Cellular Toxicity: The Root Cause of Aging, Inflammation & Chronic Disease

You might be doing everything “right” for your health, and still feel exhausted, inflamed, or stuck. The reason may be cellular toxicity: an invisible overload from food, water, air, stress, infections, and even your own metabolism that quietly ages your cells and hijacks your energy. Thank you to our sponsors! Sunlighten Sauna: https://get.sunlighten.com/axepodcast Manukora Manuka Honey: https://manukora.com/axe Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe 🎧 Early Access! Our podcast listeners get every episode early, and you can tune in and be a part of our exclusive listeners below → Spotify: https://bit.ly/DrJoshAxeSpotify Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3JDvWcS My Favorite Sauna Brand→ Sunlighten Sauna: https://get.sunlighten.com/axepodcast My Favorite Honey Brand→ Manukora Manuka Honey: https://manukora.com/axe Order My Book, The Biblio Diet → https://bit.ly/4oPEP3t Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms →http://DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → DrAxeHormoneClass.com Uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! → http://MyBloodWork.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrjoshaxeshow/ X: https://x.com/drjoshaxe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshaxe Website: http://thehealthinstitute.com Sign up for my newsletter: https://bit.ly/4oE9Jf3 Ask me a question: http://speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe Links https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/2025/06/new-epa-data-shows-165m-people-exposed-forever-chemicals-us https://www.who.int/news/item/04-04-2022-billions-of-people-still-breathe-unhealthy-air-new-who-data https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/129437 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019318495?via%3Dihub https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7347016/ https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/mthfr-gene-mutation-tests-symptoms-treatment https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8619365/ https://www.cdc.gov/mold-health/about/index.html https://publichealth.gmu.edu/news/2025-06/international-study-reveals-glyphosate-weed-killers-cause-multiple-types-cancer https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/3492/ https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-025-01187-2 https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-first-ever-national-drinking-water-standard https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP10359 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41370-024-00742-2 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8078867/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8025785/ https://www.ewg.org/research/body-burden-pollution-newborns https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.33443 https://www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/gfnd/gfhnrc/docs/news-articles/2012/the-question-of-sugar/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11351758/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/hayflick-limit https://idf.org/news/gbd-estimates-2021/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39450216/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047637423001148?via%3Dihubhttps:// https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9345296/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37527766/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-018-0092-9 www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/cam/patient/gerson-pdq https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2024/04/08/what-is-fiber-and-why-is-it-important-for-the-microbiome/ DISCLAIMER This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes onl

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

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• 1:15Josh Axe?

  We are living in a strange moment in history. We have access more than ever before to healthy foods, supplements, gyms, biohacks, and yet rates of autoimmune disease, cancer, infertility, brain fog, and fatigue continue to climb. And if you're wondering what's going on, the reality is this: we have to zoom way, way in to see what's actually happening, and here's the problem: our cells are sick. The human body is made up of around 35 trillion cells, and if your cells aren't healthy, your organs and your entire body can't be healthy. And most people today, the average person, is dealing with major cellular toxicity.

• 1:57Josh Axe?

  We are constantly being bombarded and assaulted, at least our cells are, with environmental chemicals, hidden infections, everything from mold to parasites to long COVID.

• 2:10Josh Axe?

  Waste and even our own lifestyle choices are constantly harming our cells, making them toxic and making them sick. Even if your labs say you're normal, by the way, oftentimes we're still dealing with cellular toxicity issues that are damaging our mitochondria, our cell membranes, our nucleus, our DNA, and turning on our genes, everything from MTHFR to glutathione genes. And when these are turned on, our body cannot detoxify properly. So you end up feeling sick all the time. And today I'm going to walk you through how to heal cellular toxicity and go over the three big threats to our cells, causing them to be toxic,

• 2:52Josh Axe?

  oxidative stress, imperitophagy, and cellular senescence. And I'll walk you through the top foods, supplements, and detoxification protocols to heal your body at the cellular level. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Ak Show.

• 3:22Josh Axe?

  So what is cellular toxicity? Well, it is a chronic issue that is a low-grade buildup of harmful exposures that push yourselves into a persistent stress response. And it's rarely one dramatic event. Most often, it's the accumulation of numerous things, including environmental chemicals like herbicides, including glyphosate, which most of us are consuming on a daily basis via our food supply. Anytime you're eating a food that's not organic and natural, there are chemicals like glyphosate on those foods. That's one thing that's adding up. There are PFAs, there are forever chemicals in our food supply and our personal care products. There are heavy metals we're exposed to, biological toxins,

• 4:07Josh Axe?

  mold, Lyme, viruses, parasites, bad bacteria like H. pylori and Candida. There are metabolic toxins, especially from excess sugar and toxic food products.

