Episode Summary
If you've been on Instagram for more than 30 seconds, you've been pitched some form of a detox. The process of detoxification is something that the body does naturally. As a society, we're just more toxic than we've ever been. It's just like a marketing scam or a marketing term just to sell you products. Just because it feels good doesn't mean it's actually supporting you. They're literally everywhere, right? Like tap water has heavy metals. Like if we walk outside and we're breathing air, we're breathing in aluminum. I was seeing things that weren't there. Literally, it can change our perception in the brain chemistry. Our bodies actually naturally have defense mechanisms to make sure that these parasites don't overgrow. Eva, thank you so much for taking some time with us today. I'm I'm really excited to chat. >> Likewise. Thank you for having me on. >> Yeah. So, I'm going to be very honest. This is gonna be a very selfish episode because I'm like armchair amateur. All the stuff that you talk about I'm like so interested in. So, but but with no background. So, that's why I love the podcast because I get to bring on amazing experts like yourself and then I get to pepper you with questions for a while and uh and learn a bunch of really cool stuff. So, I want to start with the idea of a detox. some form of a detox and some form of ad and your stories or wherever. Maybe just break down for the audience at a high level. What is a detox? Why do we need these things in our lives today? Like maybe just let's start really high level on this idea of detoxing and then I want to kind of bring us down to the ground and get a little nitty-gritty as we go through our conversation. Yeah, that sounds great. So, I think it's important to understand first and foremost that the process of body does naturally, right? Like it's essentially like in the simplest way to put it, you know, we're coming into contact with things that are, you know, not supportive to our bodies. Whether we talk about you know like actual toxins in the form of like heavy metals or microplastics or you know other things but sometimes it's even toxins that our body or like organisms in our bodies produces itself or even just toxins that our body produces as the you know a byproduct of some sort of process internally. And so typically like let's say we look at like a hundred thousand years ago you know our toxic load in our day-to-day life was a lot lower than it is today. So for example, you know, we have a lot more toxins in our external environment, but also one massive toxin that I think people don't really underestimate or don't really understand is like the amount of stress that we have in our day-to-day life, right? So stress in general is going to have massive impact on the entire body including that natural detoxification process. And so over time due to all these like inner and external factors, the natural process of detoxification tends to slow down. And so what I kind of look at with detoxification is essentially just as simple as you know we're packaging harmful substances into less harmful ones and then hopefully excreting them out of the body. Right? So that's as as easy as we can make it. Now what happens is that if we are in a chronic state of fight or flight which you know many of us wake up we check our email first thing in the morning maybe like we're eating foods that are not good for us. work, we're having this idea that we always need to work or perform or whatever the external stress is. That natural process actually slows down and a lot of those toxins end up backing up. And so, you know, by the time that we're 20, 30, 40 years old, chances are that we've probably been in a state of chronic fight or flight for at least a couple of the years, you know, that we are on this planet with like the high stress load these days and also the additional toxic burden that we face now versus like a hundred years ago. And so those combinations essentially kind of lead to the body being in a place where it can't really deal with all the toxic load and the stress on the liver. Now you know there's so many things that give stress on the liver right we haven't even talked about like medications and alcohol and things that you know we normalize these days like even you know things like taking painkillers quite frequently like all of these things add additional stress to the liver and at some point the liver is like all right I can't deal with all this toxic load right so then the body has to package these toxins and store them for you know potentially a later time where the body does have time and energy to start to kind of move these toxins out of the body. And a lot of these toxins depending on if they are fat soluble or water soluble, they can be stored in fat tissue or even sometimes in our organs, our soft tissues, our nervous system. And especially this is true with heavy metals. So over time, you know, we start noticing symptoms maybe 20, 30 years down the line and we try to look for external circumstances that caused our bloating, our fatigue, our brain fog, you know, our lack of energy. Whereas the way that I look at it, we're just dealing with toxic overload from 20, 30 years, sometimes even pre-birth because we also inherit a lot of toxins in uterero. And so it kind of just leads down to this whole epidemic, I would say, of like toxicity that kind of stacks up generation after generation. And that's why I think today, you know, we're facing so many people on Instagram saying like, "You need to detox. You need to have these types of detoxes." Because it's true, like as a society, we're just more toxic than we've ever been. You know, like I said, like 10, 20, 30 years ago. And I will just add like a little thing here. I'm sure we'll go into this later as well. Like not everything that people call detoxing, like doing a juice cleanse or, you know, buying a detox kit, is actually detoxing your body. Quite often it's just like a marketing scam or a marketing term just to sell you products. Because the way that I look at detoxification, the best thing that we can do is just to turn on your body's natural detoxification process again or to