Demystifying LPS with Dr. Tom O’Bryan: Rational Wellness Podcast 382

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Dr. Tom O’Bryan discusses Demystifying LPS with moderator Dr. Ben Weitz at the Functional Medicine Discussion Group meeting on September 24, 2024.  

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.] 

 

Podcast Highlights

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Dr. Tom O’Bryan is a recognized world expert on gluten and its impact on health. He is an internationally recognized and sought after speaker and workshop leader specializing in the complications of Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity, Celiac Disease, and the development of Autoimmune Diseases, as they occur inside and outside of the intestines.  His website is TheDr.com.  Please register for his award-winning docuseries, TheInflammationEquation.com.

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.

 

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Podcast Transcript

Dr. Ben Weitz: Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates. And to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com. Thanks for joining me. And let’s jump into the podcast. 

Welcome everybody. I’m Dr. Ben Weitz, and this is another Functional Medicine Discussion Group meeting. Please tell all your friends about these meetings. We have great speakers and it’s a great opportunity to network and learn and usually get some free food.

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So our sponsors for this evening are Integrative Therapeutics. The rep from Integrative is not here so, I just wanted to tell you about a few Integrative Therapeutics products. It’s one of the few professional lines of supplements that we use in our office and since the topic is gastrointestinal related a couple of their products that we use that are really great is the Motility Activator, which is a great way to reset the gut motility naturally.

And they also have the elemental diet dextrose free version. So, for patients who are stuck, that you’re not making progress with SIBO, with IBS, consider two weeks of the elemental diet to let the gut really rest and and that can be really beneficial. So I want to thank our other sponsor for this evening, which is Vibrant America.

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The rep from Vibrant America is also not here. He’s on his way. But Vibrant America is a one stop shop for Functional Medicine testing. We use a lot of Vibrant America testing. They offer great panels. You can use it to replace all your  standard panels as well as all the specialty panels, the special Food Sensitivity Panels, The Gut Zoomer.  They have a whole series of those. They have great toxin testing. We use the Total Tox Burden, which is this urine panel that you get environmental toxins, you get mycotoxins, you get heavy metals, and they have great Lyme testing. They have great testing for chronic viruses, so, it can pretty much be a one stop shop for Functional Medicine testing.

 

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Dr. Ben Weitz:  And so we’re so happy to have Dr. Tom O’Bryan joining us this evening, he flew in just to speak at our meeting. Tom is, doesn’t need any introduction. He’s an incredible speaker. Thank you so much, Tom. Thank you.

Dr. Tom O’Bryan:  Thank you. Hello. Before I get started, about Vibrant,… So, how many of you have [00:03:00] tested for gluten sensitivity comes back negative, but the patient feels better when they go off of wheat? Is that common? It’s the test. It’s the test you’re using. So, I’ve known this for many, many years, that sometimes you get false negatives with the testing that’s available.  Whether it’s gliadin antibodies, transglutaminase, endomycem, they come back negative, but the patient reacts to wheat. It’s the test. So, I started really questioning the tests. And what I did was, when I draw a tube of blood, I took a second tube, out of the same venipuncture. I labeled it Joe Smith and sent it to the lab with the patient’s blood, ordering the same test.  And when the results come back, three out of ten times, three out of ten times, you didn’t know which [00:04:00] one to talk to the patient about, the one that was normal or the one that really had a problem. That’s how frequently you will see how inaccurate your testing is, and if you don’t look, you don’t know. So we live in la la land with the tests that we’re using, thinking they’re accurate.  They’re not accurate. It’s the technology.  ELISA tests were developed in 1986.  Is that 50 years now?  Not quite, 50 years ago. They’re really helpful. And I’ve known this for many, many years, and so what do you do? As you may know, I cut my teeth in the world of gluten and wheat related disorders and celiac. I did 26 8 hour days in 2008, unlocking the mysteries of gluten sensitivity.  8 hours with me, 300 studies, Metagenics sponsored it. Anyone in the room back there? With [00:05:00] me back then, yeah, yeah. And in 2009, I did 28 8 hour days on autoimmunity.  I’ve been, I’ve been doing this for a while.  And when you do the double blinds, the second tube of blood, and you do it enough times, you go, oh my god.  You’re,… it’s like the carpet gets pulled out. You don’t know what to say to people. You just go for symptom relief and hope for the best, right?

So in the world of celiac disease, there’s who I call the four horsemen. They’re the greats in the field. Alessio Fasano at Harvard, Stefano Guadalini, University of Chicago, Peter Green at Columbia, and Joe Murray at Mayo.  They’ve written more papers that are easy to read and relevant to clinicians than anyone I know. And Joe Murray. He’s the one, he’s got leather patches on the back of his elbows for his sport coats. Bowties, that he ties, not clipons, bowties, horn rimmed glasses. He’s the geek of geeks. And his papers are so enjoyable to read because they’re clinician friendly, right?  If you can read papers by Mayo, by Joe Murray from Mayo, you’ll appreciate him. Well, in January of 2016, Murray wrote a paper and said there is a new era in laboratory medicine. A new era. This is from Murray at Mayo, and it’s called Silicon Chip Technology. They can look at 6,000 antigens in one blood draw.  What? With 97 to 99 percent sensitivity, 98 to 100 percent specificity, right on the money, every time. So, in 1990, 1995, if I were to tell you, in about 20 years or so, I’m going to carry this little black thing the size of my [00:07:00] wallet in my hand, and if I just push on it a little bit and run my thumb one way, or I, do it another way.  And I push on a button. I can tell you within five seconds that the air particulate matter in Santa Monica right now is 38. It’s a good day to exercise outside. It’s not too toxic. Chicago’s 22. Costa Rica is 38.  Alessandria, where I live, is 80. Don’t exercise outside today. I can tell you anything you want to know in the world because I’ve got the encyclopedia in my hand and I can access it in 5 seconds.  If I told you that in 1990, you would have thought I was watching too much Star Trek. Right? It wasn’t in our paradigm. We couldn’t believe that’s possible. It’s possible. That’s silicone chip technology. Wake up.

The tests that you’re doing you have to check, because who’s getting screwed? [00:08:00] It’s the patients.  Because you’re believing what you see in the results and you apply your protocols based on that and so many times…three out of ten…in my practice, 3 out of 10. So, that’s my plug for Vibrant. Because it was Vibrant that Joe Murray was talking about. That’s the technology. Silicone chip technology. It’s a game changer.  There’s nothing like it. I’ve never seen anything like it. So, they’re sponsoring me here tonight. So that’s my plug for Vibrant, before I get started. It’ll change your practice when you do this and you do like, do five patients, it’ll cost you, you have to pay for the test yourself. You can’t bill the patient for it, but you’ll find out.  Wow, one out of five of my patients gave me completely wrong information, or two out of five, completely wrong information. It’s like, holy [00:09:00] cow. Okay, let’s go. See if I can.

I’m really excited to talk to you tonight about this topic. I’m really excited. It’s a, it’s the talk that I’m giving on Saturday morning in San Jose at the Vibrant Longevity Conference. And I think I’m going to rock a few boats here and I’m looking forward to that. So many thanks to Ben for the invitation, you know, for being able to come here tonight.

This is my boss. I think the only way we’re going to change the direction the planet is going in is to raise a generation of children that think outside the box. They have to think differently because we think we’re saving the planet, but we’re driving SUVs, right?  We think a certain way. So we need children that think outside the box.  And the topic of this talk is really important for that. So that’s my son. And he’s almost four now. So I’m going to give you 12 premises tonight, 12 concepts, and I hope you’ll write them down maybe in your phone or a couple of notes to take so that you can think about them some more. This presentation is designed as a paradigm expanding, thought provoking engagement.  I suspect there will be a few new concepts here for some. Allow ideas to percolate from these facts and write down your thoughts and questions.

