The Dr. Hyman Show - Are Parasites Driving Your Autoimmune Or Gut Issues? with Dr. George Papanicolaou

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

Are Parasites Driving Your Autoimmune Or Gut Issues? | This episode is sponsored by Thrive Market and Rupa Health You may be surprised to learn that having a parasite, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, our gut microbiome is made up of more than 500 different species of microbes, including various types of bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses. Some of them help us, but others are harmful. Parasitic infection can result in an individual experiencing a range of symptoms from digestive issues to muscle ache, joint pain, skin rashes, and more; it can also signal issues with a weakened immune system. In this episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with Dr. George Papanicolaou to discuss how parasites can influence our overall health, and why they sometimes trigger autoimmune disease, gut imbalance, and much more. George Papanicolaou is a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and is Board Certified in Family Medicine from Abington Memorial Hospital. He is also an Institute for Functional Medicine Practitioner. Upon graduation from his residency he joined the Indian Health Service. He worked on the Navajo reservation for 4 years at the Chinle Comprehensive Medical Facility where he served as the Outpatient Department Coordinator. In 2000, he founded Cornerstone Family Practice in Rowley, MA. He practiced with a philosophy centered on personal relationships and treating the whole person, not just not the disease. He called that philosophy “Whole Life Wellness”. Over time as the healthcare system made it harder for patients to receive this kind of personal care Dr. Papanicolaou decided a change was needed. He began training in Functional Medicine through the Institute of Functional Medicine. In 2015, he established Cornerstone Personal Health – a practice dedicated entirely to Functional Medicine. Dr. Papanicolaou joined The UltraWellness Center in 2017. This episode is sponsored by Thrive Market and Rupa Health. Thrive Market is offering all Doctor's Farmacy listeners an extra 25% off your first purchase and a free gift when you sign up for Thrive Market. Just head over to thrivemarket.com/Hyman.  Rupa Health is a place for Functional Medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty lab tests from over 20 labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. You can check out a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com.  In this conversation, Dr. Hyman and Dr. Papanicolaou discuss: The connection between the immune system and parasitic infection The most common parasites and how you get them Patient cases they have treated When parasites can be helpful Common symptoms of having a parasite Testing and diagnosing for parasites Treating parasites with herbs and pharmaceuticals  The possible role of over-sanitization and parasitic infection, autoimmune issues, and other chronic health issues Using parasitic worm therapy (i.e. helminth therapy) to treat autoimmune issues, asthma, allergies, and more Additional Resources: Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Microbes-Overuse-Antibiotics-Fueling/dp/0805098100 An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases https://www.amazon.com/Epidemic-Absence-Understanding-Allergies-Autoimmune/dp/1439199388 Fixing The Root Cause of Irritable Bowel Syndrome https://drhyman.com/blog/2020/08/10/podcast-hc22/ The Power Of Food To Heal Everything From Autoimmune Disease To Traumatic Brain Injury https://drhyman.com/blog/2019/12/18/podcast-ep85/

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. When you see parasites, you should be thinking immune system, and you should be thinking, you know, something is amiss in the immune system. But you should also be thinking about the fact that there's the good side, and that we need to have a diverse microbiome that includes bacterial diversity, that includes parasitic diversity. Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Mark. I travel all the time. So at this point, I have packing down to a science. I know exactly which grab-and-go food items and personal care products I like to bring,

and I always keep them on hand so I'm ready for my next trip. I used to run around before every trip trying to find what I needed, which meant going to different stores, spending too much time packing. And now I use Thrive Market and I get everything in one place shipped right to my door. Here's a little snapshot of what I like to travel with. Food is, of course, first on my list. I always order some of the Ayoba grass-fed biltong jerky, which is so yummy. Royal Hawaiian Orchards organic macadamias because it's super full of fat and protein. And I love that they make me feel full and easy to carry and don't go bad. And they're also super handy pouches of Thrive Market brand pitted green olives. I want to splurge and bring a treat. I'll grab some Hugh chocolate too. And in my toiletry bag, I bring some Schmitz deodorant, some all

