Have you been feeling dizzy for no reason that no matter what you do, it just keep on getting worse? There are many things that could be causing it but, you just might want to check your house. It could just be molds.
Today’s podcast talks about how to address molds and mycotoxins by going into the root cause like fixing busted pipes, water leaks, or even remediations to allow your house to breathe. Also, watch as they tackle ways on how to remove molds from our bodies. Continue watching and don’t forget to share. Sharing is caring!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
00:27 The Rat Hole of Functional Medicine
09:04 Families of Mold
16:13 Treatment Options
19:44 Mold Removal from our Bodies
26:21 Air Filtration
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey Evan, it's Dr. J. here, how we doin'?
Evan Brand: Happy Monday man, I'm back in my house as a wounded warrior, holy crap. Uh–, I'm kinda go into this story here. Who would have thought that I was dizzy for months and months and it was ti– err– tied into molds? You and I have been talking about this what feels like forever, testing adrenals, and testing gut, and testing blood, and testing all this crap. We were never tested my house.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know, well at least we have some data to go after. The problem with molds is it's– it's one of the rat holes of functional medicine because any and every symptom can get lumped into that category, so it's good that we have some data that actually know, that it's– a– le– a real and legitimate issue, plus, the lynchpin, we talked about this earlier is, how do we even know molds and issue. Will we get you out of that environment for week and you felt much better. And then we got you back in the environment and you noticed the dizziness kind of start to happen again. So, we were able to really control those variables and then we went and got the testing done, and then more like, “Hey look, we have a problem”. So, we were really able to kind of like use good– you know, the deductive reasoning to figure out if there's an issue.
Evan Brand: Yeah, so basically what happened is, folks, I've been busy for several months, I documented in my little health symptom journal back in July. We're talking now January, the–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: –next year. That I say, “I'm dizzy for no reason.” And it just keep getting worse and worse and worse. When I was driving, I was fine but when I get to my destination, you know I would get worse. Uh– walking down aisle like in a grocery store would make me real dizzy and, you know, couldn't really figure out what was going on. I would track blood sugar, I would track blood pressure, I thought it was some issue there. Uhm– but it wasn't, it was all mold because when we went to this extended stay in hotel, my wife and I, my daughter, the dog, we took everybody. Guess what, within just a few days I woke up and I wasn't dizzy anymore. And then, you know, we got the house treated with an enzyme-based solution that supposed to kill all the mold. But, I’m still waking up dizzy just a bit. Not as bad, for sure. Symptoms are better. Uhm– when I was kinda talking to you off air, I'm doing some charcoal, I'm doing some acetyl glutathione, I'm doing uh– this formula called Agrumax which is like a sinus rinse. I'm squirting all these crap in my sinuses to try to kill mold in my sinuses so, I'm like going all in on this thing, and uh– you know, hopefully, we're getting into a– another half house and we're gonna sell this house. So hopefully that's gonna be the miracle cure for me.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And the nice thing is, we were able to use– I think we reused the amino ___[02:29] lab, that's one of the labs we used. And we were able to get some data on the fact that there was some molded house, and, one of the cool things we knew is that your office is one of those areas that was really clean. And you always notice that when you're upstairs, seeing patients, or talking with patients over the phone and skype, that you just felt a lot better. And then when you came out, that– that's where it really hits you, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah, exactly. So, if you go on my Facebook page, people can look up the pictures of the plate I posted there. the top left picture, there was a series of 5 plates that we use. The top left picture that was actually zero mold, no-growth at all. And that's the office that was upstairs where there's no uh– doc-work or anything connected to the downstairs, and so, you know, every time I get off work, I go downstairs and sit at the dinner table, and eat dinner, all of a sudden, I'd get this dizzy spell. And I couldn't figure it out and my wife and everybody else at all or maybe it's just a work day catching up to you, maybe it's the stress of the work day, it's now– now it's affecting you later and I didn't buy it, I was like, “No, I enjoyed my job, I'm not stressed about it, I feel fine”. It's when I come downstairs, I'm dizzy. Well, duhh, there's your answer, I was going from a non-moldy environment to a moldy environment. So, we've gotta list the symptoms and I'll just read through these, and these are list of symptoms that can be associated with mold. And it's weird because I was having more of these like, uhm– neurological symptoms rather than kind of a typical stuff. My voice is sounding all weird this is 'cause I got the flu. This has nothing to do with the mold. Maybe the mold weaken my immune system–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: –and I got the flu because of it, but I'm not stuffy because of mold. I've not been stuffy the whole time. So, symptoms, it could be fatigue and weakness, it could be headaches or light sensitivities, concentration problems, poor memory, we get through brain fog in to the mix, uhm– skin sensations like tingling, numbness, shortness of breath, sinus congestion, coughing, appetite swings, body temperature regulation problems, uh– you're peeing a lot or you're really thirsty, I did notice that. I weren’t peeing a lot but I was real thirsty. Uhm– did we say mood swings?