In my career, when I found a paper that really captured me, I was like, what? I taped the front page of the paper to the ceiling in my bedroom. I did. And when I go to sleep at night, I go, oh, oh yeah, oh yeah.  And sometimes I’d have thoughts about it during the night. I’d wake up, I’d set myself up, I gave myself permission [00:11:00] to think outside the box. You know, to just have it in my awareness. And then I would, oh yeah, and then I’d write little notes down. I got this little pad with a pen. You pull the pen out and a very soft light shines down on the 3×5 card.  So you don’t have to turn the lights on in the room. You don’t get blinded. Right. And then in the morning I say, Oh, that’s right. Oh yeah. I groomed myself in topics that I didn’t, I wasn’t familiar with. If I read a paper and it is like, what? I groomed myself to think about that topic. I encourage you. to consider doing that with something that really grabs you.  Put it on your refrigerator. It doesn’t have to go on the ceiling. Put it on the refrigerator. A graph from one of the papers, right? Because most clinicians don’t have time to read research. You don’t have time to do that unless you’re a geek and just love it. Like I do. It’s in all, three bathrooms in the house.  There’s research papers and highlighters in all the bathrooms, right? [00:12:00] So when you find something that captures you, you dive in. You really dive into it. You learn more about it. And the result is, within a few months, you’re pretty competent in that topic. Much more competent than your peers, because you’ve read three or four papers on that topic now.  because you read one and you look at the references in the back and then you order the papers or you download them off the internet and you’ve read two, three, four of those papers, you’ve got that, doesn’t matter what the concept is. If it grabs your interest and you allow yourself, you set yourself up to think outside the box, the result is you expand your consciousness, you expand your awareness on that topic that you’re interested in.  Allocate one hour a week. For six months, just one hour a week to the topic. And in six months, you’ve got this. You’ve really got this down.

This is a [00:13:00] paper that everyone should read. All disease begins in the, quote, leaky gut. The role of zonulin mediated gut permeability in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory diseases.  This is Fasano at Harvard, Professor of Medicine at Harvard, Professor of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, the chief Pediatric Gastroenterology at Harvard, the Director of the Celiac Research Center at Harvard, the Director of Mucosal Immunology at Harvard. This guy has five titles. Any one title is a lifelong dream for someone at the top of their game.  He’s got five.  We think he’s going to win the Nobel Prize because it’s him and his team that identified the mechanism of zonulin in the production of Leaky Gut back in 1997. And they’ve written 400 papers now on that in the last 25 years. He’s always really careful of what he says, always, so that he’s not misquoted.  You’ll [00:14:00] see a paper, and there’s eight authors on the paper, and the last one, Alessio Fasano, the stamp of approval from the boss, right? This paper, he wrote himself. I give you that history because The significance of the message from this great in the field. He’s a great in the field. All disease begins in the leaky gut.

This is a paper that needs to go on your refrigerator or on your ceiling and you digest this paper. He talks about the perfect storm in the development of chronic inflammatory diseases. He lays it out sequentially, you go, wow, well, what about, wow, wait, what about, Wow! And you follow his line of thinking and you get it.  All disease begins in the leaky gut.

So, this is so very true, isn’t it? Now, what [00:15:00] does he mean? Well, if you haven’t read this book, this is from the 1950s, and it’s such a critically important book to read. It’s all about the adrenal glands and the impact of stress, and if you don’t know, you probably know, but a young man that unfortunately dies of trauma, a healthy young man, his adrenal glands are the size of a walnut.  A young man who unfortunately dies of disease, his adrenal glands are the size of a peanut. So you think giving some nutrients for a few months or changing a diet is going to change that? How do you rebuild adrenal glands? One cell at a time. It takes years to rebuild an adrenal gland, but do you have any biomarkers of what you’re doing and the goals of what you’re trying to produce?  You read Selye’s book and you start to get this big picture. Now I put the book here because of the quote in the book. I just love the quote.[00:16:00]

You’re all advanced clinicians here. You’re all advanced, but you’ve not done double blinds on blood tests yet. Right? Nor so naive to believe you could do so without intellectual effort. We trust our labs. We trust what we’ve been told. Wake up. So this paper tells us of why we have every autoimmune disease is going up four to nine percent a year, every single one of them.

Why? Well, the population has gone from, in the 1950s, we were at about 2 billion. Now, we’re at over 6 billion in 50 years, in 70 years, but look at the ratio of these. Look at how many of them, oops, let me back that up, sorry. There we go. The blue line are those over 70, the percentage of the population over [00:17:00] 70, compared to The percentage of the population under 70.  We’ve got billions of more elders now. That’s a primary contributor that every autoimmune disease is going up 4 9 percent a year because there’s more people living longer who’ve had a lifetime of toxic exposures and their bodies are breaking down, right?

Societal triumph of longevity is plagued with debilitating morbidity accentuated towards the end of life. There’s a recognized gap between lifespan, the total life lived, and healthspan, the period free from disease. That’s my personal goal, is to extend the healthy lifespan closer to the total lifespan.  I don’t know about extending life, I don’t know, I can try, you know, I hope so, I hope so. But, that quality of life, [00:18:00] healthy lifespan is, and when I say that to a patient, they all, oh yeah, yeah that’s what I want, well this is what you have to do. You have to figure out how you’re throwing gasoline on the fire and stop throwing gasoline on the fire.

They get that, and they have a goal that they understand what they’re trying to accomplish. Male life expectancy is almost 79, but the average healthy male life expectancy is 62. So for men, the last 16 years of their life are spent with disabilities. That’s the average. That’s the average. For women, they live five years longer.  And their average is 20 years of disability. They’ve lost healthy lifespan. Do you get how profound this is? When you show this to a patient, They don’t want to be with disabilities. They want to extend total, healthy lifespan. And when you frame it this way, [00:19:00] when you get, you know, a couple of these studies and you just read them and you start thinking about it, you put the ceiling of your bedroom, you start thinking about it, you start applying those principles to your life and to your family.  You start understanding some of the mechanisms that have to be looked at. One fifth of an individual’s life will be lived with morbidity. That’s a gruesome thought, but that’s the average. Yeah, right now. That’s the average. So, whoa, whoa. So now we address a tool in reversing this devastating direction, right?  That’s our goal.

When do these eventually disabling diseases begin?  Most of you will remember this paradigm shifting study that came out in New England Journal of Medicine in 2003. Melissa Arbuckle at the VA, she looked for people with lupus in her VA center. There were 132 [00:20:00] people diagnosed with lupus.  Now, if you’re in a VA center, you’re a vet. If you’re a vet, you were in the Armed Forces. If you were in the Armed Forces, you had your blood drawn many times over the years when you were healthy in the Marines or the Navy. What most people don’t know, government’s been saving and freezing all of that blood since 1978.  They’ve got tens of millions of samples of our service people’s blood. Well, Arbuckle knew that, and she asked for permission to look at the blood, the frozen blood of the currently diagnosed veterans when they were healthy in the Marines or in the Navy. She got permission and what did she find? She found that antibodies are present years before a diagnosis.  Elevated antibodies. There are seven antibodies to lupus. Every single one of them was elevated five years before there was ever a symptom. So here’s the symptom. The zero line is normal and anything above is elevated. And all of the antibodies of lupus are elevated and there’s a predictable course of increase in symptoms.

