Dr. J and Evan Brand take a deep look at Babesia, a tick-borne parasite that lives inside red blood cells and often gets overlooked next to Lyme disease. Evan shares his own experience with night sweats, dizziness, and air hunger, and both clinicians walk through common signs, how standard and specialty labs may show clues, and why symptoms often overlap with thyroid, adrenal, gut, and perimenopause issues. They explain why a foundational functional approach to the gut, sleep, nutrients, lymph, and adrenals usually comes first, why the “low and slow” approach matters, and what 2021 in vitro research suggests about botanicals such as Cryptolepis, Artemisia, Chinese skullcap, Japanese knotweed, and Alchornea. They also look at Babesia distribution maps across the US and why geography matters.
7 common signs often associated with Babesia, from night sweats to air hunger
Why Babesia may show up as brain fog, dizziness, and heavy fatigue
Lab clues to explore, including CBC, ferritin, antibodies, PCR, and urine DNA testing
How symptoms can overlap with thyroid, adrenal, and perimenopause issues
Why foundational support for the gut, sleep, and nutrients often comes first
What 2021 in vitro research suggests about botanicals like Cryptolepis and Japanese knotweed
1. Babesia often presents as a “neck up” pattern: brain fog, heavy fatigue, dizziness, headaches, and air hunger.
2. Seven common signs discussed: night sweats, unexplained fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath or air hunger, dizziness, headaches, and anemia or abnormal labs.
3. Lab clues may include low red blood cells, hemoglobin and hematocrit, elevated liver enzymes, high ferritin, Babesia IgG and IgM antibodies, PCR testing, and urine DNA testing.
4. Symptoms overlap with other issues, and many people have more than one root cause at play.
5. Declining hormones in the late 30s and 40s may lower resilience and unmask an older infection.
6. Red blood cells turn over about every 120 days, so support plans often run four to six months.
7. Foundational support comes first: hydration, electrolytes, nutrients, diet, digestion, sleep, cortisol rhythm, and lymph.
8. Zhang et al. 2021 screened 46 herbal extracts and found Cryptolepis, Artemisia, Scutellaria, Polygonum (Japanese knotweed), and Alchornea showed in vitro activity against Babesia duncani.
9. Babesia has been reported across the US, including the West Coast, Central Texas, and the Northeast, plus possible mother to baby transmission.
10. If symptoms are acute or severe, get evaluated by your conventional doctor first.
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Reference
Zhang Y, et al. Botanical Medicines Cryptolepis sanguinolenta, Artemisia annua, Scutellaria baicalensis, Polygonum cuspidatum, and Alchornea cordifolia Demonstrate Inhibitory Activity Against Babesia duncani (in vitro). Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2021.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33763384/
Podcast Transcript
Dr. J: Hey guys, Dr. J here. Today’s podcast is on the seven hidden signs of Babesia infections and what you should know and do. Dr. J here with Evan. Excited to dive into this topic. Evan, what’s up, my man?
Evan Brand: Hey, I’m doing well. I’m a lot better than I was seven or eight years ago. I don’t know if that’s when I first picked up Babesia, or if maybe I had it before and then mold exposure, or maybe a virus, set it off. I don’t know exactly what triggered it for me, but I had Babesia. It tested positive. We’ll talk about some of the testing. We’ll break down the different ways a conventional doctor may look at it, how we look at it, and then how we approach it. But Babesia is a beast. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, and it gets hardly any recognition compared to Lyme.
Lyme disease is now in the forefront of the media. You’ve had RFK Jr. talking about Lyme, trying to raise more awareness, so there is some political outreach, if you will, saying, “Hey, we need to address Lyme.” The CDC estimates there are 476,000 new cases of Lyme per year, but Babesia is kind of like the little evil brother to Lyme that’s really not getting any recognition at all. Personally and clinically, I think Babesia could even be a bigger deal than Lyme in regards to the symptoms it causes.
Dr. J: Correct. Now again, this podcast is not medical advice. We’re just giving you our clinical take on what we see in practice, 15 plus years and 5,000 plus patients each.
