Episode 60 - Mold Toxicity Treatments with Dr. Neil Nathan

Dr. Neil Nathan has been practicing medicine for 48 years, is a Founding Diplomate of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine and a Founding Diplomate of ISEAI. He has written several books, including "Toxic: Heal your Body from Mold Sensitivity, Lyme disease, Multiple Chemical Sensitivities, and Chronic Environmental Illness." He has hosted an internationally syndicated radio program/podcast on Voice America called, "The Cutting Edge of Health and Wellness Today." He has been working to bring an awareness that mold toxicity is a major contributing factor for patients with chronic illness and lectures internationally on this subject which led to the publication of his book, "Mold and Mycotoxins: Current Evaluation and Treatment, Revised." As his practice evolved, he found himself increasingly treating patients who have become so sensitive and toxic that they can no longer tolerate their usual treatments. 

In this episode, Dr. Nathan provides us information on how he is helping mold injured patients and training the new wave of mold doctors. 

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Chapters

• 1:09 Are Binders Necessary?
• 6:57 Residual Exposures Aggravating Symptoms
• 10:24 What’s the Most Dangerous Microbe in a Water Damaged Building?
• 14:05 Dr. Nathan’s Personal Experience with Toxic Mold
• 18:28 Cell Danger Response vs Limbic System: Which is Responsible For Setting Off a Reaction?
• 22:15 Nano Needle Technology and The Open Medicine Foundation
• 24:21 Dr. Nathan's Publication: "Mold and Mycotoxins"
• 29:07 Testing for Mycotoxins, What's Best?
• 35:04 Treating Hypersensitive Individuals
• 42:01 Stachybotrys Chartarum
• 43:37 Epidemic of Toxic Mold
• 45:19 What Happens to the Individuals Doctors are Unable to Help?
• 49:15 Toxic Mold and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Throwing Away the Evidence
• 55:55 Consult with Dr. Nathan

Transcript

Kealy Severson: 0:06

Welcome to the Exposing Mold podcast. My name is Kealy Severson and I'm here with my co hosts, Erik Johnson and Alicia Swamy. Today we have the honor to interview Dr. Neil Nathan. Dr. Nathan, you are very well known in the mold world and your reputation precedes you. So thank you for joining us today.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 1:05

Okay, I deny all of those rumors.

Kealy Severson: 1:09

All right, let's get to it. I feel like you're in a way have already answered this question because you just were explaining how you have a holistic outlook on everything and things aren't necessarily black and white. And as a as a Chinese medicine herbalist, which is how I support mold injured patients when they want an herbal supplement to work with. I find that binders are not always necessary. You know, as long as I have my patients like sweating, having bowel movements, urinating, they're detoxing to me. And sometimes I see these lists circulating where it's a binder per toxin. And I'm just wondering, your professional opinion and in your clinical experience is that a hard line having to use binders?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 2:03

There are no hard lines in anything, a lot of it has to do with the kinds of patients we see, I often you know, in the practice of medicine, I don't know that I can explain it. But energetically people who are like minded, seek me. And as I become better known, people who resonate to my approach have come to see me and they often respond to my approach. Now that's often a different population. For example, I have been for some time now doing a mentorship program with Jill Christa, who's a well known naturopath who treats mold somewhat differently than I do. And I have found that teaching with Jill has been a delight, that we are both on the same page for the basic principles of how to treat mold. But we approach it because of our backgrounds quite differently. And we both have had a lot of success in the work that we do, which means that there's no right way to do it, I can lay out how I do it. And how I do it. And I usually specifies that in my lectures and in my writing is that I tend to work with especially sensitive patients. And this is what has worked for me with especially sensitive patients. Is there one way to do it? Absolutely not. There's only one bottom line, which is helping people to get well. And if whatever method someone use works for that person, then that was the right way to do it. Could there have been 20 other ways to do it correctly, there may be irrelevant. What matters is in our relationship with with the people who come to us to get well is that we are trying to ascertain their need and to work with them from where they're coming from, to meet that need. And if what I'm doing isn't working, then I have to switch off what I'm doing. And Lord knows I've done that lots. That? I mean, granted, I would I think I can say fairly, that the vast majority of people I've treated have gotten well, but absolutely not all. Certainly people that I know that whatever I've done has not worked. That to me that means either. I'm not the right person to be doing this. Because I'm not the right person for everyone. We all resonate to different tremors, a very common reason that what I'm doing isn't working is that there's still mold in that person's environment. And they haven't found it or recognized it yet and they're still with it. And honestly, I would say that is the single most common reason for the lack of success in the treatment that I'm providing. So, Am I answering your question?

