Podcast Transcript
Human Optimization
Wed, Oct 19, 2022 4:47PM • 53:30
Summary from the host
Jason Earle is a man on a mission. An adoring father, incurable entrepreneur and indoor air quality crusader, he is founder & CEO of 1-800-GOT-MOLD? and MycoLab USA, and the creator of the GOT MOLD?® Test Kit. Allergic to nearly everything in his environment as a child, Jason’s asthma was so severe that he was initially diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Absenteeism due to a battle with Lyme disease, and his mother’s suicide, ultimately led him to drop out at 16 and get a full-time job at the local gas station. This is where most stories end, but in an almost miraculous turn of events, from a chance meeting, in mere months, Jason found himself working on Wall Street. Within a year he had unwittingly become the youngest licensed stockbroker in history at age 17, resulting in a Guinness World Record, going on to enjoy a nine-year career. It’s a story you will have to hear for yourself.
Over the last 20 years, Jason has performed countless sick building investigations, solving many medical mysteries along the way, helping thousands of families recover their health and peace of mind. He has been featured or appeared on Good Morning America, Extreme Makeover: Home Editions, The Dr. Oz Show, Entrepreneur, Wired, at least two college textbooks, and more. He is a fast-paced, enthusiastic guest, with a wealth of practical knowledge across a wide range of subjects involving health and indoor environment. Jason is no longer allergic to anything.
Join us as we listen to Jason tell us how he went from Wall Street whiz kid to America’s top mold detective, and how he connected the dots in his own health odyssey, implicating the moldy farmhouse he grew up in.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
mold, people, air, mycotoxins, symptoms, building, true hepa, mold exposure, filter, exposure, called, home, dampness, test, inspection, house, allergies, jason, sampling, musty smell
00:00
I’m a hair mineral analysis expert, I have a background in functional medicine and I educate people using htma testing to maximize healthy race debilitating symptoms and gain energy. I’m a multi time kettlebell sport world champion. And I’m constantly searching for high performance pros, all over the world to bring you this human optimization podcast. My name is Lisa Patel killer.
00:31
Welcome everybody to a brand new episode of the human optimization podcast. And I’m so happy to announce that we have Jason Earle again with us. So if you haven’t watched our first episode, that Jason and I chatted, you have to watch that we’ll do a very kind of quick little recap, I’m gonna get Jason to introduce himself again, because he has such an amazing story, you have to hear this. And if you haven’t seen that first episode, make sure you head to my website or YouTube channel. And check that out. So Jason Earle is a man on a mission. He is an adoring father and incurable entrepreneur and an indoor air quality Crusader. He is the founder and CEO of one 800 Got mold, and MiCollab, USA as well as the creator of the GOP Mold Test Kit. And we’re going to talk about that at the end so that everybody knows how to figure out if they have mold. And so welcome, Jason, tell us a tell our listeners and our viewers a little bit about yourself.
01:25
Well, first of all, thank you very much for having me again, it’s it’s great to see you, you too. And so I got started in the mold business, in in the way that I think many people who are doing good work in this industry did through through personal experience. And it’s not exactly the kind of business that you aspire to get into mold. And I don’t believe that there’s an academic track that will get you here, there. This is a multidisciplinary field, to say the least. And it’s emerging. It’s one of these things that you know, every day, there’s something new and exciting that a new tools being created to help us understand the indoor environment better. So I came into this space. I had no business being in this business. Put it that way. I’m a former stockbroker. And I had no business being in that business either at the time because I was so young. But when I finally one day, woke up and wanted to do something meaningful with my life, I went backpacking. And I was away for a while. And while I was, while I was on sort of walkabout, I was reading a local newspaper. It was in Hawaii. And it was about a story. It was a story about a guy who’d gotten sick from the hotel where he was an employee. And, and he had suddenly at age 40, something developed adult onset asthma, which I’ve never even heard of at the time, as well as all these allergies and sensitivities to foods and things that he’d never had a problem with. And it was for me, it was like a deja vu moment the light bulb went on immediately because when I was four years old, I suddenly fell ill I lost a lot of weight. In a three week period, my parents brought me to the hospital. Actually, they brought me to the pediatrician who said you need to take him to Children’s Hospital. And so the initial workup based upon family history, and the symptoms that I was presenting with was that I had cystic fibrosis which is, you know, back then it was a death sentence. And my parents cried for six weeks while they waited for the second opinion. And fortunately and evidenced by by my by the fact that it’s 146 years old, that you’re still here. I’m still here. Breathing Well, I did not have CF actually, I had asthma compounded by pneumonia and when they tested me for allergies. As I mentioned, I tell this in every show because it’s just my dad said I looked like a ladybug, you know my skin tests on my back and I swelled up just a big red swollen, my goodness, all over it and I tested positive for every single thing they tested me for. So I essentially lived on inhalers and you know, but but the things I tested for were abundant I mean it was it was surrounded by grass wheat, corn, eggs, dogs, cats, cotton. Soybeans, I grew up on a little farm surrounded by corn, grass, wheat, eggs, dogs, cats and soybeans, everything you know, I was surrounded by all these things. And I basically I spent most of my time outside which seemed to be less problematic. I had no idea my guess my intuition was was on point there. I spent most of my time outside and I was always itchy you know that’s that was that was just a chronic thing. And when I was about 12 years old my my folks split up and the house was sold and I moved down and all my symptoms went away not immediately but in very short order. And and now to this day I have no allergies. No no known allergies. I’ve been tested for them and all the doctors who have referred patients over the years find that very interesting and it’s they almost test me for entertainment purposes
04:57
is to see what comes out of it right. They’re like So let’s just make sure this isn’t this isn’t we didn’t make a mistake.