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: Mood swings is on there. Uhm– abdominal pain, any issues with the gut, so like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, and then uh– vertigo is actually on the list. It's weird though, like, why would I go straight to the brain symptoms and not have any of the sinus problems. I didn't really have brain fog, I was just spacy, like my vision– my vision field has been disturbed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent man, hundred percent. So, it's really good that we were able to figure that out. Now couple things that kind of uhm– motivated this is you– you gotta know how is this flaw which is pretty exciting, was not– not ne– necessarily a hundred percent because of the mold, maybe 'cause of other reasons as well. Uhm– any comments there?
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean, I– I'm looking forward to getting the in the heck out of here, you know, uh– this house is too small. You've been telling me the whole time, “Evan, when you have a growing family and you're working from home, you need to have room to work”. And I'm like, “Oh, man, I'm a minimalist, I'm fine, I don't need more room, trust me…” You're right, dang it, so–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [Laughs]
Evan Brand: [Laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well that's exciting, yeah. I think you already shared it with everyone that you're having a second child coming soon–
Evan Brand: Yes.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and so that's exciting. That'll expand things a little bit, it's another great reason to– to expand. And, the– the mold thing is a good motivating factor as well. Even though, it's better remediated in the house which is great, that's really good to know. But uhm–
Evan Brand: Well, you and I kind of chatted too, I mean, we were kind of joking, I said it's, you know, and, actually my wife came out with this joke so I'm gonna give her the credit. She says, “Yeah, take a bad girlfriend, once she cheats on you, you'll never trust her fully again.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: And– that's how we feel about the house, you know. She kind of cheated on us, and, even if we did get it remediated you always have this sort of thing like, “Oh my God, do we have mold again?”. And, you know, and like if I have a headache, “Oh it's mold”, “Oh, your joints hurt, it's mold”, you know, so we would just freak ourselves out all the time anyway, so probably better just to leave.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And did you get the testing results on the new house yet?
Evan Brand: Uh– I did not, those are pending. I did get a read on report which uh supposedly–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –anything above 4 is bad–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 4.
Evan Brand: –I think?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: Uh– this one showed up in like a 3.7.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I would still get the– the read on remediation and my house, it came back as an 8.
Evan Brand: Oh, man!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And yeah, a– after they're a me– and that's pretty common though. That's not even–
Evan Brand: Oh, okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –a big deal. But after the remediation, here's what I do – is I drill and I put this little pipe into the concrete.
Evan Brand: Hmm.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And that basically aerates and allows the house to breath. And then, since that, 'cause it's like– literally a meter in my basement. And I could go there and look on my readings at .5 right now.
Evan Brand: Wow! So, I mean, it's worth that if you can go from 3 especially from inside working, breathing it in all the time. It's gonna be good to take it from 3.7 to lower.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah you wanna remove it. It's like 500 bucks to get it treated.
Evan Brand: O, that's cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, totally worth if it put a pipe up the side of your house. Uhm– you don't even see it and then just allows the whole concrete, the con– the concrete and the foundation to breath, uhm– and which helps.
Evan Brand: ___[07:09] crazy. Some people think like radon is a myth but I think it's like the 3rd or 4th leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. No, ra– radon's a big deal and ___[07:17] 'cause the people that lives here, uh– in my house before me, for 15 years, they– they live in an area where radon was, you know, over 2x than what the EPA limit is which is crazy.
Evan Brand: Uh– well, well, hopefully don't end up with issues and then realize later it was radon 'cause, you know, with– with lung damage, that's not something you wanna play with.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: No, it definitely something you don't wanna play with. And did you ever do any of the ERMI testing on your house as well to compare?
