Connecting the Dots Between the Gut, Liver and Thyroid with Jenn Malecha

Ep 69 Connecting the Dots Between the Gut, Liver and Thyroid with Jenn Malecha & Evan

Hirsch

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 00:08

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Energy MD Podcast, we're on a mission to help a

million people, increase their energy, decrease their fatigue, so they can have more fun

and success in every aspect of their lives. And as you know, we're looking at over 30

different causes. And a couple of those causes we're going to be talking about today

with my good friend Jenn. So let's learn about Jenn Malecha. So she supports busy

health minded professionals and taking back control of their health by giving them

access to the right lab tests, and resources so they can find the missing pieces of their

health puzzle, actually fix what is wrong, isn't that novel, and get back to feeling like

themselves. Again, using over a decade of personal training, experience training and

Functional Diagnostic Nutrition and transformational coaching, she creates

personalized health rebuilding programs for clients that are realistic, and sustainable for

long lasting results. And that empowers clients to be the boss of their own health. Jen,

thanks so much for joining me today.

Jenn Malecha 01:08

I'm so excited to be here. And it's great for us to be able to connect in this capacity and

get some really important information out to people.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 01:15

Absolutely. And your wealth of knowledge always have been so really excited about the

tips that you're going to be sharing with folks today. So we're gonna be talking about gut,

liver, thyroid detox, and I know you have your own personal thyroid story, and you've

helped a lot of people with thyroid, you want to just talk a little bit about that?

Jenn Malecha 01:34

Yeah, well, the thing about thyroid that I always like to say to people is, you know, your

body doesn't just wake up one day and decide to be dysfunctional, like thyroid doesn't

just decide that it's going to stop working or producing less thyroid hormone, like I really

have to ask the question of, why is that happening. And, you know, I reached a point in

my health journey, where I ran into that issue was dealing with hypothyroidism and

Hashimotos. And when I really dug in to figure out why that was happening, turns out, it

was a result of having some toxic mold at our home. And then the domino effect that

that can have, I mean, I know you talk a lot about toxins and mold and all kinds of things

here. And and, and the work that you do, you know, the the kind of impact that that can

have on the body, the toxic glow that it produces has this domino effect, that then

impacts all these other systems of the body as well, too. And I'm sure we're gonna dive

into that today. So, you know, just to highlight a few things for the listeners here is, for

one, you know, toxic mold can elevate estrogen in the body. So along with having a

dysfunctional thyroid situation, I was also dealing with some estrogen dominance, and

those things kind of correlate together. And along with that was dealing with a lot of

liver congestion and gut dysfunction stuff that was happening from that mold exposure

that had been going on in my house. And it hadn't been going on for quite some time

until we discovered it. And that's kind of the tricky thing about mold is it's so stealth,

right? Like it can be hiding in between the walls like in spaces that we don't really think

to think about. And fortunately, I did find it and then was able to quickly take action and

reverse its effects over time. So happy to say that now I don't have thyroid issues. And

I've been I was able to get in remission with Hashimotos within six months of the

discovery. So I can't wait to share some insights for people on this topic. So to help

people do the same kind of thing.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 03:31

Excellent. And so you're talking about for people who are listening, thyroids, really this

combination of autoimmunity against the thyroid, right, and then the low thyroid as well.

And so, you know, toxins will cause that autoimmunity, what would you say is the the

main toxin that ends up triggering autoimmune thyroid issues?

Jenn Malecha 03:52

Oh, my gosh, I don't know that there is a main toxin because there are so many in our

environment, how would you even track that down? Think about the toxic load that our

bodies and encountering in this state of time, it's more so than any other time in human

population, right? So we know that ever since World War Two, there has been an app or

rapid introduction of toxins into our environment. And, you know, as we're sitting here

recording this podcast, the recent events in East Palestine in in Ohio are just an example

of toxins, filth, toxic spillage and exposures, contamination of our water, our ground our

animals, or air that's happening. And that's just one thing that got highlighted in the

media. There's stuff like this is going on all the time, let alone just the everyday

production of products that we use in our households. And so they're, I mean, we're hit

with hundreds of 1000s of toxins every single day, potentially in our environment. So to

track one down specifically, it's really hard I kind of like to look at it as the load over time

becomes It's so heavy that the body can't bear it anymore. And then we start to see this

breakdown of systems within the body like the immune system becomes

overstimulated, or overloaded as well as the detoxification systems, we can't even get

these things out of the body. And it's this vicious cycle that starts to happen inside the

body. And it's kind of like that old adage, we say like, what came first the chicken or the

egg? I don't know that we'll ever know what the answer to that question is. But

ultimately, we can take like a 10,000 foot view and look at all the contributing factors

and start to recognize and be conscious of what our body's being exposed to on a

regular basis, and how it's having that impact and start to unravel some of these things

to restore balance and health to our body overall.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 05:49