Kealy Severson: 4:47

Yes, absolutely. I find that some of the protocols that have been popularized are so ingrained in people's heads that if they are one example for one reason or they don't respond well to a binder or multiple binders, they might still be attached to that idea instead of moving on to a different method. And so I just think it helps to hear that line of thinking from somebody who's as experienced as you is. Yeah, there is. This is what generally works for me. But there's no hard line. And not everyone has to do it one way, I think that's helpful. It almost gives permission to people to heal in a way that works for them.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 5:26

Well, I think it's important that people come to the table with the most open mind possible. And unfortunately, human beings aren't prone to doing that. We're prone to glomming on to the first thing we read whatever that was, and going, Ah, that's the right way to do it. And then it's much harder to unlearn something than to learn it fresh the first time. But let me expand on one thing you're saying, because I think it's so important. When I have a patient, who, for whatever reason, can't take binders. Even in miniscule doses. The first thing I think of is not that what I'm doing is wrong. It's that the mold toxicity has triggered limbic dysfunction, vagal nerve dysfunction, and mast cell activation, amongst other things, that has made them so sensitive and reactive, that they're not going to take much of anything, until they quiet those systems. So the first thing I think of when people can't take binders for any reason is okay. And I need to back up a couple of steps here. What is holding this being back from getting well? What is limiting them? And in my own experience, those three areas, limbic dysfunction, vagal nerve dysfunction, and mast cell activation have been central, that when I address those people not only start feeling better, quickly, but then they're able eventually to take the binders and then get the benefit from them.

Kealy Severson: 6:57

Do you find that those residual factors keeping them from being able to respond to binders well, is ever connected to a residual exposure? Like you were saying previously?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 7:09

Yea, but that's separate. I mean, I'm talking about if someone has gotten out of their moldy environment, which is crucial, if they've gotten out and then they're in a safe environment, that's the factor that's keeping them back. However, the other thing absolutely applies a persistent exposure to mold is a major element why some people aren't getting better.

Kealy Severson: 7:32

I know, you said that you worked with highly sensitive patients. And those are the patients that we tend to also come across. And I wonder if the patients that you work with, are they? Are they sensitive to the point where they can walk in a room and say, that table over there was in a moldy house? I can feel it? I'm reacting to that.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 7:54

Absolutely.

Kealy Severson: 7:54

And then the second part of the question is, do you ever find that residual contamination from these items can be a factor in continuously aggravating the MCAS or the limbic system dysfunction?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 8:09

It is, but I want to say it is for some patients, this is where the concept of limbic dysfunction really comes into play. I mean, I've had patients who I believe are so sensitive, that if there's a molecule of mold in their environment, they're going to react to it. And I know that other people would say, oh, that's in their head, that's psychological. That's not possible. I have seen it so often that I do not doubt it for a second. And my message to anybody would be, if you are reacting, do not doubt yourself. That's as real as it gets. So we often refer to these folks as the canaries in the coal mine, they, I literally, could use some of my patients if they were willing to do it as a better than assessment of an environment than any environmental test I've ever seen. I mean, they can literally walk into a building two seconds and go whoo, No, I can't be here. So is that real, absolutely real, but it's not just the mold itself that's triggering it. It's the limbic involvement that makes those people so reactive and sensitive. And we often find when they when their limbic system gets rebooted by doing Annie Hopper, DNRS or the Ashok Gupta, amygdala retraining program, and now there's quite a few others out there. As they do that, they become less reactive, so that they can go into a place and be there for 10 minutes, as opposed to literally within seconds of exposure previously, they would have had whatever they're reactive to, and that varies from patient to patient so they could walk into a moldy environment and get a headache or have shortness of breath or have brain fog or be weak or having neurological events. You know, things like dyskinesias and pseudo seizures. Those things can fire up almost instantly on exposure. So I just want to emphasize that when people are that sensitive, there's always a limbic piece to that. And that by working on the limbic piece, they can become less reactive to it. But can items that came from a moldy environment that come to a new environment? React? Yeah, they can and do.

Kealy Severson: 10:24

Thank you. Let's switch gears for a little bit. There's a there's a common argument and people have Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't call it an argument, I would say a difference of opinion. And everyone that we've spoken to from believe her name was Joan Bennett, the fungal geneticist to Dr. Shoemaker to a building biologist a couple years ago, everyone that we've asked has had one of two answers. It's either actinomyces, or microbial volatile organic compounds, but in your opinion, which of the two is responsible for the musty smell?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 11:03

Honestly, I don't have an opinion on that. I, I don't know. Maybe someone will figure it out. You know, when we're dealing with mold, we're not dealing with just mold spores. But we're dealing with mold fragments and mycotoxins and VOCs and mannose. And proteinases. And actinomyces. It's an inflammatory soup. And maybe some smart person will tease that apart. That's not me. I don't have an answer to your question.

Kealy Severson: 11:32

Do you really think mold is a euphemism for all things, including bacteria in a damp environment?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 11:38

At this point? It is until we tease it out a little bit better. You know, and I know that people have different opinions about which is the most toxic element in that soup.

Kealy Severson: 11:50

But how do you how do you align that way of thinking knowing that a bacteria is literally a different organism than a fungi?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 11:58

My position is clinical. I mean, I'm, I'm a, I'm on the frontlines as you are working with people who have these issues. And all I care about is getting my patient Well, that's a bit of an overstatement. I also like the science, I'd like to understand that I want to know as much as I can about it. But the science that we're working with is limited. The mold toxicity is an epidemic in greater proportion than HIV ever was. And the universe hasn't woken up to it yet. So what we need to do is have NIH, the CDC starting to throw some of their billions of research dollars behind this, to help us figure some of this out. At this point, a lot of the work that's being done is small numbers of patients, small studies, often not published in peer reviewed journals. And that sets the academics to go, oh, but this isn't proven yet. Or this. We don't know yet. What I know is that I have successfully treated three or 4000 people with mold toxicity and help them get restored to health. And I know what I did, so I know what works for those people. So I'm going to frame most of what I say not in a theoretical context. But for those people, they have gotten well, doing what I asked them to do. Do I know exactly which component of the 50 things I asked them to do was the most important? No, I'd love to know that don't know that. But the bottom line is, they're happy campers. So as we all start working together more, and putting our heads together more to share what we know, I think we will ultimately come up with that kind of information.

