Toxicants and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

No, that is, that’s phenomenal. Thank you.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Get no charge for the like brief bio the market.

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

I love that. I love that.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So how did you get interested in brain health? I think this is personal for you, right?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

This is very, very personal. I’ve been in medicine. 22 years, started medical school in 1996, went through five years of really rigorous training and naturopathic and Chinese medicine and had a really thriving clinic here in Portland, Oregon and I still do Nature Cures Clinic. And at the time I had my wife Soraya and she was a certified nurse midwife, nurse practitioner. Really six ft one amazing being like women would come out of the exam room like singing a song doing a jig. It’s like, what the heck are you guys doing in there? Like an amazing women’s health provider, strong voice for women and health. And you know, really the she was the love of my life. At that point, I didn’t know, I thought, you know, the aliens had put her on the planet like her perfect ideal woman. Like, wow, somebody’s messing around with me from above. You know, we blended our families, we blended our practices, her three kids. My two, we even had a maid named Alice just like the Brady Bunch. And we moved, we bought a house and you know, when you move, you tend to lose things in the shuffle. But there was one orange Fiestaware plate that became basically the talk of the Children and I around the dinner table. Soraya just couldn’t let it go. It was like this one or I was like, hey, we’ll get a new plate. 

Like there’s, it’s fiestaware. I love all the colors but the orange plate she like, couldn’t let it go to the point of it became like groundhog day. She go into the kitchen looking for it into the cupboard down the hallway. Finally, you know, she’d wind up in the attic in our garage still, like rummaging through the boxes, like where the heck is it? But it was, it was redundant and it accelerated and we started to notice like other issues with her memory and it was really rapidly progressing dementia. I always knew Soraya was one in a million. And unfortunately, the medical community also agreed with me because the differential started to become very very dark in that. It was CJD Creutzfeldt Jacob disease or autoimmune encephalitis, like basically a bunch of unknown as of yet uncureble neurologic neurodegenerative conditions. The process was freaking brutal from her first symptoms of memory loss to her, she lost the ability to speak within two months. We needed 24/7 care. It became evident to me, I need to change my game plan here. And I grew up in a really hard way of, you know, I had my family, my medical practice and then my wife was just totally debilitated. 

So on that through that process, you know, we we, she left her body 18 months later, Navigated grief and the sadness and the loss and the devastation really over those 18 months and for years to follow, but came through really in an, in an odd odd way, it reinstated my faith in the unity of and kind of unity, consciousness and in the oneness of all. And, you know, there’s this thought process that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it just changes forms and, you know, going through that at an, at a younger age and, you know, she was 43 at the time. It really opened me up into that thought process. You know, I’ve always had a faith and understanding of God and whatnot, but to know it intimately and come through hole and open hearted being actually able to experience and express grief. 

You know, I became a grief beacon for a while of just in my openness, people felt very safe and comfortable sharing with me because they knew of my loss. And it still happens to this day and I’m grateful to be able to facilitate that for folks. But the that process really set me up. I took a deep dive, Wendie into swinging for the fence of like, how do we regenerate a brain? How do we do that? And so the other component of it is I just want people to hear is, you know, you don’t have to go it alone. You can have a trusted source on that path. And I know it all too well. We all know the medical system is fractured and broken and Is really hard when your loved one’s life is on the line. You know, I’ve been in medicine at that .17 years and navigating that was really difficult even as a provider, knowing the doctors speak and knowing what we were getting into. The beauty of it is I don’t want my suffering to be for naught. And so I also want people to know like life goes on and, you know, share, I know the last time we spoke, I did, I left out a crucial part of the, of my story is that I’m now happily remarried. I feel like a very fortunate you know, loved man almost as if Soraya had sent my wife Kitty to me. And you know, so I just want people to hear that like there are possibilities, there’s always hope. And we, you know, I get more and more comfortable and confident speaking into with 22 years of practices that miracles happen and we should really expect more of them. 

