May 25, 2023 • 30 mins
On this show, Karolyn talks with two of the world's leading authorities on Environmental Medicine. Not only will listeners find out more about this medical specialty, but they'll also find out if it's something they should look into as a means to heal from illness or enhance wellness. Dr. Lyn Patrick and Dr. Anne Marie Fine are the founders of Environmental Medicine Education International where they train and certify healthcare professionals in the field of environmental medicine.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Any health related information on the followingshow provides general information only. Content presented
on any show by any host orguests should not be substituted for a doctor's
advice. Always consult your physician beforebeginning any new diet, exercise, or
treatment program. Hello everyone, andwelcome to Five to Thrive Live. I'm
(00:44):
Carolyn Gazella and I co host fiveto Thrive Live with my good friend doctor
Lise Olschuler. Today we're going tobe talking about environmental medicine, which is
a rapidly growing medical subspecialty. Butfirst I'd like to thank our sponsors.
Amuse, a unique, patented postbioticthat gives your immune system a key advantage.
Amuse is an ingredient in many immunesupporting dietary supplements. Look for a
(01:07):
Muse on the label or go toamusehealth dot com for more information. Also
Cognizant cydicolane, which is nature's wayof keeping the brain's energy producing centers firing
on all cylinders. If you're lookingfor a way to enhance your brain function,
including memory, focus, and attention, look for Cognizan on the label
or go to Cognizant dot com formore information. And doctor Oheroes Probiotics.
(01:30):
It's a best selling probiotic for morethan thirty years. It contains twelve probiotic
strains that are shelf stable, sono refrigeration is required because of a unique
three year fermentation process. It's avery effective probiotic. Learn more at doctor
ohero Probiotics dot com and for morethan thirty five years. Guya Herbs has
extensive experience manufacturing high quality herbal productsfor healthcare consumers and they have a dedicated
(01:56):
product line named Gaya Pro tailored tohealthcare practitioners. Healthcare practitioners can learn more
at Gaya erbspro dot com and consumerscan visit Gaya erbs dot com. And
finally, pro Thrivers Wellness Sleep,a melatonin based sleep formula specifically created for
thrivers. Pro Thrivers Sleep is availablethrough your healthcare provider or online at Pure
(02:19):
Formulas dot com. So I amvery fortunate to have two of the world's
leading authorities on environmental medicine with metoday. Both are naturopathic physicians and they
are also the founders of Environmental MedicineEducational International. With ME is doctor Lynn
Patrick and doctor Anne Marie Fine.Doctor Patrick I'd like to start with you.
(02:43):
First of all, thank you forjoining me. Well, Carolyn,
thank you so much for that verykind introduction. I'm excited to be here.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a greattopic. So, doctor Patrick,
is there a formal definition of whatenvironmental medicine is? There is not a
formal definition in terms of the conventionalmedical world, but in my medical world,
(03:09):
which is a functional naturopathic medical world, we basically identify environmental toxicants.
So those are things in the environmentthat we're exposed to, some of them
on a daily basis, that impactour health. So we are looking for
(03:32):
those exposures. Many times our patientsdon't know that they're being exposed to these
toxicants through their air, food,and water, but they are and assessing
if those toxicants are having a harmfuleffect. Sometimes they are, sometimes the
effect is negligible. It really dependson how much exposure they're getting, and
(03:58):
of course the most important part isdealing with that exposure, so identifying the
exposure, preventing the exposure in theirvery simple easy ways to do that.
And then lastly, if those exposureshave been stored in the body somewhere,
which many times they are. Thebest example of that is led. We
(04:20):
all have led in our bodies.It's just the unavoidable consequence of having lead
in the environment. You know,we had it in letted gasoline and in
letted paint, and unfortunately it's becomepart of our what we call the exposone
(04:41):
things that we're exposed to, sofinding out safe and effective ways to get
those toxicans out of the body.And recently, I think in the last
twenty years, the word detox ordetoxification has kind of become a household word,
and I think that you know it, certainly it's been commercialized. I
(05:04):
may have a very definite, avery different definition of the word detox than
somebody who's trying to sell my patientsomething. But the idea, basic idea,
is that we can assist in theprocess of elimination of these toxic substances.
So that's kind of a broad andwandering definition of environmental medicine, but
(05:28):
I think but I think it helpsat least give the listeners a picture of
what we're trying to do. Yes, it does, and thank you for
that. And one of the reasonsI love talking about environmental medicine is because
it can be overwhelming to patients andpeople. When you start to think of
all the toxins that we're exposed to, and environmental medicine and environmental practitioners and
(05:53):
supporting detoxification, this makes this topica lot less overwhelming. So I'm glad
that we're we're covering it now.Doctor, Fine, you know, does
it work? I mean, obviouslyyou wouldn't be practicing this medicine if it
didn't. But tell us what thescience says, and even tell us what
you're finding in your own practice.Okay, good question. Does it work?
