When most clients come to see me for the first time, parasites, toxins, and the mitochondria are completely compartmentalized in their brains.

Toxins have nothing to do with parasites, parasites have nothing to do with the mitochondria, etc.

But, this actually couldn’t be further from the truth.

Parasite cleansing is how we can simultaneously tackle parasites, toxins, and boost the mitochondria.

THE TOXIN-MITOCHONDRIA CONNECTION

When it comes to the mitochondria, our goal is to have as many mitochondria as possible in our cells producing lots of ATP to power the body.

We can think of healthy mitochondria like little energy factories that fuel our function.

However, when the mitochondria encounter stressors like toxins, they shut down their energy factories and stop making ATP. Instead, they swim outside of the cell to signal the immune system and let it know there’s a threat.

When this happens, the cell goes on lockdown and into something the scientists call Cell Danger Response. Cell Danger Response is associated with virtually every disease it has ever been studied in relation to and is the hallmark of chronic illness.

When this happens often enough, like in modern life where toxin exposures are unprecedented, we see symptoms, and eventually disease.

Read: if you are stuck in chronic illness, you are stuck in Cell Danger Response and you need to unburden your mitochondria by detoxifying your body.

MODERN TOXIN EXPOSURES

Modern life is riddled with hyper-novel toxins that our bodies have no evolutionary capacity to process and eliminate.

For example:

• Half of Americans drink radioactive topwater (Environmental Working Group)

• 90 million Americans have amalgam fillings that leak mercury into the brain.

• 45 million buildings have water damage and unsafe levels of mold.
• 86,000+ toxic chemicals circulate in our environments everyday (EPA)
• Glyphosate, linked to cancer, is found in 80% of Americans' urine (CDC)
• The USGS found PFAS in 45% of American tap water in a 2023 study
• 75% of non-organic food has harmful pesticide residues that are known to be dangerous (EWG)

With the constant onslaught of toxicity in our modern environments, it’s no wonder we’ve seen such a massive uptick in chronic illness over the past 40 years. According to the CDC, 6 in 10 adults now has a chronic illness and 4 in 10 has two or more.

We are in an epidemic of mitochondrial disease that is being driven by toxins.

HERE’S WHERE PARASITES COME IN

“But, what does all of this have to do with parasites?” you so wisely ask…

Ask any expert in a white coat and they’ll tell you “nothing, we don’t have parasites in America” or some other such nonsense.

But there’s a lot of evidence that this simply isn’t true, and that it’s far more likely that we have simply stopped looking for them.

• This paper found that up to 95% of parasite DNA is "unknown to science" (those GI-MAP tests are useless)
• This paper found that helminth surveillance in America has been virtually absent since the 1980s, and that prevalence is still likely very high and contributing to morbidities for millions of people.
• According to this paper, the last time we looked for them in the 1980s, they were everywhere! Even soils in Brooklyn New York were contaminated. And state infection rates for hookworm was up to 76% in places like Alabama.😱

So, say we table this question about whether or not folks in America have parasites and assume that they’re here—what does this have to do with the mitochondria?

Simply this:

We have literature showing that parasites are toxin concentrators. They suck up toxins like heavy metals, pollutants, molds, and other pathogens, and they hold them in their tissue like big leaky toxic sponges.

• This paper showed that intestinal helminths in fish were able to suck up heavy metals at concentrations that were thousands of times higher than their host tissue.
• And this paper showed that parasites act as sinks for pollutants in their hosts, sucking up the substances to such a degree that the concentrations in host tissue can temporarily be lowered!

Here’s what this means for the mitochondria: if you’ve got parasites, then they’re the most concentrated toxin reservoirs in the body and the biggest contributors to mitochondrial suppression.

PARASITE CLEANSING AND TOXINS

Parasite cleansing is an ancient practice that most humans that have roamed the earth have done at some point in their lives. Purification of the body has been central in virtually all traditional medicine practices, and even today, many in developing countries will take a yearly dewormer as part of their basic wellness routine.

One has to wonder if there is wisdom there that we in the West have failed to grasp.

In today’s toxic soup environment, parasite cleansing is likely even more important than ever before from a mitochondrial perspective.

It’s the most impactful lever we can pull to drastically lower the body’s toxin load quickly.

PARASITE CLEANSING IN A HIGH TOXIN WORLD

However, this new toxin prevalence makes parasite cleansing in modernity a little more finnicky than it was 200 years ago, or when the ancients did it.

When we cleanse, we poke and irritate creatures that are filled to the brim with horrible hyper-novel poisons (radioactive elements, metals, chemicals, pollutants, and more). And as we kill them off, they can release some of this material into our tissue.

This means we need to take this process seriously and apply proper drainage support and strategy alongside any cleanse.

THE POOP PROCESS FOR PARASITE CLEANSING

At GutsyGreen we use something called the ‘POOP’ Process.

P: Pre-tox your detox with sound drainage strategy

O: Overview the parasite cleansing process so you know what to expect

O: Oust your critters with a cleansing protocol

P: Preserve your progress with maintenance cleansing and toxin clean-up.

This is the process I walk clients through every day to safely remove parasite without the typical symptom fallout so often observed in these situations.

The most important thing when it comes to parasite cleansing is laying the proper foundation before you get started, which is why we always follow the Mitochondria Mastery Map order of operations as we proceed.

Curious if you might be dealing with parasites? Take our free symptom quiz to learn more!