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Do you wonder if you have high levels of heavy metals in your system – like mercury, lead, or cadmium? Thorne’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mary Kay Ross, joins us to explain how you can tell, why you should care, and answer audience questions about all things heavy metals.
During this episode you’ll learn about:
Resources to topics mentioned in this episode:
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Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app. You can also learn more about what we talked about by visiting Thorne.com and checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne’s Take 5 Daily blog.
During this episode you’ll learn about:
Resources to topics mentioned in this episode:
Subscribe to More Content
Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app. You can also learn more about what we talked about by visiting Thorne.com and checking out the latest news, videos, and stories on Thorne’s Take 5 Daily blog.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is The Thorne Podcast, the show that navigates the complex world of wellness and explores the latest science behind diet, supplements and lifestyle approaches to good health. I'm Dr. Robert Rountree, Chief Medical Advisor at Thorne and functional medicine doctor. As a reminder, the recommendations made in this podcast are the recommendations of the individuals who express them and not the recommendations of Thorne. Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Hi, everyone and welcome back to The Thorne Podcast. We again have Dr. Mary Kay Ross, the Chief Medical Officer for Thorne. She's here with us for a third and final episode, I should say final for now, but I'm sure we'll hear from her again. It's always good to have you on the podcast, Dr. Ross. How are things going for you?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Things are going great, Bob and I'm thrilled to be here. Things are wonderful. At Thorne, we have lots of exciting things that we're working on.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I know that you are getting settled into your new home in New York.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right. I think I've been here for maybe eight days.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Eight days. I suspect you've already seen a little bit of snow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I have and we're supposed to have an ice storm today.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Probably didn't see a lot of snow where you were living before in the south.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No snow in Georgia to speak of, no.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, it's been around 10 degrees here in Colorado and we got a pretty good snowstorm the other day, which we're always happy for.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes, I love the snow.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So why don't we dive into the main discussion for this week, which is toxins and specifically heavy metals and mycotoxins and maybe anything else that's related. And we got directed to this topic by talking about things that are bad for the brain, but we can also expand into chemicals, metals that are bad for the body. In fact we're battling exposure to these toxins in our food, our water, air and even things like cosmetics, skin lotions, shampoo, et cetera. So Mary Kay, where do you like to start when the topic of toxins or mycotoxins, heavy metals, when that comes up, how do you begin to talk about that with your clients?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Well, I think it's really important when you're talking to a patient or a client to get a good feeling of what their exposesome is because we all have one. And so really you have to... I do a very intense intake and ask everything. I want to know everything. I want to know where you grew. I want to know about your birth. I want to know everything because your exposure to chemicals and tobacco and how close to an expressway do you live? Everything it seems like in this world day is toxic.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And depending on your genetics and your baseline health and your immune system, it can certainly affect you. And everybody has a tipping factor if you will. And when you hit your tipping factor, that's when you get sick. And Bob, that happened to me. So it's something I've just been really sensitive to. It's fascinating to me how some people are like George Burns and they can just smoke and drink and cuss and carry on to a great old age. And then some of us are that person who you're like, what happened to me? How did this happen? Especially with the standard American diet and everything else. I think it all feeds into each other and can create a real toxic disaster.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I have to say that my dad who grew up in South Alabama was not the healthiest guy. I mean, had a lot of typical chronic diseases. And when I used to talk to him about his lifestyle, he would say, "What about Winston Churchill? Winston Churchill would get up every..." Who he idolized. And he would say, "Well, Winston Churchill would get up and have a whiskey and a cigar every morning for breakfast. And he lived a ripe old age." So that's a fairly standard response that people hear is they pick someone who seemed to get away with it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But I think the problem is that the people you and I see are the canaries, the canaries and the coal mine, the people who are really sensitive. And it's not that these people are freaks, these people just happen to be a little more sensitive than the rest of us. And they're the ones that are leading the way in saying, "Hey, guys, there's something out there in our environment." As you said, the exposome, there's something out there that you should be concerned about. I agree that I think doing a really thorough history is great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
When I was in medical school, the extent of my environmental history taking that I was taught was to ask people if they live nearest melter. So like, "Do you live nearest melter?" And they go, "No." And you go, "Okay, you're fine. Let's move on." And we know there's a lot more to it than that. So I think you mentioned that you had experienced a mold exposure. Where did that come from? And how did you find out about that if you don't mind talking about it?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No, not at all. Gosh, now it seems like a lifetime ago. When you get sick, most people I don't think develop a whole array of diagnoses overnight. It's over time. So it's like... I will never forget. I woke up and my finger was so painful and I had tenosynovitis. And I didn't know where that came from. It started me on omission and I ended up going to have an MRI. And I was diagnosed with tenosynovitis. Then I went to a rheumatologist and he said, "You have psoriatic arthritis." During that time, prior to that, I had been having chronic bronchitis, vertigo, horrible vertigo, tinnitus. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't breathe. And then I would develop pneumonia periodically. So I was living on antibiotics, inhalers and steroids.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh my. And you were working full-time.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And I was working full-time in the emergency room. So shift work, which is really... I was never a great sleeper with shift work anyhow. And so everything was just getting bad. And then my hands went bad and my fingers. And then I developed a rash all over my hands, my face, chronic coughing. I mean, I was a disaster and-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Things were unraveling it sounds like.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Things were unraveling. I actually was looking at, do I need to go on disability? Because I worked in a level one trauma center. I mean, how am I going to intubate or serve people up or do the things you have to do with your hands? When my fingers are so swollen, I can hardly bend them.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh my.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, and so I went to the rheumatologist. I was in there for about five minutes and he's said, "You have psoriatic arthritis." I said to myself, "Well, how in the world can he diagnose me in five minutes?" And he wanted to put me on Enbrel and he wanted me to go get a physical exam, make sure I don't have tuberculosis. And when I went to go get the physical exam, I had all these thyroid nodules. So that prompted biopsies. So at the end of the day, I decided this was not for me. I didn't feel like anybody really had a great answer. And I went to IFM and that was it. And the other-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
The Institute for Functional Medicine.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And there is one more thing I forgot to mention. So I was working full-time and I had to give grand round. And I know I was exhausted. I had been testing myself trying to figure all of this stuff out. And so I was making that transition from a more traditional physician to functional medicine really, but I didn't even know what I was transitioning to. I was just searching. And I had done a cortisol test. And honestly, I did it four times during the day salivary. It was all at the top of the paper. It didn't go anywhere near [crosstalk 00:08:48].
