​​Dr. Kines is the CEO and Founder of Global Epstein-Barr Virus Institute. She is a leader in recovery therapy for chronic EBV, author, wellness expert, and a highly respected doctor of clinical nutrition, a graduate of the prestigious Bastyr University. In this episode, Dr. Kasia and Dr. Lauryn talk about all things EBV, what it is, what the symptoms are, how to live with it, and much much more!

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Highlights

4:04 - Dr. Kasia talks about her background and what inspired her to pursue the world of the Epstein-Barr virus.

9:30 - What is EBV?

11:11 - How do you get EBV?

12:03 - Studies that are correlating COVID and EBV

14:29 - Symptoms of EBV

16:48 - How to distinguish symptoms as EBV symptoms

18:45 - How accurate are EBV tests?

20:12 - How Dr. Kasia interprets EBV tests

22:01 - What causes EBV to be reactivated

23:56 - What to do if you have EBV

28:47 - The role of binders and detoxification

30:34 - Common misunderstandings

34:58 - How to learn more about Dr. Kasia

35:55 - A health hack that Dr. Kasia has recently learned

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About Dr. Kasia Kines

​​Dr. Kines is the CEO and Founder of Global Epstein-Barr Virus Institute. She is a leader in recovery therapy for chronic EBV, author, wellness expert, and a highly respected doctor of clinical nutrition, a graduate of the prestigious Bastyr University. Since 2005, Dr. Kines has built an international reputation as a functional nutritionist, from being sought after by Johns Hopkins University to her ground-breaking Amazon best-seller book The Epstein-Barr Virus Solution.

Dr. Kines has developed an effective proprietary evidence-based methodology to EBV recovery and successful EBV Recovery Program for those suffering from EBV and also trains other practitioners in her methodology in Clinician EBV Training and Certification Program and EBV Practitioner Workshop.

Dr. Kines is a passionate advocate for debunking common misinformation about EBV in medical community and lectures on this topic extensively.  She is on a mission to bring the truth about EBV and solution to the world globally, so no one needs to suffer needlessly from this misunderstood virus and its complications. She lives with her husband and their companion animals on San Juan Island, WA.

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Connect with Dr. Kines

Website | ebvhelp.com

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Connect with Dr. Lauryn

Facebook | Dr. Lauryn Lax

Twitter | @drlaurynlax

Instagram | @drlaurynlax

Website | drlauryn.com 

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Transcript (Episode website contains full transcript)

Dr. Lauryn (00:05):

Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast, a show dedicated to quieting the noise in the health, food, and fitness world. I'm your host, Dr. Lauryn, a former TV news journalist and chronic illness patient gone health detective with a master's in Functional Medicine, Nutrition, and my doctorate in occupational therapy, bringing you over 20 years of clinical and personal experience helping patients radically take their health back into their own hands. On this show, we have real conversations with a variety of interesting guests who are all a little bit of a health detective in their own way. Like today's guest, Dr. Kasia Kines, an EBV or Epstein-Barr virus expert and founder of the Global Epstein-Barr Virus Institute. She's the leader in recovery therapy for chronic EBV, an author, a wellness expert, and a highly respected doctor of clinical nutrition from the prestigious Bastyr University. Since 2005, Dr. Kines has built an international reputation as a functional nutritionist, from being sought after by Johns Hopkins University to her groundbreaking Amazon bestseller book, the Epstein-Barr Bar Virus Solution. Dr. Kines has developed an effective proprietary evidence-based methodology for EBV recovery, and this episode is power packed and full of juicy information on understanding all things EBV, which is something that at least 90% of the population has been exposed to at some time, believe it or not. So if you're ever familiar with the mono virus, maybe during college or high school, even the kissing disease is what it may be known as. You have been exposed to the Epstein-Barr virus. And while most many folks will recover from this virus and have antibodies for life, meaning like they have remnants of the virus in their body, but it's no longer an active infection, an unprecedented amount of people actually will have chronic EBV because the virus was never fully resolved, or it's been dormant, and it becomes reactivated when exposed to stressors, especially stressors in our environment.

