Protect Yourself From Mold With A Healthy Gut

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Ann Shippy, MD

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. You really have been such a pioneer in this area. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your wisdom.

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, I don’t know how much wisdom I have, and I’ll share my.

Ann Shippy, MD

Awesome. In your practice, it’s so interesting because we in allopathic medicine, we get so siloed, right, with okay, cardiothoracic, you’re just going to look at the heart, but you’ve now really expanded to look at the whole body. Noticing that some of your patients are really needing to address mold. What kinds of things are you seeing with your patients that alert you that there might be a problem?

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, I think 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. 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. I guess, approach it in a different way. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said 2500 years ago, All disease begins in the gut.

Ann Shippy, MD

I believe he’s right, too.

Steven Gundry, MD

I spent the last 25 years of my current practice trying to figure out how he knew this, and my upcoming book, Gut Check, is really kind of an ode in how he actually knew this and the science behind this. 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. 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. 

I like to use the example for my patients because it makes sense for them. When I was growing up very long ago, nobody had peanut allergies. Everybody, we all took peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school. Peanuts were passed out at break time and peanuts were passed out on the airplanes. Even some modern time. 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. It’s like, well, wait a minute, we’re all we all carry this antibody. 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. 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. I use the example the cops can go have a donut and a cigaret and really not have to worry. 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. 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 whatever 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. It’s like it’s open season and you’re firing off 100 rounds of ammunition per minute. The same thing that would not cause a big problem 50, 60 years ago now inciting World War three. When people hear that story, a lot of times things start clicking so up there.

Ann Shippy, MD

It gets to be a feedforward loop. 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 leaky gut?

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, I think, number one, this great microbiome known I mean, we have normally there are bacteria that like eating gluten. They really enjoy it.

Ann Shippy, MD

Doesn’t everybody now.

Steven Gundry, MD

I get a kick out of 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. I said, Gee, and how dare you recommend sweet potatoes which have oxalate? 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Oh, I didn’t know that.

Steven Gundry, MD

It is a sweet potato. It’s like, well, they’re living a really long time and they’re not 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. One of the things I write about in the new book, one of the brand new findings, is that these supercentenarians, these people who are 110 years old and older. One of the unique findings now is that these people have a microbiome that detoxifies xenobiotics and not only are molds and fungi producing xenobiotics, but also all of our crazy plasticizer is xenobiotics. They have a system that handles these guys and we all should have had a system that handles these guys 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. It makes great sense that these two are major competitors. 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

What you’re referring to is antibiotic resistance and fungal resistance. We’re seeing such an increase in fungal resistance, too.

Steven Gundry, MD

Absolutely. One of the things that I see is that all my patients have leaky gut, we can heal leaky gut. 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. What I started going after as a research interest were these plant components called Lectins. They’re just one of the plant defense systems. Oxalate is another one. Let’s get these out of your diet and then go from there. We used to have a great microbiome. We clearly don’t. We used to have a great defense system of acid in our stomachs. But now, thanks to acid-reducing drugs which are used by millions and millions of people, we no longer have number one, and the acid barrier that is actually really good against breaking down proteins. For most of the time, these toxins are proteins and that’s gone. The other thing that continues to shock people is one of the best producers of leaky gut is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory.

Ann Shippy, MD

It can you just for those listening, explain what those are, because I suspect a lot of people are taking them.

Steven Gundry, MD

Ibuprofen, naproxen, Aleve.

Ann Shippy, MD

You think anything about it, it’s like, oh, I got a little headache, I’m going to take it.

Steven Gundry, MD

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. Drugs were designed so that they wouldn’t damage the lining of the stomach. Unfortunately, this 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. When all the studies were done, lo and behold, miraculously, no more stomach ulcers. What they knew from animal experiments is that the ulcers were farther down in the small intestine where the GI doctors couldn’t see. But when they were first approved, this was known. They were only by prescription. You could only take them for two weeks because they were so dangerous. I remember those days. Now, of course, they’re this. Why does one use over-the-counter drugs? 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

This is such a great question. As a cardiothoracic surgeon, is there ever a time that you think that people should use NSAIDs, including aspirin, or should they just find another alternative?

