Episode #228: Body Ecology for Modern Times with Donna Gates, MEd, ABAAHP

Why You Should Listen

In this episode, you will learn about the role of Body Ecology in Candida, Long COVID, viral illness, and autism.

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About My Guest

My guest for this episode is Donna Gates.  Donna Gates, MEd, ABAAHP is a pioneer in gut health, infections, and immunity.  Decades before it became mainstream, she was the first to teach about the extraordinary and complex world inside the gut, now known as the microbiome, and how it influences immunity, brain health, metabolism, and long-term wellness.  She is the founder of Body Ecology, a revolutionary system that introduced the first gluten-free, sugar-free, and dairy-free nutritional approaches, with a strategic focus on specific fermented foods to create a thriving inner ecosystem in the gut.  In her bestselling book, "The Body Ecology Diet", which has remained relevant for decades, Donna explains how to conquer Candida, restore microbial balance, and rebuild the immune system.  She reveals how the inner ecosystem is established at birth and how this process represents nature’s original form of building a vibrant immune system.  By partnering with nature, rather than attempting to override it, we build true immune resilience, even in a toxic world where pathogens are a constant threat.  Her newest book, “Taming the Dragon: Body Ecology’s Guide to Preventing and Treating Viral Infections”, offers practical solutions for persistent viral illness, immune dysfunction, and long-haulers.

Key Takeaways

• What is the Body Ecology diet?
• What strategies can support optimizing Candida and the inner ecosystem?
• Can fermented foods be used in those with MCAS?
• How are conditions such as SIBO and SIFO approached?
• What was Donna's personal journey with Long COVID?
• What tools has Donna found helpful for regaining her health after COVID?
• How did SOT help Donna move past Lyme disease?
• What is the impact of spike proteins and how might they be mitigated?
• How can vascular health be optimized in the era of COVID?
• What strategies can support a robust immune system and minimize immunosenescence as people age?
• What role do chronic viruses have on health?
• Is it more important to boost or to modulate the immune system?
• How does the Cell Danger Response fit into the chronic illness discussion?
• What are some strategies for supporting the vagus nerve?
• What dietary changes are important when dealing with a viral condition?
• How do acidity and alkalinity play a role?
• What are some strategies for supporting detoxification?
• What has Donna seen over many years of working with children with autism?
• What is the Epigenetic Reset?

Connect With My Guest

BodyEcology.com

Related Resources

Book - Taming the Dragon: Body Ecology’s Guide to Preventing and Defeating Viral Infections An Antiviral Diet

Interview Date

January 29, 2026

Transcript

Transcript Disclaimer: Transcripts are intended to provide optimized access to information contained in the podcast.  They are not a full replacement for the discussion.  Timestamps are provided to facilitate finding portions of the conversation.  Errors and omissions may be present as the transcript is not created by someone familiar with the topics being discussed.  Please Contact Me with any corrections.  

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:01] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts, empowering your better health. And now, here's Scott, your BetterHealthGuy.

The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or as information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.

[0:00:35] SCOTT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 228 of the BetterHealthGuy Blogcasts series. Today's guest is Donna Gates, and the topic of the show is Body Ecology for Modern Times. Donna Gates is a pioneer in gut health, infections, and immunity. Decades before it became mainstream, she was the first to teach about the extraordinary and complex world inside the gut, now known as the microbiome, and how it influences immunity, brain health, metabolism, and long-term wellness. She is the founder of Body Ecology, a revolutionary system that introduced the first gluten-free, sugar-free, and dairy-free nutritional approaches with a strategic focus on specific fermented foods to create a thriving inner ecosystem in the gut.

In her best-selling book, The Body Ecology Diet, which has remained relevant for decades, Donna explains how to conquer Candida, restore microbial balance, and rebuild the immune system. She reveals how the inner ecosystem is established at birth and how this process represents nature's original form of building a vibrant immune system. By partnering with nature rather than attempting to override it, we build true immune resilience, even in a toxic world where pathogens are a constant threat. Her newest book, Taming the Dragon: Body Ecology's Guide to Preventing and Treating Viral Infections, offers practical solutions for persistent viral illness, immune dysfunction, and long-haulers.

And now, my interview with Donna Gates.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:13] SCOTT: It is my great honor today to have an OG in the health and wellness realm to talk with us about body ecology, about viruses, about long COVID, and about the concept of the Epigenetic Reset to optimize the future health of the unborn child. Given that this is Donna's first guest appearance on the podcast, and she has such a vast expertise, we're going to talk about a number of different things impacting our ability to optimize our health and wellness. Thank you so much for being here today, Donna. It's a great honor.

[0:02:45] DONNA: Wow. It's a great honor for me, Scott, because I followed you for years. And I just love your podcast. You ask the best questions. You ask questions, and I think, "Oh, I would have asked that." And I don't know what OG stands for, but thank you for that.

[0:03:01] SCOTT: It's like the original godfather, I believe. So maybe the original godmother.

[0:03:06] DONNA: Okay, good. I am actually original in a bunch of things, and I don't think I get credit for it anymore. So that's nice.

[0:03:12] SCOTT: Yeah. And thank you for those kind words as well. That coming from you makes my entire week. So greatly appreciate it.

[0:03:18] DONNA: Oh, I'm very sincere. I've listened to every single one, sometimes two or three times. The last one you did for long-haulers, that was excellent.

[0:03:28] SCOTT: I learned a lot from that one, too, with Dr. Robin Rose.

Many people will know you from Body Ecology. That's how I first heard about you and your work many years ago. I've used several of your products over the years. Also, you first published your book, The Body Ecology Diet, back around 1994, I believe.

I'm curious how much the diet principles have changed since your initial writings? And then wondering if you can also talk to us about what drove your passion for writing a book about yeast, about Candida. I'm going to say Candida. Some people say Candida. Either one is fine, but about yeast, about Candida, about sugar-free, gluten-free, casein-free, probiotic-rich diets. Give us an overview of the concepts that went into body ecology.

[0:04:17] DONNA: Well, first of all, I probably should mention that in that book was the first time anyone ever wrote about this thing in this world in our gut. And I had to come up with this term. So, I used inner ecosystem. Eventually, the term microbiome is the popular one that everyone uses. But what happened to me is, as a teenager, I went on antibiotics for a really long time every single day. Tetracycline, that's what the doctors gave you. I went on the birth control pill.

And by the time I was in college, I was a real mess. But I didn't know what was wrong. I did know I had a vaginal yeast infection, but I didn't understand yet that those infections become systemic. Anyway, I did everything possible. I tried raw diets, macrobiotic for eight years. I learned a lot all along the way, which was useful.

But when I met Dr. William Crook, he had just written this book called The Yeast Connection. And I actually had the good fortune to sit out on a fountain outside of one of the big conferences. Expos, I think. And he was introducing his book, and nobody was around him, and I sat down and started talking to him. And he said his partner, Orian Truss, he said we don't believe there's a cure for this. I thought, "Of course, there has to be. So, I'm going to find it."

And I really had a lot of training in food. Food as medicine. I lived in Japan for about six or seven and studied with Lima Ohsawa. And even went to another type of training called Kaiseki, which is very high-level Japanese training where they really do focus on food as medicine. And of course, Chinese medicine has a very good understanding of the energetics of food. So, I had all that.

So, I thought, "Well, you know, I'm going to find an answer." And so, I went home and took his diet. And it was really good, but not good enough. So I kept finding what is this condition? That's the first thing you have to look at is what is Candidiasis? And then what foods would be appropriate.

Dairy, for example, is damp and mucusy. And also, because I already knew. I was beginning to understand a lot about the inner ecosystem and knew that people had gut issues. That's why I brought in the fermented foods. That's a whole story in itself is how I found that inner ecosystem, and nobody ever talked about it. But there were microbiologists out there talking all the time about microbes, but they just kept the information among themselves, and they didn't get it out to us. Anyway, no one talked about it yet.

And I wrote a chapter in the book just on this world inside of this, this inner garden, and how we were causing a silent spring. Because Rachel Carson had written this book. Actually, I think that's one of the chapters about what we're doing to poison this world. So, we would have a silent spring. That's what has happened.

When I was macrobiotic, there are two principles, acid-alkaline and yin and yang, which is too hard for Americans to understand. So, I changed it to balance, the principle of balance, because that's really what it is. And so, I took those two principles and started there. But I started asking the universe, "There must be other principles that would help us well or can be applied to diet, how we're eating." And so, it turns out that there – I came up with seven, seven principles. So that hasn't changed at all because they're universal laws. But what has changed is one of those universal laws is the principle of uniqueness.

I developed a diet for people with candidiasis. It turned out, when I put it out there, I got emails from all over the place. People saying, "Oh, I had this, and I had that, and it went away." So, it seemed to be a diet that fixed a lot of things, not just Candida. Fast forward, it is a diet that fixes a lot of things because it's very basic, very essential to do, to do the foods I recommended.

Over the years, I learned to make some modifications to the diet. I think it's very, very important that we're mindful of the foods that are high in oxalates. And that's because yeast and mold and fungus, they all make oxalates. You don't want more in your diet because it's way too much for the body to handle, and it causes lots and lots of problems. Pain is one of them, one of the main ones. That's one major change is I want people to be mindful of the oxalates.

And there's this thing about how you can't go suddenly eliminate all oxalates from your diet, or you're going to have a dumping bad, like a cleansing die-off. It's bad. I didn't find that to be true. I actually did take all the top oxalates and just didn't eat them anymore.

I had gone off to spefak somewhere, and I needed energy, so I took some chocolate and a couple of other things. And when I got home, my knees were aching. And I don't usually have any problems with my joints. So, I thought, "Oh." And also, the other thing oxalates do for me is it causes my left eye to dry up too much, and so it burns. So, I had those two symptoms, and I was sitting there cooking something, thinking, "Why would I have these symptoms?" And then, all of a sudden, it dawned on me that yeah, I've been eating chocolate. I think at the hotel, I ordered spinach. Super high in oxalates.

Anyway, when I started working with children with autism, they're incredibly sensitive to oxalates. So, that's important, I think, to know. Look up what they are and avoid the high oxalate foods. And everybody will improve if they do that.

I did introduce fermented foods when I talked about this world in our gut and had a chapter on them, too, fermented vegetables and what they do. Of course, over the years, I've added much more science to that. To me, if you only ate fermented vegetables and took Bifidus, the other bacteria, that's super important, super complimentary to all the diversity that you get in the fermented vegetables. That's going to be fantastic.

And there's a whole bunch of probiotics out. We have a bunch, too. But you can introduce those, of course, to get them into your gut. But it's just amazing what fermented vegetables do. And now in a year, I'll be 80 years old. So, I always wanted to be – well, I remember being in a family reunion. They rode with my great-grandmother in, and she was so old. She hardly any hair left. And what was there was white. And her skin was all lots of brown spots. And she was in a wheelchair because her legs were fat and swollen. And she was fat. And I'm like seven or eight, and I looked over at her, and I thought, "I don't think God does this. Something's wrong with this picture, and I'm going to find out. I don't want to go down that. I don't want to be a young, healthy, fun kid, and then I'm going to end up like that. There's got to be an answer."

