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Transcript
- 02:38 About Dr. Aristo Vojdani
- 06:58 Food IGg Testing
- 07:56 History of Immunosciences Lab
- 10:02 Antibody Testing and Autoimmunity
- 15:13 Prevalence of the Heavy Metals and Chemicals
- 20:00 Why Some People are More Affected than Others by Metals
- 21:46 Test for Allergies and Immunoreactions to Chemicals
- 31:54 Tests Done by Immunosciences Labs on Autoimmunity
- 32:53 Predictive Antibodies
- 35:18 How to Detox Antibodies to Heavy Metals and Chemicals
- 37:44 Removing Sources of Chemicals
- 46:06 Testing for Lyme Disease
Wendy Myers: Hello. Welcome to the Live to 110 podcast. My name is Wendy Myers. You can find me on myersdetox.com.
Welcome to my bedroom. There’s some construction going on. So I could not record the podcast in my office, just a nice little bird’s eye view of my office here.
You can listen to this podcast on iTunes. You can also look at the video podcast, watch the video podcast on my YouTube channel, Wendy Live To 110.
Today, we have Dr. Aristo Vojdani on the podcast today, talking about antibodies that you could be producing to heavy metals and chemicals that are making you sick.
Many people today – everyone has heavy metals and chemicals in their bodies, but some people, because of their body’s immune response with these metals and chemicals, it makes them very, very sick. And other people are fine. They eventually succumb in some way, but some people are just able to handle exposure to heavy metals and chemicals much better than other people. So we’re going to be talking about that phenomena today on the podcast.
This podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or health condition and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before engaging in any treatment that we suggest today on the show.
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So a little bit about our guest today, Dr. Aristo Vojdani obtained his PhD in the field of Microbiology and Clinical Immunology with postdoctoral studies in Tumor Immunology at UCLA.
Vojdani’s ongoing research, spanning a 40-year career, focuses on the role of environmental factors such as toxic chemicals, infections and dietary proteins and peptides and complex diseases. And on our 15 US patents for laboratory assessments, he has published 120 peer-reviewed articles and scientific journals.
Dr. Vojdani is CEO and Technical Director of Immunosciences Labs in Los Angeles, California, a member of the Editorial Board of four scientific journals and a guest Editor of six journals. He is also the Chief Scientific Advisor for CyrexLabs.com.
Dr. Vojdani, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Aristo Vojdani: Thank you, Wendy to have me on your program. It is my pleasure and honor to share with your audience 47 years of experience working in a research and clinical laboratory immunology.
Wendy Myers: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about that? Tell us about your background and your research.
Aristo Vojdani: Sure. My journey started actually with a Bachelor Degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology, then Master in Microbiology and Immunology and PhD in the field of Immunology. All that happened in Israel. So altogether, it took me 12 years. That’s how we used to be before.
Then, I spent one year postdoctoral studies to look at usefulness of immunological testing in clinical medicine.
Then, I came to the US. I went to UCLA, additional postdoctoral studies. From UCLA, I moved to Harvard UCLA, which is hospital associated with UCLA, then to Charles Drew UCLA School of Medicine, where I became Assistant Professor, then Associate Professor.
I got several NIH grants, which really, at this level, was the highlight of my research. It was to look at the effect of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals on cell mediated immune function using three different strains of mice. We’re injecting the same level of chemicals to three strains of mice.
One strain, after three months, was developing cancer. Second strain, after six months. If the length of the study was, let’s say, 12 months, the third strain never developed cancer. So you see the individual variation in reaction to toxic chemicals, which exist also in human beings.
Wendy Myers: Yes. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today. Why do some people who have the same amount of heavy metals and chemicals get very, very sick, and the next person seems to be functioning okay?
Actually they have fatigue or malaise or something, but they are not bed-ridden. So why don’t we talk a little bit about the prevalence of chemicals and metals in the populace?
