Why Mold Detox Fails: Understanding Cell Danger Response | John Kim, PharmD

Dr. John Kim joins the show to discuss mold illness, cell danger response, mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic inflammation, and why many patients remain stuck despite following conventional detox protocols. Together, we explore how environmental toxins, infections, trauma, gut health, and cellular resilience all influence the body's ability to heal and what clinicians can do to better support lasting recovery.

We dive into:

• Cell danger response and its role in chronic illness
• How mold toxins disrupt mitochondria, cell membranes, and energy production
• Why emotional trauma and chronic stress can drive immune dysfunction
• The connection between mold illness, gut health, and the microbiome
• Why some patients react poorly to glutathione, binders, and traditional detox protocols
• Advanced testing for mold illness, inflammation, and mitochondrial health
• The importance of supporting drainage pathways before detoxification
• How mycotoxins contribute to brain fog, fatigue, and neuroinflammation
• Practical strategies for addressing chronic mold exposure and supporting cellular healing
• Why a personalized, root-cause approach leads to better long-term outcomes

🕒Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Meet Dr. John Kim

01:07 From Pharmacist to Functional Medicine Practitioner

04:28 The Heart Attack That Changed Everything

08:26 Toxins, Tick-Borne Illness & Childhood Trauma

10:55 Why Emotional Trauma Is a Root Cause of Chronic Illness

11:17 What Is Cell Danger Response?

13:23 How Mitochondria Sense Threats

15:31 Why Chronic Fatigue & Brain Fog Happen

18:50 The Link Between Cell Membranes & Mitochondrial Dysfunction

20:19 How Mold Toxins Damage Energy Production

27:28 Why Mold Keeps the Body Stuck in Survival Mode

29:10 The "Humpty Dumpty" Effect Explained

31:14 Best Lab Tests for Mold Illness

33:19 Provoked Mycotoxin Testing: Does It Work?

37:56 Advanced Testing for Cell Membrane Health

39:36 Mold's Impact on the Gut Microbiome

43:31 Why Mold Detox Protocols Fail

49:23 Final Takeaways & Where to Learn More

🔗 Dr. Phillip Oubre, MD

https://oubremedical.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/oubremedical/ 

🔗 Dr. John Kim, Pharm.D.

https://www.drjohnkim.com/

https://www.instagram.com/john.pharmd

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Transcript

Phillip Oubre 0:10

Welcome to the Vibrant Wellness Podcast, where we explore the cutting edge of functional and integrative medicine to help you achieve health and vitality. I'm your host, Dr. Philip Oob, and today I'm excited to welcome a true leader in the field of complex chronic illness, Dr. John Kim. Dr. Kim is a functional medicine pharmacist, educator, and founder of Kim Wellness. He specializes in some of the most challenging conditions facing patients today, including biotoxin and mold illness, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormone and gut disorders, cell danger response, and complex neuroimmune conditions. Today we'll dive into the latest insights on complex chronic illness, root cause medicine, and what clinicians and patients need to know to achieve lasting wellness. All right, Dr. Kim, thanks for joining us on the Vibrant Wellness Podcast. I personally am selfishly uh ready to talk to you and ask a lot of questions. Thank you. Just from the little bit I already got from you. Yeah. So first, you got to tell me, I I've I can honestly say I don't think I've ever met a pharmacist that actually sees patients. So, first of all, tell me how did that get started? You're a pharmacist that actually sees patients.

John Kim 1:20

Yeah, absolutely. So when I was just getting to graduate from pharmacy school, I was completing my uh doctor pharmacy degree. And at that time, I saw the brokenness of the conventional medicine side. I forgot. Exactly. So one time I actually was doing my uh externship in the ER, and I had this one particular patient who was dealing with uncontrollable high blood pressure coming in every week for the five weeks that I was there. And it was nothing addressed into lifestyle and anything that was taught based on the J and C guideline, except for just optimizing more medications, basically. And many things I want to uh roll my eyes at, but I'll just let you keep going. And then getting the patient out the door, and that was it. And so I thought that was something that was uh in disinjoint and as well as affecting the outcome of the patients and especially her life. Yeah. So I was Oh, there's a woman. Usually this is a male problem. I know. Okay. So I was actually looking at other ways in terms of all right, maybe I should go to acupuncture school or something else. And because clearly you hadn't done enough school by this point. Exactly. Wanted more schooling. Okay. So you're a nerd. Got it. At that point in time, I was actually doing my uh externship at Professional Compounding Center of America, PCCA. Okay. They mainly train compounding pharmacists down in Texas, Houston, Houston, Texas, as we are in Austin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that time I heard the name this guy, Jim Lavell. Oh, yeah. I know that. Yeah, Jim Lavelle. He's a pharmacist.

Phillip Oubre 2:39

He's here in Austin.

John Kim 2:40

Uh, yes, he is. In Dallas, too, I think. Oh, okay. Dallas and Austin. He has a clinic in Dallas, actually, near Dallas. And he was the one who told me to go through fellowship training through A4M. So that's how that's what I did after pharmacy school. Two years of that. And afterwards, I was seeing clients in managing hormone dysregulation and gut. That was the main thing that I was looking at. And the more the profound thing was none of the MDs and the doctors that we're working with wanted to see any of these hormone clients. So they were just referring patients over to us. Um, I get the labs, I end up having to get them a treatment protocol for the doctor to follow through as it was a prescription. And that's how I started. And that also led to me uh working with the spectrum, alternate spectrum community. Um, there was at that time, back in from until I think it was 2012, that's when Defeat Autism Now, Dan Conference, used to be very active. They used to have training for doctors and pharmacists to go in and being learning, learning about the active treatment or biological treatment for alternate spectrum. So we were learning about low-dose naltrexone, topical glutathione, glutathione inhalation solutions, coinfections, heavy metals, uh, hair mineral analysis, looking at different types of uh toxic panels. At that point in time, doctor's data came out with the urine um heavy metal testing. That's what I started to learn about all these things. And the reason what year was this? This was 2010, 2009, 2010. I was a baby doctor.

Phillip Oubre 4:09

I wasn't, I had just finished medical school and you're already doing all the fun stuff. Yeah, that's not fair.

John Kim 4:14

Well, the thing is like I just things happen to happen to happen. So yeah, one of the things I always say is that you know, you're not able to know what's going on now. Yeah. However, when you look back, you're able to connect the dots in terms of what happened and transpired into the way you are now. Yeah. Right. So true. So fast forward 2015, that's when I had a heart attack.