This is the conventional treatment. Go to your conventional doctor and talk about this. Normal Babesia treatment is about a 7 to 10 day prescription medication. It’s usually going to be azithromycin, a Z-Pak, or atovaquone. Those are the big two they’re going to do. Sometimes they’ll add in things like clindamycin plus quinine. So if you’re concerned, go to your conventional medical doctor first.
Now, we deal with lots of patients who have already gone through a lot of these situations and are more chronic. They may not be the acute type of issue. Many ticks can be vectors for other infections besides Borrelia burgdorferi, or Lyme. You can have Babesia. You can have Bartonella. Last week we did a podcast all on Bartonella, so today we’re talking more about Babesia, the different signs and symptoms, and what that could mean for you. Anything else to add on that?
Evan Brand: It is a very neck up condition. Because Babesia is an intracellular parasite, it goes into the red blood cells, and the red blood cells go everywhere. So yes, you could have a system wide impact, but I see it as a neck up condition the majority of the time, meaning you’re going to have profound brain fog, very heavy fatigue, and shortness of breath. You could have headaches. You could have night sweats, which I certainly did. It was not my hormones. It was Babesia. And you could also have dizziness. When I was at my worst, I was so dizzy that sometimes even walking was difficult, and I do blame Babesia, because along with that dizziness I also had shortness of breath.
I had a steep driveway out in the country. I remember going down to the bottom of the driveway and back up, and by the time I got to the top of the hill, I was completely winded. That was unlike me. I thought, “This is so odd. I barely exerted myself and I am winded.” That is Babesia. Since clearing that, my endurance for hiking, biking, and swimming has all come back to normal.
Dr. J: Yeah, this is an intracellular parasite. It can impact the red blood cell and create hemolysis, which is red blood cell destruction. So on a CBC test, you may see lower red blood cells, lower hemoglobin, and lower hematocrit. What other conventional markers are we going to see for Babesia?
Evan Brand: Sometimes liver enzymes could be up as well.
Dr. J: Yeah, so you’ve got to look for that.
Evan Brand: Ferritin was up. My ferritin was chronically elevated when I was going through mold, Lyme, and co-infections. Ferritin could be up into the 300 or 400 range. You and I have done podcasts over the years about low ferritin, and maybe we need to do a refresh on that because it’s a pretty big issue. But high ferritin was my situation, and once again, that’s a sign of inflammation. If you have high ferritin on your blood work, that doesn’t say yes, it’s Babesia, but it says there’s something inflammatory in your system. That could be something else, like other parasites or infections, but for me it definitely was up.
Dr. J: Yeah, we can look at indirect immune markers as well. We can look at IgG antibodies. If we see them greater than, let’s say, fourfold the lab range for Babesia, that could be a sign. Elevated IgM antibodies for Babesia are another one. We can look at a pure conventional CBC. We can look at PCR testing, the 18S ribosomal RNA marker, and different DNA markers on the PCR side of the fence. You’ll also see a lot of the genetic urine tests, where we see some of the debris for Babesia in the urine. Is that kind of your go-to?
Evan Brand: Yeah, it is. The urine is my favorite. You can use a few different labs, but we like one out of Colorado. What we do is a provocation first, so sauna or exercise. You drain the bladder, and then we call it a second catch. The next pee that comes, you collect that one. With a high level of accuracy, you’re going to be able to see not only Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme, through its outer surface protein, but you can also see Babesia duncani and Babesia microti. So there are several different types of Babesia you can see, as well as Bartonella.
I want you to know that if you have these weird neurological symptoms, maybe dizziness or headaches, and you’ve ruled out all the scary neurological stuff like brain tumors and who knows what else, Babesia may be something that shows up, and Lyme too. Both Lyme and Babesia can cause dizziness.