Aristo Vojdani: Let me finish this first.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, please go ahead. Please.
Aristo Vojdani: And then, I got NIH grants and I did all those studies. Then I published many articles in scientific journals.
Then, because of my desire, my interest in clinical immunology, human immunology, I went to a biotechnology company. Actually I started a biotechnology company.
The first test which I developed in 1986 was Food IGG Testing. If the audience would like to read about this, just very recently, just this month, seven articles were published in a journal called Alternative Therapies in Health and Diseases. It went through the history on why certain food can cause our immunity. That’s different issue.
So 1986, I developed first Food IGG Testing. After that first test, ELISA test or antibody test for H pylori, which is involved in ulcer and then another test for measuring islet cell antibodies in type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease mainly in children.
What I’m talking about now is about 20 years working in clinical and research laboratories everyday. Let’s say average of 12 to 16 hours a day, I was working with many chemicals.
And suddenly, I became sick. I developed chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia. Every time I was opening a bottle of chemicals, I was getting severe headaches.
Then I went to many doctors. They told me, “Actually, the bottom line is that you’re crazy. Everything is in your head,” until I went to a doctor, which was a member of American Academy of Environmental Medicine who said, “Ari, you have chemical sensitivity.” That was the first time I heard about chemical sensitivity.
Then I asked him, “What is my choice?” He said, “The only choice you have – there is no treatment for this. You have to avoid toxic chemicals. If you want to work in a laboratory, you have to cover your nose, your mouth and gloves and everything.” I did that, and I got much better.
Then, after visiting that doctor many, many times, he said, “Ari, why don’t you start a laboratory to help patients like yourself?” And that’s how I started Immunosciences Laboratory in 1989. Since then, I have developed more than 300 immunological assays to deal with the problems associated with environmental triggers and complex diseases.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It’s sad. There’s a lot of people that go to their doctor and they’re not offered a test like this. They’re not offered environmental sensitivity-type testing.
What’s kind of test do you offer?
Aristo Vojdani: You will see that I have prepared a list of the complications that I did in association with some of these testings.
During the past 25 years, we applied this methodology, antibody testing, looking at cell-mediated immunity, meaning you look at T cell, B cell, helper cell, natural killer cell, all of that together, chemical antibody, mercury antibody.
By applying that to more than 400,000 individuals – and some of these examples, which I am going to share with the audience, these are individuals who were exposed to chemicals in different environments.
The first one happened in 1968, where residents at the mobile home developed disease, developed fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and all of that. When we tested them for formaldehyde antibodies, they had very high levels of formaldehyde and isocyanide and trimellitic anhydride. These are all plasticizers used in the building material in mobile homes.
They had also abnormal T cell function, B cell function, natural fuel cell activity. All of that was published in Archives in Environmental Health in 1987.
Then, we worked with individuals working in electronics and electronic facilities, individuals working in airplane manufacturing because they use a lot of solvents to clean their body with everyday.
Immune abnormalities were found in students at school, which school was built on super funds. These are places of toxic dump. And then they build the buildings on top of the toxic dumps. There are lots of abnormalities.
Then, in Sacramento River, there was an accident. A train was derailed and introduced many gallons of chemical called metam sodium. I’m sure you remember or you are too young to remember the issue in Bhopal, India. These are similar chemicals.
Individuals on the bank of Sacramento River – remember, these were people who had chemical sensitivity, who moved to Sacramento River area to be away from chemicals. Now suddenly, chemicals come into the river and they developed neuroimmune abnormalities.
Then, I worked with many patients with silicone breast implant. They had atypical autoimmune disease. They had antibodies against silicone itself. They made antibodies against myelin basic protein, which is a component of brain cells.
I worked with our soldiers who became sick after Gulf War. Based on that, I went to the US Senate and testified that these individuals did not have so called – they give them these PTSD. Some of them have PTSD, but all of them have PTSD. Most of them had autoimmune activity against whatever they were exposed to during the war.
