In this episode, I am speaking with Dr. Jaban Moore, a chiropractor who specializes in treating chronic infections. Dr. Moore has dedicated his life to helping people with a number of different conditions ranging from: autism to microbiome and gut issues, chronic infections, and heavy metal detoxification, but he emphasizes parasites a great deal, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this episode.
Table of Contents
In this podcast, Dr. Moore and I discuss:
- How common are parasite infections
- The gut’s role in regulating parasites
- Can you test for parasites?
- The most common symptoms of parasite infections (and how to treat them)
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Transcript
Ari Whitten: Welcome back to the Energy Blueprint Podcast. I’m your host, Ari Whitten. Today’s guest is Dr. Jaban Moore, who is a chiropractor based out of Kansas City, Missouri, who sees patients all over the world and he specializes in treating chronic infections. His own personal history involved being a high-level athlete in college and then being debilitated by Lyme disease, seeing dozens of doctors without significant results, and then eventually later on being diagnosed with Lyme disease.
Now he’s dedicated his life to helping people with a number of different conditions from autism to microbiome and gut issues, to chronic infections, to heavy metal detoxification, but he emphasizes parasites a great deal, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about in this episode. Enjoy the interview. Welcome to the show, Dr. Moore. Pleasure to have you.
Dr. Jaban Moore: Thanks for having me.
Ari: Awesome. We are going to be talking all about parasites. How did you get into that? What’s the story behind you developing an interest in parasites and starting to do this work for your patients?
Dr. Moore: When I was in chiropractic school, I was a former All-American athlete, it felt great as an athlete, and health started to decline. As my health declined, I did the whole thing that most people do in the chronic illness realm, which is go to western med, to functional med, to anyone that would be willing to listen to me, to give me an opportunity to just get an answer. As somebody that was in chiro school, I was going to all these different trainings and thinking that I was going to run into someone with an answer, and it took a lot of time, honestly, it took a lot of doctors. I probably sought out care from a dozen or more people, but I talked to a hundred or a few hundred maybe just because I was in a place where I could do that.
After getting into Lyme disease and learning about that and seeing some results getting better from going to a doc that specialized in Lyme, it just didn’t solve everything. I wasn’t 100% well. Of course, with the doctor brain we’re like, “Well, what in the heck is keeping me from getting all the way well?” I went down the rabbit hole of parasites and there’s nothing more convincing than literally seeing parasites in the stool or even worse, and if you easily get a stomach turned you might want to mute for a second. I had to pull one all the way out of me because it didn’t come all the way out and it was a couple feet long.
Ari: My gosh. Geez. That sounds unpleasant, to say the least, if not traumatic.
Dr. Moore: [laughs] Definitely is not fun as far as being chronically ill and having parasites come out of you, but you know what? As my friend Dr. Watts says, “It’s better out than in.” I’d rather have that stuff out of me. I’d rather see it out of me. Because if I’m seeing it out, then it was in me, and I got clients constantly sending me pictures. It was really cool for the first year, and then after that I was like, “All right, I’ve seen it all. You don’t have to send me a picture now,” but it’s something that unlike so many other chronic illness diagnoses or chronic illness pieces like EBV or Lyme or mitochondrial dysfunction, you can’t put a finger on that. Well, parasites, sometimes you can.
Ari: Sometimes you can literally put two fingers on it, pinch it, and pull the thing out of your butt.
Dr. Moore: There you go.
How common are parasite infections?
Ari: [laughs] In your estimation, how prevalent is this? How common are parasite infections?
Dr. Moore: Because I like data and I like statistics, of course, what am I going to do? I’m going to go Google it. Well, the CDC says one million people in the United States each year get infected with Giardia, which is a single cellular organism parasite. That’s a million people every year in a westernized country.
Ari: All the campers and backpackers.
Dr. Moore: There you go. 100 million people are infected at any given time with Strongyloides, which is a multicellular organism, looks like rice, but it’s a parasite that you can see. It’s just you don’t usually notice it because it is pretty small, a few millimeters, and this is a type of infection that can cause headaches, menstrual issues, gut cramping, and burning muscle pain. It’s a hundred million people in the world. Basically, what it comes down to is, most of the people that I talk to they’re like, “Oh, I live in the United States.” “I live in England.” “I live in Europe. I’m not going to have a parasite.” I go, “Really? Do you deworm your dog? Do you deworm your cat, horse, goat, chicken, cow?”
