Introduction to The Spit Test
Andrew Anderson: Hello there, sports fans. We’ve got Dr Gina Pritchard, whom I consider one of the top experts in the world on heart attacks and stroke prevention. She’s on the cutting and bleeding edge of things.
And today we’re going to talk about the test that blew me away. It’s called The Spit Test or the saliva test. And with it, you just basically hold up a tube and you spit it in it, and then you send it off. You can do this in the comfort of your own home.
Exploring the Wide Range of Diseases Detected by The Spit Test
Andrew Anderson: And it can tell you what your chances of you having or getting and, correct me if I’m right on this doc, I’m gonna dive right into this, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, problem pregnancies, Alzheimer’s, dementia, brain abscesses, tooth implant rejections, bone loss and arthritis, diabetes, kidney disease, and am I leaving anything off here?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Fatty liver disease. Did we say that?
Andrew Anderson: Fatty liver disease. No, I did not.
Andrew Anderson: Fatty liver disease.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Kidney disease, I think you said that.
Andrew Anderson: Yes, fatty liver disease is associated basically with a type of diabetes or you can get it when you have insulin. Yeah.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yeah. We’re talking about the non alcoholic fatty liver disease type. Certainly you can get liver disease or dysfunction from too much alcohol for sure. But, the other type is a similar problem with the liver, but it’s from too many carbohydrates.
The Role of Pathogens in Various Diseases
Dr. Gina Pritchard: However, this type of, when we find the evidence in the saliva, the person may be ingesting too many carbohydrates, or it may be that they are knocking on the door of diabetes or have diabetes and don’t know it, but, the pathogens play a role in that.
Bindings in the mouth play a role.
Andrew Anderson: So there’s five main ones, as I understand it, plus a whole slew of other ones, a couple of other ones that, played this role. So, correct me if I understand this correctly, so with The Spit Test that takes literally 30 seconds to do, well, whatever, however long it takes to get to your postman, when they do this, because of these pathogens in your mouth, it’s linked to, if you have them, it’s linked to like 50% of the cancer, some of the cancers. And I know it was over 90% of people with diabetes have this and are they, do they cause it or is it an indication that you have it or both?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Well, let me just speak, each one of them is a little bit different. Each one of the disease conditions that you just listed, but I’ll just say with cardiovascular disease or heart attack or stroke, for example, these bacteria are directly implicated. So, they are causal of cardiovascular disease. We still need much more research to understand how do they get out of control in the mouth? How did they thrive in the mouth?
So actually, which came first, the chicken or the egg? That’s really impossible to say right now, but we know there are numerous studies have demonstrated that they’re implicated, directly contribute to and are found at the site of heart attack and stroke. And that’s on the American Heart Association website. This isn’t new information. It’s just, we haven’t known what to do with it or how to get there because we haven’t known how to even begin treating it until more recent years.
Andrew Anderson: Okay. And if I remember reading in the research and maybe I heard it from you or something, I’m sure I read the research on this too, and I know you did a long explanation with it. I was on one of your zoom calls that it said that basically, if you can get rid of some of these bacteria and balance them out with the good bacteria, because there’s good bacteria too, that you can greatly reduce your chances of these diseases as well.
The Importance of Eradicating Harmful Bacteria
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yes, I would say number one and number two, you can greatly reduce your risk of getting those diseases, of having a heart attack of having a stroke, all of these things that none of us want in our future. You can definitely reduce that risk. Number one.
Number two, you will not, if you’ve had a heart attack, or if you’ve had a stroke, you are likely headed for another one. The recurrence of that is high, or even if you’ve had a stint and known cardiovascular disease, you will not reverse the disease process. You’re still at greater risk if you don’t get rid of these.
So, you have to get rid of them to have your full recovery, to protect yourself from having these diseases in the first place. And then once you have these diseases, we will not effectively treat them unless now at that point we test saliva and we treat these pathogens, get rid of the pathogens.
Andrew Anderson: Okay. So, this makes sense. I mean, I just recently heard about this maybe four or five months ago.
Why Aren’t More Medical Professionals Testing for These Bacteria?
Andrew Anderson: What boggles my mind is, and you can correct me on this, and I want to take a humorous tone here, but this is pretty serious. It seems to me like, and I had one of these done, that why aren’t every dentist and every doctor making this the first thing that they test if this can indicate what’s going on with all of them. And if I had a heart attack or a stroke that if I don’t get rid of this, I’m going to be at a far higher risk of getting another one. And the same thing with diabetes. And the thing that I’ve had friends do this, that they had implants, and they got rejected, and after I spoke with them, they never mentioned that they got tested for these bacterias that are the cause for the rejection. I mean, do like 98% of all dentists and doctors check for this right now or what?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: No, absolutely. 98% of doctors and dentists do not check for this right now. And I would say that the answer to that question has about 10 reasons, but I’m going to give the top ones. Okay.
The Challenges of Integrating New Medical Knowledge
Dr. Gina Pritchard: number one, they’re not aware. The doctor, dentist, dental hygienist just doesn’t know about these bacteria being dangerous or being that dangerous. The research, as I said, first started to be talked about in some of the medical community and added to some of our conferences was around 2013. Before that, all of us knew that it was a problem, but we were like, but how do we test for it? What do we do for it? How is this clinically applicable? So, there’s about 3 other reasons in the beginning of why we didn’t embrace it right away. And why doctors and dentists still don’t even if they know about it. So, like, what do we do with this information?
The next reason is because some have taken a stab at it and start testing for these bacteria and there are about, there are a few different steps to take to eradicate them in the first place, to reestablish the health of your mouth because if the ground in that mouth may look healthy, may smell healthy, may taste healthy, but it’s not healthy unless you reestablish the good bacteria, so to speak. Create an environment where your mouth can be healthy again because the good bacteria have overcome the bad bacteria and we’ve gotten rid of the bad guys, so to speak.
Andrew Anderson: Yeah.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: So, in order to do that, number one, a medical team, or a doctor, a nurse practitioner, whomever you’re seeing for anything other than dental care, has to work together with a dental team, a dentist and a dental hygienist, either side of the aisle, so to speak, can only go so far. And so what I found, even when I fist started testing individuals and doing my part, so to speak, I would send them to their dentist with a note. They would come back and I would say what they do. They said nothing, said I looked fine.