Then, I worked with thousands and thousands of individuals who work for molds and mycotoxins. We found similar abnormalities. Then, I worked with some survivors of 9/11. They have many abnormalities.
I had an opportunity to work with many patients with chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia, which is very common with all these individuals. And then, children with autism, ADD, ADHD, OCD and finally, autoimmunity.
Fifty-three million Americans are suffering from autoimmune diseases and many people do not pay attention to them. They just put them on immunosuppressant. They don’t ask the question why my patient is developing autoimmunity. Why is my patient making antibody against its own DNA or its own tissue and tissue constitutes?
If we ask that question, then we’ll be able to answer the environmental triggers to us. Genes are responsible for developments of autoimmune disease. So that was a summary about my work.
Wendy Myers: Thank you. That was very elaborate. That’s very telling of the kind of work that you do and the impact it can have on people’s lives.
I know in my own practice, we do have many, many sick individuals because everyone’s exposed to heavy metals and chemicals in our environment. There’s just no way around it.
So what is the prevalence of the heavy metals and chemicals?
Aristo Vojdani: Again, I prepared a list to answer this type of questions.
First of all, let me summarize that again for the audience. More than 80,000 industrial chemicals are registered with EPA for commercial use. Only 5% of these substances have been characterized for human toxicity. The other 95% were not tested.
We don’t want to get to the politics of why they introduce chemicals into the market without testing them for toxicity. This is unbelievable.
Then in the meantime, in average, 2500 new chemicals are introduced into the market each year. And some of these chemicals are used in more than six million products for human use. Maybe you and I are exposed to them on daily basis.
Some of these chemicals resist metabolism. That will come back to this issue of some people metabolize chemicals much faster. That gets redundant. Some people do not metabolize chemicals faster. The chemicals or metabolites can bind to their tissue, inducing autoimmunity activity.
Then when chemicals bind to our tissue, metabolites, we call that the body burden of chemicals. We can have discussion about this.
What is the value of measuring levels of the mercury in the urine or in the blood if we know almost 95% of us, we have that in our blood or in our urine? What’s the value of measuring bisphenol A, which is a plastic material in the urine while studies show that 95% of the population are having these chemicals in their urine?
Therefore, my interest is to test for body burden of chemicals by measuring antibodies against chemicals plus human tissue. Chemicals bond to human tissue. We call that new antigen formation.
We’ll talk about prevalence, right? The measure, 413 chemicals in human – in this case, in cord blood of newborns, they found that 287 out of 413 were found in the cord blood. And then 217 of those are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 of those are also causing birth defect.
They found 200 different chemicals in breast milk. Whether this study was done in the US, England or Canada, they found about 90% of individuals have chemicals in their urine.
How come the chemicals are everywhere? So what is the value of just measuring chemicals in the blood? I think we should look at the body burden of the chemicals, meaning chemicals binding to human issue.
Another issue, which is extremely important – I am sure you are familiar with the studies by Dr. Skinner, which was published in Science 2014. If I am exposed to chemicals, if you are exposed to chemicals, not only your children are going to be affected by the chemicals, the third generation. That’s why he showed this picture, the third generation.
So it’s not like, “Yes, we get exposed to chemicals. We detoxify ourselves and we are okay.” No. Chemicals can affect our next generation and the next generation and so forth. So we have to be careful.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, it almost seems hopeless because we are always exposed. It affects our genes. It changes our genetic make-up.
Aristo Vojdani: Exactly.
Wendy Myers: So why are some people more affected than others? Why don’t we talk a little bit about that in detail? Why can some people be exposed to chemicals and be relatively okay and live a normal life and others aren’t?
Aristo Vojdani: When I talk about the mice, we are talking about three different genetic make-up of the mice. The same thing in human, our genes are different. So we do not deny that genes are playing a role in detoxifying chemicals, in metabolizing chemicals.