Now, we didn’t talk about the source. Obviously tick bites, or another vector, are the most common source. But mom to baby transfer can also happen through the umbilical cord blood. Unfortunately, I have seen some cases of young kids who had never had a tick bite in their life, yet they tested positive for Babesia. We then tested the mother, and she had a history of being out in the country, hunting, being in the woods, hiking, camping, and having tick bites. So there can be mom to baby transmission. Keep that in mind if your child is showing weird symptoms and the pediatrician can’t help. I’ve seen three, four, five, and six year old kids who did have Babesia, and now they’re better.
Dr. J: Now, if we see some of the DNA on the PCR test or the urinary DNA test, it doesn’t necessarily mean we have an active Babesia infection, but it means the microbial load is at a high level because it’s coming out via the urine. So how are you differentiating someone with an infection versus not? Maybe someone has a healthy immune response. Maybe they got exposed from a tick bite, their immune system is mounting a normal response, and it’s processing that debris and getting rid of it. Are we looking at signs, symptoms, and presentation, and then saying if it’s a high microbial load, there could be a higher chance of infection?
Evan Brand: That’s a great question, and people always want a black or white answer. Does this test say yes or no? Do I need this antibiotic, yes or no? I take it all into consideration. If there are symptoms plus geography plus a response to the herbs that target that organism, then we know we’re onto something.
If we give someone a tincture designed for Babesia and nothing happens, then we assume maybe that infection is not a big deal and we move on. Luckily, the tinctures that several different doctors have formulated over the years are very laser focused on these specific pathogens. So if we use this tincture for Babesia at five, 10, or 15 drops, that may be all it takes for someone to say, “I had the best day of my life,” or, “I had a bad day. I had a headache, I got more dizzy, more stressed, more anxiety.” That would indicate we poked the beehive and something is happening.
Dr. J: Yeah. You could be killing things off too fast, so starting these tinctures or herbs really low and slow is good. I always tell patients we want to support the gut, the diet, inflammation, the lymphatic system, regular healthy bowel movements and motility, and strong adrenals so you can regulate inflammation, with a healthy cortisol rhythm and healthy DHEA. All of these things are very important, because going after infectious debris can be a stressor. And again, this is not conventional treatment, so go see your conventional MD first. We’re talking about functional medicine support for your systems. This is the next step after you rule that out.
The big symptoms, as you alluded to, are night sweats, number one, and unexplained fatigue. But you could have night sweats and be perimenopausal or menopausal. With fatigue, you could have low thyroid, adrenal, or mitochondrial issues. These can overlap with other issues, so don’t just think, “My fatigue has to be because of Babesia.” It could be low thyroid too. Just say, “I have the ability to have more than one issue, and there could be overlapping root causes driving it.” Don’t get too myopic on one thing. Would you agree on that?
Evan Brand: Absolutely. That’s why, if you go to the hormone doctor and he says, “You’re perimenopausal, here’s some extra progesterone and testosterone,” the testosterone may help with inflammation and the progesterone may calm things down and support GABA, but there could still be an underlying infection. I actually had people comment on one of my videos about that, saying, “So basically perimenopause.” And I said, “Yes, it could be perimenopause with a Babesia infection underneath, which is going to rear its ugly head even more because declining hormones reduce your resilience against it.”
That’s why you could have been bitten in your 20s and been fine until your mid to late 30s or early 40s, and now all of a sudden everything is hitting the fan. You’re thinking, “Why now? Nothing changed. This is not a new tick bite. Could I really have an issue from 20 years ago that’s showing itself now?” And the answer is absolutely.
Dr. J: Bingo. The next big issues are headaches, brain fog, chills, fever, shortness of breath, air hunger or dyspnea, muscle aches, body pain, anemia, and abnormal labs. We talked about hemolytic anemia, and you highlight some of these same things in your Substack article on Babesia symptoms, the overlapping ones based on some studies. So here are the symptoms I want you to look at: fatigue, fever, muscle and joint pain, chills, cough, headaches, night sweats, and dizziness.
A lot of these can overlap. There could be hormonal issues, adrenal issues, electrolyte problems, sleep issues, or a weakened immune response. Remember, about 80 percent of your immune system is in your gut, so any time there’s a chronic immune stressor, we always look at the gut, because if your gut is problematic, your immune system may be a little weaker too.