kind of upregulate that in a way that's supportive and that honors the body's natural time. And so that's really where that differentiation comes in versus, you know, doing something that's supportive for your body versus just something that's like a marketing scam that you spend a couple hundred on that isn't actually going to do anything. So, I'm going to butcher this word, but would like auto fagi. Auto um Yeah, it could you say it again? >> Autophagy. >> Autophagy. I I always butcher that word. Um, so this would be like that's one of the natural processes of removing I know that has something to do with removing cells but it also like it finds the cells that are kind of uh that have toxins in them and prioritizes that and like this is one of those natural processes that we have in our body. >> Yes and no. So autophagy right is is well researched in terms of like longevity cancer research stuff like that. So it's essentially yeah what you're saying like the body's natural way of cleaning up like dead cells and cells that are you know no longer needed really. However in that process right what ends up happening sometimes if we are fasting a lot for example because that's how we induce autophagy mostly is through fasting or or things that kind of get us out of like the digestive mode. Um however often times when we do that process when we're already depleted we might actually make our issues worse. So I think like autophagy and fasting and like doing those like very in a way like depleting things on the body can be extremely helpful in the right set and setting. So it kind of depends on you know the individual like what their mineral status is. It depends on how their nervous system is optimizing because like the process of fasting itself is actually very stressful on the body right and we we talk always about like hermetic stress like good stress and bad stress and you know I personally believe that we need a good balance of both because we need to you know increase our window of tolerance when it comes to stress. However, if someone's already pushed over their edge any stress even it could be labeled good or bad is going to be bad stress to that person right? So, I like to say like when it comes to detoxing, like actually like the the process of like neutralizing harmful substances, packaging them, like excreting them, that actually needs a lot of co-actors in order to properly work. So, it needs certain amino acids, you know, certain vitamins. And so, often times when we're in a fasted state, we actually lack a lot of those nutrients. So, yes, in a way it could be that you're, you know, removing harmful substances from the body one way or another, but you have to have both. Like you can't just get your body into autophagy and fast all the time. Like it's not going to allow your body to release like heavy metals that are in the brain and the nervous system cuz we actually need adequate nutrients in order to release those. >> That makes sense. So basically that is one tool of several and kind of cleaning your body and and cleaning your body out. And and just to just to kind of reiterate what you said from for myself, when we're when we're fasting and if we're doing maybe longer fasts and say a standard 13 or 16, when we're getting into say a 24 or 36 or longer, if we have excess toxins in our body in that case because we could actually, you're saying we cause more harm because now um there isn't the the we're not replenishing behind it, right? Is that what it is? Now all of a sudden like those they have more opportunity. Um, is that like a period of time where you might feel worse and and then you get better or is it like should we deal with an overload of external toxins in our body first before we start looking at things like longer fasts or whatever to for for longevity purposes? Is that like is there a is there a a routine to it, a process to it or is it you can kind of do everything at the same time? >> Yeah, there's definitely a process to it. like when and I always tell this to my clients because I have so many clients who are already in like the health and wellness phase they're like on a ton of supplements they've tried a lot of things right and they're still like well I still don't feel great like how come like I've done all the protocols I've done the fasting right and so often times I tell them like we have these things like even a sauna a sauna can be super beneficial to one and harmful to another and so we have to understand like where our bodies are at like how are our drainage pathways which we can talk about in a moment like are they open is there congestion Because if we have kind of like a an issue with like one of the processes in the body, we can do something that's really helpful for someone else and it can actually poison us, right? So I look at fasting almost the same way. Like if someone is extremely robust, their nervous system is regulated. Like if someone for example has been on like a standard American diet, right? Like they eat like all these seed oils, like they're super inflamed. um but they've had, you know, like a calorie surplus for many years, they have excess weight, like all of that stuff. Like maybe potentially like if that person doesn't have a lot of stress in their life and they have pretty good mineral levels, like them going into a fast is going to like decrease inflammation, probably reduce a ton of their symptoms, right? So like we're talking about person A, but the issue is that most people who come to me like they already are like super healthy on the outside, right? like they're working out. They're like they're probably like high achievers. Like they're they're doing so much in their life already that actually is adding more stress than someone who's just like on the couch all day and watching TV like quite quite frankly. And so often times these people that have done a lot of things that have done a lot of diets that are very selective with their food because of like whether it's like emotional stress, nervous system stuff from like the past or even just current circumstances. These people tend to come into my programs quite depleted already. So if they start