Environmental Toxins: How To Eliminate the Silent Killers with Dr. Joseph Pizzorno

Mark Hyman, MD

Full Transcript

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Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
A third area now that's huge problem after the toxins is they damage their DNA. So when when you look at the research on the correlation between a by law of a particular toxin and a particular disease we're looking at, it can do it according to age. You don't see very many correlations. You talk about the age of 50.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do scale. And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand. Well, you, if you're looking for data about your bio, checkout function health for real time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your health journey, well, check out my membership community, doctor hyman Plus, And if you're looking for curated trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my website doctor hyman.com for my website store and a summary of favorite and thoroughly tested products. Welcome to The Doctor's Farmacy.

I'm Doctor Mark Hyman. That's Farmacy will have a place for conversations that match And if you've wondered how environmental toxins play a role in our health and what you can do about them, I know you're gonna love this podcast because it's with 1 of the experts on this topic Doctor Joe Pizorno. He's a mentor of mine. He's a transformational leader in medicine. He has been instrumental in the development of functional medicine and has worked over half a century in this field.

Establishing the protocols and advancing the academic, scientific, and clinical path for natural functional, integrated medicine, and environmental medicine. He was the founding president of Bachelor University, which is a naturopathic college in 1978, and he coined the term science based natural medicine. He's just a legend. His textbook of natural with over 100, 000 copies in 4 languages across 5 editions is a game changer. I use that a lot to learn, but I know he's coauthored.

Or authored 6 textbooks for doctors and is also written a textbook called clinical environmental medicine. He's the editor in chief of the PubMed Index. I am CJ, which is the most widely read peer reviewed journal in the field. He's a founding member of the board of directors of the Institute for Functional Medicine, where he served as chair And he's a licensed naturopathic physician, educator, researcher, and spokesperson, and the author of many books. So doctor Joe Pazora and I have worked together for years, and and he's always been interested in the role of environmental toxins in our health since 1960 years.

So when Carson wrote her book, silent spring, we began to understand the role of these toxic chemicals in our health. But doctor persona goes way deep this and helps us understand the ubiquitous nature of these compounds, how they affect our health, both petrochemical compounds, heavy metal compounds, what they do to our bodies and how to start to think about addressing these and improving our body's ability to detoxify them and reducing our exposures. So If you're living in the 20% tree and you're exposed to environmental toxins, which means all of us, definitely you need to listen this podcast with Joe Pisorno. So Let's dive in.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Welcome, Joe, to the Doctor Sorenson podcast. You know, Joe, we've known each other for the better part of 3 decades.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Oh, that's nice.

Dr. Mark Hyman
We've worked together at the Institute of Functional Medicine on the board for decades now

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes, ma'am.

Dr. Mark Hyman
On the founding board. And, you know, you've been someone I've learned so much from and relied on to actually learn functional medicine.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Wow.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And, your textbook of natural medicine was my go to jive for learning about this as I kind of evolved into becoming a functional medicine doctor. And I also, you know, you know, cyclopedia for natural medicine was sort of a consumer version of that text book that helps so many people navigate the world of natural medicine. Those don't know, Joe. I know you've heard the introduction, but, you know, he's an icon in the field natural medicine, integrated with functional medicine. He's basically, I would say, infuse the DNA of what functional medicine is with naturopathic principles which was sort of an early version, I would say, what functional medicine was.

And we started best university. He's, you know, he's been just such AAA inspiration for man I think without him, I don't think this field would be where it is today. And maybe I haven't heard of him because he's not out there as much in the public eye, but he's done so much hard work, so much deep research so much deep science about about the things that are really plaguing us. And, you know, what really is is that impressive when you for me, for the last few years and your work has been the focus on environmental toxins.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Fixed. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And it's something that we talk about a lot in, in in the space we're in. It's certainly not something we learned about at all in meta school other than, you know, acute poisoning. And, it wasn't really considered part of our our toolkit to look at toxin exposure, the role of toxins in our health, the the way of diagnosing toxic load, the way of treating toxicity, the whole idea of detoxification was considered clackery, but it's actually central to everything we do. And I think You know, this is not a new topic. I mean, Rachel Carson, 60 years ago, more, I think, more than 6 years ago, wrote her book, silent spring, And she sounded a warning that used to these man made chemicals, we now call them forever chemicals, are destroying the biosphere, are destroying ourselves, And, you know, in 2024, we really haven't listened to her.

We have actually poisoned ourselves in ways that I don't think she even could have imagined. And I think, we see sort of exponential growth of chemicals. I don't know. I think the European chemicals agency that said there's more 144, 000 man made chemicals in resistance. The department of, helped in the US estimates that 2000 new chemicals are being released every year, and we're not really tested.

The WHO estimates 12, 000, 000 people die every year from diseases caused by air water, soil pollution, chemical exposures, climate change and ultraviolet radiation, all of which result in human activity. I mean, I don't it's just staggering to me when you think about Yeah. Because the global burden of disease studies said that there were 11, 000, 000 people dying from bad food. So if trouble me and as far as dying from toxins, that's maybe the biggest killer. Right?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And it's something we don't really talk about. So how did how did you, how did you come to understand that toxins were so central to human health? That, and disease. And how and how did you sort of understand that we need to look at the toxic load of every single patient we see with the chronic illness?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So let me Actually, quote 1 of our teachers, Doctor Sid Baker.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
It was a, is a, a medical doctor who might consider 1 of the most brilliant, physicians in medicine. And he said at 1 of our I FM conferences, and by the way, a lot of the intellectual, foundation of functional medicine came from Doctor Sid Baker.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. But

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
we owe we owe him a lot. He said something went at a lecture that I thought was just perfect. He said, you know, all medicine is really quite simple. Get into each person what they uniquely need and get out of each person what they uniquely do not need.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And get rid of the bad stuff. Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So Yeah. I said, no. I've been in medicine now for over half a century. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I've been

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
in this for a long time. And so as I look back and see, well, what really helped people? And, for the majority of my practice up until about 15 years ago, I mainly did nutritional medicine. And I helped a lot of people. Yeah.

But as I started doing environmental medicine, I was realizing I was helping weigh more people because the body has tremendous ability to heal, we just give it a chance. But what we've done is replace our bodies with metals and chemicals, so that the body can't function properly. Yeah. Even there's Aqua Mountain nutrients there, it's been blocked by poisons in the environment. It's not gonna get better.

Yeah. We now suffer the highest burden of chronic disease in every age group ever in human history.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Why? Every age group.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Every age group.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's what's staggering. Ever. Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
In the past conventional message, they would say, well, yeah, people are getting sicker, but because they're getting older. That's true. So they're older.