Amen. It sounds like you're talking about total body load total mass effect from all these

different toxins. And it sounds like for you, the main linchpin was mold, is that, yeah,

Jenn Malecha 06:00

I would say something like that is, you know, kind of the the straw that broke the camel's

back, right? Because what's really interesting is when I go back through my own

personal history, and as I got into kind of the functional medicine, functional health

space back in 2012, what has been a reoccurring theme on a lot of my personal lab

tests is liver congestion. And part of the precipice of what got me into this industry was

I was actually diagnosed with skin cancer at the age of like 25. And at that I had studied

fitness, nutrition, and health in college, I have a degree in kinesiology, I was working in

the fitness industry, I thought that I was the healthiest person that I knew I was doing all

the quote unquote, right things. And there was really no rhyme or reason as to why I had

cancer, like there wasn't any family history, or anything of the sorts that could link back

to the scenario. So that's when I dove into the functional medicine space, run some

random functional lab tests on myself, discovered that I had really high like urinary bile

acids. So an indication or correlation was liver congestion, had really high oxidative

stress, which is cellular damage going on to the body. I had overgrowth of bacteria,

parasites, yeast kind of stuff going on in my digestion, digestive system, adrenal or

cortisol imbalances. So kind of this perfect storm and combination of dysfunction that

was happening in the body that was expressing itself in the form of skin cancer,

ultimately, right. And so from early on, in my history, like the moral of the story here is

that from early on, there were indications of a load that was happening in my body

already. And when I think back about, you know, growing up as a child, like, my dad was

a smoker, and he was, you know, conscious, he would smoke outside, and he would in

the car, he would smoke with a window down. But we know now that even that

secondhand cigarette smoke is, you know, super toxic, and it probably hasn't gotten

enough media or publicity as it should. And those are the kinds of things that early on in

our life we're getting exposed to, and then all the things in our environment, that it

becomes this cumulative load over time. And then when you have then something like,

you know, a really intense kind of frequent exposure to mold like I did in my house, there

was already a burden there. And this was that straw that broke the camel's back, I think

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 08:28

well said. So the, you know, oftentimes with skin, what we're seeing is that the you know,

if the toxins can't get out of the body and the normal detoxification pathways, they try to

get out of the largest detox organ, which is the skin right, so so. So then what do people

need to do in order to to help themselves get these toxins out of their body? And then

we'll talk about how to avoid exposure?

Jenn Malecha 08:56

Yeah, I mean, well, I think that the first step to do it, and especially if we relate this, our

simulated to a mold exposure is to remove yourself, remove the toxin from the

environment as much as possible, right. It's starting to recognize what the exposures

are. And we can dive deeper into removing those some exposures. But that is the first

like one of the most important things is how do we minimize exposure overall? And

what are some of the steps that we can do that the second thing is then just recognizing

that even with the minimization of exposures is that you can't control all the toxins that

you are exposed to you can't live in a bubble that's not a real list ik state of being right,

like there's going to be times when you're going to get in a car, get in a plane, go to other

people's houses be out in public. And every time we do those things were exposed to

toxins. So then you got to look out okay, well, how can I offset or mitigate some of that

exposure? So that can mean simple things like moving your body on a daily basis?

sweating. That's one of the ways that we get toxins out of the body, making sure that

you are drinking adequate amount of water because we know that toxins have to be

attached to water molecules to be excreted out of the body through urine and stool and

sweat, making sure that you're having bowel movements every day, because that's one

of the biggest ways that we eliminate toxins from the body, right. So that's super

important. You know, then we can look at things like different foods that we can

incorporate that boost liver function, detoxification, they have these naturally detoxifying

properties. And then we can also level up from there and look at supplements, other

maybe what I would say are like advanced practices, like coffee enemas, and different

things that we can be doing to really support the body's natural detoxification system

and moving some of that stuff out, basically.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 10:54

Excellent. So then let's talk. Let's go back to the thyroid. And one of the things you

mentioned before we got on today is you said that, like me, you see a lot of people who

their thyroid, they're being under treated for thyroid. And so you had mentioned that

there are some other things to consider in order to optimize thyroid function. I think

that's what you were talking about. Right?