Evan Brand: I talked about uh– with this real time labs company doing some of theirs, they call it the EMMA test A, E, M, A, uh– E, M, M, A which is–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: –supposed to be even better than ERMI, but I didn't do it. I could go back and do it but I mean, I've already got enough reason to leave so I'm just gonna leave. Uh– but–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that makes sense.
Evan Brand: But I saw all the paddles in the crawl space, uh– and– and that was a whole different issue–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That was a plumbing issue, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah, it's a plumbing issue. Yeah, so there was a– there was a pipe that connects to the outside water spicket, every time that water spicket got turned on, it was like Niagara Falls in the crawlspace and of course it's got all that plastic barrier in there, so that water had nowhere to go. So I took a flashlight in there and all these little paddles were just everywhere. And that's why our floor was so moist 'cause that water was trying to evaporate up into the floor, and then that was creating a high humidity in the home around 62% humidity. And uh– the mold remediation, people said, “We've never seen that much ca– uhm– that much kitchen cabinet mold that quickly”. I mean we're only talking 10 months.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Evan Brand: And then that much had formed already. I didn't know what I was–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow.
Evan Brand: –looking at. When I hear mold, I'm thinking the black stuff, I didn't know–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –this little like white dusty-looking stuff could be mold too sitting at the bottom of the– of the– of the– uh– the– like the hori– where the horizontal and the vertical plane of the kitchen cabinet–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: –connected, that little 90-degree angle?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: That's where all this little white looking dust is. And that's mold, but I didn't know what I was looking at. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally make sense. Now, there's a couple different families of mold. Let's go over the different families and kind of make sense of them for everyone else here. So, mold comes in, 3– 3 to 4 major families. Pull up my little list here, my little– “Chi-Chi”. Hold on. We have the– uh hold on Evan, I'm gonna have you continue to talk a lot–
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah, some– s– some make you more sick than others. So, people say, “Oh it's the mold that make you sick”, but really it’s the mycotoxins that are making you sick, and these are basically kind of these airborne toxins that can affect your brain as well. And you've gotta bind to these things to get better. So what I'm doing now is I'm doing some charcoal which is helping me, but I'm still in the environment so for me it'd be smarter really to get out. Uh– but I really just don't want to live in a hotel for a month until we get in, to these other house.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well at least you're working during the day is really good 'cause your office is like a little bit separate from your whole house area. So that's actually really good.
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah, it's– it's clean up here and, you know, luckily they didn't have to– I think they remediated up here anyway. They did, yeah, just in case. Because, you know, we were coming from downstairs to upstairs and the mold spores could be on your– on your clothing, and then that could fall off and then start to colonize a different area. So, I mean it's like a virus once this thing spreads. So they did remediate up here. It was amazing. The whole house smelled like clove, I think that's one of the ingredients in this enzyme–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah.
Evan Brand: –killer.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally make sense.
Evan Brand: The whole house smelled just amazing when we came back into it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. So you have 3 major families of mold. You have the Aflatoxin, you have the Ochratoxin and the Trichothecene. Now Aflatoxin are like the major Aspergillus species, the Aspergillus flavus and parasiticus. And then the Ochratoxin, there's a whole bunch of different other Aspergillus types and penicillium– penicillium-like species. Uh proteinase, ___[10:50], ___[10:51], it's like– it's like, totally crazy lingo. So you have the Aspergillus and the Aflatoxin flavius and the parasi– pa– parasiticus and then the– all the other Aspergillus and penicillium, and then the Trichothecene, this is where you have the– the– the stachybotrys, that's the technical to black mold. The fusarium as well, the cephalosporium, uhm– that's kind of a mold that actually use some cephalosporium which is actually an antibiotic too which is kind of interesting. And then the Trichoderma the– the trichothecium and the vertica– wow, the– the ___[11:25]. Man! This is like going on like uh– wanna be spelling bees here, yikes.