Dr. Mark Hyman
This is now in such young age groups that we never saw before.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Never. Never it before. So and then, about 15 years ago, 1 of the wealthiest men in Canada, sent his personal leer jet down to Seattle to pick me up and fly me to Calgary Alberta. And he said, I want to improve the health of my oilfield worker And I said, well, I'm happy to do that, but, you know, while I'm a true believer in natural medicine, I'm also very objective and very scientific oriented. So I wanna measure people's bi load of toxins, measure nutritional status, and measure physiological function, see what's going on, how much can I spend?

He looked at me and said blank check. If you can convince me this test is going to help improve my employees, I will pay for it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
For 15 years ago, I did the equivalent of that time, $1500 of lab tests on 4500 oilfield workers

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow. That's a lot. Testing.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So I tested nutrition, and I was telling nutrition, the 4500 people, 400, and that's a 4450 of them had at least 1 nutritional deficiency. Yeah. Only 50 of them did not have at least 1. But right there, we have something to do.

Dr. Mark Hyman
90 plus percent.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
99%. So then I looked at how about environmental toxins? For more in a minute, I was seeing a lot of toxins. So as they started intervening with people, well, they were happy to get the nutrients When we got the toxins out of the bodies, I'll send dramatic improvements. Matter of fact, summer's so dramatic.

Actually, I actually brought a case history. I wonder if it gets so so significantly. So then I start looking to the research. I start realizing stunning things like that both of them don't realize, including doctors, 1 out of 3 people in North America, that for arsenic levels in their body, high enough to cause disease.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
1 out of 3. Yeah. How's that correlate too? 1 out of 4 cancers is due to arsenic. 1 out of 5 heartache death is due to arsenic.

So, diabetes, about 15%. Strokes about 15%. So just 1 toxin that's so prevalent, it's causing all these diseases. What if instead of spending all this money on medical intervention after diseases started. WAF is simply started decreasing people's wire load of arsenic.

Think of what happened if all those heart attacks and all that cancer didn't happen because they weren't full of arsenic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Right.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So I started looking at toxin after toxin lead. Do people realize that today, 1 out of 3 fatal heart caps is due to lead?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. That was a shocking, you know, years ago. Right? And he was in an American Journal of Cardiology. I think it was his paper that looked at the med levels and correlated them when party vascular disease and endpoints.

And it was it was shocking because the normal reference ratio was bad. It used to be, like, 40, and then it was 20. And then now it's 10. And and levels over 2

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Were correlated with a higher risk for stroke, heart attacks, and death than cholesterol abnormalities.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And 39% of the population have levels over 2. Yes. Which is distracting. And it's not something you've checked when you go to your cardiologist.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So I wrote an editorial, and and I'm CJ my journal, Integrated Medicine at Cleanersi Journal. It's in PAVmed. I wrote an editorial that we should be changing the standard screening instead of screening for cholesterol, why don't we screen from lead and arsenic? Because will have way better impact on people's health dealing with those than deal with pluses.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So let's let's kind of back up a little bit and talk about, the toxins that are most prevalent, we should be concerned about. But I wanna talk about, like, what do toxins do in the body that cause disease? And how does it cross the spectrum from everything from mood disorders to autoimmune disease, to dementia, to part of your vascular disease, to obesity, to autism. I mean, I the list goes on or not. Yeah.

So at every level of of illness, from this birth to death, Fox and Seagram play a role. Yes. And it's not that, like, the cause of everybody who has diabetes or Alzheimer's or autism. But, you know, in functional medicine, we think about the root causes and how 1 cause can create many diseases and 1 disease can have many causes. So just because you know the name of disease, you don't know what's wrong with you.

Right? You have to know what the cause is. But in in the case of toxins, how how did toxins actually interact with our biology cause such problems?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. That is actually that's that's a really good question. Kind of breaking to 3 cargoids. Carrying to remember 1 is while we had paid attention to individual toxins and know a lot about the disease caused individual toxins, Number 1 priority is total by load of toxins. How much arsenic do you have?

How much lent do you have? How much mosquitoes do you have? Families do you have at Cheddar? Because what happens is all the toxins cause oxidized stress and deplete glutathione from the body. Glutathione is the most important antioxidant in our body, but more importantly, it's the key way we protect on mitochondria.

And the longest living people with the least disease at the highest level to glutathione.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. That's right. If

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
you quit glutathione, your mitochondria died and you die sooner and have more disease. Yeah. Okay. So you got Deepgram's toll load. Then we look at, okay, so now what do the toxins do individually?

So they can range from is where classically the main problem with toxins is they've displaced nutrients from the body. So for example, any enzymes that depends upon calcium in the body they have high levels of lead, it displaces the calcium from the enzyme so they don't work properly. So they basically deploys in enzymes. Why is that important? Body are Ensign machines.

But buys enzyme machines. Ensign's not working. On the machine's not working, and then we get sick. Yep. That's number 1.

Direct pointing of the enzymes by the topic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And this is to emphasize that for a minute. Ensigns, you know, are are such a huge part of our biology that 1 third of our DNA coats for enzymes. 1 third of our entire genome is coding for enzymes that catalyze metabolic reactions in the body, and all of those have to be functioning for us to be healthy. It's like the metabolic machinery in it, it has to run everything. And if toxins bind to those enzymes in a way, It blocks their function, leading to faulty biology, which leads to disease.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes. Exactly. What very well said, Mark. Exactly. That's what happens.

And going on with what you said about DNA in the secondary or third area now, that's huge problem after the toxins is they damage our DNA. So when we look at the research on the correlation between the viral of a particular toxin and a particular disease we're looking at, if you do it according to age, you don't see very many correlations. You talk about the age of 50. There's nothing to about the age of 50, our body is pretty able to adapt to the damage to the from the top turn and work around it. When we hit about age 50, there's 2 big things that happen.

Number 1 is our by load of persistent toxins has now become much, much higher. So these are toxins that take so long to get out of our body. We can't get rid of them.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So PCBs, for example, if you go to a restaurant and eat farm fish, some of the PCBs and the farm fish have a half life ranging from 10 to 20 years. It takes 4 half lives to get rid of the toxins. If you go and eat that farm fish, and some of those toxins will be nearby for rest of your life. So what happens Unless

Dr. Mark Hyman
I lift it 200, then I'll get rid of them. Please.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
There you go. Right. Yeah. You have to lift it past a 100 to get rid of them. Okay.

So then, so what's happening is the Bible is going up. But now is the Bible going up. We've cumulatively damaged our DNA so our ability to respond to them and and adapt to them has now become limited. And now all of a sudden, all the disease correlates to start showing up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So total load damage to enzymes and damage DNA. But there's more effects. Right? There's Oh,

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
many more facts.