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So your adrenals were going crazy.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh, big time. So I went and gave this lecture and I started having chest pain. And I thought to myself, "Gosh, am I having a heart attack?" So I went ahead and gave the lecture. And went back to the office and got a EKG and checked my blood pressure. And ended up in the hospital with a high troponin and went to the cath lab and I had takotsubo, which for the listeners that is stress induced cardiomyopathy and the ventricle wasn't really pumping properly.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And so I remember the cardiologist saying, "Mary Kay, if you're going to have some cardiacs, the best thing to have your vessels are pristine. This is from stress and I think it's from the cortisol actually. And because when your body is pumping out cortisol, it's also pumping out epinephrine. You're getting a more adrenaline." And that stunned my heart. So I had to spend three or four nights in the hospital on a monitored bed.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And when I got out that Friday, I flew to take the cardiometabolic in Boston. And I started going to the Institute for Functional Medicine. And honestly, that is what I think saved my life. We had had a leak in our house. It had been going on. It was misdiagnosed. It didn't come right through the walls. So I went to go change a painting that I'd ordered a painting from Florida when we were on vacation, went to hang it in my sunroom and the wall when I removed, the other one was black.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes, and so we had had this leak and water went from where the leak originated in the middle of the house all the way out to the exterior wall and down.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So it's full of black mold.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Full of black mold, absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And you've been breathing that day and night.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right. That's right. And I-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I have to ask, your husband was living in the house too?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And did he feel any of this or no?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
He didn't think he did, but listen, we started going back and really looking. And he was having all of these urticaria breakouts, hives.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Hives.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
He was breaking out in hives and he would have these really weird attacks. He ended up developing sarcoidosis.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which is a disease that looks like TV, but no TV found.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I asked that because I've often told audience members a story of a woman that developed all weird symptoms. I think she was anemic. Her hair was falling out. Her nails didn't look good. And finally, somebody diagnosed her with arsenic poisoning. And it had turned out it had been from working in a shed behind her house where she was doing some remodeling. She had all these symptoms. Her husband who was with her had no symptoms at all.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Wow, isn't that something?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And then they measured his arsenic levels and they were higher than hers, which just goes to show you that if I'm a doctor and I'm taking a history and you tell me, "Well, I've got all these symptoms." And then I say, "Well, how about your other family members?" "Oh, well, they're fine." Then the doctor's going to think, oh, this woman's probably got a psychosomatic problem because every else should have it. If she's got it, everybody else should have symptoms. But even we know with COVID, you can have one person in the family that's sick and everybody else is fine. So everybody's individual.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. It's fascinating. So it's your genetics and it's the world in which you dip them.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So it's a combination of your genes, your susceptibility, all that stuff.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely, and I had the perfect storm, but it was interesting. I have so far knock on wood been able to really put all of that behind me and-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, you're healthy now, right?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I am.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I mean, you're working full time and-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, feel great. I feel great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So you got magically over psoriatic arthritis, which is not a condition that rheumatologists would say you ever recover from.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. And I can't imagine honestly where I would be today if I had gone on the biologics that they wanted me to and done all of these other things. I think I would just be a chronically ill patient. Somebody would say, "Oh, do you remember Dr. Ross?" "Yeah, she died."
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, she died too bad. She got the best medical care available.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And continued to go down, which is a very similar story to what Dr. Terry Walls tells us about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and doing everything she was told to do, having the best specialist in the world and was continuing to go downhill, ending up on a wheelchair. And finally, she said, "To heck with that. I'm going to do my own thing." And now she's dancing.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's amazing.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now she's dancing. It's amazing. So, wow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I think our body wants to do the right thing. And I think that we have to figure out how to allow that to happen, whether it's changing your diet, getting out of your exposure, starting to exercise, but do the right thing.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And that's what I wanted to ask you. So what were the things that were most important for your healing from this exposure to mycotoxins? And did it end up just being mycotoxins or were there other sources of toxins in your environment that you had to deal with?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's a great question and I think you and I have talked about this sometimes. I question people that, I shouldn't say this, but I do question people that are all one thing. Everything's not always what you think it is. You really have to keep an open mind and look. So I did the whole IFM training, which was just wonderful for me. And I also went to ILADS. And ILADS for people that don't know it is the Lyme tick and Associated Disease group. They're in Washington DC. And they're an international tick group. But anyhow, I listened to all the symptoms. And at that time, I was a patient really, I was sick and I looked at my husband and I said, "I got this."
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And he's like, "Okay, well, let's do a test." Well, my test was positive.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, for Lyme.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
For Lyme.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And so it was a decision I made because I do know quite a few Lyme literate physicians and they wanted to put me on a lot of the antibiotics and anti-malarials. And I just felt like I've probably had Lyme if I have it forever. I grew up on a farm. I've always been in the country and lots of animals and tick bites. And so I chose to do what I do with my patients. Today if I think you have chronic Lyme build your immune system, let your body take it. Nobody's getting that out of me. It's going to be there forever so I need to figure out how to control it and live with it. And so for me, one of my favorite supplements is curcumin.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And then I did a lot of deep dive and I have horrific genes. So I have all of the MTHFR and I'm a horrible methylator and I have Factor V Leiden and all these things. So methylation is a-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Methylation.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
... really big deal for me. NAC is a really big deal for me.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And acetylcysteine.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
So I take four N-acetylecystine a day. I have taken as many as eight curcumin a day when I was really sick. I don't do that anymore. I probably take two a day and I'm fine. But back in the day, I really bumped it up. I did a lot of research and saw the levels for safety. Omega-3s are big for me. So I take omega-3s, curcumin, NAC. I take the Methly B12. It's not B12, it's the B Complex number 12.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
B Complex, yeah. B Complex 12, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And Methyl-Guard Plus and really those are, and zinc, those are my big things.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
What do you think about people? And I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but just maybe if you could quickly address this to people that say you can overmethylate and that methylation is dangerous and you have to be super careful with it. I can say that has not been my experience, but what do you say to people that-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It hasn't been mine either. I think I've had one patient that actually had a big methylation problem and had a history of psychiatric illness. And when we gave her methadones, she went over the deep end. That's happened one time in 20 years
Dr. Robert Rountree:
20 years. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I think methylation is so important. And I know for me, I mean, it's never affected me in a bad way. It's been everything that I've needed. And I do know that with some people, you can start a detox and they get sick. And then I let their body tell me how fast to move. When I first took a curcumin, I felt like I had the flu.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So it's a principle that I think our readers should understand that sometimes when you're very maladaptive, your body has developed this high toxic load from mycotoxins, metals, infections, things like that. When you start to correct that, then it stirs things up and you can actually have a little bit of a worsening of symptoms. And that's not an unusual thing in my experience, 36 years as a clinician, that people may feel a little bit worse before they feel better. And I see that with people that take Methyl-Guard and they go, "Well, I feel more agitated or I couldn't sleep." And I just say, "Well, back off on the dose." It doesn't mean you shouldn't take it, it just means we need to go more slowly, which I think is a good principle for detoxification.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It is. And people don't come with instruction.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
