Podcast Drop Date: 3/22/23
Get ready to dive into the fascinating world of holistic healing with Dr. Penick, MD! In this episode we uncover the truth about toxins and the significant impact they can have on our bodies, and explore the critical role our environment plays in our overall health. Dr. Penick's insights and expertise will guide you through the process of getting your nervous system back to its best shape, including the importance of getting the vagus nerve back into parasympathetic tone and resetting the limbic system. You'll be amazed to learn how these simple steps can set your body up for optimal healing and wellness. Don't miss this informative and inspiring episode - it's time to get your body and nervous system in the right space to be ready to heal!
Dr. Charles Penick is an integrative board-certified family medicine physician who's passionate about promoting true vitality for every family member. Dr. Penick's extensive knowledge and experience in nutritional health, detoxification, medical fitness, and health optimization, coupled with the latest scientific technologies and breakthroughs, allow him to set the trajectory for a strong and healthy life. He practices an integrative approach to medicine in Eagle, Idaho, and offers telemedicine to patients worldwide.
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Transcript:
Amber Warren, PA-C: Welcome to Functional Medicine Foundations podcast, where we explore root cause medicine, engage in conversation with functional and integrative medicine experts and build community with like minded health seekers. I'm your host, Amber Warren. Let's dig deeper.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Welcome back, everybody. Amber Warren, your host here. I am here with Dr. Charles Penick. And I'm so excited to be interviewing this brilliant and amazing human. So Dr. Charles Penick is an integrative board certified family medicine physician, passionate about setting the trajectory for a strong and healthy life while promoting true vitality for each family member. In addition to the knowledge and experience derived from obtaining his medical degree, Dr. Charles is well versed in nutritional health, detoxification, medical fitness and health optimization, utilizing some of the latest scientific technologies and breakthroughs. Dr. Penick attended college at Oakwood University in Huntsville, Alabama. He obtained his medical degree at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California, and completed his residency training with the University of California, Riverside in Palm Springs, California. He practices an integrative approach to medicine in Eagle, Idaho. He also offers telemedicine to patients across the United States and also internationally. Welcome, Dr. Penick.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Thank you, Amber.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So, you know, we've had a couple stories like this in bringing on practitioners, but this is definitely one of my favorites. My husband and I met met Charles and his beautiful family and lovely wife, Ana. Gosh, has it been like a year and a half, maybe a year ago? Yeah. And Sam is a little bit he comes on a little strong sometimes and he meets someone he likes and he, you know, we'd be camping. We'd spend a lot of time with you guys camping this past summer, and, you know, we'd maybe make a couple margaritas, and Sam would pull you aside and be like, you know, you actually want to join our team, don't you, Charles? Like, come on. Like, we're fun. We're cool. And thankfully, he kind of stopped, stopped pursuing you and let you just kind of breathe. And then you came full circle. Now, this, this, this entering into 2023. And we're just so, so I mean, like, I'm I'm like, honestly just so honored and, like, almost pinching myself that I get to we get to do medicine with you. So you'll be joining our team I think by the time this airs and within within the week, um, helping us just heal people and bring life back to them out of our Eagle Clinic in Eagle, Idaho. So we're so excited. So today we're going to be talking about one of my favorite topics. And you and I have actually talked offline about this over the past few weeks as well. Just kind of principles of detoxification, the why and the what. Yeah. Um, so tell us a little bit about kind of your journey even lately, however much you want to share about how this has come to front and center for you. Sure.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah. You know, I when I finished residency training, there's an amazing doctor by the name of Dr. Jeremy Kaslow. He practices in Santa Ana, California. And I learned quite a bit from him. I have many mentors who have poured into my life. Kim Shetty also, I would say is really one who is the reason why I practice what I practice. And through listening to these mentors, many of them have it named pouring into me, I began to realize how important it is to clean the body out. God designed our body to work a certain way, and when we start having health imbalances, often a large part of the reason why that's taking place is because something that doesn't belong in the body is present. Yeah. And so a principle, a key principle, I would say, of healing is removing the bad guys. Yeah. What we call toxins and detox has almost become kind of a fad word in the kind of functional integrative medicine world. But it's one of those things where it will never go away because it is so such a core principle of healing. And so I will touch on one thing that I feel like is a really amazing tool that Dr. Kaslow gave me, what he calls the these are these are foundations of health, basically, in order to get your body back into balance, there's six root causes and there's different ways of kind of spinning this.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: But this is the way that he he taught me and I will always remember I actually use the acronym PIGS is the way that I remembered it when I first learned it some years ago from him. But nutrition, we have to make sure that we're getting what our bodies need and that we're also removing from a standpoint of what we're eating, what our bodies don't gel well with. Right. What causes more inflammation in the body. Toxins is number two. And so what we're going to focus on today, but that's a huge piece. Um, talk about psycho emotional imprints and I think you could also put toxicity into that category too, because sometimes the psycho emotional aspect is a is one of the major pieces. I think it always has some contributing factor to it, but sometimes it's one of the key, key pieces as well. And we could talk about emotional detox as well, and then infectious disease agents, things that that's also another form of toxins to some degree. We talk about viruses, bacteria, parasites, things that also need to be cleared out of the body that are causing blockages.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Because they're foreign to the body. Right? I mean, that's what we're looking at, is what can't the body recognize as self?