Evan Brand: [Laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Though in general, those are the big uhm– molds there. And again, there are some of these molds are also in foods too. And again, the big things you're gonna see in the foods are primarily gonna be grains, are gonna be the big ones. A lot of dried foods, nuts, seeds and beans. Those tend to be the big ones that you're gonna see on the food side of the fence. So, if you're doing like an autoimmune paleo, stick to start, that's going to eliminate a lot of the– the– the big food vectors. So, if you are sick, starting with an autoimmune paleo template that's kinda, by default remove a lot of those foods even though that's not the goal.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean, I'm convinced now based on this happening to me. I'm convinced now the reason people feel so good going on a paleo or an autoimmune or just a grain-free diet in general, is because of the fact that they're not eating the foods that are highly contaminated with mycotoxins like the Aflatoxin. So, like, you know, people, doing a lot of uh, cheese. Even if they're doing like a raw, grass fed cheese it doesn't matter it can still be contaminated with Aflatoxin, and then of course all your nuts, you pull those out when you’re on EIP, peanut, you pull those out 'cause those are not good. Pistachios, those mold easily. You pull those out. So I mean, it's hard to believe, you know, how many people we've seen get better with EIP and I think there's many reasons. I think one of the reasons is just the absence of mycotoxins. I would call it a “Low Mycotoxin Diet” just– as a default.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent. Someone asked, “Do– do all seeds have that?”. I would say no, uh– again, soaking them is gonna help, and let even dry out's gonna help. Uh I also do some and a little bit of a nut butter form uh– which I think may be better just 'cause you're not sitting around in– in an environment where they could get either more, you know, trapped and air tightened so to speak. But in general, my philosophy is get really healthy. And then when you add these foods back in, as long as you can tolerate them and as long as you don't have a significant exacerbational flare about the symptoms, and you're probably gonna be okay. So we always like to have the mindset of “Let's start with a clean slate” before we make too many major changes. And we'll just try to buy the best quality things that we possibly can–
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And if we can sprout them or make– make sure they're soaked to had it time is helpful too.
Evan Brand: I feel like the roasting process of like an almond butter that's probably a good idea–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Better, yeah.
Evan Brand: I– I doubt they're letting those almond sit and get moldy and then they're roasting them. And even then, I feel like the roasting, depending on the temperature, maybe the high temperature would kill some mycotoxins anyway as opposed to doing like raw almonds. I personally don't eat any like raw almonds just by a handful.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah and then I got a lot of mycotoxin test and some of the coffee that's out there. I know Dave Asprey promotes his being like kind of uh– a mo– a low mold or mycotoxin-free coffee. The others have also tested, you know, very low uhm– mycotoxin as well. So, I think that roasting process thus help and make a difference.
Evan Brand: Yeah. That was a whole big following out with Dave Asprey and Joe Rogan, he went on his podcast–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know.
Evan Brand: –like 5, 6 years ago? And– and then Joe said, you know, 'cause Dave made the comment like, “Oh, it's very expensive to test all these other brands” for– for mycotoxins. And then Joe was like, “Well, how much, is it like 500 bucks to test, you know, Starbucks? ‘Cause I'll pay 500 bucks and we'll go test it”. And I guess he ended up did– he did test it. You'll have to go look at the– the interview so I don't–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I saw it, it was with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, 2015. And basically, they tested Peet's and Starbucks and a bunch of other ones also came back low as well. So– hey, you know? It is what it is.
Evan Brand: So basically, you don't have to pay 19 bucks a bag, or a pound if you don't want to. Uh– we– we've talked with Dave, he's been on our podcast, and so, you know, I've got nothing against it but, if you can spend 12 bucks and still get uh– you know, if you're like budgeting and– and you can at least spend 12 bucks a bag versus 19 well then spend 12 if you know that it's gonna be clean and you're not gonna get sick for it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, there are other brands that are great. I always recommend if you have a– have neg– negative experience with coffee, come off of it, you know try adding Dave's in, see how you tolerate it, if you can tolerate another, good one, maybe Blue bottle or some of the other good brands that are out there, the Mayan brands or whatever else. Even the whole foods Allegro brand, see if you can tolerate, 'cause there are other good brands that are there too.
Evan Brand: I just don't do coffee. I'm fine without it–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –so for me, I'm– I'm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love my coffee man! Even if I did Decaf, I don't get a huge energy kit but I do get this kind of warm blanket kind of sensation, thus feeling really good.
