The Environmental Toxins Killing Your Health - Dr. Gabrielle Lyon - #1038

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
You had two original pillars of health, which were eat and exercise, but then you had to add a third one.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (0:08)
The third one was environment and is environment. Do you have time for a quick story?

**Chris Williamson** (0:13)
Yeah.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (0:15)
I graduated in medical school, obviously, and then did my fellowship. And when you finish your fellowship and go into private practice, you kind of think you know everything. And I was convinced the key to health was diet and exercise. It was all lifestyle. And I was wrong. I had this patient, very successful patient, CEO of a major company. She was a female as she was doing everything she was supposed to diet and exercise wise, and she was feeling terrible. And also gaining weight, I said, no, no, no, it's definitely diet and exercise. And in fact, a handful of years later, I had to call and apologize because it wasn't just diet and exercise. She had significant exposures that really affected her health and wellness. And I think these exposures affect a lot of people. And at the time when I was beginning my practice, it wasn't common and we weren't even thinking about it.

**Chris Williamson** (1:17)
So is it getting more common?
The talk of complex illness caused by mold, gut health, BPAs, heavy metals, lime, parasites, like this, whatever this world is, seems to be kind of gaining speed. Is this because more people are getting it or because we are detecting it more effectively? What do you think is going on there?

**Gabrielle Lyon** (1:44)
It's both. We have more exposures than arguably we've ever had, now with microplastics, and we are getting better at acknowledging and detecting it, but we're still not there. So, for example, mold. Mold exposure, this is, we hear a lot about it now in terms of buildings with mold or locations and this musty smell. And oftentimes, we think that it really doesn't affect people. However, there are certain people that will move into these buildings, walk in there, break out in a rash, have brain fog, fatigue, feel terrible, and it's this exposure to mold mycotoxins. But the reality is, for a testing perspective, we don't have validated tests for mold. However, I think it's really important that we test for it. But it's not like you walk in and you do a blood glucose test and there's this diagnosis of diabetes, cut and dry. We don't have that.

**Chris Williamson** (2:49)
Well, no, we don't. Well, you do get stuff like the total tox test. Now, obviously, peering under the skirt of what my last two years has been like, this is a topic of particular interest to me because this is what I've been battling through. But since releasing the health vlog thing that I did a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago now, I guess, the number of people that reach out and say, I lived in a house that had mold or I had parasites or I'm dealing with Lyme or I'm dealing with leaky gut or I had fucking H pylori or whatever.
This multi-system challenge really is like a silent epidemic and it doesn't matter which angle you come into it at. But as you say, you can say you are a mold person, like you have been in a house with mold, but you can do stuff like a total tox test, which comes back and you can see, wow, those numbers are right off the chart. But the main takeaway I think that I've learned from the last couple of years is, how many people are living a life that they thought was just getting older, or a natural by-product of, I'm just tired. People are tired, people get tired all the time, like, yeah, my mood, maybe it used to be a little bit high when I was young, but who doesn't get a bit more moody as they age? Whatever, just chalking up to entropy, something which can be explained by environment.

**Gabrielle Lyon** (4:18)
There's a component to what you're saying that I think is really valuable, and there's a level of diagnostic uncertainty. People go to their doctor and get all of these blood panels done, and everything looks, quote, perfect. And the reality is, these are just a series of biomarkers that we're aware of and that are important. And when I say biomarkers, I mean testosterone and thyroid, things that are common, and we need them to be functioning well. But there is now a whole host of other influences that really end up affecting the way people show up in their lives, the way that they think, the way that they function, their mood, their energy. And oftentimes, it's unexplained. Or, what about this? Arthritis or myalgias or joint pain, this inability to recover the way that they used to. We are seeing a lot more influence from the environment, whether it's mold, whether it's Lyme, parasites. I mean, the reason that I got interested in this was because I started my practice, I finished fellowship, started my practice in New York City. Started with celebrities and professional athletes. And as much as I loved them as humans, it wasn't my calling.