terrain herbal armor bug spray, a tin of raw elements SPF 30 natural sunscreen, and a bar of Dr. Bronner's peppermint castile soap. Thrive also carries so many other things that makes packing for a trip easier, and I'm sure you'll find your own personal favorites. Thrive has two different membership options. I went with a 12-month because it comes down to five bucks a month, and I'm constantly ordering stuff. Plus, it's 30 days risk-free, but you can also sign up for a monthly membership. If you join Thrive Market today, you'll get 25% off your first order and a free gift. Just go to thrivemarket.com forward slash Hyman. That's T-H-R-I-V-E market.com slash Hyman

for 25% off plus a free gift. I know a lot of you out there are practitioners like me helping patients heal using real food and functional medicine as your framework for getting to the root cause. What's critical to understanding what each individual person and body needs is testing, which is why I'm excited to tell you about Rupa Health. Looking at hormones, organic acids, nutrient levels, inflammatory factors, gut bacteria, and so many other internal variables can help us find the most effective path to optimize health and reverse disease. But up till now, that meant you

are usually ordering tests for one patient from multiple labs. And I'm sure many of you can relate how time-consuming this process was, and then it could all feel like a lot of work to keep track of. Now there's Rupa Health, a place for functional medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty labs from over 20 labs like Dutch, Fibrin America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. Rupa Health helps provide a significantly better patient experience, and it's 90% faster, letting you simplify the entire process of getting the functional medicine lab tests you need and giving you more time to focus on patients. This is really a much needed option in functional medicine space.

And I'm so excited about it. It means better service for you and your patients. You can check it out and look at a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account at rupahealth.com. That's R-U-P-A health.com. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy.

I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's Pharmacy on F, a place for conversation that matter. And if you ever wondered if you had parasites and if they're affecting your health, this is the podcast you got to listen to because that's what we're going to talk about today on this special episode of Doctor Doctors Pharmacy called House Call with none other than our Dr. George Papanikola from the Ultra Wellness Center, an extraordinary doc, friend, and just a hero of mine who's so committed to helping patients and doing such a good job. I just think we are so blessed to have him here at the Ultra Wellness Center.

Welcome back, George. Mark, it is always a pleasure to be here to talk about what we do here at the Ultra Wellness Center. Welcome back, George. Mark, it is always a pleasure to be here to talk about what we do here at the Ultra Wellness Center and helping our patients get to the root cause of their conditions and then helping them get better using treatments that make sense for their biology and their environmental lifestyle. Absolutely. All right. Let's say today we're going to talk about something that seems like on a weird topic, which is parasites and worms and stuff that, you know, kind of creeps people out. And there's this whole phenomena in the wellness health world of like, oh, you got parasites.

You need a parasite cleanse. Oh, gosh. It's like a whole thing. And you and I've been looking at poop for longer than most people on the earth have been alive and i think you know we have seen our share of parasites and our share of worms yeah but i i'm not so sure that it's the cure for everything no uh and i don't think it's as prevalent as people think, although it is common. I do think that it's a completely underappreciated, underdiagnosed, and undertreated problem for

many people with gut issues, with autoimmune diseases, with all sorts of problems that are kind of overlooked. And part of the challenge is, and we'll talk more about testing and how we find it and so forth. The challenge is that, you know, most doctors don't think of checking for parasites. They might do a stool test, you know, oh, you've been to India or you were in, you know, Mexico. Maybe we should check you for parasites if your stomach's not right. But mostly if you come in with an autoimmune disease or some other weird thing or irritable bowel, they're not really thinking about parasites. And then the testing they do is so antiquated.

Basically, think about it like this. You have a guy looking down a microscope, looking at stuff swimming across his field. And hopefully one of those critters swims by and he goes oh i got that one and then he identifies it the problem is a lot of parasites are from the developing world or people get and a lot of people don't know how to look for it so you know if you're if you're in like texas and someone drives by in a volvo you're like what's that like that's kind of i don't know what that is. But if you're in Sweden and someone drives by an Evalvo, oh, that's an Evalvo. So I think we really have to sort of take a step back

and we're going to dive deep in this conversation about, you know, why we get parasites, what the symptoms are, and what our approach to diagnosing and treating it is is quite different and how it can affect so many different issues. So how come we got parasites? How come we got parasites?

