The Drainage Funnel: How the Body Eliminates Toxins

Introduction to the Healing Terrain Podcast 0:00

And a cool piece to understand too for people is when we look at the lymphatic system. hard to believe, but 25 to 50% of our lymph fluid is actually created by our liver. And so we want to make sure that even though it may be perceived as a lymphatic issue, are we supporting the liver in conjunction with that? So again, beautiful system that is designed to work properly. We just need to support it to get those toxins out. Yeah. So you talked a lot about the lymph and it sounds like that's a kind of overlooked system within the funnel pathway.

Can you talk a little bit more about this cellular component of detoxification? Because I feel like you hear about these detox protocols and they focus a law on even gut and pooping and liver and kidney, but we don't always get to that cellular detoxifications. Symptoms are only part of the story. I'm Dr. Drew Kidder. I am Dr Emily Hernandez. And on the healing terrain, we explore deeper systems influencing clinical outcomes from toxic burden and microbial imbalance to the foundational factors that drive resilience and long-term health.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Healing Terrain Podcast. I am so excited to be joined here today with Dr. Drew Kidder. say how excited I am to be chatting with him on this podcast.

Dr. Drew Kidderu2019s Background and Functional Medicine Journey 1:35

We are going to talking about all things to do with the drainage funnel and how the drainage funnel helps our body eliminate toxins. So, Dr. Drew, welcome. Tell us a little bit about you. I'm so excited to talk about this topic with you today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Dr. Emily. This is fun to be on this side of the conversation. And this is great for those people that don't know, you and I have the pleasure of being able to co-host the Healing Terrain podcast. So this really fun. Yeah. Just a super quick 30,000 foot overview.

I'm a retired practitioner myself. I spent 16 years in the trenches, classically trained as a doctor of chiropractic, but quickly in clinical practice, I was introduced to the world of functional medicine. That was back in, hard to believe, 25 years ago. In 2001, introduction into the world of functional medicine, integrative medicine root cause. So I practiced for 16 years. I hard to believe I sold my last practice in April of 2016. It's been 10 years since I've been retired. And I love this, right?

You and I, I think both have this passion for educating because I am, you know, use the saying all the time, educated practitioners, have educated patients and educated, patients get great clinical results. Right? So that's why we love doing this and educating the masses. Well, we appreciate you because you are such a good educator. So I'm really excited to pick your brain today on all things drainage funnel. And with that being said, let's talk. I think there is a lot of talk about, you know, detoxification, of course.

and I Think drainage is kind of slowly making its way to the conversation. But can you quickly tell us a little bit about the differences between detoxication and drainage? Yeah, so from a very simplified standpoint, you know, we think of what is detoxification, right? It's the process of mobilizing toxins, Right?

Detoxification vs. Drainage 3:43

We always think that the liver is our primary detoxifying organ, taking these fat soluble toxins converting them into a water soluable toxin to be eliminated from the body via the urine, the bile, this stool, You know we can think about other things. The sweat is, involved with detoxification. But drainage is different because drainage are the natural processes as well in the body that allow for the elimination, actually taking that toxin that has been mobilized and moving it safely and effectively through normal physiological processes out of the bodies.

So when we look at that drainage, we're talking about the colon, the kidneys, liver, lymphatics, all the way to the cellular level. That's amazing. It sounds like quite an important distinction because if the toxins aren't eliminated, what happens to them, right? I'm sure patients feel that when their drainage pathways aren' t open, but can you talk a little bit about what happen if those drainage pathway aren t? If the drainage pathways aren't open, those toxins and toxicants, right, have nowhere to go.

So what is the body going to do? It's going reabsorb them. They're going basically auto-toxification. they're gonna recirculate or recycle. You know, I use the analogy sometimes super simplified, but you know thinking that we can detox without open drainage pathway is getting them out of the bodies is like thinking we are going flush a clogged toilet. I can tell you it doesn't end well. So, you know, we want to make sure, because to your point, people may feel bad. You know traditionally a lot of patients have resistance to the word detox because they can think of doing some over the counter detoxes where they felt really, really badly.