And while what I researched and studied did not help Soraya as far as not having her die, It is helping thousands of patients around the globe with the thoughts of neurodegenerative shin brain regeneration and even longevity and bio energetic. So all of that is basically the gift that came out of it. I mean, I don’t wish it on anybody. It’s my story. It was my path is my learning. It’s kind of what I came for. And so that, you know, my intimate awareness of brain degeneration and, you know, Crystal Jacob is a one in a million, one in a million condition, About 300 cases plus a year in North America. It’s misfolded proteins. And so we’re going to talk about that today is why I think neuro degeneration is on the rise. It’s multifaceted as you know, and you’re, you’ve got a whole summit on it. But I’ll add my piece of the puzzle here today.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I mean, first of, thank you for sharing that and I am so sorry that you went through that. I’m glad you came out the other side. I met your wife and she’s lovely. And I think what’s important is to remember that what you went through. So personally altered your course and get actually makes you a better doctor. I mean, you’re in this because it’s personal, like you researched it, you got into it. So talk to me about, Do you feel like and by the way, as you said, one in a million, I think it’s one in 100 million. If you think about there’s three cases and there’s like 350 450 million people in the us. That’s not even all of North America it’s probably like one in 200 million if you explore

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

So, even more unique being, for sure.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, she’s really special. So do you feel like neurodegenerative diseases are on the rise? And if so, why?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Well, they definitely are so on a lot of different fronts. So I’ll give you a for instance. So for Dementia Alzheimer’s in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Actuarial data in 2017. So this is even many years ago, the average age of onset of mild cognitive impairment, which is the first step into dementia. Alzheimer’s the average age Was not 65, it wasn’t 50, it was 47 years old. Average age. Yes, this is only five years ago. This is only five years ago. And so, you know, the predictions or projections for Alzheimer’s by 2030, they’re basically saying 50% of adults over the age of 65 will have some form of dementia slash Alzheimer’s. I mean, there’s some differentiation in there. But I will tell you as I have really specialized in brain regeneration over the last 4, 4.5 years, I’m seeing patients that basically collect a bunch of diagnosis is, you know, it’s almost as if neurologists, you know, they can, they can diagnose like anybody’s business, but they have no solutions and, and I feel bad for them because it’s heartbreaking when you see this. Like, and they’re writing patients off like you have dementia Alzheimer’s. 

Well, See you later. you know, here’s a medication that may extend your memory for 3-4 months. But, you know, basically, you know, get your affairs in order. We know that not to be the truth, but that’s the system that we’re dealing with because it’s hard to get the information out there as far as there’s a lot of things that we can be doing for folks. But why? So that’s Alzheimer’s dementia. Parkinson’s rates are also on the rise. Multiple sclerosis is on the rise, all of the neurodegenerative states. So there are magnets in that multiple fronts. So one is on the topic of this summit which is around toxicants and the amount of toxins we are exposed to on a day to day, annual, week to week, month, month, annual basis is really unheard of. 

And it’s a great experiment. And you know, one of the basic tenants of naturopathic medicine is treat the cause. Well, when it’s your environment, that’s an issue. So, you know, we’re all basically loving Mother Earth and seeing the connection between clean air, clean water, clean food, right? I mean, these are should be basic rights and tenants for inhabitants of planet Earth and we don’t treat it that way like our biosphere is our home and it affects us. You know what happens in the macrocosm. The environment happens in the microcosm in our our bodies. That’s an ancient Chinese saying of wisdom and to really experience that microcosm, macrocosm is the truth. And so looking at that, that’s one level. So levels of toxicants are on the rise and our exposures, you know, levels of nutrients in our soil to feed our bodies nutritionally is also playing a role there.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s on the decline

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

The mineral content is going down, which is X it’s expediting all of these other issues. Thank you for that clarification. And on the, the hidden, the hidden component here though, that I think a lot of folks aren’t addressing. We’re hearing more and more about trauma, general, trauma, adverse childhood experiences, the ace scores, you know, I have a kind of a quaint saying as nobody gets out of here alive. You know, we’re born, we live and we die, but it’s that component of the living component. When you look at levels of trauma, I have a working hypothesis clinically where I’m seeing as our species has been on the planet longer, we have more of an ancestral lineage. So there are epigenetic changes that may be our great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother had some stressors in her life that through epigenetic switches. And now the illnesses expressing today,