Dr. Mark Hyman
The immunotoxicity, which is leading quality inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Right? Your mitochondrial injury includes the poisoning of our energy metabolism. So so there's damage to our gut lining that happens because of toxins that damage our enzymes in our gut to make our gut not be

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
the ones.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yes. Every level of our biology, if there are endocrine disruptors, a group of our hormonal functions. So like every level of our biology, these compounds are are interfering with them. And, you know, III think, you know, the story, but And the reason I got into functional medicine was I was living in China and long story short, I got poisoned with Mercury from the pollution there, cleaning on air filter, plus I'd eaten tuna fish for next year as a kid, and I had lots of fillings. And I had the level on a challenge test of 100 and 7, which is that for those who don't know, like, if I see someone over 20, I get worried.

I rarely see anybody over a 100. I don't remember the last time it was I've had a couple of people who had higher levels at me. 1 was a dementia patient, and but, you know, I I literally had every system on my body break down. My gut broke down. My cognitive brain broke down.

My immune system broke down. I felt allergies. Everything broke down. And and I developed a ton of cleaves syndrome, and and no 1 could fix me. Went to doctor for doctor for years until, actually, I went to the conference where I first met you in Hawaii, and, an IFEM conference, like, in 97, I've been involved.

And I was on a plane where the guy was a naturopath, and I was telling him, I just learned about functional medicine. I was going to my first conference, and I learned about this this this natural host hunting. Well, gee, maybe you should check your heavy metals. I'm like, what? Really?

So I did

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
a hair analysis. I had

Dr. Mark Hyman
a high levels. I'm gonna do the a challenge test, and that was the beginning of my exploration of functional medicine. So I learned it the hard way. I learned it the hard way, and and I, you know, and I find this as well in my patients. So many patients are, you know, coming with these diagnoses.

I'm underlying it is because it's toxic load. So, it let's talk about the kind of big categories of toxins.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
You mentioned a lot of heavy stuff. Immune system. Okay. So the immune system is very, very successful to bind all toxins. So I looked so I just gave, you know, I just gave a lecture on PFAS is the perfluorinated compounds.

And so I was looking

Dr. Mark Hyman
at that. Forever chemicals that are primarily from. Where do

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
you get him from? Worst Place fast food.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Fast food.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Popcorn fast food, or worst by far.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I I microwave popular. Microwave pop Okay. So if you said regular popcorn, I don't know how to see it.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Regular popcorn's fine. So microwave popcorn is problematic. Okay. Well, I was, looking at this, I was looking at co I thought, look at COVID and p fastest and looked at people who had either no COVID or mild case compared to you by the severe adverseness of COVID. Once that's a rear version, that 50 to a 100% higher levels for key passage in their body compared to those who do not get that cold.

Wow. So I just just a simple thing like that. Enough damage from your system couldn't get rid of the coronavirus fast enough. Now you got problems.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Immuno toxicity is a real deal. You know, I had, a patient who had, for example, like, pro disease and got everything, and turnout shed really, really high blood levels. You can be Cox or her wet, and she got better I see this over and over in my career. You know, the the the the some of the chemicals other than metals, which we can test for.

A blood test, and we do that at function health where people can get their blood test. But, also, we do it through, you know, traditional sort of a challenge testing, which is you take a chelator and it binds the metals, and you can see what's going on. And and it's the test is really not done in traditional medicine. It's the test that I do anybody who's got a chronic illness because I have to roll it out. And often, I'm surprised I had a guy, for example, who had long COVID just mentioned, and, I was kinda shocked.

Like, he had his mercury was, like, 93. This challenge was really high. His blood level was 18. And he was threatening the long comment and gut issues. And I'm like, well, this is what's going on.

Right? Exactly. And so I think it's it's it's anywhere every start looking and start seeing it. And I think There's a whole swath of other compounds that are I would call them in a petrochemical sphere that are that are synthesized compounds. That are are problematic.

So what are the top compounds that are are concerning to you that that were exposed to on a regular basis? And and and where where are they found and how do we avoid them?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. Again, another excellent question. So when I look at the toxins, you know, the easy way to think about companies, metals versus chemicals. So we're looking at metals, arsenic, ladd, mercury, caveman. The 4 big ones substantial pores of population have elevated levels that cause a lot of disease.

When we're looking at the chemicals, we have perfluorinase, the p p fasts of the forever chemicals. We've got the, biz females. So people think, oh, BPA is bad. We get plastic. That's BPA 3.

Well, guess what? They put other disphenals in are just as bad. Salites, along the health and beauty aids, have phthalates in them.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Those games like sunblock or makeups.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. Sunblock makeup things like this. A lot of phthalates. But why is that problematic? Validates, bind to insulin receptor sites and get people diabetes.

Okay. So, there are so many chemicals I've been systematically working my way through. But so far, in terms of chemicals, these are the 3 I'm paying the most attention to.

Dr. Mark Hyman
BP is

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
VPA and TELx. TELx. Yeah. It's just so much research. I'm not saying there aren't other problematic chemicals, but these 3 binding cells cost so much as There's

Dr. Mark Hyman
only a 144, 000 other chemicals.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
You want the 12, 000 of these forever chemicals. Yeah. There's 1 category 12, 000 chemical. I think

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think that's the thing that, you know, somebody is is daunting for people because, like, we're living in the sea of these chemicals.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
The the, you know, the newborn study for the environmental group did show there were 280 7 chemicals in the umbilical Ford of a brand new baby before Neiman took his first breath, and 217 of those chemicals were neurotoxes. Everything from flaming tardas, pesticides, beach, gyoxet, PCVs, you know, DDT, things that were banned have been banned before, at long, before, decades before these kids were born, were in their mothers, when they're in the environment, and they're getting these babies. So when you're born pre polluted,

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
now we're getting to the next next set of toxins and that is the herbicides and the pesticides.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Agrochemical.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. And, industrial chemicals for agriculture. So let's look at just 1 category, organophosphat pesticides. Okay? If you measure the bi load of pregnant women in measured blood level, we're gonna phosphate pesticides.

And you compare look at the IQ children born to women with top level of organophosphoric pesticides compared to when with the lowest level of organophosphoric pesticides, and you are not statistically all the differences in weight and ethnicity, things of this nature. Just look at organophosphatide levels, highest levels, top 10% of women, 7 point drop in the accurate of the children, and they never get it back. So in utero, her body is being saturated with neurotoxins So is it any surprise the branch was not developed properly when exposed to neurotoxins? Yeah. So I'd said before that, I mean, folks on PFAS, history, and Olson, You gotta focus on on the pesticides, particularly organophosphoric pesticides are probably the worst of all of them, whether you've got chlorinated pesticides or problematic in many other categories.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's true. I mean, I think, I read a study that that was, based on part workers, children, migrant, farm workers, children. And they estimated that in the offspring of of that cohort, there were 41, 000, 000 lost IQ points in most children. And and, you know, I think they're everywhere.

Right? We're sort of living in a sea of them. We can't really completely avoid them. I'm on the board of environmental working group. And there's wonderful guys there on how to have them find products that are low or don't have these compounds skin deep.