Kealy Severson: 13:46

When you were practicing clinically, prior to retirement last April, did you ever have people come into your office? Or you could just feel the mold on them? Like feel yourself reacting to them or feel mold reactions from them? Or have you have you ever been sensitized to that point where you could feel it on people?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 14:05

I'll give you a couple of answers to that. So first of all, I'm not as sensitive as many other people are, for example, I and my wife have had mold toxicity. She's way more sensitive to it than I am. She can walk into a place and smell it. I can't. So if I have a question about is there mold here, honey, it's, I need your input, because I'm not the right guy to ask. So I can't feel or smell mold on people. However, having practiced for a very long time, I'm going to go out on a little bit of a deep end here you can people have a certain energy about them when they are mold toxic. That helps me to know that that's their diagnosis. In other words, I work with a lot of people with different diagnoses, Lyme and Bartonella, which are often present similarly have a different vibe to them. I know that's not very scientific. But I can often feel what someone has. But I can't tell you what's by smell, because that's not my my gift, I don't have that ability.

Kealy Severson: 15:12

Yeah, I've been sensitized to mold the same as your wife, or I can tell if an item or a home is contaminated, and not always, mostly not by smell, but by my breathing or by my heart changing. And I remember one time a patient came into my clinic, not to even talk to me about mold. But my face started burning when I got close to her, and I said, you live in mold, and her jaw just hit the floor, because that's not what she was talking to me about. And when I saw your book about, you know, using your intuition to, to like feel people energetically I kind of wondered if that's, if that's what you were articulating, in a way without saying it is that, you know, we're using these perceptions, our senses to feel these things on people and can kind of get get a taste for if they're in an exposure based on really how we feel around them, whether that's a change in heart rate, or a change in mood or physical burning on our skin when we're near them. And I think that points back to the point that you were saying earlier, that there's something about this that people can feel that can't necessarily register on a test.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 16:24

Very nicely put, my wife, for example, will have, she'll be able to smell it sometimes. But she’ll get a headache within moments of being attacked, that's her symptom of knowing that she's in that particular environment, other chemicals will do that to her as well. Even if I can't smell those chemicals, she'll go, oh, no, I can't be in that room. And I don't know if you're referring to it. But you may know that I just published a new book called“Energetic Diagnosis”, it’s just about that whole subject, which is trusting your intuition, trusting learning to refine intuition. So that you can literally pick up more information from people and communicate with them better, because you can understand them better if you tune into that. And so there's a whole section of the book that talks about that in more detail. It also goes into some devices, medical devices, that can pick up different energies in different ways, and how some of my colleagues who wrote those chapters use those devices to pick up information that is helpful for both diagnosis and treatment. So I don't know if listeners would be interested. But I really like the new book. I think it has some interesting information for people to start thinking about.

Kealy Severson: 17:48

Yea we, I don't know if I'm not familiar with the devices that you listed in your book. But I did do a frequency feedback while I was living in mold, and I was shocked to see that it didn't pick up Stachybotrys, I Maybe I put too much faith in the idea that it would pick up everything but we later did find Stachybotrys in the rental that we had. And I just thought well, why wasn't that picked up? But either way, I feel like I've dominated the conversation long enough. I'd like to just pass the mic over to Alicia or Erik to pick your brain and ask you some questions.

Erik Johnson: 18:28

Yeah, it seems like the limbic kindling response is directly contravening or contradictory to Dr. Robert Naviaux has cell danger response, because he's looking directly at the stimulus of these toxins for some unknown agent on the cell, without the brain or rest of the nervous system involved.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 18:48

Gosh, I don't think it's contradictory at all. I know that I introduced Annie Hopper to Bob, and we had dinner together and that they have a ongoing relationship in which Annie is working with Bob to study the limbicly impaired people from a metabolic perspective. And I think, Annie just got funded working with the University of Calgary in Canada to do some of that study, and they're hoping that Bob's metabolomic work will work with it. But I think what you're talking about is starting to look at the cell danger response on a cellular level, versus the whole brain level on which we're functioning and focusing on the limbic system, and no way that contradictory both systems are designed to pick up issues of safety. So the whole cell danger response is that the mitochondria in the cell are hardwired to pick up danger in the form of a toxin or an infectious agent, which causes a droppage of voltage in that cell which sets off and triggers the entire cell danger response process that's perfectly compatible with the understanding that Annie Hopper for people who work in the limbic field do that mold toxicity directly affects the limbic system and begins the process of neurologically wiring us to monitor environment for safety. And if, if our nervous system doesn't find our environment to be safe, it'll shut us down. So we can't actually do what it is afraid we're doing that might might be unclear.