And is it a bad thing? I'll tell you why. Is it a bad thing? Let me tell you why we have parasites, because God made parasites, right? And God put them on this earth for a reason. And maybe the fact that our tests have been so antiquated for so long has been a good thing, because i think if we had a really good test all the time all along we'd realize that most everybody has parasites

you know and and they're there for they're in our gut for a reason they really become a problem because there are some that are more pathogenic than others but the real the real trick and trigger is and we and i think why we see more parasitic-based chronic disease, is the immune system. If you have a hampered immune system, if your immune system is suppressed in any way, or is out of balance, you're going to start to feel the impact of those parasites. And so why do we have them? Because they're part of the biologic ecosystem that works for plants and animals and for humans as well. It's when you get a big dose of a pathogenic organism, you happen to be immune compromised at that period of time, you give it an opportunity for that parasite to take hold in your intestine,

and now you're going to have either to take hold in your intestine and now you're going to have either an acute illness and most people have experienced parasitic illness as acute like you know can't go back there giardia you know shigella you know salmonella you have bacteria though those aren't well yeah those are bacteria but your giardia is your and um and to me yeah it's about the end to me of histolytica those are like two of the major ones yeah amoeb biopsies. Those three. And those are the ones that people have experienced the most.

But the diagnosis to get to Giardia or entamoeba histolytica, it can take months to years. To years for somebody to figure out your chronic diarrhea is caused by one of those two or three parasites. Yeah, I mean, I had a woman who had chronic fatigue terrible irritable bowel food sensitivity she was like miserable and it was like an extremely well-connected wealthy woman who had access to the best medical care and she had giardia that she picked up somewhere and she was miserable and no one found it and it was very hard to find i mean you know you have to you know one of the one of the standard ways that it used to be used, and now I think they use capsules to go in and look for it,

but they used to go down into the intestine, and they'd be almost like fishing for the Giardia and see if they could pull any Giardia out and do biopsies. It's very difficult to diagnose, but we have new tests, but we'll talk about that. Yeah, and people get parasites from water, from food. What kind of food and water? Yeah. So you get water, food, you can get it from meats, uncooked meats, and you can get it from your pets. So if you have a cat who's going out, it happens to be an outdoor cat that likes to

kill things, they're going to get parasites from the rodents and the small creatures that they eat. They're going to bring it back. And if you're not careful cleaning their litter box then you're going to be at risk for for getting a parasite with cats it's toxoplasmosis i actually have a patient who has schizophrenia and i just did you know because they i'm trying to find out a root cause i did testing and i tested him for toxoplasmosis antibodies and he had uh very high antibodies of toxoplasmosis and there's a link between toxoplasmosis and mental health disease particularly schizophrenia incredible right even if it's treated the the inflammation and the antigenic nature of the toxoplasmosis has an ongoing impact on the brain in such a way that it can lead to the symptoms of schizophrenia.

So it was an interesting case. Yeah, I mean it was really interesting. So that sort of brings together like a different train of thinking, which is these parasites are in your gut, but they can cause problems that have nothing to do with your, seemingly have nothing to do with your gut. And I remember one kid with autism who was

really quite sick but had a lot of gut issues a lot of kids with autism oh yeah and we're like oh we'll treat as let's look at stool and giardia yeah and we treated that and literally the kids autism dramatically improved started talking i was like whoa the whole yeah there's yeah so talk about the uh the ways in which these parasites are are common and and what are the most common ones we see and and um and how do we sort of start to think about like what they're doing in the body because because in a way you know you can make a devil's argument uh devil devil's advocate argument and say, well, you know, we all grew up in nature and we weren't living in a standardized hygiene world. And we all were exposed to parasites and we all had worms and amoebas and bacteria. Like, maybe they have a role in our health.

Right. Are they all bad? Yeah. So they're not all bad. And so, you know, since you brought it up, I mean, that's the hygiene hypothesis. And the hygiene hypothesis says that industrialized countries where we have sanitized everything, including our food, we have lost some of the important elements of our gut microbiome, particularly parasites. And there's mounting evidence that parasites actually have an important role in modulating, in a positive way, the immune system.

