Andra Sitoianu | Mitolife Radio Ep #182

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
heavy metals, body, aluminum, ascorbic acid, day, food, copper, supplements, research, kidneys, helped, good, histidine, dosing, iron, andra, supplementation, impact, started, vitamin

Matthew Blackburn 00:19
You are listening to Episode 182 of MITOLIFE Radio. I'm Matt Blackburn and today, today I'm interviewing Andra Sitoianu on Organotherapy, heavy metal toxicity, specifically aluminum and allergies. She shares her journey of having juvenile arthritis, ovarian cysts, and a son that couldn't tolerate her breast milk. So in this episode I recommend having your notepad ready because there's quite a lot of information that she shares and a lot of practical tips too. She talks about why she doesn't like raw liver. The effect that soaking liver and milk has on the copper status of the liver. And I asked her questions that you guys sent in, including the best ways to get heavy metals out of the body, or thoughts on saunas for detoxing metals, oxalates, eye floaters, ozone, how to detox barium, collagen supplements, Alpha Lipoic Acid, detoxing from the jab, alkaline water, dandruff, homeopathy, and a lot more. This episode's jam packed with fascinating information. So enjoy the show. Here is Andra Sitoianu. All right, we're here with Andra Sitoianu, almost had it. Welcome to the show.

Andra Sitoianu 02:02
The pleasure is all mine. Thank you for having me.

Matthew Blackburn 02:04
Yeah, yeah, this'll be cool. I love your posts that you that you put up it's - I really respect that you don't do, you know, dancing reels and lip syncing? Just really informative posts. And yeah, you really focus in on organotherapy, which is organ meats, right for health and heavy metal toxicity and food allergies. And does a lot of this stem from what you've experienced with your son - with when he had severe eczema?

Andra Sitoianu 02:38
Yeah, exactly. It all started with my son, the piece - the puzzles of the - the pieces of the puzzle actually started with my son but it started a long time before that, I believe. You know, we always look at things that happen in the first 60-90 days of the issue, but I truly truly believe it can even stem like decades and decades beforehand and for me, it was probably also from something in my childhood. I was born in Romania. So at the age of seven, I emigrated here, but prior to the age of seven, I had a very Eastern European, almost, you know, communistic lifestyle upbringing, we didn't have much. We did have a lot of farm so we were able to have our own chickens. We had our own pigs. We even made our own fermented foods. We were doing our own wine and spirits, which we still do in our garage in Canada, but that's another story. But yeah, so we had a really good upbringing, when it comes to food and nutrition it was always seasonally done. We ate a lot of animal based protein, a lot of dairy, not a lot of fruits and vegetables, which is really funny, because right now, you know, the Dr. Pete Dyer, the pro metabolic is all about that. But ironically, it's such a Balkan diet, and most Balkans could probably can attest to that because we're all about, you know, lots of dairy, lots of animal protein, and maybe some tomatoes and some peppers in there. Lots of fruit. But so we had a good upbringing in terms of that, but I did have a lot of health issues as a young person myself. I had juvenile arthritis, which nobody knew where it came from. At the age of four, my legs were shaking, I was always shaking, especially when I was running or when I was doing any extra kind of effort - activities, then that got kind of taken away by Western medicine and some injections, probably some steroid injections, which probably didn't help either. And then I had also some tonsillitis - so my tonsils were removed. I had some adenoids as well, and those were removed at the age of four and five, I'm not going to spare you the details of how they were removed, but there was rope involved and let's just put it that way. So yeah, so there was some interesting kind of times in my life, one portion of it was very healthy, very seasonal, always outside and then the other portion was a bit of - a lot of some health issues that now thinking about and probably had to do with some environmental aggressors that I probably faced in my life. And then that kind of carried on through my teenager years in hormonal imbalancements. So we came to Canada when I was seven, we discovered the Western, you know, way of eating, we had the purple ketchup, the all colorful ice creams, we - the blue Pepsi, you name it, we thought it was as innocent as the food of Romania, somebody was making it by hand in a beautiful factory, right? So we ate a very western society, staple diet and I definitely kind of got hurt by that as well for sure from a hormonal imbalancements, my PMS symptoms at the age of 14, were very debilitating, I was stinking, I was vomiting, couldn't go to work. And that's when the birth control pill kind of came in, unfortunately, as well. So it was 10 years on the birth control pill and the interesting part about the birth control pill in Canada, the difference with the states from what I understand is that the you know, there is iron in some of these pills, usually the placebo for you guys in the United States, but those pills are iron filled, but us and Canada, every single one of them has iron in it. So I believe the iron intake there was was really, really increased. And I did show some symptoms as well, I didn't know at the time. Now looking back, I kind of put the puzzle together. So I was on the birth control pill for a long time, then came time when I was around mid 20s. To have kids, I was looking forward, I stopped the birth control pill. And thankfully, but at the same time, I wish I didn't - I got pregnant right away. So I've never had a chance to kind of detoxify my body or put it back into homeostasis after the pill. And I do believe that kind of impacted my son. So that's what I'm saying when you know, we think things happen two weeks, three weeks prior to that health decline. But I truly truly believe it starts with a mother and this is why I'm so so bullish with my clients or anyone that wants to listen to me on social media. That's what kind of started this this profile to make sure that you take the time to understand where you are with your terrain. What are some environmental aggressors that you kind of faced and how you can go about to kind of just create more vitality and balance back in your body. So I'm, I'm there to assist or anything like that, you know, through social media or whatever, consultations or or DM's. Um, so yeah, so that happened. My son had swollen kidney swollen kidneys while he was inside me. I had ovarian cyst, one of them was the size of a grapefruit. It was - it was not - it was not the easiest pregnancy. And then my son when he came out, they had to put him on antibiotics because he had a kidney infection as well. So that probably destroyed his gut. He had cradle cap, very extreme cradle cap as well, for the first two, three months of his life. They said was normal 70% worldwide of kids do have cradle cap, which is a Candida overload that takes over the head. It comes in the form of a very, very thick crust of yeast. It can overtake the eyebrows as well, the tongue, and the throat and it's called thrush. They just said it was normal to comb it out right, the topical kind of requirements to to remove the Candida. I obviously did all of that it didn't work out. By the age of three months, you know, he already had some issues with gut, right, because of the antibiotics, the cradle cap was there. And then at the age of four months, that's when his health really really declined and just randomly could not tolerate my breast milk anymore. He was severely infected with eczema from one day to the other - pus coming out of his cheeks. Bleeding from every single part of his body, we had to put gloves on him at every point of his his day and night. So that was a really hard time in his life. My life was a bit stressful, but that's when I started putting the puzzle together I didn't understand what was going on. We didn't have any allergies, eczema, nothing like that in my family and in his dad's family as well. So that's when I started digging a little bit further and I started seeing that you know environmental toxins or just mineral deficiencies from the mother also not just from you know, the nutritional aspects or the environment being around fragrance or being around mold or whatever it is that the child might come into contact with but also the mother. Here you talk a lot about the Vitamin A part of it yourself. I talk more about the toxicity part of it, that I think I have passed on to him unfortunately. So then - yeah 100 food allergies later that were diagnosed through bloodwork, he couldn't even touch anything that was not wood so no plastic fork, no silicone tray, no chair, no carpet, no nothing everything would make him hive and and really feel it, you know, in a bad place. And now thank God, it took a year and a half of me applying some of the iron overload naturopathic principles, applying some of the organotherapy principles as well and now he's down from 100 to almost only six allergies, some of the biggest ones, nuts, seeds, nuts and peanuts are still there. Fish, unfortunately, as well is still there. And then dairy, which is the hardest one I find, emotionally and physically the bovine protein, he's a anaphylactic to any dairy product still at this point, but we're working on it. And I know I know at one point that we'll be able to hopefully get him back to a good place. So that's the that's the part - that's the, that's where we got that's how we got here today, it is also in a way, a Silver Lining because I would never be here if it wasn't for him, and what he went through so. Silver lining, I'm trying to carry compensate the guilt in a way for what he went through as well. So hopefully I can get to a place where he's back to being normal and thriving.

Matthew Blackburn 10:46
Wow, that's incredible journey.

Andra Sitoianu 10:49
A lot of details. I know, I really want to -

Matthew Blackburn 10:53
No, it's great. I'm curious. So it sounds like you had a pretty clean lifestyle when you were in Romania. But do you think a lot of the like, most of the exposure happened when you came to Canada, you got exposed to environmental toxins there?

Andra Sitoianu 11:10
I do I do, we ate a lot more gluten than we used to back in Romania, we probably also had a lot more you know, the birth control pill didn't help from a tender age of 12 - 14. I don't remember exactly at what point but it was very early on as well. That is a metal as well. Iron is a metal that we need to take into account, not just you know, the normal, the ones that we hear about like lead, KBM, mercury. So yeah, 100% of it came from - a bigger portion of it came from the Western world, because this is where where I get more sick than ever before. So and it accumulates right in the body and if you don't, there is a naturopathic kind of quote, unfortunately, it's not an easy one. But one of the ways to detox is having a child, you know, we say that often. And we see a lot of people being like, "Oh, I just got my eyesight back after being pregnant" like, yeah, the heavy metals that have accumulated in your eyes that you you know, you may have passed them along. And there is research that shows, Italian research that shows that the placenta has about 98% of the same metals that you have in your body, the placenta does accumulate about 98 to 80 to 90% of them inside the placenta. But the umbilical cord actually keeps about 50% and so there is a defense mechanism there applied, and then another 50% does go to the baby. So there is research that shows that heavy metal does - is transported from the placenta through the umbilical cord to the baby.

Matthew Blackburn 12:33
That's incredible. You made me think about that supplement Deer placenta, which I think is popular in TCM.

Andra Sitoianu 12:40
Yeah

Matthew Blackburn 12:41
I wonder I wonder if that's commonly contaminated with heavy metals, I guess it would depend on whether the deer or wild or farm raised and lots of factors there.

Andra Sitoianu 12:49
Right and probably also where it comes from a lot of unfortunately, the Asian countries when it comes to aluminum or mercury or even lead - kadian was more in America, but they do have more accumulation because of the industrialization of processes over there, it leaks a lot of the water system. So the Wilder, the better, probably a deer is more wild in that case. So if it comes from a wild sense, like ox also is a little bit better than beef and more supplements as well, because they come from a wilder environment, then yes, that should be better. But a hunt yes, placenta is also used in organotherapy to promote again that healing an organ with an organ by providing the blood flow and all the minerals needed to accommodate life through to a strong placenta. Yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 13:35
Wow. It's incredible. Yeah, when I moved here to this, this off grid property last year, there's elk and moose and deer that come every day that I see from my windows. And I remember last year I saw there's this giant bull moose shedding his velvet off his antlers. My goal is this year I will - yeah, cuz it's right in front of my house. And so I figure I can go out there, harvest it, you know, mortar and pestle it, do whatever, you know, capsulated if I want -

Andra Sitoianu 14:07
That would be amazing. We all know the great properties of pure velvet, right? So you have it right there for you. I would totally - yeah, it's probably a good - a good idea for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 14:19
Interesting, so 100 allergies, now he's down to six. That's - that's incredible. Have you tried, like you mentioned bovine protein? Have you tried goats, goat products and sheep and -