They’re like, “Well, yes.” I go, “Well, you’re living in the same environment they are. You can get it just as easily as they do. You’re touching the same dirt. You’re petting them, you’re playing with them.” We all run into parasites. We all do it. It’s, is your body healthy enough and strong enough to not end up with a pathogenic infection? Or is it like most people because well, here in the US 75% of people over the age of 40 have a chronic illness diagnosis at this point. Whether that be cholesterol or blood pressure, or something worse. A lot of people just aren’t healthy enough to defend against parasites, which is why I think it’s becoming so much more prevalent in the conversation.
Ari: I definitely want to get into that aspect of things with you, the germ versus the terrain, and dig into that on a deeper level. Before we get there, in your estimation, the most common parasites are Giardia and the other one you mentioned what was the name of it?
Dr. Moore: Strongyloides and Giardia, I wouldn’t say are necessarily the most common, but they are ones that when you go on to Google, Dr. Google will let you
How to test for parasites
Ari: Got it. How do you test for parasites?
Dr. Moore: That’s where things get a little murky. The gold standard right now is a stool sample test, and a stool sample test means that you poop in a cup and you send it to the lab and it takes probably a couple of days before it’s tested. It’s being tested by a technician not by a pathologist that has been trained to look for ovum, specific ovum that are going to register on that test likely that are common place to be infected by in your area. I listed out what that was just to open up the conversation to, well, what are the drawbacks of a stool sample? Well, first of all, parasites are organisms that have life cycles.
There are times when those organisms are moving about and they can get into your stool, and there are times when they’re not. Their most common life cycle of a lot of parasites that we talk about is they’re in the full moon. That’s when they’re more active. That’s maybe when you could see them moving about in your body. Other forms that they can be in is more cyst form where they’re growing or replicating. That can be in their biofilm. You may not find that parasite at that time in your stool. Based off the time that you do the stool sample, you may have different organisms that are possibly prevalent.
Also, certain parasites are awake more in the morning or night based on the moon cycle. Finding parasites in stool can be complicated by life cycle. Also, if you’re only testing for parasites local to your area, well, you’re just going to miss so much because all the people that call me are eating foods that are not necessarily completely locally sourced. If you’re living in Missouri, which is where I do, we’re about ready to head into winter, and in the winter there’s nothing growing. If I eat any vegetable or any fruit, it was not grown here. Where was it grown?
Mexico, India, South America, and then parasites can get on that food, put their spores in it, because that’s what their job is, is to find a way to get their spores into a host. They put their spores on this food and that food then gets shipped to you, and although we wish it was perfectly clean and had zero anything on it, it’s just not the truth. How often do you get food with mold on it? Then you eat this food, and then now you have parasites from all around the world. There’s hundreds if not thousands of types of parasites.
No stool sample tests I’ve ever seen runs a thousand different parasites. I can’t imagine the cost that would have if it did. There’s just a lot of deficiencies in our current model of how to test for parasites. Long story short, there’s no great way. You can do a spinal tap, which is also a test I don’t recommend because it comes with a lot of complications. They said in spinal taps it’s a lot more easy to find parasites because you have a clear fluid that you’re looking for an organism and it’s done by a pathologist.
Ari: Wouldn’t that be only brain parasites if it’s found in the cerebral spinal fluid?
Dr. Moore: Correct. If you look at the studies from autopsies on MS patients, there was a study done of 100 brains. 100 out of 100 had nematode parasites in the brain.
How the gut regulates parasites
Ari: Wow. Wow. A little personal element here for me is I’ve been living in Costa Rica most of the last couple years, and interestingly enough parasite discussions down there are quite common. As opposed to the United States, you can go your whole life nobody discusses anything about parasites or ever talks about having a parasite infection, treating a parasite infection. Down there the people who have lived there for a long time that I know most of them have told me it’s quite common for people to get parasite infections. Here maybe once a year you do a parasite cleanse. You go to the apothecary, they have an herbal concoction and people do a parasite cleanse.
It’s a common thing there, so I did a microbiome test, actually, two microbiome tests about a couple of months ago and I was thinking that for sure — everybody says you’ve got parasites down there. I’m walking around barefoot. I’m eating fruits and vegetables grown on my land. There’s animals everywhere. I’ve got monkeys all over my property and the trees and the papayas, they love eating the papaya leaves, so we’re eating papaya, so maybe there’s some fecal matter that inadvertently gets in there somehow. I’m in the ocean all the time surfing and I figure I must have exposure, but I did these two microbiome tests.