They work in mobilizing, moving the toxin, but if those drainage pathways are not facilitated, then they're going to feel bad because they are recirculating them. They're not getting out of the body. And I think there's this mentality of just like push through, right? I'm supposed to be feeling crummy during this. And so, you know, and I've talked about this before about like the body doesn't fail at detoxification. It's meant to do that, but it can feel overwhelmed and stagnant. So tell us a little bit more about what that may signal and what may mean.

You kind of already alluded to it, Yeah, a lot of times it alludes, it gives us signs that those drainage pathways are not open,

What Happens When Drainage Pathways Are Blocked 6:29

right? We say very clearly, we talk about a lotta poop within our organization, and if people aren't pooping, they're not eliminating the toxins. So that is only one level. Again, that drainage funnel is the colon. If you're poop, everything that higher up in that funnel that is being naturally again through normal human physiology is not going to get out of the body. So if people feel lousy on a detox, then one of my questions is how often are you pooping? Not the question that you and I talk about oftentimes is those infamous intake forms.

Do you have regular bowel movements? Yes or no? It's not when someone says, do you have regular bowel movements? To them, regular may be every three to five days. Right. That's no regular, that may common for them. It is not even normal, but it's their normal path, their process. What happens with that? What if people don't have the ability? There is some liver dysfunction, there's some kidney dysfunction. People may not be hydrated enough. We look at the fact that if our urine is one of the pathways through our kidneys, that we eliminate toxins.

If you are not hydrated, are you going to help through that kidney pathway? The answer is no. Yeah, yeah. So you've mentioned a few different kind of organ systems that I assume are part of this drainage funnel, but can you kind give us from kind bottom up what exactly is the drainage, what's included in it, and why is order important? Yeah. So again, you know, I visually do this, like the funnel literally is the bottom of that funnel is colon. Again, if you're not pooping, You're Not Eliminating Toxins.

Moving up, we look almost, equally the kidneys and the liver, right? Because they both have such intimate involvement. As we said, the lever is that detoxifying primary, as we talk about phase one, phase two liver detox, what we think in that pathway, but it is also helping with just that normal drainage. So kidneys in liver that next layer up, a sometimes overlooked pathway in the drainage funnel is our lymphatic system. that is really what is getting all of that cellular debris.

The Drainage Funnel: Colon, Kidneys, Liver, and Lymphatics 9:13

And we talk about toxins as always like this bad, toxins and toxicants. Guess what? Differentiator two is a toxin is more looked at as a manmade substance, excuse me, toxicant. Whereas a toxic, our bodies are just through normal physiological processes, cellular processes. We're leaving waste. That can be toxic. And so when our cells are detoxifying, those are being pushed into the lymphatic system. If the Lymphatic System isn't supported, then it's that trickle down effect. So we really top is how the cells detoxify.

How they then through the lymphatic system and the glymphatic. I always have to enunciate with that because people think you're mispronouncing, but the glimphatics system is our lymphatics, system of the brain. It's what is going in and scrubbing all that cellular debris mostly during our sleep cycles, right? That's where our body really resets and recycles. And so what are we doing to drain at the neurological level? So going down all of those pathways systematically, again, if one of these areas is plugged, is congested, whatever is above it is gonna back up.

Okay, I was just going to ask you, how would you know if one of them is plugged up and which one, but typically the organ system above it will be affected? Yeah, and it's not like it, you know, an all or nothing, right? Our lymphatic system isn't just gonna go, oops, plugged up, now we're not gonna filter into the kidneys, into liver, in to the bowels, all of that. But, it may be a key indicator that certain symptomatic expression, they're like, maybe I need more support if people feel kind of heavy, their tissues, they feel like maybe some edema, right?

That may lean a little bit more toward the lymphatic system. So some great strategies, not only in products to help, but we know certain things help with Lymphatics, right? Rebounding, dry brushing can be great vibration, all those things to stimulate the lymphatic system because our lymphatics system is also kind of a manual system as well. So it does need that to help move. Our sedentary lifestyles sometimes don't really help facilitate good lymphactic flow. Yeah, because our circulatory system has the heart, right, to pump it, but the lymph doesn't have any pumps besides that mechanical movement of the muscles and tissues that bring it back.