Evan Brand: Yep. And this is all factored in. There is not one black or white thing you need to do, and I would encourage you not to do just one thing. You might be listening to this thinking, “Yes, I have those symptoms. Tell me the one supplement to take to kill it.” Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. I really wish I could say, “Just do this,” but as you mentioned, there’s the gut piece, the thyroid piece, and the hormone piece. It’s not as sexy as a best selling book on just this bug, but it has to go deeper. I’m sorry that it’s complicated. I’ve been through this personally, and it’s not easy. It takes at least four months, because it takes that long to get new, fresh red blood cells. Think about it like an oil change, every four months, a 120 day life cycle. So if you just take something for a week, I don’t think you’re going to get better. Even if you take something for a month, you’re not going to get better. I would say a minimum of four months, or probably more like six months.
Dr. J: 100 percent. So let’s go over a couple of things. First thing out of the gate, I tell patients, here’s the foundation. We always have to work on all the functional medicine priorities to support the system. We’re working on hydration and electrolytes. We’re looking at nutrients. We’re running organic acids and different nutrient panels. We know Babesia can create hemolytic anemia, so do we have issues with B12, iron, folate, and B vitamins? That’s a big deal. Is the diet dialed in, or are we coming off a really crummy Standard American Diet? Are we absorbing and breaking down our nutrients? Do we have enough hydrochloric acid and enzymes? Are we sleeping well? Is our cortisol rhythm in check so we can sleep well and deal with stress? Do we have low thyroid symptoms? Do we have perimenopausal or menopausal issues? How does the whole clinical picture look? This is foundational before we do anything specific for Babesia. And again, this is not treatment. This is supporting your body. There’s conventional treatment, and there’s functional medicine support. We’re on the support side. Comments on this, Evan?
Evan Brand: You cannot build a sturdy house without the foundation, or you’re going to get destroyed when a Category 1 or 2 hurricane comes your way. You have to have this in place if you’re going to weather the storm of starting to address these bugs. We get emails, and occasionally complaints on social media, saying, “I went to such and such doctor, they made me feel so bad, I had so much die-off from XYZ.” I’ll look at their protocol, and it had nothing but killing on there. There was no support for the lymph, the kidneys, the adrenals, or the thyroid. It’s just how hard can we hit this person’s body and see if they can still stand up afterward. That’s a horrible method. You have to tiptoe in.
I was very sensitive. This can cause mast cell activation, so you may only be able to handle two drops. If the goal is 30, you might only handle five or 10, and it might take a month or two to ramp up. Once again, it’s not sexy, but you have to be patient with the slow grind. If you take a full bottle dose on day one, you’re going to have so much die-off that you’ll throw in the towel and say, “This made me worse. I’m done. I give up.” And then you just continue a life of suffering.
Dr. J: Yep, I agree. Let’s go over a couple of top herbs. I tell patients all the time there are more herbs than these. With a lot of our gut clearing protocols, Stephen Buhner always talked about the combination of Artemisia, or wormwood, and berberine. They have a really potent synergistic quality, so I love Artemisia. But we’re plugging this into a functional medicine program and plan. If your diet stinks, if you’re not pooping, if your gut’s all jacked up, or if you’re not sleeping well, these things can make you feel worse and may cause more die-off and more negative symptoms. So keep that in mind. If you have these issues, find a good functional medicine provider and work with them so it’s plugged into a greater plan.
Cryptolepis is wonderful. In vitro, it’s really good. It’s very anti-inflammatory and immune modulating, and it has antimicrobial effects against Babesia itself. So it’s nice to have three angles: support the immune system, lower the bug load, and provide anti-inflammatory support. Cryptolepis is beautiful.
Evan Brand: Yep. It’s such a beautiful plant. It changed my life for sure. And by the way, it can also address Bartonella. If you’ve had mosquito bites, tick bites, fleas, or lice, you could potentially have Bartonella and Babesia, which is a very unfortunate combo, but Cryptolepis can help with both. That’s the great thing about the synergistic effect. A single mechanism drug like an antiparasitic targets Babesia, while Bartonella is a bacteria, but these herbs can act on parasites and bacteria at the same time.