Both of them came back completely clean on parasites with one exception. I don’t know if it’s technically a parasite, but it’s a protozoa called Blastocystis hominins and interestingly, they put it in the results of one of these. There’s a couple of interesting things. Only one of the tests picked it up, the other one didn’t and they found it both on PCR and microscopy. There was a dual confirmation that there was plenty of it there, and they listed as a potential pathogen. What that means is basically there appears to be somewhat of a controversy around this because as I’ve looked into it, I’d never really heard much discussion of it prior to this, but I spent quite a bit of time looking into it since I tested positive for it.
There are many practitioners out there who have put together Blastocystis treatment protocols and who are saying that this Blastocystis can cause all these symptoms and hear that it’s very tricky to treat and we use these protocols to do it and then I went to talk to another guy named Dr. Jason Hawrelak, who I personally consider pretty much the top gut expert or one of the top gut experts in the world. He told me that, this is paraphrasing, but he basically said, “Yes, practitioners for a long time thought Blastocystis was a pathogen.”
Now the latest research of the last few years has basically shown that it actually acts to help control pathogenic organisms, so it’s like a wolf, a predator in that ecosystem of our microbiome that is actually performing largely good rules and that it’s misguided to treat it as a pathogen that that we should attack with all these treatment protocols. Of course, as I said, there’s practitioners with different viewpoint who have been trying to attack it and get rid of it. This I think brings up a a larger point, which is how much do we know about a lot of these different organisms? Is any presence of any of these sort of worm organisms or helminths or protozoa.
Obviously, we know that in large numbers some of them are clearly pathogenic and clearly cause big problems, but is it a good — I guess I’m saying how much do we really know about all of these different organisms in the ecosystem? Maybe some of them are performing — maybe they’re benign or maybe they’re actually performing beneficial roles. Should we operate with the assumption that anything other than like Bifidobacteria and Lacto bacteria and Akkermansia, everything’s a pathogen. You know what I mean?
Dr. Moore: Oh, yes. I love talking about this piece of it because I actually just did a summit on engineering the microbiome. As I researched specific bacteria, like you said, lactobacillus, of course, there’s what a hundred or a thousand lactobacillus strains out there. They’re numbering them as Lactobacillus one, seven, eight, two, five or something like that. I don’t remember the numbers. What I found is some of those bacteria are designed to defend against parasites. Some are to break down wheat, some are to fight fungus. Well, we used to think bacteria was all bad, all of it, just kill it all, eradicate bacteria and you’ll be healthy. Then, now the microbiome and the concept that bacteria are good.
Okay, so wait a minute, so we don’t want to eradicate the microbiome? We don’t want to kill all bacteria? Well, why? Well, because without them, we actually die ourselves. Can the same not be likely said about parasites and likely said about viruses? I think so. I honestly do think so because there are some research, like you said about Blastocystis as the conversations come up. There are certain Helminths that people are putting into their bodies, which are helping to control immune regulation and reducing Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis, so these are tape worms that are from pigs that they’re putting into your body, and all of a sudden now your gut symptoms are better. We don’t know enough.
Ari: If I can add one more piece. I remember there was a study several years ago in the Hadza tribe in Africa, where they looked at their microbiome and they thought it was gonna be just filled with all the good bacteria that we know are associated with beneficial outcomes. What they found was massively more diversity than they expected, and the presence of many different microbes that were thought to be somewhat pathogenic but in that ecosystem were not pathogenic. Again, like just getting at the question, how much do we really know about all of of those organisms?
Dr. Moore: I don’t think we know near enough. We don’t know near enough about the bacteria, much less these other organisms that we’ve named parasite. I say the word parasite, which comes with the connotation it’s a bad thing, it’s harmful, there’s no symbiotic relationship, but we do know that the parasites can come into your body, they can absorb six to eight times their body weight and heavy metal toxicities and other types of toxicities. Then does your body in theory bring in a parasite to mop up toxins for you? Let’s go back to nomadic times.
You bring a parasite in, it mops up some metal, and then your immune system is healthy enough and strong enough that you use your immune system and your flora to kick that parasite now out and then you go on about living, and that parasite helped you to survive a toxic stream that happened to have had an issue during that period of time. Whereas today, a parasite gets into our body and it finds a plethora of toxins and food because our world is so harmful and so toxic and now it grows not just to help you, but then it replicates and keeps finding more food.
Now it becomes pathogenic because it’s no longer in balance with your body and even with the protocols that I’ve developed and I always tell people like, “This is not to eradicate. This is not to get rid of every single one of those organisms to bring you back into balance.” I had Lyme disease. I’m not fearful of going out in the woods and going for a walk and getting a tick because I know if I can keep my microbiome, my mitochondria up and healthy and strong, that if a tick bites me and it injects into me Borrelia, which is the bacteria of Lyme, or by Babesia, which is the protozoa that’s most uncommonly associated with Lyme, it’s a parasite, that my body’s going to be able to step up and it’s going to be able to have an appropriate immune response to mitigate any overgrowth of that pathogen.
