Toxins: Learn Why Your Gut Can’t Bear Them

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Thank you. You have to call me Wendie, but thank you for that introduction.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Great to be here. Okay, so let’s dove right in, because you and I have so much to want to cover in this interview together. Yes. So elsewhere on this segment, we’ve covered mold, which you and I have both been impacted by. And obviously, that is, you know, a serious factor when it comes to chronic conditions that can go undetected for years. But so can these other classes of toxins that we’ve really normalized our exposure to. And I would love for you to help us unpack, you know, industrial toxins and heavy metals today. Maybe we could start with industrial toxins first. Sure. What are we getting exposed to on a daily basis without even our awareness?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Okay. I think everyone listening should be sitting down because it’s horrifying. And most people are like, Oh my gosh, no way, holy smokes, where do I start? So rest assured that we’re going to include the how to clean it up part of the conversation. But because I call that category the other category and so because we have the mycotoxins toxins, we have the heavy metals and then we have everything else. I know you’ve talked about glyphosate with Stephanie, so you’ve started to peel into that. But if we take the herbicides, pesticides, and insecticides out, you get those through your food or if you live near a farm or a golf course. So if you take that out, then you’re left with, okay, what else am I exposed to? So on a daily basis, walk through your life. If you use a car that uses gasoline, you’re exposed to the gasoline. When you fill it up, that’s toxic. If you just bought a car and it’s new and you love that new car smell will that new car smell is three chemicals toxic when you go into your life and know you’re vegan? Right, or you’re vegetarian. So vegan leather is all the rage now, except what’s vegan leather made of plastic. You’re sitting on plastic. Your skin is your largest absorption organ. It can help you thrive or dove. So if you put lots of stuff on it that’s toxic, you’re going to absorb it. So sitting on all this plastic, touching all this plastic is another huge exposure. If you lie in bed, most of us lie in bed. Most beds are treated with a flame retardant, which was very useful when you and I, our ancestors lived in a tenement and one person who smoked would set the whole tenement on fire. So it was very useful to have your bed be a safe space. 

But now most of us don’t live like that. And so unless you’re a smoker who smokes in bed, you probably don’t need a flame retardant in your bed. The statistical probability of your home going up in flames while you’re in your bed is pretty low. So that’s and then think about what are you storing your food in? Most of the time it’s got some kind of plastic. So those are endocrine-disrupting chemicals and they get brought into our body and they look like chemicals excuse me, our hormones, they confuse the body and then we have to process them. Then there’s there are air and water quality. Air and water quality are associated with one in every six deaths. Like, think about that. One out of every six people dies because of their water quality. That’s a study from 1989 to Claire. Just I look, that’s not recent. It’s only gotten worse. So what are we breathing? What are we drinking? Most municipal sources are water are contaminated with PFAS another endocrine disruptor. And so there’s a lot of ways in which we’re getting exposure. Think about that lovely, fresh laundry smell. 

I love the smell of bleached towels. I used to, like, hold them up and I loved folding it. I didn’t like putting it away, but I loved holding it. Except that lovely bleach smell is perchlorate, another endocrine disruptor. So as we’ve gone through our day in this industrial category and let’s also pile on if you live near a golf course, or farm an industrial plant or a highway, each of those has its own category of what you can get off-gassing or exposure from so that the farm and the and the golf course are glyphosate, which is Stefani covered in detail. And then the highway as the tires hit the pavement the degree to get these tiny little microplastic particles that you breathe in, that’s not your fever. That is not in your favor. Just for the record. And then if you live near an industrial plant, they release all kinds of crap into the air. So that can include I was just reading in the paper that someone was brought up on charges when they were the head of a company and I’m not going to name the company, but when they were the head of the company, they were responsible for flat out dumping things into the local water supply, which happens all the time, and this makes its way into our groundwater. One more thing. Wildfires. When wildfires burn, they release methylmercury, which is sequestered in the plants. They release it back into the environment. It’s heavy. It falls. It lands on the earth. It lands in the water. Our fish eat it. We eat the fish. We get the mercury. That’s a circle of life I really want to be participating in, honestly. So there’s a lot of ways that we get exposed, and I think most people at this point are like, Oh my God, what do I do about it? Right. It’s fixable.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