fasting, right? Yes, they might feel that initial like benefit of mental clarity because you know the gut isn't especially like if the gut has some imbalances like if you don't eat food of course you're going to feel better because those bacteria don't start releasing these toxins, right? So you might assume you're getting better because your inflammation's lower and you might feel more mental clarity and less fatigue. However, just because it feels good doesn't mean it's actually supporting you, right? Like it's the same thing with certain substances. like you can have a glass of wine, it feels really good, but is it actually supporting you? So, I kind of look at what is this person's body saying on all levels and what do they actually need? And quite often with most people, they actually need more nourishment, less stress, more rest, like more time in nature, you know, like working on their circadian rhythm, optimizing their nutrition. And often times that's the thing that actually really gives the body enough energy to start healing those like chronic symptoms. Even though, you know, we're meant to believe like, oh, just fast and all your problems will go away. So, >> yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That was like uh I can't maybe it was late 201. I remember fast. I mean, not that fasting is a new concept by any regard, but like really kind of roared back into popularity and everyone was fasting and, you know, The Rocks on Instagram talking about his daily 16- hour fast. Everyone wants to look like The Rock. So now we all got to fast 16 hours. And um so before we go too much deeper into specific topics, I'd love for you to just maybe label or discuss like what are actual toxins like what like is it because I think you know as as someone who like I said I probably live in the not non-expert but like amateur you know weekend health guy, you know what I like I'm super into it but not not enough to ever give anybody advice. And then you know I have a lot but I have a lot of friends who don't take care of themselves super well. Maybe used to be athletes you know but all of a sudden you get you know I don't know how old you are your late 30s or late mid4s and life gets super hectic. Uh you know I'd hate to show you what my kids sports schedule looks like and how much free time I have to work on myself. Um, so look, what are actual toxins? Like I know when those guys, they're just thinking like heavy metals or some like, you know, getting Lysol in your, you know, some some like chemical in your system, but I know that those aren't the only ones. And then could you also maybe talk a little bit about where like parasites and how they're different because I see a lot of stuff about parasites these days, too. And and then, you know, we can get down into some more tactical things to do after that. But like what are these actual toxins and parasites that we're trying to remove? >> Yeah. So, right, like a toxin is really anything that doesn't really serve a purpose in the body and has some sort of influence on how the body functions, right? So, I mean there's so many toxins like way too many to name, but I will I will just kind of start with like the categories that people probably recognize the most, right? Like heavy metals being one of them. And of course, like people think that like we get heavy metals from like very specific things like, you know, the mercury fillings or things like that, but I think what people don't realize is that they're literally everywhere, right? Like tap water has heavy metals. Like if we walk outside and we're breathing air, we're breathing in aluminum, right? Like they're they're everywhere. They're in car exhaust. They're in plane exhaust. Like they're in basically like tons of things like smoking cigarettes. If you've ever smoked cigarettes, you're going to have like a quite high cm burden. Same with like weed. weed is really high in like certain pesticides that have heavy metals. So any foods that contain certain pesticides, quite often there's heavy metals in fertiliz certain fertilizers as well. Um there might be heavy metals in the soil which is why some plants even organic ones will have higher amounts of heavy metals. So cacao is actually a really common one. So how many people eat chocolate or cacao you know like maybe have like a protein powder with cacao in them? Almost always does it contain some levels of like cadmium and lead. Um, same with, you know, crops like rice. Rice is another really common one to contain higher levels of arsenic, conventional chicken, conventional peanut butter, even certain seed oils are cut, I think it's nickel, don't quote me on that, but like they're just like in the industrial process and they're kind of everywhere and they just like end up in our foods. And so, you know, we might think that we're eating healthy because we're eating whole foods or whatever and maybe have some like fancy protein powder and and green smoothie powder. And little did we know, you know, we're consistently poisoning ourselves to these heavy metals. And so, this is why I'm obviously really glad that more and more people are talking about it and, you know, companies are being more transparent about like their third party testing and heavy metal testing. Um, but yeah, heavy metals I would say is like up there amongst like the ones that are like most dangerous to our health. And this is particularly because they don't just like pass through the body, right? Like the body doesn't just like naturally eliminate them quite often, but it actually retains them especially in the phase of mineral deficiency. So these heavy metals essentially hijack the same mineral uptake patterns or pathways. And so let's say that we are deficient in zinc and the body now starts to kind of upregulate the uptake of zinc. But certain heavy metals that through a process called ionic memory mimicry kind of mimic zinc for example at like the atomic or yeah like the the level. And so then it absorbs more of that heavy metal and now retains that. And so the issue is that like in the phase of these mineral deficiencies, the body will actually use the heavy metal to function like at a lesser