Then, just an observation, this is not a study, this is an observation. People that have recovered from Lyme or have Lyme tend not to get sick very often. They tend not to end up with a lot of colds and I’m just like, “Man, I wonder if Borelli in the background is a good tool for the immune system if it’s in a healthy state.” Now, again, no research behind that, just a observation, but the variety of bacteria in the body at a balanced state is a good thing like you quoted with that tribe. We’re losing bacteria rapidly with our diet, with [unintelligible 00:18:41] going in, with antibiotics going in.
We’re losing the variety with a lack of variety of food that we eat because we’re going to the same restaurant all the time, eating the same five foods from the grocery store all the time, which I think is creating some of this chronic illness.
Ari: From that perspective, we could examine people like the Hadza tribe or any number of other modern day hunter gatherer tribes in South America or the South Pacific or other parts of Africa. They’re, obviously, living a life very much in the dirt, very much with lots of exposure to animals and fecal matter and certainly much less sanitary than modern westerners and modern Americans, in particular, live or modern Europeans. So the exposure to parasites presumably would be much higher.
And yet, I don’t think that parasite infections are particularly common there and so it makes me wonder maybe the overall diversity of growing up with such a rich exposure to so many different organisms and such a broad diverse microbiome might be protective of those parasite exposures becoming an infection and then developing symptoms as a result of that. Do you think that’s a reasonable line of speculation?
Jaban: I do. I definitely do. I honestly explain it like this. If you grow up and your dad’s a carpenter and you spend a lot of time with him, you probably are going to pick up some carpentry skills, right?
Ari: Yes.
Jaban: If you grow up in an environment that has a lot of parasites or fecal matter or bacteria around you, your body’s going to learn to thrive in that environment. If you grow up in an environment that is super sanitary, bleach, everything, clean, wipe everything, don’t go outside and touch the dirt, your body’s not going to know what to do with an immune response, which is why autoimmune diseases and a lot of these degenerative diseases seemingly are a first world problem.
Ari: Yes. Interesting. Okay. Given the technical challenges involved in parasite testing that you mentioned before, the differences in activity level of certain parasites and the laval stage versus other active stages and the phase of the moon cycle of the month, and basically the lesson from all of that is that you’re basically saying that even if you did a very comprehensive parasite test and it came back negative, you still can’t be sure that you don’t have parasites. Right?
Jaban: Exactly.
Ari: Okay. If that’s the case, are there other methods of testing or are there symptoms of parasite infections that are definitive symptoms that don’t have a lot of overlap with lots of other conditions, let’s say IBS or something like that, that you could say, “Oh, if you’ve got this, this and this symptoms, you’ve got a 90% probability you’ve got a parasite infection.” Is there anything like that?
Jaban: I’m glad you said IBS because you’re just leading me right into it.
Ari: Okay.
Jaban: If you have IBS, then you likely have some dysbiosis of the gut or a stress trauma response. As you said, overlapping. For me it’s multiple symptoms and they’re going to maybe all have different things that they can associate with. If you have IBS, likely we have a nervous system dysregulation. It can be from trauma or stress, it can be from bacterial dysbiosis or parasites, but trauma and bacteria don’t typically cause grinding of the teeth, which parasites do.
Parasites often cause a lot of skin rashing, eczema, those sorts of things, food allergens. They can affect headaches but so can so many other things, but Babesiosis which is the common co-infection of Lyme and also Strongyloides, which I’ve talked about, both cause heart palpitations so they can cause a lot of heart issues. Other things that parasites can really do along that IBS line, if you have significant number of gut symptoms, whether that be constipation, diarrhea, bloating, parasites are a big piece, but then I also tie into it labs.
If your eosinophils are elevated, eosinophils are a type of white blood cell associated with parasites, so if they’re over 5%, I’m going to start leaning into that parasite as a possibility. If you have elevated liver markers, anemia, I’m going to start, again, going back toward looking at parasites. Those are just a few of the pieces. A couple of labs, a few symptom markers there they kind of start me down that path. I have an assessment with 50 questions on it for parasites and then if you score high enough, I’m going to go, “Okay, let’s look at the parasite path,” but I’m also going to run a bunch of other testing to rule out mold and lyme and bacterial infections and yeast because those things can run on similar tracts of symptoms.
How tests can differentiate between parasites and mold exposure
Ari: Okay. Clinically, what would be some of the tests or symptoms that would differentiate a parasite infection versus mold exposure, let’s say?
