Precision Environmental Health with Dr. Aristo Vojdani: Rational Wellness Podcast 402

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Dr. Aristo Vojdani discusses Precision Environmental Medicine with moderator Dr. Ben Weitz at the Functional Medicine Discussion Group meeting on February 27, 2025.  

[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. Aristo Vojdani is Father of Functional Immunology and he has dedicated his life’s research to helping us figure out what are the triggers for autoimmune diseases and many of the tests he has developed for Cyrex Labs are focused on this.  Dr. Vojdani has a PhD in microbiology and immunology and he has authored over 200 scientific papers published in peer reviewed journals. Dr. Vojdani is the co-owner of Immunosciences Lab in Los Angeles, which offers testing for various types of infections, including Lyme Disease. He is the Chief Science advisor for Cyrex Labs, whom he has developed all of the testing for, including the Lymphocyte Map test, Array 2 for Leaky Gut, and Array 5, The Multiple Autoimmune Reactivity Panel. 

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. Weitz:  Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to 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. Okay. So welcome everybody. This is our functional medicine discussion group meeting with Dr. Aristo Vojdani on Precision Environmental Health. And we’re very happy to have Dr. Vojdani. One of the most awesome speakers, he is the president he’s the chief science officer of Cyrex Labs and the owner of Immunosciences Lab.

So we’re going to make a couple of introductory announcements. So we have three sponsors for this evening. So we have Cyrex Labs, Buffy, did you want to come up and say something about Cyrex Labs? Okay, so use this microphone, it doesn’t amplify to the room, but it goes directly to the camera.

Buffy:  That’s okay, my voice carries

Dr. Weitz:  Anyway, I recommend that.

Buffy:  Good evening.  Good evening everybody, I’m super excited to be here and if I haven’t had the opportunity to reach out to you yet and let you know because I know a lot of you are already existing Cyrix account holders. I did lose my Southern California rep, Heather Sunshine. I still talk to her every day.  She says hello to all of you. But I am taking over in her stead. Lots of exciting things happen happening at. So come by and talk to me a lot of different promotions in my pocket for you. If you are unfamiliar with the lab we are a functional immunology laboratory [00:02:00] devoted to kind of environmentally induced.  I like to think of it as how not to get autoimmunity, early detection, identification, prevention. We have testing for essential barriers, leaky gut, leaky brain. We have a whole host of trigger testing, food sensitivities, chemical toxicity. latent pathogens. We have a cognitive health assessment. Dr. Vojdani’s most recent panel looks at subpopulations of lymphocytes, actually giving you an immune fingerprint of your patient. We’re doing immunophenotyping using monoclonal antibody stating with flow cytometry. We have a new panel coming out Q2, although I’ve been I can’t tell you yet, but it is super exciting.  And I’m thrilled to Be here with Rubina, Dr. Bouchani’s daughter, who’s with immunosciences. He’s got some great stuff coming out as well, but I don’t want to steal her thunder. So by all means, come talk to me. Thank you for having  us, Dr. Weitz. We’re delighted to be sponsoring this event. Thank you.

Dr. Weitz: We’re very grateful that integrative therapeutics has been sponsoring all our meetings and Steve Schneider is going to come up and tell us about a few of their products. Everybody knows Amika is here every time almost, but you know, we’re excited to be here. And I hope this is what you got to say.  We have back there, some of our biggest selling products, the HPA access stuff, including cortisol manager. The cortisol manager actually was in 2024 was the number one selling product. A full script for the sixth year in a row. Actually the highest dollar going product they made that they sell.  We also have active B complex, which they sell more bottles of than anything else. And that’s been four years in a row. So come back and take some samples. And enjoy the talk. so much, Steve. One of the few brands of professional supplements [00:04:00] we carry in our office.

And then our third sponsor for this evening is Quicksilver Scientific.  There’s some brochures on the front desk there as you come in. And Quicksilver Scientific is another one of the premier professional supplement companies. And they specialize in detoxification. And we use their detox, their push catch detox protocols for removing heavy metals and mycotoxins and a lot of other environmental toxics which consists of liposomal glutathione and their specialized binder, ultra binder and liver support, great products.  I just mentioned one thing anecdotally. I have a patient who’s had chronic kidney disease for years and I have him on some protocols to rebuild his gut, etc. And I put him on their kidney support and he just came back and his GFR, his glomerular filtration [00:05:00] rate, which is a measure of kidney function, went up nine points, which is unheard of. 

So we’re very happy that Dr. Vojdani will now be telling us about environmental medicine.

Dr. Vojdani: Thank you, Dr. Weitz. Thank you for coming. So, why I chose this title? Because this title is really the closest to my heart. Secondly, because this was published very recently in Nature Communications, which is the highest level of, you know, excellence in scientific journals.  These people are online. So, exactly the types of people. Oh, that’s great then. Which one? Which did they get in? Preventing disease.  So precision environmental health is part, major part of [00:06:00] precision medicine. Precision medicine or personalized medicine. You guys are already familiar with, right? It’s nothing new for you. So how come these journals are making such a big deal out there? So that’s why I wanted to present this to you. And most of you at the end will say, well, we have done this in the past 40, 50 years.

Why right now mainstream medicine rights, you know, they take over. But that’s how the science is. If you don’t have good marketing, if you don’t have you know, all the tools to take over a subject, then others will take over. This past weekend, I was at American Academy of Environmental Medicine in San Antonio.

And one of the [00:07:00] major speakers was Aaron Burakovich, which really enjoyed, enjoys listening to us. So environmental medicine, as you know, 65 years ago, they started 65 years ago, and they developed the oral desensitization. Not these three, four allergists who are making billions of dollars right now.