Jenn Malecha 11:18

Yes, 100%. And I see this a lot in my practice. So a lot of the cases that I see in my

practice are one people who've already been diagnosed with a thyroid problem, and

they're taking thyroid medication, but they haven't exactly noticed a significant

improvement and how they're feeling they're still struggling with weight, energy, hair

loss, like any of the thyroid symptoms, maybe they've gotten a little bit of relief, but

those things are still evident to them. Or the other scenario is people who they have

been told that they have a thyroid issue, but they don't want to take medication. So

they're looking for natural alternatives. And I would say the third case is people who

don't know that they have a thyroid issue going on. But when we dive into our work

together, we can recognize the correlations of imbalances. And so whatever the

scenario is, we can then look at, well, how can we actually help support the thyroid, so

that either thyroid continued thyroid imbalances or medication can be avoided? And

even in a lot of cases, how can we better support thyroid function to maybe reduce the

utilization of medication and a lot of cases with my clients, they eventually are able to

get off of it by supporting it naturally. And this is where toxins in the environment are a

huge factor in this and most importantly, to like, you know, the connection between the

liver and the gut, the digestive system as it relates to overall thyroid function, like these

are some of the biggest healing opportunities that your typical endocrinologist is not

going to be addressing when they're working with you with your thyroid, because in our

traditional standard of care system, you know, we have specific areas of expertise

where an endocrinologist is just working on hormones, it's very rare that you're going to

find one that's also looking at the detoxification and digestive system like they would

refer you out to a gastroenterologist or somebody else to work on those pieces. And

they're not really collaborating and talking together. And we know that the body is a

complex network of systems that all work together. So we do want to start to like take a

more holistic approach or view of what's happening in the body to truly understand the

opportunity that somebody has to feel better, basically.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 13:42

And what do you like to do to support the thyroid? Do you like to support other

hormones? Are there certain nutrients that you find helpful?

Jenn Malecha 13:52

Yeah, I like to take that 10,000 foot view, and really recognize the interaction of the

different systems of the body. So when I work with somebody, we usually we're when a

series of lab tests that are more functional based taking a look at things that blood tests

will always pick up on. So a lot of times these tests are urine, or stool or saliva or even

hair sample based. And I like to get a big picture, looking at the hormone, digestion,

immune, detoxification, energy and nervous system together to collect as many clues as

possible. My mentor, Reed Davis from FDA, and he always described us really helped

well, like, you know, if you had, you know, a private investigator, or a detective come over

to your house, because there was a crime scene of some sorts, they wouldn't just look in

the attic or the basement, they would look at the whole house for all of the quizzes,

right? So we want to look at the body in the same way like why would you only look at

one specific area. Let's look at the whole thing and collect all the clues. And when we do

this, we can start to see the correlations. So for example, like, on a hormone test, I like

to use the Dutch test, we can then start to see what's going on with the rest of the

hormone balance, like I mentioned earlier, estrogen, you know, was a clue for me that

estrogen dominance. So recognizing the correlation that that has between thyroid

imbalance on that specific test, we can also look at phase one, estrogen metabolism,

which gives us some insights to liver function. Ultimately, we can also then see cortisol,

regulation and rhythm on there, which the adrenals and the thyroid have a close

connection with each other how they support and help to balance each other, right. And

we can look at things like a stool sample test, I love the GI mat, we can start to get some

insights as to what's going on in the digestive system, inflammation, different types of

bacteria overgrowth, it's, you know, impacting the ability to digest nutrients really well,

it's also creating an inflammatory load on the immune system, that can be some of

those things that are contributing to it like an autoimmune circumstance. And all this

kind of links back to the thyroid, because one we need, you know, nutrients, we need the

right types of nutrients and the right amount to produce thyroid hormone adequately.