Evan Brand: And then my wife loves it. Yeah, that's like her dream if I would just drinking coffee with her.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, it's great. Na– my wife–
Evan Brand: [Laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –and I sat around the fireplace this morning sipping our little coffee. I do mine, uhm– you know coff– with uhm– butter and MCT, and uh– 15, 18 grams of collagen. So, my coffee is more like a meal, but yeah, totally.
Evan Brand: Next time I come to your house, I'll let you make me a good coffee and I'll– and I'll try it, see if you can–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Evan Brand: –convert me over.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah man, I'll– I'll make a good one for you don't worry.
Evan Brand: Alright.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It's good. Alright sounds good.
Evan Brand: So, we– we talked about symptoms, we talked about some of the sources in terms of the food. Uhm– maybe we should talk more about– you know, treatment options. What do you do to try to support yourself through this? Unless you had another direction, you wanted to go.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well first off is, you know, Evan's going to the ultimate extreme of moving, right? So, that may not be necessary for everyone. Some people may not be in that position to move. So, make sure you do the right things to figure out if it's even your house. Right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It could be a food thing, it could be other things uh– you know, get your house tested, number 1. Get out of your house for a week. Like Evan went to a hotel that was reasonable and just work for the week, right? Some people are like, “Well I'm on a vacation for a week and felt so much better”, it's like, yeah, you were relaxing, you weren't doing your day in, day out stuff. So, get out of the house for weeks. See if you notice any improvements. Get your house tested with a good quality lab. Get the house tested. Uhm– number 3– is we can work on remediate it if there is an issue and you wanna stay, you can always do that. And just make sure you have before and after testing that confirm. Make sure, you know, you have that conversation with the remediator, “Hey here are the test that we're doing”, make sure there are an agreement and then make sure you got it before and after. And that, you know, they're work is gonna be indexed upon, you know, this coming back clean.
Evan Brand: I guess the next step too would be to make sure the root cause was addressed because the companies coming in and using the enzyme solution to help clean and remediate our home, that did not fix the root cause. The root cause is the issue. There's 2 issues.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: O– one is there's not enough ventilation in the attic because a board was placed over some of these uh–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Ventilations?
Evan Brand: –some of these uh ventilation vents. And then the other problem was in the crawl space where the pipe had busted or leaked or something that was creating potholes. So, all that moisture was coming off your– the sub floor–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And leaky pipe.
Evan Brand: Yeah, creating high humidity in the home. And the humidity, being above 60%, is just perfect for mold to grow. And so that over a period of time allowed, you know, literally, my test results came back with so much candida in my living room. And the guy told me at the lab, he goes “Evan”, he said, “This is why so many people, they treat they're gut for candida, but then they get reinfected, because they're breathing it in in their home and it's recolonizing the gut. So, this is why your patient—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –may– may feel better on a candida protocol, they get off the herbs and then they feel worse again, it's–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: They get reinfected.
Evan Brand: –that means they're environment is the problem”. And that just blew my mind, I'll tell you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. Yeah, totally make sense so– Yeah, you had a busted pipe, which that was causing a lot of the water to permeate and just kind of like pool behind your– kitchen cabinets. And then you also had an issue up in the basement where a ventilation blocked up. So if we didn't have those two things going on, that mold issue may not have occurred. And again, the timing of you expanding your family, and wanting to move, just kind of correlate it with this mold thing. So, it–
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –that mold's kinda like that– that pushed to make it happen. But normally, with those issues being addressed, you should be able to–to get back into your home.
Evan Brand: Well interestingly enough, I was looking at the uh– the vents–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: –on the blueprints– in the– in the blueprint of our home, is not how it turned out. They didn't actually put the vents that I'm seeing in the blue print right up, they're not actually physically on the home. So that was a mistake, and– so we are getting that fixed, the roofers are gonna come and ventilate it properly so that the next person who comes into this home, they will be fine and the issue will be fixed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, that's good, that's good. And you're getting it retested as well. Have the retest come in yet?