So, we had to start talking to each other. Start collaborating and merging our care plans for the patient and some don’t know how to do that. Some doctors and dentists and dental hygienists and nurses don’t know how to have those conversations, don’t have the time to have those conversations.
We found it to be very easy. We, meaning myself and the dental teams that I do work with, and the nurses and dental hygienists that are on my team as care coordinators. But in the beginning, it was cumbersome as you can imagine. It’s a little bit back and forth and then keeping the patient educated in that whole process.
But now we’ve got that refined. The other thing I would say about this is it’s not covered by insurance. And so, a lot of that’s just like a hard no for a lot of doctors and some dentists, but it will save your life. It’s not that expensive. It may someday be covered by insurance. I’d say insurance is like the I word a dirty word because it doesn’t pay for the test that will actually save your life. That’s the problem. And this is just one of those examples. So…
Andrew Anderson: Right. Well, I heard something the other day that makes so much sense that, I had a doctor tell me this about seven or eight years ago, and I’m not trying to put you on the spot here, but he told me that it takes basically 20 years for something to be found to really work and all the data is there for it to be filtered out to the doctors that they are actually using it widespread. And I found that I was dumbfounded, but he explained it to me and I had someone else explain this to me the other day. Her name is Sydney; I’m going to go to the last name. But she said, basically, if the insurance does not cover something that it is not taught in the medical school. Which leaves out like most of the things that are there. So, is that semi accurate? Is that what’s going on?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: It’s what’s going on. That’s problem number one. It is not taught in the medical schools and it’s not taught in the dental schools. And so, I talk to dentists all the time. Let’s say, for example, I was seeing, you know, the patient in front of me right now, called their dentist or called their dental hygienist and scheduled a call for us to talk about our mutual patient. They would say, “I’ve never heard of that. I’ve never, I wasn’t taught that in school.” And some of them even go as far to say, “I didn’t graduate that long.” Like, I have some dental colleagues that are in their 30s and 40s, and I’ve had a couple of them call me back and say, “I called my professor of periodontal disease and in dental school, and he said that he doesn’t know anything about it either.”
So just getting the word out there and getting the science out there, getting the research and the treatment protocols out there is something we’re trying to do every day. But if you weren’t taught it in medical school, a lot of people are still hanging their hat on that which we know data is changing every week. So, that just is a problem in and of itself. If I practice the way I was taught when I went to school, certainly in the undergraduate, but even more recently, things have changed in the last year or two. I mean, that’s how rapidly it’s changing, but you’re right. It does take 20 plus years, and as I said, it was starting to be talked about in 2013 when the American Heart Association finally took a stand, but we knew about it in 2005 to 2009, somewhere in there. We knew, wow, there is something to this. We’ve got to start figuring this out. You can see where, you know, we’re not 20 years from 2013. So…
Andrew Anderson: Okay. So, my official scientific term for that is that’s nuts. That is totally crazy. So, that being said, like before, and this was, I think right now, the last time I looked, if you go to your site, TheSpitTest.Com, it’s only $249 for the test, insurance is not going to cover it, but that’s like a month or two of Starbucks to reliably predict whether I’m going to have diabetes. If I’m going to have issues with my teeth, if I’m going to have a stroke, if I’m going to have cancer, if I’m at least leaning towards that or brain abscess, I know that’s the other one, but just the heart attacks alone.
They just had women’s heart attack, something I heard a month ago. That’s a leading killer of women right now, right? Heart attacks?
The Impact of The Spit Test on Women’s Health
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yeah, February is heart month, but the focus on women and heart disease for sure with Women’s Awareness Day in February. And women, more women die of heart attack, heart disease, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, than they die of all types of cancer.
Andrew Anderson: Wow!
Dr. Gina Pritchard: It is a woman’s disease as well as a man’s disease. And that’s a myth out there that most people think it’s, more likely to happen to men and that’s not true. There are some stats around that and that sometimes, not all the time, but I would say the average is that women experience it or begin to know they have a problem a little later in life than men know they have a problem, but it’s still just as deadly. Women are more likely to die of their first heart attack. Men are more likely to survive the first one, go on to have another one. Women, that’s not the case.
Andrew Anderson: They’re just on the first one and they’re done, huh?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: More often than not.
Andrew Anderson: Why is that?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: I think there’s a lot of reasons. One, and the research would suggest one of these things, and that is that women’s anatomy is in general, and we can’t say in every case, but in general, our heart and the arteries, the blood vessels that supply the blood to the heart are smaller than men’s,
Andrew Anderson: Right.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: And if you think about a blockage or a blood clot that can cause heart attack, it just takes a smaller one to do it because the vessel itself is not as big, the heart itself. That’s one reason that’s indeed true.
Another reason is that women’s symptoms are not the same as men. You hear about, “I feel like an elephant sitting on my chest.”
or crushing chest pain or a wheezing chest pain. Those are all, maybe jaw pain, shortness of breath, things like that. Women are more likely to feel indigestion. I have had this happen in my practice. A woman comes to see me more times than not and says, “I’ve had the worst indigestion of my life and nothing will touch it. Like I try to everything. She goes through the list.” So, it sometimes feels more like indigestion. A lot of times, it’s a finger or an elbow or an arm discomfort, jaw, back, shoulder, nothing in their chest. They’re like, “No, my chest feels fine.” And, again, it’s probably something to do the difference in anatomy, just slight differences.
Right. You know, you’ve heard of typical left arm numbness or left arm, if it persists, but women are likely to be on the right arm also, or in the finger or the elbow. As I just said, it’s a nagging, gnawing, that’s not right kind of feeling from the waist up, have it checked out, as well as unexplained fatigue. And so, therein lies the 3rd issue is women are always fatigued or take good care of the grandkids, are making sure everybody gets to the soccer practice, everybody’s fed. And not that men aren’t busy too. I’m just saying we’re so tuned in to being in the mother role or the grandmother role while maybe also being that we just ignore things. And there’s a great video on the American Heart Association website that, as you said, they’re trying to bring a very serious topic into somewhat of a humorous video so that we will pay attention and go, “Oh, I see myself in that video and get checked out.”
