Transcript
Beyond Terrain: Welcome everyone to another episode of the beyond training podcast. I'm your host, Liam Dalton. If you're new around here, consider subscribing or following the show. And if you like the podcast, you like what we do over here, give us a like grading review, comment, whatever you're on, help us grow, help support the show. Uh, sharing is always a great way to tell your friends, families about it. And, uh, yeah, we'll get the word out and it's a great way to support me and and what we're doing here. So all that would be really appreciated. We have,
Beyond Terrain: an amazing guest on today, such a unique ah topic we're going to discuss today. So then I think that's really going to be on the forefront of um health and wellness moving forward and ah fits really well into kind of what we're talking about here.
Beyond Terrain: So I'm really eager to kind of delve into ah to this topic, right, and and see how we can apply it. And I'm really, really eager to see how it unfolds in the next in the next little while.
Beyond Terrain: So um because I do think that this is kind of a newer thing, at least it is to me, I'm really
Kyla: there
Beyond Terrain: Heard of it too much before, so without further ado, Kyle, thank you so much for coming on today.
Kyla: um
Beyond Terrain: I really appreciate your time.
Kyla: Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Honestly, I'm so excited to be here and talk about this. I think that, yeah, like you said, this is, this is really going to be something that I think a lot of people are going to be talking about in the future and I can't wait to talk to you about it.
Beyond Terrain: Great, great. Yeah, and I think it really fits into sort of the terrain model as well. and I know that a lot of times
Kyla: here
Beyond Terrain: You know, alternative medicines and health can be kind of tricky and, you know, things kind of get greenwashed and stuff like that. But I think this has really, really hit the nail on the head. So I want to ask before we get into it, a little introductory question. What is health? What does it mean to you? How does it manifest? What does it look like? You take it any direction you'd like, give you the floor and we'll go from there.
Kyla: Sure. So i'm um part of my health history is that I have Crohn's disease, which is an autoimmune condition. So I'm going to say it say my definition of health in regards to those of us with autoimmune disease. So I think that it probably can be defined as achieving a state where the body and the immune system function in harmony, which is very hard to do if you have an autoimmune disease.
Kyla: um Specifically, this would involve the absence of symptoms, most importantly, but also ongoing sustained wellness, so beyond just the absence of symptoms. This would mean being resilient to triggers, which is a huge thing if you have inflammatory bowel disease like I do, and having an excellent quality of life that takes into account physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. And honestly, I think and I know that a lot of this stems from our gut ecosystem and the importance of diversity there.
Beyond Terrain: It's great. I really love how you tie that into your own story and what we're going to kind of discuss today.
Kyla: oh
Beyond Terrain: you know I think that's fantastic. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your own story and journey and how you and ah you got here because it's such a unique thing. and um I'm just really eager to hear how how it came to this point and maybe even how it helped you as well.
Kyla: Yeah, sure. So um first, the topic we're talking about is helminthic therapy, which um I will get into a little bit later what that means. But um my story, I guess, is i I have Crohn's disease, like I mentioned, which is um inflammatory bowel disease. It's probably the worst digestive disorder that a human can have. And I have really suffered up with it, just like a lot of people with IBD have.
Kyla: um Basically, I was diagnosed, or I've been sick, sorry, since 2010. After a pretty significant salmonella event um in first year of university, coupled with a stressful time in my life, I just started uni, and I just basically never really got better from that. after before that i Before that, I did not have Crohn's disease, and after I had Crohn's disease, I think that was a little bit of a spark for me.
Kyla: um And I wasn't diagnosed until 2015. I just progressively got worse and worse throughout that time. I was told I had IBS. I was kind of ignored by my doctors. Finally got a diagnosis in 2015. Went on all the medications and then off of them trying to manage it myself. and yeah I had a really rough time. Crohn's just basically got worse and worse for me. um It started affecting basically all aspects of my life. um By 2019, I started a pretty severe flare with the disease and I really didn't actually get better until I started doing helmets. So I was pretty much in a flare nonstop for four years. that's
Kyla: four years of everyday feeling unwell. um i In that time, I had six surgeries ah related to my Crohn's disease. Luckily, never having any of my bowel removed, but six surgeries related to the disease, I had developed total food intolerance. So every single thing that I ate would cause a negative reaction in my body. I would be vomiting multiple times a week. Other common side effects are symptoms of Crohn's disease like bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, just not nice things to live with at all. um
Kyla: i would I would say that I basically had like complete digestive breakdown. like My body was not able to digest at this point. um I was on drinking meal replacement shakes just to try and get some of my calories in.
Kyla: and yeah i I had had a surgery for my Crohn's and afterwards I was feeling a little bit better and I was kind of getting a glimpse at like what it feels like to be well you know a little bit better and then all of a sudden I got sick again you know it was so short -lived and I was devastated I was desperate and I posted on a Facebook group just asking people for advice what should I do I'm I feel like I'm trying everything you know I'm doing all the natural health things I can think of I'm meditating I'm doing yoga I'm following a clean diet and
Kyla: um And I'm still getting worse, you know, and and one of the comments was Helmin thick therapy completely Jane changed the game for me and I mean a couple of people commented different things and I kind of looked into them and none of them really made a lot of sense and When I first read about helmets, I mean, my initial reaction was, ew. No way. I'm not doing that. There's no way. um But when I started to look into it, I was like, hey.
Kyla: This actually really makes sense. This really might be an underlying reason why we have autoimmune disease. I need to look into this further. And once I started reading some of the resources available and reading some of the scientific papers, and I joined the Facebook group, I heard other people's stories.
Kyla: Like, honestly, I was convinced. And I've basically become obsessed with the idea that, yeah, it's massive, actually.