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And these things are in a sense, in a sense, the body is seeing them as attacking the system and it tries its best to rally the. Horses, but sometimes because of other toxins that are present, maybe it says, Hey, I want to clear this parasite out, but I also have mold over here or I have heavy metals over here. So my detox mechanisms are impaired and then genetics. And we as far as detox goes, we talk about another buzz word in genetics. Is MTHFR the R gene. Yeah. And that's that's one of many genes that, that do contribute to detoxification, but it just signals this idea that genes can either enhance or impair the body's ability to clear or remove things that don't belong. Yeah, and the last is structural and, and I'm, I'm speaking in this with regards to the topic today, which is detoxification. But it has many implications when we talk about structural imbalances. But things like scar tissue can impede, you know, clearing certain toxins out of the body or communication between one aspect of the body to another to signal the need to clear something out.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: And so those six things are are key principles that I take into every case that I work with, every patient that I work with. How do we apply these principles to getting their body back into balance? So I just want to give credit where credit is due, and I really appreciate Dr. Cassel for giving me those tools. And I think it's something that everyone can start to run through as an exercise, because often your intuition is trying to speak to you and a lot of times people will already come to the room knowing where something may be wrong. They don't know necessarily how to adjust or how to get that moving in the right direction, but they often have an intuition about what's off, even in spite of what the doctor may have said. Oh no, that has nothing to do with your health. And they're like, I just have a feeling that there's something with this. And so so I love to to to pass that tool along because it's helped me a ton.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So yeah, that's amazing. You know, it was a few months back I was doing some reading just on as I was trying to kind of fine tune some detox protocols I'm using and reading how 1 in 3 people now, 1 in 3, I think it was Americans have liver congestion and most you can't. And most of the time you can't even pick that up on on labs right. Because we look at some biomarkers and some key findings in people's just blood work on on if there could be if toxicity could be playing an issue but it was pretty amazing to me. So I think you hear a lot about like how the liver is your body's detoxification organ and what the kidneys do and even just the skin. But they can get congested and they can have issues due to toxins. And so it sometimes it's not enough enough just to say I have a liver, I can detox. Right. Yeah. And we talk about this concept of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And I think a lot of people don't realize that heavy metals, high fructose corn sirup glyphosate can be the main culprit behind fatty liver disease. Yeah, right. And it's not always just eating processed, poor quality foods. Yes. It's all these other toxins that are playing a role. Yeah. Um, are you. So how are you evaluating? Let's start here. How are you evaluating your patient? That potentially could be toxic. Yeah. And and be laden with these. With these chemicals.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Well, you know, I tell everyone, I work with both children and adults, and sometimes we have, you know, kids who are from day one just, you know, super clean, organic, you know, no added, no added unnecessary ingredients, you know, hard so.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Hard to do nowadays.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: And and so and when I when I say that, I mean for the kid. The child the child is, you know, unadulterated from day one. And so the idea is what I tell parents is, though the world we live in, unfortunately, even though we do our best to to protect that child, inevitably there's going to be some toxins that are going to come into play. And so, yeah, I just I'm using this as an example of how toxins in every single client has a role to play in their imbalance. So let's just take this kid who's completely healthy from day one of life. Unfortunately, there's there's some studies that suggest that as many as 150 different toxins can be present in this child from day one, passed down from grandmother to mom and passed transplacental. And and so this kid who may have no logical reasoning why they may be having exhibiting some symptoms because we're like, well, there's nothing they do everything right. And I'll give you an example. My son actually, you know, we did everything kind of what we thought was absolutely best from day one of life. And then all of a sudden he pops out with eczema. And it started out as a little bit on his on his cheek, and then it starts to spread across his body.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: And I remember my wife and I talking about it was like, man, it almost kind of feels embarrassing because we're like, we're doing everything that we know is right. And then where is this coming from, right? And only to learn that his body still has to clear, because unfortunately, whatever he was passed down, he has to get that out of his body as well. So it was a healing journey for him at such a young age, even though he was what we would consider to be, you know, how probably the purest. Oh, yeah. And so it just what it did for me was highlight the fact how much detoxification is needed for every single one of us because we can think of how many things we may have been exposed to in our life. You if we grew up near farming community or near train tracks or freeways or golf courses, you know, those are just a few examples of. Journal sources. And then whether we thought I know I wasn't taught to eat things, thinking about whether they were sprayed with certain chemicals or not. I know my mom. You know why she didn't take me to get everything. I know I had quite a few injections that maybe weren't that I know weren't the cleanest. And so you we look.