(02:16):

Things like mold to our diet can definitely impact our flares, so to speak. And EBV, as we discussed today on the episode. So if you've ever wondered about what this EBV thing is about, or you may have even heard, uh, that some people have things like viruses, what is a virus? Um, how can it become reactivated, et cetera? How does it impact things like your energy to, your metabolism, to your brain function? Then you're not gonna wanna miss today's episode. Now, before we dive in if you're liking the show, please click the five stars button and leave a review in your podcast app. I absolutely love and appreciate hearing from you, and it helps us cultivate more health detectives just like you. And, of course, if you need help in your own health journey, don't hesitate to reach out. I equally love hearing from you on my website, drlauryn.com, and helping you heal your root in our amazing functional medicine-based programs over there, helping individuals worldwide change how they look, move, feel, and think. Okay, that's all, folks. Let's get to today's show.

Dr. Lauryn (03:31):

Dr. Kasia, I'm so excited to have you in the house to talk about a very wild west topic, EBV, that I think a lot of folks, you, you know, better than I, um, have touched before in their lives at some point and could be an underlying root cause of why all the things are not working, and I'm sure you get that a lot from your patients that you serve. But before we dive in, give us a little bit of background about what got you doing this work you are doing in the world that's near and dear to your heart.

Dr. Kines (04:04):

Oh, okay. Sure. Uh, and thank you for having me here. I'm really delighted to support your community. I think I'm just like you, you know, um, a result of a journey. And so as long as you are open and listening and watching, it just, it just takes you there. So, you know, I was a busy clinician and for many years, and there were some patients that I just couldn't help no matter what we did, not for the lack of trying. And then, you know, you hit the wall, and you're frustrated, and you really focused on the fact that there's just so the handful of people and that you can't help you forget about all those that you can help. And, so you ask the question to the universe, what is it? What is it? Why is it not working? And at the same time, I had a friend, um, who, out of the blue, was, um, landed in ER, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and that happened six months before I immigrated to the states from Poland.

(05:01):

And so my years as an immigrant kind of paralleled with her years fighting that illness. And, um, after about 20 years, she lost her life. And, um, it was pretty devastating. And I was frustrated because I had tried to help her here and there, but I didn't really understand. I didn't know. And then, in my desperation, I remember talking to a medical intuitive and asking, you know, what was the cause? Why did she get so sick? And the virus was mentioned. And then I also had, I think, three different patients at the same time asking me my educated opinion on the book called Medical Medium. I'm sure you heard of it.

Dr. Lauryn (05:43):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Dr. Kines (05:45):

And so I was busy, and so all I could do is buy the book and take it on a plane, uh, to a conference, <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So I was sitting on the plane and reading the book, and I almost drop off my seat because what the claims made in that book were about the people that I was not able to help. It's like, wait a second. It was a very blanket statement saying that all these illnesses, all this and all that is caused by EBV. But I was thinking, even if half of it is true, what if? And so when I went back home, I literally started to, uh, dive into medical research, and I started from lab testing and, you know, how do you actually assess? And then, the testing was really messy, I learned later. And so, but I started to test properly, you know, ask to test properly.

(06:36):

And we started to find a lot of EBV in my population. And, and that was also the population that had thyroid problems, uh, thyroiditis, Hashimoto, thyroiditis, you know, it's just, just, you know, it's just a journey, and you just, you take one step at a time and just honor the process. And so, so when I realized how deep that virus is, how devastating it is, I started to see patterns in, uh, my population, and I started to learn what I could about medical literature existing. Then the magic started to happen, and people started to reverse engineer their lives. And I was lucky, cuz you know, when you ask the universe, the answer comes. So I was lucky. I actually had virology in my doctoral program. Uh, and it was the only time that person taught that program. And that's when I started on the protocol.

