← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
583. The Invisible Silent Killer of your Endocrine System with Justin Liberman
00:43:57
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- [00:00]
A
You think of all the studies of increased, say, car exhaust leads to more cases of asthma or coughing or whatever it may be. So they're often very directly linked to the lungs. And this is what we typically learn, and it makes sense. That's usually what's newsworthy, is that obvious air problem means obvious lung problem. But where it gets tricky is that there are a lot of air issues that tie to other parts of your body.
- [00:25]
B
Welcome to the Thyroid Fixer podcast where we dive deep into the world of thyroid and hormones. Especially for you ladies navigating perimenopause and menopause, and really for anyone struggling with hypothyroidism. I'm your host, Dr. Amy, thyroid and hormone specialist and CEO of a global telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping you become that badass human that you're meant to be. So if you're battling weight gain and hair loss, you can't lose weight no matter what you do. Your energy levels are plummeting and your libido left town your that you're in the right place and you have found your tribe. Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are. So if you're ready to dive in and fix things, let's get started. Healthy hormones begin with healthy cells. So when we talk about thyroid or hormone health, we usually focus on labs, supplements or symptoms. But there's a deeper story happening in your body, and that's one that begins in your cells. Every hormone your body produces relies on healthy, energized cells to do its job. And at the heart of each cell are the mitochondria, your energy centers. As we age or when the body is under stress, mitochondrial function naturally declines. That can show up in so many ways. Fatigue, slower recovery, or just simply that feeling off. This is where Timeline Nutrition's breakthrough Mito pure comes in. Mitopure is a highly pure form of a nutrient called urolithin A, if you've ever heard of that. It's backed by over 15 years of research, multiple human studies, and has been shown to support mitochondrial health, muscle function and overall cellular performance. By helping your mitochondria work more efficiently, you're supporting the foundation of your energy and your long term wellness. I personally found that this deeper cellular approach to health is is a powerful complement to everything we do for thyroid and hormone balance. It's not about quick fixes, it's about building resilience from the inside out. If you're ready to support your body at the cellular level, Mito Pure offers a clean, clinically backed way to start. So you are going to go to timeline.com. Dr. Amy so that's T I M E l I n e.com I forward/ D R A M I E. And you're going to see the code on there. Dr. Amy 10 D R A M I E 10. But if you want to try the gummies, the Mito Pure, it's actually going to give you 20% off your order. So just go ahead and click that code, D R a m I e 10. You'll see it on the page or you can add it at checkout. You're going to save some money while giving new life to your cells. Today on the Thyroid Fixer podcast, we are talking about air quality and how it affects your health. Now don't you dare hit stop and roll your eyes going, I know everything I need to know about air quality. Blah, blah, blah. I've heard this before. No, you haven't. No, you haven't. And I'm going to tell you a couple things. First of all, what really kind of piqued my interest and anyone with pets, you will want to hear this. Or children, because, you know, pets are children, too. So if you got kiddos, you might want to listen to this, too. I was listening to a training by one of the top naturopathic vets in the country and she you know, I had my dog for 15 years, now I'm trying to get him to like 25. And one of the things she said to me that I never thought of before is the air quality for your pets. You know, we tend to not care about ourselves. We put ourselves on the back burner all the time. But what about what your pets are breathing? What about what your kiddos are breathing and how is that affecting their health? And then, okay, let's talk about you as well. Let's say you actually do put your health first and foremost. What are you breathing in and how is it affecting your entire body, specifically your endocrine system, your thyroid and your hormone balance. Many of you are talking about mold and how you got mold disease and how you got to clear your body of mold. What about your house? What kind of conditions are you actually living in? So to unpack this entire topic, wanted to bring in an expert because I don't know air quality. I do thyroid and hormones. I don't test people's air. So I'm bringing in someone who has been there and done that. Justin Lieberman. So he is Jasper's head of operations. You've heard me talk about my Jasper. I have one right over there in my office. I have one upstairs in the living room, dining room, kitchen area. Cannot live without it. He has over eight years of hands on experience in environmental air quality analysis. So he started his career at Air Quality Canada, where he was testing the air in more than 3,000 homes, giving him a front row seat to those invisible issues affecting people's health every single day. So with Justin's background in environmental science, this deep commitment to healthy living that he has as well, we are going to talk about today his expertise at identifying indoor contaminants like mold, VOCs, dust, chemical pollutants, often uncovering hidden environmental triggers behind your symptoms like the fatigue and the breathing problems and the endocrine disruption. So, Justin, thank you for bringing your years of knowledge to the Thyroid Fixer podcast to really unpack this air quality conundrum that we're in and speaking to the importance of it to my audience.
- [06:40]
A
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [06:42]
B
Well, I love your background. So, okay, let's just start there. I want to hear some of the crazy stuff that you saw that would literally blow people's minds if they heard about it. So in your, in your time at Air Quality Canada, you're going around, you're testing all these homes. What'd you see? What'd you uncover?