Beyond Terrain: That's really cool.
Kyla: Mm -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: Really cool. So what, what are Hellman's, what is Hellman therapy? What does it involve? Like how do you, what even is it?
Kyla: yeah Yeah, what is it? What is it? Totally. um that's a good That's a good place to start. um It's not really a word that I had ever heard before this this person reached out to me.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: It's not something that you hear in everyday conversation. And it's definitely not something you hear when the average person is talking about autoimmune disease or inflammatory bowel diseases, but it's intrinsically linked.
Kyla: um And it's definitely something that we need to start talking about. So yeah, helmets are, In short, parasitic worms that live inside the bodies of humans or or animals. um They are considered parasites because they depend on a host for survival. um They're multicellular organisms. They're not all microscopic. um They're not necessarily part of the gut microbiome. They're more of a macro species.
Kyla: um especially in adult stages, I should say. and But they are not truly parasitic in that a true parasite is where one species benefits and one species is harmed. So a parasite would be something living in our body and our health is harmed or our bodies are somehow worse off as a result of this relationship. But the helmets used in this therapy and in fact, many helmets and actually many symbiotes that live across our body and in it, on it,
Kyla: um They're actually more what's called mutualists, which is a type of parasite, but it's where both species benefit from the relationship in a complex symbiotic type of relationship. That's really not fully understood, but is basically essential for our survival. And these relationships exist all over our body, but we're talking specifically about the ones in our guts related to helmets.
Beyond Terrain: cool Yeah, so like they do exist in like a natural order like you know, we're meant to have them at all times in a way Yeah, cool Yeah
Kyla: Totally. bit Totally. Like, yeah, basically the idea is that a human living out in nature would be constantly exposed to all parasites, basically. You can't be out in nature and not exposed to parasites. That's where they live. So a human living out in nature would be ah ah constantly exposed to them when they drink water from a stream, when they eat unprocessed fruits from a tree, especially if they were to eat animal products. I mean, animal products contain parasites.
Kyla: So especially raw ones and unprocessed animal products. Um, and I don't necessarily think that's, I'm not saying that in a negative way, you know, I'm not saying all parasites are beneficial, but there are lots that provide benefit to some degree. Um,
Kyla: ah Yeah, so a human in nature would definitely be exposed and lots of research suggests that human the human immune system has actually evolved to require this ah exposure to parasites in order to function properly.
Beyond Terrain: So when you tie it back to kind of your initial, you said you had an exposure to like a salmonella event.
Kyla: man
Beyond Terrain: And ever since then, you know, like how how does the helmets kind of interact with the rest of the microbiome and stuff like that? Is there any sort of literature on that? Any thoughts behind that area?
Kyla: Sure. Sure. Of course. So, um, I'm definitely not going to call myself an expert in the field and I encourage anyone who's interested in this topic to learn about it, you know, but really there aren't very many people talking about it. So I'm going to do it, you know? Um,
Kyla: But yeah, there are a couple of ways that the helmets interact with the microbiome specifically. um And there has been research that's shown that it can increase gut microbiome diversity, probably by reducing inflammation and allowing more of the microbe or more of the gastrointestinal tract to be inhibitable ah habitable.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: I agree.
Kyla: um And there is also research that suggests that helmet exposure um can actually heal the intestinal lining. So if you have what a lot of people will call leaky gut syndrome where your body is so inflamed that you actually have small micro perforations where small bits of your food and outside external stimuli that you've swallowed and gone into your gut can then leak into your body and cause an immune reaction. The helmets can actually help to
Kyla: um Tighten that gut integrity and heal leaky gut syndrome, which is one of the underlying factors in a lot of digestive related disorders so they can increase gut microbiome diversity probably by Decreasing inflammation and they can help heal leaky gut which can help with again microbiome diversity but it's it is important to think to realize that the Helminth level of your gut ecosystem, I'll call it, not microbiome, is is different than the microbiome.
Kyla: and they um We get them from different ways. we They live in the body in different ways, and they play a different role in the body. They're really not the same thing.
Beyond Terrain: Very interesting.
Kyla: Mm -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: very so So how do they kind of differ? like Where do we actually get them? like Do we do get them from and external sources, you think?
Kyla: Mm -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: Yeah, well, so I'll explain it in relation to how we get um parts of our microbiome. So our microbiome, we get a lot of it from the the vaginal canal when we're born, from our mothers. you know Super important. It's really the foundation for our immune system and our our gut microbiome, sorry.
Kyla: um And then other than that, we get it we get the rest of our gut microbiome from exposure during our lifetime. So what we eat, pre and probiotic foods, so essential, anything we breathe in from the atmosphere and of course interacting with other people. um Now, helmets are different.
Kyla: they only come from outside sources. We cannot get them from our mother as far as I'm aware. um And you need to be exposed to them usually from nature or from other humans directly, usually in our feces. That's how it's done. So Basically, a human living out in nature would constantly be exposed to them because humans would be exposed to them from touching other animals, from eating meat, from drinking raw unprocessed water, and then we would then poop outside, and this would then be spread among the community, and we would share helmets and other parasites this way.
Kyla: so Basically since the rise of indoor toilets which really is only a technology from about the last 150 to 200 years ago like our grandparents may not have had access to Consistently indoor toilets, you know, it's a relatively new phenomenon. This has this improvement in our hygiene, which is necessary for modern living, has basically changed the life cycle of helmets because helmets need to spend some of their life cycle inside the body and some of it outside the body. And if they are pooped into a toilet and they cannot live in the septic system, they need to live in soil, they're gone. That life cycle is is is cut short and basically helmets become a almost almost extinct or rare.