Erik Johnson: 20:28

Oh yea, Dr. Naviaux was working with Dr. Ron Davis, at the open medicine foundation at Stanford, and Dr. Davis's nano needle test, as identified filterable particulate some kind of small molecule in the plasma, which is directly modulating the mitochondrial output defines the switching cells between healthy plasma and a person with chronic fatigue syndrome reveals that something some agent in the plasma is directly controlling their mitochondrial ATP output. So if this is the case, then this is a mechanism that is clearly separate from anything that the mind or body or nervous system is doing. It's a direct substance affecting mitochondrial output on the cell.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 21:16

I don't know why. The way the cell danger response works, the essence of it is that it is releasing ATP from out of the cell as a signaling molecule. And so it becomes extracellular ATP. I can't see why that wouldn't affect the limbic system in some way.

Erik Johnson: 21:36

I'm sure it is downstream, but this filterable molecule is upstream because it can be applied directly to the mitochondria and have this effect.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 21:43

Okay. So I'm not aware of that research. So anything else I say, would be in ignorance, I can only comment on

Erik Johnson: 21:51

Well, I hope to see Dr. Naviaux again and the pieces that I know about. discuss this with him.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 21:58

Well, I talked with Bob about once a month we have a Sunday morning, get together. I will in fact, make a note of that. That's Ron Davis. Yeah. Dr. Ron Davis at Stanford. I will talk with Bob next time I talk to him happy to do so thank you for this.

Erik Johnson: 22:15

Yea, this nano needle is really incredible. It's unveiled something which they can pass through various filters of different sizes, and eventually get down to a small enough size where they can remove this particle, and the mitochondrial function is restored to normal.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 22:31

Okay, fascinating. I will await to learn more.

Erik Johnson: 22:35

The other thing is that Dr. Naviaux, hasn't really talked to the open medicine foundation to his colleagues about the toxic mold phenomenon. He's done several presentations there. And he mentioned mold once. But he hasn't really gone into what a significant factor this is in chronic fatigue syndrome.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 22:53

Well, what I can tell you in that area, having actually done some research with Bob, that we published around 2016. Our original research was done on metal omics that did not include measuring mycotoxins. What I can say is that later on, Bob added several mycotoxins to that assay. And he is in the process now, of going back over that original data, to see how the mycotoxins actually impacted. So we're going to be learning more about that. But I know that, you know, Dr. Naviaux’s got so much going on at one time that I know that he is very aware of the effect, Gosh, he's brilliant. The work that he's been doing is nothing short of fabulous. The model he's proposed is very, very helpful to us. And I have pushed Bob to, to look at the mold piece more. And I know that that's in the planning for future research.

Erik Johnson: 23:53

Yeah, I've talked to the researchers at the open medicine Foundation, and I realized they're extremely busy. And they're not getting paid for this. I mean, it's all donations, and they're having a hard time raising any money. So I suggested that they try to get some graduate students or some other parties that have a vested interest in researching mold, to look further into mold history and find out what we actually do know that's kind of buried deep in the literature. Okay. Great.

Alicia Swamy: 24:21

I wanted ask you about your new publication on Kindle, Mold and mycotoxins, I guess reevaluated? Could you talk more about that publication and and more information that you've listed since this is sort of a rewrite from a previous book?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 24:36

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. It's an update. I originally put the, my first ebook out, back in 2016. It was intended to be short and concise. And to you know, a lot of my readers who have mold toxicity, have some degree of cognitive impairment. So to ask them to read a large book you is a strain for many of them. It was one of the reasons that I had Toxic as soon as I could twist their arm I had put in audio so that our so that patients could take it in that way. And I think many people have fed back to me that that was really quite helpful. So I mean, six years have passed this, I wrote the original book, and we've learned a bunch of things. My perspective has changed. My perspective has shifted. And so I updated the book, one of the things that I put in that book that is somewhat new, that people might benefit from, is, as we've been talking about, I did a deep dive into the medical research with Beth O'Hara, Emily Gibbler. Deanna Minich, a couple of other people to try to see, maybe we already knew something about specifically how specific mycotoxins were processed by the liver in a detoxification model. And it turned out there actually was quite a lot known. And so we, we tabularized every single thing in that table is has literature verification, but that we know that to some extent. And so it's a very handy table for clinicians or for patients where they can look at on one side of the table is a list of the detoxification processes, phase one, phase two, then there's the specific mycotoxin, that has been researched. Not all have that number of people have criticized it for Well, you didn't include this particular toxin on your table. And I might want to like, I don't have any research about that. As we learn more we'll add to that table. But I'd only put down there what we know. The point wasn't to speculate. It was to help people know what was so far known. And then we have nutritional materials, which down a minute help with a great deal. Meaning what foods specifically helped to improve detoxification of that pathway, and then specific supplements. So I mean, I put that out. We put it out more correctly about a year and a half ago. And we're already been getting a lot of feedback from a lot of clinicians that this has been a help so that people can use simple supplements and nutritional approaches to improve their ability to detoxify, specifically for mold. And as you know, one of my biases is that the urine mycotoxin test is particularly helpful, because it tells me which mold toxins are there that allows us to be more specific about which of these approaches would be helpful for a specific patient.