(06:16):
It not only works, but sometimesit's the missing link and why these
patients of ours with chronic illness arenot getting better via either traditional conventional medicine
or even with integrative medicine. Ifthe exposome, If this grouping of low
(06:40):
level chronic exposures to toxicants in ourenvironment are not included in the assessment and
testing and evaluation, the whole problemcould be missed. The research, the
growing body of research really does supportthis. If you look at the loaded
literature, there's very robust body ofliterature supporting this. And in clinical practice,
(07:10):
what I have seen is that thepatients who I would say this twenty
years ago. When I started practicingmedicine, you could get a patient better
with talking to them about diet andgiving them a handful of supplements and some
simple lifestyle things to do, andthis sometimes was completely enough to move them
(07:34):
into a better place to help themregain their health. So what I noticed
over time is that our body burdensof chemicals. It just continues to grow
as chemical flood our environment. Andnow the patients are getting more complex and
some of the things we used todo that we were able to obtain really
(07:58):
good results with years ago, it'snot enough anymore because the body's natural detox
systems are being overwhelmed with the sheervolume of chemicals in our environment. Yeah.
Absolutely, and there's research on bothsides. So there's research showing that
it works. But there's also I'vebeen following this research on the dangers of
(08:22):
pollution, so there's research also thatreally indicates that these substances are harmful to
health. So, doctor Patrick,if a listener decided to see an environmental
medicine doctor, what should they expect, you know, for example, what's
the first visit like, well,even prior to the first visit, weeks
(08:46):
ahead of the first visit, wesend our patients something called an environmental health
questionnaire, and this questionnaire takes aboutfifteen to sometimes thirty minutes to fill out,
and the questions are varied, butthings like do you eat fish?
What kinds of fish do you eat? Do you have a water filter in
(09:09):
your home for your drinking water?And do you have an air filter in
your home for your air? Doyou use HEPA filters in your HVAC system?
Have you had the experience of beingexposed to mold as a result of
a plumbing leak or faulty window casings? So you know, we're really talking
(09:31):
about working with patients to assess theirenvironmental exposures. I also ask my patients
where they have lived, and thisis very important and I'm really talking about
the residences, like what cities,towns have they lived in. It's not
very well known that, according tothe federal government, about a quarter of
(09:56):
all children and many millions of Americanslive within three miles of a super Fun
site. And a super fun sitehas been designated by the EPA as a
site where there's significant contamination of theair, the water, and the soil
with a contaminant that's bad enough,serious enough that it could cause harm.
(10:22):
And I would say ninety nine pointnine of my patients that I've worked with
have no idea that they've lived neara super fun site. Fortunately, on
our end, we have databases thathelp us look these things up and help
us understand what our patients exposures havebeen. So they bring in this environmental
(10:43):
health questionnaire, we sit down andgo through it. And this is really
important because what we're trying to dois look at their oftentimes chronic, multiple
health problems. Right it is nolonger the case that pat and to have
one condition, one problem, onediagnosis. They have multiple diagnoses, and
(11:05):
we're trying to assess the relationship ofthese health problems with their exposures, things
that they've been exposed to in thepast, things that they're exposed to currently.
So, for instance, I'll giveyou an example, I had a
patient come in who had started toget sick when she moved into a new
(11:28):
home. This is sadly not ararity anymore. And now that we're building
homes much tighter so that they're moreenergy efficient, they're also more able to
keep in all of the exposures thatoccur from what we call off gassing of
all the new materials that the homeis built out of, including the carpeting
(11:52):
and the drapes and things like that. This woman had no idea that there
was a relationship between the onset ofher symptoms and the fact that she had
just moved into this brand new homewith brand new carpeting brand, drape's brand
of linature, all of that andso and none, and I mean none
(12:16):
of her the prior I think sixdoctors that she had seen had even asked
her anything about her environment. Andthat's, you know, not their fault.
They weren't trained to be able tounderstand the relationship of these new building
materials to the patient's immune system.She had not immune disease as well as
(12:37):
her allergies and her chronic fatigue.So that's an example of what would be
discussed. Of course, there's thestandard physical exam and the standard blood work,
but in addition to the standard thingsthat happen, you know, in
any visit with any primary healthcare providerwould also do blood work and collect urine
(13:03):
to look for those exposures if wesuspect that the patient had them. So,
in other words, we know enoughto know that this individual's autoimmune disease,
her immune deficiency, as well asher allergies and exion and headaches and
(13:26):
chronic fatigue, are known to berelated to certain toxic exposures that she has
a high likelihood of having because shehad just moved into a new home.
Therefore, we know to test forthe solvents that off gas from the carpets
and the furniture and sometimes the draperymaterials, as well as the formalde hyde
(13:50):
that may be still off gasing fromthe vinyl flooring in the new home,
so that we can actually identify thetoxins toxicans. It's kind of the formal
name that this individual patient is beingexposed to that's making her acutely ill.
There's go ahead, Well, yeah, I was. I was just going
(14:13):
to say, it sounds like you'reon affect finding mission with your patient.