Andrew Anderson: Yeah, that’s great.
Strategies for Preventing Heart Attacks and Strokes
Andrew Anderson: And, according to the American Heart Association, and I know you have your website, SkipYourNextHeartAttack.com, as well as, the Prevent Clinic, in there you talk about being able to reduce someone’s risk of having a heart attack by over 80%, and that’s according to the ADA.
How do you do that? I mean, I don’t think most people realize that.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: You are correct. The American Heart Association, the AHA has driven the state to the center of the earth and said 80% of heart attacks are preventable and most strokes are preventable. That’s not me saying that. That’s a lot of data and a lot of genius minds that come together before they’re going to make a statement like that from a global organization or certainly a national organization like the American Heart Association.
So, the American Heart Association, 80% should not be happening. And it’s still the number one killer and has been so for many years. The recommendations that they bring to light that they say, if you will just incorporate these 8 things, then, this is the way to prevent 80% of heart attacks. What I see in my practice, that number is well above 95%. The ability to prevent 95% of heart attacks, and it’s because most of the evaluations done in the doctor office, or even in the dental office, number one, they don’t look for all of these things. We’re not in a traditional setting evaluating for all of these things. So the workup is incomplete, and when we do look for these things, maybe the next steps are not as complete as they need to be. Like for one example, one of the items on the American Heart Association website is to get better sleep, but I don’t know anybody other than maybe a handful, maybe 10 practices, where we say, “No, we’re not going to give up until you’re breathing well all night long. You’re sleeping well all night long.” There’s several things you really need to monitor. We have great metrics these days, great targets to measure and oral saliva testing is one of the top ones. That’s always missed., and it is a trump contributor to heart attack and stroke risk.
That’s why I can, in my practice, take people from 80% protection to 95% or higher because one of the things I’m testing for the most and treating are bacteria in the mouth or an altered unhealthy oral microbiome in the mouth.
Andrew Anderson: That’s some crazy numbers and I know you can never guarantee that, but it’s based on data and things. So,, I know everybody always talks about they pass their stress test, but that might be, okay, but if they aren’t testing for the saliva, they’ve got this loop, they’ve got, you know, a couple billion of these guys that are working against them that they would never know about it. And if that could be rectified by, I’m assuming, correct me if I’m wrong, diet would have a big thing on it. If you’re eating carbs, and I also heard if you gargle that kills not only, you know, they said kills 99% germs or whatever it is, it’s killing off the good guys which typically give the bad guys a chance to get in there. So, it increases your risk of not having a decent biome.
The Treatment Process for Unhealthy Oral Microbiomes
Andrew Anderson: How do you treat it? Let’s put it that way. How do you treat it?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yeah. So, one thing I just want to say about what you just said is that you mentioned gargling kills 95% of bad germs or whatever. So, when we’re talking about gargling with some harsh product, there are like, you can gargle with water and it’s actually good for you. You can gargle. That’s a good thing. But to use these products that most of us have in our homes and use every day alters the health of your mouth. And so it makes it difficult for, as you said, the good guys to outsmart these bacteria and these dangerous pathogens, they overtake the mouth.
And it’s sneaky because you can look great. Your gums can be pink. Your breath can be good. You can go to the dentist and they say you look great. But if the dentist office is not testing for these pathogens now, the ones that are like me, like, how did I try to treat patients with cardiovascular disease all these years without testing and eradicating the bad guys and then fostering in a healthy mouth? Because then you can keep them at bay once you have them, you know, eliminated or eradicated.
Okay. So, first and foremost, you take away anything that could be contributing to these bacteria thriving in the mouth. And we start with the mouth, but we know that your GI tract is affected by these bacteria because you’re swallowing them. So, that’s a lot of the problems with GI so we have to get to that second.
First of all, we get rid of the products that are feeding them or making it an environment where they enjoy living there and they just duplicate and they take over.
Secondly, then we identify specifically which ones are there and there are specific treatments for it. One of the treatments is to put in the probiotics. We’ve all heard of probiotics that we swallow because we’ve heard they’re good for our GI tract, but these specific bacteria are not affected by certain probiotics. So, you have to get essentially a prescription, even though they’re available over the counter, you have to know which probiotics to take to eradicate the pathogens. That’s step number one.
Number two, after you’ve gotten rid of the products in your home, and then after you get there on the right probiotic, and it’s usually a probiotic that you will melt in your mouth, let it sit there and marinate, if you will, or saturate the mouth and some that you swallow both. And then sometimes we give you gels and sprays and a variety of ways to improve the health of the mouth.
And then, once we do that, then we have to work with the dental team for them to do a treatment that may be necessary. This isn’t true of every case and every time, but many times these bacteria live up under the gums. And again, you may look great when you go to the dental office, but if these bacteria are there, and you have a dental hygienist and a dentist that is educated on these pathogens, they’ll say, “We’re going to go take another look.” Maybe we’re going to take a different, new kind of x-ray using a cat scan to look deeper because with the naked eye, maybe we’re missing what’s actually going on there. It’s cellular level, right?
Bacteria, a lot of times you can’t see them. You can see the problem they’re causing. Like if you have an infected wound on your hand, you know, the culture at, “Oh, there’s bacteria there.” We didn’t see the bacteria. It’s the same in the mouth. You have to be a little bit of a detective to figure out where they are. And then when they’re found, you might need a laser treatment in the mouth. You might need something called guided biofilm, which is just a comfortable procedure, but the dental hygienist has to perform it in a very meticulous way, not just clean your teeth and you look good and that you’re good for another three months.
Andrew Anderson: So, they have to be trained in this, right? That’s right.
And from the information I had too, there’s only two places in the world right now, maybe more. There’s one place in St. Pete that you can get this, the IDM Scholars Society, and then the dental school in Knoxville, Lincoln Memorial. They also have an osteopath school. They’re, beginning to start training us too.