- [07:04]
A
Absolutely. Well, and it's funny thing too, because a lot of it is, of course, what we saw. A lot of it's what we didn't see until we would get, you know, reports. Because the way that the testing would be done is typically we go around, you do a visual check for sure. You know, we want to look for the obvious things. Hey, is there discoloration? Do I see signs of water? Do I see visible mold? And a lot of times we do. Excellent. Makes it nice and simple. You know, we can collect our, our samples and point out, you know, where things are going on. But of course, a lot of it too is where someone is feeling something. You know, some like, maybe it could be a particular spouse in the family. Like one family members feels kind of off, everyone else feels fine and they feel like they're going insane. And we see this actually a lot, you know, very frequently where for example, the wife says, you know, calls us up, I'm feeling sick at home. I go outside, I feel good. I come back inside, I don't feel good. My husband Thinks I'm nuts because he feels nothing. And so we go in and we do our visual check, you know, we do our air sampling, send stuff to the lab, and sure enough, guess what? She's correct. There's something going on here, whether it's mold, whether it's VOCs or dust or any kind of other contaminant. So a lot of it was obvious stuff, but there was a huge part of it that wasn't so obvious, other than the fact that, okay, they've made the link between feeling better not in the home versus in the home. And, I mean, that's not an optimal way to live whatsoever. Because if you don't feel good at home, then how can you enjoy your house? It's just not going to make sense. So we would see that quite often. But the great part was when we could find something that showed. Okay, well, we have a definitive problem. We've defined it. Great. At least now we can outline a plan of action that you can take to feel better inside your home. And that's really what we were striving for with all these assessments, was to at least find. And if not find anything specific, then at least rule out, because that's also part of it, too. We can say, you know, what if you can give someone the peace of mind that, oh, look, there's no mold, you know, no elevations, no water, excellent. There's something else going on for sure. But we know it's not a mold. So it's either finding an answer or ruling it out. But that was really the key part of what we were doing there. And so some of the crazy stuff that we would see would. I mean, we sometimes saw cases where there was. There were walls full of mold behind like. Like a dresser. You know, the person saying, every time I go into this room, we saw this case so many times, someone goes into the room, this is my office. I'm in here eight hours a day. I feel really bad in here after, like, half an hour, but I don't know why. And I feel like I've looked around and I've checked. Okay, we go in, let's move a couple things. And then what? Would you look at that the dresser was up against the wall. Hey, as it turns out, your humidity here is 70% and you got a bunch of mold behind your dresser. So some of those very aha moments. But then at least, you know, you could get a very easy way to address it. We can say, here's the problem, and take your steps from there. So those are some of the. Really, in some cases, very jaw dropping, honestly, just like it would almost be shocking that someone could live with that. But if it's not on the forefront of their mind, most people don't have that awareness about their home. You know, like, when you get a home inspection, it's very rare that the inspector is going to actually check for those problems. You know, they might do a little quick water check or something, but they're not really thinking about your health. They're thinking about, is this home up to compliance? You know, like, do you have the right rise of stairs versus run? Is your banister on the right side? It's like all these things that, okay, practical, sure, but are you going to benefit being in the home? Is it going to help your health or is it going to make your health worse? And that's the kind of stuff that we've come across.
- [10:42]
B
And, you know, with mold, okay, it's. It's obvious, like you said, you move a dresser, there it is, you can. You can see it. But things like VOC and the chemical pollutants, you can see. So, for instance, I now live in Iowa. I talk about this all the time. Literally. Last year I looked out my window and I saw a plane flying over the field that is, you know, as a crow flies maybe half a mile that way. It was spraying glyphosate. And, I mean, Iowa is a big farming country. They're spraying the corn and the soybean fields all the time. So I guarantee you that glyphosate's coming in the windows and it's getting all over everything, and we're breathing it in all the time. So talk to me about those things that people don't even realize are in their homes, because it would be very easy for a listener to go, I've looked in every crevice, and my house doesn't have mold, so I don't need to worry about the air quality.