Erik Johnson: 29:07

One of the problems I have with the urine mycotoxin test, or mycotoxin testing in general, is the old literature states that the beta glucans the shell wall, the fragments, It's the exterior of the fungal structures itself is a critical part of the pathogenesis. Without the beta glucans, the toxins don't really have that much of an effect.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 30:10

Again, I'm going to come back to what is clinically important to me, which is that, with that information, I am able to design a specific treatment program that helps the vast majority of my patients get better. And I'm not arguing that there are other components of that which we're not able to measure at this point. But this is a simple way of measuring it. It's free to patients who have Medicare, it's, it's a reproducible measurement, is it the best measurement we're ever going to have? I don't know that yet. It's the best measurement we've got currently. And if it improves, I'll be the first person in my block to get a different parameter to measure. But what we find is there's a very, very close correlation between making the diagnosis of mold toxicity, finding these things in the urine, and we see a profound drop in those levels as they get cured. So it's a parameter that I can count on clinically that I find valuable. Should I be looking somewhere else? As soon as someone develops tests that I find helpful? I hope I'm going to be the first on my blog to do it.

Alicia Swamy: 31:19

Yeah, I you know, we've come across several people that we, you know, help or that we are a part of in the groups and a lot of them have said that their urine testing didn't show or showed reduced levels, but yet they're still extremely sick. So that's why there's still some resilience there. And also, you know, there are other tests like the blood serum testing and IgG, IgE. And I wanted to know your opinion on that.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 31:47

You're talking about the the Mymycolab test?

Alicia Swamy: 31:49

Yeah, yeah, Mymyco lab?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 31:51

Yeah. Okay. Okay. So first of all, many people will find that their urine mycotoxin test are going down. And they're still not well, there are a couple of reasons for that. One of which we've talked about already, which is, you're still being exposed to mold. And you can't get well, if you're staying in a moldy environment. I mean, that's super basic, even though Dr. Shoemaker and I disagree about a lot of things. We don't disagree about that. I mean, that's super basic to anyone who works in this field. I don't know how accurate the new Mymycolab is. I've talked to Andrew Campbell and, and Dr. Voganni at length about their test, they haven't been able to show me some of the science behind it that I need to see to know how valid it is. And I've compared that test with both Great Plains and Real Time, though that the same specimens, that same person same day, getting sent to those labs to be looked at. And I don't find that the micro test is as comprehensive or accurate as the other two lamps. mycotoxins are small molecules. And when I talk to people who specialize in immunology, we know that the body has a lot of difficulty making antibodies to small molecules in general. So one of the comments that they make is that not only can you make antibodies to these, but if you follow those antibodies, rather quickly, you will see that someone is getting cured, because you'll see drops in those antibodies for most of the people who are expert in that area. That doesn't make a lot of sense, because one of the things that we always work with is what's called immune memory, in which, once we're exposed to something, our immune system will keep reacting to it often for years before those antibody titers will go down. So I have trouble and neither a Risto or Andy Campbell had been able to reassure me that they have research showing that that happens at the second, which is very interesting to me. Because if they're right, one of Dr. shoemakers most important premises has always been that the issue for both sensitive patients, why they can't get well, is that they can't make antibodies. Well, if they are making antibodies, and Campbell and Vojani are measuring it. So one of them is wrong. And it's fascinating and I have I do not know at this stage, which is which. But to your question. I don't clinically know how useful the Mymyco test is yet. People make claims for everything and I'm following it. And even though I'm technically retired from practice, I'm mentoring 150 physicians currently, who we have sessions regularly where we bring these things up and we discuss it and everyone is sharing their experience. And as the data accumulates, it hasn't yet been as accurate to me as some of the other labs have been. And that's all I can saying I was time goes on, perhaps it'll prove to be more valuable.

Alicia Swamy: 35:04

Thank you so much for that very honest answer. I really do appreciate it. And I just really I wanted to ask you and go back to hypersensitive individuals? Are you seeing any physicians successfully treating hypersensitive individuals? And I guess I could frame it in a way where these individuals are knowingly out of mold. They're not living mold but they're still reacting. So is there anyone out there that's actually really helping these people?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 35:34

Maybe I'm delusional, but I thought I was that was literally 80 to 90% of my medical practice for the last 10 years of my practice, and the vast majority of them got well. So Can those people be helped? My evidence, which is the people that I work with that numbers in the 1000s, by the way, is that? Yes, absolutely. That can be helped, you may be interested in the book that I'm currently working on. And I've just started about a couple of months ago, it's called tentatively, why am I so sensitive, and what to do about it. And I'm thrilled that I've asked a whole bunch of people who I think are expert in different aspects of this to write chapters in that book. And so we're going to talk about it from a genetic, biochemical, every perspective that I can think of. So I'm just thrilled that I have people writing chapters of it, including Dr. Horowitz, alignment Bartonella. I've got Beth O'Hara writing about Mast cell activation. I've got Emily given the writing about oxalates. Got Marty Paul, writing about EMF sensitivity. I have two other people writing about EMF sensitivity. I have Annie Hopper and Ashok Gupta each writing chapters on their perspective on limbic involvement, I've got Stephen Porges, writing a chapter on the vagal polyvagal theory and bad involvement, and so on. I mean, it's a fabulous collection of authors that I think will be ultimately as definitive, a book as we can, to, number one, help those people who are becoming sensitive and is becoming skyrocketing in terms of that happening, but I think we're going to be giving them no, this is not in your head. This is the biochemistry of it. This is the physics of it. This is the physiology, this is genetics, and all of these things we can do something about, it's all treatable. I mean, I've got Ty Vincent writing a chapter on LDI therapy and the immune aspect. I mean, I, I've tried to cover it from almost every perspective that I could come up with, so very excited about its got a ton of energy behind it. And I think it will be super helpful for that population, which is way more common than people realize.