If we look at population at large, we can divide the population as slow metabolizers, medium and fast metabolizers. That by itself is telling us that I may be slow metabolizer. You may be fast metabolizer. And the other person could be medium metabolizer.
Each one of those could have consequences. So slow metabolizers are going to be exposed to the parent compounds. Fast metabolizers are going to be exposed to metabolites of the chemicals.
So therefore, it depends if metabolites or parent compounds manage to bind to human tissue. That is the mechanism which sets the stage for not only making antibodies against the chemicals, we are going to make also antibodies against their own tissue and therefore, autoimmunity, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
So the gene, our enzymes, plus the environment of triggers.
Wendy Myers: Yes. Can you explain a little bit more about why we want to test for allergies and other immunoreactions to these chemicals?
Aristo Vojdani: Yes. As you know, there are many laboratories who measure levels of chemicals in the urine or blood.
I already gave some introduction that measuring levels of the chemicals in the urine or blood indicates exposure. We already know we are exposed to chemicals. Why do I need to spend $300 or $500 to show that I’m exposed to chemicals?
But I will be very interested to see whether or not chemicals or metabolites bind to my tissue and induce antibody production against the chemicals, as well as against my own tissue, which can set the stage for autoimmunity.
That’s why I developed this test, group of testing for Cyrex Labs under Array 11. I test antibodies against 12 different groups of chemicals, which will show whether or not an individual is exposed to solvents and solvents binding to the tissue of that individual, whether it’s mercury or heavy metals.
Again, we can be exposed to as much as mercury. Usually, if we metabolize them and get rid of them, we may be okay. But if mercury binds to my cell membrane and then goes inside the cell, bind to the DNA or the RNA or nucleoproteins, then I am going to make antibodies against my own ENA or DNA. That’s exactly what we detected in the laboratory.
Unfortunately, many clinicians know if patient has an anti-DNA antibody, anti-extractable nuclear antigen antibody called ENA, or ANA, anti-nuclear antibody. They don’t ask why patient is making anti-nuclear antibodies.
Obviously, something from the environment gets into our body, gets through the cell membrane, binds to the cell component, and then we make antibodies against our own cell components.
So the bottom line is to prevent autoimmunities and other disorders, we have to remove the chemicals from our environments. Otherwise, chemicals will bind to our tissue, resulting in antibody production.
Wendy Myers: You talked about Array 11. Can you explain that a little bit more and other tests that one can do to determine if they’re producing antibodies to metals or chemicals?
Aristo Vojdani: Yes. The test which is part of the Array 11 includes aflatoxin antibodies. As you know, aflatoxins are major components of our food, whether it’s peanut or whatever, grains and so forth. Aflatoxins covalent bind to the food proteins, get into our body, can bind to our DNA or other tissue constitutes and then causing autoimmunity.
Then formaldehyde, isocyanate, trimellitic anhydride, benzene, all of those solvents are used everywhere, whether it’s a building material or cosmetics or other products that are used. Bisphenol A and bisphenol binding protein. Bisphenol A is everywhere.
Unfortunately, people do not read the type of articles you and I read.
Example, I have an article with me from the journal of hypertension. Exposure to bisphenol A from plastic, drinking canned beverages increases blood pressure.
How many clinicians have you seen? Patient with blood pressure go to the doctor, instead of getting some advice to not drink, to not eat in plastic, remove the chemical from your environment. They choose to give them medications for hypertension.
Wendy Myers: Yeah.
Aristo Vojdani: But really there is a lot we can do. So this article shows that yes, plastic can contribute to hypertension.
Last night also, I was reading this article in Wall Street Journal actually that if you drink a cup of beet juice, this tea everyday, it can reduce your blood pressure as well. So there’s a lot we can do.
Wendy Myers: Yes.
Aristo Vojdani: Or another example – this is another article in American Journal of Public Health 2014.