Andra Sitoianu 14:31
I did, I did even if I didn't take it. If I eat some cheese and I just kiss him on the cheek, he will hive so he's very, very sensitive to any of these of these - these proteins, unfortunately, he he is still he's getting he's definitely making some progress. It's worse than before I can kiss him and now hives less so it's an indication for me that perhaps his inflammatory markers are lowering down. But again, we did work - the kidneys were really the focus here for me. I was I was trying to understand why his kidneys were swoling so much. And, you know, we look at the gut a lot for food allergies, we say heal the gut heal the gut. But the gut itself, you know, the leaky gut aspect of the gut is an interesting take because the lining of the gut takes three to four days to regenerate itself. So at the end of the day, if you are working on a leaky gut, but it still keeps on opening up, then is the problem the gut? Or is the problem and environmental aggressors, something that's happening in there, that's probably impacting the fact that the joints are continuing on opening, even if the cells are regenerating. So I kind of left the gut a little bit alone, and I focused on some of the other organs, I did work with some naturopaths, here in Montreal, and my focus was - their focus more on the liver, my focus was more on the kidneys and I definitely think that I brought a little bit more benefit to this. Because the kidneys are also the ones where heavy metals are most of the time, accumulating, and also filtrated with something like aluminum, which is the most abundant metal in the world. And, you know, that was my focus there. Because I thought, you know, the aluminum, I probably ingested throughout my life through my water intake, you know, medication, anything like that has probably passed along and we have research that shows it goes to the placenta and the umbilical cord. And swelling of the kidneys is a side effect of aluminum toxicity. So I kind of got into aluminum toxicity from that perspective. And again, the kidneys because of the swelling, it kind of it kind of told me there was something happening over there with - with some heavy metals. When we look at aluminum in general, it also has a lot of different applications on Iron metabolism as well. So I know that you know, somebody that has food allergies, or eczema, in general do have also tendencies to be anemic. And we don't know - understand why most of the time because they - they are most kids do eat a protein rich diet, most of the time they do enjoy having meat. So the anemia from an iron perspective is probably not what's happening with what I'm thinking right now. I'm thinking more it's from an iron metabolism, where aluminum gets in the way. And how does it get in the way? Is through limiting the transportation, it's really blocking the way for the aluminum to get into the transfer import, it has shown clinically to be blocking that pathway. So the fact that you're not you were blocking the pathway for it to get to the oxygenated state, probably that aluminum again, it's still stuck somewhere, right? It's just not going anywhere and it's not going anywhere. I'm thinking from a mineral deficiency perspective, I think it's going it's not going anywhere and it's kind of not recycling because it has these environmental aggressors in them, like aluminum has shown to be impacting iron metabolism. So that was another perspective of it as well. From the eczema perspective, we know that you know eczema is a very hard one to heal, no natural products going to tell you it's going to take two weeks, three weeks. It's an onion that needs to be peeled. And one of the onions that I found that has helped tremendously and nobody thinks about is a protein that's called filaggrin. I don't know if you've ever heard of the filaggrin protein from a skin perspective. So the filaggrin protein is a protein that the allopathic medical industry says that we don't know how it's been altered. I don't know either, because there's no really research about it. But we know in 10% of the humans, especially European descent, it's been altered through genes, but I believe it has some environmental impacts as well. Filaggrin is a protein that binds keratin fibers together. So the skin when the filaggrin protein is altered, that's when the skin starts erupting. When the skin starts erupting into a - atopic dermatitis, that's when the allergens can come in from different places and orally and get into the bloodstream where you know, the body sees it as an attack. So the filaggrin production is made by an amino acid that's called L histidine. L histidine is an antagonist to histamine. So it all again relates to kidney health right there. We've seen research that if you supplement or just have foods that are rich and L histidine and you have atopic dermatitis, you have a 40% increase chance of healing and getting over the atopic dermatitis - symptoms. So that's what I did, I worked on histamine release, I worked on bringing the antagonist to histamine by providing L histidine. And this is where organotherapy really helped me because I was able to get desiccated kidneys into his - supplemented to his nutrition. I did use desiccated because at the time I was unable to find any kidneys here in Canada. Montreal is not somewhere where organs are very popular. So but desiccated - I was able to get desiccated and so that was able to add that to every single food he was having. It was oatmeal or fruit puree. He was having kidneys monthly every single day for that L histamine. L histamine is also found in desiccated liver, again, so if you're having some liver, you're also getting some of those properties from amino acids. And I think, you know, we, we often think about liver and desiccated organs from a mineral base, we tend to forget about the amino acid profile that is super, super important with with organs especially in from an animal based protein diet, that most tend to not really look at, but they're making a very, very big impact on our immunity and our - our, you know, trying to balance dysbiosis so that's what happened here I linked the eczema to protocol filaggrin and that was lacking by a deficiency in L histidine. L histidine. What is deficient because of heavy metals, research shows it creates histamine, histamine is the immune response to food allergies. So by making sure that he has the proper L histidine in his body, his histamine started to reduce and the fact that also there's the DAO enzyme in desiccated kidneys, I was able to kind of kill two birds with one stone there and provide some strong, strong foundational for his kidneys. We've done some also ultrasounds, his kidneys are starting to close very nicely. So I know that once you know we're working on closing his kidneys, perhaps a food allergies are also going to be with time - stopping to to appear.

Matthew Blackburn 21:18
That's incredible. That's really cool. I want to I want to research the filaggrin protein now.

Andra Sitoianu 21:22
I have all the all the links, it's really cool. There's not a lot that you can feed it. But you can see that L histidine is the only thing that I have found that and collagen. Collagen is a really good one as well. So, both are found in animal based protein. So keep eating head to toe and you'll be good from an eczema perspective. If if you have those issues, I would highly recommend looking into L histidine. And filaggrin protein.

Matthew Blackburn 21:47
That's incredible. Yeah, I was raised with eczema and I had eczema before I had acne. And maybe they fed into each other, but usually on my inner arms and my mom, we had aloe vera in our backyard in California. And so she would cut off a leaf and then we'd fillet it and then she would just rub on the aloe vera. And it would sooth that so well. But we never got to the root of it and I was technically kind of vegetarian vegan for most of my life for the first two decades. So I would imagine I was getting almost zero histidine

Andra Sitoianu 22:23
Probably, yeah for sure and you know, when you're looking at the meridians, the TCM Meridians, the inner arm, and especially like the back of the legs, all those are like the kidneys, the kidney meridian. So that's also I got kind of to the bottom of he was having a lot of back of the hands and underneath eczema patches that would just not go away. And that's how I also was able to kind of put the puzzle together with PCM meridians of acupuncture to understand which organ needs help and that when is those meridians or kidney meridians.

Matthew Blackburn 22:53
That's fascinating. That sounds like all the bases covered. Yeah, the did the DAO enzyme to you know, I've had Morley on like, I don't know 12 times and he he always talks about that diamine oxidase and how it's copper dependent. And then I had Jason Hommel on my show a few times and he's been doing a lot of zinc research. And I think a little bit of Vitamin C. And I kind of delved into it, I guess that that enzyme that deactivates histamine, it's not only copper dependent, but zinc and Vitamin C dependent as well. So there's those three, and I'd imagine all three of those are in kidneys, probably.

Andra Sitoianu 23:34
Right, then all three of those are immune protectors, right? They help with redox. They help build immunity as well. And also they work synergistically, aluminum, impacts the metabolism of all those ones, magnesium, Vitamin C, and zinc are impacted by aluminum toxicity as well. So if you're having aluminum kind of stuck inside your body without being properly expeded through urination, you will have some impact on your zinc levels on your iron and your Vitamin C levels.

Matthew Blackburn 24:03
Wow. So what are some aluminum sources because I often think like when I got into health like 12 years ago or whatever, and I started researching heavy metal toxicity, I was like, thinking about all the sodas I drank growing up and yeah, you know, it's really like the phosphoric acid with aluminum can. I would imagine that's going to cause some leaching, right?

Andra Sitoianu 24:26
Yeah 100% Most of them come from exactly aluminum foil, aluminum cookware, ceramics. A lot of cosmetics, a lot a lot of cosmetics for women in general. A lot of cosmetics have a lot of heavy metals in them especially lead and aluminum, of course dental fillings, deodorant, so back in the day, we all used to wear kind of those aluminum, salts, deodorants, and medication as well. Medications is another one

Matthew Blackburn 24:54
Wow. Yeah, seems like in medication, they put all everything right. You get fluoride, you get iron a lot of the time, you get aluminum.

Andra Sitoianu 25:01
Yeah, with medication, you really need to read the insert list. Let's just put it that way. A lot of clients especially, I've been writing a lot about fluoride these days. Halogens have a really huge impact on thyroid health, on iodine deficiencies as well. So I've been kind of researching that zinc and copper are also super impacted by fluoride and halogens. And yeah, 100% there's a lot a lot of fluoride in antidepressants, anti acids, a lot of a lot of medication.

Matthew Blackburn 25:27
Yeah, I think often people wonder how they're so deficient in everything. I mean, that's generally what I tell people when they, you know, it's not their just defficient in a few things, they're probably deficient in both copper and zinc, right, not just copper. And a lot of these deficiencies come from, like an excess of like, you're talking about aluminum and other heavy metals, right? It just places the minerals.

Andra Sitoianu 25:50
So yes, we do talk a lot about soil. But I do believe you know, there's, there's a second layer to this, I agree that the soil you know, the copper has no more - the soil has no more copper, but I think you know, we - we are abundant around us of zinc. But why is it not metabolizing and synthesizing well? This is where we need to be focusing more on a little bit like Vitamin D as well, you know, aluminum actually impacts parathyroids and Vitamin D conversion, aluminum, cadmium all interfere with active D, called Serato. So if you have aluminum toxicity, you'll have a harder time making Vitamin D.

Matthew Blackburn 26:31
Oh, that's interesting. Yes, I know, magnesium is required to to convert, there's probably more cofactors I imagine to convert, you know, like D3 to 25D to 125D, but I didn't know that aluminum impacts that that's interesting.

Andra Sitoianu 26:48
Yep, yep, yep, it's in the parathyroid, it completely unpacked the - synthesizers of power thyroid VTH. Conversion, so that once you have that your calcium levels go up, your Vitamin D goes down properly, and you're you're having a harder time making active D, there's actually a lot of things you can do for active D to to make it in a better place with, you know, natural, natural, naturalistic, and one of them is looking at to your heavy metal load.

Matthew Blackburn 27:17
Yeah, it's such a complicated one, like I've had Jim Stevenson Jr. on, I think three times and he's just so smart. He's been looking into this for years. And like, just getting my mind, you know, or people's mind around that you can have too high of active D, and that's indicative of a infection. But there's probably so much nuance that goes into that, too.

Andra Sitoianu 27:41
Yeah, that's one that I've tried to research and wrap my head around it, but it's, I'm still - I'm still researching it. But I what I've researched though, is how they make synthetic D. And it's very interesting, where, you know, most of it comes from lanolin, and we all know that. But the sheep, how do the sheep make Vitamin D if the sun is not even hitting their skin, right. And it's all it has to do with their hair. What they do is they actually leak a lick - lick with their tongue, they lick their hair, which that secretes, like a fat - have a fat or special fat on their on their tongue, which secretes a precursor to Vitamin D on their hair on their sheep's wool. And then when vitamin - when the sun actually hits that precursor, it transforms into Vitamin D, then they lick it back and that's how they get Vitamin D inside their body. It's a whole ecological system. And it actually works a very similar way for us as well. We have a sebum like we have a little oil coat on our body, that is the precursor to cholesterol and to Vitamin D to active Vitamin D. And research has shown that if you wash even with water, you can remove that - that Vitamin D precursor from your body. So you're having a hardest time synthesizing if you are somebody that is too clean in a way, because you have not none of the oil that is needed for sunlight to make Vitamin D.

Matthew Blackburn 28:58
Wow. Interesting. So I wonder if if you're going to, you know, sun bathe on your porch or your backyard? Maybe it's better if you shower first and then go out there.