We are. You know, doctorFine jokes with me a lot of times
that some of the most fun partsof her job are that she gets to
play detective and it is really youknow, medicine is detective work, for
sure, but environmental medicine is reallydetective work because we're not only looking at
(14:37):
the current exposures. We're looking atthe patient's history and their past exposures as
well. So yeah, we haveto dig. It's part of our job,
right. So, doctor fine,which patients would actually benefit from seeing
an environmental medical doctor? Are therespecific conditions or symptoms that stand out?
(15:00):
Well? Yes, I would sayanyone with a chronic condition that hasn't responded
to any other forms of intervention isa good candidate. In particular, there's
chronic fatigue patients, fibromyalgia, peoplewith autoimmune conditions, people who have had
(15:22):
cancer in the past and are tryingto prevent a recurrence. This is a
group of people that would benefit fromenvironmental medicine. And I also want to
say that one of the major symptomsthat we hear in clinic is overwhelmingly people
(15:43):
are just so tired. They're justso fatigued. Everyone is so tired.
I mean, I think this iswhy Starbucks is thriving and all the energy
drinks are just flooding the market.Have you ever seen people just like doubting
these things one after the other.No one's got any energy. So one
of the things I do want topoint out is that a lot of these
(16:06):
toxic sins. They out poison toour mitochondria, our energy factories in ourselves,
and so people who suffer from chronicfatigue or even are just overwhelmingly fatigued,
it may be tied into an environmentalexposure. It's not really a caffeine
(16:27):
deficit. Yeah, very true.Okay, doctor Patrick, I'd like to
have you help us dig into somepractical things. So what are some of
the tools or strategies or techniques thatyou use to help your patients heal.
Well, I'm pretty straightforward in mypractice. I do test for some what
(16:52):
are commonly called heavy metals more kindof technically called toxic metals, because I
think that, as doctor Fine justmentioned, mitochondrial damage is a major cause
of disease in probably the world,but definitely in our country, and metals
(17:17):
are mitochondrial toxicants. They knowingly damagemitochondria and prevent our energy systems in ourselves
from making app from making energy.So it's very common that people will either
historically have been exposed to metals orcurrently are being exposed to metals and as
(17:41):
a result have chronic fatigue. Sotesting is really, I would say,
of all the environmental medicine docs.I know. One of the things that
we do have in common is welook for evidence of these toxicants, So
testing in the blood and testing inthe urine for metals and other chemicals as
(18:03):
well. Metals are not the onlychemical, that the only substance that people
are exposed to to make them sick. We are also swimming in a sea
of plastics, and we're swimming ina sea of pesticides, and both of
those classes of chemicals disrupt our hormonalsystem. So there's a whole body in
(18:27):
the medical literature on this topic ofendocrine disruption. And we are exposed to
these endocrine disruptors, and we cantest for them in the urine, and
we can test for pesticides both inthe urine and in the blood. So
actually getting hard data is I wouldn'tcall it technique. I'd call it a
(18:48):
necessary part of practicing medicine in theyear twenty twenty three, that we have
to look for these toxicants. Wecan't pretend they're not there, because they
are there. When we look inthe medical literature, we can see that
there's a there's an actual evidence fromthe Center for Disease Control, which you
(19:08):
know is where we get a lotof our research that these metals, for
example, are not only there,but there is a significant there's significant evidence
that they are causitive for disease.And the CDC actually ranks these metals in
(19:29):
order, ranks all chemicals in orderof their potential for exposure and their potential
for disease, and metals are fourof the top seven toxicans. But we're
also exposed to a lot of otherchemicals. And I want to just I
know this is a little off topic, but you said something about the overwhelming
(19:51):
nature of chemical exposure, and it'soverwhelming not just for patients, but it's
overwhelming for docs who aren't trained inenvironmental medicine, and so many doctors because
of that level of overwhelm will kindof dismiss environmental medicine as, oh,
(20:11):
you know, there's not a lotof data for that, or there's no
evidence that detoxing will improve health conditions. There is overwhelming evidence that detoxification improves
health conditions. And one of thereasons that we want to test for metals
like lad and like cadmium is thatthere was actually an NIH funded study that
(20:37):
was published several years ago and isongoing called the TACT trial. I don't
know if you've heard of it,Caroen, It's a tact it's the acronym.
And this is a study that lookedat people who've already had a heart
attack. So I'm going to includecardiovascular disease in that group of health conditions
that benefit from environmental medicine. Andwhat they found out was that a technique,
(21:02):
getting back to your question, calledkeelation therapy of using a well known
FDA approved drug called Eta to lateto chelate metals out of the body,
to keelate cadmium and lead and othermetals out of the body, actually decreases
risk for further heart problems and furtherheart attacks and strokes, so much so
(21:33):
that the evidence that was published inthe Journal of the American Heart Association several
years ago shows that it works betterthan any cardiovascular drug currently on the market.
And so that's not just about technique, it's about overwhelming evidence as well.
But that's a technique that many environmentalmedicine doctors used to help rid the
(21:59):
body of a burden of metals thatit has acute that the body has accumulated.
Patients have accumulated over decades. Youknow, the half life of lead
in the bones is twenty years,and it takes five half lives to eliminate
something from the body. So ittakes one hundred years to eliminate lead from
(22:19):
the body. That's not going tohappen. You have to use an intervention.