Soda and cell aging – they looked at the sugar sweetened beverages and different people who drink less or more. Then they looked at telomerase and telomere shortening.
They found that those who drink a lot of it, they have much faster aging. But they blamed that on the sugar.
They don’t think that all these beverages are used by people who – in the cans, we have a layer of bisphenol A. Or plastic bottles also, they’re made of bisphenol A. By the way, there’s no such thing as BPA-free plastic. Plastic is plastic. So I would like to make that clear.
So here is an example. In my laboratory, I had the opportunity to take some of these beverages and measure the pH. Just guess. What is the pH of one of these soda drinks?
Wendy Myers: Oh, bad, very acidic.
Aristo Vojdani: About worse than vinegar, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4. So if you put an acid in a plastic bottle, what do you think happens to that?
So therefore, plastic is released. We drink it. And here, we blame everything the sugar, but really the bottom line – I’m not saying sugar is good for us, but there are other factors contributing, in this case, to fast aging in individual drinking sodas.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. So you said that Cyrex Labs Array 11 is good. Is there any other test?
Aristo Vojdani: I was talking about bisphenol A, right? And then tetrabromobisphenol A. It’s a fire retardant.
Tetrachloroethylene in dry cleaning, parabens in cosmetics, and then mercury compounds are everywhere in fish. We have to think about fish, not always talk about mercury in the amalgam because fish has a very high level of mercury. And then finally, other mixed heavy metals.
So this is the list of the 12 different chemicals or group of chemicals that Cyrex is measuring antibody against. In this case, we are not measuring antibody directly against the chemicals. This is exactly what happens in our body.
Chemicals bound to human serum albumin and are used as an antigen. So we measure antibodies against mercury bound to human serum albumin, mercury bound to human hemoglobin – exactly the way it happens in our body.
This way, if you detect antibodies against mercury, the meaning of that is not only you’re exposed to mercury, mercury is forming a new alliance with your tissue and then setting the stage for autoimmunity.
In the article that I published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, which I will send you the PDF also if you would like to share it with the audience.
Wendy Myers: Yes. I’ll send that. I’ll put it as downloads in the podcast post.
Aristo Vojdani: So I took 400 healthy subjects. I wanted to see what percentage of them make antibodies, example against aflatoxin or against mercury or bisphenol A. The answer to that was about 20%.
So in about 20% of healthy population, so called healthy at this stage, chemicals enter into their system, form a complex with their tissue. They make antibody against the chemical, as well as their own tissue.
These are the individuals who are at risk for developing autoimmune disease in the future. That’s exactly what I discussed in my article.
When the article went for publication, I got this comment from reviewers, saying that this article is challenging the status quo about the causes of autoimmunity. I see that as a real compliment to me because I’m talking about mechanism.
It’s not enough to say the patient is having autoimmunity. What are the causes of autoimmunity activity first? And then what are the causes of autoimmunity disease?
Wendy Myers: Are there any test of Immunosciences Labs that you can get? Or do you prefer the Array 11?
Aristo Vojdani: The Immunosciences Lab, we do all the testing for Lyme disease. We have a patented test for Lyme disease. And then, we look at viral infection. Mainly, those are the two major tests.
Any new developments that I do research and development, as Chief Scientific Advisor to Cyrex, this technology goes to Cyrex. The lab is in Arizona, in the Orange Country, the headquarter. They run the assays. I’m just their Clinical Advisor.
Wendy Myers: I love it that you can test to see if you have antibodies and potentially could develop autoimmunity in the future. What I always urge the listeners to do, don’t wait until you get sick. Don’t wait until you’re exhausted. Go get some testing done and see if you have any predictive antibodies.
Aristo Vojdani: Thank you so much for mentioning that word predictive antibodies.
Eighteen years ago, I published an article about predictive antibodies, the value of predictive antibodies. This idea is not mine. It came from the best Scientist from NIH, National Institute of Health. It was time of type 1 diabetes, islet cell antibodies.