Andra Sitoianu 29:08
Exactly, it takes up to three days for your Vitamin D to start synthesizing inside your epidermis. So that also kind of tells me how come you know - what is the impact of synthetic D? How do they - how does the body kind of absorb it and what rate is the normal rate by the sun? It takes three days for us to produce it. Then you know the synthetic - How long does it take? I know to make Vitamin D takes about 20 minutes I believe in UVB ray lights, I think the green the green shades of the UVB that they used to make synthetic D out of it. So it seems like the synthetic D, they're doing it at a very fast pace and our body is - we can have such a slow pace almost 72 hours it takes to fully synthesize into active D. So that also I'm kind of looking into it to see what is the difference here between the ways that are produced normally by our body and the way that you know synthetic Vitamin D is done and how can it impact - in relation to calcium in our body or just just get to that active state in our body.

Matthew Blackburn 30:06
Interesting. Yeah, I got heat for the Rosita cod liver oil containing Vitamin D, because they're saying I'm promoting Vitamin D. Now it's it's kind of funny, because that's a food source. Right? It's balance.

Andra Sitoianu 30:22
Right, right. I saw that. Yes, I am aware, I don't think I think there's a big miscommunication because I don't ever I've never heard you guys ever say that you're not promoting whole food Vitamin D, then you would stop promoting mushrooms. Like olive oil and all those fat soluble like milk. So I'm not sure what the miscommunication were there, I think we're all agreeing that whole food Vitamin D is, is good to go. It was more probably the synthetic one that most people have, you know, an approach to it. And no, we're still debating that one right?

Matthew Blackburn 30:55
Right

Andra Sitoianu 30:56
But, towards the eczema and the aluminum, you know, the fact that you know, any, any skin issues that you have that is acne or psoriasis, or eczema, you know, Vitamin D is impacted by that, right, we know that the levels of Vitamin D inside your body will impact the skin health. So you know, the fact that the heavy metals do kind of impact the parathyroid that produces Active D, then what does that say also about, you know, the fact that your skin is probably open from the fact that the aluminum also is taking over that conversion. So it's pretty multi dimensional when it comes to heavy metals, you can really kind of look at it from every single organ, every single hormone every single layer of your, of your body and probably make improvements and by just helping the elimination.

Matthew Blackburn 31:44
Yeah, I think about Accutane too, I was never on that for acne, but that Synthetic A that's prescribed for, you know, for that skin condition, and how A and D are joined to the hip. Which is Interesting so -

Andra Sitoianu 32:01
And it interferes with metabolism retinol, I do have some research on that. So if you're taking Synthetic D, you will be having a hard time metabolizing retinol.

Matthew Blackburn 32:13
With aluminum, I wanted to ask you, have you looked into this the silica connection? Because yeah, I've been taking like liquid silica off and on for years. And that seems to be almost identical to aluminum, right to where aluminum will display silica, and silica can-

Andra Sitoianu 32:30
They work synergistically. Yeah, they do replace each other and they do have very similar properties. They work very, very similar. Similarly, a little bit like aluminum can replace iron inside the iron metabolism, as well. So yeah, but I did give my son silica and it did help. It did help. Silica is a natural compound, it's you know, I know Fiji water is very promoted because of silica inside of it. And some communities have seen benefits from drinking. The plastic bottle might be a, you know, another deal with that maybe if it came in glass it will be more interesting perspective. But silica has helped, and we do have, you know, again, the research and the articles behind it to say that it is a aluminum chelator somewhere.

Matthew Blackburn 33:09
Yeah, there's the good one. I like living silica or Gono, I think I've seen him at the Health conferences over the years. And I think it was discovered in Spain, and the guy got like, blasted by the medical mafia, because he was helping a lot of diseases with it and they didn't like that. It was like a very specific liquid form.

Andra Sitoianu 33:29
Oh, I didn't know that. Okay, that's interesting, very cool. Yeah, I can understand why when you're disrupting a bit, the environment. You're gonna get a little backlash, but it's helped a lot. We, most of the chelators for aluminum are very hard on the body and most of them the ones that are used by the medical society is the same ones as the ones that are chelating metal. And we know that those come with some big big side effects. So silica is a is a more gentle one on the body to excreted. There's also chlorella, coriander also has impacted has impact on on heavy metals in general aluminum as well. So yeah, there's there's a bunch of plants that you can work with, or even homeopathic remedies that have silica inside of them that could could potentially help as well.

Matthew Blackburn 34:14
So I know on your website, you offer hair tissue mineral analysis tests, and I've heard mixed things about that. Like some people said, it's just, it's only good to see if you're a slow or a fast oxidizer. And then, you know, some people say it's absolutely worthless. And then a lot of people have had on the podcast, I think mostly women offer it and they've said it's been proven to be effective with their clients when they get them on a supplement protocol, and they see their levels change as expected on the HTMA. So just curious, your general thoughts on it and your experience with it.

Andra Sitoianu 34:51
My experience with it from a personal perspective, and that was pretty accurate. But again, you have to take that metabolize - metabolism, in fact, you have to see if you're a fast oxidizer or slow oxidizer in order to understand, and I don't think you can use just that personally, you really need to look into the nutritional perspective of it, or the lifestyle perspective of it, what has been some of the health issues and family history behind it. And I think just by itself, HTMA's are, are enough. And also sometimes you do need to retest multiple times to understand because if no heavy metal shows, that doesn't mean you don't have any heavy metals inside of you, right, it just means that perhaps you're just not - your detox pathways are not open or you're somebody that doesn't metabolize them well, or you haven't done anything to kind of move them along. So you need to retest after a couple of supplementation to understand, you know, if they're, if they are coming out in a way if your detox pathways are, are open, and if that supplementation is targeted, but I did see it help, especially with my son, if he did show some heavy metal toxicity on it, the ones that I was already kind of thinking about one of them would be aluminum. So I for a personal perspective, I am biased because it did work for me in a way.

Matthew Blackburn 36:06
I still want to do one, and I'm surprised that I haven't. I mean, I haven't done a lot of tests and slowly gonna get back into it. I've only done like two full monty iron panels. And I think years ago, I did like an inside tracker, it was like a 30 marker test. And I'm curious where my testosterone's at right now because back then it was like, like it was like four years ago. It's like, almost 1300, which is pretty good. Yeah. But I think it was I think it was taking a lot of elk antler and-

Andra Sitoianu 36:42
Yeah, for sure, you know, the more data we have, the better. We do have a bit of red tape in Canada, actually, when it comes to data, and especially markers like serum markers, blood markers, we don't have access like this something like a full monty panel. For us, it's not easy to have access to something of that of that kind of detail, unfortunately. So the more we can get the betters and HTMA something that has helped me because of the red tape on other kind of functional tests that we're not really able to, to get our customers on; We work with what we have. And most of the time it's working out well for us and we do have a lot of positive outcome.

Matthew Blackburn 37:18
Yes, that's so wild. Have you heard Morley talk about like the active ceruloplasmin assay? And he says you can't get that in most countries you have to go to Spain -

Andra Sitoianu 37:28
Yeah. Well, I don't know what countries they are but next time I'll be in that country, I would love to know my levels for sure. Yeah, I don't - I am pretty sure Canada, you can't. Just about getting Vitamin D in Canada, is almost impossible. It's very, yeah. Like my doctor has to tell, you know, has to put on the lab that have chronic diarrhea for me to get Vitamin D on my level. It's like, yeah, they they're not very open to markers, especially if you're a healthy 30 year old. It's very limited, unfortunately.

Matthew Blackburn 37:57
Wow. That's pretty sad.

Andra Sitoianu 37:58
Yeahj, yes, we work with some labs in in the States and in Europe that are open to having clients internationally and doesn't give us a lot of red tape. So that's good, we were able to find hacks and different laboratories where we can get some data going. And most people do like to see that, oh, let's be honest here, you know, especially when it comes to a natural - from such an allopathic Western, you know, mentality. Sometimes data does provide a sort of relief for, you know, a little understanding, even if it's not 100% accurate, like food sensitivity tests, you know, they have a 60% false positive rate. But you know, the fact that sometimes they see something like that, it kind of gives them a good kind of confidence of what it could, you know, could potentially happen in the long run if we go along with supporting this type of data. So, most people are open these days, it's nice.

Matthew Blackburn 38:46
That's a good point. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, Andra, what are your thoughts on whole food, like actual organs, versus the desiccated supplements, then I guess, if there's a nuance between like raw and cooked, some people prefer raw liver, some people prefer cooked liver.

Andra Sitoianu 39:05
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of raw, raw liver for me, I just, I don't find blood in general for me, it needs to be removed from an organ in order to be as clean as possible. Blood is usually where we find a lot of some of the impurities. So for me eating raw blood is not something that I approach or recommend. So just lightly actually searing it for me it's doing enough I don't think that you know that bioavailability that's getting lost in the heat you know, are we really going to count blueberries here like we're bodybuilders you know what I mean? I don't know if you know the gain is a good one. And at the same time, if you're somebody that soaks your liver into milk, where in where you're chelating your copper which is very ironic, because lactoferrin is higher copper chelator so if you're soaking in a milk, you're kind of also removing some of that micronutrients. So you know, a lot of people I know they're shooting it with milk, which I find a little ironic but then they'll blast desiccated, which were all kind of even, you know, we just have to choose the best way for us. But it is true that there is a manipulation of oxidation when you are using, let's say desiccated versus dry freeze. Yes, I did research that because I wanted to make sure that you know, I get the best of the best for my kids, and desiccated has shown to be a lot more oxidized, the vitamins have been shown to be reduced by that heat. Because the heat is a very long heat, it takes about 40 hours for something like desiccation or even a normal dry freeze to happen, it takes about 40 hours for it to properly get to a place where the product is final. But there is other ways to do it with dry freeze that is done in plate freezers. They're done actually in New Zealand already and that cuts the production time for 40 hours to 12 hours. So you're really conserving a lot of the desiccation minerals in some of the - excuse me, the dry freeze oxidation, you're really blocking it from happening when you're really cutting down almost 60% of the cooking time by doing it from a plate freezing perspective, which is done in Australia right now and New Zealand beef and organs. So that's the one I usually go towards to.

Matthew Blackburn 41:16
Wow, yeah, I've noticed - like the popular brands, they seem to be freeze dried. But I know some of the ones they carry in like the health food store. Usually health food store supplements, I tell people just suck and they're not worth it. At least in the States I don't know how it is up there but most of those are probably deciccated. Yeah-

Andra Sitoianu 41:35
Right. Yeah, we have like 10% of what you guys have. So trust me, it's not it's not the best quality we have here. So yeah, we have to go for more medical grade or naturopathic grade or something a little bit more small, like perfect supplements, you know, they do third party testing on all of them and I think that's super, super important. But like Shilajit, you know, I know you do it for your Shilajit, you know, you have the test right there on your website, which I really, really commend you for because a lot of people don't. And I feel like anyone that does desiccated liver should have their third party tests on their website, just to show us that, you know, there's no heavy metal accumulation. I've heard I believe - who was it on your podcast, recently that was talking about copper levels not being even showing any more in liver?

Matthew Blackburn 42:20
Oh, well, Morley's mentioned that and then I've been kind of repeating that to guests to get their thoughts. Because we just assumed that the nutrients are in the whole foods and that, you know, that's a really depressing thought to a lot of people and kind of a shocker, you know? Even with animal foods, you know, because it's like, okay, maybe plants aren't good, but the organ meats have to be good, right?

Andra Sitoianu 42:43
Right. Yeah, because I think most of these days unfortunately, supplementation because they're not regulated, we, we also want to keep it a little bit this way, but at the same time, doing what's necessary by providing some third party testing would probably bring you to a better level in terms of confidence and by the customer. So I always try to look for that as well. I've messaged Rosita, I've messaged all my supplements, like I know all the ingredients, the percentage and all of them because I think it's important to know. And from a food allergy perspective, I've already do that for 90% of the foods my son eats, I call the company to know so it's just kind of another you know, give me your also your third party testing and my following on social media really appreciate that I do that for collagen. I do that for protein powders. And I put them online and most people you know, when they see something like that they feel a little bit better, especially because they don't know it can be contaminated with especially heavy metals.