So that's an example of an interventionthat I think is commonly used when
it's established that there's a body burdenof our specific metal and the body.
Okay, so doctor fine, let'sstay on this topic of techniques. So
(22:41):
in addition to alation therapy, whenyou do find heavy metals or some other
chemical in a patient, what aresome of the other things that you do
to help that patient heal well.I think this is a good place to
bring up the use of sauna becausesauna sauna bathing has been studied for really
(23:07):
a number of years in and ithas been shown to decorate metals and other
chemicals from people. In fact,a more recent study showed that those who
did sauna four or more times aweek I believe this was a finished study
had reduced mortality of at least thatwas four or more per week. And
(23:34):
then those who only did the saunatwo to three times a week. I
think it was about thirty thirty percentthirty three percent, which is really an
enormous number. And the use ofsauna. I like to prescribe sauna for
my patients because think of it thisway. We have the ability to only
(23:56):
test for so many chemicals, butreally there's about one hundred thousand different chemicals
in commerce, and we're not ableto test for all of them. But
the ones that are stored in ourout of host tissue and other places in
the body, the use of sautatherapyis able to have them come out into
(24:25):
the sweat and out of the body. So I like to talk about sauna.
But one that we haven't talked aboutyet is avoidance. Simple avoidance.
It's got to be the number onerule of environmental medicine is avoidance. And
every chemical you avoid, you don'thave to detox. So it's really a
very important point to make with patients. Yeah, it is very important.
(24:51):
I'm glad that you brought it up, and I'm also glad that you brought
up the fact that you can't testfor all of them and that you have
to kind of use some universal techniquesthat will get at some of the chemicals
that you that you can't necessarily testfor Doctor Patrick, you've mentioned detox a
couple of times, so here's aquestion for you. Can you support the
(25:14):
body's detoxification system with any kind oftargeted dietary supplements. Yes, there's good
information that supplemental nutrition. I'm talkingabout pills now, not food, that
something as simple as a buffered vitaminC. So vitamin C comes in different
(25:37):
forms. There's a scorbic acid,and there's a buffer to score bit,
So I'm talking about the buffer toscore bit gets vitamin C hooked onto a
mineral like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium, zinc. That the use
of something as simple as vitamin Ccan actually improve the body's ability to break
(25:59):
down and eliminate chemicals, and that'sbeen studied in human beings and in fact
in pregnant women. That vitamin isa very safe thing to give to a
pregnant woman to help her improve herbody's ability to let go of lead,
and it does not increase exposure tothe fetus. So we're very careful when
(26:23):
we work with pregnant women for thatreason. The vitamin C is pretty simple
in that regard magnesium which about halfof the American population doesn't get enough magnesium,
either in their diet or from takingsupplements. Magnesium is necessary in the
(26:45):
function of about three hundred enzymes inthe body, many of which are in
the liver and are involved in themetabolism and the elimination of toxins. So
something as simple as making sure you'regetting enough sufficient meaning not the RDI of
(27:07):
magnesium, but actually for your bodysufficient amounts of magnesium really goes a long
way to help increase your body's abilityto get rid of not just metals,
but other compounds like pesticides and solventsand plastics. So those are two kind
of basic, basic nutritional supplements thateverybody should take just to help their bodies
(27:33):
get rid of what they're exposed toon a daily basis. And there's been
doctor Russell Jaffee. I don't knowif you've interviewed him, but he was
a senior research fellow at NIH.He's computed, based on the number of
grams of toxicance that we take inevery day, that we need a minimum
of two to three thousand milligrams ofvitamins C a day in order to process
(28:00):
those toxics that mays been like alot to people, but it's really not
a lot of Yeah, I didn'tlook at what we're exposed to. Yeah,
exactly. I've had the chance tohave doctor Jaffee on this show,
but I've interviewed him numerous times forthe Natch Medicine Journal, and I've also
done entire shows on glutathione, SoI would probably add glutathione to that list.
(28:25):
Absolutely. Yeah. So, um, we're having to wrap up now,
so I want to make sure thatour listeners can find out more information
about the two of you. Doctorfine, where can people find out more
about you and your work? Doyou have a website that you can share
with us? We do. Ourwebsite is at emiglobal dot com. That's
(28:48):
our website where we teach a oneyear course for physicians and other healthcare providers
to become experts in environmental medicine.Okay, perfect, doctor Patrick, any
other websites that you'd like to addwell for people who are searching for a
qualified healthcare provider. The National Associationof Environmental Medicine actually identifies the physicians that
(29:17):
have gone to our training program,and we have the those physicians identified on
our website. As well. OurNational Association Environmental Medicine is e NV medicine
dot com, Nvmedicine dot com.Great, okay, perfect well. Thanks
again Doctor Patrick and doctor Fine forjoining me and talking about such an important
(29:41):
topic that wraps up this episode offive to Thrive Live once again. I'd
like to thank our sponsors Amused postbioticto give your immune system that extra boost,
Cognizan citicolin to help enhance memory,focus and attention. Doctor or here
is award winning shelf stable probiotic,Guya RBS, makers of accepttional quality herbal
products, and of course pro ThriversWellness Sleep formula. May you experience joy,
(30:06):
laughter, in love. It's timeto thrive everyone, have a great
night. Good good
Any health related information on the followingshow provides general information only. Content presented
on any show by any host orguests should not be substituted for a doctor's
advice. Always consult your physician beforebeginning any new diet, exercise, or
treatment program. Hello everyone, andwelcome to Five to Thrive Live. I'm
(00:44):
Carolyn Gazella and I co host fiveto Thrive Live with my good friend doctor
Lise Olschuler. Today we're going tobe talking about environmental medicine, which is
a rapidly growing medical subspecialty. Butfirst I'd like to thank our sponsors.