So, there’s two places where you can get trained for this stuff. Is that correct? Is that another reason why no one knows about this?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: That’s correct. And there’s a handful of dentists that are in our trainings, one that I’m associated with. Well, both of those you just mentioned actually. And there are dentists and dental hygienists, nurses and physicians that are in these trainings and are in various stages of, you know, of developing mastery at treating. And when you have those educational backup pieces in place, then we’re always talking about what’s the latest research show? How’s it looking in your cases? Bring us your cases.
Andrew Anderson: Right.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: See how it’s a lot of people out there. I say a lot in the grand scheme of things as you just started us out. All of the doctors, all of the dentists are not testing for this; very few are testing. And then of these few that are testing, there are of those a few that are really trying to stick with it until they figure out how to get to eradicate them. And the reason I want to stop and make that a point is because a lot of times a dental team will test for them and they’ll say, here, this product is good for that,
Andrew Anderson: Right. But it’s not one single product, right?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: It’s not one single product and they don’t retest. So, if your dentist tests and says, here you go, this will take care of that and they don’t retest, don’t rely on that because maybe it will and maybe it won’t. But you want to follow up test to make sure they’re gone. And if they’re not, then there’s some things that we’re missing. And, my experience has been, and the data shows, as you just said, Andrew, it’s not just one thing. If it were, we would just sell that instead of the test and have everybody play with or gargle with whatever worked, but it doesn’t. In fact, a lot of the things that are being given to treat this are much like the mouthwashes over the counter. They have harch chemicals in them, and yeah, maybe it suppresses the bacterial load for a day or two or a week or whatever, and then they come back as a resistant strain with a vengeance. So, have you heard about MRSA, right? Or this flesh eating bacteria in the hospital? So, resistant strain, meaning it started out as a staph infection, we could easily treat with antibiotics in the hospital.
Andrew Anderson: Right.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: These bacteria in the mouth started out as bacteria that could be easily treated with either some simple products with sometimes antibiotics. And still today, we still need to use antibiotics as much as we hate them. It’s because if you keep using harsh chemicals and don’t really eradicate the bacteria and improve the health of the microbiome, then you get a resistant strain like flesh eating staph or caucus, like, versa, if you will, because they’re going to win the war.
Andrew Anderson: So, if you don’t kill them all, you get a couple that are resistant to it and then they can overwhelm whatever you’re doing. You know, it kind of reminds me like wherever they’ve done things, where they go in and where they have a pest problem, you know, they kill off the predators and then when you do that, which are the good guys in this case, the rabbits will like explode and they take you for everything, lemmings or mice or anything. Kind of crazy. Hopefully, people can relate to that. So, wow.
So, on your protocols, what do you suggest? I mean, it seems to me that, and I’m not going to put words in your mouth here, I would be getting tested like at least every year, if not every six months or every quarter because depending on, you know, depending on what’s going on, that could change. And if it has that big of an impact of me getting cancer, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer, which is a big one, which is, you know, an epidemic right now.
I mean, is there any danger of like spitting in a tube 20 times a year.
The Importance of Regular Testing and the Right Diet
Dr. Gina Pritchard: No, everyone needs to be tested at baseline and at least once a year. If you look pristine, beautiful, no problems at baseline, then don’t wait any longer than a year to be tested again, because you can pass these bacteria around. You do pass these bacteria around with the people you live with, certainly with your significant other that you’re kissing, but you can share it with children, grandchildren. We’ve even tested it in some of the pets in the household. As crazy as that sounds, if we have someone in my practice, it’s high risk that’s headed for a heart attack and it’s our job to turn that around. We’re testing the spouse or the significant other. We’re testing the children and I have gone as far as testing the animals. Now that sounds crazy, but I just want you to know that it’s communicable. It’s a communicable, you can even drink after someone or share silverware or whatever.
Andrew Anderson: Okay, if you don’t mind, I’m going to start back up. But so like, if Like it’s, it sounds to me that it’s closer to headlights, you know. If somebody, no, seriously, if you’re sharing things, if you’re drinking out of the same water bottle or, you know, doing something and you can share saliva with anybody, I’m not trying to scare people, but I could get it from, you could get it from your wife or your husband or your kid, or if grandma came over and drank off of it. And so if you’re a high risk for this, then you could be, you could test out, okay, three months ago, but if you’re around a bunch of people, you can pick it up from them. Is that true?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: That is true. That is absolutely true. And you’ve been on, you know, several of our calls and courses. So, you know, there’s a lot of precursors for that, a lot of reasons why it happens and we’re looking at those also.
Andrew Anderson: Right.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: The place to start is to just see where do we stand with The Spit Test, and treat everything that’s contributing to it. Get rid of the bacteria, then ensure it’s gone for the rest of your life, and that the mouth becomes even healthier after that. That’s a critically important point because you need a certain saliva test. There is a new one on the market. You need to make sure that you’re getting one where it’s not just those five bacteria. That’s okay. It’s still important information. But then to know if you’re actually, so a follow up test like that would help. You know, are the numbers coming down? Are we starting to get rid of the bacteria? But then you need to know, is the rest of the mouth healthy? In other words, we want to check for yeast. We want to text check for good strains of some of the strep strains. We want to test for other organisms that contribute to health so that those are allowed to thrive and those are increasing while the bacteria are gone.
So anyway, the correct test, which of course is the one we have on The Spit Test, and it’s not been that long. It’s the latest, greatest, it’s the one you want. Now, if someone improves and we have a better test, you’re going to hear it here first.
Andrew Anderson: Well, it sounds to me like, you know, I’ve got a marketing agency and we’re technology agnostic. We don’t get sucked in because we’re getting paid from some affiliate fee for old junk software. If something new comes along, we tell our customers about it. Even if we don’t make any money on it, you know, because we have their best interest at heart, so you don’t get locked into any one test. If you see one that’s bigger or better, you do it.
Okay. That makes sense because I know, anyway, I don’t want him to go there, but… Wow, that’s really cool. And then, so one of the big contributors that, because I’ve been doing, as you know, I’ve been doing keto and intermittent fasting for a while, that simple carbohydrates, can they contribute to this? I don’t know. I’m not putting words in your mouth. If I’m wrong, just tell me. So is the diet, how important is your diet?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yeah, your diet is extremely important. And when we talked earlier about things that contribute to these bacteria being allowed to thrive and take over in the oral cavity in the mouth, carbohydrates are one of those things. And we’ve seen an increase in this problem and no decrease in heart attacks since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And think about it like during, that timeframe, and then, also after the depression, when food became more processed and started to be manufactured in a grand scale, as opposed to, you know, have going out and using your own animals or Less processed food. That’s all I’m trying to say.