• 4:20Josh Axe?

  And there are lifestyle stressors, poor sleep, chronic emotional stress, unresolved emotional trauma from childhood and ultra-processed food. All these things add up and make our cells toxic and sick. So we can't function properly. You know, one thing that happens in particular, I do want to mention is, is that these chemicals can block our cell receptor sites, which throws your hormone imbalance off. We see this with a lot of these bisphenol A and a lot of the chemicals in our food, supply and personal care products. They will go and increase estrogen in the body. They'll block some estrogen receptor sites and then that lowers testosterone in men, increases estrogen in women, which causes infertility,

• 5:03Josh Axe?

  can increase the likelihood of conditions like PCOS. Also for women going through menopause, that can affect them as well when those estrogen levels are off. So we know that's a major issue related to cellular toxicity. So most people think, well, if my hormones are off, that that must be genetic or there's something else going on. Well, oftentimes it's a cellular toxicity issue. And here's what happens with all of these different toxins from our food and personal care products and even emotional triggers. These start to overwhelm our cells. You know, think about it like this. Each cell is a high performing factory. Your mitochondria are the power plant sending energy out to every area of your cell and organ.

• 5:49Josh Axe?

  Autophagy, this is your janitorial and recycling team, sort of repairing and waste management, getting rid of all the stuff that shouldn't be in there, detoxifying the cell. And then your senescent systems, these are like HR. They're offboarding the old and bringing on the new workers on a regular basis. And antioxidants are your fire suppression system. So if there's a fire or an emergency, they're putting out that fire. Now imagine this, the factory is receiving more toxic raw materials than ever before. Chemicals, pollutants, microplastics. At the same time, the waste removal system is partially offline due to poor sleep. Nutrient deficiencies in a sedentary lifestyle.

• 6:35Josh Axe?

  And then what happens, the alarm system starts going off constantly saying, whoa, you know, imagine a conveyor belt that can't keep up. Well, then the alarm goes off saying, hey, something's wrong here. And this is chronic inflammation, sympathetic overdrive. And here's what happens, the factory doesn't collapse overnight. It just becomes noisy and efficient, inflamed and air prone. And that's what's happening at the cellular level for millions of people. This is why you're getting issues like the brain fog and fatigue. Your body is just overwhelmed and overloaded. And this isn't a rare problem, by the way. It affects tens of millions of people in the United States alone.

• 7:17Josh Axe?

  And one study found that over 80% of Americans have measurable glyphosate in their bodies. 99% of Americans have PFAs or these forever chemicals in their blood, including 165 million people who have been exposed to them from contaminated drinking water. Heavy metals like lead and mercury and arsenic are also found in our tap water and in farm fish and even cosmetics and sugar consumption is also through the roof, which drives toxicity in several ways. In fact, the global burden of disease study attributes 184,000 deaths per year worldwide to sugar sweetened beverages alone.

• 8:03Josh Axe?

  Cellular toxicity is now recognized as a driver behind almost every modern disease, including heart disease, Alzheimer's, autoimmune disorders, infertility, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, diabetes, and many others.

• 8:20Josh Axe?

  If you've been exposed to hidden toxins in your food, water, air, and even cookware, which almost 100% of us have, they could be wreaking havoc on your cells. Cellular toxicity is real and most doctors aren't running the right tests to catch what's actually going on. This new test flips the script. The future of interpreting lab tests is here. I'm currently offering a simple at home blood test that actually tests for the right things targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid, and metabolism, plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now.

• 9:08Josh Axe?

  And I want to mention, this is critically important, not everyone responds to the same way to toxicity. Did you know there are many people that have genetic variants that inhibit their ability to detoxify? And there's two in particular I want to mention here, the first being the MTHFR gene variant. Roughly 40% of people have methylation variants, which impact how well their body utilizes and creates B vitamins that produce glutathione. And this variant makes it harder to detoxify and regulate inflammation. There's actually a very similar thing to MTHFR, and it's actually a glutathione enzyme inhibitor, GST,

• 9:51Josh Axe?

  and this glutathione S transferase, if that's, if you have that genetic variant as well, which almost 50% of people do, you also can't create glutathione as well, which is your body's master antioxidant for detoxification. So, and there are some people that have both MTHFR and GST, and so their body really is inhibited at detoxifying, and so they need to be doing certain foods and supplements and other things to support their body's detoxification channels. In addition to those two variants, there's a third that an estimated 25% of people have, which impacts the immune system and makes it harder for them to clear mold. I mean,

• 10:33Josh Axe?