Do you know, Wendy that islet cell antibodies are detected 10 years before the onset of full-blown type 1 diabetes?
So if we detect the antibodies – for example, we look for gluten. We can remove gluten from the diet. If it’s milk, which we know cross reacts with islet cells, we can remove milk or casein milk, dairy from the diet. Maybe it’s a virus, coxsakievirus, EBV, CMV. We can do something about it. Remove the triggers, and we can reverse the course of autoimmune diseases.
That is the value of predictive antibodies.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It just blows my mind that you absolutely have control. You can get testing done. You can stop this disease and its tracks.
I was interviewing Dr. Thomas O’Brien, Dr. Tom O’Brien. He was talking about – he did his predictive antibodies test. And he was really surprised how he had antibodies for his brain or pancreas. I forgot the exact ones. He was shocked.
But it’s very telling that you can do this test and take corrective measures before you get ill.
Aristo Vojdani: Exactly. That’s the strongest message we have for your audience. Predictive antibodies take preventive steps.
Wendy Myers: Yes. Because autoimmunity is so prevalent in our society and because it’s on the rise as one of the fastest growing subset of diseases, it doesn’t make sense to get testing of this nature. Chances are I think 10% of the population is affected with autoimmunity. It’s a large chance, such a high prevalence in the population.
So I think it’s a very good idea to get testing of this nature.
Aristo Vojdani: And that’s part of the Array 5 by the way.
Wendy Myers: Okay. Yeah, there are different arrays for that.
Aristo Vojdani: It’s for antibodies for autoimmunity.
Wendy Myers: Yes. So once someone is determined to have antibodies to heavy metals or chemicals, what can they do? What are the next steps? How do they detox them?
Aristo Vojdani: Always use three words, detect, remove and repair.
So you detected the antibodies. You have to find the sources of these chemicals. Maybe it is your shampoo. I’m just giving example. Maybe it’s your soap. Maybe it’s fish. So you have to find a source.
Anyway, my recommendation will be when you have antibodies, try to change your habits, from whatever it is to a very healthy habit. Remove chemicals from your daily activities as much as possible.
Grow an organic food. It has been proven that organic food has 80% less pesticides and herbicides. We are not saying that organic is 100% pure unfortunately because the world is polluted. Even organic foods have some chemicals in them, but they have much less that non-organic food.
So there is a lot we can do to change, to minimize exposure to chemicals from the environment, from our diet. Definitely, you are going to see results.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Do you advocate these infrared saunas or anything of that nature to detox metals and chemicals?
Aristo Vojdani: Okay. When it comes to detox, always I mention that you can do any detoxification or can go to any detoxification programs. There are many centers that they could go.
For example, the one not far from San Diego. It’s one week of detoxification, green foods, fresh fruits and extra [inaudible 00:37:35] and all of that everyday, exercise, sweating and colon therapy, everything altogether. That’s a good detoxification program.
But what is the value of doing that detoxification when you come back and get exposed to the same levels of chemicals the next day?
So you remove first the sources of the chemicals to minimize entry of chemicals into your body, then detoxify and then you’ll see improvement in the clinical symptom.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. It’s not easy to do. I know when I first started setting toxins, first all the shampoos and cosmetics have to go. Those had to be changed. And then your laundry detergent and household cleaners have to be changed.
Even some clothes are toxic. Some are made with petroleum fabrics like that. Then your diet, it’s difficult to do.
Aristo Vojdani: Wendy, we forget also that all the clothings we wear, in nature, they’re not – nature did not make them in that color. So how come when you wear something in red, what kind of chemicals are used to make that cloth?
Wendy Myers: Probably not beet juice.
Aristo Vojdani: So we use food coloring, right?
Wendy Myers: Yes.
Aristo Vojdani: Yes, food color or coloring or synthetic materials.