Phillip Oubre 4:37

And how old are you now?

John Kim 4:38

I'm 44. 44. And you said you were 33. 33 at that time. Wow. Yeah. So almost 11 years ago. And I thought I was having the perfect life, working out. I was very fit at that point in time, and trying to manage everything in terms of the startup compounding pharmacy that I actually owned. And the crazy part was there was a lot of warning signals, uh, signals that I had issues, except for I just end up having to see, all right, this is something to be managed as such, nothing more.

Phillip Oubre 5:08

Except for And you were kind of already in the functional medicine world by this time.

John Kim 5:13

Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 5:13

So it felt like you were just a regular conventional medicine pharmacist. You you really knew what you were doing and still had this in Stimmy heart attack.

John Kim 5:21

But the problem is a lot of practitioners out there are very bad patients to begin with. We know how to take care of clients, but we don't know how to take care of ourselves. So even for me, I ended up having to have, you know, trustful practitioners I always look up to and help ask them to review my laps and such. Physician, heal thyself. Not really. So at that point in time, this was June 4th. That's when I started having severe heartburn, which I always used to have. Yeah. The pain shot down to my left arm. And I thought, um, I was like, this is really odd. So this is the middle of the night. And I went back to sleep, woke up the following day, went to the doctor. Yeah, went to work. And then you're a double shot of espresso and nothing's wrong. I don't remember what I had, but I was still having this, I thought it was heartburn. Uh-huh. End up going to an urgent care center instead of ER. And then the E and then the urgent care center doctor is like, you're having a heart attack right now. We have to get to the ER.

Phillip Oubre 6:20

No, you got the wrong band. Yeah.

John Kim 6:23

Shipped right to the ER. Even the attending physician there and the cardiologist did not believe that I was having a heart attack.

Phillip Oubre 6:30

Right. At 33, who would? Yeah. And I'm assuming, I mean, you look healthy and fit right now. You said you were even fit back then.

John Kim 6:35

But then, and then the crazy part was my troponin level was less than one. So no one suspected, and not I didn't have any classical science symptoms dealing with a heart attack. Okay. So no one was actually looking at this. Right. So I was talking to another VR physician afterwards, and they're like, you know what? I would have just sent you home. Because there was no other clear signs that was happening, except for when I did an echocardiogram, my left ventricle wasn't pumping well. Oh, sound of ischemia. Interesting. So that's when I was sent to the cath lab. 85% blockage in my LED. Whoa. Right. So I was the youngest patient to get a stem put in.

Phillip Oubre 7:09

Not the award you want to receive.

John Kim 7:12

I should have gotten a sticker at least. But that was it. That was the moment stamp putting in and then having to sit in the ER. I'm sitting sitting in the cardiogase unit for three days, just staring at a wall and just wondering what had happened. That was number one. Number two is what can I do to prevent this from happening again? Correct. Right? Too young. Too young, just because you're on statin drugs does not mean you could prevent a secondary heart attack. Nope. Happens all the time. Yeah. Right.

Phillip Oubre 7:40

America's proof of that. Yes. We give out plenty statins, and there's still plenty of patients in the heart hospital.

John Kim 7:45

Yeah. So I got back home asking for the questions, and all I wanted to do was at least I want to get a vitamin C uh dripped on. So I went to my integrative doctor. What I asked was, like, hey, you know what, do you mind if I just use your IV room to get certain IVs done? Why vitamin C specifically? Just to help reduce the vascular inflammation. Number one, it does work. And as well as just to get my energy back because I was so fatigued. Okay. Having severe brain fault. Before the heart attack. Yeah. Okay. Even then. Okay. And I was just running on adrenaline, yeah.

Phillip Oubre 8:16

Or in a successful person, you can do that, right? Yeah. Um, but vitamin C, we're talking high dose, low dose?

John Kim 8:22

What do we I don't recall that part? Okay. But that I I didn't even get that far. Oh, all I was asked was, I think you're dealing with a tick-borne illness. We should do some plot work. Okay. So that's when a month and a half later, I tested positive for Bartonella infection. Okay. High levels of uh mold antibody, specifically aspergillus, microplasma pneumonia, epstein bar, parasites, all the things. All the things on which is brewing heavy levels of mercury level. Okay. So I used to intentionally break mercury thermometers as a kid to play around with the quicksilver. Oh my goodness. That was my favorite thing to do, right? So that's where the accumulation of the body is.

Phillip Oubre 8:56

I'm about to ask your exposure, but that was pretty obvious.

John Kim 8:58

Obvious. The accumulation of toxins. So what I call the toxic bucket effect. Yep. And then on top of, now looking back, in terms of triggering issue dealing with childhood trauma, causing major issues dealing with neuroinflammation, anxiety, right? That levels of stress getting involved as a kid, it affects many things, including microcluid activation, as we know, right? Mast on priming that occurs, right? We see a lot of these things now. Actually, specifically when I work with clients these days, the number one thing that I actually asked them about is not the toxicity issue, it's their interpersonal relationship they have with their family members. Fascinating. I love it. If there's a brokenness going on, wouldn't that, if the especially for women, if they are emotionally neglected growing up, there's a major impact of how their immune system is functioning. And so I do see high levels of Hashimoto's and there's studies showing these things as well. So it is true, oftentimes when functional medicine practitioners are practicing, they're only looking at labs and supplements and root cause, never understand the concept that there's a huge underlying issue with their state of mental, emotional trauma that goes on behind it.

Phillip Oubre 10:15

That's actually part of our um office. We call it emotional toxins because it stress is this unquantifiable thing, vibrant. You guys need to come up with a stress, stress quantification metric. And and the idea is that I anyone you could have you could be uh the greatest fitness of your life and feel amazing, and then a parent dies, and all of a sudden you're fatigued and brain fog, can't sleep, all of those things like emotional toxins can bring you down to your knees faster than any mold toxin, mercury, anything. So I'm glad y'all are pointing that stuff out because I think, like you just said, in functional medicine too often, yeah, we're we're we're good at talking to the patient, but I think that's way too easily overlooked. And the patient doesn't really connect those dots. They're looking at all the labs and focused on that too. So I think that's I'm I want to hover there for a moment and say that that's really important to pay attention to those things, but it's also really difficult to fix. How do you help someone with their social aspect of life? Because that's not our training, right? Yeah, absolutely.

