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If you’re struggling with your health (and skin) AND wonder “do I have parasites?” – as some of these concerns look like parasite signs, don’t panic.
Across social media, parasites are having a moment—you’ve probably seen videos of people documenting the many instances of parasites wriggling out of food (many times recommending a parasite cleanse). But is this worry about parasites a legitimate health concern or just the latest viral wellness trend?
While most people assume that parasites are always harmful, the reality is more complicated. Some parasites might actually help regulate the immune system, while others can silently contribute to ongoing health issues like chronic hives, cystic acne, and even food sensitivities. And if you think a quick parasite cleanse will solve everything? Think again—doing it wrong can backfire in a big way.
To help break it all down, I’m joined by Robin Foroutan, MS, RDN, a “stealth pathogen detective” with an incredible knack for connecting symptoms to hidden root causes. She’s a leading expert in more complex health topics like mold and parasites from an Integrative health perspective.
It's Robin's belief that the body is able to heal itself given the right conditions, which is why she offers her clients an advanced, natural and biological approach to address those hidden root cause issues. She sees clients through her virtual practice, Nutrition by Robin, and is a nutrition consultant, lecturer, and writer.
If you’re wondering whether parasites could be messing with your health—or if you just want to know what’s real vs. internet hype—this is the episode for you.
Or, listen on your favorite app: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | Subscribe on Android
- The “Russian nesting doll” concept (explaining parasite signs)
- How biofilms protect parasites and other gut infections
- Sneaky parasite signs like low iron (and why doctors often miss them)
- The importance of binders and drainage pathways
Quotes
“If you have a pulse, you have parasites.”
“Parasites are actually there for a reason [and they] serve their purpose too in your body. It's not just infection.”
Links
Find Robin Foroutan online | Instagram
Healthy Skin Show ep. 306: Parasites, Worms + Skin Rashes w/ Robin Foroutan, RD
Healthy Skin Show ep. 358: Surprising Skin Signs Of A Hidden Parasites-Gut Problem
Healthy Skin Show ep. 362: Best Test Options for Gut Parasites
386: Do I Have Parasites? What Parasite Signs REALLY Mean w/ Robin Foroutan RD {FULL TRANSCRIPT}
Jennifer Fugo (00:09.267)
Robin, I am so excited to have you back here on the Healthy Skin Show. Thanks for joining us.
Robin Foroutan (00:15.288)
Thanks for having me, it's great to be back.
Jennifer Fugo (00:18.171)
I am curious, because we are going to talk again about some parasite signs and other parasitey-type things, especially for people thinking, “How do I know if I have parasites?”. For those who didn't possibly see your first episode, how would you kind of describe yourself?
Robin Foroutan (00:34.447)
I am a stealth pathogen detective. I think that's what I bring to the table, is that I'm a really good detective in that specific sets of symptoms speak things to me that I feel like other people may not catch. Like I'm good at sort of figuring out like, oh, this is a detox issue or oh, this sounds like this kind of imbalance versus that kind of imbalance and I think I have good instincts about where is the burden and what do you do about it? How can we detect it or do we need to detect it?
Jennifer Fugo (01:16.304)
And you don't get grossed out easily, which I appreciate about you, because some of this stuff can be kind of, can gross people out.
Robin Foroutan (01:23.36)
Yeah, I don't get grossed out by the things that most people get grossed out by.
Jennifer Fugo (01:31.912)
We have lot of conversations about poop and we're like, oh, yeah, that's so interesting.
Robin Foroutan (01:36.591)
Yeah, and my clients will send me pictures of things, and my only ask is that they give me a heads up before so that it's not a surprise. I just like to be mentally prepared if I'm gonna see something in your poop, or like urine, or something.
Jennifer Fugo (01:51.922)
Fair enough. Fair enough.
Robin Foroutan (02:00.284)
Just give me a heads up. Otherwise, the answer will always be yes. Send it.