Amuse, a unique, patented postbioticthat gives your immune system a key advantage.
Amuse is an ingredient in many immunesupporting dietary supplements. Look for a
(01:07):
Muse on the label or go toamusehealth dot com for more information. Also
Cognizant cydicolane, which is nature's wayof keeping the brain's energy producing centers firing
on all cylinders. If you're lookingfor a way to enhance your brain function,
including memory, focus, and attention, look for Cognizan on the label
or go to Cognizant dot com formore information. And doctor Oheroes Probiotics.
(01:30):
It's a best selling probiotic for morethan thirty years. It contains twelve probiotic
strains that are shelf stable, sono refrigeration is required because of a unique
three year fermentation process. It's avery effective probiotic. Learn more at doctor
ohero Probiotics dot com and for morethan thirty five years. Guya Herbs has
extensive experience manufacturing high quality herbal productsfor healthcare consumers and they have a dedicated
(01:56):
product line named Gaya Pro tailored tohealthcare practitioners. Healthcare practitioners can learn more
at Gaya erbspro dot com and consumerscan visit Gaya erbs dot com. And
finally, pro Thrivers Wellness Sleep,a melatonin based sleep formula specifically created for
thrivers. Pro Thrivers Sleep is availablethrough your healthcare provider or online at Pure
(02:19):
Formulas dot com. So I amvery fortunate to have two of the world's
leading authorities on environmental medicine with metoday. Both are naturopathic physicians and they
are also the founders of Environmental MedicineEducational International. With ME is doctor Lynn
Patrick and doctor Anne Marie Fine.Doctor Patrick I'd like to start with you.
(02:43):
First of all, thank you forjoining me. Well, Carolyn,
thank you so much for that verykind introduction. I'm excited to be here.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a greattopic. So, doctor Patrick,
is there a formal definition of whatenvironmental medicine is? There is not a
formal definition in terms of the conventionalmedical world, but in my medical world,
(03:09):
which is a functional naturopathic medical world, we basically identify environmental toxicants.
So those are things in the environmentthat we're exposed to, some of them
on a daily basis, that impactour health. So we are looking for
(03:32):
those exposures. Many times our patientsdon't know that they're being exposed to these
toxicants through their air, food,and water, but they are and assessing
if those toxicants are having a harmfuleffect. Sometimes they are, sometimes the
effect is negligible. It really dependson how much exposure they're getting, and
(03:58):
of course the most important part isdealing with that exposure, so identifying the
exposure, preventing the exposure in theirvery simple easy ways to do that.
And then lastly, if those exposureshave been stored in the body somewhere,
which many times they are. Thebest example of that is led. We
(04:20):
all have led in our bodies.It's just the unavoidable consequence of having lead
in the environment. You know,we had it in letted gasoline and in
letted paint, and unfortunately it's becomepart of our what we call the exposone
(04:41):
things that we're exposed to, sofinding out safe and effective ways to get
those toxicans out of the body.And recently, I think in the last
twenty years, the word detox ordetoxification has kind of become a household word,
and I think that you know it, certainly it's been commercialized. I
(05:04):
may have a very definite, avery different definition of the word detox than
somebody who's trying to sell my patientsomething. But the idea, basic idea,
is that we can assist in theprocess of elimination of these toxic substances.
So that's kind of a broad andwandering definition of environmental medicine, but
(05:28):
I think but I think it helpsat least give the listeners a picture of
what we're trying to do. Yes, it does, and thank you for
that. And one of the reasonsI love talking about environmental medicine is because
it can be overwhelming to patients andpeople. When you start to think of
all the toxins that we're exposed to, and environmental medicine and environmental practitioners and
(05:53):
supporting detoxification, this makes this topica lot less overwhelming. So I'm glad
that we're we're covering it now.Doctor, Fine, you know, does
it work? I mean, obviouslyyou wouldn't be practicing this medicine if it
didn't. But tell us what thescience says, and even tell us what
you're finding in your own practice.Okay, good question. Does it work?