Yeah. I know, I have my patients do lymph brushing. When I'm consistent with it I can feel the pulsating after I do skin brushing before the shower. Such a cool feeling. Well, and even sometimes when people are sick, dealing with an upper respiratory infection, sometimes just hitting the lymphatic chain in the neck, right, under the mandible, all of that. So there are great little devices. If nothing else, just kind of doing like manually in those lymph chains can help move that lymph. That's a great tip.

I've done that before and I was at a conference and either an acupuncturist or a chiropractor was like, let me work on your neck and my sore throat was gone in a day. It was amazing. And a cool piece to understand too for people is when we look at the lymphatic system. hard to believe, but 25 to 50% of our lymph fluid is actually created by our liver. And so we want to make sure that even though it may be perceived as a lymphatic issue, are we supporting the liver in conjunction with that?

Lymphatic Support and the Glymphatic System 13:11

So again, beautiful system that is designed to work properly. We just need to support it to get those toxins out. Yeah. So you talked a lot about the lymph and it sounds like that's a kind of overlooked system within the funnel pathway. What about, can you talk a little bit more about this cellular component of detoxification? Because I feel like you hear about these detox protocols and they focus a law on even gut and pooping and liver and kidney, but we don't always get to that cellular detoxication.

Well, because as I said, one of the biggest things that we deal with is just the normal physiological processes at the cellular level, right? The production of ETP, of energy in our body, which is critically important, leaves waste products, leave byproducts. So what happens with those byproducts? You know, you hear of things like, ROS factors, reactive oxygen species, right? Those are by-product of cellular respiration of normal physiology, but they can be harmful when they're in excess. And so, just making sure that we are facilitating at the cellular level.

What is the health of our cell membranes? Because those are permeable movement both ways that toxins are going to impact the cell membrane. what we're exposed to through the air we breathe, the water we drink, food we eat, toxic chemicals, hopefully not in our homes, but in homes and in work environments. Those are impacting our cells. They impact our mitochondria. That's a biggie that we don't ever want to overlook is our Yeah, yeah. And I know Cellcore focuses quite a bit on mitochondria. So can you kind of unpack a little bit why that's so important, especially in context to detoxification and drainage?

Yeah. I mean, we have, I always love, i'm a numbers geek, right? So I love the fact that, you know, when you say, well, 35 to 40 trillion on best estimate, cells in the human body, but within each and every one of those cells, We have anywhere from hundreds to millions of mitochondrion in every cell. Right. We look at areas like the liver and have roughly 2000 mitochondria per cell, our heart around 10,000, or brain on average, 10 thousand mitochondrial per-cell, but areas, like, the substantia nigra, you know, one of the images on the wall behind me is dopamine, right?

Substantia Nigra is responsible for dopamine production and there are upwards of 2 million mitochondrion per Wow. So can we expect to heal at the organ, tissue, cellular level if we're not first and foremost supporting the mitochondria? I oftentimes like to say organs don't just fail on their own, the energy within that organ fails. The energy would then those cells within the tissues within those organ fail. Right. So when we look at a detoxification and a drainage strategy, we always tell people the first thing that you need to do is upregulate mitochondria.

Because we can't talk about, you know, our colon. We can talk our liver and our kidneys and lymphatics if we're not looking at what do we need to do to support the mitochondria within those organ systems. Yeah, makes sense. You got to support the building blocks of the systems and the organs. Yeah. Absolutely. So kind of now, you know, obviously you've got quite a bit of knowledge on cell core and cell-core products. I'd love to pick your brain about kind some of your favorites as it relates to drainage.

Maybe you start with like your top, your favorite product at the cellcore line specifically that supports drainage or detoxification if you had to take one.