This is the piece that I really want to make sure people hear. So stick with us guys through this interview because we are going to talk about actual steps when they’re both super focused on keeping things practical and action-oriented for you. So hang with us here, but we really want you to understand the breadth and depth of what your total body burden has become just in the last couple of decades. So like one of the studies I quote is this recent study from Germany that had an equal number of European and American participants. And in 2008, when the study was first done, we measured a total of ten toxins. PURCELL Which is an astronomical body burden that’s, you know, environmental toxicants are disruptive in their very nature to our body’s ability to just metabolize and optimize and replenish. And when the study was repeated in 2018, we had jumped to 500 toxins per. So there’s both Europeans and Americans. So what are the things that, you know, Wendie and I really wanted to focus on in this interview for you is to help you realize just how fast this has happened and why medicine is still catching up? So Wendie is one of the few doctors out there who is at the forefront of this. So you wrote a book about it, you know, think and how can we make this information available to everybody? Because the data is there, but it’s taking a long time to enter mainstream. Most MDs get an average of 7 hours of environmental toxicant education in their entire academic career if they get any at all. So I’m so glad that this is the flag that you’ve taken up. What else do you think that people need to understand about industrial chemical exposure? You know, in the home, in the personal care, like what is getting overlooked and normalized that we need to look at with fresh eyes?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

There’s this is a huge question. Sinclair Okay. So, the thought is, well, if it were bad for me, someone would not allow it on the market. Okay. So that’s being really normalized. Like I can trust whatever is being put out, but I’m not a cynical human, I’m actually really a hopeful human. And in this area, it’s good to be cynical and suspicious because unless it’s been certified by an independent agency, you can pretty much guarantee that anything that says it’s clean is essentially a whitewashing, a greenwashing behavior. So I’ve been sucked in more times than I can count into marketing ploys. For example, I was all excited to get rid of my plastic bottle of laundry detergent, which had chemicals and endocrine disrupting agents and perfumes and colors and blah blah bladders and a plastic bottle that never degrades. So I really believe in being good to the earth too, because it’ll be good to us if we’re good to the earth. So it’s all a circle. So it’s very exciting. I leveled up to this thing that comes in a paper. The cardboard package has no color, has no smell to it. It was, in theory, clean. So of course by four months’ worth of auto supply, because I have all these children. And do you know how many loads of laundry children to acquired, who play sports like it is ridiculous? All we do is laundry and we’ve a whole room dedicated to laundry because all we do so okay. So the laundry. So we, I, buy all of it and I use it for months. And then one day, you know, I was falling asleep and I was like, I never looked that up. I use environmental Working Group as my Bible for what’s clean, and what’s not clean. So I get up the next morning, I look it up and I’m like.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Oh, crap.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It’s not clean, right? So I think I had been sucked in by the packaging and in reality the product wasn’t actually clean. So I do use the Environmental Working Group as my Bible. I mean, you can use think dirty. They’re both great sites. I think there’s more out there too. And so what I recommend, first off, is you can’t rely on someone to keep you safe. You are in the driver’s seat of your safety and your health. So take your agency and don’t be sucked in. Don’t be greenwashed and do what I didn’t do, which is always look a product up before you buy it. And if it doesn’t have data, then you can. If you have the bandwidth, contact the company and say, so I know what’s in your product. What are you putting what are you giving me? And what is what’s the safety rating on it? You’re not required to prove that it’s unsafe or that it’s safe before using it or before developing it. You just need to show that it’s not straight-out crazy toxic. But this is what you referred to as we’re being bombarded death by a thousand cuts where it’s all over. So it’s important to start peeling off the ways in which we have agency. So the first thought is you can’t count on someone else to keep you safe. You have the reins here.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

And it’s such a beautiful point and I agree with you. It’s something that we really need to grow up as a culture about, like where we think because we’re in a developed country that might go somewhere else. This thought about this for me? Nope, nope. The EPA, a benefit to the public can have it.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