Steven Gundry, MD

I don’t have it’s a kind of aside, there is a benefit for very low dose aspirin.

Ann Shippy, MD

Like when you say low dose, less than 81 milligrams.

Steven Gundry, MD

So did 81 mg. Yeah. The reason why that is and tear-coated means it won’t dissolve and stomach acid and aspirin have to have answers to be absorbed. Salicylic acid. In a tear coated 81 milligrams of aspirin dissolved down in your small intestine. 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-3 fats into their active anti-inflammatory compound, which is called resolvent. Without resolvents, you actually will get very little anti-inflammatory artery benefit from fish oil, from long-chain omega-3 fats. It’s a little fun thing. Patients look one or two times a week and 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 resolvent. It’s cute little it’s kind of off the subject.

Ann Shippy, MD

But I think it’s a good tip and it gives people some perspective when we’re putting some context around things. 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 find other substitutes if you can.

Steven Gundry, MD

I mean, these in general, these compounds are COX-2 enzyme inhibitors. There’s a really good COX-2 enzyme inhibitor, Boswellia, which is the Indian plant. 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. You can get the benefits of the COX-2 inhibitor without swallowing a hand grenade.

Ann Shippy, MD

Beautiful. When you’re doing your testing to check out your patients, what tests do you like to do?

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, so I use Vibrant Wellness. What I do, I mean, we talk about how leaky gut has proven, I guess, by Alessio Fasano, now at Harvard. 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 weren’t good measurements. Even following the history of Dr. Fasano, 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 watery diarrhea enough that kills you. He was trying to figure out why did it do this. He found a compound called Zonulin. And Zonulin, of course, hits another receptor which breaks the tight junctions and that causes intestinal permeability. He was able to show that gluten, which is a lectin, binds to the same receptors that cholera hits and makes Zonulin. When he discovered this every one of us in this area said, “Oh, this is great. All we got to do now is measure Zonulin and we’ll know who has leaky gut and great.” We all measure Zonulin. And lo and behold, maybe 10% of people, maybe 20% of people who we were convinced had leaky gut, had a positive Zonulin in their serum. And you go, “Wow, so much for that theory.” Then people like Viber in America said hang on a second. He’s proven this mechanism. Maybe we’re measuring the wrong thing and Zonulin would be attached to receptors. It wouldn’t be in the bloodstream. But if you had a leaky gut, you would have a space and Zonulin would now be recognized by the immune system on the side of the gut. They would make an antibody design unique because it’s a foreign company. Maybe we should measure antibodies designed and when they did that, it was like the floodgates opened and there you go, There it is.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s so accurate, it’s so helpful. Then I’m so aligned to because then when you get the gut feel that those numbers come down.

Steven Gundry, MD

But you’re right, come right on down. The thing with anti-acne so active fuels that form 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 too active. What’s fascinating is so you can give people a report card you can say here it is you’re all of your everybody says you’re crazy and you’re a malingerer and look you’ve got a wide open, leaky gut. Then you give them a program and they can watch. What’s at least in my practice, what’s interesting is most people’s anti actin kind of heads down first followed by anti-magmas. You can just watch this progression. The other fascinating thing, kind of getting back to what we started with. 100% of people in my practice have antibodies, IgG antibodies to the various forms of gluten, and there’s lots of forms to the late 1980s when 90% of people had antibodies to wheat germ, 100% of people had antibodies to non-wheat proteins, 100%, 100% to you even my patients who have been gluten-free for ten years have antibodies to gluten. There’s their shock that they go, “But, but, but I don’t eat gluten. I’m gluten-free.” And I go, “You don’t understand. 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 done two things now. You’ve got a much more diverse gut. Now they’re communicating to the immune system, said, “Hey, we’re back. The third stringers are gone. We’re healthy, we’re ready. We got your back, go have a donut and a cigarette.” The other thing that’s happened is now the wall of the gut that’s healed. You don’t have constant invaders that the immune system is armed and dangerous. When people see this it’s like it is so reassuring that everything that they knew, they had a gut feeling that something was wrong. To actually see it and then resolve it. I mean, that’s why I keep seeing I see patients six days a week.