Dr. J: Yes, and I love skullcap too. That’s the next one, Scutellaria baicalensis, or Chinese skullcap. It’s wonderful because it’s in a lot of good sleep formulas, and we know how important sleep is for recovery. If someone has sleep issues that could overlap with Babesia, we may choose a sleep formula with Chinese skullcap in it. We’ll also be supporting cortisol rhythm, magnesium, and theanine, because when the brain has excess glutamate and excess stimulation, we want to calm it down. It’s a great herb because of its anti-inflammatory properties, antiparasitic qualities, and really good sleep qualities. Comments, Evan?
Evan Brand: Yeah, Japanese knotweed is fantastic too, and it also helps with Borrelia, so the inflammation and the pain in the joints, elbows, and shoulders. That pain might move around too. If you’re having joint pain that moves around, that’s a good clue. If it’s the same knee all the time, that’s more likely a sports injury, like a meniscus issue. But if it’s, “Today my shoulder hurts and tomorrow my elbow hurts,” I’d definitely want to see what’s under the hood.
Dr. J: Yeah, and Japanese knotweed is also very high in resveratrol, which can be very immune modulating. It has T regulatory and Th17 immune qualities and helps modulate Th1 and Th2 balance, so I like it for that reason too.
Evan Brand: It can kick in within a week, too. If I’m ever feeling a bit flared up, I’ll do a couple of squirts of Japanese knotweed, and it almost has the effect of an herbal ibuprofen. It’s very calming to the joint stuff.
Dr. J: Yep, I agree. Alchornea is wonderful as well, with really good in vitro inhibitory activity. I always recommend choosing a combination of different herbs. I like Cryptolepis in a tincture because you can deliver it slowly and add it in. I like Artemisia. It’s part of a lot of our herbal protocols, including my GI Clear 4 and GI Clear 1. Even if Babesia or Bartonella isn’t on our radar symptomatically or on our metabolic assessment, someone could have something low grade, and some of the clearing herbs we use for the gut may still help lower that microbial load if it’s there at a subclinical level without a lot of symptoms. Would you agree?
Evan Brand: Yeah, absolutely. That’s the fun thing. When we’re getting you better, other things may improve by accident. Where do you get that with pharmaceuticals? I don’t want to turn this into a pharmaceutical versus herb debate, but where’s the side benefit to ibuprofen when you take it for a headache? Is it going to clear a bad bacteria? No, it’s going to damage your gut.
Dr. J: Correct. It’s the same thing with supporting someone’s gut with probiotics, beneficial bacteria, and mold. There are lots of studies showing Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus can be very helpful at neutralizing mold toxins. So you may have someone with mold issues, and you’re not really going after the mold, but by supporting their healthy bacteria levels, you may be lessening some of their mold toxins.
Evan Brand: Yeah. It’s so fun. If you’re listening to this on audio in your car and you’re not smiling at this reality, I want you to wake up, because this is incredible stuff that helped me get out of some of the worst points of my life. At some points I was hopeless. I thought I was never going to get better. I thought, “How am I going to beat this?” I had the gut issues, the skin, the mood, the sleep. Everything was off. I love being out in the woods, and unfortunately, the ticks in the woods carry Babesia. And if you get bitten, it’s not this whole 24 hour thing. That’s a myth. You can get Babesia transmitted from the tick very quickly. “Oh, it wasn’t attached for longer than 24 hours.” You think the tick has a stopwatch? I don’t even know who came up with that. It’s crap.