Amber Warren, PA-C: At now how many more vaccines are recommended by the CDC compared to even just when we were, which wasn't that long ago. That's right. It's it's it's insane.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: It is. It is. And so the need is even greater for this generation. Right? And so, you know, we we don't want added heavy, heavy metals, chemicals, you know mold toxins and I'll talk that was kind of another thing you hinted at is like so recently this has come to a big forefront for me because whether or not it's the main cause, we do know that there is something that my wife has been dealing with that we think may be triggered by mold, and we haven't quite verified that yet, but it's really brought it to another level of consciousness for me to be able to realize that a lot of my clients coming in may be dealing with a hyper triggered immune system and nervous system from mold toxicity. And yes, there's many other contributors, but it just seems to be I'm learning how ubiquitous mold is. People are exposed to it without even realizing it may be in their HVAC system, it may be behind some drywall somewhere. It may have been in a house that they lived in previously at some point in their life, maybe their college dorm room could have been the school that they went to.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Right. So unfortunately, many of us do harbor mold toxins to the degree that it affects us is going to vary based on genetics and other factors, other toxins that you may have on board. For my wife, we believe that long hauler is perhaps was a part of that because having it may have been a mold background that was triggered with more inflammation by COVID and then this long haulers carries on and then it's a mixture of mold symptoms and COVID long hauler symptoms which actually are very synonymous. And she was pointing that out the other day, that they're almost identical when you look at them. So the idea is ultimately, if we can remove the toxins, then we can hopefully get the body restored. Now, that part is not always easy. I've learned for some people it's very simple. We know basic detox principles and we can chat about some of those and we can apply those to a certain person. But sometimes people are not ready. And so we have to prepare the body to actually receive the detox process. Absolutely. Yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So yeah, so interesting. I think that people want you know, I'm having this conversation every day with my patients. People want to try and identify one thing that's driving their symptoms or their imbalances. And so in functional medicine, we talk about like the tack theory, right? So if you've got five tacks you're sitting on, if you pull out one, if you pull out the mercury, right, you get your amalgams out and you do mercury detox, you might not feel better. Right? And sometimes you have to conquer the mold and the chronic virus and and the mercury and the heavy metal and look at something like glyphosate. And until you pull all of out, all those tacks out, that's when you can get back into balance and and, you know, be free from your your disabling symptoms. Yes. So it is it is really interesting. Um, so let's let's just dive in to some of those like principles of detoxification that you focus so much on. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Where do you start? Like where if you, if a patient comes to you and it's very obvious clinically that this patient is suffering from some toxicity issues, where do you start?
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah, great. So first of all, one principle that we've learned is that the cells often become hidden stores of toxins. So once a cell, once a toxin enters the body, either orally or through the skin or whatever method, it may be something like a volatile organic compound that we breathe in. Ultimately, once it gets into the bloodstream, it will find its way to a cell and often end up making its way inside the cell as a hideout to be undetectable by the nervous system or by the immune system to clear, which would like to clear it out. One thing our body does intelligently, actually, is if it has the ability to, it will store it into fat cells because that's the least damage it can do. And so but sadly, a lot of these deposit in other healthy tissues, even many of them can cross. We have a protective barrier called the blood brain barrier that tries to keep certain molecules from passing into the brain. Unfortunately, you mentioned the vaccines. It's a really key one because a lot of the nano metallic particles in there readily cross the blood brain barrier unchecked and deposit into brain tissue. You also mentioned mercury. Mercury amalgams, the same thing that those mercury ethers are. Esters will will basically drop into the brain tissue. And it's very hard to pull them out because sometimes a lot of the molecules that we would use for detoxification also have a difficult time crossing the blood brain barrier. Right. And so what what I like to first we need to first think about is how do we get the cells to excrete the toxins, to kick out the toxins.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Right. So there are many ways that that may contribute to that. But there are two really neat things that we know work very, very well, tried and true. And so some people may have. Heard the term or of the supplement glutathione. It's very commonly used and recommended, but that's a really good one. If you can get a highly absorbable glutathione that really does a good job at helping the cell kick out something that is foreign to it. Another really commonly used one. But sometimes people don't know why they're doing it is infrared sauna or I was trying to say wavelength, infrared light. Thank you. Yeah. So the idea is if you are stimulating with this wavelength, that cell, it energizes the mitochondria to power the cell to kick out something that doesn't belong and stimulates the pathway. One of them we know is Nrf2. And it allows the body to just to say, Hey, this does not belong here. And now I have the actually capacity or the energy to remove it. And then, you know, we can test before and after, after a course of infrared sauna treatment, which is so awesome because that's a modality available with FMI. Yeah. To go and utilize the sauna and if you can use that on a regular basis, I tell people if you can use it a minimum of three times a week, but it would be awesome if you could use it every day.