Antibodies, increased antibodies. Why? Because they’re still living the lifestyle that’s causing the problem. They don’t know it’s their lifestyle causing the problem. Until they hit a threshold. Now they get symptoms, and within six months to two years, they get the diagnosis of lupus. And this is the summary of those seven questions.  different antibodies and how they climb. And she put this together and she made it up. She said, well, you’ve got normal level of antibodies to your thyroid or to your liver, whatever your brain, whatever antibodies you’re looking at. There’s a normal level. And why do we have antibodies to our thyroid? Why is there a normal level of antibodies to cerebellum?  Because the antibodies are part of the [00:22:00] process of autophagy. Getting rid of the old and damaged cells, making room for new cells. But elevated antibodies means you’re killing off more cells than you’re making. That’s just a basic 101 concept. Elevated antibodies are never normal. Well, let’s just wait and see.  What are you waiting for? You know, there’s a problem. There’s some type of imbalance. There’s a problem. But first you have normal immunity. Then you have benign autoimmune. That’s what she called it. That’s elevated antibodies and no symptoms. Now you get symptoms. And then you get a diagnosis.

To increase healthy lifespan, we must address the imbalances when in the prodromal period.  What does that mean? Well, the prodromal period is before clinical illness, before a diagnosis of a disease. That’s when you’ve got to address this stuff. That’s when it’s [00:23:00] the easiest to address. And as Fassano says, arrest and reverse the development of autoimmune diseases. You can arrest them, but you have to learn how to do that before diagnosis. That’s like, whoa, okay, okay. And you think about that, you get a couple of those studies because they’re paradigm shifting in your brain. When you understand the mechanisms that are going on, you start thinking differently. Focus on addressing the presenting symptoms successfully, and you are still likely to exasperate the comorbidities.

How do we address the mechanisms triggering comorbidities? That’s the key to expanding healthy lifespan. And how do we accomplish this during the prodromal period?  Well, in God we trust, in all others require data. That’s Andrew Campbell, and [00:24:00] that’s a very good sentence. I like that sentence a lot.

So here’s what I did back in 2008, the full day seminars on gluten. And I talked about, back then, the serology. Identifying celiac disease or gluten sensitivity is ineffective in detecting those with silent or subclinical celiac disease. The sensitivity of endomycium, for example, is 100 percent if patients have total villous atrophy.  But when they have partial villous atrophy, it’s 31%, meaning it’s wrong 710 times with a false negative. Wait, what? So you’re testing for celiac disease? If they don’t have total villus atrophy, you miss it seven out of ten times if you’re doing endomycium or transglutaminase. You miss it seven out of ten times.

And I taught that back in 2008. But still, so many are still using [00:25:00] Transglutaminase or Gliadin antibodies as the marker people have a problem with wheat. It’s wrong 10 times if you don’t have total bilis atrophy. If you have total bilis atrophy, it’s right on the money. And fecal antibodies, some docs are doing fecal antibodies against these antigens.  Well, the sensitivity of Transglutaminase is 10%. The specificity is 98, but that it accurately identifies it, it’s wrong 9 out of 10 times. And for Gliaden, it’s 6 percent wrong, 9. 4 out of 10 times. Well, I do the stool test. Um, can I suggest you read a study on that? And I give them this link. It’s like, wait, what?

You know, what? So, here’s Vibrant. This is a paper that Joe Murray’s team put out [00:26:00] in January of 2016 that changed my life. Now we had tools that I could tell clinicians about that are 97 to 99 percent sensitive and 98 to 100 percent specific. Right on the money every single time. The only exception is is if they have low total immunoglobulins.

Then you can’t test immunoglobulins because they’re low, or if they’re on steroids. You can’t test immunoglobulins if they’re on steroids. A combination of lithography and biochemistry for peptide synthesis has opened the door to a new era in the identification of novel biomarkers of disease. This is Murray.

This is one of the godfathers of celiac, and he doesn’t work for Vibrant. He was as excited as everybody else to see this technology. The relative non invasiveness, broad availability, and versatility of the high throughput [00:27:00] peptide microarrays makes this technology well suited for incorporation into routine healthcare and provide a promising new tool for biomarkers.

And this is the Wheat Zoomer test because you zoom in on the problems. This is page one of the test report, and this is the part where they look at leaky gut. These are the biomarkers of leaky gut, and that was a brilliant business move on their part. I wish I had stock in Auburn, but there’s no stock available, but I wish it was.

I did. Because this is brilliant. They took the most comprehensive test. ever produced so far that I know of to identify leaky gut, and they put it in the wheat zoomer, and they made it affordable. It’s like 350 bucks or 400 dollars. Very reasonable. But now you have not only the antibodies to zonulin, actin, and LPS, but you also get zonulin levels.  which [00:28:00] is just excellent. So where do we begin in educating our patients? Is there a root cause in the development of chronic inflammatory diseases? You know, I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t hold back. So if you’re talking about, well, this is the root cause of your disease, this genetics, it’s the root cause.

No, it’s not. There are many causes to disease, but there’s one root mechanism. There’s one. I suggest there’s not a root cause. There are many causes and we must refrain from using this type of language as it confuses patients and deflates their receptivity. When a root cause is addressed, and they still have symptoms, they lose faith in you when you do language like that. Right? There is a one root mechanism in the development of chronic inflammatory diseases, and speaking to this paradigm will guide and empower your patients to use more of your services. They hop on board with you when they understand. [00:29:00] I call it the Prime Directive.  What’s the Prime Directive? Well, the Center for Disease Control tells us that 14 of the 15 top causes of death are chronic inflammatory diseases. Everything except unintentional injury is a chronic inflammatory disease. It’s always inflammation, without exception. Why are we not making this primary in our therapeutics for every patient?

This is the mechanism of This is a patient you pull in a chain and breaks at the weakest link. It’s at one end, the middle, the other end. It’s your heart, your brain, your liver, your kidneys, wherever your weak link is. And that’s determined by your genetics and your antecedents. How you live your life. You eat mercury twi or you eat tuna fish twice a week.

You got mercury toxicity. Right, because all, most of the tuna now has mercury, high levels of mercury, right? That’s an antecedent. So it’s your genetics and how you live your life that [00:30:00] determines where the weak link is, but it’s inflammation that’s the pull on the chain. That’s what’s pulling on the chain.

You have a BRCA1 or BRCA2, it doesn’t mean you’re getting breast cancer. It means if you pull on the chain too hard, That’s where it may manifest. If you have an ApoE4, it doesn’t mean you’re getting Alzheimer’s. But if you pull on the chain, and Dale Bredesen has given us so much information on that. Stop pulling on the chain.  There’s 36 holes in the roof. Fix the holes in the roof. That’s Dr. Bredesen’s approach. Right on the money. But it’s to stop pulling on the chain. And when you talk to your patients like this, they get it. It’s not geeky science to them. You’re pulling on the chain too hard. You got mold in your house. I tested you.

You got mold. We have to get the mold out because it’s pulling on the chain. And that’s your daughter’s attention deficit or whatever the symptoms are. They’re presenting with every chronic, Disease is a [00:31:00] Chronic Inflammatory Disease. Every one of them. We were never taught to think like this. Get a couple of these papers, and just chew on them a bit.

And you’ll get as passionate in your own way about it as I am. I’m half Italian I’m a little vocal about it. Chronic Inflammatory Diseases have been recognized as the most significant cause of death in the world today. When your immune system gets activated, why is it getting activated, it’s got, it gets activated producing inflammation because it got this message.

We’re under attack, fight and defend. That’s why you get inflammation. So the question is, what is it your immune system is trying to protect you from? It’s that basic. It really is that basic. And then it’s all the sophistication of what tests do you do and how do you interpret the tests? What do you do when you find the results? of where the inflammation is coming from, what are [00:32:00] the environmental triggers. That’s the art of medicine, the art of healthcare, right? But the concept is just so basic. I don’t mean to insult anyone here, but we should all be living in that world of basics with our patients. This is precisely why I spent the last year putting together the free docuseries, The Inflammation Equation.

