This Hidden Toxin Is Wrecking Your Gut and Brain – The Shocking Link to Chronic Illness
In this episode of “Hormones, Metabolism, and You,” Dr. Cassie Smith interviews Dr. Jill Carnahan, a functional medicine expert and survivor of breast cancer and Crohn’s disease. They discuss the crucial links between gut health, environmental toxins, and chronic illness. Dr. Carnahan shares her personal healing journey, practical tips for reducing toxic exposure, and the importance of diet, clean air, and water. The episode highlights how gut health impacts mental wellness and overall well-being, offering actionable advice for listeners to improve their health and prevent chronic disease.
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Guest info and links:
Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert®. She uses functional medicine to help patients find the root cause of their illness and identify nutritional and biochemical imbalances that may be contributing to your symptoms. Dr. Jill will search for underlying triggers that contribute to your illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailor the intervention to your specific individual needs. She uses nutrition, supplements, lifestyle changes, or medication to treat your illness, and always seeks the gentlest and least invasive way to help you find hope, restore health and optimize healing.
She completed her residency at the University of Illinois in Family Medicine at Methodist Medical Center and received her medical degree from Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
Blog/Transcription:
0:03 welcome back to this week’s episode of Hormones Metabolism and You i’m your host Dr cassie Smith i’m a functional
0:09 medicine-based physician who is an endocrinologist today I have a very special guest her
0:15 name is Dr jill Carneahan she is going to help us unpack and unravel how the
0:21 gut and simple things like water air and food quality play into chronic illnesses
0:27 i picked Dr jill to be on my podcast because she like myself became
0:32 interested in this field as a patient herself she’s going to tell you about how she was diagnosed with a very
0:38 aggressive breast cancer at age 25 and then developed Crohn’s disease she has
0:43 actually created an amazing documentary about this where she talks about being a
0:49 patient and a provider and she also has a book called Unexpected: Finding Resilience Through Functional Medicine
0:55 Science and Faith that was published a couple years ago i think she’s a phenomenal person and in this episode we
1:02 really focus on how the quality of your air matters and what to do about that the quality of your water your food your
1:08 mind your body she gives us tons of very specific and easy tips on how to make
1:13 this better she explains the difference between exotoxins or toxins outside of our body versus endotoxins our gut
1:21 releases a lot of toxins this is why gut is so important and so we talk about leaky gut and toxins in your gut and
1:27 what to do about that and she does share some information about mold as well she
1:32 also talks about how when you’re she calls it your bucket of health when it is overflowing with toxins and you have
1:39 too many things going on and your body can’t get rid of the toxins that you have you typically present with three
1:44 things dementia or cognitive impairment autoimmune type conditions Hashimoto’s
1:50 Crohn’s rheumatoid arthritis etc or cancer and so we talk about how to remove some of the water from our toxic
1:58 burden bucket so that we don’t end up with these symptoms so I think she does a fascinating job explaining this you
2:04 guys so Dr joel Carneahan is your functional medicine expert dually board certified in family medicine for 10
2:11 years and integrative holistic medicine since 2015 she’s a medical director of a
2:18 functional medicine clinic that’s widely sought after in the Colorado area she
2:23 does functional medicine protocols nutritional consultations chiropractic therapy and acupuncture along with
2:30 massage therapy again she’s a survivor of breast cancer Crohn’s disease and toxic mold illness and she brings a
2:36 unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illnesses her clinic specializes in
2:42 searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting edge lab testing and tailoring
2:48 the intervention to specific needs i’m going to link all of her stuff in the show notes because she does have a
2:54 fascinating documentary called Dr patient and she has a book that I would love for you guys to check out so let’s
3:01 get into this conversation so you can learn more about how to help lower your toxic burden and be a better healthier
3:08 person so thank you for joining me today Dr jill Carneahan i am so excited for
3:15 you to talk to my guest about your journey through just health in general
3:20 and then what I really want to focus on with you since you’re such a good expert with mold and chronic illness is how
3:28 sometimes we forget about the gut if that’s okay with you yes i love talking
3:33 about the gut i’m super excited to be here with you Cassie okay thank you so much so will you kind of tell listeners
3:40 to start with i like them to understand like who you are where you’re coming from so obviously we’re going to link all your stuff in the show notes but
3:46 like what do you do every day how did you get here what do you love to do like just a little bit about you so they
3:52 understand who is talking to them yeah so I grew up on a farm in central Illinois one of five children really
3:59 kind of an idealic life and decided to go into medicine kind of surprisingly so because there was no one in my family in
4:05 medicine i kind of knew at some route there was a healer in me and I actually chose to go to alipathic conventional
4:11 medical school just because I felt like at the moment it was the best reimburseable system to kind of learn
4:16 the system but I really came from a much more holistic minded background i mean we grew a lot of our own fruits and
4:22 vegetables and and kind of unbeknownst to me this farm life which was kind of wonderful and idilic was slowly killing
4:30 me and I didn’t realize it until in my third year of medical training I found a lump in my breast and went on to have
4:36 surgery biopsy and find out that at 25 years old just days after my 25th birthday I had aggressive breast cancer
4:44 so that obviously kind of threw me for a loop was not expecting that diagnosis went through very aggressive
4:49 chemotherapy radiation surgery in fact I was the youngest one ever diagnosed at
4:54 the Loyola University Medical School where I was training now sadly since then there’s been a lot of young women
5:00 diagnosed so I’m not unique but at the time it was pretty much um a shock and a really big deal and then speaking of the
5:07 gut I got through all of that chemotherapy radiation lost all my hair it was quite a battle and nine months
5:12 later I returned to medical training to finish my degree and shortly after maybe