Ann Shippy, MD

Amazing. You’re doing all of this. The research, the patients, the writing, the expert speaking. You’re a tough guy on a mission.

Steven Gundry, MD

Hippocrates, I think, wanted me to do this.

Ann Shippy, MD

I guess you have a special brain to put all this together. I love that you started out with surgery and ended up for food and supplements. It’s really beautiful. 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?

Steven Gundry, MD

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 of mycotoxins and it’s a flavor toxin, lots of other mycotoxins they’re all coffee drinkers. Do we sometimes see folks with black mold? Yes, we do. Oftentimes we have a sick building that we fly is the reason. But going back to what I started with originally, 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 the people in Austin, Texas, should be dead.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yeah. It’s the construction here has really gone downhill.

Steven Gundry, MD

People won’t be for all of our stupid things happen. We had a system that defended against these toxins, and so we know 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 competed with us and we’ve just lost that ability and we can bring it back. Getting back to those, interestingly enough, I’ll still have people who will test for mycotoxins after they’re cured. They still have mycotoxins, but they no longer react to them. I think, to me that’s empowering because a lot of times people throw up their hands and they go, “Oh my gosh I can’t get rid of all this. I can’t move. I can’t I’m not going to stop drinking coffee.” 

Ann Shippy, MD

Going to have some coffee that I would really recommend switching to.

Steven Gundry, MD

But I think the benefit, at least the direction I go is I’m not I cannot get these things out of you for the most part, but I certainly can get a defense system against them in you and that’s I’m a surgeon, I’m practical. 

Ann Shippy, MD

This is great. When you’re starting to work with somebody on their gut, you’ve got some testing to see what the degree of the intestinal permeability is. 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?

Steven Gundry, MD

It’s multi-factorial. 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 were here first laying them.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yeah.

Steven Gundry, MD

They’re chemists of incredible ability. I mean, they can turn sunlight into matter and we haven’t figured it out. Yeah. They use chemical warfare, and biological warfare against their predators. The idea was that plants, if they make you feel bad with leaky gut, for instance, then a smart animal says every time I’m eating these things, I don’t feel very good. I’m going to go eat something else. The system for brilliantly for millions of years. One of the things I do is, look 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 other legumes and surprising to a lot of people, vegetables and fruits from the Americas. The nightshade family, the squashes, unfortunately, even believe it or not, goji berries are nightshades. Sorry about that, everybody. 

Ann Shippy, MD

People get so confused. Right. Because what’s supposedly the best thing one day is like, oh we’re wrong.

Steven Gundry, MD

Chia seeds are we see a number of people where chia seeds are inflammatory. Well they’re in American, they’re South American food. 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. I’m fascinated how cultures have figured out how to detoxify these plants. I mean, for instance, the Italians refused to eat tomatoes for 200 years after Columbus brought them back their native son.

Ann Shippy, MD

I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.

Steven Gundry, MD

To this day, an elegant culture to make tomato sauce. You always peel and seed the tomatoes. In fact, the Roma tomato, which is has the most pull to seed ratio. They were hybrid eyes by the Italians. All you did was 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 plants. 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 seeds and the top. That was what was thrown away from the peppers. Smart said, “Hey 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 skin. All that was what was thrown away. That’s what I love going around the world, finding out how these cultures 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. Everybody who’s ever so beans knows that this bubbly stuff rises to the top. Well, that’s the fermentation process. You start  you look at these cultures that go in these guys.

Ann Shippy, MD

They knew something. You’re probably more in tune with their bodies than and just developed the techniques from there. 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.

Steven Gundry, MD

Yeah. 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 the carrot on the stick. Hold off, hold out for people.