  I've seen more and more people coming into my virtual practice where people are dealing with mold issues than ever before, and other things like long COVID, viral issues, a lot of these pathogens that act like toxins on the body. And that's why one person can walk into a moldy room and feel nothing. Well, another person is knocked flat out for several weeks with fatigue, brain fog, or autoimmune flares. You know, one example of this is a friend of mine, Michaela Peterson. She was exposed to mold, greatly impacted her and her health in a negative way. And then her father, the famed Jordan Peterson, right now is in a battle and dealing with mold toxicity, working to overcome that as well. But there are millions and millions of people that are sick, gaining weight,

• 11:17Josh Axe?

  hormone imbalance, brain fog, and other issues because they don't realize they've had mold exposure, or they've got a gene variant where they're not detoxifying as well. So where one person isn't affected at all, they are greatly impacted. And I want to walk you through three hidden threats to our cellular health right now. The first is this, environmental toxins. As we've talked about glyphosate, this is an herbicide and probable carcinogen sprayed on our food and found in water. Glyphosate remains today the world's most commonly used weed killer. It raises the cancer risk of those exposed by 41% according to a new analysis.

• 11:58Josh Axe?

  It disrupts gut bacteria, increases leaky gut, and damages the BRCA, BRCA1 and 2 genes, increasing the risk of breast cancer, also increasing the risk of infertility, endometriosis, and liver cancer, and it's still used today. Here's another big one, forever chemicals. These have been used since the 1950s in nonstick pans, food packaging, and even yoga mats. They don't break down, so they build up in the body, which is why they're called forever chemicals, and studies link them to a higher risk for certain cancers, obesity, and reproductive and hormone disorders.

• 12:36Josh Axe?

  Research ties these PFAs in tap water to higher rates of digestive and hormonal issues and cancer. The American Red Cross Association found that newborns are born with over 200 synthetic chemicals in their umbilical cord blood, including flame retardants, pesticides, and forever chemicals. We have kids being exposed even before birth. And heavy metal exposure is becoming another problem with a lot of the food shipped over from China, a lot of the things shipped over from overseas have a lot of these chemicals in them and heavy metals are also found in farm raised fish, tap water, shellfish,

• 13:20Josh Axe?

  in some paint products and plumbing, even in certain pesticides, canned goods, there is a lot of exposure to heavy metals. We even know aluminum, right, and antiperspirant deodorant, we are also bombarded with those. So you can see here, there are so many chemicals, even in our environment, that are making us sick today. And that's not even talking about food yet and other sources. And what these chemicals do to our cells over time is they start to damage our mitochondria, our membranes and our cells as a whole. When this happens, it impairs detoxification. It disrupts hormones. I mentioned earlier, some of these heavy metals will take the place of mineral receptor sites like iron

• 14:02Josh Axe?

  and zinc. So now your immune system and blood are weakened. Some of these heavy metals and toxins will interfere with hormone receptor sites, increasing your risk of different types of hormone imbalance and cancer and diabetes and depression and anxiety. So we see this as a major issue when we think about all of these toxins and how they impact our cell receptor sites and damage our mitochondria, which are the energy factories of our cells. Now, the second hidden threat to our cellular health and our overall health are biological toxins. Now, not all toxins are chemicals per se. Many come from hidden infections,

• 14:40Josh Axe?

  such as Epstein Barr virus, CMV, Lyme bacteria, mold, and parasites. These pathogens don't always cause obvious symptoms. They burrow into our tissues, hijack our mitochondria, and simmer quietly, draining energy and fueling inflammation. In fact, it's widely known that if you're exposed to certain viruses, everything from herpes to long COVID, to a number of other viruses, they will slow slowly deplete your mitochondria energy. In fact, as I've taken care of now hundreds of people with long COVID. One of the things they all suffer with is low energy. Okay, low on COVID equals low energy.

• 15:24Josh Axe?