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Greg, I want to pause you right there. Talk to the audience about epigenetics because some of them listening might not know what you’re talking about. So they’re like, wait, what?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah. So there’s our genes, right? And our genes. And when we get into this discussion, I’m gonna put a huge asterisk here because it’s kind of cutting edge therapeutics and understanding and it’s very complex. So I’m going with the kind of the day to day this is the best knowledge today. So we have our genes and our genes are not our destiny just because you have a gene doesn’t mean you’re going to express it. And so we know the epigenetics is what overlays our genes. So that’s the stoop that we swim in. And we have Bruce Lipton to thank for a whole really breakthrough of this understanding. 

He was growing stem cells in a Petri dish and he saw and actually actually visualized the the medium that the cells were growing in mattered. So that is the epigenetic. So the medium that your body is functioning in matters. Are you running around in chronic stress? Which throws inflammation off? Are you eating Twinkies and donuts and hot dogs? You know, that’s the fuel for what your body uses to create itself a new in the future. Every seven years, all of your cells of your body are new. So you have an opportunity all the time for renewal. So that’s what I’m talking about. The epigenetic sits what surrounds the gene which then allows expression of the gene.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So have you, have you heard the study about in Sweden some epidemiologic epidemiologists went to Sweden to the small little town that had meticulous records on their, on their inhabitants and found they looked back a couple 100 years and found that if your grandfather went through a famine or a feast during puberty, it altered your lifespan and your health span. Actually. So if the, if your grandparent went through a feast during puberty, Two generations down were significantly more likely to have diabetes, heart disease and die on average six years earlier than the general population. But the reverse if your grandparents went through a famine during, during the puberty time, their offspring, two generations down were significantly more likely to the tune of 25 years, less likely to get chronic disease and On average 25 years longer, like that’s a huge spread.

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah. And those that also happened in Quebec, there was a great freeze and they followed that for 2-3 generations now and same findings. So that’s the component. It’s made our jobs a lot more complicated because a lot of us don’t know our family lineage or the tree. And in reality, it matters to a point because you can’t go back. There’s nothing you can do about it, but you can make different choices and decisions today knowing maybe you have the deck stacked against you.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Right. I mean, as Joe Paterno talks about your only about your jeans, a cow For 15% of what’s happening. Whereas the other 85% is in your control, right? What’s in your environment? You’re eating, you’re sleeping, you’re pooping your thoughts, your intimacy with others, your movement, your stress reduction, all of that is in your control. So what do you focus on with people then? Because what do you like when someone shows up in the practice and they have no what you consider to be neuron degeneration? What are you focusing on with them?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah. So we’re focusing actually on all of the levels. So what I like to say is I don’t treat conditions and I don’t treat symptoms. I treat heart centered dynamic human beings moving through time and space. Well, how do you do that one? You really cut to the matter at hand as far as you know, why did they incarnate? I mean, we get, we go deep quickly with our patient base in that, you know, we’re addressing the biochemistry, the physiology, the structure of the body. So more of the mattered body, we address the bio energetic, the bio fields of the body. We use a voice scan for that. So we’re utilizing blood chemistries were utilizing functional medicine tests with urine and stool analysis. We’re utilizing mindset and matter. 

I mean, we know in a longevity play, purpose matters like the universe will recall the pieces and parts when there is no purpose or passion. And so getting people to understand like you won the lottery by being here. It’s about a one in 500 million chance of being born. And that’s a gift and that, you know, that’s precious. Like it is amazing. These vessels we walk around in now when they go wrong, they can go really wrong. And I’m not minimizing people suffering. But I also want to couch our discussion around. Okay. Well, what is the symptom picture and the pathology? What can we learn from it because it’s happening like we can, we can push against it, we can fight against it. I really want to do away with war analogies in our health because ultimately, in a oneness understanding it’s all us anyways. 