function than of course when it has the the mineral, but better than when it has nothing. And so this is also why it's so dangerous when people start to suddenly chilate or actually pull aggressively like these heavy metals out of the body because if the body is still deficient, a it's not going to want to let go of this metal. So you kind of get all those like really intense symptoms and b you might be potentially like making your issues worse by pulling a metal out that your body is actively using. So there's a lot of information there like one of my mentors Clark Engleberg break this breaks this down super well. Um and same does like Dr. Paul E and Dr. Wilson's research has a ton of information there as well. So I would say heavy metals are the ones that we need to be you know quite cautious of. But then we also have things like perfume. You know how many products that you put on your skin or even just like soaps that you use or things like that have unnatural perfumes. I think anything that's labeled as perfume can have up to 3,000 undisclosed chemicals in it. Like it doesn't need to say that. So there's no regulation around what is in perfume. A lot of that is endocrine disrupting. um it actually like has a ton of effects on the bottom or on the body especially if you spray perfume you know right on your thyroid or on your skin which is a big organ of absorption and then of course we have things like you know even microplastics pas BPA so how many of us are you know wearing our Lululemons and our aloe yoga you know sports gear where every time that we wash that it releases microplastics every time that we sweat we absorb those microplastics into our skin um and then of course you know when you're cooking in the kitchen, you know, like the teflon pans, like maybe you're cooking on like aluminum baking sheets or aluminum foil. Um, you might be using, you know, plastic Tupperware. So, it's it's kind of like it's everywhere and it's it's you have to put a lot of time and effort in to avoid it. Um, but the way that I look at it is like rather than becoming a maniac about avoiding every single, you know, microplastic and every single metal and every single like toxin out there, if we have resilience and if we are in a state that we are like fully nourished and we have good mineral reserves, we're actually absorbing a lot less of these toxins and our detox pathways are going to work better. So you like remmineralizing your body, you regulating your nervous system, you working on yourself is directly going to have an impact on how many toxins you absorb. So like one person that might not be, you know, doing mineral balancing or eating good foods, you know, especially if you're fasting all the time, you're actually absorbing more toxins in a depleted state. So like you know people think they're doing all the right things but they're absorbing more versus someone who is actually like eating really good quality foods all the time like you know eating high nutrient-dense foods and stuff like that. So that's what I would say I I look at toxins at. >> Okay. There's a lot of scary stuff in there. Now um how are parasites different? Because I read that the issue with some parasites is not that the parasites in your body, it's that it releases toxins into the body and it's the toxin. So what is what is maybe what are parasites and why why do you see people talking about you know like if you have a cat you there's like a 90% chance you have this parasite and if you have you know animals and you know and should we be cognizant of parasites? Do they fall in the same type of vein of of negative impact as toxins in our body or are they two separate things? >> Completely separate. So this is actually where I think a lot there's a lot of misconception in the space. Um there's really two schools of thought here, right? So I'm not sure if you're familiar with like the the the term terrain theory and germ theory, but essentially like our entire western medicine system is built on the idea of germ theory. So it's essentially says that like a parasite, a bacteria or some sort of external factor is the cause of disease, right? So if someone gets like co virus, they all have the same symptoms and and illnesses or if someone gets exposed to this parasite, it has to be the cause of XYZ disease. And so um there's another school of thought that actually was basically um it started up right around the same time of germ theory. There's a lot of good research around this. I would highly recommend people to look into this. And it essentially says that it's not the external thing that's causing the disease or the symptom, but it's the internal, so let's say like the hosts conditions of how their body essentially is functioning at the time, whether or not disease is expressed. So for example, right, two people can walk into a moldy apartment, one person immediately gets a headache, they get, you know, crazy neurological symptoms and the other person doesn't notice a thing, right? One person might be um exposed to a virus or to a bacteria and one person gets sick and the other one doesn't. Right? So this kind of explains how we can't say with certainty that one organism causes one type of disease. And so we start looking at okay well how come person A and person B respond differently? And that's often times everything that's going on inside the body. So again, comes down to the nervous system, right? Like how is their nervous system functioning? What's their mineral status? Like how are their detoxification organs or their digestive organs? Like how are they working and functioning? And so the way that I look at parasites, a little, you know, side rand here to kind of get to the point. So parasites essentially in the same way that when we look at a forest and we like take a scoop of the soil, there's going to be a million microorganisms in the soil, right? And so the health of the soil determines which types of organisms are there. And so the same thing happens with our microbiome or with our body for example, right? So there are certain species that um well all bacteria are opportunistic but especially pathogenic organisms are opportunistic. So whenever the