(07:33):

That's when I learned about viruses in general. Cause actually, you know, I was frustrated. I went to the best schools, and you never really studied virology, let alone EBV. Nowhere was there any training on it ever. And so I felt my job was to bridge whatever medical medicine was claiming. Cause it's a, you know, far extreme, you know, on, on one extreme and what medical community needs on the other extreme in the middle was all the medical research, all the science, and all my experience and all the protocols I created. So people in the middle could actually get help. And then we can move this towards the medical community so the doctors can train and they can actually be versatile in it and understand the virus and help people because people don't have to suffer or let alone die. You know? So that's kind of the trajectory. My job was to just bridge the gap.

Dr. Lauryn (08:32):

Yeah. I have the information. And it sounds like you began to find that more people had this EBV than perhaps is even recognized nowadays.

Dr. Kines (08:45):

Yeah. So if you have, what is it, 3 million people in the states every year have mono, and that's just reported mono. So I don't know how many more cases of mono you have. And some of this mono, which is an acute infection, will go chronic. It depends on the person and the circumstances, you know, and a lot of factors. But it's very, it's relatively easy to heal from, from EBV. It's relatively easy to be chronically bound to it and develop autoimmunity later or chronic complications. Like it's really relatively easy either way. That's the weird thing about the virus. We have a lot of tools.

Dr. Lauryn (09:25):

Well, let's paint the picture first. Like, what is EBV exactly like? Yes, mono is what perhaps maybe people are most familiar with, although may not be familiar with the link or actually that that is EBV.

Dr. Kines (09:39):

Right. So mononucleosis is, uh, commonly known in acute infection. It's kind of like the worst flow in your life when up to six weeks, you're people are often bedridden. And, uh, it often hits, uh, young people or college students when they have to take a break from a semester. That's commonly what people know. Sometimes when, uh, when you're younger, you could have had unexplained illnesses like, uh, juvenile, rheumatoid arthritis and be out of school for a few months as well. But that's, you know, that's not as often. But then, uh, a lot of women may have Hashimotos. We have an epidemical thyroid, uh, issues, and, um, women are over medicated for thyroid. But doctors are not testing for autoimmunity. They're just testing the thyroid. And so we look at the literature and we see that majority of cases of low thyroid function is actually autoimmune thyroid function. And out of this, a large percentage is probably driven, caused by EBV. So that's, that, that part even is, you know, looking like an epidemic.

Dr. Lauryn (10:52):

Yes. That's what I'm very familiar with. EBV or looking for assessing or perhaps even just correlating a lot of the thyroid issues that are epidemic nowadays with EBV. Now. So EBV is known as the kissing disease, right? How do you get EBV otherwise?

Dr. Kines (11:11):

Yes, saliva, you know, larynx, uh, tonsils, you know, that's the entry right there. So yeah. And college students, you know, you drink from the same glass, you've <laugh> or bottle when you drink beer, or you know, just that's our cigarettes, that's how you contract it. But the truth is that, you know, it's a herpes virus that has been on this planet for a couple of millions of years. So if you look at statistics, 90, 95% of the global population has it. In fact, one of the companies that are running the, uh, vaccination for covid is also now running a pilot study on vaccination for EBV. Goodness gracious <laugh>. So

Dr. Lauryn (11:58):

Yeah. Cause they recognize that it's actually, it is a problem.

Dr. Kines (12:03):

It is a problem. Yes. There's some, so the, luckily, there are some studies, um, correlating covid and EBV they're looking at it at least even at the beginning. And the Wuhan, they, they did the study on a group with Covid, and they saw that, uh, a larger percentage of that group also had EBV. It's an opportunist. And we also see that up to 73% of long covid cases, uh, actually also had occurred EBV infection. And so, you know, who's pulling on the strings? Cuz I would say that EBV is more of an opportunist. So is the long haul really covid, or is it, is it EBV? I mean, we know that covid testing is not ideal. The testing is not ideal. May be a little misleading.

