Ancient Health Podcast

A parasite is crawling across 34 states, with thousands of confirmed cases across America. Cyclospora is causing that explosive diarrhea, aka the parasite flu, you’ve no doubt heard about in the news. In this episode, Dr. Chris Motley lays out the facts about what we know, his best advice for avoiding contamination and your full treatment options from both modern and ancient science.

Where the outbreak stands

Current as of publication, July 21, 2026. This story is moving quickly, so check the CDC and FDA pages below for the latest.

FDA and CDC are investigating a five-state outbreak linked to shredded iceberg lettuce served at some Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia.

FDA reports 1,644 illnesses and 94 hospitalizations in that outbreak, with no deaths. Illness onset dates run from May 13 to July 13, 2026.

FDA's traceback converged on a single supplier, Taylor Farms de Mexico. On July 17 the company voluntarily removed all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market and began a recall. A lettuce sample initially tested positive on July 18. FDA re-reviewed the result and declared it a false positive on July 19. FDA has stated this does not change its conclusion about the outbreak's link to that lettuce, and the recall stands.

In this episode you’ll learn:

Cyclospora is a protozoan parasite that can go dormant or activate depending on how strong your immune system is.

The gross part: People infected with Cyclospora shed oocysts in their feces which can contaminate food or water.

Symptoms to look out for: watery diarrhea that won't go away (this is the big indicator), bone-deep fatigue you can't shake off, explosive bowel movements and loss of appetite.

Prevention:

Soak your produce thoroughly with an apple cider vinegar and baking soda wash, but most importantly...Cook your produce! Heat kills this parasite.

Keep an eye on restaurant reports as much as possible. It's not always possible to know where your favorite restaurant sources its food, but be on the lookout for information about where they get their food and how careful they are with their ingredients.

Steps to take if you are potentially infected:

Ask to be tested for cyclospora specifically, by name, because it won't be included in routine tests.

Treatment options:

1) The antibiotic - it's called TMP - SMX (Trimethoprim - sulfamethoxazole). Brand names are Bactrim or Septra. Standard treatment is a 7 to 10 day course, with longer courses for folks with weakened immune systems.

2) Anti-parasitics - Ivermectin, Fenbendazole

3) Ancient Medicine - Huang Lian is an ancient Chinese herb that cools the gut. Check out the brand Golden Flower.

Natural anti-parasitics:

Wormwood or Black Walnut: https://shorturl.at/0i5c8

Mimosa Pudica: https://shorturl.at/EPIO0

Morinda: https://shorturl.at/aCP7n

You can also try a parasite cleanse. Head to Rogershood’s ParaFy cleanse here: https://rogershood.com/ref/1966/, and use code DRMOTLEY for 10% off.

Chapters

00:00 The parasite you can't wash off

01:17 Cold open ends, show intro 01:30 Human waste, and why every case has a return address

01:45 What Cyclospora actually is: a single-celled protozoan

02:38 Why you'll never see it in the toilet 02:56 How it embeds in your small intestine and waits

03:36 The symptoms: watery diarrhea, crushing fatigue, no appetite

04:14 Why it comes back after you think it's gone

06:43 The family it belongs to: Cryptosporidium and Toxoplasma

07:41 Chlorine doesn't kill it, washing doesn't remove it

08:03 Soaking: baking soda and apple cider vinegar

09:38 Iodine, commercial washing, and why the hose fails

09:51 The nook-and-cranny problem in a lettuce leaf

11:26 Sponsor: WavWatch

12:20 The signal and the trap: how to know if it's Cyclospora

13:00 Why a routine workup misses it entirely

13:29 Treatment: what to ask your doctor about

15:18 The one thing that reliably kills it is on your stove

16:45 Great for stir fry, horrible for salads

16:54 Why this is a system story, not a restaurant story

19:07 Traceability: knowing where your food comes from

20:16 Two patient stories: street meat and roadside pickles

21:24 One supplier, many states, one structural problem

21:29 What Chinese medicine called this 2,000 years ago

21:47 Damp heat, explained with a shower curtain

22:15 Huang lian and the goal of healing the terrain

23:00 When to reach for Western medicine anyway

24:22 Herbs he actually uses: wormwood, black walnut, vidanga

25:04 Mimosa pudica and how it traps spores

26:10 Where he lands: you can't wash your way out of this

27:21 Don't stop eating vegetables

27:44 Outro and disclaimer

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*Are you looking for simple, non-invasive sound therapy tools for treating anxiety, or providing balance? You can get $100 off a WAVwatch with the code DRMOTLEY: https://wavwatch.com/pages/doctor-motley

*Do you have a ton more in-depth questions for Doctor Motley? Check out his course on emotions and the body in his membership. You’ll find other courses full of his expertise and clinical wisdom, plus bring all your questions to his weekly lives! To try risk-free for 15 days click here: https://www.doctormotley.com/15

If you had a chronic case of strep as a kid it may be lingering around your organs. Here’s what you can do about it. In this episode, Dr. Motley explains why recurring strep infections are not new infections at all, they are the same bacteria getting more antibiotic-resistant each time. He connects chronic strep to anemia, autoimmune disease, and PANS/PANDAS, then walks through the herbs and lab tests he uses to root it out.