No.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
So we have instructions on file. They don't-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
There's no manual.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. So I always tell people, I'm going to write this program for you, but at the end of the day, you're writing the program because I may be pushing the envelope, which I tend to do. I always like to get things up and running. And if I'm over zealous and you feel bad, we're going to change it. We're just going to cut it back. You write this program. And a lot of people think they have an allergy to things, and it's not an allergy. I mean, the reality is you we're right, you have a problem and this is going to help you, but it has to go slowly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I could give... Arsenic again is another example because it's something I've really delved into a lot, which is that arsenic, the body detoxifies arsenic by methylating it, but problem is that when you add one methyl group to arsenic, it actually makes it more toxic. So it's monomethyl, arsenic is actually very toxic. So you have to methylate it multiple times to get rid of it. You have the dimethyl arsenic and that starts to be less toxic. So you actually have to go through a phase to get rid of arsenic where things get worse before they get better and that's well known in the medical literature. And so it's just a general principle of detoxification is that you have to hang in there with it. You have to hang in.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You do, you definitely do. And I think you have to expect to get better. You can't go in with the negative view because if you feel worse, it's just going to... Those are the people that quit.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So why don't we take a break right now and then when we come back, we'll answer some questions from the community. Do you want a monthly dose of wellness delivered directly to your inbox? Thorne's Take 5 Daily offers the latest wellness news, research and insights distill down into easy to digest and fun to read stories. It's updated weekly with stories from Thorne's very own medical team.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
You'll read about the latest in immune health, diet, lifestyle advice, managing stress and more. Head to thorne.com and visit Take 5 Daily to subscribe for free and have your wellness content delivered directly to your inbox. Visit thorne.com to learn more. That's T-H-O-R-N-E.com. And we're back. So now it's time to answer some questions from the community. Our first question this week comes from a listener who ask, aren't molds everywhere? If so, what makes a mold toxic, a particular mold?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Huh, that's a great question. Molds are everywhere. Mold is nature's great disintegrator.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's the largest. Isn't it the largest biomass on the planet-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes, I mean, they're everywhere. They're going to be everywhere. We're not going to get rid of them. Some people would say like cockroaches in the south. I mean, it's just they're there, right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yap.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And the thing that makes them toxic, a couple of things. And so it's not really the mold itself, it's what it releases into your environment. And so it can be the spores and it really can also be the microtoxins. And molds are living organism. We were never meant to live with mold. Outside, it's more dispersed, it's diluted because of the environment, but when it's in your bedroom behind your headboard, it's a different story. And so then all molds don't release mycotoxins, but the ones that do are very toxic. And those mycotoxins are families, so they have names and then there's families of them. And some are more toxic than others. They become airborne. You can inhale them, ingest them and that's when they're toxic.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Is it bad to walk through a rainforest? Do you know whether that's where you get that moldy smell? Is that actually an unhealthy thing?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No, I don't think it is at all. I really don't. I mean, I think you can get a bolus of mold in the environment outside. So think about the gardeners and the people where things... But just walking through a forest, we've all done it and we've all smelt the fungal smell, but I don't think anybody has obtained a huge illness from walking through a forest.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So the problem is if it's in your house from a water damage scenario, a leaky water heater or a pipe or something.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, that's the problem. And it's like a little toxic stew in there. It's not just mold, so it can have VOCs and all these other compounds that aren't good for you. So it makes a toxic house. It's a sick building.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, that segues into the next question, which somebody asked, does mycotoxin poisoning mainly occur through mold in the air or is it through food or both?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It can be both. So it's really interesting. When you look back historically, when did you first hear about mycotoxins, Bob?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, I don't know. Maybe 15 years ago.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Okay, so originally, all the studies that were done were agricultural. And so it's an animal feed from grains that sit in a silo and become moldy and that thing. And these animals were ingesting them and they can become sick. And we certainly do ingest mycotoxins. Some foods are higher in mycotoxins than others, but traditionally, the really big illness comes from mold in the air, but it can be both definitely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, well, I definitely remember talking about aflotoxin in medical school, which was decades ago, but it was that's something that happens over there in some other place and doesn't happen in modern countries, it happens in places where people don't store their food properly, but I don't think that's true. I think anybody can get exposed to moldy peanuts or moldy grains or things like that. I think that's-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right, yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's more common than when we realize.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Much more. And yeah, I think we're becoming much more aware.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So the next question again is related that saying, well, if we are getting exposed to this in our environment, the person who really ask it, but a corollary of that is is there any way to avoid it? And if you can't avoid it, are there any supplements that you can take to deal with the things that you can't avoid? So in other words, if these mold toxins are somewhat ubiquitous, what can the average person do about it?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Well, I think that if we have a good immune system and good nutritional function and we're not living in it. So let's say you're that person that visited a hotel room or you're at your great aunt's house and it smells a little funky, but you're going home Sunday. So it's okay. I think you stay healthy. And there are ways to detox. So certainly glutathione, taking NAC, I'm a big NAC person as you know and stay on top of your stuff if you will.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
But let's say you're on top of it. So you're like me and you take all the things I take. It doesn't mean that I can go and live somewhere and withstand a fairly long term mold exposure. Then it requires when I get a patient that's been living in mold, it requires much more and it requires binders. So it requires detoxing and then binders that actually attach themselves to the mold. And then you excrete it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now I know there are prescription binders like colostomy or colesevelam. Do you know anything about using things like modified citrus pectin, Pectinate, things like that? Do you think they have potential to bind?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely. I very seldom use cholestyramine because most people just don't like the side effects and I-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Mmm, the constipation.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, and so for me, I feel like GI Detox is a great one. Ultra Binder is a good one. Some people do better with one versus the other. Certainly pectine is good. Any fiber is going to help also just get rid of toxins, but then the binders themselves are great. And so yeah, I use pretty using other binders.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So using something like FibroMen would be a good thing.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You could, you could. Yeah, FibroMen is excellent actually. It's in my toxin list of things to use in my bundle. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So let's talk a little bit about heavy metals and there's actually a series of questions that are all related, which is, well, what exactly is a heavy metal and how is a heavy metal different than a mineral that might be beneficial like zinc? They're clearly different metals and some are good or some are bad. What's the actual definition of what makes a metal good or bad or heavy or light?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Okay, so a heavy metal, they're all naturally occurring elements, right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