Is there skin care database? They have what household products that, you can buy for cleaning that are not gonna pull it through the environment. There's ways you can choose food based on lower pesticide count and 30 dozen by 2015. And there's guys that want animal protein and fish who should leave and how to reduce your exposures. So there's a lot of ways to reduce your exposures.

But, you know, part of the problem is we really can't avoid them entirely. We're all, like, polluted. And and, I guess they were born people polluted. So from your perspective as a practitioner, you know, you can see this, and you can see the data, and it's kinda terrifying. If if toxins are causing all the diseases, what the heck can we do about it?

Because other than trying to reduce your exposures and stop eating fish and don't eat paint chips and, you know, filter your water and have an air filter in your house and don't lose these in here products and stuff. We're still not gonna be completely able to avoid them. So So how do we actually, start to think about this from a a practical point of view of of treating people? With environmental toxicity, and how do we diagnose them properly?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes. So there's actually some really good news here. Because there are some very simple things we can do that have huge impact on our toxicity. So first thing we wanna do is I'll talk to the army. I recommend that everybody get half of the doctor measure a laboratory test called ggTP.

So ggTP is a liver enzyme than the past was measured to determine the percent of hepatitis. It'll first ask information whenever they start leaking liver enzymes into a blood, and you measure the enzyme of the blood and say, ah, hepatitis. They stop needing some g 2 gene for hepatitis because other chest were found to be more reliable, the GTT was reacting to other things. So it turns out within the called normal range of 10 to 50 dependent on the lab, GGT goes up in proportion to toxic load. Yeah.

And after detoxify, GGT goes down. So I mentioned that corporalones program I did. So I mentioned my GTT then, and it was 27th. And I thought that was okay since I saw the research saying, Once it's 30, you have an eightfold increase risk of diabetes. Yeah.

Well, it's not concerning to go from 29, no risk or 30 more risks. So I thought, well, 27 is too high. So I started getting more and more careful. Start getting more careful. Went down a couple years later down to 24, then I measured a few years late a few years ago.

Went down to 17. I just measured it 2 months ago. I was down to 16. Yeah. So between a GTT between 15 and 20 means You've done a good job of getting rid of enough toxins that the body doesn't have to increase GTT.

Why does the body increase GTT? Because it recycles glutathione because glutathione protects us from toxins. Okay. If you're down to 15 to 20, He probably done a good job to get rid of toxins. And after below 15, it may not meet you have low toxic load, you may need to have a genetic inability to greece increase budeson to protect you from viral toxins.

So people I've seen with the biggest problems with viral toxins, have low GTTs. I call them the yellow canaries.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
They can't detect themselves. So right there, you have to monitor Now what's the next thing you just think about?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I don't wanna say anything about that test. That test is a really inexpensive, common test. It's not part typically of your annual physical. It's not part of your typical hepatic liver function test. You have to ask for it specifically.

It's called GVT. And I think it's something that that I've been measuring on every single patient for decades. I can be high with alcohol, like, liver disease. It can be high with fatty labor, from diabetes, from a lot of other things, but it it it's a it's a very important biomarker. And it as part of function help, which was the company I co founded, it's part of the standard panel you get for, you know, 100 500 bucks for a 100 and

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
10 by market,

Dr. Mark Hyman
but it's it's really important because of that.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Smart. Yep. Like, like, right on. Very, very slow test. So that way, you can monitor what's going on.

So we as as my teacher, Doctor Bastier, would say, don't kid yourself. You know, you can figure that living healthfully, but you might have this little thing you do here and all this this food you really love, you can't buy organic. Let me eat that anyway. You can find how many of your little, acceptance, how bad are they adding up? Okay.

The second thing to do is put forth device on natural detox system systems. Now we've spent millions of years evolving this since and we sabotage them. How do we sabotage them? A lot of the toxins are excreted from the liver into the gut where we'd expect to go out through the stools. But we evolved that system when we're consuming 150 100 to 150 grams of fiber a day.

Now we consume 15 to 20 grams of fiber a day. Yep. 89% lower, which means that Instead of going out through the schools, it just reabsorbed through interpack recirculation. So number 1, eat more fiber. Be more fiber and you'll buy and get rid of things more more effectively.

Number 2, only organic or grown foods. And number 3, from your kitchen, remove all the plastics, remove all the nonstick things, only use glass and ceramics. It's the only safe things I'm aware of.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Filching your water.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes. Okay. So what we do is we have a a carbon black filter right in the main coming to our house. To all the water, whether they're drinking it, whether they're taking a shower, is clean, and, on our air conditioning and the heating system in the house, We use what's called a Linux filter as rated at MERV16, MARV dash 16, And that will get rid of 99.9 percent of the toxins in the air in your house.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Very effective. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Very important to just kinda keep your home environment.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Maybe home environment. Let's push my most of

Dr. Mark Hyman
the time. Toxic materials. But I I think, you know, 1 of the things I wanna bring up is this whole idea of detoxification. And, you know, it was it was really from a perspective of a traditional doctor and the training I had. It was quackery.

Like, you know, our body is detox, whatever, but, like, there's no reason to think about improving detoxification. And and yet, when we deeply look at the science, of the biology of detoxification, which includes your breath, your skin, your hair, your your stool, your liver, your kidneys. It's a whole system. And it it requires the right, building blocks to actually function. It requires the right materials, and the pathways have to work.

And and it it's it's a really well worked out model, and yet we learn nothing about how to fix it, except when you're in the ER, and I was an ER doctor for many years. Someone comes in with a child overdose. We give them this drug, quote, drug called Neukermis, which smells horrible. It's not like rotten eggs. You make them drink it, which is like punishment for taking the towel and all over those and, and then you get a bunch of turquoise.

And and, essentially, when this compound does, is boost pedophile. It's antecedent cysteine, which is essentially a supplement. Yep. Right? And I was like, shock when I learned that later, but it it literally will rescue the liver from failure after a a big insult like a child overdose, which works by depleting legally found.

So, you know, we we kinda agree with it in traditional medicine. We just don't realize what we're doing. But I I think I think what I what let me talk about is sort of breakdown how do we optimize each of the types of detoxification systems we have? Because it's really about building in to your life, the automatic ways to up regulate the bioactivity toxification in your sister. And III do that every single day, now because I used to build it into my life because I know I'm not a great detoxifier.

I've checked my glutify on snips, and I have methylation snips. I have genetics that makes me more likely to accumulate toxins. Have to up regulate those pathways. What what what's your approach to sort of giving people guidance, all the way from, you know, diet to lifestyle to supplements? That actually help their biology do the thing that's supposed to do.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. Very, very well said. So number 1, and number 2 and number 3 are avoidance, avoidance avoidance. Don't let the stuff into your body. And everyday choices we make.