- [11:44]
A
Absolutely. Well, that's a big part of it, too, is that when you don't get the obvious sign, you know, if you smell mold, it usually means that there's mold. You get, like a musty scent. But in your case, for example, with the, you know, the plane going overhead and the glyphosate coming from the farmer's field, you likely aren't going to smell anything. You're not really going to pick up on anything. There's a lot of subtleties. And, you know, if a home doesn't breathe well, so if it's very kind of sealed in and you have, you know, poor air exchange, poor ventilation. There's a lot of things like VOCs that will accumulate inside the home. But the issue is that it's not necessarily one obvious one. It can be a lot of tiny ones that just cumulatively can cause a lot of the problems because you then get a lot of VOCs from different sources. They're building up and you're not going to notice any particular one. Like you're not going to say, oh, smells like this chemical in here. I mean, we don't, our noses aren't attuned that well. If you spray like a hair refresher or a hairspray or something, for sure it's obvious. But it's the same effect with those invisible contaminants as those obvious ones. You know, you would never, for example, you would never take like a wiped cleaner, something like, you know, you clean your stove and spray it in your mouth. I mean, that would be ridiculous, right? But you could still have VOCs in the home that you don't smell it, you're not aware of it, but you're still getting that same kind of exposure without being aware of it. And what happens a lot of times with especially, you know, where the home is very tight and airtight and sealed up, is that these contaminants are building up over time and then you are being exposed to them on a day to day basis, you know, from when you wake up to when you go to sleep. And they can over that prolonged period cause some pretty notable health impacts. And you know, when it comes to something like a VOC especially, these are things that you also can't just really, you know, it's not as simple as like, okay, I can, I can open a window and they go away. That can help. But you may have to take other measures as well. And the first thing would also being aware of sources, which is pretty difficult if you don't know where it's coming from. It's going to be much harder to address the root cause of that problem there.
- [13:40]
B
Now you mentioned VOCs for the audience. The component of the audience that do not know what VOCs are. Can you break that down, actually tell us where they come from? Like what are some sources of VOCs for sure.
- [13:52]
A
So a VOC, just to keep it really simple, it stands for a volatile organic compound. So simply put, this is, is any kind of chemical compound, typically carbon based, that's in your environment. So for example, like a main VOC would be formaldehyde. You see formaldehyde in a lot of homes just from if you're using paints or if you're using glues, like, if you've done a recent renovation, chances are your formaldehyde is going to be higher, possibly higher, than your recommended healthy levels. So it's just kind of something to consider. The other one that's maybe not as obvious is if you bring in new furniture, even like new bedding or new carpeting, you can get formaldehyde off gas and from that material as well. So there's different ways that that can make its way into the home. But that's one example of a voc. You know, there's a lot of different types that come from these different home materials. And it's basically a gas material. It's not like a physical thing. So the main distinction is that it's not like a VOC is not mold. You know, it's not like a spore, it's not like a particulate. Like, it's not like a dust mite or something like that. It's a gaseous substance that you wouldn't be able to see, but it's basically filling your airspace when you have it introduced into the home. VOCs also come from natural sources, too. Like if you are. I mean, for example, when I say natural, if you're cooking on a hot stove, you get some VOCs from that and it's a pleasant voc because it smells really good, like if you're cooking a steak or something. But there are still VOCs coming from that as well. So there's a various kinds of sources that can contribute to overall VOCs in the hall.
- [15:18]
B
Yeah, I must like to cook with high heat because my Jasper always goes off when I'm cooking on the stove. The biggest thing with that is it makes you realize what something as simple as cooking your food for dinner on the stove, what that can actually produce in the air and what you continue to breathe in. I mean, my Jasper has been on and lit up in the, you know, red and orange, sometimes a good 20 minutes after I'm done cooking. I mean, imagine if that wasn't on, if my Jasper wasn't running and cleaning the air. The amount of crap that myself and my family and my dog would be breathing in for hours afterwards. I mean, it's crazy. And I'm super happy that you just mentioned the renovation part kind of. I mean, actually, if people's mind aren't blown based on what you just said, the furniture, carpeting, bedding, I mean, just bringing that into your home literally brings in the substance that they use to invent bomb dead people with I. E. Formaldehyde. So that's fun. And then any kind of renovation. So we are. I'm happy that you said it because we're getting ready to do some work in the bathroom. Like, okay, I need to bring my Jasper right there when they're renovating to pick up anything that they kick up. So super happy that you said that. But it's mind blowing. How many sources.
- [16:48]
A
Absolutely. And actually I'll share a story from the Air Quality Canada days because this is one that I had recently remembered. There was a house that a customer had called us for because they were trying to sell it and the house had. It was an older home. It was probably built in the 50s or 60s. They had a material that's called eufy, which is urea, formaldehyde insulation. So this was used a lot of times previously. It was a pretty good insulating material. Of course, the downside is that as the name has, it has formaldehyde in it most of the time. If the home is intact, it's long enough settled that, you know, by the, like, it was put in, you know, 50 years ago. So today you shouldn't really have a problem with formaldehyde. But because there's a lot of technicalities and legal things that someone has to go through selling the home, if they know there's, there's the UFI they need. We need to do an air quality test for formaldehyde and make sure, hey, you know, just confirm formaldehyde at a safe level. So we did our air testing in the home and the home had not been renovated, it had not been touched. It was basically untouched since it was built, you know, probably in the 50s or 60s. However, the formaldehyde levels were actually above government guidelines in the house. So he said, hmm, that's a bit of an interesting case because there shouldn't be a source of it. Then I met the homeowner and he was smoking outside the house and he had a smell of secondhand smoke. And as it turns out, formaldehyde comes from secondhand smoke and cigarettes. Just by him smoking outside the home, not even inside. He said he only smokes outside, but by him smoking outdoors, having the secondhand smoke coming into his home. He was having his formaldehyde levels above recommended safe thresholds. And he would have been doing that for probably decades that he live inside the home. So just show that we came there to, to try to check his problem of the insulation. Well, that was fine, but he made his own problem that then Made it more difficult to actually sell his house because he was bringing chemicals in from his cigarette smoke. So just one of those crazy examples of how prevalent these things can be in, in our lives.