(06:16):
It not only works, but sometimesit's the missing link and why these
patients of ours with chronic illness arenot getting better via either traditional conventional medicine
or even with integrative medicine. Ifthe exposome, If this grouping of low
(06:40):
level chronic exposures to toxicants in ourenvironment are not included in the assessment and
testing and evaluation, the whole problemcould be missed. The research, the
growing body of research really does supportthis. If you look at the loaded
literature, there's very robust body ofliterature supporting this. And in clinical practice,
(07:10):
what I have seen is that thepatients who I would say this twenty
years ago. When I started practicingmedicine, you could get a patient better
with talking to them about diet andgiving them a handful of supplements and some
simple lifestyle things to do, andthis sometimes was completely enough to move them
(07:34):
into a better place to help themregain their health. So what I noticed
over time is that our body burdensof chemicals. It just continues to grow
as chemical flood our environment. Andnow the patients are getting more complex and
some of the things we used todo that we were able to obtain really
(07:58):
good results with years ago, it'snot enough anymore because the body's natural detox
systems are being overwhelmed with the sheervolume of chemicals in our environment. Yeah.
Absolutely, and there's research on bothsides. So there's research showing that
it works. But there's also I'vebeen following this research on the dangers of
(08:22):
pollution, so there's research also thatreally indicates that these substances are harmful to
health. So, doctor Patrick,if a listener decided to see an environmental
medicine doctor, what should they expect, you know, for example, what's
the first visit like, well,even prior to the first visit, weeks
(08:46):
ahead of the first visit, wesend our patients something called an environmental health
questionnaire, and this questionnaire takes aboutfifteen to sometimes thirty minutes to fill out,
and the questions are varied, butthings like do you eat fish?
What kinds of fish do you eat? Do you have a water filter in
(09:09):
your home for your drinking water?And do you have an air filter in
your home for your air? Doyou use HEPA filters in your HVAC system?
Have you had the experience of beingexposed to mold as a result of
a plumbing leak or faulty window casings? So you know, we're really talking
(09:31):
about working with patients to assess theirenvironmental exposures. I also ask my patients
where they have lived, and thisis very important and I'm really talking about
the residences, like what cities,towns have they lived in. It's not
very well known that, according tothe federal government, about a quarter of
(09:56):
all children and many millions of Americanslive within three miles of a super Fun
site. And a super fun sitehas been designated by the EPA as a
site where there's significant contamination of theair, the water, and the soil
with a contaminant that's bad enough,serious enough that it could cause harm.
(10:22):
And I would say ninety nine pointnine of my patients that I've worked with
have no idea that they've lived neara super fun site. Fortunately, on
our end, we have databases thathelp us look these things up and help
us understand what our patients exposures havebeen. So they bring in this environmental
(10:43):
health questionnaire, we sit down andgo through it. And this is really
important because what we're trying to dois look at their oftentimes chronic, multiple
health problems. Right it is nolonger the case that pat and to have
one condition, one problem, onediagnosis. They have multiple diagnoses, and
(11:05):
we're trying to assess the relationship ofthese health problems with their exposures, things
that they've been exposed to in thepast, things that they're exposed to currently.
So, for instance, I'll giveyou an example, I had a
patient come in who had started toget sick when she moved into a new
(11:28):
home. This is sadly not ararity anymore. And now that we're building
homes much tighter so that they're moreenergy efficient, they're also more able to
keep in all of the exposures thatoccur from what we call off gassing of
all the new materials that the homeis built out of, including the carpeting
(11:52):
and the drapes and things like that. This woman had no idea that there
was a relationship between the onset ofher symptoms and the fact that she had
just moved into this brand new homewith brand new carpeting brand, drape's brand
of linature, all of that andso and none, and I mean none
(12:16):
of her the prior I think sixdoctors that she had seen had even asked
her anything about her environment. Andthat's, you know, not their fault.
They weren't trained to be able tounderstand the relationship of these new building
materials to the patient's immune system.She had not immune disease as well as
(12:37):
her allergies and her chronic fatigue.So that's an example of what would be
discussed. Of course, there's thestandard physical exam and the standard blood work,
but in addition to the standard thingsthat happen, you know, in
any visit with any primary healthcare providerwould also do blood work and collect urine
(13:03):
to look for those exposures if wesuspect that the patient had them. So,
in other words, we know enoughto know that this individual's autoimmune disease,
her immune deficiency, as well asher allergies and exion and headaches and
(13:26):
chronic fatigue, are known to berelated to certain toxic exposures that she has
a high likelihood of having because shehad just moved into a new home.
Therefore, we know to test forthe solvents that off gas from the carpets
and the furniture and sometimes the draperymaterials, as well as the formalde hyde
(13:50):
that may be still off gasing fromthe vinyl flooring in the new home,
so that we can actually identify thetoxins toxicans. It's kind of the formal
name that this individual patient is beingexposed to that's making her acutely ill.
There's go ahead, Well, yeah, I was. I was just going
(14:13):
to say, it sounds like you'reon affect finding mission with your patient.
We are. You know, doctorFine jokes with me a lot of times
that some of the most fun partsof her job are that she gets to
play detective and it is really youknow, medicine is detective work, for
sure, but environmental medicine is reallydetective work because we're not only looking at
(14:37):
the current exposures. We're looking atthe patient's history and their past exposures as
well. So yeah, we haveto dig. It's part of our job,
right. So, doctor fine,which patients would actually benefit from seeing
an environmental medical doctor? Are therespecific conditions or symptoms that stand out?