Beyond Terrain: but ah
Kyla: Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: that simple That's amazing.
Kyla: Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: So how does that tie into sort of this hygiene hypothesis, this like biota alteration theory?
Kyla: It is...
Kyla: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, so ah many people may have heard of the hygiene hypothesis. That's basically the idea that we need to be exposed to microbes in order for our immune system to function correctly.
Kyla: But it doesn't really encapsulate all of the components of modern society that actually have changed our gut ecosystem. It's not just hygiene. It's not. It's living indoors and working indoors, lack of vitamin D exposure. It's um the depletion of our soil quality, which has had huge implications on our food quality and our um exposure to parasites and living creatures.
Kyla: um the
Kyla: Biota alteration also talks about cultural changes, so living in cities moving more into concrete jungles rather than jungles that consist of trees and living creatures. um This all basically has decreased the diversity in our gut ecosystem.
Kyla: which makes us more susceptible to autoimmune diseases. So it has of course affected our microbiome, specifically the changes to our diet and eating a standard American diet, which consists of pro -inflammatory processed foods. But it also, these changes have separated us from helmets. We are no longer exposed to helmets in a natural way throughout our natural human life. And this change has been drastic.
Kyla: for for our interior climate. And it has had and will have continue to have profound effects unless we do something about it. And I'm definitely not suggesting that we all go and poop outdoors and start drinking river water. like that's not That's not what I want. But the magic of Hellman thick therapy is that we don't actually have to do that. you know We can have the best of both worlds.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, definitely, definitely. And it's like, almost like a response to living in these hyper modernized environments, right? Like where we are, so much has changed, like you're mentioning, right?
Kyla: Totally.
Beyond Terrain: Like from a, from a food standpoint, and I mean, really, like you want to trace it back, like the soil, the quality of the soil is, is terrible right now.
Kyla: Mhm.
Kyla: Mhm.
Beyond Terrain: So really curious, like, do you think there's like a deficiency of helmets, like
Kyla: It's
Beyond Terrain: in the physical environment? Is that kind of what you're saying here? Like obviously when you're in cities, you know, everything's conquered. There's no soil around. them You mentioned they have to live in soil. So obviously when you're in a city, you know, there's nothing there.
Beyond Terrain: But even like our soils, like I'm sure they can't thrive in deficient soils.
Kyla: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: Would you agree with that?
Kyla: 100%, I really think that what you're saying is important. um And I actually did a little bit of research specifically on this for this podcast. So Nicator Americanus, human hookworm, one of the species of helmets that I take, it used to be prolific in tropical climates of North America.
Kyla: So the warmer parts of the USA, essentially, not Canada, not where we're from. um But yeah, in the southern United States, it was prolific. And now, due to modern modern hygiene, essentially, is what we can attribute it to. The species that I'm taking is now considered a rare species. It's no longer prolific. It is only found under certain conditions in certain areas. it's not widespread like it once was and that is yes because because the human hookworm requires as part of its lifestyle life cycle life cycle to live inside a human and live outside in soil to complete its life cycle if that chain is broken and it's no longer excuse exposed to soil or it's no longer exposed exposeded to humans they become less common.
Kyla: So yes, I would say, and I hear this argument all the time, and I tell people, oh, you need to get helmets from nature, you know. Yes, in theory, you need to get helmets from nature, but people say to me all the time, oh, well, I walk outside barefoot because ah so I live in Australia. Everyone walks barefoot, okay? So people go, oh, I'm exposed to nature all the time. I touch nature all the time. I walk barefoot, which is important.
Kyla: But if there's no Hellman's living in the soil, it's not going to have the same effect and the same impact as doing something like Hellman thick therapy, which is going to give you controlled specific, uh, intentional infections with specific beneficial parasites as well.
Beyond Terrain: Very interesting.
Kyla: Mm.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah. I wonder like, so obviously like in a natural order, you know, a baby is going to be born and pretty well exposed to it, you know, almost right away.
Beyond Terrain: Um, you know, they're not, they're not, they're not being bored in these sterile environments, like, uh, like hospitals and stuff like that.
Kyla: Totally.
Kyla: Mm -mm. Like hospitals.
Beyond Terrain: And even like home, like if your home is, is very sterile, it's going to have a similar effect, you know, and it's like, when's that baby first going to be? even have the opportunity, say there were prolific helmets around, you know, when would a baby even have the opportunity?
Beyond Terrain: You don't see too many babies out playing in the ground anymore, like laying on the on the dirt.
Kyla: No. well But even more recently, we had a lot of babies that would have maybe been exposed to um microbes or parasites from animals at home, you know, either domesticated animals or just your dogs and cats.
Kyla: But now it's becoming so common to deworm your dog, deworm your cat. It's like almost you're a bad pet owner. If you don't, you don't have the same benefits of interacting with your domesticated animals.
Beyond Terrain: Wow.
Kyla: If they don't contain parasites, that's what the benefit is.
Beyond Terrain: Wow.
Kyla: Yeah, super interesting.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, that's really interesting. Never thought of that.
Kyla: i Yeah, it's I've actually read a paper about this and in Australia how certain types of parasites um that are from dogs, um certain types of anti antiparsitic ah tablets are not working for them anymore because they're actually becoming resistant to them, but also the types of parasites that they're treating are becoming so much less common because they just, like i like with the human helmines, they can't complete their life cycle because they're being eradicated. and
Beyond Terrain: yeah no Yeah. Yeah. And that's a really interesting topic too. Like we talked about that a little bit, the, um, like the resistance, right. And I think the resistance, it shows how important these things are.
Beyond Terrain: Like if a, if an animal or if a, you know, microorganism or parasite or whatever is trying to like overcome being eradicated, you know, like that mean that just shows how important it is for your health.