- [18:43]
B
So if we able to convince them.
- [18:45]
A
To stop smoking after that, well, I'm not that good. But what we were able to do actually was we put together a plan of action. And I remember this very distinctly, that we did the test on a Friday. The home was closing on Tuesday of the next week. So they, you know, they want to make sure they get the test done before, okay, Friday comes. Here's your results. You got the elevation. It's from your second smoke. Dude, you know, that really sucks. But yeah, what we told them to do was get carbon filtered air scrubbers. Basically, like, you know, very strong air purification device, focuses on the carbon. Run them in the house for the entire weekend. And we said, we'll come back Monday and test. And we said get multiple machines, you know, not the time to play around. Like you're gonna have to spend money on this. He probably got four or five machines, put them through the home, ran them. We came back on Monday. All the levels were actually below the acceptable threshold, which meant that it was safe air from a formaldehyde perspective. So the cool part was him having smoked and for years and years in the house and all the secondhand smoke was fixed in two days with the right action step. Great news. Because it means that even if you're feeling like you might be stuck with this kind of thing, there are ways you can, you know, methods you can take to go forward to improve things pretty quickly. And that was one of them. So we were very happy with how that turned out. Otherwise I hope he stopped smoking, but who knows?
- [19:56]
B
We'll see. Right, Exactly. But you know, the interesting thing is that was obviously pre Jasper, before Jasper was developed. So you were just using basic run of the mill carbon filters in his home. I mean, if Jasper were around and you, you put a couple in there, maybe even one would have done the trick at that point in time, he would have been good to go faster and would have, would it have removed even more than the basic carbon filters?
- [20:26]
A
For sure. A big question for the ages, but I think it would have had a pretty good impact.
- [20:30]
B
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think a lot of people kind of piggybacking off the smoking thing, it makes me think about everyone ties air quality to their lungs, you know, so it's, well, I'm not coughing, I'm not sneezing, I don't have you know, increased mucus production or allergies, so my air must be fine. So can you speak to that? Like, why, why is air pollution not just a lung problem?
- [20:59]
A
For sure. And it is a great question, because that would be the obvious one, is that, you know, you're often thinking about, okay, what I'm breathing in, these contaminants or whatever they may be. You know, you think of all the studies of, you know, increased, say car exhaust leads to more cases of asthma or, you know, coughing or whatever it may be. So they're often very directly linked to the lungs. And this is what we, you know, typically learn and it makes sense. That's usually what's newsworthy, is that obvious air problem means obvious lung problem. But where it gets tricky is that there are a lot of air issues that tie to other parts of your body. So for example, one of the main contaminants that we look at with Jasper and just in general for air quality is PM2.5. So PM2.5, I think a lot of people are familiar, but it's basically particulate matter that's in the 2.5 micrometer size range or less. And why this one is such a heavily studied contaminant is that this is the kind of size range of particle that not only is it small enough to bypass, you know, your nose hairs, which are kind of a pre filter for our body, but it very easily gets past the nose hairs and it gets into our, not only our lungs, but it can actually go right into our bloodstream as well. So now you're having contaminants that are not only just a lung problem, but it's in your blood being pumped and spread through your body. And this can have other, you know, after effects, all from stemming from poor air quality where the PM2.5 is high. And you know, where you might get high, PM2.5, if you live next to a major roadway, if you've had a wildfire, any kind of, you know, small contaminant of an kind of source like that, where there's a high level of PM2.5, it's unfortunately quite likely that your body will start to build up and accumulate it just because it's so easy for it to enter the body and it gets into, you know, the lungs and the blood and can spread through and it can cause some pretty nasty health effects if you don't have a way of mitigating that amount of PM 2.5. So it's one of those examples where, yeah, it's not only just a lung issue. But it kind of becomes a whole body issue when you're exposed to these kind of things.
