Welcome to the Candida Summit! In this video, Dr. Justin Marchegiani interviews Evan Brand, an internationally-based functional expert who specializes in digestive issues and chronic infections, obesity and fatigue. Listen as Evan Brand shares his personal experiences with Candida and his protocols to overcome it.
Don’t miss the chance of listening to this knowledge-filled interview! Stay tuned!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
01:20 Candida, Mood & Cognitive Issues, and Other Infections
06:26 Multiple Mechanisms of Candida
12:00 Diet Does Not Affect Skin Myth
23:21 Lab tests for Candida Overgrowth
63:00 Treatment Issues for the Immune System
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, guys! It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Welcome to the Candida Summit. I have the honor of hosting this interview with my good friend and colleague, Evan Brand. Everyone knows Evan here. Six million downloads, internationally-based functional medicine expert. You can reach him via phone and Skype. He specializes in digestive issues, Chronic infections, Obesity, Fatigue. He’s had his own issues with IBS and Mood Issues, and he’s been able to overcome it with a functional medicine approach that gets to the root cause. Evan also has a couple of books. The “Stress Solution,” “REM Rehab.” There’s a lot of stuff on Nootropics as well. And again, you can always get a hold of Evan. Schedule a complimentary consult at evnbrand.com. See if you’re a good fit for the next step. But, Evan, how are we doing, man? Really happy to be connected.
Evan Brand: Hey, man. Thank you so much. We have had hundreds of hours of fun together over the last few years so…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: …of course, there’s no one else that I would want to be interviewed by than yours truly. So, uh— thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So excited to be here. So, let’s talk about Candida. So, Candida’s one of these things where it’s like, “Oh.” You know— Back in the 70’s and 80’s, it’s like, “Oh, the yeast connection.” “Oh. It’s Candida causing all my problems.” And it’s interesting ‘cause we talked about this a lot, on air, where Candida, a lot of times, can be connected with other types of infection. So, I’m just curious. How often are you seeing, in your patients, just a— a pure Candida issue that’s driving the problems? Or is Candida there with other types of infections that you’re saying?
Evan Brand: Yeah. Great question. I’d say, maybe five percent of the time, it’s Candida by
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: And if I hit that five percent of the time, I’m thinking, “Okay. Something must have got missed because, the other 95 percent of the time, it’s Giardia issue, it’s a Crypto issue, like what I had going on when I had Candida problems, personally. And of course, Adrenal issues are always happening. Thyroid issues can be happening. So, if somebody just has Candida, it’s like, “Okay. Something’s weird or you just got lucky, because it usually never happens that way.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I see the same thing as well, clinically. And some people, you know— Candida can be a big issue. There’s something called the Auto-brewery S— uhm— Auto-Brewery Syndrome. Are you aware of that?
Evan Brand: Yes. Basically, where you’re getting drunk, right, on your own…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: …Candida?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Part of the metabolites of Candida is Acetaldehyde, and Acetaldehyde basically goes to your liver and is like— is a stressor kind of like Alcohol is.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Well, the good thing is, we can fix the yeast and then we can use other things to soak it up too. I’ve been using some of those Fulvic acid supplements…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: …that we spoke about to try to suck it up. And basically, any type of a binder, like clays or your Fulvic acids— these binders, you can kind of soak up that Aldehyde, which is cool, because if you are getting drunk on your own Candida, that’s not the root cause of deficiency of— of clay or charcoal. But, if that can help you ten percent better while we work on fixing the other issues, that’s— that’s a win.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I see a lot of Candida people. People that have a Candida overgrowth, they also end up developing like neurological or mood issues. What’s your experience with patients with Candida and Mood, or brain or cognitive issues?
Evan Brand: Yeah, it’s huge. I mean, that was me, right? I always like to talk about me first just because I like to tell people, “Hey, look. I’ve already been there, done that. I’ve struggled. I’ve suffered.” I feel like— and I know you would agree too that as a practitioner, it’s much, much better if you have dealt with the exact same problem that you’re working with your clients on, as opposed to you got some of these medical doctors where they’re prescribing drugs that they would never take themselves. They’re prescribing Statins and Beta-Blockers, and etc., etc., etc. And people may say, well, they might not need those drugs. If there are Cardiologists, they might not need a heart rhythm drug but— you know— in our space, you and I take everything that we’ve recommended for people. We take our own herbs. We formulate our own supplements. We take our own fish oils. We take our own anti-parasitics if we show up with parasites. So, back to the original question about the mood issues— I mean, I dealt with Depression for probably ten years, if not more. Like, the more— the more that I do interviews, I realize that even as a kid and as a teenager, I was depressed. And I still had a great childhood, but I just wonder if it goes back to something when I was very, very young. Like, you talked with Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt and he says that— you know— traumatic experiences, even before age two (2) can cause issues later in life. It’s like, “Well, I have no idea what happened before age two (2), so I just wonder if— if something like that happened to where a roll of the dice led me to be more depressed. And then, of course, my parents— you know— They struggle a lot with Depression on both sides so of course the genetic epigenetic component is— is part of it. And then the infections. I mean, you were the first guy who looked at me and you said, “Dude, I guarantee you’ve got gut bugs,” because you saw old pictures of me and I had a lot more muscle than I did. When you saw me like, “Dude, what happened to your muscle strength?” I was like, “I don’t know.” And you’re like, “Okay. You need to run a Stool Test on your self.” And, that’s when I had ran some comprehensive stuff and found out I had gut bugs. And that was the answer I was looking for because my mental health was affected it wasn’t just the gut. It wasn’t just the weight loss. It was the Insomnia, which leads to…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Evan Brand: …Brain Fog because you’re tired. And then, the Brain Fog leads to Anxiety ‘cause you can’t focus. So, then, you’re anxious that you can’t get your work done, and your boss is like, “Hey. This project is due. Where is it at?” And you can’t do it ‘cause your brain’s not working. So— i mean, Candida can be a massive, massive health issue and is not something that I think people should just write a blog about. “Ten Ways to Fix Candida,” It doesn’t work that way. You can’t just throw a bunch of stuff at this with a Shotgun Approach and get good— good results. I’m literally, probably, gonna make T-shirts one day that have the term supplement graveyard on there ‘cause every person I talked with, they tell me they loved that term that I used because…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah.