And acknowledging that a big majority of our big portion of thyroid hormones,

specifically thyroid T four is converted into T three and liver and digestive tissue. And so

this is where I see a lot of people get better, and then is when we focus on kind of

working to balance all the systems of body especially with an emphasis on liver

function, detoxification, as well as improving digestion or healing the gut. So that one,

they can absorb nutrients better, so that they can adequately produce hormones, they

can adequately have enough energy for cellular function and other things going on in

the body. But then also so that that conversion of T four to T three can optimally occur,

which is, you know, I would say the majority of the thyroid cases that I've come across in

my practice, in general, has been hypothyroidism. So it's low T three, typically. And so we

got to ask the question of why is there low T three, and it can be a conversion issue

that's actually happening, and then we can see if there's a low amount of T four, then

that's probably an indication or correlation with poor nutrient absorption. So we're not

able to make it as well as we could be right?

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 17:35

If it is a conversion issue, what do you like to use to convert from T four to T three.

Jenn Malecha 17:42

So one of the, the primary nutrients for that is selenium, that's going to be super helpful

for that conversion. I tried to be really mindful of supplementation and just, you know,

like, how much can somebody take on and all the other things that we're doing? So I

really like to focus in on, you know, also, instead of supplementing sometimes with like,

specific nutrients, like I might use something like selenium in the beginning, because I

know that they're lacking, and that while we focus on improving digestion, and

improving liver function, which is ultimately going to help bring the nutrients in and then

help with a conversion state, as well, there are two.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 18:22

Excellent. So I see a lot of people who have worked for years, sometimes on on healing

their gut. And oftentimes, it's not until they get rid of the heavy metals, chemicals, molds

and infections that they're actually able to do that. Are you seeing that as well?

Jenn Malecha 18:42

Yeah, I think it's a progressive process. So I always like to start people with like, what is

the low hanging fruit? And a lot of times that is, you know, what are the foods that

they're eating? So they might be like, I like to do food sensitivity testing. And so looking

at those inflammatory factors, do they have an overgrowth of parasites, bacteria, and

yeast that we can initially work to clean up sleep cycles, improving their sleep cycles, so

that the body can adequately like repair and detoxify at nighttime balancing some of

those hormones improving, you know, liver function, so that it can start to move some of

that stuff out of the body. And I find that when we focus on some of that, you know,

those foundational steps with people, a lot of people make really great progress and

those areas, and then with a percentage of the people that I work with, you know, once

we go through those things, if they're either not making progress in the way that I would

anticipate them to, or we want to make further progress, we kind of start to dive deeper

into the metals and the molds and other things, which, you know, from my perspective,

is a great next step because they've created like a really solid foundation by addressing

some of those initial things like Their diet, their sleep, routine exercise, generally

supporting detoxification, improving gut health, like starting to progress in that area,

we're now the body's at a better place to have the capacity and the resiliency to actually

maybe detox like deeper with pulling metals out of tissues and like moving some of that

stuff out of the body. But 100%, like those things are, again, factors that we have to

consider, especially when we take a look again, at what is in our environment, and what

we're being exposed to. So, you know, another thing in that low hanging fruit is going

back to what we said earlier, it's just met. First of all, let's start with minimizing exposure

to that stuff, right, like improving food quality, eating organic, making sure that we're

drinking like distilled or filtered water to start minimizing, you know, that type of stuff. So

we're reducing the load on the body, giving it some space to heal, making some

progress, making some lifestyle changes, and really setting it up for success with some

of maybe these deeper detox approaches.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 21:09

Yeah, I think most people don't realize how toxic their water is they're trusting their

municipal system to actually filter it correctly. But if people go to ewg.org/city, water,

and they put in their zip code, it's just it's kind of amazing. My mom actually recently

went back to Massachusetts, and then she got a tremor several days later, and we kind

of looked and we saw, you know how so many of these things are off the charts five

times 10 times 300 times the normal, acceptable ranges of these toxins. And I put her

on distilled water and her tremor went away in a number of days. And so yeah, it's just

and I've seen that time and time again. So just such an important emphasis for sure.