Matthew Blackburn 43:42
Yeah, I think I've told this story a few times to my podcast, but I think it was like five years ago when I was mainlining Shilajit powder. I went on like I think it was Etsy website, one of those. And I bought like a kilo of Shilajit powder and I was all excited because it was so it was dirt cheap. And it was probably literally dirt mixed with feces because I felt like I started to get like flu like symptoms within a couple of weeks of consuming it every day.

Andra Sitoianu 44:12
Oh my god

Matthew Blackburn 44:13
And that's the only thing I changed. I'm like, okay, the quality was Shilajit really matters.

Andra Sitoianu 44:17
Right, right. Yeah, I agree. I agree. 100% It's super important, especially Shilajit.

Matthew Blackburn 44:24
I want to ask you about lactoferrin because you said with the milk and soaking liver in milk - that's kind of ironic and lactoferrin chelates copper, because I know lactoferrin also helps with with iron overload, right, but I have not heard that it actually removes copper. That's interesting.

Andra Sitoianu 44:42
Yeah it also is a chelator of copper as well, because copper and iron are again very, very similar and they were kind of synergistically together and fortunately one comes with the other as well when it comes to lactoferrin. I did research a lot of lactoferrin because I do have a lot of kids that come to see me, and some of the supplementation that you know, was it made for adults, it unfortunately cannot be dosed for kids. So one of the best ones that I was able to find was lactoferrin base, which is colostrum. Colostrum, which is you know, the first food we say, you know, it's such a superfood, it's very very high and lactoferrin almost the double of just normal breast milk or milk in general. So colostrum also has shown a lot of research to help with iron overload from a more gentle perspective, you know, not the blood donation, not, you know, added copper sulfates to your kids meals or anything like that, by just doing a quick supplementation protocol with like - with colostrum around it, you're able to come down immensely in the IL-6 iron, which is the inflammatory pathogenic iron. There was actually a research that was really cool done in Italy, I believe, on pregnant women that were anemic. And they found that they gave them a supplementation of colostrum versus a supplementation of iron of synthetic ferrous sulfate iron, and they found that both of them actually helped a little bit with serum levels of iron. But colostrum was the only one that was able to lower the IL-6, which is the marker for inflammation and pathogenic use of iron. The normal iron, the synthetic iron just gave - just didn't budge that IL-6. So that actually shows you that supplementing with iron does not really - it helps potentially with anemia, but it does not help the most important part of it, which is lower the pathogenic kind of communication, now we know that iron is used for bacterial and fungal communication as well, using EMF, sensory kind of sound, sound waves and EMF are used on - kind of telephone poles between bacteria on iron. And I believe that's what happened to my son in terms of cradle cap. His cradle cap, which is obviously fungal based, was using the iron overload that was probably dumped from me, into him, to supercharge and rebuild and make more Candida out of it. It's called Quantum sensing. It's a brand new branch of science right now that uses - it came out of necessity, because medication does not do any more the job that it's supposed to do, antibiotic resistant, fungal and bacterials have started to appear. So now they're trying to look at another way of killing these bacterial infections, or fungus infections, Candida infections, and they've discovered that they speak inbetween each other they use communication called Quantum sensing between each other. And that communication is made mainly on literally the biofilm - is the biofilm which is the the binding that they do together and they kind of proliferate through biofilm uses iron to proliferate. So I'm assuming that's what happened to my son in terms of cradle cap. He was - he literally had the fungal in his body, which we all do have that usually is dormant had so much food in terms of communication, telephone post, which is iron indicates that he just overloaded with it. So somebody like my son was not able because he was allergic to dairy so I wasn't able to do colostrum for him. But most of the kids that come see me or clients that come see me, I highly recommend colostrum to cut the communication and cut that iron, cut the feeding of the bacteria.

Matthew Blackburn 48:23
Were you guys exposed to like electromagnetic fields? Because I've heard that, like, puts Candida on overdrive. Did you look into that connection?

Andra Sitoianu 48:32
So that's the one that's quantum sensing. Yeah, that's what exactly what it is, it uses EMFs. Doris Loh kind of opened my eyes to this about two to three years ago. She talks a lot about quantum sensing, ascorbic acid helping being an inhibitor of that, and quantum sensitivity is exactly that. It uses iron to proliferate by sticking each to each other through EMF and using kind of the pole - the fiber optic is iron in a way between each other. Wow, that's That's fascinating. Yeah, Doris's work is it's it's kind of hard to understand. It's kind of like years ago and I used to listen to to Jack Cruz and read his stuff. Right, yeah, im still deciphering Doris Loh [Audio cutout] have like a good hour to myself. But if you see her on a podcast, she is the most eloquent class, she speaks so well. It's very easy for her to understand her more when she speaks than when she personally writes. So I would highly recommend a couple of podcasts from Doris Loh - Redox quantum sensing she - she's really good on that stuff and I've learned a lot from her. Now I'm applying a lot of these cutting Candida infections, yeast infections, iron overload from some of these quantum sensing inhibitors that she put me in the past to find. And ironically enough, which is funny but I don't know if Ray Peat knows this. I wonder, I would love to ask him but carrots are actually an inhibitor of quantum sensing. So it blocks the EMF communication between bacteria. So I know he uses it from a fiber perspective, you know, destroying the endotoxins in the small intestine, but it actually also is an inhibitor of quantum sensing. So it blocks the bacterial communication.

Matthew Blackburn 50:17
Wow, that's fascinating. And I'm gonna have to grow a lot of carrots up here.

Andra Sitoianu 50:20
Chamomine has them, vanilla, garlic, and then ascorbic acid

Matthew Blackburn 50:29
Yeah, that's the triggering one right there.

Andra Sitoianu 50:31
Yeah. Depends where you are in the world. Right?

Matthew Blackburn 50:37
Right. Yeah, like the, like the situational context application of, of supplements, like you mentioned, copper sulfate a few minutes ago, and I've kind of backed off high dosing it because it was fun to you know, take a ton of it. And I think it's situational. Like maybe if I was, I don't know, under a lot of stress and traveling, maybe that's the time to use it. And I think it's cheap, you know, it's one of those things that you can make yourself at home. You know, for pennies that I think if someone's minimum wage, they can't afford anything. I think it's a good start.

Andra Sitoianu 51:17
Right, right. I haven't, I haven't dosed with it yet. I'm gonna be very honest, I'm still looking into it. Again, I'm such an ancestral nutritional kind of pro that to me, like doing such a big intake of a vitamin doesn't really go into with what I'm preaching right now, and also, I don't believe I really truly need to be dosing with 75 milligrams of copper a day - but I'm not there yet. Honestly, I'm more working towards you know, having a strong foundational base when it comes to you know, even redox or you know, making sure that some of this halogens and heavy metals are taken care of before I'm adding more vitamins, because if your vitamin intake is high, but again, you have these blocks of synthesizing like we're seeing with Vitamin D we're seeing with iron, we're seeing with iodine deficiencies from chlorine, if you're having a high intake of fluoride, then what are you really - where are you really putting all this stuff you know, do you really believe it's going to get into the active form? If you do when you see great results that amazing but I personally try to clean the house first before you know adding the you know, the penthouse or whatever you want to call it - the making sure it's you know, upgraded so that's that's why I try to work with people first and then if they want to and kind of go and venture into that realm I'm very very happy to join them and let's let's discover together but at the beginning I'm just kind of keeping it more in the traditional way. Cleaning the house making sure you know there's no blockage in the kidneys, no blockage in the liver, making sure your thyroid is strong and healthy. You have you know, all the filters to be blocking, the halogens coming in you understand where you know some of the heavy metals are coming from and making sure that those are easily eliminated. And you know, if there's time for them you know, supplementing with - mega dosing of something, by all means. Most of my clients are not there yet I would say for sure.

Matthew Blackburn 53:11
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely extreme I appreciate like Morleys conservative approach to you know, just small doses if you're going to take a copper supplement like two milligrams and for people that are sensitive especially. And I think one of the best things is if you're growing food like put copper sulfate on your seeds to ensure it's in the soil right and in the plants.

Andra Sitoianu 53:30
That's smart, I didn't think about that. That is very smart. I've been doing gelatin from amino acid. I haven't done copper sulfate that's actually really good idea. Very good idea.

Matthew Blackburn 53:41
Yeah, I'm really excited to put up that that growing dome the next few months.

Andra Sitoianu 53:45
Yeah looking forward to that one.

Matthew Blackburn 53:49
Put some lodestones in there and see see if I can grow some interesting food.

Andra Sitoianu 53:54
Goats like know that you're gonna maybe eat the (unintelligible) but like putting in their water or anything like that?

Matthew Blackburn 54:00
Yeah, one of my friends on on Facebook he was saying with his goats he used I think the copper sulfate powder with Dolomites and I think Pat Colby that wrote the book, "Natural Goat Care" talked about that, that dolomite combination with something else but - yeah it you can OD on copper sulfate especially the powder and so I'm very careful to not kill my goats like I really want to research it well first.

Andra Sitoianu 54:33
Of course yeah, I was just thinking you know you're talking about the copper being so deficient in the liver or in the organs, so now you know it's making me wonder you know how we can increase perhaps because copper sulfate is also given to you know, it's an organic pesticide that is used mainly for winemaking in Europe as well. So it is something that has been around for a long period of time. Of course, traditional - those traditional ways they to stay away from it, especially when you're you're ingesting grapes, or wine. But I think it's actually very, it could be very beneficial. So it's been used clearly it's been used in these past couple of decades to remineralize the soil.

Matthew Blackburn 55:09
Yeah and I think they use it for cleaning ponds and lakes. Like I think I'm gonna put it in my lake at some point where, but it's very, it's a very weak solution. I think it's like one pound for a spray bottle and you just like, or I don't know, so many ounces, and you just spray it on the surface.

Andra Sitoianu 55:25
Got it that your fish are like-

Matthew Blackburn 55:29
Super charged.

Andra Sitoianu 55:33
Yeah.

Matthew Blackburn 55:35
So what - so you mentioned iodine? I just actually funny enough, a couple hours ago, received an iodine book and I'm starting to delve into that.

Andra Sitoianu 55:43
Brownstein? Or who is it?

Matthew Blackburn 55:45
He did the foreword in this book. I can't remember who wrote it. But I have a bunch on the way and I'd like to have a whole show on it. Because I used to dose the lugols topically, I think that was doing that like 10 years ago. And I stopped and then I started doing tons of oysters and up here, it could be kind of hard to get oysters and so I do desiccated. And then I just wonder if I'm getting enough iodine and it's interesting when I dose it, I do feel a change in my energy.

Andra Sitoianu 56:18
Yeah, I have recently started dosing with it too. I definitely do believe it is important. I know Ray Peat speaks a lot about it, that there's no deficiencies, it doesn't really exist. I don't know what Adam thinks about it. I think he also is very similar in mentality if I'm, if I believe so. But again, I'm wondering if they're taking consideration all these new halogens that are placed in our waters - that do impact or iodine levels by a lot. So I'm starting to wonder if people really take into consideration the - not only the deficiencies, but why are the deficiencies coming in? Or if we do have excess? Is it truly excess? Or is it mimicry? You know, is the chlorine mimicking iodine? Because I know it can replace the same properties of iodine inside our body. So I'm just trying to see you know, where most people are headed at and what - how we can improve somebody's life by perhaps, yes - it's sometimes you need it, you need iodine and sometimes, but I would never start with iodine first for people, you know, I would make sure that precursors are well well set, you know, they have good sodium levels, good potassium levels before kind of making - you know, that second step into giving them a little bit of iodine here and there. You know, I think the precursors are also very important.