And so looking at the inherent intelligence of our bodies and it’s always striving for correction and basically our true nature is health, but we have a lot of obstacles to take us out of health. Whether that be through mindset, maybe through traumas, maybe through the Epigenetics, maybe it’s our, our lifestyle stuff of what we’re doing day to day. But all of those things are correctable. Now, while we may not have complete 100% resolution, I have many patients that have no evidence of Alzheimer’s stage to Alzheimer’s reverse Parkinson’s disease, full debilitation after 10 to 12 years, no evidence of that disease. We even have stage four cancers and other components from just the two decades of practice that I have. So I’m, but I’m not saying I’m curing anybody. It’s, it’s the body given the right information So I like to say I do a lot of nothing all day. It’s the body, the inherent wisdom and the information that we bring in to the individual. So it’s, you know, it’s really amazing when it works. We do improve a lot of people’s quality of life by practicing that way as well.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So talk to me about what are, what are the most impactful for people who are listening?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

What are the most impactful things that someone can do to either prevent or slow down the process of neuro degeneration? Is it, you know, what would be the most impactful thing that you would recommend people focus on?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah. So there’s a couple of levels there, right? So it depends on, is it a loved one that you see going through this? So my Nana Ethel Blum had dementia. So and actually just dawned on me just in the last year like, oh yeah, that was Soraya wasn’t really the first one with brain degeneration that I witnessed. My nana had dementia for 10 years. Ethel Blum bless her heart. She, she would come put her teeth on the table and drink a Budweiser smoker cigarettes. You know, I’m from farm country in western Pennsylvania. And so that component is lifestyle like you cannot be putting like smoking, obviously, if you’re smoking, get support, there’s plenty of ways to stop. But we know that is a massive toxicants of you imbibing their getting your sugars imbalance and looking at your diet, food is your best medicine. So, not spiking insulin as a result of massive glucose going up. 

So that would be breads and pastas and potatoes and sweets and alcohol. The standard, the standard American diet, the sad diet, like that component is really getting plugged in with support. Maybe you’re a do it yourselfer. You know, there’s a great book by Dale Bredesen the end of Alzheimer’s. And he goes through a lot of that, I call that naturopathic medicine 101 which is addressing lifestyle and diet. And those are big players moving your body. I mean, this is, these are not sexy concepts, but they are so essential for our health and for the embodiment of not forgetting about this vessel. 

You know, really I’m out now training and teaching people on. We haven’t been taught how powerful we truly are when we fully access, get the embodiment, get these things pain free, freely, mobile, fully functioning battery charge and the ability to then create from a heart and brain coherent space is phenomenal. But depending on where you are on that, I know it’s a long winded answer, but I’m gonna go, I’m coming back. There’s different levels of what can you do. So there’s not just one thing but looking at the different facets or pillars to health, you could call them, Looking at your diet, looking at your mindset is a massive one. You know, a dangerous neighborhood to go into by yourself. I’ve had 70 year old patients on my procedure table where we’re doing very small embryonic like stem cell procedures, laser guided and activated on brain regeneration. Telling me they’re not worthy of healing at 70 years old. And, you know, that’s a profound breakthrough for that being on the planet. And I don’t want people to get to 70 year olds, 70 years old or older and having a belief in them that they’re not worthy enough for healing. You know, that is tragic in my mind. And so if we’re able to educate people earlier, like there is a lot of support, you don’t have to go it alone, plug into Dr. Wendie’s programs, plug into ours. Like there’s more than enough suffering out there that we all are getting on these summits to try to educate and bring this information to you so that, you know, that you have possibilities, you have hope. And you have support and so diet, lifestyle movement, sleep hygiene, you know, what gets tracked, gets what gets measured, gets can get changed. 