  Part of what's happening is that virus is causing your blood cells to stick together. It's damaging your blood and it's actually damaging your mitochondria as well. So basically imagine a leech sitting on all of your cells sucking out all of your energy from your body. That's what's happening with conditions like long COVID is your energy is just being pulled from your body. This is why we have to do things to support the mitochondria and also directly go and kill the virus. So your body can finally heal. You know, in addition to these viruses, parasites are also a major issue and have also been linked to cancer. In fact, a 2021 International Journal of Cancer study found

• 16:06Josh Axe?

  that T Gandhi parasitic infection was associated with an up to 270% increased risk of brain tumors like gliomas. And what happens is when you have these pathogens in your body like parasites. Now your immune system is having to go and deal with this parasite or this virus or whatever infection you have. Well, because your body and your surveillance and your immune system is going and focusing all this energy on this parasite. Now cancer cells over here like, okay, well now I can grow and proliferate. Because your immune system starts getting overwhelmed and it gets even worse when you not only have a parasite, but you have a virus and you have H. pylori and you have candida. Many people have multiple co-infections.

• 16:49Josh Axe?

  And their immune system and their cells get absolutely overwhelmed and fatigued because listen, most people have a pretty robust immune system. And if you're fighting one person, your immune system can handle it. But what if you had to fight not just one person, but two and three and four and five? That gets pretty hard to win. And that's what's happening to many of your immune systems today. And this is why you're fatigued. You get sick so easy. You might get a diagnosis like a cancer or immune deficiency or some other health problem is because your body can't handle fighting all of these infections at once. You know, one of my best friends, Dr. Pete Sulak, had a parasite infection for years because he was doing these missionary trips to India and all over the world.

• 17:34Josh Axe?

  And he developed a brain tumor. He was given less than a 1% chance to live. But instead of chemo and radiation, he chose a root cause approach focusing on detoxification, liver support, targeted nutrition, a ketogenic diet, and protocols directly related to killing parasites in his body. He did everything from ivermectin to a lot of strong herbals and mushrooms and things like that to be able to kill off these parasites, which then allowed his immune system to thrive. And today, even though he was given a 1% chance to live, he is still thriving and healthy as well. Praise God. But all that being said, if you want to heal, remember it's

• 18:19Josh Axe?

  always important to get to the actual root of the issue. And that's why, I mean, chemo and radiation, those are never getting to the root versus knowing this was originally caused by a parasitic infection, going and treating that and allowing the body to heal. That's the key. Now, the third threat to cellular health I want to talk about are metabolic toxins. Now, some toxins are made inside of us, especially from sugar overload. The average American today eats 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day. Teens eat 34 teaspoons of added sugar a day. That's more than 100 pounds of sugar per person per year. In 1822, it took five days to

• 19:04Josh Axe?

  eat what we now consume in a single soda. Today, we eat that much sugar every seven hours. The International Diabetes Foundation projects that the number of people with diabetes will rise from 529 million in 2021 to 1.3 billion by 2050. Many cases are linked to environmental and dietary toxins driving insulin resistance. Here's the reality, excess sugar is a toxin or acts like a toxin in the body. Here's the, there's nowhere in nature where you're going to get that much sugar as an isolated compound in your body. Even things like maple syrup and, and fruit and honey,

• 19:47Josh Axe?

  there's fiber, there's antioxidants, there's amino acids with them that are slowing the absorption, they're food. It's very, very different than isolated processed sugar. Sugar causes hypoglycemia, which is a form of toxicity when chronic due to the production of something called ROS, reactive oxygen species, which then causes oxidative stress on the body, which then damages your cells. Imagine your cells are all these healthy run cars, zooming through your body, working well. Or again, they're factories, they're plants creating energy, helping your body function properly. And then you take a big sledgehammer and you just are breaking and damaging things. That's what sugar does. That's what these

• 20:28Josh Axe?

  sneaky pathogens like parasites do over time and these environmental toxins is they literally are breaking and damaging your cells. And we all know if you have a piece of equipment that's running via electricity and you bash it with a sledgehammer, it's not going to work properly. Well, that's what's happening in our cells in our body oftentimes. You know, excess sugar damages your cells because one, it feeds the wrong gut microbes. Did you know that if you eat sugar, it's going to cause yeast and candida and H. pylori to grow versus if you're having something, specific types of soluble fiber, for instance, from apples and pomegranates and avocado, those sort of, that type of fiber is going

• 21:12Josh Axe?

  to feed a lot of the good microbes that you want to help you absorb nutrients and create nutrients and detoxify your gut. So what you eat is greatly going to affect your gut microbiome.