John Kim 11:12

So I I do end up having to ask those questions and figuring out what are the underlying issues that's maybe triggering it. So this whole goes back to the concept of self-danger response. And a few years ago, I was actually at Vibe and Wellness um conference and I have to speak on this topic. It's a term made by Dr. Robert Navio. And he When did that term come out? Because I was thinking it was.

Phillip Oubre 11:35

Okay, I was gonna say, I don't feel like it's that long.

John Kim 11:37

And he was working a lot with and still do, working with the auto inspectrum committee and explaining, but also teaching clinicians why certain people are stuck in the healing process and why is it that there's an underlying mitochondrial function, and then and within his metabolomic lab that he has, he was able to replicate and also seeing the actual changes by chemistry-wise, and as well as issue dealing with um trauma response that the body undergoes through when it goes to the cell danger response phenomena. So cell danger response is not just about the common things, like when you talk about viruses, parasites, bacteria, and and um dealing with mole toxicity, and then you'd have other chemical issues, and especially volatile gases, heavy metals, and such. Um, now you have to be much more cognizant of non-ADBMF exposures on top of blue light toxicity problem, right? That's end up having to be a major major point of stress response. And then you're dealing with the physical traumas like brain, uh traumatic brain injuries, past concussions and stuff that you could had as a kid and didn't pay attention to.

Phillip Oubre 12:44

And burns. Burns, gosh, I know that's not something you hear about.

John Kim 12:49

And the last thing that ends up having to be impacted is basically the psychological, emotional, and spiritual traumas. Yeah, right. People becoming carry around with us. Correct. And actually, not even just holding onto it, is embedded right into that aspect of it. It affects how the mitochondria is functioning at the same time, right? Your mitochondria, we're gonna shift into that probably later on, but it's a sensing organ. It's a sensing being is able to allow many things to be bypassed and able to dictate into how the metabolic process goes in the body. But in terms of sensing-wise, the sensing of particular threat, the mitochondria handles all those, not just by making ATP. So there's an onset of a cell danger response and threat.

Phillip Oubre 13:28

I can honestly say I never thought of it that way. And I want to connect those two dots. The cell danger response is connected to mitochondrial dysfunction. Yeah. And so tell us more about this mitochondria as a sensing organ or organelle.

John Kim 13:42

Yeah. So especially when you're talking about a let's talk about virus, for instance, right? That's probably the easiest way to explain that. When the virus enters into a cell, that causes depolarization with the cell membrane. Okay. And that is sending signal and put a polar change that the mitochondria actually senses. Really?

Phillip Oubre 14:00

And this is not just in neurons in any cell. Yeah, within depolarized. Yeah.

John Kim 14:05

And this is the part that Dr. Robert Navier was explaining about within the concept of cell danger response. Okay. When that actually happens, instead of making ATP, which is oxyphosphorylation, the mitochondria shifts into a glycolysis, which are very inefficient ways into making energy. Right. On top of that, to contain the particular damage, the mitochondria tells the cells to pump out additional phospholipids to contain the particular damage within the cell itself. So nothing's going in or nothing's going out. On top of pumping out ceramides as well to really fortify that particular cell. And then it also increases um increases a release of antimicrobial, antiviral agents within that cell to neutralize the virus. But one of the fascinating that mitochondria also does is it's able to dictate mitophagy and autophagy functions. So that's one of the things that mitochondria is able to do. And then mitochondria also shuts down DNA methylation. Okay. Why? It's to prevent further oxidative challenges that goes on because of that process also prevents the virus from hijacking the DNA methylation. Okay.

Phillip Oubre 15:14

So it's kind of self-sacrificial, like, hey, I'm infected. Let's let's protect, let's, let's destroy self in order to protect everyone else. Yeah. Kind of idea. Yeah. Okay. So that was a lot of fancy words. And we have patients watching this also. So I'm going to make you go back through that because that was a lot of detail. I want to hear it again. Yeah. But Nick, this time I'm going to say, dummy it down for the patients watching. They don't know mitophagy, autophagy. Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

John Kim 15:39

So easy way to do is when a virus enters in, let's just say, there's an example, mold can actually trigger this as well. When a virus enters in to the particular cell, the mitochondria senses this particular threat and try to uh instead of making eight energy, now it actually shifts into a poor way of actually creating energy, but shifts the entire process to deal with the particular threat. So it goes into a defense mode.

Phillip Oubre 16:04

Yeah. So now multiply that times billions of cells, and why someone stuck on a couch, can't move, and chronically fatigued, and brain doesn't work and all that all of a sudden makes sense.

John Kim 16:14

And the brain hits the most, right? And then especially the cardiac muscle also has a lot of mitochondria being concentrated. So when you're seeing clients dealing with more than mycotoxin issues, this is the reason why they have a lot of symptoms of depression, brain fog, right? Personality change can actually occur due to that reason. Because the mitochondria, being that it's the most efficient ways of creating energy, when you downgrade that, basically you have a low energy standpoint. Yeah. That's what comes out.

Phillip Oubre 16:41

And then you're you're, as you're saying, glycolysis. So now the mitochondria burning sugar. And so then the body starts craving sugar, right? And then the patient starts eating too much sugar and it's just a waterfall effect.

John Kim 16:52

Just keep going. That and then you have the microbiome shifting as well. But one of the things is the when you have a damage, the mitochondria shifts that process and to contain the damage, but also trying to do a self-sacrifice to prevent that. Another thing is that to prevent further this stress response going on the cell, the mitochondria also shuts down DNA methylation. Now, methylation is very important, not only for detox, but in particular early phases of cell danger response in this particular threat, adding additional antioxidants or methylation process can also be very stressful.

Phillip Oubre 17:27

Okay, so clearly you know more about this than me. So you said DNA methylation, and I think everyone ties methylation and B vitamins and Gary Brecca all into methylation. But DNA methylation is a completely different process, related, but completely different process, right? So what do you mean the mitochondria shuts down DNA methylation?

John Kim 17:45

So DNA methylation can be hijacked by a virus to self-replicate further. So that's an easy way to explain to patients. I was actually on Gary Brecka's podcast about two months ago. That should be coming out very soon. I didn't know. Talking about this. Yeah, talking about talking about this particular phenomena. And he even also agreed that there's some patient population cannot tolerate B vitamins. He's a reason why. I have one right now. Yeah. There's there's an ongoing cellular threat. So adding in B vitamins end up having to be much more stressful within that. But also there's an underlying issue with the state of a danger state that you have to provide safety, but also help to reverse these things in a very sequential manner. So this way the body does not undergo through shock. The people out there have done multiple other protocols, especially B vitamins or even glothium for specifically, they cannot tolerate it. Here's a reason why. Yeah. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 18:41

Okay. So tie together for our patients and myself, uh, that cell danger response and mitochondria dysfunction are how are they related? That's the question.

