evan brand, cfmp, ntp › 2020 › sos20 › transc… · perfectly healthy, and everybody should...

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Evan Brand, CFMP, NTP Health Podcast Host to improve your health and your life and make you think.

Shivan Sarna: Hi everybody! Evan Brand is here… which is a thrill for me because I've been following his

work for so long. I've learned so much from this guy. He has no idea who I am. So, I’m just very, very

grateful that he said yes when I told him that I had been kind of, you know, online-stalking him and

learning from him. And he was very gracious and agreed to do this interview.

You may know him from his work with all of the summits that he’s done and his podcasts. And maybe

you've even been lucky enough to have an appointment with him.

So, how are you doing, Evan? Thanks for being here, sir.

Evan Brand: Hey, Shivan, thanks for having me. I'm doing great.

Shivan Sarna: Good! Okay, you’ve been through the ringer when it comes to your own personal health.

So thank you so much for sharing your journey with everybody and helping everyone else get fixed.

Evan Brand: Yeah, my pleasure. A lot of practitioners don't do that because they want to protect their

brand and make it seem like they're awesome and they’ve got everything figured out. They’re so

perfectly healthy, and everybody should be jealous. And I'm like, “No, I'm a human like everybody else.

And I figured out more stuff than the average person. That way, I can help others. But really, it was all

due to suffering.” Yes, definitely.

Shivan Sarna: Suffering is a great motivator. I just would like to learn and be motivated without

suffering, we’ll work on that.

Evan Brand: Tell me about it!

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01:14 | Your First Step with Candida

Shivan Sarna: Okay, so let's talk about you've had gut issues for sure. And you have a lot of people. And

you do things a little bit differently than a lot of people I know when it comes to IBS, SIBO, and a topic I

really want to discuss, which is Candida, with you.

What are the first things that you do with folks when you're realizing that they are probably afflicted

with these conditions?

Evan Brand: The first thing is survey their environment and survey their gut. So, we survey their

environment using a company called Immunolytics. It’s a buddy of mine named JW who owns the

company out of Albuquerque. They sell these little petri dishes, and we send these as part of our new

intake for every single new client. We put a plate (or multiple plates) to people's homes, and you put

these plates out for one hour on the floor. You tape them up, you mark where they were

located—kitchen, master bedroom, et cetera—and then, you mail those back to the lab… and you get a

health score.

And you want 4 or less to show up, meaning that you have four colonies of mold (Candida could be

included) or less. And 95% of the people that we work with, because they have symptoms, they have

higher health scores. So they could be a 5, a 20, a 30, a 50, 100, 150.

We have one lady in New York City who had a very, very bad Candida problem. She had been to every

naturopath/functional medicine person there is, and she still had a major Candida problem. So guess

what? We put a plate in her apartment, we get it back, and there’s 150 colonies of Candida that came

back on that plate.

So, the problem was not her—it was partially—but it was her environment. And so, until we cleared the

Candida out of her apartment, she would not succeed with Candida.

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And many people may say, “Wow! This is crazy. What are you talking about?” Well, Candida can be in

your environment, and you can breathe in the spores, and it'll infect your sinus cavity. It drips down the

back of your throat, into your gut, and re-colonizes the gut. So you could have the perfect herbal

protocol, or if you're going the conventional route—which I don't recommend due to antifungal

resistant issues (a lot of these drugs like nystatin, Diflucan, a lot of the prescriptions, the Center for

Disease Control is warning that the drugs no longer work. So you could die of Candida because the drugs

don't work. So luckily, with herbs, that doesn't happen).

Regardless of your flavor of medicine, if you don’t fix the environment and get the Candida off your

pet—so it's on your dogs’ fur every time they go outside. They bring it in, and lay in your bed. You look

so cute in your bed, and they’re just putting Candida in your bed.

So, sometimes, like I said, it’s the assessment, figuring it out. Do you have a dog? Is the dog sleeping in

your bed, you're all cuddling together, and they're spreading Candida to you, and that's why you can't

get better? Is it your house? Did you have water leaks? Did you have mold in your basement? Is your

crawl space leaking? Do you live in Florida where everybody has mold because there's too high humidity

and nobody's using dehumidifiers?

And then, we test their gut. So, the gut has almost become more of a secondary thing because now I'm

realizing the environment is making people so sick; whereas as a hundred years ago, this didn't happen

because we didn't use to build out of drywall. And we didn't used to have all of these “mold food” laying

around like wallpaper and stuff like that. It used to be plaster and more non-organic materials. Now,

everybody's like, “Hey, let's do our whole house in reclaimed wood,” which is like, “Hey, let's take

50-year old wood from somebody's barn that's been turning back into dirt, it’s got mold spores all over

it. Let's bring it in our house!”

And I've even had some clients saying, “I want a farmhouse sink… I want a farmhouse headboard.” So

they'll literally use a barn door as their headboard for their bed. It's like, “Oh, my lord!” So, guess what

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do we do? We put a plate on the floor next to their cute, little farm door headboard. And guess what?

The mold counts are off the chart. And that's why they wake up every day feeling like crap.

05:08 | Healthy Home Building & Interiors

Shivan Sarna: You know, it's interesting because the spectrum goes the other direction, like it's this

organic, decaying wood, or it's like a totally petroleum product plasticized with who knows what, what

kind of chemicals are off-gassing there.

So, just as a side note, what do you usually suggest for home interior? Do you have a website that you

like to send people to for home-building?

Evan Brand: Good question! I don't have a direct website. The Environmental Working Group as a whole

is really good (EWG). They can help with skincare products and things like that with women. I think they

talk about the environment some. I really just did a lot of research on my own. We built the house and

got sick because we had a busted pipe in the crawl space we didn't know about. So then we fixed it, sold

it and moved on to another house.