So for example, do you pump your own gasoline? The answer is probably yes. Do you smell the gasoline? We smell that gasoline that's benzene going into your body. You're smelling something that doesn't smell right.

Get away from it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So we need an n 95 filter.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. Right. And now if I flip around your nose. So anyway, a voice voice voice.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I hold my breath. It's great. I my breath, really. It's hard time the gassing is filling

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
your gut. Yes. It's challenging to help you. So I think I'll I'll say some specific thing to to do, but it's every time you have a choice, look at what the less toxic environment, lots the lower environmental toxin load choices that you can make. So stand up when when you're pumping the gas line.

When you're having to go out to eat in a restaurant, well, talk to the people at the restaurant and just when your favorite restaurant I'm getting a little far field here. Cook as much as your own food as you can. Okay? I just read a study on the way over here. Where it showed that for every meal a person eats out, get in the friendship between fast food and and regular restaurants, faster, it's worse.

Every time a person eats a meal out versus cooking food at home, they increase their blood levels of the Fresno chemicals by 1%. 1% per meal. Okay. So, choosing where you need your food is a way to start. Make us hear that food is organically grown.

If you are gonna go out, if you have a fair place to go out, me, with the owner, meet with the cooks and say, can you cook the potato food in ways that are less toxic, generally? And if you are gonna eat that, if you are gonna buy food that is from a grocery that has been prepared. It's coming to you in plastic or it's coming to you in lined, paper containers. Immediately put it into glass. She might say, well, it's been sitting there since it was made and sitting there in the grocery store.

So my electrician ad showed it's time dependent. Even though it's been going up as long as it's been in the grocery store, if you're leaving that container, we're still gonna keep going up. So at least you can stop it there. So plenty of things into glass containers. As said before, increased your consumption of fiber.

But it's also simple things like you take a multivitamin and mineral. The majority of the population is deficient in multiple nutrients. I mean, u US population, 99% of people are deficient in more and more nutrients. Yeah. Half are deficient in 5 or more.

So just right there, what are those nutrients needed for detox systems? So it's used again multi binding mineral. It does not have to be super high dosages, but it has to be a little bit of everything. Mark, I could keep keep talking and talking. No.

Dr. Mark Hyman
This is good. I wanna I wanna just kinda get the I cut it there because I think, you know, as you're talking, I I'm seeing literally like, all the biological pathways in my head and which nutrient does which thing. For example, like, you're mentioning a multivitamin, but you break that down. You're like, well, what does zinc do? Zinc actually increases an enzyme inside the cell cometalathionine is designed to get rid of heavy metals from the cell.

Or you take selenium, which you can get from food too, but, you know, that upgrade regulates glutathione peroxidase when she's enzyme that helps recycle and they call glutathione. We need, for example, a b vitamins. Goal a b 12v6 because it's important to move home methylation, which is a critical pathway that involved in detoxification, but also actually is needed for recycling would have found. You know, so I think about all the basic building blocks, the things that we need, And so I'm I'm always thinking with food. Like, what are the top foods that I could eat, upgrading these cocolates?

So food always food first. So 1 of the biggest categories is the whole broccoli family or a crucible vegetables.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So so first off, before you get to there, because I may have a different opinion than you on something.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, okay. Great.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Let me go back to case history. So right where we're just talking about. So I have a patient, by the way. I don't see patients. Okay.

But I have family and friends who come to me for help. So it's really good because I continue to apply my body of knowledge.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You did see patients for years now.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Oh, I've seen plenty of patients. 1000 and couple of wellness. I've seen 10, 000 from tens of thousands of patients in a couple of wellness. Here's the guy I can't just see me. Now listen to this.

Personal history of prostate prostate disease and, heart disease and diabetes. Now you remember I don't know if you heard me talk about arsenic. 1 1 third of prostate cancer is due to arsenic. About 1 about 15% of heart disease is due to arsenic. About 50% of diabetes is due to arsenic.

So he comes to see me and say, I want you to improve my health. Okay. Well, here's my measures. So first thing I did, I measured his heavy metals arsenic. His Arctic was 83.

Or I told you 10 microgram per liter, the threshold.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Was this in the blood or that you're you're in challenge test?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
No. Not a challenge test. His baseline Coming from where? Uh-huh. Good question.

Okay. Now going further, I did a blood test on him. His homocysteine was 19. And he had macrocytic anemia. Now what's going on?

Yeah. Macrocytic an anemia means he can't produce enough blood cells. Now as a basin, there's 2 kinds of an anemia, microcytic anemia, which is due to the deficiency of iron. You should have women a lot, mister ain't women a lot. And macrosiducanemia is due to the deficiency of typically folic acid will be 12.

Now when I press that as high homocysteine levels? What are they deficient then? Homeless cysteine and b 12?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, b 12 or poleic acid there.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. B 12 or poleic acid or b 6. Beat you sometimes, but yet mainly forecast in B 12. How does the body get rid of arsenic through methalations?

How do we know if a person's having trouble with methylation? They have high home assistance with us? Yeah. Very high. High exposure arsenic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Blood test that you can get that most doctors effect that you should get. But, again, it's on the health and health. Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Why did his primary care doctor not notice his homocystine and his mexicanemia? Is primary care MD. Anyway, here we have high arsenic exposure and inability to detoxify it because it can't produce methyl groups and guess what? Prostate cancer, heart disease, diabetes right there.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So what what was the cause of his high arsenic?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
I just diagnosed this last week. Of now, we have to find where's the Austin coming from. So it turns out I'm from Washington State. There are a lot of high arsenic areas that are in in Washington state, particularly in what are called the San Juan Islands group of islands off the west coast of Washington State. He lives on 1 of those islands.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Was it in the water naturally? Is it coming from

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
the water naturally? So I bet you his well has high arctic levels and nobody's tested it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you've touched why you need to come to your well, it's the water. It's in the ground water. And it can come from eating chicken because they put it on the feed to prevent mold on the feed for chickens. Yeah. It can come from wine that's thrown in certain wineries where they use pressure treated lumber.

If you have a deck, pressure treated lumber. Nice. So it's it's out there in our environment. And I think people don't realize how prevalent

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
is? Yeah. Again, 1 out of 3 people in the United States and in Canada have arsenic levels high enough to induce disease.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yes.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
This is not rare.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So then what would you do with this person? Like, talk about treatment. So how do you begin to start?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So r remember, arsenic half life is only 3 to 4 days. Now his, because of his methylation problem, is probably 4 to 6 days, maybe 8 days.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But doesn't it get stored in that pictures, though?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
No. Not not particularly. No, arsenic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Not well. Lead does.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Lead does.

Dr. Mark Hyman
They've got

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Arsenal functions.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And mercury does.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Lead mercury cadmium, huge storage, and tissues, Arsenal, not someone. And think about it. As we evolved as a species, we often encountered arsenic. So those those survived. Yeah.