Matthew Blackburn 57:36
Yeah, absolutely and I think the context too, like, I don't know how many, how many other people like, were like me that snuck into hotel jacuzzis with my friends, you know, once or twice a week and used in a super steamy, chlorinated jacuzzis and then pools and we had one of those above ground pools in my backyard growing up in my childhood home. And you know, we had that little floating duck releasing the chlorine in the water. I got exposed to chlorine for the first two decades of my life and so I imagined my iodine needs are different from someone that was, you know, raised in the ocean or something.

Andra Sitoianu 58:17
Right, right. And naturally, the way that we can actually see is through the, through the, under the eyes, if you're under the eyes are very purplish we usually have - you probably have a little bit too much fluorine or halogens inside your body. It's a way of indication for us that your intake of halogens are a little too much and probably impacts your iodine levels.

Matthew Blackburn 58:39
Interesting. I'm going to start looking at people now when I go to like a doctor or something.

Andra Sitoianu 58:42
It can tell you a lot you can see iron overload in the face. You can see potassium levels in a face that the face - face mapping is a really interesting way of seeing if people have some deficiencies or excesses.

Matthew Blackburn 58:56
Yeah, that was one of my favorite things about Dr. Cass Ingram. He just recently passed. I had him on the show here a few times. And he had a book called, "The Body Shape Diet" which is my favorite book from him. He talks about people being - I think like a adrenal type of thyroid type, or a combination type. And all the different types basically had their different bodies say, I think the carrot was adrenal type, like a pear shaped body was like a thyroid type. And then he would use like the length of the fingers. Like since my index fingers, both of them are longer than my ring fingers. I'm a straight adrenal type according to him.

Andra Sitoianu 59:41
Okay. Yeah me too. The body can give us a lot of information like exactly as you said, yeah, the pear shaped body can totally see it right the thyroid where the excess estrogen. You know, the tummy area has like four times more receptors and cortisol and estrogen than anywhere in the body? So the pear shaped types 100% makes sense with the thyroid, and, again, when we see clients that come in with their little X's around the tummy or the hips, we know that there's a little bit of progress that can be made to support the thyroid function.

Matthew Blackburn 1:00:11
What do you use for potassium for clients? And I've been looking into the requirement because a lot of people in the metabolic community will say that it's around four grams minimum a day. And that seems like a whole lot. And then some will even say it could potentially be more than that. Maybe 10 grams a day, depending on stress, you know, previous stress, current stress - stressors coming in, which raises our potassium needs. And of course, there's sodium and magnesium, but I feel like potassium often gets forgotten about, like, I did that for years where there's just magnesium, magnesium, magnesium, but I probably wasn't retaining it right, because I didn't have let alone boron and all these other things.

Andra Sitoianu 1:00:54
Right, right. Yeah, we - I usually do around two for women, I try to keep it a bit more conservative and try to work on like you said, the the precursors of potassium and the cofactors of potassium as well, like the sodium levels as well, to make sure that they're balanced well, but I do - I do use about two grams, apparently a day, two to three grams a day. For most, I work a lot with women, so most women, but your increase does intake, you need to take more like almost 500 milligrams extra, if you're breastfeeding, or you're in pregnant - you're pregnant. So it can vary between two to four.

Matthew Blackburn 1:01:31
Yeah, up here in North Idaho, where there's not much fruits except for a certain time of the year, otherwise, I'm relying on Mexico fruit. It's really hard to get potassium. Like I was wondering how indigenous people did it up here, because we have, you know, a short berry season so you can always, you know, store those - whatever. But, you know, maybe honey, I don't know.

Andra Sitoianu 1:01:56
Yeah, honey is a is a source as well. Um, that is actually a good question - how especially they were doing it? Very good question. I would have to like look into that because - because we forget that we're in a supplement world, we're like, oh, yeah, we just supplement with everything right. But going back ancestrally, we should be looking at - maybe a little bit of fish, perhaps.

Matthew Blackburn 1:02:18
I read the requirements were lower, right? Back then.

Andra Sitoianu 1:02:21
Oh, definitely, the workload was higher, but I definitely believe the stress was lower for sure. For sure, for sure, for sure. But also there's potassium bicarbonate in the water as well. Like spring water has a lot of potassium in it, especially for the carbon and potassium. So you know, there is a little bit of that too and a lot of these indigenous places they did use a lot of dairy as well you know, as in Romania, or usually our K came from lots and lots of dairy, lots of it, especially aged cheeses and stuff like that in the winter, that's when they ate cheese it's kind of our more prolific and because you made them in the summer, you're able to have some in the in the winter and you know, we know that potassium comes a lot with aged cheeses. So in Romania was more towards that - we had a lot of that. That's for fermentation process and that aging process of our cheeses eaten during the winter times.

Matthew Blackburn 1:03:12
That's great. Yeah, whenever I eat pasta, I make it like a delivery for cheese

Andra Sitoianu 1:03:21
Yeah, same here. Yeah. Son is a bit hard because he doesn't eat cheese. So unfortunately, I eat cheese when he's not around. Unfortunately, it's very, it's not the best ideal but I definitely try to intake my cheese, my milk. Like this year, I was able to find raw milk in Canada, which is a bit hard thing to do. So I was able to get a good supply of that. I'm very happy and hopefully my son will be able to be on it too, soon.

Matthew Blackburn 1:03:47
That's awesome. Well, we have a ton of questions. I was telling you started recording. Do you want to jump into some of these?

Andra Sitoianu 1:03:52
Yeah, sure

Matthew Blackburn 1:03:54
Okay, that yeah, there's a ton. Let's see. Best way - what's the best way to get heavy metals out of the body?

Andra Sitoianu 1:04:04
Well, it really depends which one but definitely working on opening your detox pathways, especially your kidneys working on kidney health, making sure your potassium and sodium levels are right - way especially potassium levels, making sure you have plenty of water and then it depends on every single heavy metal - there's a plant usually for it. Like we said silica can be a very good killer for what's it called for aluminum peripherals actually from green tea also has shown chelating properties on heavy metals as well. We do have coriander is another one as well. So there is - you can easily find plants that can help with heavy metal chelators. I personally use TRS I know it's a very controversial one. It's just because we didn't have much back in the day, in Canada, so we did use a zeolite synthetic zeolite to help my son for a very small amount of time - not a lot at all. I did it for two months and that greatly greatly helped us in terms of heavy metal detoxification. But now I would highly recommend maybe a natural zeolite and not a synthetic zeolite that can be easily found.

Matthew Blackburn 1:05:14
Yeah, my my favorite use for the zeolite especially the liquid or I guess you could use the powder and just hydrate it is in like your hiking bag for first aid. Like if you ever get like a cut or a scrape, it's great blood clotter

Andra Sitoianu 1:05:28
Very, very, very, very 100%. I am a big fan of zeolite. I know there's a lot of backlash on it. But if used well, with guidance, you can really make some good stuff - good stuff happen.

Matthew Blackburn 1:05:42
So when asked about your thoughts on sauna for detoxing heavy metals, are you a fan of this sauna therapy in general?

Andra Sitoianu 1:05:48
Yeah, yeah, um, we recently purchased a space sauna. So I was very fortunate about that. And with my son, especially, we really wanted to make sure that he has access to a sauna. Saunas are more built for heavy metals do help, but it's more for mold. I would say. Mold is more usually porous. It comes from the skin - heavy metals as well. If you're opening while also having a good binder, zeolite a little - a little silica your body prior to going to the sauna. But yes, 100% a sauna should help. We're supposed to be at all points, especially during the day, what's it called - the sweating, sorry. And that's something that we have completely lost an art of because we just don't move as much anymore, especially in the winter times when it is the most important because again, that quantum sensing communication is used by heavy metals. So the fact that you're always in the way of kind of chelating those through a sauna would be a great way to building immunity. So huge, huge fan of sauna.

Matthew Blackburn 1:06:48
That's an interesting point about the mold. Maybe that's why I feel euphoric because I was raised, I just did a mold post about, you know, with ozone therapy, and I was raised on a beach house for 20 years. And I'm pretty sure I had heavy mold exposure that I'm still I'm sure dealing with at some level.

Andra Sitoianu 1:07:05
It is one of the most underrated environmental toxins because you don't usually see it around your house but a lot of people have a lot of mold -- symptoms, rashes, hives, food intolerances as well. It can be - can be some of the symptoms you find with mold, but again, because you don't see it, most people don't believe you when you say like, you know, you should look into mold than they go, "No, it's okay." You know, I'm like okay, you have all the symptoms,

Matthew Blackburn 1:07:31
Right? Brain fog is a big one, right?

Andra Sitoianu 1:07:34
Huge, huge - neurologically heavy metals and mold really really impacts your neurological and cognitive connective performance.

Matthew Blackburn 1:07:46
What are your thoughts on coffee enemas?

Andra Sitoianu 1:07:48
If used well, and with guidance, I think they're great. I think we have - how can I say this a little bit casualized it personally. I don't think everyone should be doing a coffee enema especially not using the right coffee and these days again coffee is not what it used to be anymore; Full of pesticides and heavy metals as well. So making sure that you're getting a proper coffee to use to get inside your liver is very, very important. But yes, in terms of severe dysbiosis it is it is recommended to be - to be done.

Matthew Blackburn 1:08:23
Yeah, I think it's a great first aid. I still get made fun of for my ozone rectal insufflation Yeah, whenever they say rectal, you know

Andra Sitoianu 1:08:32
Yeah like suppositories, most medication was going up there. You're going through that. It's totally normal to be using that pathway.

Matthew Blackburn 1:08:45
Yeah, to me, that's kind of where I draw the line. Like I think the the whole biohacker space which I keep my finger on the pulse of it - they're like really heavily reliant on IV drips and suppositories. I think you don't really need either of those most of the time.

Andra Sitoianu 1:09:01
I agree. I agree. 100%. I'm not sure mega dosing, I'm starting to see that, you know, supplementation should be done in a very smooth, smart way and taking your time. Just like food, right? Supplementation should be mimicking the rhythm of food somewhere down the road. So having high doses, unless you're really severely in need of something like that, for most people I agree with you that it should be spaced out and used in a more timely fashion. Not everything needs to be rushed. You know, you don't need like 50,000IU whatever. We can we can work our way now in a better way synergistically with our body.

Matthew Blackburn 1:09:36
Yes, I saw a Dave Asprey story on social media on Instagram the other day and he had a Ziploc bag and it looked like it was like 50 pills in the bags like wow. It's like every day.

Andra Sitoianu 1:09:50
Do you even need food at that point? You know at what point do you be like it is - it is pills. You know? Are you using you know, like I do agree and I promote supplementation, I think it's very important, especially these days, with organs, Whole Foods, whatever it is that we need to make sure that you're in a better state. People don't have that time anymore to cook, people don't know how to cook anymore. People don't have access to good whole food. So supplementation is needed. But when you're starting to have bags of them to, you know, live, it's, we should be questioning some of your practices. And also, if you understand really the synergistic kind of compounds between minerals like you're for sure, creating some excess and deficiencies by having bags of vitamins.

Matthew Blackburn 1:10:36
There's probably some D3 in there somewhere.

Andra Sitoianu 1:10:39
I don't know if he's been on that but I wouldnt be surprsied.

Matthew Blackburn 1:10:41
Kind of on the same topic of coffee. Someone asks about sensitivities or allergies to caffeine, like the reasons for that, have you heard of that?