And so really plugging in with some support. If your do it yourself, for sure, do your homework. There is information, but get a trusted source. Don’t go out there on a limb with somebody with some unfounded hypothesis. You know, get somebody that you can trust as a trusted guide to go the path with you because there’s multiple roads in and it’s not always, I call it fractal medicine. Really is, there isn’t just one thing and there’s not even one system. It’s like, where does the individual come in? What resonates most with them? Can you meet them where they’re at and then really go from there and I’ll give you an in, for instance, on, in case you don’t know what a fractal is, is you can go forever in and forever out the pattern is the same. So I can treat your whole body on your ear with a regular therapy and Chinese medicine, there’s a point on there. Maybe in the West, we understand reflexology. 

There’s a point on your foot for everything in your body. Well, that’s the microcosm and the macrocosm. You know, I happen to use a voice scan for people. That is a hologram of the bio field of the whole body. I find it very valuable to help people because we’re helping people around the globe now, out of our centers in Utah and Oregon. And so, you know, my long winded wind up is, is there one thing or I gave a couple concrete things in there? I’ll finish with just this one is movement and I don’t call it exercise because that’s a loaded four letter word. So movement of just moving your body 10 minutes a day, start with that of maybe it’s putting on your best tunes and dancing around the house. I oftentimes recommend just go get outside, you know, not like my mom said, like go play In the street kids, but go take a 10 minute walk from your house and then come back. 

And even that circulation in Chinese medicine, we say the blood is the healing ability of the body. So we get the circulation going. If you get one next step is going into a high intensity workout, which is increasing your blood pressure to a point where you can’t hold on a conversation that will increase BDNF, which is brain derived neurotrophic factor. That’s how you create new neurons in your brain. So like a very powerful intervention, people say, oh I know about that. They want to know like what kind of mushroom complex can I take? But it is these simple things that we can do

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

When you get from the forest that you foraged that you went out there. So, Greg, there’s so much that you’ve said that really, I want to highlight. But the, so the first thing that I want to talk about is that it’s really it’s like a team effort, right? It’s not just oh eat your veggies, it’s a eat your veggies. Don’t load the system with toxins. Do make sure you allow your body to rest, do stress reduce. And you mentioned something about heart brain coherence, which I’m a huge fan of heart math and it’s funny. I stink at meditating, I stink at it. I think it’s just

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

You can’t do it.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I know. I know. And I recommend it but I stink at it. So I have found that heart math is the thing because I’m very competitive and so I can watch my breath in and I can watch the coherence go up. And for me that’s the way I can work on that. So I’m a huge proponent of meditation. I just haven’t yet mastered it. But heart math and okay, I got this. And so when you mentioned coherence, I thought heart math is such a practical tool for people to manage stress, increase the coherence, the the jelling between your head and your heart so that your body is in balance and then don’t drink alcohol, don’t smoke, don’t, you don’t inhale heavy drugs. I mean, there’s so many things that you can do and move your body, right? There’s just all these platform behaviors. So if you get nothing else out of the summit, you’ll get what not to do and what to do from this conversation. So what are some of the toxins because we’re all about environmental toxicants, of course. So are their toxins that you feel are particularly nasty for neurodegenerative disease?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yes. So heavy metals in particular are a big show stopper and are very ubiquitous in our human bodies. So when you look at the in Haines data, which are the databases. They do basically every 10 years, they do a massive study on the populations to see how many metals are in our system. I find the top four for neurodegeneration. So I do we do urine challenge test for heavy metals. And I’ll explain why I got to that. But cadmium, mercury, arsenic and lead are the top four that I’m finding and people now, not everyone with neurodegeneration have the metals, but those that do that needs to get addressed first off because any of the natural therapeutics, even the brain regenerative camp that I run in my centers. We don’t, that’s a showstopper. We don’t do it because it’s just too much of a drag. It’s like you have a huge hole in the bottom of your bucket. So it doesn’t matter what we put in on the top side. And then solvents, pesticides, I mean glyphosate that is a crime.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Don’t get me started. We have an episode on Glyphosate on, on this summit. Do not get me started. It is one of the biggest pet peeves.