No, the EPA is responsible for this, but they have very little teeth and they only evaluate something that’s been referred to them by the company that is testing it, thinking it’s not safe. So they have no teeth. They haven’t banned a substance since 1984. Most listeners weren’t even alive in 1984. Right. So the EPA and I are the same age. We were both born in 1970 and they have only banned nine substances is in the last 52 and a half years. We know there’s way more than that that is toxic for us. The challenge is that the studies look at one item in very small doses, but we know that on any given day we could exposed to that one item in larger doses and 200 to 500 other items. And what’s not ever studied is the cumulative effect of that sort of ongoing exposure, because it’s not just one thing. The liver has to deal with it. It’s 500 things in varying amounts. And your genetics, your predisposition, and your detox mechanisms are not taken into effect. So you cannot rely on anyone but yourself to level it up.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Yeah. I really appreciate you saying that, especially about the cumulative burden, because I think for people who are I remember when I was already sick and I thought of myself as a fairly clean person, but in reality, like, you know, I was semi-crunchy hippie, but I liked my conveniences. Yeah, my energy was so on the back foot, I was so depleted, I was so fragile. Hearing somebody tell me something about like, Oh, you got to rework everything. It’s like, Are you kidding me? My skin is already crap. I have no energy. I can’t. You want me to switch out all my products right now in the, what is that going to do for me for my gut and for my energy? But the truth is, guys, you’re going to spend so much more money on supplements and on these regenerative therapies and even drastic measures. If you don’t reduce your incoming toxin load, you have to get to the point where less toxins are coming in per day than are going out. That’s just the mass of it. You know?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

But Rome wasn’t built in a day and you’re not going to handle that in a day. So you don’t have to talk if you’re independently wealthy with a few personal assistants and you care not about price. Like price. No object. Sure. Sic them on leveling up to the highest level overnight. But that’s not most of us, right? This is a process. And so the easiest way to start this process is to say, okay, what am I running out of? What’s like right here? And I need to deal with today? That’s the thing to focus on. So you might find that you nailed it. And like one of my physician formula, bronzers for my makeup actually was rated highly by the Environmental Working Group and I was like gummy. Now the other 95 products I use were not rated highly and I needed to level them up. So I personally don’t have a lot of brain space. So I actually looked for brands that were certified by the Environmental Working Group, and I started to use those brands because that alleviated a lot of the noise, like, is this toner good? Is this sunscreen good? The whole company’s good. So I’m using I have two, or three brands that have been Environmental Working Group certified, and I use them over and over. So one is for the house and one is for the beauty. And so I knew if I buy it from them, it’s clean. I don’t have to think about it. 

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Do you mind sharing the brands that you’re always?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Happy to share them? So Beautycounter is my preferred makeup and end product, so, you know, the glycolic acid peel, the beauty, all of the serums that I put on my face. So Beautycounter is one mineral fusion is the next one. I don’t love beauty counter or lipsticks, but I love mineral fusion lipstick, and wearing them now everything else is beauty counter. And then for cleaning my house, for my laundry, my floor and my glass, and my bathroom, the cleaner I use Aspen Clean. They’re also EWG certified. And the best thing about them is they do ownership. So I could go back to my ordering for four months at a time and not think about it too much. Because remember, for kids like I have no brain space, right? I want to set it and forget it and not.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Think you’re running a busy practice and there. Yeah, it’s a lot. Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing your favorite brands to help give people some ideas. So I also want to just point out to folks that one of the things that you could do first is just simplify, right? Like we’re we have 15 different cleaners. Do we really need 15 or can you just get it down to three and then swap out one of those three at a time? You absolutely could. But I mean, the marketing teams will be sad. Advertising will be sad to lose you as a person, an easy consumer, an easy target. But as you know, your life is so much bigger than fleeting moments.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Totally.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

One of the things I really want to dove into with you today and before we get to heavy metals is a couple of the big scary names like say, let’s start there, and maybe halogens and talk about what these chemicals are and where you might be able to find them in your everyday lives so that people can help to start steering away from them.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Right. So jumping off of the beauty conversation, a ton of beauty products contain phthalates and okay, so we, I’m always interested in why does this matters, right? Why and what relationship does this have to the gut? So let’s tie this with a bow. So, one phthalate is endocrine disrupting. What does it mean to be endocrine-disrupting? It means that it looks like your hormones, it acts like your hormones, and you have to process it like you have to process your hormones. Okay. What difference does that make for the gut? Well, in your gut is this enzyme called beta-glucan. It is. And beta glucan it is clever, it’s like a butcher knife. And so I always think of it like a little barbell in my gut. I have my hormone or my endocrine disruptor that’s been processed by my liver and it’s bound. It’s either gluconate eat it or sulfate it or methylated. It’s bound and it’s inert and it’s water soluble and it’s in my stool because I am trying to poop it out. 