Jennifer Fugo (02:21.624)
So that being said, it was really interesting when we did our first episode talking about parasites, helminths, worms, and you and I both follow some very similar Instagram accounts. I feel like parasites and parasite signs have become this sort of shiny object thing in the wellness space. And, oh gosh, for those of you wondering how do I know if I have parasites, please don't go Google this, don't look this up on Instagram, because it's just gonna gross you out, but there's loads of people sharing the videos, right, with the worms crawling out of them, and they're freaking out, and you're like, oh my gosh! Are parasites always bad, from your experience?
Robin Foroutan (02:31.308)
No. So I think this is so important to bring up because it sort of went from a big blind spot that nobody really recognized or understood, and it still is, it's a blind spot in medicine, including integrative medicine, functional medicine, certainly allopathic conventional medicine. It's just a very big blind spot. And then it became sort of like the thing du jour for the Instagram influencers. And I think it started out innocently enough where people were like, did you know that you could eat papaya seeds and it gets rid of parasites? And I would get a flood of questions of, is that true? And actually it is true. That is like a really great home remedy for parasites. And then it kind of turned into this whole, like, the monster within.
Jennifer Fugo (03:45.391)
Goodness.
Robin Foroutan (03:45.419)
And if you have a pulse, you have parasites. Which is true, if you have a pulse, you have parasites. But we're full of bacteria too, it's not all bad, you know, we are more microbe than we are ourselves, as far as cell counts go, we are more microbe than we are human. And that just speaks to the elegance and the sophistication of the human experience of the human body. We don't really, we don't understand, probably a small fraction is really what we have a pulse on. So I started to see this whole, what turned out, it started with excitement of like, oh, if you do these parasite cleanses, A, you poop out worms, which is really satisfying. And B, you feel better in X, Y, Z way. And you know, we talked about in the first episode, there are sort of suspicious symptoms for parasitic infection. One of the things that both of us talk about is adult-onset, multiple allergies to either food or environment that kind of came on at once. Those are parasite signs! And then persistent symptoms, persistent constipation is a major one, these kinds of persistent symptoms. Skin issues, particularly…
Jennifer Fugo (05:17.884)
Hives, urticaria, dermatographia, usually that's a pretty big red flag for parasite symptoms on skin.
Robin Foroutan (05:24.09)
Yes, and cystic acne, I find too, is also connected.
Jennifer Fugo (05:26.632)
Ooh, interesting.
Robin Foroutan (05:53.283)
I know, unusual, and I haven't quite put it together. But 100% all of the histamine-related skin issues, yes, usually come back to parasites and/or mold. But what ended up happening is this almost hysteria about parasites and where parasites come from. And I remember, so I have a dietitian friend who actually, I taught her a lot of the parasite stuff, because really I feel like I kind of learned from people who were really on the fringe and sat with it for a while, and then kind of dispensed it to my little circle. But she's now treating parasites very well in her practice too. And there was an influencer who found a grub, like a grub worm, in her lettuce or something like that, and put the picture on Instagram and was like, oh my god, look, this is how you get parasites, right so-and-so? And so-and-so was like, yeah, you have to, she knows that's not a parasite, but went with it, whatever. A grub on your food is not the source of a parasitic infection.
Now, snails on your food, can be a vector for a parasitic infection. And I remember years and years ago when I lived in the early East Village where, we had a supermarket but the produce was terrible, so I would buy all my produce from this Chinese bodega. Or Korean, I think it was a Korean market, but it was a bodega. And I would always get the watercress because it's one of my favorites. And I brought the watercress home, and I'm washing it and looking at it, and it is full of snails, tiny little snails. And I was really grossed out, but I was trying not to be a baby and I didn't want to waste the food. But then at a certain point I was like, this is just too much. And I ended up just throwing the entire bunch out the window just to land in the garden in the back, because I was like, okay, be free, and learned later on that there are specific types of parasites that are attached to the tiny snails. So I did myself a favor. So grubs in your lettuce and cabbage and whatever, not a source of parasites, just yucky and gross. But snails, yes, that is a problem with an infestation.