05:04
Yeah, it’s, it’s so so, you know, I didn’t think about that again for, you know, whatever it was a decade. And then when I was, you know, after I decided that I wanted to make a change in my, in my career that landed in my lap. And so I immediately recognized that we had a dampness issue in the house, and I called my father, he confirmed as such. And so that began my curiosity, which is really what drives me about this whole thing, because this is such an emerging field, like I said, that Curiosity has to be the driving force. And, and I became curious about not mold, per se, although it is a fascinating subject, it really, truly is. But, but the way buildings impact our health, right. And, you know, this is this is this is, I have this philosophy, I think, I may have mentioned this last we spoke that the buildings that we live in work in are often viewed as these these inanimate boxes, these things that are just kind of here to keep the keep the rain off of our head and keep old from coming in. But I would argue that they’re an extension of our immune system. And, and, and I would, you know, it’s an XO scan and an exoskeleton, and to disregard the conditions in that building is to say that you should disregard the conditions on your own physical body, right? If there’s actually a sort of almost a mutualism, to building requires you to maintain it so that it can take care of you. Right, there’s a there’s a real and then the longevity of the building is directly correlated with how well you care for it, right, it’s got a birthday, essentially, that day, there’s all sorts of really interesting stuff you can play with on that. And when the building gets sick, people get sick too. And when the building heals, and people heal, you know, you can play that went all the way through. And but this is something that’s hiding in plain sight, as many of our most common ailments are and the underlying causes of them. So but it was that curiosity, it was, I wish I could say that I was thinking the sauce back then. But of course, this has taken 20 years for me to crystallize them and be able to share them the way we are now. But it got me interested to the point where I came back from from from that from that trip and took a job working for a company that was doing mold remediation, they weren’t a mold remediation company, because they didn’t really exist standalone. But they were having to do it as part of their their contract work. And I saw quickly that consumers are getting, we’re getting screwed. And they were using chemicals in lieu of cleaning. And there was there was no standard back then. So it was just wild, wild west. And people I think maybe were were trying to do the right thing. But they were just trying to get paid. And that still exists in this industry, there’s still just a dearth of qualified professionals and even the ones that are qualified, they’re hard to find they’re geographically dispersed. And so that then it was, it was very clear to me that there was a space in the in the industry for, for a company that would do inspections only, and then guide the process, but not be in the remediation business so as to prevent the conflict of interest. And that began my work, which ultimately became the inspection company, one 800 Got mold. Where were we through that we’ve done 1000s and 1000s of assessments and, and in that process, learn more about not just where mold is and how to remediate and all that stuff, but the what happens to people when they get exposed to it, and then ultimately, how to deal with this, the long term consequences of that, because it’s complicated. And it’s and it’s filled with lots of counterintuitive, almost contradictions. And also, there’s stuff that’s beyond the air. So there’s some things a lot of a lot of stuff for us to dig in and unpack around that today.
08:38
Yeah, and you know, we were talking a little bit earlier, just with regards to how many symptoms mold can have, we’re going to touch on this too. And, and I actually, for my own story to add to this up and just getting over detoxing and my body dealing with mold exposure. Because of course, when we were all working from home and things like that, we ended up having a leak in our basement that I didn’t know about. And I was there every day all day long. So I had low exposure for a very long period of time. And I couldn’t figure out, you know why I was having certain neuropathy issues, you know, my hypothyroidism was getting worse, all of these things were happening. And I just couldn’t figure out why because nothing else had really changed. And then when we started pulling our basement apart, because we were doing renovations, that’s when everything came to kind of a close when it was like oh my goodness, this is what’s happening to me. And but again, a wide range of symptoms. And and so so I mean, from your experience, obviously, you’ve seen so many different cases, you’ve experienced it yourself personally. Let’s talk about some of the issues that mold can bring within us. When you when you say the building is us you couldn’t be more true.
