00:00
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I’ve worked in both the conventional world now and the functional world, and I’m much more fulfilled in my career helping people get off of medication and seeing lifelong results that change, rather than a band aid for the rest of their lives.

00:10
JJ Virgin
You hear more and more about all these weird symptoms, all these chronic conditions no one can figure out. Why is it that no one’s figuring these out yet?

00:17
Dr. Jessica Peatross
There’s money that goes behind published studies. Sometimes there are vested interests. Really ulterior motives match a hat.

00:23
JJ Virgin
So what are some of the things that someone could do to just help improve drainage?

00:28
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Sauna has a myriad of benefits, so this helps people to heal. Breath work can be a huge detox for people too. I love binders as well. My favorite binders are the humic and fulvic acid binders.

00:39
JJ Virgin
What were you taught that you now believe was just fundamentally wrong?

00:43
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I was taught, especially as a hospitalist, that if you have a problem, you can spot treat.

00:51
JJ Virgin
Hey, I’m JJ Virgin. PhD dropout. Sorry mom. Turned four time New York Times bestselling author. As a certified nutrition specialist, Fitness hall of Famer, and globally recognized leader in health, I’m driven to keep asking the tough questions and use my podcast to simplify the science of health into actionable strategies that help you thrive. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the show. And here’s the fun part. When you send me your review, I’ll reply to you using my on demand virtual Me. That’s right, my team and I created a virtual JJ packed with my books, speeches and wisdom so I can personally connect with you. Here’s how you do it. Subscribe and leave an honest review of the podcast. Take a screenshot of your review. Text it to 813-565-2627. That’s 813-565-2627.

01:49
JJ Virgin
My virtual JJ will reply directly and trust me, this will make your day. So subscribe now@subscribetoj.com and text me your review. Let’s Keep thriving together. I want to start with a truth that most people don’t hear until they’ve lost literally years of their lives to exhaustion, anxiety, brain fog, and normal lab results. Now, if you still feel terrible, it’s not because you’re aging or you’re dramatic or you’re making it up or you’re crazy. It’s because your body’s sending you signals that people haven’t been trained to understand. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of women stuck in health no man’s land. They’ve been told they’re fine when they know something is not right. In fact, it could be very wrong. And today we’re going to explore why that is.

02:43
JJ Virgin
The reality is that has almost nothing to do with calories or hormones and everything to do with hidden toxins, stealth infections, and biological blind spots that doctors rarely look for because they haven’t been trained on it. My guest, Dr. Jess Petros, used to practice conventional medicine until she realized that the sickest patients weren’t getting answers because no one was looking in the right places. So if you’re someone who’s ever been dismissed, told your labs are normal, or felt like your body is betraying you, this conversation may be the missing chapter in your health story. I will be right back with Dr. Jess Petros to uncover why. Stay with me. Dr. Jess Petros, welcome to my house and my studio.

03:28
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Thank you for having me. I’m honored.

03:29
JJ Virgin
Yes. And well beyond 40. Well, I’ve been wanting to dig into this for a while because I love your work with all of these kind of, like, mysterious chronic conditions. And so let’s kind of peel it back from the beginning as to when did you start to realize that mysterious conditions actually, or mystery conditions, rather, weren’t really mystery conditions. They were just conditions that we hadn’t figured out yet.

03:52
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Right.

03:53
JJ Virgin
Take me back to that point.

03:54
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Well, I would say this is a blend of patients that taught me over the years and then even my own personal health journey. So it was early in my career, I was working at Whitaker Wellness. I just got out of the conventional hospital realm and was working in functional medicine, trying to learn all the different trade tricks of the trade.

04:11
JJ Virgin
He was one of the first, too, Julian Whitaker.

04:14
Dr. Jessica Peatross
He was a pioneer. I learned a lot from him. And also how to be rebel. So.

04:18
JJ Virgin
So, you know, that was in you?

04:20
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, he brought it right out of me. I’ll tell. So, you know, during that time, I had this patient that came in. He was having trouble sleeping. He was having really bad insomnia, heart palpitations, really bad anxiety, a number of other myriad of other conditions. And I missed the problem. I missed the root cause. And so in my desperation, I referred him to my colleague who also worked there, Dr. Mark Philade. And he took one look at his labs and his symptoms and said, you know, I think this guy is something deeper, probably chronic Lyme disease. And I thought, chronic Lyme disease, they didn’t teach me anything.

04:51
JJ Virgin
I was just gonna say, had you even heard of that back then?

04:54
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Like, isn’t that two weeks of doxycycline and you’re good, right? So I was a little shocked and shook back then, but it. I never missed it again after that. And with me, I feel like you always sort of have to go through your own health journey to understand how, just how sick and broken the system is. You don’t really understand what your patients go through until you have to go through the system and get a label or have someone figure out what’s wrong with you. And for me, it was just accumulation of medical school and residency and living the trauma of life over the years that piled up. And I really had burnout, adrenal dysfunction in the HPA axis. I had. My labs were.

05:29
JJ Virgin
What would that mean to the layperson?

05:30
Dr. Jessica Peatross
That would mean wired but tired.

05:32
JJ Virgin
Okay.

05:32
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So not really sleeping properly, not feeling your best during the day, lots of brain fog, difficulty feeling regulated and energized throughout the day.

05:42
JJ Virgin
And how like going through medical school and residency, which seems like probably the most unhealthy, high stress situation. I still don’t understand why it has to be that way. And I’ve heard all these rationales for why it has to be that way. That none of them have convinced me that this needs to be this way. Was it just like a slow decline?

06:01
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah. Into this slow painful death by a million paper cuts. Right.

06:05
JJ Virgin
So you think it’s normal.

06:06
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah.

06:07
JJ Virgin
Right.

06:07
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Cause you know, you put the frogs in the boiling water, they’ll jump out. If you put the frogs in water and you turn up the heat slowly, they don’t realize the water is boiling. Which is what happened to me in medical school with my health. So, yeah, it was just really irritated, mood issues, anxiety, depressed, not sleeping at night. Then my lab started to be in the red. I had a vitamin D of 10.

06:26
JJ Virgin
Wow.

06:27
Dr. Jessica Peatross
At a CRP of 8, it was supposed to be less than 8 and that indicates systemic wide inflammation. I was.

06:32
JJ Virgin
Wait, a CRP of 8?

06:34
Dr. Jessica Peatross
8?

06:34
JJ Virgin
Isn’t it supposed to be 0.5?

06:36
Dr. Jessica Peatross
It’s supposed to be 0 to 3 depending on the lab. But yes, 0.5 is really what we want to aim for. Yes.

06:43
JJ Virgin
Looking back at that time and everything you were being taught, what were you taugh that you now believe or now know is just fundamentally wrong.

