other components. It's almost like an assembly line. And this was and I give full credit to the Sonnenburg from Stanford, the husband and wife team. They did a great human study where they took two groups of humans with gut dysbiosis. They gave one group or large amount of prebiotics, primarily in one and the other group. They gave the Inulin, but they gave them fermented foods and in that case it was primarily from yogurts.

But there was other there was and there was kombucha. And they looked at, number one, their gut microbiome, diversity, and number two, their inflammatory markers. And surprise, surprise, the Inulin group, the prebiotic fiber group, also had no change in their gut diversity and no change in their anti in their inflammatory rhetoric. You go, well, so much for prebiotics. The other group that got the post biotics. Yes, they got some probiotic attacks but not very important. The post biotics, they're the ones and the prebiotic fiber.

They're the ones that gut gut diversity and they're the ones that the inflammatory markers decreased. So and I think that's it's another piece of the puzzle. Now, I'm one of the first to tell people, look, most of the probiotic foods you're eating will never make it past your stomach acid and we'll never colonizers gut. Sorry about that. But what even a pendulum would admit is that dead bacteria tell tales. And I have a whole chapter on dead bacteria tell tale. I can't wait to read it. Dead bacteria carry information.

And so don't worry that all of that you have 10 billion living cultures in your probiotic. I don't care. It's the information that's in those things from those dead bacteria that's actually going to start this process. And that's actually quite exciting. It's very exciting. That's why I believe it or not. I mean, vinegar, which is acetic acid, is a wonderful precursor, short chain fatty acid for butyrate. And so if you get your vinegar folks, it's an easy way to get it. Like make it with the salad dressing kind of thing and put it on food.

Or do you just take it straight or in a capsule? So some San Pellegrino sparkling water and put a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar in it and you'll have, you know, my fake coke and you'll do yourself a favor by it. Easy way to introduce vinegar. Beautiful. And do you have a favorite kind? Yeah, actually. And I have no relationship with them. There's a company out of Napa Valley called Napa Valley Naturals and get their they make to get the reserve balsamic vinegar. It's very cheap. It's very syrupy, and it makes the best fake coke there is.

Okay, I'm going to order it today. It sounds great. You have me sold for sure. I love these tips for, you know, to move this process along. There are so many things that we can do to help the intestinal lining heal. And I love this, you know, creativity that you bring to finding solutions. Well, so there's again, really want to get butyrate one way or another down to the wall of the gut. Most people maybe by now know, maybe not, that klarna sites the the cells that line our large intestine are 90% dependent on butyrate as their fuel source, 90%.

That's their only fuel source. And most of us, sadly have no butyrate producing bacteria. And if we did, we don't give them any precursors in terms of prebiotic fiber to make butyrate back. I was watching the news this morning and they add up. The news is everybody seen is younger and younger and younger people are getting cancer and it's you know, it's an epidemic of younger and younger people getting colon cancer and it's an epidemic of younger and younger women getting breast cancer and ovarian cancer.

And I had a wonderful doctor on young woman

Butyrate, Probiotics, and Gut Healing 42:00

who said, well, you know, our problem is we need to change the guidelines. So we're doing testing earlier and earlier or, you know, we're very excited that now at least everybody knows that when you're 45, you should have come home and ask AP. And we're working to make sure that women get K 125 you know, earlier and earlier. And I'm going, No, no, no, I everybody is getting these earlier and earlier. You know, property is good. I told you, I'm happy to tell you. You're happy to tell it. But now it's like, oh, we got to get all these agencies to test earlier and earlier.

If cancer is not good for you, no matter when you find it. And so for so, for instance, no wonder we have this huge uptick in early colon cancer because now we have you know, I'm tired generation who's totally devoid of butyrate and butyrate producing bacteria and foods in their diet. And it totally makes sense then why we're so much more predisposed to these environmental toxins when our guts aren't working us to detoxify, Of course we're going to be more susceptible to things like cancer and autoimmunity and all these toxin related diseases.

Right. And and again, you have to hearken back to, well, you know, why are these super old people Super Bowl and, you know, what's the tricks? And so, believe me, I have an old chapter on how the blue zones are aren't blue. And it has nothing to do with a plant based diet. By the way. It's so. But we will. I can't wait for your book to come out. It's coming out in January. Is that. Gut check? Gut check. It's going to be great. Well, and it's I know so often we're working with patients who are so, so ill to help them find their way back to health.