5:18 six months or so I was taking a patient’s blood pressure in the emergency room and I passed out and I
5:24 was rushed into emergency surgery and I got out of the surgery and my surgeon told me I had Crohn’s disease so in
5:31 medical school two kind of life-threatening massively lifeshifting diagnosis and I tell that because um it
5:39 was really my journey as patient that informed me probably even more than my medical education and specifically on
5:46 the topic you want to talk about today and that’s gut health because I was able to really dive deep into the gut and
5:51 reverse my Crohn’s disease so that’s such a sad unfortunate story i’m sorry that that happened to you but I feel
5:57 like a lot of providers like that’s why we end up here right so you unfortunately had this diagnosis at a
6:03 young age and then it you know propels you into doing all the great things that you do for people but you did have two
6:09 pretty aggressive diseases that you know if we really look at it a lot of times
6:15 maybe stems from not only environmental toxins somewhat genetic but a lot of it can be from your gut too and so I know
6:22 you actually have a documentary and you have a book where you kind of talk about
6:27 this and your documentary I think is very fascinating so it’s about you know your perspective from the patient and
6:33 the doctor’s point of view as being pretty much like a chronically sick person is that right yeah the
6:38 documentary really dive into like how does it feel to be dealing with mold related illness Crohn’s disease cancer
6:44 and telling the story and really we follow along with a couple other patients journeys as well and what’s
6:49 really interesting in the documentary we go pretty deep in the end about um how do we transform our relationship with
6:55 ourselves and our identity and you know relationships i went through a divorce at the end of all this and we talk about
7:00 like how sometimes those healing our old traumas can be just as powerful as
7:05 healing the gut or healing the cancer cells or those kinds of things yeah so
7:12 we’ll link everything for the documentary and the book but I want So so your daytoday like what you do now
7:19 you work with pretty sick patients with mostly mold or what sort of patients do
7:25 you work with yes I have a clinical practice in Lewisville Colorado just next to Boulder Colorado and um I have a
7:32 PA there as well and we both see complex chronic uh patients who kind of have had
7:38 mysterious symptoms a lot of it ends up being autoimmune disease we do deal with some cancer definitely a lot of gut
7:44 disorders hormonal disruptions and those kinds of things but what I frame it as is at the root of most of the complex
7:51 chronic diseases that I see is some combination of toxic load and infectious burden and how those two interplay with
7:58 the immune system creating inflammation and the gut is kind of at the core there too because that’s where we absorb
8:03 nutrition and where a lot of our immune system uh meets the outside world so I love talking about the gut because I
8:09 feel like it’s really ground zero for inflammation autoimmunity chronic infections and um immune dysfunction
8:18 yeah I think that’s so fascinating so with you and your personal journey you know you mentioned at 25 you ended up
8:24 with this aggressive breast cancer and you feel like some of it was from the farm that you lived on so can you kind
8:29 of you know explain or talk about that a little bit more in depth like what do you think it was that led to you having
8:36 not only aggressive breast cancer but then Crohn’s disease as well yeah so I
8:41 always think of toxic load as a bucket capacity that we’re born with and people have heard this before but some of us
8:47 like myself were born with a much smaller bucket or capacity to detoxify those things that we all come in contact
8:53 with every day whether it’s pesticides on our food um or the air quality wildfire smoke or mold in our homes or
9:01 any number of things heavy metals mercury amalgams all these things we come in contact with and nowadays it’s
9:06 parabens and phalates in our makeup bath and beauty products or it’s polyfllorinated compounds on our takeout
9:12 food containers and I could go on and on but it’s all over we’re all exposed to it and what happens is as we have that
9:18 toxic load our ability to detoxify daytoday if it’s a small capacity due to
9:23 genetic variances then all of a sudden that load in the bucket starts to fill up and spill over the top over a
9:29 lifetime and for me it started to spill over with cancer at 25 and some people fortunately go a lot longer in their 50s
9:35 or 60s till they develop disease but all of this happens and frequently when that bucket starts to fill to overflowing we
9:43 present with three things that are really increasing in incidence and one is neurodeenerative diseases like
9:48 Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s um dementia um and things like autoimmunity which encompasses Hashimoto thyroiditis and
9:55 lupus and multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and any number of autoimmunities and then also cancer
10:01 which was my diagnosis at 25 so this bucket of things that comes from our environmental toxic load and truly at
10:07 the core can come from our gut was part of the things I experienced on the farm because there was atrizine sprayed on
10:13 the crops and our wellwater probably had contamination from other chemicals and glyphosate’s a big one Roundup which
10:19 massively affects our gut so all the things were happening unbeknownst to me and if I look back I probably even got
10:25 in utero exposure because my mother was drinking the same well water and and getting those same exposures and the
10:31 year that I was diagnosed with cancer there was a study of cord blood of infants born and they tested brand new
10:38 babies and if they had toxic chemicals and all of them tested had an average of over 200 toxic chemicals on birth so
10:46 again this was kind of crazy that’s 20 years ago so it’s only becoming more and more prevalent that we’re exposed to
10:52 these toxins and for me that exposure probably some of it on the farm was likely a precursor to my cancer at 25
10:59 yeah I like that analogy the bucket i think that that’s really cool and so you feel like you had a lot of things that
11:05 were put into your bucket when you were younger all these toxic chemicals and different things like that so for people
11:12 who are listening what can we do to help
11:17 empty our bucket right so our body is supposed to be made to process toxins i mean obviously you don’t want to be in
11:24 the middle of toxins if you can avoid it right so like mold I see a lot of people with mold i know you do as well the
11:30 number one two three four and five treatment for mold is to get out of the get out of the environment right like
11:35 you can buy and sell and take whatever sort of you know binder or whatever somebody wants to sell you but until you