06:51
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. There’s many. Right. As you know, really, that there’s a pill for every ill. I was taught, especially as a hospitalist, that if you have a problem, you can spot treat.

06:59
JJ Virgin
Really? Were you really taught that?

07:01
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, exactly. And if you have a side effect from this medication, we have this medication for you.

07:05
JJ Virgin
From an exercise and weight loss perspective, we’re taught you can never spot treat.

07:10
Dr. Jessica Peatross
You know, I know that now, but back then in school, I mean, were pretty naive and gullible, you know, and on top of the probably four to six hours of nutrition that I had been taught in, which was more.

07:19
JJ Virgin
Than most, it appears. Yeah.

07:21
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I mean, I’m so glad I know my essential amino acids, but didn’t know about like processed pesticides and processed convenience food.

07:28
JJ Virgin
Well, that’s what you’re probably getting served in the hospital, so sadly. Right. Wow. Okay, so one of the things that you talk about, which I think is pretty interesting, is that you say that most common causes of chronic symptoms are invisible to standard labs. What do you mean by that?

07:46
Dr. Jessica Peatross
What I mean is that blood work has not changed in about the last 30 to 50 years. You can really get some great things from a number of different cumulative blood work. I’m not knocking on it completely, but it does miss root, cause things like mitochondrial dysfunction, which is the powerhouse in every cell in our body except red blood cells. And they make ATP, or energy for us. So you have to have a little bit energy to make energy. And it’s really what powers every single process in our body. It’s why every single organ in our body works, is because the cells make the energy.

08:17
JJ Virgin
And how would we look at that?

08:19
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So an organic acids test, it’s not perfect. It’s a snapshot in time, but it’s really the best we have right now. I will say there are a lot of different blood tests coming out that are going to be able to target the mitochondria and which step it’s faltering in coming soon.

08:34
JJ Virgin
We can see some of that in an organic acid test. We can see that a lot of the people listening have no idea what an organic acid test is.

08:42
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Right.

08:43
JJ Virgin
So they’re going, huh? So what is that test?

08:46
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So this isn’t one functional test that we’re talking about. There are many more for other diseases that go or labels that go even deeper. But this one is a urine test. They ship it to your house. It’s ship kit. You follow instructions in it. Easy urine test. And it looks at breakdown products in the body, things that break down products like amino acids from proteins or, you know, breakdown products from mitochondrial function. Right. And it’s byproducts that it’s looking at in the urine, as well as markers for mold and yeast and nutritional markers, too. So it looks at a number of different things, not just mitochondria.

09:18
JJ Virgin
It was one of the first tests I learned about, I actually used to lecture for the lab on it way back when. Yes. I kind of got thrown into it because someone didn’t show up who was supposed to teach, and I went, what I’m supposed to do. The nutrition side of this. What are you talking about? It’s such a cool test because it’s sort of like taking your car to the auto mechanic and looking at the exhaust and seeing where the problems are. That’s good, but yet no one knows about it. And it’s such an easy test to do and not really. It’s not expensive.

09:45
Dr. Jessica Peatross
It’s a great starter test for people, I think, just to see baseline where they’re at, too, with energy. Yeah.

09:50
JJ Virgin
Cool. Well, what do you think are some of the biggest drivers behind some of these unexplained symptoms? Especially we’re talking well beyond 40. So women, 40 plus. What do you think?

10:03
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Well, again, use my own personal experience, and what I see in every single patient now in clinic is most people are in flight, fight or freeze. And when that happens with the nervous system, it sounds very simple for me just to say off the cuff, but honestly, everything is released differently in the body from the porosity of the voice, the size of the pupils, the immune responses, the way your. Your body handles fuel metabolism is changed based on your autonomic nervous system. And most of us, especially in Western countries, are pushed into this fight or freeze where every hormone, neuropeptide and neurotransmitters release differently in the body, and there’s just not a pill to fix.

10:38
JJ Virgin
You know, when they talk about the studies, they said we compared a stressed group and an unstressed group. I go, where’d you get the unstressed group?

10:43
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, where are they coming from? Seriously. Different planet at this point. Yeah, it’s really hard because it’s just about everyone. It’s the degree to which they’re in it and how much it’s affecting their physical health. So how would you know? Right. Some blood work can tell. You could tell in my blood work when I was really stressed out.

10:58
JJ Virgin
And what blood? What was it showing?

11:00
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So just a regular CBC, complete blood cell count. There’s a marker called an MCV in there, mean corpuscular volume. Mine was 106, which is really high. We usually want it 95 and below. And this measures the size of the red blood cells, so they get bigger when you need B vitamins or there’s a lot of stress in the body that can tell you need B vitamins, which you Burn through.

11:20
JJ Virgin
I was just gonna say. So when you’re stressed, you’re blowing through your B vitamins and then. Interesting.

11:25
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. The other one is like a CRP that can show inflammation and stress as well, homocysteine, which is another marker with a need for methylation and B vitamins that can show stress. And you want it less than 10. Mine was 13.5.

11:38
JJ Virgin
I kept seeing people who had great diets and they had their triglycerides look great, but yet they’re fasting blood sugars.

11:46
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Oh, yeah.

11:46
JJ Virgin
And I was finally like, oh, explain what happens there.

11:50
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So fasting blood sugars when they start to get high for people, unfortunately, what I see is there’s this cortisol liver connection. It’s almost like the endocrine system is a stool with four legs. One leg is the liver, one leg is the adrenals with cortisol, one leg is the sex hormones, and one leg is the thyroid. If any of them are unscrewed, the whole stool is wobbly. So there’s a connection with cortisol and liver. The liver tells the body to break down glycogen, these big packets of Glucose, into small little mini packets of single glucose so you can sustain your blood sugar in between meals. So if the liver is stagnant, it’s not working at peak performance, you’re really going to have trouble with fasting blood sugars.

12:26
Dr. Jessica Peatross
And in general, if you’re stressed out in general, the cortisol can pull out the fasting blood sugars for people, and it’s just really up and down for people. I’ve seen it.

12:35
JJ Virgin
Too low. Yeah. I was gonna say it sounds like you’d also have a lot of too lows, but then you’d have a rebound that would overcorrect.

12:42
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Exactly.

12:42
JJ Virgin
And then you’d really have trouble sleeping.

12:44
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Oh, my gosh. Because, yes, absolutely. Anytime the blood sugar falls, cortisol spikes, wakes someone up in the middle of the night. Which is, again, sometimes why people suffer from insomnia as well.