John Kim 18:52

So the reason that's connected is when you have an ongoing issue with particular threat, it actually ligates a cell membrane. Right. So why got cell membrane? So breaks the cell membrane together. So codal especially ligates, cuts it. Cuts it.

Phillip Oubre 19:06

It's been a while since I've been in med school, Dr. Kim.

John Kim 19:08

You're kind of dumbing it down, right? Cutting it down. So especially when you're talking about this one example, high spike of insulin. That's number one. Yeah. All the ways in which you're doing this is having increasing cortisol level. Yeah. So increase in cortisol level has been shown to have a sh production of phospholipase A2 enzyme, which ligates or breaks the cell membrane down. Okay. That's one of the phenomena that actually occur.

Phillip Oubre 19:32

And then part of the COX system? That could be, yes.

John Kim 19:36

There's a metaphor in terms of the inflammatory condition, effect. Another thing that can actually occur oftentimes is the fact that these types of different toxins, especially mold toxins, causing a particular cellular threat, especially when you have an immune, innate immune response going on. That hand-to-hand combat. Correct. That causes high levels of influx of uh cox2 enzyme and as well as arachidonic acid and multiple other cytokine activity, which also damage the cell membrane. But one thing that mold particular does, is I know that's a topic that we're going to be discussing about, and that's a topic that I discussed at the conference, is that mold causes lipid peroxidase. Right. So actually oxidized the cell membrane, or at least the fat, fatty layer of the cell membrane itself. And so when you have a poor functioning cell membrane, it actually ends up causing mitochondrial dysfunction.

Phillip Oubre 20:27

Right. That makes sense. So the mold toxin itself causes the oxidation, or is it a downstream process of it damaging the mitochondria and then it ultimately damaging the causing the oxidation?

John Kim 20:37

So it is, is, is, it's all. But one of the things, but specifically, I talked about at the conference was that uh specific mold toxins. So let's talk about the more popular ones. So ochre toxin, right, end up having to be much more prevalent in coffee, right? That people end up having to do it. Don't touch my coffee. No touch me. I know. That's a lot more. That's a lot more. I actually spend extra money on mold-free coffee. I don't know if it's real or not, but it makes me feel a little better. Well, I do see a profound difference in that. Oh, do you? Okay. So it's worth the extra pennies? Got it. Right. I'll tell my wife. So why do you buy expensive? Okotoxin end up specifically affecting kidneys, the gut, and the brain as well. Now, what it does is that it actually causes mitochondrial dysfunction by lowering ATP production. How? It actually affects the um complex one, three, and four of the electron transport chain. So that lack of decoupling, you cannot produce ATP correctly. So that's number one.

Phillip Oubre 21:33

Two, it causes So for patients, that's at the mitochondrial level, how the mitochondria, the battery of the cell, makes energy. That's the I forget how many steps of making energy, but that's the first few steps of making energy. If you can't make energy, nothing can work. Right.

John Kim 21:47

So you look at an engine, for instance, right? There's look at an engine. I I'm a car guy.

Phillip Oubre 21:51

So if you look at the car engine, I was at Jakoda yesterday.

John Kim 21:54

Were you? Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 21:56

I love car metaphors, but I can't go too far because I do not know anything. Gas, oxygen, combustion. Combustic.

John Kim 22:02

There you go. So if you have a particular engine, it has different parts and different levers and such. But if you actually have those little particular parts leaking, right, the engine was leaking, and that engine was engine is going to break at some point. Right. That's exactly what it comes out. You can follow that metaphor. So if you actually have a complex one, three, and four, especially a glant transport chain being damaged, you're losing electrons. Right. So you're losing that particular fuel.

Phillip Oubre 22:28

And the whole thing the mitochondria is trying to do to make energy. Correct. And you're saying okra toxin directly disrupts that disrupts that proxy.

John Kim 22:36

By itself. And it also causes lipid proxyase, I mentioned about. Right. And another thing that's really interesting is that trichothesin's black mold, right, comes from fusarium and as was stochomatris. Those also cause mitochondria dysfunction, but affects the brain, the heart, and the gut. And another thing that actually does is it actually ends up having to impact by crossing the blood brain barrier, right? Causing neuroinflammation, and then on top of end up having to uh cause uh additional levels of lipidroxase to occur. And then when you talk about gliotoxin, same similar thing, but gliotoxin is another molotoxin. Yeah. And it comes from aspergillos um um fumogatis, end up having to cause depletion of your glutathione storage. So you have a lot of things in terms of not only causing this particular amount of conjugate dysfunction, now you're actually dealing with the fact that your antioxidant capacity is also down. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 23:34

So I hope people are following what you're what you're saying, because I'll try to kind of summarize and then pick back up at that point. This is multi-system failure, basically. You you've got a toxin that's causing the energy pumps to leak oil. You've got a toxin that's actually damaging the thing that needs to make energy directly. You're you've got a thing that's also causing inflammation, increasing your energy needs, increasing your immune system, your repair needs. Yet that same thing is actually damaging you at the same time. And I'm sure you see this all the time too, but I commonly get mold patients that their biochemistry from a traditional lab stance looks totally normal. And the doctor's like, oh, here, here's your SSRI, right? Um, and so I not yet, but one of the things I want to know is like, all right, how can patients take that deeper dive and find out these things that are not on traditional lab work? But I want to keep letting you go down that cell danger response of biochemistry dominoes falling. I can see the dominoes in my head just one at a time.

John Kim 24:33

And another thing that I want to touch upon is aflatoxin. Okay, right, which is common in aspogillas and penicillium. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 24:39

And most doctors only think beans and stuff, right? Like, oh, aflatoxin is a foreign country thing. Like, no, aflatoxins are all over here.

John Kim 24:45

Wet damage building is a huge problem. Yeah. Right? You have a growth of aspergillus and penicillium on a wet, wet wall. And that could actually be where the aflatoxin specifically can be impacting the body. And aflatoxin, one of the thing is that it is a probably the most potent liver carcinogen out there. Really? Number one. Well, I mean, I guess that makes sense. It does cause liver failure, acute poisoning, right? Exactly. And number two, it also causes something called DNA adduct. It actually binds to the DNA structure. Yep. Right? It changes up a genetic expression of itself. It also causes protein misfolding at the same time. Yeah. Right.