Dr. Lauryn (12:55):

Yeah, I think, um, I haven't heard so much EBV, but also like chronic Lyme or like other just underlying autoimmunity being perhaps or latent viruses being at play or infections. So that may make a lot of sense in the long hauler syndrome. That seems like, where is this coming from? Out of nowhere?

Dr. Kines (13:16):

Exactly. It's, it's not out of nowhere. 95% of us have it, we have the virus. And, uh, so to give you an example, it's not that we have to kill it and get rid of it, we just cohabit. Um, I tested my EBV first time in the fall, just literally a few months ago. And I never had a need to test it, but at that time, I tested because I had so much mold exposure in the last, you know, one and a half years, and I was, it was taxing on my system. So I said, you know, I bet I'm reactivating EBV right now. I had a couple of symptoms that are unusual, you know, other people would know, but I know. So it wasn't a big deal, but I could say I'm very healthy otherwise, so I could, I could handle it really well. And I, I was positive slightly, I was reactivated, and you know, I took measures, and that went away after I retested. So that's an opportunist. And it will, it can turn on anytime. If you pay attention, you'll know.

Dr. Lauryn (14:21):

Yeah. Talk a little bit about the symptoms perhaps that would define or characterize EBV.

Dr. Kines (14:29):

Yeah, so if anyone, uh, listening has had mono, you know, sometimes people can pinpoint they had that mono, and they were bedridden, and they felt awful, and then they kind of never went back to the baseline. It was always a little worse, and so on. And then it's trickling effect. So then maybe there's chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia develops or rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, you know, or suddenly you're sensitive to gluten and you know, which you didn't before. Uh, you can develop celiac straight from EBV. We have studies on them. EBV can turn on the celiac genes if you have them. Multiple sclerosis is actually laying the same way. And so is diabetes, type one. So these are, you know, big conditions. But oftentimes, people have problems with tonsils, with uh, lymph nodes in the neck. Uh, my neck may be hurting. There's clearing throat, um, throat maybe hurting 75% of cases of more acute infection.

(15:34):

Actually, people have headaches. People don't realize you can have nose bleeds, you can have sensitivities to mosquito bites, you can have low platelets. I mean, you know, you can have, uh, for me, it's a pain in my left ear. This is because of the way I was born, and you know, that's always been the way some people will develop ataxia. So, uh, lack of coordination. Some people can develop ringing and buzzing in the ear, and some people can have, uh, vertigo. And actually, when I reactivated recently, I had slight vertigo, and it was directly related to emf uh, exposure that I had. So I cleaned that up immediately, and that went away. So, you know, people can have all kinds of symptoms. It could be joint pain, fibromyalgia kind of pain, or just chronic fatigue. Deep, deep fatigue, leg fatigue, and brain fog. <laugh> brain function goes like your marbles go. You can't think or are in a cloud. So tons of stuff.

Dr. Lauryn (16:38):

Yeah. And how does one distinguish that from, you know, a slew of other things that those symptoms can be related to as well?

Dr. Kines (16:47):

Yeah, that's a great question. What I used to do with my patients is I used to recommend my book, and I would just say, read the book and think about your timeline in your life through the eyes of the virus and see if you can connect the dots. And people would come with like, you know, light bulbs in their eyes. Like, oh my gosh, I could track my childhood. I could remember my depression. Everything that happened to me makes sense. This is when I had, uh, EBV, and that is when I had EBV, and that is when I had EBV. It was just misdiagnosed on this or that. So it really is kind of a possibility throughout your lifetime. And also just testing <laugh>.