Evan Brand: I have a supplement graveyard and they— they usually do two of— of supplements they tried but that they didn’t follow through with.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent. And, what’s the mechanism of Candida and Yeast and Fungus? And just, for the listeners, right? We have like the big umbrella is fungus, right? And then, we have Yeast i like a various— you know— type of fungus underneath that umbrella, and Candida is in one of those kind of yeast families. What’s the mechanism of Candida or these yeasts uhm— causing neurological and brain and cognitive issues?
Evan Brand: I would say,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: So, that can affect the energy levels because you’ve got the toxins that are being created by the Yeast. You talked about like the Brewery Syndrome.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: And so, that’s affecting the Mitochondria. That’s affecting the liver too. So, if we’ve got a lot of things in the gut, like parasites and bacteria, plus the Candida, the liver’s overburdened. So now, the liver’s having a backup, so to speak, and that can cause fatigue. And then of course that fatigue can lead to depression, possibly anxiety then sleep issues. For me, I had terrible sleep issues when my liver was overburning ‘cause I have so many bugs. I would say another mechanism, too, would just be the malabsorption that Candida’s causing because— you know— you and I ran a lot of Organic Acids Testing. And when we look at our clients’ lab results, we see the amino acids are very low, meaning they’re not digesting their proteins well. We see their neurotransmitter’s low so we’ll look at markers like HVA, which called Homovanillate— you and I talked about that all the time— which is a Dopamine marker. And, we see neurotransmitters drop too. So now, the person has lack of energy. They have lack of drive. They can’t focus. They have lack of concentration. They’re easily bored. And this is because their neurotransmitters are not being produced. Then we see Serotonin being low. That’s another mechanism of the Yeast because most of it’s produced in the gut. And if the gut is in a state of dysbiosis, meaning you’ve got bad guys that have moved into the neighborhood, all the good guys are being crowded out, you can’t manufacture neurotransmitters like you’re supposed to. So, when Serotonin is low, then you’ve got the irritability, you’ve got the panic, you’ve got the phobias, you’ve got the sugar cravings, you’ve got mood swings, winter depression, PMS. And so, just to summarize, I would say, the mechanism is affecting the liver ‘cause of the toxins. I would say, it’s affecting Mitochondria ‘cause of the toxins. It’s creating a permeable gut barrier so it’s creating leaky gut, which is causing malabsorption. So, even if you’re eating organic Paleo template, which is what we kind of promote, and— let’s say, your brain chemistry. It is the other mechanism that’s affected.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, 100%. And there’s one toxin that’s actually produced by the Candida. So, you have Candida, which then produces the Acetaldehyde. The Acetaldehyde produces a toxin, a neurotoxin called Salsolinol, and that Salsolinol can make its way up to the midbrain, and actually start killing off some of these Dopamine-producing cells in the Substantia nigra. [crosstalk] And that’s because—
Evan Brand: Spell that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, yeah. The compound is Sal— S-A-L-S-O-L-I-N-O-L, Salsolinol. And that’s synthesized from Acetaldehyde and can affect the Dopamine-producing cells in the brain, in the midbrain, in the Substantia nigra. So, that’s another mechanism ‘cause Dopamine’s really important for focus. It’s really important for mood. It’s that reward center neurotransmitter that gets secreted— you know— during happy moments and it’s important for focus, too, right? People that are trying to go on these antidepressants are using that. So, that’s another mechanism too.
Evan Brand: You know what’s crazy too uh— that Salsolinol— I’m just reading a little article here. It says it’s a metabolic product of fermentation…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: …found in small amounts in several foods, most notably chocolate, and it’s believed to be the addictive component of chocolate and alcohol. That’s pretty interesting. I didn’t know about the link between chocolate, alcohol and this compound.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. And then, my thing with the Candida, as well, maybe you’ve experienced it, but so many conventional medical doctors, they really poopoo it. They really put it down like it’s some— like, thing that’s just not real, even when we have data like Candida via a GI Map Test or Candida antibodies, or D-Arabinitol via an Organic Test. What’s your experience with that?
Evan Brand: Yeah. Well, I had two medical docs that are both Gastroenterologist on the Summit. So, Ken Brown joined us and then uh— Parthenon D joined us. And they both admitted that the tide has turned, or at least is turning in the conventional Gastroenterology world, and that now when they go to, like, conventional medical doctor conferences, Candida is being brought up, as well as leaky gut. When they’re saying like five years ago even, leaky gut was laughed at. And, of course, Candida was laughed at too. So, those are at least two guys who give me hope that, “Hey. Maybe this is gonna turn the tide.” But, I mean, every single week, countless times, you and I, both, hear the same story, which is that the conventional doctors laughed at them, and if they talk about using herbs to treat something like Candida or parasites or bacteria, which is something we specialize in. That they— they basically get laughed at and say, “Good luck.” And then, they send them all away, and that’s 95% of the people. I alway ask this question to every new client. When’s the last time you saw a medical doctor? If they have an answer to that question, usually the answer is in a negative way, meaning, “I went to the doctor. I didn’t get the answer I was looking for. Now, that’s why I ended up at your door,” which is crazy because I’m not a medical doctor but yet I’m giving people far better success rates because we’re looking at root causes. We’re not just throwing antibiotics or Diflucan at them and saying, “Have a good day.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It’s really interesting how much treatment by conventional medical doctors is driven by acceptance from peers or just maybe uh— you know— what the— the so-called best practices are, right? The problem is, in conventional medicine, it takes 20 years to get research into the curriculum, so there’s— It takes so long for these people to even interject new information. I mean, you go into conventional dermatologist office— you know— they’ll— we’ll have the typical handout that even says, “Diet does not affect skin, or breakouts or Acne.” But we know that diet is a massive direct cause. Anyone that’s changed their diet will notice their skin probably clear up the first time. So, it’s interesting as functional medicine docs were really driving our protocols and our treatment based on results. Non-dogmatic, let’s get the patient better. The results are what matters. We don’t need to wait ten or 20 years for a research study to tell us we’re on the right track.