body needs them to essentially overgrow or start to take up more space because something's happening in the body, they will. So there's a ton of research and I would again recommend people to look into this for themselves that for example mold can bioreediate certain metals or toxins. Same thing with candida. So how this shows up in the in the human body is if we have an excess amount of toxins, if we have a very low tox low oxygen environment, whether it's because you know we have like dysfunctional breathing patterns, we have you again like nervous system issues, like our bodies can't actually uptake and transport oxygen efficiently, like whatever the reasons are. If we have a low oxygen environment, a an environment where there's a lot of excess waste because the digestive system isn't functioning optimally, there are going to need to be certain organisms that actually help help offset that toxicity, right? Like they have to kind of digest what our bodies can't digest for us. And so that's how I look at parasites. They actually serve a purpose in our bodies by consuming a lot of the excess waste and heavy metals. the same way that you might see parasites on like a decaying animal or you might see mold on a fruit that's decaying, right? It's actually just helping down in breaking down essentially dead and toxic tissue or dead and toxic cells and and waste. And so when we start to attack parasites directly, we're actually not dealing with the reason why they're there. And this is so often why you see, you know, a lot of these people on Instagram promoting, oh, do this parasite cleanse two or three times a year because they're going to come back, right? Cuz you're not actually dealing with the reason why someone has parasites. And I would go as far as to say that like every single organism that's on this planet will probably has a parasite. Like if you're living and breathing and you're like walking around in nature, you're eating vegetables, like you're 100% going to have parasites. But our bodies actually naturally have defense mechanisms to make sure that these parasites don't overgrow. Like our stomach acid is the first thing, right? If it's acidic enough, whatever like bacteria or parasites we encounter, parasite eggs, it will actually neutralize or kill them. However, if we are chronically stressed, if we're mineral depleted, if we have a congested liver, our stomach acid also goes down. And so now we don't have that first line of defense, right? We don't have enough bile. like our microbiome is all out of whack. And so when we have certain imbalances, these opportunistic organisms can overgrow, take up more space, and essentially, yes, start to release endotoxins cuz they also release toxins. So it's kind of this like vicious cycle because now they're releasing more toxins. We get even more depleted. We get even more disregulated and of course, you know, they end up end up overgrowing. So the way in my experience and my opinion that we break that cycle and we actually naturally start releasing parasites is not by starting to fear them and starting to say oh we can't have pets and we you know we can't drink water or we have to like you know wash all our vegetables and kill all the parasites with ozone. Like great if you can do that awesome. But like it's not going to happen all all the time, right? You're going to be at a restaurant. You don't know what they're washing their vegetables with. And so the best first line of defense again is to regulate the nervous system to make sure you're getting enough minerals to restore that natural function so that the immune system actually kicks into gear and it can deal with the toxic overload. And so this is one of the reasons why, you know, I have clients sometimes do emotional release practices, which is a whole other topic, but like essentially them releasing stored emotions from the body or they're starting to work on learning to set boundaries and they will start releasing parasites in the in the process of that because you know the stored emotion or the lack of boundaries and the people pleasing was the thing that actually like kept their nervous system in a chronic state of fight or flight. So when they start to release that and work through that, right, the body has more vital energy to start to deal with some of these parasitic infections and whatnot. So yeah, it's quite a fascinating topic. >> Yes, it is. I want to put a pin in mental versus physical for a second. Um because the last kind of uh we'll say 30,000 foot topic that I want to discuss before we start to work our way down is like what are the symptoms? Um, if someone's listening to this, is it facial bloating, red face, is it constipation, is it brain fog, is it all of these things? Like, if I'm sitting here and I just feel off, maybe I just this is the first time I've ever really listened at any extended amount about the even the concept of detoxing, which I wouldn't put past people, and that's not a knock on anyone listening. this, you know, I just get that everyone can't research everything all the time. So, if they're sitting there and they they feel off, they know they're not right, but they they don't really know and they haven't looked. What are some of those symptoms that if someone came to you, you'd say, "Hey, you you you may have an issue here with with toxins. This may be some, you know, you're overloaded in one way or the other." What What does that look like for people? So believe it or not, it's like every single symptom you can imagine has some sort of connection to this. And the reason is that when one thing is off, the system, the entire system is off, right? So if you look at blood markers, for example, the body likes to keep blood markers extremely tight. So by the time that you go to your doctor or you know you know wherever you get your labs on function health or whatever and some markers are off it's not just because like oh I have low iron I need to take an iron supplement right like if we look at things like 100 years ago do you think our ancestors were taking like a bunch of supplements and pills like no there's actually something that's up in the entire iron transport or