But we've done some new things in this house like Cali bamboo brand of flooring. They have a nice vinyl

flooring. They have eucalyptus flooring, bamboo flooring, et cetera.

We have a ton of different charcoal-based air purifiers in the house. We've got fresh air systems that we

put into the house called ERV’s. They save you money on your heating and cooling, but they also can, at

the flip of a switch, bring fresh air in from outside.

If you do have off-gassing materials, the solution to pollution is dilution. So, if your house is too tight,

like all modern houses, you bring in fresh air to dilute those toxins. So, if we feel that our house is stuffy,

we don't want to go around opening all the windows. On an ERV system, we have a brand called Broan.

You just click a button, and then, boom, you're pumping in fresh air from the outside—assuming the

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outside air is fresh. If you live in the city, and you’ve got a bunch of diesel trucks going down the road,

then a fresh air system would not really work.

Shivan Sarna: And a lot of pollen is the other side of that.

Evan Brand: True, true. And then, you got to filter it out with your air filter. So healthy homes, it's

always a balance of bringing in enough fresh air, but also filtering your air.

And then, of course, water filtration is key and making sure that you've got your EMF situation under

control. So, we have a whole house dirty electricity filter which helps reduce the high frequency noise

from your outlets. That way, you're not disturbing your sleep. Some people cut the breakers off to their

bedroom at night to sleep.

We did the whole house in ROMABIO which is a mineral-based paint, potassium-based paint. So

there's not even a low VOC or no VOC. Those are just marketing terms. Home Depot and Lowes is selling

low VOC or no VOC paints. Those are still acrylic petroleum-based products. You want to use

mineral-based. So ROMABIO, if you're in the middle of fixing your home and trying to fix your health at

the same time, then those are a couple of ideas for you.

Shivan Sarna: What about a mattress since we're on this topic? I know that's like a huge hot bed—haha,

no pun intended—of potential issues.

Evan Brand: Totally!

Shivan Sarna: Totally!

Evan Brand: Yeah. So, I spent like 15 grand on this one bed that was terrible—not terrible as a whole. It

was relatively good in quality. It was called a Samina bed. Nothing against the guy. Claus was his name.

He was like the local or the USA representative. He gave me a good deal on it. And it was cool. It was like

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organic wool from animals grazing in the pastures of Austria or something fancy. And it was cool and all!

But for the price, I didn't sleep that well on it.

So, I gave that one away to my dad. And I purchased one myself called Botanical Bliss which is a

company called Plush Beds. And it's just organic latex. It comes from the rubber tree, and it's covered in

organic cotton. And you're looking at maybe one-fifth of the cost. You're looking at maybe closer to

$2000. And I sleep great on it.

And then, in terms of bed frames, we use a Savvy Rest. And I want to say it's made of maple, but I can't

remember. It's a solid wood bed frame. And , they use zero VOC finishes (like you can do a walnut finish

on it). So two or three grand, you could have a really amazing setup.

Shivan Sarna: Oh, neat! That's very neat. Okay, that's great to know. What kind of pillow do you use?

Evan Brand: Actually Savvy Rest had one that came with their bed frames. So it's like a wool/organic

latex combo. So that's what I use.

I'm trying to get away from pillows. There's this thought and this idea that our ancestors didn't have

pillows, so why should we have pillows, that it's like putting the neck into a different position and

restricting blood flow to the brain and all that. So I'm trying to do this experiment where I'm weaning

myself off of a pillow and just sleep—like my daughter, she's three. My eldest is three. She sleeps great,

and she doesn't have a pillow. So why, all of a sudden, do kids turn into adults who need pillows? I don't

know. I'm in the middle of that experiment.

Shivan Sarna: Well, just as a yoga teacher, I might just say that my thought would be, if the rest of your

body was super flexible, and your alignment was super mobile, but still structured and strong, that

would probably be a lot more comfortable. If we're sitting all day and we have mal-adaptation of our

posture, it might be something just to help compensate.

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Evan Brand: That's true, yeah. I'm on the computer with work, so I'm probably forward like a turtle head

poking out. I'm probably hurting my neck too much like all of us.

Shivan Sarna: And I'm sure your daughter's malleable as heck, so she'll be like…

Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah.

Shivan Sarna: Yeah, whatever works for her. So anyway, that's just my thought on that pillow.

10:46 | Diagnostic Tests for the Gut

Shivan Sarna: Back to the gut—but that was all really practical and super helpful. I love that information,

thank you—okay, so you do this assessment, and you find out what's going on in their environment,

what kind of testing do you usually do like stool and other kinds of diagnostics on the gut?

Evan Brand: Yeah. So, number one into our stool testing, I currently use the Diagnostic Solutions

company. GI-MAP is what it's called. It's a great test! One stool sample, people do it at home, they send

it back to the lab, and you get a great readout on it.

I've compared it to other labs like Genova. Genova is not as good. And BioHealth, I used to use them, but

it requires like three or four stool samples over a period of days, which even at that, I haven't seen as

good of accuracy rates. So that's the stool piece.

And then, at home urine testing, we'll look at chemicals like gasoline additives and xylene and benzene

and nail polish and hair dye and plastic and styrofoam chemicals that disrupt your cell membranes,

damage mitochondria, and cause chronic fatigue and things like that.

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We’ll look at all that. We’ll look at mycotoxins which are the poop, if you will, of mold because those are

huge, like number one priority.

And then, also organic acids testing. So, you can run three tests on one urine sample. And that's what

we do.

And then, on the organic acids testing, it's kind of like measuring your tailpipe. So we can measure the

gases that Candida produce like arabinose, tartaric acid. We can look at neurotransmitters like

dopamine and norepinephrine and serotonin. It’s rare for someone to not have brain issues that have

gut issues.