But wouldn't it be great if we have people listening that and I hope this book gets rid of people that are like, Oh yeah, we we want to start now to avoid the cancer and autoimmune diseases and diabetes and all the things. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what, what motivates me and I've written about this since the first book Apocalypse Again, How We Knew It, I have no idea. But you know, all disease begins with God and apocalypse. Thought that a physician should Well, I'll start. So Hippocrates believed that all creatures had what translates from grease as green lifeforce energy.

Very Californian, and that this green light force energy wanted this creature to have perfect health, and that there were external factors. Getting back to what we're talking about today that was preventing that green lifeforce energy to express itself and hypocrisies, believe that a physician should be a detective who would find these external factors and then teach the patient to remove them. And then the green lifeforce energy would heal the patient. And I love that analogy because that's exactly the message that I want to come through at the summit, is it's exactly that.

That's beautiful. Thank you. And and so, you know, when I first discovered that years ago of the properties teaching, you know, this green lifeforce energy, I said, jeez, that's what I do. I'm I'm merely a detective. I'm just appointed by a property. And they teach my patients to remove these external factors. And in this summit, we're removing these mold and fun, right? Toxins, they'll kill themselves. And it's it's really exciting to watch. Now, hilariously, it's not a green lifeforce energy at all.

It's a brown lifeforce energy. And that's the 100 trillion bacteria that live in us and on us. But he was right. And that's the energy. And why would they be the energy? Because we are their home and we have a wall and a symbiotic relationship with the. And it's no wonder that the super centenarians have this incredibly robust, diverse microbiome that's ready for any of these environmental things that's thrown at them because that's their home. And they're you know, there's nothing that's been interfering with them.

They don't have these stupid external factors that we've introduced for our health. So, yeah, yeah. That's it. I love it that you're finding the solutions, though, for really helping people to figure out how to get their gut that healthy again. And I think, you know, you touched on earlier, I think even the children being born now a lot of times are already, you know, having difficulty establishing a healthy gut microbiome. And that's why we're seeing increased risk for autism and A.D.D. and child cancers, diabetes and all that kind of thing.

There's, for instance, who would have imagined prior to the Human Microbiome Project that the placenta would be teeming with bacteria, that the amniotic fluid would have its own component of bacteria that the fetus would have its own component of bacteria. It's like, no, you're kidding. You know, this is sterile. This is privileged space and it's not. And now, I mean, the connection between the microbiome, even in the placenta and autism spectrum disorder is I mean, it's not even conjecture anymore, folks.

Sorry. We now know the link. And so, yeah, we need to empower. Gets help because there's a link and we can it. If. Tremendously. If I was an obstetrician now I would spend my entire work with my pregnant patient working on her diet. You know, I don't care about anything else here. You know, I participate with the pediatrician and, you know, this is guess what? We're a team. And mom, here's what we know. It's not your fault. You didn't know this. And, you know, here's here's how to make a great baby.

And I wrote about that in the Plant Paradox Family Cookbook, because we now know this You know, this starts at the fetal development. So it's so important. So is there anything else that you want to share about healing the gut and particularly as it is related to people that are dealing with mold? Yeah, I mean, certainly it's worth looking in your environment, particularly if you if you do mycotoxins testing and you do come up with, you know, black mold, then it's worth looking. You may not find it.

That doesn't mean that your home is where you were exposed to it. You could be in a sick building. And one of the things we've learned, sadly, is that air, a leaky building is probably a wonderful thing, and a leaky home is probably a wonderful thing. Where we had air movement, So many of our buildings and homes are far more toxic than stepping outside. There are, I think, use for home air purifiers. I happen to like air doctor. I have no connection with them. I have one in my office, as a matter of fact.

So there are ways to mitigate. But it's worth having the mold expert come in. If those if those things are found on mold testing, there are low mold coffee. Interestingly enough, a very, very famous coffee chain may have the highest level of toxins of any coffee. And I won't mention names, but they're very big. Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Environmental Toxins, Glyphosate, and Mold Exposure 52:00

And so, you know, just, you know, fine. I personally, I, Dave Asprey and I are good friends and good for him for danger Coffee. I personally import my beans from Italy, which has some actually very tough molds standards. Yeah. Isn't it interesting how other countries have much tighter standards than we do and they can probably be tightened up even more, which we. I would be remiss to tell people that one of the biggest causes of leaky gut in the United States and Canada and Mexico is Roundup glyphosate.