- [23:00]
B
Yeah, okay. You know that I love peptides and I love what peptides can do for our skin. Now we know with age and UV exposure, we're getting wrinkles, Our skin is aging, it's getting age spots. So there's one company in particular, One Skin, which side note, founded and led by an all woman team of skin longevity scientists, they looked at over 900 peptides. And from diving into the science of these 900 peptides, they combined many of them and developed OSO1, which is the first ingredient scientifically proven to interrupt our core aging process, where our cells just really stop functioning normally. And then that collagen and elastin that plumps our skin and makes it look good and youthful goes into the toilet. And then what happens with age and UV exposure, the release of harmful inflammatory chemicals that's just going to damage our skin and make you look older than you already are. That's not good. We don't want that. We want to look younger and we want to stop our skin from aging. So OSO1 switches off these bad cells, these toxic cells, and it addresses the root cause of skin aging, which helps your skin stay younger and healthier. It's your largest organ. It's not just about appearance, but, you know, appearance is great when you start to look a little bit better and you look a little bit younger and you take a couple of years off of your face. Who doesn't want that? So that's why I love my one skin. OS01. I chose one skin because of the research, because of the peptide action on our face. As much as peptides work in our bodies, they also work topically. You just have to try this, Just try out One Skin. You can let me know about your skin's appearance after you use it for a month or so. So you're going to go to One Skin Co, that's O N E S K I N.co forward slash. Dr. Amy. Use the code Dr. Amy. D R A M I E. This is giving you 15% off your first order. You are not going to regret it. Your skin is going to thank you and then you're going to thank me. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and we'll see thyroid hormone levels move and shift in people that are mainly. I mean, we're looking at it in people that we know they have mold. So thyroid hormone levels aren't matching their treatment. What we know should be improving isn't. But those are the Cases that are, you know, blatantly obvious. We know this person has mold. We know they were living in a moldy house very similar to what we were talking about. You can see it. They know it. Okay, but what about the people that don't know that they are living in formaldehyde and VOCs and all of these glyphosate, and they're sitting there going, why aren't I getting better? I'm doing all the things, you know, I'm healing my gut and I'm eating clean and I'm taking all the processed foods, I'm eating organic and all the things. But their health just isn't improving or maybe it's even declining. It's really a direct hit on the. The entire endocrine system, isn't it?
- [26:17]
A
Absolutely. And that's where it gets tricky, too, is because especially if you don't have symptoms that would lead you to think there's poor air. So, you know, the, like, the obvious ones, okay, I'm. I cough a lot in this room, or I sneeze a lot in this room. Maybe there's some kind of environmental irritant. You know, we've all experienced that. But as you were saying, when. If you have other issues that aren't as obvious, like, for example, if it's weight gain or other issues with the thyroid, where it's like, like I don't feel like my air is off. I'm, you know, if you're thinking air aware, I'm not coughing anything like that. So it's hard to link it, but there's still a clear link between having bad air and having those issues. Coming up, you may actually find this one pretty interesting. This was a recent study that we were looking at. This actually came out of China. And what they were basically studying was a correlation between higher amounts of PM2.5 and weight gain. But not only was it weight gain because, you know, weight gain, there could be other factors, too. No, no, they actually focus specifically on waist circumference and PM2.5, because that one's very obvious. You know, it's not like you're packing on muscle if your waist is getting larger there. And so what the study found, and this is still being kind of an ongoing sort of test and experiment, but they have found that the participants living constantly in higher PM2.5 had larger waste expansion and over time, too, as they measured it. So a very intriguing one that we're going to keep following. But it's examples like that that show how many things we aren't even aware of that may be impacting our bodies when you have bad air quality?
- [27:44]
B
Well, and you know, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking all of these people, I mean, obviously we are in an obesity epidemic right now with all kinds of waste widening going on. And people who, especially my audience listen, they, they don't want to be like that. They're trying to clean up their diet, they're trying to do the right things. They're not rolling into McDonald's three times a week, but they're still struggling with the weight component. And you know, women, I mean, listen, we're really hard on ourselves.
- [28:11]
A
We.
- [28:12]
B
We notice those 2, 5, 10 pounds that come onto our waist as it expands. How much money are we spending on GLP1s and different weight loss programs when it could just. I mean, I'm not saying it's this simple, but one component could be your air. Based on that study, one component of your weight gain could literally be your air. It's hard for people to wrap their minds around it. So I'm kind of glad they're digging into it with a study to be able to take out all other factors and just look at the, the contaminants and how it affects people 100%.
- [28:50]
A
And also we kind of look at this as well as a. In some ways there's a big benefit, because the cool part is that if you aren't really air aware and thinking of that, you know, that side of things, you can at least make some very easy changes in your home that can at least start to improve your air quality. You know, stuff that doesn't really cost anything. You know, even if it's just improving your ventilation and making sure that you run your range on your stove. You know, after you finish cooking, you know, after you've taken a shower, don't just switch off the fan right away. Let it run for half an hour or an hour because your, you know, chance for mold becomes a lot lower. So there's a lot of quick tips that most people aren't really thinking of, but you can start implementing today after listening, you know, to this episode, while you're listening to this episode. And you can start to have a positive impact on yourself. So that's why it's. Because it's such an unexplored space. There's a huge learning curve very quickly for a lot of improvement. And that's what makes it very good.