American Academy of Environmental Medicine members developed that method almost 65 years ago. So anyway, that’s how the science is, but let’s learn a little bit more about this. So, again, what is precision medicine? Please read the definition. Nothing new for you and I. Okay? So, according to the Precision Medicine Initiative, Precision medicine is [00:08:00] an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in the genes, gene plus environment, and the lifestyle for each person.

So lifestyle and personal PLMI, personalized lifestyle medicine. Isn’t that? Dr. Bland started that almost 20 years ago. functional medicine I participated in the first functional medicine meeting in 1992. So this is not new to us, okay? So let’s move on.  So precision environmental health is part of precision medicine and is determined by the interaction of our environment with the genome, epigenome, and microbiome. which shape the [00:09:00] transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic landscape of cells and tissues.

So this is my article, from my own article. Three or four years ago I wrote two different articles about The role of exposome, exposome, whatever we are exposed to in the outdoor environment and indoor, inside body environment as well, outdoor, indoor, as well as our own body.

All together, genes plus. Infections, toxic chemicals, dietary components, and their effect on gut microbiome and mycobiome. Please do not forget the microbiome. Together can [00:10:00] contribute many diseases. Autoimmune disease is just one example.  So that was published in journal called Atom Physiology.

So now, Precision environmentalism, emerging field, leveraging environmental and system level data to understand underlying environmental causes of disease. So again, we already emphasized that it was all in those for Simcals.

?: Harold, I don’t think I can stand this. Stand those eating nitrogen accents. I can’t understand them.

Dr. Vojdani: Precision environment is based on [00:11:00] appreciation of the impact of the environment from exposure upon Do

?: you want dinner? or should I go pay the

Dr. Vojdani: birds? You already had that definition of precision medicine. This is repeating

?: itself.

Dr. Vojdani: But please, again, look at the article.

?: I can’t hear

Dr. Vojdani: you. Nature Communication that, now think, look at this one. Imagine the future. When you could take a simple blood test to determine if you have been exposed to chemicals in the environment that can harm you, that can harm your health care provider we then offer solutions that exposure and or prevent its adverse health [00:12:00] effects. Is this new? No. Okay, So, look at this. Immune Alteration associated with exposure to toxic chemicals published in 1992, meaning we did the research in 1990 or 1991. So we took a group of several hundred at that time of individuals who were exposed to solvents and we did.

We measured autoantibody in their blood and also we looked at some mediated immunity, lymphocyte subpopulation, half of that we do today at Cyrex, because then we didn’t have. TH1, [00:13:00] TH2, Treg, TS17, and five different types of natural killer cells. But even that, with that limitation, we showed that those who were exposed to toxic chemicals had high levels of anti nuclear antibodies.

Rheumatoid factor, immune complexes small muscle antibody, the lymphocyte sub population was completely, either it was overactive or underactive, meaning CD4, CD8 ratios were very high. which correlates with autoimmunity, and when it’s very low, it’s immunodeficient. So that was done in 1990, 1991, and this is the publication.  So that blood test was, you know, in the laboratory, at least in our clinical immunology laboratory, since [00:14:00] 1989. That’s the time where, when immunosciences lab was established in Los Angeles.  Antibodies to environmental factors help in the identification of triggers. So really, this is my message to take home with me, detect, remove, and repair. So detect by looking at, as an immunologist I’m talking, humoral immunity, whatever you can find in the serum, including antibodies. And cell mediated immunity, the T cells, B cells, Th1, Th2, and all of that, which is offered by Cyrex.

And if any of these are positive, you have to have some kind of plants. You see in the picture, that’s mercury, [00:15:00] infection. So you have to, and then food, dietary proteins and peptides. You have to remove them from the environment of the patients. Most of the time, the barriers are damaged by all these environmental factors.  You have to repair them, and hopefully by doing these three things, you can reverse. Either you stop completely or even reverse the course of inflammatory autoimmune neurodegenerative and many other disorders.

So now, the same article talking about the microbiome is a key. interface between exogenous and endogenous exposure. And again, really, I dealt with that under the name of exosome. [00:16:00] And microbiome is part of our inside of our body. That it is. playing so much role in different disorders. So this is how, also I summarized it based on the exposome and in your connections overview of the SIRENS system.  So first we look at the gut. Microbiome disturbance. Gland microbiome disturbances are responsible for releasing toxins. For example, what you don’t see here, I’m giving you a little bit hint for our future development. Candida albicans releases It’s a toxin called, it’s real mycotoxin, candida lysate, and that can break down the tight junctions.

And then unwanted macromolecules, [00:17:00] undigested food, E. coli antigens, salmonella antigens, other antigens, when the biological door is open, enter into the circulation, immune system reacts against that, we make antibodies and we detect that in the laboratory. So here, that’s why. Antibodies are detected in array two, three, these are all looking at the barriers, the food, the toxic chemicals, and the pathogens.  And then you look at lymphocyte map, you look at, that was the antibodies. You look at CD4s, you get Th1, Th2, Th17, and each one of them have different characteristics which can correlate with different disorders. For example, as you know, Th17 in the gut is taking care of pathogens such as candida ombicans.[00:18:00]

But when?  Too much Th17, for some reason, too much activity of Th17, then they can turn against our tissue and Tl per 17 could become pathogenic, the same thing for Th1. That’s why over activation of Th1 and Th17 could result in autoimmune disease, that’s why we call them On to reactive lymphocytes, meaning they react against our own tissue.  And so, therefore, multiple autoimmune reactivities against high junction, skin, nervous system, thyroid, joint, and many other.