I went to seven countries, interviewed 64 experts on inflammation. Did anyone in here see The Inflammation Equation? No, oh my, oh, a couple people? Thank you. Yeah. It’s TheInflammationEquation.com. Please register, it’s free, and watch the first day. Just watch, watch the first ten minutes. And if you’re not hooked, turn it off and say, alright, whatever.  Right? Just watch the first ten minutes. Terry Walls started crying when, when she saw it. She started crying. She said, Tom, this is right on the money. I’m doing a docuseries. And she [00:33:00] just finished her docuseries. She said, I’m going to do a docuseries. I interviewed her in the early days for this one and she decided to do hers on ms, and it just launched and is really great.

But in any event, please take a look at this because you’ll find that every single patient when they watch this, and I programmed this I language this. So that every day we say, now go back to the healthcare practitioner that recommended this event to you and ask them, where’s my inflammation coming from, or do I have mold sensitivities, doc, or, but we prep your patients to come back to you.

We’re not selling them anything here is to come back to you more educated. So you aren’t trying to convince them. to do a test. They get it. They understand that you have to identify the environmental triggers that are activating the immune system, trying to protect you, [00:34:00] causing the inflammation, pulling on your chain, and wherever the weak link is on your chain, that’s where the symptoms are manifesting.  They get it. They understand that basic concept. Pull the chain and breaks at the weakest link. This drawing is so wonderful. When I saw this, I had to go interview that guy. And that’s David Furman at Stanford, also at the Buck Institute. He got the contract with NASA to figure out why are the astronauts aging so quickly in space?  Because astronauts can never go to Mars. Never. The technologies They’re two and a half years and the spaceships are at Mars, but astronauts will die on the way. Now NASA doesn’t talk about that, but that’s what they found out. And what is it? It’s inflammation. Accelerated inflammation. So I talked to David about that.

I love this drawing because every patient understands this. Mrs. Patient, you’ve got a viral [00:35:00] infection and that activates your immune system, or physical inactivity, or obesity, or Dysbiosis, Diet, Chronic Stress Hormones, Not Regenerative Sleep, Xenobiotic Accumulation in your body. It turns the wheel, which turns the middle wheel, which gives you systemic chronic inflammation that manifests as Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, Depression, Autoimmune Disease, Neurodegenerative Disease, Sarcopenia, Immunosuppression, it doesn’t matter what the symptoms are. This is the mechanism. This is what they’re teaching in Stanford Medical School right now. This is the mechanism. We all should be embracing this as a 101 primary as we’re working with our patients. You know, we first have to of course address their symptoms so they’re starting to feel better or at the same time, but to educate them.  This is what we have to educate them on. [00:36:00] And we know that the nine well established hallmarks of aging are all linked to sustained chronic inflammation. Every single one of them, without exception. This also is from Berman at Stanford. How important is it to identify the triggers of inflammation?

If you want to extend healthy lifespan, this is how you do it. You stop the deterioration, deterioration, the antibodies, killing off cells, killing off cells, killing off cells, while they feel fine. They feel fine. They don’t know. No, I don’t feel bad when I eat wheat dock. I feel fine. But they don’t know that for every one person that gets gut symptoms, there are eight people that don’t, who test positive to weep.  They get brain symptoms, or skin symptoms, or joint symptoms. They don’t get gut [00:37:00] symptoms, so they feel fine. They think they’re okay. From the blood immune of a thousand individuals, They looked at this and they, a deep learning method was based on patterns of systemic age related inflammation, and this is what they found out.

The resulting inflammatory clock of aging tracked with multi morbidity, immunosenescence, frailty, and cardiovascular aging, and is also associated with exceptional longevity in centenarians. The ones that live long have low markers of chronic inflammation. And here is an example. 79 centenarians, disease free, they’re all disease free, were compared to 178 people under 40 who had had a heart attack and 178 people under 40 who did not have a heart attack.

So they compared the three groups. All the [00:38:00] centenarians were free of major age related diseases. Disease free veterinarians had significantly lower levels of serum zonulin and LPS than young patients.

This is what it looked like. I’m going to talk about lipopolysaccharides for the rest of the night now. Look at the numbers. You want to live over 100? This is what it takes. This is, this is extended Healthy Lifespan. This is what it takes. Low LPS. Low Zonulin.

And that’s just the bar graphs that went along with the study for LPS and the bar graph for Zonulin. LPS levels were significantly lower in disease free centenarians than in acute myocardial infarction patients and [00:39:00] healthy young controls. Zonulin levels were significantly lower in centenarians. So when researchers, when geeks, say significantly, they’re, you know, that’s their word for, Holy cow, Batman, look at this!

You know, it’s just startling, the results. Permeability may cause endotoxemia, which in turn leads to inflammation and insulin resistance, atherosclerosis and hypercoagulation. Our data suggests serum levels of zonulin and LPS emerge as potential novel biomarkers of exceptional longevity. Extending healthy lifespans.

Now there are many factors to take in mind, and this is one of them, but this is a primary that I’m talking about for the rest of the night. You really need to get this one down, understand this one. Put it on the ceiling of your bedroom. What other biomarkers are you currently using to identify exceptional longevity?[00:40:00]

We’re not using them. So LPS is a biomarker of exceptional longevity. A very basic paradigm in functional medicine is test, don’t guess. You must monitor a patient to confirm successful redirection and or to identify roadblocks. And the summary of this study, I’ll let you read that, very powerful study. 79 centenarians. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. The essential question is with inflammation, what is the immune system trying to protect you from? What’s it trying to protect you from? Here’s Tassano. Those are his titles. That’s the paper that everyone should read.  All disease begins in the leaky gut. And just google it, it pops right up and you can [00:41:00] download it.

Can you go back? Go back? Yeah. This?  Okay.

The activation of the zonulin pathway represents a defensive mechanism to flush out microorganisms, contributing to the innate immune response of the host against changes in microbiome ecosystem. Do you understand what he’s saying? Our ancestors, Mrs. Patient, you have the same body as your ancestor 10, 000 years ago, the same kidneys, the same immune system, everything functions the same.  And before agriculture, our ancestors were nomads. They followed their herds for food. Food was the number one thing they needed. Top priority. Then shelter and safety. Right? But it was food. They’re walking around, they find something, they grab it, they sniff, they nibble, and they eat it. If there were bugs on that food, which there [00:42:00] often were, and hydrochloric acid didn’t kill it, and it comes into the proximal part of the small intestine, that’s where toll like receptor 4 is very abundant.

Why? Because it’s the sentry, standing guard. I think of the soldiers at Buckingham Palace, those big hats, you know, they’re just dormant as can be. But don’t mess with those guys. But they’re dormant. Toll like receptor 4 is dormant, until it’s scanning everything that’s coming out of the stomach. And when it sees a bug, what does it do?

Two things. Within five minutes, it activates increased production of zonulin, which opens the tight junctions. Water comes from the body into the gut to wash out the bug with the poop. That’s what leaky gut is for. It’s a life saving mechanism. It’s very cool. Excessive leaky gut is a problem, right? Two things.  That was the first one. The second thing, It activates NF kappa B, the [00:43:00] major amplifier of inflammation in the body, within five minutes. All that happens within five minutes. I’ve got the videos. If we have time later, I’ll play the videos and you see what leaky gut is within five minutes. Wow! So, that’s the purpose of leaky gut.