12:54
JJ Virgin
Yeah. What other, like, drivers are you seeing besides the stress? One? Which, again, I think is. You know, I was talking to you before this started. I just looked at everything going on. I went, nope, not. I am shifting some things down. Like, I think we all tend to do this. Pile on, pile on. I know. It’s how I deal with my house. I pile stuff on until things get, like, too messy, out of control. Then I go crazy, and I clean the whole thing up instead of just keeping it just.

13:20
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I Do that too actually. Yo yo cleaning. So other drivers within the system, I would have to say besides the fight or fight response, it’s also stealth pathogens. So when you think about things like water damage in the house, most people don’t think the place that they spend most of their time and breathe 80% of indoor air most of the time is causing them to be sick. I see that a lot. I see stealth pathogens like Epstein Barr virus, parasites, SIBO or sifo. These are big causes as well.

13:45
JJ Virgin
SIBO or CPO stands for small intestinal.

13:48
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Bacterial overgrowth or small intestinal fungal overgrowth. We now know that mold and yeast can colonize the small intestines just like bacteria can and cause issues too. Another stealth hidden thing that causes people’s health to tank and is hidden is things like dental issues. So. Or you know, like root canals, infected root canals. Mercury fillings are now becoming more, it’s becoming more widely known.

14:12
JJ Virgin
The challenge with mercury fillings is a lot of that’s already been like. I remember looking at one study they did with rabbits showing that the minute they got the fillings, they started releasing mercury and they started getting into their tissues. And yes, by the time you realize this and take it out, you already have a big problem. I would assume that’s right.

14:31
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Because mercury is not easy to get out of the body. It stays layered in the fascial tissues and in the lymphatic system. It doesn’t stay in the bloodstream unless there’s an acute toxicity that’s happening. So yeah, it’s very hard to get out of the tissues.

14:43
JJ Virgin
So you have all of these things which it feels like you hear more and more about all these weird symptoms, all these chronic conditions. No one can figure out.

14:52
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes.

14:53
JJ Virgin
Why is it that no one’s figuring these out yet? Is it that we just don’t have this into the standard of care? Is it that like what’s going on?

15:00
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I often say, you know, science is slow, logic is fast. And so yes, there’s about a 15 year lag behind published studies and it getting put into place in clinical practice and practicality for people. So that’s part of it is that the results just don’t translate to doctors right away, sadly. The other thing is I think that there’s money that goes behind published studies and there has sometimes they’re a vested interest really motives. Imagine that. And so, you know, if there’s not money to look at food or vitamins or minerals or other things behind the system, then the studies don’t really get done.

15:35
JJ Virgin
But here’s the reality with these studies that I think is people need to understand is that they’re really expensive to do correctly if they’re not done well, like double blind placebo control, which you can only do for certain things. You cannot double blind placebo control exercise. So there’s certain things that don’t even lend itself to that model. But if you don’t do it that way, then all of the critics attack you for not having the study done that way. And the reality is, with a lot of the things that you might be looking at, it’s so expensive to do, and there’s really no one behind it that would want to fund it.

16:09
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Correct.

16:09
JJ Virgin
And it’s so it’s just. It becomes. You hear the noise of like, oh, so and so funded, that it’s like, well, okay, so the Beef Council funded the Beef study. Someone needs to pay for it. So, you know.

16:21
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Right.

16:21
JJ Virgin
It does come down to. It’s really hard to get funding for a lot of these things.

16:26
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah.

16:26
JJ Virgin
And it seems like to me, especially in the area of like, environmental toxins or mystery illnesses, the physicians who’ve gotten to be really great at it are people whose family member or they got it. And a lot of times you don’t even see much in a blood test.

16:40
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, the blood tests only get you so far. They’re the first step.

16:43
JJ Virgin
Well, I’ve heard too, with like, organic. Oh, that’s not valid.

16:46
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I’m like, what do you mean it’s not valid? Yeah, I mean, I’ve heard so much about this, about the testing and how it’s not there to back some of the functional studies that we do. But I’ve worked in both the conventional world now and the functional world, and I’m much more fulfilled in my career helping people get off of medication and seeing lifelong results that change rather than a band aid for the rest of their lives, which is what I saw in the hospital system a lot.

17:08
JJ Virgin
Well, I think there’s two different. Like thinking back to when my son was in the hospital, like, they saved his life. The things that they were able to do was a kid who was basically dead on the pavement and pull him back and so, you know, fix his torn aorta, get the pressure off his brain. It’s like, miraculous. And then that’s what they did. That’s all they had. Like, that’s. And they basically said, this is what we have now, you know, So I don’t know why there’s a divide between all this stuff. We need all of it. Like, I think emergency medicine’s amazing, but it’s not amazing for chronic conditions.

17:41
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Correct.

17:41
JJ Virgin
I just think one of the big issues that’s just not being talked about are all the environmental toxins.

17:48
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes, I agree. It’s a shame. I think people see and they think, oh, there’s such a tiny parts per million here. You know, let’s say like my yoga pants have, you know, these forever chemicals in them, but it’s like 0.2 parts per million. Who cares? But what we don’t, we aren’t educated on with these toxins is they’re fat soluble and they’re forever chemicals, meaning they don’t break down in the environment or in our bodies very well at all. And so it’s a cumulative exposure over and over that adds up in the body because they’re persistent.

18:17
JJ Virgin
Your body is. I used to say it wasn’t a bank account. Now I say it is a bank account and it’s a chemistry lab and it’s a history book. You know, if I was going to have one tool in the house, it would be a sauna.

18:28
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Me too.

18:28
JJ Virgin
We actually have two saunas.

18:30
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I love it, you know, because it’s.

18:32
JJ Virgin
Like, let’s try to get this stuff out. Because if you look at just the forever chemicals, the plastics, xenoestrogens. Yeah, wild.

18:42
Dr. Jessica Peatross
And you’re right though, you made a really good point. You can sweat these out. I don’t think everyone knows that you can sweat out some of these chemicals you just mentioned.

18:49
JJ Virgin
I think the first part is how would you know if you’ve got a toxic exposure? I know way back, like when we first started looking at all these things, just in the nutrition side of it, I would see people that were really reactive to food. We were like, why is that happening? It’s not the food. They didn’t like, they didn’t all of a sudden start reacting to all these things. What’s really going on here? And you can say stress, but it’s like, okay, but what pushed it over? And then you look at, well, what’s stressing this. And what I saw time and time again is that when people really start to get a big toxic burden, they started reacting to everything.

19:23
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. It makes them like hypersensitive. It’s almost like their liver, the biggest filter organ, is overburdened and their mast cells are just going crazy in their body.

19:30
JJ Virgin
When a mast cell is, it’s the.