Kyla: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: Right. Like, so, um, that's
Kyla: Totally. And this is how the immune system ah evolved, right? this is This is how the immune system has evolved. And this is why essentially we need helmets because we have over the history of humans for all of our entire existence have been exposed constantly throughout our whole entire life to various parasites, helmets, microbes, everything.
Beyond Terrain: Hmm.
Kyla: Our immune system react evolved to react to these, you know, so that we aren't overrun with parasites and we can live in a peaceful symbiotic existence. and within 200 years let's say that's maybe 150 years we've basically eradicated these parasites and now our immune systems in some cases are becoming completely overreactive completely haywire and as a result we are getting autoimmune diseases I mean immune diseases where the body is attacking itself because it's so overreacted and not modulated there's nothing there controlling it basically the
Kyla: The helmets are like the police, if you can think of that in a positive way. The regulators, I should say, of of the immune system.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: And without them, the immune system can run haywire.
Beyond Terrain: Sure.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, I'm just like, you know, thinking about how this really ties into to what we're talking about over here, like, um,
Kyla: Mm -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: You know, we know that, you know, there's lots of really interesting studies too that parasites can even like that they regulate even the microbiome too, right? Like when we have these, these larger organisms, right?
Beyond Terrain: They can relieve the imbalances of sort of the micro um aspect of things there, which, which I think is an interesting um area as well.
Kyla: Well.
Beyond Terrain: You know, and I think you're, you're, making a great point here with the overreactivity of the body to these you know external organisms. um You know, like, like even now, you know, you can get hookworm in your foot and then you have a rash associated with this, this parasite, right?
Beyond Terrain: But perhaps it's just because the body's never just doesn't have any hook. Like it doesn't have that in it. It doesn't have the knowledge of it. It doesn't know how to react to it. So it views it as this ah external thing that's foreign to the body because it is foreign to the body because you don't have it in you.
Kyla: who
Beyond Terrain: Your body's not used to it.
Kyla: Exactly.
Beyond Terrain: You know, we should have, you should know what it is, but
Kyla: Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: You know, the absence of it, I mean, it creates this this imbalance and in your own internal environment and your own internal knowledge.
Kyla: Yeah.
Kyla: was just gonna say you can actually see this when people start Helmin thick therapy when they begin to use human hookworm and a the type that I'm taking their immune system can and will have the most significant reaction the first time it's exposed to that helmet because Probably it it hasn't been exposed to it. Maybe ever before or not in a very consistent way, you know um so after, because you do continually redose when you're doing the therapy, the second, third, and ongoing time you expose yourself to this parasite, your immune system has a less significant um reaction to the parasite, and a more like level it's more level of the reaction, essentially. So yeah, what you're saying is essentially true. And when the parasite does go into your skin, because I take human hookworm through my arm, I can see the rash, I see it on my arm, it's mostly related in my experience to um people's unique
Kyla: ah Immune system reaction, but also how many go into your body, but that is your immune system Starting to react to the parasite in your body is where it enters your skin. That's the beginning of the immune reaction Which is really interesting
Beyond Terrain: know you're a little familiar with kind of my train of thought here and you know, we, we don't say that there are any bad parasites or microbes or anything like that.
Beyond Terrain: Right.
Kyla: Mm hmm.
Beyond Terrain: And that they all play some sort of beneficial role, um, in response to a toxicity or, um, a diseased environment, you know?
Kyla: Mm hmm.
Beyond Terrain: So when we think of the immune system too, we think of it working with these organisms, right?
Kyla: Mm.
Beyond Terrain: Like. and developing kind of a relationship, right? because I just recorded a video for YouTube on you know the immune system and all the misconceptions there, right? It's like um less of a defense mechanism and more of like a symbiotic relationship with microbes and so -called parasites and stuff like that.
Beyond Terrain: And you know we have immune structures, we have these white blood cells and we have these we have immune immune responses, right?
Kyla: Totally.
Kyla: Mhmm.
Beyond Terrain: Like we have inflammation and stuff like that.
Kyla: Mhmm.
Beyond Terrain: Um, and, and obviously like, um, we're not kind of denying that, right? It's, so it's more of this relationship of, of working with the parasite, right?
Kyla: No.
Beyond Terrain: Like then the immune properties are kind of working with these parasites, kind of getting used to them, seeing how they're supposed to interact so they can help clean up the environment, how they can help regulate the environment, you know, how they can help just be in this balance in homeostasis.
Kyla: Yeah.
Kyla: Well, and i I actually think a really important question, an interesting thing to consider is in light in regards to Helminth exposure and human immune evolution, which actually came first, the exposure to the Helminths or the immune reaction?
Kyla: And I would actually argue that exposure to Helminths came first and the immune system reaction came second because
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: helmets have been along around for a long time. There are more simple -celled organisms, you know?
Beyond Terrain: exactly
Kyla: And if we if we can agree that the helmet exposure occurred first, then the ah evolutionary changes to our immune system occurred, okay?
Beyond Terrain: yeah
Kyla: Then we can argue that humans actually need helmets for ideal immune function. We literally cannot have ideal immune function without exposure to these parasitic worms.
Kyla: And I think this is ah it's an interesting thing I've been thinking about, which one came first.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: And I've actually read some research arguing that certain parts of the immune system, I actually have the name written down here, E2CM, evolved specifically in response to Helminth infection.
Kyla: Meaning that if we don't have Helminth infection, our immune systems can go haywire, which means that they're essential. um And if you think about it in regards to how helminths actually work with the immune system, so like how helminths actually work is
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: When they're inside the body, once they're inside the GI tract, they secrete molecules that reduce inflammation and suppress and um modulate overactive immune response.