- [29:44]
B
Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the shower. That just kind of brought something back up into my head. The very first time Mike and I talked about air quality way, way back, many episodes ago. So it's worth repeating to this audience listening.
- [29:59]
A
Now.
- [29:59]
B
I was telling him the story when we first moved into this house. You know, the house has a water filtration system, but my hair kept turning, like, orange. I thought my hairdresser was messing up. I bought like, the mineral stripping, shampoo, all of that. And it kept happening like, what the hell? So I call the water guys out, like, what's going on? Can you test it? Is there something wrong? He's like, no, what's happening is you have this very, very common bacteria in the air that reacts with water and turns things pinkish orange. And I can see it, like in the corners, in the. In the grout. In my shower, I'm like, oh, yeah, there's a little bit of, like, pink or something there, which is why I thought it was the water. No. So I bring my Jasper into. You know, you have the master bedroom, bathroom connected. So I put it in my bedroom. So it's running, running, running. Now even when I shower, it's clean in the air. No more pink. No more pink and orange hair. No more pink in the shower. And it's crazy. So even. Even little bacteria that you can't see in your home, it can be there and do some really crazy things.
- [31:10]
A
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
- [31:13]
B
So I want to talk about kiddos too. You know, I mean, kids these days, we're seeing obviously increased rates of Alzheimer's, but we're also seeing just histamine intolerance, allergies that we never saw before. Even when you and I were kids, we didn't have these groups of kids that all have, you know, bad allergies to things and they're sick all the time and they're missing school left and right. What is the tie in to air quality and germs and even these kiddos getting sick and having higher rates of. Of histamine intolerance, for sure.
- [31:48]
A
Oh, and it's such a big one too, is. Yeah, like you said. Because I think the problem is that a lot of these scenarios where kids are getting sick or they're having poor performance, it's often been looked at as like, well, this is how kids are. Kids go through this stuff. It's whatever, they'll grow out of it. But when you look at the trends, it's. Well, actually, no, there's a more. There's a steady increase in the stuff going on, and there's more kids that are having this compared to before. So it's you know, like I said, when we were younger you had certain levels and now it's a lot higher. So there's clearly something going on and it's a lot of it is tied to our environment, to our air. There are a lot of other studies too about poor air quality leading to poor cognitive performance. You know, kids that are in a classroom with poor air quality, they can't focus very well. But you know, that gets in an office that's just adhd, you know, whatever. Like kids go through that. But what if we said no? Actually, you know what, why don't we try the simple approach of maybe trying to clean up the air first and see what happens from there. And chances are you're probably going to have a fair bit of improvement. I think a big one too is also with kids sleep, you know, a lot of times where, okay, kid doesn't sleep well. Like it's just like, well, kids just don't sleep. They have too much energy, whatever. But what if you actually measured the air quality in your kid's room? Oh, and look at that. As it turns out, the CO2 is very, very high, which means that it's very stoppy, it's very stagnant. They have an excessive amount of mold spores. They have a lot of PM2.5 because the air is not circulating well. So then the kid is going to sleep in that night after night. They're waking up with brain fog and fatigue and they're feeling off. But also a young kid doesn't know how to explain that. They can't really vocalize. I'm feeling off because of the environment. They feel weird and they go to school and the same thing is happening. You know, they haven't recovered from the night before. So then of course, over a long period of time as they're growing up, they're going to just have a harder time going through stuff like it's almost. They're giving them a disadvantage by not looking at the error, just seeing, well, what are the obvious steps we could be taking to, to make some improvements there?
- [33:44]
B
Yeah, I mean, no question in my audience knows. So I have a stepson who is non verbal autistic. And you know, diving into that world of autism and all the different causes, especially now, you know, all the talk with Tylenol and this and that, but the chemical exposure that these kids have, I mean, number one rule of thumb is detox them and remove the chemical burden because their brains are going to be way more sensitive to those small levels of toxins in the air. And the food and the water, than, than, let's say we are right. So everything, anything and everything that you can do to take that child out of a toxic environment, whether it's the food you're giving them, the air he's breathing, the water is drinking, you know, everything, the stuff you're putting on them, I think it's going to benefit. And if it moves the needle just a little bit, I mean, speaking from experience, you see that needle move just a little bit, it's a huge win for the whole family. So if something as simple as cleaning up your air can, can shift your kid's brain, you know, on the spectrum or not on the spectrum, like you said, even just, you know, learning in a classroom, if it can shift their brain just a little bit, my goodness, why wouldn't we do it?