And so, in my mind, all of my life, I've kind of looked for longevity jewels. And I would say, though, that if I had to narrow it down, I would put colon therapy. I would put cultured vegetables. Diet is really critical. One of the principles is food combining. And I do think that's an important longevity principle. My few friends that have always practiced food combining. So that means you eat your protein and you eat it with vegetables, or you eat, say, rice with vegetables. You don't put the carbs and the protein together. That's all it is. And if you're going to eat fruit, you'd eat it alone. Wait 30 minutes to have something else. So, my friends that have done this, they definitely look 20 years younger. So, I would throw that into the hat, too, for a longevity tool.

[0:11:37] SCOTT: Whatever you are doing is clearly working. So, I'm excited to learn more about those things from you today.

The oxalate conversation is an interesting one because I think we've learned somewhat recently that fungal colonization, potentially from mold in the environment, can also endogenously produce oxalates. There's the food, there's the endogenous fungal colonization potentially. And then we also create oxalates from some of our metabolic processes as well. And so very interesting that you found that to be an important piece of the conversation.

So, let's dig a little deeper into the topic of Candida. This is something I've personally experienced as a component of my own health journey. What are some of the most important things for us to consider if we're dealing with an overgrowth of Candida or yeast? How important is the diet in terms of optimizing that inner ecosystem, our micro and mycobiomes? Talk to us a little bit about the diet. Do we need to eliminate fruit? Some people say yes, some say no. And then let's move into a little bit of some of your favorite compounds that have been proven effective for dealing with an overgrowth of Candida from more of an antifungal perspective. Maybe some favorite herbs, or spices, or things in that realm.

[0:13:00] DONNA: Yeah, the diet's the most important thing. And sometimes that's all you need to do. You've just got to stop feeding the yeast so that they starve them. You're basically starving to death. And what they're eating are sugars. So, you'll find sugars in grains. You'll find them actually in dairy, regular dairy, even if it's fermented. Dairy is mucus-forming. So that's out, really.

What you are left with basically is protein and vegetables. The diet is 80% vegetables, 20% protein. But sometimes you need to change that up a little bit. Go a little more protein. And the vegetables are low oxalate. I mean, I just look up the vegetables that are high in oxalates, like spinach, other things like chocolate, and avoid those. Nuts and seeds, you have to be really careful with because so many of those are high in oxalates. Beans, most of those are high in oxalates, except for black-eyed peas.

In the nut and seed world, the macadamia nuts are low in oxalates. But you just have to be careful. It depends on where the nut and seed is grown. Because over in Australia and New Zealand, pecans over there are very, very low oxalate. But over here, they could be high oxalate. Diet is the most important thing.

And then as far as herbs go, tons of them. There's so many herbs on the planet. Same with viruses. They're taking care of these pathogens. But we have a supplement, Candida CLR. And it has all the ones that I think are really important. Just to name a few of them. Oil of oregano is a real great one. You want to take enough, though. So, we tell people to take three of those capsules, but I would like to say three times a day because you really do have to be aggressive when you're fighting the yeast in the beginning. As far as fruit goes, I do see that out there all the time that fruit's fine. I totally disagree with that because fruit is sugar. Except for lemons and limes, all the other fruit have sugar.

There's two stages to the diet. So, as you start to get well, about 3 months down the road, you can start to introduce these other foods. You can bring in some grains. You can start with quinoa and millet. They happen to be high in oxalate, though. So you have to cook them in a certain way. What I do is I'll boil them for about, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes, and then pour off the water. When you pour off the water, you're getting rid of a lot of the oxalates. And then go ahead and prepare them. Stir-fry them or whatever you're going to do with them, or make even a millet salad or something. But that'll make a big difference.

I think fruit, though, it doesn't work. It's sugar. At least in the beginning. But then again, that's one of the – on stage two, you can start adding fruits. The low-sugar ones. Blueberries are low in sugar. Most of your berries are low in sugar, but some of them are high in oxalates. The fruit that's lowest in oxalates is blueberries. When I have fruit, it's usually blueberries. But I don't think fruit is a good thing to have in the winter either. Because, first of all, it doesn't grow in the winter naturally. Traditionally, people wouldn't have been eating it.

And then the other thing about fruit is it's cooling. It chills the body, which is great if you're in a hot climate. If you're in Florida, yeah, eat some oranges and so on. If you're in Hawaii, of course, you've got a warm climate, and fruit works. It doesn't work in Chicago and Minneapolis during the winter. I would say no to fruit in the wintertime also.

[0:16:29] SCOTT: One of the things that I've seen in people who have a really difficult time dealing with their yeast issue is that if they're living in a moldy environment, it seems that it's much more difficult. Wondering if you found that people can mitigate or normalize their yeast overgrowth effectively when they're also not getting exposed to other fungi in their external environment. Have you seen that connection at all?

[0:16:57] DONNA: Well, I just noticed that people with Candidiasis are very sensitive to their environment. If you walk into a store, let's say the store has a bunch of fabric, you're going to feel awfulness. Or perfume, just so many smells just immediately make people feel bad. They weaken you. Immediately get a headache. Definitely, a moldy environment would be awful.

Mold and yeast are the members of the same family. So basically, you have to eliminate both. You have to get rid of the yeast. And even if you get rid of the yeast, I would say you'll never feel good in a moldy environment. You'll be even more sensitive because you had this yeast infection, because yeast doesn't really go away. It just goes into like a more dormant form and can spring back any time.

So, if your body gets too acidic, the Candida is back again at a raging level. So, that's why it's important to stay pretty close to the basic diet. But stage two allows you to add more things. But don't go off of that. You can't go back to eating sugar at all. And so, I was going to mention, though, as far as sugar goes, people need sugar. It's natural that we have this sweet taste. The very first taste in our first food is sweet. That's breast milk. And so, we just like sweets.

Today, what we sell that is even better than stevia is something called BE Sweet. And it's mostly allulose. But I know a lot about how stevia works. Stevia is kind of a flavor enhancer. So, we put a little bit of stevia in there with allulose to make it really good. It tastes amazingly like sugar. It's hard to say to somebody, "Don't eat sugar," and not have something to replace it with. And with the BE Sweet, you can cook with it. Even make good lemonade every day with some fresh lemon juice and a little bit, just to your taste, how much BE Sweet you want to add in. And then water or sparkling mineral water. A lot of times, that alone takes away any cravings for sweets. So, you can have sugar.

[0:18:55] SCOTT: And it's interesting that you were exploring stevia before anyone else even knew what it was. Now we know based on the work of Dr. Eva Sapi at University of New Haven that stevia is also helpful for people dealing with Borrelia or Lyme disease.

Another aspect of your Body Ecology program is really building that strong inner ecology, supporting a healthy microbiome, using probiotics, fermented foods. I want to touch a little bit about those people that are maybe dealing with mast cell activation syndrome, maybe dealing with histamine issues. Do you find that they can tolerate fermented foods? Because I know many of them don't early on seem to tolerate a lot of histamine or high histamine foods. So, talk to us a little bit about how we build that stronger inner ecology in people that are really sensitive, more complex, chronic conditions. Maybe they don't even tolerate some probiotics. And we know that many in this community of listeners have been on antibiotics for many years, potentially, for Lyme disease. That reduces our beneficial bacteria, makes us more prone to yeast and fungal overgrowth. I'm wondering what have you seen that's working best for restoring the microbiome, restoring Bifidobacteria, which seems to be lost in the vast majority of people these days.

[0:20:20] DONNA: Yeah, Bifidus almost disappears completely in the elder. That's a bacteria I absolutely love, and there's a reason for that, which I can come back to later. But just to use a personal story. I had, with COVID and everything, developed mast cell. Super sensitive to histamine foods. I reduced those. I mean, I took them out completely. I had to, because the itching was terrible.

So, of course, I read about this list of foods that you have to avoid, and fermented foods are on that. But not all fermented foods are the same. And especially, it bothered me that you've got to build your immune system. That's an absolute must. Well, I'd like to talk about that, too. You need to have a strong, hearty, intelligent, resilient, resistant immune system. And so, nothing does that better than fermented vegetables. Well, that bothered me a lot. The people were told not to eat them. And I thought, "Well, how will people really get well? Will they really have a healthy gut?" And so on.

I've taught people for years how to make fermented vegetables a certain way. I made them that way. And what I do is I take the shredded vegetables, and then I make a separate brine with water and a bunch of apples to make it sweet. And then I put in our special minerals, because they love – the minerals are humic and fulvic minerals. Bacteria love that. So, I wanted them to grow. So, I wanted to feed the microbes in the vegetables.

But I also added a starter that we have, a cultured vegetable starter. That's plantarum. And plantarum gets its name because it's on plants. But when you add a whole bunch more, I'm just adding a packet or so to the brine, then adding that into the vegetables that are cut up. Then you're starting the whole process with a tremendous amount of plantarum.

Plantarum is an amazing superstar. It's a leader. A lot of other bacteria start doing what the plantarum tell them to do. I actually did some testing at Clemson. I think I sent two jars without culture in it and two jars with the culture. When the results came back, I was shocked. It was like hundreds and thousands of times greater, a richer culture, many, many, many more diverse bacteria were in the ones with the starter, which is funny because I didn't add all those other bacteria. But plantarum makes all the other ones grow.

I just started eating my fermented vegetables made with plantarum, and I didn't have any problem. And then I found research showing that plantarum degrades histamine. You see, I was actually – I don't know if it's because the way I made them. But it didn't cause a problem. And added all that superstar plantarum. I disagree with that, what's being put out there.

But yeah, a lot of them, kombucha. You do have to be careful. But maybe everyone's unique, and you can try it and tell if you – also, the other thing is if you're really concerned, take an antihistamine 30 minutes before, an hour before, or something, and then try a little bit of the fermented vegetables because you really, really will benefit from having them.

[0:23:31] SCOTT: When you first started your work, we didn't have terms like SIBO and SIFO. As you mentioned, we didn't even have microbiome yet. But SIBO and SIFO, they seem almost ubiquitous in the chronically ill today, maybe even in many healthy people. I generally think of these small intestinal overgrowths as more the effect rather than the cause. Thinking more upstream about the nervous system, the vagus nerve, our levels of stress, the migrating motor complex, bile flow, all of those things that potentially contribute to these overgrowths. But I'm wondering how you view SIBO and SIFO. How do you approach those? And is SIFO today any different from Candida overgrowth that you talked about several decades ago?

[0:24:23] DONNA: You know, I think SIFO is Candida, because that's the predominant yeast. And same thing, you got to be on a sugar-free diet. But I do like FODMAP, the FODMAP foods. And you can go – and I even have an app on my phone that, when I was first learning those FODMAP foods, I check it all the time in the grocery store. Is this one safe or not? And it seems when you eliminate those FODMAP foods, you're going to have less bloating. And I think taking even something like the Candida CLR would be a really beneficial supplement.