Evan Brand: Agreed. Yeah. My wife, I mean, she had so many skin issues and it was all tied into probably a Candida problem but her skincare products too. And people will say, “Well, is this a tangent that you’re going on?” “Yeah. a little bit.” And it’s because I want people to think about the other pieces of this puzzle. So, it’s like if you just focus on the Yeast, you’re probably not gonna get the results. Like, you could take all the Oregano oil, all the Olive leaf, all the Caprylic acid that you want. And you may fix some of the issue, but for me, I had parasites and H. pylori, which is a bacterial infection. I don’t think many people have talked much about H. pylori so I guess let’s give the— the audience a little bit of info about it. Uh— It’s a bacterial infection estimated 50% of the world’s population has H. pylori, and what it does is it damages the poridal cells in the stomach, which secrete HCl, Hydrochloric acid, which is your stomach acid. And, what that causes is the stomach to become more alkaline so the pH is increasing, meaning, now, you can’t digest your proteins. So, your grass-fed beef and your pastured meats and your chicken, and all these good things that you’re eating, you can no longer digest those. So then, you get rotting and putrefying food in the gut, which then creates a leaky gut situation that creates fermentation, which feeds bacterial overgrowth, which then feeds Candida. So, all that being said, you can still fix the gut, have terrible skin care products and then have terrible skin, which is what my wife had. She was basically covered in Hives and she went to like five dermatologists. And guess what? They all just gave her steroids, and she put the topical steroid on, and then it would get better for a week and then it would get worse again. And so, we knew something was up in the gut and then we knew something was up externally. We cleaned both parts up, and then all the sudden her skin’s been perfect. And [crosstalk] me too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great.
Evan Brand: I mean, uh— probably, maybe 2013/14’/15’ whenever it was. Several years ago, when you and I first started talking together, you were like, “Man, I bet something’s going on in your gut ‘cause I was having breakouts on my chin, and no matter what I did, my diet was super clean.” I think I did have some roll of cheese in there and I did have to pull out raw dairy, unfortunately. Luckily, I do butter now and that’s my only source of dairy. So, I do okay with butter, but cheeses, they had to go. And you’re like, “Look, man. I bet something’s going on food-wise or gut-wise.” And you were right on both counts. It was the roll of cheese, even though it was grass-fed, hand-picked by the Amish in the beautiful field on the mountaintop. No.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand: I don’t know. It was— you know— It was the highest quality I could find, but it didn’t matter because I had gut bugs. And— And that dairy, that undigested Casein proteins, not only was it addicting because it’s similar to Gluten, where it’s addicting. You get these Morphine-like compounds. You hit the Opiate receptors with undigested dairy and Gluten. So, those had to be pulled out of the diet for the addictive property reason, but then also, it was feeding the Yeast that I had.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. That makes so much sense. And you know,
Evan Brand: Mm—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Remember, I was just chronically doing that throughout my whole childhood.
Evan Brand: Was that antibiotics or what let to that for you to be so young and have Yeast?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, I think it’s just a combination of antibiotic usage, like Chronic Ear Infections. Literally, six or seven every year by the way, since I have cut and cleaned out my diet. I’ve had zero ear infections for 15 years. And I’m in like Austin every week, water skiing and I have but all kinds of potential bacteria getting in there, not any ear infections at all. So, that’s a huge component. The other one, is I had a ton of Rosacea growing up, and I find Rosacea and fungus has a massive correlation. You cut out Rosacea, and Rosacea just like— when your skin just gets really red and flushed. And when I cut— you know— clean the diet up and cut the fungus out, I noticed the Rosacea significantly improved.
Evan Brand: Yup.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [crosstalk] I know if we go back to some of your pictures or videos from a couple of years ago, you can see your skin had uh— a more reddish hue and you can see that’s cleared up too.
Evan Brand: Yeah. [stutters] It’s definitely much, much better now. I still occasionally get a pimple here and there, and it’s probably ‘cause I touch my face. If I touch my face— you know— if I’m sitting here thinking I’ve got my hand on my cheek or my chin, or something. But, I’ll tell you, man. My skin is probably 90% better.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: And it was already 100% better from when I was a teenager. So, like I had exponentially increased my skin health and I still had a little bit of Acne and I just accepted it as normal. And see, I think that’s something I want to kind of divert the conversation to, is that many people accept their condition and they modify their lifestyle to appeal to that condition. So, if you have back pain, maybe more sedentary because you don’t want to hurt your back. So, you don’t exercise. If you have depression, maybe you don’t go out in public because you’re depressed and you don’t want to make friends. If you have anxiety— I had a woman as a client who— she didn’t drive on the highway because everytime she got on the highway she would have panic attacks. And, so many people modify their disease or women, they get Acne and their face is covered in Cystic Acne and bad deep— you know— the Pizza Face, they call it. But they just put more makeup on. And, they’re modifying their lifestyle— more makeup. They’re avoiding social situations. They’re— Or think about belly fat— you know— with Candida. So many women are concerned about their weight. So, uh— I don’t want that topic to go uh— ignored. If you have that Candida belly, that big doughnut belly, they’ll just put on black clothes or they’ll put on a flowy dress instead of a tight dress. And then, they don’t feel sexy. So, it’s like, “Look. Stop sabotaging yourself. If you just get to the root of all this, you don’t have to wear as much makeup. You don’t have to wear black. You don’t have to wear a flowy dress to hide the belly. Like, you can fix all of these issues.” And for me, I never wear makeup, but I got to the point where I thought, “Okay. This is just Evan. I just em— I’m just a guy who’s gonna have X amount of Acne always on my face.” Nope, not anymore.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I love it, man. So much value. I listen to so many summits and so many people they just talk about flaw, flaw, flaw. And you listen to someone for an hour, and you’re like, “Okay. I heard a lot of stuff, but like, what’s the take-home? Like— Like, what am I gonna do now?” And then you— you walk away, being like kind of paralyzed. “Okay. I heard some stuff, but what the heck do I do?” So, off the bat, just kind of summarizing, we know that Candida and— and this type of fungal overgrowth have massive effect on the skin. We know it has effect on the immune system through leaky gut. As you make the gut more permeable, food can get into the bloodstream and create autoimmune issues. We know that the Acetaldehyde can make its way up to the brain and create mood issues, also become a stress on the liver. And then also, it can create other toxins, like Salsolinol, and we know that energy issues as well because— Let’s talk about that. This— Doesn’t Candida also uhm— eat up a lot of B vitamins too?