Phillip Oubre 25:18

That is something we definitely don't know enough about that we don't talk about enough protein misfolding.

John Kim 25:23

Yeah. And also trichothesin cause the same thing. Gee, trichothesin also causes protein synthesis as well. Really? So this is a huge issue in terms of how you detox. It causes protein synthesis synthesis. Like wrong synthesis? Yeah. Synthesis of the protein misfolding on top of having to impede protein process. Interesting. So there's a lot of issues, not only that. So when you're adding all these things, it's just an issue in terms of just causing major stress response in the mitochondria. Now, everybody's supposed to go through some levels of cell danger response every single day. You're waking up, that's a danger state, right? High levels of cortisol. But the issue is that the overwhelming response of stress causing the lack of homeostasis to go, or at least going back to normalcy, is impeded. And so the mitochondria goes into dysfunctional state. So almost like a person who's like having multiple levels of things that they have to take care of and they get completely overwhelmed and they don't know what to do. Yeah. Right. Causes paralysis basically. So the mitochondria going through that process is a mitochondrial dysfunction. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 26:28

I I like making things simple for patients. And I think one of the things I'm seeing is if I were in my house and you just started turning down how much electricity I could use, I would slowly stop using things, right? Because you don't have a choice. You just have less electricity. So you're going to cut down to more and more um necessary things until you're down to basic life support. And I see that I'm sure you've seen it too. The mold patient that's on the couch for 10 years and doesn't know why they're on the couch, but that's why. All the electricity has been turned off and they're on basic life support, which is just breathing and and and surviving.

John Kim 27:01

Yeah. And mold actually keeps on turning that um issue on as a as a danger state. But another thing is that biochemically, and when you look at the entire how the cell is functioning, we talked about the ATP production, right? So that's intracellular ATP that the body's up the cells are able to create. The interesting part is now the mitochondria starts to dump that ATP out of the cell. Really? To create a signal to other cells that there's a danger going on.

Phillip Oubre 27:29

Interesting. So not only can it not make enough ATP, but it's leaking ATP into the system.

John Kim 27:35

Correct. And so now that's called a danger-associated molecular pattern. And we have no test for that, right? There's no test for that. Yeah. So that so that is the damp signal. It's called a damp, right? The damp signal. What did that stand for? Danger-associated molecular pattern. Oh, that was way easier than I imagined. DAMP. That particular signal bar. Everything's a signal in the body. So that particular signal creates other cells to be in a in a state of dysfunction at this point in time. So it starts to do all the things that, especially what this particular one single cell was trying to do. But that issue causes a signal to the brain to actually have this sick syndrome. So this is why people feel fatigue, right? They have lack of energy. Because why? Just as you mentioned, the shift into energy production to what is necessary to survive and keep them at bay. So this way they could heal and recover. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 28:25

And all of a sudden answering emails and doing spreadsheets is not survival. That's extra energy that the body doesn't need. Maintaining gut function and pumping blood seems to be more important. Okay. Even that is fail. Even that is failing. Starts to fail. Um, okay. I so we could talk about that a whole lot longer, but I think we've established uh that you're a really smart guy. So we we've got the credibility done. Uh we've got that mold and and we we focused on specifically viruses and mold, but really back to the toxin bucket. This is really anything, but you're especially interested in mold. But obviously, if someone doesn't have mold, they can still have cell danger response and other toxic effects. Everything else.

John Kim 29:05

So that this actually goes into the effect that everything that you're dealing with in life, right, is just becoming an additive effect to it. And an interesting part about even for me going through it is what I call the Humpty Dumpty effect.

Phillip Oubre 29:18

I love using the Humpty Dumpty metaphor. Okay. If the Humpty Dumpty, tell me how you use Humpty Dumpty.

John Kim 29:22

For me, as a Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall and is able to make fun of people, laugh, it's fine. But it's absolutely I forgot that part of the story.

Phillip Oubre 29:30

He is a little jerk, isn't he?

John Kim 29:31

He's a jerk, he's a jerk, right? But there's a little tiny stressor. Someone pokes him on the side, or there's a wind coming through, knocks him over, and his shell's cracked. Right. That's how dysfunctional our body is a lot, oftentimes, because of our poor eating habits, or to get exposed to certain toxins. And especially when you're adding in the effect nowadays with trauma, not only dealing with physical trauma, but by emotional and psychological trauma that goes on, will cause the body to be in a dysfunctional state. So it's a matter of time, oftentimes, that we end up having to be impacted. Yeah. Where we're completely falling over and we can't get up. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 30:10

Kind of like the long COVID thing. People think that COVID caused all of their dysfunction. And I don't know about you, but I'm more of the believer like, no, you were pretty dysfunctional all along the way. COVID was just that last little to use the Humpty Dumpty, COVID was the last little slight poke or gust of breeze that knocked you off the wall. And it's good that you recognize that. Now you got to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Uh so before we get into putting Humpty Dumpty, I see you eagerly already.

John Kim 30:36

Well, that that part, well, I have another analogy for that one. Okay, okay. I call it the kerosene effect. If a tiny kerosene fire going on, yeah, right. Yeah. But you pour entire kerosene into it, and so that fire just completely blown up. That's exactly COVID. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 30:50

Right. But at least you won't have a mosquito problem. So this is exactly. Um okay, so we we've established credibility. We we've got a problem. Um let's talk about testing this problem because that's a huge, huge gap. Um, I'll say my own personal gap, or I didn't switch to start treating mold until about 2018 because A, I didn't know how to test for it. B, I didn't know how to treat it. And nowadays we have a ton of tests for it. So that sounds stupid. But um the the idea is it it how can patients go a deeper dive than just the traditional, oh, my doctor checked my cholesterol panel? What are what are your favorite kind of tests to bifurcate to help people decide what toxins or whatnot, they're where do they go? I actually look at the full lipid panel first.

John Kim 31:34

Okay. Yeah, here's the reason why. Was not expected. Yeah, yeah, I know. When you actually have a uh issue dealing with inflammation, yeah, your LDL level tends to be very elevated anyway. Yeah, look at the API.

Phillip Oubre 31:44

I've noticed that, but what's the what's the connect the dots for me?