So you see, I think we were talking about the same person when it was sort of like, I put this banana peel under a microscope and look, there's a helminth on it, there's like some sort of worm, and like, oh my god, what would have happened if? And it's just too much, it's too much. So what I'd like for people to understand that I try to emphasize in my practice, but perhaps not well enough, is that yes, if you're alive, you have some parasites, just like you have bacteria, just like you have yeast. It's not anything weird, this is part of normal flora. If you get a bad one, things could go awry. Tapeworm is a perfect example. It's vector-borne or foodborne or whatever, however you get it, it's all gross. Tapeworm is pretty much always bad. But could you survive and thrive with a tiny bit of tapeworm in your gut? I don't know, maybe, but to then extend it to all worms, all helminths, now you've missed the plot because there's some actually very interesting science where, certain types of helminths, they're it using to rebalance the immune system in autoimmune and allergies.
Jennifer Fugo (09:12.38)
I know, which I find fascinating. They're not all bad.
Robin Foroutan (09:14.808)
So they're not all bad, and it doesn't matter until it matters. Like you might have some parasites in the gut, it's gonna be fine, but that one burden is usually not gonna be enough to tip you into illness or imbalance.
Jennifer Fugo (09:20.166)
Right. And I think what is helpful for people to know, especially if they're like, wait, I could use a helminth or a worm to treat my allergies?
Robin Foroutan (09:39.564)
Maybe.
Jennifer Fugo (09:41.361)
Maybe, right. Because you're not going to end up with the things that they generally test for. My understanding is that there's very specific types of helminths, am I correct in saying that? That can be helpful in rebalancing the, I think, would they say it's the Th1 to the Th2 side of the immune system, I suppose, for the allergy help.
Robin Foroutan (09:52.043)
Yes. That's what they said. Yeah, and also I wonder if it's just intestinal barrier integrity, really. That's why, like we know that the gut likes diversity, like diverse types of microbes, diverse types of fiber, and antioxidants, and things like that. So it's very diverse in there. But yeah, you can't just like pick whatever helminth, it has to be really specific.
Jennifer Fugo (10:27.656)
Right, you don't want to go around and be like, eeny meeny miny moe, you look good, let me ingest you.
Robin Foroutan (10:31.468)
Yeah. And where would one even get that? I don't know that either.
Jennifer Fugo (10:37.961)
Apparently, according to some very big Instagram accounts, you could pick them up anywhere, on anything, in anything, all the time.
Robin Foroutan (10:40.573)
Oh, like the ones that you want?
Jennifer Fugo (10:43.745)
No, but I'm just saying in general. In general, you could just pick up parasites. And to be fair, I think, like you said, there's some truth to it, but it's been turned into a five-alarm fire at this point.
Robin Foroutan (10:48.866)
Yeah. It is true that people come through both of our practices and they need some intense rebalancing from intestinal parasites that have been there for a long time. I saw somebody yesterday, she has chronically low-level iron, and she'll get an infusion and she'll take supplements and all that stuff, but she can't hold it at a good level. And there's no obvious, she has no GI bleed, they ruled that out. Her periods are not heavy, so that's ruled out, she's not vegan or vegetarian; she's getting iron, so that is highly suspicious for parasitic infections. And you might want to do a little cleanup. I can't remember if it's South Africa or Australia or both perhaps, but certainly some of the South American countries do this too, Colombia being one of them. Where at the end of the season, the season being the summer, when you're outside, your kids are outside, everybody does a parasite cleanse, and they use whatever it is, whatever herbs that they use traditionally. But they do a parasite cleanse on kids, and sometimes adults, at the end of the summer just to kind of rebalance. So that might be a good idea, but the fear and obsession of we must sterilize everything because maybe there's a parasite on it, like the banana peel, that's a little much.