Andra Sitoianu 1:10:55
Hormonally probably, you're just not able to withstand the high rate of cortisol coming inside of you. Or perhaps the pesticide because coffee crops are one of the highest sprayed pesticide crops in the world. So perhaps you're having an allergic reaction, or an allergic intolerance to the pesticides from the coffee, the water should be filtered as well. There's definitely ways that you can perhaps try by having probably a little bit of milk in it to make sure the cortisol is not impacted very highly or having an organic one with filtered water. You - people should try different ones. But I don't think that an allergic reaction to coffee is something I've heard in my practice or in my research. It's more hormonal based or environmental allergic to the toxin or the aggressor.

Matthew Blackburn 1:11:42
Um, let's see, how can you recover from severe oxalate intolerance? Have you looked at the oxalate topics? I know a lot of the carnivores say they're poisoned, right? Like potatoes.

Andra Sitoianu 1:11:57
Right, right. Severe oxalate - Again, like I said, the kidneys are often often often left behind, we focus on guts we focus on liver, but most of the excretion from obviously urination goes through there. So if you're having issues with oxalates, I would highly recommend getting on an organ, organotherapy, desiccated kidney, making sure you know your histamine levels are well managed, making sure your sodium and potassium levels are well placed as well. And then cooking your food probably should be another way. You know, if you have issues with oxidation, just cook your food, make sure that you know that oxalated state is broken down by heat. And most of the time most people have less reactions to it as well.

Matthew Blackburn 1:12:42
That's great. This is a really broad one

Andra Sitoianu 1:12:44
Oh yeah?

Matthew Blackburn 1:12:44
Yeah. 8 year old son with ADHD said ODD maybe they made like OCD, I don't know. It said like lead toxicity, maybe what to do is - have you heard of like a certain heavy metal or toxin being associated with, like attention deficit, if that's a real diagnosis.

Andra Sitoianu 1:13:07
Right, right. It's - It depends who you're asking. But there is definitely environmental aggressors into play. And I have done heavy metal tests, hair mineral tests for kids with ADHD. And most of the time, there's a heavy metal that comes out of them. What's interesting with kids with hair mineral tests is that most of the times they're all fast metabolizers so you're able to see what kind of comes out of them - because nothing is kind of hidden, they're able to kind of excrete whatever minerals or vitamins or heavy metals, they burn out of a bigger rate. And I have seen mercury, aluminum, and lead on hair mineral tests for kids associated with ADHD and it makes sense because aluminum and iron is used for the brain. It's - that was manganese, the manganese iron kind of connection and the fact that the aluminum mimics iron inside the brain. The balancing manganese and iron kind of metabolism has shown to be an issue with focus. So again, a quick - I, you know, there is certain products out there for kids that have a focus tincture, so it's made with plants that promote focus that also includes something like chlorella in it or a silica, very gentle. A lot of new products are emerging right now that take this into consideration, especially heavy metals for kids. You can easily find them out there.

Matthew Blackburn 1:14:31
That's great. Um, let's see, eye floaters? Is that related to heavy metal toxicity?

Andra Sitoianu 1:14:38
Um, I would - I would say so I would definitely say so. Mercury is a big one. Cadmium is also something we've seen for eye. I know - you know, Vitamin A deficiencies mainly are also important for eye health as well. I know I've seen I think Adam using copper sulfate to -- put a couple of drops in his eyes to see if it - if it works for him. I'm pretty sure he had some good, some good outcome from that. But yes, we've seen it because again, those pregnant women that have their babies and oddly enough, their vision gets better afterwards, gives us an indication that there was something probably there that was blocking vision pathways that now was removed. And, you know, the vision has been restored. So we do believe that heavy metals can get anywhere inside the head, the head is usually a big, big culprit of heavy metal toxicity.

Matthew Blackburn 1:15:37
Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned manganese before, because I know - like tap water in a shower is a huge source of manganese that people don't think about, like a lot of municipal water will be loaded full of manganese.

Andra Sitoianu 1:15:49
Right? Yeah, it is a very under - under discussed mineral, and it has a lot to do with it, just the breaking the balance, a gentle balance in manganese, could potentially do a lot of different dysbiosis in the body. We've seen a lot of links to Lyme's disease, especially, and also a cognitive decline in the balance between manganese is - is there. So yeah, it's a very gentle one that needs to be urgently kind of approached.

Matthew Blackburn 1:16:20
Let's see. Thoughts on oral immunotherapy.

Andra Sitoianu 1:16:24
Um, in terms of food allergies? Yeah, yeah, I'm doing with my son. I am. Using all the all the trades of the books I am currently doing with my son. It's been working extremely well for us, especially since he's so young. He's almost - he's only four years old. His immune system hasn't built yet to a foundational ground where we can really modulate it anymore. So we we've been using it yes, I've been giving him micro dosing peanuts, micro dosing elements, micro dosing, sesame seeds, he's, he's, he's micro dosing a lot of stuff every single day. And it has been helping, so I highly recommend, if you can find an allergist that can can help with that and facilitate that - that service for you to get on it.

Matthew Blackburn 1:17:09
That's great. Let's see a lot of how to detox heavy metal questions. That's about a third of them. We had one on ozone as a mouthwash - wash which I don't know how it relates, but-

Andra Sitoianu 1:17:34
I'm gonna be very honest with you. I know it for cancer therapy. I know it for mold therapy, but for mouth therapy, in what sense? In the sense of pathogenic parasites inside the mouth?

Matthew Blackburn 1:17:44
I guess, just for for dental. But yeah, I was curious, anyway, to talk about mold and fungus if you had researched ozone therapy, because it seems to be pretty effective for those.

Andra Sitoianu 1:17:56
Yes, it's very effective, very effective. I've seen many, many articles on it. I've seen many anecdotal, successful stories about ozone therapy, just using the ozone chamber like - it's like a sauna, looks like a sauna, you kind of get inside and you get a little -- mega dose of ozone has really helped like that. They put towels underneath them and you see the mold coming out like you see black around the towel. It's so it's very easy - if you can - if you're able to find an ozone or have a product that can that can facilitate you to intake ozone. It's a great one.

Matthew Blackburn 1:18:35
Any thoughts on barium? Someone asked about that.

Andra Sitoianu 1:18:38
Barium -- Yes, barium is also pretty prolific in in our environment as well. It doesn't have much cognitive issues. It's more towards the kidneys and the liver so it can impact your cholesterol levels, it could impact your high blood pressure levels as well. But yes, it is important to also keep that by -

Matthew Blackburn 1:19:00
Let's see. Are mail order food allergy test kits accurate?

Andra Sitoianu 1:19:05
No, they're not. No, they're not - the skin test, even the ones that you do at your allergist has about 50 to 60% false positive results. So you have to be careful with those because you don't want to limit your diet from something that has such a false positive results. Usually orally is the best way to understand the symptoms if you started having gut issues, histamine reactions to it - or obviously anaphylactic reactions through it would be the best way to do - is to do it orally because the skin tests are not accurate at all and I'm even wondering if some of the allergies that my son still has because we're doing skin tests, unfortunately, we haven't given him orally everything or even accurate at this point. So it's not - it's not a tool that I would personally use for my clients.

Matthew Blackburn 1:19:50
What are your thoughts on collagen powder because I know that's blown up over the years and they asked you know, bovine verse marine and just your overall thoughts on taking collagen.

Andra Sitoianu 1:20:03
So I have absolutely - I have a new kind of thought about it because collagen, Doris Loh actually speaks a lot about it to keep the redox in balance, she speaks a lot about Vitamin C being one of them, that you need to be, you know, keeping in a balance, but actually collagen is she called it birefringencey if I'm not mistaking, birefringencey is again, something that keeps the redox into balance and collegen is one of them. So she's a huge promoter of it and I do believe that it could have its place, I do like it when it comes to the cofactors. Copper's a cofactor to it. Vitamin C, of course is a cofactor to it. So if you can find a product that has also cofactors to the to the collagen powder, then you know it is in a better in a better place. I use it for my clients also from a protein intake, a lot of women coming out of veganism or vegetarianism and need to take a little bit more protein, it doesn't have as much protein as protein powders. But it is something that, you know, this does provide about nine to 10 grams of protein per scoop. So I do use it in my practice to kind of make sure that they do have a little bit of protein intake in the morning. They like the fact that also it helps aesthetically. So that also helps them but I do use it, I tried to obviously use whole foods. But in certain cases, especially when somebody comes from a non based - or non animal based diet, it is an easier way to ease people into it.

Matthew Blackburn 1:21:20
I have a question for you that, since we've mentioned it a few times like ascorbic acid. Have you experimented with - like was it Doris that changed your mind on the whole food C, versus ascorbic acid, because that's a very popular train of thought right now that, you know, ascorbic acid is not Vitamin C, to describe that, you know, but all the literature though, shows ascorbic acid. And that's what Linus Pauling was talking about. So I'm just curious if you had any personal experience, like not getting results with whole foods C and then trying ascorbic acid and getting better results or-

Andra Sitoianu 1:22:03
Right so I did, I did use it, what I use right now is actually ascorbic acid plus bioflavonoids. When you actually mix ascorbic acid - ascorbic acid from Whole Foods and ascorbic acid from you know, just a synthetic version of it, is the same; Chemistry wise is the same. The only problem is that it doesn't come with the bioflavonoids, right, the trypto - the copper, I mean, but what we have found is that when you recompose bioflavonoids with ascorbic acid, you remake it into a supplement version, ascorbic acid actually has 35% more increase in power. So it's very strange that the synthetic version of it actually has a better outcome than the whole food version of it. Okay. For me, because I am in Canada, I definitely make sure that I time my ascorbic acid intake for my - because, you know, I don't believe I need ascorbic acid that much in the winter. Okay, the sun, the sun is not there to kind of, you know, how can I say this, my epiderm is not burned by the sun like somebody in Costa Rica is or anything like that. So for me to protect myself from any kind of redox and balance the ascorbic acid in the winter, it just doesn't make any sense for me. So I definitely reduce my food intake in the winter. From a carb perspective as well, we've seen that kind of - it helps a little bit as well from ascorbic acid mainly. But in the summer, because I am you know, outside most of the time, we do have a lot of - a lot of EMF around me as well, especially since I'm living in an urban area, I have given it to my son as well, because EMFs have shown again to be proliferating, needing bacterial communication, and candida overload. So I do give it to my son to make sure that that redox and also the bacteria is kind of kept at bay with ascorbic acid.

Matthew Blackburn 1:23:56
Yeah, it's interesting when you said synthetic version actually has a better outcome than the Whole Food version. I wonder how many - how many things that applies to now because of this how our world is and it's a really interesting point,

Andra Sitoianu 1:24:10
Right, right. Most people don't want to admit it and I don't want to admit it myself or somebody that's so based in you know, we made our own foods for most of my life, we made unfermented - you know, we came from somewhere where the food was very, very much in need. But unfortunately, these days, it's just the whole food - the whole food scene is just not what it used to be anymore. And also we're kind of - this you know, we're not taking our environment to account I believe that much we're not eating - you know, I know I'm not promoting to eat seasonally all the time. But there is you know, a circadian rhythm and there is the sun and a time when most foods should be taken in a version or not. And then ascorbic acid is something that you know, I'm more prolific and when the sun is out and it is summertime and in the winter we kind of keep it more -- at bay and working on other things like potassium or of course rich foods like onions and garlic, which is antifungal or anything like that. So it really depends on the supplementation. I definitely agree with you on that.

Matthew Blackburn 1:25:17
Let's see. Alpha Lipoic Acid for chelation? Have you ever looked into that?

Andra Sitoianu 1:25:21
I haven't because I definitely want to use other - other things, more herbal things personally, but I do know that it's used in most supplementation, but it's not something that I've actually researched that much. I'm gonna be very honest, I've been more researching about whole food versions of chelators.

Matthew Blackburn 1:25:42
Let's see we just have I think a few more here. Must be some that missed - that I missed here. Gadolinium? Have you looked into that - gadolinium.