• 21:25Josh Axe?

  And cause certain types of bacterial strains or yeast to grow. So that that's a, that's a really, really big deal, by the way, when you're thinking about what you're eating and what you're feeding your body on a regular basis. And also, if you're eating too much sugar, it dries leaky gut, which is the main reason why people get autoimmune disease. It overwhelms the liver. It produces toxic byproducts like uric acid, which then causes aging, uh, which again causes oxidative stress, which is like taking a sledgehammer to your cells in your body. Now, when your cells get damaged, it accelerates aging. It depletes nutrients like B vitamins and glutathione and hammers your mitochondria.

• 22:08Josh Axe?

  And ages, as we talked about here, due to excess sugar is directly connected to wrinkles and skin aging. And too much sugar leaves you fatigued with brain fog, digestive issues and inflammation. There's a study that found that high sugar diets even increase non-alcoholic fatty liver disease risk considerably, even in children. And isolated fructose that you're going to find in things like processed fruit juice, like everything from orange juice to apple juice that's highly processed. That fructose is primarily metabolized in the liver and can then be converted into body fat, a process known as lipogenesis. So that bad fat you have around your organs that increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes.

• 22:53Josh Axe?

  That's the sort of fat that's created when you have excess sugar consumption, even if it comes from a fruit. And here's how many of these toxins start to age our cells. Excess toxins drive free radical buildup. When antioxidants can't keep up like glutathione, your cells essentially start to rust from the inside. Or imagine this, you take a bite of an apple. Okay. You know where all the antioxidants are on an apple? On the skin, right? That dark red or green color you're going to see there. When you take a bite of the apple, what immediately starts to happen? It starts to turn brown. Okay. It starts to rust. It starts to decay. It starts to age. That same thing happens when your glutathione reserves run out. Or other types of antioxidants.

• 23:35Josh Axe?

  The polyphenols, the bio, you know, the polyphenols found in things like extra virgin olive oil, the flavonoids found in berries. When those start to run out. Well, now, all of a sudden, your cells start to rust and decay. And this damages your DNA, your mitochondria, your cell membranes, leaving you sick, disrupting your hormones and aging you more quickly. You know, one of the things that also happens during this process is something called cellular senescence, okay, increases cellular senescence. And here's what that is. There's something called the Hayflick and Moorhead discovery. And this is where they found that cells stopped dividing after about 50 divisions. Okay, so your cells divide, divide, divide over time. You want to do this, by the way, to a degree.

• 24:19Josh Axe?

  And this is a normal conservation process in the body of cell turnover. But what happens is, once those cells multiply 50 times, they sit there and they don't function well anymore. Imagine, you know, once you've used something so many times, it just stops working, okay, gets worn out. That's what happens. And these cells are called senescent cells, which now many researchers call zombie cells. They secrete inflammatory chemicals called SASP. That basically, they secrete poisons that damage other cells in your body. So clearing out these zombie cells is critical for our overall health. And the process in the body that clears out these senescent cells is called autophagy.

• 25:01Josh Axe?

  And this is where you have these things in your cells, they're called lysosomes. Okay, so we talked about the mitochondria. The mitochondria produce energy for the cell. Well, the lysosomes are the waste management and recycling company of your cells that go and clear out all of these senescent cells and toxins from your cells. And if your body's not doing that properly as well, you start to have shortened telomeres, which means you're aging more quickly. And the best way to take care of this is to practice fasting, exercise, and consuming very, very specific nutrient-dense foods like fruit and vegetables, omega-3 fatty acids. These are the things that are going to accelerate your autophagy.

• 25:45Josh Axe?

  And so focusing on supporting your cellular health with fruit, with vegetables, with specific supplements, with infrared sauna, with a lot of these different techniques I'm going to get into in a minute, it's critical for your cellular health.

• 26:00Josh Axe?

  Are you interested in functional nutrition tips to burn fat, reduce inflammation, improve your brain and energy levels, and heal naturally? Then I want to encourage you to listen to my friend, Dr. Dave Jockers podcast, The Functional Nutrition Podcast. This podcast is designed to help you with easy, actionable steps to improve your nutrition and lifestyle, understand your lab work, and address the root cause factors that may be driving up inflammation in your body. Now, I've been friends with Dr. David Jockers for 20 years, and he's truly a world expert in functional nutrition, cellular healing, and so much more. If you want to learn the best nutrition and natural healing tips, tune into the Dr. Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast on Apple iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you can listen to podcasts worldwide.