[0:24:57] SCOTT: Do you think that small intestinal overgrowths are caused by the microbes? Or do you think there's other things, and that's just what happens then?

[0:25:07] DONNA: Oh, no. I definitely think that the microbes get up in there, and they're not supposed to be there. The migrating motor complex is very slow. Most people are constipated anyway. And like you said, bile flow. I'm glad you mentioned that, because bile flow is really important. And we have a product called LivAmend that I take pretty religiously. I'll take three in the morning, three at night, because it stimul – it's for the liver, but it stimulates bile flow, which then makes you – one of the functions of bile, besides digesting fats, is it also stimulates peristalsis. So, it moves the food along, so you're less likely to get SIBO. I think that's important that people understand. If you don't produce enough bile, take an enzyme. I know Ann Louise Gittleman has one for bile, and Jarrow has one for bile. So just take that, especially if you've had your gallbladder removed. That's a must.

The product we have called EcoPhage is a virus, basically, that goes after bacteria. I think that's a really, really good product for people to take if they have SIBO, SIFO. Well, especially the SIBO. Because what bacteriophages are, they're viruses that kill bacteria. And it's fascinating because there's actually more bacteriophages on the planet than there are bacteria.

Just have this image in your mind. Let's say that you have one bacteria, and it's bad. And it can be good or bad. Bacteria can easily change into a pathogenic form. But I always have this image with bacteriophages, there's like 10 policemen standing around that bacteria to make sure that it doesn't get out of hand. And that's what they do. But what's really interesting about them also is that they are strain-specific. Like ones we carry, they go after. It's a little cocktail or a combination. But they go after Klebsiella and E. coli. Those two, by the way, are the most common ones for urinary tract infections and also for SIBO.

But the way to use it is – or the way they work is that they have this kind of like a spike thing that they inject into the bacteria, and then they start to make the bacteria reproduce the virus. And it gets so many viruses inside this one cell that it explodes. And now you've got a whole bunch of the bacteriophages just running around all over the place infecting a bunch of other cells.

So, in the beginning, I think it's a good idea to take more of them, give them a chance to get in there and explode all over the body. And then eventually, maybe you can take more like a prophylactic function. But they're pretty amazing. And they're not new. Because back, like in the early 1900s or maybe – I'm not sure exactly. Maybe 30, 40s, we were really getting into bacteriophages. And then, of course, drugs came out. And so they were not allowed over here. But there are some places in the world where a lot of bacteriophages, like in Georgia, the country of Georgia, they're really into them over there, and they use them all the time. And you can contact them and ask them to send you some.

But as far as Lyme goes, there's a woman over in England. I meant to look her up again. She's kind of at the tip of England, but she's been researching bacteriophages for Lyme for a long time. And maybe there are people over there using them, but we're not being told about them. But they really are special tool.

[0:28:38] SCOTT: 100% agree with that. Ann Louise Gittleman is another one of my favorite people, and I love her bile product.

Also, talk to us about some of your can't-live-without Body Ecology products. When I was looking, I was interested in the EcoPhage Microbiome Support. You have a Bio CLR Intestinal Biofilm Cleanser. You have a Histamine Reducing Probiotic. And then you've mentioned Candida CLR as well. Lots of interesting things that you've created. What are the desert island products that you have created that you could not live without?

[0:29:16] DONNA: Well, believe it or not, I don't know what kind of island I would be fortunate enough to be moved to, but I would take some kefir starter with me. Because I'm assuming I would have coconuts on the island, and I would ferment coconut water, because that's a magical, magical food. And then I would like to take – if I can, grow cabbage and carrots, and I'd ferment those. I'd bring the cultured veggie starter. You can use the cultured veggie starter in the water for the coconut, too. If you were only allowed to bring one of those two, I'd bring the culture starter for vegetables. Honestly, I'd be perfectly happy if that's all I took.

But I do think, as far as healthcare products, people really do need digestive enzymes. Even if you say to yourself, "I digest my food pretty well. So do I need them?" I think you always need that extra support, and you'll feel better. The food will move through better, you'll have better stools. I would tell people, if they don't have any money to buy a lot of things, at least buy digestive enzymes. To me, that's a basic.

And then, as I mentioned, I love LivAmend. Because I think we have to take care of our liver. It's a big organ, and it does all these critical things, especially process every single toxin that comes into our body. And you have to produce the bile. That's a central. And, again, as I mentioned, it's critical for elimination of those toxins to get them out of the body. To me, if you don't want ours, you can take somebody else's liver cleansing product. There's a bunch probably on the market.

I think minerals are essential. We have a liquid that I always put into the coffee. I probably couldn't take this on a desert island, but we also sell a sprouted coffee, which makes all the difference in the world and how your body reacts to the coffee. When you sprout those coffee beans, even if they're organic and super healthy, an amazing amount of toxins still come out. Without those, the sprouted coffee – and there's different flavors. You just feel completely different, but you get the benefits of it. I always put in the liquid minerals because I think that's very balancing to the coffee. And there are coffees on the market that are more alkaline, but that ensures that you're making your coffee alkaline by putting the minerals in.

[0:31:37] SCOTT: And is your coffee intended for oral consumption, or is it intended also for coffee enemas?

[0:31:45] DONNA: Well, most people buy it for oral, but no reason in the world why you can't use it for an enema because it's so clean. If you want to put the cleanest coffee in your body, get a sprouted coffee. And so far, this is the only one on the market.

[0:31:59] SCOTT: We had a wonderful conversation prior to this podcast where you shared your own personal journey with Long COVID. I really appreciated that you were open to talking about that and transparent about your experience and wanting that to then help other people.

So, tell us a little bit about your Long COVID journey, your symptoms. How do you like to view Long COVID? I know there's different ways of thinking of it. Some people think it's the persistence of SARS-CoV-2 itself. Some people think of it as a spike protein toxicity. Some of us also think of it as the great unmasker, where we find that then the immune containment of other things is lost when you get COVID. And suddenly, people have Borrelia, or Lyme, Bartonella, Babesia, Mycoplasma, Epstein-Barr, all of these things. Even some people that could tolerate their living environment before COVID, and now they're having symptoms of mold illness as well. What was your Long COVID journey? And then what tools have you been most drawn to for supporting yourself and also the broader community of people impacted by Long COVID?

[0:33:10] DONNA: Well, I think that it's this amazing virus. It's a different virus than a virus that nature would create. And when it hit, I think I got COVID at least three times. I didn't test. And I didn't get very sick. I went through it pretty quickly. To me, it was no big deal. Except afterwards, I just was never the same.

I mean, I've always thought my whole life-long from the yeast, and from the antibiotics, and all, that I probably had chronic fatigue. Because I'd go through these bouts of being very tired and fit the symptoms of chronic fatigue. I would, of course, take really good care of myself and kind of move through that.

But when this happened, and it was continual chronic fatigue. And of course, I did try to do things, but understand it first of all. But what I realized was it was unleashing other infections that were in my body already. Candidiasis, for sure. Epstein-Barr, for sure. What else? And herpes. We all carry herpes infections, as a matter of fact. I realized that everything that was going wrong in my body that had sort of kept under control with my immune system was now out. And so, I had to just start putting everything back into place again.

But I think looking back – well, here's the good thing that came out of it is I went to a practitioner, and she's a Lyme specialist, and she said when she saw some breakouts on my skin, she said, "Let's test you for Lyme." And I thought that's a waste of time and money, but okay. She was right. I came back with Borrelia and Bartonella. Both.

And so, I read everything I could about that and all the herbs and things that are available. But it seems like the herbs are too slow, take too long to solve the problem. So, she told me about a therapy called SOT. Because of the cost of it, I couldn't afford to do SOT for the Bartonella and for the Borrelia. I picked the Bartonella because I felt like I had more of those symptoms.

So, what happens is your blood is drawn, and it's sent over to Greece, where they specifically look for the strain of Bartonella that you have. And then they prepare a special serum. That I think is a really good therapy. When I look back, I would say it's that, along with the other things I was doing, which I'm always doing things to be healthy. So that was complimentary to the SOT.

So, you can find information about that on YouTube and internet videos. But I highly recommend. As a matter of fact, Justin – I know the Justin Timberlake family. And when he was diagnosed with Lyme disease, texted his mom, who's a friend, and I said, "Have Justin look into the SOT." Because when you're a celebrity and when you have a lot of money and all, I think that you don't always get the best information.

For example, Michael Fox, he's just progressively gotten worse. I'm sure he gets the best medical help. But there's other things I've learned over the years that would have kept him from progressing as much. Anyway, I don't know. I haven't had any follow-up on that. But I really do think that's one of the most effective things to do. And so, the practitioner that I went to, she had about three different – I know she had Bartonella and Borrelia. Maybe she even did one for Epstein-Barr because they have one for that too, a serum.

But anyway, she got super, super sick. And that was my concern is if I did all of them, both of them, that I would get sick. And I didn't want to not be able to function. So, she did do everything. And she did get really sick and had terrible, terrible headaches for a long, long time. And so, I would recommend not to do all of them.

But anyway, I like the therapy. And I'd like to go back now and do the other one, the Borrelia. I would like to – but have to find – it's expensive. And other things I've done are – well, maybe there's other things. Maybe now, I'm using a herb, like cryptolepis or something, would be good to do along with it. I did do that. I actually took some. Quicksilver makes a liquid cryptolepis. And I did take that probably not consistently enough. But anyway, at 6 months, you they retest you to see if the bad strain, the problematic strain is gone. So, I haven't had that test yet, but I feel better. So, I just think it's one of the important things to do.

[0:37:51] SCOTT: So, SOT is going to be the focus of my next episode of the podcast. And I'm going to dive deep into that with a doctor from the Lyme community who's also used it himself as well. So, I'm looking forward to learning a lot more about that also. But I think you are probably wise to move into that slowly and methodically because we don't necessarily want to have kind of a long-term Herxheimer reaction that, once that is in you, that you then can't get it out. But I'm definitely excited to learn more about SOT as well.

Along the way, did you use tools like EBOO, or apheresis, or any of these newer filtration or detoxification strategies?

[0:38:36] DONNA: Out in California, I was able to find a practitioner who did the EBOO. And I had felt fantastic. It just didn't last. And then here, the closest thing that I have near in my town is Deeper Healing. And they do ozone. So, I tried that a good bit. And each time, I felt better from it. But I still was struggling with the problem. I would say do that. Again, it's like how much money do you want to keep pouring out for all these different therapies without no guarantee that they're going to work for you?

If I had somebody close to me, I would continue to do the EBOO four or five times, maybe then once a year after that because we have all these viruses in our body. I mean, they start staying in our body from the age of three. Herpes 6, almost 100% of the population is infected with that one. That herpes virus, by the age of three. And it often comes along with Epstein-Barr. And they support each other, and they activate each other. So, I just think that we have to be really mindful to stay on top of these viruses. Just like Candida, they don't go away, and they're so problematic. And I don't think they get enough credit for the problems that they're causing in the body.