So, the exposome [00:19:00] represents a framework to study environmental drivers of health and disease. And the ultimate goal of exposobic science is to actually define the totality of an individual’s chemical and non chemical exposure. So we have also to be able to find that patient which is coming to you. Is it exposed to toxic chemicals?  Which one of them? We can do that either by measuring the chemicals. I’ll say where. Is the most important in the tissue, but unfortunately, we cannot cut a piece of tissue and measure chemicals. The only choice we have to measure antibodies against the chemical. We call those neo antigens because chemicals bind to human tissue, forming a new complex.  And so therefore, we measure antibodies [00:20:00] against that. 

Dr. Weitz: By the way, Dr. V, a lot of people are confused about the difference between an antigen and an antibody. Can you explain what that is? 

Dr. Vojdani: Thank you so much. Okay. Okay. An antigen, any protein, glycoprotein, lipoprotein, but mainly protein, whether it is from food, from pathogens, unwantedly get into the human system.  That is called an antigen. When the immune system react against it, that antigen and makes whatever, you know, the protein, another protein in the body made against the antigen is called antibody. That’s why antibody, imagine the body is the antigen, you know, in this case, [00:21:00] the antigen and the, our body makes antibody against the antigen.  So antigen is something foreign material gets into the, to our system from the environment. When the immune system reacts against that, makes antibodies. There are four, five, there are five, but major, clinically important. Five or four different antibodies, and the best to remember, game. IgG, IgA, IgM, and IgE.  That’s what IgE is related to allergies, IgG and IgN, IgM, related to non allergic reaction, that for example you get exposed to Lyme and you make IgG and IgM against Lyme pathogen. So that’s the definition of antigen and [00:22:00] antibody. for asking. The same thing that, that I presented, you’ll see toxic chemicals.

We do the same thing. Okay. So that’s why the end result, honestly, is almost the same. Whether pathogens or toxic chemicals or food, antigens. Now, regarding the chemicals, we cannot call the chemicals antigens. Why? Because chemicals are very small molecules, by themselves cannot generate antibody production.  In order to make antibodies against chemicals, the chemicals, after entering into the body, Should bind strongly to human tissue, and then now we react against the combination of chemicals plus human tissue. We call that neoantigen. One of the best [00:23:00] and simplest example. Our neo antigen is aluminum, which is in the cheese, in the water, almost everywhere.

Because our water filtration system, they are using lots of aluminum. So the water that we are drinking, we don’t have filter at home. We are drinking a lot of aluminum. And the other reason they probably One of the reasons that they added aluminum to water and then to cheese that we eat, and many other products, they think aluminum is in and out.

They think also every other chemical, they get in, they get out. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. An article was published almost eight years ago in the journal called New Cores [00:24:00] of Immunology. They show that 70 percent of the aluminum get into digestive tract, binds to epithelial cells. Isn’t that going to break the tight junctions?

And then some of it may get into the blood. And the structure of aluminum is in such a way is Al back to school, Al3 okay, positive ion, get attracted to negative ions, and then you are going to have aluminum now is binding to zanulene in the gut. It’s going to bind to enzymes. in the gut is going to bind to muscle antigen, so therefore they become nevo antigen and we make antibodies, a chemical plus the antigen.  I did publish an article three years ago [00:25:00] that most of us, we have high levels of anti antibody against Aluminum in our blood because we are exposed on a daily basis, believe me. Yeah, I was going to ask about the common mechanism

Dr. Weitz: we understand about how we get autoimmunity is the, there’s this cross reactivity where the antibodies that react against the substance and react to our own tissues.  And I was going to ask if there’s chemicals that are not really antigens and is the mechanism different? Can you explain the mechanism?

Dr. Vojdani:  Thanks for asking. So yes, chemicals by themselves are not an antigen. They are named haptens. H A P T E N Hapten by itself is not an antigen, but when it binds to human tissue, becomes a complex with an antigen.  And definitely [00:26:00] now we got super antigen. We react, we make antibody against the chemical, aluminum. As well as the tissue that it’s bound to. Okay.  So, the hallmarks of precision environmental health is, they say, laboratory testing. And this is taken almost from that article, long term exposure to toxicants. We take you know, peripheral of blood, we measure humoral, cell immunity, neo antigen formation, an antibody against that. You look at similar immunity and now you have a new blood based biomarkers of toxic exposure.

So you have to look at both antibodies and cellular immunity together. That’s the best combination of.[00:27:00]  Now, what do you think about this picture? If I have strongest message for you today, okay? Please, get rid of this. If you can, at home. At your work, for your patients, it’s not just this plus another 100, 000 toxic chemicals. That’s really the message in here. They try to say, okay, you know, Bisphenol A now, it’s not Bisphenol A, another piece of plastic.  I think we are going to the wrong direction, unfortunately. And like now in Whole Foods, you see we have these new plastics. They are bio degradable, biodegradable, still is toxic chemical. I’m not, I really, I don’t care about [00:28:00] biodegradable or not. I want to phase out all these chemicals. That’s really my 

Dr. Weitz: Aren’t the biodegradable bags, aren’t they made out of natural materials?

Dr. Vojdani:  I don’t think so.  Bags are, but not the boxes. Those are made, they’re not from plants.

Dr. Weitz:  They’re not?  