11:41 leave that environment you’re going to be sick so what can somebody do besides
11:47 trying to leave that environment right like we can’t live in a bubble and there are all these these things in the
11:53 environment so what do we do to help lower our toxic burden like how do we throw some of this stuff out of the
11:58 bucket yeah it’s so important because sometimes when you talk about environmental toxic load which is kind of my stickick um it can be overwhelming
12:06 and depressing and so I always want to come with simple answers and while it’d be great if everyone could see a
12:11 functional doctor and test this you don’t have to even know what’s in your bucket to start the process because all
12:16 of us have toxic load and like I said as the water level goes up and starts to spill over the top we might present with
12:22 issues immune issues gut issues or just um brain fog or fatigue or symptoms that
12:28 don’t even have a specific diagnosis but we all have the capacity to start to lower that water level which I’ll tell
12:34 you some very practical tips because as soon as we create margin in that bucket our body starts to detox and heal and be
12:40 able to overcome this so all we need to do is create margin and some of the principles I always like to start with
12:46 clean air clean water clean food and then maybe clean mind and clean body so clean air about 80% of our environmental
12:53 toxic load comes from the air that we breathe and people are not aware of this they’re not thinking about it and some
12:59 of the examples would be as you mentioned mold is a really big deal for a lot of people and you could be in this
13:04 home like this condo where I live and there’s mold behind the wall excreting micotoxins affecting air quality i don’t
13:10 even know it except that I have brain fog or fatigue or rashes or hormonal disruptions or as we started the
13:17 conversation gut issues it’s really common with um mold exposure or uh
13:23 wildfires in my state of Colorado they’re really common and increasingly so in many states and this toxic smoke
13:29 from wildfires is a really big inflammatory thing that affects us so say there’s wildfires happening we
13:34 should not be running and exercising outdoors because it’s so toxic to breathe in that smoke and most of this
13:40 whether it’s mold miccotoxins or toxic wildfire smoke a lot of this particulate
13:45 matter is 1.0 or 2.5 microns which is so small that if we inhale that it goes
13:51 directly into our alvei and into the bloodstream almost immediately because there’s no barrier that can catch those
13:57 particles that small so what we want to do with clean air is make sure that our indoor air is filtered make sure that we
14:03 have good air flow exchange make sure that we put highquality carbon filters into our furnace or whatever HVAC system
14:10 or system of air flow or air exchange exchanging air from the outside is good so opening your windows when there’s not
14:15 wildfires outside is a great way to dilute the pollution indoors and sadly with our very efficient buildings
14:22 nowadays our fast construction and some of the ways that we’re building offices and homes nowadays there is a lot more
14:30 risk of toxic indoor air so you want to make sure like I said the air exchange that you have good filters i have a
14:35 bunch of standalone filters like IQ Air or Austin Air or any of those high
14:40 quality filtration systems you want to make sure you have a hepailter which filters particulate but also a VOCC
14:46 filter which filters out volatile organic compounds and then that’s clean air clean water is pretty
14:53 self-explanatory you want to make sure you’re drinking a filtered water if you’re you know have a well or have city
14:58 water a lot of times those are not as clean as we think so I’m a big fan of either a reverse osmosis system in your
15:04 home or just a a fridge filter a simple pitcher that will filter out all the toxic chemicals and things um PFAOS are
15:12 now in many water sources and also in public water those are polyfllorinated
15:17 compounds or forever chemicals so you need to make sure you have filter water whenever possible try to avoid plastic
15:23 water bottles plastics are becoming increasingly common in our bodies so clean air clean water clean food just
15:30 sourcing as much as possible from local organic farmers if you can get you know grass-fed um pasture-raised animal
15:37 products and of course organic fruits and vegetables are always a good source of nutrition so how much of our how much
15:45 should you say air made up of our our toxic environment 80% of our vital I
15:51 thought you said that is crazy it is so crazy yeah and when you were So yes so
15:58 clean air is so important you know until I did a podcast episode i did one with the toxic dad and then I actually did
16:04 one with the founder of Jasper air filters i never really thought about air
16:10 right so I’m like thinking about your mitochondria and your gut and your
16:16 hormones and your sleep and then I was like duh Cassie like to your point you have a single layer of cells in your
16:22 lung and what you’re breathing in I mean it’s just instantly going in there and what really made me think about it was I
16:28 have seen some really sick people recently from mold i mean really sick and kids oh my gosh kids get sick like
16:36 bad um quickly and so the air is just really really important and to your
16:41 point it’s hard cuz like if you live somewhere where there are fires and you can’t go outside or you are living
16:46 somewhere you know with mold it’s just really hard to make sure that the air is clean i will tell you I got a Jasper air
16:53 filtration system for my bedroom and for my kitchen i’m also shocked at how many times that thing goes off when I cook
16:59 like when you cook things it gets angry but I recently traveled and I had been
17:06 sleeping in my bedroom with this Jasper air filter for several months and I got to this hotel and I’m like “This room
17:12 smells weird.” Like I was just everything like I couldn’t figure it out i was going to bed it’s I’ve become an air snob Dr jill i know the air is not
17:20 right in this vicinity like what is wrong with the air um and I don’t think
17:26 it was anything with the hotel i really don’t think they had mold or anything it was a nice hotel but I was just like I don’t have my like clean filtered air
17:34 you do get used to like in my office I think I have five air filters and I remember even during co people would walk in and first of all some of these
17:40 great air filters with VFC filter out virus particles like that’s cool so we had a very very clean office like almost
17:46 as sterile as a hospital system and people would walk in like oh I can it almost taste the air it’s so clean it’s
17:52 so weird because when you get used to that you really can tell and sadly most hotels use cleaners and stuff between