John Kim 31:47

Yeah, so it's actually causing additional inflammation. Yeah. And in order to fix the uh the damaged cell membrane, now the body's pumping out more LDL. Okay, because that's the reason why cholesterol and oil, and that's what your membrane's made of. Exactly. Okay, that's trying to uh it's trying to mend the cell membrane. So that's one thing. Another thing that I like to look at is the HTL level as well. If the HTL level is very depleted, actually signs the fact that your phospholipid reserve is very depleted as well. So you need cell you need phospholipids to fix the cell membrane. And when that reserve is low, there's an ongoing cell danger response or some type of issue causing this problem. Yeah, and a low-fat diet's not gonna fix it. It's not a problem. And oftentimes vegans actually have the worst eating. Yeah, so I hate to say that. Don't get don't get me started there. I know, I know. We've got more. Okay, so that's the lipid. What else? Yep. I also look at the chronic inflammatory markers. So things like MMP9, uh C4A, you're looking at uh VEG F. So those are couple of the markers that I look at. So this is a SARS markers, right? Dr. Shoemaker ended up having to be the pioneer looking at this. Uh the other thing was way ahead of his time. Yeah, he was. Yeah. He was. Um, and the other things I look at is a urine mycotoxin testing. Yep. So looking at the full levels of what you're dumping out, but there's also limitation of that, yeah, of the urine mycotoxin testing, because if you are exposed to mold issues for a long period of time, you may not dump those mycotoxins out correctly. Right. So true.

Phillip Oubre 33:11

So do you guys do provocation or not? Okay. Which y'all's, I I'm a big prop provoker too. So which y'all's provocation?

John Kim 33:18

I started using, I'm good friends with Dr. Jill Christa. And Dr. Jill Christa came out with a supplement called color guard that I use. They actually can do that. Colour guard color, color color guard. Okay. Her formulation actually has different levels of bioflabonoids to help to soluze the mycotoxins. Okay. So you used to be the fact that I used to give glorothione and as well as sodium butyrate to help loosen these sodium butyrate orally. Orally. Yeah. Yeah, not actually. Let's not do that. Like torturing patients. Yeah, no, no. They're tortured enough. But yeah, those are two things I used to recommend doing. But now, one thing I notice is that um, in order for you to detox more properly, you need to soluze the mycotoxins, not the binders. Right. So things like molybdenum, which helps to solise sulfur, but gliotoxin specifically, and as well as some of the bioflaviners like chumeric and rasferol, can be very helpful too in this process. So I do use provocation to do these things.

Phillip Oubre 34:13

And glutathione?

John Kim 34:14

No, I don't use glutathione that as much. So this is a term that I actually uh tell my clients is that the right supplement at the wrong time can end up causing more damage. Correct. The reason being is especially when you talk about gliotoxin, patients with glotoxin issues, they tend to be very sensitive to sulfur. Yeah. Right. And adding in antioxidants too early, specifically glutathione, can cause that particular molcerium to pump out more glutatoxin into the system. People get often get sick. So it's not the glutathione that you need to add in right away. You could you need to do that. But what you need to do is you know to support that body, to sibolize the mycotoxin correctly, and supporting that to reduce glutotoxin is probably the number one product that I should put into help my clients first instead of using binders or anything of that nature.

Phillip Oubre 35:04

Can I ask specifically what your color guard um protocol is? Two days, three days, seven days? So I usually end up having to recommend do that for about seven days and then do urine collection testing.

John Kim 35:15

Okay.

Phillip Oubre 35:15

Uh, and so when you do that, you do the vibrant mycotoxin. Do you do the whole total tox at the same time? Or you're like, well, we're collecting urine, might as well do everything, or do you wait on that?

John Kim 35:23

I like to do the whole thing. Yeah. It actually ends up costing cheaper for the patients anyway. Right. Right. To clump it all together. Correct. And I'd say that it's a bang for the buck. Yeah. Right.

Phillip Oubre 35:32

And so metals um aren't the greatest thing to come out with just bioflavonoids. So how do you interpret the metals if you don't get the best result, but you don't trust it?

John Kim 35:42

So generally when you're talking about uh moltoxes getting involved, there's always heavy metals anyway. Almost always, yeah. Right. Almost always.

Phillip Oubre 35:51

So do you all use a different provocation protocol protocol to get metals out specifically, or you find the find the color guard works pretty good for metals too?

John Kim 35:59

Yeah, I know years ago they used to recommend DMSA as a rectally or orally try to help with that. You like the rectal part. Uh no, I mean I used to be a compounding pharmacist, so that's used to that's what I used to do. Compound. I used to make uh DMSA uh 750 milligrams depositories.

Phillip Oubre 36:14

I tried it in two patients because I heard it was gonna be better, and I can say that A, they were not very happy with me, and B, it did not work any better than swallowing the pills. Correct. Yeah.

John Kim 36:22

So I stopped doing that. No, no, stop doing that. I don't I don't even recommend it. So that's a couple of things that I would not do. Um, but in many cases, I've seen using glutathione, at least what I used to do anyway, right? For provocation. Right, correct. But also when I work with the clients, I end up having to work on the drainage pathway to begin with. Yeah. And this is the part that's a really important factor to come in. Oftentimes the patients are very bound up. Yep. And at that point in time, it's not the heavy metal you got to be worried about. You got to get your gut mortal and able to regulate you better.

Phillip Oubre 36:52

A strange question for you. Um, there's controversy out there. I want to hear your response on this about using provocation agents and it affecting the lab test and coming up with false numbers and all this. What you're saying on the controversy affecting like the bioflavonoids themselves falsely interacting with the lab equipment and causing false results and people telling us that we're creating a problem that's not real. Have you heard of this?

John Kim 37:17

I've have, I don't think that's much of an issue at all. Oftentimes, these patients are chronically being exposed to toxins to begin with, they're bound up and they're releasing it. And oftentimes you have false uh negative in the testing that I do not like to see. You see all the signs and symptoms, yes, but you want to utilize that lab to confirm what your finding is true. Yep.

Phillip Oubre 37:39

All right. So getting the total tox, getting um some basic labs also some serious markers.

John Kim 37:46

Serious markers. I like to look at organic acid as well. Yeah. Organic acid testing is going to test for mitochondrial dysfunction, your levels of glutathione, as well as how your fatty acid metabolism actually handles. Correct. So that's another thing. It's not as good as running a red blood cell fatty acid analysis. That's called the Kennedy Krieger testing.

Phillip Oubre 38:04

Okay, I haven't seen that in a long time.