Dr. Vojdani:  They’re mixed material.  They are synthetic material. Oh, okay. But, some organism, whatever they can, you know, break them down and get rid of them. Oh, okay. Okay. So let’s continue.  So what do you think about this? Nano microplastics and invisible threat leading to the brain health. So, very fast I’ll go [00:29:00] through these. Just like to see how many publications that we have in scientific journals. The nano and microplastics, now they’re detected by probably billions of particles in our prostate, our thyroid, our breast, and almost every cell in the heart.  And they found even Not only that correlation between the amount of nanoplastic and microplastic with cardiovascular disease, with breast cancer, with thyroid autoimmunity, and thyroid cancer. So please, if this is not enough, you know, what else you are looking for? We have to do something about it.  Eliminating these chemicals from the environment, [00:30:00] but still, you know, they are, these nano microplastics, because of usage of this for probably 80 years, first we thought they were in the Fish and shrimp. Now it is in our tissue. I don’t like this. All right. Oh, wow. What happened? It’s all It’s plastic.

It’s good. It’s good. It’s good.

Dr. Vojdani: Okay. Thank you. So, Just I’m showing you the slides. Okay, please I’m not going to into the brain. So don’t you think there is some relationship between more Alzheimer’s than some of these [00:31:00] in our brain? Of course there is. Here, the picture. This is our body with nano and microplastic.  There is no part of the body that there is no that there is no these nanoparticles in.

?: And

Dr. Vojdani: so that’s because of  all of this.

Dr. Vojdani: So, probably they looked at fish before, but now it’s a human brain. Blood brain barrier and nasal root, integrating with the CNS system. That’s why when we do I think it’s array 20 for blood brain barriers.  We find so many people have problems, not only with the gut barriers, also they have [00:32:00] problems with their blood brain barriers.

Dr. Weitz: Is there a nasal brain barrier? Is there a nasal

Dr. Vojdani: brain barrier? I’m sure there is. Yes. Yes.

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Dr. Vojdani: Okay, now this is very interesting. So now you see chemicals can change our, not only our microbiome. [00:34:00] They change our microbiome, so, this is a chemical the real name is forever chemicals. What is the meaning of forever chemicals?  You will see that, I think, either in this or another article, that when you get exposed to these chemicals, PFOA or PFOS, these chemicals stay in our body for at least 15 years. Now, if you are using non stick pans or whatever, you know, in the kitchen, so the result of that would be these chemicals, they’re getting into the body, form neon antigen, and they stay there almost forever.

They’re in flame retardant chemicals, it’s just been sprayed all over the entire city. So there are, this is not only, [00:35:00] there are 10, 000. According to one of 10, 000 of these type of chemicals only, they’re in use in the industry. So it’s not just really fire retardant, that fire retardant when really I was looking at what was happening during the fires, but in this situation, what can we do?  Do we have a choice? No. But remember, those chemicals coming back into the water, and we’ll drink them, and they will stay in our tissue forever.

So, what this title is telling you, after talking about neo antigens?  So, chemicals getting into human body. Binding to our tissue are responsible for development of autoimmune diseases, that’s [00:36:00] what they are known as. So now let’s look at next one. I like this type of analysis. So, autoimmune disease has three or four different stages. Asymptomatic, you get exposed to these toxic chemicals a year, two years, you may react and may Some antibodies, but nothing.

You don’t have any symptoms to go to a doctor. So we call that asymptomatic. But this is the level. Reappearance of neo auto antigens. So here, the neoantigens are formed, and now you have more, and then the body reacts to that, slowly and slowly, look at this, okay, complex with neoantigens, then the [00:37:00] antibody is going higher and higher and higher, and either you have to remove the neoantigens, otherwise this will continue.

And we’ll end up with full blown autoimmune disease.

Now let’s look at a very simple experiment. I like sometimes simple experiments. And this was done in my own laboratory about 2 3 months ago because I believe And I developed this test for SIRENS. If you are doing food IgG or IgE or even IgE testing, and you use raw food antigens, you miss 50 percent of the cases.

Because raw egg is completely from cooked egg back to protein chemistry. It’s the maturation of the egg white and the Eggo [00:38:00] is different from raw Eggo and egg white. So that was an idea came with in 19, in 2008. And so

if you measure. Interesting for the new reactivity, even allergies. That’s why, first you have to do, if we eat food in the form of rock, we have to measure antibody against rock. Raw elements. When they are roasted elements, the protein is different from raw. You have to test also against roasted elements.

So, that’s why I’m writing an article now for a journal called foods. And the topic is reaction to raw versus cooked food, and so I did [00:39:00] this experiment. So we measured IgG and IgA antibodies against raw chicken meat, the blue. Very small percentage, 4%, 3 to 4%, reacted against raw chicken meat. It’s not highly antigenic.

When you cook it, The percentage goes slightly higher, but if you add spices for tandoori chicken and

you make an antigen from that and you run the antibody, look at the difference. From 4 percent went up to 12 percent and for IgA even more significant. So this is neo antigen formation by chemicals. With [00:40:00] proteins that we are going to eat. And so, in this particular case, we could have more immune reaction to that antigen, which is a combination of not only the proteins plus toxic chemicals.

Please. Is there anything in the chemistry? The tandoori, he

?: took a seasoned chicken, roasted it in the oven. Would that be a bit different than the tandoori?

Dr. Vojdani: I didn’t do that, but I’m sure it will be different, yes. Probably will be similar knowledge. Yes, please.

?: Is there a possibility that since we know the more you tend to eat a food, your rate of creating a reaction or an allergy or an antibody against it increases?

Do we collectively agree with that generalized statement?

Dr. Vojdani: Yes. [00:41:00] Okay. Okay, good. Bye. But through this view. Through the following explanation that if you have leaky gut and you eat the same food every day, for example, you know, I know that my wife had every day flaxseed. And then I measured her antibodies very recently.