09:55
Yeah, yeah. So I think what one of the things that mold does really well is well, let’s let’s go back to what more does mold mold. His job is to take stuff that was at one time living and turn it back into dirt. That’s it’s that’s what it’s called nature’s great recycler. And so it uses lots of different stuff to do that. It uses enzymes to digest and then it also uses these toxins which get a lot of a lot of media attention. Microtonic mycotoxins used to kill other microbes. It’s not intended to kill, to harm us. But it’s chemical warfare on a microscopic level, and we get caught in the crossfire. In part, because we’re genetically close to fungi. And so this is, you know, where we’re, we’re, you know, we cohabitate because we’re not, we’re also in that, you know, we’re genetically speaking, closer to fungi than we aren’t the bacteria. And so that stuff works on us. And, but if you if you if you think about what mold is doing, when it’s doing that, it’s, it’s essentially saying, Okay, I’m gonna turn this back into dirt, I’m gonna use all these tools to digest and to get rid of competition. It’s essentially, if you allow that to continue the first symptom of mold, or the first sign, I should say, is the musty odor. That’s the first thing that happens, right? So you have a water damage issue, you got 24 to 48 hours to deal with deal with that before it becomes a mold issue. 72 hours according to the industry standard, if, if a porous objects are wet and stay wet for three days, you have to treat them as if they’re molding regardless of whether they have visible mold or not. So at that point, things start to smell. And that smell has has impact on people that have sensitivities that has impact on people that are aren’t sensitive to they just may not be aware of it. And, and if you let that continue to go, what happens is new molds show up. And then eventually, at the end, the really aggressive toxigenic molds show up and because they’re at the top of the food chain, they not only they’re there to really they’re they’re the ones with the with the nasty weapons, and they’re killing everything, and killing all the other moles. And they’re and they’re there, they’re on a mission at that point. So at that point, you’ve already gotten the email, you’ve already gotten the, you got the warning, which is the smell, right, and then the rest of it continues to escalate, and now you got the mycotoxins. And so at that point, now, you the house can become a real problem for a lot of people. And so I often have this notion that what mold trying to do is get you to move out so we can eat the rest of the house. You know, comfortable, it’s true, that eventually you go, I’m done, I’m out and how many people who are listening to the show that have had a mold problem can relate to that, right. So and I think that that’s what we’ll do is I think what more does is it brings out your latent weaknesses and susceptibilities that are already there. Like we’d be with my allergies, I’m sure if I were living in a moldy environment, again, because I’ve had some brushes with that stuff. And I’ve noticed that I can, you know, in a moldy environment, I can get hives and you know, I can leave things suddenly pop up, or I don’t have any known allergies, but boy, I’ll take put my immune system up against the wall, things may start popping out. And I that’s what I see consistently over 1000s of inspections going into homes. And by the way, we only did residential occasionally do commercial, but really, I’ve always had that sick little kids don’t live in office buildings. So we do homes. Yeah. And so because of that, and most other companies in our space debris, the opposite, they’d rather do the commercial work because that’s where the money is. I like impact. And I like I like to see the transformations and so, so watching what people come with, or what they you know, to use medical term present with, and then say, Okay, well, what is what are we going to what how does that environmental, how do the environmental conditions contribute in any other way? What you consistently see is obviously the top, you know, the, the the upper respiratory stuff, that’s typical, you know, hay fever, like symptoms, chronic sinusitis is linked with mold exposure, with X 37 million Americans, asthma, obviously, all those kinds of things, but but the stuff that’s really nebulous is when you get into the incredible inflammation, they got stuff that really sends people for a loop, where, you know, suddenly they’re sensitive to things that have nothing to do with air. And, and so I really feel like that’s where people get frustrated the most, because it doesn’t seem to make sense. It’s almost like a non sequitur. But what I also see happen here is that there’s a lot of the body seems to develop a fight or flight response, in many cases, to exposure, it’s a real threat. And I see a lot of a lot of
14:39
a lot of let me let me say it this way, we get contacted for our test kit business for@gmail.com We get contacted by medical groups often lately and and I was surprised the first time we got a call from a psychiatric I outfit a high volume psychiatric clinic at 400 new patients a month, they want to prescribe our test kits to every single new patient because they’re finding inflammation as an underlying commonality amongst all of their intakes with the exception of people that are coming in for relationship issues, and even that they’re finding, maybe an issue. So like, mold rage is something that Dave Asprey has said that
15:25
it is a totally a thing. It totally is, I definitely went through that I’m very aware of, of just because of what I do, I’m very aware of that I’m like, cheat, I’m getting upset about things that I shouldn’t be getting upset about, like, why am I so angry? Right? And, and it was kind of, and then I’m like, something’s like this is this is not right. It’s true, it is a real thing.
15:50
And you know, the Brown University did a study, Edward schinoussa, I want to say 2010. And it was 6000 some odd homes, and they self reported environmental conditions, presence of mold and dampness as well as quality of life. So, you know, basically, you know, are you on the scale of happiness and despair? Where are you. And we found a strong correlation between mold and dampness indoors and depression. Which is unsurprising to me my own mother committed suicide living in a moldy house. So this does not surprise me. And looking back at that, now, I can’t think that I can’t not think that the indoor environment, you know, played a significant role, or on doing so. So you see stuff like that where you know, and in fact, I just listened to a podcast, and I can’t remember the doctor’s name without my head, but he refers to depression as an inflammatory disease. And so these things are now becoming, these are conversations that are being had. This is exactly right. And so, but the thing that’s difficult is that when you have mold exposure, you may have five people living in a house, and they offer five different symptom profiles, right? Somebody might not feeling anything, they say, not feeling anything. And then you’ve got someone else on the other side, that’s that’s, you know, anaphylaxis. And then there’s a some sort of smattering of stuff in between where there’s no quarrel, no seeming correlation, which just goes to show you that mold sensitivity or actually, whether whether a building is safe or not, or whether it’s really an individual biology issue, there is clearly a problem, she’s got mold growth in your house, that’s unacceptable period. But how that impacts you as an individual thing? Much like, people always send reports to us and say, Is this safe? Or is this not safe? Is this peanut safe? See, it depends on the person, right? That’s true. The p&l for one person, my one of my sons eat some like crazy, one of my sons, if he if he touches them, he’s going to end up you know, potentially an ER so so is that peanut safe, that it really has mold is not dissimilar. In many ways, the problem with mold is that you live in it, and we breed 13 to 15 times a minute, which means 20,000 times a day. And so if you’re living in and you’re getting that repeat exposure, naked exposure into your lungs 20,000 times a day, especially in the area where we don’t leave our house, you’re getting an incredibly, highly concentrated exposure to these chemicals that are inflammatory. And that inflammatory thing, you know, there’s allergic responses, there’s inflammatory responses. And then there’s this nebulous thing, which is, which is which, which really bothers a lot of the people that are the most difficult cases, which is this emotional part. It’s, if you say, somatic illness, people will go, it’s not it’s not psychosomatic, but you to say that is to disregard the reality of it is it this is a this many times it’s a it’s an adrenal response, there’s a there’s a fear there, and the anticipation of it exacerbates it. And it’s the whole thing. And it’s not easy to overcome. I mean, I’ve seen a lot of people do therapies around DNRs, with the dynamic neural retraining like that, and be able to get get their body to stopping us at high alert. But the spectrum of mold illness is so great. And then of course, it amplifies things like or there’s a correlation there with Lyme disease and other biotoxin related illnesses. So it whatever you’re bringing into the party mold is going to make a mess of it. And that’s I think the message here is that, you know, if you come with a perfect health, you will potentially end up with you could have chronic exposure, chronic exposure, you could potentially have a new client, you could have a chronic illness from it. But if you have something else already, it will more than likely bring it to the surface.