Now, in terms of parasites, you were mentioning, you were talking about parasites,

important part of all this. I rarely find parasites on laboratory tests. And so oftentimes,

we have to look at history and symptoms, how do you like to find parasites,

Jenn Malecha 22:14

I approach it in both ways. So in the training that I've received, the thing that we always

say is you treat the person not the test results, right. So we have to recognize that a test

is a snapshot in time, right that, you know, even if you look at thyroid, for example, your

thyroid levels are changing, like every minute of the day. And that one time that you took

that blood test is just what you're capturing. So I definitely like when it comes to

capturing parasites. I love the GI map stool sample test, but it's not always reflecting

what the person is feeling. And so if a test comes back clean, or lacking, you know what

I'm suspecting that I have to correlate that back to the person and I literally, so have run

side by side stool sample test sometimes to get a greater perspective on things. So

when it comes to stool sample testing, there's essentially two different methodologies

to it, there is like PCR testing, or they're looking at genetic data, which is what the GI

map is kind of centered around versus microscopic testing, which I think Genova effects

uses microscopic testing methods. And definitely back in the day, I used to use

biohealth, their 401 H test, and they were using microscopies sampling as well, too. So

microScan xcopy sampling, basically opens it up for anything to be detected, because

we're putting it in our microscope on a petri dish, and they're like, you know, seeing

what's just going to grow and proliferate, there's kind of no limit to it and a sense, at the

same time, there's, there's a lot of room, sometimes there can be room for error with

that, like, you know, that samples have to be shipped, like temperature safe, and then

getting it back into the lab and being able to cultivate the organisms on the petri dish to

detect those things, right. So there's room for error, and then the PCR test is a little bit

limited, and that they're looking for very specific things, but also can be more definite.

So I've seen people, you know, have really strong symptomology for parasites or H.

Pylori, and sometimes it comes up clean up on a microscopic test, and they pick it up on

a PCR and vice versa. I've seen it go both ways. So I think to your point, Evan, is that the

most important thing is that we can't discredit what a client or somebody is feeling just

because of a test result. We have to correlate that information back to them. And we

know with some of the other assessments and analysis that we do, just asking people

questions, looking at their history and their intake, you know, something like bruxism,

teeth grinding is a very strong correlation with things like parasite and yeast overgrowth.

And so we can look at the history of that the onset of that I'd also like to, I don't know if

you do this in your practice, but look at the correlation between the full moon cycles,

because I've noticed that during full moon cycles, symptom intensity is up. And so that

can also be a correlating factor as well, too. So then we can we can go in and we can

address those things, regardless of what the lab tests say sometimes.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 25:21

Absolutely. And then, you know, looking at the history, if somebody did get, you know,

has ever had Montezuma's revenge, or traveler's diarrhea or anything like that, I mean,

you can get parasites living in United States as well. But oftentimes, the you know, that's

a really good indicator, you know, because even if you had a treated or whatever, like, the

likelihood that it was treated completely is very low.

Jenn Malecha 25:42

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 25:46

And, and I'm so glad that you said that about, you know, determining, making a

determination or a diagnosis based off of somebody's history and symptoms, this is

like, one of the main things that I learned from medical school that's actually true, is that

90% of your diagnosis really should be history plus symptoms, it shouldn't be labs,

Jenn Malecha 26:05

right, which is, unfortunately, the opposite of what probably the actual approach is.

Because how many people have said, and this was, I experienced this too, like, my lab

tests always came back, quote, unquote, normal, but I didn't feel that way. You know, I

had, I was tired all the time, struggling to like, maintain my weight, I was having really,

you know, alongside of this cancer, skin cancer diagnosis, I was having what I know now

to call like chemical sensitivities, like strong reactions to perfume, or like the smell of a

permanent marker made me super nauseous one time. And so, you know, we can see

those accumulations over time happening. And that's all the symptomology that

somebody like you and I would look at, but you know, in the standard of care, that's,

they're just looking at the labs and not taking some of those things into consideration.

And a lot of times people are being told it's all in their head. And it's it's actually not, you

know,

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 27:00

yeah, I call that medical trauma and malpractice. Unfortunately, you know, way too many

people have been told that it's all in their head. And the reality is, it's not. I'm glad you

said that. So yeah, let's talk a little bit about lab testing normal ranges versus optimal

ranges.

Jenn Malecha 27:18

Oh, it's so misleading. You know, like, the, the main points of this is to recognize that

reference ranges that we get on lab testing are are usually established based on

averages of all kinds of demographics of people, you know, sick people, as well as

healthy people, we can take a look at like thyroid, specifically, a lot of the studies that

were done to establish those reference ranges, which Dr. Amy Myers talks about, pretty

extensively in some of her books, is those studies were done with people who were

already hypothyroid are on medication, so they don't actually reflect what healthy truly

is. But also they don't worry, you know, aside from that, they don't reflect what optimal is.