Jennifer Fugo (12:34.729)
Well, and the other thing too that I get worried about, and listen, my clinic works with a lot of people because I have other associates and obviously you've worked with a ton of people. I feel like one of the challenges when I am like, hey, look, the testing is showing you have a helminth infection, or a protozoa, or both sometimes, or I suspect it because of X, Y, and Z, a lot of times they're like, well, how do we deal with it? And I'm like, hold on, don't freak out, but also let's not just jump into how do we get rid of this because we have to consider the full picture. So what's your sense on that? Is it like, oh, you got a parasite, let's deal with that despite everything else that's going on? Or do you feel like it has to be really like a 2000-foot view to then figure out what's the best way forward?
Robin Foroutan (13:04.172)
Don’t freak out, it's okay. I think it also depends on the type of microbe that comes through. If it's something that's on the pathogen page of a GI Map, you have to deal with that always, immediately, because that's setting everything else on fire.
Jennifer Fugo (13:32.018)
True. Agreed.
Robin Foroutan (13:44.911)
But to your point, and to me, it always really matters on the overall health of the person. Are they quite fragile and unwell, or are they robust and they feel really good? Are their symptoms really specific to the gut and digestive system, or is it something that's more global, that's affecting other organ systems? And so that's kind of what you have to think about. Because you do also hear, I'm sure you've heard this too, you hear a lot of stories about people who buy whatever program online and they jump right into a parasite cleanse, and maybe it's missing a piece. Like some of the parasite cleanses, I think more of them now talk about binders and the importance of binders, but plenty of times people jump into like a 10-day parasite cleanse, no binders. They feel wretched the whole time. And when you feel wretched like that, that's also a cascade of inflammation. So yeah, you're probably, you are, you're getting rid of parasites and infections and that's why you feel so bad, but you're exceeding your body's capacity to detox the toxins that are related to that, and now you're having a die-off response. Now you're having a big detox, Herxheimer response.
So for many people you have to go through very specific steps. The first step is they have to be pooping. So you never wanna kill anything in the gut that cannot get out, and the biggest exit strategies are gonna be poop and pee and sweat. And if you aren't pooping, then you're just gonna wake up beasts and they're gonna have nowhere to go, and you're gonna feel really bad. So don't do that.
Jennifer Fugo (15:22.194)
Yeah. You're stewing in the pot of waste and toxins. Yeah, it's not good.
Robin Foroutan (15:29.206)
Yeah, it's so bad. And you know, if you're in the health arena, you've done this to yourself, and inadvertently too, I mean, there was a time before I knew about binders, so we didn't know, we're learning as we go also. So the binders are a very important part to make sure that you can mop up toxins. You have to be pooping every single day at least once. You also don't want to treat somebody who's having chronic diarrhea with anything aggressive because it might just get worse. So you have to manage that first.
You have to be hydrating. So you have to be hydrated and well-hydrated, that is also a non-negotiable. But also, you have to consider some people don't have good lymphatic drainage and their lymph is mucky, and that's an important detox pathway. So sometimes you have to do a whole like pre-tox first before you even try to do anything that supports detox or killing off infections. And if you're doing this on your own or you're working with a practitioner who hasn't made all of these connections together, there is no organ system that functions alone. It's one whole system. So you have to be mindful of what's the health of the cell? What's the cell membrane doing? What's the integrity of the gut? Is your immune system super pissed off or is it very suppressed, because you're gonna have a different plan based on that. So I wish that there was one path that we could send people on but a lot of it really does depend. You can get away with more if you're robust and very healthy, but usually the people who are looking to these sorts of…
Jennifer Fugo (17:18.162)
Products, protocols.
Robin Foroutan (17:18.926)
Protocols, yeah, these protocols, are really suffering. So you hate to see somebody suffer more because things were not done in the proper order or they weren't protected well enough from just die off.