Now, if I have a dysfunctional gut, that enzyme comes around and it cleaves it. Now that cleaving the separation of that barbell makes that hormone, it’s no longer water-soluble. So it can’t stay in the gut. It goes back in the bloodstream. It’s in its toxic metabolite state. So it’s a free radical. It’s toxic. You’re your bloodstream, your body freaks because of like, wait, that cannot be that pro-cancer promoting we don’t want that floating around your bloodstream so you then sequester it. Where do you sequester it? Your fat and your organs? And then how many of the people listening are like, I do everything right and all I do is gain weight. That’s because of the toxic exposure that we have when you can’t deal with it when you’re overloaded with it, when the guts are out of balance and improperly performing you storing your fat and you will not lose an ounce until you lose your toxins because your body knows you can’t release. Then for people who go on these crazy diets and lose £20 in three weeks and they’re sick because of that, that autoinfection, that giving the body its own toxic load from itself not excreted your intoxication

event. Huge, toxic load. You know, it was kind of stored in the storage depot, and then boom, your whole system is getting exposed and you’re like, oh, I was eating. My energy’s poor, my hair’s falling out, I’m losing weight, but I feel terrible. That’s because you’re having a toxic exposure to it from yourself.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Yeah. So it’s a new digestive system, symptoms that have been before.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So they’re super irritating to the gut. At a cellular level, your gut is trying to protect itself and it’s irritated. And so, yeah, it’s really important to do this systematically. So when you go back to phthalates, you’re the, the beauty products, the makeup, the creams solutions, the hair stuff, all of these are really often high in it unless it’s specifically excluded and hence the EWG and think dirty apps like use your apps, let them do the thinking for you. And that’s such a beautiful.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Point and I really appreciate you sharing this piece and really highlighting how important it is. It gives us a chance to look at the stuff of fresh because, for so many people who have chronic conditions, I remember being there, I felt like I had tried everything. But really, guys, when we think we’ve tried everything, all that you have tried is what has been in your awareness so far. And when you look at the mechanism of distress, like the domino reaction in the body for something like, say, phthalates daily, it’s hard on the thyroid. Right. Okay. So what happens when the thyroid becomes sluggish, when you get actually develop hypothyroidism or even Hashimoto’s, but it doesn’t have to be at an autoimmune level. You could just have hypothyroidism just a little, little slow-moving, not quite optimized. You can be subclinical hypothyroidism and still have a dramatic decrease in your body’s ability to release bile through the sphincter of what we now know. 