Erik Johnson: 37:53

How about the historical aspect, I just saw a report that Australia is going back looking over the history, and finding the earliest reports of this type of hypersensitivity to moldy buildings, only goes back to the 1990s. Have you thought of looking back in the American literature, to see just how far back this phenomenon, whatever it is, emerged?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 38:15

You know, I have the same observation as a clinician, which is I rarely not never, but I rarely saw someone with multiple chemical sensitivities back in the 70s, or 80s. But I was practicing, and I began to see it emerge in the 90s. And, and then it skyrocketed. But then it became a huge part of my practice, but currently treated hundreds, maybe 1000. People with chemical sensitivity at this particular point. So and I'm not the only one, this is for anyone who's looking. It's it's become another epidemic in terms of the increase in sensitivity that's going on in this world. And I attributed to the increase in chemical sensitivity in our environment, heavy metal toxicity, major component to EMFs. The all of the toxicity of the world that we live in, I believe is triggering this and people who are more sensitive than others are more prone to having this happen. And as a genetic this as well. So I mean, I mean, I think that history is important. And it's I've actually written a bit about that already. And that some of the chapters that I'm writing, but this book is like everything I write intended to be clinically useful for both professionals and patients, consumers so that they can look at that and read a chapter at a time and go oh my god, that applies to me. And oh, that applies to me. And that applies to me. You know, one of the things I've just recently learned about I just got hold of a book by Derek Lonsdale who's been teaching about thiamin for a very long time. And for some, I'd heard I'd heard him speak 30 years ago in the context of thiamin and being relevant to children with autism. But he's been hammering away at this for a very long time and wrote a fabulous book fairly recently published, called thiamine deficiency disease, autonomic dysfunction, and high calorie malnutrition. And in it, he explains how thiamin is a critical component of almost every part of the Krebs cycle in which energy is generated. And that the nervous system is exquisitely sensitive to your mitochondrial function is entirely dependent on an adequate supply of time. It turns out that mold toxin interferes with diamond absorption in the body. And so our mold patients are way more prone to having diamond deficiency, and many of them have autonomic dysfunction that comes with the territory. So that one of the new things that I've learned that I'm really hard on is looking at replacing thiamin deficiency in the patients that I consult with, and seeing how effective that is. Because it's like one of those aha pieces that we discover, like, Oh, I've been missing that. I know that that's going to be an important piece. But it's sort of like this huge jigsaw puzzle. And my whole life work is finding a piece here and finding a piece here, finding a piece here, and then trying to integrate as many of them as I as I know how.

Erik Johnson: 41:24

Dr. Shoemaker had a fascinating chapter in desperation, medicine on the zombie alligators in Lake Griffith in Florida. And he surmised that this is probably from cyanobacterial toxins. And it turns out that all these zombie alligators acting so bizarre, did have a thiamine deficiency.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 41:43

Well, again, what I read this, it resonated with me as this is an important piece of the puzzle that we need to be including in our whole way of evaluating and trading. So Richie is quite brilliant and not surprised he came up with something that before anybody else did.

Erik Johnson: 42:01

Now, this book, The 1994, Saratoga Springs, first international conference on the health effects of mycotoxins and indoor air environments. By Eckhardt Johanning and Chin Yang is really one of the first efforts to collate the history of toxic mold, and try to integrate that with what was being reported in the medical literature on various unknown syndromes. Back this poster behind me is a synopsis of those early attempts. And one of them was a hospital in Quebec, where all these white collar hospital workers came down with the mysterious illness called exhaustion syndrome. And it turns out, it was directly related to colonies of Stachybotrys Chartarum and that is, so far as we know, it's the first time this was reported in the literature has been directly attributed to the toxic mold. Stachybotrys. So this book is really a fascinating bit of history. And they looked in literature for early reports, and try as they might, they simply couldn't find any. So as far as they were concerned, this is a question of whether or not toxic mold illness is a new phenomenon.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 43:12

Well it is described in the Bible in Leviticus, there are a couple of passages there in which talked about toxic mold and what you need to do to get out of an environment with toxic mold. I, I you know, ergot poisoning has been known throughout the Middle Ages. So I know that some aspects of toxic mold syndrome had been known for a long time. But if your point is that we are seeing an epidemic of toxic mold that we haven't before. I think that's a correct observation. I'm sure you're aware of Dietrich Klinghardt observation several years ago, that he believes that 5g and 4g have a specific effect on toxic on mold, making it increasingly toxic in our environment, and Dietrich is right about a lot of things they know they may have.