Jennifer Fugo (17:29.628)
Yeah. And Robin, I'll actually share. I have told people for a long time, be very careful, even though a lot of practitioners will market these kits online to do, you know, at a certain time of the month or whatever. I'm like, be very careful because my experience has been that oftentimes, because I work with people who are ill, like, let's be honest, that's who my folks are. They're not like these healthy, robust individuals. They have a lot of skin issues, they've got issues, a lot of times they have other things going on. And so I always tell them, go slow, slowly introduce products. And if you hit a point where you're like, ooh, I can't, I don't feel good past this point, then you don't push it.
Robin Foroutan (17:58.585)
Right.
Jennifer Fugo (18:21.776)
We shouldn't, it's weird how we're in this industry of trying to make ourselves well, but somehow there's this like, I'll just make myself really sick so I can get better sooner, which doesn't make any sense. So anyway, this person decided, she got one of these kits on her own, I had forewarned her, she had listened to all of the classes that she was in with me and I forewarned people. Like if you decide to go down this route, please go slow, use a binder, etc, etc. Well, she did two days at like the lowest thing and was like, you know what, I feel fine, I'm just gonna dive in. I'm gonna do the full doses. So she had psoriasis, and so on her own, she decided to do this, within a day, she had such a severe full-body histamine reaction to what she, it exploded.
Robin Foroutan (18:47.726)
Just exploded.
Jennifer Fugo (19:04.584)
She had to go to the hospital because of how bad this was. And she wrote us to be like, I deeply, deeply regret not listening to Jen about this. I am really suffering, they've given me antihistamines and basically said, you just have to wait for this to calm down. And we offered some other assistance to try to help her get things a bit under control. I appreciate everyone wanting to DIY things, but there's a lot of folks who have done things on their own that are probably not the best advice for other people to follow. And it's hard to know what's safe to do and what's not. But I think this was one big example of why you have to go slow. As you said, you got to get things lined up because it can backfire.
Robin Foroutan (19:58.5)
Yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (19:58.501)
And you can end up feeling way, way worse and unleashing things that you did not mean or intend or want to happen. So that being said, like just thinking about parasite signs or signs of a parasite, you had this really interesting analogy of how to think about them.
Robin Foroutan (20:14.862)
Oh yeah, so the way that it was presented to me many, many years ago, and like I said, I sort of, I learned on the fringes, the first practice that I worked at, they were really on the fringes of medicine. And so I learned some really cool things that every so often I'll go to a conference and they'll talk about the things that we were doing then, as it was like new, and they're like, oh my god, can you believe this? And I'm like, wow, we were doing that like a solid 15 years ago. I sort of didn't appreciate it, that it was like so far ahead. But we were definitely talking about things that nobody else was talking about. But I got to learn some really great things from very cool practitioners.
The way that it was presented to me was the idea of Russian nesting dolls, where, and this goes back to like, the parasites are actually also there for a reason. The parasites serve their purpose too in your body. It's not just infection. And of course, this is not the case with pinworms, this is not the case with a tape worm. Those are infections. This is the case with the miscellaneous nematodes, and helminths, and other kinds of worms that we're really at our beginning of understanding exactly who are good guys, who are bad guys, how much is too much, and whatever. So that's the disclaimer. But the idea is that the parasites are there to clean something up for you. So if you have a big mold exposure, you also have parasites. And the parasites were, the population might have gotten out of control because now they have too much to feed on. But the parasites are there to kind of Pac-Man gobble up the toxins, the yeast, the mold, the Lyme, and all of these other infections. Which is another reason why you don't want to go in with parasite killers all at once because when you kill them and they dissolve themselves, which if you listen to our first episode, you'll know that when parasites die, they disintegrate, so you can't find a dead parasite on a stool test, which is one of the reasons why they're so hard to find.
So if you use an herbal that kills the parasitic worms and then they dissolve themselves, you've now released whatever was inside those nesting dolls. So there's, like I said, there could be mold, there's other infections, there are certain infections that will show up on a stool test like D. fragilis. D. fragilis is called fragilis, it's fragile. It does not do well in a number of different environments, including on the inside of your body. So if you find D. fragilis on a GI-Map stool test, you have parasitic worms, for sure without a doubt, because they can't survive outside.