Gonna get rid of arsenic. So we're gonna we're we're gonna get rid of arsenic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
We didn't get so much lead in,

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
our office will be there.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Liz is a volcanic eruption. We didn't get much mercury led. Unless you were Andrew Andrew Jackson and you were taking Cowangol, which is a remedy

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Right. For for everything in the 1800 Of

Dr. Mark Hyman
course.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
In Washington.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Are you with you, duels and getting lead shot? They I remember they tested Andrew Jackson's hair.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Exactly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
They found a $20 bill, and they found he was pulling mercury all that, which is why it was so crazy.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes. Yeah. It's usually pulling back.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So my

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
what I'm buying what I'm gonna do for him, we're testing his water. Yeah. I'll pitch you his water site, find a full of arsenic And that led to all of his disease.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
1 thing. So I said, not 1 thing. The 1 exposure plus a susceptible building because the nutrient deficiencies.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So let's get back to the counter treatment approach and what we treat people with in terms of food. What how how do you up regulate the major toxic chicken pathways using food.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. So as you mentioned, cabbage family foods are a great way to increase, phase 2 detoxification in the liver. But notice folks, this is genetically determined. So some people like me, I don't up regulate my detox when I consume cabbage family food.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, I'm sorry.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Cabbage family food or actually tops it from you. So so why do we have all these Wait.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Then they're poisonous if you can

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So the yep. So why do we have all these detox enzymes? Because there's constituents and and food that the plants produce to protect them from predation from insects. So we developed enzymes when we can contact with that food, those of us who were able to upregulator enzymes, okay, can now eat that food safely? But people like me, they talk about cabbage fabric food's been great for you.

For me, I can't detox find those cabbage compounds. So cow suits may not be good for me. However, the vast majority population, the good for us.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, yeah. So so and I think the data is really interesting. I remember seeing a study in China where they They looked at, urine, metabolites of the brassica family vegetables, like broccoli, collars, cabbage, and all that. And they found that those were the highest levels of the metabolites, meaning people were eating a lot of these vegetables, had very low rates of cancer compared to the general population.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Usually beneficial. So what happens is when should we think about the hormones reproduce, estrogen for women, testosterone for men, So you think about what they do in our bodies, man, they're great. I like being a man. I'm sure women like being women. When you think about what the hormone's doing, Well, once it's done this job, then what happens to it?

The virus got detoxified. And it can do it through 2 pathways, I mean, many pathways, but the 2 major pathways and particularly estrogen, 1 pathway promotes cancer, 1 pathway prevents cancer. How do you determine which pathway goes? Each habits, family foods, prevents cancer. If you smoke any charbroiled foods, it outbreaks the enzymes that produce cancer, cancer versions of estrogen.

So our choices in the foods and what we do to the foods has a huge impact on what we up regulate. So 1 reason why women reach cabbage family foods have less breast cancer because you're operating the right end dumpster.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. It's so premature. I just remember I I went swiftly in the lab because I've done, you know, tens of thousands of heavy metal challenge tests. And, and I went with the lab that I that I did the test, but

Dr. Mark Hyman
I said, you know, could you actually calculate all these patients I've sent you labs and what percent had

Dr. Mark Hyman
an elevated levels and give me

Dr. Mark Hyman
the ranges and the distribution of the abnormalities.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And I gathered the data. It was shocking to me. And, of course, people who come to see us at the ultra wellness center where where we specialize in functional medicine tend to be sicker. So it's a sick. We call it selection bias in medicine, but 40% has very significantly elevated levels of heavy metals.

And this was from a wide spectrum of diseases, and I was, like, just 1 thing, initially. So it's out there. So, you know, we use foods, like, with, like, Nebraska family. We can use garlic I use the helper spoon of phione. We can use a lot of the polyphenol compounds and, like, that are rosemary and, you know, curcumin and other compounds.

So we can really increase our polyphenol content. We need to make sure we have the right nutrients. Right? So, like, I I personally know that for me, I I'm not great at fluidifying production. So I take in a single sissy every day.

I take glycolic acid every day.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I make sure I take my multivitamin because Selenium is zinc.

Dr. Mark Hyman
To make sure I actually are, I'm really boosting those pathways up because I I know I struggled. Of course. And it and this kept me feeling good by doing that over many years. And I probably my patients, I do same thing. And so it's really a very systematic process of mobilizing your toxin, reducing the exposures, making sure you're increasing circulation.

So I make sure they're exercising your saunas and sweating that is a great way to reduce toxins. I think also, I recommend a basic, you know, multivitamin and the right things to boost food I own and the right co factors for all the pathways and escalation support. It's amazing how what people do.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So I'd I'd I'd like to add a a little bit to that Our bodies have tremendous ability to heal. We just give them a chance. And a lot of people say, well, I wanna go ahead. I wanna now detox fire. I need the stupidest thing for a person to do, is to start detox line before their body is ready.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Okay. So I wrote a book called the Toxin Solutions.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Everybody should get that book and say really good.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Well, thank you, Mark. Okay.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Everybody's good.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So for the 1st 2 weeks, I teach people how to avoid toxins. Now tell you now, if you have if you've carefully avoid non persistent toxins within 2 weeks, they'll be gone. Arctic will be gone. Thallies were gone. Pistinos were gone, and you immediately feel better within 2 weeks.

Okay. Then I say now, Now your stock can expose yourself to toxins. Let's local up what you call the month what the Nature Pass called the Amuncturice, the organs of elimination. Let's get your, your, your, your gut working properly and detoxified. Let's get your liver functioning better.

To detoxify. Let's get your kidneys functioning better so they can detoxify. Now once your organs elimination are working properly, 2 weeks each, enough time to do it, Now let's do let's now start doing dishonest. Now let's start releasing the toxins to now your body can get rid of it. But don't release toxins until your body can get rid of them.

You make yourself sicker.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's really an important point, Joe. I think, it's really the order in which you do things. And I think you're right. You I I didn't know about this concept, the naturopathic medicine, but that's basically what I do. I busy, fix everything else and tie detoxification is the last thing I need with people often.

Make sure all their enzymes are working. Make sure all the pathways are working, make sure their gut's working, make sure they're they're actually, optimized in terms of their amino acid levels and their mineral level. That can handle the detoxification process because all those things can be challenged when you when you do the detoxification. So it's such a it's it's such an important concept. And I I think, it's, you know,

Dr. Mark Hyman
you can actually make people a lot sicker if you do

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
it trans the wrong

Dr. Mark Hyman
quarter. Yep. Yeah. And and I think it's it's challenging. And you have to just kinda slow with some people too.