• 26:47Josh Axe?

  Now, I do want to take one step out, and I do want to focus on not the cell for a moment, but an organ that is responsible for detoxification, and that is your liver, okay? Your liver as an organ is your detox command center. It filters toxins from the blood, it produces bio for fat digestion and hormone metabolism. We, I talked to earlier about estrogen, your liver is primarily responsible for getting rid of excess estrogen and keeping your estrogen levels balanced, of course, which is critical for men and women. And so, we need to do everything we can to keep your liver running smoothly. Now, one of my favorite pioneers for liver detoxification is Dr. Max Gershon.

• 27:29Josh Axe?

  In fact, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer many years ago, one of the primary diets we studied, looked into, and incorporated part of into my mom's cancer protocol was Gershon therapy. And Dr. Max Gershon discovered that healing migraines and TB patients relied heavily on detoxification and nutrients. So, here's what he said. He said, "If you're going to heal everything from cancer to migraine headaches, we have to..." Detoxify the liver? We have to focus on reducing toxicity and we need to focus on getting the body enough nutrients. So he really believed healing was about addressing deficiencies and toxicities. And the theory is that disease can be cured by removing toxins from the body,

• 28:12Josh Axe?

  boosting the immune system and replacing excess salt in the body with potassium. Something called your body sodium potassium pump, which is another way of detoxifying the cell. And he believed that the liver is the center of the restoration process. And that if the liver is too damaged, then treatment cannot be effective. His daughter Charlotte carried the therapy worldwide, spreading the principle that cellular and liver detox is key to healing. You know, I'm thinking about a patient Donna I was recently working with in the virtual practice and working with her who was very sick. And when she came in, we did a combination of things. We did a little bit of blood work. I had did something called a tongue diagnosis and her looking at her patient history.

• 28:55Josh Axe?

  And she, her body was toxic. One way I can tell this in Chinese medicine is if the color of somebody's tongue has an underlying bluish purple color, that's called in Chinese medicine, liver stagnation. It means the liver is really blocked and backed up. Now from her history as well, she was dealing with chronic constipation. That's another big warning sign. When people hear constipation, they think, oh, that's a digestive or colon issue. Actually, the liver is greatly responsible for as well, moving your bowels. And she had all of these other health problems, everything from brain fog to major hormone imbalances. And she was just really tired and sick. And we also found that she had the MTHFR gene. And so we looked at that. And so I put her on a protocol which included juicing some vegetables,

• 29:40Josh Axe?

  doing a lot of fruits and vegetables, doing things like spirulina chlorella. We did some antiseptic systems to support glutathione and just put her on a really advanced detoxification protocol. After three months, her brain fog lifted, her resilience returned, actually she was able to get married, even have a baby, and her health was completely renewed. But she had been to 10 other doctors, both conventional and natural, and they weren't able to figure out what was going on. And her blood work really was pretty normal. That's the thing. The only thing that was slightly off on her was her estradiol levels. But outside of that, everything looked normal. And doctors just wanted to put her on things like birth control and other things, rather than getting to the root of the issue, which is fixing the cell and the liver. So I

• 30:25Josh Axe?

  want to walk you through right now, a blueprint of how to start to reduce cellular toxicity and heal your body. Step number one, reduce your toxic exposures and inputs. Drink filtered water. This is a big one. Get a reverse osmosis filter or some sort of water filter. That's going to get rid of the heavy metals, the fluoride, the chlorine, the PFAs, these chemicals in your water supply. And you don't need a whole house filter, just mostly your drinking water is the most important. Could be a Berkey filter, could be reverse osmosis, Aurora filter, but get some sort of water filter to get rid of the chemicals. Here's another big one. Ditch plastic bottles and Tupperware. Use glass and stainless steel instead. Here's another one. Eat organic food as much as

• 31:08Josh Axe?

  you possibly can, prioritizing meat as the most important thing to eat that's organic, and then the dirty dozen. And then avoid, of course, farm fish and processed meats. Again, go organic and wild caught whenever you can. And cut the excess sugar. And when you're using oils, use extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, and avocado oil. Those are the best oils for you to use. And then support daily elimination. Drink plenty of water, at least half of your body weight in good, clean water daily. And here's another big one. Eat way more fiber. You want to get 30 to 40 grams of fiber a day from things like vegetables, berries, seeds like chia and flax. These are also linked to a longer life. And I know, by the way, protein has had its day