John Kim 38:06

Y'all are doing that? Yep, I'm running that right now. Okay. And that is the partnership through Body Bio. Okay. And they actually is one of the goal standard looking at lipidroxidomes as well as renegade fats, how the fluidity index is working with the cell membrane as well. The cell membrane is supposed to be very fluid. Right. Have things come in, go out, and detox is that when you have a dysfunctional cell membrane, that gets affected.

Phillip Oubre 38:31

Can I give you my metaphor for that? Sure. My metaphor is if you're if your front door comes, your groceries come in and your trash goes out, right? If you put 20 deadbolts on that front door, you could still get in and get out. But let me tell you, you'd be taking a lot less trash out. You'd be bringing the groceries in a lot slower because you got to unlock all the 20 dead bolts and bring it back in. So that usually pulls it down for patients pretty easily. Like, yeah, you're welcome. Oh, thanks. I appreciate it. Um okay, so we've got test. Anything else on testing?

John Kim 39:00

I'm sure you could talk for ages, but HLA genotype is on one thing. Methylation is a big one, right? So genetic testing is one of things I did look at. Okay. So people who are hypersensitive, right? MCAS clients, I like to look at those, or people have said, you know, I've used multiple other methodologies to doing, including using cholesterol, and nothing seems to work. Yeah. I got to do a much deeper dive and looking at these things. Start slower. So gut zoomer.

Phillip Oubre 39:25

The gut zoomer. You got to look at the microbiome. Yes. Yeah. That's the last thing I'll probably look at. Okay. So let's talk about the gut zoomer then, because we we have not paid enough homage to how important the gut is. And it sounds like you agree, you gotta fix the gut before you can adequately fix the patient. So tell us how you use the gut zoomer and and yeah. So mold toxin specifically can affect the gut, right?

John Kim 39:45

People keep forgetting that. But secondly, they do end up colonizing the gut. And do we have research proving that? I tell patients that all the time. Is there actual research proving that? There are a few studies, not big model. Yeah. I know there's only one testing company is able to test for candida and mold very well. Uh, that's about to come out. But even if it were negative, you wouldn't trust it, right? I would not. I was still empirically. Yeah. I tell patients that all the time. Including parasites, right? Yeah. Oftentimes parasite testing is end up having to cause false negative. So I end up having to treat it at the end anyway. Yeah. So why am I looking at these things? Because mold can actually cause in the gut. And another thing that gross, right? Get mold in your gut. Gross. And people actually ask, like, how's that even possible? Well, the thing is you swallow and then absores the nose. Yeah, exactly. Makes perfect sense. That is the reason why doing some type of nasal irrigation and protocol, that's number one thing that put my patients on anyway. And those spores end up having to cause in the gut and causing weaking of havoc. So number one thing is that like ochre toxins and trichothesins break down the actual mucosal layer of the gut line.

Phillip Oubre 40:51

Okay, so that's one of the ways they disrupt it. Just literally physically, biochemically disrupting that mucosal layer, which for people that don't know, is that you've got your intestinal lining, right? Uh, the the the beneficial cells, and you've got the microbiome on the other side. That mucous layer is kind of the stalemate between the healthy human and the healthy or or unhealthy microbiome. It's a protective layer, but it's a food layer. Correct. Right? Am I butchering into this? No, no, tell me I'm not.

John Kim 41:16

No, no, no, you're absolutely correct.

Phillip Oubre 41:17

Okay. I mean, you you know your stuff.

John Kim 41:19

Oh, I don't you got a deeper dive. I'm more the superficial level of like, let's talk about Humpty Dumpty. I like the Humpty Dumpty. Yeah, I love it. Yeah. So that's that then that's another reason why people have trouble clearing out H. pylori oftentimes. Yeah. Right? Because the mold is interplaying with H. pylori and they feed up feed off each other. Another interesting part is that uh especially ochre toxin makes Cephycoccus to grow more rapidly, including listeria in the gut. And another thing that actually occurs with is that the E. coli content in the gut end up having to grow rapidly as well because of the mold. So not only end up having to be affecting the micro um the barrier effect, but now the mold is causing the overgrowth of this bacteria. So that goes into the SIBO effect. When you have a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, you have high levels of strapido and as well as staphylococcus being grown, pseudomonas, as well as E. coli, the increased levels of lipoprotein saccharized is going to cause major issued gut inflammation. On top of now, you're dealing with small intestinal fungal overgrowth. That's actually creating the bigger mess. Now, the added caveat to this entire effect is that your bile flow is affected. Yeah. Right. So two ways of in terms of how mold can actually trigger this. Specifically, the study showing that okrotoxin and trachothesins affect something called a cytochrome P4507A1 enzyme. That's a rate limiting step that's required to help produce produce bile. Okay. So bile production is already low. Yeah. And then these two corporates end up able to affect something called BSAP, which is bile salt export pump. So you cannot even pump the uh bile out, nor can you produce it. So you're already on a stalemate at this point in time. So you're dealing with this. And then the worsening part is that the enterhepatic recirculation is now bringing it all back. We'll bring it all back. Now it's recirculating the mold toxin specifically. Over and over and over and over again. And who gets affected more often? Women. Really? Especially with estrogen getting involved.

Phillip Oubre 43:21

Oh yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. Okay. Is that why? Gosh, you gotta stop and pay homage to mold for as old and stupid as it is. Right? It's brilliant. It is absolutely brilliant. It has literally learned how to destroy our biochemistry every step of the way. Every step of the way. You can't get it out, and it's disrupting its ability to get out and all of that. Um we we definitely need like part two and part three of this. But I have 10 minutes. I know. Another thing that's I just want to touch upon one thing.

John Kim 43:51

Please is that I run out of time. I know. We're gonna talk to this part two. The reason that mold actually impacts further in the gut is the fact that your bifidobacter level also can. To decrease especially short chain fatty acid production, butyric acid is an important part that needs to be addressed about. Hence why you're supplementing it with your profagation, correct? Um, more specifically that, but then also for supporting the gut. And sodium butyrate, one of the specific one that I like to use is body biosodium butyrate. The sodium butyrate actually not only helps to replenish the short chain fatty acid or butyric acid that you need, but it's also an anti-mast cell and anti-histamine response as well.

Phillip Oubre 44:30

That makes sense. We see benefits of reducing mast cells from that, so that makes sense. But I don't know, it was actually studied and researched. Yeah.