You know, we talked a little about saunas. I wanna kinda back up on that because saunas is kind of our hot these days and we're using with pro longevity and biohacking and so forth. Can you talk about the data on saunas and particularly around, detoxification and and the release of environmental chemicals? And and how to use them for that. So I'm

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
gonna get home late Saturday night, and on Sunday, I'm gonna take a I'm taking this on. Okay. So if you're really interested in looking at the, research on saunas, I recommend you look at the work as Steven Januis. So Steven's an MD in Edmonton, Alberta. We've done a lot of incredibly good research.

This, guys, if you ever get a chance to listen to him a lecture, do that. It's fascinating. I had a chance to meet with him personally all about 10 years ago. We went to a vegan organic restaurant in Edmonton, Alberta. We sat down to eat, and next time I looked up, it was 2 hours later.

It's so much fun to talk with. So what Steven does is he takes people, puts them in the sauna, takes their sweat, looks at what's in the sweat, looks at what's in the blood, measure what's in the urine, and compares them. He finds toxins in the sweat that are not in the blood, or in the urine. These things are so bad, and the body has so much trouble getting rid of them. It's just sequestering them to try and keep them out circulating as much as possible.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So there's

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
or something about the damage, but

Dr. Mark Hyman
costly chemicals are

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
stored in the fat stuff in the bone, etcetera.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So when sweating It's a different pathway for detoxification, and turns out the body is able to get rid of a lot of toxins through sweating and have trouble getting rid of it in other way. I've often think to myself, we evolved on the equator where it was hot and we sweated a lot. And I think we had this detoxification mechanism through the sweat that now when we moved to Northern Clients, we will go for 6 months of the year without sweating, and we basically undermine whatever sweating or whatever detox mechanisms.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Does it work if you just sweat from exercise? Does that count?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yep. I That's the first question I asked Steven. So when he presented the data at a conference, so 15 years ago, I first I was, you know, I made 1st worth of raising Sam, and I said, well, how about other things like sweating stuff? She says, it doesn't matter. As long as you're sweating, you're getting rid of toxins and doesn't matter how you sweat.

Dr. Mark Hyman
What you're saying basically is that the fat soluble toxins from petrochemicals and plastics and ballets and BP and all the things we talked about don't get released.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Not very easily.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And so you can get them out of your blood, but they may still have effects even if they're stored in your pet. Yes. Yes. And and and that it it tough to get rid of them. And you you have very few ways to actually get rid of them, but sawdust may be a a way to do it.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yeah. So I have a a little, slight variation I do on Sonae. So just basically, you wanna swipe for at least 20 minutes, vigorously. You wanna make sure to drink drink a plenty of fluids. My 1 little tweak is I recommend you put some alkalizing minerals in your sauna and your in your jig and your electrolytes.

Yeah. So some magnesium and potassium, and you can use carbonate. I prefer citrate. And what that does is it slightly optimizes the body makes it easier for the cells to rid of the toxins. Yeah.

And makes it easier for them when urinate afterwards, makes it easier for the kidneys to rid of the toxins as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
No 1 of the things I heard is it's sort of a a hack, and I don't know if it's if it's any date on this, but a number of my patients have been juicing cilantro, rather than taking chelators and have had their metals levels dropped significantly.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Interesting.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Is there any data That is ridiculous.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
If I look at the research on Cilantro, on plural, and things like that, they're surprisingly little actual, hard human research. Yeah. So I think that should be useful. I wish I could find some stuff. I mean, I found states here and there, but, you know, starting from Russia with, you know, 20 people.

It's hard to be confident in that data.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah. So so the the other piece around this

Dr. Mark Hyman
is sort of metal detoxification, which is a

Dr. Mark Hyman
it's kind of a a set up a rabbit hole that I I think is, important to go down because I, like, honestly, as a doctor, I learned nothing about this. And still today, 3 decades after I had mercury poisoning and talking about it forever, it's still not on the radar of traditional medicine. And and the testing that we use is pretty much dismissed Yeah. Which essentially is taking a chelator of of biological agent that binds to metals, I I think key chelator means, it's from a Greek word that means qua. And and we use it to then detect how much urance how much, the metals spill out in the urine and track that over time as a way of tracking therapy and treatment.

And in I've done tens of thousands of these tests, and it's just amazing what we find and how we treat people. For example, I I found that there was a whole bunch of a special forces guys who were treating a Cleveland Clinic who had chronic fatigue syndrome and all these vague symptoms and, you know, the the army and the sort of the the military. I was a little dismissive of them. I'm like, wait, these guys are not winders. These are navy seals.

These are green berets. These are army rangers. These are not guys who are kinda you know, weak or just kind of complainers, and something's going on. And so I started asking questions. And what do you do?

Well, I'm a blast instructor I mean, what does that mean? And will I blow stuff up inside the teacher of the guys that I blow stuff up? Like, oh, you're blowing stuff up. So that's, like, lead and mercury, all this up in the in the blast materials. And I checked them, and their levels were off the chart.

Yes. And so we started to to sort of treat these people. And there was 1 of them that was reported in the New York Times who has seen 1 of the top experts in lead in the country, I think at Mount Sinai or or Albert Einstein. He's 1 of those hospitals. And, and they use a bone a bone absorb geometry to measure, like, the the land, the body.

And he saw the patient before. And then after I treated him with chelation, with the MSA, and he was shock because he said he'd never seen levels go down ever.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Fantastic.

Dr. Mark Hyman
This is like the top lead expert in the world, and they don't even know how to treat it. So, you know, I don't know why there's so much resistance to actually looking at this. It's it's it's a it's something that should be pretty easy to tell

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
as well.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Something easy to validate. You can just, you know, measure it and track it in. It's like an easy thing to do. But I I think, you know, the whole process of of heavy metal treatment is a thing. And I think you mentioned arsenic and avoiding is great, but but lead and mercury and these other timing, these don't come out on their own.

And, and as functional medicine practitioners, it's 1 of the things we really are trained in when we trained out to do. And I think it's it's for me, it's been 1 of those not just for me personally, but as a as a treating physician with dementia, with autism, with, autoimmune diseases, with colitis, with chronic fatigue syndrome, you know, these these diseases, we really have no treatment up and get better when we when we do this. So Can you talk about what is the safest way to do this and how do people think about learning about it and being guided and do it right? I

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
wanna follow-up in a way you just said So, again, I'd probably I deal with I treat a half dozen patients a year. Okay. I'm on primary care, and I spent most of my time looking at research, but research doesn't count as user using it in real people. And over the years, my approach to patients is changed dramatically. I pretty much don't care what disease they come with.