(15:00):
Well? Yes, I would sayanyone with a chronic condition that hasn't responded
to any other forms of intervention isa good candidate. In particular, there's
chronic fatigue patients, fibromyalgia, peoplewith autoimmune conditions, people who have had
(15:22):
cancer in the past and are tryingto prevent a recurrence. This is a
group of people that would benefit fromenvironmental medicine. And I also want to
say that one of the major symptomsthat we hear in clinic is overwhelmingly people
(15:43):
are just so tired. They're justso fatigued. Everyone is so tired.
I mean, I think this iswhy Starbucks is thriving and all the energy
drinks are just flooding the market.Have you ever seen people just like doubting
these things one after the other.No one's got any energy. So one
of the things I do want topoint out is that a lot of these
(16:06):
toxic sins. They out poison toour mitochondria, our energy factories in ourselves,
and so people who suffer from chronicfatigue or even are just overwhelmingly fatigued,
it may be tied into an environmentalexposure. It's not really a caffeine
(16:27):
deficit. Yeah, very true.Okay, doctor Patrick, I'd like to
have you help us dig into somepractical things. So what are some of
the tools or strategies or techniques thatyou use to help your patients heal.
Well, I'm pretty straightforward in mypractice. I do test for some what
(16:52):
are commonly called heavy metals more kindof technically called toxic metals, because I
think that, as doctor Fine justmentioned, mitochondrial damage is a major cause
of disease in probably the world,but definitely in our country, and metals
(17:17):
are mitochondrial toxicants. They knowingly damagemitochondria and prevent our energy systems in ourselves
from making app from making energy.So it's very common that people will either
historically have been exposed to metals orcurrently are being exposed to metals and as
(17:41):
a result have chronic fatigue. Sotesting is really, I would say,
of all the environmental medicine docs.I know. One of the things that
we do have in common is welook for evidence of these toxicants, So
testing in the blood and testing inthe urine for metals and other chemicals as
(18:03):
well. Metals are not the onlychemical, that the only substance that people
are exposed to to make them sick. We are also swimming in a sea
of plastics, and we're swimming ina sea of pesticides, and both of
those classes of chemicals disrupt our hormonalsystem. So there's a whole body in
(18:27):
the medical literature on this topic ofendocrine disruption. And we are exposed to
these endocrine disruptors, and we cantest for them in the urine, and
we can test for pesticides both inthe urine and in the blood. So
actually getting hard data is I wouldn'tcall it technique. I'd call it a
(18:48):
necessary part of practicing medicine in theyear twenty twenty three, that we have
to look for these toxicants. Wecan't pretend they're not there, because they
are there. When we look inthe medical literature, we can see that
there's a there's an actual evidence fromthe Center for Disease Control, which you
(19:08):
know is where we get a lotof our research that these metals, for
example, are not only there,but there is a significant there's significant evidence
that they are causitive for disease.And the CDC actually ranks these metals in
(19:29):
order, ranks all chemicals in orderof their potential for exposure and their potential
for disease, and metals are fourof the top seven toxicans. But we're
also exposed to a lot of otherchemicals. And I want to just I
know this is a little off topic, but you said something about the overwhelming
(19:51):
nature of chemical exposure, and it'soverwhelming not just for patients, but it's
overwhelming for docs who aren't trained inenvironmental medicine, and so many doctors because
of that level of overwhelm will kindof dismiss environmental medicine as, oh,
(20:11):
you know, there's not a lotof data for that, or there's no
evidence that detoxing will improve health conditions. There is overwhelming evidence that detoxification improves
health conditions. And one of thereasons that we want to test for metals
like lad and like cadmium is thatthere was actually an NIH funded study that
(20:37):
was published several years ago and isongoing called the TACT trial. I don't
know if you've heard of it,Caroen, It's a tact it's the acronym.
And this is a study that lookedat people who've already had a heart
attack. So I'm going to includecardiovascular disease in that group of health conditions
that benefit from environmental medicine. Andwhat they found out was that a technique,
(21:02):
getting back to your question, calledkeelation therapy of using a well known
FDA approved drug called Eta to lateto chelate metals out of the body,
to keelate cadmium and lead and othermetals out of the body, actually decreases
risk for further heart problems and furtherheart attacks and strokes, so much so
(21:33):
that the evidence that was published inthe Journal of the American Heart Association several
years ago shows that it works betterthan any cardiovascular drug currently on the market.
And so that's not just about technique, it's about overwhelming evidence as well.
But that's a technique that many environmentalmedicine doctors used to help rid the
(21:59):
body of a burden of metals thatit has acute that the body has accumulated.
Patients have accumulated over decades. Youknow, the half life of lead
in the bones is twenty years,and it takes five half lives to eliminate
something from the body. So ittakes one hundred years to eliminate lead from
(22:19):
the body. That's not going tohappen. You have to use an intervention.
So that's an example of an interventionthat I think is commonly used when
it's established that there's a body burdenof our specific metal and the body.