Ann Shippy, MD

There’s hope. Yeah. You start with cleaning up the diet so that the gut isn’t getting reinjured all the time when it’s already inflamed. Then what’s next?

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, so you’ve got to, one way or another, reintroduce bacteria that are capable of making post biotic short chain fatty acids. There’s there’s various ways to do this. I happen to be a big fan of a company called Pendulum Life that, 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 3.. 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. 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. 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. 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 a 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 kimchi and there was kombucha. They looked at, number one, their gut microbiome, diversity, and number two, their inflammatory markers. 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 postbiotics. Yes, they got some probiotic attacks but not very important. The postbiotics, they’re the ones and the prebiotic fiber. They’re the ones that gut diversity and they’re the ones that the inflammatory markers decreased. I think that’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 colonize your gut. Sorry about that. But what even a pendulum would admit is that dead bacteria tell tales. I have a whole chapter on dead bacteria tell tale.

Ann Shippy, MD

I can’t wait to read it.

Steven Gundry, MD

Dead bacteria carry information. 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. That’s actually quite exciting.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s very exciting.

Steven Gundry, MD

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. If you get your vinegar folks, it’s an easy way to get it.

Ann Shippy, MD

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?

Steven Gundry, MD

Some San Pellegrino sparkling water and put a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar in it and you’ll have my fake coke and you’ll do yourself a favor by it. Easy way to introduce vinegar.

Ann Shippy, MD

Beautiful. Do you have a favorite kind?

Steven Gundry, MD

Yeah, actually. I have no relationship with them. There’s a company out of Napa Valley called Napa Valley Naturals and 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Okay, I’m going to order it today. It sounds great. You have me sold for sure. I love these tips for to move this process along. There are so many things that we can do to help the intestinal lining heal. I love this creativity that you bring to finding solutions.

Steven Gundry, MD

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 colonocytes the cells that line our large intestine are 90% dependent on butyrate as their fuel source, 90%. That’s their only fuel source. Most of us, sadly have no butyrate producing bacteria. 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 had that, the news is everybody is younger and younger and younger people are getting cancer and 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. I had a wonderful doctor on a young woman who said, “Well our problem is we need to change the guidelines. We’re doing testing earlier and earlier or we’re very excited that now at least everybody knows that when you’re 45, you should have colonoscopy.” We’re working to make sure that women get K 125 earlier and earlier. I’m going, No, no, no, Hi, everybody is getting these earlier and earlier. Property is good. I told you, I’m happy to tll 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. For instance, no wonder we have this huge uptick in early colon cancer because now we have I’m tired generation who’s totally devoid of butyrate and butyrate producing bacteria and foods in their diet.

Ann Shippy, MD

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.

Steven Gundry, MD

Right. You have to hearken back to, well why are these super old people and what’s the tricks? Believe me, I have an old chapter on how the blue zones are aren’t blue. It has nothing to do with a plant based diet. By the way, it’s so. But we will.

Ann Shippy, MD

I can’t wait for your book to come out. It’s coming out in January. Is that.

Steven Gundry, MD

Gut check?

Ann Shippy, MD

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 want to start now to avoid the cancer and autoimmune diseases and diabetes and all the things.”

Steven Gundry, MD

Yeah, absolutely. What motivates me and I’ve written about this since the first book Hippocrates, how he knew it, I have no idea. All disease begins with God and Hippocrates thought that a physician should. Well, I’ll start. Hippocrates believed that all creatures had what translates from Hippocrates, 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 Hippocrates, believe that a physician should be a detective who would find these external factors and then teach the patient to remove them. Then the green lifeforce energy would heal the patient.

Ann Shippy, MD

I love that analogy because that’s exactly the message that I want to come through at the summit, it’s exactly that. That’s beautiful. Thank you.