That when you, there are particular parasites that will, there's a balance in your immune system. And there's an inflammatory side and anti-inflammatory side. And the parasites that are in our body actually produce certain proteins and long chain carbohydrates and fat molecules that will balance out the immune response so that there's the T helper cells that are more inflammatory are shut down. And so that can limit autoimmunity. And we know that autoimmune illnesses and autoimmunity is the base of many of our chronic diseases. And so there's more and more evidence that having a healthy microbiome

that includes some parasites can be very helpful. And I know we're probably going to talk about this, but it's called helmintherapy. And although you don't hear a lot about it, it is becoming- It's a worm. Yeah. Helminth is a worm. And they're being used to modulate the immune system. And we'll talk, I have a case that we'll talk about later in which I've used Helmin therapy. So that question mark about, can parasites, are they good or are they bad?

They're both. It depends. I mean, there's really a couple of good books. One is called Missing Microbes, which is about the damage to our microbiome and the lack of the right bugs that keeps us healthy. And then one's called The Epidemic of Absence. Right.

Which is a brilliant book where this guy literally went to south america mexico and was suffering from allergies and asthma and autoimmune issues and treated himself with worms and actually got better it was fascinating but you know this is such a crazy idea that people are like wow treating people with worms that sounds like we want to get rid of the parasites right but but it's a mixed bag and you have to sort of figure out what's going on with the patient so let's talk about what are the i mean obviously digestive symptoms right if you if you have a parasite you have diarrhea you get bloating you have gas concentration cramping all that stuff right you're gonna have increased appetite you feel like you're never full you're gonna going to have muscle ache, joint pain.

You're going to have skin rashes, itching, hives. You're going to have brain fog, fatigue. And in real severe cases, when you have a 35-foot tapeworm hanging out in your gut, you could be anemic. Significantly anemic. Iron deficiency. It would be an iron deficiency. Nutritional deficiencies. I've even seen cystic acne um yeah by parasites um so they're common and they cause a lot of issues and they can lead to all these autoimmune issues

you mentioned and and you know there there's a lot of bugs in your gut right there's bacteria there's viruses there's fungi there's parasites there's worms did i forget anything prions probably or something you know yeah and i think. And I think it's a complex subject. It's a look at the ecosystem in a gut. So essentially it's like if you're a functional medicine doctor, it's like you're being a rainforest ecologist. There's all these different interactions and all these dynamic connections. But the problem is really common, and the diagnosis is often missed.

But often when I see parasites, I feel like they really need to be treated. Absolutely. And so tell me about how do we go about diagnosing this? What is wrong with traditional diagnosis? Right. How do we start to diagnose this? Yeah. So I just go back to that one comment you made, because I think it's really, it's really profound. And I just want to just really just make it the

last statement on this is that when you see parasites, you should be thinking immune system and you should be thinking, you know, something is amiss in the immune system, but you should also be thinking about the fact that there's the good side, and that we need to have a diverse microbiome that includes bacterial diversity, that includes parasitic diversity, because those organisms have evolved with us. They make compounds for us,

and they educate our immune system. See, if we don't have if we don't have parasites and we don't have bacteria then our immune system doesn't know it doesn't know what to respond to and so when you now have a sterile diet and with without the nutrients that you should have and you're you're not getting you're not eating fresh vegetables and you're not eating you know grass-fed beef you're not gonna fresh vegetables and you're not eating grass-fed beef, you're not going to get the full complement of bacteria and even parasites that will educate your immune system. What will

happen then is your immune system will then over-respond. It's been in isolation all these years. It almost has agoraphobia. It's afraid to go out of the house. And it goes out of the house and all of a sudden it's at Gillette Stadium and it's completely having a panic attack. And when it does that, it over responds. You get these autoimmune and inflammatory responses that lead to chronic disease. And so it's really important to understand that we need to eat our food from really healthy soil. We need to eat whole food and vegetables that have these organisms on it because that's going to help us have a diverse gut microbiome that has an abundance of good bacteria that helps protect us. And parasites