But they have a high atomic weight. And I think their density is, trying to remember, I think maybe four or five times greater than that of water. Does that sound about right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That sounds about right, yes. Much heavier than water.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, okay. And then the other elements are things that actually we need in our bodies and they're not toxic. And some people will tell you that when you talk about essential elements and toxic, heavy metals, that it just really depends also the dose that you're talking about, right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yep, yap, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Because-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Little zinc is good for you, but 200 milligrams is not.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Exactly, so it's the dose, it's how you're exposed and what the chemical species is. Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, somebody actually asked, so we talk about heavy metal toxicity, but then what about iron deficiency or zinc deficiency or copper deficiency, aren't those metals?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Those are and you can be deficient and we replace them, absolutely. We definitely do.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But at the same time, we use just the right amount.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Exactly, we know their safety and we know when we are overdoing it and we definitely use the proper dose or we try to.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So I guess, a natural question that's arising from this is when you call something a heavy metal that's that many times heavier than water, does that automatically mean it's toxic?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's a great question. No, I don't think it does automatically mean it's toxic. But when we talk about heavy metals, we think of their toxicity, do we not? I mean-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, that's the implication is.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It is. That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Somebody ask, can a heavy metal actually make you heavy? Does it impact your weight if you have heavy metals?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh, well, okay, great question.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's an interesting concept I think.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's an interesting concept. So it's not like you ate a 10 pounds lead weight and now you're going to weigh 10 more pounds. I mean, when you have heavy metal toxicity, first of all, our bodies like to store things in fat. And so it can happen over time, it doesn't usually happen immediately. Although you can have a very acute toxicity as well. Think about mercury amalgams. I mean, that mercury is a toxic heavy metal and it certainly emits a vapor that we absorb from the malga. That's one way of doing it. And that is stored in fats. So do we gain weight from that? Not necessarily. However, some people with toxicity do gain weight. And honestly, that's usually more mold and-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
There's an old saying that I heard [Jeff Lans 00:33:13] say once, which is that the solution to pollution is dilution.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And that the body does that. So if you're polluted, if you've got heavy metals or other toxins, the body will put on fat to dilute the local concentration of the metal-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Of the toxins.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
... or the toxin, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. And some people when they lose too much weight. So this was one of the things I saw with Dale's program, Dale Bredesen's program is that if you're really being very careful with your diet and following it to the tee, you lose too much weight and you're toxic, you suddenly become sicker because you're dumping it all.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
The other thing I've read and I don't know how many studies been done on this, but when a woman hits menopause and starts losing bone mass, that her lead levels go up.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's absolutely true. And so most of the lead is stored in the long bones, in the fat in the long bones and certainly your bone structure changes as you go through menopause and then you can release it, absolutely. And it can also move, things shift and they'll store elsewhere. And think about where's the rest of the fat? It's in your brain.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In your brain, in your brain. So maybe some of the symptoms we attribute to a drop in hormones with menopause are actually from lead toxicity. Could that be?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You never know. I mean, it certainly could be. It's interesting because now I have a different view from the body model, but-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, which is the heaviest of the metals? Do you have a comment on that? Is it uranium or one of those, plutonium, something like that that-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No, I'm trying to remember what it is and I do know the answer to this question, but oh.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I do know that uranium is pretty heavy and it comes up here in Colorado because we've got a lot of mines-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
... that we're left open. And so it's something you might not think about in the East Coast, but when you got mines up in the high mountains, if the mines get run off, that can actually go into the water supply for Denver. So you've got people that are drinking water that maybe came from hundreds of miles away from a mine that you wouldn't even think was near you.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh my goodness.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I have found uranium and that's why that's the one that came to mind, but I have found uranium in people's hair and their urine. So-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Wow, that's-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
... it's not that uncommon.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's interesting, yeah. No, you definitely, when you think about environmental toxins, you need to think about the area that the person is from and where they live and what they've been exposed to. Could it be bismuth? Is that the heaviest? I don't know.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I don't know, maybe. It's interesting because bismuth that we tend to think of therapeutically, I actually have a little rock of bismuth that I have in my office that I show people when I give them a bismuth product to help them with their guts. So that's an interesting thing. Do you do the... Thorne has a test for heavy metals, is that something that you do [crosstalk 00:36:36]?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That is something that I have quite a few out right now. I had not done Thorne previously. And then I don't think I was aware that Thorne had a heavy metal test. So now I've actually been doing quite a few of them and I think it's a great test. Previously, I had done the pre-imposed provocation and I switched away from that probably two and a half years ago and did more of a try test that didn't require provocation.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
With all the different types of mercury.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And so yeah, because I feel like giving the provocation is something that some people do well with and some people don't.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Some people can now actually have side effects from that.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So who would you do to test on? And that's actually one of the questions is what are the common problems that heavy metal toxicity can cause? Can it cause hair loss? Can it stump my child's growth?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Well, they can cause so many different problems. If we're talking about children, it can certainly be in all learning disabilities. You can have some skin issues and certainly GI issues. In adults, certainly it can... Obviously the big thing that I work with every day, so it just comes right to my mind is cognition. But it's not just cognition, it can also be autoimmune issues, it can be GI issues. And I was just going to throw this out there that I recently spoke with a scientist at UDaB that wanted to use some of my patient data to look at cadmium and they believe that cadmium is causing leaky gut and then it's causing dementia from the gut.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Interesting, so I don't know what she's done with the data or how far she's gotten to know if her hypothesis is right, but that was what she was working on.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I guess, one last question I really wanted to throw in, which is should people worry about getting heavy metals from their vitamin supplements or their protein powders or anything like that? Is that anything to be concerned about?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I think that's a really good question. So when you're taking Ayurvedic herbs, certainly many of them can come from areas of the world that have more pollution in heavy metals. And I think it's really important to make sure that you know where things are sourced and heavy metals can be in the soil. So we can get you arsenic from rice and it's because the rice actually is searching for, I can't remember the name of the chemical that looks molecularly just like arsenic and it just naturally absorbs it. And so it's in there and sucks it up like a sponge certainly from pesticides around orange groves that soak it up as well. So you need to think about where things are sourced from. I think it's really important to use organic things if you were talking about fruits and things. And then from your supplements, it's the sourcing is all about it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And to go with a company that-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You know that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, and to go with a company that does good quality control-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That's checking for these things.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But I mean, I would say it's impossible to get all the lead out is because there's a certain amount of these heavy metals that are naturally occurring. And so you can't get down to zero, but you can certainly get below a threshold.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I think that's important. I know in California, they have all these laws about if there's even the slightest amount of a metal, you got to put it on your label. And people say to me, "Wow, does that mean it's toxic?" No, you need to check the actual level because there's a certain threshold that you just can't go below because we're talking about nature.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right. And I have had the same problem with California and that law that they put it in there, but definitely, you're going to have a certain amount. There's no doubt.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, I think that's all we have time for this week. Dr. Ross, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This is three times in a row, which is wonderful. And as always, where can listeners go if they want to find out more about what you're doing?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I recommend that they check the Thorne website and we'll be talking about what we're doing. I'm not exactly sure the form that it's going to take, but we will be announcing things and announcing the brain program and hopefully I will be involved as well in a blog-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In the blog, yap. So-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's the thought, but that is not actually manifested yet.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But stay tuned. Some exciting things are on the near horizon.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. Thank you, Bob.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