If you have gut issues, there's probably a brain fog, depression, anxiety, insomnia component to it. And

we can give some support for the brain, like amino acids, to help boost people up to keep them

motivated enough to stay on a protocol. But ultimately, you got to fix the gut to fix the brain.

Shivan Sarna: And what is the urine test that you do other than organic acids?

Evan Brand: Yeah! So, organic acids is number one. Number two is the MycoTox. That’s the mycotoxin

panel, which are the bad guys that come from mold in your home, buildings, water-damaged buildings,

et cetera, and certain foods (like contaminated coffee beans). I have some people feel like crap when

they drink this one cup of coffee; and the other cup of coffee, they feel okay. It's usually related to

mycotoxins.

And then, the third test is just called a GPLTox. And that's the one where we look at chemicals. And

there's like a hundred different chemicals that we measure in people.

Shivan Sarna: What are the names of the laboratories that do those particular tests?

Evan Brand: That's all Great Plains. So, Great Plains is out of Kansas. They run that triple combo test.

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13:32 | Chemical Exposure to Solvents

Shivan Sarna: Can we just talk about those solvents for a second, the xylene…? The reason why I asked

you this is because I've never heard anybody talk about xylene before. And I had a test done, and they

said that I had xylene, and they wanted to know legit if I was a welder. I do not look like a welder. I could

not weld anything even if I wanted to.

So, where do you see people getting exposed to those types of chemicals?

Evan Brand: So, xylene is in nail polish.

Shivan Sarna: Got it!

Evan Brand: So, number one for women.

Shivan Sarna: I just went off acrylics after 10 years.

Evan Brand: Yup, yeah. So xylene… and then, there's another chemical that's called acrylamide which is

super toxic to the brain as well. And acrylamide is commonly found in hair dye. So, it’s the first question I

ask when I see acrylamide off the chart of—a lot of times, there's these cognitive issues going on with

the women.

I say, “Well, do you dye your hair?”

“Well, d’oh, every six weeks.”

It's like, “Oh, my god! Stop dyeing your hair. Your husband probably likes your natural hair color

anyway.”

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“Oh, it's gray.”

“Okay! Well then, just let your gray rock, honey, because I'd rather you have gray hair than acrylamide

because, right now, you're damaging your brain. So, do you want pretty hair, or do you want brain

damage?” You got to have both! It’s brain damage and acrylamide, or it's maybe “less pretty hair in your

eyes,” but less chemical load.

I've heard there's like organic hair dyes and natural nail polishes and stuff. Are they legit? I don't know.

My wife bought some “natural” nail polish, and it still reeks. So, as soon as she opened the bottle, I

threw it out because it just gave me a headache. So I don't know. I try to just get people to be crunchy

and use natural products when you can.

Shivan Sarna: Crunch it out, man! Crunch it all the way. I'm all for it, yeah.

15:21 | Probiotics & Fermented Foods

Shivan Sarna: Okay, alright! So, we were trying to reduce this toxic load. We’re doing some tests. We

found some results. Are you a pro-probiotic guy? Or are you a “let's do fermented foods instead”?

Evan Brand: Good question. It really depends on the time in the person's journey. So people like

soundbites in the health world. It’s like “Probiotics are good… probiotics are bad… fish oils are proven

to be legit… fish oil is snake oil.”

So yeah, probiotics could be helpful. But I rarely use them early in a person's protocol. I usually wait until

at least three to four months in. Based on personal experience, I felt like crap… and I didn't know why.

And it's because I had small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, I had fungal overgrowth—which some

people call SIFO, small intestinal fungal overgrowth, where the Candida or fungus can just grow

upstream.

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You know, the small intestine is supposed to be relatively small amounts of bacteria in comparison to

your large intestine. So, when they grow upstream, that's when you get the term SIBO. And when you

have probiotics that are thrown into the picture too soon, some people report they feel worse—more

bloating, headaches, constipation, et cetera. And that's because you're fertilizing the garden before you

pulled out the weeds. So, a lot of times, we really got to get rid of the bad guys first.

And in some cases, I don't use probiotics at all. And I've tested people, doing retests on the stool, and

we've seen that their normal bacterial levels actually normalized themselves. So, I sell supplements, but

there's some cases where I haven't given someone a probiotic. And their good gut bacteria come back

online just as a byproduct of getting out the bad guys and reducing the competition. And then, as long as

you are eating a good template, whole food template—good meats, good fats, good veggies is kind of

what I push people for—then, all of a sudden, the good bacteria can come back online without the

intervention of probiotics.

17:19 | Testing for SIBO

Shivan Sarna: So what tests do you do for SIBO?

Evan Brand: I just look at the stool test. And I just look at—there's a page three, it's all opportunistic

bacteria. So, anything from Prevotella copri (which is a bacteria that triggers rheumatoid arthritis) to

Klebsiella pneumonia (which is a trigger for Hashimoto) to many other bacteria, I just look at the levels

of those bacteria. And if we see that they're at an overgrowth stage, I just assume, “Hey, look… based

on your symptoms, these are probably growing in your small intestine.”

I don't do the SIBO breath testing because—that’s what people commonly do—it's not going to

change the game plan. I really don't care where the bacteria are. I just care that your mouth is

connected to your butt. It’s a one, long tube. And so, anywhere in there, if you've got overgrowth, we've

got to address it. And so, it's not like I'm going to tell the herbs, “Hey, when you get to the small

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intestine, stop there and do your job.” No… we’re throwing them down the hatch, and they're going to

do their thing. So, I do not use the commonly used SIBO breath test.

Shivan Sarna: Okay, cool! I said you do things differently than a lot of people. And that's why I'm talking

to you, man.