are part of that. So that's the good side, right? Now, the bad side, when you do have that problem, we talked about some of the signs and symptoms. How do you get to that diagnosis when that person's had chronic diarrhea, where they've had this itching and this bloating, and now you're suspecting, okay, they've had all this testing done, and I can't, and nobody's figured it out. See, that is an advantage we have, because we are oftentimes the doctors of last resort and so i get to look at everything that's been done and i get to say you know what they did this and that but oftentimes i in 20 years of practicing conventional medicine i think i had one positive o and p test right

right right gi doctors chronic diarrhea let's do an O&P. So what the O&P is basically is you have somebody in a lab looking under a microscope at multiple slides of somebody's poop. You have to look at hundreds of slides to capture one- Yeah. And good luck. You might not recognize it. The guy's not trained.

And one of the- And you're right about that not trained. There are fewer and fewer lab techs that, you know, like we don't, like if you and I saw, you know, well, we'll probably get it, but we wouldn't recognize smallpox because we've never seen it, right? So most of the techs these days, when they're trained, it's all on biochemical assays and they're not getting the microscope, know uh training to and they don't see that may not be as common like in some of the bugs might not be as common here so if you're in

india and you're like a pathologist you're looking you probably see thousands of the other i recognize that so using an omp is so if somebody comes here and yeah i've had an open parasite test i've had three of them and i've been told i have no over on parasites well there's new technology called qualitative quantitative PCR so what that does it's gonna look at the DNA material look for DNA material of parasites and it's gonna be able to multiply it until you can measure it that's what the PCR does it's a polymer polymerase chain reaction so you get this DNA used for kovat how we use for COVID, right? Yeah, exactly, for diagnosing the acute phase of COVID.

So that test is very effective, and it's part of one of the tests that we do to look at the gut microbiome. I use this one particular lab, and they do the quantitative PCR, and they're very, very sensitive. And they pick up parasites. It's like 6,000 times more sensitive than looking at poop and the microscope. It is. That's crazy, right? Okay. So we have that diagnostic tool.

So let's talk about the approach to looking at parasites. We use a special test. We use what we call a GIFX test here. It's a- GI map. GI map. I use, I like, the GI map, because of its quantitative PCR, it's very sensitive, almost too sensitive.

Yeah, it often picks up things that may not be actually- But, you know, you get that with, you know, often. Yeah, there's a difference between sensitivity and specificity in medicine sensitivity means if you have it it will for sure find it right but it can over over report it sensitive specificity means if you have this it's for sure there like it's that it's that thing right so you know it kind of might over diagnose stuff on some of these PCR tests because you may have like a fragment of something or it passes through. It may not be a real problem.

And you use your clinical judgment and what's going on with the patient to really – and that's the cognitive process that we go through all the time. And we don't treat tests. We treat patients. But we use tests so we don't guess. So that's how it works. Let's talk about then how we would really approach dealing with someone with chronic parasite infections.

And then I want to get into talking about worms, because parasites and worms are quite different. Normally we wouldn't give someone a parasite, but we sometimes in medicine are now giving people worms to treat the disease. Yeah, helminth therapy. So talk about what is our approach? We do the diagnostic tests. What is our approach to treating a chronic parasitic infection? And we find them through these tests where other people don't find them. So, you know, we've gone through the process now. Patient comes in. We've

clued into the fact that they have a parasite. We did great testing. We did the GI map. We found their parasite. And now what are we going to do? So there are, of course, in medicine, there are some drugs that you can use. But they are very potent. And they have lots of side effects to them.

And you get more diarrhea you can get more cramping uh you can uh have hepatotoxicity with them so you got to be really careful there they can be effective and i've used flageol or alinea alinea um 19 is all um so but what we would i the two things i think about when I'm dealing with the parasite is, there is a, if they have a symptomatic parasite, then their gut microbiome is significantly disordered. And it usually, you usually see not only the parasite, but you're also going to see other markers of disorder. You're going to see an overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria you're going to see candida you know because those are the those are the markers of a disordered microbiome that will allow a parasite to to really take hold and become pathogenic yeah so um i think first off you know it's the five r's so i need to get rid

of the parasite so we use botanicals so the botanicals that are really helpful are oregano herbs herbs yeah herbs so we use oregano we use um garlic uh we use a black walnut um we use uh wormwood wormwood um so i use berberine and there are and you can Berberine. And you can use them individually. And you can use them in combination. There are some great combo treatments out there that will cover a host of your parasites and also treat those dysbiotic or pathogenic organisms. So the first thing I want to do is I want to start them on a therapy that's going to finally get rid of that organism. So it's a direct attack on the organism.