Evan Brand: Oh, they're doing that tomorrow. So, they're coming in, and they're gonna– also they're gonna bring a commercial grade dehumidifier which is gonna help us drop the humidity level down majorly in the home and hopefully it won't re-humidify because now the water has been removed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That's really good. Now let's talk about some of the things we can do to help with mold removal, so– in our bodies. So obviously we can clean out the diet like we chatted about. There are various binders that we can use that are very helpful. We can do binders like activated charcoal, or bentonite clay which are absorbent binders that use an electrical charge to pull of this compounds in that to bind it up and that kind of put a straight ___[20:04] on it which is helpful. Uh– next thing is– here's medication ones called cholestyramine which is in– one of the early versions of the– cholesterol lowered meds in the early 80's. Very expensive though. That's the only issue with it. And that binds up to a lot of the uhm– molds that are in your gut, kind of like the other binders would and pulls it out in the stool. We can also do things like zeolite or citrus pectins, ___[20:29], various fibroids that kind of act similarly and bind these things up and allow you to excrete it, also diatomaceous earth which is really high, and silica, DE for short, that's very helpful as well at binding up and pulling out any of these uhm molds too.
Evan Brand: I've got some DE, maybe I should try it. Uh– right now I'm just doing the charcoal. You think I should throw some DE in there?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I would throw it, I do a table 202, twice a day, ___[20:54] you water. It's also a dewormer as well. It's also a ni–
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: –nice natural uh- natural insecticide you see in a– you know– let's say an ant hill so to speak. In my backyard I had a big ant hill, ___[21:06]. Just dump a whole bunch of DE uh– kills them all and then eventually dissolves. And it does it in a non-toxic way, dehydrates the exoskeleton on the insect and they die.
Evan Brand: It's amazing. Yeah, that's really downsized. It does dehydrate you. I remember we were giving it to my daughter–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: –'cause she had pinworms, and she was so thirsty.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: When she was on that DE. So we just did a short-term dose to kill the pinworms.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, you can also use it in your animals too. It's very-very safe too just make sure [crosstalk]
Evan Brand: Put it in the water or–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right in their food. You mix them right in their food. Yeah, just make sure it's food grade DE and you'll be okay.
Evan Brand: Nice. I may add some of that in. Uh– the other thing too, you mentioned the zeolite. I do have the formula that I carry. I've got a bottle of it I've only tried a couple drop so far, it's called Vitality Detox Drops.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: And it's just a zeolite solution, you're supposed to add it into your water. Uh– they– they've got some study showing it binding to mold spores in the body. So, I probably need to throw a couple drops of that in too. I've been doing some nitric oxide boosters as well. Uh– mold is affecting nitric oxide production in me 'cause my hands are just freezing cold like if you shook my hand right now, you'd like, “Evan, dude, why is your hand so cold? And–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: –it's a nitric oxide production. So, I've been doing like some arginine and citrulline and this whole nitric oxide boosting drink, and then I've been adding some peanut butter.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The mold's affecting–
Evan Brand: Yeah, I talked with the pharmacist at the lab of ___[22:27] it's got a name ___[22:28] he's in his 70's. You and I probably need to get him on the podcast. He's like a genius. Uh– he told me, you know, he said, “I bet you have these symptoms: cold hands, cold feet, cold nose.” uh– you know, “you wake up tired…”, and I was like, “Yup-yup-yup-yup-yup”, that's me. And he– so what he did is he actually sent me some nitric oxide test strips by a company called Berkeley I think was. And he put this on your tongue, and he goes “Evan I bet you're gonna fail that test”, he goes, “That test strip is gonna look white”, which means like no which– no nitric oxide production then you got light pink, medium pink, dark pink, dark pink and then really dark pink which is great. I failed that test so bad. I had basically no nitric oxide production as registering on this test drop.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting.
Evan Brand: That's the problem.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And nitric oxide is just ___[23:13]. So you're doing the arginine, the citrulline, just a lot of the amino acids, right? What other amino acids are you taking to improve ___[23:20].
Evan Brand: Uh there's a blend. Let me see if I can find it real quick that I'm taking. So– let me see, it's called like– uh– crap it's ___[23:30], makes it but I can't remember–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh-okay. I know what you're talking about. I got that formula.