18:23 | Treatment Protocol for SIBO

Shivan Sarna: So question… now, let's say you're like, “There’s overgrowth here obviously. Mouth to

the other end, obviously, something needs to change,” so what are you typically doing? Herbals…?

Evan Brand: Yeah, I can't prescribe with my credentials. So I'm forcibly limited to using natural things

that I can source from professional healthcare companies that I then give to my clients. So yeah, I'm

strictly herbs.

I may use some Argentyn 23 every once in a while which is a silver hydrosol. Some people refer to it as

colloidal silver. It’s not really that. It's silver hydrosol. It’s a bit different. But sometimes, I'll use silver as

needed. We may have people drop a little bit in their ears or squirt a little bit up their nose to help with

biofilm and things like that or to help with ear infections. We may use it orally as well to help in the gut.

But mostly herbs, yeah.

So, with Candida, bacterial overgrowth issues, I've got some combinations of herbs that I've created,

things like berberine and Oregon grape root and wild indigo, pau d’arco bark, Tinospora cordifolia.

There’s a handful, 10 or 20 different herbs, you could use. It’s very rare to see just a bacterial

overgrowth or just a Candida overgrowth or just parasites, so a lot of times we're combining herbs

that have synergistic properties. This may be anti-parasitic, like wormwood. And then, we may use

berberine which could also help with parasites, but it's more designed for bacteria. And then, we stack

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olive leaves in which is more for fungus. And so we’ll stack all those together. And that's how you can kill

multiple birds in the same amount of time.

Shivan Sarna: Super cool!

20:07 | Turnaround Time

Shivan Sarna: How long…? Obviously, it depends on how somebody has come to you in terms of below

zero and how their condition is. But in your practice, how long typically do you see the turnaround take?

Are we talking about a couple of months? Are we talking about a year?

Evan Brand: Yeah, a couple of months is a good timeline to put a huge dent in things. But to kind of

finish your question a little bit, if you're talking going from like, on a scale of 1 to 10, your health is like a

2 and you want to get to a 10, yeah, I think a year, you could do a lot (maybe one to two to three years).

But if you're like a 5 or a 6, you feel pretty good, but your brain doesn't work as good, your sex drive is

kind of bad, your sleep is kind of bad, you get bloated here and there, you’ve got some heartburn here

and there, your nails aren’t as good as you like, your hair's not as good as you like, you may be a 5 on the

scale, and you want to get to a 10, yeah, you could probably do that in six months to a year.

Shivan Sarna: That's cool!

Evan Brand: It depends on the layers. Like my daughter, we could use her as an example. So, I did my

first stool test on her when she was two. Her name's Summer. And so, we did Summer’s first stool test,

and she showed up with parasites—so that goes to show you how young these gut issues can start and

stay with us our whole life (like me, I had gut issues as long as I could remember).

So, we gave her a protocol. We got rid of the parasites. We re-tested her stool. Then she showed up

with H. pylori which is a common bacteria that damages your parietal cells (which is how you make

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stomach acid). So now, you don't have enough stomach acid. It's like taking an acid-blocking drug (which

is not good for you). And then, all of a sudden, all your food is not digesting properly. So then that feeds

bacterial overgrowth and feeds Candida because now you've got all this undigested food. So, we got rid

of that.

And then, we re-tested again. And then, she had some Candida that showed up. It was too high. So then

we address that. And then, finally, she’s out of the woods.

So, sometimes you have to go in in layers. You can't expect to just swoop once and get everything. You

may have to hit it, take a break, hit it again, take a break, hit it, take a break (and then, sometimes,

tweaking and rotating herbs, depending on what's going on with the person stress-wise).

In some cases, they may not be able to heal until they get rid of their abusive spouse, or they get rid of

their boss that is terrible, or they quit their job that they hate. Sometimes, you have to do lifestyle stuff

too. You can't just do the great protocol, and everything's magically better.

Shivan Sarna: And you have to remember you're still dealing with the environment too. So check out the

mold issue, the plates, all that jazz.

Just to flashback… when you're saying plates, this is a petri dish, right?

Evan Brand: It is, yes.

Shivan Sarna: Yeah. So cool!

Evan Brand: Yeah! And it's cheap. At the time of this recording, you're looking at like $158, five plates.

That's usually enough to do around a 3000 sq. ft. house. If you have an attic, basement, crawl space, you

may need to buy a couple of extra.

I often put plates in people's cars just because we have a lot of people say, “Oh, by the time I get to

work, I've got a headache!” Well, is that because you don't have an air filter in your car like I do, and

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you're breathing in pollution from the highway that's giving you a headache; or is it that you have mold

in your HVAC system, and when you turn on your air-conditioning, you're pumping mold spores into

your face; or in the winter, you're heating and pumping mold spores into your face?

So, sometimes, we have to treat people's cars using essential oil-based fogging or misting solutions to

kill the mold inside the car, especially people that live in Houston and had that big hurricane a few years

ago and a lot of people's cars flooded. They just keep the car.

If you have a water leak in your car or in your home, and it doesn't dry out in 48 hours, you've got

mold growth. So yeah, it's a huge factor for people.

23:45 | Portable Air Purifiers

Shivan Sarna: What kind of air purifier do you have in your car? That sounds good.

Evan Brand: Yeah, it's called an IQAir. That’s the brand. And it is called the ATEM. And they have one

called the ATEM Car. And so, it plugs into your 12-volt cigarette lighter, and it comes in these little

straps.

In the picture, like their marketing (which I think is silly), they show it strapped on to the back of the

seat. But if there's a human sitting in that seat, and you've got an air purifier right behind your head,

that's going to be a huge magnetic field, which is just not safe from an EMF perspective.

So, we've strapped ours under the glove box. We found a couple of little holes that we could run the

straps through. So, it sits under the glove box right there. And we just keep it on high.