But then we have to look at the entire... Before you do that, I just want to share a story. I was once giving a talk at Yale and it was to a bunch of doctors and naturopaths and I was talking about the gut and I mentioned a parasite, a particular patient. And this naturopath got up because i was saying when i tend to use these drugs and um because i i kind of tend to use drugs more for parasites and and he starts going on and on about all the herbs and how these words work

against parasites and a minute, this other guy got up who was a naturopath as well, but he was an older guy. He's like, you know, the truth is I'm a naturopath and I primarily use herbs, but often they don't work as well as the medication. So you can try herbs, but I wouldn't be afraid of the medication. No, absolutely not.

Because this is a short-term thing that deals with the cause. Yeah. And it's amazing. I mean, irritable bowel is so prevalent and it's such a big problem for cause. Yeah. And it's amazing. I mean, irritable bowel is so prevalent, and it's such a big problem for people. Yeah. And there's many causes of it, but sometimes it is a parasite. I had a patient recently who was a very famous lady, and she was really struggling with chronic gut issues.

And we treat a parasite, and boom, she was instantly better. Yeah. So, yeah. So, again, blastocystis hominis, which is a parasite, and another one called entamoeba histolytica, they've both been implicated in IBS as triggers for IBS. Herbal value. Yeah. So, if you can't find a reason for somebody's IBS, you should be looking for one because IBS is just not the diagnosis. There's a trigger for it. And you haven't been able to get to the bottom of it, you should be looking for those two parasites. Unbelievable. So we're treating, you know, I will start with herbal therapies

and then I will advance to using pharmaceutical agents if necessary. But then I want to make sure the rest of their gut is working. So we look at their digestive processes. And oftentimes, why do we have the parasite? Because their digestive processes aren't working well. They're not making enough HCL in their stomach because they're under chronic stress. They might not be producing enough pancreatic enzymes. They may have some issues with their gallbladder that's limiting, and their liver that is limiting their production of bile

or release of bile. So we want to make sure they have all their digestive enzymes. We want to make sure that their gut immune system is working well. So we want to create that environment. Besides treating, I'm going to want to make sure that they're getting the types of foods and supplements in their diet that will support a healthy gut microbiome, good prebiotic foods, the cruciferous vegetables. I want them to make sure they're getting things like broccoli and asparagus and Brussels sprouts and dandelions. My dad was Greek and we lived in a suburban community. And in the springtime, my dad would go around the yard and he'd get all the dandelions and he'd community and in the springtime, my dad would go around

the yard and he'd get all the dandelions and he'd bring them in the house and he'd steam them up and boil them and he'd mix them up with garlic and oregano and garlic and oregano and dandelions. Right? What are we doing? We're giving our gut great prebiotics to feed the good bacteria and giving natural herbs and botanicals to make sure that we keep a healthy gut microbiome. So dandelion's really good.

Artichoke's really good. Konjac root with glucomannan is really good prebiotic. So I want to not just treat the organism. I want to create a really healthy gut microbiome that has a healthy immune system that will prevent further disease down the road. Yeah. So really it's about not only killing the bug, because I've been in traditional medicine where like- Let's kill it.