[0:39:57] SCOTT: I 100% agree. There are practitioners now in the medical field that don't really believe that these viruses are an issue. That's not been my experience. I've also had a lot of issues from viruses in my own recovery.

Tying COVID and Long COVID back to the microbiome, we know that Dr. Sabine Hazan talks about how many of us no longer have Bifidobacteria. There was also a correlation that she found between one's level of Bifidobacteria and how well they navigated COVID. COVID itself had impacts on the microbiome. Is there anything that you're doing differently in terms of the impact of COVID on the microbiome supporting Bifidobacteria or other ways to support the microbiome so that we then can more readily move through COVID and be less likely to develop Long COVID?

[0:40:50] DONNA: Well, no, I didn't know that this was destroyed. I did know that there's a whole bunch of ACE2 receptors in the gut. And probably the very first attack that the SARS virus did was on the gut. And I did know that it completely changed the diversity. But I didn't know that about Bifidus, but now I know that. Because to me, Bifidus is one of the most precious of all the bacteria. It does so many critical things that we can maybe talk about later. But I would say, if I got COVID again, or during that period when I got it three times in a row, I would have been taking Bifidus all day long.

What I've done a number of times with people that are constipated, because it's really good for constipation, I've had them put some Bifidus in the morning in a glass. It can be like a quart jar and put some – ours is in a powder form, our Bifidus bacteria. And it's got all the key ones in it. And so put that in the quart jar of water and just sip on that all day long. I would do that now if I got COVID because I know that it attacks Bifidus. Anyway, I'm glad you brought that out. But most people don't even know to get the Bifidus. Right?

[0:42:04] SCOTT: I also was taking your Bifidus powder and putting it in my coffee enema solution for quite some time, thinking that would be another way to introduce it into the body.

You talk about spike proteins being persistent in the body. Carlo Brogna and his team have talked about how the SARS-CoV-2 virus could potentially infect our own gut flora and essentially act like a bacteriophage, where we then have that replication of the virus that is now an internal spike protein factory. How do we remove spike proteins? Do we need to address those internal factories? Are there specific spike protein binders or mitigation strategies that you found helpful?

[0:42:51] DONNA: Somehow, rather, the SARS virus, is killing the microbes in the gut. And maybe that is how they work. Maybe they're going in, and the SARS virus is blowing up a cell and killing that little bacteria. I don't know about that. But it would be much more interesting if we could – it would be good if someone did more research on that.

But Peter McCullough seems to have a very effective protocol. He says it is for getting rid of the spike protein in the gut. And he's having people take curcumin, bromelain, and nattokinase, or lumbrokinase, or both. Again, I haven't personally talked to people that are doing that, but I've watched him. And he says that, after a year, it's really made a big difference in people. So it sounds like you have to take it for a long time.

Other than that, what I would say, and I sound like a broken record, I would say eat fermented vegetables because they have the ability to bring in a whole bunch of new bacteria, healthy good guys. And they're very protective. So, if the SARS virus is still in there, they're going to kill it. I so often come back to that as a solution that I do probably sound like a broken record. But that's why I hate it when fermented vegetables are thrown onto that list to avoid if you have histamine issues.

[0:44:09] SCOTT: One of the most profound impacts of COVID is the endothelial damage, the microclotting, the hypercoagulation. Wondering if that's something that you recommend exploring with specific testing. Are there tools that you found for reducing that hyper-viscous or thick blood, which then reduces our nutrient and oxygen delivery, also reduces our waste removal capacity? How are you thinking about and supporting the endothelium and vascular health in the era of COVID?

[0:44:43] DONNA: Well, that's where I think the nattokinase and lumbrokinase are so good. But I will say that there's another product that came out several years ago called Arterosil. A-R-T-E-R-O-S-I-L, I think, is the spelling. But I've had amazing results with that. I've had people literally that should be dead starting on that. One man really he should be dead, but he's had so many surgeries and on so many heart medications. But I started him – his wife called me and I suggested the Arterosil. He takes a lot of it, but he's been on it now maybe almost two years. His whole arteries are cleaned of plaque. I like that product. I'd recommend that one.

[0:45:28] SCOTT: I like it as well. Great recommendations.

We know that many viruses are correlated to the potential development of different cancers. Some suggest that we see an increase in cancer since COVID may be related to the interaction of spike protein and p53. Some people call them turbo cancers. We also know that immunosenescence as we age could be another contributor to increase in cancer. That the immune system is no longer capable of surveilling and containing these infections within our bodies. How do we best support the immune system and mitigate those factors that could be later contributors to the development of cancers?

[0:46:14] DONNA: You eat fermented vegetables and you take Bifidus. Sounds like a broken record. But we do, as we get older, we lose the diversity in our gut. Most people probably don't have any healthy bacteria in their gut as our age. Our genes become damaged. Our immune system becomes weaker. All of these things. And our body becomes more toxic. And these viral infections, I've often thought maybe they come into our body early in life because they have a purpose later on.

When we die, today, people go through these – they either are cremated or they get into a coffin. But in the olden days, they just dug a hole in the ground and buried them. Well, then your body starts decomposing. Well, what makes it decompose? Bacteria and viruses that are in the body. I wonder sometimes if that's just another thing that nature's done to get rid of a whole bunch of dead bodies around. Definitely, it gets back to eat fermented vegetables and the Body Ecology diet. It's a really healthy clean diet.

I feel like it's working for me. It's definitely dealing with Lyme and histamine intolerance. And I don't think there's such a thing, at least as we get older, to be 100% without something that you're dealing with. And so you just kind of have to be on top of something all the time. And that's okay. We have to take care of these bodies. They're incredible what they do and the gift that we have to be able to live in them. People just take their bodies for granted until something goes wrong. But I think something will probably always needed to be taken care of.

[0:47:51] SCOTT: Totally agree with that. And that was a perfect segue into kind of the next section of our conversation.

It seems that we're living in the age of the virus. Some experts claim that viruses don't exist, that they're not real. As I mentioned earlier, I personally think they're very real. You recently wrote an entire book, Taming the Dragon, on the topic of preventing and defeating viral infections. So, let's extend on our COVID conversation and talk more about how to tame the dragon of viral infections.

What are the key viruses that you find are impacting human health, leading us to more complex chronic health challenges? Are those viral issues generally contained by the immune system in a healthy person, but let out of the bag when we have something like Lyme or mold? Or do they affect most people, and many people just don't recognize the impact?

You say in the book, I love the way you said this, "I think of a virus as a fire-breathing dragon that lives in the depths of a cold, damp cave and emerges only when the environment outside the cave becomes acidic. The dragon will always be there. But for you to live a long healthy life, it's critical to keep it in the cave where it can do no harm."

Talk to us about viruses. Are they more opportunistic? Are they primary drivers of disease? Are they hiding from our immune system like Lyme and coinfections? Give us an overview on your thoughts about viruses.

[0:49:19] DONNA: Well, as I mentioned, I really do think they probably do have a purpose, and they're going to be there no matter what. Obviously, the healthier, stronger you can keep your immune system as you go through life, the less whole they won't – the dragon will stay in the cave, so to speak. That's what the immune system does. It keeps the dragon in check. But we eat the wrong foods, we do our lifestyle, everything we're doing, we're actually helping this virus take over the body.

And so, the SARS virus, yes, absolutely. It was such a strong virus, and it had such a weakening effect on the immune system that other viruses like Epstein-Barr and all the herpes viruses, they came out. And so, Epstein-Barr is probably the one that's most researched and talked about. But it doesn't matter. A virus is a virus. The way you take care of a virus is the same. You have to alkalize the blood. You can't do things that make you acidic.

And there's a lot of things that make us acidic. Just getting not enough sleep, being a sedentary person, and eating a diet that's very acidic. And stress, very much so. It's hard to stay more alkaline, but it's essential to do that because that's what brings them out. Actually, think of them as coming out to look for minerals. They got enough minerals. If you got enough minerals in your body, they'd go back in their cave and just sit there and be a – I mean, they're there, but they're not going to cause you a problem. So, I developed this diet years ago, and I've taught a lot of people along the way that if they get a viral infection, like a winter flu, for example, then they should immediately start going on this diet.

But then COVID came along, long-haulers came along, and I started thinking, "Would this be valuable for a long hauler?" Well, I think so because it identifies the foods that are feeding the virus, keeping it out there. And if you are a long-hauler, there's probably an excellent chance you're eating these foods.

And so, all the time, you're perpetuating these viruses in your body and you can't get well. So, I really think it's an important book. It's up on Kindle only. And very clearly outlines what to avoid and what to eat. And if you do it, you'll definitely feel better. I usually recommend doing it for 4 days, but sometimes that's all you need. If somebody's really struggling, 10 days is really ideal, too. But four often does it. And you start to feel better almost immediately.

So, let's say that you are infected with a flu and you're starting to come down with something. First thing that happens is your energy is going to drop. And we know that's because of the cell danger response. The energy drops, and then that's a clue. That's a sign. It means it's time to start taking care of this virus. The first thing you can do, one thing you can do is alkalize your body by taking a little bit of apple cider vinegar and putting it in water and starting to sip on that. And then sit down and rest as soon as you can. Because you have to be quiet and still for your immune system to recognize there's a virus and start doing all the things that the immune system does to start to kill it. Those are very, very early first steps. But again, you couldn't do that if you had a real serious histamine problem because apple cider vinegar probably will cause histamine problems. I think they come out anytime that we're acidic.

And also, I think that they – and stress is one of the things that's, of course, going to make our body acidic. They are opportunistic. They're sitting there ready to come out as first chance they get. And that's why I think – well, let me just use this as an example. I think this is a good example, is that many, many people think that they have Hashimoto's. And there have been studies that show that in the thyroid gland, there are actually like HHV-6 and Epstein-Barr are in there, are in the thyroid gland. They're causing so many problems that they don't get blamed for.

People think, "Oh, let's give you some thyroid medication and get your thyroid up and working." And yet that's a mistake. I mean, I think we need to go looking for these viruses. Because I think if we did almost all the time, we'll find them present causing a problem. And if you deal with them, get them under control, keep them under control, that a whole lot of improvements in our health will happen.

[0:54:03] SCOTT: I 100% agree with that. I think the chronic viruses, especially a lot of the herpetic viruses, is one of the more common things we ignore. Epstein-Barr, Herpes Zoster, Cytomegalovirus cause. I think they all play a significant role in health and in disease.

The key components of your approach to taming the viruses include healing the gut, supporting the microbiome, avoiding acidic foods, choosing alkaline foods, adjusting lifestyle to build energy, detoxification, and the wise use of supplements. So, I'm going to ask some questions based on what I learned from reading the book, Taming the Dragon. And I encourage other people to take a look at it as well.