For sure, flaxseed was the highest level of antibody in her blood. On top of that, also, she has leaky gut. If the biological door is perfect, you can eat as much as you want. It’s not going to be, you’re not going to produce antibodies. Got it. That’s why you have to pay attention to leaky gut. If you repair that, Then you can eat as much as you want, I’m just saying.

So that’s the explanation. Leak gut.

?: Yes. Now, [00:42:00] could it also be that because people really generally don’t have the tendency of eating raw chicken, that the IgG and the IgA antibody compared to good versions of the of it with the varieties of it. Spices and things. It turns out to be higher, not necessarily because they don’t have any reactivity towards the raw chicken that otherwise would make them sick, simply because it’s something that they generally don’t eat, which

Dr. Vojdani: is raw chicken.

Yes. Okay. Yes.

?: Yes.

Dr. Weitz: Also, on the same note, if you eat a food A lot. Like, let’s say you eat peanut butter every single

Dr. Vojdani: day, you’re way more likely to have antibodies to it, right? You are more than likely. Not, this is [00:43:00] another avenue, please. Okay. Most probably you are not going to digest some of it. And some of that, some of it, may get into the blood and you may get antibodies.  That’s another explanation.

?: Ah. One

Dr. Vojdani: is through leaking, one through eating a lot.  digestibility, your ability to digest. That’s why taking digestive enzymes always is a good idea, no matter how old you are. Got it.

?: Yeah. Fascinating. Thank you.

Dr. Vojdani: Okay. What this title is telling you.  Lifetime pesticide use and anti nuclear antibodies in the male farmers from the agriculture health study. First of all, anti nuclear antibody is the best screening, [00:44:00] although developed 60 years ago, best screening for autoimmunities. They in the general population, up to 20 years ago, One person had anti nuclear antibodies, low diatoms.  Now that is up to 16%. So when you go to a rheumatologist and your patient is having anti nuclear antibodies but no symptoms, they’ll say, don’t worry about it, go home and come back next year. I really I’m very much against that because that’s the biomarker of future autoimmunity. You have to find the trigger and probably it will prevent autoimmune disease in the future.

Don’t send him home or don’t send her home. So now we see the triggers for the farmers, absolutely, because they’re [00:45:00] using. So much pesticide, herbicides, glyphosate, and all of them bind to some of their food, to some of their tissues, and therefore, antinuclear antibodies.

Okay, so trichloroethylene exposure and antinuclear antibodies, again. They look at thousands in China, and in fact, they had some kind of badge. They could measure the level of trifluoroethylamine in the workers, and they found correlation between level of exposure versus of anti nuclear antibody. So if someone will ask you that what are the causes of anti nuclear antibody development, what will be your answer?  Why do we react to our nuclear material? Which is inside our cells, could be mercury, could be [00:46:00] glyphosate, could be any other toxicant.

Dr. Weitz: Doc, let me just ask you one more quick question. On the same note, just as if you eat a food a lot you might have, you’re more likely to have antibodies. Why sometimes do you get a test back and it says you have antibodies to some food that you never Like clams, how can that be?

Dr. Vojdani: Two answers, okay, please forgive me. One is the laboratory is doing a very bad job. There are many of those, I know them, okay? Like a laboratory recently, in order to compete with other labs, added like 30, 40 items, such as Aspartame and food coloring and all kind of things, which they are not, they do not form new antigen with human

?: tissue.

Dr. Vojdani: Even if you [00:47:00] don’t understand, four years ago when I developed food IgG testing in 1986 7, I added sugar in one of the wells. of the ELISA plates to, one, to double check my own technicians, and that was on my control. And the laboratories copied my laboratory, and then they started reporting antibody against glucose.

How can you make antibody against glucose? So that’s one, okay? Yeah. Secondly, yes, that, let’s take shrimp. That I had experience with a rabbi who was positive for shrimp or, and this is serious, years ago, or against pork. Antigen.

?: You know

Dr. Vojdani: pork crush reacts with so many human tissue, right? I [00:48:00] explained to him.

At that time that you have antibodies against something else that reacts with corn or with sugar. So, cross

?: reactive

Dr. Vojdani: Organic solvents, the same thing. Organic solvents and MS susceptibility. So now we take it one step further, correlation with the disease, neurologic disease.

Okay, so, I’m going to present after this a case, a real case, explaining precision, the importance of precision in biomedical, but overall, we are going [00:49:00] to look at antibodies or cell mediated immunity. Submediated immunity.

So, the case of chemical reactivity and autoimmunity. 54 year old woman after finishing art school at age 23. Started painting with her fingers, using oil based colors, and you know how toxic they are.

At age 38, while continuing painting, because that was not the source of income, so she had to find a job. Where? In a print shop. So now you have double walling. So at age [00:50:00] 47, she started having all these symptoms of chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia. Right now we have the issue with lung COVID. Similar symptomatology of chronic fatigue fibromyalgia.

Multiple chemical sensitivity. Testing. Low white blood cell count. Cholesterol slightly high. The rest really, you may be slightly elevated. Look at A, the borderline elevation. Centering. Elevated and rheumatoid factor, slight, slightly elevated, and DNA, you see, 20 versus 24. So, this is one of those cases that I’m talking about that the antibodies are not highly elevated to say you have auto, an autoimmunities, but they are there, so this is the time.

So tell the lady, get out of that job and [00:51:00] stop painting with your fingers. But she didn’t do it. Nobody told her to do that.