So, we’re all eating way too many carbohydrates. We’re taking in way too many toxins and we’re taking in way too much processed foods. And so you can imagine that. Yeah, that changes the pH. It changes the environment of the mouth. And that alone is one of the reasons why these bacteria just take over.
The other reason is because when you eat carbohydrates, you generally, even if you don’t have diabetes, even if you’re young, even if you’re healthy, if you’re wearing either like a continuous glucose monitor, maybe everyone on here has heard of those, used to just be for diabetics. Now, we’re using them in everyone to screen for glucose spikes. So, if you’re eating carbohydrates, your blood sugar is going to go higher, whether processed carbohydrate or not. And I’m not eliminating a food group here. I’m not recommending that. I’m just trying to explain that that will move you further along towards diabetes by eating carbohydrates. We know that to be true because your glucose will spike.
That also makes the mouth more favorable for these bacteria because they thrive on sugar. They love carbohydrates to live, and then in their lives, the difficulty explaining which came first, diabetes or the bacteria, because they just exist together, unfortunately.
The Hidden Dangers of Carbs and Candida
Dr. Gina Pritchard: And we’re all heading towards diabetes. If we don’t watch our carbs. I’m not saying eliminate it. I’m just saying it’s a key point, our diet.
Andrew Anderson: That makes sense. And I know you talked about Candida which is basically a yeast. Is that correct? So, if anybody’s ever made bread, you want to see how fast it grows, put some sugar in some yeast in some water and watch it start bubbling and that’s because they’re multiplying exponentially. So, same thing happens in your mouth.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: That’s right. That’s exactly right. Yes. It’s kind of like a, what’s the opposite of an explosion? Instead of an explosion to get rid of the bacteria, it’s like beating them. It’s giving them anything they want to just replicate themselves and become stronger and bigger and take over.
Andrew Anderson: So, there’s one of the thing, I don’t want this one on too long, it’s fascinating. I could talk to you for hours on this.
The Simplicity of At-Home Health Testing
Andrew Anderson: So, it seems to me that, I mean, my own mind, I’m not putting words in your mouth again, that since I got the one spit test, it didn’t hurt, I did it in the comfort of my home, it took less than 30 seconds, I mean, once I got that figured out the things, you spit in the tube, put the cap on, turn blue, put it in the package, and send it off, or the postman would even pick it up from me. That seems to me like anybody that’s concerned about their health would do that and there’s no danger in doing that, and it’s like you said, at least once a year. And i’m looking to see what my results will be, you know, even 90 days from now.
Unveiling the Truth About Leaky Gut and Systemic Health
Andrew Anderson: One of the things that you talked about, you know, you talked about your mouth health and then you talked about your gut health. I don’t think you use that term. We’ve all heard the term leaky gut, leaky gut syndrome. You came up, I don’t know, I guess from what I recall, back in the 20 in… That’s been known for a while and it took forever to get out there. But you came up with another term called Leaky Syndrome, where it’s just not about your gut, but your gums can leak. And with these other things, your veins can leak. Your arteries can leak, your lymph glands, every cell can leak. And so, it’s more systemic than that. I guess, you know, it’s not just about leaky guts. Can you explain a little bit about that?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yes, so if this is the first time anybody’s hearing about leaky gut, the more technical term is intestinal permeability. All that means is in the GI tract, you know, we’re talking tongue to tail really. When I say intestinal, there’s just a couple of spots in there that are actually small and large intestine. But from tongue to tail, that’s really the GI tract, gastrointestinal system. You want to keep that tract extremely healthy.
Obviously, it’s what’s going to help you maintain your weight, or if you need to gain weight, lose weight, you need a healthy GI tract. If you want to be protected from all these diseases we just talked about, if you want to lead a high performance lifestyle or just feel good with whatever it is you have to do for the day, you want your GI system intact.
Leaky gut is referring to the fact that inside the lining of this GI tract, we have a membrane, and It’s supposed to allow the toxins that are supposed to go through and be eliminated to go through and the toxins that need to be taken to the bloodstream and taken to the liver to go a different route. It needs to take the nutrients, the things that are good for you down a certain pathway. But what happens with A, these bacteria that are in the mouth that we’re swallowing with unhealthy food, and there again, a whole list of contributing reasons why, then this membrane starts to allow particles through and they go to the wrong places.
So, it’s not like you look and you say, my belly’s swelling. I must be leaking. I must have GI, you know, leaky gut. You don’t see it. It’s taking it. It’s still maintained, obviously, within the body, but it’s going the wrong place. And that’s one of the reasons you get fatty liver disease. Your liver is just overrun with too much because step one, the mouth, actually the nose, the mouth, and the GI tract are not able to do their job. And so the liver is leaky because it’s overwhelmed. And so we can talk about that with every organ in the body is it becomes leaky because, and everything becomes dysfunctional. It’s no wonder that we live as long as we do when you start to see what’s going on at the cellular level.
Andrew Anderson: Yeah, that makes sense.
The Critical Connection Between Oral Health and Chronic Diseases
Andrew Anderson: So, what you just said reminds me. So, people I know, they have protocols to get your gut biome which is great. But, okay, so you get that done, but if your mouth isn’t taken care of too, this is only going to last for not very long because it’s going to leak down into your gut. It’ll leak into your cardiovascular system. And so, wow. Okay, cool.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: True. Yes. And in fact, we’ve had several studies that have explained to us exactly how does a bacteria that’s living here cause a heart attack? Like even I, in the beginning, I’m like, how does that happen? I need to understand that.
The short version of that is when you swallow them, your GI tract is leaky and they go the wrong place and they end up in the bloodstream. And there’s actually more than just that one mechanism. There’s about five ways they get to the blood vessels, as you said. And when they get there, they are implicated, like when you have a heart attack, these bacteria are there. They are absolutely causative. They’re stirring up trouble, I like to say.