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah. I also I understand time is a big factor in that, but then we realized that we can see if we were to test you before and after a certain period of time, 6 to 12 months, we will see that those toxins will ultimately, once they're out of the cell, the body will do what it needs to to start removing them. And they'll end up in the urine and the stool and in the sweat. And so really, really neat that those are two modalities for getting them out of the cell. Yeah, I'll mention a couple of other principles. Once it's out of the cell, then it ends up in the bloodstream, right? So where does it go from there? And we there's a number of different things that take place. But lymphatics is a kind of a sub circulation system that helps to pull and mobilize toxins from the tissues, bring them into the blood. And then once it's in the blood, we have a number of ways that it's filtered. The main organ is the liver, which you were talking about already, and how important that is in having a healthy, functioning liver. And so if you have, you know, fatty liver or you have liver congestion, you know, it's definitely impaired in its ability to kick out or dump toxins. But if you don't if you don't have a healthy liver, which is a key starting place, then we start detoxing you.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Then we have what I think of as a traffic jam and think of, you know, a really a really busy highway. And all of a sudden everything backs up and piles up. Eventually it's going to have really big implications. And that's where people start feeling unwell when they're detoxing. So making sure the liver is working well is a is a is really a first place to start if the person is not in a hyper triggered state. And I can mention that after, but just as a general principle, making sure the liver is working well because it will pull toxins out of the blood and put them into the stool, which is also another important piece. You can have a traffic jam there as well, right? Yeah. A lot of people say I have a problem with elimination and I, you know, I just live with it. But that means you're also probably full of a lot of toxins because you're not getting them out of the body. And so another thing we mentioned was sweat, right? So the ability to sweat toxins out. And that's a neat way that you can just get it directly often from the cells, sometimes into the lymphatics and then pour it out through the sweat. And that's the way a lot of toxins come out. But if you're not sweating and which is something I'm guilty of, I'm too busy and too busy. And if you're not sweating, then you're not you're not detoxing and.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Hydrating and kidney kidneys are really important in detoxification. Yes. A part. Yeah. You touched on some really important topics there. I think there's a lot of a lot of people that will go read about a detox protocol or, you know, put together their own protocol from what they read about online or hear on podcasts. But they don't have their pathways aren't open, right? Their detoxification pathways aren't open. So sometimes we do have to start by saying today we're going to get you hydrating and pooping right before we can even talk about testing you for toxins or bringing in the binders or other really important aspects of of of kind of some of our protocols. Yes. So, yeah, I'm so glad you touched on that. It is so important. Um, let's so I think it's appropriate to just go there because it's so important and you touched on it, making sure from a, I guess, nervous system standpoint that your body is ready to detox because that's another I think we can kind of put that in the same category as like making sure your drainage pathways are open. Yes. Yes, Right. Yeah. So what do you look at there? Yeah.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: So honestly, if your nervous system is hyper triggered and think about it this way, like if you went to a fight in a war, right, we think of this term called PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. And what happens then is your nervous system is put into we talk about fight or flight or freeze, and that's sympathetic, dominant state. And it's also out of this desire for protection and safety that our body tries to protect us, but it often inhibits us from moving past that, that time of trauma. And unfortunately, our body's physiologically are living under this constant trauma or assault from something that doesn't belong in the body. Whether it's a virus or bacteria or mold or heavy metal, Right. So or other toxins that we could discuss. So the idea is that it does feel in a hyper triggered state. And so sometimes people have been so triggered that in spite of us trying to mobilize toxins and bind them and get them out of the body, we end up seeing that there's a lot of resistance to treatment. And that is often and this is this is a key principle that I just recently learned. And I have to say that this has been groundbreaking for me because I've always said, oh, yeah, you know, we have the general idea of principles. Principle of detox was get it out of the cell. You know, make sure the detox drainage pathways are open, bind it.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And throw you in a sauna. Exactly. Throw you under infrared.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Exactly right. Load them up and get it. Get it out and and three months max. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. And then you realize it's not that way. Exactly. Right. It's really for a lot of people, it's actually gentle and slow. And it is truly about, first making sure the body is in a state of being receptive. So when we think of the autonomic nervous system, this is our the the the functions that are happening without us thinking, often operating sympathetic or parasympathetic. Right. And so sympathetic is we talk about fight, flight or freeze and the parasympathetic we think of rest and digest and repair. And so the healing phase really happens in that parasympathetic. And most of us are go, go, go, go, go, get up, go work out, go eat, run to work, you know, go home. Take care. Everything you do, stay up late. And and so we're just constantly in this sympathetic, dominant state and our body can't heal and repair in that state. And so also so adding that to the idea that our body already feels like it's under assault by this foreign organism or toxin. And so what we want to do is calm the body down.