Now, listen to Fasano. Among the several potential intestinal luminal stimuli that stimulates zonulin, Small Exposure, Large Amounts of Bacteria, and it’s Exhaust LPS, and Gluten are the two most powerful triggers. Most powerful. Not soy, not dairy, not lectins. Gluten. Why? Oh, wait a minute. Okay, so I didn’t put the slides in here as to why.  Why? And it’s in that paper from Fasano. Gluten is misinterpreted. as a harmful component of a microorganism. [00:44:00] The protein structure of these peptides of wheat look like the outer shell of gram negative bacteria. That’s why every human gets leaky gut every time they eat wheat, whether they feel it or not.

Every human. Maureen Leonard at Harvard, famous gastroenterologist, did a literature review on that topic, and she published it in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and she said this occurs in every human, everyone, whether you feel it or not. Okay, LPS. It’s one of the main toxins responsible for inflammation from gram negative bacteria, which ranks among the most potent amino stimulants found in nature.  How important is that? One of the most potent immune stimulators in nature.  [00:45:00] LPS is the major molecular component of the outer membrane of gram negative bacteria. It’s the shell that protects the gram negative bacteria, serves as a physical barrier, uh, protection from its surroundings. This is LPS.  That’s LPS. Drosado says it’s one of the two most potent triggers activating leaky gut. Leaky gut is the gateway to development of chronic inflammatory diseases. 14 of the 15 top causes of death are chronic inflammatory diseases. When you put this together, it’s like, holy cow, I never thought of it that way.

Critically important to address LPS. It’s an intrastructural component found in the external membrane of gram negative bacteria, as well as representing [00:46:00] one of the most powerful microbial inflammation indicators. Could they say it any differently to knock it into our heads how important this is? One of the most powerful, one of two that stimulates leaky gut.

Look at this, the title of this paper. Look at the title first. Microbiome derived lipopolysaccharide enriched in the perinuclear region of Alzheimer’s disease brain. LPS is recognized by Toll like receptor 4 as a marker for the detection of bacterial pathogen. and is responsible for the development of inflammatory response, is perhaps the most potent stimulator and trigger of inflammation known.

Could they say it any more clearly for us to pay attention to it? The most powerful trigger of inflammation known [00:47:00] causes a substantial increase in the production of cytokines, chemokines, and the synthesis of a broad group of lipid inflammatory meteors. So LPS is the outer shell, and in your body, it’s called endotoxemia, when you have elevated levels of LPS.

Because it’s endotoxin. We know that gram negative bacteria is in the passage of viable indigenous bacteria from the GI tract to extra intestinal sites such as the mesenteric lymph nodes, the liver, the spleen, the kidney, the peritoneal cavity, the brain, and bloodstream, under some stressful conditions.

Wait, wait, what? What? Did they just say bacteria from the GI tract goes to extra intestinal sites, such as the brain, the mesenteric lymph node, the liver, the spleen, the kidney, the peritoneal cavities and the bloodstream? Yes. And damage to the gut correlates with [00:48:00] how much the immune system gets activated.

Now this is, this paper, this paper, it came out in 2010. I called my friend Ari Vojtani. We were working together at the time and Tom, Tom, are you okay? I said, yeah, yeah. Tom, it’s 10 o’clock at night. Why are you calling? Ari, listen to the title of this paper. Compromised gastrointestinal integrity and pigtail mucocs is associated with increased microbial translocation, immune activation, and IL 17 production.

In the absence of infection, and we were talking for an hour or more about this, because I’ll show you why. In the brain, LPS causes inflammatory response, which results in the degeneration of neurons, synaptic loss, and finally, neuronal cell death. This process is mediated by [00:49:00] the production of inflammatory molecules.

Look at this sentence, amyloidogenesis caused by LPS is the most prominent phenomena in the cortical and hippocampal areas. Most prominent in the development of Alzheimer’s. Nobody’s checking for it. Nobody’s treating it. Most powerful bacterial activator of an immune response, creating the inflammation.

that pulls at the chain. Could they say it any clearer? Look at the title of this paper, Lipopolysaccharide Induced Model of Neuroinflammation, Mechanisms of Action, Research Application, Future Directions for Excuse. You put this one on your ceiling, and in a few months, you’ve got this. You’ve got it. But right now, it’s like, whoa, that’s all geeky stuff.

You know, for most people, it’s [00:50:00] like, well, but when you read it once, and then next week, you read it again. And then maybe the next week, you kind of look at it once more, what you’ve highlighted, you start to get it, and you get in the flow of what these people who spend their lives researching this are trying to tell us.

Because we’re the ones that are supposed to be taking their information and applying it to the patients. But we don’t even know about this. Did you know that LPS? is the cause of amyloidogenesis, the most powerful trigger. LPS can induce characteristics features of Parkinson’s by causing neuron loss.

There are papers reporting persistent changes in the brain and cognition upon single LPS administration, even 10 months after LPS injection. This is consistent with the very first report of neurotoxicity after LPS exposure. When a laboratory worker developed Parkinson like signs three [00:51:00] weeks after exposure to 10 micrograms of LPS from salmonella through an open wound.

And this just talks about all the different areas of the brain and how LPS affects different areas of the brain. Take a picture of this one if you want.

You’ve got five seconds, four, three, two, one. What’s the longer term body response to LPS migration into systemic circulation? Absolutely no one is talking about what I’m about to talk about. I’ve never heard anybody talk about this. LPS is the primary cause of sepsis. Wait, wait, what? The number one cause of death of elders in hospitals?

Sepsis? And LPS is the primary cause of it? [00:52:00] By an overwhelming systemic response to bacterial infection, sepsis is a life threatening multiple organ dysfunction resulting from a deregulated Host response to infection. What is a deregulated host response to infection? What does that mean? How and why is this primary cause of mortality for elders in the hospitals a multi organ condition?  How does that happen? Damage to the gut epithelium results in systemic microbial translocation from the gut into the body that correlates with immune activation. So pigtail macaque monkeys, their guts are very much like human guts, and lots and lots of studies have been done over the years with using macaque monkeys, because they’re very similar.

Pigtail macaque monkeys always have leaky gut. They always do. Don’t know [00:53:00] why. The food they’re eating probably. Rhesus macaque monkeys rarely have leaky gut. So they looked at this and they found an average LPS accounted for 13 percent of the tissue of the gut in monkeys that have leaky gut. But in those that don’t have leaky gut, LPS was only 0.

274%. Meaning, if you have a healthy gut, you don’t get the migration and deposit. LPS into the tissue. 13 percent of the tissue is made up of LPS. Do you think the immune system ignores that? Absolutely not. We think, oh my gosh, lead toxicity, lead poisoning, oh my gosh, and it’s important, of course, to address that.

Well, the immune system’s [00:54:00] attacking lead, isn’t it, in there? Do you think it’s not attacking the LPS, the most powerful trigger of inflammation that we have? And this, this is the key, this one, when you understand what you’re looking at, you start drooling. This is stained for LPS. The dark brown is LPS. This is how much of the tissue in pigtail macaques with leaky gut.

The LPS is deposited in the tissue. This is when you don’t have leaky gut. So, what kind of a state of inflammation do you think this would be? As much as the immune system could possibly do. Because it’s constant, right? This is a constant assault of bacteria that is a primary trigger activating an immune response.

Right. But it’s constant. [00:55:00] Chronic low grade systemic inflammation. 14 of the 15 top causes of death are chronic inflammatory diseases. And this is the area of the colon that had LPS embedded in the tissue.

And they identified, they looked at these animals and they found LPS embedded in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells, embedded in the spleen, embedded in the axillary lymph nodes, in the inguinal lymph nodes, in the mesenteric lymph nodes, in the duodenum, in the jejunum, in the ileum, in the cecum, in the colon.