regulation system because other things are off and so everything that we're talking about like And I'm sure there's like one or two things that I'm not thinking of that might not be connected to this, you know, but typically if one thing's off in the blood or in the body or you're noticing brain fog, fatigue, whatever the thing is, like something in the system is off that we can start to work on when we're looking at this like root cause way of healing. And so I don't even really love the term detoxification because it's so overused. You know, people think that like if we're starting a program together, they're going to be on some sort of cleanse. Well, for me it's actually the opposite. Like I actually get people off of those cleanses and into actual systems that kind of optimize the body, which for some people might just be like, you know, regulating their nervous system and like eating more good food. Like that in turn can literally change someone's entire path. So, um yeah, if someone's listening and like I'll just kind of run through some like really common symptoms that we get because I I was just doing a master class and we had like a sheet with some of the symptoms people come to us with. And I I like to say we don't discriminate. You know, we have people in our um like actually a lot of people in our programs with tons of different autoimmune conditions, like even to like certain cancer diagnoses, which I personally believe cancer is 100%, you know, connected to the body being too toxic and wanting to store certain toxins into um you know, tissues or or kind of same thing with autoimmune conditions. I don't believe that the body will try to kill itself. you know, again, like there's a lot of like mineral imbalances, toxicity involved in these conditions typically. Um, but yeah, like I would say like from anything from like bloating, digestive issues, constipation, Crohn's disease, deferticulitis, like anything gut related. Um, you know, high cholesterol typically I see is really connected to liver congestion and excess amount of toxicity as well. So, we start to clear that up, cholesterol goes down. However, in in general, cholesterol is a whole conversation in and of itself because we are 100% lied to when it comes to what good cholesterol actually >> I want to come back to that topic. I definitely want to come back to that for sure. >> Yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of these types of things that like we go to our doctors or whatever and we get like one or two markers that are off like I mentioned, right? Like low iron, low feritin. Like I used to have chronically low feritin. It was like like three, six, nine for like six years straight. I would do everything right like take iron supplements, eat more rep meat, cook out of cast iron pans. And until I started regulating my minerals, I started detoxing aluminum and actually optimized my copper because I had a lot of like dysfunction like copper dysfunction like I had a copper IUD. I had hormonal birth control for many years. So I had copper toxicity and simultaneously copper deficiency at the same time. Quite interesting. Um, and so because of that, I had very low ceruopplasmine, which is a really big part of like iron transport and utilization. And so my feritin was actually chronically low, and it started to raise when I just worked on optimizing my entire mineral system, not taking an iron supplement. So, um, you know, we get those people. We get people with like all sorts of like anxiety, like mental things like muscle activation syndrome, histamine issues. So essentially like the system being extremely sensitive and um kind of on high alert all the time. We see that a lot in our clients. Um sometimes it's like very emotional like emotional volatility or you know things that we think are not related to our physical body but they actually are. Um and then of course anything you know that's related to like food sensitivities um like allergies like that whole side of things and like skin issues. We get a lot like psoriasis, eczema, acne. Um, yeah, we like I said, we really don't discriminate. We see everything across the board. And quite often if someone's like, "Hey, can you help me with this?" Like, you know, there's been a handful of situations that if someone has like a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, I like to work alongside their encologist because, you know, there are certain things that are above my pay grade. But, um, it's still really good to understand, you know, when we work together and you go through these processes, you know, what's what's possible. I had a client once who her husband unfortunately died but um he dealt with like a stage four cancer diagnosis. He had tumors all over the body and essentially what they did with him is go through this detoxification clinic where they were doing essentially everything that we do in our programs you know like um regulating the nervous system, liver flushes, cleanses, like all these things. His tumors in within 3 months shrank like 95% of his tumors were gone within 3 months right of him detoxing his body. Um and he ended up making the decision to for the last 5% go into radiation therapy and that you know unfortunately die during that. But it shows you know how efficient like detoxification can be in the phase of these things. And I've had so many stories of people who ended up going through like detoxification and like um like at one point I was working with a client who was doing everything to get her tumor markers down and she just did this really simple gut detox for like four or five days that we put her on and her tumor markers went down like so much that you know she ended up making a ton of content around that. So it's just really cool stories that we tend to see from these processes and I'm just very excited for it to just grow and for people to become more aware of it. >> Yeah. I I firmly believe that, you know, in some number of years from now, we will look back on chemotherapy and radiation as treatments for cancer and realize what we were actually doing to people. I mean, >> yeah, >> it in many cases it's the best thing we have today. And the