Kill the bug. Okay, see you later. Carpet vomit and let's move on. Forget it. And the problem is that most people's gut don't get back to normal on their own. And I often see this even with celiac patients. They will be told, oh, you have celiac, don't eat gluten, but they still struggle for years

with all kinds of digestive issues that they cannot handle certain foods or they have bloating or gas. And it's even after they've eliminated gluten. So you really have to go through this whole gut restoration program. We talk a lot about it on the podcast, but it's such a key part of functional medicine this five-hour program where

we get rid of the bad stuff foods bugs whatever and then we kind of put in the good stuff and help the body kind of repair and heal yeah so that's really an incredible approach and we've seen patient after patient have had amazing and i've seen i've come across really crazy things i've seen people with schistosomiasis from af Africa and I've seen people with endometriosis and I've seen a lot of parasites. Blastocystis is one of the most common ones. And it's often thought to be not a pathogenic one, so it's not bad, but it often does cause symptoms. And if people have symptoms and they have blastocystis and they have irritable bowel, I tend to treat it. So let's sort of jump to this final topic because I think that it's such an interesting topic and it has to do with worms. So like, look, we to this final topic because I think that it's such an interesting topic. Right.

And it has to do with worms. Yeah. So like, look, we all co-evolve with living with all these bugs. Yeah. And we had them and they live with us. What's interesting is that, you know, in the advent of sort of modern civilization, we've become over sanitized and we've lost the contact with the natural world and i you know i think we've seen this uptick in allergies and asthma and autoimmune diseases and inflammatory diseases ms rheumatoid arthritis psoriatic arthritis and all these diseases and the question is why right because when you go to like the developing world you go to a hunter-gatherer culture they don't have them

no like there's just no allergies no asthma and i was thinking by the other day like i grew up every summer spending three months on a ranch with horses and poop and outside and being dirty all the time absolutely dirt and sleeping outside and you know like being outside and i don't have a single allergy or anything and i think you know there's this whole phenomena where you see kids who grew up on farms don't get allergies and autoimmunity oh my i mean if mothers today saw what you and i were doing we were kids mucking around in creeks holding on to salamanders yeah you know feeding you know we had a horse farm near us and you know i would feed the horses you know apples through the fence and they're licking my hand. And you know, mothers today would be like freaked.

Right, exactly. So we've sort of over sanitized ourselves and there's a number of books like The Epidemic of Absence we mentioned. It really talks about this. And there's some really good science behind using worms, reintroducing worms into the body. And when you look at the part of the immune system

that has us deal with worms, it's the same part of the immune system that helps us deal with allergy or asthma, which is fascinating to me because it's like, oh, it has nothing better to do because it's supposed to be fighting the worms all the time and keeping everything under control. But if you don't have the worms to fight, all of a sudden,

the directin gets turned on you and your body starts dealing with attacking. Exactly. Becoming more allergic or autoimmune related. So there's an interesting observation. There's an observational study that looked at people with autoimmune diseases in sub-Saharan Africa and in underdeveloped countries. And they looked at those in regards to the severity of disease, progression of disease, and response to treatment compared to developed countries like the US.

And they found that those patients in sub-Saharan, and they compared it along the lines of like the load of parasites. And they found that the patients in sub-Saharan Africa, and the hypothesis is that it's because of the parasites, they have their disease, their rheumatoid arthritis is less severe. It progresses more slowly and it responds better to therapy versus developed countries where there's less parasites. And we, you know, we have this, you know, this, you know, the operation of the hygiene hypothesis where we just live in too sterile of an environment that our immune systems just are, like you said, are going to get confused and they're more likely to have an autoimmune response in response to something that's coming through the system that they maybe should not even respond to. That's called immune tolerance. Your body

actually has to have immune tolerance. You have to tolerate your own antigens, but you have to tolerate the antigens of other organisms. Because if you're responding to everything that comes to your body, then you're going to be constantly inflamed. So your immune system has to have a mechanism by which it can appropriately tolerate organisms. And in that particular setting, those organisms that are being tolerated may be doing something good for us. So if we're having immune tolerance for a parasite that isn't harming us, it's getting some benefit,

but it's creating compounds that actually modulate and balance our immune system, that's a win-win. Yeah. So I know this sounds completely wacky, right? I know, but it's true. Dr. Hyman and Dr. George are giving patients worms. Well, you know what? Are they quacks or what's going on here?