Andrew Anderson: And they’re always talking about cholesterol, but I don’t hear anybody talking about the bacteria.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: It’s exactly what I was getting ready to say too. So, it’s while..
Andrew Anderson: Again, I’m using that term. It’s just, it’s absolutely crazy.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: They’re trying to drive cholesterol down or drive the LDL down in the traditional healthcare system when it’s a lot going on in there at the artery level, bacteria and something called cytokines which is kind of like these poisons and a lot of things, toxins.
And so, your cholesterol and your LDL, that’s coined the bad cholesterol, is at first trying to solve the problem, trying to help you at the artery wall level. So, to just eradicate it or drop it as low as you can, we now know that’s not the best approach. Can’t ignore cholesterol. Can’t ignore LDL HDL. That’s not what I’m saying, but I’m saying you need to see somebody that knows how to treat it appropriately and look at all of the other problems that are actually occurring in the blood vessels.
Andrew Anderson: Yeah, that’s… Okay, so it’s just not about lowering your cholesterol at all. Anyway, a lot to think about.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yeah, a lot to think about, and it made me think about hypertension or high blood pressure. We didn’t even mention that one but, of course, when somebody goes to the doctor and they get put on a second med and a third med, I don’t really think we want to add a fourth med, but whatever kind of recommendations they’re given, they are checking for these bacteria. And if they’re there, you can see based on what we just described about how they get to your bloodstream.
Andrew Anderson: Right?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: It’s impossible for you to have your blood pressure…
Andrew Anderson: The medication just covers up the issue because they never take care of the bacteria in your mouth or whatever they are. So, dear lord. Yeah. So I’m going to ask you something. If you choose not to answer this question, ’cause I don’t want you to get you in trouble ’cause I know that you’ve got all kinds of regulations and stuff, but is it possible for someone, once they take care of the bacteria in their mouth, once they eat the right diet and, you know, they’re reducing their, at least by the American heart attack rate, by 80%, can they ever get off all of those medications? Is it possible to reduce them or get off them by taking care of a systemic approach like this?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Absolutely, it’s possible. When someone and, everybody that practices a powerful prevention approach, like I do, or a longevity approach, our goal, my goal, you see all kinds of practice patterns. It’s not to say the first time I see someone, I want to get you off all those medications I do, but I want to save the person’s life. So, at first, I may not start taking medicines away, but you can see there’s so many things that need to be tested that aren’t tested and treated effectively. And once we start to do that, then the patient says, “I’m dizzy. My blood pressure’s too low.” Okay, we got to get you off that blood pressure medicine, or those are things we’re watching and tracking.
We don’t need a high dose Lipitor, Crestor, you know, Zocort, some kind of cholesterol medicine that once we start to treat these things appropriately. So, we have to look one step sooner than just measuring the blood pressure. Okay, why is the blood pressure high? Can we get to the root cause of that? And then maybe medication.
Andrew Anderson: Right, because it might be because you’re eating like 50 pounds overweight and you aren’t exercising and you’re not breathing right or doing a whole slew of things, right? And if you get healthier, you’re going to, you know, decrease your blood pressure and your chance of dying of pretty much everything.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: That’s also why, unfortunately, incredibly fit people have heart attacks and strokes. We saw the video earlier of the gentleman who had a heart attack at the end of his, it was either iron man or marathon, incredibly fit individual, incredibly clean. And that’s a very…
Andrew Anderson: Supposedly, yeah.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: It’s a very scary thing to think about, but the reason that I’m bringing it up is because If you take all of that advice about eating healthy and exercising, great. We all need to do that. I’m all for it. We’re not going to get somebody as healthy as they want to be without making those changes, but it’s another area of where the health care advice or the medical advice is incomplete because even if someone, like we were speaking earlier on this topic, if someone is eating too many carbs and eating an unhealthy diet, these bacteria can thrive. And just because you fix your diet and your lifestyle doesn’t mean they’re gone. Hopefully they’re less virulent, if you will, or less dangerous than they were, but you still need to be tested.
Not just the bacteria, but these other things we test for to say, okay, has my healthy lifestyle done what I hoped it would. I like the way I’m looking in the mirror, maybe, or I like that I can run a mile now where I couldn’t, or whatever your goal is. But, what’s going on the inside? That just needs to be tested. That’s all.
Revolutionizing Heart Health with AI and Advanced Testing
Andrew Anderson: One of the other things too is what attracted me to you, and like I said, I want to help, I’m helping you get the word out as much as I possibly can once I figured out how much I didn’t know, is that you use state of the art AI testing protocols that I have never heard of any other doctors doing. And obviously, I’m sure those based on what we said, they’re not covered by insurance, but they’re state of the art. Can you tell us about that?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yes, absolutely. And it’s an example of how rapidly our availability, I mean, where these things are available to us. Now, this AI that you’re talking about, I haven’t been using it in my practice longer than two years. It was, I believe June, 2 years ago when I did my first test using this particular technology you’re talking about. And I’ve incorporated stuff since then that has an AI component to us. So, that’s when I say our targets and our measurements and our metrics are getting better. They really are.
So, when someone says it’s not possible to stabilize and reverse cardiovascular disease, it’s not possible. Well, we used to know it was possible, but I say, with a kind of a fuzzy idea that we were reversing it. But now with the artificial intelligence, there is no doubt. And I’m not the only one saying that. That’s well documented.
Andrew Anderson: It’s measurable. Yeah, there was a, I forgot the name of the movie, but there was a whole documentary on the guy that had reversed his, you know, cardiac disease. Yeah.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yes. And because not only can I see it with the reports and the beautiful pictures we get and the detailed description as well. Anyone who doesn’t even know what the heart looks like, don’t know what blood vessels look like, you can see it with your own eyes, what your arteries look like on the inside. And we have examples, as you know, you’ve seen them, where there’s a problem. There’s severe coronary artery disease, vascular disease, and then we put them on some of these protocols you and I are talking about and test again, and it gets much better. And some other examples where it looks pretty good, and then the follow up test with artificial intelligence , you can see the cardiovascular disease has gotten much worse because they didn’t get to some of these root causes or contributors didn’t change things. And so, it’s powerful. It’s so powerful.