Jennifer Fugo (23:08.046)
Yep. And stomach parasite signs include a high likelihood you have H. pylori too. So it's interesting how they all are kind of, they’re like friends. They have their friends.
Robin Foroutan (23:21.176)
They're friends. They're symbiotic together too. And so, yeah, it's this idea of like, not all the parasites are bad. Why are they there? And then when you kind of get deep into this kind of work and you're doing parasitic, I mean, for lack of a better term, cleanses, we do like pulses and we really move things out and people are pooping out worms and stuff. And at a certain point, you're just sort of like, how long are we going to be doing this? Sometimes I really don't know. But when it when it's very, very persistent, and you're doing herbs and herbs and herbs, and it seems that the parasites are never ending, then you have to start thinking about, well, what's what is the situation in this particular body that allows for them to stay? Is there a toxin there that they are feeding off of, but also shielding you from?
You know, they're not all bad and they're not always doing something bad for you. It initially might start as something that's helpful to protect you from toxins and other infections, but then it gets out of hand because there's so much toxin and infection that then there's too much for them to feed on and now it's an imbalance. And that's why sometimes when people are sort of like, does it always matter? If you have a pulse, you have parasites. Yes, that's true because it's probably part of normal flora, but it doesn't always matter until it matters. So they're fine to stay in there, most likely, as long as they're not triggering big symptoms and throwing off the balance of your body. The population is low. Because eradication is not possible, there's no eradication of anything in the body really. It just becomes part of the microbial universe in there.
Jennifer Fugo (25:16.784)
Right. You're trying to balance your immune system function, right? With, where can your immune system tolerate and handle and kind of keep things in check, and what's too much?
Robin Foroutan (25:19.562)
Yeah, it's balance. You know, what is enough? You also have to be able to keep your own nutrient status and not have too many things feeding on you, and eating up your vitamins, and taking your iron, and all of that. That doesn't paint a pretty picture.
Jennifer Fugo (25:44.541)
Well, the other interesting thing, I've been reading a lot recently about biofilms and what's fascinating, there's different types of biofilms. So biofilms are basically like these protective, we'll just call them shields, that help organisms not get impacted by whatever the treatment is. So it could be medications, could be herbs even. So some bacterial biofilms can actually include protozoa, so they can hide behind those biofilms. And then I know with fungus, that can also hide biofilms. I've definitely seen in multiple clients where they've got a huge fungal problem and you're working on the fungal issue, they're getting better, we're seeing good results. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden they have this huge hive flare up and they never had hives before and we're like, oh, we found something.
Robin Foroutan (26:35.534)
Yeah. Ooh, we busted a biofilm. It's always good though, you busted through a biofilm and stuff came out.
Jennifer Fugo (26:42.024)
Yep. And now you're like, all right, we know we're at the next onion peel level, right? So we're peeling back the layers in a smart fashion, intelligently. That's why I think part of it has to be we have to give our bodies grace and meet them where they are. Like that's what I hear you saying, and like you have to be pooping if you have parasite stomach signs. You have to be moving things along. You have to balance these other systems so they can handle what you're doing. And if you're gonna then throw everything into chaos just because you wanna get it done in like two weeks or whatever it is, like, no.
Robin Foroutan (27:23.416)
Yeah, your body doesn't care about your timeline. That's sort of the thing. People wanna know a timeline, and I don't blame them, and I wish that I had an answer for things like a timeline. But you never really know until you start going in how sensitive somebody is, how many layers there are, what if there's a whole different root cause, we thought that it was this thing, but there was actually something else underneath it. You can't always anticipate these things, but your body sets the pace and your body sets the rules. And so it behooves you to respect the body's own timeline, which sometimes we're just not privy to.