Thank you for bringing that up. So important. One of the interesting things we now Roundup most people don't know was patented as a antibiotics by Monsanto and antibiotics and Roundup selectively kills basically friendly bacteria in our gut, leaving the bad ones unharmed. It selectively kills off all of our tryptophan pathway bacteria plants, serotonin five HDP. And isn't it interesting the amount of anxiety and depression in the last 50 years that people didn't have before? But what's really interesting, so I'll have a lot of my patients who are in glyphosate is everywhere.

It's in all of our oats folks, please do not drink oat milk and please do not eat oatmeal corn. It's been. Called a. Sorghum and it's in all of our products. It's in canola except organic, and that's why I used to ban it. But it it's much less present, present in Europe. And what happens to a lot of my patients is they, they eliminate all these foods, all these grains. They go over to Europe, they're cured, autoimmune disease goes away, their leaky gut goes away, they go over to Europe. How can they resist?

They're eating Christians in Baghdad and having to. It's changing a little bit, though. I'm not having as many people be able to get away with it. And anymore over to Europe and they don't react and they come back and say, Oh, you know, you cured me, Dr. Gundry. And they come back and they started having our food. And in two weeks they're on the phone going, What the heck? You know, I thought I was cured of it. No, you're back to stay. Food. And you know, I'm sorry, you can't have these. It's in our food supply.

I mean, I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, I know with all the cancer cases against Monsanto, Bayer, you would think that we would just be able to influence the farmers to. To change what they're doing. But I think it's so, so indoctrinated. It's. It's going to take some time to make the changes in our food supply. You realize now we have super weeds, of course, that are resistant to Roundup. So the but the farmers are doing is they're doubling up, tripling up on the roundup to try and control these super weeds and so it's just it just keeps snowballing.

And I just remember from a training and medical professions standpoint, sickness is good for business and, you know, big pharma, big medicine, big agriculture, they're all interwoven, interwoven. I wish it wasn't true, but it's sickness is good for business. And fortunately. Or. Yeah, but I think as consumers we can vote with our dollars and and eat organic as much as possible. Eat local organic even more than that and support the restaurants and places that are serving local organic and hopefully we can vote with our dollars and and get some changes happening.

But you know I talked to a few years ago, I was talking with the Peter Mondavi, Robert Mondavi, son of Mondavi Winery, and he was telling me that it took them ten years to weed themselves off of chemicals in the vineyard, including glyphosate and fertilizer and. Accolades to them. Now for doing it, that's amazing. Yeah. And well, because, you know, hopefully and we're seeing a lot of California winemakers in my area doing organic, doing biodynamic, which is even one step beyond certainly over in Europe.

A lot of organic wineries, a lot of biodynamic wineries there, they're way ahead of us. Please support California wineries, but I drink mostly wines from France and Italy. Low Mycotoxins and low toxicity. And so. And. Urban producers. And we're getting there. So whenever I find, you know, organic or biodynamic winery in California or Washington State or Oregon, I, I try to join their clubs. I can't drink all that wine, but, but yeah, we got to support these people because it's expensive to do this.

Yeah, it really is. But again, it's voting with our dollars so that so that people can make the changes that they need to. Right. But yeah. So anything else you want to share on healing the garden and hope for getting well? Well there's, you know, there's all sorts of wonderful gut healing compounds and we could spend an hour on that. What are you. Top two or three? Well, they're all in my formula. Total Restore from Gundry, M.D. Back glutamine is actually quite useful. Diglycerides licorice is really quite useful.

Marshmallow root is really quite useful. And I could go on and on. Yeah it's important to to mention because they are so powerful for helping that mucosal integrity to restore. So it's all for mucosal integrity, but I think it comes down, at least to me, if I can if I can help people stop swallowing razor blades, the gut will heal. And so that. I start with that and then you can add in the right form of butyrate and probiotics and mucosal lining healers. If you if you have the budget and and wherewithal to make those additions.

And interestingly enough, a lot of times, you know, getting rid of old processed foods, getting rid of a lot of these grain based products which are loaded with lackluster, that actually saves people money, They're shocked. Right. I take care of Medicaid, Medicare

Prevention, Pregnancy, and Closing Remarks 1:00:00

and Medicaid now and Medicaid patients. And, you know, some of these people are really sick because they're we live in a food desert, but they end up saving money if for no other reason. You know, their diabetes is gone, their hypertension is gone. Their you know, their their arthritis is gone. And so they actually end up saving money. So it's not a it's not a well-to-do person's game. Yeah. And it's you know, if you don't have your health and and what's the point. So trying to prioritize getting the food that is necessary to heal is just so foundational.