This is a re-post of an earlier episode to highlight the importance of this issue and raise awareness. Scroll down for a list of Dr. Motley’s recommended solutions.

In this episode you will learn:

How strep can get in your lungs (strep pneumonia), your heart and even your lymph nodes, how to test for it and what herbs + vitamin regimens can help fight it off.

Strep can hide in a “silent carrier” state. Learn about the lingering unexplained symptoms that signal strep, including brain fog and hormonal issues.

How a poor immune system mixed with environmental toxins allows strep to stick around in a dormant state.

How this could be behind your malabsorption issues, if there’s no other explanation. Strep can feed off your red blood cells.

Dr. Motley’s own personal battle with strep and its connection to excess sugar in the diet.

Recommendations:

Watch your sugar intake

Labs to test for this:

MicroGenDx.com - for strep strains standard labs miss

vibrant-wellness.com - for expanded infection panels

Herbs to take for strep (For Adults):

Melia (Neem): https://shorturl.at/TYF12

Golden Thread: https://shorturl.at/fASWv

Morinda: https://shorturl.at/LWUMK

Lighter herbs (liquid forms are great for kids!)

Illicium: https://shorturl.at/Amkv6

Scutellaria: https://shorturl.at/O8ToC

Vitamins: livonlabs.com (10% off sitewide with DRMOTLEY at checkout)

Minerals: beamminerals.com/drmotley (20% off with DRMOTLEY at checkout)

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*Do you want to hear more? You can find more about strep and a library full of info on healing the brain and other organs, on Dr. Motley’s membership. If you want to explore it risk-free for 15 days and bring your questions to his weekly lives you can join here.

* Looking for simple, non-invasive sound therapy tools for treating anxiety, or providing more balance? You can get $100 off a WAVwatch with the code DRMOTLEY: https://wavwatch.com/pages/doctor-motley

Mastic Gum is an ancient remedy that's been shown in a clinical study to kill off H-Pylori, and other research suggests it reduces oral bacteria. Is this viral cure hyped up or is there weight behind these claims?

Mastic Gum is composed of resin from the chios tree in the Mediterranean: Hippocrates prescribed it to patients and it's been used medicinally for over 2,500 years. In this episode, Dr. Chris Motley examines the research and gets to the bottom of how effective this might be for fighting bacteria, ulcers and keeping your mouth clean.

Get Dr. Motley's take on whether this ancient traditional medicine is worth your time and money.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How an impressive study found mastic kills H. Pylori, but the study was in-vitro rather than a human study: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199812243392618

Why plant medicine can work as excellent natural antibiotics

Why there is some real evidence of mastic killing oral bacteria (but how well does this research stack up?): https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/aac.00642-06

How a trial found it to help with heartburn symptoms: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0944711309002396?via%3Dihub

The real scoop on how mastic gum helps Crohn’s: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms241512038

How the anti-cancer claims actually stack up: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8838553/

Why the stomach and spleen are the seat of vitality in Chinese Medicine.

The wisdom and validity of these ancient medicines AND

Importantly, the best kinds of mastic to take!

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Want more of The Ancient Health Podcast? Subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Follow Doctor Motley

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*Are you looking for simple, non-invasive sound therapy tools for treating anxiety, or providing balance? You can get $100 off a WAVwatch with the code DRMOTLEY: https://wavwatch.com/pages/doctor-motley

*Do you have a ton more in-depth questions for Doctor Motley? Check out his course on emotions and the body in his membership. You’ll find other courses full of his expertise and clinical wisdom, plus bring all your questions to his weekly lives! To try risk-free for 15 days click here: https://www.doctormotley.com/15

Should you be wearing sunglasses? We always thought the eyes just had one job: to see color and send pictures of our environment to our brains, but did you know that they also have a sensor that tells the brain when it’s time to get going for the day and when it’s time to sleep? That sensor can get disrupted when you head out with sunglasses on. In this episode, Dr. Motley weighs the pros and cons of sunglasses (at least in the morning!) by examining the science of light and circadian rhythms.

In this episode you'll learn:

How using sunglasses too frequently in the morning can throw our body’s natural clock out of whack and interfere with our sleep cycles.

How blue light in the morning (the natural kind you see in the sky) shuts off melatonin and activates cortisol by 50%, basically functioning as a cup of espresso for our bodies, and fake blue light at night confuses our sleep signals, suppressing melatonin within about 5 minutes.