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: And there's a number of methods for that. But that's something that I realize is a huge principle that I have missed honestly, in the past. And so, yes, people may be getting some amazing results from detox, but there are there's a definitely a large amount of people who should be getting much more, I guess, gains or results, if you want to call it that, from from this process. But because we haven't addressed the nervous system first, we're not we're not seeing those that headway is not being made. So absolutely. I actually have a client who she she told me that this is the biggest leap she's made in five years. She spent over well over $100,000 in her health from multiple different practitioners who I think were all well-meaning. And their understanding of detox was significant. It was just the principle of addressing the nervous system first was missing. And when we did this, she she made the biggest shift. She told me that she has in the last five years of her health. That's amazing. So, yeah, life changing.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think a really important part of the activating that parasympathetic state of your nervous system is just gut health, right? So much detoxification happens in your gut, that relationship between the gut and the liver and when you're in fight or flight, you're not digesting food. You don't need to digest food and absorb nutrients when you're running from the tiger. So that's kind of a way that I connect those those two as well. I have a patient who this was interesting and I learned a lot from her, you know, in trying to improve her immune system and get her sleep back on track. We we used peptide therapy to try and get her sleep back. And, you know, she just wanted to rest, to feel better and have more energy. But when she came back after about 4 or 5 weeks on this peptide, I started her on, she's like, my brain fog is gone. Wow. And what we were able to do with the specific peptide we use is actually get her into that stage three. I guess there's no longer a stage four, but into that stage three sleep where your brain detoxes, right? It's only in that stage three when your brain can actually like take out the trash.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Wow. So by getting her sleeping in a deeper state, we were able to help her brain detox and her brain fog went away. Wow. And to get somebody who has really significant brain fog every day of their life when they're trying to work and she helps take care of her, her two grandchildren talk about life changing to have somebody have clarity of thought back. Right. So it was huge. It was huge. Yeah. So that that sleep component with just detoxification is important as well. Yes. Yes. Um, so I know our listeners are going to want to know the probably the biggest insults that we're seeing with regards to toxins in our world. And I could go on and on and on about this because I, you know, you and I could just probably list hundreds and hundreds of toxins. But what do you think are some of the I mean, we've touched on vaccines. Yes. Um, what are other really important chemicals that just even people today can be more aware of in our environment?
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah, for sure. So, you know. I really I actually do really feel I want to talk talk about the other ones. And I'm not going to go too deep on the vaccine. One, I know that's something that we could spend a lot of time chatting about, but I will say that that's one that I don't want people to overlook because often it's the it's the elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it, but it can be often quite detrimental. And unfortunately, from day one of life, babies are being having to deal with over a often over 100 micrograms of aluminum between a couple of different things that they receive on that day. And the reason why I want us to think about this is because what that does is it sets the stage for now if you do run into an infection or you do run into something else, the body is less adept to respond to that. And then it further, it's like, what do you call this never ending cycle? You just kind of cycles back into itself because of that. You can't detox this and because of this you can't detox the next thing that your body is introduced to. And so kind of starting from there, if we were to go chronologically, then we see introduced people are introduced to different things, such as glyphosate being a ubiquitous, you know, it's in everything. It's made its way into the water and into the food supply. And let's just say, well, I eat all organic food, but does your gardener. Yeah. Is your is your yard keeper, you know, or whatever are you spraying, you know weed killer.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Right. It it ends up being something that even if you don't do any of those things, but you live, you know, within seven miles of a farming community, it can travel via the air that way. So the idea is, and this is not to feel helpless, this is all education and empowerment, right? And so the whole point is being aware is the first step. And then knowing how to deal with it is is the next thing. And what we want to do is educate as to what some of the problems can be and the exposures can be, and then how do we help empower ourselves. And and what we're trying to do also is hand the tools you we don't want people to begin to feel we'll be we'll be doing the same thing as the current medical establishment if we're like, well, only we have the answers, right? Our whole goal is to teach people how to heal themselves, right? This is I think this is what God's will is for us, is to share knowledge between one another so that we can empower one another. Absolutely. As a body of people to say like, we are not dependent upon a system, we are actually capable of healing ourselves because God put that within us, inside of our bodies. There's a there's an intelligence, innate intelligence that he's put within our cells to heal, if we can remember those basic principles. And so that's that's really our goal here. So a key a key piece here, right, is identifying what are those things that are assaulting us. So, you know, I mentioned glyphosate is just an example of one of many chemicals that end up in our air and in our waterways.