Kyla: okay So they do this by influencing immune pathways and promoting T regulatory cells, all otherwise known as Tregs.
Beyond Terrain: in.
Kyla: You hear about them, talk talked about sometimes in IBD literature. um theyre Their role is basically to help them maintain immune balance in the body. so The helmines secrete molecules that promote Tregs. These Tregs help modulate the immune pathways. um And it's actually been researched which of the specific immune pathways these helmines actually modulate, which is really important if we want to discuss which autoimmune diseases these helmines can be beneficial for. basic Basically, helmines
Kyla: helmets shift the immune response from pro -inflammatory Th1 to Th17, so Th1 and Th17 dominance, which is quite prolific in auto many autoimmune diseases, and it shifts that immune response to anti -inflammatory Th2, which means that any autoimmune disease that's associated with TH1 or TH17 immune responses, which includes IBD, MS, celiac disease, allergies, they could all potentially benefit from the reintroduction of helmets.
Beyond Terrain: Thank you.
Kyla: Which is so interesting when you just think about it on a theoretical point ah scale, you know, on a theoretical point of view.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, like, there's a really interesting proposed mechanism here for like, why this is happening, right? Like, and I think that's, that's amazing that you're pointing that out, right? Because there does seem to be this, this dysregulation, like you're mentioned, like, we we call them autoimmune diseases. And now there are, you know, things that I disagree with semantically there, and maybe definitively, but, you know, like, at the end of the day, like, the body seems to be kind of attacking itself,
Beyond Terrain: for no reason, right? Like that's what's kind of the understood part of it, but there's obviously a reason. There's obviously like nothing happens at random.
Kyla: reason. There is a reason.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: Yes.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: So yeah, i I would argue that the the reason is it's I am not entirely sure that the body is attacking itself or it's reacting to external stimuli like food, inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease or other things in other autoimmune diseases.
Beyond Terrain: Sure.
Kyla: would argue that it's not necessarily random and and it's maybe, maybe not even necessarily the body attacking itself, but the body is used to because through evolution used to attacking helmets. And when there's no helmets there, there's nothing to modulate. There's nothing for the body to attack and autoimmune disease can occur.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. it's It's like a dysregulation, right? It's like the body doesn't understand.
Kyla: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Beyond Terrain: It doesn't understand how to interact with its internal environment maybe, right? Because there's sort of this missing piece, this missing component. And you're mentioning kind of a lot a lot of interesting evidence that this is sort of a regulatory aspect of the body, of the body's internal environment, right?
Beyond Terrain: Really highlighting this this symbiotic relationship, right?
Kyla: Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: This really beautiful, helpful relationship um going on between sort of our detoxification healing pathways of the body and and these sort of microbes, macro, whatever, parasites.
Kyla: Yeah.
Kyla: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: And um yeah, I think that's really cool because
Kyla: Yeah, not microbes.
Beyond Terrain: No, not microbes. Exactly.
Kyla: Yeah, yeah.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, you know, I just be so curious to even take it to that level. um Just kind of, you know, thinking of, of interested like areas of interest, I guess, like deficiencies in in other sort of microorganisms or parasites relating them to other, you know, diseases like this and in this sort of category, but you're you're kind of suggesting that even helmets themselves are associated with a lot of different
Kyla: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: Um, different types of illness, right? Like that's so
Kyla: Yeah, yes.
Kyla: um I wanted to say that I've actually read some research that says that but the the researchers believe that the future of health care will require people to be exposed to helmets because health care is going to be too expensive without it.
Kyla: autoimmune diseases are a huge financial burden to the healthcare care system, not to mention to people's quality of life. Now, whether or not that is the true intention of the healthcare care system, ah it remains to be debated, but I have read research that argues that possibly insurance companies, possibly the future of human healthcare will involve the consistent exposure to helmets because, yeah, like Like what your talk what you talk about in your content, basically, that um if if we like the the relationship between us and parasites is probably mostly symbiotic. And if we can't understand that, our body is going to become less diverse and more susceptible to disease and less
Kyla: less close to ideal health is really what I believe. Now, not all aspects of nature are going to be 100 % beneficial, of course, and I think that there can be a really beautiful mix of modern technology, modern, modern especially acute medical technology, and
Beyond Terrain: Remember.
Kyla: helminthic therapy and the use of natural immune modulators that may help us deal with autoimmune disorders on a large global scale.
Kyla: I hope my internet's still there.
Beyond Terrain: Wow. Yeah. Um, just, just amazing. And I think I agree. So I'm really curious, you know, like the helmet thick therapy that you're kind of doing, you're using like patches and introducing them to the body, like, um, like topically, like through the skin, they're kind of coming in.
Kyla: more
Beyond Terrain: And, and so like, how does that kind of work from, from that aspect?
Kyla: Yeah, sure. So, there are four different types of helminths currently used in the therapy. I use two of the kinds. um I use TSO, Tricuris Suisse Ova, and a NA, Nicator Americanis Human Hookworm.
Kyla: um So the type that you're referring to, which is where I put a bandage on my arm, and you may have seen my Instagram content on Let's Heal IBD about this. um I just put a patch on my arm that contains the, ah um I get a liquid vial, put the liquid vial, which contains the helmet larva, so the hookworm larva in it. I put it on the patch, put it on my skin. Now those hookworms, they go through my skin.
Kyla: join the blood so join my bloodstream, go into my lungs, where they stay for four or five days, um go into their next stage, which I think is L2, they grow a little bit, and then they drop into your esophagus, into your stomach, where they go and live in your small intestine in the case of NA. So interesting.