So some people indeed are extremely sensitive. Whatever they wear, contact with the skin is causing reaction, allergic reaction sometimes or pseudo-allergic reaction. So we have to be careful with all of that absolutely.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. You absorb everything through your skin. That’s frightening.
So I have a question I like to ask to all of my guests. What do you think is the most pressing health issue in the world today?
Aristo Vojdani: Okay. Thank you for asking that. If I will go according to this issue of Scientific American 2014, they talked about actually three major issues, which I agree with them. Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. But they forget the fourth one, which is autoimmune disease.
Now, this whole issue was published at the world – what level? How do you call it? At the international level. People from different countries got together and said, “We have to do something about epidemic of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.”
Example, last year, I was in Israel. Do you know that Israelis and Arab citizens who used to live in the villages and moved to the city, almost 55% of them are obese? I’m not talking about women now.
If you go to Iraq, whether you go to South America, Chile or any other countries, almost everywhere – this is epidemic in the world that people are overweight. There are many reasons actually, less activities and we consume more.
They forget also that chemicals coming through some of these nutrients into our body is affecting our metabolism because chemicals love fat cells. So the chemicals contribute to type 2 diabetes. No one is talking about that.
So what solution they’re suggesting in here, in all these countries? They put billions of money together. So they take population in each country, 10,000 here, 20,000 over there, 50,000 over here. Let’s give them a polypill.
What is polypill? A combination of aspirin, statin and hypertension medication.
Wendy Myers: No, no, no.
Aristo Vojdani: They put those three together. They are going to very small villages. I’m talking about very large cities.
These people never use medication in their life or they use it at a very minimal level. They do agriculture. They do all of that. And now, we are going to expose them to all these medications with the hope that will prevent all these issues that human being is facing in the world, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and autoimmunity.
In my opinion, that’s not the solution. We have to look at the triggers of all these disorders. We find the triggers, remove the triggers and then hopefully, we’ll see better improvement.
The solution is not to put thousands and thousands of people on medication with the hope that they’re going to improve.
That reminds me a very nice book. It was written by a New York Times reporter. It’s all about our daily meds, which they did exactly similar program.
About 20 years ago, they went to Iowa. At that level, only 5% or 10% of the population of Iowa used to use, for example, certain medication.
But after going in there and starting promoting medication and medication and medication, today, five times more of population of Iowa using medication than they used before. So this is not the solution, to put everybody on medication and that will be an answer for all these problems humanity is facing.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, that does not address the root cause of the problem. That’s just band aid that creates more of a body burden and toxicity to deliver.
Aristo Vojdani: Exactly.
Wendy Myers: Dr. Vojdani, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really, really appreciate it. This was so informative.
I really urge all the listeners out there to go to CyrexLabs.com and look at all the arrays they have. And I definitely urge you to get testing. It’s so interesting to do these bio hacks and get this information.
His information is power. And you need that information to be able to make drastic changes in your health and find out about these predictive antibodies.
Aristo Vojdani: All right. Thank you. Yes, go ahead.
Wendy Myers: Dr. Vojdani, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about where the listeners can find you and Immunosciences and et cetera?
Aristo Vojdani: So I am the owner and Technical Director of Immunosciences Laboratory.
At the Immunosciences Laboratory, we are doing patented technology or based on patented technology for Lyme disease. And also, we do viral infection, which is another trigger of autoimmunity. Both Lyme and viruses.
At the same time, I do lots of research and development. And as a Chief Advisor of Cyrex Laboratories, the new technology goes to Cyrex. That’s why you see all these new arrays that we are developing every year. We have more in the pipeline that will come out in the very near future.
So to find me, ImmunosciencesLab.com or [email protected]. That’s my personal e-mail. Or go to Cyrex.com.
Wendy Myers: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about Lyme disease? I think that’s very, very interesting that we have testing for that.