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Household cleaners is another common one, right? We don't think about it's like, well, that's a super effective way of getting, you know, stains out of my laundry or, you know, whatever it may be, wiping the countertops. But that that is constantly if we're using that on a regular basis. I remember, you know, using all the different cleaners as a kid. And I think about it now, I was like, man, they even like smelled toxic. You know? And so but we used to love like, I mean, I love the smell of 409 because it just smells clean. You're like, your body starts to associate that chemical smell with clean, right. Cleanliness. And so but these are ways that we we, without realizing it, are continuing to introduce toxins to our body or some of the scents and sprays that we use, the air fresheners, you know, the plug ins. Right. And so we don't realize often how toxic those things are. The perfumes we use, the lotions we use. Right. And so it it really does add up. And, you know, these are things that we could talk about definitely in depth, you know, in a in a consultation or class. You know, my wife, she she used to go and do like basically a household cleaning where where people would have her come in and she would go through everything in the home from the pantry to the body products. And basically, you know, even simple things such as like tampons. Right? Like sometimes people just don't think about how these things are are completely adding to the total toxic load.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Cotton is sprayed with glyphosate. Yes. Yeah. And then you put that in your body, what, 30% of your life or I guess I should say more like 20% of your life. But yeah, it's really significant. Yeah, that's where I really educate my patients on Hey, don't freak out about the two times a year. You go get a pedicure before like a summer vacation, right? Think about your every day exposure. Yes. What are your babies sleeping on at night? The clothes that you're wearing, what you're breathing in. Right. So as far as laundry detergent is concerned, yeah. My six year old came home a couple of weeks ago and he's like, hey, I found he found his brother's sweatshirt, Boise State sweatshirt on, like on the school grounds. He's like, Hey, I found the sweatshirt. I'm like, Well, a ton of kids have Boise State sweatshirts like that at your school. How did you know it was ours? And he's like, Well, I smelled it smelled like dirt. Oh, my gosh, My husband were dying. We're like, Yep. Didn't smell like died. You knew it was ours. It was so funny. I'm like, I'm going to go ahead and take that as a compliment. Um, but yeah, something else that we're kind of talking about. Mold and mold. You know, they, they, they say it's just such a common denominator and it's something. It can just offset the body, maybe like it's done with with Anna for your wife. But yeah, um, EMFs right. I don't know if you consider EMFs as a toxin, but I really do. And we see our old patients that are even more sensitive to EMFs than like, than the average person. And that's something that is talk about something you can't smell, you can't see, you can't hear it, you can't. I mean, you, you just don't know if you're being slammed with these frequencies that that we all see. Yeah. Um, how are you approaching EMFs and educating about EMFs? Yeah, good.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: That's a really good question because right now everything is about moving towards the next latest and greatest technology from 5G, 4G, 3G, 4G, 5G, and then they're talking about six G and so on and so forth. And so increasing connectivity, increasing speeds, and who is asking the questions about like, what's the implication of that on our bodies? Right. Unfortunately, the information is there. It's just not being it's being suppressed. Right. Without going too in-depth in it. But the Federal Trade Commission or FTC or FCC. Yep, I think I'm saying that. Correct. Has been challenged with providing evidence that it's actually safe and this has not been done right. But they just continue to roll out this technology. And so we the average person is often just saying, well, I figure they've done the studies if they're putting it a 5G tower next to my house. But the answer is that if the studies haven't been done, they have been suppressed. And I can actually speak to one quick thing on this. There was a a university and I am very well familiar with this university who was doing a study on cell phone radiation. And what they were finding was a huge correlation between brain tumors and the prominent ear that people were holding their cell phones to.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah. So they actually started the the study and were basically told to stop the study because the evidence was overwhelmingly clear that there was a high correlation between the cell phone, the side of the brain where they were holding the cell phone to and brain tumor occurrence. And so there was nothing ever published because the study was stopped. And so this is just one example at a small university or, you know, not not a huge major university, but one that was producing significant enough results about this information that never made it to the public because it was told to discontinue the study. So I say this because there is a huge correlation between these artificial electromagnetic frequencies and the incompatibility with living organisms in our bodies. And so a lot of times people will have these symptoms and have no real realization that their insomnia or their chronic daily headaches or whatever it may be, is related to the fact that they're constantly bombarded by their Wi-Fi or their neighbor's Wi-Fi or the the 5G or 4G towers that are near their home or even the amount of extra electrical power, dirty electricity that's pouring through their home. And so we'll actually the.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Solar or smart meters.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Or even the power lines, right? So we we would check in our home here. So some countries actually have the limit. I think it's in Milligals. I don't want to misquote this. I'm not like the expert on this, but there's a certain measurement that we check coming through our electrical outlets and there are some countries that have the upper limit that is legal at 60 or 65. And in some of our homes we had it as high as 200in the past and we were like, oh my gosh, that's super high. Well, in the home we're in now, we've had over a thousand coming out of some of our outlets and we That's crazy. Yeah. And we and most people we don't know like I wouldn't have known had it been not for someone sharing this information with me. Right. And that's what we're all about, education and empowerment. So we used there's a company called Stetson Riser out of the Midwest and they they created a little meter as well as a little device that you can plug in. And it will basically downgrade that extra power, dirty electricity coming through there and make that area a safe space or a safe room.