19:32
Dr. Jessica Peatross
First offender, white blood cell. So it’s the one that kind of raises the white flag and says, hey, there’s a problem here. We see a foreign intruder, toxic, whatever, release this noxious substance from our cell membrane. And that’s 200 different chemicals, including things like histamine, trypsin, prostaglandins, which cause swelling, itching, redness, all the things that make us feel just not so sexy.

19:54
JJ Virgin
And what would happen? Like, how do you know if you’ve got something going on with your mask?

19:58
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Absolutely. So that’s a great question. Because mast cells are all over the body, they can release histamine in these substances in different parts in different organs. So depending on where your histamine receptors are being pinged, you might have a different reaction than your neighbor who has a histamine problem. So if it’s in the brain, it’s things like brain fog, anxiety. If it’s in the gut, it’s bloating, sometimes loose stools or alternating stools. It’s on the skin, it’s hives, swelling, dermatographia, ecstasy, eczema. If it’s in the bladder, it’s interstitial cystitis. If it’s, you know, out in the, on the allergies or in the sinus cavities, it’s things like itchy, runny eyes, sneezing.

20:34
JJ Virgin
But how would you know? Because those could be other things too. So how does one know?

20:39
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Well, usually there’s certain labels they’ll give people, things like histamine or mast cell activation syndrome, if you will. And this is a collection or constellation of symptoms that they usually meet two or three criteria before you get labeled with this. And sometimes, I’ll be honest with you, jj, it’s really hard for doctors to diagnose. It gets mislabeled all time with people because it’s a catch all for so many symptoms. So it’s kind of like you have to see when you’re reacting and why you’re reacting and match it up with those symptoms. Is it right after you eat and you’re having some sort of histamine response with bloating and brain fog? You know, is it, you know, after you have exposure on the skin and then you get a hives all over and itchy skin? When is this happening?

21:19
Dr. Jessica Peatross
And sometimes that can be a clue for people too.

21:21
JJ Virgin
What about toxic exposure? What would be some of the things makes it someone start to go, Then of course they have to figure out what the toxic exposure is. But what are classic symptoms? Or are there any.

21:32
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, of course. And it’s really. People have to pay attention to their body because it’s before you’re going to get a label or ICD11 code in the hospital. It’s those symptoms beforehand where the insurance.

21:41
JJ Virgin
Really messed everything up in forcing a label.

21:44
Dr. Jessica Peatross
They did, I have to say, because what happens is when you go into doctor, they can’t find anything. Your labs are normal, you look good even though you don’t feel good or look well at all to your liking. And they’ll say, you know, come back when. Watchful waiting, they call it. Come back when symptoms worsen or this happens or that happens and things worsen your condition. So we can give you a label and then you are indicated for that drug. And that’s how the system works. So for most people, they’re not going to get a label for like brain fog. So maybe mild joint pains, feeling like you got hit by a bus in the morning, even though you felt like you slept the night before.

22:15
JJ Virgin
But if you looked at your sleep, if you were really able to evaluate it, would it look like good sleep or not?

22:20
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Heck no.

22:20
JJ Virgin
Okay.

22:21
Dr. Jessica Peatross
It’s not deep sleep. If you have something to track it with, you’re gonna see that it’s broken. Sleep at night, you’re not getting enough REM or deep sleep, you’re not rejuvenated in the morning. And if you feel that way, the results are probably gonna show it on something like an OURA ring. These little questions that I try and spend time with to elicit from patients tell me a lot about if their body’s in homeostasis or not. And if it’s not, it’s really just a matter of time before they get that label. But I wanna catch them beforehand.

22:46
JJ Virgin
It’s now that there are so many ways that we can look at things from CGMs and sleep trackers and HRV. It’s like you’re able to at least start to find things that you can say. There is a metric showing that things are not okay, right? That I am not a crazy human.

23:03
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, absolutely. There are tons of things that can tell us that now. But like I said, it hasn’t. It’s logic, but it hasn’t made into conventional medicine yet for people.

23:11
JJ Virgin
I have a standard of care theory and I feel sorry for the doctors stuck in that system because we all know they don’t want to be there either. But I know I was brought in to bring nutrition into a practitioner training program, but they were trying to figure out how they were going to get it into the test and how the students would still pass their other Medical boards and all the like. I was like, wow, this became such a thing to teach a basically short course on nutrition. I was like, oh, it’s wild. But then you look at all of these things where you have standard of care and then you have the insurance codes. You have all of these things that you get stuck in where you might see different things but they’re not accepted yet.

23:51
JJ Virgin
So then they’re not going to get covered by insurance and then you’re gonna be treated. If you’re crazy, if you do that and as a doctor, you can get in trouble doing it. It’s a really disastrous situation.

24:02
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So many hoops to jump through for doctors and patients to get what they need that the insurance doesn’t cover. I mean, you should see, it’s impossible. It’s impossible to get a vitamin C IV in hospital. It’s impossible.

24:15
JJ Virgin
Really impossible.

24:16
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Wow. You can’t.

24:17
JJ Virgin
And it’s not that expensive. No. So I mean, I think a couple things, like I really love what Dr. Mark Hyman’s done with Function Health because, you know, $500 a year for all that. Twice a year, actually three times because you do a double test the first time. I know because I’m in the middle of doing my second year. But like they do APO Bs and vitamin D like just the most the things that we know that they need to get done, all of it gets done. And it’s cheaper than adding on a couple things to try to get your doctor to do it. So this is fantastic. Some of these other tests are really not that expensive compared to the amount of cost of trying to figure it out and going from doctor to doctor and all the time you lose.

25:01
JJ Virgin
So what about stealth infections? What are they and how would we figure that out for sure?

25:07
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So stealth infections are things that don’t come up normally and just routine blood work and just a routine visit with your doctor. They’re not talked about daily and they hide really well in the body. They’re not bad at their jobs. And some of them, like parasites, have been around as long as we have. You know, I mentioned one, there’s parasites. There are thousands of different kinds. 30% of them are microscopic. So there’s a wealth of knowledge there to learn about. Another one are things like mold and mycotoxins and water damaged homes. I would like to note that in water damaged homes it’s not just mold. Gram positive bacteria called actinomycetes and gram negative endotoxic bacteria can all grow in water damaged buildings too. And that’s often missed. There’s also things like viruses.

25:46
JJ Virgin
How would you know if you had it?

25:47
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. So first of all, there are certain clues for people, but in general, if you wanted to test your home, you would look at an army test. So it’s an environmental relative multi index test that’s developed by the epa, Environmental Protection Agency. And it’s a do it yourself at home test that you swab and vacuum and send in. And I look at them every single day. So I’ve kind of got it standardized in my head at what you want to look for.

26:11
JJ Virgin
And, and you can do it yourself. You don’t need an expert to come in. What about the mold sniffing dogs?