• 31:52Josh Axe?

  recently. We've talked so much about high protein, and I'm a big believer that most people need more protein in their meals. But you know what the other thing is? Fiber. If you're going to focus on getting two things in most of your meals, it's from Whole Foods, more protein, more fiber. Those are the things that are going to move the needle, especially for weight loss, for gut health, for balancing out those insulin levels. That's key. You know, 95% of Americans don't consume enough fiber, which supports a healthy gut microbiome. That's critical in your immune system. And so you'll want to get more fiber and also consider taking one day a week and doing a fasting practice of just skipping breakfast or breakfast and lunch.

• 32:34Josh Axe?

  Now, listen, if you've got major health issues, like you have chronic fatigue, or a major pathogen, or even hypothyroidism, where your body's just weaker than it should be, you want to be careful with fasting and maybe not fast, just shorten your eating window down to about 10 hours. But, but for many people, you can do some fasting, even a day a week, like the early church did. Spend that time doing things that reduce stress, walking in nature, praying, getting grateful, reading your Bible, connecting with God, doing those sort of things during that time you typically be eating. One day a week is powerful as well. And then exercising, you don't need to overdo it. Simply walking in nature, doing some light aerobics, weight training two to three days a

• 33:15Josh Axe?

  week. These things all help our bodies. And here's another one I love. Sauna, and I love heat stress. Heat shock proteins help regulate proteostasis, which is turning over these proteins, protein recycling, and buffering against stress. And overall, sweating is so key to detoxification. So getting in an infrared sauna, or any type of sauna, is really, really great for detoxification, and then sleep optimization. Sleep is when your body heals. It's when your body is also able to get rid of the most senescent cells. So doing everything you can to sleep eight hours, eight hours of quality sleep is critical. And then step three is this. Open and support your detoxification

• 33:59Josh Axe?

  pathways. Supplementing with things like glutathione or N-acetylcysteine. Now glutathione is your body's master antioxidant that supports detoxification. And N-acetylcysteine is the precursor,

• 34:12Josh Axe?

  Helps your body make more glutathione. Supplementing with liposomal glutathione or NAC, that's N-acetylcysteine, protects the liver and supports your detoxification pathways. Here are some other things that help. Bitter herbs like milk thistle, dandelion, and artichoke. These stimulate bile flow, which is essential for, by the way, bile helps carry toxins out of the body and supports you in absorbing certain nutrients that support detoxification. So getting more bitter herbs regularly is a great, and more bitter foods. Arugula, artichokes, dandelion, greens. These sort of things are great for supporting detoxification.

• 34:55Josh Axe?

  And if you're going to do a detoxification protocol, I would also encourage you to consider doing some binders as part of that. Now, most people do charcoal when they're doing this. I do want to say this. I think in certain protocols, doing one or two weeks of charcoal is fine, but it backs you up and it binds to a lot of your nutrients and minerals. So if you want to do an ongoing detox, which is really what I prefer, instead doing things like spirolyl and chlorella, apple or citrus pectin, zeolites, humic and fulvic acid. These are much better for long-term use. In fact, what I personally do is I do a probiotic that's very high oftentimes in humic and fulvic, like humic acid and higher in probiotics. And I think that's also great.

• 35:38Josh Axe?

  These will bind to things in your gut and help you detoxify. So doing those gentle binders, again, like chlorella, like, like pectin, like humic acid in probiotics, those are really great options. Another really simple at-home way that's very cost-effective to detoxify is taking Epsom salt baths. These have magnesium sulfate and soaking in these Epsom salts helps your body detoxify, get your body more magnesium, which is critical for liver function, bowel movements, and detoxification as well. You know, one of my favorite things for getting rid of excess estrogen and supporting your liver is getting more cruciferous vegetables. Cruciferous vegetables have a compound called endol three carbonate, and also types of sulfur.

• 36:22Josh Axe?