19:33
Yeah, exactly. And just bring it to the forefront and then that’s when it slaps you in the face and you go what just happened? There has to be something more than what’s going on here. What is that? Right? And you’re right about the inflammation. Like I just I feel like I mean, inflammation breeds so many different variations of symptoms, and I mean, especially, you know, some people think they have a common cold. Oh well, I have I have Maybe I have outdoor allergies, it’s spring, it’s fall, once you get the runny nose, you’ve got a little bit of a sinus headache, maybe you’ve got a bit of congestion. But that very simply can be mold exposure. It doesn’t even need to be chronic. It’s just something simple. But it happens all the time. And I hear about it all the time. And you’re right about, I found that really interesting when you said, you know, I think mold wants to make you move out, because I have so many clients as well, where they’re like, oh my gosh, now I’m in especially and I feel like in that area of like the main area, right, it’s a bit damp over the in that area, it’s hard to find places that don’t have some of those issues. And so it’s like, oh, well, I moved again, and I’m finally in a place that’s mold free. Like it’s, it’s a constant struggle. And I’m like, oh my goodness, like it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t be like that. But again, you know, it’s taken them the sometimes years to get over symptoms and your reactions.
20:55
And by the way, I’ve seen so many of my clients that move from moldy house to moldy house, it’s, it’s like they attract them. Sometimes it’s, it’s, it’s really amazing. It’s almost like there’s a strange comfort in that. And many times, you know, keep in mind that this is this whole thing is a new awareness. Not to old people, older people. And they talk about that the musty smells, the basement smell, that’s just right. You know, motional wipe it off, you know, it’s been here since before us, and it’ll be here after. And so it’s just this whole, this whole, the this, this dismissive thing. I think, also, there is a strange thing, you know, sense or are strangely comforting, and we all grew up, or at least anyone who’s, you know, born in the 70s, or 80s, all grew up with at least somebody that had a musty basement and try you know, even though they may be metabolically are, you know, you know, logically troubling, but there’s, there’s something there that may be strangely familiar and almost comforting. But you know, the thing that you start getting into some of these other issues, like something as simple as sleep disturbance, you know, really common side effects of, of low level mold exposures, people don’t sleep well. They’re tossing and turning. And again, it’s trying to make you move out, you know, and then you go and you sleep somewhere else calm, and I agree night sleep. It’s just it is I often say molds like the great interrupter. And if you can envision a juggler, that’s your immune system. And juggling, juggling, juggling, juggling, juggling, and mold is like the guy across the room throwing baseballs at him. Something’s gotta give, right, you’re gonna catch the ball and everything else is gonna drop, you’re gonna have to focus on defending yourself against this thing. And so the other things will fall to the wayside until that gets corrected. And oftentimes, it happens in a way in a way that you’re not maybe necessarily aware of it right away, like in your case. And so it can creep in and you can end up with this, this low level exposure that, by the way, so the data or the studies on mold exposure are strongly leaning towards the idea that the musty smell is a primary offender of not a aesthetic nuisance simply and mycotoxins play a very small role in the overall quantity of mold related illness.
23:26
I remember you saying that last time and I found that so interesting, because a lot of alternative practitioners will this right is yours. We’re focusing on organic acids which mycotoxins and, and all of those exposures and I found that really interesting. So I want you to go down that road a little bit because I think that’s really a striking fact.
23:45
It’s very important, because a lot of people spending money on mycotoxin test as if, if there aren’t first of all, I’ve never talked to anyone who’s doing these tests. Everybody has some mycotoxins, everybody. So So to say that, Oh, I have mycotoxins I’ve got mold in my body. So I get those calls all the time. You may or you may not have cancer, you don’t have mold your bodies. You may have some some fungi because they’re we all do, but you don’t have a unlikely you have mold growing your body otherwise you probably be in the hospital. The mycotoxin issue is a little bit like chasing the tail instead of the tiger. It owns mycotoxins produced by some molds some of the time even the most of them only produce them intermittently. So even so you’re actually sampling for the needle in the haystack. And also most mycotoxin exposure comes from food. In fact, the UN released a report not long ago where they estimate 25% of foods are contaminated with mycotoxins 25% 25%
24:43
Going goodness,
24:46
you think about we’re importing, we’ve learned that Ukraine Ukraine is the breadbasket of of the of the especially of Africa and of Europe, and even here, and you have to wonder what happens to wheat that gets She put on a ship and has to go across the ocean for 30 days. You know, we and then all this processing and stuff we buy moldy, we buy grain and things our ports will accept mycotoxin leading food imports that other countries will turn away. So anyway the about the birth of mycotoxins and the if you, if you if you’re testing for mycotoxins as a primary indicator of mold exposure, again, it’s the tire, it’s the onset of the tiger, because you can get an excuse to say that you should only worry about the micro toxigenic molds, which is about 13, by the way, is saying that you shouldn’t worry about the other ones.