And so when we look at those ranges, they're very wide. And in the work that's, you

know, people like you and I do, we're looking at more narrow ranges to determine what is

optimal? Where are you actually going to feel your best, what would be a healthy range

for that to happen? So we have to, I love educating people on these factors, because so

many people are told, like I was, you know, that your your labs look normal, they look

perfect, you're within range, my doctor would tell me all the time, you're the picture of

perfect health, but I was being compared to those really wide ranges, and not what an

actual optimal range, aside from the fact that those ranges are established, based on

sick people a lot of times and not actually healthy people.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 28:51

So let's talk about yeast and mold. So they're both fungal illnesses, how can you tell the

difference about whether or not somebody's suffering from one or the other, or

sometimes if they have both?

Jenn Malecha 29:04

I think most of the times that they have both, I find it really rare that they don't actually

have both because we're exposed to mold, again, going back to the burden that it places

on the body, the internal toxicity and inflammation that it creates the suppression on the

immune system, the way that I you know, loads the liver and the detoxification system,

and then we get these things that are backed up in the body, and then we could go down

the rabbit hole of the domino effect that happens like the increase in oxalates and the

diminishing effect the diminishing levels of minerals that really, you know, make you

more susceptible to yeast overgrowth specifically right. And also depending on the type

of mold spores and which you're exposed to, can really set you up for ease. So I find that

usually people actually have both Why should say that? If they've been exposed to mold,

they have both, right? Like, that's the typical case that I see that we have to clean up.

versus the people, not everybody who has yeast, and my experience has had mold

exposure. That's definitely not, you know, not always the case. But I find if they've had

mold exposure, they definitely typically have yeast, for sure. How about you and your

experience? What are you saying?

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 30:26

Yeah, I find it to be very common. And so I'm not entirely sure, you know, which came

first? I mean, obviously, there's the mold exposure, but in terms of who's feeding whom,

potentially. And so that was gonna be my next question for you is that oftentimes, I'll

find, you know, somebody's got yeast, the way that I treat yeast, I'm going to use

oftentimes antifungals, among other things, but if I give them antifungals too soon, and

they and they haven't gotten rid of enough of their mold, they find that they get worse.

And I'm curious if that, if that's been your experience, yeah, because

Jenn Malecha 30:57

it's kind of like, you know, you're giving them a life raft to stay afloat, but they're not

actually making any progress to the island or to land, right. And so, and it goes back to

just minimizing the exposure. So even though you're treating the fumble stuff, they're

getting still getting like slammed with waves of toxic burden. And so their body is trying

to break down. Like, we have to also recognize it when we are addressing things like

parasites, bacteria, yeast in the body in the in the gut, and maybe doing an antifungal

protocol, we're actually breaking down toxins in the body and asking the body to

eliminate those things, right, because you're killing off whatever that pathogen is. So if

we have if we still have the same burden of toxic load coming in, as well as now we're

breaking down toxin and trying to pass all of that out, it can I think it can overload the

system, you know, and then people, they get it back up in their detoxification system, I, I

like to relate it to my clients like Rush hour traffic, right, you're releasing all the cars at

the same time. And there's only two lanes that everybody gets to go through the freeway

and exit off of. So we want to be conscious about like, we can open up more lanes if we

kind of work on supporting the detoxification system first, and then coming in and doing

the eradication work, essentially, but also like making sure that we've turned like that

we're minimizing that external burden. So they're not having to deal with too many

things all at once.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 32:34

Agreed. Excellent. So those are most of my questions, what have I not covered that you

want to make sure our listeners learn today,

Jenn Malecha 32:43

I want to go back to I think we said we're gonna circle back to this is, you know, kind of

the approach of minimizing toxins from your environment. Because for the listeners,

and a lot of people, when we start to talk about just the insane number of toxins that are

in the environment, it can be really overwhelming for people, you're like, where do I start,

and a lot of my clients feel that way too. So I'd like to share kind of how I help people

prioritize toxin elimination, so that you can progressively move through it in a step by

step process. And so I say that the first priority is minimizing toxins that are going into

your body. So that's where we prioritize food, and water, right. So anything that's going

directly into your body is going to have an immediate and instant, like impact on what's

happening internally. And this is something again, that low hanging fruit. And along with

us, we also want to take a look at what is touching our food, like food containers,

cooking utensils, that it is then potentially contaminating our food and our drinking

water, it's going inside of the body. So handle those things first, that is going to have like

almost an insect or immediate kind of positive impact on the body and start to move the

needle for you. And then I say next, focus on things that go on your body, because

whatever we're putting on our body gets absorbed through the skin and still has to be

metabolized through the liver and the digestive system and the detoxification system.