And if, for some reason, you take in any fumes from outside, you'll filter out any pollutants pretty darn

quick. So we just have that running 24/7.

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Shivan Sarna: Yeah, that's a great idea. You mean as long as the car is operating?

Evan Brand: Yes, yeah. As long as the car is on, yup.

Shivan Sarna: Yup! No, that sounds really cool. Thanks for sharing all these brand names with us too. I

really appreciate it.

Evan Brand: Yeah, it's good. The ATEM Car, they have little portable battery packs too. So, I kind of joke

with my wife. Some buildings we've gone to, I felt they’re moldy and I feel weird in those buildings. I'm

like, “Man, we need to just start traveling with our air purifier. And just anywhere we go, sit it on the

table in front of us. That way, we can guarantee pure air in our face.”

You know, air pollution has been linked to all sorts of crazy issues. There was a study that came out a

few weeks ago about air pollution being tied into aggression and depression and kids. So it's like you

blame the kid for their mood. Blame the air in the suburb! If they're in Chicago, and the air quality is

crap, and they're breathing it in, they need cleaner air. They don't need pharmaceuticals to calm them

down. They just need air purifiers in the bedroom.

So, there are simple steps like that that can go a long way.

25:40 | Water Purifiers

Shivan Sarna: I wanted to ask you before we move on about water. What's your favorite water purifier?

Evan Brand: So, it depends on what you're talking about. So we'll just go through a few.

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So, for the whole house, I have and recommend a Pelican. They're out of Florida. Great company! They

do whole house water filters. They do a great job. Pelican makes a big carbon tank. It looks like a big

tank of helium. But it's full of carbon. And carbon is really good at pulling out pesticides and

pharmaceutical drugs.

People think they just turn on their tap water and it's good water… no! Your tap water is full of garbage:

fluoride which calcifies the pineal gland (It’s been shown to reduce IQ. It affects the teeth); and you've

got trace amounts of blood pressure medications, heart medications, benzodiazepines, depression

medications; like I said, pesticides, herbicides—countless things (even, in the topic of gut, pathogens and

parasites).

There was an outbreak in 1994—I was reading about it actually this morning—in Milwaukee. And up to

1.6 million people got cryptosporidium, a water-borne parasite that could kill you if your immune

system is too weak because you just diarrhea yourself into extreme mineral loss, and then your heart

stops.

So crypto and giardia, these are water-borne parasites that are so tiny that the conventional water

filtration methods that the cities use, they don’t filter those out. So that's why I am very, very obsessed

about having good water.

So, the Pelicans for the whole house, that means, when you take a shower, if you want to brush your

teeth in the shower and you swallow it, some of your shower water is filtered now. And when you do

your dishwasher, you're not going to be off-gassing all the toxic chlorine gas into your kitchen. You’re

trying to cook a nice organic dinner, and here you are breathing in chlorine from your dishwasher.

So, I consider whole house filters to be critical.

And then, in terms of small filters, the water I'm drinking now was put through what's called the Clearly

Filtered. And so, if people just put my website, EvanBrand.com/clearwater—that’s an affiliate link. I

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make like $4… nothing amazing. I make like $4 if you use the link. I'm just trying to make it easy to show

you where to go to see it. It's like $60 for this pitcher, and it’s a pitcher filter.

So, you can literally take the sink water, pour it in there, it'll drip, drip, drip… and then you've got super

pure water! And they've got lab results to show how good it is.

Now, many people go for like the Brita or the Pur brand of filters at Target or Walmart (there’s one

called the Zero Filter). I would consider those more cosmetic filters. My buddy, Dr. Jay, actually said that

this morning. He goes, “I think of those as cosmetic filters.” I’m like, “Well, what do you mean?” “They

mainly help with taste and water clarity. They don't really help with removing all the bad guys.” So, they

may remove a little bit of lead, a little bit of mercury. But you want to go for something like a Berkey or a

Clearly pitcher filter.

I use one called the Pure Effects Filter under my sink. So, there's a little spigot on my sink. You just turn

the spigot on, and then you've got super pure water there.

I don't drink tap water at all… unless I'm in an extremely dire situation.

Shivan Sarna: Right, no… there was a whole Cryptosporidium issue in Portland, Oregon. It's taken them

years to address.

Evan Brand: I believe it!

Shivan Sarna: They have a whole new water thing treatment plant coming. But it's going to take them

years to get there.

Evan Brand: When you talk about parasites, there's this kind of myth in the conventional medical world

and the gastroenterology world that, if you haven't been to a third-world country, you can't have

parasites. It's like so many people of my clients live in the US. And I've seen hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of cases of different parasites.

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The whole food supply is international! You don't have to travel. Look at your organic blueberries from

Whole Foods. Where are they from? They're from Peru. They're from Chile. They're from different

countries. So, we all are international travelers even if we don't jump on a plane.

Shivan Sarna: Right on!

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29:53 | Parasite Testing

Shivan Sarna: What’s your favorite parasite test?

Evan Brand: I would say the GI-MAP. It’s great! It looks at parasites, worms, bacteria, H. pylori,

Campylobacter, C. difficile (Clostridium difficile, C. diff, which kills a lot of people). It's great! It's my

favorite.

It looks at gut inflammation called calprotectin. It looks at secretary IgA which is your mucosal barrier. It

sees whether your gut is leaky or not. We look at—what else is on there?—gluten antibodies. We can

measure the immune system and see if someone's reacting to gluten. If they're lying to us about not

eating it, we can do the lie detector test on them via stool.

Steatocrit, it’s a fecal fat marker. You can measure how well somebody is doing on their high fat diet.

We can measure that. So it's pretty fun.