Steven Gundry, MD

When I first discovered that years ago of the Hippocrates teaching this green lifeforce energy, I said, Jesus, that’s what I do. I’m merely a detective. I’m just appointed by Hippocrates. They teach my patients to remove these external factors. In this summit, we’re removing these mold and fun, right? Toxins, they’ll kill themselves. It’s really exciting to watch. Now, hilariously, it’s not a green lifeforce energy at all. It’s a brown lifeforce energy. That’s the 100 trillion bacteria that live in us and on us. But he was right. That’s the energy. Why would they be the energy? Because we are their home and we have a wall and a symbiotic relationship. 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. There’s nothing that’s been interfering with them. They don’t have these stupid external factors that we’ve introduced for our health. 

Ann Shippy, MD

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. I think you touched on earlier, I think even the children being born now a lot of times are already having difficulty establishing a healthy gut microbiome. That’s why we’re seeing increased risk for autism and A.D.D. and child cancers, diabetes and all that kind of thing.

Steven Gundry, MD

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. This is sterile. This is privileged space and it’s not. 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. We need to empower.

Ann Shippy, MD

Gets help because there’s a link and we can do it tremendously..

Steven Gundry, MD

If I was an obstetrician now I would spend my entire work with my pregnant patient working on her diet. I don’t care about anything else here. I participate with the pediatrician and this is guess what? We’re a team. Mom, here’s what we know. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know this. Here’s how to make a great baby. I wrote about that in the Plant Paradox Family Cookbook, because we now know this. This starts at the fetal development.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s so important. 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?

Steven Gundry, MD

Yeah, I mean, certainly it’s worth looking in your environment, particularly if you do mycotoxins testing and you do come up with 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. 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, 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. There are ways to mitigate. But it’s worth having the mold expert come in. 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. I won’t mention names, but they’re very big.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Steven Gundry, MD

I personally, 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yeah. Isn’t it interesting how other countries have much tighter standards than we do and they can probably be tightened up even more.

Steven Gundry, MD

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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Thank you for bringing that up. So important.

Steven Gundry, MD

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. 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. 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’s much less present in Europe. What happens to a lot of my patients is 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 croissants and baguettes  and having to eat.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s changing a little bit, though. I’m not having as many people be able to get away with it.

Steven Gundry, MD

In Europe and they don’t react and they come back and say, Oh, you cured me, Dr. Gundry. They come back and they started having our food. In two weeks they’re on the phone going, What the heck? I thought I was cured of it. No, you’re back to stay. Food. I’m sorry, you can’t have these. It’s in our food supply. I mean, I’m sorry.

Ann Shippy, MD

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 change what they’re doing. But I think it’s so, so indoctrinated. It’s going to take some time to make the changes in our food supply.

Steven Gundry, MD

You realize now we have super weeds, of course, that are resistant to Roundup. The farmers are doing is they’re doubling up, tripling up on the roundup to try and control these super weeds and so it just keeps snowballing. I just remember from a training and medical professions standpoint, sickness is good for business and big pharma, big medicine, big agriculture, they’re all interwoven. I wish it wasn’t true, but it’s sickness is good for business.

Ann Shippy, MD

Unfortunately or yeah, but I think as consumers we can vote with our dollars 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 get some changes happening.

Steven Gundry, MD

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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Accolades to them. Now for doing it, that’s amazing.

Steven Gundry, MD

Yeah. Well, because 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Low Mycotoxins and low toxicity.

Steven Gundry, MD

Urban producers. We’re getting there. Whenever I find organic or biodynamic winery in California or Washington State or Oregon, 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yeah, it really is. But again, it’s voting with our dollars so that people can make the changes that they need to.

Steven Gundry, MD

Right.

Ann Shippy, MD

But yeah. Anything else you want to share on healing the garden and hope for getting well?

Steven Gundry, MD

Well there’s all sorts of wonderful gut healing compounds and we could spend an hour on that. 

Ann Shippy, MD

What are your top two or three?

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, they’re all in my formula. Total Restore from Gundry, M.D. But glutamine is actually quite useful. Diglycerides licorice is really quite useful. Marshmallow root is really quite useful. I could go on and on.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yeah it’s important to mention because they are so powerful for helping that mucosal integrity to restore.