17:59 and again it may not even be mold and just as a tip or trick um if you smell like a mildewy smell a musty smell or I
18:06 always notice it’s almost like a dirty smell that’s mold like people just like I’ve walked into hotels I’m like “Oh my
18:12 gosh that’s mold.” But it’s not always it can be musty or mildwy sometimes it’s just like this dirty earthy smell and
18:19 when you start to identify that you realize how many places sadly have issues with mold yeah so what do you
18:26 recommend if you go to a hotel and you smell mold do you recommend switching rooms do you recommend switching hotels
18:31 like what do you do about that yeah and I’m travel a lot so I’ve experienced a lot a couple things i do have a portable
18:37 air filter that I sometimes take with me depending on how long I’m going or if it’s like an Airbnb and I want you know in my bedroom so you can get portable
18:44 air filters um they’re a little bit cumbersome often I try to check that the hotel or again Airbnbs can have this too
18:50 where you can open windows because dilution is the solution to pollution so even if you have a room that’s kind of
18:56 musty or there’s a problem as long as you can open windows you’re probably going to be okay because you can really
19:01 pull that air and and uh or turn on the fans or things um if it’s a real significant smell ask for another room
19:08 and you just have to be you know polite but also ask for another room because it really does make a difference especially
19:14 if you’re there for multiple days and I’ve had hotels where so bad I feel so awful that I need to either move rooms
19:20 or leave early and just don’t be afraid to make requests if needed because it’s not worth your health to stay in that
19:27 place yeah I was very upset we went somewhere for my birthday recently beautiful hotel in Hawaii beautiful we
19:34 walked into that hotel and I told my husband “This entire hotel smells like mold.” And they put us in a room and I
19:39 was like “I’m going to vomit.” Like it was so bad and beautiful hotel you could
19:45 see the beach but it’s just like you could tell that it had some serious mold
19:50 issues um and I got like almost to where I just didn’t feel well when I was there
19:55 and it was kind of sad cuz I was like not only does this need to be fixed but they also need to get like some Jasper
20:02 air filtration system or something and it kind of ruined my experience of Hawaii like I never want to go back
20:07 which also makes me sad because people are like “Oh I love Hawaii.” And I was like “Really?” because I felt like crap the whole time and it was pretty but I
20:13 never want to go back you know like very similar and I’ve been to Hawaii multiple times not every time but there was one
20:19 time that was so awful with the mold and it affected my mood it affected my
20:24 energy like it really like you said it really colored the trip um significantly
20:30 yeah yeah I would try to go outside all day and like sit under the shade and I felt better but anytime I was in the room and then you know you have to sleep
20:36 in your room and I’m like and you’re paying a bazillion dollars for your room cuz you’re in Hawaii i was just kind of
20:41 annoyed but I did like my husband calls me a creeper i was like walking around on every floor trying to smell if there
20:48 was a different floor that smelt better but it all smelt bad so I was like I don’t even know that it’s worth like moving anywhere you know and then to go
20:55 back to your comment about plastics have you heard that people have about the
21:00 size of a credit card worth of plastic in their brain yeah I was going to mention that stat because it is true and
21:06 it’s so crazy when you think about that it’s such a practical way to like visualize how much plastic that we’re getting i think it’s the consumption per
21:12 week in the foods that we eat and the drinks that we drink is a credit card so this is per week that’s insane and
21:18 there’s really no This is what’s crazy i mean I do environmental toxic medicine as a practice and plastics whereas like
21:24 mold you can use binders you can use clay charcoal uh polyphenols all kinds of stuff to help kind of get that out of
21:29 your body plastics there’s not like a charge that we can use or a particulate i think now the only thing that we know
21:36 is plasma exchange which is a pretty intensive protocol to basically an oil change for your blood um that could take
21:42 plastics out but I think we’re gonna have to get more aggressive by either avoiding plastics more thoroughly or
21:48 using these things like plasma exchange because it’s going to be hard there’s no binder that pulls out plastic
21:54 yeah and so you think we get most of this from food i think it’s in rainwater now and so even like fish and animals
22:01 can have plastic in their tissues and then of course any plastic water bottle is shedding so that’s why I’m like
22:07 please don’t and of course I travel so sometimes I use plastic water bottles but more and more I take my own and fill
22:12 it up and try my best to avoid plastic um but it’s hard because um and food
22:18 wraps and things so if you’re getting any sort of like cheese or fatty food that’s wrapped in plastics so it’s a lot
22:23 through our food supply um and again now it’s in our rainwater and in our you know fish and oceans and so it’s pretty
22:31 um prevalent in our ecosystem now yeah and I when I travel I use path water
22:37 bottles i love those aluminum water bottles i don’t I don’t know if those are good or not but better than plastic
22:42 um and then actually I talked to somebody recently i know somebody who knows a lot about dry cleaning and
22:48 clothes and different things like that they were explaining to me I never knew this that a lot of different clothing if
22:54 it’s not cotton right so if it’s polyester it’s plastic i didn’t realize that and there’s different types of
23:00 polyester like recycled versus not and I guess the recycled ones are better for you but really cheap clothing that’s
23:07 made out of cheap polyester is just like just giving you like all sorts of
23:13 plastic through your skin which is insane right and a lot of this is what we work out in right so like I’ve heard
23:18 that Lululemon is one of the most notorious for putting all these chemicals in their clothes and then you
23:25 wear those and you sweat and you sweat in all sorts of parts especially as a
23:30 woman that are reproductively important and then you have all these plastics and bad things going straight into your skin
23:37 that’s funny i wasn’t going to mention the brand but that’s exactly you read my mind i was thinking the exact same thing and then you wash these and every time
23:43 we do laundry that sheds into our water supply and so it’s getting like as that waste water is being put back into the
23:50 sewage treatment plants or the water supply those plastics are shedding out of our laundry into the water supply and
23:56 into the drinking water and things like that eventually as we you know filter the water now a good uh filtration