Dr. J: Correct. Here’s a 2021 study, Zhang et al. They screened 46 botanical extracts against Babesia duncani in vitro, which means in a test tube, and identified Cryptolepis, Artemisia, Scutellaria (the skullcap), Polygonum (Japanese knotweed, the resveratrol source), and Alchornea. So these are great botanicals. Again, these are in vitro, test tube studies, not in vivo in people, but there are also studies looking clinically at people having solid benefits. If your symptoms are super acute, like hemolytic anemia or significant symptoms out of the gate, definitely get evaluated by your conventional MD. But if you’re left without a lot of good answers, or you do the conventional treatment and don’t feel great afterward, which can happen with some of these antibiotic bombs, definitely reach out to a good functional medicine doctor. Anything else you want to highlight from your article, Evan? You have four questions you like to ask: Do you get dizzy or lightheaded? Do you wake up drenched in sweat? Have you been told you’re a little anemic? Any feedback on those?
Evan Brand: Yeah. The other one is, where do you live? Simply your zip code is huge. If you live anywhere east of the Mississippi River, or in places like Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Alabama, or Georgia, these places have a lot of ticks and a lot of Babesia. There’s a map out there that shows the Babesia hotspots in the US, but this is not just a Midwest problem. This thing is everywhere, and ticks travel. So don’t say, “I live in Arizona and have these crazy symptoms, there’s no way I can have it.” We’ve seen plenty of cases in the desert where people still have these bugs.
Is there sexual transmission? There’s some debate about Lyme being transmitted sexually, with Borrelia showing up in semen samples. There’s a paper on that. With Babesia, I don’t suspect it. But it could be transmitted through a blood transfusion. Blood banks try to test the blood and make sure it’s not in there, but remember, Babesia is very small.
Dr. J: This map is scary. Look at California.
Evan Brand: Wow. Look at California. That’s nuts. Honestly, I didn’t know California was that bad from north to south. So remember, Babesia is tiny, and it’s in the red blood cells, so even if they screen the blood before a transfusion, they might miss it. I’m not confident the screening is going to be 100 percent, so try not to get so injured on a motorcycle that you need a transfusion, because I worry about the blood supply. That’s a whole tangent.
Dr. J: Yeah. And this is from Wikipedia. You can see the delicate rings, the tetrads, and the vacuole, so you can see how this may look under a microscope, some even outside the red blood cell, since it’s intracellular.
Evan Brand: Can we look at that map one more time? I can’t believe that map. I did not suspect it was that bad on the West Coast.
Dr. J: Look at Alaska too. A little spot in Alaska. You’d think all that cold weather would keep them away, but not necessarily. And look at the Northeast. Wow. I’m surprised Texas has so little in the middle part of the state.
Evan Brand: Well, it starts to get dry on the west side, and the panhandle up by Oklahoma gets so dry the ticks don’t really like it. But as you see on the map, Houston and Austin are on there. Notice how the Babesia cases pick up in Central Texas. That’s where you start to get the moisture and humidity.
Dr. J: More moisture, yeah. And look at Arizona. Look at the Northeast. Lyme, Connecticut, all of Connecticut, and New England are basically highlighted except the western part of Maine. It’s crazy.
Evan Brand: If you haven’t yet, check out my podcast with Kris Newby. She’s the author of Bitten. That’s an incredible book. You should probably read it.
Dr. J: I think you told me about Lab 257, which is another book on this.
Evan Brand: Yes, that’s correct.
Dr. J: There are a lot of interesting things there, where ticks have been used as a vector for a lot of bugs. Whether naturally or unnaturally, it’s a thing, and we just have to be aware of it because it could be part of your overall health load. A good functional medicine doctor is going to look at your overall health bucket and see what stressors are in it, and this could be one of them. There are a lot of people who think it has to be in everyone’s bucket and that it’s the big thing. I don’t share that belief. I think it could be, so don’t have tunnel vision that it’s not. But have a perspective where it’s on the list, and we’re going to cross it off and make sure we don’t forget about it.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I have a personal vendetta against Babesia. I don’t see any benefit to it being in your red blood cells. So if you walked up a flight of stairs today and got winded, or you got out of your car to go into the gym and you’re winded just opening the door, check this thing out.
Dr. J: Yeah. But at the same time, you could be a little more anemic because you’re not breaking down protein, ionizing minerals, and absorbing B vitamins. So there could be a gut issue that overlaps too. Be open to all things being at play. And of course, the gut is where about 80 percent of your immune cells live, and this is an immune stressor on your body. So don’t forget the gut while you’re diving into the whole Babesia perspective.