Yeah. Yeah. I saw a new patient who's 65, very successful individual. You, you know, has a Zorich card collection and blah, blah, blah. And when we did all this work on I mean, he's like seven disease processes that are really scary. And he sees some of the finest physicians in L.A. and a major university. And he's with his wife. He says, what the heck? You know, they tell me anything about this. What the heck? You know, how am I going to enjoy all my toys? You know, I you know, I got I got to start, you know, he's he's amassed a fortune and he's built great things.

But this is the only house we're ever going to live in. And it just it's coming home to roost. So now can we around? Yeah, but. Kind of put the priority there. So I've been debating about whether to ask you this question. You published a study using the pulse test that really grabbed my attention to look at pre and post COVID vaccination. And would you care to comment on that? Sure. Yeah. Just so that that just the post us basically looks at markers of inflammation on blood vessels and also the marker of myocardial cell damage.

And what we noticed and we we do this test every 3 to 6 months on all of our patients as a as a cardiac screening and what's going on in blood vessels. And shortly after the vaccines came out, the RNA vaccines, we noticed a major jump up on these markers just across the board. 95% of our patients in we we didn't and we saw it with COVID as well, I should say, a matter of scope. And so we would notice that this would last for about 3 to 6 months and then it will subside. But when they got a booster shot for the second shot, it shot up again and it was go like this.

So I, I submitted a paper to the American Heart Association about this, and it was accepted for presentation. And it was. And then I got a letter from the program committee chairman saying, We'd like you to withdraw your paper. And I said, Why? And he said, Well, it's no, we think that it would be in everybody's best interest. And so you guys accepted the paper. You know, it was peer reviewed by your committee. And I might add, I have been president of the American Heart Association and Southern California chapter in the past.

Twice. And I was on the reviewing committee for the American Heart Association annual meeting for years. And I'm not I've got no dog in this fight. You know, I'm telling people that this happens. And he said, well, it's I said, isn't it? The American Heart Association's to take care of people's hearts? He said, No, no, no, you don't understand. That's the FDA and the CDC job. And we'll let them handle that. And he said, I'll tell you, I will rewrite your abstract and you sign off on it and we'll be okay.

Well, the rewrite was being might as well not even saying anything. And I said, no, I'm not going to sign this. And they said, Well, why don't you try to rewrite it? And so about four iterations later, it was watered down to where they they keep it. And now it turns out what's interesting is there are now three papers from around the world confirming my findings. Some are even worse, but. Over 500 people in the study. So that's pretty statistically significant with the number of markers that are in the post test.

So I think that's great that there's additional studies confirming what you found. Yeah, I mean, we've we've subsequently got a paper that's got it that's been accepted over in Istanbul through a meeting we saw something seeing sudden deaths in people with known heart disease with stents. 2 to 3 weeks after the booster shot sitting in there to. Yes, COVID can be really bad for you, there's no question about it. But people you're supposed to have informed consent and people should know that there is a real incident in every So in my practice, every human being who got the mRNA vaccines having a measurable jump up in inflammatory markers.

That increases the risk for heart attack, stroke, cancer. For a. Patient like. Osteoporosis, all the inflammatory diseases. The number of people who develop atrial fibrillation out of the blue in my practice, out of the blue following the show. And these are all people that are on your protocol, they're all already working on their health. So that's to me, that says a lot because the people that don't know to be working on their gut and to be eating healthy, it it would be interesting to compare those members because I bet they'd be even higher without all the efforts that your patients are making.

Right? Well, that gets back to one of the things about COVID viruses in general are really good for causing leaky gut, and 25 to 30% of the presenting symptoms in COVID were GI symptoms, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain. And so those so we know that COVID can do that. I personally think long COVID is is leaky gut. But the other thing that's interesting is all those risks for bad outcomes in COVID are the exact things you see in leaky gut, whether it's diabetes or heart disease or hypertension. So if you just follow that.

Yeah, well, I am so grateful that you're applying your brilliance to this area and then really working on getting the news out so people can even do prevention. I think probably most people listening know how to find you, but I'd love for you to just talk about where to find your information. And then just a reminder of the new book coming out and where they can get it. Through and go to GundryMD.com which is my food and supplement company and go to drGundry.com I've got two YouTube channels. I've got the Dr. Gundry Podcast and the new book will be Gut Check out January 9th and check it out because it's basically showing this my take everything Hippocrates Got right and putting science to it. So it's a job.

Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your your energy and and really creating a an awareness about true healing. Well, we got to get the word out, all of us. And we're all trying in our own ways to do it. So in good for you for doing this. So thanks so much.