25:40
What if that’s true,
25:42
right. But that’s, that’s a false narrative, right? Any mold growth in your house of any significance is a concern. And by the way, the molds change. So even if you do find, if you don’t find it today, you might find it tomorrow. So this is a very dynamic thing, it’s changing by the second forget about the days or the or the weeks or the months, it’s changed a second. So so so looking at root cause, which I think is important to everyone who listens, this root causes moisture. So if you really want to test your house and inspect your house, always look for moisture, which means dampness, it’s just high humidity, as well as liquid water and be vigilant about that stuff. And then recognize that any degree of mold growth in the house beyond height beyond basic hygiene, especially in moisture prone areas, like bathrooms, which are designed to deal with that, like tile. Moisture conditioning in a building is the enemy of the building. And, and ultimately, it’s the enemy of good health. Yeah. So, so the mycotoxin thing is a it’s a it’s an industry and, and it’s it’s a very lucrative industry, for the people that are that are focusing completely on that. And if you were to ask them, honestly, and you pull them aside and say so, what happens if there’s no mycotoxins found? Should should Can I can I say that there’s no mold in the house. They can’t say yes. You know, they can’t. So it’s your you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. better off looking for a broader indicator, mold issue. And, and even that, even the detoxification processes. This is good stuff. I mean, if you if you if you if you’re harboring significant amounts of mycotoxins, it behooves you to, to detox. Right. But the first thing you have to do is figure out what if that’s the if primary route, and if you really want to do that my experience has been the people who heal the most are the ones who also change their diet, they change they do, they do what they need to do for the home. They rectify the moisture conditions, they start doing things like using air purifiers on a consistent basis. They they’re they’re vigilant about the building maintenance, so the water doesn’t get in. And if it does, they respond immediately, then they oftentimes the people who really heal the fastest are the ones who adopt a notion of grain diet in my experience,
27:55
which makes total sense. Right?
27:57
Like, you know, no sugar, no grains, no processed foods. Yeah.
28:01
Yeah. Well, and if you think about what you just what you said earlier about the imports, and about the grains and about, you know, and we all I mean, we already know, there’s there’s acceptable levels of everything in everything, right. And so, you know, that acceptable level, probably really isn’t all that acceptable to a certain extent. And that’s why a lot of us need to change our diets in order to make sure that we’re going to heal. And And interestingly enough, you know, detox is always such a hot topic, oh, I just need to detox and I’ll feel amazing. But what about, but you’re right, what about the whole picture? What about the foundation of what that picture looks like? Like, what are you eating, if you’re eating processed foods, and you’re eating a high grain and high sugar diet, and you’ve got maybe a bit of a musty basement, and you’re detoxing, it’s really not going to do anything. Don’t care what detox you’re doing, it’s not gonna do anything, right? That’s right. Because you’re not dealing with the problem. You’re just trying to put a bandaid on it and hope that you know, it heals. And it’s, it’s not, it’s just not going to work.
29:08
100% the first the first step and detoxing is to stop talking to me. Exactly, you know, and then try not to retox but you know, what people do detoxing, by the way, the body does a really good job of doing that on its own. Usually, if you take away again, Juggler and stop throwing stuff. So that’s also your Doritos and Cheetos and your Starbucks and whatever else, right? So like that those that’s also you know, throwing stuff at your immune system. And so that’s another thing to juggle. So, you know, I’m not promoting, you know, asceticism, you know, or some sort of like, you know, but I do feel like people who are really struggling with this stuff, if you if you chant food is like religion or politics, it’s funny if you talk to me about food. Oh, no way. I can’t do that. Stop eating that. I don’t why why if nothing else in my life, like, you know, it’s like telling people that I don’t know it’s amazing, but it really does. It hits at the core because people ask me They feel judged about their food too. It’s a source of comfort and right. So you bring that up and you say, the people just want a pill, or they want a potion, they want someone to come in and take care of it, they want. That’s the American way. But the people who really get motivated to fix this stuff, start with that building. That’s the building work they’re in, and then work on the stuff that they do for basic human needs. Air, water, food shelter. So you start with a shelter, and then you make sure you’re drinking good water, and then make sure that you’re eating great food. And then of course, you know that the air is part of the whole picture. And so if you focus on those things, what happens is in my experience, is that the detoxing happens for itself. Now, some people don’t, they don’t detox well, because they’ve got genetic predispositions, and they’ve got other things that are going on. And so those people may need a little bit of a boost. You know, the glutathione is in the binders, and all that kind of stuff. But you can’t do all that stuff, and you’re still eating like crap, well, you know what, then you’re not going to experience the kind of health revolution that you seek, because this isn’t a passive process. This is a, this is actually a series of sacrifice that ultimately become a lifestyle. And those sacrifices in the end don’t feel like it, they just feel like it in the short term. You know, it really is a it’s a short term, quote, unquote, sacrifice. And then you realize how much better you feel like, Why was I doing that? You look back at that, and you go, Oh, wow. I’m free, you know, and it but there’s all this stuff is, is is inextricably connected, you know, it’s almost like the Matroyshka dolls, you know, the Russian? You know, you have to look at this from a holistic perspective. And I mean, that who le holist Yeah. And, and when people do that, Boy, I’ll tell you the the other things suddenly start feeling better that joint pains and, you know, the things that they had that maybe you know, most of their later adult life, suddenly those things are going away, and you realize, Wow, I really, the health, it’s a health journey for a reason, right? You never really get there. It’s this is a process of unfolding of new awarenesses. And those kinds of things. And I think what mold does for a lot of people is it brings a new level of awareness, something that you shouldn’t be taking for granted anyway.