Kyla: And the other kind of worm that I take the other type of helmet that I take is a little bit more simple It's a little vial that I get and it's a liquid and I just literally take that orally and I take that one every two weeks and I take the other one on my arm every three months and Yeah, it's pretty simple um and it's Yeah, pretty easy to do actually that's definitely one of the key takeaways
Beyond Terrain: It's so cool
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, it does. It sounds pretty easy, especially when you're dealing with sort of these unmanageable conditions as well that are so debilitating, right? It's, you know, it's really, really difficult things to deal with. So, so I'm curious, you know, not medical advice and in any way, but sort of just to your opinion, right? And maybe backed up by some literature, you know, what age would you start? Like, would this be introduced in your opinion? You know, like, what
Kyla: Mm.
Beyond Terrain: Like how young could you start this like hypothetical, you're living in a city in a really sterile environment and you're not exposed to helmets and somebody wants to kind of do some of this external or this sort of extra therapy.
Kyla: Mm. o
Beyond Terrain: you know When would you even start that? What what do you think?
Kyla: um I definitely think it's important to talk about this not being medical advice. I do not know enough to, or I don't even know if anyone knows enough to really give advice specifically for children on this topic.
Kyla: But I know people who use helminthic therapy for their severe autoimmune conditions and they give it to their children because they know and they understand that exposure to probably a specifically human hookworm is essential for human immune function.
Beyond Terrain: Sure.
Kyla: and I know they're giving them to their young children. I don't know the age or the quantity, but if if I was to have children, I would expose them to helminths, definitely, especially between
Beyond Terrain: you know Very interesting.
Kyla: Between the ages, I actually read a paper recently that shows that metabenzanol, I'm going to say the name wrong, but it's an antihelminthic drug. Exposure to this drug between the ages of one and five can increase, does increase the likelihood of ulcerative colitis, which is a type of inflammatory bowel disease. So they would argue that early childhood exposure between the ages of 1 and 5 can reduce your risk of autoimmune disease.
Beyond Terrain: No.
Kyla: Now that's the only paper I've ever had seen that had specific ages, but I have read other papers that do argue that um ah early parasite exposure, specifically helminths, does decrease your chances of getting autoimmune disease as an adult.
Beyond Terrain: Sure. Oh, so cool. Yeah, I think that's why this is really on the forefront, right? And I think that's, that's really interesting. Really curious, like, um, we kind of grazed over this a little bit here, but like, how do you increase it naturally in your environment?
Beyond Terrain: You know, cause I feel like long -term kind of addressing the root cause of things. Obviously the deficiency in our environment is, is a big problem. You know, should we like, you know, poop outside every once in a while or, you know, should like what's, what's the deal there?
Kyla: ah
Kyla: I think that's a super complex question that has a very complex answer that probably involves the complete restructure of our society because I actually don't think that we could increase the natural exposure to helmets and consider and can continue to live in modern day society. I don't think it's possible because it's probably not safe.
Kyla: um Because for humans to live, what's the population of the world right now? 7 .5 billion people? If we need to decrease the quality of hygiene that's required in order to allow natural helminth exposure, we would have an outbreak of lots of other prolific and
Beyond Terrain: Interesting.
Kyla: I wouldn't necessarily argue worse than some autoimmune diseases because I've really suffered from Crohn's, but equally prolific and horribly consequential for global for global society.
Kyla: I don't really think it's a good idea. And that's not really, really what I'm here to argue, although I do think that if the population allowed it, ideal human health would be achieved by humans living out in nature.
Beyond Terrain: and Yeah.
Kyla: I do agree with that theory, but due to the current state of our world, I really don't think that it's possible
Beyond Terrain: Well, and that's a fair point. That's a really fair point, you know, and and I think that's sort of an interesting thing to explore too, right? Because obviously living in your own filth, like at the quantity that they did, you know, if you look back and in history, like Um, you know, when we started living in cities, it was very important to get the filth out and get clean water in, right.
Kyla: Totally.
Beyond Terrain: And, and not having that system in place really did lead to a lot of disease because you had this huge imbalance in the amount of filth that you lived in, you know, when you're living in a tribal setting and you know, you're semi -nomadic, you know, you're pooping and you're moving, right?
Kyla: Totally.
Kyla: Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Totally.
Kyla: who
Beyond Terrain: So it's in the environment, but you're also moving around.
Kyla: yeah
Beyond Terrain: You're not living in your own filth, right? Like, so I think that's a really important point, you know, like, um,
Kyla: ah who
Beyond Terrain: we can't just start pooping in the sidewalks, right? Like that's not a good idea at all.
Kyla: consequences of that would be very bad.
Beyond Terrain: I think so too.
Kyla: know
Beyond Terrain: I think so too.
Kyla: oh
Beyond Terrain: Really cool. So is there anything that you would like to add to this conversation? Something that we might not have covered so far, like something that you kind of want to end on, maybe some final thoughts.
Kyla: oh
Kyla: oh
Beyond Terrain: Now might be the time to kind of discuss that.
Kyla: Yeah, sure. I mean, I definitely still have, I have so much to say on this subject. I think this is such an important, important thing to talk about. um I do think that there's probably a little bit more to say about the practical application of the therapy. I think that um It's important to understand the four different types of helmets that are used in this in the therapy all provide, all have different um unique characteristics and to educate yourself on the therapy is probably the first and most important step. um It's important to understand
Kyla: maybe most importantly, if you were to consider doing a therapy like this, if there's any listeners who have autoimmune disease and are thinking, hey, this sounds logical, I'm interested. It's really important to remember that but probably due to the way that helminths work, because of their their ability to not suppress the immune system like modern day pharmaceuticals, but actually modulate and change how it works long term, or as long as we are exposed to helminths, helminthic therapy takes a long time to work.