24:02 system or a good pitcher some of these like the ones that I use in my fridge at home um they do filter out microplastics
24:08 so that’s another great way to um filter it but you’re right we’re getting it through our clothing too so what water
24:14 pitcher do you use i use Clearly Filtered it’s been shown I think over 200 chemicals including plastics and
24:20 PFAOS and not as many of them are doing the plastics and PFAOS clearly filtered
24:27 clearly filtered yeah they make water bottles that are um stainless steel that you can take with you and filter your
24:32 water or in my fridge I just have one of their uh pictures okay what about
24:37 workout stuff do you have like a brand that you like oh gosh I’m guilty of some
24:43 of the commercial brands you know like uh I mean certainly the cotton if you can get it the difficulties were all we
24:49 like these stretchy likelike you know the stuff that feels good and looks good and so um sadly I think not that cotton
24:56 can’t have that but the stretchiness that you get and this good form fitting stuff comes from polyester and plastics
25:02 it doesn’t cotton doesn’t stretch the same way so if you want a a material that’s like 100% organic cotton it’s not
25:08 going to have the same elasticity that you’re used to so you just got to get used to a different texture yeah so then
25:15 those are all great things you talked about air water food mind and body um and you know I think a lot of that you
25:21 know I talk this is why I talk about the gut a lot too you know I see a lot of people who are not only chronically ill like physically ill fatigued like can’t
25:28 get out of bed gaining weight but when you’re sick for a long time and or your gut is disregulated your mood is not
25:38 normal either right and so I kind of want to talk about how all these things
25:43 affect your gut or your gut affects all of these things and then also talk about for people who are listening you know
25:50 how you can do simple things like sleep and eat well and see sunshine and have
25:55 you know good relationships make sure that you’re practicing gratitude things like that so I want you to kind of talk
26:01 from your environmental standpoint about how the gut is important with these things and sort of what do you see as
26:06 far as gut diseases and then you know what are some of these things that we can do to make that better yeah so gut
26:12 is ground zero for so much of this and we talk about toxic load many people are thinking about the PFAOS the plastics
26:18 the parabens the phalates the metals but they’re not thinking about those are exotoxins those are from outside our
26:24 body within from the air the water the food etc we just got done talking about that but what many people don’t realize
26:29 is endotoxins can come from within from our gut so in our gut we have microbiome we have bacteria some people have fun
26:35 fungi and fungus and other things we can have parasites and all of these things are producing metabolic waste products
26:41 and things like the coatings of bacteria also called LPS or lipopolysaccharide
26:47 these things actually can be toxins from within so if we have an excess of bacteria especially in the small bowel
26:54 where we have a highly absorptive surface um and we have some permeability which most of us have just due to again
27:00 toxic load and impaired um membranes and things in the gut a lot of these toxic
27:05 metabolites leak from the gut lumen into our bloodstream and create immune inflammation toxic overload from within
27:12 and again these are called endotoxins coming from inside out and a lot of the metabolic byproducts of bacteria and
27:19 yeast are very toxic to our system so it’s actually not uncommon to have a toxic load partially from our gut
27:26 microbiome so one of the first things I like to do for patients overall is just check a stool test check organic acids
27:32 and assess the microbiome to see is there any dispiosis is there any organisms like klebsella citroacttor
27:39 candida or other even sacroyces curvesi which is brewer’s yeast any of these
27:44 things in excess can be contributing to that toxic load from inside out and the first step is to eradicate any invaders
27:52 anything that’s not supposed to be there and then sometimes there’s even good guys in excess in the wrong location as
27:58 in the example of SIBO this is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth which can cause symptoms from IBS like gas or
28:04 bloating or diarrhea or constipation and it affects the absorptive surface of the
28:10 small bowel so you can have fats soluble nutrient deficiencies like K A D vitamin
28:16 D vitamin E and um even low iron or low B12 and so those are some of the signs and symptoms gas and bloating diarrhea
28:23 constipation maybe heartburn maybe fat soluble nutrient deficiencies that can signify that you have a problem with
28:29 overgrowth of bacteria there’s also a overgrowth of fungus that can occur in some people again candida or other
28:35 species this can cause carb cravings brain fog hormone intolerances and um
28:41 bloating weight gain um and interestingly yeast produce a toxic metabolite called acetyl aldahhide which
28:49 is very similar to firmaldahhide that can cause a hangover-l like filling it’s the same thing if you drink too much
28:54 alcohol your liver um processes the alcohol into acetyl aldahhide so it’s very similar to being filling like
29:00 you’re hung over and that can happen from yeast so the first step is eradicating those excess bacteria you
29:06 want to put in the good probiotics you want to get rid of the bad microbiome species and you want to really balance
29:11 that gut permeability you want to heal that leaky gut and it starts with food food is the fodder to feed the
29:17 microbiome so healthy fiber um absorbable and non-absorbable things like inulin or polysaccharides or even
29:25 just colorful fruits and vegetables things like flax and chia and hemp seed
29:30 and just fibers from all your typical vegetables like leafy greens and broccoli and garlic and onion and
29:36 artichoke and all those things contain healthy fiber to feed the good healthy microbiome yeah I think those are all
29:43 great tips so thank you for explaining that to everyone i you know so that when
29:48 you’re doing that and you’re making sure everything is balanced and and you don’t have this overgrowth the other thing I
29:53 like people to understand or what I like to point out is like when your gut isn’t working how it’s supposed to and you
29:59 have this overgrowth in your small bowel or you have these yeast or different things that aren’t supposed to be there
30:04 that are causing these symptoms and you start getting what we call leaky gut what people don’t I don’t I don’t think
30:10 they put together is that if your gut’s leaking and it has all these small holes in it right and all these bad things are
30:16 leaking out of your gut into your bloodstream that’s where we really start developing symptoms and having issues