- [35:00]
A
Exactly. And you can look at it as every human vessel, every human body is basically like a bucket that can take on a certain amount of contaminants. So whether that is mold or dust or the common things that we're exposed to, we all have a certain threshold where we can handle, you know, x amount. And then everyone has a tipping point. And if you're going through day to day, constantly, you know, if you're drinking bad water and eating bad food and breathing bad air, all these sort of pillars that make up our consumption of life and going day to day, if you're not giving yourself a break from some of that bad stuff, your bucket is basically getting to a point where it's full and then it's, it's overflowing and you're not giving yourself a chance to kind of reset, you know, recharge, in some cases detoxify if you're in a poor health space. But if you're not having a chance to do that, then it's just you're constantly fighting a battle that you're never going to win. And as you said as well, especially when you're a kid, you know, you're younger, the immune system's still developing, the lungs are smaller, they're basically going on hard mode. If they're in a space like that where it's bad air and they're not having clean water and not having clean food. So what you want to do is think of your bucket as being able to empty. And if you can empty that bucket for, ideally every day by giving yourself these good things to intake for your body, then it's so much easier to go through and you have a much better chance of continuing to grow and improve and develop the way that a kid should in the way that really a kid deserves to be. Because everyone should be able to be able to go through that kind of growth and not have to, you know, just. It's hard enough being a kid with all the stuff you're doing with in school and, you know, relationships and whatever and not having to contend with a bad environment throughout. That makes it a lot easier.
- [36:39]
B
Right, right. I totally agree. Absolutely. So, okay, I've, I've obviously brought up Jasper. You know, among my colleagues, Jasper is at the top. I mean we all, we all use it, we all love it. There's a lot of different air quality machines out there. Like you even talked about the, the smoker dude from years ago and just go out, buy a, you know, carbon air filter, just do that. There's been a lot of, of, of companies coming out with air cleaning devices. What makes Jasper so different? Why do we all love it in this space and all of us use it?
- [37:16]
A
For sure. One of the big things is that we refer to Jasper more of as an air scrubber and not an air purifier. An air scrubber, basically, as the name kind of suggests, is that it's a powerful device that's meant to deep clean your air. So almost like an industrial strength cleaning, but in the form of something that is very sleek, you know, very modern, blends into the home. You know, we didn't want something that was loud and ugly, so that's really where a lot of the aspect and the appeal comes from. But it's also, of course, the performance too. The main thing is that we need something that can clean your air and give you a high rate of air turnover more than the other machines. Because ultimately we want the most effective solution that we can provide for your home. So it ultimately comes down to the size of the machine, the air turnover. The filter itself as well is a huge one. So a lot of air purifiers on the market, you know, the filter maybe is around half a pound and it's, you know, typically like a kind of a square device that's sort of your HEPA for fine particulates. But with the Jasper filter, the filter itself is four and a half pounds. It's a cylindrical device that often is actually the same size or sometimes even bigger than other kind of those small purifiers in the market. You know, the ones you might see on Amazon for 99, which often are the hot sellers, just because there isn't in our opinion, enough air education out there. So someone that Says, oh, I want to fix my air. They buy, okay, that looks good, it looks cheap, whatever. You know, I don't want to spend a lot of time. As it turns out, that's not going to do a whole lot for you either. And really when it comes to air cleaning and any of this sort of aspect is the powerful devices and of course also being able to look nice in your home and run quietly because that's a big one too. You don't want something that's pumping loud all the time. And you know, noise pollution is also not good for us and a lot of us are exposed to too much of that every day. So that's a big aspect too is being able to run quietly, have a strong filter, turn the air over frequently and help remove a lot of those contaminants. That's why the Jasper helps so many people with, with these kind of situations.
- [39:14]
B
Yes. Oh, I love that. And I mean, I will tell you, last year I changed my filter. I took a picture of the new one ready to go into the Jasper versus the one that I pulled out. I was blown away at what was on that filter. I mean, it is crazy. So to literally see what you would have been breathing in had it not been pulled out of. Because if it's not going in the Jasper, it's going in us. So to actually see that, I wish I had a picture right now just to show it. If people are watching YouTube, it was crazy. Crazy when it pulls out of there for sure.
- [39:58]
A
You brought up a great point too, is that if you're on the fence about does it, you know, you think about cleaning your water, you think about eating good food. If you're on the fence about cleaning your air, just the thing to know is that if you don't directly clean your air, your lungs become the air filter. So your lungs are the thing that takes on all those contaminants because they have nowhere to go. So you are going to breathe in that air. You know, homes are pretty airtight and they have pretty circular systems within, in the space. So all those contaminants, whether it's mold or dust or any other other kind of allergen that ends up inside you, but doesn't have to be that way, is that you have a choice that you can filter your air and that gives your body a much better chance, right?
- [40:37]
B
Absolutely. Now, practicality wise, because I know this question will be on people's minds. So let's say you have a house with, you know, up and downstairs, downstairs, upstairs, can someone get Away with just purchasing one Jasper and where would you put that? Or in a perfect world, do you want one upstairs, one downstairs? Like give me the. The practical solution and then give me the. If you want to go all out.