Evan Brand: Well, I would say, Candida plus the other bugs too, right? Because as we mentioned in the beginning, it’s rarely Candid by itself. But, yeah. If we want to just simplify, yeah, you could say Candida. But everytime we look at Organic acids panel, almost always, there’s some levels of B vitamins being low. Whether…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: …it’s B2, which is the Riboflavin, whether it’s your B6, which is important for converting Serotonin into Melatonin…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: …which is why so many people have sleep issues, because the Candida’s rob them of their B6. Now, they can’t convert Serotonin. So, even if they take 5-HTP to have— try to help sleep and Serotonin, if they don’t have the B6 component, they don’t sleep well. So, yeah. B vitamins get robbed. We talked about amino acids being robbed. Talked about neurotransmitters being low. And, just the fact that you feel like crap when you have Candida because then you’re driven by sugar cravings. I mean, I’’ll tell you, I remember the point where I couldn’t go more than a few hours without eating. And, there’s an adrenal component to that too, which I think we should mention and address here. Which is that, when you have gut stress, which could just be Candida or could be other bugs, your adrenals are stressed because the liver is stressed and the adrenals have to come in to try to pinch hit, as you call it, to help out the liver. So, the adrenal glands get involved. You’re secreting Cortisol, and that Cortisol is further affecting blood sugar ‘cause then the pancreas has to get involved. So, that’s just whole system of pancreas, adrenals and liver. If there’s liver stress, the adrenals have to come in.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: If there’s adrenal stress, the pancreas has to come in and try to help out with Insulin regulation. So, long story short, I was a mess. I was a triangle mess. I had pancreas, therefore blood sugar problems, liver problems, therefore detox problems. I was getting headaches all the time. I was exhausted. And then, adrenal problems. I had heart palpitations. I had problems falling asleep, problems staying asleep. And, it was this whole triad, and it all stemmed from the gut. So, long story short, uhm— uh— I told you before we jumped on this cause that, “Hey. Let’s make sure that we talked about putting together a Candida protocol…”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: “…for somebody.” So— So, let’s talk about that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, hold on. I mean, just, yeah. [stutters] I think that’s the End stage…
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …but let’s go a little bit deeper to how to figure out you even have Candida to begin with first.
Evan Brand: Okay.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, I’ve been…
Evan Brand: Okay, good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m gonna— I’m gonna pitch you over of kind of the lab test that you do— we do to detect this stuff. But, we have some clinical symptoms, right? We have Tinea versicolor, which is kind of like a fungal rash. You can just do a Google image of it, and you can get a sense of uhm— what that looks like. Again, Google image will give you the most severe [laughs] pictures and tends to be in the worst body parts, on Google, but uh— at least it gives you a pretty good idea. You have, obviously, Jock itch, right? You have uhm— uh— Tinea capitis or— or Cradle cap, or uhm— Seborrheic Dermatitis, right? Those dandruff— those type of things. You have Athlete’s foot. I mentioned the Jock itch. Uhm— Those are gonna be like your big clinical indicators on the skin. You have Thrush or just uh— a gentle white coating in the mouth or on the tongue. I’d say, those would be some of the— the key clinical indicators, things that you physically see in an exam outside of labs. Is there anything else, clinically, that you wanted to add there?
Evan Brand: I would say the fingernails, right?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: My fingernails…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yes.
Evan Brand: …showed up with itch. The fingernails— So, could be little white spots, like little white flex but could be vertical ridging, vertical lines. And I can actually feel it’s much, much better than it used to be, but I can actually feel the vertical ridges on my nails. So, guys, look down. Girls, look down. If you have fake nails, take them off. Look at your ridges. [crosstalk] If you have vertical…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand: …ridges, uh— that’s a sign you’ve got Malabsorption.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely.
Evan Brand: You’ve got to figure out why. You got to figure out why. Is it Candida? Probably.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I think you also want to mention is that slight yellowish hue on the fingernail or on the toenail, and that’s super helpful too. We can talk later about how we address that, ‘cause sometimes, those will not go away even with the diet and the gut stuff because it’s so far removed from the body. But, we’ll add that to the end. Alright, good. So, we hit the clinical indicators. Let’s go into the lab tests. I know, there’s a couple different body secretions you measure, uh— Urine with Organic acids, Stool with some of the gut testing, and also, maybe you even do blood, too. But, let’s go break that down.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So, the Stool Testing, for Candida specifically, it’s not very accurate, and I actually uh— We talked about this a little bit uh— during Kailash’s interview. He kind of brought something interesting up, which I’m gonna go ahead and just mock what he said ‘cause it makes sense and it seems to correlate with the symptoms. It’s that, when he sees that the Stool test doesn’t show Candida, but it does on the Urine, that he considers it a much worse overgrowth, which I think is— is seems kind of counterintuitive. It’s like, “Okay. The Stool missed it, which it commonly does, but then the Urine finds it.” thought, “Okay, that’s just Candida.” But, he’s saying, he thinks when the Stool doesn’t find it at all, then it’s more systemic. Therefore— It’s not showing up in the Stool ‘cause it’s more in the bloodstream, and therefore it’s a worse overgrowth. So, I thought that was a cool little caveat that I’ve added to my— to my brain because, most of the time, 95% of the time, the Candida shows negative on the GI Map Stool Test, which is what you and I utilize. But, the 95% of the time that it doesn’t show there, it does show on the Urine Organic Acids Panel. There’s a whole section dedicated to Yeast and Fungal markers that we look at. There’s Carboxy Citric acid.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: There’s Citric acid. There’s d-Arabinitol or d-Arabinose, which is the gas that Candida produces.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: You’ve got Tartaric acid, which…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Tartaric.
Evan Brand: …is another one.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.
Evan Brand: And, we look at these and that’s like measuring the tailpipes. So, when you take your car in for Emissions testing, we’re measuring the tailpipe of your body, which is the urine. And we’re saying, “Hey, look. Here’s the metabolite. Here’s the breakdown product.” Meaning, Candida’s in there and it broke down into this organic acid, and we found it in the urine. So, there’s your 100% proof that it’s there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. That is absolute knowledge bomb. So, I do like that. I do see the d-Arabinitol, like on Organic Test. Uhm— It’s a really good indication of systemic because it’s looking kind of, metabolically, what’s happening throughout the body, especially if we miss it in the gut. I had about four patients this week, where it missed it in the— the Gut Test, but then it came back in the Urine Test. So, that’s good to know. I also see other types of Yeast in some of these testing, like Microsporidium or Geotrichum. What’s your experience with other types of Yeast outside of Candida? Do you feel like Candida is the more viral or invasive species? What’s your take?