Kyla: And I can talk about my own personal experiences, but also just clinically, it's been shown. And part of the reason why Hellman's don't always show benefit in clinical trials. I think this is also important to remember. Many clinical trials into Hellman's are only 12 weeks long or into anything are only 12 weeks long. And Helmets don't provide benefit in 12 weeks. It's not enough time. In my personal experience, I waited 25 full weeks before I saw it any changes at all. And it wasn't until month 10 into the therapy that I really started to see any benefit at all. um At month 11, I was in clinical remission from Crohn's disease, shown by blood and stool sample.
Kyla: And now it's been over six months, almost almost eight months, I think. And I have been in remission the whole time. i'm though This is the longest I've ever been in remission for my whole entire adult life. I've been sick basically the entire time I've been an adult. So it's pretty significant for me.
Kyla: um But yeah, I think it's really important to remember, if you are going to consider this, that this is not a short -term fix. This is a long -term way to manage autoimmune disease.
Kyla: do want to talk about some common misconceptions with helmet therapy and with with parasite exposure, which I'm sure a lot of your listeners would be interested in hearing. One of the most common questions I get asked is, if if i'm doing paris if I'm doing helmets, can I give it to my boyfriend? Can I give it to my girlfriend? Can I give it to my friends? What's going to happen if some people do helmets and some people don't want to?
Kyla: um And you actually asked me this question before the interview, is there any ethical issues involved in this, you know? um So it's important to remember that the four species of helmet used in the therapy cannot be easily or even possibly transmitted between people.
Kyla: Um, there are specific, unless we all start pooping outside in soil that can grow helmets. So for example, if you poop outside in Canada, it's not going to happen because they're going to die. The soil isn't adequate. The temperature isn't adequate. They need to grow.
Kyla: but Human hookworms specifically needs to grow under certain conditions for days at a time. So it's not going to happen in modern day society if you go in the toilet. And the other three speed or the other species of helminth used in the therapy need to be grown almost in a laboratory. They are not transmittable because they are not human hookworms. They are actually animal helminth, sorry.
Kyla: um which are evolved to live inside of a animal. So one of the species of, hookworm that i'm sorry, one of the species of helmet that I take is a pig whipworm. So it's actually evolved to live inside a pig and we could and would be naturally exposed to this helmet by living with livestock. We used to almost all have livestock living inside of our houses or be exposed to it throughout our life. We may be exposed to this helmet that way.
Kyla: So this helmet, you cannot give it to someone else. It's impossible and it needs to be grown in a laboratory. It's basically and impossible to to transmit it accidentally. um But because it's a non -human helmet, it needs to be redosed more frequently because it's not evolved to live inside the human body.
Beyond Terrain: yeah
Kyla: Like the human hookworm, the NA, the one I take on my skin, that one has evolved to live inside the human body and can therefore live a bit longer and you don't need to redose as frequently.
Beyond Terrain: Cool. Yeah, I think there's, there's a couple of things I kind of want to just touch on there before we wrap things up.
Kyla: Mhm.
Beyond Terrain: You know, I think the point about clinical trials is really important amongst the all of, all of like,
Kyla: Mhm.
Kyla: Mhm. ah her
Beyond Terrain: natural medicines um because ah often it's the long road.
Kyla: Yes.
Beyond Terrain: it's It's the hard road and it's not the easy road. It's not a magic bullet because especially with what you're discussing here and kind of the mechanism, the proposed mechanism is like your body has to relearn to live in this balance.
Beyond Terrain: It needs to learn how to interact with these helmets, things of that nature, right? It really it it really is like a relearning, right? It's ah it's ah it's a process.
Kyla: Totally.
Beyond Terrain: um And I mean, anybody that heals naturally, oftentimes, you know, it's more than 12 weeks, right?
Kyla: Mm
Beyond Terrain: Because when you're, when you're talking about chronic illnesses, right?
Kyla: hmm.
Beyond Terrain: These are illnesses that in kind of my school of thought, you know, develop over long periods of time, right? So maybe it's a, uh, you know, 10, 15, 20 years in the making, you know, you're not just going to heal that naturally in a week or 12 weeks for that matter.
Kyla: Totally.
Kyla: Mm hmm.
Kyla: No.
Beyond Terrain: It might take, who knows a year, right?
Kyla: room home her
Beyond Terrain: It could take hopefully less and depends on, probably other habits as well, but I think that's a really important point. um My other point is the shared environments. I mean, you know this is something I think about all the time. you know you Your microbiome, your whole, you know your parasite exposure, whatever, the things that we can't see with the naked eye, um maybe some of them we can, like you're you're talking about here, but um you know it's really important, like We did live with these with these animals, right?
Beyond Terrain: Like I go to the farm and I share 100 % a microbiome with the cows and the pigs and the chickens at the farm.
Kyla: will me That's awesome.
Kyla: her Amazing.
Beyond Terrain: And he doesn't deworm, he doesn't vaccinate, he doesn't do anything like this. um Really, really great farmer, really pure. And I think that probably is a really big contributing factor, even going You know, I go and I help tour me around the barn and it'll be like, here's some new cows.
Beyond Terrain: I got these new cows, look how pretty they are. And I touch them and I like, you know what I mean?
Kyla: Mm hmm.
Beyond Terrain: Like I'm interacting with animals as well. Even though I'm not a farmer, I'm just going to pick them up, but I'm also in the barn breathing in the air, you know, when it smells like shit and you're like, that's, that's the reality, right?
Kyla: So important. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Kyla: That shit's important.
Beyond Terrain: Like you're, it's a natural thing though.