Andra Sitoianu 1:25:53
No I haven't. I will though - I will come back. No, I haven't looked into that, unfortunately. I'm sorry.

Matthew Blackburn 1:26:00
Yeah, this was a complicated how to detox the gadolinium contrast from MRI.

Andra Sitoianu 1:26:06
Oh wow

Matthew Blackburn 1:26:13
Let's see based our posts on sebum and pufa, what causes influx of sebaceous cysts.

Andra Sitoianu 1:26:23
Just like act D, we have seen that increased intake in polyacid which comes from unfortunately, polyunsaturated fats, just change the calcium levels on the epiderm. So yes, we have research that shows that an intake in polyunsaturated fats will make a dysbiosis in the calcium levels in our epiderm which will create acne, pimples whiteheads and unfortunately cysts as well. I definitely do agree that perhaps you know a quicker systematic enzyme probably protocol with you know, a little bit more of saturated fat behind it to remove some of this fibrosis; A little bit of ascorbic acid probably as well should be maybe recommended in terms of cysts especially whatever a cyst I'm more towards going enzymes, and switching the - making sure your topical creams have more saturated fats and more saturated fats to them to not kind of change this, we really changed our sebum SAP content throughout the decades. And I think it has really impacted our Vitamin D levels, as well has really impacted our calcium levels. Again, that filigree production for eczema has probably been impacted by sebum. dysbiosis, switching from saturated fat in the 1950s to now probably a huge increase in polyunsaturated fat.

Matthew Blackburn 1:27:40
Yeah, it's interesting, because there's a lot of like proof of free skincare products out there now. And I've had some women tell me that their skin does better on PUFA products than it does on the more saturated fats. And I wonder why that is like, what variables are involved? It's really interesting.

Andra Sitoianu 1:28:01
You know, some of the power of polyunsaturated fat oils that are used in skincare also have a lot of antioxidants behind it, there's no more questions about it, there is some seeds, especially raspberry seed oil, anything that comes from fruit seed oil - is often found in both antioxidant effects and polyunsaturated fat. So probably the seeds are short term results being you know, into an increase in antioxidants. But the polyunsaturated fat is still kind of lingering around, right? It has been absorbed by epidermis, accumulating, right, probably creating some oxidative stress and you're not really connecting the dots that your melasma has, you know, probably something to do with the polyunsaturated fat inside your sebum right now, or the fact that you are burning at a higher rate in the sun because of it. Aging also has been increased, because we haven't taken our polyunsaturated fats. So it's a short term result and then there's a long term result that I think people are kind of disconnecting between it.

Matthew Blackburn 1:29:00
This is a controversial one. Detoxing from the V - the jabs

Andra Sitoianu 1:29:09
Right, right, it has a lot to do more with iron overload than we think. From what I gather, we see a lot of the ferritin markers after getting something like that and M&R - MRNA technology as an application, we see your ferritin levels really, really increase. Some people think that that's why you know there's so some side effects with cardiovascular disease afterwards. Others have a lot more infections happening where they feel chronically fatigued, or they have a lot more of sickness after something like that. So I would highly recommend focusing on iron levels and making sure that those are back to where they're supposed to be. And you're probably going to be ok - some colostrum get some colostrum in you.

Matthew Blackburn 1:29:53
That's great. Does alkaline water help?

Andra Sitoianu 1:30:00
No, I don't unfortunately believe so. No, I think you know, we have a pH that is on the acidic side of things and alkalizing the body's probably putting it in dysbiosis of our natural state is on an acidic side of things. So I don't believe that an alkaline water filter is probably the best way to go, I would probably focus on re-mineralization, making sure it has all the you know, all the stuff that we don't want, like the halogens out of it before, you know, focusing on $5000 machines.

Matthew Blackburn 1:30:35
It's a good point. Yeah, years ago, I think it was six years ago or so I learned about the different acid buffering systems in our body. And I think there's like four of them but we have like the bicarbonate buffering system, the protein buffering system, and then one or two more that I can't remember. But people just rely on this like external source of like, you know, ionized water to buffer acids, but it's like, what about your alkalizing minerals? What about your magnesium? Potassium, which is it's nuts I just learned today that citrate actually converts to bicarbonate, because I was anti citrate for a while because supposedly has an effect on copper, but it will actually convert to HCO-3 bicarbonate ion, which is an incredible buffer for excess acids, so.

Andra Sitoianu 1:31:27
Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know about that. Okay, cool - good to know.

Matthew Blackburn 1:31:31
Yeah, I think our body uses bicarbonate to neutralize stomach acid after we're done digesting our food. So it's an important piece.

Andra Sitoianu 1:31:38
Right, exactly. I think so. Right? Exactly, exactly. I'm not sure you know, for water especially, you know, as soon as it hits your probably acidic body it's over - that pH has been changed as soon as it hits your gut. So I'm not sure it's really something that would - I would probably focus more on fruit juices that probably have more alkalizing effects by having you know, some of this antioxidants in them or something like that. But I - no, not the water

Matthew Blackburn

What water were you raised on in Romania? Was it like well or spring?

Andra Sitoianu

Yeah, well, water Straight from the well. So a lot of calcification in my area. My grandmother had like, literally stones coming out of her hand. Yeah, she thought it was silver and gold. That's what she was telling us as, as young kids, but it was clearly calcification stones from from all those hard, hard minerals.

Matthew Blackburn 1:32:27
It's so sad because if only those people had like a sediment and a carbon filter, like the solution is so easy and cheap. And actually electricity free. That's what I'm going to do here. Being fully off grid like no pumps required, just in line, and they're very cheap media that removes the iron, the calcium, even some of the bacteria.

Andra Sitoianu 1:32:50
Yeah, yeah. Listen, they still live until you know 90 - 100 years old. They're a bit stoneage you know, there hasn't been (unintelligible) So it is what it is.

Matthew Blackburn 1:33:03
Yeah, maybe Shilajit - no -- I think someone actually asked me about dandruff this morning I saw, "Is dandruff caused by food allergies or vitamin deficiency?"

Andra Sitoianu 1:33:20
I have linked dandruff to low thyroid function personally because the fact that your blood circulation is very much needed by - very much assisted by the thyroid function. The fact that there's no oxygen going to the head a little bit like we have symptoms of hypothyroidism linked to dry skin in the face. Well the same thing kind of happens also for the head, the joints that comes with hyperthyroidism or any kind of thyroid dysbiosis is also linked to dandruff as well so if you have chronic of it, it's probably has to do with your hormonal imbalance when I will look into the - into you know supporting your thyroid function. Bring some of those fat soluble vitamins back in your A, your K, your E.

Matthew Blackburn 1:34:07
Hmm. That's great. Yeah, I think some are in the house. I still have that - that metal head massager. Have you ever seen that? That's supposedly - the scalp massager?

Andra Sitoianu 1:34:18
Yeah, exactly. I've researched a little bit about you know, hair loss and anyways, that was very controversial on Twitter. A lot of men are very much very sensitive about that topic, I realize by making a post about hair loss in general, but blood flow in general is very important for the head and also the right fat. The fact that polyunsaturated fats those accumulate also on the head, do exasperate again eczema, acne as well but acne there is more like a cystic oil coming out of your head probably as well more you know, oily head probably has more polyunsaturated fats that is needed for for head sebum.

Matthew Blackburn 1:34:56
Interesting. Yeah, and I wonder how much fibrosis plays a role. Because the more irritation and inflammation you have, and I know heavy metals go largely up to the head and the brain like that's probably causing a lot of scar tissue.

Andra Sitoianu 1:35:09
Oh, yeah, that's a good question. That's actually a very good point. I didn't research that part I was researching more like, like with lipofuscin is very, very much prominent in men that are balding. So I was kind of going towards that and trying to see if you know, heavy metals, oxidation, polyunsaturated fats, but that is actually a really good one to - got a good direction there.

Matthew Blackburn 1:35:29
What are your thoughts on homeopathy and bioresonance for heavy metal -- heavy metals and histamines issues

Andra Sitoianu 1:35:38
I have used by a bioresonance actually my mentor naturopath uses bioresonance to find dysbiosis and that's how we found the heavy metals in my son. So I've had really good even anecdotal but also my personal success story for bioresonance has been a really good one. I was able to - we were able to find also when another family member line, Lyme disease as well. So there is there is something to it, you know, the electricity, we all have energy now that I'm really researching quantum sensing and the fact that you know, we are, you know, 10 microbiomes for oneself, you know, we're more bacteria than we think, and they are talking and we do have you know, EMFs that come into play from a communication perspective into them. So 100% we are energetic and bioresonance, to my knowledge, is a good tool - it's a good tool. Yeah, homeopathy, as well. But homeopathy has a lot of psychological behind it, you need to spend a good three, four hours with a homeopath. Go through some emotional traumas, go through whatever happened in your life, and then they are able to kind of make a dosage for you based on what - what has happened. But in a very, very deep way. I think homeopathy can help regulate some of the dysbiosis and bring back some vitality. Especially if you have emotional trauma, I would highly recommend going that route.

Matthew Blackburn 1:36:58
Yeah, a guest on my show. I'm trying to remember - I think it was Ashley. She was saying histamine is helped her a lot with her and her clients for allergies.

Andra Sitoianu 1:37:11
Right? It helps. But at the end of the day, to me personally, it's a band aid. It just helps with that amount of time. But it will eventually come back, I find, it just kind of gives us an indication of the reaction is a histamine based reaction or it's something more of pathogenic or infectious. But yes, I will use it as well - I use it as well to kind of just making sure that you know, the client understand that this is more histamine issue. But to me, it's more of a bandaid kind of approach, while we're working on why is this happening?

Matthew Blackburn 1:37:43
It makes sense. Another question for me, "Have you donated blood?"

Andra Sitoianu 1:37:48
Uhuh, Yeah

Matthew Blackburn 1:37:50
Some people think every two months is overboard. It's kind of funny.

Andra Sitoianu 1:37:54
Well, because we have our periods every month straight I try to do it once a year only I do tend to be you know, since I've been having more liver - more organs. I stopped obviously, because I was in Romania anymore, but now I'm having way more again, I'm having daily, I've been better. So I will probably donate probably twice a year on top of you know, whatever. I'm already kind of giving away monthly. But yes, I am 100% for it, you know it is an ancestral way. It's called bloodletting, right. That's what it was used back in the day for men, especially in the 1800s, 1600s. Bloodletting was very very common, especially prominent in Europe to remove disease and infection they didn't know why probably they just thought that it helped a lot. So yes, I am a - I'm a huge promoter especially if you have something like cancer or something like that. I would highly recommend it. Iron overload is one of the biggest root causes of cancer, especially breast cancer.

Matthew Blackburn 1:38:47
Yeah, Morley used to - he said we either used to farm and get cut in the fields or men would go to war and you know get an arrow stuck in them or a gun gunshot wounds and -

Andra Sitoianu 1:39:01
Yeah, yeah no, for sure men were a little bit more rough back in the day

Matthew Blackburn 1:39:07
Now they're now they're on Xbox and -

Andra Sitoianu 1:39:12
Right we're yeah, exactly.

Matthew Blackburn 1:39:20
This is a question from from my friend Jamie on the show, "What are three things that she would tell someone when first starting out on their health journey?"

Andra Sitoianu 1:39:28
Three things that you should tell someone?

Matthew Blackburn 1:39:31
That you would tell someone like if they're just like hap - like what are three things I could do to get started to get - to be healthier.