All right, excellent. Well, that was Thorne's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mary Kay Ross talking about mycotoxins and heavy metals. It's been great talking to you, Mary Kay. Thank you everyone else for listening and until next time. Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice. If you've got a health or wellness question you'd like answered, simply follow our Instagram and shoot a message to @thornehealth. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting thorne.com and checking out the latest news, videos and stories on Thorne's Take 5 Daily blog. Once again, thanks for tuning in and don't forget to join us next time for another episode of The Thorne Podcast.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
This is The Thorne Podcast, the show that navigates the complex world of wellness and explores the latest science behind diet, supplements and lifestyle approaches to good health. I'm Dr. Robert Rountree, Chief Medical Advisor at Thorne and functional medicine doctor. As a reminder, the recommendations made in this podcast are the recommendations of the individuals who express them and not the recommendations of Thorne. Statements in this podcast have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Hi, everyone and welcome back to The Thorne Podcast. We again have Dr. Mary Kay Ross, the Chief Medical Officer for Thorne. She's here with us for a third and final episode, I should say final for now, but I'm sure we'll hear from her again. It's always good to have you on the podcast, Dr. Ross. How are things going for you?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Things are going great, Bob and I'm thrilled to be here. Things are wonderful. At Thorne, we have lots of exciting things that we're working on.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I know that you are getting settled into your new home in New York.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right. I think I've been here for maybe eight days.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Eight days. I suspect you've already seen a little bit of snow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I have and we're supposed to have an ice storm today.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Probably didn't see a lot of snow where you were living before in the south.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No snow in Georgia to speak of, no.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, it's been around 10 degrees here in Colorado and we got a pretty good snowstorm the other day, which we're always happy for.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes, I love the snow.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So why don't we dive into the main discussion for this week, which is toxins and specifically heavy metals and mycotoxins and maybe anything else that's related. And we got directed to this topic by talking about things that are bad for the brain, but we can also expand into chemicals, metals that are bad for the body. In fact we're battling exposure to these toxins in our food, our water, air and even things like cosmetics, skin lotions, shampoo, et cetera. So Mary Kay, where do you like to start when the topic of toxins or mycotoxins, heavy metals, when that comes up, how do you begin to talk about that with your clients?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Well, I think it's really important when you're talking to a patient or a client to get a good feeling of what their exposesome is because we all have one. And so really you have to... I do a very intense intake and ask everything. I want to know everything. I want to know where you grew. I want to know about your birth. I want to know everything because your exposure to chemicals and tobacco and how close to an expressway do you live? Everything it seems like in this world day is toxic.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And depending on your genetics and your baseline health and your immune system, it can certainly affect you. And everybody has a tipping factor if you will. And when you hit your tipping factor, that's when you get sick. And Bob, that happened to me. So it's something I've just been really sensitive to. It's fascinating to me how some people are like George Burns and they can just smoke and drink and cuss and carry on to a great old age. And then some of us are that person who you're like, what happened to me? How did this happen? Especially with the standard American diet and everything else. I think it all feeds into each other and can create a real toxic disaster.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I have to say that my dad who grew up in South Alabama was not the healthiest guy. I mean, had a lot of typical chronic diseases. And when I used to talk to him about his lifestyle, he would say, "What about Winston Churchill? Winston Churchill would get up every..." Who he idolized. And he would say, "Well, Winston Churchill would get up and have a whiskey and a cigar every morning for breakfast. And he lived a ripe old age." So that's a fairly standard response that people hear is they pick someone who seemed to get away with it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But I think the problem is that the people you and I see are the canaries, the canaries and the coal mine, the people who are really sensitive. And it's not that these people are freaks, these people just happen to be a little more sensitive than the rest of us. And they're the ones that are leading the way in saying, "Hey, guys, there's something out there in our environment." As you said, the exposome, there's something out there that you should be concerned about. I agree that I think doing a really thorough history is great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
When I was in medical school, the extent of my environmental history taking that I was taught was to ask people if they live nearest melter. So like, "Do you live nearest melter?" And they go, "No." And you go, "Okay, you're fine. Let's move on." And we know there's a lot more to it than that. So I think you mentioned that you had experienced a mold exposure. Where did that come from? And how did you find out about that if you don't mind talking about it?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No, not at all. Gosh, now it seems like a lifetime ago. When you get sick, most people I don't think develop a whole array of diagnoses overnight. It's over time. So it's like... I will never forget. I woke up and my finger was so painful and I had tenosynovitis. And I didn't know where that came from. It started me on omission and I ended up going to have an MRI. And I was diagnosed with tenosynovitis. Then I went to a rheumatologist and he said, "You have psoriatic arthritis." During that time, prior to that, I had been having chronic bronchitis, vertigo, horrible vertigo, tinnitus. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't breathe. And then I would develop pneumonia periodically. So I was living on antibiotics, inhalers and steroids.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh my. And you were working full-time.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And I was working full-time in the emergency room. So shift work, which is really... I was never a great sleeper with shift work anyhow. And so everything was just getting bad. And then my hands went bad and my fingers. And then I developed a rash all over my hands, my face, chronic coughing. I mean, I was a disaster and-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Things were unraveling it sounds like.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Things were unraveling. I actually was looking at, do I need to go on disability? Because I worked in a level one trauma center. I mean, how am I going to intubate or serve people up or do the things you have to do with your hands? When my fingers are so swollen, I can hardly bend them.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh my.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, and so I went to the rheumatologist. I was in there for about five minutes and he's said, "You have psoriatic arthritis." I said to myself, "Well, how in the world can he diagnose me in five minutes?" And he wanted to put me on Enbrel and he wanted me to go get a physical exam, make sure I don't have tuberculosis. And when I went to go get the physical exam, I had all these thyroid nodules. So that prompted biopsies. So at the end of the day, I decided this was not for me. I didn't feel like anybody really had a great answer. And I went to IFM and that was it. And the other-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
The Institute for Functional Medicine.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And there is one more thing I forgot to mention. So I was working full-time and I had to give grand round. And I know I was exhausted. I had been testing myself trying to figure all of this stuff out. And so I was making that transition from a more traditional physician to functional medicine really, but I didn't even know what I was transitioning to. I was just searching. And I had done a cortisol test. And honestly, I did it four times during the day salivary. It was all at the top of the paper. It didn't go anywhere near [crosstalk 00:08:48].