32:12
100% I couldn’t agree with that more. And I think, I think sometimes we do, you know, we do just generally take things certain things for granted. And that’s when it kind of brings things back up in our face and goes, Hey, not today. No, no. Now you’re going to be aware now you’re going to realize, and so I want to ask a question, because I think that you’re going to have the perfect answer for everyone who’s thinking this because I want to know, is there an air purifier that you prefer over another? If someone is looking for something for their office or even their bedroom at home? You know, in their home? What do you what do you recommend?
32:52
Well, so air purifier not all air purifiers are created equal? Yep. Especially with COVID they there is a massive influx of new brands and new you know, gadgets and buzzers and zappers and stuff like course. Yeah. And I tend to be a if you hadn’t, you know, guessed already I kind of a purist on on these things. I like innovative stuff, but I really like proven technologies. And so when it comes to I was just so when it comes down to I was just texting with my Karina about it, she wants to make sure that we’re on the call. So anyway, what we, when it comes to air purifiers, HEPA filters are are the sort of the answer does your but they’re not all created equal in the sense that there’s HEPA. And then there’s you’ll see the true HEPA. And you have to wonder what happened is if, if that’s not true, that’s true.
34:01
Is it not true HEPA? Or is it your HEPA?
34:03
Is it the fake HEPA is? So what does that mean? Well, true HEPA is in a sealed unit. Okay? So in other words, there’s a gasket that prevents air from going around the filter, right because the air filters provide resistance to the air. And if you’re running a fan through it, if there if that filter, especially if you get started to get a little bit loaded with with debris, you’ll see that try to go around it, got it. And so that’s called bypass air, that’s what you don’t want. So by the way also is this this goes also to HEPA filtered vacuum cleaners, which is a really important appliance that people don’t think about. If you don’t have a HEPA filter on your vacuum cleaner, and I mean a true HEPA which is a sealed exhaust. You’re basically taking the stuff off the ground, breaking it up even further and then spewing out the back and the deeply respirable dust cloud. And I have had over the years, so many clients Who said that, you know, that they’re suddenly there, you know, right before holidays before people came to visit that, you know, suddenly there were asthma attacks and things like that. I’m like, What are you doing before you they’re always cleaning right before people come over. So you know that I heard that enough times that that’s like not even though that’s like, caught almost common place where people suddenly, you know, somebody comes to visit who’s sensitive, walks in and has it as a reaction. And I won’t look, let’s see what let’s see what kind of vacuum cleaner you have. Yeah, sure. If it’s like an old Electrolux,
35:32
they still have those.
35:37
So we had, you know, I mean, you get a hernia just moving that thing. I know. Right. Yeah. So So in any case, the, the the HEPA filters, and then there’s the there’s the HEPA filter, which take the particles out. And then there’s the then there’s the other aspect of air quality, which is the gases and that musty smell. And the VOCs, which is a whole nother podcast, if you want to talk about the other part of air quality in homes, which is the chemicals in our building products, and our finishing finishes, and the furniture, and all of our stuff and our cleaning, and our personal care products. And then we do all that in a closed, sealed up building, because we want to save our our energy dollars, right? Yeah. So we end up with this chemical box. And I you know, the data on that is really strong to that, you know, put it this way, we stopped smoking has gone like this and 30 years and death related to respiratory illnesses like this. And at him auto music like this is what I’m saying for people who are listening. Straight up, right, smoking is waiting on autoimmune cancers. And yeah, it’s related to respiratory illnesses up 30% In the same period, that smoking is down 80%. So tell me what’s going on. My experience is that is the new house smell the new the renovation, all that stuff, which we positively associate to is actually cancer is actually auto immune is actually progressing. You see you’re more sensitive to mold, it creates chemical sensitivities, all sorts of stuff that we’re experiencing as a modern culture. And and it’s just, it’s really bad. I mean, I really do think that, that that one thing more than mold, is killing us, is VOCs in our buildings. And so to counteract that, you have to use a filter that can take that stuff out. Yeah. And that’s a carbon based filter. So So you look at the marketplace for filters, the things that you need to look for true HEPA. And activated carbon. Carbon. Yeah, and a significant amount of it not just like a little one that’s in like a little, little porous filter that’s impregnated with activated carbon capture, like, you know, a mouse burp, barely, you know, like, it’s just not, you need like the the filter that I always recommended. And I’ve stopped recommending them because the company has changed quite a bit, the product is still excellent, is I do air cars, cause they make the gold standard, there’s no doubt and they have a process, it’s 1000 bucks, it will take the gases and the particles out and and I have them all over my house because I’ve had them for years. You know, that on the on the high end, on the on the on the more affordable side of the spectrum. I like a company called mattify. meds, they really great unit mattify air and they make they make filters that do a fabulous job, just want to say right next to me here. And for under 100 bucks, you can get a filter for a bedroom, that’s a true HEPA really, under 100 bucks, I mean for like 80 something dollars. Yep. And so there’s no excuse now to not have good filtration in your bedroom, your living room, any space that you fence. Wherever you’re spending a lot of time you need to mechanically remove these things from the environment because the building is constantly shedding particles of paint and things like that. So you got to take that stuff out. Anything that you bring in from outside, you know, if you’ve got Patch Kids, all that stuff, if you’re not mechanically removing pollutants from your house, what you’re doing is allowing them to accumulate, right? You know, it’s no neutral, no neutral, but this stuff, there’s no wood air, air is either nourishing and healing or, or it causes disease. There is no neutral air, there’s no neutral in terms of pollute, you’re either removing these pollutants from your house mechanically and on a passive basis, because you just said it. Or you’re allowing them to accumulate and that’s you know, so so these are very binary decisions and they’re very binary outcomes. You know, and air quality is fascinating because, you know, because unlike unlike almost anything else the the the benefits of healthy air are just innumerable longevity, peace of mind, sleep, all that stuff, right innumerable, it’s just really you want to you want to really improve the quality of your life the best biohack ever is healthy air.