John Kim 44:36

So that's why I use this more readily. And I see the fact that when I see these multiple levels of gut zoomer testing, I noticed that their bifidobacter level and the sodium butyrate level, spyric acid, is very, very low. And then the secretary IgA levels also either are very elevated or depleted. And so we see oftentimes food food sensitivity problems or food allergies. Yeah. So gut aspect to be more the focal point that we usually looked at when you're looking at mold toxicity. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 45:04

One of the ways I explain the mold toxicity in the gut is everybody's got that bad friend that when they come around, you make bad decisions. So mold is that bad friend where like you were doing fine all on your own, but that bad friend brought the ice cream and the booze and you made bad choices. Um, because mold itself doesn't do all the damage, but it it sets up the aspect for other things to join the party and damage. Hence why we don't really have a mold test in the gut. Um, but you see all these other consequences of the mold between the butyrate and the bifido and all of those things. I I wish more doctors paid more attention in the gut, because I think that is the number one thing when I get a patient, especially a mold patient that has seen other functional medicine doctors, that's entire and they've done a stool study test. They've done a stool study study test and then just kind of glossed over it and went straight to detox. Um, and and the patient failed. And that's why they end up in my office, which is good for business, but bad for people, right? Um, so with our remaining time left, I've not done a good job of keeping you on track because we we didn't get to treatment at all. But at least briefly tell us why do you specifically want to say why mold detox protocols fail? What can you summarize in not enough time? Yeah.

John Kim 46:16

First, first is that they jump into detox protocol too too fast, right? They're not even ready for, especially when you're looking, I'm also looking at their heart variability as well. If their HRV level is very depleted, that's not the time that you should be doing aggressive detox. Right. And oftentimes we're sick or you go to different doctors and they just focus on the toxins and looking at the how person's is functioning, and then adding in some of the binders like cholesterol can be a major, major dysregulation to the body. So it's number one. Number two is the fact that uh there's a triggering of mast cell issues there. You have to at least get the mast cell under control, right? And that's very, very difficult. Oftentimes mast cell can be not only about food that's triggering it, and there's major issues dealing with mast cell in the gut, yeah, but due to psychological impact from trauma as well as yeah. Really?

Phillip Oubre 47:07

Yeah, psychological trauma and mast cells.

John Kim 47:10

Huge problem.

Phillip Oubre 47:11

And then on top of when you talk about it. So I can blame my mom for my mast cell problem.

John Kim 47:15

Yeah, well, I did mention about uh childhood traumas end up having to impact how uh the immune system actually be impacted because of the neuroinflammation that could be triggered. So you have microglial activation as well as uh mast cell priming as well. So the body's trying to sense what are the next threats that's gonna come through. Right. So one of the things I teach about clients, like why they're so stuck and I cannot heal, heal, is think about as if you have a car alarm that's still ringing, even that that radio is compl is removed and stolen out of the car. The car is now able to sense that there's a threat that's being uh disappeared, but still blaring, and you don't know how to shut it off. Love that metaphor. I'm stealing that one. I'm stealing that one. Okay, good. Should do a different thing. It's like we're gonna have a whole metaphor conference. Exactly. So that's the problem why people are so stuck and they cannot heal. So I talked about the mass cell, I talked about the body's not ready to do so. The three is that add not adding in enough bioflavonoids helped to solve as a mycotoxin, and that's just adding in binders. Yeah. Right. And the fourth is not focusing the gut enough. Yes. Oftentimes I see practitioners using cholesterol and just utilizing that to clear up mold. But when you have an underlying issue, the fact that the mold is not being readily solubilized and supported correctly, that is when people get stuck in the kit. They get overreaction from using cholesteroline. And I'm not saying that cholesterol is bad. No, wrong timing. Yeah, wrong timing.

Phillip Oubre 48:42

We we rarely use it before six months of working with a patient. I'd say more likely it takes us nine to 12 months before we even introduce cholesteroline.

John Kim 48:50

Yeah. So I say the the right. Even then it can be rough. Yeah, exactly. Like antifungals, especially also. You don't want to be using antifungals right away. Nope. No, one of the things that I like to use for, especially for antifungals as like a very calming agent, would be like probably B. propylis. Even spore-based probiotic could be helpful. Yep. But you gotta be very careful with those things as well. Yeah. Sometimes spore-based probiotic, even though it's very beneficial, it can trigger a massive amount of mastol and histamine. It's one of the last ones we use too. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got to work them up. Yep, exactly. So immunoclobins can be very helpful to reducing the mycotoxin levels. Yeah, so we did talk about a little bit of the treatments, but not fully. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 49:26

So what so you've you said you've got more online. So since we're out of time, give people a little snippet of like, okay, where can they learn more? And we're definitely gonna have to have a part two. We will definitely have a part two. We've scared the hell out of people and told them why they're sick, and we've not done a great job of like, okay, this is how you fix yourself. So give them some help to where they can go search online for you and stuff.

John Kim 49:45

Absolutely. So I have a free community in my website. You can visit drjohnkim.com. You can join free uh DR John Kim. Okay. Yep, drjong. DrjohnKim.com. Um you can join there, and there's a wealth of information that uh that guests shared, but also you could ask your questions and I'd be happy to answer that within 24 to 48 hours. Fantastic. So that's one thing. Second, I'm very active on my social media. So it's Dr. I'm sorry, it's john.farmd, P-H-A-R-M-D. I said doctor in front of it, but I decided to cut that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's some legal aspect of it that goes on with that. I don't I just don't get it. Still. Keep it simple. Um, and if you want to book a call with me, I'm available as well. So you could go to my website or even my Instagram. There's a link there for you to book a call. Um, I call it the breakthrough clarity call because I want you to really break through clarity and know what's going on before you jump in and start working with me. Yeah.

Phillip Oubre 50:37

I I think that's one of the most helpful things we do for patients. Oftentimes my new patient leaves feeling better, not because we did anything, because we didn't do anything besides talk to them, but they feel validated and real and they feel hopeful that they have a plan. So I like that. What did you call it? Breakthrough clarity. Breakthrough clarity. I don't think I can make that sound as cool as you do.

John Kim 50:55

So I'm not gonna steal that one. I'll let I'll let you keep that one.

Phillip Oubre 50:59

Well, thank you, Dr. Kim. This was incredibly insightful. Uh, I consider myself as knowing a lot about mold, but uh you learned me today. So I appreciate you learning me and teaching me, and I'm sure everyone else appreciates everything. Thank you. Thank you.