Cellular Detoxification and Mitochondrial Health 17:27

It's so hard to pick one, right? Because again, it's the interplay of all of the systems together. And yet if I look at one that I absolutely love, because I've seen the clinical results with myself, with people within my social sphere, but then also patients over my time and clients and doctors, practitioners I have worked with, how How impactful are advanced product is people are familiar with it's an acronym for tour so do you see colic acid it so water soluble bile acid and it shown to actually increase not only the quality of our bio.

so that we don't have this thick slug, you know, sluggish bile, but increases the quality and the quantity of our bile. The amount of bile that is flowing. Because again, if we think back to that, the normal detoxification in phase three of liver detox, we need bile on board to grab onto that water soluble toxin. to dump it into the small intestine and then move out through the bile, through bowels. So the more bile we can have on board, the better we're going to see in that level of detox and drainage.

We have a great document in our resource center on the Cellcore website that's like a 26 page document on all the clinical benefits of Tudka. And it's far more than just kind of liver support like people migrate. There's cardiovascular support, there's hormonal support. Neurological support so that I would say is within the drainage funnel, my favorite. And that's so awesome that you bring that up because I was just going to say, but I feel like bile acids are the new microbiome. Like we were studying the microbiomes so intently and I think we still are and we're learning so much.

But I. Feel like bio acids now we are learning. So much that there's, so. Much more than just help us emulsify fats, right? They have their own hormonal signaling. They. Have their. Own antimicrobial properties. That help to keep the balance of the micro biome up. And then all the different metabolites of those bile, the primary bile acids, secondary bile acid, they all shift and have different activities and properties. So I think we're going to see more and more come out about just how much these bile assets are supporting not just digestion, but brain, hormone, metabolism.

It'll be really interesting to everything that comes out. Yeah, you bring up a great point with a lot of our practitioners that focus heavily on SIBO, right? Because what did I say? It's bile that's grabbing onto those toxins, dropping it into the small intestine. And what are we looking at with SIBo? So is it the microbiome within that small intestines that is being impacted because of inadequate bile acids? which gets more to like the root cause of the SIBO, right? It's like we can clear SIBo, not that it's easy, but it is easier.

But the harder part with SIbo is treating the underlying cause, of why they got SIvo in the first place, so they don't just keep getting it again and again, because that's really common. People just forget it. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, well, it's a good one. And then just generally kind of talking about roadmap to health, I think we have another episode that kind talks a little bit about that. But kind again, going back to the order of things, like why is it so important to do things in a certain order?

TUDCA and Supporting Bile Flow 21:08

Kind of looking more generally at a detox kind drainage protocol. Yeah, we layer, you know, You mentioned the roadmap to health and the road map to Health is built on, following the normal physiological processes in the body and not trying to push it. You referenced in The beginning, our goal shouldn't be like forcing detox. It should be helping support those natural detox processes, but supporting then the elimination through the drainage funnel. Again, going back to the beginning, that roadmap to health is really focusing on first opening up drainage or supporting mitochondria.

and then opening up drainage pathways, right? We wanna do that before we start going after any pathogens, dealing with infections or dealing toxic burden. Whether those toxins, maybe someone that's dealing mold and mycotoxin issues, whether they're dealing environmental toxins. Things like glyphosate and atrazine, or whether it's with heavy metals, So do we want to target those things, even with good, you know, Utah, oftentimes too, about the importance of binders to bind onto those toxins. Binders are wonderful.

But if those bindings bind on to a toxin, but don't have the ability to take it and get rid of it. Now we're missing, the piece of drainage. So going through the proper processes to support the body, in the sequence that it needs. Yeah, makes sense. And then what kind of symptoms for the practitioners out there, whether they're putting their patients on detoxification protocols or not, what kinds of systems should they be looking for to determine if someone needs support in their drainage funnel?

Oh, my goodness. I can see in my mind one of these algorithms with all of the symptoms. Here's the reality. It's one those things that I could throw out and say, well, brain fog. Brain fog can absolutely, but then we go, oh, the brain can also be associated with thyroid dysfunction, it can be associate with adrenal dysfunction. The list goes on and on. I think you can't overlook the things like brain fog, general fatigue, chronic fatigue. Digestive issues, skin issues. Looking at some of the skin pathways, our body is also going to push toxins through the points of least resistance, if you will.