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So your adrenals were going crazy.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh, big time. So I went and gave this lecture and I started having chest pain. And I thought to myself, "Gosh, am I having a heart attack?" So I went ahead and gave the lecture. And went back to the office and got a EKG and checked my blood pressure. And ended up in the hospital with a high troponin and went to the cath lab and I had takotsubo, which for the listeners that is stress induced cardiomyopathy and the ventricle wasn't really pumping properly.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And so I remember the cardiologist saying, "Mary Kay, if you're going to have some cardiacs, the best thing to have your vessels are pristine. This is from stress and I think it's from the cortisol actually. And because when your body is pumping out cortisol, it's also pumping out epinephrine. You're getting a more adrenaline." And that stunned my heart. So I had to spend three or four nights in the hospital on a monitored bed.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And when I got out that Friday, I flew to take the cardiometabolic in Boston. And I started going to the Institute for Functional Medicine. And honestly, that is what I think saved my life. We had had a leak in our house. It had been going on. It was misdiagnosed. It didn't come right through the walls. So I went to go change a painting that I'd ordered a painting from Florida when we were on vacation, went to hang it in my sunroom and the wall when I removed, the other one was black.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes, and so we had had this leak and water went from where the leak originated in the middle of the house all the way out to the exterior wall and down.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So it's full of black mold.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Full of black mold, absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And you've been breathing that day and night.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right. That's right. And I-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I have to ask, your husband was living in the house too?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And did he feel any of this or no?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
He didn't think he did, but listen, we started going back and really looking. And he was having all of these urticaria breakouts, hives.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Hives.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
He was breaking out in hives and he would have these really weird attacks. He ended up developing sarcoidosis.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Which is a disease that looks like TV, but no TV found.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I asked that because I've often told audience members a story of a woman that developed all weird symptoms. I think she was anemic. Her hair was falling out. Her nails didn't look good. And finally, somebody diagnosed her with arsenic poisoning. And it had turned out it had been from working in a shed behind her house where she was doing some remodeling. She had all these symptoms. Her husband who was with her had no symptoms at all.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Wow, isn't that something?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And then they measured his arsenic levels and they were higher than hers, which just goes to show you that if I'm a doctor and I'm taking a history and you tell me, "Well, I've got all these symptoms." And then I say, "Well, how about your other family members?" "Oh, well, they're fine." Then the doctor's going to think, oh, this woman's probably got a psychosomatic problem because every else should have it. If she's got it, everybody else should have symptoms. But even we know with COVID, you can have one person in the family that's sick and everybody else is fine. So everybody's individual.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. It's fascinating. So it's your genetics and it's the world in which you dip them.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So it's a combination of your genes, your susceptibility, all that stuff.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely, and I had the perfect storm, but it was interesting. I have so far knock on wood been able to really put all of that behind me and-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, you're healthy now, right?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I am.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I mean, you're working full time and-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, feel great. I feel great.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So you got magically over psoriatic arthritis, which is not a condition that rheumatologists would say you ever recover from.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. And I can't imagine honestly where I would be today if I had gone on the biologics that they wanted me to and done all of these other things. I think I would just be a chronically ill patient. Somebody would say, "Oh, do you remember Dr. Ross?" "Yeah, she died."
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, she died too bad. She got the best medical care available.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And continued to go down, which is a very similar story to what Dr. Terry Walls tells us about being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and doing everything she was told to do, having the best specialist in the world and was continuing to go downhill, ending up on a wheelchair. And finally, she said, "To heck with that. I'm going to do my own thing." And now she's dancing.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's amazing.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now she's dancing. It's amazing. So, wow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I think our body wants to do the right thing. And I think that we have to figure out how to allow that to happen, whether it's changing your diet, getting out of your exposure, starting to exercise, but do the right thing.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And that's what I wanted to ask you. So what were the things that were most important for your healing from this exposure to mycotoxins? And did it end up just being mycotoxins or were there other sources of toxins in your environment that you had to deal with?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's a great question and I think you and I have talked about this sometimes. I question people that, I shouldn't say this, but I do question people that are all one thing. Everything's not always what you think it is. You really have to keep an open mind and look. So I did the whole IFM training, which was just wonderful for me. And I also went to ILADS. And ILADS for people that don't know it is the Lyme tick and Associated Disease group. They're in Washington DC. And they're an international tick group. But anyhow, I listened to all the symptoms. And at that time, I was a patient really, I was sick and I looked at my husband and I said, "I got this."
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And he's like, "Okay, well, let's do a test." Well, my test was positive.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, for Lyme.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
For Lyme.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And so it was a decision I made because I do know quite a few Lyme literate physicians and they wanted to put me on a lot of the antibiotics and anti-malarials. And I just felt like I've probably had Lyme if I have it forever. I grew up on a farm. I've always been in the country and lots of animals and tick bites. And so I chose to do what I do with my patients. Today if I think you have chronic Lyme build your immune system, let your body take it. Nobody's getting that out of me. It's going to be there forever so I need to figure out how to control it and live with it. And so for me, one of my favorite supplements is curcumin.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And then I did a lot of deep dive and I have horrific genes. So I have all of the MTHFR and I'm a horrible methylator and I have Factor V Leiden and all these things. So methylation is a-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Methylation.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
... really big deal for me. NAC is a really big deal for me.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And acetylcysteine.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
So I take four N-acetylecystine a day. I have taken as many as eight curcumin a day when I was really sick. I don't do that anymore. I probably take two a day and I'm fine. But back in the day, I really bumped it up. I did a lot of research and saw the levels for safety. Omega-3s are big for me. So I take omega-3s, curcumin, NAC. I take the Methly B12. It's not B12, it's the B Complex number 12.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
B Complex, yeah. B Complex 12, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And Methyl-Guard Plus and really those are, and zinc, those are my big things.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
What do you think about people? And I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but just maybe if you could quickly address this to people that say you can overmethylate and that methylation is dangerous and you have to be super careful with it. I can say that has not been my experience, but what do you say to people that-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It hasn't been mine either. I think I've had one patient that actually had a big methylation problem and had a history of psychiatric illness. And when we gave her methadones, she went over the deep end. That's happened one time in 20 years
Dr. Robert Rountree:
20 years. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I think methylation is so important. And I know for me, I mean, it's never affected me in a bad way. It's been everything that I've needed. And I do know that with some people, you can start a detox and they get sick. And then I let their body tell me how fast to move. When I first took a curcumin, I felt like I had the flu.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So it's a principle that I think our readers should understand that sometimes when you're very maladaptive, your body has developed this high toxic load from mycotoxins, metals, infections, things like that. When you start to correct that, then it stirs things up and you can actually have a little bit of a worsening of symptoms. And that's not an unusual thing in my experience, 36 years as a clinician, that people may feel a little bit worse before they feel better. And I see that with people that take Methyl-Guard and they go, "Well, I feel more agitated or I couldn't sleep." And I just say, "Well, back off on the dose." It doesn't mean you shouldn't take it, it just means we need to go more slowly, which I think is a good principle for detoxification.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It is. And people don't come with instruction.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