Erik Johnson: 44:01

So yeah, he claimed to deal with an allelopathic stimulus that resulted in a 600 fold increase mycotoxin production, but I'm sure most microbiologists would tell you toxic mold isn't capable of producing 600 times more than what it can already do. In terms of that, I did a few experiments where I tried reproducing that and I was unable to. So I'd like to see that studied and reproduced by some other researcher before I accept it as fact.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 44:30

Well, I tried to take a look at that last year after hearing Dietrich's comments about 5g predisposing to COVID as well as the the whole mold issue. I started working with real time in terms of having some mold plates simple experiment having some mold plates with known amount of mold growth on them, having some controls, exposing some to 5g radiation and seeing how much toxin they made. seemed to me that that would be a simple study to do. And unfortunately, the head of the lab at that time left, he should be returning there at the end of the summer. So I'm hoping that we will bring that project back on at a later date. But I just think it's an important thing for people to know. If that's true, we need to know.

Erik Johnson: 45:17

Absolutely more research.

Alicia Swamy: 45:19

I wanted to go back to what you said, Dr. Nathan, you specialize in helping the hypersensitive, but there is 10 to 20% that go on that you're unable to help. And I'm just curious as if you ever advise them to practice extreme avoidance in any way to see if that would help them?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 45:40

Yeah, many of them have. It has helped some, it doesn't help all. So we also have to keep in mind that I touched on it, but many of my mold patients have other infectious or inflammatory components to their illness, which don't always get diagnosed. The most common of being Lyme, and co-infections, but mycoplasma infections, and Chlamydia infections, and a wide array of viral infections all become manifested. They're all opportunistic, when people get mold. And what we know is mold toxicity weakens the immune system, and allows the emergence of these vice versa. People who have Lyme disease are far more prone to getting mold. So when I have someone not responding to a mold related approach, I have to dig deeper and go okay, what else am I missing? What, what is that person not getting at? One example is it's not uncommon for my patients to have a what's called cervical trauma, fibromyalgia, which is a condition in which someone will have an injury to their head or neck, often like whiplash like injury or concussion of some type. And that will leave a residual inflammation of the spinal cord, which causes a condition very similar to fibromyalgia. Now, if nobody has thought about that, or addressed that, that adds another level of inflammation to an already inflamed system, and often prevents healing for a lot of my patients. Now, it's a fairly simple thing to diagnose. Now, in this crazy world we live in, especially with telemedicine, very few people ever get a physical exam, honestly, they weren't getting a physical exam before COVID. Yet, physicians have been remiss in getting so caught up in HMOs, you have a seven minute visit, and people don't even get touched or examined much anymore. And now with telemedicine way worse. But having said that, simply tapping the knees and checking reflexes. If you have this condition called cervical trauma, fibromyalgia, the knees will be the knee jerk is much more brisk. We we quantitate knee jerk reflexes from one to four, one being slight for being so someone with this condition the knee jerk will be three or four. And the upper arm extremities will be a half or one that is pointed. But the beauty of it is that condition is treatable by a medical device called frequency specific microcurrent, which is capable of pulling that type of inflammation out of the spinal cord. So it's quite a remarkable device. But I've seen it work in three or four dozen patients who had that condition. But if someone has that, and nobody's looking for it, patients can languish. I mean, for me, the key is there are way too few physicians who have treated mold and Lyme, or have a broad understanding of the entire inflammatory process so that patients are unlikely to run into someone who can look at the bigger picture and go, Okay, you've got this and Okay, you've got that let's look at everything. And that's the real problem. It's one of the reason I'm focusing so much of my energy now on teaching and teaching clinicians so that more and more clinicians will recognize this and find this and treat it.

Erik Johnson: 49:15

Have you seen the documentary unrest by producer Jennifer Brown, I have not thought to fabulous documentary about some of the history of myalgic encephalomyelitis chronic fatigue syndrome, and she wound up eventually being diagnosed actually, as a result of this movie. She put an MRI in the movie and somebody saw it and spotted empty Sella syndrome. And she went in for further analysis was diagnosed with cranial cervical instability at the fusion surgery for it and she directly attributed this long term effect to an exposure years ago to toxic black mold. She presented this to the open medicine foundation and they declined to follow up on it.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 50:00

Well, maybe they're not as open as they should be. But I mean, we all have to stay open about this. We're learning as we go. I got accused several years ago, I was lecturing at islands. And I made some statement as someone shouted out of the audience. That's not what you said two years ago. And I thought about it for a second. And when you're right, that that's not what I said two years ago, because I no longer believe that anymore. I've learned a lot since then. And I shifted my position. And what I'm describing today is what I currently think, and I hope none of you out there think that this is rigidify, or that it's not, I mean, this is a state of flux, I wouldn't be surprised if some portion of what I teach is shown to be absolutely wrong. Five years from now, honestly, I can live with that if I have more and more physicians treating, making observations, and some of those observations lead to an improvement in what we know. Fabulous, that's, that's where we need to go with this.