people that that fight through and have beat it using those, God bless you and it's amazing. And but when you think about what you're actually what those what they're actually doing to your body is they're like trying It's basically what chemo is like. We're going to kill you and hope the cancer dies before you die. I mean, that's essentially the trade-off that you're making. And to think that you're just flooding your body with massive amounts of chemicals and toxic chemicals and just hoping the race to death is the cancer dies first is is it it seems very brutal. You know, >> I'm hoping there will come a day. And it seems like things like peptides, um, you know, some of these, you know, uh, mRNA stuff that they're doing now, this looks like there's a lot of of potential fixes that aren't as highly toxic to the body. But, uh, man, that that the chemo stuff, the re the cancer stuff is crazy. And I agree with you, um, that I think a lot of it is it's it's your body's way of dealing with stuff that shouldn't be there. You know, obviously I can't put words to it the way you can, but um, I I it just that's the way it feels to me. So, I I want to come back to cholesterol for a second real quick because and I'll I'll set the stage and then I'll pass it back over to you. So, I've had hereditary high cholesterol my entire life. Starting at 8 years old, I get I've gotten blood work every six months since I was eight because my my cholesterol level has always been high. And about two and a half years ago, probably um I went in to see my doctor. uh my doctor I'd had forever retired passed me off to a new doctor. Doctor does blood work for the first time, sees the high cholesterol and is like, "We got to put you on Lipur." And it was probably 265. Um with, you know, maybe slightly elevated LDL, I guess, so the the stuff that's not as good. Um, but he, you know, this was the part that concerns me and and I I have told this story in the past on the podcast, but her first instinct was just right to lipore, right? Bam. Go right to Lipitor. And I was like, I don't want that crap in my body. Like, I know that it can help people, but it also has major side effects. At the time, I'm only 43. I'm like, I don't want to be on this for the rest of my life. Um, I'm not a big fan of pharmaceuticals to begin with. And I I said, "Well, hey, if I don't have any plaque in my body, then then I'm really is is it a concern? Like, is this number a concern if I don't have any plaque?" So, she agrees. Why she didn't recommend the plaque test to begin with is most likely because the commission wasn't high enough, but um you know, I go zero plaque, come back and I said, "Well, what other options are there?" She has no idea. Um, so I ended up finding a hormone specialist um cuz I also had an issue with testosterone for a little while that I fixed and uh the hormone optimization specialist put me on uh tzepide micro dose of tzepide and a micro dose of um tessimorin and then and then regulate you know work on the diet you know and and frankly I eat pretty healthy. It's it's just always been high. And I watch my cholesterol drop like to 205 within 3 months. And I I think about things like like like peptides and and some of these other um alternatives to taking a pill every day as a way to work on these things. Um, so one, I would love for you to level set kind of some of the lies as you mentioned about cholesterol. I want to leave that to you. And then what are you seeing outside of the statin or just, you know, maybe if you're eat let's assume the person is eating a a reasonable diet, right? This isn't because they're just wolfing down, you know, crappy processed, you know, McDonald's every day. like what is the lie about cholesterol and and how should we kind of start to recalibrate our thinking around it and then what are some of the ways that that you deal with cholesterol with your clients and and you know is this related to toxins and and how do we do it without taking uh uh Lipur? >> Yeah. So such a good question you know so I think first and foremost like we have to understand that I think I don't know which year it was but the good levels of cholesterol actually were changed so previously I think it was like the cut off was like 220 and then they lowered it to 200 so like it's like they don't even really know what good cholesterol is right so you're going to see some clients that have cholesterol like at a little bit of the higher level like 220 something like that like LDL a little bit elevated but if their hormones are like fantastic Right? This is a very important picture to understand because sometimes the body actually has higher cholesterol because it's needed for that like good hormone production. And so, um, with a lot of clients that have, you know, like these cholesterol levels that are flagged but like not extremely elevated, like let's say 220, like I mentioned, I actually think that that's a great thing. Like I actually think that low cholesterol is often an issue. And this is also why when we're just like only focused on lowering a number, we don't really know the implications that that has on our bodies long term, right? what happens to our hormones, what happens to like all these other processes in the body. And I also will say that like I really see so first of all bile our you know liver's digestive fluid is primarily made up of cholesterol and so quite often people that have some sort of like bile insufficiency or like stagnant bile cholestasis um liver congestion however you want to call it whichever term you want to use. these people end up having higher levels of cholesterol in the blood as well. And so I end up seeing when we clear up that liver congestion oftent times the cholesterol drops um and liver congestion you know it's such like um an undisussed topic but you know you mentioning that you had this at 8 years old like you can be born with liver congestion if you know you're again get if your parents had liver congestion if potentially like they had higher levels of heavy metals or other toxins. Um, sometimes also like for example things like estrogen also help create more liver congestion and this is oftentimes why I think