30:21 because our GI tract was made to be this closed tube from our mouth to our anus
30:26 so we put food into it we absorb the nutrients we need and whatever is bad comes out we aren’t meant to take large
30:33 amounts of particles things that aren’t nutrients and have them absorb into our bloodstream right and so 70% of our
30:40 immune system lives in our gut at least 70 to 80 and when you have all these tiny holes in your GI tract everywhere
30:46 and you have these things like microlastics and red food dyes and blue food dyes and fillers and all these
30:52 things leaking out every time you eat your immune system is freaking out it’s like what is attacking me i don’t even
30:58 know what this particle is right and so your immune system’s constantly on alert and it’s you know stressed out every
31:05 time you eat and then that causes your cortisol which is a hormone that helps your body regulate stress go up and when
31:11 cortisol is high then which is the hormone that would be high if you saw you know a lion to run away from a lion
31:17 it’s your keep you safe hormone then that causes your insulin to be high so that your body can release stored energy
31:24 from places so that you can run away from the lion and so now your insulin’s high but when that’s high for a long
31:29 time that starts to cause you to store things into fat and you know instead of instead of your metabolism working
31:35 correctly and so all these things start to happen in your gut which we could just you know then now your cortisol and insulin are high so now your brain is
31:42 stressed out your body’s stressed out it’s going to say “Oh don’t make thyroid hormone don’t make growth hormone don’t
31:47 make sex hormones.” You know it doesn’t matter if we sleep well it doesn’t matter if we you know reproduce right now all we need to do is be running away
31:53 from this lion but this lion is really just the food that you’re eating constantly over and over and over and
31:59 these levels never go down and so your gut is just wreaking havoc on your body so you start to develop all the symptoms
32:04 you were talking about the you know Alzheimer’s dementia the autoimmune conditions the cancer because your body
32:10 just feels like it’s being attacked all the time right and so people don’t always put this together like we hear
32:16 all these things about gut gut gut but people are like does it really matter and I think sometimes you know people will eat well for a month right we put
32:23 them on some sort of diet we make them eat well for a month they may not feel wonderful because to your point they
32:28 have bacterial overgrowth or they have something else going on or maybe they do have molds maybe they’re breathing breathing bad air and so people just
32:34 like ask “Screw it i’m going to go back to eating McDonald’s.” And um but it it does really matter right like it matters
32:41 for your overall health and it matters for not only your physical symptoms but your your mental health as well and so I
32:48 just I don’t think that people put that together does that make sense i totally agree it’s this thing where you just
32:53 like take for granted and because food is easily fast available conveniently it
32:58 takes more time to plan and think about like for airport travel we just talked about hotels right i always pack my own
33:04 food to the airport you It’s really hard nowadays it’s a little better there’s some places but um especially if you’re
33:10 going on a long transatlantic flight for 12 hours or something and I always take food with me because I don’t count on
33:15 the fact that I can find good clean organic food sources and so that takes planning right that takes an extra
33:21 cooler bag it takes an extra hour to prepare the food to put in my bag to take the airport so these things though
33:26 if you’re not thinking ahead and planning ahead you will experience failure and you’ll experience just oh
33:32 I’m hungry i’m going to go get the fast quick thing and we’re so used to food being so convenient even organic produce
33:38 shipped from say California on a truck is convenient because whether it’s in season or out of season we can get fresh
33:45 berries right but it’s not as good as finding a local farmer taking the time or getting a CSA where you’re getting
33:50 food delivered that’s local and organic and just picked out of the garden those are going to be much more nutrient-dense
33:56 and those polyphenols are going to feed our good microbiome and but all of that takes time energy planning sometimes
34:02 more money um so it it is navigating what really matters and if you really value your brain and your health and
34:09 your hormones and your healthy weight and body composition you must put in a little time and energy into what we’re
34:16 putting into our bodies yeah 100% i could not agree more i mean your body I
34:22 say this all the time like people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on cars and they wash their car every day or
34:28 every week and you know men my husband makes sure his car is washed every week and you know making sure the oil’s
34:33 changed and all this you can buy all the cars in the world your body is like you get one right so so the people who are
34:41 like “Oh I don’t have time for that.” It’s like “Well okay but you’re going to be in the mechanic shop for a long time
34:46 when you’re older right?” That’s how eventually they end up with me or you because traditional medicine fails them
34:51 and they’ve been in every clinic that they can think of and all the doctors just scratch their head and give them more medicine more poison more toxins
34:58 point to another doctor and they never get better right yeah i was joking i’m sure you’ve heard this it’s like you pay
35:04 the farmer now or the hospital later but one of those ways you’re going to kind of like and honestly the truth is if
35:09 you’d learn how to whether it’s sprout your own vegetables grow some herbs find the local farmers share someone you know
35:15 a half a quarter of a cow or you know but all there’s so many ways to do this that are very affordable and sustainable
35:22 and even if you can’t afford all organic at least you can look at the environmental working group puts out the dirty dozen every year those are the top
35:29 fruits and vegetables sprayed with pesticides then at the very least pick those and buy organic there’s ways that
35:34 you can do it that make it a lot more affordable yeah I completely agree and I’m the same way like whenever I travel
35:40 I always take my little food bag people laugh at me i don’t know i’m just like whatever pulling my stuff out like
35:47 you’re not catching me eating anything at an airport or on an airline for good oh yeah it’s the worst when you’re stuck
35:52 in I mean I recently was on a flight on American and it’s like would you like a snack and I look at the snack basket and
35:58 I’m like there was I will give him this there was a turkey jerky in there that