40:08
Truly, yeah. The cost associated with not doing that is potentially deadly. At the very least military, it’s hard, it can shorten your life is not killing you, and destroy the quality of quality of life of the people that you care and that you care about and that you’re sworn to protect, right? Yes, your job. And so it’s that kind of binary decision that you make when you choose to either say, I’m not going to worry about that right now. I’ll do that later. Or I’m going to make those investments now. Because, you know, the it’s, it’s, it’s plus or minus, there is no neutral. Yeah, yeah.
40:45
Okay, so we’ll have those filters listed. I’ve heard of the IQ before, I’ve not heard of the metaphor. But we’ll have those listed in the, in the notes for the show, just so that you can go on because because you’re right. I mean, you know, under 100 bucks, there’s no reason, right? There’s no reason that that someone can’t take control of their air quality based on that cost. Because it’s minimal. And it’s so important. You know, we’ve just talked about all the things that can happen with mold, all of you know, and we haven’t even I feel like we haven’t even touched the iceberg of symptoms of what like, I mean, there, like I said, there’s hundreds of symptoms that can be mold related. And you know, that’s why sometimes it’s it’s sometimes difficult for people to realize that that could be adding to the problem or even the underlying cause of what they’re dealing with just because there’s so many different vast symptoms, and as you mentioned, could be completely different across four or five people living in the same place that has mold, right
41:49
percent, we have a little spot on our page on gmail.com under D need it and it talks about common mold symptoms, and then there’s also symptoms associated with chronic exposure. And then there’s diagnosis closely related to chronic mold exposure. And you know, this is a short concise list, but I can run through it with you really quick if you want to hear it. Let’s hear it. The common symptoms are allergies, coughing, sneezing, wheezing, asthma attacks, nasal congestion, runny nose, sinusitis, itchy eyes, hives, headaches, nausea, dizziness, fatigue and difficulty concentrating. That’s a very fast list but I’m sure
42:29
everybody’s it’s okay short notes.
42:32
Dizziness, fatigue, difficulty concert brain fog, very common that by the way, is is very commonly associated with the moldy smell. And so like, you know, people think they’ve got to have mycotoxins if they’re having this, this associative sort of brain fog. And that’s not true. The musty smell is not the trigger that symptoms associated with chronic exposure tends to be frequent respiratory infections, anxiety, insomnia, depression, confusion, severe fatigue, weight gain, is really common. You know, this can impact your metabolism in all sorts of crazy ways, night terrors. Anger, mold rage, you know, cognitive problems, you know. So again, short term exposure, you may have some brain fog, but if you’re having real problems thinking and stuff, you know, memory loss is also common hair loss is something that we’ve seen quite a bit as well as tinnitus or tinnitus, depending upon whether you’re sick. I’m sure there’s a proper pronunciation. I just nailed it. And then the diagnosis is more closely related related to this, which means things that tend to overlap, you know, simple ones, like chronic inflammatory response syndrome is the one that that was promoted, promoted by Dr. Schumacher, former doctor Schumacher. And, and that’s a big bucket, you know, that’s not just mold. But there, there’s, there’s a lot there MTHFR gene mutation, which a lot of your listeners will be familiar with, which apparently affects about 25% of the American population. So this is a biotoxin, detoxification. pathway. issue. Also chronic sinusitis, Lyme disease, as we’ve mentioned before, fibromyalgia is big on any of my encephalitis, I forget. And chronic fatigue syndrome, as well as sarcoidosis. These are so you know, that’s a truncated list. Yeah. And so, you know, you read that list off to, you know, 100 people, and, you know, 90 of them are gonna raise their hand. Yeah.
44:37
100% for one or more, right of those things. And so, so, yeah, so I mean, honestly, whoever, like if you’re listening and you’re and a light bulb went on, I mean, I feel like the universe brings you what you need at the right time, right? So if a light bulb went on and you’re like, Oh, my goodness, that sounds like something that I’m or two or three things that I you know, have been suffering from. So go to the godmode.com. website. And Jason tell us, so with regards to your mold kits, because we haven’t mentioned those, and I do want to mention that because they know people, it’s such a great tool for people to be able to utilize to have access to, because you literally took something that was extremely expensive, and made it affordable for people to be able to bring into their home and do their testing.