Jaban: Mold exposure is going to give me a lot more fear, paranoia. It’s going to cause more breathing issues. It’s not going to cause the grinding of the teeth. Mold can upset the skin. If you have enough mold exposure, it can go into the gut, but it’s not a direct always gut situation. I also with mold can look over into, say, an organic acid test and you can see multiple markers that show for aspergillus infection. You can see oxalates going up with mold. You can also find infection not infection, but different types of toxic exposure markers or methylation issues.
It’s going to suppress mitochondrial function in the Creb cycle and beta-oxidation. Those are all just organic acid test markers. You can also for mold run a number of blood markers like C4A, which would be elevated for mold MSHVIP, those are going to elevate, whereas C-reactive protein will elevate from a parasite or mold, which is an inflammatory marker from the blood. Then, if you want to be really specific with mold testing, you can do a mycotoxin urine test. Which there are three main companies that I’ve sourced from, which is Vibrant America, Gray Plains Laboratory, and Real-Time Labs. Like any company, each one is better at finding a specific type of mycotoxin. I’ve ran all three.
My favorite is Vibrant America right now. You run this test and is a urine DNA test, so it’s running PCR testing to see if it can find mold mycotoxins in your urine. I do run those tests and then that just helps me to identify is mold a part of this journey versus are we looking at just parasites or something else? Although not to jump into the mold conversation or parasite talk here, if you have a mold infection, it suppresses your immune system which oftentimes allows for other infections to run wild. If you had parasites already in you, which you probably do, or bacteria which we know is already in you, it’s going to let those things get out of balance and then we end up having to deal with multiple facets of what could be root causes for your symptoms.
Ari: Okay. You said there in passing. I just want to make sure I heard this correctly. You said if you have parasites, which you probably do. This is to imply that most people have at least exposure to parasites, not necessarily a parasite infection, correct?
Jaban: Absolutely, yes.
Ari: Okay.
Jaban: Like I said, we all deworm our animals. Like it’s just known. You said in Costa Rica, people once a year. In a lot of countries, that’s the truth. In the United States, in the Midwest, I still have clients that are 60s and 70s. They said when they were kids, their parents, when they were deworming the cows, they got dewormed too. It was just a standard operating procedure, which has fallen away because, “Oh no, we’re too clean for that. We can’t have parasites.”
This concept of sanitary has overtaken the population. Which is just simply untrue. Yes, it is my belief that probably every person on the planet has had a contact with parasites. They do not necessarily have a pathogenic infection that needs to be currently treated, but if you are immunocompromised, that changes everything.
Ari: Okay. I think that’s a natural segue into the germ versus terrain discussion. Basically, we’re all getting exposed to some parasites, at least occasionally. Some people are developing a parasite infection, where that path becomes pathogenic and it grows and it causes symptoms, it causes damage, it causes problems in our bodies. What is your take on the factors that lead to that or where do you land on the germ versus terrain discussion?
Some people are obviously on the end of the spectrum where they’re like, “These are pathogenic organisms, we got to attack and kill and kill and kill,” and other people are on the end of the spectrum of in a healthy body, exposures to those organisms shouldn’t really matter. They won’t become an infection, they won’t become pathogenic. Let’s bolster the health of the overall organism.” Where do you fall on that spectrum?
Jaban: I’m definitely closer to the terrain end. I don’t think there is ever a black-and-white situation where it’s 100%.
Ari: Yes.
Jaban: For me, I know this in the last few years I have not protected myself a bit and I’ve been just fine. It’s not to say that [unintelligible 00:29:04] theory has been proven by that, but I consistently make sure that I get sleep and I eat well and I take things to support my mitochondria and things to support nutrition and minerals and allow my body to be as healthy as possible. I red light every single day, so I’m doing the things that I think are necessary to keep my body healthy. That’s the start point. That’s what I tell clients to do every day. If you can get your body healthy, I think then you have a wider range of being able to do things. I will still eat sushi at times.
I will still go eat a great steak at medium or a little bit under, which are no-nos for parasites, as far as the general population has been trained. I don’t protect myself when family or anyone else is sick. I just don’t because I’m like, “My body’s not going to take that on.” Now, same thing can be said. I have had food poisoning. I think if you eat a concentrated enough amount of a parasite or a bacteria and you put that into your Microbiome, it can create an illness, if it is high enough concentration causes a inflammatory enough response like food poisoning, which I had before, I got on stage at a conference not too long ago where I’m throwing up two hours before stage, and I’m just like, “Man, I shouldn’t have ate that yesterday.” Like, “Darn it.”