No.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
So we have instructions on file. They don't-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
There's no manual.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. So I always tell people, I'm going to write this program for you, but at the end of the day, you're writing the program because I may be pushing the envelope, which I tend to do. I always like to get things up and running. And if I'm over zealous and you feel bad, we're going to change it. We're just going to cut it back. You write this program. And a lot of people think they have an allergy to things, and it's not an allergy. I mean, the reality is you we're right, you have a problem and this is going to help you, but it has to go slowly.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I could give... Arsenic again is another example because it's something I've really delved into a lot, which is that arsenic, the body detoxifies arsenic by methylating it, but problem is that when you add one methyl group to arsenic, it actually makes it more toxic. So it's monomethyl, arsenic is actually very toxic. So you have to methylate it multiple times to get rid of it. You have the dimethyl arsenic and that starts to be less toxic. So you actually have to go through a phase to get rid of arsenic where things get worse before they get better and that's well known in the medical literature. And so it's just a general principle of detoxification is that you have to hang in there with it. You have to hang in.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You do, you definitely do. And I think you have to expect to get better. You can't go in with the negative view because if you feel worse, it's just going to... Those are the people that quit.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So why don't we take a break right now and then when we come back, we'll answer some questions from the community. Do you want a monthly dose of wellness delivered directly to your inbox? Thorne's Take 5 Daily offers the latest wellness news, research and insights distill down into easy to digest and fun to read stories. It's updated weekly with stories from Thorne's very own medical team.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
You'll read about the latest in immune health, diet, lifestyle advice, managing stress and more. Head to thorne.com and visit Take 5 Daily to subscribe for free and have your wellness content delivered directly to your inbox. Visit thorne.com to learn more. That's T-H-O-R-N-E.com. And we're back. So now it's time to answer some questions from the community. Our first question this week comes from a listener who ask, aren't molds everywhere? If so, what makes a mold toxic, a particular mold?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Huh, that's a great question. Molds are everywhere. Mold is nature's great disintegrator.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's the largest. Isn't it the largest biomass on the planet-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes, I mean, they're everywhere. They're going to be everywhere. We're not going to get rid of them. Some people would say like cockroaches in the south. I mean, it's just they're there, right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yap.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And the thing that makes them toxic, a couple of things. And so it's not really the mold itself, it's what it releases into your environment. And so it can be the spores and it really can also be the microtoxins. And molds are living organism. We were never meant to live with mold. Outside, it's more dispersed, it's diluted because of the environment, but when it's in your bedroom behind your headboard, it's a different story. And so then all molds don't release mycotoxins, but the ones that do are very toxic. And those mycotoxins are families, so they have names and then there's families of them. And some are more toxic than others. They become airborne. You can inhale them, ingest them and that's when they're toxic.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Is it bad to walk through a rainforest? Do you know whether that's where you get that moldy smell? Is that actually an unhealthy thing?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No, I don't think it is at all. I really don't. I mean, I think you can get a bolus of mold in the environment outside. So think about the gardeners and the people where things... But just walking through a forest, we've all done it and we've all smelt the fungal smell, but I don't think anybody has obtained a huge illness from walking through a forest.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So the problem is if it's in your house from a water damage scenario, a leaky water heater or a pipe or something.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, that's the problem. And it's like a little toxic stew in there. It's not just mold, so it can have VOCs and all these other compounds that aren't good for you. So it makes a toxic house. It's a sick building.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, that segues into the next question, which somebody asked, does mycotoxin poisoning mainly occur through mold in the air or is it through food or both?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It can be both. So it's really interesting. When you look back historically, when did you first hear about mycotoxins, Bob?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, I don't know. Maybe 15 years ago.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Okay, so originally, all the studies that were done were agricultural. And so it's an animal feed from grains that sit in a silo and become moldy and that thing. And these animals were ingesting them and they can become sick. And we certainly do ingest mycotoxins. Some foods are higher in mycotoxins than others, but traditionally, the really big illness comes from mold in the air, but it can be both definitely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, well, I definitely remember talking about aflotoxin in medical school, which was decades ago, but it was that's something that happens over there in some other place and doesn't happen in modern countries, it happens in places where people don't store their food properly, but I don't think that's true. I think anybody can get exposed to moldy peanuts or moldy grains or things like that. I think that's-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right, yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's more common than when we realize.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Much more. And yeah, I think we're becoming much more aware.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So the next question again is related that saying, well, if we are getting exposed to this in our environment, the person who really ask it, but a corollary of that is is there any way to avoid it? And if you can't avoid it, are there any supplements that you can take to deal with the things that you can't avoid? So in other words, if these mold toxins are somewhat ubiquitous, what can the average person do about it?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Well, I think that if we have a good immune system and good nutritional function and we're not living in it. So let's say you're that person that visited a hotel room or you're at your great aunt's house and it smells a little funky, but you're going home Sunday. So it's okay. I think you stay healthy. And there are ways to detox. So certainly glutathione, taking NAC, I'm a big NAC person as you know and stay on top of your stuff if you will.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
But let's say you're on top of it. So you're like me and you take all the things I take. It doesn't mean that I can go and live somewhere and withstand a fairly long term mold exposure. Then it requires when I get a patient that's been living in mold, it requires much more and it requires binders. So it requires detoxing and then binders that actually attach themselves to the mold. And then you excrete it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Now I know there are prescription binders like colostomy or colesevelam. Do you know anything about using things like modified citrus pectin, Pectinate, things like that? Do you think they have potential to bind?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely. I very seldom use cholestyramine because most people just don't like the side effects and I-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Mmm, the constipation.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, and so for me, I feel like GI Detox is a great one. Ultra Binder is a good one. Some people do better with one versus the other. Certainly pectine is good. Any fiber is going to help also just get rid of toxins, but then the binders themselves are great. And so yeah, I use pretty using other binders.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So using something like FibroMen would be a good thing.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You could, you could. Yeah, FibroMen is excellent actually. It's in my toxin list of things to use in my bundle. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So let's talk a little bit about heavy metals and there's actually a series of questions that are all related, which is, well, what exactly is a heavy metal and how is a heavy metal different than a mineral that might be beneficial like zinc? They're clearly different metals and some are good or some are bad. What's the actual definition of what makes a metal good or bad or heavy or light?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Okay, so a heavy metal, they're all naturally occurring elements, right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
But they have a high atomic weight. And I think their density is, trying to remember, I think maybe four or five times greater than that of water. Does that sound about right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That sounds about right, yes. Much heavier than water.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah, okay. And then the other elements are things that actually we need in our bodies and they're not toxic. And some people will tell you that when you talk about essential elements and toxic, heavy metals, that it just really depends also the dose that you're talking about, right?