Steven Gundry, MD

It’s all for mucosal integrity, but I think it comes down, at least to me, if I can help people stop swallowing razor blades, the gut will heal. That.

Ann Shippy, MD

I start with that and then you can add in the right form of butyrate and probiotics and mucosal lining healers. If you have the budget and wherewithal to make those additions.

Steven Gundry, MD

Interestingly enough, a lot of times 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 and Medicaid now and Medicaid patients. 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. Their diabetes is gone, their hypertension is gone. Their arthritis is gone. They actually end up saving money. It’s not a well-to-do person’s game.

Ann Shippy, MD

Yeah. If you don’t have your health and what’s the point. Trying to prioritize getting the food that is necessary to heal is just so foundational.

Steven Gundry, MD

Yeah. I saw a new patient who’s 65, very successful individual. You, has a Zorich card collection and blah, blah, blah. When we did all this work on I mean, he’s like seven disease processes that are really scary. He sees some of the finest physicians in L.A. and a major university. He’s with his wife. He says, “What the heck? They tell me anything about this. What the heck? How am I going to enjoy all my toys?” I got to start he’s amassed a fortune and he’s built great things. But this is the only house we’re ever going to live in. It’s just coming home to roost. Now can we around? Yeah, but.

Ann Shippy, MD

Kind of put the priority there. 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. Would you care to comment on that?

Steven Gundry, MD

Sure. Yeah. That just the post us basically looks at markers of inflammation on blood vessels and also the marker of myocardial cell damage. What we noticed and we do this test every three to six months on all of our patients as a cardiac screening and what’s going on in blood vessels. Shortly after the vaccines came out, the mRNA vaccines, we noticed a major jump up on these markers just across the board. 95% of our patients we didn’t and we saw it with COVID as well, I should say, a matter of scope. We would notice that this would last for about three to six 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. I submitted a paper to the American Heart Association about this, and it was accepted for presentation. It was. Then I got a letter from the program committee chairman saying, We’d like you to withdraw your paper. I said, “Why?” He said,” Well, it’s no, we think that it would be in everybody’s best interest.” You guys accepted the paper. 

It was peer reviewed by your committee. I might add, I have been president of the American Heart Association and Southern California chapter in the past. Twice. I was on the reviewing committee for the American Heart Association annual meeting for years. I’m not I’ve got no dog in this fight. I’m telling people that this happens. 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. We’ll let them handle that.” 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. I said, no, I’m not going to sign this. They said, “Well, why don’t you try to rewrite it?” About four iterations later, it was watered down to where they keep it. 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.

Ann Shippy, MD

Over 500 people in the study. That’s pretty statistically significant with the number of markers that are in the post test. I think that’s great that there’s additional studies confirming what you found.

Steven Gundry, MD

Yeah, I mean, 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 two to three 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, in my practice, every human being who got the mRNA vaccines having a mass will jump up in inflammatory markers.

Ann Shippy, MD

That increases the risk for heart attack, stroke, cancer, osteoporosis, all the inflammatory diseases.

Steven Gundry, MD

The number of people who develop atrial fibrillation out of the blue in my practice, out of the blue following the show.

Ann Shippy, MD

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 would be interesting to compare those members because I bet they’d be even higher without all the efforts that your patients are making.

Steven Gundry, MD

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. We know that COVID can do that. I personally think long COVID is a 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. If you just follow that.

Ann Shippy, MD

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. Then just a reminder of the new book coming out and where they can get it.

Steven Gundry, MD

Go to gundrymd.com, which is my food and supplement company, and your drgundry.com I’ve got two YouTube channels. I’ve got the Doctor 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 backwards. Got right and putting science to it.

Ann Shippy, MD

It’s a job. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your energy and really creating an awareness about true healing.

Steven Gundry, MD

Well, we got to get the word out, all of us. We’re all trying in our own ways to do it. In good for you for doing this.

Ann Shippy, MD

Thanks so much.