I am so excited because number one, this is the thing that irritates me the most is that every person in the world does not have access to this information and to this care. Number two, that heart attack is still the number one killer and stroke is right after it. Stroke is the top cause of disability which, you know, to be disabled from a stroke and live the rest of their life that way. And we do have answers. Can we eliminate every single one of them? No, I’m not promising that. But we do have answers to knock it off the top spot.
Andrew Anderson: Right, right.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Everybody got some of these simple tests like you and I are talking about.
The High Cost of Traditional Healthcare vs. Innovative Treatments
Andrew Anderson: So let me guess your, the stuff you do isn’t covered by insurance, right?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: It’s not covered by insurance. And you know, again, I hope we live in a time where ultimately we’ll see that everyone has access to this kind of care. I am happy to help fight that fight, but are people such as myself that that is what they’re aggravated about. That is their fight. And they’re going to try to make this accessible.
That’s not my strength. My strength is I love to figure out what’s going on inside your body. Let me help the person sitting in front of me and let all of the bean counters figure it out. And, you know, it’s just not covered by insurance.
And what’s interesting too, though, is you’re hearing more and more about this, particularly the saliva test, but some of these other more not as well known tests that are extremely valuable at the level of the American Dental Association. And even the American Medical Association, kind of, certainly we’ve said the American Heart Association is moving that direction a little bit. They haven’t come out with a statement, but we will see if you haven’t seen it yet that the Center for Disease Control, whatever you think about them, is now admitting that there is a relationship between oral health and what’s going on in the mouth and some of these diseases. And so, maybe someone’s making some progress somewhere to try to get the attention of the insurance, you know, decision makers.
Andrew Anderson: But again, you know, it’s like watching a glacier melt sometime. In the meantime, we don’t have to wait though. So, we can go to TheSpitTest.com and you can get The Spit Test there, the saliva test, and at least figure out what you’re dealing with, and I think it’s going to take, like most things, public outcry on this. I mean, I don’t want to wait 10 or 15 years for everybody, the associations get their act together. And, so they can come to you and you have treatment protocols. I mean, that one starts at $249 and I don’t want to put you on the spot here, but I know you’ve got programs where you also deal with longevity as well. And you state the hard things in there and your programs. Can I tell how much your top program is? Yeah. Sure. I mean, if you don’t want me to, I won’t. Yeah, but it’s not a secret. Right? Yeah. So, you have a program that’s a million dollars a year, right? That will take in, I think it’s two people, usually a couple, or if it’s a CEO, the thing, and you can give them all the knowledge that you have that you pick up and change every day. Research chance of all of those things, as much as the latest scientific information, as well as longevity. And your whole, and I know you’ve got program much less than that.
So your whole thing is that I know, as I’ve come to know you, is that it’s not only about the quality of life, but how long you live. And my thing is I always want see all of the above, and there’s no reason to exclude those, right? There’s absolutely no reason to exclude either one of those. You can live long, be healthy, do the things you want to do, things that you love to do, and until you’re well past your 80s and 90s and beyond, right?
Dr. Gina Pritchard: That is definitely true. Just like I said earlier, it’s true you can reverse cardiovascular disease. I was iffy on, can we really live to 100 and feel great at 100? Now, it’s well beyond that. I know we can. And I’ve seen people reverse their age, which is another metric we have now where we can actually see on the inside. Are you like me? I’m 63 years old alive on this earth chronologically, but biologically am a 63 years? We want to age more slowly than the years go by and we can test for that as an example.
Empowering Personal Health: From Testing to Tailored Solutions
Dr. Gina Pritchard: But yeah, I want to just say that everyone can follow me on YouTube for free and I give information just like this every day on YouTube for free. And there’s a lot of low dollar programs, low dollar ways and free ways to get education. We just talked about a $249 way. Learn a key contributor to heart attack and stroke and all of those diseases, and know what to do about it.
And so, the reason that you bring up that other point is what we find is there are people that are incredibly busy and there are a few steps in the beginning once you get all of these tests back; about when do I work out and exactly what is cooking this way look like, and do I need a yoga instructor? Do I need a special type of equipment? Help me with sleep. These are easy fixes, but there are people that just say, I want to just come see you, and for two days bring the yoga instructor, bring the chef, bring the whatever, and let it…
Andrew Anderson: So, it’s not just a doctor’s visit. You actually, well, I think your team will go there too to their place as well.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Or we’ll go to a agreed upon location if they want to get away from home and go somewhere else, spend a few days, and we just live and breathe this information and this lifestyle so that they can see visually, live and experience. Oh, I could do this. A lot of people leave and they’re like, kind of overwhelmed.
So, we offered this for people that said, I wish you could have helped me understood all that in the beginning. Well, it takes a couple of days and it can be a lot of fun.
Andrew Anderson: Right.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: And when you see it, you can, one, make the choices of how to prioritize. I’m going to do two and three, but I’m not going to do all of that, or…
Andrew Anderson: Right.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: You know, I can make all of those changes.
Andrew Anderson: Yeah.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Anyway, it’s a great way. We keep increasing accessibility to us. Right. Here’s the information, do it yourself. And then there’s middle range program where it’s like, we’ll do it with you but, you know like go away with you and your spouse for two days.
Andrew Anderson: Right. Yeah. You can afford to do that. I mean, yeah. Well, you’re one of the few doctors that I know will still do house calls. So, that in itself is unusual. And I know all your programs. I don’t mean to tell everybody else, if you don’t have a million dollars, you can’t talk to Dr Pritchard. That’s not true. You’ve got programs that are way lower than that. But okay, tell me this. How much is a heart transplant these days? Do you have any idea? It’s gotta be…
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Heart transplant, I don’t know. Bypass surgery, you know, it’s hard to get out of there with a coronary artery bypass graft surgery in a maybe, I mean, I hate to say that, you know, maybe it’s not the state of the art even if it’s hard to get in and out and have that procedure for less than $350,000. A lot of times it’s a million, depending on what all they had to do, where they’re in patients, how long do you stay in the hospital? A lot of, you know, potential increase in costs and I haven’t checked transplant lately, but I’m sure it’s more than a million. I’m sure.