Work as your gallbladder. Remember is your little catcher’s mitt for your bile that’s made in your liver. So your livers, big boy, right here on your upper right quadrant, the gallbladder is nestled underneath that. Every time you digest food, your gallbladder wants to release bile, which has a lot of those toxins Dr. Wendie was describing to you. It’s pre-slated to go out through the bowels. They’re ready to go out the exit door. The liver’s already done all that hard work, but if that trapdoor can’t open that sphincter of oh, right. Because the thyroid is sluggish and it has this proven relationship to keep that clamp set, you now have serious digestive problems and you have a serious build-up of the toxins that you most need to get out in order to reclaim your function. So until you lower your body burden, you’re going to continue this perpetual thyroid gallbladder access to stress. And I don’t know anybody who has a serious gut issue that doesn’t have some level of liver and gallbladder dysfunction because they’re so pivotal to, you know, and if if you could have fixed with probiotics, you would have.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Really it’s not a problem. It’s a function issue. It’s it’s not a it’s not a deficiency. It’s a dysfunction. So you’re treated you treat like probiotics are great. We use them all the time. But that’s not treating it right. You’re treating the wrong problem with the probiotics. You need to treat the detox issue.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Interesting. So I also would really appreciate it if you said something about water quality earlier, and I want to bring that back. And do you want to add anything about what else is found in our water?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Other than perchlorate and nice and potentially it depends on your water. Right. So if you have I live in a city where there’s very good municipal water and there’s still perchlorate in the water, actually, because that’s chlorine and chlorine is added so that it’s antibacterial, which is kind of great, except that’s an endocrine disruptor. So you’re not going to get sick from drinking your water. You’re just going to have your thyroid disrupted, right? Pick your poison. So I think there’s probably more you’re looking for, but I’m like, okay, those are the ones that come to mind. You miss.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Anything like antibiotic waste and those other Microplastic.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, they’re not filtered for that, which is crazy, right? You think you think that when you’re drinking the water, they’ve cleaned it. But no, they’re looking for what’s going to kill you. And how do we keep it from having high spore and bacteria and parasite content? So they want to kill that, but they’re not looking for anything else.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Yeah.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Really. So it is important to, I always say filter your water to the highest level of your budget that what it allows. So if you are a renter, you’re not going to put a whole house water filter in that you don’t own it. That doesn’t make sense. Yeah. So if you’re a renter, and you want to go for a point-of-use countertop, make sure everything is filtered and filtered and filtered there. As far as I know, unless they’ve developed it in the last few months, there’s no whole-house water filter that removes perchlorate. Perchlorate is really a local removal behavior, so we have a whole house water filter and we also have point-of-use filters because you can’t remove it at the you can’t do reverse osmosis for the whole house. Right. And yet I’m sure that’ll be developed, but not yet. You know.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Prescription, that founder claims that he can actually handle that in his water system. Okay. Okay. Does anybody, want to talk that through with that team? You can talk to page prescription. And we’ve known him for a long time where he can create custom water systems. But again, not cheap.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Right? It’s not cheap. So I’m a huge fan of Live Within Your Budget and Do What Works for You because financial stress is another thing that’ll mess your gut up and shut your detox down. So, you know, that’s really not in your favor. So certainly filter your water to the best of your ability at the shower, where you drink it, where your kids bathe, all those levels.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

What is your favorite point-of-use filter for showers?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

For that one? I don’t have a brand. I can’t remember the name of my husband. My husband is often the one. I’m like, Can you just deal with this? Or he dealt with the shower one and it and we are undone screwed the shower and screwed it on. It’s ugly, okay? It’s just ugly. I was hoping it would come in a brush. Nick or finish, but it was plastic finish but it filtered the water. Right, it and it removed it was like reverse osmosis, it was charcoal and I can’t remember the name of it. He installed it and then I haven’t thought twice about it.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

We’ve been doing your research on EWG recommendations for you. The point is they’re out there and there is always a step that you can take within your budget, right?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yes. 100%.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

I really want to highlight this piece because, for example, you know, we’ve talked about each primary elsewhere on the summit and other persistent, you know, pathogenic infections. And I really want to give people the opportunity to start pursuing apart some of the narratives about like the bug is the enemy because you think that the bug is the enemy when you have these persistent gut symptoms. And I know you’re suffering from them. I remember suffering from them, too. But there’s always a good reason. There’s a logical the body has an internal logic to it that we never want to override H. pylori. Some of the new it is that you actually might suffer more if you kill it off too early. You might have an increase in symptoms because H. Pylori has bloomed into its polymorphic form in order to help stabilize certain toxins that are actually really common and tap water, for example. So this is part of what we want to be able to get mature about in this day and age, since we’re living in this world, let’s get smart about these original exposures and start understanding those domino effects. Right? And not just take our doctor’s word for it that like, oh, I found a bug on your GI map. That’s the bad guy. We’re going to go after it because that just keeps you in the cycle, right?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Right. I would say do your best to optimize your gut function, but if you’re doing everything right and your gut function hasn’t optimized, then it’s a toxin issue because they’re so inflammatory and so irritating to the gut that we want to start to peel those off. And I will share that. I we were looking at a house and I got literally five steps into it and I said to my husband, There’s mold here. And I had just driven 2 hours to see this house. I needed to pee. So I go to the bathroom and then I peek into two of the rooms. And then I was like, I got to get out of here because it’s so moldy. And I got out and I immediately had some binders on me. I took some binders, we drove home, we took more binders. I fasted, I did a sauna. My gut was a mess for the whole weekend and it was only around Monday. Tuesday, this was Saturday. It was like three days later. I was like, okay, quieted that one down. But it is. And it’s one of those invisible things. So toxins, exposures are not like when you eat something, you notice it, right? It’s one of those you have to really be vigilant. So if you don’t realize you just got a mold exposure or a heavy metal exposure, like you took your mercury fillings out, you’re going to be sick and you won’t know why.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Yeah, yeah. That’s such a great point. So I want to dove into heavy metals, but I really want to underscore what you just said. People can trust their intuition. You know, some of us are lucky enough, and I do say lucky enough on purpose to be really chemically sensitive. So if you’re getting sick around somebody that’s wearing perfume or if you walk into a house and your internal alarm bells start going off, it could be mold. It could be other toxins like you. You have the right to and you also have the obligation to listen to your body’s signals.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