45:29
Yeah, so one of the biggest complaints that we got from the well, first of all, as a Mold Inspection Company, we, the inspections are 1000 $1,500, on average. And it’s out of reach for most people, and also certainly for people who are renting or budget. And so we tend to, you know, serve an affluent clientele. And of course, insurance doesn’t pay for it either. So we have to turn away a lot of people, because of you the geographic reasons were financial reasons. And that always broke my heart, my parents, my parents couldn’t afford to buy to couldn’t afford to, I’ve hired my company. And that’s why we created this whole thing, right? So and there’s also a lot of people out there a lot of people that are in this business that we call pump jockeys, they run around with an air sampling pump and a flashlight, and they charge you know, 567 $100 to do a kind of an empty inspection, grab a few air samples, and people that report and and end up with just more confusion and disappointment. And so, so I saw that and said, Wow, what if you could get those test results without having to deal with all the expectations around that. And for a fraction of the cost. Because that was really it’s not as a replacement for professional inspection, because that’s right, so no Do It Yourself test kit would replace an experience I well trained person with the right tools. But as a first step, kind of like a pregnancy test kit, right, or, you know, as a way for you to just get a gut check. That’s why we created the Garmin test kit. And so So using the Gamel test kit, you can you can click air samples, using the same devices the professionals use, they’re called spore traps. And so usually, if you have a professional come over, they have an air sampling pump, it’s it’s very, it’s a calibrated device about $1,000. And it interfaces with these cassettes, which captures spores that are in the air in the in the vicinity of the of the sample at the time. And and then they get sent to a third party laboratory for analysis. And they identify all scores that are that are present in that sample. And if you take an outside sample, and you compare it to the inside and determine whether or not there’s an unusual conditions present indoors. And so, so we just launched actually, and so our initial offering is that you can get a one two or three room test kit, as well as refills. So when you buy the kit, you get an air sampling pump, we created one that’s a lot less expensive than 1000 bucks and you can keep it instead of renting.
47:57
Okay?
48:00
Yeah, so the retests are $50 less per, per package. So it’s one for 149 for one room for a full kit, one, nine for two rooms, and then 249 For three, but if you keep the pump, you can share it with a friend, they can buy supplies, or you can simply buy the supplies yourself. The idea is to have those pumps out there so that people can just do it’s great events and deal with. So a one room kit for a refill is $99 149 for two rooms and in 199 for three so straight up the unfortunate and we partnered with the number one lab in the country, M lab p and k which just got acquired by Euro funds, which is the biggest lab in the world so you can be sure we’re going to get great great analysis. It’s an accredited analysis you’re actually getting you’re getting the highest quality analysis possible in any industry. But for for yourself price. Everything comes those prices includes lab fees, as well as shipping both ways so there’s no surprise charges or hidden fees. I think as we don’t sell Nate your name or anything like that there are other test kits companies out there that use this as a lead generator for remediation business which I think is deployed. And we don’t do that everything is confidential with us and and the results turned out the turnaround time is fast once once you send them back in the prepaid mail or once at the lab the turnaround time is two business days and in what you get is super really fast. And you get a really nice it’s easy to read and understand report with a cover sheet that gives you a green, yellow orange or red indicator depending upon sign as well as lab data so professional looking at it would make sense of it to then a third page which includes resources for how to where to find an inspector or where to find a remote here. I’m always gonna
49:51
ask about that. I’m like, where what do they do next? You’ve covered it all. That’s amazing.
49:56
We try and we’re working on building a referral network where we have over Would the professionals have to test in to the network and then have continuing education stay on our network, and they have to follow the industry standard. And they have to agree to a code of ethics. And they have to agree to be, you know, non conflicted in in terms of not being a mediator. And so we’re working on that next. But for now, the idea here is to give people a safe way to do this without anyone elses opinions, without having to get permission from anybody without having to they can do this at midnight, and they’re in their, you know, skivvies if they want doesn’t matter. And then to use that information to make better decisions. That’s the main thing.
50:41
Amazing. Well, and I mean, again, you’re bringing a cost to the table that is very achievable for so many people. And to be able to think about because as you said, you know, air is air if we’re not breathing clean air, we’re not be we’re not healthy, right. And so, so such an important factor to bring into the mix that I think so many of us really do forget about. You know, it’s one of those things, we just just don’t think about it.
51:09
It’s so easy to forget about it. You know, the law familiarity says that anything you get exposed to long enough eventually take for granted. Yeah. And is it anything that you are exposed to more than the air you breathe? Nothing, nothing. Yeah. And on that spectrum of you know, air, water, food, shelter, shelter, you can live with that for a long time. Who didn’t go a long time? Water three days, you might be in trouble? Air couple of minutes. But yeah, of all those things, we worry about our house, we worry about our food, we’re about our water, air is a second is an afterthought. And the irony of that is that is the most critical. The most important. Yeah, that’s
51:51
the most important thing in our lives. Yeah, it’s that’s amazing. And and yeah, I think again, something that we just don’t think about, and it really has to be brought to the forefront of our minds. Yeah.
52:03
How do you write into the tip of your nose? Exactly.
52:06
Truthfully, oh, well, that was amazing. As always, so much amazing information. And so many great resources, take advantage of visiting gmail.com. And, and check out that list of, you know, symptoms, conditions associations, and, and all the offerings that they have that are super affordable for you to be able to make sure that the air you breathe, is the best quality possible. So thank you so much, Jason, for your time. As always, it is so appreciated and you’re such a wealth of knowledge. And every time I leave with these big aha moments, like Oh, my goodness, you know, I can’t believe I didn’t think about that or this. And so we’ll have all the information in our description for how you can get in touch with got mold if you’re looking for test kits, and as well as more information. So thanks for joining us. If you’re watching on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to my channel. There’s a brand new episode every two weeks give this episode a thumbs up. And if you’re listening on your favorite podcast host give this episode a like and we’ll see you next time. Thanks for listening to today’s show. Head over to Lisa Patel killa.com To gain access to some amazing free resources that will help you gain energy erase debilitating symptoms and be the best version of you. Remember to give this podcast a link and follow me on social media at Lisa Patel Kayla. I’m here every two weeks with a brand new episode of the human optimization podcast. Until next time,