36:04 wasn’t like awful it was tur I mean it was wrapped in plastic it was but I was just like everything else was you know
36:11 complete garbage um of course they have like nuts but if you look they’re like smothered in palm oil and you know maybe
36:18 have a little bit of sugar and all these things i’m like dear god so do you do
36:23 you think that people can treat their chronic illnesses whether it
36:29 be mold cancer just fatigue whatever do you think that treatment should include
36:36 cleaning out their gut and or like certain nutrition plans do you think that that’s like woo woo some people you
36:42 know I give I get people who say “Well I think you’re just you know that’s very woowoo like you don’t have to do that.” What are your thoughts on that oh gosh I
36:49 could not agree more i think it’s not just optional it’s it’s an essential part of and you started talking about
36:54 mood and brain and there’s a whole new science of psychobiotics meaning like the gut microbiome and the brain and we
37:01 have so much data i’ve been doing presentations the last several years on gut brain connection with um how our gut
37:07 and brain talk to one another through neurotransmitters through hormones and through the vagus nerve and it’s a birectional communication which means if
37:13 we have an unhealthy microbiome or we’re not taking the right probiotics or we’re eating the wrong foods it absolutely
37:19 affects our brain it creates more proness to depression anxiety even things like bipolar and schizophrenia so
37:25 it’s very connected and I think we can just look at statistics to see the huge increase in incident i think since the
37:31 pandemic about 400% increase in prescription anti-depressants because people are experiencing more depression
37:37 and anxiety and even with mood disorders i always start with the gut
37:43 i couldn’t agree more i I see you know I saw somebody today who’s like my mood is terrible and I looked at all of their
37:49 labs and I’m like you know your labs aren’t terrible you had she had some micronutrient deficiencies probably
37:55 because I think she has a bad gut her sex hormones were a little off you know her testosterone is a little low her
38:01 estrogen’s a little low that’s also going to make you feel bad and in addition to that um you know when your
38:06 hormones are off it’s also going to affect your gut unfortunately but you know I always start with the gut as well
38:12 like how is your gut doing because if your gut isn’t working and we’re not absorbing micronutrients
38:18 then we can’t make dopamine we can’t make serotonin and so I think it’s very powerful and so important and I’m
38:24 actually getting psychiatrists that refer me patients now in Oklahoma City which is amazing because it’s like you
38:29 know no you don’t need there’s not an aderall deficiency there’s also not a Zoloft deficiency i mean some people may
38:36 need these medications not trying to like discredit that but I think it’s highly overprescribed oh I couldn’t
38:43 agree more i mean years ago when I started it’s been like 20 plus years but I would get the moms send in their college kids in and they’d have a little
38:49 anxiety of depression and I’d talk to them and get their history and they’re like “Okay let’s do a stool test and organ.” And they just look at me like
38:56 “What i came in with anxiety what are you doing with a stool test?” And now it’s more common but I remember trying
39:01 to explain years and years ago that the I need to know your microbiome it starts there and the first thing I would do
39:07 with someone depressed or anxious is look at their gut so I couldn’t agree more and only the data even 20 years ago
39:13 has only exponentially increased in the proof of concept of why the gut is so
39:19 profoundly impactful for our brain yeah do you did you use any sort of special
39:26 gut modality tricks or tips to help with your breast cancer and or your Crohn’s disease now like I’m assuming it’s
39:32 pretty well in remission you don’t have a lot of issues hopefully yeah both are gone and I completely in remission
39:38 actually I consider it cured some people say remission from Crohn’s but it’s not there anymore so yes um and what
39:44 happened I’ll do the short story but basically breast cancer and then I had three drug aggressive chemotherapy um
39:50 and some of those actually induced a more permeable gut unbeknownst to me I was undiagnosed celiac so I’ve had been
39:56 eating gluten i didn’t know that gluten was a big trigger for me i had a severe B12 deficiency severe zinc deficiency
40:02 severe hypocchlorria was just low stomach acid so all these things were brewing you know as a 10 12 14year-old
40:08 before I ever got diagnosed with cancer and then the cancer and the treatment took me into severe leaky gut on top of
40:14 a celiac undiagnosed and then when I presented with Crohn’s I basically had to start over and say “Okay what is
40:20 going on with my gut?” And so the cancer treatment led to the diagnosis of Crohn’s now I might have gotten that
40:26 anyway because I had a high-risisk gene called NODD which made my own immune system react more aggressively to normal
40:33 microbial contents so then you throw in the permeability from the chemotherapy and it was a perfect storm so after my
40:40 diagnosis of Crohn’s I remember asking the gastroenterologist what kind of diet I should be on he completely blew me off
40:46 and said “Jill diet has nothing to do with this.” And that was my first aha being like that can’t be right and so I
40:51 went on my own journey found um some dietary changes i took out gluten took out dairy took out soy took out corn
40:57 took out a lot of allergens started to clean up my microbiome i had yeast overgrowth i had bacterial overgrowth i
41:03 had parasites at one point and I did all those things over probably two years time and by that time I really was free
41:09 of symptoms but it really has been probably a decade of work on my gut to get it to the point where I can eat you
41:15 know freely i still eat a really clean diet i’m not on any dairy or gluten i’m all organic you know whole food kind of
41:22 diet but I don’t have any gut symptoms which is pretty profound after having been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease yeah
41:28 I love that well thank you for sharing that so I again I’ll link all of our
41:34 stuff in the show notes i think I just wanted people to kind of hear your story and hear how you think the gut affects a
41:40 lot of things as well as somebody who takes care of a lot of really sick people and a lot of people with mold i
41:45 end my podcast every time with three questions and I don’t want you to overthink it i just want you to tell me
41:52 what comes to mind but tell me one thing that or tell me one food that’s most
41:58 beneficial and why i would say wild salmon um so many omega uh
42:04 anti-inflammatory components there and you’re getting that good protein and I think most of us as women are not getting enough protein so I would say