- [41:05]
A
Solution for sure, practical solution. Anything is better than nothing. So if you don't have any kind of air cleaning in your house. And by the way, just a quick tip, that furnace filter that most of us change every three months, that's not an air filter, just someone we always like to bring up for air education that is meant to protect your furnace from large particles in the, in the ductwork system that does not clean your air as a whole. So don't think of it that way. So if you have no air cleaning system versus having one Jasper inside your home is a huge difference. It makes a huge impact. Where the best place to put it by far will be your bedroom for your sleep. Because if you don't have any kind of air cleaning system in your bedroom and then you introduce one there, you will find that there's usually a very positive correlation with a much better sleep. Just simply because you're typically a bedroom is a pretty small space and you know, if you have a normal sized bedroom with normal ceiling heights, if you put a Jasper inside the bedroom, you're going to be able to turn the air over probably about eight to ten times per hour. So that means that all those particulates that you would have been breathing in overnight, you're now not having to be exposed to them because they're being caught in that filter because the air is turned over so quickly. So for sure put one in the bedroom to help with your sleep. That would be the best place to have one. If you were looking to, you know, you're saying I really want to optimize my entire home. You're saying I want to have all the coverage as best as I can. Each occupied bedroom would be the best solution. And then one for your kitchen and living area there. If you do that, you are basically creating a full home air cleaning system. And we actually get asked a lot, you know, what's the difference? Because you often see those built in systems where you put it right into the H Vac and say, well, does this work just the same? Because you know, in theory you built it into the H Vac and then you say aha, all my air is being cleaned. Now it's all good. But there's a few key differences that should be brought up. And you know, one of them is that it's much better to Focus on localized areas for your home compared to a full home system. So if you have a few units in your bedrooms and your kitchen space that will give you a much better overall impact than having one built into the H vac where then it's the same rate of air distribution all through your house. Meaning that your bathroom in the basement gets the same air cleaning as your baby's nursery. That makes no sense. You want to put it in the area where you are going to be occupying your time. So that's why the bedrooms and the kitchen living space will always make the most sense.
- [43:36]
B
Okay, perfect. I need to get one for the bedroom then I'll get with you right after we get off here because I have one in my office and then one in the kitchen living room. But I definitely need, I pulled one into the bedroom when I was getting the, the orange hair but then I put it back out. I definitely need to get one for the bedroom because anything that can improve your sleep that's going to improve your health tenfold down, down the line because we know disrupted sleep has a variety of its own health consequences outside of just even the air that you're breathing. So I love that and I love that you are giving my audience a huge discount. So thank you. We're going to put this all in the show notes but Jasper is giving y' all $400 off. So you are going to go to J A s p r not er j a s p r.co Dr. Amy d r A M I E. You're going to use that same code, D R A M I E. That's what's going to give you 400 off a unit. Completely, totally worth the investment. It's not even a bad investment. You guys price this beautifully. I mean totally affordable with the code. Oh my God. It makes it a no brainer. I can't even express how important it is. I mean, well we talked about it for the last 45 minutes how important it is to clean your air. But seriously, I mean if this episode doesn't hit home as to the importance of air quality, I don't know what will. So the people that we did get through to, they're going to be up leveling the air quality of their home for sure. And we'll put all the, the links and the code down in the show notes too so you don't have to remember it but just know that you're going to save a lot of money if you grab yourself a Jasper. So Justin, your knowledge is off the charts. Thank you. So much for coming on and letting me pick your brain and sharing the stories of all the the stuff that you saw when you were an air quality specialist. Well you still are just working at Jasper now, but yeah, I appreciate you so much and you really you open my eyes to I'm learning something new all the time every time I talk to a learned something new. So you open my eyes to a few things that I need to do around here to uplevel.
- [45:41]
A
Glad to hear it and thanks so much for having me. It was a real pleasure.
- [45:45]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely. So if you all have any questions just hit me up in the Facebook group and the Just Fixture Thyroid Facebook group would be happy to answer them in there and be sure to check the show notes for that discount code and the link. So until next time, thank you so much much for listening. The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition treatment or before making changes to your health care regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. Use of the information provided in this podcast does not establish a doctor, patient or client provider relationship between you and the host or between you and any other healthc care professionals featured on the show. Any medical opinions or statements made by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or affiliated parties. Statements regarding dietary supplements or health related products mentioned in this podcast have not been evaluated by the fda. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Some episodes of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast may include sponsorships or affiliate links. The host may receive compensation for discussing or promoting certain products or services. Any such sponsorships or affiliations will be clearly disclosed during the episode. All opinions expressed are those of the host or guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any sponsors. The inclusion of a product or service is not imply endorsement by any healthcare professional featured on this podcast.