Amber Warren, PA-C: What's that company.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Called? Stetson Riser. Yeah, Stetson. Riser. And yeah, it was it's been super useful. Once you purchase the kit, you can carry it to any home. And so we've every home that we've had, we will measure the outlets and we'll throw them in there and yeah, make it, makes it, I mean you can actually measure as soon as you throw that plug in, it'll pull it from where we're at now, a thousand to 50 or 25. And so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. I know you guys had your home tested. I tested my home a couple years back as well. Some of the things I was most surprised by was wireless printers, these wireless thermostats that we all have now. Right. These I mean, we're going so much more smart in our home, but it's just so detrimental to our health. And then our we have a robot vacuum and the individual that came and tested our home, he's like, it took me like 30 minutes to figure out what was just loading up your whole bottom floor. Wow. And I'm like, oh, it's not that I unplug that when I don't use it. Like I run it once a week and then I unplug it and he's like, No, I had to pull the battery out before it stopped. Eliminating these dangerous. Yeah. So it's pretty amazing. You know we we turn off and this is what I recommend for my patients too and I'm sure you do the same. We turn off our Wi-Fi at night. If we're hanging out on the Saturday, we don't need it on cell phones, airplane mode far away from the bedroom. Right. We put them in our bathroom, which is a little bit ways away. Yeah, We've hardwired TVs and computers in our home. There's just no reason for them to have to be, you know, desktop computer to have to be connected to Wi-Fi. Wow. So, yeah, the other thing that is just really breaking my heart lately is seeing all these towers going up on school grounds because the public schools or any school, I should say, gets we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state to put these towers. So I've seen schools where it's literally plopped in between the football baseball field. Yes. And so I think that parents need to be waking up to this kind of stuff. Yeah, because these little developing bodies can't handle all that they're being bombarded with.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: There are some studies actually that show how like just with the cell phone. So this is just being used as an example. But if a adult holds a cell phone to their brain, there's a doctor who has studied the depth of penetration and it is significantly different. Basically, almost the whole brain is covered by a very intense amount of radiation. If they are holding a cell phone to their head of a child or a tablet near their head as opposed to that of an adult. And so children are exceptionally susceptible to this this new radiation that we're bombarding ourselves with. Yeah, And as you mentioned, you know, people are finding that they have no clue what these symptoms are related to. And then as they discover that EMFs are triggering, unfortunately something that's already probably in their body like mold, right? They are. They're having this extra sensitivity and it sounds crazy to other people and they're like, I noticed that when I'm not, you know, in these certain areas that I feel better. Some people literally have to move out to the country, to certain areas to to find peace, to be able to sleep at night, to not have chronic daily migraines or headaches. And so it's a real thing. Yeah, you know, it really is.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. The other the other thing I try to educate my patients on is when you travel airplanes, hotels, I mean, just Wi-Fi hotspots, EMF hotspots. Yeah. So I always try and tell my patients, as silly as it sounds, hey, when you're traveling by plane, when you arrive at your destination, you get to the hotel, get to wherever you're staying, take off your shoes and stand on the ground. Because grounding can have really, really great can really help offset the effects of the EMF damage that our bodies are seeing.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: That's amazing. That's amazing. You know, I can even speak to also my sister in law did get a device. There are some there are some out there that, you know, probably should be better vetted. But there are a number of great devices out there that do help with EMF mitigation in a home, even little personal devices that you can wear, right? Yeah. And so but I can just speak to the fact that my sister in law and my brother, they purchased a unit for their home and her her her deep sleep and her ability to actually make it through the night without issues of insomnia was hugely improved by bringing this device into their home. And there were other symptoms as well. But it was just really cool to see that she had significant change from EMF harmonization or mitigation in her home. So that's amazing.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Before we kind of wrap some things up. Yeah, what are some things that our patients can do right now today without having to come in, get tested for toxins, which we have amazing tests. Actually, I did want to mention that total tax burden test. I don't know if you've used it from vibrant health. Yeah, but looking at metals, environmental chemicals and mold, really cool urine test that we do on our patients, but without having to come and maybe get a lot of that information, what are things that some of our listeners, some of this community can be doing right away just to help facilitate healthy detox? I mean, we talked about hydration, making sure you're eliminating appropriately. Yes. I mean, you mentioned lymphatic movement, which is really important. Do you recommend dry brushing or things like Epsom salt baths?
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Okay. Yeah, yeah, Epsom salt baths. Great, great research there behind that as well. Dry brushing. Make sure that you're brushing in the correct direction. Yep. Yeah. Towards the heart. Right towards the heart. Yeah. Yeah. Because the lymphatics don't basically just to the left side of the heart and the thoracic duct into the bloodstream there. So you want to basically you're trying to push everything in that direction. And so or just I would just say maybe just superior to the heart there in the sub, just under the collarbone. There you go. And so, yeah, proud of you. I got to pull this stuff back from medical school. So but the idea is all of these little daily things we can do, I, I really am a huge proponent of coffee enemas. Of course.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So glad you.Brought that up.