Erik Johnson: 51:00

I have deep links with the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Society, with the entire community with many researchers. And as of now, they are not considering toxic mold to be a part of their paradigm. Do you think there'd be any benefit to connecting toxic mold with the homes 1988 Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 51:19

You know, in my experience, this comes back to human beings being what they are, we tend to get stuck in our way of thinking, whatever that is. And most of us are not as open as we'd like to think we are. And that probably includes me, but I try. So my first comment would be whether or not they are interested, Joe Brewer is paper in 2013, in which he took 112 patients with chronic fatigue syndrome, and measured their mycotoxin levels, and found that 92% had elevated mycotoxin levels. And then treating them the vast majority of them got well ought to be something that that group would take seriously, because that has been my observation as well. I mean, I started in this world, with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue also, back in the 80s. Back then I was running a chronic pain clinic I had a whole ward I am have been throughout most of my professional career a pain specialist as well as a family physician. And back in the early 80s, we started seeing this weird critter that we called fiber situs, which later gave got the name of fibromyalgia, which is what we call it now. And this critter made no sense. It was a systemic type of an illness, initially people assumed doesn't make any sense. It's probably psychological. We treated people with psychotherapy and anti anxiety and anti depressant medications. And it didn't do much of anything for them. Which to me meant we're barking up the wrong tree here. That's not what's causing this. And we need to start looking at other areas. And then my history and my involvement in that history. Starting in the early, early 90s, I was working with Norm Shealy, who began to find DHEA and magnesium deficiency and many of our chronic fatigue patients. A lot of them responded to that by getting well. I started working with Jacob Teitelbaum 1995 1996, Jacob found a whole bunch of other biochemical deficiencies going on, that we worked on that we stumbled into the Lyme world we stumbled into the mold toxicity to and so, from my perspective, chronic fatigue evolved from we have no idea what's causing it to this is not a psychological condition. You know, the paper that I honored to have published with Dr. Naviaux showed conclusively metabolic effects that could be measured that clearly distinguished a chronic fatigue population from a control population. So mean clear biochemical differences, not in one's head. But structurally, we keep learning about it. So for those people in that area, it's imperative that they open up their minds and hearts to the new information that's coming out. Because otherwise people are going to get stuck with a with a name diagnosis, and not that there's Oh, there's something we can do about it. Which is, in my world, the bottom line.

Erik Johnson: 54:21

I was surprised that the brewer paper didn't result in any of the MECFS community taking interest in mold.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 54:28

Human beings what are you going to do? I don't understand it either. To me it was an eye opener, even if you don't like his methodology, the results were so impressive. That one should at least start taking a look.

Erik Johnson: 54:44

Absolutely, the results were so amazing, so impressive. So consistent, so uniform across the people who had a CFS diagnosis but to ignore it made absolutely no sense to me.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 54:55

And I've known Joe Brewer for many years actually long before that paper got written. I know him to be a solid citizen, a good researcher, just a wonderful human being. And so it was like, he put out this fabulous piece of information and the world didn't jump on it, like, made no sense to me.

Erik Johnson: 55:14

No sense to me either.

Alicia Swamy: 55:15

Well, thank you so much, Dr. Nathan, this was an amazing interview. And you know, we every interview you enter every interview that we have, we always feel like it sets the bar, but this one really does take the cake. And we're really appreciative of you spending your time with us today to provide your insights. And we'll also go ahead and link all of your books below in our show notes. So if anyone's interested in purchasing those they can I don't have any more questions. I'll throw it off to Erik or Kealy for final comments or questions.

Erik Johnson: 55:44

No, I'm fine. This is fantastic.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 55:47

Okay. Okay. Thank you all for giving this opportunity to share what I know with your listeners and have a wonderful day.

Alicia Swamy: 55:55

Great. And just one final question. If our listeners wanted to consult with you or find any information out or I'm not sure what what you're doing at your current capacity, if any doctors or any physicians want to work with you, where can they find you?

Dr. Neil Nathan: 56:09

The fastest way is through my website, which is simply NeilNathanmd.com. And I am available for consultations. Most of my consultations actually all are only done with a treating physician, meaning part of what I'm doing in my consultations is not just helping people, but I also want to teach their doctor how to do what I do better. So it's laid out there how to do it, but I do a ton of consultations with a lot of medical providers of every sort and their patients directly. And so that's available. If healthcare providers are listening to this, I have a mentorship program that I do with Jill Christa every couple of months. And again, if they can look at my website, if you if you want to be involved in that or became part of that I'm delighted to welcome more people into that group and I know Jill is. So that's simply askDrnathan@gmail.com for people that will have that interest. And I hope that's what you're looking for.

Alicia Swamy: 57:14

That’s perfect, thank you so much again, thank you everyone for joining us, we had Dr. Neil Nathan on. He is a legend in the mobile game and we're really excited to have him on today. He's shaking his head no you are you definitely are. We do appreciate your time and just helping a lot of people out with with mold toxicities.

Dr. Neil Nathan: 57:34

You have any any idea how much pressure that puts upon me?

Alicia Swamy: 57:39

Well, you have the publications and the history to back it up. So you should you should be sitting fine there, Dr. Nathan. Thanks again feel free to check us out on all podcasting locations and also check out our education program that we recently launched. If you have any questions please reach out to Kealy or I are always here to help you off. Thank you again. We'll see you next time.