26:16
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So I have recently got into this with my patients and I’ve had some good luck. I really had good luck with it and I like it because there’s sometimes you can get an army test and it says, yes, your house is bad. There’s stuff here but you don’t know where it is.

26:31
JJ Virgin
I was just going to say, and what if you missed? Like, I’m looking at this. I did the dust test. You know that dust test? I’m like, what if I miss? And I mean, it was a lot of work too.

26:40
Dr. Jessica Peatross
It is a lot of work. And people get worried. Maybe I vacuum or I clean too soon or it’s not dusty enough. People have this question for me all the time. So there is some doubt there when you do it yourself. But the people you come and have it in your house, they are not all created equal. You have to be really careful and do your due diligence and vet everyone who comes in.

26:58
JJ Virgin
How do you even know what you’re vetting for?

26:59
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Exactly. That’s the thing.

27:01
JJ Virgin
Okay, so what about those dogs?

27:02
Dr. Jessica Peatross
The dogs? I like the dogs. I’ve had good luck with them, with my patients. In fact, we’ve got some, a number of them. I can probably count four on my hand, right off the top of my head. That we couldn’t get. The army was bad. It was, you know, up in the 20s, we knew they had water damage somewhere and no one could find it. And who wants to rip all their walls up, right? So the dogs came in and they absolutely found the areas amazing. So, yeah, I’ve had good luck with that, actually. I like it a lot. So when you’re stuck, go get a mold sniffing dog for sure.

27:30
JJ Virgin
Yeah. I wonder how you train your dogs just to be mold sniffing dogs, Man.

27:33
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I’ve often wondered, wouldn’t that be great? Yeah, I would Own that dog. It’s kind of on brand.

27:38
JJ Virgin
Yeah. Well, I had. We. So we have. Downstairs, we have a recovery room. And it has a big sunlight and sauna. And then it has like, joov red lights and bon charge red lights. A sunlight and red lights. I can like, stand in there and get like, from every side and all the hyperice, like, vibration stuff. And then. And an hbot. And we had a cold plunge. I know, it was really fantastic. We have a cold plunge. And the cold plunge leaked.

28:07
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Oh.

28:08
JJ Virgin
Now I kept asking Tim because I’m like, the floor’s like puffing up. He goes, oh, you know, it’s the way the floor was laid. I go, really? Because this doesn’t seem right. Then I had a vibrant wellness. They were like. They go, we should take some tests. I’m like, okay. Every year or two, I take all these tests just to make sure everything’s cool. Stools tests, tox tests, et cetera. They’re always fine. Yeah, not this time. It was horrific. And it was both my total tox test and my gut test, which to me shows toxins to trash your gut.

28:42
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So I’m like, yes, they can.

28:43
JJ Virgin
And sure enough, black mold. There we are in our sauna.

28:48
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I think you’re detoxing. That’s right.

28:51
JJ Virgin
Oh, gosh.

28:52
Dr. Jessica Peatross
But not multiple and more in.

28:53
JJ Virgin
But the important thing is, like, I didn’t have any symptoms. I was gonna ask both of us, like, we are pretty resilient humans, and so we didn’t have any symptoms. And that’s why it’s really important to think about these things. Because when we left our house in San Diego, I was pulling all some stuff out of a closet and there was all this black mold. I’m like, oh, you know, I mean, we just never felt it.

29:14
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah. You know, that’s the thing is I feel like even if your drainage is open and you take care of yourself, even if you’ve got an exposure, the test is measuring what’s coming out. It’s not measuring what’s layered in the tissues. It’s measuring what you’re urinating out. And if you’ve got your drainage open, you can sweat, you can poop, your liver and bile move freely, you sleep at night, your body’s in regularity, like it’s nothing.

29:35
JJ Virgin
How do we ever know that you have a whole bunch in there that needs to come out.

29:40
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah. Usually people have symptoms and they will garnish labor. You didn’t have any symptoms because your body was eliminating it as soon as it came in. It’s when it stacks up that people start to feel it and their pathways get blocked. Their body can’t rid itself of the problem.

29:53
JJ Virgin
The stealth infections, how would one find these?

29:57
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes, absolutely. So stealth infections, if people have certain labels, I’ll say something like, rheumatoid arthritis is Lyme disease until proven otherwise for me. Sarcoidosis now in the studies is mold and water damage in the homes until proven otherwise for me. So there’s certain labels that make me want to look a little deeper. For people, Epstein Barr is connected to seven different autoimmune conditions.

30:18
JJ Virgin
Now, doesn’t everybody have Epstein Barr?

30:20
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. And there are some people who have sensitive genes where it can actually trigger different autoimmune conditions within their genetic makeup. Most people get it. 95% of people are seropositive for it, and they don’t remember having mono sometimes. So it’s really dependent on the person and what else is in their toxin bucket?

30:36
JJ Virgin
All I ever heard about mono was it was the kissing disease.

30:39
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes.

30:39
JJ Virgin
How would you know if you even ever had it?

30:42
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So there’s a simple blood test you.

30:43
JJ Virgin
Can do, but you can tell if you have Epstein Barr. But would you remember?

30:47
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Like, I always. One of my questions I ask every patient is, did you have mono growing up? And did it knock you out? Like, were you out for a month or more just laying in bed, fatigued, as could be with swollen glands? And oftentimes those people will be the people that still have recurrences of it where it’s relapsing on them. You can get Epstein Barr IgM, which is acute antibodies, or IgG antibodies, which show it a chronic infection. But there’s also a simple marker that you can add on called Epstein Barr early antigen. And this one, if it’s positive, shows that this little sucker is reactivating on you.

31:19
JJ Virgin
Oh, interesting.

31:20
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So anytime you’re down and out, this thing is very opportunistic. It will reactivate and cause the same symptoms. Scratchy throat, swollen glands, fatigue.

31:28
JJ Virgin
You mentioned dental work. Our buddy, Dr. Sanda Moldovan had me. She’s like, have you and Tim need to come into the office? I’ll do scans and do all this stuff. I’m like, okay. I go in. I’ve had this chronically elevated white blood count, and no one could ever figure it out. I go in, she does a CT scan, she goes, cavitation. So let’s talk dental and all that kind of stuff, because I think people don’t think about that. Like, I’d forgotten I’d Totally forgotten about the root canal I had. It was a traumatic experience. The guy left. Left part of the root in. He yelled at me. He told me he was going to end up breaking my jaw if I didn’t stay still.

32:04
JJ Virgin
I was like, it was so awful that I just blocked it out of my mind until she said, if you had a root canal, I’m like, oh, yeah.

32:12
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Oh, yeah. They pulled that one out. Was it good or no?

32:15
JJ Virgin
So she just dug in there and got.