Amber Warren, PA-C: That has been a game changer in my practice.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah, I think it's very easy to do often it's kind of a little bit of like a sanctuary in the of time in your day where people often kind of look forward to it. To be quite honest, I can say for me, the thing that kept me sticking with it because my wife actually introduced it to me when we were dating.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Why am I not surprised knowing your wife?
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Exactly right. And she was like, I'm going to get I'm going to get this guy cleaned up before we get married. So. I love it.
Amber Warren, PA-C: And Wes still had eczema. Dang it.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: I know. Isn't that crazy? I know. That's what she says.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: She's like, Man, if after all the things that I've done to heal my body and like, eat well and all these things, if I can go through some of the things that I've been through or, you know, like my son go through the eczema, she's like, it just shows how crazy important it is. It is for us to really pay attention to this because it can make all the difference in the world to to pay attention to some of these small details. Right. And so she has also she has a background of jeans that don't detox well. And so sometimes people are doing all the right things, but we need to be even more assertive or aggressive about supporting those things. Right? So the genetics. But yeah, so so coffee enemas, though I can say when she introduced that to me, that was a game changer. I mean, better mental clarity, ability to focus better energy throughout the day. And it's not the same as a colonic. No, because what it's doing is it's doing a clean sweep of the liver. And it is basically what we talked about, the traffic jam and the liver. What it's doing is clearing up the traffic jam and allowing you to move toxins out of the body that way.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: I'll throw this out there. These are big words, but the body uses a different methodology of tagging toxins for excretion. So methylation is one that we often talk about, and that's where the offer comes into play. But there's also Sulfation and Glucuronidation. And those are ways and again, not not like an expert on these pathways, but the point is that these are ways that the body needs to tag items to say, Hey, you don't belong here, you need to get out. Right? And so if your methylation sulfation or glucuronidation pathways are not functioning properly, then you're not tagging or properly excreting toxins, Right. And so, so one of the things about the coffee enema is this beautiful is not only does it clean sweep the liver, but it also helps to push toxins out of the cells because it's a massive producer of intracellular glutathione. And so it's if you were to just to say one thing that you could do on a daily basis, I would I would say probably between sweating, making sure, of course, that your that you're eliminating. Well through the stool. And that's one of the things that that also coffee enemas.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Do, right.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah they do but I would I would say a combination of infrared sauna and coffee enemas could be probably some of the best that you could do. Or if you're not infrared sauna, then you could, you know, daily exercise where you're profusely sweating and coffee enemas would be the two two best things you could do every day and.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Moving lymph when you're exercising, too.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: That's exactly right. That's right. That's important. Thank you.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Yeah. Please don't start doing coffee enemas on your own. Yeah. You need a specific coffee? A specific set? Yes, There are supplements we have you take before and after. Binders are really important after timing water. Please don't use tap water with ground coffee. Yeah, timing. That is really important. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. So this wraps wraps us up really nicely. And I end each one of my interviews with Dr. Penick. If there's a piece of advice or a word of wisdom that has made the most significant impact on your patients, move the needle the most. What what would you say that is?
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to just kind of rehash this most recent thing. It's getting the nervous system back intact, getting the vagus nerve back into parasympathetic tone and getting the limbic system reset properly. I honestly feel that once you have done that, your body is set or wired for healing. And some people, to be quite honest, without any other supplementation, just by doing those two things alone, have seen the biggest leaps in their healing. Just from doing that alone, their body starts to do and produce what it needs to on its own without even without massive amounts of supplementation. And so I honestly think it's challenged me to the point that I am now daily trying to work on my vagus nerve right now. And then I'm going to start a limbic nervous system retraining program that has made significant changes for my wife. And so it's something that I am now starting to recommend to every single client that comes through my door, for the most part, is to do some form of getting the body, the nervous system, back into the right space to be ready to heal.
Amber Warren, PA-C: So, oh my gosh, that's a beautiful. I love that. What a great way to end. Yeah, there's a lot of really great programs out there. I at some point I'd be amazing if we could get a group of our practitioners together and create our own. Yes. Because yeah, like I love there's really cool ones that bring faith into it. Yes. And it's even more powerful in its healing. Um, awesome. Well, Dr. Penick, thank you so much. We are so honored to have this conversation. I'm so honored to have this conversation. And I know as a team, we're so excited to start healing this community even more so with you on our with you on our side here soon. So thank you so much. Um, so Dr. Charles Pennock will be joining our Functional Medicine Foundations team out of our Eagle Clinic in early April. Thank you so.
Dr. Charles Penick, MD: Much. Thank you, Amber. Take care. All right. You, too.
Amber Warren, PA-C: Thank you for listening to the Functional Medicine Foundations podcast. For more information on topics covered today, programs offered at FMF and the highest quality of supplements and more. Go to Fun Med Foundations dot com.