How light regulates our hormones and acts as our body’s information center for when to start the day and when to get sleepy at night. 

The effects of sunlight deficiency on our bodies and brains.

The difference between the kind of cortisol we need to help us function during the day and the kind that’s harmful.

Doctor Motley’s recommended full-day light protocol for resetting your internal clock. Get some light in your eyes within an hour of waking, and dim your lights at night.

In TCM, eye health is tied to the liver.

If you’re a sunglasses lover try to prioritize getting morning light into your eyes for 30 minutes (looking through a window may not really be enough, so head outside for a bit). Sunlight in the morning will help the rest of the day to go more smoothly. 

Reading List:

The Organization of the Retina and Visual System: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK27326/ 

Transition from Dim Light to Sunlight in the Morning Raises Cortisol Immediately: https://doi.org/10.1210/jcem.86.1.7102

Evening Short-Term Exposure to Conventional Light Suppresses Melatonin and Increases Alertness Perception: ⁠10.3390/ijms14022573 

⁠Awakening effects of blue-enriched morning light exposure on university students’ physiological and subjective responses: ⁠https://rdcu.be/fsqlH ⁠

These clock cells are most sensitive to short-wavelength blue light and drive non-image-forming responses https://rdcu.be/fsqnI

Eye Health from a Chinese Medicine Standpoint: https://www.herbalreality.com/condition/eye-health-chinese-medicine-perspective/

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*You can get cell support in gummy form: Mitopure is now offering a lower price to my community, when you go to timeline.com/DRMOTLEY.

*Join Doctor Motley’s newsletter for TCM insights and regular podcast updates: https://www.doctormotley.com/

*Do you have a ton more in-depth questions for Doctor Motley? Check out his course on emotions and the body in his membership. You’ll find other courses full of his expertise and clinical wisdom, plus bring all your questions to his weekly lives! To try risk-free for 15 days click here: https://www.doctormotley.com/15

Do you have heart flutters, palpitations, or chest tightness , but your EKG comes back "perfect" and your stress test says you're fine? Dr. Chris Motley breaks down a connection most doctors never check: the direct link between your kidneys, bladder, and urinary tract system and the health of your heart.

In this episode, Dr. Motley explains how hidden kidney infections, bladder infections, UTIs, and even kidney stones can create heart palpitations, brain fog, tingling in the hands and feet, and shortness of breath — all while standard urine tests come back completely normal. He breaks down why most UTI testing only screens for E. coli and misses dozens of other bacteria, fungi, and parasites that can colonize your urinary tract.

Recommended Testing & Products Mentioned:

Urokey Test by MicroGen DX (comprehensive urinary infection panel) https://patients.microgendx.com/products/urokey

Uva Ursi Supreme https://shorturl.at/vqxmG

Bodyguard Supreme (Chanca Piedra / Stonebreaker) https://shorturl.at/l7KuF

Cranberry + D-Mannose

For more on emotional release techniques mentioned:

Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) Dr. Vivian Cairo, Dr. Sam Riley https://www.instagram.com/dr.samriley/

LENS Neurofeedback

In this episode you'll learn:

Why a "normal" UTI test can still miss a real infection — and the comprehensive test that screens for over 50,000 organisms

The physical signs of kidney and bladder imbalance you've probably dismissed as unrelated: flank pain, tight hips, dark under-eye circles, cracked heels, and chronic calf tightness

How the kidney meridian in Traditional Chinese Medicine travels directly to the heart — and why a weak kidney means a weak heart

The embryological connection between your kidneys and your reproductive organs, and why issues in one often show up in the other

How chronic fear, dread, and unresolved emotional trauma physically wear down your kidneys and adrenal glands

Dr. Motley's go-to herbal protocol for cleaning out the kidneys naturally — including Uva Ursi, Chanca Piedra (Bodyguard Supreme), cranberry, and D-Mannose

Why fascia, acupuncture, and emotional release techniques like EMDR and Neuro Emotional Technique (NET) can help break the cycle of recurring kidney and bladder infections

If you've been told your heart is "fine" but you still don't feel right, this episode offers a missing piece...and hope!

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Want more of The Ancient Health Podcast? Subscribe to the YouTube channel.

Follow Doctor Motley

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Facebook

Website

------ 

*You can get cell support in gummy form: Mitopure now starts at $79, when you go to timeline.com/DRMOTLEY.

*Join Doctor Motley’s newsletter for TCM insights and regular podcast updates: https://www.doctormotley.com/

*Do you have a ton more in-depth questions for Doctor Motley? Check out his course on emotions and the body in his membership. You’ll find other courses full of his expertise and clinical wisdom, plus bring all your questions to his weekly lives! To try risk-free for 15 days click here: https://www.doctormotley.com/15