32:17
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Okay, good. Yeah. But cavitations are an issue we have not talked about. People don’t know what cavitations are. This is where most of us had our wisdom teeth removed, you know, ripped out. I know I did in college. And I had a lot of impactions, too. So this is the first place I’ve actually said out loud that I have an upper left cavitation. I have to be taken care of as well. And it probably is draining my energy.

32:39
JJ Virgin
Yes. Sanda. Sanda, she’s the best.

32:41
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So, you know, this is where the place where the wisdom tooth was doesn’t heal up properly and the gums don’t heal up properly. Especially someone who had a dry socket. This is the indication that you probably have a current cavitation if you had a dry socket. Oftentimes they’ll give people, like, a little clove packet and tell you it’s okay. And it heals up and it’s really not. The body hasn’t fully healed there, and there’s a simmering pocket of infection back where those wisdom teeth were. Yeah. And then your body can’t get to it. And as you can see. Was that the culprit for your high white blood cell count? It was.

33:11
JJ Virgin
What could be other culprits for a high white blood cell count? If someone had just one chronically elevated. But I mean, they were all trying to figure out what it was, and they’re like, it’s ebv.

33:19
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I’m like, that would be on my list for sure. On my differential diagnosis, too, is like something like a chronic stealth pathogen, like Long Covid or Epstein Barr. You know, something like Lyme disease or a CO infection could also do that. Can cause a high or low white blood cell count for depending on the person. So definitely a stealth pathogen. Your body’s seeing something, right?

33:38
JJ Virgin
Yeah. Makes total sense. Yeah. I tested for all those. Nothing. Anything. Although it was interesting when the whole Covid thing came and they tested for your antibodies. I had antibodies. No. Nothing. And then when everybody else got Covid, I’d like taking care of them all.

33:53
Dr. Jessica Peatross
You’Re protected with your antibodies somehow. That’s awesome.

33:57
JJ Virgin
Well, even when I got it again, I didn’t even. I wasn’t even aware I had it. I just had a little sniffle. I was like, oh, I guess I should just check. I mean, that was the extent of it. It was like a sniffle.

34:05
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah.

34:06
JJ Virgin
So I also don’t tend to get sick. Neither does my. My older son.

34:10
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Well, your body’s got your soldier cells prompt and ready. You’ve already got a robust number to go after anything. So there you go.

34:16
JJ Virgin
Warrior. Warrior. Warrior. Well, talking about, like, okay, so you’ve got these infections. I know that you say order matters. Like, when you hear about these infections and you hear about parasite cleanses and do these things, you just feel like you want to go out and just destroy everything, which. No. That would be a no. So walk us through what you do.

34:34
Dr. Jessica Peatross
You know, early in my career, I made this mistake, and I used to just kind of go out and start scorched earth. Yeah, because, you know, as a hospitalist, we just started antibiotics on anybody that came in and killed everything.

34:44
JJ Virgin
What exactly is the hospitalist?

34:45
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So this is kind of the quarterback of the team in the hospital, the emergency department. Whenever someone would come in, they would stabilize them in the er, and then they would call me if they needed to be admitted. So if they couldn’t discharge them from the er, they came to me, unless it was an acute emergent surgery. So I admitted everything from diabetic ketoacidosis to heart attacks to a foot ulcer, whatever you wanted. I had to know a little bit about that.

35:09
JJ Virgin
Wow. But that’s what a great, broad knowledge base.

35:12
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. It prepared me for a lot, I have to say.

35:14
JJ Virgin
What made you choose to do that?

35:16
Dr. Jessica Peatross
You know, I had a really good doc on my team, as well as residents on my team in residency when I was an intern. I loved. I loved all of them on the internal medicine team. And I think I had such a good month with everyone and learned so much in that environment, it made me want to choose that profession. Plus, out of internal medicine, you can do a bunch of different specialties. Things like rheumatology, nephrology, cardiology. All these are different types of fellowships that you can do after internal medicine. So it’s kind of like this broad base that you can jump and do niches from.

35:46
JJ Virgin
So we know you don’t scorch the earth with it. So what do you do?

35:50
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, you know, that was early in my career. So now I’ve Learned to be nice to my patients. If you want them to come back and like you, then you could, you can treat their body a little bit better. So now I try and get them out of flight or fight. That’s the hardest part of my job, to be honest with you.

36:03
JJ Virgin
How do you do that?

36:04
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I do it with a combination of supplements and lifestyle changes. So I really like things like vagal nerve stimulators. I really love PEMF mats, really love red lights.

36:13
JJ Virgin
And what is a vagal nerve stimulator for people who are like going, what the heck is that?

36:18
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes, I actually saw it when I’ve had a traumatic brain injury before and gone to a brain clinic. My mother went with me because she was stuck in fight or fight. And they gave us both these nerve stimulators and I was hooked after that. There’s different variations of them. Some come on the wrist, some go around the neck and they vibrate right here on the carotid sheath where the vagus nerve is. Some go right on the sternum here where the vagus nerve runs. And it’s like a soft vibration. You can change the setting to do what you want.

36:46
JJ Virgin
Does the happy do that?

36:47
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Oh yes, it’s similar to that as well. And Apollo health, the pulse setto is another one. And it’s great because for whatever reason, this soothing vibration calms the vagus nerve and puts it in the right tone, which controls how our body functions and how nerves function in the body. Vagus nerve connects from the back of the brain all the way down, connects to different organs all the way down to the small intestines. So kind of a catch all for everything. I’ll do that. And then I’ll also use like liposomal Gaba with L theanine. I’ll use high dose minerals because the nerves need a potential or charge to fire. And that charge comes from minerals. So that regulates the nervous system.

37:24
JJ Virgin
And I think we are classically having low mineral status because everyone’s filtering their water. Yes, that was my take on it because I was like going, why am I getting leg cramps where I never used to? And I went, oh, I just. Everything is filtered, you know.

37:40
Dr. Jessica Peatross
What I noticed was that when I started putting reverse osmosis water into my dog’s bowl, she refused to drink it. And she would drink tap water.

37:49
JJ Virgin
Wow.

37:50
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Tap water, but not RO water. And I was like, what does that tell me here? My dog’s maybe.

37:55
JJ Virgin
I wonder if we need to mineralize her dog’s water.

37:58
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, that’s definitely. Take a Note on that I started doing that after that. I did learn something new every day. So yes, I start with the nervous system and regulating that with people do my best to get them out of fight or fight. Although you can’t always be successful depending on someone’s life, right? Then next I open drainage and that means everyone has these natural and monctories, the naturopathic doctors call them, or ways to release toxins. You guys poop because we release toxins. That’s the whole purpose. And sweating helps cool us down. It also releases a ton of environmental toxins. As you mentioned earlier, the liver is one of our biggest filters. Besides the skin helps to process everything out of our body with the kidneys.