Evan Brand: But he has like stevie in it, it tastes good, and then I'm adding some extra beet powder, I've got beet powder in there but I'm adding extra beet powder on top of it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, cool. Excellent. So, other ways we can help reduce and lower the mold, what else can we do? So off the bat, I would say we can also do sulfur-based amino acids whether it's NAC, or– sulfur aminos. Uh– in my line we have one called detox aminos that has like methionines, cysteine, taurine, glutamine, glycine, all the amino acids to make glutathione. We can also do glutathione or liposomal glutathione, and then we can also do things like uhm– talked about the zeolite, we talked about–
Evan Brand: Me– methylations– uh– like methylation supports too like the– I'm doing all the B's like some mitochondrial stuff too like–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. So, phase one detoxification support, right? And then we have a lot of herbs that are helpful for lymphatics. So, we can do red root, we can do ginger tea, these are really helpful just to kind of keep the lymph system really moving as well. And then also sweating I think is really good too. Using a really good far or near infrared sauna to help kind of get that sweat, get that toxic sweat out of your body as well.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I've got the sauna, I just haven’t used it lately. Uhm–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: It's been too busy to get in there but I need to get in there. And then also I am doing some chlorella, I'm doing some of the ___[24:48] chlorella too–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh.
Evan Brand: –because I did speak with ___[24:50], and uh– she's a lady who heard her husband made it up and the micronization process of the chlorella, it makes it so tiny compared to broken cell wall chlorella, it's 50 times smaller. So, she shown, you can bind to the mold with that. And so I'm using that right now. And I'm just doing a small dose of it 'cause if I go too high, my–my– might start get a racing heart. So, I'm just really going to–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Is that the belly balance with the probiotics in there?
Evan Brand: Uh– uh– no this is the NDF+.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, NDF+, got it.
Evan Brand: Yeah, I'm just doing that. And that does have probiotics in it, I'm just going really slow with it because I went too fast like, you know what it says–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm-hmm.
Evan Brand: If you're sensitive, increase by one drop every 3 days, and I was like, “Ugh! screw it.”, I'm gonna do 3 drops extra and that was too much and my heart was raising so, uh– I got kind of a reaction from it so I had to back down to the last tolerable dose and then I'm just gonna try to go up slowly.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Makes a lot of sense. Now how about–
Evan Brand: [Crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup, go ahead.
Evan Brand: I was just gonna say, “And I'm hanging in there”, like, cognitively I'm fine. It was just this dizziness problem, it's my main issue, you know. Cognitively I've been able to work, I've been able to get everything done. Uhm– you know, still doing podcast, my brain is perfect. It's just the visual field. So that's– that's kind of– but it may manifest in different people, right? Like if you've got sick with mold you may have totally different symptoms than me.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That's the thing. You may have chronic fatigue or joint pain, right? Also, you're also in an office where your office is the only area of your house that tested clean, right?
Evan Brand: Yup, exactly. So that's kind of my– my escape.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If you are podcasting from the area of the house that it was high, maybe the kitchen, that may be a problem.
Evan Brand: Yup. Exactly.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And let's talk about air filtration. Air filtration's really helpful too. Again, you have to get to the root cause. So, you can do an air filter. I have the uhn– Air Doctor, and I also have the uh– what's the other guy there?
Evan Brand: You got the Molekule, don't you?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Molekule, yeah. I have the Molekule, I g– I have that in my uh– family room now. I rotated to my bedroom and my family room, and then the next thing I have is the uhm– the Air Doctor. That's the other thing we have next. Those are the big 2. And then Advanced Air is also another good one, so, having some good air filtrations, you have to make sure you're getting to the root underlying issue.
Evan Brand: My wife's talking to me. She said the lady's here. Uhm we've got a lady here that's kind of come look at my trees and see if we can move any of them to the new house so I guess I have to wrap this thing up. But that was the last thing I was gonna say anyway. Just get an air filter.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh yeah. That's the last major thing.
Evan Brand: And I have it– and I– and I have the Air Doctor, I have it running 24/7 up here, so maybe that was like an insurance policy that helped me.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And what do you think about a dehumidifier at all? To help lower the humidity levels?
Evan Brand: Yeah, we're probably need to get one, but hopefully in the new house the humidity is regulating on its own and then we don't have to get one. But I– I have it on my Wishlist, I found a good one, I just don't know if I need it yet. I'm just gonna take the measurements of the new house first and see before I go and spend 300 bucks.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah you're getting to the root cause which is key– which is that pipe leak and then the poor ventilation. So that should be the key thing to kind of help regulate it. That's good.
