Andrew Heyman, MD, MHSA is Program Director of Integrative and Metabolic Medicine at George Washington University and an internationally recognized expert in biotoxin-related illness and environmental medicine. He spent 16 years at the University of Michigan building one of the country's largest academic-based integrative medicine programs, and now serves as Director of Academic Affairs for the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), overseeing training for thousands of medical professionals each year.

Dr. Heyman chairs the Medical Advisory Board of the National Organization of Remediators and Microbial Inspectors (NORMI), working to align mold remediation practices with clinical care. Through his Beyond Mold program, he applies a five-phase framework — addressing environmental exposure, pathogens, gut health, metabolic and hormone rebuilding, and nervous system recovery — to help patients recover from chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS) and other biotoxin-related illnesses.

In this episode, Dr. Heyman shares his research group's findings on the brain damage caused by unchecked mold-driven inflammation, and walks through how he treats it with his five-step treatment approach.

"The fire is burning very bright, and it starts to spread throughout all tissues and organs. One of the things we've shown is that as the fire spreads, that inflammation can damage tissues and organs if left unchecked. The area my research group has really focused on is the impact on the brain — if you live in mold long enough and the fire burns bright enough, you can damage your brain, and it looks very similar to what we might see from traumatic brain injury."