So, these symptoms became more pronounced when she was dealing with all types of chemicals, including detergents and dry cleaning material. So she became, having multiple chemical sensitivity.

So, finally a doctor understood what was going on. and sent her blood to Cyrex Laboratories. So this is a test for Vicky Gutt, a dieticologist for Cyrex. She made antibodies against Octylinsulin, but mainly against lipopolysaccharides, IgA. Remember, please, [00:52:00] the antibody, the most significant antibody in the gut is IgA.

It’s called mucosal antibody. So definitely she has problem with the microbiome disturbance and also Dickey gut. Okay.

Then, those, there are other toxins in the gut, in addition to glycopolysaccharides. So, one of them is called bacterial cytomethyl histamine toxin, although this is used for IBS. It’s like you guessed after Timothy Arthur, okay? But that is also indication of leaky [00:53:00] gut. And then, cytoskeletal protein, actually, zanule is only one or two, and here we are using Actinine, Tali, and many other hijaction proteins.

For that reason, very, pretty soon, it will be announced by SIRENS that we are combining the RA2, which is Plus 22, which is for SIBO IBS, plus blood brain barriers together with very special price. That will be. Because we believe that these three should be together. When you have leaky gut, you are going to have, so this is supporting of leaky gut, you have to, you are going to have also leaky blood, right?

So there’s no doubt [00:54:00] this patient is having leaky gut. Chemical antibodies. This is where we test for antibody against new antigens. But the area that you see, you will not be surprised because aflatoxin or molds or from food, completely negative or maldehyde negative. But look at isocyanate antibody.

It’s in paint. isocyanate, paint, and many other products. Trimellitic talc anhydride. It is a major component of this. That’s indirectly, you can measure actually if you have, nano and micro and nano. Particles in your blood or in your tissue. Benzene ring [00:55:00] solvents, they’re also everywhere, in painting and everything.

And then, this phenomenon, real. Major part of plus, and then tetra chloro ethylene is also used in Dry dry. Dry cleaning. Yes, And finally some mercury compounds, also they are part of the paints and everything. Yes, please.

?: So if we’re seeing IgA, does that indicate, therefore, that the gut is somehow involved?

Dr. Vojdani: Remember, the IgA is produced in the gut first. Okay. Later on, when antigens get into the blood, also, you can make also IgA antibodies in the blood [00:56:00] as well. Okay. So, but, in here, Most probably the antibodies are IgG, I believe. All the combinations are measured together. But overall it indicates exposure to toxic chemicals and neo antigen formation.

And then, in relation to pathogens, infections, the only thing that was positive, H. pylori, which most of us are carriers of H. pylori, and so some antibodies were detected, but not much. So, her problem was mainly with toxic chemicals. The test results show a continuation of chemicals, also probably she was [00:57:00] exposed to toxic mold as well.

So this is additional thing we found. Now, Several years later, remember the test results. Where. borderline elevation, okay? Seven years later. So this is the basic we have. Look at it. This is serious. This is trial inpatient with autoimmune disease. DNA is the same thing, one third factor, in new complexes, double stranded DNA, no, because double stranded DNA is found in lupus, so she didn’t have lupus.

Actin Antibodies. Non significant mitochondrial antibodies, so most problems in this patient develop [00:58:00] mixed connective tissue disease due to exposure to toxic chemicals, tiring

antibody elevated, TPO especially very high, so tiring autoimmunity on top of everything. So, remember please that there is no such thing as single autoimmune. Usually they are together. Two, three, or four. We call it multiple autoimmunity. So this patient developed multiple autoimmunity.

Then, the lymphocyte map. Quantum White Blossom was No because everything, by the way, is calculated based on [00:59:00] total white blood cells. Percent lymphocyte is calculated based on total white blood cells. So she has only 900 soldiers to fight for her. To begin with. That’s already a problem. Instead of having, the ideal would be like 1, 800, 2, 000.

So, G cell and then B cell, and then look at both of these cells. This is all because of law. When you have low number of soldiers, everything will shift to the left. Low numbers. Percentages are okay, but the numbers are low. And then CD4, CD8, and then CD4, [01:00:00] CD, yeah. That’s again, and CD4, CD8 ratio. To look at CD4 and CD8, the best is to look at the ratio, and look at that ratio instead of the ideal is 2.

0 or 2. 5 maximum. This type of CD4, CD8 ratio is found in patients with full blown autoimmune disease, and we already know this patient has mixed connective tissue disease and thyroid autoimmune disease. So the L MAP is giving you a lot of information. So that’s one ratio. Next. Okay.

Helper cell. Because when, Helper cells [01:01:00] are high, CD4 is high, CD8 is low. CD4 either is Th1 Th2, Th17, or Treg. So here we see some of those are Th1. Some of them are, that’s why the ratio. But also, they’re on low Th17. Because of the low numbers to begin with. And then some natural killer cells are elevated because they’re fighting.

Something in the body.

So with that, you see that the test results, looking at humoral and cell mediated immunity, you can analyze and find out that what patient is suffering from. So remember detect, remove, and repair, if [01:02:00] you do that Hopefully you’ll be able to prevent further worsening of autoimmune conditions in this patient.

Of course, if the patient will listen to you guys to remove, to be removed from that environment, otherwise, if the patient has no choice and continue being on the same job and doing the same thing, then you’re not going to be successful. So finally, I would like to give some Time for questions, and so here, this is really what I found in

this journal,

that you see they are talking about diagnosis, treatment, prevention, but there are many exposure, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, but still there are many [01:03:00] parts of the puzzle. of precision environmental health. Are there that we should learn more, study more, and learn more about it. But none of them out there have experienced like those who are practicing functional medicine, personalized and lifestyle medicine.