Evan Brand: Well,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: And, I do see the Microsporidia, which is— It’s funny ‘cause it’s in the fungus category, but when you do a research on it, it comes up being a parasite, too. So, it’s almost like it’s a parasite and a fungus. I don’t know. It— Microsporidia is a weird one. Do you have a comment on that?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, I would say that people that have Yeast issues, uhm— tend to be more Candida-based, and I know Candida albicans is the one that’s been researched the most. But, you know, if we see another type of Yeast like a Microsporidia, we’re gonna treat it just the same. I don’t really…
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …alter my Yeast programs any
Evan Brand: Agreed.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And— you know— I see a lot of these Yeast issues combined with H. pylori, and it makes sense ‘cause H. pylori alter stomach acid. What are your thoughts on that?
Evan Brand: Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s huge. That’s what I had, right? That’s kind of what I was mentioning earlier. It’s that when the H. pylori does the damage to your poridal cells, you’re not making stomach acids. So then, the food rots and putrefies, and that fermentation process in the gut feeds Candida, where a normal commensal amount of Candida becomes an overgrowth level. So, yeah. I would say, in— in the order of dominoes, like chicken or egg, I would say, h. Pylori could absolutely come first and then Candida overgrowth could follow. And, same thing with Proton Pump Inhibitors. Let’s just take the H. pylori out of the picture and say somebody that was put on an acid-blocking medication because they had heartburn. That would also lead to a pretty systemic Yeast overgrowth. And, I second your thoughts— the Geotrichum, the Microsporidia— these other type of Fungi and Yeast that we see. I don’t modify the protocol at all because a lot of the herbs that are used for these protocols, they’re pretty cool. They’re pretty comprehensive. They’re gonna knock out parasites, bacteria, yeast, kind of all in one fell swoop. So, really don’t have to do something different if we see Candida plus Geotrichum. It’s something that we can just keep the same. We just want to— we want to “test, don’t guess,” which is the whole philosophy behind this. It’s, “Look. maybe you’ve got all those symptoms, but wouldn’t you rather test yourself first with these functional medicine test that we’re talking about rather than building up your supplement graveyard even further and buying supplements that you’ve heard but you don’t really know if you need them? And, now, herbs are a thousand times safer than antibiotics but it is true that we can kill some beneficial bacteria in the gut, especially in like really, really young kids and toddlers and infants, where their immune system isn’t formed. You might not want to throw a bunch of heavy Oregano oil at a two-year old kid that we’re working with. So, get the test first, because then you’re gonna be much more specific in terms of the— the options for the treatment.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Phenomenal. Excellent. And then, I noticed, when people find out they have some type of critter of foreign uh— entity inside of their— their digestive tract, they want to knock it out right away. And I find so many people, they’re going after gut issues, but they haven’t had the foundational things in alignment. They haven’t had the— the hormonal uhm— support, the nutrient support and the anti-inflammatory support on-board. Then, they go after these critters. They start feeling worse. Can you talk about how you sequence care or treatment when you go after these gut bugs, especially Candida?
Evan Brand: Yep. Well said. And uh— first, I just want to give credit where credit’s due. You know— I thank—I thank you so much for all the mentorship that you’d given me over the last several years because a lot of this education, I had to learn the hard way. And that was by you helping me to create my own protocols to work on myself.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm— Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: And then, I took that knowledge that you’ve taught me and put it into my clients. So…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great.
Evan Brand: Just want to— to pause and say, “Hey, look. You’re the man. Uh— Thank you.” And regarding the— the level of care that you’re providing and the order of care that you’re providing, that’s huge. If you go to a quote/unquote “gut expert,” they may just focus on just the gut. If you go to just a Lyme disease expert, you’re gonna get diagnosed with Lyme and every issue that you have is related to Lyme.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent.
Evan Brand: Headaches? It’s Lyme. Fatigue? It’s Lyme. Joint pain? It’s Lyme. And it may not be. It may be Rheumatoid arthritis caused from a Prevotella infection, which is an autoimmune trigger that we see, or a Proteus mirabilis infection, which is a bacteria that we see, for example, in Rheumatoid arthritis patients. You can look at the research on this. Seventy-five percent of people with new Onset Rheumatoid arthritis have a Prevotella Infection, which is an autoimmune trigger that you and I see on Stool test every single…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Also—
Evan Brand: …week.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Also, the Mycoplasma infection, too.
Evan Brand: Yeah, Mycoplasma, which my wife had, and…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: …she had bad joint pain from. So, long story short—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And when we knocked the Mycoplasma out, what happened to her joint pain?
Evan Brand: Her joint pain’s gone.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Gone. That’s it.
Evan Brand: See, she’s so much better. So, he point I was getting at here is that— you know— you and I, what we do is— is kind of like a specialty in it’s own. Right? Like, functional medicine and the type of functional medicine that we’re creating and using with our clients is very, very specialized, but at the same time, we’re generalist in the sense that we’re not gonna say everything is Lyme. We’re not gonna say everything’s your gut. We’re not gonna say everything is the thyroid, if you’re a thyroid expert. Or, if you’re an adrenal expert, [clears throat] we’re not gonna say everything’s adrenals. We have to look at all of it, and that’s something that uh— I— you know— I really credit to you teaching me that, because if you go too hard into a gut protocol, what happens is you start to get more fatigued. You may have die-off reactions, or Herxheimer reactions, which in my opinion, like the longer I do this I’m starting to believe that Herxheimer’s are— are like a myth. Or, not a myth, but that it shouldn’t happen. Like, if you design a good protocol, which would involve supporting the adrenals, sometimes we have to support the adrenals for a month before we even go into the gut protocol. If that person is too weak, the last thing you want to do is start a war. Like, I mean—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: Uh— Uh— You know—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.