It’s not a 100% terrain, but I would say I’m like 85% of the way over there, and it’s because if it wasn’t that way humanity would not be here. We weren’t living in the sanitary bubble for thousands of years. It’s new. We would not have survived if it was — if you get a parasite without a medication, you die. We would not have survived if you got a bacterial infection or without you would die. We wouldn’t be here. It’s just that simple to me.
How your environment can affect parasite infections
Ari: Agreed. How do factors that compromise the immune system factor into this? So, let’s say, of course, somebody’s got, let’s say, poor lifestyle habits, poor nutrition, they’re overweight, they’re insulin resistance, they’ve got chronic metabolic dysregulation, they’re sleep deprived, they’re sedentary. There’s, obviously, a number of lifestyle factors that we know impair immune function, and you could say it cause immunocompromised people at least to a small degree, if not to a very large degree.
Then, of course, there’s mold exposure, there’s environmental toxins, heavy metals, things like that, with very large exposures, let’s say, to microtoxins in your home might severely immunocompromise you. How do you feel that fits into this picture?
Dr. Moore: Let’s just keep with the parasite conversation. If you are experiencing acid reflux and you go to your general practitioner, the standard of care is a typically an antiacid drug. We’re going to block the acid so that you don’t have this burning in your throat or you’re not having a little cough. Great, that stops the symptom.
Also, what does it do? It decreases acid into your stomach, which is there to protect you from things that you’re eating, that would potentially have parasites or bacterial infections in them, so now you’re more vulnerable to these infections or toxin — these infections that are going to be coming in through your food, so if you have normal hydrochloric acid levels, which is your stomach acid, you eat sushi, your hydrochloric acid eats up that food breaks down any [unintelligible 00:32:50] or spores from the parasite, there you go, you’re protected, happy, healthy moving on. Sushi tastes great.
If you take Omeprazole with your meal, now you have no protection, you eat the sushi, it goes into your gut, not only does it sit there a little longer, but as it goes into the small intestine, now you’re unprotected, and that parasite that should have been eradicated by your hydrochloric acid is no longer and now in your gut, in your body is trying to use your gut flora and et cetera to defend you.
With every step of what you mentioned, if you have mold toxicity coming off the walls around you with all this sheetrock, then that suppresses your immune system in a number of ways, one type of mycotoxin mycophenolic acid has been turned into immunosuppressant drug for transplants, so we know that it can suppress your immune system. At that point, your defenses are down if you’re around all this mold and now whatever you’re eating, breathing, or near is going to come in and then infect you and the list goes on and on.
We live in this world and this is one of the topics that I’ve really gotten on recently and I hate to jump the bandwagon, but let me give you some background. The nervous system is important You controlling the inputs and outputs of your immune system, the things that you run into every day, your stress level, your emotions is important, and this is coming from a guy up until 30, was like, “I could be a robot. You don’t need emotions, you can ignore those. Don’t worry about it, just work, work, work.” I was working 90 hours a week seeing patients 28 days a month. Coming from that guy at 36, I’m going, “Wait a minute. Oh, crud. The nervous system and emotions matter. I hate to admit it.”
If you look into research, a person that is not sleeping, working too much, overly stressed, adrenal hormones going up, cortisol going up, your immune system gets suppressed. We live in a world every day where it’s scrolling your phone with dopamine and seeing blue light all night and working from sun up to sun down, and the first thing you do in the morning is look at your phone and start giving yourself a hit of dopamine and cortisol. From moments you wake up to the last thing you do is scroll again.
You’re never getting into those relaxed state, which then is suppressing immunity, suppressing your ability to get REM sleep at night by all that blue light, so that plays a major role in why people now are not getting as much rest throughout the day, much less getting into restful sleeps at night, and now we have a almost pandemic or epidemic of anxiety and depression and brain symptoms from these people that unfortunately, unknowingly, are doing everything to create neurodegeneration versus create healing because at night is when we’re supposed to detox our brain repair and rest.
The most common symptoms of parasite infection
Ari: Yes, well said. Given limitations of testing and overlap of these kinds of symptoms of parasites with plenty of other things, are there maybe three, four, five symptoms that you would say if a person has these, you should consider the possibility and maybe test for parasites as the cause of those symptoms?
Dr. Moore: If you have GI symptoms of any sort, Ulcer Colitis, Crohn’s, IBS, Constipation, Diarrhea, so just GI symptoms, that’s one. If you have grinding teeth and that to the best of your knowledge is not because you’re so stressed out because you’re going through some major problem, but if you have grinding teeth, that’s two. Skin irritation, so rashes that are not from you changing your soap or your detergent, but rashes that are eczema or I’ve heard people say infantigo, different things, but just rashes in general, that’d be three.