Evan Brand: Yup, yup. So if I'm like, you know, 40% humidity at the new place I'm just not gonna worry. But if I see uhm– 50, 60, you know, then– then I'm gonna have to probably buy one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, very good man, I think we're on the right track. Anything else you wanted to answer regarding any of the question? I think we did a good job hitting all the major points here today.
Evan Brand: I would just tell people. Look, if you've been working with a practitioner, whether it's functional medicine or other field of medicine and you're not feeling getting better, you know, consider and getting your te– your– your test kits for your home. Lookup immunolytics lab and uh– ___[28:09] and they can help you because, you know for me, I'd work on everything. Justin and I, really, “Hey Evan, it's your adrenal”, so we did adrenal support. No change. Blood sugar support, no change. You know, heavy metal support, no change. Uh sleep herbs, no change, so– we– we kind of went down all these other rabbit holes and it turned out to be mold. So, I would just say if you– if you've got limited success or some success but you're not fully out of the wood yet, you know, consider this as an option.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, especially with the timing. Like you were doing really good help lines, then you kinda move, your environment shifted and then these things popped up. So, you were able to do a reall–
Evan Brand: [Crosstalk]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You were able to do a really good timeline history, kind of correlating a lot of these things.
Evan Brand: The timeline was– was key. I mean that's– that's the whole reason why we do what we do, 'cause you gotta figure out when did things go wrong and that's exactly when, when I got in this thing dang house. So–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Anything–
Evan Brand: –but I'll be okay, it's a good lesson.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: — else you wanna add?
Evan Brand: It's a good lesson for us, you know?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. Let me just brought out a couple question, I know you gotta roll. And we'll– we'll hit it. So real quick, does the GI map show mold, uh– and they're show a lot of uh– fungal issues and fu– fungal overgrowth issue so potentially that could be– you could be inhaling that, that could be causing it to grow in the gut, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah but not the environmental mold in your house, separate test.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But you could see though the environmental mold could affect the microbiome mold and fungus, right?
Evan Brand: You could, but mine just showed a little bit of candida but it didn't show–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: — the other stuff.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right, exactly. Didn't show the Aspergillus the, Trichothecenes, right?
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: All those other ones there. Yeah, the Ochratoxin, that make sense. And then regarding uh– Sam saying, yeah, he felt much better, less stuffy in the morning, wakin' up with the air filter, that's good, yeah. I mean, there's some– a lot of the good air filters are gonna cut out some of the mold and mycotoxins, that makes a lot of sense, and– that's what we do, we have good air filters that cut those out too.
Evan Brand: Yeah, it's a– it's a good– it's good ___[29:56] but you still gotta fix the root cause and air filters–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [Crosstalk]
Evan Brand: Yeah, air filters' good though.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah and ___[30:01] writes in, uhm– “What if you live in an apartment and you can't move?”. Well that's a tough situation so, I would just do your best to see if you can get some data to show there's mold in there, see if you can find any– any leaky water, any poor ventilation, anything that can show there's mold and hopefully you can try to get some remediation done by landlord, or uhm– you know, if it's objective, you can see it and test it. If not just do your best to have good binding support in the background, and a good air filter, at least where you're sleeping most of the time. Uh– so you can get that filtered out where you're sleeping.
Evan Brand: Yeah and you could probably do it on your own too. Lookup usenzyme.com and– that's where you can get the enzyme solution if you needed to self-treat. Like– it's better to– to hire somebody, but if that– that is the company where the enzyme is made.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah just get to the root cause, or there's a leaky pipe or something going on with ventilation, get that fixed. Get the root issue fixed.
Evan Brand: Yup. Absolutely.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Alright, excellent. Well today was a great podcast, lots of great questions coming in here, we'll be back again next week. I'll be back uh– this Friday for more Q&A's, maybe they're in the week, who knows, and, give us the thumbs up, give us the share, we appreciate it ya'll, feel free and uhm– go to justinhealth.com or evanbrand.com and feel free and schedule a consult with us if you wanna dig deeper. If you feel like you have any mold or any other fatigue or any other health issues that aren't being addressed, we're here for ya.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Evan take care, bye.
Evan Brand: Bye.
References:
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