Evan Brand: You have— You have such great analogy so let me try to— to mock your skills with this.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand: You know— If we’re going into the Civil war and we’ve got— you know— 50 guys on the Confederate side, and we’ve got— you know— 5,000 guys on the North, that’s— that’s a not— That— That’s a— That’s uh— If you’re the Confederates, you’ve got a bad chance of winning if you’ve only got 50 guys left and then the North has 5,000. Like, you’re toast. And so, why would you want to go into battle against those guys until you’ve built up your reserves. So, in this analogy, building up your adrenals are the reserves. You’ve got to have the adrenals, the backup generators for your energy production to come in and rebuild your army. So then, you can go into battle when it’s a more fair battle. Once the army’s strong, once the adrenals are on-board, and we’re supporting that with the use of adaptogenic herbs, things like Ashwagandha. I’m a huge fan of Albizia bark, which comes from the…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: …Mimosa tree. Uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh!
Evan Brand: Yeah, I love it. Motherwort.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …came from Mimosa? Oh, that’s cool to know.
Evan Brand: Yeah. Uh— Motherwort is been a huge favorite for me. Blue Vervain has been something I’ve been using a lot the last couple months. And, then of course, our standards that many people talk about— Reishi mushroom, Cordyceps mushroom, Rhodiola can be great. Be careful if you’re Bipolar Manic depressive. Rhodiola can exacerbate it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay. Good to know.
Evan Brand: Uhm— Schisandra— Love Schisandra berry extract. There’s also— Oh, God! What else could I mention? Eleuthera, which is Siberian Ginseng. Licorice, I use not too commonly because a lot of people have blood pressure issues and Licorice, long-term, could elevate that just a bit. I play with Licorice, but for me, it’s personally too stimulating so I don’t use much of it.I focus more on the— the other herbs. And you know— especially because so many people on our society are fatigued, but they’re tired and wired and they have anxiety. So, that’s why I generally start with the more calming things, like the Albizia, the Sisyphus, which is a seed. [crosstalk] Sisyphus seed is very cool.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s what I’m gonna say.
Evan Brand: Yeah, ain’t it?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: —this. Right.
Evan Brand: Uhm— M— Motherwort, which is cool, and— and then the Ashwagandha, which I do pretty much
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh. Right there. Ashwagandha, baby. Love it.
Evan Brand: Good. Kailash is like, “Evan, you’re cheating, you know, because you’re just taking the adaptogens.” And— And then, I said, “Well, I’ve got a little baby at home.” And he goes, “Oh, okay. Well, that’s just special circumstance. You deserve the adaptogens.” I was like, “Okay, good.” Uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [crosstalk] I think the adaptogens are great. There’s a lot of long-term research on that. You know, Dr. Stephen Buhner talks about Ashwagandha’s being one of those adaptogens that you can take long-term, which is great. I love that.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And it’ funny though ‘cause he called me out, and he’s like, “Evan, you’re just using that as a crutch so that you can work five days a week when you should only be working three days a week, you know.” Uh— So, that was funny. And— And I agree, but you and I, we love the hustle. We love the grind. We love helping people. So, uh— I’m so driven that I used the adaptogens to help keep me going. And, I do have a baby at home, and she wakes us up at night. And my sleep pattern, my Circadian rhythm is not perfect. So, I use the adaptogens in that manner. But, back to the story of Candida, adrenal support always should be on-board because it is a stress. Now, it’s a good stress, but still stress to kill off these gun infections. So, that’s why adrenals need to be on-board. And then, we spoke about the liver support too. So, if we were kind of piecing something together, like step one-two-three, or maybe options one-two-three, A-B-C, that should be in— in place, I would say, adrenals is at the top…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: …and secondly is the gut support. And then, usually, the gut support has liver support added. And then…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: …inside of that, we could also talk about some Mitochondrial support.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: If we see that there’s Mitochondrial dysfunction, we could do Creatine, Ribose, Carnitine, CoQ10…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: …PQQ, other nutrients to fuel Mitochondria…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.
Evan Brand: …so the energy levels can hurry up. Now, if you support adrenals, you support liver, you’re giving like N-Acetylcysteine, Milk Thistle kind of take in the load off the liver, you can start producing more Glutathione from your liver on your own to help detox improve, but we may need to throw an extra detox support. So, you and I talked a lot about the binders, like the— the clays, the charcoals, the stuff like that to help pull stuff out. We’ll go back to the war analogy. If you’ve got the— the field— And I think Kailash use the same analogy, but something along the lines of if the— if the battlefield is full of all these dead bodies, all these dead bugs, but you don’t support the liver and the gallbladder to get the— the dead bodies out of the field, you become overburdened. So, it’s kind of like, maybe if you had a water hose but the golf ball was stuck at the end of the hose, and then you turned on the hose, which is you killing all the bugs and trying to flush them out, but the detox and drainage pathways are— are toast and they’re not open at the— at the end of the hose, it’s not gonna work. And then, you start like feeling worse. And then, your practitioner says, “Oh. Herxheimer reaction is good. You’re getting better. Keep pushing forward.” It’s like, “No, no, no. I disagree.” I think that means something’s overburdened. You’re too weak. You’re creating too many toxins. You can’t keep up. You need sauna, or you need an Epsom Salt Bath. Or, you need something, or you need to take less herbs, or less intensity, or you need to shorten the duration of the herbs. If your body is screaming at you, saying, “No, no, no, no, no,” don’t keep pushing forward. That’s silly. That’s like being on the train of going across the bridge and then the track like disappears. You know— It’s like…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A hundred percent.
Evan Brand: I want to make sure.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, 100%. And, just to kind of echo a couple of things that you just said. Number one, if we have a lot of infectious debris inside of our gut that we’re killing off, that could easily overwhelm our body. So, if we sequence care the right way, with the adrenals and all the diet stuff first, that’s gonna reduce inflammation. And when cell— When you you have less inflammation, cells don’t stick together as much. They don’t uh— glutinate, so they can move in the Lymphatic system better, and move out your body. And think of the Lymphatic system as— It’s the interplay between the blood and the tissue so, as things die, we kind of have to get them into the— you know— if we— they go into the blood. They go into the Lymph. And, ideally we excrete them out, whether it’s stool or in our— you know— typically Stool or in our Urine. So, we have to make sure those pathways are moving but the more inflamed we are, the more the cells stick together, and they glutinate and become really stagnant and sludgy, and that increases stress on our detoxification pathways. And the longer those toxins are there, it stresses out our immune system. So, one of the things I wanted to highlight in them will go back to treatment issues. There’s a lot of patients, they come in there and they kill things out too fast or too hard. So, my instructions to patients is, “Go taper it up. If you have a lot of die-off issues,” and a lot of times it’s gonna be Fatigue, Malaise, Achy Joints, Headaches, or just an intensification of the symptoms you already currently have. You either, number one, slow down, decrease the dose, take the herbs with food. If it’s really bad, we do a supplement holiday for half a week to a week, add it back in. Throw some ginger and binders in. And, I always just tell patients, “Make sure you can tolerate.” If there’s a tiny bit of die-off and it’s not affecting your life, fine. But if not, you got to follow that die-off reaction protocol to calibrate the dosage and add in more binding support. What are your thoughts on that?