38:36
Dr. Jessica Peatross
And so if these things are stagnant or not working at peak performance, people begin to collect toxins in their toxin bucket. And eventually when that toxin bucket begins to overflow, you garnish a label, unfortunately. And so I prep the body because if I start killing things off and then I. You can’t poop or you can’t sweat. Gosh, you’re gonna feel like you have the flu and then you’re not gonna want to talk to me anymore. So it’s nice to make sure we don’t recirculate those. Those are the two steps I take before you do any sort of killing or eradicating.

39:07
JJ Virgin
And how do you know what you’re killing off?

39:09
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Sometimes I’ll test sometimes with parasites. I don’t have a great test or people don’t have the money to pay 5, $600 for an extra test for just for parasites. So oftentimes I’ll start with broad spectrum herbs, holistic herbs that I know cover things like Lyme parasites and bacteria and other things like yeast. And I’ll have tests that can quantify some of those, but not parasites.

39:36
JJ Virgin
Any gross things that you’ve seen from that?

39:38
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Oh yeah, for sure. I’ve seen disgusting. I’ve seen people pull worms out of their nose. I joke that no pictures. Any other sexy pictures that you ever slide into my DMs? It’s parasite poo pictures.

39:49
JJ Virgin
That’s so funny.

39:50
Dr. Jessica Peatross
That’s it. That’s all people send me.

39:53
JJ Virgin
So if someone’s listening right now and they’re like, I have felt kind of stuck for years. I have these low grade symptoms and I think that’s the problem is there’s like these creeping up low grade symptoms. So it’s sort of like boiling the crab or you go and try to find them and they can’t find Them, and that’s just your normal. What’s the first step?

40:12
Dr. Jessica Peatross
The first step really is to start, I think, find someone who will listen to you. I mean, a good doctor. They’re not going to spend eight minutes with you. They’re going to spend an hour with you getting your history, triggers and antecedents. They know what to test for. And the functional tests really do take it a step deeper than a lot of the conventional tests. So it’s always say test, don’t guess. And then also find a doctor who wants to get you off of medicine rather than spot treat everything and put you on medication and wants to listen to your story. It’s really important that you resonate with someone on that. And it may be easy for me to sit up here and say it.

40:45
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I mean, look, on the Institute of Functional Medicine’s website, there are a lot of different places you can find a good practitioner these days.

40:50
JJ Virgin
You guys have. Yours is all virtual, right?

40:52
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes, yes, it is.

40:54
JJ Virgin
How many states can you see people from?

40:56
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. So right now we’ve got a bunch of different practitioners with different licenses in different states. I’ve got three now, so I’m moving on up.

41:04
JJ Virgin
Where are you now?

41:05
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Which, so Florida, of course, West Virginia, Texas and Missouri. Right now, aren’t you.

41:13
JJ Virgin
Are you from West Virginia?

41:14
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Oh, good memory. Yeah.

41:16
JJ Virgin
Well, you catch it every once in a while with some of the words you use.

41:19
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, I know. I tried so hard to get rid of that twang and I never went away.

41:24
JJ Virgin
Now back to drainage, because I feel like that’s something everybody can benefit from.

41:28
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes.

41:28
JJ Virgin
And I remember early on in the space, like, people would go and do these detoxes and they didn’t ever even check to see if they were like, don’t free those toxins up.

41:37
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, that’s a problem.

41:38
JJ Virgin
So what are some of the things that someone could do to just help improve drainage in room removal?

41:45
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I love it. So the biohacking world really had a lot, right? Sauna is my favorite. I think we talked about that, is.

41:50
JJ Virgin
My favorite for so many things. Let’s talk sauna. Like, why do you love sauna? What are some of the different things it does for you?

41:57
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So sauna has a myriad of benefits. I mean, honestly, I love some of the research that shows what it can do with neurodegenerative diseases and how it refolds misfolded proteins based on heat shock proteins. It’s activating.

42:09
JJ Virgin
And a heat shock protein, ECL protein.

42:12
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Is something that happens when we’re looking for Hormesis, it’s a stressor on the body. Right. And so it really helps the body to. I take a second look at something that it may have misfolded and refold again, which calls for proper genes, actually. So this helps people to heal.

42:28
JJ Virgin
Okay, so we love the sauna. What else?

42:30
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Sauna is a beautiful thing. I actually like just simple things, too. Castor oil packs, dry brushing. Breath work is people always go, what is dry brushing?

42:38
JJ Virgin
I go, it’s a brush. You’re dry, it’s dry, you brush.

42:43
Dr. Jessica Peatross
And sometimes people tell me it hurts when you go on the shins and the calves. And that’s an indication for me that there is toxic load there and there’s a little bit of tenderness. So as you go on and you get better with the dry brushing and moving the toxins, that sensitivity often goes away. For people, breath work is a big one. The lungs detox about 70% of the toxins. They’re one of the first line of drainage pathways that we don’t talk about enough. So breath work can be a huge detox for people, too. I love binders as well. Binders are something nice that if you’re remineralized, you can take while traveling or during a detox.

43:16
JJ Virgin
Okay, you just said two things people won’t understand. You said binders, and then you said you can take them if you’re remineralized, which I don’t know how they know. So first of all, what are binders?

43:25
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. So binders are sticky substances that help pull things from the tissues in the body and then bind them up so that you can usually poop them out, to be honest.

43:34
JJ Virgin
Okay, and what are some of the examples of them?

43:36
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Sure. So zeolite, bentonite, clay, and most people have heard of activated charcoal. It’s a great one. If people drink too much or have a hangover, that’s a great way to fix the gut really quick. I wouldn’t say fix the gut, but help the gut feel better. And then my favorite binders are the humic and fulvic acid binders.

43:53
JJ Virgin
And so I’ve got. Downstairs, I’ve got a fulvic bath soak.

43:57
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Ooh, yeah. Oh, I like it.

43:59
JJ Virgin
So I did it the other day, but I don’t. What’s it do?

44:02
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So, yes, it can actually pull things from the tissues, from the skin. One of the things I do is if someone gets a tick bite, I do a binder pulse. So I had to open the fulvic and humic acid binders, mix them with distilled water, paint it on where the tick bite was, and it sucks. The toxins, the actual bacteria, toxins from the skin.

44:22
JJ Virgin
You behave like a naturopathic doctor.

44:25
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes, yes, I do.

44:26
JJ Virgin
Disguised as a medical doctor.