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Well, it’s a crime against humanity in my book and it is, it is responsible for undue cancers and neurodegenerative. It’s found in all of our food. And so that means detoxification has to happen for everybody. You know, saunas are amazing if you can afford one doing a liver and we run a liver and brain detox three times a year for communities to do that. I’m a firm believer is you’ve got to change your filter, like any other filter in your life. If you’re not changing it, get what happens to it, it gets congested and clogged and then the machine doesn’t work well, the same thing for our bodies. So, you know, the glyphosate pesticides, plastics in like never micro, don’t use a microwave number one, but do not microwave in plastic either because you’re just leeching those chemicals into the food, then you’re ingesting them. You know, looking at those dang air fresheners in cars, like no one should be using air fresheners. They are full of toxicants and then you’re inhaling them like we’re bringing them into our homes. I also like air filters for our homes. Our homes are some of the most toxic places because things get trapped in our furniture and in the rugs. So

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Even our cars, I just made my son, not my son. I made my oldest daughter who has a new car and my husband who got a new car a year later. I made them both get air filters because I said you can’t breathe that it’s so much toxins terrible for you

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Just coming off of the vinyl and the plastics. You know, I guess the good news here, you know, I learned about environmental, I studied environmental studies as an undergrad. I was out in, you know, rivers in the Chesapeake Bay doing snail inventories in the rivers. I loved it because it got me outside. But also to see what pesticides are doing to our natural environment. It’s like, wow, it is devastating. But the good news is Chesapeake Bay is coming back to life. 

So things can regenerate. So, really practicing regenerative medicine and our bodies are really resilient to a point. And I mean, we’ve seen some really tough cases, very progressed, debilitated. Folks really get their lives back. Patient Rick retired Forester. He had Parkinson’s for a decade. Medications weren’t working anymore. He was debilitated on the bed, couldn’t go from the bed to the bathroom anymore. We get word from he’s up in Alaska in the Wilds doing whitewater rafting. So he got his life back, you know, and you know, really very little evidence of the condition and that’s unheard of in western medicine. Again, I’m not claiming cure. That’s a, you know, maybe a remission in the Western world. But we did actually push on some rather large levers for his innate intelligence to come back online.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I think the listeners will also know Terry Wahls is on this summit and we talked who has multiple sclerosis and trigeminal neuralgia. And we talk a lot about the reversal of her illness, which is just profound. Yeah. And so I think, you know, you really highlighted two things. One is hope there is hope. There’s always hope. And then the other is work with a good team really. And the thing that’s so interesting is People don’t think about the medals that they have. But if you’re born before 1978, or if you were nursed by someone who, or if you were sorry, born to someone before 197, who was born before 1978, you got exposed to metals because they cross the placenta. They crossed the breast milk. And then if we grew up in housing, I think you and I are the same age, I think I’m older than you. But I grew up in a house that had lead paint and then I got mercury fillings just like that, you know, being super easy.

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah, I mean, leaded paint. Gasoline was outlawed in 1975 in North America in the United States. But that’s in our soil. We get the mercury from coal fired plants in the Midwest that reigns the acid rain in northeast. We get a plume on the West Coast from China and their coal fired plants. So, you know, mercury bio accumulates and fish as well. So we’re eating like do not eat swordfish ever that Yeah. So, you know, you asked like, well, okay, where do they come from? You know, they’re just ubiquitous now in our environment. So we need to know that and I guess the reason why I started with the medals when you asked me? Okay. Well, what are the toxicants, David Perlmutter about 18 years ago, put a picture of a gentleman with Parkinson’s on YouTube. He pushed to glue two g of Bluetooth ion in an I V. 

It was like a miracle cure. And the guy went, his face brightened up his gait, his, you know, arms were swinging. He got a strong and strident gate, not the stutter step or the pill rolling, hunched over frail looking fellow, he did kind of navigate the eternal Little Stutter step. E but so I put that in on the first five patients, you know, 18 years ago and nothing happened. And I thought, Gosh, I know he did not hire an actor to do that. I actually got to tell him this a couple of years ago when I interviewed him for a different summit. And so with that, I started, I knew I did study environmental science, Walter Cranian, was my main mentor in that. And he we, we looked at that. All five of them had heavy metal burden, we got rid of their metals. 