Shivan Sarna: Pretty fun! Yeah, it sounds fun actually.

30:44 | Working with Candida

Shivan Sarna: Let’s talk about Candida and treatment for that. Do you put people on that Candida diet

where it's like no sugar, no fruit?

Evan Brand: No, it's a myth. I ate fruit the whole time when I had Candida, and I'm fine now.

I had a big background as a nutritional therapy practitioner. I still talk about diet, but I just get bored of it

really. I just want to dial in the diet with people and not spend too much time on it mainly because

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people obsess over the different variations of diet like, “Well, this says that I can eat tomatoes… and

this says I can't eat fruit… and this one says I can't eat carbs.” And it's ridiculous!

You can totally eat berries, low glycemic fruit, and you can have sweet potatoes and some starch while

you have Candida. I'm not convinced you need to go on a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet. There are

benefits for sure. But to completely abandon something just because of the fear that you can't fix the

Candida is just not true.

If you have other reasons you want to do carnivore, ketogenic, low carb, no carb, go for it! But like I said,

I had a handful of blueberries probably every day during my gut protocol. And my gut is in great shape

now.

Shivan Sarna: Good! Good, good.

So, do you do the “I'm going to test your microbiome, and then we're going to figure out something to

address the bacteria that's not there” or is that just not an angle you go?

Evan Brand: Are you talking about if there's good bacteria missing and come up with a plan for that.

What do you mean?

Shivan Sarna: Yeah, that's exactly what I mean.

Evan Brand: Oh, okay. So yeah, there is a whole category of normal bacterial flora. So, your Lactobacillus

groups and Bifidobacteria, these are super important. A lot of times, we'll see that those are low.

But as I was talking about with probiotics, I'll note it, I'll put it in the back of my head and say, “Yeah!

Look, you don't even have enough good guys. There's your problem. The bad guys took you over

because you felt bad, you had a UTI, and instead of using herbs, you took antibiotics to kill your UTI. You

keep having UTIs, and you're not addressing the root cause, so you keep going on antibiotics. And now,

all your good guys are really dead.” So noted! But we still got to get rid of the overgrowth first.

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So, in some cases, I'll do a little experiment, and I'll tell them, “Hey, look… you're a guinea pig. I don't

know how this is going to work. But let's try to throw in probiotics in phase 1, which is getting rid of bad

guys, rather than phase 2, heal the gut.” And sometimes, people do well. And sometimes, people say,

“No, I got bloated… I can't…” We’ll just pull it back out, and then put it aside, and say, “Okay, noted!”

And then, we move on.

Shivan Sarna: …and move on. Okay, cool! But it's good to know about because I think, still, a lot of

people are, “Oh, I don't even want to begin to treat my Candida because I don't want to go on that diet.”

Evan Brand: Yeah, that's just silly. You need to focus on getting rid of the Candida. As long as you're not

drinking maple syrup by the gallon, or doing honey every single day, or just putting coconut sugar—“Oh,

it's organic coconut sugar,” it’s still sugar—as long as you're not dumping that on everything, you're

probably going to be okay.

Shivan Sarna: Okay, alright. Good to know.

Evan Brand: Kombucha though, kombucha, I would not do because the worst Candida overgrowth I ever

saw was a woman who was drinking five kombuchas a day. She's like, “Well, it's fermented. It's good for

you.” Maybe, but not at this quantity, not at this time with your gut being a mess. So, I was like, “No

kombucha for six weeks,” and she got much better.

Shivan Sarna: Oh, good! Good. Yeah, timing is everything with this, right?

Evan Brand: I don't touch kombucha at all personally. I used to! I was addicted to it. It can be addicting

because there's some naturally-occurring B’s and Bravo vitamins in there. I don't know if it's the

fermentation process or what. But it's got that addicting quality to it when you taste it. It makes you

crave it. So, I just got off of it. I saved a lot of money because I used to love kombucha. I'd pay like four

or five or six bucks for some of those locally crafted artisan kombuchas, the fancy ones. And I don't

know, I feel great without them.

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Shivan Sarna: Good! You also have more money in your pocket.

Evan Brand: That’s true!

34:47 | Coffee

Shivan Sarna: Okay, so let's talk about coffee for a second because it's one of the things I ask almost

everybody I talk to. And that is you were talking about how it could have mycotoxins. I know people say

that it's cross-reactive with gluten to confuse the body into having sort of a gluten reaction. What do

you say? Or what kind of coffee if somebody's going to have a cup of coffee? Or what's an alternative

that you do as sort of this morning hot beverage ritual that a lot of people are really into?

Evan Brand: Sure! Well, my wife would love if I would just bow down and drink a bunch of coffee with

her, but I'm just not into it. I'm genetically sensitive to caffeine. I don't metabolize it very well. So I never

really felt good on coffee, probably because I was not doing good quality when I had tried it.

I think it can provide value for people… but depending on what's going on with their gut. If your gut is

super inflamed, super irritated, generally, we try to stay away from coffee just for a bit. I think most

people can do 6 to 10 ounces a day.

My wife likes to do the Rebbl company. They do these adaptive herb coffee combos. So, it'd be like

maca plus coffee and like coconut milk. Those are pretty good. You can get ones without sugar. So, if

you're looking for a ready-made option, those tend to be good.

In terms of beans, the brand Purity Coffee. Purity Coffee, they're organic. They test all their beans for

mycotoxins. So, if you dislike the whole bean grinding or roasting thing, then you could do the Purity.

I think if you were looking for replacements, the best would be matcha. I'm a huge fan of matcha.

Matcha is the same plant as green tea. But what they do is, towards the end of the growth cycle, they’ll

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take a big net and they'll cover the plants and shade them. And when you shade the plants from the sun,

it stresses them out like, “We need sun!” So, when they get stressed out, they'll actually produce more

antioxidants. They'll produce a little bit more caffeine and a little bit more theanine which is an amino

acid that helps increase your GABA levels (which is your calming brain chemical).