I didn’t want to be that person. I talk about being that person. You know what? That you know what I’m talking about in the listeners. You know what I’m talking about when you’re that person like I’m that I have freaking celiac disease. I cannot eat gluten and I don’t need the heavy metal fish because I had all this stupid mercury and blah blah blah. Okay, so I don’t like being that person even though I am that person. And so when we went to this house and I was like this part and I got sick, my husband was like, okay, we don’t need to do this dance, okay? If you think there’s mold, get out. You don’t need to please anybody. Just get out. So there’s something about not only trusting yourself but acting on the information that you’ve gotten and not worrying about looking good or putting people out. Because this is my favorite statement. Sinclair No one can ever argue when you say that doesn’t work for me to say I say that to my kids all the time. No, that doesn’t work for me. You know, they proposed some cockamamie thing like, well, it too in the morning and walk in the rain. I’m like, Oh, that doesn’t work for me. But thanks for suggesting that you have to be mean. But so, so I encourage you to lean into being that person, but not in a nasty way. Just that doesn’t work for me.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Thanks though. Beautiful. I love that. I totally get it. I’m that person who will walk into a hotel room and walk right back out if I smell any messiness whatsoever. Yeah. And I’ll go right back down to the desk and say thank you so much for having me on this. But I’m actually highly allergic to mold and I can tell that it’s in this room. And so I’m sure you’re doing the best you can. I really I got to move. And you know that sometimes I gotta go through three or four rooms, but I’m not going to spend a whole conference. Do you and I have to travel so much for conferences getting sick just to try to help other people like? That’s insane. Yeah.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Right. Kill yourself first so that you can. You know, I always say to people, put your own ear mask on so that you can contribute to other people. Right? And you’re being that person so that you can train like I’m committed to training my children to take care of themselves. So guess what? I gotta do it for myself.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Yeah, that’s beautifully said. I know we only have a few minutes left together, so I want to give you a chance to talk about some of those heavy metal exposures as well because this can play such a pivotal role for people.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, they’re really huge. So let’s start with almost everyone has some type of exposure, which is one of those weird things to say when they don’t put mercury fillings in any longer. And in theory, we shouldn’t be getting exposed to lead. However, there was lead in the pipes for many years and 10 million Americans still have lead pipes going into their home. So you get led through your water. You get lead from leaded gasoline, which they took away in 1975. But if you were like me, born before 1975, you got that there was lead in the paint until 1978, and now most of us refrain from licking the windowsills. Okay, I know you do. I do. And the listeners hopefully do. However, if you’re living in a house that was built before 1970 and has not got renovated, when that house settles, shifts, moves the walls, the ceiling to the walls, the ceiling to the floor. As the house settles, the paint gets ground and it becomes lead dust. So you walk on it, you breathe it, you eat it, you absorb it. Remember, skin, drive or dive. So you’re going to absorb that fact?