Do you start to get a sense of where sepsis comes from?

A lifetime of leaky gut? A lifetime of infiltration of LPS depositing in your tissue throughout your body? And then something takes them over the edge, [00:56:00] and that inflammatory cascade is out of control, the cytokine storm is out of control. But it’s all the OPS that’s been deposited in there over 50, 60, 70 years, that no one ever detoxed to get out, because they’ve never identified it, they’ve never thought about it.  These data define the degree to which microbial translocation stimulates the immune system, locally and systemically. Did they just say immune activation in the absence of viral infection? Yes, they did. What does that mean? It means the endotoxin that’s already in your body is triggering that chronic systemic inflammation.

Does that mean what is already stored in the tissue activates a chronic systemic immune response without new exposures? Yes! So you clean up the diet, you heal the gut, but they’re still walking LPS storage tanks [00:57:00] from 50 years of this stuff. It doesn’t go away unless you take action to get it out of there.

Very recent studies have evaluated pro inflammatory potential of several different chemokines, cytokines, amyloid, beta peptides, LPS, either alone in combination. So they’re checking all different markers of inflammation there, have indicated that when compared, bacterial LPS exhibits the strongest induction of pro inflammatory signaling in human neuronal glial cells of any signal inducer.

It’s the most powerful, and every one of you are ignoring it. Excuse me? It’s time to wake up. Look at the title of the article again. Where do you think Alzheimer’s comes from? Not just LPS, of course, but this is fueling that inflammation so quickly.[00:58:00]

For example, exposure of LPS from the gram negative GI tract, abundant bacterioides fragilis, and we’ve all done stool tests and we get positives back on B. fragilis. It’s pretty common for me, maybe 10 15 percent of the patients will have this. It’s found to be an exceptionally powerful inducer of NF kappa B that triggers the expression of pathogenic pathways involved in neurodegenerative inflammation. So LPS, Bacterioides Fragilis, is an exceptionally powerful inducer of the major amplifier of inflammation. Puts a whole new perspective on They don’t have any gut symptoms, but they’ve got positive for Bacterioides Fragilis, but they’ve got depression.

Might not the inflammation that’s caused by this be contributing to their neurodegenerative inflammation, be contributing to their [00:59:00] depression? Absolutely! All disease begins in the gut. Remember the article by Pisano? All disease begins in the gut. And this is a primary mechanism to this. It’s fairly common to find Bacteria Fragilis on a stool analysis.

Now perhaps you’ll look with eyes that see a deeper potential significance to this finding. Perhaps test for inflammation in the brain, because B Fragilis is an exceptionally powerful inducer of NF kappa B that triggers the expression of pathogenic pathways involved in neurodegenerative inflammation.

Every patient I see gets a WeetZoomer and a NeuroZoomer Plus, minimum. I don’t care what they present with. And then I show them how inflamed they are. And then we talk about other tests, if necessary. The NeuroZoomer has anyone here done NeuroZoomer Plus? Yeah? A few people? Okay. It looks at 53 markers of inflammation in your brain.

53! [01:00:00] with 97 99 percent sensitivity, 98 100 percent specificity. It’s a new era in laboratory medicine. And I asked my friend Jill Carnahan, I said, Jill, how often, she was taking a drink of water at dinner, I said, how often do you get a negative back on a Zoomer Plus, Neural Zoomer Plus? She went, Never!

You never get a negative back on a first test. Until people understand, Yeah. What to do? Everybody’s brain is inflamed. Why? Because we all have this low grade chronic systemic inflammation that is the mechanism for 14 of 15 top causes of death and 20 percent of the blood in your body that’s full of inflammatory cytokines is in your brain at any one time.

So your brain is the organ that’s most affected by it, right? So you test the brain for inflammation. You do the NeuroZoomer Plus test and [01:01:00] you see how bad it is. Then you start protocols to turn it around. Mrs. Patient, this will take two years. This is what, what I think you have to do, but I wouldn’t redo the test for at least a year.

You can if you want after six months, definitely not before, but I wouldn’t spend the money until a year. It’s going to take a while to turn this around. You know, you, you just give it to them straight. And once you’ve educated them about pulling on the chain, it’s always inflammation, their mother died of dementia, and they’re scared to death, you say, okay, we have to stop the pull on the chain.

And this is how you do it.

Oh, we’ll just skip that. Endotoxin may trigger cellular biosynthesis, activate intracellular mechanisms of apoptosis, and induce strong activation inflammatory pathways with the consequent release of pro inflammatories. You can read it all. [01:02:00] But this is LPS. This is what LPS does.

Imagine for just a moment how inflamed a body must be with this low grade constant inflammation fighting LPS in so many tissues throughout the body. It’s stored in the tissue.

Does LPS in the tissue go away on its own? No! LPS deposits incrementally in the tissue over a lifetime, activating a continual low grade systemic inflammation. It is a primary mechanism in development of chronic inflammatory diseases. It doesn’t go away. You want to stop sepsis? My mother died of sepsis.  I didn’t know this at the time. This is why I know this now.

This fact alone should change [01:03:00] the paradigm of how we address the topic of intestinal permeability and leaky gut. I encourage a much more comprehensive detoxification protocol of identify, remove, and treat. Refine, Restore, Recheck. Whatever your protocols are in those five categories, but you always recheck.

I don’t care how much better they feel and they don’t want to spend the money. You always recheck because you don’t want to hear three years from now, Oh, I went to see Dr. So and so and I felt a little better for a while, but you know, it didn’t last. You always recheck. What is the impact of LPS that passes through a leaky gut into systemic deflation?

Recheck. Oh, we did that already. There’s a marker that says, yeah, we did that. Okay, it looks like I’ve got that there twice. Let me see what happened here. Let me find out where we are here. [01:04:00] Oh, I see. I know where we are now. This is very cool. I’m going to talk to you about where sepsis comes from. Sepsis is a life threatening multiple organ dysfunction.

Resulting from a deregulated host response to infection. LPS is the primary cause of sepsis, an inflammatory syndrome characterized by overwhelming systemic response to bacterial infection. See, if I just told you these things, you would think I was a little fanatic, right? But it’s these guys that are telling, it’s all these studies that are telling you this.

And we don’t know this, but this is the number one cause of death of elders in hospitals. And we are treating for this. This estimate of the prevalence of sepsis is 31. 5 million patients per year, with 5. 3 million deaths. High income countries hospital mortality rates for general and severe sepsis are significantly elevated, 17 and [01:05:00] 26 percent respectively.

In the old model, sepsis was used as a unique clinical syndrome. Oh, what are we going to do about sepsis? Difficult to treat, but the obvious target for therapy. Well, obvious, they’ve got sepsis, you have to treat it. No, that’s the old model. In the new model, incorporates sepsis, but as a late stage syndrome on a continuum of endotoxin related diseases.  The new map encompasses the entire inflammatory cascade, And it’s Clinical Manifestations. This is what it looks like. This is the new map. And it’s, I mean, this went on the ceiling for six months. Because there’s so much to this, that when you start to understand, it’s like, What? What will? Okay, that makes sense, I get it.  Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah, I can see how that’s next. Oh, okay, I can see that. The systemic toxicity of gram negative sepsis is largely due to [01:06:00] endotoxin, an LPS component of the outer membrane of gram negative bacteria. And look at the date of these papers. This was 25 years ago, we knew this, but our sepsis experts don’t think like this, they still think the old way.

Well, let’s try a different antibiotic and see if that’s going to work. LPS causes a substantial increase in the production of cytokines, chemokines, and the synthesis of a broad group of lipid inflammatory mediators. The systemic inflammatory response syndrome triggered by the bacterial endotoxin LPS Affects many organs and may lead to death.