So, it's in a perfect caffeine theanine combo, so you can have mental alertness but you can still be

relaxed.

So, if you were to do much matcha, you'd want to do a ceremonial grade, organic (so it's not sprayed).

And oftentimes, the dose is like a really small spoonful of this green powder. You want it really bright

green. You mix that in with some warm (not boiling) water, maybe throw a dash of monk fruit or stevia

in there, and you'll feel great! Matcha is super good.

I would consider it neutropenic, kind of a brain vitamin, if you will. And you can drink it. And to me,

that's like my favorite thing. On a cold day when it's snowy outside, just drink a cup of matcha. It’s pretty

good on the throat too. And still, we haven't even talked about the antioxidant potential. It's huge! It's

way more potent in terms of antioxidants than just your standard green tea because of the way it was

grown. It's much, much more.

Shivan Sarna: So, what kind of creamer or milk substitute do you do?

Evan Brand: Yeah. So, the funny thing about the creamers—you know, they'll sell like coconut creamers.

But really, it’s usually just like coconut milk with guar gum and gellan gum and all these other gums. So

it's really just marketing the whole creamer idea. If you just buy straight coconut milk or straight almond

milk or hemp milk, you're going to save a lot of money, and you're going to get a bigger container. It’s

just not going to be called creamer. But my wife will use coconut milk primarily.

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We’ve got a three-month old. We found that our youngest, she was reacting to the almond milk. So if it

was in the breast milk, the baby would get a rash on her face from it. So then we switch to coconut milk.

And so far so good!

Shivan Sarna: What do you think about this craze? There’s a huge craze about oat milk.

Evan Brand: I've seen that. Yeah, I've seen there's a couple of oat milk coffee blends. I mean, maybe it's

cool, but oats are cross-reactive. Just as you mentioned, coffee is cross-reactive for gluten.

So, I would probably go for something like a coconut, which I haven't seen to be cross-reactive, over oat

milk.

Shivan Sarna: Yeah, people are loving it. But I’m scared too. I don't know, it makes me a little bit

nervous.

Evan Brand: Yeah, I mean hemp milk, hemp could supposedly be cross-reactive, but I haven't seen that

clinically either. So I’d probably go for one of those choices… or maybe just do nothing at all. Maybe just

like it the way it is. And if you need a little sweetness or something, throw in a couple drops of some

monk fruit liquid.

Shivan Sarna: How is monk fruit compared to stevia?

Evan Brand: So, some people have a weird genetic, I don't know if it's a SNP or what, where stevia tastes

like soap or taste really bitter to them. Some people say it tastes like cilantro. I don't know. So, those

people, I just push in the monk fruit.

Monk fruit has a little bit of a smoother taste to it I think than stevia. Stevia can have a weird aftertaste;

and monk fruit doesn't. And both of them are non-glycemic. So, if you're somebody who's trying to keep

your blood sugar under control—which should be every human alive, to avoid blood sugar roller

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coasters (because that's a stress on the body)—then you'd want to go for a more natural monk fruit

stevia—or even a combo, a blend of both can be good.

Sugar alcohols (we could talk about those since we're in this category now) with gut issues that we've

talked about today—erythritol, mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol—those can be issues. Anything that ends in -ol

means it's a sugar alcohol. And those can be problematic. So, people are doing more natural. Chewing

gum, for example, you could be doing like a xylitol-based chewing gum. It could be an issue. It could

cause bloating, burping, gas, so you probably want to stay away.

Shivan Sarna: Okay. Since we're kind of talking about food and sweet treats and stuff, what is your

favorite sort of sweet treat dessert that you find is pretty good for most people.

Evan Brand: Hmmm… so, it unfortunately does have cane sugar, I got to admit, but it's so good. I just

found it like a month ago. So it's called cado. And it's an avocado-based ice cream. It's delicious. The first

ingredient is organic avocados. And so, that's delicious.

And you only need a few bites of it. It's so rich that like a few bites and you're good. So yeah, it does

have sugar, but it’s hard to avoid sugar.

Shivan Sarna: Yeah. And it doesn't need to be demonized as long as it's within reason.

Evan Brand: Right! Yeah. And I mean how much sugar am I really getting in three spoonfuls of some

organic avocado ice cream? I don't know, probably not much. So I love it. My daughter, she just begs

me, “Daddy, ice cream!” You can have some.

Shivan Sarna: Awww… that’s cute. That’s really cute.

Well, we only have a few minutes left, but I'm really, really psyched to have learned from you today.

Thank you so much.

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41:32 | Final Tips from Evan Brand

Shivan Sarna: What would be some parting words to say to folks who are frustrated? They feel like

they've tried “everything” and they just need that sort of injection of hope.

Evan Brand: Sure! Well, I would say you may have done everything that you know about, but you don't

know what you don't know.

So, first of all, you got to get the data. So, if you’re working with me or somebody like me, make sure

that you're getting the data. My whole philosophy is: “If you don't test, you've guessed.” I did that for a

decade. I was like, “Okay, this herb can do this. I'm going to try this herb. Okay, this supplement. Okay,

that…”

And then, I have so many people—you know, mostly women—that say, “Hey, I heard this podcast or this

blog post or this new supplement that does this. Have you heard about it?” I’m like, “Erm, sure!” And so,

you chase these rabbit holes, but none of it is the root cause. Maybe it's a step better: “So okay, instead

of me doing ibuprofen which kills 17,000 to 20,000 people a year from normal dosing, instead of doing

Ibuprofen, now I'm going to go do ginger and boswellia and turmeric, natural anti-inflammatories. And

that's what I'm going to do for my headache.” But you still didn't get to the root cause of why you have a

headache.