42:10 wild salmon what is one thing that anyone can do that will improve their health that’s 100% free sleep sleep is
42:19 like my number one thing that I think people now again that can be uh difficult because a lot of people don’t
42:24 sleep well but I would say always when someone come in comes in no matter how complex their situation I always start
42:30 with quality of sleep because I know that’s where repair occurs that’s where the brain detoxifies the liver detoxifies so you must be sleeping
42:38 adequately in order to heal i love that i would not I could not
42:44 agree more and then what is one thing that you wish you would have known about your health 20 years ago that you would
42:51 have done differently you know what I found the last maybe 5 years and I’ve been doing this a long time i have done
42:56 gut issues and cancer and all that kind of stuff but what I’ve seen in the last several years that’s so profound for
43:02 healing for patients is dealing with our patterns of thinking our identity around illness and our traumas and so back in
43:09 the day years and years ago I was a workaholic i was you know perfectionistic all these kinds of things very driven and it got me where I
43:16 where I am but in order to really heal at the deepest level I had to go back and reprogram all of those parts of
43:22 myself and I feel like I’m so much healthier and I feel like even with my patients the most profound changes come
43:28 in re-examining somatic patterns of trauma somatic behavioral issues and even just identity issues around illness
43:35 and sometimes that can be a bigger shift than even you know taking a probiotic for the gut okay so that goes back to
43:41 the mindset I would say okay do you have a favorite book in closing i want to
43:47 start asking people this a favorite book that really like changed your life whether it be you know something about
43:53 medicine or whether it just be something that you read in general that you really like oh I love books so this is a hard
44:00 one two things come to mind there’s multiple books about flow probably the original with mylhi
44:07 who passed away when I was writing my book um it’s just called flow but then also man’s search for meeting by Victor
44:13 Frankle i love profound deep thoughtful books about transformation and those two
44:18 have really uh changed my way of thinking okay well thank you so much for coming on the podcast and having this
44:25 conversation with me i appreciate it so much you’re welcome Cassie thanks for the great work you do in the world and
44:31 your patience and getting me on here yes thank you for what you do as well i appreciate it i hope that you enjoyed
44:38 this episode as much as I enjoyed my conversation with Dr jill i wanted to put this together for people because I
44:45 have a lot of you who reach out to me and say you feel very overwhelmed you feel very just unsure as to what to do
44:52 and you have lots of chronic illnesses whether they be autoimmune mold toxicity etc i really like her take on looking at
44:59 your health as a bucket and when your bucket starts overflowing figuring out ways that we can take water out of the
45:04 bucket to get better so I hope that you can look at your air quality your food quality your water quality and you have
45:11 some easy actionable tips that you can take in order to make your health better
45:16 please please please share this with anyone that you think it would help my mission with this podcast is to get
45:23 people good information and to help make them healthier and I need your help to do that so please share this make sure
45:28 you’re following us on any podcast platform that you use and also please
45:34 leave me a review if you leave me a review I know that I’m doing what you want me to do make sure that you follow
45:40 us on social media and let me know who you want me to interview and what questions you want me to ask i’ve also
45:46 started doing webinars which where I ask where I answer a lot of questions that you guys ask and so make sure if you’re
45:53 following us on social media that you sign up for those webinars because I get those questions directly from you guys
45:58 and a lot of times we do live Q&A as well remember that Modern Endocrine has a license in 39 states now we are more
46:05 than happy to help you with any complex medical problem that you have and if you are struggling with gut issues we have a
46:11 phenomenal gut health program which we can actually offer to anyone in all 50 states i have a health coach who helps
46:17 me with that we have an app and a private Facebook group and it has a phenomenal success rate so make sure
46:24 that you stay in contact reach out if you need help with any of this everything that we talked talked about
46:29 will be linked in the show notes i hope that you have a wonderful week and thank you for joining me on this episode of
46:36 hormones metabolism and you the information presented including any
46:41 materials discussed referenced or linked within this podcast are for general educational purposes only not the
46:49 practice of medicine no doctor patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing
46:55 any of the information provided i am a doctor but I am not talking to you as your doctor the information provided is
47:03 not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by
47:09 your doctor if you are experiencing any health problems including problems you believe have been touched upon in any
47:16 respect within this podcast you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay you may ask your doctor
47:23 whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you but you should still
47:28 consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician i’m just here to
47:35 provide you basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with
47:41 your doctor that’s why we call it back to the basics join me on the next episode as we continue our journey
Disclaimer:
The information presented including any materials discussed, referenced, or linked within this podcast are for general educational purposes only, not the practice of medicine.
No doctor-patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing any of the information provided.
I am a doctor, but I am not talking to you as your doctor. The information provided is not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by your doctor.
If you are experiencing any health problems, including problems you believe have been touched upon in any respect within this podcast, you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay. You may ask your doctor whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you, but you should still consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician.
I’m just here to provide you with basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with your doctor.
That’s why we call it Back to the Basics. Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey.