The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
159. Dr. Will Cole: Autoimmune Crisis? Uncover Mold and Toxins Harming You
Tue, 22 Apr 2025
Struggling with mystery symptoms? Most people chalk up brain fog, fatigue, or joint pain to aging, but what if it’s your body screaming for help? I sat down with Dr. Will Cole to discuss autoimmune conditions, gut health, and toxicity. Here’s the truth: your symptoms might stem from hidden culprits like mold, heavy metals, or a stressed-out gut. Cleaning up your gut and reducing toxins lets your body do what it’s built for… heal! Small, consistent changes can transform your health. Join the Ultimate Human VIP community and gain exclusive access to Gary Brecka's proven wellness protocols today!: https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Get Dr. Will Cole’s book, “The Inflammation Spectrum”: https://amzn.to/4jnQe7r Listen to “ Dr. Will Cole “ on all your favorite platforms! YouTube:https://bit.ly/4jmEv9c Spotify:https://spoti.fi/4jCWkB7 Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/4lzYenb Connect with Dr. Will Cole: Website:https://bit.ly/4iurxF0 YouTube: https://bit.ly/4jmEv9c Instagram:https://bit.ly/3GlSihK Facebook:https://bit.ly/4lGTEUh TikTok:https://bit.ly/4444EVw X.com: https://bit.ly/4cI59qw LinkedIn:https://bit.ly/4jEMG02 Thank you to our partners: H2TABS - USE CODE “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg BODYHEALTH - USE CODE “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD - USE CODE "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa EIGHT SLEEP - SAVE $350 ON THE POD 4 ULTRA WITH CODE “GARY”: https://bit.ly/3WkLd6E COLD LIFE - THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp WHOOP - GET 1 FREE MONTH WHEN YOU JOIN!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW MASA CHIPS - GET 20% OFF YOUR FIRST $50+ ORDER: https://bit.ly/40LVY4y VANDY - USE CODE “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: https://bit.ly/49Qr7WE AION - USE CODE “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD HAPBEE - FEEL BETTER & PERFORM AT YOUR BEST: https://bit.ly/4a6glfo CARAWAY - USE CODE “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC HEALF - GET 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S BIOPTIMIZERS - USE CODE “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4inFfd7 RHO NUTRITION - USE CODE “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/44fFza0 Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka: Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X.com: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:45 Definitions of Metabolic Health and Flexibility 13:23 Markers for Metabolic Inflammation Spectrum 17:16 Being Metabolically Healthy by Making Healthy Lifestyle Choices 19:50 Potential Impacts of the MAHA Movement 21:32 Toxic Burden Impacting Autoimmune Conditions 26:56 Leaky Gut Syndrome 29:56 Testing to Identify One’s Conditions 33:49 Emotional Connection with the Gut 41:23 Implementing Lifestyle Habits to Address Stress & Trauma 45:27 Gratitude and Self-Compassion 52:43 Testing for Mold Toxicity 58:15 Role of Genetics 59:04 Practices to Improve Gut Health 1:03:01 Fasting as a Hormetic Therapy 1:06:20 Testing for Metal Toxicity and Resolutions 1:12:29 Daily Habits Causing Inflammation The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The Content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the guests and what is the focus of today's episode?
Chapter 2: What does metabolic health and metabolic flexibility mean?
I think the absence of disease is not the presence of good health.
We have upwards of 93% of the United States metabolically unhealthy in some way. They're not checking all the boxes of saying, I'm in great metabolic health.
We hear about metabolic health, metabolic flexibility, metabolic syndrome, but I don't think most people understand what that really means.
of people that have sexual abuse growing up and physical abuse growing up, neglect growing up. We have to look at these emotional toxins too.
The emotion doesn't create aflatoxin. It's the dysregulation of the nervous system because of your emotional state. It's a piece of the puzzle.
These mental, emotional, spiritual, or the part of gut feelings impacts the physical health so much.
A lot of choice that I think the average American is forced to make is if they have one of these conditions, how do you best suggest that they go about healing the gut?
Yeah, so the first part of the question, you said, how do they find out? Well...
Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brekker. We go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And my guest today is a guest that my team and I have been watching for a long time.
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Chapter 3: What are the key markers for metabolic inflammation and how can they be tested?
That's what I mean.
Conventional inflammation. But you're right. When you look at things like TGF beta-1, C3A, C4A, MSH, these sort of other immunological labs that are conventional labs but aren't typically ran in the conventional setting, you will typically find for that subset of people, those labs will be off. And then when you start looking at biotoxins, it confirms those conventional labs in my mind.
It confirms things like mold and bacteria and viruses. And almost 100%, I don't know if you found this, but almost 100% of these people that check all these boxes, what the world would call mystery illnesses, have these HLA gene variants. Like they're all, which for people that don't know, that's human leukocyte antigens.
It makes your body more sensitive, if you will, to these biotoxins like bacteria, viruses, and mold. So whereas mold is everywhere, bacteria and viruses, humans have been with symbiotically for a long time, but these people, their immune system doesn't know how to calm down when they're exposed to these pathogens.
And then we could talk, I think in my mind, there's a environmental toxin component to it when you talk about glyphosate or forever chemicals. I think there's something man-made That is exacerbating these biotoxin sensitivities.
Well, there's no question. I mean, if you just look at big data, if you just take a zoom out for a second, you look at parabolic rise in skin cancer, parabolic rise in autoimmune conditions across the board, roughly 80% of which are in women. You look at parabolic rises in type two diabetes, morbid obesity, multiple chronic disease in a single biome.
The earlier the onset of metabolic syndrome getting down into teenage years now, yeah right where we just thought man i can't be killed by a bullet at 15 or 16 or 18 years old you know um and you have to think that it that there's an environmental component yeah to that whereas like yeah maybe the mold it was the straw that broke the camel's back but then it's like the analogy that i use like
we all have different bucket sizes right that's your bio individuality for how much junk can i handle right and environmental toxins man-made and biotoxins like bacteria virus and mold are going to be contributing factors but then stress and result trauma you know not sleeping well foods that don't love you back i mean it's a confluence don't love you back i like that america loves those yeah yeah oh we do they love to be in a toxic relationship with things that don't love them back
Yeah, and we very often, I read Dr. Perlmutter's book, Grain Brain and Gut-Brain Connection. It was the first time that the switch flicked for me that, wow, man, our gut bacteria really drive our cravings and not necessarily for the right things, right? You know, the more highly processed food we eat, the more highly processed food we crave. The more sugar we eat, the more sugar we crave.
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Chapter 4: How does toxic burden, including mold and environmental toxins, affect autoimmune conditions?
But I don't think most people understand what that really means.
Sure. So depending on the study that you cite, we have upwards of 93% of the United States is metabolically unhealthy in some way. They're not checking all the boxes of saying, I'm in great metabolic health. But you're right. It's kind of... kind of abstract, nebulous term. People maybe think of weight gain, which is a part of it, but it's so much more than that, right?
So yes, it can be weight loss resistance or trouble losing weight, but poor metabolic health can manifest like low sex drive. It could... it could manifest as sleep issues, it could manifest as brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, depression, it doubles your rate of that when you're insulin resistant. That's really what's going on.
I mean, there's a central seminal event that's happening in most of these people. It is some degree of insulin resistance. There's somewhere on that insulin resistance spectrum, which if you're looking at that statistic, seven, only 7% of America is metabolically healthy. And I would say that's kind of, they have loose standards.
Like if you, as you know, like in functional medicine, we're looking at a tighter range of where does vibrant wellness live, which is where we get our name in functional medicine. Where does the body function the best? So we want triglycerides even tighter than what they want in the conventional setting. And most people, a lot of Americans have triglycerides above 100.
And that is like that proverbial Paul Revere. Paul Revere.
Not the LDL cholesterol.
I'm glad you said triglycerides. Yeah, triglycerides above 100. is typically an indication that the body's saying, I don't know where to put this blood sugar, so I'm gonna store it as circulating fat or triglycerides. It's gonna store it around the liver and spike those liver enzymes, AST and ALT. It's gonna start raising that A1C, that three month average.
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Chapter 5: What role does gut health play in autoimmune diseases and metabolic health?
And there's, depending on the study that you cite, that's about four to 10 years prior to someone having type two diabetes. These people were on this insulin resistance spectrum. For most people, it didn't happen overnight. And that high triglycerides and that low HDL, so triglycerides above 100, HDL below 59, that ratio is a proverbial metabolic Paul Revere
And if you're a history nerd like me, Paul Revere didn't actually say in effect, the British are coming. But to use that analogy, it's saying diabetes is coming. And if you don't do something about this, and this, you may feel fine. You may feel like, ah, I'm just getting older. Maybe I'm just a little tired.
Those are check engine lights that your body's saying, you know, let's figure out what's going on. So metabolic health. And when I say metabolic flexibility, or when we talk about metabolic flexibility, it's the ability to burn both sugar and fat. It's the, the flexibility to be, have energy and have optimal mitochondrial function. Most people are stuck in the sugar burning mode. They're hangry.
which is hungry and angry is evil spawn. They're irritable. They feel like a shell of themselves. And then they gaslight themselves. And then they say, I'm just getting older. They get gaslit from doctors because the doctors are just screening for these big pathologies. And then they go for years not living their best life. And they settle for it.
So that's what we're talking about with metabolic health.
That's great. And a lot of people's emotion is so tied to food, which is another indication that, you know, your mood shouldn't shift before you after you eat. Not by much anyway. I mean, you're right.
But when you have these an emotional roller coaster that follows your hunger patterns and eating patterns, I mean, that's a sign that you are metabolically unhealthy or metabolically intolerant, whatever you want to call it. Because, you know, if I I don't have to eat, I don't have to eat. I don't have to eat. I have to eat right now.
and then you're hangry and you eat and then your mood returns to normal and then it tanks again as your blood sugar crashes and you have an afternoon crash. I mean, so those kinds of cycles are not normal pathic in terms of how our motion and eating should be tied into each other. Like many of you, the hardest thing for me is to shut off my mind at night when I want to sleep.
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Chapter 6: How are emotions and stress connected to gut health and autoimmune conditions?
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Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. So what would be the big markers for people to check? So check engine light is triglycerides over 100, HDL below 59. And, you know, what kind of supplementation addresses that? You know, omega-3 fatty acids or what have you. And what are some of the other markers that they should be?
Yeah. Some other ones that I would recommend. And look, these are conventional apps. Like, yeah, we can run them in functional medicine and we do for people around the world, but you don't, you can go to your PCP, your GP, your endocrinologist and ask for these. So A1C, that's just three month average of your blood sugar. We want it at the very least under 5.6. Yeah.
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Chapter 7: What lifestyle habits and therapies can improve metabolic and gut health?
That's the doorstep of prediabetes.
Exactly. So these exist on a spectrum. We want fasting glucose to be under 90. I mentioned triglycerides, HDL, so triglycerides under 150, HDL above 59. I think when you look at metabolic syndrome, These people typically will have high sensitivity C-reactive protein to be off.
So you'll see HSCRP, even if it's not through the roof, you'll see it above one, which the American Heart Association and the CDC want it in the optimal range under one. We would want it under one as well in functional medicine.
homocysteine which i mentioned earlier it's an amino acid it's supposed to be recycled down into methionine but it acts like a neurotoxin even subclinical like just slightly elevated homocysteine has been linked to increasing blood-brain barrier permeability or what they call leaky brain syndrome which is And when I say it, it's kind of like people like what my brain is leaky.
Yeah, it's not right. It's linked to cardiovascular disease too. So we went home assisting to be under seven. We would run what's called a nuclear magnetic resonance NMR test, which I'm sure you run to. It's like we want those small dense LDL particles to be as low as possible. Those are the not the cholesterol, they're the protein carriers of cholesterol.
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Chapter 8: How can one test for mold and metal toxicity and what resolutions exist?
So it's not the cholesterol that's the problem. It's the inflammation or oxidation of the particles, the protein that carries cholesterol.
Gosh, I'm so glad that you're saying that. So because, you know, I liken cholesterol to a fireman, right? I mean, when there's a fire, the fireman shows up to put it out. When there's damage to the endothelial wall or other cascades going on, you know, cholesterol shows up to sort of plug the hole, if you will, or repair it.
And then we blame cholesterol because it's at the scene of the crime for pulling the trigger. And we try to shove cholesterol down as low as we possibly can, especially LDL cholesterol. I actually did an amazing podcast with Dr. Asim Alhotra. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I love him. He's a great, great, great dude. I want his accent.
I feel like anything you say in a British accent, if you're a dude, it makes you more attractive and more intelligent. And if you're a chick, it makes you much more attractive. I thought about actually developing one. Yeah, we just sound so more erudite. But then I would forget to do it.
It's like Sean Connery was like the ultimate, you know. And then your wife would be like, why are you walking around with a British accent? I don't know, babe.
I'm just doing it now. It sounds bloody well to me, you know. But, you know, I did a podcast with him. We went deep down the rabbit hole of cholesterol. But then, you know, conventional medicine comes in, shoves cholesterol down as low as they can, 40s, 50s, 60s.
Not addressing the underlying metabolic issue, not addressing the toxic soup that people are bathing their cellular biology in that got them into that place in the first place, just using medication to lower that one marker.
And what we saw in the big data pools was, you know, then there comes the joint pain and the brain fog and the short-term memory loss and all the other consequences to cell walls, cell membranes, hormones, you know, that sort of thing. And so I love that we're talking about
becoming metabolically healthy because I feel like this is the hub of the wheel and you can affect all the spokes by fixing your metabolism. And that has a lot to do with what you put in, what you're drinking, what you're eating, how you're serving your body, how you're sleeping, how you're exercising. It's all of the, I even like the term lifestyle medicine more than functional medicine.
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