  That start to eliminate this excess estrogen from the body. So one of the greatest things you could ever do if you know you have excess estrogen, which of course is tied to infertility, low testosterone, a number of other issues is is get a big vegetable steamer, steam a bunch of cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, steam those and then eat those at least once a day, a big serving of cruciferous vegetables. And you can also bake them. You could put a little coconut oil and olive oil on there with some sea salt and herbs, throw them in the oven, bake them at, I think it's like 400 degrees or maybe look it up online. Okay. I'm not remember it exactly, but I think we put

• 37:03Josh Axe?

  it around maybe, maybe it's like 375 for 40 minutes and we do that sometimes, but we steam them a lot more often and you could dip them in hummus or tahini and that sort of thing as well. But, but, but that's a great way to detoxify some of this excess estrogen. And a final few things that can support detoxification. Again, I mentioned this earlier, more fruits and vegetables. Okay. You know, these act, they're more catabolic and cleansing for your body than other products. And you can also, and also many of them, I'm going to mention a few, activate, they act as sinolytics where they start to clear out and cleanse out your cells. Some of the best cellular detoxifiers have folicin, strawberries, apples

• 37:48Josh Axe?

  and onions are fantastic and some of my favorites. In addition, foods that are high in quercetin like apples and onions as well. You'll notice apples and onions amazing for detoxification and acting as natural sinolytics as well. Those are great. And then doing other herbs, herbal teas like turmeric and dandelion tea. That's amazing. Green tea contains EGCG. That's great as well. Those are great for cleansing the cell. And then last, do some testing. You can do a heavy metal panel. You can do an environmental toxin panel. You can do a GI map also to see what's going on in your gut microbiome and even general lab work that looks at where your insulin levels at, where are your cortisol levels at? If you can start to balance some of those.

• 38:32Josh Axe?

  Things your your high sensitive sensitivity C reactive protein. That's a great marker to look at what's the inflammation of your cell to know where you need to go and do work. And you can start to detoxify and heal. So overall, here's the reality. So many people today are suffering with cellular toxicity. And if you have cellular toxicity, it can be damaging your cell membranes. It can be blocking your cell receptor sites, which is causing hormone imbalance. They can be damaging your mitochondria. So where now your cells aren't functioning properly, which those cells run your organs. And those organs are sick because of what's going on in your cell. And if we can detoxify and heal the cell, now your body can finally heal. It can finally get well and you can do that through what we talked about.

• 39:17Josh Axe?

  Eliminating these toxic exposures, changing up your diet and focusing on some of these detoxification protocols with things like sauna. And just walking more in nature and taking the right supplements. All those things can make a big difference and also knowing your body, getting that lab work done. You can even do genetic tests to be able to see, do you have one of these markers like MTHFR? It's important to know these things and once you know them, you can follow the right protocol and see incredible results in detoxification, healing. And this is something that I've done a lot in my virtual practice and with the practitioners I've trained is they meet with individuals, get the right lab work and testing. And do the right things so they can start to heal at the cellular level. And remember, healing isn't one size fits all.

• 40:00Josh Axe?

  It's about listening to your body, pulling out the weeds, rebuilding your health at the cellular level. And learning more about what you specifically need in order to heal. And remember, these small choices add up to big shifts and how your body heals and functions. And when you clear the toxic load, you give your cells the freedom now to regenerate and heal. You're then able to reclaim your energy, restore your focus, and you step back into the life you were created to live. By the way, I want to mention I'm offering a simple at home blood test that actually tests for the right things. Targeted biomarkers, including hormones, thyroid and metabolism, plus a

• 40:42Josh Axe?

  Full hour with one of my senior health advisors to help you understand your results. If you are interested in learning more about the blood work and getting testing done. It's very cost effective to understand the root of your issues. You can go to mybloodwork.com. That's mybloodwork.com and get testing. I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Ak Show where each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Also, don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. And because so many of you are subscribed, it allows us to bring in these amazing high profile guests.

• 41:26Josh Axe?

  By the way, something we're doing next year, if you're subscribed, you're going to be naturally entered into a giveaway. We're going to be giving away everything from potentially a red light bed to an infrared sun. I mean, things that are worth tens of thousands of dollars. We're going to be giving away to our subscribers only. So make sure you're subscribed. And also, if you're not subscribed, there's some of the, the, there are some controversial topics we dive into like toxicity and cancer and peptides that get shadow banned. So if you're not subscribed on YouTube, especially you're not going to be able to see that. So make sure you subscribe as well. So you get our best of content and you're entered in all the giveaways. Also, thanks so much for liking, commenting and sharing on these episodes. I'll see you on the next one.

• 42:16Speaker 04

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