And our skin is our biggest organ of elimination? Absolutely. And so sometimes going through detox and drainage, people will go, oh my gosh, I'm, my skin is breaking out, right? That's your body pushing those toxins and toxicants through your skin. Could that be indicative of maybe you need to go and support more kidney and liver function because why is it pushing through the skin versus the other pathways?

Why Sequence Matters in Detox Protocols 24:18

Skin can be a big red flag or at least a point to look at. Lymphatic things, the puffy, you know, puffiness, swollen kind of that fluid retention can be an indicator of, oh, they may need a little bit more lymphatic support. Musculoskeletal things sometimes we see, Oh, I don't typically deal with stiffness in my joints and tissues, but those can all be indicators that your body may a bit need more drainage support Yeah. And what you made me think of with the glymphatics is maybe people that just have trouble sleeping or don't have restful sleep.

I assume even if they're not necessarily feeling, which they probably are feeling something neurologic or issues with memory and focus, but I would assume they would need some more drainage as well. Well, even headaches, you know, looking at the glymphatic system and people that will go, oh, well, I wake up with headaches. Right. Well is your body doing that normal glyphotic process? But again, if there is stagnation in where those, that cellular debris is flowing from the brain into our lymphatic Yeah.

Maybe the headaches are an indicator, you know, of that. So that, or even sometimes people will say, gosh, I wake up kind of feeling puffy in my upper lymph chains right above your clavicles, right? Or I feel like there's some drainage in, in neck, all of those things. Can be a multitude of things, but sometimes we have to just look at the simple and go, maybe it is a drainage issue. Yeah, awesome. Well, and unfortunately, we live in a world where toxins just, you know, keep increasing around us.

So probably anyone and everyone could use a little support on the drainage side of things. Sure, sure. Yeah. We're not getting away from them, right? We look at it and go, we can't live in a bubble. We can control what we control, but I live Boise, Idaho and we are surrounded right now. we have the worst air quality in the country. And so people are like, oh, wildfires are bad. Well, it's not just the wild fires. It's what's in to the fires because are those fires burning agricultural land that if it is not organic farming, right?

Symptoms That Suggest Drainage Support Is Needed 26:48

Are you now burning the pesticides, herbicides, fungicides that those are being sprayed with? How about structure fires, right? It's not just, oh, well, a house catches on fire or a business. What about the paint? What the tires, the rubber, or the VOCs, all the things that are in our environment? I'm a big, big fan of, really, I say it often, that, you know, binders are kind of becoming like the modern-day multivitamin, not saying in any way it replaces your multavitamins, but because of the world we live in, our need for helping support, yes, your body does detoxify on its own, But because it's constantly being bombarded, we need things like bindings on board to address those.

Yeah. Yeah, so what's been your go-to concoction during this time of high smoke in the air? I rotate, right? And I'm a big fan. I love, you know, our HMET binder. You know I always use H-M-E-T, I am using some GI detox, and I have a Big Glutathione. You know person i'd love looking at more the endogenous production of glutathione versus you know oral oral in my opinion a lot of clinical opinions it's poorly absorbed we don't always have the ability to do injectable or ivy on a regular basis so i love the precursors i I love the glycine as well, so our product, our Glyne Active product really, really helps facilitate that.

So now, twice a day, I'm taking my binders and taking Gline Active. Great. Awesome. Well, hopefully that's a helpful little pro for everyone out there. Sure. Yeah. Thank you so much. We're already over time. I know we can talk for days about all of this, but really important topic.

Environmental Toxins, Binders, and Practical Support 28:58

you know, even if you're not really thinking about drainage, hopefully this will help kind of keep it on the forefront of your mind with your patients and understanding that it's a really kind foundational piece to helping people heal in the right direction. So thanks so much for your expertise on it. Thanks for having me, Dr. Emily. It was a pleasure. Yeah, we'll see you guys next time. Take care.