So that’s the systemic inflammatory response syndrome. We also call that co morbidities, right? Imagine LPS in your liver, LPS in your kidneys, LPS in your heart, and then [01:07:00] imagine why you get these co morbidities of functional problems, right? Because they’re loaded, they’re toxic, as toxic as can be.

Bacterial translocation often leads to a progressive and catastrophic condition known as Multiple Organ Dysfunction Syndrome. So that’s after you’ve got sepsis. So first you’re healthy, then you get leaky gut, now you’ve got LPS that’s come into circulation, and it starts to accumulate, you’ve got endotoxin, then you get Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.

Low grade chronic systemic inflammation. Then you get sepsis within 20 years, 30 years, whatever it should be. Then you get multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. Then you die. The number one cause of death of elders in hospitals. And it’s a syndrome. [01:08:00] The appreciation that septic shock lies at the far end of a continuum of clinical manifestations of the inflammatory response to bacteria and endotoxin will direct attention to preventative measures to treat at risk patients.

It’s a continuum of exposure and accumulation. And if you address the excess serum LPS earlier in life, you can reduce the amount of LPS that accumulates over the years in tissue. throughout your body, including your brain, and thus reduce the constant inflammatory cascade at the base cause of practically all degenerative diseases.

Does that make sense to you?

Now, you know what these pictures mean. It’s like, oh my god Do you want to take a picture of a biopsy of your tissue [01:09:00] and see what it looks like?  So, sources of LPS, where does it come from? Through the oral cavity, through the Excessive Pathogenic Intestinal Permeability, Lipid Wrapped Transcytosis, Dormant Bacteria in the Blood that Gets Activated, Organic Material and Particulate Matter, Air Pollution, Minimally Processed Vegetables, Peeled and Sliced and Threw in Open Wool.  Those are the most common sources of LPS. Wait, what? Minimally Processed Vegetables? What does that mean? When you dice an onion, within four days the amount of LPS on the diced onion is equal to the amount of LPS on the diced onion. is toxic levels. Onions, carrots, because you peel off the protective coating and the bacteria in the air feeds on the food and it repopulates, repopulates.  So all those little bags of [01:10:00] peeled carrots that you buy in the store, and sometimes they’re a little slimy. That’s all bacteria.  It’s like, whoa. Yes. Oops.

Identifying LPS. Well, we know leaky gut, that there’s both paracellular and transcellular pathways getting into circulation, that LPS gets through both ways. We all know that. Based on the central of LPS and sepsis, recently several methods and numerous devices for its detection have been produced. At this moment, simple, speedy, extremely sensitive, specific test for endotoxin determination are established and commercially available. Well, I checked zonulin levels. But the lifespan of zonulin is 4 minutes to 4 hours. So, if it comes back positive, [01:11:00] good! You identified something. If it comes back negative, it’s very likely, could be a false negative. Because the lifespan is 4 minutes to 4 hours.

Um, at the end please. It’ll be easier. This fluctuation in blood levels was studied for a period of 6 days in ICU patients with sepsis, and values were varied by a factor of 2 to 10, day to day. They’re just all over the place, measuring zonulin, because the lifespan is 4 minutes to 4 hours. The half life of antibodies is about 21 days, so antibodies to zonulin are a much more confident marker that you can look at.

And depending on the laboratories you’re using, Whether it’s accurate or not is determined by the sensitivity and specificity. You ask your lab rep, tell me the sensitivity and specificity of this test. They usually don’t know. [01:12:00] Well, uh, uh, it’s a good test. Yeah, I know it’s a good test, but what’s the sensitivity and specificity?

Well, uh, uh, you don’t really know, do you? Well, no, I don’t know. All right. Can you call the lab director? Can you find out from the lab director and then get back to me within two days? Yeah, I’ll do that. Great. Here’s my card. And you’ll find they’ll give you gobbledygook. They won’t tell you. They won’t tell you.

They said, well, you know, compared to, no, no, no, don’t compare. Just tell me the sensitivity and specificity. They won’t tell you because it’s embarrassing. It’s in the 70 and 80 percentile range. Unless you ask Vibrant, 97 to 99 percent sensitivity, 98 to 100 percent specificity, published by Mayo Clinic in a number of papers.

It’s a new era in laboratory medicine. It really is a game changer. I mean, there’s nothing like it on the planet. I don’t know about the Far East, but I teach in Brazil. I teach in North America. I teach in Europe. [01:13:00] I always look at the labs at Braves. In seminars, no one’s got anything that compares to what Vibrant’s got.  And that’s the test on the wheat zoomer for intestinal permeability. There it is. And we’ve all seen these before of how to interpret each marker when you’re looking at antibodies to LPS and gluten, zonulin, and Actomycin.  This I put in because I felt that I couldn’t be here without telling you about this.

It’s not widely known that lipoproteins bind and inactivate microbes and their toxins, LPS, by complex formation. They grab on to them. And you know who gave me [01:14:00] this paper? Kilmer McCulley, the godfather of homocysteine. And this was Eight years ago, nine years ago, he gave me the paper that just caught my attention.

Complex formation between all lipoprotein subclasses, and both bacteria and viruses has been demonstrated by electron microscopy, enzyme linked immunoabsorptive assays, and column chromatography. High cholesterol and or high LDL. is protective against infection and atherosclerosis. This is like, wait, what?

What? LPS or endotoxin, the main pathogenic factor of gram negative bacteria, binds rapidly to lipoproteins, mainly LDL, and lipoprotein bound is unable to activate the secretion of various cytokines. This is backup for the immune system. It [01:15:00] grabs onto LPS. So that macrophages don’t produce cytokines and it escorts it out of the system.

This is, wait, wait, what? Staph aureus alpha toxin, a toxin produced by most pathogenic staph strains and causing damage to a wide variety of cells, is found and almost totally inactivated by human LDL. LPS that gains access to the bloodstream. From the gut, lumen is bound by various particles. The majority of LPS circulates bound to HDL, but also with lower affinity to other lipoproteins.

This paper was two, 2022, a couple years ago. Lipoproteins bind LPS and decrease LPS stimulated cytokine production. So to reduce the inflammatory cascade. Your liver makes more cholesterol to grab on to the LPS, to lock it up, so that the immune system doesn’t [01:16:00] have to produce more inflammation. Lp little a was as potent as low density lipoproteins in inhibiting LPS stimulated tumor necrosis factor.

This suggests that circulating Lp little a may be an important factor in determining the amplitude of response to LPS in humans. This is like, wait, what? What? I didn’t know this. I didn’t know this. It’s also been demonstrated that LDL inactivates up to 90 percent of Staph aureus alpha toxin and even a larger fraction of bacterial LPS.

Phagocytosis of LPS bound to lipoproteins also explains why LDL becomes oxidized. You ever wonder where oxidized LDL comes from? Well, it’s the immune system attacking the LDL. Why is it attacking the LDL? Because it’s bound to LPS. Since macrophages inactivate [01:17:00] phagocytosis pathogens by producing oxygen radical species promoting LDL oxidation.

LPS from chlamydia and also from several periodontal pathogens is able to convert macrophages to foam cells in the presence of LDL. Conversion of macrophages to foam cells by bacteria indicates that these pathogens contribute to the development of atherosclerosis. Oh, look at the title of the paper.