I will bring in a patient and she will sit here and tell you that she is a believer in Helman therapy because she had severe psoriatic arthritis and we worked on everything. And her goal was to be able to either come off of or greatly reduce her need for her immunosuppressive Humira. When she came to see me, aches and pains in all of her joints, tired, fatigued, really having difficulties. And I did all of the things that we do and we've talked about on this podcast in functional medicine. But one thing I brought up, you know, I put her on a lot of things that could impact your immune system, Helman therapy. So I started her on Helman therapy a year and a half ago. I mean, she was in the worst, well, she was actually getting better from her pain,

but she could not get beyond two and a half weeks without needing your next Humira. Started on helmintherapy, helping her to get to that goal. She's now, she can go every six weeks before she needs a Humira shot. And that started once she started the helmintherapy. So she's getting parasites, she's getting helmin, she's getting these worms, she takes them in capsules. We get them from a really you know high um high uh level company and it really does work it does you know i i would say i've been shocked and i use it very

selectively and i have patients who are really struggling and the usual functional medicine stuff doesn't work and i think that i've been shocked at some of the things I've seen. I had this one kid who was on the autistic spectrum, but he was also extremely allergic. And he had really high levels of IgE, which is the antibody that gets sort of allergens when you have allergies, like asthma allergies. And I'm like, I told him, I said, look, I don't know if this is gonna work.

I think the risk is very low. We use rat tapeworms, I told them, I said, look, I don't know if this is going to work. I think the risk is very low. We use rat tapeworms, which sounds gross, but they don't actually take up residence. And they don't actually cause any real problems long term. They just pass through. But they can help regulate immunity on the way in. You want to try them. It's like, she's like, sure. Was it really

a miracle this kid not only had reduction all his symptoms and allergies and everything but his ige levels which normally should be like under a hundred were a thousand and it came down to normal wow on this therapy wow and i've had other people that are autoimmune diseases uh kids it's really quite striking so So there's something to it. You have to pick the right patient. Absolutely. And we'll figure it out. But I just think that in functional medicine, the idea is that, you know, it's not like, you know, we just decide, oh, you know what, there's nothing else to do. Let's just, you know, oh, I heard about, you know, which doctors in, you know, in Africa using helmin, so I think I'll try that.

There's a lot of research. I think we pride ourselves here at the Ultra Wellness Center in getting to the root cause, but really combing the literature for real data that says it helps us find new therapies that are going to be beneficial. And so we do that. And there is a lot of studies that support Helman therapy in reducing the severity of symptoms in response to medication in people with rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, MS, and asthma. Pretty amazing, right?

Yeah, it is. So it's, you know, this is- And it's actually in the mainstream medical literature. It's mainstream. And yet doctors are really not doing it. And we're a little kind of on the leading edge here at the Center for Functional Medicine, I mean at the Ultra Wellness Center. And we're really focusing on what's going to work for the patients.

And we use criteria like, you know, is there scientific evidence? Yes. Is it safe? You know, yes. Does it have bad side effects? Hopefully not. Is it safe? And if, you know, yes. Does it have bad side effects? Hopefully not. Is it reasonably priced? Okay.

And if it meets those things, you know, we find a great therapy, but it's a million dollars a dose, probably not going to use it or it doesn't work. So we really try things that are potentially helpful. And we work with our patients in ways that I think are pretty unique and inspiring. And it allows us to really see remarkable miracles where we often don't. So if you're listening to this podcast and you've struggled with gut issues, if you have autoimmune issues, if you have allergies, if you have cystic acne, if you have who knows what, you got to start with the gut. Yep. And you might have a parasite.

You might have a worm. You might need to get treated with a worm or get rid of a worm. And that's part of the finesse of folks with MSNs. We're either going to get rid of one or give you one. Exactly. And we figure out how to do that. That's really the personalization approach. So if you've been listening to this podcast

and you struggle with gut or health issues and you want to share how you've succeeded in getting rid of your worms or parasites or what you've learned. We'd love to learn from you and share with everybody. Subscribe for every podcast. And if you know anybody with problems you think they would benefit, please share this podcast with them. I think they might get something out of it. And hopefully we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do and introducing you all the experts that I know

and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements, to gadgets, to tools, to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays, nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash PICS to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash PICS, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter. And I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier

and better and live younger, longer. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine

practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.