Beyond Terrain: It's, it's totally natural. So, um, yeah.
Kyla: Yeah, i I think what
Beyond Terrain: Yeah, really, really amazing stuff. any Anything that you want to end on here before we kind of wrap things up? or
Kyla: Yeah, sure. Yeah. I'll, I'll just say one thing about the clinical trials that you said, because I think it is really important if someone were to Google Hellman's, you know, the clinical trials done into Hellman thick therapy are going to be difficult. Okay. And honestly, the results have been mixed. Many show inconclusive results specifically with inflammatory bowel disease. Although certain, um, one specific clinical trial done into TSO showed that 73 % of IBD patient patients showed a response 78 showed a response to the helmines and improvement in their symptoms and 73 went into clinical remission from TSO exposure which is massive and that was one of the papers that actually convinced me to try the therapy but there have been lots of other therapies that show inconclusive results mainly mainly due to lack of funding basically because of how our clinical trials in medical industry are set up.
Beyond Terrain: Wow.
Kyla: um There has been lots of animal studies, theoretical research done into showing how and why helmets work, how and why they help with autoimmune disease. And the next logical step is then for a pharmaceutical company to say, hey, I'm going to make money from that, I'm going to make a drug from that, then far fund a large scale clinical trial.
Kyla: But, helmets are a living creature that in two of the four helmets used, you can grow at home by yourself. It's a very hard industry to make money off of.
Kyla: And that is probably the biggest hindrance in holding back helmet thick therapy from becoming widespread.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Kyla: It is a very hard um therapy to make large -scale money from and ah of course that means people are suffering as a result because the science is actually there showing how and why it works but large -scale human clinical trials cost tens of millions of dollars. And the only way that this can be funded is if either a government intervenes or a large pharmaceutical company can afford to fund this product that then can be then sold. So I think that's a really important important thing to talk about.
Kyla: um
Kyla: and And I think it's actually gonna probably change, it really affects modern medicine and and how, what we actually have access to, which a lot of people don't really realize.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah. Yeah.
Kyla: -hmm.
Beyond Terrain: Mm hmm. Well, yeah, I probably I wouldn't hold the hold our breath for the funding there.
Kyla: Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: But let's let's hope that
Kyla: No.
Beyond Terrain: Let's hope it goes in the right direction.
Kyla: That does lead me to the point of what I'm i'm trying to say and what I will but ah finish by saying is that basically the good news is for those of us ah for those of us with inflammatory bowel diseases and other autoimmune diseases, we don't really have to wait for pharmaceutical companies to provide this therapy for us because there are thousands of people currently self -treating with helmets and successfully managing over a hundred different autoimmune diseases um anywhere from MS to IBD. There are people who are doing this. There are is information out there if you're interested. And yeah, like I i have an Instagram page um called Let's Heal IBD that I spread awareness and information about helmets, about the therapy. I share my personal experience, my health updates, everything like that. I recommend anyone who wants to learn about the therapy to check it out.
Kyla: um this Another extremely important resource is a collection of ah both anecdotal and researched information on Hellman Thick Therapy. It's called the Hellman Thick Therapy Wiki. It is a user -created database of web of information about Hellman's and it it's the link that I sent you and I'll make sure to send it after so that you ah ah listeners can look at it, but it basically has all of the information that someone who wants to learn about the therapy needs. It has ah hundreds of research papers, hundreds of personal testimonials. It is a goldmine of information and I definitely recommend anyone who wants to know about the therapy checking out those two resources and sending me a message if they want to learn about it because that's why I've created the page and I've basically become
Kyla: Obsessed with the idea that lack of helminth exposure and genetically susceptible people factored with other with other important factors as well, but that's probably the reason that we have autoimmune disease and Reintroducing helmets to the body is actually pretty easy. It's relatively accessible and it's available now So that's the message I want to get across to people
Beyond Terrain: Yeah.
Beyond Terrain: Amazing. Amazing. Well, listen, highlight it's been a pleasure. It's been a fantastic conversation. Such an interesting topic. Obviously, a lot to chew on here, a lot to think about.
Beyond Terrain: And I think it ties in really well with the whole terrain movement. So I'm eager to kind of see how it develops moving it forward. I'm eager to learn more from you. ah You mentioned your Instagram.
Kyla: who
Beyond Terrain: We'll put the link down below. any Any other areas that the listener can reach you, websites or anything like that?
Kyla: I do have a website that I don't really maintain. um It's called let's heal IBD. You're welcome to check it out. But really my Instagram page is the, is the resource that I maintain um myself and the Hellman thick therapy Wiki is maintained by another community of people.
Beyond Terrain: Amazing. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate all the wisdom and knowledge that you shared today. Uh, this was really fun. Can't wait for the next one.
Kyla: Yeah, thanks so much for having me and um yeah, good luck and see you later.
Beyond Terrain: Yeah. and I want to thank you all for listening. You should all know that this is not medical advice for your informational purposes only, but also remember that we're all sovereign, responsible being is capable of thinking, criticizing and understanding absolutely anything.
Beyond Terrain: We, the people in the greater forest are together, self -healer, self -governable, self -teachers, so much more. Please reach out if you have any questions, criticisms, comments, concerns, whatever it is, find me on Instagram, email me, leave a comment, any of that, all I'll get back to you at some point. And listen, I really appreciate you guys taking the time out of your day to listen. If you did enjoy this content, give us a like, share, comment, subscribe, follow, review, rating, anything you got to do on the platform you're on to help us grow and support the show would be really appreciated. Sharing is always the best way.
Beyond Terrain: And just remember guys, there are two types of people in the world. Those believe they can, those believe they can't, and they are both correct. Thanks for listening. Take care.