you know a lot of women end up having like more anxiety because they retain more copper um why they have more gut issues because they're all on birth control which like massively influences our microbiome. So there's a massive connection with like the liver cholesterol but then also all these other parts of the body, right? Um, another theory, um, that I know a lot of people in my space talk about is how cholesterol and plaque in and of itself, if we think about the idea of that, right? Like why would the body build up plaque inside the arteries? Like my idea there is like if we are highly toxic, the body will quite literally try to protect the arteries by creating a layer of cholesterol to not have the whatever is going through the blood. like if the pH is off, if there's certain toxins in the blood that could actually damage this arterial wall to quite literally protect itself. And so again, like detoxification um I would say is like one of the main things and tools here that we use to essentially support people in that process. And then of course 100% there's mineral imbalances that make uh that have like a massive influence on this and again like certain toxicities. Um, I will say that with peptides, cuz this is I was talking about this on a podcast as well. I typically have a little bit of a different outtake on this than a lot of other people do, just because, again, like I think there are certain peptides that are incredible, right? Like I I have some clients that are on peptides. Um, I've used them in the past, didn't quite work for what I was dealing with at the time. Um, and some of my mentors love them, some don't. The way that I kind of look at peptides is like what are we using them for? especially with the the GLP1s when it comes to like the functional medicine space. I know they they're using like a low dose of them a lot um for you know things like that things like muscle activation syndrome and stuff like that. I like to just always pose the contemplation of like okay well why was the body expressing the thing that it was doing in the first place whether it is right like muscle activation syndrome high inflammation levels um high cholesterol and just because we are using the peptide to kind of suppress that symptom and maybe change some other things in the body are we actually dealing with the reason why that was happening in the first place and I think that both can be true right we can take these peptides to support the body and if we look deeper at the reason why the body was expressing itself in that way to make sure that we're not neglecting that to cause further implications later in life. So, yeah, I I always like to look at, you know, especially knowing how much these mineral imbalances and heavy metals play a role. It's like if we're taking a peptide, for example, to lower inflammation, but the cause of the inflammation was actually a high toxic burden, the peptide isn't going to release a toxic burden. So, we still have to do that work alongside it. I do agree that, you know, certain peptides can basically lower the inflammation or or support some process in the body so that the body has more energy to start to clear up some of these other things, right? I'm 100% agree with that. But I I do think it's important to mention cuz I I do think that the functional space right now just with anything that's booming like fasting was booming, you know, like whenever we were talking about like late late 20 for me it was like 2015 to 2020, I was fasting all the time, right? And now we're kind of learning about, oh, it's actually not good for everyone or there is there are certain implications. And so I just tell my clients always to be a little cautious when they're jumping on trends that are like mass, you know, like promoted by everyone in the space. So I'll leave that there. >> No, I I think that's wonderful advice and and I completely agree. Uh I had a buddy who reached out to me because I mentioned on the show that I was taking uh there, which is GLP1. um for those that it's a second generation for for those that aren't aware. Uh Ozmpic would be the would be the gen one that most people have heard of. >> Um and so I mentioned that I was taking on the show and that uh I was really enjoying the results. It wasn't about weight loss at all. Um it was uh three three things. um targeting uh visceral fat uh particularly um uh uh I'd wanted to remove the food noise in general and I had found I struggle with fairly severe ADHD um diagnosed not self diagnosed not that that should matter but I feel like I have to say that these days because freaking everyone says they have it just because they have a little energy and I don't use it as a crutch it's just true and I found that trappepide in And a micro dose actually allowed me cuz I had played with like like as I got older, I probably have always had it since I was a kid looking back on my life, but when I needed to when I was younger, I could like pull it back in whenever I wanted, right? So my brain would be like shooting a million directions, but it was like I need to like focus up on Eva right here. Like I need to be present for her. I need to have my brain on what she's saying, listening, and I could just write down, right, and get rid of it. And as I got older and I've gotten older, um despite continuing to try to take care of myself very well, uh I found I didn't have that ability. It's like, uh if you've ever seen the movie For Love of the Game, like towards the end of the game, he can't clear the mechanism anymore. Um that's a deep baseball reference, but um the So I was searching for solutions and I tried, you know, my doctor also wanted to put me on aderall and I tried that. It's [ __ ] amazing. Um, horrible for you, but it does all the things it says it's going to do. Um, so not that I recommend you taking it, but having a little sample bottle for when you need to get some [ __ ] done isn't the worst thing in the world. Um, not medical advice. Remember, Ryan is not in the medical field. Not medical advice. But I found that the the GLP1 there was there was research around um its impact on focus on on like not that you can harness discipline but o