So with that, thank you so much, and I’m ready to answer some questions. I believe we have about 15 minutes until they will close the library. That’s true. Yes, please.

?: Have you found that separating the foods and combining what they’re saying carbs? versus separately versus proteins that the immune reactivity to decrease over time.

Better than combining, let’s say, proteins and carbs together. Because any, anything that out there that could be, because I’ve been researching quite a bit on a separate, like literally treat, having the patients and let’s say, with [01:04:00] potatoes and salad, and then have chicken for the salad versus having sweet potatoes and chicken.

And then, purely clinically, I’ve been finding quite great results and much less reactivity to a lot of things, and also having, providing a lot of things to look at. I haven’t been really, I haven’t really found much literature on that to support that, and I’m just I was wondering if you have anything to say to that, or if there is anything.

Dr. Vojdani: Thank you for asking that. First of all, the field of nutritional immunology is growing very fast. What they are doing actually is, let’s take example of resveratrol.

They gave resveratrol of different dosage to mice. And they found that by giving [01:05:00] resveratrol, they can bring down the level of autoreactive lymphocyte, Th1 and Th17, and increase regulatory T cells. Because helping to regulate the immune system. There are lots of studies on polyphenols. Maybe, a lot.

But none of those are the kind of experiments that you and I like. Just combine different foods and see whether or not people react differently to each one of these. Unfortunately, though, I haven’t seen anything in all these journals who publish about nutritional, you know.

?: Yeah, because I, as far as I know, in combining the syrup, like, you develop a completely different protein.

Like, you’ve been combining two different foods. And the more it makes sure you have, I mean, this came from my personal experience. I mean, allergic, I mean, sensitive to a lot of foods. So by [01:06:00] separating the foods, I found much better, I can tolerate a lot of things versus, so I started to apply that with the patients.

So I don’t know if anybody was trying that, but the results are absolutely incredible. I mean, incredible. Supplementation that I used before, but now I’m going to make them separate and at least four hours in between the meals of the same one and the results are great and I wish I could find some studies and help them if they want to bring it.

Let me know. Yeah.

Dr. Vojdani: We can learn that a little bit from the kosher law, like you cannot mix dairy product with meat.

?: Right.

Dr. Vojdani: If you eat dairy, you have to wait four hours and But unfortunately, we don’t have any research even to back up that, which is much simpler than what you are asking. Unfortunately, we don’t have that.

So somebody like you should get together with Cyrix and say, let’s do this research together and publish it. [01:07:00] That’s the only way we can do it. I’d love to do research and but no, no one has done it. Next.

Dr. Weitz: Then. Do we have good data? Before and after on blood brain barrier, gut brain barrier seeing

Dr. Vojdani: that there’s significant improvement with various protocols. The same study with the Resveratrol, I think, and other studies, they showed If there is a single item for repairing the blood, repairing a distress correction, published about

?: it.

Dr. Vojdani: And then, also, I published about it. If patients having leaky gut, like lipopolysaccharide and zanuline, antibodies are elevated, what are the chances? To [01:08:00] have S 100 or blood brain barrier protein antibody also to be elevated. I published it. 70%. 70%. Your patient is having leaky gut. 70% probability of the same patient adding leak.

And do

Dr. Weitz: we have studies

Dr. Vojdani: correlating leaky brain with neurodegenerative diseases? Absolutely. Yes. Many. Maybe. Yes. Let’s see. Could we further assume

?: that, would there be leaky brain, lipid barrier, and not leaky gut in some cases?

Dr. Vojdani: There is, I cannot say no, but there is possibility. Maybe 10 percent of the chance. That the gut is perfect, but [01:09:00] something else from the blood, yeah, like toxic chemicals or something, are causing leaky blood veins, and another one, and then all the dead. Yes, please.

?: These are all, this is all through blood, correct?

Your tests are all through blood.

Dr. Vojdani: She’s asking, Are all your tests through blood? Yes, all of them through blood. Except one, we are using saliva.

?: And do you, for, like, for younger patients, how many, so how many tubes of blood for each? For, even

Dr. Vojdani: if you want to do all tests of Cyrex, you can have one. tube of blood in every living thing.

Remember, we are using 100 microliters of

?: serum. We dilute

Dr. Vojdani: that 1 to 100, [01:10:00] and then we use that. So, so. One tube of blood will be sufficient for all the tests

?: done

Dr. Vojdani: at

?: CITES. Please. I had a question with a patient who already has an active autoimmunity or like a certain medication. And so, like, Alerica or some other thing.

So, which is definitely going to give us. What is the realistic time that they can have them all for a certain period of time to get actual true results without having the immune suppression effect?

Dr. Vojdani: What, the medications causes immune suppression?

?: Doesn’t it? That’s what I mean. Oh yeah. It’s for treatment.

I mean, like if you do it actively on a Lyrica, for example. So. Yes. If I want to test them specifically, because we’re not going to know the true results then, so what do we do with that, with those type of patients? I mean, [01:11:00] they’re still symptomatic, but well, you know, like,

Dr. Vojdani: Remember Medication or autoimmunity is not really gonna shut down completely.

You’re not gonna make zero antibodies. I think it’s gonna reduce the antibodies like 40%. i’ll still will do the test, but in patient with autoimmunity on medication for example, if 1, 2, 4. A and A is positive, I will consider that, you know, like 1 to 80 for that patient.