Evan Brand: Yeah. I think it’s excellent. And, so many people that we work with, they’ve already been to 20 practitioners before they get to us. So, generally speaking, they’re pretty sick. So, you and kind of have to tiptoe sometimes with people, and that’s fine. It takes a little bit of work. It takes extra brain power for us to tiptoe and handhold these clients, but look. If you’re listening to this, I’m guessing you’ve already done something and it hasn’t worked, which is why you’re here listening to us. And, you know, between the two of us, we’ve worked with thousands and thousands of people at this point. So many that we’ve lost count. And what I’m finding is that people are— are sicker and sicker, that are coming to us and we have to— we have to babystep this. And for me, I’m pretty sensitive, so if somebody tells you, “Take four capsules of something,” that’s the full dose, I’m gonna start with one. And, I’m gonna stick with one capsule for a few days, and then maybe on day three or four, you bump up to two capsules. And you stick with that for a few days, and then you go up to three.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: And then, maybe two weeks later, now you’re at the full therapeutic dose. I tell people that— I say, “Look. You’re not gonna get a trophy if you get to the full dose right away.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right.
Evan Brand: You’re not gonna win. You— You’re not gonna…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent.
Evan Brand: I’m not sending you anything in the mail. I’m not sending you any Gold bars or Silver bars because—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand: …because you got to full-dose on day three. Like, “Look. Take your time. Start with the adrenals. Get yourself feeling strong. Get your sleep dialed in. Make sure you’re going to bed. If you’re listening to this at 2:00 A.M., shut down the computer. Get off your phone, and go to bed. Come back and listen to this in the morning.” Like, you’ve go to have sleep dialed in. I don’t care how many adaptogenic herbs you take. If your sleep is crap, it’s gonna be tough to heal. There’s a lot of detox and other things going on in the middle of the night that you just can’t do if you’re— if you’re up all night and you’re overworking. So, if you’re working 70 hours a week, you’ve got to fix that first. I talked to a guy yesterday, who’s a Real Estate Salesman, and he’s been fatigued for ten years. His wife was on speaker phone with us so it was kind of like a three-way conversation.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm— Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: And uh— And— And she says— you know, “He comes home. He eats dinner at 6:00, and then he’s passed out on the couch at 6:30.” And— And she goes, “And it’s not a light sleep.” She goes, “This full sleeping for three hours, and then he gets up at, you know, 9:00 or 10:00 o’clock. And he crawls into bed.” I said, “Oh, man.” You know, “How long is this thing going on for?” And she says, “Ten years.” This guy’s been working 75 hours a week for a decade. I said, “Man, when’s the last time you took a vacation?” He goes, “I have no idea.” And then we— you know— talked about sex drive. Of course, sex drive is gone, which usually happens with gut issues, but with that amount of stress. I’m like, “So, do you guys— you know— Do you have a relationship? You know, sexual relationship?” He’s like, “Once in a blue moon.” And of course, they’re both not happy about that. I’m like…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: “Why don’t you guys just schedule a two or three-day weekend away somewhere? Why don’t you guys take a trip somewhere and try to get that spark back in your life?” And then, “Look, man. Why don’t you hire a couple admins to help take off some of the load? Like, you’re doing all these paperwork and stuff. Surely, you can— You can offload some of this to somebody so you can do only the expert task.” And he’s like, “Oh! What a great idea!”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: And also like, this is the more practical stuff that I think people need to consider when they’re working on this protocol because everyone’s busy. And, if you’re so busy, you can’t heal. And, that’s why I’m taking the entire month of June off. By the time people are listening to this talk, this is gonna be in July, and maybe you and I’ll— uh— we’ll chat and you’ll say, “Evan, you’re crazy. Maybe you only need two weeks,” and I may come back on the clock. But, the goal is at least a few weeks off, just because I want to try a full reset and see. “Okay. If I’m fully disconnected from the emails and— you know— the client care, what does that do for me?” So uh— So, I’m gonna try it. So, long story short, if you have stress, you have relationship issues, you’re working too much,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. I love it. And anyone listening to this, make sure you subscribe right now. Go over to candidasummit.com, C-A-N-D-I-D-A-S-U-M-M-I-T. We’ll put the link below. We’ll put some annotations on screen here. Make sure you subscribe because this is gonna be one interview out of 30, and I’m— I’m so pleased that
Evan Brand: Agreed. I know. I feel like you and I could chat for three hours but we said we probably want to make it short and sweet, because then we give too much information and people have no clear action steps. So, I just— L— Look. here’s the deal, too, for people listening. We spoke about this on— on Dr. J’s interview on the Candida Summit as well. If you like what you hear, our interaction or rapport that we have together, our conversational tone. We make functional medicine fun. That’s like our tagline. McDonald says like, “Billions and billions served.” You know, open a box of happy or whatever, something crazy. Anyway…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand:
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s phenomenal info, and I appreciate the— the flattery. That is very kind, and flattery will always get you everywhere with me, Evan. Just so you know.
Evan Brand: Uh! [laughs]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand: Well, hey look. I got— I got to keep it real, you know. And,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, you’re welcome. And anyone listening to the summit, make sure you go over to evanbrand.com, because this conversation doesn’t end just with the Candida Summit, and there’s a lot of other topics that we’ll get into down the road. And, I want to just kind of pivot here to some of the herbs and the antimicrobials that you’re using. I know you kind of alluded to some earlier. I really want to lay it out, but I also want to put a caveat for listeners. It’s really easy to be like, “I got this bug. Let me just hit these herbs.” we kind of already gave you some caveats earlier, but just kind of remember. It’s gonna be always better to have a complete program set up, especially if there’s already hormonal stressors or detox stressors or
Evan Brand: Cool. Yeah. So,
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Mm—
Evan Brand: This is Pau D’arco, which is…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hm—
Evan Brand: …a bark. Many people can drink
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Tea, yeah.