One patient Dennis in particular, had high lead burden. We did coagulation therapy with him hyper barracks and acupuncture. He no longer comes in. You can’t really tell that he has Parkinson’s either some church members. How do I know I treat some of his church members and say, yeah, you’d never tell that he’d have Parkinson’s. Unless he gets really upset, then the tremor comes in a little bit. So, you know, it is, these are not getting looked at in conventional neurology. They’re looking at the substantial Niagara, they’re looking at the dow proteins, they’re looking at, you know, different end stage of disease and looking for medical or pharmaceutical interventions there. And I just don’t think we’re gonna move the needle there because we got to go upstream. So we look at the gut, we look at the hormones, you know, we do the functional medicine analysis there.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I think you really highlight one and you’ve talked about this repeatedly, don’t go it alone, but also you do work with. So I always say to my visions, look, I was an OBGYN, I’m still an OBGYN. So if you need to deliver a baby or if you have a surgical emergency or another type of emergency, that’s medical, you really do belong in the traditional system. You know, if you have a mechanical issue, you do not belong in my office. If you have a huge growth in your uterus, I can’t do anything about that. 

So there are certain places that traditional medicine are excellent. And if you have something where you’re rejecting the common wisdom and you’re flying against the grain and you just want a different future than what medicine traditional medicine sees for you, which is essentially a process of degeneration and failure and dying in your bed decrepit at 68 without your brain or your body. I reject that fully. And I think you do too. So that is not, not at all vital, vibrant, healthy, able to be an interested in intimacy until you’re at least 100 that every decade gets better than the next. Right. Yeah. So don’t go it alone. But it does sound like really anyone who is experiencing degenerative disease needs a functional, a senior functional medicine. Work up. Probably not the person who just hang out their shingle shingle because that’s, that you really need to be deep in the weeds.

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah, because you know, one of the components, even in functional medicine land, a lot of people will not take on neurodegeneration. There, there haven’t been many people out on that forefront. And so that’s where I find myself is because I went through it and I needed to, I needed to do it. And so, you know, looking at, you know, it’s just necessary. So I’m educating other providers as well. That there is a lot of things that we can do for folks and we’re seeing benefits. So we have 95% of people that engage in our programs are saying their quality of life has improved with since seeing us. 

So, you know, I’m training, I’ve got two physicians in, in Portland, Oregon. I have some more providers down in Park City, Utah. We do a lot of online programming as well with coaches and providers. So, you know, there is, you know, we’re working on all of the levels so that why the billion just seems like I can’t even wrap my head around that I wanted to have, you know, with knowing our time on the planet. We don’t know when we check off or out of here. I might as well go big because I was done playing it small. I wasn’t playing it small before, but just with that loss profoundly, it’s like, you know, it lit a fire under me. Put the flag in the earth of like we’re taking a stand for people’s health and we’re going to do it with a lot of joy and a lot of fun and a lot of love.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I think this is great. I think we’re always informed by what we absolutely don’t want and playing a big game like, you know, you might not win but you have a future that every day gets you out of bed and inspires you to pull you forward, which I think is also really important for people to have for themselves. Like why are you here? What’s your legacy, what you’re gonna accomplish? So I know that people who are listening are thinking, how do I reach this guy? He’s great. So how do they reach you? How do they get in touch with you? What do you want to share with?

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Yeah. So I’ve got really, we’re rebranding, but I’ve got naturecuresclinic.com. So that’s Nature Singular Cures with an S clinic.com and bevitalpc.com. Those will get you to where I am. I also have a podcast called What The Health, The Doctors Strat. So if you can do Dr. Greg Eckel, what the health, it’s a great way. We do a weekly podcast, educating people about different facets of their health and what they can do day to day.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

This is great, Greg. Thank you. Thank you really. So for all of the people listening. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Environmental Toxicants Autoimmunity and Chronic Diseases Summit. Today we had Greg Eckel on and really thank you so much for being here. It’s been fantastic.

Greg Eckel, ND, LAc

Thank you Wendie.