Those would be my main three because everything else just overlaps with so many other things that it gets a little bit harder, but just generally inflamed bodies and headaches would probably be the last two because you said, four to five so those things. Honestly, man, so many people that I work with have already done the, “Why? I ran the bacterial tests, I’ve done the fungal treatments, I’ve looked into mold, I did the elimination diet.” If you’ve done all those, look for something new instead of just going for the next doctor that’s going to do the same thing.
How to treat parasites
Ari: Let’s say somebody does have two maybe three of those symptoms that you just mentioned. They’re suspecting now that, “Hey, maybe I do have a parasite infection.” What steps should those should those people be taking?
Dr. Moore: Of course, identify a practitioner that understands parasites, that knows what they’re doing. Once you get with this practitioner, there should be some testing done to make sure that you’re a candidate, whether that be assessments, blood tests, urine test, hair test. Make sure that you’re a candidate to be able to tolerate a protocol because if you’re dealing with a parasite and I mentioned the blood test earlier like liver testing.
If your liver is very overwhelmed and we’re seeing liver enzymes elevated, that can be a sign that your liver is taking damage. If so, you need support for your liver that way that you’re going to be able to tolerate doing a parasite cleanse because parasite cleanses means that you’re going to try and kill parasites, whether that be with Ivermectin, praziquantel, albendazole medications.
Ari: Oh, don’t mention Ivermectin. Everybody knows that’s just a horsey dewormer and nothing else.
Dr. Moore: We’re talking about worms so.
Ari: It only works on horses. It only works on horses. Even though it won a Nobel Prize for its use in humans, it only works on horses. It’s just a horsey dewormer.
Dr. Moore: Oh, yes.
Ari: Come on, Dr. Moore. Everybody knows that.
Dr. Moore: You’re right. Then the herbs, you can do black walnut, wormwood, blue tansi, oregano. These are antimicrobial that have been shown positive to affect parasites that are herbal and natural. Those are the ones that I tend to lean in toward a little bit more, but when you do these things that’s going to cause detox, it’s going to cause die off, your liver has to process a lot of that.
We want to make sure that you are able to tolerate that. Work with somebody that’s able to know what needs to be done to prep you and then the herbs to be able to get you started, and then just know that this is not a one week thing, this is not a one pill thing, this is going to take a few months to clean out because, if you end up having parasites, likely, it’s going to be at least a few organisms. Due to their life cycles, we have to do a few different cleanses to hit during all the different life cycles to make sure that we get a full complete cleanse.
Ari: Excellent. I feel short of actually doing the treatment at this point. I feel you’ve done a great job of discussing the whole framework of how to assess for parasite infections and how to treat them. Is there anything else that you feel is important that you want to add to this discussion before we wrap up?
Dr. Moore: The last piece is what you mentioned earlier, people in Costa Rica do it once a year. I personally do a cleanse a couple of times a year. Anywhere between two to four times depending upon how my body feels, and that’s a piece of it. The other piece is —
Ari: Do you do that, basically, it sounds like regardless of test results, essentially?
Dr. Moore: Exactly. I do it preventatively. Just like people go to the dentist twice a year, I do it preventatively just to keep any sort of extra organisms at bay because we live in a toxic world. Although, I eat organic and make sure I’ve got air doctors in my house, cleaning the air, and all the different things that you want to do to keep toxins out, we live in a toxic world. Parasites are going to be a part that are going to come, and your body can use them to help clean you out. I’m doing that cleanse, quarterly, personally, with or without results, just as a preventative measure.
The other piece is, start evaluating your toxic burden in your life because if you can minimize toxic burden, you’re going to minimize the food supply to parasites. The missing link that a lot of practitioners and people don’t hear and don’t do — Because clients come in and they’ve been doing medications for parasites for a straight year or two years, high dose anti-parasitic meds. The piece that they miss is, I’m like, “Oh, great, okay, you probably wiped out all the parasites we can get to by going directly after parasites.” I go, “Let’s run some other tests. Let’s look at your hair test for metals. Let’s look at radioactive elements in your body. Let’s look at mold. Let’s look at these other pieces.”
When I look at those other pieces, we start cleaning them out. Let’s say we do a detox for mold, we go ahead and do some binders of some antifungals. All of a sudden, they get just a flush of parasites into the stool, that they can visually see. It’s like, “Wow, this is really working. How do I still have parasites in me?” I’m like, “Well, your body heals in a really specific order, but only to it.” My body would be different, your body is different than the next person’s. As you unravel this, and you remove their food sources, and you remove blockages that are in the way of the next parasite cleanup, you’re going to start to have more and more results.