Andra Sitoianu 1:39:37
Yeah, clean water 100% - focus on clean water. Even if you eat you know, your diet is still going to take time - your water can be changed in the span of 48 hours. Okay, you get a shower filter up, you can get a bath filter up, you can get a good water filter, so I would highly recommend looking into that. Obviously I'll get to why and water is an important - is an important aspect of it. And then looking into not just why the food your intaking is helping but the absorbability of it - okay, I see a lot of people especially being confused these days, there's something like quinoa, or you know, something like flax that have a huge, you know, when you look at the nutritional value of things, we do see it as a big, you know, amount of nutrients and micronutrients on it. But is that absorbable? I think if people would focus more on absorbability and bioavailability of foods, we would have a better streamline of nutrition in general, okay. Rocks and dirt also are full of nutrients and vitamins and but we don't you don't see us kind of eating them and I think that should be also applied. I know it's very dramatic, but it should be very much applied. In every single aspect of the food is that food, even if it has a lot of nutrients that is that going inside of you? Is it getting absorbed inside of you? I think that would be a really big one as well that I would probably try to educate people - people on and then the third one would probably be environmental toxins because I had such a personal affair. With them, especially heavy metals, making sure that you understand that your food is not processed the same way. Your water now is not processed the same way and that potentially there is other factors than just low nutrients or stress that can exasperate oxidation and more stress on your bodies that can come from different aspects in your life. So I would probably focus on that water, food and making sure that your surroundings you understand some of the aggressors that could potentially come into your life, especially your children's life more, most importantly,

Matthew Blackburn 1:41:37
That's a great list. Yeah, you reminded me of my raw vegan days when I was putting hemp seed powder in my smoothies and just throwing everything in that and I would just feel like bloated and just sitting there.

Andra Sitoianu 1:41:51
The amount of clients per week that I removed from hemp protein powders is astonishing. You know, sometimes that's all they need, I promise you. Sometimes just switching the protein powder or switching one of those salads, that meal for a warmer meal or an animal based protein will - does loads of benefits. So I I understand where you're coming from,

Matthew Blackburn 1:42:11
Or putting meat in their salad, right or even just like soft boiled eggs or hard boiled eggs in their salad.

Andra Sitoianu 1:42:15
There's so many conflictions. Medical Medium was telling you not to eat eggs, and then somebody else is telling you not to eat organic, because they don't have any nutritional value. It's very hard but again, if you focus again on mineral absorption, who cares what the minerals are, aren't they getting inside your body? That should be you know, on an ingredient list, you know, next nutritional values, what is the absorption rate right next to it? I think you know we would really educate more people on real food on what's available to us in bioidentical to us.

Matthew Blackburn 1:42:44
That's great. Yeah, Medical Medium is really fun to watch because he really got people afraid of like Epstein-Barr and all these - he said eggs feed viruses and it's just like this very hyper focused in on those and I'm like, why don't you just mineral balance and get like a rife frequency machine if you're worried about like -

Andra Sitoianu 1:43:04
Well yeah, I actually researched the egg situation with Medical Medium and it's an interesting one because he says you know, egg whites are feeding especially proteins that the protein of eggs are feeding so I'm assuming the egg whites it is true - the number one allergy in the world right now is egg whites and in general is it's not nuts anymore. The food allergy that is more prolific and it's eggs. So he has something to it and it usually comes from medication. I'm gonna be very honest with you - yes, something like you know the V uses egg whites, most of them use egg whites inside of it. Albumin to prolificate the virus is it clean like 100% I'm not sure but we've seen a lot of reactions to eggs since you know a couple of decades ago. But then when he recommends something he doesn't recommend you know looking at the protein or the protein your body he recommends a heavy metal detoxification so you know he's laying the eggs but then his protocol for Epstein-Barr Virus is full of blueberries and coriander so he understands that the iron overload or the heavy metals are actually present but he never speaks about them. He just kind of put them in the detox protocols and then blames an animal product for it. So I found that very funny. From his point, just - just say it's the heavy metals, you know, we'll be in a better place all of us.

Matthew Blackburn 1:44:21
So do you think if people just took like digestive enzymes with their eggs, they would be better off just increase the - the absorbability of them?

Andra Sitoianu 1:44:32
Digestive enzymes and amino acids like I said that L-histidine, that glutamine that you know that arginine, they all help to make sure that your food is breaking down well, so having probably combination of some amino acids and which is an organ therapy, and also digestive enzymes. Yes. 100%. It should help you facilitate the digestion of it - of any food probably more than not. I will recommend for food allergies, especially anaphylactic doses. We're doing that without the fine print in there. But yes, I do believe that it could, it could help. I'm a big believer in digestive enzymes, enzymes in general - I'm a huge believer in them.

Matthew Blackburn 1:45:10
Hmm, that's awesome. Yeah, the allergy thing is so multi layered, like, I know Jason's copper group like people say, "If you have a sneeze attack, just take zinc." That's it's all zinc deficiency or just take copper, or take copper and zinc. But there's so many other factors, like you said, the amino acids are never talked about. So it's never -

Andra Sitoianu 1:45:29
Yeah, never talked about and they're super super needed. They are the are the antagonists of histamine. So yeah, it's good that you're adding the copper, but he's the antagonist, the histamine, the precursor, almost a precursor, but in a very antagonistic way, is not there and you're deficient in it. And research has shown that the deficiency is more prolific for you to have more heavy metals, and then it's just adding on, it's another bandaid. Like, it's just another band aid. If you're clean, then 100% take some some histamine. But if you're not looking to heavy metals, or any any stresses could be salads it could be BPA. If you're not looking into those and also addressing both of them at the same time. I'm not sure that copper is - maybe it's accumulating I'm not sure. I - Is it accumulating and perhaps later on down the road, you're going to have some dysbiosis, maybe?

Matthew Blackburn 1:46:14
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely I don't think anyone the group has gone over like 100 milligrams a day. I think -

Andra Sitoianu 1:46:25
I am in the group as well - like golden orange.

Matthew Blackburn 1:46:31
Right? Yeah. Well, the first time I think I did 15 dropper fulls my hand during mid interview, and I got really nauseous, but then it passed. I felt great. But I went overboard on it for sure.

Andra Sitoianu 1:46:44
Yeah, like you said, I think the micro dosing is something that we forgotten in the supplementation world, you know, yes, we are all for supplements. Personally, I am for one, but in a more gentle way than going in and overboard. I will be just my approach because it seems like the body that's the way that naturally we are, if we're supposed to take everything from food, then everything should be at a slower rate. So that's - that's just the way that I kind of do things.

Matthew Blackburn 1:47:09
Yeah, it's a good approach well uh, Andra this was awesome. I learned a lot.

Andra Sitoianu 1:47:13
Thank you

Matthew Blackburn 1:47:13
For what you're doing and yeah, appreciate all the work.

Andra Sitoianu 1:47:16
It was a pleasure, honestly, it was very nice.

Matthew Blackburn 1:47:19
Awesome and your website is wellnessbyandra.com, right?

Andra Sitoianu 1:47:23
That's it? That's right, exactly.

Matthew Blackburn 1:47:25
Awesome and you offer consultations, or you have a monthly membership, what do they get for that

Andra Sitoianu 1:47:32
Um, it's usually a monthly membership so somebody that needs a little bit more of a hand to hand support system. So if you are looking to, you know, to have somebody kind of on a 24 hour span, where you need a little bit of, you know, holding hands in terms of text messages or emails, you want to run some products by me, I can even come to your house and kind of work with you to make sure that you know, everything looks good for your - to train your bioindividualism, then that's that's something that some of my clients do need, especially when we work with with a little bit more of a complicated situations like MS or Lyme's disease, usually there - it's a better way of getting a follow up for first smaller rate. But if not, you know, I also offer one on one consultations on its own and yeah, it's been it's been really great. It's been, I've been very humbled and grateful to be able to do this in my life. So I'm, I'm really looking forward to grow in this space.

Matthew Blackburn 1:48:25
Yeah, you've connected a lot of dots and I always appreciate people that don't just parrot information, but actually look at it critically, and share new information that I'm not seeing other people highlight

Andra Sitoianu 1:48:41
Thank you, I spend a lot of time, I usually spent on doing something like that. I think, you know, we all heard about the normal approaches. But you know, again, bringing some new approaches might bring some question. I don't have the answers to everything. But I will be there with questions and hopefully it will start a conversation and we can all learn from it.

Matthew Blackburn 1:49:03
Awesome. Thanks, Andra. Stick around as we close out the show.

Andra Sitoianu 1:49:06
Thank you so much.

Matthew Blackburn 1:49:14
That wraps up today's show. Because almost every show that I record, I always learned something from the guest. And in this one I found the histidine amino acid that Andra talked about fascinating because I grew up with pretty severe dust allergies. And my entire childhood pretty much I had sneeze attacks and connecting the dots with what I ate growing up - It was mostly a vegetarian diet. I didn't like meat that much. So I was probably deficient in the amino acid histidine -- pretty severely because that's mostly found in animal foods. So the last few months researching zinc for allergies has been really interesting. And you always hear that DAO enzyme diamine oxidase being copper dependent. But there's also zinc in there, there's Vitamin C, in this histidine is a whole nother piece that I didn't consider. I think a lot of people are dealing with sneezing, and allergies and it's never just one thing. It's always a multitude of things. And finding the weakest link in that list, I think is really important. And maybe someone's deficient in all four histidine, Vitamin C, zinc and copper, I think that's highly possible, especially someone with really severe chronic allergies. But if it just comes and goes, that maybe it's just a few things. So that's where experimentation comes in and I think all of those things are very safe to take, especially short term, you can't create imbalances short term taking zinc, or copper or Vitamin C. So since this interview with Andra, I've been experimenting with taking isolated histidine amino acid. And it works, I actually haven't sneezed since I've started taking it once. So amino acid therapy is really powerful and I wonder how much of a role that plays in that organotherapy that Andra practices with the organ meats, because I know there's vitamins and minerals in there, and it all works together. But I would imagine the amino acids in there play a huge role, because those are way different from the amino acids that you find in just muscle meat. So hope you guys were able to connect some dots from that episode. I know I did. It was really fun. And I made a lot of notes and meditated on these different ideas that we talked about. If you want to check out her work, you can go to wellnessbyandra.com. And as she mentioned, she has a one on one - you do a consultation with her or a monthly membership. She has blogs up there and just great information that she's sharing, especially if you're dealing with allergies, or suspect that you have heavy metal, especially aluminum toxicity. And if you want to support me in the show, you can go to matt-blackburn.com. I have my CLF protocol under the blogs tab. Recipes for the gummies, I've been getting back into those I go through phases of being lazy and then making them again. And that recipes up there - there's pancakes. And if you go to shop, that's all of my recommended products. And next week show is actually with the people at Annalemma, with the water wand that makes the water coherent and it sounds super crazy and pseudo sciency but I actually taste the difference when I swirl this little quartz wand in my water container. That was a really fun show and I was blown away with the information that they shared there. So if you've been waiting to pull the trigger on trying out that Annalemma water want, wait till you hear next week's episode and I think you'll be convinced to try it. Those guys definitely know what they're talking about. And my brand is called MITOLIFE, you can find that at mitolife.co. And the Shilajit tablets just came back in stock. Really exciting things coming with MITOLIFE in the next two to three months, the oyster extract is finally going to be in stock. And two new products are coming out the freeze dried beef liver, that's spiked with copper and elk antler velvet. And those supplements are so powerful, especially for ex-vegans or even ex-vegetarians, which I think a lot of people fit into that category. And I can't give too much away but I will say the entire brand will be getting a upgrade or a facelift in the next three months. Basically the quality of every product is going to go up. So that's really exciting and stay tuned for details on that. So thank you so much for tuning into the podcast. There's a new episode released every Friday. I also have a private YouTube called the MitoLife Academy. And I released two exclusive videos every month and then the last day of the month. I have a live Q&A that goes for at least two hours where you can ask me anything. So thanks for listening. See you guys next Friday, and stay supercharged.