So this is where we can then start to expand out and take a look at personal care

products, you know, soaps, lotions, shampoo, conditioners, stuff that we're utilizing, as

well as this is where I would address water again, your shower water and your bathing

water. Because relating this back to the topic of thyroid that we've been talking about

today, the chlorine, the fluoride, the propylene in our water that we get exposed to

whether through drinking it or through bathing in it actually combined to thyroid

hormone and make it unavailable. So this is something that can impact those thyroid

values and how thyroid is functioning in the body. So we can you know put like a shower

filter on or filters on our bathwater. You can look at a whole house filtration system

which is something that I eventually got into Didn't when we did our remodel, and really

start to minimize then things that you put on your body. And then I say, the third space,

you know, with the exception of mold, maybe in some other things is that starting to

look at, you know, your external environment. So this is like cleaning products, paint that

you're using. And this is where I really think that, you know, you can look at this as a

journey, it's like when you, it's not about ditching everything in your house and having to

take on a huge investment of cleaning stuff out, it's like, okay, when you run out of that

cleaning solution, swap it for something that is less toxic or non toxic, or, you know, I

feel like I've been in this work for a while, like, we've had a TempurPedic bed for 10

years, which is super toxic. But it before I knew anything about functional medicine, and

we decided this year, it was time to get a new bed. So in this turnover, I did all the

research to get a non toxic 100% Organic latex bed, right, we're going to eventually get a

new couch, so I'll be getting like an art. Moreover, like a non toxic couch that doesn't

have flame retardants on it. So this is where I think you could start to chip away at some

of those environmental toxins. And I say with the exception of mold, because as we've

been talking about today, something like mold is a massive burden on the body. So

that's not something that you should wait to address. It needs to be prioritized right

away. And also, if you have any other really like, you know, kind of big, intense, toxic

exposures to metals or other chemicals, you probably want to like tackle those real

quick as well to not let those things linger. Right.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 36:39

Well said, yeah, for that. So this has been really excellent. I appreciate you sharing all

this information. Where can people go to learn more about you get educated on what

you're doing? Yeah.

Jenn Malecha 36:51

Thanks for asking. I love connecting with people and continuing these conversations

over on Instagram, feel free to message me come over comment on some of the posts

that I share with information like this to get some insights and coaching on that kind of

stuff. My Instagram handle is holistic health boss, which is with a W like whole food.

Basically, I also write a really, really regular blog every other week, providing all kinds of

insights and information like stuff that we talked about today. So you guys can find me

over at Holistic Health boss.com, check out the blog series that I have about mold and

thyroid and things like that, and even jump on my newsletter list so you can get that

stuff delivered to your inbox all the time.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 37:32

Excellent. And then you also have a free gift for our listeners. Yeah, which listens

checklist. It's a

Jenn Malecha 37:40

super actionable item based on what we talked about today. It basically helps you kind

of assess, you know, the environmental things that we talked about today, personal care

products, food sources, other things that might be going on in your in your home and

your environment. So you can go through the checklist kind of score yourself see like,

what is my toxic load right now. And then it also then gives you insights on actionable

things that you can do. So then you can prioritize and say, Okay, I'm gonna like tackle

one toxic element from the checklist that's in my environment, like a month or a week, or

whatever that might be for you. And you can reutilize the checklist over time to continue

reevaluating, and seeing how you're reducing that load over time.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 38:23

So actionable, and I just applaud, you know, the Baby Steps approach, you know, just

just a little bit, you know, every single day if you're doing something every single month,

if you make one of those commitments to make some of those changes in the home so

important,

Jenn Malecha 38:36

exactly as the same goes. Small hinges swing really big doors, so the little stuff totally

counts.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 38:42

Well, that's good. I haven't heard that one before. Jen, thank you so much for joining me

today. This has been excellent.

Jenn Malecha 38:51

Yeah. Thanks for having me. effing great conversation.

Evan H. Hirsch, MD 38:56

I hope you learned something on today's podcast. If you did, please share it with your

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Thanks for being part of my community. Just a reminder, this podcast is for educational

purposes only, and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified

medical professional. It is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute

medical or other professional advice or services. Thanks for listening, and have an

amazing day.