Let's talk a little bit about building immunity. Many of us think that building immunity means boosting immunity, but that's often probably the worst thing we can do, particularly in people dealing with autoimmunity. So in my experience, it's more about modulating the immune system, creating more tolerance, more integration in terms of our pathobiome and our bodies.

A good example of this for me was for many years, in one leg, I had this very weird numbness, burning, pain sensation turned out to be related to varicella, or shingles is what some people develop from varicella. I never had shingles. But we just did a low-dose immunotherapy that, in literally overnight, fully normalized a sensation and addressed the impact of that virus. So, I will carry that forever. But if I do low-dose immunotherapy specifically for that varicella-zoster virus a few times a year, I don't have any symptoms from it.

What are your thoughts on boosting versus modulating or supporting the immune system? And what are some of your favorite tools for immune modulation?

[0:55:59] DONNA: Exactly what you said. Don't boost the immune system because it could be on fire all the time, causing inflammation all the time. The word boost isn't a good word. But you want it to be balanced, but you also wanted to be hearty, and you wanted to be intelligent, and you wanted to be resilient, so that when things come along, it's smart enough to identify the pathogen and start doing other things that are naturally present in our immune system to kill it right away. I think it's more – I don't like the word boost either. But I like balance. But you want to think of your immune system as intelligent. It is an incredible intelligent system in the body and it just knows exactly how to take care of things if it's healthy, if it's a good immune system.

[0:56:51] SCOTT: One of the things that you mention in the book that is a personal favorite for modulating the immune system is black seed oil. I think that can be an incredible immune modulator. The idea bringing more immune discernment, modulating that Th1, Th2 balance. Is black seed oil one that you commonly use? Any others that come to mind?

[0:57:13] DONNA: I think all of the antifungals. And there's tons of them in nature. We sell black seed oil, and I love that one. I love it with oil of oregano. The two are real powerful together. But again, I think people need to probably take more in that initial, in the beginning, where you can tell your energy is really low and you can tell the virus is coming out. Really, you want to attack pretty aggressively.

Maybe the bottle says take two or one a day or whatever. That's not nearly enough. You need to be more aggressive and take two or three times a day. Yeah. And I like to do combinations together, but I like to change those combinations. You don't want the immune system or the bad guy to start getting used to the oil of oregano and the black seed. Maybe start off with three antivirals, which also happen to be antifungals, too, which I think is interesting that the nature has provided us abundantly with the tools to get rid of these things, keep them under control.

Nature's provided us with this abundance of antivirals that are also antibacterials. And so if you use three of them, let's say, use them for about 5 days, 10 days at the most, then switch them out so that your immune system doesn't get used to, or that the virus that you're fighting doesn't get used to those particular ones, and you just keep changing it and keep tricking the bacteria or the virus. It's called pulsing.

[0:58:44] SCOTT: What is your lens on autoimmunity? Is it a condition of its own? Is it a symptom of chronic infections or a toxic terrain, and the expression of the body doing its best to protect us? In other words, is autoimmunity more of a label than a true root cause? Is it more about loss of tolerance, about a hypervigilant, dysregulated immune system, rather than more those core root causes that sometimes we're overlooking by saying, "Well, I have an autoimmune disease, but are we looking for the Epstein-Barr, or the Lyme, or other infections or even toxins?" Talk to us a little bit about your thoughts on autoimmunity.

And then the more traditional way that sometimes autoimmunity is approached is with steroid medications, maybe biologics to reduce the symptoms. But is that potentially reducing symptoms and yet creating other problems longer term because we're then less able to contain the infections that are the true drivers of the autoimmunity?

[0:59:56] DONNA: Yeah. All of that. First of all, the term autoimmunity has always bothered me for years. I thought our body's too smart. How come it would attack itself? That just doesn't make sense to me. I found out that years ago before autoimmunity became so hot, nobody believed in the body going after organs and attacking it. It was not a term used. I think there was like one autoimmune condition. Now I think there's 80, or hundred, or maybe more. They keep coming up with –

I mean, autism. I really, really have a hard time in my mind, explaining to myself, how is autism an autoimmune condition? Because, I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me. So, again, getting back to the thyroid. Let's say that your energy is really low. You suspect it might be your thyroid. So, you go to see your doctor and they test. And sure enough, your TSH, T4, T3, everything's off. And so they just immediately say, "Oh, you need a thyroid medication." Or if they test for antibodies and it shows that you have an autoimmune thyroid problem called Hashimoto's, then there's things they tell you to do. For example, one of them is avoid gluten. That's a good idea to do anyway.

But because they're telling you that it's just an autoimmune condition, it's not explaining things very well. But 40% of people with Hashimoto's or more when they're tested, versus controls who don't have Hashimoto's, they have viruses in their thyroid. If I were a patient going in and my doctor just immediately said, "Oh, you have Hashimoto's, let's do this. Let's give you this thyroid medication." Which, by the way, I took thyroid medication once. And about a week or two later, I started losing a lot of hair, and I thought, "That's weird." The only thing I've done is taking that tiny little amount of thyroid. I think it was Nature-Throid. But anyway, I stopped that, and the hair stopped falling out. That also made me very suspicious. That's not an answer.

But for sure, I would want my doctor to actually go test, see if I have Epstein-Barr that's active right now out in the bloodstream causing a problem versus in its cave. And by the way, you can only test for viruses when they're out in the bloodstream. Once they're in their hiding place, their residual reservoir where they hide, you can't test for them. If you're feeling really bad and you are testing for having a Hashimoto's, look out for viruses. Or even do this before you have to go to the doctor, go on the antiviral diet and see if that doesn't – if your energy doesn't come right back up again without having to take a medication, it's probably not doing the job.

[1:02:50] SCOTT: Makes total sense. I think with Hashimoto's, people should be exploring Epstein-Barr virus. They should think about Borrelia. Heavy metals can play a role as well. So many of these things. So it sounds like we're in agreement that autoimmune conditions are really more of a label for the symptom presentation, but we're not getting at the root cause. And if we get at the root cause, we can mitigate or fully address the autoimmunity.

[1:03:18] DONNA: 100% agree.

[1:03:20] SCOTT: You talk about Cell Danger Response. You mentioned that a few moments ago. I've done a podcast on that with Dr. Neil Nathan based on the work of Dr. Robert Naviaux. This is essentially kind of a protective state of the body in response to a threat. Often more of a hypometabolic intelligent response. That kind of loss of energy that you mention when you first get an infection, for example, telling you that, "Hey, you need to slow down and take care of yourself."

You say in the book that conditions like Long COVID, ME/CFS, MS, and autoimmunity represent being stuck in a cell danger response. So, what are some of the best strategies that you've identified to help people move through that cell danger response, CDR1, CDR2, CDR3, and back to the healing cycle?

[1:04:12] DONNA: Well, just in case there are people out there that don't know anything about the Cell Danger Response, what happens is as soon as your cells realize there's something bad invading the body, the cell danger response shuts the energy down in the body so that the virus or whatever isn't able to get a big strong foothold. It's shutting down energy. And then there's just different stages where basically the energy does stay – the person's not healing. And I think that it's pretty well accepted that if you're a Long COVID person, and then you're stuck in one of those earlier stages. And so you have to get to those root cause. Get rid of the virus that's causing the problem. And so, then you can move out of that stage into a healing stage.

And so, I love that theory. I think it does very much explain why fatigue is such a huge issue, and brain fog. The real top problems that people with long-haulers have, or anybody who's coming down with the virus. Fatigue is the first thing you feel. The cell danger response is, to me, a great theory.

[1:05:26] SCOTT: Many people these days are experiencing issues related to the autonomic nervous system, the vagus nerve, conditions like POTS or dysautonomia, very common in the Long COVID realm. Dr. Michael Vanelzakker talks about infections impacting the vagus nerve. And in his vagus nerve infection hypothesis, he discusses that.

In the Neil Nathan world, we focus early on the limbic system, the vagus nerve, the mast cells to kind of calm the system, create a foundation for healing, a state of “safer”, as Dr. Nathan likes to refer to it. While you're working on the potential infections, the viruses, the Borrelia, that are maybe triggering vagal dysregulation and dysautonomia, are you also finding specific tools that are helpful for supporting or tonifying the vagus nerve at the same time?

[1:06:26] DONNA: Well, there's tools on the market that cost $300, $400, like Truvaga, for example, and they seem to be very helpful to people. But if you can't afford one of those tools, then just breathing is really critical. If you can just lie down, even sit down, I guess, but lying is better. And then just breathe deeply into your belly so that it rises up and down for a while, five minutes or so. That has a profound effect on the vagus nerve.

And the vagus nerve, in case people don't know, runs from the base of the brain all the way down to the gut. And it has all these branches where it innervates or gives energy to the lungs, and the heart, and the stomach, and all the way down to the colon. It's a really important big nerve from the brain to the gut.

I've known about that for years, and it can become infected very easily. A lot of signals from the gut, about 80% of the signals from the gut go to the brain through the vagus nerve. And then some signals from the brain go down to the gut. It's just a very, very important organ.

But in my opinion, I was fortunate to be told about PEMF therapy. And even though it was really expensive for me to get that mat, I ended up doing some research, and I ended up with something called Spectra. And so I love that mat. It's amazing how it relaxes you and calms you down. And to me, it's doing the same thing that Truvaga would do for much more money. They're more than $3,000 to have one. But you got them forever. And everybody in the family can use them. And even my little dog, who has arthritis, who's 14. You can tell he's not happy anymore. I was thinking about even should I put him to sleep? I don't want him to suffer. And so I started putting him on the mat, and it was amazing that you go down the steps to the yard, and then go to the bathroom, and then run up like a puppy. I'm really impressed with PEMF.

[1:08:27] SCOTT: I definitely love PEMF as well. I did a session yesterday afternoon. And one of the challenges if I'm working hard and then go do PEMF, I usually combine PEMF with a full-body red light panel as well. I get so relaxed that then it's a little hard to come jump back into the brain, and the work kind of demands. But it is very, very relaxing. I totally agree.

A key part of your antiviral approach is removing those foods that feed viral infections. So, what are some of the top foods that should be avoided and then maybe foods that we should be increasing when we're working to mitigate a viral issue? Is there an ideal diet for an acute viral infection? Let's say COVID or flu? Is it the same if it's more of a long-term Epstein-Barr chronic viral infection, for example?

[1:09:24] DONNA: Well, the diet works quickly. So, I think you'll see results quickly. If you just give yourself 4 days, that's excellent. Remember, acid-forming foods are not what you want to be eating. So, that would be protein, animal protein. I hate to say that because so many of us are into protein today. We feel stronger with it. But this isn't the time to have it. So, it's really, really very much vegetarian vegetables. And then nuts and seeds would be considered plant or vegetable foods, but they're very high in arginine, and they're going to feed the virus.

So, let's say you're a long-hauler and you have CO, and you don't exactly – I'm not tying diet into getting over the COVID or being a long-hauler. But here you are snacking on or having almond milk on your coffee, or snacking on different seeds, and nuts, and things like that. You're never going to get that dragon back in the cave. They're the worst, I think. Think of arginine. Nuts and seeds are rich in arginine. They'll bring in a virus like Epstein-Barr out immediately. So that's another thing.

