#463 The Science of Detox with Dr. Anil Bajnath

Anil Bajnath (0:00)

If you're in this fight or flight state all the time, you're holding on to things, your tissues are tough. Your tissues are just ready for, you know, some sort of response to a threat. It doesn't allow us to rest, digest, and eliminate. And when we get locked into that sympathetic dominant state, our body holds on to things. And that bioaccumulation is ultimately what leads to the damage that could be accumulated on a DNA level. It could lead to chronic inflammation, and that chronic inflammation could lead to immune dysregulation and all sorts of things.

Siim Land (0:34)

Anil, welcome back to the show.

Anil Bajnath (0:37)

Thank you, Siim. Great to see you.

Siim Land (0:39)

Yeah, I'm happy to have you back on the show. And the last time we had a more general overview about precision medicine and how your genes and your environment affect your health to each individual separately. But I wanted to bring you back to talk about something that is more and more relevant in today's world, which is a toxin exposure and detoxification, etc. Where you're living in a very polluted world nowadays, both in terms of the environment as well as the food supply. And a lot of people appear to have struggles with these kinds of things. So yeah, we'll do like a masterclass on all things, detoxification. And I want to start with maybe you giving your framework or opinion about detoxification as a phenomena in itself, because I think people might have the idea that it's kind of a scam or some sort of a fraud, fraudster thing that drink your detox smoothies and those kind of things that it's just pseudoscience, that it's not an actual thing. So what is your take on it as a precision medicine doctor?

Anil Bajnath (1:48)

That's a great question. Thank you again for having me back on. I think this is a very important topic, because what it relates to is essentially looking at the exposome, the human exposome refers to the entire amount of environmental factors that are coming into interface with our own internal ecosystem. So the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, all those factors have a significant impact at exposing us to different forms of environmental exposures. And those exposures could be, you know, found in multiple different forms from different sources. The statistics around the environmental kind of EPA and the chemical exposures has grown significantly over the past 20 years. So we're living in a very toxic world. We have this very unique little bubble, you know, I call it our little, you know, a bubble that we're constantly being inundated with different forms of exposure, whether it's PFAS and these forever chemicals, you know, from Teflon products and derivatives to microplastics, organophosphates with different pesticides and herbicides, phthalates and parabens, which are found in our cosmetic products and our different cleaning products and things of that nature.

All of those things have a significant on our total environmental exposure, and that burden could lead to, you know, inundating our detox pathways and channels. So, you know, that goes back down to your genetic blueprint. And it's almost like looking at it in the context of pharmacogenetics, which refers to how your DNA blueprint influences the rate of metabolism of certain drugs and toxins. So, with that being said, there's some individuals that are rapid metabolizers. There's some individuals that are slow metabolizers. And that, you know, gene environmental interface and or mismatch is where it leads to the potential for the bioaccumulation of these different compounds within our system. And that bioaccumulation is ultimately what leads to the damage that could be accumulated on a DNA level, right? It could lead to chronic inflammation. And that chronic inflammation could lead to, you know, further, you know, accumulation and immune dysregulation and all sorts of things. So we live in a very toxic world. There's multiple different exposures that we have, you know, that we're constantly being, you know, inundated with. And it's identifying and mitigating those exposures and supporting our body's natural endogenous detox pathways.

Siim Land (4:35)

Yeah. It's like we live in an environment and some of us will be more affected by these environmental pollutants due to genetics. And one great example of this is me and my wife. I lived in a molded house for two decades without any symptoms and without any change in how I feel or anything of that. Whereas my wife came and within a few weeks, she already developed some symptoms related to mold exposure. So there is a lot of individual differences to how people react to various toxins like even microplastics or PFAS and heavy metals. And all those things are very dependent of the individual genetics. But yeah, I guess people already know that we are living in a very polluted world with a lot of problems in the food supply, as well as the air that we breathe and the water we drink. But is detox itself a thing that our bodies are able to do? So that can we actually excrete these different pollutants and toxins? And is it just related to your liver? So like a lot of people might say that your liver is the detox organ, and that's all you have. That you can't really do anything else. Like if you can detox things, then it's going to be done by the liver, and that's it.