One, maintenance, and two, if you feel like you’ve got parasites, you know it, you’re seeing them come out, and you just don’t feel like you’re getting the results, look for what you’re missing, so that you can take the next step forward because, again, your body wants to be on a specific order to you, and it may be different than the person next to you, and you can’t just be the wrecking ball with all the herbs or meds and to get rid of all the parasites and be done without doing it correctly.
Ari: Okay. I have one final question for you given the first of your two tips there, doing the cleanse once, twice, maybe three times a year regardless of test results, essentially. Are there any warnings that you have for people — I guess two aspects of this. One, is there any concern of doing harm to one’s microbiome by doing that? Two, maybe a nuance of that or related to that, are there any specific compounds that might —
Let’s say somebody listens to this podcast and he’s like, “Okay, well, I should go do a parasite cleanse regardless of my test results. Why don’t I just go do that? I’ll go on Amazon, I’ll buy whatever product is labeled parasite cleanse.” Are there any specific products or compounds that you would advise people to avoid because they might cause harm in one way or another or disrupt the microbiome?
Dr. Moore: Is it possible that something can disrupt the microbiome? Definitely, which is why I don’t stay consistently on anything, whether that’d be a probiotic, or otherwise. I’m doing what I call a full moon cleanse. I actually have one on my website for those who want more information on it. My full moon cleanse is roughly about 10 days, once a quarter. That’s what I’m shooting for. This is not something where we’re constantly attacking the microbiome or something, it’s just 10 days, once a quarter, once out of every — 10 out of 90 days, basically. You could do it less often, you could do it once every six months if you wanted to, if you’re really healthy, and you’re not seeing a need for that.
I don’t think that it’s doing a lot of harm. The one that I recommend is all herbal. It’s a little more synergistic with your body versus doing a high-dose medication, doing that even quarterly. I think that’s pretty safe for most people. The drawback is, if your body isn’t in a state of true health with parasites, you can’t have what’s called a detox or a Herxheimer reaction, or a die-off reaction. What this means is you’re taking compounds, whether they be medication or natural, they’re going into your body, they are reacting with parasites, those parasites are dying, they’re creating endotoxins from the parasites dying, and dead parasites, which your body then has to clean out.
If it cannot clean it out rapidly enough, the way I describe it is like being hungover. Your body has too much toxin, it doesn’t feel well, you feel badly from it. That means you’re having this detox or Herx reaction or die-off reaction. What does that mean to me, if you tell me? That means that your body needs more support, it needs more liver support, lymph support, drainage support, you also need to slow down. That’s why I mentioned, likely, if this is your first time ever doing this or hearing about it, it might be a good idea to work with a practitioner that can guide you there, but if not, just start slowly.
Are there compounds to be aware of? Honestly, if I’m going to pick a medication class or a supplement class that tend not to have a lot of long-term side effects, it’s parasite. Look at ivermectin, if you look at the horse dewormer, and you look at the Nobel Prize won, why was it won? One, it was successful, but two, it has very limited side effects, especially if used in short term. There’s just not a lot of drawback when used appropriately. I’m not worried too much about a healthy person without a bunch of liver pre-existing conditions that hopefully is monitoring their health appropriately, having a ton of reaction, but you definitely can have some die-off reaction.
Compounds that I use, I mentioned earlier, like wormwood, black walnut, these are very common compounds that are used for parasite anti-microbial work. In that full moon phase that I mentioned earlier, I’ve got those listed out from sensitive to advanced. I’ve got videos on videos of how to support your liver, but as always, if you’re uncomfortable, don’t dive into this, hire someone that can help you.
Ari: Yes. Dr. Moore, thank you so much. This was very, very insightful. I really enjoyed talking to you in, I think, a very important topic. Thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom.
Dr. Moore: Thanks so much for having me.
Ari: Is there anywhere you want to direct people where they can find you, where they can follow your work or get in touch with you to work with you, that sort of thing?
Dr. Moore: Yes, you can find me at drjabanmoore.com, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok. All the things. My name is spelled J-A, B as in boy, A-N.
Ari: Great. Cool name, by the way. I like it.
Dr. Moore: Oh, thanks.
Ari: Thanks so —
Show Notes
How common are parasite infections? (03:48)
How to test for parasites (06:08)
How the gut regulates parasites (09:23)
How tests can differentiate between parasites and mold exposure (24:20)
How your environment can affect parasite infections (31:08)
The most common symptoms of parasite infection (36:11)
How to treat parasites (38:00)
Links
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