I hate to say this, because for some people they say, "Oh, I don't think I can just do vegetables." But you can. And again, you usually can see results quite nicely in 4 days. Then you can start putting your toe in the water and adding maybe a little bit of protein, like some fish. But see how you feel. Does your energy drop back down? You need to stay on it longer. It works quickly. It's just a tool that you can pull out of your hat whenever it's useful.

Oh, another food that I love. I've been eating a lot of this myself, is there's a company called Gimme. And they have little packets of sea vegetables that you can just pull out and eat those. But they also have them in big sheets. And I eat at least a sheet of those every day. So, very, very mineral-rich. Very tasty. They're kind of a little bit salty. You want it to be more salty. You want it to be more contracted. You don't want to eat a lot of acidic foods that are – the opposite of acidic is contractive. Alkaline. So, that means it'll probably have more salt in it.

When I've been tested to a CBC panel a couple of times, each time, I was really low in sodium. And so that is not good for energy. You need sodium. What I will sometimes do is just literally take a little bit of salt and eat it. But I also put it in the morning when I'm drinking a bunch of stuff. I'll put some salt in the water with electrolytes and everything. Because you want to alkalize. That's your secret. That's your goal. And then that virus doesn't have a chance. Heads right back into the cave. Environment doesn't support them living. It's pretty simple.

[1:12:20] SCOTT: So, step one in taming the dragon is to heal the gut and support the microbiome. You talk about the importance of addressing leaky gut to reduce the impact of viruses. What are some of your go-tos for optimizing intestinal permeability? Is it more removal, meaning mold, mycotoxins, spike proteins, foods that maybe are causing that permeability? Or is it about adding specific supplements or other interventions to support the healing of the tight junctions?

[1:12:53] DONNA: Well, the diet that I recommend is the right diet for that. But there's a couple of supplements I absolutely love. One is short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which there's several companies that sell it. I buy butyrate from BodyBio. And then immunoglobulins are great. And colostrum, which has lots of immunoglobulins in it, are great.

I'm trying to get my little dog healthier, and I give him some colostrum every day, which he loves. And I can see it's helping him. But I also found out when he almost died a month or so ago, they did like a sonogram of his belly, and his whole gut is inflamed. I'm working on that with him. Those are some of my top three is the short-chain fatty acids, butyrate, colostrum. And then some companies are selling immunoglobulins.

[1:13:43] SCOTT: Yeah. Bovine immunoglobulin, like Mega IgG, or SBI Protect, or some of those. Yeah. Beautiful.

[1:13:50] DONNA: They're really effective. Especially if you do all three together and then do a healthy diet, the gut will heal. Of course, back to what I kept saying sounding like a broken record, the fermented vegetables with that incredible diversity of bacteria, they're absolutely going to heal the gut lining. And vegetables are producing – the bacteria produce the short-chain fatty acids from the vegetables, basically.

[1:14:19] SCOTT: Step two is to avoid the foods that create that acidic environment in the body. So, you've talked about how acidity allows these viruses to come out. How it really promotes disease when we become more acidic. Do you recommend measuring our pH, either salivary or urinary pH when we're exploring that potential for acidity? Are there specific markers that you're looking for? And what are some of the top foods that you think drive acidity in the body? What about dairy, for example?

[1:14:53] DONNA: Well, I don't think you need to go out and buy the pH strips, but you certainly can. You can order them right on Amazon. They're fun. Maybe if you want to check your pH for a month or so. But it takes a while for that to show up in those strips. It might be a month. But changing the diet is the most important thing. So, you don't really have to buy those strips.

Dairy is an interesting food. First of all, people don't seem to realize that it has a lot of different components in it. There's the fat, there's the sugars, and the protein. There are two proteins. There's casein, and then there's whey protein. And in human milk, when we're first born, and we're getting milk, we're mostly getting 70% whey protein, just a little bit of casein. Casein's a problem for a lot of people. Casein is really casomorphin. So, it's addictive. That's a problem. You start eating it, you can't not have it anymore.

I think it's important to understand the energetics and the properties of food if you want to try to use them to heal, which they people talk about uh, food as medicine, but I don't think they really know what to do with that. But dairy is really inappropriate for any condition. Let's say you have a lung problem, you have a cough you're coughing up mucus. Dairy is totally inappropriate.

But let's say you're a brand-new baby coming into the world, and you have this gut who's just been exposed to some bacteria and things, you want to feed the bacteria, and the sugars in the milk do that very effectively. But also, it is sticky, and it is mucus-forming, which is perfect because you want those bacteria to stick to the baby's gut and grow that immune system and that inner ecosystem. It's appropriate.

Sometimes fermenting, of course, improves it. But I think we're all unique. When I was working with children with autism, their mothers would sometimes say, "Well, I really want my son to have dairy because I want him to have strong bones. And calcium is good for him." Well, one of the things I learned to do was introduce it very, very slowly. Get the fermented dairy, kefir, or yogurt, I guess. But I like kefir better. And just put, literally, a teaspoon, or two teaspoons, or a tablespoon in her son that day, and then wait a day.

And then another thing it helps a lot is if you put that tablespoon or so into water and they're drinking it. And then literally it takes a while for the gut, the bacteria in the gut to get used to this new food that they've been off of for a year or whatever. And so you got to give them time to learn about that food and how to process it. That's what we're doing by slowly introducing it.

I find that, for sure, most of the children that are autistic are blood type A. And As don't ever do as well in dairy. And Os seem to do better. There's not that many Os. But if a child was an O, I felt better about talking to the mother about getting them on dairy, introducing them slowly so their gut could process it. And it seemed to work.

[1:18:08] SCOTT: Some of the things you've mentioned then that can drive acidity are going to be maybe the meats, the sugars, the grains, nuts, and seeds. A lot of different things that we need to think about if we're trying to reduce that acidity. And you talk about that in great detail in the book. Step three is to choose foods that create an alkaline environment. Kind of the opposite here. So, what are some of the foods that can shift us more towards an alkaline or balanced environment? What about minerals and electrolytes? You mentioned earlier the importance of those. But are those also alkalizing the body? And then do you find any value in doing something like a hair tissue mineral analysis or HTMA for minerals if we're thinking about the importance of mineral balancing?

[1:18:56] DONNA: I don't think you need to do a hair test if you're willing to eat mineral-rich vegetables. And the ones that I mentioned, the sea vegetable sheet. Sea vegetables are very alkalizing, but so are all your dark, green leafy vegetables, collards. I like kale that's not the curly kale, but the Lacinato flat kale, because the lacinato is low in oxalates. But if you think in terms of, "Okay, I'm going to have a dark green vegetable at least one every day, you're adding minerals to your body.

Vegetables are really what you're left to eat with. Vegetables, cultured vegetables, ocean vegetables. But you would be surprised how many ways you can use those. It can be something as simple as a salad with a lot of vegetables in it. You can even do a cooked soup with vegetables. And remember, it's only for about 4 days, maybe 10. But you'll be fine eating just vegetables. And then, like I said, put your toe in the water and see how you do with a little bit of protein, and then you can go back to eating healthy normal.

[1:20:04] SCOTT: One of the things that you talked about that was kind of a new concept for me was this idea of fats having antiviral properties. Talk to us a little bit about how omega-3s, or olive, avocado, macadamia, coconut oil, maybe even butter or ghee, how might those be supportive in addressing viral burdens? Are they antiviral tools? And is that really more because they're supporting the cell membranes? Or are they really addressing more the damage that the viruses are causing? Or are they actually antiviral? Are there certain oils that you reach for from your antiviral support lens?

[1:20:46] DONNA: Well, they don't feed the virus, so they're safe to begin with. And they all have different types of value, medicinal value. Coconut oil, for example, has caprylic acid and monolaurin, which is really good against yeast and viruses. Coconut oil is really good to cook in. Even take a spoonful of it because it tastes good. Or you can actually buy monolaurin as a supplement. It's good for Candida. It's good for viruses. And, of course, olive oil, all of them, they're safe. They're delicious. They make the food more appealing. Let's say you steam up a group of vegetables and you circle them with olive oil and some really healthy salt or butter, that tastes great. They're specifically immune-supporting because they're just an essential part of our diet. We need healthy fats. And I think no reason not to eat them. And eat them generously, too.

[1:21:46] SCOTT: Step four is lifestyle changes to build energy. You talk about the importance of rest, sleep, breathing, meditation, exercise, vagal tone, including with coffee enemas. You talk about exposure to essential oils potentially being helpful in reducing or restoring the loss of smell from COVID. Coffee enemas have been a go-to for me for many, many years. I really call them a survival tool, a detoxification tool. Talk to us a little bit about maybe some tips you have for people who are afraid to explore coffee enemas and how we might make them more effective.

[1:22:28] DONNA: Well, this is what I usually tell people to do is get a small – there's companies that sell these one-quart buckets, and they have a little tube at the bottom. Actually, it comes with a tube. And you put the tube into the hole there, and then you put whatever you're going to put into your body into the water, and then fill that. It's just a quart.

We've even done this with children. As a matter of fact, it was a really valuable part of our autistic program, is to get their moms to do enemas. They're so toxic. And the moms were always shocked that there was so much toxic material coming out of their child because they said, "You know, he's only be alive a year and a half. What's happening?" But actually, the body's constantly making these toxins, and they end up in the stool. So, it isn't that they've been storing for a year and a half or something, maybe. But it's really that the liver – we're just constantly making toxins.

And most people, for a number of reasons, they're not relaxed enough. They're stressed out and everything, or different problems with the gut, they're not eliminating. And so, that's why I think regular enemas and coffee enemas have a special purpose for the liver and for glutathione. I just think that's a tool that people, if they feel kind of queasy about it, they can get over it.

This is what I would teach my moms with their little kids is lay down. If you've got a mat or something underneath, lay down a towel and then put an underpad down because that's going to prevent anything going through. And then have the son lie down, your little boy lie down, baby, even babies. And this little tube is very tiny. And you can lubricate it with something like coconut oil even. And just slip that up in there just a little ways, 5, 6 inches, or whatever. And then slowly release the water. And slowly releasing the water is very critical. Because if you release too fast, you're going to need to eliminate. You're going to want to get up and let everything out. You let it in so slowly that the body can't tell that water is being put into the colon. And then put in as much as you can. If it's a child, it's not much at all. But for a person, a grown-up person, it can be the whole bucket easily. Some people will have a second container of water to put it in, and they can do more water.

Now, home enemas are easy to do. They're affordable. I'm a big fan of colon therapy done properly, and that's the key. Because I feel like lots and lots colon therapists around the country are not trained right. So, they don't get the effect that they could get with colon therapy. If you don't mind me explaining that, what you do is you – colon therapists are trained to kind of let the water in, and then the client says, "Oh, I need to release." And they turn the knob, and they let everything out. And that's not a very good way to do it.