Andrew Anderson: So, it just really matters how long, how much you want to put into it. And you don’t want to spend a million. I don’t want to get rid of that many dollars. You could spend. 20, 30, 40, 50,000 which is less than, and most of these things cost too.
And you were involved in acute cardiac care. That’s where you kind of figured this stuff out. And one of the things that you told me, and I don’t want to make this forever, but I’m this, if you can’t tell this fascinates the heck out of me. Because the cool thing about this is if you pay attention to this, and this information, not only this, but other ones, it can save your flipping life or your loved one. So, you talked about people that get stints and I’ve kind of seen this. So, a stint takes care of about a half inch of your circulatory system, right?
That’s right.
And you told me, there’s 60,000 miles of circulatory system. So, that’s like patching one hole in a road that circumnavigates America like 10 times and they’re patching one little pothole and the rest of it is not taken care of. Is that kind of accurate? And then why people end up having one or two or three or four stints.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Yes, Andrew, I’m so glad you brought up that point because you’ve heard my story and that’s why I finally had to leave the hospital because it felt like such an incomplete care of the patient and it was a band aid approach. Yes, it’s saving your life in the moment. Yes, you’re going to feel better and go home in a few days or the next day or whatever it is. But then I, and even today, I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners will send people home at discharge. And anybody who’s listening to this, I bet you’ve heard something similar either told to a loved one or you’ve heard the story where we send someone home and say we put a stint in that 90% blockage or that 100% blockage or that 80% blockage where the problem was. It’s got this scaffolding in there now that’s holding it wide, but no problem. You’ll be fine, and the rest of your arteries that we looked at, your blood vessels just have a few lumpy bumpies, a little irregularities. You’ll be fine.
And when I realized that was not true, it’s an entire system. We would put a stint in and we might see one of these lumpy bumpies right next to it, or just a little ways down the vessel and tell them to go home. They would be fine.
But now with artificial intelligence, we know nothing could be further than the truth. They may have a problem next week, next year, five years, but they will have another problem if you leave the rest of the blood vessels at risk and don’t test and treat these other things that contributed to it in the first place.
Andrew Anderson: Right. It sounds to me like that’s a house that’s, because I’ve had one that we bought, that had termites everywhere, you know. And so, that’d be like us going in and replacing the one board that we saw and letting the termites go through the rest of the house. Yes, that’s again. That’s it’s just crazy.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: That’s exactly right. Yeah. The standard of care has got to change. This is optimal care and I’m not the only one practicing this way, but most of the world is practicing standard of care, which is find the disease, name it, give it a code, and then give the person a pill or a procedure, and maybe a little bit about lifestyle changes and send them home. And that’s not right.
Andrew Anderson: And they’re not testing your saliva or they’re not doing the saliva screening.
The Future of Healthcare: Accessibility, Education, and Prevention
Andrew Anderson: So, all right, well, I’m going to wrap this up. I don’t want to, this took way longer. Thank you so much for doing this. We’ve been talking about doing this for a couple of months now. Hopefully, you, the listeners got something out of this. I know I was blown away something that simple could make a big difference in your life. So, I’m going to say something here. I’m not going to put words in your mouth ’cause I don’t want you to get in trouble, but if I was getting a tooth implant, if I was getting a, Oh, if I was going to have, a crown or, what’s the thing where they take out the nerve, a root canal.
If you don’t get procedure, yeah, even any type of gun procedure, or if I was going in for, to have like a hip replacement or any type of operation, I would be getting this test first because yeah, anyway, and, or if you’re just feeling okay or not even feeling okay, go get the darn test and see where you are. I think you’ll be shocked.
And, so anyway, TheSpitTest.Com. I’m going to tell everybody in the muddle law about it. Hopefully, some people will save some people’s lives. I had no idea. This is just amazing. And, hopefully too, you know, there are doctors out there that are like you, they’re kind of far and few between, but if enough people, again, you, the audience is watching this, make sure you ask about it. Ask your doctor, ask your dentist or nurse practitioner, whomever you go to about this, and if they don’t know about it, fine, just go on the, Dr Gina’s site at the Prevent Clinic, TheSpitTest.com and SkipYourNextHeartAttack.com, and you’ll have the information so you can be educated on this stuff. And I don’t even know how many, you know, how many people’s lives you’re going to save or just, you know, how many people have diabetes these days? I mean, everybody’s, I know so many people have diabetes, but I don’t think I know a single one that has ever been tested for their saliva. Anyway, thank you so much. Yeah, it’s got to change. Thank you so much. Anything else you want to say? I want to, be blabbing on.
Dr. Gina Pritchard: Not other than, thank you very much for putting this video together, for interviewing me and getting the word out there. That is the biggest problem. It doesn’t do me any good to have this information in my head and teach maybe a group of 10 or 20 or 50 faculty at the university at LMU or cardiologist or dentist or dental hygienist, nurse practitioners like we’re doing, but it’s just too small of a number to explode the message. And so, with your techniques, you can explode the message and hopefully the masses will go begin demanding these kinds of tests, starting with the saliva test, demanding thorough information so that they can take care of their own bodies. It’s out there. So, everyone that’s listening, help us get the word out. And I just want to say thank you to you, Andrew. I appreciate it.
Andrew Anderson: You’re welcome. I’ll leave with one of my favorite quotes by William Gibson, “The future is here, but it’s just not evenly distributed.” So, anyway, that’s about it.
We’ll put all this information in there. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Dr Pritchard, thank you again. This has been fun. Hopefully, I know you’ve got expertise in a couple of areas too that I want to interview just for me. Hopefully, people will like it, but I’ve got like about a million more questions on this.
And, I know you had a very busy week and I know I did too. I want to get you when we’re both, well rested, although that’s not any, and it doesn’t show against you, but I’ve just been running a million miles an hour, but this is so exciting. Thank you again. We’ll talk to you later.
We’ll have all the links, people. I’ll put this on many of our channels as we possibly can. And then if you have a loved one or yourself, please share it with someone else. You could say you literally saved their life or save them from a whole bunch of hurt and pain and being in the hospital and not being able to enjoy their life as long as, or as well as they could.
Talk to you later. Thank you.
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