Jennifer Fugo (28:01.948)
Yeah, and it can be really annoying and frustrating for somebody that just wants to get it done. It's a deep lesson in having patience, unfortunately.
Robin Foroutan (28:06.38)
Yes.
Jennifer Fugo (28:30.052)
But I did want to ask one last question, because I've talked about pinworms on the show with Jennifer Brand, because she works with kids, and so she sees pinworms a lot. And they're contagious. Those little kids, they don't realize they're passing that back and forth. What's your thoughts on worms being contagious? So, helminths being contagious, more in general. So if, say you actually have like a tapeworm or some other thing, like what is the likelihood or what have you seen clinically in terms of people passing the parasites back and forth within their family, or between partners, or with the kids? Pinworms are highly passable.
Robin Foroutan (28:56.781)
Very contagious, pinworms are very contagious. You know, it's interesting because you really do share a microbiome with everyone who's living in your household, including your pets, which is interesting. And you'll see, it has happened so many times. Somebody gets a puppy, puppy has Giardia, and then you have stomach issues, but you go to the doctor and Giardia doesn't show up. It just doesn't show up on the O&P. And you kind of have this low-grade digestive dysfunction until someone runs a better, more sensitive test, finds the Giardia, and treats it. And then they're like, oh my god, yeah, I got a puppy and the puppy got Giardia, or whatever. So we're sharing our microbiome also with our partners too, our kids and our partners.
Now, pinworm is sort of in a category to itself, I think, where you really, everybody has to get treated. Everybody in the house gets treated, all the kids get treated. If you convince the vet to treat the dog, treat the dog, or the cats, like treat everyone. And then you get something like OxiClean, something similar to OxiClean, that category, and you put that in the wash. You have to change the sheets a million times, the towels every day, and vacuum all the time. You have to be kind of like a psycho about it with pinworms. With other things, it's sort of, you kind of have to see. In my experience with tapeworms, I have not seen that carry on to partners or other people in the household. It doesn't seem like something that is so easily spread, though I'm sure that is possible. But when I'm dealing with a deep-seated gut infection that I think includes parasites, I will often suggest that the partners also do a little bit of something, especially if we're doing, did we talk about full moon and new moon last time?
Jennifer Fugo (30:58.889)
I think a little bit.
Robin Foroutan (31:00.086)
Okay, so parasites are more active around the full moon and the new moon. It seems very witchy, but it's sort of like our serotonin levels are up and down and they feed on serotonin. I mean, if you think about the tide, the pull of the tide from the moon, the moon affects a lot of things. We're just sort of cut off from nature in a way sometimes where we don't recognize it. But I do, sometimes, pulsing of my anti-parasitic herbs around the new moon and the full moon just to kind of shake extra things out. And so when we're doing that and we have an open-minded partner, or we have a partner who maybe doesn't feel tip-tip-top, they're not as bad but they don't feel tip-top. I'll sort of, if I think that they're medically appropriate, will give them a little bit of anti-parasitic herb on those days too.
Because, I mean, even now I see a couple and I see them separately, husband had all the symptoms, really struggled, lots of weight loss, unintended, like he was just withering away, so we dealt with him efficiently. And then his wife was kind of like, actually, I don't feel that good and I'm very constipated and I've never been constipated in my life. And so, okay, come, we'll deal with you. And so now that the husband is really, he's on the mend, he is almost done, I think. And the wife is in the thick of it. And so husband asked, rightly so, do you think that there's a chance that I can get it again from her? And the answer is, yeah, there is. When we pulse her, we're gonna keep him on something and we'll figure that out.
Robin Foroutan (32:36.734)
But I do that sometimes with fungal infections too. You know, where we'll give the partner a little bit of something or maybe even a topical spray, like a tea tree topical spray, to the junk. Just be careful of your urethra because it will burn. But you know, you give somebody a little bit of like an antimicrobial just to make sure that they're not passing things along. We know that H. pylori gets passed on like that. I very much suspect, I'm curious to know your opinion, I think oral microbiome imbalances are also shared with partners, where you'll have one partner who has never had a cavity, and then they get into a relationship with someone who only gets cavities, and then they start getting cavities.