What you want to do is let the water in. When the client says, "Oh, I want to release." You open the knob just a little bit and let out something, whatever will come out at that moment, and immediately start adding in gently, slowly, more water. The goal is in about 10, 15 minutes or something, there's water adding, releasing, more water, more water, more release. But what you're actually doing is you're ending up with a lot more water so that the entire colon gets filled up all the way around. And then soaking starts happening.

Maybe not that much is coming out in the beginning, but with all that water sitting there all the way around, the soaking that happens, then you start having releases that are much more abundant. Little ways, 5, 10 minutes into the colon, into the colonic. That's how it should be done. And if you go to a colon therapist, tell them that. Some colon therapists are real kind of arrogant. They think they know everything, and they're not open to doing another technique. But that's an effective colonic. And then I do think that implants afterwards can be very beneficial. I wouldn't actually put the Bifidus in the enema water if you're doing coffee enema. I would do the coffee enema and then do an implant and put the Bifidus in there.

[1:26:52] SCOTT: Knowing how much you know about the inner ecosystem, the microbiome, do you have any concerns that colonics or coffee enemas could have a detrimental effect on our beneficial flora?

[1:27:07] DONNA: Yeah, I'm glad you asked that because everybody wonders that. First of all, the good guys are going to be adhering to the mucosal wall, and that water going in and out is not going to bother them. They're there. And then the other thing is up in the small intestine, there was already food waiting to come down. And hopefully, you're eating a little bit of fermented vegetables with your eggs, or steak, or whatever. And you've got some good bacteria in your small intestine. And so they're going to come down and repopulate the colon basically. So I don't think people need to be worried about that. But everybody is. It's a common question.

[1:27:51] SCOTT: Step five then is to embrace detoxification. We've already done that some with step four and coffee enemas. But you talk about fasting, sauna, colonics, different enemas. We also know that fasting can be a great tool for supporting autophagy or clearing out those senescent cells that don't do any good for us, but they continue to drive inflammation. Some people call them zombie cells as well. There's a number of different supplements. There's even some pharmaceuticals in that realm, Rapamycin, Dasatinib, things of that nature. What are some of the things that you think about for supporting the removal of those senescent cells?

[1:28:33] DONNA: I always sound like a broken record, but having a healthy gut is having a healthy immune system. And a healthy immune system will get rid of these senescent cells. They're naturally occurring. Sleeping is important. Getting enough rest and sleep is very important. So, I don't think that we need to be overly worried about them if we're taking care of ourselves and doing all the things you should be doing.

But I do think there's no doubt that senescent cells form in the body. And it is one of the things that contributes to aging. So, it's good to that we know about them and that we're mindful. But taking drugs like Rapamycin, et al, I think most people aren't going to do that or don't want to, can't afford it, have no idea where to go to get Rapamycin. And I don't think it's necessary.

[1:29:20] SCOTT: The sixth and final step in your taming the dragon protocol is using supportive supplements. You talk about different antiviral cocktails. You mentioned some of them already. You talk about pulsing. Two of the things that you highlight in that conversation are vitamin D, which many people know about, but also vitamin A, which I think we often overlook in the viral conversation. It can be a great antiviral. So, do you recommend taking vitamin A as a supplement? Are you thinking about egg yolk or cod liver oil? And then maybe adding to that, are eggs a potential concern with viruses as at least one online popular source suggests?

[1:30:06] DONNA: Well, I would not recommend the eggs in the beginning because they're protein, and they are acidic. But when you go trying out some protein, you might start with eggs, softly cooked, so they're easy to digest. And I have eggs always, I did this morning, with a big scoop of fermented vegetables to help digest those eggs.

Vitamin A is extremely important. If you're taking vitamin D, you should be taking vitamin A with it. You can't get D into the cells without A. And it's interesting because in nature, cod liver oil has A and D. Butter is A and D. Egg yolks have A and D. So, we need to take vitamin A. And if you have lung problems, like a consistent lung problem, say you had a cold or something, and you have a cough and the cough's real persistent, it just won't go away. It looks like the research shows that large amounts of vitamin A at that time will help resolve that lung infection. I mean, large amounts, like 50,000 IUs for several days.

[1:31:09] SCOTT: And that's actually a popular strategy in the autism community for some of the viruses as well, is that very short, few number of days, high-dose vitamin A for dealing with some of the viral pieces. That's a good segue then into our final part of our discussion, which we're going to talk about autism and the issues that children are facing today. And also, touch on the concept of an Epigenetic Reset to optimize the health of young people.

You've been passionate about working with children on the autism spectrum and their families for many decades. Talk to us just at a high-level about what have you observed in the autism spectrum realm in terms of the triggers for autism, some of the emerging tools that are helping children on the spectrum? What do you think needs to change in our environment and in our world to reverse the trend we're seeing today, where, as an example, in some places, as many as 1 in 12.5 boys may develop autism?

[1:32:10] DONNA: When I first started, it was 1 in 180 boys. And that seemed way too much. We haven't done anything to resolve it because the information is not getting out. One of the things I'd say is that you have to – if you even suspect that your child, usually a boy, has symptoms of autism, they're not present, and they sort of seem OCD, and they're not paying attention, if you have any suspicion that maybe don't wait to go to the doctor. Change the diet right away. It's the most important first thing to do.

And so, getting these kids identified and get on a program, I guess. The one I recommend is essential to do it very, very early. Because what I noticed is that if you get them on a program in a year, they can be very normal. This happened all the time for us. And then 5 years, and by the time their hormones start changing, it's like a window has closed, the opportunity to get them well.

But it was interesting because I started off with a group of – I think there were six moms originally. That group grew to about 2,000 people. Some were practitioners. But lots and lots of parents. And back in those days, women were beginning to really get on the internet and share information. So the word got out all over. Even, we had Body Ecology BEDROK. It was called BEDROK. Body Ecology Diet: Recovering Our Kids. And the word spread everywhere. I

I mean, we got emails from parents telling us about how successful their program was in Hong Kong, Canada, England, Australia, everywhere. The thing is, is that we started early. And all the kids were two or three years old. One was a 10-year-old and he got completely well. They all recovered. And that was kind of surprising. Because so far, there was no – children weren't recovering. And also, there was no idea that the diet was important.

Some parents were noticing that if they could take their kids off of gluten and dairy, they improved to a certain point. Of course, I knew they all have candida. Most of them are blood type A. They have gut issues. And so I felt the first autism conference I attended, where they listed, what was wrong. I thought, "Gosh, I might be able to help."

I actually got one mom who called right after that with a son. She did everything I recommended. I was amazed. But because one of the things I recommended was to start them on coconut water that's been fermented. And at that time, ferment coconut water is real hot. Everybody was doing it. But it was so full of sugar. I was thinking, "Oh, no. This is really bad." But I got the idea to take our starter, the kefir starter, and ferment it, and then started using it myself. And other people were starting to do it. And actually, tons of people in LA started doing it in the raw community. Everybody was reporting that they felt better. Women said their periods were so clean and healthy, and joint problems went away.

And so, clearly, the fermented coconut water was really good if it was fermented. That's why I recommended to the mom to start with that. Because, you see, the kids are eating all kinds of junk. I mean, that's all they want is bread, and pizza crust, and stuff like that. And you can't get them to eat healthy. The first thing a parent is going to think about is, "Well, my son wasn't going to eat broccoli. He's not going to eat this food." I recommended always start with the coconut water. And that's amazing because it has this amazing ability to take away your cravings.

In about four or five days, the kids were suddenly crawling up in their mom's lap and eating the broccoli off their plate. Their gut-brain thing is changing. It's fermented. It's positively affecting the brain. And so that was an important part of it. And I also wanted them to eat fermented vegetables, of course. What we'd do is take some chips, blue corn chips, let's say, and put the vegetables in a bowl and the chips around it, and have them dip in. They like to do things like that. So, that wasn't very hard at all.

And then, of course, as more and more parents started reporting on these amazing changes in their kids, more parents decided, "Let's do this." And they also got well. So at that time, doctors that were working with children with autism began to – those parents would go to those doctors and notice, "Well, he's speaking now. And he's present."

I used to have so many amazing emails, because that's how everybody communicated was through an email thread. And I remember one of the first ones that actually made me cry was this little boy, his father was ashamed because he had autism. Plus, also, that little boy wouldn't have anything to do with them. And he stayed in the room, in a back room watching TV all the time, one video after the other, using the same video. And his father had just completely given up on him.

His mom was amazing. She did the coconut water. She cracked those. You couldn't get coconut in boxes then. You had to crack the coconut. She actually made coconut water for him. And at first she told me that she put it in his junky juice. I have no idea what the junky juice was. But that even started changing in a couple of days. They don't want the juice anymore. They just wanted more and more of the coconut water.

And so he was drinking a lot of that. But he continues to get well. She went out to lunch with her friend and wasn't paying attention to him, and he got into a bunch of soda crackers, and she was sure that everything was ruined, you know? But nothing happened to him. And so anyway, she was great about communicating.

But one more day, we got an email, and she said that the father was walking down the sidewalk to his car in front of the house, and he happened to turn around and see his son waving, "Bye, daddy. Bye, daddy." He started crying. He broke down and just started crying and sobbing because he had his son back. So, I got all these beautiful, beautiful stories from parents. It was really a special time.

But I kind of stopped working with that group or working so much for different reasons. First of all, I was frustrated that the word – here's an answer. You think people would be at your door using that answer, putting it. And yet, there was another group developing at the same time that was all about let's use medicine, and let's do a lot of testing on these kids. Well, that's not really necessary in my opinion. And so I got very frustrated.

And also, I was lecturing at things like autism, and I was trying to get this other message out that we can prevent autism. It's very, very preventable. But nobody, except Dr. David Berger in Tampa, cared about that message. And he's great. He has a practice that doesn't have any autistic children in it. But it's preventable. So, I got really frustrated. And I don't feel like I couldn't make a difference anymore. But enough kids got well. A whole bunch of them, actually.

And that first little boy just is getting a master's degree at Clemson right now. And I got a bunch of parents who send me Christmas cards where their twin daughters, and one wasn't autistic, the other one was well. They're all grown up. They're going off to college. That's the age group, that first group. That's how old that first group. And I knew I was on to something, but it's just so frustrating to get a good answer out into the world.

[1:39:51] SCOTT: As kind of our last topic, you talked about ways to potentially avoid the development of autism. You're passionate about what you call the Epigenetic Reset, which is maybe similar to what some have heard of as the Yamanaka factors. As I understand it, this work is really to negate the impact of epigenetic influences of the parent or parents on the unborn child, maybe the unconceived child. Talk to us a little bit about this concept of an Epigenetic Reset. What are some of the key things that we're doing preconception, preconception planning, during the pregnancy to optimize the health of that future child? And what are these tags or epigenetic marks? How do you teach people to shift, remodel, or repattern epigenetic marks and thus gene expression?