Evan Brand: That’s great, but it’s not gonna work as good as a supplement extract. Thyme leaf is in there, French Tarragon leaf, Horsetail herb, and a few others. And this is kind of our antimicrobial/antifungal, because Olive leaf, not only does it help with blood sugar but it helps with viruses, and it helps with fungi. So, I use this protocol pfft— every single week. I told you before we got on the show. I said, “Man, can you believe the combination of herbs and how much stuff you can knock out across the board. So, if we’re talking parasites, bacteria, Candida, all at once, if I run the MicroBiome II and III, six capsules a day— two, two and two, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Of course, we’re doing the liver support, which is gonna be something like my Liver Synergy. If we’re doing an adrenal support, which there’s many variations of that, plus digestive enzymes. We’ve got a really, really heavy hitting 1-2-3-4 punch, and we’re gonna pretty much knock out all the bugs. And die-off reactions are gonna be pretty minimized because we’re supporting adrenals, we’re supporting liver. And then, the herbs that we’re using, they’re potent, but they’re not so potent that they’re gonna make you sick.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. I mean, phenomenal information. I mean, where can you get this much information in 45-minute uh— summit interview? So, all the listeners, give us a thumbs up. Give us a share right now. Give us
Evan Brand: Uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: …before we wrap up?
Evan Brand:
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: I— I doubt it. I doubt it. It’s always multifactorial. For me, it was adrenals. It was H. pylori. It was bacteria. It was Candida. It was a bad Circadian rhythm. It was working
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—
Evan Brand: It was excess stress. It was Gluten that was previously in my diet. It was dairy that was in my diet. It was bad relationships, maybe toxic emotions from certain people I was taking on. It was obligations that I had in my plate that I should have gotten rid of. Like, all that stuff was part of the protocol. So, if you just said, “Evan, it’s Candida,” it would have been wrong because it wasn’t. So, make sure you get a good functional medicine practitioner on your team. Get a good work up. If it’s Justin, awesome. If it’s me, awesome. If it’s somebody else and they still give you the same success rate as us, awesome. I don’t care who it is, but I want you to get better. And, we’re up against a lot. The healthcare system is collapsing on itself right now. But, I believe, with the functional medicine wave that we’re riding right now, I believe we can turn this tide around. And, it’s a— it’s a division of two systems. And I’m not saying, “Ditch mainstream medicine,” like if you— If you break your arm— Like I thought I broke my arm like a few weeks ago, please go get the X-ray and see if your arm’s broken or not…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand: …and then get help. But, thank goodness, I didn’t break my arm. Justin, help me. He was like, “We were— I was in the back of the car, driving to the— to the Urgent Care.” And Justin’s like, “Hey turn your hand this way. Move your hand this way. Hey, can you put your arm up?” He’s like, “Okay. I don’t think it’s broken, but get it checked out anyway.” So, uh— look. Still do that stuff, but once you found out that your arm is not broken, then you got to get back to the functional medicine world. Check out your Mitochondria. Check out your liver. Check out your gut. Check out your adrenals. Check out your thyroid. If you have autoimmune disease, take this stuff even more serious. Hashimoto’s, etc., Rheumatoid arthritis, if you’ve got Alopecia, if you’ve got Sjogren’s— I don’t care what you’ve got, autoimmune-wise. You’ve got to do the work. Because, you’re not gonna get a magic drug that’s gonna fix your autoimmune disease. You’ve got to address all of this stuff.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That is amazing. How does it feel to give the best summit interview in your own summit?
Evan Brand: Hey. Well…
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [laughs]
Evan Brand: …I think it was pretty good. Uh— It feels good. It feels good. Uh— I don’t ever want to be like an all-knowing guru. I just want to tell people, “Look. I figured out enough to help a lot of people. I don’t know everything. I never will. But, I’ve learned enough to significantly move the needle.” And I’m happy with that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I think one of the nice things that we’ve kind of— we got a pretty good tag team going, where we kind of feed off of each other, which is great. You help push me up. I help push you up. In the— In the interview and the content delivery process, and that’s— that’s awesome. It creates momentum, and that momentum— You know, the listeners get the benefit from that so we’re really excited.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I get emails every week. Man, when you and Justin get together, it’s the best. So— I mean, you and I kind of joke. It’s like, “Okay. Let’s just never interview anybody else, except each other, because we have so much fun together.” But then, we may become stagnant. So, we still interview and have a lot of good conversations with other practitioners. But, yeah. Uh—
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You’re so welcome, Evan. candidasummit.com, subscribe and get all 30 listeners. I’ll be speaking in that as well at evanbrand.com. Available for consultations worldwide. And again, if you’re on the fence and you’re trying to figure out if you’re a good fit, there are also some introductory consults there, where you can get screened and see if you’re ready for the next step.
Evan Brand: [crosstalk] Yeah. Justin, tell people about uh— you, as well, how people can keep up with you, study you, study your work, etc.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, yeah. Got to uh— justinhealth.com, J-U-S-T-I-N-H-E-A-L-T-H dot(.) com. You’ll see my podcast link there. Subscribe my YouTube links. Subscribe. Get on my newsletters so you get all these information right at your fingertips. And if you need to reach out to me, if Evan’s a better fit for you, personality-wise, go with Evan, or go with me if you feel like you’re a better fit. See what’s best for you. The most important thing is it— it’s got to be in alignment with you and health and how it’s in that— you know— That— That way, you’re gonna be the most compliant. You’re gonna be on track. But either way, you can’t go wrong, and I’m so excited to be part of this and make sure everyone just shares it with someone so this information gets out there. Our goal is to help millions of people, and we cannot do it alone. Everyone listening plays a small part in that. We really appreciate the listeners. So, thanks so much everyone and have a phenomenal day.
Evan Brand: Take care.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.
References:
speak pipe
Rumble
Youtube
Apple
LIBSYN
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