Did you get your teeth worked on, and you have silver amalgams in your mouth? And when your dental

hygienist scraped your teeth around, you got some mercury. Now, you have mercury poisoning and

that's why you have headaches every day? You need mercury detoxification using chlorella and zeolite

and binders and charcoal. You don't need anti-inflammatories. Anti-inflammatories might help, but it's

not the root cause.

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So, I try to push people more towards the functional medicine model rather than the naturopathic

medicine because naturopathic medicine, in general, tends to be more symptom-supplement like

headache-turmeric, boswellia versus functional medicine says, “Okay! Headache, why? Are there gut

infections creating toxins?” like Candida produces a toxin called acetaldehyde similar to alcohol which is

why some people with Candida overgrowth may report they feel drunk or they feel spacey or they feel

woozy. It's because of this auto-intoxication, this auto-brewery syndrome. They’re growing yeast and

bacteria and alcohol in their gut.

So, rather than “Okay, you have Candida, stop eating sugar,” no, get to the root cause. Why do you have

Candida? Is it in your environment? What is allowing your gut to create those favorable conditions?

You’ve got to work backwards.

So, getting the data is step one on the motivation piece.

And then, step two, I would say, you got to keep learning. If you said you've tried everything, you

haven't tried the stuff we've talked about today, I can guarantee it. Otherwise, you wouldn't be listening

to this because you'd be on your island getting wafted by handsome men or women with banana leaves.

You would have had it all figured out, and you wouldn't be listening to this. So, I would say, no, you

probably haven't tried it all.

Shivan Sarna: Hang in there too, right?

Evan Brand: Right, yeah. You got to hang in there. There's no finish line. I thought there was, but it

appears there's not a finish line.

So, the goal should be rather to systematically reach the next checkpoint with your health. And

hopefully, from point A to point B, there’s some elevations in your health where you're kind of taking a

step up like, “Okay, my sleep is a little better. I'm a little more refreshed in the morning. I'm a little less

drained at the end of the day. I'm a little less irritable. My skin looks better. I have less pain” if it's like a

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psoriatic arthritis case we're working on. Or if it's an autistic kid we’re working with, there's less

outbursts. There's less motor tics. There's less biting of other kids at school.

When we look for those measures, as long as we're hitting the measures, we're in good shape. But I

don't think there should be this idea of, “I'll be happy or I'll be content when I reach this moment.” You

need to learn how to be happy and content and grateful for where you're at now and continue to

celebrate the small wins.

Many people forget—a lot of my clients, we just need to whip them into shape sometimes because

they'll say, “Oh, you know, I think I've hit a plateau.” And then we got to figure out what’s going on. We

say, “Well, look back at where you were six months ago. Your pain was a 9 out of 10. You cried every

morning, putting your pants on. Now, you're a 1 out of 10. You're back to playing sports. You’re riding

your bike. You're back on your horses. I think you forgot where you came from.”

So, don't get spoiled. When you see progress, celebrate that. Make sure you don't forget the suffering

and where you were before. So, when you look at your current problems, your current problems may be

less significant than your previous. And if you're chipping away that block of symptoms, that's always

good.

And then, check out my podcast. I've got like 300 episodes for free that I've been doing for seven years.

So I'm sure there's a topic you have. And if you have questions about this, I've probably covered it or

something similar.

Shivan Sarna: Yeah, a lot of Lyme information too. And I love that you've just done a full circle for us

back to the idea about suffering and what we can learn from it and how, hopefully, we don't have to

suffer to be motivated to learn, but just for the sheer joy of the commitment to ongoing learning and

being in that moment. It may sound corny, but it's so true. It's so true.

Evan Brand: Yeah. My advice is too, lastly, don't wait until you hit rock bottom before you try to fix

things. I've worked with many, many—it’s mainly men who are the stubborn ones. Women are all about

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health. They want to be better. They want to improve themselves. Be a better mom, better wife, et

cetera. Men are the one's like, “I'm fine! I'll just take the Zantac. I'm great!” It's like, “Okay, dude, I just

tested your gut. You’ve got 15 infections. You're not fine. With this H. pylori and all these virulence

factors, your risk of esophageal cancer and gastric cancer is way up. You’ve got tons of gasoline in your

body. Your mitochondria are toast. That’s why you're exhausted. You're not fine. Let me help you. I wish

you would have listened to your wife two years ago when she said get help now… because now, look at

you, you can barely make it through your work week.”

So, it's not about pursuing the ultimate health. It's, well, don’t you want to be a good, productive

member of society? Don't you want to be able to work, and then come home and still have energy to be

with your kids or your wife and cook dinner? Or do you want to be the guy who comes home and

crashes on the couch?

So, for me, it's all about quality of life. I really don't care if I live to be 150. Some people, that’s like, “I'm

going to live to 250.” It’s like, “Okay, yeah. If you feel great, sure.” But I would rather have quality. I want

to feel good. I want energy. I want my brain to work. I want to be able to converse with people. I want to

be able to experience the joys of life and look at the blue sky and appreciate how blue the sky is and

appreciate how green the trees are.

And if you're unable to do that, then what's the point?

Okay, you eat organic, but you're miserable. So what? I would rather have the healthy mindset and the

joy in life rather than, on a piece of paper, have everything be perfect.

Shivan Sarna: Amen!

Evan Brand: I hope that helps!

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Shivan Sarna: It does help, it does help. It really helps. And also, your own personal stories and all these

tips and all the research you've done in terms of lifestyle ideas… super helpful, Evan. Thank you so

much. I really appreciate you.

Evan Brand: Thanks for having me.

Shivan Sarna: Thank you.

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