[1:40:44] DONNA: Okay, so that term Epigenetic Reset is something nobody has heard of. You won't find medical doctors or anybody knowing. It's really kind of a – I mean, I stumbled on it when I was so sick for months and months and months. I could barely get out of bed. And I was feeling like, "Gosh. I've done things that I was able to help the world. I guess is this the end of my life? Is it over? Please God, help me. If there's anything else I can do, please help me find it."

I just stumbled upon this Epigenetic Reset just like I did years ago with the microbiome. I just kind of stumbled into a certain bit of knowledge and started putting pieces of it together. And so, here's what it is. And it is similar to these Yamanaka factors that Shinya Yamanaka – he got a Nobel Prize for identifying these four genes that reverse aging, even to the point where they took a mouse, and the mouse got their eyesight back. This is a hot thing now for reversing aging, is these four genes.

Epigenetic reset is similar but different, because what it is, is that when conception occurs and that sperm and that egg come together and the baby starts forming, it's called a zygote and then an embryo, but it's brand new, an amazing miracle occurs. It just shows me how much nature loves us.

The father, let's say, he's 30 years old. And the mother's 28 or something. All her life, she's eaten a bad diet, probably even when she was in the womb, and she's probably grown up in a really bad diet. And maybe through college, it got worse, and she's still eating badly. And now she's pregnant. Same with the father. Maybe he's smoking, and drinking, and eating horrible foods. And they've accumulated a lot of toxins in their body, and they have viruses in their body, and so on.

All of that, we know that the father and the mother, they pass on their genes. But what people don't realize is that along with those genes become these tags. And tags are like sticky notes or placed on the genes that tell them what to do, like shut down, don't do this, only produce 60% of your energy. They're giving information to those genes, and they're stuck on the genes that the parents are passing along.

But here's the amazing miracle that I just want everyone to know. Everybody who ever wants to have a child, to know about this, is that in the first 5 days after the sperm and the egg come together, all those tags are wiped completely clean. That baby has a clean slate. He's not going to be paying for the sins of the fathers or the sins of the mothers and all that. It's gone. Those are gone.

And the baby has a chance to start developing his body and his brain without the things that the parents have done wrong. And this is huge. It answers why we continue to have children that are getting weaker with each generation because we've been passing along these tags from great grandparents, parents, passing them along in these genes. And now they're wiped out. After the fifth, day that opportunity is gone. And on the sixth and seventh day, that little fertilized egg is starting to plant into the uterus, and then tags start to come back on again based on, again, how is the mother eating.

But just studying sperm. This got me to really start looking at sperm. For example, nobody gives credit. I mean, the mother's kind of blamed for anything that happened to that baby. But the father and the sperm can be very, very dysbiotic today. The sperm will carry tags for infections, and for toxins, and for the bad diet. That's in the sperm. And the sperm, when it's dysbiotic, the mother, the microbiome in her vagina won't even accept that sperm. So that's going to contribute to infertility that we have today.

So, the father really needs to also have a preconception checklist and do certain things to clean up his sperm, which can happen quickly over about 3 months. For the mother, it takes longer. Maybe about six months. Ideally longer. But it's really, really important to do that so that we can start to turn around this issue that we have in our culture where children are getting weaker and sicker, and they have no resilience. Their immune system's wrong.

Nobody. And I mean nobody. Because I've worked with more and more pregnant women, they say to me a lot of times, "Why doesn't anybody tell us this?" For example, how important it is to start that inner ecosystem. As soon as that baby is born, and actually even beforehand, you can do things that start to get that inner ecosystem in place in the baby, which is going to develop over the next 2 years into his immune system. And everything that happens in that 2 years is setting a stage for the rest of their life. It's a really, really important time for us to start to focus on this period of – I just am awed by the fact that we have an ability. Men and women together have the ability to bring in another human being. We can create life like that.

And it's an extraordinary responsibility that everybody should take lightly and honor. And even our culture needs to set things into place so that when parents are ready to have a child, it becomes easier for them to do so. I get really frustrated. And so working with autistic children sort of sparked my interest.

And let's go back even earlier to more of a root cause. What is the root cause for these children that are so sick that have autism and everything else? They have obesity, they have diabetes. They have all kinds of brain neurological problems. PANS and PANDAS. I would think parents would be scared enough today that they'd want to learn what to do and set their child off with incredible opportunity to erase that slate clean and have that. That's the Epigenetic Reset. And you can look that up. There's not much on it.

But parents need to know about it and share this information. Women need to share it with each other because women are great at doing that. They need to turn to their partners and saying, "Look, I want you to clean up your diet, too, because your sperm matters." We can change within a generation everything that's going on with our children.

[1:47:34] SCOTT: So, you mentioned that the sins of the father, that there's an opportunity for a clean slate, that those things don't have to be passed on, that they're essentially reset. Just to be clear now, that's not something that automatically happens, right? Is there something that either the mother or father needs to do to cause this Epigenetic Reset to happen?

[1:47:59] DONNA: No. No. The embryo triggers it all. As soon as the embryo is formed, it has genes, of course, and it has enzymes. And it immediately starts to protect itself and clean itself of the problems from the parents. And so, one of the things I'm kind of up in the air about is with viruses. Are they passed along to our children? And there's kind of a – well, there's a ton of protection even before conception happens in the sperm, in the egg, that begins to put into place. Protective mechanisms to protect us from viruses and from bacteria.

The placenta that's formed, which is very much formed by the father and the mother. The placenta is going to protect and nourish that baby, which I think is interesting because it shows right away the father's role early in life, to protect and nourish. There's all kinds of things that the placenta does to push away and get rid of the bacteria and the virus infections. And so getting rid of those tags is important.

And how do you do that? Well, they come off pretty easily if you just switch your diet, switch your lifestyle, get rid of the stress, do all the things we all know already what to do. Prioritize sleep, and diet, and stress, I would say. The tags will start to come off. Or at least they won't be added on. Let's put it that way. Because in the fifth day, they're starting to be added on again. New tags.

[1:49:27] SCOTT: My last question is the same for every guest, and that is what are some of the key things that you do on a daily basis in support of your own health?

[1:49:37] DONNA: Oh gosh, it changes all the time. But right now, what I'm doing is I happen to love Tahiti noni. When I get up in the morning, I'll have a little shot glass, because you're not supposed to take more than a couple ounces. And right now, because I'm supposed to get more energy from hydrogen, so I'll put a hydrogen tablet into water. See, we wake up dehydrated. I think in the beginning of our day, we need to be very – we should be hydrating in any way we can.

I don't like any of the electrolytes. But they're great. I mean, the ones on the market are too sweet, or they taste strange to me. So, I use Ecological Formula's Tri-Salts. It's missing salt. So, I'll put that in the glass, and I'll put in some vitamin C powder, and I put in salt. I usually put in a little Celtic sea salt because this is an incredible company that has wonderful salts. And they all taste a little different.

I love Makai. And I love their kosher salt. But Selina Naturally is the place to go to get those. And I just cook with it and put it in. And even sometimes I'll sprinkle it, like I said, in my hand and eat it for energy. But we do need salt. Salt is the most alkalizing of all substances. So, we need salt.

So, after that, I will have Pectasol is another one I'm pretty faithful about using because it's good for the gut. It gets rid of that Galectin-3. It cleans your body of heavy metals. It just has a lot of benefits. It's so easy to take. And it doesn't have much flavor. Maybe I'll squeeze some lemon juice in with it.

After I've done this kind of morning liquidy stuff for a while, I get ready to have the sprouted coffee. And what I do is I put a little bit of – it's called Ripple. It's a pea protein that you can buy. Because I don't seem to do well in any of the other coffee substitutes, the creamers. But if you do, you could use that. And then I put that into my coffee and whip that together with some creatine and our Ancient Earth Mineral Liquids.

When I was super, super sick, I lost 20 pounds because I wouldn't – I ended up in the hospital. I wouldn't eat their food. They were keeping me in there to do all these testing. And every time they brought the menu, I thought, "I'm not eating that." So, I ended up surprisingly losing 20 lbs. Except everybody said to me I look like hell. That I look like I was a dead old person.

Anyway, I started being more mindful to eat well and add on more weight. But I used creatine. And surprisingly, even though I wasn't well enough to exercise, I was actually building muscle. Putting on arm muscle, leg muscle quite nicely. I love creatine. And sometimes I'll even put – at night, take a tea that's good at night. I like nettle. Nettle's good for people with histamine issues. And I'll put a scoop of creatine in there and drink that as a tea close around the bedtime hour. But chamomile is good.

But anyway, I kind of just drink water and do that stuff in the morning. And then I wait for a hunger signal to come, and then I'll eat some protein and vegetables. A lot of times, I'm busy. For me, I might open up a can of sardines, put them in a bowl, salt them, and then put some cultured vegetables in there with the bowl and stir those up and eat that. And that gives me a lot of energy. But then sometimes I'll have eggs. Sometimes I use those little Applegate sausages with the eggs.

But let's see. Oh, and then another quicky thing that I do is I'll take turkey slices, like Applegate turkey. They make them and sort of other companies. These turkey slices. And I'll put them down in the plate with a little mayonnaise, and then I'll put on the cultured vegetables and maybe some of the sprouts.

Whole Foods has this these great sprouts in a tray that are wonderful. Sometimes, if I just want a quick salad, I'll put those in a bowl and put some salad dressing, olive oil, for example, on it. I'll roll that up into a wrap and have a couple of those. And that works really well. And then I'll usually have dinner. Last night, I had salmon, and asparagus, and cultured vegetables. You see, I'm kind of getting the cultured vegetables in everywhere. I don't have a lot of time. I don't feel good when I'm recovering. I think a lot of times you don't even have the energy to get up and do anything. Those are some of the quickies that I came up with.

[1:54:04] SCOTT: Love that. Love that. Oh, Donna Gates, this has been such an amazing conversation. I just really want to honor you for everything that you've done to help so many people for decades now. You really have a lifetime of work that has helped so many people. You continue to help people. You have done and still do so much for the world. You bring so much light into the world, where we need more light, and brightness, and positivity. And so I just want to thank you for everything that you do and continue to do. And it was such an honor to have you here today.

[1:54:39] DONNA: You're going to get me to start crying, Scott. Thank you so much for having me on. This is a huge honor for me because I always thought, "Oh, these people that are on your podcast are amazing people." And now I get to be one. So, thank you for having me on.

[1:54:55] SCOTT: To learn more about today's guest, visit BodyEcology.com. That's BodyEcology.com. BodyEcology.com.

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a positive rating or review, as doing so will help the show reach a broader audience. To support the show, visit BetterHealthGuy.com/donate. To get my newsletter, visit BetterHealthGuy.com/newsletters. To follow me on Facebook, Instagram, X, or TikTok, you can find me there as BetterHealthGuy. This and other episodes can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, and Odysee.

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Disclaimer

The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or as information to facilitate self-treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health-related decisions with your own personal medical authority.