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Yeah, absolutely.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah. You’re getting exposure then. Mercury is typically thought of as fish and fillings. So heavy metal fish and then silver fillings. I got all mine taken out, but I had them for over 40 years and they continue to off the gas. So every time you chew, brush your teeth, grind your teeth, or drink, doesn’t matter. You’re actually releasing mercury into the system. What’s near the mouth, the thyroid, what’s the incidence of autoimmune thyroid, skyrocketing autoimmune disease? We spent 20 billion in 2011. We spent 140 billion worldwide in 2022. It’s skyrocketing. It’s more than seven X rate. Like we’d be so psyched if our portfolios did that. We are not sight given that this is the incidence and rising cost of autoimmune disease. So not to go too far down the rabbit hole so fish and fillings. But then there’s another source of exposure to metals. Also wildfires. As the wildfires burn, they release the mercury. But then there’s this other thing that nobody thinks about, and that is if you were born to someone who was born before 1970, 1975, 1978, you got half of their metals. So pregnancy and nursing is a detox event for women. That’s great. But guess what? The baby gets it and it crosses the placenta. 

So, you know, so I was trying to figure out, like, where’d I get obviously, I grew up in the 1970s. I got all those LED exposures, but it seemed a lot higher. And then I realized, oh, well, my mom has a ton of lead and she can’t seem to get rid of her lead. And then I learned more and went, Oh, my poor kids, like my oldest, my firstborn child. You know, they say the first is the worst. Well, we totally tortured that kid because they got they got half of what I had, which is a pretty high body burn. So you get it from your parents. So even if you’re like, well, I was born in 2010, but you were born to someone who grew up when there were more toxins, more metals. So you want to test if you have any type of chronic illness or gut dysfunction that isn’t responding, You’re going to want to test for metals with a provoked test because it’s in there.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Yeah, I really appreciate you highlighting this piece because we know that like Mercury is extremely corrosive to the gut lining and it’s really neurotoxic, like hard on the thyroid, which is going to affect your digestion period, end of story. Like there’s, there’s no a way in the body. Even those heavy metals are lipophilic, your body’s going to do its best to sequester them somewhere. It’s still going to have that long-term impact on you.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

It really does. And it’s here’s what I wish I knew that I didn’t know then is that Mercury is implicated highly in hearing loss and pain. So, so and I wear hearing aids because, between the mercury and the genetics and the body burden, it was a bad combination. So I am a huge proponent of getting your mercury taken care of. And if we take it one step further, these are so inflammatory and I know this is a gut conference, but the the inflammatory nature of these sets the stage for all of the things we don’t want autoimmune disease, degenerative disease, cancer, dementia, you name it, we don’t want any of these things. And gut dysfunction is a window into, hey, everything is not right in munchkin land here. We really want to you know, all is not good. We really want to get things handled before it progresses because it will continue to progress unless it’s treated and resolved.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Absolutely. Yeah. I really appreciate your giving people actionable steps today around this and helping us to really highlight how the breadth and depth of our exposures and also that this is very doable to fix. It’s just one step at a time. Yes. Any last words of encouragement for folks who have been on the healing road for a really long time?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

Yeah, I’ve been there. Don’t give up. You’re going to keep you know, it’s really keep searching for the person who can get you well in partnership with you because you’re well, you really might be crazy, but you’re genuinely sick. Okay? Like, I want to make light of it but also reinforce this that people might say, oh, you know, it’s all in your head, but no, it’s not all in your head. You are genuinely ill and it’s fixable. Do not give up until you find the provider who is your person and then don’t let them go.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

I could not agree more. Thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate you.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

My pleasure. I’m so happy to be here. This is so critical to tell people.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

And so people can pick up a copy of your Dirty Girl book and where else can they find you?

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

So we haven’t, we have a bricks-and-mortar called Five Journeys. So if you’re in the northeast and you want to come do functional medicine with us, we have an insurance-based membership program. But then for the other, you know, 99% of people who aren’t in the northeast, we have an online brand called Dirty Girl Detox, where we have programs, supplements, community testing, guidance. And so that’s DirtyGirlDetox.com/gift and that’ll get you the quizzes, the knowledge, the action items. The first chapter of the book so DirtyGirlDetox.com/gift will get you lots of interesting things and get you into the community.

Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Thank you so much.

Wendie Trubow, MD, MBA, IFMCP

My pleasure. Thank you.