44:28
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes, I do. You’re right. I absolutely do. I actually have been told I’m more naturopathic than some naturopathic doctors. So, you know, the binders are pretty amazing. I love them. But what you want to do is make sure you take them away from food and other supplements so you don’t bind up the minerals that you’re taking. And so that leads me to the next point about remineralization, because some binders, not fulvic and humic, that’s why they’re my favorite. But some of the clays, the charcoals, can actually bind up minerals and food from mineral or minerals from food that you’ve eaten. And so you want to be careful because obviously if you’re stripped of minerals, your nervous system doesn’t work properly. And then we have a whole other beast we have to deal with.

45:05
JJ Virgin
Yeah.

45:05
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So. So make sure you’ve got your minerals, you’ve got your electrolytes. You’re not sweating five days a week for 40 minutes, 150 degrees.

45:11
JJ Virgin
I know. More is not more.

45:13
Dr. Jessica Peatross
That’s right. That’s right. It’s moderation here. So, you know, binders are great as long as you’re remineralized. You’re taking the ones that don’t bind minerals up, but they can be awesome for food poisoning, for acute illnesses, or, you know, if you’re doing a parasite mold cleanse, something like that, for binding up what you’re killing off.

45:31
JJ Virgin
Love it.

45:31
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah.

45:31
JJ Virgin
If someone was looking at their home and they’re saying, first, I want to get a sauna, but what’s one other thing that they could change in their home that they might not be thinking of that could make a big difference.

45:42
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Absolutely. You know, I always look at what people are like, burning in their house as far as candles go, what you’re spraying, as far as, like, cleaning household cleaners and laundry detergents and things like that. That’s something that’s a pretty easy swap for most people if they just do their research and see how many things aren’t regulated in that industry and what they’re putting, what we’re eating off our dishes and wearing on our clothes every day.

46:05
JJ Virgin
I was still using. I don’t know what, like, I was like, how did I do this? I have switched everything over, like, over the years. I mean, this is years. I’ve been using all good cleaning products and safe cookware, and I had plastic cutting boards. I’m like, what is wrong with me?

46:20
Dr. Jessica Peatross
It’s like a disconnect.

46:21
JJ Virgin
Yeah.

46:22
Dr. Jessica Peatross
The other thing that people can change in their house is just grab a good air filter.

46:26
JJ Virgin
I’m just gonna do some rapid fire if you’re ready.

46:28
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I’m ready.

46:29
JJ Virgin
Ready?

46:29
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes.

46:30
JJ Virgin
One test you love.

46:31
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Ooh. The Total Talks Burden by Vibrant Labs. My favorite.

46:34
JJ Virgin
I’ve got to redo mine. One test you think is overrated.

46:37
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Food sensitivity test.

46:39
JJ Virgin
I used to be such a fan of food sensitivity, and now I’m like going, it’s just an indicator of other things.

46:44
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yeah, exactly. It’s not root cause.

46:45
JJ Virgin
It’s not the root cause.

46:46
Dr. Jessica Peatross
That’s right.

46:47
JJ Virgin
It’s not. Yeah. It’s like you’ve got all these food intolerances because of the other things.

46:51
Dr. Jessica Peatross
It’s like, don’t blame the food if it’s a healthy food. It’s like, there’s.

46:54
JJ Virgin
Your gut is like, fix your gut.

46:55
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes.

46:56
JJ Virgin
You know, pull it out while you’re fixing your gut, fix your gut. Not the food, it’s the gut. One red flag symptom. You never ignore weight gain and constipation.

47:06
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I never ignore those two. It’s a sign that future problems are coming.

47:10
JJ Virgin
Fill this one in. Here’s the blank line. Healing is mostly self awareness. Now, I know you have a parasite checklist of some sort, I think. Or an ebook. Something you said you were going to give everybody. Walk me through what it is.

47:23
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. So this is going to talk all about education on parasites. Let’s do the ebook because it’s much more open and it’s. It’s multiple pages. It’s going to describe crazy pictures. Yeah, absolutely. We’re gonna get it for the pic. That’s right. Just for the pick. So you guys can compare what’s in your poop. I know you want to do that. So, yeah, there’s the types, what they look like, what to look for, the symptomatology, My favorite test, how to get rid of them, all that kind of stuff.

47:48
JJ Virgin
Because at some point, everyone’s gonna have parasites.

47:50
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I mean, they don’t understand about borders. People told me to live in the United States. Like parasites under scene borders. You think we have a great food system here now?

47:57
JJ Virgin
Yeah.

47:57
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Come on.

47:58
JJ Virgin
Because I’m just eating food from my backyard that’s totally washed. Although we’re supposed to get the dirt, so. Well, I will also link to your Instagram because you have a Great IG presence. Do you have a podcast?

48:10
Dr. Jessica Peatross
I’m launching one, actually. It’s Dr. Jess Unfiltered.

48:14
JJ Virgin
Oh boy.

48:14
Dr. Jessica Peatross
So we’re in the middle of recording right now.

48:16
JJ Virgin
That will be great.

48:17
Dr. Jessica Peatross
Yes. Yes.

48:18
JJ Virgin
Okay. So yes, we’ll put all of that@jjvirgin.com Dr. Jess, I so appreciate you making the trip across. Across what? The bridge across the bay? That’s right.

48:30
Dr. Jessica Peatross
No, thank you for having me. It was awesome.

48:32
JJ Virgin
If you’ve been struggling with symptoms no one can explain and you’ve maybe even started to think, gosh, is this just in my head? I hope today gave you something essential, language for your experience. You’re not broken and you’re not being dramatic and you’re not imagining it. It. Your body is wise. It communicates in symptoms. And the problem isn’t you. It’s that no one’s really taught us how to listen. The truth is you don’t need to be fixed. You need the obstacles, the healing removed. And that’s hopeful because with the right lens and the right sequence, your body knows exactly what to do. So if this conversation resonated, if you saw yourself in these stories, I just encourage you. We talked about some things you could do just to get started, just take one small step.

49:18
JJ Virgin
Quite often it’s just that one little thing that can totally change the trajectory of your health and of your life. And as a reminder, I put a bunch of great stuff@jjvirgin.com Dr. Jess Be sure of course, to like and subscribe. I really love comments and ratings. It helps the show a lot, helps me a lot. I’m always looking for how we can up level and what you loved about the show so I can do more of it. So thanks in advance for that and I’ll see you next time. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can use to look and feel your best and be built to last. Also, I’d love to connect with you and hear your thoughts on the podcast. Here’s how. First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review.

50:07
JJ Virgin
Second, take a screenshot of your review and third, text it to 813-565-2627. That’s 813-565-2627. When you do, I’ll reply using my brand new virtual jj. It’s my on demand virtual self built from my books, talks and years of experience so I can interact with you directly. You’ll make my day and I can’t wait to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you on the next episode. Hey, JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that’s designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional.

51:07
JJ Virgin
Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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