Or because not always you have a choice to stop telling the patient, stop taking medication. That’s huge responsibility. We’re soon going to have millions of Americans taking GOP1 agonist drugs that slow down gut motility. Does that modify the likelihood of

sensitivities? Yes. In helping? [01:12:00] Yes. I have no doubt.

Yes. So we’re likely to see an increase in autoimmunity as well? Yes. Yes. There’s unfortunately thousands and thousands every day taking pain. And the numbers are increasing.

Anything else you want

?: to add? Or a peptide would be the same thing. The GLP does that only apply to

Dr. Vojdani: medication? In fact, honestly, I wanted, you know, I wanted to measure antibodies because GLP one, remember. The antigens in our body first becoming peptides. It is the peptide that’s getting presented by antigen presenting cells to T cells and then B cells that produce antibodies.

So, [01:13:00] since, because you are using peptide, it doesn’t mean you are not going to make antibody against it. Okay? So It would be nice to take, like, 50 patients who are on GLP 1 and test them for antibodies. See how many of them make antibodies. Because those who make antibodies, I think they are going to be in trouble in the future.

So. So

Dr. Weitz: they’re going to have antibodies against the GLP 1 peptide. Yes. And how, and

Dr. Vojdani: will there also be increased antibodies to the foods? If you’re sitting in that stomach locker. Study about cross reactivity. You don’t know, you don’t know. GLP 1 cross react with how many tissues? Then those antibodies will attack the tissue.

So if you have patients, let me know. If we can collect blood. Just be in touch with me. There are many

Dr. Weitz: patients like these, right? So, [01:14:00] what is the mechanism that allows nanoplastics or microplastics to cross the blood brain barrier? Is it just size? Or is there another

Dr. Vojdani: mechanism that allows it to cross the barrier?

Excellent, excellent question. One, yes, is the size, but the nano versus micro is a huge difference, right? It’s 1, 000. Nano, micro, yes, 1, 000. So how come the, I understand that the micro, the nano can get into the brain, but how come the micro can get into the blood in the brain? I think Leakey got, no, Leakey brain, in the brain, Leakey brain.

But in one of the articles showed that the nano And micro, they get from the trigeminal nerve and all of that from the nose into the brain. [01:15:00] They talk about that route of entry, which I was very surprised about that. And we also know the blood brain barrier is

Dr. Weitz: more permeable than we thought it was to begin with.

Now that we’ve learned that there’s bacteria and pathogens in the brain, and that’s actually how the amyloid gets formed, to protect because they’re anti

Dr. Vojdani: microbial. Yes. Let me give you another example. You know that alpha synuclein is part of the Parkinson’s. But, if you know, That, in the gut, the bacteria and all, they produce a lot of alpha synuclein.

And this alpha synuclein, huge size, can get into the brain. And then causing some of the symptomatology of patients with Parkinson’s. So yes, everything is about leaky gut or leaky brain. [01:16:00] Is that related to this guys is leaking nose, is that related to the constipation that patients with Parkinson’s get decades possibly before they get Parkinson’s?

Possibly,

Dr. Weitz: yes. I’m just curious, thinking the core plexus in the brain gets profused their blood, could that produce something that could be antigenic?

Dr. Vojdani: Oh, yes we make anti question antibodies, antinuclear antibodies, part of the diagnosis of Parkinson’s among functional medicine doctors.

?: Apart from Rol, is there any other. that you found, whether it was your own experience or there’s been adequate research done on that protects the blood brain barrier?

Dr. Vojdani: Yes. [01:17:00] So, shall we give them some kind of news that they don’t know if planning to have some kind of once a month podcast that will take articles like that and share with you guys.

So you think it’s a good idea? Excellent idea. So. So maybe we should start with nutritional immunology. First immunology and then nutritional immunology. Okay, so I think that’s it. Okay, everybody.

?: so

Dr. Weitz: much. 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 five star ratings and review. As you may know, I [01:18:00] 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 White 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.

Sure, I’d be glad to help you with assigning speaker names. We already have “Dr. Weitz” as the main speaker in parts of the script. It seems like there are a couple of distinct sections where other people might be speaking, like “Buffy” when discussing Cyrex Labs, and “Dr. Aristo Bashtani” when discussing environmental medicine. Do you want to clarify [01:19:00] or specify any additional speaker names? Here’s what I have so far:

1. Dr. Weitz (main host and primary speaker)
2. Buffy (Cyrex Labs representative)
3. Dr. Aristo Bashtani (guest speaker on environmental medicine)

Let me know if there are more individuals or further details you want to assign!

Got it. I’ll include Dr. Aristo Vojdani and Steve Snyder as well. Here’s the updated list of speaker names:

1. Dr. Weitz (main host and primary speaker)
2. Buffy (Cyrex Labs representative)
3. Dr. Aristo Vojdani (guest speaker on environmental medicine)
4. Steve Snyder (Integrative Therapeutics representative)

If there are any more individuals or if you need further adjustments, please let me know!

Sure, I can help you assign speaker names to your script. Based on what I can gather from the content, here are the speaker names and their respective sections:

1. **Dr. Weitz** – Main host and primary speaker.
2. [01:20:00] **Buffy** – Cyrex Labs representative.
3. **Dr. Aristo Bashtani** – Guest speaker on environmental medicine.
4. **Steve Snyder** – Integrative Therapeutics representative.

It seems there may be potential overlap or errors in the script regarding the roles. For instance, at one point, it mentions Dr. Bashtani and Dr. Bouchani, which might be the same person or a mix-up in names.

Does this list cover all the speakers, or are there any other individuals that should be identified in this script? Let me know if there’s any part of the script needing adjustments or clarifications on the speaker names.