Okay, so doctor fine, let'sstay on this topic of techniques. So
(22:41):
in addition to alation therapy, whenyou do find heavy metals or some other
chemical in a patient, what aresome of the other things that you do
to help that patient heal well.I think this is a good place to
bring up the use of sauna becausesauna sauna bathing has been studied for really
(23:07):
a number of years in and ithas been shown to decorate metals and other
chemicals from people. In fact,a more recent study showed that those who
did sauna four or more times aweek I believe this was a finished study
had reduced mortality of at least thatwas four or more per week. And
(23:34):
then those who only did the saunatwo to three times a week. I
think it was about thirty thirty percentthirty three percent, which is really an
enormous number. And the use ofsauna. I like to prescribe sauna for
my patients because think of it thisway. We have the ability to only
(23:56):
test for so many chemicals, butreally there's about one hundred thousand different chemicals
in commerce, and we're not ableto test for all of them. But
the ones that are stored in ourout of host tissue and other places in
the body, the use of sautatherapyis able to have them come out into
(24:25):
the sweat and out of the body. So I like to talk about sauna.
But one that we haven't talked aboutyet is avoidance. Simple avoidance.
It's got to be the number onerule of environmental medicine is avoidance. And
every chemical you avoid, you don'thave to detox. So it's really a
very important point to make with patients. Yeah, it is very important.
(24:51):
I'm glad that you brought it up, and I'm also glad that you brought
up the fact that you can't testfor all of them and that you have
to kind of use some universal techniquesthat will get at some of the chemicals
that you that you can't necessarily testfor Doctor Patrick, you've mentioned detox a
couple of times, so here's aquestion for you. Can you support the
(25:14):
body's detoxification system with any kind oftargeted dietary supplements. Yes, there's good
information that supplemental nutrition. I'm talkingabout pills now, not food, that
something as simple as a buffered vitaminC. So vitamin C comes in different
(25:37):
forms. There's a scorbic acid,and there's a buffer to score bit,
So I'm talking about the buffer toscore bit gets vitamin C hooked onto a
mineral like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium, zinc. That the use
of something as simple as vitamin Ccan actually improve the body's ability to break
(25:59):
down and eliminate chemicals, and that'sbeen studied in human beings and in fact
in pregnant women. That vitamin isa very safe thing to give to a
pregnant woman to help her improve herbody's ability to let go of lead,
and it does not increase exposure tothe fetus. So we're very careful when
(26:23):
we work with pregnant women for thatreason. The vitamin C is pretty simple
in that regard magnesium which about halfof the American population doesn't get enough magnesium,
either in their diet or from takingsupplements. Magnesium is necessary in the
(26:45):
function of about three hundred enzymes inthe body, many of which are in
the liver and are involved in themetabolism and the elimination of toxins. So
something as simple as making sure you'regetting enough sufficient meaning not the RDI of
(27:07):
magnesium, but actually for your bodysufficient amounts of magnesium really goes a long
way to help increase your body's abilityto get rid of not just metals,
but other compounds like pesticides and solventsand plastics. So those are two kind
of basic, basic nutritional supplements thateverybody should take just to help their bodies
(27:33):
get rid of what they're exposed toon a daily basis. And there's been
doctor Russell Jaffee. I don't knowif you've interviewed him, but he was
a senior research fellow at NIH.He's computed, based on the number of
grams of toxicance that we take inevery day, that we need a minimum
of two to three thousand milligrams ofvitamins C a day in order to process
(28:00):
those toxics that mays been like alot to people, but it's really not
a lot of Yeah, I didn'tlook at what we're exposed to. Yeah,
exactly. I've had the chance tohave doctor Jaffee on this show,
but I've interviewed him numerous times forthe Natch Medicine Journal, and I've also
done entire shows on glutathione, SoI would probably add glutathione to that list.
(28:25):
Absolutely. Yeah. So, um, we're having to wrap up now,
so I want to make sure thatour listeners can find out more information
about the two of you. Doctorfine, where can people find out more
about you and your work? Doyou have a website that you can share
with us? We do. Ourwebsite is at emiglobal dot com. That's
(28:48):
our website where we teach a oneyear course for physicians and other healthcare providers
to become experts in environmental medicine.Okay, perfect, doctor Patrick, any
other websites that you'd like to addwell for people who are searching for a
qualified healthcare provider. The National Associationof Environmental Medicine actually identifies the physicians that
(29:17):
have gone to our training program,and we have the those physicians identified on
our website. As well. OurNational Association Environmental Medicine is e NV medicine
dot com, Nvmedicine dot com.Great, okay, perfect well. Thanks
again Doctor Patrick and doctor Fine forjoining me and talking about such an important
(29:41):
topic that wraps up this episode offive to Thrive Live once again. I'd
like to thank our sponsors Amused postbioticto give your immune system that extra boost,
Cognizan citicolin to help enhance memory,focus and attention. Doctor or here
is award winning shelf stable probiotic,Guya RBS, makers of accepttional quality herbal
products, and of course pro ThriversWellness Sleep formula. May you experience joy,
(30:06):
laughter, in love. It's timeto thrive everyone, have a great
night. Good good
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