Evan Brand: Amen. And it goes deeper. You think you’re playing Texas Hold’em, where you only get two cards in your hand, whereas in seven card stud you get seven. You might think, “I’ve only got these two cards to play with,” and then, “Uh oh, you didn’t know about this card, this card, and this card.”
Dr. J: Bingo. Reach out if you need help. Dr. J is at justinhealth.com. Worldwide consults are available.
Evan Brand: And me, Evan Brand, at evanbrand.com. Reach out and let us know how we can help. We’ll at least talk with you about these symptoms, figure out if you’re a good fit, and then help you investigate this and build a wellness plan to help you climb out of it, whether it’s the histamine piece, the mast cell piece, the brain fog, or the anxiety. There are multiple plates to spin and levers to pull, but ultimately I think you can make progress with this.
Unfortunately, based on surveys, and this is not my pessimism, negativity is at its highest and trust is at its lowest. They’ve studied trust across generations. My grandparents’ generation would trust a stranger pretty well, around 65 percent. The youngest people just getting onto the internet, late teens and early 20s, Gen Z or Gen Alpha, have the lowest trust. I bring this up because a lot of people don’t have hope, and I think trust comes along with hope. See if you can find that. There was a Pew poll on it. You can see the 1960s baby boomers at 40 to 77 percent trust, then Gen X declining, millennials at 24 percent, and Gen Z as low as 13 percent. You can see that declining trust per generation.
Dr. J: Yeah, and just to be clear on what this says, it’s the percentage of people who agree that most people can be trusted. Social trust.
Evan Brand: In my grandparents’ era, up to 77 percent of people thought most people could be trusted. What a beautiful world. It’s going to be a sad day when all these older people are gone.
Dr. J: Yeah, it’s going to be tough. I agree. But I think part of it is the average baby boomer just didn’t have as much information, so there was this attitude of, “Doctor’s orders, whatever the doctor says.” Then lots of things happened over the last decade or so with health, and people lost trust in public health. It’s a real thing. We have the internet, YouTube videos, and podcasts. There’s a lot more information versus just the Washington Post, The New York Times, your local paper, and three TV channels: ABC, NBC, and CBS. Now people aren’t even watching the news. They’re listening to podcasts and watching channels like this. There are a lot fewer gatekeepers now, so I get it.
Evan Brand: Part of that is information overload too.
Dr. J: Yeah. So in a way, the cliche “ignorance is bliss” is somewhat true. But if people are listening to our podcast, I feel they’re going to be more empowered and hopefully make a better, more informed decision. That’s the goal.
Evan Brand: Absolutely. We’re getting spiritual, psychological, and societal here, and I love it, because these are things people are walking around with, and it makes them more irritable and angry. We could do a part two on mood issues related to these infections and to inflammation. Maybe we will. It makes me think about the guy flicking you off on the highway. This morning some random lady honked at my wife while we were taking the kids to school, and my kids said, “Mommy, that lady has her finger up.” I’m thinking, “It’s not even 8 a.m. and we’re getting flipped off and honked at. What does she have? Is it mold? Is it Babesia? Is it a relationship? Is it finances? What happened?” We want to help there be fewer road ragers by addressing the underlying issue. So if you’re a road rager, reach out. We’ll be happy to help.
Dr. J: Absolutely. evanbrand.com, click the Work with Evan button. justinhealth.com, click the Work with Dr. J button. We’re here for you guys. You can schedule worldwide, and we’ll see if you’re a great fit for care. We’ve each seen 5,000 plus patients over the last 15 years. A lot of people online just give information, but they’re not in the trenches. You get a different perspective when you’re in the trenches working with people, because you have to help people comply, understand what’s going on, get motivated, and take the complex and make it bite sized and understandable. Great podcast today, Evan.
Evan Brand: Awesome.
Dr. J: We’ll be back next week. You guys have an awesome one. Take care, y’all.
Evan Brand: Take care. Peace.
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