I come, of course, pay attention to it. Every paycheck, I test or buy a lot of toxins, I test an additional status, I did a genetic analysis here where the weaknesses are. I deal with those things.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And what about the gut?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Of course. Okay. But but, actually, I don't test the gut. Because I know what to do anyway.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Okay. So,

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
anyway, so I just I find if you get the talks low down, nutrition up, improve the gut, so many diseases start going the way. So I just I just, we need to change how we deal with people. So going back to what you're talking about metals, huge portion of population, high metals. So for example, my wife, on my advice and the patients that I have, I haven't taken 250 milligrams of NAC every 3rd night.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And it's either cysteine.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
It helps us to

Dr. Mark Hyman
find. Yeah.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
250 milligrams and all that. So, remember, a lot of this I developed in corporate wellness where I'd free a person. I wouldn't see them again for 6 months. Well, you can't use high dosage just. So 2 different milligrams every 3rd night, along with 10 extra grams of fiber.

I use PTX, because I have commercial relationship with them. And, and I just have them do that regularly, kind of forever because Achilles out a lead. Achilles up the mercury, and it helps to rev the arsenic a little bit, not great. And now having said that, you have to also give them a little bit more lift in them. Maybe a 100 micrograms because the enzymes that metabolize sulfur compounds depend upon more lipid.

I personally cannot take the MSA every 3rd night, because I cannot detoxify sulfur compounds accurately. Sulfur makes me sick. Okay? So, just what I'm gonna tell you. Anybody you do this protocol on, they start complaining about GERD, about allergies, about gastritis, right, or, colitis, checked in for self neurotoxicity.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So, yeah, I think I think, you know, I I've, got very robust protocol using a whole host of compounds and food that regulate detoxification, lots of fibers, you said, saunas, also, the right supplements that are methylation, the FTL cysteine, the right minerals we've talked about, but I also use, I also use, high fiber combinder, but but I think the MSA is a very powerful key latest FDA approved for legculation in children. And it's not really used in medicine very much at all, even in kiss. But but I find it 1 of the most effective ways to gently remove these heavy metals and help with these chronic inflammatory or toxic conditions.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes. I have a huge amount of data. That protocol I just described in a year and a half, it'll drop mercury and lead over 50%. Without any adverse events.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing. Maybe. I wanna for as before we close, I wanna I wanna dive into a topic that I think, you know, is is is a sort of a broader a broader view of the the sort of framework of toxins. So I think we can all accept that we're living in a sea of petrochemical toxins, heavy metal toxins, that we need to pay attention to it that we need to understand how our biology works to operate later detox systems. And I've read a lot about this.

Your book is amazing. The toxin solution, and you've shared a lot about this. But it's this whole field of EMS, right, electromagnetic frequencies. Yes. You know, wifi, 5 g, cell service.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And then I just came back from Ecuador and Patagonia where I was completely away from all of that. And and I, you know, I noticed, that my heart rate variability doubled, that my deep sleep changed, and that I felt better. And I slept better. And of course, I was on vacation, but I'm on vacation in other places, and I don't have those results. So, I I think there's a lot of controversy about this.

It's very political, obviously, because our whole life depends

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
on That's right.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, cell service and Wi Fi, and everybody uses it all the time. What is the sort of strength of the data that BMS are an issue? And and if if it is an issue, What do we do about it?

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Mark, extremely good question. And I have to be honest. I have not studied the research. I can't give a good response. What I can tell you is I've seen patients who are MF sensitive.

Well, how common that is? I don't know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
I'm sorry. I don't have a good answer. I can't. Okay.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Fair enough. I thought you I mean, I think I he's written a little in the encyclopedic and textbook and everything. I thought he might know, but I just

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
haven't gone to it yet.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, IIII do think it's a it's a it's an increasing issue. You know, I I actually was living in New York for a while, and I had this EMF detector, and, you know, if you're an apartment building in New York, there's, like, so many Wi Fi's. Right? And so it was, like, said, 5 high alert get out immediately. And then I I bought this Ferrier Day cake.

Essentially, it's like a a net that goes over your bed. I would go in there. We couldn't make a cell call. He put me at Wi Fi, and it was just basically it was 0. And and it just makes me wonder about what this is doing to us because we are electromagnetic beings.

Absolutely. You know, energetic being.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
So, and by the way, I I it's just too early to talk about, but I'm in conversation with a a doctor who has been experimenting with mel detoxification, it finds if it lies on 1 of these high magnetic field things, this heavy metal excretion increases dramatically. So that tells me is these fields are doing something in the body.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Interesting. Okay. 1 last question. This is a big controversial, but I'm gonna jump in anyway.

It has to do with the increasing rates of infertility. Yep.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
And and

Dr. Mark Hyman
it has to do with, increasing rates of, particularly as track, well, in in animals, but, you know, sort of hermaphroditeism and and, sort of ambiguous sexual genitalian animals. Theo Colbert wrote a book about this called our stolen future, which really impacted me. It talks about that. She was it was like silent spring kind of books. And, and, also, I've been reading about different birth rates in in humans men and women now that that that is sort of becoming discordant from what we used to see, which was a fairly even birth rate.

Now I think I think there's more males or more females. I can't forget.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Probably female females. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and we're also seeing, you know, this increasing rate of gender confusion and gender identity shoes and transgender, you know, sort of awareness that I I'm wondering if it was it's so much now, and I'm another thing that's a bad thing if people wanna change their gender. I'm just I'm just so wondering if there's if there's any role of these environmental chemicals and their endocrine disruption in affecting the brain and affecting hormonal development and affecting fertility. Can you talk about that a little

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Yes. So I have a 90 minute lecture just on environmental toxins and infertility. There's no question in place a huge role. Until we have talked before about bispinal a being removed. So let's talk about bispinal a.

If you look at the bispinal a levels in a man's semen, and you then look at their sperm count. It goes from normal sperm to low sperm, to abnormal sperm, to no sperm in the men with the top 10% of of the men with the top 10% of this this renal egg, and they're they're they're male fluid, you might say. They have no sperm whatsoever.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Now that's blistering a. And guess what we just replace blistering a? What? Just gonna last? Mister Leste, New York tells about 5 times as bad as bispinal a for male fertility.

So we have to talks after talks, and there's no question these toxins are destroying our fertility. Which means they're also damaging the development of the fetuses that do manage to get through the infertility problem. So a gender just just to, Dysforia, it's gotta be environmental toxins happy to play in a role. It's so very clear. Yeah.

It's it's concerning. And animal research is very clear on that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Clearly is is is a is a big issue, but I think, you know, the the the the the perspective that you brought over over the last decades of teaching us all about, environmental toxins. Your work is so important. I think everybody needs to check out Joe's book, the Talkson Solutions, and I'll let more you get your books. Check out the textbook of natural medicine, the encyclopedic natural medicine.

So many Okay.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
As your doctor, I have a textbook called clinical environmental medicine, and a lot of this research is in there.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. So, Joe, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Thank you for your work and field. Thank you for being my teacher for so many years.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Mark, thank you. I mean, look at what you're doing to educate people. You know, I I have my books and such, but they're they're just for man. Like, you you're you're con it's getting the whole box.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Stole everything you ever wrote and and redid it in my own way. Thanks, my friend.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno
Good to see you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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