(17:34):

The shortcut is testing, testing done properly. And also putting that lab result in the context of your medical conditions and how you're doing. Because you know, if you don't have EBV, if you have a condition, if you're treated properly, you should be fine. Right? But if you don't, if uh, you know, you work with a functional medicine doctor, this is what happened to me. I was working with these people, and we were doing everything right, and we were hitting the wall. And if you look at the medical literature, the researchers are saying if you have a patient that is not responding to chronic illness protocol as expected, expect EBV, chronic EBV, and test for it. And then there are studies that say if you have idiopathic cases and idiopathic cases mean unexplained chronic idiopathic cases, test for chronic EBV.

Dr. Lauryn (18:26):

And is the testing for EBV accurate? Just like even through a quest or normal blood draw to see, um, I mean, I would say 90% of panels I run where EBV like there is a previous exposure at least to it. And my patient population.

Dr. Kines (18:45):

You're correct because, as we said, 90 95% have what will have those two big antibodies for life. Because we've had the virus, you know, the whole planet has had the virus. Now it doesn't mean much. So like I said, I have those two long-standing antibodies as well. I will, I never tested them before because I didn't have a need because I was healthy. So it depends on the context of your presentations, on your life, on your conditions, on what is happening. You know, I had molds, and molds can really reactivate EBV. The labs have to be interpreted correctly, and that's, that's the unfortunate part. And hopefully, with the book and with the resources we have on the website, um, some doctors are actually revisiting them and testing properly, so people are actually diagnosed properly. Cuz the labs are, especially a few years ago when I started, there were a lot of people falling through the cracks and being misdiagnosed because the labs were not done properly. And that was unfortunate and unnecessary, and some people lost years of their life because of that simple, stupid, wrongly done tests, you know?

Dr. Lauryn (19:55):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Well, and if EBV is reactivated, will you see numbers off the charts more? Or, like, how do you distinguish reactivated versus like just speculating these symptoms seem like this is reactivated? Will testing show that?

Dr. Kines (20:12):

For most people, early antigen is the one that will be elevated, but you also have to test it within two, or three weeks of when the person really feels the worst. Because early antigen will normalize, so you'll have periods of early antigen, normal, high, normal, high, that's the virus. The point is, you know, the sicker the person is, the more often they may have the reactivation periods, but if you wait for a month or two months, you may actually not cut it anymore. So you would assume that, oh, it's only past exposure. My favorite story is when I had a clinician student in my training program, and she says, you know, I had a person, it's classic EBV, I can see it. Uh, the only problem is that her early antigen was normal when she tested. So I said, okay, so when did she feel like the track ran her over?

(21:04):

When was the worst time? She said Thanksgiving. When did she test? January. Well, you see what I mean, she needed to test during Thanksgiving and right after to really see if that was caused by EBV or not. She missed that opportunity. So that early antigen already normalized, but you know, you just have to track it. So I tell people, you know, test when you feel really the best and test when you, you know, feel like the track run you over, you've been just hit by a track. You know that's how, that's how people describe when they have reactivation, they feel like they've been hit by a truck.

Dr. Lauryn (21:39):

Yeah. And would you say, so it sounds like that person started to feel better in January that typically if it's gonna be reactivated, it is gonna be then from an exposure that's activating it, such as mold or dietary, like maybe around Thanksgiving time that person was eating something that was triggering it?

Dr. Kines (22:01):

Yes. So a couple of things. Thanksgiving, you know, for some families, it's a happy time for many families, dysfunctional families, it's a traumatic time. You know, people are retraumatized, they have to travel, it's stressful. And then the food, absolutely we know that more of the junk food can increase NF kappa B and that actually is what the virus needs to replicate. It loves NF kappa B, it's an inflammatory marker, and um, it increases with, uh, American diet, it just increases. We have studies on it, so it's an invitation for reactivation. And so that's a possibility. And we know if the nutritional status decreases, then the virus becomes more virulent. So plenty of opportunities and stress is number one, a reactivating factor of all factors that I've seen environmental. But stress is number one.

Dr. Lauryn (22:58):

For everything in life.

Dr. Kines (23:00):

For everything. But literally, literally, it is, you know, there are tons of studies on that for EBV, but even astronauts in space, proactively take antiviral medication because they have a higher likelihood of EBV reactivation in space, and it's because of different stressors, you know, physiological stress changing, circadian rhythm, uh, physical space, diet, everything changes. Gravity, you know, lack of gravity and all that. So all these changes are stressful on the body, even though you are in topnotch shape, you know, you're an astronaut, you're the best of the best. So we compete with astronauts. So I say that to people often, so they don't feel bad about their EBV.

Dr. Lauryn (23:45):

Well said. Well, let's talk a little bit about like what to do about EBV, and it is something that folks will always have to maintain if they've had...

Dr. Kines (23:56):

Yeah, to maintain the virus where you need it is, you know, you have to maintain a better respect for the physical limitations of the human body and the emotional limitations of your human body and spirit <laugh>. So I would say it's a great teacher because the virus is almost like a computer virus. You know you turn it on, you turn it off, it's pretty predictable. And if you know, if you understand, like if you read the book, if you understand it, then you can take measures. It's, it's a no-brainer. It's not that hard. It's like, ah, I get it. So it's predictable and treatable. And this is also medical literature. It's treatable, preventable, and it's pretty predictable. What you have to do is you have to realize that we have a pretty high load of toxic loads in our environment, and it's water, and its air in its mold. We have a lot of mold because of the building practices and the laws that allow these <laugh>.

(25:06):

It's just a contractor's quality of work. Be aware if you have a brand new home, it, you know, shortcuts may have happened, and so things may be lurking behind the shower. <laugh> and then the diet, we have a lot of toxic load in the diet. Then, the nutritional status and the nutritional density in our diet are decreasing, which opens the door for viral infection as well. We need really stable, foundational nutritional support, and stress, as I said, is big. Just being aware of how stress affects you and what measures you can take. And with the diet, no, we need a lot of antioxidants because antioxidants curb the oxidation stress that EBD creates, and a lot of these antioxidants actually have anti-EBV activity directly or indirectly. So a lot of actually minerals and vitamins are highly antioxidant in nature. And so you can actually stock up these in your favor.

(26:21):

Selenium, we talked about thyroid issues, and selenium is such a multitasker is depleted in soils. So in enough, you mean the diet, but it is instrumental for the thyroid function. It also is a building block for glutathione in the liver. Uh, it supports the liver and detoxification, and it's one of the best things you can take to turn off the replication of EBV. And so you know, you have, you have a lot of these uh, zinc, you have a NAC, um, and they're great for covid as well. You have licorice, we have studies on covid as well for licorice. We have vitamin C, vitamin E, uh, lysine. Lysine has been studied covid as well. It's like suddenly <laugh>, you see where I'm going with this?

Dr. Lauryn (27:10):

The correlation. Yeah. Of like, why is this maybe working <laugh>?

Dr. Kines (27:14):

Yeah, yeah. So we have a lot of tools, and the easiest way to look at diet is to load up on antioxidants. Where are antioxidants? Plant matter, plants, fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, you know, plants. Eat plants. You have a lot of ravages, you have a healthier, stronger microbiome from the ravage from the fiber and your microbiome is your immunity. That's just how it goes.

Dr. Lauryn (27:43):

Definitely, so I mean kind of the foundations of health that can across the board.

Dr. Kines (27:49):

Across the board. Yes, yes. Honestly, you know, it's almost like it's like a wake-up call because the toxicity is unheard of. We've never been in an environment like this, so just breathing and eating regular food is not enough. Some, you know, at some point, you're gonna get sick. It's just not sustainable. We have to take some supplements. I'm sorry to say when I started my practice, I wanted to do everything with food. It's not enough.

Dr. Lauryn (28:17):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the quality of our food is so different nowadays. Unfortunately, the soils, um, a lot of our foods are grown in even.

Dr. Kines (28:25):

Yes. You know, the apple your grandmother was eating is not the same apple we are eating. It's not the same nutritional makeup. We have to compensate for that.

Dr. Lauryn (28:34):

What about the role of like binders, um, and or any detox type of agents? Do you find more just like a supportive approach with antioxidants or that any detoxification is helpful?

Dr. Kines (28:47):

That's a great point. Uh, we have an entire module on detoxification in the EBV recovery program just because people don't understand how detrimental cleaning can be. And um, you know, you can't do any binder, you don't need any binders, and you don't need to kill EBV. One of the problems that I'm seeing is a lot of practitioner use things like mono or lower sinin, but that doesn't provide any support. That just kills. And when you kill pathogens, you create a lot of toxic load that brains sometimes it's even more toxic than the pathogen when it was alive. And then you have to get that out of your system before damage is done. You have to move bowels, uh, binders can constipate you. You have to be moving your bowels twice a day If you want to do any binding, you can't do it just indiscriminately. You can get sicker. And so it's not necessary because fiber is your best binder and the best fiber is in your food. So you just have to eat a lot and poop a lot.

Dr. Lauryn (29:57):

<laugh>, I love that. Get the golden poo every day.

Dr. Kines (30:01):

Yeah.

Dr. Lauryn (30:02):

What would you say, if anything, is like a misnomer in the holistic health space, uh, around EBV that you really try to, to clear up with your folks and or just, I don't know, as we, the wild west of functional medicine space can mean well, and sometimes we can also be misguided if not an expert in a certain particular area and or um, just if a practitioner's following, oh this is the EBV protocol, et cetera.

Dr. Kines (30:34):

Oh my, this is like a Pandora box we're opening <laugh>.

(30:40):

Um, I would say the biggest issue I see in functional medicine is relying on botanical medicine. It's not gonna mold the needle, and it's not gonna provide protection and support that things like selenium. Well, it's just it's not a match. That's number one. Number two, the autoimmune paleo diet, low carb diets, and keto diet really not some of the worst fit for a person with EBV. When you have EBV, it's when by the time it's chronic, you have chronic stress causing changes in your adrenals. And adrenals require good quality carbs. That's how they will repair it. Plus, your brain requires it, and the brain can be quite toxic from oxidative stress from the virus, the brain, you know, the virus can go into the brain. So I think even black diets, just because they're trendy and everybody does, you know, you have autoimmunity, you go autoimmune paleo. Autoimmune paleo can induce deficiencies, nutritional deficiencies, and sometimes, you know, I have to do damage much control and bring people back because they're losing too much weight and they start to react more and more foods anyway.

(31:56):

So I don't know why some practitioners just use blanket diets. The paleo autoimmune is just like any therapeutic diet. It should be short-term while you are resolving the problem. So if we have, uh, Hashimoto, it's not a paleo diet that will heal it, it's looking for the cause, and if it's EBV triggering it, then if you turned off an EBV address it, people no longer have Hashimotos. so they can eat <laugh>. So yeah, I think sometimes, uh, you know, the intention is good, but practitioners are going into extremes. But what is the point of a diet like that? You know what I mean? Long term, you can't live like this, you don't have to.

Dr. Lauryn (32:44):

Right. I'm so happy you mentioned that, and I see that across the boards and whatever put the name of the disease or the condition in and um, just, I, I don't even know if it's always intended to be a long-term from the practitioner and yet the patient's just not informed that it shouldn't be a long term <laugh>.

Dr. Kines (33:03):

Correct. Correct. Exactly. I just, I was just reading a note from somebody I'm gonna talk to next week who was writing that, uh, she was put on an elemental diet, and she stayed on it for a year. It's like,

Dr. Lauryn (33:16):

Oh man, that's intense.

Dr. Kines (33:18