I heard there’s a lot of tests that are not very reliable for Lyme disease. I think a lot of people are being tested and are just given a negative report that they don’t have Lyme when they in fact do. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Aristo Vojdani: Based on the research – I haven’t published this yet, but the results of Lyme disease could go both way, another meaning.
You can have based on testing that’s approved by CDC, which you do ELISA and Western blot to measure antibodies against Borrelia growing in culture. Remember, I’m a Microbiologist in training.
You grow Borrelia in culture, you make an antigen and you measure antibodies by two different methods. One is ELISA and one is Western blot.
If certain bands are positive by Western blot, according to CDC criteria, we say the patient is having Lyme disease. So that’s one measure.
But if the patient is having Epstein-Barr virus, if the patient is having infection in Yersinia enterocolitica, in the gut, you can get two bands to be positive. If the patient is having actually Epstein-Barr or Yersinia enterocolitica, we think in the lab, based on CDC criteria, patient is having Lyme disease. So this is false positive.
In the false negative – that’s where my test is coming – to measure antibodies against Borrelia growing in culture is not enough.
Why? Because Borrelia, after getting into human system, is changing its antigenic structure in order to hide from the immune system. So that’s how it goes to the tissue and becomes chronic.
So we measure antibodies against Borrelia growing in culture like everybody, plus all those determinants, which are expressed in human system. So we measure antibodies against those.
There are three subspecies of Borrelia. Everybody’s measuring antibody against one. We measure antibody against all three subspecies.
And then the co-infections, Babesia, Ehrlichia and Bartonella, sometimes could cause also cross activity, the co-infection. At the same time, the same tick could transmit the co-infection, as well as the Borrelia.
So therefore, you have to measure antibodies against all the components of Borrelia growing in culture, those which are expressed in human system, the three subspecies, as well as the co-infection, Babesia, Ehrlichia and Bartonella. All of that is done in our panel.
As the panel for Lyme disease of course, we do also Western blot, which is approved by CDC.
Wendy Myers: Okay. That’s really interesting. We’ll have to do another podcast on that because it’s long.
Aristo Vojdani: False positives and false negatives of Lyme disease.
Wendy Myers: Yes. Lyme disease is much more prevalent than we think. I think it causes a lot of health issues.
I’ve been a doctor for years and years and years. And many more people get sicker and sicker and sicker. So it’s very important for people to get tested for Lyme, absolutely.
Aristo Vojdani: Yes. There is terminology Lyme arthritis. Where is this coming from?
Meaning, Lyme becomes chronic due to cross reaction between certain components of Lyme, Borrelia with human joint tissue. That’s after years. The body is attacking the Borrelia, but the same antibody and cells are attacking our joint resulting in Lyme arthritis.
Neuroborreliosis. What is neuroborreliosis?
So chronic Lyme in situation when blood-brain barriers are open, antibodies and cells, which are attacking the Borrelia, can cross the blood-brain barriers. And due to similarity between Borrelia antigen with human nervous system antigens, now cells and antibodies are going through the blood-brain barriers, attacking the neurons. And therefore, neuroborreliosis.
Wendy Myers: Yes.
Aristo Vojdani: So all that is possible if we do not detect Lyme disease on time.
Wendy Myers: Yeah, it’s a devastating disease. I love that you are doing work like this to have a better prediction of Lyme disease because people desperately need to be properly diagnosed so they can make decisions about their health.
Aristo Vojdani: So for more information about our Lyme test, go on ImmunosciencesLab.com and find more information.
Wendy Myers: Thank you so much, Dr. Vojdani. I really appreciate you coming on the show.
Aristo Vojdani: Thank you.
Wendy Myers: And listeners, if you want to learn all about detoxification, the modern Paleo diet and how to heal your health conditions naturally, go to my site, myersdetox.com.
I so appreciate you tuning in today. Thank you for listening to the Live To 110 podcast.
Aristo Vojdani: Beautiful. Thank you.