Jennifer Fugo (33:23.74)
100%, 100%.
Robin Foroutan (33:58.177)
So we have to think about all of the different microbial worlds that we have. The oral one, we have one in our nasal passages, definitely the gut, we have skin microbiomes, and they're not fixed, they're fluid.
Jennifer Fugo (34:06.759)
They are very fluid. I mean, we even now know that we have a totally separate microbiome in our gallbladder. I mean, it's wild how many microbiomes, they're in the eye, I mean, it's just like, it's wild. We are amazing. We are constantly learning. I love it.
Robin Foroutan (34:13.986)
Yes, it's a whole planet. It's like each person's body is like an entire planet filled with microorganisms. Which sounds undesirable, but the whole idea is symbiotic. It's symbiosis. And these kinds of gut infections, all these things, are just showing that we tip the scales in not our favor and then we have to tip them back in our favor, and then live in a way that tries to maintain that balance.
Jennifer Fugo (34:18.597)
Exactly. Well, I will say that I consider you to be one of my favorite people to dive into this stuff with because, I think for my community, they know I'm just a deeply curious person and I love learning about this stuff, I love thinking about it. And like you, it's like so, I don’t know, I don't find it gross. I mean, there's a moment when like it comes to me eating food, and had I seen a video on somebody's Instagram with a worm coming out.
Robin Foroutan (35:04.226)
I don't like it when it's fish, like the salmon ones, but I already knew that and really have forbade any, I mean, really, like sushi is a risk. Sushi's a risk, unfortunately, but salmon sushi, bigger risk.
Jennifer Fugo (35:07.856)
What if it's cooked though? So if you're doing sushi and you do like, I think it's a California roll. Is it cooked?
Robin Foroutan (35:32.705)
Less risk. It is cooked. It's like, I think that's fake crab, I don't even think that's real crab. A lot of times it's fake crab. I miss sushi so much. Whenever I go out of town, my partner goes for sushi.
Jennifer Fugo (35:38.424)
See, I don't eat sushi. He's like, I'll take the worms, it's okay, you don't have to do it.
Robin Foroutan (35:51.343)
He's got an iron gut, but I will say that his gut was less than iron after getting with me. And I feel very responsible because you become an expert in the things that you struggle with personally. And that's sort of usually how it goes. And so there were times where I would sort of look at him and was like, you've never had indigestion in your life until now, haven't you? So we had to, you know, but he also gets the benefit of my protocol, so he's good now.
Jennifer Fugo (36:24.188)
That is true. That is true. Well, I want to thank you again for coming back. I really appreciate you for being here and sharing some additional nuanced perspective, right? So we can take the five-alarm fire down.
Robin Foroutan (36:37.519)
Don't panic. You don't have to panic. You can find help. There are experts out there who can help you. Try not to go at it alone unless you are in robust health and you're just curious. That's okay, we can experiment with our bodies, but really partner with an expert so that you know the order in which to do things for, how long do you do it. You know, it's good to have educated help.
Jennifer Fugo (37:06.244)
It is. And Robin, if people who are seeing this episode, either you're listening or you're watching, if they want to connect with you, what is the best way to reach you?
Robin Foroutan (37:17.722)
You can find me on Instagram, @foroutan.nutrition, or you can find me on my website, which is nutritionbyrobin.com, and that's Robin with an I, because there is a Robyn with a Y, but that's not me.
Jennifer Fugo (37:33.618)
Correct, correct. Well, we'll make sure to put all of your links and everything in the show notes so people can find you, as well as the previous episode. That way, if they're like, oh, I need to hear what we said the first time, they can easily do that. And just thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you.
Robin Foroutan (37:41.998)
Thanks. That was a good episode. Thanks for having me. It was fun to chat with you.