How Macrophages are Converted to Foam Cells. It’s a response to LPS, the most powerful inflammatory trigger in nature. Learn Think of all the quotes from the different authors that I showed you earlier about LPS. None of them say, well, it’s one of the things you should think about. It’s the most powerful.  It’s the number one. It stimulates amyloidogenesis. It’s the primary stimulator [01:18:00] of amyloidogenesis. Now we see what it’s doing with cardiovascular. Compared with normal rats, hypocholesterolemic rats injected with LPS have markedly increased mortality, 8 fold, which can be ameliorated by injecting them with LDL.  They don’t die. Compared with normal mice, hypercholesterolemic mice challenged with LPS, Or live bacteria have an 8 fold increase in lifespan.

Wait, what? What? This should be called the wait what talk. Wait, what? Could this mean that sometimes elevated cholesterol, total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, oxidized LDL, Lp, may be life saving attempts by the body? [01:19:00] Excess? Okay. Reducing exposures to the triggers of inflammation. Stop pulling on the trait on the chain so hard.

That’s the message to our patients, which then will reduce activation of the immune system, which then reduces the response of inflammation, which then reduces low grade tissue damage, which then reduces dysfunction symptoms and the development of disease. which gives us a higher quality of function, extending healthy lifespan.

That’s the test, the wheat zoomer, which includes the testing for LPS. That’s the LPS portion of that test, the most comprehensive test I’ve ever seen. Please consider watching this, at least the first episode. You know, it’s all free. And when you see how good it is, have your patients watch it because they’re going to come back with questions and [01:20:00] be more engaged with you.

That’s why I spent 13 months doing this. Was it so your patients will come back to you more engaged and you don’t have to try to convince them. to do a test to find out where’s the inflammation coming from. We’ve got to educate them to be partners with you in exploration to figure out where it’s coming from.

So if your desire is to address presenting inflammatory complaints wherever they are, Extend or create a higher quality of life. Read papers like this one of Fasano’s. We must address the gateway in the development of chronic inflammatory diseases. The gut and the accumulated endotoxin that’s developed over a lifetime.

And what happens when you start setting yourself up to think outside the box, you allocate one hour a week to this, you get it. You just get it. You say, wow, this [01:21:00] is really cool. So I hope you will dive in. To whatever part of this really grabs you, take care of yourselves. Make sure to tell those important to you how much you love them.

And thank you very much for your kind attention.  Questions? Yes, please.

When you were talking about the 4 minute to 4 hour window testing, is that other tests other than Vibrant? Which has to be through vibrator. Some. So the concept of four minutes to four hours, is that with other tests or is that also vibrance? Oh, it’s vibrant. ’cause zonulin doesn’t last long.

It dissipates, it falls apart. So it’s, as far as I know, any lab that would be the case. How accurate or stool testing markers. [01:22:00] How accurate are stool testing markers for zonulin? I’ve not read the paper on that, I don’t know. But after seeing what the accuracy was for transglutaminase, and uh, uh, I’m not very confident, but I don’t know on that.

Question from the audience:  How are you binding to the LPS out of the tissue? How are you binding the LPS out of the tissue?

You have to mobilize it. And then use some kind of binders. I use G. I. Detox from Biobotanical. Sorry, what? G. I. Detox from Biobotanical Research. Oh, by the way, I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you. Vibrant is giving you a 20 percent discount Tonight on any test that you wanna order and that’s 20% off wholesale.

So how, say again, how are you gonna do that? I think that’s the vibrant rep. Guys, I have coupons for everybody in the room and wants to order a [01:23:00] test for yourself for a left one. Come check you guys calling, get you signed up. Also, next week we have Longevity Summit. Well, Dr. Arkady is going to be there.

Everybody in this room has a free ticket if you want to go. You just have to make your way to San Jose, okay? Alright. Thanks, man. Sorry. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I’m so sorry. I’m just curious. I work with a lot of older women. You work with what? A lot of older women. Yeah. Okay. so much.

Oh, tremendously. Tremendously. They, they have a panel that’ll be coming out pretty soon, an autoimmune panel, as good as they’ll rock your boat. Wow. Uh, but yeah. Someone in Croatia who runs a health clinic there for upper end people. [01:24:00] found me, reached out to me and said, will you work with me? I said, yeah.

Okay. Okay. And I helped her with her problems. So she said, would you work with my clients? I have upper end clients, world famous athletes. I said, well, yeah, I don’t have time, but all right. But this is, they all have to do these seven tests. First, before I’ll talk to them. And then I’ll talk to them and interpret the tests and send them back to you.

I don’t want to do therapy. I don’t want to do that. So they all did seven tests from Vibrant. And it was startling. There were 26 people that I’ve done one on ones with. 19 or 20 of them have mold and didn’t know it. Mold metabolites that are sky high. Uh, every one of them. had organophosphates that were elevated.  Many of them had heavy metals. Many, almost all of [01:25:00] them, have wheat sensitivity, almost all of them. Some had some dairy, some had lectins. But when you do the test, when you do the panel, and you’ve got all this information, you can say, boom, there it is. That’s the primary one. Right? And there’s secondaries, but there’s the primary.  And then you educate them on how to reduce their exposure to whatever that is. Well, they’re going to continue to flourish.

You do 10 tests on patients, 10 patients with double blinds from Cyrex, and then you do 10 tests with double blinds from Vibrant, you decide. I only did three with Vibrant because [01:26:00] I knew already, but, and all three were right on the money–97 to 99%. So there’s a 2-3 percent variation, which is very acceptable in my book.  But a 25 percent variation? It’s not acceptable. Yes?

What’s my protocol to decrease LPS?  To decrease LPS, heal the gut. You have to heal the gut. And that’s about a 20 minute discussion in my book, right?  There’s a really great article to read. The Italians put out an article three years ago, The Mediterranean Gluten Free Diet, and it’s got a pyramid.  And I have every patient put that pyramid on their refrigerator. So that’s the basic guideline. And do you know what’s on the bottom? of the pyramid with the most water. Cause everyone’s dehydrated. This patient, pinch your skin. If it doesn’t go flat immediately, if you can see it go down, [01:27:00] you’re dehydrated, right?  So is, and you don’t want to sit at the very top of the pyramid. Gluten free foods, whether it’s breads or muffins or don’t eat that stuff. It’s garbage. Right? So that’s a starting point.

For Liga, do I prescribe? No.

Identify the triggers of inflammation. Stop throwing gasoline on the fire. Identify the dysbiosis in the microbiome. Build a healthy, diverse microbiome. So you find out where the deficiencies are, you look at what foods increase those deficient beneficial bacteria. Most patients need an antibacterial protocol to clean out the pathogens, and then you teach them how to live a healthier [01:28:00] lifestyle with food selections.

No, no, I’ve never had to. When we retest six months or a year later, almost always they’re down in normal range. I use Biocidin for that. Biocidin. BioCyte. Yeah. Say again. Dose. Dose. Biocidin doesn’t like the way I do it. I’ve had lots of talks with Rachel, the president of the company, about this. Hey, this is how I’m going to do it.  I give them the spray, and they go up their nose with the spray, and in their mouth. And it’s like, like that. Unless they’re recovering alcoholics, then I don’t use the spray. Because there’s a little alcohol in there, right? The drops, and the capsules. I give them all of them. Two [01:29:00] or three times a day.  And, biocidin, yeah, biocidin capsules. The GI detox at night, Ben. Yeah. We have to get out of here. Yeah, unfortunately. Oh, the library closes today. I didn’t know that. All right.

 

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Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the rational wellness podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the rational wellness podcast, I would very much appreciate it.  If you could go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a 5 star ratings and review. As you may know, I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine. If you would like help, overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition and want to prevent chronic problems and want to promote longevity, please call my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition office at 310 395 3111.  And we can set you up for a consultation for functional medicine. And I will talk to everybody next week.