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yep, yap, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Because-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Little zinc is good for you, but 200 milligrams is not.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Exactly, so it's the dose, it's how you're exposed and what the chemical species is. Yeah, definitely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, somebody actually asked, so we talk about heavy metal toxicity, but then what about iron deficiency or zinc deficiency or copper deficiency, aren't those metals?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Those are and you can be deficient and we replace them, absolutely. We definitely do.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But at the same time, we use just the right amount.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Exactly, we know their safety and we know when we are overdoing it and we definitely use the proper dose or we try to.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So I guess, a natural question that's arising from this is when you call something a heavy metal that's that many times heavier than water, does that automatically mean it's toxic?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's a great question. No, I don't think it does automatically mean it's toxic. But when we talk about heavy metals, we think of their toxicity, do we not? I mean-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, that's the implication is.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It is. That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Somebody ask, can a heavy metal actually make you heavy? Does it impact your weight if you have heavy metals?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh, well, okay, great question.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
It's an interesting concept I think.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's an interesting concept. So it's not like you ate a 10 pounds lead weight and now you're going to weigh 10 more pounds. I mean, when you have heavy metal toxicity, first of all, our bodies like to store things in fat. And so it can happen over time, it doesn't usually happen immediately. Although you can have a very acute toxicity as well. Think about mercury amalgams. I mean, that mercury is a toxic heavy metal and it certainly emits a vapor that we absorb from the malga. That's one way of doing it. And that is stored in fats. So do we gain weight from that? Not necessarily. However, some people with toxicity do gain weight. And honestly, that's usually more mold and-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
There's an old saying that I heard [Jeff Lans 00:33:13] say once, which is that the solution to pollution is dilution.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Absolutely.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And that the body does that. So if you're polluted, if you've got heavy metals or other toxins, the body will put on fat to dilute the local concentration of the metal-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Of the toxins.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
... or the toxin, yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. And some people when they lose too much weight. So this was one of the things I saw with Dale's program, Dale Bredesen's program is that if you're really being very careful with your diet and following it to the tee, you lose too much weight and you're toxic, you suddenly become sicker because you're dumping it all.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
The other thing I've read and I don't know how many studies been done on this, but when a woman hits menopause and starts losing bone mass, that her lead levels go up.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
It's absolutely true. And so most of the lead is stored in the long bones, in the fat in the long bones and certainly your bone structure changes as you go through menopause and then you can release it, absolutely. And it can also move, things shift and they'll store elsewhere. And think about where's the rest of the fat? It's in your brain.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In your brain, in your brain. So maybe some of the symptoms we attribute to a drop in hormones with menopause are actually from lead toxicity. Could that be?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You never know. I mean, it certainly could be. It's interesting because now I have a different view from the body model, but-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, which is the heaviest of the metals? Do you have a comment on that? Is it uranium or one of those, plutonium, something like that that-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
No, I'm trying to remember what it is and I do know the answer to this question, but oh.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I do know that uranium is pretty heavy and it comes up here in Colorado because we've got a lot of mines-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
... that we're left open. And so it's something you might not think about in the East Coast, but when you got mines up in the high mountains, if the mines get run off, that can actually go into the water supply for Denver. So you've got people that are drinking water that maybe came from hundreds of miles away from a mine that you wouldn't even think was near you.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Oh my goodness.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I have found uranium and that's why that's the one that came to mind, but I have found uranium in people's hair and their urine. So-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Wow, that's-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
... it's not that uncommon.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's interesting, yeah. No, you definitely, when you think about environmental toxins, you need to think about the area that the person is from and where they live and what they've been exposed to. Could it be bismuth? Is that the heaviest? I don't know.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I don't know, maybe. It's interesting because bismuth that we tend to think of therapeutically, I actually have a little rock of bismuth that I have in my office that I show people when I give them a bismuth product to help them with their guts. So that's an interesting thing. Do you do the... Thorne has a test for heavy metals, is that something that you do [crosstalk 00:36:36]?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That is something that I have quite a few out right now. I had not done Thorne previously. And then I don't think I was aware that Thorne had a heavy metal test. So now I've actually been doing quite a few of them and I think it's a great test. Previously, I had done the pre-imposed provocation and I switched away from that probably two and a half years ago and did more of a try test that didn't require provocation.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
With all the different types of mercury.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yes.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
And so yeah, because I feel like giving the provocation is something that some people do well with and some people don't.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Some people can now actually have side effects from that.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
So who would you do to test on? And that's actually one of the questions is what are the common problems that heavy metal toxicity can cause? Can it cause hair loss? Can it stump my child's growth?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Well, they can cause so many different problems. If we're talking about children, it can certainly be in all learning disabilities. You can have some skin issues and certainly GI issues. In adults, certainly it can... Obviously the big thing that I work with every day, so it just comes right to my mind is cognition. But it's not just cognition, it can also be autoimmune issues, it can be GI issues. And I was just going to throw this out there that I recently spoke with a scientist at UDaB that wanted to use some of my patient data to look at cadmium and they believe that cadmium is causing leaky gut and then it's causing dementia from the gut.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Interesting, so I don't know what she's done with the data or how far she's gotten to know if her hypothesis is right, but that was what she was working on.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
I guess, one last question I really wanted to throw in, which is should people worry about getting heavy metals from their vitamin supplements or their protein powders or anything like that? Is that anything to be concerned about?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I think that's a really good question. So when you're taking Ayurvedic herbs, certainly many of them can come from areas of the world that have more pollution in heavy metals. And I think it's really important to make sure that you know where things are sourced and heavy metals can be in the soil. So we can get you arsenic from rice and it's because the rice actually is searching for, I can't remember the name of the chemical that looks molecularly just like arsenic and it just naturally absorbs it. And so it's in there and sucks it up like a sponge certainly from pesticides around orange groves that soak it up as well. So you need to think about where things are sourced from. I think it's really important to use organic things if you were talking about fruits and things. And then from your supplements, it's the sourcing is all about it.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And to go with a company that-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
You know that.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Yeah, and to go with a company that does good quality control-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
That's checking for these things.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
Yeah.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But I mean, I would say it's impossible to get all the lead out is because there's a certain amount of these heavy metals that are naturally occurring. And so you can't get down to zero, but you can certainly get below a threshold.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
And I think that's important. I know in California, they have all these laws about if there's even the slightest amount of a metal, you got to put it on your label. And people say to me, "Wow, does that mean it's toxic?" No, you need to check the actual level because there's a certain threshold that you just can't go below because we're talking about nature.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's right. And I have had the same problem with California and that law that they put it in there, but definitely, you're going to have a certain amount. There's no doubt.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
Well, I think that's all we have time for this week. Dr. Ross, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This is three times in a row, which is wonderful. And as always, where can listeners go if they want to find out more about what you're doing?
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
I recommend that they check the Thorne website and we'll be talking about what we're doing. I'm not exactly sure the form that it's going to take, but we will be announcing things and announcing the brain program and hopefully I will be involved as well in a blog-
Dr. Robert Rountree:
In the blog, yap. So-
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's the thought, but that is not actually manifested yet.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
But stay tuned. Some exciting things are on the near horizon.
Dr. Mary Kay Ross:
That's exactly right. Thank you, Bob.
Dr. Robert Rountree:
All right, excellent. Well, that was Thorne's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mary Kay Ross talking about mycotoxins and heavy metals. It's been great talking to you, Mary Kay. Thank you everyone else for listening and until next time. Thanks for listening to The Thorne Podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing to the show on your podcast app of choice. If you've got a health or wellness question you'd like answered, simply follow our Instagram and shoot a message to @thornehealth. You can also learn more about the topics we discussed by visiting thorne.com and checking out the latest news, videos and stories on Thorne's Take 5 Daily blog. Once again, thanks for tuning in and don't forget to join us next time for another episode of The Thorne Podcast.
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